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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Another Study of Woman, by Honoré 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: Another Study of Woman
+
+Author: Honoré de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2010 [EBook #1714]
+Last Updated: October 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+By Honoré De Balzac
+
+Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at
+every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons
+invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his
+neighbor’s eye; most of the younger women are there for one person
+only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the
+handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared
+by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: “Do
+you think of going away soon to La Crampade?” “How well Madame de
+Portenduère sang!” “Who is that little woman with such a load of
+diamonds?” Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give
+transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin
+out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the
+sconces.
+
+The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people
+or intimate friends, saying, “Do not go yet; we will have a snug little
+supper.” These collect in some small room. The second, the real party,
+now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what is said,
+conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to contribute
+to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest laughter
+takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens the prettiest
+faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.
+
+The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
+dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to mechanize other
+nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull as itself,
+and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some French
+houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our
+light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and
+the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppers nowadays,
+it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewer men placed,
+established, and successful than under the reign of Louis Philippe, when
+the Revolution began again, lawfully. Everybody is on the march some
+whither, or trotting at the heels of Fortune. Time has become the
+costliest commodity, so no one can afford the lavish extravagance of
+going home to-morrow morning and getting up late. Hence, there is no
+second soiree now but at the houses of women rich enough to entertain,
+and since July 1830 such women may be counted in Paris.
+
+In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two or
+three women, among them Madame d’Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches,
+have not chosen to give up the share of influence they exercised in
+Paris, and have not closed their houses.
+
+The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the
+last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its reserved
+depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite politeness. You will
+there still find grace of manner notwithstanding the conventionalities
+of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk notwithstanding the reserve which
+is natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of
+ideas. No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one
+regards a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton
+of literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally
+or an interesting subject.
+
+The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
+reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up
+one of the deepest recesses of woman’s heart, than on account of the
+reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that
+have taken place in the French woman since the fateful revolution of
+July.
+
+On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
+indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not
+a piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
+foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the
+most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter,
+pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed
+without elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without
+effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The
+men of the world especially were conspicuous for their really artistic
+grace and spirit.
+
+Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
+fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room,
+and those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound which
+gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social qualities,
+an indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion of ideas, of
+definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents, meander with ease.
+Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes
+conversation a tourney in which each type of wit is condensed into a
+shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts his experience in a
+word, in which every one finds amusement, relaxation, and exercise.
+Here, then, alone, will you exchange ideas; here you need not, like the
+dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will
+be understood, and will not risk staking your gold pieces against base
+metal.
+
+Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play and
+eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticism and
+crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes are listening,
+a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives the answer. In
+short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.
+
+The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled,
+is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so completely
+bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its spell; we all
+spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted into anecdote,
+and brought out in its rushing course some curious confessions,
+several portraits, and a thousand follies, which make this enchanting
+improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting these things
+down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, their elusive
+divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French evening,
+taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity makes each one
+forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if you like, his
+pretensions.
+
+At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
+round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
+years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
+world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
+renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the tone.
+But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of being
+himself.
+
+Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at table
+till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a move
+produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and the
+drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the ideas
+of an author after shaving are different from those he had before. If
+Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the frame of mind of
+a party at table is not the same as that of the same persons returned
+to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the eye no longer
+contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost are the happy
+effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence which comes over us
+while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled man, settled
+comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are made in these days.
+Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to face with the dessert and
+in the society of good wine, during the delightful interval when every
+one may sit with an elbow on the table and his head resting on his
+hand. Not only does every one like to talk then, but also to listen.
+Digestion, which is almost always attent, is loquacious or silent, as
+characters differ. Then every one finds his opportunity.
+
+Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
+narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
+jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons
+who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such
+delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince
+Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?
+
+De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given proofs
+of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not indeed
+surprised to see him display all the talents and various aptitudes of a
+statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he would prove to
+be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded in the fire of
+circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man whom he had
+made a préfet, a man of wit and observation, who had for a long time
+been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay without infusing into his
+admiration that dash of acrid criticism by which, in Paris, one superior
+man excuses himself from admiring another.
+
+“Was there ever,” said he, “in your former life, any event, any thought
+or wish which told you what your vocation was?” asked Émile Blondet;
+“for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and leads us to
+the spot where our faculties develop——”
+
+“Yes,” said de Marsay; “I will tell you about it.”
+
+Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay’s intimate
+friends,—all settled themselves comfortably, each in his favorite
+attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the servants had
+left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn over them? The
+silence was so complete that the murmurs of the coachmen’s voices could
+be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing and champing made by horses
+when asking to be taken back to their stable.
+
+“The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality,” said the
+Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. “To
+wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
+less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
+short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self, who
+looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our passions
+and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the judgment of a
+sort of moral ready-reckoner.”
+
+“That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France,” said old
+Lord Dudley.
+
+“From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible,” the Minister went
+on. “Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man—Richelieu,
+who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini’s peril, slept till
+midday, when his benefactor was killed at ten o’clock—or say Pitt, or
+Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such a monster at a very early age,
+thanks to a woman.”
+
+“I fancied,” said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, “that more
+politicians were undone by us than we could make.”
+
+“The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
+you,” replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.
+
+“If this is a love-story,” the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, “I
+request that it may not be interrupted by any reflections.”
+
+“Reflection is so antipathetic to it!” cried Joseph Bridau.
+
+“I was seventeen,” de Marsay went on; “the Restoration was being
+consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then.
+I was in love for the first time, and I was—I may say so now—one of
+the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
+advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of
+a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.—Like all youths, I was in
+love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,”
+ said he, looking carefully round the table, “can suspect her name or
+recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret.
+He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is
+gone,” said the Minister, looking round.
+
+“He would not stay to supper,” said Madame de Nucingen.
+
+“For six months, possessed by my passion,” de Marsay went on, “but
+incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
+myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and the
+frail joy of the young. I treasured her old gloves; I drank an infusion
+of the flowers she had worn; I got out of bed at night to go and gaze at
+her window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled the perfume
+she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a stove with a
+marble casing.”
+
+“Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts,” cried Madame de Montcornet with a
+smile.
+
+“I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who first
+uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought,” said de Marsay. “You
+are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point. These
+few words will remind you of your own follies.
+
+“A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children—oh! all
+was perfect—my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
+hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we
+fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
+
+“We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
+beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm
+we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was perfection
+then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful women in
+Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to win one of her
+glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient for a
+woman who had loved and was adored; but the Restoration, to which she
+owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate in comparison with her
+name. In my position I was so fatuous as never to dream of a
+suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a hundred and twenty
+Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in me as gold in the
+nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me if I had been so
+base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel—so fragile and so strong,
+so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose blue eyes allowed my
+gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart with adorable
+submissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy in her attitude,
+her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready for the Beloved
+like the Oriental Lily of the ‘Song of Songs!’ Ah! my friends!” sadly
+exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, “a man must hit his head very
+hard on the marble to dispel that poem!”
+
+This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
+curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
+
+“Every morning, riding Sultan—the fine horse you sent me from England,”
+ de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, “I rode past her open
+carriage, the horses’ pace being intentionally reduced to a walk, and
+read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her bouquet
+in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each
+other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, to
+deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had adopted a scheme of
+conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to speak ill
+of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the disdained
+swain,—all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on either part with
+a false passion professed for an indifferent person and an air of
+indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will only play that
+game, the world will always be deceived; but then they must be very
+secure of each other.
+
+“Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
+sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
+comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
+circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us; six
+years’ difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of my
+fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I, on my
+part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her knowledge
+and her experience of the world, would have married her without a
+thought. At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she had been the
+first to speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might perhaps have noted
+it as vulgar in that accomplished soul.
+
+“Six months, full and perfect—a diamond of the purest water! That has
+been my portion of love in this base world.
+
+“One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the
+beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret
+festivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the
+sea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will not
+believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy and
+suspiciousness.—When jealousy is genuine,” said de Marsay, interrupting
+himself, “it is the visible sign of an unique passion.”
+
+“Why?” asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.
+
+“Unique and true love,” said de Marsay, “produces a sort of corporeal
+apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind
+complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns
+them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as delightful as it
+is distressing.”
+
+A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the truth
+of this remark.
+
+“Besides,” de Marsay went on, “I said to myself, why miss a happy hour?
+Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she learns
+that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and compromising
+herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and carried it
+myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. The river lay between
+us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable distance of
+her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to have the note
+sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea of driving past her
+door in a hackney cab to see whether she might not by chance receive the
+two letters together. At the moment when I arrived it was two
+o’clock; the great gate opened to admit a carriage. Whose?—That of the
+stalking-horse!
+
+“It is fifteen years since—well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
+exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
+business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about my
+diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage was
+still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter’s hands. At
+last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could observe my
+rival’s expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he was in love,
+and no doubt there was business in hand.
+
+“I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her
+calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought
+that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man
+who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when
+he called his play ‘The Moor of Venice.’ The sight of the woman we love
+is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt,
+and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this
+cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the most atrocious
+dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love. My jealousy once
+buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing condition was evident;
+the horrible doubts that had fermented in me increased it. At last I
+found an opening for putting in these words: ‘You have had no one with
+you this morning?’ making a pretext of the uneasiness I had felt in the
+fear lest she should have disposed of her time after receiving my first
+note.—‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, ‘only a man could have such ideas! As if
+I could think of anything but your suffering. Till the moment when I
+received your second note I could think only of how I could contrive to
+see you.’—‘And you were alone?’—‘Alone,’ said she, looking at me with a
+face of innocence so perfect that it must have been his distrust of such
+a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived alone
+in the house, the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys
+the absolute confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of
+happiness.
+
+“To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
+that we have an internal self of which the exterior I is but the husk;
+that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade—well,
+that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in crape.
+Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-sheet
+of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
+betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might not
+observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my strength:
+‘If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!’
+
+“I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
+to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
+home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
+solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
+whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great
+child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
+feels that he would ask Desdemona’s forgiveness. Thus, killing the woman
+is the act of a boy.—She wept as we parted, so much was she distressed
+at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my valet, in
+whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was as elegantly
+expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her happiness. There is
+always a precious ape in the prettiest and most angelic woman!”
+
+At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
+truth so brutally stated.
+
+“I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent,” de Marsay
+went on. “I discovered that I was a statesman.”
+
+It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.
+
+“As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,”
+ said de Marsay, continuing his story, “with infernal ingenuity—for, as
+we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges were
+possible—I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I insensibly
+formulated a horrible code—that of Indulgence. In taking vengeance on
+a woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one for us, that we
+cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way to win her back? If
+she is not indispensable, if there are other women in the world, why not
+grant her the right to change which we assume?
+
+“This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it
+would be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for
+indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes
+must be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law,
+deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing.
+Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the world must
+be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of it—that of
+Othello.
+
+“Mine was different.”
+
+The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
+newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words: great
+sensation.
+
+“Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung myself
+into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a style of
+beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took care not to
+quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an actress, for I doubt
+whether true love can give such gracious delights as those lavished by
+such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is as good as virtue.—I
+am not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady,” said the Minister,
+suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley’s daughter. “I tried to
+be the same lover.
+
+“I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I went
+to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher. The man
+had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his address for the
+benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty of every kind and
+every color. After I had explained my order, he showed me his work. I
+then saw achievements of patience surpassing those which the story books
+ascribe to fairies, or which are executed by prisoners. He brought me up
+to date as to the caprices and fashions governing the use of hair. ‘For
+the last year,’ said he, ‘there has been a rage for marking linen
+with hair; happily I had a fine collection of hair and skilled
+needlewomen,’—on hearing this a suspicion flashed upon me; I took out
+my handkerchief and said, ‘So this was done in your shop, with false
+hair?’—He looked at the handkerchief, and said, ‘Ay! that lady was very
+particular, she insisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife
+herself marked those handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the
+finest pieces of work we have ever executed.’ Before this last ray of
+light I might have believed something—might have taken a woman’s word.
+I left the shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was
+concerned I was as atheistical as a mathematician.
+
+“Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in
+her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands—they were very
+beautiful—and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest
+flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a moment when
+one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-room and there
+are no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness, and when we are
+most in love, love is so well aware of its own short duration that
+we are irresistibly urged to ask, ‘Do you love me? Will you love
+me always?’ I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so
+full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in the
+enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest
+allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the only man in
+the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her of all
+her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was indeed
+too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she had been
+seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew that
+secret; in short, I was her god!”
+
+The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so
+well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes,
+and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
+
+“At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable
+falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, ‘When
+are you to marry the Duke?’
+
+“The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand
+lay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not
+be disguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored
+her cheeks.—‘The Duke! What do you mean?’ she said, affecting great
+astonishment.—‘I know everything,’ replied I; ‘and in my opinion, you
+should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than
+devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have been
+faithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently
+necessary it is that you should compromise him with himself and with
+God; short of that you will never bring him to the point.’—‘Is this
+a dream?’ said she, pushing her hair from her forehead, fifteen
+years before Malibran, with the gesture which Malibran has made so
+famous.—‘Come, do not be childish, my angel,’ said I, trying to take
+her hands; but she folded them before her with a little prudish and
+indignant mein.—‘Marry him, you have my permission,’ said I, replying to
+this gesture by using the formal vous instead of tu. ‘Nay, better, I
+beg you to do so.’—‘But,’ cried she, falling at my knees, ‘there is some
+horrible mistake; I love no one in the world but you; you may demand
+any proofs you please.’—‘Rise, my dear,’ said I, ‘and do me the honor of
+being truthful.’—‘As before God.’—‘Do you doubt my love?’—‘No.’—‘Nor my
+fidelity?’—‘No.’—‘Well, I have committed the greatest crime,’ I went on.
+‘I have doubted your love and your fidelity. Between two intoxications
+I looked calmly about me.’—‘Calmly!’ sighed she. ‘That is enough, Henri;
+you no longer love me.’
+
+“She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
+like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her
+add: ‘And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting in
+public? Have you detected in my eyes——?’—‘No,’ said I, ‘but in his.
+And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d’Aquin to see you
+listening to the same mass as he.’—‘Ah!’ she exclaimed, ‘then I have
+made you jealous!’—Oh! I only wish I could be!’ said I, admiring the
+pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can
+only be successful in the eyes of the blind. ‘But by dint of going to
+church I have become very incredulous. On the day of my first cold, and
+your first treachery, when you thought I was in bed, you received the
+Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.’—‘Do you know that your
+conduct is infamous?’—‘In what respect? I consider your marriage to the
+Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a great name, the only rank
+that suits you, a brilliant and distinguished position. You will be one
+of the queens of Paris. I should be doing you a wrong if I placed any
+obstacle in the way of this prospect, this distinguished life, this
+splendid alliance. Ah! Charlotte, some day you will do me justice by
+discovering how unlike my character is to that of other young men. You
+would have been compelled to deceive me; yes, you would have found it
+very difficult to break with me, for he watches you. It is time that we
+should part, for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turn prude;
+I advise you to do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of his
+wife.’—‘Oh!’ cried she, bursting into tears, ‘Henri, if only you
+had spoken! Yes, if you had chosen’—it was I who was to blame, you
+understand—‘we would have gone to live all our days in a corner,
+married, happy, and defied the world.’—‘Well, it is too late now,’ said
+I, kissing her hands, and putting on a victimized air.—‘Good God! But I
+can undo it all!’ said she.—‘No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I
+ought indeed to go a journey to part us more effectually. We should both
+have reason to fear our own affection——’—‘Henri, do you think the
+Duke has any suspicions?’ I was still ‘Henri,’ but the tu was lost for
+ever.—‘I do not think so,’ I replied, assuming the manner of a friend;
+‘but be as devout as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke
+waits for proofs; he hesitates, you must bring him to the point.’
+
+“She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
+agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming the
+new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her hand,
+and said in a voice broken by emotion, ‘Well, Henri, you are loyal,
+noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.’
+
+“These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
+of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to place
+herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the
+look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly assumed
+dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me along
+almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
+moment’s silence, ‘I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you love
+me?’—‘Oh! yes.’—‘Well, then, what will become of you?’”
+
+At this point the women all looked at each other.
+
+“Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at
+her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must
+die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy,” de Marsay went on.
+“Oh! do not laugh yet!” he said to his listeners; “there is better to
+come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her,
+‘Yes, that is what I have been wondering.’—‘Well, what will you do?’—‘I
+asked myself that the day after my cold.’—‘And——?’ she asked with eager
+anxiety.—‘And I have made advances to the little lady to whom I was
+supposed to be attached.’
+
+“Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling
+like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their
+dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the
+sparkling glitter of a hunted viper’s eye when driven into a corner, and
+said, ‘And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have——’ On this
+last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made the most impressive
+pause I ever heard.—‘Good God!’ she cried, ‘how unhappy are we women!
+we never can be loved. To you there is nothing serious in the purest
+feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you still are our dupes!’—‘I
+see that plainly,’ said I, with a stricken air; ‘you have far too much
+wit in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.’—This modest epigram
+increased her rage; she found some tears of vexation. ‘You disgust
+me with the world and with life.’ she said; ‘you snatch away all my
+illusions; you deprave my heart.’
+
+“She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simple
+effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailed any
+man but me on the spot.—‘What is to become of us poor women in a state
+of society such as Louis XVIII.’s charter made it?’—(Imagine how her
+words had run away with her.)—‘Yes, indeed, we are born to suffer. In
+matters of passion we are always superior to you, and you are beneath
+all loyalty. There is no honesty in your hearts. To you love is a game
+in which you always cheat.’—‘My dear,’ said I, ‘to take anything
+serious in society nowadays would be like making romantic love to an
+actress.’—‘What a shameless betrayal! It was deliberately planned!’—‘No,
+only a rational issue.’—‘Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,’ said she; ‘you
+have deceived me horribly.’—‘Surely,’ I replied, taking up a
+submissive attitude, ‘Madame la Duchesse will not remember Charlotte’s
+grievances?’—‘Certainly,’ she answered bitterly.—‘Then, in fact, you
+hate me?’—She bowed, and I said to myself, ‘There is something still
+left!’
+
+“The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe that
+she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have carefully
+studied the lives of men who have had great success with women, but I
+do not believe that the Maréchal de Richelieu, or Lauzun, or Louis de
+Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first attempt. As
+to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then and there, once
+for all, and the power of control I thus acquired over the thoughtless
+impulses which make us commit so many follies gained me the admirable
+presence of mind you all know.”
+
+“How deeply I pity the second!” exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay’s pale lips made Delphine de
+Nucingen color.
+
+“How we do forget!” said the Baron de Nucingen.
+
+The great banker’s simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife, who
+was de Marsay’s “second,” could not help laughing like every one else.
+
+“You are all ready to condemn the woman,” said Lady Dudley. “Well,
+I quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act
+of inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
+fidelity.—I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told us,
+and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies.”
+
+“Alas! my lady, you are right,” replied de Marsay. “For very nearly
+fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all
+social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great
+wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their
+heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are
+vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses—I must apologize to
+Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is made
+a peer of France—baronesses have never succeeded in getting people to
+take them seriously.”
+
+“Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,” said Blondet with a smile.
+
+“Countesses will survive,” said de Marsay. “An elegant woman will be
+more or less of a countess—a countess of the Empire or of yesterday,
+a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by
+courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with the dignified
+splendor of the last century, with powder, patches, high-heeled
+slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses
+in these days can pass through a door without any need to widen it for
+their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns with trains! I am still
+puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished to see his drawing-room
+swept by ducal satin and velvet did not make indestructible laws.
+Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code he was so proud of.
+That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of our ‘ladies’ of
+to-day—the indirect offspring of his legislation.”
+
+“It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and
+by obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social
+state,” said the Comte de Vandenesse. “In these days every rogue who can
+hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an
+ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius
+gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps
+graced by silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into
+one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be an
+attorney’s clerk, a contractor’s son, or a banker’s bastard, he stares
+impertinently at the prettiest duchess, appraises her as she walks
+downstairs, and says to his friend—dressed by Buisson, as we all are,
+and mounted in patent-leather like any duke himself—‘There, my boy, that
+is a perfect lady.’”
+
+“You have not known how to form a party,” said Lord Dudley; “it will
+be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in
+France about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized property.
+So this is what happens: Any duke—and even in the time of Louis XVIII.
+and Charles X. there were some left who had two hundred thousand francs
+a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train of servants—well,
+such a duke could live like a great lord. The last of these great
+gentlemen in France was the Prince de Talleyrand.—This duke leaves four
+children, two of them girls. Granting that he has great luck in marrying
+them all well, each of these descendants will have but sixty or eighty
+thousand francs a year now; each is the father or mother of children,
+and consequently obliged to live with the strictest economy in a flat on
+the ground floor or first floor of a large house. Who knows if they
+may not even be hunting a fortune? Henceforth the eldest son’s wife, a
+duchess in name only, has no carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time
+to herself. She has not her own rooms in the family mansion, nor her
+fortune, nor her pretty toys; she is buried in trade; she buys socks for
+her dear little children, nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on
+her girls, whom she no longer sends to school at a convent. Thus your
+noblest dames have been turned into worthy brood-hens.”
+
+“Alas! it is true,” said Joseph Bridau. “In our day we cannot show
+those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the
+French Monarchy. The great lady’s fan is broken. A woman has nothing now
+to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal
+it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is
+no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a form of luxury.”
+
+“Everything in France has aided and abetted the ‘perfect lady,’” said
+Daniel d’Arthez. “The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating
+to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
+die—emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
+lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded
+European salons, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out
+like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or
+of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of
+abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against
+the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of
+the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are
+at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing princesses,
+these are really only ladylike young women. In these days princes can
+find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot even confer
+honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last
+prince to avail himself of this privilege.”
+
+“And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it,” said Lord Dudley.
+
+“Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box
+with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair’s
+breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen
+class and those of the nobility—not altogether noble nor altogether
+bourgeoises,” said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
+
+“The press has fallen heir to the Woman,” exclaimed Rastignac. “She
+no longer has the quality of a spoken feuilleton—delightful calumnies
+graced by elegant language. We read feuilletons written in a dialect
+which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
+an undertaker’s mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
+conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
+a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
+mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
+company used to meet.”
+
+“The knell of the highest society is tolling,” said a Russian Prince.
+“Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word lady.”
+
+“You are right, Prince,” said de Marsay. “The ‘perfect lady,’ issuing
+from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and
+the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of
+these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,
+and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
+ladies in France, but there will be ‘ladies’ for a long time, elected by
+public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among
+the fair sex what a ‘gentleman’ is in England.”
+
+“And that they call progress!” exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. “I
+should like to know where the progress lies?”
+
+“Why, in this,” said Madame de Nucingen. “Formerly a woman might have
+the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an
+impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a
+thick hand—she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days,
+even if she were a Montmorency—if a Montmorency would ever be such a
+creature—she would not be a lady.”
+
+“But what do you mean by a ‘perfect lady’?” asked Count Adam Laginski.
+
+“She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system
+as applied to the fair sex,” said the Minister. “Every revolution has a
+word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it.”
+
+“You are right,” said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
+reputation in Paris. “The explanation of certain words added from time
+to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
+Organize, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up Napoleon
+completely.”
+
+“But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!” the young Pole
+exclaimed, with some impatience.
+
+“Well, I will tell you,” said Émile Blondet to Count Adam. “One fine
+morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has not
+yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance at her
+is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a world
+of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale in his
+pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have at
+last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two very
+distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an order; or
+else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of ten yards. She
+displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings, no over-elaborate
+waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawers fussing round her
+ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunella shoes, with sandals
+crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, or plain gray silk
+stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the most exquisite simplicity.
+You notice that her gown is made of a neat and inexpensive material, but
+made in a way that surprises more than one woman of the middle class;
+it is almost always a long pelisse, with bows to fasten it, and neatly
+bound with fine cord or an imperceptible braid. The Unknown has a way of
+her own in wrapping herself in her shawl or mantilla; she knows how to
+draw it round her from her hips to her neck, outlining a carapace, as it
+were, which would make an ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which
+in her sets off the most beautiful forms while concealing them. How does
+she do it? This secret she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.
+
+“As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious
+twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under the
+stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass. Is it
+to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation which plays
+under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill, sheds an airy
+balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of a Parisienne? You may
+recognize over her arms, round her waist, about her throat, a science of
+drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.
+
+“Oh! how thoroughly she understands the cut of her gait—forgive the
+expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her
+skirt with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
+admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
+Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
+forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for
+walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
+
+“Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with
+proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to
+a well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her
+shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a
+little air of serene dignity, like Raphael’s Madonnas in their frames.
+Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent dandy
+step aside for her.
+
+“Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp
+ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women
+wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.
+Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without
+conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything;
+whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified, stamps her face
+with an indifference which piques your curiosity. She knows that she is
+looked at, she knows that everybody, even women, turn round to see her
+again. And she threads her way through Paris like a gossamer, spotless
+and pure.
+
+“This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
+longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th Arcade
+of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the equator
+of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India flourish,
+where the warmest creations of industry are displayed, to the Cape of
+the Madeleine; in the least muddy districts of the citizen quarters,
+between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. During
+the winter, she haunts the terrace of the Feuillants, but not the
+asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According to the weather, she may
+be seen flying in the Avenue of the Champs-Élyseés, which is bounded on
+the east by the Place Louis XV., on the west by the Avenue de Marigny,
+to the south by the road, to the north by the gardens of the Faubourg
+Saint-Honoré. Never is this pretty variety of woman to be seen in the
+hyperborean regions of the Rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of
+miry, narrow, commercial streets, never anywhere in bad weather.
+These flowers of Paris, blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume the
+highways; and after five o’clock fold up like morning-glory flowers.
+The women you will see later, looking a little like them, are would-be
+ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is a ‘perfect
+lady.’
+
+“It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
+differences by which the observer emeritus distinguishes them—women
+are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of
+Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white
+tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed
+bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see
+a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There is
+something conventional in the attitude.
+
+“As to the bourgeoise, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
+mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,
+and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not
+know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady knows
+just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is undecided,
+tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand,
+which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in
+public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has
+open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her
+fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the
+redundancies of dress.
+
+“You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opéra,
+at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you
+would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged
+from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon.
+She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms
+which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she
+never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens.
+You can there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her
+movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political
+artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude all idea of art
+or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand, the most
+perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely necessary that
+she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet or curl she plays
+with. If she has some dignity of profile, you will be persuaded that she
+is giving irony or grace to what she says to her neighbor, sitting in
+such a position as to produce the magical effect of the ‘lost profile,’
+so dear to great painters, by which the cheek catches the high light,
+the nose is shown in clear outline, the nostrils are transparently rosy,
+the forehead squarely modeled, the eye has its spangle of fire, but
+fixed on space, and the white roundness of the chin is accentuated by
+a line of light. If she has a pretty foot, she will throw herself on
+a sofa with the coquettish grace of a cat in the sunshine, her feet
+outstretched without your feeling that her attitude is anything but the
+most charming model ever given to a sculptor by lassitude.
+
+“Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
+inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the
+citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a
+rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office
+of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing
+in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place. Her toilet
+is always in harmony with her character; she had had time to study
+herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long known what does not
+suit her. You will not find her as you go out; she vanishes before the
+end of the play. If by chance she is to be seen, calm and stately, on
+the stairs, she is experiencing some violent emotion; she has to bestow
+a glance, to receive a promise. Perhaps she goes down so slowly on
+purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave whom she sometimes obeys. If
+your meeting takes place at a ball or an evening party, you will gather
+the honey, natural or affected of her insinuating voice; her empty
+words will enchant you, and she will know how to give them the value of
+thought by her inimitable bearing.”
+
+“To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?” asked the
+Polish Count.
+
+“It is necessary to have great taste,” replied the Princesse de
+Cadignan.
+
+“And in France taste is more than cleverness,” said the Russian.
+
+“This woman’s cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,”
+ Blondet went on. “You will not know what she said, but you will be
+fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white shoulders;
+she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming pout and smile; or
+throw a Voltairean epigram into an ‘Indeed!’ an ‘Ah!’ a ‘What then!’
+A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form of questioning; she
+will give meaning to the movement by which she twirls a vinaigrette
+hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets an artificial grandeur out
+of superlative trivialities; she simply drops her hand impressively,
+letting it fall over the arm of her chair as dewdrops hang on the cup of
+a flower, and all is said—she has pronounced judgment beyond appeal, to
+the apprehension of the most obtuse. She knows how to listen to you;
+she gives you the opportunity of shining, and—I ask your modesty—those
+moments are rare?”
+
+The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made all
+the party shout with laughter.
+
+“Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a bourgeoise without her
+alluding to her husband in one way or another,” Blondet went on with
+unperturbed gravity; “whereas, even if you know that your lady
+is married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so
+effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus to
+discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If you
+have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of the evening you
+detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man wearing a decoration, who
+bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage, and goes.
+
+“You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go
+to bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last
+perhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates
+of the temple of dreams.
+
+“The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
+enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find everything
+in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly renewed; you will
+see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings hanging about, and
+looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase warmed. Flowers on
+all sides will charm your sight—flowers, the only gift she accepts, and
+those only from certain people, for nosegays live but a day; they give
+pleasure, and must be replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a
+symbol and a promise. The costly toys of fashion lie about, but not so
+as to suggest a museum or a curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by
+the fire in a low chair, from which she will not rise to greet you.
+Her talk will not now be what it was at the ball; there she was our
+creditor; in her own home she owes you the pleasure of her wit. These
+are the shades of which the lady is a marvelous mistress. What she
+likes in you is a man to swell her circle, an object for the cares
+and attentions which such women are now happy to bestow. Therefore, to
+attract you to her drawing-room, she will be bewitchingly charming. This
+especially is where you feel how isolated women are nowadays, and
+why they want a little world of their own, to which they may seem a
+constellation. Conversation is impossible without generalities.”
+
+“Yes,” said de Marsay, “you have truly hit the fault of our age.
+The epigram—a volume in a word—no longer strikes, as it did in the
+eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events, and
+it dies in a day.”
+
+“Hence,” said Blondet, “the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
+consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great difference
+between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous; the lady
+does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always will be; she
+hesitates and struggles where the other refuses point-blank and falls
+full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of the last graces left
+to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to church, but she will
+talk to you of religion; and if you have the good taste to affect
+Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you will have opened
+the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shaking and gestures
+understood by all these women: ‘For shame! I thought you had too much
+sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, and you deprive it
+of its support. Why, religion at this moment means you and me; it is
+property, and the future of our children! Ah! let us not be selfish!
+Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion is the only
+remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,’ and so forth.
+Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with political
+notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant—but moral? Oh! deuced
+moral!—in which you may recognize a fag end of every material woven by
+modern doctrines, at loggerheads together.”
+
+The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet
+illustrated his satire.
+
+“This explanation, dear Count Adam,” said Blondet, turning to the
+Pole, “will have proved to you that the ‘perfect lady’ represents
+the intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is
+surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry
+which is always aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it by
+something else. When you leave her you say to yourself: She certainly
+has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more because she will
+have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have asked you your
+secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything; there are some
+things she never knows, not even when she knows them. You alone will
+be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her heart. The
+great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with newspapers and
+advertisements; in these days the lady has her little passion neatly
+ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and quavers and minims,
+its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign the key. A mere weak women,
+she is anxious not to compromise her love, or her husband, or the future
+of her children. Name, position, and fortune are no longer flags so
+respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise on board. The whole
+aristocracy no longer advances in a body to screen the lady. She has
+not, like the great lady of the past, the demeanor of lofty antagonism;
+she can crush nothing under foot, it is she who would be crushed. Thus
+she is apt at Jesuitical _mezzo termine_, she is a creature
+of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties, of anonymous passions
+steered between two reef-bound shores. She is as much afraid of her
+servants as an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a trial in the
+divorce-court. This woman—so free at a ball, so attractive out
+walking—is a slave at home; she is never independent but in perfect
+privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve herself in her position as
+a lady. This is her task.
+
+“For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
+allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the divine
+accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a townswoman;
+she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will not receive a
+married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still have anything
+to say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect lady may perhaps
+give occasion to calumny, never to slander.”
+
+“It is all so horribly true,” said the Princesse de Cadignan.
+
+“And so,” said Blondet, “our ‘perfect lady’ lives between English
+hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century—a
+bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up
+is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads
+nowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures shrink
+into the background, and distinction is purely personal. I am fully
+convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were born
+close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the
+encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the
+important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring, the
+angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the silence,
+the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the
+diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady.”
+
+“And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn,” said
+Mademoiselle des Touches to Émile Blondet, “would you class the female
+author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman _comme il faut?_”
+
+“When she has no genius, she is a woman _comme il n’en faut
+pas_,” Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen
+glance, which might make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille
+Maupin. “This epigram is not mine, but Napoleon’s,” he added.
+
+“You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score,” said Canalis,
+with an emphatic tone and gesture. “It was one of his weaknesses to be
+jealous of literary genius—for he had his mean points. Who will ever
+explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms
+folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known,
+the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces;
+a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every direction
+without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything because
+he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an
+illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after
+living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a
+sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw
+everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who risked men by
+handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads—those of Talleyrand,
+of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich, diplomatists whose death would
+have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of greater weight
+than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a rare privilege,
+had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight
+amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe as a young girl might
+amuse herself by splashing water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous;
+loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the
+arts; and in spite of these antitheses, really great in everything
+by instinct or by temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at
+thirty; and then, like my grocer buried in Père Lachaise, a good husband
+and a good father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings,
+codes, verses, a romance—and all with more range than precision. Did he
+not aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the
+earth in such a way as to change the laws of gravitation, he left us
+poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who had
+taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his empire
+in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all action, who
+comprehended Desaix and Fouché.”
+
+“All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!”
+ said de Marsay.
+
+“Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk,” said Baron de
+Nucingen.
+
+“But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?”
+ asked Joseph Bridau. “If you had to pay for the charms of conversation
+as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be
+inadequate! There is no second performance of the same flash of wit.”
+
+“And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?” said
+the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at once
+sceptical and ironical. “Because, in these days, under a regime which
+makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms, small
+pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does that prove
+that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human heart change
+because you change your coat? In all ages the passions remain the same.
+I know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime sufferings, which lack
+the publicity—the glory, if you choose—which formerly gave lustre to
+the errors of some women. But though one may not have saved a King of
+France, one is not the less an Agnès Sorel. Do you believe that our
+dear Marquise d’Espard is not the peer of Madame Doublet, or Madame
+du Deffant, in whose rooms so much evil was spoken and done? Is not
+Taglioni a match for Camargo? or Malibran the equal of Saint-Huberti?
+Are not our poets superior to those of the eighteenth century? If at
+this moment, through the fault of the Grocers who govern us, we have not
+a style of our own, had not the Empire its distinguishing stamp as
+the age of Louis XV. had, and was not its splendor fabulous? Have the
+sciences lost anything?”
+
+“I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
+great,” replied the Comte de Vandenesse. “When posterity shall have
+followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine
+as those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
+history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but
+one Madame de Sévigné; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly
+write better than she did, and who do not publish their letters. Whether
+the Frenchwoman be called ‘perfect lady,’ or great lady, she will always
+be the woman among women.
+
+“Émile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman
+of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who
+chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it
+must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical, because
+they must always and under all circumstances be surrounded by greater
+perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied it perhaps too
+late; but in cases where the illegality of your feelings might
+be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know not what
+chance—which you may call Providence—inevitably overwhelming such as we
+consider light women.”
+
+“I hope,” said Madame de Vandenesse, “that we can be great in other
+ways——”
+
+“Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!” exclaimed Madame de
+Serizy.
+
+“With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
+example,” said the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+“On my honor!” said General de Montriveau, “in all the dramas—a word you
+are very fond of,” he said, looking at Blondet—”in which the finger of
+God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was very near being
+by my act——”
+
+“Well, tell us all about it!” cried Lady Barimore; “I love to shudder!”
+
+“It is the taste of a virtuous woman,” replied de Marsay, looking at
+Lord Dudley’s lovely daughter.
+
+“During the campaign of 1812,” General de Montriveau began, “I was the
+involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
+Doctor Bianchon,” turning to me, “since, while devoting yourself to the
+human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may tend
+to solve some of the problems of the will.
+
+“I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed
+at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that
+I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost all
+discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley of men
+of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to south. The
+soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away from their
+fire if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the passage of this
+famous river disorder did not diminish. I had come quietly and alone,
+without food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was wandering in search
+of a house where I might be taken in. Finding none or driven away from
+those I came across, happily towards evening I perceived a wretched
+little Polish farm, of which nothing can give you any idea unless
+you have seen the wooden houses of Lower Normandy, or the poorest
+farm-buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist of a single room,
+with one end divided off by a wooden partition, the smaller division
+serving as a store-room for forage.
+
+“In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising above
+this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more compassionate than
+those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as far as the farm.
+On going in, I found the table laid. Several officers, and with them
+a woman—a common sight enough—were eating potatoes, some horseflesh
+broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen beetroots. I recognized among
+the company two or three artillery captains of the regiment in which
+I had first served. I was welcomed with a shout of acclamation, which
+would have amazed me greatly on the other side of the Beresina; but at
+this moment the cold was less intense; my fellow-officers were resting,
+they were warm, they had food, and the room, strewn with trusses of
+straw, gave the promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for so
+much in those days. My comrades could be philanthropists gratis—one of
+the commonest ways of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of
+the bundles of straw.
+
+“At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the
+smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the most
+extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of men it
+has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature
+is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime. I do not
+know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of Italians
+when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an artificial
+light. When I read the fantastical portrait of Colonel Oudet sketched
+by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in every one of his elegant
+phrases. Italian, then, as were most of the officers of his regiment,
+which had, in fact, been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene’s army,
+my colonel was a tall man, at least eight or nine inches above the
+standard, and was admirably proportioned—a little stout perhaps, but
+prodigiously powerful, active, and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His
+black hair in abundant curls showed up his complexion, as white as a
+woman’s; he had small hands, a shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and
+an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which the tip used to become
+naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry, as happened often.
+His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I will tell you nothing
+about it; you will have the opportunity of judging of it. No one could
+be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of him; he had
+indeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought everything I
+did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the muscles of
+the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more explicit, in
+Redgauntlet’s horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more terrifying
+than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame quivered,
+and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became almost
+unbounded.
+
+“He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
+as that of Charles Nordier’s Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
+tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was sounded.
+Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding
+his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had
+heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so
+common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically
+sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade,
+or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed,
+d’Orsay himself, the handsome d’Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on
+the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before the invasion of
+Russia.
+
+“Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives
+on contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
+irresistible influences to which our nature yields”—and the general
+looked at the Princesse de Cadignan—“as vitreous matter is moulded under
+the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality—an observer
+might perhaps explain the phenomenon—the Colonel was not a lady-killer,
+or was indifferent to such successes.
+
+“To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words
+what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our guns
+up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one side,
+and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met another
+regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This colonel
+wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost battery
+back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the colonel of the
+other regiment signed to his foremost battery to advance, and in spite
+of the care the driver took to keep among the scrub, the wheel of the
+first gun struck our captain’s right leg and broke it, throwing him over
+on the near side of his horse. All this was the work of a moment. Our
+Colonel, who was but a little way off, guessed that there was a quarrel;
+he galloped up, riding among the guns at the risk of falling with his
+horse’s four feet in the air, and reached the spot, face to face with
+the other colonel, at the very moment when the captain fell, calling out
+‘Help!’ No, our Italian colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth
+of champagne rose to his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion.
+Incapable of uttering a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal
+to his antagonist, pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The
+two colonels went aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel’s opponent
+stretched on the ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his
+regiment backed—yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.
+
+“The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in
+the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,
+a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our Colonel.
+This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to protect
+the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the woman
+herself.
+
+“Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
+captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end
+of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named
+Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her
+black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her
+face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a
+highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
+disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close
+over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were
+engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her
+features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not
+altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of
+a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in appearance,
+but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had
+a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is allowable to ally
+the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to know nothing of
+the connections which had subsisted between his wife and the Colonel for
+three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to Italian manners, or to
+some domestic secret; yet there was in the man’s countenance one feature
+which always filled me with involuntary distrust. His under lip, which
+was thin and very restless, turned down at the corners instead of
+turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in a
+character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.
+
+“As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I went
+in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me some
+questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with reflections on
+the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians, and the cold.
+A minute after my arrival the colonel, having finished his meagre meal,
+wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot a black look at the Italian
+woman, saying, ‘Rosina?’ and then, without waiting for a reply, went
+into the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel’s
+utterance was self-evident. The young wife replied by an indescribable
+gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not feel at seeing her
+thralldom thus flaunted without human decency, and the offence to her
+dignity as a woman, and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid
+setting of her features and the tight knitting of her brows a sort of
+presentiment; perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in
+her place.
+
+“A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch
+of straw or hay, he repeated, ‘Rosina?’
+
+“The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than
+the first. The Colonel’s strong burr, and the length which the
+Italian language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,
+concentrated all the man’s despotism, impatience, and strength of will.
+Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to the
+Colonel.
+
+“All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at
+them all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.—‘Tu ridi?—you
+laugh?’ said the husband.
+
+“‘On my honor, old comrade,’ said I, becoming serious again, ‘I confess
+that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if you are not
+satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you satisfaction.’
+
+“‘Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!’ he replied coldly.
+
+“Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
+asleep.
+
+“Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
+companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness
+which made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,
+melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.
+Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter we,
+most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led in flocks
+by a child’s wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.
+
+“Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where we
+had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions in the
+desert, the bellowing of bulls—no, it was a noise which can be compared
+to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and ominous roar,
+we could hear a woman’s feeble scream. We all looked round, seized by I
+know not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw the house, but a huge
+bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and was in flames. Swirls
+of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse cries and an indescribable
+pungent smell. A few yards behind, the captain was quietly approaching
+to join our caravan; we gazed at him in silence, for no one dared
+question him; but he, understanding our curiosity, pointed to his breast
+with the forefinger of his right hand, and, waving the left in the
+direction of the fire, he said, ‘_Son’io_.’
+
+“We all walked on without saying a word to him.”
+
+“There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep,” said de
+Marsay.
+
+“It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in our
+memory,” said Madame de Montcornet. “I shall dream of it——”
+
+“And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay’s ‘First’?” said Lord
+Dudley, smiling.
+
+“When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on,” said
+Blondet.
+
+“Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying,” replied de
+Marsay, turning to me.
+
+“Yes,” said I; “and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever
+saw. The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman’s pillow;
+pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken
+the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,
+waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching
+way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she
+meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her face
+had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor made
+her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes
+and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her
+countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,
+and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death
+approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The
+room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour
+of death.
+
+“At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair at
+having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by which
+he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his wife for a
+few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite certain
+that any one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it. A busy
+statesman, always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke had a
+thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of genius
+being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation lies in the
+exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He came to seat
+himself in an armchair by his wife’s side, and looked fixedly at her.
+The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband’s and
+clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said, ‘My poor
+dear, who is left to understand you now?’ Then she died, looking at
+him.”
