lance. It might be
said that her head was surrounded by her first husband's halo of glory,
his name re-echoing around her like a homage or a reproach. The other
one, seated a little behind her, with the subservient physiognomy of one
ready for every abnegation in life, watched each of her movements, ready
to attend to her slightest wish.

At home, the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I
remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their marriage.
The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but rather
embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house. The wife,
disdainful, melancholy, and very superior, was on that evening more than
ever the widow of a great man! She had a peculiar way of glancing at her
husband from over her shoulder, of calling him "my poor dear friend," of
casting on him all the wearisome drudgery of the reception, with an air
of saying: "You are only fit for that." Around her gathered a circle of
former friends, those who had been spectators of the brilliant debuts of
the great man, of his struggles, and his success. She simpered to them;
played the young girl! They had known her so young! Nearly all of
them called her by her Christian name, "Anais." They formed a kind of
conaculum, which the poor husband respectfully approached, to hear his
predecessor spoken of. They recalled the glorious first nights, those
evenings on which nearly every battle was won, and the great man's
manias, his way of working; how, in order to summon up inspiration, he
insisted on his wife being by his side, decked out in full ball dress.
"Do you remember, Anais?" And Anais sighed and blushed.

It was at that time that he had written his most tender pieces, above
all _Savonarole_, the most passionate of his creations, with a grand
duet, interwoven with rays of moonshine, the perfume of roses and the
warbling of nightingales. An enthusiast sat down and played it on the
piano, amid a silence of attentive emotion. At the last note of the
magnificent piece, the lady burst into tears. "I cannot help it," she
said, "I have never been able to hear it without weeping." The great
man's old friends surrounded his unhappy widow with sympathetic
expressions, coming up to her one by one, like at a funereal ceremony,
to give a thrilling clasp to her hand. "Come, come, Anais, be
courageous." And the drollest thing was to see the second husband,
standing by the side of his wife, deep