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By Root 1480 0

there like a piece of human rubbish, corrupted and shattered by sixty years of debauchery, the marquis appeared as a corner of a charnel-house, surrounded by the glory of the woman’s dazzling flesh. When he saw the door open he raised himself up, seized with the fright of a paralytic old man. This last night of licentious-ness had smitten him with imbecility, he had fallen into his second childhood; and, no longer able to find his words—half paralysed, stuttering, shivering—he remained in an attitude of flight, his night-shirt rucked up over his skeleton of a body, one leg outside the clothes—a poor, livid leg covered with grey hairs. Nana, in spite of her annoyance, could not help laughing.

“Lie down—get under the clothes,” said she, pushing him back and covering him with the sheet, like some bit of dirt one does not wish to be seen.

And she ran to close the door. She had really no luck with her little muff!—he was always putting in an appearance at an awkward moment. And why, too, did he go off to seek for money in Normandy? The old fellow had brought her four thousand francs, and she had let him have his way. She pushed the door to again, and cried,

“So much the worse! it’s all your fault. That’s not the way to enter a room! There, that’ll do. Good-bye!”

Muffat stood in front of that closed door, utterly crushed by what he had just seen. His fit of trembling increased—a trembling which ascended from his legs to his chest and to his head. Then, like a tree caught in the hurricane, he staggered and fell on his knees, cracking in all his limbs; and, despairingly holding out his hands, he muttered,

“It is too much. Oh, God! it is too much!”

He had accepted everything, but he could no longer bear it. He felt himself without strength, in that darkness where man succumbs with his reason. With an extraordinary outburst, holding high his joined hands, he sought Heaven, he called on God.

“Oh, no! I will not! Oh! come to me, my God! help me, or rather let me die! Oh, no! not that man, my God! it is ended—take me, carry me off, that I may no longer see, that I may no longer feel. Oh! I belong to Thee, my God! Our Father which art in Heaven—”

And he continued, burning with faith, and an ardent prayer came from his lips. But someone touched him on the shoulder. He raised his eyes: it was M. Venot, surprised at finding him praying before that closed door. Then, as though God Himself had replied to his appeal, he threw himself into the little old man’s arms. At last he could weep: he sobbed, and kept repeating,

“My brother, my brother—”

All his suffering humanity found relief in this cry. He bathed M. Venot’s face with his tears, he kissed him, uttering disconnected sentences.

“Oh, my brother, how I suffer! You alone are left to me, my brother. Take me away for ever, oh! for mercy’s sake, take me away.”

Then M. Venot pressed him to his bosom. He called him his brother also. But he had another blow to deal him. Since the previous day he had been seeking him to tell him that Countess Sabine had crowned her follies by eloping with a young man employed at a large linen-draper’s—a frightful scandal, of which all Paris was already gossiping. Seeing him under the influence of such a religious exaltation, he thought the moment a favourable one, and told him at once what had occurred, that flatly tragical end in which his house was foundering. The count was not affected in the least; his wife had gone off, that was nothing to him, he would see about it later on. And, again giving way to his anguish, looking at the door, the walls, the ceiling, in a terrified manner, he could do no more than utter these imploring words:

“Take me away, I can bear it no longer; take me away.”

M. Venot took him off like a child. From that time he was his entirely. Muffat once more returned to the strict duties of religion. His life was blasted. He had resigned his chamberlain’s office in accordance with the desire of the offended modesty of the Tuileries. His daughter Estelle had commenced an action against him to recover a sum of sixty thousand francs