barking of the watch-dog, a servant came to meet us, saying that

Monsieur le comte had gone to Azay in the morning but would soon
return, and that Madame la comtesse was at home. My companion looked

at me. I fairly trembled lest he should decline to see Madame de
Mortsauf in her husband's absence; but he told the man to announce us.

With the eagerness of a child I rushed into the long antechamber which
crosses the whole house.

"Come in, gentlemen," said a golden voice.
Though Madame de Mortsauf had spoken only one word at the ball, I

recognized her voice, which entered my soul and filled it as a ray of
sunshine fills and gilds a prisoner's dungeon. Thinking, suddenly,

that she might remember my face, my first impulse was to fly; but it
was too late,--she appeared in the doorway, and our eyes met. I know

not which of us blushed deepest. Too much confused for immediate
speech she returned to her seat at an embroidery frame while the

servant placed two chairs, then she drew out her needle and counted
some stitches, as if to explain her silence; after which she raised

her head, gently yet proudly, in the direction of Monsieur de Chessel
as she asked to what fortunate circumstance she owed his visit. Though

curious to know the secret of my unexpected appearance, she looked at
neither of us,--her eyes were fixed on the river; and yet you could

have told by the way she listened that she was able to recognize, as
the blind do, the agitations of a neighboring soul by the

imperceptible inflexions of the voice.
Monsieur de Chessel gave my name and biography. I had lately arrived

at Tours, where my parents had recalled me when the armies threatened
Paris. A son of Touraine to whom Touraine was as yet unknown, she

would find me a young man weakened by excessive study and sent to
Frapesle to amuse himself; he had already shown me his estate, which I

saw for the first time. I had just told him that I had walked from
Tours to Frapesle, and fearing for my health--which was really

delicate--he had stopped at Clochegourde to ask her to allow me to
rest there. Monsieur de Chessel told the truth; but the accident

seemed so forced that Madame de Mortsauf distrusted us. She gave me a
cold, severe glance, under which my own eyelids fell, as much from a

sense of humiliation as to hide the tears that rose beneath them. She
saw the moisture on my forehead, and perhaps she guessed the tears;

for she offered me the restoratives I needed, with a few kind and
consoling words, which gave me back the power of speech. I blushed

like a young girl, and in a voice as tremulous as that of an old man I
thanked her and declined.

"All I ask," I said, raising my eyes to hers, which mine now met for
the second time in a glance as rapid as lightning,--"is to rest here.

I am so crippled with fatigue I really cannot walk farther."
"You must not doubt the hospitality of our beautiful Touraine," she

said; then, turning to my companion, she added: "You will give us the
pleasure of your dining at Clochegourde?"

I threw such a look of entreaty at Monsieur de Chessel that he began
the preliminaries of accepting the invitation, though it was given in

a manner that seemed to expect a refusal. As a man of the world, he
recognized these shades of meaning; but I, a young man without

experience, believed so implicitly in the sincerity between word and
thought of this beautiful woman that I was wholly astonished when my

host said to me, after we reached home that evening, "I stayed because
I saw you were dying to do so; but if you do not succeed in making it

all right, I may find myself on bad terms with my neighbors." That
expression, "if you do not make it all right," made me ponder the

matter deeply. In other words, if I pleased Madame de Mortsauf, she
would not be displeased with the man who introduced me to her. He

evidently thought I had the power to please her; this in itself gave
me that power, and corroborated my inward hope at a moment when it

needed some outward succor.
"I am afraid it will be difficult," he began; "Madame de Chessel

expects us."
"She has you every day," replied the countess; "besides, we can send

her word. Is she alone?"
"No, the Abbe de Quelus is there."

"Well, then," she said, rising to ring the bell, "you really must dine
with us."

This time Monsieur de Chessel thought her in earnest, and gave me a
congratulatory look. As soon as I was sure of passing a whole evening

under that roof I seemed to have eternity before me. For many
miserable beings to-morrow is a word without meaning, and I was of the

number who had no faith in it; when I was certain of a few hours of
happiness I made them contain a whole lifetime of delight.

