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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Paz
+       (La Fausse Maitresse)
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: July, 1998  [Etext #1369]
+Posting Date: February 23, 2010
+Last Updated: November 23, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAZ ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+PAZ
+
+(La Fausse Maitresse)
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+              Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.
+
+
+
+
+
+PAZ
+
+(LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the Marquis
+du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young Polish exile.
+
+We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,
+to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants
+by which the Slave language protects its vowels,--probably not to lose
+them, considering how few there are.
+
+The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princely
+fortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with a
+Demoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother’s side Clementine
+du Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame de
+Serizy for aunt. On her father’s side she had another uncle in the
+eccentric person of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of the house,
+an old bachelor who had become very rich by speculating in lands and
+houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to lose both
+his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son of Madame
+de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africa in
+the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand between the
+danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, or of
+extinguishing their names if they have too few,--a singular result of
+the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn of fortune
+Clementine became, in spite of her father having squandered his
+substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses in Paris), a
+great heiress. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, a clever diplomatist under
+the new dynasty, his sister, Madame de Serizy, and the Chevalier du
+Rouvre agreed, in order to save their fortunes from the dissipations of
+the marquis, to settle them on their niece, to whom, moreover, they each
+pledged themselves to pay ten thousand francs a year from the day of her
+marriage.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to say that the Polish count, though an exile,
+was no expense to the French government. Comte Adam Laginski belonged
+to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Poland, which was
+allied to many of the princely houses of Germany,--Sapieha, Radziwill,
+Mniszech, Rzewuski, Czartoryski, Leczinski, Lubormirski, and all the
+other great Sarmatian SKIS. But heraldic knowledge is not the most
+distinguishing feature of the French nation under Louis-Philippe, and
+Polish nobility was no great recommendation to the bourgeoisie who were
+lording it in those days. Besides, when Adam first made his appearance,
+in 1833, on the boulevard des Italiens, at Frascati, and at the
+Jockey-Club, he was leading the life of a young man who, having lost his
+political prospects, was taking his pleasure in Parisian dissipation. At
+first he was thought to be a student.
+
+The Polish nationality had at this period fallen as low in French
+estimation, thanks to a shameful governmental reaction, as the
+republicans had sought to raise it. The singular struggle of the
+Movement against Resistance (two words which will be inexplicable thirty
+years hence) made sport of what ought to have been truly respected,--the
+name of a conquered nation to whom the French had offered hospitality,
+for whom fetes had been given (with songs and dances by subscription),
+above all, a nation which in the Napoleonic struggle between France and
+Europe had given us six thousand men, and what men!
+
+Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that
+of the Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against the
+Emperor. It would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion into
+tales that are intended to amuse or interest. Besides, Russia and Poland
+were both right,--one to wish the unity of its empire, the other
+to desire its liberty. Let us say in passing that Poland might have
+conquered Russia by the influence of her morals instead of fighting her
+with weapons; she should have imitated China which, in the end, Chinesed
+the Tartars, and will, it is to be hoped, Chinese the English. Poland
+ought to have Polonized Russia. Poniatowski tried to do so in the
+least favorable portion of the empire; but as a king he was little
+understood,--because, possibly, he did not fully understand himself.
+
+But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people who
+were the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famous
+review at which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? The Poles
+were held up to them as the allies of the republican party, and they
+never once remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats. From
+that day forth the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt the exiles of
+the nation it had worshipped a few days earlier. The wind of a riot
+is always enough to veer the Parisians from north to south under any
+regime. It is necessary to remember these sudden fluctuations of feeling
+in order to understand why it was that in 1835 the word “Pole” conveyed
+a derisive meaning to a people who consider themselves the wittiest and
+most courteous nation on earth, and their city of Paris the focus of
+enlightenment, with the sceptre of arts and literature within its grasp.
+
+There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles,--the republican Poles,
+sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is Prince Adam
+Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but why complain
+of that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles, no matter
+of what nation they may be, or in what countries they take refuge. They
+carry their countries and their hatreds with them. Two French priests,
+who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution, showed the utmost
+horror of each other, and when one of them was asked why, he replied
+with a glance at his companion in misery: “Why? because he’s a
+Jansenist!” Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf had he met him in
+exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the French against the
+venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shown to the better
+class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars and the licensed
+Alexanders of Paris.
+
+In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt for
+Parisian pleasantry.
+
+“He is rather nice, though he is a Pole,” said Rastignac.
+
+“All these Poles pretend to be great lords,” said Maxime de Trailles,
+“but this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think he must
+have property.”
+
+Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allowable to
+remark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatian
+character does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians, who,
+by the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as the Poles do.
+The French aristocracy, so nobly succored during the Revolution by the
+Polish lords, certainly did not return the kindness in 1832. Let us
+have the melancholy courage to admit this, and to say that the faubourg
+Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland.
+
+Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer?
+This problem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to
+instructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held
+that all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of the
+Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proof of
+the political quality which was then dignified by the name of sagacity.
+They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom they had all been
+on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely because it was said that
+the Emperor Nicholas gave him the cold shoulder. Between the caution
+of the court and the prudence of the diplomates, the Polish exiles of
+distinction lived in Paris in the Biblical solitude of “super flumina
+Babylonis,” or else they haunted a few salons which were the neutral
+ground of all opinions. In a city of pleasure, like Paris, where
+amusements abound on all sides, the heedless gayety of a Pole finds
+twice as many encouragements as it needs to a life of dissipation.
+
+It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him,--his
+appearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole, as
+there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is not
+very handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the second
+category of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression,
+looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair
+hair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more like a
+goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes caught
+you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How came he, in
+spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really exquisite manners
+and a distinguished air? The problem is solved partly by the care and
+elegance of his dress, and partly by the training given him by his
+mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to daring, but his mind
+was not more than was needed for the ephemeral talk and pleasantry of
+Parisian conversation. And yet it would have been difficult to find
+among the young men of fashion in Paris a single one who was his
+superior. Young men talk a great deal too much in these days of horses,
+money, taxes, deputies; French _conversation_ is no longer what it was.
+Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain social inequalities to
+bring it out. There is, probably, more real conversation in Vienna or
+St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do not need to employ delicacy or
+shrewdness in speech; they blurt out things as they are. Consequently
+the dandies of Paris did not discover the great seigneur in the rather
+heedless young fellow who, in their talks, would flit from one subject
+to another, all the more intent upon amusement because he had just
+escaped from a great peril, and, finding himself in a city where his
+family was unknown, felt at liberty to lead a loose life without the
+risk of disgracing his name.
+
+But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la
+Pepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none in
+Paris. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously he
+had seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love with
+her. A year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madame d’Espard
+was the first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters then learned
+too late that as far back as the year 900 the family of the Laginski was
+among the most illustrious of the North. By an act of prudence which was
+very unPolish, the mother of the young count had mortgaged her entire
+property on the breaking out of the insurrection for an immense sum
+lent by two Jewish bankers in Paris. Comte Adam was now in possession of
+eighty thousand francs a year. When this was discovered society ceased
+to be surprised at the imprudence which had been laid to the charge
+of Madame de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, and the Chevalier du
+Rouvre in yielding to the foolish passion of their niece. People jumped,
+as usual, from one extreme of judgment to the other.
+
+During the winter of 1836 Comte Adam was the fashion, and Clementine
+Laginska one of the queens of Paris. Madame Laginska is now a member
+of that charming circle of young women represented by Mesdames de
+Lestorade, de Portenduere, Marie de Vandenesse, du Guenic, and de
+Maufrigneuse, the flowers of our present Paris, who live at such
+immeasurable distance from the parvenus, the vulgarians, and the
+speculators of the new regime.
+
+This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one
+of those noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our time
+admit,--actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering, are
+hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing waves
+of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St. Petersburg,--or
+what you will.
+
+If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals
+was ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830, during
+the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old fortunes
+are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our ancestors are
+constantly being demolished and replaced by species of phalansteries, in
+which the peers of July occupy the third floor above some newly
+enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles is confusedly
+employed. As there is no longer a real court or nobility to give the
+tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never, on the other
+hand, has architecture discovered so many economical ways of imitating
+the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, more talent, in
+distributing them. Propose to an architect to build upon the garden
+at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up a little Louvre
+overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in a courtyard, stables,
+and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the house he will accommodate a
+quantity of little rooms and passages. He is so clever in deceiving the
+eye that you think you will have plenty of space; but it is only a nest
+of small rooms, after all, in which a ducal family has to turn itself
+about in the space that its own bakehouse formerly occupied.
+
+The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of these
+creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in the
+court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse and
+stables. The porter’s lodge is between two charming portes-cocheres. The
+chief luxury of the house is a delightful greenhouse contrived at the
+end of a boudoir on the ground-floor which opens upon an admirable
+suite of reception rooms. An English philanthropist had built this
+architectural bijou, designed the garden, added the greenhouse, polished
+the doors, bricked the courtyard, painted the window-frames green,
+and realized, in short, a dream which resembled (proportions excepted)
+George the Fourth’s Pavilion at Brighton. The inventive and industrious
+Parisian workmen had moulded the doors and window-frames; the ceilings
+were imitated from the middle-ages or those of a Venetian palace; marble
+veneering abounded on the outer walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet
+had designed the mantel-pieces and the panels above the doors; Schinner
+had painted the ceilings in his masterly manner. The beauties of the
+staircase, white as a woman’s arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild.
+On account of the riots and the unsettled times, the cost of this folly
+was only about eleven hundred thousand francs,--to an Englishman a mere
+nothing. All this luxury, called princely by persons who do not know
+what real princes are, was built in the garden of the house of a
+purveyor made a Croesus by the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels
+and died there after going into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in
+Paris, of Paris; for to many persons Paris is a disease,--sometimes
+several diseases. His widow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little
+nabob establishment, and ordered it to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at
+a bargain; and how he came to do so shall presently be made known, for
+bargains were not at all in his line as a grand seigneur.
+
+Behind the house lay the verdant velvet of an English lawn shaded at
+the lower end by a clump of exotic trees, in the midst of which stood a
+Chinese pagoda with soundless belfries and motionless golden eggs. The
+greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, the opposite
+wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon poles painted green
+and connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, this world of flowers,
+the gravelled paths, the simulated forest, the verdant palisades, were
+contained within the space of five and twenty square rods, which are
+worth to-day four hundred thousand francs,--the value of an actual
+forest. Here, in this solitude in the middle of Paris, the birds
+sang, thrushes, nightingales, warblers, bulfinches, and sparrows. The
+greenhouse was like an immense jardiniere, filling the air with perfume
+in winter as in summer. The means by which its atmosphere was made
+to order, torrid as in China or temperate as in Italy, were cleverly
+concealed. Pipes in which hot water circulated, or steam, were either
+hidden under ground or festooned with plants overhead. The boudoir was a
+large room. The miracle of the modern Parisian fairy named Architecture
+is to get all these many and great things out of a limited bit of
+ground.
+
+The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of the
+artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house. It is
+too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce knows
+where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their myriads
+of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz mounted on
+filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in the style which
+Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock conceived but often could
+not execute, statuettes modelled by genius pursued by creditors (the
+real explanation of the Arabian myth), superb sketches by our best
+artists, lids of chests made into panels alternating with fluted
+draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging from rods of old oak
+in tapestried masses on which the figures of some hunting scene are
+swarming, pieces of furniture worthy to have belonged to Madame de
+Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a last graceful touch, all these
+elegant things were subdued by the half-light which filtered through
+embroidered curtains and added to their charm. On a table between the
+windows, among various curiosities, lay a whip, the handle designed
+by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which proved that the countess rode on
+horseback.
+
+Such is a lady’s boudoir in 1837,--an exhibition of the contents of many
+shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to be dreaded
+by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital in
+Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads to
+revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is sure
+of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.
+
+One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
+lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
+is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
+lovers of the “far niente” and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
+into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
+vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
+wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
+form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
+back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
+gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
+the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
+Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a short
+gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This gallery opened
+on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber, through which
+could be seen the beauties of the staircase.
+
+The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was a sheet
+of azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been married
+two years, and Clementine had just discovered for the first time that
+there was something resembling a secret or a mystery in her household.
+The Pole, let us say it to his honor, is usually helpless before a
+woman; he is so full of tenderness for her that in Poland he becomes her
+inferior, though Polish women make admirable wives. Now a Pole is still
+more easily vanquished by a Parisian woman. Consequently Comte Adam,
+pressed by questions, did not even attempt the innocent roguery of
+selling the suspected secret. It is always wise with a woman to get
+some good out of a mystery; she will like you the better for it, as a
+swindler respects an honest man the more when he finds he cannot swindle
+him. Brave in heart but not in speech, Comte Adam merely stipulated that
+he should not be compelled to answer until he had finished his narghile.
+
+“If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling,” said Clementine,
+“you always dismissed it by saying, ‘Paz will settle that.’ You never
+wrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying,
+‘the captain, the captain.’ If I want the carriage--‘the captain.’ Is
+there a bill to pay--‘the captain.’ If my horse is not properly
+bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of
+dominoes--Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never see
+Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don’t you bring forth your Paz?”
+
+“Isn’t everything going on right?” asked the count, taking the
+“bocchettino” of his narghile from his lips.
+
+“Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of two
+hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our pace, and
+we have only one hundred and ten thousand.”
+
+So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A
+footman entered, dressed like a minister.
+
+“Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him.”
+
+“If you think you are going to find out anything that way--” said Comte
+Adam, laughing.
+
+It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December,
+1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and
+Germany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to
+Paris in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the first time
+as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, and she then
+became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and wholly dumb but very
+useful, of a species of factotum who was personally invisible, named
+Paz,--spelt thus, but pronounced “Patz.”
+
+“Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him,” said
+the footman, returning. “He is at the stables; as soon as he has changed
+his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame.”
+
+“What was he doing at the stables?”
+
+“He was showing them how to groom Madame’s horse,” said the man. “He was
+not pleased with the way Constantin did it.”
+
+The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and did not
+add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usually comment
+on the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogate from his
+position.
+
+“Ah! he was grooming Cora.”
+
+“Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?” said the footman,
+leaving the room without further answer.
+
+“Is Paz a Pole?” asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who nodded by
+way of affirmation.
+
+Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extended upon
+a cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge of
+its nest listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemed
+enchanting even to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her
+hair in curls, she was not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in
+the Keepsakes, especially when dressed, as she was this morning, in a
+breakfast gown of Persian silk, the folds of which could not disguise
+the beauty of her figure or the slimness of her waist. The silk with its
+brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring of the
+neck,--its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones of a
+guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their long
+black lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity which
+puckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled,
+an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the true
+Parisian woman,--self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessible
+to vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, were
+hanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the tapering fingers,
+slightly turned up at their points, showed nails like almonds, which
+caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife’s impatience, and looked at
+her with a glance which two years of married life had not yet chilled.
+Already the little countess had made herself mistress of the situation,
+for she scarcely paid attention to her husband’s admiration. In fact,
+in the look which she occasionally cast at him, there seemed to be the
+consciousness of a Frenchwoman’s ascendancy over the puny, volatile, and
+red-haired Pole.
+
+“Here comes Paz,” said the count, hearing a step which echoed through
+the gallery.
+
+The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing
+on his face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret
+endurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats which
+were then called “polonaise.” Thick, black hair, rather unkempt, covered
+his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead shining like
+a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in his hand.
+The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust health
+flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman nose and
+reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silk cravat
+added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, with eyes of
+jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers, which
+allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed his faithfulness
+to the fashions of his own land. There was something really burlesque
+to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no one could fail to remark
+between the captain and the count, the little Pole with his pinched face
+and the stalwart soldier.
+
+“Good morning, Adam,” he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as
+he asked Clementine what he could do for her.
+
+“You are Laginski’s friend!” exclaimed the countess.
+
+“For life and death,” answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile of
+affection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe.
+
+“Then why don’t you take your meals with us? why did you not accompany
+us to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a way that
+I am unable to thank you for the constant services that you do for us?”
+ said the countess, with much vivacity of manner but no feeling.
+
+In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntary servitude.
+Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contempt for a social
+amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bailiff, and yet neither the one
+nor the other, a poor relation, an embarrassing friend.
+
+“Because, countess,” he answered with perfect ease of manner, “there are
+no thanks due. I am Adam’s friend, and it gives me pleasure to take care
+of his interests.”
+
+“And you remain standing for your pleasure, too,” remarked Comte Adam.
+
+Paz sat down on a chair near the door.
+
+“I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards
+in the courtyard,” said Clementine. “But why do you put yourself in a
+position of inferiority,--you, Adam’s friend?”
+
+“I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians,” he
+replied. “I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two.”
+
+“But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is not
+indifferent to me--”
+
+“Ah, madame, the world will be satisfied if you tell them I am ‘an
+original.’”
+
+After a moment’s silence he added, “Are you going out to-day?”
+
+“Will you come with us to the Bois?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+So saying, Paz bowed and withdrew.
+
+“What a good soul he is!” said Adam. “He has all the simplicity of a
+child.”
+
+“Now tell me all about your relations with him,” said Clementine.
+
+“Paz, my dear,” said Laginski, “belongs to a noble family as old and
+illustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time of
+their disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of his
+property and founded the Paz family, to which the title of count was
+granted. This family, which distinguished itself greatly in the glorious
+days of our royal republic, became rich. The graft from the tree that
+was felled in Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland that there are
+several branches of the family still there. I need not tell you that
+some are rich and some are poor. Our Paz is the scion of a poor branch.
+He was an orphan, without other fortune than his sword, when he served
+in the regiment of the Grand Duke Constantine at the time of our
+revolution. Joining the Polish cause, he fought like a Pole, like a
+patriot, like a man who has nothing,--three good reasons for fighting
+well. In his last affair, thinking he was followed by his men, he dashed
+upon a Russian battery and was taken prisoner. I was there. His brave
+act roused me. ‘Let us go and get him!’ I said to my troop, and we
+charged the battery like a lot of foragers. I got Paz--I was the seventh
+man; we started twenty and came back eight, counting Paz. After Warsaw
+was sold we were forced to escape those Russians. By a curious chance,
+Paz and I happened to come together again, at the same hour and the same
+place, on the other side of the Vistula. I saw the poor captain arrested
+by some Prussians, who made themselves the blood-hounds of the Russians.
+When we have fished a man out of the Styx we cling to him. This new
+danger for poor Paz made me so unhappy that I let myself be taken too,
+thinking I could help him. Two men can get away where one will
+perish. Thanks to my name and some family connections in Prussia, the
+authorities shut their eyes to my escape. I got my dear captain through
+as a man of no consequence, a family servant, and we reached Dantzic.
+There we got on board a Dutch vessel and went to London. It took us two
+months to get there. My mother was ill in England, and expecting me.
+Paz and I took care of her till her death, which the Polish troubles
+hastened. Then we left London and came to France. Men who go through
+such adversities become like brothers. When I reached Paris, at
+twenty-two years of age, and found I had an income of over sixty
+thousand francs a year, without counting the proceeds of the diamonds
+and the pictures sold by my mother, I wanted to secure the future of
+my dear Paz before I launched into dissipation. I had often noticed the
+sadness in his eyes--sometimes tears were in them. I had had good reason
+to understand his soul, which is noble, grand, and generous to the core.
+I thought he might not like to be bound by benefits to a friend who
+was six years younger than himself, unless he could repay them. I was
+careless and frivolous, just as a young fellow is, and I knew I was
+certain to ruin myself at play, or get inveigled by some woman, and Paz
+and I might then be parted; and though I had every intention of always
+looking out for him, I knew I might sometime or other forget to provide
+for him. In short, my dear angel, I wanted to spare him the pain and
+mortification of having to ask me for money, or of having to hunt me up
+if he got into distress. SO, one morning, after breakfast, when we were
+sitting with our feet on the andirons smoking pipes, I produced,--with
+the utmost precaution, for I saw him look at me uneasily,--a certificate
+of the Funds payable to bearer for a certain sum of money a year.”
+
+Clementine jumped up and went and seated herself on Adam’s knee, put
+her arms round his neck, and kissed him. “Dear treasure!” she said, “how
+handsome he is! Well, what did Paz do?”
+
+“Thaddeus turned pale,” said the count, “but he didn’t say a word.”
+
+“Oh! his name is Thaddeus, is it?”
+
+“Yes; Thaddeus folded the paper and gave it back to me, and then he
+said: ‘I thought, Adam, that we were one for life or death, and that we
+should never part. Do you want to be rid of me?’ ‘Oh!’ I said, ‘if you
+take it that way, Thaddeus, don’t let us say another word about it. If
+I ruin myself you shall be ruined too.’ ‘You haven’t fortune enough to
+live as a Laginski should,’ he said, ‘and you need a friend who will
+take care of your affairs, and be a father and a brother and a trusty
+confidant.’ My dear child, as Paz said that he had in his look and
+voice, calm as they were, a maternal emotion, and also the gratitude
+of an Arab, the fidelity of a dog, the friendship of a savage,--not
+displayed, but ever ready. Faith! I seized him, as we Poles do, with
+a hand on each shoulder, and I kissed him on the lips. ‘For life and
+death, then! all that I have is yours--do what you will with it.’ It was
+he who found me this house and bought it for next to nothing. He sold my
+Funds high and bought in low, and we have paid for this barrack with
+the profits. He knows horses, and he manages to buy and sell at such
+advantage that my stable really costs very little; and yet I have the
+finest horses and the most elegant equipages in all Paris. Our servants,
+brave Polish soldiers chosen by him, would go through fire and water
+for us. I seem, as you say, to be ruining myself; and yet Paz keeps the
+house with such method and economy that he has even repaired some of my
+foolish losses at play,--the thoughtless folly of a young man. My dear,
+Thaddeus is as shrewd as two Genoese, as eager for gain as a Polish Jew,
+and provident as a good housekeeper. I never could force him to live as
+I did when I was a bachelor. Sometimes I had to use a sort of friendly
+coercion to make him go to the theatre with me when I was alone, or to
+the jovial little dinners I used to give at a tavern. He doesn’t like
+social life.”
+
+“What does he like, then?” asked Clementine.
+
+“Poland; he loves Poland and pines for it. His only spendings are
+sums he gives, more in my name than in his own, to some of our poor
+brother-exiles.”
+
+“Well, I shall love him, the fine fellow!” said the countess, “he looks
+to me as simple-hearted as he is grand.”
+
+“All these pretty things you have about you,” continued Adam, who
+praised his friend in the noblest sincerity, “he picked up; he bought
+them at auction, or as bargains from the dealers. Oh! he’s keener than
+they are themselves. If you see him rubbing his hands in the courtyard,
+you may be sure he has traded away one good horse for a better. He lives
+for me; his happiness is to see me elegant, in a perfectly appointed
+equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are all accomplished without
+fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twenty thousand francs at whist.
+‘What will Paz say?’ thought I as I walked home. Paz paid them to me,
+not without a sigh; but he never reproached me, even by a look. But
+that sigh of his restrained me more than the remonstrances of uncles,
+mothers, or wives could have done. ‘Do you regret the money?’ I said
+to him. ‘Not for you or me, no,’ he replied; ‘but I was thinking
+that twenty poor Poles could have lived a year on that sum.’ You must
+understand that the Pazzi are fully the equal of the Laginski, so I
+couldn’t regard my dear Paz as an inferior. I never went out or came in
+without going first to Paz, as I would to my father. My fortune is his;
+and Thaddeus knows that if danger threatened him I would fling myself
+into it and drag him out, as I have done before.”
+
+“And that is saying a good deal, my dear friend,” said the countess.
+“Devotion is like a flash of lightning. Men devote themselves in battle,
+but they no longer have the heart for it in Paris.”
+
+“Well,” replied Adam, “I am always ready, as in battle, to devote
+myself to Paz. Our two characters have kept their natural asperities
+and defects, but the mutual comprehension of our souls has tightened the
+bond already close between us. It is quite possible to save a man’s life
+and kill him afterwards if we find him a bad fellow; but Paz and I know
+THAT of each other which makes our friendship indissoluble. There’s
+a constant exchange of happy thoughts and impressions between us; and
+really, perhaps, such a friendship as ours is richer than love.”
+
+A pretty hand closed the count’s mouth so promptly that the action was
+somewhat like a blow.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “friendship, my dear angel, knows nothing of bankrupt
+sentiments and collapsed joys. Love, after giving more than it has, ends
+by giving less than it receives.”
+
+“One side as well as the other,” remarked Clementine laughing.
+
+“Yes,” continued Adam, “whereas friendship only increases. You need not
+pucker up your lips at that, for we are, you and I, as much friends as
+lovers; we have, at least I hope so, combined the two sentiments in our
+happy marriage.”
+
+“I’ll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus such good
+friends,” said Clementine. “The difference in the lives you lead
+comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your
+positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and
+also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might
+become the superior.”
+
+“Oh, Paz is truly my superior,” said Adam, naively; “I have no advantage
+over him except mere luck.”
+
+His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words.
+
+“The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings is
+one form of his superiority,” continued the count. “I said to him once:
+‘You are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain within which
+you live and think.’ He has a right to the title of count; but in Paris
+he won’t be called anything but captain.”
+
+“The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in
+our century,” said the countess. “Dante and Michael Angelo are in him.”
+
+“That’s the very truth,” cried Adam. “He is a poet in soul.”
+
+“So here I am, married to two Poles,” said the young countess, with a
+gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.
+
+“Dear child!” said Adam, pressing her to him, “it would have made me
+very unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both rather afraid
+of it, he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. You will
+make him very happy if you tell him that you love him,--yes, as an old
+friend.”
+
+“I’ll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ride
+together,” said Clementine, ringing for her maid.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of
+Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois
+de Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
+Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice of
+the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet. Clementine
+dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a style that
+impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon where the two
+friends awaited her.
+
+“Comte Paz,” she said, “you must go with us to the Opera.”
+
+This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: “If you
+refuse we shall quarrel.”
+
+“Willingly, madame,” replied the captain. “But as I have not the fortune
+of a count, have the kindness to call me captain.”
+
+“Very good, captain; give me your arm,” she said,--taking it and
+leading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiarity which
+enchants all lovers.
+
+The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of
+a poor sub-lieutenant dining at his general’s table. He let Clementine
+talk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her
+in anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He
+seemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways
+missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional
+respect. In vain Adam kept saying: “Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would
+really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to
+disconcert Clementine.” Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep.
+When the servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captain
+explained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those of
+society,--he went to bed at eight o’clock and got up very early in the
+morning; and he excused his dulness on the ground of being sleepy.
+
+“My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain; but
+do as you prefer,” said Clementine, rather piqued.
+
+“I will go,” said Paz.
+
+“Duprez sings ‘Guillaume Tell,’” remarked Adam. “But perhaps you would
+rather go to the ‘Varietes’?”
+
+The captain smiled and rang the bell. “Tell Constantin,” he said to the
+footman, “to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe. We
+should be rather squeezed otherwise,” he said to the count.
+
+“A Frenchman would have forgotten that,” remarked Clementine, smiling.
+
+“Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North,” answered
+Thaddeus with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which
+made his conduct at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was
+too evident a contrast between his involuntary self-revelation in this
+speech and his behavior during dinner. Clementine examined the captain
+with a few of those covert glances which show a woman’s surprise and
+also her capacity for observation.
+
+It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in the salon
+while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to Adam,
+who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no longer
+tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand, retreated
+within his military stiffness and came out of it no more, neither on the
+way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be asleep.
+
+“You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man,” he said during the dance
+in the last act of “Guillaume Tell.” “Am I not right to keep, as the
+saying is, to my own specialty?”
+
+“In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
+world, but you are perhaps Polish.”
+
+“Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
+household--it is all I am good for.”
+
+“Tartufe! pooh!” cried Adam, laughing. “My dear, he is full of ardor;
+he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any
+salon. Clementine, don’t believe his modesty.”
+
+“Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will take
+the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you.”
+
+Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
+
+“What a bear!” she said to the count. “You are a great deal nicer.”
+
+Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
+
+“Poor, dear Thaddeus,” he said, “he is trying to make himself
+disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I.”
+
+“Oh!” she said, “I am not sure but what there is some _calculation_ in
+his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman.”
+
+Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out “Gate!” and
+the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to her
+husband, “Where does the captain perch?”
+
+“Why, there!” replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-cochere
+which had one window looking on the street. “His apartments are over the
+coachhouse.”
+
+“Who lives on the other side?” asked the countess.
+
+“No one as yet,” said Adam; “I mean that apartment for our children and
+their instructors.”
+
+“He didn’t go to bed,” said the countess, observing lights in Thaddeus’s
+rooms when the carriage had passed under the portico supported by
+columns copied from those of the Tuileries, which replaced a vulgar zinc
+awning painted in stripes like cloth.
+
+The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, was watching
+Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been a hard one for
+him. And here is the reason why: A great and terrible emotion had taken
+possession of his heart on the day when Adam made him go to the Opera
+to see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle du Rouvre; and again when he
+saw her on the occasion of her marriage, and recognized in her the woman
+whom a man is forced to love exclusively. For this reason Paz strongly
+advised and promoted the long journey to Italy and elsewhere after the
+marriage. At peace so long as Clementine was away, his trial was renewed
+on the return of the happy household. As he sat at his window on this
+memorable night, smoking his latakia in a pipe of wild-cherry wood
+six feet long, given to him by Adam, these are the thoughts that were
+passing through his mind:--
+
+“I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone know
+how I love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love nor her
+dislike?”
+
+And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme.
+
+It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, in
+the midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance,
+were a source of inward joy to him. Since the return of the count and
+countess he had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himself
+necessary to a household which, without his devotion to its interests,
+would infallibly have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strain of
+reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift father,
+knew nothing of the management of a household which the women of the
+present day, however rich or noble they are, are often compelled to
+undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep a steward. Adam, on
+the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lords who let themselves
+be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapable of managing even the
+wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes are vast in Poland), was
+not of a nature to check his own fancies or those of his wife. Left to
+himself he would probably have been ruined before his marriage. Paz had
+prevented him from gambling at the Bourse, and that says all.
+
+Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementine
+in spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house and
+travelling in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, the key-note
+of his life, held him bound to that household where he alone could look
+after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence of Adam
+and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess had returned
+more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriage brings to a
+Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife and the nameless
+attraction she gains from the happiness, or the independence, bestowed
+upon her by a young man as trustful, as chivalric, and as much in
+love as Adam. To know that he was the pivot on which the splendor the
+household depended, to see Clementine when she got out of her carriage
+on returning from some fete, or got into it in the morning when she took
+her drive, to meet her on the boulevards in her pretty equipage,
+looking like a flower in a whorl of leaves, inspired poor Thaddeus with
+mysterious delights, which glowed in the depths of his heart but gave no
+signs upon his face.
+
+How happened it that for five whole months the countess had never
+perceived the captain? Because he hid himself from her knowledge, and
+carefully concealed the pains he took to avoid her. Nothing so resembles
+the Divine love as hopeless human love. A man must have great depth of
+heart to devote himself in silence and obscurity to a woman. In such
+a heart is the worship of love for love’s sake only--sublime avarice,
+sublime because ever generous and founded on the mysterious existence
+of the principles of creation. _Effect_ is nature, and nature is
+enchanting; it belongs to man, to the poet, the painter, the lover. But
+_Cause_, to a few privileged souls and to certain mighty thinkers,
+is superior to nature. Cause is God. In the sphere of causes live
+the Newtons and all such thinkers as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes,
+Malebranche, Spinoza, Buffon; also the true poets and solitarys of
+the second Christian century, and the Saint Teresas of Spain, and such
+sublime ecstatics. All human sentiments bear analogy to these conditions
+whenever the mind abandons Effect for Cause. Thaddeus had reached this
+height, at which all things change their relative aspect. Filled with
+the joys unutterable of a creator he had attained in his love to all
+that genius has revealed to us of grandeur.
+
+“No,” he was thinking to himself as he watched the curling smoke of his
+pipe, “she was not entirely deceived. She might break up my friendship
+with Adam if she took a dislike to me; but if she coquetted with me to
+amuse herself, what would become of me?”
+
+The conceit of this last supposition was so foreign to the modest
+nature and Teutonic timidity of the captain that he scolded himself for
+admitting it, and went to bed, resolved to await events before deciding
+on a course.
+
+The next day Clementine breakfasted very contentedly without Paz, and
+without even noticing his disobedience to her orders. It happened to be
+her reception day, when the house was thrown open with a splendor that
+was semi-royal. She paid no attention to the absence of Comte Paz, on
+whom all the burden of these parade days fell.
+
+“Good!” thought he, as he heard the last carriages driving away at two
+in the morning; “it was only the caprice or the curiosity of a Parisian
+woman that made her want to see me.”
+
+After that the captain went back to his ordinary habits and ways, which
+had been somewhat upset by this incident. Diverted by her Parisian
+occupations, Clementine appeared to have forgotten Paz. It must not be
+thought an easy matter to reign a queen over fickle Paris. Does any one
+suppose that fortunes alone are risked in the great game? The winters
+are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the soldiers of the
+Empire. What works of art and genius are expended on a gown or a garland
+in which to make a sensation! A fragile, delicate creature will wear
+her stiff and brilliant harness of flowers and diamonds, silk and steel,
+from nine at night till two and often three o’clock in the morning. She
+eats little, to attract remark to her slender waist; she satisfied her
+hunger with debilitating tea, sugared cakes, ices which heat her, or
+slices of heavy pastry. The stomach is made to yield to the orders of
+coquetry. The awakening comes too late. A fashionable woman’s whole life
+is in contradiction to the laws of nature, and nature is pitiless. She
+has no sooner risen than she makes an elaborate morning toilet, and
+thinks of the one which she means to wear in the afternoon. The moment
+she is dressed she has to receive and make visits, and go to the Bois
+either on horseback or in a carriage. She must practise the art of
+smiling, and must keep her mind on the stretch to invent new compliments
+which shall seem neither common nor far-fetched. All women do not
+succeed in this. It is no surprise, therefore, to find a young woman who
+entered fashionable society fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the
+end of three years. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the
+wounds of the winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysterious
+ailments,--gastritis, and so forth,--ills unknown to women when they
+busied themselves about their households. In the olden time women only
+appeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene.
+Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited,
+and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulness exacted
+by this contest with her rivals left little time even to love her
+husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month of
+May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris for
+Ronquerolles, her uncle’s estate in Burgundy, she noticed Thaddeus,
+elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths of the
+Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing his beautiful
+countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horses and sparkling
+liveries,--in short, his beloved family the admired of all.
+
+“There’s the captain,” she said to her husband.
+
+“He’s happy!” said Adam. “This is his delight. He knows there’s no
+equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that some
+people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him there nearly
+every day.”
+
+“I wonder what he is thinking about now,” said Clementine.
+
+“He is thinking that this winter has cost a good deal, and that it is
+time we went to economize with your old uncle Ronquerolles,” replied
+Adam.
+
+The countess stopped the carriage near Paz, and bade him take the seat
+beside her. Thaddeus grew as red as a cherry.
+
+“I shall poison you,” he said; “I have been smoking.”
+
+“Doesn’t Adam poison me?” she said.
+
+“Yes, but he is Adam,” returned the captain.
+
+“And why can’t Thaddeus have the same privileges?” asked the countess,
+smiling.
+
+That divine smile had a power which triumphed over the heroic
+resolutions of poor Paz; he looked at Clementine with all the fire of
+his soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by the
+angelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue.
+The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her
+cushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at the
+people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resigned soul
+reached her sensibilities. What was Adam’s merit in her eyes? It was
+natural enough to have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus--surely
+Thaddeus possessed, or seemed to possess, some great superiority
+over Adam. They were dangerous thoughts which took possession of the
+countess’s mind as she again noticed the contrast of the fine presence
+that distinguished Thaddeus, and the puny frame in which Adam showed
+the degenerating effects of intermarriage among the Polish aristocratic
+families. The devil alone knew the thoughts that were in Clementine’s
+head, for she sat still, with thoughtful, dreamy eyes, and without
+saying a word until they reached home.
+
+“You will dine with us; I shall be angry if you disobey me,” she said as
+the carriage turned in. “You are Thaddeus to me, as you are to Adam. I
+know your obligations to him, but I also know those we are under to you.
+Both generosities are natural--but you are generous every day and all
+day. My father dines here to-day, also my uncle Ronquerolles and my aunt
+Madame de Serizy. Dress yourself therefore,” she said, taking the hand
+he offered to assist her from the carriage.
+
+Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, though
+shaken by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behaved
+through dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like a
+soldier fit only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementine
+was not his dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis de
+Ronquerolles, one of the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who had
+served with de Marsay during his short ministry, had been informed by
+his niece of the real worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew how
+modestly he made himself the steward of his friend Laginski.
+
+“And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing Comte
+Paz?” asked the marquis.
+
+“Because he is so shy and retiring,” replied Clementine with a look at
+Paz telling him to change his behavior.
+
+Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering the
+captain less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend
+Adam, was not a man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to his
+misfortunes. In his lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he had
+read and taught himself a good deal; he had compared and meditated. But
+the gift of original thought which makes a great man he did not possess,
+and it can never be acquired. Paz, great in heart only, approached in
+heart to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiments, being more a man
+of action than of thought, he kept his thoughts to himself; and they
+only served therefore to eat his heart out. What, after all, is a
+thought unexpressed?
+
+After Clementine’s little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his
+sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam,
+and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in
+France and Italy,--the two regions of the world (all courts excepted)
+where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full power
+of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either the pressure
+of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis du Rouvre,
+and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the old coquette
+and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog, understood
+its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two seconds; but to
+describe the tempest it roused in the captain’s soul would take far too
+much space in this brief history.
+
+“What!” he said to himself, “do the aunt and uncle think I might be
+loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--”
+
+Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all equally
+powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would have his
+day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the story of the
+Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned about it by the
+diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine hanging upon
+his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that Adam too, after
+sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an exile. At nine
+o’clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy kissed her niece
+on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away, taking Adam with her
+and leaving the Marquis de Ronquerolles and the Marquis du Rouvre, who
+soon followed. Paz and Clementine were alone together.
+
+“I will leave you now, madame,” said Thaddeus. “You will of course
+rejoin them at the Opera?”
+
+“No,” she answered, “I don’t like dancing, and they give an odious
+ballet to-night ‘La Revolte au Serail.’”
+
+There was a moment’s silence.
+
+“Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me,” said
+Clementine, not looking at Paz.
+
+“He loves you madly,” replied Thaddeus.
+
+“Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not to
+love me to-morrow,” said the countess.
+
+“How inexplicable Parisian women are!” exclaimed Thaddeus. “When they
+are loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they are
+loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all.”
+
+“And they are quite right. Thaddeus,” she went on, smiling, “I know
+Adam well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grand
+seigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he will
+never oppose any of my tastes, but--”
+
+“Where is the marriage in which there are no ‘buts’?” said Thaddeus,
+gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine’s mind.
+
+The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which came
+near rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: “If I do not
+tell her now that I love her I am a fool,” he kept saying to himself.
+
+Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deep
+silences that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Paz
+covertly, and Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair like
+a man digesting his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferent
+old man, Paz crossed his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbs
+mechanically, looking stupidly at them.
+
+“Why don’t you tell me something good of Adam?” cried Clementine
+suddenly. “Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well.”
+
+The cry was fine.
+
+“Now is the time,” thought poor Paz, “to put an insurmountable barrier
+between us. Tell you good of Adam?” he said aloud. “I love him; you
+would not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. My
+position is very difficult between you.”
+
+Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of his varnished
+boots.
+
+“You Northern men have nothing but physical courage,” she said
+complainingly; “you have no constancy in your opinions.”
+
+“How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?” said Paz, assuming a
+careless air.
+
+“Are not you going to keep me company?”
+
+“Excuse me for leaving you.”
+
+“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
+
+The thought of a heroic falsehood had come into his head.
+
+“I--I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens to-night,
+and I can’t miss it.”
+
+“Why not?” said Clementine, questioning him by a look that was
+half-anger.
+
+“Must I tell you why?” he said, coloring; “must I confide to you what I
+hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland.”
+
+“Ah! a secret in our noble captain?”
+
+“A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity.”
+
+“You, disgraced?”
+
+“Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all over
+France with the Bouthor family,--people who have the rival circus to
+Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director at the
+Cirque-Olympique engage her.”
+
+“Is she handsome?”
+
+“To my thinking,” said Paz, in a melancholy tone. “Malaga (that’s her
+stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all
+other women in the world?--well, I can’t tell you. When I look at her,
+with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her bare
+and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white tunic
+with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her look like a
+living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags in her hand
+to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paper hoops which
+tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully on the galloping
+horse to such applause,--no hired clapping,--well, all that moves me.”
+
+“More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?” asked Clementine, with
+amazement and curiosity.
+
+“Yes,” answered Paz, in a choking voice. “Such agility, such grace under
+constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman. Yes,
+madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and Ellsler, all
+who reign or have reigned on the stage, can’t be compared, to my mind,
+with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at full gallop, or stand
+on the point of one foot and fall easily into the saddle, and knit
+stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette with the horse at full
+speed, to the admiration of the people,--the real people, peasants and
+soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexterity personified; her little wrist or
+her little foot can rid her of three or four men. She is the goddess of
+gymnastics.”
+
+“She must be stupid--”
+
+“Oh, no,” said Paz, “I find her as amusing as the heroine of ‘Peveril
+of the Peak.’ Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that comes
+into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do of
+the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes. You
+couldn’t make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome young
+man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love as hers is
+perpetual flattery to a man. Her health is positively insolent, and she
+has thirty-two oriental pearls in lips of coral. Her muzzle--that’s what
+she calls the lower part of her face--has, as Shakespeare expresses
+it, the savor of a heifer’s nose. She can make a man unhappy. She likes
+handsome men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts, clowns. Her trainer, a
+horrible brute, used to beat her to make her supple, and graceful, and
+intrepid--”
+
+“You are positively intoxicated with Malaga.”
+
+“Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters,” said Paz, with a piqued
+air. “She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment on the
+third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two lives,
+her circus life and the life of a pretty woman.”
+
+“Does she love you?”
+
+“She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I’m a Pole. She saw
+an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,--for all
+France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is impossible
+to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski and his
+followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am very unhappy,
+madame.”
+
+A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess.
+
+“You men have such a passion for singularity.”
+
+“And you?” said Thaddeus.
+
+“I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for some
+mountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?”
+
+“At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day. She was at a corner of
+a booth covered with flags, where the shows are given. Her comrades,
+all in Polish costumes, were making a horrible racket. I watched her
+standing there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw a melancholy
+expression in her face; in truth there was enough about her to sadden a
+girl of twenty. That touched me.”
+
+The countess was sitting in a delicious attitude, pensive and rather
+melancholy.
+
+“Poor, poor Thaddeus!” she exclaimed. Then, with the kindliness of a
+true great lady she added, not without a malicious smile, “Well go, go
+to your Circus.”
+
+Thaddeus took her hand, kissed it, leaving a hot tear upon it, and went
+out.
+
+Having invented this passion for a circus-rider, he bethought him
+that he must give it some reality. The only truth in his tale was the
+momentary attention he had given to Malaga at Saint-Cloud; and he had
+since seen her name on the posters of the Circus, where the clown, for
+a tip of five francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling, stolen
+perhaps. Thaddeus now went to the Circus and saw her again. For ten
+francs one of the grooms (who take the place in circuses of the dressers
+at a theatre) informed him that Malaga was named Marguerite Turquet, and
+lived on the fifth story of a house in the rue des Fosses-du-Temple.
+
+The following day Paz went to the faubourg du Temple, found the house,
+and asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer was
+substituting for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and a
+supernumerary at a boulevard theatre in winter.
+
+“Malaga!” cried the portress, rushing into the attic, “there’s a fine
+gentleman wanting you. He is getting information from Chapuzot, who is
+playing him off to give me time to tell you.”
+
+“Thank you, M’ame Chapuzot; but what will he think of me if he finds me
+ironing my gown?”
+
+“Pooh! when a man’s in love he loves everything about us.”
+
+“Is he an Englishman? they are fond of horses.”
+
+“No, he looks to me Spanish.”
+
+“That’s a pity; they say Spaniards are always poor. Stay here with me,
+M’ame Chapuzot; I don’t want him to think I’m deserted.”
+
+“Who is it you are looking for, monsieur?” asked Madame Chapuzot,
+opening the door for Thaddeus, who had now come upstairs.
+
+“Mademoiselle Turquet.”
+
+“My dear,” said the portress, with an air of importance, “here is some
+one to see you.”
+
+A line on which the clothes were drying caught the captain’s hat and
+knocked it off.
+
+“What is it you wish, monsieur?” said Malaga, picking up the hat and
+giving it to him.
+
+“I saw you at the Circus,” said Thaddeus, “and you reminded me of a
+daughter whom I have lost, mademoiselle; and out of affection for my
+Heloise, whom you resemble in a most striking manner, I should like to
+be of some service to you, if you will permit me.”
+
+“Why, certainly; pray sit down, general,” said Madame Chapuzot; “nothing
+could be more straightforward, more gallant.”
+
+“But I am not gallant, my good lady,” exclaimed Paz. “I am an
+unfortunate father who tries to deceive himself by a resemblance.”
+
+“Then am I to pass for your daughter?” said Malaga, slyly, and not in
+the least suspecting the perfect sincerity of his proposal.
+
+“Yes,” said Paz, “and I’ll come and see you sometimes. But you shall be
+lodged in better rooms, comfortably furnished.”
+
+“I shall have furniture!” cried Malaga, looking at Madame Chapuzot.
+
+“And servants,” said Paz, “and all you want.”
+
+Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously.
+
+“What countryman is monsieur?”
+
+“I am a Pole.”
+
+“Oh! then I accept,” she said.
+
+Paz departed, promising to return.
+
+“Well, that’s a stiff one!” said Marguerite Turquet, looking at Madame
+Chapuzot; “I’m half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancy
+of his own--Pooh! I’ll risk it.”
+
+A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living in
+a comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam’s own upholsterer, Paz
+having judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotel
+Laginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of the
+Arabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in the double
+capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Marguerite were
+constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end of three
+months none of them were able to make out the meaning of the Polish
+count’s caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hour there once
+a week, during which time he sat in the salon, and never went
+into Malaga’s boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of the clever
+manoeuvring of the Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. The count
+would ask questions as to the small events of Marguerite’s life, and
+each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francs each on
+the mantel-piece.
