At last, with the girl's help, I carried Juliette to her room, gave orders that she was not to be disturbed, and that every one must be told that the Countess was suffering from a sick headache.Then we came down to the dining-room, the canon and I.
Some little time had passed since we left the dinner-table; I had scarcely given a thought to the Count since we left him under the peristyle; his indifference had surprised me, but my amazement increased when we came back and found him seated philosophically at table.He had eaten pretty nearly all the dinner, to the huge delight of his little daughter; the child was smiling at her father's flagrant infraction of the Countess' rules.The man's odd indifference was explained to me by a mild altercation which at once arose with the canon.The Count was suffering from some serious complaint.I cannot remember now what it was, but his medical advisers had put him on a very severe regimen, and the ferocious hunger familiar to convalescents, sheer animal appetite, had overpowered all human sensibilities.In that little space I had seen frank and undisguised human nature under two very different aspects, in such a sort that there was a certain grotesque element in the very midst of a most terrible tragedy.
The evening that followed was dreary.I was tired.The canon racked his brains to discover a reason for his niece's tears.The lady's husband silently digested his dinner; content, apparently, with the Countess' rather vague explanation, sent through the maid, putting forward some feminine ailment as her excuse.We all went early to bed.
As I passed the door of the Countess' room on the way to my night's lodging, I asked the servant timidly for news of her.She heard my voice, and would have me come in, and tried to talk, but in vain--she could not utter a sound.She bent her head, and Iwithdrew.In spite of the painful agitation, which I had felt to the full as youth can feel, I fell asleep, tired out with my forced march.
It was late in the night when I was awakened by the grating sound of curtain rings drawn sharply over the metal rods.There sat the Countess at the foot of my bed.The light from a lamp set on my table fell full upon her face.
"Is it really true, monsieur, quite true?" she asked."I do not know how I can live after that awful blow which struck me down a little while since; but just now I feel calm.I want to know everything.""What calm!" I said to myself as I saw the ghastly pallor of her face contrasting with her brown hair, and heard the guttural tones of her voice.The havoc wrought in her drawn features filled me with dumb amazement.
Those few hours had bleached her; she had lost a woman's last glow of autumn color.Her eyes were red and swollen, nothing of their beauty remained, nothing looked out of them save her bitter and exceeding grief; it was as if a gray cloud covered the place through which the sun had shone.
