exhaled like this air an
odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she half-closed her eyes
the better to breathe it in. But in making this movement, as she leant
back in her chair, she saw in the distance, right on the line of the
horizon, the old diligence, the "Hirondelle," that was slowly descending
the hill of Leux, dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was in this
yellow carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this
route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw him
opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds gathered; it
seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz under the light of
the lustres on the arm of the Viscount, and that Leon was not far away,
that he was coming; and yet all the time she was conscious of the scent
of Rodolphe's head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced
through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust
of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which
suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to drink
in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took off her gloves,
she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with her handkerchief, while
athwart the throbbing of her temples she heard the murmur of the
crowd and the voice of the councillor intoning his phrases. He
said--"Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions of
routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash empiricism.

"Apply yourselves, above all, to the amelioration of the soil, to good
manures, to the development of the equine, bovine, ovine, and porcine
races. Let these shows be to you pacific arenas, where the victor in
leaving it will hold forth a hand to the vanquished, and will fraternise
with him in the hope of better success. And you, aged servants, humble
domestics, whose hard labour no Government up to this day has taken into
consideration, come hither to receive the reward of your silent virtues,
and be assured that the state henceforward has its eye upon you; that it
encourages you, protects you; that it will accede to your just
demands, and alleviate as much as in it lies the burden of your painful
sacrifices."

Monsieur Lieuvain then sat down; Monsieur Derozerays got up, beginning
another speech. His was not perhaps so florid as that of the councillor,
but it recommended itself by a more direct style, that is to say, by
more special knowledge and more elevated cons