The painter, bareheaded, eyes shining, was breathing deeply, and as he caught the countess’s glance he said, “This is happiness.”
She came nearer. “It never lasts.”
“Let’s take it when it comes.”
Her life till now had been spent almost without suffering, varied only by Olivier’s affection and agitated only by the desire to retain it. She had succeeded, had been always victorious in that struggle. Her heart, lulled by success and flattery, having become the exacting organ of a lovely worldli…
Her coquetry, always on the alert but always accentuated since she felt on all sides certain hints, as yet almost imperceptible, of the innumerable attacks of age, took a more active form. To become as slender as Annette she continued to drink nothing, and the real slenderness of her waist restored…
The painter was contemplating, under strong daylight, both mother and daughter, one after the other. Certainly they were different, yet at the same time so alike that one was evidently a continuation of the other—the same blood, the same flesh, animated by the same life. Their eyes, especially thos…
All the details, skillfully put together, created an irresistibly comic silhouette. You saw the gentleman dressed by his valet, expressing first of all to the hairdresser who had come to shave him a few general ideas, then, taking his morning walk, questioning the grooms about the health of the hor…
