Volume V Part 43 (1/2)
The post any answer
Renardet went on:
”I'll make your fortune, you understand--whatever you wish--fifty thousand francs--fifty thousand francs for that letter! What does it matter to you? You won't? Well, a hundred thousand--I say--a hundred thousand francs Do you understand? A hundred thousand francs--a hundred thousand francs”
The posth of this, or else I'll repeat to theyou have just said to me”
Renardet stopped abruptly It was all over He turned back and rushed towards his house, running like a hunted animal
Then, in his turn, Mederic stopped, and watched this flight with stupefaction He saw the Mayor re-entering his own house, and he waited still as if so was about to happen
In fact, presently the tall form of Renardet appeared on the summit of the Fox's tower He ran round the platforstaff and shook it furiously without succeeding in breaking it, then, all of a sudden, like a swie, he dashed into the air with his two hands in front of hiive succor As he crossed the park, he saw the woodcutters going to work He called out to the them an accident had occurred, and at the foot of the walls they found a bleeding body the head of which was crushed on a rock The Brindelle surrounded this rock, and over its clear, cal red strealed brains and blood
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
”The Comtesse Samoris”
”That lady in black over there?”
”The very one She's wearing hter, whom she killed”
”Come now! You don't mean that seriously?”
”Oh! it is a very simple story, without any crime in it, any violence”
”Then what really happened?”
”Al Many courtesans were born to be virtuous women, they say; and many women called virtuous were born to be courtesans--is that not so? Now, Madahter born a virtuous woman, that's all”
”I don't quite understand you”
”I'll explain what I n women hundreds of whoarian or Wallachian countess, or I know not what, she appeared one winter in apartments she had taken in the Champs Elysees, that quarter for adventurers and adventuresses, and opened her drawing-room to the first comer or to anyone that turned up
”I went there Why? you will say I really can't tell you I went there, as everyone goes to such places because the women are facile and the men are dishonest You know that set composed of filibusters with varied decorations, all noble, all titled, all unknown at the embassies, with the exception of those who are spies All talk of their honor without the slightest occasion for doing so, boast of their ancestors, tell you about their lives, braggarts, liars, sharpers, as dangerous as the false cards they have up their sleeves, as delusive as their nanio
”I adore these people They are interesting to study, interesting to know, a to understand, often clever, never commonplace like public functionaries Their wives are always pretty, with a slight flavor of foreign roguery, with the mystery of their existence, half of it perhaps spent in a house of correction They have, as a rule, nificent eyes and incredible hair I adore them also
”Madaant,feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to thewhen you visit theive card-parties; they have dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the pleasures of social life
”And she had a daughter--a tall, fine-looking girl, always ready for entertainayety--a true adventuress's daughter--but, at the sairl, who saw nothing, knew nothing, understood nothing of all the things that happened in her father's house”