The Fear of Living by Henry Bordeaux

"We might perhaps go in to dinner," M. Dulaurens timidly ventured to suggest.

Upon the look which his wife threw at him he left the immediate neighborhood of the fireplace, where some enormous oak-logs were burning, and modestly seated himself at the side. Turning to her guests, Madame Dulaurens smiled and showed them a calendar with the date February 25th inscribed thereon in huge letters. Mademoiselle de Songeon, old and dried-up, drew nearer and seemed to take a special interest in the flight of time. In reality her only thought was to get possession of the corner near the fire. She had just come back from Rome. In winter she paid attention only to the southern shrines; and to accomplish this last pilgrimage she had had to seize hastily the cattle of a farmer whose rent was in arrears. While warming her large feet she considered the calendar.

"But it says the twenty-fifth of February, 1898! " she exclaimed after reading it, "and we are now at the twenty-fifth of February, 1901. You are exactly three years behind the time!"

All the ladies except Alice got up to confirm this. The calendar was passed from hand to hand. Madame Orlandi, who was holding Pistache to her heart -- an old, fat, bald Pistache, whose heavy eyelids fell over bleary eyes -- cried out astonished and proud of her own penetration.

"Oh, _I_ know! You have kept it at the date of your daughter's wedding. To-day is the third anniversary. How clever and delicate your motherly love is! You are _so_ sympathetic, dear Madame Dulaurens. I too love to keep souvenirs."

"I'll wager you don't remember the date of my wedding, Mamma," said Isabelle, now Madame Landeau.

"Oh, you dreadful Isabelle! You're always ready with a jest," said her mother.

And, with diplomacy which lacked subtlety, the Italian countess bent over her pug and covered him with caresses.

Seeing all her guests busy, Madame Dulaurens threw a hasty glance at the clock and saw that it was a quarter to eight. Dinner was ordered for seven, and in the provinces punctuality is strictly observed.

"My dear little countess, did you see anything of Clément this afternoon? " she asked her daughter, who sat silent and absent-minded.

"No, Mamma," answered Alice, in a low voice.

Four or five months after Marcel Guibert's departure, the despairing Alice, crushed and submissive, had married, at her clever mother's bidding, Count Armand de Marthenay, then Lieutenant of the 4th Dragoons at Chambéry. For the third time they were celebrating her "happiness. " Her maidenly languor and supple slenderness had changed to depression and leanness. Her limpid eyes and the drooping corners of her mouth told of profound and habitual sorrow. Without losing their refinement her features had altered. Through a greater prominence of the cheek-bones, a more pronounced thinness of the nose, a fading of color in the cheeks, the old expression of youth and innocence had given place to a sad little air of fragile resignation. She bore the marks of a sorrow which filled her life and of which her husband was certainly quite aware. To be convinced of this, it was sufficient to look at the heavy, pimply visage behind her -- the vacant face of a man prematurely worn out.

The house at Chambéry where the Dulaurenses lived in the winter reminded one in its massive structure and the pillars of its staircase of the showy palaces in Genoa the Magnificent. The drawing-room looked on to the Place Saint-Léger in the centre of the town. Ten lamps lighted up the vast room that evening, but were not sufficient to show off the fine old high-timbered ceiling.

Madame Dulaurens anxiously left her daughter, and drawing back the window-curtain looked out into the square, which she saw by the gas-jets flickering in the keen frosty air, was quite empty. She drew down the blind and looked at the party. They seem so interested in their talk that she decided to wait a few minutes longer.

"Madame Orlandi, who is always late, came too soon to-day," she thought rather spitefully.

Round the fireplace the women were listening to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who was describing the catacombs at Rome with the devotion of a catechumen. Madame Orlandi, artlessly devoid of morality and unskilled at suitable comparisons, said she preferred the ruins at Pompeii, because the pictures there were so diverting. Mesdames de Lavernay and d'Amberlard, mature and solemn women, had no opinion at all. Their aristocracy was very pleasing to Madame Dulaurens, who gladly advertised their origin. They were well-bred, and valued existence according to the number and the importance of the invitations that they managed to procure for themselves. Their husbands, a pair of practised parasites, had retained a distinguished air from the old royalist days. They had the right prejudices, were sincerely ignorant of modern life, and sought pleasure unceasingly. Baron d'Amberlard had high color and liked good living; the Marquis de Lavernay, still young in spite of his white hair, reserved his polite speeches concerning feminine beauty.

The latter had just come from the Court of Sessions and was giving a group of men his impressions of the jury.

"You condemn a thief and let a child-murderer go scot-free," said M. Dulaurens. But the nervous little man hastened to add: "Please note that I am not criticising you."

M. de Lavernay laughed unreservedly.

"Ah, my dear fellow, if we sentenced child-murderers we should never have any servants."