k have little tenderness. Like the Amazons, they
lack a breast; their hearts are hard in some direction, but I do not
know in which.

At the moment when I begin to feel the burden of the yoke, when
weariness took possession of soul and body too, when at last I
comprehended the sanctity that true feeling imparts to love, when
memories of Clochegourde were bringing me, in spite of distance, the
fragrance of the roses, the warmth of the terrace, and the warble of
the nightingales,--at this frightful moment, when I saw the stony bed
beneath me as the waters of the torrent receded, I received a blow which
still resounds in my heart, for at every hour its echo wakes.

I was working in the cabinet of the king, who was to drive out at four
o'clock. The Duc de Lenoncourt was on service. When he entered the room
the king asked him news of the countess. I raised my head hastily in too
eager a manner; the king, offended by the action, gave me the look which
always preceded the harsh words he knew so well how to say.

"Sire, my poor daughter is dying," replied the duke.

"Will the king deign to grant me leave of absence?" I cried, with tears
in my eyes, braving the anger which I saw about to burst.

"Go, _my lord_," he answered, smiling at the satire in his words, and
withholding his reprimand in favor of his own wit.

More courtier than father, the duke asked no leave but got into the
carriage with the king. I started without bidding Lady Dudley good-bye;
she was fortunately out when I made my preparations, and I left a note
telling her I was sent on a mission by the king. At the Croix de Berny I
met his Majesty returning from Verrieres. He threw me a look full of his
royal irony, always insufferable in meaning, which seemed to say: "If
you mean to be anything in politics come back; don't parley with the
dead." The duke waved his hand to me sadly. The two pompous equipages
with their eight horses, the colonels and their gold lace, the escort
and the clouds of dust rolled rapidly away, to cries of "Vive le Roi!"
It seemed to me that the court had driven over the dead body of Madame
de Mortsauf with the utter insensibility which nature shows for our
catastrophes. Though the duke was an excellent man he would no doubt
play whist with Monsieur after the king had retired. As for the duchess,
she had long ago given her daughter the first stab by writing to her of
Lady Dudley.

My hurried journey was like a dream,--the dream of a r