is indeed the very warp and woof of first
love.

"She is virgin at my expense," cried the count.

At these words the countess cried out, "Monsieur!"

"What do you mean with your imperious 'Monsieur!'" he shouted. "Am I not
your master? Must I teach you that I am?"

He came towards her, thrusting forward his white wolf's head, now
hideous, for his yellow eyes had a savage expression which made him look
like a wild beast rushing out of a wood. Henriette slid from her chair
to the ground to avoid a blow, which however was not given; she lay at
full length on the floor and lost consciousness, completely exhausted.
The count was like a murderer who feels the blood of his victim spurting
in his face; he stopped short, bewildered. I took the poor woman in my
arms, and the count let me take her, as though he felt unworthy to touch
her; but he went before me to open the door of her bedroom next the
salon,--a sacred room I had never entered. I put the countess on her
feet and held her for a moment in one arm, passing the other round her
waist, while Monsieur de Mortsauf took the eider-down coverlet from the
bed; then together we lifted her and laid her, still dressed, on the
bed. When she came to herself she motioned to us to unfasten her belt.
Monsieur de Mortsauf found a pair of scissors, and cut through it; I
made her breathe salts, and she opened her eyes. The count left the
room, more ashamed than sorry. Two hours passed in perfect silence.
Henriette's hand lay in mine; she pressed it to mine, but could not
speak. From time to time she opened her eyes as if to tell me by a look
that she wished to be still and silent; then suddenly, for an instant,
there seemed a change; she rose on her elbow and whispered, "Unhappy
man!--ah! if you did but know--"

She fell back upon the pillow. The remembrance of her past sufferings,
joined to the present shock, threw her again into the nervous
convulsions I had just calmed by the magnetism of love,--a power then
unknown to me, but which I used instinctively. I held her with gentle
force, and she gave me a look which made me weep. When the nervous
motions ceased I smoothed her disordered hair, the first and only time
that I ever touched it; then I again took her hand and sat looking
at the room, all brown and gray, at the bed with its simple chintz
curtains, at the toilet table draped in a fashion now discarded, at the
commonplace sofa with its quilted mattress. What poetry I could rea