All talked at once, and she replied, as they walked toward the carriages, which waited in a court of honor capable of holding seventy gala chariots.  One after the other these carriages advanced.  The horses pawed the ground; the harnesses shone; the footmen and coachmen were dressed in perfect liveries; the porter of the Palais Castagna, with his long redingote, on the buttons of which were the symbolical chestnuts of the family, had beneath his laced hat such a dignified bearing that Julien suddenly found it absurd to have imagined an impassioned drama in connection with such people.  The last one left, while watching the others depart, he once more experienced the sensation so common to those who are familiar with the worst side of the splendor of society and who perceive in them the moral misery and ironical gayety.

“You are becoming a great simpleton, my friend, Dorsenne,” said he, seating himself more democratically in one of those open cabs called in Rome a botte.  “To fear a tragical adventure for the woman who is mistress of herself to such a degree is something like casting one’s self into the water to prevent a shark from drowning.  If she had not upon her lips Maitland’s kisses, and in her eyes the memory of happiness, I am very much mistaken.  She came from a rendezvous.  It was written for me, in her toilette, in the color upon her cheeks, in her tiny shoes, easy to remove, which had not taken thirty steps.  And with what mastery she uttered her string of falsehoods!  Her daughter, Madame Gorka, Madame Maitland, how quickly she included them all!  That is why I do not like the theatre, where one finds the actress who employs that tone to utter her:  ‘Is the master not here?’”

He laughed aloud, then his thoughts, relieved of all anxiety, took a new course, and, using the word of German origin familiar to Cosmopolitans, to express an absurd action, he said:  “I have made a pretty schlemylade, as Hafner would say, in relating to Florent Gorka’s unexpected arrival.  It was just the same as telling him that Maitland was the Countess’s lover.  That is a conversation at which I should like to assist, that which will take place between the two brothers-in-law.  Should I be very much surprised to learn that this unattached negro is the confidant of his great friend?  It is a subject to paint, which has never been well treated; the passionate friendships of a Tattet for a Musset, of an Eckermann for a Goethe, of an Asselineau for a Beaudelaire, the total absorption of the admirer in the admired.  Florent found that the genius of the great painter had need of a fortune, and he gave him his sister.  Were he to find that that genius required a passion in order to develop still more, he would not object.  My word of honor!  He glanced at the Countess just now with gratitude!  Why not, after all?  Lincoln is a colorist of the highest order, although his desire to be with the tide has led him into too many imitations.  But it is his race.  Young Madame Maitland has as much sense as the handle of a basket; and Madame Steno is one of those extraordinary women truly created to exalt the ideals of an artist.  Never has he painted anything as he painted the portrait of Alba.  I can hear this dialogue: