Adieu by Honore de Balzac - A complete eBook in pages (11 / 45)

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Adieu by Honore de Balzac
Book, page 11 / 45

the shower of drops that glittered down, looking, as the sunlight
struck athwart them, like a chaplet of pearls.

"That woman is mad!" cried the marquis.

A hoarse cry, uttered by Genevieve, seemed uttered as a warning to the
unknown woman, who turned suddenly, throwing back her hair from either
side of her face. At this instant the colonel and Monsieur d'Albon
could distinctly see her features; she, herself, perceiving the two
friends, sprang to the iron railing with the lightness and rapidity of
a deer.

"Adieu!" she said, in a soft, harmonious voice, the melody of which
did not convey the slightest feeling or the slightest thought.

Monsieur d'Albon admired the long lashes of her eyelids, the blackness
of her eyebrows, and the dazzling whiteness of a skin devoid of even
the faintest tinge of color. Tiny blue veins alone broke the
uniformity of its pure white tones. When the marquis turned to his
friend as if to share with him his amazement at the sight of this
singular creature, he found him stretched on the ground as if dead.
D'Albon fired his gun in the air to summon assistance, crying out
"Help! help!" and then endeavored to revive the colonel. At the sound
of the shot, the unknown woman, who had hitherto stood motionless,
fled away with the rapidity of an arrow, uttering cries of fear like a
wounded animal, and running hither and thither about the meadow with
every sign of the greatest terror.

Monsieur d'Albon, hearing the rumbling of a carriage on the high-road
to Ile-Adam, waved his handkerchief and shouted to its occupants for
assistance. The carriage was immediately driven up to the old
monastery, and the marquis recognized his neighbors, Monsieur and
Madame de Granville, who at once gave up their carriage to the service
of the two gentlemen. Madame de Granville had with her, by chance, a
bottle of salts, which revived the colonel for a moment. When he
opened his eyes he turned them to the meadow, where the unknown woman
was still running and uttering her distressing cries. A smothered
exclamation escaped him, which seemed to express a sense of horror;
then he closed his eyes again, and made a gesture as if to implore his
friend to remove him from that sight.

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