Her
muzzle--that's what she calls the lower part of her face--has, as
Shakespeare expresses it, the savor of a heifer's nose. She can make a
man unhappy. She likes handsome men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts,
clowns. Her trainer, a horrible brute, used to beat her to make her
supple, and graceful, and intrepid--"
"You are positively intoxicated with Malaga."
"Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters," said Paz, with a
piqued air. "She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment
on the third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two
lives, her circus life and the life of a pretty woman."
"Does she love you?"
"She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I'm a Pole. She saw
an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,--for
all France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is
impossible to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski
and his followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am
very unhappy, madame."
A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess.
"You men have such a passion for singularity."
"And you?" said Thaddeus.
"I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for some
mountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?"
"At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day.
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