of humanity. At the sight
of the woman he loved in this terrible attitude, Victurnien forgot his
danger. Had he not just that moment wronged the most angelic creature on
earth? He longed for forgiveness, he threw himself before her, he kissed
her feet, he pleaded, he wept. Two whole hours the unhappy young man
spent in all kinds of follies, only to meet the same cold face, while
the great silent tears dropping one by one, were dried as soon as they
fell lest the unworthy lover should try to wipe them away. The Duchess
was acting a great agony, one of those hours which stamp the woman who
passes through them as something august and sacred.

Two more hours went by. By this time the Count had gained possession of
Diane's hand; it felt cold and spiritless. The beautiful hand, with
all the treasures in its grasp, might have been supple wood; there was
nothing of Diane in it; he had taken it, it had not been given to him.
As for Victurnien, the spirit had ebbed out of his frame, he had ceased
to think. He would not have seen the sun in heaven. What was to be done?
What course should he take? What resolution should he make? The man who
can keep his head in such circumstances must be made of the same stuff
as the convict who spent the night in robbing the Bibliotheque Royale of
its gold medals, and repaired to his honest brother in the morning with
a request to melt down the plunder. "What is to be done?" cried the
brother. "Make me some coffee," replied the thief. Victurnien sank into
a bewildered stupor, darkness settled down over his brain. Visions
of past rapture flitted across the misty gloom like the figures that
Raphael painted against a black background; to these he must bid
farewell. Inexorable and disdainful, the Duchess played with the tip of
her scarf. She looked in irritation at Victurnien from time to time;
she coquetted with memories, she spoke to her lover of his rivals as if
anger had finally decided her to prefer one of them to a man who could
so change in one moment after twenty-eight months of love.

"Ah! that charming young Felix de Vandenesse, so faithful as he was to
Mme. de Mortsauf, would never have permitted himself such a scene! He
can love, can de Vandenesse! De Marsay, that terrible de Marsay, such
a tiger as everyone thought him, was rough with other men; but like all
strong men, he kept his gentleness for women. Montriveau trampled the
Duchesse de Langeais under foot, as Othello killed Desdemona,