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diff --git a/1659-0.txt b/1659-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66c6180 --- /dev/null +++ b/1659-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3247 @@ +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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES *** + +***** This file should be named 1659-0.txt or 1659-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/1659/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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