+
+“He looks as if he didn’t care to be here,” said Madame Chapuzot.
+
+“Yes,” said Malaga, “the man’s as cold as an icicle.”
+
+“But he’s a good fellow all the same,” cried Chapuzot, who was happy in
+a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like the
+servant of some minister.
+
+The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined to
+Malaga’s meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous living compared
+with her former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds of the Circus
+about Malaga’s good-luck. Her vanity increased the six thousand francs
+which Paz had spent on her furniture to sixty thousand. According to
+the clowns and the supers, Malaga was squandering money; and she now
+appeared at the Circus wearing burnous and shawls and elegant scarfs.
+The Pole, it was agreed on all sides, was the best sort of man a
+circus-rider had ever encountered, not fault-finding nor jealous, and
+willing to let Malaga do just what she liked.
+
+“Some women have the luck of it,” said Malaga’s rival, “and I’m not one
+of them,--though I do draw a third of the receipts.”
+
+Malaga wore pretty things, and occasionally “showed her head” (a term in
+the lexicon of such characters) in the Bois, where the fashionable young
+men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malaga was
+very much talked about in the questionable world of equivocal women, who
+presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They said she was
+a somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was using her to
+discover the philosopher’s stone. Some even more envenomed scandals
+drove her to a curiosity that was greater than Psyche’s. She reported
+them in tears to Paz.
+
+“When I want to injure a woman,” she said in conclusion, “I don’t
+calumniate her; I don’t declare that some one magnetizes her to get
+stones out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and I prove
+it. Why do you compromise me in this way?”
+
+Paz maintained a cruel silence. Madame Chapuzot was not long in
+discovering the name and title of Comte Paz; then she heard certain
+positive facts at the hotel Laginski: for instance, that Paz was a
+bachelor, and had never been known to have a daughter, alive or dead,
+in Poland or in France. After that Malaga could not control a feeling of
+terror.
+
+“My dear child,” Madame Chapuzot would say, “that monster--” (a man who
+contented himself with only looking, in a sly way,--not daring to come
+out and say things,--and such a beautiful creature too, as Malaga,--of
+course such a man was a monster, according to Madame Chapuzot’s ideas)
+“--that monster is trying to get a hold upon you, and make you do
+something illegal and criminal. Holy Father, if you should get into
+the police-courts! it makes me tremble from head to foot; suppose they
+should put you in the newspapers! I’ll tell you what I should do in your
+place; I’d warn the police.”
+
+One particular day, after many foolish notions had fermented for
+some time in Malaga’s mind, Paz having laid his money as usual on the
+mantel-piece, she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face,
+crying out, “I don’t want stolen money!”
+
+The captain gave the gold to Chapuzot, went away without a word, and did
+not return.
+
+Clementine was at this time at her uncle’s place in Burgundy.
+
+When the Circus troop discovered that Malaga had lost her Polish count,
+much excitement was produced among them. Malaga’s display of honor was
+considered folly by some, and shrewdness by others. The conduct of the
+Pole, however, even when discussed by the cleverest of women, seemed
+inexplicable. Thaddeus received in the course of the next week
+thirty-seven letters from women of their kind. Happily for him, his
+astonishing reserve did not excite the curiosity of the fashionable
+world, and was only discussed in the demi-mondaine regions.
+
+Two weeks later the handsome circus-rider, crippled by debt, wrote the
+following letter to Comte Paz, which, having fallen into the hands
+of Comte Adam, was read by several of the dandies of the day, who
+pronounced it a masterpiece:--
+
+  “You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me
+  after all that has passed,--which you have so ill understood? My
+  heart disavows whatever may have wounded your feelings. If I was
+  fortunate enough to charm you and keep you beside me in the past,
+  return to me; otherwise, I shall fall into despair. Poverty has
+  overtaken me, and you do not know what _horrid things_ it brings
+  with it. Yesterday I lived on a herring at two sous, and one sou
+  of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The
+  Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your
+  desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human
+  attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots
+  have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the
+  landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait
+  even ten days,--for when we lose the confidence of such as you,
+  credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to
+  reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My
+  friend, I have taken all I have of any value to _my uncle’s_; I have
+  nothing but the memory of you left, and here is the winter coming
+  on. I shall be fireless when it turns cold; for the boulevards are
+  to play only melodramas, in which I have nothing but little bits
+  of parts which don’t _pose_ a woman. How could you misunderstand the
+  nobleness of my feelings for you?--for there are two ways of
+  expressing gratitude. You who seemed so happy in seeing me
+  well-off, how can you leave me in poverty? Oh, my sole friend on
+  earth, before I go back to the country fairs with Bouthor’s circus,
+  where I can at least make a living, forgive me if I wish to know
+  whether I have lost you forever. If I were to let myself think of
+  you when I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs
+  by losing _a time_. Whatever may be the result, I am yours for life.
+
+“Marguerite Turquet.”
+
+
+“That letter,” thought Thaddeus, shouting with laughter, “is worth the
+ten thousand francs I have spent upon her.”
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Clementine came home the next day, and the day after that Paz beheld her
+again, more beautiful and graceful than ever. After dinner, during which
+the countess treated Paz with an air of perfect indifference, a little
+scene took place in the salon between the count and his wife when
+Thaddeus had left them. On pretence of asking Adam’s advice, Thaddeus
+had left Malaga’s letter with him, as if by mistake.
+
+“Poor Thaddeus!” said Adam, as Paz disappeared, “what a misfortune for
+a man of his distinction to be the plaything of the lowest kind of
+circus-rider. He will lose everything, and get lower and lower, and
+won’t be recognizable before long. Here, read that,” added the count,
+giving Malaga’s letter to his wife.
+
+Clementine read the letter, which smelt of tobacco, and threw it from
+her with a look of disgust.
+
+“Thick as the bandage is over his eyes,” continued Adam, “he must have
+found out something; Malaga tricked him, no doubt.”
+
+“But he goes back to her,” said Clementine, “and he will forgive her! It
+is for such horrible women as that that you men have indulgence.”
+
+“Well, they need it,” said Adam.
+
+“Thaddeus used to show some decency--in living apart from us,” she
+remarked. “He had better go altogether.”
+
+“Oh, my dear angel, that’s going too far,” said the count, who did not
+want the death of the sinner.
+
+Paz, who knew Adam thoroughly, had enjoined him to secrecy, pretending
+to excuse his dissipations, and had asked his friend to lend him a few
+thousand francs for Malaga.
+
+“He is a very firm fellow,” said Adam.
+
+“How so?” asked Clementine.
+
+“Why, for having spent no more than ten thousand francs on her, and
+letting her send him that letter before he would ask me for enough to
+pay her debts. For a Pole, I call that firm.”
+
+“He will ruin you,” said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisian
+woman, when she shows her feline distrusts.
+
+“Oh, I know him,” said Adam; “he will sacrifice Malaga, if I ask him.”
+
+“We shall see,” remarked the countess.
+
+“If it is best for his own happiness, I sha’n’t hesitate to ask him to
+leave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, sober
+as he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes to
+intoxication I shall be just as grieved as if he were my own son.”
+
+“Don’t tell me anything more about it,” cried the countess, with a
+gesture of disgust.
+
+Two days later the captain perceived in the manner, the tones of voice,
+but, above all, in the eyes of the countess, the terrible results of
+Adam’s confidences. Contempt had opened a gulf between the beloved woman
+and himself. He was suddenly plunged into the deepest distress of mind,
+for the thought gnawed him, “I have myself made her despise me!” His own
+folly stared him in the face. Life then became a burden to him, the very
+sun turned gray. And yet, amid all these bitter thoughts, he found again
+some moments of pure joy. There were times when he could give himself
+up wholly to his admiration for his mistress, who paid not the
+slightest attention to him. Hanging about in corners at her parties
+and receptions, silent, all heart and eyes, he never lost one of her
+attitudes, nor a tone of her voice when she sang. He lived in her life;
+he groomed the horse which _she_ rode, he studied the ways and means of
+that splendid establishment, to the interests of which he was now more
+devoted than ever. These silent pleasures were buried in his heart like
+those of a mother, whose heart a child never knows; for is it knowing
+anything unless we know it all? His love was more perfect than the love
+of Petrarch for Laura, which found its ultimate reward in the treasures
+of fame, the triumph of the poem which she had inspired. Surely the
+emotion that the Chevalier d’Assas felt in dying must have been to him
+a lifetime of joy. Such emotions as these Paz enjoyed daily,--without
+dying, but also without the guerdon of immortality.
+
+But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Paz
+should still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnified
+Love that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility of
+spirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualities
+of which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing where
+contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand
+had given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
+mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
+better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her respect,
+and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with constant
+low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to keep his
+bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became very uneasy
+about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark: “Let him alone;
+don’t you see it is only some Olympian trouble?” This remark, being
+repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair; he left his bed,
+went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his health.
+
+About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
+Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to let
+the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.
+
+“There’s nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl;
+but if the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be
+lowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future.”
+
+“Ha! this, too!” exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.
+
+“Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever
+quits,--though, indeed, I am your debtor now.”
+
+“Adam, you will have children; don’t gamble any more,” said Paz.
+
+“So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs,” cried the
+countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to
+Paz. “First, ten thousand, now twenty more,--thirty thousand! the income
+of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera, and the
+whole fortune of many a bourgeois. Oh, you Poles!” she said, gathering
+some flowers in her greenhouse; “you are really incomprehensible. Why
+are you not furious with him?”
+
+“Poor Paz is--”
+
+“Poor Paz, poor Paz, indeed!” she cried, interrupting him, “what good
+does he do us? I shall take the management of the household myself. You
+can give him the allowance he refused, and let him settle it as he likes
+with his Circus.”
+
+“He is very useful to us, Clementine. He has certainly saved over forty
+thousand francs this last year. And besides, my dear angel, he has
+managed to put a hundred thousand with Nucingen, which a steward would
+have pocketed.”
+
+Clementine softened down; but she was none the less hard in her feelings
+to Thaddeus. A few days later, she requested him to come to that boudoir
+where, one year earlier, she had been surprised into comparing him with
+her husband. This time she received him alone, without perceiving the
+slightest danger in so doing.
+
+“My dear Paz,” she said, with the condescending familiarity of the great
+to their inferiors, “if you love Adam as you say you do, you will do
+a thing which he will not ask of you, but which I, his wife, do not
+hesitate to exact.”
+
+“About Malaga?” said Thaddeus, with bitterness in his heart.
+
+“Well, yes,” she said; “if you wish to end your days in this house
+and continue good friends with us, you must give her up. How an old
+soldier--”
+
+“I am only thirty-five, and haven’t a white hair.”
+
+“You look old,” she said, “and that’s the same thing. How so careful a
+manager, so distinguished a--”
+
+The horrible part of all this was her evident intention to rouse a sense
+of honor in his soul which she thought extinct.
+
+“--so distinguished a man as you are, Thaddeus,” she resumed after a
+momentary pause which a gesture of his hand had led her to make, “can
+allow yourself to be caught like a boy! Your proceedings have made that
+woman celebrated. My uncle wanted to see her, and he did see her. My
+uncle is not the only one; Malaga receives a great many gentlemen. I did
+think you such a noble soul. For shame! Will she be such a loss that you
+can’t replace her?”
+
+“Madame, if I knew any sacrifice I could make to recover your esteem I
+would make it; but to give up Malaga is not one--”
+
+“In your position, that is what I should say myself, if I were a man,”
+ replied Clementine. “Well, if I accept it as a great sacrifice there can
+be no ill-will between us.”
+
+Paz left the room, fearing he might commit some great folly, and feeling
+that wild ideas were getting the better of him. He went to walk in the
+open air, lightly dressed in spite of the cold, but without being able
+to cool the fire in his cheeks or on his brow.
+
+“I thought you had a noble soul,”--the words still rang in his ears.
+
+“A year ago,” he said to himself, “she thought me a hero who could fight
+the Russians single-handed!”
+
+He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with the
+spahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checked
+him. “Without me,” he thought, “what would become of them? they would
+soon be ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be for her
+if she were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No, since all
+is lost for me in this world,--courage! I will keep on as I am.”
+
+Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone a
+transformation which has made it European, and far more burlesque
+and otherwise lively than the late Carnival of Venice. Is it that the
+diminishing fortunes of the present time have led Parisians to invent a
+way of amusing themselves collectively, as for instance at their clubs,
+where they hold salons without hostesses and without manners, but very
+cheaply? However this may be, the month of March was prodigal of balls,
+at which dancing, joking, coarse fun, excitement, grotesque figures, and
+the sharp satire of Parisian wit, produced extravagant effects. These
+carnival follies had their special Pandemonium in the rue Saint-Honore
+and their Napoleon in Musard, a small man born expressly to lead an
+orchestra as noisy as the disorderly audience, and to set the time for
+the galop, that witches’ dance, which was one of Auber’s triumphs, for
+it did not really take form or poesy till the grand galop in “Gustave”
+ was given to the world. That tremendous finale might serve as the symbol
+of an epoch in which for the last fifty years all things have hurried by
+with the rapidity of a dream.
+
+Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and immaculate
+image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the carnival
+dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he knew the
+countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with two
+friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on at the
+curious spectacle of one of these crowded balls.
+
+On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o’clock in the morning, the
+countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower step of the
+platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since then given
+his concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading the galop
+with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with plumes
+like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like a
+will-o-the-wisp.
+
+“Ah!” said Clementine to her husband, “you Poles have no honor at all!
+I did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leave that
+woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen.”
+
+A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinner Adam
+left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let him know
+very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house any longer.
+
+“Yes, madame,” said Paz, humbly, “you are right; I am a wretch; I did
+give you my word. But you see how it is; I put off leaving Malaga till
+after the carnival. Besides, that woman exerts an influence over me
+which--”
+
+“An influence!--a woman who ought to be turned out of Musard’s by the
+police for such dancing!”
+
+“I agree to all that; I accept the condemnation and I’ll leave your
+house. But you know Adam. If I give up the management of your property
+you must show energy yourself. I may have been to blame about Malaga,
+but I have taken the whole charge of your affairs, managed your
+servants, and looked after the very least details. I cannot leave you
+until I see you prepared to continue my management. You have now
+been married three years, and you are safe from the temptations to
+extravagance which come with the honeymoon. I see that Parisian
+women, and even titled ones, do manage both their fortunes and their
+households. Well, as soon as I am certain not so much of your capacity
+as of your perseverance I shall leave Paris.”
+
+“It is Thaddeus of Warsaw, and not that Circus Thaddeus who speaks now,”
+ said Clementine. “Go, and come back cured.”
+
+“Cured! never,” said Paz, his eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine’s
+pretty feet. “You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpected
+piquancy of mind she has.” Then, feeling his courage fail him, he added
+hastily, “There is not a woman in society, with her mincing airs, that
+is worth the honest nature of that young animal.”
+
+“At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me,” said the countess,
+with a glance like that of an angry viper.
+
+After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of
+her affairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods and
+difficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to pay for
+things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He told her
+she could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeus had
+trained the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought the countess
+fully competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementine was one of
+those far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have an innate genius as
+mistress of a household.
+
+This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did
+not end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to
+be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover
+forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and
+Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend. His
+devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing her
+perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment
+imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but
+women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their
+souls--love is their sole illuminator.
+
+During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearing
+to think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think of
+her. Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though he
+did not die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris in consultation.
+
+“If he comes safely out of this,” said the most distinguished of them
+all, “it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those who nurse
+him to watch for the moment when they must second nature. The count’s
+life is in the hands of his nurses.”
+
+Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of the
+consultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as much for
+a little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and not embarrass
+them. As he walked along the winding gravelled path which led to the
+pavilion, Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of an abyss described
+by Dante. The unfortunate man had never dreamed that the possibility
+might arise of becoming Clementine’s husband, and now he had drowned
+himself in a ditch of mud. His face was convulsed, when he reached
+the kiosk, with an agony of grief; his head, like Medusa’s, conveyed
+despair.
+
+“Is he dead?” said Clementine.
+
+“They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not go
+in; they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings.”
+
+“Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him,” she said.
+
+“You have made him very happy,” said Thaddeus; “you ought to be easy on
+that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him.”
+
+“My loss would be irreparable.”
+
+“But, dear, you judged him justly.”
+
+“I was never blind to his faults,” she said, “but I loved him as a wife
+should love her husband.”
+
+“Then you ought, in case you lose him,” said Thaddeus, in a voice which
+Clementine had never heard him use, “to grieve for him less than if you
+lost a man who was your pride, your love, and all your life,--as some
+men are to you women. Surely you can be frank at this moment with a
+friend like me. I shall grieve, too; long before your marriage I had
+made him my child, I had sacrificed my life to him. If he dies I shall
+be without an interest on earth; but life is still beautiful to a widow
+of twenty-four.”
+
+“Ah! but you know that I love no one,” she said, with the impatience of
+grief.
+
+“You don’t yet know what it is to love,” said Thaddeus.
+
+“Oh, as husbands are, I have sense enough to prefer a child like my poor
+Adam to a superior man. It is now over a month that we have been saying
+to each other, ‘Will he live?’ and these alternations have prepared me,
+as they have you, for this loss. I can be frank with you. Well, I would
+give my life to save Adam. What is a woman’s independence in Paris?
+the freedom to let herself be taken in by ruined or dissipated men who
+pretend to love her. I pray to God to leave me this husband who is so
+kind, so obliging, so little fault-finding, and who is beginning to
+stand in awe of me.”
+
+“You are honest, and I love you the better for it,” said Thaddeus,
+taking her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. “In solemn
+moments like these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding a woman
+without hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let us look to
+the future. Suppose that God does not grant your prayer,--and no one
+cries to him more than I do, ‘Leave me my friend!’ Yes, these fifty
+nights have not weakened me; if thirty more days and nights are needed
+I can give them while you sleep,--yes, I will tear him from death if, as
+the doctors say, nursing can save him. But suppose that in spite of you
+and me, the count dies,--well, then, if you were loved, oh, adored, by a
+man of a heart and soul that are worthy of you--”
+
+“I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met with
+it.”
+
+“Perhaps you are mistaken--”
+
+Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was less of
+love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him from head
+to foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him with the
+words, “Poor Malaga!” uttered in tones which a great lady alone can
+find to give expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeus half
+unconscious behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and went back to
+Adam’s chamber.
+
+An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, with death
+in his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he said nothing.
+He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed in a way
+that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his watchful
+eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment to
+Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he seemed
+both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, “She shall owe his life to
+me,” and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of fire on the walls
+of Adam’s room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was forced to give up
+the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz was unwearied. At
+last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the family physician, told
+Clementine that Adam was out of danger.
+
+“Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me,” he said; “without his
+friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him.”
+
+The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the
+Marquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of
+starting for Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasion
+to say a few words to him. The first day that Adam was able to drive
+out with his wife and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard as the
+carriage was about to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus, who
+was sitting on the front seat of the caleche, turned to take a letter
+which bore the stamp of the ministry of Foreign affairs. Having read it,
+he put it into his pocket in a manner which prevented Clementine or Adam
+from speaking of it. Nevertheless, by the time they reached the porte
+Maillot, Adam, full of curiosity, used the privilege of a sick man
+whose caprices are to be gratified, and said to Thaddeus: “There’s no
+indiscretion between brothers who love each other,--tell me what there
+is in that despatch; I’m in a fever of curiosity.”
+
+Clementine glanced at Thaddeus with a vexed air, and remarked to her
+husband: “He has been so sulky with me for the last two months that I
+shall never ask him anything again.”
+
+“Oh, as for that,” replied Paz, “I can’t keep it out of the newspapers,
+so I may as well tell you at once. The Emperor Nicholas has had the
+grace to appoint me captain in a regiment which is to take part in the
+expedition to Khiva.”
+
+“You are not going?” cried Adam.
+
+“Yes, I shall go, my dear fellow. Captain I came, and captain I return.
+We shall dine together to-morrow for the last time. If I don’t start at
+once for St. Petersburg I shall have to make the journey by land, and I
+am not rich, and I must leave Malaga a little independence. I ought to
+think of the only woman who has been able to understand me; she thinks
+me grand, superior. I dare say she is faithless, but she would jump--”
+
+“Through the hoop, for your sake and come down safely on the back of her
+horse,” said Clementine sharply.
+
+“Oh, you don’t know Malaga,” said the captain, bitterly, with a
+sarcastic look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful and uneasy.
+
+“Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which you Parisians
+love, and the exiles who find a home here love too,” he said,
+presently. “My eyes will never again see the evergreens of the avenue de
+Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of the rond-points. On
+the borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor, promoted to the command,
+perhaps, by force of courage and by risking my life, it may happen that
+I shall regret these Champs-Elysees where I have driven beside you, and
+where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve for Malaga’s hardness--the Malaga of
+whom I am now speaking.”
+
+This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble.
+
+“Then you do love Malaga very much?” she asked.
+
+“I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should ever sacrifice.”
+
+“What honor?”
+
+“That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol.”
+
+After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as they
+passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to it,
+“That is the Circus.”
+
+He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the Foreign
+office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before the count
+and countess were up.
+
+“I have lost a friend,” said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he heard
+that Paz had gone,--“a friend in the true meaning of the word. I don’t
+know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my house.
+We are not friends to quarrel about a woman,” he said, looking intently
+at Clementine. “You heard what he said yesterday about Malaga. Well, he
+has never so much as touched the little finger of that girl.”
+
+“How do you know that?” said Clementine.
+
+“I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, and
+the poor girl can’t explain even to herself the absolute reserve which
+Thad--”
+
+“Enough!” said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. “Can it be
+that I am the victim of some noble mystification?” she asked herself.
+The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her the
+following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:--
+
+  “Countess,--To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your
+  contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When
+  I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom
+  we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I
+  loved you thus,--I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were
+  about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,--a voluntary service, but
+  still the steward of your household.
+
+  “In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an
+  indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your
+  luxury, has been the source of deep enjoyments. If these
+  enjoyments were great when I thought only of Adam, think what they
+  were to my soul when the woman I loved was the mainspring of all I
+  did. I have known the pleasures of maternity in my love. I
+  accepted life thus. Like the paupers who live along the great
+  highways, I built myself a hut on the borders of your beautiful
+  domain, though I never sought to approach you. Poor and lonely,
+  struck blind by Adam’s good fortune, I was, nevertheless, the
+  giver. Yes, you were surrounded by a love as pure as a
+  guardian-angel’s; it waked while you slept; it caressed you with a
+  look as you passed; it was happy in its own existence,--you were
+  the sun of my native land to me, poor exile, who now writes to you
+  with tears in his eyes as he thinks of the happiness of those first
+  days.
+
+  “When I was eighteen years old, having no one to love, I took for
+  my ideal mistress a charming woman in Warsaw, to whom I confided
+  all my thoughts, my wishes; I made her the queen of my nights and
+  days. She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my
+  love.
+
+  “You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was
+  merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your
+  horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the
+  splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the
+  elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all
+  by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked
+  Paris when Adam would say to me, ‘_She_ wants this or that.’ It was
+  a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
+  at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
+  and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
+  you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
+  that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
+  head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
+  had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
+  balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
+  persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
+
+  “I _must_ tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
+  of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
+  until now.
+
+  “You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
+  know the man who performed the household miracles you had
+  sometimes noticed. I thought,--forgive me, madame,--I believed you
+  might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a
+  lover, seemed to me so dangerous--for me--that I invented that
+  story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women
+  cannot forgive. I did it in a moment when I felt that my love
+  would be communicated, fatally, to you. Despise me, crush me with
+  the contempt you have so often cast upon me when I did not deserve
+  it; and yet I am certain that, if, on that evening when your aunt
+  took Adam away from you, I had said what I have now written to
+  you, I should, like the tamed tiger that sets his teeth once more
+  in living flesh, and scents the blood, and--
+
+                                                          “Midnight.”
+
+  “I could not go on; the memory of that hour is still too living.
+  Yes, I was maddened. Was there hope for me in your eyes? then
+  victory with its scarlet banners would have flamed in mine and
+  fascinated yours. My crime has been to think all this; perhaps
+  wrongly. You alone can judge of that dreadful scene when I drove
+  back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood,
+  with the cold hand of gratitude,--gratitude which must be eternal.
+
+  “Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me
+  there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I
+  should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he
+  lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to
+  betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought
+  that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said
+  that his life depended on his nursing.
+
+  “Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing
+  now in my being no longer near you.
+
+  “Your devoted
+
+  “Thaddeus Paz.”
+
+
+“If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?” thought
+Clementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet.
+
+The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to the
+count:--
+
+  “My dear Adam,--Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your
+  future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about
+  your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a
+  hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine’s character; she will
+  never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to
+  Malaga.
+
+  “I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen;
+  and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince
+  Paz in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken
+  sixty-thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even.
+
+“Thaddeus.”
+
+
+“Idiot that I was,” thought Adam; “I came near to cutting my throat just
+now, talking about Malaga.”
+
+It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yet
+said nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immensely
+interested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russian to
+the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comes from
+that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to the Russian
+ambassador, with an air of indifference, “Do you know what has become of
+our poor Comte Paz?”
+
+Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so clever
+and clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognize
+him. Yes, many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but--horrible to think
+of!--some are misconceived even though they are loved. The simplest
+women in society exact a certain amount of conventional sham from
+the greatest men. A noble love signifies nothing to them if rough and
+unpolished; it needs the cutting and setting of a jeweller to give it
+value in their eyes.
+
+In January, 1842, the Comtesse Laginska, with her charm of gentle
+melancholy, inspired a violent passion in the Comte de La Palferine, one
+of the most daring and presumptuous lions of the day. La Palferine was
+well aware that the conquest of a woman so guarded by reserve as the
+Comtesse Laginska was difficult, but he thought he could inveigle this
+charming creature into committing herself if he took her unawares, by
+the assistance of a certain friend of her own, a woman already jealous
+of her.
+
+Quite incapable, in spite of her intelligence, of suspecting such
+treachery, the Comtesse Laginska committed the imprudence of going with
+her so-called friend to a masked ball at the Opera. About three in the
+morning, led away by the excitement of the scene, Clementine, on whom La
+Palferine had expended his seductions, consented to accept a supper,
+and was about to enter the carriage of her faithless friend. At this
+critical moment her arm was grasped by a powerful hand, and she was
+taken, in spite of her struggles, to her own carriage, the door of which
+stood open, though she did not know it was there.
+
+“He has never left Paris!” she exclaimed to herself as she recognized
+Thaddeus, who disappeared when the carriage drove away.
+
+Did any woman ever have a like romance in her life? Clementine is
+constantly hoping she may again see Paz.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist’s Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Government Clerks
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     La Palferine, Comte de
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+
+     Lelewel
+       The Seamy Side of History
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Paz, Thaddee
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Peasantry
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       A Start in Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Schinner, Hippolyte
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Start in Life
+       Albert Savarus
+       The Government Clerks
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+
+     Serizy, Vicomte de
+       A Start in Life
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Souchet, Francois
+       The Purse
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Steinbock, Count Wenceslas
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Turquet, Marguerite
+       The Muse of the Department
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAZ ***
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Paz
+       (La Fausse Maitresse)
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February 23, 2010 [EBook #1369]
+Last Updated: November 23, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAZ ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      PAZ
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      (La Fausse Maitresse)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Honore De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      DEDICATION<br /><br /> Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.<br />
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> PAZ </a>
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <h3>
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> ADDENDUM </a>
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      PAZ
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      (LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg
+      Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young Polish exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced, to
+      spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants by which
+      the Slave language protects its vowels,&mdash;probably not to lose them,
+      considering how few there are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princely
+      fortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with a
+      Demoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother&rsquo;s side Clementine du
+      Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame de Serizy for
+      aunt. On her father&rsquo;s side she had another uncle in the eccentric person
+      of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of the house, an old bachelor
+      who had become very rich by speculating in lands and houses. The Marquis
+      de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to lose both his children at the time
+      of the cholera, and the only son of Madame de Serizy, a young soldier of
+      great promise, perished in Africa in the affair of the Makta. In these
+      days rich families stand between the danger of impoverishing their
+      children if they have too many, or of extinguishing their names if they
+      have too few,&mdash;a singular result of the Code which Napoleon never
+      thought of. By a curious turn of fortune Clementine became, in spite of
+      her father having squandered his substance on Florine (one of the most
+      charming actresses in Paris), a great heiress. The Marquis de
+      Ronquerolles, a clever diplomatist under the new dynasty, his sister,
+      Madame de Serizy, and the Chevalier du Rouvre agreed, in order to save
+      their fortunes from the dissipations of the marquis, to settle them on
+      their niece, to whom, moreover, they each pledged themselves to pay ten
+      thousand francs a year from the day of her marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is quite unnecessary to say that the Polish count, though an exile, was
+      no expense to the French government. Comte Adam Laginski belonged to one
+      of the oldest and most illustrious families in Poland, which was allied to
+      many of the princely houses of Germany,&mdash;Sapieha, Radziwill,
+      Mniszech, Rzewuski, Czartoryski, Leczinski, Lubormirski, and all the other
+      great Sarmatian SKIS. But heraldic knowledge is not the most
+      distinguishing feature of the French nation under Louis-Philippe, and
+      Polish nobility was no great recommendation to the bourgeoisie who were
+      lording it in those days. Besides, when Adam first made his appearance, in
+      1833, on the boulevard des Italiens, at Frascati, and at the Jockey-Club,
+      he was leading the life of a young man who, having lost his political
+      prospects, was taking his pleasure in Parisian dissipation. At first he
+      was thought to be a student.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Polish nationality had at this period fallen as low in French
+      estimation, thanks to a shameful governmental reaction, as the republicans
+      had sought to raise it. The singular struggle of the Movement against
+      Resistance (two words which will be inexplicable thirty years hence) made
+      sport of what ought to have been truly respected,&mdash;the name of a
+      conquered nation to whom the French had offered hospitality, for whom
+      fetes had been given (with songs and dances by subscription), above all, a
+      nation which in the Napoleonic struggle between France and Europe had
+      given us six thousand men, and what men!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that of the
+      Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against the Emperor. It
+      would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion into tales that are
+      intended to amuse or interest. Besides, Russia and Poland were both right,&mdash;one
+      to wish the unity of its empire, the other to desire its liberty. Let us
+      say in passing that Poland might have conquered Russia by the influence of
+      her morals instead of fighting her with weapons; she should have imitated
+      China which, in the end, Chinesed the Tartars, and will, it is to be
+      hoped, Chinese the English. Poland ought to have Polonized Russia.
+      Poniatowski tried to do so in the least favorable portion of the empire;
+      but as a king he was little understood,&mdash;because, possibly, he did
+      not fully understand himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people who were
+      the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famous review at
+      which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? The Poles were held up
+      to them as the allies of the republican party, and they never once
+      remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats. From that day forth
+      the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt the exiles of the nation it had
+      worshipped a few days earlier. The wind of a riot is always enough to veer
+      the Parisians from north to south under any regime. It is necessary to
+      remember these sudden fluctuations of feeling in order to understand why
+      it was that in 1835 the word &ldquo;Pole&rdquo; conveyed a derisive meaning to a
+      people who consider themselves the wittiest and most courteous nation on
+      earth, and their city of Paris the focus of enlightenment, with the
+      sceptre of arts and literature within its grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles,&mdash;the republican Poles,
+      sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is Prince Adam
+      Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but why complain of
+      that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles, no matter of
+      what nation they may be, or in what countries they take refuge. They carry
+      their countries and their hatreds with them. Two French priests, who had
+      emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution, showed the utmost horror of
+      each other, and when one of them was asked why, he replied with a glance
+      at his companion in misery: &ldquo;Why? because he&rsquo;s a Jansenist!&rdquo; Dante would
+      gladly have stabbed a Guelf had he met him in exile. This explains the
+      virulent attacks of the French against the venerable Prince Adam
+      Czartoryski, and the dislike shown to the better class of Polish exiles by
+      the shopkeeping Caesars and the licensed Alexanders of Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt for
+      Parisian pleasantry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is rather nice, though he is a Pole,&rdquo; said Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All these Poles pretend to be great lords,&rdquo; said Maxime de Trailles, &ldquo;but
+      this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think he must have
+      property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allowable to
+      remark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatian
+      character does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians, who, by
+      the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as the Poles do. The
+      French aristocracy, so nobly succored during the Revolution by the Polish
+      lords, certainly did not return the kindness in 1832. Let us have the
+      melancholy courage to admit this, and to say that the faubourg
+      Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer? This problem
+      was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to instructions,
+      imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held that all Polish
+      exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of the Tuileries, and all
+      who took their cue from it, gave striking proof of the political quality
+      which was then dignified by the name of sagacity. They turned their backs
+      on a Russian prince with whom they had all been on intimate terms during
+      the Emigration, merely because it was said that the Emperor Nicholas gave
+      him the cold shoulder. Between the caution of the court and the prudence
+      of the diplomates, the Polish exiles of distinction lived in Paris in the
+      Biblical solitude of &ldquo;super flumina Babylonis,&rdquo; or else they haunted a few
+      salons which were the neutral ground of all opinions. In a city of
+      pleasure, like Paris, where amusements abound on all sides, the heedless
+      gayety of a Pole finds twice as many encouragements as it needs to a life
+      of dissipation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him,&mdash;his
+      appearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole, as
+      there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is not very
+      handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the second category
+      of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression, looked as if
+      it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair hair, and reddish
+      beard and moustache made him look all the more like a goat because he was
+      small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes caught you with that oblique
+      look which Virgil celebrates. How came he, in spite of such obvious
+      disadvantages, to possess really exquisite manners and a distinguished
+      air? The problem is solved partly by the care and elegance of his dress,
+      and partly by the training given him by his mother, a Radziwill. His
+      courage amounted to daring, but his mind was not more than was needed for
+      the ephemeral talk and pleasantry of Parisian conversation. And yet it
+      would have been difficult to find among the young men of fashion in Paris
+      a single one who was his superior. Young men talk a great deal too much in
+      these days of horses, money, taxes, deputies; French <i>conversation</i>
+      is no longer what it was. Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain
+      social inequalities to bring it out. There is, probably, more real
+      conversation in Vienna or St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do not need
+      to employ delicacy or shrewdness in speech; they blurt out things as they
+      are. Consequently the dandies of Paris did not discover the great seigneur
+      in the rather heedless young fellow who, in their talks, would flit from
+      one subject to another, all the more intent upon amusement because he had
+      just escaped from a great peril, and, finding himself in a city where his
+      family was unknown, felt at liberty to lead a loose life without the risk
+      of disgracing his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la
+      Pepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none in
+      Paris. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously he had
+      seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love with her. A
+      year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madame d&rsquo;Espard was the
+      first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters then learned too late
+      that as far back as the year 900 the family of the Laginski was among the
+      most illustrious of the North. By an act of prudence which was very
+      unPolish, the mother of the young count had mortgaged her entire property
+      on the breaking out of the insurrection for an immense sum lent by two
+      Jewish bankers in Paris. Comte Adam was now in possession of eighty
+      thousand francs a year. When this was discovered society ceased to be
+      surprised at the imprudence which had been laid to the charge of Madame de
+      Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, and the Chevalier du Rouvre in
+      yielding to the foolish passion of their niece. People jumped, as usual,
+      from one extreme of judgment to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the winter of 1836 Comte Adam was the fashion, and Clementine
+      Laginska one of the queens of Paris. Madame Laginska is now a member of
+      that charming circle of young women represented by Mesdames de Lestorade,
+      de Portenduere, Marie de Vandenesse, du Guenic, and de Maufrigneuse, the
+      flowers of our present Paris, who live at such immeasurable distance from
+      the parvenus, the vulgarians, and the speculators of the new regime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one of
+      those noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our time admit,&mdash;actions
+      which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering, are hidden within
+      rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing waves of what we call
+      society, the century, Paris, London, St. Petersburg,&mdash;or what you
+      will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals was
+      ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830, during the
+      present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old fortunes are
+      diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our ancestors are
+      constantly being demolished and replaced by species of phalansteries, in
+      which the peers of July occupy the third floor above some newly enriched
+      empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles is confusedly employed.
+      As there is no longer a real court or nobility to give the tone, there is
+      no harmony in the production of art. Never, on the other hand, has
+      architecture discovered so many economical ways of imitating the real and
+      the solid, or displayed more resources, more talent, in distributing them.
+      Propose to an architect to build upon the garden at the back of an old
+      mansion, and he will run you up a little Louvre overloaded with ornament.
+      He will manage to get in a courtyard, stables, and if you care for it, a
+      garden. Inside the house he will accommodate a quantity of little rooms
+      and passages. He is so clever in deceiving the eye that you think you will
+      have plenty of space; but it is only a nest of small rooms, after all, in
+      which a ducal family has to turn itself about in the space that its own
+      bakehouse formerly occupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of these
+      creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in the
+      court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse and
+      stables. The porter&rsquo;s lodge is between two charming portes-cocheres. The
+      chief luxury of the house is a delightful greenhouse contrived at the end
+      of a boudoir on the ground-floor which opens upon an admirable suite of
+      reception rooms. An English philanthropist had built this architectural
+      bijou, designed the garden, added the greenhouse, polished the doors,
+      bricked the courtyard, painted the window-frames green, and realized, in
+      short, a dream which resembled (proportions excepted) George the Fourth&rsquo;s
+      Pavilion at Brighton. The inventive and industrious Parisian workmen had
+      moulded the doors and window-frames; the ceilings were imitated from the
+      middle-ages or those of a Venetian palace; marble veneering abounded on
+      the outer walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet had designed the
+      mantel-pieces and the panels above the doors; Schinner had painted the
+      ceilings in his masterly manner. The beauties of the staircase, white as a
+      woman&rsquo;s arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild. On account of the riots
+      and the unsettled times, the cost of this folly was only about eleven
+      hundred thousand francs,&mdash;to an Englishman a mere nothing. All this
+      luxury, called princely by persons who do not know what real princes are,
+      was built in the garden of the house of a purveyor made a Croesus by the
+      Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels and died there after going into
+      bankruptcy. The Englishman died in Paris, of Paris; for to many persons
+      Paris is a disease,&mdash;sometimes several diseases. His widow, a
+      Methodist, had a horror of the little nabob establishment, and ordered it
+      to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at a bargain; and how he came to do so
+      shall presently be made known, for bargains were not at all in his line as
+      a grand seigneur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the house lay the verdant velvet of an English lawn shaded at the
+      lower end by a clump of exotic trees, in the midst of which stood a
+      Chinese pagoda with soundless belfries and motionless golden eggs. The
+      greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, the opposite
+      wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon poles painted green and
+      connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, this world of flowers, the
+      gravelled paths, the simulated forest, the verdant palisades, were
+      contained within the space of five and twenty square rods, which are worth
+      to-day four hundred thousand francs,&mdash;the value of an actual forest.
+      Here, in this solitude in the middle of Paris, the birds sang, thrushes,
+      nightingales, warblers, bulfinches, and sparrows. The greenhouse was like
+      an immense jardiniere, filling the air with perfume in winter as in
+      summer. The means by which its atmosphere was made to order, torrid as in
+      China or temperate as in Italy, were cleverly concealed. Pipes in which
+      hot water circulated, or steam, were either hidden under ground or
+      festooned with plants overhead. The boudoir was a large room. The miracle
+      of the modern Parisian fairy named Architecture is to get all these many
+      and great things out of a limited bit of ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of the
+      artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house. It is too
+      full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce knows where
+      to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their myriads of
+      fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz mounted on
+      filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in the style which
+      Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock conceived but often could
+      not execute, statuettes modelled by genius pursued by creditors (the real
+      explanation of the Arabian myth), superb sketches by our best artists,
+      lids of chests made into panels alternating with fluted draperies of
+      Italian silk, portieres hanging from rods of old oak in tapestried masses
+      on which the figures of some hunting scene are swarming, pieces of
+      furniture worthy to have belonged to Madame de Pompadour, Persian rugs, et
+      cetera. For a last graceful touch, all these elegant things were subdued
+      by the half-light which filtered through embroidered curtains and added to
+      their charm. On a table between the windows, among various curiosities,
+      lay a whip, the handle designed by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which proved
+      that the countess rode on horseback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is a lady&rsquo;s boudoir in 1837,&mdash;an exhibition of the contents of
+      many shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to be
+      dreaded by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital in
+      Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads to
+      revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is sure
+      of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was lying
+      at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it is almost
+      impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for lovers of the
+      &ldquo;far niente&rdquo; and its attendant joys of laziness to sink into. The doors of
+      the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of vegetation and the perfume
+      of the tropics pervade the room. The young wife was looking at her husband
+      who was smoking a narghile, the only form of pipe she would have suffered
+      in that room. The portieres, held back by cords, gave a vista through two
+      elegant salons, one white and gold, comparable only to that of the hotel
+      Forbin-Janson, the other in the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room,
+      which had no rival in Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at
+      the end of a short gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages.
+      This gallery opened on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber,
+      through which could be seen the beauties of the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was a sheet of
+      azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been married two
+      years, and Clementine had just discovered for the first time that there
+      was something resembling a secret or a mystery in her household. The Pole,
+      let us say it to his honor, is usually helpless before a woman; he is so
+      full of tenderness for her that in Poland he becomes her inferior, though
+      Polish women make admirable wives. Now a Pole is still more easily
+      vanquished by a Parisian woman. Consequently Comte Adam, pressed by
+      questions, did not even attempt the innocent roguery of selling the
+      suspected secret. It is always wise with a woman to get some good out of a
+      mystery; she will like you the better for it, as a swindler respects an
+      honest man the more when he finds he cannot swindle him. Brave in heart
+      but not in speech, Comte Adam merely stipulated that he should not be
+      compelled to answer until he had finished his narghile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling,&rdquo; said Clementine,
+      &ldquo;you always dismissed it by saying, &lsquo;Paz will settle that.&rsquo; You never
+      wrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying,
+      &lsquo;the captain, the captain.&rsquo; If I want the carriage&mdash;&lsquo;the captain.&rsquo; Is
+      there a bill to pay&mdash;&lsquo;the captain.&rsquo; If my horse is not properly
+      bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of
+      dominoes&mdash;Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never
+      see Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don&rsquo;t you bring forth your Paz?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t everything going on right?&rdquo; asked the count, taking the
+      &ldquo;bocchettino&rdquo; of his narghile from his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of two
+      hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our pace, and we
+      have only one hundred and ten thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A
+      footman entered, dressed like a minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you think you are going to find out anything that way&mdash;&rdquo; said
+      Comte Adam, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December, 1835,
+      had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, where
+      they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to Paris in November,
+      1837, the countess entered society for the first time as a married woman
+      during the winter which had just ended, and she then became aware of the
+      existence, half-suppressed and wholly dumb but very useful, of a species
+      of factotum who was personally invisible, named Paz,&mdash;spelt thus, but
+      pronounced &ldquo;Patz.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him,&rdquo; said
+      the footman, returning. &ldquo;He is at the stables; as soon as he has changed
+      his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was he doing at the stables?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was showing them how to groom Madame&rsquo;s horse,&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;He was
+      not pleased with the way Constantin did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and did not
+      add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usually comment on
+      the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogate from his position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! he was grooming Cora.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?&rdquo; said the footman,
+      leaving the room without further answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Paz a Pole?&rdquo; asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who nodded by
+      way of affirmation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extended upon a
+      cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge of its nest
+      listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemed enchanting even
+      to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her hair in curls, she was
+      not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in the Keepsakes, especially when
+      dressed, as she was this morning, in a breakfast gown of Persian silk, the
+      folds of which could not disguise the beauty of her figure or the slimness
+      of her waist. The silk with its brilliant colors being crossed upon the
+      bosom showed the spring of the neck,&mdash;its whiteness contrasting
+      delightfully against the tones of a guipure lace which lay upon her
+      shoulders. Her eyes and their long black lashes added at this moment to
+      the expression of curiosity which puckered her pretty mouth. On the
+      forehead, which was well modelled, an observer would have noticed a
+      roundness characteristic of the true Parisian woman,&mdash;self-willed,
+      merry, well-informed, but inaccessible to vulgar seductions. Her hands,
+      which were almost transparent, were hanging down at the end of each arm of
+      her chair; the tapering fingers, slightly turned up at their points,
+      showed nails like almonds, which caught the light. Adam smiled at his
+      wife&rsquo;s impatience, and looked at her with a glance which two years of
+      married life had not yet chilled. Already the little countess had made
+      herself mistress of the situation, for she scarcely paid attention to her
+      husband&rsquo;s admiration. In fact, in the look which she occasionally cast at
+      him, there seemed to be the consciousness of a Frenchwoman&rsquo;s ascendancy
+      over the puny, volatile, and red-haired Pole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here comes Paz,&rdquo; said the count, hearing a step which echoed through the
+      gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing on his
+      face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret endurance
+      of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats which were then
+      called &ldquo;polonaise.&rdquo; Thick, black hair, rather unkempt, covered his square
+      head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead shining like a block of
+      white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in his hand. The hand itself
+      was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust health flourished on his
+      face, which was divided by a large Roman nose and reminded Clementine of
+      some handsome Transteverino. A black silk cravat added to the martial
+      appearance of this six-foot mystery, with eyes of jet and Italian fervor.
+      The amplitude of his pleated trousers, which allowed only the tips of his
+      boots to be seen, revealed his faithfulness to the fashions of his own
+      land. There was something really burlesque to a romantic woman in the
+      striking contrast no one could fail to remark between the captain and the
+      count, the little Pole with his pinched face and the stalwart soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Adam,&rdquo; he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as he
+      asked Clementine what he could do for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are Laginski&rsquo;s friend!&rdquo; exclaimed the countess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For life and death,&rdquo; answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile of
+      affection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you take your meals with us? why did you not accompany us
+      to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a way that I am
+      unable to thank you for the constant services that you do for us?&rdquo; said
+      the countess, with much vivacity of manner but no feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntary servitude.
+      Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contempt for a social
+      amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bailiff, and yet neither the one
+      nor the other, a poor relation, an embarrassing friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, countess,&rdquo; he answered with perfect ease of manner, &ldquo;there are
+      no thanks due. I am Adam&rsquo;s friend, and it gives me pleasure to take care
+      of his interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you remain standing for your pleasure, too,&rdquo; remarked Comte Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paz sat down on a chair near the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards in the
+      courtyard,&rdquo; said Clementine. &ldquo;But why do you put yourself in a position of
+      inferiority,&mdash;you, Adam&rsquo;s friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians,&rdquo; he replied.