+
+“The stories the doctor tells us,” said the Comte de Vandenesse, “always
+leave a deep impression.”
+
+“But a sweet one,” said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.
+
+PARIS, June 1839-42.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+  The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+  Bianchon, Horace  Father Goriot
+    The Atheist’s Mass
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Bachelor’s Establishment
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Government Clerks
+    Pierrette
+    A Study of Woman
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    Honorine
+    The Seamy Side of History
+    The Magic Skin
+    A Second Home
+    A Prince of Bohemia
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Muse of the Department
+    The Imaginary Mistress
+    The Middle Classes
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Country Parson
+  In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:  La Grande Breteche
+
+  Blondet, Émile  Jealousies of a Country Town
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    The Peasantry
+
+  Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)  Jealousies of a Country Town
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Peasantry
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    The Member for Arcis
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+  Bridau, Joseph  The Purse
+    A Bachelor’s Establishment
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Start in Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    Pierre Grassou
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de  Letters of Two Brides
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Magic Skin
+    A Start in Life
+    Beatrix
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Dudley, Lord  The Lily of the Valley
+    The Thirteen
+    A Man of Business
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+  Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d’
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    Beatrix
+
+  Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas  The Imaginary Mistress
+    Cousin Betty
+
+  Marsay, Henri de  The Thirteen
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+    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
+
+  Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de  The Secrets of a Princess
+    Modeste Mignon
+    Jealousies of a Country Town
+    The Muse of the Department
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de  The Thirteen
+    Father Goriot
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Pierrette
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Nucingen, Baron Frederic de  The Firm of Nucingen
+    Father Goriot
+    Pierrette
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Man of Business
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Muse of the Department
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+
+  Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de  Father Goriot
+    The Thirteen
+    Eugenie Grandet
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Melmoth Reconciled
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de  Ursule Mirouet
+    Beatrix
+
+  Rastignac, Eugene de  Father Goriot
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+    The Ball at Sceaux
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    A Study of Woman
+    The Magic Skin
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Member for Arcis
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+
+  Ronquerolles, Marquis de  The Imaginary Mistress
+    The Peasantry
+    Ursule Mirouet
+    A Woman of Thirty
+    The Thirteen
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Serizy, Comtesse de  A Start in Life
+    The Thirteen
+    Ursule Mirouet
+    A Woman of Thirty
+    Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+    The Imaginary Mistress
+
+  Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des  Beatrix
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Bachelor’s Establishment
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    Honorine
+    Beatrix
+    The Muse of the Department
+
+  Vandenesse, Comte Felix de  The Lily of the Valley
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    A Start in Life
+    The Marriage Settlement
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac
+
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+<pre>
+
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Another Study of Woman, by Honoré 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: Another Study of Woman
+
+Author: Honoré de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2010 [EBook #1714]
+Last Updated: October 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Honoré De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      DEDICATION
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> ADDENDUM </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at every
+      ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons invited,
+      a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his neighbor&rsquo;s
+      eye; most of the younger women are there for one person only; when each
+      woman has assured herself that for that one she is the handsomest woman in
+      the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared by a few others, a few
+      insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: &ldquo;Do you think of going away soon
+      to La Crampade?&rdquo; &ldquo;How well Madame de Portenduère sang!&rdquo; &ldquo;Who is that
+      little woman with such a load of diamonds?&rdquo; Or, after firing off some
+      smart epigrams, which give transient pleasure, and leave wounds that
+      rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere lookers on go away, and the
+      waxlights burn down to the sconces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people or
+      intimate friends, saying, &ldquo;Do not go yet; we will have a snug little
+      supper.&rdquo; These collect in some small room. The second, the real party, now
+      begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what is said,
+      conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to contribute
+      to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest laughter takes
+      the place of the gloom which in company saddens the prettiest faces. In
+      short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
+      dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to mechanize other
+      nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull as itself,
+      and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some French houses,
+      a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our light-hearted people.
+      Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and the reason is a simple
+      one. If we no longer have many suppers nowadays, it is because never,
+      under any rule, have there been fewer men placed, established, and
+      successful than under the reign of Louis Philippe, when the Revolution
+      began again, lawfully. Everybody is on the march some whither, or trotting
+      at the heels of Fortune. Time has become the costliest commodity, so no
+      one can afford the lavish extravagance of going home to-morrow morning and
+      getting up late. Hence, there is no second soiree now but at the houses of
+      women rich enough to entertain, and since July 1830 such women may be
+      counted in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two or
+      three women, among them Madame d&rsquo;Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches, have
+      not chosen to give up the share of influence they exercised in Paris, and
+      have not closed their houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the last
+      refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its reserved
+      depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite politeness. You will
+      there still find grace of manner notwithstanding the conventionalities of
+      courtesy, perfect freedom of talk notwithstanding the reserve which is
+      natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas.
+      No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards
+      a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of
+      literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or
+      an interesting subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
+      reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up one of
+      the deepest recesses of woman&rsquo;s heart, than on account of the reflections
+      to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that have taken place
+      in the French woman since the fateful revolution of July.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
+      indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not a
+      piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
+      foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the most
+      famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter, pictures
+      sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed without
+      elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without effort, and were
+      exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The men of the world
+      especially were conspicuous for their really artistic grace and spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
+      fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room, and
+      those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound which gives
+      an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social qualities, an
+      indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion of ideas, of
+      definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents, meander with ease.
+      Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes
+      conversation a tourney in which each type of wit is condensed into a
+      shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts his experience in a word,
+      in which every one finds amusement, relaxation, and exercise. Here, then,
+      alone, will you exchange ideas; here you need not, like the dolphin in the
+      fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will be understood, and
+      will not risk staking your gold pieces against base metal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play and
+      eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticism and
+      crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes are listening, a
+      gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives the answer. In
+      short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled, is
+      the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so completely
+      bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its spell; we all
+      spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted into anecdote,
+      and brought out in its rushing course some curious confessions, several
+      portraits, and a thousand follies, which make this enchanting
+      improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting these things down in
+      all their natural freshness and abruptness, their elusive divarications,
+      you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French evening, taken at the
+      moment when the most engaging familiarity makes each one forget his own
+      interests, his personal conceit, or, if you like, his pretensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
+      round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
+      years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
+      world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
+      renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the tone.
+      But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of being
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at table
+      till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a move
+      produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and the
+      drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the ideas of an
+      author after shaving are different from those he had before. If Sterne is
+      right, may it not be boldly asserted that the frame of mind of a party at
+      table is not the same as that of the same persons returned to the
+      drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the eye no longer contemplates
+      the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost are the happy effects of that
+      laxness of mood, that benevolence which comes over us while we remain in
+      the humor peculiar to the well-filled man, settled comfortably on one of
+      the springy chairs which are made in these days. Perhaps we are not more
+      ready to talk face to face with the dessert and in the society of good
+      wine, during the delightful interval when every one may sit with an elbow
+      on the table and his head resting on his hand. Not only does every one
+      like to talk then, but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost always
+      attent, is loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every one
+      finds his opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
+      narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
+      jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons who
+      have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such delightful
+      storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince Metternich, they
+      vouchsafe to tell a story?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given proofs of
+      superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not indeed
+      surprised to see him display all the talents and various aptitudes of a
+      statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he would prove to be a
+      solid politician, or had merely been moulded in the fire of circumstance.
+      This question had just been asked by a man whom he had made a préfet, a
+      man of wit and observation, who had for a long time been a journalist, and
+      who admired de Marsay without infusing into his admiration that dash of
+      acrid criticism by which, in Paris, one superior man excuses himself from
+      admiring another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there ever,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in your former life, any event, any thought or
+      wish which told you what your vocation was?&rdquo; asked Émile Blondet; &ldquo;for we
+      all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and leads us to the spot
+      where our faculties develop——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said de Marsay; &ldquo;I will tell you about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay&rsquo;s intimate
+      friends,—all settled themselves comfortably, each in his favorite
+      attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the servants had
+      left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn over them? The
+      silence was so complete that the murmurs of the coachmen&rsquo;s voices could be
+      heard from the courtyard, and the pawing and champing made by horses when
+      asking to be taken back to their stable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality,&rdquo; said the
+      Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. &ldquo;To
+      wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
+      less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
+      short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self, who
+      looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our passions
+      and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the judgment of a
+      sort of moral ready-reckoner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France,&rdquo; said old
+      Lord Dudley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible,&rdquo; the Minister went
+      on. &ldquo;Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man—Richelieu, who,
+      when warned overnight by a letter of Concini&rsquo;s peril, slept till midday,
+      when his benefactor was killed at ten o&rsquo;clock—or say Pitt, or Napoleon, he
+      was a monster. I became such a monster at a very early age, thanks to a
+      woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancied,&rdquo; said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, &ldquo;that more
+      politicians were undone by us than we could make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
+      you,&rdquo; replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this is a love-story,&rdquo; the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, &ldquo;I request
+      that it may not be interrupted by any reflections.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reflection is so antipathetic to it!&rdquo; cried Joseph Bridau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was seventeen,&rdquo; de Marsay went on; &ldquo;the Restoration was being
+      consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then. I
+      was in love for the first time, and I was—I may say so now—one of the
+      handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
+      advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of a
+      conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.—Like all youths, I was in love
+      with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,&rdquo; said he,
+      looking carefully round the table, &ldquo;can suspect her name or recognize her.
+      Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret. He had kept it
+      well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is gone,&rdquo; said the
+      Minister, looking round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not stay to supper,&rdquo; said Madame de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For six months, possessed by my passion,&rdquo; de Marsay went on, &ldquo;but
+      incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
+      myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and the
+      frail joy of the young. I treasured her old gloves; I drank an infusion of
+      the flowers she had worn; I got out of bed at night to go and gaze at her
+      window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled the perfume she
+      used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a stove with a marble
+      casing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts,&rdquo; cried Madame de Montcornet with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who first
+      uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought,&rdquo; said de Marsay. &ldquo;You
+      are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point. These
+      few words will remind you of your own follies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children—oh! all was
+      perfect—my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her hair; in
+      short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we fail to
+      believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
+      beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm we
+      found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was perfection
+      then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful women in
+      Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to win one of her
+      glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient for a
+      woman who had loved and was adored; but the Restoration, to which she owed
+      renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate in comparison with her name. In my
+      position I was so fatuous as never to dream of a suspicion. Though my
+      jealousy would have been of a hundred and twenty Othello-power, that
+      terrible passion slumbered in me as gold in the nugget. I would have
+      ordered my servant to thrash me if I had been so base as ever to doubt the
+      purity of that angel—so fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure,
+      spotless, and whose blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very
+      depths of her heart with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the
+      slightest hesitancy in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and
+      fresh, and ready for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the &lsquo;Song of
+      Songs!&rsquo; Ah! my friends!&rdquo; sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again,
+      &ldquo;a man must hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
+      curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every morning, riding Sultan—the fine horse you sent me from England,&rdquo; de
+      Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, &ldquo;I rode past her open carriage,
+      the horses&rsquo; pace being intentionally reduced to a walk, and read the order
+      of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her bouquet in case we were
+      unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each other almost every
+      evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, to deceive the curious
+      and mislead the observant we had adopted a scheme of conduct: never to
+      look at each other; to avoid meeting; to speak ill of each other.
+      Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the disdained swain,—all these old
+      manoeuvres are not to compare on either part with a false passion
+      professed for an indifferent person and an air of indifference towards the
+      true idol. If two lovers will only play that game, the world will always
+      be deceived; but then they must be very secure of each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
+      sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
+      comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
+      circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us; six
+      years&rsquo; difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of my
+      fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I, on my
+      part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her knowledge
+      and her experience of the world, would have married her without a thought.
+      At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she had been the first to
+      speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might perhaps have noted it as
+      vulgar in that accomplished soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Six months, full and perfect—a diamond of the purest water! That has been
+      my portion of love in this base world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the beginning
+      of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret festivals
+      which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the sea. No
+      sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will not believe
+      that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy and
+      suspiciousness.—When jealousy is genuine,&rdquo; said de Marsay, interrupting
+      himself, &ldquo;it is the visible sign of an unique passion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unique and true love,&rdquo; said de Marsay, &ldquo;produces a sort of corporeal
+      apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind
+      complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns
+      them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as delightful as it is
+      distressing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the truth of
+      this remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides,&rdquo; de Marsay went on, &ldquo;I said to myself, why miss a happy hour?
+      Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she learns
+      that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and compromising
+      herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and carried it myself,
+      for my confidential servant was now gone. The river lay between us. I had
+      to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable distance of her house, I
+      caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to have the note sent up to her
+      at once, and I had the happy idea of driving past her door in a hackney
+      cab to see whether she might not by chance receive the two letters
+      together. At the moment when I arrived it was two o&rsquo;clock; the great gate
+      opened to admit a carriage. Whose?—That of the stalking-horse!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is fifteen years since—well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
+      exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
+      business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about my
+      diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage was
+      still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter&rsquo;s hands. At
+      last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could observe my
+      rival&rsquo;s expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he was in love,
+      and no doubt there was business in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her
+      calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought
+      that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man
+      who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when he
+      called his play &lsquo;The Moor of Venice.&rsquo; The sight of the woman we love is
+      such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt, and sorrow.
+      All my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this cheerfulness, which
+      at my age now would be the most atrocious dissimulation, was the result of
+      my youth and my love. My jealousy once buried, I had the power of
+      observation. My ailing condition was evident; the horrible doubts that had
+      fermented in me increased it. At last I found an opening for putting in
+      these words: &lsquo;You have had no one with you this morning?&rsquo; making a pretext
+      of the uneasiness I had felt in the fear lest she should have disposed of
+      her time after receiving my first note.—&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; she exclaimed, &lsquo;only a man
+      could have such ideas! As if I could think of anything but your suffering.
+      Till the moment when I received your second note I could think only of how
+      I could contrive to see you.&rsquo;—&lsquo;And you were alone?&rsquo;—&lsquo;Alone,&rsquo; said she,
+      looking at me with a face of innocence so perfect that it must have been
+      his distrust of such a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As
+      she lived alone in the house, the word was a fearful lie. One single lie
+      destroys the absolute confidence which to some souls is the very
+      foundation of happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
+      that we have an internal self of which the exterior I is but the husk;
+      that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade—well, that
+      beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in crape. Yes; I
+      felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-sheet of
+      experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
+      betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might not
+      observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my strength:
+      &lsquo;If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes to
+      an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me home with
+      the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a solicitude and
+      tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice whom I have taken
+      as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great child were to hesitate
+      two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator feels that he would ask
+      Desdemona&rsquo;s forgiveness. Thus, killing the woman is the act of a boy.—She
+      wept as we parted, so much was she distressed at being unable to nurse me
+      herself. She wished she were my valet, in whose happiness she found a
+      cause of envy, and all this was as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa
+      might have written in her happiness. There is always a precious ape in the
+      prettiest and most angelic woman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal truth
+      so brutally stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent,&rdquo; de Marsay went
+      on. &ldquo;I discovered that I was a statesman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,&rdquo;
+       said de Marsay, continuing his story, &ldquo;with infernal ingenuity—for, as we
+      had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges were
+      possible—I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I insensibly
+      formulated a horrible code—that of Indulgence. In taking vengeance on a
+      woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one for us, that we
+      cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way to win her back? If
+      she is not indispensable, if there are other women in the world, why not
+      grant her the right to change which we assume?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it would be
+      socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for indissoluble
+      marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes must be chained
+      up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law, deaf and mute.
+      Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing. Those who believe
+      that for them there is but one woman in the world must be in favor of
+      vengeance, and then there is but one form of it—that of Othello.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine was different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
+      newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words: great
+      sensation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung myself
+      into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a style of
+      beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took care not to
+      quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an actress, for I doubt
+      whether true love can give such gracious delights as those lavished by
+      such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is as good as virtue.—I am
+      not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady,&rdquo; said the Minister, suavely,
+      addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley&rsquo;s daughter. &ldquo;I tried to be the same
+      lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I went
+      to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher. The man had
+      a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his address for the
+      benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty of every kind and
+      every color. After I had explained my order, he showed me his work. I then
+      saw achievements of patience surpassing those which the story books
+      ascribe to fairies, or which are executed by prisoners. He brought me up
+      to date as to the caprices and fashions governing the use of hair. &lsquo;For
+      the last year,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;there has been a rage for marking linen with
+      hair; happily I had a fine collection of hair and skilled needlewomen,&rsquo;—on
+      hearing this a suspicion flashed upon me; I took out my handkerchief and
+      said, &lsquo;So this was done in your shop, with false hair?&rsquo;—He looked at the
+      handkerchief, and said, &lsquo;Ay! that lady was very particular, she insisted
+      on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife herself marked those
+      handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the finest pieces of work we
+      have ever executed.&rsquo; Before this last ray of light I might have believed
+      something—might have taken a woman&rsquo;s word. I left the shop still having
+      faith in pleasure, but where love was concerned I was as atheistical as a
+      mathematician.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in her
+      boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands—they were very
+      beautiful—and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest
+      flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a moment when
+      one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-room and there are
+      no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness, and when we are most in
+      love, love is so well aware of its own short duration that we are
+      irresistibly urged to ask, &lsquo;Do you love me? Will you love me always?&rsquo; I
+      seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so full-blown, to lead her
+      to tell her most delightful lies, in the enchanting language of love.
+      Charlotte displayed her choicest allurements: She could not live without
+      me; I was to her the only man in the world; she feared to weary me,
+      because my presence bereft her of all her wits; with me, all her faculties
+      were lost in love; she was indeed too tender to escape alarms; for the
+      last six months she had been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally,
+      and God alone knew that secret; in short, I was her god!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so well
+      acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes, and
+      mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable falsehoods,
+      as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, &lsquo;When are you to
+      marry the Duke?&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand lay so
+      tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not be disguised;
+      her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored her cheeks.—&lsquo;The
+      Duke! What do you mean?&rsquo; she said, affecting great astonishment.—&lsquo;I know
+      everything,&rsquo; replied I; &lsquo;and in my opinion, you should delay no longer; he
+      is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than devout, he is religious! I am
+      sure, therefore, that you have been faithful to me, thanks to his
+      scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently necessary it is that you should
+      compromise him with himself and with God; short of that you will never
+      bring him to the point.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Is this a dream?&rsquo; said she, pushing her hair
+      from her forehead, fifteen years before Malibran, with the gesture which
+      Malibran has made so famous.—&lsquo;Come, do not be childish, my angel,&rsquo; said I,
+      trying to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a little
+      prudish and indignant mein.—&lsquo;Marry him, you have my permission,&rsquo; said I,
+      replying to this gesture by using the formal vous instead of tu. &lsquo;Nay,
+      better, I beg you to do so.&rsquo;—&lsquo;But,&rsquo; cried she, falling at my knees, &lsquo;there
+      is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world but you; you may
+      demand any proofs you please.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Rise, my dear,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;and do me the
+      honor of being truthful.&rsquo;—&lsquo;As before God.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Do you doubt my
+      love?&rsquo;—&lsquo;No.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Nor my fidelity?&rsquo;—&lsquo;No.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, I have committed the greatest
+      crime,&rsquo; I went on. &lsquo;I have doubted your love and your fidelity. Between
+      two intoxications I looked calmly about me.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Calmly!&rsquo; sighed she. &lsquo;That
+      is enough, Henri; you no longer love me.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
+      like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her add:
+      &lsquo;And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting in public?
+      Have you detected in my eyes——?&rsquo;—&lsquo;No,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;but in his. And you have
+      eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d&rsquo;Aquin to see you listening to the
+      same mass as he.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; she exclaimed, &lsquo;then I have made you jealous!&rsquo;—Oh!
+      I only wish I could be!&rsquo; said I, admiring the pliancy of her quick
+      intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can only be successful in
+      the eyes of the blind. &lsquo;But by dint of going to church I have become very
+      incredulous. On the day of my first cold, and your first treachery, when
+      you thought I was in bed, you received the Duke, and you told me you had
+      seen no one.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Do you know that your conduct is infamous?&rsquo;—&lsquo;In what
+      respect? I consider your marriage to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he
+      gives you a great name, the only rank that suits you, a brilliant and
+      distinguished position. You will be one of the queens of Paris. I should
+      be doing you a wrong if I placed any obstacle in the way of this prospect,
+      this distinguished life, this splendid alliance. Ah! Charlotte, some day
+      you will do me justice by discovering how unlike my character is to that
+      of other young men. You would have been compelled to deceive me; yes, you
+      would have found it very difficult to break with me, for he watches you.
+      It is time that we should part, for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must
+      turn prude; I advise you to do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of
+      his wife.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; cried she, bursting into tears, &lsquo;Henri, if only you had
+      spoken! Yes, if you had chosen&rsquo;—it was I who was to blame, you
+      understand—&lsquo;we would have gone to live all our days in a corner, married,
+      happy, and defied the world.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, it is too late now,&rsquo; said I, kissing
+      her hands, and putting on a victimized air.—&lsquo;Good God! But I can undo it
+      all!&rsquo; said she.—&lsquo;No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I ought indeed
+      to go a journey to part us more effectually. We should both have reason to
+      fear our own affection——&rsquo;—&lsquo;Henri, do you think the Duke has any
+      suspicions?&rsquo; I was still &lsquo;Henri,&rsquo; but the tu was lost for ever.—&lsquo;I do not
+      think so,&rsquo; I replied, assuming the manner of a friend; &lsquo;but be as devout
+      as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke waits for proofs; he
+      hesitates, you must bring him to the point.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
+      agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming the
+      new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her hand,
+      and said in a voice broken by emotion, &lsquo;Well, Henri, you are loyal, noble,
+      and a charming man; I shall never forget you.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition of
+      feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to place
+      herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the
+      look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly assumed
+      dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me along almost,
+      threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a moment&rsquo;s silence,
+      &lsquo;I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you love me?&rsquo;—&lsquo;Oh!
+      yes.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, then, what will become of you?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point the women all looked at each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at her
+      expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must die, or
+      at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy,&rdquo; de Marsay went on. &ldquo;Oh! do
+      not laugh yet!&rdquo; he said to his listeners; &ldquo;there is better to come. I
+      looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her, &lsquo;Yes, that is
+      what I have been wondering.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, what will you do?&rsquo;—&lsquo;I asked myself
+      that the day after my cold.&rsquo;—&lsquo;And——?&rsquo; she asked with eager anxiety.—&lsquo;And I
+      have made advances to the little lady to whom I was supposed to be
+      attached.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling like
+      a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their dignity,
+      all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the sparkling
+      glitter of a hunted viper&rsquo;s eye when driven into a corner, and said, &lsquo;And
+      I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have——&rsquo; On this last thought,
+      which I leave you to guess, she made the most impressive pause I ever
+      heard.—&lsquo;Good God!&rsquo; she cried, &lsquo;how unhappy are we women! we never can be
+      loved. To you there is nothing serious in the purest feelings. But never
+      mind; when you cheat us you still are our dupes!&rsquo;—&lsquo;I see that plainly,&rsquo;
+      said I, with a stricken air; &lsquo;you have far too much wit in your anger for
+      your heart to suffer from it.&lsquo;—This modest epigram increased her rage; she
+      found some tears of vexation. &lsquo;You disgust me with the world and with
+      life.&rsquo; she said; &lsquo;you snatch away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simple
+      effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailed any man
+      but me on the spot.—&lsquo;What is to become of us poor women in a state of
+      society such as Louis XVIII.&lsquo;s charter made it?&rsquo;—(Imagine how her words
+      had run away with her.)—&lsquo;Yes, indeed, we are born to suffer. In matters of
+      passion we are always superior to you, and you are beneath all loyalty.
+      There is no honesty in your hearts. To you love is a game in which you
+      always cheat.&rsquo;—&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;to take anything serious in society
+      nowadays would be like making romantic love to an actress.&rsquo;—&lsquo;What a
+      shameless betrayal! It was deliberately planned!&rsquo;—&lsquo;No, only a rational
+      issue.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,&rsquo; said she; &lsquo;you have deceived me
+      horribly.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Surely,&rsquo; I replied, taking up a submissive attitude, &lsquo;Madame
+      la Duchesse will not remember Charlotte&rsquo;s grievances?&rsquo;—&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; she
+      answered bitterly.—&lsquo;Then, in fact, you hate me?&rsquo;—She bowed, and I said to
+      myself, &lsquo;There is something still left!&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe that
+      she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have carefully
+      studied the lives of men who have had great success with women, but I do
+      not believe that the Maréchal de Richelieu, or Lauzun, or Louis de Valois
+      ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first attempt. As to my mind
+      and heart, they were cast in a mould then and there, once for all, and the
+      power of control I thus acquired over the thoughtless impulses which make
+      us commit so many follies gained me the admirable presence of mind you all
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How deeply I pity the second!&rdquo; exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay&rsquo;s pale lips made Delphine de
+      Nucingen color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How we do forget!&rdquo; said the Baron de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great banker&rsquo;s simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife, who
+      was de Marsay&rsquo;s &ldquo;second,&rdquo; could not help laughing like every one else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are all ready to condemn the woman,&rdquo; said Lady Dudley. &ldquo;Well, I quite
+      understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act of inconstancy.
+      Men will never distinguish between constancy and fidelity.—I know the
+      woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told us, and she is one of the
+      last of your truly great ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! my lady, you are right,&rdquo; replied de Marsay. &ldquo;For very nearly fifty
+      years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all social
+      distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great wreck, but
+      the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their heads. However
+      terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are vanishing, and
+      marquises too! As to the baronesses—I must apologize to Madame de
+      Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is made a peer of
+      France—baronesses have never succeeded in getting people to take them
+      seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,&rdquo; said Blondet with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Countesses will survive,&rdquo; said de Marsay. &ldquo;An elegant woman will be more
+      or less of a countess—a countess of the Empire or of yesterday, a countess
+      of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by courtesy. But as
+      to the great lady, she died out with the dignified splendor of the last
+      century, with powder, patches, high-heeled slippers, and stiff bodices
+      with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses in these days can pass through a
+      door without any need to widen it for their hoops. The Empire saw the last
+      of gowns with trains! I am still puzzled to understand how a sovereign who
+      wished to see his drawing-room swept by ducal satin and velvet did not
+      make indestructible laws. Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code
+      he was so proud of. That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of
+      our &lsquo;ladies&rsquo; of to-day—the indirect offspring of his legislation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and by
+      obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social state,&rdquo;
+       said the Comte de Vandenesse. &ldquo;In these days every rogue who can hold his
+      head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an ell of
+      satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius gleams
+      under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps graced by
+      silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into one of his
+      eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be an attorney&rsquo;s
+      clerk, a contractor&rsquo;s son, or a banker&rsquo;s bastard, he stares impertinently
+      at the prettiest duchess, appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says
+      to his friend—dressed by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in
+      patent-leather like any duke himself—&lsquo;There, my boy, that is a perfect
+      lady.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not known how to form a party,&rdquo; said Lord Dudley; &ldquo;it will be a
+      long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in France
+      about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized property. So this
+      is what happens: Any duke—and even in the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles
+      X. there were some left who had two hundred thousand francs a year, a
+      magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train of servants—well, such a duke
+      could live like a great lord. The last of these great gentlemen in France
+      was the Prince de Talleyrand.—This duke leaves four children, two of them
+      girls. Granting that he has great luck in marrying them all well, each of
+      these descendants will have but sixty or eighty thousand francs a year
+      now; each is the father or mother of children, and consequently obliged to
+      live with the strictest economy in a flat on the ground floor or first
+      floor of a large house. Who knows if they may not even be hunting a
+      fortune? Henceforth the eldest son&rsquo;s wife, a duchess in name only, has no
+      carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time to herself. She has not her own
+      rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty toys; she is
+      buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little children, nurses them
+      herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer sends to school
+      at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been turned into worthy
+      brood-hens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! it is true,&rdquo; said Joseph Bridau. &ldquo;In our day we cannot show those
+      beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the French
+      Monarchy. The great lady&rsquo;s fan is broken. A woman has nothing now to blush
+      for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal it. A fan is
+      of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is no more than
+      what it is, it is too useful to be a form of luxury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything in France has aided and abetted the &lsquo;perfect lady,&rsquo;&rdquo; said
+      Daniel d&rsquo;Arthez. &ldquo;The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating to
+      the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
+      die—emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
+      lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded European
+      salons, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out like a glove,
+      could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or of intellect who
+      ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of abandoning their
+      ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against the citizen class
+      drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of the world, there to
+      be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are at its heels. Hence,
+      where the middle class insist on seeing princesses, these are really only
+      ladylike young women. In these days princes can find no great ladies whom
+      they may compromise; they cannot even confer honor on a woman taken up at
+      random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last prince to avail himself of this
+      privilege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it,&rdquo; said Lord Dudley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box
+      with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair&rsquo;s
+      breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen class
+      and those of the nobility—not altogether noble nor altogether
+      bourgeoises,&rdquo; said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The press has fallen heir to the Woman,&rdquo; exclaimed Rastignac. &ldquo;She no
+      longer has the quality of a spoken feuilleton—delightful calumnies graced
+      by elegant language. We read feuilletons written in a dialect which
+      changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as an
+      undertaker&rsquo;s mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
+      conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in a
+      revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old mansions
+      where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant company used to
+      meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The knell of the highest society is tolling,&rdquo; said a Russian Prince. &ldquo;Do
+      you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, Prince,&rdquo; said de Marsay. &ldquo;The &lsquo;perfect lady,&rsquo; issuing from
+      the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and the
+      product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of these
+      times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit, and
+      distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great ladies
+      in France, but there will be &lsquo;ladies&rsquo; for a long time, elected by public
+      opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among the fair
+      sex what a &lsquo;gentleman&rsquo; is in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that they call progress!&rdquo; exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. &ldquo;I
+      should like to know where the progress lies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, in this,&rdquo; said Madame de Nucingen. &ldquo;Formerly a woman might have the
+      voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an impudent
+      courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a thick
+      hand—she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days, even if
+      she were a Montmorency—if a Montmorency would ever be such a creature—she
+      would not be a lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what do you mean by a &lsquo;perfect lady&rsquo;?&rdquo; asked Count Adam Laginski.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system as
+      applied to the fair sex,&rdquo; said the Minister. &ldquo;Every revolution has a word
+      of its own which epitomizes and depicts it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
+      reputation in Paris. &ldquo;The explanation of certain words added from time to
+      time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
+      Organize, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up Napoleon
+      completely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!&rdquo; the young Pole
+      exclaimed, with some impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I will tell you,&rdquo; said Émile Blondet to Count Adam. &ldquo;One fine
+      morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has not
+      yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance at her
+      is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a world of
+      elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale in his pursuit
+      of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have at last found a
+      rare flower. This woman is attended by two very distinguished-looking men,
+      of whom one, at any rate, wears an order; or else a servant out of livery
+      follows her at a distance of ten yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no
+      open-worked stockings, no over-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered
+      frills to her drawers fussing round her ankles. You will see that she is
+      shod with prunella shoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton
+      stockings, or plain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the
+      most exquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat and
+      inexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises more than one woman
+      of the middle class; it is almost always a long pelisse, with bows to
+      fasten it, and neatly bound with fine cord or an imperceptible braid. The
+      Unknown has a way of her own in wrapping herself in her shawl or mantilla;
+      she knows how to draw it round her from her hips to her neck, outlining a
+      carapace, as it were, which would make an ordinary woman look like a
+      turtle, but which in her sets off the most beautiful forms while
+      concealing them. How does she do it? This secret she keeps, though
+      unguarded by any patent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious twist,
+      which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under the stuff, as
+      a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass. Is it to an angel
+      or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation which plays under her
+      long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill, sheds an airy balm, and what I
+      should like to call the breeze of a Parisienne? You may recognize over her
+      arms, round her waist, about her throat, a science of drapery recalling
+      the antique Mnemosyne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! how thoroughly she understands the cut of her gait—forgive the
+      expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her skirt
+      with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
+      admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
+      Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
+      forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for walking.
+      The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with proud
+      humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to a well-bred
+      woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her shawl or cloak
+      crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a little air of serene
+      dignity, like Raphael&rsquo;s Madonnas in their frames. Her aspect, at once
+      quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent dandy step aside for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp ribbons;
+      there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women wear only
+      bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy. Beneath it you
+      see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without conceit, is sure of
+      herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything; whose vanity, satiated
+      by being constantly gratified, stamps her face with an indifference which
+      piques your curiosity. She knows that she is looked at, she knows that
+      everybody, even women, turn round to see her again. And she threads her
+      way through Paris like a gossamer, spotless and pure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
+      longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th Arcade
+      of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the equator of
+      the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India flourish, where the
+      warmest creations of industry are displayed, to the Cape of the Madeleine;
+      in the least muddy districts of the citizen quarters, between No. 30 and
+      No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. During the winter, she haunts
+      the terrace of the Feuillants, but not the asphalt pavement that lies
+      parallel. According to the weather, she may be seen flying in the Avenue
+      of the Champs-Élyseés, which is bounded on the east by the Place Louis
+      XV., on the west by the Avenue de Marigny, to the south by the road, to
+      the north by the gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Never is this
+      pretty variety of woman to be seen in the hyperborean regions of the Rue
+      Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of miry, narrow, commercial streets,
+      never anywhere in bad weather. These flowers of Paris, blooming only in
+      Oriental weather, perfume the highways; and after five o&rsquo;clock fold up
+      like morning-glory flowers. The women you will see later, looking a little
+      like them, are would-be ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a
+      day, is a &lsquo;perfect lady.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
+      differences by which the observer emeritus distinguishes them—women are
+      such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of Parisians:
+      hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white tape through a
+      gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed bonnet-strings, an
+      over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see a certain effort in the
+      intentional droop of the eyelid. There is something conventional in the
+      attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As to the bourgeoise, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
+      mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling, and
+      goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not know
+      whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady knows just
+      what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is undecided, tucks
+      up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand, which
+      compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in public, and
+      talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has open-work
+      stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her fur cloak; in
+      summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the redundancies of
+      dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opéra, at a
+      ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you would
+      think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged from
+      those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon. She
+      serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms which
+      her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she never
+      mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens. You can
+      there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her movements.
+      The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political artifices of
+      her sex so naturally as to exclude all idea of art or premeditation. If
+      she has a royally beautiful hand, the most perspicacious beholder will
+      believe that it is absolutely necessary that she should twist, or refix,
+      or push aside the ringlet or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity
+      of profile, you will be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to
+      what she says to her neighbor, sitting in such a position as to produce
+      the magical effect of the &lsquo;lost profile,&rsquo; so dear to great painters, by
+      which the cheek catches the high light, the nose is shown in clear
+      outline, the nostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead squarely
+      modeled, the eye has its spangle of fire, but fixed on space, and the
+      white roundness of the chin is accentuated by a line of light. If she has
+      a pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa with the coquettish grace
+      of a cat in the sunshine, her feet outstretched without your feeling that
+      her attitude is anything but the most charming model ever given to a
+      sculptor by lassitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
+      inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the citizen
+      class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a
+      rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office of
+      faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing in
+      the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place. Her toilet is
+      always in harmony with her character; she had had time to study herself,
+      to learn what becomes her, for she has long known what does not suit her.
+      You will not find her as you go out; she vanishes before the end of the
+      play. If by chance she is to be seen, calm and stately, on the stairs, she
+      is experiencing some violent emotion; she has to bestow a glance, to
+      receive a promise. Perhaps she goes down so slowly on purpose to gratify
+      the vanity of a slave whom she sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes
+      place at a ball or an evening party, you will gather the honey, natural or
+      affected of her insinuating voice; her empty words will enchant you, and
+      she will know how to give them the value of thought by her inimitable
+      bearing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?&rdquo; asked the
+      Polish Count.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is necessary to have great taste,&rdquo; replied the Princesse de Cadignan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And in France taste is more than cleverness,&rdquo; said the Russian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This woman&rsquo;s cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,&rdquo; Blondet
+      went on. &ldquo;You will not know what she said, but you will be fascinated. She
+      will toss her head, or gently shrug her white shoulders; she will gild an
+      insignificant speech with a charming pout and smile; or throw a Voltairean
+      epigram into an &lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo; an &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; a &lsquo;What then!&rsquo; A jerk of her head will
+      be her most pertinent form of questioning; she will give meaning to the
+      movement by which she twirls a vinaigrette hanging to her finger by a
+      ring. She gets an artificial grandeur out of superlative trivialities; she
+      simply drops her hand impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her
+      chair as dewdrops hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said—she has
+      pronounced judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the most obtuse.
+      She knows how to listen to you; she gives you the opportunity of shining,
+      and—I ask your modesty—those moments are rare?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made all
+      the party shout with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a bourgeoise without her
+      alluding to her husband in one way or another,&rdquo; Blondet went on with
+      unperturbed gravity; &ldquo;whereas, even if you know that your lady is married,
+      she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so effectually that it
+      will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus to discover him. Often
+      you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If you have had no opportunity
+      of inquiring, towards the end of the evening you detect her gazing fixedly
+      at a middle-aged man wearing a decoration, who bows and goes out. She has
+      ordered her carriage, and goes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go to bed
+      under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last perhaps
+      after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates of the
+      temple of dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
+      enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find everything
+      in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly renewed; you will
+      see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings hanging about, and
+      looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase warmed. Flowers on all
+      sides will charm your sight—flowers, the only gift she accepts, and those
+      only from certain people, for nosegays live but a day; they give pleasure,
+      and must be replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a symbol and a
+      promise. The costly toys of fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a
+      museum or a curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low
+      chair, from which she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now be
+      what it was at the ball; there she was our creditor; in her own home she
+      owes you the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of which the lady
+      is a marvelous mistress. What she likes in you is a man to swell her
+      circle, an object for the cares and attentions which such women are now
+      happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to her drawing-room, she will
+      be bewitchingly charming. This especially is where you feel how isolated
+      women are nowadays, and why they want a little world of their own, to
+      which they may seem a constellation. Conversation is impossible without
+      generalities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said de Marsay, &ldquo;you have truly hit the fault of our age. The
+      epigram—a volume in a word—no longer strikes, as it did in the eighteenth
+      century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events, and it dies in a
+      day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hence,&rdquo; said Blondet, &ldquo;the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
+      consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great difference
+      between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous; the lady does not
+      know yet whether she is, or whether she always will be; she hesitates and
+      struggles where the other refuses point-blank and falls full length. This
+      hesitancy in everything is one of the last graces left to her by our
+      horrible times. She rarely goes to church, but she will talk to you of
+      religion; and if you have the good taste to affect Free-thought, she will
+      try to convert you, for you will have opened the way for the stereotyped
+      phrases, the head-shaking and gestures understood by all these women: &lsquo;For
+      shame! I thought you had too much sense to attack religion. Society is
+      tottering, and you deprive it of its support. Why, religion at this moment
+      means you and me; it is property, and the future of our children! Ah! let
+      us not be selfish! Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion
+      is the only remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,&rsquo; and
+      so forth. Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with
+      political notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant—but moral? Oh!
+      deuced moral!—in which you may recognize a fag end of every material woven
+      by modern doctrines, at loggerheads together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet illustrated
+      his satire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This explanation, dear Count Adam,&rdquo; said Blondet, turning to the Pole,
+      &ldquo;will have proved to you that the &lsquo;perfect lady&rsquo; represents the
+      intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is surrounded
+      by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry which is always
+      aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it by something else.
+      When you leave her you say to yourself: She certainly has superior ideas!
+      And you believe it all the more because she will have sounded your heart
+      with a delicate touch, and have asked you your secrets; she affects
+      ignorance, to learn everything; there are some things she never knows, not
+      even when she knows them. You alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing
+      of the state of her heart. The great ladies of old flaunted their
+      love-affairs, with newspapers and advertisements; in these days the lady
+      has her little passion neatly ruled like a sheet of music with its
+      crotchets and quavers and minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps to
+      sign the key. A mere weak women, she is anxious not to compromise her
+      love, or her husband, or the future of her children. Name, position, and
+      fortune are no longer flags so respected as to protect all kinds of
+      merchandise on board. The whole aristocracy no longer advances in a body
+      to screen the lady. She has not, like the great lady of the past, the
+      demeanor of lofty antagonism; she can crush nothing under foot, it is she
+      who would be crushed. Thus she is apt at Jesuitical <i>mezzo termine</i>,
+      she is a creature of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties, of
+      anonymous passions steered between two reef-bound shores. She is as much
+      afraid of her servants as an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a trial in
+      the divorce-court. This woman—so free at a ball, so attractive out
+      walking—is a slave at home; she is never independent but in perfect
+      privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve herself in her position as a
+      lady. This is her task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
+      allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the divine
+      accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a townswoman;
+      she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will not receive a
+      married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still have anything to
+      say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect lady may perhaps give
+      occasion to calumny, never to slander.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all so horribly true,&rdquo; said the Princesse de Cadignan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so,&rdquo; said Blondet, &ldquo;our &lsquo;perfect lady&rsquo; lives between English
+      hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century—a bastard
+      system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up is at all
+      like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads nowhere,
+      everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures shrink into the
+      background, and distinction is purely personal. I am fully convinced that
+      it is impossible for a woman, even if she were born close to a throne, to
+      acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the encyclopaedic knowledge of
+      trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the important small things, the
+      musical tones and harmony of coloring, the angelic bedevilments and
+      innocent cunning, the speech and the silence, the seriousness and the
+      banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the diplomacy and the ignorance which
+      make up the perfect lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn,&rdquo; said
+      Mademoiselle des Touches to Émile Blondet, &ldquo;would you class the female
+      author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman <i>comme il faut?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When she has no genius, she is a woman <i>comme il n&rsquo;en faut pas</i>,&rdquo;
+       Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which might
+      make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. &ldquo;This epigram
+      is not mine, but Napoleon&rsquo;s,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score,&rdquo; said Canalis, with
+      an emphatic tone and gesture. &ldquo;It was one of his weaknesses to be jealous
+      of literary genius—for he had his mean points. Who will ever explain,
+      depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms folded,
+      and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known, the most
+      concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces; a singular
+      genius who carried armed civilization in every direction without fixing it
+      anywhere; a man who could do everything because he willed everything; a
+      prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle, and yet
+      doomed to die of disease in bed after living in the midst of ball and
+      bullets; a man with a code and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a
+      clear-sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his own fall; a
+      capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who
+      spared three heads—those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of
+      Metternich, diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire,
+      and who seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man
+      to whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of
+      bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning
+      manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water
+      in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity;
+      devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these
+      antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by temperament;
+      Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer
+      buried in Père Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, he
+      improvised public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance—and all
+      with more range than precision. Did he not aim at making all Europe
+      France? And after making us weigh on the earth in such a way as to change
+      the laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on the day when he first
+      laid hands on us; while he, who had taken an empire by his name, lost his
+      name on the frontier of his empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man
+      all thought and all action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouché.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!&rdquo; said
+      de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk,&rdquo; said Baron de
+      Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?&rdquo;
+       asked Joseph Bridau. &ldquo;If you had to pay for the charms of conversation as
+      you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be inadequate!
