Chapter VI · (continued 2)

In the little drawing-room she came face to face with Madame Sidonie. The latter, in view of enjoying the drama, had again stationed herself on the steps of the conservatory. But she no longer knew what to think when Saccard reappeared with Maxime, and brutally replied to her whispered questions that she was dreaming, that there was "nothing whatever." Then she scented the truth. Her yellow face grew pale, she considered this really too strong. And she softly went and placed her ear against the staircase door, hoping that she would be able to hear Renée crying upstairs. When the young woman opened the door, it almost smacked her sister-in-law in the face.

"You are playing the spy on me!" Renée angrily said.

But Madame Sidonie replied with fine disdain:

"Do I occupy myself with your filth?"

And catching up her sorceress's dress, and retiring with a majestic look:

"It isn't my fault, little one, if accidents befall you. But I have no spite, do you hear? And understand that you would have found, and would still find, a second mother in me. I shall expect you at my place whenever you please."

Renée did not listen to her. She entered the large drawing-room, and passed through a very complicated figure of the cotillon without even remarking the surprise which her fur mantle occasioned. In the middle of the room there were groups of ladies and gentlemen who mingled waving bandrols, and Monsieur de Saffré's fluty voice called out:

"Come, ladies, 'the Mexican War.' The ladies who figure the bushes must spread their skirts out around them and remain on the ground—Now, the gentlemen must turn round the bushes—Then when I clap my hands each of them must waltz with his bush."

He clapped his hands. The brass instruments resounded, the waltz once more sent the couples revolving round the room. The figure had not been very successful. Two ladies had remained on the carpet entangled in their dresses. Madame Daste declared that the only thing that amused her in the "Mexican War," was making a "cheese" of her dress, as she had done at school.

Renée on reaching the hall found Louise and her father, whom Saccard and Maxime were accompanying. Baron Gouraud had left. Madame Sidonie withdrew with Mignon and Charrier, while Monsieur Hupel de la Noue escorted Madame Michelin, whom her husband followed discreetly. The prefect had spent the rest of the evening courting the pretty brunette. He had just persuaded her to spend a month of the fine weather in the chief town of his department where "some really curious antiquities were to be seen."

Louise, who was nibbling on the sly the hardbake which she had in her pocket, was seized with a fit of coughing at the moment of leaving the house.

"Cover yourself up well," said her father.

And Maxime hastened to tighten the strings of the hood of her opera-cloak. She raised her chin and let herself be swaddled. But when Madame Saccard appeared, Monsieur de Mareuil retraced his steps and bid her good-bye. For a moment they all remained there together talking. Renée, wishing to explain her pallor and her shudders, said that she had felt cold, and had gone upstairs to throw the fur over her shoulders. And she watched for the moment when she might speak in a low voice to Louise, who was looking at her with inquisitive tranquillity. While the gentlemen again shook hands she leant forward and murmured:

"You won't marry him, will you? It isn't possible. You know very well—"

But the child interrupted her, rising on tip-toe and speaking in her ear:

"Oh! be easy, I shall take him off—It is of no consequence since we are going to Italy."

And she smiled with the vague smile of a vicious sphinx. Renée remained stammering. She did not understand, she fancied that the hunchback was deriding her. Then when the Mareuils had gone off, repeating several times: "Till Sunday!" she looked at her husband and at Maxime with her frightened eyes, and on beholding them, with quiet flesh and satisfied attitudes, she hid her face in her hands, fled, and sought a refuge in the depths of the conservatory.

The pathways were deserted. The large leaves were asleep, and on the heavy sheet of water of the basin two budding Nymphæa slowly unfolded. Renée would have liked to cry; but the damp warmth, the strong perfume which she recognised, caught her at the throat and strangled her despair. She looked at her feet, at the edge of the basin, at the spot of yellow sand where she had stretched the bearskin the winter before. And when she raised her eyes she again saw between the two open doors a figure of the cotillon being danced right away in the background.

There was a deafening noise, a confused mass in which she at first only distinguished flying skirts and black legs, footing and turning. Monsieur de Saffré's voice cried out: "Change your ladies! change your ladies!" And the couples passed by amid a fine yellow dust; each gentleman, after three or four turns in the waltz, threw his partner into the arms of his neighbour, who, in turn, threw him his. Baroness de Meinhold, in her costume as the Emerald, fell from the hands of the Count de Chibray into the hands of Monsieur Simpson; he caught her as he could by a shoulder, while the tip of his gloves glided under her dress body. Countess Vanska, very red and making her coral drops jingle, went with a bound from the chest of Monsieur de Saffré on to the chest of the Duke de Rozan, whom she entwined and compelled to pirouette for five turns, when she hung herself on the hips of Monsieur Simpson who had just thrown the Emerald to the leader of the cotillon. And Madame Teissière, Madame Daste, Madame de Lauwerens, shining like large living jewels, with the fair pallor of the Topaz, the soft blue of the Turquoise, the fiery blue of the Sapphire, abandoned themselves for a minute, vaulted under the extended wrist of a waltzer, then started off again, came frontwards or backwards into a fresh embrace, visiting one after the other all the masculine embraces of the drawing-room. However Madame d'Espanet had, in full view of the orchestra, succeeded in catching hold of Madame Haffner as she passed by, and now waltzed with her, refusing to let go her hold. Gold and Silver danced lovingly together.

Renée then understood this whirling of skirts, this stamping of legs. Standing on a lower surface she could see the fury of the feet, the patent-leather boots and white ankles mingling pell-mell. At intervals it seemed to her as if a gust of wind were about to blow off the dresses. The bare shoulders, the bare arms, the bare heads which flew past and revolved, now seized hold of, now thrown off, and again caught at the end of the gallery where the waltz of the orchestra grew madder, where the red hangings seemed thrown into a transport amid the final fever of the ball, appeared to her like the tumultuous image of her own life, of her nudities and abandonments. And she experienced such a pang, at the thought that Maxime, to take the hunchback in his arms, had just cast her there, on the spot where they had loved each other, that she dreamt of plucking a stalk of the Tanghinia which grazed her cheek, and of chewing it till the sap was exhausted. But she was cowardly, and she remained in front of the plant shivering under the fur which her hands drew over her with a tight clutch, and a great gesture of terrified shame.