"Towards noon, next day, Pauline knocked gently at my door, and
brought me--who could guess it?--a note from Foedora. The countess
asked me to take her to the Luxembourg, and to go thence to see with
her the Museum and Jardin des Plantes.
"'The man is waiting for an answer,' said Pauline, after quietly
waiting for a moment.
"I hastily scrawled my acknowledgements, and Pauline took the note. I
changed my dress. When my toilette was ended, and I looked at myself
with some complaisance, an icy shiver ran through me as I thought:
"'Will Foedora walk or drive? Will it rain or shine?--No matter,
though,' I said to myself; 'whichever it is, can one ever reckon with
feminine caprice? She will have no money about her, and will want to
give a dozen francs to some little Savoyard because his rags are
picturesque.'
"I had not a brass farthing, and should have no money till the evening
came. How dearly a poet pays for the intellectual prowess that method
and toil have brought him, at such crises of our youth! Innumerable
painfully vivid thoughts pierced me like barbs. I looked out of my
window; the weather was very unsettled. If things fell out badly, I
might easily hire a cab for the day; but would not the fear lie on me
every moment that I might not meet Finot in the evening? I felt too
weak to endure such fears in the midst of my felicity.
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