+      There is no second performance of the same flash of wit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?&rdquo; said
+      the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at once
+      sceptical and ironical. &ldquo;Because, in these days, under a regime which
+      makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms, small
+      pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does that prove
+      that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human heart change
+      because you change your coat? In all ages the passions remain the same. I
+      know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime sufferings, which lack the
+      publicity—the glory, if you choose—which formerly gave lustre to the
+      errors of some women. But though one may not have saved a King of France,
+      one is not the less an Agnès Sorel. Do you believe that our dear Marquise
+      d&rsquo;Espard is not the peer of Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whose
+      rooms so much evil was spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a match for
+      Camargo? or Malibran the equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets
+      superior to those of the eighteenth century? If at this moment, through
+      the fault of the Grocers who govern us, we have not a style of our own,
+      had not the Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age of Louis XV. had,
+      and was not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences lost anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
+      great,&rdquo; replied the Comte de Vandenesse. &ldquo;When posterity shall have
+      followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine as
+      those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
+      history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but one
+      Madame de Sévigné; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly write
+      better than she did, and who do not publish their letters. Whether the
+      Frenchwoman be called &lsquo;perfect lady,&rsquo; or great lady, she will always be
+      the woman among women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Émile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman of
+      the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who chirps
+      out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it must be
+      said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical, because they must
+      always and under all circumstances be surrounded by greater perils. I have
+      seen much of the world, I have studied it perhaps too late; but in cases
+      where the illegality of your feelings might be excused, I have always
+      observed the effects of I know not what chance—which you may call
+      Providence—inevitably overwhelming such as we consider light women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; said Madame de Vandenesse, &ldquo;that we can be great in other
+      ways——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!&rdquo; exclaimed Madame de
+      Serizy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
+      example,&rdquo; said the Baronne de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On my honor!&rdquo; said General de Montriveau, &ldquo;in all the dramas—a word you
+      are very fond of,&rdquo; he said, looking at Blondet—&ldquo;in which the finger of God
+      has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was very near being by my
+      act——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, tell us all about it!&rdquo; cried Lady Barimore; &ldquo;I love to shudder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the taste of a virtuous woman,&rdquo; replied de Marsay, looking at Lord
+      Dudley&rsquo;s lovely daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;During the campaign of 1812,&rdquo; General de Montriveau began, &ldquo;I was the
+      involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
+      Doctor Bianchon,&rdquo; turning to me, &ldquo;since, while devoting yourself to the
+      human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may tend to
+      solve some of the problems of the will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed at
+      everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that I was.
+      When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost all
+      discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley of men
+      of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to south. The
+      soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away from their fire
+      if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the passage of this famous
+      river disorder did not diminish. I had come quietly and alone, without
+      food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was wandering in search of a house
+      where I might be taken in. Finding none or driven away from those I came
+      across, happily towards evening I perceived a wretched little Polish farm,
+      of which nothing can give you any idea unless you have seen the wooden
+      houses of Lower Normandy, or the poorest farm-buildings of la Beauce.
+      These dwellings consist of a single room, with one end divided off by a
+      wooden partition, the smaller division serving as a store-room for forage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising above
+      this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more compassionate than
+      those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as far as the farm. On
+      going in, I found the table laid. Several officers, and with them a
+      woman—a common sight enough—were eating potatoes, some horseflesh broiled
+      over the charcoal, and some frozen beetroots. I recognized among the
+      company two or three artillery captains of the regiment in which I had
+      first served. I was welcomed with a shout of acclamation, which would have
+      amazed me greatly on the other side of the Beresina; but at this moment
+      the cold was less intense; my fellow-officers were resting, they were
+      warm, they had food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the
+      promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in those days.
+      My comrades could be philanthropists gratis—one of the commonest ways of
+      being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of the bundles of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the smaller
+      room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the most
+      extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of men it has
+      been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature is
+      truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime. I do not know
+      whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of Italians when they
+      are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an artificial light. When I
+      read the fantastical portrait of Colonel Oudet sketched by Charles Nodier,
+      I found my own sensations in every one of his elegant phrases. Italian,
+      then, as were most of the officers of his regiment, which had, in fact,
+      been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene&rsquo;s army, my colonel was a tall
+      man, at least eight or nine inches above the standard, and was admirably
+      proportioned—a little stout perhaps, but prodigiously powerful, active,
+      and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His black hair in abundant curls showed
+      up his complexion, as white as a woman&rsquo;s; he had small hands, a shapely
+      foot, a pleasant mouth, and an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which
+      the tip used to become naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry,
+      as happened often. His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I will
+      tell you nothing about it; you will have the opportunity of judging of it.
+      No one could be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of
+      him; he had indeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought
+      everything I did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the
+      muscles of the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more
+      explicit, in Redgauntlet&rsquo;s horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more
+      terrifying than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame
+      quivered, and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became
+      almost unbounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful as
+      that of Charles Nordier&rsquo;s Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of tone into
+      the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was sounded. Though this
+      faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding his men, or
+      when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had heard it, what
+      force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so common. When the
+      Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically sweet, and his
+      smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade, or with the army of
+      Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed, d&rsquo;Orsay himself, the
+      handsome d&rsquo;Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on the occasion of the last
+      review held by Napoleon before the invasion of Russia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives on
+      contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
+      irresistible influences to which our nature yields&rdquo;—and the general looked
+      at the Princesse de Cadignan—&ldquo;as vitreous matter is moulded under the pipe
+      of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality—an observer might
+      perhaps explain the phenomenon—the Colonel was not a lady-killer, or was
+      indifferent to such successes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words what
+      I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our guns up a
+      very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one side, and by
+      thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met another regiment of
+      artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This colonel wanted to make
+      the captain who was at the head of our foremost battery back down again.
+      The captain, of course, refused; but the colonel of the other regiment
+      signed to his foremost battery to advance, and in spite of the care the
+      driver took to keep among the scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our
+      captain&rsquo;s right leg and broke it, throwing him over on the near side of
+      his horse. All this was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a
+      little way off, guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding
+      among the guns at the risk of falling with his horse&rsquo;s four feet in the
+      air, and reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the
+      very moment when the captain fell, calling out &lsquo;Help!&rsquo; No, our Italian
+      colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne rose to his
+      lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering a word,
+      or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist, pointing to
+      the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went aside. In two
+      seconds we saw our Colonel&rsquo;s opponent stretched on the ground, his skull
+      split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed—yes, by heaven, and
+      pretty quickly too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in the
+      puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife, a
+      beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our Colonel.
+      This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to protect the
+      husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the woman herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
+      captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end of
+      the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named
+      Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her black
+      almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her face was
+      covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a highroad.
+      Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in disorder, and
+      clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close over her head, still
+      she had the graces of a woman; her movements were engaging, her small rose
+      mouth and white teeth, the outline of her features and figure, charms
+      which misery, cold, and neglect had not altogether defaced, still
+      suggested love to any man who could think of a woman. Rosina had one of
+      those frames which are fragile in appearance, but wiry and full of spring.
+      Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical
+      simplicity, if it is allowable to ally the two words. Brave and well
+      informed, he seemed to know nothing of the connections which had subsisted
+      between his wife and the Colonel for three years past. I ascribed this
+      unconcern to Italian manners, or to some domestic secret; yet there was in
+      the man&rsquo;s countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary
+      distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned down at
+      the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a
+      streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I went
+      in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me some
+      questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with reflections on
+      the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians, and the cold. A
+      minute after my arrival the colonel, having finished his meagre meal,
+      wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot a black look at the Italian
+      woman, saying, &lsquo;Rosina?&rsquo; and then, without waiting for a reply, went into
+      the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel&rsquo;s
+      utterance was self-evident. The young wife replied by an indescribable
+      gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not feel at seeing her
+      thralldom thus flaunted without human decency, and the offence to her
+      dignity as a woman, and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid
+      setting of her features and the tight knitting of her brows a sort of
+      presentiment; perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch of
+      straw or hay, he repeated, &lsquo;Rosina?&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than the
+      first. The Colonel&rsquo;s strong burr, and the length which the Italian
+      language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable, concentrated
+      all the man&rsquo;s despotism, impatience, and strength of will. Rosina turned
+      pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at them
+      all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.—&lsquo;Tu ridi?—you laugh?&rsquo;
+      said the husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;On my honor, old comrade,&rsquo; said I, becoming serious again, &lsquo;I confess
+      that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if you are not
+      satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you satisfaction.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!&rsquo; he replied coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
+      asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
+      companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness which made
+      our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking, melancholy, and
+      horror which ever was enacted under heaven. Nevertheless, at about seven
+      or eight hundred paces from our shelter we, most of us, met again and
+      walked on together, like geese led in flocks by a child&rsquo;s wilful tyranny.
+      The same necessity urged us all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where we
+      had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions in the
+      desert, the bellowing of bulls—no, it was a noise which can be compared to
+      no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and ominous roar, we
+      could hear a woman&rsquo;s feeble scream. We all looked round, seized by I know
+      not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw the house, but a huge
+      bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and was in flames. Swirls of
+      smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse cries and an indescribable
+      pungent smell. A few yards behind, the captain was quietly approaching to
+      join our caravan; we gazed at him in silence, for no one dared question
+      him; but he, understanding our curiosity, pointed to his breast with the
+      forefinger of his right hand, and, waving the left in the direction of the
+      fire, he said, &lsquo;<i>Son&rsquo;io</i>.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all walked on without saying a word to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep,&rdquo; said de
+      Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in our
+      memory,&rdquo; said Madame de Montcornet. &ldquo;I shall dream of it——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay&rsquo;s &lsquo;First&rsquo;?&rdquo; said Lord
+      Dudley, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on,&rdquo; said
+      Blondet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying,&rdquo; replied de Marsay,
+      turning to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever saw. The
+      Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman&rsquo;s pillow; pulmonary
+      consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken the sacrament
+      the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess, waking at about
+      four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching way, with a
+      friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she meanwhile was about
+      to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her face had preserved its
+      really sublime outline and features. Her pallor made her skin look like
+      porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes and color contrasted with
+      this languidly elegant complexion, and her countenance was full of
+      expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke, and the feeling had its
+      origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death approached, seemed to know no
+      bounds. The silence was absolute. The room, softly lighted by a lamp,
+      looked like every sickroom at the hour of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair at
+      having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by which he
+      manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his wife for a few
+      of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite certain that any
+      one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it. A busy statesman,
+      always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke had a thousand odd
+      ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of genius being mistaken
+      for a madman, and of which the explanation lies in the exquisiteness and
+      exacting needs of their intellect. He came to seat himself in an armchair
+      by his wife&rsquo;s side, and looked fixedly at her. The dying woman put her
+      hand out a little way, took her husband&rsquo;s and clasped it feebly; and in a
+      low but agitated voice she said, &lsquo;My poor dear, who is left to understand
+      you now?&rsquo; Then she died, looking at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The stories the doctor tells us,&rdquo; said the Comte de Vandenesse, &ldquo;always
+      leave a deep impression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But a sweet one,&rdquo; said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PARIS, June 1839-42.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+  Bianchon, Horace  Father Goriot
+    The Atheist&rsquo;s Mass
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Government Clerks
+    Pierrette
+    A Study of Woman
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Honorine
+    The Seamy Side of History
+    The Magic Skin
+    A Second Home
+    A Prince of Bohemia
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Muse of the Department
+    The Imaginary Mistress
+    The Middle Classes
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Country Parson
+  In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:  La Grande Breteche
+
+  Blondet, Émile  Jealousies of a Country Town
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    The Peasantry
+
+  Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)  Jealousies of a Country Town
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Peasantry
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    The Member for Arcis
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+  Bridau, Joseph  The Purse
+    A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Start in Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    Pierre Grassou
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de  Letters of Two Brides
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Magic Skin
+    A Start in Life
+    Beatrix
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Dudley, Lord  The Lily of the Valley
+    The Thirteen
+    A Man of Business
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+  Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d&rsquo;
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    Beatrix
+
+  Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas  The Imaginary Mistress
+    Cousin Betty
+
+  Marsay, Henri de  The Thirteen
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+    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
+
+  Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de  The Secrets of a Princess
+    Modeste Mignon
+    Jealousies of a Country Town
+    The Muse of the Department
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de  The Thirteen
+    Father Goriot
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Pierrette
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Nucingen, Baron Frederic de  The Firm of Nucingen
+    Father Goriot
+    Pierrette
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Man of Business
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Muse of the Department
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+
+  Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de  Father Goriot
+    The Thirteen
+    Eugenie Grandet
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Melmoth Reconciled
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de  Ursule Mirouet
+    Beatrix
+
+  Rastignac, Eugene de  Father Goriot
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    The Ball at Sceaux
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    A Study of Woman
+    The Magic Skin
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Member for Arcis
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+
+  Ronquerolles, Marquis de  The Imaginary Mistress
+    The Peasantry
+    Ursule Mirouet
+    A Woman of Thirty
+    The Thirteen
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Serizy, Comtesse de  A Start in Life
+    The Thirteen
+    Ursule Mirouet
+    A Woman of Thirty
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+    The Imaginary Mistress
+
+  Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des  Beatrix
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    Honorine
+    Beatrix
+    The Muse of the Department
+
+  Vandenesse, Comte Felix de  The Lily of the Valley
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    A Start in Life
+    The Marriage Settlement
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    A Daughter of Eve
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Another Study of Woman, 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: Another Study of Woman
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+Release Date: April, 1999  [Etext #1714]
+Posting Date: March 1, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+       To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.
+
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+
+At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at
+every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons
+invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his
+neighbor's eye; most of the younger women are there for one person
+only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the
+handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared
+by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: "Do
+you think of going away soon to La Crampade?" "How well Madame de
+Portenduere sang!" "Who is that little woman with such a load of
+diamonds?" Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give
+transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin
+out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the
+sconces.
+
+The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people
+or intimate friends, saying, "Do not go yet; we will have a snug little
+supper." These collect in some small room. The second, the real party,
+now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what is said,
+conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to contribute
+to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest laughter
+takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens the prettiest
+faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.
+
+The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
+dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to _mechanize_
+other nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull
+as itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some
+French houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our
+light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and
+the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppers nowadays,
+it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewer men placed,
+established, and successful than under the reign of Louis Philippe, when
+the Revolution began again, lawfully. Everybody is on the march some
+whither, or trotting at the heels of Fortune. Time has become the
+costliest commodity, so no one can afford the lavish extravagance of
+going home to-morrow morning and getting up late. Hence, there is no
+second soiree now but at the houses of women rich enough to entertain,
+and since July 1830 such women may be counted in Paris.
+
+In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two or
+three women, among them Madame d'Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches,
+have not chosen to give up the share of influence they exercised in
+Paris, and have not closed their houses.
+
+The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the
+last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its reserved
+depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite politeness. You will
+there still find grace of manner notwithstanding the conventionalities
+of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk notwithstanding the reserve which
+is natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of
+ideas. No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one
+regards a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton
+of literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally
+or an interesting subject.
+
+The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
+reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up
+one of the deepest recesses of woman's heart, than on account of the
+reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that
+have taken place in the French woman since the fateful revolution of
+July.
+
+On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
+indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not
+a piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
+foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the
+most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter,
+pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed
+without elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without
+effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The
+men of the world especially were conspicuous for their really artistic
+grace and spirit.
+
+Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
+fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room,
+and those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound which
+gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social qualities,
+an indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion of ideas, of
+definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents, meander with ease.
+Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes
+conversation a tourney in which each type of wit is condensed into a
+shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts his experience in a
+word, in which every one finds amusement, relaxation, and exercise.
+Here, then, alone, will you exchange ideas; here you need not, like the
+dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will
+be understood, and will not risk staking your gold pieces against base
+metal.
+
+Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play and
+eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticism and
+crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes are listening,
+a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives the answer. In
+short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.
+
+The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled,
+is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so completely
+bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its spell; we all
+spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted into anecdote,
+and brought out in its rushing course some curious confessions,
+several portraits, and a thousand follies, which make this enchanting
+improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting these things
+down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, their elusive
+divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French evening,
+taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity makes each one
+forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if you like, his
+pretensions.
+
+At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
+round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
+years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
+world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
+renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the tone.
+But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of being
+himself.
+
+Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at table
+till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a move
+produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and the
+drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the ideas
+of an author after shaving are different from those he had before. If
+Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the frame of mind of
+a party at table is not the same as that of the same persons returned
+to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the eye no longer
+contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost are the happy
+effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence which comes over us
+while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled man, settled
+comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are made in these days.
+Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to face with the dessert and
+in the society of good wine, during the delightful interval when every
+one may sit with an elbow on the table and his head resting on his
+hand. Not only does every one like to talk then, but also to listen.
+Digestion, which is almost always attent, is loquacious or silent, as
+characters differ. Then every one finds his opportunity.
+
+Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
+narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
+jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons
+who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such
+delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince
+Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?
+
+De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given proofs
+of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not indeed
+surprised to see him display all the talents and various aptitudes of a
+statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he would prove to
+be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded in the fire of
+circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man whom he had
+made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who had for a long time
+been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay without infusing into his
+admiration that dash of acrid criticism by which, in Paris, one superior
+man excuses himself from admiring another.
+
+"Was there ever," said he, "in your former life, any event, any thought
+or wish which told you what your vocation was?" asked Emile Blondet;
+"for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and leads us to
+the spot where our faculties develop----"
+
+"Yes," said de Marsay; "I will tell you about it."
+
+Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay's intimate
+friends,--all settled themselves comfortably, each in his favorite
+attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the servants had
+left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn over them? The
+silence was so complete that the murmurs of the coachmen's voices could
+be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing and champing made by horses
+when asking to be taken back to their stable.
+
+"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the
+Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To
+wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
+less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
+short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self, who
+looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our passions
+and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the judgment of a
+sort of moral ready-reckoner."
+
+"That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France," said old
+Lord Dudley.
+
+"From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible," the Minister went
+on. "Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man--Richelieu,
+who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini's peril, slept till
+midday, when his benefactor was killed at ten o'clock--or say Pitt, or
+Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such a monster at a very early age,
+thanks to a woman."
+
+"I fancied," said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, "that more
+politicians were undone by us than we could make."
+
+"The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
+you," replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.
+
+"If this is a love-story," the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, "I
+request that it may not be interrupted by any reflections."
+
+"Reflection is so antipathetic to it!" cried Joseph Bridau.
+
+"I was seventeen," de Marsay went on; "the Restoration was being
+consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then. I
+was in love for the first time, and I was--I may say so now--one of
+the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
+advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of
+a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.--Like all youths, I was in
+love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,"
+said he, looking carefully round the table, "can suspect her name or
+recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret.
+He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is
+gone," said the Minister, looking round.
+
+"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.
+
+"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on, "but
+incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
+myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and
+the frail joy of the young. I treasured _her_ old gloves; I drank an
+infusion of the flowers _she_ had worn; I got out of bed at night to go
+and gaze at _her_ window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled
+the perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a
+stove with a marble casing."
+
+"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de Montcornet with a
+smile.
+
+"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who first
+uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said de Marsay. "You
+are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point. These
+few words will remind you of your own follies.
+
+"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children--oh! all
+was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
+hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we
+fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
+
+"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
+beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm
+we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was perfection
+then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful women in
+Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to win one of her
+glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient for a
+woman who had loved and was adored; but the Restoration, to which she
+owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate in comparison with her
+name. In my position I was so fatuous as never to dream of a
+suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a hundred and twenty
+Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in me as gold in the
+nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me if I had been
+so base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel--so fragile and so
+strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose blue eyes allowed
+my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart with adorable
+submissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy in her attitude,
+her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready for the Beloved
+like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!' Ah! my friends!" sadly
+exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a man must hit his head very
+hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"
+
+This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
+curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
+
+"Every morning, riding Sultan--the fine horse you sent me from England,"
+de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, "I rode past her open
+carriage, the horses' pace being intentionally reduced to a walk, and
+read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her bouquet
+in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each
+other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, to
+deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had adopted a scheme of
+conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to speak ill
+of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the disdained
+swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on either part
+with a false passion professed for an indifferent person and an air of
+indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will only play that
+game, the world will always be deceived; but then they must be very
+secure of each other.
+
+"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
+sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
+comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
+circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us; six
+years' difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of my
+fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I, on my
+part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her knowledge
+and her experience of the world, would have married her without a
+thought. At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she had been the
+first to speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might perhaps have noted
+it as vulgar in that accomplished soul.
+
+"Six months, full and perfect--a diamond of the purest water! That has
+been my portion of love in this base world.
+
+"One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the
+beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret
+festivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the
+sea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will not
+believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy and
+suspiciousness.--When jealousy is genuine," said de Marsay, interrupting
+himself, "it is the visible sign of an unique passion."
+
+"Why?" asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.
+
+"Unique and true love," said de Marsay, "produces a sort of corporeal
+apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind
+complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns
+them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as delightful as it
+is distressing."
+
+A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the truth
+of this remark.
+
+"Besides," de Marsay went on, "I said to myself, why miss a happy hour?
+Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she learns
+that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and compromising
+herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and carried it
+myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. The river lay between
+us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable distance of
+her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to have the note
+sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea of driving past her
+door in a hackney cab to see whether she might not by chance receive the
+two letters together. At the moment when I arrived it was two o'clock;
+the great gate opened to admit a carriage. Whose?--That of the
+stalking-horse!
+
+"It is fifteen years since--well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
+exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
+business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about my
+diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage was
+still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter's hands. At
+last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could observe my
+rival's expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he was in love,
+and no doubt there was business in hand.
+
+"I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her
+calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought
+that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man
+who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when
+he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The sight of the woman we love
+is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt,
+and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this
+cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the most atrocious
+dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love. My jealousy once
+buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing condition was evident;
+the horrible doubts that had fermented in me increased it. At last I
+found an opening for putting in these words: 'You have had no one with
+you this morning?' making a pretext of the uneasiness I had felt in the
+fear lest she should have disposed of her time after receiving my first
+note.--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'only a man could have such ideas! As if
+I could think of anything but your suffering. Till the moment when I
+received your second note I could think only of how I could contrive to
+see you.'--'And you were alone?'--'Alone,' said she, looking at me with
+a face of innocence so perfect that it must have been his distrust of
+such a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived
+alone in the house, the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys
+the absolute confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of
+happiness.
+
+"To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
+that we have an internal self of which the exterior _I_ is but the husk;
+that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade--well,
+that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in crape.
+Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-sheet
+of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
+betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might not
+observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my strength:
+'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'
+
+"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
+to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
+home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
+solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
+whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great
+child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
+feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing the woman
+is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was she distressed
+at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my valet, in
+whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was as elegantly
+expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her happiness. There is
+always a precious ape in the prettiest and most angelic woman!"
+
+At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
+truth so brutally stated.
+
+"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de Marsay
+went on. "I discovered that I was a statesman."
+
+It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.
+
+"As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,"
+said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal ingenuity--for,
+as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges
+were possible--I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I insensibly
+formulated a horrible code--that of Indulgence. In taking vengeance on
+a woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one for us, that we
+cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way to win her back? If
+she is not indispensable, if there are other women in the world, why not
+grant her the right to change which we assume?
+
+"This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it
+would be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for
+indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes
+must be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law,
+deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing.
+Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the world must
+be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of it--that of
+Othello.
+
+"Mine was different."
+
+The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
+newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words:
+_great sensation_.
+
+"Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung myself
+into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a style of
+beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took care not to
+quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an actress, for I doubt
+whether true love can give such gracious delights as those lavished by
+such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is as good as virtue.--I
+am not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady," said the Minister,
+suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley's daughter. "I tried to
+be the same lover.
+
+"I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I went
+to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher. The man
+had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his address for the
+benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty of every kind and
+every color. After I had explained my order, he showed me his work. I
+then saw achievements of patience surpassing those which the story books
+ascribe to fairies, or which are executed by prisoners. He brought me up
+to date as to the caprices and fashions governing the use of hair. 'For
+the last year,' said he, 'there has been a rage for marking linen
+with hair; happily I had a fine collection of hair and skilled
+needlewomen,'--on hearing this a suspicion flashed upon me; I took out
+my handkerchief and said, 'So this was done in your shop, with false
+hair?'--He looked at the handkerchief, and said, 'Ay! that lady was
+very particular, she insisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My
+wife herself marked those handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the
+finest pieces of work we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of
+light I might have believed something--might have taken a woman's word.
+I left the shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was
+concerned I was as atheistical as a mathematician.
+
+"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in
+her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they were very
+beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest
+flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a moment when
+one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-room and there
+are no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness, and when we are
+most in love, love is so well aware of its own short duration that
+we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love me? Will you love
+me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so
+full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in the
+enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest
+allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the only man in
+the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her of all
+her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was indeed
+too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she had been
+seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew that
+secret; in short, I was her god!"
+
+The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so
+well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes,
+and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
+
+"At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable
+falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, 'When
+are you to marry the Duke?'
+
+"The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand
+lay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not
+be disguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored
+her cheeks.--'The Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting great
+astonishment.--'I know everything,' replied I; 'and in my opinion, you
+should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than
+devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have been
+faithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently
+necessary it is that you should compromise him with himself and with
+God; short of that you will never bring him to the point.'--'Is this
+a dream?' said she, pushing her hair from her forehead, fifteen
+years before Malibran, with the gesture which Malibran has made so
+famous.--'Come, do not be childish, my angel,' said I, trying to take
+her hands; but she folded them before her with a little prudish and
+indignant mein.--'Marry him, you have my permission,' said I, replying
+to this gesture by using the formal _vous_ instead of _tu_. 'Nay,
+better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she, falling at my knees,
+'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world but you; you
+may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my dear,' said I, 'and do
+me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before God.'--'Do you doubt my
+love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well, I have committed the
+greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your love and your fidelity.
+Between two intoxications I looked calmly about me.'--'Calmly!' sighed
+she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no longer love me.'
+
+"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
+like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her
+add: 'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting in
+public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but in his.
+And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin to see you
+listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then I have
+made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I, admiring the
+pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can
+only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by dint of going to
+church I have become very incredulous. On the day of my first cold, and
+your first treachery, when you thought I was in bed, you received the
+Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.'--'Do you know that your
+conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I consider your marriage to the
+Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a great name, the only rank
+that suits you, a brilliant and distinguished position. You will be one
+of the queens of Paris. I should be doing you a wrong if I placed any
+obstacle in the way of this prospect, this distinguished life, this
+splendid alliance. Ah! Charlotte, some day you will do me justice by
+discovering how unlike my character is to that of other young men. You
+would have been compelled to deceive me; yes, you would have found it
+very difficult to break with me, for he watches you. It is time that we
+should part, for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turn prude;
+I advise you to do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of his
+wife.'--'Oh!' cried she, bursting into tears, 'Henri, if only you
+had spoken! Yes, if you had chosen'--it was I who was to blame, you
+understand--'we would have gone to live all our days in a corner,
+married, happy, and defied the world.'--'Well, it is too late now,' said
+I, kissing her hands, and putting on a victimized air.--'Good God! But I
+can undo it all!' said she.--'No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I
+ought indeed to go a journey to part us more effectually. We should both
+have reason to fear our own affection----'--'Henri, do you think the
+Duke has any suspicions?' I was still 'Henri,' but the _tu_ was lost for
+ever.--'I do not think so,' I replied, assuming the manner of a friend;
+'but be as devout as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke
+waits for proofs; he hesitates, you must bring him to the point.'
+
+"She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
+agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming the
+new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her hand,
+and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you are loyal,
+noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'
+
+"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
+of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to place
+herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the
+look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly assumed
+dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me along
+almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
+moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you love
+me?'--'Oh! yes.'--'Well, then, what will become of you?'"
+
+At this point the women all looked at each other.
+
+"Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at
+her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must
+die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay went on.
+"Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is better to
+come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her,
+'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'--'Well, what will you
+do?'--'I asked myself that the day after my cold.'--'And----?' she asked
+with eager anxiety.--'And I have made advances to the little lady to
+whom I was supposed to be attached.'
+
+"Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling
+like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their
+dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the
+sparkling glitter of a hunted viper's eye when driven into a corner, and
+said, 'And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have----' On this
+last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made the most impressive
+pause I ever heard.--'Good God!' she cried, 'how unhappy are we women!
+we never can be loved. To you there is nothing serious in the
+purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you still are our
+dupes!'--'I see that plainly,' said I, with a stricken air; 'you have
+far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.'--This
+modest epigram increased her rage; she found some tears of vexation.
+'You disgust me with the world and with life.' she said; 'you snatch
+away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.'
+
+"She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simple
+effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailed any
+man but me on the spot.--'What is to become of us poor women in a state
+of society such as Louis XVIII.'s charter made it?'--(Imagine how her
+words had run away with her.)--'Yes, indeed, we are born to suffer. In
+matters of passion we are always superior to you, and you are beneath
+all loyalty. There is no honesty in your hearts. To you love is a
+game in which you always cheat.'--'My dear,' said I, 'to take anything
+serious in society nowadays would be like making romantic love to
+an actress.'--'What a shameless betrayal! It was deliberately
+planned!'--'No, only a rational issue.'--'Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,'
+said she; 'you have deceived me horribly.'--'Surely,' I replied,
+taking up a submissive attitude, 'Madame la Duchesse will not remember
+Charlotte's grievances?'--'Certainly,' she answered bitterly.--'Then,
+in fact, you hate me?'--She bowed, and I said to myself, 'There is
+something still left!'
+
+"The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe that
+she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have carefully
+studied the lives of men who have had great success with women, but I
+do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, or Lauzun, or Louis de
+Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first attempt. As
+to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then and there, once
+for all, and the power of control I thus acquired over the thoughtless
+impulses which make us commit so many follies gained me the admirable
+presence of mind you all know."
+
+"How deeply I pity the second!" exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay's pale lips made Delphine de
+Nucingen color.
+
+"How we do forget!" said the Baron de Nucingen.
+
+The great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife, who
+was de Marsay's "second," could not help laughing like every one else.
+
+"You are all ready to condemn the woman," said Lady Dudley. "Well,
+I quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act
+of inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
+fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told us,
+and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."
+
+"Alas! my lady, you are right," replied de Marsay. "For very nearly
+fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all
+social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great
+wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their
+heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are
+vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses--I must apologize to
+Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is made
+a peer of France--baronesses have never succeeded in getting people to
+take them seriously."
+
+"Aristocracy begins with the viscountess," said Blondet with a smile.
+
+"Countesses will survive," said de Marsay. "An elegant woman will be
+more or less of a countess--a countess of the Empire or of yesterday,
+a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by
+courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with the dignified
+splendor of the last century, with powder, patches, high-heeled
+slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses
+in these days can pass through a door without any need to widen it for
+their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns with trains! I am still
+puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished to see his drawing-room
+swept by ducal satin and velvet did not make indestructible laws.
+Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code he was so proud of.
+That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of our 'ladies' of
+to-day--the indirect offspring of his legislation."
+
+"It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and
+by obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social
+state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who can
+hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an
+ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius
+gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps
+graced by silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into
+one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be an
+attorney's clerk, a contractor's son, or a banker's bastard, he stares
+impertinently at the prettiest duchess, appraises her as she walks
+downstairs, and says to his friend--dressed by Buisson, as we all are,
+and mounted in patent-leather like any duke himself--'There, my boy,
+that is a perfect lady.'"
+
+"You have not known how to form a party," said Lord Dudley; "it will
+be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in
+France about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized property.
+So this is what happens: Any duke--and even in the time of Louis XVIII.
+and Charles X. there were some left who had two hundred thousand
+francs a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train of
+servants--well, such a duke could live like a great lord. The last of
+these great gentlemen in France was the Prince de Talleyrand.--This duke
+leaves four children, two of them girls. Granting that he has great luck
+in marrying them all well, each of these descendants will have but sixty
+or eighty thousand francs a year now; each is the father or mother of
+children, and consequently obliged to live with the strictest economy in
+a flat on the ground floor or first floor of a large house. Who knows
+if they may not even be hunting a fortune? Henceforth the eldest son's
+wife, a duchess in name only, has no carriage, no people, no opera-box,
+no time to herself. She has not her own rooms in the family mansion, nor
+her fortune, nor her pretty toys; she is buried in trade; she buys socks
+for her dear little children, nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on
+her girls, whom she no longer sends to school at a convent. Thus your
+noblest dames have been turned into worthy brood-hens."
+
+"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show
+those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the
+French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has nothing now
+to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal
+it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is
+no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a form of luxury."
+
+"Everything in France has aided and abetted the 'perfect lady,'" said
+Daniel d'Arthez. "The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating
+to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
+die--emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
+lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded
+European _salons_, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out
+like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or
+of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of
+abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against
+the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of
+the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are
+at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing princesses,
+these are really only ladylike young women. In these days princes can
+find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot even confer
+honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last
+prince to avail himself of this privilege."
+
+"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.
+
+"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box
+with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair's
+breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen
+class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor altogether
+_bourgeoises_," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
+
+"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
+longer has the quality of a spoken _feuilleton_--delightful calumnies
+graced by elegant language. We read _feuilletons_ written in a dialect
+which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
+an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
+conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
+a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
+mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
+company used to meet."
+
+"The knell of the highest society is tolling," said a Russian Prince.
+"Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word _lady_."
+
+"You are right, Prince," said de Marsay. "The 'perfect lady,' issuing
+from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and
+the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of
+these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,
+and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
+ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time, elected by
+public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among
+the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England."
+
+"And that they call progress!" exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. "I
+should like to know where the progress lies?"
+
+"Why, in this," said Madame de Nucingen. "Formerly a woman might have
+the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an
+impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a
+thick hand--she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days,
+even if she were a Montmorency--if a Montmorency would ever be such a
+creature--she would not be a lady."
+
+"But what do you mean by a 'perfect lady'?" asked Count Adam Laginski.
+
+"She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system
+as applied to the fair sex," said the Minister. "Every revolution has a
+word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it."
+
+"You are right," said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
+reputation in Paris. "The explanation of certain words added from time
+to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
+_Organize_, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up
+Napoleon completely."
+
+"But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!" the young Pole
+exclaimed, with some impatience.
+
+"Well, I will tell you," said Emile Blondet to Count Adam. "One fine
+morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has not
+yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance at her
+is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a world
+of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale in his
+pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have at
+last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two very
+distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an order; or
+else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of ten yards. She
+displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings, no over-elaborate
+waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawers fussing round her
+ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunella shoes, with sandals
+crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, or plain gray silk
+stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the most exquisite simplicity.
+You notice that her gown is made of a neat and inexpensive material, but
+made in a way that surprises more than one woman of the middle class;
+it is almost always a long pelisse, with bows to fasten it, and neatly
+bound with fine cord or an imperceptible braid. The Unknown has a way of
+her own in wrapping herself in her shawl or mantilla; she knows how to
+draw it round her from her hips to her neck, outlining a carapace, as it
+were, which would make an ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which
+in her sets off the most beautiful forms while concealing them. How does
+she do it? This secret she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.
+
+"As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious
+twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under the
+stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass. Is it
+to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation which plays
+under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill, sheds an airy
+balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of a Parisienne? You may
+recognize over her arms, round her waist, about her throat, a science of
+drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.
+
+"Oh! how thoroughly she understands the _cut_ of her gait--forgive the
+expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her
+skirt with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
+admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
+Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
+forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for
+walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
+
+"Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with
+proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to
+a well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her
+shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a
+little air of serene dignity, like Raphael's Madonnas in their frames.
+Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent dandy
+step aside for her.
+
+"Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp
+ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women
+wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.
+Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without
+conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything;
+whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified, stamps her face
+with an indifference which piques your curiosity. She knows that she is
+looked at, she knows that everybody, even women, turn round to see her
+again. And she threads her way through Paris like a gossamer, spotless
+and pure.
+
+"This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
+longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th Arcade
+of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the equator
+of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India flourish,
+where the warmest creations of industry are displayed, to the Cape of
+the Madeleine; in the least muddy districts of the citizen quarters,
+between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. During
+the winter, she haunts the terrace of the Feuillants, but not the
+asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According to the weather, she may
+be seen flying in the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees, which is bounded on
+the east by the Place Louis XV., on the west by the Avenue de Marigny,
+to the south by the road, to the north by the gardens of the Faubourg
+Saint-Honore. Never is this pretty variety of woman to be seen in the
+hyperborean regions of the Rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of
+miry, narrow, commercial streets, never anywhere in bad weather.
+These flowers of Paris, blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume the
+highways; and after five o'clock fold up like morning-glory flowers.
+The women you will see later, looking a little like them, are would-be
+ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is a 'perfect
+lady.'
+
+"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
+differences by which the observer _emeritus_ distinguishes them--women
+are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of
+Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white
+tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed
+bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see
+a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There is
+something conventional in the attitude.
+
+"As to the _bourgeoise_, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
+mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,
+and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not
+know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady knows
+just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is undecided,
+tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand,
+which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in
+public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has
+open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her
+fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the
+redundancies of dress.
+
+"You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opera,
+at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you
+would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged
+from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon.
+She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms
+which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she
+never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens.
+You can there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her
+movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political
+artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude all idea of art
+or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand, the most
+perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely necessary that
+she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet or curl she plays
+with. If she has some dignity of profile, you will be persuaded that she
+is giving irony or grace to what she says to her neighbor, sitting in
+such a position as to produce the magical effect of the 'lost profile,'
+so dear to great painters, by which the cheek catches the high light,
+the nose is shown in clear outline, the nostrils are transparently rosy,
+the forehead squarely modeled, the eye has its spangle of fire, but
+fixed on space, and the white roundness of the chin is accentuated by
+a line of light. If she has a pretty foot, she will throw herself on
+a sofa with the coquettish grace of a cat in the sunshine, her feet
+outstretched without your feeling that her attitude is anything but the
+most charming model ever given to a sculptor by lassitude.
+
+"Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
+inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the
+citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a
+rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office
+of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing
+in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place. Her toilet
+is always in harmony with her character; she had had time to study
+herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long known what does not
+suit her. You will not find her as you go out; she vanishes before the
+end of the play. If by chance she is to be seen, calm and stately, on
+the stairs, she is experiencing some violent emotion; she has to bestow
+a glance, to receive a promise. Perhaps she goes down so slowly on
+purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave whom she sometimes obeys. If
+your meeting takes place at a ball or an evening party, you will gather
+the honey, natural or affected of her insinuating voice; her empty
+words will enchant you, and she will know how to give them the value of
+thought by her inimitable bearing."
+
+"To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?" asked the
+Polish Count.
+
+"It is necessary to have great taste," replied the Princesse de
+Cadignan.
+
+"And in France taste is more than cleverness," said the Russian.
+
+"This woman's cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,"
+Blondet went on. "You will not know what she said, but you will be
+fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white shoulders;
+she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming pout and smile; or
+throw a Voltairean epigram into an 'Indeed!' an 'Ah!' a 'What then!'
+A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form of questioning; she
+will give meaning to the movement by which she twirls a vinaigrette
+hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets an artificial grandeur out
+of superlative trivialities; she simply drops her hand impressively,
+letting it fall over the arm of her chair as dewdrops hang on the cup of
+a flower, and all is said--she has pronounced judgment beyond appeal, to
+the apprehension of the most obtuse. She knows how to listen to you;
+she gives you the opportunity of shining, and--I ask your modesty--those
+moments are rare?"
+
+The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made all
+the party shout with laughter.
+
+"Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a _bourgeoise_ without
+her alluding to her husband in one way or another," Blondet went on
+with unperturbed gravity; "whereas, even if you know that your lady
+is married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so
+effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus to
+discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If you
+have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of the evening you
+detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man wearing a decoration, who
+bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage, and goes.
+
+"You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go
+to bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last
+perhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates
+of the temple of dreams.
+
+"The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
+enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find everything
+in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly renewed; you will
+see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings hanging about, and
+looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase warmed. Flowers on
+all sides will charm your sight--flowers, the only gift she accepts, and
+those only from certain people, for nosegays live but a day; they give
+pleasure, and must be replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a
+symbol and a promise. The costly toys of fashion lie about, but not so
+as to suggest a museum or a curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by
+the fire in a low chair, from which she will not rise to greet you.
+Her talk will not now be what it was at the ball; there she was our
+creditor; in her own home she owes you the pleasure of her wit. These
+are the shades of which the lady is a marvelous mistress. What she
+likes in you is a man to swell her circle, an object for the cares
+and attentions which such women are now happy to bestow. Therefore, to
+attract you to her drawing-room, she will be bewitchingly charming. This
+especially is where you feel how isolated women are nowadays, and
+why they want a little world of their own, to which they may seem a
+constellation. Conversation is impossible without generalities."
+
+"Yes," said de Marsay, "you have truly hit the fault of our age.
+The epigram--a volume in a word--no longer strikes, as it did in the
+eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events, and
+it dies in a day."
+
+"Hence," said Blondet, "the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
+consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great difference
+between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous; the lady
+does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always will be; she
+hesitates and struggles where the other refuses point-blank and falls
+full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of the last graces left
+to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to church, but she will
+talk to you of religion; and if you have the good taste to affect
+Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you will have opened
+the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shaking and gestures
+understood by all these women: 'For shame! I thought you had too much
+sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, and you deprive it
+of its support. Why, religion at this moment means you and me; it is
+property, and the future of our children! Ah! let us not be selfish!
+Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion is the only
+remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,' and so forth.
+Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with political
+notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant--but moral? Oh! deuced
+moral!--in which you may recognize a fag end of every material woven by
+modern doctrines, at loggerheads together."
+
+The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet
+illustrated his satire.
+
+"This explanation, dear Count Adam," said Blondet, turning to the
+Pole, "will have proved to you that the 'perfect lady' represents
+the intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is
+surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry
+which is always aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it by
+something else. When you leave her you say to yourself: She certainly
+has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more because she will
+have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have asked you your
+secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything; there are some
+things she never knows, not even when she knows them. You alone will
+be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her heart. The
+great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with newspapers and
+advertisements; in these days the lady has her little passion neatly
+ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and quavers and minims,
+its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign the key. A mere weak women,
+she is anxious not to compromise her love, or her husband, or the future
+of her children. Name, position, and fortune are no longer flags so
+respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise on board. The whole
+aristocracy no longer advances in a body to screen the lady. She has
+not, like the great lady of the past, the demeanor of lofty antagonism;
+she can crush nothing under foot, it is she who would be crushed. Thus
+she is apt at Jesuitical _mezzo termine_, she is a creature of equivocal
+compromises, of guarded proprieties, of anonymous passions steered
+between two reef-bound shores. She is as much afraid of her servants as
+an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a trial in the divorce-court. This
+woman--so free at a ball, so attractive out walking--is a slave at home;
+she is never independent but in perfect privacy, or theoretically. She
+must preserve herself in her position as a lady. This is her task.
+
+"For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
+allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the divine
+accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a townswoman;
+she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will not receive a
+married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still have anything
+to say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect lady may perhaps
+give occasion to calumny, never to slander."
+
+"It is all so horribly true," said the Princesse de Cadignan.
+
+"And so," said Blondet, "our 'perfect lady' lives between English
+hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century--a
+bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up
+is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads
+nowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures shrink
+into the background, and distinction is purely personal. I am fully
+convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were born
+close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the
+encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the
+important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring, the
+angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the silence,
+the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the
+diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady."
+
+"And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn," said
+Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, "would you class the female
+author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman _comme il faut_?"
+
+"When she has no genius, she is a woman _comme il n'en faut pas_,"
+Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which might
+make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. "This epigram
+is not mine, but Napoleon's," he added.
+
+"You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score," said Canalis,
+with an emphatic tone and gesture. "It was one of his weaknesses to be
+jealous of literary genius--for he had his mean points. Who will ever
+explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms
+folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known,
+the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces;
+a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every direction
+without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything because
+he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an
+illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after
+living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a
+sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw
+everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who risked men
+by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads--those of
+Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich, diplomatists whose
+death would have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of
+greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a
+rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and
+kind at midnight amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe as
+a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water in her bath!
+Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoid of
+taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these antitheses,
+really great in everything by instinct or by temperament; Caesar at
+five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer buried in
+Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, he improvised
+public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance--and all with
+more range than precision. Did he not aim at making all Europe France?
+And after making us weigh on the earth in such a way as to change the
+laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on the day when he first
+laid hands on us; while he, who had taken an empire by his name, lost
+his name on the frontier of his empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A
+man all thought and all action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouche."
+
+"All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!"
+said de Marsay.
+
+"Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk," said Baron de
+Nucingen.
+
+"But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?"
+asked Joseph Bridau. "If you had to pay for the charms of conversation
+as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be
+inadequate! There is no second performance of the same flash of wit."
+
+"And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?" said
+the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at once
+sceptical and ironical. "Because, in these days, under a regime which
+makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms, small
+pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does that prove
+that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human heart change
+because you change your coat? In all ages the passions remain the same.
+I know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime sufferings, which lack
+the publicity--the glory, if you choose--which formerly gave lustre to
+the errors of some women. But though one may not have saved a King of
+France, one is not the less an Agnes Sorel. Do you believe that our
+dear Marquise d'Espard is not the peer of Madame Doublet, or Madame
+du Deffant, in whose rooms so much evil was spoken and done? Is not
+Taglioni a match for Camargo? or Malibran the equal of Saint-Huberti?
+Are not our poets superior to those of the eighteenth century? If at
+this moment, through the fault of the Grocers who govern us, we have not
+a style of our own, had not the Empire its distinguishing stamp as
+the age of Louis XV. had, and was not its splendor fabulous? Have the
+sciences lost anything?"
+
+"I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
+great," replied the Comte de Vandenesse. "When posterity shall have
+followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine
+as those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
+history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but
+one Madame de Sevigne; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly
+write better than she did, and who do not publish their letters. Whether
+the Frenchwoman be called 'perfect lady,' or great lady, she will always
+be _the_ woman among women.
+
+"Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman
+of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who
+chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it
+must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical, because
+they must always and under all circumstances be surrounded by greater
+perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied it perhaps too
+late; but in cases where the illegality of your feelings might
+be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know not what
+chance--which you may call Providence--inevitably overwhelming such as
+we consider light women."
+
+"I hope," said Madame de Vandenesse, "that we can be great in other
+ways----"
+
+"Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!" exclaimed Madame de
+Serizy.
+
+"With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
+example," said the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+"On my honor!" said General de Montriveau, "in all the dramas--a word
+you are very fond of," he said, looking at Blondet--"in which the finger
+of God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was very near
+being by my act----"
+
+"Well, tell us all about it!" cried Lady Barimore; "I love to shudder!"
+
+"It is the taste of a virtuous woman," replied de Marsay, looking at
+Lord Dudley's lovely daughter.
+
+"During the campaign of 1812," General de Montriveau began, "I was the
+involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
+Doctor Bianchon," turning to me, "since, while devoting yourself to the
+human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may tend
+to solve some of the problems of the will.
+
+"I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed
+at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that
+I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost all
+discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley of men
+of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to south. The
+soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away from their
+fire if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the passage of this
+famous river disorder did not diminish. I had come quietly and alone,
+without food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was wandering in search
+of a house where I might be taken in. Finding none or driven away from
+those I came across, happily towards evening I perceived a wretched
+little Polish farm, of which nothing can give you any idea unless
+you have seen the wooden houses of Lower Normandy, or the poorest
+farm-buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist of a single room,
+with one end divided off by a wooden partition, the smaller division
+serving as a store-room for forage.
+
+"In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising above
+this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more compassionate than
+those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as far as the farm.
+On going in, I found the table laid. Several officers, and with them
+a woman--a common sight enough--were eating potatoes, some horseflesh
+broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen beetroots. I recognized among
+the company two or three artillery captains of the regiment in which
+I had first served. I was welcomed with a shout of acclamation, which
+would have amazed me greatly on the other side of the Beresina; but at
+this moment the cold was less intense; my fellow-officers were resting,
+they were warm, they had food, and the room, strewn with trusses of
+straw, gave the promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for so
+much in those days. My comrades could be philanthropists _gratis_--one
+of the commonest ways of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one
+of the bundles of straw.
+
+"At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the
+smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the most
+extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of men it
+has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature
+is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime. I do not
+know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of Italians
+when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an artificial
+light. When I read the fantastical portrait of Colonel Oudet sketched
+by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in every one of his elegant
+phrases. Italian, then, as were most of the officers of his regiment,
+which had, in fact, been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene's army,
+my colonel was a tall man, at least eight or nine inches above the
+standard, and was admirably proportioned--a little stout perhaps, but
+prodigiously powerful, active, and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His
+black hair in abundant curls showed up his complexion, as white as a
+woman's; he had small hands, a shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and
+an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which the tip used to become
+naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry, as happened often.
+His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I will tell you nothing
+about it; you will have the opportunity of judging of it. No one could
+be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of him; he had
+indeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought everything I
+did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the muscles of
+the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more explicit, in
+Redgauntlet's horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more terrifying
+than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame quivered,
+and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became almost
+unbounded.
+
+"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
+as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
+tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was sounded.
+Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding
+his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had
+heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so
+common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically
+sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade,
+or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed,
+d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on
+the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before the invasion of
+Russia.
+
+"Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives
+on contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
+irresistible influences to which our nature yields"--and the general
+looked at the Princesse de Cadignan--"as vitreous matter is moulded
+under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality--an
+observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon--the Colonel was not a
+lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.
+
+"To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words
+what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our guns
+up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one side,
+and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met another
+regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This colonel
+wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost battery
+back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the colonel of the
+other regiment signed to his foremost battery to advance, and in spite
+of the care the driver took to keep among the scrub, the wheel of the
+first gun struck our captain's right leg and broke it, throwing him over
+on the near side of his horse. All this was the work of a moment. Our
+Colonel, who was but a little way off, guessed that there was a quarrel;
+he galloped up, riding among the guns at the risk of falling with his
+horse's four feet in the air, and reached the spot, face to face with
+the other colonel, at the very moment when the captain fell, calling out
+'Help!' No, our Italian colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth
+of champagne rose to his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion.
+Incapable of uttering a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal
+to his antagonist, pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The
+two colonels went aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent
+stretched on the ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his
+regiment backed--yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.
+
+"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in
+the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,
+a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our Colonel.
+This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to protect
+the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the woman
+herself.
+
+"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
+captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end
+of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named
+Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her
+black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her
+face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a
+highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
+disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close
+over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were
+engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her
+features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not
+altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of
+a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in appearance,
+but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had
+a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is allowable to ally
+the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to know nothing of
+the connections which had subsisted between his wife and the Colonel for
+three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to Italian manners, or to
+some domestic secret; yet there was in the man's countenance one feature
+which always filled me with involuntary distrust. His under lip, which
+was thin and very restless, turned down at the corners instead of
+turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in a
+character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.
+
+"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I went
+in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me some
+questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with reflections on
+the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians, and the cold.
+A minute after my arrival the colonel, having finished his meagre meal,
+wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot a black look at the Italian
+woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then, without waiting for a reply, went
+into the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel's
+utterance was self-evident. The young wife replied by an indescribable
+gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not feel at seeing her
+thralldom thus flaunted without human decency, and the offence to her
+dignity as a woman, and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid
+setting of her features and the tight knitting of her brows a sort of
+presentiment; perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in
+her place.
+
+"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch
+of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'
+
+"The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than
+the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the
+Italian language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,
+concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength of will.
+Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to the
+Colonel.
+
+"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at them
+all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'_Tu ridi?_--you
+laugh?' said the husband.
+
+"'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, 'I confess
+that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if you are not
+satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you satisfaction.'
+
+"'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.
+
+"Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
+asleep.
+
+"Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
+companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness
+which made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,
+melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.
+Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter we,
+most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led in flocks
+by a child's wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.
+
+"Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where we
+had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions in the
+desert, the bellowing of bulls--no, it was a noise which can be compared
+to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and ominous roar,
+we could hear a woman's feeble scream. We all looked round, seized by I
+know not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw the house, but a huge
+bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and was in flames. Swirls
+of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse cries and an indescribable
+pungent smell. A few yards behind, the captain was quietly approaching
+to join our caravan; we gazed at him in silence, for no one dared
+question him; but he, understanding our curiosity, pointed to his breast
+with the forefinger of his right hand, and, waving the left in the
+direction of the fire, he said, '_Son'io_.'
+
+"We all walked on without saying a word to him."
+
+"There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep," said de
+Marsay.
+
+"It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in our
+memory," said Madame de Montcornet. "I shall dream of it----"
+
+"And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay's 'First'?" said Lord
+Dudley, smiling.
+
+"When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on," said
+Blondet.
+
+"Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying," replied de
+Marsay, turning to me.
+
+"Yes," said I; "and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever
+saw. The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman's pillow;
+pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken
+the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,
+waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching
+way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she
+meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her face
+had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor made
+her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes
+and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her
+countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,
+and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death
+approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The
+room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour
+of death.
+
+"At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair at
+having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by which
+he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his wife for a
+few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite certain
+that any one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it. A busy
+statesman, always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke had a
+thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of genius
+being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation lies in the
+exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He came to seat
+himself in an armchair by his wife's side, and looked fixedly at her.
+The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband's and
+clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said, 'My poor
+dear, who is left to understand you now?' Then she died, looking at
+him."
+
+"The stories the doctor tells us," said the Comte de Vandenesse, "always
+leave a deep impression."
+
+"But a sweet one," said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.
+
+
+PARIS, June 1839-42.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bianchon, Horace  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Government Clerks
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:  La Grande Breteche
+
+Blondet, Emile  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Peasantry
+
+Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Peasantry
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Member for Arcis
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Bridau, Joseph  The Purse
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Start in Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Pierre Grassou
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de  Letters of Two Brides
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Start in Life
+  Beatrix
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Dudley, Lord  The Lily of the Valley
+  The Thirteen
+  A Man of Business
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d'
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Beatrix
+
+Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas  The Imaginary Mistress
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Marsay, Henri de  The Thirteen
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  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
+
+Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de  The Thirteen
+  Father Goriot
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Pierrette
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Nucingen, Baron Frederic de  The Firm of Nucingen
+  Father Goriot
+  Pierrette
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de  Father Goriot
+  The Thirteen
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Melmoth Reconciled
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de  Ursule Mirouet
+  Beatrix
+
+Rastignac, Eugene de  Father Goriot
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Study of Woman
+  The Magic Skin
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des  Beatrix
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Honorine
+  Beatrix
+  The Muse of the Department
+
+Vandenesse, Comte Felix de  The Lily of the Valley
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  A Start in Life
+  The Marriage Settlement
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac
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+  <head>
+    <title>Another Study of Woman, By Balzac</title>
+    <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" />
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+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Another Study of Woman, by Honoré 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: Another Study of Woman
+
+Author: Honoré de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+Release Date: March 1, 2010 [EBook #1714]
+Last Updated: October 22, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Dagny, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Honoré De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      DEDICATION
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> ADDENDUM </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at every
+      ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons invited,
+      a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his neighbor&rsquo;s
+      eye; most of the younger women are there for one person only; when each
+      woman has assured herself that for that one she is the handsomest woman in
+      the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared by a few others, a few
+      insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: &ldquo;Do you think of going away soon
+      to La Crampade?&rdquo; &ldquo;How well Madame de Portenduère sang!&rdquo; &ldquo;Who is that
+      little woman with such a load of diamonds?&rdquo; Or, after firing off some
+      smart epigrams, which give transient pleasure, and leave wounds that
+      rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere lookers on go away, and the
+      waxlights burn down to the sconces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people or
+      intimate friends, saying, &ldquo;Do not go yet; we will have a snug little
+      supper.&rdquo; These collect in some small room. The second, the real party, now
+      begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what is said,
+      conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to contribute
+      to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest laughter takes
+      the place of the gloom which in company saddens the prettiest faces. In
+      short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
+      dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to mechanize other
+      nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull as itself,
+      and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some French houses,
+      a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our light-hearted people.
+      Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and the reason is a simple
+      one. If we no longer have many suppers nowadays, it is because never,
+      under any rule, have there been fewer men placed, established, and
+      successful than under the reign of Louis Philippe, when the Revolution
+      began again, lawfully. Everybody is on the march some whither, or trotting
+      at the heels of Fortune. Time has become the costliest commodity, so no
+      one can afford the lavish extravagance of going home to-morrow morning and
+      getting up late. Hence, there is no second soiree now but at the houses of
+      women rich enough to entertain, and since July 1830 such women may be
+      counted in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two or
+      three women, among them Madame d&rsquo;Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches, have
+      not chosen to give up the share of influence they exercised in Paris, and
+      have not closed their houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the last
+      refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its reserved
+      depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite politeness. You will
+      there still find grace of manner notwithstanding the conventionalities of
+      courtesy, perfect freedom of talk notwithstanding the reserve which is
+      natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas.
+      No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards
+      a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of
+      literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or
+      an interesting subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
+      reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up one of
+      the deepest recesses of woman&rsquo;s heart, than on account of the reflections
+      to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that have taken place
+      in the French woman since the fateful revolution of July.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
+      indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not a
+      piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
+      foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the most
+      famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter, pictures
+      sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed without
+      elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without effort, and were
+      exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The men of the world
+      especially were conspicuous for their really artistic grace and spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
+      fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room, and
+      those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound which gives
+      an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social qualities, an
+      indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion of ideas, of
+      definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents, meander with ease.
+      Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes
+      conversation a tourney in which each type of wit is condensed into a
+      shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts his experience in a word,
+      in which every one finds amusement, relaxation, and exercise. Here, then,
+      alone, will you exchange ideas; here you need not, like the dolphin in the
+      fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will be understood, and
+      will not risk staking your gold pieces against base metal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play and
+      eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticism and
+      crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes are listening, a
+      gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives the answer. In
+      short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled, is
+      the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so completely
+      bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its spell; we all
+      spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted into anecdote,
+      and brought out in its rushing course some curious confessions, several
+      portraits, and a thousand follies, which make this enchanting
+      improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting these things down in
+      all their natural freshness and abruptness, their elusive divarications,
+      you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French evening, taken at the
+      moment when the most engaging familiarity makes each one forget his own
+      interests, his personal conceit, or, if you like, his pretensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
+      round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
+      years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
+      world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
+      renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the tone.
+      But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of being
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at table
+      till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a move
+      produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and the
+      drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the ideas of an
+      author after shaving are different from those he had before. If Sterne is
+      right, may it not be boldly asserted that the frame of mind of a party at
+      table is not the same as that of the same persons returned to the
+      drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the eye no longer contemplates
+      the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost are the happy effects of that
+      laxness of mood, that benevolence which comes over us while we remain in
+      the humor peculiar to the well-filled man, settled comfortably on one of
+      the springy chairs which are made in these days. Perhaps we are not more
+      ready to talk face to face with the dessert and in the society of good
+      wine, during the delightful interval when every one may sit with an elbow
+      on the table and his head resting on his hand. Not only does every one
+      like to talk then, but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost always
+      attent, is loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every one
+      finds his opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
+      narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
+      jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons who
+      have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such delightful
+      storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince Metternich, they
+      vouchsafe to tell a story?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given proofs of
+      superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not indeed
+      surprised to see him display all the talents and various aptitudes of a
+      statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he would prove to be a
+      solid politician, or had merely been moulded in the fire of circumstance.
+      This question had just been asked by a man whom he had made a préfet, a
+      man of wit and observation, who had for a long time been a journalist, and
+      who admired de Marsay without infusing into his admiration that dash of
+      acrid criticism by which, in Paris, one superior man excuses himself from
+      admiring another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there ever,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in your former life, any event, any thought or
+      wish which told you what your vocation was?&rdquo; asked Émile Blondet; &ldquo;for we
+      all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and leads us to the spot
+      where our faculties develop——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said de Marsay; &ldquo;I will tell you about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay&rsquo;s intimate
+      friends,—all settled themselves comfortably, each in his favorite
+      attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the servants had
+      left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn over them? The
+      silence was so complete that the murmurs of the coachmen&rsquo;s voices could be
+      heard from the courtyard, and the pawing and champing made by horses when
+      asking to be taken back to their stable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality,&rdquo; said the
+      Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. &ldquo;To
+      wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
+      less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
+      short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self, who
+      looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our passions
+      and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the judgment of a
+      sort of moral ready-reckoner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France,&rdquo; said old
+      Lord Dudley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible,&rdquo; the Minister went
+      on. &ldquo;Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man—Richelieu, who,
+      when warned overnight by a letter of Concini&rsquo;s peril, slept till midday,
+      when his benefactor was killed at ten o&rsquo;clock—or say Pitt, or Napoleon, he
+      was a monster. I became such a monster at a very early age, thanks to a
+      woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancied,&rdquo; said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, &ldquo;that more
+      politicians were undone by us than we could make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
+      you,&rdquo; replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this is a love-story,&rdquo; the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, &ldquo;I request
+      that it may not be interrupted by any reflections.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reflection is so antipathetic to it!&rdquo; cried Joseph Bridau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was seventeen,&rdquo; de Marsay went on; &ldquo;the Restoration was being
+      consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then. I
+      was in love for the first time, and I was—I may say so now—one of the
+      handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
+      advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of a
+      conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.—Like all youths, I was in love
+      with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,&rdquo; said he,
+      looking carefully round the table, &ldquo;can suspect her name or recognize her.
+      Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret. He had kept it
+      well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is gone,&rdquo; said the
+      Minister, looking round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not stay to supper,&rdquo; said Madame de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For six months, possessed by my passion,&rdquo; de Marsay went on, &ldquo;but
+      incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
+      myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and the
+      frail joy of the young. I treasured her old gloves; I drank an infusion of
+      the flowers she had worn; I got out of bed at night to go and gaze at her
+      window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled the perfume she
+      used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a stove with a marble
+      casing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts,&rdquo; cried Madame de Montcornet with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who first
+      uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought,&rdquo; said de Marsay. &ldquo;You
+      are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point. These
+      few words will remind you of your own follies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children—oh! all was
+      perfect—my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her hair; in
+      short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we fail to
+      believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
+      beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm we
+      found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was perfection
+      then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful women in
+      Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to win one of her
+      glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient for a
+      woman who had loved and was adored; but the Restoration, to which she owed
+      renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate in comparison with her name. In my
+      position I was so fatuous as never to dream of a suspicion. Though my
+      jealousy would have been of a hundred and twenty Othello-power, that
+      terrible passion slumbered in me as gold in the nugget. I would have
+      ordered my servant to thrash me if I had been so base as ever to doubt the
+      purity of that angel—so fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure,
+      spotless, and whose blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very
+      depths of her heart with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the
+      slightest hesitancy in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and
+      fresh, and ready for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the &lsquo;Song of
+      Songs!&rsquo; Ah! my friends!&rdquo; sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again,
+      &ldquo;a man must hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
+      curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every morning, riding Sultan—the fine horse you sent me from England,&rdquo; de
+      Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, &ldquo;I rode past her open carriage,
+      the horses&rsquo; pace being intentionally reduced to a walk, and read the order
+      of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her bouquet in case we were
+      unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each other almost every
+      evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, to deceive the curious
+      and mislead the observant we had adopted a scheme of conduct: never to
+      look at each other; to avoid meeting; to speak ill of each other.
+      Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the disdained swain,—all these old
+      manoeuvres are not to compare on either part with a false passion
+      professed for an indifferent person and an air of indifference towards the
+      true idol. If two lovers will only play that game, the world will always
+      be deceived; but then they must be very secure of each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
+      sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
+      comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
+      circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us; six
+      years&rsquo; difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of my
+      fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I, on my
+      part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her knowledge
+      and her experience of the world, would have married her without a thought.
+      At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she had been the first to
+      speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might perhaps have noted it as
+      vulgar in that accomplished soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Six months, full and perfect—a diamond of the purest water! That has been
+      my portion of love in this base world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the beginning
+      of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret festivals
+      which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the sea. No
+      sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will not believe
+      that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy and
+      suspiciousness.—When jealousy is genuine,&rdquo; said de Marsay, interrupting
+      himself, &ldquo;it is the visible sign of an unique passion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unique and true love,&rdquo; said de Marsay, &ldquo;produces a sort of corporeal
+      apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind
+      complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns
+      them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as delightful as it is
+      distressing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the truth of
+      this remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides,&rdquo; de Marsay went on, &ldquo;I said to myself, why miss a happy hour?
+      Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she learns
+      that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and compromising
+      herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and carried it myself,
+      for my confidential servant was now gone. The river lay between us. I had
+      to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable distance of her house, I
+      caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to have the note sent up to her
+      at once, and I had the happy idea of driving past her door in a hackney
+      cab to see whether she might not by chance receive the two letters
+      together. At the moment when I arrived it was two o&rsquo;clock; the great gate
+      opened to admit a carriage. Whose?—That of the stalking-horse!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is fifteen years since—well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
+      exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
+      business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about my
+      diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage was
+      still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter&rsquo;s hands. At
+      last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could observe my
+      rival&rsquo;s expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he was in love,
+      and no doubt there was business in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her
+      calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought
+      that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man
+      who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when he
+      called his play &lsquo;The Moor of Venice.&rsquo; The sight of the woman we love is
+      such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt, and sorrow.
+      All my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this cheerfulness, which
+      at my age now would be the most atrocious dissimulation, was the result of
+      my youth and my love. My jealousy once buried, I had the power of
+      observation. My ailing condition was evident; the horrible doubts that had
+      fermented in me increased it. At last I found an opening for putting in
+      these words: &lsquo;You have had no one with you this morning?&rsquo; making a pretext
+      of the uneasiness I had felt in the fear lest she should have disposed of
+      her time after receiving my first note.—&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; she exclaimed, &lsquo;only a man
+      could have such ideas! As if I could think of anything but your suffering.
+      Till the moment when I received your second note I could think only of how
+      I could contrive to see you.&rsquo;—&lsquo;And you were alone?&rsquo;—&lsquo;Alone,&rsquo; said she,
+      looking at me with a face of innocence so perfect that it must have been
+      his distrust of such a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As
+      she lived alone in the house, the word was a fearful lie. One single lie
+      destroys the absolute confidence which to some souls is the very
+      foundation of happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
+      that we have an internal self of which the exterior I is but the husk;
+      that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade—well, that
+      beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in crape. Yes; I
+      felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-sheet of
+      experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
+      betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might not
+      observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my strength:
+      &lsquo;If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes to
+      an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me home with
+      the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a solicitude and
+      tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice whom I have taken
+      as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great child were to hesitate
+      two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator feels that he would ask
+      Desdemona&rsquo;s forgiveness. Thus, killing the woman is the act of a boy.—She
+      wept as we parted, so much was she distressed at being unable to nurse me
+      herself. She wished she were my valet, in whose happiness she found a
+      cause of envy, and all this was as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa
+      might have written in her happiness. There is always a precious ape in the
+      prettiest and most angelic woman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal truth
+      so brutally stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent,&rdquo; de Marsay went
+      on. &ldquo;I discovered that I was a statesman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,&rdquo;
+       said de Marsay, continuing his story, &ldquo;with infernal ingenuity—for, as we
+      had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges were
+      possible—I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I insensibly
+      formulated a horrible code—that of Indulgence. In taking vengeance on a
+      woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one for us, that we
+      cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way to win her back? If
+      she is not indispensable, if there are other women in the world, why not
+      grant her the right to change which we assume?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it would be
+      socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for indissoluble
+      marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes must be chained
+      up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law, deaf and mute.
+      Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing. Those who believe
+      that for them there is but one woman in the world must be in favor of
+      vengeance, and then there is but one form of it—that of Othello.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine was different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
+      newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words: great
+      sensation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung myself
+      into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a style of
+      beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took care not to
+      quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an actress, for I doubt
+      whether true love can give such gracious delights as those lavished by
+      such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is as good as virtue.—I am
+      not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady,&rdquo; said the Minister, suavely,
+      addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley&rsquo;s daughter. &ldquo;I tried to be the same
+      lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I went
+      to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher. The man had
+      a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his address for the
+      benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty of every kind and
+      every color. After I had explained my order, he showed me his work. I then
+      saw achievements of patience surpassing those which the story books
+      ascribe to fairies, or which are executed by prisoners. He brought me up
+      to date as to the caprices and fashions governing the use of hair. &lsquo;For
+      the last year,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;there has been a rage for marking linen with
+      hair; happily I had a fine collection of hair and skilled needlewomen,&rsquo;—on
+      hearing this a suspicion flashed upon me; I took out my handkerchief and
+      said, &lsquo;So this was done in your shop, with false hair?&rsquo;—He looked at the
+      handkerchief, and said, &lsquo;Ay! that lady was very particular, she insisted
+      on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife herself marked those
+      handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the finest pieces of work we
+      have ever executed.&rsquo; Before this last ray of light I might have believed
+      something—might have taken a woman&rsquo;s word. I left the shop still having
+      faith in pleasure, but where love was concerned I was as atheistical as a
+      mathematician.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in her
+      boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands—they were very
+      beautiful—and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest
+      flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a moment when
+      one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-room and there are
+      no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness, and when we are most in
+      love, love is so well aware of its own short duration that we are
+      irresistibly urged to ask, &lsquo;Do you love me? Will you love me always?&rsquo; I
+      seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so full-blown, to lead her
+      to tell her most delightful lies, in the enchanting language of love.
+      Charlotte displayed her choicest allurements: She could not live without
+      me; I was to her the only man in the world; she feared to weary me,
+      because my presence bereft her of all her wits; with me, all her faculties
+      were lost in love; she was indeed too tender to escape alarms; for the
+      last six months she had been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally,
+      and God alone knew that secret; in short, I was her god!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so well
+      acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes, and
+      mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable falsehoods,
+      as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, &lsquo;When are you to
+      marry the Duke?&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand lay so
+      tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not be disguised;
+      her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored her cheeks.—&lsquo;The
+      Duke! What do you mean?&rsquo; she said, affecting great astonishment.—&lsquo;I know
+      everything,&rsquo; replied I; &lsquo;and in my opinion, you should delay no longer; he
+      is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than devout, he is religious! I am
+      sure, therefore, that you have been faithful to me, thanks to his
+      scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently necessary it is that you should
+      compromise him with himself and with God; short of that you will never
+      bring him to the point.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Is this a dream?&rsquo; said she, pushing her hair
+      from her forehead, fifteen years before Malibran, with the gesture which
+      Malibran has made so famous.—&lsquo;Come, do not be childish, my angel,&rsquo; said I,
+      trying to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a little
+      prudish and indignant mein.—&lsquo;Marry him, you have my permission,&rsquo; said I,
+      replying to this gesture by using the formal vous instead of tu. &lsquo;Nay,
+      better, I beg you to do so.&rsquo;—&lsquo;But,&rsquo; cried she, falling at my knees, &lsquo;there
+      is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world but you; you may
+      demand any proofs you please.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Rise, my dear,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;and do me the
+      honor of being truthful.&rsquo;—&lsquo;As before God.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Do you doubt my
+      love?&rsquo;—&lsquo;No.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Nor my fidelity?&rsquo;—&lsquo;No.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, I have committed the greatest
+      crime,&rsquo; I went on. &lsquo;I have doubted your love and your fidelity. Between
+      two intoxications I looked calmly about me.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Calmly!&rsquo; sighed she. &lsquo;That
+      is enough, Henri; you no longer love me.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
+      like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her add:
+      &lsquo;And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting in public?
+      Have you detected in my eyes——?&rsquo;—&lsquo;No,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;but in his. And you have
+      eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d&rsquo;Aquin to see you listening to the
+      same mass as he.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; she exclaimed, &lsquo;then I have made you jealous!&rsquo;—Oh!
+      I only wish I could be!&rsquo; said I, admiring the pliancy of her quick
+      intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can only be successful in
+      the eyes of the blind. &lsquo;But by dint of going to church I have become very
+      incredulous. On the day of my first cold, and your first treachery, when
+      you thought I was in bed, you received the Duke, and you told me you had
+      seen no one.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Do you know that your conduct is infamous?&rsquo;—&lsquo;In what
+      respect? I consider your marriage to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he
+      gives you a great name, the only rank that suits you, a brilliant and
+      distinguished position. You will be one of the queens of Paris. I should
+      be doing you a wrong if I placed any obstacle in the way of this prospect,
+      this distinguished life, this splendid alliance. Ah! Charlotte, some day
+      you will do me justice by discovering how unlike my character is to that
+      of other young men. You would have been compelled to deceive me; yes, you
+      would have found it very difficult to break with me, for he watches you.
+      It is time that we should part, for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must
+      turn prude; I advise you to do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of
+      his wife.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; cried she, bursting into tears, &lsquo;Henri, if only you had
+      spoken! Yes, if you had chosen&rsquo;—it was I who was to blame, you
+      understand—&lsquo;we would have gone to live all our days in a corner, married,
+      happy, and defied the world.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, it is too late now,&rsquo; said I, kissing
+      her hands, and putting on a victimized air.—&lsquo;Good God! But I can undo it
+      all!&rsquo; said she.—&lsquo;No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I ought indeed
+      to go a journey to part us more effectually. We should both have reason to
+      fear our own affection——&rsquo;—&lsquo;Henri, do you think the Duke has any
+      suspicions?&rsquo; I was still &lsquo;Henri,&rsquo; but the tu was lost for ever.—&lsquo;I do not
+      think so,&rsquo; I replied, assuming the manner of a friend; &lsquo;but be as devout
+      as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke waits for proofs; he
+      hesitates, you must bring him to the point.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
+      agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming the
+      new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her hand,
+      and said in a voice broken by emotion, &lsquo;Well, Henri, you are loyal, noble,
+      and a charming man; I shall never forget you.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition of
+      feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to place
+      herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the
+      look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly assumed
+      dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me along almost,
+      threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a moment&rsquo;s silence,
+      &lsquo;I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you love me?&rsquo;—&lsquo;Oh!
+      yes.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, then, what will become of you?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point the women all looked at each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at her
+      expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must die, or
+      at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy,&rdquo; de Marsay went on. &ldquo;Oh! do
+      not laugh yet!&rdquo; he said to his listeners; &ldquo;there is better to come. I
+      looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her, &lsquo;Yes, that is
+      what I have been wondering.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Well, what will you do?&rsquo;—&lsquo;I asked myself
+      that the day after my cold.&rsquo;—&lsquo;And——?&rsquo; she asked with eager anxiety.—&lsquo;And I
+      have made advances to the little lady to whom I was supposed to be
+      attached.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling like
+      a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their dignity,
+      all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the sparkling
+      glitter of a hunted viper&rsquo;s eye when driven into a corner, and said, &lsquo;And
+      I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have——&rsquo; On this last thought,
+      which I leave you to guess, she made the most impressive pause I ever
+      heard.—&lsquo;Good God!&rsquo; she cried, &lsquo;how unhappy are we women! we never can be
+      loved. To you there is nothing serious in the purest feelings. But never
+      mind; when you cheat us you still are our dupes!&rsquo;—&lsquo;I see that plainly,&rsquo;
+      said I, with a stricken air; &lsquo;you have far too much wit in your anger for
+      your heart to suffer from it.&lsquo;—This modest epigram increased her rage; she
+      found some tears of vexation. &lsquo;You disgust me with the world and with
+      life.&rsquo; she said; &lsquo;you snatch away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simple
+      effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailed any man
+      but me on the spot.—&lsquo;What is to become of us poor women in a state of
+      society such as Louis XVIII.&lsquo;s charter made it?&rsquo;—(Imagine how her words
+      had run away with her.)—&lsquo;Yes, indeed, we are born to suffer. In matters of
+      passion we are always superior to you, and you are beneath all loyalty.
+      There is no honesty in your hearts. To you love is a game in which you
+      always cheat.&rsquo;—&lsquo;My dear,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;to take anything serious in society
+      nowadays would be like making romantic love to an actress.&rsquo;—&lsquo;What a
+      shameless betrayal! It was deliberately planned!&rsquo;—&lsquo;No, only a rational
+      issue.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,&rsquo; said she; &lsquo;you have deceived me
+      horribly.&rsquo;—&lsquo;Surely,&rsquo; I replied, taking up a submissive attitude, &lsquo;Madame
+      la Duchesse will not remember Charlotte&rsquo;s grievances?&rsquo;—&lsquo;Certainly,&rsquo; she
+      answered bitterly.—&lsquo;Then, in fact, you hate me?&rsquo;—She bowed, and I said to
+      myself, &lsquo;There is something still left!&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe that
+      she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have carefully
+      studied the lives of men who have had great success with women, but I do
+      not believe that the Maréchal de Richelieu, or Lauzun, or Louis de Valois
+      ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first attempt. As to my mind
+      and heart, they were cast in a mould then and there, once for all, and the
+      power of control I thus acquired over the thoughtless impulses which make
+      us commit so many follies gained me the admirable presence of mind you all
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How deeply I pity the second!&rdquo; exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay&rsquo;s pale lips made Delphine de
+      Nucingen color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How we do forget!&rdquo; said the Baron de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great banker&rsquo;s simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife, who
+      was de Marsay&rsquo;s &ldquo;second,&rdquo; could not help laughing like every one else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are all ready to condemn the woman,&rdquo; said Lady Dudley. &ldquo;Well, I quite
+      understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act of inconstancy.
+      Men will never distinguish between constancy and fidelity.—I know the
+      woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told us, and she is one of the
+      last of your truly great ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! my lady, you are right,&rdquo; replied de Marsay. &ldquo;For very nearly fifty
+      years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all social
+      distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great wreck, but
+      the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their heads. However
+      terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are vanishing, and
+      marquises too! As to the baronesses—I must apologize to Madame de
+      Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is made a peer of
+      France—baronesses have never succeeded in getting people to take them
+      seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,&rdquo; said Blondet with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Countesses will survive,&rdquo; said de Marsay. &ldquo;An elegant woman will be more
+      or less of a countess—a countess of the Empire or of yesterday, a countess
+      of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by courtesy. But as
+      to the great lady, she died out with the dignified splendor of the last
+      century, with powder, patches, high-heeled slippers, and stiff bodices
+      with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses in these days can pass through a
+      door without any need to widen it for their hoops. The Empire saw the last
+      of gowns with trains! I am still puzzled to understand how a sovereign who
+      wished to see his drawing-room swept by ducal satin and velvet did not
+      make indestructible laws. Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code
+      he was so proud of. That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of
+      our &lsquo;ladies&rsquo; of to-day—the indirect offspring of his legislation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and by
+      obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social state,&rdquo;
+       said the Comte de Vandenesse. &ldquo;In these days every rogue who can hold his
+      head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an ell of
+      satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius gleams
+      under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps graced by
+      silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into one of his
+      eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be an attorney&rsquo;s
+      clerk, a contractor&rsquo;s son, or a banker&rsquo;s bastard, he stares impertinently
+      at the prettiest duchess, appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says
+      to his friend—dressed by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in
+      patent-leather like any duke himself—&lsquo;There, my boy, that is a perfect
+      lady.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not known how to form a party,&rdquo; said Lord Dudley; &ldquo;it will be a
+      long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in France
+      about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized property. So this
+      is what happens: Any duke—and even in the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles
+      X. there were some left who had two hundred thousand francs a year, a
+      magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train of servants—well, such a duke
+      could live like a great lord. The last of these great gentlemen in France
+      was the Prince de Talleyrand.—This duke leaves four children, two of them
+      girls. Granting that he has great luck in marrying them all well, each of
+      these descendants will have but sixty or eighty thousand francs a year
+      now; each is the father or mother of children, and consequently obliged to
+      live with the strictest economy in a flat on the ground floor or first
+      floor of a large house. Who knows if they may not even be hunting a
+      fortune? Henceforth the eldest son&rsquo;s wife, a duchess in name only, has no
+      carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time to herself. She has not her own
+      rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty toys; she is
+      buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little children, nurses them
+      herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer sends to school
+      at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been turned into worthy
+      brood-hens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! it is true,&rdquo; said Joseph Bridau. &ldquo;In our day we cannot show those
+      beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the French
+      Monarchy. The great lady&rsquo;s fan is broken. A woman has nothing now to blush
+      for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal it. A fan is
+      of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is no more than
+      what it is, it is too useful to be a form of luxury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything in France has aided and abetted the &lsquo;perfect lady,&rsquo;&rdquo; said
+      Daniel d&rsquo;Arthez. &ldquo;The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating to
+      the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
+      die—emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
+      lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded European
+      salons, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out like a glove,
+      could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or of intellect who
+      ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of abandoning their
+      ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against the citizen class
+      drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of the world, there to
+      be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are at its heels. Hence,
+      where the middle class insist on seeing princesses, these are really only
+      ladylike young women. In these days princes can find no great ladies whom
+      they may compromise; they cannot even confer honor on a woman taken up at
+      random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last prince to avail himself of this
+      privilege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it,&rdquo; said Lord Dudley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box
+      with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair&rsquo;s
+      breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen class
+      and those of the nobility—not altogether noble nor altogether
+      bourgeoises,&rdquo; said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The press has fallen heir to the Woman,&rdquo; exclaimed Rastignac. &ldquo;She no
+      longer has the quality of a spoken feuilleton—delightful calumnies graced
+      by elegant language. We read feuilletons written in a dialect which
+      changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as an
+      undertaker&rsquo;s mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
+      conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in a
+      revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old mansions
+      where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant company used to
+      meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The knell of the highest society is tolling,&rdquo; said a Russian Prince. &ldquo;Do
+      you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, Prince,&rdquo; said de Marsay. &ldquo;The &lsquo;perfect lady,&rsquo; issuing from
+      the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and the
+      product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of these
+      times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit, and
+      distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great ladies
+      in France, but there will be &lsquo;ladies&rsquo; for a long time, elected by public
+      opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among the fair
+      sex what a &lsquo;gentleman&rsquo; is in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that they call progress!&rdquo; exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. &ldquo;I
+      should like to know where the progress lies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, in this,&rdquo; said Madame de Nucingen. &ldquo;Formerly a woman might have the
+      voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an impudent
+      courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a thick
+      hand—she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days, even if
+      she were a Montmorency—if a Montmorency would ever be such a creature—she
+      would not be a lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what do you mean by a &lsquo;perfect lady&rsquo;?&rdquo; asked Count Adam Laginski.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system as
+      applied to the fair sex,&rdquo; said the Minister. &ldquo;Every revolution has a word
+      of its own which epitomizes and depicts it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
+      reputation in Paris. &ldquo;The explanation of certain words added from time to
+      time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
+      Organize, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up Napoleon
+      completely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!&rdquo; the young Pole
+      exclaimed, with some impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I will tell you,&rdquo; said Émile Blondet to Count Adam. &ldquo;One fine
+      morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has not
+      yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance at her
+      is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a world of
+      elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale in his pursuit
+      of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have at last found a
+      rare flower. This woman is attended by two very distinguished-looking men,
+      of whom one, at any rate, wears an order; or else a servant out of livery
+      follows her at a distance of ten yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no
+      open-worked stockings, no over-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered
+      frills to her drawers fussing round her ankles. You will see that she is
+      shod with prunella shoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton
+      stockings, or plain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the
+      most exquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat and
+      inexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises more than one woman
+      of the middle class; it is almost always a long pelisse, with bows to
+      fasten it, and neatly bound with fine cord or an imperceptible braid. The
+      Unknown has a way of her own in wrapping herself in her shawl or mantilla;
+      she knows how to draw it round her from her hips to her neck, outlining a
+      carapace, as it were, which would make an ordinary woman look like a
+      turtle, but which in her sets off the most beautiful forms while
+      concealing them. How does she do it? This secret she keeps, though
+      unguarded by any patent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious twist,
+      which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under the stuff, as
+      a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass. Is it to an angel
+      or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation which plays under her
+      long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill, sheds an airy balm, and what I
+      should like to call the breeze of a Parisienne? You may recognize over her
+      arms, round her waist, about her throat, a science of drapery recalling
+      the antique Mnemosyne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! how thoroughly she understands the cut of her gait—forgive the
+      expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her skirt
+      with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
+      admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
+      Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
+      forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for walking.
+      The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with proud
+      humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to a well-bred
+      woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her shawl or cloak
+      crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a little air of serene
+      dignity, like Raphael&rsquo;s Madonnas in their frames. Her aspect, at once
+      quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent dandy step aside for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp ribbons;
+      there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women wear only
+      bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy. Beneath it you
+      see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without conceit, is sure of
+      herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything; whose vanity, satiated
+      by being constantly gratified, stamps her face with an indifference which
+      piques your curiosity. She knows that she is looked at, she knows that
+      everybody, even women, turn round to see her again. And she threads her
+      way through Paris like a gossamer, spotless and pure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
+      longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th Arcade
+      of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the equator of
+      the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India flourish, where the
+      warmest creations of industry are displayed, to the Cape of the Madeleine;
+      in the least muddy districts of the citizen quarters, between No. 30 and
+      No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. During the winter, she haunts
+      the terrace of the Feuillants, but not the asphalt pavement that lies
+      parallel. According to the weather, she may be seen flying in the Avenue
+      of the Champs-Élyseés, which is bounded on the east by the Place Louis
+      XV., on the west by the Avenue de Marigny, to the south by the road, to
+      the north by the gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Never is this
+      pretty variety of woman to be seen in the hyperborean regions of the Rue
+      Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of miry, narrow, commercial streets,
+      never anywhere in bad weather. These flowers of Paris, blooming only in
+      Oriental weather, perfume the highways; and after five o&rsquo;clock fold up
+      like morning-glory flowers. The women you will see later, looking a little
+      like them, are would-be ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a
+      day, is a &lsquo;perfect lady.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
+      differences by which the observer emeritus distinguishes them—women are
+      such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of Parisians:
+      hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white tape through a
+      gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed bonnet-strings, an
+      over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see a certain effort in the
+      intentional droop of the eyelid. There is something conventional in the
+      attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As to the bourgeoise, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
+      mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling, and
+      goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not know
+      whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady knows just
+      what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is undecided, tucks
+      up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand, which
+      compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in public, and
+      talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has open-work
+      stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her fur cloak; in
+      summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the redundancies of
+      dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opéra, at a
+      ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you would
+      think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged from
+      those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon. She
+      serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms which
+      her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she never
+      mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens. You can
+      there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her movements.
