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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78270-0.txt b/78270-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9b807b --- /dev/null +++ b/78270-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1489 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78270 *** + + + + + LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. =1044= + Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius + + + + + Another Study + of Woman + + + Honoré de Balzac + + + + + HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY + GIRARD, KANSAS + + + + + Copyright, 1926, + Haldeman-Julius Company + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN + + + + + TO LEON GOZLAN + + + AS A TESTIMONY TO GOOD LITERARY + BROTHERHOOD + + + + + ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN[1] + + + THE SALON OF MADEMOISELLE DES TOUCHES + + +In Parisian society you will almost always find two very different +evenings in the balls and social affairs. First, the official evening, +at which all the invited guests are present--a gay world bored with +itself and others. Each person poses for his neighbor. The majority of +the young women have come there to meet only one person. When each is +satisfied that she is the handsomest woman present in the eyes of that +person, and that his opinion is probably shared by some others, she +is ready to leave--after the exchange of a few trivial speeches, such +as “Shall you go early to La Crampade?”--“Madame de Portenduère sang +very well, I think.”--“Who is that little woman over there, weighted +down with diamonds?” Or, perhaps, after throwing out a few epigrams, +which give passing pleasure and permanent wounds, the groups begin to +disperse, mere acquaintances take leave, and then the mistress of the +house stops her personal friends and a few artists and lively fellows, +saying in a whisper: “Don’t go, we shall have supper presently.” + +The company then gathers in a little salon. The second, the real +evening begins--an evening like those of the old régime, when everybody +understands what is talked about, conversation is general, and each +person present is expected to show his wit and to contribute to the +general entertainment. The scene has changed: frank laughter succeeds +the stiff artificial air which dulls the prettiest faces in society. +In short, pleasure begins as the social time ends. The ball, that cold +review of luxury, the parade of self-loves in full costume, is one of +those English inventions which tend to turn all other nations into +mere machines. England seems desirous that all the world should be +as much and as often bored as herself. This second party succeeding +the first is therefore in some French houses a lively protest of the +former spirits of our joyous land. But, unfortunately, few houses thus +protest; and the reason is plain: if suppers are no longer in vogue it +is because at no time, under any régime, were there ever so few persons +in France with settled positions, surroundings, fortunes, families, and +names as under the reign of Louis Philippe, in which the Revolution +was begun again legally. All the world is marching toward some end, or +it is trotting after wealth. Time has become the most costly of all +chattels; no one can allow himself the great indulgence of coming home +late and sleeping late the next morning. The second party is therefore +only found among women rich enough really to entertain; and since July, +1830, such women may be counted on one’s fingers. + +In spite of the mute opposition of the faubourg Saint-Germain, two or +three women, among them the Marquise d’Espard and Mademoiselle des +Touches, refused to renounce the influence they had held up to that +time over Paris, and did not close their salons. + +The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches, which was very celebrated in +Paris, was the last asylum of the true French wit of other days, with +its hidden profundity, its thousand casuistries, and its exquisite +politeness. There you might observe the grace of manner which underlay +the conventions of politeness; the easy flow of conversation in spite +of the natural reserve of well-bred persons; and, above all, generosity +and tolerance of ideas. There, no one dreamed of reserving his thought +for a drama; no one had in mind a book to be made out of a narrative. +In short, the hideous skeleton of literature in want did not rise and +show itself in the face of some piquant sally or some interesting topic. + +During the evening which I shall now describe, chance had collected +in the salon of Mademoiselle des Touches a number of persons whose +undeniable merits had won for them European reputations. This is not +flattery of France, for several foreigners were among us. The men +who shone most brilliantly were by no means the most distinguished. +Ingenious repartees, shrewd observations, excellent satires, +descriptions given with brilliant clearness, sparkled and flowed +extemporaneously, lavished themselves without reserve as without +assumption, and were delightfully felt and delicately enjoyed. The men +of the world were particularly noticeable for a grace, warmth of fancy +that was wholly artistic. You will meet elsewhere in Europe elegant +manners, cordiality, good-fellowship and knowledge, but in Paris +only, in this salon and those I have just mentioned, will be found +in perfection that particular form of intellect which gives to these +social qualities an agreeable and varied harmony, a flowing motion by +which this wealth of thoughts, of formulas, or narratives, of history +itself, meanders easily along. + +Paris, the capital of taste, alone knows the science which changes +conversation to a tournament in which the quality of each mind is +condensed into a flash, where each tilter says his word and casts his +experience into it, where all are amused, refreshed, and have their +faculties exercised. There alone you can exchange ideas; there you +do not carry, like the dolphin in the fable, a monkey on your back; +there you are understood, and you run no risk of staking your gold +against counterfeit coin or copper. There, in short, talk, light and +deep, floats, undulates, and turns, changing aspect and color at every +sentence; there, too, secrets