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+Project Gutenberg’s The Girl with the Golden Eyes, 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: The Girl with the Golden Eyes
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage
+
+Release Date: March, 1999  [Etext #1659]
+Last Updated: November 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Ellen Marriage
+
+
+
+PREPARER’S NOTE: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a
+trilogy. Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+Langeais. The three stories are frequently combined under the title The
+Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+                    To Eugene Delacroix, Painter.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+
+One of those sights in which most horror is to be encountered is,
+surely, the general aspect of the Parisian populace--a people fearful
+to behold, gaunt, yellow, tawny. Is not Paris a vast field in perpetual
+turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which are whirled along a crop
+of human beings, who are, more often than not, reaped by death, only to
+be born again as pinched as ever, men whose twisted and contorted faces
+give out at every pore the instinct, the desire, the poisons with
+which their brains are pregnant; not faces so much as masks; masks of
+weakness, masks of strength, masks of misery, masks of joy, masks of
+hypocrisy; all alike worn and stamped with the indelible signs of
+a panting cupidity? What is it they want? Gold or pleasure? A few
+observations upon the soul of Paris may explain the causes of its
+cadaverous physiognomy, which has but two ages--youth and decay: youth,
+wan and colorless; decay, painted to seem young. In looking at
+this excavated people, foreigners, who are not prone to reflection,
+experience at first a movement of disgust towards the capital, that
+vast workshop of delights, from which, in a short time, they cannot even
+extricate themselves, and where they stay willingly to be corrupted. A
+few words will suffice to justify physiologically the almost infernal
+hue of Parisian faces, for it is not in mere sport that Paris has been
+called a hell. Take the phrase for truth. There all is smoke and fire,
+everything gleams, crackles, flames, evaporates, dies out, then lights
+up again, with shooting sparks, and is consumed. In no other country has
+life ever been more ardent or acute. The social nature, even in fusion,
+seems to say after each completed work: “Pass on to another!” just as
+Nature says herself. Like Nature herself, this social nature is busied
+with insects and flowers of a day--ephemeral trifles; and so, too,
+it throws up fire and flame from its eternal crater. Perhaps, before
+analyzing the causes which lend a special physiognomy to each tribe of
+this intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed
+out which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals
+in more or less degree.
+
+By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
+interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction
+has rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon which
+all kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian, with
+his indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth,
+lives like a child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at everything,
+consoles himself for everything, jests at everything, forgets,
+desires, and tastes everything, seizes all with passion, quits all with
+indifference--his kings, his conquests, his glory, his idols of bronze
+or glass--as he throws away his stockings, his hats, and his fortune. In
+Paris no sentiment can withstand the drift of things, and their current
+compels a struggle in which the passions are relaxed: there love is
+a desire, and hatred a whim; there’s no true kinsman but the
+thousand-franc note, no better friend than the pawnbroker. This
+universal toleration bears its fruits, and in the salon, as in the
+street, there is no one _de trop_, there is no one absolutely useful,
+or absolutely harmful--knaves or fools, men of wit or integrity. There
+everything is tolerated: the government and the guillotine, religion and
+the cholera. You are always acceptable to this world, you will never
+be missed by it. What, then, is the dominating impulse in this country
+without morals, without faith, without any sentiment, wherein, however,
+every sentiment, belief, and moral has its origin and end? It is gold
+and pleasure. Take those two words for a lantern, and explore that great
+stucco cage, that hive with its black gutters, and follow the windings
+of that thought which agitates, sustains, and occupies it! Consider!
+And, in the first place, examine the world which possesses nothing.
+
+The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his tongue,
+his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live--well, this very man,
+who should be the first to economize his vital principle, outruns his
+strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his child, and ties
+him to the wheel. The manufacturer--or I know not what secondary thread
+which sets in motion all these folk who with their foul hands mould
+and gild porcelain, sew coats and dresses, beat out iron, turn wood and
+steel, weave hemp, festoon crystal, imitate flowers, work woolen things,
+break in horses, dress harness, carve in copper, paint carriages, blow
+glass, corrode the diamond, polish metals, turn marble into leaves,
+labor on pebbles, deck out thought, tinge, bleach, or blacken
+everything--well, this middleman has come to that world of sweat and
+good-will, of study and patience, with promises of lavish wages, either
+in the name of the town’s caprices or with the voice of the monster
+dubbed speculation. Thus, these _quadrumanes_ set themselves to watch,
+work, and suffer, to fast, sweat, and bestir them. Then, careless of the
+future, greedy of pleasure, counting on their right arm as the painter
+on his palette, lords for one day, they throw their money on Mondays
+to the _cabarets_ which gird the town like a belt of mud, haunts of the
+most shameless of the daughters of Venus, in which the periodical money
+of this people, as ferocious in their pleasures as they are calm at
+work, is squandered as it had been at play. For five days, then, there
+is no repose for this laborious portion of Paris! It is given up to
+actions which make it warped and rough, lean and pale, gush forth with a
+thousand fits of creative energy. And then its pleasure, its repose,
+are an exhausting debauch, swarthy and black with blows, white with
+intoxication, or yellow with indigestion. It lasts but two days, but it
+steals to-morrow’s bread, the week’s soup, the wife’s dress, the child’s
+wretched rags. Men, born doubtless to be beautiful--for all creatures
+have a relative beauty--are enrolled from their childhood beneath the
+yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel, the loom, and
+have been promptly vulcanized. Is not Vulcan, with his hideousness and
+his strength, the emblem of this strong and hideous nation--sublime
+in its mechanical intelligence, patient in its season, and once in a
+century terrible, inflammable as gunpowder, and ripe with brandy for
+the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine, to take fire at
+a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold and Pleasure! If
+we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands for an alms, for
+lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to every kind of
+Parisian prostitution, in short, for all the money well or ill earned,
+this people numbers three hundred thousand individuals. Were it not for
+the _cabarets_, would not the Government be overturned every Tuesday?
+Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off its pleasure, is
+penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread, stimulated by a need
+of material procreation, which has become a habit to it. None the
+less, this people has its phenomenal virtues, its complete men, unknown
+Napoleons, who are the type of its strength carried to its highest
+expression, and sum up its social capacity in an existence wherein
+thought and movement combine less to bring joy into it than to
+neutralize the action of sorrow.
+
+Chance has made an artisan economical, chance has favored him with
+forethought, he has been able to look forward, has met with a wife and
+found himself a father, and, after some years of hard privation, he
+embarks in some little draper’s business, hires a shop. If neither
+sickness nor vice blocks his way--if he has prospered--there is the
+sketch of this normal life.
+
+And, in the first place, hail to that king of Parisian activity, to whom
+time and space give way. Yes, hail to that being, composed of saltpetre
+and gas, who makes children for France during his laborious nights,
+and in the day multiplies his personality for the service, glory,
+and pleasure of his fellow-citizens. This man solves the problem
+of sufficing at once to his amiable wife, to his hearth, to the
+_Constitutionnel_, to his office, to the National Guard, to the opera,
+and to God; but, only in order that the _Constitutionnel_, his office,
+the National Guard, the opera, his wife, and God may be changed into
+coin. In fine, hail to an irreproachable pluralist. Up every day at five
+o’clock, he traverses like a bird the space which separates his dwelling
+from the Rue Montmartre. Let it blow or thunder, rain or snow, he is at
+the _Constitutionnel_, and waits there for the load of newspapers which
+he has undertaken to distribute. He receives this political bread with
+eagerness, takes it, bears it away. At nine o’clock he is in the bosom
+of his family, flings a jest to his wife, snatches a loud kiss from her,
+gulps down a cup of coffee, or scolds his children. At a quarter to ten
+he puts in an appearance at the _Mairie_. There, stuck upon a stool,
+like a parrot on its perch, warmed by Paris town, he registers until
+four o’clock, with never a tear or a smile, the deaths and births of an
+entire district. The sorrow, the happiness, of the parish flow beneath
+his pen--as the essence of the _Constitutionnel_ traveled before upon
+his shoulders. Nothing weighs upon him! He goes always straight before
+him, takes his patriotism ready made from the newspaper, contradicts no
+one, shouts or applauds with the world, and lives like a bird. Two yards
+from his parish, in the event of an important ceremony, he can yield
+his place to an assistant, and betake himself to chant a requiem from
+a stall in the church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament,
+where his is the most imposing voice, where he distorts his huge mouth
+with energy to thunder out a joyous _Amen_. So is he chorister. At four
+o’clock, freed from his official servitude, he reappears to shed joy and
+gaiety upon the most famous shop in the city. Happy is his wife, he has
+no time to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of sentiment.
+His mere arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter; their bright
+eyes storm the customers; he expands in the midst of all the finery, the
+lace and muslin kerchiefs, that their cunning hands have wrought. Or,
+again, more often still, before his dinner he waits on a client, copies
+the page of a newspaper, or carries to the doorkeeper some goods that
+have been delayed. Every other day, at six, he is faithful to his
+post. A permanent bass for the chorus, he betakes himself to the opera,
+prepared to become a soldier or an arab, prisoner, savage, peasant,
+spirit, camel’s leg or lion, a devil or a genie, a slave or a
+eunuch, black or white; always ready to feign joy or sorrow, pity or
+astonishment, to utter cries that never vary, to hold his tongue, to
+hunt, or fight for Rome or Egypt, but always at heart--a huckster still.
+
+At midnight he returns--a man, the good husband, the tender father;
+he slips into the conjugal bed, his imagination still afire with the
+illusive forms of the operatic nymphs, and so turns to the profit
+of conjugal love the world’s depravities, the voluptuous curves of
+Taglioni’s leg. And finally, if he sleeps, he sleeps apace, and hurries
+through his slumber as he does his life.
+
+This man sums up all things--history, literature, politics, government,
+religion, military science. Is he not a living encyclopaedia, a
+grotesque Atlas; ceaselessly in motion, like Paris itself, and knowing
+not repose? He is all legs. No physiognomy could preserve its purity
+amid such toils. Perhaps the artisan who dies at thirty, an old man, his
+stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy, will be held, according to
+certain leisured philosophers, to be happier than the huckster is.
+The one perishes in a breath, and the other by degrees. From his eight
+industries, from the labor of his shoulders, his throat, his hands,
+from his wife and his business, the one derives--as from so many
+farms--children, some thousands of francs, and the most laborious
+happiness that has ever diverted the heart of man. This fortune and
+these children, or the children who sum up everything for him, become
+the prey of the world above, to which he brings his ducats and his
+daughter or his son, reared at college, who, with more education than
+his father, raises higher his ambitious gaze. Often the son of a retail
+tradesman would fain be something in the State.
+
+Ambition of that sort carries on our thought to the second Parisian
+sphere. Go up one story, then, and descend to the _entresol_: or climb
+down from the attic and remain on the fourth floor; in fine, penetrate
+into the world which has possessions: the same result! Wholesale
+merchants, and their men--people with small banking accounts and much
+integrity--rogues and catspaws, clerks old and young, sheriffs’ clerks,
+barristers’ clerks, solicitors’ clerks; in fine, all the working,
+thinking, and speculating members of that lower middle class which
+honeycombs the interests of Paris and watches over its granary,
+accumulates the coin, stores the products that the proletariat have
+made, preserves the fruits of the South, the fishes, the wine from every
+sun-favored hill; which stretches its hands over the Orient, and takes
+from it the shawls that the Russ and the Turk despise; which harvests
+even from the Indies; crouches down in expectation of a sale, greedy
+of profit; which discounts bills, turns over and collects all kinds of
+securities, holds all Paris in its hand, watches over the fantasies
+of children, spies out the caprices and the vices of mature age,
+sucks money out of disease. Even so, if they drink no brandy, like the
+artisan, nor wallow in the mire of debauch, all equally abuse their
+strength, immeasurably strain their bodies and their minds alike, are
+burned away with desires, devastated with the swiftness of the pace. In
+their case the physical distortion is accomplished beneath the whip of
+interests, beneath the scourge of ambitions which torture the educated
+portion of this monstrous city, just as in the case of the proletariat
+it is brought about by the cruel see-saw of the material elaborations
+perpetually required from the despotism of the aristocratic “_I will_.”
+ Here, too, then, in order to obey that universal master, pleasure or
+gold, they must devour time, hasten time, find more than four-and-twenty
+hours in the day and night, waste themselves, slay themselves, and
+purchase two years of unhealthy repose with thirty years of old age.
+Only, the working-man dies in hospital when the last term of his stunted
+growth expires; whereas the man of the middle class is set upon living,
+and lives on, but in a state of idiocy. You will meet him, with his
+worn, flat old face, with no light in his eyes, with no strength in his
+limbs, dragging himself with a dazed air along the boulevard--the belt
+of his Venus, of his beloved city. What was his want? The sabre of the
+National Guard, a permanent stock-pot, a decent plot in Pere Lachaise,
+and, for his old age, a little gold honestly earned. _HIS_ Monday is on
+Sunday, his rest a drive in a hired carriage--a country excursion during
+which his wife and children glut themselves merrily with dust or bask
+in the sun; his dissipation is at the restaurateur’s, whose poisonous
+dinner has won renown, or at some family ball, where he suffocates till
+midnight. Some fools are surprised at the phantasmagoria of the monads
+which they see with the aid of the microscope in a drop of water;
+but what would Rabelais’ Gargantua,--that misunderstood figure of
+an audacity so sublime,--what would that giant say, fallen from the
+celestial spheres, if he amused himself by contemplating the motions of
+this secondary life of Paris, of which here is one of the formulae? Have
+you seen one of those little constructions--cold in summer, and with
+no other warmth than a small stove in winter--placed beneath the vast
+copper dome which crowns the Halle-auble? Madame is there by morning.
+She is engaged at the markets, and makes by this occupation twelve
+thousand francs a year, people say. Monsieur, when Madame is up, passes
+into a gloomy office, where he lends money till the week-end to the
+tradesmen of his district. By nine o’clock he is at the passport office,
+of which he is one of the minor officials. By evening he is at the
+box-office of the Theatre Italien, or of any other theatre you like. The
+children are put out to nurse, and only return to be sent to college or
+to boarding-school. Monsieur and Madame live on the third floor, have
+but one cook, give dances in a salon twelve foot by eight, lit by
+argand lamps; but they give a hundred and fifty thousand francs to their
+daughter, and retire at the age of fifty, an age when they begin to show
+themselves on the balcony of the opera, in a _fiacre_ at Longchamps; or,
+on sunny days, in faded clothes on the boulevards--the fruit of all this
+sowing. Respected by their neighbors, in good odor with the government,
+connected with the upper middle classes, Monsieur obtains at sixty-five
+the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and his daughter’s father-in-law, a
+parochial mayor, invites him to his evenings. These life-long labors,
+then, are for the good of the children, whom these lower middle classes
+are inevitably driven to exalt. Thus each sphere directs all its efforts
+towards the sphere above it. The son of the rich grocer becomes a
+notary, the son of the timber merchant becomes a magistrate. No link
+is wanting in the chain, and everything stimulates the upward march of
+money.
+
+Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps,
+will some day find its Dante. In this third social circle, a sort of
+Parisian belly, in which the interests of the town are digested, and
+where they are condensed into the form known as _business_, there moves
+and agitates, as by some acrid and bitter intestinal process, the crowd
+of lawyers, doctors, notaries, councillors, business men, bankers, big
+merchants, speculators, and magistrates. Here are to be found even
+more causes of moral and physical destruction than elsewhere. These
+people--almost all of them--live in unhealthy offices, in fetid
+ante-chambers, in little barred dens, and spend their days bowed down
+beneath the weight of affairs; they rise at dawn to be in time, not to
+be left behind, to gain all or not to lose, to overreach a man or his
+money, to open or wind up some business, to take advantage of some
+fleeting opportunity, to get a man hanged or set him free. They infect
+their horses, they overdrive and age and break them, like their own
+legs, before their time. Time is their tyrant: it fails them, it escapes
+them; they can neither expand it nor cut it short. What soul can remain
+great, pure, moral, and generous, and, consequently, what face retain
+its beauty in this depraving practice of a calling which compels one to
+bear the weight of the public sorrows, to analyze them, to weigh them,
+estimate them, and mark them out by rule? Where do these folk put aside
+their hearts?... I do not know; but they leave them somewhere or other,
+when they have any, before they descend each morning into the abyss of
+the misery which puts families on the rack. For them there is no such
+thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of society, whose confessors
+they are, and despise it. Then, whatever they do, owing to their contact
+with corruption, they either are horrified at it and grow gloomy, or
+else, out of lassitude, or some secret compromise, espouse it. In fine,
+they necessarily become callous to every sentiment, since man, his laws
+and his institutions, make them steal, like jackals, from corpses that
+are still warm. At all hours the financier is trampling on the living,
+the attorney on the dead, the pleader on the conscience. Forced to be
+speaking without a rest, they all substitute words for ideas, phrases
+for feelings, and their soul becomes a larynx. Neither the great
+merchant, nor the judge, nor the pleader preserves his sense of right;
+they feel no more, they apply set rules that leave cases out of count.
+Borne along by their headlong course, they are neither husbands nor
+fathers nor lovers; they glide on sledges over the facts of life, and
+live at all times at the high pressure conduced by business and the vast
+city. When they return to their homes they are required to go to a ball,
+to the opera, into society, where they can make clients, acquaintances,
+protectors. They all eat to excess, play and keep vigil, and their faces
+become bloated, flushed, and emaciated.
+
+To this terrific expenditure of intellectual strength, to such multifold
+moral contradictions, they oppose--not, indeed pleasure, it would be too
+pale a contrast--but debauchery, a debauchery both secret and alarming,
+for they have all means at their disposal, and fix the morality of
+society. Their genuine stupidity lies hid beneath their specialism. They
+know their business, but are ignorant of everything which is outside
+it. So that to preserve their self-conceit they question everything, are
+crudely and crookedly critical. They appear to be sceptics and are in
+reality simpletons; they swamp their wits in interminable arguments.
+Almost all conveniently adopt social, literary, or political prejudices,
+to do away with the need of having opinions, just as they adapt their
+conscience to the standard of the Code or the Tribunal of Commerce.
+Having started early to become men of note, they turn into mediocrities,
+and crawl over the high places of the world. So, too, their faces
+present the harsh pallor, the deceitful coloring, those dull, tarnished
+eyes, and garrulous, sensual mouths, in which the observer recognizes
+the symptoms of the degeneracy of the thought and its rotation in the
+circle of a special idea which destroys the creative faculties of the
+brain and the gift of seeing in large, of generalizing and deducing. No
+man who has allowed himself to be caught in the revolutions of the gear
+of these huge machines can ever become great. If he is a doctor, either
+he has practised little or he is an exception--a Bichat who dies young.
+If a great merchant, something remains--he is almost Jacques Coeur. Did
+Robespierre practise? Danton was an idler who waited. But who, moreover
+has ever felt envious of the figures of Danton and Robespierre, however
+lofty they were? These men of affairs, _par excellence_, attract money
+to them, and hoard it in order to ally themselves with aristocratic
+families. If the ambition of the working-man is that of the small
+tradesman, here, too, are the same passions. The type of this class
+might be either an ambitious bourgeois, who, after a life of privation
+and continual scheming, passes into the Council of State as an ant
+passes through a chink; or some newspaper editor, jaded with intrigue,
+whom the king makes a peer of France--perhaps to revenge himself on the
+nobility; or some notary become mayor of his parish: all people crushed
+with business, who, if they attain their end, are literally _killed_ in
+its attainment. In France the usage is to glorify wigs. Napoleon, Louis
+XVI., the great rulers, alone have always wished for young men to fulfil
+their projects.
+
+Above this sphere the artist world exists. But here, too, the faces
+stamped with the seal of originality are worn, nobly indeed, but worn,
+fatigued, nervous. Harassed by a need of production, outrun by their
+costly fantasies, worn out by devouring genius, hungry for pleasure, the
+artists of Paris would all regain by excessive labor what they have lost
+by idleness, and vainly seek to reconcile the world and glory, money
+and art. To begin with, the artist is ceaselessly panting under his
+creditors; his necessities beget his debts, and his debts require of
+him his nights. After his labor, his pleasure. The comedian plays till
+midnight, studies in the morning, rehearses at noon; the sculptor is
+bent before his statue; the journalist is a marching thought, like the
+soldier when at war; the painter who is the fashion is crushed with
+work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels himself to be a man of
+genius, gnaws his entrails. Competition, rivalry, calumny assail talent.
+Some, in desperation, plunge into the abyss of vice, others die young
+and unknown because they have discounted their future too soon. Few of
+these figures, originally sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand,
+the flagrant beauty of their heads is not understood. An artist’s face
+is always exorbitant, it is always above or below the conventional lines
+of what fools call the _beau-ideal_. What power is it that destroys
+them? Passion. Every passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and
+pleasure. Now, do you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space
+purified? Here is neither labor nor suffering. The soaring arch of
+gold has reached the summit. From the lowest gutters, where its
+stream commences, from the little shops where it is stopped by puny
+coffer-dams, from the heart of the counting-houses and great workshops,
+where its volume is that of ingots--gold, in the shape of dowries and
+inheritances, guided by the hands of young girls or the bony fingers of
+age, courses towards the aristocracy, where it will become a blazing,
+expansive stream. But, before leaving the four territories upon which
+the utmost wealth of Paris is based, it is fitting, having cited the
+moral causes, to deduce those which are physical, and to call attention
+to a pestilence, latent, as it were, which incessantly acts upon the
+faces of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point out
+a deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the
+Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently to exist!
+
+If the air of the houses in which the greater proportion of the middle
+classes live is noxious, if the atmosphere of the streets belches out
+cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air,
+realize that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of
+this great city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that
+be have not yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid
+enough to prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the
+soil, poisoning the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia
+the tradition of her celebrated name. Half of Paris sleeps amidst the
+putrid exhalations of courts and streets and sewers. But let us turn
+to the vast saloons, gilded and airy; the hotels in their gardens,
+the rich, indolent, happy moneyed world. There the faces are lined and
+scarred with vanity. There nothing is real. To seek for pleasure is it
+not to find _ennui_? People in society have at an early age warped their
+nature. Having no occupation other than to wallow in pleasure, they
+have speedily misused their sense, as the artisan has misused brandy.
+Pleasure is of the nature of certain medical substances: in order to
+obtain constantly the same effects the doses must be doubled, and death
+or degradation is contained in the last. All the lower classes are on
+their knees before the wealthy, and watch their tastes in order to turn
+them into vices and exploit them. Thus you see in these folk at an early
+age tastes instead of passions, romantic fantasies and lukewarm loves.
+There impotence reigns; there ideas have ceased--they have evaporated
+together with energy amongst the affectations of the boudoir and the
+cajolements of women. There are fledglings of forty, old doctors
+of sixty years. The wealthy obtain in Paris ready-made wit and
+science--formulated opinions which save them the need of having wit,
+science, or opinion of their own. The irrationality of this world is
+equaled by its weakness and its licentiousness. It is greedy of time
+to the point of wasting it. Seek in it for affection as little as
+for ideas. Its kisses conceal a profound indifference, its urbanity
+a perpetual contempt. It has no other fashion of love. Flashes of wit
+without profundity, a wealth of indiscretion, scandal, and above all,
+commonplace. Such is the sum of its speech; but these happy fortunates
+pretend that they do not meet to make and repeat maxims in the manner of
+La Rochefoucauld as though there did not exist a mean, invented by the
+eighteenth century, between a superfluity and absolute blank. If a few
+men of character indulge in witticism, at once subtle and refined, they
+are misunderstood; soon, tired of giving without receiving, they remain
+at home, and leave fools to reign over their territory. This hollow
+life, this perpetual expectation of a pleasure which never comes, this
+permanent _ennui_ and emptiness of soul, heart, and mind, the lassitude
+of the upper Parisian world, is reproduced on its features, and stamps
+its parchment faces, its premature wrinkles, that physiognomy of the
+wealthy upon which impotence has set its grimace, in which gold is
+mirrored, and whence intelligence has fled.
+
+Such a view of moral Paris proves that physical Paris could not be other
+than it is. This coroneted town is like a queen, who, being always
+with child, has desires of irresistible fury. Paris is the crown of the
+world, a brain which perishes of genius and leads human civilization;
+it is a great man, a perpetually creative artist, a politician with
+second-sight who must of necessity have wrinkles on his forehead, the
+vices of a great man, the fantasies of the artist, and the politician’s
+disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the evolution of good and evil,
+battle and victory; the moral combat of ‘89, the clarion calls of which
+still re-echo in every corner of the world; and also the downfall of
+1814. Thus this city can no more be moral, or cordial, or clean, than
+the engines which impel those proud leviathans which you admire
+when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a sublime vessel laden with
+intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those oracles which fatality
+sometimes allows. The _City of Paris_ has her great mast, all of bronze,
+carved with victories, and for watchman--Napoleon. The barque may roll
+and pitch, but she cleaves the world, illuminates it through the hundred
+mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the seas of science, rides with
+full sail, cries from the height of her tops, with the voice of her
+scientists and artists: “Onward, advance! Follow me!” She carries a
+huge crew, which delights in adorning her with fresh streamers. Boys
+and urchins laughing in the rigging; ballast of heavy _bourgeoisie_;
+working-men and sailor-men touched with tar; in her cabins the lucky
+passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke their cigars leaning over the
+bulwarks; then, on the deck, her soldiers, innovators or ambitious,
+would accost every fresh shore, and shooting out their bright lights
+upon it, ask for glory which is pleasure, or for love which needs gold.
+
+Thus the exorbitant movement of the proletariat, the corrupting
+influence of the interests which consume the two middle classes, the
+cruelties of the artist’s thought, and the excessive pleasure which is
+sought for incessantly by the great, explain the normal ugliness of
+the Parisian physiognomy. It is only in the Orient that the human race
+presents a magnificent figure, but that is an effect of the constant
+calm affected by those profound philosophers with their long pipes,
+their short legs, their square contour, who despise and hold activity
+in horror, whilst in Paris the little and the great and the mediocre run
+and leap and drive, whipped on by an inexorable goddess, Necessity--the
+necessity for money, glory, and amusement. Thus, any face which is fresh
+and graceful and reposeful, any really young face, is in Paris the most
+extraordinary of exceptions; it is met with rarely. Should you see one
+there, be sure it belongs either to a young and ardent ecclesiastic or
+to some good abbe of forty with three chins; to a young girl of pure
+life such as is brought up in certain middle-class families; to a mother
+of twenty, still full of illusions, as she suckles her first-born; to a
+young man newly embarked from the provinces, and intrusted to the care
+of some devout dowager who keeps him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some
+shop assistant who goes to bed at midnight wearied out with folding
+and unfolding calico, and rises at seven o’clock to arrange the window;
+often again to some man of science or poetry, who lives monastically in
+the embrace of a fine idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste;
+else to some self-contented fool, feeding himself on folly, reeking of
+health, in a perpetual state of absorption with his own smile; or to the
+soft and happy race of loungers, the only folk really happy in Paris,
+which unfolds for them hour by hour its moving poetry.
+
+Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to
+whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts,
+and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also have
+a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy their
+physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little happy
+colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their beauty;
+but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets, they lie
+hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain hours, and
+constitute veritable exotic exceptions. However, Paris is essentially
+the country of contrasts. If true sentiments are rare there, there also
+are to be found, as elsewhere, noble friendships and unlimited devotion.
+On this battlefield of interests and passions, just as in the midst
+of those marching societies where egoism triumphs, where every one
+is obliged to defend himself, and which we call _armies_, it seems as
+though sentiments liked to be complete when they showed themselves,
+and are sublime by juxtaposition. So it is with faces. In Paris one
+sometimes sees in the aristocracy, set like stars, the ravishing faces
+of young people, the fruit of quite exceptional manners and education.
+To the youthful beauty of the English stock they unite the firmness
+of Southern traits. The fire of their eyes, a delicious bloom on their
+lips, the lustrous black of their soft locks, a white complexion, a
+distinguished caste of features, render them the flowers of the human
+race, magnificent to behold against the mass of other faces, worn, old,
+wrinkled, and grimacing. So women, too, admire such young people with
+that eager pleasure which men take in watching a pretty girl, elegant,
+gracious, and embellished with all the virginal charms with which our
+imagination pleases to adorn the perfect woman. If this hurried glance
+at the population of Paris has enabled us to conceive the rarity of a
+Raphaelesque face, and the passionate admiration which such an one must
+inspire at the first sight, the prime interest of our history will have
+been justified. _Quod erat demonstrandum_--if one may be permitted to
+apply scholastic formulae to the science of manners.
+
+Upon one of those fine spring mornings, when the leaves, although
+unfolded, are not yet green, when the sun begins to gild the roofs, and
+the sky is blue, when the population of Paris issues from its cells to
+swarm along the boulevards, glides like a serpent of a thousand coils
+through the Rue de la Paix towards the Tuileries, saluting the hymeneal
+magnificence which the country puts on; on one of these joyous days,
+then, a young man as beautiful as the day itself, dressed with taste,
+easy of manner--to let out the secret he was a love-child, the natural
+son of Lord Dudley and the famous Marquise de Vordac--was walking in the
+great avenue of the Tuileries. This Adonis, by name Henri de Marsay,
+was born in France, when Lord Dudley had just married the young lady,
+already Henri’s mother, to an old gentleman called M. de Marsay. This
+faded and almost extinguished butterfly recognized the child as his own
+in consideration of the life interest in a fund of a hundred thousand
+francs definitively assigned to his putative son; a generosity which
+did not cost Lord Dudley too dear. French funds were worth at that time
+seventeen francs, fifty centimes. The old gentleman died without having
+ever known his wife. Madame de Marsay subsequently married the Marquis
+de Vordac, but before becoming a marquise she showed very little anxiety
+as to her son and Lord Dudley. To begin with, the declaration of war
+between France and England had separated the two lovers, and fidelity
+at all costs was not, and never will be, the fashion of Paris. Then the
+successes of the woman, elegant, pretty, universally adored, crushed in
+the Parisienne the maternal sentiment. Lord Dudley was no more troubled
+about his offspring than was the mother,--the speedy infidelity of a
+young girl he had ardently loved gave him, perhaps, a sort of aversion
+for all that issued from her. Moreover, fathers can, perhaps, only love
+the children with whom they are fully acquainted, a social belief of the
+utmost importance for the peace of families, which should be held by all
+the celibate, proving as it does that paternity is a sentiment nourished
+artificially by woman, custom, and the law.
+
+Poor Henri de Marsay knew no other father than that one of the two who
+was not compelled to be one. The paternity of M. de Marsay was naturally
+most incomplete. In the natural order, it is but for a few fleeting
+instants that children have a father, and M. de Marsay imitated nature.
+The worthy man would not have sold his name had he been free from
+vices. Thus he squandered without remorse in gambling hells, and drank
+elsewhere, the few dividends which the National Treasury paid to
+its bondholders. Then he handed over the child to an aged sister, a
+Demoiselle de Marsay, who took much care of him, and provided him, out
+of the meagre sum allowed by her brother, with a tutor, an abbe without
+a farthing, who took the measure of the youth’s future, and determined
+to pay himself out of the hundred thousand livres for the care given to
+his pupil, for whom he conceived an affection. As chance had it, this
+tutor was a true priest, one of those ecclesiastics cut out to become
+cardinals in France, or Borgias beneath the tiara. He taught the child
+in three years what he might have learned at college in ten. Then the
+great man, by name the Abbe de Maronis, completed the education of
+his pupil by making him study civilization under all its aspects: he
+nourished him on his experience, led him little into churches, which
+at that time were closed; introduced him sometimes behind the scenes of
+theatres, more often into the houses of courtesans; he exhibited human
+emotions to him one by one; taught him politics in the drawing-rooms,
+where they simmered at the time, explained to him the machinery of
+government, and endeavored out of attraction towards a fine nature,
+deserted, yet rich in promise, virilely to replace a mother: is not the
+Church the mother of orphans? The pupil was responsive to so much care.
+The worthy priest died in 1812, a bishop, with the satisfaction of
+having left in this world a child whose heart and mind were so well
+moulded that he could outwit a man of forty. Who would have expected to
+have found a heart of bronze, a brain of steel, beneath external traits
+as seductive as ever the old painters, those naive artists, had given to
+the serpent in the terrestrial paradise? Nor was that all. In addition,
+the good-natured prelate had procured for the child of his choice
+certain acquaintances in the best Parisian society, which might equal
+in value, in the young man’s hand, another hundred thousand invested
+livres. In fine, this priest, vicious but politic, sceptical yet
+learned, treacherous yet amiable, weak in appearance yet as vigorous
+physically as intellectually, was so genuinely useful to his pupil, so
+complacent to his vices, so fine a calculator of all kinds of strength,
+so profound when it was needful to make some human reckoning, so
+youthful at table, at Frascati, at--I know not where, that the grateful
+Henri de Marsay was hardly moved at aught in 1814, except when he looked
+at the portrait of his beloved bishop, the only personal possession
+which the prelate had been able to bequeath him (admirable type of
+the men whose genius will preserve the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman
+Church, compromised for the moment by the feebleness of its recruits and
+the decrepit age of its pontiffs; but if the church likes!).
+
+The continental war prevented young De Marsay from knowing his real
+father. It is doubtful whether he was aware of his name. A deserted
+child, he was equally ignorant of Madame de Marsay. Naturally, he had
+little regret for his putative father. As for Mademoiselle de Marsay,
+his only mother, he built for her a handsome little monument in Pere
+Lachaise when she died. Monseigneur de Maronis had guaranteed to this
+old lady one of the best places in the skies, so that when he saw her
+die happy, Henri gave her some egotistical tears; he began to weep on
+his own account. Observing this grief, the abbe dried his pupil’s tears,
+bidding him observe that the good woman took her snuff most offensively,
+and was becoming so ugly and deaf and tedious that he ought to return
+thanks for her death. The bishop had emancipated his pupil in 1811.
+Then, when the mother of M. de Marsay remarried, the priest chose, in a
+family council, one of those honest dullards, picked out by him through
+the windows of his confessional, and charged him with the administration
+of the fortune, the revenues of which he was willing to apply to the
+needs of the community, but of which he wished to preserve the capital.
+
+Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
+obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although he
+had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a rule
+the most fastidious of his rivals considered him to be the prettiest
+youth in Paris. From his father, Lord Dudley, he had derived a pair of
+the most amorously deceiving blue eyes; from his mother the bushiest of
+black hair, from both pure blood, the skin of a young girl, a gentle
+and modest expression, a refined and aristocratic figure, and beautiful
+hands. For a woman, to see him was to lose her head for him; do you
+understand? to conceive one of those desires which eat the heart, which
+are forgotten because of the impossibility of satisfying them, because
+women in Paris are commonly without tenacity. Few of them say to
+themselves, after the fashion of men, the “_Je Maintiendrai_,” of the
+House of Orange.
+
+Underneath this fresh young life, and in spite of the limpid springs in
+his eyes, Henri had a lion’s courage, a monkey’s agility. He could cut a
+ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his horse
+in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a
+four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb,
+but knew how to beat a townsman at the terrible game of _savate_ or
+cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have
+enabled him to become an artist should he fall on calamity, and owned
+a voice which would have been worth to Barbaja fifty thousand francs a
+season. Alas, that all these fine qualities, these pretty faults, were
+tarnished by one abominable vice: he believed neither in man nor woman,
+God nor Devil. Capricious nature had commenced by endowing him, a priest
+had completed the work.
+
+To render this adventure comprehensible, it is necessary to add here
+that Lord Dudley naturally found many women disposed to reproduce
+samples of such a delicious pattern. His second masterpiece of this
+kind was a young girl named Euphemie, born of a Spanish lady, reared in
+Havana, and brought to Madrid with a young Creole woman of the Antilles,
+and with all the ruinous tastes of the Colonies, but fortunately married
+to an old and extremely rich Spanish noble, Don Hijos, Marquis de
+San-Real, who, since the occupation of Spain by French troops, had taken
+up his abode in Paris, and lived in the Rue St. Lazare. As much from
+indifference as from any respect for the innocence of youth, Lord Dudley
+was not in the habit of keeping his children informed of the relations
+he created for them in all parts. That is a slightly inconvenient form
+of civilization; it has so many advantages that we must overlook its
+drawbacks in consideration of its benefits. Lord Dudley, to make no more
+words of it, came to Paris in 1816 to take refuge from the pursuit of
+English justice, which protects nothing Oriental except commerce. The
+exiled lord, when he saw Henri, asked who that handsome young man might
+be. Then, upon hearing the name, “Ah, it is my son.... What a pity!” he
+said.
+
+Such was the story of the young man who, about the middle of the month
+of April, 1815, was walking indolently up the broad avenue of the
+Tuileries, after the fashion of all those animals who, knowing their
+strength, pass along in majesty and peace. Middle-class matrons turned
+back naively to look at him again; other women, without turning round,
+waited for him to pass again, and engraved him in their minds that they
+might remember in due season that fragrant face, which would not have
+disadorned the body of the fairest among themselves.
+
+“What are you doing here on Sunday?” said the Marquis de Ronquerolles to
+Henri, as he passed.
+
+“There’s a fish in the net,” answered the young man.
+
+This exchange of thoughts was accomplished by means of two significant
+glances, without it appearing that either De Ronquerolles or De Marsay
+had any knowledge of the other. The young man was taking note of the
+passers-by with that promptitude of eye and ear which is peculiar to the
+Parisian who seems, at first, to see and hear nothing, but who sees and
+hears all.
+
+At that moment a young man came up to him and took him familiarly by the
+arm, saying to him: “How are you, my dear De Marsay?”
+
+“Extremely well,” De Marsay answered, with that air of apparent
+affection which amongst the young men of Paris proves nothing, either
+for the present or the future.
+
+In effect, the youth of Paris resemble the youth of no other town. They
+may be divided into two classes: the young man who has something, and
+the young man who has nothing; or the young man who thinks and he who
+spends. But, be it well understood this applies only to those natives of
+the soil who maintain in Paris the delicious course of the elegant life.
+There exist, as well, plenty of other young men, but they are children
+who are late in conceiving Parisian life, and who remain its dupes. They
+do not speculate, they study; they _fag_, as the others say. Finally
+there are to be found, besides, certain young people, rich or poor, who
+embrace careers and follow them with a single heart; they are somewhat
+like the Emile of Rousseau, of the flesh of citizens, and they never
+appear in society. The diplomatic impolitely dub them fools. Be they
+that or no, they augment the number of those mediocrities beneath the
+yoke of which France is bowed down. They are always there, always ready
+to bungle public or private concerns with the dull trowel of their
+mediocrity, bragging of their impotence, which they count for
+conduct and integrity. This sort of social _prizemen_ infests the
+administration, the army, the magistracy, the chambers, the courts. They
+diminish and level down the country and constitute, in some manner, in
+the body politic, a lymph which infects it and renders it flabby. These
+honest folk call men of talent immoral or rogues. If such rogues require
+to be paid for their services, at least their services are there;
+whereas the other sort do harm and are respected by the mob; but,
+happily for France, elegant youth stigmatizes them ceaselessly under the
+name of louts.
+
+At the first glance, then, it is natural to consider as very distinct
+the two sorts of young men who lead the life of elegance, the amiable
+corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who
+goes beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that
+the difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as this
+pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over everybody
+else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men, literature, and the
+fine arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and Coburg of each year;
+interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into ridicule science and the
+_savant_; despise all things which they do not know or which they fear;
+set themselves above all by constituting themselves the supreme
+judges of all. They would all hoax their fathers, and be ready to shed
+crocodile tears upon their mothers’ breasts; but generally they believe
+in nothing, blaspheme women, or play at modesty, and in reality are led
+by some old woman or an evil courtesan. They are all equally eaten
+to the bone with calculation, with depravity, with a brutal lust to
+succeed, and if you plumbed for their hearts you would find in all a
+stone. In their normal state they have the prettiest exterior, stake
+their friendship at every turn, are captivating alike. The same badinage
+dominates their ever-changing jargon; they seek for oddity in their
+toilette, glory in repeating the stupidities of such and such actor who
+is in fashion, and commence operations, it matters not with whom, with
+contempt and impertinence, in order to have, as it were, the first move
+in the game; but, woe betide him who does not know how to take a blow
+on one cheek for the sake of rendering two. They resemble, in fine, that
+pretty white spray which crests the stormy waves. They dress and dance,
+dine and take their pleasure, on the day of Waterloo, in the time of
+cholera or revolution. Finally, their expenses are all the same, but
+here the contrast comes in. Of this fluctuating fortune, so agreeably
+flung away, some possess the capital for which the others wait; they
+have the same tailors, but the bills of the latter are still to pay.
+Next, if the first, like sieves, take in ideas of all kinds without
+retaining any, the latter compare them and assimilate all the good.
+If the first believe they know something, know nothing and understand
+everything, lend all to those who need nothing and offer nothing to
+those who are in need; the latter study secretly others’ thoughts and
+place out their money, like their follies, at big interest. The one
+class have no more faithful impressions, because their soul, like
+a mirror, worn from use, no longer reflects any image; the others
+economize their senses and life, even while they seem, like the first,
+to be flinging them away broadcast. The first, on the faith of a hope,
+devote themselves without conviction to a system which has wind and tide
+against it, but they leap upon another political craft when the first
+goes adrift; the second take the measure of the future, sound it, and
+see in political fidelity what the English see in commercial integrity,
+an element of success. Where the young man of possessions makes a pun or
+an epigram upon the restoration of the throne, he who has nothing makes
+a public calculation or a secret reservation, and obtains everything by
+giving a handshake to his friends. The one deny every faculty to others,
+look upon all their ideas as new, as though the world had been made
+yesterday, they have unlimited confidence in themselves, and no crueler
+enemy than those same selves. But the others are armed with an incessant
+distrust of men, whom they estimate at their value, and are sufficiently
+profound to have one thought beyond their friends, whom they exploit;
+then of evenings, when they lay their heads on their pillows, they weigh
+men as a miser weighs his gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless
+impertinence, and allow themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic,
+who make them dance for them by pulling what is the main string of these
+puppets--their vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing have
+something, and those who had something have nothing. The latter look
+at their comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their
+hearts may be bad, but their heads are strong. “He is very strong!” is
+the supreme praise accorded to those who have attained _quibuscumque
+viis_, political rank, a woman, or a fortune. Amongst them are to be
+found certain young men who play this _role_ by commencing with having
+debts. Naturally, these are more dangerous than those who play it
+without a farthing.
+
+The young man who called himself a friend of Henri de Marsay was a
+rattle-head who had come from the provinces, and whom the young men then
+in fashion were teaching the art of running through an inheritance;
+but he had one last leg to stand on in his province, in the shape of a
+secure establishment. He was simply an heir who had passed without any
+transition from his pittance of a hundred francs a month to the entire
+paternal fortune, and who, if he had not wit enough to perceive that he
+was laughed at, was sufficiently cautious to stop short at two-thirds
+of his capital. He had learned at Paris, for a consideration of some
+thousands of francs, the exact value of harness, the art of not being
+too respectful to his gloves, learned to make skilful meditations upon
+the right wages to give people, and to seek out what bargain was the
+best to close with them. He set store on his capacity to speak in good
+terms of his horses, of his Pyrenean hound; to tell by her dress, her
+walk, her shoes, to what class a woman belonged; to study _ecarte_,
+remember a few fashionable catchwords, and win by his sojourn in
+Parisian society the necessary authority to import later into his
+province a taste for tea and silver of an English fashion, and to obtain
+the right of despising everything around him for the rest of his days.
+
+De Marsay had admitted him to his society in order to make use of him in
+the world, just as a bold speculator employs a confidential clerk. The
+friendship, real or feigned, of De Marsay was a social position for Paul
+de Manerville, who, on his side, thought himself astute in exploiting,
+after his fashion, his intimate friend. He lived in the reflecting
+lustre of his friend, walked constantly under his umbrella, wore his
+boots, gilded himself with his rays. When he posed in Henri’s company or
+walked at his side, he had the air of saying: “Don’t insult us, we are
+real dogs.” He often permitted himself to remark fatuously: “If I were
+to ask Henri for such and such a thing, he is a good enough friend of
+mine to do it.” But he was careful never to ask anything of him. He
+feared him, and his fear, although imperceptible, reacted upon the
+others, and was of use to De Marsay.
+
+“De Marsay is a man of a thousand,” said Paul. “Ah, you will see, he
+will be what he likes. I should not be surprised to find him one of
+these days Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nothing can withstand him.”
+
+He made of De Marsay what Corporal Trim made of his cap, a perpetual
+instance.
+
+“Ask De Marsay and you will see!”
+
+Or again:
+
+“The other day we were hunting, De Marsay and I, He would not believe
+me, but I jumped a hedge without moving on my horse!”
+
+Or again:
+
+“We were with some women, De Marsay and I, and upon my word of honor, I
+was----” etc.
+
+Thus Paul de Manerville could not be classed amongst the great,
+illustrious, and powerful family of fools who succeed. He would one day
+be a deputy. For the time he was not even a young man. His friend, De
+Marsay, defined him thus: “You ask me what is Paul? Paul? Why, Paul de
+Manerville!”
+
+“I am surprised, my dear fellow,” he said to De Marsay, “to see you here
+on a Sunday.”
+
+“I was going to ask you the same question.”
+
+“Is it an intrigue?”
+
+“An intrigue.”
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“I can mention it to you without compromising my passion. Besides,
+a woman who comes to the Tuileries on Sundays is of no account,
+aristocratically speaking.”
+
+“Ah! ah!”
+
+“Hold your tongue then, or I shall tell you nothing. Your laugh is too
+loud, you will make people think that we have lunched too well. Last
+Thursday, here on the Terrasse des Feuillants, I was walking along,
+thinking of nothing at all, but when I got to the gate of the Rue de
+Castiglione, by which I intended to leave, I came face to face with a
+woman, or rather a young girl; who, if she did not throw herself at my
+head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one of
+those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep down
+the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet, to nail
+you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this nature, a sort
+of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful when the
+relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this was not
+stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her face
+seemed to say: ‘What, is it you, my ideal! The creation of my thoughts,
+of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why this morning?
+Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, _et cetera_!’ Good, I said to
+myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my dear fellow, speaking
+physically, my incognita is the most adorable feminine person whom I
+ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety which the Romans call
+_fulva, flava_--the woman of fire. And in chief, what struck me the
+most, what I am still taken with, are her two yellow eyes, like a
+tiger’s, a golden yellow that gleams, living gold, gold which thinks,
+gold which loves, and is determined to take refuge in your pocket.”
+
+“My dear fellow, we are full of her!” cried Paul. “She comes here
+sometimes--_the girl with the golden eyes_! That is the name we have
+given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
+have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who was
+worth a hundred thousand of her.”
+
+“Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl; she
+is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl with
+ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy
+threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks
+a white down whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and
+loses itself on her neck.”
+
+“Ah, the other, my dear De Marsay! She has black eyes which have never
+wept, but which burn; black eyebrows which meet and give her an air of
+hardness contradicted by the compact curve of her lips, on which the
+kisses do not stay, lips burning and fresh; a Moorish color that warms a
+man like the sun. But--upon my word of honor, she is like you!”
+
+“You flatter her!”
+
+“A firm figure, the tapering figure of a corvette built for speed, which
+rushes down upon the merchant vessel with French impetuosity, which
+grapples with her and sinks her at the same time.”
+
+“After all, my dear fellow,” answered De Marsay, “what has that got
+to do with me, since I have never seen her? Ever since I have studied
+women, my incognita is the only one whose virginal bosom, whose
+ardent and voluptuous forms, have realized for me the only woman of
+my dreams--of my dreams! She is the original of that ravishing picture
+called _La Femme Caressant sa Chimere_, the warmest, the most infernal
+inspiration of the genius of antiquity; a holy poem prostituted by those
+who have copied it for frescoes and mosiacs; for a heap of bourgeois
+who see in this gem nothing more than a gew-gaw and hang it on their
+watch-chains--whereas, it is the whole woman, an abyss of pleasure into
+which one plunges and finds no end; whereas, it is the ideal woman, to
+be seen sometimes in reality in Spain or Italy, almost never in France.
+Well, I have again seen this girl of the gold eyes, this woman caressing
+her chimera. I saw her on Friday. I had a presentiment that on the
+following day she would be here at the same hour; I was not mistaken.
+I have taken a pleasure in following her without being observed, in
+studying her indolent walk, the walk of the woman without occupation,
+but in the movements of which one devines all the pleasure that lies
+asleep. Well, she turned back again, she saw me, once more she adored
+me, once more trembled, shivered. It was then I noticed the genuine
+Spanish duenna who looked after her, a hyena upon whom some jealous
+man has put a dress, a she-devil well paid, no doubt, to guard this
+delicious creature.... Ah, then the duenna made me deeper in love. I
+grew curious. On Saturday, nobody. And here I am to-day waiting for
+this girl whose chimera I am, asking nothing better than to pose as the
+monster in the fresco.”
+
+“There she is,” said Paul. “Every one is turning round to look at her.”
+
+The unknown blushed, her eyes shone; she saw Henri, she shut them and
+passed by.
+
+“You say that she notices you?” cried Paul, facetiously.
+
+The duenna looked fixedly and attentively at the two young men. When the
+unknown and Henri passed each other again, the young girl touched him,
+and with her hand pressed the hand of the young man. Then she turned her
+head and smiled with passion, but the duenna led her away very quickly
+to the gate of the Rue de Castiglione.
+
+The two friends followed the young girl, admiring the magnificent grace
+of the neck which met her head in a harmony of vigorous lines, and upon
+which a few coils of hair were tightly wound. The girl with the golden
+eyes had that well-knitted, arched, slender foot which presents so
+many attractions to the dainty imagination. Moreover, she was shod with
+elegance, and wore a short skirt. During her course she turned from
+time to time to look at Henri, and appeared to follow the old woman
+regretfully, seeming to be at once her mistress and her slave; she
+could break her with blows, but could not dismiss her. All that was
+perceptible. The two friends reached the gate. Two men in livery let
+down the step of a tasteful _coupe_ emblazoned with armorial bearings.
+The girl with the golden eyes was the first to enter it, took her seat
+at the side where she could be best seen when the carriage turned,
+put her hand on the door, and waved her handkerchief in the duennna’s
+despite. In contempt of what might be said by the curious, her
+handkerchief cried to Henri openly: “Follow me!”
+
+“Have you ever seen a handkerchief better thrown?” said Henri to Paul de
+Manerville.
+
+Then, observing a fiacre on the point of departure, having just set down
+a fare, he made a sign to the driver to wait.
+
+“Follow that carriage, notice the house and the street where it
+stops--you shall have ten francs.... Paul, adieu.”
+
+The cab followed the _coupe_. The _coupe_ stopped in the Rue Saint
+Lazare before one of the finest houses of the neighborhood.
+
+De Marsay was not impulsive. Any other young man would have obeyed his
+impulse to obtain at once some information about a girl who realized so
+fully the most luminous ideas ever expressed upon women in the poetry
+of the East; but, too experienced to compromise his good fortune, he had
+told his coachman to continue along the Rue Saint Lazare and carry him
+back to his house. The next day, his confidential valet, Laurent by
+name, as cunning a fellow as the Frontin of the old comedy, waited in
+the vicinity of the house inhabited by the unknown for the hour at which
+letters were distributed. In order to be able to spy at his ease and
+hang about the house, he had followed the example of those police
+officers who seek a good disguise, and bought up cast-off clothes of
+an Auvergnat, the appearance of whom he sought to imitate. When the
+postman, who went the round of the Rue Saint Lazare that morning, passed
+by, Laurent feigned to be a porter unable to remember the name of a
+person to whom he had to deliver a parcel, and consulted the postman.
+Deceived at first by appearances, this personage, so picturesque in the
+midst of Parisian civilization, informed him that the house in which
+the girl with the golden eyes dwelt belonged to Don Hijos, Marquis de
+San-Real, grandee of Spain. Naturally, it was not with the Marquis that
+the Auvergnat was concerned.
+
+“My parcel,” he said, “is for the marquise.”
+
+“She is away,” replied the postman. “Her letters are forwarded to
+London.”
+
+“Then the marquise is not a young girl who...?”
+
+“Ah!” said the postman, interrupting the _valet de chambre_ and
+observing him attentively, “you are as much a porter as I’m...”
+
+Laurent chinked some pieces of gold before the functionary, who began to
+smile.
+
+“Come, here’s the name of your quarry,” he said, taking from his leather
+wallet a letter bearing a London stamp, upon which the address, “To
+Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes, Rue Saint Lazare, Hotel San-Real, Paris,”
+ was written in long, fine characters, which spoke of a woman’s hand.
+
+“Could you tap a bottle of Chablis, with a few dozen oysters, and a
+_filet saute_ with mushrooms to follow it?” said Laurent, who wished to
+win the postman’s valuable friendship.
+
+“At half-past nine, when my round is finished---- Where?”
+
+“At the corner of the Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin and the Rue
+Neuve-des-Mathurins, at the _Puits sans Vin_,” said Laurent.
+
+“Hark ye, my friend,” said the postman, when he rejoined the valet an
+hour after this encounter, “if your master is in love with the girl, he
+is in for a famous task. I doubt you’ll not succeed in seeing her. In
+the ten years that I’ve been postman in Paris, I have seen plenty of
+different kinds of doors! But I can tell you, and no fear of being
+called a liar by any of my comrades, there never was a door so
+mysterious as M. de San-Real’s. No one can get into the house without
+the Lord knows what counter-word; and, notice, it has been selected on
+purpose between a courtyard and a garden to avoid any communication with
+other houses. The porter is an old Spaniard, who never speaks a word
+of French, but peers at people as Vidocq might, to see if they are not
+thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you--I make no comparisons--could get
+the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut
+by a glazed door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys,
+an old joker more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one
+gets past the porter’s lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the
+entrance, and puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That
+has happened to me, a mere postman. He took me for an eavesdropper in
+disguise, he said, laughing at his nonsense. As for the servants, don’t
+hope to get aught out of them; I think they are mutes, no one in the
+neighborhood knows the color of their speech; I don’t know what wages
+they can pay them to keep them from talk and drink; the fact is, they
+are not to be got at, whether because they are afraid of being shot, or
+that they have some enormous sum to lose in the case of an indiscretion.
+If your master is fond enough of Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes to surmount
+all these obstacles, he certainly won’t triumph over Dona Concha
+Marialva, the duenna who accompanies her and would put her under her
+petticoats sooner than leave her. The two women look as if they were
+sewn to one another.”
+
+“All that you say, worthy postman,” went on Laurent, after having drunk
+off his wine, “confirms me in what I have learned before. Upon my word,
+I thought they were making fun of me! The fruiterer opposite told me
+that of nights they let loose dogs whose food is hung up on stakes just
+out of their reach. These cursed animals think, therefore, that any one
+likely to come in has designs on their victuals, and would tear one to
+pieces. You will tell me one might throw them down pieces, but it seems
+they have been trained to touch nothing except from the hand of the
+porter.”
+
+“The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top that
+of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing,” replied the postman.
+
+“Good! my master knows him,” said Laurent, to himself. “Do you know,”
+ he went on, leering at the postman, “I serve a master who is a rare
+man, and if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of an
+empress, she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you, which
+is what I wish for you, for he is generous, could one count on you?”
+
+“Lord, Monsieur Laurent, my name is Moinot. My name is written exactly
+like _Moineau_, magpie: M-o-i-n-o-t, Moinot.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Laurent.
+
+“I live at No. 11, Rue des Trois Freres, on the fifth floor,” went on
+Moinot; “I have a wife and four children. If what you want of me doesn’t
+transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties, you
+understand! I am your man.”
+
+“You are an honest fellow,” said Laurent, shaking his hand....
+
+“Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real,
+the friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty years
+is capable of taking such precautions,” said Henri, when his _valet de
+chambre_ had related the result of his researches.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Laurent, “unless he takes a balloon no one can get into
+that hotel.”
+
+“You are a fool! Is it necessary to get into the hotel to have Paquita,
+when Paquita can get out of it?”
+
+“But, sir, the duenna?”
+
+“We will shut her up for a day or two, your duenna.”
+
+“So, we shall have Paquita!” said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
+
+“Rascal!” answered Henri, “I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
+carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
+become mine.... Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out.”
+
+Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say it
+to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to desire.
+And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who should
+have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is the
+intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of the
+soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two real
+powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to grow
+weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown very weary
+indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he brought back more
+grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates, to implore of
+Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which should ask the
+employment of his dormant moral and physical strength. Although Paquita
+Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration of perfections which
+he had only yet enjoyed in detail, the attraction of passion was almost
+_nil_ with him. Constant satiety had weakened in his heart the sentiment
+of love. Like old men and people disillusioned, he had no longer
+anything but extravagant caprices, ruinous tastes, fantasies, which,
+once satisfied, left no pleasant memory in his heart. Amongst young
+people love is the finest of the emotions, it makes the life of the soul
+blossom, it nourishes by its solar power the finest inspirations and
+their great thoughts; the first fruits in all things have a delicious
+savor. Amongst men love becomes a passion; strength leads to abuse.
+Amongst old men it turns to vice; impotence tends to extremes. Henri was
+at once an old man, a man, and a youth. To afford him the feelings of
+a real love, he needed like Lovelace, a Clarissa Harlowe. Without
+the magic lustre of that unattainable pearl he could only have either
+passions rendered acute by some Parisian vanity, or set determinations
+with himself to bring such and such a woman to such and such a point of
+corruption, or else adventures which stimulated his curiosity.
+
+The report of Laurent, his _valet de chambre_ had just given an enormous
+value to the girl with the golden eyes. It was a question of doing
+battle with some secret enemy who seemed as dangerous as he was cunning;
+and to carry off the victory, all the forces which Henri could dispose
+of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal old comedy
+which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are an old man,
+a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay. If Laurent was
+the equal of Figaro, the duenna seemed incorruptible. Thus, the living
+play was supplied by Chance with a stronger plot than it had ever been
+by dramatic author! But then is not Chance too, a man of genius?
+
+“It must be a cautious game,” said Henri, to himself.
+
+“Well,” said Paul de Manerville, as he entered the room. “How are we
+getting on? I have come to breakfast with you.”
+
+“So be it,” said Henri. “You won’t be shocked if I make my toilette
+before you?”
+
+“How absurd!”
+
+“We take so many things from the English just now that we might well
+become as great prudes and hypocrites as themselves,” said Henri.
+
+Laurent had set before his master such a quantity of utensils, so many
+different articles of such elegance, that Paul could not refrain from
+saying:
+
+“But you will take a couple of hours over that?”
+
+“No!” said Henri, “two hours and a half.”
+
+“Well, then, since we are by ourselves, and can say what we like,
+explain to me why a man as superior as yourself--for you are
+superior--should affect to exaggerate a foppery which cannot be
+natural. Why spend two hours and a half in adorning yourself, when it is
+sufficient to spend a quarter of an hour in your bath, to do your hair
+in two minutes, and to dress! There, tell me your system.”
+
+“I must be very fond of you, my good dunce, to confide such high
+thoughts to you,” said the young man, who was at that moment having his
+feet rubbed with a soft brush lathered with English soap.
+
+“Have I not the most devoted attachment to you,” replied Paul de
+Manerville, “and do I not like you because I know your superiority?...”
+
+“You must have noticed, if you are in the least capable of observing any
+moral fact, that women love fops,” went on De Marsay, without replying
+in any way to Paul’s declaration except by a look. “Do you know why
+women love fops? My friend, fops are the only men who take care of
+themselves. Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it not imply
+that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another? The man who
+does not belong to himself is precisely the man on whom women are keen.
+Love is essentially a thief. I say nothing about that excess of niceness
+to which they are so devoted. Do you know of any woman who has had a
+passion for a sloven, even if he were a remarkable man? If such a fact
+has occurred, we must put it to the account of those morbid affections
+of the breeding woman, mad fancies which float through the minds of
+everybody. On the other hand, I have seen most remarkable people left in
+the lurch because of their carelessness. A fop, who is concerned about
+his person, is concerned with folly, with petty things. And what is a
+woman? A petty thing, a bundle of follies. With two words said to the
+winds, can you not make her busy for four hours? She is sure that the
+fop will be occupied with her, seeing that he has no mind for great
+things. She will never be neglected for glory, ambition, politics,
+art--those prostitutes who for her are rivals. Then fops have the
+courage to cover themselves with ridicule in order to please a woman,
+and her heart is full of gratitude towards the man who is ridiculous for
+love. In fine, a fop can be no fop unless he is right in being one. It
+is women who bestow that rank. The fop is love’s colonel; he has his
+victories, his regiment of women at his command. My dear fellow, in
+Paris everything is known, and a man cannot be a fop there _gratis_.
+You, who have only one woman, and who, perhaps, are right to have but
+one, try to act the fop!... You will not even become ridiculous, you
+will be dead. You will become a foregone conclusion, one of those men
+condemned inevitably to do one and the same thing. You will come to
+signify _folly_ as inseparably as M. de La Fayette signifies _America_;
+M. de Talleyrand, _diplomacy_; Desaugiers, _song_; M. de Segur,
+_romance_. If they once forsake their own line people no longer attach
+any value to what they do. So, foppery, my friend Paul, is the sign of
+an incontestable power over the female folk. A man who is loved by many
+women passes for having superior qualities, and then, poor fellow, it
+is a question who shall have him! But do you think it is nothing to have
+the right of going into a drawing-room, of looking down at people from
+over your cravat, or through your eye-glass, and of despising the most
+superior of men should he wear an old-fashioned waistcoat?... Laurent,
+you are hurting me! After breakfast, Paul, we will go to the Tuileries
+and see the adorable girl with the golden eyes.”
+
+When, after making an excellent meal, the two young men had traversed
+the Terrasse de Feuillants and the broad walk of the Tuileries, they
+nowhere discovered the sublime Paquita Valdes, on whose account some
+fifty of the most elegant young men in Paris where to be seen, all
+scented, with their high scarfs, spurred and booted, riding, walking,
+talking, laughing, and damning themselves mightily.
+
+“It’s a white Mass,” said Henri; “but I have the most excellent idea in
+the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must be
+bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a love-letter
+slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant, _crudel
+tirano_, is certain to know the person who writes the letters from
+London, and has ceased to be suspicious of them.”
+
+The day after, De Marsay came again to walk on the Terrasse des
+Feuillants, and saw Paquita Valdes; already passion had embellished her
+for him. Seriously, he was wild for those eyes, whose rays seemed akin
+to those which the sun emits, and whose ardor set the seal upon that
+of her perfect body, in which all was delight. De Marsay was on fire to
+brush the dress of this enchanting girl as they passed one another in
+their walk; but his attempts were always vain. But at one moment, when
+he had repassed Paquita and the duenna, in order to find himself on the
+same side as the girl of the golden eyes, when he returned, Paquita,
+no less impatient, came forward hurriedly, and De Marsay felt his
+hand pressed by her in a fashion at once so swift and so passionately
+significant that it was as though he had received the emotions surged up
+in his heart. When the two lovers glanced at one another, Paquita seemed
+ashamed, she dropped her eyes lest she should meet the eyes of Henri,
+but her gaze sank lower to fasten on the feet and form of him whom
+women, before the Revolution, called _their conqueror_.
+
+“I am determined to make this girl my mistress,” said Henri to himself.
+
+As he followed her along the terrace, in the direction of the Place
+Louis XV., he caught sight of the aged Marquis de San-Real, who was
+walking on the arm of his valet, stepping with all the precautions due
+to gout and decrepitude. Dona Concha, who distrusted Henri, made Paquita
+pass between herself and the old man.
+
+“Oh, for you,” said De Marsay to himself, casting a glance of disdain
+upon the duenna, “if one cannot make you capitulate, with a little opium
+one can make you sleep. We know mythology and the fable of Argus.”
+
+Before entering the carriage, the golden-eyed girl exchanged certain
+glances with her lover, of which the meaning was unmistakable and which
+enchanted Henri, but one of them was surprised by the duenna; she said
+a few rapid words to Paquita, who threw herself into the _coupe_ with
+an air of desperation. For some days Paquita did not appear in the
+Tuileries. Laurent, who by his master’s orders was on watch by the
+hotel, learned from the neighbors that neither the two women nor the
+aged marquis had been abroad since the day upon which the duenna had
+surprised a glance between the young girl in her charge and Henri. The
+bond, so flimsy withal, which united the two lovers was already severed.
+
+Some days later, none knew by what means, De Marsay had attained his
+end; he had a seal and wax, exactly resembling the seal and wax affixed
+to the letters sent to Mademoiselle Valdes from London; paper similar
+to that which her correspondent used; moreover, all the implements and
+stamps necessary to affix the French and English postmarks.
+
+He wrote the following letter, to which he gave all the appearances of a
+letter sent from London:--
+
+
+  “MY DEAR PAQUITA,--I shall not try to paint to you in words the
+  passion with which you have inspired me. If, to my happiness, you
+  reciprocate it, understand that I have found a means of
+  corresponding with you. My name is Adolphe de Gouges, and I live
+  at No. 54 Rue de l’Universite. If you are too closely watched to
+  be able to write to me, if you have neither pen nor paper, I shall
+  understand it by your silence. If then, to-morrow, you have not,
+  between eight o’clock in the morning and ten o’clock in the
+  evening, thrown a letter over the wall of your garden into that of
+  the Baron de Nucingen, where it will be waited for during the
+  whole of the day, a man, who is entirely devoted to me, will let
+  down two flasks by a string over your wall at ten o’clock the next
+  morning. Be walking there at that hour. One of the two flasks will
+  contain opium to send your Argus to sleep; it will be sufficient
+  to employ six drops; the other will contain ink. The flask of ink
+  is of cut glass; the other is plain. Both are of such a size as
+  can easily be concealed within your bosom. All that I have already
+  done, in order to be able to correspond with you, should tell you
+  how greatly I love you. Should you have any doubt of it, I will
+  confess to you, that to obtain an interview of one hour with you I
+  would give my life.”
+
+
+“At least they believe that, poor creatures!” said De Marsay; “but they
+are right. What should we think of a woman who refused to be beguiled by
+a love-letter accompanied by such convincing accessories?”
+
+This letter was delivered by Master Moinot, postman, on the following
+day, about eight o’clock in the morning, to the porter of the Hotel
+San-Real.
+
+In order to be nearer to the field of action, De Marsay went and
+breakfasted with Paul, who lived in the Rue de la Pepiniere. At
+two o’clock, just as the two friends were laughingly discussing the
+discomfiture of a young man who had attempted to lead the life of
+fashion without a settled income, and were devising an end for him,
+Henri’s coachman came to seek his master at Paul’s house, and presented
+to him a mysterious personage who insisted on speaking himself with his
+master.
+
+This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a
+model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did any
+African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready suspicion,
+the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength of the Moor,
+and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had the fixity of
+the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a vulture’s, by
+a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low and narrow, had
+something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the yoke of some
+single and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not belong to him.
+
+He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those
+who shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint
+in the single phrase: _He was an unfortunate man_. From this phrase,
+everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each
+country. But who can best imagine his face--white and wrinkled, red at
+the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow
+scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock coat,
+his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his imitation gold
+pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were plastered in mud? Who
+will see all that but the Parisian? The unfortunate man of Paris is the
+unfortunate man _in toto_, for he has still enough mirth to know the
+extent of his misfortune. The mulatto was like an executioner of Louis
+XI. leading a man to the gallows.
+
+“Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?” said Henri.
+
+“Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder,” replied Paul.
+
+“Who are you--you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the two?”
+ said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man.
+
+The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a man
+who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something from
+the gestures and movements of the lips.
+
+“I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de Justice,
+and am named Poincet.”
+
+“Good!... and this one?” said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
+mulatto.
+
+“I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish _patois_, and he has
+brought me here to make himself understood by you.”
+
+The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
+Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
+
+“Ah--so--the game is beginning,” said Henri to himself. “Paul, leave us
+alone for a moment.”
+
+“I translated this letter for him,” went on the interpreter, when they
+were alone. “When it was translated, he was in some place which I don’t
+remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two _louis_
+to fetch him here.”
+
+“What have you to say to me, nigger?” asked Henri.
+
+“I did not translate _nigger_,” said the interpreter, waiting for the
+mulatto’s reply....
+
+“He said, sir,” went on the interpreter, after having listened to the
+unknown, “that you must be at half-past ten to-morrow night on the
+boulevard Montmartre, near the cafe. You will see a carriage there, in
+which you must take your place, saying to the man, who will wait to
+open the door for you, the word _cortejo_--a Spanish word, which means
+_lover_,” added Poincet, casting a glance of congratulation upon Henri.
+
+“Good.”
+
+The mulatto was about to bestow the two _louis_, but De Marsay would not
+permit it, and himself rewarded the interpreter. As he was paying him,
+the mulatto began to speak.
+
+“What is he saying?”
+
+“He is warning me,” replied the unfortunate, “that if I commit a single
+indiscretion he will strangle me. He speaks fair and he looks remarkably
+as if he were capable of carrying out his threat.”
+
+“I am sure of it,” answered Henri; “he would keep his word.”
+
+“He says, as well,” replied the interpreter, “that the person from whom
+he is sent implores you, for your sake and for hers, to act with the
+greatest prudence, because the daggers which are raised above your
+head would strike your heart before any human power could save you from
+them.”
+
+“He said that? So much the better, it will be more amusing. You can come
+in now, Paul,” he cried to his friend.
+
+The mulatto, who had not ceased to gaze at the lover of Paquita Valdes
+with magnetic attention, went away, followed by the interpreter.
+
+“Well, at last I have an adventure which is entirely romantic,” said
+Henri, when Paul returned. “After having shared in a certain number I
+have finished by finding in Paris an intrigue accompanied by serious
+accidents, by grave perils. The deuce! what courage danger gives a
+woman! To torment a woman, to try and contradict her--doesn’t it give
+her the right and the courage to scale in one moment obstacles which it
+would take her years to surmount of herself? Pretty creature, jump then!
+To die? Poor child! Daggers? Oh, imagination of women! They cannot help
+trying to find authority for their little jests. Besides, can one think
+of it, Paquita? Can one think of it, my child? The devil take me, now
+that I know this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of nature, is mine,
+the adventure has lost its charm.”
+
+For all his light words, the youth in Henri had reappeared. In order
+to live until the morrow without too much pain, he had recourse to
+exorbitant pleasure; he played, dined, supped with his friends; he drank
+like a fish, ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand francs.
+He left the Rocher de Cancale at two o’clock in the morning, slept like
+a child, awoke the next morning fresh and rosy, and dressed to go to
+the Tuileries, with the intention of taking a ride, after having seen
+Paquita, in order to get himself an appetite and dine the better, and so
+kill the time.
+
+At the hour mentioned Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage,
+and gave the counter-word to a man who looked to him like the mulatto.
+Hearing the word, the man opened the door and quickly let down the step.
+Henri was so rapidly carried through Paris, and his thoughts left him so
+little capacity to pay attention to the streets through which he passed,
+that he did not know where the carriage stopped. The mulatto let him
+into a house, the staircase of which was quite close to the entrance.
+This staircase was dark, as was also the landing upon which Henri
+was obliged to wait while the mulatto was opening the door of a damp
+apartment, fetid and unlit, the chambers of which, barely illuminated
+by the candle which his guide found in the ante-chamber, seemed to him
+empty and ill furnished, like those of a house the inhabitants of which
+are away. He recognized the sensation which he had experienced from the
+perusal of one of those romances of Anne Radcliffe, in which the hero
+traverses the cold, sombre, and uninhabited saloons of some sad and
+desert spot.
+
+At last the mulatto opened the door of a _salon_. The condition of
+the old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was
+adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame.
+There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of
+things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red
+Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was
+buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by
+one of those turbans which English women of a certain age have invented
+and which would have a mighty success in China, where the artist’s ideal
+is the monstrous.
+
+The room, the old woman, the cold hearth, all would have chilled love to
+death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose voluptuous
+wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free to show her
+arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first interview
+was what every _rendezvous_ must be between persons of passionate
+disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly, who desire
+each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know each other. It
+is impossible that at first there should not occur certain discordant
+notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until the moment when two
+souls find themselves in unison.
+
+If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint aside,
+the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great may be
+her love, is afraid of arriving at the end so promptly, and face to face
+with the necessity of giving herself, which to many women is equivalent
+to a fall into an abyss, at the bottom of which they know not what they
+shall find. The involuntary coldness of the woman contrasts with her
+confessed passion, and necessarily reacts upon the most passionate
+lover. Thus ideas, which often float around souls like vapors, determine
+in them a sort of temporary malady. In the sweet journey which two
+beings undertake through the fair domains of love, this moment is like
+a waste land to be traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp
+and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to
+smiling groves clad with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures
+disport themselves on carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man
+finds himself afflicted with a foolish laugh which is his only answer to
+everything; his wit is, as it were, suffocated beneath the icy pressure
+of his desires. It would not be impossible for two beings of equal
+beauty, intelligence, and passion to utter at first nothing but the
+most silly commonplaces, until chance, a word, the tremor of a certain
+glance, the communication of a spark, should have brought them to the
+happy transition which leads to that flowery way in which one does not
+walk, but where one sways and at the same time does not lapse.
+
+Such a state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the
+feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing similar.
+The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that which is
+produced by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first view, appears
+to be covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the firmament seems black,
+the intensity of light is like darkness. With Henri, as with the Spanish
+girl, there was an equal intensity of feeling; and that law of statics,
+in virtue of which two identical forces cancel each other, might have
+been true also in the moral order. And the embarrassment of the moment
+was singularly increased by the presence of the old hag. Love takes
+pleasure or fright at all, all has meaning for it, everything is an omen
+of happiness or sorrow for it.
+
+This decrepit woman was there like a suggestion of catastrophe, and
+represented the horrid fish’s tail with which the allegorical geniuses
+of Greece have terminated their chimeras and sirens, whose figures, like
+all passions, are so seductive, so deceptive.
+
+Although Henri was not a free-thinker--the phrase is always a
+mockery--but a man of extraordinary power, a man as great as a man can
+be without faith, the conjunction struck him. Moreover, the strongest
+men are naturally the most impressionable, and consequently the most
+superstitious, if, indeed, one may call superstition the prejudice of
+the first thoughts, which, without doubt, is the appreciation of the
+result in causes hidden to other eyes but perceptible to their own.
+
+The Spanish girl profited by this moment of stupefaction to let herself
+fall into the ecstasy of that infinite adoration which seizes the heart
+of a woman, when she truly loves and finds herself in the presence of
+an idol for whom she has vainly longed. Her eyes were all joy, all
+happiness, and sparks flew from them. She was under the charm, and
+fearlessly intoxicated herself with a felicity of which she had dreamed
+long. She seemed then so marvelously beautiful to Henri, that all this
+phantasmagoria of rags and old age, of worn red drapery and of the green
+mats in front of the armchairs, the ill-washed red tiles, all this sick
+and dilapidated luxury, disappeared.
+
+The room seemed lit up; and it was only through a cloud that one could
+see the fearful harpy fixed and dumb on her red sofa, her yellow eyes
+betraying the servile sentiments, inspired by misfortune, or caused by
+some vice beneath whose servitude one has fallen as beneath a tyrant who
+brutalizes one with the flagellations of his despotism. Her eyes had the
+cold glitter of a caged tiger, knowing his impotence and being compelled
+to swallow his rage of destruction.
+
+“Who is that woman?” said Henri to Paquita.
+
+But Paquita did not answer. She made a sign that she understood no
+French, and asked Henri if he spoke English.
+
+De Marsay repeated his question in English.
+
+“She is the only woman in whom I can confide, although she has sold me
+already,” said Paquita, tranquilly. “My dear Adolphe, she is my mother,
+a slave bought in Georgia for her rare beauty, little enough of which
+remains to-day. She only speaks her native tongue.”
+
+The attitude of this woman and her eagerness to guess from the gestures
+of her daughter and Henri what was passing between them, were suddenly
+explained to the young man; and this explanation put him at his ease.
+
+“Paquita,” he said, “are we never to be free then?”
+
+“Never,” she said, with an air of sadness. “Even now we have but a few
+days before us.”
+
+She lowered her eyes, looked at and counted with her right hand on the
+fingers of her left, revealing so the most beautiful hands which Henri
+had ever seen.
+
+“One, two, three----”
+
+She counted up to twelve.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “we have twelve days.”
+
+“And after?”
+
+“After,” she said, showing the absorption of a weak woman before the
+executioner’s axe, and slain in advance, as it were, by a fear which
+stripped her of that magnificent energy which Nature seemed to have
+bestowed upon her only to aggrandize pleasure and convert the most
+vulgar delights into endless poems. “After----” she repeated. Her eyes
+took a fixed stare; she seemed to contemplate a threatening object far
+away.
+
+“I do not know,” she said.
+
+“This girl is mad,” said Henri to himself, falling into strange
+reflections.
+
+Paquita appeared to him occupied by something which was not himself,
+like a woman constrained equally by remorse and passion. Perhaps she had
+in her heart another love which she alternately remembered and forgot.
+In a moment Henri was assailed by a thousand contradictory thoughts.
+This girl became a mystery for him; but as he contemplated her with the
+scientific attention of the _blase_ man, famished for new pleasures,
+like that Eastern king who asked that a pleasure should be created
+for him,--a horrible thirst with which great souls are seized,--Henri
+recognized in Paquita the richest organization that Nature had ever
+deigned to compose for love. The presumptive play of this machinery,
+setting aside the soul, would have frightened any other man than Henri;
+but he was fascinated by that rich harvest of promised pleasures, by
+that constant variety in happiness, the dream of every man, and the
+desire of every loving woman too. He was infuriated by the infinite
+rendered palpable, and transported into the most excessive raptures
+of which the creature is capable. All that he saw in this girl more
+distinctly than he had yet seen it, for she let herself be viewed
+complacently, happy to be admired. The admiration of De Marsay became
+a secret fury, and he unveiled her completely, throwing a glance at her
+which the Spaniard understood as though she had been used to receive
+such.
+
+“If you are not to be mine, mine only, I will kill you!” he cried.
+
+Hearing this speech, Paquita covered her face in her hands, and cried
+naively:
+
+“Holy Virgin! What have I brought upon myself?”
+
+She rose, flung herself down upon the red sofa, and buried her head in
+the rags which covered the bosom of her mother, and wept there. The
+old woman received her daughter without issuing from her state of
+immobility, or displaying any emotion. The mother possessed in the
+highest degree that gravity of savage races, the impassiveness of a
+statue upon which all remarks are lost. Did she or did she not love her
+daughter? Beneath that mask every human emotion might brood--good and
+evil; and from this creature all might be expected. Her gaze passed
+slowly from her daughter’s beautiful hair, which covered her like a
+mantle, to the face of Henri, which she considered with an indescribable
+curiosity.
+
+She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice
+Nature had made so seductive a man.
+
+“These women are making sport of me,” said Henri to himself.
+
+At that moment Paquita raised her head, cast at him one of those looks
+which reach the very soul and consume it. So beautiful seemed she that
+he swore he would possess such a treasure of beauty.
+
+“My Paquita! Be mine!”
+
+“Wouldst thou kill me?” she said fearfully, palpitating and anxious, but
+drawn towards him by an inexplicable force.
+
+“Kill thee--I!” he said, smiling.
+
+Paquita uttered a cry of alarm, said a word to the old woman, who
+authoritatively seized Henri’s hand and that of her daughter. She gazed
+at them for a long time, and then released them, wagging her head in a
+fashion horribly significant.
+
+“Be mine--this evening, this moment; follow me, do not leave me! It must
+be, Paquita! Dost thou love me? Come!”
+
+In a moment he had poured out a thousand foolish words to her, with the
+rapidity of a torrent coursing between the rocks, and repeating the same
+sound in a thousand different forms.
+
+“It is the same voice!” said Paquita, in a melancholy voice, which
+De Marsay could not overhear, “and the same ardor,” she added. “So be
+it--yes,” she said, with an abandonment of passion which no words can
+describe. “Yes; but not to-night. To-night Adolphe, I gave too little
+opium to La Concha. She might wake up, and I should be lost. At this
+moment the whole household believes me to be asleep in my room. In two
+days be at the same spot, say the same word to the same man. That man is
+my foster-father. Cristemio worships me, and would die in torments for
+me before they could extract one word against me from him. Farewell,”
+ she said seizing Henri by the waist and twining round him like a
+serpent.
+
+She pressed him on every side at once, lifted her head to his, and
+offered him her lips, then snatched a kiss which filled them both with
+such a dizziness that it seemed to Henri as though the earth opened; and
+Paquita cried: “Enough, depart!” in a voice which told how little
+she was mistress of herself. But she clung to him still, still crying
+“Depart!” and brought him slowly to the staircase. There the mulatto,
+whose white eyes lit up at the sight of Paquita, took the torch from the
+hands of his idol, and conducted Henri to the street. He left the light
+under the arch, opened the door, put Henri into the carriage, and set
+him down on the Boulevard des Italiens with marvelous rapidity. It was
+as though the horses had hell-fire in their veins.
