“In his time,” said Bianchon, “the censor flourished; you must show as much indulgence to a man who underwent the ordeal by scissors in 1805 as to those who went to the scaffold in 1793.” “Do you understand in the least?” asked Madame Gorju timidly of Madame de Clagny. The Public Prosecutor’s wife, who, to use a phrase of Monsieur Gravier’s, might have put a Cossack to flight in 1814, straightened herself in her chair like a horseman in his stirrups, and made a face at her neighbor, conveying, “They are looking at us; we must smile as if we understood.” “Charming!” said the Mayoress to Gatien. “Pray go on, Monsieur Lousteau.” Lousteau looked at the two women, two Indian idols, and contrived to keep his countenance. He thought it desirable to say, “Attention!” before going on as follows:-- OR ROMAN REVENGE 209 dress rustled in the silence. Sud denly Cardinal Borborigano stood before the Duchess. “His face was gloomy, his brow was dark with clouds, and a bitter smile lurked in his wrinkles. “Madame,” said he, “you are under suspicion. If you are guilty, fly. If you are not, still fly; because, whether criminal or innocent, you will find it easier to defend yourself from a distance.” “I thank your Eminence for your solicitude,” said she. “The Duke of Bracciano will reappear when I find it needful to prove that he is alive.” “Cardinal Borborigano!” exclaimed Bianchon. “By the Pope’s keys! If you do not agree with me that there is a magnificent creation in the very name, if at those words _dress rustled in the silence_ you do not feel all the poetry thrown into the part of Schedoni by Mrs. Radcliffe in _The Black Penitent_, you do not deserve to read a romance.” “For my part,” said Dinah, who had some pity on the eighteen faces gazing up at Lousteau, “I see how the story is progressing. I know it all. I am in Rome; I can see the body of a murdered husband whose wife, as bold as she is wicked, has made her bed on the crater of a volcano. Every night, at every kiss, she says to herself, ‘All will be discovered!’” “Can you see her,” said Lousteau, “clasping Monsieur Adolphe in her arms, to her heart, throwing her whole life into a kiss?--Adolphe I see as a well-made young man, but not clever--the sort of man an Italian woman likes. Rinaldo hovers behind the scenes of a plot we do not know, but which must be as full of incident as a melodrama by Pixerecourt. Or we can imagine Rinaldo crossing the stage in the background like a figure in one of Victor Hugo’s plays.” “He, perhaps, is the husband,” exclaimed Madame de la Baudraye. “Do you understand anything of it all?” Madame Piedefer asked of the Presidente. “Why, it is charming!” said Dinah to her mother. All the good folks of Sancerre sat with eyes as large as five-franc pieces. “Go on, I beg,” said the hostess. Lousteau went on:-- 210 OLYMPIA “Your key----” “Have you lost it?” “It is in the arbor.”