around me were the relics of her pitiful story -- the old, oft-repeated story of a faithless love and a woman's broken heart -- the gown she had worn, the slippers in which she had danced light-heartedly at her betrothal ball, her fan, her pearls, her gloves -- and it somehow seemed to me as if i were living in those old years myself, as if the love and happiness, the betrayal and pain were part of my own life.