+      &ldquo;I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is not
+      indifferent to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame, the world will be satisfied if you tell them I am &lsquo;an
+      original.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment&rsquo;s silence he added, &ldquo;Are you going out to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come with us to the Bois?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Paz bowed and withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a good soul he is!&rdquo; said Adam. &ldquo;He has all the simplicity of a
+      child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now tell me all about your relations with him,&rdquo; said Clementine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paz, my dear,&rdquo; said Laginski, &ldquo;belongs to a noble family as old and
+      illustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time of their
+      disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of his property and
+      founded the Paz family, to which the title of count was granted. This
+      family, which distinguished itself greatly in the glorious days of our
+      royal republic, became rich. The graft from the tree that was felled in
+      Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland that there are several branches
+      of the family still there. I need not tell you that some are rich and some
+      are poor. Our Paz is the scion of a poor branch. He was an orphan, without
+      other fortune than his sword, when he served in the regiment of the Grand
+      Duke Constantine at the time of our revolution. Joining the Polish cause,
+      he fought like a Pole, like a patriot, like a man who has nothing,&mdash;three
+      good reasons for fighting well. In his last affair, thinking he was
+      followed by his men, he dashed upon a Russian battery and was taken
+      prisoner. I was there. His brave act roused me. &lsquo;Let us go and get him!&rsquo; I
+      said to my troop, and we charged the battery like a lot of foragers. I got
+      Paz&mdash;I was the seventh man; we started twenty and came back eight,
+      counting Paz. After Warsaw was sold we were forced to escape those
+      Russians. By a curious chance, Paz and I happened to come together again,
+      at the same hour and the same place, on the other side of the Vistula. I
+      saw the poor captain arrested by some Prussians, who made themselves the
+      blood-hounds of the Russians. When we have fished a man out of the Styx we
+      cling to him. This new danger for poor Paz made me so unhappy that I let
+      myself be taken too, thinking I could help him. Two men can get away where
+      one will perish. Thanks to my name and some family connections in Prussia,
+      the authorities shut their eyes to my escape. I got my dear captain
+      through as a man of no consequence, a family servant, and we reached
+      Dantzic. There we got on board a Dutch vessel and went to London. It took
+      us two months to get there. My mother was ill in England, and expecting
+      me. Paz and I took care of her till her death, which the Polish troubles
+      hastened. Then we left London and came to France. Men who go through such
+      adversities become like brothers. When I reached Paris, at twenty-two
+      years of age, and found I had an income of over sixty thousand francs a
+      year, without counting the proceeds of the diamonds and the pictures sold
+      by my mother, I wanted to secure the future of my dear Paz before I
+      launched into dissipation. I had often noticed the sadness in his eyes&mdash;sometimes
+      tears were in them. I had had good reason to understand his soul, which is
+      noble, grand, and generous to the core. I thought he might not like to be
+      bound by benefits to a friend who was six years younger than himself,
+      unless he could repay them. I was careless and frivolous, just as a young
+      fellow is, and I knew I was certain to ruin myself at play, or get
+      inveigled by some woman, and Paz and I might then be parted; and though I
+      had every intention of always looking out for him, I knew I might sometime
+      or other forget to provide for him. In short, my dear angel, I wanted to
+      spare him the pain and mortification of having to ask me for money, or of
+      having to hunt me up if he got into distress. SO, one morning, after
+      breakfast, when we were sitting with our feet on the andirons smoking
+      pipes, I produced,&mdash;with the utmost precaution, for I saw him look at
+      me uneasily,&mdash;a certificate of the Funds payable to bearer for a
+      certain sum of money a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine jumped up and went and seated herself on Adam&rsquo;s knee, put her
+      arms round his neck, and kissed him. &ldquo;Dear treasure!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how
+      handsome he is! Well, what did Paz do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thaddeus turned pale,&rdquo; said the count, &ldquo;but he didn&rsquo;t say a word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! his name is Thaddeus, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; Thaddeus folded the paper and gave it back to me, and then he said:
+      &lsquo;I thought, Adam, that we were one for life or death, and that we should
+      never part. Do you want to be rid of me?&rsquo; &lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;if you take it
+      that way, Thaddeus, don&rsquo;t let us say another word about it. If I ruin
+      myself you shall be ruined too.&rsquo; &lsquo;You haven&rsquo;t fortune enough to live as a
+      Laginski should,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;and you need a friend who will take care of
+      your affairs, and be a father and a brother and a trusty confidant.&rsquo; My
+      dear child, as Paz said that he had in his look and voice, calm as they
+      were, a maternal emotion, and also the gratitude of an Arab, the fidelity
+      of a dog, the friendship of a savage,&mdash;not displayed, but ever ready.
+      Faith! I seized him, as we Poles do, with a hand on each shoulder, and I
+      kissed him on the lips. &lsquo;For life and death, then! all that I have is
+      yours&mdash;do what you will with it.&rsquo; It was he who found me this house
+      and bought it for next to nothing. He sold my Funds high and bought in
+      low, and we have paid for this barrack with the profits. He knows horses,
+      and he manages to buy and sell at such advantage that my stable really
+      costs very little; and yet I have the finest horses and the most elegant
+      equipages in all Paris. Our servants, brave Polish soldiers chosen by him,
+      would go through fire and water for us. I seem, as you say, to be ruining
+      myself; and yet Paz keeps the house with such method and economy that he
+      has even repaired some of my foolish losses at play,&mdash;the thoughtless
+      folly of a young man. My dear, Thaddeus is as shrewd as two Genoese, as
+      eager for gain as a Polish Jew, and provident as a good housekeeper. I
+      never could force him to live as I did when I was a bachelor. Sometimes I
+      had to use a sort of friendly coercion to make him go to the theatre with
+      me when I was alone, or to the jovial little dinners I used to give at a
+      tavern. He doesn&rsquo;t like social life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he like, then?&rdquo; asked Clementine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poland; he loves Poland and pines for it. His only spendings are sums he
+      gives, more in my name than in his own, to some of our poor
+      brother-exiles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I shall love him, the fine fellow!&rdquo; said the countess, &ldquo;he looks to
+      me as simple-hearted as he is grand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All these pretty things you have about you,&rdquo; continued Adam, who praised
+      his friend in the noblest sincerity, &ldquo;he picked up; he bought them at
+      auction, or as bargains from the dealers. Oh! he&rsquo;s keener than they are
+      themselves. If you see him rubbing his hands in the courtyard, you may be
+      sure he has traded away one good horse for a better. He lives for me; his
+      happiness is to see me elegant, in a perfectly appointed equipage. The
+      duties he takes upon himself are all accomplished without fuss or
+      emphasis. One evening I lost twenty thousand francs at whist. &lsquo;What will
+      Paz say?&rsquo; thought I as I walked home. Paz paid them to me, not without a
+      sigh; but he never reproached me, even by a look. But that sigh of his
+      restrained me more than the remonstrances of uncles, mothers, or wives
+      could have done. &lsquo;Do you regret the money?&rsquo; I said to him. &lsquo;Not for you or
+      me, no,&rsquo; he replied; &lsquo;but I was thinking that twenty poor Poles could have
+      lived a year on that sum.&rsquo; You must understand that the Pazzi are fully
+      the equal of the Laginski, so I couldn&rsquo;t regard my dear Paz as an
+      inferior. I never went out or came in without going first to Paz, as I
+      would to my father. My fortune is his; and Thaddeus knows that if danger
+      threatened him I would fling myself into it and drag him out, as I have
+      done before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is saying a good deal, my dear friend,&rdquo; said the countess.
+      &ldquo;Devotion is like a flash of lightning. Men devote themselves in battle,
+      but they no longer have the heart for it in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; replied Adam, &ldquo;I am always ready, as in battle, to devote myself
+      to Paz. Our two characters have kept their natural asperities and defects,
+      but the mutual comprehension of our souls has tightened the bond already
+      close between us. It is quite possible to save a man&rsquo;s life and kill him
+      afterwards if we find him a bad fellow; but Paz and I know THAT of each
+      other which makes our friendship indissoluble. There&rsquo;s a constant exchange
+      of happy thoughts and impressions between us; and really, perhaps, such a
+      friendship as ours is richer than love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A pretty hand closed the count&rsquo;s mouth so promptly that the action was
+      somewhat like a blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;friendship, my dear angel, knows nothing of bankrupt
+      sentiments and collapsed joys. Love, after giving more than it has, ends
+      by giving less than it receives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One side as well as the other,&rdquo; remarked Clementine laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continued Adam, &ldquo;whereas friendship only increases. You need not
+      pucker up your lips at that, for we are, you and I, as much friends as
+      lovers; we have, at least I hope so, combined the two sentiments in our
+      happy marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus such good
+      friends,&rdquo; said Clementine. &ldquo;The difference in the lives you lead comes
+      from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your
+      positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and also
+      from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might become the
+      superior.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Paz is truly my superior,&rdquo; said Adam, naively; &ldquo;I have no advantage
+      over him except mere luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings is one
+      form of his superiority,&rdquo; continued the count. &ldquo;I said to him once: &lsquo;You
+      are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain within which you live
+      and think.&rsquo; He has a right to the title of count; but in Paris he won&rsquo;t be
+      called anything but captain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in our
+      century,&rdquo; said the countess. &ldquo;Dante and Michael Angelo are in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the very truth,&rdquo; cried Adam. &ldquo;He is a poet in soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So here I am, married to two Poles,&rdquo; said the young countess, with a
+      gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear child!&rdquo; said Adam, pressing her to him, &ldquo;it would have made me very
+      unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both rather afraid of it,
+      he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. You will make him very
+      happy if you tell him that you love him,&mdash;yes, as an old friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ride
+      together,&rdquo; said Clementine, ringing for her maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of Paris
+      asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois de
+      Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
+      Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice of
+      the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet. Clementine
+      dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a style that
+      impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon where the two
+      friends awaited her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Comte Paz,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you must go with us to the Opera.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: &ldquo;If you refuse
+      we shall quarrel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Willingly, madame,&rdquo; replied the captain. &ldquo;But as I have not the fortune
+      of a count, have the kindness to call me captain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, captain; give me your arm,&rdquo; she said,&mdash;taking it and
+      leading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiarity which
+      enchants all lovers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of a
+      poor sub-lieutenant dining at his general&rsquo;s table. He let Clementine talk,
+      listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her in
+      anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He seemed
+      actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways missed their
+      mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional respect. In vain
+      Adam kept saying: &ldquo;Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would really suppose you
+      were not at home. You must have made a wager to disconcert Clementine.&rdquo;
+       Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep. When the servants left the room
+      at the end of the dessert the captain explained that his habits were
+      diametrically opposite to those of society,&mdash;he went to bed at eight
+      o&rsquo;clock and got up very early in the morning; and he excused his dulness
+      on the ground of being sleepy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain; but do
+      as you prefer,&rdquo; said Clementine, rather piqued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go,&rdquo; said Paz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duprez sings &lsquo;Guillaume Tell,&rsquo;&rdquo; remarked Adam. &ldquo;But perhaps you would
+      rather go to the &lsquo;Varietes&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain smiled and rang the bell. &ldquo;Tell Constantin,&rdquo; he said to the
+      footman, &ldquo;to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe. We
+      should be rather squeezed otherwise,&rdquo; he said to the count.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Frenchman would have forgotten that,&rdquo; remarked Clementine, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North,&rdquo; answered Thaddeus
+      with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which made his conduct
+      at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was too evident a contrast
+      between his involuntary self-revelation in this speech and his behavior
+      during dinner. Clementine examined the captain with a few of those covert
+      glances which show a woman&rsquo;s surprise and also her capacity for
+      observation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in the salon
+      while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to Adam, who
+      was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no longer tried to
+      draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand, retreated within his
+      military stiffness and came out of it no more, neither on the way to the
+      Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man,&rdquo; he said during the dance
+      in the last act of &ldquo;Guillaume Tell.&rdquo; &ldquo;Am I not right to keep, as the
+      saying is, to my own specialty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
+      world, but you are perhaps Polish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
+      household&mdash;it is all I am good for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tartufe! pooh!&rdquo; cried Adam, laughing. &ldquo;My dear, he is full of ardor; he
+      is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any salon.
+      Clementine, don&rsquo;t believe his modesty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will take
+      the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a bear!&rdquo; she said to the count. &ldquo;You are a great deal nicer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor, dear Thaddeus,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;he is trying to make himself disagreeable
+      where most men would try to seem more amiable than I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am not sure but what there is some <i>calculation</i>
+      in his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out &ldquo;Gate!&rdquo; and
+      the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to her
+      husband, &ldquo;Where does the captain perch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, there!&rdquo; replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-cochere
+      which had one window looking on the street. &ldquo;His apartments are over the
+      coachhouse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who lives on the other side?&rdquo; asked the countess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one as yet,&rdquo; said Adam; &ldquo;I mean that apartment for our children and
+      their instructors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t go to bed,&rdquo; said the countess, observing lights in Thaddeus&rsquo;s
+      rooms when the carriage had passed under the portico supported by columns
+      copied from those of the Tuileries, which replaced a vulgar zinc awning
+      painted in stripes like cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, was watching
+      Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been a hard one for
+      him. And here is the reason why: A great and terrible emotion had taken
+      possession of his heart on the day when Adam made him go to the Opera to
+      see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle du Rouvre; and again when he saw
+      her on the occasion of her marriage, and recognized in her the woman whom
+      a man is forced to love exclusively. For this reason Paz strongly advised
+      and promoted the long journey to Italy and elsewhere after the marriage.
+      At peace so long as Clementine was away, his trial was renewed on the
+      return of the happy household. As he sat at his window on this memorable
+      night, smoking his latakia in a pipe of wild-cherry wood six feet long,
+      given to him by Adam, these are the thoughts that were passing through his
+      mind:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone know how I
+      love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love nor her
+      dislike?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, in the
+      midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance, were a
+      source of inward joy to him. Since the return of the count and countess he
+      had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himself necessary to a
+      household which, without his devotion to its interests, would infallibly
+      have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strain of reckless
+      prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift father, knew nothing
+      of the management of a household which the women of the present day,
+      however rich or noble they are, are often compelled to undertake
+      themselves. How few, in these days, keep a steward. Adam, on the other
+      hand, son of one of the great Polish lords who let themselves be preyed on
+      by the Jews, and are wholly incapable of managing even the wreck of their
+      vast fortunes (for fortunes are vast in Poland), was not of a nature to
+      check his own fancies or those of his wife. Left to himself he would
+      probably have been ruined before his marriage. Paz had prevented him from
+      gambling at the Bourse, and that says all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementine in
+      spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house and travelling
+      in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, the key-note of his life,
+      held him bound to that household where he alone could look after the
+      affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence of Adam and Clementine
+      had given him peace. But the countess had returned more lovely than ever,
+      enjoying the freedom which marriage brings to a Parisian woman, displaying
+      the graces of a young wife and the nameless attraction she gains from the
+      happiness, or the independence, bestowed upon her by a young man as
+      trustful, as chivalric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was
+      the pivot on which the splendor the household depended, to see Clementine
+      when she got out of her carriage on returning from some fete, or got into
+      it in the morning when she took her drive, to meet her on the boulevards
+      in her pretty equipage, looking like a flower in a whorl of leaves,
+      inspired poor Thaddeus with mysterious delights, which glowed in the
+      depths of his heart but gave no signs upon his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How happened it that for five whole months the countess had never
+      perceived the captain? Because he hid himself from her knowledge, and
+      carefully concealed the pains he took to avoid her. Nothing so resembles
+      the Divine love as hopeless human love. A man must have great depth of
+      heart to devote himself in silence and obscurity to a woman. In such a
+      heart is the worship of love for love&rsquo;s sake only&mdash;sublime avarice,
+      sublime because ever generous and founded on the mysterious existence of
+      the principles of creation. <i>Effect</i> is nature, and nature is
+      enchanting; it belongs to man, to the poet, the painter, the lover. But <i>Cause</i>,
+      to a few privileged souls and to certain mighty thinkers, is superior to
+      nature. Cause is God. In the sphere of causes live the Newtons and all
+      such thinkers as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Buffon;
+      also the true poets and solitarys of the second Christian century, and the
+      Saint Teresas of Spain, and such sublime ecstatics. All human sentiments
+      bear analogy to these conditions whenever the mind abandons Effect for
+      Cause. Thaddeus had reached this height, at which all things change their
+      relative aspect. Filled with the joys unutterable of a creator he had
+      attained in his love to all that genius has revealed to us of grandeur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he was thinking to himself as he watched the curling smoke of his
+      pipe, &ldquo;she was not entirely deceived. She might break up my friendship
+      with Adam if she took a dislike to me; but if she coquetted with me to
+      amuse herself, what would become of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The conceit of this last supposition was so foreign to the modest nature
+      and Teutonic timidity of the captain that he scolded himself for admitting
+      it, and went to bed, resolved to await events before deciding on a course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Clementine breakfasted very contentedly without Paz, and
+      without even noticing his disobedience to her orders. It happened to be
+      her reception day, when the house was thrown open with a splendor that was
+      semi-royal. She paid no attention to the absence of Comte Paz, on whom all
+      the burden of these parade days fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; thought he, as he heard the last carriages driving away at two in
+      the morning; &ldquo;it was only the caprice or the curiosity of a Parisian woman
+      that made her want to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that the captain went back to his ordinary habits and ways, which
+      had been somewhat upset by this incident. Diverted by her Parisian
+      occupations, Clementine appeared to have forgotten Paz. It must not be
+      thought an easy matter to reign a queen over fickle Paris. Does any one
+      suppose that fortunes alone are risked in the great game? The winters are
+      to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the soldiers of the
+      Empire. What works of art and genius are expended on a gown or a garland
+      in which to make a sensation! A fragile, delicate creature will wear her
+      stiff and brilliant harness of flowers and diamonds, silk and steel, from
+      nine at night till two and often three o&rsquo;clock in the morning. She eats
+      little, to attract remark to her slender waist; she satisfied her hunger
+      with debilitating tea, sugared cakes, ices which heat her, or slices of
+      heavy pastry. The stomach is made to yield to the orders of coquetry. The
+      awakening comes too late. A fashionable woman&rsquo;s whole life is in
+      contradiction to the laws of nature, and nature is pitiless. She has no
+      sooner risen than she makes an elaborate morning toilet, and thinks of the
+      one which she means to wear in the afternoon. The moment she is dressed
+      she has to receive and make visits, and go to the Bois either on horseback
+      or in a carriage. She must practise the art of smiling, and must keep her
+      mind on the stretch to invent new compliments which shall seem neither
+      common nor far-fetched. All women do not succeed in this. It is no
+      surprise, therefore, to find a young woman who entered fashionable society
+      fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the end of three years. Six
+      months spent in the country will hardly heal the wounds of the winter. We
+      hear continually, in these days, of mysterious ailments,&mdash;gastritis,
+      and so forth,&mdash;ills unknown to women when they busied themselves
+      about their households. In the olden time women only appeared in the world
+      at intervals; now they are always on the scene. Clementine found she had
+      to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited, and that alone brought
+      jealousies; and the care and watchfulness exacted by this contest with her
+      rivals left little time even to love her husband. Paz might well be
+      forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month of May, as she drove home from the
+      Bois, just before she left Paris for Ronquerolles, her uncle&rsquo;s estate in
+      Burgundy, she noticed Thaddeus, elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of
+      the side-paths of the Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at
+      seeing his beautiful countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited
+      horses and sparkling liveries,&mdash;in short, his beloved family the
+      admired of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the captain,&rdquo; she said to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s happy!&rdquo; said Adam. &ldquo;This is his delight. He knows there&rsquo;s no
+      equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that some
+      people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him there nearly
+      every day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what he is thinking about now,&rdquo; said Clementine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is thinking that this winter has cost a good deal, and that it is time
+      we went to economize with your old uncle Ronquerolles,&rdquo; replied Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess stopped the carriage near Paz, and bade him take the seat
+      beside her. Thaddeus grew as red as a cherry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall poison you,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I have been smoking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t Adam poison me?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but he is Adam,&rdquo; returned the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why can&rsquo;t Thaddeus have the same privileges?&rdquo; asked the countess,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That divine smile had a power which triumphed over the heroic resolutions
+      of poor Paz; he looked at Clementine with all the fire of his soul in his
+      eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by the angelic gratitude of
+      the man whose life was based upon that virtue. The countess folded her
+      arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her cushions, ruffling the
+      feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at the people who passed her.
+      That flash of a great and hitherto resigned soul reached her
+      sensibilities. What was Adam&rsquo;s merit in her eyes? It was natural enough to
+      have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus&mdash;surely Thaddeus possessed,
+      or seemed to possess, some great superiority over Adam. They were
+      dangerous thoughts which took possession of the countess&rsquo;s mind as she
+      again noticed the contrast of the fine presence that distinguished
+      Thaddeus, and the puny frame in which Adam showed the degenerating effects
+      of intermarriage among the Polish aristocratic families. The devil alone
+      knew the thoughts that were in Clementine&rsquo;s head, for she sat still, with
+      thoughtful, dreamy eyes, and without saying a word until they reached
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will dine with us; I shall be angry if you disobey me,&rdquo; she said as
+      the carriage turned in. &ldquo;You are Thaddeus to me, as you are to Adam. I
+      know your obligations to him, but I also know those we are under to you.
+      Both generosities are natural&mdash;but you are generous every day and all
+      day. My father dines here to-day, also my uncle Ronquerolles and my aunt
+      Madame de Serizy. Dress yourself therefore,&rdquo; she said, taking the hand he
+      offered to assist her from the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, though shaken
+      by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behaved through
+      dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like a soldier fit
+      only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementine was not his
+      dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, one of
+      the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who had served with de Marsay
+      during his short ministry, had been informed by his niece of the real
+      worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew how modestly he made himself
+      the steward of his friend Laginski.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing Comte Paz?&rdquo;
+       asked the marquis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because he is so shy and retiring,&rdquo; replied Clementine with a look at Paz
+      telling him to change his behavior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering the captain
+      less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend Adam, was not a
+      man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to his misfortunes. In his
+      lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he had read and taught himself
+      a good deal; he had compared and meditated. But the gift of original
+      thought which makes a great man he did not possess, and it can never be
+      acquired. Paz, great in heart only, approached in heart to the sublime;
+      but in the sphere of sentiments, being more a man of action than of
+      thought, he kept his thoughts to himself; and they only served therefore
+      to eat his heart out. What, after all, is a thought unexpressed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Clementine&rsquo;s little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his
+      sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam, and
+      Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in France and
+      Italy,&mdash;the two regions of the world (all courts excepted) where eyes
+      can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full power of the soul,
+      to give it the value of speech, needs either the pressure of extreme
+      servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis du Rouvre, and
+      Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the old coquette and
+      the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog, understood its
+      meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two seconds; but to describe
+      the tempest it roused in the captain&rsquo;s soul would take far too much space
+      in this brief history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;do the aunt and uncle think I might be loved?
+      Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all equally
+      powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would have his day.
+      Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the story of the Polish
+      insurrection in noble words, being questioned about it by the diplomatist.
+      By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine hanging upon his lips and
+      regarding him as a hero, forgetting that Adam too, after sacrificing a
+      third of his vast fortune, had been an exile. At nine o&rsquo;clock, after
+      coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy kissed her niece on the forehead,
+      pressed her hand, and went away, taking Adam with her and leaving the
+      Marquis de Ronquerolles and the Marquis du Rouvre, who soon followed. Paz
+      and Clementine were alone together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will leave you now, madame,&rdquo; said Thaddeus. &ldquo;You will of course rejoin
+      them at the Opera?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like dancing, and they give an odious ballet
+      to-night &lsquo;La Revolte au Serail.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me,&rdquo; said
+      Clementine, not looking at Paz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He loves you madly,&rdquo; replied Thaddeus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not to love
+      me to-morrow,&rdquo; said the countess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How inexplicable Parisian women are!&rdquo; exclaimed Thaddeus. &ldquo;When they are
+      loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they are loved
+      reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they are quite right. Thaddeus,&rdquo; she went on, smiling, &ldquo;I know Adam
+      well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grand
+      seigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he will
+      never oppose any of my tastes, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the marriage in which there are no &lsquo;buts&rsquo;?&rdquo; said Thaddeus,
+      gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine&rsquo;s mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which came near
+      rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: &ldquo;If I do not tell
+      her now that I love her I am a fool,&rdquo; he kept saying to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deep silences
+      that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Paz covertly, and
+      Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair like a man digesting
+      his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferent old man, Paz crossed
+      his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbs mechanically, looking
+      stupidly at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you tell me something good of Adam?&rdquo; cried Clementine suddenly.
+      &ldquo;Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cry was fine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now is the time,&rdquo; thought poor Paz, &ldquo;to put an insurmountable barrier
+      between us. Tell you good of Adam?&rdquo; he said aloud. &ldquo;I love him; you would
+      not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. My position is
+      very difficult between you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of his varnished
+      boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You Northern men have nothing but physical courage,&rdquo; she said
+      complainingly; &ldquo;you have no constancy in your opinions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?&rdquo; said Paz, assuming a careless
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are not you going to keep me company?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me for leaving you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean? Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of a heroic falsehood had come into his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens
+      to-night, and I can&rsquo;t miss it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; said Clementine, questioning him by a look that was half-anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I tell you why?&rdquo; he said, coloring; &ldquo;must I confide to you what I
+      hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! a secret in our noble captain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A disgraceful one&mdash;which you will perhaps understand, and pity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, disgraced?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all over
+      France with the Bouthor family,&mdash;people who have the rival circus to
+      Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director at the
+      Cirque-Olympique engage her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she handsome?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my thinking,&rdquo; said Paz, in a melancholy tone. &ldquo;Malaga (that&rsquo;s her
+      stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all
+      other women in the world?&mdash;well, I can&rsquo;t tell you. When I look at
+      her, with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her
+      bare and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white tunic
+      with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her look like a
+      living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags in her hand
+      to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paper hoops which
+      tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully on the galloping
+      horse to such applause,&mdash;no hired clapping,&mdash;well, all that
+      moves me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?&rdquo; asked Clementine, with
+      amazement and curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Paz, in a choking voice. &ldquo;Such agility, such grace under
+      constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman. Yes,
+      madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and Ellsler, all who
+      reign or have reigned on the stage, can&rsquo;t be compared, to my mind, with
+      Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at full gallop, or stand on the
+      point of one foot and fall easily into the saddle, and knit stockings,
+      break eggs, and make an omelette with the horse at full speed, to the
+      admiration of the people,&mdash;the real people, peasants and soldiers.
+      Malaga, madame, is dexterity personified; her little wrist or her little
+      foot can rid her of three or four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She must be stupid&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; said Paz, &ldquo;I find her as amusing as the heroine of &lsquo;Peveril of
+      the Peak.&rsquo; Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that comes into
+      her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do of the sous you
+      fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes. You couldn&rsquo;t make her
+      believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome young man, not if you
+      offered her a million of francs. Such love as hers is perpetual flattery
+      to a man. Her health is positively insolent, and she has thirty-two
+      oriental pearls in lips of coral. Her muzzle&mdash;that&rsquo;s what she calls
+      the lower part of her face&mdash;has, as Shakespeare expresses it, the
+      savor of a heifer&rsquo;s nose. She can make a man unhappy. She likes handsome
+      men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts, clowns. Her trainer, a horrible
+      brute, used to beat her to make her supple, and graceful, and intrepid&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are positively intoxicated with Malaga.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters,&rdquo; said Paz, with a piqued
+      air. &ldquo;She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment on the
+      third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two lives, her
+      circus life and the life of a pretty woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she love you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She loves me&mdash;now you will laugh&mdash;solely because I&rsquo;m a Pole.
+      She saw an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,&mdash;for
+      all France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is impossible to
+      get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski and his followers
+      were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am very unhappy, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You men have such a passion for singularity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; said Thaddeus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for some
+      mountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day. She was at a corner of a
+      booth covered with flags, where the shows are given. Her comrades, all in
+      Polish costumes, were making a horrible racket. I watched her standing
+      there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw a melancholy expression in her
+      face; in truth there was enough about her to sadden a girl of twenty. That
+      touched me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The countess was sitting in a delicious attitude, pensive and rather
+      melancholy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor, poor Thaddeus!&rdquo; she exclaimed. Then, with the kindliness of a true
+      great lady she added, not without a malicious smile, &ldquo;Well go, go to your
+      Circus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thaddeus took her hand, kissed it, leaving a hot tear upon it, and went
+      out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having invented this passion for a circus-rider, he bethought him that he
+      must give it some reality. The only truth in his tale was the momentary
+      attention he had given to Malaga at Saint-Cloud; and he had since seen her
+      name on the posters of the Circus, where the clown, for a tip of five
+      francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling, stolen perhaps.
+      Thaddeus now went to the Circus and saw her again. For ten francs one of
+      the grooms (who take the place in circuses of the dressers at a theatre)
+      informed him that Malaga was named Marguerite Turquet, and lived on the
+      fifth story of a house in the rue des Fosses-du-Temple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day Paz went to the faubourg du Temple, found the house, and
+      asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer was substituting
+      for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and a supernumerary at
+      a boulevard theatre in winter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Malaga!&rdquo; cried the portress, rushing into the attic, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a fine
+      gentleman wanting you. He is getting information from Chapuzot, who is
+      playing him off to give me time to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, M&rsquo;ame Chapuzot; but what will he think of me if he finds me
+      ironing my gown?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! when a man&rsquo;s in love he loves everything about us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he an Englishman? they are fond of horses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he looks to me Spanish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a pity; they say Spaniards are always poor. Stay here with me,
+      M&rsquo;ame Chapuzot; I don&rsquo;t want him to think I&rsquo;m deserted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it you are looking for, monsieur?&rdquo; asked Madame Chapuzot, opening
+      the door for Thaddeus, who had now come upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle Turquet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said the portress, with an air of importance, &ldquo;here is some one
+      to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A line on which the clothes were drying caught the captain&rsquo;s hat and
+      knocked it off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it you wish, monsieur?&rdquo; said Malaga, picking up the hat and
+      giving it to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw you at the Circus,&rdquo; said Thaddeus, &ldquo;and you reminded me of a
+      daughter whom I have lost, mademoiselle; and out of affection for my
+      Heloise, whom you resemble in a most striking manner, I should like to be
+      of some service to you, if you will permit me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, certainly; pray sit down, general,&rdquo; said Madame Chapuzot; &ldquo;nothing
+      could be more straightforward, more gallant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am not gallant, my good lady,&rdquo; exclaimed Paz. &ldquo;I am an unfortunate
+      father who tries to deceive himself by a resemblance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then am I to pass for your daughter?&rdquo; said Malaga, slyly, and not in the
+      least suspecting the perfect sincerity of his proposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Paz, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll come and see you sometimes. But you shall be
+      lodged in better rooms, comfortably furnished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have furniture!&rdquo; cried Malaga, looking at Madame Chapuzot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And servants,&rdquo; said Paz, &ldquo;and all you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What countryman is monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a Pole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! then I accept,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paz departed, promising to return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s a stiff one!&rdquo; said Marguerite Turquet, looking at Madame
+      Chapuzot; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancy of
+      his own&mdash;Pooh! I&rsquo;ll risk it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living in a
+      comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam&rsquo;s own upholsterer, Paz
+      having judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotel
+      Laginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of the
+      Arabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in the double
+      capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Marguerite were
+      constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end of three
+      months none of them were able to make out the meaning of the Polish
+      count&rsquo;s caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hour there once a
+      week, during which time he sat in the salon, and never went into Malaga&rsquo;s
+      boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of the clever manoeuvring of the
+      Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. The count would ask questions as to
+      the small events of Marguerite&rsquo;s life, and each time that he came he left
+      two gold pieces of forty francs each on the mantel-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He looks as if he didn&rsquo;t care to be here,&rdquo; said Madame Chapuzot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Malaga, &ldquo;the man&rsquo;s as cold as an icicle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s a good fellow all the same,&rdquo; cried Chapuzot, who was happy in a
+      new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like the
+      servant of some minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined to Malaga&rsquo;s
+      meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous living compared with her
+      former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds of the Circus about
+      Malaga&rsquo;s good-luck. Her vanity increased the six thousand francs which Paz
+      had spent on her furniture to sixty thousand. According to the clowns and
+      the supers, Malaga was squandering money; and she now appeared at the
+      Circus wearing burnous and shawls and elegant scarfs. The Pole, it was
+      agreed on all sides, was the best sort of man a circus-rider had ever
+      encountered, not fault-finding nor jealous, and willing to let Malaga do
+      just what she liked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some women have the luck of it,&rdquo; said Malaga&rsquo;s rival, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;m not one of
+      them,&mdash;though I do draw a third of the receipts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Malaga wore pretty things, and occasionally &ldquo;showed her head&rdquo; (a term in
+      the lexicon of such characters) in the Bois, where the fashionable young
+      men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malaga was very
+      much talked about in the questionable world of equivocal women, who
+      presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They said she was a
+      somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was using her to discover
+      the philosopher&rsquo;s stone. Some even more envenomed scandals drove her to a
+      curiosity that was greater than Psyche&rsquo;s. She reported them in tears to
+      Paz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I want to injure a woman,&rdquo; she said in conclusion, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      calumniate her; I don&rsquo;t declare that some one magnetizes her to get stones
+      out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and I prove it. Why
+      do you compromise me in this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paz maintained a cruel silence. Madame Chapuzot was not long in
+      discovering the name and title of Comte Paz; then she heard certain
+      positive facts at the hotel Laginski: for instance, that Paz was a
+      bachelor, and had never been known to have a daughter, alive or dead, in
+      Poland or in France. After that Malaga could not control a feeling of
+      terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear child,&rdquo; Madame Chapuzot would say, &ldquo;that monster&mdash;&rdquo; (a man
+      who contented himself with only looking, in a sly way,&mdash;not daring to
+      come out and say things,&mdash;and such a beautiful creature too, as
+      Malaga,&mdash;of course such a man was a monster, according to Madame
+      Chapuzot&rsquo;s ideas) &ldquo;&mdash;that monster is trying to get a hold upon you,
+      and make you do something illegal and criminal. Holy Father, if you should
+      get into the police-courts! it makes me tremble from head to foot; suppose
+      they should put you in the newspapers! I&rsquo;ll tell you what I should do in
+      your place; I&rsquo;d warn the police.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One particular day, after many foolish notions had fermented for some time
+      in Malaga&rsquo;s mind, Paz having laid his money as usual on the mantel-piece,
+      she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face, crying out, &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t want stolen money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain gave the gold to Chapuzot, went away without a word, and did
+      not return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine was at this time at her uncle&rsquo;s place in Burgundy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Circus troop discovered that Malaga had lost her Polish count,
+      much excitement was produced among them. Malaga&rsquo;s display of honor was
+      considered folly by some, and shrewdness by others. The conduct of the
+      Pole, however, even when discussed by the cleverest of women, seemed
+      inexplicable. Thaddeus received in the course of the next week
+      thirty-seven letters from women of their kind. Happily for him, his
+      astonishing reserve did not excite the curiosity of the fashionable world,
+      and was only discussed in the demi-mondaine regions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two weeks later the handsome circus-rider, crippled by debt, wrote the
+      following letter to Comte Paz, which, having fallen into the hands of
+      Comte Adam, was read by several of the dandies of the day, who pronounced
+      it a masterpiece:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me
+  after all that has passed,&mdash;which you have so ill understood? My
+  heart disavows whatever may have wounded your feelings. If I was
+  fortunate enough to charm you and keep you beside me in the past,
+  return to me; otherwise, I shall fall into despair. Poverty has
+  overtaken me, and you do not know what <i>horrid things</i> it brings
+  with it. Yesterday I lived on a herring at two sous, and one sou
+  of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The
+  Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your
+  desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human
+  attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots
+  have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the
+  landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait
+  even ten days,&mdash;for when we lose the confidence of such as you,
+  credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to
+  reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My
+  friend, I have taken all I have of any value to <i>my uncle&rsquo;s</i>; I have
+  nothing but the memory of you left, and here is the winter coming
+  on. I shall be fireless when it turns cold; for the boulevards are
+  to play only melodramas, in which I have nothing but little bits
+  of parts which don&rsquo;t <i>pose</i> a woman. How could you misunderstand the
+  nobleness of my feelings for you?&mdash;for there are two ways of
+  expressing gratitude. You who seemed so happy in seeing me
+  well-off, how can you leave me in poverty? Oh, my sole friend on
+  earth, before I go back to the country fairs with Bouthor&rsquo;s circus,
+  where I can at least make a living, forgive me if I wish to know
+  whether I have lost you forever. If I were to let myself think of
+  you when I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs
+  by losing <i>a time</i>. Whatever may be the result, I am yours for life.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marguerite Turquet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter,&rdquo; thought Thaddeus, shouting with laughter, &ldquo;is worth the ten
+      thousand francs I have spent upon her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Clementine came home the next day, and the day after that Paz beheld her
+      again, more beautiful and graceful than ever. After dinner, during which
+      the countess treated Paz with an air of perfect indifference, a little
+      scene took place in the salon between the count and his wife when Thaddeus
+      had left them. On pretence of asking Adam&rsquo;s advice, Thaddeus had left
+      Malaga&rsquo;s letter with him, as if by mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Thaddeus!&rdquo; said Adam, as Paz disappeared, &ldquo;what a misfortune for a
+      man of his distinction to be the plaything of the lowest kind of
+      circus-rider. He will lose everything, and get lower and lower, and won&rsquo;t
+      be recognizable before long. Here, read that,&rdquo; added the count, giving
+      Malaga&rsquo;s letter to his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine read the letter, which smelt of tobacco, and threw it from her
+      with a look of disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thick as the bandage is over his eyes,&rdquo; continued Adam, &ldquo;he must have
+      found out something; Malaga tricked him, no doubt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he goes back to her,&rdquo; said Clementine, &ldquo;and he will forgive her! It
+      is for such horrible women as that that you men have indulgence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they need it,&rdquo; said Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thaddeus used to show some decency&mdash;in living apart from us,&rdquo; she
+      remarked. &ldquo;He had better go altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dear angel, that&rsquo;s going too far,&rdquo; said the count, who did not
+      want the death of the sinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paz, who knew Adam thoroughly, had enjoined him to secrecy, pretending to
+      excuse his dissipations, and had asked his friend to lend him a few
+      thousand francs for Malaga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a very firm fellow,&rdquo; said Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How so?&rdquo; asked Clementine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, for having spent no more than ten thousand francs on her, and
+      letting her send him that letter before he would ask me for enough to pay
+      her debts. For a Pole, I call that firm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will ruin you,&rdquo; said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisian
+      woman, when she shows her feline distrusts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know him,&rdquo; said Adam; &ldquo;he will sacrifice Malaga, if I ask him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall see,&rdquo; remarked the countess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is best for his own happiness, I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t hesitate to ask him to
+      leave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, sober as
+      he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes to intoxication
+      I shall be just as grieved as if he were my own son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tell me anything more about it,&rdquo; cried the countess, with a gesture
+      of disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later the captain perceived in the manner, the tones of voice,
+      but, above all, in the eyes of the countess, the terrible results of
+      Adam&rsquo;s confidences. Contempt had opened a gulf between the beloved woman
+      and himself. He was suddenly plunged into the deepest distress of mind,
+      for the thought gnawed him, &ldquo;I have myself made her despise me!&rdquo; His own
+      folly stared him in the face. Life then became a burden to him, the very
+      sun turned gray. And yet, amid all these bitter thoughts, he found again
+      some moments of pure joy. There were times when he could give himself up
+      wholly to his admiration for his mistress, who paid not the slightest
+      attention to him. Hanging about in corners at her parties and receptions,
+      silent, all heart and eyes, he never lost one of her attitudes, nor a tone
+      of her voice when she sang. He lived in her life; he groomed the horse
+      which <i>she</i> rode, he studied the ways and means of that splendid
+      establishment, to the interests of which he was now more devoted than
+      ever. These silent pleasures were buried in his heart like those of a
+      mother, whose heart a child never knows; for is it knowing anything unless
+      we know it all? His love was more perfect than the love of Petrarch for
+      Laura, which found its ultimate reward in the treasures of fame, the
+      triumph of the poem which she had inspired. Surely the emotion that the
+      Chevalier d&rsquo;Assas felt in dying must have been to him a lifetime of joy.
+      Such emotions as these Paz enjoyed daily,&mdash;without dying, but also
+      without the guerdon of immortality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Paz
+      should still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnified
+      Love that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility of
+      spirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualities of
+      which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing where
+      contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand had
+      given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
+      mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
+      better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her respect,
+      and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with constant low
+      fever that during the month of January he was obliged to keep his bed,
+      though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became very uneasy about
+      him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark: &ldquo;Let him alone; don&rsquo;t you
+      see it is only some Olympian trouble?&rdquo; This remark, being repeated to
+      Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair; he left his bed, went out,
+      tried a few amusements, and recovered his health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
+      Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to let
+      the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl; but if
+      the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be lowered in
+      her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! this, too!&rdquo; exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever quits,&mdash;though,
+      indeed, I am your debtor now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adam, you will have children; don&rsquo;t gamble any more,&rdquo; said Paz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs,&rdquo; cried the
+      countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to Paz.
+      &ldquo;First, ten thousand, now twenty more,&mdash;thirty thousand! the income
+      of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera, and the
+      whole fortune of many a bourgeois. Oh, you Poles!&rdquo; she said, gathering
+      some flowers in her greenhouse; &ldquo;you are really incomprehensible. Why are
+      you not furious with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Paz is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Paz, poor Paz, indeed!&rdquo; she cried, interrupting him, &ldquo;what good does
+      he do us? I shall take the management of the household myself. You can
+      give him the allowance he refused, and let him settle it as he likes with
+      his Circus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very useful to us, Clementine. He has certainly saved over forty
+      thousand francs this last year. And besides, my dear angel, he has managed
+      to put a hundred thousand with Nucingen, which a steward would have
+      pocketed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine softened down; but she was none the less hard in her feelings
+      to Thaddeus. A few days later, she requested him to come to that boudoir
+      where, one year earlier, she had been surprised into comparing him with
+      her husband. This time she received him alone, without perceiving the
+      slightest danger in so doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Paz,&rdquo; she said, with the condescending familiarity of the great
+      to their inferiors, &ldquo;if you love Adam as you say you do, you will do a
+      thing which he will not ask of you, but which I, his wife, do not hesitate
+      to exact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Malaga?&rdquo; said Thaddeus, with bitterness in his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;if you wish to end your days in this house and
+      continue good friends with us, you must give her up. How an old soldier&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am only thirty-five, and haven&rsquo;t a white hair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look old,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s the same thing. How so careful a
+      manager, so distinguished a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The horrible part of all this was her evident intention to rouse a sense
+      of honor in his soul which she thought extinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;so distinguished a man as you are, Thaddeus,&rdquo; she resumed after a
+      momentary pause which a gesture of his hand had led her to make, &ldquo;can
+      allow yourself to be caught like a boy! Your proceedings have made that
+      woman celebrated. My uncle wanted to see her, and he did see her. My uncle
+      is not the only one; Malaga receives a great many gentlemen. I did think
+      you such a noble soul. For shame! Will she be such a loss that you can&rsquo;t
+      replace her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, if I knew any sacrifice I could make to recover your esteem I
+      would make it; but to give up Malaga is not one&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In your position, that is what I should say myself, if I were a man,&rdquo;
+       replied Clementine. &ldquo;Well, if I accept it as a great sacrifice there can
+      be no ill-will between us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paz left the room, fearing he might commit some great folly, and feeling
+      that wild ideas were getting the better of him. He went to walk in the
+      open air, lightly dressed in spite of the cold, but without being able to
+      cool the fire in his cheeks or on his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you had a noble soul,&rdquo;&mdash;the words still rang in his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A year ago,&rdquo; he said to himself, &ldquo;she thought me a hero who could fight
+      the Russians single-handed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with the
+      spahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checked him.
+      &ldquo;Without me,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;what would become of them? they would soon be
+      ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be for her if she
+      were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No, since all is lost
+      for me in this world,&mdash;courage! I will keep on as I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone a
+      transformation which has made it European, and far more burlesque and
+      otherwise lively than the late Carnival of Venice. Is it that the
+      diminishing fortunes of the present time have led Parisians to invent a
+      way of amusing themselves collectively, as for instance at their clubs,
+      where they hold salons without hostesses and without manners, but very
+      cheaply? However this may be, the month of March was prodigal of balls, at
+      which dancing, joking, coarse fun, excitement, grotesque figures, and the
+      sharp satire of Parisian wit, produced extravagant effects. These carnival
+      follies had their special Pandemonium in the rue Saint-Honore and their
+      Napoleon in Musard, a small man born expressly to lead an orchestra as
+      noisy as the disorderly audience, and to set the time for the galop, that
+      witches&rsquo; dance, which was one of Auber&rsquo;s triumphs, for it did not really
+      take form or poesy till the grand galop in &ldquo;Gustave&rdquo; was given to the
+      world. That tremendous finale might serve as the symbol of an epoch in
+      which for the last fifty years all things have hurried by with the
+      rapidity of a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and immaculate
+      image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the carnival dances,
+      to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he knew the countess,
+      disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with two friends, all three
+      accompanied by their husbands, and look on at the curious spectacle of one
+      of these crowded balls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o&rsquo;clock in the morning, the
+      countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower step of the
+      platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since then given his
+      concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading the galop with
+      Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with plumes like the
+      horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like a will-o-the-wisp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Clementine to her husband, &ldquo;you Poles have no honor at all! I
+      did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leave that
+      woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinner Adam
+      left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let him know
+      very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house any longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, madame,&rdquo; said Paz, humbly, &ldquo;you are right; I am a wretch; I did give
+      you my word. But you see how it is; I put off leaving Malaga till after
+      the carnival. Besides, that woman exerts an influence over me which&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An influence!&mdash;a woman who ought to be turned out of Musard&rsquo;s by the
+      police for such dancing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree to all that; I accept the condemnation and I&rsquo;ll leave your house.
