Fort Comme La Mort. Duchoux. Old Amable (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...dear Countess? I am afraid of catching cold and getting neuralgia.' "Oh, yes," she answered. She sat down upon a haystack, mowed that very morning to give the players a clear field, and with her heart suddenly a little sad, looked on. Her daughter exasperated by her continual failures, was getting animated, excited, dashing impetuously from one end of the court to the other with cries of vexation or triumph. Her violent motions would often loosen locks of hair which fell upon her shoulders, which she would seize impatiently, and with the racket held between her knees, fasten them up again, sticking hairpins here and there in the soft mass. And Bertin, from afar, would shout to the Countess: "Hein isn't she pretty now, and fresh as day?" Yes, she was young, she might run, get warm, red, loosen her hair, defy or dare everything, for everything made her only more beautiful. Then, when they resumed their vigorous play, the Countess more and more melancholy, felt that Olivier preferred that game of tennis, that childish excitement, that enjoyment of little kittens jumping after paper balls, to the sweetness of sitting by her side that warm morning, and her loving pressure against him. When the bell, at a distance, sounded the first signal for breakfast, it seemed to her that she was set free, that a weight was taken from her heart. But as she returned, leaning on his arm, he said to her: "I have been amusing myself like a little boy. It is a capital thing to be, or to feel, young. Yes, indeed There is nothing like it. When we do not care to run any more we are done for." After breakfast, the Countess, who for the first time on the day before had omitted her visit to the cemetery, proposed that they should go...