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Updated: June 1, 2025
As they were leaving the Cafe Riche, Jean de Servigny said to Leon Saval: "If you don't object, let us walk. The weather is too fine to take a cab." His friend answered: "I would like nothing better." Jean replied: "It is hardly eleven o'clock. We shall arrive much before midnight, so let us go slowly."
He had taken up a newspaper, and was reading it. M. Saval glanced sideways at him, burning with the desire to speak to him. Two young men entered, in red vests and with peaked beards, in the fashion of Henry III. They sat down opposite Romantin. The first of the pair said: "Is it for this evening?" Romantin pressed his hand. "I believe you, old chap, and everyone will be there.
He subscribed to a music publishing house in Paris, and they sent him the latest music, and from time to time he sent invitations after this fashion to the elite of the town: "You are invited to be present on Monday evening at the house of M. Saval, notary, Vernon, at the first rendering of 'Sais." A few officers, gifted with good voices, formed the chorus. Two or three lady amateurs also sang.
They sat around him to listen to him; they greeted him with words of applause, and called him Scheherazade. Romantin did not return. Other guests arrived. M. Saval was presented to them so that he might begin his story over again. He declined; they forced him to relate it. They seated and tied him on one of three chairs between two women who kept constantly filling his glass.
And he began to roll before him a heap of grayish sweepings, as if he had done nothing else all his life. Then, he gave bark the broom to the notary, who imitated him. In five minutes, such a cloud of dust filled the studio that Rormantin asked: "Where are you? I can't see you any longer." M. Saval, who was coughing, came near to him.
M. Saval was not in good spirits. He walked from the fireplace to the window, and from the window to the fireplace. Life has its sombre days. It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached the age of sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about him. How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is devoted to you!
The door flew open, and a motley throng appeared men and women in file, two and two holding each other by the arm and stamping their heels on the ground to mark time, advanced into the studio like a snake uncoiling itself. They howled: "Come, and let us all be merry, Pretty maids and soldiers gay!" M. Saval, thunderstruck, remained standing in evening dress under the chandelier.
She imagined each time that she never had experienced anything like such an attachment, and she would have been greatly astonished if some one had told her of how many men she had dreamed whole nights through, looking at the stars. Saval had captivated her, body and soul.
Awe, dread, passion these were at war within me, and the dead man lay on the floor at my feet, I pushed the door open and fled." Colonel Saval sat up in his chair and uncrossed his legs. "I saw her no more," he said. "Madame la Comtesse knows how she returned to Algiers and presently died there? Yes." The Comtesse bowed. "I thank you, Monsieur," she said. "You have done me a great service."
M. Saval said, in a state of confusion: "I haven't got my clothes; they have been taken away from me." He had to wait, to explain his situation, give notice to his friends, and borrow some money to buy clothes. He did not leave Paris till evening.
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