Les douze nouvelles nouvelles

Les douze nouvelles nouvelles

Arsene Houssaye

5.0
Comment(s)
24
View
74
Chapters

Les douze nouvelles nouvelles

Les douze nouvelles nouvelles Chapter 1 No.1

Ils valsaient avec emportement, mais avec abandon, ce qui est la grace suprême de la valse. Il y avait un peu de l'épervier qui enlève une colombe. On lui en voulait presque, à lui, de sa rapidité vertigineuse, mais on voyait bien que la jeune fille se livrait sans peur, enivrée par le tourbillon.

Et quand ce fut fini, elle lui dit, tout en se dégageant:

-Avec qui, monsieur, ai-je eu le plaisir de valser dans cette réunion selected?

-Oh! mon Dieu, mademoiselle, un nom ridicule; je ne descends ni des croisés ni de l'Oeil-de-Boeuf. Je m'appelle tout bêtement M. Arthur Dupont. Maintenant, si vous êtes curieuse de savoir ma profession, je suis auditeur au Conseil d'état, profession tout aussi ridicule que l'est mon nom.

Un physionomiste qui e?t étudié la figure de la jeune fille aurait bien vu passer un nuage sur l'enjouement passionné de la valseuse. Elle retombait sur la terre du haut de son envolement amoureux.

Arthur Dupont! porter dans le monde un nom qui n'est pas mondain, n'est-ce pas y para?tre dans un habit mal fait, avec une cravate mal mise?

La jeune fille reprit son fauteuil avec un sourire impertinent, se disant tout bas: ?Auditeur au Conseil d'état! En effet, il a de grandes oreilles.?

Parti pris, car Arthur Dupont avait de jolies oreilles. C'était d'ailleurs ce qu'on peut appeler un joli valseur, qui ne déparait ni le monde où l'on s'amuse ni le monde où l'on s'ennuie; profil à peu près correct, front lumineux, yeux vifs, bouche spirituelle.

Sa valseuse était sévère; on peut bien s'appeler Arthur Dupont sans encourir les foudres de la mode.. C'est que cette valseuse avait été élevée par sa mère à jouer les Célimènes, celles qui n'aiment que leurs robes, leur éventail et leur beauté,-même quand elles ne sont pas belles. Il est vrai que celle-ci était bien jolie: figure parisienne à donner le vertige à ceux qui n'ont pas couru les filles du demi-monde. Ce qui surtout couronnait son air impertinent, c'est qu'elle portait un grand nom, que je masquerai ici par celui de Laure de Montaignac.

Une de ses amies la félicita d'avoir si bien valsé avec un si bon valseur.

-Je ne m'en souviens pas, dit-elle d'un air distrait.

Vint une autre valse. Elle prit un mauvais valseur; elle en faillit briser son éventail. Aussi Arthur Dupont fut-il le bienvenu quand il se présenta pour la troisième valse. Elle s'avoua alors que le nom ne faisait pas l'homme. Ce fut un si joli spectacle de les voir, elle et lui, valser en tourbillonnant, que tout le monde applaudit comme si on e?t entendu chanter la Patti et jouer Sarah Bernhardt. Laure s'indigna.

-Me prend-on pour une comédienne? Je valse pour moi et non pour la galerie.

Ceci se passait à l'ambassade d'Espagne. Le lendemain, autre fête chez Mme Mackay; nouvelles valses; les oreilles parurent moins grandes, le nom moins vulgaire, tandis que le valseur parut plus entra?nant.

Cela continua toute la semaine, si bien que le bruit se répandit dans le monde que M. Arthur Dupont épousait Mlle Laure de Montaignac.

-Pourquoi pas? dit Arthur à Laure.

Mais Laure répondit à Arthur:

-Comment voulez-vous que je change mon nom contre le v?tre? Ah! si vous étiez tout à coup, par un miracle, un homme d'état, un ambassadeur, un grand poète, un grand peintre....

-Je ne suis, hélas! rien de tout cela, dit le valseur avec amertume.

Il aimait follement Laure, il ne se croyait pas à une si grande distance de l'idéal de la jeune fille.

-Encore, lui dit-elle avec un soupir, si vous aviez une écurie et un four in hands!

-Qu'à cela ne tienne, s'écria Arthur en lui saisissant la main. Vous savez que j'ai quelque fortune; dès demain j'aurai une écurie, co?te que co?te. Où la voulez-vous!

-A Chantilly, pour le plus beau rally-papers d'outre-Manche.

