complexion is gone; you will end
by being a regular fright. They say that it is the fashion to be pale
nowadays; a silly notion, indeed, but it will not last, for complexion
makes the woman."

The old lady said this like a person who had her reasons for not liking
pale complexions, and who gladly took pimples for roses.

Madame de Bergenheim bowed her head as if to acquiesce in this decision,
and then resumed in her drawling voice:

"I know that I am very unreasonable, and I am often vexed with myself
for having so little control over my feelings, but it is beyond my
strength. I have a tired sensation, a disgust for everything, something
which I can not overcome. It is an inexplicable physical and moral
languor, for which, for this reason, I see no remedy. I am weary and I
suffer; I am sure it will end in my being ill. Sometimes I wish I were
dead. However, I have really no reason to be unhappy. I suppose I am
happy--I ought to be happy."

"Truly, I can not understand in the least the women of today. Formerly,
upon exciting occasions, we had a good nervous attack and all was over;
the crisis passed, we became amiable again, put on rouge and went to a
ball. Now it is languor, ennui, stomach troubles--all imagination and
humbug! The men are just as bad, and they call it spleen! Spleen! a new
discovery, an English importation! Fine things come to us from England;
to begin with, the constitutional government! All this is perfectly
ridiculous. As for you, Clemence, you ought to put an end to such
childishness. Two months ago, in Paris, you did not have any of the
rest that you enjoy here. I had serious reasons for wishing to delay my
departure; my apartment to refurnish, my neuralgia which still troubles
me--and Constance, who had just been in the hands of the doctor, was
hardly in a condition to travel, poor creature! You would listen to
nothing; we had to submit to your caprices, and now--"

"But, aunt, you admitted yourself that it was the proper thing for me
to do, to join my husband. Was it not enough, and too much, to have left
him to pass the entire winter alone here while I was dancing in Paris?"

"It was very proper, of course, and I do not blame you. But why does the
very thing you so much desired two months ago bore you so terribly
now? In Paris you talked all the time of Bergenheim, longed only
for Bergenheim, you had duties to fulfil, you wished to be with your
husband; you bothered and wore me out with yo