+      The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political artifices of
+      her sex so naturally as to exclude all idea of art or premeditation. If
+      she has a royally beautiful hand, the most perspicacious beholder will
+      believe that it is absolutely necessary that she should twist, or refix,
+      or push aside the ringlet or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity
+      of profile, you will be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to
+      what she says to her neighbor, sitting in such a position as to produce
+      the magical effect of the &lsquo;lost profile,&rsquo; so dear to great painters, by
+      which the cheek catches the high light, the nose is shown in clear
+      outline, the nostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead squarely
+      modeled, the eye has its spangle of fire, but fixed on space, and the
+      white roundness of the chin is accentuated by a line of light. If she has
+      a pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa with the coquettish grace
+      of a cat in the sunshine, her feet outstretched without your feeling that
+      her attitude is anything but the most charming model ever given to a
+      sculptor by lassitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
+      inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the citizen
+      class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a
+      rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office of
+      faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing in
+      the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place. Her toilet is
+      always in harmony with her character; she had had time to study herself,
+      to learn what becomes her, for she has long known what does not suit her.
+      You will not find her as you go out; she vanishes before the end of the
+      play. If by chance she is to be seen, calm and stately, on the stairs, she
+      is experiencing some violent emotion; she has to bestow a glance, to
+      receive a promise. Perhaps she goes down so slowly on purpose to gratify
+      the vanity of a slave whom she sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes
+      place at a ball or an evening party, you will gather the honey, natural or
+      affected of her insinuating voice; her empty words will enchant you, and
+      she will know how to give them the value of thought by her inimitable
+      bearing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?&rdquo; asked the
+      Polish Count.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is necessary to have great taste,&rdquo; replied the Princesse de Cadignan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And in France taste is more than cleverness,&rdquo; said the Russian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This woman&rsquo;s cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,&rdquo; Blondet
+      went on. &ldquo;You will not know what she said, but you will be fascinated. She
+      will toss her head, or gently shrug her white shoulders; she will gild an
+      insignificant speech with a charming pout and smile; or throw a Voltairean
+      epigram into an &lsquo;Indeed!&rsquo; an &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; a &lsquo;What then!&rsquo; A jerk of her head will
+      be her most pertinent form of questioning; she will give meaning to the
+      movement by which she twirls a vinaigrette hanging to her finger by a
+      ring. She gets an artificial grandeur out of superlative trivialities; she
+      simply drops her hand impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her
+      chair as dewdrops hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said—she has
+      pronounced judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the most obtuse.
+      She knows how to listen to you; she gives you the opportunity of shining,
+      and—I ask your modesty—those moments are rare?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made all
+      the party shout with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a bourgeoise without her
+      alluding to her husband in one way or another,&rdquo; Blondet went on with
+      unperturbed gravity; &ldquo;whereas, even if you know that your lady is married,
+      she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so effectually that it
+      will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus to discover him. Often
+      you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If you have had no opportunity
+      of inquiring, towards the end of the evening you detect her gazing fixedly
+      at a middle-aged man wearing a decoration, who bows and goes out. She has
+      ordered her carriage, and goes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go to bed
+      under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last perhaps
+      after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates of the
+      temple of dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
+      enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find everything
+      in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly renewed; you will
+      see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings hanging about, and
+      looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase warmed. Flowers on all
+      sides will charm your sight—flowers, the only gift she accepts, and those
+      only from certain people, for nosegays live but a day; they give pleasure,
+      and must be replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a symbol and a
+      promise. The costly toys of fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a
+      museum or a curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low
+      chair, from which she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now be
+      what it was at the ball; there she was our creditor; in her own home she
+      owes you the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of which the lady
+      is a marvelous mistress. What she likes in you is a man to swell her
+      circle, an object for the cares and attentions which such women are now
+      happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to her drawing-room, she will
+      be bewitchingly charming. This especially is where you feel how isolated
+      women are nowadays, and why they want a little world of their own, to
+      which they may seem a constellation. Conversation is impossible without
+      generalities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said de Marsay, &ldquo;you have truly hit the fault of our age. The
+      epigram—a volume in a word—no longer strikes, as it did in the eighteenth
+      century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events, and it dies in a
+      day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hence,&rdquo; said Blondet, &ldquo;the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
+      consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great difference
+      between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous; the lady does not
+      know yet whether she is, or whether she always will be; she hesitates and
+      struggles where the other refuses point-blank and falls full length. This
+      hesitancy in everything is one of the last graces left to her by our
+      horrible times. She rarely goes to church, but she will talk to you of
+      religion; and if you have the good taste to affect Free-thought, she will
+      try to convert you, for you will have opened the way for the stereotyped
+      phrases, the head-shaking and gestures understood by all these women: &lsquo;For
+      shame! I thought you had too much sense to attack religion. Society is
+      tottering, and you deprive it of its support. Why, religion at this moment
+      means you and me; it is property, and the future of our children! Ah! let
+      us not be selfish! Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion
+      is the only remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,&rsquo; and
+      so forth. Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with
+      political notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant—but moral? Oh!
+      deuced moral!—in which you may recognize a fag end of every material woven
+      by modern doctrines, at loggerheads together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet illustrated
+      his satire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This explanation, dear Count Adam,&rdquo; said Blondet, turning to the Pole,
+      &ldquo;will have proved to you that the &lsquo;perfect lady&rsquo; represents the
+      intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is surrounded
+      by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry which is always
+      aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it by something else.
+      When you leave her you say to yourself: She certainly has superior ideas!
+      And you believe it all the more because she will have sounded your heart
+      with a delicate touch, and have asked you your secrets; she affects
+      ignorance, to learn everything; there are some things she never knows, not
+      even when she knows them. You alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing
+      of the state of her heart. The great ladies of old flaunted their
+      love-affairs, with newspapers and advertisements; in these days the lady
+      has her little passion neatly ruled like a sheet of music with its
+      crotchets and quavers and minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps to
+      sign the key. A mere weak women, she is anxious not to compromise her
+      love, or her husband, or the future of her children. Name, position, and
+      fortune are no longer flags so respected as to protect all kinds of
+      merchandise on board. The whole aristocracy no longer advances in a body
+      to screen the lady. She has not, like the great lady of the past, the
+      demeanor of lofty antagonism; she can crush nothing under foot, it is she
+      who would be crushed. Thus she is apt at Jesuitical <i>mezzo termine</i>,
+      she is a creature of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties, of
+      anonymous passions steered between two reef-bound shores. She is as much
+      afraid of her servants as an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a trial in
+      the divorce-court. This woman—so free at a ball, so attractive out
+      walking—is a slave at home; she is never independent but in perfect
+      privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve herself in her position as a
+      lady. This is her task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
+      allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the divine
+      accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a townswoman;
+      she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will not receive a
+      married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still have anything to
+      say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect lady may perhaps give
+      occasion to calumny, never to slander.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all so horribly true,&rdquo; said the Princesse de Cadignan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so,&rdquo; said Blondet, &ldquo;our &lsquo;perfect lady&rsquo; lives between English
+      hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century—a bastard
+      system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up is at all
+      like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads nowhere,
+      everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures shrink into the
+      background, and distinction is purely personal. I am fully convinced that
+      it is impossible for a woman, even if she were born close to a throne, to
+      acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the encyclopaedic knowledge of
+      trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the important small things, the
+      musical tones and harmony of coloring, the angelic bedevilments and
+      innocent cunning, the speech and the silence, the seriousness and the
+      banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the diplomacy and the ignorance which
+      make up the perfect lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn,&rdquo; said
+      Mademoiselle des Touches to Émile Blondet, &ldquo;would you class the female
+      author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman <i>comme il faut?</i>&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When she has no genius, she is a woman <i>comme il n&rsquo;en faut pas</i>,&rdquo;
+       Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which might
+      make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. &ldquo;This epigram
+      is not mine, but Napoleon&rsquo;s,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score,&rdquo; said Canalis, with
+      an emphatic tone and gesture. &ldquo;It was one of his weaknesses to be jealous
+      of literary genius—for he had his mean points. Who will ever explain,
+      depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms folded,
+      and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known, the most
+      concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces; a singular
+      genius who carried armed civilization in every direction without fixing it
+      anywhere; a man who could do everything because he willed everything; a
+      prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle, and yet
+      doomed to die of disease in bed after living in the midst of ball and
+      bullets; a man with a code and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a
+      clear-sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his own fall; a
+      capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who
+      spared three heads—those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of
+      Metternich, diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire,
+      and who seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man
+      to whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of
+      bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning
+      manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water
+      in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity;
+      devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these
+      antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by temperament;
+      Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer
+      buried in Père Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, he
+      improvised public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance—and all
+      with more range than precision. Did he not aim at making all Europe
+      France? And after making us weigh on the earth in such a way as to change
+      the laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on the day when he first
+      laid hands on us; while he, who had taken an empire by his name, lost his
+      name on the frontier of his empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man
+      all thought and all action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouché.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!&rdquo; said
+      de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk,&rdquo; said Baron de
+      Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?&rdquo;
+       asked Joseph Bridau. &ldquo;If you had to pay for the charms of conversation as
+      you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be inadequate!
+      There is no second performance of the same flash of wit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?&rdquo; said
+      the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at once
+      sceptical and ironical. &ldquo;Because, in these days, under a regime which
+      makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms, small
+      pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does that prove
+      that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human heart change
+      because you change your coat? In all ages the passions remain the same. I
+      know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime sufferings, which lack the
+      publicity—the glory, if you choose—which formerly gave lustre to the
+      errors of some women. But though one may not have saved a King of France,
+      one is not the less an Agnès Sorel. Do you believe that our dear Marquise
+      d&rsquo;Espard is not the peer of Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whose
+      rooms so much evil was spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a match for
+      Camargo? or Malibran the equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets
+      superior to those of the eighteenth century? If at this moment, through
+      the fault of the Grocers who govern us, we have not a style of our own,
+      had not the Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age of Louis XV. had,
+      and was not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences lost anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
+      great,&rdquo; replied the Comte de Vandenesse. &ldquo;When posterity shall have
+      followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine as
+      those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
+      history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but one
+      Madame de Sévigné; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly write
+      better than she did, and who do not publish their letters. Whether the
+      Frenchwoman be called &lsquo;perfect lady,&rsquo; or great lady, she will always be
+      the woman among women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Émile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman of
+      the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who chirps
+      out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it must be
+      said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical, because they must
+      always and under all circumstances be surrounded by greater perils. I have
+      seen much of the world, I have studied it perhaps too late; but in cases
+      where the illegality of your feelings might be excused, I have always
+      observed the effects of I know not what chance—which you may call
+      Providence—inevitably overwhelming such as we consider light women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; said Madame de Vandenesse, &ldquo;that we can be great in other
+      ways——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!&rdquo; exclaimed Madame de
+      Serizy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
+      example,&rdquo; said the Baronne de Nucingen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On my honor!&rdquo; said General de Montriveau, &ldquo;in all the dramas—a word you
+      are very fond of,&rdquo; he said, looking at Blondet—&ldquo;in which the finger of God
+      has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was very near being by my
+      act——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, tell us all about it!&rdquo; cried Lady Barimore; &ldquo;I love to shudder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the taste of a virtuous woman,&rdquo; replied de Marsay, looking at Lord
+      Dudley&rsquo;s lovely daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;During the campaign of 1812,&rdquo; General de Montriveau began, &ldquo;I was the
+      involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
+      Doctor Bianchon,&rdquo; turning to me, &ldquo;since, while devoting yourself to the
+      human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may tend to
+      solve some of the problems of the will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed at
+      everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that I was.
+      When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost all
+      discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley of men
+      of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to south. The
+      soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away from their fire
+      if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the passage of this famous
+      river disorder did not diminish. I had come quietly and alone, without
+      food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was wandering in search of a house
+      where I might be taken in. Finding none or driven away from those I came
+      across, happily towards evening I perceived a wretched little Polish farm,
+      of which nothing can give you any idea unless you have seen the wooden
+      houses of Lower Normandy, or the poorest farm-buildings of la Beauce.
+      These dwellings consist of a single room, with one end divided off by a
+      wooden partition, the smaller division serving as a store-room for forage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising above
+      this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more compassionate than
+      those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as far as the farm. On
+      going in, I found the table laid. Several officers, and with them a
+      woman—a common sight enough—were eating potatoes, some horseflesh broiled
+      over the charcoal, and some frozen beetroots. I recognized among the
+      company two or three artillery captains of the regiment in which I had
+      first served. I was welcomed with a shout of acclamation, which would have
+      amazed me greatly on the other side of the Beresina; but at this moment
+      the cold was less intense; my fellow-officers were resting, they were
+      warm, they had food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the
+      promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in those days.
+      My comrades could be philanthropists gratis—one of the commonest ways of
+      being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of the bundles of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the smaller
+      room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the most
+      extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of men it has
+      been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature is
+      truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime. I do not know
+      whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of Italians when they
+      are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an artificial light. When I
+      read the fantastical portrait of Colonel Oudet sketched by Charles Nodier,
+      I found my own sensations in every one of his elegant phrases. Italian,
+      then, as were most of the officers of his regiment, which had, in fact,
+      been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene&rsquo;s army, my colonel was a tall
+      man, at least eight or nine inches above the standard, and was admirably
+      proportioned—a little stout perhaps, but prodigiously powerful, active,
+      and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His black hair in abundant curls showed
+      up his complexion, as white as a woman&rsquo;s; he had small hands, a shapely
+      foot, a pleasant mouth, and an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which
+      the tip used to become naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry,
+      as happened often. His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I will
+      tell you nothing about it; you will have the opportunity of judging of it.
+      No one could be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of
+      him; he had indeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought
+      everything I did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the
+      muscles of the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more
+      explicit, in Redgauntlet&rsquo;s horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more
+      terrifying than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame
+      quivered, and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became
+      almost unbounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful as
+      that of Charles Nordier&rsquo;s Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of tone into
+      the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was sounded. Though this
+      faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding his men, or
+      when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had heard it, what
+      force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so common. When the
+      Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically sweet, and his
+      smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade, or with the army of
+      Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed, d&rsquo;Orsay himself, the
+      handsome d&rsquo;Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on the occasion of the last
+      review held by Napoleon before the invasion of Russia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives on
+      contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
+      irresistible influences to which our nature yields&rdquo;—and the general looked
+      at the Princesse de Cadignan—&ldquo;as vitreous matter is moulded under the pipe
+      of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality—an observer might
+      perhaps explain the phenomenon—the Colonel was not a lady-killer, or was
+      indifferent to such successes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words what
+      I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our guns up a
+      very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one side, and by
+      thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met another regiment of
+      artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This colonel wanted to make
+      the captain who was at the head of our foremost battery back down again.
+      The captain, of course, refused; but the colonel of the other regiment
+      signed to his foremost battery to advance, and in spite of the care the
+      driver took to keep among the scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our
+      captain&rsquo;s right leg and broke it, throwing him over on the near side of
+      his horse. All this was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a
+      little way off, guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding
+      among the guns at the risk of falling with his horse&rsquo;s four feet in the
+      air, and reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the
+      very moment when the captain fell, calling out &lsquo;Help!&rsquo; No, our Italian
+      colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne rose to his
+      lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering a word,
+      or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist, pointing to
+      the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went aside. In two
+      seconds we saw our Colonel&rsquo;s opponent stretched on the ground, his skull
+      split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed—yes, by heaven, and
+      pretty quickly too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in the
+      puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife, a
+      beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our Colonel.
+      This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to protect the
+      husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the woman herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
+      captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end of
+      the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named
+      Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her black
+      almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her face was
+      covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a highroad.
+      Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in disorder, and
+      clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close over her head, still
+      she had the graces of a woman; her movements were engaging, her small rose
+      mouth and white teeth, the outline of her features and figure, charms
+      which misery, cold, and neglect had not altogether defaced, still
+      suggested love to any man who could think of a woman. Rosina had one of
+      those frames which are fragile in appearance, but wiry and full of spring.
+      Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical
+      simplicity, if it is allowable to ally the two words. Brave and well
+      informed, he seemed to know nothing of the connections which had subsisted
+      between his wife and the Colonel for three years past. I ascribed this
+      unconcern to Italian manners, or to some domestic secret; yet there was in
+      the man&rsquo;s countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary
+      distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned down at
+      the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a
+      streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I went
+      in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me some
+      questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with reflections on
+      the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians, and the cold. A
+      minute after my arrival the colonel, having finished his meagre meal,
+      wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot a black look at the Italian
+      woman, saying, &lsquo;Rosina?&rsquo; and then, without waiting for a reply, went into
+      the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel&rsquo;s
+      utterance was self-evident. The young wife replied by an indescribable
+      gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not feel at seeing her
+      thralldom thus flaunted without human decency, and the offence to her
+      dignity as a woman, and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid
+      setting of her features and the tight knitting of her brows a sort of
+      presentiment; perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch of
+      straw or hay, he repeated, &lsquo;Rosina?&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than the
+      first. The Colonel&rsquo;s strong burr, and the length which the Italian
+      language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable, concentrated
+      all the man&rsquo;s despotism, impatience, and strength of will. Rosina turned
+      pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at them
+      all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.—&lsquo;Tu ridi?—you laugh?&rsquo;
+      said the husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;On my honor, old comrade,&rsquo; said I, becoming serious again, &lsquo;I confess
+      that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if you are not
+      satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you satisfaction.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!&rsquo; he replied coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
+      asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
+      companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness which made
+      our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking, melancholy, and
+      horror which ever was enacted under heaven. Nevertheless, at about seven
+      or eight hundred paces from our shelter we, most of us, met again and
+      walked on together, like geese led in flocks by a child&rsquo;s wilful tyranny.
+      The same necessity urged us all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where we
+      had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions in the
+      desert, the bellowing of bulls—no, it was a noise which can be compared to
+      no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and ominous roar, we
+      could hear a woman&rsquo;s feeble scream. We all looked round, seized by I know
+      not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw the house, but a huge
+      bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and was in flames. Swirls of
+      smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse cries and an indescribable
+      pungent smell. A few yards behind, the captain was quietly approaching to
+      join our caravan; we gazed at him in silence, for no one dared question
+      him; but he, understanding our curiosity, pointed to his breast with the
+      forefinger of his right hand, and, waving the left in the direction of the
+      fire, he said, &lsquo;<i>Son&rsquo;io</i>.&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all walked on without saying a word to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep,&rdquo; said de
+      Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in our
+      memory,&rdquo; said Madame de Montcornet. &ldquo;I shall dream of it——&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay&rsquo;s &lsquo;First&rsquo;?&rdquo; said Lord
+      Dudley, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on,&rdquo; said
+      Blondet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying,&rdquo; replied de Marsay,
+      turning to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever saw. The
+      Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman&rsquo;s pillow; pulmonary
+      consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken the sacrament
+      the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess, waking at about
+      four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching way, with a
+      friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she meanwhile was about
+      to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her face had preserved its
+      really sublime outline and features. Her pallor made her skin look like
+      porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes and color contrasted with
+      this languidly elegant complexion, and her countenance was full of
+      expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke, and the feeling had its
+      origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death approached, seemed to know no
+      bounds. The silence was absolute. The room, softly lighted by a lamp,
+      looked like every sickroom at the hour of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair at
+      having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by which he
+      manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his wife for a few
+      of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite certain that any
+      one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it. A busy statesman,
+      always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke had a thousand odd
+      ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of genius being mistaken
+      for a madman, and of which the explanation lies in the exquisiteness and
+      exacting needs of their intellect. He came to seat himself in an armchair
+      by his wife&rsquo;s side, and looked fixedly at her. The dying woman put her
+      hand out a little way, took her husband&rsquo;s and clasped it feebly; and in a
+      low but agitated voice she said, &lsquo;My poor dear, who is left to understand
+      you now?&rsquo; Then she died, looking at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The stories the doctor tells us,&rdquo; said the Comte de Vandenesse, &ldquo;always
+      leave a deep impression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But a sweet one,&rdquo; said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PARIS, June 1839-42.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+  Bianchon, Horace  Father Goriot
+    The Atheist&rsquo;s Mass
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Government Clerks
+    Pierrette
+    A Study of Woman
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Honorine
+    The Seamy Side of History
+    The Magic Skin
+    A Second Home
+    A Prince of Bohemia
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Muse of the Department
+    The Imaginary Mistress
+    The Middle Classes
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Country Parson
+  In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:  La Grande Breteche
+
+  Blondet, Émile  Jealousies of a Country Town
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    The Peasantry
+
+  Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)  Jealousies of a Country Town
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Peasantry
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    The Member for Arcis
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+  Bridau, Joseph  The Purse
+    A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Start in Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    Pierre Grassou
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de  Letters of Two Brides
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Magic Skin
+    A Start in Life
+    Beatrix
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Dudley, Lord  The Lily of the Valley
+    The Thirteen
+    A Man of Business
+    A Daughter of Eve
+
+  Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d&rsquo;
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    Beatrix
+
+  Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas  The Imaginary Mistress
+    Cousin Betty
+
+  Marsay, Henri de  The Thirteen
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+    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
+
+  Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de  The Secrets of a Princess
+    Modeste Mignon
+    Jealousies of a Country Town
+    The Muse of the Department
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de  The Thirteen
+    Father Goriot
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Pierrette
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Nucingen, Baron Frederic de  The Firm of Nucingen
+    Father Goriot
+    Pierrette
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Man of Business
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Muse of the Department
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+
+  Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de  Father Goriot
+    The Thirteen
+    Eugenie Grandet
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Melmoth Reconciled
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    Modeste Mignon
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de  Ursule Mirouet
+    Beatrix
+
+  Rastignac, Eugene de  Father Goriot
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+    The Ball at Sceaux
+    The Commission in Lunacy
+    A Study of Woman
+    The Magic Skin
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    The Firm of Nucingen
+    Cousin Betty
+    The Member for Arcis
+    The Unconscious Humorists
+
+  Ronquerolles, Marquis de  The Imaginary Mistress
+    The Peasantry
+    Ursule Mirouet
+    A Woman of Thirty
+    The Thirteen
+    The Member for Arcis
+
+  Serizy, Comtesse de  A Start in Life
+    The Thirteen
+    Ursule Mirouet
+    A Woman of Thirty
+    Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+    The Imaginary Mistress
+
+  Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des  Beatrix
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+    A Daughter of Eve
+    Honorine
+    Beatrix
+    The Muse of the Department
+
+  Vandenesse, Comte Felix de  The Lily of the Valley
+    Lost Illusions
+    A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+    Cesar Birotteau
+    Letters of Two Brides
+    A Start in Life
+    The Marriage Settlement
+    The Secrets of a Princess
+    The Gondreville Mystery
+    A Daughter of Eve
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Another Study of Woman
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+Release Date: July 17, 2005 [EBook #1714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+                       ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+                                 BY
+
+                          HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+                           Translated by
+
+                    Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+       To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.
+
+
+
+
+                       ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+
+
+
+At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at
+every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons
+invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for
+his neighbor's eye; most of the younger women are there for one person
+only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the
+handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared
+by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: "Do
+you think of going away soon to La Crampade?" "How well Madame de
+Portenduere sang!" "Who is that little woman with such a load of
+diamonds?" Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give
+transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin
+out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the
+sconces.
+
+The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people
+or intimate friends, saying, "Do not go yet; we will have a snug
+little supper." These collect in some small room. The second, the real
+party, now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what
+is said, conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to
+contribute to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest
+laughter takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens the
+prettiest faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.
+
+The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
+dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to _mechanize_
+other nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull as
+itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some
+French houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our
+light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and
+the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppers
+nowadays, it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewer
+men placed, established, and successful than under the reign of Louis
+Philippe, when the Revolution began again, lawfully. Everybody is on
+the march some whither, or trotting at the heels of Fortune. Time has
+become the costliest commodity, so no one can afford the lavish
+extravagance of going home to-morrow morning and getting up late.
+Hence, there is no second soiree now but at the houses of women rich
+enough to entertain, and since July 1830 such women may be counted in
+Paris.
+
+In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two
+or three women, among them Madame d'Espard and Mademoiselle des
+Touches, have not chosen to give up the share of influence they
+exercised in Paris, and have not closed their houses.
+
+The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the
+last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its
+reserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite
+politeness. You will there still find grace of manner notwithstanding
+the conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk
+notwithstanding the reserve which is natural to persons of breeding,
+and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks of
+keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards a story as material
+for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay never
+stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or an interesting
+subject.
+
+The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
+reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up
+one of the deepest recesses of woman's heart, than on account of the
+reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that
+have taken place in the French woman since the fateful revolution of
+July.
+
+On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
+indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not a
+piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
+foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the
+most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter,
+pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed
+without elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without
+effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The
+men of the world especially were conspicuous for their really artistic
+grace and spirit.
+
+Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
+fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room,
+and those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound
+which gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social
+qualities, an indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion
+of ideas, of definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents,
+meander with ease. Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the
+science which makes conversation a tourney in which each type of wit
+is condensed into a shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts
+his experience in a word, in which every one finds amusement,
+relaxation, and exercise. Here, then, alone, will you exchange ideas;
+here you need not, like the dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on
+your shoulders; here you will be understood, and will not risk staking
+your gold pieces against base metal.
+
+Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play
+and eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager
+criticism and crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes
+are listening, a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives
+the answer. In short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.
+
+The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled,
+is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so
+completely bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its
+spell; we all spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted
+into anecdote, and brought out in its rushing course some curious
+confessions, several portraits, and a thousand follies, which make
+this enchanting improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting
+these things down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, their
+elusive divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French
+evening, taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity makes
+each one forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if you
+like, his pretensions.
+
+At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
+round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
+years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
+world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
+renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the
+tone. But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of
+being himself.
+
+Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at
+table till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a
+move produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and
+the drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the
+ideas of an author after shaving are different from those he had
+before. If Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the
+frame of mind of a party at table is not the same as that of the same
+persons returned to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the
+eye no longer contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost
+are the happy effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence which
+comes over us while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled
+man, settled comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are made
+in these days. Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to face with
+the dessert and in the society of good wine, during the delightful
+interval when every one may sit with an elbow on the table and his
+head resting on his hand. Not only does every one like to talk then,
+but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost always attent, is
+loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every one finds his
+opportunity.
+
+Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
+narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
+jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons
+who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such
+delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince
+Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?
+
+De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given
+proofs of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not
+indeed surprised to see him display all the talents and various
+aptitudes of a statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he
+would prove to be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded in
+the fire of circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man
+whom he had made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who had for a
+long time been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay without
+infusing into his admiration that dash of acrid criticism by which, in
+Paris, one superior man excuses himself from admiring another.
+
+"Was there ever," said he, "in your former life, any event, any
+thought or wish which told you what your vocation was?" asked Emile
+Blondet; "for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and
+leads us to the spot where our faculties develop----"
+
+"Yes," said de Marsay; "I will tell you about it."
+
+Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay's
+intimate friends,--all settled themselves comfortably, each in his
+favorite attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the
+servants had left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn
+over them? The silence was so complete that the murmurs of the
+coachmen's voices could be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing
+and champing made by horses when asking to be taken back to their
+stable.
+
+"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the
+Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To
+wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
+less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
+short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self,
+who looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our
+passions and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the
+judgment of a sort of moral ready-reckoner."
+
+"That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France," said old
+Lord Dudley.
+
+"From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible," the Minister
+went on. "Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man
+--Richelieu, who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini's peril,
+slept till midday, when his benefactor was killed at ten o'clock--or
+say Pitt, or Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such a monster at a
+very early age, thanks to a woman."
+
+"I fancied," said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, "that more
+politicians were undone by us than we could make."
+
+"The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
+you," replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.
+
+"If this is a love-story," the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, "I
+request that it may not be interrupted by any reflections."
+
+"Reflection is so antipathetic to it!" cried Joseph Bridau.
+
+"I was seventeen," de Marsay went on; "the Restoration was being
+consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then.
+I was in love for the first time, and I was--I may say so now--one of
+the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
+advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of
+a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.--Like all youths, I was
+in love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,"
+said he, looking carefully round the table, "can suspect her name or
+recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my
+secret. He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile.
+However, he is gone," said the Minister, looking round.
+
+"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.
+
+"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on, "but
+incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
+myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and the
+frail joy of the young. I treasured _her_ old gloves; I drank an
+infusion of the flowers _she_ had worn; I got out of bed at night to
+go and gaze at _her_ window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I
+inhaled the perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman
+is a stove with a marble casing."
+
+"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de Montcornet with
+a smile.
+
+"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who
+first uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said de
+Marsay. "You are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on
+that point. These few words will remind you of your own follies.
+
+"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children--oh! all
+was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
+hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we
+fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
+
+"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
+beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm
+we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was
+perfection then, and to this day is considered one of the most
+beautiful women in Paris; but at that time a man would have endured
+death to win one of her glances. She had been left with an amount of
+fortune sufficient for a woman who had loved and was adored; but the
+Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate
+in comparison with her name. In my position I was so fatuous as never
+to dream of a suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a
+hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in
+me as gold in the nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me
+if I had been so base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel--so
+fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose
+blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart
+with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy
+in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready
+for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!' Ah! my
+friends!" sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a man must
+hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"
+
+This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
+curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
+
+"Every morning, riding Sultan--the fine horse you sent me from
+England," de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, "I rode past her
+open carriage, the horses' pace being intentionally reduced to a walk,
+and read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her
+bouquet in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw
+each other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me every
+day, to deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had adopted a
+scheme of conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to
+speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the
+disdained swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on
+either part with a false passion professed for an indifferent person
+and an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will
+only play that game, the world will always be deceived; but then they
+must be very secure of each other.
+
+"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
+sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
+comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
+circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us;
+six years' difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of
+my fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I,
+on my part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her
+knowledge and her experience of the world, would have married her
+without a thought. At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she
+had been the first to speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might
+perhaps have noted it as vulgar in that accomplished soul.
+
+"Six months, full and perfect--a diamond of the purest water! That has
+been my portion of love in this base world.
+
+"One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the
+beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret
+festivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the
+sea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will
+not believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy
+and suspiciousness.--When jealousy is genuine," said de Marsay,
+interrupting himself, "it is the visible sign of an unique passion."
+
+"Why?" asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.
+
+"Unique and true love," said de Marsay, "produces a sort of corporeal
+apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the
+mind complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies,
+turns them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as
+delightful as it is distressing."
+
+A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the
+truth of this remark.
+
+"Besides," de Marsay went on, "I said to myself, why miss a happy
+hour? Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she
+learns that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and
+compromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and
+carried it myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. The river
+lay between us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable
+distance of her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to
+have the note sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea of
+driving past her door in a hackney cab to see whether she might not by
+chance receive the two letters together. At the moment when I arrived
+it was two o'clock; the great gate opened to admit a carriage. Whose?
+--That of the stalking-horse!
+
+"It is fifteen years since--well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
+exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
+business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about
+my diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage
+was still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter's
+hands. At last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could
+observe my rival's expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he
+was in love, and no doubt there was business in hand.
+
+"I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw
+her calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always
+thought that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste.
+Only a man who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare
+felt this when he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The sight of
+the woman we love is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel
+anguish, doubt, and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile again.
+Hence this cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the most
+atrocious dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love. My
+jealousy once buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing
+condition was evident; the horrible doubts that had fermented in me
+increased it. At last I found an opening for putting in these words:
+'You have had no one with you this morning?' making a pretext of the
+uneasiness I had felt in the fear lest she should have disposed of her
+time after receiving my first note.--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'only a man
+could have such ideas! As if I could think of anything but your
+suffering. Till the moment when I received your second note I could
+think only of how I could contrive to see you.'--'And you were
+alone?'--'Alone,' said she, looking at me with a face of innocence so
+perfect that it must have been his distrust of such a look as that
+which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived alone in the house,
+the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys the absolute
+confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of happiness.
+
+"To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
+that we have an internal self of which the exterior _I_ is but the
+husk; that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade
+--well, that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in
+crape. Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the
+winding-sheet of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into
+which the first betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that
+she might not observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat
+restored my strength: 'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'
+
+"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
+to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
+home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
+solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
+whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great
+child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
+feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing the
+woman is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was she
+distressed at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my
+valet, in whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was
+as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her
+happiness. There is always a precious ape in the prettiest and most
+angelic woman!"
+
+At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
+truth so brutally stated.
+
+"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de Marsay
+went on. "I discovered that I was a statesman."
+
+It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.
+
+"As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,"
+said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal ingenuity--for,
+as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges
+were possible--I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I
+insensibly formulated a horrible code--that of Indulgence. In taking
+vengeance on a woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one
+for us, that we cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way
+to win her back? If she is not indispensable, if there are other women
+in the world, why not grant her the right to change which we assume?
+
+"This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it would
+be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for
+indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes
+must be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law,
+deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing.
+Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the world
+must be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of it
+--that of Othello.
+
+"Mine was different."
+
+The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
+newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words:
+_great sensation_.
+
+"Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung
+myself into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a
+style of beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took
+care not to quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an
+actress, for I doubt whether true love can give such gracious delights
+as those lavished by such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is
+as good as virtue.--I am not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady,"
+said the Minister, suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley's
+daughter. "I tried to be the same lover.
+
+"I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I
+went to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher.
+The man had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his
+address for the benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty
+of every kind and every color. After I had explained my order, he
+showed me his work. I then saw achievements of patience surpassing
+those which the story books ascribe to fairies, or which are executed
+by prisoners. He brought me up to date as to the caprices and fashions
+governing the use of hair. 'For the last year,' said he, 'there has
+been a rage for marking linen with hair; happily I had a fine
+collection of hair and skilled needlewomen,'--on hearing this a
+suspicion flashed upon me; I took out my handkerchief and said, 'So
+this was done in your shop, with false hair?'--He looked at the
+handkerchief, and said, 'Ay! that lady was very particular, she
+insisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife herself marked
+those handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the finest pieces of
+work we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of light I might
+have believed something--might have taken a woman's word. I left the
+shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was concerned I
+was as atheistical as a mathematician.
+
+"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in
+her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they were
+very beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their
+sweetest flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a
+moment when one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a
+drawing-room and there are no daisies. At the intensest moment of
+tenderness, and when we are most in love, love is so well aware of its
+own short duration that we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love
+me? Will you love me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so
+flowery, so full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies,
+in the enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest
+allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the only man
+in the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her
+of all her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was
+indeed too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she had
+been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew
+that secret; in short, I was her god!"
+
+The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so
+well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes,
+and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
+
+"At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable
+falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her,
+'When are you to marry the Duke?'
+
+"The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand
+lay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not be
+disguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored her
+cheeks.--'The Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting great
+astonishment.--'I know everything,' replied I; 'and in my opinion, you
+should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than
+devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have been
+faithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how
+urgently necessary it is that you should compromise him with himself
+and with God; short of that you will never bring him to the point.'
+--'Is this a dream?' said she, pushing her hair from her forehead,
+fifteen years before Malibran, with the gesture which Malibran has
+made so famous.--'Come, do not be childish, my angel,' said I, trying
+to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a little
+prudish and indignant mein.--'Marry him, you have my permission,' said
+I, replying to this gesture by using the formal _vous_ instead of
+_tu_. 'Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she, falling at
+my knees, 'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world
+but you; you may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my dear,' said
+I, 'and do me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before God.'--'Do you
+doubt my love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well, I have
+committed the greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your love
+and your fidelity. Between two intoxications I looked calmly about
+me.'--'Calmly!' sighed she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no longer love
+me.'
+
+"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
+like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her
+add: 'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting
+in public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but in
+his. And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin to
+see you listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then
+I have made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I,
+admiring the pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic
+feats which can only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by
+dint of going to church I have become very incredulous. On the day of
+my first cold, and your first treachery, when you thought I was in
+bed, you received the Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.'--'Do
+you know that your conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I consider
+your marriage to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a
+great name, the only rank that suits you, a brilliant and
+distinguished position. You will be one of the queens of Paris. I
+should be doing you a wrong if I placed any obstacle in the way of
+this prospect, this distinguished life, this splendid alliance. Ah!
+Charlotte, some day you will do me justice by discovering how unlike
+my character is to that of other young men. You would have been
+compelled to deceive me; yes, you would have found it very difficult
+to break with me, for he watches you. It is time that we should part,
+for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turn prude; I advise you to
+do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of his wife.'--'Oh!' cried
+she, bursting into tears, 'Henri, if only you had spoken! Yes, if you
+had chosen'--it was I who was to blame, you understand--'we would have
+gone to live all our days in a corner, married, happy, and defied the
+world.'--'Well, it is too late now,' said I, kissing her hands, and
+putting on a victimized air.--'Good God! But I can undo it all!' said
+she.--'No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I ought indeed to go a
+journey to part us more effectually. We should both have reason to
+fear our own affection----'--'Henri, do you think the Duke has any
+suspicions?' I was still 'Henri,' but the _tu_ was lost for ever.--'I
+do not think so,' I replied, assuming the manner of a friend; 'but be
+as devout as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke waits
+for proofs; he hesitates, you must bring him to the point.'
+
+"She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
+agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming
+the new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her
+hand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you are
+loyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'
+
+"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
+of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to
+place herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners,
+and the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly
+assumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me
+along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
+moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you
+love me?'--'Oh! yes.'--'Well, then, what will become of you?'"
+
+At this point the women all looked at each other.
+
+"Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at
+her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must
+die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay went
+on. "Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is better
+to come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her,
+'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'--'Well, what will you do?'
+--'I asked myself that the day after my cold.'--'And----?' she asked
+with eager anxiety.--'And I have made advances to the little lady to
+whom I was supposed to be attached.'
+
+"Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling
+like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their
+dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace,
+the sparkling glitter of a hunted viper's eye when driven into a
+corner, and said, 'And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I
+have----' On this last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made
+the most impressive pause I ever heard.--'Good God!' she cried, 'how
+unhappy are we women! we never can be loved. To you there is nothing
+serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you
+still are our dupes!'--'I see that plainly,' said I, with a stricken
+air; 'you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer
+from it.'--This modest epigram increased her rage; she found some
+tears of vexation. 'You disgust me with the world and with life.' she
+said; 'you snatch away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.'
+
+"She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a
+simple effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have
+nailed any man but me on the spot.--'What is to become of us poor
+women in a state of society such as Louis XVIII.'s charter made it?'
+--(Imagine how her words had run away with her.)--'Yes, indeed, we are
+born to suffer. In matters of passion we are always superior to you,
+and you are beneath all loyalty. There is no honesty in your hearts.
+To you love is a game in which you always cheat.'--'My dear,' said I,
+'to take anything serious in society nowadays would be like making
+romantic love to an actress.'--'What a shameless betrayal! It was
+deliberately planned!'--'No, only a rational issue.'--'Good-bye,
+Monsieur de Marsay,' said she; 'you have deceived me horribly.'
+--'Surely,' I replied, taking up a submissive attitude, 'Madame la
+Duchesse will not remember Charlotte's grievances?'--'Certainly,' she
+answered bitterly.--'Then, in fact, you hate me?'--She bowed, and I
+said to myself, 'There is something still left!'
+
+"The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe
+that she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have
+carefully studied the lives of men who have had great success with
+women, but I do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, or Lauzun,
+or Louis de Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first
+attempt. As to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then and
+there, once for all, and the power of control I thus acquired over the
+thoughtless impulses which make us commit so many follies gained me
+the admirable presence of mind you all know."
+
+"How deeply I pity the second!" exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay's pale lips made Delphine de
+Nucingen color.
+
+"How we do forget!" said the Baron de Nucingen.
+
+The great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife,
+who was de Marsay's "second," could not help laughing like every one
+else.
+
+"You are all ready to condemn the woman," said Lady Dudley. "Well, I
+quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act of
+inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
+fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told
+us, and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."
+
+"Alas! my lady, you are right," replied de Marsay. "For very nearly
+fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all
+social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great
+wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their
+heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are
+vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses--I must apologize
+to Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is
+made a peer of France--baronesses have never succeeded in getting
+people to take them seriously."
+
+"Aristocracy begins with the viscountess," said Blondet with a smile.
+
+"Countesses will survive," said de Marsay. "An elegant woman will be
+more or less of a countess--a countess of the Empire or of yesterday,
+a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by
+courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with the dignified
+splendor of the last century, with powder, patches, high-heeled
+slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses
+in these days can pass through a door without any need to widen it for
+their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns with trains! I am still
+puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished to see his
+drawing-room swept by ducal satin and velvet did not make indestructible
+laws. Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code he was so proud of.
+That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of our 'ladies' of
+to-day--the indirect offspring of his legislation."
+
+"It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and by
+obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social
+state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who
+can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with
+half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where
+apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of
+patent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six francs,
+screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his
+cheek, and whether he be an attorney's clerk, a contractor's son, or a
+banker's bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest duchess,
+appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says to his friend--dressed
+by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in patent-leather like any duke
+himself--'There, my boy, that is a perfect lady.'"
+
+"You have not known how to form a party," said Lord Dudley; "it will
+be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in
+France about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized
+property. So this is what happens: Any duke--and even in the time of
+Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were some left who had two hundred
+thousand francs a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train
+of servants--well, such a duke could live like a great lord. The last
+of these great gentlemen in France was the Prince de Talleyrand.--This
+duke leaves four children, two of them girls. Granting that he has
+great luck in marrying them all well, each of these descendants will
+have but sixty or eighty thousand francs a year now; each is the
+father or mother of children, and consequently obliged to live with
+the strictest economy in a flat on the ground floor or first floor of
+a large house. Who knows if they may not even be hunting a fortune?
+Henceforth the eldest son's wife, a duchess in name only, has no
+carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time to herself. She has not her
+own rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty toys;
+she is buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little children,
+nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer
+sends to school at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been turned
+into worthy brood-hens."
+
+"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show
+those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of
+the French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has
+nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her
+face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself.
+When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a
+form of luxury."
+
+"Everything in France has aided and abetted the 'perfect lady,'" said
+Daniel d'Arthez. "The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating
+to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
+die--emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
+lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded
+European _salons_, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out
+like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or
+of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of
+abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against
+the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of
+the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are
+at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing
+princesses, these are really only ladylike young women. In these days
+princes can find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot
+even confer honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon
+was the last prince to avail himself of this privilege."
+
+"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.
+
+"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their
+opera-box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher
+by a hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the
+citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor
+altogether _bourgeoises_," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
+
+"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
+longer has the quality of a spoken _feuilleton_--delightful calumnies
+graced by elegant language. We read _feuilletons_ written in a dialect
+which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
+an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
+conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
+a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
+mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
+company used to meet."