Continue Reading

You'll also like

Reborn Heiress: The Wolf's Vengeance Deal

Reborn Heiress: The Wolf's Vengeance Deal

Sibeal Sallese
5.0

I lay paralyzed on stiff white sheets, a prisoner in my own skin, listening to the rain lash against the window like nails on a coffin. My father, Elmore Franco, didn't even look at my face as he checked his clipboard. He just listened to the steady, monotonous beep of the heart monitor-the only thing proving I was still alive. Without a hint of remorse, he pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. My stepmother, Ophelia, stepped out from behind him, wearing my favorite pearl necklace and smelling of cloying perfume. She leaned close to my ear to whisper the truth that turned my blood to ice. "It was the tea, darling. Just like your mother. A slow, tasteless poison." She chuckled as she revealed that my fiancé, Bryce, had a two-year-old son with my sister, Daniela. My inheritance had been funding their secret life for years, and now that the money was secure, I was an inconvenience they were finally scrubbing away. As my father yanked the power cord from the wall, the beeping died, and the darkness swallowed me whole. I was being murdered by my own flesh and blood, used as a bank account until I was no longer needed. I died in that sterile room, drowning in the realization that every person I ever loved was a monster who had been waiting for me to take my last breath. Then, I gasped. I woke up in a luxury hotel suite surrounded by silk sheets, five years in the past-the very morning of my wedding. Next to me lay Basile Delgado, the "Wolf of Wall Street" and my family's most dangerous enemy. In my first life, I ran from this room in a panic and lost everything. This time, I looked at the man who would eventually destroy my father's empire and decided to join him. "I'm not leaving, Basile. Marry me. Right now. Today."

The Mad Billionaire's Genius Undercover Wife

The Mad Billionaire's Genius Undercover Wife

Mischa Taube
4.0

I arrived at my uncle’s mansion looking like human trash, clutching a one-way bus ticket and a duffel bag stuffed with old newspaper. My aunt looked at me with pure disgust, as if she could smell the poverty on my skin, but they needed me for one thing: to be a sacrificial lamb. They told me I was getting married to Julian Sterling, a man the elite circles called a violent monster locked in a cage. My uncle forced me to sign away my soul to save their failing fortune, while my cousin Kayla laughed and threw a torn dress at my feet, calling me a "rat from the Rust Belt." At the Sterling estate, the nightmare only deepened. Julian’s stepmother treated me like a horse she was forced to buy, ordering the staff to "burn off" my hair before locking me in the West Wing. I was thrown into a padded cell with a man who lunged at me, his heavy chains rattling against the floor as he roared with an animalistic rage that had already killed two nurses. They thought I was a pathetic, uneducated girl who "didn't read so good." They didn't know I had extorted two million dollars from my uncle before walking out the door, or that I was secretly recording every slap and insult they threw at me for future leverage. I huddled in the corner of that dark cell, letting them watch me tremble on the security feeds. I let Julian’s sister strike me with a riding crop and splash water in my face, playing the role of the clumsy, sobbing idiot to perfection. But the moment the cameras looped, the scared girl vanished. I pinned the "monster" to the floor, cut the neural tracking chip out of his neck with a hidden scalpel, and whispered into his ear as his blue eyes finally cleared. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter. They had no idea they were sending a wolf to hunt a beast.

Phoenix Rising: The Scarred Heiress's Revenge

Phoenix Rising: The Scarred Heiress's Revenge

Xiao Hong Mao
4.3

I lived as the "scarred ghost" of the Stephens penthouse, a wife kept in the shadows because my facial burns offended my billionaire husband’s aesthetic. For years, I endured Kason’s coldness and my family's abuse, a submissive puppet who believed she had nowhere else to go. The end came with a blue folder tossed onto my silk sheets. Kason’s mistress was back, and he wanted me out by sunset, offering a five-million-dollar "silence fee" to go hide my face in the countryside. The betrayal cut deep when I discovered my father had already traded my divorce for a corporate bailout. My step-sister mocked my "trashy" appearance at a high-end boutique, while the sales staff treated me like a common thief. At home, my father threatened to cut off my mother's life-saving medicine unless I crawled back to Kason to beg for a better deal. I was the girl who took the blame for a fire she didn't start, the wife who worshipped a man who never looked her in the eye, and the daughter used as a human bargaining chip. I was supposed to be broken, penniless, and desperate. But the woman who stood up wasn't the weak Elease Finch anymore; she was Phoenix, a tactical predator with a $500 million secret. I signed the divorce papers without a single tear, walked past my stunned husband, and wiped the Finch family's bank accounts clean with a few taps on my phone. "Your money is dirty," I told Kason with a cold smile. "I prefer clean hands." The cage is open, the hunt has begun, and I’m starting with the people who thought a scar made me weak.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book