+      But you know Adam. If I give up the management of your property you must
+      show energy yourself. I may have been to blame about Malaga, but I have
+      taken the whole charge of your affairs, managed your servants, and looked
+      after the very least details. I cannot leave you until I see you prepared
+      to continue my management. You have now been married three years, and you
+      are safe from the temptations to extravagance which come with the
+      honeymoon. I see that Parisian women, and even titled ones, do manage both
+      their fortunes and their households. Well, as soon as I am certain not so
+      much of your capacity as of your perseverance I shall leave Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Thaddeus of Warsaw, and not that Circus Thaddeus who speaks now,&rdquo;
+       said Clementine. &ldquo;Go, and come back cured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cured! never,&rdquo; said Paz, his eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine&rsquo;s
+      pretty feet. &ldquo;You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpected
+      piquancy of mind she has.&rdquo; Then, feeling his courage fail him, he added
+      hastily, &ldquo;There is not a woman in society, with her mincing airs, that is
+      worth the honest nature of that young animal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me,&rdquo; said the countess,
+      with a glance like that of an angry viper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of her
+      affairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods and
+      difficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to pay for
+      things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He told her she
+      could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeus had trained
+      the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought the countess fully
+      competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementine was one of those
+      far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have an innate genius as mistress
+      of a household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did not
+      end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to be as
+      sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover forgot to
+      reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and Thaddeus,
+      instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend. His devotion was
+      unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing her perspicacity
+      might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment imposed by a noble
+      soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but women see all, or see
+      nothing, according to the condition of their souls&mdash;love is their
+      sole illuminator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearing to
+      think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think of her.
+      Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though he did not
+      die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris in consultation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he comes safely out of this,&rdquo; said the most distinguished of them all,
+      &ldquo;it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those who nurse him to
+      watch for the moment when they must second nature. The count&rsquo;s life is in
+      the hands of his nurses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of the
+      consultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as much for a
+      little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and not embarrass them.
+      As he walked along the winding gravelled path which led to the pavilion,
+      Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of an abyss described by Dante.
+      The unfortunate man had never dreamed that the possibility might arise of
+      becoming Clementine&rsquo;s husband, and now he had drowned himself in a ditch
+      of mud. His face was convulsed, when he reached the kiosk, with an agony
+      of grief; his head, like Medusa&rsquo;s, conveyed despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dead?&rdquo; said Clementine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not go in;
+      they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have made him very happy,&rdquo; said Thaddeus; &ldquo;you ought to be easy on
+      that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My loss would be irreparable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, dear, you judged him justly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was never blind to his faults,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but I loved him as a wife
+      should love her husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you ought, in case you lose him,&rdquo; said Thaddeus, in a voice which
+      Clementine had never heard him use, &ldquo;to grieve for him less than if you
+      lost a man who was your pride, your love, and all your life,&mdash;as some
+      men are to you women. Surely you can be frank at this moment with a friend
+      like me. I shall grieve, too; long before your marriage I had made him my
+      child, I had sacrificed my life to him. If he dies I shall be without an
+      interest on earth; but life is still beautiful to a widow of twenty-four.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! but you know that I love no one,&rdquo; she said, with the impatience of
+      grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t yet know what it is to love,&rdquo; said Thaddeus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, as husbands are, I have sense enough to prefer a child like my poor
+      Adam to a superior man. It is now over a month that we have been saying to
+      each other, &lsquo;Will he live?&rsquo; and these alternations have prepared me, as
+      they have you, for this loss. I can be frank with you. Well, I would give
+      my life to save Adam. What is a woman&rsquo;s independence in Paris? the freedom
+      to let herself be taken in by ruined or dissipated men who pretend to love
+      her. I pray to God to leave me this husband who is so kind, so obliging,
+      so little fault-finding, and who is beginning to stand in awe of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are honest, and I love you the better for it,&rdquo; said Thaddeus, taking
+      her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. &ldquo;In solemn moments like
+      these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding a woman without
+      hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let us look to the future.
+      Suppose that God does not grant your prayer,&mdash;and no one cries to him
+      more than I do, &lsquo;Leave me my friend!&rsquo; Yes, these fifty nights have not
+      weakened me; if thirty more days and nights are needed I can give them
+      while you sleep,&mdash;yes, I will tear him from death if, as the doctors
+      say, nursing can save him. But suppose that in spite of you and me, the
+      count dies,&mdash;well, then, if you were loved, oh, adored, by a man of a
+      heart and soul that are worthy of you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met with
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are mistaken&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was less of
+      love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him from head to
+      foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him with the words,
+      &ldquo;Poor Malaga!&rdquo; uttered in tones which a great lady alone can find to give
+      expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeus half unconscious
+      behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and went back to Adam&rsquo;s
+      chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, with death in
+      his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he said nothing. He was
+      forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed in a way that excited
+      the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his watchful eyes were like
+      lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment to Clementine, and listened
+      to her thanks without accepting them; he seemed both dumb and deaf. To
+      himself he was saying, &ldquo;She shall owe his life to me,&rdquo; and he wrote the
+      thought as it were in letters of fire on the walls of Adam&rsquo;s room. On the
+      fifteenth day Clementine was forced to give up the nursing, lest she
+      should utterly break down. Paz was unwearied. At last, towards the end of
+      August, Bianchon, the family physician, told Clementine that Adam was out
+      of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;without his
+      friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the Marquis
+      de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of starting for
+      Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasion to say a few
+      words to him. The first day that Adam was able to drive out with his wife
+      and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard as the carriage was about
+      to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus, who was sitting on the
+      front seat of the caleche, turned to take a letter which bore the stamp of
+      the ministry of Foreign affairs. Having read it, he put it into his pocket
+      in a manner which prevented Clementine or Adam from speaking of it.
+      Nevertheless, by the time they reached the porte Maillot, Adam, full of
+      curiosity, used the privilege of a sick man whose caprices are to be
+      gratified, and said to Thaddeus: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no indiscretion between brothers
+      who love each other,&mdash;tell me what there is in that despatch; I&rsquo;m in
+      a fever of curiosity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clementine glanced at Thaddeus with a vexed air, and remarked to her
+      husband: &ldquo;He has been so sulky with me for the last two months that I
+      shall never ask him anything again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, as for that,&rdquo; replied Paz, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t keep it out of the newspapers, so
+      I may as well tell you at once. The Emperor Nicholas has had the grace to
+      appoint me captain in a regiment which is to take part in the expedition
+      to Khiva.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not going?&rdquo; cried Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I shall go, my dear fellow. Captain I came, and captain I return. We
+      shall dine together to-morrow for the last time. If I don&rsquo;t start at once
+      for St. Petersburg I shall have to make the journey by land, and I am not
+      rich, and I must leave Malaga a little independence. I ought to think of
+      the only woman who has been able to understand me; she thinks me grand,
+      superior. I dare say she is faithless, but she would jump&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Through the hoop, for your sake and come down safely on the back of her
+      horse,&rdquo; said Clementine sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you don&rsquo;t know Malaga,&rdquo; said the captain, bitterly, with a sarcastic
+      look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful and uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which you Parisians
+      love, and the exiles who find a home here love too,&rdquo; he said, presently.
+      &ldquo;My eyes will never again see the evergreens of the avenue de
+      Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of the rond-points. On the
+      borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor, promoted to the command,
+      perhaps, by force of courage and by risking my life, it may happen that I
+      shall regret these Champs-Elysees where I have driven beside you, and
+      where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve for Malaga&rsquo;s hardness&mdash;the Malaga
+      of whom I am now speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you do love Malaga very much?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should ever sacrifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What honor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as they
+      passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to it,
+      &ldquo;That is the Circus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the Foreign
+      office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before the count and
+      countess were up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have lost a friend,&rdquo; said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he heard
+      that Paz had gone,&mdash;&ldquo;a friend in the true meaning of the word. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my
+      house. We are not friends to quarrel about a woman,&rdquo; he said, looking
+      intently at Clementine. &ldquo;You heard what he said yesterday about Malaga.
+      Well, he has never so much as touched the little finger of that girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know that?&rdquo; said Clementine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, and the
+      poor girl can&rsquo;t explain even to herself the absolute reserve which Thad&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough!&rdquo; said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. &ldquo;Can it be that
+      I am the victim of some noble mystification?&rdquo; she asked herself. The
+      thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her the
+      following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Countess,&mdash;To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your
+  contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When
+  I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom
+  we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I
+  loved you thus,&mdash;I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were
+  about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,&mdash;a voluntary service, but
+  still the steward of your household.
+
+  &ldquo;In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an
+  indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your
+  luxury, has been the source of deep enjoyments. If these
+  enjoyments were great when I thought only of Adam, think what they
+  were to my soul when the woman I loved was the mainspring of all I
+  did. I have known the pleasures of maternity in my love. I
+  accepted life thus. Like the paupers who live along the great
+  highways, I built myself a hut on the borders of your beautiful
+  domain, though I never sought to approach you. Poor and lonely,
+  struck blind by Adam&rsquo;s good fortune, I was, nevertheless, the
+  giver. Yes, you were surrounded by a love as pure as a
+  guardian-angel&rsquo;s; it waked while you slept; it caressed you with a
+  look as you passed; it was happy in its own existence,&mdash;you were
+  the sun of my native land to me, poor exile, who now writes to you
+  with tears in his eyes as he thinks of the happiness of those first
+  days.
+
+  &ldquo;When I was eighteen years old, having no one to love, I took for
+  my ideal mistress a charming woman in Warsaw, to whom I confided
+  all my thoughts, my wishes; I made her the queen of my nights and
+  days. She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my
+  love.
+
+  &ldquo;You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was
+  merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your
+  horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the
+  splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the
+  elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all
+  by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked
+  Paris when Adam would say to me, &lsquo;<i>She</i> wants this or that.&rsquo; It was
+  a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
+  at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
+  and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
+  you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
+  that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
+  head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
+  had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
+  balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
+  persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
+
+  &ldquo;I <i>must</i> tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
+  of my involuntary thoughts,&mdash;I would have died rather than avow it
+  until now.
+
+  &ldquo;You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
+  know the man who performed the household miracles you had
+  sometimes noticed. I thought,&mdash;forgive me, madame,&mdash;I believed you
+  might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a
+  lover, seemed to me so dangerous&mdash;for me&mdash;that I invented that
+  story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women
+  cannot forgive. I did it in a moment when I felt that my love
+  would be communicated, fatally, to you. Despise me, crush me with
+  the contempt you have so often cast upon me when I did not deserve
+  it; and yet I am certain that, if, on that evening when your aunt
+  took Adam away from you, I had said what I have now written to
+  you, I should, like the tamed tiger that sets his teeth once more
+  in living flesh, and scents the blood, and&mdash;
+
+                                                          &ldquo;Midnight.&rdquo;
+ 
+  &ldquo;I could not go on; the memory of that hour is still too living.
+  Yes, I was maddened. Was there hope for me in your eyes? then
+  victory with its scarlet banners would have flamed in mine and
+  fascinated yours. My crime has been to think all this; perhaps
+  wrongly. You alone can judge of that dreadful scene when I drove
+  back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood,
+  with the cold hand of gratitude,&mdash;gratitude which must be eternal.
+
+  &ldquo;Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me
+  there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I
+  should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he
+  lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to
+  betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought
+  that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said
+  that his life depended on his nursing.
+
+  &ldquo;Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing
+  now in my being no longer near you.
+
+  &ldquo;Your devoted
+
+  &ldquo;Thaddeus Paz.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?&rdquo; thought
+      Clementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to the count:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;My dear Adam,&mdash;Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your
+  future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about
+  your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a
+  hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine&rsquo;s character; she will
+  never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to
+  Malaga.
+
+  &ldquo;I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen;
+  and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince
+  Paz in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken
+  sixty-thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thaddeus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Idiot that I was,&rdquo; thought Adam; &ldquo;I came near to cutting my throat just
+      now, talking about Malaga.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yet said
+      nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immensely
+      interested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russian to
+      the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comes from
+      that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to the Russian
+      ambassador, with an air of indifference, &ldquo;Do you know what has become of
+      our poor Comte Paz?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so clever and
+      clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognize him. Yes,
+      many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but&mdash;horrible to think of!&mdash;some
+      are misconceived even though they are loved. The simplest women in society
+      exact a certain amount of conventional sham from the greatest men. A noble
+      love signifies nothing to them if rough and unpolished; it needs the
+      cutting and setting of a jeweller to give it value in their eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In January, 1842, the Comtesse Laginska, with her charm of gentle
+      melancholy, inspired a violent passion in the Comte de La Palferine, one
+      of the most daring and presumptuous lions of the day. La Palferine was
+      well aware that the conquest of a woman so guarded by reserve as the
+      Comtesse Laginska was difficult, but he thought he could inveigle this
+      charming creature into committing herself if he took her unawares, by the
+      assistance of a certain friend of her own, a woman already jealous of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite incapable, in spite of her intelligence, of suspecting such
+      treachery, the Comtesse Laginska committed the imprudence of going with
+      her so-called friend to a masked ball at the Opera. About three in the
+      morning, led away by the excitement of the scene, Clementine, on whom La
+      Palferine had expended his seductions, consented to accept a supper, and
+      was about to enter the carriage of her faithless friend. At this critical
+      moment her arm was grasped by a powerful hand, and she was taken, in spite
+      of her struggles, to her own carriage, the door of which stood open,
+      though she did not know it was there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has never left Paris!&rdquo; she exclaimed to herself as she recognized
+      Thaddeus, who disappeared when the carriage drove away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did any woman ever have a like romance in her life? Clementine is
+      constantly hoping she may again see Paz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist&rsquo;s Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Government Clerks
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     La Palferine, Comte de
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+
+     Lelewel
+       The Seamy Side of History
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Paz, Thaddee
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Peasantry
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       A Start in Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Schinner, Hippolyte
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Start in Life
+       Albert Savarus
+       The Government Clerks
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+
+     Serizy, Vicomte de
+       A Start in Life
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Souchet, Francois
+       The Purse
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Steinbock, Count Wenceslas
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Turquet, Marguerite
+       The Muse of the Department
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/1369.txt b/old/1369.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1369.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2569 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Paz
+       (La Fausse Maitresse)
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: July, 1998  [Etext #1369]
+Posting Date: February 23, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAZ ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+PAZ
+
+(La Fausse Maitresse)
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+              Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.
+
+
+
+
+
+PAZ
+
+(LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the Marquis
+du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young Polish exile.
+
+We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,
+to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants
+by which the Slave language protects its vowels,--probably not to lose
+them, considering how few there are.
+
+The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princely
+fortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with a
+Demoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother's side Clementine
+du Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame de
+Serizy for aunt. On her father's side she had another uncle in the
+eccentric person of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of the house,
+an old bachelor who had become very rich by speculating in lands and
+houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to lose both
+his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son of Madame
+de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africa in
+the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand between the
+danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, or of
+extinguishing their names if they have too few,--a singular result of
+the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn of fortune
+Clementine became, in spite of her father having squandered his
+substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses in Paris), a
+great heiress. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, a clever diplomatist under
+the new dynasty, his sister, Madame de Serizy, and the Chevalier du
+Rouvre agreed, in order to save their fortunes from the dissipations of
+the marquis, to settle them on their niece, to whom, moreover, they each
+pledged themselves to pay ten thousand francs a year from the day of her
+marriage.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to say that the Polish count, though an exile,
+was no expense to the French government. Comte Adam Laginski belonged
+to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Poland, which was
+allied to many of the princely houses of Germany,--Sapieha, Radziwill,
+Mniszech, Rzewuski, Czartoryski, Leczinski, Lubormirski, and all the
+other great Sarmatian SKIS. But heraldic knowledge is not the most
+distinguishing feature of the French nation under Louis-Philippe, and
+Polish nobility was no great recommendation to the bourgeoisie who were
+lording it in those days. Besides, when Adam first made his appearance,
+in 1833, on the boulevard des Italiens, at Frascati, and at the
+Jockey-Club, he was leading the life of a young man who, having lost his
+political prospects, was taking his pleasure in Parisian dissipation. At
+first he was thought to be a student.
+
+The Polish nationality had at this period fallen as low in French
+estimation, thanks to a shameful governmental reaction, as the
+republicans had sought to raise it. The singular struggle of the
+Movement against Resistance (two words which will be inexplicable thirty
+years hence) made sport of what ought to have been truly respected,--the
+name of a conquered nation to whom the French had offered hospitality,
+for whom fetes had been given (with songs and dances by subscription),
+above all, a nation which in the Napoleonic struggle between France and
+Europe had given us six thousand men, and what men!
+
+Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that
+of the Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against the
+Emperor. It would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion into
+tales that are intended to amuse or interest. Besides, Russia and Poland
+were both right,--one to wish the unity of its empire, the other
+to desire its liberty. Let us say in passing that Poland might have
+conquered Russia by the influence of her morals instead of fighting her
+with weapons; she should have imitated China which, in the end, Chinesed
+the Tartars, and will, it is to be hoped, Chinese the English. Poland
+ought to have Polonized Russia. Poniatowski tried to do so in the
+least favorable portion of the empire; but as a king he was little
+understood,--because, possibly, he did not fully understand himself.
+
+But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people who
+were the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famous
+review at which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? The Poles
+were held up to them as the allies of the republican party, and they
+never once remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats. From
+that day forth the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt the exiles of
+the nation it had worshipped a few days earlier. The wind of a riot
+is always enough to veer the Parisians from north to south under any
+regime. It is necessary to remember these sudden fluctuations of feeling
+in order to understand why it was that in 1835 the word "Pole" conveyed
+a derisive meaning to a people who consider themselves the wittiest and
+most courteous nation on earth, and their city of Paris the focus of
+enlightenment, with the sceptre of arts and literature within its grasp.
+
+There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles,--the republican Poles,
+sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is Prince Adam
+Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but why complain
+of that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles, no matter
+of what nation they may be, or in what countries they take refuge. They
+carry their countries and their hatreds with them. Two French priests,
+who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution, showed the utmost
+horror of each other, and when one of them was asked why, he replied
+with a glance at his companion in misery: "Why? because he's a
+Jansenist!" Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf had he met him in
+exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the French against the
+venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shown to the better
+class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars and the licensed
+Alexanders of Paris.
+
+In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt for
+Parisian pleasantry.
+
+"He is rather nice, though he is a Pole," said Rastignac.
+
+"All these Poles pretend to be great lords," said Maxime de Trailles,
+"but this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think he must
+have property."
+
+Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allowable to
+remark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatian
+character does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians, who,
+by the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as the Poles do.
+The French aristocracy, so nobly succored during the Revolution by the
+Polish lords, certainly did not return the kindness in 1832. Let us
+have the melancholy courage to admit this, and to say that the faubourg
+Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland.
+
+Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer?
+This problem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to
+instructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held
+that all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of the
+Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proof of
+the political quality which was then dignified by the name of sagacity.
+They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom they had all been
+on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely because it was said that
+the Emperor Nicholas gave him the cold shoulder. Between the caution
+of the court and the prudence of the diplomates, the Polish exiles of
+distinction lived in Paris in the Biblical solitude of "super flumina
+Babylonis," or else they haunted a few salons which were the neutral
+ground of all opinions. In a city of pleasure, like Paris, where
+amusements abound on all sides, the heedless gayety of a Pole finds
+twice as many encouragements as it needs to a life of dissipation.
+
+It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him,--his
+appearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole, as
+there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is not
+very handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the second
+category of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression,
+looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair
+hair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more like a
+goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes caught
+you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How came he, in
+spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really exquisite manners
+and a distinguished air? The problem is solved partly by the care and
+elegance of his dress, and partly by the training given him by his
+mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to daring, but his mind
+was not more than was needed for the ephemeral talk and pleasantry of
+Parisian conversation. And yet it would have been difficult to find
+among the young men of fashion in Paris a single one who was his
+superior. Young men talk a great deal too much in these days of horses,
+money, taxes, deputies; French _conversation_ is no longer what it was.
+Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain social inequalities to
+bring it out. There is, probably, more real conversation in Vienna or
+St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do not need to employ delicacy or
+shrewdness in speech; they blurt out things as they are. Consequently
+the dandies of Paris did not discover the great seigneur in the rather
+heedless young fellow who, in their talks, would flit from one subject
+to another, all the more intent upon amusement because he had just
+escaped from a great peril, and, finding himself in a city where his
+family was unknown, felt at liberty to lead a loose life without the
+risk of disgracing his name.
+
+But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la
+Pepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none in
+Paris. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously he
+had seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love with
+her. A year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madame d'Espard
+was the first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters then learned
+too late that as far back as the year 900 the family of the Laginski was
+among the most illustrious of the North. By an act of prudence which was
+very unPolish, the mother of the young count had mortgaged her entire
+property on the breaking out of the insurrection for an immense sum
+lent by two Jewish bankers in Paris. Comte Adam was now in possession of
+eighty thousand francs a year. When this was discovered society ceased
+to be surprised at the imprudence which had been laid to the charge
+of Madame de Serizy, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, and the Chevalier du
+Rouvre in yielding to the foolish passion of their niece. People jumped,
+as usual, from one extreme of judgment to the other.
+
+During the winter of 1836 Comte Adam was the fashion, and Clementine
+Laginska one of the queens of Paris. Madame Laginska is now a member
+of that charming circle of young women represented by Mesdames de
+Lestorade, de Portenduere, Marie de Vandenesse, du Guenic, and de
+Maufrigneuse, the flowers of our present Paris, who live at such
+immeasurable distance from the parvenus, the vulgarians, and the
+speculators of the new regime.
+
+This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one
+of those noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our time
+admit,--actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering, are
+hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing waves
+of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St. Petersburg,--or
+what you will.
+
+If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals
+was ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830, during
+the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old fortunes
+are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our ancestors are
+constantly being demolished and replaced by species of phalansteries, in
+which the peers of July occupy the third floor above some newly
+enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles is confusedly
+employed. As there is no longer a real court or nobility to give the
+tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never, on the other
+hand, has architecture discovered so many economical ways of imitating
+the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, more talent, in
+distributing them. Propose to an architect to build upon the garden
+at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up a little Louvre
+overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in a courtyard, stables,
+and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the house he will accommodate a
+quantity of little rooms and passages. He is so clever in deceiving the
+eye that you think you will have plenty of space; but it is only a nest
+of small rooms, after all, in which a ducal family has to turn itself
+about in the space that its own bakehouse formerly occupied.
+
+The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of these
+creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in the
+court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse and
+stables. The porter's lodge is between two charming portes-cocheres. The
+chief luxury of the house is a delightful greenhouse contrived at the
+end of a boudoir on the ground-floor which opens upon an admirable
+suite of reception rooms. An English philanthropist had built this
+architectural bijou, designed the garden, added the greenhouse, polished
+the doors, bricked the courtyard, painted the window-frames green,
+and realized, in short, a dream which resembled (proportions excepted)
+George the Fourth's Pavilion at Brighton. The inventive and industrious
+Parisian workmen had moulded the doors and window-frames; the ceilings
+were imitated from the middle-ages or those of a Venetian palace; marble
+veneering abounded on the outer walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet
+had designed the mantel-pieces and the panels above the doors; Schinner
+had painted the ceilings in his masterly manner. The beauties of the
+staircase, white as a woman's arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild.
+On account of the riots and the unsettled times, the cost of this folly
+was only about eleven hundred thousand francs,--to an Englishman a mere
+nothing. All this luxury, called princely by persons who do not know
+what real princes are, was built in the garden of the house of a
+purveyor made a Croesus by the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels
+and died there after going into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in
+Paris, of Paris; for to many persons Paris is a disease,--sometimes
+several diseases. His widow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little
+nabob establishment, and ordered it to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at
+a bargain; and how he came to do so shall presently be made known, for
+bargains were not at all in his line as a grand seigneur.
+
+Behind the house lay the verdant velvet of an English lawn shaded at
+the lower end by a clump of exotic trees, in the midst of which stood a
+Chinese pagoda with soundless belfries and motionless golden eggs. The
+greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, the opposite
+wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon poles painted green
+and connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, this world of flowers,
+the gravelled paths, the simulated forest, the verdant palisades, were
+contained within the space of five and twenty square rods, which are
+worth to-day four hundred thousand francs,--the value of an actual
+forest. Here, in this solitude in the middle of Paris, the birds
+sang, thrushes, nightingales, warblers, bulfinches, and sparrows. The
+greenhouse was like an immense jardiniere, filling the air with perfume
+in winter as in summer. The means by which its atmosphere was made
+to order, torrid as in China or temperate as in Italy, were cleverly
+concealed. Pipes in which hot water circulated, or steam, were either
+hidden under ground or festooned with plants overhead. The boudoir was a
+large room. The miracle of the modern Parisian fairy named Architecture
+is to get all these many and great things out of a limited bit of
+ground.
+
+The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of the
+artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house. It is
+too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce knows
+where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their myriads
+of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz mounted on
+filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in the style which
+Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock conceived but often could
+not execute, statuettes modelled by genius pursued by creditors (the
+real explanation of the Arabian myth), superb sketches by our best
+artists, lids of chests made into panels alternating with fluted
+draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging from rods of old oak
+in tapestried masses on which the figures of some hunting scene are
+swarming, pieces of furniture worthy to have belonged to Madame de
+Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a last graceful touch, all these
+elegant things were subdued by the half-light which filtered through
+embroidered curtains and added to their charm. On a table between the
+windows, among various curiosities, lay a whip, the handle designed
+by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which proved that the countess rode on
+horseback.
+
+Such is a lady's boudoir in 1837,--an exhibition of the contents of many
+shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to be dreaded
+by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital in
+Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads to
+revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is sure
+of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.
+
+One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
+lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
+is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
+lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
+into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
+vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
+wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
+form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
+back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
+gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
+the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
+Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a short
+gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This gallery opened
+on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber, through which
+could be seen the beauties of the staircase.
+
+The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was a sheet
+of azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been married
+two years, and Clementine had just discovered for the first time that
+there was something resembling a secret or a mystery in her household.
+The Pole, let us say it to his honor, is usually helpless before a
+woman; he is so full of tenderness for her that in Poland he becomes her
+inferior, though Polish women make admirable wives. Now a Pole is still
+more easily vanquished by a Parisian woman. Consequently Comte Adam,
+pressed by questions, did not even attempt the innocent roguery of
+selling the suspected secret. It is always wise with a woman to get
+some good out of a mystery; she will like you the better for it, as a
+swindler respects an honest man the more when he finds he cannot swindle
+him. Brave in heart but not in speech, Comte Adam merely stipulated that
+he should not be compelled to answer until he had finished his narghile.
+
+"If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling," said Clementine,
+"you always dismissed it by saying, 'Paz will settle that.' You never
+wrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying,
+'the captain, the captain.' If I want the carriage--'the captain.' Is
+there a bill to pay--'the captain.' If my horse is not properly
+bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of
+dominoes--Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never see
+Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don't you bring forth your Paz?"
+
+"Isn't everything going on right?" asked the count, taking the
+"bocchettino" of his narghile from his lips.
+
+"Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of two
+hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our pace, and
+we have only one hundred and ten thousand."
+
+So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A
+footman entered, dressed like a minister.
+
+"Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him."
+
+"If you think you are going to find out anything that way--" said Comte
+Adam, laughing.
+
+It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December,
+1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and
+Germany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to
+Paris in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the first time
+as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, and she then
+became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and wholly dumb but very
+useful, of a species of factotum who was personally invisible, named
+Paz,--spelt thus, but pronounced "Patz."
+
+"Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him," said
+the footman, returning. "He is at the stables; as soon as he has changed
+his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame."
+
+"What was he doing at the stables?"
+
+"He was showing them how to groom Madame's horse," said the man. "He was
+not pleased with the way Constantin did it."
+
+The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and did not
+add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usually comment
+on the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogate from his
+position.
+
+"Ah! he was grooming Cora."
+
+"Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?" said the footman,
+leaving the room without further answer.
+
+"Is Paz a Pole?" asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who nodded by
+way of affirmation.
+
+Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extended upon
+a cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge of
+its nest listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemed
+enchanting even to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her
+hair in curls, she was not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in
+the Keepsakes, especially when dressed, as she was this morning, in a
+breakfast gown of Persian silk, the folds of which could not disguise
+the beauty of her figure or the slimness of her waist. The silk with its
+brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring of the
+neck,--its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones of a
+guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their long
+black lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity which
+puckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled,
+an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the true
+Parisian woman,--self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessible
+to vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, were
+hanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the tapering fingers,
+slightly turned up at their points, showed nails like almonds, which
+caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife's impatience, and looked at
+her with a glance which two years of married life had not yet chilled.
+Already the little countess had made herself mistress of the situation,
+for she scarcely paid attention to her husband's admiration. In fact,
+in the look which she occasionally cast at him, there seemed to be the
+consciousness of a Frenchwoman's ascendancy over the puny, volatile, and
+red-haired Pole.
+
+"Here comes Paz," said the count, hearing a step which echoed through
+the gallery.
+
+The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing
+on his face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret
+endurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats which
+were then called "polonaise." Thick, black hair, rather unkempt, covered
+his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead shining like
+a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in his hand.
+The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust health
+flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman nose and
+reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silk cravat
+added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, with eyes of
+jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers, which
+allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed his faithfulness
+to the fashions of his own land. There was something really burlesque
+to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no one could fail to remark
+between the captain and the count, the little Pole with his pinched face
+and the stalwart soldier.
+
+"Good morning, Adam," he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as
+he asked Clementine what he could do for her.
+
+"You are Laginski's friend!" exclaimed the countess.
+
+"For life and death," answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile of
+affection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe.
+
+"Then why don't you take your meals with us? why did you not accompany
+us to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a way that
+I am unable to thank you for the constant services that you do for us?"
+said the countess, with much vivacity of manner but no feeling.
+
+In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntary servitude.
+Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contempt for a social
+amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bailiff, and yet neither the one
+nor the other, a poor relation, an embarrassing friend.
+
+"Because, countess," he answered with perfect ease of manner, "there are
+no thanks due. I am Adam's friend, and it gives me pleasure to take care
+of his interests."
+
+"And you remain standing for your pleasure, too," remarked Comte Adam.
+
+Paz sat down on a chair near the door.
+
+"I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards
+in the courtyard," said Clementine. "But why do you put yourself in a
+position of inferiority,--you, Adam's friend?"
+
+"I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians," he
+replied. "I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two."
+
+"But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is not
+indifferent to me--"
+
+"Ah, madame, the world will be satisfied if you tell them I am 'an
+original.'"
+
+After a moment's silence he added, "Are you going out to-day?"
+
+"Will you come with us to the Bois?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+So saying, Paz bowed and withdrew.
+
+"What a good soul he is!" said Adam. "He has all the simplicity of a
+child."
+
+"Now tell me all about your relations with him," said Clementine.
+
+"Paz, my dear," said Laginski, "belongs to a noble family as old and
+illustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time of
+their disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of his
+property and founded the Paz family, to which the title of count was
+granted. This family, which distinguished itself greatly in the glorious
+days of our royal republic, became rich. The graft from the tree that
+was felled in Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland that there are
+several branches of the family still there. I need not tell you that
+some are rich and some are poor. Our Paz is the scion of a poor branch.
+He was an orphan, without other fortune than his sword, when he served
+in the regiment of the Grand Duke Constantine at the time of our
+revolution. Joining the Polish cause, he fought like a Pole, like a
+patriot, like a man who has nothing,--three good reasons for fighting
+well. In his last affair, thinking he was followed by his men, he dashed
+upon a Russian battery and was taken prisoner. I was there. His brave
+act roused me. 'Let us go and get him!' I said to my troop, and we
+charged the battery like a lot of foragers. I got Paz--I was the seventh
+man; we started twenty and came back eight, counting Paz. After Warsaw
+was sold we were forced to escape those Russians. By a curious chance,
+Paz and I happened to come together again, at the same hour and the same
+place, on the other side of the Vistula. I saw the poor captain arrested
+by some Prussians, who made themselves the blood-hounds of the Russians.
+When we have fished a man out of the Styx we cling to him. This new
+danger for poor Paz made me so unhappy that I let myself be taken too,
+thinking I could help him. Two men can get away where one will
+perish. Thanks to my name and some family connections in Prussia, the
+authorities shut their eyes to my escape. I got my dear captain through
+as a man of no consequence, a family servant, and we reached Dantzic.
+There we got on board a Dutch vessel and went to London. It took us two
+months to get there. My mother was ill in England, and expecting me.
+Paz and I took care of her till her death, which the Polish troubles
+hastened. Then we left London and came to France. Men who go through
+such adversities become like brothers. When I reached Paris, at
+twenty-two years of age, and found I had an income of over sixty
+thousand francs a year, without counting the proceeds of the diamonds
+and the pictures sold by my mother, I wanted to secure the future of
+my dear Paz before I launched into dissipation. I had often noticed the
+sadness in his eyes--sometimes tears were in them. I had had good reason
+to understand his soul, which is noble, grand, and generous to the core.
+I thought he might not like to be bound by benefits to a friend who
+was six years younger than himself, unless he could repay them. I was
+careless and frivolous, just as a young fellow is, and I knew I was
+certain to ruin myself at play, or get inveigled by some woman, and Paz
+and I might then be parted; and though I had every intention of always
+looking out for him, I knew I might sometime or other forget to provide
+for him. In short, my dear angel, I wanted to spare him the pain and
+mortification of having to ask me for money, or of having to hunt me up
+if he got into distress. SO, one morning, after breakfast, when we were
+sitting with our feet on the andirons smoking pipes, I produced,--with
+the utmost precaution, for I saw him look at me uneasily,--a certificate
+of the Funds payable to bearer for a certain sum of money a year."
+
+Clementine jumped up and went and seated herself on Adam's knee, put
+her arms round his neck, and kissed him. "Dear treasure!" she said, "how
+handsome he is! Well, what did Paz do?"
+
+"Thaddeus turned pale," said the count, "but he didn't say a word."
+
+"Oh! his name is Thaddeus, is it?"
+
+"Yes; Thaddeus folded the paper and gave it back to me, and then he
+said: 'I thought, Adam, that we were one for life or death, and that we
+should never part. Do you want to be rid of me?' 'Oh!' I said, 'if you
+take it that way, Thaddeus, don't let us say another word about it. If
+I ruin myself you shall be ruined too.' 'You haven't fortune enough to
+live as a Laginski should,' he said, 'and you need a friend who will
+take care of your affairs, and be a father and a brother and a trusty
+confidant.' My dear child, as Paz said that he had in his look and
+voice, calm as they were, a maternal emotion, and also the gratitude
+of an Arab, the fidelity of a dog, the friendship of a savage,--not
+displayed, but ever ready. Faith! I seized him, as we Poles do, with
+a hand on each shoulder, and I kissed him on the lips. 'For life and
+death, then! all that I have is yours--do what you will with it.' It was
+he who found me this house and bought it for next to nothing. He sold my
+Funds high and bought in low, and we have paid for this barrack with
+the profits. He knows horses, and he manages to buy and sell at such
+advantage that my stable really costs very little; and yet I have the
+finest horses and the most elegant equipages in all Paris. Our servants,
+brave Polish soldiers chosen by him, would go through fire and water
+for us. I seem, as you say, to be ruining myself; and yet Paz keeps the
+house with such method and economy that he has even repaired some of my
+foolish losses at play,--the thoughtless folly of a young man. My dear,
+Thaddeus is as shrewd as two Genoese, as eager for gain as a Polish Jew,
+and provident as a good housekeeper. I never could force him to live as
+I did when I was a bachelor. Sometimes I had to use a sort of friendly
+coercion to make him go to the theatre with me when I was alone, or to
+the jovial little dinners I used to give at a tavern. He doesn't like
+social life."
+
+"What does he like, then?" asked Clementine.
+
+"Poland; he loves Poland and pines for it. His only spendings are
+sums he gives, more in my name than in his own, to some of our poor
+brother-exiles."
+
+"Well, I shall love him, the fine fellow!" said the countess, "he looks
+to me as simple-hearted as he is grand."
+
+"All these pretty things you have about you," continued Adam, who
+praised his friend in the noblest sincerity, "he picked up; he bought
+them at auction, or as bargains from the dealers. Oh! he's keener than
+they are themselves. If you see him rubbing his hands in the courtyard,
+you may be sure he has traded away one good horse for a better. He lives
+for me; his happiness is to see me elegant, in a perfectly appointed
+equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are all accomplished without
+fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twenty thousand francs at whist.
+'What will Paz say?' thought I as I walked home. Paz paid them to me,
+not without a sigh; but he never reproached me, even by a look. But
+that sigh of his restrained me more than the remonstrances of uncles,
+mothers, or wives could have done. 'Do you regret the money?' I said
+to him. 'Not for you or me, no,' he replied; 'but I was thinking
+that twenty poor Poles could have lived a year on that sum.' You must
+understand that the Pazzi are fully the equal of the Laginski, so I
+couldn't regard my dear Paz as an inferior. I never went out or came in
+without going first to Paz, as I would to my father. My fortune is his;
+and Thaddeus knows that if danger threatened him I would fling myself
+into it and drag him out, as I have done before."
+
+"And that is saying a good deal, my dear friend," said the countess.
+"Devotion is like a flash of lightning. Men devote themselves in battle,
+but they no longer have the heart for it in Paris."
+
+"Well," replied Adam, "I am always ready, as in battle, to devote
+myself to Paz. Our two characters have kept their natural asperities
+and defects, but the mutual comprehension of our souls has tightened the
+bond already close between us. It is quite possible to save a man's life
+and kill him afterwards if we find him a bad fellow; but Paz and I know
+THAT of each other which makes our friendship indissoluble. There's
+a constant exchange of happy thoughts and impressions between us; and
+really, perhaps, such a friendship as ours is richer than love."
+
+A pretty hand closed the count's mouth so promptly that the action was
+somewhat like a blow.
+
+"Yes," he said, "friendship, my dear angel, knows nothing of bankrupt
+sentiments and collapsed joys. Love, after giving more than it has, ends
+by giving less than it receives."
+
+"One side as well as the other," remarked Clementine laughing.
+
+"Yes," continued Adam, "whereas friendship only increases. You need not
+pucker up your lips at that, for we are, you and I, as much friends as
+lovers; we have, at least I hope so, combined the two sentiments in our
+happy marriage."
+
+"I'll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus such good
+friends," said Clementine. "The difference in the lives you lead
+comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your
+positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and
+also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might
+become the superior."
+
+"Oh, Paz is truly my superior," said Adam, naively; "I have no advantage
+over him except mere luck."
+
+His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words.
+
+"The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings is
+one form of his superiority," continued the count. "I said to him once:
+'You are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain within which
+you live and think.' He has a right to the title of count; but in Paris
+he won't be called anything but captain."
+
+"The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in
+our century," said the countess. "Dante and Michael Angelo are in him."
+
+"That's the very truth," cried Adam. "He is a poet in soul."
+
+"So here I am, married to two Poles," said the young countess, with a
+gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.
+
+"Dear child!" said Adam, pressing her to him, "it would have made me
+very unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both rather afraid
+of it, he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. You will
+make him very happy if you tell him that you love him,--yes, as an old
+friend."
+
+"I'll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ride
+together," said Clementine, ringing for her maid.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of
+Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois
+de Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
+Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice of
+the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet. Clementine
+dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a style that
+impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon where the two
+friends awaited her.
+
+"Comte Paz," she said, "you must go with us to the Opera."
+
+This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: "If you
+refuse we shall quarrel."
+
+"Willingly, madame," replied the captain. "But as I have not the fortune
+of a count, have the kindness to call me captain."
+
+"Very good, captain; give me your arm," she said,--taking it and
+leading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiarity which
+enchants all lovers.
+
+The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of
+a poor sub-lieutenant dining at his general's table. He let Clementine
+talk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her
+in anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He
+seemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways
+missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional
+respect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would
+really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to
+disconcert Clementine." Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep.
+When the servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captain
+explained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those of
+society,--he went to bed at eight o'clock and got up very early in the
+morning; and he excused his dulness on the ground of being sleepy.
+
+"My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain; but
+do as you prefer," said Clementine, rather piqued.
+
+"I will go," said Paz.
+
+"Duprez sings 'Guillaume Tell,'" remarked Adam. "But perhaps you would
+rather go to the 'Varietes'?"
+
+The captain smiled and rang the bell. "Tell Constantin," he said to the
+footman, "to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe. We
+should be rather squeezed otherwise," he said to the count.
+
+"A Frenchman would have forgotten that," remarked Clementine, smiling.
+
+"Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North," answered
+Thaddeus with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which
+made his conduct at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was
+too evident a contrast between his involuntary self-revelation in this
+speech and his behavior during dinner. Clementine examined the captain
+with a few of those covert glances which show a woman's surprise and
+also her capacity for observation.
+
+It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in the salon
+while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to Adam,
+who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no longer
+tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand, retreated
+within his military stiffness and came out of it no more, neither on the
+way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be asleep.
+
+"You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man," he said during the dance
+in the last act of "Guillaume Tell." "Am I not right to keep, as the
+saying is, to my own specialty?"
+
+"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
+world, but you are perhaps Polish."
+
+"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
+household--it is all I am good for."
+
+"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor;
+he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any
+salon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty."
+
+"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will take
+the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you."
+
+Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
+
+"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer."
+
+Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
+
+"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
+disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."
+
+"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some _calculation_ in
+his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."
+
+Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!" and
+the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to her
+husband, "Where does the captain perch?"
+
+"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-cochere
+which had one window looking on the street. "His apartments are over the
+coachhouse."
+
+"Who lives on the other side?" asked the countess.
+
+"No one as yet," said Adam; "I mean that apartment for our children and
+their instructors."
+
+"He didn't go to bed," said the countess, observing lights in Thaddeus's
+rooms when the carriage had passed under the portico supported by
+columns copied from those of the Tuileries, which replaced a vulgar zinc
+awning painted in stripes like cloth.
+
+The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, was watching
+Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been a hard one for
+him. And here is the reason why: A great and terrible emotion had taken
+possession of his heart on the day when Adam made him go to the Opera
+to see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle du Rouvre; and again when he
+saw her on the occasion of her marriage, and recognized in her the woman
+whom a man is forced to love exclusively. For this reason Paz strongly
+advised and promoted the long journey to Italy and elsewhere after the
+marriage. At peace so long as Clementine was away, his trial was renewed
+on the return of the happy household. As he sat at his window on this
+memorable night, smoking his latakia in a pipe of wild-cherry wood
+six feet long, given to him by Adam, these are the thoughts that were
+passing through his mind:--
+
+"I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone know
+how I love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love nor her
+dislike?"
+
+And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme.
+
+It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, in
+the midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance,
+were a source of inward joy to him. Since the return of the count and
+countess he had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himself
+necessary to a household which, without his devotion to its interests,
+would infallibly have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strain of
+reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift father,
+knew nothing of the management of a household which the women of the
+present day, however rich or noble they are, are often compelled to
+undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep a steward. Adam, on
+the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lords who let themselves
+be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapable of managing even the
+wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes are vast in Poland), was
+not of a nature to check his own fancies or those of his wife. Left to
+himself he would probably have been ruined before his marriage. Paz had
+prevented him from gambling at the Bourse, and that says all.
+
+Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementine
+in spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house and
+travelling in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, the key-note
+of his life, held him bound to that household where he alone could look
+after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence of Adam
+and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess had returned
+more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriage brings to a
+Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife and the nameless
+attraction she gains from the happiness, or the independence, bestowed
+upon her by a young man as trustful, as chivalric, and as much in
+love as Adam. To know that he was the pivot on which the splendor the
+household depended, to see Clementine when she got out of her carriage
+on returning from some fete, or got into it in the morning when she took
+her drive, to meet her on the boulevards in her pretty equipage,
+looking like a flower in a whorl of leaves, inspired poor Thaddeus with
+mysterious delights, which glowed in the depths of his heart but gave no
+signs upon his face.
+
+How happened it that for five whole months the countess had never
+perceived the captain? Because he hid himself from her knowledge, and
+carefully concealed the pains he took to avoid her. Nothing so resembles
+the Divine love as hopeless human love. A man must have great depth of
+heart to devote himself in silence and obscurity to a woman. In such
+a heart is the worship of love for love's sake only--sublime avarice,
+sublime because ever generous and founded on the mysterious existence
+of the principles of creation. _Effect_ is nature, and nature is
+enchanting; it belongs to man, to the poet, the painter, the lover. But
+_Cause_, to a few privileged souls and to certain mighty thinkers,
+is superior to nature. Cause is God. In the sphere of causes live
+the Newtons and all such thinkers as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes,
+Malebranche, Spinoza, Buffon; also the true poets and solitarys of
+the second Christian century, and the Saint Teresas of Spain, and such
+sublime ecstatics. All human sentiments bear analogy to these conditions
+whenever the mind abandons Effect for Cause. Thaddeus had reached this
+height, at which all things change their relative aspect. Filled with
+the joys unutterable of a creator he had attained in his love to all
+that genius has revealed to us of grandeur.
+
+"No," he was thinking to himself as he watched the curling smoke of his
+pipe, "she was not entirely deceived. She might break up my friendship
+with Adam if she took a dislike to me; but if she coquetted with me to
+amuse herself, what would become of me?"
+
+The conceit of this last supposition was so foreign to the modest
+nature and Teutonic timidity of the captain that he scolded himself for
+admitting it, and went to bed, resolved to await events before deciding
+on a course.
+
+The next day Clementine breakfasted very contentedly without Paz, and
+without even noticing his disobedience to her orders. It happened to be
+her reception day, when the house was thrown open with a splendor that
+was semi-royal. She paid no attention to the absence of Comte Paz, on
+whom all the burden of these parade days fell.
+
+"Good!" thought he, as he heard the last carriages driving away at two
+in the morning; "it was only the caprice or the curiosity of a Parisian
+woman that made her want to see me."