+
+"The knell of the highest society is tolling," said a Russian Prince.
+"Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word _lady_."
+
+"You are right, Prince," said de Marsay. "The 'perfect lady,' issuing
+from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class,
+and the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression
+of these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,
+and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
+ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time, elected
+by public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be
+among the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England."
+
+"And that they call progress!" exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. "I
+should like to know where the progress lies?"
+
+"Why, in this," said Madame de Nucingen. "Formerly a woman might have
+the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an
+impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a
+thick hand--she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these
+days, even if she were a Montmorency--if a Montmorency would ever be
+such a creature--she would not be a lady."
+
+"But what do you mean by a 'perfect lady'?" asked Count Adam Laginski.
+
+"She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system
+as applied to the fair sex," said the Minister. "Every revolution has
+a word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it."
+
+"You are right," said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
+reputation in Paris. "The explanation of certain words added from time
+to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
+_Organize_, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up
+Napoleon completely."
+
+"But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!" the young
+Pole exclaimed, with some impatience.
+
+"Well, I will tell you," said Emile Blondet to Count Adam. "One fine
+morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has
+not yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance
+at her is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a
+world of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale
+in his pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have
+at last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two very
+distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an order;
+or else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of ten
+yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings, no
+over-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawers
+fussing round her ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunella
+shoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, or
+plain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the most
+exquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat and
+inexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises more than one
+woman of the middle class; it is almost always a long pelisse, with
+bows to fasten it, and neatly bound with fine cord or an imperceptible
+braid. The Unknown has a way of her own in wrapping herself in her
+shawl or mantilla; she knows how to draw it round her from her hips to
+her neck, outlining a carapace, as it were, which would make an
+ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which in her sets off the most
+beautiful forms while concealing them. How does she do it? This secret
+she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.
+
+"As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious
+twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under
+the stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass.
+Is it to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation
+which plays under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill,
+sheds an airy balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of a
+Parisienne? You may recognize over her arms, round her waist, about
+her throat, a science of drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.
+
+"Oh! how thoroughly she understands the _cut_ of her gait--forgive the
+expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her skirt
+with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
+admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
+Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
+forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for
+walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
+
+"Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with
+proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to a
+well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her
+shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a
+little air of serene dignity, like Raphael's Madonnas in their frames.
+Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent
+dandy step aside for her.
+
+"Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp
+ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women
+wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.
+Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without
+conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees
+everything; whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified,
+stamps her face with an indifference which piques your curiosity. She
+knows that she is looked at, she knows that everybody, even women,
+turn round to see her again. And she threads her way through Paris
+like a gossamer, spotless and pure.
+
+"This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
+longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th
+Arcade of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the
+equator of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India
+flourish, where the warmest creations of industry are displayed, to
+the Cape of the Madeleine; in the least muddy districts of the citizen
+quarters, between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg
+Saint-Honore. During the winter, she haunts the terrace of the
+Feuillants, but not the asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According
+to the weather, she may be seen flying in the Avenue of the
+Champs-Elysees, which is bounded on the east by the Place Louis XV.,
+on the west by the Avenue de Marigny, to the south by the road, to the
+north by the gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Never is this
+pretty variety of woman to be seen in the hyperborean regions of the
+Rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of miry, narrow, commercial
+streets, never anywhere in bad weather. These flowers of Paris,
+blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume the highways; and after
+five o'clock fold up like morning-glory flowers. The women you will
+see later, looking a little like them, are would-be ladies; while the
+fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is a 'perfect lady.'
+
+"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
+differences by which the observer _emeritus_ distinguishes them--women
+are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of
+Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white
+tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed
+bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see
+a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There is
+something conventional in the attitude.
+
+"As to the _bourgeoise_, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
+mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,
+and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does
+not know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady
+knows just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is
+undecided, tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by
+the hand, which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a
+mother in public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her
+bag, and has open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a
+boa over her fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is
+accomplished in the redundancies of dress.
+
+"You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opera,
+at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you
+would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has
+emerged from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky
+cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes,
+the forms which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the
+theatre she never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the
+Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure the studied
+deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all
+the little political artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude
+all idea of art or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand,
+the most perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely
+necessary that she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet
+or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity of profile, you will
+be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to what she says to her
+neighbor, sitting in such a position as to produce the magical effect
+of the 'lost profile,' so dear to great painters, by which the cheek
+catches the high light, the nose is shown in clear outline, the
+nostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead squarely modeled, the
+eye has its spangle of fire, but fixed on space, and the white
+roundness of the chin is accentuated by a line of light. If she has a
+pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa with the coquettish
+grace of a cat in the sunshine, her feet outstretched without your
+feeling that her attitude is anything but the most charming model ever
+given to a sculptor by lassitude.
+
+"Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
+inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the
+citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down
+a rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its
+office of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or
+glancing in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place.
+Her toilet is always in harmony with her character; she had had time
+to study herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long known
+what does not suit her. You will not find her as you go out; she
+vanishes before the end of the play. If by chance she is to be seen,
+calm and stately, on the stairs, she is experiencing some violent
+emotion; she has to bestow a glance, to receive a promise. Perhaps she
+goes down so slowly on purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave whom
+she sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes place at a ball or an
+evening party, you will gather the honey, natural or affected of her
+insinuating voice; her empty words will enchant you, and she will know
+how to give them the value of thought by her inimitable bearing."
+
+"To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?" asked the
+Polish Count.
+
+"It is necessary to have great taste," replied the Princesse de
+Cadignan.
+
+"And in France taste is more than cleverness," said the Russian.
+
+"This woman's cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,"
+Blondet went on. "You will not know what she said, but you will be
+fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white
+shoulders; she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming pout
+and smile; or throw a Voltairean epigram into an 'Indeed!' an 'Ah!' a
+'What then!' A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form of
+questioning; she will give meaning to the movement by which she twirls
+a vinaigrette hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets an artificial
+grandeur out of superlative trivialities; she simply drops her hand
+impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her chair as dewdrops
+hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said--she has pronounced
+judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the most obtuse. She
+knows how to listen to you; she gives you the opportunity of shining,
+and--I ask your modesty--those moments are rare?"
+
+The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made
+all the party shout with laughter.
+
+"Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a _bourgeoise_ without
+her alluding to her husband in one way or another," Blondet went on
+with unperturbed gravity; "whereas, even if you know that your lady is
+married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so
+effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus
+to discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If
+you have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of the
+evening you detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man wearing a
+decoration, who bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage, and
+goes.
+
+"You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go to
+bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last
+perhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates
+of the temple of dreams.
+
+"The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
+enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find
+everything in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly
+renewed; you will see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings
+hanging about, and looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase
+warmed. Flowers on all sides will charm your sight--flowers, the only
+gift she accepts, and those only from certain people, for nosegays
+live but a day; they give pleasure, and must be replaced; to her they
+are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. The costly toys of
+fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a museum or a curiosity
+shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low chair, from which
+she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now be what it was
+at the ball; there she was our creditor; in her own home she owes you
+the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of which the lady is a
+marvelous mistress. What she likes in you is a man to swell her
+circle, an object for the cares and attentions which such women are
+now happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to her drawing-room,
+she will be bewitchingly charming. This especially is where you feel
+how isolated women are nowadays, and why they want a little world of
+their own, to which they may seem a constellation. Conversation is
+impossible without generalities."
+
+"Yes," said de Marsay, "you have truly hit the fault of our age. The
+epigram--a volume in a word--no longer strikes, as it did in the
+eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events,
+and it dies in a day."
+
+"Hence," said Blondet, "the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
+consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great
+difference between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous;
+the lady does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always will
+be; she hesitates and struggles where the other refuses point-blank
+and falls full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of the last
+graces left to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to church,
+but she will talk to you of religion; and if you have the good taste
+to affect Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you will have
+opened the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shaking and
+gestures understood by all these women: 'For shame! I thought you had
+too much sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, and you
+deprive it of its support. Why, religion at this moment means you and
+me; it is property, and the future of our children! Ah! let us not be
+selfish! Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion is the
+only remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,' and so
+forth. Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with
+political notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant--but moral?
+Oh! deuced moral!--in which you may recognize a fag end of every
+material woven by modern doctrines, at loggerheads together."
+
+The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet
+illustrated his satire.
+
+"This explanation, dear Count Adam," said Blondet, turning to the
+Pole, "will have proved to you that the 'perfect lady' represents the
+intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is
+surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry
+which is always aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it
+by something else. When you leave her you say to yourself: She
+certainly has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more because
+she will have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have asked
+you your secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything; there
+are some things she never knows, not even when she knows them. You
+alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her heart.
+The great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with newspapers
+and advertisements; in these days the lady has her little passion
+neatly ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and quavers and
+minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign the key. A mere weak
+women, she is anxious not to compromise her love, or her husband, or
+the future of her children. Name, position, and fortune are no longer
+flags so respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise on board.
+The whole aristocracy no longer advances in a body to screen the lady.
+She has not, like the great lady of the past, the demeanor of lofty
+antagonism; she can crush nothing under foot, it is she who would be
+crushed. Thus she is apt at Jesuitical _mezzo termine_, she is a
+creature of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties, of
+anonymous passions steered between two reef-bound shores. She is as
+much afraid of her servants as an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a
+trial in the divorce-court. This woman--so free at a ball, so
+attractive out walking--is a slave at home; she is never independent
+but in perfect privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve herself in
+her position as a lady. This is her task.
+
+"For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
+allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the
+divine accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a
+townswoman; she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will
+not receive a married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still
+have anything to say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect
+lady may perhaps give occasion to calumny, never to slander."
+
+"It is all so horribly true," said the Princesse de Cadignan.
+
+"And so," said Blondet, "our 'perfect lady' lives between English
+hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century--a
+bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up
+is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads
+nowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures
+shrink into the background, and distinction is purely personal. I am
+fully convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were
+born close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty
+the encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring,
+the important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring,
+the angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the
+silence, the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness,
+the diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady."
+
+"And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn," said
+Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, "would you class the female
+author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman _comme il faut_?"
+
+"When she has no genius, she is a woman _comme il n'en faut pas_,"
+Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which
+might make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. "This
+epigram is not mine, but Napoleon's," he added.
+
+"You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score," said Canalis,
+with an emphatic tone and gesture. "It was one of his weaknesses to be
+jealous of literary genius--for he had his mean points. Who will ever
+explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his
+arms folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever
+known, the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all
+forces; a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every
+direction without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything
+because he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will,
+conquering an illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in
+bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code
+and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that
+foresaw everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who
+risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads
+--those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich,
+diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire, and who
+seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to
+whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of
+bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning
+manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing
+water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and
+simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of
+these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by
+temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then,
+like my grocer buried in Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a good
+father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings, codes,
+verses, a romance--and all with more range than precision. Did he not
+aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the
+earth in such a way as to change the laws of gravitation, he left us
+poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who
+had taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his
+empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all
+action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouche."
+
+"All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!"
+said de Marsay.
+
+"Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk," said Baron de
+Nucingen.
+
+"But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?"
+asked Joseph Bridau. "If you had to pay for the charms of conversation
+as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be
+inadequate! There is no second performance of the same flash of wit."
+
+"And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?"
+said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at
+once sceptical and ironical. "Because, in these days, under a regime
+which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms,
+small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does
+that prove that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human
+heart change because you change your coat? In all ages the passions
+remain the same. I know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime
+sufferings, which lack the publicity--the glory, if you choose--which
+formerly gave lustre to the errors of some women. But though one may
+not have saved a King of France, one is not the less an Agnes Sorel.
+Do you believe that our dear Marquise d'Espard is not the peer of
+Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whose rooms so much evil was
+spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a match for Camargo? or Malibran the
+equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets superior to those of the
+eighteenth century? If at this moment, through the fault of the
+Grocers who govern us, we have not a style of our own, had not the
+Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age of Louis XV. had, and was
+not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences lost anything?"
+
+"I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
+great," replied the Comte de Vandenesse. "When posterity shall have
+followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine as
+those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
+history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but
+one Madame de Sevigne; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly
+write better than she did, and who do not publish their letters.
+Whether the Frenchwoman be called 'perfect lady,' or great lady, she
+will always be _the_ woman among women.
+
+"Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman
+of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who
+chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it
+must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical,
+because they must always and under all circumstances be surrounded by
+greater perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied it
+perhaps too late; but in cases where the illegality of your feelings
+might be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know not
+what chance--which you may call Providence--inevitably overwhelming
+such as we consider light women."
+
+"I hope," said Madame de Vandenesse, "that we can be great in other
+ways----"
+
+"Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!" exclaimed Madame de
+Serizy.
+
+"With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
+example," said the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+"On my honor!" said General de Montriveau, "in all the dramas--a word
+you are very fond of," he said, looking at Blondet--"in which the
+finger of God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was
+very near being by my act----"
+
+"Well, tell us all about it!" cried Lady Barimore; "I love to
+shudder!"
+
+"It is the taste of a virtuous woman," replied de Marsay, looking at
+Lord Dudley's lovely daughter.
+
+"During the campaign of 1812," General de Montriveau began, "I was the
+involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
+Doctor Bianchon," turning to me, "since, while devoting yourself to
+the human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may
+tend to solve some of the problems of the will.
+
+"I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed
+at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that
+I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost
+all discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley
+of men of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to
+south. The soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away
+from their fire if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the
+passage of this famous river disorder did not diminish. I had come
+quietly and alone, without food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was
+wandering in search of a house where I might be taken in. Finding none
+or driven away from those I came across, happily towards evening I
+perceived a wretched little Polish farm, of which nothing can give you
+any idea unless you have seen the wooden houses of Lower Normandy, or
+the poorest farm-buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist of a
+single room, with one end divided off by a wooden partition, the
+smaller division serving as a store-room for forage.
+
+"In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising
+above this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more
+compassionate than those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as
+far as the farm. On going in, I found the table laid. Several
+officers, and with them a woman--a common sight enough--were eating
+potatoes, some horseflesh broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen
+beetroots. I recognized among the company two or three artillery
+captains of the regiment in which I had first served. I was welcomed
+with a shout of acclamation, which would have amazed me greatly on the
+other side of the Beresina; but at this moment the cold was less
+intense; my fellow-officers were resting, they were warm, they had
+food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the promise of
+a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in those days. My
+comrades could be philanthropists _gratis_--one of the commonest ways
+of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of the bundles of
+straw.
+
+"At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the
+smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the
+most extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of
+men it has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human
+nature is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime.
+I do not know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of
+Italians when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an
+artificial light. When I read the fantastical portrait of Colonel
+Oudet sketched by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in every
+one of his elegant phrases. Italian, then, as were most of the
+officers of his regiment, which had, in fact, been borrowed by the
+Emperor from Eugene's army, my colonel was a tall man, at least eight
+or nine inches above the standard, and was admirably proportioned--a
+little stout perhaps, but prodigiously powerful, active, and
+clean-limbed as a greyhound. His black hair in abundant curls showed
+up his complexion, as white as a woman's; he had small hands, a
+shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and an aquiline nose delicately
+formed, of which the tip used to become naturally pinched and white
+whenever he was angry, as happened often. His irascibility was so far
+beyond belief that I will tell you nothing about it; you will have the
+opportunity of judging of it. No one could be calm in his presence. I
+alone, perhaps, was not afraid of him; he had indeed taken such a
+singular fancy to me that he thought everything I did right. When he
+was in a rage his brow was knit and the muscles of the middle of his
+forehead set in a delta, or, to be more explicit, in Redgauntlet's
+horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more terrifying than the
+magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame quivered, and his
+strength, great as it was in his normal state, became almost unbounded.
+
+"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
+as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
+tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was
+sounded. Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when
+commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless
+you had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at
+Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were
+angelically sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression.
+On parade, or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with
+him. Indeed, d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by
+our colonel on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before
+the invasion of Russia.
+
+"Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives on
+contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
+irresistible influences to which our nature yields"--and the general
+looked at the Princesse de Cadignan--"as vitreous matter is moulded
+under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality--an
+observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon--the Colonel was not a
+lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.
+
+"To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words
+what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our
+guns up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one
+side, and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met
+another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This
+colonel wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost
+battery back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the
+colonel of the other regiment signed to his foremost battery to
+advance, and in spite of the care the driver took to keep among the
+scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our captain's right leg and
+broke it, throwing him over on the near side of his horse. All this
+was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a little way off,
+guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding among the
+guns at the risk of falling with his horse's four feet in the air, and
+reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the very
+moment when the captain fell, calling out 'Help!' No, our Italian
+colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne rose to
+his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering
+a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist,
+pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went
+aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent stretched on the
+ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed
+--yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.
+
+"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in
+the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,
+a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our
+Colonel. This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to
+protect the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the
+woman herself.
+
+"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
+captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end
+of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman
+named Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in
+her black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin;
+her face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a
+highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
+disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close
+over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were
+engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her
+features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not
+altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of
+a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in
+appearance, but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of
+Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is
+allowable to ally the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to
+know nothing of the connections which had subsisted between his wife
+and the Colonel for three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to
+Italian manners, or to some domestic secret; yet there was in the
+man's countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary
+distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned down
+at the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed
+a streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic and
+indolent.
+
+"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I
+went in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me
+some questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with
+reflections on the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the
+Russians, and the cold. A minute after my arrival the colonel, having
+finished his meagre meal, wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot
+a black look at the Italian woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then, without
+waiting for a reply, went into the little barn full of hay, to bed.
+The meaning of the Colonel's utterance was self-evident. The young
+wife replied by an indescribable gesture, expressing all the annoyance
+she could not feel at seeing her thralldom thus flaunted without human
+decency, and the offence to her dignity as a woman, and to her
+husband. But there was, too, in the rigid setting of her features and
+the tight knitting of her brows a sort of presentiment; perhaps she
+foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her place.
+
+"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch
+of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'
+
+"The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than
+the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the Italian
+language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,
+concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength of
+will. Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to
+the Colonel.
+
+"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at
+them all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'_Tu ridi?_
+--you laugh?' said the husband.
+
+"'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, 'I
+confess that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if
+you are not satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you
+satisfaction.'
+
+"'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.
+
+"Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
+asleep.
+
+"Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
+companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness which
+made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,
+melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.
+Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter
+we, most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led in
+flocks by a child's wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.
+
+"Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where
+we had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions
+in the desert, the bellowing of bulls--no, it was a noise which can be
+compared to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and
+ominous roar, we could hear a woman's feeble scream. We all looked
+round, seized by I know not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw
+the house, but a huge bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and
+was in flames. Swirls of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse
+cries and an indescribable pungent smell. A few yards behind, the
+captain was quietly approaching to join our caravan; we gazed at him
+in silence, for no one dared question him; but he, understanding our
+curiosity, pointed to his breast with the forefinger of his right
+hand, and, waving the left in the direction of the fire, he said,
+'_Son'io_.'
+
+"We all walked on without saying a word to him."
+
+"There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep," said de
+Marsay.
+
+"It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in
+our memory," said Madame de Montcornet. "I shall dream of it----"
+
+"And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay's 'First'?" said
+Lord Dudley, smiling.
+
+"When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on," said
+Blondet.
+
+"Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying," replied de
+Marsay, turning to me.
+
+"Yes," said I; "and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever saw.
+The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman's pillow;
+pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken
+the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,
+waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching
+way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she
+meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her
+face had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor
+made her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes
+and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her
+countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,
+and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death
+approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The
+room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour
+of death.
+
+"At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair
+at having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by
+which he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his
+wife for a few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite
+certain that any one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it.
+A busy statesman, always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke
+had a thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of
+genius being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation lies
+in the exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He came to
+seat himself in an armchair by his wife's side, and looked fixedly at
+her. The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband's
+and clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said, 'My
+poor dear, who is left to understand you now?' Then she died, looking
+at him."
+
+"The stories the doctor tells us," said the Comte de Vandenesse,
+"always leave a deep impression."
+
+"But a sweet one," said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.
+
+
+
+PARIS, June 1839-42.
+
+
+
+                               ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bianchon, Horace
+  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Government Clerks
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+  La Grande Breteche
+
+Blondet, Emile
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Peasantry
+
+Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Peasantry
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Member for Arcis
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Bridau, Joseph
+  The Purse
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Start in Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Pierre Grassou
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Start in Life
+  Beatrix
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Dudley, Lord
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  The Thirteen
+  A Man of Business
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d'
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Beatrix
+
+Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Marsay, Henri de
+  The Thirteen
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  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
+
+Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de
+  The Thirteen
+  Father Goriot
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Pierrette
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  Father Goriot
+  Pierrette
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
+  Father Goriot
+  The Thirteen
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Melmoth Reconciled
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Beatrix
+
+Rastignac, Eugene de
+  Father Goriot
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Study of Woman
+  The Magic Skin
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de
+  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des
+  Beatrix
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Honorine
+  Beatrix
+  The Muse of the Department
+
+Vandenesse, Comte Felix de
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  A Start in Life
+  The Marriage Settlement
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,1969 @@
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Another Study of Woman, by Balzac
+#62 in our series by Honore de Balzac
+
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+Another Study of Woman
+
+by Honore de Balzac
+
+Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+April, 1999  [Etext #1714]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Another Study of Woman, by Balzac
+******This file should be named nswmn10.txt or nswmn10.zip******
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+
+
+Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+and John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+
+
+
+ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+by HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+
+Translated By
+Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.
+
+
+
+
+ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
+
+
+
+
+At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at
+every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons
+invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for
+his neighbor's eye; most of the younger women are there for one person
+only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the
+handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared
+by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: "Do
+you think of going away soon to La Crampade?" "How well Madame de
+Portenduere sang!" "Who is that little woman with such a load of
+diamonds?" Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give
+transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin
+out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the
+sconces.
+
+The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people
+or intimate friends, saying, "Do not go yet; we will have a snug
+little supper." These collect in some small room. The second, the real
+party, now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what
+is said, conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to
+contribute to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest
+laughter takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens the
+prettiest faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.
+
+The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
+dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to /mechanize/
+other nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull as
+itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some
+French houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our
+light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and
+the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppers
+nowadays, it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewer
+men placed, established, and successful than under the reign of Louis
+Philippe, when the Revolution began again, lawfully. Everybody is on
+the march some whither, or trotting at the heels of Fortune. Time has
+become the costliest commodity, so no one can afford the lavish
+extravagance of going home to-morrow morning and getting up late.
+Hence, there is no second soiree now but at the houses of women rich
+enough to entertain, and since July 1830 such women may be counted in
+Paris.
+
+In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two
+or three women, among them Madame d'Espard and Mademoiselle des
+Touches, have not chosen to give up the share of influence they
+exercised in Paris, and have not closed their houses.
+
+The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the
+last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its
+reserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite
+politeness. You will there still find grace of manner notwithstanding
+the conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk
+notwithstanding the reserve which is natural to persons of breeding,
+and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks of
+keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards a story as material
+for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay never
+stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or an interesting
+subject.
+
+The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
+reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up
+one of the deepest recesses of woman's heart, than on account of the
+reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that
+have taken place in the French woman since the fateful revolution of
+July.
+
+On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
+indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not a
+piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
+foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the
+most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter,
+pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed
+without elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without
+effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The
+men of the world especially were conspicuous for their really artistic
+grace and spirit.
+
+Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
+fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room,
+and those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound
+which gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social
+qualities, an indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion
+of ideas, of definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents,
+meander with ease. Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the
+science which makes conversation a tourney in which each type of wit
+is condensed into a shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts
+his experience in a word, in which every one finds amusement,
+relaxation, and exercise. Here, then, alone, will you exchange ideas;
+here you need not, like the dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on
+your shoulders; here you will be understood, and will not risk staking
+your gold pieces against base metal.
+
+Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play
+and eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager
+criticism and crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes
+are listening, a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives
+the answer. In short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.
+
+The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled,
+is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so
+completely bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its
+spell; we all spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted
+into anecdote, and brought out in its rushing course some curious
+confessions, several portraits, and a thousand follies, which make
+this enchanting improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting
+these things down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, their
+elusive divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French
+evening, taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity makes
+each one forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if you
+like, his pretensions.
+
+At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
+round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
+years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
+world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
+renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the
+tone. But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of
+being himself.
+
+Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at
+table till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a
+move produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and
+the drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the
+ideas of an author after shaving are different from those he had
+before. If Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the
+frame of mind of a party at table is not the same as that of the same
+persons returned to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the
+eye no longer contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost
+are the happy effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence which
+comes over us while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled
+man, settled comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are made
+in these days. Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to face with
+the dessert and in the society of good wine, during the delightful
+interval when every one may sit with an elbow on the table and his
+head resting on his hand. Not only does every one like to talk then,
+but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost always attent, is
+loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every one finds his
+opportunity.
+
+Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
+narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
+jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons
+who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such
+delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince
+Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?
+
+De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given
+proofs of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not
+indeed surprised to see him display all the talents and various
+aptitudes of a statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he
+would prove to be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded in
+the fire of circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man
+whom he had made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who had for a
+long time been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay without
+infusing into his admiration that dash of acrid criticism by which, in
+Paris, one superior man excuses himself from admiring another.
+
+"Was there ever," said he, "in your former life, any event, any
+thought or wish which told you what your vocation was?" asked Emile
+Blondet; "for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and
+leads us to the spot where our faculties develop----"
+
+"Yes," said de Marsay; "I will tell you about it."
+
+Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay's
+intimate friends,--all settled themselves comfortably, each in his
+favorite attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the
+servants had left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn
+over them? The silence was so complete that the murmurs of the
+coachmen's voices could be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing
+and champing made by horses when asking to be taken back to their
+stable.
+
+"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the
+Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To
+wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
+less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
+short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self,
+who looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our
+passions and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the
+judgment of a sort of moral ready-reckoner."
+
+"That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France," said old
+Lord Dudley.
+
+"From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible," the Minister
+went on. "Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man--
+Richelieu, who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini's peril,
+slept till midday, when his benefactor was killed at ten o'clock--or
+say Pitt, or Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such a monster at a
+very early age, thanks to a woman."
+
+"I fancied," said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, "that more
+politicians were undone by us than we could make."
+
+"The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
+you," replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.
+
+"If this is a love-story," the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, "I
+request that it may not be interrupted by any reflections."
+
+"Reflection is so antipathetic to it!" cried Joseph Bridau.
+
+"I was seventeen," de Marsay went on; "the Restoration was being
+consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then.
+I was in love for the first time, and I was--I may say so now--one of
+the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
+advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of
+a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.--Like all youths, I was
+in love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,"
+said he, looking carefully round the table, "can suspect her name or
+recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my
+secret. He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile.
+However, he is gone," said the Minister, looking round.
+
+"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.
+
+"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on, "but
+incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
+myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and the
+frail joy of the young. I treasured /her/ old gloves; I drank an
+infusion of the flowers /she/ had worn; I got out of bed at night to
+go and gaze at /her/ window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I
+inhaled the perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman
+is a stove with a marble casing."
+
+"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de Montcornet with
+a smile.
+
+"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who
+first uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said de
+Marsay. "You are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on
+that point. These few words will remind you of your own follies.
+
+"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children--oh! all
+was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
+hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we
+fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
+
+"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
+beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm
+we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was
+perfection then, and to this day is considered one of the most
+beautiful women in Paris; but at that time a man would have endured
+death to win one of her glances. She had been left with an amount of
+fortune sufficient for a woman who had loved and was adored; but the
+Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate
+in comparison with her name. In my position I was so fatuous as never
+to dream of a suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a
+hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in
+me as gold in the nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me
+if I had been so base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel--so
+fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose
+blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart
+with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy
+in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready
+for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!' Ah! my
+friends!" sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a man must
+hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"
+
+This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
+curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
+
+"Every morning, riding Sultan--the fine horse you sent me from
+England," de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, "I rode past her
+open carriage, the horses' pace being intentionally reduced to a walk,
+and read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her
+bouquet in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw
+each other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me every
+day, to deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had adopted a
+scheme of conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to
+speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the
+disdained swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on
+either part with a false passion professed for an indifferent person
+and an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will
+only play that game, the world will always be deceived; but then they
+must be very secure of each other.
+
+"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
+sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
+comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
+circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us;
+six years' difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of
+my fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I,
+on my part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her
+knowledge and her experience of the world, would have married her
+without a thought. At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she
+had been the first to speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might
+perhaps have noted it as vulgar in that accomplished soul.
+
+"Six months, full and perfect--a diamond of the purest water! That has
+been my portion of love in this base world.
+
+"One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the
+beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret
+festivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the
+sea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will
+not believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy
+and suspiciousness.--When jealousy is genuine," said de Marsay,
+interrupting himself, "it is the visible sign of an unique passion."
+
+"Why?" asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.
+
+"Unique and true love," said de Marsay, "produces a sort of corporeal
+apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the
+mind complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies,
+turns them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as
+delightful as it is distressing."
+
+A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the
+truth of this remark.
+
+"Besides," de Marsay went on, "I said to myself, why miss a happy
+hour? Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she
+learns that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and
+compromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and
+carried it myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. The river
+lay between us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable
+distance of her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to
+have the note sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea of
+driving past her door in a hackney cab to see whether she might not by
+chance receive the two letters together. At the moment when I arrived
+it was two o'clock; the great gate opened to admit a carriage. Whose?
+--That of the stalking-horse!
+
+"It is fifteen years since--well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
+exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
+business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about
+my diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage
+was still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter's
+hands. At last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could
+observe my rival's expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he
+was in love, and no doubt there was business in hand.
+
+"I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw
+her calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always
+thought that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste.
+Only a man who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare
+felt this when he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The sight of
+the woman we love is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel
+anguish, doubt, and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile again.
+Hence this cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the most
+atrocious dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love. My
+jealousy once buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing
+condition was evident; the horrible doubts that had fermented in me
+increased it. At last I found an opening for putting in these words:
+'You have had no one with you this morning?' making a pretext of the
+uneasiness I had felt in the fear lest she should have disposed of her
+time after receiving my first note.--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'only a man
+could have such ideas! As if I could think of anything but your
+suffering. Till the moment when I received your second note I could
+think only of how I could contrive to see you.'--'And you were
+alone?'--'Alone,' said she, looking at me with a face of innocence so
+perfect that it must have been his distrust of such a look as that
+which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived alone in the house,
+the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys the absolute
+confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of happiness.
+
+"To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
+that we have an internal self of which the exterior /I/ is but the
+husk; that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade
+--well, that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in
+crape. Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-
+sheet of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the
+first betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might
+not observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my
+strength: 'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'
+
+"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
+to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
+home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
+solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
+whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great
+child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
+feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing the
+woman is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was she
+distressed at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my
+valet, in whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was
+as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her
+happiness. There is always a precious ape in the prettiest and most
+angelic woman!"
+
+At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
+truth so brutally stated.
+
+"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de Marsay
+went on. "I discovered that I was a statesman."
+
+It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.
+
+"As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,"
+said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal ingenuity--for,
+as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges
+were possible--I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I
+insensibly formulated a horrible code--that of Indulgence. In taking
+vengeance on a woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one
+for us, that we cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way
+to win her back? If she is not indispensable, if there are other women
+in the world, why not grant her the right to change which we assume?
+
+"This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it would
+be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for
+indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes
+must be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law,
+deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing.
+Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the world
+must be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of it--
+that of Othello.
+
+"Mine was different."
+
+The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
+newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words:
+/great sensation/.
+
+"Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung
+myself into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a
+style of beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took
+care not to quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an
+actress, for I doubt whether true love can give such gracious delights
+as those lavished by such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is
+as good as virtue.--I am not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady,"
+said the Minister, suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley's
+daughter. "I tried to be the same lover.
+
+"I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I
+went to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher.
+The man had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his
+address for the benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty
+of every kind and every color. After I had explained my order, he
+showed me his work. I then saw achievements of patience surpassing
+those which the story books ascribe to fairies, or which are executed
+by prisoners. He brought me up to date as to the caprices and fashions
+governing the use of hair. 'For the last year,' said he, 'there has
+been a rage for marking linen with hair; happily I had a fine
+collection of hair and skilled needlewomen,'--on hearing this a
+suspicion flashed upon me; I took out my handkerchief and said, 'So
+this was done in your shop, with false hair?'--He looked at the
+handkerchief, and said, 'Ay! that lady was very particular, she
+insisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife herself marked
+those handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the finest pieces of
+work we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of light I might
+have believed something--might have taken a woman's word. I left the
+shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was concerned I
+was as atheistical as a mathematician.
+
+"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in
+her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they were
+very beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their
+sweetest flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a
+moment when one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-
+room and there are no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness,
+and when we are most in love, love is so well aware of its own short
+duration that we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love me? Will
+you love me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery,
+so full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in the
+enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest
+allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the only man
+in the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her
+of all her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was
+indeed too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she had
+been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew
+that secret; in short, I was her god!"
+
+The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so
+well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes,
+and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
+
+"At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable
+falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her,
+'When are you to marry the Duke?'
+
+"The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand
+lay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not be
+disguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored her
+cheeks.--'The Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting great
+astonishment.--'I know everything,' replied I; 'and in my opinion, you
+should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than
+devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have been
+faithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how
+urgently necessary it is that you should compromise him with himself
+and with God; short of that you will never bring him to the point.'--
+'Is this a dream?' said she, pushing her hair from her forehead,
+fifteen years before Malibran, with the gesture which Malibran has
+made so famous.--'Come, do not be childish, my angel,' said I, trying
+to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a little
+prudish and indignant mein.--'Marry him, you have my permission,' said
+I, replying to this gesture by using the formal /vous/ instead of
+/tu/. 'Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she, falling at
+my knees, 'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world
+but you; you may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my dear,' said
+I, 'and do me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before God.'--'Do you
+doubt my love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well, I have
+committed the greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your love
+and your fidelity. Between two intoxications I looked calmly about
+me.'--'Calmly!' sighed she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no longer love
+me.'
+
+"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
+like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her
+add: 'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting
+in public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but in
+his. And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin to
+see you listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then
+I have made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I,
+admiring the pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic
+feats which can only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by
+dint of going to church I have become very incredulous. On the day of
+my first cold, and your first treachery, when you thought I was in
+bed, you received the Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.'--'Do
+you know that your conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I consider
+your marriage to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a
+great name, the only rank that suits you, a brilliant and
+distinguished position. You will be one of the queens of Paris. I
+should be doing you a wrong if I placed any obstacle in the way of
+this prospect, this distinguished life, this splendid alliance. Ah!
+Charlotte, some day you will do me justice by discovering how unlike
+my character is to that of other young men. You would have been
+compelled to deceive me; yes, you would have found it very difficult
+to break with me, for he watches you. It is time that we should part,
+for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turn prude; I advise you to
+do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of his wife.'--'Oh!' cried
+she, bursting into tears, 'Henri, if only you had spoken! Yes, if you
+had chosen'--it was I who was to blame, you understand--'we would have
+gone to live all our days in a corner, married, happy, and defied the
+world.'--'Well, it is too late now,' said I, kissing her hands, and
+putting on a victimized air.--'Good God! But I can undo it all!' said
+she.--'No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I ought indeed to go a
+journey to part us more effectually. We should both have reason to
+fear our own affection----'--'Henri, do you think the Duke has any
+suspicions?' I was still 'Henri,' but the /tu/ was lost for ever.--'I
+do not think so,' I replied, assuming the manner of a friend; 'but be
+as devout as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke waits
+for proofs; he hesitates, you must bring him to the point.'
+
+"She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
+agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming
+the new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her
+hand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you are
+loyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'
+
+"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
+of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to
+place herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners,
+and the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly
+assumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me
+along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
+moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you
+love me?'--'Oh! yes.'--'Well, then, what will become of you?' "
+
+At this point the women all looked at each other.
+
+"Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at
+her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must
+die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay went
+on. "Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is better
+to come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her,
+'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'--'Well, what will you do?'
+--'I asked myself that the day after my cold.'--'And----?' she asked
+with eager anxiety.--'And I have made advances to the little lady to
+whom I was supposed to be attached.'
+
+"Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling
+like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their
+dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace,
+the sparkling glitter of a hunted viper's eye when driven into a
+corner, and said, 'And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I
+have----' On this last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made
+the most impressive pause I ever heard.--'Good God!' she cried, 'how
+unhappy are we women! we never can be loved. To you there is nothing
+serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you
+still are our dupes!'--'I see that plainly,' said I, with a stricken
+air; 'you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer
+from it.'--This modest epigram increased her rage; she found some
+tears of vexation. 'You disgust me with the world and with life.' she
+said; 'you snatch away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.'
+
+"She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a
+simple effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have
+nailed any man but me on the spot.--'What is to become of us poor
+women in a state of society such as Louis XVIII.'s charter made it?'--
+(Imagine how her words had run away with her.)--'Yes, indeed, we are
+born to suffer. In matters of passion we are always superior to you,
+and you are beneath all loyalty. There is no honesty in your hearts.
+To you love is a game in which you always cheat.'--'My dear,' said I,
+'to take anything serious in society nowadays would be like making
+romantic love to an actress.'--'What a shameless betrayal! It was
+deliberately planned!'--'No, only a rational issue.'--'Good-bye,
+Monsieur de Marsay,' said she; 'you have deceived me horribly.'--
+'Surely,' I replied, taking up a submissive attitude, 'Madame la
+Duchesse will not remember Charlotte's grievances?'--'Certainly,' she
+answered bitterly.--'Then, in fact, you hate me?'--She bowed, and I
+said to myself, 'There is something still left!'
+
+"The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe
+that she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have
+carefully studied the lives of men who have had great success with
+women, but I do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, or Lauzun,
+or Louis de Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first
+attempt. As to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then and
+there, once for all, and the power of control I thus acquired over the
+thoughtless impulses which make us commit so many follies gained me
+the admirable presence of mind you all know."
+
+"How deeply I pity the second!" exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay's pale lips made Delphine de
+Nucingen color.
+
+"How we do forget!" said the Baron de Nucingen.
+
+The great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife,
+who was de Marsay's "second," could not help laughing like every one
+else.
+
+"You are all ready to condemn the woman," said Lady Dudley. "Well, I
+quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act of
+inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
+fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told
+us, and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."
+
+"Alas! my lady, you are right," replied de Marsay. "For very nearly
+fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all
+social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great
+wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their
+heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are
+vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses--I must apologize
+to Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is
+made a peer of France--baronesses have never succeeded in getting
+people to take them seriously."
+
+"Aristocracy begins with the viscountess," said Blondet with a smile.
+
+"Countesses will survive," said de Marsay. "An elegant woman will be
+more or less of a countess--a countess of the Empire or of yesterday,
+a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by
+courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with the dignified
+splendor of the last century, with powder, patches, high-heeled
+slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses
+in these days can pass through a door without any need to widen it for
+their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns with trains! I am still
+puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished to see his drawing-
+room swept by ducal satin and velvet did not make indestructible laws.
+Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code he was so proud of.
+That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of our 'ladies' of
+to-day--the indirect offspring of his legislation."
+
+"It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and by
+obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social
+state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who
+can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with
+half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where
+apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of
+patent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six francs,
+screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his
+cheek, and whether he be an attorney's clerk, a contractor's son, or a
+banker's bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest duchess,
+appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says to his friend--dressed
+by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in patent-leather like any duke
+himself--'There, my boy, that is a perfect lady.' "
+
+"You have not known how to form a party," said Lord Dudley; "it will
+be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in
+France about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized
+property. So this is what happens: Any duke--and even in the time of
+Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were some left who had two hundred
+thousand francs a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train
+of servants--well, such a duke could live like a great lord. The last
+of these great gentlemen in France was the Prince de Talleyrand.--This
+duke leaves four children, two of them girls. Granting that he has
+great luck in marrying them all well, each of these descendants will
+have but sixty or eighty thousand francs a year now; each is the
+father or mother of children, and consequently obliged to live with
+the strictest economy in a flat on the ground floor or first floor of
+a large house. Who knows if they may not even be hunting a fortune?
+Henceforth the eldest son's wife, a duchess in name only, has no
+carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time to herself. She has not her
+own rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty toys;
+she is buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little children,
+nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer
+sends to school at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been turned
+into worthy brood-hens."
+
+"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show
+those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of
+the French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has
+nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her
+face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself.
+When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a
+form of luxury."
+
+"Everything in France has aided and abetted the 'perfect lady,' " said
+Daniel d'Arthez. "The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating
+to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
+die--emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
+lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded
+European /salons/, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out
+like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or
+of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of
+abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against
+the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of
+the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are
+at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing
+princesses, these are really only ladylike young women. In these days
+princes can find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot
+even confer honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon
+was the last prince to avail himself of this privilege."
+
+"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.
+
+"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-
+box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a
+hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the
+citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor
+altogether /bourgeoises/," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
+
+"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
+longer has the quality of a spoken /feuilleton/--delightful calumnies
+graced by elegant language. We read /feuilletons/ written in a dialect
+which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
+an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
+conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
+a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
+mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
+company used to meet."
+
+"The knell of the highest society is tolling," said a Russian Prince.
+"Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word /lady/."
+
+"You are right, Prince," said de Marsay. "The 'perfect lady,' issuing
+from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class,
+and the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression
+of these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,
+and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
+ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time, elected
+by public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be
+among the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England."
+
+"And that they call progress!" exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. "I
+should like to know where the progress lies?"
+
+"Why, in this," said Madame de Nucingen. "Formerly a woman might have
+the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an
+impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a
+thick hand--she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these
+days, even if she were a Montmorency--if a Montmorency would ever be
+such a creature--she would not be a lady."
+
+"But what do you mean by a 'perfect lady'?" asked Count Adam Laginski.
+
+"She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system
+as applied to the fair sex," said the Minister. "Every revolution has
+a word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it."
+
+"You are right," said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
+reputation in Paris. "The explanation of certain words added from time
+to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
+/Organize/, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up
+Napoleon completely."
+
+"But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!" the young
+Pole exclaimed, with some impatience.
+
+"Well, I will tell you," said Emile Blondet to Count Adam. "One fine
+morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has
+not yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance
+at her is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a
+world of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale
+in his pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have
+at last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two very
+distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an order;
+or else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of ten
+yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings, no
+over-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawers
+fussing round her ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunella
+shoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, or
+plain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the most
+exquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat and
+inexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises more than one
+woman of the middle class; it is almost always a long pelisse, with
+bows to fasten it, and neatly bound with fine cord or an imperceptible
+braid. The Unknown has a way of her own in wrapping herself in her
+shawl or mantilla; she knows how to draw it round her from her hips to
+her neck, outlining a carapace, as it were, which would make an
+ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which in her sets off the most
+beautiful forms while concealing them. How does she do it? This secret
+she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.
+
+"As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious
+twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under
+the stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass.
+Is it to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation
+which plays under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill,
+sheds an airy balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of a
+Parisienne? You may recognize over her arms, round her waist, about
+her throat, a science of drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.
