V.
Since the departure of his friend, the Count of Kehlmark had had no rest. He found it impossible to stay for five minutes in the same place. His agitation increased as the distant Fair approached its culminating point of frenzy. He was choking like one in expectation of a storm that is slow to burst.
"What a wild tempest of pleasure," said he to Blandine, who tried maternally to soothe him and to distract him from his depression. "Never before have they carried on such pandemonium! To hear their shouts we might think they were amusing themselves by cutting one another's throats."
For years the mad cacophony, the hullabaloo of the fair, the fire-works, whistlings, organs and trumpets, had not reached him in such violent and significant gusts. This day moreover, the electric atmosphere was surcharged with thick breaths of perspiration,
