iage, as
I conceived it to be, it would have been impossible for the Creator
himself to have produced so complete a symbol of it as I then saw
before me.

Imagine a woman of fifty, dressed in a jacket of reddish brown merino,
holding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar of
an English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a man
in knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brim
whimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeon
plumes rose at its sides. A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossed
about on the back of his sallow neck, which was thick, as far as it
could be seen above the turned down collar of a threadbare coat. This
couple assumed the stately tread of an ambassador; and the husband,
who was at least seventy, stopped complaisantly every time the terrier
began to gambol. I hastened to pass this living impersonation of my
Meditation, and was surprised to the last degree to recognize the
Marquis de T-----, friend of the Comte de Noce, who had owed me for a
long time the end of the interrupted story which I related in the
_Theory of the Bed_. [See Meditation XVII.]

"I have the honor to present to you the Marquise de T-----," he said
to me.

I made a low bow to a lady whose face was pale and wrinkled; her
forehead was surmounted by a toupee, whose flattened ringlets, ranged
around it, deceived no one, but only emphasized, instead of
concealing, the wrinkles by which it was deeply furrowed. The lady was
slightly roughed, and had the appearance of an old country actress.

"I do not see, sir, what you can say against a marriage such as ours,"
said the old man to me.

"The laws of Rome forefend!" I cried, laughing.

The marchioness gave me a look filled with inquietude as well as
disapprobation, which seemed to say, "Is it possible that at my age I
have become but a concubine?"

We sat down upon a bench, in the gloomy clump of trees planted at the
corner of the high terrace which commands La Place Louis XV, on the
side of the Garde-Meuble. Autumn had already begun to strip the trees
of their foliage, and was scattering before our eyes the yellow leaves
of his garland; but the sun nevertheless filled the air with grateful
warmth.

"Well, is your work finished?" asked the old man, in the unctuous
tones peculiar to men of the ancient aristocracy.

And with these words he gave a sardonic smile, as if for commentary.

"Very nearly, sir," I replied.