e to the
word it is such a joy to write when one is unhappily so happy as to be a
novelist--_Conclusion_!

CONCLUSION

Never had the Duchess been more
lovely; she came from her bath
clothed like a goddess, and on seeing

234 OLYMPIA

Adolphe voluptuously reclining on
piles of cushions--

"You are beautiful," said she.

"And so are you, Olympia!"

"And you still love me?"

"More and more," said he.

"Ah, none but a Frenchman
knows how to love!" cried the
Duchess. "Do you love me well to-
night?"

"Yes."

"Then come!"

And with an impulse of love and
hate--whether it was that Cardinal
Borborigano had reminded her of
her husband, or that she felt un-
wonted passion to display, she
pressed the springs and held out her
arms.

"That is all," said Lousteau, "for the foreman has torn off the rest in
wrapping up my proofs. But it is enough to show that the author was full
of promise."

"I cannot make head or tail of it," said Gatien Boirouge, who was the
first to break the silence of the party from Sancerre.

"Nor I," replied Monsieur Gravier.

"And yet it is a novel of the time of the Empire," said Lousteau.

"By the way in which the brigand is made to speak," said Monsieur
Gravier, "it is evident that the author knew nothing of Italy. Banditti
do not allow themselves such graceful conceits."

Madame Gorju came up to Bianchon, seeing him pensive, and with a glance
towards her daughter Mademoiselle Euphemie Gorju, the owner of a fairly
good fortune--"What a rhodomontade!" said she. "The prescriptions you
write are worth more than all that rubbish."

The Mayoress had elaborately worked up this speech, which, in her
opinion, showed strong judgment.

"Well, madame, we must be lenient, we have but twenty pages out of a
thousand," said Bianchon, looking at Mademoiselle Gorju, whose figure
threatened terrible things after the birth of her first child.

"Well, Monsieur de Clagny," said Lousteau, "we were talking yesterday
of the forms of revenge invented by husbands. What do you say to those
invented by wives?"

"I say," replied the Public Prosecutor, "that the romance is not by
a Councillor of State, but by a woman. For extravagant inventions the
imagination of women far outdoes that of men; witness _Frankenstein_ by
Mrs. Shelley, _Leone Leoni_ by George Sand, the works of Anne Radcliffe,
and the _Nouveau Promethee_ (New Promet