+
+The scene was like a dream to De Marsay, but one of those dreams
+which, even when they fade away, leave a feeling of supernatural
+voluptuousness, which a man runs after for the remainder of his life.
+A single kiss had been enough. Never had _rendezvous_ been spent in a
+manner more decorous or chaste, or, perhaps, more coldly, in a spot of
+which the surroundings were more gruesome, in presence of a more hideous
+divinity; for the mother had remained in Henri’s imagination like some
+infernal, cowering thing, cadaverous, monstrous, savagely ferocious,
+which the imagination of poets and painters had not yet conceived. In
+effect, no _rendezvous_ had ever irritated his senses more, revealed
+more audacious pleasures, or better aroused love from its centre to
+shed itself round him like an atmosphere. There was something sombre,
+mysterious, sweet, tender, constrained, and expansive, an intermingling
+of the awful and the celestial, of paradise and hell, which made De
+Marsay like a drunken man.
+
+He was no longer himself, and he was, withal, great enough to be able to
+resist the intoxication of pleasure.
+
+In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
+story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age
+when young men generally belittle themselves in their relations with
+women, or in too much occupation with them. Its growth was due to a
+concurrence of secret circumstances, which invested him with a vast and
+unsuspected power.
+
+This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
+modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by the
+laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental despot.
+But this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by brutish men,
+was increased tenfold by its conjunction with European intelligence,
+with French wit--the most subtle, the keenest of all intellectual
+instruments. Henri could do what he would in the interest of his
+pleasures and vanities. This invisible action upon the social world
+had invested him with a real, but secret, majesty, without emphasis and
+deriving from himself. He had not the opinion which Louis XIV. could
+have of himself, but that which the proudest of the Caliphs, the
+Pharoahs, the Xerxes, who held themselves to be of divine origin, had
+of themselves when they imitated God, and veiled themselves from their
+subjects under the pretext that their looks dealt forth death. Thus,
+without any remorse at being at once the judge and the accuser, De
+Marsay coldly condemned to death the man or the woman who had seriously
+offended him. Although often pronounced almost lightly, the verdict
+was irrevocable. An error was a misfortune similar to that which a
+thunderbolt causes when it falls upon a smiling Parisienne in some
+hackney coach, instead of crushing the old coachman who is driving
+her to a _rendezvous_. Thus the bitter and profound sarcasm which
+distinguished the young man’s conversation usually tended to frighten
+people; no one was anxious to put him out. Women are prodigiously fond
+of those persons who call themselves pashas, and who are, as it were
+accompanied by lions and executioners, and who walk in a panoply of
+terror. The result, in the case of such men, is a security of action,
+a certitude of power, a pride of gaze, a leonine consciousness, which
+makes women realize the type of strength of which they all dream. Such
+was De Marsay.
+
+Happy, for the moment, with his future, he grew young and pliable, and
+thought of nothing but love as he went to bed. He dreamed of the girl
+with the golden eyes, as the young and passionate can dream. His dreams
+were monstrous images, unattainable extravagances--full of light,
+revealing invisible worlds, yet in a manner always incomplete, for an
+intervening veil changes the conditions of vision.
+
+For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared and no one knew
+what had become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain
+conditions, and, happily for him, during those two days he was a private
+soldier in the service of the demon to whom he owed his talismanic
+existence. But at the appointed time, in the evening, he was
+waiting--and he had not long to wait--for the carriage. The mulatto
+approached Henri, in order to repeat to him in French a phrase which he
+seemed to have learned by heart.
+
+“If you wish to come, she told me, you must consent to have your eyes
+bandaged.”
+
+And Cristemio produced a white silk handkerchief.
+
+“No!” said Henri, whose omnipotence revolted suddenly.
+
+He tried to leap in. The mulatto made a sign, and the carriage drove
+off.
+
+“Yes!” cried De Marsay, furious at the thought of losing a piece of good
+fortune which had been promised him.
+
+He saw, moreover, the impossibility of making terms with a slave
+whose obedience was as blind as the hangman’s. Nor was it this passive
+instrument upon whom his anger could fall.
+
+The mulatto whistled, the carriage returned. Henri got in hastily.
+Already a few curious onlookers had assembled like sheep on the
+boulevard. Henri was strong; he tried to play the mulatto. When the
+carriage started at a gallop he seized his hands, in order to master
+him, and retain, by subduing his attendant, the possession of his
+faculties, so that he might know whither he was going. It was a vain
+attempt. The eyes of the mulatto flashed from the darkness. The fellow
+uttered a cry which his fury stifled in his throat, released himself,
+threw back De Marsay with a hand like iron, and nailed him, so to
+speak, to the bottom of the carriage; then with his free hand, he drew
+a triangular dagger, and whistled. The coachman heard the whistle and
+stopped. Henri was unarmed, he was forced to yield. He moved his head
+towards the handkerchief. The gesture of submission calmed Cristemio,
+and he bound his eyes with a respect and care which manifested a sort
+of veneration for the person of the man whom his idol loved. But, before
+taking this course, he had placed his dagger distrustfully in his side
+pocket, and buttoned himself up to the chin.
+
+“That nigger would have killed me!” said De Marsay to himself.
+
+Once more the carriage moved on rapidly. There was one resource still
+open to a young man who knew Paris as well as Henri. To know whither
+he was going, he had but to collect himself and count, by the number of
+gutters crossed, the streets leading from the boulevards by which the
+carriage passed, so long as it continued straight along. He could thus
+discover into which lateral street it would turn, either towards the
+Seine or towards the heights of Montmartre, and guess the name or
+position of the street in which his guide should bring him to a halt.
+But the violent emotion which his struggle had caused him, the rage into
+which his compromised dignity had thrown him, the ideas of vengeance
+to which he abandoned himself, the suppositions suggested to him by the
+circumstantial care which this girl had taken in order to bring him
+to her, all hindered him from the attention, which the blind have,
+necessary for the concentration of his intelligence and the perfect
+lucidity of his recollection. The journey lasted half an hour. When the
+carriage stopped, it was no longer on the street. The mulatto and the
+coachman took Henri in their arms, lifted him out, and, putting him
+into a sort of litter, conveyed him across a garden. He could smell its
+flowers and the perfume peculiar to trees and grass.
+
+The silence which reigned there was so profound that he could
+distinguish the noise made by the drops of water falling from the moist
+leaves. The two men took him to a staircase, set him on his feet, led
+him by his hands through several apartments, and left him in a room
+whose atmosphere was perfumed, and the thick carpet of which he could
+feel beneath his feet.
+
+A woman’s hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief for
+him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly
+and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found
+himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced
+opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a
+chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door
+on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a
+window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish divan,
+that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress as broad
+as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white cashmere,
+relieved by bows of black and scarlet silk, arranged in panels. The top
+of this huge bed was raised several inches by numerous cushions, which
+further enriched it by their tasteful comfort. The boudoir was lined
+with some red stuff, over which an Indian muslin was stretched, fluted
+after the fashion of Corinthian columns, in plaits going in and out, and
+bound at the top and bottom by bands of poppy-colored stuff, on which
+were designs in black arabesque.
+
+Below the muslin the poppy turned to rose, that amorous color, which
+was matched by window-curtains, which were of Indian muslin lined with
+rose-colored taffeta, and set off with a fringe of poppy-color and
+black. Six silver-gilt arms, each supporting two candles, were attached
+to the tapestry at an equal distance, to illuminate the divan. The
+ceiling, from the middle of which a lustre of unpolished silver hung,
+was of a brilliant whiteness, and the cornice was gilded. The carpet was
+like an Oriental shawl; it had the designs and recalled the poetry of
+Persia, where the hands of slaves had worked on it. The furniture
+was covered in white cashmere, relieved by black and poppy-colored
+ornaments. The clock, the candelabra, all were in white marble and gold.
+The only table there had a cloth of cashmere. Elegant flower-pots held
+roses of every kind, flowers white or red. In fine, the least detail
+seemed to have been the object of loving thought. Never had richness
+hidden itself more coquettishly to become elegance, to express grace,
+to inspire pleasure. Everything there would have warmed the coldest
+of beings. The caresses of the tapestry, of which the color changed
+according to the direction of one’s gaze, becoming either all white
+or all rose, harmonized with the effects of the light shed upon the
+diaphanous tissues of the muslin, which produced an appearance of
+mistiness. The soul has I know not what attraction towards white, love
+delights in red, and the passions are flattered by gold, which has the
+power of realizing their caprices. Thus all that man possesses within
+him of vague and mysterious, all his inexplicable affinities, were
+caressed in their involuntary sympathies. There was in this perfect
+harmony a concert of color to which the soul responded with vague and
+voluptuous and fluctuating ideas.
+
+It was out of a misty atmosphere, laden with exquisite perfumes, that
+Paquita, clad in a white wrapper, her feet bare, orange blossoms in her
+black hair, appeared to Henri, knelt before him, adoring him as the god
+of this temple, whither he had deigned to come. Although De Marsay
+was accustomed to seeing the utmost efforts of Parisian luxury, he was
+surprised at the aspect of this shell, like that from which Venus rose
+out of the sea. Whether from an effect of contrast between the darkness
+from which he issued and the light which bathed his soul, whether from
+a comparison which he swiftly made between this scene and that of their
+first interview, he experienced one of those delicate sensations which
+true poetry gives. Perceiving in the midst of this retreat, which
+had been opened to him as by a fairy’s magic wand, the masterpiece of
+creation, this girl, whose warmly colored tints, whose soft skin--soft,
+but slightly gilded by the shadows, by I know not what vaporous effusion
+of love--gleamed as though it reflected the rays of color and light, his
+anger, his desire for vengeance, his wounded vanity, all were lost.
+
+Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her
+on his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the voluptuous
+pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties softly enveloped
+him.
+
+“Come to me, Paquita!” he said, in a low voice.
+
+“Speak, speak without fear!” she said. “This retreat was built for
+love. No sound can escape from it, so greatly was it desired to guard
+avariciously the accents and music of the beloved voice. However loud
+should be the cries, they would not be heard without these walls. A
+person might be murdered, and his moans would be as vain as if he were
+in the midst of the great desert.”
+
+“Who has understood jealousy and its needs so well?”
+
+“Never question me as to that,” she answered, untying with a gesture of
+wonderful sweetness the young man’s scarf, doubtless in order the better
+to behold his neck.
+
+“Yes, there is the neck I love so well!” she said. “Wouldst thou please
+me?”
+
+This interrogation, rendered by the accent almost lascivious, drew
+De Marsay from the reverie in which he had been plunged by Paquita’s
+authoritative refusal to allow him any research as to the unknown being
+who hovered like a shadow about them.
+
+“And if I wished to know who reigns here?”
+
+Paquita looked at him trembling.
+
+“It is not I, then?” he said, rising and freeing himself from the girl,
+whose head fell backwards. “Where I am, I would be alone.”
+
+“Strike, strike!...” said the poor slave, a prey to terror.
+
+“For what do you take me, then?... Will you answer?”
+
+Paquita got up gently, her eyes full of tears, took a poniard from one
+of the two ebony pieces of furniture, and presented it to Henri with a
+gesture of submission which would have moved a tiger.
+
+“Give me a feast such as men give when they love,” she said, “and whilst
+I sleep, slay me, for I know not how to answer thee. Hearken! I am bound
+like some poor beast to a stake; I am amazed that I have been able to
+throw a bridge over the abyss which divides us. Intoxicate me, then kill
+me! Ah, no, no!” she cried, joining her hands, “do not kill me! I love
+life! Life is fair to me! If I am a slave, I am a queen too. I could
+beguile you with words, tell you that I love you alone, prove it to you,
+profit by my momentary empire to say to you: ‘Take me as one tastes the
+perfume of a flower when one passes it in a king’s garden.’ Then, after
+having used the cunning eloquence of woman and soared on the wings of
+pleasure, after having quenched my thirst, I could have you cast into a
+pit, where none could find you, which has been made to gratify vengeance
+without having to fear that of the law, a pit full of lime which would
+kindle and consume you, until no particle of you were left. You would
+stay in my heart, mine forever.”
+
+Henri looked at the girl without trembling, and this fearless gaze
+filled her with joy.
+
+“No, I shall not do it! You have fallen into no trap here, but upon the
+heart of a woman who adores you, and it is I who will be cast into the
+pit.”
+
+“All this appears to me prodigiously strange,” said De Marsay,
+considering her. “But you seem to me a good girl, a strange nature; you
+are, upon my word of honor, a living riddle, the answer to which is very
+difficult to find.”
+
+Paquita understood nothing of what the young man said; she looked at
+him gently, opening wide eyes which could never be stupid, so much was
+pleasure written in them.
+
+“Come, then, my love,” she said, returning to her first idea, “wouldst
+thou please me?”
+
+“I would do all that thou wouldst, and even that thou wouldst not,”
+ answered De Marsay, with a laugh. He had recovered his foppish ease, as
+he took the resolve to let himself go to the climax of his good fortune,
+looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted, moreover, on his
+power and his capacity of a man used to adventures, to dominate this
+girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
+
+“Well,” said she, “let me arrange you as I would like.”
+
+Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of red
+velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with a
+woman’s bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to
+these follies with a child’s innocence, she laughed a convulsive laugh,
+and resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing beyond.
+
+If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
+creatures--made by heaven in a joyous moment--found, it is perhaps
+necessary to translate metaphysically the extraordinary and almost
+fantastic impressions of the young man. That which persons in the social
+position of De Marsay, living as he lived, are best able to recognize is
+a girl’s innocence. But, strange phenomenon! The girl of the golden eyes
+might be virgin, but innocent she was certainly not. The fantastic
+union of the mysterious and the real, of darkness and light, horror and
+beauty, pleasure and danger, paradise and hell, which had already been
+met with in this adventure, was resumed in the capricious and sublime
+being with which De Marsay dallied. All the utmost science or the most
+refined pleasure, all that Henri could know of that poetry of the senses
+which is called love, was excelled by the treasures poured forth by this
+girl, whose radiant eyes gave the lie to none of the promises which they
+made.
+
+She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that Hafiz,
+have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of Saadi,
+nor that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy--full of confusion
+and stupefaction--which seized the delicious girl when the error in
+which an iron hand had caused her to live was at an end.
+
+“Dead!” she said, “I am dead, Adolphe! Take me away to the world’s
+end, to an island where no one knows us. Let there be no traces of our
+flight! We should be followed to the gates of hell. God! here is the
+day! Escape! Shall I ever see you again? Yes, to-morrow I will see
+you, if I have to deal death to all my warders to have that joy. Till
+to-morrow.”
+
+She pressed him in her arms with an embrace in which the terror of death
+mingled. Then she touched a spring, which must have been in connection
+with a bell, and implored De Marsay to permit his eyes to be bandaged.
+
+“And if I would not--and if I wished to stay here?”
+
+“You would be the death of me more speedily,” she said, “for now I know
+I am certain to die on your account.”
+
+Henri submitted. In the man who had just gorged himself with pleasure
+there occurs a propensity to forgetfulness, I know not what ingratitude,
+a desire for liberty, a whim to go elsewhere, a tinge of contempt and,
+perhaps, of disgust for his idol; in fine, indescribable sentiments
+which render him ignoble and ashamed. The certainty of this confused,
+but real, feeling in souls who are not illuminated by that celestial
+light, nor perfumed with that holy essence from which the performance
+of sentiment springs, doubtless suggested to Rousseau the adventures of
+Lord Edward, which conclude the letters of the _Nouvelle Heloise_. If
+Rousseau is obviously inspired by the work of Richardson, he departs
+from it in a thousand details, which leave his achievement magnificently
+original; he has recommended it to posterity by great ideas which it is
+difficult to liberate by analysis, when, in one’s youth, one reads this
+work with the object of finding in it the lurid representation of the
+most physical of our feelings, whereas serious and philosophical writers
+never employ its images except as the consequence or the corollary of
+a vast thought; and the adventures of Lord Edward are one of the most
+Europeanly delicate ideas of the whole work.
+
+Henri, therefore, found himself beneath the domination of that confused
+sentiment which is unknown to true love. There was needful, in
+some sort, the persuasive grip of comparisons, and the irresistible
+attraction of memories to lead him back to a woman. True love rules
+above all through recollection. A woman who is not engraven upon the
+soul by excess of pleasure or by strength of emotion, how can she ever
+be loved? In Henri’s case, Paquita had established herself by both of
+these reasons. But at this moment, seized as he was by the satiety of
+his happiness, that delicious melancholy of the body, he could hardly
+analyze his heart, even by recalling to his lips the taste of the
+liveliest gratifications that he had ever grasped.
+
+He found himself on the Boulevard Montmartre at the break of day,
+gazed stupidly at the retreating carriage, produced two cigars from his
+pocket, lit one from the lantern of a good woman who sold brandy and
+coffee to workmen and street arabs and chestnut venders--to all the
+Parisian populace which begins its work before daybreak; then he went
+off, smoking his cigar, and putting his hands in his trousers’ pockets
+with a devil-may-care air which did him small honor.
+
+“What a good thing a cigar is! That’s one thing a man will never tire
+of,” he said to himself.
+
+Of the girl with the golden eyes, over whom at that time all the elegant
+youth of Paris was mad, he hardly thought. The idea of death, expressed
+in the midst of their pleasure, and the fear of which had more than once
+darkened the brow of that beautiful creature, who held to the houris of
+Asia by her mother, to Europe by her education, to the tropics by her
+birth, seemed to him merely one of those deceptions by which women seek
+to make themselves interesting.
+
+“She is from Havana--the most Spanish region to be found in the New
+World. So she preferred to feign terror rather than cast in my teeth
+indisposition or difficulty, coquetry or duty, like a Parisian woman. By
+her golden eyes, how glad I shall be to sleep.”
+
+He saw a hackney coach standing at the corner of Frascati’s waiting for
+some gambler; he awoke the driver, was driven home, went to bed, and
+slept the sleep of the dissipated, which for some queer reason--of which
+no rhymer has yet taken advantage--is as profound as that of innocence.
+Perhaps it is an instance of the proverbial axiom, _extremes meet_.
+
+About noon De Marsay awoke and stretched himself; he felt the grip of
+that sort of voracious hunger which old soldiers can remember having
+experienced on the morrow of victory. He was delighted, therefore, to
+see Paul de Manerville standing in front of him, for at such a time
+nothing is more agreeable than to eat in company.
+
+“Well,” his friend remarked, “we all imagined that you had been shut up
+for the last ten days with the girl of the golden eyes.”
+
+“The girl of the golden eyes! I have forgotten her. Faith! I have other
+fish to fry!”
+
+“Ah! you are playing at discretion.”
+
+“Why not?” asked De Marsay, with a laugh. “My dear fellow, discretion
+is the best form of calculation. Listen--however, no! I will not say
+a word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a
+gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river which
+is of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that is most
+sacred in life--of cigars! I am no professor of social economy for the
+instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give you a
+tunny omelette than to lavish the resources of my brain on you.”
+
+“Do you bargain with your friends?”
+
+“My dear fellow,” said Henri, who rarely denied himself a sarcasm,
+“since all the same, you may some day need, like anybody else, to use
+discretion, and since I have much love for you--yes, I like you! Upon my
+word, if you only wanted a thousand-franc note to keep you from blowing
+your brains out, you would find it here, for we haven’t yet done any
+business of that sort, eh, Paul? If you had to fight to-morrow, I would
+measure the ground and load the pistols, so that you might be killed
+according to rule. In short, if anybody besides myself took it into his
+head to say ill of you in your absence, he would have to deal with the
+somewhat nasty gentleman who walks in my shoes--there’s what I call a
+friendship beyond question. Well, my good fellow, if you should
+ever have need of discretion, understand that there are two sorts of
+discretion--the active and the negative. Negative discretion is that
+of fools who make use of silence, negation, an air of refusal, the
+discretion of locked doors--mere impotence! Active discretion proceeds
+by affirmation. Suppose at the club this evening I were to say: ‘Upon my
+word of honor the golden-eyed was not worth all she cost me!’ Everybody
+would exclaim when I was gone: ‘Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who
+tried to make us believe that he has already had the girl of the golden
+eyes? It’s his way of trying to disembarrass himself of his rivals: he’s
+no simpleton.’ But such a ruse is vulgar and dangerous. However gross a
+folly one utters, there are always idiots to be found who will believe
+it. The best form of discretion is that of women when they want to take
+the change out of their husbands. It consists in compromising a woman
+with whom we are not concerned, or whom we do not love, in order to save
+the honor of the one whom we love well enough to respect. It is what is
+called the _woman-screen_.... Ah! here is Laurent. What have you got for
+us?”
+
+“Some Ostend oysters, Monsieur le Comte.”
+
+“You will know some day, Paul, how amusing it is to make a fool of the
+world by depriving it of the secret of one’s affections. I derive an
+immense pleasure in escaping from the stupid jurisdiction of the crowd,
+which knows neither what it wants, nor what one wants of it, which takes
+the means for the end, and by turns curses and adores, elevates and
+destroys! What a delight to impose emotions on it and receive none from
+it, to tame it, never to obey it. If one may ever be proud of anything,
+is it not a self-acquired power, of which one is at once the cause and
+effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man knows what I love,
+nor what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what I may have wished
+will be known, as a drama which is accomplished is known; but to let
+my game be seen--weakness, mistake! I know nothing more despicable than
+strength outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate myself with a laugh into
+the ambassador’s part, if indeed diplomacy is as difficult as life? I
+doubt it. Have you any ambition? Would you like to become something?”
+
+“But, Henri, you are laughing at me--as though I were not sufficiently
+mediocre to arrive at anything.”
+
+“Good Paul! If you go on laughing at yourself, you will soon be able to
+laugh at everybody else.”
+
+At breakfast, by the time he had started his cigars, De Marsay began to
+see the events of the night in a singular light. Like many men of great
+intelligence, his perspicuity was not spontaneous, as it did not at once
+penetrate to the heart of things. As with all natures endowed with the
+faculty of living greatly in the present, of extracting, so to speak,
+the essence of it and assimilating it, his second-sight had need of a
+sort of slumber before it could identify itself with causes. Cardinal
+de Richelieu was so constituted, and it did not debar in him the gift of
+foresight necessary to the conception of great designs.
+
+De Marsay’s conditions were alike, but at first he only used his weapons
+for the benefit of his pleasures, and only became one of the most
+profound politicians of his day when he had saturated himself with
+those pleasures to which a young man’s thoughts--when he has money and
+power--are primarily directed. Man hardens himself thus: he uses woman
+in order that she may not make use of him.
+
+At this moment, then, De Marsay perceived that he had been fooled by
+the girl of the golden eyes, seeing, as he did, in perspective, all that
+night of which the delights had been poured upon him by degrees until
+they had ended by flooding him in torrents. He could read, at last,
+that page in effect so brilliant, divine its hidden meaning. The purely
+physical innocence of Paquita, the bewilderment of her joy, certain
+words, obscure at first, but now clear, which had escaped her in the
+midst of that joy, all proved to him that he had posed for another
+person. As no social corruption was unknown to him, as he professed a
+complete indifference towards all perversities, and believed them to be
+justified on the simple ground that they were capable of satisfaction,
+he was not startled at vice, he knew it as one knows a friend, but he
+was wounded at having served as sustenance for it. If his presumption
+was right, he had been outraged in the most sensitive part of him. The
+mere suspicion filled him with fury, he broke out with the roar of a
+tiger who has been the sport of a deer, the cry of a tiger which united
+a brute’s strength with the intelligence of the demon.
+
+“I say, what is the matter with you?” asked Paul.
+
+“Nothing!”
+
+“I should be sorry, if you were to be asked whether you had anything
+against me and were to reply with a _nothing_ like that! It would be a
+sure case of fighting the next day.”
+
+“I fight no more duels,” said De Marsay.
+
+“That seems to me even more tragical. Do you assassinate, then?”
+
+“You travesty words. I execute.”
+
+“My dear friend,” said Paul, “your jokes are of a very sombre color this
+morning.”
+
+“What would you have? Pleasure ends in cruelty. Why? I don’t know, and
+am not sufficiently curious to try and find out.... These cigars are
+excellent. Give your friend some tea. Do you know, Paul, I live a
+brute’s life? It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ
+one’s powers on something which makes life worth living. Life is a
+singular comedy. I am frightened, I laugh at the inconsequence of our
+social order. The Government cuts off the heads of poor devils who
+may have killed a man and licenses creatures who despatch, medically
+speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless
+against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can
+punish.--Another cup!--Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing
+upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the _Liaisons
+Dangereuses_, and any other book you like with a vulgar reputation; but
+there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful, corrupting, which is
+always open and will never be shut, the great book of the world; not to
+mention another book, a thousand times more dangerous, which is composed
+of all that men whisper into each other’s ears, or women murmur behind
+their fans, of an evening in society.”
+
+“Henri, there is certainly something extraordinary the matter with you;
+that is obvious in spite of your active discretion.”
+
+“Yes!... Come, I must kill the time until this evening. Let’s to the
+tables.... Perhaps I shall have the good luck to lose.”
+
+De Marsay rose, took a handful of banknotes and folded them into his
+cigar-case, dressed himself, and took advantage of Paul’s carriage to
+repair to the Salon des Etrangers, where until dinner he consumed the
+time in those exciting alternations of loss and gain which are the last
+resource of powerful organizations when they are compelled to exercise
+themselves in the void. In the evening he repaired to the trysting-place
+and submitted complacently to having his eyes bandaged. Then, with
+that firm will which only really strong men have the faculty of
+concentrating, he devoted his attention and applied his intelligence to
+the task of divining through what streets the carriage passed. He had
+a sort of certitude of being taken to the Rue Saint-Lazare, and
+being brought to a halt at the little gate in the garden of the Hotel
+San-Real. When he passed, as on the first occasion, through this gate,
+and was put in a litter, carried, doubtless by the mulatto and the
+coachman, he understood, as he heard the gravel grate beneath their
+feet, why they took such minute precautions. He would have been able,
+had he been free, or if he had walked, to pluck a twig of laurel,
+to observe the nature of the soil which clung to his boots; whereas,
+transported, so to speak, ethereally into an inaccessible mansion, his
+good fortune must remain what it had been hitherto, a dream. But it is
+man’s despair that all his work, whether for good or evil, is imperfect.
+All his labors, physical or intellectual, are sealed with the mark
+of destruction. There had been a gentle rain, the earth was moist. At
+night-time certain vegetable perfumes are far stronger than during the
+day; Henri could smell, therefore, the scent of the mignonette which
+lined the avenue along which he was conveyed. This indication was enough
+to light him in the researches which he promised himself to make in
+order to recognize the hotel which contained Paquita’s boudoir. He
+studied in the same way the turnings which his bearers took within the
+house, and believed himself able to recall them.
+
+As on the previous night, he found himself on the ottoman before
+Paquita, who was undoing his bandage; but he saw her pale and altered.
+She had wept. On her knees like an angel in prayer, but like an angel
+profoundly sad and melancholy, the poor girl no longer resembled the
+curious, impatient, and impetuous creature who had carried De Marsay
+on her wings to transport him to the seventh heaven of love. There was
+something so true in this despair veiled by pleasure, that the terrible
+De Marsay felt within him an admiration for this new masterpiece
+of nature, and forgot, for the moment, the chief interest of his
+assignation.
+
+“What is the matter with thee, my Paquita?”
+
+“My friend,” she said, “carry me away this very night. Bear me to some
+place where no one can answer: ‘There is a girl with a golden gaze here,
+who has long hair.’ Yonder I will give thee as many pleasures as thou
+wouldst have of me. Then when you love me no longer, you shall leave me,
+I shall not complain, I shall say nothing; and your desertion need cause
+you no remorse, for one day passed with you, only one day, in which I
+have had you before my eyes, will be worth all my life to me. But if I
+stay here, I am lost.”
+
+“I cannot leave Paris, little one!” replied Henri. “I do not belong to
+myself, I am bound by a vow to the fortune of several persons who stand
+to me, as I do to them. But I can place you in a refuge in Paris, where
+no human power can reach you.”
+
+“No,” she said, “you forget the power of woman.”
+
+Never did phrase uttered by human voice express terror more absolutely.
+
+“What could reach you, then, if I put myself between you and the world?”
+
+“Poison!” she said. “Dona Concha suspects you already... and,” she
+resumed, letting the tears fall and glisten on her cheeks, “it is easy
+enough to see I am no longer the same. Well, if you abandon me to the
+fury of the monster who will destroy me, your holy will be done! But
+come, let there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I
+will implore, I will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I shall
+be saved.”
+
+“Whom will your implore?” he asked.
+
+“Silence!” said Paquita. “If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on
+account of my discretion.”
+
+“Give me my robe,” said Henri, insidiously.
+
+“No, no!” she answered quickly, “be what you are, one of those angels
+whom I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst
+you are what is fairest under the skies,” she said, caressing Henri’s
+hair. “You do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I
+was twelve years old I have been shut up without ever seeing any one. I
+can neither read nor write, I can only speak English and Spanish.”
+
+“How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?”
+
+“My letters?... See, here they are!” she said, proceeding to take some
+papers out of a tall Japanese vase.
+
+She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with
+surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in blood,
+and illustrating phrases full of passion.
+
+“But,” he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the
+alertness of jealousy, “you are in the power of an infernal genius?”
+
+“Infernal,” she repeated.
+
+“But how, then, were you able to get out?”
+
+“Ah!” she said, “that was my ruin. I drove Dona Concha to choose between
+the fear of immediate death and anger to be. I had the curiosity of
+a demon, I wished to break the bronze circle which they had described
+between creation and me, I wished to see what young people were like,
+for I knew nothing of man except the Marquis and Cristemio. Our coachman
+and the lackey who accompanies us are old men....”
+
+“But you were not always thus shut up? Your health...?”
+
+“Ah,” she answered, “we used to walk, but it was at night and in the
+country, by the side of the Seine, away from people.”
+
+“Are you not proud of being loved like that?”
+
+“No,” she said, “no longer. However full it be, this hidden life is but
+darkness in comparison with the light.”
+
+“What do you call the light?”
+
+“Thee, my lovely Adolphe! Thee, for whom I would give my life. All the
+passionate things that have been told me, and that I have inspired, I
+feel for thee! For a certain time I understood nothing of existence, but
+now I know what love is, and hitherto I have been the loved one only;
+for myself, I did not love. I would give up everything for you, take me
+away. If you like, take me as a toy, but let me be near you until you
+break me.”
+
+“You will have no regrets?”
+
+“Not one”! she said, letting him read her eyes, whose golden tint was
+pure and clear.
+
+“Am I the favored one?” said Henri to himself. If he suspected the
+truth, he was ready at that time to pardon the offence in view of a love
+so single minded. “I shall soon see,” he thought.
+
+If Paquita owed him no account of the past, yet the least recollection
+of it became in his eyes a crime. He had therefore the sombre strength
+to withhold a portion of his thought, to study her, even while
+abandoning himself to the most enticing pleasures that ever peri
+descended from the skies had devised for her beloved.
+
+Paquita seemed to have been created for love by a particular effort of
+nature. In a night her feminine genius had made the most rapid progress.
+Whatever might be the power of this young man, and his indifference in
+the matter of pleasures, in spite of his satiety of the previous night,
+he found in the girl with the golden eyes that seraglio which a loving
+woman knows how to create and which a man never refuses. Paquita
+responded to that passion which is felt by all really great men for the
+infinite--that mysterious passion so dramatically expressed in Faust, so
+poetically translated in Manfred, and which urged Don Juan to search
+the heart of women, in his hope to find there that limitless thought in
+pursuit of which so many hunters after spectres have started, which wise
+men think to discover in science, and which mystics find in God alone.
+The hope of possessing at last the ideal being with whom the struggle
+could be constant and tireless ravished De Marsay, who, for the first
+time for long, opened his heart. His nerves expanded, his coldness was
+dissipated in the atmosphere of that ardent soul, his hard and fast
+theories melted away, and happiness colored his existence to the tint of
+the rose and white boudoir. Experiencing the sting of a higher pleasure,
+he was carried beyond the limits within which he had hitherto confined
+passion. He would not be surpassed by this girl, whom a somewhat
+artificial love had formed all ready for the needs of his soul, and then
+he found in that vanity which urges a man to be in all things a victor,
+strength enough to tame the girl; but, at the same time, urged beyond
+that line where the soul is mistress over herself, he lost himself
+in these delicious limboes, which the vulgar call so foolishly “the
+imaginary regions.” He was tender, kind, and confidential. He affected
+Paquita almost to madness.
+
+“Why should we not go to Sorrento, to Nice, to Chiavari, and pass all
+our life so? Will you?” he asked of Paquita, in a penetrating voice.
+
+“Was there need to say to me: ‘Will you’?” she cried. “Have I a will? I
+am nothing apart from you, except in so far as I am a pleasure for you.
+If you would choose a retreat worthy of us, Asia is the only country
+where love can unfold his wings....”
+
+“You are right,” answered Henri. “Let us go to the Indies, there where
+spring is eternal, where the earth grows only flowers, where man can
+display the magnificence of kings and none shall say him nay, as in the
+foolish lands where they would realize the dull chimera of equality. Let
+us go to the country where one lives in the midst of a nation of slaves,
+where the sun shines ever on a palace which is always white, where the
+air sheds perfumes, the birds sing of love and where, when one can love
+no more, one dies....”
+
+“And where one dies together!” said Paquita. “But do not let us start
+to-morrow, let us start this moment... take Cristemio.”
+
+“Faith! pleasure is the fairest climax of life. Let us go to Asia; but
+to start, my child, one needs much gold, and to have gold one must set
+one’s affairs in order.”
+
+She understood no part of these ideas.
+
+“Gold! There is a pile of it here--as high as that,” she said holding up
+her hand.
+
+“It is not mine.”
+
+“What does that matter?” she went on; “if we have need of it let us take
+it.”
+
+“It does not belong to you.”
+
+“Belong!” she repeated. “Have you not taken me? When we have taken it,
+it will belong to us.”
+
+He gave a laugh.
+
+“Poor innocent! You know nothing of the world.”
+
+“Nay, but this is what I know,” she cried, clasping Henri to her.
+
+At the very moment when De Marsay was forgetting all, and conceiving the
+desire to appropriate this creature forever, he received in the midst of
+his joy a dagger-thrust, which Paquita, who had lifted him vigorously in
+the air, as though to contemplate him, exclaimed: “Oh, Margarita!”
+
+“Margarita!” cried the young man, with a roar; “now I know all that I
+still tried to disbelieve.”
+
+He leaped upon the cabinet in which the long poniard was kept. Happily
+for Paquita and for himself, the cupboard was shut. His fury waxed at
+this impediment, but he recovered his tranquillity, went and found his
+cravat, and advanced towards her with an air of such ferocious meaning
+that, without knowing of what crime she had been guilty, Paquita
+understood, none the less, that her life was in question. With one bound
+she rushed to the other end of the room to escape the fatal knot which
+De Marsay tried to pass round her neck. There was a struggle. On either
+side there was an equality of strength, agility, and suppleness. To end
+the combat Paquita threw between the legs of her lover a cushion which
+made him fall, and profited by the respite which this advantage gave
+to her, to push the button of the spring which caused the bell to ring.
+Promptly the mulatto arrived. In a second Cristemio leaped on De Marsay
+and held him down with one foot on his chest, his heel turned towards
+the throat. De Marsay realized that, if he struggled, at a single sign
+from Paquita he would be instantly crushed.
+
+“Why did you want to kill me, my beloved?” she said. De Marsay made no
+reply.
+
+“In what have I angered you?” she asked. “Speak, let us understand each
+other.”
+
+Henri maintained the phlegmatic attitude of a strong man who feels
+himself vanquished; his countenance, cold, silent, entirely English,
+revealed the consciousness of his dignity in a momentary resignation.
+Moreover, he had already thought, in spite of the vehemence of his
+anger, that it was scarcely prudent to compromise himself with the law
+by killing this girl on the spur of the moment, before he had arranged
+the murder in such a manner as should insure his impunity.
+
+“My beloved,” went on Paquita, “speak to me; do not leave me without one
+loving farewell! I would not keep in my heart the terror which you have
+just inspired in it.... Will you speak?” she said, stamping her foot
+with anger.
+
+De Marsay, for all reply, gave her a glance, which signified so plainly,
+“_You must die!_” that Paquita threw herself upon him.
+
+“Ah, well, you want to kill me!... If my death can give you any
+pleasure--kill me!”
+
+She made a sign to Cristemio, who withdrew his foot from the body of the
+young man, and retired without letting his face show that he had formed
+any opinion, good or bad, with regard to Paquita.
+
+“That is a man,” said De Marsay, pointing to the mulatto, with a
+sombre gesture. “There is no devotion like the devotion which obeys in
+friendship, and does not stop to weigh motives. In that man you possess
+a true friend.”
+
+“I will give him you, if you like,” she answered; “he will serve you
+with the same devotion that he has for me, if I so instruct him.”
+
+She waited for a word of recognition, and went on with an accent replete
+with tenderness:
+
+“Adolphe, give me then one kind word!... It is nearly day.”
+
+Henri did not answer. The young man had one sorry quality, for one
+considers as something great everything which resembles strength, and
+often men invent extravagances. Henri knew not how to pardon. That
+_returning upon itself_ which is one of the soul’s graces, was a
+non-existent sense for him. The ferocity of the Northern man, with which
+the English blood is deeply tainted, had been transmitted to him by his
+father. He was inexorable both in his good and evil impulses. Paquita’s
+exclamation had been all the more horrible to him, in that it had
+dethroned him from the sweetest triumph which had ever flattered his
+man’s vanity. Hope, love, and every emotion had been exalted with him,
+all had lit up within his heart and his intelligence, then these torches
+illuminating his life had been extinguished by a cold wind. Paquita, in
+her stupefaction of grief, had only strength enough to give the signal
+for departure.
+
+“What is the use of that!” she said, throwing away the bandage. “If he
+does not love me, if he hates me, it is all over.”
+
+She waited for one look, did not obtain it, and fell, half dead. The
+mulatto cast a glance at Henri, so horribly significant, that, for the
+first time in his life, the young man, to whom no one denied the gift of
+rare courage, trembled. “_If you do not love her well, if you give her
+the least pain, I will kill you_.” such was the sense of that brief
+gaze. De Marsay was escorted, with a care almost obsequious, along the
+dimly lit corridor, at the end of which he issued by a secret door into
+the garden of the Hotel San-Real. The mulatto made him walk cautiously
+through an avenue of lime trees, which led to a little gate opening upon
+a street which was at that hour deserted. De Marsay took a keen notice
+of everything. The carriage awaited him. This time the mulatto did not
+accompany him, and at the moment when Henri put his head out of the
+window to look once more at the gardens of the hotel, he encountered the
+white eyes of Cristemio, with whom he exchanged a glance. On either side
+there was a provocation, a challenge, the declaration of a savage
+war, of a duel in which ordinary laws were invalid, where treason and
+treachery were admitted means. Cristemio knew that Henri had sworn
+Paquita’s death. Henri knew that Cristemio would like to kill him before
+he killed Paquita. Both understood each other to perfection.
+
+“The adventure is growing complicated in a most interesting way,” said
+Henri.
+
+“Where is the gentleman going to?” asked the coachman.
+
+De Marsay was driven to the house of Paul de Manerville. For more than a
+week Henri was away from home, and no one could discover either what he
+did during this period, nor where he stayed. This retreat saved him from
+the fury of the mulatto and caused the ruin of the charming creature who
+had placed all her hope in him whom she loved as never human heart had
+loved on this earth before. On the last day of the week, about eleven
+o’clock at night, Henri drove up in a carriage to the little gate in the
+garden of the Hotel San-Real. Four men accompanied him. The driver was
+evidently one of his friends, for he stood up on his box, like a man who
+was to listen, an attentive sentinel, for the least sound. One of the
+other three took his stand outside the gate in the street; the second
+waited in the garden, leaning against the wall; the last, who carried in
+his hand a bunch of keys, accompanied De Marsay.
+
+“Henri,” said his companion to him, “we are betrayed.”
+
+“By whom, my good Ferragus?”
+
+“They are not all asleep,” replied the chief of the Devourers; “it is
+absolutely certain that some one in the house has neither eaten nor
+drunk.... Look! see that light!”
+
+“We have a plan of the house; from where does it come?”
+
+“I need no plan to know,” replied Ferragus; “it comes from the room of
+the Marquise.”
+
+“Ah,” cried De Marsay, “no doubt she arrived from London to-day. The
+woman has robbed me even of my revenge! But if she has anticipated me,
+my good Gratien, we will give her up to the law.”
+
+“Listen, listen!... The thing is settled,” said Ferragus to Henri.
+
+The two friends listened intently, and heard some feeble cries which
+might have aroused pity in the breast of a tiger.
+
+“Your marquise did not think the sound would escape by the chimney,”
+ said the chief of the Devourers, with the laugh of a critic, enchanted
+to detect a fault in a work of merit.
+
+“We alone, we know how to provide for every contingency,” said Henri.
+“Wait for me. I want to see what is going on upstairs--I want to know
+how their domestic quarrels are managed. By God! I believe she is
+roasting her at a slow fire.”
+
+De Marsay lightly scaled the stairs, with which he was familiar, and
+recognized the passage leading to the boudoir. When he opened the door
+he experienced the involuntary shudder which the sight of bloodshed
+gives to the most determined of men. The spectacle which was offered to
+his view was, moreover, in more than one respect astonishing to him.
+The Marquise was a woman; she had calculated her vengeance with that
+perfection of perfidy which distinguishes the weaker animals. She had
+dissimulated her anger in order to assure herself of the crime before
+she punished it.
+
+“Too late, my beloved!” said Paquita, in her death agony, casting her
+pale eyes upon De Marsay.
+
+The girl of the golden eyes expired in a bath of blood. The great
+illumination of candles, a delicate perfume which was perceptible,
+a certain disorder, in which the eye of a man accustomed to amorous
+adventures could not but discern the madness which is common to all
+the passions, revealed how cunningly the Marquise had interrogated the
+guilty one. The white room, where the blood showed so well, betrayed a
+long struggle. The prints of Paquita’s hands were on the cushions. Here
+she had clung to her life, here she had defended herself, here she
+had been struck. Long strips of the tapestry had been torn down by her
+bleeding hands, which, without a doubt, had struggled long. Paquita must
+have tried to reach the window; her bare feet had left their imprints
+on the edge of the divan, along which she must have run. Her body,
+mutilated by the dagger-thrusts of her executioner, told of the fury
+with which she had disputed a life which Henri had made precious to her.
+She lay stretched on the floor, and in her death-throes had bitten the
+ankles of Madame de San-Real, who still held in her hand her dagger,
+dripping blood. The hair of the Marquise had been torn out, she was
+covered with bites, many of which were bleeding, and her torn dress
+revealed her in a state of semi-nudity, with the scratches on her
+breasts. She was sublime so. Her head, eager and maddened, exhaled the
+odor of blood. Her panting mouth was open, and her nostrils were not
+sufficient for her breath. There are certain animals who fall upon their
+enemy in their rage, do it to death, and seem in the tranquillity of
+victory to have forgotten it. There are others who prowl around their
+victim, who guard it in fear lest it should be taken away from them, and
+who, like the Achilles of Homer, drag their enemy by the feet nine times
+round the walls of Troy. The Marquise was like that. She did not see
+Henri. In the first place, she was too secure of her solitude to be
+afraid of witnesses; and, secondly, she was too intoxicated with warm
+blood, too excited with the fray, too exalted, to take notice of the
+whole of Paris, if Paris had formed a circle round her. A thunderbolt
+would not have disturbed her. She had not even heard Paquita’s last
+sigh, and believed that the dead girl could still hear her.
+
+“Die without confessing!” she said. “Go down to hell, monster of
+ingratitude; belong to no one but the fiend. For the blood you gave him
+you owe me all your own! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths! I have
+been too kind--I was only a moment killing you. I should have made you
+experience all the tortures that you have bequeathed to me. I--I shall
+live! I shall live in misery. I have no one left to love but God!”
+
+She gazed at her.
+
+“She is dead!” she said to herself, after a pause, in a violent
+reaction. “Dead! Oh, I shall die of grief!”
+
+The Marquise was throwing herself upon the divan, stricken with a
+despair which deprived her of speech, when this movement brought her in
+view of Henri de Marsay.
+
+“Who are you?” she asked, rushing at him with her dagger raised.
+
+Henri caught her arm, and thus they could contemplate each other face
+to face. A horrible surprise froze the blood in their veins, and their
+limbs quivered like those of frightened horses. In effect, the two
+Menoechmi had not been more alike. With one accord they uttered the same
+phrase:
+
+“Lord Dudley must have been your father!”
+
+The head of each was drooped in affirmation.
+
+“She was true to the blood,” said Henri, pointing to Paquita.
+
+“She was as little guilty as it is possible to be,” replied Margarita
+Euphemia Porraberil, and she threw herself upon the body of Paquita,
+giving vent to a cry of despair. “Poor child! Oh, if I could bring thee
+to life again! I was wrong--forgive me, Paquita! Dead! and I live! I--I
+am the most unhappy.”
+
+At that moment the horrible face of the mother of Paquita appeared.
+
+“You are come to tell me that you never sold her to me to kill,” cried
+the Marquise. “I know why you have left your lair. I will pay you twice
+over. Hold your peace.”
+
+She took a bag of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it
+contemptuously at the old woman’s feet. The chink of the gold was potent
+enough to excite a smile on the Georgian’s impassive face.
+
+“I come at the right moment for you, my sister,” said Henri. “The law
+will ask of you----”
+
+“Nothing,” replied the Marquise. “One person alone might ask for a
+reckoning for the death of this girl. Cristemio is dead.”
+
+“And the mother,” said Henri, pointing to the old woman. “Will you not
+always be in her power?”
+
+“She comes from a country where women are not beings, but
+things--chattels, with which one does as one wills, which one buys,
+sells, and slays; in short, which one uses for one’s caprices as you,
+here, use a piece of furniture. Besides, she has one passion which
+dominates all the others, and which would have stifled her maternal
+love, even if she had loved her daughter, a passion----”
+
+“What?” Henri asked quickly, interrupting his sister.
+
+“Play! God keep you from it,” answered the Marquise.
+
+“But whom have you,” said Henri, looking at the girl of the golden eyes,
+“who will help you to remove the traces of this fantasy which the law
+would not overlook?”
+
+“I have her mother,” replied the Marquise, designating the Georgian, to
+whom she made a sign to remain.
+
+“We shall meet again,” said Henri, who was thinking anxiously of his
+friends and felt that it was time to leave.
+
+“No, brother,” she said, “we shall not meet again. I am going back to
+Spain to enter the Convent of _los Dolores_.”
+
+“You are too young yet, too lovely,” said Henri, taking her in his arms
+and giving her a kiss.
+
+“Good-bye,” she said; “there is no consolation when you have lost that
+which has seemed to you the infinite.”
+
+A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the Tuileries, on the
+Terrasse de Feuillants.
+
+“Well, what has become of our beautiful girl of the golden eyes, you
+rascal?”
+
+“She is dead.”
+
+“What of?”
+
+“Consumption.”
+
+
+
+PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+  Note: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy.
+  Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+  Langeais. In other addendum references all three stories are usually
+  combined under the title The Thirteen.
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph
+       Ferragus
+
+     Dudley, Lord
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       A Man of Business
+       Another Study of Woman
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Marriage Settlement
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       Ferragus
+       The Duchesse of Langeais
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Ferragus
+       The Duchesse of Langeais
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Honore de Balzac
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Girl With the Golden Eyes, by Honore de Balzac
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
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+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+    .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; }
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+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
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+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Girl with the Golden Eyes, 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: The Girl with the Golden Eyes
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage
+
+Release Date: February 28, 2010 [EBook #1659]
+Last Updated: November 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Honore De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Ellen Marriage
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="mynote">
+      <p>
+        PREPARER&rsquo;S NOTE: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a
+        trilogy. Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+        Langeais. The three stories are frequently combined under the title The
+        Thirteen.
+      </p>
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      DEDICATION<br /><br /> To Eugene Delacroix, Painter.<br />
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES</b> </a><br /><br />
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> 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>
+      THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of those sights in which most horror is to be encountered is, surely,
+      the general aspect of the Parisian populace&mdash;a people fearful to
+      behold, gaunt, yellow, tawny. Is not Paris a vast field in perpetual
+      turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which are whirled along a crop
+      of human beings, who are, more often than not, reaped by death, only to be
+      born again as pinched as ever, men whose twisted and contorted faces give
+      out at every pore the instinct, the desire, the poisons with which their
+      brains are pregnant; not faces so much as masks; masks of weakness, masks
+      of strength, masks of misery, masks of joy, masks of hypocrisy; all alike
+      worn and stamped with the indelible signs of a panting cupidity? What is
+      it they want? Gold or pleasure? A few observations upon the soul of Paris
+      may explain the causes of its cadaverous physiognomy, which has but two
+      ages&mdash;youth and decay: youth, wan and colorless; decay, painted to
+      seem young. In looking at this excavated people, foreigners, who are not
+      prone to reflection, experience at first a movement of disgust towards the
+      capital, that vast workshop of delights, from which, in a short time, they
+      cannot even extricate themselves, and where they stay willingly to be
+      corrupted. A few words will suffice to justify physiologically the almost
+      infernal hue of Parisian faces, for it is not in mere sport that Paris has
+      been called a hell. Take the phrase for truth. There all is smoke and
+      fire, everything gleams, crackles, flames, evaporates, dies out, then
+      lights up again, with shooting sparks, and is consumed. In no other
+      country has life ever been more ardent or acute. The social nature, even
+      in fusion, seems to say after each completed work: &ldquo;Pass on to another!&rdquo;
+       just as Nature says herself. Like Nature herself, this social nature is
+      busied with insects and flowers of a day&mdash;ephemeral trifles; and so,
+      too, it throws up fire and flame from its eternal crater. Perhaps, before
+      analyzing the causes which lend a special physiognomy to each tribe of
+      this intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed
+      out which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals in
+      more or less degree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
+      interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction has
+      rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon which all
+      kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian, with his
+      indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth, lives like a
+      child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at everything, consoles
+      himself for everything, jests at everything, forgets, desires, and tastes
+      everything, seizes all with passion, quits all with indifference&mdash;his
+      kings, his conquests, his glory, his idols of bronze or glass&mdash;as he
+      throws away his stockings, his hats, and his fortune. In Paris no
+      sentiment can withstand the drift of things, and their current compels a
+      struggle in which the passions are relaxed: there love is a desire, and
+      hatred a whim; there&rsquo;s no true kinsman but the thousand-franc note, no
+      better friend than the pawnbroker. This universal toleration bears its
+      fruits, and in the salon, as in the street, there is no one <i>de trop</i>,
+      there is no one absolutely useful, or absolutely harmful&mdash;knaves or
+      fools, men of wit or integrity. There everything is tolerated: the
+      government and the guillotine, religion and the cholera. You are always
+      acceptable to this world, you will never be missed by it. What, then, is
+      the dominating impulse in this country without morals, without faith,
+      without any sentiment, wherein, however, every sentiment, belief, and
+      moral has its origin and end? It is gold and pleasure. Take those two
+      words for a lantern, and explore that great stucco cage, that hive with
+      its black gutters, and follow the windings of that thought which agitates,
+      sustains, and occupies it! Consider! And, in the first place, examine the
+      world which possesses nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his tongue,
+      his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live&mdash;well, this very
+      man, who should be the first to economize his vital principle, outruns his
+      strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his child, and ties
+      him to the wheel. The manufacturer&mdash;or I know not what secondary
+      thread which sets in motion all these folk who with their foul hands mould
+      and gild porcelain, sew coats and dresses, beat out iron, turn wood and
+      steel, weave hemp, festoon crystal, imitate flowers, work woolen things,
+      break in horses, dress harness, carve in copper, paint carriages, blow
+      glass, corrode the diamond, polish metals, turn marble into leaves, labor
+      on pebbles, deck out thought, tinge, bleach, or blacken everything&mdash;well,
+      this middleman has come to that world of sweat and good-will, of study and
+      patience, with promises of lavish wages, either in the name of the town&rsquo;s
+      caprices or with the voice of the monster dubbed speculation. Thus, these
+      <i>quadrumanes</i> set themselves to watch, work, and suffer, to fast,
+      sweat, and bestir them. Then, careless of the future, greedy of pleasure,
+      counting on their right arm as the painter on his palette, lords for one
+      day, they throw their money on Mondays to the <i>cabarets</i> which gird
+      the town like a belt of mud, haunts of the most shameless of the daughters
+      of Venus, in which the periodical money of this people, as ferocious in
+      their pleasures as they are calm at work, is squandered as it had been at
+      play. For five days, then, there is no repose for this laborious portion
+      of Paris! It is given up to actions which make it warped and rough, lean
+      and pale, gush forth with a thousand fits of creative energy. And then its
+      pleasure, its repose, are an exhausting debauch, swarthy and black with
+      blows, white with intoxication, or yellow with indigestion. It lasts but
+      two days, but it steals to-morrow&rsquo;s bread, the week&rsquo;s soup, the wife&rsquo;s
+      dress, the child&rsquo;s wretched rags. Men, born doubtless to be beautiful&mdash;for
+      all creatures have a relative beauty&mdash;are enrolled from their
+      childhood beneath the yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the
+      chisel, the loom, and have been promptly vulcanized. Is not Vulcan, with
+      his hideousness and his strength, the emblem of this strong and hideous
+      nation&mdash;sublime in its mechanical intelligence, patient in its
+      season, and once in a century terrible, inflammable as gunpowder, and ripe
+      with brandy for the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine, to
+      take fire at a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold and
+      Pleasure! If we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands for an
+      alms, for lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to every kind
+      of Parisian prostitution, in short, for all the money well or ill earned,
+      this people numbers three hundred thousand individuals. Were it not for
+      the <i>cabarets</i>, would not the Government be overturned every Tuesday?
+      Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off its pleasure, is
+      penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread, stimulated by a need of
+      material procreation, which has become a habit to it. None the less, this
+      people has its phenomenal virtues, its complete men, unknown Napoleons,
+      who are the type of its strength carried to its highest expression, and
+      sum up its social capacity in an existence wherein thought and movement
+      combine less to bring joy into it than to neutralize the action of sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chance has made an artisan economical, chance has favored him with
+      forethought, he has been able to look forward, has met with a wife and
+      found himself a father, and, after some years of hard privation, he
+      embarks in some little draper&rsquo;s business, hires a shop. If neither
+      sickness nor vice blocks his way&mdash;if he has prospered&mdash;there is
+      the sketch of this normal life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, in the first place, hail to that king of Parisian activity, to whom
+      time and space give way. Yes, hail to that being, composed of saltpetre
+      and gas, who makes children for France during his laborious nights, and in
+      the day multiplies his personality for the service, glory, and pleasure of
+      his fellow-citizens. This man solves the problem of sufficing at once to
+      his amiable wife, to his hearth, to the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, to his
+      office, to the National Guard, to the opera, and to God; but, only in
+      order that the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, his office, the National Guard, the
+      opera, his wife, and God may be changed into coin. In fine, hail to an
+      irreproachable pluralist. Up every day at five o&rsquo;clock, he traverses like
+      a bird the space which separates his dwelling from the Rue Montmartre. Let
+      it blow or thunder, rain or snow, he is at the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, and
+      waits there for the load of newspapers which he has undertaken to
+      distribute. He receives this political bread with eagerness, takes it,
+      bears it away. At nine o&rsquo;clock he is in the bosom of his family, flings a
+      jest to his wife, snatches a loud kiss from her, gulps down a cup of
+      coffee, or scolds his children. At a quarter to ten he puts in an
+      appearance at the <i>Mairie</i>. There, stuck upon a stool, like a parrot
+      on its perch, warmed by Paris town, he registers until four o&rsquo;clock, with
+      never a tear or a smile, the deaths and births of an entire district. The
+      sorrow, the happiness, of the parish flow beneath his pen&mdash;as the
+      essence of the <i>Constitutionnel</i> traveled before upon his shoulders.
+      Nothing weighs upon him! He goes always straight before him, takes his
+      patriotism ready made from the newspaper, contradicts no one, shouts or
+      applauds with the world, and lives like a bird. Two yards from his parish,
+      in the event of an important ceremony, he can yield his place to an
+      assistant, and betake himself to chant a requiem from a stall in the
+      church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament, where his is the
+      most imposing voice, where he distorts his huge mouth with energy to
+      thunder out a joyous <i>Amen</i>. So is he chorister. At four o&rsquo;clock,
+      freed from his official servitude, he reappears to shed joy and gaiety
+      upon the most famous shop in the city. Happy is his wife, he has no time
+      to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of sentiment. His mere
+      arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter; their bright eyes storm the
+      customers; he expands in the midst of all the finery, the lace and muslin
+      kerchiefs, that their cunning hands have wrought. Or, again, more often
+      still, before his dinner he waits on a client, copies the page of a
+      newspaper, or carries to the doorkeeper some goods that have been delayed.
+      Every other day, at six, he is faithful to his post. A permanent bass for
+      the chorus, he betakes himself to the opera, prepared to become a soldier
+      or an arab, prisoner, savage, peasant, spirit, camel&rsquo;s leg or lion, a
+      devil or a genie, a slave or a eunuch, black or white; always ready to
+      feign joy or sorrow, pity or astonishment, to utter cries that never vary,
+      to hold his tongue, to hunt, or fight for Rome or Egypt, but always at
+      heart&mdash;a huckster still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At midnight he returns&mdash;a man, the good husband, the tender father;
+      he slips into the conjugal bed, his imagination still afire with the
+      illusive forms of the operatic nymphs, and so turns to the profit of
+      conjugal love the world&rsquo;s depravities, the voluptuous curves of Taglioni&rsquo;s
+      leg. And finally, if he sleeps, he sleeps apace, and hurries through his
+      slumber as he does his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man sums up all things&mdash;history, literature, politics,
+      government, religion, military science. Is he not a living encyclopaedia,
+      a grotesque Atlas; ceaselessly in motion, like Paris itself, and knowing
+      not repose? He is all legs. No physiognomy could preserve its purity amid
+      such toils. Perhaps the artisan who dies at thirty, an old man, his
+      stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy, will be held, according to
+      certain leisured philosophers, to be happier than the huckster is. The one
+      perishes in a breath, and the other by degrees. From his eight industries,
+      from the labor of his shoulders, his throat, his hands, from his wife and
+      his business, the one derives&mdash;as from so many farms&mdash;children,
+      some thousands of francs, and the most laborious happiness that has ever
+      diverted the heart of man. This fortune and these children, or the
+      children who sum up everything for him, become the prey of the world
+      above, to which he brings his ducats and his daughter or his son, reared
+      at college, who, with more education than his father, raises higher his
+      ambitious gaze. Often the son of a retail tradesman would fain be
+      something in the State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ambition of that sort carries on our thought to the second Parisian
+      sphere. Go up one story, then, and descend to the <i>entresol</i>: or
+      climb down from the attic and remain on the fourth floor; in fine,
+      penetrate into the world which has possessions: the same result! Wholesale
+      merchants, and their men&mdash;people with small banking accounts and much
+      integrity&mdash;rogues and catspaws, clerks old and young, sheriffs&rsquo; 
+      clerks, barristers&rsquo; clerks, solicitors&rsquo; clerks; in fine, all the working,
+      thinking, and speculating members of that lower middle class which
+      honeycombs the interests of Paris and watches over its granary,
+      accumulates the coin, stores the products that the proletariat have made,
+      preserves the fruits of the South, the fishes, the wine from every
+      sun-favored hill; which stretches its hands over the Orient, and takes
+      from it the shawls that the Russ and the Turk despise; which harvests even
+      from the Indies; crouches down in expectation of a sale, greedy of profit;
+      which discounts bills, turns over and collects all kinds of securities,
+      holds all Paris in its hand, watches over the fantasies of children, spies
+      out the caprices and the vices of mature age, sucks money out of disease.
+      Even so, if they drink no brandy, like the artisan, nor wallow in the mire
+      of debauch, all equally abuse their strength, immeasurably strain their
+      bodies and their minds alike, are burned away with desires, devastated
+      with the swiftness of the pace. In their case the physical distortion is
+      accomplished beneath the whip of interests, beneath the scourge of
+      ambitions which torture the educated portion of this monstrous city, just
+      as in the case of the proletariat it is brought about by the cruel see-saw
+      of the material elaborations perpetually required from the despotism of
+      the aristocratic &ldquo;<i>I will</i>.&rdquo; Here, too, then, in order to obey that
+      universal master, pleasure or gold, they must devour time, hasten time,
+      find more than four-and-twenty hours in the day and night, waste
+      themselves, slay themselves, and purchase two years of unhealthy repose
+      with thirty years of old age. Only, the working-man dies in hospital when
+      the last term of his stunted growth expires; whereas the man of the middle
+      class is set upon living, and lives on, but in a state of idiocy. You will
+      meet him, with his worn, flat old face, with no light in his eyes, with no
+      strength in his limbs, dragging himself with a dazed air along the
+      boulevard&mdash;the belt of his Venus, of his beloved city. What was his
+      want? The sabre of the National Guard, a permanent stock-pot, a decent
+      plot in Pere Lachaise, and, for his old age, a little gold honestly
+      earned. <i>HIS</i> Monday is on Sunday, his rest a drive in a hired
+      carriage&mdash;a country excursion during which his wife and children glut
+      themselves merrily with dust or bask in the sun; his dissipation is at the
+      restaurateur&rsquo;s, whose poisonous dinner has won renown, or at some family
+      ball, where he suffocates till midnight. Some fools are surprised at the
+      phantasmagoria of the monads which they see with the aid of the microscope
+      in a drop of water; but what would Rabelais&rsquo; Gargantua,&mdash;that
+      misunderstood figure of an audacity so sublime,&mdash;what would that
+      giant say, fallen from the celestial spheres, if he amused himself by
+      contemplating the motions of this secondary life of Paris, of which here
+      is one of the formulae? Have you seen one of those little constructions&mdash;cold
+      in summer, and with no other warmth than a small stove in winter&mdash;placed
+      beneath the vast copper dome which crowns the Halle-auble? Madame is there
+      by morning. She is engaged at the markets, and makes by this occupation
+      twelve thousand francs a year, people say. Monsieur, when Madame is up,
+      passes into a gloomy office, where he lends money till the week-end to the
+      tradesmen of his district. By nine o&rsquo;clock he is at the passport office,
+      of which he is one of the minor officials. By evening he is at the
+      box-office of the Theatre Italien, or of any other theatre you like. The
+      children are put out to nurse, and only return to be sent to college or to
+      boarding-school. Monsieur and Madame live on the third floor, have but one
+      cook, give dances in a salon twelve foot by eight, lit by argand lamps;
+      but they give a hundred and fifty thousand francs to their daughter, and
+      retire at the age of fifty, an age when they begin to show themselves on
+      the balcony of the opera, in a <i>fiacre</i> at Longchamps; or, on sunny
+      days, in faded clothes on the boulevards&mdash;the fruit of all this
+      sowing. Respected by their neighbors, in good odor with the government,
+      connected with the upper middle classes, Monsieur obtains at sixty-five
+      the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and his daughter&rsquo;s father-in-law, a
+      parochial mayor, invites him to his evenings. These life-long labors,
+      then, are for the good of the children, whom these lower middle classes
+      are inevitably driven to exalt. Thus each sphere directs all its efforts
+      towards the sphere above it. The son of the rich grocer becomes a notary,
+      the son of the timber merchant becomes a magistrate. No link is wanting in
+      the chain, and everything stimulates the upward march of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps, will
+      some day find its Dante. In this third social circle, a sort of Parisian
+      belly, in which the interests of the town are digested, and where they are
+      condensed into the form known as <i>business</i>, there moves and
+      agitates, as by some acrid and bitter intestinal process, the crowd of
+      lawyers, doctors, notaries, councillors, business men, bankers, big
+      merchants, speculators, and magistrates. Here are to be found even more
+      causes of moral and physical destruction than elsewhere. These people&mdash;almost
+      all of them&mdash;live in unhealthy offices, in fetid ante-chambers, in
+      little barred dens, and spend their days bowed down beneath the weight of
+      affairs; they rise at dawn to be in time, not to be left behind, to gain
+      all or not to lose, to overreach a man or his money, to open or wind up
+      some business, to take advantage of some fleeting opportunity, to get a
+      man hanged or set him free. They infect their horses, they overdrive and
+      age and break them, like their own legs, before their time. Time is their
+      tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; they can neither expand it nor cut
+      it short. What soul can remain great, pure, moral, and generous, and,
+      consequently, what face retain its beauty in this depraving practice of a
+      calling which compels one to bear the weight of the public sorrows, to
+      analyze them, to weigh them, estimate them, and mark them out by rule?
+      Where do these folk put aside their hearts?... I do not know; but they
+      leave them somewhere or other, when they have any, before they descend
+      each morning into the abyss of the misery which puts families on the rack.
+      For them there is no such thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of
+      society, whose confessors they are, and despise it. Then, whatever they
+      do, owing to their contact with corruption, they either are horrified at
+      it and grow gloomy, or else, out of lassitude, or some secret compromise,
+      espouse it. In fine, they necessarily become callous to every sentiment,
+      since man, his laws and his institutions, make them steal, like jackals,
+      from corpses that are still warm. At all hours the financier is trampling
+      on the living, the attorney on the dead, the pleader on the conscience.
+      Forced to be speaking without a rest, they all substitute words for ideas,
+      phrases for feelings, and their soul becomes a larynx. Neither the great
+      merchant, nor the judge, nor the pleader preserves his sense of right;
+      they feel no more, they apply set rules that leave cases out of count.
+      Borne along by their headlong course, they are neither husbands nor
+      fathers nor lovers; they glide on sledges over the facts of life, and live
+      at all times at the high pressure conduced by business and the vast city.
+      When they return to their homes they are required to go to a ball, to the
+      opera, into society, where they can make clients, acquaintances,
+      protectors. They all eat to excess, play and keep vigil, and their faces
+      become bloated, flushed, and emaciated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this terrific expenditure of intellectual strength, to such multifold
+      moral contradictions, they oppose&mdash;not, indeed pleasure, it would be
+      too pale a contrast&mdash;but debauchery, a debauchery both secret and
+      alarming, for they have all means at their disposal, and fix the morality
+      of society. Their genuine stupidity lies hid beneath their specialism.
+      They know their business, but are ignorant of everything which is outside
+      it. So that to preserve their self-conceit they question everything, are
+      crudely and crookedly critical. They appear to be sceptics and are in
+      reality simpletons; they swamp their wits in interminable arguments.
+      Almost all conveniently adopt social, literary, or political prejudices,
+      to do away with the need of having opinions, just as they adapt their
+      conscience to the standard of the Code or the Tribunal of Commerce. Having
+      started early to become men of note, they turn into mediocrities, and
+      crawl over the high places of the world. So, too, their faces present the
+      harsh pallor, the deceitful coloring, those dull, tarnished eyes, and
+      garrulous, sensual mouths, in which the observer recognizes the symptoms
+      of the degeneracy of the thought and its rotation in the circle of a
+      special idea which destroys the creative faculties of the brain and the
+      gift of seeing in large, of generalizing and deducing. No man who has
+      allowed himself to be caught in the revolutions of the gear of these huge
+      machines can ever become great. If he is a doctor, either he has practised
+      little or he is an exception&mdash;a Bichat who dies young. If a great
+      merchant, something remains&mdash;he is almost Jacques Coeur. Did
+      Robespierre practise? Danton was an idler who waited. But who, moreover
+      has ever felt envious of the figures of Danton and Robespierre, however
+      lofty they were? These men of affairs, <i>par excellence</i>, attract
+      money to them, and hoard it in order to ally themselves with aristocratic
+      families. If the ambition of the working-man is that of the small
+      tradesman, here, too, are the same passions. The type of this class might
+      be either an ambitious bourgeois, who, after a life of privation and
+      continual scheming, passes into the Council of State as an ant passes
+      through a chink; or some newspaper editor, jaded with intrigue, whom the
+      king makes a peer of France&mdash;perhaps to revenge himself on the
+      nobility; or some notary become mayor of his parish: all people crushed
+      with business, who, if they attain their end, are literally <i>killed</i>
+      in its attainment. In France the usage is to glorify wigs. Napoleon, Louis
+      XVI., the great rulers, alone have always wished for young men to fulfil
+      their projects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above this sphere the artist world exists. But here, too, the faces
+      stamped with the seal of originality are worn, nobly indeed, but worn,
+      fatigued, nervous. Harassed by a need of production, outrun by their
+      costly fantasies, worn out by devouring genius, hungry for pleasure, the
+      artists of Paris would all regain by excessive labor what they have lost
+      by idleness, and vainly seek to reconcile the world and glory, money and
+      art. To begin with, the artist is ceaselessly panting under his creditors;
+      his necessities beget his debts, and his debts require of him his nights.
+      After his labor, his pleasure. The comedian plays till midnight, studies
+      in the morning, rehearses at noon; the sculptor is bent before his statue;
+      the journalist is a marching thought, like the soldier when at war; the
+      painter who is the fashion is crushed with work, the painter with no
+      occupation, if he feels himself to be a man of genius, gnaws his entrails.
+      Competition, rivalry, calumny assail talent. Some, in desperation, plunge
+      into the abyss of vice, others die young and unknown because they have
+      discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally
+      sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of their
+      heads is not understood. An artist&rsquo;s face is always exorbitant, it is
+      always above or below the conventional lines of what fools call the <i>beau-ideal</i>.
+      What power is it that destroys them? Passion. Every passion in Paris
+      resolves into two terms: gold and pleasure. Now, do you not breathe again?
+      Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is neither labor nor
+      suffering. The soaring arch of gold has reached the summit. From the
+      lowest gutters, where its stream commences, from the little shops where it
+      is stopped by puny coffer-dams, from the heart of the counting-houses and
+      great workshops, where its volume is that of ingots&mdash;gold, in the
+      shape of dowries and inheritances, guided by the hands of young girls or
+      the bony fingers of age, courses towards the aristocracy, where it will
+      become a blazing, expansive stream. But, before leaving the four
+      territories upon which the utmost wealth of Paris is based, it is fitting,
+      having cited the moral causes, to deduce those which are physical, and to
+      call attention to a pestilence, latent, as it were, which incessantly acts
+      upon the faces of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point
+      out a deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the
+      Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently to exist!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the air of the houses in which the greater proportion of the middle
+      classes live is noxious, if the atmosphere of the streets belches out
+      cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air, realize
+      that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of this great
+      city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that be have not
+      yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid enough to
+      prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the soil, poisoning
+      the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia the tradition of her
+      celebrated name. Half of Paris sleeps amidst the putrid exhalations of
+      courts and streets and sewers. But let us turn to the vast saloons, gilded
+      and airy; the hotels in their gardens, the rich, indolent, happy moneyed
+      world. There the faces are lined and scarred with vanity. There nothing is
+      real. To seek for pleasure is it not to find <i>ennui</i>? People in
+      society have at an early age warped their nature. Having no occupation
+      other than to wallow in pleasure, they have speedily misused their sense,
+      as the artisan has misused brandy. Pleasure is of the nature of certain
+      medical substances: in order to obtain constantly the same effects the
+      doses must be doubled, and death or degradation is contained in the last.
+      All the lower classes are on their knees before the wealthy, and watch
+      their tastes in order to turn them into vices and exploit them. Thus you
+      see in these folk at an early age tastes instead of passions, romantic
+      fantasies and lukewarm loves. There impotence reigns; there ideas have
+      ceased&mdash;they have evaporated together with energy amongst the
+      affectations of the boudoir and the cajolements of women. There are
+      fledglings of forty, old doctors of sixty years. The wealthy obtain in
+      Paris ready-made wit and science&mdash;formulated opinions which save them
+      the need of having wit, science, or opinion of their own. The
+      irrationality of this world is equaled by its weakness and its
+      licentiousness. It is greedy of time to the point of wasting it. Seek in
+      it for affection as little as for ideas. Its kisses conceal a profound
+      indifference, its urbanity a perpetual contempt. It has no other fashion
+      of love. Flashes of wit without profundity, a wealth of indiscretion,
+      scandal, and above all, commonplace. Such is the sum of its speech; but
+      these happy fortunates pretend that they do not meet to make and repeat
+      maxims in the manner of La Rochefoucauld as though there did not exist a
+      mean, invented by the eighteenth century, between a superfluity and
+      absolute blank. If a few men of character indulge in witticism, at once
+      subtle and refined, they are misunderstood; soon, tired of giving without
+      receiving, they remain at home, and leave fools to reign over their
+      territory. This hollow life, this perpetual expectation of a pleasure
+      which never comes, this permanent <i>ennui</i> and emptiness of soul,
+      heart, and mind, the lassitude of the upper Parisian world, is reproduced
+      on its features, and stamps its parchment faces, its premature wrinkles,
+      that physiognomy of the wealthy upon which impotence has set its grimace,
+      in which gold is mirrored, and whence intelligence has fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a view of moral Paris proves that physical Paris could not be other
+      than it is. This coroneted town is like a queen, who, being always with
+      child, has desires of irresistible fury. Paris is the crown of the world,
+      a brain which perishes of genius and leads human civilization; it is a
+      great man, a perpetually creative artist, a politician with second-sight
+      who must of necessity have wrinkles on his forehead, the vices of a great
+      man, the fantasies of the artist, and the politician&rsquo;s disillusions. Its
+      physiognomy suggests the evolution of good and evil, battle and victory;
+      the moral combat of &lsquo;89, the clarion calls of which still re-echo in every
+      corner of the world; and also the downfall of 1814. Thus this city can no
+      more be moral, or cordial, or clean, than the engines which impel those
+      proud leviathans which you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris
+      a sublime vessel laden with intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those
+      oracles which fatality sometimes allows. The <i>City of Paris</i> has her
+      great mast, all of bronze, carved with victories, and for watchman&mdash;Napoleon.
+      The barque may roll and pitch, but she cleaves the world, illuminates it
+      through the hundred mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the seas of science,
+      rides with full sail, cries from the height of her tops, with the voice of
+      her scientists and artists: &ldquo;Onward, advance! Follow me!&rdquo; She carries a
+      huge crew, which delights in adorning her with fresh streamers. Boys and
+      urchins laughing in the rigging; ballast of heavy <i>bourgeoisie</i>;
+      working-men and sailor-men touched with tar; in her cabins the lucky
+      passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke their cigars leaning over the
+      bulwarks; then, on the deck, her soldiers, innovators or ambitious, would
+      accost every fresh shore, and shooting out their bright lights upon it,
+      ask for glory which is pleasure, or for love which needs gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the exorbitant movement of the proletariat, the corrupting influence
+      of the interests which consume the two middle classes, the cruelties of
+      the artist&rsquo;s thought, and the excessive pleasure which is sought for
+      incessantly by the great, explain the normal ugliness of the Parisian
+      physiognomy. It is only in the Orient that the human race presents a
+      magnificent figure, but that is an effect of the constant calm affected by
+      those profound philosophers with their long pipes, their short legs, their
+      square contour, who despise and hold activity in horror, whilst in Paris
+      the little and the great and the mediocre run and leap and drive, whipped
+      on by an inexorable goddess, Necessity&mdash;the necessity for money,
+      glory, and amusement. Thus, any face which is fresh and graceful and
+      reposeful, any really young face, is in Paris the most extraordinary of
+      exceptions; it is met with rarely. Should you see one there, be sure it
+      belongs either to a young and ardent ecclesiastic or to some good abbe of
+      forty with three chins; to a young girl of pure life such as is brought up
+      in certain middle-class families; to a mother of twenty, still full of
+      illusions, as she suckles her first-born; to a young man newly embarked
+      from the provinces, and intrusted to the care of some devout dowager who
+      keeps him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some shop assistant who goes to
+      bed at midnight wearied out with folding and unfolding calico, and rises
+      at seven o&rsquo;clock to arrange the window; often again to some man of science
+      or poetry, who lives monastically in the embrace of a fine idea, who
+      remains sober, patient, and chaste; else to some self-contented fool,
+      feeding himself on folly, reeking of health, in a perpetual state of
+      absorption with his own smile; or to the soft and happy race of loungers,
+      the only folk really happy in Paris, which unfolds for them hour by hour
+      its moving poetry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to whom
+      this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts, and gold
+      is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also have a thousand
+      secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy their physiognomy,
+      there are to be found in the feminine world little happy colonies, who
+      live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their beauty; but these women
+      rarely show themselves on foot in the streets, they lie hid like rare
+      plants who only unfold their petals at certain hours, and constitute
+      veritable exotic exceptions. However, Paris is essentially the country of
+      contrasts. If true sentiments are rare there, there also are to be found,
+      as elsewhere, noble friendships and unlimited devotion. On this
+      battlefield of interests and passions, just as in the midst of those
+      marching societies where egoism triumphs, where every one is obliged to
+      defend himself, and which we call <i>armies</i>, it seems as though
+      sentiments liked to be complete when they showed themselves, and are
+      sublime by juxtaposition. So it is with faces. In Paris one sometimes sees
+      in the aristocracy, set like stars, the ravishing faces of young people,
+      the fruit of quite exceptional manners and education. To the youthful
+      beauty of the English stock they unite the firmness of Southern traits.
+      The fire of their eyes, a delicious bloom on their lips, the lustrous
+      black of their soft locks, a white complexion, a distinguished caste of
+      features, render them the flowers of the human race, magnificent to behold
+      against the mass of other faces, worn, old, wrinkled, and grimacing. So
+      women, too, admire such young people with that eager pleasure which men
+      take in watching a pretty girl, elegant, gracious, and embellished with
+      all the virginal charms with which our imagination pleases to adorn the
+      perfect woman. If this hurried glance at the population of Paris has
+      enabled us to conceive the rarity of a Raphaelesque face, and the
+      passionate admiration which such an one must inspire at the first sight,
+      the prime interest of our history will have been justified. <i>Quod erat
+      demonstrandum</i>&mdash;if one may be permitted to apply scholastic
+      formulae to the science of manners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon one of those fine spring mornings, when the leaves, although
+      unfolded, are not yet green, when the sun begins to gild the roofs, and
+      the sky is blue, when the population of Paris issues from its cells to
+      swarm along the boulevards, glides like a serpent of a thousand coils
+      through the Rue de la Paix towards the Tuileries, saluting the hymeneal
+      magnificence which the country puts on; on one of these joyous days, then,
+      a young man as beautiful as the day itself, dressed with taste, easy of
+      manner&mdash;to let out the secret he was a love-child, the natural son of
+      Lord Dudley and the famous Marquise de Vordac&mdash;was walking in the
+      great avenue of the Tuileries. This Adonis, by name Henri de Marsay, was
+      born in France, when Lord Dudley had just married the young lady, already
+      Henri&rsquo;s mother, to an old gentleman called M. de Marsay. This faded and
+      almost extinguished butterfly recognized the child as his own in
+      consideration of the life interest in a fund of a hundred thousand francs
+      definitively assigned to his putative son; a generosity which did not cost
+      Lord Dudley too dear. French funds were worth at that time seventeen
+      francs, fifty centimes. The old gentleman died without having ever known
+      his wife. Madame de Marsay subsequently married the Marquis de Vordac, but
+      before becoming a marquise she showed very little anxiety as to her son
+      and Lord Dudley. To begin with, the declaration of war between France and
+      England had separated the two lovers, and fidelity at all costs was not,
+      and never will be, the fashion of Paris. Then the successes of the woman,
+      elegant, pretty, universally adored, crushed in the Parisienne the
+      maternal sentiment. Lord Dudley was no more troubled about his offspring
+      than was the mother,&mdash;the speedy infidelity of a young girl he had
+      ardently loved gave him, perhaps, a sort of aversion for all that issued
+      from her. Moreover, fathers can, perhaps, only love the children with whom
+      they are fully acquainted, a social belief of the utmost importance for
+      the peace of families, which should be held by all the celibate, proving
+      as it does that paternity is a sentiment nourished artificially by woman,
+      custom, and the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Henri de Marsay knew no other father than that one of the two who was
+      not compelled to be one. The paternity of M. de Marsay was naturally most
+      incomplete. In the natural order, it is but for a few fleeting instants
+      that children have a father, and M. de Marsay imitated nature. The worthy
+      man would not have sold his name had he been free from vices. Thus he
+      squandered without remorse in gambling hells, and drank elsewhere, the few
+      dividends which the National Treasury paid to its bondholders. Then he
+      handed over the child to an aged sister, a Demoiselle de Marsay, who took
+      much care of him, and provided him, out of the meagre sum allowed by her
+      brother, with a tutor, an abbe without a farthing, who took the measure of
+      the youth&rsquo;s future, and determined to pay himself out of the hundred
+      thousand livres for the care given to his pupil, for whom he conceived an
+      affection. As chance had it, this tutor was a true priest, one of those
+      ecclesiastics cut out to become cardinals in France, or Borgias beneath
+      the tiara. He taught the child in three years what he might have learned
+      at college in ten. Then the great man, by name the Abbe de Maronis,
+      completed the education of his pupil by making him study civilization
+      under all its aspects: he nourished him on his experience, led him little
+      into churches, which at that time were closed; introduced him sometimes
+      behind the scenes of theatres, more often into the houses of courtesans;
+      he exhibited human emotions to him one by one; taught him politics in the
+      drawing-rooms, where they simmered at the time, explained to him the
+      machinery of government, and endeavored out of attraction towards a fine
+      nature, deserted, yet rich in promise, virilely to replace a mother: is
+      not the Church the mother of orphans? The pupil was responsive to so much
+      care. The worthy priest died in 1812, a bishop, with the satisfaction of
+      having left in this world a child whose heart and mind were so well
+      moulded that he could outwit a man of forty. Who would have expected to
+      have found a heart of bronze, a brain of steel, beneath external traits as
+      seductive as ever the old painters, those naive artists, had given to the
+      serpent in the terrestrial paradise? Nor was that all. In addition, the
+      good-natured prelate had procured for the child of his choice certain
+      acquaintances in the best Parisian society, which might equal in value, in
+      the young man&rsquo;s hand, another hundred thousand invested livres. In fine,
+      this priest, vicious but politic, sceptical yet learned, treacherous yet
+      amiable, weak in appearance yet as vigorous physically as intellectually,
+      was so genuinely useful to his pupil, so complacent to his vices, so fine
+      a calculator of all kinds of strength, so profound when it was needful to
+      make some human reckoning, so youthful at table, at Frascati, at&mdash;I
+      know not where, that the grateful Henri de Marsay was hardly moved at
+      aught in 1814, except when he looked at the portrait of his beloved
+      bishop, the only personal possession which the prelate had been able to
+      bequeath him (admirable type of the men whose genius will preserve the
+      Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, compromised for the moment by the
+      feebleness of its recruits and the decrepit age of its pontiffs; but if
+      the church likes!).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The continental war prevented young De Marsay from knowing his real
+      father. It is doubtful whether he was aware of his name. A deserted child,
+      he was equally ignorant of Madame de Marsay. Naturally, he had little
+      regret for his putative father. As for Mademoiselle de Marsay, his only
+      mother, he built for her a handsome little monument in Pere Lachaise when
+      she died. Monseigneur de Maronis had guaranteed to this old lady one of
+      the best places in the skies, so that when he saw her die happy, Henri
+      gave her some egotistical tears; he began to weep on his own account.
