"Good-by," said she, embracing Hector, "think of me." She smilingly added, "I ought to be jealous; for they say your friend's wife is perhaps the handsomest woman in France.Is it true?""Upon my word, I don't know.I've forgotten to look at her."Hector told the truth.Although he did not betray it, he was still under the surprise of his chagrin at the failure of his attempt at suicide.He felt the dizziness which follows great moral crises as well as a heavy blow on the head, and which distracts the attention from exterior things.But Jenny's words, "the handsomest woman in France," attracted his notice, and he could, that very evening, repair his forgetfulness.When he returned to Valfeuillu, his friend had not returned; Mme.Sauvresy was alone reading, in the brilliantly lighted drawing-room.Hector seated himself opposite her, a little aside, and was thus able to observe her at his ease, while engaging her in conversation.His first impression was an unfavorable one.He found her beauty too sculptural and polished.
He sought for imperfections, and finding none, was almost terrified by this lovely, motionless face, these clear, cold eyes.Little by little, however, he accustomed himself to pass the greater part of the afternoon with Bertha, while Sauvresy was away arranging his affairs - selling, negotiating, using his time in cutting down interests and discussing with agents and attorneys.He soon perceived that she listened to him with pleasure, and he judged from this that she was a decidedly superior woman, much better than her husband.He had no wit, but possessed an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes and adventures.He had seen so many things and known so many people that he was as interesting as a chronicle.He had a sort of frothy fervor, not wanting in brilliancy, and a polite cynicism which, at first, surprised one.Had Bertha been unimpassioned, she might have judged him at his value; but she had lost her power of insight.She heard him, plunged in a foolish ecstasy, as one hears a traveller who has returned from far and dangerous countries, who has visited peoples of whose language the hearer is ignorant, and lived in the midst of manners and customs incomprehensible to ourselves.
Days, weeks, months passed on, and the Count de Tremorel did not find life at Valfeuillu as dull as he had thought.He insensibly slipped along the gentle slope of material well-being, which leads directly to brutishness.A physical and moral torpor had succeeded the fever of the first days, free from disagreeable sensations, though wanting in excitement.He ate and drank much, and slept twelve round hours.The rest of the time, when he did not talk with Bertha, he wandered in the park, lounged in a rocking-chair, or took a jaunt in the saddle.He even went fishing under the willows at the foot of the garden; and grew fat.His best days were those which he spent at Corbeil with Jenny.He found in her something of his past, and she always quarrelled with him, which woke him up.Besides, she brought him the gossip of Paris and the small talk of the boulevards.She came regularly every week, and her love for Hector, far from diminishing, seemed to grow with each interview.The poor girl's affairs were in a troubled condition.
She had bought her establishment at too high a price, and her partner at the end of the first month decamped, carrying off three thousand francs.She knew nothing about the trade which she had undertaken, and she was robbed without mercy on all sides.She said nothing of these troubles to Hector, but she intended to ask him to come to her assistance.It was the least that he could do.
At first, the visitors to Valfeuillu were somewhat astonished at the constant presence there of a young man of leisure; but they got accustomed to him.Hector assumed a melancholy expression of countenance, such as a man ought to have who had undergone unheard-of misfortunes, and whose life had failed of its promise.
He appeared inoffensive; people said:
"The count has a charming simplicity."
But sometimes, when alone, he had sudden and terrible relapses.
"This life cannot last," thought he; and he was overcome with childish rage when he contrasted the past with the present.How could he shake off this dull existence, and rid himself of these stiffly good people who surrounded him, these friends of Sauvresy?
Where should he take refuge? He was not tempted to return to Paris;what could he do there? His house had been sold to an old leather merchant; and he had no money except that which he borrowed of Sauvresy.Yet Sauvresy, to Hector's mind, was a most uncomfortable, wearisome, implacable friend; he did not understand half-way measures in desperate situations.
"Your boat is foundering," he said to Hector; "let us begin by throwing all that is superfluous into the sea.Let us keep nothing of the past; that is dead; we will bury it, and nothing shall recall it.When your situation is relieved, we will see."The settlement of Hector's affairs was very laborious.Creditors sprung up at every step, on every side, and the list of them seemed never to be finished.Some had even come from foreign lands.
