her eyes toward her portrait, which smiled down upon this
caricature of herself; then she looked at those of the two men, the
disdainful poet and the inspired musician, who seemed to say: "What does
this ruin want of us?"

An indefinable, poignant, irresistible sadness overwhelmed my heart,
the sadness of existences that have had their day, but who are still
debating with their memories, like a person drowning in deep water.

From my seat I could see on the highroad the handsome carriages that
were whirling from Nice to Monaco; inside them I saw young, pretty,
rich and happy women and smiling, satisfied men. Following my eye, she
understood my thought and murmured with a smile of resignation:

"One cannot both be and have been."

"How beautiful life must have been for you!" I said.

She heaved a great sigh.

"Beautiful and sweet! And for that reason I regret it so much."

I saw that she was disposed to talk of herself, so I began to question
her, gently and discreetly, as one might touch bruised flesh.

She spoke of her successes, her intoxications and her friends, of her
whole triumphant existence.

"Was it on the stage that you found your most intense joys, your true
happiness?" I asked.

"Oh, no!" she replied quickly.

I smiled; then, raising her eyes to the two portraits, she said, with a
sad glance:

"It was with them."

"Which one?" I could not help asking.

"Both. I even confuse them up a little now in my old woman's memory, and
then I feel remorse."

"Then, madame, your acknowledgment is not to them, but to Love itself.
They were merely its interpreters."

"That is possible. But what interpreters!"

"Are you sure that you have not been, or that you might not have been,
loved as well or better by a simple man, but not a great man, who would
have offered to you his whole life and heart, all his thoughts, all
his days, his whole being, while these gave you two redoubtable rivals,
Music and Poetry?"

"No, monsieur, no!" she exclaimed emphatically, with that still youthful
voice, which caused the soul to vibrate. "Another one might perhaps have
loved me more, but he would not have loved me as these did. Ah! those
two sang to me of the music of love as no one else in the world could
have sung of it. How they intoxicated me! Could any other man express
what they knew so well how to express in tones and in words? Is it
enough merely to love if one cannot put all the poetry and all the
music of he