+      Observing this grief, the abbe dried his pupil&rsquo;s tears, bidding him
+      observe that the good woman took her snuff most offensively, and was
+      becoming so ugly and deaf and tedious that he ought to return thanks for
+      her death. The bishop had emancipated his pupil in 1811. Then, when the
+      mother of M. de Marsay remarried, the priest chose, in a family council,
+      one of those honest dullards, picked out by him through the windows of his
+      confessional, and charged him with the administration of the fortune, the
+      revenues of which he was willing to apply to the needs of the community,
+      but of which he wished to preserve the capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
+      obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although he
+      had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a rule
+      the most fastidious of his rivals considered him to be the prettiest youth
+      in Paris. From his father, Lord Dudley, he had derived a pair of the most
+      amorously deceiving blue eyes; from his mother the bushiest of black hair,
+      from both pure blood, the skin of a young girl, a gentle and modest
+      expression, a refined and aristocratic figure, and beautiful hands. For a
+      woman, to see him was to lose her head for him; do you understand? to
+      conceive one of those desires which eat the heart, which are forgotten
+      because of the impossibility of satisfying them, because women in Paris
+      are commonly without tenacity. Few of them say to themselves, after the
+      fashion of men, the &ldquo;<i>Je Maintiendrai</i>,&rdquo; of the House of Orange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Underneath this fresh young life, and in spite of the limpid springs in
+      his eyes, Henri had a lion&rsquo;s courage, a monkey&rsquo;s agility. He could cut a
+      ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his horse in a
+      way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a four-in-hand
+      with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb, but knew how to
+      beat a townsman at the terrible game of <i>savate</i> or cudgels;
+      moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have enabled him to
+      become an artist should he fall on calamity, and owned a voice which would
+      have been worth to Barbaja fifty thousand francs a season. Alas, that all
+      these fine qualities, these pretty faults, were tarnished by one
+      abominable vice: he believed neither in man nor woman, God nor Devil.
+      Capricious nature had commenced by endowing him, a priest had completed
+      the work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To render this adventure comprehensible, it is necessary to add here that
+      Lord Dudley naturally found many women disposed to reproduce samples of
+      such a delicious pattern. His second masterpiece of this kind was a young
+      girl named Euphemie, born of a Spanish lady, reared in Havana, and brought
+      to Madrid with a young Creole woman of the Antilles, and with all the
+      ruinous tastes of the Colonies, but fortunately married to an old and
+      extremely rich Spanish noble, Don Hijos, Marquis de San-Real, who, since
+      the occupation of Spain by French troops, had taken up his abode in Paris,
+      and lived in the Rue St. Lazare. As much from indifference as from any
+      respect for the innocence of youth, Lord Dudley was not in the habit of
+      keeping his children informed of the relations he created for them in all
+      parts. That is a slightly inconvenient form of civilization; it has so
+      many advantages that we must overlook its drawbacks in consideration of
+      its benefits. Lord Dudley, to make no more words of it, came to Paris in
+      1816 to take refuge from the pursuit of English justice, which protects
+      nothing Oriental except commerce. The exiled lord, when he saw Henri,
+      asked who that handsome young man might be. Then, upon hearing the name,
+      &ldquo;Ah, it is my son.... What a pity!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the story of the young man who, about the middle of the month of
+      April, 1815, was walking indolently up the broad avenue of the Tuileries,
+      after the fashion of all those animals who, knowing their strength, pass
+      along in majesty and peace. Middle-class matrons turned back naively to
+      look at him again; other women, without turning round, waited for him to
+      pass again, and engraved him in their minds that they might remember in
+      due season that fragrant face, which would not have disadorned the body of
+      the fairest among themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here on Sunday?&rdquo; said the Marquis de Ronquerolles to
+      Henri, as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a fish in the net,&rdquo; answered the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This exchange of thoughts was accomplished by means of two significant
+      glances, without it appearing that either De Ronquerolles or De Marsay had
+      any knowledge of the other. The young man was taking note of the
+      passers-by with that promptitude of eye and ear which is peculiar to the
+      Parisian who seems, at first, to see and hear nothing, but who sees and
+      hears all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment a young man came up to him and took him familiarly by the
+      arm, saying to him: &ldquo;How are you, my dear De Marsay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extremely well,&rdquo; De Marsay answered, with that air of apparent affection
+      which amongst the young men of Paris proves nothing, either for the
+      present or the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In effect, the youth of Paris resemble the youth of no other town. They
+      may be divided into two classes: the young man who has something, and the
+      young man who has nothing; or the young man who thinks and he who spends.
+      But, be it well understood this applies only to those natives of the soil
+      who maintain in Paris the delicious course of the elegant life. There
+      exist, as well, plenty of other young men, but they are children who are
+      late in conceiving Parisian life, and who remain its dupes. They do not
+      speculate, they study; they <i>fag</i>, as the others say. Finally there
+      are to be found, besides, certain young people, rich or poor, who embrace
+      careers and follow them with a single heart; they are somewhat like the
+      Emile of Rousseau, of the flesh of citizens, and they never appear in
+      society. The diplomatic impolitely dub them fools. Be they that or no,
+      they augment the number of those mediocrities beneath the yoke of which
+      France is bowed down. They are always there, always ready to bungle public
+      or private concerns with the dull trowel of their mediocrity, bragging of
+      their impotence, which they count for conduct and integrity. This sort of
+      social <i>prizemen</i> infests the administration, the army, the
+      magistracy, the chambers, the courts. They diminish and level down the
+      country and constitute, in some manner, in the body politic, a lymph which
+      infects it and renders it flabby. These honest folk call men of talent
+      immoral or rogues. If such rogues require to be paid for their services,
+      at least their services are there; whereas the other sort do harm and are
+      respected by the mob; but, happily for France, elegant youth stigmatizes
+      them ceaselessly under the name of louts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first glance, then, it is natural to consider as very distinct the
+      two sorts of young men who lead the life of elegance, the amiable
+      corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who goes
+      beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that the
+      difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as this
+      pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over everybody
+      else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men, literature, and the fine
+      arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and Coburg of each year; interrupt
+      a conversation with a pun, turn into ridicule science and the <i>savant</i>;
+      despise all things which they do not know or which they fear; set
+      themselves above all by constituting themselves the supreme judges of all.
+      They would all hoax their fathers, and be ready to shed crocodile tears
+      upon their mothers&rsquo; breasts; but generally they believe in nothing,
+      blaspheme women, or play at modesty, and in reality are led by some old
+      woman or an evil courtesan. They are all equally eaten to the bone with
+      calculation, with depravity, with a brutal lust to succeed, and if you
+      plumbed for their hearts you would find in all a stone. In their normal
+      state they have the prettiest exterior, stake their friendship at every
+      turn, are captivating alike. The same badinage dominates their
+      ever-changing jargon; they seek for oddity in their toilette, glory in
+      repeating the stupidities of such and such actor who is in fashion, and
+      commence operations, it matters not with whom, with contempt and
+      impertinence, in order to have, as it were, the first move in the game;
+      but, woe betide him who does not know how to take a blow on one cheek for
+      the sake of rendering two. They resemble, in fine, that pretty white spray
+      which crests the stormy waves. They dress and dance, dine and take their
+      pleasure, on the day of Waterloo, in the time of cholera or revolution.
+      Finally, their expenses are all the same, but here the contrast comes in.
+      Of this fluctuating fortune, so agreeably flung away, some possess the
+      capital for which the others wait; they have the same tailors, but the
+      bills of the latter are still to pay. Next, if the first, like sieves,
+      take in ideas of all kinds without retaining any, the latter compare them
+      and assimilate all the good. If the first believe they know something,
+      know nothing and understand everything, lend all to those who need nothing
+      and offer nothing to those who are in need; the latter study secretly
+      others&rsquo; thoughts and place out their money, like their follies, at big
+      interest. The one class have no more faithful impressions, because their
+      soul, like a mirror, worn from use, no longer reflects any image; the
+      others economize their senses and life, even while they seem, like the
+      first, to be flinging them away broadcast. The first, on the faith of a
+      hope, devote themselves without conviction to a system which has wind and
+      tide against it, but they leap upon another political craft when the first
+      goes adrift; the second take the measure of the future, sound it, and see
+      in political fidelity what the English see in commercial integrity, an
+      element of success. Where the young man of possessions makes a pun or an
+      epigram upon the restoration of the throne, he who has nothing makes a
+      public calculation or a secret reservation, and obtains everything by
+      giving a handshake to his friends. The one deny every faculty to others,
+      look upon all their ideas as new, as though the world had been made
+      yesterday, they have unlimited confidence in themselves, and no crueler
+      enemy than those same selves. But the others are armed with an incessant
+      distrust of men, whom they estimate at their value, and are sufficiently
+      profound to have one thought beyond their friends, whom they exploit; then
+      of evenings, when they lay their heads on their pillows, they weigh men as
+      a miser weighs his gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless
+      impertinence, and allow themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic, who
+      make them dance for them by pulling what is the main string of these
+      puppets&mdash;their vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing
+      have something, and those who had something have nothing. The latter look
+      at their comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their
+      hearts may be bad, but their heads are strong. &ldquo;He is very strong!&rdquo; is the
+      supreme praise accorded to those who have attained <i>quibuscumque viis</i>,
+      political rank, a woman, or a fortune. Amongst them are to be found
+      certain young men who play this <i>role</i> by commencing with having
+      debts. Naturally, these are more dangerous than those who play it without
+      a farthing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man who called himself a friend of Henri de Marsay was a
+      rattle-head who had come from the provinces, and whom the young men then
+      in fashion were teaching the art of running through an inheritance; but he
+      had one last leg to stand on in his province, in the shape of a secure
+      establishment. He was simply an heir who had passed without any transition
+      from his pittance of a hundred francs a month to the entire paternal
+      fortune, and who, if he had not wit enough to perceive that he was laughed
+      at, was sufficiently cautious to stop short at two-thirds of his capital.
+      He had learned at Paris, for a consideration of some thousands of francs,
+      the exact value of harness, the art of not being too respectful to his
+      gloves, learned to make skilful meditations upon the right wages to give
+      people, and to seek out what bargain was the best to close with them. He
+      set store on his capacity to speak in good terms of his horses, of his
+      Pyrenean hound; to tell by her dress, her walk, her shoes, to what class a
+      woman belonged; to study <i>ecarte</i>, remember a few fashionable
+      catchwords, and win by his sojourn in Parisian society the necessary
+      authority to import later into his province a taste for tea and silver of
+      an English fashion, and to obtain the right of despising everything around
+      him for the rest of his days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay had admitted him to his society in order to make use of him in
+      the world, just as a bold speculator employs a confidential clerk. The
+      friendship, real or feigned, of De Marsay was a social position for Paul
+      de Manerville, who, on his side, thought himself astute in exploiting,
+      after his fashion, his intimate friend. He lived in the reflecting lustre
+      of his friend, walked constantly under his umbrella, wore his boots,
+      gilded himself with his rays. When he posed in Henri&rsquo;s company or walked
+      at his side, he had the air of saying: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t insult us, we are real
+      dogs.&rdquo; He often permitted himself to remark fatuously: &ldquo;If I were to ask
+      Henri for such and such a thing, he is a good enough friend of mine to do
+      it.&rdquo; But he was careful never to ask anything of him. He feared him, and
+      his fear, although imperceptible, reacted upon the others, and was of use
+      to De Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;De Marsay is a man of a thousand,&rdquo; said Paul. &ldquo;Ah, you will see, he will
+      be what he likes. I should not be surprised to find him one of these days
+      Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nothing can withstand him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made of De Marsay what Corporal Trim made of his cap, a perpetual
+      instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask De Marsay and you will see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Or again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other day we were hunting, De Marsay and I, He would not believe me,
+      but I jumped a hedge without moving on my horse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Or again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were with some women, De Marsay and I, and upon my word of honor, I
+      was&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Paul de Manerville could not be classed amongst the great,
+      illustrious, and powerful family of fools who succeed. He would one day be
+      a deputy. For the time he was not even a young man. His friend, De Marsay,
+      defined him thus: &ldquo;You ask me what is Paul? Paul? Why, Paul de
+      Manerville!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am surprised, my dear fellow,&rdquo; he said to De Marsay, &ldquo;to see you here
+      on a Sunday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going to ask you the same question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it an intrigue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An intrigue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can mention it to you without compromising my passion. Besides, a woman
+      who comes to the Tuileries on Sundays is of no account, aristocratically
+      speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue then, or I shall tell you nothing. Your laugh is too
+      loud, you will make people think that we have lunched too well. Last
+      Thursday, here on the Terrasse des Feuillants, I was walking along,
+      thinking of nothing at all, but when I got to the gate of the Rue de
+      Castiglione, by which I intended to leave, I came face to face with a
+      woman, or rather a young girl; who, if she did not throw herself at my
+      head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one of
+      those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep down
+      the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet, to nail
+      you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this nature, a sort of
+      animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful when the relations are
+      reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this was not stupefaction, nor
+      was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her face seemed to say: &lsquo;What, is
+      it you, my ideal! The creation of my thoughts, of my morning and evening
+      dreams! What, are you there? Why this morning? Why not yesterday? Take me,
+      I am thine, <i>et cetera</i>!&rsquo; Good, I said to myself, another one! Then I
+      scrutinize her. Ah, my dear fellow, speaking physically, my incognita is
+      the most adorable feminine person whom I ever met. She belongs to that
+      feminine variety which the Romans call <i>fulva, flava</i>&mdash;the woman
+      of fire. And in chief, what struck me the most, what I am still taken
+      with, are her two yellow eyes, like a tiger&rsquo;s, a golden yellow that
+      gleams, living gold, gold which thinks, gold which loves, and is
+      determined to take refuge in your pocket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow, we are full of her!&rdquo; cried Paul. &ldquo;She comes here
+      sometimes&mdash;<i>the girl with the golden eyes</i>! That is the name we
+      have given her. She is a young creature&mdash;not more than twenty-two,
+      and I have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who
+      was worth a hundred thousand of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl; she
+      is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl with
+      ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy threads
+      on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks a white down
+      whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and loses itself on
+      her neck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, the other, my dear De Marsay! She has black eyes which have never
+      wept, but which burn; black eyebrows which meet and give her an air of
+      hardness contradicted by the compact curve of her lips, on which the
+      kisses do not stay, lips burning and fresh; a Moorish color that warms a
+      man like the sun. But&mdash;upon my word of honor, she is like you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You flatter her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A firm figure, the tapering figure of a corvette built for speed, which
+      rushes down upon the merchant vessel with French impetuosity, which
+      grapples with her and sinks her at the same time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, my dear fellow,&rdquo; answered De Marsay, &ldquo;what has that got to do
+      with me, since I have never seen her? Ever since I have studied women, my
+      incognita is the only one whose virginal bosom, whose ardent and
+      voluptuous forms, have realized for me the only woman of my dreams&mdash;of
+      my dreams! She is the original of that ravishing picture called <i>La
+      Femme Caressant sa Chimere</i>, the warmest, the most infernal inspiration
+      of the genius of antiquity; a holy poem prostituted by those who have
+      copied it for frescoes and mosiacs; for a heap of bourgeois who see in
+      this gem nothing more than a gew-gaw and hang it on their watch-chains&mdash;whereas,
+      it is the whole woman, an abyss of pleasure into which one plunges and
+      finds no end; whereas, it is the ideal woman, to be seen sometimes in
+      reality in Spain or Italy, almost never in France. Well, I have again seen
+      this girl of the gold eyes, this woman caressing her chimera. I saw her on
+      Friday. I had a presentiment that on the following day she would be here
+      at the same hour; I was not mistaken. I have taken a pleasure in following
+      her without being observed, in studying her indolent walk, the walk of the
+      woman without occupation, but in the movements of which one devines all
+      the pleasure that lies asleep. Well, she turned back again, she saw me,
+      once more she adored me, once more trembled, shivered. It was then I
+      noticed the genuine Spanish duenna who looked after her, a hyena upon whom
+      some jealous man has put a dress, a she-devil well paid, no doubt, to
+      guard this delicious creature.... Ah, then the duenna made me deeper in
+      love. I grew curious. On Saturday, nobody. And here I am to-day waiting
+      for this girl whose chimera I am, asking nothing better than to pose as
+      the monster in the fresco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There she is,&rdquo; said Paul. &ldquo;Every one is turning round to look at her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The unknown blushed, her eyes shone; she saw Henri, she shut them and
+      passed by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say that she notices you?&rdquo; cried Paul, facetiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The duenna looked fixedly and attentively at the two young men. When the
+      unknown and Henri passed each other again, the young girl touched him, and
+      with her hand pressed the hand of the young man. Then she turned her head
+      and smiled with passion, but the duenna led her away very quickly to the
+      gate of the Rue de Castiglione.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two friends followed the young girl, admiring the magnificent grace of
+      the neck which met her head in a harmony of vigorous lines, and upon which
+      a few coils of hair were tightly wound. The girl with the golden eyes had
+      that well-knitted, arched, slender foot which presents so many attractions
+      to the dainty imagination. Moreover, she was shod with elegance, and wore
+      a short skirt. During her course she turned from time to time to look at
+      Henri, and appeared to follow the old woman regretfully, seeming to be at
+      once her mistress and her slave; she could break her with blows, but could
+      not dismiss her. All that was perceptible. The two friends reached the
+      gate. Two men in livery let down the step of a tasteful <i>coupe</i>
+      emblazoned with armorial bearings. The girl with the golden eyes was the
+      first to enter it, took her seat at the side where she could be best seen
+      when the carriage turned, put her hand on the door, and waved her
+      handkerchief in the duennna&rsquo;s despite. In contempt of what might be said
+      by the curious, her handkerchief cried to Henri openly: &ldquo;Follow me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever seen a handkerchief better thrown?&rdquo; said Henri to Paul de
+      Manerville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, observing a fiacre on the point of departure, having just set down a
+      fare, he made a sign to the driver to wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow that carriage, notice the house and the street where it stops&mdash;you
+      shall have ten francs.... Paul, adieu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cab followed the <i>coupe</i>. The <i>coupe</i> stopped in the Rue
+      Saint Lazare before one of the finest houses of the neighborhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay was not impulsive. Any other young man would have obeyed his
+      impulse to obtain at once some information about a girl who realized so
+      fully the most luminous ideas ever expressed upon women in the poetry of
+      the East; but, too experienced to compromise his good fortune, he had told
+      his coachman to continue along the Rue Saint Lazare and carry him back to
+      his house. The next day, his confidential valet, Laurent by name, as
+      cunning a fellow as the Frontin of the old comedy, waited in the vicinity
+      of the house inhabited by the unknown for the hour at which letters were
+      distributed. In order to be able to spy at his ease and hang about the
+      house, he had followed the example of those police officers who seek a
+      good disguise, and bought up cast-off clothes of an Auvergnat, the
+      appearance of whom he sought to imitate. When the postman, who went the
+      round of the Rue Saint Lazare that morning, passed by, Laurent feigned to
+      be a porter unable to remember the name of a person to whom he had to
+      deliver a parcel, and consulted the postman. Deceived at first by
+      appearances, this personage, so picturesque in the midst of Parisian
+      civilization, informed him that the house in which the girl with the
+      golden eyes dwelt belonged to Don Hijos, Marquis de San-Real, grandee of
+      Spain. Naturally, it was not with the Marquis that the Auvergnat was
+      concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My parcel,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is for the marquise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is away,&rdquo; replied the postman. &ldquo;Her letters are forwarded to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the marquise is not a young girl who...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the postman, interrupting the <i>valet de chambre</i> and
+      observing him attentively, &ldquo;you are as much a porter as I&rsquo;m...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Laurent chinked some pieces of gold before the functionary, who began to
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, here&rsquo;s the name of your quarry,&rdquo; he said, taking from his leather
+      wallet a letter bearing a London stamp, upon which the address, &ldquo;To
+      Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes, Rue Saint Lazare, Hotel San-Real, Paris,&rdquo; was
+      written in long, fine characters, which spoke of a woman&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could you tap a bottle of Chablis, with a few dozen oysters, and a <i>filet
+      saute</i> with mushrooms to follow it?&rdquo; said Laurent, who wished to win
+      the postman&rsquo;s valuable friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At half-past nine, when my round is finished&mdash;&mdash; Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the corner of the Rue de la Chaussee-d&rsquo;Antin and the Rue
+      Neuve-des-Mathurins, at the <i>Puits sans Vin</i>,&rdquo; said Laurent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hark ye, my friend,&rdquo; said the postman, when he rejoined the valet an hour
+      after this encounter, &ldquo;if your master is in love with the girl, he is in
+      for a famous task. I doubt you&rsquo;ll not succeed in seeing her. In the ten
+      years that I&rsquo;ve been postman in Paris, I have seen plenty of different
+      kinds of doors! But I can tell you, and no fear of being called a liar by
+      any of my comrades, there never was a door so mysterious as M. de
+      San-Real&rsquo;s. No one can get into the house without the Lord knows what
+      counter-word; and, notice, it has been selected on purpose between a
+      courtyard and a garden to avoid any communication with other houses. The
+      porter is an old Spaniard, who never speaks a word of French, but peers at
+      people as Vidocq might, to see if they are not thieves. If a lover, a
+      thief, or you&mdash;I make no comparisons&mdash;could get the better of
+      this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut by a glazed
+      door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys, an old joker
+      more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one gets past the
+      porter&rsquo;s lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the entrance, and
+      puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That has happened to
+      me, a mere postman. He took me for an eavesdropper in disguise, he said,
+      laughing at his nonsense. As for the servants, don&rsquo;t hope to get aught out
+      of them; I think they are mutes, no one in the neighborhood knows the
+      color of their speech; I don&rsquo;t know what wages they can pay them to keep
+      them from talk and drink; the fact is, they are not to be got at, whether
+      because they are afraid of being shot, or that they have some enormous sum
+      to lose in the case of an indiscretion. If your master is fond enough of
+      Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes to surmount all these obstacles, he certainly
+      won&rsquo;t triumph over Dona Concha Marialva, the duenna who accompanies her
+      and would put her under her petticoats sooner than leave her. The two
+      women look as if they were sewn to one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that you say, worthy postman,&rdquo; went on Laurent, after having drunk
+      off his wine, &ldquo;confirms me in what I have learned before. Upon my word, I
+      thought they were making fun of me! The fruiterer opposite told me that of
+      nights they let loose dogs whose food is hung up on stakes just out of
+      their reach. These cursed animals think, therefore, that any one likely to
+      come in has designs on their victuals, and would tear one to pieces. You
+      will tell me one might throw them down pieces, but it seems they have been
+      trained to touch nothing except from the hand of the porter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top that
+      of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing,&rdquo; replied the postman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! my master knows him,&rdquo; said Laurent, to himself. &ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; he
+      went on, leering at the postman, &ldquo;I serve a master who is a rare man, and
+      if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of an empress,
+      she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you, which is what I
+      wish for you, for he is generous, could one count on you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord, Monsieur Laurent, my name is Moinot. My name is written exactly
+      like <i>Moineau</i>, magpie: M-o-i-n-o-t, Moinot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; said Laurent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I live at No. 11, Rue des Trois Freres, on the fifth floor,&rdquo; went on
+      Moinot; &ldquo;I have a wife and four children. If what you want of me doesn&rsquo;t
+      transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties, you
+      understand! I am your man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are an honest fellow,&rdquo; said Laurent, shaking his hand....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real, the
+      friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty years is
+      capable of taking such precautions,&rdquo; said Henri, when his <i>valet de
+      chambre</i> had related the result of his researches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; said Laurent, &ldquo;unless he takes a balloon no one can get into
+      that hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a fool! Is it necessary to get into the hotel to have Paquita,
+      when Paquita can get out of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, sir, the duenna?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will shut her up for a day or two, your duenna.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, we shall have Paquita!&rdquo; said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rascal!&rdquo; answered Henri, &ldquo;I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you carry
+      your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has become
+      mine.... Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say it
+      to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to desire.
+      And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who should have
+      known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is the
+      intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of the soul,
+      armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two real powers?
+      Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to grow weary of
+      his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown very weary indeed.
+      And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he brought back more grit than
+      pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates, to implore of Chance some
+      obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which should ask the employment of
+      his dormant moral and physical strength. Although Paquita Valdes presented
+      him with a marvelous concentration of perfections which he had only yet
+      enjoyed in detail, the attraction of passion was almost <i>nil</i> with
+      him. Constant satiety had weakened in his heart the sentiment of love.
+      Like old men and people disillusioned, he had no longer anything but
+      extravagant caprices, ruinous tastes, fantasies, which, once satisfied,
+      left no pleasant memory in his heart. Amongst young people love is the
+      finest of the emotions, it makes the life of the soul blossom, it
+      nourishes by its solar power the finest inspirations and their great
+      thoughts; the first fruits in all things have a delicious savor. Amongst
+      men love becomes a passion; strength leads to abuse. Amongst old men it
+      turns to vice; impotence tends to extremes. Henri was at once an old man,
+      a man, and a youth. To afford him the feelings of a real love, he needed
+      like Lovelace, a Clarissa Harlowe. Without the magic lustre of that
+      unattainable pearl he could only have either passions rendered acute by
+      some Parisian vanity, or set determinations with himself to bring such and
+      such a woman to such and such a point of corruption, or else adventures
+      which stimulated his curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The report of Laurent, his <i>valet de chambre</i> had just given an
+      enormous value to the girl with the golden eyes. It was a question of
+      doing battle with some secret enemy who seemed as dangerous as he was
+      cunning; and to carry off the victory, all the forces which Henri could
+      dispose of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal old
+      comedy which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are an old
+      man, a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay. If Laurent
+      was the equal of Figaro, the duenna seemed incorruptible. Thus, the living
+      play was supplied by Chance with a stronger plot than it had ever been by
+      dramatic author! But then is not Chance too, a man of genius?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be a cautious game,&rdquo; said Henri, to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Paul de Manerville, as he entered the room. &ldquo;How are we
+      getting on? I have come to breakfast with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; said Henri. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t be shocked if I make my toilette before
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How absurd!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We take so many things from the English just now that we might well
+      become as great prudes and hypocrites as themselves,&rdquo; said Henri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Laurent had set before his master such a quantity of utensils, so many
+      different articles of such elegance, that Paul could not refrain from
+      saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will take a couple of hours over that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Henri, &ldquo;two hours and a half.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, since we are by ourselves, and can say what we like, explain
+      to me why a man as superior as yourself&mdash;for you are superior&mdash;should
+      affect to exaggerate a foppery which cannot be natural. Why spend two
+      hours and a half in adorning yourself, when it is sufficient to spend a
+      quarter of an hour in your bath, to do your hair in two minutes, and to
+      dress! There, tell me your system.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be very fond of you, my good dunce, to confide such high thoughts
+      to you,&rdquo; said the young man, who was at that moment having his feet rubbed
+      with a soft brush lathered with English soap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not the most devoted attachment to you,&rdquo; replied Paul de
+      Manerville, &ldquo;and do I not like you because I know your superiority?...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have noticed, if you are in the least capable of observing any
+      moral fact, that women love fops,&rdquo; went on De Marsay, without replying in
+      any way to Paul&rsquo;s declaration except by a look. &ldquo;Do you know why women
+      love fops? My friend, fops are the only men who take care of themselves.
+      Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it not imply that one takes
+      care in oneself of what belongs to another? The man who does not belong to
+      himself is precisely the man on whom women are keen. Love is essentially a
+      thief. I say nothing about that excess of niceness to which they are so
+      devoted. Do you know of any woman who has had a passion for a sloven, even
+      if he were a remarkable man? If such a fact has occurred, we must put it
+      to the account of those morbid affections of the breeding woman, mad
+      fancies which float through the minds of everybody. On the other hand, I
+      have seen most remarkable people left in the lurch because of their
+      carelessness. A fop, who is concerned about his person, is concerned with
+      folly, with petty things. And what is a woman? A petty thing, a bundle of
+      follies. With two words said to the winds, can you not make her busy for
+      four hours? She is sure that the fop will be occupied with her, seeing
+      that he has no mind for great things. She will never be neglected for
+      glory, ambition, politics, art&mdash;those prostitutes who for her are
+      rivals. Then fops have the courage to cover themselves with ridicule in
+      order to please a woman, and her heart is full of gratitude towards the
+      man who is ridiculous for love. In fine, a fop can be no fop unless he is
+      right in being one. It is women who bestow that rank. The fop is love&rsquo;s
+      colonel; he has his victories, his regiment of women at his command. My
+      dear fellow, in Paris everything is known, and a man cannot be a fop there
+      <i>gratis</i>. You, who have only one woman, and who, perhaps, are right
+      to have but one, try to act the fop!... You will not even become
+      ridiculous, you will be dead. You will become a foregone conclusion, one
+      of those men condemned inevitably to do one and the same thing. You will
+      come to signify <i>folly</i> as inseparably as M. de La Fayette signifies
+      <i>America</i>; M. de Talleyrand, <i>diplomacy</i>; Desaugiers, <i>song</i>;
+      M. de Segur, <i>romance</i>. If they once forsake their own line people no
+      longer attach any value to what they do. So, foppery, my friend Paul, is
+      the sign of an incontestable power over the female folk. A man who is
+      loved by many women passes for having superior qualities, and then, poor
+      fellow, it is a question who shall have him! But do you think it is
+      nothing to have the right of going into a drawing-room, of looking down at
+      people from over your cravat, or through your eye-glass, and of despising
+      the most superior of men should he wear an old-fashioned waistcoat?...
+      Laurent, you are hurting me! After breakfast, Paul, we will go to the
+      Tuileries and see the adorable girl with the golden eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When, after making an excellent meal, the two young men had traversed the
+      Terrasse de Feuillants and the broad walk of the Tuileries, they nowhere
+      discovered the sublime Paquita Valdes, on whose account some fifty of the
+      most elegant young men in Paris where to be seen, all scented, with their
+      high scarfs, spurred and booted, riding, walking, talking, laughing, and
+      damning themselves mightily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a white Mass,&rdquo; said Henri; &ldquo;but I have the most excellent idea in
+      the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must be
+      bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a love-letter
+      slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant, <i>crudel tirano</i>,
+      is certain to know the person who writes the letters from London, and has
+      ceased to be suspicious of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The day after, De Marsay came again to walk on the Terrasse des
+      Feuillants, and saw Paquita Valdes; already passion had embellished her
+      for him. Seriously, he was wild for those eyes, whose rays seemed akin to
+      those which the sun emits, and whose ardor set the seal upon that of her
+      perfect body, in which all was delight. De Marsay was on fire to brush the
+      dress of this enchanting girl as they passed one another in their walk;
+      but his attempts were always vain. But at one moment, when he had repassed
+      Paquita and the duenna, in order to find himself on the same side as the
+      girl of the golden eyes, when he returned, Paquita, no less impatient,
+      came forward hurriedly, and De Marsay felt his hand pressed by her in a
+      fashion at once so swift and so passionately significant that it was as
+      though he had received the emotions surged up in his heart. When the two
+      lovers glanced at one another, Paquita seemed ashamed, she dropped her
+      eyes lest she should meet the eyes of Henri, but her gaze sank lower to
+      fasten on the feet and form of him whom women, before the Revolution,
+      called <i>their conqueror</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am determined to make this girl my mistress,&rdquo; said Henri to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he followed her along the terrace, in the direction of the Place Louis
+      XV., he caught sight of the aged Marquis de San-Real, who was walking on
+      the arm of his valet, stepping with all the precautions due to gout and
+      decrepitude. Dona Concha, who distrusted Henri, made Paquita pass between
+      herself and the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, for you,&rdquo; said De Marsay to himself, casting a glance of disdain upon
+      the duenna, &ldquo;if one cannot make you capitulate, with a little opium one
+      can make you sleep. We know mythology and the fable of Argus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before entering the carriage, the golden-eyed girl exchanged certain
+      glances with her lover, of which the meaning was unmistakable and which
+      enchanted Henri, but one of them was surprised by the duenna; she said a
+      few rapid words to Paquita, who threw herself into the <i>coupe</i> with
+      an air of desperation. For some days Paquita did not appear in the
+      Tuileries. Laurent, who by his master&rsquo;s orders was on watch by the hotel,
+      learned from the neighbors that neither the two women nor the aged marquis
+      had been abroad since the day upon which the duenna had surprised a glance
+      between the young girl in her charge and Henri. The bond, so flimsy
+      withal, which united the two lovers was already severed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some days later, none knew by what means, De Marsay had attained his end;
+      he had a seal and wax, exactly resembling the seal and wax affixed to the
+      letters sent to Mademoiselle Valdes from London; paper similar to that
+      which her correspondent used; moreover, all the implements and stamps
+      necessary to affix the French and English postmarks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote the following letter, to which he gave all the appearances of a
+      letter sent from London:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;MY DEAR PAQUITA,&mdash;I shall not try to paint to you in words the
+  passion with which you have inspired me. If, to my happiness, you
+  reciprocate it, understand that I have found a means of
+  corresponding with you. My name is Adolphe de Gouges, and I live
+  at No. 54 Rue de l&rsquo;Universite. If you are too closely watched to
+  be able to write to me, if you have neither pen nor paper, I shall
+  understand it by your silence. If then, to-morrow, you have not,
+  between eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning and ten o&rsquo;clock in the
+  evening, thrown a letter over the wall of your garden into that of
+  the Baron de Nucingen, where it will be waited for during the
+  whole of the day, a man, who is entirely devoted to me, will let
+  down two flasks by a string over your wall at ten o&rsquo;clock the next
+  morning. Be walking there at that hour. One of the two flasks will
+  contain opium to send your Argus to sleep; it will be sufficient
+  to employ six drops; the other will contain ink. The flask of ink
+  is of cut glass; the other is plain. Both are of such a size as
+  can easily be concealed within your bosom. All that I have already
+  done, in order to be able to correspond with you, should tell you
+  how greatly I love you. Should you have any doubt of it, I will
+  confess to you, that to obtain an interview of one hour with you I
+  would give my life.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least they believe that, poor creatures!&rdquo; said De Marsay; &ldquo;but they
+      are right. What should we think of a woman who refused to be beguiled by a
+      love-letter accompanied by such convincing accessories?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter was delivered by Master Moinot, postman, on the following day,
+      about eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning, to the porter of the Hotel San-Real.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to be nearer to the field of action, De Marsay went and
+      breakfasted with Paul, who lived in the Rue de la Pepiniere. At two
+      o&rsquo;clock, just as the two friends were laughingly discussing the
+      discomfiture of a young man who had attempted to lead the life of fashion
+      without a settled income, and were devising an end for him, Henri&rsquo;s
+      coachman came to seek his master at Paul&rsquo;s house, and presented to him a
+      mysterious personage who insisted on speaking himself with his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a
+      model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did any
+      African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready suspicion,
+      the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength of the Moor,
+      and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had the fixity of the
+      eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a vulture&rsquo;s, by a
+      bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low and narrow, had
+      something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the yoke of some single
+      and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not belong to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those who
+      shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint in the
+      single phrase: <i>He was an unfortunate man</i>. From this phrase,
+      everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each
+      country. But who can best imagine his face&mdash;white and wrinkled, red
+      at the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow
+      scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock coat,
+      his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his imitation gold
+      pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were plastered in mud? Who
+      will see all that but the Parisian? The unfortunate man of Paris is the
+      unfortunate man <i>in toto</i>, for he has still enough mirth to know the
+      extent of his misfortune. The mulatto was like an executioner of Louis XI.
+      leading a man to the gallows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?&rdquo; said Henri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder,&rdquo; replied Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you&mdash;you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the
+      two?&rdquo; said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a man
+      who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something from
+      the gestures and movements of the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de Justice,
+      and am named Poincet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!... and this one?&rdquo; said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
+      mulatto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish <i>patois</i>, and he has
+      brought me here to make himself understood by you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
+      Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;so&mdash;the game is beginning,&rdquo; said Henri to himself. &ldquo;Paul,
+      leave us alone for a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I translated this letter for him,&rdquo; went on the interpreter, when they
+      were alone. &ldquo;When it was translated, he was in some place which I don&rsquo;t
+      remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two <i>louis</i>
+      to fetch him here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you to say to me, nigger?&rdquo; asked Henri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not translate <i>nigger</i>,&rdquo; said the interpreter, waiting for the
+      mulatto&rsquo;s reply....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said, sir,&rdquo; went on the interpreter, after having listened to the
+      unknown, &ldquo;that you must be at half-past ten to-morrow night on the
+      boulevard Montmartre, near the cafe. You will see a carriage there, in
+      which you must take your place, saying to the man, who will wait to open
+      the door for you, the word <i>cortejo</i>&mdash;a Spanish word, which
+      means <i>lover</i>,&rdquo; added Poincet, casting a glance of congratulation
+      upon Henri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mulatto was about to bestow the two <i>louis</i>, but De Marsay would
+      not permit it, and himself rewarded the interpreter. As he was paying him,
+      the mulatto began to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is he saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is warning me,&rdquo; replied the unfortunate, &ldquo;that if I commit a single
+      indiscretion he will strangle me. He speaks fair and he looks remarkably
+      as if he were capable of carrying out his threat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of it,&rdquo; answered Henri; &ldquo;he would keep his word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He says, as well,&rdquo; replied the interpreter, &ldquo;that the person from whom he
+      is sent implores you, for your sake and for hers, to act with the greatest
+      prudence, because the daggers which are raised above your head would
+      strike your heart before any human power could save you from them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said that? So much the better, it will be more amusing. You can come
+      in now, Paul,&rdquo; he cried to his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mulatto, who had not ceased to gaze at the lover of Paquita Valdes
+      with magnetic attention, went away, followed by the interpreter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, at last I have an adventure which is entirely romantic,&rdquo; said
+      Henri, when Paul returned. &ldquo;After having shared in a certain number I have
+      finished by finding in Paris an intrigue accompanied by serious accidents,
+      by grave perils. The deuce! what courage danger gives a woman! To torment
+      a woman, to try and contradict her&mdash;doesn&rsquo;t it give her the right and
+      the courage to scale in one moment obstacles which it would take her years
+      to surmount of herself? Pretty creature, jump then! To die? Poor child!
+      Daggers? Oh, imagination of women! They cannot help trying to find
+      authority for their little jests. Besides, can one think of it, Paquita?
+      Can one think of it, my child? The devil take me, now that I know this
+      beautiful girl, this masterpiece of nature, is mine, the adventure has
+      lost its charm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For all his light words, the youth in Henri had reappeared. In order to
+      live until the morrow without too much pain, he had recourse to exorbitant
+      pleasure; he played, dined, supped with his friends; he drank like a fish,
+      ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand francs. He left the
+      Rocher de Cancale at two o&rsquo;clock in the morning, slept like a child, awoke
+      the next morning fresh and rosy, and dressed to go to the Tuileries, with
+      the intention of taking a ride, after having seen Paquita, in order to get
+      himself an appetite and dine the better, and so kill the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the hour mentioned Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage, and
+      gave the counter-word to a man who looked to him like the mulatto. Hearing
+      the word, the man opened the door and quickly let down the step. Henri was
+      so rapidly carried through Paris, and his thoughts left him so little
+      capacity to pay attention to the streets through which he passed, that he
+      did not know where the carriage stopped. The mulatto let him into a house,
+      the staircase of which was quite close to the entrance. This staircase was
+      dark, as was also the landing upon which Henri was obliged to wait while
+      the mulatto was opening the door of a damp apartment, fetid and unlit, the
+      chambers of which, barely illuminated by the candle which his guide found
+      in the ante-chamber, seemed to him empty and ill furnished, like those of
+      a house the inhabitants of which are away. He recognized the sensation
+      which he had experienced from the perusal of one of those romances of Anne
+      Radcliffe, in which the hero traverses the cold, sombre, and uninhabited
+      saloons of some sad and desert spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the mulatto opened the door of a <i>salon</i>. The condition of
+      the old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was
+      adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame.
+      There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of
+      things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red
+      Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was
+      buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by one
+      of those turbans which English women of a certain age have invented and
+      which would have a mighty success in China, where the artist&rsquo;s ideal is
+      the monstrous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room, the old woman, the cold hearth, all would have chilled love to
+      death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose voluptuous
+      wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free to show her
+      arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first interview was what
+      every <i>rendezvous</i> must be between persons of passionate disposition,
+      who have stepped over a wide distance quickly, who desire each other
+      ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know each other. It is impossible
+      that at first there should not occur certain discordant notes in the
+      situation, which is embarrassing until the moment when two souls find
+      themselves in unison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint aside,
+      the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great may be her
+      love, is afraid of arriving at the end so promptly, and face to face with
+      the necessity of giving herself, which to many women is equivalent to a
+      fall into an abyss, at the bottom of which they know not what they shall
+      find. The involuntary coldness of the woman contrasts with her confessed
+      passion, and necessarily reacts upon the most passionate lover. Thus
+      ideas, which often float around souls like vapors, determine in them a
+      sort of temporary malady. In the sweet journey which two beings undertake
+      through the fair domains of love, this moment is like a waste land to be
+      traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of
+      scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad
+      with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on
+      carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with
+      a foolish laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it
+      were, suffocated beneath the icy pressure of his desires. It would not be
+      impossible for two beings of equal beauty, intelligence, and passion to
+      utter at first nothing but the most silly commonplaces, until chance, a
+      word, the tremor of a certain glance, the communication of a spark, should
+      have brought them to the happy transition which leads to that flowery way
+      in which one does not walk, but where one sways and at the same time does
+      not lapse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the
+      feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing similar.
+      The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that which is produced
+      by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first view, appears to be
+      covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the firmament seems black, the
+      intensity of light is like darkness. With Henri, as with the Spanish girl,
+      there was an equal intensity of feeling; and that law of statics, in
+      virtue of which two identical forces cancel each other, might have been
+      true also in the moral order. And the embarrassment of the moment was
+      singularly increased by the presence of the old hag. Love takes pleasure
+      or fright at all, all has meaning for it, everything is an omen of
+      happiness or sorrow for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This decrepit woman was there like a suggestion of catastrophe, and
+      represented the horrid fish&rsquo;s tail with which the allegorical geniuses of
+      Greece have terminated their chimeras and sirens, whose figures, like all
+      passions, are so seductive, so deceptive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although Henri was not a free-thinker&mdash;the phrase is always a mockery&mdash;but
+      a man of extraordinary power, a man as great as a man can be without
+      faith, the conjunction struck him. Moreover, the strongest men are
+      naturally the most impressionable, and consequently the most
+      superstitious, if, indeed, one may call superstition the prejudice of the
+      first thoughts, which, without doubt, is the appreciation of the result in
+      causes hidden to other eyes but perceptible to their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Spanish girl profited by this moment of stupefaction to let herself
+      fall into the ecstasy of that infinite adoration which seizes the heart of
+      a woman, when she truly loves and finds herself in the presence of an idol
+      for whom she has vainly longed. Her eyes were all joy, all happiness, and
+      sparks flew from them. She was under the charm, and fearlessly intoxicated
+      herself with a felicity of which she had dreamed long. She seemed then so
+      marvelously beautiful to Henri, that all this phantasmagoria of rags and
+      old age, of worn red drapery and of the green mats in front of the
+      armchairs, the ill-washed red tiles, all this sick and dilapidated luxury,
+      disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room seemed lit up; and it was only through a cloud that one could see
+      the fearful harpy fixed and dumb on her red sofa, her yellow eyes
+      betraying the servile sentiments, inspired by misfortune, or caused by
+      some vice beneath whose servitude one has fallen as beneath a tyrant who
+      brutalizes one with the flagellations of his despotism. Her eyes had the
+      cold glitter of a caged tiger, knowing his impotence and being compelled
+      to swallow his rage of destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is that woman?&rdquo; said Henri to Paquita.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Paquita did not answer. She made a sign that she understood no French,
+      and asked Henri if he spoke English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay repeated his question in English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is the only woman in whom I can confide, although she has sold me
+      already,&rdquo; said Paquita, tranquilly. &ldquo;My dear Adolphe, she is my mother, a
+      slave bought in Georgia for her rare beauty, little enough of which
+      remains to-day. She only speaks her native tongue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The attitude of this woman and her eagerness to guess from the gestures of
+      her daughter and Henri what was passing between them, were suddenly
+      explained to the young man; and this explanation put him at his ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paquita,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;are we never to be free then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; she said, with an air of sadness. &ldquo;Even now we have but a few
+      days before us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lowered her eyes, looked at and counted with her right hand on the
+      fingers of her left, revealing so the most beautiful hands which Henri had
+      ever seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One, two, three&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She counted up to twelve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we have twelve days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And after?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After,&rdquo; she said, showing the absorption of a weak woman before the
+      executioner&rsquo;s axe, and slain in advance, as it were, by a fear which
+      stripped her of that magnificent energy which Nature seemed to have
+      bestowed upon her only to aggrandize pleasure and convert the most vulgar
+      delights into endless poems. &ldquo;After&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; she repeated. Her eyes
+      took a fixed stare; she seemed to contemplate a threatening object far
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This girl is mad,&rdquo; said Henri to himself, falling into strange
+      reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita appeared to him occupied by something which was not himself, like
+      a woman constrained equally by remorse and passion. Perhaps she had in her
+      heart another love which she alternately remembered and forgot. In a
+      moment Henri was assailed by a thousand contradictory thoughts. This girl
+      became a mystery for him; but as he contemplated her with the scientific
+      attention of the <i>blase</i> man, famished for new pleasures, like that
+      Eastern king who asked that a pleasure should be created for him,&mdash;a
+      horrible thirst with which great souls are seized,&mdash;Henri recognized
+      in Paquita the richest organization that Nature had ever deigned to
+      compose for love. The presumptive play of this machinery, setting aside
+      the soul, would have frightened any other man than Henri; but he was
+      fascinated by that rich harvest of promised pleasures, by that constant
+      variety in happiness, the dream of every man, and the desire of every
+      loving woman too. He was infuriated by the infinite rendered palpable, and
+      transported into the most excessive raptures of which the creature is
+      capable. All that he saw in this girl more distinctly than he had yet seen
+      it, for she let herself be viewed complacently, happy to be admired. The
+      admiration of De Marsay became a secret fury, and he unveiled her
+      completely, throwing a glance at her which the Spaniard understood as
+      though she had been used to receive such.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are not to be mine, mine only, I will kill you!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing this speech, Paquita covered her face in her hands, and cried
+      naively:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy Virgin! What have I brought upon myself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose, flung herself down upon the red sofa, and buried her head in the
+      rags which covered the bosom of her mother, and wept there. The old woman
+      received her daughter without issuing from her state of immobility, or
+      displaying any emotion. The mother possessed in the highest degree that
+      gravity of savage races, the impassiveness of a statue upon which all
+      remarks are lost. Did she or did she not love her daughter? Beneath that
+      mask every human emotion might brood&mdash;good and evil; and from this
+      creature all might be expected. Her gaze passed slowly from her daughter&rsquo;s
+      beautiful hair, which covered her like a mantle, to the face of Henri,
+      which she considered with an indescribable curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice Nature
+      had made so seductive a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These women are making sport of me,&rdquo; said Henri to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Paquita raised her head, cast at him one of those looks
+      which reach the very soul and consume it. So beautiful seemed she that he
+      swore he would possess such a treasure of beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Paquita! Be mine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldst thou kill me?&rdquo; she said fearfully, palpitating and anxious, but
+      drawn towards him by an inexplicable force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kill thee&mdash;I!&rdquo; he said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita uttered a cry of alarm, said a word to the old woman, who
+      authoritatively seized Henri&rsquo;s hand and that of her daughter. She gazed at
+      them for a long time, and then released them, wagging her head in a
+      fashion horribly significant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be mine&mdash;this evening, this moment; follow me, do not leave me! It
+      must be, Paquita! Dost thou love me? Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment he had poured out a thousand foolish words to her, with the
+      rapidity of a torrent coursing between the rocks, and repeating the same
+      sound in a thousand different forms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the same voice!&rdquo; said Paquita, in a melancholy voice, which De
+      Marsay could not overhear, &ldquo;and the same ardor,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;So be it&mdash;yes,&rdquo;
+       she said, with an abandonment of passion which no words can describe.
+      &ldquo;Yes; but not to-night. To-night Adolphe, I gave too little opium to La
+      Concha. She might wake up, and I should be lost. At this moment the whole
+      household believes me to be asleep in my room. In two days be at the same
+      spot, say the same word to the same man. That man is my foster-father.
+      Cristemio worships me, and would die in torments for me before they could
+      extract one word against me from him. Farewell,&rdquo; she said seizing Henri by
+      the waist and twining round him like a serpent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed him on every side at once, lifted her head to his, and offered
+      him her lips, then snatched a kiss which filled them both with such a
+      dizziness that it seemed to Henri as though the earth opened; and Paquita
+      cried: &ldquo;Enough, depart!&rdquo; in a voice which told how little she was mistress
+      of herself. But she clung to him still, still crying &ldquo;Depart!&rdquo; and brought
+      him slowly to the staircase. There the mulatto, whose white eyes lit up at
+      the sight of Paquita, took the torch from the hands of his idol, and
+      conducted Henri to the street. He left the light under the arch, opened
+      the door, put Henri into the carriage, and set him down on the Boulevard
+      des Italiens with marvelous rapidity. It was as though the horses had
+      hell-fire in their veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene was like a dream to De Marsay, but one of those dreams which,
+      even when they fade away, leave a feeling of supernatural voluptuousness,
+      which a man runs after for the remainder of his life. A single kiss had
+      been enough. Never had <i>rendezvous</i> been spent in a manner more
+      decorous or chaste, or, perhaps, more coldly, in a spot of which the
+      surroundings were more gruesome, in presence of a more hideous divinity;
+      for the mother had remained in Henri&rsquo;s imagination like some infernal,
+      cowering thing, cadaverous, monstrous, savagely ferocious, which the
+      imagination of poets and painters had not yet conceived. In effect, no <i>rendezvous</i>
+      had ever irritated his senses more, revealed more audacious pleasures, or
+      better aroused love from its centre to shed itself round him like an
+      atmosphere. There was something sombre, mysterious, sweet, tender,
+      constrained, and expansive, an intermingling of the awful and the
+      celestial, of paradise and hell, which made De Marsay like a drunken man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was no longer himself, and he was, withal, great enough to be able to
+      resist the intoxication of pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
+      story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age when
+      young men generally belittle themselves in their relations with women, or
+      in too much occupation with them. Its growth was due to a concurrence of
+      secret circumstances, which invested him with a vast and unsuspected
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
+      modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by the
+      laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental despot. But
+      this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by brutish men, was
+      increased tenfold by its conjunction with European intelligence, with
+      French wit&mdash;the most subtle, the keenest of all intellectual
+      instruments. Henri could do what he would in the interest of his pleasures
+      and vanities. This invisible action upon the social world had invested him
+      with a real, but secret, majesty, without emphasis and deriving from
+      himself. He had not the opinion which Louis XIV. could have of himself,
+      but that which the proudest of the Caliphs, the Pharoahs, the Xerxes, who
+      held themselves to be of divine origin, had of themselves when they
+      imitated God, and veiled themselves from their subjects under the pretext
+      that their looks dealt forth death. Thus, without any remorse at being at
+      once the judge and the accuser, De Marsay coldly condemned to death the
+      man or the woman who had seriously offended him. Although often pronounced
+      almost lightly, the verdict was irrevocable. An error was a misfortune
+      similar to that which a thunderbolt causes when it falls upon a smiling
+      Parisienne in some hackney coach, instead of crushing the old coachman who
+      is driving her to a <i>rendezvous</i>. Thus the bitter and profound
+      sarcasm which distinguished the young man&rsquo;s conversation usually tended to
+      frighten people; no one was anxious to put him out. Women are prodigiously
+      fond of those persons who call themselves pashas, and who are, as it were
+      accompanied by lions and executioners, and who walk in a panoply of
+      terror. The result, in the case of such men, is a security of action, a
+      certitude of power, a pride of gaze, a leonine consciousness, which makes
+      women realize the type of strength of which they all dream. Such was De
+      Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Happy, for the moment, with his future, he grew young and pliable, and
+      thought of nothing but love as he went to bed. He dreamed of the girl with
+      the golden eyes, as the young and passionate can dream. His dreams were
+      monstrous images, unattainable extravagances&mdash;full of light,
+      revealing invisible worlds, yet in a manner always incomplete, for an
+      intervening veil changes the conditions of vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared and no one knew what had
+      become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain conditions,
+      and, happily for him, during those two days he was a private soldier in
+      the service of the demon to whom he owed his talismanic existence. But at
+      the appointed time, in the evening, he was waiting&mdash;and he had not
+      long to wait&mdash;for the carriage. The mulatto approached Henri, in
+      order to repeat to him in French a phrase which he seemed to have learned
+      by heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you wish to come, she told me, you must consent to have your eyes
+      bandaged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Cristemio produced a white silk handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Henri, whose omnipotence revolted suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to leap in. The mulatto made a sign, and the carriage drove off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; cried De Marsay, furious at the thought of losing a piece of good
+      fortune which had been promised him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw, moreover, the impossibility of making terms with a slave whose
+      obedience was as blind as the hangman&rsquo;s. Nor was it this passive
+      instrument upon whom his anger could fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mulatto whistled, the carriage returned. Henri got in hastily. Already
+      a few curious onlookers had assembled like sheep on the boulevard. Henri
+      was strong; he tried to play the mulatto. When the carriage started at a
+      gallop he seized his hands, in order to master him, and retain, by
+      subduing his attendant, the possession of his faculties, so that he might
+      know whither he was going. It was a vain attempt. The eyes of the mulatto
+      flashed from the darkness. The fellow uttered a cry which his fury stifled
+      in his throat, released himself, threw back De Marsay with a hand like
+      iron, and nailed him, so to speak, to the bottom of the carriage; then
+      with his free hand, he drew a triangular dagger, and whistled. The
+      coachman heard the whistle and stopped. Henri was unarmed, he was forced
+      to yield. He moved his head towards the handkerchief. The gesture of
+      submission calmed Cristemio, and he bound his eyes with a respect and care
+      which manifested a sort of veneration for the person of the man whom his
+      idol loved. But, before taking this course, he had placed his dagger
+      distrustfully in his side pocket, and buttoned himself up to the chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That nigger would have killed me!&rdquo; said De Marsay to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more the carriage moved on rapidly. There was one resource still open
+      to a young man who knew Paris as well as Henri. To know whither he was
+      going, he had but to collect himself and count, by the number of gutters
+      crossed, the streets leading from the boulevards by which the carriage
+      passed, so long as it continued straight along. He could thus discover
+      into which lateral street it would turn, either towards the Seine or
+      towards the heights of Montmartre, and guess the name or position of the
+      street in which his guide should bring him to a halt. But the violent
+      emotion which his struggle had caused him, the rage into which his
+      compromised dignity had thrown him, the ideas of vengeance to which he
+      abandoned himself, the suppositions suggested to him by the circumstantial
+      care which this girl had taken in order to bring him to her, all hindered
+      him from the attention, which the blind have, necessary for the
+      concentration of his intelligence and the perfect lucidity of his
+      recollection. The journey lasted half an hour. When the carriage stopped,
+      it was no longer on the street. The mulatto and the coachman took Henri in
+      their arms, lifted him out, and, putting him into a sort of litter,
+      conveyed him across a garden. He could smell its flowers and the perfume
+      peculiar to trees and grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence which reigned there was so profound that he could distinguish
+      the noise made by the drops of water falling from the moist leaves. The
+      two men took him to a staircase, set him on his feet, led him by his hands
+      through several apartments, and left him in a room whose atmosphere was
+      perfumed, and the thick carpet of which he could feel beneath his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman&rsquo;s hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief for
+      him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly and
+      voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found himself
+      described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced opposite by
+      the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a chimney-piece
+      shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door on one side,
+      hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a window. The
+      semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish divan, that is to
+      say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress as broad as a bed, a
+      divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white cashmere, relieved by
+      bows of black and scarlet silk, arranged in panels. The top of this huge
+      bed was raised several inches by numerous cushions, which further enriched
+      it by their tasteful comfort. The boudoir was lined with some red stuff,
+      over which an Indian muslin was stretched, fluted after the fashion of
+      Corinthian columns, in plaits going in and out, and bound at the top and
+      bottom by bands of poppy-colored stuff, on which were designs in black
+      arabesque.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Below the muslin the poppy turned to rose, that amorous color, which was
+      matched by window-curtains, which were of Indian muslin lined with
+      rose-colored taffeta, and set off with a fringe of poppy-color and black.
+      Six silver-gilt arms, each supporting two candles, were attached to the
+      tapestry at an equal distance, to illuminate the divan. The ceiling, from
+      the middle of which a lustre of unpolished silver hung, was of a brilliant
+      whiteness, and the cornice was gilded. The carpet was like an Oriental
+      shawl; it had the designs and recalled the poetry of Persia, where the
+      hands of slaves had worked on it. The furniture was covered in white
+      cashmere, relieved by black and poppy-colored ornaments. The clock, the
+      candelabra, all were in white marble and gold. The only table there had a
+      cloth of cashmere. Elegant flower-pots held roses of every kind, flowers
+      white or red. In fine, the least detail seemed to have been the object of
+      loving thought. Never had richness hidden itself more coquettishly to
+      become elegance, to express grace, to inspire pleasure. Everything there
+      would have warmed the coldest of beings. The caresses of the tapestry, of
+      which the color changed according to the direction of one&rsquo;s gaze, becoming
+      either all white or all rose, harmonized with the effects of the light
+      shed upon the diaphanous tissues of the muslin, which produced an
+      appearance of mistiness. The soul has I know not what attraction towards
+      white, love delights in red, and the passions are flattered by gold, which
+      has the power of realizing their caprices. Thus all that man possesses
+      within him of vague and mysterious, all his inexplicable affinities, were
+      caressed in their involuntary sympathies. There was in this perfect
+      harmony a concert of color to which the soul responded with vague and
+      voluptuous and fluctuating ideas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was out of a misty atmosphere, laden with exquisite perfumes, that
+      Paquita, clad in a white wrapper, her feet bare, orange blossoms in her
+      black hair, appeared to Henri, knelt before him, adoring him as the god of
+      this temple, whither he had deigned to come. Although De Marsay was
+      accustomed to seeing the utmost efforts of Parisian luxury, he was
+      surprised at the aspect of this shell, like that from which Venus rose out
+      of the sea. Whether from an effect of contrast between the darkness from
+      which he issued and the light which bathed his soul, whether from a
+      comparison which he swiftly made between this scene and that of their
+      first interview, he experienced one of those delicate sensations which
+      true poetry gives. Perceiving in the midst of this retreat, which had been
+      opened to him as by a fairy&rsquo;s magic wand, the masterpiece of creation,
+      this girl, whose warmly colored tints, whose soft skin&mdash;soft, but
+      slightly gilded by the shadows, by I know not what vaporous effusion of
+      love&mdash;gleamed as though it reflected the rays of color and light, his
+      anger, his desire for vengeance, his wounded vanity, all were lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her on
+      his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the voluptuous
+      pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties softly enveloped
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come to me, Paquita!&rdquo; he said, in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, speak without fear!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This retreat was built for love.
+      No sound can escape from it, so greatly was it desired to guard
+      avariciously the accents and music of the beloved voice. However loud
+      should be the cries, they would not be heard without these walls. A person
+      might be murdered, and his moans would be as vain as if he were in the
+      midst of the great desert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who has understood jealousy and its needs so well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never question me as to that,&rdquo; she answered, untying with a gesture of
+      wonderful sweetness the young man&rsquo;s scarf, doubtless in order the better
+      to behold his neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there is the neck I love so well!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Wouldst thou please
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This interrogation, rendered by the accent almost lascivious, drew De
+      Marsay from the reverie in which he had been plunged by Paquita&rsquo;s
+      authoritative refusal to allow him any research as to the unknown being
+      who hovered like a shadow about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I wished to know who reigns here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita looked at him trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not I, then?&rdquo; he said, rising and freeing himself from the girl,
+      whose head fell backwards. &ldquo;Where I am, I would be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strike, strike!...&rdquo; said the poor slave, a prey to terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what do you take me, then?... Will you answer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita got up gently, her eyes full of tears, took a poniard from one of
+      the two ebony pieces of furniture, and presented it to Henri with a
+      gesture of submission which would have moved a tiger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a feast such as men give when they love,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and whilst I
+      sleep, slay me, for I know not how to answer thee. Hearken! I am bound
+      like some poor beast to a stake; I am amazed that I have been able to
+      throw a bridge over the abyss which divides us. Intoxicate me, then kill
+      me! Ah, no, no!&rdquo; she cried, joining her hands, &ldquo;do not kill me! I love
+      life! Life is fair to me! If I am a slave, I am a queen too. I could
+      beguile you with words, tell you that I love you alone, prove it to you,
+      profit by my momentary empire to say to you: &lsquo;Take me as one tastes the
+      perfume of a flower when one passes it in a king&rsquo;s garden.&rsquo; Then, after
+      having used the cunning eloquence of woman and soared on the wings of
+      pleasure, after having quenched my thirst, I could have you cast into a
+      pit, where none could find you, which has been made to gratify vengeance
+      without having to fear that of the law, a pit full of lime which would
+      kindle and consume you, until no particle of you were left. You would stay
+      in my heart, mine forever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri looked at the girl without trembling, and this fearless gaze filled
+      her with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I shall not do it! You have fallen into no trap here, but upon the
+      heart of a woman who adores you, and it is I who will be cast into the
+      pit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this appears to me prodigiously strange,&rdquo; said De Marsay, considering
+      her. &ldquo;But you seem to me a good girl, a strange nature; you are, upon my
+      word of honor, a living riddle, the answer to which is very difficult to
+      find.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita understood nothing of what the young man said; she looked at him
+      gently, opening wide eyes which could never be stupid, so much was
+      pleasure written in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, then, my love,&rdquo; she said, returning to her first idea, &ldquo;wouldst
+      thou please me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would do all that thou wouldst, and even that thou wouldst not,&rdquo;
+       answered De Marsay, with a laugh. He had recovered his foppish ease, as he
+      took the resolve to let himself go to the climax of his good fortune,
+      looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted, moreover, on his
+      power and his capacity of a man used to adventures, to dominate this girl
+      a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;let me arrange you as I would like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of red
+      velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with a
+      woman&rsquo;s bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to these
+      follies with a child&rsquo;s innocence, she laughed a convulsive laugh, and
+      resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing beyond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
+      creatures&mdash;made by heaven in a joyous moment&mdash;found, it is
+      perhaps necessary to translate metaphysically the extraordinary and almost
+      fantastic impressions of the young man. That which persons in the social
+      position of De Marsay, living as he lived, are best able to recognize is a
+      girl&rsquo;s innocence. But, strange phenomenon! The girl of the golden eyes
+      might be virgin, but innocent she was certainly not. The fantastic union
+      of the mysterious and the real, of darkness and light, horror and beauty,
+      pleasure and danger, paradise and hell, which had already been met with in
+      this adventure, was resumed in the capricious and sublime being with which
+      De Marsay dallied. All the utmost science or the most refined pleasure,
+      all that Henri could know of that poetry of the senses which is called
+      love, was excelled by the treasures poured forth by this girl, whose
+      radiant eyes gave the lie to none of the promises which they made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that Hafiz,
+      have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of Saadi, nor
+      that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy&mdash;full of confusion
+      and stupefaction&mdash;which seized the delicious girl when the error in
+      which an iron hand had caused her to live was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am dead, Adolphe! Take me away to the world&rsquo;s end, to
+      an island where no one knows us. Let there be no traces of our flight! We
+      should be followed to the gates of hell. God! here is the day! Escape!
+      Shall I ever see you again? Yes, to-morrow I will see you, if I have to
+      deal death to all my warders to have that joy. Till to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed him in her arms with an embrace in which the terror of death
+      mingled. Then she touched a spring, which must have been in connection
+      with a bell, and implored De Marsay to permit his eyes to be bandaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I would not&mdash;and if I wished to stay here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would be the death of me more speedily,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;for now I know I
+      am certain to die on your account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri submitted. In the man who had just gorged himself with pleasure
+      there occurs a propensity to forgetfulness, I know not what ingratitude, a
+      desire for liberty, a whim to go elsewhere, a tinge of contempt and,
+      perhaps, of disgust for his idol; in fine, indescribable sentiments which
+      render him ignoble and ashamed. The certainty of this confused, but real,
+      feeling in souls who are not illuminated by that celestial light, nor
+      perfumed with that holy essence from which the performance of sentiment
+      springs, doubtless suggested to Rousseau the adventures of Lord Edward,
+      which conclude the letters of the <i>Nouvelle Heloise</i>. If Rousseau is
+      obviously inspired by the work of Richardson, he departs from it in a
+      thousand details, which leave his achievement magnificently original; he
+      has recommended it to posterity by great ideas which it is difficult to
+      liberate by analysis, when, in one&rsquo;s youth, one reads this work with the
+      object of finding in it the lurid representation of the most physical of
+      our feelings, whereas serious and philosophical writers never employ its
+      images except as the consequence or the corollary of a vast thought; and
+      the adventures of Lord Edward are one of the most Europeanly delicate
+      ideas of the whole work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri, therefore, found himself beneath the domination of that confused
+      sentiment which is unknown to true love. There was needful, in some sort,
+      the persuasive grip of comparisons, and the irresistible attraction of
+      memories to lead him back to a woman. True love rules above all through
+      recollection. A woman who is not engraven upon the soul by excess of
+      pleasure or by strength of emotion, how can she ever be loved? In Henri&rsquo;s
+      case, Paquita had established herself by both of these reasons. But at
+      this moment, seized as he was by the satiety of his happiness, that
+      delicious melancholy of the body, he could hardly analyze his heart, even
+      by recalling to his lips the taste of the liveliest gratifications that he
+      had ever grasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found himself on the Boulevard Montmartre at the break of day, gazed
+      stupidly at the retreating carriage, produced two cigars from his pocket,
+      lit one from the lantern of a good woman who sold brandy and coffee to
+      workmen and street arabs and chestnut venders&mdash;to all the Parisian
+      populace which begins its work before daybreak; then he went off, smoking
+      his cigar, and putting his hands in his trousers&rsquo; pockets with a
+      devil-may-care air which did him small honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a good thing a cigar is! That&rsquo;s one thing a man will never tire of,&rdquo;
+       he said to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the girl with the golden eyes, over whom at that time all the elegant
+      youth of Paris was mad, he hardly thought. The idea of death, expressed in
+      the midst of their pleasure, and the fear of which had more than once
+      darkened the brow of that beautiful creature, who held to the houris of
+      Asia by her mother, to Europe by her education, to the tropics by her
+      birth, seemed to him merely one of those deceptions by which women seek to
+      make themselves interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is from Havana&mdash;the most Spanish region to be found in the New
+      World. So she preferred to feign terror rather than cast in my teeth
+      indisposition or difficulty, coquetry or duty, like a Parisian woman. By
+      her golden eyes, how glad I shall be to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw a hackney coach standing at the corner of Frascati&rsquo;s waiting for
+      some gambler; he awoke the driver, was driven home, went to bed, and slept
+      the sleep of the dissipated, which for some queer reason&mdash;of which no
+      rhymer has yet taken advantage&mdash;is as profound as that of innocence.
+      Perhaps it is an instance of the proverbial axiom, <i>extremes meet</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About noon De Marsay awoke and stretched himself; he felt the grip of that
+      sort of voracious hunger which old soldiers can remember having
+      experienced on the morrow of victory. He was delighted, therefore, to see
+      Paul de Manerville standing in front of him, for at such a time nothing is
+      more agreeable than to eat in company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; his friend remarked, &ldquo;we all imagined that you had been shut up
+      for the last ten days with the girl of the golden eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The girl of the golden eyes! I have forgotten her. Faith! I have other
+      fish to fry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you are playing at discretion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked De Marsay, with a laugh. &ldquo;My dear fellow, discretion is
+      the best form of calculation. Listen&mdash;however, no! I will not say a
+      word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a
+      gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river which is
+      of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that is most
+      sacred in life&mdash;of cigars! I am no professor of social economy for
+      the instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give you a
+      tunny omelette than to lavish the resources of my brain on you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you bargain with your friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow,&rdquo; said Henri, who rarely denied himself a sarcasm, &ldquo;since
+      all the same, you may some day need, like anybody else, to use discretion,
+      and since I have much love for you&mdash;yes, I like you! Upon my word, if
+      you only wanted a thousand-franc note to keep you from blowing your brains
+      out, you would find it here, for we haven&rsquo;t yet done any business of that
+      sort, eh, Paul? If you had to fight to-morrow, I would measure the ground
+      and load the pistols, so that you might be killed according to rule. In
+      short, if anybody besides myself took it into his head to say ill of you
+      in your absence, he would have to deal with the somewhat nasty gentleman
+      who walks in my shoes&mdash;there&rsquo;s what I call a friendship beyond
+      question. Well, my good fellow, if you should ever have need of
+      discretion, understand that there are two sorts of discretion&mdash;the
+      active and the negative. Negative discretion is that of fools who make use
+      of silence, negation, an air of refusal, the discretion of locked doors&mdash;mere
+      impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. Suppose at the club
+      this evening I were to say: &lsquo;Upon my word of honor the golden-eyed was not
+      worth all she cost me!&rsquo; Everybody would exclaim when I was gone: &lsquo;Did you
+      hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make us believe that he has already
+      had the girl of the golden eyes? It&rsquo;s his way of trying to disembarrass
+      himself of his rivals: he&rsquo;s no simpleton.&rsquo; But such a ruse is vulgar and
+      dangerous. However gross a folly one utters, there are always idiots to be
+      found who will believe it. The best form of discretion is that of women
+      when they want to take the change out of their husbands. It consists in
+      compromising a woman with whom we are not concerned, or whom we do not
+      love, in order to save the honor of the one whom we love well enough to
+      respect. It is what is called the <i>woman-screen</i>.... Ah! here is
+      Laurent. What have you got for us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some Ostend oysters, Monsieur le Comte.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will know some day, Paul, how amusing it is to make a fool of the
+      world by depriving it of the secret of one&rsquo;s affections. I derive an
+      immense pleasure in escaping from the stupid jurisdiction of the crowd,
+      which knows neither what it wants, nor what one wants of it, which takes
+      the means for the end, and by turns curses and adores, elevates and
+      destroys! What a delight to impose emotions on it and receive none from
+      it, to tame it, never to obey it. If one may ever be proud of anything, is
+      it not a self-acquired power, of which one is at once the cause and
+      effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man knows what I love, nor
+      what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what I may have wished will be
+      known, as a drama which is accomplished is known; but to let my game be
+      seen&mdash;weakness, mistake! I know nothing more despicable than strength
+      outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate myself with a laugh into the
+      ambassador&rsquo;s part, if indeed diplomacy is as difficult as life? I doubt
+      it. Have you any ambition? Would you like to become something?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henri, you are laughing at me&mdash;as though I were not
+      sufficiently mediocre to arrive at anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Paul! If you go on laughing at yourself, you will soon be able to
+      laugh at everybody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At breakfast, by the time he had started his cigars, De Marsay began to
+      see the events of the night in a singular light. Like many men of great
+      intelligence, his perspicuity was not spontaneous, as it did not at once
+      penetrate to the heart of things. As with all natures endowed with the
+      faculty of living greatly in the present, of extracting, so to speak, the
+      essence of it and assimilating it, his second-sight had need of a sort of
+      slumber before it could identify itself with causes. Cardinal de Richelieu
+      was so constituted, and it did not debar in him the gift of foresight
+      necessary to the conception of great designs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay&rsquo;s conditions were alike, but at first he only used his weapons
+      for the benefit of his pleasures, and only became one of the most profound
+      politicians of his day when he had saturated himself with those pleasures
+      to which a young man&rsquo;s thoughts&mdash;when he has money and power&mdash;are
+      primarily directed. Man hardens himself thus: he uses woman in order that
+      she may not make use of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, then, De Marsay perceived that he had been fooled by the
+      girl of the golden eyes, seeing, as he did, in perspective, all that night
+      of which the delights had been poured upon him by degrees until they had
+      ended by flooding him in torrents. He could read, at last, that page in
+      effect so brilliant, divine its hidden meaning. The purely physical
+      innocence of Paquita, the bewilderment of her joy, certain words, obscure
+      at first, but now clear, which had escaped her in the midst of that joy,
+      all proved to him that he had posed for another person. As no social
+      corruption was unknown to him, as he professed a complete indifference
+      towards all perversities, and believed them to be justified on the simple
+      ground that they were capable of satisfaction, he was not startled at
+      vice, he knew it as one knows a friend, but he was wounded at having
+      served as sustenance for it. If his presumption was right, he had been
+      outraged in the most sensitive part of him. The mere suspicion filled him
+      with fury, he broke out with the roar of a tiger who has been the sport of
+      a deer, the cry of a tiger which united a brute&rsquo;s strength with the
+      intelligence of the demon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, what is the matter with you?&rdquo; asked Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be sorry, if you were to be asked whether you had anything
+      against me and were to reply with a <i>nothing</i> like that! It would be
+      a sure case of fighting the next day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fight no more duels,&rdquo; said De Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That seems to me even more tragical. Do you assassinate, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You travesty words. I execute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; said Paul, &ldquo;your jokes are of a very sombre color this
+      morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have? Pleasure ends in cruelty. Why? I don&rsquo;t know, and am
+      not sufficiently curious to try and find out.... These cigars are
+      excellent. Give your friend some tea. Do you know, Paul, I live a brute&rsquo;s
+      life? It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ one&rsquo;s
+      powers on something which makes life worth living. Life is a singular
+      comedy. I am frightened, I laugh at the inconsequence of our social order.
+      The Government cuts off the heads of poor devils who may have killed a man
+      and licenses creatures who despatch, medically speaking, a dozen young
+      folks in a season. Morality is powerless against a dozen vices which
+      destroy society and which nothing can punish.&mdash;Another cup!&mdash;Upon
+      my word of honor! man is a jester dancing upon a precipice. They talk to
+      us about the immorality of the <i>Liaisons Dangereuses</i>, and any other
+      book you like with a vulgar reputation; but there exists a book, horrible,
+      filthy, fearful, corrupting, which is always open and will never be shut,
+      the great book of the world; not to mention another book, a thousand times
+      more dangerous, which is composed of all that men whisper into each
+      other&rsquo;s ears, or women murmur behind their fans, of an evening in
+      society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henri, there is certainly something extraordinary the matter with you;
+      that is obvious in spite of your active discretion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!... Come, I must kill the time until this evening. Let&rsquo;s to the
+      tables.... Perhaps I shall have the good luck to lose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay rose, took a handful of banknotes and folded them into his
+      cigar-case, dressed himself, and took advantage of Paul&rsquo;s carriage to
+      repair to the Salon des Etrangers, where until dinner he consumed the time
+      in those exciting alternations of loss and gain which are the last
+      resource of powerful organizations when they are compelled to exercise
+      themselves in the void. In the evening he repaired to the trysting-place
+      and submitted complacently to having his eyes bandaged. Then, with that
+      firm will which only really strong men have the faculty of concentrating,
+      he devoted his attention and applied his intelligence to the task of
+      divining through what streets the carriage passed. He had a sort of
+      certitude of being taken to the Rue Saint-Lazare, and being brought to a
+      halt at the little gate in the garden of the Hotel San-Real. When he
+      passed, as on the first occasion, through this gate, and was put in a
+      litter, carried, doubtless by the mulatto and the coachman, he understood,
+      as he heard the gravel grate beneath their feet, why they took such minute
+      precautions. He would have been able, had he been free, or if he had
+      walked, to pluck a twig of laurel, to observe the nature of the soil which
+      clung to his boots; whereas, transported, so to speak, ethereally into an
+      inaccessible mansion, his good fortune must remain what it had been
+      hitherto, a dream. But it is man&rsquo;s despair that all his work, whether for
+      good or evil, is imperfect. All his labors, physical or intellectual, are
+      sealed with the mark of destruction. There had been a gentle rain, the
+      earth was moist. At night-time certain vegetable perfumes are far stronger
+      than during the day; Henri could smell, therefore, the scent of the
+      mignonette which lined the avenue along which he was conveyed. This
+      indication was enough to light him in the researches which he promised
+      himself to make in order to recognize the hotel which contained Paquita&rsquo;s
+      boudoir. He studied in the same way the turnings which his bearers took
+      within the house, and believed himself able to recall them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As on the previous night, he found himself on the ottoman before Paquita,
+      who was undoing his bandage; but he saw her pale and altered. She had
+      wept. On her knees like an angel in prayer, but like an angel profoundly
+      sad and melancholy, the poor girl no longer resembled the curious,
+      impatient, and impetuous creature who had carried De Marsay on her wings
+      to transport him to the seventh heaven of love. There was something so
+      true in this despair veiled by pleasure, that the terrible De Marsay felt
+      within him an admiration for this new masterpiece of nature, and forgot,
+      for the moment, the chief interest of his assignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter with thee, my Paquita?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;carry me away this very night. Bear me to some
+      place where no one can answer: &lsquo;There is a girl with a golden gaze here,
+      who has long hair.&rsquo; Yonder I will give thee as many pleasures as thou
+      wouldst have of me. Then when you love me no longer, you shall leave me, I
+      shall not complain, I shall say nothing; and your desertion need cause you
+      no remorse, for one day passed with you, only one day, in which I have had
+      you before my eyes, will be worth all my life to me. But if I stay here, I
+      am lost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot leave Paris, little one!&rdquo; replied Henri. &ldquo;I do not belong to
+      myself, I am bound by a vow to the fortune of several persons who stand to
+      me, as I do to them. But I can place you in a refuge in Paris, where no
+      human power can reach you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you forget the power of woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Never did phrase uttered by human voice express terror more absolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could reach you, then, if I put myself between you and the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poison!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Dona Concha suspects you already... and,&rdquo; she
+      resumed, letting the tears fall and glisten on her cheeks, &ldquo;it is easy
+      enough to see I am no longer the same. Well, if you abandon me to the fury
+      of the monster who will destroy me, your holy will be done! But come, let
+      there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I will implore, I
+      will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I shall be saved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom will your implore?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; said Paquita. &ldquo;If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on account
+      of my discretion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me my robe,&rdquo; said Henri, insidiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; she answered quickly, &ldquo;be what you are, one of those angels whom
+      I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst you are
+      what is fairest under the skies,&rdquo; she said, caressing Henri&rsquo;s hair. &ldquo;You
+      do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I was twelve
+      years old I have been shut up without ever seeing any one. I can neither
+      read nor write, I can only speak English and Spanish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My letters?... See, here they are!&rdquo; she said, proceeding to take some
+      papers out of a tall Japanese vase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with
+      surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in blood,
+      and illustrating phrases full of passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the alertness
+      of jealousy, &ldquo;you are in the power of an infernal genius?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Infernal,&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how, then, were you able to get out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that was my ruin. I drove Dona Concha to choose between
+      the fear of immediate death and anger to be. I had the curiosity of a
+      demon, I wished to break the bronze circle which they had described
+      between creation and me, I wished to see what young people were like, for
+      I knew nothing of man except the Marquis and Cristemio. Our coachman and
+      the lackey who accompanies us are old men....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you were not always thus shut up? Your health...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;we used to walk, but it was at night and in the
+      country, by the side of the Seine, away from people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not proud of being loved like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;no longer. However full it be, this hidden life is but
+      darkness in comparison with the light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you call the light?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee, my lovely Adolphe! Thee, for whom I would give my life. All the
+      passionate things that have been told me, and that I have inspired, I feel
+      for thee! For a certain time I understood nothing of existence, but now I
+      know what love is, and hitherto I have been the loved one only; for
+      myself, I did not love. I would give up everything for you, take me away.
