Explore "Useless Beauty" by Guy De Maupassant on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A fashionable victoria, drawn by two magnificent black horses, stood at the doorstep of the mansion. It was about half past five on an evening towards the end of June, and between the gables which fenced the courtyard, gleamed the sky, full of bright light, heat and brilliance.
The Comtesse de Mascaret appeared on the doorstep exactly at the moment in which her husband, who was coming home, reached the gateway. He stopped for several seconds to watch his wife, and turned a little pale. She was very lovely, supple, noticeable for her long oval face, her complexion of old ivory, and her large grey eyes and black hair: she stepped into the carriage without glancing at him, without even appearing to have seen him, with a grace so extraordinarily well-bred that the hideous jealousy by which he had been so long devoured tore at his heart afresh. He went up to her, and, bowing: