s condition
for an hour or two (this I remarked on two occasions when Blanche had
gone out for the day--probably to see Albert), he would begin to look
about him, and to grow uneasy, and to hurry about with an air as though
he had suddenly remembered something, and must try and find it; after
which, not perceiving the object of his search, nor succeeding in
recalling what that object had been, he would as suddenly relapse into
oblivion, and continue so until the reappearance of Blanche--merry,
wanton, half-dressed, and laughing her strident laugh as she approached
to pet him, and even to kiss him (though the latter reward he seldom
received). Once, he was so overjoyed at her doing so that he burst into
tears. Even I myself was surprised.

From the first moment of his arrival in Paris, Blanche set herself to
plead with me on his behalf; and at such times she even rose to heights
of eloquence--saying that it was for ME she had abandoned him, though
she had almost become his betrothed and promised to become so; that it
was for HER sake he had deserted his family; that, having been in his
service, I ought to remember the fact, and to feel ashamed. To all this
I would say nothing, however much she chattered on; until at length I
would burst out laughing, and the incident would come to an end (at
first, as I have said, she had thought me a fool, but since she had
come to deem me a man of sense and sensibility). In short, I had the
happiness of calling her better nature into play; for though, at first,
I had not deemed her so, she was, in reality, a kind-hearted woman
after her own fashion. "You are good and clever," she said to me
towards the finish, "and my one regret is that you are also so
wrong-headed. You will NEVER be a rich man!"

"Un vrai Russe--un Kalmuk" she usually called me.

Several times she sent me to give the General an airing in the streets,
even as she might have done with a lacquey and her spaniel; but, I
preferred to take him to the theatre, to the Bal Mabille, and to
restaurants. For this purpose she usually allowed me some money, though
the General had a little of his own, and enjoyed taking out his purse
before strangers. Once I had to use actual force to prevent him from
buying a phaeton at a price of seven hundred francs, after a vehicle
had caught his fancy in the Palais Royal as seeming to be a desirable
present for Blanche. What could SHE have done with a
seven-hundred-franc phaeton?--and the Ge