Presently, the countess came gently down the
fir-tree, letting herself swing easily on the branches, as the wind
swayed them. At each branch she stopped to examine the stranger; but
seeing him motionless, she at last sprang to the ground and came
slowly towards him across the grass. When she reached a tree about ten
feet distant, against which she leaned, Monsieur Fanjat said to the
colonel in a low voice,--
"Take out, adroitly, from my right hand pocket some lumps of sugar you
will feel there. Show them to her, and she will come to us. I will
renounce in your favor my sole means of giving her pleasure. With
sugar, which she passionately loves, you will accustom her to approach
you, and to know you again."
"When she was a woman," said Philippe, sadly, "she had no taste for
sweet things."
When the colonel showed her the lump of sugar, holding it between the
thumb and forefinger of his right hand, she again uttered her little
wild cry, and sprang toward him; then she stopped, struggling against
the instinctive fear he caused her; she looked at the sugar and turned
away her head alternately, precisely like a dog whose master forbids
him to touch his food until he has said a letter of the alphabet which
he slowly repeats. At last the animal desire triumphed over fear.
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