+
+After that the captain went back to his ordinary habits and ways, which
+had been somewhat upset by this incident. Diverted by her Parisian
+occupations, Clementine appeared to have forgotten Paz. It must not be
+thought an easy matter to reign a queen over fickle Paris. Does any one
+suppose that fortunes alone are risked in the great game? The winters
+are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the soldiers of the
+Empire. What works of art and genius are expended on a gown or a garland
+in which to make a sensation! A fragile, delicate creature will wear
+her stiff and brilliant harness of flowers and diamonds, silk and steel,
+from nine at night till two and often three o'clock in the morning. She
+eats little, to attract remark to her slender waist; she satisfied her
+hunger with debilitating tea, sugared cakes, ices which heat her, or
+slices of heavy pastry. The stomach is made to yield to the orders of
+coquetry. The awakening comes too late. A fashionable woman's whole life
+is in contradiction to the laws of nature, and nature is pitiless. She
+has no sooner risen than she makes an elaborate morning toilet, and
+thinks of the one which she means to wear in the afternoon. The moment
+she is dressed she has to receive and make visits, and go to the Bois
+either on horseback or in a carriage. She must practise the art of
+smiling, and must keep her mind on the stretch to invent new compliments
+which shall seem neither common nor far-fetched. All women do not
+succeed in this. It is no surprise, therefore, to find a young woman who
+entered fashionable society fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the
+end of three years. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the
+wounds of the winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysterious
+ailments,--gastritis, and so forth,--ills unknown to women when they
+busied themselves about their households. In the olden time women only
+appeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene.
+Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited,
+and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulness exacted
+by this contest with her rivals left little time even to love her
+husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month of
+May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris for
+Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticed Thaddeus,
+elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths of the
+Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing his beautiful
+countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horses and sparkling
+liveries,--in short, his beloved family the admired of all.
+
+"There's the captain," she said to her husband.
+
+"He's happy!" said Adam. "This is his delight. He knows there's no
+equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that some
+people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him there nearly
+every day."
+
+"I wonder what he is thinking about now," said Clementine.
+
+"He is thinking that this winter has cost a good deal, and that it is
+time we went to economize with your old uncle Ronquerolles," replied
+Adam.
+
+The countess stopped the carriage near Paz, and bade him take the seat
+beside her. Thaddeus grew as red as a cherry.
+
+"I shall poison you," he said; "I have been smoking."
+
+"Doesn't Adam poison me?" she said.
+
+"Yes, but he is Adam," returned the captain.
+
+"And why can't Thaddeus have the same privileges?" asked the countess,
+smiling.
+
+That divine smile had a power which triumphed over the heroic
+resolutions of poor Paz; he looked at Clementine with all the fire of
+his soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by the
+angelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue.
+The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her
+cushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at the
+people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resigned soul
+reached her sensibilities. What was Adam's merit in her eyes? It was
+natural enough to have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus--surely
+Thaddeus possessed, or seemed to possess, some great superiority
+over Adam. They were dangerous thoughts which took possession of the
+countess's mind as she again noticed the contrast of the fine presence
+that distinguished Thaddeus, and the puny frame in which Adam showed
+the degenerating effects of intermarriage among the Polish aristocratic
+families. The devil alone knew the thoughts that were in Clementine's
+head, for she sat still, with thoughtful, dreamy eyes, and without
+saying a word until they reached home.
+
+"You will dine with us; I shall be angry if you disobey me," she said as
+the carriage turned in. "You are Thaddeus to me, as you are to Adam. I
+know your obligations to him, but I also know those we are under to you.
+Both generosities are natural--but you are generous every day and all
+day. My father dines here to-day, also my uncle Ronquerolles and my aunt
+Madame de Serizy. Dress yourself therefore," she said, taking the hand
+he offered to assist her from the carriage.
+
+Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, though
+shaken by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behaved
+through dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like a
+soldier fit only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementine
+was not his dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis de
+Ronquerolles, one of the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who had
+served with de Marsay during his short ministry, had been informed by
+his niece of the real worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew how
+modestly he made himself the steward of his friend Laginski.
+
+"And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing Comte
+Paz?" asked the marquis.
+
+"Because he is so shy and retiring," replied Clementine with a look at
+Paz telling him to change his behavior.
+
+Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering the
+captain less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend
+Adam, was not a man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to his
+misfortunes. In his lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he had
+read and taught himself a good deal; he had compared and meditated. But
+the gift of original thought which makes a great man he did not possess,
+and it can never be acquired. Paz, great in heart only, approached in
+heart to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiments, being more a man
+of action than of thought, he kept his thoughts to himself; and they
+only served therefore to eat his heart out. What, after all, is a
+thought unexpressed?
+
+After Clementine's little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his
+sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam,
+and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in
+France and Italy,--the two regions of the world (all courts excepted)
+where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full power
+of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either the pressure
+of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis du Rouvre,
+and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the old coquette
+and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog, understood
+its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two seconds; but to
+describe the tempest it roused in the captain's soul would take far too
+much space in this brief history.
+
+"What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might be
+loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"
+
+Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all equally
+powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would have his
+day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the story of the
+Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned about it by the
+diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine hanging upon
+his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that Adam too, after
+sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an exile. At nine
+o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy kissed her niece
+on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away, taking Adam with her
+and leaving the Marquis de Ronquerolles and the Marquis du Rouvre, who
+soon followed. Paz and Clementine were alone together.
+
+"I will leave you now, madame," said Thaddeus. "You will of course
+rejoin them at the Opera?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I don't like dancing, and they give an odious
+ballet to-night 'La Revolte au Serail.'"
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me," said
+Clementine, not looking at Paz.
+
+"He loves you madly," replied Thaddeus.
+
+"Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not to
+love me to-morrow," said the countess.
+
+"How inexplicable Parisian women are!" exclaimed Thaddeus. "When they
+are loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they are
+loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all."
+
+"And they are quite right. Thaddeus," she went on, smiling, "I know
+Adam well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grand
+seigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he will
+never oppose any of my tastes, but--"
+
+"Where is the marriage in which there are no 'buts'?" said Thaddeus,
+gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine's mind.
+
+The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which came
+near rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: "If I do not
+tell her now that I love her I am a fool," he kept saying to himself.
+
+Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deep
+silences that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Paz
+covertly, and Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair like
+a man digesting his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferent
+old man, Paz crossed his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbs
+mechanically, looking stupidly at them.
+
+"Why don't you tell me something good of Adam?" cried Clementine
+suddenly. "Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well."
+
+The cry was fine.
+
+"Now is the time," thought poor Paz, "to put an insurmountable barrier
+between us. Tell you good of Adam?" he said aloud. "I love him; you
+would not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. My
+position is very difficult between you."
+
+Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of his varnished
+boots.
+
+"You Northern men have nothing but physical courage," she said
+complainingly; "you have no constancy in your opinions."
+
+"How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?" said Paz, assuming a
+careless air.
+
+"Are not you going to keep me company?"
+
+"Excuse me for leaving you."
+
+"What do you mean? Where are you going?"
+
+The thought of a heroic falsehood had come into his head.
+
+"I--I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens to-night,
+and I can't miss it."
+
+"Why not?" said Clementine, questioning him by a look that was
+half-anger.
+
+"Must I tell you why?" he said, coloring; "must I confide to you what I
+hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland."
+
+"Ah! a secret in our noble captain?"
+
+"A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity."
+
+"You, disgraced?"
+
+"Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all over
+France with the Bouthor family,--people who have the rival circus to
+Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director at the
+Cirque-Olympique engage her."
+
+"Is she handsome?"
+
+"To my thinking," said Paz, in a melancholy tone. "Malaga (that's her
+stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all
+other women in the world?--well, I can't tell you. When I look at her,
+with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her bare
+and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white tunic
+with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her look like a
+living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags in her hand
+to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paper hoops which
+tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully on the galloping
+horse to such applause,--no hired clapping,--well, all that moves me."
+
+"More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?" asked Clementine, with
+amazement and curiosity.
+
+"Yes," answered Paz, in a choking voice. "Such agility, such grace under
+constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman. Yes,
+madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and Ellsler, all
+who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't be compared, to my mind,
+with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at full gallop, or stand
+on the point of one foot and fall easily into the saddle, and knit
+stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette with the horse at full
+speed, to the admiration of the people,--the real people, peasants and
+soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexterity personified; her little wrist or
+her little foot can rid her of three or four men. She is the goddess of
+gymnastics."
+
+"She must be stupid--"
+
+"Oh, no," said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peveril
+of the Peak.' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that comes
+into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do of
+the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes. You
+couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome young
+man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love as hers is
+perpetual flattery to a man. Her health is positively insolent, and she
+has thirty-two oriental pearls in lips of coral. Her muzzle--that's what
+she calls the lower part of her face--has, as Shakespeare expresses
+it, the savor of a heifer's nose. She can make a man unhappy. She likes
+handsome men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts, clowns. Her trainer, a
+horrible brute, used to beat her to make her supple, and graceful, and
+intrepid--"
+
+"You are positively intoxicated with Malaga."
+
+"Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters," said Paz, with a piqued
+air. "She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment on the
+third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two lives,
+her circus life and the life of a pretty woman."
+
+"Does she love you?"
+
+"She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I'm a Pole. She saw
+an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,--for all
+France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is impossible
+to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski and his
+followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am very unhappy,
+madame."
+
+A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess.
+
+"You men have such a passion for singularity."
+
+"And you?" said Thaddeus.
+
+"I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for some
+mountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?"
+
+"At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day. She was at a corner of
+a booth covered with flags, where the shows are given. Her comrades,
+all in Polish costumes, were making a horrible racket. I watched her
+standing there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw a melancholy
+expression in her face; in truth there was enough about her to sadden a
+girl of twenty. That touched me."
+
+The countess was sitting in a delicious attitude, pensive and rather
+melancholy.
+
+"Poor, poor Thaddeus!" she exclaimed. Then, with the kindliness of a
+true great lady she added, not without a malicious smile, "Well go, go
+to your Circus."
+
+Thaddeus took her hand, kissed it, leaving a hot tear upon it, and went
+out.
+
+Having invented this passion for a circus-rider, he bethought him
+that he must give it some reality. The only truth in his tale was the
+momentary attention he had given to Malaga at Saint-Cloud; and he had
+since seen her name on the posters of the Circus, where the clown, for
+a tip of five francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling, stolen
+perhaps. Thaddeus now went to the Circus and saw her again. For ten
+francs one of the grooms (who take the place in circuses of the dressers
+at a theatre) informed him that Malaga was named Marguerite Turquet, and
+lived on the fifth story of a house in the rue des Fosses-du-Temple.
+
+The following day Paz went to the faubourg du Temple, found the house,
+and asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer was
+substituting for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and a
+supernumerary at a boulevard theatre in winter.
+
+"Malaga!" cried the portress, rushing into the attic, "there's a fine
+gentleman wanting you. He is getting information from Chapuzot, who is
+playing him off to give me time to tell you."
+
+"Thank you, M'ame Chapuzot; but what will he think of me if he finds me
+ironing my gown?"
+
+"Pooh! when a man's in love he loves everything about us."
+
+"Is he an Englishman? they are fond of horses."
+
+"No, he looks to me Spanish."
+
+"That's a pity; they say Spaniards are always poor. Stay here with me,
+M'ame Chapuzot; I don't want him to think I'm deserted."
+
+"Who is it you are looking for, monsieur?" asked Madame Chapuzot,
+opening the door for Thaddeus, who had now come upstairs.
+
+"Mademoiselle Turquet."
+
+"My dear," said the portress, with an air of importance, "here is some
+one to see you."
+
+A line on which the clothes were drying caught the captain's hat and
+knocked it off.
+
+"What is it you wish, monsieur?" said Malaga, picking up the hat and
+giving it to him.
+
+"I saw you at the Circus," said Thaddeus, "and you reminded me of a
+daughter whom I have lost, mademoiselle; and out of affection for my
+Heloise, whom you resemble in a most striking manner, I should like to
+be of some service to you, if you will permit me."
+
+"Why, certainly; pray sit down, general," said Madame Chapuzot; "nothing
+could be more straightforward, more gallant."
+
+"But I am not gallant, my good lady," exclaimed Paz. "I am an
+unfortunate father who tries to deceive himself by a resemblance."
+
+"Then am I to pass for your daughter?" said Malaga, slyly, and not in
+the least suspecting the perfect sincerity of his proposal.
+
+"Yes," said Paz, "and I'll come and see you sometimes. But you shall be
+lodged in better rooms, comfortably furnished."
+
+"I shall have furniture!" cried Malaga, looking at Madame Chapuzot.
+
+"And servants," said Paz, "and all you want."
+
+Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously.
+
+"What countryman is monsieur?"
+
+"I am a Pole."
+
+"Oh! then I accept," she said.
+
+Paz departed, promising to return.
+
+"Well, that's a stiff one!" said Marguerite Turquet, looking at Madame
+Chapuzot; "I'm half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancy
+of his own--Pooh! I'll risk it."
+
+A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living in
+a comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam's own upholsterer, Paz
+having judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotel
+Laginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of the
+Arabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in the double
+capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Marguerite were
+constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end of three
+months none of them were able to make out the meaning of the Polish
+count's caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hour there once
+a week, during which time he sat in the salon, and never went
+into Malaga's boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of the clever
+manoeuvring of the Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. The count
+would ask questions as to the small events of Marguerite's life, and
+each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francs each on
+the mantel-piece.
+
+"He looks as if he didn't care to be here," said Madame Chapuzot.
+
+"Yes," said Malaga, "the man's as cold as an icicle."
+
+"But he's a good fellow all the same," cried Chapuzot, who was happy in
+a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like the
+servant of some minister.
+
+The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined to
+Malaga's meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous living compared
+with her former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds of the Circus
+about Malaga's good-luck. Her vanity increased the six thousand francs
+which Paz had spent on her furniture to sixty thousand. According to
+the clowns and the supers, Malaga was squandering money; and she now
+appeared at the Circus wearing burnous and shawls and elegant scarfs.
+The Pole, it was agreed on all sides, was the best sort of man a
+circus-rider had ever encountered, not fault-finding nor jealous, and
+willing to let Malaga do just what she liked.
+
+"Some women have the luck of it," said Malaga's rival, "and I'm not one
+of them,--though I do draw a third of the receipts."
+
+Malaga wore pretty things, and occasionally "showed her head" (a term in
+the lexicon of such characters) in the Bois, where the fashionable young
+men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malaga was
+very much talked about in the questionable world of equivocal women, who
+presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They said she was
+a somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was using her to
+discover the philosopher's stone. Some even more envenomed scandals
+drove her to a curiosity that was greater than Psyche's. She reported
+them in tears to Paz.
+
+"When I want to injure a woman," she said in conclusion, "I don't
+calumniate her; I don't declare that some one magnetizes her to get
+stones out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and I prove
+it. Why do you compromise me in this way?"
+
+Paz maintained a cruel silence. Madame Chapuzot was not long in
+discovering the name and title of Comte Paz; then she heard certain
+positive facts at the hotel Laginski: for instance, that Paz was a
+bachelor, and had never been known to have a daughter, alive or dead,
+in Poland or in France. After that Malaga could not control a feeling of
+terror.
+
+"My dear child," Madame Chapuzot would say, "that monster--" (a man who
+contented himself with only looking, in a sly way,--not daring to come
+out and say things,--and such a beautiful creature too, as Malaga,--of
+course such a man was a monster, according to Madame Chapuzot's ideas)
+"--that monster is trying to get a hold upon you, and make you do
+something illegal and criminal. Holy Father, if you should get into
+the police-courts! it makes me tremble from head to foot; suppose they
+should put you in the newspapers! I'll tell you what I should do in your
+place; I'd warn the police."
+
+One particular day, after many foolish notions had fermented for
+some time in Malaga's mind, Paz having laid his money as usual on the
+mantel-piece, she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face,
+crying out, "I don't want stolen money!"
+
+The captain gave the gold to Chapuzot, went away without a word, and did
+not return.
+
+Clementine was at this time at her uncle's place in Burgundy.
+
+When the Circus troop discovered that Malaga had lost her Polish count,
+much excitement was produced among them. Malaga's display of honor was
+considered folly by some, and shrewdness by others. The conduct of the
+Pole, however, even when discussed by the cleverest of women, seemed
+inexplicable. Thaddeus received in the course of the next week
+thirty-seven letters from women of their kind. Happily for him, his
+astonishing reserve did not excite the curiosity of the fashionable
+world, and was only discussed in the demi-mondaine regions.
+
+Two weeks later the handsome circus-rider, crippled by debt, wrote the
+following letter to Comte Paz, which, having fallen into the hands
+of Comte Adam, was read by several of the dandies of the day, who
+pronounced it a masterpiece:--
+
+  "You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me
+  after all that has passed,--which you have so ill understood? My
+  heart disavows whatever may have wounded your feelings. If I was
+  fortunate enough to charm you and keep you beside me in the past,
+  return to me; otherwise, I shall fall into despair. Poverty has
+  overtaken me, and you do not know what _horrid things_ it brings
+  with it. Yesterday I lived on a herring at two sous, and one sou
+  of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The
+  Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your
+  desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human
+  attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots
+  have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the
+  landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait
+  even ten days,--for when we lose the confidence of such as you,
+  credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to
+  reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My
+  friend, I have taken all I have of any value to _my uncle's_; I have
+  nothing but the memory of you left, and here is the winter coming
+  on. I shall be fireless when it turns cold; for the boulevards are
+  to play only melodramas, in which I have nothing but little bits
+  of parts which don't _pose_ a woman. How could you misunderstand the
+  nobleness of my feelings for you?--for there are two ways of
+  expressing gratitude. You who seemed so happy in seeing me
+  well-off, how can you leave me in poverty? Oh, my sole friend on
+  earth, before I go back to the country fairs with Bouthor's circus,
+  where I can at least make a living, forgive me if I wish to know
+  whether I have lost you forever. If I were to let myself think of
+  you when I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs
+  by losing _a time_. Whatever may be the result, I am yours for life.
+
+"Marguerite Turquet."
+
+
+"That letter," thought Thaddeus, shouting with laughter, "is worth the
+ten thousand francs I have spent upon her."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Clementine came home the next day, and the day after that Paz beheld her
+again, more beautiful and graceful than ever. After dinner, during which
+the countess treated Paz with an air of perfect indifference, a little
+scene took place in the salon between the count and his wife when
+Thaddeus had left them. On pretence of asking Adam's advice, Thaddeus
+had left Malaga's letter with him, as if by mistake.
+
+"Poor Thaddeus!" said Adam, as Paz disappeared, "what a misfortune for
+a man of his distinction to be the plaything of the lowest kind of
+circus-rider. He will lose everything, and get lower and lower, and
+won't be recognizable before long. Here, read that," added the count,
+giving Malaga's letter to his wife.
+
+Clementine read the letter, which smelt of tobacco, and threw it from
+her with a look of disgust.
+
+"Thick as the bandage is over his eyes," continued Adam, "he must have
+found out something; Malaga tricked him, no doubt."
+
+"But he goes back to her," said Clementine, "and he will forgive her! It
+is for such horrible women as that that you men have indulgence."
+
+"Well, they need it," said Adam.
+
+"Thaddeus used to show some decency--in living apart from us," she
+remarked. "He had better go altogether."
+
+"Oh, my dear angel, that's going too far," said the count, who did not
+want the death of the sinner.
+
+Paz, who knew Adam thoroughly, had enjoined him to secrecy, pretending
+to excuse his dissipations, and had asked his friend to lend him a few
+thousand francs for Malaga.
+
+"He is a very firm fellow," said Adam.
+
+"How so?" asked Clementine.
+
+"Why, for having spent no more than ten thousand francs on her, and
+letting her send him that letter before he would ask me for enough to
+pay her debts. For a Pole, I call that firm."
+
+"He will ruin you," said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisian
+woman, when she shows her feline distrusts.
+
+"Oh, I know him," said Adam; "he will sacrifice Malaga, if I ask him."
+
+"We shall see," remarked the countess.
+
+"If it is best for his own happiness, I sha'n't hesitate to ask him to
+leave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, sober
+as he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes to
+intoxication I shall be just as grieved as if he were my own son."
+
+"Don't tell me anything more about it," cried the countess, with a
+gesture of disgust.
+
+Two days later the captain perceived in the manner, the tones of voice,
+but, above all, in the eyes of the countess, the terrible results of
+Adam's confidences. Contempt had opened a gulf between the beloved woman
+and himself. He was suddenly plunged into the deepest distress of mind,
+for the thought gnawed him, "I have myself made her despise me!" His own
+folly stared him in the face. Life then became a burden to him, the very
+sun turned gray. And yet, amid all these bitter thoughts, he found again
+some moments of pure joy. There were times when he could give himself
+up wholly to his admiration for his mistress, who paid not the
+slightest attention to him. Hanging about in corners at her parties
+and receptions, silent, all heart and eyes, he never lost one of her
+attitudes, nor a tone of her voice when she sang. He lived in her life;
+he groomed the horse which _she_ rode, he studied the ways and means of
+that splendid establishment, to the interests of which he was now more
+devoted than ever. These silent pleasures were buried in his heart like
+those of a mother, whose heart a child never knows; for is it knowing
+anything unless we know it all? His love was more perfect than the love
+of Petrarch for Laura, which found its ultimate reward in the treasures
+of fame, the triumph of the poem which she had inspired. Surely the
+emotion that the Chevalier d'Assas felt in dying must have been to him
+a lifetime of joy. Such emotions as these Paz enjoyed daily,--without
+dying, but also without the guerdon of immortality.
+
+But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Paz
+should still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnified
+Love that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility of
+spirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualities
+of which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing where
+contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand
+had given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
+mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
+better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her respect,
+and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with constant
+low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to keep his
+bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became very uneasy
+about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark: "Let him alone;
+don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" This remark, being
+repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair; he left his bed,
+went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his health.
+
+About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
+Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to let
+the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.
+
+"There's nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl;
+but if the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be
+lowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future."
+
+"Ha! this, too!" exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.
+
+"Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever
+quits,--though, indeed, I am your debtor now."
+
+"Adam, you will have children; don't gamble any more," said Paz.
+
+"So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs," cried the
+countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to
+Paz. "First, ten thousand, now twenty more,--thirty thousand! the income
+of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera, and the
+whole fortune of many a bourgeois. Oh, you Poles!" she said, gathering
+some flowers in her greenhouse; "you are really incomprehensible. Why
+are you not furious with him?"
+
+"Poor Paz is--"
+
+"Poor Paz, poor Paz, indeed!" she cried, interrupting him, "what good
+does he do us? I shall take the management of the household myself. You
+can give him the allowance he refused, and let him settle it as he likes
+with his Circus."
+
+"He is very useful to us, Clementine. He has certainly saved over forty
+thousand francs this last year. And besides, my dear angel, he has
+managed to put a hundred thousand with Nucingen, which a steward would
+have pocketed."
+
+Clementine softened down; but she was none the less hard in her feelings
+to Thaddeus. A few days later, she requested him to come to that boudoir
+where, one year earlier, she had been surprised into comparing him with
+her husband. This time she received him alone, without perceiving the
+slightest danger in so doing.
+
+"My dear Paz," she said, with the condescending familiarity of the great
+to their inferiors, "if you love Adam as you say you do, you will do
+a thing which he will not ask of you, but which I, his wife, do not
+hesitate to exact."
+
+"About Malaga?" said Thaddeus, with bitterness in his heart.
+
+"Well, yes," she said; "if you wish to end your days in this house
+and continue good friends with us, you must give her up. How an old
+soldier--"
+
+"I am only thirty-five, and haven't a white hair."
+
+"You look old," she said, "and that's the same thing. How so careful a
+manager, so distinguished a--"
+
+The horrible part of all this was her evident intention to rouse a sense
+of honor in his soul which she thought extinct.
+
+"--so distinguished a man as you are, Thaddeus," she resumed after a
+momentary pause which a gesture of his hand had led her to make, "can
+allow yourself to be caught like a boy! Your proceedings have made that
+woman celebrated. My uncle wanted to see her, and he did see her. My
+uncle is not the only one; Malaga receives a great many gentlemen. I did
+think you such a noble soul. For shame! Will she be such a loss that you
+can't replace her?"
+
+"Madame, if I knew any sacrifice I could make to recover your esteem I
+would make it; but to give up Malaga is not one--"
+
+"In your position, that is what I should say myself, if I were a man,"
+replied Clementine. "Well, if I accept it as a great sacrifice there can
+be no ill-will between us."
+
+Paz left the room, fearing he might commit some great folly, and feeling
+that wild ideas were getting the better of him. He went to walk in the
+open air, lightly dressed in spite of the cold, but without being able
+to cool the fire in his cheeks or on his brow.
+
+"I thought you had a noble soul,"--the words still rang in his ears.
+
+"A year ago," he said to himself, "she thought me a hero who could fight
+the Russians single-handed!"
+
+He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with the
+spahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checked
+him. "Without me," he thought, "what would become of them? they would
+soon be ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be for her
+if she were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No, since all
+is lost for me in this world,--courage! I will keep on as I am."
+
+Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone a
+transformation which has made it European, and far more burlesque
+and otherwise lively than the late Carnival of Venice. Is it that the
+diminishing fortunes of the present time have led Parisians to invent a
+way of amusing themselves collectively, as for instance at their clubs,
+where they hold salons without hostesses and without manners, but very
+cheaply? However this may be, the month of March was prodigal of balls,
+at which dancing, joking, coarse fun, excitement, grotesque figures, and
+the sharp satire of Parisian wit, produced extravagant effects. These
+carnival follies had their special Pandemonium in the rue Saint-Honore
+and their Napoleon in Musard, a small man born expressly to lead an
+orchestra as noisy as the disorderly audience, and to set the time for
+the galop, that witches' dance, which was one of Auber's triumphs, for
+it did not really take form or poesy till the grand galop in "Gustave"
+was given to the world. That tremendous finale might serve as the symbol
+of an epoch in which for the last fifty years all things have hurried by
+with the rapidity of a dream.
+
+Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and immaculate
+image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the carnival
+dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he knew the
+countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with two
+friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on at the
+curious spectacle of one of these crowded balls.
+
+On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o'clock in the morning, the
+countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower step of the
+platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since then given
+his concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading the galop
+with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with plumes
+like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like a
+will-o-the-wisp.
+
+"Ah!" said Clementine to her husband, "you Poles have no honor at all!
+I did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leave that
+woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen."
+
+A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinner Adam
+left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let him know
+very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house any longer.
+
+"Yes, madame," said Paz, humbly, "you are right; I am a wretch; I did
+give you my word. But you see how it is; I put off leaving Malaga till
+after the carnival. Besides, that woman exerts an influence over me
+which--"
+
+"An influence!--a woman who ought to be turned out of Musard's by the
+police for such dancing!"
+
+"I agree to all that; I accept the condemnation and I'll leave your
+house. But you know Adam. If I give up the management of your property
+you must show energy yourself. I may have been to blame about Malaga,
+but I have taken the whole charge of your affairs, managed your
+servants, and looked after the very least details. I cannot leave you
+until I see you prepared to continue my management. You have now
+been married three years, and you are safe from the temptations to
+extravagance which come with the honeymoon. I see that Parisian
+women, and even titled ones, do manage both their fortunes and their
+households. Well, as soon as I am certain not so much of your capacity
+as of your perseverance I shall leave Paris."
+
+"It is Thaddeus of Warsaw, and not that Circus Thaddeus who speaks now,"
+said Clementine. "Go, and come back cured."
+
+"Cured! never," said Paz, his eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine's
+pretty feet. "You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpected
+piquancy of mind she has." Then, feeling his courage fail him, he added
+hastily, "There is not a woman in society, with her mincing airs, that
+is worth the honest nature of that young animal."
+
+"At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me," said the countess,
+with a glance like that of an angry viper.
+
+After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of
+her affairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods and
+difficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to pay for
+things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He told her
+she could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeus had
+trained the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought the countess
+fully competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementine was one of
+those far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have an innate genius as
+mistress of a household.
+
+This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did
+not end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to
+be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover
+forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and
+Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend. His
+devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing her
+perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment
+imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but
+women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their
+souls--love is their sole illuminator.
+
+During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearing
+to think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think of
+her. Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though he
+did not die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris in consultation.
+
+"If he comes safely out of this," said the most distinguished of them
+all, "it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those who nurse
+him to watch for the moment when they must second nature. The count's
+life is in the hands of his nurses."
+
+Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of the
+consultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as much for
+a little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and not embarrass
+them. As he walked along the winding gravelled path which led to the
+pavilion, Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of an abyss described
+by Dante. The unfortunate man had never dreamed that the possibility
+might arise of becoming Clementine's husband, and now he had drowned
+himself in a ditch of mud. His face was convulsed, when he reached
+the kiosk, with an agony of grief; his head, like Medusa's, conveyed
+despair.
+
+"Is he dead?" said Clementine.
+
+"They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not go
+in; they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings."
+
+"Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him," she said.
+
+"You have made him very happy," said Thaddeus; "you ought to be easy on
+that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him."
+
+"My loss would be irreparable."
+
+"But, dear, you judged him justly."
+
+"I was never blind to his faults," she said, "but I loved him as a wife
+should love her husband."
+
+"Then you ought, in case you lose him," said Thaddeus, in a voice which
+Clementine had never heard him use, "to grieve for him less than if you
+lost a man who was your pride, your love, and all your life,--as some
+men are to you women. Surely you can be frank at this moment with a
+friend like me. I shall grieve, too; long before your marriage I had
+made him my child, I had sacrificed my life to him. If he dies I shall
+be without an interest on earth; but life is still beautiful to a widow
+of twenty-four."
+
+"Ah! but you know that I love no one," she said, with the impatience of
+grief.
+
+"You don't yet know what it is to love," said Thaddeus.
+
+"Oh, as husbands are, I have sense enough to prefer a child like my poor
+Adam to a superior man. It is now over a month that we have been saying
+to each other, 'Will he live?' and these alternations have prepared me,
+as they have you, for this loss. I can be frank with you. Well, I would
+give my life to save Adam. What is a woman's independence in Paris?
+the freedom to let herself be taken in by ruined or dissipated men who
+pretend to love her. I pray to God to leave me this husband who is so
+kind, so obliging, so little fault-finding, and who is beginning to
+stand in awe of me."
+
+"You are honest, and I love you the better for it," said Thaddeus,
+taking her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. "In solemn
+moments like these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding a woman
+without hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let us look to
+the future. Suppose that God does not grant your prayer,--and no one
+cries to him more than I do, 'Leave me my friend!' Yes, these fifty
+nights have not weakened me; if thirty more days and nights are needed
+I can give them while you sleep,--yes, I will tear him from death if, as
+the doctors say, nursing can save him. But suppose that in spite of you
+and me, the count dies,--well, then, if you were loved, oh, adored, by a
+man of a heart and soul that are worthy of you--"
+
+"I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met with
+it."
+
+"Perhaps you are mistaken--"
+
+Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was less of
+love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him from head
+to foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him with the
+words, "Poor Malaga!" uttered in tones which a great lady alone can
+find to give expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeus half
+unconscious behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and went back to
+Adam's chamber.
+
+An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, with death
+in his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he said nothing.
+He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed in a way
+that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his watchful
+eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment to
+Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he seemed
+both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owe his life to
+me," and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of fire on the walls
+of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was forced to give up
+the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz was unwearied. At
+last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the family physician, told
+Clementine that Adam was out of danger.
+
+"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me," he said; "without his
+friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him."
+
+The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the
+Marquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of
+starting for Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasion
+to say a few words to him. The first day that Adam was able to drive
+out with his wife and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard as the
+carriage was about to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus, who
+was sitting on the front seat of the caleche, turned to take a letter
+which bore the stamp of the ministry of Foreign affairs. Having read it,
+he put it into his pocket in a manner which prevented Clementine or Adam
+from speaking of it. Nevertheless, by the time they reached the porte
+Maillot, Adam, full of curiosity, used the privilege of a sick man
+whose caprices are to be gratified, and said to Thaddeus: "There's no
+indiscretion between brothers who love each other,--tell me what there
+is in that despatch; I'm in a fever of curiosity."
+
+Clementine glanced at Thaddeus with a vexed air, and remarked to her
+husband: "He has been so sulky with me for the last two months that I
+shall never ask him anything again."
+
+"Oh, as for that," replied Paz, "I can't keep it out of the newspapers,
+so I may as well tell you at once. The Emperor Nicholas has had the
+grace to appoint me captain in a regiment which is to take part in the
+expedition to Khiva."
+
+"You are not going?" cried Adam.
+
+"Yes, I shall go, my dear fellow. Captain I came, and captain I return.
+We shall dine together to-morrow for the last time. If I don't start at
+once for St. Petersburg I shall have to make the journey by land, and I
+am not rich, and I must leave Malaga a little independence. I ought to
+think of the only woman who has been able to understand me; she thinks
+me grand, superior. I dare say she is faithless, but she would jump--"
+
+"Through the hoop, for your sake and come down safely on the back of her
+horse," said Clementine sharply.
+
+"Oh, you don't know Malaga," said the captain, bitterly, with a
+sarcastic look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful and uneasy.
+
+"Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which you Parisians
+love, and the exiles who find a home here love too," he said,
+presently. "My eyes will never again see the evergreens of the avenue de
+Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of the rond-points. On
+the borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor, promoted to the command,
+perhaps, by force of courage and by risking my life, it may happen that
+I shall regret these Champs-Elysees where I have driven beside you, and
+where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve for Malaga's hardness--the Malaga of
+whom I am now speaking."
+
+This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble.
+
+"Then you do love Malaga very much?" she asked.
+
+"I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should ever sacrifice."
+
+"What honor?"
+
+"That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol."
+
+After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as they
+passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to it,
+"That is the Circus."
+
+He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the Foreign
+office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before the count
+and countess were up.
+
+"I have lost a friend," said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he heard
+that Paz had gone,--"a friend in the true meaning of the word. I don't
+know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my house.
+We are not friends to quarrel about a woman," he said, looking intently
+at Clementine. "You heard what he said yesterday about Malaga. Well, he
+has never so much as touched the little finger of that girl."
+
+"How do you know that?" said Clementine.
+
+"I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, and
+the poor girl can't explain even to herself the absolute reserve which
+Thad--"
+
+"Enough!" said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. "Can it be
+that I am the victim of some noble mystification?" she asked herself.
+The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her the
+following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:--
+
+  "Countess,--To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your
+  contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When
+  I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom
+  we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I
+  loved you thus,--I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were
+  about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,--a voluntary service, but
+  still the steward of your household.
+
+  "In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an
+  indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your
+  luxury, has been the source of deep enjoyments. If these
+  enjoyments were great when I thought only of Adam, think what they
+  were to my soul when the woman I loved was the mainspring of all I
+  did. I have known the pleasures of maternity in my love. I
+  accepted life thus. Like the paupers who live along the great
+  highways, I built myself a hut on the borders of your beautiful
+  domain, though I never sought to approach you. Poor and lonely,
+  struck blind by Adam's good fortune, I was, nevertheless, the
+  giver. Yes, you were surrounded by a love as pure as a
+  guardian-angel's; it waked while you slept; it caressed you with a
+  look as you passed; it was happy in its own existence,--you were
+  the sun of my native land to me, poor exile, who now writes to you
+  with tears in his eyes as he thinks of the happiness of those first
+  days.
+
+  "When I was eighteen years old, having no one to love, I took for
+  my ideal mistress a charming woman in Warsaw, to whom I confided
+  all my thoughts, my wishes; I made her the queen of my nights and
+  days. She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my
+  love.
+
+  "You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was
+  merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your
+  horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the
+  splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the
+  elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all
+  by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked
+  Paris when Adam would say to me, '_She_ wants this or that.' It was
+  a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
+  at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
+  and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
+  you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
+  that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
+  head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
+  had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
+  balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
+  persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
+
+  "I _must_ tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
+  of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
+  until now.
+
+  "You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
+  know the man who performed the household miracles you had
+  sometimes noticed. I thought,--forgive me, madame,--I believed you
+  might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a
+  lover, seemed to me so dangerous--for me--that I invented that
+  story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women
+  cannot forgive. I did it in a moment when I felt that my love
+  would be communicated, fatally, to you. Despise me, crush me with
+  the contempt you have so often cast upon me when I did not deserve
+  it; and yet I am certain that, if, on that evening when your aunt
+  took Adam away from you, I had said what I have now written to
+  you, I should, like the tamed tiger that sets his teeth once more
+  in living flesh, and scents the blood, and--
+
+                                                          "Midnight."
+
+  "I could not go on; the memory of that hour is still too living.
+  Yes, I was maddened. Was there hope for me in your eyes? then
+  victory with its scarlet banners would have flamed in mine and
+  fascinated yours. My crime has been to think all this; perhaps
+  wrongly. You alone can judge of that dreadful scene when I drove
+  back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood,
+  with the cold hand of gratitude,--gratitude which must be eternal.
+
+  "Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me
+  there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I
+  should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he
+  lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to
+  betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought
+  that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said
+  that his life depended on his nursing.
+
+  "Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing
+  now in my being no longer near you.
+
+  "Your devoted
+
+  "Thaddeus Paz."
+
+
+"If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?" thought
+Clementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet.
+
+The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to the
+count:--
+
+  "My dear Adam,--Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your
+  future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about
+  your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a
+  hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine's character; she will
+  never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to
+  Malaga.
+
+  "I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen;
+  and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince
+  Paz in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken
+  sixty-thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even.
+
+"Thaddeus."
+
+
+"Idiot that I was," thought Adam; "I came near to cutting my throat just
+now, talking about Malaga."
+
+It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yet
+said nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immensely
+interested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russian to
+the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comes from
+that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to the Russian
+ambassador, with an air of indifference, "Do you know what has become of
+our poor Comte Paz?"
+
+Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so clever
+and clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognize
+him. Yes, many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but--horrible to think
+of!--some are misconceived even though they are loved. The simplest
+women in society exact a certain amount of conventional sham from
+the greatest men. A noble love signifies nothing to them if rough and
+unpolished; it needs the cutting and setting of a jeweller to give it
+value in their eyes.
+
+In January, 1842, the Comtesse Laginska, with her charm of gentle
+melancholy, inspired a violent passion in the Comte de La Palferine, one
+of the most daring and presumptuous lions of the day. La Palferine was
+well aware that the conquest of a woman so guarded by reserve as the
+Comtesse Laginska was difficult, but he thought he could inveigle this
+charming creature into committing herself if he took her unawares, by
+the assistance of a certain friend of her own, a woman already jealous
+of her.
+
+Quite incapable, in spite of her intelligence, of suspecting such
+treachery, the Comtesse Laginska committed the imprudence of going with
+her so-called friend to a masked ball at the Opera. About three in the
+morning, led away by the excitement of the scene, Clementine, on whom La
+Palferine had expended his seductions, consented to accept a supper,
+and was about to enter the carriage of her faithless friend. At this
+critical moment her arm was grasped by a powerful hand, and she was
+taken, in spite of her struggles, to her own carriage, the door of which
+stood open, though she did not know it was there.
+
+"He has never left Paris!" she exclaimed to herself as she recognized
+Thaddeus, who disappeared when the carriage drove away.
+
+Did any woman ever have a like romance in her life? Clementine is
+constantly hoping she may again see Paz.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist's Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Government Clerks
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     La Palferine, Comte de
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+
+     Lelewel
+       The Seamy Side of History
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Paz, Thaddee
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Peasantry
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       A Start in Life
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       Ursule Mirouet
+
+     Schinner, Hippolyte
+       The Purse
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Pierre Grassou
+       A Start in Life
+       Albert Savarus
+       The Government Clerks
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+
+     Serizy, Vicomte de
+       A Start in Life
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Souchet, Francois
+       The Purse
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Steinbock, Count Wenceslas
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Turquet, Marguerite
+       The Muse of the Department
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Paz
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2005 [EBook #1369]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAZ ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+                                PAZ
+
+                                BY
+
+                          HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+                           Translated by
+
+                    Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+              Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.
+
+
+
+
+                                PAZ
+                       (LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)
+
+
+
+                                 I
+
+In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the
+Marquis du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young
+Polish exile.
+
+We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,
+to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants by
+which the Slave language protects its vowels,--probably not to lose
+them, considering how few there are.
+
+The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princely
+fortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with a
+Demoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother's side Clementine
+du Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame de
+Serizy for aunt. On her father's side she had another uncle in the
+eccentric person of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of the
+house, an old bachelor who had become very rich by speculating in
+lands and houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to
+lose both his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son of
+Madame de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africa
+in the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand between
+the danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, or
+of extinguishing their names if they have too few,--a singular result
+of the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn of
+fortune Clementine became, in spite of her father having squandered
+his substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses in
+Paris), a great heiress. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, a clever
+diplomatist under the new dynasty, his sister, Madame de Serizy, and
+the Chevalier du Rouvre agreed, in order to save their fortunes from
+the dissipations of the marquis, to settle them on their niece, to
+whom, moreover, they each pledged themselves to pay ten thousand
+francs a year from the day of her marriage.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to say that the Polish count, though an exile,
+was no expense to the French government. Comte Adam Laginski belonged
+to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Poland, which
+was allied to many of the princely houses of Germany,--Sapieha,
+Radziwill, Mniszech, Rzewuski, Czartoryski, Leczinski, Lubormirski,
+and all the other great Sarmatian SKIS. But heraldic knowledge is not
+the most distinguishing feature of the French nation under
+Louis-Philippe, and Polish nobility was no great recommendation to
+The bourgeoisie who were lording it in those days. Besides, when Adam
+first made his appearance, in 1833, on the boulevard des Italiens, at
+Frascati, and at the Jockey-Club, he was leading the life of a young
+man who, having lost his political prospects, was taking his pleasure
+in Parisian dissipation. At first he was thought to be a student.
+
+The Polish nationality had at this period fallen as low in French
+estimation, thanks to a shameful governmental reaction, as the
+republicans had sought to raise it. The singular struggle of the
+Movement against Resistance (two words which will be inexplicable
+thirty years hence) made sport of what ought to have been truly
+respected,--the name of a conquered nation to whom the French had
+offered hospitality, for whom fetes had been given (with songs and
+dances by subscription), above all, a nation which in the Napoleonic
+struggle between France and Europe had given us six thousand men, and
+what men!
+
+Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that of
+the Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against the
+Emperor. It would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion into
+tales that are intended to amuse or interest. Besides, Russia and
+Poland were both right,--one to wish the unity of its empire, the
+other to desire its liberty. Let us say in passing that Poland might
+have conquered Russia by the influence of her morals instead of
+fighting her with weapons; she should have imitated China which, in
+the end, Chinesed the Tartars, and will, it is to be hoped, Chinese
+the English. Poland ought to have Polonized Russia. Poniatowski tried
+to do so in the least favorable portion of the empire; but as a king
+he was little understood,--because, possibly, he did not fully
+understand himself.
+
+But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people who
+were the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famous
+review at which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? The
+Poles were held up to them as the allies of the republican party, and
+they never once remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats.
+From that day forth the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt the
+exiles of the nation it had worshipped a few days earlier. The wind of
+a riot is always enough to veer the Parisians from north to south
+under any regime. It is necessary to remember these sudden
+fluctuations of feeling in order to understand why it was that in 1835
+the word "Pole" conveyed a derisive meaning to a people who consider
+themselves the wittiest and most courteous nation on earth, and their
+city of Paris the focus of enlightenment, with the sceptre of arts and
+literature within its grasp.
+
+There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles,--the republican Poles,
+sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is Prince
+Adam Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but why
+complain of that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles,
+no matter of what nation they may be, or in what countries they take
+refuge. They carry their countries and their hatreds with them. Two
+French priests, who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution,
+showed the utmost horror of each other, and when one of them was asked
+why, he replied with a glance at his companion in misery: "Why?
+because he's a Jansenist!" Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf had
+he met him in exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the French
+against the venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shown
+to the better class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars and
+the licensed Alexanders of Paris.
+
+In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt
+for Parisian pleasantry.
+
+"He is rather nice, though he is a Pole," said Rastignac.
+
+"All these Poles pretend to be great lords," said Maxime de Trailles,
+"but this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think he
+must have property."
+
+Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allowable to
+remark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatian
+character does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians,
+who, by the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as the
+Poles do. The French aristocracy, so nobly succored during the
+Revolution by the Polish lords, certainly did not return the kindness
+in 1832. Let us have the melancholy courage to admit this, and to say
+that the faubourg Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland.
+
+Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer? This
+problem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to
+instructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held
+that all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of
+the Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proof
+of the political quality which was then dignified by the name of
+sagacity. They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom they
+had all been on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely because
+it was said that the Emperor Nicholas gave him the cold shoulder.
+Between the caution of the court and the prudence of the diplomates,
+the Polish exiles of distinction lived in Paris in the Biblical
+solitude of "super flumina Babylonis," or else they haunted a few
+salons which were the neutral ground of all opinions. In a city of
+pleasure, like Paris, where amusements abound on all sides, the
+heedless gayety of a Pole finds twice as many encouragements as it
+needs to a life of dissipation.
+
+It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him,--his
+appearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole,
+as there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is not
+very handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the second
+category of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression,
+looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair
+hair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more like
+a goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes
+caught you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How came
+he, in spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really
+exquisite manners and a distinguished air? The problem is solved
+partly by the care and elegance of his dress, and partly by the
+training given him by his mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to
+daring, but his mind was not more than was needed for the ephemeral
+talk and pleasantry of Parisian conversation. And yet it would have
+been difficult to find among the young men of fashion in Paris a
+single one who was his superior. Young men talk a great deal too much
+in these days of horses, money, taxes, deputies; French _conversation_
+is no longer what it was. Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain
+social inequalities to bring it out. There is, probably, more real
+conversation in Vienna or St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do not
+need to employ delicacy or shrewdness in speech; they blurt out things
+as they are. Consequently the dandies of Paris did not discover the
+great seigneur in the rather heedless young fellow who, in their
+talks, would flit from one subject to another, all the more intent
+upon amusement because he had just escaped from a great peril, and,
+finding himself in a city where his family was unknown, felt at
+liberty to lead a loose life without the risk of disgracing his name.
+
+But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la
+Pepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none in
+Paris. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously he
+had seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love with
+her. A year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madame
+d'Espard was the first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters then
+learned too late that as far back as the year 900 the family of the
+Laginski was among the most illustrious of the North. By an act of
+prudence which was very unPolish, the mother of the young count had
+mortgaged her entire property on the breaking out of the insurrection
+for an immense sum lent by two Jewish bankers in Paris. Comte Adam was
+now in possession of eighty thousand francs a year. When this was
+discovered society ceased to be surprised at the imprudence which had
+been laid to the charge of Madame de Serizy, the Marquis de
+Ronquerolles, and the Chevalier du Rouvre in yielding to the foolish
+passion of their niece. People jumped, as usual, from one extreme of
+judgment to the other.
