Strong as Death | Page 5

about quickly,
like a little animal surprised at being set free.
"Isn't that elegant, distinguished, and material--more material than the
hand? Show me your hand, Any!"
She wore long gloves reaching to the elbow. In order to remove one she
took it by the upper edge and slipped it down quickly, turning it inside
out, as one would skin a snake. The arm appeared, white, plump, round,
so suddenly bared as to produce an idea of complete and bold nudity.
She gave him her hand, which drooped from her wrist. The rings
sparkled on her white fingers, and the narrow pink nails seemed like
amorous claws protruding at the tips of that little feminine paw.
Olivier Bertin handled it tenderly and admiringly. He played with the
fingers as if they were live toys, while saying:
"What a strange thing! What a strange thing! What a pretty little
member, intelligent and adroit, which executes whatever one wills--
books, laces, houses, pyramids, locomotives, pastry, or caresses, which
last is its pleasantest function."
He drew off the rings one by one, and as the wedding-ring fell in its
turn, he murmured smilingly:
"The law! Let us salute it!"
"Nonsense!" said the Countess, slightly wounded.
Bertin had always been inclined to satirical banter, that tendency of the
French to mingle irony with the most serious sentiments, and he had
often unintentionally made her sad, without knowing how to
understand the subtle distinctions of women, or to discern the border of
sacred ground, as he himself said. Above all things it vexed her
whenever he alluded with a touch of familiar lightness to their
attachment, which was an affair of such long standing that he declared

it the most beautiful example of love in the nineteenth century. After a
silence, she inquired:
"Will you take Annette and me to the varnishing-day reception?"
"Certainly."
Then she asked him about the best pictures to be shown in the next
exposition, which was to open in a fortnight.
Suddenly, however, she appeared to recollect something she had
forgotten.
"Come, give me my shoe," she said. "I am going now."
He was playing dreamily with the light shoe, turning it over
abstractedly in his hands. He leaned over, kissed the foot, which
appeared to float between the skirt and the rug, and which, a little
chilled by the air, no longer moved restlessly about; then he slipped on
the shoe, and Madame de Guilleroy, rising, approached the table, on
which were scattered papers, open letters, old and recent, beside a
painter's inkstand, in which the ink had dried. She looked at it all with
curiosity, touched the papers, and lifted them to look underneath.
Bertin approached her, saying:
"You will disarrange my disorder."
Without replying to this, she inquired:
"Who is the gentleman that wishes to buy your /Baigneuses/?"
"An American whom I do not know."
"Have you come to an agreement about the /Chanteuse des rues/?"
"Yes. Ten thousand."
"You did well. It was pretty, but not exceptional. Good-by, dear."

She presented her cheek, which he brushed with a calm kiss; then she
disappeared through the portieres, saying in an undertone:
"Friday--eight o'clock. I do not wish you to go with me to the door--
you know that very well. Good-by!"
When she had gone he first lighted another cigarette, then he began to
pace slowly to and fro in his studio. All the past of this liaison unrolled
itself before him. He recalled all its details, now long remote, sought
them and put them together, interested in this solitary pursuit of
reminiscences.
It was at the moment when he had just risen like a star on the horizon
of artistic Paris, when the painters were monopolizing the favor of the
public, and had built up a quarter with magnificent dwellings, earned
by a few strokes of the brush.
After his return from Rome, in 1864, he had lived for some years
without success or renown; then suddenly, in 1868, he exhibited his
/Cleopatra/, and in a few days was being praised to the skies by both
critics and public.
In 1872, after the war, and after the death of Henri Regnault had made
for all his brethren, a sort of pedestal of glory, a /Jocaste/ a bold subject,
classed Bertin among the daring, although his wisely original execution
made him acceptable even to the Academicians. In 1873 his first medal
placed him beyond competition with his /Juive d'Alger/, which he
exhibited on his return from a trip to Africa, and a portrait of the
Princesse de Salia, in 1874, made him considered by the fashionable
world the first portrait painter of his day. From that time he became the
favorite painter of Parisian women of that class, the most skilful and
ingenious interpreter of their grace, their bearing, and