"Go in, Thérèse; go in," said Madame de Beauharnais, urging her friend.
"So I am always to be the one to sacrifice myself," said the latter. And then, smiling at her friend, she said: "Well, so be it; I will risk it." And she entered.
Mademoiselle Lenormand was at that time a woman of from twenty-four to twenty-nine years of age, short and stout in figure, and vainly endeavoring to disguise the fact that one shoulder was higher than the other; she wore a turban adorned with a bird of paradise. Her hair fell in long curls around her face. She wore two skirts, one over the other; one was short, scarcely falling to the knees, and pearl-gray in color; the other was longer, falling in a short train behind her, and was cherry-red.
Beside her on a cushion lay her favorite greyhound, named Aza.
The table upon which she made her calculations was nothing but a common round table covered with a green baize cloth, with drawers in front, in which the sibyl stowed her various apparatus. The cabinet was as long as the salon, but narrower. An oak bookcase ran along the wall on each side of the door, filled with books. Facing her seat was an armchair for the person who was consulting her.
Between her and the subject lay a steel rod, which was called the divining-rod. The end, pointing toward the client, was tipped with a little coiled steel serpent; the other end resembled a riding-whip.
This was what Madame de Beauharnais saw during the brief moment that the door was open to admit her friend.
Josephine took up a book, drew near to the lamp, and tried to read; but her attention was soon diverted by the sound of a bell and the entrance of another person.
It was a young man dressed in the height of the fashion adopted by the incroyables. Between his hair, which fell to a level with his eyebrows, his dog's-ears falling over his shoulders, and his neckcloth, which reached to his cheekbones, one could scarcely distinguish a straight nose, a firm and resolute mouth, and eyes as brilliant as black diamonds.
He bowed without speaking, twirled his gnarled stick three or four times around his head, hummed three false notes, as if he were just finishing a tune, and sat down in a corner.