The Princess replied very seriously—
“Mr. Wood, tell me that you are not witty. I thoroughly detest witty men.”
Upon this she rose, and said—
“Mr. Wood, will you take me to the buffet?”
An hour later, when Monsieur G—— was holding both men and women spell-bound with his songs, I came across Leslie Wood and the Princess Zévorine again, alone in front of the deserted buffet.
The Princess was speaking with almost vehement enthusiasm of Count Tolstoi, whose friend she was. She described this great man who had descended to the lowliest life, donning the dress, and with it the spirit, of the moujik, and using the hands which had indited literary masterpieces in the manufacture of shoes for the poor.
To my great surprise, Wood was expressing approbation of a kind of life so completely opposed to common sense. In his slightly panting voice, to which the beginnings of asthma had given a singular sweetness, he said—
“Yes, Tolstoi is right. The whole of philosophy is contained in that phrase: ‘May the will of God be done!’ He has realized that all the woes of humanity are the outcome of the exercise of human will as distinct from the will divine. My only fear is that he may impair so noble a doctrine by fantastic and extravagant additions.”
“Oh!” returned the Princess in a subdued voice, and hesitating a little, “the Count’s teaching is only extravagant upon one point; that is, in inculcating the extension of the rights and duties of husbands to an extremely advanced period of their lives, and imposing on the saints of these latter days the fruitful old age of the patriarchs.”
Wood, himself elderly, replied with a restrained exaltation—