diff options
Diffstat (limited to '1812-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 1812-0.txt | 1968 |
1 files changed, 1968 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/1812-0.txt b/1812-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e4ccae --- /dev/null +++ b/1812-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1968 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Prince of Bohemia, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Prince of Bohemia + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Clara Bell and Others + +Release Date: July, 1999 [Etext #1812] +Posting Date: March 2, 2010 +Last Updated: November 22, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Clara Bell and others + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Henri Heine. + + I inscribe this to you, my dear Heine, to you that represent in + Paris the ideas and poetry of Germany, in Germany the lively and + witty criticism of France; for you better than any other will know + whatsoever this Study may contain of criticism and of jest, of + love and truth. + + DE BALZAC. + + + + + +A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA + + +“My dear friend,” said Mme. de la Baudraye, drawing a pile of manuscript +from beneath her sofa cushion, “will you pardon me in our present +straits for making a short story of something which you told me a few +weeks ago?” + +“Anything is fair in these times. Have you not seen writers serving up +their own hearts to the public, or very often their mistress’ hearts +when invention fails? We are coming to this, dear; we shall go in quest +of adventures, not so much for the pleasure of them as for the sake of +having the story to tell afterwards.” + +“After all, you and the Marquise de Rochefide have paid the rent, and +I do not think, from the way things are going here, that I ever pay +yours.” + +“Who knows? Perhaps the same good luck that befell Mme. de Rochefide may +come to you.” + +“Do you call it good luck to go back to one’s husband?” + +“No; only great luck. Come, I am listening.” + +And Mme. de la Baudraye read as follows: + + “Scene--a splendid salon in the Rue de Chartres-du-Roule. One + of the most famous writers of the day discovered sitting on a + settee beside a very illustrious Marquise, with whom he is on + such terms of intimacy, as a man has a right to claim when a + woman singles him out and keeps him at her side as a complacent + _souffre-douleur_ rather than a makeshift.” + +“Well,” says she, “have you found those letters of which you spoke +yesterday? You said that you could not tell me all about _him_ without +them?” + +“Yes, I have them.” + +“It is your turn to speak; I am listening like a child when his mother +begins the tale of _Le Grand Serpentin Vert_.” + +“I count the young man in question in that group of our acquaintances +which we are wont to style our friends. He comes of a good family; he is +a man of infinite parts and ill-luck, full of excellent dispositions and +most charming conversation; young as he is, he is seen much, and while +awaiting better things, he dwells in Bohemia. Bohemianism, which by +rights should be called the doctrine of the Boulevard des Italiens, +finds its recruits among young men between twenty and thirty, all of +them men of genius in their way, little known, it is true, as yet, +but sure of recognition one day, and when that day comes, of great +distinction. They are distinguished as it is at carnival time, when +their exuberant wit, repressed for the rest of the year, finds a vent in +more or less ingenious buffoonery. + +“What times we live in! What an irrational central power which allows +such tremendous energies to run to waste! There are diplomatists in +Bohemia quite capable of overturning Russia’s designs, if they but felt +the power of France at their backs. There are writers, administrators, +soldiers, and artists in Bohemia; every faculty, every kind of brain is +represented there. Bohemia is a microcosm. If the Czar would buy Bohemia +for a score of millions and set its population down in Odessa--always +supposing that they consented to leave the asphalt of the +boulevards--Odessa would be Paris with the year. In Bohemia, you find +the flower doomed to wither and come to nothing; the flower of the +wonderful young manhood of France, so sought after by Napoleon and Louis +XIV., so neglected for the last thirty years by the modern Gerontocracy +that is blighting everything else--that splendid young manhood of whom +a witness so little prejudiced as Professor Tissot wrote, ‘On all sides +the Emperor employed a younger generation in every way worthy of him; in +his councils, in the general administration, in negotiations bristling +with difficulties or full of danger, in the government of conquered +countries; and in all places Youth responded to his demands upon it. +Young men were for Napoleon the _missi hominici_ of Charlemagne.’ + +“The word Bohemia tells you everything. Bohemia has nothing and lives +upon what it has. Hope is its religion; faith (in oneself) its creed; +and charity is supposed to be its budget. All these young men are +greater than their misfortune; they are under the feet of Fortune, yet +more than equal to Fate. Always ready to mount and ride an _if_, witty +as a _feuilleton_, blithe as only those can be that are deep in debt +and drink deep to match, and finally--for here I come to my point--hot +lovers and what lovers! Picture to yourself Lovelace, and Henri Quatre, +and the Regent, and Werther, and Saint-Preux, and Rene, and the Marechal +de Richelieu--think of all these in a single man, and you will have some +idea of their way of love. What lovers! Eclectic of all things in love, +they will serve up a passion to a woman’s order; their hearts are like +a bill of fare in a restaurant. Perhaps they have never read Stendhal’s +_De l’Amour_, but unconsciously they put it in practice. They have +by heart their chapters--Love-Taste, Love-Passion, Love-Caprice, +Love-Crystalized, and more than all, Love-Transient. All is good in +their eyes. They invented the burlesque axiom, ‘In the sight of man, all +women are equal.’ The actual text is more vigorously worded, but as in +my opinion the spirit is false, I do not stand nice upon the letter. + +“My friend, madame, is named Gabriel Jean Anne Victor Benjamin +George Ferdinand Charles Edward Rusticoli, Comte de la Palferine. The +Rusticolis came to France with Catherine de Medici, having been ousted +about that time from their infinitesimal Tuscan sovereignty. They are +distantly related to the house of Este, and connected by marriage to +the Guises. On the day of Saint-Bartholomew they slew a goodly number +of Protestants, and Charles IX. bestowed the hand of the heiress of +the Comte de la Palferine upon the Rusticoli of that time. The Comte, +however, being a part of the confiscated lands of the Duke of Savoy, +was repurchased by Henri IV. when that great king so far blundered as +to restore the fief; and in exchange, the Rusticoli--who had borne arms +long before the Medici bore them to-wit, _argent_ a cross flory _azure_ +(the cross flower-de-luced by letters patent granted by Charles IX.), +and a count’s coronet, with two peasants for supporters with the motto +IN HOC SIGNO VINCIMUS--the Rusticoli, I repeat, retained their title, +and received a couple of offices under the crown with the government of +a province. + +“From the time of the Valois till the reign of Richelieu, as it may be +called, the Rusticoli played a most illustrious part; under Louis XIV. +their glory waned somewhat, under Louis XV. it went out altogether. +My friend’s grandfather wasted all that was left to the once brilliant +house with Mlle. Laguerre, whom he first discovered, and brought into +fashion before Bouret’s time. Charles Edward’s own father was an officer +without any fortune in 1789. The Revolution came to his assistance; he +had the sense to drop his title, and became plain Rusticoli. Among other +deeds, M. Rusticoli married a wife during the war in Italy, a Capponi, +a goddaughter of the Countess of Albany (hence La Palferine’s final +names). Rusticoli was one of the best colonels in the army. The Emperor +made him a commander of the Legion of Honor and a count. His spine was +slightly curved, and his son was wont to say of him laughingly that he +was _un comte refait (contrefait)_. + +“General Count Rusticoli, for he became a brigadier-general at Ratisbon +and a general of the division on the field of Wagram, died at Vienna +almost immediately after his promotion, or his name and ability +would sooner or later have brought him the marshal’s baton. Under the +Restoration he would certainly have repaired the fortunes of a great +and noble family so brilliant even as far back as 1100, centuries before +they took the French title--for the Rusticoli had given a pope to the +church and twice revolutionized the kingdom of Naples--so illustrious +again under the Valois; so dexterous in the days of the Fronde, that +obstinate Frondeurs though they were, they still existed through the +reign of Louis XIV. Mazarin favored them; there was the Tuscan strain in +them still, and he recognized it. + +“Today, when Charles Edward de la Palferine’s name is mentioned, not +three persons in a hundred know the history of his house. But the +Bourbons have actually left a Foix-Grailly to live by his easel. + +“Ah, if you but knew how brilliantly Charles Edward accepts his obscure +position! how he scoffs at the bourgeois of 1830! What Attic salt in his +wit! He would be the king of Bohemia, if Bohemia would endure a king. +His _verve_ is inexhaustible. To him we owe a map of the country and the +names of the seven castles which Nodier could not discover.” + +“The one thing wanting in one of the cleverest skits of our time,” said +the Marquise. + +“You can form your own opinion of La Palferine from a few characteristic +touches,” continued Nathan. “He once came upon a friend of his, a +fellow-Bohemian, involved in a dispute on the boulevard with a bourgeois +who chose to consider himself affronted. To the modern powers that +be, Bohemia is insolent in the extreme. There was talk of calling one +another out. + +“‘One moment,’ interposed La Palferine, as much Lauzun for the occasion +as Lauzun himself could have been. ‘One moment. Monsieur was born, I +suppose?’ + +“‘What, sir?’ + +“‘Yes, are you born? What is your name?’ + +“‘Godin.’ + +“‘Godin, eh!’ exclaimed La Palferine’s friend. + +“‘One moment, my dear fellow,’ interrupted La Palferine. ‘There are the +Trigaudins. Are you one of them?’ + +“Astonishment. + +“‘No? Then you are one of the new dukes of Gaeta, I suppose, of imperial +creation? No? Oh, well, how can you expect my friend to cross swords +with you when he will be secretary of an embassy and ambassador _some +day_, and you will owe him respect? _Godin!_ the thing is non-existent! +You are a nonentity, Godin. My friend cannot be expected to beat the +air! When one is somebody, one cannot fight with a nobody! Come, my dear +fellow--good-day.’ + +“‘My respects to madame,’ added the friend. + +“Another day La Palferine was walking with a friend who flung his cigar +end in the face of a passer-by. The recipient had the bad taste to +resent this. + +“‘You have stood your antagonist’s fire,’ said the young Count, ‘the +witnesses declare that honor is satisfied.’ + +“La Palferine owed his tailor a thousand francs, and the man instead +of going himself sent his assistant to ask for the money. The assistant +found the unfortunate debtor up six pairs of stairs at the back of +a yard at the further end of the Faubourg du Roule. The room was +unfurnished save for a bed (such a bed!), a table, and such a table! +La Palferine heard the preposterous demand--‘A demand which I should +qualify as illegal,’ he said when he told us the story, ‘made, as it +was, at seven o’clock in the morning.’ + +“‘Go,’ he answered, with the gesture and attitude of a Mirabeau, ‘tell +your master in what condition you find me.’ + +“The assistant apologized and withdrew. La Palferine, seeing the +young man on the landing, rose in the attire celebrated in verse in +_Britannicus_ to add, ‘Remark the stairs! Pay particular attention to +the stairs; do not forget to tell him about the stairs!’ + +“In every position into which chance has thrown La Palferine, he has +never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and +never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of +Rivarol, the polished subtlety of the old French noble. It was he who +told that delicious anecdote of a friend of Laffitte the banker. A +national fund had been started to give back to Laffitte the mansion in +which the Revolution of 1830 was brewed, and this friend appeared at the +offices of the fund with, ‘Here are five francs, give me a hundred +sous change!’--A caricature was made of it.--It was once La Palferine’s +misfortune, in judicial style, to make a young girl a mother. The girl, +not a very simple innocent, confessed all to her mother, a respectable +matron, who hurried forthwith to La Palferine and asked what he meant to +do. + +“‘Why, madame,’ said he, ‘I am neither a surgeon nor a midwife.’ + +“She collapsed, but three or four years later she returned to the +charge, still persisting in her inquiry, ‘What did La Palferine mean to +do?’ + +“‘Well, madame,’ returned he, ‘when the child is seven years old, an +age at which a boy ought to pass out of women’s hands’--an indication +of entire agreement on the mother’s part--‘if the child is really +mine’--another gesture of assent--‘if there is a striking likeness, if +he bids fair to be a gentleman, if I can recognize in him my turn of +mind, and more particularly the Rusticoli air; then, oh--ah!’--a new +movement from the matron--‘on my word and honor, I will make him a +cornet of--sugar-plums!’ + +“All this, if you will permit me to make use of the phraseology employed +by M. Sainte-Beuve for his biographies of obscurities--all this, I +repeat, is the playful and sprightly yet already somewhat decadent side +of a strong race. It smacks rather of the Parc-aux-Cerfs than of the +Hotel de Rambouillet. It is a race of the strong rather than of the +sweet; I incline to lay a little debauchery to its charge, and more than +I should wish in brilliant and generous natures; it is gallantry after +the fashion of the Marechal de Richelieu, high spirits and frolic +carried rather too far; perhaps we may see in it the _outrances_ of +another age, the Eighteenth Century pushed to extremes; it harks back +to the Musketeers; it is an exploit stolen from Champcenetz; nay, such +light-hearted inconstancy takes us back to the festooned and ornate +period of the old court of the Valois. In an age as moral as the +present, we are bound to regard audacity of this kind sternly; still, at +the same time that ‘cornet of sugar-plums’ may serve to warn young girls +of the perils of lingering where fancies, more charming than chastened, +come thickly from the first; on the rosy flowery unguarded slopes, where +trespasses ripen into errors full of equivocal effervescence, into too +palpitating issues. The anecdote puts La Palferine’s genius before you +in all its vivacity and completeness. He realizes Pascal’s _entre-deux_, +he comprehends the whole scale between tenderness and pitilessness, and, +like Epaminondas, he is equally great in extremes. And not merely so, +his epigram stamps the epoch; the _accoucheur_ is a modern innovation. +All the refinements of modern civilization are summed up in the phrase. +It is monumental.” + +“Look here, my dear Nathan, what farrago of nonsense is this?” asked the +Marquise in bewilderment. + +“Madame la Marquise,” returned Nathan, “you do not know the value of +these ‘precious’ phrases; I am talking Sainte-Beuve, the new kind of +French.--I resume. Walking one day arm in arm with a friend along the +boulevard, he was accosted by a ferocious creditor, who inquired: + +“‘Are you thinking of me, sir?’ + +“‘Not the least in the world,’ answered the Count. + +“Remark the difficulty of the position. Talleyrand, in similar +circumstances, had already replied, ‘You are very inquisitive, my +dear fellow!’ To imitate the inimitable great man was out of the +question.--La Palferine, generous as Buckingham, could not bear to +be caught empty-handed. One day when he had nothing to give a little +Savoyard chimney-sweeper, he dipped a hand into a barrel of grapes in a +grocer’s doorway and filled the child’s cap from it. The little one ate +away at his grapes; the grocer began by laughing, and ended by holding +out his hand. + +“‘Oh, fie! monsieur,’ said La Palferine, ‘your left hand ought not to +know what my right hand doth.’ + +“With his adventurous courage, he never refuses any odds, but there is +wit in his bravado. In the Passage de l’Opera he chanced to meet a man +who had spoken slightingly of him, elbowed him as he passed, and then +turned and jostled him a second time. + +“‘You are very clumsy!’ + +“‘On the contrary; I did it on purpose.’ + +“The young man pulled out his card. La Palferine dropped it. ‘It has +been carried too long in the pocket. Be good enough to give me another.’ + +“On the ground he received a thrust; blood was drawn; his antagonist +wished to stop. + +“‘You are wounded, monsieur!’ + +“‘I disallow the _botte_,’ said La Palferine, as coolly as if he had +been in the fencing-saloon; then as he riposted (sending the point home +this time), he added, ‘There is the right thrust, monsieur!’ + +“His antagonist kept his bed for six months. + +“This, still following on M. Sainte-Beuve’s tracks, recalls the +_raffines_, the fine-edged raillery of the best days of the monarchy. +In this speech you discern an untrammeled but drifting life; a gaiety of +imagination that deserts us when our first youth is past. The prime of +the blossom is over, but there remains the dry compact seed with the +germs of life in it, ready against the coming winter. Do you not see +that these things are symptoms of something unsatisfied, of an unrest +impossible to analyze, still less to describe, yet not incomprehensible; +a something ready to break out if occasion calls into flying upleaping +flame? It is the _accidia_ of the cloister; a trace of sourness, of +ferment engendered by the enforced stagnation of youthful energies, a +vague, obscure melancholy.” + +“That will do,” said the Marquise; “you are giving me a mental shower +bath.” + +“It is the early afternoon languor. If a man has nothing to do, he will +sooner get into mischief than do nothing at all; this invariably happens +in France. Youth at present day has two sides to it; the studious or +unappreciated, and the ardent or _passionne_.” + +“That will do!” repeated Mme. de Rochefide, with an authoritative +gesture. “You are setting my nerves on edge.” + +“To finish my portrait of La Palferine, I hasten to make the plunge into +the gallant regions of his character, or you will not understand the +peculiar genius of an admirable representative of a certain section +of mischievous youth--youth strong enough, be it said, to laugh at the +position in which it is put by those in power; shrewd enough to do no +work, since work profiteth nothing; yet so full of life that it fastens +upon pleasure--the one thing that cannot be taken away. And meanwhile a +bourgeois, mercantile, and bigoted policy continues to cut off all the +sluices through which so much aptitude and ability would find an outlet. +Poets and men of science are not wanted. + +“To give you an idea of the stupidity of the new court, I will tell +you of something which happened to La Palferine. There is a sort of +relieving officer on the civil list. This functionary one day discovered +that La Palferine was in dire distress, drew up a report, no doubt, and +brought the descendant of the Rusticolis fifty francs by way of alms. +La Palferine received the visitor with perfect courtesy, and talked of +various persons at court. + +“‘Is it true,’ he asked, ‘that Mlle. d’Orleans contributes such and such +a sum to this benevolent scheme started by her nephew? If so, it is very +gracious of her.’ + +“Now La Palferine had a servant, a little Savoyard, aged ten, who waited +on him without wages. La Palferine called him Father Anchises, and used +to say, ‘I have never seen such a mixture of besotted foolishness +with great intelligence; he would go through fire and water for me; he +understands everything--and yet he cannot grasp the fact that I can do +nothing for him.’ + +“Anchises was despatched to a livery stable with instructions to hire +a handsome brougham with a man in livery behind it. By the time +the carriage arrived below, La Palferine had skilfully piloted the +conversation to the subject of the functions of his visitor, whom he has +since called ‘the unmitigated misery man,’ and learned the nature of his +duties and his stipend. + +“‘Do they allow you a carriage to go about the town in this way?’ + +“‘Oh! no.’ + +“At that La Palferine and a friend who happened to be with him went +downstairs with the poor soul, and insisted on putting him into the +carriage. It was raining in torrents. La Palferine had thought of +everything. He offered to drive the official to the next house on +his list; and when the almoner came down again, he found the carriage +waiting for him at the door. The man in livery handed him a note written +in pencil: + + “‘The carriage has been engaged for three days. Count Rusticoli + de la Palferine is too happy to associate himself with Court + charities by lending wings to Royal beneficence.’ + +“La Palferine now calls the civil list the uncivil list. + +“He was once passionately loved by a lady of somewhat light conduct. +Antonia lived in the Rue du Helder; she had seen and been seen to some +extent, but at the time of her acquaintance with La Palferine she had +not yet ‘an establishment.’ Antonia was not wanting in the insolence of +old days, now degenerating into rudeness among women of her class. After +a fortnight of unmixed bliss, she was compelled, in the interest of +her civil list, to return to a less exclusive system; and La Palferine, +discovering a certain lack of sincerity in her dealings with him, sent +Madame Antonia a note which made her famous. + + “‘MADAME,--Your conduct causes me much surprise and no less + distress. Not content with rending my heart with your disdain, you + have been so little thoughtful as to retain a toothbrush, which my + means will not permit me to replace, my estates being mortgaged + beyond their value. + + “‘Adieu, too fair and too ungrateful friend! May we meet again in + a better world. + + “‘CHARLES EDWARD.’” + + +“Assuredly (to avail ourselves yet further of Sainte-Beuve’s Babylonish +dialect), this far outpasses the raillery of Sterne’s _Sentimental +Journey_; it might be Scarron without his grossness. Nay, I do not know +but that Moliere in his lighter mood would not have said of it, as of +Cyrano de Bergerac’s best--‘This is mine.’ Richelieu himself was not +more complete when he wrote to the princess waiting for him in the +Palais Royal--‘Stay there, my queen, to charm the scullion lads.’ At +the same time, Charles Edward’s humor is less biting. I am not sure that +this kind of wit was known among the Greeks and Romans. Plato, possibly, +upon a closer inspection approaches it, but from the austere and musical +side--” + +“No more of that jargon,” the Marquise broke in, “in print it may be +endurable; but to have it grating upon my ears is a punishment which I +do not in the least deserve.” + +“He first met Claudine on this wise,” continued Nathan. “It was one of +the unfilled days, when Youth is a burden to itself; days when youth, +reduced by the overweening presumption of Age to a condition of +potential energy and dejection, emerges therefrom (like Blondet under +the Restoration), either to get into mischief or to set about some +colossal piece of buffoonery, half excused by the very audacity of its +conception. La Palferine was sauntering, cane in hand, up and down the +pavement between the Rue de Grammont and the Rue de Richelieu, when in +the distance he descried a woman too elegantly dressed, covered, as he +phrased it, with a great deal of portable property, too expensive and +too carelessly worn for its owner to be other than a princess of the +court or of the stage, it was not easy at first to say which. But after +July 1830, in his opinion, there is no mistaking the indications--the +princess can only be a princess of the stage. + +“The Count came up and walked by her side as if she had given him an +assignation. He followed her with a courteous persistence, a persistence +in good taste, giving the lady from time to time, and always at the +right moment, an authoritative glance, which compelled her to submit +to his escort. Anybody but La Palferine would have been frozen by his +reception, and disconcerted by the lady’s first efforts to rid herself +of her cavalier, by her chilly air, her curt speeches; but no gravity, +with all the will in the world, could hold out long against La +Palferine’s jesting replies. The fair stranger went into her milliner’s +shop. Charles Edward followed, took a seat, and gave his opinions and +advice like a man that meant to pay. This coolness disturbed the lady. +She went out. + +“On the stairs she spoke to her persecutor. + +“‘Monsieur, I am about to call upon one of my husband’s relatives, an +elderly lady, Mme. de Bonfalot--’ + +“‘Ah! Mme. de Bonfalot, charmed, I am sure. I am going there.’ + +“The pair accordingly went. Charles Edward came in with the lady, every +one believed that she had brought him with her. He took part in the +conversation, was lavish of his polished and brilliant wit. The visit +lengthened out. That was not what he wanted. + +“‘Madame,’ he said, addressing the fair stranger, ‘do not forget that +your husband is waiting for us, and only allowed us a quarter of an +hour.’ + +“Taken aback by such boldness (which, as you know, is never displeasing +to you women), led captive by the conqueror’s glance, by the astute yet +candid air which Charles Edward can assume when he chooses, the lady +rose, took the arm of her self-constituted escort, and went downstairs, +but on the threshold she stopped to speak to him. + +“‘Monsieur, I like a joke----’ + +“‘And so do I.’ + +“She laughed. + +“‘But this may turn to earnest,’ he added; ‘it only rests with you. I am +the Comte de la Palferine, and I am delighted that it is in my power to +lay my heart and my fortune at your feet.’ + +“La Palferine was at that time twenty-two years old. (This happened +in 1834.) Luckily for him, he was fashionably dressed. I can paint his +portrait for you in a few words. He was the living image of Louis XIII., +with the same white forehead and gracious outline of the temples, the +same olive skin (that Italian olive tint which turns white where the +light falls on it), the brown hair worn rather long, the black ‘royale,’ +the grave and melancholy expression, for La Palferine’s character and +exterior were amazingly at variance. + +“At the sound of the name, and the sight of its owner, something like +a quiver thrilled through Claudine. La Palferine saw the vibration, and +shot a glance at her out of the dark depths of almond-shaped eyes with +purpled lids, and those faint lines about them which tell of pleasures +as costly as painful fatigue. With those eyes upon her, she said--‘Your +address?’ + +“‘What want of address!’ + +“‘Oh, pshaw!’ she said, smiling. ‘A bird on the bough?’ + +“‘Good-bye, madame, you are such a woman as I seek, but my fortune is +far from equaling my desire----’ + +“He bowed, and there and then left her. Two days later, by one of the +strange chances that can only happen in Paris, he had betaken himself to +a money-lending wardrobe dealer to sell such of his clothing as he could +spare. He was just receiving the price with an uneasy air, after long +chaffering, when the stranger lady passed and recognized him. + +“‘Once for all,’ cried he to the bewildered wardrobe dealer, ‘I tell you +I am not going to take your trumpet!’ + +“He pointed to a huge, much-dinted musical instrument, hanging up +outside against a background of uniforms, civil and military. Then, +proudly and impetuously, he followed the lady. + +“From that great day of the trumpet these two understood one another to +admiration. Charles Edward’s ideas on the subject of love are as sound +as possible. According to him, a man cannot love twice, there is but one +love in his lifetime, but that love is a deep and shoreless sea. It may +break in upon him at any time, as the grace of God found St. Paul; and a +man may live sixty years and never know love. Perhaps, to quote Heine’s +superb phrase, it is ‘the secret malady of the heart’--a sense of the +Infinite that there is within us, together with the revelation of the +ideal Beauty in its visible form. This love, in short, comprehends both +the creature and creation. But so long as there is no question of this +great poetical conception, the loves that cannot last can only be taken +lightly, as if they were in a manner snatches of song compared with Love +the epic. + +“To Charles Edward the adventure brought neither the thunderbolt signal +of love’s coming, nor yet that gradual revelation of an inward fairness +which draws two natures by degrees more and more strongly each to each. +For there are but two ways of love--love at first sight, doubtless akin +to the Highland ‘second-sight,’ and that slow fusion of two natures +which realizes Plato’s ‘man-woman.’ But if Charles Edward did not love, +he was loved to distraction. Claudine found love made complete, body +and soul; in her, in short, La Palferine awakened the one passion of +her life; while for him Claudine was only a most charming mistress. The +Devil himself, a most potent magician certainly, with all hell at his +back, could never have changed the natures of these two unequal fires. I +dare affirm that Claudine not unfrequently bored Charles Edward. + +“‘Stale fish and the woman you do not love are only fit to fling out of +the window after three days,’ he used to say. + +“In Bohemia there is little secrecy observed over these affairs. La +Palferine used to talk a good deal of Claudine; but, at the same time, +none of us saw her, nor so much as knew her name. For us Claudine +was almost a mythical personage. All of us acted in the same way, +reconciling the requirements of our common life with the rules of good +taste. Claudine, Hortense, the Baroness, the Bourgeoise, the Empress, +the Spaniard, the Lioness,--these were cryptic titles which permitted +us to pour out our joys, our cares, vexations, and hopes, and to +communicate our discoveries. Further, none of us went. It has been +shown, in Bohemia, that chance discovered the identity of the fair +unknown; and at once, as by tacit convention, not one of us spoke of +her again. This fact may show how far youth possesses a sense of true +delicacy. How admirably certain natures of a finer clay know the limit +line where jest must end, and all that host of things French covered by +the slang word _blague_, a word which will shortly be cast out of the +language (let us hope), and yet it is the only one which conveys an idea +of the spirit of Bohemia. + +“So we often used to joke about Claudine and the Count--‘_Toujours +Claudine?_’ sung to the air of _Toujours Gessle_.--‘What are you making +of Claudine?’--‘How is Claudine?’ + +“‘I wish you all such a mistress, for all the harm I wish you,’ La +Palferine began one day. ‘No greyhound, no basset-dog, no poodle can +match her in gentleness, submissiveness, and complete tenderness. There +are times when I reproach myself, when I take myself to task for my hard +heart. Claudine obeys with saintly sweetness. She comes to me, I tell +her to go, she goes, she does not even cry till she is out in the +courtyard. I refuse to see her for a whole week at a time. I tell her +to come at such an hour on Tuesday; and be it midnight or six o’clock in +the morning, ten o’clock, five o’clock, breakfast time, dinner time, +bed time, any particularly inconvenient hour in the day--she will come, +punctual to the minute, beautiful, beautifully dressed, and enchanting. +And she is a married woman, with all the complications and duties of a +household. The fibs that she must invent, the reasons she must find +for conforming to my whims would tax the ingenuity of some of us!... +Claudine never wearies; you can always count upon her. It is not love, +I tell her, it is infatuation. She writes to me every day; I do not read +her letters; she found that out, but still she writes. See here; there +are two hundred letters in this casket. She begs me to wipe my razors +on one of her letters every day, and I punctually do so. She thinks, and +rightly, that the sight of her handwriting will put me in mind of her.’ + +“La Palferine was dressing as he told us this. I took up the letter +which he was about to put to this use, read it, and kept it, as he did +not ask to have it back. Here it is. I looked for it, and found it as I +promised. + + +“_Monday (Midnight)._ + + “‘Well, my dear, are you satisfied with me? I did not even ask + for your hand, yet you might easily have given it to me, and I + longed so much to hold it to my heart, to my lips. No, I did not + ask, I am so afraid of displeasing you. Do you know one thing? + Though I am cruelly sure that anything I do is a matter of perfect + indifference to you, I am none the less extremely timid in my + conduct: the woman that belongs to you, whatever her title to call + herself yours, must not incur so much as the shadow of blame. In + so far as love comes from the angels in heaven, from whom are no + secrets hid, my love is as pure as the purest; wherever I am I + feel that I am in your presence, and I try to do you honor. + + “‘All that you said about my manner of dress impressed me very + much; I began to understand how far above others are those that + come of a noble race. There was still something of the opera girl + in my gowns, in my way of dressing my hair. In a moment I saw the + distance between me and good taste. Next time you will receive a + duchess, you shall not know me again! Ah! how good you have been + to your Claudine! How many and many a time I have thanked you for + telling me those things! What interest lay in those few words! You + have taken thought for that thing belonging to you called + Claudine? _This_ imbecile would never have opened my eyes; he + thinks that everything I do is right; and besides, he is much too + humdrum, too matter-of-fact to have any feeling for the beautiful. + + “‘Tuesday is very slow of coming for my impatient mind! On + Tuesday I shall be with you for several hours. Ah! when it comes I + will try to think that the hours are months, that it will be so + always. I am living in hope of that morning now, as I shall live + upon the memory of it afterwards. Hope is memory that craves; and + recollection, memory sated. What a beautiful life within life + thought makes for us in this way! + + “‘Sometimes I dream of inventing new ways of tenderness all my + own, a secret which no other woman shall guess. A cold sweat + breaks out over me at the thought that something may happen to + prevent this morning. Oh, I would break with _him_ for good, if + need was, but nothing here could possibly interfere; it would be + from your side. Perhaps you may decide to go out, perhaps to go to + see some other woman. Oh! spare me this Tuesday for pity’s sake. + If you take it from me, Charles, you do not know what _he_ will + suffer; I should drive him wild. But even if you do not want me, + or you are going out, let me come, all the same, to be with you + while you dress; only to see you, I ask no more than that; only to + show you that I love you without a thought of self. + + “‘Since you gave me leave to love you, for you gave me leave, + since I am yours; since that day I loved and love you with the + whole strength of my soul; and I shall love you for ever, for once + having loved _you_, no one could, no one ought to love another. + And, you see, when those eyes that ask nothing but to see you are + upon you, you will feel that in your Claudine there is a something + divine, called into existence by you. + + “‘Alas! with you I can never play the coquette. I am like a + mother with her child; I endure anything from you; I, that was + once so imperious and proud. I have made dukes and princes fetch + and carry for me; aides-de-camp, worth more than all the court of + Charles X. put together, have done my errands, yet I am treating + you as my spoilt child. But where is the use of coquetry? It would + be pure waste. And yet, monsieur, for want of coquetry I shall + never inspire love in you. I know it; I feel it; yet I do as + before, feeling a power that I cannot withstand, thinking that + this utter self-surrender will win me the sentiment innate in all + men (so _he_ tells me) for the thing that belongs to them. + + +“_Wednesday_. + + “‘Ah! how darkly sadness entered my heart yesterday when I found + that I must give up the joy of seeing you. One single thought held + me back from the arms of Death!--It was thy will! To stay away was + to do thy will, to obey an order from thee. Oh! Charles, I was so + pretty; I looked a lovelier woman for you than that beautiful + German princess whom you gave me for an example, whom I have + studied at the Opera. And yet--you might have thought that I had + overstepped the limits of my nature. You have left me no + confidence in myself; perhaps I am plain after all. Oh! I loathe + myself, I dream of my radiant Charles Edward, and my brain turns. + I shall go mad, I know I shall. Do not laugh, do not talk to me of + the fickleness of women. If we are inconstant, _you_ are strangely + capricious. You take away the hours of love that made a poor + creature’s happiness for ten whole days; the hours on which she + drew to be charming and kind to all that came to see her! After + all, you were the source of my kindness to _him_; you do not know + what pain you give him. I wonder what I must do to keep you, or + simply to keep the right to be yours sometimes.... When I think + that you never would come here to me!... With what delicious + emotion I would wait upon you!--There are other women more favored + than I. There are women to whom you say, ‘I love you.’ To me you + have never said more than ‘You are a good girl.’ Certain speeches + of yours, though you do not know it, gnaw at my heart. Clever men + sometimes ask me what I am thinking.... I am thinking of my + self-abasement--the prostration of the poorest outcast in the + presence of the Saviour. + +“There are still three more pages, you see. La Palferine allowed me to +take the letter, with the traces of tears that still seemed hot upon it! +Here was proof of the truth of his story. Marcas, a shy man enough with +women, was in ecstacies over a second which he read in his corner before +lighting his pipe with it. + +“‘Why, any woman in love will write that sort of thing!’ cried La +Palferine. ‘Love gives all women intelligence and style, which proves +that here in France style proceeds from the matter and not from the +words. See now how well this is thought out, how clear-headed sentiment +is’--and with that he reads us another letter, far superior to the +artificial and labored productions which we novelists write. + +“One day poor Claudine heard that La Palferine was in a critical +position; it was a question of meeting a bill of exchange. An unlucky +idea occurred to her; she put a tolerably large sum in gold into an +exquisitely embroidered purse and went to him. + +“‘Who has taught you as to be so bold as to meddle with my household +affairs?’ La Palferine cried angrily. ‘Mend my socks and work slippers +for me, if it amuses you. So!--you will play the duchess, and you turn +the story of Danae against the aristocracy.’ + +“He emptied the purse into his hand as he spoke, and made as though +he would fling the money in her face. Claudine, in her terror, did not +guess that he was joking; she shrank back, stumbled over a chair, and +fell with her head against the corner of the marble chimney-piece. She +thought she should have died. When she could speak, poor woman, as she +lay on the bed, all that she said was, ‘I deserved it, Charles!’ + +“For a moment La Palferine was in despair; his anguish revived Claudine. +She rejoiced in the mishap; she took advantage of her suffering to +compel La Palferine to take the money and release him from an awkward +position. Then followed a variation on La Fontaine’s fable, in which a +man blesses the thieves that brought him a sudden impulse of tenderness +from his wife. And while we are upon this subject, another saying will +paint the man for you. + +“Claudine went home again, made up some kind of tale as best she could +to account for her bruised forehead, and fell dangerously ill. An +abscess formed in the head. The doctor--Bianchon, I believe--yes, it was +Bianchon--wanted to cut off her hair. The Duchesse de Berri’s hair is +not more beautiful than Claudine’s; she would not hear of it, she told +Bianchon in confidence that she could not allow it to be cut without +leave from the Comte de Palferine. Bianchon went to Charles Edward. +Charles Edward heard him with much seriousness. The doctor had explained +the case at length, and showed that it was absolutely necessary to +sacrifice the hair to insure the success of the operation. + +“‘Cut off Claudine’s hair!’ cried he in peremptory tones. ‘No. I would +sooner lose her.’ + +“Even now, after a lapse of four years, Bianchon still quotes that +speech; we have laughed over it for half an hour together. Claudine, +informed of the verdict, saw in it a proof of affections; she felt sure +that she was loved. In the face of her weeping family, with her husband +on his knees, she was inexorable. She kept the hair. The strength that +came with the belief that she was loved came to her aid, the operation +succeeded perfectly. There are stirrings of the inner life which throw +all the calculations of surgery into disorder and baffle the laws of +medical science. + +“Claudine wrote a delicious letter to La Palferine, a letter in which +the orthography was doubtful and the punctuation all to seek, to tell +him of the happy result of the operation, and to add that Love was wiser +than all the sciences. + +“‘Now,’ said La Palferine one day, ‘what am I to do to get rid of +Claudine?’ + +“‘Why, she is not at all troublesome; she leaves you master of your +actions,’ objected we. + +“‘That is true,’ returned La Palferine, ‘but I do not choose that +anything shall slip into my life without my consent.’ + +“From that day he set himself to torment Claudine. It seemed that he +held the bourgeoise, the nobody, in utter horror; nothing would satisfy +him but a woman with a title. Claudine, it was true, had made progress; +she had learned to dress as well as the best-dressed woman of the +Faubourg Saint-Germain; she had freed her bearing of the unhallowed +traces; she walked with a chastened, inimitable grace; but this was not +enough. This praise of her enabled Claudine to swallow down the rest. + +“But one day La Palferine said, ‘If you wish to be the mistress of one +La Palferine, poor, penniless, and without prospects as he is, you +ought at least to represent him worthily. You should have a carriage and +liveried servants and a title. Give me all the gratifications of vanity +that will never be mine in my own person. The woman whom I honor with +my regard ought never to go on foot; if she is bespattered with mud, I +suffer. That is how I am made. If she is mine, she must be admired +of all Paris. All Paris shall envy me my good fortune. If some little +whipper-snapper seeing a brilliant countess pass in her brilliant +carriage shall say to himself, “Who can call such a divinity his?” and +grow thoughtful--why, it will double my pleasure.’ + +“La Palferine owned to us that he flung this programme at Claudine’s +head simply to rid himself of her. As a result he was stupefied with +astonishment for the first and probably the only time in his life. + +“‘Dear,’ she said, and there was a ring in her voice that betrayed the +great agitation which shook her whole being, ‘it is well. All this shall +be done, or I will die.’ + +“She let fall a few happy tears on his hand as she kissed it. + +“‘You have told me what I must do to be your mistress still,’ she added; +‘I am glad.’ + +“‘And then’ (La Palferine told us) ‘she went out with a little +coquettish gesture like a woman that has had her way. As she stood in my +garrett doorway, tall and proud, she seemed to reach the stature of an +antique sibyl.’ + +“All this should sufficiently explain the manners and customs of the +Bohemia in which the young _condottiere_ is one of the most brilliant +figures,” Nathan continued after a pause. “Now it so happened that I +discovered Claudine’s identity, and could understand the appalling truth +of one line which you perhaps overlooked in that letter of hers. It was +on this wise.” + +The Marquise, too thoughtful now for laughter, bade Nathan “Go on,” in +a tone that told him plainly how deeply she had been impressed by these +strange things, and even more plainly how much she was interested in La +Palferine. + +“In 1829, one of the most influential, steady, and clever of dramatic +writers was du Bruel. His real name is unknown to the public, on the +play-bills he is de Cursy. Under the Restoration he had a place in the +Civil Service; and being really attached to the elder branch, he sent +in his resignation bravely in 1830, and ever since has written twice as +many plays to fill the deficit in his budget made by his noble conduct. +At that time du Bruel was forty years old; you know the story of his +life. Like many of his brethren, he bore a stage dancer an affection +hard to explain, but well known in the whole world of letters. The +woman, as you know, was Tullia, one of the _premiers sujets_ of the +Academie Royale de Musique. Tullia is merely a pseudonym like du Bruel’s +name of de Cursy. + +“For the ten years between 1817 and 1827 Tullia was in her glory on the +heights of the stage of the Opera. With more beauty than education, a +mediocre dancer with rather more sense than most of her class, she took +no part in the virtuous reforms which ruined the corps de ballet; she +continued the Guimard dynasty. She owed her ascendency, moreover, +to various well-known protectors, to the Duc de Rhetore (the Due de +Chaulieu’s eldest son), to the influence of a famous Superintendent +of Fine Arts, and sundry diplomatists and rich foreigners. During her +apogee she had a neat little house in the Rue Chauchat, and lived as +Opera nymphs used to live in the old days. Du Bruel was smitten with +her about the time when the Duke’s fancy came to an end in 1823. Being +a mere subordinate in the Civil Service, du Bruel tolerated the +Superintendent of Fine Arts, believing that he himself was really +preferred. After six years this connection was almost a marriage. Tullia +has always been very careful to say nothing of her family; we have a +vague idea that she comes from Nanterre. One of her uncles, formerly +a simple bricklayer or carpenter, is now, it is said, a very rich +contractor, thanks to her influence and generous loans. This fact leaked +out through du Bruel. He happened to say that Tullia would inherit a +fine fortune sooner or later. The contractor was a bachelor; he had a +weakness for the niece to whom he is indebted. + +“‘He is not clever enough to be ungrateful,’ said she. + +“In 1829 Tullia retired from the stage of her own accord. At the age of +thirty she saw that she was growing somewhat stouter, and she had tried +pantomime without success. Her whole art consisted in the trick of +raising her skirts, after Noblet’s manner, in a pirouette which inflated +them balloon-fashion and exhibited the smallest possible quantity of +clothing to the pit. The aged Vestris had told her at the very beginning +that this _temps_, well executed by a fine woman, is worth all the art +imaginable. It is the chest-note C of dancing. For which reason, he +said, the very greatest dancers--Camargo, Guimard, and Taglioni, all of +them thin, brown, and plain--could only redeem their physical defects by +their genius. Tullia, still in the height of her glory, retired before +younger and cleverer dancers; she did wisely. She was an aristocrat; she +had scarcely stooped below the noblesse in her _liaisons_; she declined +to dip her ankles in the troubled waters of July. Insolent and beautiful +as she was, Claudine possessed handsome souvenirs, but very little ready +money; still, her jewels were magnificent, and she had as fine furniture +as any one in Paris. + +“On quitting the stage when she, forgotten to-day, was yet in the height +of her fame, one thought possessed her--she meant du Bruel to marry her; +and at the time of this story, you must understand that the marriage had +taken place, but was kept a secret. How do women of her class contrive +to make a man marry them after seven or eight years of intimacy? What +springs do they touch? What machinery do they set in motion? But, +however comical such domestic dramas may be, we are not now concerned +with them. Du Bruel was secretly married; the thing was done. + +“Cursy before his marriage was supposed to be a jolly companion; now +and again he stayed out all night, and to some extent led the life of +a Bohemian; he would unbend at a supper-party. He went out to all +appearance to a rehearsal at the Opera-Comique, and found himself in +some unaccountable way at Dieppe, or Baden, or Saint-Germain; he gave +dinners, led the Titanic thriftless life of artists, journalists, and +writers; levied his tribute on all the greenrooms of Paris; and, in +short, was one of us. Finot, Lousteau, du Tillet, Desroches, Bixiou, +Blondet, Couture, and des Lupeaulx tolerated him in spite of his +pedantic manner and ponderous official attitude. But once married, +Tullia made a slave of du Bruel. There was no help for it. He was in +love with Tullia, poor devil. + +“‘Tullia’ (so he said) ‘had left the stage to be his alone, to be a +good and charming wife.’ And somehow Tullia managed to induce the most +Puritanical members of du Bruel’s family to accept her. From the very +first, before any one suspected her motives, she assiduously visited old +Mme. de Bonfalot, who bored her horribly; she made handsome presents to +mean old Mme. de Chisse, du Bruel’s great-aunt; she spent a summer +with the latter lady, and never missed a single mass. She even went to +confession, received absolution, and took the sacrament; but this, you +must remember, was in the country, and under the aunt’s eyes. + +“‘I shall have real aunts now, do you understand?’ she said to us when +she came back in the winter. + +“She was so delighted with her respectability, so glad to renounce her +independence, that she found means to compass her end. She flattered the +old people. She went on foot every day to sit for a couple of hours with +Mme. du Bruel the elder while that lady was ill--a Maintenon’s stratagem +which amazed du Bruel. And he admired his wife without criticism; he was +so fast in the toils already that he did not feel his bonds. + +“Claudine succeeded in making him understand that only under the elastic +system of a bourgeois government, only at the bourgeois court of the +Citizen-King, could a Tullia, now metamorphosed into a Mme. du Bruel, +be accepted in the society which her good sense prevented her from +attempting to enter. Mme. de Bonfalot, Mme. de Chisse, and Mme. du +Bruel received her; she was satisfied. She took up the position of +a well-conducted, simple, and virtuous woman, and never acted out of +character. In three years’ time she was introduced to the friends of +these ladies. + +“‘And still I cannot persuade myself that young Mme. du Bruel used to +display her ankles, and the rest, to all Paris, with the light of +a hundred gas-jets pouring upon her,’ Mme. Anselme Popinot remarked +naively. + +“From this point of view, July 1830 inaugurated an era not unlike the +time of the Empire, when a waiting woman was received at Court in the +person of Mme. Garat, a chief-justice’s ‘lady.’ Tullia had completely +broken, as you may guess, with all her old associates; of her former +acquaintances, she only recognized those who could not compromise her. +At the time of her marriage she had taken a very charming little +hotel between a court and a garden, lavishing money on it with wild +extravagance and putting the best part of her furniture and du Bruel’s +into it. Everything that she thought common or ordinary was sold. To +find anything comparable to her sparkling splendor, you could only look +back to the days when Sophie Arnould, a Guimard, or a Duthe, in all her +glory, squandered the fortunes of princes. + +“How far did this sumptuous existence affect du Bruel? It is a delicate +question to ask, and a still more delicate one to answer. A single +incident will suffice to give you an idea of Tullia’s crotchets. Her +bed-spread of Brussels lace was worth ten thousand francs. A famous +actress had another like it. As soon as Claudine heard this, she allowed +her cat, a splendid Angora, to sleep on the bed. That trait gives you +the woman. Du Bruel dared not say a word; he was ordered to spread +abroad that challenge in luxury, so that it might reach the other. +Tullia was very fond of this gift from the Duc de Rhetore; but one day, +five years after her marriage, she played with her cat to such purpose +that the coverlet--furbelows, flounces, and all--was torn to shreds, +and replaced by a sensible quilt, a quilt that was a quilt, and not a +symptom of the peculiar form of insanity which drives these women to +make up by an insensate luxury for the childish days when they lived on +raw apples, to quote the expression of a journalist. The day when the +bed-spread was torn to tatters marked a new epoch in her married life. + +“Cursy was remarkable for his ferocious industry. Nobody suspects the +source to which Paris owes the patch-and-powder eighteenth century +vaudevilles that flooded the stage. Those thousand-and-one vaudevilles, +which raised such an outcry among the _feuilletonistes_, were written +at Mme. du Bruel’s express desire. She insisted that her husband should +purchase the hotel on which she had spent so much, where she had housed +five hundred thousand francs’ worth of furniture. Wherefore Tullia never +enters into explanations; she understands the sovereign woman’s reason +to admiration. + +“‘People made a good deal of fun of Cursy,’ said she; ‘but, as a matter +of fact, he found this house in the eighteenth century rouge-box, +powder, puffs, and spangles. He would never have thought of it but for +me,’ she added, burying herself in the cushions in her fireside corner. + +“She delivered herself thus on her return from a first night. Du Bruel’s +piece had succeeded, and she foresaw an avalanche of criticisms. Tullia +had her At Homes. Every Monday she gave a tea-party; her society was as +select as might be, and she neglected nothing that could make her house +pleasant. There was a bouillotte in one room, conversation in another, +and sometimes a concert (always short) in the large drawing-room. None +but the most eminent artists performed in the house. Tullia had so much +good sense, that she attained to the most exquisite tact, and herein, in +all probability, lay the secret of her ascendency over du Bruel; at +any rate, he loved her with the love which use and wont at length makes +indispensable to life. Every day adds another thread to the strong, +irresistible, intangible web, which enmeshes the most delicate fancies, +takes captive every most transient mood, and binding them together, +holds a man captive hand and foot, heart and head. + +“Tullia knew Cursy well; she knew every weak point in his armor, knew +also how to heal his wounds. + +“A passion of this kind is inscrutable for any observer, even for a man +who prides himself, as I do, on a certain expertness. It is everywhere +unfathomable; the dark depths in it are darker than in any other +mystery; the colors confused even in the highest lights. + +“Cursy was an old playwright, jaded by the life of the theatrical world. +He liked comfort; he liked a luxurious, affluent, easy existence; he +enjoyed being a king in his own house; he liked to be host to a party of +men of letters in a hotel resplendent with royal luxury, with carefully +chosen works of art shining in the setting. Tullia allowed du Bruel to +enthrone himself amid the tribe; there were plenty of journalists whom +it was easy enough to catch and ensnare; and, thanks to her evening +parties and a well-timed loan here and there, Cursy was not attacked +too seriously--his plays succeeded. For these reasons he would not have +separated from Tullia for an empire. If she had been unfaithful, he +would probably have passed it over, on condition that none of his +accustomed joys should be retrenched; yet, strange to say, Tullia caused +him no twinges on this account. No fancy was laid to her charge; if +there had been any, she certainly had been very careful of appearances. + +“‘My dear fellow,’ du Bruel would say, laying down the law to us on the +boulevard, ‘there is nothing like one of these women who have sown their +wild oats and got over their passions. Such women as Claudine have lived +their bachelor life; they have been over head and ears in pleasure, and +make the most adorable wives that could be wished; they have nothing to +learn, they are formed, they are not in the least prudish; they are well +broken in, and indulgent. So I strongly recommend everybody to take the +“remains of a racer.” I am the most fortunate man on earth.’ + +“Du Bruel said this to me himself with Bixiou there to hear it. + +“‘My dear fellow,’ said the caricaturist, ‘perhaps he is right to be in +the wrong.’ + +“About a week afterwards, du Bruel asked us to dine with him one +Tuesday. That morning I went to see him on a piece of theatrical +business, a case submitted to us for arbitration by the commission of +dramatic authors. We were obliged to go out again; but before we started +he went to Claudine’s room, knocked, as he always does, and asked for +leave to enter. + +“‘We live in grand style,’ said he, smiling; ‘we are free. Each is +independent.’ + +“We were admitted. Du Bruel spoke to Claudine. ‘I have asked a few +people to dinner to-day--” + +“‘Just like you!’ cried she. ‘You ask people without speaking to me; I +count for nothing here.--Now’ (taking me as arbitrator by a glance) ‘I +ask you yourself. When a man has been so foolish as to live with a woman +of my sort; for, after all, I was an opera dancer--yes, I ought always +to remember that, if other people are to forget it--well, under those +circumstances, a clever man seeking to raise his wife in public opinion +would do his best to impose her upon the world as a remarkable woman, to +justify the step he had taken by acknowledging that in some ways she was +something more than ordinary women. The best way of compelling respect +from others is to pay respect to her at home, and to leave her absolute +mistress of the house. Well, and yet it is enough to awaken one’s vanity +to see how frightened he is of seeming to listen to me. I must be in the +right ten times over if he concedes a single point.’ + +“(Emphatic negative gestures from du Bruel at every other word.) + +“‘Oh, yes, yes,’ she continued quickly, in answer to this mute dissent. +‘I know all about it, du Bruel, my dear, I that have been like a queen +in my house all my life till I married you. My wishes were guessed, +fulfilled, and more than fulfilled. After all, I am thirty-five, and at +five-and-thirty a woman cannot expect to be loved. Ah, if I were a girl +of sixteen, if I had not lost something that is dearly bought at the +Opera, what attention you would pay me, M. du Bruel! I feel the most +supreme contempt for men who boast that they can love and grow careless +and neglectful in little things as time grows on. You are short and +insignificant, you see, du Bruel; you love to torment a woman; it is +your only way of showing your strength. A Napoleon is ready to be swayed +by the woman he loves; he loses nothing by it; but as for such as you, +you believe that you are nothing apparently, you do not wish to be +ruled.