At the Hôtel de Mayence in the Rue Ancelot we drew up. It was a respectable, third-rate hotel. A black cat was crouched in the doorway, watching the street with imperturbable yellow eyes, and a waiter with a stained serviette in his hand made his appearance at the sound of the vehicle drawing up.
Yes; Madame Feliciani was in: he would go up and see whether she could receive visitors. I waited, trying to make friends with the sphinx-like cat; then I was shown upstairs, and into a shabby sitting-room overlooking the street.
By the window, stitching at a child's small garment, sat an old lady with snow-white hair. It was the Countess Feliciani.
It was as if I had seen by some horrible enchantment a woman of thirty-five, happy and beautiful, surrounded by the wealth and luxury of life, suddenly withered, touched by the wand of some malevolent fairy and transformed into a woman old and poor.
It was my first lesson in the realities of life, this fairy tale, which, for hidden terror, put Vogel's story of the old woman who made the whistles completely in the shade.
Next moment I was at her knee, blubbering, with my nose rubbing the bombazine of her black skirt—for she was in mourning—and next moment little Eloise was in her room, looking just the same as ever, and I was being comforted as if all the misfortune were mine; and Madame Feliciani, for so she chose to be styled, was smiling for the first time, I am sure, since the disaster. A late déjeûner was brought in, and I was given a place at the table. It is all misty and strange in my mind. A few things of absolute unimportance stand out—the coat of the waiter, shiny at the elbows; the hotel dog that came in for scraps; the knives and forks, worn and second-rate—but of what we said to each other I remember nothing.
"And you will come and see us?" said I as I took my departure.
"Some day," replied the Countess, with a smile, the significance of which I now understand, as I understand the horrible mockery of my innocent invitation.
Eloise ran down to see me off; and the last I saw of her was a small figure standing at the door of the hotel, and holding in its arms the black cat with the imperturbable yellow eyes.
When we arrived at the Champs Elysées I was so frightened with my doings that I gave the driver the whole napoleon without waiting for change, and then I went to meet my doom like a man, and confessed the whole business to my father.