rubbed against the gauze dress, and the wreaths of flowers, and the
hair, slightly crimped, and the floating ends of the sash.

I had brought that young woman to Madame de Lanty's ball. As it was
her first visit to that house, I forgave her her stifled laugh; but I
hastily made an imperious sign which abashed her and inspired respect
for her neighbor. She sat down beside me. The old man did not choose
to leave the charming creature, to whom he clung capriciously with the
silent and apparently causeless obstinacy to which very old persons
are subject, and which makes them resemble children. In order to sit
down beside the young lady he needed a folding-chair. His slightest
movements were marked by the inert heaviness, the stupid hesitancy,
which characterize the movements of a paralytic. He sat slowly down
upon his chair with great caution, mumbling some unintelligible words.
His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a
well. The young woman nervously pressed my hand, as if she were trying
to avoid a precipice, and shivered when that man, at whom she happened
to be looking, turned upon her two lifeless, sea-green eyes, which
could be compared to nothing save tarnished mother-of-pearl.

"I am afraid," she said, putting her lips to my ear.

"You can speak," I replied; "he hears with great difficulty."

"You know him, then?"

"Yes."

Thereupon she summoned courage to scrutinize for a moment that
creature for which no human language has a name, form without