are well betrayed. Lively criticism +and pithy narrative lead each other on. Eyes are listening as well +as ears; gestures put questions to which faces reply. There all is, +in a word, thought and wit. Never had the oral phenomenon--which, if +well studied and well-managed, makes the power of the orator and the +narrator--so completely bewitched me. + +I was not the only one sensitive to these influences, and we passed +a delightful evening. The conversation finally turned to narrative, +and led, in its rapid course, to curious confidences, striking +portraits, and a multitude of fancies, which render that delightful +improvisation altogether untransferable to paper. But, by leaving to a +few things their pungency, their abrupt naturalness, their sophistical +sinuosities, perhaps you will understand the charm of a true French +soirée, taken at the moment when the pleasantest familiarity has made +everyone forget his self-interests, self-loves, or, if you prefer so to +call them, pretensions and affectations. + +At about two in the morning, when supper was over, none but a few +intimates, all proved friends, tried by an intercourse of fifteen +years, and certain men of the world, well-bred and gifted with taste, +remained around the table. A tone of absolute equality held sway among +them; and yet there was no one present who did not feel proud of being +himself. + +Mademoiselle des Touches always obliged her guests to remain at table +until they took their leave, having many times noticed the total change +that takes place in the minds of those present by removal to another +room. On the way between a dining-room and a salon the charm snaps. +According to Sterne, the ideas of an author are different after he +has shaved from what they were before. If Sterne is right, we may +boldly assert that the inclinations of people still seated around a +dinner-table are not those of the same persons when returned to the +salon. The atmosphere is heavier, the eye is no longer enlivened by +the delightful disorder of the dessert; they have lost the benefits +of that softening of the spirit, that kindliness and good-will which +pervaded their being in the pleasant state of mind of those who have +eaten well, and are sitting at their ease on chairs as comfortable as +they can be made. Perhaps we talk more willingly in presence of the +dessert and in company with choice wines, during the delightful moment +when we rest our elbows on the table and lean our heads on our hands. +Certain it is that people not only like to talk at such times, but +they like to listen. Digestion, nearly always attentive, is, according +to characters, either talkative or silent. Each person present then +follows his inclination. + +This preamble was needed to introduce you to the charms of a +confidential narrative in which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted +the innocent jesuitism of a woman with the crafty shrewdness of a man +who has seen much of the world--a quality which makes public men the +most delightful narrators when, like Talleyrand and Metternich, they +condescend to tell a tale. + +De Marsay, who had been prime minister for more than six months, had +already given proofs of superior capacity. Though friends who had long +known him were not surprised to see him display both the talents and +aptitudes of a statesman, they were still asking themselves whether +he felt within himself a great political strength, or whether he had +simply developed in the heat of circumstances. This question had just +been put to him, with an evidently philosophical intention, by a man of +intellect and observation whom he had made a prefect--a man who was a +journalist for a long time, and who admired the prime minister without +mingling his admiration with that touch of sour criticism by which, in +Paris, one superior man excuses himself for admiring another. + +“Has there been in your earlier life any fact, thought, or desire, +which made you foresee your vocation?” asked Emile Blondet, “for we all +have, like Newton, our particular apple which falls, and takes us to +the surroundings in which our faculties can develop.” + +“Yes,” replied de Marsay, “and I’ll tell you about it.” + +Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, all de Marsay’s +intimates, settled themselves comfortably, each in his own way, and +looked at the prime minister. Is it necessary to say that the servants +had left the dining-room, that the doors were closed and the portières +drawn? The silence which now fell was so deep that the murmur of the +coachmen’s voices and the subdued stamping of the horses impatient for +their stable came up from the courtyard. + +“A statesman, my friends, exists through one quality only,” said the +minister, playing with his pearl-handled and gold dessert-knife. +“To know how at all moments to be master of himself; to be able, on +all occasions, to meet the crisis of events, however unexpected and +accidental it may be; in short, to have, in his inner self, a cool, +detached being, which looks on as a spectator at all the movements of +our life, our passions, our sentiments, and which inspires us apropos +of all things, with the decision of a kind of ready-reckoner.” + +“You are explaining to us why statesmen are so rare in France,” said +old Lord Dudley. + +“From a sentimental point of view it is certainly horrible,” said +the minister, “and therefore when this phenomenon appears in a young +man--Richelieu, warned of Concini’s danger by a letter over-night, +slept till midday, when he knew his benefactor would be killed at ten +o’clock--that young man, be he Pitt, or Napoleon if you like, is a +monstrosity. I became that monster very early in life, thanks to a +woman.” + +“I thought,” said Madame de Montcornet (Virginie Blondet), smiling, +“that we unmade more statesmen than we make.” + +“The monster of whom I speak is only a monster inasmuch as he resists +your sex,” said the narrator, with an ironical bow. + +“If this tale relates to a love-affair,” said the Baronne de Nucingen, +“I request that it may not be interrupted by reflections.” + +“Reflection being so contrary to love,” remarked Joseph Bridau. + +“I was nineteen years of age,” resumed de Marsay; “the Restoration was +becoming re-established--my oldest friends