Stationing himself at the corner, watching the fluttering skirts
and quick steps of the feminine feet on the sidewalk, he imagined that
the course of time must have turned backward, and that he was still but
eighteen--the same as when he used to hang around the establishments of
some celebrated modiste. The groups of women that at certain hours
came out of the palace suggested these former days. They were dressed
extremely quietly, the aspect of many of them as humble as that of the
seamstresses. But they were ladies of the well-to-do class, some even
coming in automobiles driven by chauffeurs in military uniform, because
they were ministerial vehicles.
These long waits often brought him unexpected encounters with the
elegant students who were going and coming.
"Desnoyers!" some feminine voices would exclaim behind him. "Isn't it
Desnoyers?"
And he would find himself obliged to relieve their doubts, saluting
the ladies who were looking at him as though he were a ghost. They were
friends of a remote epoch, of six months ago--ladies who had admired
and pursued him, trusting sweetly to his masterly wisdom to guide them
through the seven circles of the science of the tango. They were now
scrutinizing him as if between their last encounter and the present
moment had occurred a great cataclysm, transforming all the laws of
existence--as if he were the sole survivor of a vanished race.
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