Sarrasine | Page 4

disappear, led, or I might better
say carried away, by her. If Madame de Lanty were not present, the
Count would employ a thousand ruses to reach his side; but it always
seemed as if he found difficulty in inducing him to listen, and he
treated him like a spoiled child, whose mother gratifies his whims and
at the same time suspects mutiny. Some prying persons having
ventured to question the Comte de Lanty indiscreetly, that cold and
reserved individual seemed not to understand their questions. And so,
after many attempts, which the circumspection of all the members of
the family rendered fruitless, no one sought to discover a secret so well
guarded. Society spies, triflers, and politicians, weary of the strife,
ended by ceasing to concern themselves about the mystery.

But at that moment, it may be, there were in those gorgeous salons
philosophers who said to themselves, as they discussed an ice or a
sherbet, or placed their empty punch glasses on a tray:
"I should not be surprised to learn that these people are knaves. That
old fellow who keeps out of sight and appears only at the equinoxes or
solstices, looks to me exactly like an assassin."
"Or a bankrupt."
"There's very little difference. To destroy a man's fortune is worse than
to kill the man himself."
"I bet twenty louis, monsieur; there are forty due me."
"Faith, monsieur; there are only thirty left on the cloth."
"Just see what a mixed company there is! One can't play cards in
peace."
"Very true. But it's almost six months since we saw the Spirit. Do you
think he's a living being?"
"Well, barely."
These last remarks were made in my neighborhood by persons whom I
did not know, and who passed out of hearing just as I was summarizing
in one last thought my reflections, in which black and white, life and
death, were inextricably mingled. My wandering imagination, like my
eyes, contemplated alternately the festivities, which had now reached
the climax of their splendor, and the gloomy picture presented by the
gardens. I have no idea how long I meditated upon those two faces of
the human medal; but I was suddenly aroused by the stifled laughter of
a young woman. I was stupefied at the picture presented to my eyes. By
virtue of one of the strangest of nature's freaks, the thought half draped
in black, which was tossing about in my brain, emerged from it and
stood before me personified, living; it had come forth like Minerva
from Jupiter's brain, tall and strong; it was at once a hundred years old

and twenty-two; it was alive and dead. Escaped from his chamber, like
a madman from his cell, the little old man had evidently crept behind a
long line of people who were listening attentively to Marianina's voice
as she finished the cavatina from Tancred. He seemed to have come up
through the floor, impelled by some stage mechanism. He stood for a
moment motionless and sombre, watching the festivities, a murmur of
which had perhaps reached his ears. His almost somnambulistic
preoccupation was so concentrated upon things that, although he was in
the midst of many people, he saw nobody. He had taken his place
unceremoniously beside one of the most fascinating women in Paris, a
young and graceful dancer, with slender figure, a face as fresh as a
child's, all pink and white, and so fragile, so transparent, that it seemed
that a man's glance must pass through her as the sun's rays pass through
flawless glass. They stood there before me, side by side, so close
together, that the stranger rubbed against the gauze dress, and the
wreaths of flowers, and the hair, slightly crimped, and the floating ends
of the sash.
I had brought that young woman to Madame de Lanty's ball. As it was
her first visit to that house, I forgave her her stifled laugh; but I hastily
made an imperious sign which abashed her and inspired respect for her
neighbor. She sat down beside me. The old man did not choose to leave
the charming creature, to whom he clung capriciously with the silent
and apparently causeless obstinacy to which very old persons are
subject, and which makes them resemble children. In order to sit down
beside the young lady he needed a folding-chair. His slightest
movements were marked by the inert heaviness, the stupid hesitancy,
which characterize the movements of a paralytic. He sat slowly down
upon his chair with great caution, mumbling some unintelligible words.
His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a
well. The young woman nervously pressed my hand, as if she were
trying to avoid a precipice, and shivered when that man, at whom she
happened to be looking,