+
+During the winter of 1836 Comte Adam was the fashion, and Clementine
+Laginska one of the queens of Paris. Madame Laginska is now a member
+of that charming circle of young women represented by Mesdames de
+Lestorade, de Portenduere, Marie de Vandenesse, du Guenic, and de
+Maufrigneuse, the flowers of our present Paris, who live at such
+immeasurable distance from the parvenus, the vulgarians, and the
+speculators of the new regime.
+
+This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one of
+those noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our time
+admit,--actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering,
+are hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing
+waves of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St.
+Petersburg,--or what you will.
+
+If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals
+was ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830,
+during the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old
+fortunes are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our
+ancestors are constantly being demolished and replaced by species of
+phalansteries, in which the peers of July occupy the third floor above
+some newly enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles
+is confusedly employed. As there is no longer a real court or nobility
+to give the tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never,
+on the other hand, has architecture discovered so many economical ways
+of imitating the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, more
+talent, in distributing them. Propose to an architect to build upon
+the garden at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up a
+little Louvre overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in a
+courtyard, stables, and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the house
+he will accommodate a quantity of little rooms and passages. He is so
+clever in deceiving the eye that you think you will have plenty of
+space; but it is only a nest of small rooms, after all, in which a
+ducal family has to turn itself about in the space that its own
+bakehouse formerly occupied.
+
+The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of
+these creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in
+the court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse
+and stables. The porter's lodge is between two charming
+portes-cocheres. The chief luxury of the house is a delightful
+greenhouse contrived at the end of a boudoir on the ground-floor which
+opens upon an admirable suite of reception rooms. An English
+philanthropist had built this architectural bijou, designed the garden,
+added the greenhouse, polished the doors, bricked the courtyard, painted
+the window-frames green, and realized, in short, a dream which resembled
+(proportions excepted) George the Fourth's Pavilion at Brighton. The
+inventive and industrious Parisian workmen had moulded the doors and
+window-frames; the ceilings were imitated from the middle-ages or
+those of a Venetian palace; marble veneering abounded on the outer
+walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet had designed the mantel-pieces
+and the panels above the doors; Schinner had painted the ceilings in
+his masterly manner. The beauties of the staircase, white as a woman's
+arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild. On account of the riots and
+the unsettled times, the cost of this folly was only about eleven
+hundred thousand francs,--to an Englishman a mere nothing. All this
+luxury, called princely by persons who do not know what real princes
+are, was built in the garden of the house of a purveyor made a Croesus
+by the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels and died there after
+going into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in Paris, of Paris; for to
+many persons Paris is a disease,--sometimes several diseases. His
+widow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little nabob establishment,
+and ordered it to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at a bargain; and how
+he came to do so shall presently be made known, for bargains were not
+at all in his line as a grand seigneur.
+
+Behind the house lay the verdant velvet of an English lawn shaded at
+the lower end by a clump of exotic trees, in the midst of which stood
+a Chinese pagoda with soundless belfries and motionless golden eggs.
+The greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, the
+opposite wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon poles
+painted green and connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, this
+world of flowers, the gravelled paths, the simulated forest, the
+verdant palisades, were contained within the space of five and twenty
+square rods, which are worth to-day four hundred thousand francs,--the
+value of an actual forest. Here, in this solitude in the middle of
+Paris, the birds sang, thrushes, nightingales, warblers, bulfinches,
+and sparrows. The greenhouse was like an immense jardiniere, filling
+the air with perfume in winter as in summer. The means by which its
+atmosphere was made to order, torrid as in China or temperate as in
+Italy, were cleverly concealed. Pipes in which hot water circulated,
+or steam, were either hidden under ground or festooned with plants
+overhead. The boudoir was a large room. The miracle of the modern
+Parisian fairy named Architecture is to get all these many and great
+things out of a limited bit of ground.
+
+The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of
+the artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house.
+It is too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce
+knows where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their
+myriads of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz
+mounted on filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in
+the style which Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock
+conceived but often could not execute, statuettes modelled by genius
+pursued by creditors (the real explanation of the Arabian myth),
+superb sketches by our best artists, lids of chests made into panels
+alternating with fluted draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging
+from rods of old oak in tapestried masses on which the figures of some
+hunting scene are swarming, pieces of furniture worthy to have
+belonged to Madame de Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a last
+graceful touch, all these elegant things were subdued by the
+half-light which filtered through embroidered curtains and added to
+their charm. On a table between the windows, among various curiosities,
+lay a whip, the handle designed by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which
+proved that the countess rode on horseback.
+
+Such is a lady's boudoir in 1837,--an exhibition of the contents of
+many shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to be
+dreaded by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital
+in Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads
+to revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is
+sure of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.
+
+One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
+lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
+is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
+lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
+into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
+vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
+wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
+form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
+back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
+gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
+the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
+Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a short
+gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This gallery
+opened on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber, through
+which could be seen the beauties of the staircase.
+
+The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was a
+sheet of azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been
+married two years, and Clementine had just discovered for the first
+time that there was something resembling a secret or a mystery in her
+household. The Pole, let us say it to his honor, is usually helpless
+before a woman; he is so full of tenderness for her that in Poland he
+becomes her inferior, though Polish women make admirable wives. Now a
+Pole is still more easily vanquished by a Parisian woman. Consequently
+Comte Adam, pressed by questions, did not even attempt the innocent
+roguery of selling the suspected secret. It is always wise with a
+woman to get some good out of a mystery; she will like you the better
+for it, as a swindler respects an honest man the more when he finds he
+cannot swindle him. Brave in heart but not in speech, Comte Adam
+merely stipulated that he should not be compelled to answer until he
+had finished his narghile.
+
+"If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling," said Clementine,
+"you always dismissed it by saying, 'Paz will settle that.' You never
+wrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying,
+'the captain, the captain.' If I want the carriage--'the captain.' Is
+there a bill to pay--'the captain.' If my horse is not properly
+bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of
+dominoes--Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never
+see Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don't you bring forth your Paz?"
+
+"Isn't everything going on right?" asked the count, taking the
+"bocchettino" of his narghile from his lips.
+
+"Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of
+two hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our
+pace, and we have only one hundred and ten thousand."
+
+So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A
+footman entered, dressed like a minister.
+
+"Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him."
+
+"If you think you are going to find out anything that way--" said
+Comte Adam, laughing.
+
+It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December,
+1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and
+Germany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to
+Paris in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the first
+time as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, and
+she then became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and wholly
+dumb but very useful, of a species of factotum who was personally
+invisible, named Paz,--spelt thus, but pronounced "Patz."
+
+"Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him,"
+said the footman, returning. "He is at the stables; as soon as he has
+changed his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame."
+
+"What was he doing at the stables?"
+
+"He was showing them how to groom Madame's horse," said the man. "He
+was not pleased with the way Constantin did it."
+
+The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and did
+not add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usually
+comment on the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogate
+from his position.
+
+"Ah! he was grooming Cora."
+
+"Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?" said the
+footman, leaving the room without further answer.
+
+"Is Paz a Pole?" asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who nodded
+by way of affirmation.
+
+Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extended
+upon a cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge of
+its nest listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemed
+enchanting even to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her hair
+in curls, she was not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in the
+Keepsakes, especially when dressed, as she was this morning, in a
+breakfast gown of Persian silk, the folds of which could not disguise
+the beauty of her figure or the slimness of her waist. The silk with
+its brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring of
+the neck,--its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones of
+a guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their long
+black lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity which
+puckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled,
+an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the true
+Parisian woman,--self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessible
+to vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, were
+hanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the tapering
+fingers, slightly turned up at their points, showed nails like
+almonds, which caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife's impatience,
+and looked at her with a glance which two years of married life had
+not yet chilled. Already the little countess had made herself mistress
+of the situation, for she scarcely paid attention to her husband's
+admiration. In fact, in the look which she occasionally cast at him,
+there seemed to be the consciousness of a Frenchwoman's ascendancy
+over the puny, volatile, and red-haired Pole.
+
+"Here comes Paz," said the count, hearing a step which echoed through
+the gallery.
+
+The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing on
+his face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret
+endurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats
+which were then called "polonaise." Thick, black hair, rather unkempt,
+covered his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead
+shining like a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in
+his hand. The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust
+health flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman nose
+and reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silk
+cravat added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, with
+eyes of jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers,
+which allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed his
+faithfulness to the fashions of his own land. There was something
+really burlesque to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no one
+could fail to remark between the captain and the count, the little
+Pole with his pinched face and the stalwart soldier.
+
+"Good morning, Adam," he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as
+he asked Clementine what he could do for her.
+
+"You are Laginski's friend!" exclaimed the countess.
+
+"For life and death," answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile of
+affection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe.
+
+"Then why don't you take your meals with us? why did you not accompany
+us to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a way
+that I am unable to thank you for the constant services that you do
+for us?" said the countess, with much vivacity of manner but no
+feeling.
+
+In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntary
+servitude. Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contempt
+for a social amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bailiff, and yet
+neither the one nor the other, a poor relation, an embarrassing
+friend.
+
+"Because, countess," he answered with perfect ease of manner, "there
+are no thanks due. I am Adam's friend, and it gives me pleasure to
+take care of his interests."
+
+"And you remain standing for your pleasure, too," remarked Comte Adam.
+
+Paz sat down on a chair near the door.
+
+"I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards in
+the courtyard," said Clementine. "But why do you put yourself in a
+position of inferiority,--you, Adam's friend?"
+
+"I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians," he
+replied. "I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two."
+
+"But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is not
+indifferent to me--"
+
+"Ah, madame, the world will be satisfied if you tell them I am 'an
+original.'"
+
+After a moment's silence he added, "Are you going out to-day?"
+
+"Will you come with us to the Bois?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+So saying, Paz bowed and withdrew.
+
+"What a good soul he is!" said Adam. "He has all the simplicity of a
+child."
+
+"Now tell me all about your relations with him," said Clementine.
+
+"Paz, my dear," said Laginski, "belongs to a noble family as old and
+illustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time of
+their disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of his
+property and founded the Paz family, to which the title of count was
+granted. This family, which distinguished itself greatly in the
+glorious days of our royal republic, became rich. The graft from the
+tree that was felled in Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland that
+there are several branches of the family still there. I need not tell
+you that some are rich and some are poor. Our Paz is the scion of a
+poor branch. He was an orphan, without other fortune than his sword,
+when he served in the regiment of the Grand Duke Constantine at the
+time of our revolution. Joining the Polish cause, he fought like a
+Pole, like a patriot, like a man who has nothing,--three good reasons
+for fighting well. In his last affair, thinking he was followed by his
+men, he dashed upon a Russian battery and was taken prisoner. I was
+there. His brave act roused me. 'Let us go and get him!' I said to my
+troop, and we charged the battery like a lot of foragers. I got Paz--I
+was the seventh man; we started twenty and came back eight, counting
+Paz. After Warsaw was sold we were forced to escape those Russians. By
+a curious chance, Paz and I happened to come together again, at the
+same hour and the same place, on the other side of the Vistula. I saw
+the poor captain arrested by some Prussians, who made themselves the
+blood-hounds of the Russians. When we have fished a man out of the
+Styx we cling to him. This new danger for poor Paz made me so unhappy
+that I let myself be taken too, thinking I could help him. Two men can
+get away where one will perish. Thanks to my name and some family
+connections in Prussia, the authorities shut their eyes to my escape.
+I got my dear captain through as a man of no consequence, a family
+servant, and we reached Dantzic. There we got on board a Dutch vessel
+and went to London. It took us two months to get there. My mother was
+ill in England, and expecting me. Paz and I took care of her till her
+death, which the Polish troubles hastened. Then we left London and
+came to France. Men who go through such adversities become like
+brothers. When I reached Paris, at twenty-two years of age, and found
+I had an income of over sixty thousand francs a year, without counting
+the proceeds of the diamonds and the pictures sold by my mother, I
+wanted to secure the future of my dear Paz before I launched into
+dissipation. I had often noticed the sadness in his eyes--sometimes
+tears were in them. I had had good reason to understand his soul,
+which is noble, grand, and generous to the core. I thought he might
+not like to be bound by benefits to a friend who was six years younger
+than himself, unless he could repay them. I was careless and
+frivolous, just as a young fellow is, and I knew I was certain to ruin
+myself at play, or get inveigled by some woman, and Paz and I might
+then be parted; and though I had every intention of always looking out
+for him, I knew I might sometime or other forget to provide for him.
+In short, my dear angel, I wanted to spare him the pain and
+mortification of having to ask me for money, or of having to hunt me
+up if he got into distress. SO, one morning, after breakfast, when we
+were sitting with our feet on the andirons smoking pipes, I produced,
+--with the utmost precaution, for I saw him look at me uneasily,--a
+certificate of the Funds payable to bearer for a certain sum of money
+a year."
+
+Clementine jumped up and went and seated herself on Adam's knee, put
+her arms round his neck, and kissed him. "Dear treasure!" she said,
+"how handsome he is! Well, what did Paz do?"
+
+"Thaddeus turned pale," said the count, "but he didn't say a word."
+
+"Oh! his name is Thaddeus, is it?"
+
+"Yes; Thaddeus folded the paper and gave it back to me, and then he
+said: 'I thought, Adam, that we were one for life or death, and that
+we should never part. Do you want to be rid of me?' 'Oh!' I said, 'if
+you take it that way, Thaddeus, don't let us say another word about
+it. If I ruin myself you shall be ruined too.' 'You haven't fortune
+enough to live as a Laginski should,' he said, 'and you need a friend
+who will take care of your affairs, and be a father and a brother and
+a trusty confidant.' My dear child, as Paz said that he had in his
+look and voice, calm as they were, a maternal emotion, and also the
+gratitude of an Arab, the fidelity of a dog, the friendship of a
+savage,--not displayed, but ever ready. Faith! I seized him, as we
+Poles do, with a hand on each shoulder, and I kissed him on the lips.
+'For life and death, then! all that I have is yours--do what you will
+with it.' It was he who found me this house and bought it for next to
+nothing. He sold my Funds high and bought in low, and we have paid for
+this barrack with the profits. He knows horses, and he manages to buy
+and sell at such advantage that my stable really costs very little;
+and yet I have the finest horses and the most elegant equipages in all
+Paris. Our servants, brave Polish soldiers chosen by him, would go
+through fire and water for us. I seem, as you say, to be ruining
+myself; and yet Paz keeps the house with such method and economy that
+he has even repaired some of my foolish losses at play,--the
+thoughtless folly of a young man. My dear, Thaddeus is as shrewd as
+two Genoese, as eager for gain as a Polish Jew, and provident as a
+good housekeeper. I never could force him to live as I did when I was
+a bachelor. Sometimes I had to use a sort of friendly coercion to make
+him go to the theatre with me when I was alone, or to the jovial
+little dinners I used to give at a tavern. He doesn't like social
+life."
+
+"What does he like, then?" asked Clementine.
+
+"Poland; he loves Poland and pines for it. His only spendings are sums
+he gives, more in my name than in his own, to some of our poor
+brother-exiles."
+
+"Well, I shall love him, the fine fellow!" said the countess, "he
+looks to me as simple-hearted as he is grand."
+
+"All these pretty things you have about you," continued Adam, who
+praised his friend in the noblest sincerity, "he picked up; he bought
+them at auction, or as bargains from the dealers. Oh! he's keener than
+they are themselves. If you see him rubbing his hands in the
+courtyard, you may be sure he has traded away one good horse for a
+better. He lives for me; his happiness is to see me elegant, in a
+perfectly appointed equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are all
+accomplished without fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twenty
+thousand francs at whist. 'What will Paz say?' thought I as I walked
+home. Paz paid them to me, not without a sigh; but he never reproached
+me, even by a look. But that sigh of his restrained me more than the
+remonstrances of uncles, mothers, or wives could have done. 'Do you
+regret the money?' I said to him. 'Not for you or me, no,' he replied;
+'but I was thinking that twenty poor Poles could have lived a year on
+that sum.' You must understand that the Pazzi are fully the equal of
+the Laginski, so I couldn't regard my dear Paz as an inferior. I never
+went out or came in without going first to Paz, as I would to my
+father. My fortune is his; and Thaddeus knows that if danger
+threatened him I would fling myself into it and drag him out, as I
+have done before."
+
+"And that is saying a good deal, my dear friend," said the countess.
+"Devotion is like a flash of lightning. Men devote themselves in
+battle, but they no longer have the heart for it in Paris."
+
+"Well," replied Adam, "I am always ready, as in battle, to devote
+myself to Paz. Our two characters have kept their natural asperities
+and defects, but the mutual comprehension of our souls has tightened
+the bond already close between us. It is quite possible to save a
+man's life and kill him afterwards if we find him a bad fellow; but
+Paz and I know THAT of each other which makes our friendship
+indissoluble. There's a constant exchange of happy thoughts and
+impressions between us; and really, perhaps, such a friendship as ours
+is richer than love."
+
+A pretty hand closed the count's mouth so promptly that the action was
+somewhat like a blow.
+
+"Yes," he said, "friendship, my dear angel, knows nothing of bankrupt
+sentiments and collapsed joys. Love, after giving more than it has,
+ends by giving less than it receives."
+
+"One side as well as the other," remarked Clementine laughing.
+
+"Yes," continued Adam, "whereas friendship only increases. You need
+not pucker up your lips at that, for we are, you and I, as much
+friends as lovers; we have, at least I hope so, combined the two
+sentiments in our happy marriage."
+
+"I'll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus such
+good friends," said Clementine. "The difference in the lives you lead
+comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your
+positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and
+also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might
+become the superior."
+
+"Oh, Paz is truly my superior," said Adam, naively; "I have no
+advantage over him except mere luck."
+
+His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words.
+
+"The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings is
+one form of his superiority," continued the count. "I said to him
+once: 'You are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain within
+which you live and think.' He has a right to the title of count; but
+in Paris he won't be called anything but captain."
+
+"The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in
+our century," said the countess. "Dante and Michael Angelo are in
+him."
+
+"That's the very truth," cried Adam. "He is a poet in soul."
+
+"So here I am, married to two Poles," said the young countess, with a
+gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.
+
+"Dear child!" said Adam, pressing her to him, "it would have made me
+very unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both rather
+afraid of it, he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. You
+will make him very happy if you tell him that you love him,--yes, as
+an old friend."
+
+"I'll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ride
+together," said Clementine, ringing for her maid.
+
+
+
+                                 II
+
+Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of
+Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois
+de Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
+Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice
+of the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet.
+Clementine dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a
+style that impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon
+where the two friends awaited her.
+
+"Comte Paz," she said, "you must go with us to the Opera."
+
+This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: "If you
+refuse we shall quarrel."
+
+"Willingly, madame," replied the captain. "But as I have not the
+fortune of a count, have the kindness to call me captain."
+
+"Very good, captain; give me your arm," she said,--taking it and
+leading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiarity
+which enchants all lovers.
+
+The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of a
+poor sub-lieutenant dining at his general's table. He let Clementine
+talk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her
+in anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He
+seemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways
+missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional
+respect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would
+really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to
+disconcert Clementine." Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep. When
+the servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captain
+explained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those of
+society,--he went to bed at eight o'clock and got up very early in the
+morning; and he excused his dulness on the ground of being sleepy.
+
+"My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain;
+but do as you prefer," said Clementine, rather piqued.
+
+"I will go," said Paz.
+
+"Duprez sings 'Guillaume Tell,'" remarked Adam. "But perhaps you would
+rather go to the 'Varietes'?"
+
+The captain smiled and rang the bell. "Tell Constantin," he said to
+the footman, "to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe.
+We should be rather squeezed otherwise," he said to the count.
+
+"A Frenchman would have forgotten that," remarked Clementine, smiling.
+
+"Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North," answered
+Thaddeus with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which made
+his conduct at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was too
+evident a contrast between his involuntary self-revelation in this
+speech and his behavior during dinner. Clementine examined the captain
+with a few of those covert glances which show a woman's surprise and
+also her capacity for observation.
+
+It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in the
+salon while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to
+Adam, who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no
+longer tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand,
+retreated within his military stiffness and came out of it no more,
+neither on the way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be
+asleep.
+
+"You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man," he said during the
+dance in the last act of "Guillaume Tell." "Am I not right to keep, as
+the saying is, to my own specialty?"
+
+"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
+world, but you are perhaps Polish."
+
+"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
+household--it is all I am good for."
+
+"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor;
+he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any
+salon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty."
+
+"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will
+take the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you."
+
+Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
+
+"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer."
+
+Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
+
+"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
+disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."
+
+"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some _calculation_
+in his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."
+
+Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!"
+and the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to
+her husband, "Where does the captain perch?"
+
+"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the
+porte-cochere which had one window looking on the street. "His
+apartments are over the coachhouse."
+
+"Who lives on the other side?" asked the countess.
+
+"No one as yet," said Adam; "I mean that apartment for our children
+and their instructors."
+
+"He didn't go to bed," said the countess, observing lights in
+Thaddeus's rooms when the carriage had passed under the portico
+supported by columns copied from those of the Tuileries, which
+replaced a vulgar zinc awning painted in stripes like cloth.
+
+The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, was
+watching Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been a
+hard one for him. And here is the reason why: A great and terrible
+emotion had taken possession of his heart on the day when Adam made
+him go to the Opera to see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre; and again when he saw her on the occasion of her marriage, and
+recognized in her the woman whom a man is forced to love exclusively.
+For this reason Paz strongly advised and promoted the long journey to
+Italy and elsewhere after the marriage. At peace so long as Clementine
+was away, his trial was renewed on the return of the happy household.
+As he sat at his window on this memorable night, smoking his latakia
+in a pipe of wild-cherry wood six feet long, given to him by Adam,
+these are the thoughts that were passing through his mind:--
+
+"I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone know
+how I love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love nor
+her dislike?"
+
+And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme.
+
+It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, in
+the midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance,
+were a source of inward joy to him. Since the return of the count and
+countess he had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himself
+necessary to a household which, without his devotion to its interests,
+would infallibly have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strain
+of reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift
+father, knew nothing of the management of a household which the women
+of the present day, however rich or noble they are, are often
+compelled to undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep a
+steward. Adam, on the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lords
+who let themselves be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapable
+of managing even the wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes are
+vast in Poland), was not of a nature to check his own fancies or those
+of his wife. Left to himself he would probably have been ruined before
+his marriage. Paz had prevented him from gambling at the Bourse, and
+that says all.
+
+Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementine
+in spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house and
+travelling in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, the
+key-note of his life, held him bound to that household where he alone
+could look after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence
+of Adam and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess had
+returned more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriage
+brings to a Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife and
+the nameless attraction she gains from the happiness, or the
+independence, bestowed upon her by a young man as trustful, as
+chivalric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was the pivot
+on which the splendor the household depended, to see Clementine when
+she got out of her carriage on returning from some fete, or got into
+it in the morning when she took her drive, to meet her on the
+boulevards in her pretty equipage, looking like a flower in a whorl of
+leaves, inspired poor Thaddeus with mysterious delights, which glowed
+in the depths of his heart but gave no signs upon his face.
+
+How happened it that for five whole months the countess had never
+perceived the captain? Because he hid himself from her knowledge, and
+carefully concealed the pains he took to avoid her. Nothing so
+resembles the Divine love as hopeless human love. A man must have
+great depth of heart to devote himself in silence and obscurity to a
+woman. In such a heart is the worship of love for love's sake only
+--sublime avarice, sublime because ever generous and founded on the
+mysterious existence of the principles of creation. _Effect_ is nature,
+and nature is enchanting; it belongs to man, to the poet, the painter,
+the lover. But _Cause_, to a few privileged souls and to certain mighty
+thinkers, is superior to nature. Cause is God. In the sphere of causes
+live the Newtons and all such thinkers as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes,
+Malebranche, Spinoza, Buffon; also the true poets and solitarys of the
+second Christian century, and the Saint Teresas of Spain, and such
+sublime ecstatics. All human sentiments bear analogy to these
+conditions whenever the mind abandons Effect for Cause. Thaddeus had
+reached this height, at which all things change their relative aspect.
+Filled with the joys unutterable of a creator he had attained in his
+love to all that genius has revealed to us of grandeur.
+
+"No," he was thinking to himself as he watched the curling smoke of
+his pipe, "she was not entirely deceived. She might break up my
+friendship with Adam if she took a dislike to me; but if she coquetted
+with me to amuse herself, what would become of me?"
+
+The conceit of this last supposition was so foreign to the modest
+nature and Teutonic timidity of the captain that he scolded himself
+for admitting it, and went to bed, resolved to await events before
+deciding on a course.
+
+The next day Clementine breakfasted very contentedly without Paz, and
+without even noticing his disobedience to her orders. It happened to
+be her reception day, when the house was thrown open with a splendor
+that was semi-royal. She paid no attention to the absence of Comte
+Paz, on whom all the burden of these parade days fell.
+
+"Good!" thought he, as he heard the last carriages driving away at two
+in the morning; "it was only the caprice or the curiosity of a
+Parisian woman that made her want to see me."
+
+After that the captain went back to his ordinary habits and ways,
+which had been somewhat upset by this incident. Diverted by her
+Parisian occupations, Clementine appeared to have forgotten Paz. It
+must not be thought an easy matter to reign a queen over fickle Paris.
+Does any one suppose that fortunes alone are risked in the great game?
+The winters are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the
+soldiers of the Empire. What works of art and genius are expended on a
+gown or a garland in which to make a sensation! A fragile, delicate
+creature will wear her stiff and brilliant harness of flowers and
+diamonds, silk and steel, from nine at night till two and often three
+o'clock in the morning. She eats little, to attract remark to her
+slender waist; she satisfied her hunger with debilitating tea, sugared
+cakes, ices which heat her, or slices of heavy pastry. The stomach is
+made to yield to the orders of coquetry. The awakening comes too late.
+A fashionable woman's whole life is in contradiction to the laws of
+nature, and nature is pitiless. She has no sooner risen than she makes
+an elaborate morning toilet, and thinks of the one which she means to
+wear in the afternoon. The moment she is dressed she has to receive
+and make visits, and go to the Bois either on horseback or in a
+carriage. She must practise the art of smiling, and must keep her mind
+on the stretch to invent new compliments which shall seem neither
+common nor far-fetched. All women do not succeed in this. It is no
+surprise, therefore, to find a young woman who entered fashionable
+society fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the end of three
+years. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the wounds of
+the winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysterious
+ailments,--gastritis, and so forth,--ills unknown to women when they
+busied themselves about their households. In the olden time women only
+appeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene.
+Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited,
+and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulness
+exacted by this contest with her rivals left little time even to love
+her husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month
+of May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris
+for Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticed
+Thaddeus, elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths of
+the Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing his
+beautiful countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horses
+and sparkling liveries,--in short, his beloved family the admired of
+all.
+
+"There's the captain," she said to her husband.
+
+"He's happy!" said Adam. "This is his delight. He knows there's no
+equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that
+some people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him there
+nearly every day."
+
+"I wonder what he is thinking about now," said Clementine.
+
+"He is thinking that this winter has cost a good deal, and that it is
+time we went to economize with your old uncle Ronquerolles," replied
+Adam.
+
+The countess stopped the carriage near Paz, and bade him take the seat
+beside her. Thaddeus grew as red as a cherry.
+
+"I shall poison you," he said; "I have been smoking."
+
+"Doesn't Adam poison me?" she said.
+
+"Yes, but he is Adam," returned the captain.
+
+"And why can't Thaddeus have the same privileges?" asked the countess,
+smiling.
+
+That divine smile had a power which triumphed over the heroic
+resolutions of poor Paz; he looked at Clementine with all the fire of
+his soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by the
+angelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue.
+The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her
+cushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at
+the people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resigned
+soul reached her sensibilities. What was Adam's merit in her eyes? It
+was natural enough to have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus
+--surely Thaddeus possessed, or seemed to possess, some great
+superiority over Adam. They were dangerous thoughts which took
+possession of the countess's mind as she again noticed the contrast of
+the fine presence that distinguished Thaddeus, and the puny frame in
+which Adam showed the degenerating effects of intermarriage among the
+Polish aristocratic families. The devil alone knew the thoughts that
+were in Clementine's head, for she sat still, with thoughtful, dreamy
+eyes, and without saying a word until they reached home.
+
+"You will dine with us; I shall be angry if you disobey me," she said
+as the carriage turned in. "You are Thaddeus to me, as you are to
+Adam. I know your obligations to him, but I also know those we are
+under to you. Both generosities are natural--but you are generous
+every day and all day. My father dines here to-day, also my uncle
+Ronquerolles and my aunt Madame de Serizy. Dress yourself therefore,"
+she said, taking the hand he offered to assist her from the carriage.
+
+Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, though
+shaken by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behaved
+through dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like a
+soldier fit only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementine
+was not his dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis de
+Ronquerolles, one of the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who had
+served with de Marsay during his short ministry, had been informed by
+his niece of the real worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew how
+modestly he made himself the steward of his friend Laginski.
+
+"And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing Comte
+Paz?" asked the marquis.
+
+"Because he is so shy and retiring," replied Clementine with a look at
+Paz telling him to change his behavior.
+
+Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering the
+captain less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend Adam,
+was not a man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to his
+misfortunes. In his lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he had
+read and taught himself a good deal; he had compared and meditated.
+But the gift of original thought which makes a great man he did not
+possess, and it can never be acquired. Paz, great in heart only,
+approached in heart to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiments,
+being more a man of action than of thought, he kept his thoughts to
+himself; and they only served therefore to eat his heart out. What,
+after all, is a thought unexpressed?
+
+After Clementine's little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his
+sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam,
+and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in
+France and Italy,--the two regions of the world (all courts excepted)
+where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full
+power of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either the
+pressure of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis
+du Rouvre, and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the
+old coquette and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog,
+understood its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two
+seconds; but to describe the tempest it roused in the captain's soul
+would take far too much space in this brief history.
+
+"What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might be
+loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"
+
+Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all
+equally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would
+have his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the
+story of the Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned
+about it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine
+hanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that
+Adam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an
+exile. At nine o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy
+kissed her niece on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away,
+taking Adam with her and leaving the Marquis de Ronquerolles and the
+Marquis du Rouvre, who soon followed. Paz and Clementine were alone
+together.
+
+"I will leave you now, madame," said Thaddeus. "You will of course
+rejoin them at the Opera?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I don't like dancing, and they give an odious
+ballet to-night 'La Revolte au Serail.'"
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me," said
+Clementine, not looking at Paz.
+
+"He loves you madly," replied Thaddeus.
+
+"Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not to
+love me to-morrow," said the countess.
+
+"How inexplicable Parisian women are!" exclaimed Thaddeus. "When they
+are loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they
+are loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all."
+
+"And they are quite right. Thaddeus," she went on, smiling, "I know
+Adam well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grand
+seigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he will
+never oppose any of my tastes, but--"
+
+"Where is the marriage in which there are no 'buts'?" said Thaddeus,
+gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine's mind.
+
+The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which came
+near rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: "If I do
+not tell her now that I love her I am a fool," he kept saying to
+himself.
+
+Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deep
+silences that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Paz
+covertly, and Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair like
+a man digesting his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferent
+old man, Paz crossed his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbs
+mechanically, looking stupidly at them.
+
+"Why don't you tell me something good of Adam?" cried Clementine
+suddenly. "Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well."
+
+The cry was fine.
+
+"Now is the time," thought poor Paz, "to put an insurmountable barrier
+between us. Tell you good of Adam?" he said aloud. "I love him; you
+would not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. My
+position is very difficult between you."
+
+Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of his
+varnished boots.
+
+"You Northern men have nothing but physical courage," she said
+complainingly; "you have no constancy in your opinions."
+
+"How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?" said Paz, assuming a
+careless air.
+
+"Are not you going to keep me company?"
+
+"Excuse me for leaving you."
+
+"What do you mean? Where are you going?"
+
+The thought of a heroic falsehood had come into his head.
+
+"I--I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens to-night,
+and I can't miss it."
+
+"Why not?" said Clementine, questioning him by a look that was
+half-anger.
+
+"Must I tell you why?" he said, coloring; "must I confide to you what
+I hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland."
+
+"Ah! a secret in our noble captain?"
+
+"A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity."
+
+"You, disgraced?"
+
+"Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all
+over France with the Bouthor family,--people who have the rival circus
+to Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director at
+the Cirque-Olympique engage her."
+
+"Is she handsome?"
+
+"To my thinking," said Paz, in a melancholy tone. "Malaga (that's her
+stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all
+other women in the world?--well, I can't tell you. When I look at her,
+with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her
+bare and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white
+tunic with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her look
+like a living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags in
+her hand to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paper
+hoops which tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully on
+the galloping horse to such applause,--no hired clapping,--well, all
+that moves me."
+
+"More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?" asked Clementine, with
+amazement and curiosity.
+
+"Yes," answered Paz, in a choking voice. "Such agility, such grace
+under constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman.
+Yes, madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and
+Ellsler, all who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't be
+compared, to my mind, with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at
+full gallop, or stand on the point of one foot and fall easily into
+the saddle, and knit stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette with
+the horse at full speed, to the admiration of the people,--the real
+people, peasants and soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexterity
+personified; her little wrist or her little foot can rid her of three
+or four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics."
+
+"She must be stupid--"
+
+"Oh, no," said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peveril
+of the Peak.' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that
+comes into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do
+of the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes.
+You couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome
+young man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love as
+hers is perpetual flattery to a man. Her health is positively
+insolent, and she has thirty-two oriental pearls in lips of coral. Her
+muzzle--that's what she calls the lower part of her face--has, as
+Shakespeare expresses it, the savor of a heifer's nose. She can make a
+man unhappy. She likes handsome men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts,
+clowns. Her trainer, a horrible brute, used to beat her to make her
+supple, and graceful, and intrepid--"
+
+"You are positively intoxicated with Malaga."
+
+"Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters," said Paz, with a
+piqued air. "She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment
+on the third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two
+lives, her circus life and the life of a pretty woman."
+
+"Does she love you?"
+
+"She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I'm a Pole. She saw
+an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,--for
+all France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is
+impossible to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski
+and his followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am
+very unhappy, madame."
+
+A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess.
+
+"You men have such a passion for singularity."
+
+"And you?" said Thaddeus.
+
+"I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for some
+mountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?"
+
+"At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day. She was at a corner
+of a booth covered with flags, where the shows are given. Her
+comrades, all in Polish costumes, were making a horrible racket. I
+watched her standing there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw a
+melancholy expression in her face; in truth there was enough about her
+to sadden a girl of twenty. That touched me."
+
+The countess was sitting in a delicious attitude, pensive and rather
+melancholy.
+
+"Poor, poor Thaddeus!" she exclaimed. Then, with the kindliness of a
+true great lady she added, not without a malicious smile, "Well go, go
+to your Circus."
+
+Thaddeus took her hand, kissed it, leaving a hot tear upon it, and
+went out.
+
+Having invented this passion for a circus-rider, he bethought him that
+he must give it some reality. The only truth in his tale was the
+momentary attention he had given to Malaga at Saint-Cloud; and he had
+since seen her name on the posters of the Circus, where the clown, for
+a tip of five francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling,
+stolen perhaps. Thaddeus now went to the Circus and saw her again. For
+ten francs one of the grooms (who take the place in circuses of the
+dressers at a theatre) informed him that Malaga was named Marguerite
+Turquet, and lived on the fifth story of a house in the rue des
+Fosses-du-Temple.
+
+The following day Paz went to the faubourg du Temple, found the house,
+and asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer was
+substituting for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and a
+supernumerary at a boulevard theatre in winter.
+
+"Malaga!" cried the portress, rushing into the attic, "there's a fine
+gentleman wanting you. He is getting information from Chapuzot, who is
+playing him off to give me time to tell you."
+
+"Thank you, M'ame Chapuzot; but what will he think of me if he finds
+me ironing my gown?"
+
+"Pooh! when a man's in love he loves everything about us."
+
+"Is he an Englishman? they are fond of horses."
+
+"No, he looks to me Spanish."
+
+"That's a pity; they say Spaniards are always poor. Stay here with me,
+M'ame Chapuzot; I don't want him to think I'm deserted."
+
+"Who is it you are looking for, monsieur?" asked Madame Chapuzot,
+opening the door for Thaddeus, who had now come upstairs.
+
+"Mademoiselle Turquet."
+
+"My dear," said the portress, with an air of importance, "here is some
+one to see you."
+
+A line on which the clothes were drying caught the captain's hat and
+knocked it off.
+
+"What is it you wish, monsieur?" said Malaga, picking up the hat and
+giving it to him.
+
+"I saw you at the Circus," said Thaddeus, "and you reminded me of a
+daughter whom I have lost, mademoiselle; and out of affection for my
+Heloise, whom you resemble in a most striking manner, I should like to
+be of some service to you, if you will permit me."
+
+"Why, certainly; pray sit down, general," said Madame Chapuzot;
+"nothing could be more straightforward, more gallant."
+
+"But I am not gallant, my good lady," exclaimed Paz. "I am an
+unfortunate father who tries to deceive himself by a resemblance."
+
+"Then am I to pass for your daughter?" said Malaga, slyly, and not in
+the least suspecting the perfect sincerity of his proposal.
+
+"Yes," said Paz, "and I'll come and see you sometimes. But you shall
+be lodged in better rooms, comfortably furnished."
+
+"I shall have furniture!" cried Malaga, looking at Madame Chapuzot.
+
+"And servants," said Paz, "and all you want."
+
+Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously.
+
+"What countryman is monsieur?"
+
+"I am a Pole."
+
+"Oh! then I accept," she said.
+
+Paz departed, promising to return.
+
+"Well, that's a stiff one!" said Marguerite Turquet, looking at Madame
+Chapuzot; "I'm half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancy
+of his own--Pooh! I'll risk it."
+
+A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living in
+a comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam's own upholsterer, Paz
+having judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotel
+Laginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of the
+Arabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in the
+double capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Marguerite
+were constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end of
+three months none of them were able to make out the meaning of the
+Polish count's caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hour
+there once a week, during which time he sat in the salon, and never
+went into Malaga's boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of the
+clever manoeuvring of the Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. The
+count would ask questions as to the small events of Marguerite's life,
+and each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francs
+each on the mantel-piece.
+
+"He looks as if he didn't care to be here," said Madame Chapuzot.
+
+"Yes," said Malaga, "the man's as cold as an icicle."
+
+"But he's a good fellow all the same," cried Chapuzot, who was happy
+in a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like
+the servant of some minister.
+
+The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined to
+Malaga's meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous living
+compared with her former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds of
+the Circus about Malaga's good-luck. Her vanity increased the six
+thousand francs which Paz had spent on her furniture to sixty
+thousand. According to the clowns and the supers, Malaga was
+squandering money; and she now appeared at the Circus wearing burnous
+and shawls and elegant scarfs. The Pole, it was agreed on all sides,
+was the best sort of man a circus-rider had ever encountered, not
+fault-finding nor jealous, and willing to let Malaga do just what she
+liked.
+
+"Some women have the luck of it," said Malaga's rival, "and I'm not
+one of them,--though I do draw a third of the receipts."
+
+Malaga wore pretty things, and occasionally "showed her head" (a term
+in the lexicon of such characters) in the Bois, where the fashionable
+young men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malaga
+was very much talked about in the questionable world of equivocal
+women, who presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They said
+she was a somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was using
+her to discover the philosopher's stone. Some even more envenomed
+scandals drove her to a curiosity that was greater than Psyche's. She
+reported them in tears to Paz.
+
+"When I want to injure a woman," she said in conclusion, "I don't
+calumniate her; I don't declare that some one magnetizes her to get
+stones out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and I
+prove it. Why do you compromise me in this way?"
+
+Paz maintained a cruel silence. Madame Chapuzot was not long in
+discovering the name and title of Comte Paz; then she heard certain
+positive facts at the hotel Laginski: for instance, that Paz was a
+bachelor, and had never been known to have a daughter, alive or dead,
+in Poland or in France. After that Malaga could not control a feeling
+of terror.
+
+"My dear child," Madame Chapuzot would say, "that monster--" (a man
+who contented himself with only looking, in a sly way,--not daring to
+come out and say things,--and such a beautiful creature too, as
+Malaga,--of course such a man was a monster, according to Madame
+Chapuzot's ideas) "--that monster is trying to get a hold upon you,
+and make you do something illegal and criminal. Holy Father, if you
+should get into the police-courts! it makes me tremble from head to
+foot; suppose they should put you in the newspapers! I'll tell you
+what I should do in your place; I'd warn the police."
+
+One particular day, after many foolish notions had fermented for some
+time in Malaga's mind, Paz having laid his money as usual on the
+mantel-piece, she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face,
+crying out, "I don't want stolen money!"
+
+The captain gave the gold to Chapuzot, went away without a word, and
+did not return.
+
+Clementine was at this time at her uncle's place in Burgundy.
+
+When the Circus troop discovered that Malaga had lost her Polish
+count, much excitement was produced among them. Malaga's display of
+honor was considered folly by some, and shrewdness by others. The
+conduct of the Pole, however, even when discussed by the cleverest of
+women, seemed inexplicable. Thaddeus received in the course of the
+next week thirty-seven letters from women of their kind. Happily for
+him, his astonishing reserve did not excite the curiosity of the
+fashionable world, and was only discussed in the demi-mondaine
+regions.
+
+Two weeks later the handsome circus-rider, crippled by debt, wrote the
+following letter to Comte Paz, which, having fallen into the hands of
+Comte Adam, was read by several of the dandies of the day, who
+pronounced it a masterpiece:--
+
+  "You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me
+  after all that has passed,--which you have so ill understood? My
+  heart disavows whatever may have wounded your feelings. If I was
+  fortunate enough to charm you and keep you beside me in the past,
+  return to me; otherwise, I shall fall into despair. Poverty has
+  overtaken me, and you do not know what _horrid things_ it brings
+  with it. Yesterday I lived on a herring at two sous, and one sou
+  of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The
+  Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your
+  desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human
+  attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots
+  have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the
+  landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait
+  even ten days,--for when we lose the confidence of such as you,
+  credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to
+  reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My
+  friend, I have taken all I have of any value to _my uncle's_; I have
+  nothing but the memory of you left, and here is the winter coming
+  on. I shall be fireless when it turns cold; for the boulevards are
+  to play only melodramas, in which I have nothing but little bits
+  of parts which don't _pose_ a woman. How could you misunderstand the
+  nobleness of my feelings for you?--for there are two ways of
+  expressing gratitude. You who seemed so happy in seeing me
+  well-off, how can you leave me in poverty? Oh, my sole friend on
+  earth, before I go back to the country fairs with Bouthor's circus,
+  where I can at least make a living, forgive me if I wish to know
+  whether I have lost you forever. If I were to let myself think of
+  you when I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs
+  by losing _a time_. Whatever may be the result, I am yours for life.
+
+"Marguerite Turquet."
+
+
+"That letter," thought Thaddeus, shouting with laughter, "is worth the
+ten thousand francs I have spent upon her."
+
+
+
+                                III
+
+Clementine came home the next day, and the day after that Paz beheld
+her again, more beautiful and graceful than ever. After dinner, during
+which the countess treated Paz with an air of perfect indifference, a
+little scene took place in the salon between the count and his wife
+when Thaddeus had left them. On pretence of asking Adam's advice,
+Thaddeus had left Malaga's letter with him, as if by mistake.
+
+"Poor Thaddeus!" said Adam, as Paz disappeared, "what a misfortune for
+a man of his distinction to be the plaything of the lowest kind of
+circus-rider. He will lose everything, and get lower and lower, and
+won't be recognizable before long. Here, read that," added the count,
+giving Malaga's letter to his wife.
+
+Clementine read the letter, which smelt of tobacco, and threw it from
+her with a look of disgust.
+
+"Thick as the bandage is over his eyes," continued Adam, "he must have
+found out something; Malaga tricked him, no doubt."
+
+"But he goes back to her," said Clementine, "and he will forgive her!
+It is for such horrible women as that that you men have indulgence."
+
+"Well, they need it," said Adam.
+
+"Thaddeus used to show some decency--in living apart from us," she
+remarked. "He had better go altogether."
+
+"Oh, my dear angel, that's going too far," said the count, who did not
+want the death of the sinner.
+
+Paz, who knew Adam thoroughly, had enjoined him to secrecy, pretending
+to excuse his dissipations, and had asked his friend to lend him a few
+thousand francs for Malaga.
+
+"He is a very firm fellow," said Adam.
+
+"How so?" asked Clementine.
+
+"Why, for having spent no more than ten thousand francs on her, and
+letting her send him that letter before he would ask me for enough to
+pay her debts. For a Pole, I call that firm."
+
+"He will ruin you," said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisian
+woman, when she shows her feline distrusts.
+
+"Oh, I know him," said Adam; "he will sacrifice Malaga, if I ask him."
+
+"We shall see," remarked the countess.
+
+"If it is best for his own happiness, I sha'n't hesitate to ask him to
+leave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, sober
+as he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes to
+intoxication I shall be just as grieved as if he were my own son."
+
+"Don't tell me anything more about it," cried the countess, with a
+gesture of disgust.
+
+Two days later the captain perceived in the manner, the tones of
+voice, but, above all, in the eyes of the countess, the terrible
+results of Adam's confidences. Contempt had opened a gulf between the
+beloved woman and himself. He was suddenly plunged into the deepest
+distress of mind, for the thought gnawed him, "I have myself made her
+despise me!" His own folly stared him in the face. Life then became a
+burden to him, the very sun turned gray. And yet, amid all these
+bitter thoughts, he found again some moments of pure joy. There were
+times when he could give himself up wholly to his admiration for his
+mistress, who paid not the slightest attention to him. Hanging about
+in corners at her parties and receptions, silent, all heart and eyes,
+he never lost one of her attitudes, nor a tone of her voice when she
+sang. He lived in her life; he groomed the horse which _she_ rode, he
+studied the ways and means of that splendid establishment, to the
+interests of which he was now more devoted than ever. These silent
+pleasures were buried in his heart like those of a mother, whose heart
+a child never knows; for is it knowing anything unless we know it all?
