Gobseck | Page 9

rung for me," said the maid; "I don't think she can see you yet."
" ' "I will wait," said I, and sat down in an easy-chair.
" 'Venetian shutters were opened, and presently the maid came hurrying back.
" ' "Come in, sir."
" 'From the sweet tone of the girl's voice, I knew that the mistress could not be ready to pay. What a handsome woman it was that I saw in another moment! She had flung an Indian shawl hastily over her bare shoulders, covering herself with it completely, while it revealed the bare outlines of the form beneath. She wore a loose gown trimmed with snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress' bills amounted to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed lay in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid money to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious hanging draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider- down quilt, its lace border standing out in contrast against the background of blue silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the imagination. A pair of satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin rug spread by the carved mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had flung them off in her weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung over a chair, the sleeves touching the floor; stockings which a breath would have blown away were twisted about the leg of an easy-chair; while ribbon garters straggled over a settee. A fan of price, half unfolded, glittered on the chimney-piece. Drawers stood open; flowers, diamonds, gloves, a bouquet, a girdle, were littered about. The room was full of vague sweet perfume. And--beneath all the luxury and disorder, beauty and incongruity, I saw Misery crouching in wait for her or for her adorer, Misery rearing its head, for the Countess had begun to feel the edge of those fangs. Her tired face was an epitome of the room strewn with relics of past festival. The scattered gewgaws, pitiable this morning, when gathered together and coherent, had turned heads the night before.
" 'What efforts to drink of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse--in this visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There were faint red marks on her young face, signs of the fineness of the skin; but her features were coarsened, as it were, and the circles about her eyes were unwontedly dark. Nature nevertheless was so vigorous in her, that these traces of past folly did not spoil her beauty. Her eyes glittered. She looked like some Herodias of da Vinci's (I have dealt in pictures), so magnificently full of life and energy was she; there was nothing starved nor stinted in feature or outline; she awakened desire; it seemed to me that there was some passion in her yet stronger than love. I was taken with her. It was a long while since my heart had throbbed; so I was paid then and there-- for I would give a thousand francs for a sensation that should bring me back memories of youth.
" ' "Monsieur," she said, finding a chair for me, "will you be so good as to wait?"
" ' "Until this time to-morrow, madame," I said, folding up the bill again. "I cannot legally protest this bill any sooner." And within myself I said--"Pay the price of your luxury, pay for your name, pay for your ease, pay for the monopoly which you enjoy! The rich have invented judges and courts of law to secure their goods, and the guillotine--that candle in which so many lie in silk, under silken coverlets, there is remorse, and grinding of teeth beneath a smile, and those fantastical lions' jaws are gaping to set their fangs in your heart."
" ' "Protest the bill! Can you mean it?" she cried, with her eyes upon me; "could you have so little consideration for me?"
" ' "If the King himself owed money to me, madame, and did not pay it, I should summons him even sooner than any other debtor."
" 'While we were speaking, somebody tapped gently at the door.
" ' "I cannot see any one," she cried imperiously.
" ' "But, Anastasie, I particularly wish to speak to you."
" ' "Not just now, dear," she answered in a milder tone, but with no sign of relenting.
" ' "What nonsense! You are talking to some one," said the voice, and in came a man who could only be the Count.
" 'The Countess gave me a glance. I saw how it was. She