e in the imposing security of her lofty
reputation. I laughed at the simplicity of all these honest, good
people, who bowed so low to her, thinking they saluted a saint; and I
congratulated myself with idiotic delight at being the only one who knew
the true Countess Claudieuse,--she who took her revenge so bravely in
our house in Passy!

"But such delights never last long.

"It had not taken me long to find out that I had given myself a master,
and the most imperious and exacting master that ever lived. I had almost
ceased to belong to myself. I had become her property; and I lived and
breathed and thought and acted for her alone. She did not mind my tastes
and my dislikes. She wished a thing, and that was enough. She wrote to
me, 'Come!' and I had to be instantly on the spot: she said to me, 'Go!'
an I had to leave at once. At first I accepted these evidences of her
despotism with joy; but gradually I became tired of this perpetual
abdication of my own will. I disliked to have no control over myself,
to be unable to dispose of twenty-four hours in advance. I began to feel
the pressure of the halter around my neck. I thought of flight. One of
my friends was to set out on a voyage around the world, which was to
last eighteen months or two years, and I had an idea of accompanying
him. There was nothing to retain me. I was, by fortune and position,
perfectly independent. Why should I not carry out my plan?

"Ah, why? The prism was not broken yet. I cursed the tyranny of the
countess; but I still trembled when I heard her name mentioned. I
thought of escaping from her; but a single glance moved me to the bottom
of my heart. I was bound to her by the thousand tender threads of habit
and of complicity,--those threads which seem to be more delicate than
gossamer, but which are harder to break than a ship's cable.

"Still, this idea which had occurred to me brought it about that I
uttered for the first time the word 'separation' in her presence, asking
her what she would do if I should leave her. She looked at me with a
strange air and asked me, after a moment's hesitation,--

"'Are you serious? Is it a warning?'

"I dared not carry matters any farther, and, making an effort to smile,
I said,--

"'It is only a joke.'

"'Then,' she said, 'let us not say any thing more about it. If you
should ever come to that, you would soon see what I would do.'

"I did not insist; but that look remained long in my memory, and made me