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It was in Geneva, in a music shop. Natalie, who had gone out to attend to a few trifles, entered and desired the Chopin Études, which she had promised to bring the extremely musical Maschenka. While a clerk looked for the music, she observed an elderly man--she divined the piano teacher in him--talking about a photograph which he held in his hand, to the woman who managed the business.
She glanced fleetingly at the photograph--she shuddered.
"So that is he; that is the way he looks now! C'est qu'il a terriblement changé," said the piano teacher.
"Que voulez-vous, with the existence which he leads?" replied the woman. "If one burns the candle of life at both ends!"
"But he should stop it, a married man, as he is," said the music teacher.
"My goodness; his marriage is so--so--he has been separated, who knows how long, already." The woman shrugged her shoulders.
"Ah! Who, then, is his wife?"
"Some great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has become inconvenient," replied the old woman.
"So--h'm! that explains much," said the musician, and laying down the photograph, he added: "enfin c'est un homme fini." With that he seized the roll of music which had been prepared for him and left the shop. Natalie bought the photograph, without having the courage to look at it before strangers. Arrived at home, she unwrapped the portrait. For the first time since that evening when she ran out of the Hôtel du Saxe she looked at a picture of him. She was frightened at the fearful physical deterioration designated in his features. Around the mouth and under the eyes hateful lines were drawn; but from the eyes still spoke the deep, seeking glance as formerly, and on the lips lay an expression of inconsolable goodness. "A great lady who has made enough out of him, and to whom he has become inconvenient," Natalie repeated to herself again and again. That truly was false from beginning to end. Still, a great uneasiness overcame her. The reproofs which she believed she had expiated once for all by the easy, tender confession that she had set aside her beloved husband on account of her scruples, now rose sharply and reprovingly before her.