+      If you like, take me as a toy, but let me be near you until you break me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will have no regrets?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not one&rdquo;! she said, letting him read her eyes, whose golden tint was pure
+      and clear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I the favored one?&rdquo; said Henri to himself. If he suspected the truth,
+      he was ready at that time to pardon the offence in view of a love so
+      single minded. &ldquo;I shall soon see,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Paquita owed him no account of the past, yet the least recollection of
+      it became in his eyes a crime. He had therefore the sombre strength to
+      withhold a portion of his thought, to study her, even while abandoning
+      himself to the most enticing pleasures that ever peri descended from the
+      skies had devised for her beloved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paquita seemed to have been created for love by a particular effort of
+      nature. In a night her feminine genius had made the most rapid progress.
+      Whatever might be the power of this young man, and his indifference in the
+      matter of pleasures, in spite of his satiety of the previous night, he
+      found in the girl with the golden eyes that seraglio which a loving woman
+      knows how to create and which a man never refuses. Paquita responded to
+      that passion which is felt by all really great men for the infinite&mdash;that
+      mysterious passion so dramatically expressed in Faust, so poetically
+      translated in Manfred, and which urged Don Juan to search the heart of
+      women, in his hope to find there that limitless thought in pursuit of
+      which so many hunters after spectres have started, which wise men think to
+      discover in science, and which mystics find in God alone. The hope of
+      possessing at last the ideal being with whom the struggle could be
+      constant and tireless ravished De Marsay, who, for the first time for
+      long, opened his heart. His nerves expanded, his coldness was dissipated
+      in the atmosphere of that ardent soul, his hard and fast theories melted
+      away, and happiness colored his existence to the tint of the rose and
+      white boudoir. Experiencing the sting of a higher pleasure, he was carried
+      beyond the limits within which he had hitherto confined passion. He would
+      not be surpassed by this girl, whom a somewhat artificial love had formed
+      all ready for the needs of his soul, and then he found in that vanity
+      which urges a man to be in all things a victor, strength enough to tame
+      the girl; but, at the same time, urged beyond that line where the soul is
+      mistress over herself, he lost himself in these delicious limboes, which
+      the vulgar call so foolishly &ldquo;the imaginary regions.&rdquo; He was tender, kind,
+      and confidential. He affected Paquita almost to madness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should we not go to Sorrento, to Nice, to Chiavari, and pass all our
+      life so? Will you?&rdquo; he asked of Paquita, in a penetrating voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there need to say to me: &lsquo;Will you&rsquo;?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Have I a will? I am
+      nothing apart from you, except in so far as I am a pleasure for you. If
+      you would choose a retreat worthy of us, Asia is the only country where
+      love can unfold his wings....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; answered Henri. &ldquo;Let us go to the Indies, there where
+      spring is eternal, where the earth grows only flowers, where man can
+      display the magnificence of kings and none shall say him nay, as in the
+      foolish lands where they would realize the dull chimera of equality. Let
+      us go to the country where one lives in the midst of a nation of slaves,
+      where the sun shines ever on a palace which is always white, where the air
+      sheds perfumes, the birds sing of love and where, when one can love no
+      more, one dies....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where one dies together!&rdquo; said Paquita. &ldquo;But do not let us start
+      to-morrow, let us start this moment... take Cristemio.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith! pleasure is the fairest climax of life. Let us go to Asia; but to
+      start, my child, one needs much gold, and to have gold one must set one&rsquo;s
+      affairs in order.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood no part of these ideas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gold! There is a pile of it here&mdash;as high as that,&rdquo; she said holding
+      up her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does that matter?&rdquo; she went on; &ldquo;if we have need of it let us take
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does not belong to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Belong!&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Have you not taken me? When we have taken it, it
+      will belong to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor innocent! You know nothing of the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, but this is what I know,&rdquo; she cried, clasping Henri to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the very moment when De Marsay was forgetting all, and conceiving the
+      desire to appropriate this creature forever, he received in the midst of
+      his joy a dagger-thrust, which Paquita, who had lifted him vigorously in
+      the air, as though to contemplate him, exclaimed: &ldquo;Oh, Margarita!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margarita!&rdquo; cried the young man, with a roar; &ldquo;now I know all that I
+      still tried to disbelieve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaped upon the cabinet in which the long poniard was kept. Happily for
+      Paquita and for himself, the cupboard was shut. His fury waxed at this
+      impediment, but he recovered his tranquillity, went and found his cravat,
+      and advanced towards her with an air of such ferocious meaning that,
+      without knowing of what crime she had been guilty, Paquita understood,
+      none the less, that her life was in question. With one bound she rushed to
+      the other end of the room to escape the fatal knot which De Marsay tried
+      to pass round her neck. There was a struggle. On either side there was an
+      equality of strength, agility, and suppleness. To end the combat Paquita
+      threw between the legs of her lover a cushion which made him fall, and
+      profited by the respite which this advantage gave to her, to push the
+      button of the spring which caused the bell to ring. Promptly the mulatto
+      arrived. In a second Cristemio leaped on De Marsay and held him down with
+      one foot on his chest, his heel turned towards the throat. De Marsay
+      realized that, if he struggled, at a single sign from Paquita he would be
+      instantly crushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you want to kill me, my beloved?&rdquo; she said. De Marsay made no
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what have I angered you?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Speak, let us understand each
+      other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri maintained the phlegmatic attitude of a strong man who feels himself
+      vanquished; his countenance, cold, silent, entirely English, revealed the
+      consciousness of his dignity in a momentary resignation. Moreover, he had
+      already thought, in spite of the vehemence of his anger, that it was
+      scarcely prudent to compromise himself with the law by killing this girl
+      on the spur of the moment, before he had arranged the murder in such a
+      manner as should insure his impunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My beloved,&rdquo; went on Paquita, &ldquo;speak to me; do not leave me without one
+      loving farewell! I would not keep in my heart the terror which you have
+      just inspired in it.... Will you speak?&rdquo; she said, stamping her foot with
+      anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay, for all reply, gave her a glance, which signified so plainly, &ldquo;<i>You
+      must die!</i>&rdquo; that Paquita threw herself upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well, you want to kill me!... If my death can give you any pleasure&mdash;kill
+      me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a sign to Cristemio, who withdrew his foot from the body of the
+      young man, and retired without letting his face show that he had formed
+      any opinion, good or bad, with regard to Paquita.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a man,&rdquo; said De Marsay, pointing to the mulatto, with a sombre
+      gesture. &ldquo;There is no devotion like the devotion which obeys in
+      friendship, and does not stop to weigh motives. In that man you possess a
+      true friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give him you, if you like,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;he will serve you with
+      the same devotion that he has for me, if I so instruct him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited for a word of recognition, and went on with an accent replete
+      with tenderness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adolphe, give me then one kind word!... It is nearly day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri did not answer. The young man had one sorry quality, for one
+      considers as something great everything which resembles strength, and
+      often men invent extravagances. Henri knew not how to pardon. That <i>returning
+      upon itself</i> which is one of the soul&rsquo;s graces, was a non-existent
+      sense for him. The ferocity of the Northern man, with which the English
+      blood is deeply tainted, had been transmitted to him by his father. He was
+      inexorable both in his good and evil impulses. Paquita&rsquo;s exclamation had
+      been all the more horrible to him, in that it had dethroned him from the
+      sweetest triumph which had ever flattered his man&rsquo;s vanity. Hope, love,
+      and every emotion had been exalted with him, all had lit up within his
+      heart and his intelligence, then these torches illuminating his life had
+      been extinguished by a cold wind. Paquita, in her stupefaction of grief,
+      had only strength enough to give the signal for departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the use of that!&rdquo; she said, throwing away the bandage. &ldquo;If he
+      does not love me, if he hates me, it is all over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited for one look, did not obtain it, and fell, half dead. The
+      mulatto cast a glance at Henri, so horribly significant, that, for the
+      first time in his life, the young man, to whom no one denied the gift of
+      rare courage, trembled. &ldquo;<i>If you do not love her well, if you give her
+      the least pain, I will kill you</i>.&rdquo; such was the sense of that brief
+      gaze. De Marsay was escorted, with a care almost obsequious, along the
+      dimly lit corridor, at the end of which he issued by a secret door into
+      the garden of the Hotel San-Real. The mulatto made him walk cautiously
+      through an avenue of lime trees, which led to a little gate opening upon a
+      street which was at that hour deserted. De Marsay took a keen notice of
+      everything. The carriage awaited him. This time the mulatto did not
+      accompany him, and at the moment when Henri put his head out of the window
+      to look once more at the gardens of the hotel, he encountered the white
+      eyes of Cristemio, with whom he exchanged a glance. On either side there
+      was a provocation, a challenge, the declaration of a savage war, of a duel
+      in which ordinary laws were invalid, where treason and treachery were
+      admitted means. Cristemio knew that Henri had sworn Paquita&rsquo;s death. Henri
+      knew that Cristemio would like to kill him before he killed Paquita. Both
+      understood each other to perfection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The adventure is growing complicated in a most interesting way,&rdquo; said
+      Henri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the gentleman going to?&rdquo; asked the coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay was driven to the house of Paul de Manerville. For more than a
+      week Henri was away from home, and no one could discover either what he
+      did during this period, nor where he stayed. This retreat saved him from
+      the fury of the mulatto and caused the ruin of the charming creature who
+      had placed all her hope in him whom she loved as never human heart had
+      loved on this earth before. On the last day of the week, about eleven
+      o&rsquo;clock at night, Henri drove up in a carriage to the little gate in the
+      garden of the Hotel San-Real. Four men accompanied him. The driver was
+      evidently one of his friends, for he stood up on his box, like a man who
+      was to listen, an attentive sentinel, for the least sound. One of the
+      other three took his stand outside the gate in the street; the second
+      waited in the garden, leaning against the wall; the last, who carried in
+      his hand a bunch of keys, accompanied De Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henri,&rdquo; said his companion to him, &ldquo;we are betrayed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By whom, my good Ferragus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not all asleep,&rdquo; replied the chief of the Devourers; &ldquo;it is
+      absolutely certain that some one in the house has neither eaten nor
+      drunk.... Look! see that light!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have a plan of the house; from where does it come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need no plan to know,&rdquo; replied Ferragus; &ldquo;it comes from the room of the
+      Marquise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; cried De Marsay, &ldquo;no doubt she arrived from London to-day. The woman
+      has robbed me even of my revenge! But if she has anticipated me, my good
+      Gratien, we will give her up to the law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, listen!... The thing is settled,&rdquo; said Ferragus to Henri.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two friends listened intently, and heard some feeble cries which might
+      have aroused pity in the breast of a tiger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your marquise did not think the sound would escape by the chimney,&rdquo; said
+      the chief of the Devourers, with the laugh of a critic, enchanted to
+      detect a fault in a work of merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We alone, we know how to provide for every contingency,&rdquo; said Henri.
+      &ldquo;Wait for me. I want to see what is going on upstairs&mdash;I want to know
+      how their domestic quarrels are managed. By God! I believe she is roasting
+      her at a slow fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay lightly scaled the stairs, with which he was familiar, and
+      recognized the passage leading to the boudoir. When he opened the door he
+      experienced the involuntary shudder which the sight of bloodshed gives to
+      the most determined of men. The spectacle which was offered to his view
+      was, moreover, in more than one respect astonishing to him. The Marquise
+      was a woman; she had calculated her vengeance with that perfection of
+      perfidy which distinguishes the weaker animals. She had dissimulated her
+      anger in order to assure herself of the crime before she punished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too late, my beloved!&rdquo; said Paquita, in her death agony, casting her pale
+      eyes upon De Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl of the golden eyes expired in a bath of blood. The great
+      illumination of candles, a delicate perfume which was perceptible, a
+      certain disorder, in which the eye of a man accustomed to amorous
+      adventures could not but discern the madness which is common to all the
+      passions, revealed how cunningly the Marquise had interrogated the guilty
+      one. The white room, where the blood showed so well, betrayed a long
+      struggle. The prints of Paquita&rsquo;s hands were on the cushions. Here she had
+      clung to her life, here she had defended herself, here she had been
+      struck. Long strips of the tapestry had been torn down by her bleeding
+      hands, which, without a doubt, had struggled long. Paquita must have tried
+      to reach the window; her bare feet had left their imprints on the edge of
+      the divan, along which she must have run. Her body, mutilated by the
+      dagger-thrusts of her executioner, told of the fury with which she had
+      disputed a life which Henri had made precious to her. She lay stretched on
+      the floor, and in her death-throes had bitten the ankles of Madame de
+      San-Real, who still held in her hand her dagger, dripping blood. The hair
+      of the Marquise had been torn out, she was covered with bites, many of
+      which were bleeding, and her torn dress revealed her in a state of
+      semi-nudity, with the scratches on her breasts. She was sublime so. Her
+      head, eager and maddened, exhaled the odor of blood. Her panting mouth was
+      open, and her nostrils were not sufficient for her breath. There are
+      certain animals who fall upon their enemy in their rage, do it to death,
+      and seem in the tranquillity of victory to have forgotten it. There are
+      others who prowl around their victim, who guard it in fear lest it should
+      be taken away from them, and who, like the Achilles of Homer, drag their
+      enemy by the feet nine times round the walls of Troy. The Marquise was
+      like that. She did not see Henri. In the first place, she was too secure
+      of her solitude to be afraid of witnesses; and, secondly, she was too
+      intoxicated with warm blood, too excited with the fray, too exalted, to
+      take notice of the whole of Paris, if Paris had formed a circle round her.
+      A thunderbolt would not have disturbed her. She had not even heard
+      Paquita&rsquo;s last sigh, and believed that the dead girl could still hear her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Die without confessing!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Go down to hell, monster of
+      ingratitude; belong to no one but the fiend. For the blood you gave him
+      you owe me all your own! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths! I have been
+      too kind&mdash;I was only a moment killing you. I should have made you
+      experience all the tortures that you have bequeathed to me. I&mdash;I
+      shall live! I shall live in misery. I have no one left to love but God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gazed at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is dead!&rdquo; she said to herself, after a pause, in a violent reaction.
+      &ldquo;Dead! Oh, I shall die of grief!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquise was throwing herself upon the divan, stricken with a despair
+      which deprived her of speech, when this movement brought her in view of
+      Henri de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; she asked, rushing at him with her dagger raised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henri caught her arm, and thus they could contemplate each other face to
+      face. A horrible surprise froze the blood in their veins, and their limbs
+      quivered like those of frightened horses. In effect, the two Menoechmi had
+      not been more alike. With one accord they uttered the same phrase:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Dudley must have been your father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The head of each was drooped in affirmation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was true to the blood,&rdquo; said Henri, pointing to Paquita.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was as little guilty as it is possible to be,&rdquo; replied Margarita
+      Euphemia Porraberil, and she threw herself upon the body of Paquita,
+      giving vent to a cry of despair. &ldquo;Poor child! Oh, if I could bring thee to
+      life again! I was wrong&mdash;forgive me, Paquita! Dead! and I live! I&mdash;I
+      am the most unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the horrible face of the mother of Paquita appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are come to tell me that you never sold her to me to kill,&rdquo; cried the
+      Marquise. &ldquo;I know why you have left your lair. I will pay you twice over.
+      Hold your peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took a bag of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it contemptuously
+      at the old woman&rsquo;s feet. The chink of the gold was potent enough to excite
+      a smile on the Georgian&rsquo;s impassive face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come at the right moment for you, my sister,&rdquo; said Henri. &ldquo;The law will
+      ask of you&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; replied the Marquise. &ldquo;One person alone might ask for a
+      reckoning for the death of this girl. Cristemio is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the mother,&rdquo; said Henri, pointing to the old woman. &ldquo;Will you not
+      always be in her power?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She comes from a country where women are not beings, but things&mdash;chattels,
+      with which one does as one wills, which one buys, sells, and slays; in
+      short, which one uses for one&rsquo;s caprices as you, here, use a piece of
+      furniture. Besides, she has one passion which dominates all the others,
+      and which would have stifled her maternal love, even if she had loved her
+      daughter, a passion&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; Henri asked quickly, interrupting his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Play! God keep you from it,&rdquo; answered the Marquise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But whom have you,&rdquo; said Henri, looking at the girl of the golden eyes,
+      &ldquo;who will help you to remove the traces of this fantasy which the law
+      would not overlook?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have her mother,&rdquo; replied the Marquise, designating the Georgian, to
+      whom she made a sign to remain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall meet again,&rdquo; said Henri, who was thinking anxiously of his
+      friends and felt that it was time to leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, brother,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we shall not meet again. I am going back to
+      Spain to enter the Convent of <i>los Dolores</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too young yet, too lovely,&rdquo; said Henri, taking her in his arms
+      and giving her a kiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;there is no consolation when you have lost that
+      which has seemed to you the infinite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the Tuileries, on the
+      Terrasse de Feuillants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what has become of our beautiful girl of the golden eyes, you
+      rascal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consumption.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Note: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy.
+  Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+  Langeais. In other addendum references all three stories are usually
+  combined under the title The Thirteen.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph
+       Ferragus
+
+     Dudley, Lord
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       A Man of Business
+       Another Study of Woman
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Marriage Settlement
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       Ferragus
+       The Duchesse of Langeais
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Ferragus
+       The Duchesse of Langeais
+       The Member for Arcis
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Girl with the Golden Eyes, 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: The Girl with the Golden Eyes
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage
+
+Release Date: March, 1999  [Etext #1659]
+Posting Date: February 28, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Ellen Marriage
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a
+trilogy. Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+Langeais. The three stories are frequently combined under the title The
+Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+                    To Eugene Delacroix, Painter.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+
+One of those sights in which most horror is to be encountered is,
+surely, the general aspect of the Parisian populace--a people fearful
+to behold, gaunt, yellow, tawny. Is not Paris a vast field in perpetual
+turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which are whirled along a crop
+of human beings, who are, more often than not, reaped by death, only to
+be born again as pinched as ever, men whose twisted and contorted faces
+give out at every pore the instinct, the desire, the poisons with
+which their brains are pregnant; not faces so much as masks; masks of
+weakness, masks of strength, masks of misery, masks of joy, masks of
+hypocrisy; all alike worn and stamped with the indelible signs of
+a panting cupidity? What is it they want? Gold or pleasure? A few
+observations upon the soul of Paris may explain the causes of its
+cadaverous physiognomy, which has but two ages--youth and decay: youth,
+wan and colorless; decay, painted to seem young. In looking at
+this excavated people, foreigners, who are not prone to reflection,
+experience at first a movement of disgust towards the capital, that
+vast workshop of delights, from which, in a short time, they cannot even
+extricate themselves, and where they stay willingly to be corrupted. A
+few words will suffice to justify physiologically the almost infernal
+hue of Parisian faces, for it is not in mere sport that Paris has been
+called a hell. Take the phrase for truth. There all is smoke and fire,
+everything gleams, crackles, flames, evaporates, dies out, then lights
+up again, with shooting sparks, and is consumed. In no other country has
+life ever been more ardent or acute. The social nature, even in fusion,
+seems to say after each completed work: "Pass on to another!" just as
+Nature says herself. Like Nature herself, this social nature is busied
+with insects and flowers of a day--ephemeral trifles; and so, too,
+it throws up fire and flame from its eternal crater. Perhaps, before
+analyzing the causes which lend a special physiognomy to each tribe of
+this intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed
+out which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals
+in more or less degree.
+
+By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
+interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction
+has rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon which
+all kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian, with
+his indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth,
+lives like a child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at everything,
+consoles himself for everything, jests at everything, forgets,
+desires, and tastes everything, seizes all with passion, quits all with
+indifference--his kings, his conquests, his glory, his idols of bronze
+or glass--as he throws away his stockings, his hats, and his fortune. In
+Paris no sentiment can withstand the drift of things, and their current
+compels a struggle in which the passions are relaxed: there love is
+a desire, and hatred a whim; there's no true kinsman but the
+thousand-franc note, no better friend than the pawnbroker. This
+universal toleration bears its fruits, and in the salon, as in the
+street, there is no one _de trop_, there is no one absolutely useful,
+or absolutely harmful--knaves or fools, men of wit or integrity. There
+everything is tolerated: the government and the guillotine, religion and
+the cholera. You are always acceptable to this world, you will never
+be missed by it. What, then, is the dominating impulse in this country
+without morals, without faith, without any sentiment, wherein, however,
+every sentiment, belief, and moral has its origin and end? It is gold
+and pleasure. Take those two words for a lantern, and explore that great
+stucco cage, that hive with its black gutters, and follow the windings
+of that thought which agitates, sustains, and occupies it! Consider!
+And, in the first place, examine the world which possesses nothing.
+
+The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his tongue,
+his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live--well, this very man,
+who should be the first to economize his vital principle, outruns his
+strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his child, and ties
+him to the wheel. The manufacturer--or I know not what secondary thread
+which sets in motion all these folk who with their foul hands mould
+and gild porcelain, sew coats and dresses, beat out iron, turn wood and
+steel, weave hemp, festoon crystal, imitate flowers, work woolen things,
+break in horses, dress harness, carve in copper, paint carriages, blow
+glass, corrode the diamond, polish metals, turn marble into leaves,
+labor on pebbles, deck out thought, tinge, bleach, or blacken
+everything--well, this middleman has come to that world of sweat and
+good-will, of study and patience, with promises of lavish wages, either
+in the name of the town's caprices or with the voice of the monster
+dubbed speculation. Thus, these _quadrumanes_ set themselves to watch,
+work, and suffer, to fast, sweat, and bestir them. Then, careless of the
+future, greedy of pleasure, counting on their right arm as the painter
+on his palette, lords for one day, they throw their money on Mondays
+to the _cabarets_ which gird the town like a belt of mud, haunts of the
+most shameless of the daughters of Venus, in which the periodical money
+of this people, as ferocious in their pleasures as they are calm at
+work, is squandered as it had been at play. For five days, then, there
+is no repose for this laborious portion of Paris! It is given up to
+actions which make it warped and rough, lean and pale, gush forth with a
+thousand fits of creative energy. And then its pleasure, its repose,
+are an exhausting debauch, swarthy and black with blows, white with
+intoxication, or yellow with indigestion. It lasts but two days, but it
+steals to-morrow's bread, the week's soup, the wife's dress, the child's
+wretched rags. Men, born doubtless to be beautiful--for all creatures
+have a relative beauty--are enrolled from their childhood beneath the
+yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel, the loom, and
+have been promptly vulcanized. Is not Vulcan, with his hideousness and
+his strength, the emblem of this strong and hideous nation--sublime
+in its mechanical intelligence, patient in its season, and once in a
+century terrible, inflammable as gunpowder, and ripe with brandy for
+the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine, to take fire at
+a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold and Pleasure! If
+we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands for an alms, for
+lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to every kind of
+Parisian prostitution, in short, for all the money well or ill earned,
+this people numbers three hundred thousand individuals. Were it not for
+the _cabarets_, would not the Government be overturned every Tuesday?
+Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off its pleasure, is
+penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread, stimulated by a need
+of material procreation, which has become a habit to it. None the
+less, this people has its phenomenal virtues, its complete men, unknown
+Napoleons, who are the type of its strength carried to its highest
+expression, and sum up its social capacity in an existence wherein
+thought and movement combine less to bring joy into it than to
+neutralize the action of sorrow.
+
+Chance has made an artisan economical, chance has favored him with
+forethought, he has been able to look forward, has met with a wife and
+found himself a father, and, after some years of hard privation, he
+embarks in some little draper's business, hires a shop. If neither
+sickness nor vice blocks his way--if he has prospered--there is the
+sketch of this normal life.
+
+And, in the first place, hail to that king of Parisian activity, to whom
+time and space give way. Yes, hail to that being, composed of saltpetre
+and gas, who makes children for France during his laborious nights,
+and in the day multiplies his personality for the service, glory,
+and pleasure of his fellow-citizens. This man solves the problem
+of sufficing at once to his amiable wife, to his hearth, to the
+_Constitutionnel_, to his office, to the National Guard, to the opera,
+and to God; but, only in order that the _Constitutionnel_, his office,
+the National Guard, the opera, his wife, and God may be changed into
+coin. In fine, hail to an irreproachable pluralist. Up every day at five
+o'clock, he traverses like a bird the space which separates his dwelling
+from the Rue Montmartre. Let it blow or thunder, rain or snow, he is at
+the _Constitutionnel_, and waits there for the load of newspapers which
+he has undertaken to distribute. He receives this political bread with
+eagerness, takes it, bears it away. At nine o'clock he is in the bosom
+of his family, flings a jest to his wife, snatches a loud kiss from her,
+gulps down a cup of coffee, or scolds his children. At a quarter to ten
+he puts in an appearance at the _Mairie_. There, stuck upon a stool,
+like a parrot on its perch, warmed by Paris town, he registers until
+four o'clock, with never a tear or a smile, the deaths and births of an
+entire district. The sorrow, the happiness, of the parish flow beneath
+his pen--as the essence of the _Constitutionnel_ traveled before upon
+his shoulders. Nothing weighs upon him! He goes always straight before
+him, takes his patriotism ready made from the newspaper, contradicts no
+one, shouts or applauds with the world, and lives like a bird. Two yards
+from his parish, in the event of an important ceremony, he can yield
+his place to an assistant, and betake himself to chant a requiem from
+a stall in the church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament,
+where his is the most imposing voice, where he distorts his huge mouth
+with energy to thunder out a joyous _Amen_. So is he chorister. At four
+o'clock, freed from his official servitude, he reappears to shed joy and
+gaiety upon the most famous shop in the city. Happy is his wife, he has
+no time to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of sentiment.
+His mere arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter; their bright
+eyes storm the customers; he expands in the midst of all the finery, the
+lace and muslin kerchiefs, that their cunning hands have wrought. Or,
+again, more often still, before his dinner he waits on a client, copies
+the page of a newspaper, or carries to the doorkeeper some goods that
+have been delayed. Every other day, at six, he is faithful to his
+post. A permanent bass for the chorus, he betakes himself to the opera,
+prepared to become a soldier or an arab, prisoner, savage, peasant,
+spirit, camel's leg or lion, a devil or a genie, a slave or a
+eunuch, black or white; always ready to feign joy or sorrow, pity or
+astonishment, to utter cries that never vary, to hold his tongue, to
+hunt, or fight for Rome or Egypt, but always at heart--a huckster still.
+
+At midnight he returns--a man, the good husband, the tender father;
+he slips into the conjugal bed, his imagination still afire with the
+illusive forms of the operatic nymphs, and so turns to the profit
+of conjugal love the world's depravities, the voluptuous curves of
+Taglioni's leg. And finally, if he sleeps, he sleeps apace, and hurries
+through his slumber as he does his life.
+
+This man sums up all things--history, literature, politics, government,
+religion, military science. Is he not a living encyclopaedia, a
+grotesque Atlas; ceaselessly in motion, like Paris itself, and knowing
+not repose? He is all legs. No physiognomy could preserve its purity
+amid such toils. Perhaps the artisan who dies at thirty, an old man, his
+stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy, will be held, according to
+certain leisured philosophers, to be happier than the huckster is.
+The one perishes in a breath, and the other by degrees. From his eight
+industries, from the labor of his shoulders, his throat, his hands,
+from his wife and his business, the one derives--as from so many
+farms--children, some thousands of francs, and the most laborious
+happiness that has ever diverted the heart of man. This fortune and
+these children, or the children who sum up everything for him, become
+the prey of the world above, to which he brings his ducats and his
+daughter or his son, reared at college, who, with more education than
+his father, raises higher his ambitious gaze. Often the son of a retail
+tradesman would fain be something in the State.
+
+Ambition of that sort carries on our thought to the second Parisian
+sphere. Go up one story, then, and descend to the _entresol_: or climb
+down from the attic and remain on the fourth floor; in fine, penetrate
+into the world which has possessions: the same result! Wholesale
+merchants, and their men--people with small banking accounts and much
+integrity--rogues and catspaws, clerks old and young, sheriffs' clerks,
+barristers' clerks, solicitors' clerks; in fine, all the working,
+thinking, and speculating members of that lower middle class which
+honeycombs the interests of Paris and watches over its granary,
+accumulates the coin, stores the products that the proletariat have
+made, preserves the fruits of the South, the fishes, the wine from every
+sun-favored hill; which stretches its hands over the Orient, and takes
+from it the shawls that the Russ and the Turk despise; which harvests
+even from the Indies; crouches down in expectation of a sale, greedy
+of profit; which discounts bills, turns over and collects all kinds of
+securities, holds all Paris in its hand, watches over the fantasies
+of children, spies out the caprices and the vices of mature age,
+sucks money out of disease. Even so, if they drink no brandy, like the
+artisan, nor wallow in the mire of debauch, all equally abuse their
+strength, immeasurably strain their bodies and their minds alike, are
+burned away with desires, devastated with the swiftness of the pace. In
+their case the physical distortion is accomplished beneath the whip of
+interests, beneath the scourge of ambitions which torture the educated
+portion of this monstrous city, just as in the case of the proletariat
+it is brought about by the cruel see-saw of the material elaborations
+perpetually required from the despotism of the aristocratic "_I will_."
+Here, too, then, in order to obey that universal master, pleasure or
+gold, they must devour time, hasten time, find more than four-and-twenty
+hours in the day and night, waste themselves, slay themselves, and
+purchase two years of unhealthy repose with thirty years of old age.
+Only, the working-man dies in hospital when the last term of his stunted
+growth expires; whereas the man of the middle class is set upon living,
+and lives on, but in a state of idiocy. You will meet him, with his
+worn, flat old face, with no light in his eyes, with no strength in his
+limbs, dragging himself with a dazed air along the boulevard--the belt
+of his Venus, of his beloved city. What was his want? The sabre of the
+National Guard, a permanent stock-pot, a decent plot in Pere Lachaise,
+and, for his old age, a little gold honestly earned. _HIS_ Monday is on
+Sunday, his rest a drive in a hired carriage--a country excursion during
+which his wife and children glut themselves merrily with dust or bask
+in the sun; his dissipation is at the restaurateur's, whose poisonous
+dinner has won renown, or at some family ball, where he suffocates till
+midnight. Some fools are surprised at the phantasmagoria of the monads
+which they see with the aid of the microscope in a drop of water;
+but what would Rabelais' Gargantua,--that misunderstood figure of
+an audacity so sublime,--what would that giant say, fallen from the
+celestial spheres, if he amused himself by contemplating the motions of
+this secondary life of Paris, of which here is one of the formulae? Have
+you seen one of those little constructions--cold in summer, and with
+no other warmth than a small stove in winter--placed beneath the vast
+copper dome which crowns the Halle-auble? Madame is there by morning.
+She is engaged at the markets, and makes by this occupation twelve
+thousand francs a year, people say. Monsieur, when Madame is up, passes
+into a gloomy office, where he lends money till the week-end to the
+tradesmen of his district. By nine o'clock he is at the passport office,
+of which he is one of the minor officials. By evening he is at the
+box-office of the Theatre Italien, or of any other theatre you like. The
+children are put out to nurse, and only return to be sent to college or
+to boarding-school. Monsieur and Madame live on the third floor, have
+but one cook, give dances in a salon twelve foot by eight, lit by
+argand lamps; but they give a hundred and fifty thousand francs to their
+daughter, and retire at the age of fifty, an age when they begin to show
+themselves on the balcony of the opera, in a _fiacre_ at Longchamps; or,
+on sunny days, in faded clothes on the boulevards--the fruit of all this
+sowing. Respected by their neighbors, in good odor with the government,
+connected with the upper middle classes, Monsieur obtains at sixty-five
+the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and his daughter's father-in-law, a
+parochial mayor, invites him to his evenings. These life-long labors,
+then, are for the good of the children, whom these lower middle classes
+are inevitably driven to exalt. Thus each sphere directs all its efforts
+towards the sphere above it. The son of the rich grocer becomes a
+notary, the son of the timber merchant becomes a magistrate. No link
+is wanting in the chain, and everything stimulates the upward march of
+money.
+
+Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps,
+will some day find its Dante. In this third social circle, a sort of
+Parisian belly, in which the interests of the town are digested, and
+where they are condensed into the form known as _business_, there moves
+and agitates, as by some acrid and bitter intestinal process, the crowd
+of lawyers, doctors, notaries, councillors, business men, bankers, big
+merchants, speculators, and magistrates. Here are to be found even
+more causes of moral and physical destruction than elsewhere. These
+people--almost all of them--live in unhealthy offices, in fetid
+ante-chambers, in little barred dens, and spend their days bowed down
+beneath the weight of affairs; they rise at dawn to be in time, not to
+be left behind, to gain all or not to lose, to overreach a man or his
+money, to open or wind up some business, to take advantage of some
+fleeting opportunity, to get a man hanged or set him free. They infect
+their horses, they overdrive and age and break them, like their own
+legs, before their time. Time is their tyrant: it fails them, it escapes
+them; they can neither expand it nor cut it short. What soul can remain
+great, pure, moral, and generous, and, consequently, what face retain
+its beauty in this depraving practice of a calling which compels one to
+bear the weight of the public sorrows, to analyze them, to weigh them,
+estimate them, and mark them out by rule? Where do these folk put aside
+their hearts?... I do not know; but they leave them somewhere or other,
+when they have any, before they descend each morning into the abyss of
+the misery which puts families on the rack. For them there is no such
+thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of society, whose confessors
+they are, and despise it. Then, whatever they do, owing to their contact
+with corruption, they either are horrified at it and grow gloomy, or
+else, out of lassitude, or some secret compromise, espouse it. In fine,
+they necessarily become callous to every sentiment, since man, his laws
+and his institutions, make them steal, like jackals, from corpses that
+are still warm. At all hours the financier is trampling on the living,
+the attorney on the dead, the pleader on the conscience. Forced to be
+speaking without a rest, they all substitute words for ideas, phrases
+for feelings, and their soul becomes a larynx. Neither the great
+merchant, nor the judge, nor the pleader preserves his sense of right;
+they feel no more, they apply set rules that leave cases out of count.
+Borne along by their headlong course, they are neither husbands nor
+fathers nor lovers; they glide on sledges over the facts of life, and
+live at all times at the high pressure conduced by business and the vast
+city. When they return to their homes they are required to go to a ball,
+to the opera, into society, where they can make clients, acquaintances,
+protectors. They all eat to excess, play and keep vigil, and their faces
+become bloated, flushed, and emaciated.
+
+To this terrific expenditure of intellectual strength, to such multifold
+moral contradictions, they oppose--not, indeed pleasure, it would be too
+pale a contrast--but debauchery, a debauchery both secret and alarming,
+for they have all means at their disposal, and fix the morality of
+society. Their genuine stupidity lies hid beneath their specialism. They
+know their business, but are ignorant of everything which is outside
+it. So that to preserve their self-conceit they question everything, are
+crudely and crookedly critical. They appear to be sceptics and are in
+reality simpletons; they swamp their wits in interminable arguments.
+Almost all conveniently adopt social, literary, or political prejudices,
+to do away with the need of having opinions, just as they adapt their
+conscience to the standard of the Code or the Tribunal of Commerce.
+Having started early to become men of note, they turn into mediocrities,
+and crawl over the high places of the world. So, too, their faces
+present the harsh pallor, the deceitful coloring, those dull, tarnished
+eyes, and garrulous, sensual mouths, in which the observer recognizes
+the symptoms of the degeneracy of the thought and its rotation in the
+circle of a special idea which destroys the creative faculties of the
+brain and the gift of seeing in large, of generalizing and deducing. No
+man who has allowed himself to be caught in the revolutions of the gear
+of these huge machines can ever become great. If he is a doctor, either
+he has practised little or he is an exception--a Bichat who dies young.
+If a great merchant, something remains--he is almost Jacques Coeur. Did
+Robespierre practise? Danton was an idler who waited. But who, moreover
+has ever felt envious of the figures of Danton and Robespierre, however
+lofty they were? These men of affairs, _par excellence_, attract money
+to them, and hoard it in order to ally themselves with aristocratic
+families. If the ambition of the working-man is that of the small
+tradesman, here, too, are the same passions. The type of this class
+might be either an ambitious bourgeois, who, after a life of privation
+and continual scheming, passes into the Council of State as an ant
+passes through a chink; or some newspaper editor, jaded with intrigue,
+whom the king makes a peer of France--perhaps to revenge himself on the
+nobility; or some notary become mayor of his parish: all people crushed
+with business, who, if they attain their end, are literally _killed_ in
+its attainment. In France the usage is to glorify wigs. Napoleon, Louis
+XVI., the great rulers, alone have always wished for young men to fulfil
+their projects.
+
+Above this sphere the artist world exists. But here, too, the faces
+stamped with the seal of originality are worn, nobly indeed, but worn,
+fatigued, nervous. Harassed by a need of production, outrun by their
+costly fantasies, worn out by devouring genius, hungry for pleasure, the
+artists of Paris would all regain by excessive labor what they have lost
+by idleness, and vainly seek to reconcile the world and glory, money
+and art. To begin with, the artist is ceaselessly panting under his
+creditors; his necessities beget his debts, and his debts require of
+him his nights. After his labor, his pleasure. The comedian plays till
+midnight, studies in the morning, rehearses at noon; the sculptor is
+bent before his statue; the journalist is a marching thought, like the
+soldier when at war; the painter who is the fashion is crushed with
+work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels himself to be a man of
+genius, gnaws his entrails. Competition, rivalry, calumny assail talent.
+Some, in desperation, plunge into the abyss of vice, others die young
+and unknown because they have discounted their future too soon. Few of
+these figures, originally sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand,
+the flagrant beauty of their heads is not understood. An artist's face
+is always exorbitant, it is always above or below the conventional lines
+of what fools call the _beau-ideal_. What power is it that destroys
+them? Passion. Every passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and
+pleasure. Now, do you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space
+purified? Here is neither labor nor suffering. The soaring arch of
+gold has reached the summit. From the lowest gutters, where its
+stream commences, from the little shops where it is stopped by puny
+coffer-dams, from the heart of the counting-houses and great workshops,
+where its volume is that of ingots--gold, in the shape of dowries and
+inheritances, guided by the hands of young girls or the bony fingers of
+age, courses towards the aristocracy, where it will become a blazing,
+expansive stream. But, before leaving the four territories upon which
+the utmost wealth of Paris is based, it is fitting, having cited the
+moral causes, to deduce those which are physical, and to call attention
+to a pestilence, latent, as it were, which incessantly acts upon the
+faces of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point out
+a deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the
+Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently to exist!
+
+If the air of the houses in which the greater proportion of the middle
+classes live is noxious, if the atmosphere of the streets belches out
+cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air,
+realize that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of
+this great city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that
+be have not yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid
+enough to prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the
+soil, poisoning the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia
+the tradition of her celebrated name. Half of Paris sleeps amidst the
+putrid exhalations of courts and streets and sewers. But let us turn
+to the vast saloons, gilded and airy; the hotels in their gardens,
+the rich, indolent, happy moneyed world. There the faces are lined and
+scarred with vanity. There nothing is real. To seek for pleasure is it
+not to find _ennui_? People in society have at an early age warped their
+nature. Having no occupation other than to wallow in pleasure, they
+have speedily misused their sense, as the artisan has misused brandy.
+Pleasure is of the nature of certain medical substances: in order to
+obtain constantly the same effects the doses must be doubled, and death
+or degradation is contained in the last. All the lower classes are on
+their knees before the wealthy, and watch their tastes in order to turn
+them into vices and exploit them. Thus you see in these folk at an early
+age tastes instead of passions, romantic fantasies and lukewarm loves.
+There impotence reigns; there ideas have ceased--they have evaporated
+together with energy amongst the affectations of the boudoir and the
+cajolements of women. There are fledglings of forty, old doctors
+of sixty years. The wealthy obtain in Paris ready-made wit and
+science--formulated opinions which save them the need of having wit,
+science, or opinion of their own. The irrationality of this world is
+equaled by its weakness and its licentiousness. It is greedy of time
+to the point of wasting it. Seek in it for affection as little as
+for ideas. Its kisses conceal a profound indifference, its urbanity
+a perpetual contempt. It has no other fashion of love. Flashes of wit
+without profundity, a wealth of indiscretion, scandal, and above all,
+commonplace. Such is the sum of its speech; but these happy fortunates
+pretend that they do not meet to make and repeat maxims in the manner of
+La Rochefoucauld as though there did not exist a mean, invented by the
+eighteenth century, between a superfluity and absolute blank. If a few
+men of character indulge in witticism, at once subtle and refined, they
+are misunderstood; soon, tired of giving without receiving, they remain
+at home, and leave fools to reign over their territory. This hollow
+life, this perpetual expectation of a pleasure which never comes, this
+permanent _ennui_ and emptiness of soul, heart, and mind, the lassitude
+of the upper Parisian world, is reproduced on its features, and stamps
+its parchment faces, its premature wrinkles, that physiognomy of the
+wealthy upon which impotence has set its grimace, in which gold is
+mirrored, and whence intelligence has fled.
+
+Such a view of moral Paris proves that physical Paris could not be other
+than it is. This coroneted town is like a queen, who, being always
+with child, has desires of irresistible fury. Paris is the crown of the
+world, a brain which perishes of genius and leads human civilization;
+it is a great man, a perpetually creative artist, a politician with
+second-sight who must of necessity have wrinkles on his forehead, the
+vices of a great man, the fantasies of the artist, and the politician's
+disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the evolution of good and evil,
+battle and victory; the moral combat of '89, the clarion calls of which
+still re-echo in every corner of the world; and also the downfall of
+1814. Thus this city can no more be moral, or cordial, or clean, than
+the engines which impel those proud leviathans which you admire
+when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a sublime vessel laden with
+intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those oracles which fatality
+sometimes allows. The _City of Paris_ has her great mast, all of bronze,
+carved with victories, and for watchman--Napoleon. The barque may roll
+and pitch, but she cleaves the world, illuminates it through the hundred
+mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the seas of science, rides with
+full sail, cries from the height of her tops, with the voice of her
+scientists and artists: "Onward, advance! Follow me!" She carries a
+huge crew, which delights in adorning her with fresh streamers. Boys
+and urchins laughing in the rigging; ballast of heavy _bourgeoisie_;
+working-men and sailor-men touched with tar; in her cabins the lucky
+passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke their cigars leaning over the
+bulwarks; then, on the deck, her soldiers, innovators or ambitious,
+would accost every fresh shore, and shooting out their bright lights
+upon it, ask for glory which is pleasure, or for love which needs gold.
+
+Thus the exorbitant movement of the proletariat, the corrupting
+influence of the interests which consume the two middle classes, the
+cruelties of the artist's thought, and the excessive pleasure which is
+sought for incessantly by the great, explain the normal ugliness of
+the Parisian physiognomy. It is only in the Orient that the human race
+presents a magnificent figure, but that is an effect of the constant
+calm affected by those profound philosophers with their long pipes,
+their short legs, their square contour, who despise and hold activity
+in horror, whilst in Paris the little and the great and the mediocre run
+and leap and drive, whipped on by an inexorable goddess, Necessity--the
+necessity for money, glory, and amusement. Thus, any face which is fresh
+and graceful and reposeful, any really young face, is in Paris the most
+extraordinary of exceptions; it is met with rarely. Should you see one
+there, be sure it belongs either to a young and ardent ecclesiastic or
+to some good abbe of forty with three chins; to a young girl of pure
+life such as is brought up in certain middle-class families; to a mother
+of twenty, still full of illusions, as she suckles her first-born; to a
+young man newly embarked from the provinces, and intrusted to the care
+of some devout dowager who keeps him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some
+shop assistant who goes to bed at midnight wearied out with folding
+and unfolding calico, and rises at seven o'clock to arrange the window;
+often again to some man of science or poetry, who lives monastically in
+the embrace of a fine idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste;
+else to some self-contented fool, feeding himself on folly, reeking of
+health, in a perpetual state of absorption with his own smile; or to the
+soft and happy race of loungers, the only folk really happy in Paris,
+which unfolds for them hour by hour its moving poetry.
+
+Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to
+whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts,
+and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also have
+a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy their
+physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little happy
+colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their beauty;
+but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets, they lie
+hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain hours, and
+constitute veritable exotic exceptions. However, Paris is essentially
+the country of contrasts. If true sentiments are rare there, there also
+are to be found, as elsewhere, noble friendships and unlimited devotion.
+On this battlefield of interests and passions, just as in the midst
+of those marching societies where egoism triumphs, where every one
+is obliged to defend himself, and which we call _armies_, it seems as
+though sentiments liked to be complete when they showed themselves,
+and are sublime by juxtaposition. So it is with faces. In Paris one
+sometimes sees in the aristocracy, set like stars, the ravishing faces
+of young people, the fruit of quite exceptional manners and education.
+To the youthful beauty of the English stock they unite the firmness
+of Southern traits. The fire of their eyes, a delicious bloom on their
+lips, the lustrous black of their soft locks, a white complexion, a
+distinguished caste of features, render them the flowers of the human
+race, magnificent to behold against the mass of other faces, worn, old,
+wrinkled, and grimacing. So women, too, admire such young people with
+that eager pleasure which men take in watching a pretty girl, elegant,
+gracious, and embellished with all the virginal charms with which our
+imagination pleases to adorn the perfect woman. If this hurried glance
+at the population of Paris has enabled us to conceive the rarity of a
+Raphaelesque face, and the passionate admiration which such an one must
+inspire at the first sight, the prime interest of our history will have
+been justified. _Quod erat demonstrandum_--if one may be permitted to
+apply scholastic formulae to the science of manners.
+
+Upon one of those fine spring mornings, when the leaves, although
+unfolded, are not yet green, when the sun begins to gild the roofs, and
+the sky is blue, when the population of Paris issues from its cells to
+swarm along the boulevards, glides like a serpent of a thousand coils
+through the Rue de la Paix towards the Tuileries, saluting the hymeneal
+magnificence which the country puts on; on one of these joyous days,
+then, a young man as beautiful as the day itself, dressed with taste,
+easy of manner--to let out the secret he was a love-child, the natural
+son of Lord Dudley and the famous Marquise de Vordac--was walking in the
+great avenue of the Tuileries. This Adonis, by name Henri de Marsay,
+was born in France, when Lord Dudley had just married the young lady,
+already Henri's mother, to an old gentleman called M. de Marsay. This
+faded and almost extinguished butterfly recognized the child as his own
+in consideration of the life interest in a fund of a hundred thousand
+francs definitively assigned to his putative son; a generosity which
+did not cost Lord Dudley too dear. French funds were worth at that time
+seventeen francs, fifty centimes. The old gentleman died without having
+ever known his wife. Madame de Marsay subsequently married the Marquis
+de Vordac, but before becoming a marquise she showed very little anxiety
+as to her son and Lord Dudley. To begin with, the declaration of war
+between France and England had separated the two lovers, and fidelity
+at all costs was not, and never will be, the fashion of Paris. Then the
+successes of the woman, elegant, pretty, universally adored, crushed in
+the Parisienne the maternal sentiment. Lord Dudley was no more troubled
+about his offspring than was the mother,--the speedy infidelity of a
+young girl he had ardently loved gave him, perhaps, a sort of aversion
+for all that issued from her. Moreover, fathers can, perhaps, only love
+the children with whom they are fully acquainted, a social belief of the
+utmost importance for the peace of families, which should be held by all
+the celibate, proving as it does that paternity is a sentiment nourished
+artificially by woman, custom, and the law.
+
+Poor Henri de Marsay knew no other father than that one of the two who
+was not compelled to be one. The paternity of M. de Marsay was naturally
+most incomplete. In the natural order, it is but for a few fleeting
+instants that children have a father, and M. de Marsay imitated nature.
+The worthy man would not have sold his name had he been free from
+vices. Thus he squandered without remorse in gambling hells, and drank
+elsewhere, the few dividends which the National Treasury paid to
+its bondholders. Then he handed over the child to an aged sister, a
+Demoiselle de Marsay, who took much care of him, and provided him, out
+of the meagre sum allowed by her brother, with a tutor, an abbe without
+a farthing, who took the measure of the youth's future, and determined
+to pay himself out of the hundred thousand livres for the care given to
+his pupil, for whom he conceived an affection. As chance had it, this
+tutor was a true priest, one of those ecclesiastics cut out to become
+cardinals in France, or Borgias beneath the tiara. He taught the child
+in three years what he might have learned at college in ten. Then the
+great man, by name the Abbe de Maronis, completed the education of
+his pupil by making him study civilization under all its aspects: he
+nourished him on his experience, led him little into churches, which
+at that time were closed; introduced him sometimes behind the scenes of
+theatres, more often into the houses of courtesans; he exhibited human
+emotions to him one by one; taught him politics in the drawing-rooms,
+where they simmered at the time, explained to him the machinery of
+government, and endeavored out of attraction towards a fine nature,
+deserted, yet rich in promise, virilely to replace a mother: is not the
+Church the mother of orphans? The pupil was responsive to so much care.
+The worthy priest died in 1812, a bishop, with the satisfaction of
+having left in this world a child whose heart and mind were so well
+moulded that he could outwit a man of forty. Who would have expected to
+have found a heart of bronze, a brain of steel, beneath external traits
+as seductive as ever the old painters, those naive artists, had given to
+the serpent in the terrestrial paradise? Nor was that all. In addition,
+the good-natured prelate had procured for the child of his choice
+certain acquaintances in the best Parisian society, which might equal
+in value, in the young man's hand, another hundred thousand invested
+livres. In fine, this priest, vicious but politic, sceptical yet
+learned, treacherous yet amiable, weak in appearance yet as vigorous
+physically as intellectually, was so genuinely useful to his pupil, so
+complacent to his vices, so fine a calculator of all kinds of strength,
+so profound when it was needful to make some human reckoning, so
+youthful at table, at Frascati, at--I know not where, that the grateful
+Henri de Marsay was hardly moved at aught in 1814, except when he looked
+at the portrait of his beloved bishop, the only personal possession
+which the prelate had been able to bequeath him (admirable type of
+the men whose genius will preserve the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman
+Church, compromised for the moment by the feebleness of its recruits and
+the decrepit age of its pontiffs; but if the church likes!).
+
+The continental war prevented young De Marsay from knowing his real
+father. It is doubtful whether he was aware of his name. A deserted
+child, he was equally ignorant of Madame de Marsay. Naturally, he had
+little regret for his putative father. As for Mademoiselle de Marsay,
+his only mother, he built for her a handsome little monument in Pere
+Lachaise when she died. Monseigneur de Maronis had guaranteed to this
+old lady one of the best places in the skies, so that when he saw her
+die happy, Henri gave her some egotistical tears; he began to weep on
+his own account. Observing this grief, the abbe dried his pupil's tears,
+bidding him observe that the good woman took her snuff most offensively,
+and was becoming so ugly and deaf and tedious that he ought to return
+thanks for her death. The bishop had emancipated his pupil in 1811.
+Then, when the mother of M. de Marsay remarried, the priest chose, in a
+family council, one of those honest dullards, picked out by him through
+the windows of his confessional, and charged him with the administration
+of the fortune, the revenues of which he was willing to apply to the
+needs of the community, but of which he wished to preserve the capital.
+
+Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
+obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although he
+had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a rule
+the most fastidious of his rivals considered him to be the prettiest
+youth in Paris. From his father, Lord Dudley, he had derived a pair of
+the most amorously deceiving blue eyes; from his mother the bushiest of
+black hair, from both pure blood, the skin of a young girl, a gentle
+and modest expression, a refined and aristocratic figure, and beautiful
+hands. For a woman, to see him was to lose her head for him; do you
+understand? to conceive one of those desires which eat the heart, which
+are forgotten because of the impossibility of satisfying them, because
+women in Paris are commonly without tenacity. Few of them say to
+themselves, after the fashion of men, the "_Je Maintiendrai_," of the
+House of Orange.
+
+Underneath this fresh young life, and in spite of the limpid springs in
+his eyes, Henri had a lion's courage, a monkey's agility. He could cut a
+ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his horse
+in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a
+four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb,
+but knew how to beat a townsman at the terrible game of _savate_ or
+cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have
+enabled him to become an artist should he fall on calamity, and owned
+a voice which would have been worth to Barbaja fifty thousand francs a
+season. Alas, that all these fine qualities, these pretty faults, were
+tarnished by one abominable vice: he believed neither in man nor woman,
+God nor Devil. Capricious nature had commenced by endowing him, a priest
+had completed the work.
+
+To render this adventure comprehensible, it is necessary to add here
+that Lord Dudley naturally found many women disposed to reproduce
+samples of such a delicious pattern. His second masterpiece of this
+kind was a young girl named Euphemie, born of a Spanish lady, reared in
+Havana, and brought to Madrid with a young Creole woman of the Antilles,
+and with all the ruinous tastes of the Colonies, but fortunately married
+to an old and extremely rich Spanish noble, Don Hijos, Marquis de
+San-Real, who, since the occupation of Spain by French troops, had taken
+up his abode in Paris, and lived in the Rue St. Lazare. As much from
+indifference as from any respect for the innocence of youth, Lord Dudley
+was not in the habit of keeping his children informed of the relations
+he created for them in all parts. That is a slightly inconvenient form
+of civilization; it has so many advantages that we must overlook its
+drawbacks in consideration of its benefits. Lord Dudley, to make no more
+words of it, came to Paris in 1816 to take refuge from the pursuit of
+English justice, which protects nothing Oriental except commerce. The
+exiled lord, when he saw Henri, asked who that handsome young man might
+be. Then, upon hearing the name, "Ah, it is my son.... What a pity!" he
+said.
+
+Such was the story of the young man who, about the middle of the month
+of April, 1815, was walking indolently up the broad avenue of the
+Tuileries, after the fashion of all those animals who, knowing their
+strength, pass along in majesty and peace. Middle-class matrons turned
+back naively to look at him again; other women, without turning round,
+waited for him to pass again, and engraved him in their minds that they
+might remember in due season that fragrant face, which would not have
+disadorned the body of the fairest among themselves.
+
+"What are you doing here on Sunday?" said the Marquis de Ronquerolles to
+Henri, as he passed.
+
+"There's a fish in the net," answered the young man.
+
+This exchange of thoughts was accomplished by means of two significant
+glances, without it appearing that either De Ronquerolles or De Marsay
+had any knowledge of the other. The young man was taking note of the
+passers-by with that promptitude of eye and ear which is peculiar to the
+Parisian who seems, at first, to see and hear nothing, but who sees and
+hears all.
+
+At that moment a young man came up to him and took him familiarly by the
+arm, saying to him: "How are you, my dear De Marsay?"
+
+"Extremely well," De Marsay answered, with that air of apparent
+affection which amongst the young men of Paris proves nothing, either
+for the present or the future.
+
+In effect, the youth of Paris resemble the youth of no other town. They
+may be divided into two classes: the young man who has something, and
+the young man who has nothing; or the young man who thinks and he who
+spends. But, be it well understood this applies only to those natives of
+the soil who maintain in Paris the delicious course of the elegant life.
+There exist, as well, plenty of other young men, but they are children
+who are late in conceiving Parisian life, and who remain its dupes. They
+do not speculate, they study; they _fag_, as the others say. Finally
+there are to be found, besides, certain young people, rich or poor, who
+embrace careers and follow them with a single heart; they are somewhat
+like the Emile of Rousseau, of the flesh of citizens, and they never
+appear in society. The diplomatic impolitely dub them fools. Be they
+that or no, they augment the number of those mediocrities beneath the
+yoke of which France is bowed down. They are always there, always ready
+to bungle public or private concerns with the dull trowel of their
+mediocrity, bragging of their impotence, which they count for
+conduct and integrity. This sort of social _prizemen_ infests the
+administration, the army, the magistracy, the chambers, the courts. They
+diminish and level down the country and constitute, in some manner, in
+the body politic, a lymph which infects it and renders it flabby. These
+honest folk call men of talent immoral or rogues. If such rogues require
+to be paid for their services, at least their services are there;
+whereas the other sort do harm and are respected by the mob; but,
+happily for France, elegant youth stigmatizes them ceaselessly under the
+name of louts.
+
+At the first glance, then, it is natural to consider as very distinct
+the two sorts of young men who lead the life of elegance, the amiable
+corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who
+goes beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that
+the difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as this
+pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over everybody
+else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men, literature, and the
+fine arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and Coburg of each year;
+interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into ridicule science and the
+_savant_; despise all things which they do not know or which they fear;
+set themselves above all by constituting themselves the supreme
+judges of all. They would all hoax their fathers, and be ready to shed
+crocodile tears upon their mothers' breasts; but generally they believe
+in nothing, blaspheme women, or play at modesty, and in reality are led
+by some old woman or an evil courtesan. They are all equally eaten
+to the bone with calculation, with depravity, with a brutal lust to
+succeed, and if you plumbed for their hearts you would find in all a
+stone. In their normal state they have the prettiest exterior, stake
+their friendship at every turn, are captivating alike. The same badinage
+dominates their ever-changing jargon; they seek for oddity in their
+toilette, glory in repeating the stupidities of such and such actor who
+is in fashion, and commence operations, it matters not with whom, with
+contempt and impertinence, in order to have, as it were, the first move
+in the game; but, woe betide him who does not know how to take a blow
+on one cheek for the sake of rendering two. They resemble, in fine, that
+pretty white spray which crests the stormy waves. They dress and dance,
+dine and take their pleasure, on the day of Waterloo, in the time of
+cholera or revolution. Finally, their expenses are all the same, but
+here the contrast comes in. Of this fluctuating fortune, so agreeably
+flung away, some possess the capital for which the others wait; they
+have the same tailors, but the bills of the latter are still to pay.
+Next, if the first, like sieves, take in ideas of all kinds without
+retaining any, the latter compare them and assimilate all the good.
+If the first believe they know something, know nothing and understand
+everything, lend all to those who need nothing and offer nothing to
+those who are in need; the latter study secretly others' thoughts and
+place out their money, like their follies, at big interest. The one
+class have no more faithful impressions, because their soul, like
+a mirror, worn from use, no longer reflects any image; the others
+economize their senses and life, even while they seem, like the first,
+to be flinging them away broadcast. The first, on the faith of a hope,
+devote themselves without conviction to a system which has wind and tide
+against it, but they leap upon another political craft when the first
+goes adrift; the second take the measure of the future, sound it, and
+see in political fidelity what the English see in commercial integrity,
+an element of success. Where the young man of possessions makes a pun or
+an epigram upon the restoration of the throne, he who has nothing makes
+a public calculation or a secret reservation, and obtains everything by
+giving a handshake to his friends. The one deny every faculty to others,
+look upon all their ideas as new, as though the world had been made
+yesterday, they have unlimited confidence in themselves, and no crueler
+enemy than those same selves. But the others are armed with an incessant
+distrust of men, whom they estimate at their value, and are sufficiently
+profound to have one thought beyond their friends, whom they exploit;
+then of evenings, when they lay their heads on their pillows, they weigh
+men as a miser weighs his gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless
+impertinence, and allow themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic,
+who make them dance for them by pulling what is the main string of these
+puppets--their vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing have
+something, and those who had something have nothing. The latter look
+at their comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their
+hearts may be bad, but their heads are strong. "He is very strong!" is
+the supreme praise accorded to those who have attained _quibuscumque
+viis_, political rank, a woman, or a fortune. Amongst them are to be
+found certain young men who play this _role_ by commencing with having
+debts. Naturally, these are more dangerous than those who play it
+without a farthing.
+
+The young man who called himself a friend of Henri de Marsay was a
+rattle-head who had come from the provinces, and whom the young men then
+in fashion were teaching the art of running through an inheritance;
+but he had one last leg to stand on in his province, in the shape of a
+secure establishment. He was simply an heir who had passed without any
+transition from his pittance of a hundred francs a month to the entire
+paternal fortune, and who, if he had not wit enough to perceive that he
+was laughed at, was sufficiently cautious to stop short at two-thirds
+of his capital. He had learned at Paris, for a consideration of some
+thousands of francs, the exact value of harness, the art of not being
+too respectful to his gloves, learned to make skilful meditations upon
+the right wages to give people, and to seek out what bargain was the
+best to close with them. He set store on his capacity to speak in good
+terms of his horses, of his Pyrenean hound; to tell by her dress, her
+walk, her shoes, to what class a woman belonged; to study _ecarte_,
+remember a few fashionable catchwords, and win by his sojourn in
+Parisian society the necessary authority to import later into his
+province a taste for tea and silver of an English fashion, and to obtain
+the right of despising everything around him for the rest of his days.
+
+De Marsay had admitted him to his society in order to make use of him in
+the world, just as a bold speculator employs a confidential clerk. The
+friendship, real or feigned, of De Marsay was a social position for Paul
+de Manerville, who, on his side, thought himself astute in exploiting,
+after his fashion, his intimate friend. He lived in the reflecting
+lustre of his friend, walked constantly under his umbrella, wore his
+boots, gilded himself with his rays. When he posed in Henri's company or
+walked at his side, he had the air of saying: "Don't insult us, we are
+real dogs." He often permitted himself to remark fatuously: "If I were
+to ask Henri for such and such a thing, he is a good enough friend of
+mine to do it." But he was careful never to ask anything of him. He
+feared him, and his fear, although imperceptible, reacted upon the
+others, and was of use to De Marsay.
+
+"De Marsay is a man of a thousand," said Paul. "Ah, you will see, he
+will be what he likes. I should not be surprised to find him one of
+these days Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nothing can withstand him."
+
+He made of De Marsay what Corporal Trim made of his cap, a perpetual
+instance.
+
+"Ask De Marsay and you will see!"
+
+Or again:
+
+"The other day we were hunting, De Marsay and I, He would not believe
+me, but I jumped a hedge without moving on my horse!"
+
+Or again:
+
+"We were with some women, De Marsay and I, and upon my word of honor, I
+was----" etc.
+
+Thus Paul de Manerville could not be classed amongst the great,
+illustrious, and powerful family of fools who succeed. He would one day
+be a deputy. For the time he was not even a young man. His friend, De
+Marsay, defined him thus: "You ask me what is Paul? Paul? Why, Paul de
+Manerville!"
+
+"I am surprised, my dear fellow," he said to De Marsay, "to see you here
+on a Sunday."
+
+"I was going to ask you the same question."
+
+"Is it an intrigue?"
+
+"An intrigue."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"I can mention it to you without compromising my passion. Besides,
+a woman who comes to the Tuileries on Sundays is of no account,
+aristocratically speaking."
+
+"Ah! ah!"
+
+"Hold your tongue then, or I shall tell you nothing. Your laugh is too
+loud, you will make people think that we have lunched too well. Last
+Thursday, here on the Terrasse des Feuillants, I was walking along,
+thinking of nothing at all, but when I got to the gate of the Rue de
+Castiglione, by which I intended to leave, I came face to face with a
+woman, or rather a young girl; who, if she did not throw herself at my
+head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one of
+those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep down
+the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet, to nail
+you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this nature, a sort
+of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful when the
+relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this was not
+stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her face
+seemed to say: 'What, is it you, my ideal! The creation of my thoughts,
+of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why this morning?
+Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, _et cetera_!' Good, I said to
+myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my dear fellow, speaking
+physically, my incognita is the most adorable feminine person whom I
+ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety which the Romans call
+_fulva, flava_--the woman of fire. And in chief, what struck me the
+most, what I am still taken with, are her two yellow eyes, like a
+tiger's, a golden yellow that gleams, living gold, gold which thinks,
+gold which loves, and is determined to take refuge in your pocket."
+
+"My dear fellow, we are full of her!" cried Paul. "She comes here
+sometimes--_the girl with the golden eyes_! That is the name we have
+given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
+have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who was
+worth a hundred thousand of her."
+
+"Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl; she
+is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl with
+ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy
+threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks
+a white down whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and
+loses itself on her neck."
+
+"Ah, the other, my dear De Marsay! She has black eyes which have never
+wept, but which burn; black eyebrows which meet and give her an air of
+hardness contradicted by the compact curve of her lips, on which the
+kisses do not stay, lips burning and fresh; a Moorish color that warms a
+man like the sun. But--upon my word of honor, she is like you!"
+
+"You flatter her!"
+
+"A firm figure, the tapering figure of a corvette built for speed, which
+rushes down upon the merchant vessel with French impetuosity, which
+grapples with her and sinks her at the same time."
+
+"After all, my dear fellow," answered De Marsay, "what has that got
+to do with me, since I have never seen her? Ever since I have studied
+women, my incognita is the only one whose virginal bosom, whose
+ardent and voluptuous forms, have realized for me the only woman of
+my dreams--of my dreams! She is the original of that ravishing picture
+called _La Femme Caressant sa Chimere_, the warmest, the most infernal
+inspiration of the genius of antiquity; a holy poem prostituted by those
+who have copied it for frescoes and mosiacs; for a heap of bourgeois
+who see in this gem nothing more than a gew-gaw and hang it on their
+watch-chains--whereas, it is the whole woman, an abyss of pleasure into
+which one plunges and finds no end; whereas, it is the ideal woman, to
+be seen sometimes in reality in Spain or Italy, almost never in France.
+Well, I have again seen this girl of the gold eyes, this woman caressing
+her chimera. I saw her on Friday. I had a presentiment that on the
+following day she would be here at the same hour; I was not mistaken.
+I have taken a pleasure in following her without being observed, in
+studying her indolent walk, the walk of the woman without occupation,
+but in the movements of which one devines all the pleasure that lies
+asleep. Well, she turned back again, she saw me, once more she adored
+me, once more trembled, shivered. It was then I noticed the genuine
+Spanish duenna who looked after her, a hyena upon whom some jealous
+man has put a dress, a she-devil well paid, no doubt, to guard this
+delicious creature.... Ah, then the duenna made me deeper in love. I
+grew curious. On Saturday, nobody. And here I am to-day waiting for
+this girl whose chimera I am, asking nothing better than to pose as the
+monster in the fresco."
+
+"There she is," said Paul. "Every one is turning round to look at her."
+
+The unknown blushed, her eyes shone; she saw Henri, she shut them and
+passed by.
+
+"You say that she notices you?" cried Paul, facetiously.
+
+The duenna looked fixedly and attentively at the two young men. When the
+unknown and Henri passed each other again, the young girl touched him,
+and with her hand pressed the hand of the young man. Then she turned her
+head and smiled with passion, but the duenna led her away very quickly
+to the gate of the Rue de Castiglione.
+
+The two friends followed the young girl, admiring the magnificent grace
+of the neck which met her head in a harmony of vigorous lines, and upon
+which a few coils of hair were tightly wound. The girl with the golden
+eyes had that well-knitted, arched, slender foot which presents so
+many attractions to the dainty imagination. Moreover, she was shod with
+elegance, and wore a short skirt. During her course she turned from
+time to time to look at Henri, and appeared to follow the old woman
+regretfully, seeming to be at once her mistress and her slave; she
+could break her with blows, but could not dismiss her. All that was
+perceptible. The two friends reached the gate. Two men in livery let
+down the step of a tasteful _coupe_ emblazoned with armorial bearings.
+The girl with the golden eyes was the first to enter it, took her seat
+at the side where she could be best seen when the carriage turned,
+put her hand on the door, and waved her handkerchief in the duennna's
+despite. In contempt of what might be said by the curious, her
+handkerchief cried to Henri openly: "Follow me!"
+
+"Have you ever seen a handkerchief better thrown?" said Henri to Paul de
+Manerville.
+
+Then, observing a fiacre on the point of departure, having just set down
+a fare, he made a sign to the driver to wait.
+
+"Follow that carriage, notice the house and the street where it
+stops--you shall have ten francs.... Paul, adieu."
+
+The cab followed the _coupe_. The _coupe_ stopped in the Rue Saint
+Lazare before one of the finest houses of the neighborhood.
+
+De Marsay was not impulsive. Any other young man would have obeyed his
+impulse to obtain at once some information about a girl who realized so
+fully the most luminous ideas ever expressed upon women in the poetry
+of the East; but, too experienced to compromise his good fortune, he had
+told his coachman to continue along the Rue Saint Lazare and carry him
+back to his house. The next day, his confidential valet, Laurent by
+name, as cunning a fellow as the Frontin of the old comedy, waited in
+the vicinity of the house inhabited by the unknown for the hour at which
+letters were distributed. In order to be able to spy at his ease and
+hang about the house, he had followed the example of those police
+officers who seek a good disguise, and bought up cast-off clothes of
+an Auvergnat, the appearance of whom he sought to imitate. When the
+postman, who went the round of the Rue Saint Lazare that morning, passed
+by, Laurent feigned to be a porter unable to remember the name of a
+person to whom he had to deliver a parcel, and consulted the postman.
+Deceived at first by appearances, this personage, so picturesque in the
+midst of Parisian civilization, informed him that the house in which
+the girl with the golden eyes dwelt belonged to Don Hijos, Marquis de
+San-Real, grandee of Spain. Naturally, it was not with the Marquis that
+the Auvergnat was concerned.
+
+"My parcel," he said, "is for the marquise."
+
+"She is away," replied the postman. "Her letters are forwarded to
+London."
+
+"Then the marquise is not a young girl who...?"
+
+"Ah!" said the postman, interrupting the _valet de chambre_ and
+observing him attentively, "you are as much a porter as I'm..."
+
+Laurent chinked some pieces of gold before the functionary, who began to
+smile.
+
+"Come, here's the name of your quarry," he said, taking from his leather
+wallet a letter bearing a London stamp, upon which the address, "To
+Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes, Rue Saint Lazare, Hotel San-Real, Paris,"
+was written in long, fine characters, which spoke of a woman's hand.
+
+"Could you tap a bottle of Chablis, with a few dozen oysters, and a
+_filet saute_ with mushrooms to follow it?" said Laurent, who wished to
+win the postman's valuable friendship.
+
+"At half-past nine, when my round is finished---- Where?"
+
+"At the corner of the Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin and the Rue
+Neuve-des-Mathurins, at the _Puits sans Vin_," said Laurent.
+
+"Hark ye, my friend," said the postman, when he rejoined the valet an
+hour after this encounter, "if your master is in love with the girl, he
+is in for a famous task. I doubt you'll not succeed in seeing her. In
+the ten years that I've been postman in Paris, I have seen plenty of
+different kinds of doors! But I can tell you, and no fear of being
+called a liar by any of my comrades, there never was a door so
+mysterious as M. de San-Real's. No one can get into the house without
+the Lord knows what counter-word; and, notice, it has been selected on
+purpose between a courtyard and a garden to avoid any communication with
+other houses. The porter is an old Spaniard, who never speaks a word
+of French, but peers at people as Vidocq might, to see if they are not
+thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you--I make no comparisons--could get
+the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut
+by a glazed door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys,
+an old joker more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one
+gets past the porter's lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the
+entrance, and puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That
+has happened to me, a mere postman. He took me for an eavesdropper in
+disguise, he said, laughing at his nonsense. As for the servants, don't
+hope to get aught out of them; I think they are mutes, no one in the
+neighborhood knows the color of their speech; I don't know what wages
+they can pay them to keep them from talk and drink; the fact is, they
+are not to be got at, whether because they are afraid of being shot, or
+that they have some enormous sum to lose in the case of an indiscretion.
+If your master is fond enough of Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes to surmount
+all these obstacles, he certainly won't triumph over Dona Concha
+Marialva, the duenna who accompanies her and would put her under her
+petticoats sooner than leave her. The two women look as if they were
+sewn to one another."
+
+"All that you say, worthy postman," went on Laurent, after having drunk
+off his wine, "confirms me in what I have learned before. Upon my word,
+I thought they were making fun of me! The fruiterer opposite told me
+that of nights they let loose dogs whose food is hung up on stakes just
+out of their reach. These cursed animals think, therefore, that any one
+likely to come in has designs on their victuals, and would tear one to
+pieces. You will tell me one might throw them down pieces, but it seems
+they have been trained to touch nothing except from the hand of the
+porter."
+
+"The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top that
+of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing," replied the postman.
+
+"Good! my master knows him," said Laurent, to himself. "Do you know,"
+he went on, leering at the postman, "I serve a master who is a rare
+man, and if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of an
+empress, she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you, which
+is what I wish for you, for he is generous, could one count on you?"
+
+"Lord, Monsieur Laurent, my name is Moinot. My name is written exactly
+like _Moineau_, magpie: M-o-i-n-o-t, Moinot."
+
+"Exactly," said Laurent.
+
+"I live at No. 11, Rue des Trois Freres, on the fifth floor," went on
+Moinot; "I have a wife and four children. If what you want of me doesn't
+transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties, you
+understand! I am your man."
+
+"You are an honest fellow," said Laurent, shaking his hand....
+
+"Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real,
+the friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty years
+is capable of taking such precautions," said Henri, when his _valet de
+chambre_ had related the result of his researches.
+
+"Monsieur," said Laurent, "unless he takes a balloon no one can get into
+that hotel."
+
+"You are a fool! Is it necessary to get into the hotel to have Paquita,
+when Paquita can get out of it?"
+
+"But, sir, the duenna?"
+
+"We will shut her up for a day or two, your duenna."
+
+"So, we shall have Paquita!" said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
+
+"Rascal!" answered Henri, "I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
+carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
+become mine.... Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."
+
+Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say it
+to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to desire.
+And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who should
+have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is the
+intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of the
+soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two real
+powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to grow
+weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown very weary
+indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he brought back more
+grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates, to implore of
+Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which should ask the
+employment of his dormant moral and physical strength. Although Paquita
+Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration of perfections which
+he had only yet enjoyed in detail, the attraction of passion was almost
+_nil_ with him. Constant satiety had weakened in his heart the sentiment
+of love. Like old men and people disillusioned, he had no longer
+anything but extravagant caprices, ruinous tastes, fantasies, which,
+once satisfied, left no pleasant memory in his heart. Amongst young
+people love is the finest of the emotions, it makes the life of the soul
+blossom, it nourishes by its solar power the finest inspirations and
+their great thoughts; the first fruits in all things have a delicious
+savor. Amongst men love becomes a passion; strength leads to abuse.
+Amongst old men it turns to vice; impotence tends to extremes. Henri was
+at once an old man, a man, and a youth. To afford him the feelings of
+a real love, he needed like Lovelace, a Clarissa Harlowe. Without
+the magic lustre of that unattainable pearl he could only have either
+passions rendered acute by some Parisian vanity, or set determinations
+with himself to bring such and such a woman to such and such a point of
+corruption, or else adventures which stimulated his curiosity.
+
+The report of Laurent, his _valet de chambre_ had just given an enormous
+value to the girl with the golden eyes. It was a question of doing
+battle with some secret enemy who seemed as dangerous as he was cunning;
+and to carry off the victory, all the forces which Henri could dispose
+of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal old comedy
+which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are an old man,
+a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay. If Laurent was
+the equal of Figaro, the duenna seemed incorruptible. Thus, the living
+play was supplied by Chance with a stronger plot than it had ever been
+by dramatic author! But then is not Chance too, a man of genius?
+
+"It must be a cautious game," said Henri, to himself.
+
+"Well," said Paul de Manerville, as he entered the room. "How are we
+getting on? I have come to breakfast with you."
+
+"So be it," said Henri. "You won't be shocked if I make my toilette
+before you?"
+
+"How absurd!"
+
+"We take so many things from the English just now that we might well
+become as great prudes and hypocrites as themselves," said Henri.
+
+Laurent had set before his master such a quantity of utensils, so many
+different articles of such elegance, that Paul could not refrain from
+saying:
+
+"But you will take a couple of hours over that?"
+
+"No!" said Henri, "two hours and a half."
+
+"Well, then, since we are by ourselves, and can say what we like,
+explain to me why a man as superior as yourself--for you are
+superior--should affect to exaggerate a foppery which cannot be
+natural. Why spend two hours and a half in adorning yourself, when it is
+sufficient to spend a quarter of an hour in your bath, to do your hair
+in two minutes, and to dress! There, tell me your system."
+
+"I must be very fond of you, my good dunce, to confide such high
+thoughts to you," said the young man, who was at that moment having his
+feet rubbed with a soft brush lathered with English soap.
+
+"Have I not the most devoted attachment to you," replied Paul de
+Manerville, "and do I not like you because I know your superiority?..."
+
+"You must have noticed, if you are in the least capable of observing any
+moral fact, that women love fops," went on De Marsay, without replying
+in any way to Paul's declaration except by a look. "Do you know why
+women love fops? My friend, fops are the only men who take care of
+themselves. Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it not imply
+that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another? The man who
+does not belong to himself is precisely the man on whom women are keen.
+Love is essentially a thief. I say nothing about that excess of niceness
+to which they are so devoted. Do you know of any woman who has had a
+passion for a sloven, even if he were a remarkable man? If such a fact
+has occurred, we must put it to the account of those morbid affections
+of the breeding woman, mad fancies which float through the minds of
+everybody. On the other hand, I have seen most remarkable people left in
+the lurch because of their carelessness. A fop, who is concerned about
+his person, is concerned with folly, with petty things. And what is a
+woman? A petty thing, a bundle of follies. With two words said to the
+winds, can you not make her busy for four hours? She is sure that the
+fop will be occupied with her, seeing that he has no mind for great
+things. She will never be neglected for glory, ambition, politics,
+art--those prostitutes who for her are rivals. Then fops have the
+courage to cover themselves with ridicule in order to please a woman,
+and her heart is full of gratitude towards the man who is ridiculous for
+love. In fine, a fop can be no fop unless he is right in being one. It
+is women who bestow that rank. The fop is love's colonel; he has his
+victories, his regiment of women at his command. My dear fellow, in
+Paris everything is known, and a man cannot be a fop there _gratis_.
+You, who have only one woman, and who, perhaps, are right to have but
+one, try to act the fop!... You will not even become ridiculous, you
+will be dead. You will become a foregone conclusion, one of those men
+condemned inevitably to do one and the same thing. You will come to
+signify _folly_ as inseparably as M. de La Fayette signifies _America_;
+M. de Talleyrand, _diplomacy_; Desaugiers, _song_; M. de Segur,
+_romance_. If they once forsake their own line people no longer attach
+any value to what they do. So, foppery, my friend Paul, is the sign of
+an incontestable power over the female folk. A man who is loved by many
+women passes for having superior qualities, and then, poor fellow, it
+is a question who shall have him! But do you think it is nothing to have
+the right of going into a drawing-room, of looking down at people from
+over your cravat, or through your eye-glass, and of despising the most
+superior of men should he wear an old-fashioned waistcoat?... Laurent,
+you are hurting me! After breakfast, Paul, we will go to the Tuileries
+and see the adorable girl with the golden eyes."
+
+When, after making an excellent meal, the two young men had traversed
+the Terrasse de Feuillants and the broad walk of the Tuileries, they
+nowhere discovered the sublime Paquita Valdes, on whose account some
+fifty of the most elegant young men in Paris where to be seen, all
+scented, with their high scarfs, spurred and booted, riding, walking,
+talking, laughing, and damning themselves mightily.
+
+"It's a white Mass," said Henri; "but I have the most excellent idea in
+the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must be
+bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a love-letter
+slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant, _crudel
+tirano_, is certain to know the person who writes the letters from
+London, and has ceased to be suspicious of them."
+
+The day after, De Marsay came again to walk on the Terrasse des
+Feuillants, and saw Paquita Valdes; already passion had embellished her
+for him. Seriously, he was wild for those eyes, whose rays seemed akin
+to those which the sun emits, and whose ardor set the seal upon that
+of her perfect body, in which all was delight. De Marsay was on fire to
+brush the dress of this enchanting girl as they passed one another in
+their walk; but his attempts were always vain. But at one moment, when
+he had repassed Paquita and the duenna, in order to find himself on the
+same side as the girl of the golden eyes, when he returned, Paquita,
+no less impatient, came forward hurriedly, and De Marsay felt his
+hand pressed by her in a fashion at once so swift and so passionately
+significant that it was as though he had received the emotions surged up
+in his heart. When the two lovers glanced at one another, Paquita seemed
+ashamed, she dropped her eyes lest she should meet the eyes of Henri,
+but her gaze sank lower to fasten on the feet and form of him whom
+women, before the Revolution, called _their conqueror_.
