“Plague on it,” said Lissac, who read the letter three times, “but our dear duke is badly bitten! Ohime! Marianne Kayser has had a firm and sure tooth this time!—­We shall see!—­” he added, as he broke the seal of another letter, containing a request for a loan on the part of someone richer than himself.

VII

The soiree at Sabine Marsy’s had caused Vaudrey to feel something like the enervation that follows intoxication.  The next morning he awoke with his head heavy, after a night of feverish sleep, interrupted by sudden starts, wherein he saw that pretty, fair girl standing before him devouring sherbet and smiling gayly.

Every morning since he had been at the ministry, Sulpice had experienced a joyous sensation at finding himself again on his feet and rejoicing in life.  He paced about his apartments, feeling a sort of physical delight, opening his window and looking out on the commonplace garden through which so many ministers had passed and which he called, as so many before him had done:  My garden.  His thoughts took him back then to that little convent garden at Grenoble.  What a distance he had travelled since then! and how good it was to live!

That morning, on the contrary, the black and bare trees in the garden appeared to him to be very gloomy.  He felt morose.  He had been awakened early so that the despatches from the provinces might be laid before him.  The information in them was quite insignificant.  But then his spirit was not present.  Once again he was at Sabine’s, beside Marianne, so lovely in her sky-blue gown, and with her wavy locks.

If he had been free, he would have gladly sought the opportunity to see that woman again as soon as the morning commenced.  He felt a kind of infantile joy in being thus perturbed and haunted.  It seemed to him that this emotion made him feel younger.  Formerly, on awakening, the dream of the night had followed him like some intoxication.

Formerly! but “formerly” he was not the important man, the distinguished personage of to-day.—­He had not the charge of power as some others have the charge of souls.  A minister has something else to do than to be under the sway of a vision.  Sulpice dressed hurriedly, went down to his office, where a huge log-fire flamed behind an antique screen.  He sat down in front of his large mahogany bureau, covered with papers, and on which was lying a huge black portfolio stuffed with documents bearing this title in stamped letters:  Monsieur le Ministre de l’Interieur.  In the centre of the bureau had been placed a leather portfolio filled with sheets of paper bearing the title:  Documents to be signed by Monsieur le Ministre.  Beside this were spread out various reports, bearing upon one corner of the sheet a printed headline:  Office of the Prefect of Police and Director-General of the Press.