"After three months of this struggle between two diplomates, concealed
under the semblance of youthful melancholy, and a woman whose disgust of
life made her invulnerable, I told the Count that it was impossible
to drag this tortoise out of her shell; it must be broken. The evening
before, in our last quite friendly discussion, the Countess had
exclaimed:

"'Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the watchword of woman's
charter: _Liberty!_'

"From that moment the Count left me free to act.

"'I have been paid a hundred francs for the flowers and caps I made this
week!' Honorine exclaimed gleefully one Saturday evening when I went
to visit her in the little sitting-room on the ground floor, which the
unavowed proprietor had had regilt.

"It was ten o'clock. The twilight of July and a glorious moon lent
us their misty light. Gusts of mingled perfumes soothed the soul; the
Countess was clinking in her hand the five gold pieces given to her by
a supposititious dealer in fashionable frippery, another of Octave's
accomplices found for him by a judge, M. Popinot.

"'I earn my living by amusing myself,' said she; 'I am free, when
men, armed with their laws, have tried to make us slaves. Oh, I have
transports of pride every Saturday! In short, I like M. Gaudissart's
gold pieces as much as Lord Byron, your double, liked Mr. Murray's.'

"'This is not becoming in a woman,' said I.

"'Pooh! Am I a woman? I am a boy gifted with a soft soul, that is all; a
boy whom no woman can torture----'

"'Your life is the negation of your whole being,' I replied. 'What? You,
on whom God has lavished His choicest treasures of love and beauty, do
you never wish----'

"'For what?' said she, somewhat disturbed by a speech which, for the
first time, gave the lie to the part I had assumed.

"'For a pretty little child, with curling hair, running, playing among
the flowers, like a flower itself of life and love, and calling you
mother!'

"I waited for an answer. A too prolonged silence led me to perceive the
terrible effect of my words, though the darkness at first concealed it.
Leaning on her sofa, the Countess had not indeed fainted, but frozen
under a nervous attack of which the first chill, as gentle as everything
that was part of her, felt, as she afterwards said, like the influence
of a most insidious poison. I called Madame Gobain, who came and led
away her mistress, laid her on her bed, unlaced her, undressed her, and
restor