Yet the native elegance of that face and form gave grace to his lassitude.  Boleslas, in the vigorous and supple maturity of his thirty-four years, realized one of those types of manly beauty so perfect that they resist the strongest tests.  The excesses of emotion, as those of libertinism, seem only to invest the man with a new prestige; the fact is that the novelist’s room, with its collection of books, photographs, engravings, paintings and moldings, invested that form, tortured by the bitter sufferings of passion, with a poesy to which Dorsenne could not remain altogether insensible.  The atmosphere, impregnated with Russian tobacco and the bluish vapor which filled the room, revealed in what manner the betrayed lover had diverted his impatience, and in the centre of the writing-table a cup with a bacchanal painted in red on a black ground, of which Julien was very proud, contained the remains of about thirty cigarettes, thrown aside almost as soon as lighted.  Their paper ends had been gnawed with a nervousness which betrayed the young man’s condition, while he repeated, in a tone so sad that it almost called forth a shudder: 

“Yes, I should have gone mad.”

“Calm yourself, my dear Boleslas, I implore you,” replied Dorsenne.  What had become of his ill-humor?  How could he preserve it in the presence of a person so evidently beside himself?  Julien continued, speaking to his companion as one speaks to a sick child:  “Come, be seated.  Be a little more tranquil, since I am here, and you have reason to count on my friendship.  Speak to me.  Explain to me what has happened.  If there is any advice to give you, I am ready.  I am prepared to render you a service.  My God!  In what a state you are!”

“Is it not so?” said the other, with a sort of ironical pride.  It was sufficient that he had a witness of his grief for him to display it with secret vanity.  “Is it not so?” he continued.  “Could you only know how I have suffered.  This is nothing,” said he, alluding to his haggard appearance.  “It is here that you should read,” he struck his breast, then passing his hands over his brow and his eyes, as if to exorcise a nightmare.  “You are right.  I must be calm, or I am lost.”

After a prolonged silence, during which he seemed to have gathered together his thoughts and to collect his will, for his voice had become decided and sharp, he began:  “You know that I am here unknown to any one, even to my wife.”

“I know it,” replied Dorsenne.  “I have just left the Countess.  This morning I visited the Palais Castagna with her, Hafner, Madame Maitland, Florent Chapron.”  He paused and added, thinking it better not to lie on minor points, “Madame Steno and Alba were there, too.”

“Any one else?” asked Boleslas, with so keen a glance that the author had to employ all his strength to reply: 

“No one else.”

There was a silence between the two men.