She,
also, was beginning to despair. Their dreams were being completely
shattered. They stood silent, face to face, in the yellow drawing-room.
The day was drawing to a close, a murky winter day which imparted a
muddy tint to the orange-coloured wall-paper with its large flower
pattern; never had the room looked more faded, more mean, more shabby.
And at this hour they were alone; they no longer had a crowd of
courtiers congratulating them, as on the previous evening. A single
day had sufficed to topple them over, at the very moment when they were
singing victory. If the situation did not change on the morrow their
game would be lost.
Felicite who, when gazing on the previous evening at the ruins of
the yellow drawing-room, had thought of the plains of Austerlitz, now
recalled the accursed field of Waterloo as she observed how mournful
and deserted the place was. Then, as her husband said nothing, she
mechanically went to the window--that window where she had inhaled with
delight the incense of the entire town. She perceived numerous groups
below on the square, but she closed the blinds upon seeing some heads
turn towards their house, for she feared that she might be hooted. She
felt quite sure that those people were speaking about them.
Indeed, voices rose through the twilight. A lawyer was clamouring in the
tone of a triumphant pleader. "That's just what I said; the insurgents
left of their own accord, and they won't ask the permission of the
forty-one to come back.
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