+
+"I am determined to make this girl my mistress," said Henri to himself.
+
+As he followed her along the terrace, in the direction of the Place
+Louis XV., he caught sight of the aged Marquis de San-Real, who was
+walking on the arm of his valet, stepping with all the precautions due
+to gout and decrepitude. Dona Concha, who distrusted Henri, made Paquita
+pass between herself and the old man.
+
+"Oh, for you," said De Marsay to himself, casting a glance of disdain
+upon the duenna, "if one cannot make you capitulate, with a little opium
+one can make you sleep. We know mythology and the fable of Argus."
+
+Before entering the carriage, the golden-eyed girl exchanged certain
+glances with her lover, of which the meaning was unmistakable and which
+enchanted Henri, but one of them was surprised by the duenna; she said
+a few rapid words to Paquita, who threw herself into the _coupe_ with
+an air of desperation. For some days Paquita did not appear in the
+Tuileries. Laurent, who by his master's orders was on watch by the
+hotel, learned from the neighbors that neither the two women nor the
+aged marquis had been abroad since the day upon which the duenna had
+surprised a glance between the young girl in her charge and Henri. The
+bond, so flimsy withal, which united the two lovers was already severed.
+
+Some days later, none knew by what means, De Marsay had attained his
+end; he had a seal and wax, exactly resembling the seal and wax affixed
+to the letters sent to Mademoiselle Valdes from London; paper similar
+to that which her correspondent used; moreover, all the implements and
+stamps necessary to affix the French and English postmarks.
+
+He wrote the following letter, to which he gave all the appearances of a
+letter sent from London:--
+
+
+  "MY DEAR PAQUITA,--I shall not try to paint to you in words the
+  passion with which you have inspired me. If, to my happiness, you
+  reciprocate it, understand that I have found a means of
+  corresponding with you. My name is Adolphe de Gouges, and I live
+  at No. 54 Rue de l'Universite. If you are too closely watched to
+  be able to write to me, if you have neither pen nor paper, I shall
+  understand it by your silence. If then, to-morrow, you have not,
+  between eight o'clock in the morning and ten o'clock in the
+  evening, thrown a letter over the wall of your garden into that of
+  the Baron de Nucingen, where it will be waited for during the
+  whole of the day, a man, who is entirely devoted to me, will let
+  down two flasks by a string over your wall at ten o'clock the next
+  morning. Be walking there at that hour. One of the two flasks will
+  contain opium to send your Argus to sleep; it will be sufficient
+  to employ six drops; the other will contain ink. The flask of ink
+  is of cut glass; the other is plain. Both are of such a size as
+  can easily be concealed within your bosom. All that I have already
+  done, in order to be able to correspond with you, should tell you
+  how greatly I love you. Should you have any doubt of it, I will
+  confess to you, that to obtain an interview of one hour with you I
+  would give my life."
+
+
+"At least they believe that, poor creatures!" said De Marsay; "but they
+are right. What should we think of a woman who refused to be beguiled by
+a love-letter accompanied by such convincing accessories?"
+
+This letter was delivered by Master Moinot, postman, on the following
+day, about eight o'clock in the morning, to the porter of the Hotel
+San-Real.
+
+In order to be nearer to the field of action, De Marsay went and
+breakfasted with Paul, who lived in the Rue de la Pepiniere. At
+two o'clock, just as the two friends were laughingly discussing the
+discomfiture of a young man who had attempted to lead the life of
+fashion without a settled income, and were devising an end for him,
+Henri's coachman came to seek his master at Paul's house, and presented
+to him a mysterious personage who insisted on speaking himself with his
+master.
+
+This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a
+model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did any
+African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready suspicion,
+the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength of the Moor,
+and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had the fixity of
+the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a vulture's, by
+a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low and narrow, had
+something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the yoke of some
+single and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not belong to him.
+
+He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those
+who shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint
+in the single phrase: _He was an unfortunate man_. From this phrase,
+everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each
+country. But who can best imagine his face--white and wrinkled, red at
+the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow
+scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock coat,
+his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his imitation gold
+pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were plastered in mud? Who
+will see all that but the Parisian? The unfortunate man of Paris is the
+unfortunate man _in toto_, for he has still enough mirth to know the
+extent of his misfortune. The mulatto was like an executioner of Louis
+XI. leading a man to the gallows.
+
+"Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?" said Henri.
+
+"Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder," replied Paul.
+
+"Who are you--you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the two?"
+said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man.
+
+The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a man
+who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something from
+the gestures and movements of the lips.
+
+"I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de Justice,
+and am named Poincet."
+
+"Good!... and this one?" said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
+mulatto.
+
+"I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish _patois_, and he has
+brought me here to make himself understood by you."
+
+The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
+Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
+
+"Ah--so--the game is beginning," said Henri to himself. "Paul, leave us
+alone for a moment."
+
+"I translated this letter for him," went on the interpreter, when they
+were alone. "When it was translated, he was in some place which I don't
+remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two _louis_
+to fetch him here."
+
+"What have you to say to me, nigger?" asked Henri.
+
+"I did not translate _nigger_," said the interpreter, waiting for the
+mulatto's reply....
+
+"He said, sir," went on the interpreter, after having listened to the
+unknown, "that you must be at half-past ten to-morrow night on the
+boulevard Montmartre, near the cafe. You will see a carriage there, in
+which you must take your place, saying to the man, who will wait to
+open the door for you, the word _cortejo_--a Spanish word, which means
+_lover_," added Poincet, casting a glance of congratulation upon Henri.
+
+"Good."
+
+The mulatto was about to bestow the two _louis_, but De Marsay would not
+permit it, and himself rewarded the interpreter. As he was paying him,
+the mulatto began to speak.
+
+"What is he saying?"
+
+"He is warning me," replied the unfortunate, "that if I commit a single
+indiscretion he will strangle me. He speaks fair and he looks remarkably
+as if he were capable of carrying out his threat."
+
+"I am sure of it," answered Henri; "he would keep his word."
+
+"He says, as well," replied the interpreter, "that the person from whom
+he is sent implores you, for your sake and for hers, to act with the
+greatest prudence, because the daggers which are raised above your
+head would strike your heart before any human power could save you from
+them."
+
+"He said that? So much the better, it will be more amusing. You can come
+in now, Paul," he cried to his friend.
+
+The mulatto, who had not ceased to gaze at the lover of Paquita Valdes
+with magnetic attention, went away, followed by the interpreter.
+
+"Well, at last I have an adventure which is entirely romantic," said
+Henri, when Paul returned. "After having shared in a certain number I
+have finished by finding in Paris an intrigue accompanied by serious
+accidents, by grave perils. The deuce! what courage danger gives a
+woman! To torment a woman, to try and contradict her--doesn't it give
+her the right and the courage to scale in one moment obstacles which it
+would take her years to surmount of herself? Pretty creature, jump then!
+To die? Poor child! Daggers? Oh, imagination of women! They cannot help
+trying to find authority for their little jests. Besides, can one think
+of it, Paquita? Can one think of it, my child? The devil take me, now
+that I know this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of nature, is mine,
+the adventure has lost its charm."
+
+For all his light words, the youth in Henri had reappeared. In order
+to live until the morrow without too much pain, he had recourse to
+exorbitant pleasure; he played, dined, supped with his friends; he drank
+like a fish, ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand francs.
+He left the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock in the morning, slept like
+a child, awoke the next morning fresh and rosy, and dressed to go to
+the Tuileries, with the intention of taking a ride, after having seen
+Paquita, in order to get himself an appetite and dine the better, and so
+kill the time.
+
+At the hour mentioned Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage,
+and gave the counter-word to a man who looked to him like the mulatto.
+Hearing the word, the man opened the door and quickly let down the step.
+Henri was so rapidly carried through Paris, and his thoughts left him so
+little capacity to pay attention to the streets through which he passed,
+that he did not know where the carriage stopped. The mulatto let him
+into a house, the staircase of which was quite close to the entrance.
+This staircase was dark, as was also the landing upon which Henri
+was obliged to wait while the mulatto was opening the door of a damp
+apartment, fetid and unlit, the chambers of which, barely illuminated
+by the candle which his guide found in the ante-chamber, seemed to him
+empty and ill furnished, like those of a house the inhabitants of which
+are away. He recognized the sensation which he had experienced from the
+perusal of one of those romances of Anne Radcliffe, in which the hero
+traverses the cold, sombre, and uninhabited saloons of some sad and
+desert spot.
+
+At last the mulatto opened the door of a _salon_. The condition of
+the old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was
+adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame.
+There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of
+things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red
+Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was
+buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by
+one of those turbans which English women of a certain age have invented
+and which would have a mighty success in China, where the artist's ideal
+is the monstrous.
+
+The room, the old woman, the cold hearth, all would have chilled love to
+death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose voluptuous
+wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free to show her
+arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first interview
+was what every _rendezvous_ must be between persons of passionate
+disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly, who desire
+each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know each other. It
+is impossible that at first there should not occur certain discordant
+notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until the moment when two
+souls find themselves in unison.
+
+If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint aside,
+the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great may be
+her love, is afraid of arriving at the end so promptly, and face to face
+with the necessity of giving herself, which to many women is equivalent
+to a fall into an abyss, at the bottom of which they know not what they
+shall find. The involuntary coldness of the woman contrasts with her
+confessed passion, and necessarily reacts upon the most passionate
+lover. Thus ideas, which often float around souls like vapors, determine
+in them a sort of temporary malady. In the sweet journey which two
+beings undertake through the fair domains of love, this moment is like
+a waste land to be traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp
+and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to
+smiling groves clad with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures
+disport themselves on carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man
+finds himself afflicted with a foolish laugh which is his only answer to
+everything; his wit is, as it were, suffocated beneath the icy pressure
+of his desires. It would not be impossible for two beings of equal
+beauty, intelligence, and passion to utter at first nothing but the
+most silly commonplaces, until chance, a word, the tremor of a certain
+glance, the communication of a spark, should have brought them to the
+happy transition which leads to that flowery way in which one does not
+walk, but where one sways and at the same time does not lapse.
+
+Such a state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the
+feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing similar.
+The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that which is
+produced by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first view, appears
+to be covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the firmament seems black,
+the intensity of light is like darkness. With Henri, as with the Spanish
+girl, there was an equal intensity of feeling; and that law of statics,
+in virtue of which two identical forces cancel each other, might have
+been true also in the moral order. And the embarrassment of the moment
+was singularly increased by the presence of the old hag. Love takes
+pleasure or fright at all, all has meaning for it, everything is an omen
+of happiness or sorrow for it.
+
+This decrepit woman was there like a suggestion of catastrophe, and
+represented the horrid fish's tail with which the allegorical geniuses
+of Greece have terminated their chimeras and sirens, whose figures, like
+all passions, are so seductive, so deceptive.
+
+Although Henri was not a free-thinker--the phrase is always a
+mockery--but a man of extraordinary power, a man as great as a man can
+be without faith, the conjunction struck him. Moreover, the strongest
+men are naturally the most impressionable, and consequently the most
+superstitious, if, indeed, one may call superstition the prejudice of
+the first thoughts, which, without doubt, is the appreciation of the
+result in causes hidden to other eyes but perceptible to their own.
+
+The Spanish girl profited by this moment of stupefaction to let herself
+fall into the ecstasy of that infinite adoration which seizes the heart
+of a woman, when she truly loves and finds herself in the presence of
+an idol for whom she has vainly longed. Her eyes were all joy, all
+happiness, and sparks flew from them. She was under the charm, and
+fearlessly intoxicated herself with a felicity of which she had dreamed
+long. She seemed then so marvelously beautiful to Henri, that all this
+phantasmagoria of rags and old age, of worn red drapery and of the green
+mats in front of the armchairs, the ill-washed red tiles, all this sick
+and dilapidated luxury, disappeared.
+
+The room seemed lit up; and it was only through a cloud that one could
+see the fearful harpy fixed and dumb on her red sofa, her yellow eyes
+betraying the servile sentiments, inspired by misfortune, or caused by
+some vice beneath whose servitude one has fallen as beneath a tyrant who
+brutalizes one with the flagellations of his despotism. Her eyes had the
+cold glitter of a caged tiger, knowing his impotence and being compelled
+to swallow his rage of destruction.
+
+"Who is that woman?" said Henri to Paquita.
+
+But Paquita did not answer. She made a sign that she understood no
+French, and asked Henri if he spoke English.
+
+De Marsay repeated his question in English.
+
+"She is the only woman in whom I can confide, although she has sold me
+already," said Paquita, tranquilly. "My dear Adolphe, she is my mother,
+a slave bought in Georgia for her rare beauty, little enough of which
+remains to-day. She only speaks her native tongue."
+
+The attitude of this woman and her eagerness to guess from the gestures
+of her daughter and Henri what was passing between them, were suddenly
+explained to the young man; and this explanation put him at his ease.
+
+"Paquita," he said, "are we never to be free then?"
+
+"Never," she said, with an air of sadness. "Even now we have but a few
+days before us."
+
+She lowered her eyes, looked at and counted with her right hand on the
+fingers of her left, revealing so the most beautiful hands which Henri
+had ever seen.
+
+"One, two, three----"
+
+She counted up to twelve.
+
+"Yes," she said, "we have twelve days."
+
+"And after?"
+
+"After," she said, showing the absorption of a weak woman before the
+executioner's axe, and slain in advance, as it were, by a fear which
+stripped her of that magnificent energy which Nature seemed to have
+bestowed upon her only to aggrandize pleasure and convert the most
+vulgar delights into endless poems. "After----" she repeated. Her eyes
+took a fixed stare; she seemed to contemplate a threatening object far
+away.
+
+"I do not know," she said.
+
+"This girl is mad," said Henri to himself, falling into strange
+reflections.
+
+Paquita appeared to him occupied by something which was not himself,
+like a woman constrained equally by remorse and passion. Perhaps she had
+in her heart another love which she alternately remembered and forgot.
+In a moment Henri was assailed by a thousand contradictory thoughts.
+This girl became a mystery for him; but as he contemplated her with the
+scientific attention of the _blase_ man, famished for new pleasures,
+like that Eastern king who asked that a pleasure should be created
+for him,--a horrible thirst with which great souls are seized,--Henri
+recognized in Paquita the richest organization that Nature had ever
+deigned to compose for love. The presumptive play of this machinery,
+setting aside the soul, would have frightened any other man than Henri;
+but he was fascinated by that rich harvest of promised pleasures, by
+that constant variety in happiness, the dream of every man, and the
+desire of every loving woman too. He was infuriated by the infinite
+rendered palpable, and transported into the most excessive raptures
+of which the creature is capable. All that he saw in this girl more
+distinctly than he had yet seen it, for she let herself be viewed
+complacently, happy to be admired. The admiration of De Marsay became
+a secret fury, and he unveiled her completely, throwing a glance at her
+which the Spaniard understood as though she had been used to receive
+such.
+
+"If you are not to be mine, mine only, I will kill you!" he cried.
+
+Hearing this speech, Paquita covered her face in her hands, and cried
+naively:
+
+"Holy Virgin! What have I brought upon myself?"
+
+She rose, flung herself down upon the red sofa, and buried her head in
+the rags which covered the bosom of her mother, and wept there. The
+old woman received her daughter without issuing from her state of
+immobility, or displaying any emotion. The mother possessed in the
+highest degree that gravity of savage races, the impassiveness of a
+statue upon which all remarks are lost. Did she or did she not love her
+daughter? Beneath that mask every human emotion might brood--good and
+evil; and from this creature all might be expected. Her gaze passed
+slowly from her daughter's beautiful hair, which covered her like a
+mantle, to the face of Henri, which she considered with an indescribable
+curiosity.
+
+She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice
+Nature had made so seductive a man.
+
+"These women are making sport of me," said Henri to himself.
+
+At that moment Paquita raised her head, cast at him one of those looks
+which reach the very soul and consume it. So beautiful seemed she that
+he swore he would possess such a treasure of beauty.
+
+"My Paquita! Be mine!"
+
+"Wouldst thou kill me?" she said fearfully, palpitating and anxious, but
+drawn towards him by an inexplicable force.
+
+"Kill thee--I!" he said, smiling.
+
+Paquita uttered a cry of alarm, said a word to the old woman, who
+authoritatively seized Henri's hand and that of her daughter. She gazed
+at them for a long time, and then released them, wagging her head in a
+fashion horribly significant.
+
+"Be mine--this evening, this moment; follow me, do not leave me! It must
+be, Paquita! Dost thou love me? Come!"
+
+In a moment he had poured out a thousand foolish words to her, with the
+rapidity of a torrent coursing between the rocks, and repeating the same
+sound in a thousand different forms.
+
+"It is the same voice!" said Paquita, in a melancholy voice, which
+De Marsay could not overhear, "and the same ardor," she added. "So be
+it--yes," she said, with an abandonment of passion which no words can
+describe. "Yes; but not to-night. To-night Adolphe, I gave too little
+opium to La Concha. She might wake up, and I should be lost. At this
+moment the whole household believes me to be asleep in my room. In two
+days be at the same spot, say the same word to the same man. That man is
+my foster-father. Cristemio worships me, and would die in torments for
+me before they could extract one word against me from him. Farewell,"
+she said seizing Henri by the waist and twining round him like a
+serpent.
+
+She pressed him on every side at once, lifted her head to his, and
+offered him her lips, then snatched a kiss which filled them both with
+such a dizziness that it seemed to Henri as though the earth opened; and
+Paquita cried: "Enough, depart!" in a voice which told how little
+she was mistress of herself. But she clung to him still, still crying
+"Depart!" and brought him slowly to the staircase. There the mulatto,
+whose white eyes lit up at the sight of Paquita, took the torch from the
+hands of his idol, and conducted Henri to the street. He left the light
+under the arch, opened the door, put Henri into the carriage, and set
+him down on the Boulevard des Italiens with marvelous rapidity. It was
+as though the horses had hell-fire in their veins.
+
+The scene was like a dream to De Marsay, but one of those dreams
+which, even when they fade away, leave a feeling of supernatural
+voluptuousness, which a man runs after for the remainder of his life.
+A single kiss had been enough. Never had _rendezvous_ been spent in a
+manner more decorous or chaste, or, perhaps, more coldly, in a spot of
+which the surroundings were more gruesome, in presence of a more hideous
+divinity; for the mother had remained in Henri's imagination like some
+infernal, cowering thing, cadaverous, monstrous, savagely ferocious,
+which the imagination of poets and painters had not yet conceived. In
+effect, no _rendezvous_ had ever irritated his senses more, revealed
+more audacious pleasures, or better aroused love from its centre to
+shed itself round him like an atmosphere. There was something sombre,
+mysterious, sweet, tender, constrained, and expansive, an intermingling
+of the awful and the celestial, of paradise and hell, which made De
+Marsay like a drunken man.
+
+He was no longer himself, and he was, withal, great enough to be able to
+resist the intoxication of pleasure.
+
+In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
+story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age
+when young men generally belittle themselves in their relations with
+women, or in too much occupation with them. Its growth was due to a
+concurrence of secret circumstances, which invested him with a vast and
+unsuspected power.
+
+This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
+modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by the
+laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental despot.
+But this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by brutish men,
+was increased tenfold by its conjunction with European intelligence,
+with French wit--the most subtle, the keenest of all intellectual
+instruments. Henri could do what he would in the interest of his
+pleasures and vanities. This invisible action upon the social world
+had invested him with a real, but secret, majesty, without emphasis and
+deriving from himself. He had not the opinion which Louis XIV. could
+have of himself, but that which the proudest of the Caliphs, the
+Pharoahs, the Xerxes, who held themselves to be of divine origin, had
+of themselves when they imitated God, and veiled themselves from their
+subjects under the pretext that their looks dealt forth death. Thus,
+without any remorse at being at once the judge and the accuser, De
+Marsay coldly condemned to death the man or the woman who had seriously
+offended him. Although often pronounced almost lightly, the verdict
+was irrevocable. An error was a misfortune similar to that which a
+thunderbolt causes when it falls upon a smiling Parisienne in some
+hackney coach, instead of crushing the old coachman who is driving
+her to a _rendezvous_. Thus the bitter and profound sarcasm which
+distinguished the young man's conversation usually tended to frighten
+people; no one was anxious to put him out. Women are prodigiously fond
+of those persons who call themselves pashas, and who are, as it were
+accompanied by lions and executioners, and who walk in a panoply of
+terror. The result, in the case of such men, is a security of action,
+a certitude of power, a pride of gaze, a leonine consciousness, which
+makes women realize the type of strength of which they all dream. Such
+was De Marsay.
+
+Happy, for the moment, with his future, he grew young and pliable, and
+thought of nothing but love as he went to bed. He dreamed of the girl
+with the golden eyes, as the young and passionate can dream. His dreams
+were monstrous images, unattainable extravagances--full of light,
+revealing invisible worlds, yet in a manner always incomplete, for an
+intervening veil changes the conditions of vision.
+
+For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared and no one knew
+what had become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain
+conditions, and, happily for him, during those two days he was a private
+soldier in the service of the demon to whom he owed his talismanic
+existence. But at the appointed time, in the evening, he was
+waiting--and he had not long to wait--for the carriage. The mulatto
+approached Henri, in order to repeat to him in French a phrase which he
+seemed to have learned by heart.
+
+"If you wish to come, she told me, you must consent to have your eyes
+bandaged."
+
+And Cristemio produced a white silk handkerchief.
+
+"No!" said Henri, whose omnipotence revolted suddenly.
+
+He tried to leap in. The mulatto made a sign, and the carriage drove
+off.
+
+"Yes!" cried De Marsay, furious at the thought of losing a piece of good
+fortune which had been promised him.
+
+He saw, moreover, the impossibility of making terms with a slave
+whose obedience was as blind as the hangman's. Nor was it this passive
+instrument upon whom his anger could fall.
+
+The mulatto whistled, the carriage returned. Henri got in hastily.
+Already a few curious onlookers had assembled like sheep on the
+boulevard. Henri was strong; he tried to play the mulatto. When the
+carriage started at a gallop he seized his hands, in order to master
+him, and retain, by subduing his attendant, the possession of his
+faculties, so that he might know whither he was going. It was a vain
+attempt. The eyes of the mulatto flashed from the darkness. The fellow
+uttered a cry which his fury stifled in his throat, released himself,
+threw back De Marsay with a hand like iron, and nailed him, so to
+speak, to the bottom of the carriage; then with his free hand, he drew
+a triangular dagger, and whistled. The coachman heard the whistle and
+stopped. Henri was unarmed, he was forced to yield. He moved his head
+towards the handkerchief. The gesture of submission calmed Cristemio,
+and he bound his eyes with a respect and care which manifested a sort
+of veneration for the person of the man whom his idol loved. But, before
+taking this course, he had placed his dagger distrustfully in his side
+pocket, and buttoned himself up to the chin.
+
+"That nigger would have killed me!" said De Marsay to himself.
+
+Once more the carriage moved on rapidly. There was one resource still
+open to a young man who knew Paris as well as Henri. To know whither
+he was going, he had but to collect himself and count, by the number of
+gutters crossed, the streets leading from the boulevards by which the
+carriage passed, so long as it continued straight along. He could thus
+discover into which lateral street it would turn, either towards the
+Seine or towards the heights of Montmartre, and guess the name or
+position of the street in which his guide should bring him to a halt.
+But the violent emotion which his struggle had caused him, the rage into
+which his compromised dignity had thrown him, the ideas of vengeance
+to which he abandoned himself, the suppositions suggested to him by the
+circumstantial care which this girl had taken in order to bring him
+to her, all hindered him from the attention, which the blind have,
+necessary for the concentration of his intelligence and the perfect
+lucidity of his recollection. The journey lasted half an hour. When the
+carriage stopped, it was no longer on the street. The mulatto and the
+coachman took Henri in their arms, lifted him out, and, putting him
+into a sort of litter, conveyed him across a garden. He could smell its
+flowers and the perfume peculiar to trees and grass.
+
+The silence which reigned there was so profound that he could
+distinguish the noise made by the drops of water falling from the moist
+leaves. The two men took him to a staircase, set him on his feet, led
+him by his hands through several apartments, and left him in a room
+whose atmosphere was perfumed, and the thick carpet of which he could
+feel beneath his feet.
+
+A woman's hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief for
+him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly
+and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found
+himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced
+opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a
+chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door
+on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a
+window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish divan,
+that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress as broad
+as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white cashmere,
+relieved by bows of black and scarlet silk, arranged in panels. The top
+of this huge bed was raised several inches by numerous cushions, which
+further enriched it by their tasteful comfort. The boudoir was lined
+with some red stuff, over which an Indian muslin was stretched, fluted
+after the fashion of Corinthian columns, in plaits going in and out, and
+bound at the top and bottom by bands of poppy-colored stuff, on which
+were designs in black arabesque.
+
+Below the muslin the poppy turned to rose, that amorous color, which
+was matched by window-curtains, which were of Indian muslin lined with
+rose-colored taffeta, and set off with a fringe of poppy-color and
+black. Six silver-gilt arms, each supporting two candles, were attached
+to the tapestry at an equal distance, to illuminate the divan. The
+ceiling, from the middle of which a lustre of unpolished silver hung,
+was of a brilliant whiteness, and the cornice was gilded. The carpet was
+like an Oriental shawl; it had the designs and recalled the poetry of
+Persia, where the hands of slaves had worked on it. The furniture
+was covered in white cashmere, relieved by black and poppy-colored
+ornaments. The clock, the candelabra, all were in white marble and gold.
+The only table there had a cloth of cashmere. Elegant flower-pots held
+roses of every kind, flowers white or red. In fine, the least detail
+seemed to have been the object of loving thought. Never had richness
+hidden itself more coquettishly to become elegance, to express grace,
+to inspire pleasure. Everything there would have warmed the coldest
+of beings. The caresses of the tapestry, of which the color changed
+according to the direction of one's gaze, becoming either all white
+or all rose, harmonized with the effects of the light shed upon the
+diaphanous tissues of the muslin, which produced an appearance of
+mistiness. The soul has I know not what attraction towards white, love
+delights in red, and the passions are flattered by gold, which has the
+power of realizing their caprices. Thus all that man possesses within
+him of vague and mysterious, all his inexplicable affinities, were
+caressed in their involuntary sympathies. There was in this perfect
+harmony a concert of color to which the soul responded with vague and
+voluptuous and fluctuating ideas.
+
+It was out of a misty atmosphere, laden with exquisite perfumes, that
+Paquita, clad in a white wrapper, her feet bare, orange blossoms in her
+black hair, appeared to Henri, knelt before him, adoring him as the god
+of this temple, whither he had deigned to come. Although De Marsay
+was accustomed to seeing the utmost efforts of Parisian luxury, he was
+surprised at the aspect of this shell, like that from which Venus rose
+out of the sea. Whether from an effect of contrast between the darkness
+from which he issued and the light which bathed his soul, whether from
+a comparison which he swiftly made between this scene and that of their
+first interview, he experienced one of those delicate sensations which
+true poetry gives. Perceiving in the midst of this retreat, which
+had been opened to him as by a fairy's magic wand, the masterpiece of
+creation, this girl, whose warmly colored tints, whose soft skin--soft,
+but slightly gilded by the shadows, by I know not what vaporous effusion
+of love--gleamed as though it reflected the rays of color and light, his
+anger, his desire for vengeance, his wounded vanity, all were lost.
+
+Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her
+on his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the voluptuous
+pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties softly enveloped
+him.
+
+"Come to me, Paquita!" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Speak, speak without fear!" she said. "This retreat was built for
+love. No sound can escape from it, so greatly was it desired to guard
+avariciously the accents and music of the beloved voice. However loud
+should be the cries, they would not be heard without these walls. A
+person might be murdered, and his moans would be as vain as if he were
+in the midst of the great desert."
+
+"Who has understood jealousy and its needs so well?"
+
+"Never question me as to that," she answered, untying with a gesture of
+wonderful sweetness the young man's scarf, doubtless in order the better
+to behold his neck.
+
+"Yes, there is the neck I love so well!" she said. "Wouldst thou please
+me?"
+
+This interrogation, rendered by the accent almost lascivious, drew
+De Marsay from the reverie in which he had been plunged by Paquita's
+authoritative refusal to allow him any research as to the unknown being
+who hovered like a shadow about them.
+
+"And if I wished to know who reigns here?"
+
+Paquita looked at him trembling.
+
+"It is not I, then?" he said, rising and freeing himself from the girl,
+whose head fell backwards. "Where I am, I would be alone."
+
+"Strike, strike!..." said the poor slave, a prey to terror.
+
+"For what do you take me, then?... Will you answer?"
+
+Paquita got up gently, her eyes full of tears, took a poniard from one
+of the two ebony pieces of furniture, and presented it to Henri with a
+gesture of submission which would have moved a tiger.
+
+"Give me a feast such as men give when they love," she said, "and whilst
+I sleep, slay me, for I know not how to answer thee. Hearken! I am bound
+like some poor beast to a stake; I am amazed that I have been able to
+throw a bridge over the abyss which divides us. Intoxicate me, then kill
+me! Ah, no, no!" she cried, joining her hands, "do not kill me! I love
+life! Life is fair to me! If I am a slave, I am a queen too. I could
+beguile you with words, tell you that I love you alone, prove it to you,
+profit by my momentary empire to say to you: 'Take me as one tastes the
+perfume of a flower when one passes it in a king's garden.' Then, after
+having used the cunning eloquence of woman and soared on the wings of
+pleasure, after having quenched my thirst, I could have you cast into a
+pit, where none could find you, which has been made to gratify vengeance
+without having to fear that of the law, a pit full of lime which would
+kindle and consume you, until no particle of you were left. You would
+stay in my heart, mine forever."
+
+Henri looked at the girl without trembling, and this fearless gaze
+filled her with joy.
+
+"No, I shall not do it! You have fallen into no trap here, but upon the
+heart of a woman who adores you, and it is I who will be cast into the
+pit."
+
+"All this appears to me prodigiously strange," said De Marsay,
+considering her. "But you seem to me a good girl, a strange nature; you
+are, upon my word of honor, a living riddle, the answer to which is very
+difficult to find."
+
+Paquita understood nothing of what the young man said; she looked at
+him gently, opening wide eyes which could never be stupid, so much was
+pleasure written in them.
+
+"Come, then, my love," she said, returning to her first idea, "wouldst
+thou please me?"
+
+"I would do all that thou wouldst, and even that thou wouldst not,"
+answered De Marsay, with a laugh. He had recovered his foppish ease, as
+he took the resolve to let himself go to the climax of his good fortune,
+looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted, moreover, on his
+power and his capacity of a man used to adventures, to dominate this
+girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
+
+"Well," said she, "let me arrange you as I would like."
+
+Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of red
+velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with a
+woman's bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to
+these follies with a child's innocence, she laughed a convulsive laugh,
+and resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing beyond.
+
+If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
+creatures--made by heaven in a joyous moment--found, it is perhaps
+necessary to translate metaphysically the extraordinary and almost
+fantastic impressions of the young man. That which persons in the social
+position of De Marsay, living as he lived, are best able to recognize is
+a girl's innocence. But, strange phenomenon! The girl of the golden eyes
+might be virgin, but innocent she was certainly not. The fantastic
+union of the mysterious and the real, of darkness and light, horror and
+beauty, pleasure and danger, paradise and hell, which had already been
+met with in this adventure, was resumed in the capricious and sublime
+being with which De Marsay dallied. All the utmost science or the most
+refined pleasure, all that Henri could know of that poetry of the senses
+which is called love, was excelled by the treasures poured forth by this
+girl, whose radiant eyes gave the lie to none of the promises which they
+made.
+
+She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that Hafiz,
+have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of Saadi,
+nor that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy--full of confusion
+and stupefaction--which seized the delicious girl when the error in
+which an iron hand had caused her to live was at an end.
+
+"Dead!" she said, "I am dead, Adolphe! Take me away to the world's
+end, to an island where no one knows us. Let there be no traces of our
+flight! We should be followed to the gates of hell. God! here is the
+day! Escape! Shall I ever see you again? Yes, to-morrow I will see
+you, if I have to deal death to all my warders to have that joy. Till
+to-morrow."
+
+She pressed him in her arms with an embrace in which the terror of death
+mingled. Then she touched a spring, which must have been in connection
+with a bell, and implored De Marsay to permit his eyes to be bandaged.
+
+"And if I would not--and if I wished to stay here?"
+
+"You would be the death of me more speedily," she said, "for now I know
+I am certain to die on your account."
+
+Henri submitted. In the man who had just gorged himself with pleasure
+there occurs a propensity to forgetfulness, I know not what ingratitude,
+a desire for liberty, a whim to go elsewhere, a tinge of contempt and,
+perhaps, of disgust for his idol; in fine, indescribable sentiments
+which render him ignoble and ashamed. The certainty of this confused,
+but real, feeling in souls who are not illuminated by that celestial
+light, nor perfumed with that holy essence from which the performance
+of sentiment springs, doubtless suggested to Rousseau the adventures of
+Lord Edward, which conclude the letters of the _Nouvelle Heloise_. If
+Rousseau is obviously inspired by the work of Richardson, he departs
+from it in a thousand details, which leave his achievement magnificently
+original; he has recommended it to posterity by great ideas which it is
+difficult to liberate by analysis, when, in one's youth, one reads this
+work with the object of finding in it the lurid representation of the
+most physical of our feelings, whereas serious and philosophical writers
+never employ its images except as the consequence or the corollary of
+a vast thought; and the adventures of Lord Edward are one of the most
+Europeanly delicate ideas of the whole work.
+
+Henri, therefore, found himself beneath the domination of that confused
+sentiment which is unknown to true love. There was needful, in
+some sort, the persuasive grip of comparisons, and the irresistible
+attraction of memories to lead him back to a woman. True love rules
+above all through recollection. A woman who is not engraven upon the
+soul by excess of pleasure or by strength of emotion, how can she ever
+be loved? In Henri's case, Paquita had established herself by both of
+these reasons. But at this moment, seized as he was by the satiety of
+his happiness, that delicious melancholy of the body, he could hardly
+analyze his heart, even by recalling to his lips the taste of the
+liveliest gratifications that he had ever grasped.
+
+He found himself on the Boulevard Montmartre at the break of day,
+gazed stupidly at the retreating carriage, produced two cigars from his
+pocket, lit one from the lantern of a good woman who sold brandy and
+coffee to workmen and street arabs and chestnut venders--to all the
+Parisian populace which begins its work before daybreak; then he went
+off, smoking his cigar, and putting his hands in his trousers' pockets
+with a devil-may-care air which did him small honor.
+
+"What a good thing a cigar is! That's one thing a man will never tire
+of," he said to himself.
+
+Of the girl with the golden eyes, over whom at that time all the elegant
+youth of Paris was mad, he hardly thought. The idea of death, expressed
+in the midst of their pleasure, and the fear of which had more than once
+darkened the brow of that beautiful creature, who held to the houris of
+Asia by her mother, to Europe by her education, to the tropics by her
+birth, seemed to him merely one of those deceptions by which women seek
+to make themselves interesting.
+
+"She is from Havana--the most Spanish region to be found in the New
+World. So she preferred to feign terror rather than cast in my teeth
+indisposition or difficulty, coquetry or duty, like a Parisian woman. By
+her golden eyes, how glad I shall be to sleep."
+
+He saw a hackney coach standing at the corner of Frascati's waiting for
+some gambler; he awoke the driver, was driven home, went to bed, and
+slept the sleep of the dissipated, which for some queer reason--of which
+no rhymer has yet taken advantage--is as profound as that of innocence.
+Perhaps it is an instance of the proverbial axiom, _extremes meet_.
+
+About noon De Marsay awoke and stretched himself; he felt the grip of
+that sort of voracious hunger which old soldiers can remember having
+experienced on the morrow of victory. He was delighted, therefore, to
+see Paul de Manerville standing in front of him, for at such a time
+nothing is more agreeable than to eat in company.
+
+"Well," his friend remarked, "we all imagined that you had been shut up
+for the last ten days with the girl of the golden eyes."
+
+"The girl of the golden eyes! I have forgotten her. Faith! I have other
+fish to fry!"
+
+"Ah! you are playing at discretion."
+
+"Why not?" asked De Marsay, with a laugh. "My dear fellow, discretion
+is the best form of calculation. Listen--however, no! I will not say
+a word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a
+gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river which
+is of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that is most
+sacred in life--of cigars! I am no professor of social economy for the
+instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give you a
+tunny omelette than to lavish the resources of my brain on you."
+
+"Do you bargain with your friends?"
+
+"My dear fellow," said Henri, who rarely denied himself a sarcasm,
+"since all the same, you may some day need, like anybody else, to use
+discretion, and since I have much love for you--yes, I like you! Upon my
+word, if you only wanted a thousand-franc note to keep you from blowing
+your brains out, you would find it here, for we haven't yet done any
+business of that sort, eh, Paul? If you had to fight to-morrow, I would
+measure the ground and load the pistols, so that you might be killed
+according to rule. In short, if anybody besides myself took it into his
+head to say ill of you in your absence, he would have to deal with the
+somewhat nasty gentleman who walks in my shoes--there's what I call a
+friendship beyond question. Well, my good fellow, if you should
+ever have need of discretion, understand that there are two sorts of
+discretion--the active and the negative. Negative discretion is that
+of fools who make use of silence, negation, an air of refusal, the
+discretion of locked doors--mere impotence! Active discretion proceeds
+by affirmation. Suppose at the club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my
+word of honor the golden-eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody
+would exclaim when I was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who
+tried to make us believe that he has already had the girl of the golden
+eyes? It's his way of trying to disembarrass himself of his rivals: he's
+no simpleton.' But such a ruse is vulgar and dangerous. However gross a
+folly one utters, there are always idiots to be found who will believe
+it. The best form of discretion is that of women when they want to take
+the change out of their husbands. It consists in compromising a woman
+with whom we are not concerned, or whom we do not love, in order to save
+the honor of the one whom we love well enough to respect. It is what is
+called the _woman-screen_.... Ah! here is Laurent. What have you got for
+us?"
+
+"Some Ostend oysters, Monsieur le Comte."
+
+"You will know some day, Paul, how amusing it is to make a fool of the
+world by depriving it of the secret of one's affections. I derive an
+immense pleasure in escaping from the stupid jurisdiction of the crowd,
+which knows neither what it wants, nor what one wants of it, which takes
+the means for the end, and by turns curses and adores, elevates and
+destroys! What a delight to impose emotions on it and receive none from
+it, to tame it, never to obey it. If one may ever be proud of anything,
+is it not a self-acquired power, of which one is at once the cause and
+effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man knows what I love,
+nor what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what I may have wished
+will be known, as a drama which is accomplished is known; but to let
+my game be seen--weakness, mistake! I know nothing more despicable than
+strength outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate myself with a laugh into
+the ambassador's part, if indeed diplomacy is as difficult as life? I
+doubt it. Have you any ambition? Would you like to become something?"
+
+"But, Henri, you are laughing at me--as though I were not sufficiently
+mediocre to arrive at anything."
+
+"Good Paul! If you go on laughing at yourself, you will soon be able to
+laugh at everybody else."
+
+At breakfast, by the time he had started his cigars, De Marsay began to
+see the events of the night in a singular light. Like many men of great
+intelligence, his perspicuity was not spontaneous, as it did not at once
+penetrate to the heart of things. As with all natures endowed with the
+faculty of living greatly in the present, of extracting, so to speak,
+the essence of it and assimilating it, his second-sight had need of a
+sort of slumber before it could identify itself with causes. Cardinal
+de Richelieu was so constituted, and it did not debar in him the gift of
+foresight necessary to the conception of great designs.
+
+De Marsay's conditions were alike, but at first he only used his weapons
+for the benefit of his pleasures, and only became one of the most
+profound politicians of his day when he had saturated himself with
+those pleasures to which a young man's thoughts--when he has money and
+power--are primarily directed. Man hardens himself thus: he uses woman
+in order that she may not make use of him.
+
+At this moment, then, De Marsay perceived that he had been fooled by
+the girl of the golden eyes, seeing, as he did, in perspective, all that
+night of which the delights had been poured upon him by degrees until
+they had ended by flooding him in torrents. He could read, at last,
+that page in effect so brilliant, divine its hidden meaning. The purely
+physical innocence of Paquita, the bewilderment of her joy, certain
+words, obscure at first, but now clear, which had escaped her in the
+midst of that joy, all proved to him that he had posed for another
+person. As no social corruption was unknown to him, as he professed a
+complete indifference towards all perversities, and believed them to be
+justified on the simple ground that they were capable of satisfaction,
+he was not startled at vice, he knew it as one knows a friend, but he
+was wounded at having served as sustenance for it. If his presumption
+was right, he had been outraged in the most sensitive part of him. The
+mere suspicion filled him with fury, he broke out with the roar of a
+tiger who has been the sport of a deer, the cry of a tiger which united
+a brute's strength with the intelligence of the demon.
+
+"I say, what is the matter with you?" asked Paul.
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"I should be sorry, if you were to be asked whether you had anything
+against me and were to reply with a _nothing_ like that! It would be a
+sure case of fighting the next day."
+
+"I fight no more duels," said De Marsay.
+
+"That seems to me even more tragical. Do you assassinate, then?"
+
+"You travesty words. I execute."
+
+"My dear friend," said Paul, "your jokes are of a very sombre color this
+morning."
+
+"What would you have? Pleasure ends in cruelty. Why? I don't know, and
+am not sufficiently curious to try and find out.... These cigars are
+excellent. Give your friend some tea. Do you know, Paul, I live a
+brute's life? It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ
+one's powers on something which makes life worth living. Life is a
+singular comedy. I am frightened, I laugh at the inconsequence of our
+social order. The Government cuts off the heads of poor devils who
+may have killed a man and licenses creatures who despatch, medically
+speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless
+against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can
+punish.--Another cup!--Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing
+upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the _Liaisons
+Dangereuses_, and any other book you like with a vulgar reputation; but
+there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful, corrupting, which is
+always open and will never be shut, the great book of the world; not to
+mention another book, a thousand times more dangerous, which is composed
+of all that men whisper into each other's ears, or women murmur behind
+their fans, of an evening in society."
+
+"Henri, there is certainly something extraordinary the matter with you;
+that is obvious in spite of your active discretion."
+
+"Yes!... Come, I must kill the time until this evening. Let's to the
+tables.... Perhaps I shall have the good luck to lose."
+
+De Marsay rose, took a handful of banknotes and folded them into his
+cigar-case, dressed himself, and took advantage of Paul's carriage to
+repair to the Salon des Etrangers, where until dinner he consumed the
+time in those exciting alternations of loss and gain which are the last
+resource of powerful organizations when they are compelled to exercise
+themselves in the void. In the evening he repaired to the trysting-place
+and submitted complacently to having his eyes bandaged. Then, with
+that firm will which only really strong men have the faculty of
+concentrating, he devoted his attention and applied his intelligence to
+the task of divining through what streets the carriage passed. He had
+a sort of certitude of being taken to the Rue Saint-Lazare, and
+being brought to a halt at the little gate in the garden of the Hotel
+San-Real. When he passed, as on the first occasion, through this gate,
+and was put in a litter, carried, doubtless by the mulatto and the
+coachman, he understood, as he heard the gravel grate beneath their
+feet, why they took such minute precautions. He would have been able,
+had he been free, or if he had walked, to pluck a twig of laurel,
+to observe the nature of the soil which clung to his boots; whereas,
+transported, so to speak, ethereally into an inaccessible mansion, his
+good fortune must remain what it had been hitherto, a dream. But it is
+man's despair that all his work, whether for good or evil, is imperfect.
+All his labors, physical or intellectual, are sealed with the mark
+of destruction. There had been a gentle rain, the earth was moist. At
+night-time certain vegetable perfumes are far stronger than during the
+day; Henri could smell, therefore, the scent of the mignonette which
+lined the avenue along which he was conveyed. This indication was enough
+to light him in the researches which he promised himself to make in
+order to recognize the hotel which contained Paquita's boudoir. He
+studied in the same way the turnings which his bearers took within the
+house, and believed himself able to recall them.
+
+As on the previous night, he found himself on the ottoman before
+Paquita, who was undoing his bandage; but he saw her pale and altered.
+She had wept. On her knees like an angel in prayer, but like an angel
+profoundly sad and melancholy, the poor girl no longer resembled the
+curious, impatient, and impetuous creature who had carried De Marsay
+on her wings to transport him to the seventh heaven of love. There was
+something so true in this despair veiled by pleasure, that the terrible
+De Marsay felt within him an admiration for this new masterpiece
+of nature, and forgot, for the moment, the chief interest of his
+assignation.
+
+"What is the matter with thee, my Paquita?"
+
+"My friend," she said, "carry me away this very night. Bear me to some
+place where no one can answer: 'There is a girl with a golden gaze here,
+who has long hair.' Yonder I will give thee as many pleasures as thou
+wouldst have of me. Then when you love me no longer, you shall leave me,
+I shall not complain, I shall say nothing; and your desertion need cause
+you no remorse, for one day passed with you, only one day, in which I
+have had you before my eyes, will be worth all my life to me. But if I
+stay here, I am lost."
+
+"I cannot leave Paris, little one!" replied Henri. "I do not belong to
+myself, I am bound by a vow to the fortune of several persons who stand
+to me, as I do to them. But I can place you in a refuge in Paris, where
+no human power can reach you."
+
+"No," she said, "you forget the power of woman."
+
+Never did phrase uttered by human voice express terror more absolutely.
+
+"What could reach you, then, if I put myself between you and the world?"
+
+"Poison!" she said. "Dona Concha suspects you already... and," she
+resumed, letting the tears fall and glisten on her cheeks, "it is easy
+enough to see I am no longer the same. Well, if you abandon me to the
+fury of the monster who will destroy me, your holy will be done! But
+come, let there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I
+will implore, I will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I shall
+be saved."
+
+"Whom will your implore?" he asked.
+
+"Silence!" said Paquita. "If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on
+account of my discretion."
+
+"Give me my robe," said Henri, insidiously.
+
+"No, no!" she answered quickly, "be what you are, one of those angels
+whom I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst
+you are what is fairest under the skies," she said, caressing Henri's
+hair. "You do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I
+was twelve years old I have been shut up without ever seeing any one. I
+can neither read nor write, I can only speak English and Spanish."
+
+"How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?"
+
+"My letters?... See, here they are!" she said, proceeding to take some
+papers out of a tall Japanese vase.
+
+She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with
+surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in blood,
+and illustrating phrases full of passion.
+
+"But," he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the
+alertness of jealousy, "you are in the power of an infernal genius?"
+
+"Infernal," she repeated.
+
+"But how, then, were you able to get out?"
+
+"Ah!" she said, "that was my ruin. I drove Dona Concha to choose between
+the fear of immediate death and anger to be. I had the curiosity of
+a demon, I wished to break the bronze circle which they had described
+between creation and me, I wished to see what young people were like,
+for I knew nothing of man except the Marquis and Cristemio. Our coachman
+and the lackey who accompanies us are old men...."
+
+"But you were not always thus shut up? Your health...?"
+
+"Ah," she answered, "we used to walk, but it was at night and in the
+country, by the side of the Seine, away from people."
+
+"Are you not proud of being loved like that?"
+
+"No," she said, "no longer. However full it be, this hidden life is but
+darkness in comparison with the light."
+
+"What do you call the light?"
+
+"Thee, my lovely Adolphe! Thee, for whom I would give my life. All the
+passionate things that have been told me, and that I have inspired, I
+feel for thee! For a certain time I understood nothing of existence, but
+now I know what love is, and hitherto I have been the loved one only;
+for myself, I did not love. I would give up everything for you, take me
+away. If you like, take me as a toy, but let me be near you until you
+break me."
+
+"You will have no regrets?"
+
+"Not one"! she said, letting him read her eyes, whose golden tint was
+pure and clear.
+
+"Am I the favored one?" said Henri to himself. If he suspected the
+truth, he was ready at that time to pardon the offence in view of a love
+so single minded. "I shall soon see," he thought.
+
+If Paquita owed him no account of the past, yet the least recollection
+of it became in his eyes a crime. He had therefore the sombre strength
+to withhold a portion of his thought, to study her, even while
+abandoning himself to the most enticing pleasures that ever peri
+descended from the skies had devised for her beloved.
+
+Paquita seemed to have been created for love by a particular effort of
+nature. In a night her feminine genius had made the most rapid progress.
+Whatever might be the power of this young man, and his indifference in
+the matter of pleasures, in spite of his satiety of the previous night,
+he found in the girl with the golden eyes that seraglio which a loving
+woman knows how to create and which a man never refuses. Paquita
+responded to that passion which is felt by all really great men for the
+infinite--that mysterious passion so dramatically expressed in Faust, so
+poetically translated in Manfred, and which urged Don Juan to search
+the heart of women, in his hope to find there that limitless thought in
+pursuit of which so many hunters after spectres have started, which wise
+men think to discover in science, and which mystics find in God alone.
+The hope of possessing at last the ideal being with whom the struggle
+could be constant and tireless ravished De Marsay, who, for the first
+time for long, opened his heart. His nerves expanded, his coldness was
+dissipated in the atmosphere of that ardent soul, his hard and fast
+theories melted away, and happiness colored his existence to the tint of
+the rose and white boudoir. Experiencing the sting of a higher pleasure,
+he was carried beyond the limits within which he had hitherto confined
+passion. He would not be surpassed by this girl, whom a somewhat
+artificial love had formed all ready for the needs of his soul, and then
+he found in that vanity which urges a man to be in all things a victor,
+strength enough to tame the girl; but, at the same time, urged beyond
+that line where the soul is mistress over herself, he lost himself
+in these delicious limboes, which the vulgar call so foolishly "the
+imaginary regions." He was tender, kind, and confidential. He affected
+Paquita almost to madness.
+
+"Why should we not go to Sorrento, to Nice, to Chiavari, and pass all
+our life so? Will you?" he asked of Paquita, in a penetrating voice.
+
+"Was there need to say to me: 'Will you'?" she cried. "Have I a will? I
+am nothing apart from you, except in so far as I am a pleasure for you.
+If you would choose a retreat worthy of us, Asia is the only country
+where love can unfold his wings...."
+
+"You are right," answered Henri. "Let us go to the Indies, there where
+spring is eternal, where the earth grows only flowers, where man can
+display the magnificence of kings and none shall say him nay, as in the
+foolish lands where they would realize the dull chimera of equality. Let
+us go to the country where one lives in the midst of a nation of slaves,
+where the sun shines ever on a palace which is always white, where the
+air sheds perfumes, the birds sing of love and where, when one can love
+no more, one dies...."
+
+"And where one dies together!" said Paquita. "But do not let us start
+to-morrow, let us start this moment... take Cristemio."
+
+"Faith! pleasure is the fairest climax of life. Let us go to Asia; but
+to start, my child, one needs much gold, and to have gold one must set
+one's affairs in order."
+
+She understood no part of these ideas.
+
+"Gold! There is a pile of it here--as high as that," she said holding up
+her hand.
+
+"It is not mine."
+
+"What does that matter?" she went on; "if we have need of it let us take
+it."
+
+"It does not belong to you."
+
+"Belong!" she repeated. "Have you not taken me? When we have taken it,
+it will belong to us."
+
+He gave a laugh.
+
+"Poor innocent! You know nothing of the world."
+
+"Nay, but this is what I know," she cried, clasping Henri to her.
+
+At the very moment when De Marsay was forgetting all, and conceiving the
+desire to appropriate this creature forever, he received in the midst of
+his joy a dagger-thrust, which Paquita, who had lifted him vigorously in
+the air, as though to contemplate him, exclaimed: "Oh, Margarita!"
+
+"Margarita!" cried the young man, with a roar; "now I know all that I
+still tried to disbelieve."
+
+He leaped upon the cabinet in which the long poniard was kept. Happily
+for Paquita and for himself, the cupboard was shut. His fury waxed at
+this impediment, but he recovered his tranquillity, went and found his
+cravat, and advanced towards her with an air of such ferocious meaning
+that, without knowing of what crime she had been guilty, Paquita
+understood, none the less, that her life was in question. With one bound
+she rushed to the other end of the room to escape the fatal knot which
+De Marsay tried to pass round her neck. There was a struggle. On either
+side there was an equality of strength, agility, and suppleness. To end
+the combat Paquita threw between the legs of her lover a cushion which
+made him fall, and profited by the respite which this advantage gave
+to her, to push the button of the spring which caused the bell to ring.
+Promptly the mulatto arrived. In a second Cristemio leaped on De Marsay
+and held him down with one foot on his chest, his heel turned towards
+the throat. De Marsay realized that, if he struggled, at a single sign
+from Paquita he would be instantly crushed.
+
+"Why did you want to kill me, my beloved?" she said. De Marsay made no
+reply.
+
+"In what have I angered you?" she asked. "Speak, let us understand each
+other."
+
+Henri maintained the phlegmatic attitude of a strong man who feels
+himself vanquished; his countenance, cold, silent, entirely English,
+revealed the consciousness of his dignity in a momentary resignation.
+Moreover, he had already thought, in spite of the vehemence of his
+anger, that it was scarcely prudent to compromise himself with the law
+by killing this girl on the spur of the moment, before he had arranged
+the murder in such a manner as should insure his impunity.
+
+"My beloved," went on Paquita, "speak to me; do not leave me without one
+loving farewell! I would not keep in my heart the terror which you have
+just inspired in it.... Will you speak?" she said, stamping her foot
+with anger.
+
+De Marsay, for all reply, gave her a glance, which signified so plainly,
+"_You must die!_" that Paquita threw herself upon him.
+
+"Ah, well, you want to kill me!... If my death can give you any
+pleasure--kill me!"
+
+She made a sign to Cristemio, who withdrew his foot from the body of the
+young man, and retired without letting his face show that he had formed
+any opinion, good or bad, with regard to Paquita.
+
+"That is a man," said De Marsay, pointing to the mulatto, with a
+sombre gesture. "There is no devotion like the devotion which obeys in
+friendship, and does not stop to weigh motives. In that man you possess
+a true friend."
+
+"I will give him you, if you like," she answered; "he will serve you
+with the same devotion that he has for me, if I so instruct him."
+
+She waited for a word of recognition, and went on with an accent replete
+with tenderness:
+
+"Adolphe, give me then one kind word!... It is nearly day."
+
+Henri did not answer. The young man had one sorry quality, for one
+considers as something great everything which resembles strength, and
+often men invent extravagances. Henri knew not how to pardon. That
+_returning upon itself_ which is one of the soul's graces, was a
+non-existent sense for him. The ferocity of the Northern man, with which
+the English blood is deeply tainted, had been transmitted to him by his
+father. He was inexorable both in his good and evil impulses. Paquita's
+exclamation had been all the more horrible to him, in that it had
+dethroned him from the sweetest triumph which had ever flattered his
+man's vanity. Hope, love, and every emotion had been exalted with him,
+all had lit up within his heart and his intelligence, then these torches
+illuminating his life had been extinguished by a cold wind. Paquita, in
+her stupefaction of grief, had only strength enough to give the signal
+for departure.
+
+"What is the use of that!" she said, throwing away the bandage. "If he
+does not love me, if he hates me, it is all over."
+
+She waited for one look, did not obtain it, and fell, half dead. The
+mulatto cast a glance at Henri, so horribly significant, that, for the
+first time in his life, the young man, to whom no one denied the gift of
+rare courage, trembled. "_If you do not love her well, if you give her
+the least pain, I will kill you_." such was the sense of that brief
+gaze. De Marsay was escorted, with a care almost obsequious, along the
+dimly lit corridor, at the end of which he issued by a secret door into
+the garden of the Hotel San-Real. The mulatto made him walk cautiously
+through an avenue of lime trees, which led to a little gate opening upon
+a street which was at that hour deserted. De Marsay took a keen notice
+of everything. The carriage awaited him. This time the mulatto did not
+accompany him, and at the moment when Henri put his head out of the
+window to look once more at the gardens of the hotel, he encountered the
+white eyes of Cristemio, with whom he exchanged a glance. On either side
+there was a provocation, a challenge, the declaration of a savage
+war, of a duel in which ordinary laws were invalid, where treason and
+treachery were admitted means. Cristemio knew that Henri had sworn
+Paquita's death. Henri knew that Cristemio would like to kill him before
+he killed Paquita. Both understood each other to perfection.
+
+"The adventure is growing complicated in a most interesting way," said
+Henri.
+
+"Where is the gentleman going to?" asked the coachman.
+
+De Marsay was driven to the house of Paul de Manerville. For more than a
+week Henri was away from home, and no one could discover either what he
+did during this period, nor where he stayed. This retreat saved him from
+the fury of the mulatto and caused the ruin of the charming creature who
+had placed all her hope in him whom she loved as never human heart had
+loved on this earth before. On the last day of the week, about eleven
+o'clock at night, Henri drove up in a carriage to the little gate in the
+garden of the Hotel San-Real. Four men accompanied him. The driver was
+evidently one of his friends, for he stood up on his box, like a man who
+was to listen, an attentive sentinel, for the least sound. One of the
+other three took his stand outside the gate in the street; the second
+waited in the garden, leaning against the wall; the last, who carried in
+his hand a bunch of keys, accompanied De Marsay.
+
+"Henri," said his companion to him, "we are betrayed."
+
+"By whom, my good Ferragus?"
+
+"They are not all asleep," replied the chief of the Devourers; "it is
+absolutely certain that some one in the house has neither eaten nor
+drunk.... Look! see that light!"
+
+"We have a plan of the house; from where does it come?"
+
+"I need no plan to know," replied Ferragus; "it comes from the room of
+the Marquise."
+
+"Ah," cried De Marsay, "no doubt she arrived from London to-day. The
+woman has robbed me even of my revenge! But if she has anticipated me,
+my good Gratien, we will give her up to the law."
+
+"Listen, listen!... The thing is settled," said Ferragus to Henri.
+
+The two friends listened intently, and heard some feeble cries which
+might have aroused pity in the breast of a tiger.
+
+"Your marquise did not think the sound would escape by the chimney,"
+said the chief of the Devourers, with the laugh of a critic, enchanted
+to detect a fault in a work of merit.
+
+"We alone, we know how to provide for every contingency," said Henri.
+"Wait for me. I want to see what is going on upstairs--I want to know
+how their domestic quarrels are managed. By God! I believe she is
+roasting her at a slow fire."
+
+De Marsay lightly scaled the stairs, with which he was familiar, and
+recognized the passage leading to the boudoir. When he opened the door
+he experienced the involuntary shudder which the sight of bloodshed
+gives to the most determined of men. The spectacle which was offered to
+his view was, moreover, in more than one respect astonishing to him.
+The Marquise was a woman; she had calculated her vengeance with that
+perfection of perfidy which distinguishes the weaker animals. She had
+dissimulated her anger in order to assure herself of the crime before
+she punished it.
+
+"Too late, my beloved!" said Paquita, in her death agony, casting her
+pale eyes upon De Marsay.
+
+The girl of the golden eyes expired in a bath of blood. The great
+illumination of candles, a delicate perfume which was perceptible,
+a certain disorder, in which the eye of a man accustomed to amorous
+adventures could not but discern the madness which is common to all
+the passions, revealed how cunningly the Marquise had interrogated the
+guilty one. The white room, where the blood showed so well, betrayed a
+long struggle. The prints of Paquita's hands were on the cushions. Here
+she had clung to her life, here she had defended herself, here she
+had been struck. Long strips of the tapestry had been torn down by her
+bleeding hands, which, without a doubt, had struggled long. Paquita must
+have tried to reach the window; her bare feet had left their imprints
+on the edge of the divan, along which she must have run. Her body,
+mutilated by the dagger-thrusts of her executioner, told of the fury
+with which she had disputed a life which Henri had made precious to her.
+She lay stretched on the floor, and in her death-throes had bitten the
+ankles of Madame de San-Real, who still held in her hand her dagger,
+dripping blood. The hair of the Marquise had been torn out, she was
+covered with bites, many of which were bleeding, and her torn dress
+revealed her in a state of semi-nudity, with the scratches on her
+breasts. She was sublime so. Her head, eager and maddened, exhaled the
+odor of blood. Her panting mouth was open, and her nostrils were not
+sufficient for her breath. There are certain animals who fall upon their
+enemy in their rage, do it to death, and seem in the tranquillity of
+victory to have forgotten it. There are others who prowl around their
+victim, who guard it in fear lest it should be taken away from them, and
+who, like the Achilles of Homer, drag their enemy by the feet nine times
+round the walls of Troy. The Marquise was like that. She did not see
+Henri. In the first place, she was too secure of her solitude to be
+afraid of witnesses; and, secondly, she was too intoxicated with warm
+blood, too excited with the fray, too exalted, to take notice of the
+whole of Paris, if Paris had formed a circle round her. A thunderbolt
+would not have disturbed her. She had not even heard Paquita's last
+sigh, and believed that the dead girl could still hear her.
+
+"Die without confessing!" she said. "Go down to hell, monster of
+ingratitude; belong to no one but the fiend. For the blood you gave him
+you owe me all your own! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths! I have
+been too kind--I was only a moment killing you. I should have made you
+experience all the tortures that you have bequeathed to me. I--I shall
+live! I shall live in misery. I have no one left to love but God!"
+
+She gazed at her.
+
+"She is dead!" she said to herself, after a pause, in a violent
+reaction. "Dead! Oh, I shall die of grief!"
+
+The Marquise was throwing herself upon the divan, stricken with a
+despair which deprived her of speech, when this movement brought her in
+view of Henri de Marsay.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked, rushing at him with her dagger raised.
+
+Henri caught her arm, and thus they could contemplate each other face
+to face. A horrible surprise froze the blood in their veins, and their
+limbs quivered like those of frightened horses. In effect, the two
+Menoechmi had not been more alike. With one accord they uttered the same
+phrase:
+
+"Lord Dudley must have been your father!"
+
+The head of each was drooped in affirmation.
+
+"She was true to the blood," said Henri, pointing to Paquita.
+
+"She was as little guilty as it is possible to be," replied Margarita
+Euphemia Porraberil, and she threw herself upon the body of Paquita,
+giving vent to a cry of despair. "Poor child! Oh, if I could bring thee
+to life again! I was wrong--forgive me, Paquita! Dead! and I live! I--I
+am the most unhappy."
+
+At that moment the horrible face of the mother of Paquita appeared.
+
+"You are come to tell me that you never sold her to me to kill," cried
+the Marquise. "I know why you have left your lair. I will pay you twice
+over. Hold your peace."
+
+She took a bag of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it
+contemptuously at the old woman's feet. The chink of the gold was potent
+enough to excite a smile on the Georgian's impassive face.
+
+"I come at the right moment for you, my sister," said Henri. "The law
+will ask of you----"
+
+"Nothing," replied the Marquise. "One person alone might ask for a
+reckoning for the death of this girl. Cristemio is dead."
+
+"And the mother," said Henri, pointing to the old woman. "Will you not
+always be in her power?"
+
+"She comes from a country where women are not beings, but
+things--chattels, with which one does as one wills, which one buys,
+sells, and slays; in short, which one uses for one's caprices as you,
+here, use a piece of furniture. Besides, she has one passion which
+dominates all the others, and which would have stifled her maternal
+love, even if she had loved her daughter, a passion----"
+
+"What?" Henri asked quickly, interrupting his sister.
+
+"Play! God keep you from it," answered the Marquise.
+
+"But whom have you," said Henri, looking at the girl of the golden eyes,
+"who will help you to remove the traces of this fantasy which the law
+would not overlook?"
+
+"I have her mother," replied the Marquise, designating the Georgian, to
+whom she made a sign to remain.
+
+"We shall meet again," said Henri, who was thinking anxiously of his
+friends and felt that it was time to leave.
+
+"No, brother," she said, "we shall not meet again. I am going back to
+Spain to enter the Convent of _los Dolores_."
+
+"You are too young yet, too lovely," said Henri, taking her in his arms
+and giving her a kiss.
+
+"Good-bye," she said; "there is no consolation when you have lost that
+which has seemed to you the infinite."
+
+A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the Tuileries, on the
+Terrasse de Feuillants.
+
+"Well, what has become of our beautiful girl of the golden eyes, you
+rascal?"
+
+"She is dead."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Consumption."
+
+
+
+PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+  Note: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy.
+  Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+  Langeais. In other addendum references all three stories are usually
+  combined under the title The Thirteen.
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph
+       Ferragus
+
+     Dudley, Lord
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       A Man of Business
+       Another Study of Woman
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Marriage Settlement
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       Ferragus
+       The Duchesse of Langeais
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Ferragus
+       The Duchesse of Langeais
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Honore de Balzac
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+Project Gutenberg's The Girl with the Golden Eyes, 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: The Girl with the Golden Eyes
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Release Date: September 19, 2004 [EBook #1659]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+                   THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+                                 BY
+
+                          HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+                           Translated by
+                           Ellen Marriage
+
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE:
+
+  The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy. Part
+  one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de Langeais.
+  The three stories are frequently combined under the title The
+  Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+                    To Eugene Delacroix, Painter.
+
+
+
+                   THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+
+
+One of those sights in which most horror is to be encountered is,
+surely, the general aspect of the Parisian populace--a people fearful
+to behold, gaunt, yellow, tawny. Is not Paris a vast field in
+perpetual turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which are whirled
+along a crop of human beings, who are, more often than not, reaped by
+death, only to be born again as pinched as ever, men whose twisted and
+contorted faces give out at every pore the instinct, the desire, the
+poisons with which their brains are pregnant; not faces so much as
+masks; masks of weakness, masks of strength, masks of misery, masks of
+joy, masks of hypocrisy; all alike worn and stamped with the indelible
+signs of a panting cupidity? What is it they want? Gold or pleasure? A
+few observations upon the soul of Paris may explain the causes of its
+cadaverous physiognomy, which has but two ages--youth and decay:
+youth, wan and colorless; decay, painted to seem young. In looking at
+this excavated people, foreigners, who are not prone to reflection,
+experience at first a movement of disgust towards the capital, that
+vast workshop of delights, from which, in a short time, they cannot
+even extricate themselves, and where they stay willingly to be
+corrupted. A few words will suffice to justify physiologically the
+almost infernal hue of Parisian faces, for it is not in mere sport
+that Paris has been called a hell. Take the phrase for truth. There
+all is smoke and fire, everything gleams, crackles, flames,
+evaporates, dies out, then lights up again, with shooting sparks, and
+is consumed. In no other country has life ever been more ardent or
+acute. The social nature, even in fusion, seems to say after each
+completed work: "Pass on to another!" just as Nature says herself.
+Like Nature herself, this social nature is busied with insects and
+flowers of a day--ephemeral trifles; and so, too, it throws up fire
+and flame from its eternal crater. Perhaps, before analyzing the
+causes which lend a special physiognomy to each tribe of this
+intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed out
+which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals in
+more or less degree.
+
+By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
+interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction
+has rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon
+which all kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian,
+with his indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth,
+lives like a child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at
+everything, consoles himself for everything, jests at everything,
+forgets, desires, and tastes everything, seizes all with passion,
+quits all with indifference--his kings, his conquests, his glory, his
+idols of bronze or glass--as he throws away his stockings, his hats,
+and his fortune. In Paris no sentiment can withstand the drift of
+things, and their current compels a struggle in which the passions are
+relaxed: there love is a desire, and hatred a whim; there's no true
+kinsman but the thousand-franc note, no better friend than the
+pawnbroker. This universal toleration bears its fruits, and in the
+salon, as in the street, there is no one _de trop_, there is no one
+absolutely useful, or absolutely harmful--knaves or fools, men of wit
+or integrity. There everything is tolerated: the government and the
+guillotine, religion and the cholera. You are always acceptable to
+this world, you will never be missed by it. What, then, is the
+dominating impulse in this country without morals, without faith,
+without any sentiment, wherein, however, every sentiment, belief, and
+moral has its origin and end? It is gold and pleasure. Take those two
+words for a lantern, and explore that great stucco cage, that hive
+with its black gutters, and follow the windings of that thought which
+agitates, sustains, and occupies it! Consider! And, in the first
+place, examine the world which possesses nothing.
+
+The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his
+tongue, his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live--well, this
+very man, who should be the first to economize his vital principle,
+outruns his strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his
+child, and ties him to the wheel. The manufacturer--or I know not what
+secondary thread which sets in motion all these folk who with their
+foul hands mould and gild porcelain, sew coats and dresses, beat out
+iron, turn wood and steel, weave hemp, festoon crystal, imitate
+flowers, work woolen things, break in horses, dress harness, carve in
+copper, paint carriages, blow glass, corrode the diamond, polish
+metals, turn marble into leaves, labor on pebbles, deck out thought,
+tinge, bleach, or blacken everything--well, this middleman has come to
+that world of sweat and good-will, of study and patience, with
+promises of lavish wages, either in the name of the town's caprices or
+with the voice of the monster dubbed speculation. Thus, these
+_quadrumanes_ set themselves to watch, work, and suffer, to fast,
+sweat, and bestir them. Then, careless of the future, greedy of
+pleasure, counting on their right arm as the painter on his palette,
+lords for one day, they throw their money on Mondays to the _cabarets_
+which gird the town like a belt of mud, haunts of the most shameless
+of the daughters of Venus, in which the periodical money of this
+people, as ferocious in their pleasures as they are calm at work, is
+squandered as it had been at play. For five days, then, there is no
+repose for this laborious portion of Paris! It is given up to actions
+which make it warped and rough, lean and pale, gush forth with a
+thousand fits of creative energy. And then its pleasure, its repose,
+are an exhausting debauch, swarthy and black with blows, white with
+intoxication, or yellow with indigestion. It lasts but two days, but
+it steals to-morrow's bread, the week's soup, the wife's dress, the
+child's wretched rags. Men, born doubtless to be beautiful--for all
+creatures have a relative beauty--are enrolled from their childhood
+beneath the yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel,
+the loom, and have been promptly vulcanized. Is not Vulcan, with his
+hideousness and his strength, the emblem of this strong and hideous
+nation--sublime in its mechanical intelligence, patient in its season,
+and once in a century terrible, inflammable as gunpowder, and ripe
+with brandy for the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine,
+to take fire at a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold
+and Pleasure! If we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands
+for an alms, for lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to
+every kind of Parisian prostitution, in short, for all the money well
+or ill earned, this people numbers three hundred thousand individuals.
+Were it not for the _cabarets_, would not the Government be overturned
+every Tuesday? Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off
+its pleasure, is penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread,
+stimulated by a need of material procreation, which has become a habit
+to it. None the less, this people has its phenomenal virtues, its
+complete men, unknown Napoleons, who are the type of its strength
+carried to its highest expression, and sum up its social capacity in
+an existence wherein thought and movement combine less to bring joy
+into it than to neutralize the action of sorrow.
+
+Chance has made an artisan economical, chance has favored him with
+forethought, he has been able to look forward, has met with a wife and
+found himself a father, and, after some years of hard privation, he
+embarks in some little draper's business, hires a shop. If neither
+sickness nor vice blocks his way--if he has prospered--there is the
+sketch of this normal life.
+
+And, in the first place, hail to that king of Parisian activity, to
+whom time and space give way. Yes, hail to that being, composed of
+saltpetre and gas, who makes children for France during his laborious
+nights, and in the day multiplies his personality for the service,
+glory, and pleasure of his fellow-citizens. This man solves the
+problem of sufficing at once to his amiable wife, to his hearth, to
+the _Constitutionnel_, to his office, to the National Guard, to the
+opera, and to God; but, only in order that the _Constitutionnel_, his
+office, the National Guard, the opera, his wife, and God may be
+changed into coin. In fine, hail to an irreproachable pluralist. Up
+every day at five o'clock, he traverses like a bird the space which
+separates his dwelling from the Rue Montmartre. Let it blow or
+thunder, rain or snow, he is at the _Constitutionnel_, and waits there
+for the load of newspapers which he has undertaken to distribute. He
+receives this political bread with eagerness, takes it, bears it away.
+At nine o'clock he is in the bosom of his family, flings a jest to his
+wife, snatches a loud kiss from her, gulps down a cup of coffee, or
+scolds his children. At a quarter to ten he puts in an appearance at
+the _Mairie_. There, stuck upon a stool, like a parrot on its perch,
+warmed by Paris town, he registers until four o'clock, with never a
+tear or a smile, the deaths and births of an entire district. The
+sorrow, the happiness, of the parish flow beneath his pen--as the
+essence of the _Constitutionnel_ traveled before upon his shoulders.
+Nothing weighs upon him! He goes always straight before him, takes his
+patriotism ready made from the newspaper, contradicts no one, shouts
+or applauds with the world, and lives like a bird. Two yards from his
+parish, in the event of an important ceremony, he can yield his place
+to an assistant, and betake himself to chant a requiem from a stall in
+the church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament, where his
+is the most imposing voice, where he distorts his huge mouth with
+energy to thunder out a joyous _Amen_. So is he chorister. At four
+o'clock, freed from his official servitude, he reappears to shed joy
+and gaiety upon the most famous shop in the city. Happy is his wife,
+he has no time to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of
+sentiment. His mere arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter;
+their bright eyes storm the customers; he expands in the midst of all
+the finery, the lace and muslin kerchiefs, that their cunning hands
+have wrought. Or, again, more often still, before his dinner he waits
+on a client, copies the page of a newspaper, or carries to the
+doorkeeper some goods that have been delayed. Every other day, at six,
+he is faithful to his post. A permanent bass for the chorus, he
+betakes himself to the opera, prepared to become a soldier or an arab,
+prisoner, savage, peasant, spirit, camel's leg or lion, a devil or a
+genie, a slave or a eunuch, black or white; always ready to feign joy
+or sorrow, pity or astonishment, to utter cries that never vary, to
+hold his tongue, to hunt, or fight for Rome or Egypt, but always at
+heart--a huckster still.
+
+At midnight he returns--a man, the good husband, the tender father; he
+slips into the conjugal bed, his imagination still afire with the
+illusive forms of the operatic nymphs, and so turns to the profit of
+conjugal love the world's depravities, the voluptuous curves of
+Taglioni's leg. And finally, if he sleeps, he sleeps apace, and
+hurries through his slumber as he does his life.
+
+This man sums up all things--history, literature, politics,
+government, religion, military science. Is he not a living
+encyclopaedia, a grotesque Atlas; ceaselessly in motion, like Paris
+itself, and knowing not repose? He is all legs. No physiognomy could
+preserve its purity amid such toils. Perhaps the artisan who dies at
+thirty, an old man, his stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy,
+will be held, according to certain leisured philosophers, to be
+happier than the huckster is. The one perishes in a breath, and the
+other by degrees. From his eight industries, from the labor of his
+shoulders, his throat, his hands, from his wife and his business, the
+one derives--as from so many farms--children, some thousands of
+francs, and the most laborious happiness that has ever diverted the
+heart of man. This fortune and these children, or the children who sum
+up everything for him, become the prey of the world above, to which he
+brings his ducats and his daughter or his son, reared at college, who,
+with more education than his father, raises higher his ambitious gaze.
+Often the son of a retail tradesman would fain be something in the
+State.
+
+Ambition of that sort carries on our thought to the second Parisian
+sphere. Go up one story, then, and descend to the _entresol_: or climb
+down from the attic and remain on the fourth floor; in fine, penetrate
+into the world which has possessions: the same result! Wholesale
+merchants, and their men--people with small banking accounts and much
+integrity--rogues and catspaws, clerks old and young, sheriffs'
+clerks, barristers' clerks, solicitors' clerks; in fine, all the
+working, thinking, and speculating members of that lower middle class
+which honeycombs the interests of Paris and watches over its granary,
+accumulates the coin, stores the products that the proletariat have
+made, preserves the fruits of the South, the fishes, the wine from
+every sun-favored hill; which stretches its hands over the Orient, and
+takes from it the shawls that the Russ and the Turk despise; which
+harvests even from the Indies; crouches down in expectation of a sale,
+greedy of profit; which discounts bills, turns over and collects all
+kinds of securities, holds all Paris in its hand, watches over the
+fantasies of children, spies out the caprices and the vices of mature
+age, sucks money out of disease. Even so, if they drink no brandy,
+like the artisan, nor wallow in the mire of debauch, all equally abuse
+their strength, immeasurably strain their bodies and their minds
+alike, are burned away with desires, devastated with the swiftness of
+the pace. In their case the physical distortion is accomplished
+beneath the whip of interests, beneath the scourge of ambitions which
+torture the educated portion of this monstrous city, just as in the
+case of the proletariat it is brought about by the cruel see-saw of
+the material elaborations perpetually required from the despotism of
+the aristocratic "_I will_." Here, too, then, in order to obey that
+universal master, pleasure or gold, they must devour time, hasten
+time, find more than four-and-twenty hours in the day and night, waste
+themselves, slay themselves, and purchase two years of unhealthy
+repose with thirty years of old age. Only, the working-man dies in
+hospital when the last term of his stunted growth expires; whereas the
+man of the middle class is set upon living, and lives on, but in a
+state of idiocy. You will meet him, with his worn, flat old face, with
+no light in his eyes, with no strength in his limbs, dragging himself
+with a dazed air along the boulevard--the belt of his Venus, of his
+beloved city. What was his want? The sabre of the National Guard, a
+permanent stock-pot, a decent plot in Pere Lachaise, and, for his old
+age, a little gold honestly earned. _HIS_ Monday is on Sunday, his
+rest a drive in a hired carriage--a country excursion during which his
+wife and children glut themselves merrily with dust or bask in the
+sun; his dissipation is at the restaurateur's, whose poisonous dinner
+has won renown, or at some family ball, where he suffocates till
+midnight. Some fools are surprised at the phantasmagoria of the monads
+which they see with the aid of the microscope in a drop of water; but
+what would Rabelais' Gargantua,--that misunderstood figure of an
+audacity so sublime,--what would that giant say, fallen from the
+celestial spheres, if he amused himself by contemplating the motions
+of this secondary life of Paris, of which here is one of the formulae?
+Have you seen one of those little constructions--cold in summer, and
+with no other warmth than a small stove in winter--placed beneath the
+vast copper dome which crowns the Halle-auble? Madame is there by
+morning. She is engaged at the markets, and makes by this occupation
+twelve thousand francs a year, people say. Monsieur, when Madame is
+up, passes into a gloomy office, where he lends money till the
+week-end to the tradesmen of his district. By nine o'clock he is at
+the passport office, of which he is one of the minor officials. By
+evening he is at the box-office of the Theatre Italien, or of any other
+theatre you like. The children are put out to nurse, and only return
+to be sent to college or to boarding-school. Monsieur and Madame live
+on the third floor, have but one cook, give dances in a salon twelve
+foot by eight, lit by argand lamps; but they give a hundred and fifty
+thousand francs to their daughter, and retire at the age of fifty, an
+age when they begin to show themselves on the balcony of the opera, in
+a _fiacre_ at Longchamps; or, on sunny days, in faded clothes on the
+boulevards--the fruit of all this sowing. Respected by their
+neighbors, in good odor with the government, connected with the upper
+middle classes, Monsieur obtains at sixty-five the Cross of the Legion
+of Honor, and his daughter's father-in-law, a parochial mayor, invites
+him to his evenings. These life-long labors, then, are for the good of
+the children, whom these lower middle classes are inevitably driven to
+exalt. Thus each sphere directs all its efforts towards the sphere
+above it. The son of the rich grocer becomes a notary, the son of the
+timber merchant becomes a magistrate. No link is wanting in the chain,
+and everything stimulates the upward march of money.
+
+Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps,
+will some day find its Dante. In this third social circle, a sort of
+Parisian belly, in which the interests of the town are digested, and
+where they are condensed into the form known as _business_, there
+moves and agitates, as by some acrid and bitter intestinal process,
+the crowd of lawyers, doctors, notaries, councillors, business men,
+bankers, big merchants, speculators, and magistrates. Here are to be
+found even more causes of moral and physical destruction than
+elsewhere. These people--almost all of them--live in unhealthy
+offices, in fetid ante-chambers, in little barred dens, and spend
+their days bowed down beneath the weight of affairs; they rise at dawn
+to be in time, not to be left behind, to gain all or not to lose, to
+overreach a man or his money, to open or wind up some business, to
+take advantage of some fleeting opportunity, to get a man hanged or
+set him free. They infect their horses, they overdrive and age and
+break them, like their own legs, before their time. Time is their
+tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; they can neither expand it nor
+cut it short. What soul can remain great, pure, moral, and generous,
+and, consequently, what face retain its beauty in this depraving
+practice of a calling which compels one to bear the weight of the
+public sorrows, to analyze them, to weigh them, estimate them, and
+mark them out by rule? Where do these folk put aside their
+hearts? . . . I do not know; but they leave them somewhere or other,
+when they have any, before they descend each morning into the abyss of
+the misery which puts families on the rack. For them there is no such
+thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of society, whose
+confessors they are, and despise it. Then, whatever they do, owing to
+their contact with corruption, they either are horrified at it and
+grow gloomy, or else, out of lassitude, or some secret compromise,
+espouse it. In fine, they necessarily become callous to every
+sentiment, since man, his laws and his institutions, make them steal,
+like jackals, from corpses that are still warm. At all hours the
+financier is trampling on the living, the attorney on the dead, the
+pleader on the conscience. Forced to be speaking without a rest, they
+all substitute words for ideas, phrases for feelings, and their soul
+becomes a larynx. Neither the great merchant, nor the judge, nor the
+pleader preserves his sense of right; they feel no more, they apply
+set rules that leave cases out of count. Borne along by their headlong
+course, they are neither husbands nor fathers nor lovers; they glide
+on sledges over the facts of life, and live at all times at the high
+pressure conduced by business and the vast city. When they return to
+their homes they are required to go to a ball, to the opera, into
+society, where they can make clients, acquaintances, protectors. They
+all eat to excess, play and keep vigil, and their faces become
+bloated, flushed, and emaciated.
