But if the thought of actors weighed so upon me, if the sight of Maubant,
coming out one afternoon from the Theatre-Francais, had plunged me in the
throes and sufferings of hopeless love, how much more did the name of a
'star,' blazing outside the doors of a theatre, how much more, seen
through the window of a brougham which passed me in the street, the hair
over her forehead abloom with roses, did the face of a woman who, I would
think, was perhaps an actress, leave with me a lasting disturbance, a
futile and painful effort to form a picture of her private life.
I classified, in order of talent, the most distinguished: Sarah Bernhardt,
Berma, Bartet, Madeleine Brohan, Jeanne Samary; but I was interested in
them all. Now my uncle knew many of them personally, and also ladies of
another class, not clearly distinguished from actresses in my mind. He
used to entertain them at his house. And if we went to see him on certain
days only, that was because on the other days ladies might come whom his
family could not very well have met. So we at least thought; as for my
uncle, his fatal readiness to pay pretty widows (who had perhaps never
been married) and countesses (whose high-sounding titles were probably no
more than _noms de guerre_) the compliment of presenting them to my
grandmother or even of presenting to them some of our family jewels, had
already embroiled him more than once with my grandfather.
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