--Five-and-thirty, my dear boy,’ she continued, turning to me, +‘that is the clue to the riddle.--“No,” does he say again?--You know +quite well that I am thirty-seven. I am very sorry, but just ask your +friends to dine at the _Rocher de Cancale_. I _could_ have them here, +but I will not; they shall not come. And then perhaps my poor little +monologue may engrave that salutary maxim, “Each is master at home,” + upon your memory. That is our character,’ she added, laughing, with a +return of the opera girl’s giddiness and caprice. + +“‘Well, well, my dear little puss; there, there, never mind. We can +manage to get on together,’ said du Bruel, and he kissed her hands, and +we came away. But he was very wroth. + +“The whole way from the Rue de la Victoire to the boulevard a perfect +torrent of venomous words poured from his mouth like a waterfall in +flood; but as the shocking language which he used on occasion was quite +unfit to print, the report is necessarily inadequate. + +“‘My dear fellow, I will leave that vile, shameless opera dancer, a +worn-out jade that has been set spinning like a top to every operatic +air; a foul hussy, an organ-grinder’s monkey! Oh, my dear boy, you have +taken up with an actress; may the notion of marrying your mistress never +get a hold on you. It is a torment omitted from the hell of Dante, you +see. Look here! I will beat her; I will give her a thrashing; I will +give it to her! Poison of my life, she sent me off like a running +footman.’ + +“By this time we had reached the boulevard, and he had worked himself up +to such a pitch of fury that the words stuck in his throat. + +“‘I will kick the stuffing out of her!’ + +“‘And why?’ + +“‘My dear fellow, you will never know the thousand-and-one fancies that +slut takes into her head. When I want to stay at home, she, forsooth, +must go out; when I want to go out, she wants me to stop at home; and +she spouts out arguments and accusations and reasoning and talks and +talks till she drives you crazy. Right means any whim that they happen +to take into their heads, and wrong means our notion. Overwhelm them +with something that cuts their arguments to pieces--they hold their +tongues and look at you as if you were a dead dog. My happiness +indeed! I lead the life of a yard-dog; I am a perfect slave. The little +happiness that I have with her costs me dear. Confound it all. I will +leave her everything and take myself off to a garret. Yes, a garret and +liberty. I have not dared to have my own way once in these five years.’ + +“But instead of going to his guests, Cursy strode up and down the +boulevard between the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue du Mont Blanc, +indulging in the most fearful imprecations, his unbounded language was +most comical to hear. His paroxysm of fury in the street contrasted +oddly with his peaceable demeanor in the house. Exercise assisted him to +work off his nervous agitation and inward tempest. About two o’clock, on +a sudden frantic impulse, he exclaimed: + +“‘These damned females never know what they want. I will wager my head +now that if I go home and tell her that I have sent to ask my friends +to dine with me at the _Rocher de Cancale_, she will not be satisfied +though she made the arrangement herself.--But she will have gone off +somewhere or other. I wonder whether there is something at the bottom of +all this, an assignation with some goat? No. In the bottom of her heart +she loves me!’” + +The Marquise could not help smiling. + +“Ah, madame,” said Nathan, looking keenly at her, “only women and +prophets know how to turn faith to account.--Du Bruel would have me go +home with him,” he continued, “and we went slowly back. It was three +o’clock. Before he appeared, he heard a stir in the kitchen, saw +preparations going forward, and glanced at me as he asked the cook the +reason of this. + +“‘Madame ordered dinner,’ said the woman. ‘Madame dressed and ordered a +cab, and then she changed her mind and ordered it again for the theatre +this evening.’ + +“‘Good,’ exclaimed du Bruel, ‘what did I tell you?’ + +“We entered the house stealthily. No one was there. We went from room to +room until we reached a little boudoir, and came upon Tullia in tears. +She dried her eyes without affectation, and spoke to du Bruel. + +“‘Send a note to the _Rocher de Cancale_,’ she said, ‘and ask your +guests to dine here.’ + +“She was dressed as only women of the theatre can dress, in a +simply-made gown of some dainty material, neither too costly nor too +common, graceful and harmonious in outline and coloring; there was +nothing conspicuous about her, nothing exaggerated--a word now dropping +out of use, to be replaced by the word ‘artistic,’ used by fools +as current coin. In short, Tullia looked like a gentlewoman. At +thirty-seven she had reached the prime of a Frenchwoman’s beauty. At +this moment the celebrated oval of her face was divinely pale; she had +laid her hat aside; I could see a faint down like the bloom of fruit +softening the silken contours of a cheek itself so delicate. There was a +pathetic charm about her face with its double cluster of fair hair; her +brilliant gray eyes were veiled by a mist of tears; her nose, delicately +carved as a Roman cameo, with its quivering nostrils; her little +mouth, like a child’s even now; her long queenly throat, with the veins +standing out upon it; her chin, flushed for the moment by some secret +despair; the pink tips of her ears, the hands that trembled under her +gloves, everything about her told of violent feeling. The feverish +twitching of her eyebrows betrayed her pain. She looked sublime. + +“Her first words had crushed du Bruel. She looked at us both, with that +penetrating, impenetrable cat-like glance which only actresses and great +ladies can use. Then she held out her hand to her husband. + +“‘Poor dear, you had scarcely gone before I blamed myself a thousand +times over. It seemed to me that I had been horribly ungrateful. I told +myself that I had been unkind.--Was I very unkind?’ she asked, turning +to me.--‘Why not receive your friends? Is it not your house? Do you want +to know the reason of it all? Well, I was afraid that I was not loved; +and indeed I was half-way between repentance and the shame of going +back. I read the newspapers, and saw that there was a first night at +the Varietes, and I thought you had meant to give the dinner to a +collaborator. Left to myself, I gave way, I dressed to hurry out after +you--poor pet.’ + +“Du Bruel looked at me triumphantly, not a vestige of a recollection of +his orations _contra Tullia_ in his mind. + +“‘Well, dearest, I have not spoken to any one of them,’ he said. + +“‘How well we understand each other!’ quoth she. + +“Even as she uttered those bewildering sweet words, I caught sight of +something in her belt, the corner of a little note thrust sidewise +into it; but I did not need that indication to tell me that Tullia’s +fantastic conduct was referable to occult causes. Woman, in my opinion, +is the most logical of created beings, the child alone excepted. In both +we behold a sublime phenomenon, the unvarying triumph of one dominant, +all-excluding thought. The child’s thought changes every moment; but +while it possesses him, he acts upon it with such ardor that others give +way before him, fascinated by the ingenuity, the persistence of a strong +desire. Woman is less changeable, but to call her capricious is a stupid +insult. Whenever she acts, she is always swayed by one dominant passion; +and wonderful it is to see how she makes that passion the very centre of +her world. + +“Tullia was irresistible; she twisted du Bruel round her fingers, the +sky grew blue again, the evening was glorious. And ingenious writer +of plays as he is, he never so much as saw that his wife had buried a +trouble out of sight. + +“‘Such is life, my dear fellow,’ he said to me, ‘ups and downs and +contrasts.’ + +“‘Especially life off the stage,’ I put in. + +“‘That is just what I mean,’ he continued. ‘Why, but for these violent +emotions, one would be bored to death! Ah! that woman has the gift of +rousing me.’ + +“We went to the Varietes after dinner; but before we left the house +I slipped into du Bruel’s room, and on a shelf among a pile of waste +papers found the copy of the _Petites-Affiches_, in which, agreeably to +the reformed law, notice of the purchase of the house was inserted. The +words stared me in the face--‘At the request of Jean Francois du Bruel +and Claudine Chaffaroux, his wife----’ _Here_ was the explanation of the +whole matter. I offered my arm to Claudine, and allowed the guests to +descend the stairs in front of us. When we were alone--‘If I were La +Palferine,’ I said, ‘I would not break an appointment.’ + +“Gravely she laid her finger on her lips. She leant on my arm as we went +downstairs, and looked at me with almost something like happiness in +her eyes because I knew La Palferine. Can you see the first idea that +occurred to her? She thought of making a spy of me, but I turned her off +with the light jesting talk of Bohemia. + +“A month later, after a first performance of one of du Bruel’s plays, +we met in the vestibule of the theatre. It was raining; I went to call +a cab. We had been delayed for a few minutes, so that there were no cabs +in sight. Claudine scolded du Bruel soundly; and as we rolled through +the streets (for she set me down at Florine’s), she continued the +quarrel with a series of most mortifying remarks. + +“‘What is this about?’ I inquired. + +“‘Oh, my dear fellow, she blames me for allowing you to run out for a +cab, and thereupon proceeds to wish for a carriage.’ + +“‘As a dancer,’ said she, ‘I have never been accustomed to use my feet +except on the boards. If you have any spirit, you will turn out four +more plays or so in a year; you will make up your mind that succeed they +must, when you think of the end in view, and that your wife will not +walk in the mud. It is a shame that I should have to ask for it. You +ought to have guessed my continual discomfort during the five years +since I married you.’ + +“‘I am quite willing,’ returned du Bruel. ‘But we shall ruin ourselves.’ + +“‘If you run into debt,’ she said, ‘my uncle’s money will clear it off +some day.’ + +“‘You are quite capable of leaving me the debts and taking the +property.’ + +“‘Oh! is that the way you take it?’ retorted she. ‘I have nothing more +to say to you; such a speech stops my mouth.’ + +“Whereupon du Bruel poured out his soul in excuses and protestations of +love. Not a word did she say. He took her hands, she allowed him to take +them; they were like ice, like a dead woman’s hands. Tullia, you can +understand, was playing to admiration the part of corpse that women +can play to show you that they refuse their consent to anything and +everything; that for you they are suppressing soul, spirit, and life, +and regard themselves as beasts of burden. Nothing so provokes a man +with a heart as this strategy. Women can only use it with those who +worship them. + +“She turned to me. ‘Do you suppose,’ she said scornfully, ‘that a Count +would have uttered such an insult even if the thought had entered his +mind? For my misfortune I have lived with dukes, ambassadors, and great +lords, and I know their ways. How intolerable it makes bourgeois life! +After all, a playwright is not a Rastignac nor a Rhetore----’ + +“Du Bruel looked ghastly at this. Two days afterwards we met in the +_foyer_ at the Opera, and took a few turns together. The conversation +fell on Tullia. + +“‘Do not take my ravings on the boulevard too seriously,’ said he; ‘I +have a violent temper.’ + +“For two winters I was a tolerably frequent visitor at du Bruel’s house, +and I followed Claudine’s tactics closely. She had a splendid carriage. +Du Bruel entered public life; she made him abjure his Royalist opinions. +He rallied himself; he took his place again in the administration; the +National Guard was discreetly canvassed, du Bruel was elected major, and +behaved so valorously in a street riot, that he was decorated with the +rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honor. He was appointed Master +of Requests and head of a department. Uncle Chaffaroux died and left his +niece forty thousand francs per annum, three-fourths of his fortune. +Du Bruel became a deputy; but beforehand, to save the necessity of +re-election, he secured his nomination to the Council of State. He +reprinted divers archaeological treatises, a couple of political +pamphlets, and a statistical work, by way of pretext for his appointment +to one of the obliging academies of the Institut. At this moment he is +a Commander of the Legion, and (after fishing in the troubled waters of +political intrigue) has quite recently been made a peer of France and a +count. As yet our friend does not venture to bear his honors; his wife +merely puts ‘La Comtesse du Bruel’ on her cards. The sometime +playwright has the Order of Leopold, the Order of Isabella, the cross of +Saint-Vladimir, second class, the Order of Civil Merit of Bavaria, +the Papal Order of the Golden Spur,--all the lesser orders, in short, +besides the Grand Cross. + +“Three months ago Claudine drove to La Palferine’s door in her splendid +carriage with its armorial bearings. Du Bruel’s grandfather was a farmer +of taxes ennobled towards the end of Louis Quatorze’s reign. Cherin +composed his coat-of-arms for him, so the Count’s coronet looks not +amiss above a scutcheon innocent of Imperial absurdities. In this +way, in the short space of three years, Claudine had carried out the +programme laid down for her by the charming, light-hearted La Palferine. + +“One day, just above a month ago, she climbed the miserable staircase to +her lover’s lodging; climbed in her glory, dressed like a real countess +of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, to our friend’s garret. La Palferine, +seeing her, said, ‘You have made a peeress of yourself I know. But it +is too late, Claudine; every one is talking just now about the Southern +Cross, I should like it see it!’ + +“‘I will get it for you.’ + +“La Palferine burst into a peal of Homeric laughter. + +“‘Most distinctly,’ he returned, ‘I do _not_ wish to have a woman as +ignorant as a carp for my mistress, a woman that springs like a flying +fish from the green-room of the Opera to Court, for I should like to see +you at the Court of the Citizen King.’ + +“She turned to me. + +“‘What is the Southern Cross?’ she asked, in a sad, downcast voice. + +“I was struck with admiration for this indomitable love, outdoing the +most ingenious marvels of fairy tales in real life--a love that would +spring over a precipice to find a roc’s egg, or to gather the singing +flower. I explained that the Southern Cross was a nebulous constellation +even brighter than the Milky Way, arranged in the form of a cross, and +that it could only be seen in southern latitudes. + +“‘Very well, Charles, let us go,’ said she. + +“La Palferine, ferocious though he was, had tears in his eyes; but what +a look there was in Claudine’s face, what a note in her voice! I have +seen nothing like the thing that followed, not even in the supreme touch +of a great actor’s art; nothing to compare with her movement when she +saw the hard eyes softened in tears; Claudine sank upon her knees +and kissed La Palferine’s pitiless hand. He raised her with his grand +manner, his ‘Rusticoli air,’ as he calls it--‘There, child!’ he said, ‘I +will do something for you; I will put you--in my will.’ + +“Well,” concluded Nathan, “I ask myself sometimes whether du Bruel is +really deceived. Truly there is nothing more comic, nothing stranger +than the sight of a careless young fellow ruling a married couple, his +slightest whims received as law, the weightiest decisions revoked at a +word from him. That dinner incident, as you can see, is repeated times +without number, it interferes with important matters. Still, but for +Claudine’s caprices, du Bruel would be de Cursy still, one vaudevillist +among five hundred; whereas he is in the House of Peers.” + + +“You will change the names, I hope!” said Nathan, addressing Mme. de la +Baudraye. + +“I should think so! I have only set names to the masks for you. My dear +Nathan,” she added in the poet’s ear, “I know another case on which the +wife takes du Bruel’s place.” + +“And the catastrophe?” queried Lousteau, returning just at the end of +Mme. de la Baudraye’s story. + +“I do not believe in catastrophes. One has to invent such good ones +to show that art is quite a match for chance; and nobody reads a book +twice, my friend, except for the details.” + +“But there is a catastrophe,” persisted Nathan. + +“What is it?” + +“The Marquise de Rochefide is infatuated with Charles Edward. My story +excited her curiosity.” + +“Oh, unhappy woman!” cried Mme. de la Baudraye. + +“Not so unhappy,” said Nathan, “for Maxime de Trailles and La Palferine +have brought about a rupture between the Marquis and Mme. Schontz, and +they mean to make it up between Arthur and Beatrix.” + + +1839 - 1845. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Bianchon, Horace + Father Goriot + The Atheist’s Mass + Cesar Birotteau + The Commission in Lunacy + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Secrets of a Princess + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Study of Woman + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Honorine + The Seamy Side of History + The Magic Skin + A Second Home + Letters of Two Brides + The Muse of the Department + The Imaginary Mistress + The Middle Classes + Cousin Betty + The Country Parson + In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: + Another Study of Woman + La Grande Breteche + + Bruel, Jean Francois du + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Government Clerks + A Start in Life + The Middle Classes + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Daughter of Eve + + Bruel, Claudine Chaffaroux, Madame du + A Bachelor’s Establishment + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Middle Classes + + Chaffaroux + Cesar Birotteau + The Middle Classes + + Chocardelle, Mademoiselle + Beatrix + A Man of Business + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + + La Baudraye, Madame Polydore Milaud de + The Muse of the Department + Cousin Betty + + Laguerre, Mademoiselle + The Peasantry + + La Palferine, Comte de + A Man of Business + Cousin Betty + Beatrix + The Imaginary Mistress + + Lousteau, Etienne + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + A Daughter of Eve + Beatrix + The Muse of the Department + Cousin Betty + A Man of Business + The Middle Classes + The Unconscious Humorists + + Marcas, Zephirin + Z. Marcas + + Nathan, Raoul + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + Letters of Two Brides + The Seamy Side of History + The Muse of the Department + A Man of Business + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nathan, Madame Raoul + The Muse of the Department + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Government Clerks + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Ursule Mirouet + Eugenie Grandet + The Imaginary Mistress + A Daughter of Eve + The Unconscious Humorists + + Popinot, Madame Anselme + Cesar Birotteau + Cousin Betty + Cousin Pons + + Rochefide, Marquise de + Beatrix + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + Sarrasine + + Tissot, Pierre-Francois + Father Goriot + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Prince of Bohemia, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA *** + +***** This file should be named 1812-0.txt or 1812-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/1812/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |