He went from
the Rue du Bercail to the Hotel d'Esgrignon with pulses throbbing like
some girl's heart when she leaves her father's roof by stealth, not to
return again till she is a mother and her heart is broken.
Mlle. Armande had just received a charming letter, charming in its
hypocrisy. Her nephew was the happiest man under the sun. He had been
to the baths, he had been traveling in Italy with Mme. de
Maufrigneuse, and now sent his journal to his aunt. Every sentence was
instinct with love. There were enchanting descriptions of Venice, and
fascinating appreciations of the great works of Venetian art; there
were most wonderful pages full of the Duomo at Milan, and again of
Florence; he described the Apennines, and how they differed from the
Alps, and how in some village like Chiavari happiness lay all around
you, ready made.
The poor aunt was under the spell. She saw the far-off country of
love, she saw, hovering above the land, the angel whose tenderness
gave to all that beauty a burning glow. She was drinking in the letter
at long draughts; how should it have been otherwise? The girl who had
put love from her was now a woman ripened by repressed and pent-up
passion, by all the longings continually and gladly offered up as a
sacrifice on the altar of the hearth.
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