+
+"Oh! how thoroughly she understands the /cut/ of her gait--forgive the
+expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her skirt
+with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
+admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
+Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
+forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for
+walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.
+
+"Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with
+proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to a
+well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her
+shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a
+little air of serene dignity, like Raphael's Madonnas in their frames.
+Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent
+dandy step aside for her.
+
+"Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp
+ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women
+wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.
+Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without
+conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees
+everything; whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified,
+stamps her face with an indifference which piques your curiosity. She
+knows that she is looked at, she knows that everybody, even women,
+turn round to see her again. And she threads her way through Paris
+like a gossamer, spotless and pure.
+
+"This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
+longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th
+Arcade of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the
+equator of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India
+flourish, where the warmest creations of industry are displayed, to
+the Cape of the Madeleine; in the least muddy districts of the citizen
+quarters, between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-
+Honore. During the winter, she haunts the terrace of the Feuillants,
+but not the asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According to the
+weather, she may be seen flying in the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees,
+which is bounded on the east by the Place Louis XV., on the west by
+the Avenue de Marigny, to the south by the road, to the north by the
+gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Never is this pretty variety of
+woman to be seen in the hyperborean regions of the Rue Saint-Denis,
+never in the Kamtschatka of miry, narrow, commercial streets, never
+anywhere in bad weather. These flowers of Paris, blooming only in
+Oriental weather, perfume the highways; and after five o'clock fold up
+like morning-glory flowers. The women you will see later, looking a
+little like them, are would-be ladies; while the fair Unknown, your
+Beatrice of a day, is a 'perfect lady.'
+
+"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
+differences by which the observer /emeritus/ distinguishes them--women
+are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of
+Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white
+tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed
+bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see
+a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There is
+something conventional in the attitude.
+
+"As to the /bourgeoise/, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
+mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,
+and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does
+not know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady
+knows just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is
+undecided, tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by
+the hand, which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a
+mother in public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her
+bag, and has open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a
+boa over her fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is
+accomplished in the redundancies of dress.
+
+"You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opera,
+at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you
+would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has
+emerged from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky
+cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes,
+the forms which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the
+theatre she never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the
+Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure the studied
+deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all
+the little political artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude
+all idea of art or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand,
+the most perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely
+necessary that she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet
+or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity of profile, you will
+be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to what she says to her
+neighbor, sitting in such a position as to produce the magical effect
+of the 'lost profile,' so dear to great painters, by which the cheek
+catches the high light, the nose is shown in clear outline, the
+nostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead squarely modeled, the
+eye has its spangle of fire, but fixed on space, and the white
+roundness of the chin is accentuated by a line of light. If she has a
+pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa with the coquettish
+grace of a cat in the sunshine, her feet outstretched without your
+feeling that her attitude is anything but the most charming model ever
+given to a sculptor by lassitude.
+
+"Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
+inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the
+citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down
+a rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its
+office of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or
+glancing in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place.
+Her toilet is always in harmony with her character; she had had time
+to study herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long known
+what does not suit her. You will not find her as you go out; she
+vanishes before the end of the play. If by chance she is to be seen,
+calm and stately, on the stairs, she is experiencing some violent
+emotion; she has to bestow a glance, to receive a promise. Perhaps she
+goes down so slowly on purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave whom
+she sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes place at a ball or an
+evening party, you will gather the honey, natural or affected of her
+insinuating voice; her empty words will enchant you, and she will know
+how to give them the value of thought by her inimitable bearing."
+
+"To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?" asked the
+Polish Count.
+
+"It is necessary to have great taste," replied the Princesse de
+Cadignan.
+
+"And in France taste is more than cleverness," said the Russian.
+
+"This woman's cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,"
+Blondet went on. "You will not know what she said, but you will be
+fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white
+shoulders; she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming pout
+and smile; or throw a Voltairean epigram into an 'Indeed!' an 'Ah!' a
+'What then!' A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form of
+questioning; she will give meaning to the movement by which she twirls
+a vinaigrette hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets an artificial
+grandeur out of superlative trivialities; she simply drops her hand
+impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her chair as dewdrops
+hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said--she has pronounced
+judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the most obtuse. She
+knows how to listen to you; she gives you the opportunity of shining,
+and--I ask your modesty--those moments are rare?"
+
+The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made
+all the party shout with laughter.
+
+"Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a /bourgeoise/ without
+her alluding to her husband in one way or another," Blondet went on
+with unperturbed gravity; "whereas, even if you know that your lady is
+married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so
+effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus
+to discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If
+you have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of the
+evening you detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man wearing a
+decoration, who bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage, and
+goes.
+
+"You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go to
+bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last
+perhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates
+of the temple of dreams.
+
+"The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
+enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find
+everything in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly
+renewed; you will see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings
+hanging about, and looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase
+warmed. Flowers on all sides will charm your sight--flowers, the only
+gift she accepts, and those only from certain people, for nosegays
+live but a day; they give pleasure, and must be replaced; to her they
+are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. The costly toys of
+fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a museum or a curiosity
+shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low chair, from which
+she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now be what it was
+at the ball; there she was our creditor; in her own home she owes you
+the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of which the lady is a
+marvelous mistress. What she likes in you is a man to swell her
+circle, an object for the cares and attentions which such women are
+now happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to her drawing-room,
+she will be bewitchingly charming. This especially is where you feel
+how isolated women are nowadays, and why they want a little world of
+their own, to which they may seem a constellation. Conversation is
+impossible without generalities."
+
+"Yes," said de Marsay, "you have truly hit the fault of our age. The
+epigram--a volume in a word--no longer strikes, as it did in the
+eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events,
+and it dies in a day."
+
+"Hence," said Blondet, "the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
+consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great
+difference between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous;
+the lady does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always will
+be; she hesitates and struggles where the other refuses point-blank
+and falls full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of the last
+graces left to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to church,
+but she will talk to you of religion; and if you have the good taste
+to affect Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you will have
+opened the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shaking and
+gestures understood by all these women: 'For shame! I thought you had
+too much sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, and you
+deprive it of its support. Why, religion at this moment means you and
+me; it is property, and the future of our children! Ah! let us not be
+selfish! Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion is the
+only remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,' and so
+forth. Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with
+political notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant--but moral?
+Oh! deuced moral!--in which you may recognize a fag end of every
+material woven by modern doctrines, at loggerheads together."
+
+The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet
+illustrated his satire.
+
+"This explanation, dear Count Adam," said Blondet, turning to the
+Pole, "will have proved to you that the 'perfect lady' represents the
+intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is
+surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry
+which is always aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it
+by something else. When you leave her you say to yourself: She
+certainly has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more because
+she will have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have asked
+you your secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything; there
+are some things she never knows, not even when she knows them. You
+alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her heart.
+The great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with newspapers
+and advertisements; in these days the lady has her little passion
+neatly ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and quavers and
+minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign the key. A mere weak
+women, she is anxious not to compromise her love, or her husband, or
+the future of her children. Name, position, and fortune are no longer
+flags so respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise on board.
+The whole aristocracy no longer advances in a body to screen the lady.
+She has not, like the great lady of the past, the demeanor of lofty
+antagonism; she can crush nothing under foot, it is she who would be
+crushed. Thus she is apt at Jesuitical /mezzo termine/, she is a
+creature of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties, of
+anonymous passions steered between two reef-bound shores. She is as
+much afraid of her servants as an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a
+trial in the divorce-court. This woman--so free at a ball, so
+attractive out walking--is a slave at home; she is never independent
+but in perfect privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve herself in
+her position as a lady. This is her task.
+
+"For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
+allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the
+divine accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a
+townswoman; she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will
+not receive a married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still
+have anything to say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect
+lady may perhaps give occasion to calumny, never to slander."
+
+"It is all so horribly true," said the Princesse de Cadignan.
+
+"And so," said Blondet, "our 'perfect lady' lives between English
+hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century--a
+bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up
+is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads
+nowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures
+shrink into the background, and distinction is purely personal. I am
+fully convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were
+born close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty
+the encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring,
+the important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring,
+the angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the
+silence, the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness,
+the diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady."
+
+"And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn," said
+Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, "would you class the female
+author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman /comme il faut/?"
+
+"When she has no genius, she is a woman /comme il n'en faut pas/,"
+Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which
+might make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. "This
+epigram is not mine, but Napoleon's," he added.
+
+"You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score," said Canalis,
+with an emphatic tone and gesture. "It was one of his weaknesses to be
+jealous of literary genius--for he had his mean points. Who will ever
+explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his
+arms folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever
+known, the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all
+forces; a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every
+direction without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything
+because he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will,
+conquering an illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in
+bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code
+and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that
+foresaw everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who
+risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads--
+those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich,
+diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire, and who
+seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to
+whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of
+bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning
+manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing
+water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and
+simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of
+these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by
+temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then,
+like my grocer buried in Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a good
+father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings, codes,
+verses, a romance--and all with more range than precision. Did he not
+aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the
+earth in such a way as to change the laws of gravitation, he left us
+poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who
+had taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his
+empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all
+action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouche."
+
+"All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!"
+said de Marsay.
+
+"Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk," said Baron de
+Nucingen.
+
+"But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?"
+asked Joseph Bridau. "If you had to pay for the charms of conversation
+as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be
+inadequate! There is no second performance of the same flash of wit."
+
+"And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?"
+said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at
+once sceptical and ironical. "Because, in these days, under a regime
+which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms,
+small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does
+that prove that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human
+heart change because you change your coat? In all ages the passions
+remain the same. I know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime
+sufferings, which lack the publicity--the glory, if you choose--which
+formerly gave lustre to the errors of some women. But though one may
+not have saved a King of France, one is not the less an Agnes Sorel.
+Do you believe that our dear Marquise d'Espard is not the peer of
+Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whose rooms so much evil was
+spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a match for Camargo? or Malibran the
+equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets superior to those of the
+eighteenth century? If at this moment, through the fault of the
+Grocers who govern us, we have not a style of our own, had not the
+Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age of Louis XV. had, and was
+not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences lost anything?"
+
+"I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
+great," replied the Comte de Vandenesse. "When posterity shall have
+followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine as
+those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
+history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but
+one Madame de Sevigne; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly
+write better than she did, and who do not publish their letters.
+Whether the Frenchwoman be called 'perfect lady,' or great lady, she
+will always be /the/ woman among women.
+
+"Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman
+of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who
+chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it
+must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical,
+because they must always and under all circumstances be surrounded by
+greater perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied it
+perhaps too late; but in cases where the illegality of your feelings
+might be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know not
+what chance--which you may call Providence--inevitably overwhelming
+such as we consider light women."
+
+"I hope," said Madame de Vandenesse, "that we can be great in other
+ways----"
+
+"Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!" exclaimed Madame de
+Serizy.
+
+"With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
+example," said the Baronne de Nucingen.
+
+"On my honor!" said General de Montriveau, "in all the dramas--a word
+you are very fond of," he said, looking at Blondet--"in which the
+finger of God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was
+very near being by my act----"
+
+"Well, tell us all about it!" cried Lady Barimore; "I love to
+shudder!"
+
+"It is the taste of a virtuous woman," replied de Marsay, looking at
+Lord Dudley's lovely daughter.
+
+"During the campaign of 1812," General de Montriveau began, "I was the
+involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
+Doctor Bianchon," turning to me, "since, while devoting yourself to
+the human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may
+tend to solve some of the problems of the will.
+
+"I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed
+at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that
+I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost
+all discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley
+of men of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to
+south. The soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away
+from their fire if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the
+passage of this famous river disorder did not diminish. I had come
+quietly and alone, without food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was
+wandering in search of a house where I might be taken in. Finding none
+or driven away from those I came across, happily towards evening I
+perceived a wretched little Polish farm, of which nothing can give you
+any idea unless you have seen the wooden houses of Lower Normandy, or
+the poorest farm-buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist of a
+single room, with one end divided off by a wooden partition, the
+smaller division serving as a store-room for forage.
+
+"In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising
+above this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more
+compassionate than those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as
+far as the farm. On going in, I found the table laid. Several
+officers, and with them a woman--a common sight enough--were eating
+potatoes, some horseflesh broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen
+beetroots. I recognized among the company two or three artillery
+captains of the regiment in which I had first served. I was welcomed
+with a shout of acclamation, which would have amazed me greatly on the
+other side of the Beresina; but at this moment the cold was less
+intense; my fellow-officers were resting, they were warm, they had
+food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the promise of
+a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in those days. My
+comrades could be philanthropists /gratis/--one of the commonest ways
+of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of the bundles of
+straw.
+
+"At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the
+smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the
+most extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of
+men it has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human
+nature is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime.
+I do not know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of
+Italians when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an
+artificial light. When I read the fantastical portrait of Colonel
+Oudet sketched by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in every
+one of his elegant phrases. Italian, then, as were most of the
+officers of his regiment, which had, in fact, been borrowed by the
+Emperor from Eugene's army, my colonel was a tall man, at least eight
+or nine inches above the standard, and was admirably proportioned--a
+little stout perhaps, but prodigiously powerful, active, and clean-
+limbed as a greyhound. His black hair in abundant curls showed up his
+complexion, as white as a woman's; he had small hands, a shapely foot,
+a pleasant mouth, and an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which the
+tip used to become naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry,
+as happened often. His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I
+will tell you nothing about it; you will have the opportunity of
+judging of it. No one could be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps,
+was not afraid of him; he had indeed taken such a singular fancy to me
+that he thought everything I did right. When he was in a rage his brow
+was knit and the muscles of the middle of his forehead set in a delta,
+or, to be more explicit, in Redgauntlet's horseshoe. This mark was,
+perhaps, even more terrifying than the magnetic flashes of his blue
+eyes. His whole frame quivered, and his strength, great as it was in
+his normal state, became almost unbounded.
+
+"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
+as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
+tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was
+sounded. Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when
+commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless
+you had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at
+Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were
+angelically sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression.
+On parade, or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with
+him. Indeed, d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by
+our colonel on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before
+the invasion of Russia.
+
+"Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives on
+contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
+irresistible influences to which our nature yields"--and the general
+looked at the Princesse de Cadignan--"as vitreous matter is moulded
+under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality--an
+observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon--the Colonel was not a
+lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.
+
+"To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words
+what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our
+guns up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on one
+side, and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met
+another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This
+colonel wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost
+battery back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the
+colonel of the other regiment signed to his foremost battery to
+advance, and in spite of the care the driver took to keep among the
+scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our captain's right leg and
+broke it, throwing him over on the near side of his horse. All this
+was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a little way off,
+guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding among the
+guns at the risk of falling with his horse's four feet in the air, and
+reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the very
+moment when the captain fell, calling out 'Help!' No, our Italian
+colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne rose to
+his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering
+a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist,
+pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went
+aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent stretched on the
+ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed--
+yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.
+
+"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in
+the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,
+a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our
+Colonel. This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to
+protect the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the
+woman herself.
+
+"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
+captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end
+of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman
+named Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in
+her black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin;
+her face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a
+highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
+disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close
+over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were
+engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her
+features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not
+altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of
+a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in
+appearance, but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of
+Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is
+allowable to ally the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to
+know nothing of the connections which had subsisted between his wife
+and the Colonel for three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to
+Italian manners, or to some domestic secret; yet there was in the
+man's countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary
+distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned down
+at the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed
+a streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic and
+indolent.
+
+"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I
+went in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me
+some questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with
+reflections on the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the
+Russians, and the cold. A minute after my arrival the colonel, having
+finished his meagre meal, wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot
+a black look at the Italian woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then, without
+waiting for a reply, went into the little barn full of hay, to bed.
+The meaning of the Colonel's utterance was self-evident. The young
+wife replied by an indescribable gesture, expressing all the annoyance
+she could not feel at seeing her thralldom thus flaunted without human
+decency, and the offence to her dignity as a woman, and to her
+husband. But there was, too, in the rigid setting of her features and
+the tight knitting of her brows a sort of presentiment; perhaps she
+foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her place.
+
+"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch
+of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'
+
+"The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than
+the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the Italian
+language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,
+concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength of
+will. Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to
+the Colonel.
+
+"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at
+them all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'/Tu ridi?/
+--you laugh?' said the husband.
+
+" 'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, 'I
+confess that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if
+you are not satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you
+satisfaction.'
+
+" 'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.
+
+"Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
+asleep.
+
+"Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
+companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness which
+made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,
+melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.
+Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter
+we, most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led in
+flocks by a child's wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.
+
+"Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where
+we had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions
+in the desert, the bellowing of bulls--no, it was a noise which can be
+compared to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and
+ominous roar, we could hear a woman's feeble scream. We all looked
+round, seized by I know not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw
+the house, but a huge bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and
+was in flames. Swirls of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse
+cries and an indescribable pungent smell. A few yards behind, the
+captain was quietly approaching to join our caravan; we gazed at him
+in silence, for no one dared question him; but he, understanding our
+curiosity, pointed to his breast with the forefinger of his right
+hand, and, waving the left in the direction of the fire, he said,
+'/Son'io/.'
+
+"We all walked on without saying a word to him."
+
+"There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep," said de
+Marsay.
+
+"It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in
+our memory," said Madame de Montcornet. "I shall dream of it----"
+
+"And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay's 'First'?" said
+Lord Dudley, smiling.
+
+"When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on," said
+Blondet.
+
+"Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying," replied de
+Marsay, turning to me.
+
+"Yes," said I; "and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever saw.
+The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman's pillow;
+pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken
+the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,
+waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching
+way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she
+meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her
+face had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor
+made her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes
+and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her
+countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,
+and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death
+approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The
+room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour
+of death.
+
+"At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair
+at having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by
+which he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his
+wife for a few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite
+certain that any one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it.
+A busy statesman, always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke
+had a thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of
+genius being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation lies
+in the exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He came to
+seat himself in an armchair by his wife's side, and looked fixedly at
+her. The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband's
+and clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said, 'My
+poor dear, who is left to understand you now?' Then she died, looking
+at him."
+
+"The stories the doctor tells us," said the Comte de Vandenesse,
+"always leave a deep impression."
+
+"But a sweet one," said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.
+
+
+
+PARIS, June 1839-42.
+
+
+
+                               ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bianchon, Horace
+  Father Goriot
+  The Atheist's Mass
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Government Clerks
+  Pierrette
+  A Study of Woman
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Honorine
+  The Seamy Side of History
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Second Home
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Middle Classes
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Country Parson
+In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+  La Grande Breteche
+
+Blondet, Emile
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  The Peasantry
+
+Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Peasantry
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Member for Arcis
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Bridau, Joseph
+  The Purse
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Start in Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Pierre Grassou
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Magic Skin
+  A Start in Life
+  Beatrix
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Dudley, Lord
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  The Thirteen
+  A Man of Business
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d'
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Beatrix
+
+Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  Cousin Betty
+
+Marsay, Henri de
+  The Thirteen
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  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
+
+Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Modeste Mignon
+  Jealousies of a Country Town
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de
+  The Thirteen
+  Father Goriot
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Pierrette
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  Father Goriot
+  Pierrette
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Man of Business
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Muse of the Department
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
+  Father Goriot
+  The Thirteen
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Melmoth Reconciled
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  Beatrix
+
+Rastignac, Eugene de
+  Father Goriot
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  The Commission in Lunacy
+  A Study of Woman
+  The Magic Skin
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  The Firm of Nucingen
+  Cousin Betty
+  The Member for Arcis
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de
+  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  Ursule Mirouet
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des
+  Beatrix
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Honorine
+  Beatrix
+  The Muse of the Department
+
+Vandenesse, Comte Felix de
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  A Start in Life
+  The Marriage Settlement
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+end of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Another Study of Woman, by Balzac
+
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+ by Honor&eacute; de Balzac<br>
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+Title: Another Study of Woman
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+Author: Honore de Balzac
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN ***
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p>ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN</p>
+
+<p>by HONORE DE BALZAC</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ Translated By<br>
+ Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell</p>
+
+<p>DEDICATION</p>
+
+<p>To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.</p>
+
+<h2><br>
+ ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN</h2>
+
+<p><br>
+ At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on
+at<br>
+ every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the
+persons<br>
+ invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces
+for<br>
+ his neighbor's eye; most of the younger women are there for one
+person<br>
+ only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she
+is the<br>
+ handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps
+shared<br>
+ by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as:
+"Do<br>
+ you think of going away soon to La Crampade?" "How well Madame
+de<br>
+ Portenduere sang!" "Who is that little woman with such a load
+of<br>
+ diamonds?" Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which
+give<br>
+ transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the
+groups thin<br>
+ out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to
+the<br>
+ sconces.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing
+people<br>
+ or intimate friends, saying, "Do not go yet; we will have a
+snug<br>
+ little supper." These collect in some small room. The second,
+the real<br>
+ party, now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear
+what<br>
+ is said, conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty
+and to<br>
+ contribute to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell,
+honest<br>
+ laughter takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens
+the<br>
+ prettiest faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure
+begins.</p>
+
+<p>The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits
+in full<br>
+ dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to
+<i>mechanize</i><br>
+ other nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as
+dull as<br>
+ itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in
+some<br>
+ French houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of
+our<br>
+ light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses
+protest; and<br>
+ the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many
+suppers<br>
+ nowadays, it is because never, under any rule, have there been
+fewer<br>
+ men placed, established, and successful than under the reign of
+Louis<br>
+ Philippe, when the Revolution began again, lawfully. Everybody
+is on<br>
+ the march some whither, or trotting at the heels of Fortune.
+Time has<br>
+ become the costliest commodity, so no one can afford the
+lavish<br>
+ extravagance of going home to-morrow morning and getting up
+late.<br>
+ Hence, there is no second soiree now but at the houses of women
+rich<br>
+ enough to entertain, and since July 1830 such women may be
+counted in<br>
+ Paris.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain, two<br>
+ or three women, among them Madame d'Espard and Mademoiselle
+des<br>
+ Touches, have not chosen to give up the share of influence
+they<br>
+ exercised in Paris, and have not closed their houses.</p>
+
+<p>The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as
+being the<br>
+ last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with
+its<br>
+ reserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite<br>
+ politeness. You will there still find grace of manner
+notwithstanding<br>
+ the conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk<br>
+ notwithstanding the reserve which is natural to persons of
+breeding,<br>
+ and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks
+of<br>
+ keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards a story as
+material<br>
+ for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay
+never<br>
+ stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or an
+interesting<br>
+ subject.</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me,
+less by<br>
+ reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened
+up<br>
+ one of the deepest recesses of woman's heart, than on account of
+the<br>
+ reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes
+that<br>
+ have taken place in the French woman since the fateful
+revolution of<br>
+ July.</p>
+
+<p>On that evening chance had brought together several persons,
+whose<br>
+ indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is
+not a<br>
+ piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good
+many<br>
+ foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not
+the<br>
+ most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable
+banter,<br>
+ pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and
+flowed<br>
+ without elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but
+without<br>
+ effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately
+appreciated. The<br>
+ men of the world especially were conspicuous for their really
+artistic<br>
+ grace and spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality,
+genial<br>
+ fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this
+drawing-room,<br>
+ and those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit
+abound<br>
+ which gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all these
+social<br>
+ qualities, an indescribable river-like flow which makes this
+profusion<br>
+ of ideas, of definitions, of anecdotes, of historical
+incidents,<br>
+ meander with ease. Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses
+the<br>
+ science which makes conversation a tourney in which each type of
+wit<br>
+ is condensed into a shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and
+casts<br>
+ his experience in a word, in which every one finds
+amusement,<br>
+ relaxation, and exercise. Here, then, alone, will you exchange
+ideas;<br>
+ here you need not, like the dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey
+on<br>
+ your shoulders; here you will be understood, and will not risk
+staking<br>
+ your gold pieces against base metal.</p>
+
+<p>Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep,
+play<br>
+ and eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase.
+Eager<br>
+ criticism and crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All
+eyes<br>
+ are listening, a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look
+gives<br>
+ the answer. In short, and in a word, everything is wit and
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well
+handled,<br>
+ is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so<br>
+ completely bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of
+its<br>
+ spell; we all spent a delightful evening. The conversation had
+drifted<br>
+ into anecdote, and brought out in its rushing course some
+curious<br>
+ confessions, several portraits, and a thousand follies, which
+make<br>
+ this enchanting improvisation impossible to record; still, by
+setting<br>
+ these things down in all their natural freshness and abruptness,
+their<br>
+ elusive divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real
+French<br>
+ evening, taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity
+makes<br>
+ each one forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if
+you<br>
+ like, his pretensions.</p>
+
+<p>At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left
+sitting<br>
+ round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of
+fifteen<br>
+ years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who
+knew the<br>
+ world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper
+every one<br>
+ renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set
+the<br>
+ tone. But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud
+of<br>
+ being himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests
+remaining at<br>
+ table till they leave, having frequently remarked the change
+which a<br>
+ move produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room
+and<br>
+ the drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne,
+the<br>
+ ideas of an author after shaving are different from those he
+had<br>
+ before. If Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that
+the<br>
+ frame of mind of a party at table is not the same as that of the
+same<br>
+ persons returned to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not
+heady, the<br>
+ eye no longer contemplates the brilliant disorder of the
+dessert, lost<br>
+ are the happy effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence
+which<br>
+ comes over us while we remain in the humor peculiar to the
+well-filled<br>
+ man, settled comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are
+made<br>
+ in these days. Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to
+face with<br>
+ the dessert and in the society of good wine, during the
+delightful<br>
+ interval when every one may sit with an elbow on the table and
+his<br>
+ head resting on his hand. Not only does every one like to talk
+then,<br>
+ but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost always attent,
+is<br>
+ loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every one finds
+his<br>
+ opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of
+the<br>
+ narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the
+innocent<br>
+ jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to
+persons<br>
+ who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen
+such<br>
+ delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and
+Prince<br>
+ Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?</p>
+
+<p>De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already
+given<br>
+ proofs of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long
+were not<br>
+ indeed surprised to see him display all the talents and
+various<br>
+ aptitudes of a statesman; still it might yet be a question
+whether he<br>
+ would prove to be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded
+in<br>
+ the fire of circumstance. This question had just been asked by a
+man<br>
+ whom he had made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who had
+for a<br>
+ long time been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay
+without<br>
+ infusing into his admiration that dash of acrid criticism by
+which, in<br>
+ Paris, one superior man excuses himself from admiring
+another.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there ever," said he, "in your former life, any event,
+any<br>
+ thought or wish which told you what your vocation was?" asked
+Emile<br>
+ Blondet; "for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls
+and<br>
+ leads us to the spot where our faculties develop----"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said de Marsay; "I will tell you about it."</p>
+
+<p>Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de
+Marsay's<br>
+ intimate friends,--all settled themselves comfortably, each in
+his<br>
+ favorite attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that
+the<br>
+ servants had left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains
+drawn<br>
+ over them? The silence was so complete that the murmurs of
+the<br>
+ coachmen's voices could be heard from the courtyard, and the
+pawing<br>
+ and champing made by horses when asking to be taken back to
+their<br>
+ stable.</p>
+
+<p>"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality,"
+said the<br>
+ Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert
+knife. "To<br>
+ wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting
+more or<br>
+ less, under all circumstances, by every event, however
+fortuitous; in<br>
+ short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other
+self,<br>
+ who looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting
+our<br>
+ passions and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case
+the<br>
+ judgment of a sort of moral ready-reckoner."</p>
+
+<p>"That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France,"
+said old<br>
+ Lord Dudley.</p>
+
+<p>"From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible," the
+Minister<br>
+ went on. "Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young
+man--<br>
+ Richelieu, who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini's
+peril,<br>
+ slept till midday, when his benefactor was killed at ten
+o'clock--or<br>
+ say Pitt, or Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such a monster
+at a<br>
+ very early age, thanks to a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancied," said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, "that
+more<br>
+ politicians were undone by us than we could make."</p>
+
+<p>"The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he
+withstands<br>
+ you," replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.</p>
+
+<p>"If this is a love-story," the Baronne de Nucingen interposed,
+"I<br>
+ request that it may not be interrupted by any reflections."</p>
+
+<p>"Reflection is so antipathetic to it!" cried Joseph
+Bridau.</p>
+
+<p>"I was seventeen," de Marsay went on; "the Restoration was
+being<br>
+ consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was
+then.<br>
+ I was in love for the first time, and I was--I may say so
+now--one of<br>
+ the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good
+looks, two<br>
+ advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud
+as of<br>
+ a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.--Like all youths, I
+was<br>
+ in love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you
+here,"<br>
+ said he, looking carefully round the table, "can suspect her
+name or<br>
+ recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed
+my<br>
+ secret. He had kept it well, but I should have feared his
+smile.<br>
+ However, he is gone," said the Minister, looking round.</p>
+
+<p>"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.</p>
+
+<p>"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on,
+"but<br>
+ incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had
+abandoned<br>
+ myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph
+and the<br>
+ frail joy of the young. I treasured <i>her</i> old gloves; I
+drank an<br>
+ infusion of the flowers <i>she</i> had worn; I got out of bed at
+night to<br>
+ go and gaze at <i>her</i> window. All my blood rushed to my
+heart when I<br>
+ inhaled the perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that
+woman<br>
+ is a stove with a marble casing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de
+Montcornet with<br>
+ a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher
+who<br>
+ first uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said
+de<br>
+ Marsay. "You are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more
+on<br>
+ that point. These few words will remind you of your own
+follies.</p>
+
+<p>"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without
+children--oh! all<br>
+ was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with
+her<br>
+ hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how
+can we<br>
+ fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of
+madness?</p>
+
+<p>"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect
+and so<br>
+ beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what
+charm<br>
+ we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She
+was<br>
+ perfection then, and to this day is considered one of the
+most<br>
+ beautiful women in Paris; but at that time a man would have
+endured<br>
+ death to win one of her glances. She had been left with an
+amount of<br>
+ fortune sufficient for a woman who had loved and was adored; but
+the<br>
+ Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre, made it seem
+inadequate<br>
+ in comparison with her name. In my position I was so fatuous as
+never<br>
+ to dream of a suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of
+a<br>
+ hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion
+slumbered in<br>
+ me as gold in the nugget. I would have ordered my servant to
+thrash me<br>
+ if I had been so base as ever to doubt the purity of that
+angel--so<br>
+ fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and
+whose<br>
+ blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her
+heart<br>
+ with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the slightest
+hesitancy<br>
+ in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and fresh, and
+ready<br>
+ for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!'
+Ah! my<br>
+ friends!" sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a
+man must<br>
+ hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred
+the<br>
+ curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.</p>
+
+<p>"Every morning, riding Sultan--the fine horse you sent me
+from<br>
+ England," de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, "I rode
+past her<br>
+ open carriage, the horses' pace being intentionally reduced to a
+walk,<br>
+ and read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of
+her<br>
+ bouquet in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though
+we saw<br>
+ each other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me
+every<br>
+ day, to deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had
+adopted a<br>
+ scheme of conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid
+meeting; to<br>
+ speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing
+the<br>
+ disdained swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare
+on<br>
+ either part with a false passion professed for an indifferent
+person<br>
+ and an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers
+will<br>
+ only play that game, the world will always be deceived; but then
+they<br>
+ must be very secure of each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold
+and<br>
+ sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This
+little<br>
+ comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and
+drawing-room<br>
+ circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between
+us;<br>
+ six years' difference of age might give her pause; she knew
+nothing of<br>
+ my fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the
+secret. I,<br>
+ on my part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of
+her<br>
+ knowledge and her experience of the world, would have married
+her<br>
+ without a thought. At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If
+she<br>
+ had been the first to speak of marriage in a certain tone, I
+might<br>
+ perhaps have noted it as vulgar in that accomplished soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Six months, full and perfect--a diamond of the purest water!
+That has<br>
+ been my portion of love in this base world.</p>
+
+<p>"One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks
+the<br>
+ beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those
+secret<br>
+ festivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls
+in the<br>
+ sea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she
+will<br>
+ not believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect
+jealousy<br>
+ and suspiciousness.--When jealousy is genuine," said de
+Marsay,<br>
+ interrupting himself, "it is the visible sign of an unique
+passion."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Unique and true love," said de Marsay, "produces a sort of
+corporeal<br>
+ apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then
+the<br>
+ mind complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its
+fancies,<br>
+ turns them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as<br>
+ delightful as it is distressing."</p>
+
+<p>A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt
+the<br>
+ truth of this remark.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," de Marsay went on, "I said to myself, why miss a
+happy<br>
+ hour? Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then,
+if she<br>
+ learns that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here
+and<br>
+ compromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter,
+and<br>
+ carried it myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. The
+river<br>
+ lay between us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a
+suitable<br>
+ distance of her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged
+him to<br>
+ have the note sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea
+of<br>
+ driving past her door in a hackney cab to see whether she might
+not by<br>
+ chance receive the two letters together. At the moment when I
+arrived<br>
+ it was two o'clock; the great gate opened to admit a carriage.
+Whose?<br>
+ --That of the stalking-horse!</p>
+
+<p>"It is fifteen years since--well, even while I tell the tale,
+I, the<br>
+ exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of
+public<br>
+ business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood
+about<br>
+ my diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the
+carriage<br>
+ was still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the
+porter's<br>
+ hands. At last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I
+could<br>
+ observe my rival's expression; he was grave, and did not smile;
+but he<br>
+ was in love, and no doubt there was business in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me;
+I saw<br>
+ her calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have
+always<br>
+ thought that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad
+taste.<br>
+ Only a man who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed
+Shakespeare<br>
+ felt this when he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The
+sight of<br>
+ the woman we love is such a balm to the heart that it must
+dispel<br>
+ anguish, doubt, and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile
+again.<br>
+ Hence this cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the
+most<br>
+ atrocious dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love.
+My<br>
+ jealousy once buried, I had the power of observation. My
+ailing<br>
+ condition was evident; the horrible doubts that had fermented in
+me<br>
+ increased it. At last I found an opening for putting in these
+words:<br>
+ 'You have had no one with you this morning?' making a pretext of
+the<br>
+ uneasiness I had felt in the fear lest she should have disposed
+of her<br>
+ time after receiving my first note.--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'only
+a man<br>
+ could have such ideas! As if I could think of anything but
+your<br>
+ suffering. Till the moment when I received your second note I
+could<br>
+ think only of how I could contrive to see you.'--'And you
+were<br>
+ alone?'--'Alone,' said she, looking at me with a face of
+innocence so<br>
+ perfect that it must have been his distrust of such a look as
+that<br>
+ which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived alone in the
+house,<br>
+ the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys the
+absolute<br>
+ confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be
+assumed<br>
+ that we have an internal self of which the exterior <i>I</i> is
+but the<br>
+ husk; that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a
+shade<br>
+ --well, that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever
+shrouded in<br>
+ crape. Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the
+winding-<br>
+ sheet of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into
+which the<br>
+ first betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she
+might<br>
+ not observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored
+my<br>
+ strength: 'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'</p>
+
+<p>"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to
+my eyes<br>
+ to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving
+me<br>
+ home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full
+of a<br>
+ solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of
+Venice<br>
+ whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that
+great<br>
+ child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent
+spectator<br>
+ feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing
+the<br>
+ woman is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was
+she<br>
+ distressed at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she
+were my<br>
+ valet, in whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all
+this was<br>
+ as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in
+her<br>
+ happiness. There is always a precious ape in the prettiest and
+most<br>
+ angelic woman!"</p>
+
+<p>At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this
+brutal<br>
+ truth so brutally stated.</p>
+
+<p>"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de
+Marsay<br>
+ went on. "I discovered that I was a statesman."</p>
+
+<p>It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring
+exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a
+woman,"<br>
+ said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal
+ingenuity--for,<br>
+ as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable
+revenges<br>
+ were possible--I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I<br>
+ insensibly formulated a horrible code--that of Indulgence. In
+taking<br>
+ vengeance on a woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but
+one<br>
+ for us, that we cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the
+way<br>
+ to win her back? If she is not indispensable, if there are other
+women<br>
+ in the world, why not grant her the right to change which we
+assume?</p>
+
+<p>"This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense
+it would<br>
+ be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity
+for<br>
+ indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two
+sexes<br>
+ must be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable
+law,<br>
+ deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is
+nothing.<br>
+ Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the
+world<br>
+ must be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of
+it--<br>
+ that of Othello.</p>
+
+<p>"Mine was different."</p>
+
+<p>The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement
+which<br>
+ newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the
+words:<br>
+ <i>great sensation</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I
+flung<br>
+ myself into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and
+of a<br>
+ style of beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I
+took<br>
+ care not to quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good
+an<br>
+ actress, for I doubt whether true love can give such gracious
+delights<br>
+ as those lavished by such a dexterous fraud. Such refined
+hypocrisy is<br>
+ as good as virtue.--I am not speaking to you Englishwomen, my
+lady,"<br>
+ said the Minister, suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, Lord
+Dudley's<br>
+ daughter. "I tried to be the same lover.</p>
+
+<p>"I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel,
+and I<br>
+ went to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue
+Boucher.<br>
+ The man had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention
+his<br>
+ address for the benefit of those who have not much hair; he has
+plenty<br>
+ of every kind and every color. After I had explained my order,
+he<br>
+ showed me his work. I then saw achievements of patience
+surpassing<br>
+ those which the story books ascribe to fairies, or which are
+executed<br>
+ by prisoners. He brought me up to date as to the caprices and
+fashions<br>
+ governing the use of hair. 'For the last year,' said he, 'there
+has<br>
+ been a rage for marking linen with hair; happily I had a
+fine<br>
+ collection of hair and skilled needlewomen,'--on hearing this
+a<br>
+ suspicion flashed upon me; I took out my handkerchief and said,
+'So<br>
+ this was done in your shop, with false hair?'--He looked at
+the<br>
+ handkerchief, and said, 'Ay! that lady was very particular,
+she<br>
+ insisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My wife herself
+marked<br>
+ those handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the finest
+pieces of<br>
+ work we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of light I
+might<br>
+ have believed something--might have taken a woman's word. I left
+the<br>
+ shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was
+concerned I<br>
+ was as atheistical as a mathematician.</p>
+
+<p>"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal
+being in<br>
+ her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they
+were<br>
+ very beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling
+their<br>
+ sweetest flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is
+always a<br>
+ moment when one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a
+drawing-<br>
+ room and there are no daisies. At the intensest moment of
+tenderness,<br>
+ and when we are most in love, love is so well aware of its own
+short<br>
+ duration that we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love me?
+Will<br>
+ you love me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so
+flowery,<br>
+ so full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in
+the<br>
+ enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her
+choicest<br>
+ allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the
+only man<br>
+ in the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft
+her<br>
+ of all her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love;
+she was<br>
+ indeed too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she
+had<br>
+ been seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone
+knew<br>
+ that secret; in short, I was her god!"</p>
+
+<p>The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing
+themselves so<br>
+ well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong
+attitudes,<br>
+ and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.</p>
+
+<p>"At the very moment when I might have believed these
+adorable<br>
+ falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to
+her,<br>
+ 'When are you to marry the Duke?'</p>
+
+<p>"The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her
+hand<br>
+ lay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could
+not be<br>
+ disguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored
+her<br>
+ cheeks.--'The Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting
+great<br>
+ astonishment.--'I know everything,' replied I; 'and in my
+opinion, you<br>
+ should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more
+than<br>
+ devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have
+been<br>
+ faithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine
+how<br>
+ urgently necessary it is that you should compromise him with
+himself<br>
+ and with God; short of that you will never bring him to the
+point.'--<br>
+ 'Is this a dream?' said she, pushing her hair from her
+forehead,<br>
+ fifteen years before Malibran, with the gesture which Malibran
+has<br>
+ made so famous.--'Come, do not be childish, my angel,' said I,
+trying<br>
+ to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a
+little<br>
+ prudish and indignant mein.--'Marry him, you have my
+permission,' said<br>
+ I, replying to this gesture by using the formal <i>vous</i>
+instead of<br>
+ <i>tu</i>. 'Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she,
+falling at<br>
+ my knees, 'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the
+world<br>
+ but you; you may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my
+dear,' said<br>
+ I, 'and do me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before
+God.'--'Do you<br>
+ doubt my love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well, I
+have<br>
+ committed the greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your
+love<br>
+ and your fidelity. Between two intoxications I looked calmly
+about<br>
+ me.'--'Calmly!' sighed she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no
+longer love<br>
+ me.'</p>
+
+<br>
+"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In
+scenes<br>
+like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made
+her<br>
+add: 'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke
+excepting<br>
+in public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but
+in<br>
+his. And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin
+to<br>
+see you listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed,
+'then<br>
+I have made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said
+I,<br>
+admiring the pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these
+acrobatic<br>
+feats which can only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But
+by<br>
+dint of going to church I have become very incredulous. On the
+day of<br>
+my first cold, and your first treachery, when you thought I was
+in<br>
+bed, you received the Duke, and you told me you had seen no
+one.'--'Do<br>
+you know that your conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I
+consider<br>
+your marriage to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you
+a<br>
+great name, the only rank that suits you, a brilliant and<br>
+distinguished position. You will be one of the queens of Paris.
+I<br>
+should be doing you a wrong if I placed any obstacle in the way
+of<br>
+this prospect, this distinguished life, this splendid alliance.
+Ah!<br>
+Charlotte, some day you will do me justice by discovering how
+unlike<br>
+my character is to that of other young men. You would have
+been<br>
+compelled to deceive me; yes, you would have found it very
+difficult<br>
+to break with me, for he watches you. It is time that we should
+part,<br>
+for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turn prude; I advise
+you to<br>
+do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of his wife.'--'Oh!'
+cried<br>
+she, bursting into tears, 'Henri, if only you had spoken! Yes, if
+you<br>
+had chosen'--it was I who was to blame, you understand--'we would
+have<br>
+gone to live all our days in a corner, married, happy, and defied
+the<br>
+world.'--'Well, it is too late now,' said I, kissing her hands,
+and<br>
+putting on a victimized air.--'Good God! But I can undo it all!'
+said<br>
+she.--'No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I ought indeed to
+go a<br>
+journey to part us more effectually. We should both have reason
+to<br>
+fear our own affection----'--'Henri, do you think the Duke has
+any<br>
+suspicions?' I was still 'Henri,' but the <i>tu</i> was lost for
+ever.--'I<br>
+do not think so,' I replied, assuming the manner of a friend;
+'but be<br>
+as devout as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke
+waits<br>
+for proofs; he hesitates, you must bring him to the point.'
+
+<p>"She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or
+affected<br>
+ agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look
+beseeming<br>
+ the new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held
+out her<br>
+ hand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you
+are<br>
+ loyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'</p>
+
+<p>"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this
+transition<br>
+ of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished
+to<br>
+ place herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the
+manners,<br>
+ and the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too
+newly<br>
+ assumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew
+me<br>
+ along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said
+after a<br>
+ moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do
+you<br>
+ love me?'--'Oh! yes.'--'Well, then, what will become of you?'
