oice within her; "you were always alone
in yourself, in the world,--a solitary nature; lonely as wife, always
alone."

Once more her cheeks flamed with sudden rage to think that any one, the
veriest fool, could for an instant imagine that she had murdered her
husband. Was it for this that she had so long crushed every impulse of
her heart? Was the world after all not believe in her happiness? She
went in imagination from house to house of the capital, and heard her
name on all tongues.

The ticking of the clock reminded her of what Clodwig had once said,
"The pendulum of our life vibrates between recollections of the past,
and desires for the future."--"That was true of him, but not of me: I
do not stand between recollection and desire: I want the present. I
crave life, ardent life."

She rose, and was vexed that she could not resist going to her mirror;
but once there she staid, and was still more vexed to see that her
figure was not as slender as it used to be; and yet black makes one
look slender. She seemed to have lost all her charms! Her thoughts went
further: since he had to die before you, why could he not have died
years ago, while you were still beautiful? She shuddered at the
thought, but the next moment commended her own sincerity. Further spoke
the voice within her, and, proudly raising her head, she said almost
aloud to herself,--

"I care nothing for conventionality. What I may think a year hence, I
will think now, to-day. What to me is the world's division of time?
Thoughts that others would have a year hence, I permit myself to-day.
Yes; you are a widow, who will be visited only from compassion,--a
widow, with none to stand by her. And then this degrading suspicion! I
can go to the capital; I can take a house. Oh, what a god-like destiny!
I am myself a house, and shall be made lady president of a soup
establishment, and shall have a select dozen of orphans in blue aprons
come to my funeral. I have had enough of that sort of thing already.
No! I cannot live alone. Shall I travel again, seek forgetfulness and
fancied pleasure in landscapes, crowds, works of art, and then talk,
laugh, play in society? I have proved it all vanity, emptiness. Prince
Valerian could be won. Hut could I play the hypocrite again in a
strange world, and charitably rejoice that the Russian peasants are,
figuratively, to have their hair curled? The Wine-cavalier would be
very complaisant, always making his bows, and paying his