+His love was more perfect than the love of Petrarch for Laura, which
+found its ultimate reward in the treasures of fame, the triumph of the
+poem which she had inspired. Surely the emotion that the Chevalier
+d'Assas felt in dying must have been to him a lifetime of joy. Such
+emotions as these Paz enjoyed daily,--without dying, but also without
+the guerdon of immortality.
+
+But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Paz
+should still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnified
+Love that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility of
+spirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualities
+of which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing where
+contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand
+had given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
+mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
+better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her
+respect, and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with
+constant low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to
+keep his bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became
+very uneasy about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark:
+"Let him alone; don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" This
+remark, being repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair;
+he left his bed, went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his
+health.
+
+About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
+Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to
+let the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.
+
+"There's nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl; but
+if the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be
+lowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future."
+
+"Ha! this, too!" exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.
+
+"Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever
+quits,--though, indeed, I am your debtor now."
+
+"Adam, you will have children; don't gamble any more," said Paz.
+
+"So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs," cried the
+countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to
+Paz. "First, ten thousand, now twenty more,--thirty thousand! the
+income of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera,
+and the whole fortune of many a bourgeois. Oh, you Poles!" she said,
+gathering some flowers in her greenhouse; "you are really
+incomprehensible. Why are you not furious with him?"
+
+"Poor Paz is--"
+
+"Poor Paz, poor Paz, indeed!" she cried, interrupting him, "what good
+does he do us? I shall take the management of the household myself.
+You can give him the allowance he refused, and let him settle it as he
+likes with his Circus."
+
+"He is very useful to us, Clementine. He has certainly saved over
+forty thousand francs this last year. And besides, my dear angel, he
+has managed to put a hundred thousand with Nucingen, which a steward
+would have pocketed."
+
+Clementine softened down; but she was none the less hard in her
+feelings to Thaddeus. A few days later, she requested him to come to
+that boudoir where, one year earlier, she had been surprised into
+comparing him with her husband. This time she received him alone,
+without perceiving the slightest danger in so doing.
+
+"My dear Paz," she said, with the condescending familiarity of the
+great to their inferiors, "if you love Adam as you say you do, you
+will do a thing which he will not ask of you, but which I, his wife,
+do not hesitate to exact."
+
+"About Malaga?" said Thaddeus, with bitterness in his heart.
+
+"Well, yes," she said; "if you wish to end your days in this house and
+continue good friends with us, you must give her up. How an old
+soldier--"
+
+"I am only thirty-five, and haven't a white hair."
+
+"You look old," she said, "and that's the same thing. How so careful a
+manager, so distinguished a--"
+
+The horrible part of all this was her evident intention to rouse a
+sense of honor in his soul which she thought extinct.
+
+"--so distinguished a man as you are, Thaddeus," she resumed after a
+momentary pause which a gesture of his hand had led her to make, "can
+allow yourself to be caught like a boy! Your proceedings have made
+that woman celebrated. My uncle wanted to see her, and he did see her.
+My uncle is not the only one; Malaga receives a great many gentlemen.
+I did think you such a noble soul. For shame! Will she be such a loss
+that you can't replace her?"
+
+"Madame, if I knew any sacrifice I could make to recover your esteem I
+would make it; but to give up Malaga is not one--"
+
+"In your position, that is what I should say myself, if I were a man,"
+replied Clementine. "Well, if I accept it as a great sacrifice there
+can be no ill-will between us."
+
+Paz left the room, fearing he might commit some great folly, and
+feeling that wild ideas were getting the better of him. He went to
+walk in the open air, lightly dressed in spite of the cold, but
+without being able to cool the fire in his cheeks or on his brow.
+
+"I thought you had a noble soul,"--the words still rang in his ears.
+
+"A year ago," he said to himself, "she thought me a hero who could
+fight the Russians single-handed!"
+
+He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with the
+spahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checked
+him. "Without me," he thought, "what would become of them? they would
+soon be ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be for
+her if she were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No,
+since all is lost for me in this world,--courage! I will keep on as I
+am."
+
+Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone a
+transformation which has made it European, and far more burlesque and
+otherwise lively than the late Carnival of Venice. Is it that the
+diminishing fortunes of the present time have led Parisians to invent
+a way of amusing themselves collectively, as for instance at their
+clubs, where they hold salons without hostesses and without manners,
+but very cheaply? However this may be, the month of March was prodigal
+of balls, at which dancing, joking, coarse fun, excitement, grotesque
+figures, and the sharp satire of Parisian wit, produced extravagant
+effects. These carnival follies had their special Pandemonium in the
+rue Saint-Honore and their Napoleon in Musard, a small man born
+expressly to lead an orchestra as noisy as the disorderly audience,
+and to set the time for the galop, that witches' dance, which was one
+of Auber's triumphs, for it did not really take form or poesy till the
+grand galop in "Gustave" was given to the world. That tremendous
+finale might serve as the symbol of an epoch in which for the last
+fifty years all things have hurried by with the rapidity of a dream.
+
+Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and
+immaculate image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the
+carnival dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he
+knew the countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with
+two friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on at
+the curious spectacle of one of these crowded balls.
+
+On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o'clock in the morning,
+the countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower step
+of the platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since then
+given his concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading the
+galop with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with
+plumes like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like
+a will-o-the-wisp.
+
+"Ah!" said Clementine to her husband, "you Poles have no honor at all!
+I did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leave
+that woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen."
+
+A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinner
+Adam left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let him
+know very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house any
+longer.
+
+"Yes, madame," said Paz, humbly, "you are right; I am a wretch; I did
+give you my word. But you see how it is; I put off leaving Malaga till
+after the carnival. Besides, that woman exerts an influence over me
+which--"
+
+"An influence!--a woman who ought to be turned out of Musard's by the
+police for such dancing!"
+
+"I agree to all that; I accept the condemnation and I'll leave your
+house. But you know Adam. If I give up the management of your property
+you must show energy yourself. I may have been to blame about Malaga,
+but I have taken the whole charge of your affairs, managed your
+servants, and looked after the very least details. I cannot leave you
+until I see you prepared to continue my management. You have now been
+married three years, and you are safe from the temptations to
+extravagance which come with the honeymoon. I see that Parisian women,
+and even titled ones, do manage both their fortunes and their
+households. Well, as soon as I am certain not so much of your capacity
+as of your perseverance I shall leave Paris."
+
+"It is Thaddeus of Warsaw, and not that Circus Thaddeus who speaks
+now," said Clementine. "Go, and come back cured."
+
+"Cured! never," said Paz, his eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine's
+pretty feet. "You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpected
+piquancy of mind she has." Then, feeling his courage fail him, he
+added hastily, "There is not a woman in society, with her mincing
+airs, that is worth the honest nature of that young animal."
+
+"At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me," said the
+countess, with a glance like that of an angry viper.
+
+After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of her
+affairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods and
+difficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to pay
+for things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He told
+her she could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeus
+had trained the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought the
+countess fully competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementine
+was one of those far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have an
+innate genius as mistress of a household.
+
+This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did
+not end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to
+be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover
+forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and
+Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend.
+His devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing
+her perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment
+imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but
+women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their
+souls--love is their sole illuminator.
+
+During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearing
+to think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think of
+her. Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though he
+did not die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris in
+consultation.
+
+"If he comes safely out of this," said the most distinguished of them
+all, "it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those who
+nurse him to watch for the moment when they must second nature. The
+count's life is in the hands of his nurses."
+
+Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of the
+consultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as much
+for a little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and not
+embarrass them. As he walked along the winding gravelled path which
+led to the pavilion, Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of an
+abyss described by Dante. The unfortunate man had never dreamed that
+the possibility might arise of becoming Clementine's husband, and now
+he had drowned himself in a ditch of mud. His face was convulsed, when
+he reached the kiosk, with an agony of grief; his head, like Medusa's,
+conveyed despair.
+
+"Is he dead?" said Clementine.
+
+"They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not go
+in; they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings."
+
+"Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him," she
+said.
+
+"You have made him very happy," said Thaddeus; "you ought to be easy
+on that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him."
+
+"My loss would be irreparable."
+
+"But, dear, you judged him justly."
+
+"I was never blind to his faults," she said, "but I loved him as a
+wife should love her husband."
+
+"Then you ought, in case you lose him," said Thaddeus, in a voice
+which Clementine had never heard him use, "to grieve for him less than
+if you lost a man who was your pride, your love, and all your life,
+--as some men are to you women. Surely you can be frank at this moment
+with a friend like me. I shall grieve, too; long before your marriage
+I had made him my child, I had sacrificed my life to him. If he dies I
+shall be without an interest on earth; but life is still beautiful to
+a widow of twenty-four."
+
+"Ah! but you know that I love no one," she said, with the impatience
+of grief.
+
+"You don't yet know what it is to love," said Thaddeus.
+
+"Oh, as husbands are, I have sense enough to prefer a child like my
+poor Adam to a superior man. It is now over a month that we have been
+saying to each other, 'Will he live?' and these alternations have
+prepared me, as they have you, for this loss. I can be frank with you.
+Well, I would give my life to save Adam. What is a woman's
+independence in Paris? the freedom to let herself be taken in by
+ruined or dissipated men who pretend to love her. I pray to God to
+leave me this husband who is so kind, so obliging, so little
+fault-finding, and who is beginning to stand in awe of me."
+
+"You are honest, and I love you the better for it," said Thaddeus,
+taking her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. "In solemn
+moments like these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding a
+woman without hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let us
+look to the future. Suppose that God does not grant your prayer,--and
+no one cries to him more than I do, 'Leave me my friend!' Yes, these
+fifty nights have not weakened me; if thirty more days and nights are
+needed I can give them while you sleep,--yes, I will tear him from
+death if, as the doctors say, nursing can save him. But suppose that
+in spite of you and me, the count dies,--well, then, if you were
+loved, oh, adored, by a man of a heart and soul that are worthy of
+you--"
+
+"I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met with
+it."
+
+"Perhaps you are mistaken--"
+
+Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was less
+of love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him from
+head to foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him with
+the words, "Poor Malaga!" uttered in tones which a great lady alone
+can find to give expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeus
+half unconscious behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and went
+back to Adam's chamber.
+
+An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, with
+death in his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he said
+nothing. He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed
+in a way that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his
+watchful eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment
+to Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he
+seemed both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owe
+his life to me," and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of
+fire on the walls of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was
+forced to give up the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz
+was unwearied. At last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the
+family physician, told Clementine that Adam was out of danger.
+
+"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me," he said; "without his
+friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him."
+
+The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the
+Marquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of
+starting for Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasion
+to say a few words to him. The first day that Adam was able to drive
+out with his wife and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard as
+the carriage was about to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus,
+who was sitting on the front seat of the caleche, turned to take a
+letter which bore the stamp of the ministry of Foreign affairs. Having
+read it, he put it into his pocket in a manner which prevented
+Clementine or Adam from speaking of it. Nevertheless, by the time they
+reached the porte Maillot, Adam, full of curiosity, used the privilege
+of a sick man whose caprices are to be gratified, and said to
+Thaddeus: "There's no indiscretion between brothers who love each
+other,--tell me what there is in that despatch; I'm in a fever of
+curiosity."
+
+Clementine glanced at Thaddeus with a vexed air, and remarked to her
+husband: "He has been so sulky with me for the last two months that I
+shall never ask him anything again."
+
+"Oh, as for that," replied Paz, "I can't keep it out of the
+newspapers, so I may as well tell you at once. The Emperor Nicholas
+has had the grace to appoint me captain in a regiment which is to take
+part in the expedition to Khiva."
+
+"You are not going?" cried Adam.
+
+"Yes, I shall go, my dear fellow. Captain I came, and captain I
+return. We shall dine together to-morrow for the last time. If I don't
+start at once for St. Petersburg I shall have to make the journey by
+land, and I am not rich, and I must leave Malaga a little
+independence. I ought to think of the only woman who has been able to
+understand me; she thinks me grand, superior. I dare say she is
+faithless, but she would jump--"
+
+"Through the hoop, for your sake and come down safely on the back of
+her horse," said Clementine sharply.
+
+"Oh, you don't know Malaga," said the captain, bitterly, with a
+sarcastic look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful and
+uneasy.
+
+"Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which you
+Parisians love, and the exiles who find a home here love too," he
+said, presently. "My eyes will never again see the evergreens of the
+avenue de Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of the
+rond-points. On the borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor,
+promoted to the command, perhaps, by force of courage and by risking
+my life, it may happen that I shall regret these Champs-Elysees where
+I have driven beside you, and where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve for
+Malaga's hardness--the Malaga of whom I am now speaking."
+
+This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble.
+
+"Then you do love Malaga very much?" she asked.
+
+"I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should ever
+sacrifice."
+
+"What honor?"
+
+"That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol."
+
+After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as they
+passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to
+it, "That is the Circus."
+
+He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the
+Foreign office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before
+the count and countess were up.
+
+"I have lost a friend," said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he
+heard that Paz had gone,--"a friend in the true meaning of the word. I
+don't know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my
+house. We are not friends to quarrel about a woman," he said, looking
+intently at Clementine. "You heard what he said yesterday about
+Malaga. Well, he has never so much as touched the little finger of
+that girl."
+
+"How do you know that?" said Clementine.
+
+"I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, and
+the poor girl can't explain even to herself the absolute reserve which
+Thad--"
+
+"Enough!" said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. "Can it be
+that I am the victim of some noble mystification?" she asked herself.
+The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her
+the following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:--
+
+  "Countess,--To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your
+  contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When
+  I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom
+  we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I
+  loved you thus,--I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were
+  about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,--a voluntary service, but
+  still the steward of your household.
+
+  "In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an
+  indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your
+  luxury, has been the source of deep enjoyments. If these
+  enjoyments were great when I thought only of Adam, think what they
+  were to my soul when the woman I loved was the mainspring of all I
+  did. I have known the pleasures of maternity in my love. I
+  accepted life thus. Like the paupers who live along the great
+  highways, I built myself a hut on the borders of your beautiful
+  domain, though I never sought to approach you. Poor and lonely,
+  struck blind by Adam's good fortune, I was, nevertheless, the
+  giver. Yes, you were surrounded by a love as pure as a
+  guardian-angel's; it waked while you slept; it caressed you with a
+  look as you passed; it was happy in its own existence,--you were
+  the sun of my native land to me, poor exile, who now writes to you
+  with tears in his eyes as he thinks of the happiness of those first
+  days.
+
+  "When I was eighteen years old, having no one to love, I took for
+  my ideal mistress a charming woman in Warsaw, to whom I confided
+  all my thoughts, my wishes; I made her the queen of my nights and
+  days. She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my
+  love.
+
+  "You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was
+  merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your
+  horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the
+  splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the
+  elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all
+  by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked
+  Paris when Adam would say to me, '_She_ wants this or that.' It was
+  a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
+  at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
+  and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
+  you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
+  that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
+  head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
+  had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
+  balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
+  persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
+
+  "I _must_ tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
+  of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
+  until now.
+
+  "You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
+  know the man who performed the household miracles you had
+  sometimes noticed. I thought,--forgive me, madame,--I believed you
+  might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a
+  lover, seemed to me so dangerous--for me--that I invented that
+  story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women
+  cannot forgive. I did it in a moment when I felt that my love
+  would be communicated, fatally, to you. Despise me, crush me with
+  the contempt you have so often cast upon me when I did not deserve
+  it; and yet I am certain that, if, on that evening when your aunt
+  took Adam away from you, I had said what I have now written to
+  you, I should, like the tamed tiger that sets his teeth once more
+  in living flesh, and scents the blood, and--
+
+                                                          "Midnight.
+
+  "I could not go on; the memory of that hour is still too living.
+  Yes, I was maddened. Was there hope for me in your eyes? then
+  victory with its scarlet banners would have flamed in mine and
+  fascinated yours. My crime has been to think all this; perhaps
+  wrongly. You alone can judge of that dreadful scene when I drove
+  back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood,
+  with the cold hand of gratitude,--gratitude which must be eternal.
+
+  "Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me
+  there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I
+  should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he
+  lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to
+  betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought
+  that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said
+  that his life depended on his nursing.
+
+  "Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing
+  now in my being no longer near you.
+
+"Your devoted
+"Thaddeus Paz."
+
+
+"If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?" thought
+Clementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet.
+
+The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to the
+count:--
+
+  "My dear Adam,--Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your
+  future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about
+  your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a
+  hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine's character; she will
+  never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to
+  Malaga.
+
+  "I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen;
+  and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince
+  Paz in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken
+  sixty-thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even.
+
+"Thaddeus."
+
+
+"Idiot that I was," thought Adam; "I came near to cutting my throat
+just now, talking about Malaga."
+
+It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yet
+said nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immensely
+interested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russian
+to the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comes
+from that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to the
+Russian ambassador, with an air of indifference, "Do you know what has
+become of our poor Comte Paz?"
+
+Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so clever
+and clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognize
+him. Yes, many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but--horrible to
+think of!--some are misconceived even though they are loved. The
+simplest women in society exact a certain amount of conventional sham
+from the greatest men. A noble love signifies nothing to them if rough
+and unpolished; it needs the cutting and setting of a jeweller to give
+it value in their eyes.
+
+In January, 1842, the Comtesse Laginska, with her charm of gentle
+melancholy, inspired a violent passion in the Comte de La Palferine,
+one of the most daring and presumptuous lions of the day. La Palferine
+was well aware that the conquest of a woman so guarded by reserve as
+the Comtesse Laginska was difficult, but he thought he could inveigle
+this charming creature into committing herself if he took her
+unawares, by the assistance of a certain friend of her own, a woman
+already jealous of her.
+
+Quite incapable, in spite of her intelligence, of suspecting such
+treachery, the Comtesse Laginska committed the imprudence of going
+with her so-called friend to a masked ball at the Opera. About three
+in the morning, led away by the excitement of the scene, Clementine,
+on whom La Palferine had expended his seductions, consented to accept
+a supper, and was about to enter the carriage of her faithless friend.
+At this critical moment her arm was grasped by a powerful hand, and
+she was taken, in spite of her struggles, to her own carriage, the
+door of which stood open, though she did not know it was there.
+
+"He has never left Paris!" she exclaimed to herself as she recognized
+Thaddeus, who disappeared when the carriage drove away.
+
+Did any woman ever have a like romance in her life? Clementine is
+constantly hoping she may again see Paz.
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bianchon, Horace
+  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Government Clerks
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+  Another Study of Woman
+  La Grande Breteche
+
+Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+  Another Study of Woman
+  Cousin Betty
+
+La Palferine, Comte de
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+  Beatrix
+
+Lelewel
+  The Seamy Side of History
+
+Nathan, Madame Raoul
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Government Clerks
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Paz, Thaddee
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Rouvre, Marquis du
+  A Start in Life
+  Ursule Mirouet
+
+Rouvre, Chevalier du
+  Ursule Mirouet
+
+Schinner, Hippolyte
+  The Purse
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Pierre Grassou
+  A Start in Life
+  Albert Savarus
+  The Government Clerks
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de
+  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Another Study of Woman
+
+Serizy, Vicomte de
+  A Start in Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+
+Souchet, Francois
+  The Purse
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Steinbock, Count Wenceslas
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Turquet, Marguerite
+  The Muse of the Department
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
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+****The Project Gutenberg Etext of Paz, by Honore de Balzac****
+#20 in our series by Honore de Balzac
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
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+Paz
+
+by Honore de Balzac
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+July, 1998  [Etext #1369]
+
+
+****The Project Gutenberg Etext of Paz, by Honore de Balzac****
+*****This file should be named pzhdb10.txt or pzhdb10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, pzhdb11.txt.
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+
+
+
+PAZ
+by Honore de Balzac (transl. Katharine Prescott Wormeley)
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+
+
+
+
+
+PAZ
+
+BY
+
+HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+
+Translated By
+Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.
+
+
+
+
+PAZ
+(LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)
+
+
+
+I
+
+In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the
+Marquis du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young
+Polish exile.
+
+We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,
+to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants by
+which the Slave language protects its vowels,--probably not to lose
+them, considering how few there are.
+
+The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princely
+fortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with a
+Demoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother's side Clementine
+du Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame de
+Serizy for aunt. On her father's side she had another uncle in the
+eccentric person of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of the
+house, an old bachelor who had become very rich by speculating in
+lands and houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to
+lose both his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son of
+Madame de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africa
+in the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand between
+the danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, or
+of extinguishing their names if they have too few,--a singular result
+of the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn of
+fortune Clementine became, in spite of her father having squandered
+his substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses in
+Paris), a great heiress. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, a clever
+diplomatist under the new dynasty, his sister, Madame de Serizy, and
+the Chevalier du Rouvre agreed, in order to save their fortunes from
+the dissipations of the marquis, to settle them on their niece, to
+whom, moreover, they each pledged themselves to pay ten thousand
+francs a year from the day of her marriage.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to say that the Polish count, though an exile,
+was no expense to the French government. Comte Adam Laginski belonged
+to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Poland, which
+was allied to many of the princely houses of Germany,--Sapieha,
+Radziwill, Mniszech, Rzewuski, Czartoryski, Leczinski, Lubormirski,
+and all the other great Sarmatian SKIS. But heraldic knowledge is not
+the most distinguishing feature of the French nation under Louis-
+Philippe, and Polish nobility was no great recommendation to the
+bourgeoisie who were lording it in those days. Besides, when Adam
+first made his appearance, in 1833, on the boulevard des Italiens, at
+Frascati, and at the Jockey-Club, he was leading the life of a young
+man who, having lost his political prospects, was taking his pleasure
+in Parisian dissipation. At first he was thought to be a student.
+
+The Polish nationality had at this period fallen as low in French
+estimation, thanks to a shameful governmental reaction, as the
+republicans had sought to raise it. The singular struggle of the
+Movement against Resistance (two words which will be inexplicable
+thirty years hence) made sport of what ought to have been truly
+respected,--the name of a conquered nation to whom the French had
+offered hospitality, for whom fetes had been given (with songs and
+dances by subscription), above all, a nation which in the Napoleonic
+struggle between France and Europe had given us six thousand men, and
+what men!
+
+Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that of
+the Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against the
+Emperor. It would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion into
+tales that are intended to amuse or interest. Besides, Russia and
+Poland were both right,--one to wish the unity of its empire, the
+other to desire its liberty. Let us say in passing that Poland might
+have conquered Russia by the influence of her morals instead of
+fighting her with weapons; she should have imitated China which, in
+the end, Chinesed the Tartars, and will, it is to be hoped, Chinese
+the English. Poland ought to have Polonized Russia. Poniatowski tried
+to do so in the least favorable portion of the empire; but as a king
+he was little understood,--because, possibly, he did not fully
+understand himself.
+
+But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people who
+were the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famous
+review at which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? The
+Poles were held up to them as the allies of the republican party, and
+they never once remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats.
+From that day forth the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt the
+exiles of the nation it had worshipped a few days earlier. The wind of
+a riot is always enough to veer the Parisians from north to south
+under any regime. It is necessary to remember these sudden
+fluctuations of feeling in order to understand why it was that in 1835
+the word "Pole" conveyed a derisive meaning to a people who consider
+themselves the wittiest and most courteous nation on earth, and their
+city of Paris the focus of enlightenment, with the sceptre of arts and
+literature within its grasp.
+
+There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles,--the republican Poles,
+sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is Prince
+Adam Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but why
+complain of that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles,
+no matter of what nation they may be, or in what countries they take
+refuge. They carry their countries and their hatreds with them. Two
+French priests, who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution,
+showed the utmost horror of each other, and when one of them was asked
+why, he replied with a glance at his companion in misery: "Why?
+because he's a Jansenist!" Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf had
+he met him in exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the French
+against the venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shown
+to the better class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars and
+the licensed Alexanders of Paris.
+
+In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt
+for Parisian pleasantry.
+
+"He is rather nice, though he is a Pole," said Rastignac.
+
+"All these Poles pretend to be great lords," said Maxime de Trailles,
+"but this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think he
+must have property."
+
+Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allowable to
+remark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatian
+character does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians,
+who, by the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as the
+Poles do. The French aristocracy, so nobly succored during the
+Revolution by the Polish lords, certainly did not return the kindness
+in 1832. Let us have the melancholy courage to admit this, and to say
+that the faubourg Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland.
+
+Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer? This
+problem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to
+instructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held
+that all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of
+the Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proof
+of the political quality which was then dignified by the name of
+sagacity. They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom they
+had all been on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely because
+it was said that the Emperor Nicholas gave him the cold shoulder.
+Between the caution of the court and the prudence of the diplomates,
+the Polish exiles of distinction lived in Paris in the Biblical
+solitude of "super flumina Babylonis," or else they haunted a few
+salons which were the neutral ground of all opinions. In a city of
+pleasure, like Paris, where amusements abound on all sides, the
+heedless gayety of a Pole finds twice as many encouragements as it
+needs to a life of dissipation.
+
+It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him,--his
+appearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole,
+as there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is not
+very handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the second
+category of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression,
+looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair
+hair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more like
+a goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes
+caught you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How came
+he, in spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really
+exquisite manners and a distinguished air? The problem is solved
+partly by the care and elegance of his dress, and partly by the
+training given him by his mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to
+daring, but his mind was not more than was needed for the ephemeral
+talk and pleasantry of Parisian conversation. And yet it would have
+been difficult to find among the young men of fashion in Paris a
+single one who was his superior. Young men talk a great deal too much
+in these days of horses, money, taxes, deputies; French CONVERSATION
+is no longer what it was. Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certain
+social inequalities to bring it out. There is, probably, more real
+conversation in Vienna or St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do not
+need to employ delicacy or shrewdness in speech; they blurt out things
+as they are. Consequently the dandies of Paris did not discover the
+great seigneur in the rather heedless young fellow who, in their
+talks, would flit from one subject to another, all the more intent
+upon amusement because he had just escaped from a great peril, and,
+finding himself in a city where his family was unknown, felt at
+liberty to lead a loose life without the risk of disgracing his name.
+
+But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la
+Pepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none in
+Paris. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously he
+had seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love with
+her. A year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madame
+d'Espard was the first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters then
+learned too late that as far back as the year 900 the family of the
+Laginski was among the most illustrious of the North. By an act of
+prudence which was very unPolish, the mother of the young count had
+mortgaged her entire property on the breaking out of the insurrection
+for an immense sum lent by two Jewish bankers in Paris. Comte Adam was
+now in possession of eighty thousand francs a year. When this was
+discovered society ceased to be surprised at the imprudence which had
+been laid to the charge of Madame de Serizy, the Marquis de
+Ronquerolles, and the Chevalier du Rouvre in yielding to the foolish
+passion of their niece. People jumped, as usual, from one extreme of
+judgment to the other.
+
+During the winter of 1836 Comte Adam was the fashion, and Clementine
+Laginska one of the queens of Paris. Madame Laginska is now a member
+of that charming circle of young women represented by Mesdames de
+Lestorade, de Portenduere, Marie de Vandenesse, du Guenic, and de
+Maufrigneuse, the flowers of our present Paris, who live at such
+immeasurable distance from the parvenus, the vulgarians, and the
+speculators of the new regime.
+
+This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one of
+those noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our time
+admit,--actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering,
+are hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing
+waves of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St.
+Petersburg,--or what you will.
+
+If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals
+was ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830,
+during the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old
+fortunes are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our
+ancestors are constantly being demolished and replaced by species of
+phalansteries, in which the peers of July occupy the third floor above
+some newly enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles
+is confusedly employed. As there is no longer a real court or nobility
+to give the tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never,
+on the other hand, has architecture discovered so many economical ways
+of imitating the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, more
+talent, in distributing them. Propose to an architect to build upon
+the garden at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up a
+little Louvre overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in a
+courtyard, stables, and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the house
+he will accommodate a quantity of little rooms and passages. He is so
+clever in deceiving the eye that you think you will have plenty of
+space; but it is only a nest of small rooms, after all, in which a
+ducal family has to turn itself about in the space that its own
+bakehouse formerly occupied.
+
+The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of
+these creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in
+the court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse
+and stables. The porter's lodge is between two charming portes-
+cocheres. The chief luxury of the house is a delightful greenhouse
+contrived at the end of a boudoir on the ground-floor which opens upon
+an admirable suite of reception rooms. An English philanthropist had
+built this architectural bijou, designed the garden, added the
+greenhouse, polished the doors, bricked the courtyard, painted the
+window-frames green, and realized, in short, a dream which resembled
+(proportions excepted) George the Fourth's Pavilion at Brighton. The
+inventive and industrious Parisian workmen had moulded the doors and
+window-frames; the ceilings were imitated from the middle-ages or
+those of a Venetian palace; marble veneering abounded on the outer
+walls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet had designed the mantel-pieces
+and the panels above the doors; Schinner had painted the ceilings in
+his masterly manner. The beauties of the staircase, white as a woman's
+arm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild. On account of the riots and
+the unsettled times, the cost of this folly was only about eleven
+hundred thousand francs,--to an Englishman a mere nothing. All this
+luxury, called princely by persons who do not know what real princes
+are, was built in the garden of the house of a purveyor made a Croesus
+by the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels and died there after
+going into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in Paris, of Paris; for to
+many persons Paris is a disease,--sometimes several diseases. His
+widow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little nabob establishment,
+and ordered it to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at a bargain; and how
+he came to do so shall presently be made known, for bargains were not
+at all in his line as a grand seigneur.
+
+Behind the house lay the verdant velvet of an English lawn shaded at
+the lower end by a clump of exotic trees, in the midst of which stood
+a Chinese pagoda with soundless belfries and motionless golden eggs.
+The greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, the
+opposite wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon poles
+painted green and connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, this
+world of flowers, the gravelled paths, the simulated forest, the
+verdant palisades, were contained within the space of five and twenty
+square rods, which are worth to-day four hundred thousand francs,--the
+value of an actual forest. Here, in this solitude in the middle of
+Paris, the birds sang, thrushes, nightingales, warblers, bulfinches,
+and sparrows. The greenhouse was like an immense jardiniere, filling
+the air with perfume in winter as in summer. The means by which its
+atmosphere was made to order, torrid as in China or temperate as in
+Italy, were cleverly concealed. Pipes in which hot water circulated,
+or steam, were either hidden under ground or festooned with plants
+overhead. The boudoir was a large room. The miracle of the modern
+Parisian fairy named Architecture is to get all these many and great
+things out of a limited bit of ground.
+
+The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of
+the artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house.
+It is too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce
+knows where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their
+myriads of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz
+mounted on filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in
+the style which Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock
+conceived but often could not execute, statuettes modelled by genius
+pursued by creditors (the real explanation of the Arabian myth),
+superb sketches by our best artists, lids of chests made into panels
+alternating with fluted draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging
+from rods of old oak in tapestried masses on which the figures of some
+hunting scene are swarming, pieces of furniture worthy to have
+belonged to Madame de Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a last
+graceful touch, all these elegant things were subdued by the half-
+light which filtered through embroidered curtains and added to their
+charm. On a table between the windows, among various curiosities, lay
+a whip, the handle designed by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which proved
+that the countess rode on horseback.
+
+Such is a lady's boudoir in 1837,--an exhibition of the contents of
+many shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to be
+dreaded by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capital
+in Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leads
+to revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day is
+sure of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants.
+
+One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She was
+lying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which it
+is almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them for
+lovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sink
+into. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors of
+vegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The young
+wife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the only
+form of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, held
+back by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white and
+gold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other in
+the style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival in
+Paris except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a short
+gallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This gallery
+opened on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber, through
+which could be seen the beauties of the staircase.
+
+The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was a
+sheet of azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been
+married two years, and Clementine had just discovered for the first
+time that there was something resembling a secret or a mystery in her
+household. The Pole, let us say it to his honor, is usually helpless
+before a woman; he is so full of tenderness for her that in Poland he
+becomes her inferior, though Polish women make admirable wives. Now a
+Pole is still more easily vanquished by a Parisian woman. Consequently
+Comte Adam, pressed by questions, did not even attempt the innocent
+roguery of selling the suspected secret. It is always wise with a
+woman to get some good out of a mystery; she will like you the better
+for it, as a swindler respects an honest man the more when he finds he
+cannot swindle him. Brave in heart but not in speech, Comte Adam
+merely stipulated that he should not be compelled to answer until he
+had finished his narghile.
+
+"If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling," said Clementine,
+"you always dismissed it by saying, 'Paz will settle that.' You never
+wrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying,
+'the captain, the captain.' If I want the carriage--'the captain.' Is
+there a bill to pay--'the captain.' If my horse is not properly
+bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of
+dominoes--Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never
+see Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don't you bring forth your Paz?"
+
+"Isn't everything going on right?" asked the count, taking the
+"bocchettino" of his narghile from his lips.
+
+"Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of
+two hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our
+pace, and we have only one hundred and ten thousand."
+
+So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A
+footman entered, dressed like a minister.
+
+"Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him."
+
+"If you think you are going to find out anything that way--" said
+Comte Adam, laughing.
+
+It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December,
+1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and
+Germany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to
+Paris in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the first
+time as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, and
+she then became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and wholly
+dumb but very useful, of a species of factotum who was personally
+invisible, named Paz,--spelt thus, but pronounced "Patz."
+
+"Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him,"
+said the footman, returning. "He is at the stables; as soon as he has
+changed his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame."
+
+"What was he doing at the stables?"
+
+"He was showing them how to groom Madame's horse," said the man. "He
+was not pleased with the way Constantin did it."
+
+The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and did
+not add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usually
+comment on the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogate
+from his position.
+
+"Ah! he was grooming Cora."
+
+"Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?" said the
+footman, leaving the room without further answer.
+
+"Is Paz a Pole?" asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who nodded
+by way of affirmation.
+
+Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extended
+upon a cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge of
+its nest listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemed
+enchanting even to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her hair
+in curls, she was not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in the
+Keepsakes, especially when dressed, as she was this morning, in a
+breakfast gown of Persian silk, the folds of which could not disguise
+the beauty of her figure or the slimness of her waist. The silk with
+its brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring of
+the neck,--its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones of
+a guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their long
+black lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity which
+puckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled,
+an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the true
+Parisian woman,--self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessible
+to vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, were
+hanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the tapering
+fingers, slightly turned up at their points, showed nails like
+almonds, which caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife's impatience,
+and looked at her with a glance which two years of married life had
+not yet chilled. Already the little countess had made herself mistress
+of the situation, for she scarcely paid attention to her husband's
+admiration. In fact, in the look which she occasionally cast at him,
+there seemed to be the consciousness of a Frenchwoman's ascendancy
+over the puny, volatile, and red-haired Pole.
+
+"Here comes Paz," said the count, hearing a step which echoed through
+the gallery.
+
+The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing on
+his face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret
+endurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats
+which were then called "polonaise." Thick, black hair, rather unkempt,
+covered his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead
+shining like a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in
+his hand. The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust
+health flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman nose
+and reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silk
+cravat added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, with
+eyes of jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers,
+which allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed his
+faithfulness to the fashions of his own land. There was something
+really burlesque to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no one
+could fail to remark between the captain and the count, the little
+Pole with his pinched face and the stalwart soldier.
+
+"Good morning, Adam," he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as
+he asked Clementine what he could do for her.
+
+"You are Laginski's friend!" exclaimed the countess.
+
+"For life and death," answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile of
+affection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe.
+
+"Then why don't you take your meals with us? why did you not accompany
+us to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a way
+that I am unable to thank you for the constant services that you do
+for us?" said the countess, with much vivacity of manner but no
+feeling.
+
+In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntary
+servitude. Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contempt
+for a social amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bailiff, and yet
+neither the one nor the other, a poor relation, an embarrassing
+friend.
+
+"Because, countess," he answered with perfect ease of manner, "there
+are no thanks due. I am Adam's friend, and it gives me pleasure to
+take care of his interests."
+
+"And you remain standing for your pleasure, too," remarked Comte Adam.
+
+Paz sat down on a chair near the door.
+
+"I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards in
+the courtyard," said Clementine. "But why do you put yourself in a
+position of inferiority,--you, Adam's friend?"
+
+"I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians," he
+replied. "I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two."
+
+"But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is not
+indifferent to me--"
+
+"Ah, madame, the world will be satisfied if you tell them I am 'an
+original.'"
+
+After a moment's silence he added, "Are you going out to-day?"
+
+"Will you come with us to the Bois?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+So saying, Paz bowed and withdrew.
+
+"What a good soul he is!" said Adam. "He has all the simplicity of a
+child."
+
+"Now tell me all about your relations with him," said Clementine.
+
+"Paz, my dear," said Laginski, "belongs to a noble family as old and
+illustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time of
+their disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of his
+property and founded the Paz family, to which the title of count was
+granted. This family, which distinguished itself greatly in the
+glorious days of our royal republic, became rich. The graft from the
+tree that was felled in Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland that
+there are several branches of the family still there. I need not tell
+you that some are rich and some are poor. Our Paz is the scion of a
+poor branch. He was an orphan, without other fortune than his sword,
+when he served in the regiment of the Grand Duke Constantine at the
+time of our revolution. Joining the Polish cause, he fought like a
+Pole, like a patriot, like a man who has nothing,--three good reasons
+for fighting well. In his last affair, thinking he was followed by his
+men, he dashed upon a Russian battery and was taken prisoner. I was
+there. His brave act roused me. 'Let us go and get him!' I said to my
+troop, and we charged the battery like a lot of foragers. I got Paz--I
+was the seventh man; we started twenty and came back eight, counting
+Paz. After Warsaw was sold we were forced to escape those Russians. By
+a curious chance, Paz and I happened to come together again, at the
+same hour and the same place, on the other side of the Vistula. I saw
+the poor captain arrested by some Prussians, who made themselves the
+blood-hounds of the Russians. When we have fished a man out of the
+Styx we cling to him. This new danger for poor Paz made me so unhappy
+that I let myself be taken too, thinking I could help him. Two men can
+get away where one will perish. Thanks to my name and some family
+connections in Prussia, the authorities shut their eyes to my escape.
+I got my dear captain through as a man of no consequence, a family
+servant, and we reached Dantzic. There we got on board a Dutch vessel
+and went to London. It took us two months to get there. My mother was
+ill in England, and expecting me. Paz and I took care of her till her
+death, which the Polish troubles hastened. Then we left London and
+came to France. Men who go through such adversities become like
+brothers. When I reached Paris, at twenty-two years of age, and found
+I had an income of over sixty thousand francs a year, without counting
+the proceeds of the diamonds and the pictures sold by my mother, I
+wanted to secure the future of my dear Paz before I launched into
+dissipation. I had often noticed the sadness in his eyes--sometimes
+tears were in them. I had had good reason to understand his soul,
+which is noble, grand, and generous to the core. I thought he might
+not like to be bound by benefits to a friend who was six years younger
+than himself, unless he could repay them. I was careless and
+frivolous, just as a young fellow is, and I knew I was certain to ruin
+myself at play, or get inveigled by some woman, and Paz and I might
+then be parted; and though I had every intention of always looking out
+for him, I knew I might sometime or other forget to provide for him.
+In short, my dear angel, I wanted to spare him the pain and
+mortification of having to ask me for money, or of having to hunt me
+up if he got into distress. SO, one morning, after breakfast, when we
+were sitting with our feet on the andirons smoking pipes, I produced,
+--with the utmost precaution, for I saw him look at me uneasily,--a
+certificate of the Funds payable to bearer for a certain sum of money
+a year."
+
+Clementine jumped up and went and seated herself on Adam's knee, put
+her arms round his neck, and kissed him. "Dear treasure!" she said,
+"how handsome he is! Well, what did Paz do?"
+
+"Thaddeus turned pale," said the count, "but he didn't say a word."
+
+"Oh! his name is Thaddeus, is it?"
+
+"Yes; Thaddeus folded the paper and gave it back to me, and then he
+said: 'I thought, Adam, that we were one for life or death, and that
+we should never part. Do you want to be rid of me?' 'Oh!' I said, 'if
+you take it that way, Thaddeus, don't let us say another word about
+it. If I ruin myself you shall be ruined too.' 'You haven't fortune
+enough to live as a Laginski should,' he said, 'and you need a friend
+who will take care of your affairs, and be a father and a brother and
+a trusty confidant.' My dear child, as Paz said that he had in his
+look and voice, calm as they were, a maternal emotion, and also the
+gratitude of an Arab, the fidelity of a dog, the friendship of a
+savage,--not displayed, but ever ready. Faith! I seized him, as we
+Poles do, with a hand on each shoulder, and I kissed him on the lips.
+'For life and death, then! all that I have is yours--do what you will
+with it.' It was he who found me this house and bought it for next to
+nothing. He sold my Funds high and bought in low, and we have paid for
+this barrack with the profits. He knows horses, and he manages to buy
+and sell at such advantage that my stable really costs very little;
+and yet I have the finest horses and the most elegant equipages in all
+Paris. Our servants, brave Polish soldiers chosen by him, would go
+through fire and water for us. I seem, as you say, to be ruining
+myself; and yet Paz keeps the house with such method and economy that
+he has even repaired some of my foolish losses at play,--the
+thoughtless folly of a young man. My dear, Thaddeus is as shrewd as
+two Genoese, as eager for gain as a Polish Jew, and provident as a
+good housekeeper. I never could force him to live as I did when I was
+a bachelor. Sometimes I had to use a sort of friendly coercion to make
+him go to the theatre with me when I was alone, or to the jovial
+little dinners I used to give at a tavern. He doesn't like social
+life."
+
+"What does he like, then?" asked Clementine.
+
+"Poland; he loves Poland and pines for it. His only spendings are sums
+he gives, more in my name than in his own, to some of our poor
+brother-exiles."
+
+"Well, I shall love him, the fine fellow!" said the countess, "he
+looks to me as simple-hearted as he is grand."
+
+"All these pretty things you have about you," continued Adam, who
+praised his friend in the noblest sincerity, "he picked up; he bought
+them at auction, or as bargains from the dealers. Oh! he's keener than
+they are themselves. If you see him rubbing his hands in the
+courtyard, you may be sure he has traded away one good horse for a
+better. He lives for me; his happiness is to see me elegant, in a
+perfectly appointed equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are all
+accomplished without fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twenty
+thousand francs at whist. 'What will Paz say?' thought I as I walked
+home. Paz paid them to me, not without a sigh; but he never reproached
+me, even by a look. But that sigh of his restrained me more than the
+remonstrances of uncles, mothers, or wives could have done. 'Do you
+regret the money?' I said to him. 'Not for you or me, no,' he replied;
+'but I was thinking that twenty poor Poles could have lived a year on
+that sum.' You must understand that the Pazzi are fully the equal of
+the Laginski, so I couldn't regard my dear Paz as an inferior. I never
+went out or came in without going first to Paz, as I would to my
+father. My fortune is his; and Thaddeus knows that if danger
+threatened him I would fling myself into it and drag him out, as I
+have done before."
+
+"And that is saying a good deal, my dear friend," said the countess.
+"Devotion is like a flash of lightning. Men devote themselves in
+battle, but they no longer have the heart for it in Paris."
+
+"Well," replied Adam, "I am always ready, as in battle, to devote
+myself to Paz. Our two characters have kept their natural asperities
+and defects, but the mutual comprehension of our souls has tightened
+the bond already close between us. It is quite possible to save a
+man's life and kill him afterwards if we find him a bad fellow; but
+Paz and I know THAT of each other which makes our friendship
+indissoluble. There's a constant exchange of happy thoughts and
+impressions between us; and really, perhaps, such a friendship as ours
+is richer than love."
+
+A pretty hand closed the count's mouth so promptly that the action was
+somewhat like a blow.
+
+"Yes," he said, "friendship, my dear angel, knows nothing of bankrupt
+sentiments and collapsed joys. Love, after giving more than it has,
+ends by giving less than it receives."
+
+"One side as well as the other," remarked Clementine laughing.
+
+"Yes," continued Adam, "whereas friendship only increases. You need
+not pucker up your lips at that, for we are, you and I, as much
+friends as lovers; we have, at least I hope so, combined the two
+sentiments in our happy marriage."
+
+"I'll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus such
+good friends," said Clementine. "The difference in the lives you lead
+comes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not your
+positions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, and
+also from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern might
+become the superior."
+
+"Oh, Paz is truly my superior," said Adam, naively; "I have no
+advantage over him except mere luck."
+
+His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words.
+
+"The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings is
+one form of his superiority," continued the count. "I said to him
+once: 'You are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain within
+which you live and think.' He has a right to the title of count; but
+in Paris he won't be called anything but captain."
+
+"The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared in
+our century," said the countess. "Dante and Michael Angelo are in
+him."
+
+"That's the very truth," cried Adam. "He is a poet in soul."
+
+"So here I am, married to two Poles," said the young countess, with a
+gesture worthy of some genius of the stage.
+
+"Dear child!" said Adam, pressing her to him, "it would have made me
+very unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both rather
+afraid of it, he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. You
+will make him very happy if you tell him that you love him,--yes, as
+an old friend."
+
+"I'll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ride
+together," said Clementine, ringing for her maid.
+
+
+
+II
+
+Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world of
+Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Bois
+de Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the ride
+Clementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This caprice
+of the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet.
+Clementine dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in a
+style that impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salon
+where the two friends awaited her.
+
+"Comte Paz," she said, "you must go with us to the Opera."
+
+This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: "If you
+refuse we shall quarrel."
+
+"Willingly, madame," replied the captain. "But as I have not the
+fortune of a count, have the kindness to call me captain."
+
+"Very good, captain; give me your arm," she said,--taking it and
+leading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiarity
+which enchants all lovers.
+
+The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of a
+poor sub-lieutenant dining at his general's table. He let Clementine
+talk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with her
+in anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. He
+seemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little ways
+missed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventional
+respect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one would
+really suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager to
+disconcert Clementine." Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep. When
+the servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captain
+explained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those of
+society,--he went to bed at eight o'clock and got up very early in the
+morning; and he excused his dulness on the ground of being sleepy.
+
+"My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain;
+but do as you prefer," said Clementine, rather piqued.
+
+"I will go," said Paz.
+
+"Duprez sings 'Guillaume Tell,'" remarked Adam. "But perhaps you would
+rather go to the 'Varietes'?"
