ough their outward aspect was perfectly agreeable, she felt
herself seized by a painful impression, and that the fortune-teller's
prediction of a violent death, which she had so long forgotten, gashed
out like lightning before her eyes. The effect on the two brothers
was not of the same kind: the beauty of the marquise struck them
both, although in different ways. The chevalier was in ecstasies of
admiration, as though before a beautiful statue, but the impression that
she made upon him was that which would have been made by marble, and
if the chevalier had been left to himself the consequences of this
admiration would have been no less harmless. Moreover, the chevalier
did not attempt either to exaggerate or to conceal this impression,
and allowed his sister-in-law to see in what manner she struck him. The
abbe, on the contrary, was seized at first sight with a deep and violent
desire to possess this woman--the most beautiful whom he had ever
met; but being as perfectly capable of mastering his sensations as the
chevalier was incapable, he merely allowed such words of compliment to
escape him as weigh neither with him who utters nor her who hears them;
and yet, before the close of this first interview, the abbe had decided
in his irrevocable will that this woman should be his.

As for the marquise, although the impression produced by her two
brothers-in-law could never be entirely effaced, the wit of the abbe,
to which he gave, with amazing facility, whatever turn he chose, and
the complete nullity of the chevalier brought her to certain feelings
of less repulsion towards them: for indeed the marquise had one of those
souls which never suspect evil, as long as it will take the trouble
to assume any veil at all of seeming, and which only recognise it with
regret when it resumes its true shape.

Meanwhile the arrival of these two new inmates soon spread a little
more life and gaiety through the house. Furthermore; greatly to
the astonishment of the marquise, her husband, who had so long been
indifferent to her beauty, seemed to remark afresh that she was too
charming to be despised; his words accordingly began little by little
to express an affection that had long since gradually disappeared from
them. The marquise had never ceased to love him; she had suffered the
loss of his love with resignation, she hailed its return with joy, and
three months elapsed that resembled those which had long ceased to be
more to the poor