It was in this
yellow carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this
route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw him
opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds gathered; it
seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz under the light of
the lustres on the arm of the Viscount, and that Leon was not far away,
that he was coming; and yet all the time she was conscious of the scent
of Rodolphe's head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced
through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust
of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which
suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to drink
in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took off her gloves,
she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with her handkerchief, while
athwart the throbbing of her temples she heard the murmur of the
crowd and the voice of the councillor intoning his phrases. He
said--"Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions of
routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash empiricism.
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