Next day they did almost the same again. He found Corinne in front of her mirror, perched on a high stool, swinging her legs; she was trying on a wig. Her dresser was there and a hairdresser of the town to whom she was giving instructions about a curl which she wished to have higher up. As she looked in the glass she saw Christophe smiling behind her back; she put out her tongue at him. The hairdresser went away with the wig and she turned gaily to Christophe:
“Good day, my friend!” she said.
She held up her cheek to be kissed. He had not expected such intimacy, but he took advantage of it all the same. She did not attach so much importance to the favor; it was to her a greeting like any other.
“Oh! I am happy!” said she. “It will do very well tonight.” (She was talking of her wig.) “I was so wretched! If you had come this morning you would have found me absolutely miserable.”
He asked why.
It was because the Parisian hairdresser had made a mistake in packing and had sent a wig which was not suitable to the part.
“Quite flat,” she said, “and falling straight down. When I saw it I wept like a Magdalen. Didn’t I, Désirée?”
“When I came in,” said Désirée, “I was afraid for Madame. Madame was quite white. Madame looked like death.”
Christophe laughed. Corinne saw him in her mirror:
“Heartless wretch; it makes you laugh,” she said indignantly.
She began to laugh too.
He asked her how the rehearsal had gone. Everything had gone off well. She would have liked the other parts to be cut more and her own less. They talked so much that they wasted part of the afternoon. She dressed slowly; she amused herself by asking Christophe’s opinion about her dresses. Christophe praised her elegance and told her naively in his Franco-German jargon, that he had never seen anybody so “luxurious.” She looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“What have I said?” he asked. “Have I said anything wrong?”
“Yes, yes,” she cried, rocking with laughter. “You have indeed.”
At last they went out. Her striking costume and her exuberant chatter attracted attention. She looked at everything with her mocking eyes and made no effort to conceal her impressions. She chuckled at the dressmakers’ shops, and at the picture postcard shops in which sentimental scenes, comic and obscene drawings, the town prostitutes, the imperial family, the Emperor as a sea-dog holding the wheel of the Germania and defying the heavens, were all thrown together higgledy-piggledy. She giggled at a dinner-service decoration with Wagner’s cross-grained face, or at a hairdresser’s shopwindow in which there was the wax head of a man. She made no attempt to modify her hilarity over the patriotic monument representing the old Emperor in a traveling coat and a peaked cap, together with Prussia, the German States, and a nude Genius of War. She made remarks about anything in the faces of the people or their way of speaking that struck her as funny. Her victims were left in no doubt about it as she maliciously picked out their absurdities. Her instinctive mimicry made her sometimes imitate with her mouth and nose their broad grimaces and frowns, without thinking; and she would blow out her cheeks as she repeated fragments of sentences and words that struck her as grotesque in sound as she caught them. He laughed heartily and was not at all embarrassed by her impertinence, for he was no longer easily embarrassed. Fortunately he had no great reputation to lose, or his walk would have ruined it forever.
They visited the cathedral. Corinne wanted to go to the top of the spire, in spite of her high heels, and long dress which swept the stairs or was caught in a corner of the staircase; she did not worry about it, but pulled the stuff which split, and went on climbing, holding it up. She wanted very much to ring the bells. From the top of the tower she declaimed Victor Hugo (he did not understand it), and sang a popular French song. After that she played the muezzin. Dusk was falling. They went down into the cathedral where the dark shadows were creeping along the gigantic walls in which the magic eyes of the windows were shining. Kneeling in one of the side chapels, Christophe saw the girl who had shared his box at Hamlet. She was so absorbed in her prayers that she did not see him: he saw that she was looking sad and strained. He would have liked to speak to her, just to say, “How do you do?” but Corinne dragged him off like a whirlwind.
They parted soon afterwards. She had to get ready for the performance, which began early, as usual in Germany. He had hardly reached home when there was a ring at the door and a letter from Corinne was handed in:
“Luck! Jezebel ill! No performance! No school! Come! Let us dine together! Your friend,
It was some time before he understood. When he did understand he was as happy as Corinne, and went to the hotel at once. He was afraid of finding the whole company assembled at dinner; but he saw nobody. Corinne herself was not there. At last he heard her laughing voice at the back of the house: he went to look for her and found her in the kitchen. She had taken it into her head to cook a dish in her own way, one of those southern dishes which fills the whole neighborhood with its aroma and would awaken a stone. She was on excellent terms with the large proprietress of the hotel, and they were jabbering in a horrible jargon that was a mixture of German, French, and negro, though there is no word to describe
