That tremendous
finale might serve as the symbol of an epoch in which for the last
fifty years all things have hurried by with the rapidity of a dream.
Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and
immaculate image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the
carnival dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he
knew the countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with
two friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on at
the curious spectacle of one of these crowded balls.
On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o'clock in the morning,
the countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower step
of the platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since then
given his concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading the
galop with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with
plumes like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like
a will-o-the-wisp.
"Ah!" said Clementine to her husband, "you Poles have no honor at all!
I did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leave
that woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen."
A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinner
Adam left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let him
know very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house any
longer.
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