At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to

happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the

solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of

the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would

bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a

shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the

portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that

day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that

it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for

the morrow.

Spring came round. With the first warm weather, when the pear trees

began to blossom, she suffered from dyspnoea.

From the beginning of July she counted how many weeks there were to

October, thinking that perhaps the Marquis d'Andervilliers would give

another ball at Vaubyessard. But all September passed without letters or

visits.

After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once more remained

empty, and then the same series of days recommenced. So now they would

thus follow one another, always the same, immovable, and bringing

nothing. Other lives, however flat, had at least the chance of some

event. One adventure sometimes brought with it infinite consequences and

the scene changed. But nothing happened to her; God had willed it so!

The future was a dark corridor, with its door at the end shut fast.

She gave up music. What was the good of playing? Who would hear her?

Since she could never, in a velvet gown with short sleeves, striking

with her light fingers the ivory keys of an Erard at a concert, feel

the murmur of ecstasy envelop her like a breeze, it was not worth while

boring herself with practicing. Her drawing cardboard and her embroidery

she left in the cupboard. What was the good? What was the good? Sewing

irritated her. "I have read everything," she said to herself. And she

sat there making the tongs red-hot, or looked at the rain falling.

How sad she was on Sundays when vespers sounded! She listened with dull

attention to each stroke of the cracked bell. A cat slowly walking over

some roof put up his back in the pale rays of the sum. The wind on the

highroad blew up clouds of dust. Afar off a dog sometimes howled; and

the bell, keeping time, continued its monotonous ringing that died away

over the fields.

But the people came out from church. The women in waxed clogs, the

peasants in new blouses, the little bare-headed children skipping along

in front of them, all were going home. And till nightfall, five or six

men, always the same, stayed playing at corks in front of the large door

of the inn.




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