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Updated: May 16, 2025
And Mme. de Noriolis came nearer, looking spick and span always in the halo of the little red line and said to me: "'You, M. de La Roche-Targé, is it you? What are you doing there? What has happened to you? "I frankly confessed my fall. "'At least you are not wounded? "'No, no, I'm not wounded. I've something the matter with that leg; but it's nothing serious, I know.
My aunt, with her own hands, had drawn a line of red ink, and slily united the two places, and she forced me to look at her little red line, saying to me, 'Two thousand acres without a break, when the places of Noriolis and La Roche-Targé are united; what a chance for a hunter!
But she explained to me that M. de Noriolis was an idiot, who had had the merit of making his wife perfectly miserable, and that thus it would be very easy for the second husband to make himself very much loved.
The decrepit old rake, the Marquis de Noriolis, feeble in his folly and wandering in helplessness, but irresistible when aroused, is a striking figure; and still more striking is the portrait of his wife, now the Marquise de Noriolis, but once Fanny Lear the adventuress a woman who has youth, beauty, wealth, everything before her, if it were not for the shame which is behind her: gay and witty, and even good-humored, she is inflexible when she is determined; hers is a velvet manner and an iron will.
"I closed my eyes, so strong was the temptation, and repeated my refrain, 'I don't want to marry. But I was afraid, seriously afraid; and when I met Mme. de Noriolis I always saw her surrounded, as by a halo, by the little red line of my aunt, and I said to myself: 'A charming, and clever, and sensible woman, whose first husband was an idiot, and this and that, and two thousand acres without a break.
We were alone in the carriage. Bob was commissioned to bring Brutus, who, very docile, had allowed himself to be taken. "'Lie down, Mme. de Noriolis said to me; 'keep your leg straight; I am going to drive you slowly so as to avoid bumps.
"Then, when she had discoursed at length on the virtues, graces, and merits of Mme. de Noriolis, my aunt, who is clever and knows my weakness, pulled out of her desk a topographical map, and spread it out with care on the table.
"Mme. de Noriolis figured always in the first rank in the series of widows, and I noticed that my aunt put stress, with evident favoritism, on all the good points and advantages that I should find in that marriage. She didn't have to tell me that Mme. de Noriolis was very pretty any one could see that; or that she was very rich I knew it already.
"'And what horse played you that trick? "'Why, this one. "And I pointed out Brutus to Mme. de Noriolis. Brutus was there, quite near us, untied, peacefully crunching little tufts of broom. "'What, that one, that brave horse? Oh, he has well made up for his faults, I assure you. I will tell you about it, but later on. You must first get home, and at once. "'I can't walk a step.
"At the moment Mme. de Noriolis was speaking those last words the carriage received a tremendous shock from behind; then we saw in the air Brutus's head, which was held there upright as though by a miracle. For it was again Brutus.
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