+"</p>
+
+<p>At this point the women all looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still
+laugh at<br>
+ her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that
+I must<br>
+ die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay
+went<br>
+ on. "Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is
+better<br>
+ to come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said
+to her,<br>
+ 'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'--'Well, what will you
+do?'<br>
+ --'I asked myself that the day after my cold.'--'And----?' she
+asked<br>
+ with eager anxiety.--'And I have made advances to the little
+lady to<br>
+ whom I was supposed to be attached.'</p>
+
+<p>"Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe,
+trembling<br>
+ like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all
+their<br>
+ dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their
+grace,<br>
+ the sparkling glitter of a hunted viper's eye when driven into
+a<br>
+ corner, and said, 'And I have loved this man! I have struggled!
+I<br>
+ have----' On this last thought, which I leave you to guess, she
+made<br>
+ the most impressive pause I ever heard.--'Good God!' she cried,
+'how<br>
+ unhappy are we women! we never can be loved. To you there is
+nothing<br>
+ serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat
+us you<br>
+ still are our dupes!'--'I see that plainly,' said I, with a
+stricken<br>
+ air; 'you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart to
+suffer<br>
+ from it.'--This modest epigram increased her rage; she found
+some<br>
+ tears of vexation. 'You disgust me with the world and with
+life.' she<br>
+ said; 'you snatch away all my illusions; you deprave my
+heart.'</p>
+
+<p>"She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with
+a<br>
+ simple effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly
+have<br>
+ nailed any man but me on the spot.--'What is to become of us
+poor<br>
+ women in a state of society such as Louis XVIII.'s charter made
+it?'--<br>
+ (Imagine how her words had run away with her.)--'Yes, indeed, we
+are<br>
+ born to suffer. In matters of passion we are always superior to
+you,<br>
+ and you are beneath all loyalty. There is no honesty in your
+hearts.<br>
+ To you love is a game in which you always cheat.'--'My dear,'
+said I,<br>
+ 'to take anything serious in society nowadays would be like
+making<br>
+ romantic love to an actress.'--'What a shameless betrayal! It
+was<br>
+ deliberately planned!'--'No, only a rational
+issue.'--'Good-bye,<br>
+ Monsieur de Marsay,' said she; 'you have deceived me
+horribly.'--<br>
+ 'Surely,' I replied, taking up a submissive attitude, 'Madame
+la<br>
+ Duchesse will not remember Charlotte's
+grievances?'--'Certainly,' she<br>
+ answered bitterly.--'Then, in fact, you hate me?'--She bowed,
+and I<br>
+ said to myself, 'There is something still left!'</p>
+
+<p>"The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to
+believe<br>
+ that she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I
+have<br>
+ carefully studied the lives of men who have had great success
+with<br>
+ women, but I do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, or
+Lauzun,<br>
+ or Louis de Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the
+first<br>
+ attempt. As to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then
+and<br>
+ there, once for all, and the power of control I thus acquired
+over the<br>
+ thoughtless impulses which make us commit so many follies gained
+me<br>
+ the admirable presence of mind you all know."</p>
+
+<p>"How deeply I pity the second!" exclaimed the Baronne de
+Nucingen.</p>
+
+<p>A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay's pale lips made
+Delphine de<br>
+ Nucingen color.</p>
+
+<p>"How we do forget!" said the Baron de Nucingen.</p>
+
+<p>The great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll, that his
+wife,<br>
+ who was de Marsay's "second," could not help laughing like every
+one<br>
+ else.</p>
+
+<p>"You are all ready to condemn the woman," said Lady Dudley.
+"Well, I<br>
+ quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act
+of<br>
+ inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy
+and<br>
+ fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has
+told<br>
+ us, and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my lady, you are right," replied de Marsay. "For very
+nearly<br>
+ fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of
+all<br>
+ social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this
+great<br>
+ wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over
+their<br>
+ heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken:
+Duchesses are<br>
+ vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses--I must
+apologize<br>
+ to Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her
+husband is<br>
+ made a peer of France--baronesses have never succeeded in
+getting<br>
+ people to take them seriously."</p>
+
+<p>"Aristocracy begins with the viscountess," said Blondet with a
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Countesses will survive," said de Marsay. "An elegant woman
+will be<br>
+ more or less of a countess--a countess of the Empire or of
+yesterday,<br>
+ a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a
+countess by<br>
+ courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with the
+dignified<br>
+ splendor of the last century, with powder, patches,
+high-heeled<br>
+ slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows.
+Duchesses<br>
+ in these days can pass through a door without any need to widen
+it for<br>
+ their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns with trains! I am
+still<br>
+ puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished to see his
+drawing-<br>
+ room swept by ducal satin and velvet did not make indestructible
+laws.<br>
+ Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code he was so proud
+of.<br>
+ That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of our
+'ladies' of<br>
+ to-day--the indirect offspring of his legislation."</p>
+
+<p>"It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school
+and by<br>
+ obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the
+social<br>
+ state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue
+who<br>
+ can hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom
+with<br>
+ half an ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow
+where<br>
+ apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and strut in a
+pair of<br>
+ patent-leather pumps graced by silk socks which cost six
+francs,<br>
+ screws his eye-glass into one of his eye-sockets by puckering up
+his<br>
+ cheek, and whether he be an attorney's clerk, a contractor's
+son, or a<br>
+ banker's bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest
+duchess,<br>
+ appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says to his
+friend--dressed<br>
+ by Buisson, as we all are, and mounted in patent-leather like
+any duke<br>
+ himself--'There, my boy, that is a perfect lady.' "</p>
+
+<p>"You have not known how to form a party," said Lord Dudley;
+"it will<br>
+ be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great
+deal in<br>
+ France about organizing labor, and you have not yet
+organized<br>
+ property. So this is what happens: Any duke--and even in the
+time of<br>
+ Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were some left who had two
+hundred<br>
+ thousand francs a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous
+train<br>
+ of servants--well, such a duke could live like a great lord. The
+last<br>
+ of these great gentlemen in France was the Prince de
+Talleyrand.--This<br>
+ duke leaves four children, two of them girls. Granting that he
+has<br>
+ great luck in marrying them all well, each of these descendants
+will<br>
+ have but sixty or eighty thousand francs a year now; each is
+the<br>
+ father or mother of children, and consequently obliged to live
+with<br>
+ the strictest economy in a flat on the ground floor or first
+floor of<br>
+ a large house. Who knows if they may not even be hunting a
+fortune?<br>
+ Henceforth the eldest son's wife, a duchess in name only, has
+no<br>
+ carriage, no people, no opera-box, no time to herself. She has
+not her<br>
+ own rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor her pretty
+toys;<br>
+ she is buried in trade; she buys socks for her dear little
+children,<br>
+ nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no
+longer<br>
+ sends to school at a convent. Thus your noblest dames have been
+turned<br>
+ into worthy brood-hens."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot
+show<br>
+ those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden
+ages of<br>
+ the French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman
+has<br>
+ nothing now to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide
+her<br>
+ face or reveal it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning
+herself.<br>
+ When once a thing is no more than what it is, it is too useful
+to be a<br>
+ form of luxury."</p>
+
+<p>"Everything in France has aided and abetted the 'perfect
+lady,' " said<br>
+ Daniel d'Arthez. "The aristocracy has acknowledged her by
+retreating<br>
+ to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden
+itself to<br>
+ die--emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to
+foreign<br>
+ lands before that of the masses. The women who could have
+founded<br>
+ European <i>salons</i>, could have guided opinion and turned it
+inside out<br>
+ like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of
+art or<br>
+ of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the
+blunder of<br>
+ abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight
+against<br>
+ the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the
+stage of<br>
+ the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians
+who are<br>
+ at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing<br>
+ princesses, these are really only ladylike young women. In these
+days<br>
+ princes can find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they
+cannot<br>
+ even confer honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de
+Bourbon<br>
+ was the last prince to avail himself of this privilege."</p>
+
+<p>"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord
+Dudley.</p>
+
+<p>"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their
+opera-<br>
+ box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher
+by a<br>
+ hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of
+the<br>
+ citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble
+nor<br>
+ altogether <i>bourgeoises</i>," said the Marquise de Rochegude
+acridly.</p>
+
+<p>"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac.
+"She no<br>
+ longer has the quality of a spoken <i>feuilleton</i>--delightful
+calumnies<br>
+ graced by elegant language. We read <i>feuilletons</i> written
+in a dialect<br>
+ which changes every three years, society papers about as
+mirthful as<br>
+ an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type.
+French<br>
+ conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the
+other in<br>
+ a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in
+old<br>
+ mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly
+elegant<br>
+ company used to meet."</p>
+
+<p>"The knell of the highest society is tolling," said a Russian
+Prince.<br>
+ "Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word
+<i>lady</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Prince," said de Marsay. "The 'perfect lady,'
+issuing<br>
+ from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen
+class,<br>
+ and the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the
+expression<br>
+ of these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste,
+grace, wit,<br>
+ and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more
+great<br>
+ ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time,
+elected<br>
+ by public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who
+will be<br>
+ among the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England."</p>
+
+<p>"And that they call progress!" exclaimed Mademoiselle des
+Touches. "I<br>
+ should like to know where the progress lies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, in this," said Madame de Nucingen. "Formerly a woman
+might have<br>
+ the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of
+an<br>
+ impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large
+foot, a<br>
+ thick hand--she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in
+these<br>
+ days, even if she were a Montmorency--if a Montmorency would
+ever be<br>
+ such a creature--she would not be a lady."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you mean by a 'perfect lady'?" asked Count Adam
+Laginski.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective
+system<br>
+ as applied to the fair sex," said the Minister. "Every
+revolution has<br>
+ a word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said the Russian, who had come to make a
+literary<br>
+ reputation in Paris. "The explanation of certain words added
+from time<br>
+ to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent
+history.<br>
+ <i>Organize</i>, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and
+sums up<br>
+ Napoleon completely."</p>
+
+<p>"But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!" the
+young<br>
+ Pole exclaimed, with some impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will tell you," said Emile Blondet to Count Adam.
+"One fine<br>
+ morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five
+has<br>
+ not yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first
+glance<br>
+ at her is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to
+expect a<br>
+ world of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and
+dale<br>
+ in his pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life
+you have<br>
+ at last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two
+very<br>
+ distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an
+order;<br>
+ or else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of
+ten<br>
+ yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings,
+no<br>
+ over-elaborate waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her
+drawers<br>
+ fussing round her ankles. You will see that she is shod with
+prunella<br>
+ shoes, with sandals crossed over extremely fine cotton
+stockings, or<br>
+ plain gray silk stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the
+most<br>
+ exquisite simplicity. You notice that her gown is made of a neat
+and<br>
+ inexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises more than
+one<br>
+ woman of the middle class; it is almost always a long pelisse,
+with<br>
+ bows to fasten it, and neatly bound with fine cord or an
+imperceptible<br>
+ braid. The Unknown has a way of her own in wrapping herself in
+her<br>
+ shawl or mantilla; she knows how to draw it round her from her
+hips to<br>
+ her neck, outlining a carapace, as it were, which would make
+an<br>
+ ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which in her sets off the
+most<br>
+ beautiful forms while concealing them. How does she do it? This
+secret<br>
+ she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.</p>
+
+<br>
+"As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and
+harmonious<br>
+twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe
+under<br>
+the stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling
+grass.<br>
+Is it to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful
+undulation<br>
+which plays under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace
+frill,<br>
+sheds an airy balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of
+a<br>
+Parisienne? You may recognize over her arms, round her waist,
+about<br>
+her throat, a science of drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.
+
+
+<p>"Oh! how thoroughly she understands the <i>cut</i> of her
+gait--forgive the<br>
+ expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her
+skirt<br>
+ with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled
+with<br>
+ admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect.
+When an<br>
+ Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier
+marching<br>
+ forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius
+for<br>
+ walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt
+footwalks.</p>
+
+<p>"Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits
+with<br>
+ proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar
+to a<br>
+ well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds
+her<br>
+ shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has
+a<br>
+ little air of serene dignity, like Raphael's Madonnas in their
+frames.<br>
+ Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most
+insolent<br>
+ dandy step aside for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with
+crisp<br>
+ ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such
+women<br>
+ wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too
+showy.<br>
+ Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who,
+without<br>
+ conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees<br>
+ everything; whose vanity, satiated by being constantly
+gratified,<br>
+ stamps her face with an indifference which piques your
+curiosity. She<br>
+ knows that she is looked at, she knows that everybody, even
+women,<br>
+ turn round to see her again. And she threads her way through
+Paris<br>
+ like a gossamer, spotless and pure.</p>
+
+<p>"This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the
+cleanest<br>
+ longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and
+110th<br>
+ Arcade of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards
+from the<br>
+ equator of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of
+India<br>
+ flourish, where the warmest creations of industry are displayed,
+to<br>
+ the Cape of the Madeleine; in the least muddy districts of the
+citizen<br>
+ quarters, between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg
+Saint-<br>
+ Honore. During the winter, she haunts the terrace of the
+Feuillants,<br>
+ but not the asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According to
+the<br>
+ weather, she may be seen flying in the Avenue of the
+Champs-Elysees,<br>
+ which is bounded on the east by the Place Louis XV., on the west
+by<br>
+ the Avenue de Marigny, to the south by the road, to the north by
+the<br>
+ gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Never is this pretty
+variety of<br>
+ woman to be seen in the hyperborean regions of the Rue
+Saint-Denis,<br>
+ never in the Kamtschatka of miry, narrow, commercial streets,
+never<br>
+ anywhere in bad weather. These flowers of Paris, blooming only
+in<br>
+ Oriental weather, perfume the highways; and after five o'clock
+fold up<br>
+ like morning-glory flowers. The women you will see later,
+looking a<br>
+ little like them, are would-be ladies; while the fair Unknown,
+your<br>
+ Beatrice of a day, is a 'perfect lady.'</p>
+
+<p>"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to
+recognize the<br>
+ differences by which the observer <i>emeritus</i> distinguishes
+them--women<br>
+ are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes
+of<br>
+ Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of
+rusty-white<br>
+ tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather,
+ironed<br>
+ bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You
+will see<br>
+ a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There
+is<br>
+ something conventional in the attitude.</p>
+
+<p>"As to the <i>bourgeoise</i>, the citizen womankind, she
+cannot possibly be<br>
+ mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is
+bustling,<br>
+ and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes,
+does<br>
+ not know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the
+lady<br>
+ knows just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman
+is<br>
+ undecided, tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a
+child by<br>
+ the hand, which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is
+a<br>
+ mother in public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money
+in her<br>
+ bag, and has open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she
+wears a<br>
+ boa over her fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she
+is<br>
+ accomplished in the redundancies of dress.</p>
+
+<p>"You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the
+Opera,<br>
+ at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect
+that you<br>
+ would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman
+has<br>
+ emerged from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its
+silky<br>
+ cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished
+eyes,<br>
+ the forms which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At
+the<br>
+ theatre she never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting
+at the<br>
+ Italiens. You can there watch at your leisure the studied<br>
+ deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays
+off all<br>
+ the little political artifices of her sex so naturally as to
+exclude<br>
+ all idea of art or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful
+hand,<br>
+ the most perspicacious beholder will believe that it is
+absolutely<br>
+ necessary that she should twist, or refix, or push aside the
+ringlet<br>
+ or curl she plays with. If she has some dignity of profile, you
+will<br>
+ be persuaded that she is giving irony or grace to what she says
+to her<br>
+ neighbor, sitting in such a position as to produce the magical
+effect<br>
+ of the 'lost profile,' so dear to great painters, by which the
+cheek<br>
+ catches the high light, the nose is shown in clear outline,
+the<br>
+ nostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead squarely modeled,
+the<br>
+ eye has its spangle of fire, but fixed on space, and the
+white<br>
+ roundness of the chin is accentuated by a line of light. If she
+has a<br>
+ pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa with the
+coquettish<br>
+ grace of a cat in the sunshine, her feet outstretched without
+your<br>
+ feeling that her attitude is anything but the most charming
+model ever<br>
+ given to a sculptor by lassitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress;
+nothing<br>
+ inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of
+the<br>
+ citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or
+pushing down<br>
+ a rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing
+its<br>
+ office of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling
+whiteness, or<br>
+ glancing in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its
+place.<br>
+ Her toilet is always in harmony with her character; she had had
+time<br>
+ to study herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long
+known<br>
+ what does not suit her. You will not find her as you go out;
+she<br>
+ vanishes before the end of the play. If by chance she is to be
+seen,<br>
+ calm and stately, on the stairs, she is experiencing some
+violent<br>
+ emotion; she has to bestow a glance, to receive a promise.
+Perhaps she<br>
+ goes down so slowly on purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave
+whom<br>
+ she sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes place at a ball or
+an<br>
+ evening party, you will gather the honey, natural or affected of
+her<br>
+ insinuating voice; her empty words will enchant you, and she
+will know<br>
+ how to give them the value of thought by her inimitable
+bearing."</p>
+
+<p>"To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?"
+asked the<br>
+ Polish Count.</p>
+
+<p>"It is necessary to have great taste," replied the Princesse
+de<br>
+ Cadignan.</p>
+
+<p>"And in France taste is more than cleverness," said the
+Russian.</p>
+
+<p>"This woman's cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic
+art,"<br>
+ Blondet went on. "You will not know what she said, but you will
+be<br>
+ fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her
+white<br>
+ shoulders; she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming
+pout<br>
+ and smile; or throw a Voltairean epigram into an 'Indeed!' an
+'Ah!' a<br>
+ 'What then!' A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form
+of<br>
+ questioning; she will give meaning to the movement by which she
+twirls<br>
+ a vinaigrette hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets an
+artificial<br>
+ grandeur out of superlative trivialities; she simply drops her
+hand<br>
+ impressively, letting it fall over the arm of her chair as
+dewdrops<br>
+ hang on the cup of a flower, and all is said--she has
+pronounced<br>
+ judgment beyond appeal, to the apprehension of the most obtuse.
+She<br>
+ knows how to listen to you; she gives you the opportunity of
+shining,<br>
+ and--I ask your modesty--those moments are rare?"</p>
+
+<p>The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet
+spoke, made<br>
+ all the party shout with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a
+<i>bourgeoise</i> without<br>
+ her alluding to her husband in one way or another," Blondet went
+on<br>
+ with unperturbed gravity; "whereas, even if you know that your
+lady is<br>
+ married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband
+so<br>
+ effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher
+Columbus<br>
+ to discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt
+single-handed. If<br>
+ you have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of
+the<br>
+ evening you detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man
+wearing a<br>
+ decoration, who bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage,
+and<br>
+ goes.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and
+you go to<br>
+ bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will
+last<br>
+ perhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory
+gates<br>
+ of the temple of dreams.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she
+is shrewd<br>
+ enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will
+find<br>
+ everything in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and
+duly<br>
+ renewed; you will see nothing under glass shades, no rags of
+wrappings<br>
+ hanging about, and looking like a pantry. You will find the
+staircase<br>
+ warmed. Flowers on all sides will charm your sight--flowers, the
+only<br>
+ gift she accepts, and those only from certain people, for
+nosegays<br>
+ live but a day; they give pleasure, and must be replaced; to her
+they<br>
+ are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. The costly toys
+of<br>
+ fashion lie about, but not so as to suggest a museum or a
+curiosity<br>
+ shop. You will find her sitting by the fire in a low chair, from
+which<br>
+ she will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not now be what it
+was<br>
+ at the ball; there she was our creditor; in her own home she
+owes you<br>
+ the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of which the lady
+is a<br>
+ marvelous mistress. What she likes in you is a man to swell
+her<br>
+ circle, an object for the cares and attentions which such women
+are<br>
+ now happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to her
+drawing-room,<br>
+ she will be bewitchingly charming. This especially is where you
+feel<br>
+ how isolated women are nowadays, and why they want a little
+world of<br>
+ their own, to which they may seem a constellation. Conversation
+is<br>
+ impossible without generalities."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said de Marsay, "you have truly hit the fault of our
+age. The<br>
+ epigram--a volume in a word--no longer strikes, as it did in
+the<br>
+ eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid
+events,<br>
+ and it dies in a day."</p>
+
+<p>"Hence," said Blondet, "the intelligence of the lady, if she
+has any,<br>
+ consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the
+great<br>
+ difference between two women; the townswoman is certainly
+virtuous;<br>
+ the lady does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always
+will<br>
+ be; she hesitates and struggles where the other refuses
+point-blank<br>
+ and falls full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of
+the last<br>
+ graces left to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to
+church,<br>
+ but she will talk to you of religion; and if you have the good
+taste<br>
+ to affect Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you
+will have<br>
+ opened the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shaking
+and<br>
+ gestures understood by all these women: 'For shame! I thought
+you had<br>
+ too much sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, and
+you<br>
+ deprive it of its support. Why, religion at this moment means
+you and<br>
+ me; it is property, and the future of our children! Ah! let us
+not be<br>
+ selfish! Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion
+is the<br>
+ only remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,'
+and so<br>
+ forth. Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled
+with<br>
+ political notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant--but
+moral?<br>
+ Oh! deuced moral!--in which you may recognize a fag end of
+every<br>
+ material woven by modern doctrines, at loggerheads
+together."</p>
+
+<p>The women could not help laughing at the airs by which
+Blondet<br>
+ illustrated his satire.</p>
+
+<p>"This explanation, dear Count Adam," said Blondet, turning to
+the<br>
+ Pole, "will have proved to you that the 'perfect lady'
+represents the<br>
+ intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she
+is<br>
+ surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of an
+industry<br>
+ which is always aiming at destroying its work in order to
+replace it<br>
+ by something else. When you leave her you say to yourself:
+She<br>
+ certainly has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more
+because<br>
+ she will have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have
+asked<br>
+ you your secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything;
+there<br>
+ are some things she never knows, not even when she knows them.
+You<br>
+ alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her
+heart.<br>
+ The great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with
+newspapers<br>
+ and advertisements; in these days the lady has her little
+passion<br>
+ neatly ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and
+quavers and<br>
+ minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign the key. A
+mere weak<br>
+ women, she is anxious not to compromise her love, or her
+husband, or<br>
+ the future of her children. Name, position, and fortune are no
+longer<br>
+ flags so respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise on
+board.<br>
+ The whole aristocracy no longer advances in a body to screen the
+lady.<br>
+ She has not, like the great lady of the past, the demeanor of
+lofty<br>
+ antagonism; she can crush nothing under foot, it is she who
+would be<br>
+ crushed. Thus she is apt at Jesuitical <i>mezzo termine</i>, she
+is a<br>
+ creature of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties,
+of<br>
+ anonymous passions steered between two reef-bound shores. She is
+as<br>
+ much afraid of her servants as an Englishwoman who lives in
+dread of a<br>
+ trial in the divorce-court. This woman--so free at a ball,
+so<br>
+ attractive out walking--is a slave at home; she is never
+independent<br>
+ but in perfect privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve
+herself in<br>
+ her position as a lady. This is her task.</p>
+
+<p>"For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to
+a meagre<br>
+ allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of
+the<br>
+ divine accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid,
+or a<br>
+ townswoman; she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites
+will<br>
+ not receive a married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover
+still<br>
+ have anything to say to her? That is the question. Thus your
+perfect<br>
+ lady may perhaps give occasion to calumny, never to
+slander."</p>
+
+<p>"It is all so horribly true," said the Princesse de
+Cadignan.</p>
+
+<p>"And so," said Blondet, "our 'perfect lady' lives between
+English<br>
+ hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth
+century--a<br>
+ bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that
+grows up<br>
+ is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition
+leads<br>
+ nowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great
+figures<br>
+ shrink into the background, and distinction is purely personal.
+I am<br>
+ fully convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she
+were<br>
+ born close to a throne, to acquire before the age of
+five-and-twenty<br>
+ the encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of
+manoeuvring,<br>
+ the important small things, the musical tones and harmony of
+coloring,<br>
+ the angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and
+the<br>
+ silence, the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the
+obtuseness,<br>
+ the diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect
+lady."</p>
+
+<p>"And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn,"
+said<br>
+ Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, "would you class the
+female<br>
+ author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman <i>comme il
+faut</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"When she has no genius, she is a woman <i>comme il n'en faut
+pas</i>,"<br>
+ Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance,
+which<br>
+ might make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin.
+"This<br>
+ epigram is not mine, but Napoleon's," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score," said
+Canalis,<br>
+ with an emphatic tone and gesture. "It was one of his weaknesses
+to be<br>
+ jealous of literary genius--for he had his mean points. Who will
+ever<br>
+ explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with
+his<br>
+ arms folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force
+ever<br>
+ known, the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of
+all<br>
+ forces; a singular genius who carried armed civilization in
+every<br>
+ direction without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do
+everything<br>
+ because he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of
+will,<br>
+ conquering an illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of
+disease in<br>
+ bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a
+code<br>
+ and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit
+that<br>
+ foresaw everything but his own fall; a capricious politician
+who<br>
+ risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three
+heads--<br>
+ those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich,<br>
+ diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire, and
+who<br>
+ seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a
+man to<br>
+ whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame
+of<br>
+ bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next
+morning<br>
+ manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by
+splashing<br>
+ water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness
+and<br>
+ simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in
+spite of<br>
+ these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or
+by<br>
+ temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and
+then,<br>
+ like my grocer buried in Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a
+good<br>
+ father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings,
+codes,<br>
+ verses, a romance--and all with more range than precision. Did
+he not<br>
+ aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on
+the<br>
+ earth in such a way as to change the laws of gravitation, he
+left us<br>
+ poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he,
+who<br>
+ had taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier
+of his<br>
+ empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and
+all<br>
+ action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouche."</p>
+
+<br>
+"All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true
+king!"<br>
+said de Marsay.
+
+<p>"Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk," said
+Baron de<br>
+ Nucingen.</p>
+
+<p>"But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a
+common one?"<br>
+ asked Joseph Bridau. "If you had to pay for the charms of
+conversation<br>
+ as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would
+be<br>
+ inadequate! There is no second performance of the same flash of
+wit."</p>
+
+<p>"And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen
+think?"<br>
+ said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a
+smile at<br>
+ once sceptical and ironical. "Because, in these days, under a
+regime<br>
+ which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small
+rooms,<br>
+ small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books,
+does<br>
+ that prove that women too have grown smaller? Why should the
+human<br>
+ heart change because you change your coat? In all ages the
+passions<br>
+ remain the same. I know cases of beautiful devotion, of
+sublime<br>
+ sufferings, which lack the publicity--the glory, if you
+choose--which<br>
+ formerly gave lustre to the errors of some women. But though one
+may<br>
+ not have saved a King of France, one is not the less an Agnes
+Sorel.<br>
+ Do you believe that our dear Marquise d'Espard is not the peer
+of<br>
+ Madame Doublet, or Madame du Deffant, in whose rooms so much
+evil was<br>
+ spoken and done? Is not Taglioni a match for Camargo? or
+Malibran the<br>
+ equal of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets superior to those of
+the<br>
+ eighteenth century? If at this moment, through the fault of
+the<br>
+ Grocers who govern us, we have not a style of our own, had not
+the<br>
+ Empire its distinguishing stamp as the age of Louis XV. had, and
+was<br>
+ not its splendor fabulous? Have the sciences lost anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are
+truly<br>
+ great," replied the Comte de Vandenesse. "When posterity shall
+have<br>
+ followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as
+fine as<br>
+ those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so
+much<br>
+ history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV.
+had but<br>
+ one Madame de Sevigne; we have a thousand now in Paris who
+certainly<br>
+ write better than she did, and who do not publish their
+letters.<br>
+ Whether the Frenchwoman be called 'perfect lady,' or great lady,
+she<br>
+ will always be <i>the</i> woman among women.</p>
+
+<p>"Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a
+woman<br>
+ of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows
+off, who<br>
+ chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic.
+And it<br>
+ must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more
+poetical,<br>
+ because they must always and under all circumstances be
+surrounded by<br>
+ greater perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied
+it<br>
+ perhaps too late; but in cases where the illegality of your
+feelings<br>
+ might be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know
+not<br>
+ what chance--which you may call Providence--inevitably
+overwhelming<br>
+ such as we consider light women."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," said Madame de Vandenesse, "that we can be great in
+other<br>
+ ways----"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!" exclaimed
+Madame de<br>
+ Serizy.</p>
+
+<p>"With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal
+by<br>
+ example," said the Baronne de Nucingen.</p>
+
+<p>"On my honor!" said General de Montriveau, "in all the
+dramas--a word<br>
+ you are very fond of," he said, looking at Blondet--"in which
+the<br>
+ finger of God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew
+was<br>
+ very near being by my act----"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, tell us all about it!" cried Lady Barimore; "I love
+to<br>
+ shudder!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the taste of a virtuous woman," replied de Marsay,
+looking at<br>
+ Lord Dudley's lovely daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"During the campaign of 1812," General de Montriveau began, "I
+was the<br>
+ involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to
+you,<br>
+ Doctor Bianchon," turning to me, "since, while devoting yourself
+to<br>
+ the human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind;
+it may<br>
+ tend to solve some of the problems of the will.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and
+laughed<br>
+ at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of
+artillery that<br>
+ I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know,
+lost<br>
+ all discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a
+medley<br>
+ of men of all nations, instinctively making their way from north
+to<br>
+ south. The soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot
+away<br>
+ from their fire if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After
+the<br>
+ passage of this famous river disorder did not diminish. I had
+come<br>
+ quietly and alone, without food, out of the marshes of Zembin,
+and was<br>
+ wandering in search of a house where I might be taken in.
+Finding none<br>
+ or driven away from those I came across, happily towards evening
+I<br>
+ perceived a wretched little Polish farm, of which nothing can
+give you<br>
+ any idea unless you have seen the wooden houses of Lower
+Normandy, or<br>
+ the poorest farm-buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist
+of a<br>
+ single room, with one end divided off by a wooden partition,
+the<br>
+ smaller division serving as a store-room for forage.</p>
+
+<p>"In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke
+rising<br>
+ above this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more<br>
+ compassionate than those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly
+walked as<br>
+ far as the farm. On going in, I found the table laid.
+Several<br>
+ officers, and with them a woman--a common sight enough--were
+eating<br>
+ potatoes, some horseflesh broiled over the charcoal, and some
+frozen<br>
+ beetroots. I recognized among the company two or three
+artillery<br>
+ captains of the regiment in which I had first served. I was
+welcomed<br>
+ with a shout of acclamation, which would have amazed me greatly
+on the<br>
+ other side of the Beresina; but at this moment the cold was
+less<br>
+ intense; my fellow-officers were resting, they were warm, they
+had<br>
+ food, and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the
+promise of<br>
+ a delightful night. We did not ask for so much in those days.
+My<br>
+ comrades could be philanthropists <i>gratis</i>--one of the
+commonest ways<br>
+ of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one of the bundles
+of<br>
+ straw.</p>
+
+<p>"At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into
+the<br>
+ smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of
+the<br>
+ most extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection
+of<br>
+ men it has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever
+human<br>
+ nature is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really
+sublime.<br>
+ I do not know whether you have ever observed the extreme
+fairness of<br>
+ Italians when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under
+an<br>
+ artificial light. When I read the fantastical portrait of
+Colonel<br>
+ Oudet sketched by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in
+every<br>
+ one of his elegant phrases. Italian, then, as were most of
+the<br>
+ officers of his regiment, which had, in fact, been borrowed by
+the<br>
+ Emperor from Eugene's army, my colonel was a tall man, at least
+eight<br>
+ or nine inches above the standard, and was admirably
+proportioned--a<br>
+ little stout perhaps, but prodigiously powerful, active, and
+clean-<br>
+ limbed as a greyhound. His black hair in abundant curls showed
+up his<br>
+ complexion, as white as a woman's; he had small hands, a shapely
+foot,<br>
+ a pleasant mouth, and an aquiline nose delicately formed, of
+which the<br>
+ tip used to become naturally pinched and white whenever he was
+angry,<br>
+ as happened often. His irascibility was so far beyond belief
+that I<br>
+ will tell you nothing about it; you will have the opportunity
+of<br>
+ judging of it. No one could be calm in his presence. I alone,
+perhaps,<br>
+ was not afraid of him; he had indeed taken such a singular fancy
+to me<br>
+ that he thought everything I did right. When he was in a rage
+his brow<br>
+ was knit and the muscles of the middle of his forehead set in a
+delta,<br>
+ or, to be more explicit, in Redgauntlet's horseshoe. This mark
+was,<br>
+ perhaps, even more terrifying than the magnetic flashes of his
+blue<br>
+ eyes. His whole frame quivered, and his strength, great as it
+was in<br>
+ his normal state, became almost unbounded.</p>
+
+<p>"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as
+powerful<br>
+ as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness
+of<br>
+ tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr
+was<br>
+ sounded. Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace,
+when<br>
+ commanding his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine,
+unless<br>
+ you had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which
+at<br>
+ Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue
+eyes were<br>
+ angelically sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming
+expression.<br>
+ On parade, or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare
+with<br>
+ him. Indeed, d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed
+by<br>
+ our colonel on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon
+before<br>
+ the invasion of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion
+lives on<br>
+ contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women
+the<br>
+ irresistible influences to which our nature yields"--and the
+general<br>
+ looked at the Princesse de Cadignan--"as vitreous matter is
+moulded<br>
+ under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular
+fatality--an<br>
+ observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon--the Colonel was
+not a<br>
+ lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.</p>
+
+<p>"To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few
+words<br>
+ what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging
+our<br>
+ guns up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high slope on
+one<br>
+ side, and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we
+met<br>
+ another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head.
+This<br>
+ colonel wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our
+foremost<br>
+ battery back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but
+the<br>
+ colonel of the other regiment signed to his foremost battery
+to<br>
+ advance, and in spite of the care the driver took to keep among
+the<br>
+ scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our captain's right leg
+and<br>
+ broke it, throwing him over on the near side of his horse. All
+this<br>
+ was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a little way
+off,<br>
+ guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding among
+the<br>
+ guns at the risk of falling with his horse's four feet in the
+air, and<br>
+ reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the
+very<br>
+ moment when the captain fell, calling out 'Help!' No, our
+Italian<br>
+ colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne
+rose to<br>
+ his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of
+uttering<br>
+ a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his
+antagonist,<br>
+ pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels
+went<br>
+ aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent stretched on
+the<br>
+ ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his regiment
+backed--<br>
+ yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.</p>
+
+<p>"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay
+yelping in<br>
+ the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian
+wife,<br>
+ a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to
+our<br>
+ Colonel. This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was
+pledged to<br>
+ protect the husband, bound to defend him as he would have
+defended the<br>
+ woman herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well
+received, this<br>
+ captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the
+other end<br>
+ of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little
+woman<br>
+ named Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern
+sun in<br>
+ her black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably
+thin;<br>
+ her face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the
+drought of a<br>
+ highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her
+hair in<br>
+ disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied
+close<br>
+ over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her
+movements were<br>
+ engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of
+her<br>
+ features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had
+not<br>
+ altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could
+think of<br>
+ a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in<br>
+ appearance, but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a
+gentleman of<br>
+ Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it
+is<br>
+ allowable to ally the two words. Brave and well informed, he
+seemed to<br>
+ know nothing of the connections which had subsisted between his
+wife<br>
+ and the Colonel for three years past. I ascribed this unconcern
+to<br>
+ Italian manners, or to some domestic secret; yet there was in
+the<br>
+ man's countenance one feature which always filled me with
+involuntary<br>
+ distrust. His under lip, which was thin and very restless,
+turned down<br>
+ at the corners instead of turning up, and this, as I thought,
+betrayed<br>
+ a streak of cruelty in a character which seemed so phlegmatic
+and<br>
+ indolent.</p>
+
+<p>"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling
+when I<br>
+ went in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked
+me<br>
+ some questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled
+with<br>
+ reflections on the campaign, the generals, their mistakes,
+the<br>
+ Russians, and the cold. A minute after my arrival the colonel,
+having<br>
+ finished his meagre meal, wiped his moustache, bid us
+good-night, shot<br>
+ a black look at the Italian woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then,
+without<br>
+ waiting for a reply, went into the little barn full of hay, to
+bed.<br>
+ The meaning of the Colonel's utterance was self-evident. The
+young<br>
+ wife replied by an indescribable gesture, expressing all the
+annoyance<br>
+ she could not feel at seeing her thralldom thus flaunted without
+human<br>
+ decency, and the offence to her dignity as a woman, and to
+her<br>
+ husband. But there was, too, in the rigid setting of her
+features and<br>
+ the tight knitting of her brows a sort of presentiment; perhaps
+she<br>
+ foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in her place.</p>
+
+<p>"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in
+his couch<br>
+ of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'</p>
+
+<p>"The tone of this second call was even more brutally
+questioning than<br>
+ the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the
+Italian<br>
+ language allows to be given to vowels and the final
+syllable,<br>
+ concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength
+of<br>
+ will. Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and
+went to<br>
+ the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after
+looking at<br>
+ them all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'<i>Tu
+ridi</i>?<br>
+ --you laugh?' said the husband.</p>
+
+<p>" 'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again,
+'I<br>
+ confess that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times,
+and if<br>
+ you are not satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you<br>
+ satisfaction.'</p>
+
+<p>" 'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all
+were sound<br>
+ asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or
+seeking<br>
+ companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness
+which<br>
+ made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of
+self-seeking,<br>
+ melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.<br>
+ Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our
+shelter<br>
+ we, most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led
+in<br>
+ flocks by a child's wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse
+where<br>
+ we had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of
+lions<br>
+ in the desert, the bellowing of bulls--no, it was a noise which
+can be<br>
+ compared to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible
+and<br>
+ ominous roar, we could hear a woman's feeble scream. We all
+looked<br>
+ round, seized by I know not what impulse of terror; we no longer
+saw<br>
+ the house, but a huge bonfire. The farmhouse had been
+barricaded, and<br>
+ was in flames. Swirls of smoke borne on the wind brought us
+hoarse<br>
+ cries and an indescribable pungent smell. A few yards behind,
+the<br>
+ captain was quietly approaching to join our caravan; we gazed at
+him<br>
+ in silence, for no one dared question him; but he, understanding
+our<br>
+ curiosity, pointed to his breast with the forefinger of his
+right<br>
+ hand, and, waving the left in the direction of the fire, he
+said,<br>
+ '<i>Son'io</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>"We all walked on without saying a word to him."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep,"
+said de<br>
+ Marsay.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible
+picture in<br>
+ our memory," said Madame de Montcornet. "I shall dream of
+it----"</p>
+
+<p>"And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay's 'First'?"
+said<br>
+ Lord Dudley, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons
+on," said<br>
+ Blondet.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying," replied
+de<br>
+ Marsay, turning to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I; "and her end was one of the most beautiful I
+ever saw.<br>
+ The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman's
+pillow;<br>
+ pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had
+taken<br>
+ the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The
+Duchess,<br>
+ waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most
+touching<br>
+ way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and
+she<br>
+ meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but
+her<br>
+ face had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her
+pallor<br>
+ made her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her
+bright eyes<br>
+ and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and
+her<br>
+ countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the
+Duke,<br>
+ and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as
+death<br>
+ approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute.
+The<br>
+ room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at
+the hour<br>
+ of death.</p>
+
+<p>"At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in
+despair<br>
+ at having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience
+by<br>
+ which he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of
+his<br>
+ wife for a few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is
+quite<br>
+ certain that any one but the dying woman might have
+misunderstood it.<br>
+ A busy statesman, always thinking of the interests of France,
+the Duke<br>
+ had a thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a
+man of<br>
+ genius being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation
+lies<br>
+ in the exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He
+came to<br>
+ seat himself in an armchair by his wife's side, and looked
+fixedly at<br>
+ her. The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her
+husband's<br>
+ and clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said,
+'My<br>
+ poor dear, who is left to understand you now?' Then she died,
+looking<br>
+ at him."</p>
+
+<br>
+"The stories the doctor tells us," said the Comte de
+Vandenesse,<br>
+"always leave a deep impression."
+
+<p>"But a sweet one," said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.</p>
+
+<p>PARIS, June 1839-42.</p>
+
+<p>�</p>
+
+<h3>ADDENDUM</h3>
+
+<p>The following personages appear in other stories of the Human
+Comedy.</p>
+
+<p>Bianchon, Horace<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ The Atheist's Mass<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ The Government Clerks<br>
+ Pierrette<br>
+ A Study of Woman<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Honorine<br>
+ The Seamy Side of History<br>
+ The Magic Skin<br>
+ A Second Home<br>
+ A Prince of Bohemia<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ The Middle Classes<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Country Parson<br>
+ In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:<br>
+ La Grande Breteche</p>
+
+<p>Blondet, Emile<br>
+ Jealousies of a Country Town<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ The Peasantry</p>
+
+<p>Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)<br>
+ Jealousies of a Country Town<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ The Peasantry<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ The Member for Arcis<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve</p>
+
+<p>Bridau, Joseph<br>
+ The Purse<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ Pierre Grassou<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Magic Skin<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ Beatrix<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Dudley, Lord<br>
+ The Lily of the Valley<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ A Man of Business<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve</p>
+
+<p>Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry,
+Marquise d'<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ The Gondreville Mystery<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ Beatrix</p>
+
+<p>Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ Cousin Betty</p>
+
+<p>Marsay, Henri de<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists<br>
+ The Lily of the Valley<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ Jealousies of a Country Town<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ A Marriage Settlement<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ The Ball at Sceaux<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ The Gondreville Mystery<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve</p>
+
+<p>Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ Jealousies of a Country Town<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ The Gondreville Mystery<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Pierrette<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Nucingen, Baron Frederic de<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ Pierrette<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ A Man of Business<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Muse of the Department<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists</p>
+
+<p>Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ Eugenie Grandet<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ Melmoth Reconciled<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ Modeste Mignon<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ Beatrix</p>
+
+<p>Rastignac, Eugene de<br>
+ Father Goriot<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life<br>
+ The Ball at Sceaux<br>
+ The Commission in Lunacy<br>
+ A Study of Woman<br>
+ The Magic Skin<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ The Gondreville Mystery<br>
+ The Firm of Nucingen<br>
+ Cousin Betty<br>
+ The Member for Arcis<br>
+ The Unconscious Humorists</p>
+
+<p>Ronquerolles, Marquis de<br>
+ The Imaginary Mistress<br>
+ The Peasantry<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ A Woman of Thirty<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ The Member for Arcis</p>
+
+<p>Serizy, Comtesse de<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ The Thirteen<br>
+ Ursule Mirouet<br>
+ A Woman of Thirty<br>
+ Scenes from a Courtesan's Life</p>
+
+<p>The Imaginary Mistress</p>
+
+<p>Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des<br>
+ Beatrix<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ A Bachelor's Establishment<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve<br>
+ Honorine<br>
+ Beatrix<br>
+ The Muse of the Department</p>
+
+<p>Vandenesse, Comte Felix de<br>
+ The Lily of the Valley<br>
+ Lost Illusions<br>
+ A Distinguished Provincial at Paris<br>
+ Cesar Birotteau<br>
+ Letters of Two Brides<br>
+ A Start in Life<br>
+ The Marriage Settlement<br>
+ The Secrets of a Princess<br>
+ The Gondreville Mystery<br>
+ A Daughter of Eve</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac
+
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