+
+To this terrific expenditure of intellectual strength, to such
+multifold moral contradictions, they oppose--not, indeed pleasure, it
+would be too pale a contrast--but debauchery, a debauchery both secret
+and alarming, for they have all means at their disposal, and fix the
+morality of society. Their genuine stupidity lies hid beneath their
+specialism. They know their business, but are ignorant of everything
+which is outside it. So that to preserve their self-conceit they
+question everything, are crudely and crookedly critical. They appear
+to be sceptics and are in reality simpletons; they swamp their wits in
+interminable arguments. Almost all conveniently adopt social,
+literary, or political prejudices, to do away with the need of having
+opinions, just as they adapt their conscience to the standard of the
+Code or the Tribunal of Commerce. Having started early to become men
+of note, they turn into mediocrities, and crawl over the high places
+of the world. So, too, their faces present the harsh pallor, the
+deceitful coloring, those dull, tarnished eyes, and garrulous, sensual
+mouths, in which the observer recognizes the symptoms of the
+degeneracy of the thought and its rotation in the circle of a special
+idea which destroys the creative faculties of the brain and the gift
+of seeing in large, of generalizing and deducing. No man who has
+allowed himself to be caught in the revolutions of the gear of these
+huge machines can ever become great. If he is a doctor, either he has
+practised little or he is an exception--a Bichat who dies young. If a
+great merchant, something remains--he is almost Jacques Coeur. Did
+Robespierre practise? Danton was an idler who waited. But who,
+moreover has ever felt envious of the figures of Danton and
+Robespierre, however lofty they were? These men of affairs, _par
+excellence_, attract money to them, and hoard it in order to ally
+themselves with aristocratic families. If the ambition of the
+working-man is that of the small tradesman, here, too, are the same
+passions. The type of this class might be either an ambitious
+bourgeois, who, after a life of privation and continual scheming,
+passes into the Council of State as an ant passes through a chink; or
+some newspaper editor, jaded with intrigue, whom the king makes a peer
+of France--perhaps to revenge himself on the nobility; or some notary
+become mayor of his parish: all people crushed with business, who, if
+they attain their end, are literally _killed_ in its attainment. In
+France the usage is to glorify wigs. Napoleon, Louis XVI., the great
+rulers, alone have always wished for young men to fulfil their
+projects.
+
+Above this sphere the artist world exists. But here, too, the faces
+stamped with the seal of originality are worn, nobly indeed, but worn,
+fatigued, nervous. Harassed by a need of production, outrun by their
+costly fantasies, worn out by devouring genius, hungry for pleasure,
+the artists of Paris would all regain by excessive labor what they
+have lost by idleness, and vainly seek to reconcile the world and
+glory, money and art. To begin with, the artist is ceaselessly panting
+under his creditors; his necessities beget his debts, and his debts
+require of him his nights. After his labor, his pleasure. The comedian
+plays till midnight, studies in the morning, rehearses at noon; the
+sculptor is bent before his statue; the journalist is a marching
+thought, like the soldier when at war; the painter who is the fashion
+is crushed with work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels
+himself to be a man of genius, gnaws his entrails. Competition,
+rivalry, calumny assail talent. Some, in desperation, plunge into the
+abyss of vice, others die young and unknown because they have
+discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally
+sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of
+their heads is not understood. An artist's face is always exorbitant,
+it is always above or below the conventional lines of what fools call
+the _beau-ideal_. What power is it that destroys them? Passion. Every
+passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and pleasure. Now, do
+you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is
+neither labor nor suffering. The soaring arch of gold has reached the
+summit. From the lowest gutters, where its stream commences, from the
+little shops where it is stopped by puny coffer-dams, from the heart
+of the counting-houses and great workshops, where its volume is that
+of ingots--gold, in the shape of dowries and inheritances, guided by
+the hands of young girls or the bony fingers of age, courses towards
+the aristocracy, where it will become a blazing, expansive stream.
+But, before leaving the four territories upon which the utmost wealth
+of Paris is based, it is fitting, having cited the moral causes, to
+deduce those which are physical, and to call attention to a
+pestilence, latent, as it were, which incessantly acts upon the faces
+of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point out a
+deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the
+Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently to exist!
+
+If the air of the houses in which the greater proportion of the middle
+classes live is noxious, if the atmosphere of the streets belches out
+cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air,
+realize that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of
+this great city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that
+be have not yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid
+enough to prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the
+soil, poisoning the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia
+the tradition of her celebrated name. Half of Paris sleeps amidst the
+putrid exhalations of courts and streets and sewers. But let us turn
+to the vast saloons, gilded and airy; the hotels in their gardens, the
+rich, indolent, happy moneyed world. There the faces are lined and
+scarred with vanity. There nothing is real. To seek for pleasure is it
+not to find _ennui_? People in society have at an early age warped
+their nature. Having no occupation other than to wallow in pleasure,
+they have speedily misused their sense, as the artisan has misused
+brandy. Pleasure is of the nature of certain medical substances: in
+order to obtain constantly the same effects the doses must be doubled,
+and death or degradation is contained in the last. All the lower
+classes are on their knees before the wealthy, and watch their tastes
+in order to turn them into vices and exploit them. Thus you see in
+these folk at an early age tastes instead of passions, romantic
+fantasies and lukewarm loves. There impotence reigns; there ideas have
+ceased--they have evaporated together with energy amongst the
+affectations of the boudoir and the cajolements of women. There are
+fledglings of forty, old doctors of sixty years. The wealthy obtain in
+Paris ready-made wit and science--formulated opinions which save them
+the need of having wit, science, or opinion of their own. The
+irrationality of this world is equaled by its weakness and its
+licentiousness. It is greedy of time to the point of wasting it. Seek
+in it for affection as little as for ideas. Its kisses conceal a
+profound indifference, its urbanity a perpetual contempt. It has no
+other fashion of love. Flashes of wit without profundity, a wealth of
+indiscretion, scandal, and above all, commonplace. Such is the sum of
+its speech; but these happy fortunates pretend that they do not meet
+to make and repeat maxims in the manner of La Rochefoucauld as though
+there did not exist a mean, invented by the eighteenth century,
+between a superfluity and absolute blank. If a few men of character
+indulge in witticism, at once subtle and refined, they are
+misunderstood; soon, tired of giving without receiving, they remain at
+home, and leave fools to reign over their territory. This hollow life,
+this perpetual expectation of a pleasure which never comes, this
+permanent _ennui_ and emptiness of soul, heart, and mind, the
+lassitude of the upper Parisian world, is reproduced on its features,
+and stamps its parchment faces, its premature wrinkles, that
+physiognomy of the wealthy upon which impotence has set its grimace,
+in which gold is mirrored, and whence intelligence has fled.
+
+Such a view of moral Paris proves that physical Paris could not be
+other than it is. This coroneted town is like a queen, who, being
+always with child, has desires of irresistible fury. Paris is the
+crown of the world, a brain which perishes of genius and leads human
+civilization; it is a great man, a perpetually creative artist, a
+politician with second-sight who must of necessity have wrinkles on
+his forehead, the vices of a great man, the fantasies of the artist,
+and the politician's disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the
+evolution of good and evil, battle and victory; the moral combat of
+'89, the clarion calls of which still re-echo in every corner of the
+world; and also the downfall of 1814. Thus this city can no more be
+moral, or cordial, or clean, than the engines which impel those proud
+leviathans which you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a
+sublime vessel laden with intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those
+oracles which fatality sometimes allows. The _City of Paris_ has her
+great mast, all of bronze, carved with victories, and for watchman
+--Napoleon. The barque may roll and pitch, but she cleaves the world,
+illuminates it through the hundred mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the
+seas of science, rides with full sail, cries from the height of her
+tops, with the voice of her scientists and artists: "Onward, advance!
+Follow me!" She carries a huge crew, which delights in adorning her
+with fresh streamers. Boys and urchins laughing in the rigging;
+ballast of heavy _bourgeoisie_; working-men and sailor-men touched
+with tar; in her cabins the lucky passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke
+their cigars leaning over the bulwarks; then, on the deck, her
+soldiers, innovators or ambitious, would accost every fresh shore, and
+shooting out their bright lights upon it, ask for glory which is
+pleasure, or for love which needs gold.
+
+Thus the exorbitant movement of the proletariat, the corrupting
+influence of the interests which consume the two middle classes, the
+cruelties of the artist's thought, and the excessive pleasure which is
+sought for incessantly by the great, explain the normal ugliness of
+the Parisian physiognomy. It is only in the Orient that the human race
+presents a magnificent figure, but that is an effect of the constant
+calm affected by those profound philosophers with their long pipes,
+their short legs, their square contour, who despise and hold activity
+in horror, whilst in Paris the little and the great and the mediocre
+run and leap and drive, whipped on by an inexorable goddess, Necessity
+--the necessity for money, glory, and amusement. Thus, any face which
+is fresh and graceful and reposeful, any really young face, is in
+Paris the most extraordinary of exceptions; it is met with rarely.
+Should you see one there, be sure it belongs either to a young and
+ardent ecclesiastic or to some good abbe of forty with three chins; to
+a young girl of pure life such as is brought up in certain
+middle-class families; to a mother of twenty, still full of illusions,
+as she suckles her first-born; to a young man newly embarked from the
+provinces, and intrusted to the care of some devout dowager who keeps
+him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some shop assistant who goes to bed
+at midnight wearied out with folding and unfolding calico, and rises
+at seven o'clock to arrange the window; often again to some man of
+science or poetry, who lives monastically in the embrace of a fine
+idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste; else to some
+self-contented fool, feeding himself on folly, reeking of health, in a
+perpetual state of absorption with his own smile; or to the soft and
+happy race of loungers, the only folk really happy in Paris, which
+unfolds for them hour by hour its moving poetry.
+
+Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to
+whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts,
+and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also
+have a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy
+their physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little
+happy colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their
+beauty; but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets,
+they lie hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain
+hours, and constitute veritable exotic exceptions. However, Paris is
+essentially the country of contrasts. If true sentiments are rare
+there, there also are to be found, as elsewhere, noble friendships and
+unlimited devotion. On this battlefield of interests and passions,
+just as in the midst of those marching societies where egoism
+triumphs, where every one is obliged to defend himself, and which we
+call _armies_, it seems as though sentiments liked to be complete when
+they showed themselves, and are sublime by juxtaposition. So it is
+with faces. In Paris one sometimes sees in the aristocracy, set like
+stars, the ravishing faces of young people, the fruit of quite
+exceptional manners and education. To the youthful beauty of the
+English stock they unite the firmness of Southern traits. The fire of
+their eyes, a delicious bloom on their lips, the lustrous black of
+their soft locks, a white complexion, a distinguished caste of
+features, render them the flowers of the human race, magnificent to
+behold against the mass of other faces, worn, old, wrinkled, and
+grimacing. So women, too, admire such young people with that eager
+pleasure which men take in watching a pretty girl, elegant, gracious,
+and embellished with all the virginal charms with which our
+imagination pleases to adorn the perfect woman. If this hurried glance
+at the population of Paris has enabled us to conceive the rarity of a
+Raphaelesque face, and the passionate admiration which such an one
+must inspire at the first sight, the prime interest of our history
+will have been justified. _Quod erat demonstrandum_--if one may be
+permitted to apply scholastic formulae to the science of manners.
+
+Upon one of those fine spring mornings, when the leaves, although
+unfolded, are not yet green, when the sun begins to gild the roofs,
+and the sky is blue, when the population of Paris issues from its
+cells to swarm along the boulevards, glides like a serpent of a
+thousand coils through the Rue de la Paix towards the Tuileries,
+saluting the hymeneal magnificence which the country puts on; on one
+of these joyous days, then, a young man as beautiful as the day
+itself, dressed with taste, easy of manner--to let out the secret he
+was a love-child, the natural son of Lord Dudley and the famous
+Marquise de Vordac--was walking in the great avenue of the Tuileries.
+This Adonis, by name Henri de Marsay, was born in France, when Lord
+Dudley had just married the young lady, already Henri's mother, to an
+old gentleman called M. de Marsay. This faded and almost extinguished
+butterfly recognized the child as his own in consideration of the life
+interest in a fund of a hundred thousand francs definitively assigned
+to his putative son; a generosity which did not cost Lord Dudley too
+dear. French funds were worth at that time seventeen francs, fifty
+centimes. The old gentleman died without having ever known his wife.
+Madame de Marsay subsequently married the Marquis de Vordac, but
+before becoming a marquise she showed very little anxiety as to her
+son and Lord Dudley. To begin with, the declaration of war between
+France and England had separated the two lovers, and fidelity at all
+costs was not, and never will be, the fashion of Paris. Then the
+successes of the woman, elegant, pretty, universally adored, crushed
+in the Parisienne the maternal sentiment. Lord Dudley was no more
+troubled about his offspring than was the mother,--the speedy
+infidelity of a young girl he had ardently loved gave him, perhaps, a
+sort of aversion for all that issued from her. Moreover, fathers can,
+perhaps, only love the children with whom they are fully acquainted, a
+social belief of the utmost importance for the peace of families,
+which should be held by all the celibate, proving as it does that
+paternity is a sentiment nourished artificially by woman, custom, and
+the law.
+
+Poor Henri de Marsay knew no other father than that one of the two who
+was not compelled to be one. The paternity of M. de Marsay was
+naturally most incomplete. In the natural order, it is but for a few
+fleeting instants that children have a father, and M. de Marsay
+imitated nature. The worthy man would not have sold his name had he
+been free from vices. Thus he squandered without remorse in gambling
+hells, and drank elsewhere, the few dividends which the National
+Treasury paid to its bondholders. Then he handed over the child to an
+aged sister, a Demoiselle de Marsay, who took much care of him, and
+provided him, out of the meagre sum allowed by her brother, with a
+tutor, an abbe without a farthing, who took the measure of the youth's
+future, and determined to pay himself out of the hundred thousand
+livres for the care given to his pupil, for whom he conceived an
+affection. As chance had it, this tutor was a true priest, one of
+those ecclesiastics cut out to become cardinals in France, or Borgias
+beneath the tiara. He taught the child in three years what he might
+have learned at college in ten. Then the great man, by name the Abbe
+de Maronis, completed the education of his pupil by making him study
+civilization under all its aspects: he nourished him on his
+experience, led him little into churches, which at that time were
+closed; introduced him sometimes behind the scenes of theatres, more
+often into the houses of courtesans; he exhibited human emotions to
+him one by one; taught him politics in the drawing-rooms, where they
+simmered at the time, explained to him the machinery of government,
+and endeavored out of attraction towards a fine nature, deserted, yet
+rich in promise, virilely to replace a mother: is not the Church the
+mother of orphans? The pupil was responsive to so much care. The
+worthy priest died in 1812, a bishop, with the satisfaction of having
+left in this world a child whose heart and mind were so well moulded
+that he could outwit a man of forty. Who would have expected to have
+found a heart of bronze, a brain of steel, beneath external traits as
+seductive as ever the old painters, those naive artists, had given to
+the serpent in the terrestrial paradise? Nor was that all. In
+addition, the good-natured prelate had procured for the child of his
+choice certain acquaintances in the best Parisian society, which might
+equal in value, in the young man's hand, another hundred thousand
+invested livres. In fine, this priest, vicious but politic, sceptical
+yet learned, treacherous yet amiable, weak in appearance yet as
+vigorous physically as intellectually, was so genuinely useful to his
+pupil, so complacent to his vices, so fine a calculator of all kinds
+of strength, so profound when it was needful to make some human
+reckoning, so youthful at table, at Frascati, at--I know not where,
+that the grateful Henri de Marsay was hardly moved at aught in 1814,
+except when he looked at the portrait of his beloved bishop, the only
+personal possession which the prelate had been able to bequeath him
+(admirable type of the men whose genius will preserve the Catholic,
+Apostolic, and Roman Church, compromised for the moment by the
+feebleness of its recruits and the decrepit age of its pontiffs; but
+if the church likes!).
+
+The continental war prevented young De Marsay from knowing his real
+father. It is doubtful whether he was aware of his name. A deserted
+child, he was equally ignorant of Madame de Marsay. Naturally, he had
+little regret for his putative father. As for Mademoiselle de Marsay,
+his only mother, he built for her a handsome little monument in Pere
+Lachaise when she died. Monseigneur de Maronis had guaranteed to this
+old lady one of the best places in the skies, so that when he saw her
+die happy, Henri gave her some egotistical tears; he began to weep on
+his own account. Observing this grief, the abbe dried his pupil's
+tears, bidding him observe that the good woman took her snuff most
+offensively, and was becoming so ugly and deaf and tedious that he
+ought to return thanks for her death. The bishop had emancipated his
+pupil in 1811. Then, when the mother of M. de Marsay remarried, the
+priest chose, in a family council, one of those honest dullards,
+picked out by him through the windows of his confessional, and charged
+him with the administration of the fortune, the revenues of which he
+was willing to apply to the needs of the community, but of which he
+wished to preserve the capital.
+
+Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
+obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although
+he had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a
+rule the most fastidious of his rivals considered him to be the
+prettiest youth in Paris. From his father, Lord Dudley, he had derived
+a pair of the most amorously deceiving blue eyes; from his mother the
+bushiest of black hair, from both pure blood, the skin of a young
+girl, a gentle and modest expression, a refined and aristocratic
+figure, and beautiful hands. For a woman, to see him was to lose her
+head for him; do you understand? to conceive one of those desires
+which eat the heart, which are forgotten because of the impossibility
+of satisfying them, because women in Paris are commonly without
+tenacity. Few of them say to themselves, after the fashion of men, the
+"_Je Maintiendrai_," of the House of Orange.
+
+Underneath this fresh young life, and in spite of the limpid springs
+in his eyes, Henri had a lion's courage, a monkey's agility. He could
+cut a ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his
+horse in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a
+four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb,
+but knew how to beat a townsman at the terrible game of _savate_ or
+cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have
+enabled him to become an artist should he fall on calamity, and owned
+a voice which would have been worth to Barbaja fifty thousand francs a
+season. Alas, that all these fine qualities, these pretty faults, were
+tarnished by one abominable vice: he believed neither in man nor
+woman, God nor Devil. Capricious nature had commenced by endowing him,
+a priest had completed the work.
+
+To render this adventure comprehensible, it is necessary to add here
+that Lord Dudley naturally found many women disposed to reproduce
+samples of such a delicious pattern. His second masterpiece of this
+kind was a young girl named Euphemie, born of a Spanish lady, reared
+in Havana, and brought to Madrid with a young Creole woman of the
+Antilles, and with all the ruinous tastes of the Colonies, but
+fortunately married to an old and extremely rich Spanish noble, Don
+Hijos, Marquis de San-Real, who, since the occupation of Spain by
+French troops, had taken up his abode in Paris, and lived in the Rue
+St. Lazare. As much from indifference as from any respect for the
+innocence of youth, Lord Dudley was not in the habit of keeping his
+children informed of the relations he created for them in all parts.
+That is a slightly inconvenient form of civilization; it has so many
+advantages that we must overlook its drawbacks in consideration of its
+benefits. Lord Dudley, to make no more words of it, came to Paris in
+1816 to take refuge from the pursuit of English justice, which
+protects nothing Oriental except commerce. The exiled lord, when he
+saw Henri, asked who that handsome young man might be. Then, upon
+hearing the name, "Ah, it is my son. . . . What a pity!" he said.
+
+Such was the story of the young man who, about the middle of the month
+of April, 1815, was walking indolently up the broad avenue of the
+Tuileries, after the fashion of all those animals who, knowing their
+strength, pass along in majesty and peace. Middle-class matrons turned
+back naively to look at him again; other women, without turning round,
+waited for him to pass again, and engraved him in their minds that
+they might remember in due season that fragrant face, which would not
+have disadorned the body of the fairest among themselves.
+
+"What are you doing here on Sunday?" said the Marquis de Ronquerolles
+to Henri, as he passed.
+
+"There's a fish in the net," answered the young man.
+
+This exchange of thoughts was accomplished by means of two significant
+glances, without it appearing that either De Ronquerolles or De Marsay
+had any knowledge of the other. The young man was taking note of the
+passers-by with that promptitude of eye and ear which is peculiar to
+the Parisian who seems, at first, to see and hear nothing, but who
+sees and hears all.
+
+At that moment a young man came up to him and took him familiarly by
+the arm, saying to him: "How are you, my dear De Marsay?"
+
+"Extremely well," De Marsay answered, with that air of apparent
+affection which amongst the young men of Paris proves nothing, either
+for the present or the future.
+
+In effect, the youth of Paris resemble the youth of no other town.
+They may be divided into two classes: the young man who has something,
+and the young man who has nothing; or the young man who thinks and he
+who spends. But, be it well understood this applies only to those
+natives of the soil who maintain in Paris the delicious course of the
+elegant life. There exist, as well, plenty of other young men, but
+they are children who are late in conceiving Parisian life, and who
+remain its dupes. They do not speculate, they study; they _fag_, as
+the others say. Finally there are to be found, besides, certain young
+people, rich or poor, who embrace careers and follow them with a
+single heart; they are somewhat like the Emile of Rousseau, of the
+flesh of citizens, and they never appear in society. The diplomatic
+impolitely dub them fools. Be they that or no, they augment the number
+of those mediocrities beneath the yoke of which France is bowed down.
+They are always there, always ready to bungle public or private
+concerns with the dull trowel of their mediocrity, bragging of their
+impotence, which they count for conduct and integrity. This sort of
+social _prizemen_ infests the administration, the army, the
+magistracy, the chambers, the courts. They diminish and level down the
+country and constitute, in some manner, in the body politic, a lymph
+which infects it and renders it flabby. These honest folk call men of
+talent immoral or rogues. If such rogues require to be paid for their
+services, at least their services are there; whereas the other sort do
+harm and are respected by the mob; but, happily for France, elegant
+youth stigmatizes them ceaselessly under the name of louts.
+
+At the first glance, then, it is natural to consider as very distinct
+the two sorts of young men who lead the life of elegance, the amiable
+corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who
+goes beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that
+the difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as
+this pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over
+everybody else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men,
+literature, and the fine arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and
+Coburg of each year; interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into
+ridicule science and the _savant_; despise all things which they do
+not know or which they fear; set themselves above all by constituting
+themselves the supreme judges of all. They would all hoax their
+fathers, and be ready to shed crocodile tears upon their mothers'
+breasts; but generally they believe in nothing, blaspheme women, or
+play at modesty, and in reality are led by some old woman or an evil
+courtesan. They are all equally eaten to the bone with calculation,
+with depravity, with a brutal lust to succeed, and if you plumbed for
+their hearts you would find in all a stone. In their normal state they
+have the prettiest exterior, stake their friendship at every turn, are
+captivating alike. The same badinage dominates their ever-changing
+jargon; they seek for oddity in their toilette, glory in repeating the
+stupidities of such and such actor who is in fashion, and commence
+operations, it matters not with whom, with contempt and impertinence,
+in order to have, as it were, the first move in the game; but, woe
+betide him who does not know how to take a blow on one cheek for the
+sake of rendering two. They resemble, in fine, that pretty white spray
+which crests the stormy waves. They dress and dance, dine and take
+their pleasure, on the day of Waterloo, in the time of cholera or
+revolution. Finally, their expenses are all the same, but here the
+contrast comes in. Of this fluctuating fortune, so agreeably flung
+away, some possess the capital for which the others wait; they have
+the same tailors, but the bills of the latter are still to pay. Next,
+if the first, like sieves, take in ideas of all kinds without
+retaining any, the latter compare them and assimilate all the good. If
+the first believe they know something, know nothing and understand
+everything, lend all to those who need nothing and offer nothing to
+those who are in need; the latter study secretly others' thoughts and
+place out their money, like their follies, at big interest. The one
+class have no more faithful impressions, because their soul, like a
+mirror, worn from use, no longer reflects any image; the others
+economize their senses and life, even while they seem, like the first,
+to be flinging them away broadcast. The first, on the faith of a hope,
+devote themselves without conviction to a system which has wind and
+tide against it, but they leap upon another political craft when the
+first goes adrift; the second take the measure of the future, sound
+it, and see in political fidelity what the English see in commercial
+integrity, an element of success. Where the young man of possessions
+makes a pun or an epigram upon the restoration of the throne, he who
+has nothing makes a public calculation or a secret reservation, and
+obtains everything by giving a handshake to his friends. The one deny
+every faculty to others, look upon all their ideas as new, as though
+the world had been made yesterday, they have unlimited confidence in
+themselves, and no crueler enemy than those same selves. But the
+others are armed with an incessant distrust of men, whom they estimate
+at their value, and are sufficiently profound to have one thought
+beyond their friends, whom they exploit; then of evenings, when they
+lay their heads on their pillows, they weigh men as a miser weighs his
+gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless impertinence, and allow
+themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic, who make them dance for
+them by pulling what is the main string of these puppets--their
+vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing have something,
+and those who had something have nothing. The latter look at their
+comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their hearts
+may be bad, but their heads are strong. "He is very strong!" is the
+supreme praise accorded to those who have attained _quibuscumque
+viis_, political rank, a woman, or a fortune. Amongst them are to be
+found certain young men who play this _role_ by commencing with having
+debts. Naturally, these are more dangerous than those who play it
+without a farthing.
+
+The young man who called himself a friend of Henri de Marsay was a
+rattle-head who had come from the provinces, and whom the young men
+then in fashion were teaching the art of running through an
+inheritance; but he had one last leg to stand on in his province, in
+the shape of a secure establishment. He was simply an heir who had
+passed without any transition from his pittance of a hundred francs a
+month to the entire paternal fortune, and who, if he had not wit
+enough to perceive that he was laughed at, was sufficiently cautious
+to stop short at two-thirds of his capital. He had learned at Paris,
+for a consideration of some thousands of francs, the exact value of
+harness, the art of not being too respectful to his gloves, learned to
+make skilful meditations upon the right wages to give people, and to
+seek out what bargain was the best to close with them. He set store on
+his capacity to speak in good terms of his horses, of his Pyrenean
+hound; to tell by her dress, her walk, her shoes, to what class a
+woman belonged; to study _ecarte_, remember a few fashionable
+catchwords, and win by his sojourn in Parisian society the necessary
+authority to import later into his province a taste for tea and silver
+of an English fashion, and to obtain the right of despising everything
+around him for the rest of his days.
+
+De Marsay had admitted him to his society in order to make use of him
+in the world, just as a bold speculator employs a confidential clerk.
+The friendship, real or feigned, of De Marsay was a social position
+for Paul de Manerville, who, on his side, thought himself astute in
+exploiting, after his fashion, his intimate friend. He lived in the
+reflecting lustre of his friend, walked constantly under his umbrella,
+wore his boots, gilded himself with his rays. When he posed in Henri's
+company or walked at his side, he had the air of saying: "Don't insult
+us, we are real dogs." He often permitted himself to remark fatuously:
+"If I were to ask Henri for such and such a thing, he is a good enough
+friend of mine to do it." But he was careful never to ask anything of
+him. He feared him, and his fear, although imperceptible, reacted upon
+the others, and was of use to De Marsay.
+
+"De Marsay is a man of a thousand," said Paul. "Ah, you will see, he
+will be what he likes. I should not be surprised to find him one of
+these days Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nothing can withstand him."
+
+He made of De Marsay what Corporal Trim made of his cap, a perpetual
+instance.
+
+"Ask De Marsay and you will see!"
+
+Or again:
+
+"The other day we were hunting, De Marsay and I, He would not believe
+me, but I jumped a hedge without moving on my horse!"
+
+Or again:
+
+"We were with some women, De Marsay and I, and upon my word of honor,
+I was----" etc.
+
+Thus Paul de Manerville could not be classed amongst the great,
+illustrious, and powerful family of fools who succeed. He would one
+day be a deputy. For the time he was not even a young man. His friend,
+De Marsay, defined him thus: "You ask me what is Paul? Paul? Why, Paul
+de Manerville!"
+
+"I am surprised, my dear fellow," he said to De Marsay, "to see you
+here on a Sunday."
+
+"I was going to ask you the same question."
+
+"Is it an intrigue?"
+
+"An intrigue."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"I can mention it to you without compromising my passion. Besides, a
+woman who comes to the Tuileries on Sundays is of no account,
+aristocratically speaking."
+
+"Ah! ah!"
+
+"Hold your tongue then, or I shall tell you nothing. Your laugh is too
+loud, you will make people think that we have lunched too well. Last
+Thursday, here on the Terrasse des Feuillants, I was walking along,
+thinking of nothing at all, but when I got to the gate of the Rue de
+Castiglione, by which I intended to leave, I came face to face with a
+woman, or rather a young girl; who, if she did not throw herself at my
+head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one
+of those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep
+down the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet,
+to nail you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this
+nature, a sort of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful
+when the relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this
+was not stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her
+face seemed to say: 'What, is it you, my ideal! The creation of my
+thoughts, of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why
+this morning? Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, _et cetera_!'
+Good, I said to myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my
+dear fellow, speaking physically, my incognita is the most adorable
+feminine person whom I ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety
+which the Romans call _fulva, flava_--the woman of fire. And in chief,
+what struck me the most, what I am still taken with, are her two
+yellow eyes, like a tiger's, a golden yellow that gleams, living gold,
+gold which thinks, gold which loves, and is determined to take refuge
+in your pocket."
+
+"My dear fellow, we are full of her!" cried Paul. "She comes here
+sometimes--_the girl with the golden eyes_! That is the name we have
+given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
+have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who
+was worth a hundred thousand of her."
+
+"Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl;
+she is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl
+with ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy
+threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks
+a white down whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and
+loses itself on her neck."
+
+"Ah, the other, my dear De Marsay! She has black eyes which have never
+wept, but which burn; black eyebrows which meet and give her an air of
+hardness contradicted by the compact curve of her lips, on which the
+kisses do not stay, lips burning and fresh; a Moorish color that warms
+a man like the sun. But--upon my word of honor, she is like you!"
+
+"You flatter her!"
+
+"A firm figure, the tapering figure of a corvette built for speed,
+which rushes down upon the merchant vessel with French impetuosity,
+which grapples with her and sinks her at the same time."
+
+"After all, my dear fellow," answered De Marsay, "what has that got to
+do with me, since I have never seen her? Ever since I have studied
+women, my incognita is the only one whose virginal bosom, whose ardent
+and voluptuous forms, have realized for me the only woman of my dreams
+--of my dreams! She is the original of that ravishing picture called
+_La Femme Caressant sa Chimere_, the warmest, the most infernal
+inspiration of the genius of antiquity; a holy poem prostituted by
+those who have copied it for frescoes and mosiacs; for a heap of
+bourgeois who see in this gem nothing more than a gew-gaw and hang it
+on their watch-chains--whereas, it is the whole woman, an abyss of
+pleasure into which one plunges and finds no end; whereas, it is the
+ideal woman, to be seen sometimes in reality in Spain or Italy, almost
+never in France. Well, I have again seen this girl of the gold eyes,
+this woman caressing her chimera. I saw her on Friday. I had a
+presentiment that on the following day she would be here at the same
+hour; I was not mistaken. I have taken a pleasure in following her
+without being observed, in studying her indolent walk, the walk of the
+woman without occupation, but in the movements of which one devines
+all the pleasure that lies asleep. Well, she turned back again, she
+saw me, once more she adored me, once more trembled, shivered. It was
+then I noticed the genuine Spanish duenna who looked after her, a
+hyena upon whom some jealous man has put a dress, a she-devil well
+paid, no doubt, to guard this delicious creature. . . . Ah, then the
+duenna made me deeper in love. I grew curious. On Saturday, nobody.
+And here I am to-day waiting for this girl whose chimera I am, asking
+nothing better than to pose as the monster in the fresco."
+
+"There she is," said Paul. "Every one is turning round to look at
+her."
+
+The unknown blushed, her eyes shone; she saw Henri, she shut them and
+passed by.
+
+"You say that she notices you?" cried Paul, facetiously.
+
+The duenna looked fixedly and attentively at the two young men. When
+the unknown and Henri passed each other again, the young girl touched
+him, and with her hand pressed the hand of the young man. Then she
+turned her head and smiled with passion, but the duenna led her away
+very quickly to the gate of the Rue de Castiglione.
+
+The two friends followed the young girl, admiring the magnificent
+grace of the neck which met her head in a harmony of vigorous lines,
+and upon which a few coils of hair were tightly wound. The girl with
+the golden eyes had that well-knitted, arched, slender foot which
+presents so many attractions to the dainty imagination. Moreover, she
+was shod with elegance, and wore a short skirt. During her course she
+turned from time to time to look at Henri, and appeared to follow the
+old woman regretfully, seeming to be at once her mistress and her
+slave; she could break her with blows, but could not dismiss her. All
+that was perceptible. The two friends reached the gate. Two men in
+livery let down the step of a tasteful _coupe_ emblazoned with
+armorial bearings. The girl with the golden eyes was the first to
+enter it, took her seat at the side where she could be best seen when
+the carriage turned, put her hand on the door, and waved her
+handkerchief in the duennna's despite. In contempt of what might be
+said by the curious, her handkerchief cried to Henri openly: "Follow
+me!"
+
+"Have you ever seen a handkerchief better thrown?" said Henri to Paul
+de Manerville.
+
+Then, observing a fiacre on the point of departure, having just set
+down a fare, he made a sign to the driver to wait.
+
+"Follow that carriage, notice the house and the street where it stops
+--you shall have ten francs. . . . Paul, adieu."
+
+The cab followed the _coupe_. The _coupe_ stopped in the Rue Saint
+Lazare before one of the finest houses of the neighborhood.
+
+De Marsay was not impulsive. Any other young man would have obeyed his
+impulse to obtain at once some information about a girl who realized
+so fully the most luminous ideas ever expressed upon women in the
+poetry of the East; but, too experienced to compromise his good
+fortune, he had told his coachman to continue along the Rue Saint
+Lazare and carry him back to his house. The next day, his confidential
+valet, Laurent by name, as cunning a fellow as the Frontin of the old
+comedy, waited in the vicinity of the house inhabited by the unknown
+for the hour at which letters were distributed. In order to be able to
+spy at his ease and hang about the house, he had followed the example
+of those police officers who seek a good disguise, and bought up
+cast-off clothes of an Auvergnat, the appearance of whom he sought to
+imitate. When the postman, who went the round of the Rue Saint Lazare
+that morning, passed by, Laurent feigned to be a porter unable to
+remember the name of a person to whom he had to deliver a parcel, and
+consulted the postman. Deceived at first by appearances, this
+personage, so picturesque in the midst of Parisian civilization,
+informed him that the house in which the girl with the golden eyes
+dwelt belonged to Don Hijos, Marquis de San-Real, grandee of Spain.
+Naturally, it was not with the Marquis that the Auvergnat was
+concerned.
+
+"My parcel," he said, "is for the marquise."
+
+"She is away," replied the postman. "Her letters are forwarded to
+London."
+
+"Then the marquise is not a young girl who . . . ?"
+
+"Ah!" said the postman, interrupting the _valet de chambre_ and
+observing him attentively, "you are as much a porter as I'm . . ."
+
+Laurent chinked some pieces of gold before the functionary, who began
+to smile.
+
+"Come, here's the name of your quarry," he said, taking from his
+leather wallet a letter bearing a London stamp, upon which the
+address, "To Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes, Rue Saint Lazare, Hotel
+San-Real, Paris," was written in long, fine characters, which spoke
+of a woman's hand.
+
+"Could you tap a bottle of Chablis, with a few dozen oysters, and a
+_filet saute_ with mushrooms to follow it?" said Laurent, who wished
+to win the postman's valuable friendship.
+
+"At half-past nine, when my round is finished---- Where?"
+
+"At the corner of the Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin and the Rue
+Neuve-des-Mathurins, at the _Puits sans Vin_," said Laurent.
+
+"Hark ye, my friend," said the postman, when he rejoined the valet an
+hour after this encounter, "if your master is in love with the girl,
+he is in for a famous task. I doubt you'll not succeed in seeing her.
+In the ten years that I've been postman in Paris, I have seen plenty
+of different kinds of doors! But I can tell you, and no fear of being
+called a liar by any of my comrades, there never was a door so
+mysterious as M. de San-Real's. No one can get into the house without
+the Lord knows what counter-word; and, notice, it has been selected on
+purpose between a courtyard and a garden to avoid any communication
+with other houses. The porter is an old Spaniard, who never speaks a
+word of French, but peers at people as Vidocq might, to see if they
+are not thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you--I make no comparisons
+--could get the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall,
+which is shut by a glazed door, you would run across a butler
+surrounded by lackeys, an old joker more savage and surly even than
+the porter. If any one gets past the porter's lodge, my butler comes
+out, waits for you at the entrance, and puts you through a
+cross-examination like a criminal. That has happened to me, a mere
+postman. He took me for an eavesdropper in disguise, he said, laughing
+at his nonsense. As for the servants, don't hope to get aught out of
+them; I think they are mutes, no one in the neighborhood knows the
+color of their speech; I don't know what wages they can pay them to
+keep them from talk and drink; the fact is, they are not to be got at,
+whether because they are afraid of being shot, or that they have some
+enormous sum to lose in the case of an indiscretion. If your master is
+fond enough of Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes to surmount all these
+obstacles, he certainly won't triumph over Dona Concha Marialva, the
+duenna who accompanies her and would put her under her petticoats
+sooner than leave her. The two women look as if they were sewn to one
+another."
+
+"All that you say, worthy postman," went on Laurent, after having
+drunk off his wine, "confirms me in what I have learned before. Upon
+my word, I thought they were making fun of me! The fruiterer opposite
+told me that of nights they let loose dogs whose food is hung up on
+stakes just out of their reach. These cursed animals think, therefore,
+that any one likely to come in has designs on their victuals, and
+would tear one to pieces. You will tell me one might throw them down
+pieces, but it seems they have been trained to touch nothing except
+from the hand of the porter."
+
+"The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top
+that of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing," replied the
+postman.
+
+"Good! my master knows him," said Laurent, to himself. "Do you know,"
+he went on, leering at the postman, "I serve a master who is a rare
+man, and if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of
+an empress, she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you,
+which is what I wish for you, for he is generous, could one count on
+you?"
+
+"Lord, Monsieur Laurent, my name is Moinot. My name is written exactly
+like _Moineau_, magpie: M-o-i-n-o-t, Moinot."
+
+"Exactly," said Laurent.
+
+"I live at No. 11, Rue des Trois Freres, on the fifth floor," went on
+Moinot; "I have a wife and four children. If what you want of me
+doesn't transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties,
+you understand! I am your man."
+
+"You are an honest fellow," said Laurent, shaking his hand. . . .
+
+"Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real,
+the friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty
+years is capable of taking such precautions," said Henri, when his
+_valet de chambre_ had related the result of his researches.
+
+"Monsieur," said Laurent, "unless he takes a balloon no one can get
+into that hotel."
+
+"You are a fool! Is it necessary to get into the hotel to have
+Paquita, when Paquita can get out of it?"
+
+"But, sir, the duenna?"
+
+"We will shut her up for a day or two, your duenna."
+
+"So, we shall have Paquita!" said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
+
+"Rascal!" answered Henri, "I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
+carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
+become mine. . . . Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."
+
+Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say
+it to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to
+desire. And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who
+should have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is
+the intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of
+the soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two
+real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to
+grow weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown
+very weary indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he
+brought back more grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates,
+to implore of Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which
+should ask the employment of his dormant moral and physical strength.
+Although Paquita Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration
+of perfections which he had only yet enjoyed in detail, the attraction
+of passion was almost _nil_ with him. Constant satiety had weakened in
+his heart the sentiment of love. Like old men and people
+disillusioned, he had no longer anything but extravagant caprices,
+ruinous tastes, fantasies, which, once satisfied, left no pleasant
+memory in his heart. Amongst young people love is the finest of the
+emotions, it makes the life of the soul blossom, it nourishes by its
+solar power the finest inspirations and their great thoughts; the
+first fruits in all things have a delicious savor. Amongst men love
+becomes a passion; strength leads to abuse. Amongst old men it turns
+to vice; impotence tends to extremes. Henri was at once an old man, a
+man, and a youth. To afford him the feelings of a real love, he needed
+like Lovelace, a Clarissa Harlowe. Without the magic lustre of that
+unattainable pearl he could only have either passions rendered acute
+by some Parisian vanity, or set determinations with himself to bring
+such and such a woman to such and such a point of corruption, or else
+adventures which stimulated his curiosity.
+
+The report of Laurent, his _valet de chambre_ had just given an
+enormous value to the girl with the golden eyes. It was a question of
+doing battle with some secret enemy who seemed as dangerous as he was
+cunning; and to carry off the victory, all the forces which Henri
+could dispose of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal
+old comedy which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are
+an old man, a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay.
+If Laurent was the equal of Figaro, the duenna seemed incorruptible.
+Thus, the living play was supplied by Chance with a stronger plot than
+it had ever been by dramatic author! But then is not Chance too, a man
+of genius?
+
+"It must be a cautious game," said Henri, to himself.
+
+"Well," said Paul de Manerville, as he entered the room. "How are we
+getting on? I have come to breakfast with you."
+
+"So be it," said Henri. "You won't be shocked if I make my toilette
+before you?"
+
+"How absurd!"
+
+"We take so many things from the English just now that we might well
+become as great prudes and hypocrites as themselves," said Henri.
+
+Laurent had set before his master such a quantity of utensils, so many
+different articles of such elegance, that Paul could not refrain from
+saying:
+
+"But you will take a couple of hours over that?"
+
+"No!" said Henri, "two hours and a half."
+
+"Well, then, since we are by ourselves, and can say what we like,
+explain to me why a man as superior as yourself--for you are superior
+--should affect to exaggerate a foppery which cannot be natural. Why
+spend two hours and a half in adorning yourself, when it is sufficient
+to spend a quarter of an hour in your bath, to do your hair in two
+minutes, and to dress! There, tell me your system."
+
+"I must be very fond of you, my good dunce, to confide such high
+thoughts to you," said the young man, who was at that moment having
+his feet rubbed with a soft brush lathered with English soap.
+
+"Have I not the most devoted attachment to you," replied Paul de
+Manerville, "and do I not like you because I know your
+superiority? . . ."
+
+"You must have noticed, if you are in the least capable of observing
+any moral fact, that women love fops," went on De Marsay, without
+replying in any way to Paul's declaration except by a look. "Do you
+know why women love fops? My friend, fops are the only men who take
+care of themselves. Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it
+not imply that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another?
+The man who does not belong to himself is precisely the man on whom
+women are keen. Love is essentially a thief. I say nothing about that
+excess of niceness to which they are so devoted. Do you know of any
+woman who has had a passion for a sloven, even if he were a remarkable
+man? If such a fact has occurred, we must put it to the account of
+those morbid affections of the breeding woman, mad fancies which float
+through the minds of everybody. On the other hand, I have seen most
+remarkable people left in the lurch because of their carelessness. A
+fop, who is concerned about his person, is concerned with folly, with
+petty things. And what is a woman? A petty thing, a bundle of follies.
+With two words said to the winds, can you not make her busy for four
+hours? She is sure that the fop will be occupied with her, seeing that
+he has no mind for great things. She will never be neglected for
+glory, ambition, politics, art--those prostitutes who for her are
+rivals. Then fops have the courage to cover themselves with ridicule
+in order to please a woman, and her heart is full of gratitude towards
+the man who is ridiculous for love. In fine, a fop can be no fop
+unless he is right in being one. It is women who bestow that rank. The
+fop is love's colonel; he has his victories, his regiment of women at
+his command. My dear fellow, in Paris everything is known, and a man
+cannot be a fop there _gratis_. You, who have only one woman, and who,
+perhaps, are right to have but one, try to act the fop! . . . You will
+not even become ridiculous, you will be dead. You will become a
+foregone conclusion, one of those men condemned inevitably to do one
+and the same thing. You will come to signify _folly_ as inseparably as
+M. de La Fayette signifies _America_; M. de Talleyrand, _diplomacy_;
+Desaugiers, _song_; M. de Segur, _romance_. If they once forsake their
+own line people no longer attach any value to what they do. So,
+foppery, my friend Paul, is the sign of an incontestable power over
+the female folk. A man who is loved by many women passes for having
+superior qualities, and then, poor fellow, it is a question who shall
+have him! But do you think it is nothing to have the right of going
+into a drawing-room, of looking down at people from over your cravat,
+or through your eye-glass, and of despising the most superior of men
+should he wear an old-fashioned waistcoat? . . . Laurent, you are
+hurting me! After breakfast, Paul, we will go to the Tuileries and see
+the adorable girl with the golden eyes."
+
+When, after making an excellent meal, the two young men had traversed
+the Terrasse de Feuillants and the broad walk of the Tuileries, they
+nowhere discovered the sublime Paquita Valdes, on whose account some
+fifty of the most elegant young men in Paris where to be seen, all
+scented, with their high scarfs, spurred and booted, riding, walking,
+talking, laughing, and damning themselves mightily.
+
+"It's a white Mass," said Henri; "but I have the most excellent idea
+in the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must
+be bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a
+love-letter slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant,
+_crudel tirano_, is certain to know the person who writes the letters
+from London, and has ceased to be suspicious of them."
+
+The day after, De Marsay came again to walk on the Terrasse des
+Feuillants, and saw Paquita Valdes; already passion had embellished
+her for him. Seriously, he was wild for those eyes, whose rays seemed
+akin to those which the sun emits, and whose ardor set the seal upon
+that of her perfect body, in which all was delight. De Marsay was on
+fire to brush the dress of this enchanting girl as they passed one
+another in their walk; but his attempts were always vain. But at one
+moment, when he had repassed Paquita and the duenna, in order to find
+himself on the same side as the girl of the golden eyes, when he
+returned, Paquita, no less impatient, came forward hurriedly, and De
+Marsay felt his hand pressed by her in a fashion at once so swift and
+so passionately significant that it was as though he had received the
+emotions surged up in his heart. When the two lovers glanced at one
+another, Paquita seemed ashamed, she dropped her eyes lest she should
+meet the eyes of Henri, but her gaze sank lower to fasten on the feet
+and form of him whom women, before the Revolution, called _their
+conqueror_.
+
+"I am determined to make this girl my mistress," said Henri to
+himself.
+
+As he followed her along the terrace, in the direction of the Place
+Louis XV., he caught sight of the aged Marquis de San-Real, who was
+walking on the arm of his valet, stepping with all the precautions due
+to gout and decrepitude. Dona Concha, who distrusted Henri, made
+Paquita pass between herself and the old man.
+
+"Oh, for you," said De Marsay to himself, casting a glance of disdain
+upon the duenna, "if one cannot make you capitulate, with a little
+opium one can make you sleep. We know mythology and the fable of
+Argus."
+
+Before entering the carriage, the golden-eyed girl exchanged certain
+glances with her lover, of which the meaning was unmistakable and
+which enchanted Henri, but one of them was surprised by the duenna;
+she said a few rapid words to Paquita, who threw herself into the
+_coupe_ with an air of desperation. For some days Paquita did not
+appear in the Tuileries. Laurent, who by his master's orders was on
+watch by the hotel, learned from the neighbors that neither the two
+women nor the aged marquis had been abroad since the day upon which
+the duenna had surprised a glance between the young girl in her charge
+and Henri. The bond, so flimsy withal, which united the two lovers was
+already severed.
+
+Some days later, none knew by what means, De Marsay had attained his
+end; he had a seal and wax, exactly resembling the seal and wax
+affixed to the letters sent to Mademoiselle Valdes from London; paper
+similar to that which her correspondent used; moreover, all the
+implements and stamps necessary to affix the French and English
+postmarks.
+
+He wrote the following letter, to which he gave all the appearances of
+a letter sent from London:--
+
+
+  "MY DEAR PAQUITA,--I shall not try to paint to you in words the
+  passion with which you have inspired me. If, to my happiness, you
+  reciprocate it, understand that I have found a means of
+  corresponding with you. My name is Adolphe de Gouges, and I live
+  at No. 54 Rue de l'Universite. If you are too closely watched to
+  be able to write to me, if you have neither pen nor paper, I shall
+  understand it by your silence. If then, to-morrow, you have not,
+  between eight o'clock in the morning and ten o'clock in the
+  evening, thrown a letter over the wall of your garden into that of
+  the Baron de Nucingen, where it will be waited for during the
+  whole of the day, a man, who is entirely devoted to me, will let
+  down two flasks by a string over your wall at ten o'clock the next
+  morning. Be walking there at that hour. One of the two flasks will
+  contain opium to send your Argus to sleep; it will be sufficient
+  to employ six drops; the other will contain ink. The flask of ink
+  is of cut glass; the other is plain. Both are of such a size as
+  can easily be concealed within your bosom. All that I have already
+  done, in order to be able to correspond with you, should tell you
+  how greatly I love you. Should you have any doubt of it, I will
+  confess to you, that to obtain an interview of one hour with you I
+  would give my life."
+
+
+"At least they believe that, poor creatures!" said De Marsay; "but
+they are right. What should we think of a woman who refused to be
+beguiled by a love-letter accompanied by such convincing accessories?"
+
+This letter was delivered by Master Moinot, postman, on the following
+day, about eight o'clock in the morning, to the porter of the Hotel
+San-Real.
+
+In order to be nearer to the field of action, De Marsay went and
+breakfasted with Paul, who lived in the Rue de la Pepiniere. At two
+o'clock, just as the two friends were laughingly discussing the
+discomfiture of a young man who had attempted to lead the life of
+fashion without a settled income, and were devising an end for him,
+Henri's coachman came to seek his master at Paul's house, and
+presented to him a mysterious personage who insisted on speaking
+himself with his master.
+
+This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a
+model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did
+any African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready
+suspicion, the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength
+of the Moor, and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had
+the fixity of the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a
+vulture's, by a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low
+and narrow, had something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the
+yoke of some single and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not belong
+to him.
+
+He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those
+who shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint
+in the single phrase: _He was an unfortunate man_. From this phrase,
+everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each
+country. But who can best imagine his face--white and wrinkled, red at
+the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow
+scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock
+coat, his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his
+imitation gold pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were
+plastered in mud? Who will see all that but the Parisian? The
+unfortunate man of Paris is the unfortunate man _in toto_, for he has
+still enough mirth to know the extent of his misfortune. The mulatto
+was like an executioner of Louis XI. leading a man to the gallows.
+
+"Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?" said Henri.
+
+"Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder," replied Paul.
+
+"Who are you--you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the
+two?" said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man.
+
+The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a
+man who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something
+from the gestures and movements of the lips.
+
+"I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de
+Justice, and am named Poincet."
+
+"Good! . . . and this one?" said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
+mulatto.
+
+"I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish _patois_, and he has
+brought me here to make himself understood by you."
+
+The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
+Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
+
+"Ah--so--the game is beginning," said Henri to himself. "Paul, leave
+us alone for a moment."
+
+"I translated this letter for him," went on the interpreter, when they
+were alone. "When it was translated, he was in some place which I
+don't remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two
+_louis_ to fetch him here."
+
+"What have you to say to me, nigger?" asked Henri.
+
+"I did not translate _nigger_," said the interpreter, waiting for the
+mulatto's reply. . . .
+
+"He said, sir," went on the interpreter, after having listened to the
+unknown, "that you must be at half-past ten to-morrow night on the
+boulevard Montmartre, near the cafe. You will see a carriage there, in
+which you must take your place, saying to the man, who will wait to
+open the door for you, the word _cortejo_--a Spanish word, which means
+_lover_," added Poincet, casting a glance of congratulation upon
+Henri.
+
+"Good."
+
+The mulatto was about to bestow the two _louis_, but De Marsay would
+not permit it, and himself rewarded the interpreter. As he was paying
+him, the mulatto began to speak.
+
+"What is he saying?"
+
+"He is warning me," replied the unfortunate, "that if I commit a
+single indiscretion he will strangle me. He speaks fair and he looks
+remarkably as if he were capable of carrying out his threat."
+
+"I am sure of it," answered Henri; "he would keep his word."
+
+"He says, as well," replied the interpreter, "that the person from
+whom he is sent implores you, for your sake and for hers, to act with
+the greatest prudence, because the daggers which are raised above your
+head would strike your heart before any human power could save you
+from them."
+
+"He said that? So much the better, it will be more amusing. You can
+come in now, Paul," he cried to his friend.
+
+The mulatto, who had not ceased to gaze at the lover of Paquita Valdes
+with magnetic attention, went away, followed by the interpreter.
+
+"Well, at last I have an adventure which is entirely romantic," said
+Henri, when Paul returned. "After having shared in a certain number I
+have finished by finding in Paris an intrigue accompanied by serious
+accidents, by grave perils. The deuce! what courage danger gives a
+woman! To torment a woman, to try and contradict her--doesn't it give
+her the right and the courage to scale in one moment obstacles which
+it would take her years to surmount of herself? Pretty creature, jump
+then! To die? Poor child! Daggers? Oh, imagination of women! They
+cannot help trying to find authority for their little jests. Besides,
+can one think of it, Paquita? Can one think of it, my child? The devil
+take me, now that I know this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of
+nature, is mine, the adventure has lost its charm."
+
+For all his light words, the youth in Henri had reappeared. In order
+to live until the morrow without too much pain, he had recourse to
+exorbitant pleasure; he played, dined, supped with his friends; he
+drank like a fish, ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand
+francs. He left the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock in the morning,
+slept like a child, awoke the next morning fresh and rosy, and dressed
+to go to the Tuileries, with the intention of taking a ride, after
+having seen Paquita, in order to get himself an appetite and dine the
+better, and so kill the time.
+
+At the hour mentioned Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage,
+and gave the counter-word to a man who looked to him like the mulatto.
+Hearing the word, the man opened the door and quickly let down the
+step. Henri was so rapidly carried through Paris, and his thoughts
+left him so little capacity to pay attention to the streets through
+which he passed, that he did not know where the carriage stopped. The
+mulatto let him into a house, the staircase of which was quite close
+to the entrance. This staircase was dark, as was also the landing upon
+which Henri was obliged to wait while the mulatto was opening the door
+of a damp apartment, fetid and unlit, the chambers of which, barely
+illuminated by the candle which his guide found in the ante-chamber,
+seemed to him empty and ill furnished, like those of a house the
+inhabitants of which are away. He recognized the sensation which he
+had experienced from the perusal of one of those romances of Anne
+Radcliffe, in which the hero traverses the cold, sombre, and
+uninhabited saloons of some sad and desert spot.
+
+At last the mulatto opened the door of a _salon_. The condition of the
+old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was
+adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame.
+There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of
+things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red
+Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was
+buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by
+one of those turbans which English women of a certain age have
+invented and which would have a mighty success in China, where the
+artist's ideal is the monstrous.
+
+The room, the old woman, the cold hearth, all would have chilled love
+to death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose
+voluptuous wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free
+to show her arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first
+interview was what every _rendezvous_ must be between persons of
+passionate disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly,
+who desire each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know
+each other. It is impossible that at first there should not occur
+certain discordant notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until
+the moment when two souls find themselves in unison.
+
+If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint
+aside, the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great
+may be her love, is afraid of arriving at the end so promptly, and
+face to face with the necessity of giving herself, which to many women
+is equivalent to a fall into an abyss, at the bottom of which they
+know not what they shall find. The involuntary coldness of the woman
+contrasts with her confessed passion, and necessarily reacts upon the
+most passionate lover. Thus ideas, which often float around souls like
+vapors, determine in them a sort of temporary malady. In the sweet
+journey which two beings undertake through the fair domains of love,
+this moment is like a waste land to be traversed, a land without a
+tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed
+by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad with roses, where Love
+and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on carpets of soft
+verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with a foolish
+laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it were,
+suffocated beneath the icy pressure of his desires. It would not be
+impossible for two beings of equal beauty, intelligence, and passion
+to utter at first nothing but the most silly commonplaces, until
+chance, a word, the tremor of a certain glance, the communication of a
+spark, should have brought them to the happy transition which leads to
+that flowery way in which one does not walk, but where one sways and
+at the same time does not lapse.
+
+Such a state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the
+feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing
+similar. The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that
+which is produced by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first
+view, appears to be covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the
+firmament seems black, the intensity of light is like darkness. With
+Henri, as with the Spanish girl, there was an equal intensity of
+feeling; and that law of statics, in virtue of which two identical
+forces cancel each other, might have been true also in the moral
+order. And the embarrassment of the moment was singularly increased by
+the presence of the old hag. Love takes pleasure or fright at all, all
+has meaning for it, everything is an omen of happiness or sorrow for
+it.
+
+This decrepit woman was there like a suggestion of catastrophe, and
+represented the horrid fish's tail with which the allegorical geniuses
+of Greece have terminated their chimeras and sirens, whose figures,
+like all passions, are so seductive, so deceptive.
+
+Although Henri was not a free-thinker--the phrase is always a mockery
+--but a man of extraordinary power, a man as great as a man can be
+without faith, the conjunction struck him. Moreover, the strongest men
+are naturally the most impressionable, and consequently the most
+superstitious, if, indeed, one may call superstition the prejudice of
+the first thoughts, which, without doubt, is the appreciation of the
+result in causes hidden to other eyes but perceptible to their own.
+
+The Spanish girl profited by this moment of stupefaction to let
+herself fall into the ecstasy of that infinite adoration which seizes
+the heart of a woman, when she truly loves and finds herself in the
+presence of an idol for whom she has vainly longed. Her eyes were all
+joy, all happiness, and sparks flew from them. She was under the
+charm, and fearlessly intoxicated herself with a felicity of which she
+had dreamed long. She seemed then so marvelously beautiful to Henri,
+that all this phantasmagoria of rags and old age, of worn red drapery
+and of the green mats in front of the armchairs, the ill-washed red
+tiles, all this sick and dilapidated luxury, disappeared.
+
+The room seemed lit up; and it was only through a cloud that one could
+see the fearful harpy fixed and dumb on her red sofa, her yellow eyes
+betraying the servile sentiments, inspired by misfortune, or caused by
+some vice beneath whose servitude one has fallen as beneath a tyrant
+who brutalizes one with the flagellations of his despotism. Her eyes
+had the cold glitter of a caged tiger, knowing his impotence and being
+compelled to swallow his rage of destruction.
+
+"Who is that woman?" said Henri to Paquita.
+
+But Paquita did not answer. She made a sign that she understood no
+French, and asked Henri if he spoke English.
+
+De Marsay repeated his question in English.
+
+"She is the only woman in whom I can confide, although she has sold me
+already," said Paquita, tranquilly. "My dear Adolphe, she is my
+mother, a slave bought in Georgia for her rare beauty, little enough
+of which remains to-day. She only speaks her native tongue."
+
+The attitude of this woman and her eagerness to guess from the
+gestures of her daughter and Henri what was passing between them, were
+suddenly explained to the young man; and this explanation put him at
+his ease.
+
+"Paquita," he said, "are we never to be free then?"
+
+"Never," she said, with an air of sadness. "Even now we have but a few
+days before us."
+
+She lowered her eyes, looked at and counted with her right hand on the
+fingers of her left, revealing so the most beautiful hands which Henri
+had ever seen.
+
+"One, two, three----"
+
+She counted up to twelve.
+
+"Yes," she said, "we have twelve days."
+
+"And after?"
+
+"After," she said, showing the absorption of a weak woman before the
+executioner's axe, and slain in advance, as it were, by a fear which
+stripped her of that magnificent energy which Nature seemed to have
+bestowed upon her only to aggrandize pleasure and convert the most
+vulgar delights into endless poems. "After----" she repeated. Her eyes
+took a fixed stare; she seemed to contemplate a threatening object far
+away.
+
+"I do not know," she said.
+
+"This girl is mad," said Henri to himself, falling into strange
+reflections.
+
+Paquita appeared to him occupied by something which was not himself,
+like a woman constrained equally by remorse and passion. Perhaps she
+had in her heart another love which she alternately remembered and
+forgot. In a moment Henri was assailed by a thousand contradictory
+thoughts. This girl became a mystery for him; but as he contemplated
+her with the scientific attention of the _blase_ man, famished for new
+pleasures, like that Eastern king who asked that a pleasure should be
+created for him,--a horrible thirst with which great souls are seized,
+--Henri recognized in Paquita the richest organization that Nature had
+ever deigned to compose for love. The presumptive play of this
+machinery, setting aside the soul, would have frightened any other man
+than Henri; but he was fascinated by that rich harvest of promised
+pleasures, by that constant variety in happiness, the dream of every
+man, and the desire of every loving woman too. He was infuriated by
+the infinite rendered palpable, and transported into the most
+excessive raptures of which the creature is capable. All that he saw
+in this girl more distinctly than he had yet seen it, for she let
+herself be viewed complacently, happy to be admired. The admiration of
+De Marsay became a secret fury, and he unveiled her completely,
+throwing a glance at her which the Spaniard understood as though she
+had been used to receive such.
+
+"If you are not to be mine, mine only, I will kill you!" he cried.
+
+Hearing this speech, Paquita covered her face in her hands, and cried
+naively:
+
+"Holy Virgin! What have I brought upon myself?"
+
+She rose, flung herself down upon the red sofa, and buried her head in
+the rags which covered the bosom of her mother, and wept there. The
+old woman received her daughter without issuing from her state of
+immobility, or displaying any emotion. The mother possessed in the
+highest degree that gravity of savage races, the impassiveness of a
+statue upon which all remarks are lost. Did she or did she not love
+her daughter? Beneath that mask every human emotion might brood--good
+and evil; and from this creature all might be expected. Her gaze
+passed slowly from her daughter's beautiful hair, which covered her
+like a mantle, to the face of Henri, which she considered with an
+indescribable curiosity.
+
+She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice
+Nature had made so seductive a man.
+
+"These women are making sport of me," said Henri to himself.
+
+At that moment Paquita raised her head, cast at him one of those looks
+which reach the very soul and consume it. So beautiful seemed she that
+he swore he would possess such a treasure of beauty.
+
+"My Paquita! Be mine!"
+
+"Wouldst thou kill me?" she said fearfully, palpitating and anxious,
+but drawn towards him by an inexplicable force.
+
+"Kill thee--I!" he said, smiling.
+
+Paquita uttered a cry of alarm, said a word to the old woman, who
+authoritatively seized Henri's hand and that of her daughter. She
+gazed at them for a long time, and then released them, wagging her
+head in a fashion horribly significant.
+
+"Be mine--this evening, this moment; follow me, do not leave me! It
+must be, Paquita! Dost thou love me? Come!"
+
+In a moment he had poured out a thousand foolish words to her, with
+the rapidity of a torrent coursing between the rocks, and repeating
+the same sound in a thousand different forms.
+
+"It is the same voice!" said Paquita, in a melancholy voice, which De
+Marsay could not overhear, "and the same ardor," she added. "So be
+it--yes," she said, with an abandonment of passion which no words can
+describe. "Yes; but not to-night. To-night Adolphe, I gave too little
+opium to La Concha. She might wake up, and I should be lost. At this
+moment the whole household believes me to be asleep in my room. In two
+days be at the same spot, say the same word to the same man. That man
+is my foster-father. Cristemio worships me, and would die in torments
+for me before they could extract one word against me from him.
+Farewell," she said seizing Henri by the waist and twining round him
+like a serpent.
+
+She pressed him on every side at once, lifted her head to his, and
+offered him her lips, then snatched a kiss which filled them both with
+such a dizziness that it seemed to Henri as though the earth opened;
+and Paquita cried: "Enough, depart!" in a voice which told how little
+she was mistress of herself. But she clung to him still, still crying
+"Depart!" and brought him slowly to the staircase. There the mulatto,
+whose white eyes lit up at the sight of Paquita, took the torch from
+the hands of his idol, and conducted Henri to the street. He left the
+light under the arch, opened the door, put Henri into the carriage,
+and set him down on the Boulevard des Italiens with marvelous
+rapidity. It was as though the horses had hell-fire in their veins.
+
+The scene was like a dream to De Marsay, but one of those dreams
+which, even when they fade away, leave a feeling of supernatural
+voluptuousness, which a man runs after for the remainder of his life.
+A single kiss had been enough. Never had _rendezvous_ been spent in a
+manner more decorous or chaste, or, perhaps, more coldly, in a spot of
+which the surroundings were more gruesome, in presence of a more
+hideous divinity; for the mother had remained in Henri's imagination
+like some infernal, cowering thing, cadaverous, monstrous, savagely
+ferocious, which the imagination of poets and painters had not yet
+conceived. In effect, no _rendezvous_ had ever irritated his senses
+more, revealed more audacious pleasures, or better aroused love from
+its centre to shed itself round him like an atmosphere. There was
+something sombre, mysterious, sweet, tender, constrained, and
+expansive, an intermingling of the awful and the celestial, of
+paradise and hell, which made De Marsay like a drunken man.
+
+He was no longer himself, and he was, withal, great enough to be able
+to resist the intoxication of pleasure.
+
+In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
+story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age
+when young men generally belittle themselves in their relations with
+women, or in too much occupation with them. Its growth was due to a
+concurrence of secret circumstances, which invested him with a vast
+and unsuspected power.
+
+This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
+modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by
+the laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental
+despot. But this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by
+brutish men, was increased tenfold by its conjunction with European
+intelligence, with French wit--the most subtle, the keenest of all
+intellectual instruments. Henri could do what he would in the interest
+of his pleasures and vanities. This invisible action upon the social
+world had invested him with a real, but secret, majesty, without
+emphasis and deriving from himself. He had not the opinion which Louis
+XIV. could have of himself, but that which the proudest of the
+Caliphs, the Pharoahs, the Xerxes, who held themselves to be of divine
+origin, had of themselves when they imitated God, and veiled
+themselves from their subjects under the pretext that their looks
+dealt forth death. Thus, without any remorse at being at once the
+judge and the accuser, De Marsay coldly condemned to death the man or
+the woman who had seriously offended him. Although often pronounced
+almost lightly, the verdict was irrevocable. An error was a misfortune
+similar to that which a thunderbolt causes when it falls upon a
+smiling Parisienne in some hackney coach, instead of crushing the old
+coachman who is driving her to a _rendezvous_. Thus the bitter and
+profound sarcasm which distinguished the young man's conversation
+usually tended to frighten people; no one was anxious to put him out.
+Women are prodigiously fond of those persons who call themselves
+pashas, and who are, as it were accompanied by lions and executioners,
+and who walk in a panoply of terror. The result, in the case of such
+men, is a security of action, a certitude of power, a pride of gaze, a
+leonine consciousness, which makes women realize the type of strength
+of which they all dream. Such was De Marsay.
+
+Happy, for the moment, with his future, he grew young and pliable, and
+thought of nothing but love as he went to bed. He dreamed of the girl
+with the golden eyes, as the young and passionate can dream. His
+dreams were monstrous images, unattainable extravagances--full of
+light, revealing invisible worlds, yet in a manner always incomplete,
+for an intervening veil changes the conditions of vision.
+
+For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared and no one knew what
+had become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain
+conditions, and, happily for him, during those two days he was a
+private soldier in the service of the demon to whom he owed his
+talismanic existence. But at the appointed time, in the evening, he
+was waiting--and he had not long to wait--for the carriage. The
+mulatto approached Henri, in order to repeat to him in French a phrase
+which he seemed to have learned by heart.
+
+"If you wish to come, she told me, you must consent to have your eyes
+bandaged."
+
+And Cristemio produced a white silk handkerchief.
+
+"No!" said Henri, whose omnipotence revolted suddenly.
+
+He tried to leap in. The mulatto made a sign, and the carriage drove
+off.
+
+"Yes!" cried De Marsay, furious at the thought of losing a piece of
+good fortune which had been promised him.
+
+He saw, moreover, the impossibility of making terms with a slave whose
+obedience was as blind as the hangman's. Nor was it this passive
+instrument upon whom his anger could fall.
+
+The mulatto whistled, the carriage returned. Henri got in hastily.
+Already a few curious onlookers had assembled like sheep on the
+boulevard. Henri was strong; he tried to play the mulatto. When the
+carriage started at a gallop he seized his hands, in order to master
+him, and retain, by subduing his attendant, the possession of his
+faculties, so that he might know whither he was going. It was a vain
+attempt. The eyes of the mulatto flashed from the darkness. The fellow
+uttered a cry which his fury stifled in his throat, released himself,
+threw back De Marsay with a hand like iron, and nailed him, so to
+speak, to the bottom of the carriage; then with his free hand, he drew
+a triangular dagger, and whistled. The coachman heard the whistle and
+stopped. Henri was unarmed, he was forced to yield. He moved his head
+towards the handkerchief. The gesture of submission calmed Cristemio,
+and he bound his eyes with a respect and care which manifested a sort
+of veneration for the person of the man whom his idol loved. But,
+before taking this course, he had placed his dagger distrustfully in
+his side pocket, and buttoned himself up to the chin.
+
+"That nigger would have killed me!" said De Marsay to himself.
+
+Once more the carriage moved on rapidly. There was one resource still
+open to a young man who knew Paris as well as Henri. To know whither
+he was going, he had but to collect himself and count, by the number
+of gutters crossed, the streets leading from the boulevards by which
+the carriage passed, so long as it continued straight along. He could
+thus discover into which lateral street it would turn, either towards
+the Seine or towards the heights of Montmartre, and guess the name or
+position of the street in which his guide should bring him to a halt.
+But the violent emotion which his struggle had caused him, the rage
+into which his compromised dignity had thrown him, the ideas of
+vengeance to which he abandoned himself, the suppositions suggested to
+him by the circumstantial care which this girl had taken in order to
+bring him to her, all hindered him from the attention, which the blind
+have, necessary for the concentration of his intelligence and the
+perfect lucidity of his recollection. The journey lasted half an hour.
+When the carriage stopped, it was no longer on the street. The mulatto
+and the coachman took Henri in their arms, lifted him out, and,
+putting him into a sort of litter, conveyed him across a garden. He
+could smell its flowers and the perfume peculiar to trees and grass.
+
+The silence which reigned there was so profound that he could
+distinguish the noise made by the drops of water falling from the
+moist leaves. The two men took him to a staircase, set him on his
+feet, led him by his hands through several apartments, and left him in
+a room whose atmosphere was perfumed, and the thick carpet of which he
+could feel beneath his feet.
+
+A woman's hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief
+for him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly
+and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found
+himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced
+opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a
+chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door
+on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a
+window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish
+divan, that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress
+as broad as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white
+cashmere, relieved by bows of black and scarlet silk, arranged in
+panels. The top of this huge bed was raised several inches by numerous
+cushions, which further enriched it by their tasteful comfort. The
+boudoir was lined with some red stuff, over which an Indian muslin was
+stretched, fluted after the fashion of Corinthian columns, in plaits
+going in and out, and bound at the top and bottom by bands of
+poppy-colored stuff, on which were designs in black arabesque.
+
+Below the muslin the poppy turned to rose, that amorous color, which
+was matched by window-curtains, which were of Indian muslin lined with
+rose-colored taffeta, and set off with a fringe of poppy-color and
+black. Six silver-gilt arms, each supporting two candles, were
+attached to the tapestry at an equal distance, to illuminate the
+divan. The ceiling, from the middle of which a lustre of unpolished
+silver hung, was of a brilliant whiteness, and the cornice was gilded.
+The carpet was like an Oriental shawl; it had the designs and recalled
+the poetry of Persia, where the hands of slaves had worked on it. The
+furniture was covered in white cashmere, relieved by black and
+poppy-colored ornaments. The clock, the candelabra, all were in white
+marble and gold. The only table there had a cloth of cashmere. Elegant
+flower-pots held roses of every kind, flowers white or red. In fine,
+the least detail seemed to have been the object of loving thought.
+Never had richness hidden itself more coquettishly to become elegance,
+to express grace, to inspire pleasure. Everything there would have
+warmed the coldest of beings. The caresses of the tapestry, of which
+the color changed according to the direction of one's gaze, becoming
+either all white or all rose, harmonized with the effects of the light
+shed upon the diaphanous tissues of the muslin, which produced an
+appearance of mistiness. The soul has I know not what attraction
+towards white, love delights in red, and the passions are flattered by
+gold, which has the power of realizing their caprices. Thus all that
+man possesses within him of vague and mysterious, all his inexplicable
+affinities, were caressed in their involuntary sympathies. There was
+in this perfect harmony a concert of color to which the soul responded
+with vague and voluptuous and fluctuating ideas.
+
+It was out of a misty atmosphere, laden with exquisite perfumes, that
+Paquita, clad in a white wrapper, her feet bare, orange blossoms in
+her black hair, appeared to Henri, knelt before him, adoring him as
+the god of this temple, whither he had deigned to come. Although De
+Marsay was accustomed to seeing the utmost efforts of Parisian luxury,
+he was surprised at the aspect of this shell, like that from which
+Venus rose out of the sea. Whether from an effect of contrast between
+the darkness from which he issued and the light which bathed his soul,
+whether from a comparison which he swiftly made between this scene and
+that of their first interview, he experienced one of those delicate
+sensations which true poetry gives. Perceiving in the midst of this
+retreat, which had been opened to him as by a fairy's magic wand, the
+masterpiece of creation, this girl, whose warmly colored tints, whose
+soft skin--soft, but slightly gilded by the shadows, by I know not
+what vaporous effusion of love--gleamed as though it reflected the
+rays of color and light, his anger, his desire for vengeance, his
+wounded vanity, all were lost.
+
+Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her
+on his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the
+voluptuous pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties
+softly enveloped him.
+
+"Come to me, Paquita!" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Speak, speak without fear!" she said. "This retreat was built for
+love. No sound can escape from it, so greatly was it desired to guard
+avariciously the accents and music of the beloved voice. However loud
+should be the cries, they would not be heard without these walls. A
+person might be murdered, and his moans would be as vain as if he were
+in the midst of the great desert."
+
+"Who has understood jealousy and its needs so well?"
+
+"Never question me as to that," she answered, untying with a gesture
+of wonderful sweetness the young man's scarf, doubtless in order the
+better to behold his neck.
+
+"Yes, there is the neck I love so well!" she said. "Wouldst thou
+please me?"
+
+This interrogation, rendered by the accent almost lascivious, drew De
+Marsay from the reverie in which he had been plunged by Paquita's
+authoritative refusal to allow him any research as to the unknown
+being who hovered like a shadow about them.
+
+"And if I wished to know who reigns here?"
+
+Paquita looked at him trembling.
+
+"It is not I, then?" he said, rising and freeing himself from the
+girl, whose head fell backwards. "Where I am, I would be alone."
+
+"Strike, strike! . . ." said the poor slave, a prey to terror.
+
+"For what do you take me, then? . . . Will you answer?"
+
+Paquita got up gently, her eyes full of tears, took a poniard from one
+of the two ebony pieces of furniture, and presented it to Henri with a
+gesture of submission which would have moved a tiger.
+
+"Give me a feast such as men give when they love," she said, "and
+whilst I sleep, slay me, for I know not how to answer thee. Hearken! I
+am bound like some poor beast to a stake; I am amazed that I have been
+able to throw a bridge over the abyss which divides us. Intoxicate me,
+then kill me! Ah, no, no!" she cried, joining her hands, "do not kill
+me! I love life! Life is fair to me! If I am a slave, I am a queen
+too. I could beguile you with words, tell you that I love you alone,
+prove it to you, profit by my momentary empire to say to you: 'Take me
+as one tastes the perfume of a flower when one passes it in a king's
+garden.' Then, after having used the cunning eloquence of woman and
+soared on the wings of pleasure, after having quenched my thirst, I
+could have you cast into a pit, where none could find you, which has
+been made to gratify vengeance without having to fear that of the law,
+a pit full of lime which would kindle and consume you, until no
+particle of you were left. You would stay in my heart, mine forever."
+
+Henri looked at the girl without trembling, and this fearless gaze
+filled her with joy.
+
+"No, I shall not do it! You have fallen into no trap here, but upon
+the heart of a woman who adores you, and it is I who will be cast into
+the pit."
+
+"All this appears to me prodigiously strange," said De Marsay,
+considering her. "But you seem to me a good girl, a strange nature;
+you are, upon my word of honor, a living riddle, the answer to which
+is very difficult to find."
+
+Paquita understood nothing of what the young man said; she looked at
+him gently, opening wide eyes which could never be stupid, so much was
+pleasure written in them.
+
+"Come, then, my love," she said, returning to her first idea, "wouldst
+thou please me?"
+
+"I would do all that thou wouldst, and even that thou wouldst not,"
+answered De Marsay, with a laugh. He had recovered his foppish ease,
+as he took the resolve to let himself go to the climax of his good
+fortune, looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted,
+moreover, on his power and his capacity of a man used to adventures,
+to dominate this girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
+
+"Well," said she, "let me arrange you as I would like."
+
+Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of
+red velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with
+a woman's bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to
+these follies with a child's innocence, she laughed a convulsive
+laugh, and resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing
+beyond.
+
+If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
+creatures--made by heaven in a joyous moment--found, it is perhaps
+necessary to translate metaphysically the extraordinary and almost
+fantastic impressions of the young man. That which persons in the
+social position of De Marsay, living as he lived, are best able to
+recognize is a girl's innocence. But, strange phenomenon! The girl of
+the golden eyes might be virgin, but innocent she was certainly not.
+The fantastic union of the mysterious and the real, of darkness and
+light, horror and beauty, pleasure and danger, paradise and hell,
+which had already been met with in this adventure, was resumed in the
+capricious and sublime being with which De Marsay dallied. All the
+utmost science or the most refined pleasure, all that Henri could know
+of that poetry of the senses which is called love, was excelled by the
+treasures poured forth by this girl, whose radiant eyes gave the lie
+to none of the promises which they made.
+
+She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that
+Hafiz, have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of
+Saadi, nor that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy--full of
+confusion and stupefaction--which seized the delicious girl when the
+error in which an iron hand had caused her to live was at an end.
+
+"Dead!" she said, "I am dead, Adolphe! Take me away to the world's
+end, to an island where no one knows us. Let there be no traces of our
+flight! We should be followed to the gates of hell. God! here is the
+day! Escape! Shall I ever see you again? Yes, to-morrow I will see
+you, if I have to deal death to all my warders to have that joy. Till
+to-morrow."
+
+She pressed him in her arms with an embrace in which the terror of
+death mingled. Then she touched a spring, which must have been in
+connection with a bell, and implored De Marsay to permit his eyes to
+be bandaged.
+
+"And if I would not--and if I wished to stay here?"
+
+"You would be the death of me more speedily," she said, "for now I
+know I am certain to die on your account."
+
+Henri submitted. In the man who had just gorged himself with pleasure
+there occurs a propensity to forgetfulness, I know not what
+ingratitude, a desire for liberty, a whim to go elsewhere, a tinge of
+contempt and, perhaps, of disgust for his idol; in fine, indescribable
+sentiments which render him ignoble and ashamed. The certainty of this
+confused, but real, feeling in souls who are not illuminated by that
+celestial light, nor perfumed with that holy essence from which the
+performance of sentiment springs, doubtless suggested to Rousseau the
+adventures of Lord Edward, which conclude the letters of the _Nouvelle
+Heloise_. If Rousseau is obviously inspired by the work of Richardson,
+he departs from it in a thousand details, which leave his achievement
+magnificently original; he has recommended it to posterity by great
+ideas which it is difficult to liberate by analysis, when, in one's
+youth, one reads this work with the object of finding in it the lurid
+representation of the most physical of our feelings, whereas serious
+and philosophical writers never employ its images except as the
+consequence or the corollary of a vast thought; and the adventures of
+Lord Edward are one of the most Europeanly delicate ideas of the whole
+work.
+
+Henri, therefore, found himself beneath the domination of that
+confused sentiment which is unknown to true love. There was needful,
+in some sort, the persuasive grip of comparisons, and the irresistible
+attraction of memories to lead him back to a woman. True love rules
+above all through recollection. A woman who is not engraven upon the
+soul by excess of pleasure or by strength of emotion, how can she ever
+be loved? In Henri's case, Paquita had established herself by both of
+these reasons. But at this moment, seized as he was by the satiety of
+his happiness, that delicious melancholy of the body, he could hardly
+analyze his heart, even by recalling to his lips the taste of the
+liveliest gratifications that he had ever grasped.
