"That lady in black over there?"
"The very one. She's wearing mourning for her daughter, whom she killed."
"You don't mean that seriously? How did she die?"
"Oh! it is a very simple story, without any crime in it, any violence."
"Then what really happened?"
"Almost nothing. Many courtesans are born to be virtuous women, they say; and many
women called virtuous are born to be courtesans--is that not so? Now, Madame Samoris,
who was born a courtesan, had a daughter born a virtuous woman, that's all."
"I don't quite understand you."
"I'll--explain what I mean. The comtesse is nothing but a common, ordinary parvenue
originating no one knows where. A Hungarian or Wallachian countess or I know not
what. She appeared one winter in apartments she had taken in the Champs Elysees, that
quarter for adventurers and adventuresses, and opened her drawing-room to the first
comer or to any one that turned up.
"I went there. Why? you will say. I really can't tell you. I went there, as every one goes to
such places because the women are facile and the men are dishonest. You know that set
composed of filibusters with varied decorations, all noble, all titled, all unknown at the
embassies, with the exception of those who are spies. All talk of their honor without the
slightest occasion for doing so, boast of their ancestors, tell you about their lives,
braggarts, liars, sharpers, as dangerous as the false cards they have up their sleeves, as
delusive as their names-- in short, the aristocracy of the bagnio.
"I adore these people. They are interesting to study, interesting to know, amusing to
understand, often clever, never commonplace like public functionaries. Their wives are
always pretty, with a slight flavor of foreign roguery, with the mystery of their existence,
half of it perhaps spent in a house of correction. They have, as a rule, magnificent eyes
and incredible hair. I adore them also.
"Madame Samoris is the type of these adventuresses, elegant, mature and still beautiful.
Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to the marrow of their bones.
You find them very amusing when you visit them; they give card parties; they have
dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the pleasures of social life.