Madame de Mortsauf talked about local affairs, the harvest, the
vintage, and other matters to which I was a total stranger. This

usually argues either a want of breeding or great contempt for the
stranger present who is thus shut out from the conversation, but in

this case it was embarrassment. Though at first I thought she treated
me as a child and I envied the man of thirty to whom she talked of

serious matters which I could not comprehend, I came, a few months
later, to understand how significant a woman's silence often is, and

how many thoughts a voluble conversation masks. At first I attempted
to be at my ease and take part in it, then I perceived the advantages

of my situation and gave myself up to the charm of listening to Madame
de Mortsauf's voice. The breath of her soul rose and fell among the

syllables as sound is divided by the notes of a flute; it died away to
the ear as it quickened the pulsation of the blood. Her way of

uttering the terminations in "i" was like a bird's song; the "ch" as
she said it was a kiss, but the "t's" were an echo of her heart's

despotism. She thus extended, without herself knowing that she did so,
the meaning of her words, leading the soul of the listener into

regions above this earth. Many a time I have continued a discussion I
could easily have ended, many a time I have allowed myself to be

unjustly scolded that I might listen to those harmonies of the human
voice, that I might breathe the air of her soul as it left her lips,

and strain to my soul that spoken light as I would fain have strained
the speaker to my breast. A swallow's song of joy it was when she was

gay!--but when she spoke of her griefs, a swan's voice calling to its
mates!

Madame de Mortsauf's inattention to my presence enabled me to examine
her. My eyes rejoiced as they glided over the sweet speaker; they

kissed her feet, they clasped her waist, they played with the ringlets
of her hair. And yet I was a prey to terror, as all who, once in their

lives, have experienced the illimitable joys of a true passion will
understand. I feared she would detect me if I let my eyes rest upon

the shoulder I had kissed, and the fear sharpened the temptation. I
yielded, I looked, my eyes tore away the covering; I saw the mole

which lay where the pretty line between the shoulders started, and
which, ever since the ball, had sparkled in that twilight which seems

the region of the sleep of youths whose imagination is ardent and
whose life is chaste.

I can sketch for you the leading features which all eyes saw in Madame
de Mortsauf; but no drawing, however correct, no color, however warm,

can represent her to you. Her face was of those that require the
unattainable artist, whose hand can paint the reflection of inward

fires and render that luminous vapor which defies science and is not
revealable by language--but which a lover sees. Her soft, fair hair

often caused her much suffering, no doubt through sudden rushes of
blood to the head. Her brow, round and prominent like that of Joconda,

teemed with unuttered thoughts, restrained feelings--flowers drowning
in bitter waters. The eyes, of a green tinge flecked with brown, were

always wan; but if her children were in question, or if some keen
condition of joy or suffering (rare in the lives of all resigned

women) seized her, those eyes sent forth a subtile gleam as if from
fires that were consuming her,--the gleam that wrung the tears from

mine when she covered me with her contempt, and which sufficed to
lower the boldest eyelid. A Grecian nose, designed it might be by

Phidias, and united by its double arch to lips that were gracefully
curved, spiritualized the face, which was oval with a skin of the

texture of a white camellia colored with soft rose-tints upon the
cheeks. Her plumpness did not detract from the grace of her figure nor

from the rounded outlines which made her shape beautiful though well
developed. You will understand the character of this perfection when I

say that where the dazzling treasures which had so fascinated me
joined the arm there was no crease or wrinkle. No hollow disfigured

the base of her head, like those which make the necks of some women
resemble trunks of trees; her muscles were not harshly defined, and

everywhere the lines were rounded into curves as fugitive to the eye
as to the pencil. A soft down faintly showed upon her cheeks and on

the outline of her throat, catching the light which made it silken.