“Come, now! come, tell me; I promise you that I will not laugh. I swear
it to you--come, now!”
She hesitated. I took her hands--those poor little hands, so thin and
so cold!--and I kissed them one after the other, several times, as her
lovers had once kissed them. She was moved and hesitated.
“You promise me not to laugh?”
“Yes, I swear it to you.”
“Well, then, come.”
She rose, and as the little domestic, awkward in his green livery,
removed the chair behind her, she whispered quickly a few words into his
ear.
“Yes, madame, at once,” he replied.
She took my arm and led me to the veranda.
The avenue of oranges was really splendid to see. The full moon made
a narrow path of silver, a long bright line, which fell on the yellow
sand, between the round, opaque crowns of the dark trees.
As these trees were in bloom, their strong, sweet perfume filled
the night, and swarming among their dark foliage I saw thousands of
fireflies, which looked like seeds fallen from the stars.
“Oh, what a setting for a love scene!” I exclaimed.
She smiled.
“Is it not true? Is it not true? You will see!”
And she made me sit down beside her.
“This is what makes one long for more life. But you hardly think of
these things, you men of to-day. You are speculators, merchants and men
of affairs.
“You no longer even know how to talk to us. When I say 'you,' I mean
young men in general. Love has been turned into a liaison which very
often begins with an unpaid dressmaker's bill. If you think the bill
is dearer than the woman, you disappear; but if you hold the woman more
highly, you pay it. Nice morals--and a nice kind of love!”
She took my hand.
“Look!”
I looked, astonished and delighted. Down there at the end of the avenue,
in the moonlight, were two young people, with their arms around each
other's waist. They were walking along, interlaced, charming, with
short, little steps, crossing the flakes of light; which illuminated
them momentarily, and then sinking back into the shadow. The youth was
dressed in a suit of white satin, such as men wore in the eighteenth
century, and had on a hat with an ostrich plume. The girl was arrayed
in a gown with panniers, and the high, powdered coiffure of the handsome
dames of the time of the Regency.
They stopped a hundred paces from us, and standing in the middle of the
avenue, they kissed each other with graceful gestures.
Suddenly I recognized the two little servants. Then one of those
dreadful fits of laughter that convulse you made me writhe in my chair.
But I did not laugh aloud. I resisted, convulsed and feeling almost ill,
as a man whose leg is cut off resists the impulse to cry out.
As the young pair turned toward the farther end of the avenue they
again became delightful. They went farther and farther away, finally
disappearing as a dream disappears. I no longer saw them. The avenue
seemed a sad place.
I took my leave at once, so as not to see them again, for I guessed that
this little play would last a long time, awakening, as it did, a whole
past of love and of stage scenery; the artificial past, deceitful and
seductive, false but charming, which still stirred the heart of this
amorous old comedienne.