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In short, this severe widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did not abdicate, and remained–although married–more than ever the widow of a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed him with her disdain, with a kind of vague pity, and unexpressed and offensive regret at her condescending marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude, she would at times read over with him the letters the great man had written to her when he was courting her. This return towards the past rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a handsome and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and delightful exaggeration of written passion. That she had since then changed her young husband cared little, loving her on the faith of another, and drawing therefrom I know not what strange kind of vanity. It seemed to him that these passionate appeals added to his own, and that he inherited a whole past of love.

A strange couple indeed! It was in society, however, that they presented the most curious spectacle. I sometimes caught sight of them at the theatre. No one would have recognized the timid and shy young woman, who formerly accompanied the maestro, lost in the gigantic shadow he cast around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the box, she displayed herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her own glance. It might be said that her head was surrounded by her first husband’s halo of glory, his name re-echoing around her like a homage or a reproach. The other one, seated a little behind her, with the subservient physiognomy of one ready for every abnegation in life, watched each of her movements, ready to attend to her slightest wish.

At home, the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their marriage. The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but rather embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house. The wife, disdainful, melancholy, and very superior, was on that evening more than ever the widow of a great man! She had a peculiar way of glancing at her husband from over her shoulder, of calling him “my poor dear friend,” of casting on him all the wearisome drudgery of the reception, with an air of saying: “You are only fit for that.” Around her gathered a circle of former friends, those who had been spectators of the brilliant debuts of the great man, of his struggles, and his success. She simpered to them; played the young girl! They had known her so young! Nearly all of them called her by her Christian name, “Anais.” They formed a kind of conaculum, which the poor husband respectfully approached, to hear his predecessor spoken of. They recalled the glorious first nights, those evenings on which nearly every battle was won, and the great man’s manias, his way of working; how, in order to summon up inspiration, he insisted on his wife being by his side, decked out in full ball dress. “Do you remember, Anais?” And Anais sighed and blushed.

It was at that time that he had written his most tender pieces, above all Savonarole, the most passionate of his creations, with a grand duet, interwoven with rays of moonshine, the perfume of roses and the warbling of nightingales. An enthusiast sat down and played it on the piano, amid a silence of attentive emotion. At the last note of the magnificent piece, the lady burst into tears. “I cannot help it,” she said, “I have never been able to hear it without weeping.” The great man’s old friends surrounded his unhappy widow with sympathetic expressions, coming up to her one by one, like at a funereal ceremony, to give a thrilling clasp to her hand. “Come, come, Anais, be courageous.” And the drollest thing was to see the second husband, standing by the side of his wife, deeply touched and affected, shaking hands all round, and accepting, he too, his share of sympathy. “What genius! what genius!” he repeated as he mopped his eyes. It was at the same time ridiculous and affecting.