When Antoinette approached, she fixed on her a keen, penetrating glance, examined her from head to foot, passed all her perfections in review:  one might have taken her for some Normandy farmer at a cattle-fair.  The result of this investigation was satisfactory; the princess cried, “Truly she does very well!” and proceeded to assert that Mlle. Moriaz greatly resembled a certain person who had played a certain role in a certain adventure that she undertook to narrate.  She had scarcely finished this recital when she entered on another.  Mme. de Lorcy was on thorns.  She knew by experience that the anecdotes of Princess Gulof were ordinarily somewhat indelicate and ill-suited to maiden ears.  She watched Antoinette anxiously, and, when she saw the approach of an especially objectionable passage, she was suddenly seized with a fit of coughing.  The princess, comprehending the significance of that, made an effort to gloss over, but her glossings were very transparent.  Mme. de Lorcy coughed anew, and the princess ended by losing patience, and, brusquely interrupting herself, exclaimed:  “And this, that, and the other, etc.  Thus ended the adventure.”

Mlle. Moriaz listened with an astonished air, not in the least understanding these attacks of coughing and these interruptions, nor divining the significance of the constant repetition of “this, that, and the other, etc.”  Princess Gulof struck her as a very eccentric and unpleasantly brusque person; she even suspected her of being slightly deranged or at least rather crack-brained; yet she was pleased with her for being present upon this especial occasion and sparing her a tete-a-tete with Mme. de Lorcy with its disagreeable explanations and unpleasant discussions.

She remained nearly an hour, planted on a chair, watching with a sort of stupor the turning of the fan of this word-mill, whose clapper kept up such an incessant noise.  After having criticised to her heart’s content her neighbours, including under that title emperors and grand-dukes, and having abundantly multiplied the et ceteras, Princess Gulof suddenly turned the conversation to physiology:  this science, whose depths she believed herself to have fathomed, was, in her estimation, the secret of everything, the Alpha and Omega of human life.  She exposed certain materialistic views, making use of expressions that shocked the modest and delicate ears of Mlle. Moriaz.  The astonishment the latter had at first experienced became now blended with horror and disgust; she judged that her visit had lasted long enough, and she proceeded to beat a retreat, which Mme. de Lorcy made no effort to prevent.

Upon arriving at Cormeilles, her carriage crossed with a young man on horseback, who with his head bowed down allowed his animal full liberty to take his own course.  This young man trembled when a clear, soprano voice, which he preferred to the most beautiful music in the world, cried to him, “Where are you going, Camille?”