Madame de Lamouderie's eyes lighted with the rapturous recollection. 'You have not forgotten! Nor I! Nor I! Not one word of our meeting have I forgotten!—Ah, Madame, your husband is a remarkable man; you will not deny that, I know.—One has only to glance at him and one sees genius on his brow.—So it was with me that day. I saw him painting there; silent; absorbed; unaware; I looked and looked. Then I made bold to speak. I could not pass him by. One does not twice in a lifetime meet young geniuses painting by the wayside. A menacing sky? Ah, it is you who are menacing;—you and your work.—If the sky looked to me in nature as it does on your canvas, I do not know that I should care to die under it. How should I face such a sky, when I cannot face my curé!—No; I do not face him, I am such a sinner.—Once a year the poor man climbs up to hear my confession (for I tell him that I am too old to go to his church—and that is a falsehood, to begin with; but a confessional fills me with dismay);—and I tell him to place himself on a chair; so;—while I sit here; so;—my back to him. And then I tell him all my enormities;—such enormities as an ancient, caged old woman can commit;—lies, evil tempers, gluttony; envy; malice;—what you will.—And while I tell, I see the poor cure stealing glances round over his shoulder at me—to be sure that he has heard aright.—A fat, red man with a hand on each knee.—Sometimes,' said the old lady, flown with the evident success of her recital, 'I tell him sins I have not committed to see what he will do!'
