droles de facons
Pour enjoler, pour enjoler, pour enjoler les gaaarcons_!

"I returned to my home in the Rue de Lille. On the way I encountered
the rabble going from the _Corps Legislatif_ to the Hotel de Ville. My
mind was made up.

"'Madame,' I said to my wife, 'my pistols.'

"'What is the matter?' she asked, frightened.

"'All is lost. But there is still a chance to preserve my honor. I am
going to be killed on the barricades.'

"'Ah! Casimir,' she sobbed, falling into my arms. 'I have misjudged
you. Will you forgive me?'

"'I forgive you, Aurelie,' I said with dignified emotion. 'I have not
always been right myself.'

"I tore myself away from this mad scene. It was six o'clock. On the
Rue de Bac, I hailed a cab on its mad career.

"'Twenty francs tip,' I said to the coachman, 'if you get to the _Gare
de Lyon_ in time for the Marseilles train, six thirty-seven.'"

The Hetman of Jitomir could say no more. He had rolled over on the
cushions and slept with clenched fists.

I walked unsteadily to the great window.

The sun was rising, pale yellow, behind the sharp blue mountains.

XIV

HOURS OF WAITING

It was at night that Saint-Avit liked to tell me a little of his
enthralling history. He gave it to me in short installments, exact and
chronological, never anticipating the episodes of a drama whose tragic
outcome I knew already. Not that he wished to obtain more effect that
way--I felt that he was far removed from any calculation of that sort!
Simply from the extraordinary nervousness into which he was thrown by
recalling such memories.

One evening, the mail from France had just arrived. The letters that
Chatelain had handed us lay upon the little table, not yet opened. By
the light of the lamp, a pale halo in the midst of the great black
desert, we were able to recognize the writing of the addresses. Oh!
the victorious smile of Saint-Avit when, pushing aside all those
letters, I said to him in a trembling voice:

"Go on."

He acquiesced without further words.

"Nothing can give you any idea of the fever I was in from the day when
the Hetman of Jitomir told me of his adventures to the day when I
found myself in the presence of Antinea. The strangest part was that
the thought that I was, in a way, condemned to death, did not enter
into this fever. On the contrary, it was stimulated by my desire for
the event which would be the signal of my downfall, the summons from
Antinea. But thi