When he
had finished the Liszt Intermezzo and had begun a Prelude by Chopin, Mme.
de Cambremer turned to Mme. de Franquetot with a tender smile, full of
intimate reminiscence, as well as of satisfaction (that of a competent
judge) with the performance. She had been taught in her girlhood to fondle
and cherish those long-necked, sinuous creatures, the phrases of Chopin,
so free, so flexible, so tactile, which begin by seeking their ultimate
resting-place somewhere beyond and far wide of the direction in which they
started, the point which one might have expected them to reach, phrases
which divert themselves in those fantastic bypaths only to return more
deliberately--with a more premeditated reaction, with more precision, as
on a crystal bowl which, if you strike it, will ring and throb until you
cry aloud in anguish--to clutch at one's heart.
Brought up in a provincial household with few friends or visitors, hardly
ever invited to a ball, she had fuddled her mind, in the solitude of her
old manor-house, over setting the pace, now crawling-slow, now passionate,
whirling, breathless, for all those imaginary waltzing couples, gathering
them like flowers, leaving the ball-room for a moment to listen, where the
wind sighed among the pine-trees, on the shore of the lake, and seeing of
a sudden advancing towards her, more different from anything one had ever
dreamed of than earthly lovers are, a slender young man, whose voice was
resonant and strange and false, in white gloves.
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