Yet however slightly she might feel the need to pour
out her heart, a craving that every human being feels, it could only
be satisfied by gossiping with her maid, by trivial and indifferent
talk. . . . I grieved for her.
"Justine unlaced her. I watched her carefully when she was at last
unveiled. Her maidenly form, in its rose-tinged whiteness, was visible
through her shift in the taper light, as dazzling as some silver
statue behind its gauze covering. No, there was no defect that need
shrink from the stolen glances of love. Alas, a fair form will
overcome the stoutest resolutions!
"The maid lighted the taper in the alabaster sconce that hung before
the bed, while her mistress sat thoughtful and silent before the fire.
Justine went for a warming-pan, turned down the bed, and helped to lay
her mistress in it; then, after some further time spent in
punctiliously rendering various services that showed how seriously
Foedora respected herself, her maid left her. The countess turned to
and fro several times, and sighed; she was ill at ease; faint, just
perceptible sounds, like sighs of impatience, escaped from her lips.
She reached out a hand to the table, and took a flask from it, from
which she shook four or five drops of some brown liquid into some milk
before taking it; again there followed some painful sighs, and the
exclamation, '_Mon Dieu_!'
"The cry, and the tone in which it was uttered, wrung my heart.
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