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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>

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