Volume II Part 13 (1/2)
The idiot had watched her, and had thrown hi fellows did the girls, but she resisted him so stoutly that he took her by the throat and squeezed with all his ht until she could not breathe, and was nearly dead
In rescuing Josephine froain i, and exclaiman, I tell you”
And he proudly essayed to convince them that it was so, but the evidence that he could adduce was very slight
THE MOUNTEBANKS
Coe of the _Eden Reunis Theatre_, as the theater critics invariably called hireat success, and he had invested his last franc in the affair, without thinking of thehim so inexorably for months past For a whole week, the walls, the kiosks, shopfronts, and even the trees, had been placarded with flaes were to be seen which were covered with fancy sketches of Cheret, that represented two strong, well-built er of the with his arms folded, had the vacant smile of an itinerant mountebank on his face, and the other, as dressed in as supposed to be the costume of a Mexican trapper, held a revolver in his hand There were large type advertisements in all the papers, that the Montefiores would appear without fail at the _Eden Reunis_, the next Monday
Nothing else was talked about, for the puff and hu attracted people
The Montefiores, like fashi+onable knicknacks, succeeded that whi autumn, between the third and fourth acts of the burlesque, _Ousca Iscar_, in order tofellow of seventeen, who had just entered the university The novelty and difficulty of their perforitated the curiosity of the public, for there seemed to be an implied threat of death, or, at any rate, of wounds and of blood in it, and it seeer with absolute indifference And that always pleased worow pale with emotion and cruel enjoye theater were let almost immediately, and were soon taken for several days in advance And stout Coah rosy glasses, and exclaimed in a loud voice: ”I think I have turned up truby was lying on the sofa in her boudoir, languidly fanning herself She had only received three or four intimate friends that day, Saint Mars Montalvin, Tom Sheffield, and his cousin, Madahed as incessantly as a bird sings
It was growing dusk, and the distant rues in the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees sounded like some somnolent rhythm There was a delicate perfuht in yet, and chatting and laughing filled the room with a confused noise
”Would you pour out the tea?” the Countess said, suddenly, touching Saint Mars' fingers, as beginning an amorous conversation in a low voice, with her fan And while he slowly filled the little china cup, he continued: ”Are the Montefiores as good as the lying newspapers make out?”
Then Tom Sheffield and the others all joined in
They had never seen anything like it, they declared; it was , and made one shi+ver unpleasantly, like when the _espada_ coht
Countess Regina listened in silence, and nibbled the petals of a tea rose
”How I should like to see theiddy Madame de Rhouel exclaimed
”Unfortunately, cousin,” the Countess said, in the solemn tones of a preacher, ”a respectable woman dare not let herself be seen in i with her, nevertheless, Madaby was present at the Montefiores' perfor a thick veil, at the back of a stage box
And that woman was as cold as a steel buckler, and had married as soon as she left the convent in which she had been to school, without any affection or even liking for her husband, whom the most skeptical respected as a saint, and who had a look of virgin purity on her calm face as she went down the steps of the Madeleine on Sundays, after high rew pale, and tres of a violin, on which an artist had been playing some wild symphony, and inhaled the nasty smell of the sawdust, as if it had been the perfume of a bouquet of unknown flowers, and clenched her hands, and gazed eagerly at the two mountebanks, whom the public applauded rapturously at every feat And contehtily she coorous as wild anirown up in the open air, with the rickety lirooby had gone back to the country, to prepare for his election as Councilor-General, and the very evening that he started, Regina again took the stage box at the _Eden Reunis_ Consumed by sensual ardor as if by some love philter, she scribbled a feords on a piece of paper--the eternal fore will be waiting for you at the stage door after the perforave it to a box opener, who handed it to the Montefiore as the cha in aeust, the fear, the desire of waking the coach hi hiainst the , e, that was illuh which , who talked in a loud voice, and chewed the end of a cigar which had gone out She relued to the cushi+ons, and tapped impatiently on the bottoht it was a joke, made his appearance, she could hardly utter a word, for evil pleasure is as intoxicating as adulterated liquor, so face to face with this immediate surrender, and this unconstrained iht that he had to do with a street walker
Regina felt various sensations, and a hout her whole person She pressed close to hi, beautiful, and desirable she was They did not speak a word, like wrestlers before a coive herself to him, and, at last, to know that norant, as a chaste wife; and when they left the rooether, where they had spent hours like aroped his way like a blind h nevertheless, she retained her serene candor of an unsullied virgin, like she did almost always on Sundays, after mass