In spite of the lateness of the season, all Paris was there: the Duchess de Sternich, in a chariot; Madame de Lauwerens, in a victoria, drawn by some very fine cattle; Baroness de Meinhold, in a delicious dark brown private cab; Countess Vanska, with her piebald ponies; Madame Daste and her famous black steppers; Madame de Guende and Madame Teissière, in a brougham; little Sylvia, in a deep blue landau; and Don Carlos, too, in mourning, with his ancient and solemn-looking livery; Selim Pasha, with his fez and without his tutor; the Duchess de Rozan, in her single-seated brougham, and with her powdered lackeys; Count de Chibray, in a dog-cart; Mr. Simpson, on a well-appointed mail-coach; the whole of the American colony. Finally, two members of the Academy in a cab.
The leading carriages were at length released, and the whole line was soon able to move slowly onwards. It was like an awakening. A thousand scintillations danced around, rapid flashes played to and fro amidst the wheels, whilst the harness shaken by the horses emitted a galaxy of sparks. Along the ground and on the trees were broad reflexions of fleeting glass. This glistening of harness and of wheels, this blaze of varnished panels all aglow with the red fire of the setting sun, the bright touches of the gorgeous liveries perched up on high, and of the rich costumes bursting from the confined space of the equipages, passed along in the midst of a hollow, continuous rumbling, timed by the pace of the thoroughbreds. And the procession continued, accompanied by the same sounds and the same scintillations, unceasingly and at one spurt, as though the leading vehicles had been dragging all the others after them.
Renée had yielded to the slight jolting of the carriage as it once more started off, and, dropping her eye-glass, she had resumed her half-reclining posture on the cushions. She shiveringly drew towards her a corner of the bearskin which filled the interior of the vehicle with a silky snow-white mass. Her gloved hands became lost amidst the long soft curly hairs. The north wind was beginning to blow. The warm October afternoon which, in giving to the Bois an appearance of spring, had brought out the most fashionable ladies in their open carriages, threatened to end in an evening of piercing chilliness.
For a while the young woman remained huddled up, enjoying the warmth of her corner, and abandoning herself to the voluptuous lullaby of all those wheels turning before her eyes. Then, raising her head towards Maxime, whose glances were quietly unrobing the women displayed in the adjoining broughams and landaus, she asked:
"Really now, do you think her pretty, that Laure d'Aurigny? You were praising her up so much the other day when some one spoke of the sale of her diamonds! By the way, you have not seen the necklace and the aigrette that your father bought me at the sale."
"Ah! he does everything well," said Maxime with a spiteful laugh, and without answering her question. "He manages to pay Laure's debts, and to make his wife presents of diamonds."
The young woman slightly shrugged her shoulders.
"Rascal!" murmured she with a smile.
But the young man had leant forward, following with his eyes a lady whose green dress interested him. Renée was resting her head, her eyes half closed, idly glancing at both sides of the avenue, but without seeing. On the right were copses and low bushes, with slender branches and reddened leaves; now and again, on the track reserved for riders, passed slim built gentlemen whose galloping steeds raised little clouds of dust. On the left, at the foot of the narrow sloping lawns, intersected by flower-beds and shrubberies, the lake, as clear as crystal, reposed without a ripple, as though neatly trimmed all round by the spades of the gardeners; and, on the opposite side of this limpid mirror, the two islands, with the connecting bridge forming a grey bar between them, displayed their pleasant shores, arraying against the pale sky the theatrical lines of their firs and of their evergreens, the dark foliage of which, similar to the fringe of curtains skilfully hung on the very edge of the horizon, was reflected in the still waters. This corner of nature, having the appearance of a piece of scenery freshly painted, was bathed in a slight shadow, in a bluey vapour which finished giving an exquisite charm to the background, an air of adorable falsity. On the other bank, the Châlet des Îles, looking freshly varnished, shone like a new toy; and those gravel contours, those narrow garden walks, which wind in and out of the lawns and border the lake, and are edged with cast-iron hoops imitating rustic woodwork, stood out more curiously from the soft green of the water and of the grass, at this last hour of daylight.
Used to the graces of these skilfully arranged points of view, Renée, again yielding to her feeling of weariness, had completely lowered her eyelids, no longer observing aught but her tapering fingers as she twined around them the long hairs of the bearskin. But there came a kind of jerk in the even trot of the line of carriages. And, raising her head, she bowed to two young women reclining side by side, with amorous languor, in a barouche which was noisily leaving the road that skirts the lane to turn down one of the lateral avenues. The Marchioness d'Espanet, whose husband, at that time one of the emperor's aides-de-camp, had just rallied with a good deal of fuss to the scandal of the sulking old nobility, was one of the most illustrious society queens of the Second Empire; the other, Madame Haffner, had married a famous manufacturer of Colmar, twenty times millionaire, and whom the Empire was turning into a political personage. Renée, who had known at school the two inseparables as they were slyly termed, always called them by their Christian names, Adeline and Suzanne. As, after greeting them with a smile, she was about to once more huddle herself up in her wraps, a laugh from Maxime caused her to turn round.