Imagine a woman of fifty, dressed in a jacket of reddish brown merino, holding in her left hand a green cord, which was tied to the collar of an English terrier, and with her right arm linked with that of a man in knee-breeches and silk stockings, whose hat had its brim whimsically turned up, while snow-white tufts of hair like pigeon plumes rose at its sides.  A slender queue, thin as a quill, tossed about on the back of his sallow neck, which was thick, as far as it could be seen above the turned down collar of a threadbare coat.  This couple assumed the stately tread of an ambassador; and the husband, who was at least seventy, stopped complaisantly every time the terrier began to gambol.  I hastened to pass this living impersonation of my Meditation, and was surprised to the last degree to recognize the Marquis de T-----, friend of the Comte de Noce, who had owed me for a long time the end of the interrupted story which I related in the Theory of the Bed. [See Meditation XVII.]

“I have the honor to present to you the Marquise de T-----,” he said
to me.

I made a low bow to a lady whose face was pale and wrinkled; her forehead was surmounted by a toupee, whose flattened ringlets, ranged around it, deceived no one, but only emphasized, instead of concealing, the wrinkles by which it was deeply furrowed.  The lady was slightly roughed, and had the appearance of an old country actress.

“I do not see, sir, what you can say against a marriage such as ours,” said the old man to me.

“The laws of Rome forefend!” I cried, laughing.

The marchioness gave me a look filled with inquietude as well as disapprobation, which seemed to say, “Is it possible that at my age I have become but a concubine?”

We sat down upon a bench, in the gloomy clump of trees planted at the corner of the high terrace which commands La Place Louis XV, on the side of the Garde-Meuble.  Autumn had already begun to strip the trees of their foliage, and was scattering before our eyes the yellow leaves of his garland; but the sun nevertheless filled the air with grateful warmth.

“Well, is your work finished?” asked the old man, in the unctuous tones peculiar to men of the ancient aristocracy.

And with these words he gave a sardonic smile, as if for commentary.

“Very nearly, sir,” I replied.  “I have come to the philosophic situation, which you appear to have reached, but I confess that I—­”

“You are searching for ideas?” he added—­finishing for me a sentence, which I confess I did not know how to end.

“Well,” he continued, “you may boldly assume, that on arriving at the winter of his life, a man—­a man who thinks, I mean—­ends by denying that love has any existence, in the wild form with which our illusions invested it!”

“What! would you deny the existence of love on the day after that of marriage?”

“In the first place, the day after would be the very reason; but my marriage was a commercial speculation,” replied he, stooping to speak into my ear.  “I have thereby purchased the care, the attention, the services which I need; and I am certain to obtain all the consideration my age demands; for I have willed all my property to my nephew, and as my wife will be rich only during my life, you can imagine how—­”