eight
of a great name to carry honorably. Mindful of the fame of the
departed one, that wretched fame that had cost her so many tears, and
now grew day by day, like a magnificent flower nourished by the black
earth of the tomb, she was to be seen draped in her long somber veils
holding interviews with theatrical managers and publishers, busying
herself in getting her husband's operas put again on the stage,
superintending the printing of his posthumous works and unfinished
manuscripts, bestowing on all these details a kind of solemn care and,
as it were, the respect for a shrine.

It was at this moment that her second husband met her. He, too, was a
musician, almost unknown, it is true, the author of a few waltzes and
songs, and of two little operas, of which the scores, charmingly
printed, were scarcely more played than sold. With a pleasant
countenance, a handsome fortune that he owed to his exceedingly
bourgeois family, he had above all an infinite respect for genius, a
curiosity about famous men, and the ingenuous enthusiasm of a still
youthful artist. Thus when he met the wife of the great man, he was
dazzled and bewildered. It was as tho the image of the glorious muse
herself had appeared to him. He at once fell in love, and as the widow
was beginning to receive a few friends, he had himself presented to
her. There his passion grew in the atmosphere of genius that still
lingered in all the corners of the drawing-room. There was the bust of
the master, the piano he composed on, his scores spread over all the
furniture, melodious even to look at, as tho from between their
half-opened pages the written phrases reechoed musically. The actual
and very real charm of the widow, surrounded by those austere memories
as by a frame that became her, brought his love to a climax.

After hesitating a long time, the poor fellow at last proposed, but in
such humble and timid terms: "He knew how unworthy he was of her. He
understood all the regret she would feel in exchanging her illustrious
name for his, so unknown and insignificant." And a thousand other
artless phrases in the same style. In reality, the lady was indeed
very much flattered by her conquest; however, she played the comedy of
a broken heart, and assumed the disdainful, wearied airs of a woman
whose life is ended without hopes of renewal. She, who had never in
her life been so quiet and comfortable as since the death of her
great man, actually found tears with whi