l 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 your conjugal love. When back at
Bergenheim, you dream and sigh for Paris. Do not shake your head; I am an
old aunt to whom you pay no heed, but who sees clearly yet. Will you do
me the favor to tell me what it is that you regret in Paris at this time
of the year, when there are no balls or parties, and not one human being
worth visiting, for all the people you know are in the country? Is it
because--"

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil did not finish her sentence, but she put a
severity into these three words which seemed to condense all the
quintessence of prudery that a celibacy of sixty years could coagulate in
an old maid's heart.

Clemence raised her eyes to her aunt's face as if to demand an
ex