presence seemed to have caused animation to sparkle in every eye.

All talked at once, and she replied, as they walked toward the carriages,
which waited in a court of honor capable of holding seventy gala
chariots. One after the other these carriages advanced. The horses
pawed the ground; the harnesses shone; the footmen and coachmen were
dressed in perfect liveries; the porter of the Palais Castagna, with his
long redingote, on the buttons of which were the symbolical chestnuts of
the family, had beneath his laced hat such a dignified bearing that
Julien suddenly found it absurd to have imagined an impassioned drama in
connection with such people. The last one left, while watching the
others depart, he once more experienced the sensation so common to those
who are familiar with the worst side of the splendor of society and who
perceive in them the moral misery and ironical gayety.

"You are becoming a great simpleton, my friend, Dorsenne," said he,
seating himself more democratically in one of those open cabs called in
Rome a botte. "To fear a tragical adventure for the woman who is
mistress of herself to such a degree is something like casting one's self
into the water to prevent a shark from drowning. If she had not upon her
lips Maitland's kisses, and in her eyes the memory of happiness, I am
very much mistaken. She came from a rendezvous. It was written for me,
in her toilette, in the color upon her cheeks, in her tiny shoes, easy to
remove, which had not taken thirty steps. And with what mastery she
uttered her string of falsehoods! Her daughter, Madame Gorka, Madame
Maitland, how quickly she included them all! That is why I do not like
the theatre, where one finds the actress who employs that tone to utter
her: 'Is the master not here?'"

He laughed aloud, then his thoughts, relieved of all anxiety, took a new