+
+The captain smiled and rang the bell. "Tell Constantin," he said to
+the footman, "to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe.
+We should be rather squeezed otherwise," he said to the count.
+
+"A Frenchman would have forgotten that," remarked Clementine, smiling.
+
+"Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North," answered
+Thaddeus with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which made
+his conduct at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was too
+evident a contrast between his involuntary self-revelation in this
+speech and his behavior during dinner. Clementine examined the captain
+with a few of those covert glances which show a woman's surprise and
+also her capacity for observation.
+
+It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in the
+salon while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to
+Adam, who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no
+longer tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand,
+retreated within his military stiffness and came out of it no more,
+neither on the way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be
+asleep.
+
+"You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man," he said during the
+dance in the last act of "Guillaume Tell." "Am I not right to keep, as
+the saying is, to my own specialty?"
+
+"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the
+world, but you are perhaps Polish."
+
+"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your
+household--it is all I am good for."
+
+"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor;
+he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any
+salon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty."
+
+"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will
+take the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you."
+
+Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
+
+"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer."
+
+Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
+
+"Poor, dear Thaddeus," he said, "he is trying to make himself
+disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I."
+
+"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some CALCULATION in
+his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman."
+
+Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!"
+and the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said to
+her husband, "Where does the captain perch?"
+
+"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above the porte-
+cochere which had one window looking on the street. "His apartments
+are over the coachhouse."
+
+"Who lives on the other side?" asked the countess.
+
+"No one as yet," said Adam; "I mean that apartment for our children
+and their instructors."
+
+"He didn't go to bed," said the countess, observing lights in
+Thaddeus's rooms when the carriage had passed under the portico
+supported by columns copied from those of the Tuileries, which
+replaced a vulgar zinc awning painted in stripes like cloth.
+
+The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, was
+watching Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been a
+hard one for him. And here is the reason why: A great and terrible
+emotion had taken possession of his heart on the day when Adam made
+him go to the Opera to see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre; and again when he saw her on the occasion of her marriage, and
+recognized in her the woman whom a man is forced to love exclusively.
+For this reason Paz strongly advised and promoted the long journey to
+Italy and elsewhere after the marriage. At peace so long as Clementine
+was away, his trial was renewed on the return of the happy household.
+As he sat at his window on this memorable night, smoking his latakia
+in a pipe of wild-cherry wood six feet long, given to him by Adam,
+these are the thoughts that were passing through his mind:--
+
+"I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone know
+how I love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love nor
+her dislike?"
+
+And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme.
+
+It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, in
+the midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance,
+were a source of inward joy to him. Since the return of the count and
+countess he had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himself
+necessary to a household which, without his devotion to its interests,
+would infallibly have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strain
+of reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift
+father, knew nothing of the management of a household which the women
+of the present day, however rich or noble they are, are often
+compelled to undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep a
+steward. Adam, on the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lords
+who let themselves be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapable
+of managing even the wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes are
+vast in Poland), was not of a nature to check his own fancies or those
+of his wife. Left to himself he would probably have been ruined before
+his marriage. Paz had prevented him from gambling at the Bourse, and
+that says all.
+
+Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementine
+in spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house and
+travelling in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, the key-
+note of his life, held him bound to that household where he alone
+could look after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence
+of Adam and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess had
+returned more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriage
+brings to a Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife and
+the nameless attraction she gains from the happiness, or the
+independence, bestowed upon her by a young man as trustful, as
+chivalric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was the pivot
+on which the splendor the household depended, to see Clementine when
+she got out of her carriage on returning from some fete, or got into
+it in the morning when she took her drive, to meet her on the
+boulevards in her pretty equipage, looking like a flower in a whorl of
+leaves, inspired poor Thaddeus with mysterious delights, which glowed
+in the depths of his heart but gave no signs upon his face.
+
+How happened it that for five whole months the countess had never
+perceived the captain? Because he hid himself from her knowledge, and
+carefully concealed the pains he took to avoid her. Nothing so
+resembles the Divine love as hopeless human love. A man must have
+great depth of heart to devote himself in silence and obscurity to a
+woman. In such a heart is the worship of love for love's sake only--
+sublime avarice, sublime because ever generous and founded on the
+mysterious existence of the principles of creation. EFFECT is nature,
+and nature is enchanting; it belongs to man, to the poet, the painter,
+the lover. But CAUSE, to a few privileged souls and to certain mighty
+thinkers, is superior to nature. Cause is God. In the sphere of causes
+live the Newtons and all such thinkers as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes,
+Malebranche, Spinoza, Buffon; also the true poets and solitarys of the
+second Christian century, and the Saint Teresas of Spain, and such
+sublime ecstatics. All human sentiments bear analogy to these
+conditions whenever the mind abandons Effect for Cause. Thaddeus had
+reached this height, at which all things change their relative aspect.
+Filled with the joys unutterable of a creator he had attained in his
+love to all that genius has revealed to us of grandeur.
+
+"No," he was thinking to himself as he watched the curling smoke of
+his pipe, "she was not entirely deceived. She might break up my
+friendship with Adam if she took a dislike to me; but if she coquetted
+with me to amuse herself, what would become of me?"
+
+The conceit of this last supposition was so foreign to the modest
+nature and Teutonic timidity of the captain that he scolded himself
+for admitting it, and went to bed, resolved to await events before
+deciding on a course.
+
+The next day Clementine breakfasted very contentedly without Paz, and
+without even noticing his disobedience to her orders. It happened to
+be her reception day, when the house was thrown open with a splendor
+that was semi-royal. She paid no attention to the absence of Comte
+Paz, on whom all the burden of these parade days fell.
+
+"Good!" thought he, as he heard the last carriages driving away at two
+in the morning; "it was only the caprice or the curiosity of a
+Parisian woman that made her want to see me."
+
+After that the captain went back to his ordinary habits and ways,
+which had been somewhat upset by this incident. Diverted by her
+Parisian occupations, Clementine appeared to have forgotten Paz. It
+must not be thought an easy matter to reign a queen over fickle Paris.
+Does any one suppose that fortunes alone are risked in the great game?
+The winters are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the
+soldiers of the Empire. What works of art and genius are expended on a
+gown or a garland in which to make a sensation! A fragile, delicate
+creature will wear her stiff and brilliant harness of flowers and
+diamonds, silk and steel, from nine at night till two and often three
+o'clock in the morning. She eats little, to attract remark to her
+slender waist; she satisfied her hunger with debilitating tea, sugared
+cakes, ices which heat her, or slices of heavy pastry. The stomach is
+made to yield to the orders of coquetry. The awakening comes too late.
+A fashionable woman's whole life is in contradiction to the laws of
+nature, and nature is pitiless. She has no sooner risen than she makes
+an elaborate morning toilet, and thinks of the one which she means to
+wear in the afternoon. The moment she is dressed she has to receive
+and make visits, and go to the Bois either on horseback or in a
+carriage. She must practise the art of smiling, and must keep her mind
+on the stretch to invent new compliments which shall seem neither
+common nor far-fetched. All women do not succeed in this. It is no
+surprise, therefore, to find a young woman who entered fashionable
+society fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the end of three
+years. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the wounds of
+the winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysterious
+ailments,--gastritis, and so forth,--ills unknown to women when they
+busied themselves about their households. In the olden time women only
+appeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene.
+Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited,
+and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulness
+exacted by this contest with her rivals left little time even to love
+her husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month
+of May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris
+for Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticed
+Thaddeus, elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths of
+the Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing his
+beautiful countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horses
+and sparkling liveries,--in short, his beloved family the admired of
+all.
+
+"There's the captain," she said to her husband.
+
+"He's happy!" said Adam. "This is his delight. He knows there's no
+equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that
+some people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him there
+nearly every day."
+
+"I wonder what he is thinking about now," said Clementine.
+
+"He is thinking that this winter has cost a good deal, and that it is
+time we went to economize with your old uncle Ronquerolles," replied
+Adam.
+
+The countess stopped the carriage near Paz, and bade him take the seat
+beside her. Thaddeus grew as red as a cherry.
+
+"I shall poison you," he said; "I have been smoking."
+
+"Doesn't Adam poison me?" she said.
+
+"Yes, but he is Adam," returned the captain.
+
+"And why can't Thaddeus have the same privileges?" asked the countess,
+smiling.
+
+That divine smile had a power which triumphed over the heroic
+resolutions of poor Paz; he looked at Clementine with all the fire of
+his soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by the
+angelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue.
+The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her
+cushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at
+the people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resigned
+soul reached her sensibilities. What was Adam's merit in her eyes? It
+was natural enough to have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus--
+surely Thaddeus possessed, or seemed to possess, some great
+superiority over Adam. They were dangerous thoughts which took
+possession of the countess's mind as she again noticed the contrast of
+the fine presence that distinguished Thaddeus, and the puny frame in
+which Adam showed the degenerating effects of intermarriage among the
+Polish aristocratic families. The devil alone knew the thoughts that
+were in Clementine's head, for she sat still, with thoughtful, dreamy
+eyes, and without saying a word until they reached home.
+
+"You will dine with us; I shall be angry if you disobey me," she said
+as the carriage turned in. "You are Thaddeus to me, as you are to
+Adam. I know your obligations to him, but I also know those we are
+under to you. Both generosities are natural--but you are generous
+every day and all day. My father dines here to-day, also my uncle
+Ronquerolles and my aunt Madame de Serizy. Dress yourself therefore,"
+she said, taking the hand he offered to assist her from the carriage.
+
+Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, though
+shaken by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behaved
+through dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like a
+soldier fit only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementine
+was not his dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis de
+Ronquerolles, one of the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who had
+served with de Marsay during his short ministry, had been informed by
+his niece of the real worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew how
+modestly he made himself the steward of his friend Laginski.
+
+"And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing Comte
+Paz?" asked the marquis.
+
+"Because he is so shy and retiring," replied Clementine with a look at
+Paz telling him to change his behavior.
+
+Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering the
+captain less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend Adam,
+was not a man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to his
+misfortunes. In his lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he had
+read and taught himself a good deal; he had compared and meditated.
+But the gift of original thought which makes a great man he did not
+possess, and it can never be acquired. Paz, great in heart only,
+approached in heart to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiments,
+being more a man of action than of thought, he kept his thoughts to
+himself; and they only served therefore to eat his heart out. What,
+after all, is a thought unexpressed?
+
+After Clementine's little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and his
+sister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam,
+and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only in
+France and Italy,--the two regions of the world (all courts excepted)
+where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the full
+power of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either the
+pressure of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquis
+du Rouvre, and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of the
+old coquette and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog,
+understood its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of two
+seconds; but to describe the tempest it roused in the captain's soul
+would take far too much space in this brief history.
+
+"What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might be
+loved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"
+
+Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, all
+equally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover would
+have his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told the
+story of the Polish insurrection in noble words, being questioned
+about it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementine
+hanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting that
+Adam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been an
+exile. At nine o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizy
+kissed her niece on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away,
+taking Adam with her and leaving the Marquis de Ronquerolles and the
+Marquis du Rouvre, who soon followed. Paz and Clementine were alone
+together.
+
+"I will leave you now, madame," said Thaddeus. "You will of course
+rejoin them at the Opera?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I don't like dancing, and they give an odious
+ballet to-night 'La Revolte au Serail.'"
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me," said
+Clementine, not looking at Paz.
+
+"He loves you madly," replied Thaddeus.
+
+"Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not to
+love me to-morrow," said the countess.
+
+"How inexplicable Parisian women are!" exclaimed Thaddeus. "When they
+are loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they
+are loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all."
+
+"And they are quite right. Thaddeus," she went on, smiling, "I know
+Adam well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grand
+seigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he will
+never oppose any of my tastes, but--"
+
+"Where is the marriage in which there are no 'buts'?" said Thaddeus,
+gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine's mind.
+
+The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which came
+near rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: "If I do
+not tell her now that I love her I am a fool," he kept saying to
+himself.
+
+Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deep
+silences that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Paz
+covertly, and Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair like
+a man digesting his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferent
+old man, Paz crossed his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbs
+mechanically, looking stupidly at them.
+
+"Why don't you tell me something good of Adam?" cried Clementine
+suddenly. "Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well."
+
+The cry was fine.
+
+"Now is the time," thought poor Paz, "to put an insurmountable barrier
+between us. Tell you good of Adam?" he said aloud. "I love him; you
+would not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. My
+position is very difficult between you."
+
+Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of his
+varnished boots.
+
+"You Northern men have nothing but physical courage," she said
+complainingly; "you have no constancy in your opinions."
+
+"How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?" said Paz, assuming a
+careless air.
+
+"Are not you going to keep me company?"
+
+"Excuse me for leaving you."
+
+"What do you mean? Where are you going?"
+
+The thought of a heroic falsehood had come into his head.
+
+"I--I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens to-night,
+and I can't miss it."
+
+"Why not?" said Clementine, questioning him by a look that was half-
+anger.
+
+"Must I tell you why?" he said, coloring; "must I confide to you what
+I hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland."
+
+"Ah! a secret in our noble captain?"
+
+"A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity."
+
+"You, disgraced?"
+
+"Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels all
+over France with the Bouthor family,--people who have the rival circus
+to Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director at
+the Cirque-Olympique engage her."
+
+"Is she handsome?"
+
+"To my thinking," said Paz, in a melancholy tone. "Malaga (that's her
+stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all
+other women in the world?--well, I can't tell you. When I look at her,
+with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her
+bare and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white
+tunic with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her look
+like a living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags in
+her hand to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paper
+hoops which tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully on
+the galloping horse to such applause,--no hired clapping,--well, all
+that moves me."
+
+"More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?" asked Clementine, with
+amazement and curiosity.
+
+"Yes," answered Paz, in a choking voice. "Such agility, such grace
+under constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman.
+Yes, madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta and
+Ellsler, all who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't be
+compared, to my mind, with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse at
+full gallop, or stand on the point of one foot and fall easily into
+the saddle, and knit stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette with
+the horse at full speed, to the admiration of the people,--the real
+people, peasants and soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexterity
+personified; her little wrist or her little foot can rid her of three
+or four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics."
+
+"She must be stupid--"
+
+"Oh, no," said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peveril
+of the Peak.' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything that
+comes into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you do
+of the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes.
+You couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsome
+young man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love as
+hers is perpetual flattery to a man. Her health is positively
+insolent, and she has thirty-two oriental pearls in lips of coral. Her
+muzzle--that's what she calls the lower part of her face--has, as
+Shakespeare expresses it, the savor of a heifer's nose. She can make a
+man unhappy. She likes handsome men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts,
+clowns. Her trainer, a horrible brute, used to beat her to make her
+supple, and graceful, and intrepid--"
+
+"You are positively intoxicated with Malaga."
+
+"Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters," said Paz, with a
+piqued air. "She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartment
+on the third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has two
+lives, her circus life and the life of a pretty woman."
+
+"Does she love you?"
+
+"She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I'm a Pole. She saw
+an engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster,--for
+all France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it is
+impossible to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowski
+and his followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I am
+very unhappy, madame."
+
+A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess.
+
+"You men have such a passion for singularity."
+
+"And you?" said Thaddeus.
+
+"I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for some
+mountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?"
+
+"At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day. She was at a corner
+of a booth covered with flags, where the shows are given. Her
+comrades, all in Polish costumes, were making a horrible racket. I
+watched her standing there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw a
+melancholy expression in her face; in truth there was enough about her
+to sadden a girl of twenty. That touched me."
+
+The countess was sitting in a delicious attitude, pensive and rather
+melancholy.
+
+"Poor, poor Thaddeus!" she exclaimed. Then, with the kindliness of a
+true great lady she added, not without a malicious smile, "Well go, go
+to your Circus."
+
+Thaddeus took her hand, kissed it, leaving a hot tear upon it, and
+went out.
+
+Having invented this passion for a circus-rider, he bethought him that
+he must give it some reality. The only truth in his tale was the
+momentary attention he had given to Malaga at Saint-Cloud; and he had
+since seen her name on the posters of the Circus, where the clown, for
+a tip of five francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling,
+stolen perhaps. Thaddeus now went to the Circus and saw her again. For
+ten francs one of the grooms (who take the place in circuses of the
+dressers at a theatre) informed him that Malaga was named Marguerite
+Turquet, and lived on the fifth story of a house in the rue des
+Fosses-du-Temple.
+
+The following day Paz went to the faubourg du Temple, found the house,
+and asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer was
+substituting for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and a
+supernumerary at a boulevard theatre in winter.
+
+"Malaga!" cried the portress, rushing into the attic, "there's a fine
+gentleman wanting you. He is getting information from Chapuzot, who is
+playing him off to give me time to tell you."
+
+"Thank you, M'ame Chapuzot; but what will he think of me if he finds
+me ironing my gown?"
+
+"Pooh! when a man's in love he loves everything about us."
+
+"Is he an Englishman? they are fond of horses."
+
+"No, he looks to me Spanish."
+
+"That's a pity; they say Spaniards are always poor. Stay here with me,
+M'ame Chapuzot; I don't want him to think I'm deserted."
+
+"Who is it you are looking for, monsieur?" asked Madame Chapuzot,
+opening the door for Thaddeus, who had now come upstairs.
+
+"Mademoiselle Turquet."
+
+"My dear," said the portress, with an air of importance, "here is some
+one to see you."
+
+A line on which the clothes were drying caught the captain's hat and
+knocked it off.
+
+"What is it you wish, monsieur?" said Malaga, picking up the hat and
+giving it to him.
+
+"I saw you at the Circus," said Thaddeus, "and you reminded me of a
+daughter whom I have lost, mademoiselle; and out of affection for my
+Heloise, whom you resemble in a most striking manner, I should like to
+be of some service to you, if you will permit me."
+
+"Why, certainly; pray sit down, general," said Madame Chapuzot;
+"nothing could be more straightforward, more gallant."
+
+"But I am not gallant, my good lady," exclaimed Paz. "I am an
+unfortunate father who tries to deceive himself by a resemblance."
+
+"Then am I to pass for your daughter?" said Malaga, slyly, and not in
+the least suspecting the perfect sincerity of his proposal.
+
+"Yes," said Paz, "and I'll come and see you sometimes. But you shall
+be lodged in better rooms, comfortably furnished."
+
+"I shall have furniture!" cried Malaga, looking at Madame Chapuzot.
+
+"And servants," said Paz, "and all you want."
+
+Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously.
+
+"What countryman is monsieur?"
+
+"I am a Pole."
+
+"Oh! then I accept," she said.
+
+Paz departed, promising to return.
+
+"Well, that's a stiff one!" said Marguerite Turquet, looking at Madame
+Chapuzot; "I'm half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancy
+of his own--Pooh! I'll risk it."
+
+A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living in
+a comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam's own upholsterer, Paz
+having judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotel
+Laginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of the
+Arabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in the
+double capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Marguerite
+were constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end of
+three months none of them were able to make out the meaning of the
+Polish count's caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hour
+there once a week, during which time he sat in the salon, and never
+went into Malaga's boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of the
+clever manoeuvring of the Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. The
+count would ask questions as to the small events of Marguerite's life,
+and each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francs
+each on the mantel-piece.
+
+"He looks as if he didn't care to be here," said Madame Chapuzot.
+
+"Yes," said Malaga, "the man's as cold as an icicle."
+
+"But he's a good fellow all the same," cried Chapuzot, who was happy
+in a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like
+the servant of some minister.
+
+The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined to
+Malaga's meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous living
+compared with her former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds of
+the Circus about Malaga's good-luck. Her vanity increased the six
+thousand francs which Paz had spent on her furniture to sixty
+thousand. According to the clowns and the supers, Malaga was
+squandering money; and she now appeared at the Circus wearing burnous
+and shawls and elegant scarfs. The Pole, it was agreed on all sides,
+was the best sort of man a circus-rider had ever encountered, not
+fault-finding nor jealous, and willing to let Malaga do just what she
+liked.
+
+"Some women have the luck of it," said Malaga's rival, "and I'm not
+one of them,--though I do draw a third of the receipts."
+
+Malaga wore pretty things, and occasionally "showed her head" (a term
+in the lexicon of such characters) in the Bois, where the fashionable
+young men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malaga
+was very much talked about in the questionable world of equivocal
+women, who presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They said
+she was a somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was using
+her to discover the philosopher's stone. Some even more envenomed
+scandals drove her to a curiosity that was greater than Psyche's. She
+reported them in tears to Paz.
+
+"When I want to injure a woman," she said in conclusion, "I don't
+calumniate her; I don't declare that some one magnetizes her to get
+stones out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and I
+prove it. Why do you compromise me in this way?"
+
+Paz maintained a cruel silence. Madame Chapuzot was not long in
+discovering the name and title of Comte Paz; then she heard certain
+positive facts at the hotel Laginski: for instance, that Paz was a
+bachelor, and had never been known to have a daughter, alive or dead,
+in Poland or in France. After that Malaga could not control a feeling
+of terror.
+
+"My dear child," Madame Chapuzot would say, "that monster--" (a man
+who contented himself with only looking, in a sly way,--not daring to
+come out and say things,--and such a beautiful creature too, as
+Malaga,--of course such a man was a monster, according to Madame
+Chapuzot's ideas) "--that monster is trying to get a hold upon you,
+and make you do something illegal and criminal. Holy Father, if you
+should get into the police-courts! it makes me tremble from head to
+foot; suppose they should put you in the newspapers! I'll tell you
+what I should do in your place; I'd warn the police."
+
+One particular day, after many foolish notions had fermented for some
+time in Malaga's mind, Paz having laid his money as usual on the
+mantel-piece, she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face,
+crying out, "I don't want stolen money!"
+
+The captain gave the gold to Chapuzot, went away without a word, and
+did not return.
+
+Clementine was at this time at her uncle's place in Burgundy.
+
+When the Circus troop discovered that Malaga had lost her Polish
+count, much excitement was produced among them. Malaga's display of
+honor was considered folly by some, and shrewdness by others. The
+conduct of the Pole, however, even when discussed by the cleverest of
+women, seemed inexplicable. Thaddeus received in the course of the
+next week thirty-seven letters from women of their kind. Happily for
+him, his astonishing reserve did not excite the curiosity of the
+fashionable world, and was only discussed in the demi-mondaine
+regions.
+
+Two weeks later the handsome circus-rider, crippled by debt, wrote the
+following letter to Comte Paz, which, having fallen into the hands of
+Comte Adam, was read by several of the dandies of the day, who
+pronounced it a masterpiece:--
+
+  "You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me
+  after all that has passed,--which you have so ill understood? My
+  heart disavows whatever may have wounded your feelings. If I was
+  fortunate enough to charm you and keep you beside me in the past,
+  return to me; otherwise, I shall fall into despair. Poverty has
+  overtaken me, and you do not know what HORRID THINGS it brings
+  with it. Yesterday I lived on a herring at two sous, and one sou
+  of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The
+  Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your
+  desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human
+  attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots
+  have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the
+  landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait
+  even ten days,--for when we lose the confidence of such as you,
+  credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to
+  reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My
+  friend, I have taken all I have of any value to MY UNCLE'S; I have
+  nothing but the memory of you left, and here is the winter coming
+  on. I shall be fireless when it turns cold; for the boulevards are
+  to play only melodramas, in which I have nothing but little bits
+  of parts which don't POSE a woman. How could you misunderstand the
+  nobleness of my feelings for you?--for there are two ways of
+  expressing gratitude. You who seemed so happy in seeing me well-
+  off, how can you leave me in poverty? Oh, my sole friend on earth,
+  before I go back to the country fairs with Bouthor's circus, where
+  I can at least make a living, forgive me if I wish to know whether
+  I have lost you forever. If I were to let myself think of you when
+  I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs by
+  losing A TIME. Whatever may be the result, I am yours for life.
+
+"Marguerite Turquet."
+
+
+"That letter," thought Thaddeus, shouting with laughter, "is worth the
+ten thousand francs I have spent upon her."
+
+
+
+III
+
+Clementine came home the next day, and the day after that Paz beheld
+her again, more beautiful and graceful than ever. After dinner, during
+which the countess treated Paz with an air of perfect indifference, a
+little scene took place in the salon between the count and his wife
+when Thaddeus had left them. On pretence of asking Adam's advice,
+Thaddeus had left Malaga's letter with him, as if by mistake.
+
+"Poor Thaddeus!" said Adam, as Paz disappeared, "what a misfortune for
+a man of his distinction to be the plaything of the lowest kind of
+circus-rider. He will lose everything, and get lower and lower, and
+won't be recognizable before long. Here, read that," added the count,
+giving Malaga's letter to his wife.
+
+Clementine read the letter, which smelt of tobacco, and threw it from
+her with a look of disgust.
+
+"Thick as the bandage is over his eyes," continued Adam, "he must have
+found out something; Malaga tricked him, no doubt."
+
+"But he goes back to her," said Clementine, "and he will forgive her!
+It is for such horrible women as that that you men have indulgence."
+
+"Well, they need it," said Adam.
+
+"Thaddeus used to show some decency--in living apart from us," she
+remarked. "He had better go altogether."
+
+"Oh, my dear angel, that's going too far," said the count, who did not
+want the death of the sinner.
+
+Paz, who knew Adam thoroughly, had enjoined him to secrecy, pretending
+to excuse his dissipations, and had asked his friend to lend him a few
+thousand francs for Malaga.
+
+"He is a very firm fellow," said Adam.
+
+"How so?" asked Clementine.
+
+"Why, for having spent no more than ten thousand francs on her, and
+letting her send him that letter before he would ask me for enough to
+pay her debts. For a Pole, I call that firm."
+
+"He will ruin you," said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisian
+woman, when she shows her feline distrusts.
+
+"Oh, I know him," said Adam; "he will sacrifice Malaga, if I ask him."
+
+"We shall see," remarked the countess.
+
+"If it is best for his own happiness, I sha'n't hesitate to ask him to
+leave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, sober
+as he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes to
+intoxication I shall be just as grieved as if he were my own son."
+
+"Don't tell me anything more about it," cried the countess, with a
+gesture of disgust.
+
+Two days later the captain perceived in the manner, the tones of
+voice, but, above all, in the eyes of the countess, the terrible
+results of Adam's confidences. Contempt had opened a gulf between the
+beloved woman and himself. He was suddenly plunged into the deepest
+distress of mind, for the thought gnawed him, "I have myself made her
+despise me!" His own folly stared him in the face. Life then became a
+burden to him, the very sun turned gray. And yet, amid all these
+bitter thoughts, he found again some moments of pure joy. There were
+times when he could give himself up wholly to his admiration for his
+mistress, who paid not the slightest attention to him. Hanging about
+in corners at her parties and receptions, silent, all heart and eyes,
+he never lost one of her attitudes, nor a tone of her voice when she
+sang. He lived in her life; he groomed the horse which SHE rode, he
+studied the ways and means of that splendid establishment, to the
+interests of which he was now more devoted than ever. These silent
+pleasures were buried in his heart like those of a mother, whose heart
+a child never knows; for is it knowing anything unless we know it all?
+His love was more perfect than the love of Petrarch for Laura, which
+found its ultimate reward in the treasures of fame, the triumph of the
+poem which she had inspired. Surely the emotion that the Chevalier
+d'Assas felt in dying must have been to him a lifetime of joy. Such
+emotions as these Paz enjoyed daily,--without dying, but also without
+the guerdon of immortality.
+
+But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Paz
+should still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnified
+Love that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility of
+spirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualities
+of which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing where
+contempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own hand
+had given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside his
+mistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, was
+better than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, her
+respect, and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill with
+constant low fever that during the month of January he was obliged to
+keep his bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam became
+very uneasy about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark:
+"Let him alone; don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" This
+remark, being repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair;
+he left his bed, went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered his
+health.
+
+About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at the
+Jockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus to
+let the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga.
+
+"There's nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl; but
+if the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall be
+lowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future."
+
+"Ha! this, too!" exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh.
+
+"Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be forever
+quits,--though, indeed, I am your debtor now."
+
+"Adam, you will have children; don't gamble any more," said Paz.
+
+"So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs," cried the
+countess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity to
+Paz. "First, ten thousand, now twenty more,--thirty thousand! the
+income of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera,
+and the whole fortune of many a bourgeois. Oh, you Poles!" she said,
+gathering some flowers in her greenhouse; "you are really
+incomprehensible. Why are you not furious with him?"
+
+"Poor Paz is--"
+
+"Poor Paz, poor Paz, indeed!" she cried, interrupting him, "what good
+does he do us? I shall take the management of the household myself.
+You can give him the allowance he refused, and let him settle it as he
+likes with his Circus."
+
+"He is very useful to us, Clementine. He has certainly saved over
+forty thousand francs this last year. And besides, my dear angel, he
+has managed to put a hundred thousand with Nucingen, which a steward
+would have pocketed."
+
+Clementine softened down; but she was none the less hard in her
+feelings to Thaddeus. A few days later, she requested him to come to
+that boudoir where, one year earlier, she had been surprised into
+comparing him with her husband. This time she received him alone,
+without perceiving the slightest danger in so doing.
+
+"My dear Paz," she said, with the condescending familiarity of the
+great to their inferiors, "if you love Adam as you say you do, you
+will do a thing which he will not ask of you, but which I, his wife,
+do not hesitate to exact."
+
+"About Malaga?" said Thaddeus, with bitterness in his heart.
+
+"Well, yes," she said; "if you wish to end your days in this house and
+continue good friends with us, you must give her up. How an old
+soldier--"
+
+"I am only thirty-five, and haven't a white hair."
+
+"You look old," she said, "and that's the same thing. How so careful a
+manager, so distinguished a--"
+
+The horrible part of all this was her evident intention to rouse a
+sense of honor in his soul which she thought extinct.
+
+"--so distinguished a man as you are, Thaddeus," she resumed after a
+momentary pause which a gesture of his hand had led her to make, "can
+allow yourself to be caught like a boy! Your proceedings have made
+that woman celebrated. My uncle wanted to see her, and he did see her.
+My uncle is not the only one; Malaga receives a great many gentlemen.
+I did think you such a noble soul. For shame! Will she be such a loss
+that you can't replace her?"
+
+"Madame, if I knew any sacrifice I could make to recover your esteem I
+would make it; but to give up Malaga is not one--"
+
+"In your position, that is what I should say myself, if I were a man,"
+replied Clementine. "Well, if I accept it as a great sacrifice there
+can be no ill-will between us."
+
+Paz left the room, fearing he might commit some great folly, and
+feeling that wild ideas were getting the better of him. He went to
+walk in the open air, lightly dressed in spite of the cold, but
+without being able to cool the fire in his cheeks or on his brow.
+
+"I thought you had a noble soul,"--the words still rang in his ears.
+
+"A year ago," he said to himself, "she thought me a hero who could
+fight the Russians single-handed!"
+
+He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with the
+spahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checked
+him. "Without me," he thought, "what would become of them? they would
+soon be ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be for
+her if she were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No,
+since all is lost for me in this world,--courage! I will keep on as I
+am."
+
+Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone a
+transformation which has made it European, and far more burlesque and
+otherwise lively than the late Carnival of Venice. Is it that the
+diminishing fortunes of the present time have led Parisians to invent
+a way of amusing themselves collectively, as for instance at their
+clubs, where they hold salons without hostesses and without manners,
+but very cheaply? However this may be, the month of March was prodigal
+of balls, at which dancing, joking, coarse fun, excitement, grotesque
+figures, and the sharp satire of Parisian wit, produced extravagant
+effects. These carnival follies had their special Pandemonium in the
+rue Saint-Honore and their Napoleon in Musard, a small man born
+expressly to lead an orchestra as noisy as the disorderly audience,
+and to set the time for the galop, that witches' dance, which was one
+of Auber's triumphs, for it did not really take form or poesy till the
+grand galop in "Gustave" was given to the world. That tremendous
+finale might serve as the symbol of an epoch in which for the last
+fifty years all things have hurried by with the rapidity of a dream.
+
+Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine and
+immaculate image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of the
+carnival dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because he
+knew the countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there with
+two friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on at
+the curious spectacle of one of these crowded balls.
+
+On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o'clock in the morning,
+the countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower step
+of the platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since then
+given his concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading the
+galop with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished with
+plumes like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd like
+a will-o-the-wisp.
+
+"Ah!" said Clementine to her husband, "you Poles have no honor at all!
+I did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leave
+that woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen."
+
+A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinner
+Adam left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let him
+know very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house any
+longer.
+
+"Yes, madame," said Paz, humbly, "you are right; I am a wretch; I did
+give you my word. But you see how it is; I put off leaving Malaga till
+after the carnival. Besides, that woman exerts an influence over me
+which--"
+
+"An influence!--a woman who ought to be turned out of Musard's by the
+police for such dancing!"
+
+"I agree to all that; I accept the condemnation and I'll leave your
+house. But you know Adam. If I give up the management of your property
+you must show energy yourself. I may have been to blame about Malaga,
+but I have taken the whole charge of your affairs, managed your
+servants, and looked after the very least details. I cannot leave you
+until I see you prepared to continue my management. You have now been
+married three years, and you are safe from the temptations to
+extravagance which come with the honeymoon. I see that Parisian women,
+and even titled ones, do manage both their fortunes and their
+households. Well, as soon as I am certain not so much of your capacity
+as of your perseverance I shall leave Paris."
+
+"It is Thaddeus of Warsaw, and not that Circus Thaddeus who speaks
+now," said Clementine. "Go, and come back cured."
+
+"Cured! never," said Paz, his eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine's
+pretty feet. "You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpected
+piquancy of mind she has." Then, feeling his courage fail him, he
+added hastily, "There is not a woman in society, with her mincing
+airs, that is worth the honest nature of that young animal."
+
+"At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me," said the
+countess, with a glance like that of an angry viper.
+
+After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of her
+affairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods and
+difficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to pay
+for things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He told
+her she could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeus
+had trained the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought the
+countess fully competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementine
+was one of those far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have an
+innate genius as mistress of a household.
+
+This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did
+not end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to
+be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover
+forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and
+Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend.
+His devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing
+her perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment
+imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but
+women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their
+souls--love is their sole illuminator.
+
+During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearing
+to think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think of
+her. Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though he
+did not die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris in
+consultation.
+
+"If he comes safely out of this," said the most distinguished of them
+all, "it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those who
+nurse him to watch for the moment when they must second nature. The
+count's life is in the hands of his nurses."
+
+Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of the
+consultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as much
+for a little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and not
+embarrass them. As he walked along the winding gravelled path which
+led to the pavilion, Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of an
+abyss described by Dante. The unfortunate man had never dreamed that
+the possibility might arise of becoming Clementine's husband, and now
+he had drowned himself in a ditch of mud. His face was convulsed, when
+he reached the kiosk, with an agony of grief; his head, like Medusa's,
+conveyed despair.
+
+"Is he dead?" said Clementine.
+
+"They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not go
+in; they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings."
+
+"Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him," she
+said.
+
+"You have made him very happy," said Thaddeus; "you ought to be easy
+on that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him."
+
+"My loss would be irreparable."
+
+"But, dear, you judged him justly."
+
+"I was never blind to his faults," she said, "but I loved him as a
+wife should love her husband."
+
+"Then you ought, in case you lose him," said Thaddeus, in a voice
+which Clementine had never heard him use, "to grieve for him less than
+if you lost a man who was your pride, your love, and all your life,--
+as some men are to you women. Surely you can be frank at this moment
+with a friend like me. I shall grieve, too; long before your marriage
+I had made him my child, I had sacrificed my life to him. If he dies I
+shall be without an interest on earth; but life is still beautiful to
+a widow of twenty-four."
+
+"Ah! but you know that I love no one," she said, with the impatience
+of grief.
+
+"You don't yet know what it is to love," said Thaddeus.
+
+"Oh, as husbands are, I have sense enough to prefer a child like my
+poor Adam to a superior man. It is now over a month that we have been
+saying to each other, 'Will he live?' and these alternations have
+prepared me, as they have you, for this loss. I can be frank with you.
+Well, I would give my life to save Adam. What is a woman's
+independence in Paris? the freedom to let herself be taken in by
+ruined or dissipated men who pretend to love her. I pray to God to
+leave me this husband who is so kind, so obliging, so little fault-
+finding, and who is beginning to stand in awe of me."
+
+"You are honest, and I love you the better for it," said Thaddeus,
+taking her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. "In solemn
+moments like these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding a
+woman without hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let us
+look to the future. Suppose that God does not grant your prayer,--and
+no one cries to him more than I do, 'Leave me my friend!' Yes, these
+fifty nights have not weakened me; if thirty more days and nights are
+needed I can give them while you sleep,--yes, I will tear him from
+death if, as the doctors say, nursing can save him. But suppose that
+in spite of you and me, the count dies,--well, then, if you were
+loved, oh, adored, by a man of a heart and soul that are worthy of
+you--"
+
+"I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met with
+it."
+
+"Perhaps you are mistaken--"
+
+Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was less
+of love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him from
+head to foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him with
+the words, "Poor Malaga!" uttered in tones which a great lady alone
+can find to give expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeus
+half unconscious behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and went
+back to Adam's chamber.
+
+An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, with
+death in his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he said
+nothing. He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managed
+in a way that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours his
+watchful eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentment
+to Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; he
+seemed both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owe
+his life to me," and he wrote the thought as it were in letters of
+fire on the walls of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine was
+forced to give up the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Paz
+was unwearied. At last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, the
+family physician, told Clementine that Adam was out of danger.
+
+"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me," he said; "without his
+friend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him."
+
+The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, the
+Marquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve of
+starting for Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasion
+to say a few words to him. The first day that Adam was able to drive
+out with his wife and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard as
+the carriage was about to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus,
+who was sitting on the front seat of the caleche, turned to take a
+letter which bore the stamp of the ministry of Foreign affairs. Having
+read it, he put it into his pocket in a manner which prevented
+Clementine or Adam from speaking of it. Nevertheless, by the time they
+reached the porte Maillot, Adam, full of curiosity, used the privilege
+of a sick man whose caprices are to be gratified, and said to
+Thaddeus: "There's no indiscretion between brothers who love each
+other,--tell me what there is in that despatch; I'm in a fever of
+curiosity."
+
+Clementine glanced at Thaddeus with a vexed air, and remarked to her
+husband: "He has been so sulky with me for the last two months that I
+shall never ask him anything again."
+
+"Oh, as for that," replied Paz, "I can't keep it out of the
+newspapers, so I may as well tell you at once. The Emperor Nicholas
+has had the grace to appoint me captain in a regiment which is to take
+part in the expedition to Khiva."
+
+"You are not going?" cried Adam.
+
+"Yes, I shall go, my dear fellow. Captain I came, and captain I
+return. We shall dine together to-morrow for the last time. If I don't
+start at once for St. Petersburg I shall have to make the journey by
+land, and I am not rich, and I must leave Malaga a little
+independence. I ought to think of the only woman who has been able to
+understand me; she thinks me grand, superior. I dare say she is
+faithless, but she would jump--"
+
+"Through the hoop, for your sake and come down safely on the back of
+her horse," said Clementine sharply.
+
+"Oh, you don't know Malaga," said the captain, bitterly, with a
+sarcastic look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful and
+uneasy.
+
+"Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which you
+Parisians love, and the exiles who find a home here love too," he
+said, presently. "My eyes will never again see the evergreens of the
+avenue de Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of the rond-
+points. On the borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor, promoted to
+the command, perhaps, by force of courage and by risking my life, it
+may happen that I shall regret these Champs-Elysees where I have
+driven beside you, and where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve for
+Malaga's hardness--the Malaga of whom I am now speaking."
+
+This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble.
+
+"Then you do love Malaga very much?" she asked.
+
+"I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should ever
+sacrifice."
+
+"What honor?"
+
+"That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol."
+
+After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as they
+passed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing to
+it, "That is the Circus."
+
+He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to the
+Foreign office, and the next morning he had started for Havre before
+the count and countess were up.
+
+"I have lost a friend," said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when he
+heard that Paz had gone,--"a friend in the true meaning of the word. I
+don't know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in my
+house. We are not friends to quarrel about a woman," he said, looking
+intently at Clementine. "You heard what he said yesterday about
+Malaga. Well, he has never so much as touched the little finger of
+that girl."
+
+"How do you know that?" said Clementine.
+
+"I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, and
+the poor girl can't explain even to herself the absolute reserve which
+Thad--"
+
+"Enough!" said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. "Can it be
+that I am the victim of some noble mystification?" she asked herself.
+The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought her
+the following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:--
+
+  "Countess,--To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your
+  contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When
+  I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom
+  we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I
+  loved you thus,--I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were
+  about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward,--a voluntary service, but
+  still the steward of your household.
+
+  "In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an
+  indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your
+  luxury, has been the source of deep enjoyments. If these
+  enjoyments were great when I thought only of Adam, think what they
+  were to my soul when the woman I loved was the mainspring of all I
+  did. I have known the pleasures of maternity in my love. I
+  accepted life thus. Like the paupers who live along the great
+  highways, I built myself a hut on the borders of your beautiful
+  domain, though I never sought to approach you. Poor and lonely,
+  struck blind by Adam's good fortune, I was, nevertheless, the
+  giver. Yes, you were surrounded by a love as pure as a guardian-
+  angel's; it waked while you slept; it caressed you with a look as
+  you passed; it was happy in its own existence,--you were the sun
+  of my native land to me, poor exile, who now writes to you with
+  tears in his eyes as he thinks of the happiness of those first
+  days.
+
+  "When I was eighteen years old, having no one to love, I took for
+  my ideal mistress a charming woman in Warsaw, to whom I confided
+  all my thoughts, my wishes; I made her the queen of my nights and
+  days. She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my
+  love.
+
+  "You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was
+  merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your
+  horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the
+  splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the
+  elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all
+  by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked
+  Paris when Adam would say to me, 'SHE wants this or that.' It was
+  a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle
+  at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city;
+  and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw
+  you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget
+  that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my
+  head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet
+  had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was
+  balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
+  persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
+
+  "I MUST tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
+  of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
+  until now.
+
+  "You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
+  know the man who performed the household miracles you had
+  sometimes noticed. I thought,--forgive me, madame,--I believed you
+  might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a
+  lover, seemed to me so dangerous--for me--that I invented that
+  story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women
+  cannot forgive. I did it in a moment when I felt that my love
+  would be communicated, fatally, to you. Despise me, crush me with
+  the contempt you have so often cast upon me when I did not deserve
+  it; and yet I am certain that, if, on that evening when your aunt
+  took Adam away from you, I had said what I have now written to
+  you, I should, like the tamed tiger that sets his teeth once more
+  in living flesh, and scents the blood, and--
+
+                                                          "Midnight.
+
+  "I could not go on; the memory of that hour is still too living.
+  Yes, I was maddened. Was there hope for me in your eyes? then
+  victory with its scarlet banners would have flamed in mine and
+  fascinated yours. My crime has been to think all this; perhaps
+  wrongly. You alone can judge of that dreadful scene when I drove
+  back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood,
+  with the cold hand of gratitude,--gratitude which must be eternal.
+
+  "Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me
+  there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I
+  should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he
+  lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to
+  betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought 
+  that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said
+  that his life depended on his nursing.
+
+  "Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing
+  now in my being no longer near you.
+
+"Your devoted
+"Thaddeus Paz."
+
+
+"If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?" thought
+Clementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet.
+
+The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to the
+count:--
+
+  "My dear Adam,--Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your
+  future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about
+  your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a
+  hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine's character; she will
+  never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to
+  Malaga.
+
+  "I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen;
+  and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince Paz
+  in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken sixty-
+  thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even.
+
+"Thaddeus."
+
+
+"Idiot that I was," thought Adam; "I came near to cutting my throat
+just now, talking about Malaga."
+
+It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yet
+said nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immensely
+interested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russian
+to the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comes
+from that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to the
+Russian ambassador, with an air of indifference, "Do you know what has
+become of our poor Comte Paz?"
+
+Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so clever
+and clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognize
+him. Yes, many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but--horrible to
+think of!--some are misconceived even though they are loved. The
+simplest women in society exact a certain amount of conventional sham
+from the greatest men. A noble love signifies nothing to them if rough
+and unpolished; it needs the cutting and setting of a jeweller to give
+it value in their eyes.
+
+In January, 1842, the Comtesse Laginska, with her charm of gentle
+melancholy, inspired a violent passion in the Comte de La Palferine,
+one of the most daring and presumptuous lions of the day. La Palferine
+was well aware that the conquest of a woman so guarded by reserve as
+the Comtesse Laginska was difficult, but he thought he could inveigle
+this charming creature into committing herself if he took her
+unawares, by the assistance of a certain friend of her own, a woman
+already jealous of her.
+
+Quite incapable, in spite of her intelligence, of suspecting such
+treachery, the Comtesse Laginska committed the imprudence of going
+with her so-called friend to a masked ball at the Opera. About three
+in the morning, led away by the excitement of the scene, Clementine,
+on whom La Palferine had expended his seductions, consented to accept
+a supper, and was about to enter the carriage of her faithless friend.
+At this critical moment her arm was grasped by a powerful hand, and
+she was taken, in spite of her struggles, to her own carriage, the
+door of which stood open, though she did not know it was there.
+
+"He has never left Paris!" she exclaimed to herself as she recognized
+Thaddeus, who disappeared when the carriage drove away.
+
+Did any woman ever have a like romance in her life? Clementine is
+constantly hoping she may again see Paz.
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bianchon, Horace
+  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Government Clerks
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+  Another Study of Woman
+  La Grande Breteche
+
+Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+  Another Study of Woman
+  Cousin Betty
+
+La Palferine, Comte de
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+  Beatrix
+
+Lelewel
+  The Seamy Side of History
+
+Nathan, Madame Raoul
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Government Clerks
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Paz, Thaddee
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Rouvre, Marquis du
+  A Start in Life
+  Ursule Mirouet
+
+Rouvre, Chevalier du
+  Ursule Mirouet
+
+Schinner, Hippolyte
+  The Purse 
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Pierre Grassou
+  A Start in Life
+  Albert Savarus
+  The Government Clerks
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de
+  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Another Study of Woman
+
+Serizy, Vicomte de
+  A Start in Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+
+Souchet, Francois
+  The Purse  
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Steinbock, Count Wenceslas
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Turquet, Marguerite
+  The Muse of the Department
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Paz, by Honore de Balzac
+
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