ion
tomorrow."
When they separated for the night, Gerfaut, bored by his evening and
wounded by his reception from Clemence, which, he thought, surpassed
anything he could have expected of her capricious disposition, addressed
to the young woman a profound bow and a look which said:
"I am here in spite of you; I shall stay here in spite of you; you shall
love me in spite of yourself."
Madame de Bergenheim replied by a glance none the less expressive, in
which a lover the most prone to conceit could read:
"Do as you like; I have as much indifference for your love as disdain for
your presumption."
This was the last shot in this preliminary skirmish.
CHAPTER IX
GERFAUT, THE WIZARD
There are some women who, like the heroic Cure Merino, need but one
hour's sleep. A nervous, irritable, subtle organization gives them a
power for waking, without apparent fatigue, refused to most men. And yet,
when a strong emotion causes its corrosive waters to filtrate into the
veins of these impressionable beings, it trickles there drop by drop,
until it has hollowed out in the very depths of their hearts a lake full
of trouble and storms. Then, in the silence of night and the calm of
solitude, insomnia makes the rosy cheeks grow pale and dark rings
encircle the most sparkling eyes. It is in vain for the burning forehead
to seek the cool pillow; the pillow grows warm without the forehead
cooling. In vain the mind hunts for commonplace ideas, as a sort of
intellectual poppy-leaves that may lead to a quiet night's rest; a
persistent thought still returns, chasing away all others, as an eagle
disperses a flock of timid birds in order to remain sole master of its
prey. If one tries to repeat the accustomed prayer, and invoke the aid of
the Virgin, or the good angel who watches at the foot of young girls'
beds, in order to keep away the charms of the tempter, the prayer is only
on the lips, the Virgin is deaf, the angel sleeps! The breath of passion
against which one struggles runs through every fibre of the heart, like a
storm over the chords of an Tolian harp, and extorts from it those magic
melodies to which a poor, troubled, and frightened woman listens with
remorse and despair; but to which she listens, and with which at last she
is intoxicated, for the allegory of Eve is an immortal myth, that repeats
itself, through every century and in every clime.
Since her entrance into society, Madame de Bergenheim had formed th
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