Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 289
there. One overflows with serenity, with gayety, with ec-
stasy; one is a radiance amid the night. And there are a
thousand little cares. Nothings, which are enormous in that
void. The most ineffable accents of the feminine voice em-
ployed to lull you, and supplying the vanished universe to
you. One is caressed with the soul. One sees nothing, but
one feels that one is adored. It is a paradise of shadows.
It was from this paradise that Monseigneur Welcome
had passed to the other.
The announcement of his death was reprinted by the lo-
cal journal of M. sur M. On the following day, M. Madeleine
appeared clad wholly in black, and with crape on his hat.
This mourning was noticed in the town, and commented
on. It seemed to throw a light on M. Madeleine’s origin. It
was concluded that some relationship existed between him
and the venerable Bishop. ‘He has gone into mourning for
the Bishop of D——‘ said the drawing-rooms; this raised M.
Madeleine’s credit greatly, and procured for him, instantly
and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world
of M. sur M. The microscopic Faubourg Saint-Germain
of the place meditated raising the quarantine against M.
Madeleine, the probable relative of a bishop. M. Madeleine
perceived the advancement which he had obtained, by the
more numerous courtesies of the old women and the more
plentiful smiles of the young ones. One evening, a ruler in
that petty great world, who was curious by right of senior-
ity, ventured to ask him, ‘M. le Maire is doubtless a cousin
of the late Bishop of D——?’
He said, ‘No, Madame.’