+
+He found himself on the Boulevard Montmartre at the break of day,
+gazed stupidly at the retreating carriage, produced two cigars from
+his pocket, lit one from the lantern of a good woman who sold brandy
+and coffee to workmen and street arabs and chestnut venders--to all
+the Parisian populace which begins its work before daybreak; then he
+went off, smoking his cigar, and putting his hands in his trousers'
+pockets with a devil-may-care air which did him small honor.
+
+"What a good thing a cigar is! That's one thing a man will never tire
+of," he said to himself.
+
+Of the girl with the golden eyes, over whom at that time all the
+elegant youth of Paris was mad, he hardly thought. The idea of death,
+expressed in the midst of their pleasure, and the fear of which had
+more than once darkened the brow of that beautiful creature, who held
+to the houris of Asia by her mother, to Europe by her education, to
+the tropics by her birth, seemed to him merely one of those deceptions
+by which women seek to make themselves interesting.
+
+"She is from Havana--the most Spanish region to be found in the New
+World. So she preferred to feign terror rather than cast in my teeth
+indisposition or difficulty, coquetry or duty, like a Parisian woman.
+By her golden eyes, how glad I shall be to sleep."
+
+He saw a hackney coach standing at the corner of Frascati's waiting
+for some gambler; he awoke the driver, was driven home, went to bed,
+and slept the sleep of the dissipated, which for some queer reason--of
+which no rhymer has yet taken advantage--is as profound as that of
+innocence. Perhaps it is an instance of the proverbial axiom,
+_extremes meet_.
+
+About noon De Marsay awoke and stretched himself; he felt the grip of
+that sort of voracious hunger which old soldiers can remember having
+experienced on the morrow of victory. He was delighted, therefore, to
+see Paul de Manerville standing in front of him, for at such a time
+nothing is more agreeable than to eat in company.
+
+"Well," his friend remarked, "we all imagined that you had been shut
+up for the last ten days with the girl of the golden eyes."
+
+"The girl of the golden eyes! I have forgotten her. Faith! I have
+other fish to fry!"
+
+"Ah! you are playing at discretion."
+
+"Why not?" asked De Marsay, with a laugh. "My dear fellow, discretion
+is the best form of calculation. Listen--however, no! I will not say a
+word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a
+gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river
+which is of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that
+is most sacred in life--of cigars! I am no professor of social economy
+for the instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give
+you a tunny omelette than to lavish the resources of my brain on you."
+
+"Do you bargain with your friends?"
+
+"My dear fellow," said Henri, who rarely denied himself a sarcasm,
+"since all the same, you may some day need, like anybody else, to use
+discretion, and since I have much love for you--yes, I like you! Upon
+my word, if you only wanted a thousand-franc note to keep you from
+blowing your brains out, you would find it here, for we haven't yet
+done any business of that sort, eh, Paul? If you had to fight
+to-morrow, I would measure the ground and load the pistols, so that
+you might be killed according to rule. In short, if anybody besides
+myself took it into his head to say ill of you in your absence, he
+would have to deal with the somewhat nasty gentleman who walks in my
+shoes--there's what I call a friendship beyond question. Well, my good
+fellow, if you should ever have need of discretion, understand that
+there are two sorts of discretion--the active and the negative.
+Negative discretion is that of fools who make use of silence,
+negation, an air of refusal, the discretion of locked doors--mere
+impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. Suppose at the
+club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my word of honor the
+golden-eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody would exclaim
+when I was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make
+us believe that he has already had the girl of the golden eyes? It's
+his way of trying to disembarrass himself of his rivals: he's no
+simpleton.' But such a ruse is vulgar and dangerous. However gross a
+folly one utters, there are always idiots to be found who will believe
+it. The best form of discretion is that of women when they want to
+take the change out of their husbands. It consists in compromising a
+woman with whom we are not concerned, or whom we do not love, in order
+to save the honor of the one whom we love well enough to respect. It
+is what is called the _woman-screen_. . . . Ah! here is Laurent. What
+have you got for us?"
+
+"Some Ostend oysters, Monsieur le Comte."
+
+"You will know some day, Paul, how amusing it is to make a fool of the
+world by depriving it of the secret of one's affections. I derive an
+immense pleasure in escaping from the stupid jurisdiction of the
+crowd, which knows neither what it wants, nor what one wants of it,
+which takes the means for the end, and by turns curses and adores,
+elevates and destroys! What a delight to impose emotions on it and
+receive none from it, to tame it, never to obey it. If one may ever be
+proud of anything, is it not a self-acquired power, of which one is at
+once the cause and effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man
+knows what I love, nor what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what
+I may have wished will be known, as a drama which is accomplished is
+known; but to let my game be seen--weakness, mistake! I know nothing
+more despicable than strength outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate
+myself with a laugh into the ambassador's part, if indeed diplomacy is
+as difficult as life? I doubt it. Have you any ambition? Would you
+like to become something?"
+
+"But, Henri, you are laughing at me--as though I were not sufficiently
+mediocre to arrive at anything."
+
+"Good Paul! If you go on laughing at yourself, you will soon be able
+to laugh at everybody else."
+
+At breakfast, by the time he had started his cigars, De Marsay began
+to see the events of the night in a singular light. Like many men of
+great intelligence, his perspicuity was not spontaneous, as it did not
+at once penetrate to the heart of things. As with all natures endowed
+with the faculty of living greatly in the present, of extracting, so
+to speak, the essence of it and assimilating it, his second-sight had
+need of a sort of slumber before it could identify itself with causes.
+Cardinal de Richelieu was so constituted, and it did not debar in him
+the gift of foresight necessary to the conception of great designs.
+
+De Marsay's conditions were alike, but at first he only used his
+weapons for the benefit of his pleasures, and only became one of the
+most profound politicians of his day when he had saturated himself
+with those pleasures to which a young man's thoughts--when he has
+money and power--are primarily directed. Man hardens himself thus: he
+uses woman in order that she may not make use of him.
+
+At this moment, then, De Marsay perceived that he had been fooled by
+the girl of the golden eyes, seeing, as he did, in perspective, all
+that night of which the delights had been poured upon him by degrees
+until they had ended by flooding him in torrents. He could read, at
+last, that page in effect so brilliant, divine its hidden meaning. The
+purely physical innocence of Paquita, the bewilderment of her joy,
+certain words, obscure at first, but now clear, which had escaped her
+in the midst of that joy, all proved to him that he had posed for
+another person. As no social corruption was unknown to him, as he
+professed a complete indifference towards all perversities, and
+believed them to be justified on the simple ground that they were
+capable of satisfaction, he was not startled at vice, he knew it as
+one knows a friend, but he was wounded at having served as sustenance
+for it. If his presumption was right, he had been outraged in the most
+sensitive part of him. The mere suspicion filled him with fury, he
+broke out with the roar of a tiger who has been the sport of a deer,
+the cry of a tiger which united a brute's strength with the
+intelligence of the demon.
+
+"I say, what is the matter with you?" asked Paul.
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"I should be sorry, if you were to be asked whether you had anything
+against me and were to reply with a _nothing_ like that! It would be a
+sure case of fighting the next day."
+
+"I fight no more duels," said De Marsay.
+
+"That seems to me even more tragical. Do you assassinate, then?"
+
+"You travesty words. I execute."
+
+"My dear friend," said Paul, "your jokes are of a very sombre color
+this morning."
+
+"What would you have? Pleasure ends in cruelty. Why? I don't know, and
+am not sufficiently curious to try and find out. . . . These cigars
+are excellent. Give your friend some tea. Do you know, Paul, I live a
+brute's life? It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ
+one's powers on something which makes life worth living. Life is a
+singular comedy. I am frightened, I laugh at the inconsequence of our
+social order. The Government cuts off the heads of poor devils who may
+have killed a man and licenses creatures who despatch, medically
+speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless
+against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can
+punish.--Another cup!--Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing
+upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the
+_Liaisons Dangereuses_, and any other book you like with a vulgar
+reputation; but there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful,
+corrupting, which is always open and will never be shut, the great
+book of the world; not to mention another book, a thousand times more
+dangerous, which is composed of all that men whisper into each other's
+ears, or women murmur behind their fans, of an evening in society."
+
+"Henri, there is certainly something extraordinary the matter with
+you; that is obvious in spite of your active discretion."
+
+"Yes! . . . Come, I must kill the time until this evening. Let's to
+the tables. . . . Perhaps I shall have the good luck to lose."
+
+De Marsay rose, took a handful of banknotes and folded them into his
+cigar-case, dressed himself, and took advantage of Paul's carriage to
+repair to the Salon des Etrangers, where until dinner he consumed the
+time in those exciting alternations of loss and gain which are the
+last resource of powerful organizations when they are compelled to
+exercise themselves in the void. In the evening he repaired to the
+trysting-place and submitted complacently to having his eyes bandaged.
+Then, with that firm will which only really strong men have the
+faculty of concentrating, he devoted his attention and applied his
+intelligence to the task of divining through what streets the carriage
+passed. He had a sort of certitude of being taken to the Rue
+Saint-Lazare, and being brought to a halt at the little gate in the
+garden of the Hotel San-Real. When he passed, as on the first occasion,
+through this gate, and was put in a litter, carried, doubtless by the
+mulatto and the coachman, he understood, as he heard the gravel grate
+beneath their feet, why they took such minute precautions. He would
+have been able, had he been free, or if he had walked, to pluck a twig
+of laurel, to observe the nature of the soil which clung to his boots;
+whereas, transported, so to speak, ethereally into an inaccessible
+mansion, his good fortune must remain what it had been hitherto, a
+dream. But it is man's despair that all his work, whether for good or
+evil, is imperfect. All his labors, physical or intellectual, are
+sealed with the mark of destruction. There had been a gentle rain, the
+earth was moist. At night-time certain vegetable perfumes are far
+stronger than during the day; Henri could smell, therefore, the scent
+of the mignonette which lined the avenue along which he was conveyed.
+This indication was enough to light him in the researches which he
+promised himself to make in order to recognize the hotel which
+contained Paquita's boudoir. He studied in the same way the turnings
+which his bearers took within the house, and believed himself able to
+recall them.
+
+As on the previous night, he found himself on the ottoman before
+Paquita, who was undoing his bandage; but he saw her pale and altered.
+She had wept. On her knees like an angel in prayer, but like an angel
+profoundly sad and melancholy, the poor girl no longer resembled the
+curious, impatient, and impetuous creature who had carried De Marsay
+on her wings to transport him to the seventh heaven of love. There was
+something so true in this despair veiled by pleasure, that the
+terrible De Marsay felt within him an admiration for this new
+masterpiece of nature, and forgot, for the moment, the chief interest
+of his assignation.
+
+"What is the matter with thee, my Paquita?"
+
+"My friend," she said, "carry me away this very night. Bear me to some
+place where no one can answer: 'There is a girl with a golden gaze
+here, who has long hair.' Yonder I will give thee as many pleasures as
+thou wouldst have of me. Then when you love me no longer, you shall
+leave me, I shall not complain, I shall say nothing; and your
+desertion need cause you no remorse, for one day passed with you, only
+one day, in which I have had you before my eyes, will be worth all my
+life to me. But if I stay here, I am lost."
+
+"I cannot leave Paris, little one!" replied Henri. "I do not belong to
+myself, I am bound by a vow to the fortune of several persons who
+stand to me, as I do to them. But I can place you in a refuge in
+Paris, where no human power can reach you."
+
+"No," she said, "you forget the power of woman."
+
+Never did phrase uttered by human voice express terror more
+absolutely.
+
+"What could reach you, then, if I put myself between you and the
+world?"
+
+"Poison!" she said. "Dona Concha suspects you already . . . and," she
+resumed, letting the tears fall and glisten on her cheeks, "it is easy
+enough to see I am no longer the same. Well, if you abandon me to the
+fury of the monster who will destroy me, your holy will be done! But
+come, let there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I
+will implore, I will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I
+shall be saved."
+
+"Whom will your implore?" he asked.
+
+"Silence!" said Paquita. "If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on
+account of my discretion."
+
+"Give me my robe," said Henri, insidiously.
+
+"No, no!" she answered quickly, "be what you are, one of those angels
+whom I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst
+you are what is fairest under the skies," she said, caressing Henri's
+hair. "You do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I
+was twelve years old I have been shut up without ever seeing any one.
+I can neither read nor write, I can only speak English and Spanish."
+
+"How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?"
+
+"My letters? . . . See, here they are!" she said, proceeding to take
+some papers out of a tall Japanese vase.
+
+She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with
+surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in
+blood, and illustrating phrases full of passion.
+
+"But," he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the
+alertness of jealousy, "you are in the power of an infernal genius?"
+
+"Infernal," she repeated.
+
+"But how, then, were you able to get out?"
+
+"Ah!" she said, "that was my ruin. I drove Dona Concha to choose
+between the fear of immediate death and anger to be. I had the
+curiosity of a demon, I wished to break the bronze circle which they
+had described between creation and me, I wished to see what young
+people were like, for I knew nothing of man except the Marquis and
+Cristemio. Our coachman and the lackey who accompanies us are old
+men. . . ."
+
+"But you were not always thus shut up? Your health . . . ?"
+
+"Ah," she answered, "we used to walk, but it was at night and in the
+country, by the side of the Seine, away from people."
+
+"Are you not proud of being loved like that?"
+
+"No," she said, "no longer. However full it be, this hidden life is
+but darkness in comparison with the light."
+
+"What do you call the light?"
+
+"Thee, my lovely Adolphe! Thee, for whom I would give my life. All the
+passionate things that have been told me, and that I have inspired, I
+feel for thee! For a certain time I understood nothing of existence,
+but now I know what love is, and hitherto I have been the loved one
+only; for myself, I did not love. I would give up everything for you,
+take me away. If you like, take me as a toy, but let me be near you
+until you break me."
+
+"You will have no regrets?"
+
+"Not one"! she said, letting him read her eyes, whose golden tint was
+pure and clear.
+
+"Am I the favored one?" said Henri to himself. If he suspected the
+truth, he was ready at that time to pardon the offence in view of a
+love so single minded. "I shall soon see," he thought.
+
+If Paquita owed him no account of the past, yet the least recollection
+of it became in his eyes a crime. He had therefore the sombre strength
+to withhold a portion of his thought, to study her, even while
+abandoning himself to the most enticing pleasures that ever peri
+descended from the skies had devised for her beloved.
+
+Paquita seemed to have been created for love by a particular effort of
+nature. In a night her feminine genius had made the most rapid
+progress. Whatever might be the power of this young man, and his
+indifference in the matter of pleasures, in spite of his satiety of
+the previous night, he found in the girl with the golden eyes that
+seraglio which a loving woman knows how to create and which a man
+never refuses. Paquita responded to that passion which is felt by all
+really great men for the infinite--that mysterious passion so
+dramatically expressed in Faust, so poetically translated in Manfred,
+and which urged Don Juan to search the heart of women, in his hope to
+find there that limitless thought in pursuit of which so many hunters
+after spectres have started, which wise men think to discover in
+science, and which mystics find in God alone. The hope of possessing
+at last the ideal being with whom the struggle could be constant and
+tireless ravished De Marsay, who, for the first time for long, opened
+his heart. His nerves expanded, his coldness was dissipated in the
+atmosphere of that ardent soul, his hard and fast theories melted
+away, and happiness colored his existence to the tint of the rose and
+white boudoir. Experiencing the sting of a higher pleasure, he was
+carried beyond the limits within which he had hitherto confined
+passion. He would not be surpassed by this girl, whom a somewhat
+artificial love had formed all ready for the needs of his soul, and
+then he found in that vanity which urges a man to be in all things a
+victor, strength enough to tame the girl; but, at the same time, urged
+beyond that line where the soul is mistress over herself, he lost
+himself in these delicious limboes, which the vulgar call so foolishly
+"the imaginary regions." He was tender, kind, and confidential. He
+affected Paquita almost to madness.
+
+"Why should we not go to Sorrento, to Nice, to Chiavari, and pass all
+our life so? Will you?" he asked of Paquita, in a penetrating voice.
+
+"Was there need to say to me: 'Will you'?" she cried. "Have I a will?
+I am nothing apart from you, except in so far as I am a pleasure for
+you. If you would choose a retreat worthy of us, Asia is the only
+country where love can unfold his wings. . . ."
+
+"You are right," answered Henri. "Let us go to the Indies, there where
+spring is eternal, where the earth grows only flowers, where man can
+display the magnificence of kings and none shall say him nay, as in
+the foolish lands where they would realize the dull chimera of
+equality. Let us go to the country where one lives in the midst of a
+nation of slaves, where the sun shines ever on a palace which is
+always white, where the air sheds perfumes, the birds sing of love and
+where, when one can love no more, one dies. . . ."
+
+"And where one dies together!" said Paquita. "But do not let us start
+to-morrow, let us start this moment . . . take Cristemio."
+
+"Faith! pleasure is the fairest climax of life. Let us go to Asia; but
+to start, my child, one needs much gold, and to have gold one must set
+one's affairs in order."
+
+She understood no part of these ideas.
+
+"Gold! There is a pile of it here--as high as that," she said holding
+up her hand.
+
+"It is not mine."
+
+"What does that matter?" she went on; "if we have need of it let us
+take it."
+
+"It does not belong to you."
+
+"Belong!" she repeated. "Have you not taken me? When we have taken it,
+it will belong to us."
+
+He gave a laugh.
+
+"Poor innocent! You know nothing of the world."
+
+"Nay, but this is what I know," she cried, clasping Henri to her.
+
+At the very moment when De Marsay was forgetting all, and conceiving
+the desire to appropriate this creature forever, he received in the
+midst of his joy a dagger-thrust, which Paquita, who had lifted him
+vigorously in the air, as though to contemplate him, exclaimed: "Oh,
+Margarita!"
+
+"Margarita!" cried the young man, with a roar; "now I know all that I
+still tried to disbelieve."
+
+He leaped upon the cabinet in which the long poniard was kept. Happily
+for Paquita and for himself, the cupboard was shut. His fury waxed at
+this impediment, but he recovered his tranquillity, went and found his
+cravat, and advanced towards her with an air of such ferocious meaning
+that, without knowing of what crime she had been guilty, Paquita
+understood, none the less, that her life was in question. With one
+bound she rushed to the other end of the room to escape the fatal knot
+which De Marsay tried to pass round her neck. There was a struggle. On
+either side there was an equality of strength, agility, and
+suppleness. To end the combat Paquita threw between the legs of her
+lover a cushion which made him fall, and profited by the respite which
+this advantage gave to her, to push the button of the spring which
+caused the bell to ring. Promptly the mulatto arrived. In a second
+Cristemio leaped on De Marsay and held him down with one foot on his
+chest, his heel turned towards the throat. De Marsay realized that, if
+he struggled, at a single sign from Paquita he would be instantly
+crushed.
+
+"Why did you want to kill me, my beloved?" she said. De Marsay made no
+reply.
+
+"In what have I angered you?" she asked. "Speak, let us understand
+each other."
+
+Henri maintained the phlegmatic attitude of a strong man who feels
+himself vanquished; his countenance, cold, silent, entirely English,
+revealed the consciousness of his dignity in a momentary resignation.
+Moreover, he had already thought, in spite of the vehemence of his
+anger, that it was scarcely prudent to compromise himself with the law
+by killing this girl on the spur of the moment, before he had arranged
+the murder in such a manner as should insure his impunity.
+
+"My beloved," went on Paquita, "speak to me; do not leave me without
+one loving farewell! I would not keep in my heart the terror which you
+have just inspired in it. . . . Will you speak?" she said, stamping
+her foot with anger.
+
+De Marsay, for all reply, gave her a glance, which signified so
+plainly, "_You must die!_" that Paquita threw herself upon him.
+
+"Ah, well, you want to kill me! . . . If my death can give you any
+pleasure--kill me!"
+
+She made a sign to Cristemio, who withdrew his foot from the body of
+the young man, and retired without letting his face show that he had
+formed any opinion, good or bad, with regard to Paquita.
+
+"That is a man," said De Marsay, pointing to the mulatto, with a
+sombre gesture. "There is no devotion like the devotion which obeys in
+friendship, and does not stop to weigh motives. In that man you
+possess a true friend."
+
+"I will give him you, if you like," she answered; "he will serve you
+with the same devotion that he has for me, if I so instruct him."
+
+She waited for a word of recognition, and went on with an accent
+replete with tenderness:
+
+"Adolphe, give me then one kind word! . . . It is nearly day."
+
+Henri did not answer. The young man had one sorry quality, for one
+considers as something great everything which resembles strength, and
+often men invent extravagances. Henri knew not how to pardon. That
+_returning upon itself_ which is one of the soul's graces, was a
+non-existent sense for him. The ferocity of the Northern man, with
+which the English blood is deeply tainted, had been transmitted to
+him by his father. He was inexorable both in his good and evil
+impulses. Paquita's exclamation had been all the more horrible to him,
+in that it had dethroned him from the sweetest triumph which had ever
+flattered his man's vanity. Hope, love, and every emotion had been
+exalted with him, all had lit up within his heart and his
+intelligence, then these torches illuminating his life had been
+extinguished by a cold wind. Paquita, in her stupefaction of grief,
+had only strength enough to give the signal for departure.
+
+"What is the use of that!" she said, throwing away the bandage. "If he
+does not love me, if he hates me, it is all over."
+
+She waited for one look, did not obtain it, and fell, half dead. The
+mulatto cast a glance at Henri, so horribly significant, that, for the
+first time in his life, the young man, to whom no one denied the gift
+of rare courage, trembled. "_If you do not love her well, if you give
+her the least pain, I will kill you_." such was the sense of that
+brief gaze. De Marsay was escorted, with a care almost obsequious,
+along the dimly lit corridor, at the end of which he issued by a
+secret door into the garden of the Hotel San-Real. The mulatto made
+him walk cautiously through an avenue of lime trees, which led to a
+little gate opening upon a street which was at that hour deserted. De
+Marsay took a keen notice of everything. The carriage awaited him.
+This time the mulatto did not accompany him, and at the moment when
+Henri put his head out of the window to look once more at the gardens
+of the hotel, he encountered the white eyes of Cristemio, with whom he
+exchanged a glance. On either side there was a provocation, a
+challenge, the declaration of a savage war, of a duel in which
+ordinary laws were invalid, where treason and treachery were admitted
+means. Cristemio knew that Henri had sworn Paquita's death. Henri knew
+that Cristemio would like to kill him before he killed Paquita. Both
+understood each other to perfection.
+
+"The adventure is growing complicated in a most interesting way," said
+Henri.
+
+"Where is the gentleman going to?" asked the coachman.
+
+De Marsay was driven to the house of Paul de Manerville. For more than
+a week Henri was away from home, and no one could discover either what
+he did during this period, nor where he stayed. This retreat saved him
+from the fury of the mulatto and caused the ruin of the charming
+creature who had placed all her hope in him whom she loved as never
+human heart had loved on this earth before. On the last day of the
+week, about eleven o'clock at night, Henri drove up in a carriage to
+the little gate in the garden of the Hotel San-Real. Four men
+accompanied him. The driver was evidently one of his friends, for he
+stood up on his box, like a man who was to listen, an attentive
+sentinel, for the least sound. One of the other three took his stand
+outside the gate in the street; the second waited in the garden,
+leaning against the wall; the last, who carried in his hand a bunch of
+keys, accompanied De Marsay.
+
+"Henri," said his companion to him, "we are betrayed."
+
+"By whom, my good Ferragus?"
+
+"They are not all asleep," replied the chief of the Devourers; "it is
+absolutely certain that some one in the house has neither eaten nor
+drunk. . . . Look! see that light!"
+
+"We have a plan of the house; from where does it come?"
+
+"I need no plan to know," replied Ferragus; "it comes from the room of
+the Marquise."
+
+"Ah," cried De Marsay, "no doubt she arrived from London to-day. The
+woman has robbed me even of my revenge! But if she has anticipated me,
+my good Gratien, we will give her up to the law."
+
+"Listen, listen! . . . The thing is settled," said Ferragus to Henri.
+
+The two friends listened intently, and heard some feeble cries which
+might have aroused pity in the breast of a tiger.
+
+"Your marquise did not think the sound would escape by the chimney,"
+said the chief of the Devourers, with the laugh of a critic, enchanted
+to detect a fault in a work of merit.
+
+"We alone, we know how to provide for every contingency," said Henri.
+"Wait for me. I want to see what is going on upstairs--I want to know
+how their domestic quarrels are managed. By God! I believe she is
+roasting her at a slow fire."
+
+De Marsay lightly scaled the stairs, with which he was familiar, and
+recognized the passage leading to the boudoir. When he opened the door
+he experienced the involuntary shudder which the sight of bloodshed
+gives to the most determined of men. The spectacle which was offered
+to his view was, moreover, in more than one respect astonishing to
+him. The Marquise was a woman; she had calculated her vengeance with
+that perfection of perfidy which distinguishes the weaker animals. She
+had dissimulated her anger in order to assure herself of the crime
+before she punished it.
+
+"Too late, my beloved!" said Paquita, in her death agony, casting her
+pale eyes upon De Marsay.
+
+The girl of the golden eyes expired in a bath of blood. The great
+illumination of candles, a delicate perfume which was perceptible, a
+certain disorder, in which the eye of a man accustomed to amorous
+adventures could not but discern the madness which is common to all
+the passions, revealed how cunningly the Marquise had interrogated the
+guilty one. The white room, where the blood showed so well, betrayed a
+long struggle. The prints of Paquita's hands were on the cushions.
+Here she had clung to her life, here she had defended herself, here
+she had been struck. Long strips of the tapestry had been torn down by
+her bleeding hands, which, without a doubt, had struggled long.
+Paquita must have tried to reach the window; her bare feet had left
+their imprints on the edge of the divan, along which she must have
+run. Her body, mutilated by the dagger-thrusts of her executioner,
+told of the fury with which she had disputed a life which Henri had
+made precious to her. She lay stretched on the floor, and in her
+death-throes had bitten the ankles of Madame de San-Real, who still
+held in her hand her dagger, dripping blood. The hair of the Marquise
+had been torn out, she was covered with bites, many of which were
+bleeding, and her torn dress revealed her in a state of semi-nudity,
+with the scratches on her breasts. She was sublime so. Her head, eager
+and maddened, exhaled the odor of blood. Her panting mouth was open,
+and her nostrils were not sufficient for her breath. There are certain
+animals who fall upon their enemy in their rage, do it to death, and
+seem in the tranquillity of victory to have forgotten it. There are
+others who prowl around their victim, who guard it in fear lest it
+should be taken away from them, and who, like the Achilles of Homer,
+drag their enemy by the feet nine times round the walls of Troy. The
+Marquise was like that. She did not see Henri. In the first place, she
+was too secure of her solitude to be afraid of witnesses; and,
+secondly, she was too intoxicated with warm blood, too excited with
+the fray, too exalted, to take notice of the whole of Paris, if Paris
+had formed a circle round her. A thunderbolt would not have disturbed
+her. She had not even heard Paquita's last sigh, and believed that the
+dead girl could still hear her.
+
+"Die without confessing!" she said. "Go down to hell, monster of
+ingratitude; belong to no one but the fiend. For the blood you gave
+him you owe me all your own! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths! I
+have been too kind--I was only a moment killing you. I should have
+made you experience all the tortures that you have bequeathed to me. I
+--I shall live! I shall live in misery. I have no one left to love but
+God!"
+
+She gazed at her.
+
+"She is dead!" she said to herself, after a pause, in a violent
+reaction. "Dead! Oh, I shall die of grief!"
+
+The Marquise was throwing herself upon the divan, stricken with a
+despair which deprived her of speech, when this movement brought her
+in view of Henri de Marsay.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked, rushing at him with her dagger raised.
+
+Henri caught her arm, and thus they could contemplate each other face
+to face. A horrible surprise froze the blood in their veins, and their
+limbs quivered like those of frightened horses. In effect, the two
+Menoechmi had not been more alike. With one accord they uttered the
+same phrase:
+
+"Lord Dudley must have been your father!"
+
+The head of each was drooped in affirmation.
+
+"She was true to the blood," said Henri, pointing to Paquita.
+
+"She was as little guilty as it is possible to be," replied Margarita
+Euphemia Porraberil, and she threw herself upon the body of Paquita,
+giving vent to a cry of despair. "Poor child! Oh, if I could bring
+thee to life again! I was wrong--forgive me, Paquita! Dead! and I
+live! I--I am the most unhappy."
+
+At that moment the horrible face of the mother of Paquita appeared.
+
+"You are come to tell me that you never sold her to me to kill," cried
+the Marquise. "I know why you have left your lair. I will pay you
+twice over. Hold your peace."
+
+She took a bag of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it
+contemptuously at the old woman's feet. The chink of the gold was
+potent enough to excite a smile on the Georgian's impassive face.
+
+"I come at the right moment for you, my sister," said Henri. "The law
+will ask of you----"
+
+"Nothing," replied the Marquise. "One person alone might ask for a
+reckoning for the death of this girl. Cristemio is dead."
+
+"And the mother," said Henri, pointing to the old woman. "Will you not
+always be in her power?"
+
+"She comes from a country where women are not beings, but things
+--chattels, with which one does as one wills, which one buys, sells,
+and slays; in short, which one uses for one's caprices as you, here,
+use a piece of furniture. Besides, she has one passion which dominates
+all the others, and which would have stifled her maternal love, even
+if she had loved her daughter, a passion----"
+
+"What?" Henri asked quickly, interrupting his sister.
+
+"Play! God keep you from it," answered the Marquise.
+
+"But whom have you," said Henri, looking at the girl of the golden
+eyes, "who will help you to remove the traces of this fantasy which
+the law would not overlook?"
+
+"I have her mother," replied the Marquise, designating the Georgian,
+to whom she made a sign to remain.
+
+"We shall meet again," said Henri, who was thinking anxiously of his
+friends and felt that it was time to leave.
+
+"No, brother," she said, "we shall not meet again. I am going back to
+Spain to enter the Convent of _los Dolores_."
+
+"You are too young yet, too lovely," said Henri, taking her in his
+arms and giving her a kiss.
+
+"Good-bye," she said; "there is no consolation when you have lost that
+which has seemed to you the infinite."
+
+A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the Tuileries, on the
+Terrasse de Feuillants.
+
+"Well, what has become of our beautiful girl of the golden eyes, you
+rascal?"
+
+"She is dead."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Consumption."
+
+
+
+PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+  Note: The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy.
+  Part one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
+  Langeais. In other addendum references all three stories are usually
+  combined under the title The Thirteen.
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph
+  Ferragus
+
+Dudley, Lord
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  A Man of Business
+  Another Study of Woman
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Marriage Settlement
+
+Marsay, Henri de
+  Ferragus
+  The Duchesse of Langeais
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Father Goriot
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Marriage Settlement
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Another Study of Woman
+  Ferragus
+  The Duchesse of Langeais
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Honore de Balzac
+
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diff --git a/old/20040919-1659.zip b/old/20040919-1659.zip
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Balzac
+#55 in our series by Honore de Balzac
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+The Girl with the Golden Eyes
+
+by Honore de Balzac
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+Translated by Ellen Marriage
+
+March, 1999  [Etext #1659]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Balzac
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+Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+and John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+
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+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+by HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+
+Translated by Ellen Marriage
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To Eugene Delacroix, Painter.
+
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE
+
+  The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy. Part
+  one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de Langeais.
+  The three stories are frequently combined under the title The
+  Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
+
+
+
+One of those sights in which most horror is to be encountered is,
+surely, the general aspect of the Parisian populace--a people fearful
+to behold, gaunt, yellow, tawny. Is not Paris a vast field in
+perpetual turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which are whirled
+along a crop of human beings, who are, more often than not, reaped by
+death, only to be born again as pinched as ever, men whose twisted and
+contorted faces give out at every pore the instinct, the desire, the
+poisons with which their brains are pregnant; not faces so much as
+masks; masks of weakness, masks of strength, masks of misery, masks of
+joy, masks of hypocrisy; all alike worn and stamped with the indelible
+signs of a panting cupidity? What is it they want? Gold or pleasure? A
+few observations upon the soul of Paris may explain the causes of its
+cadaverous physiognomy, which has but two ages--youth and decay:
+youth, wan and colorless; decay, painted to seem young. In looking at
+this excavated people, foreigners, who are not prone to reflection,
+experience at first a movement of disgust towards the capital, that
+vast workshop of delights, from which, in a short time, they cannot
+even extricate themselves, and where they stay willingly to be
+corrupted. A few words will suffice to justify physiologically the
+almost infernal hue of Parisian faces, for it is not in mere sport
+that Paris has been called a hell. Take the phrase for truth. There
+all is smoke and fire, everything gleams, crackles, flames,
+evaporates, dies out, then lights up again, with shooting sparks, and
+is consumed. In no other country has life ever been more ardent or
+acute. The social nature, even in fusion, seems to say after each
+completed work: "Pass on to another!" just as Nature says herself.
+Like Nature herself, this social nature is busied with insects and
+flowers of a day--ephemeral trifles; and so, too, it throws up fire
+and flame from its eternal crater. Perhaps, before analyzing the
+causes which lend a special physiognomy to each tribe of this
+intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed out
+which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals in
+more or less degree.
+
+By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
+interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction
+has rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon
+which all kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian,
+with his indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth,
+lives like a child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at
+everything, consoles himself for everything, jests at everything,
+forgets, desires, and tastes everything, seizes all with passion,
+quits all with indifference--his kings, his conquests, his glory, his
+idols of bronze or glass--as he throws away his stockings, his hats,
+and his fortune. In Paris no sentiment can withstand the drift of
+things, and their current compels a struggle in which the passions are
+relaxed: there love is a desire, and hatred a whim; there's no true
+kinsman but the thousand-franc note, no better friend than the
+pawnbroker. This universal toleration bears its fruits, and in the
+salon, as in the street, there is no one /de trop/, there is no one
+absolutely useful, or absolutely harmful--knaves or fools, men of wit
+or integrity. There everything is tolerated: the government and the
+guillotine, religion and the cholera. You are always acceptable to
+this world, you will never be missed by it. What, then, is the
+dominating impulse in this country without morals, without faith,
+without any sentiment, wherein, however, every sentiment, belief, and
+moral has its origin and end? It is gold and pleasure. Take those two
+words for a lantern, and explore that great stucco cage, that hive
+with its black gutters, and follow the windings of that thought which
+agitates, sustains, and occupies it! Consider! And, in the first
+place, examine the world which possesses nothing.
+
+The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his
+tongue, his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live--well, this
+very man, who should be the first to economize his vital principle,
+outruns his strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his
+child, and ties him to the wheel. The manufacturer--or I know not what
+secondary thread which sets in motion all these folk who with their
+foul hands mould and gild porcelain, sew coats and dresses, beat out
+iron, turn wood and steel, weave hemp, festoon crystal, imitate
+flowers, work woolen things, break in horses, dress harness, carve in
+copper, paint carriages, blow glass, corrode the diamond, polish
+metals, turn marble into leaves, labor on pebbles, deck out thought,
+tinge, bleach, or blacken everything--well, this middleman has come to
+that world of sweat and good-will, of study and patience, with
+promises of lavish wages, either in the name of the town's caprices or
+with the voice of the monster dubbed speculation. Thus, these
+/quadrumanes/ set themselves to watch, work, and suffer, to fast,
+sweat, and bestir them. Then, careless of the future, greedy of
+pleasure, counting on their right arm as the painter on his palette,
+lords for one day, they throw their money on Mondays to the /cabarets/
+which gird the town like a belt of mud, haunts of the most shameless
+of the daughters of Venus, in which the periodical money of this
+people, as ferocious in their pleasures as they are calm at work, is
+squandered as it had been at play. For five days, then, there is no
+repose for this laborious portion of Paris! It is given up to actions
+which make it warped and rough, lean and pale, gush forth with a
+thousand fits of creative energy. And then its pleasure, its repose,
+are an exhausting debauch, swarthy and black with blows, white with
+intoxication, or yellow with indigestion. It lasts but two days, but
+it steals to-morrow's bread, the week's soup, the wife's dress, the
+child's wretched rags. Men, born doubtless to be beautiful--for all
+creatures have a relative beauty--are enrolled from their childhood
+beneath the yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel,
+the loom, and have been promptly vulcanized. Is not Vulcan, with his
+hideousness and his strength, the emblem of this strong and hideous
+nation--sublime in its mechanical intelligence, patient in its season,
+and once in a century terrible, inflammable as gunpowder, and ripe
+with brandy for the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine,
+to take fire at a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold
+and Pleasure! If we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands
+for an alms, for lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to
+every kind of Parisian prostitution, in short, for all the money well
+or ill earned, this people numbers three hundred thousand individuals.
+Were it not for the /cabarets/, would not the Government be overturned
+every Tuesday? Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off
+its pleasure, is penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread,
+stimulated by a need of material procreation, which has become a habit
+to it. None the less, this people has its phenomenal virtues, its
+complete men, unknown Napoleons, who are the type of its strength
+carried to its highest expression, and sum up its social capacity in
+an existence wherein thought and movement combine less to bring joy
+into it than to neutralize the action of sorrow.
+
+Chance has made an artisan economical, chance has favored him with
+forethought, he has been able to look forward, has met with a wife and
+found himself a father, and, after some years of hard privation, he
+embarks in some little draper's business, hires a shop. If neither
+sickness nor vice blocks his way--if he has prospered--there is the
+sketch of this normal life.
+
+And, in the first place, hail to that king of Parisian activity, to
+whom time and space give way. Yes, hail to that being, composed of
+saltpetre and gas, who makes children for France during his laborious
+nights, and in the day multiplies his personality for the service,
+glory, and pleasure of his fellow-citizens. This man solves the
+problem of sufficing at once to his amiable wife, to his hearth, to
+the /Constitutionnel/, to his office, to the National Guard, to the
+opera, and to God; but, only in order that the /Constitutionnel/, his
+office, the National Guard, the opera, his wife, and God may be
+changed into coin. In fine, hail to an irreproachable pluralist. Up
+every day at five o'clock, he traverses like a bird the space which
+separates his dwelling from the Rue Montmartre. Let it blow or
+thunder, rain or snow, he is at the /Constitutionnel/, and waits there
+for the load of newspapers which he has undertaken to distribute. He
+receives this political bread with eagerness, takes it, bears it away.
+At nine o'clock he is in the bosom of his family, flings a jest to his
+wife, snatches a loud kiss from her, gulps down a cup of coffee, or
+scolds his children. At a quarter to ten he puts in an appearance at
+the /Mairie/. There, stuck upon a stool, like a parrot on its perch,
+warmed by Paris town, he registers until four o'clock, with never a
+tear or a smile, the deaths and births of an entire district. The
+sorrow, the happiness, of the parish flow beneath his pen--as the
+essence of the /Constitutionnel/ traveled before upon his shoulders.
+Nothing weighs upon him! He goes always straight before him, takes his
+patriotism ready made from the newspaper, contradicts no one, shouts
+or applauds with the world, and lives like a bird. Two yards from his
+parish, in the event of an important ceremony, he can yield his place
+to an assistant, and betake himself to chant a requiem from a stall in
+the church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament, where his
+is the most imposing voice, where he distorts his huge mouth with
+energy to thunder out a joyous /Amen/. So is he chorister. At four
+o'clock, freed from his official servitude, he reappears to shed joy
+and gaiety upon the most famous shop in the city. Happy is his wife,
+he has no time to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of
+sentiment. His mere arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter;
+their bright eyes storm the customers; he expands in the midst of all
+the finery, the lace and muslin kerchiefs, that their cunning hands
+have wrought. Or, again, more often still, before his dinner he waits
+on a client, copies the page of a newspaper, or carries to the
+doorkeeper some goods that have been delayed. Every other day, at six,
+he is faithful to his post. A permanent bass for the chorus, he
+betakes himself to the opera, prepared to become a soldier or an arab,
+prisoner, savage, peasant, spirit, camel's leg or lion, a devil or a
+genie, a slave or a eunuch, black or white; always ready to feign joy
+or sorrow, pity or astonishment, to utter cries that never vary, to
+hold his tongue, to hunt, or fight for Rome or Egypt, but always at
+heart--a huckster still.
+
+At midnight he returns--a man, the good husband, the tender father; he
+slips into the conjugal bed, his imagination still afire with the
+illusive forms of the operatic nymphs, and so turns to the profit of
+conjugal love the world's depravities, the voluptuous curves of
+Taglioni's leg. And finally, if he sleeps, he sleeps apace, and
+hurries through his slumber as he does his life.
+
+This man sums up all things--history, literature, politics,
+government, religion, military science. Is he not a living
+encyclopaedia, a grotesque Atlas; ceaselessly in motion, like Paris
+itself, and knowing not repose? He is all legs. No physiognomy could
+preserve its purity amid such toils. Perhaps the artisan who dies at
+thirty, an old man, his stomach tanned by repeated doses of brandy,
+will be held, according to certain leisured philosophers, to be
+happier than the huckster is. The one perishes in a breath, and the
+other by degrees. From his eight industries, from the labor of his
+shoulders, his throat, his hands, from his wife and his business, the
+one derives--as from so many farms--children, some thousands of
+francs, and the most laborious happiness that has ever diverted the
+heart of man. This fortune and these children, or the children who sum
+up everything for him, become the prey of the world above, to which he
+brings his ducats and his daughter or his son, reared at college, who,
+with more education than his father, raises higher his ambitious gaze.
+Often the son of a retail tradesman would fain be something in the
+State.
+
+Ambition of that sort carries on our thought to the second Parisian
+sphere. Go up one story, then, and descend to the /entresol/: or climb
+down from the attic and remain on the fourth floor; in fine, penetrate
+into the world which has possessions: the same result! Wholesale
+merchants, and their men--people with small banking accounts and much
+integrity--rogues and catspaws, clerks old and young, sheriffs'
+clerks, barristers' clerks, solicitors' clerks; in fine, all the
+working, thinking, and speculating members of that lower middle class
+which honeycombs the interests of Paris and watches over its granary,
+accumulates the coin, stores the products that the proletariat have
+made, preserves the fruits of the South, the fishes, the wine from
+every sun-favored hill; which stretches its hands over the Orient, and
+takes from it the shawls that the Russ and the Turk despise; which
+harvests even from the Indies; crouches down in expectation of a sale,
+greedy of profit; which discounts bills, turns over and collects all
+kinds of securities, holds all Paris in its hand, watches over the
+fantasies of children, spies out the caprices and the vices of mature
+age, sucks money out of disease. Even so, if they drink no brandy,
+like the artisan, nor wallow in the mire of debauch, all equally abuse
+their strength, immeasurably strain their bodies and their minds
+alike, are burned away with desires, devastated with the swiftness of
+the pace. In their case the physical distortion is accomplished
+beneath the whip of interests, beneath the scourge of ambitions which
+torture the educated portion of this monstrous city, just as in the
+case of the proletariat it is brought about by the cruel see-saw of
+the material elaborations perpetually required from the despotism of
+the aristocratic "/I will/." Here, too, then, in order to obey that
+universal master, pleasure or gold, they must devour time, hasten
+time, find more than four-and-twenty hours in the day and night, waste
+themselves, slay themselves, and purchase two years of unhealthy
+repose with thirty years of old age. Only, the working-man dies in
+hospital when the last term of his stunted growth expires; whereas the
+man of the middle class is set upon living, and lives on, but in a
+state of idiocy. You will meet him, with his worn, flat old face, with
+no light in his eyes, with no strength in his limbs, dragging himself
+with a dazed air along the boulevard--the belt of his Venus, of his
+beloved city. What was his want? The sabre of the National Guard, a
+permanent stock-pot, a decent plot in Pere Lachaise, and, for his old
+age, a little gold honestly earned. /HIS/ Monday is on Sunday, his
+rest a drive in a hired carriage--a country excursion during which his
+wife and children glut themselves merrily with dust or bask in the
+sun; his dissipation is at the restaurateur's, whose poisonous dinner
+has won renown, or at some family ball, where he suffocates till
+midnight. Some fools are surprised at the phantasmagoria of the monads
+which they see with the aid of the microscope in a drop of water; but
+what would Rabelais' Gargantua,--that misunderstood figure of an
+audacity so sublime,--what would that giant say, fallen from the
+celestial spheres, if he amused himself by contemplating the motions
+of this secondary life of Paris, of which here is one of the formulae?
+Have you seen one of those little constructions--cold in summer, and
+with no other warmth than a small stove in winter--placed beneath the
+vast copper dome which crowns the Halle-auble? Madame is there by
+morning. She is engaged at the markets, and makes by this occupation
+twelve thousand francs a year, people say. Monsieur, when Madame is
+up, passes into a gloomy office, where he lends money till the week-
+end to the tradesmen of his district. By nine o'clock he is at the
+passport office, of which he is one of the minor officials. By evening
+he is at the box-office of the Theatre Italien, or of any other
+theatre you like. The children are put out to nurse, and only return
+to be sent to college or to boarding-school. Monsieur and Madame live
+on the third floor, have but one cook, give dances in a salon twelve
+foot by eight, lit by argand lamps; but they give a hundred and fifty
+thousand francs to their daughter, and retire at the age of fifty, an
+age when they begin to show themselves on the balcony of the opera, in
+a /fiacre/ at Longchamps; or, on sunny days, in faded clothes on the
+boulevards--the fruit of all this sowing. Respected by their
+neighbors, in good odor with the government, connected with the upper
+middle classes, Monsieur obtains at sixty-five the Cross of the Legion
+of Honor, and his daughter's father-in-law, a parochial mayor, invites
+him to his evenings. These life-long labors, then, are for the good of
+the children, whom these lower middle classes are inevitably driven to
+exalt. Thus each sphere directs all its efforts towards the sphere
+above it. The son of the rich grocer becomes a notary, the son of the
+timber merchant becomes a magistrate. No link is wanting in the chain,
+and everything stimulates the upward march of money.
+
+Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps,
+will some day find its Dante. In this third social circle, a sort of
+Parisian belly, in which the interests of the town are digested, and
+where they are condensed into the form known as /business/, there
+moves and agitates, as by some acrid and bitter intestinal process,
+the crowd of lawyers, doctors, notaries, councillors, business men,
+bankers, big merchants, speculators, and magistrates. Here are to be
+found even more causes of moral and physical destruction than
+elsewhere. These people--almost all of them--live in unhealthy
+offices, in fetid ante-chambers, in little barred dens, and spend
+their days bowed down beneath the weight of affairs; they rise at dawn
+to be in time, not to be left behind, to gain all or not to lose, to
+overreach a man or his money, to open or wind up some business, to
+take advantage of some fleeting opportunity, to get a man hanged or
+set him free. They infect their horses, they overdrive and age and
+break them, like their own legs, before their time. Time is their
+tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; they can neither expand it nor
+cut it short. What soul can remain great, pure, moral, and generous,
+and, consequently, what face retain its beauty in this depraving
+practice of a calling which compels one to bear the weight of the
+public sorrows, to analyze them, to weigh them, estimate them, and
+mark them out by rule? Where do these folk put aside their
+hearts? . . . I do not know; but they leave them somewhere or other,
+when they have any, before they descend each morning into the abyss of
+the misery which puts families on the rack. For them there is no such
+thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of society, whose
+confessors they are, and despise it. Then, whatever they do, owing to
+their contact with corruption, they either are horrified at it and
+grow gloomy, or else, out of lassitude, or some secret compromise,
+espouse it. In fine, they necessarily become callous to every
+sentiment, since man, his laws and his institutions, make them steal,
+like jackals, from corpses that are still warm. At all hours the
+financier is trampling on the living, the attorney on the dead, the
+pleader on the conscience. Forced to be speaking without a rest, they
+all substitute words for ideas, phrases for feelings, and their soul
+becomes a larynx. Neither the great merchant, nor the judge, nor the
+pleader preserves his sense of right; they feel no more, they apply
+set rules that leave cases out of count. Borne along by their headlong
+course, they are neither husbands nor fathers nor lovers; they glide
+on sledges over the facts of life, and live at all times at the high
+pressure conduced by business and the vast city. When they return to
+their homes they are required to go to a ball, to the opera, into
+society, where they can make clients, acquaintances, protectors. They
+all eat to excess, play and keep vigil, and their faces become
+bloated, flushed, and emaciated.
+
+To this terrific expenditure of intellectual strength, to such
+multifold moral contradictions, they oppose--not, indeed pleasure, it
+would be too pale a contrast--but debauchery, a debauchery both secret
+and alarming, for they have all means at their disposal, and fix the
+morality of society. Their genuine stupidity lies hid beneath their
+specialism. They know their business, but are ignorant of everything
+which is outside it. So that to preserve their self-conceit they
+question everything, are crudely and crookedly critical. They appear
+to be sceptics and are in reality simpletons; they swamp their wits in
+interminable arguments. Almost all conveniently adopt social,
+literary, or political prejudices, to do away with the need of having
+opinions, just as they adapt their conscience to the standard of the
+Code or the Tribunal of Commerce. Having started early to become men
+of note, they turn into mediocrities, and crawl over the high places
+of the world. So, too, their faces present the harsh pallor, the
+deceitful coloring, those dull, tarnished eyes, and garrulous, sensual
+mouths, in which the observer recognizes the symptoms of the
+degeneracy of the thought and its rotation in the circle of a special
+idea which destroys the creative faculties of the brain and the gift
+of seeing in large, of generalizing and deducing. No man who has
+allowed himself to be caught in the revolutions of the gear of these
+huge machines can ever become great. If he is a doctor, either he has
+practised little or he is an exception--a Bichat who dies young. If a
+great merchant, something remains--he is almost Jacques Coeur. Did
+Robespierre practise? Danton was an idler who waited. But who,
+moreover has ever felt envious of the figures of Danton and
+Robespierre, however lofty they were? These men of affairs, /par
+excellence/, attract money to them, and hoard it in order to ally
+themselves with aristocratic families. If the ambition of the working-
+man is that of the small tradesman, here, too, are the same passions.
+The type of this class might be either an ambitious bourgeois, who,
+after a life of privation and continual scheming, passes into the
+Council of State as an ant passes through a chink; or some newspaper
+editor, jaded with intrigue, whom the king makes a peer of France--
+perhaps to revenge himself on the nobility; or some notary become
+mayor of his parish: all people crushed with business, who, if they
+attain their end, are literally /killed/ in its attainment. In France
+the usage is to glorify wigs. Napoleon, Louis XVI., the great rulers,
+alone have always wished for young men to fulfil their projects.
+
+Above this sphere the artist world exists. But here, too, the faces
+stamped with the seal of originality are worn, nobly indeed, but worn,
+fatigued, nervous. Harassed by a need of production, outrun by their
+costly fantasies, worn out by devouring genius, hungry for pleasure,
+the artists of Paris would all regain by excessive labor what they
+have lost by idleness, and vainly seek to reconcile the world and
+glory, money and art. To begin with, the artist is ceaselessly panting
+under his creditors; his necessities beget his debts, and his debts
+require of him his nights. After his labor, his pleasure. The comedian
+plays till midnight, studies in the morning, rehearses at noon; the
+sculptor is bent before his statue; the journalist is a marching
+thought, like the soldier when at war; the painter who is the fashion
+is crushed with work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels
+himself to be a man of genius, gnaws his entrails. Competition,
+rivalry, calumny assail talent. Some, in desperation, plunge into the
+abyss of vice, others die young and unknown because they have
+discounted their future too soon. Few of these figures, originally
+sublime, remain beautiful. On the other hand, the flagrant beauty of
+their heads is not understood. An artist's face is always exorbitant,
+it is always above or below the conventional lines of what fools call
+the /beau-ideal/. What power is it that destroys them? Passion. Every
+passion in Paris resolves into two terms: gold and pleasure. Now, do
+you not breathe again? Do you not feel air and space purified? Here is
+neither labor nor suffering. The soaring arch of gold has reached the
+summit. From the lowest gutters, where its stream commences, from the
+little shops where it is stopped by puny coffer-dams, from the heart
+of the counting-houses and great workshops, where its volume is that
+of ingots--gold, in the shape of dowries and inheritances, guided by
+the hands of young girls or the bony fingers of age, courses towards
+the aristocracy, where it will become a blazing, expansive stream.
+But, before leaving the four territories upon which the utmost wealth
+of Paris is based, it is fitting, having cited the moral causes, to
+deduce those which are physical, and to call attention to a
+pestilence, latent, as it were, which incessantly acts upon the faces
+of the porter, the artisan, the small shopkeeper; to point out a
+deleterious influence the corruption of which equals that of the
+Parisian administrators who allow it so complacently to exist!
+
+If the air of the houses in which the greater proportion of the middle
+classes live is noxious, if the atmosphere of the streets belches out
+cruel miasmas into stuffy back-kitchens where there is little air,
+realize that, apart from this pestilence, the forty thousand houses of
+this great city have their foundations in filth, which the powers that
+be have not yet seriously attempted to enclose with mortar walls solid
+enough to prevent even the most fetid mud from filtering through the
+soil, poisoning the wells, and maintaining subterraneously to Lutetia
+the tradition of her celebrated name. Half of Paris sleeps amidst the
+putrid exhalations of courts and streets and sewers. But let us turn
+to the vast saloons, gilded and airy; the hotels in their gardens, the
+rich, indolent, happy moneyed world. There the faces are lined and
+scarred with vanity. There nothing is real. To seek for pleasure is it
+not to find /ennui/? People in society have at an early age warped
+their nature. Having no occupation other than to wallow in pleasure,
+they have speedily misused their sense, as the artisan has misused
+brandy. Pleasure is of the nature of certain medical substances: in
+order to obtain constantly the same effects the doses must be doubled,
+and death or degradation is contained in the last. All the lower
+classes are on their knees before the wealthy, and watch their tastes
+in order to turn them into vices and exploit them. Thus you see in
+these folk at an early age tastes instead of passions, romantic
+fantasies and lukewarm loves. There impotence reigns; there ideas have
+ceased--they have evaporated together with energy amongst the
+affectations of the boudoir and the cajolements of women. There are
+fledglings of forty, old doctors of sixty years. The wealthy obtain in
+Paris ready-made wit and science--formulated opinions which save them
+the need of having wit, science, or opinion of their own. The
+irrationality of this world is equaled by its weakness and its
+licentiousness. It is greedy of time to the point of wasting it. Seek
+in it for affection as little as for ideas. Its kisses conceal a
+profound indifference, its urbanity a perpetual contempt. It has no
+other fashion of love. Flashes of wit without profundity, a wealth of
+indiscretion, scandal, and above all, commonplace. Such is the sum of
+its speech; but these happy fortunates pretend that they do not meet
+to make and repeat maxims in the manner of La Rochefoucauld as though
+there did not exist a mean, invented by the eighteenth century,
+between a superfluity and absolute blank. If a few men of character
+indulge in witticism, at once subtle and refined, they are
+misunderstood; soon, tired of giving without receiving, they remain at
+home, and leave fools to reign over their territory. This hollow life,
+this perpetual expectation of a pleasure which never comes, this
+permanent /ennui/ and emptiness of soul, heart, and mind, the
+lassitude of the upper Parisian world, is reproduced on its features,
+and stamps its parchment faces, its premature wrinkles, that
+physiognomy of the wealthy upon which impotence has set its grimace,
+in which gold is mirrored, and whence intelligence has fled.
+
+Such a view of moral Paris proves that physical Paris could not be
+other than it is. This coroneted town is like a queen, who, being
+always with child, has desires of irresistible fury. Paris is the
+crown of the world, a brain which perishes of genius and leads human
+civilization; it is a great man, a perpetually creative artist, a
+politician with second-sight who must of necessity have wrinkles on
+his forehead, the vices of a great man, the fantasies of the artist,
+and the politician's disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the
+evolution of good and evil, battle and victory; the moral combat of
+'89, the clarion calls of which still re-echo in every corner of the
+world; and also the downfall of 1814. Thus this city can no more be
+moral, or cordial, or clean, than the engines which impel those proud
+leviathans which you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a
+sublime vessel laden with intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those
+oracles which fatality sometimes allows. The /City of Paris/ has her
+great mast, all of bronze, carved with victories, and for watchman--
+Napoleon. The barque may roll and pitch, but she cleaves the world,
+illuminates it through the hundred mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the
+seas of science, rides with full sail, cries from the height of her
+tops, with the voice of her scientists and artists: "Onward, advance!
+Follow me!" She carries a huge crew, which delights in adorning her
+with fresh streamers. Boys and urchins laughing in the rigging;
+ballast of heavy /bourgeoisie/; working-men and sailor-men touched
+with tar; in her cabins the lucky passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke
+their cigars leaning over the bulwarks; then, on the deck, her
+soldiers, innovators or ambitious, would accost every fresh shore, and
+shooting out their bright lights upon it, ask for glory which is
+pleasure, or for love which needs gold.
+
+Thus the exorbitant movement of the proletariat, the corrupting
+influence of the interests which consume the two middle classes, the
+cruelties of the artist's thought, and the excessive pleasure which is
+sought for incessantly by the great, explain the normal ugliness of
+the Parisian physiognomy. It is only in the Orient that the human race
+presents a magnificent figure, but that is an effect of the constant
+calm affected by those profound philosophers with their long pipes,
+their short legs, their square contour, who despise and hold activity
+in horror, whilst in Paris the little and the great and the mediocre
+run and leap and drive, whipped on by an inexorable goddess, Necessity
+--the necessity for money, glory, and amusement. Thus, any face which
+is fresh and graceful and reposeful, any really young face, is in
+Paris the most extraordinary of exceptions; it is met with rarely.
+Should you see one there, be sure it belongs either to a young and
+ardent ecclesiastic or to some good abbe of forty with three chins; to
+a young girl of pure life such as is brought up in certain middle-
+class families; to a mother of twenty, still full of illusions, as she
+suckles her first-born; to a young man newly embarked from the
+provinces, and intrusted to the care of some devout dowager who keeps
+him without a sou; or, perhaps, to some shop assistant who goes to bed
+at midnight wearied out with folding and unfolding calico, and rises
+at seven o'clock to arrange the window; often again to some man of
+science or poetry, who lives monastically in the embrace of a fine
+idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste; else to some self-
+contented fool, feeding himself on folly, reeking of health, in a
+perpetual state of absorption with his own smile; or to the soft and
+happy race of loungers, the only folk really happy in Paris, which
+unfolds for them hour by hour its moving poetry.
+
+Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to
+whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts,
+and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also
+have a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy
+their physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little
+happy colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their
+beauty; but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets,
+they lie hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain
+hours, and constitute veritable exotic exceptions. However, Paris is
+essentially the country of contrasts. If true sentiments are rare
+there, there also are to be found, as elsewhere, noble friendships and
+unlimited devotion. On this battlefield of interests and passions,
+just as in the midst of those marching societies where egoism
+triumphs, where every one is obliged to defend himself, and which we
+call /armies/, it seems as though sentiments liked to be complete when
+they showed themselves, and are sublime by juxtaposition. So it is
+with faces. In Paris one sometimes sees in the aristocracy, set like
+stars, the ravishing faces of young people, the fruit of quite
+exceptional manners and education. To the youthful beauty of the
+English stock they unite the firmness of Southern traits. The fire of
+their eyes, a delicious bloom on their lips, the lustrous black of
+their soft locks, a white complexion, a distinguished caste of
+features, render them the flowers of the human race, magnificent to
+behold against the mass of other faces, worn, old, wrinkled, and
+grimacing. So women, too, admire such young people with that eager
+pleasure which men take in watching a pretty girl, elegant, gracious,
+and embellished with all the virginal charms with which our
+imagination pleases to adorn the perfect woman. If this hurried glance
+at the population of Paris has enabled us to conceive the rarity of a
+Raphaelesque face, and the passionate admiration which such an one
+must inspire at the first sight, the prime interest of our history
+will have been justified. /Quod erat demonstrandum/--if one may be
+permitted to apply scholastic formulae to the science of manners.
+
+Upon one of those fine spring mornings, when the leaves, although
+unfolded, are not yet green, when the sun begins to gild the roofs,
+and the sky is blue, when the population of Paris issues from its
+cells to swarm along the boulevards, glides like a serpent of a
+thousand coils through the Rue de la Paix towards the Tuileries,
+saluting the hymeneal magnificence which the country puts on; on one
+of these joyous days, then, a young man as beautiful as the day
+itself, dressed with taste, easy of manner--to let out the secret he
+was a love-child, the natural son of Lord Dudley and the famous
+Marquise de Vordac--was walking in the great avenue of the Tuileries.
+This Adonis, by name Henri de Marsay, was born in France, when Lord
+Dudley had just married the young lady, already Henri's mother, to an
+old gentleman called M. de Marsay. This faded and almost extinguished
+butterfly recognized the child as his own in consideration of the life
+interest in a fund of a hundred thousand francs definitively assigned
+to his putative son; a generosity which did not cost Lord Dudley too
+dear. French funds were worth at that time seventeen francs, fifty
+centimes. The old gentleman died without having ever known his wife.
+Madame de Marsay subsequently married the Marquis de Vordac, but
+before becoming a marquise she showed very little anxiety as to her
+son and Lord Dudley. To begin with, the declaration of war between
+France and England had separated the two lovers, and fidelity at all
+costs was not, and never will be, the fashion of Paris. Then the
+successes of the woman, elegant, pretty, universally adored, crushed
+in the Parisienne the maternal sentiment. Lord Dudley was no more
+troubled about his offspring than was the mother,--the speedy
+infidelity of a young girl he had ardently loved gave him, perhaps, a
+sort of aversion for all that issued from her. Moreover, fathers can,
+perhaps, only love the children with whom they are fully acquainted, a
+social belief of the utmost importance for the peace of families,
+which should be held by all the celibate, proving as it does that
+paternity is a sentiment nourished artificially by woman, custom, and
+the law.
+
+Poor Henri de Marsay knew no other father than that one of the two who
+was not compelled to be one. The paternity of M. de Marsay was
+naturally most incomplete. In the natural order, it is but for a few
+fleeting instants that children have a father, and M. de Marsay
+imitated nature. The worthy man would not have sold his name had he
+been free from vices. Thus he squandered without remorse in gambling
+hells, and drank elsewhere, the few dividends which the National
+Treasury paid to its bondholders. Then he handed over the child to an
+aged sister, a Demoiselle de Marsay, who took much care of him, and
+provided him, out of the meagre sum allowed by her brother, with a
+tutor, an abbe without a farthing, who took the measure of the youth's
+future, and determined to pay himself out of the hundred thousand
+livres for the care given to his pupil, for whom he conceived an
+affection. As chance had it, this tutor was a true priest, one of
+those ecclesiastics cut out to become cardinals in France, or Borgias
+beneath the tiara. He taught the child in three years what he might
+have learned at college in ten. Then the great man, by name the Abbe
+de Maronis, completed the education of his pupil by making him study
+civilization under all its aspects: he nourished him on his
+experience, led him little into churches, which at that time were
+closed; introduced him sometimes behind the scenes of theatres, more
+often into the houses of courtesans; he exhibited human emotions to
+him one by one; taught him politics in the drawing-rooms, where they
+simmered at the time, explained to him the machinery of government,
+and endeavored out of attraction towards a fine nature, deserted, yet
+rich in promise, virilely to replace a mother: is not the Church the
+mother of orphans? The pupil was responsive to so much care. The
+worthy priest died in 1812, a bishop, with the satisfaction of having
+left in this world a child whose heart and mind were so well moulded
+that he could outwit a man of forty. Who would have expected to have
+found a heart of bronze, a brain of steel, beneath external traits as
+seductive as ever the old painters, those naive artists, had given to
+the serpent in the terrestrial paradise? Nor was that all. In
+addition, the good-natured prelate had procured for the child of his
+choice certain acquaintances in the best Parisian society, which might
+equal in value, in the young man's hand, another hundred thousand
+invested livres. In fine, this priest, vicious but politic, sceptical
+yet learned, treacherous yet amiable, weak in appearance yet as
+vigorous physically as intellectually, was so genuinely useful to his
+pupil, so complacent to his vices, so fine a calculator of all kinds
+of strength, so profound when it was needful to make some human
+reckoning, so youthful at table, at Frascati, at--I know not where,
+that the grateful Henri de Marsay was hardly moved at aught in 1814,
+except when he looked at the portrait of his beloved bishop, the only
+personal possession which the prelate had been able to bequeath him
+(admirable type of the men whose genius will preserve the Catholic,
+Apostolic, and Roman Church, compromised for the moment by the
+feebleness of its recruits and the decrepit age of its pontiffs; but
+if the church likes!).
+
+The continental war prevented young De Marsay from knowing his real
+father. It is doubtful whether he was aware of his name. A deserted
+child, he was equally ignorant of Madame de Marsay. Naturally, he had
+little regret for his putative father. As for Mademoiselle de Marsay,
+his only mother, he built for her a handsome little monument in Pere
+Lachaise when she died. Monseigneur de Maronis had guaranteed to this
+old lady one of the best places in the skies, so that when he saw her
+die happy, Henri gave her some egotistical tears; he began to weep on
+his own account. Observing this grief, the abbe dried his pupil's
+tears, bidding him observe that the good woman took her snuff most
+offensively, and was becoming so ugly and deaf and tedious that he
+ought to return thanks for her death. The bishop had emancipated his
+pupil in 1811. Then, when the mother of M. de Marsay remarried, the
+priest chose, in a family council, one of those honest dullards,
+picked out by him through the windows of his confessional, and charged
+him with the administration of the fortune, the revenues of which he
+was willing to apply to the needs of the community, but of which he
+wished to preserve the capital.
+
+Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
+obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although
+he had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a
+rule the most fastidious of his rivals considered him to be the
+prettiest youth in Paris. From his father, Lord Dudley, he had derived
+a pair of the most amorously deceiving blue eyes; from his mother the
+bushiest of black hair, from both pure blood, the skin of a young
+girl, a gentle and modest expression, a refined and aristocratic
+figure, and beautiful hands. For a woman, to see him was to lose her
+head for him; do you understand? to conceive one of those desires
+which eat the heart, which are forgotten because of the impossibility
+of satisfying them, because women in Paris are commonly without
+tenacity. Few of them say to themselves, after the fashion of men, the
+"/Je Maintiendrai/," of the House of Orange.
+
+Underneath this fresh young life, and in spite of the limpid springs
+in his eyes, Henri had a lion's courage, a monkey's agility. He could
+cut a ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his
+horse in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a
+four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb,
+but knew how to beat a townsman at the terrible game of /savate/ or
+cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have
+enabled him to become an artist should he fall on calamity, and owned
+a voice which would have been worth to Barbaja fifty thousand francs a
+season. Alas, that all these fine qualities, these pretty faults, were
+tarnished by one abominable vice: he believed neither in man nor
+woman, God nor Devil. Capricious nature had commenced by endowing him,
+a priest had completed the work.
+
+To render this adventure comprehensible, it is necessary to add here
+that Lord Dudley naturally found many women disposed to reproduce
+samples of such a delicious pattern. His second masterpiece of this
+kind was a young girl named Euphemie, born of a Spanish lady, reared
+in Havana, and brought to Madrid with a young Creole woman of the
+Antilles, and with all the ruinous tastes of the Colonies, but
+fortunately married to an old and extremely rich Spanish noble, Don
+Hijos, Marquis de San-Real, who, since the occupation of Spain by
+French troops, had taken up his abode in Paris, and lived in the Rue
+St. Lazare. As much from indifference as from any respect for the
+innocence of youth, Lord Dudley was not in the habit of keeping his
+children informed of the relations he created for them in all parts.
+That is a slightly inconvenient form of civilization; it has so many
+advantages that we must overlook its drawbacks in consideration of its
+benefits. Lord Dudley, to make no more words of it, came to Paris in
+1816 to take refuge from the pursuit of English justice, which
+protects nothing Oriental except commerce. The exiled lord, when he
+saw Henri, asked who that handsome young man might be. Then, upon
+hearing the name, "Ah, it is my son. . . . What a pity!" he said.
+
+Such was the story of the young man who, about the middle of the month
+of April, 1815, was walking indolently up the broad avenue of the
+Tuileries, after the fashion of all those animals who, knowing their
+strength, pass along in majesty and peace. Middle-class matrons turned
+back naively to look at him again; other women, without turning round,
+waited for him to pass again, and engraved him in their minds that
+they might remember in due season that fragrant face, which would not
+have disadorned the body of the fairest among themselves.
+
+"What are you doing here on Sunday?" said the Marquis de Ronquerolles
+to Henri, as he passed.
+
+"There's a fish in the net," answered the young man.
+
+This exchange of thoughts was accomplished by means of two significant
+glances, without it appearing that either De Ronquerolles or De Marsay
+had any knowledge of the other. The young man was taking note of the
+passers-by with that promptitude of eye and ear which is peculiar to
+the Parisian who seems, at first, to see and hear nothing, but who
+sees and hears all.
+
+At that moment a young man came up to him and took him familiarly by
+the arm, saying to him: "How are you, my dear De Marsay?"
+
+"Extremely well," De Marsay answered, with that air of apparent
+affection which amongst the young men of Paris proves nothing, either
+for the present or the future.
+
+In effect, the youth of Paris resemble the youth of no other town.
+They may be divided into two classes: the young man who has something,
+and the young man who has nothing; or the young man who thinks and he
+who spends. But, be it well understood this applies only to those
+natives of the soil who maintain in Paris the delicious course of the
+elegant life. There exist, as well, plenty of other young men, but
+they are children who are late in conceiving Parisian life, and who
+remain its dupes. They do not speculate, they study; they /fag/, as
+the others say. Finally there are to be found, besides, certain young
+people, rich or poor, who embrace careers and follow them with a
+single heart; they are somewhat like the Emile of Rousseau, of the
+flesh of citizens, and they never appear in society. The diplomatic
+impolitely dub them fools. Be they that or no, they augment the number
+of those mediocrities beneath the yoke of which France is bowed down.
+They are always there, always ready to bungle public or private
+concerns with the dull trowel of their mediocrity, bragging of their
+impotence, which they count for conduct and integrity. This sort of
+social /prizemen/ infests the administration, the army, the
+magistracy, the chambers, the courts. They diminish and level down the
+country and constitute, in some manner, in the body politic, a lymph
+which infects it and renders it flabby. These honest folk call men of
+talent immoral or rogues. If such rogues require to be paid for their
+services, at least their services are there; whereas the other sort do
+harm and are respected by the mob; but, happily for France, elegant
+youth stigmatizes them ceaselessly under the name of louts.
+
+At the first glance, then, it is natural to consider as very distinct
+the two sorts of young men who lead the life of elegance, the amiable
+corporation to which Henri de Marsay belonged. But the observer, who
+goes beyond the superficial aspect of things, is soon convinced that
+the difference is purely moral, and that nothing is so deceptive as
+this pretty outside. Nevertheless, all alike take precedence over
+everybody else; speak rightly or wrongly of things, of men,
+literature, and the fine arts; have ever in their mouth the Pitt and
+Coburg of each year; interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into
+ridicule science and the /savant/; despise all things which they do
+not know or which they fear; set themselves above all by constituting
+themselves the supreme judges of all. They would all hoax their
+fathers, and be ready to shed crocodile tears upon their mothers'
+breasts; but generally they believe in nothing, blaspheme women, or
+play at modesty, and in reality are led by some old woman or an evil
+courtesan. They are all equally eaten to the bone with calculation,
+with depravity, with a brutal lust to succeed, and if you plumbed for
+their hearts you would find in all a stone. In their normal state they
+have the prettiest exterior, stake their friendship at every turn, are
+captivating alike. The same badinage dominates their ever-changing
+jargon; they seek for oddity in their toilette, glory in repeating the
+stupidities of such and such actor who is in fashion, and commence
+operations, it matters not with whom, with contempt and impertinence,
+in order to have, as it were, the first move in the game; but, woe
+betide him who does not know how to take a blow on one cheek for the
+sake of rendering two. They resemble, in fine, that pretty white spray
+which crests the stormy waves. They dress and dance, dine and take
+their pleasure, on the day of Waterloo, in the time of cholera or
+revolution. Finally, their expenses are all the same, but here the
+contrast comes in. Of this fluctuating fortune, so agreeably flung
+away, some possess the capital for which the others wait; they have
+the same tailors, but the bills of the latter are still to pay. Next,
+if the first, like sieves, take in ideas of all kinds without
+retaining any, the latter compare them and assimilate all the good. If
+the first believe they know something, know nothing and understand
+everything, lend all to those who need nothing and offer nothing to
+those who are in need; the latter study secretly others' thoughts and
+place out their money, like their follies, at big interest. The one
+class have no more faithful impressions, because their soul, like a
+mirror, worn from use, no longer reflects any image; the others
+economize their senses and life, even while they seem, like the first,
+to be flinging them away broadcast. The first, on the faith of a hope,
+devote themselves without conviction to a system which has wind and
+tide against it, but they leap upon another political craft when the
+first goes adrift; the second take the measure of the future, sound
+it, and see in political fidelity what the English see in commercial
+integrity, an element of success. Where the young man of possessions
+makes a pun or an epigram upon the restoration of the throne, he who
+has nothing makes a public calculation or a secret reservation, and
+obtains everything by giving a handshake to his friends. The one deny
+every faculty to others, look upon all their ideas as new, as though
+the world had been made yesterday, they have unlimited confidence in
+themselves, and no crueler enemy than those same selves. But the
+others are armed with an incessant distrust of men, whom they estimate
+at their value, and are sufficiently profound to have one thought
+beyond their friends, whom they exploit; then of evenings, when they
+lay their heads on their pillows, they weigh men as a miser weighs his
+gold pieces. The one are vexed at an aimless impertinence, and allow
+themselves to be ridiculed by the diplomatic, who make them dance for
+them by pulling what is the main string of these puppets--their
+vanity. Thus, a day comes when those who had nothing have something,
+and those who had something have nothing. The latter look at their
+comrades who have achieved positions as cunning fellows; their hearts
+may be bad, but their heads are strong. "He is very strong!" is the
+supreme praise accorded to those who have attained /quibuscumque
+viis/, political rank, a woman, or a fortune. Amongst them are to be
+found certain young men who play this /role/ by commencing with having
+debts. Naturally, these are more dangerous than those who play it
+without a farthing.
+
+The young man who called himself a friend of Henri de Marsay was a
+rattle-head who had come from the provinces, and whom the young men
+then in fashion were teaching the art of running through an
+inheritance; but he had one last leg to stand on in his province, in
+the shape of a secure establishment. He was simply an heir who had
+passed without any transition from his pittance of a hundred francs a
+month to the entire paternal fortune, and who, if he had not wit
+enough to perceive that he was laughed at, was sufficiently cautious
+to stop short at two-thirds of his capital. He had learned at Paris,
+for a consideration of some thousands of francs, the exact value of
+harness, the art of not being too respectful to his gloves, learned to
+make skilful meditations upon the right wages to give people, and to
+seek out what bargain was the best to close with them. He set store on
+his capacity to speak in good terms of his horses, of his Pyrenean
+hound; to tell by her dress, her walk, her shoes, to what class a
+woman belonged; to study /ecarte/, remember a few fashionable
+catchwords, and win by his sojourn in Parisian society the necessary
+authority to import later into his province a taste for tea and silver
+of an English fashion, and to obtain the right of despising everything
+around him for the rest of his days.
+
+De Marsay had admitted him to his society in order to make use of him
+in the world, just as a bold speculator employs a confidential clerk.
+The friendship, real or feigned, of De Marsay was a social position
+for Paul de Manerville, who, on his side, thought himself astute in
+exploiting, after his fashion, his intimate friend. He lived in the
+reflecting lustre of his friend, walked constantly under his umbrella,
+wore his boots, gilded himself with his rays. When he posed in Henri's
+company or walked at his side, he had the air of saying: "Don't insult
+us, we are real dogs." He often permitted himself to remark fatuously:
+"If I were to ask Henri for such and such a thing, he is a good enough
+friend of mine to do it." But he was careful never to ask anything of
+him. He feared him, and his fear, although imperceptible, reacted upon
+the others, and was of use to De Marsay.
+
+"De Marsay is a man of a thousand," said Paul. "Ah, you will see, he
+will be what he likes. I should not be surprised to find him one of
+these days Minister of Foreign Affairs. Nothing can withstand him."
+
+He made of De Marsay what Corporal Trim made of his cap, a perpetual
+instance.
+
+"Ask De Marsay and you will see!"
+
+Or again:
+
+"The other day we were hunting, De Marsay and I, He would not believe
+me, but I jumped a hedge without moving on my horse!"
+
+Or again:
+
+"We were with some women, De Marsay and I, and upon my word of honor,
+I was----" etc.
+
+Thus Paul de Manerville could not be classed amongst the great,
+illustrious, and powerful family of fools who succeed. He would one
+day be a deputy. For the time he was not even a young man. His friend,
+De Marsay, defined him thus: "You ask me what is Paul? Paul? Why, Paul
+de Manerville!"
+
+"I am surprised, my dear fellow," he said to De Marsay, "to see you
+here on a Sunday."
+
+"I was going to ask you the same question."
+
+"Is it an intrigue?"
+
+"An intrigue."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"I can mention it to you without compromising my passion. Besides, a
+woman who comes to the Tuileries on Sundays is of no account,
+aristocratically speaking."
+
+"Ah! ah!"
+
+"Hold your tongue then, or I shall tell you nothing. Your laugh is too
+loud, you will make people think that we have lunched too well. Last
+Thursday, here on the Terrasse des Feuillants, I was walking along,
+thinking of nothing at all, but when I got to the gate of the Rue de
+Castiglione, by which I intended to leave, I came face to face with a
+woman, or rather a young girl; who, if she did not throw herself at my
+head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one
+of those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep
+down the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet,
+to nail you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this
+nature, a sort of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful
+when the relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this
+was not stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her
+face seemed to say: 'What, is it you, my ideal! The creation of my
+thoughts, of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why
+this morning? Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, /et cetera/!'
+Good, I said to myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my
+dear fellow, speaking physically, my incognita is the most adorable
+feminine person whom I ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety
+which the Romans call /fulva, flava/--the woman of fire. And in chief,
+what struck me the most, what I am still taken with, are her two
+yellow eyes, like a tiger's, a golden yellow that gleams, living gold,
+gold which thinks, gold which loves, and is determined to take refuge
+in your pocket."
+
+"My dear fellow, we are full of her!" cried Paul. "She comes here
+sometimes--/the girl with the golden eyes/! That is the name we have
+given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
+have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who
+was worth a hundred thousand of her."
+
+"Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl;
+she is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl
+with ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy
+threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks
+a white down whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and
+loses itself on her neck."
+
+"Ah, the other, my dear De Marsay! She has black eyes which have never
+wept, but which burn; black eyebrows which meet and give her an air of
+hardness contradicted by the compact curve of her lips, on which the
+kisses do not stay, lips burning and fresh; a Moorish color that warms
+a man like the sun. But--upon my word of honor, she is like you!"
+
+"You flatter her!"
+
+"A firm figure, the tapering figure of a corvette built for speed,
+which rushes down upon the merchant vessel with French impetuosity,
+which grapples with her and sinks her at the same time."
+
+"After all, my dear fellow," answered De Marsay, "what has that got to
+do with me, since I have never seen her? Ever since I have studied
+women, my incognita is the only one whose virginal bosom, whose ardent
+and voluptuous forms, have realized for me the only woman of my dreams
+--of my dreams! She is the original of that ravishing picture called
+/La Femme Caressant sa Chimere/, the warmest, the most infernal
+inspiration of the genius of antiquity; a holy poem prostituted by
+those who have copied it for frescoes and mosiacs; for a heap of
+bourgeois who see in this gem nothing more than a gew-gaw and hang it
+on their watch-chains--whereas, it is the whole woman, an abyss of
+pleasure into which one plunges and finds no end; whereas, it is the
+ideal woman, to be seen sometimes in reality in Spain or Italy, almost
+never in France. Well, I have again seen this girl of the gold eyes,
+this woman caressing her chimera. I saw her on Friday. I had a
+presentiment that on the following day she would be here at the same
+hour; I was not mistaken. I have taken a pleasure in following her
+without being observed, in studying her indolent walk, the walk of the
+woman without occupation, but in the movements of which one devines
+all the pleasure that lies asleep. Well, she turned back again, she
+saw me, once more she adored me, once more trembled, shivered. It was
+then I noticed the genuine Spanish duenna who looked after her, a
+hyena upon whom some jealous man has put a dress, a she-devil well
+paid, no doubt, to guard this delicious creature. . . . Ah, then the
+duenna made me deeper in love. I grew curious. On Saturday, nobody.
+And here I am to-day waiting for this girl whose chimera I am, asking
+nothing better than to pose as the monster in the fresco."
+
+"There she is," said Paul. "Every one is turning round to look at
+her."
+
+The unknown blushed, her eyes shone; she saw Henri, she shut them and
+passed by.
+
+"You say that she notices you?" cried Paul, facetiously.
+
+The duenna looked fixedly and attentively at the two young men. When
+the unknown and Henri passed each other again, the young girl touched
+him, and with her hand pressed the hand of the young man. Then she
+turned her head and smiled with passion, but the duenna led her away
+very quickly to the gate of the Rue de Castiglione.
+
+The two friends followed the young girl, admiring the magnificent
+grace of the neck which met her head in a harmony of vigorous lines,
+and upon which a few coils of hair were tightly wound. The girl with
+the golden eyes had that well-knitted, arched, slender foot which
+presents so many attractions to the dainty imagination. Moreover, she
+was shod with elegance, and wore a short skirt. During her course she
+turned from time to time to look at Henri, and appeared to follow the
+old woman regretfully, seeming to be at once her mistress and her
+slave; she could break her with blows, but could not dismiss her. All
+that was perceptible. The two friends reached the gate. Two men in
+livery let down the step of a tasteful /coupe/ emblazoned with
+armorial bearings. The girl with the golden eyes was the first to
+enter it, took her seat at the side where she could be best seen when
+the carriage turned, put her hand on the door, and waved her
+handkerchief in the duennna's despite. In contempt of what might be
+said by the curious, her handkerchief cried to Henri openly: "Follow
+me!"
+
+"Have you ever seen a handkerchief better thrown?" said Henri to Paul
+de Manerville.
+
+Then, observing a fiacre on the point of departure, having just set
+down a fare, he made a sign to the driver to wait.
+
+"Follow that carriage, notice the house and the street where it stops
+--you shall have ten francs. . . . Paul, adieu."
+
+The cab followed the /coupe/. The /coupe/ stopped in the Rue Saint
+Lazare before one of the finest houses of the neighborhood.
+
+De Marsay was not impulsive. Any other young man would have obeyed his
+impulse to obtain at once some information about a girl who realized
+so fully the most luminous ideas ever expressed upon women in the
+poetry of the East; but, too experienced to compromise his good
+fortune, he had told his coachman to continue along the Rue Saint
+Lazare and carry him back to his house. The next day, his confidential
+valet, Laurent by name, as cunning a fellow as the Frontin of the old
+comedy, waited in the vicinity of the house inhabited by the unknown
+for the hour at which letters were distributed. In order to be able to
+spy at his ease and hang about the house, he had followed the example
+of those police officers who seek a good disguise, and bought up cast-
+off clothes of an Auvergnat, the appearance of whom he sought to
+imitate. When the postman, who went the round of the Rue Saint Lazare
+that morning, passed by, Laurent feigned to be a porter unable to
+remember the name of a person to whom he had to deliver a parcel, and
+consulted the postman. Deceived at first by appearances, this
+personage, so picturesque in the midst of Parisian civilization,
+informed him that the house in which the girl with the golden eyes
+dwelt belonged to Don Hijos, Marquis de San-Real, grandee of Spain.
+Naturally, it was not with the Marquis that the Auvergnat was
+concerned.
+
+"My parcel," he said, "is for the marquise."
+
+"She is away," replied the postman. "Her letters are forwarded to
+London."
+
+"Then the marquise is not a young girl who . . . ?"
+
+"Ah!" said the postman, interrupting the /valet de chambre/ and
+observing him attentively, "you are as much a porter as I'm . . ."
+
+Laurent chinked some pieces of gold before the functionary, who began
+to smile.
+
+"Come, here's the name of your quarry," he said, taking from his
+leather wallet a letter bearing a London stamp, upon which the
+address, "To Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes, Rue Saint Lazare, Hotel San-
+Real, Paris," was written in long, fine characters, which spoke of a
+woman's hand.
+
+"Could you tap a bottle of Chablis, with a few dozen oysters, and a
+/filet saute/ with mushrooms to follow it?" said Laurent, who wished
+to win the postman's valuable friendship.
+
+"At half-past nine, when my round is finished---- Where?"
+
+"At the corner of the Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin and the Rue Neuve-
+des-Mathurins, at the /Puits sans Vin/," said Laurent.
+
+"Hark ye, my friend," said the postman, when he rejoined the valet an
+hour after this encounter, "if your master is in love with the girl,
+he is in for a famous task. I doubt you'll not succeed in seeing her.
+In the ten years that I've been postman in Paris, I have seen plenty
+of different kinds of doors! But I can tell you, and no fear of being
+called a liar by any of my comrades, there never was a door so
+mysterious as M. de San-Real's. No one can get into the house without
+the Lord knows what counter-word; and, notice, it has been selected on
+purpose between a courtyard and a garden to avoid any communication
+with other houses. The porter is an old Spaniard, who never speaks a
+word of French, but peers at people as Vidocq might, to see if they
+are not thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you--I make no comparisons--
+could get the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall,
+which is shut by a glazed door, you would run across a butler
+surrounded by lackeys, an old joker more savage and surly even than
+the porter. If any one gets past the porter's lodge, my butler comes
+out, waits for you at the entrance, and puts you through a cross-
+examination like a criminal. That has happened to me, a mere postman.
+He took me for an eavesdropper in disguise, he said, laughing at his
+nonsense. As for the servants, don't hope to get aught out of them; I
+think they are mutes, no one in the neighborhood knows the color of
+their speech; I don't know what wages they can pay them to keep them
+from talk and drink; the fact is, they are not to be got at, whether
+because they are afraid of being shot, or that they have some enormous
+sum to lose in the case of an indiscretion. If your master is fond
+enough of Mademoiselle Paquita Valdes to surmount all these obstacles,
+he certainly won't triumph over Dona Concha Marialva, the duenna who
+accompanies her and would put her under her petticoats sooner than
+leave her. The two women look as if they were sewn to one another."
+
+"All that you say, worthy postman," went on Laurent, after having
+drunk off his wine, "confirms me in what I have learned before. Upon
+my word, I thought they were making fun of me! The fruiterer opposite
+told me that of nights they let loose dogs whose food is hung up on
+stakes just out of their reach. These cursed animals think, therefore,
+that any one likely to come in has designs on their victuals, and
+would tear one to pieces. You will tell me one might throw them down
+pieces, but it seems they have been trained to touch nothing except
+from the hand of the porter."
+
+"The porter of the Baron de Nucingen, whose garden joins at the top
+that of the Hotel San-Real, told me the same thing," replied the
+postman.
+
+"Good! my master knows him," said Laurent, to himself. "Do you know,"
+he went on, leering at the postman, "I serve a master who is a rare
+man, and if he took it into his head to kiss the sole of the foot of
+an empress, she would have to give in to him. If he had need of you,
+which is what I wish for you, for he is generous, could one count on
+you?"
+
+"Lord, Monsieur Laurent, my name is Moinot. My name is written exactly
+like /Moineau/, magpie: M-o-i-n-o-t, Moinot."
+
+"Exactly," said Laurent.
+
+"I live at No. 11, Rue des Trois Freres, on the fifth floor," went on
+Moinot; "I have a wife and four children. If what you want of me
+doesn't transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties,
+you understand! I am your man."
+
+"You are an honest fellow," said Laurent, shaking his hand. . . .
+
+"Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real,
+the friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty
+years is capable of taking such precautions," said Henri, when his
+/valet de chambre/ had related the result of his researches.
+
+"Monsieur," said Laurent, "unless he takes a balloon no one can get
+into that hotel."
+
+"You are a fool! Is it necessary to get into the hotel to have
+Paquita, when Paquita can get out of it?"
+
+"But, sir, the duenna?"
+
+"We will shut her up for a day or two, your duenna."
+
+"So, we shall have Paquita!" said Laurent, rubbing his hands.
+
+"Rascal!" answered Henri, "I shall condemn you to the Concha, if you
+carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
+become mine. . . . Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."
+
+Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say
+it to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to
+desire. And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who
+should have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is
+the intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of
+the soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two
+real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to
+grow weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown
+very weary indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he
+brought back more grit than pearls. Thus had he come, like potentates,
+to implore of Chance some obstacle to surmount, some enterprise which
+should ask the employment of his dormant moral and physical strength.
+Although Paquita Valdes presented him with a marvelous concentration
+of perfections which he had only yet enjoyed in detail, the attraction
+of passion was almost /nil/ with him. Constant satiety had weakened in
+his heart the sentiment of love. Like old men and people
+disillusioned, he had no longer anything but extravagant caprices,
+ruinous tastes, fantasies, which, once satisfied, left no pleasant
+memory in his heart. Amongst young people love is the finest of the
+emotions, it makes the life of the soul blossom, it nourishes by its
+solar power the finest inspirations and their great thoughts; the
+first fruits in all things have a delicious savor. Amongst men love
+becomes a passion; strength leads to abuse. Amongst old men it turns
+to vice; impotence tends to extremes. Henri was at once an old man, a
+man, and a youth. To afford him the feelings of a real love, he needed
+like Lovelace, a Clarissa Harlowe. Without the magic lustre of that
+unattainable pearl he could only have either passions rendered acute
+by some Parisian vanity, or set determinations with himself to bring
+such and such a woman to such and such a point of corruption, or else
+adventures which stimulated his curiosity.
+
+The report of Laurent, his /valet de chambre/ had just given an
+enormous value to the girl with the golden eyes. It was a question of
+doing battle with some secret enemy who seemed as dangerous as he was
+cunning; and to carry off the victory, all the forces which Henri
+could dispose of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal
+old comedy which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are
+an old man, a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay.
+If Laurent was the equal of Figaro, the duenna seemed incorruptible.
+Thus, the living play was supplied by Chance with a stronger plot than
+it had ever been by dramatic author! But then is not Chance too, a man
+of genius?
+
+"It must be a cautious game," said Henri, to himself.
+
+"Well," said Paul de Manerville, as he entered the room. "How are we
+getting on? I have come to breakfast with you."
+
+"So be it," said Henri. "You won't be shocked if I make my toilette
+before you?"
+
+"How absurd!"
+
+"We take so many things from the English just now that we might well
+become as great prudes and hypocrites as themselves," said Henri.
+
+Laurent had set before his master such a quantity of utensils, so many
+different articles of such elegance, that Paul could not refrain from
+saying:
+
+"But you will take a couple of hours over that?"
+
+"No!" said Henri, "two hours and a half."
+
+"Well, then, since we are by ourselves, and can say what we like,
+explain to me why a man as superior as yourself--for you are superior
+--should affect to exaggerate a foppery which cannot be natural. Why
+spend two hours and a half in adorning yourself, when it is sufficient
+to spend a quarter of an hour in your bath, to do your hair in two
+minutes, and to dress! There, tell me your system."
+
+"I must be very fond of you, my good dunce, to confide such high
+thoughts to you," said the young man, who was at that moment having
+his feet rubbed with a soft brush lathered with English soap.
+
+"Have I not the most devoted attachment to you," replied Paul de
+Manerville, "and do I not like you because I know your
+superiority? . . ."
+
+"You must have noticed, if you are in the least capable of observing
+any moral fact, that women love fops," went on De Marsay, without
+replying in any way to Paul's declaration except by a look. "Do you
+know why women love fops? My friend, fops are the only men who take
+care of themselves. Now, to take excessive care of oneself, does it
+not imply that one takes care in oneself of what belongs to another?
+The man who does not belong to himself is precisely the man on whom
+women are keen. Love is essentially a thief. I say nothing about that
+excess of niceness to which they are so devoted. Do you know of any
+woman who has had a passion for a sloven, even if he were a remarkable
+man? If such a fact has occurred, we must put it to the account of
+those morbid affections of the breeding woman, mad fancies which float
+through the minds of everybody. On the other hand, I have seen most
+remarkable people left in the lurch because of their carelessness. A
+fop, who is concerned about his person, is concerned with folly, with
+petty things. And what is a woman? A petty thing, a bundle of follies.
+With two words said to the winds, can you not make her busy for four
+hours? She is sure that the fop will be occupied with her, seeing that
+he has no mind for great things. She will never be neglected for
+glory, ambition, politics, art--those prostitutes who for her are
+rivals. Then fops have the courage to cover themselves with ridicule
+in order to please a woman, and her heart is full of gratitude towards
+the man who is ridiculous for love. In fine, a fop can be no fop
+unless he is right in being one. It is women who bestow that rank. The
+fop is love's colonel; he has his victories, his regiment of women at
+his command. My dear fellow, in Paris everything is known, and a man
+cannot be a fop there /gratis/. You, who have only one woman, and who,
+perhaps, are right to have but one, try to act the fop! . . . You will
+not even become ridiculous, you will be dead. You will become a
+foregone conclusion, one of those men condemned inevitably to do one
+and the same thing. You will come to signify /folly/ as inseparably as
+M. de La Fayette signifies /America/; M. de Talleyrand, /diplomacy/;
+Desaugiers, /song/; M. de Segur, /romance/. If they once forsake their
+own line people no longer attach any value to what they do. So,
+foppery, my friend Paul, is the sign of an incontestable power over
+the female folk. A man who is loved by many women passes for having
+superior qualities, and then, poor fellow, it is a question who shall
+have him! But do you think it is nothing to have the right of going
+into a drawing-room, of looking down at people from over your cravat,
+or through your eye-glass, and of despising the most superior of men
+should he wear an old-fashioned waistcoat? . . . Laurent, you are
+hurting me! After breakfast, Paul, we will go to the Tuileries and see
+the adorable girl with the golden eyes."
+
+When, after making an excellent meal, the two young men had traversed
+the Terrasse de Feuillants and the broad walk of the Tuileries, they
+nowhere discovered the sublime Paquita Valdes, on whose account some
+fifty of the most elegant young men in Paris where to be seen, all
+scented, with their high scarfs, spurred and booted, riding, walking,
+talking, laughing, and damning themselves mightily.
+
+"It's a white Mass," said Henri; "but I have the most excellent idea
+in the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must
+be bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a love-
+letter slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant,
+/crudel tirano/, is certain to know the person who writes the letters
+from London, and has ceased to be suspicious of them."
+
+The day after, De Marsay came again to walk on the Terrasse des
+Feuillants, and saw Paquita Valdes; already passion had embellished
+her for him. Seriously, he was wild for those eyes, whose rays seemed
+akin to those which the sun emits, and whose ardor set the seal upon
+that of her perfect body, in which all was delight. De Marsay was on
+fire to brush the dress of this enchanting girl as they passed one
+another in their walk; but his attempts were always vain. But at one
+moment, when he had repassed Paquita and the duenna, in order to find
+himself on the same side as the girl of the golden eyes, when he
+returned, Paquita, no less impatient, came forward hurriedly, and De
+Marsay felt his hand pressed by her in a fashion at once so swift and
+so passionately significant that it was as though he had received the
+emotions surged up in his heart. When the two lovers glanced at one
+another, Paquita seemed ashamed, she dropped her eyes lest she should
+meet the eyes of Henri, but her gaze sank lower to fasten on the feet
+and form of him whom women, before the Revolution, called /their
+conqueror/.
+
+"I am determined to make this girl my mistress," said Henri to
+himself.
+
+As he followed her along the terrace, in the direction of the Place
+Louis XV., he caught sight of the aged Marquis de San-Real, who was
+walking on the arm of his valet, stepping with all the precautions due
+to gout and decrepitude. Dona Concha, who distrusted Henri, made
+Paquita pass between herself and the old man.
+
+"Oh, for you," said De Marsay to himself, casting a glance of disdain
+upon the duenna, "if one cannot make you capitulate, with a little
+opium one can make you sleep. We know mythology and the fable of
+Argus."
+
+Before entering the carriage, the golden-eyed girl exchanged certain
+glances with her lover, of which the meaning was unmistakable and
+which enchanted Henri, but one of them was surprised by the duenna;
+she said a few rapid words to Paquita, who threw herself into the
+/coupe/ with an air of desperation. For some days Paquita did not
+appear in the Tuileries. Laurent, who by his master's orders was on
+watch by the hotel, learned from the neighbors that neither the two
+women nor the aged marquis had been abroad since the day upon which
+the duenna had surprised a glance between the young girl in her charge
+and Henri. The bond, so flimsy withal, which united the two lovers was
+already severed.
+
+Some days later, none knew by what means, De Marsay had attained his
+end; he had a seal and wax, exactly resembling the seal and wax
+affixed to the letters sent to Mademoiselle Valdes from London; paper
+similar to that which her correspondent used; moreover, all the
+implements and stamps necessary to affix the French and English
+postmarks.
+
+He wrote the following letter, to which he gave all the appearances of
+a letter sent from London:--
+
+  "MY DEAR PAQUITA,--I shall not try to paint to you in words the
+  passion with which you have inspired me. If, to my happiness, you
+  reciprocate it, understand that I have found a means of
+  corresponding with you. My name is Adolphe de Gouges, and I live
+  at No. 54 Rue de l'Universite. If you are too closely watched to
+  be able to write to me, if you have neither pen nor paper, I shall
+  understand it by your silence. If then, to-morrow, you have not,
+  between eight o'clock in the morning and ten o'clock in the
+  evening, thrown a letter over the wall of your garden into that of
+  the Baron de Nucingen, where it will be waited for during the
+  whole of the day, a man, who is entirely devoted to me, will let
+  down two flasks by a string over your wall at ten o'clock the next
+  morning. Be walking there at that hour. One of the two flasks will
+  contain opium to send your Argus to sleep; it will be sufficient
+  to employ six drops; the other will contain ink. The flask of ink
+  is of cut glass; the other is plain. Both are of such a size as
+  can easily be concealed within your bosom. All that I have already
+  done, in order to be able to correspond with you, should tell you
+  how greatly I love you. Should you have any doubt of it, I will
+  confess to you, that to obtain an interview of one hour with you I
+  would give my life."
+
+"At least they believe that, poor creatures!" said De Marsay; "but
+they are right. What should we think of a woman who refused to be
+beguiled by a love-letter accompanied by such convincing accessories?"
+
+This letter was delivered by Master Moinot, postman, on the following
+day, about eight o'clock in the morning, to the porter of the Hotel
+San-Real.
+
+In order to be nearer to the field of action, De Marsay went and
+breakfasted with Paul, who lived in the Rue de la Pepiniere. At two
+o'clock, just as the two friends were laughingly discussing the
+discomfiture of a young man who had attempted to lead the life of
+fashion without a settled income, and were devising an end for him,
+Henri's coachman came to seek his master at Paul's house, and
+presented to him a mysterious personage who insisted on speaking
+himself with his master.
+
+This individual was a mulatto, who would assuredly have given Talma a
+model for the part of Othello, if he had come across him. Never did
+any African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready
+suspicion, the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength
+of the Moor, and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had
+the fixity of the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a
+vulture's, by a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low
+and narrow, had something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the
+yoke of some single and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not belong
+to him.
+
+He was followed by a man whom the imaginations of all folk, from those
+who shiver in Greenland to those who sweat in the tropics, would paint
+in the single phrase: /He was an unfortunate man/. From this phrase,
+everybody will conceive him according to the special ideas of each
+country. But who can best imagine his face--white and wrinkled, red at
+the extremities, and his long beard. Who will see his lean and yellow
+scarf, his greasy shirt-collar, his battered hat, his green frock
+coat, his deplorable trousers, his dilapidated waistcoat, his
+imitation gold pin, and battered shoes, the strings of which were
+plastered in mud? Who will see all that but the Parisian? The
+unfortunate man of Paris is the unfortunate man /in toto/, for he has
+still enough mirth to know the extent of his misfortune. The mulatto
+was like an executioner of Louis XI. leading a man to the gallows.
+
+"Who has hunted us out these two extraordinary creatures?" said Henri.
+
+"Faith! there is one of them who makes me shudder," replied Paul.
+
+"Who are you--you fellow who look the most like a Christian of the
+two?" said Henri, looking at the unfortunate man.
+
+The mulatto stood with his eyes fixed upon the two young men, like a
+man who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something
+from the gestures and movements of the lips.
+
+"I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de
+Justice, and am named Poincet."
+
+"Good! . . . and this one?" said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
+mulatto.
+
+"I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish /patois/, and he has
+brought me here to make himself understood by you."
+
+The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
+Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
+
+"Ah--so--the game is beginning," said Henri to himself. "Paul, leave
+us alone for a moment."
+
+"I translated this letter for him," went on the interpreter, when they
+were alone. "When it was translated, he was in some place which I
+don't remember. Then he came back to look for me, and promised me two
+/louis/ to fetch him here."
+
+"What have you to say to me, nigger?" asked Henri.
+
+"I did not translate /nigger/," said the interpreter, waiting for the
+mulatto's reply. . . .
+
+"He said, sir," went on the interpreter, after having listened to the
+unknown, "that you must be at half-past ten to-morrow night on the
+boulevard Montmartre, near the cafe. You will see a carriage there, in
+which you must take your place, saying to the man, who will wait to
+open the door for you, the word /cortejo/--a Spanish word, which means
+/lover/," added Poincet, casting a glance of congratulation upon
+Henri.
+
+"Good."
+
+The mulatto was about to bestow the two /louis/, but De Marsay would
+not permit it, and himself rewarded the interpreter. As he was paying
+him, the mulatto began to speak.
+
+"What is he saying?"
+
+"He is warning me," replied the unfortunate, "that if I commit a
+single indiscretion he will strangle me. He speaks fair and he looks
+remarkably as if he were capable of carrying out his threat."
+
+"I am sure of it," answered Henri; "he would keep his word."
+
+"He says, as well," replied the interpreter, "that the person from
+whom he is sent implores you, for your sake and for hers, to act with
+the greatest prudence, because the daggers which are raised above your
+head would strike your heart before any human power could save you
+from them."
+
+"He said that? So much the better, it will be more amusing. You can
+come in now, Paul," he cried to his friend.
+
+The mulatto, who had not ceased to gaze at the lover of Paquita Valdes
+with magnetic attention, went away, followed by the interpreter.
+
+"Well, at last I have an adventure which is entirely romantic," said
+Henri, when Paul returned. "After having shared in a certain number I
+have finished by finding in Paris an intrigue accompanied by serious
+accidents, by grave perils. The deuce! what courage danger gives a
+woman! To torment a woman, to try and contradict her--doesn't it give
+her the right and the courage to scale in one moment obstacles which
+it would take her years to surmount of herself? Pretty creature, jump
+then! To die? Poor child! Daggers? Oh, imagination of women! They
+cannot help trying to find authority for their little jests. Besides,
+can one think of it, Paquita? Can one think of it, my child? The devil
+take me, now that I know this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of
+nature, is mine, the adventure has lost its charm."
+
+For all his light words, the youth in Henri had reappeared. In order
+to live until the morrow without too much pain, he had recourse to
+exorbitant pleasure; he played, dined, supped with his friends; he
+drank like a fish, ate like a German, and won ten or twelve thousand
+francs. He left the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock in the morning,
+slept like a child, awoke the next morning fresh and rosy, and dressed
+to go to the Tuileries, with the intention of taking a ride, after
+having seen Paquita, in order to get himself an appetite and dine the
+better, and so kill the time.
+
+At the hour mentioned Henri was on the boulevard, saw the carriage,
+and gave the counter-word to a man who looked to him like the mulatto.
+Hearing the word, the man opened the door and quickly let down the
+step. Henri was so rapidly carried through Paris, and his thoughts
+left him so little capacity to pay attention to the streets through
+which he passed, that he did not know where the carriage stopped. The
+mulatto let him into a house, the staircase of which was quite close
+to the entrance. This staircase was dark, as was also the landing upon
+which Henri was obliged to wait while the mulatto was opening the door
+of a damp apartment, fetid and unlit, the chambers of which, barely
+illuminated by the candle which his guide found in the ante-chamber,
+seemed to him empty and ill furnished, like those of a house the
+inhabitants of which are away. He recognized the sensation which he
+had experienced from the perusal of one of those romances of Anne
+Radcliffe, in which the hero traverses the cold, sombre, and
+uninhabited saloons of some sad and desert spot.
+
+At last the mulatto opened the door of a /salon/. The condition of the
+old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was
+adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame.
+There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of
+things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red
+Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was
+buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by
+one of those turbans which English women of a certain age have
+invented and which would have a mighty success in China, where the
+artist's ideal is the monstrous.
+
+The room, the old woman, the cold hearth, all would have chilled love
+to death had not Paquita been there, upon an ottoman, in a loose
+voluptuous wrapper, free to scatter her gaze of gold and flame, free
+to show her arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first
+interview was what every /rendezvous/ must be between persons of
+passionate disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly,
+who desire each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know
+each other. It is impossible that at first there should not occur
+certain discordant notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until
+the moment when two souls find themselves in unison.
+
+If desire gives a man boldness and disposes him to lay restraint
+aside, the mistress, under pain of ceasing to be woman, however great
+may be her love, is afraid of arriving at the end so promptly, and
+face to face with the necessity of giving herself, which to many women
+is equivalent to a fall into an abyss, at the bottom of which they
+know not what they shall find. The involuntary coldness of the woman
+contrasts with her confessed passion, and necessarily reacts upon the
+most passionate lover. Thus ideas, which often float around souls like
+vapors, determine in them a sort of temporary malady. In the sweet
+journey which two beings undertake through the fair domains of love,
+this moment is like a waste land to be traversed, a land without a
+tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed
+by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad with roses, where Love
+and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on carpets of soft
+verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with a foolish
+laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it were,
+suffocated beneath the icy pressure of his desires. It would not be
+impossible for two beings of equal beauty, intelligence, and passion
+to utter at first nothing but the most silly commonplaces, until
+chance, a word, the tremor of a certain glance, the communication of a
+spark, should have brought them to the happy transition which leads to
+that flowery way in which one does not walk, but where one sways and
+at the same time does not lapse.
+
+Such a state of mind is always in proportion with the violence of the
+feeling. Two creatures who love one another weakly feel nothing
+similar. The effect of this crisis can even be compared with that
+which is produced by the glow of a clear sky. Nature, at the first
+view, appears to be covered with a gauze veil, the azure of the
+firmament seems black, the intensity of light is like darkness. With
+Henri, as with the Spanish girl, there was an equal intensity of
+feeling; and that law of statics, in virtue of which two identical
+forces cancel each other, might have been true also in the moral
+order. And the embarrassment of the moment was singularly increased by
+the presence of the old hag. Love takes pleasure or fright at all, all
+has meaning for it, everything is an omen of happiness or sorrow for
+it.
+
+This decrepit woman was there like a suggestion of catastrophe, and
+represented the horrid fish's tail with which the allegorical geniuses
+of Greece have terminated their chimeras and sirens, whose figures,
+like all passions, are so seductive, so deceptive.
+
+Although Henri was not a free-thinker--the phrase is always a mockery
+--but a man of extraordinary power, a man as great as a man can be
+without faith, the conjunction struck him. Moreover, the strongest men
+are naturally the most impressionable, and consequently the most
+superstitious, if, indeed, one may call superstition the prejudice of
+the first thoughts, which, without doubt, is the appreciation of the
+result in causes hidden to other eyes but perceptible to their own.
+
+The Spanish girl profited by this moment of stupefaction to let
+herself fall into the ecstasy of that infinite adoration which seizes
+the heart of a woman, when she truly loves and finds herself in the
+presence of an idol for whom she has vainly longed. Her eyes were all
+joy, all happiness, and sparks flew from them. She was under the
+charm, and fearlessly intoxicated herself with a felicity of which she
+had dreamed long. She seemed then so marvelously beautiful to Henri,
+that all this phantasmagoria of rags and old age, of worn red drapery
+and of the green mats in front of the armchairs, the ill-washed red
+tiles, all this sick and dilapidated luxury, disappeared.
+
+The room seemed lit up; and it was only through a cloud that one could
+see the fearful harpy fixed and dumb on her red sofa, her yellow eyes
+betraying the servile sentiments, inspired by misfortune, or caused by
+some vice beneath whose servitude one has fallen as beneath a tyrant
+who brutalizes one with the flagellations of his despotism. Her eyes
+had the cold glitter of a caged tiger, knowing his impotence and being
+compelled to swallow his rage of destruction.
+
+"Who is that woman?" said Henri to Paquita.
+
+But Paquita did not answer. She made a sign that she understood no
+French, and asked Henri if he spoke English.
+
+De Marsay repeated his question in English.
+
+"She is the only woman in whom I can confide, although she has sold me
+already," said Paquita, tranquilly. "My dear Adolphe, she is my
+mother, a slave bought in Georgia for her rare beauty, little enough
+of which remains to-day. She only speaks her native tongue."
+
+The attitude of this woman and her eagerness to guess from the
+gestures of her daughter and Henri what was passing between them, were
+suddenly explained to the young man; and this explanation put him at
+his ease.
+
+"Paquita," he said, "are we never to be free then?"
+
+"Never," she said, with an air of sadness. "Even now we have but a few
+days before us."
+
+She lowered her eyes, looked at and counted with her right hand on the
+fingers of her left, revealing so the most beautiful hands which Henri
+had ever seen.
+
+"One, two, three----"
+
+She counted up to twelve.
+
+"Yes," she said, "we have twelve days."
+
+"And after?"
+
+"After," she said, showing the absorption of a weak woman before the
+executioner's axe, and slain in advance, as it were, by a fear which
+stripped her of that magnificent energy which Nature seemed to have
+bestowed upon her only to aggrandize pleasure and convert the most
+vulgar delights into endless poems. "After----" she repeated. Her eyes
+took a fixed stare; she seemed to contemplate a threatening object far
+away.
+
+"I do not know," she said.
+
+"This girl is mad," said Henri to himself, falling into strange
+reflections.
+
+Paquita appeared to him occupied by something which was not himself,
+like a woman constrained equally by remorse and passion. Perhaps she
+had in her heart another love which she alternately remembered and
+forgot. In a moment Henri was assailed by a thousand contradictory
+thoughts. This girl became a mystery for him; but as he contemplated
+her with the scientific attention of the /blase/ man, famished for new
+pleasures, like that Eastern king who asked that a pleasure should be
+created for him,--a horrible thirst with which great souls are seized,
+--Henri recognized in Paquita the richest organization that Nature had
+ever deigned to compose for love. The presumptive play of this
+machinery, setting aside the soul, would have frightened any other man
+than Henri; but he was fascinated by that rich harvest of promised
+pleasures, by that constant variety in happiness, the dream of every
+man, and the desire of every loving woman too. He was infuriated by
+the infinite rendered palpable, and transported into the most
+excessive raptures of which the creature is capable. All that he saw
+in this girl more distinctly than he had yet seen it, for she let
+herself be viewed complacently, happy to be admired. The admiration of
+De Marsay became a secret fury, and he unveiled her completely,
+throwing a glance at her which the Spaniard understood as though she
+had been used to receive such.
+
+"If you are not to be mine, mine only, I will kill you!" he cried.
+
+Hearing this speech, Paquita covered her face in her hands, and cried
+naively:
+
+"Holy Virgin! What have I brought upon myself?"
+
+She rose, flung herself down upon the red sofa, and buried her head in
+the rags which covered the bosom of her mother, and wept there. The
+old woman received her daughter without issuing from her state of
+immobility, or displaying any emotion. The mother possessed in the
+highest degree that gravity of savage races, the impassiveness of a
+statue upon which all remarks are lost. Did she or did she not love
+her daughter? Beneath that mask every human emotion might brood--good
+and evil; and from this creature all might be expected. Her gaze
+passed slowly from her daughter's beautiful hair, which covered her
+like a mantle, to the face of Henri, which she considered with an
+indescribable curiosity.
+
+She seemed to ask by what fatality he was there, from what caprice
+Nature had made so seductive a man.
+
+"These women are making sport of me," said Henri to himself.
+
+At that moment Paquita raised her head, cast at him one of those looks
+which reach the very soul and consume it. So beautiful seemed she that
+he swore he would possess such a treasure of beauty.
+
+"My Paquita! Be mine!"
+
+"Wouldst thou kill me?" she said fearfully, palpitating and anxious,
+but drawn towards him by an inexplicable force.
+
+"Kill thee--I!" he said, smiling.
+
+Paquita uttered a cry of alarm, said a word to the old woman, who
+authoritatively seized Henri's hand and that of her daughter. She
+gazed at them for a long time, and then released them, wagging her
+head in a fashion horribly significant.
+
+"Be mine--this evening, this moment; follow me, do not leave me! It
+must be, Paquita! Dost thou love me? Come!"
+
+In a moment he had poured out a thousand foolish words to her, with
+the rapidity of a torrent coursing between the rocks, and repeating
+the same sound in a thousand different forms.
+
+"It is the same voice!" said Paquita, in a melancholy voice, which De
+Marsay could not overhear, "and the same ardor," she added. "So be
+it--yes," she said, with an abandonment of passion which no words can
+describe. "Yes; but not to-night. To-night Adolphe, I gave too little
+opium to La Concha. She might wake up, and I should be lost. At this
+moment the whole household believes me to be asleep in my room. In two
+days be at the same spot, say the same word to the same man. That man
+is my foster-father. Cristemio worships me, and would die in torments
+for me before they could extract one word against me from him.
+Farewell," she said seizing Henri by the waist and twining round him
+like a serpent.
+
+She pressed him on every side at once, lifted her head to his, and
+offered him her lips, then snatched a kiss which filled them both with
+such a dizziness that it seemed to Henri as though the earth opened;
+and Paquita cried: "Enough, depart!" in a voice which told how little
+she was mistress of herself. But she clung to him still, still crying
+"Depart!" and brought him slowly to the staircase. There the mulatto,
+whose white eyes lit up at the sight of Paquita, took the torch from
+the hands of his idol, and conducted Henri to the street. He left the
+light under the arch, opened the door, put Henri into the carriage,
+and set him down on the Boulevard des Italiens with marvelous
+rapidity. It was as though the horses had hell-fire in their veins.
+
+The scene was like a dream to De Marsay, but one of those dreams
+which, even when they fade away, leave a feeling of supernatural
+voluptuousness, which a man runs after for the remainder of his life.
+A single kiss had been enough. Never had /rendezvous/ been spent in a
+manner more decorous or chaste, or, perhaps, more coldly, in a spot of
+which the surroundings were more gruesome, in presence of a more
+hideous divinity; for the mother had remained in Henri's imagination
+like some infernal, cowering thing, cadaverous, monstrous, savagely
+ferocious, which the imagination of poets and painters had not yet
+conceived. In effect, no /rendezvous/ had ever irritated his senses
+more, revealed more audacious pleasures, or better aroused love from
+its centre to shed itself round him like an atmosphere. There was
+something sombre, mysterious, sweet, tender, constrained, and
+expansive, an intermingling of the awful and the celestial, of
+paradise and hell, which made De Marsay like a drunken man.
+
+He was no longer himself, and he was, withal, great enough to be able
+to resist the intoxication of pleasure.
+
+In order to render his conduct intelligible in the catastrophe of this
+story, it is needful to explain how his soul had broadened at an age
+when young men generally belittle themselves in their relations with
+women, or in too much occupation with them. Its growth was due to a
+concurrence of secret circumstances, which invested him with a vast
+and unsuspected power.
+
+This young man held in his hand a sceptre more powerful than that of
+modern kings, almost all of whom are curbed in their least wishes by
+the laws. De Marsay exercised the autocratic power of an Oriental
+despot. But this power, so stupidly put into execution in Asia by
+brutish men, was increased tenfold by its conjunction with European
+intelligence, with French wit--the most subtle, the keenest of all
+intellectual instruments. Henri could do what he would in the interest
+of his pleasures and vanities. This invisible action upon the social
+world had invested him with a real, but secret, majesty, without
+emphasis and deriving from himself. He had not the opinion which Louis
+XIV. could have of himself, but that which the proudest of the
+Caliphs, the Pharoahs, the Xerxes, who held themselves to be of divine
+origin, had of themselves when they imitated God, and veiled
+themselves from their subjects under the pretext that their looks
+dealt forth death. Thus, without any remorse at being at once the
+judge and the accuser, De Marsay coldly condemned to death the man or
+the woman who had seriously offended him. Although often pronounced
+almost lightly, the verdict was irrevocable. An error was a misfortune
+similar to that which a thunderbolt causes when it falls upon a
+smiling Parisienne in some hackney coach, instead of crushing the old
+coachman who is driving her to a /rendezvous/. Thus the bitter and
+profound sarcasm which distinguished the young man's conversation
+usually tended to frighten people; no one was anxious to put him out.
+Women are prodigiously fond of those persons who call themselves
+pashas, and who are, as it were accompanied by lions and executioners,
+and who walk in a panoply of terror. The result, in the case of such
+men, is a security of action, a certitude of power, a pride of gaze, a
+leonine consciousness, which makes women realize the type of strength
+of which they all dream. Such was De Marsay.
+
+Happy, for the moment, with his future, he grew young and pliable, and
+thought of nothing but love as he went to bed. He dreamed of the girl
+with the golden eyes, as the young and passionate can dream. His
+dreams were monstrous images, unattainable extravagances--full of
+light, revealing invisible worlds, yet in a manner always incomplete,
+for an intervening veil changes the conditions of vision.
+
+For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared and no one knew what
+had become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain
+conditions, and, happily for him, during those two days he was a
+private soldier in the service of the demon to whom he owed his
+talismanic existence. But at the appointed time, in the evening, he
+was waiting--and he had not long to wait--for the carriage. The
+mulatto approached Henri, in order to repeat to him in French a phrase
+which he seemed to have learned by heart.
+
+"If you wish to come, she told me, you must consent to have your eyes
+bandaged."
+
+And Cristemio produced a white silk handkerchief.
+
+"No!" said Henri, whose omnipotence revolted suddenly.
+
+He tried to leap in. The mulatto made a sign, and the carriage drove
+off.
+
+"Yes!" cried De Marsay, furious at the thought of losing a piece of
+good fortune which had been promised him.
+
+He saw, moreover, the impossibility of making terms with a slave whose
+obedience was as blind as the hangman's. Nor was it this passive
+instrument upon whom his anger could fall.
+
+The mulatto whistled, the carriage returned. Henri got in hastily.
+Already a few curious onlookers had assembled like sheep on the
+boulevard. Henri was strong; he tried to play the mulatto. When the
+carriage started at a gallop he seized his hands, in order to master
+him, and retain, by subduing his attendant, the possession of his
+faculties, so that he might know whither he was going. It was a vain
+attempt. The eyes of the mulatto flashed from the darkness. The fellow
+uttered a cry which his fury stifled in his throat, released himself,
+threw back De Marsay with a hand like iron, and nailed him, so to
+speak, to the bottom of the carriage; then with his free hand, he drew
+a triangular dagger, and whistled. The coachman heard the whistle and
+stopped. Henri was unarmed, he was forced to yield. He moved his head
+towards the handkerchief. The gesture of submission calmed Cristemio,
+and he bound his eyes with a respect and care which manifested a sort
+of veneration for the person of the man whom his idol loved. But,
+before taking this course, he had placed his dagger distrustfully in
+his side pocket, and buttoned himself up to the chin.
+
+"That nigger would have killed me!" said De Marsay to himself.
+
+Once more the carriage moved on rapidly. There was one resource still
+open to a young man who knew Paris as well as Henri. To know whither
+he was going, he had but to collect himself and count, by the number
+of gutters crossed, the streets leading from the boulevards by which
+the carriage passed, so long as it continued straight along. He could
+thus discover into which lateral street it would turn, either towards
+the Seine or towards the heights of Montmartre, and guess the name or
+position of the street in which his guide should bring him to a halt.
+But the violent emotion which his struggle had caused him, the rage
+into which his compromised dignity had thrown him, the ideas of
+vengeance to which he abandoned himself, the suppositions suggested to
+him by the circumstantial care which this girl had taken in order to
+bring him to her, all hindered him from the attention, which the blind
+have, necessary for the concentration of his intelligence and the
+perfect lucidity of his recollection. The journey lasted half an hour.
+When the carriage stopped, it was no longer on the street. The mulatto
+and the coachman took Henri in their arms, lifted him out, and,
+putting him into a sort of litter, conveyed him across a garden. He
+could smell its flowers and the perfume peculiar to trees and grass.
+
+The silence which reigned there was so profound that he could
+distinguish the noise made by the drops of water falling from the
+moist leaves. The two men took him to a staircase, set him on his
+feet, led him by his hands through several apartments, and left him in
+a room whose atmosphere was perfumed, and the thick carpet of which he
+could feel beneath his feet.
+
+A woman's hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief
+for him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly
+and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found
+himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced
+opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a
+chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door
+on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a
+window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish
+divan, that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress
+as broad as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white
+cashmere, relieved by bows of black and scarlet silk, arranged in
+panels. The top of this huge bed was raised several inches by numerous
+cushions, which further enriched it by their tasteful comfort. The
+boudoir was lined with some red stuff, over which an Indian muslin was
+stretched, fluted after the fashion of Corinthian columns, in plaits
+going in and out, and bound at the top and bottom by bands of poppy-
+colored stuff, on which were designs in black arabesque.
+
+Below the muslin the poppy turned to rose, that amorous color, which
+was matched by window-curtains, which were of Indian muslin lined with
+rose-colored taffeta, and set off with a fringe of poppy-color and
+black. Six silver-gilt arms, each supporting two candles, were
+attached to the tapestry at an equal distance, to illuminate the
+divan. The ceiling, from the middle of which a lustre of unpolished
+silver hung, was of a brilliant whiteness, and the cornice was gilded.
+The carpet was like an Oriental shawl; it had the designs and recalled
+the poetry of Persia, where the hands of slaves had worked on it. The
+furniture was covered in white cashmere, relieved by black and poppy-
+colored ornaments. The clock, the candelabra, all were in white marble
+and gold. The only table there had a cloth of cashmere. Elegant
+flower-pots held roses of every kind, flowers white or red. In fine,
+the least detail seemed to have been the object of loving thought.
+Never had richness hidden itself more coquettishly to become elegance,
+to express grace, to inspire pleasure. Everything there would have
+warmed the coldest of beings. The caresses of the tapestry, of which
+the color changed according to the direction of one's gaze, becoming
+either all white or all rose, harmonized with the effects of the light
+shed upon the diaphanous tissues of the muslin, which produced an
+appearance of mistiness. The soul has I know not what attraction
+towards white, love delights in red, and the passions are flattered by
+gold, which has the power of realizing their caprices. Thus all that
+man possesses within him of vague and mysterious, all his inexplicable
+affinities, were caressed in their involuntary sympathies. There was
+in this perfect harmony a concert of color to which the soul responded
+with vague and voluptuous and fluctuating ideas.
+
+It was out of a misty atmosphere, laden with exquisite perfumes, that
+Paquita, clad in a white wrapper, her feet bare, orange blossoms in
+her black hair, appeared to Henri, knelt before him, adoring him as
+the god of this temple, whither he had deigned to come. Although De
+Marsay was accustomed to seeing the utmost efforts of Parisian luxury,
+he was surprised at the aspect of this shell, like that from which
+Venus rose out of the sea. Whether from an effect of contrast between
+the darkness from which he issued and the light which bathed his soul,
+whether from a comparison which he swiftly made between this scene and
+that of their first interview, he experienced one of those delicate
+sensations which true poetry gives. Perceiving in the midst of this
+retreat, which had been opened to him as by a fairy's magic wand, the
+masterpiece of creation, this girl, whose warmly colored tints, whose
+soft skin--soft, but slightly gilded by the shadows, by I know not
+what vaporous effusion of love--gleamed as though it reflected the
+rays of color and light, his anger, his desire for vengeance, his
+wounded vanity, all were lost.
+
+Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her
+on his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the
+voluptuous pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties
+softly enveloped him.
+
+"Come to me, Paquita!" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Speak, speak without fear!" she said. "This retreat was built for
+love. No sound can escape from it, so greatly was it desired to guard
+avariciously the accents and music of the beloved voice. However loud
+should be the cries, they would not be heard without these walls. A
+person might be murdered, and his moans would be as vain as if he were
+in the midst of the great desert."
+
+"Who has understood jealousy and its needs so well?"
+
+"Never question me as to that," she answered, untying with a gesture
+of wonderful sweetness the young man's scarf, doubtless in order the
+better to behold his neck.
+
+"Yes, there is the neck I love so well!" she said. "Wouldst thou
+please me?"
+
+This interrogation, rendered by the accent almost lascivious, drew De
+Marsay from the reverie in which he had been plunged by Paquita's
+authoritative refusal to allow him any research as to the unknown
+being who hovered like a shadow about them.
+
+"And if I wished to know who reigns here?"
+
+Paquita looked at him trembling.
+
+"It is not I, then?" he said, rising and freeing himself from the
+girl, whose head fell backwards. "Where I am, I would be alone."
+
+"Strike, strike! . . ." said the poor slave, a prey to terror.
+
+"For what do you take me, then? . . . Will you answer?"
+
+Paquita got up gently, her eyes full of tears, took a poniard from one
+of the two ebony pieces of furniture, and presented it to Henri with a
+gesture of submission which would have moved a tiger.
+
+"Give me a feast such as men give when they love," she said, "and
+whilst I sleep, slay me, for I know not how to answer thee. Hearken! I
+am bound like some poor beast to a stake; I am amazed that I have been
+able to throw a bridge over the abyss which divides us. Intoxicate me,
+then kill me! Ah, no, no!" she cried, joining her hands, "do not kill
+me! I love life! Life is fair to me! If I am a slave, I am a queen
+too. I could beguile you with words, tell you that I love you alone,
+prove it to you, profit by my momentary empire to say to you: 'Take me
+as one tastes the perfume of a flower when one passes it in a king's
+garden.' Then, after having used the cunning eloquence of woman and
+soared on the wings of pleasure, after having quenched my thirst, I
+could have you cast into a pit, where none could find you, which has
+been made to gratify vengeance without having to fear that of the law,
+a pit full of lime which would kindle and consume you, until no
+particle of you were left. You would stay in my heart, mine forever."
+
+Henri looked at the girl without trembling, and this fearless gaze
+filled her with joy.
+
+"No, I shall not do it! You have fallen into no trap here, but upon
+the heart of a woman who adores you, and it is I who will be cast into
+the pit."
+
+"All this appears to me prodigiously strange," said De Marsay,
+considering her. "But you seem to me a good girl, a strange nature;
+you are, upon my word of honor, a living riddle, the answer to which
+is very difficult to find."
+
+Paquita understood nothing of what the young man said; she looked at
+him gently, opening wide eyes which could never be stupid, so much was
+pleasure written in them.
+
+"Come, then, my love," she said, returning to her first idea, "wouldst
+thou please me?"
+
+"I would do all that thou wouldst, and even that thou wouldst not,"
+answered De Marsay, with a laugh. He had recovered his foppish ease,
+as he took the resolve to let himself go to the climax of his good
+fortune, looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted,
+moreover, on his power and his capacity of a man used to adventures,
+to dominate this girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
+
+"Well," said she, "let me arrange you as I would like."
+
+Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of
+red velvet, in which she dressed De Marsay, then adorned his head with
+a woman's bonnet and wrapped a shawl round him. Abandoning herself to
+these follies with a child's innocence, she laughed a convulsive
+laugh, and resembled some bird flapping its wings; but he saw nothing
+beyond.
+
+If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights which these two
+creatures--made by heaven in a joyous moment--found, it is perhaps
+necessary to translate metaphysically the extraordinary and almost
+fantastic impressions of the young man. That which persons in the
+social position of De Marsay, living as he lived, are best able to
+recognize is a girl's innocence. But, strange phenomenon! The girl of
+the golden eyes might be virgin, but innocent she was certainly not.
+The fantastic union of the mysterious and the real, of darkness and
+light, horror and beauty, pleasure and danger, paradise and hell,
+which had already been met with in this adventure, was resumed in the
+capricious and sublime being with which De Marsay dallied. All the
+utmost science or the most refined pleasure, all that Henri could know
+of that poetry of the senses which is called love, was excelled by the
+treasures poured forth by this girl, whose radiant eyes gave the lie
+to none of the promises which they made.
+
+She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that
+Hafiz, have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of
+Saadi, nor that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy--full of
+confusion and stupefaction--which seized the delicious girl when the
+error in which an iron hand had caused her to live was at an end.
+
+"Dead!" she said, "I am dead, Adolphe! Take me away to the world's
+end, to an island where no one knows us. Let there be no traces of our
+flight! We should be followed to the gates of hell. God! here is the
+day! Escape! Shall I ever see you again? Yes, to-morrow I will see
+you, if I have to deal death to all my warders to have that joy. Till
+to-morrow."
+
+She pressed him in her arms with an embrace in which the terror of
+death mingled. Then she touched a spring, which must have been in
+connection with a bell, and implored De Marsay to permit his eyes to
+be bandaged.
+
+"And if I would not--and if I wished to stay here?"
+
+"You would be the death of me more speedily," she said, "for now I
+know I am certain to die on your account."
+
+Henri submitted. In the man who had just gorged himself with pleasure
+there occurs a propensity to forgetfulness, I know not what
+ingratitude, a desire for liberty, a whim to go elsewhere, a tinge of
+contempt and, perhaps, of disgust for his idol; in fine, indescribable
+sentiments which render him ignoble and ashamed. The certainty of this
+confused, but real, feeling in souls who are not illuminated by that
+celestial light, nor perfumed with that holy essence from which the
+performance of sentiment springs, doubtless suggested to Rousseau the
+adventures of Lord Edward, which conclude the letters of the /Nouvelle
+Heloise/. If Rousseau is obviously inspired by the work of Richardson,
+he departs from it in a thousand details, which leave his achievement
+magnificently original; he has recommended it to posterity by great
+ideas which it is difficult to liberate by analysis, when, in one's
+youth, one reads this work with the object of finding in it the lurid
+representation of the most physical of our feelings, whereas serious
+and philosophical writers never employ its images except as the
+consequence or the corollary of a vast thought; and the adventures of
+Lord Edward are one of the most Europeanly delicate ideas of the whole
+work.
+
+Henri, therefore, found himself beneath the domination of that
+confused sentiment which is unknown to true love. There was needful,
+in some sort, the persuasive grip of comparisons, and the irresistible
+attraction of memories to lead him back to a woman. True love rules
+above all through recollection. A woman who is not engraven upon the
+soul by excess of pleasure or by strength of emotion, how can she ever
+be loved? In Henri's case, Paquita had established herself by both of
+these reasons. But at this moment, seized as he was by the satiety of
+his happiness, that delicious melancholy of the body, he could hardly
+analyze his heart, even by recalling to his lips the taste of the
+liveliest gratifications that he had ever grasped.
+
+He found himself on the Boulevard Montmartre at the break of day,
+gazed stupidly at the retreating carriage, produced two cigars from
+his pocket, lit one from the lantern of a good woman who sold brandy
+and coffee to workmen and street arabs and chestnut venders--to all
+the Parisian populace which begins its work before daybreak; then he
+went off, smoking his cigar, and putting his hands in his trousers'
+pockets with a devil-may-care air which did him small honor.
+
+"What a good thing a cigar is! That's one thing a man will never tire
+of," he said to himself.
+
+Of the girl with the golden eyes, over whom at that time all the
+elegant youth of Paris was mad, he hardly thought. The idea of death,
+expressed in the midst of their pleasure, and the fear of which had
+more than once darkened the brow of that beautiful creature, who held
+to the houris of Asia by her mother, to Europe by her education, to
+the tropics by her birth, seemed to him merely one of those deceptions
+by which women seek to make themselves interesting.
+
+"She is from Havana--the most Spanish region to be found in the New
+World. So she preferred to feign terror rather than cast in my teeth
+indisposition or difficulty, coquetry or duty, like a Parisian woman.
+By her golden eyes, how glad I shall be to sleep."
+
+He saw a hackney coach standing at the corner of Frascati's waiting
+for some gambler; he awoke the driver, was driven home, went to bed,
+and slept the sleep of the dissipated, which for some queer reason--of
+which no rhymer has yet taken advantage--is as profound as that of
+innocence. Perhaps it is an instance of the proverbial axiom,
+/extremes meet/.
+
+About noon De Marsay awoke and stretched himself; he felt the grip of
+that sort of voracious hunger which old soldiers can remember having
+experienced on the morrow of victory. He was delighted, therefore, to
+see Paul de Manerville standing in front of him, for at such a time
+nothing is more agreeable than to eat in company.
+
+"Well," his friend remarked, "we all imagined that you had been shut
+up for the last ten days with the girl of the golden eyes."
+
+"The girl of the golden eyes! I have forgotten her. Faith! I have
+other fish to fry!"
+
+"Ah! you are playing at discretion."
+
+"Why not?" asked De Marsay, with a laugh. "My dear fellow, discretion
+is the best form of calculation. Listen--however, no! I will not say a
+word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a
+gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river
+which is of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that
+is most sacred in life--of cigars! I am no professor of social economy
+for the instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give
+you a tunny omelette than to lavish the resources of my brain on you."
+
+"Do you bargain with your friends?"
+
+"My dear fellow," said Henri, who rarely denied himself a sarcasm,
+"since all the same, you may some day need, like anybody else, to use
+discretion, and since I have much love for you--yes, I like you! Upon
+my word, if you only wanted a thousand-franc note to keep you from
+blowing your brains out, you would find it here, for we haven't yet
+done any business of that sort, eh, Paul? If you had to fight
+to-morrow, I would measure the ground and load the pistols, so that
+you might be killed according to rule. In short, if anybody besides
+myself took it into his head to say ill of you in your absence, he
+would have to deal with the somewhat nasty gentleman who walks in my
+shoes--there's what I call a friendship beyond question. Well, my good
+fellow, if you should ever have need of discretion, understand that
+there are two sorts of discretion--the active and the negative.
+Negative discretion is that of fools who make use of silence,
+negation, an air of refusal, the discretion of locked doors--mere
+impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. Suppose at the
+club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my word of honor the golden-
+eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody would exclaim when I
+was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who tried to make us
+believe that he has already had the girl of the golden eyes? It's his
+way of trying to disembarrass himself of his rivals: he's no
+simpleton.' But such a ruse is vulgar and dangerous. However gross a
+folly one utters, there are always idiots to be found who will believe
+it. The best form of discretion is that of women when they want to
+take the change out of their husbands. It consists in compromising a
+woman with whom we are not concerned, or whom we do not love, in order
+to save the honor of the one whom we love well enough to respect. It
+is what is called the /woman-screen/. . . . Ah! here is Laurent. What
+have you got for us?"
+
+"Some Ostend oysters, Monsieur le Comte."
+
+"You will know some day, Paul, how amusing it is to make a fool of the
+world by depriving it of the secret of one's affections. I derive an
+immense pleasure in escaping from the stupid jurisdiction of the
+crowd, which knows neither what it wants, nor what one wants of it,
+which takes the means for the end, and by turns curses and adores,
+elevates and destroys! What a delight to impose emotions on it and
+receive none from it, to tame it, never to obey it. If one may ever be
+proud of anything, is it not a self-acquired power, of which one is at
+once the cause and effect, the principle and the result? Well, no man
+knows what I love, nor what I wish. Perhaps what I have loved, or what
+I may have wished will be known, as a drama which is accomplished is
+known; but to let my game be seen--weakness, mistake! I know nothing
+more despicable than strength outwitted by cunning. Can I initiate
+myself with a laugh into the ambassador's part, if indeed diplomacy is
+as difficult as life? I doubt it. Have you any ambition? Would you
+like to become something?"
+
+"But, Henri, you are laughing at me--as though I were not sufficiently
+mediocre to arrive at anything."
+
+"Good Paul! If you go on laughing at yourself, you will soon be able
+to laugh at everybody else."
+
+At breakfast, by the time he had started his cigars, De Marsay began
+to see the events of the night in a singular light. Like many men of
+great intelligence, his perspicuity was not spontaneous, as it did not
+at once penetrate to the heart of things. As with all natures endowed
+with the faculty of living greatly in the present, of extracting, so
+to speak, the essence of it and assimilating it, his second-sight had
+need of a sort of slumber before it could identify itself with causes.
+Cardinal de Richelieu was so constituted, and it did not debar in him
+the gift of foresight necessary to the conception of great designs.
+
+De Marsay's conditions were alike, but at first he only used his
+weapons for the benefit of his pleasures, and only became one of the
+most profound politicians of his day when he had saturated himself
+with those pleasures to which a young man's thoughts--when he has
+money and power--are primarily directed. Man hardens himself thus: he
+uses woman in order that she may not make use of him.
+
+At this moment, then, De Marsay perceived that he had been fooled by
+the girl of the golden eyes, seeing, as he did, in perspective, all
+that night of which the delights had been poured upon him by degrees
+until they had ended by flooding him in torrents. He could read, at
+last, that page in effect so brilliant, divine its hidden meaning. The
+purely physical innocence of Paquita, the bewilderment of her joy,
+certain words, obscure at first, but now clear, which had escaped her
+in the midst of that joy, all proved to him that he had posed for
+another person. As no social corruption was unknown to him, as he
+professed a complete indifference towards all perversities, and
+believed them to be justified on the simple ground that they were
+capable of satisfaction, he was not startled at vice, he knew it as
+one knows a friend, but he was wounded at having served as sustenance
+for it. If his presumption was right, he had been outraged in the most
+sensitive part of him. The mere suspicion filled him with fury, he
+broke out with the roar of a tiger who has been the sport of a deer,
+the cry of a tiger which united a brute's strength with the
+intelligence of the demon.
+
+"I say, what is the matter with you?" asked Paul.
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"I should be sorry, if you were to be asked whether you had anything
+against me and were to reply with a /nothing/ like that! It would be a
+sure case of fighting the next day."
+
+"I fight no more duels," said De Marsay.
+
+"That seems to me even more tragical. Do you assassinate, then?"
+
+"You travesty words. I execute."
+
+"My dear friend," said Paul, "your jokes are of a very sombre color
+this morning."
+
+"What would you have? Pleasure ends in cruelty. Why? I don't know, and
+am not sufficiently curious to try and find out. . . . These cigars
+are excellent. Give your friend some tea. Do you know, Paul, I live a
+brute's life? It should be time to choose oneself a destiny, to employ
+one's powers on something which makes life worth living. Life is a
+singular comedy. I am frightened, I laugh at the inconsequence of our
+social order. The Government cuts off the heads of poor devils who may
+have killed a man and licenses creatures who despatch, medically
+speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless
+against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can
+punish.--Another cup!--Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing
+upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the
+/Liaisons Dangereuses/, and any other book you like with a vulgar
+reputation; but there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful,
+corrupting, which is always open and will never be shut, the great
+book of the world; not to mention another book, a thousand times more
+dangerous, which is composed of all that men whisper into each other's
+ears, or women murmur behind their fans, of an evening in society."
+
+"Henri, there is certainly something extraordinary the matter with
+you; that is obvious in spite of your active discretion."
+
+"Yes! . . . Come, I must kill the time until this evening. Let's to
+the tables. . . . Perhaps I shall have the good luck to lose."
+
+De Marsay rose, took a handful of banknotes and folded them into his
+cigar-case, dressed himself, and took advantage of Paul's carriage to
+repair to the Salon des Etrangers, where until dinner he consumed the
+time in those exciting alternations of loss and gain which are the
+last resource of powerful organizations when they are compelled to
+exercise themselves in the void. In the evening he repaired to the
+trysting-place and submitted complacently to having his eyes bandaged.
+Then, with that firm will which only really strong men have the
+faculty of concentrating, he devoted his attention and applied his
+intelligence to the task of divining through what streets the carriage
+passed. He had a sort of certitude of being taken to the Rue Saint-
+Lazare, and being brought to a halt at the little gate in the garden
+of the Hotel San-Real. When he passed, as on the first occasion,
+through this gate, and was put in a litter, carried, doubtless by the
+mulatto and the coachman, he understood, as he heard the gravel grate
+beneath their feet, why they took such minute precautions. He would
+have been able, had he been free, or if he had walked, to pluck a twig
+of laurel, to observe the nature of the soil which clung to his boots;
+whereas, transported, so to speak, ethereally into an inaccessible
+mansion, his good fortune must remain what it had been hitherto, a
+dream. But it is man's despair that all his work, whether for good or
+evil, is imperfect. All his labors, physical or intellectual, are
+sealed with the mark of destruction. There had been a gentle rain, the
+earth was moist. At night-time certain vegetable perfumes are far
+stronger than during the day; Henri could smell, therefore, the scent
+of the mignonette which lined the avenue along which he was conveyed.
+This indication was enough to light him in the researches which he
+promised himself to make in order to recognize the hotel which
+contained Paquita's boudoir. He studied in the same way the turnings
+which his bearers took within the house, and believed himself able to
+recall them.
+
+As on the previous night, he found himself on the ottoman before
+Paquita, who was undoing his bandage; but he saw her pale and altered.
+She had wept. On her knees like an angel in prayer, but like an angel
+profoundly sad and melancholy, the poor girl no longer resembled the
+curious, impatient, and impetuous creature who had carried De Marsay
+on her wings to transport him to the seventh heaven of love. There was
+something so true in this despair veiled by pleasure, that the
+terrible De Marsay felt within him an admiration for this new
+masterpiece of nature, and forgot, for the moment, the chief interest
+of his assignation.
+
+"What is the matter with thee, my Paquita?"
+
+"My friend," she said, "carry me away this very night. Bear me to some
+place where no one can answer: 'There is a girl with a golden gaze
+here, who has long hair.' Yonder I will give thee as many pleasures as
+thou wouldst have of me. Then when you love me no longer, you shall
+leave me, I shall not complain, I shall say nothing; and your
+desertion need cause you no remorse, for one day passed with you, only
+one day, in which I have had you before my eyes, will be worth all my
+life to me. But if I stay here, I am lost."
+
+"I cannot leave Paris, little one!" replied Henri. "I do not belong to
+myself, I am bound by a vow to the fortune of several persons who
+stand to me, as I do to them. But I can place you in a refuge in
+Paris, where no human power can reach you."
+
+"No," she said, "you forget the power of woman."
+
+Never did phrase uttered by human voice express terror more
+absolutely.
+
+"What could reach you, then, if I put myself between you and the
+world?"
+
+"Poison!" she said. "Dona Concha suspects you already . . . and," she
+resumed, letting the tears fall and glisten on her cheeks, "it is easy
+enough to see I am no longer the same. Well, if you abandon me to the
+fury of the monster who will destroy me, your holy will be done! But
+come, let there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I
+will implore, I will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I
+shall be saved."
+
+"Whom will your implore?" he asked.
+
+"Silence!" said Paquita. "If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on
+account of my discretion."
+
+"Give me my robe," said Henri, insidiously.
+
+"No, no!" she answered quickly, "be what you are, one of those angels
+whom I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst
+you are what is fairest under the skies," she said, caressing Henri's
+hair. "You do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I
+was twelve years old I have been shut up without ever seeing any one.
+I can neither read nor write, I can only speak English and Spanish."
+
+"How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?"
+
+"My letters? . . . See, here they are!" she said, proceeding to take
+some papers out of a tall Japanese vase.
+
+She offered De Marsay some letters, in which the young man saw, with
+surprise, strange figures, similar to those of a rebus, traced in
+blood, and illustrating phrases full of passion.
+
+"But," he cried, marveling at these hieroglyphics created by the
+alertness of jealousy, "you are in the power of an infernal genius?"
+
+"Infernal," she repeated.
+
+"But how, then, were you able to get out?"
+
+"Ah!" she said, "that was my ruin. I drove Dona Concha to choose
+between the fear of immediate death and anger to be. I had the
+curiosity of a demon, I wished to break the bronze circle which they
+had described between creation and me, I wished to see what young
+people were like, for I knew nothing of man except the Marquis and
+Cristemio. Our coachman and the lackey who accompanies us are old
+men. . . ."
+
+"But you were not always thus shut up? Your health . . . ?"
+
+"Ah," she answered, "we used to walk, but it was at night and in the
+country, by the side of the Seine, away from people."
+
+"Are you not proud of being loved like that?"
+
+"No," she said, "no longer. However full it be, this hidden life is
+but darkness in comparison with the light."
+
+"What do you call the light?"
+
+"Thee, my lovely Adolphe! Thee, for whom I would give my life. All the
+passionate things that have been told me, and that I have inspired, I
+feel for thee! For a certain time I understood nothing of existence,
+but now I know what love is, and hitherto I have been the loved one
+only; for myself, I did not love. I would give up everything for you,
+take me away. If you like, take me as a toy, but let me be near you
+until you break me."
+
+"You will have no regrets?"
+
+"Not one"! she said, letting him read her eyes, whose golden tint was
+pure and clear.
+
+"Am I the favored one?" said Henri to himself. If he suspected the
+truth, he was ready at that time to pardon the offence in view of a
+love so single minded. "I shall soon see," he thought.
+
+If Paquita owed him no account of the past, yet the least recollection
+of it became in his eyes a crime. He had therefore the sombre strength
+to withhold a portion of his thought, to study her, even while
+abandoning himself to the most enticing pleasures that ever peri
+descended from the skies had devised for her beloved.
+
+Paquita seemed to have been created for love by a particular effort of
+nature. In a night her feminine genius had made the most rapid
+progress. Whatever might be the power of this young man, and his
+indifference in the matter of pleasures, in spite of his satiety of
+the previous night, he found in the girl with the golden eyes that
+seraglio which a loving woman knows how to create and which a man
+never refuses. Paquita responded to that passion which is felt by all
+really great men for the infinite--that mysterious passion so
+dramatically expressed in Faust, so poetically translated in Manfred,
+and which urged Don Juan to search the heart of women, in his hope to
+find there that limitless thought in pursuit of which so many hunters
+after spectres have started, which wise men think to discover in
+science, and which mystics find in God alone. The hope of possessing
+at last the ideal being with whom the struggle could be constant and
+tireless ravished De Marsay, who, for the first time for long, opened
+his heart. His nerves expanded, his coldness was dissipated in the
+atmosphere of that ardent soul, his hard and fast theories melted
+away, and happiness colored his existence to the tint of the rose and
+white boudoir. Experiencing the sting of a higher pleasure, he was
+carried beyond the limits within which he had hitherto confined
+passion. He would not be surpassed by this girl, whom a somewhat
+artificial love had formed all ready for the needs of his soul, and
+then he found in that vanity which urges a man to be in all things a
+victor, strength enough to tame the girl; but, at the same time, urged
+beyond that line where the soul is mistress over herself, he lost
+himself in these delicious limboes, which the vulgar call so foolishly
+"the imaginary regions." He was tender, kind, and confidential. He
+affected Paquita almost to madness.
+
+"Why should we not go to Sorrento, to Nice, to Chiavari, and pass all
+our life so? Will you?" he asked of Paquita, in a penetrating voice.
+
+"Was there need to say to me: 'Will you'?" she cried. "Have I a will?
+I am nothing apart from you, except in so far as I am a pleasure for
+you. If you would choose a retreat worthy of us, Asia is the only
+country where love can unfold his wings. . . ."
+
+"You are right," answered Henri. "Let us go to the Indies, there where
+spring is eternal, where the earth grows only flowers, where man can
+display the magnificence of kings and none shall say him nay, as in
+the foolish lands where they would realize the dull chimera of
+equality. Let us go to the country where one lives in the midst of a
+nation of slaves, where the sun shines ever on a palace which is
+always white, where the air sheds perfumes, the birds sing of love and
+where, when one can love no more, one dies. . . ."
+
+"And where one dies together!" said Paquita. "But do not let us start
+to-morrow, let us start this moment . . . take Cristemio."
+
+"Faith! pleasure is the fairest climax of life. Let us go to Asia; but
+to start, my child, one needs much gold, and to have gold one must set
+one's affairs in order."
+
+She understood no part of these ideas.
+
+"Gold! There is a pile of it here--as high as that," she said holding
+up her hand.
+
+"It is not mine."
+
+"What does that matter?" she went on; "if we have need of it let us
+take it."
+
+"It does not belong to you."
+
+"Belong!" she repeated. "Have you not taken me? When we have taken it,
+it will belong to us."
+
+He gave a laugh.
+
+"Poor innocent! You know nothing of the world."
+
+"Nay, but this is what I know," she cried, clasping Henri to her.
+
+At the very moment when De Marsay was forgetting all, and conceiving
+the desire to appropriate this creature forever, he received in the
+midst of his joy a dagger-thrust, which Paquita, who had lifted him
+vigorously in the air, as though to contemplate him, exclaimed: "Oh,
+Margarita!"
+
+"Margarita!" cried the young man, with a roar; "now I know all that I
+still tried to disbelieve."
+
+He leaped upon the cabinet in which the long poniard was kept. Happily
+for Paquita and for himself, the cupboard was shut. His fury waxed at
+this impediment, but he recovered his tranquillity, went and found his
+cravat, and advanced towards her with an air of such ferocious meaning
+that, without knowing of what crime she had been guilty, Paquita
+understood, none the less, that her life was in question. With one
+bound she rushed to the other end of the room to escape the fatal knot
+which De Marsay tried to pass round her neck. There was a struggle. On
+either side there was an equality of strength, agility, and
+suppleness. To end the combat Paquita threw between the legs of her
+lover a cushion which made him fall, and profited by the respite which
+this advantage gave to her, to push the button of the spring which
+caused the bell to ring. Promptly the mulatto arrived. In a second
+Cristemio leaped on De Marsay and held him down with one foot on his
+chest, his heel turned towards the throat. De Marsay realized that, if
+he struggled, at a single sign from Paquita he would be instantly
+crushed.
+
+"Why did you want to kill me, my beloved?" she said. De Marsay made no
+reply.
+
+"In what have I angered you?" she asked. "Speak, let us understand
+each other."
+
+Henri maintained the phlegmatic attitude of a strong man who feels
+himself vanquished; his countenance, cold, silent, entirely English,
+revealed the consciousness of his dignity in a momentary resignation.
+Moreover, he had already thought, in spite of the vehemence of his
+anger, that it was scarcely prudent to compromise himself with the law
+by killing this girl on the spur of the moment, before he had arranged
+the murder in such a manner as should insure his impunity.
+
+"My beloved," went on Paquita, "speak to me; do not leave me without
+one loving farewell! I would not keep in my heart the terror which you
+have just inspired in it. . . . Will you speak?" she said, stamping
+her foot with anger.
+
+De Marsay, for all reply, gave her a glance, which signified so
+plainly, "/You must die!/" that Paquita threw herself upon him.
+
+"Ah, well, you want to kill me! . . . If my death can give you any
+pleasure--kill me!"
+
+She made a sign to Cristemio, who withdrew his foot from the body of
+the young man, and retired without letting his face show that he had
+formed any opinion, good or bad, with regard to Paquita.
+
+"That is a man," said De Marsay, pointing to the mulatto, with a
+sombre gesture. "There is no devotion like the devotion which obeys in
+friendship, and does not stop to weigh motives. In that man you
+possess a true friend."
+
+"I will give him you, if you like," she answered; "he will serve you
+with the same devotion that he has for me, if I so instruct him."
+
+She waited for a word of recognition, and went on with an accent
+replete with tenderness:
+
+"Adolphe, give me then one kind word! . . . It is nearly day."
+
+Henri did not answer. The young man had one sorry quality, for one
+considers as something great everything which resembles strength, and
+often men invent extravagances. Henri knew not how to pardon. That
+/returning upon itself/ which is one of the soul's graces, was a non-
+existent sense for him. The ferocity of the Northern man, with which
+the English blood is deeply tainted, had been transmitted to him by
+his father. He was inexorable both in his good and evil impulses.
+Paquita's exclamation had been all the more horrible to him, in that
+it had dethroned him from the sweetest triumph which had ever
+flattered his man's vanity. Hope, love, and every emotion had been
+exalted with him, all had lit up within his heart and his
+intelligence, then these torches illuminating his life had been
+extinguished by a cold wind. Paquita, in her stupefaction of grief,
+had only strength enough to give the signal for departure.
+
+"What is the use of that!" she said, throwing away the bandage. "If he
+does not love me, if he hates me, it is all over."
+
+She waited for one look, did not obtain it, and fell, half dead. The
+mulatto cast a glance at Henri, so horribly significant, that, for the
+first time in his life, the young man, to whom no one denied the gift
+of rare courage, trembled. "/If you do not love her well, if you give
+her the least pain, I will kill you/." such was the sense of that
+brief gaze. De Marsay was escorted, with a care almost obsequious,
+along the dimly lit corridor, at the end of which he issued by a
+secret door into the garden of the Hotel San-Real. The mulatto made
+him walk cautiously through an avenue of lime trees, which led to a
+little gate opening upon a street which was at that hour deserted. De
+Marsay took a keen notice of everything. The carriage awaited him.
+This time the mulatto did not accompany him, and at the moment when
+Henri put his head out of the window to look once more at the gardens
+of the hotel, he encountered the white eyes of Cristemio, with whom he
+exchanged a glance. On either side there was a provocation, a
+challenge, the declaration of a savage war, of a duel in which
+ordinary laws were invalid, where treason and treachery were admitted
+means. Cristemio knew that Henri had sworn Paquita's death. Henri knew
+that Cristemio would like to kill him before he killed Paquita. Both
+understood each other to perfection.
+
+"The adventure is growing complicated in a most interesting way," said
+Henri.
+
+"Where is the gentleman going to?" asked the coachman.
+
+De Marsay was driven to the house of Paul de Manerville. For more than
+a week Henri was away from home, and no one could discover either what
+he did during this period, nor where he stayed. This retreat saved him
+from the fury of the mulatto and caused the ruin of the charming
+creature who had placed all her hope in him whom she loved as never
+human heart had loved on this earth before. On the last day of the
+week, about eleven o'clock at night, Henri drove up in a carriage to
+the little gate in the garden of the Hotel San-Real. Four men
+accompanied him. The driver was evidently one of his friends, for he
+stood up on his box, like a man who was to listen, an attentive
+sentinel, for the least sound. One of the other three took his stand
+outside the gate in the street; the second waited in the garden,
+leaning against the wall; the last, who carried in his hand a bunch of
+keys, accompanied De Marsay.
+
+"Henri," said his companion to him, "we are betrayed."
+
+"By whom, my good Ferragus?"
+
+"They are not all asleep," replied the chief of the Devourers; "it is
+absolutely certain that some one in the house has neither eaten nor
+drunk. . . . Look! see that light!"
+
+"We have a plan of the house; from where does it come?"
+
+"I need no plan to know," replied Ferragus; "it comes from the room of
+the Marquise."
+
+"Ah," cried De Marsay, "no doubt she arrived from London to-day. The
+woman has robbed me even of my revenge! But if she has anticipated me,
+my good Gratien, we will give her up to the law."
+
+"Listen, listen! . . . The thing is settled," said Ferragus to Henri.
+
+The two friends listened intently, and heard some feeble cries which
+might have aroused pity in the breast of a tiger.
+
+"Your marquise did not think the sound would escape by the chimney,"
+said the chief of the Devourers, with the laugh of a critic, enchanted
+to detect a fault in a work of merit.
+
+"We alone, we know how to provide for every contingency," said Henri.
+"Wait for me. I want to see what is going on upstairs--I want to know
+how their domestic quarrels are managed. By God! I believe she is
+roasting her at a slow fire."
+
+De Marsay lightly scaled the stairs, with which he was familiar, and
+recognized the passage leading to the boudoir. When he opened the door
+he experienced the involuntary shudder which the sight of bloodshed
+gives to the most determined of men. The spectacle which was offered
+to his view was, moreover, in more than one respect astonishing to
+him. The Marquise was a woman; she had calculated her vengeance with
+that perfection of perfidy which distinguishes the weaker animals. She
+had dissimulated her anger in order to assure herself of the crime
+before she punished it.
+
+"Too late, my beloved!" said Paquita, in her death agony, casting her
+pale eyes upon De Marsay.
+
+The girl of the golden eyes expired in a bath of blood. The great
+illumination of candles, a delicate perfume which was perceptible, a
+certain disorder, in which the eye of a man accustomed to amorous
+adventures could not but discern the madness which is common to all
+the passions, revealed how cunningly the Marquise had interrogated the
+guilty one. The white room, where the blood showed so well, betrayed a
+long struggle. The prints of Paquita's hands were on the cushions.
+Here she had clung to her life, here she had defended herself, here
+she had been struck. Long strips of the tapestry had been torn down by
+her bleeding hands, which, without a doubt, had struggled long.
+Paquita must have tried to reach the window; her bare feet had left
+their imprints on the edge of the divan, along which she must have
+run. Her body, mutilated by the dagger-thrusts of her executioner,
+told of the fury with which she had disputed a life which Henri had
+made precious to her. She lay stretched on the floor, and in her
+death-throes had bitten the ankles of Madame de San-Real, who still
+held in her hand her dagger, dripping blood. The hair of the Marquise
+had been torn out, she was covered with bites, many of which were
+bleeding, and her torn dress revealed her in a state of semi-nudity,
+with the scratches on her breasts. She was sublime so. Her head, eager
+and maddened, exhaled the odor of blood. Her panting mouth was open,
+and her nostrils were not sufficient for her breath. There are certain
+animals who fall upon their enemy in their rage, do it to death, and
+seem in the tranquillity of victory to have forgotten it. There are
+others who prowl around their victim, who guard it in fear lest it
+should be taken away from them, and who, like the Achilles of Homer,
+drag their enemy by the feet nine times round the walls of Troy. The
+Marquise was like that. She did not see Henri. In the first place, she
+was too secure of her solitude to be afraid of witnesses; and,
+secondly, she was too intoxicated with warm blood, too excited with
+the fray, too exalted, to take notice of the whole of Paris, if Paris
+had formed a circle round her. A thunderbolt would not have disturbed
+her. She had not even heard Paquita's last sigh, and believed that the
+dead girl could still hear her.
+
+"Die without confessing!" she said. "Go down to hell, monster of
+ingratitude; belong to no one but the fiend. For the blood you gave
+him you owe me all your own! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths! I
+have been too kind--I was only a moment killing you. I should have
+made you experience all the tortures that you have bequeathed to me. I
+--I shall live! I shall live in misery. I have no one left to love but
+God!"
+
+She gazed at her.
+
+"She is dead!" she said to herself, after a pause, in a violent
+reaction. "Dead! Oh, I shall die of grief!"
+
+The Marquise was throwing herself upon the divan, stricken with a
+despair which deprived her of speech, when this movement brought her
+in view of Henri de Marsay.
+
+"Who are you?" she asked, rushing at him with her dagger raised.
+
+Henri caught her arm, and thus they could contemplate each other face
+to face. A horrible surprise froze the blood in their veins, and their
+limbs quivered like those of frightened horses. In effect, the two
+Menoechmi had not been more alike. With one accord they uttered the
+same phrase:
+
+"Lord Dudley must have been your father!"
+
+The head of each was drooped in affirmation.
+
+"She was true to the blood," said Henri, pointing to Paquita.
+
+"She was as little guilty as it is possible to be," replied Margarita
+Euphemia Porraberil, and she threw herself upon the body of Paquita,
+giving vent to a cry of despair. "Poor child! Oh, if I could bring
+thee to life again! I was wrong--forgive me, Paquita! Dead! and I
+live! I--I am the most unhappy."
+
+At that moment the horrible face of the mother of Paquita appeared.
+
+"You are come to tell me that you never sold her to me to kill," cried
+the Marquise. "I know why you have left your lair. I will pay you
+twice over. Hold your peace."
+
+She took a bag of gold from the ebony cabinet, and threw it
+contemptuously at the old woman's feet. The chink of the gold was
+potent enough to excite a smile on the Georgian's impassive face.
+
+"I come at the right moment for you, my sister," said Henri. "The law
+will ask of you----"
+
+"Nothing," replied the Marquise. "One person alone might ask for a
+reckoning for the death of this girl. Cristemio is dead."
+
+"And the mother," said Henri, pointing to the old woman. "Will you not
+always be in her power?"
+
+"She comes from a country where women are not beings, but things--
+chattels, with which one does as one wills, which one buys, sells, and
+slays; in short, which one uses for one's caprices as you, here, use a
+piece of furniture. Besides, she has one passion which dominates all
+the others, and which would have stifled her maternal love, even if
+she had loved her daughter, a passion----"
+
+"What?" Henri asked quickly, interrupting his sister.
+
+"Play! God keep you from it," answered the Marquise.
+
+"But whom have you," said Henri, looking at the girl of the golden
+eyes, "who will help you to remove the traces of this fantasy which
+the law would not overlook?"
+
+"I have her mother," replied the Marquise, designating the Georgian,
+to whom she made a sign to remain.
+
+"We shall meet again," said Henri, who was thinking anxiously of his
+friends and felt that it was time to leave.
+
+"No, brother," she said, "we shall not meet again. I am going back to
+Spain to enter the Convent of /los Dolores/."
+
+"You are too young yet, too lovely," said Henri, taking her in his
+arms and giving her a kiss.
+
+"Good-bye," she said; "there is no consolation when you have lost that
+which has seemed to you the infinite."
+
+A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the Tuileries, on the
+Terrasse de Feuillants.
+
+"Well, what has become of our beautiful girl of the golden eyes, you
+rascal?"
+
+"She is dead."
+
+"What of?"
+
+"Consumption."
+
+
+
+PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+  The Girl with the Golden Eyes is the third part of a trilogy. Part
+  one is entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de Langeais.
+  The three stories are frequently combined under the title The
+  Thirteen.
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph
+  Ferragus
+
+Dudley, Lord
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  A Man of Business
+  Another Study of Woman
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Marriage Settlement
+
+Marsay, Henri de
+  Ferragus
+  The Duchesse of Langeais
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Father Goriot
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Marriage Settlement
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Another Study of Woman
+  Ferragus
+  The Duchesse of Langeais
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Balzac
+
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