United States or Kyrgyzstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was done: Gilberte Favoral had just irrevocably disposed of herself. Prosperous or wretched, her destiny henceforth was linked with another. She had set the wheel in motion; and she could no longer hope to control its direction, any more than the will can pretend to alter the course of the ivory ball upon the surface of the roulette-table.
"Which means that you have none at all," he said. "Very well. You must go this very day and get yourself one, a very handsome, a magnificent one; and you'll send it to be made to a fashionable dressmaker. And at the same time you had better get some little suits for Maxence and Gilberte. Here are a thousand francs."
Gilberte withdrew from the hiding-place, where she kept it preciously, that package which Marius had confided to her, recommending her not to open it until she was sure that he would not return. It was very voluminous, enclosed in an envelope of thick paper, sealed with red wax, bearing the arms of Tregars; and she had often wondered what it could possibly contain.
After Maxence had left to go and meet M. de Tregars, Mme. Favoral and her daughter had remained alone with M. Chapelain, and had been compelled to bear the brunt of his wrath, and to hear his interminable complaints. He was certainly an excellent man, that old lawyer, and too just to hold Mlle. Gilberte or her mother responsible for Vincent Favoral's acts.
I thought of Gilberte, for I knew her fanatical devotion, and here was my present ready to hand, so I followed the man into a shop where religious objects were for sale, and I bought a small piece of a bone of one of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.
He leaves me; he forsakes me. In vain have I thrown myself at his feet. My tears have not been able to detain him. He is going to fight; he leaves; he is a soldier!" Then it was given to Mlle. Gilberte to see clearly within her soul. Then she understood how absolutely she had given herself up, and to what extent she had ceased to belong to herself.
Best, better even than Brigard, is Gilberte, nicknamed "Froufrou" from the rustling of her silks as she skips and scampers airily around. Froufrou, when all is said, is a real creation, a revelation of Parisian femininity, a living thing, breathing the breath of life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet.
He was somewhat pale, but unnaturally calm, cool, and collected. Bowing to Mlle. Gilberte, "If I have thus ventured to enter your apartment, mademoiselle," he uttered gently, "it is because, as I was going by the door, I thought I recognized this gentleman's carriage." And, with his finger over his shoulder, he was pointing to M. Costeclar.
It was not without mature thought that M. Costeclar had determined to withdraw, despite M. Favoral's pressing overtures. However infatuated he might be with his own merits, he had been compelled to surrender to evidence, and to acknowledge that he had not exactly succeeded with Mlle. Gilberte.
In the evening, after her husband had gone out, Gilberte and herself would take their sewing, sit in the hall outside his room, and converse with him through the door. Never had they worked so hard for the shop-keeper in the Rue St. Denis. Some weeks they earned as much as twenty-five or thirty francs.
Word Of The Day