know how impetuous and fiery +I then was. I was in love for the first time, and I may, at this late +day, be permitted to say that I was one of the handsomest young men in +Paris. I had youth and beauty, two advantages due to chance, of which +we are as proud as if we had won them. I say nothing about the rest. +Like all young men, I was in love with a woman about six years older +than myself. Only one of you,” he said, looking round the table, “will +guess her name or recognize her. Ronquerolles was the only one in those +days who guessed my secret, and he kept it carefully. I might fear +_his_ smile, but he seems to be gone,” said the minister, again +looking about him. + +“He would not stay to supper,” said his sister, Madame de Sérizy. + +“For six months possessed by this love, but incapable of suspecting +that it mastered me,” continued the minister, “I gave myself up to that +adorable worship which is both the triumph and the fragile happiness +of youth. I treasured _her_ glove, I drank infusions of the +flowers _she_ had worn, I rose from my bed to go to stand beneath +_her_ windows. All my blood rushed to my heart as I breathed the +perfume that _she_ preferred. I was then a thousand leagues from +suspecting that women are furnaces without and marble within.” + +“Oh, spare us those horrible sentiments,” said Madame de Camps, +laughing. + +“I would then have blasted with contempt the philosopher who published +to the world that terrible opinion, so profoundly true,” replied de +Marsay. “You are all too wise and witty to need me to say more on that +point; but perhaps the rest that I have to tell may recall to you your +own follies. Well--a great lady, if ever there was one, a widow without +children (oh! she had every advantage), my idol went so far as to shut +herself up to mark my handkerchiefs with her own hair; in short, she +responded to my follies with follies of her own. How is it possible +not to believe in a passion when it is guaranteed by folly? We had +put, each of us, all our wits into concealing so complete and glorious +a love from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. Of her, I shall +tell you nothing; perfect in those days, she was considered until quite +recently one of the handsomest women in Paris; at the time of which I +speak men would have risked death to secure her favor. She was left +comfortably as to fortune, for a woman who loved and was beloved; but +the Restoration, to which she was indebted for higher honors, made her +wealth insufficient to meet the requirements of her name and rank. As +for me, I had the self-conceit that conceives no suspicions. Although +my natural jealousy had in those days a hundred-and-twenty-Othello +power, that terrible sentiment slumbered in my breast like gold in +its bed of ore. I would have made my valet flog me had I felt the +baseness to doubt the purity and fidelity of that angel, so frail, so +strong, so fair, so naive, so pure, so candid, whose blue eyes let me +penetrate with adorable submission to the bottom of her heart. Never +the least hesitation in pose, or look, or word; always white and fresh +and tender to her beloved as the eastern lily of the Song of Songs. Ah, +my friends!” cried the minister, sorrowfully, becoming for the moment +a young man, “we must knock our heads very hard against the marble to +dispel that poetry.” + +This cry of nature, which found its echo among the guests, piqued their +curiosity, already so cleverly excited. + +“Every morning, mounted on that splendid Sultan you sent me from +England,” he said to Lord Dudley, “I rode past her _calèche_ and +read my orders for the day in her bouquet, prepared in case we were +unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each other nearly every +evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, we had invented, +in order to deceive the world and baffle observation, a system of +behavior. Not to look at each other, to avoid ever being together, +to speak slightingly of each other’s qualities, all those well-worn +maneuvers were of little value compared with our device of a mutual +false devotion to an indifferent person, and an air of indifference to +the true idol. If two lovers will play that game they can always dupe +society, but they must be very sure of each other. Her substitute was +a man high in court favor, cold and devout, whom she did not receive +in her own house. Our comedy was only played for the benefit of fools +in salons. The question of marriage had not been discussed between us; +six years’ difference in our ages might cause her to reflect. She knew +nothing of the amount of my fortune, which, on principle, I have always +concealed. As for me, charmed by her mind, her manners, the extent of +her information and her knowledge of the world, I would have married +her without reflection. And yet her reserve pleased me. Had she been +the first to speak to me of marriage, I might have found something +vulgar in that accomplished soul. Six full and perfect months! a +diamond of the purest water! That was my allowance of love in this low +world. One morning, being attacked by one of those bone-fevers which +begin a severe cold, I wrote her a note putting off the happiness of a +meeting for another day. No sooner was the letter gone than I regretted +it. ‘She certainly will not believe that I am ill,’ I said to myself; +for she was fond of seeming jealous and suspicious. When jealousy is +real,” said de Marsay, interrupting himself, “it is the evident sign of +a single-minded love.” + +“Why?” asked the Princesse de Cadignan, eagerly. + +“A true and single-minded love,” said de Marsay, “produces a sort of +bodily apathy in harmony with the contemplation into which the person +falls. The mind then complicates all things; it works upon itself, it +sets up fantasies in place of realities, which only torture it; but +this jealousy is as fascinating as it is embarrassing.” + +A foreign minister smiled, recognizing by the light of memory the truth +of this remark. + +“‘Besides,’ I said to myself, ‘why lose a happy day?’” continued de +Marsay, resuming his narrative. “Wasn’t it better to go, ill as I was? +For if she thought me ill I believed her capable of coming to see me +and so compromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, +and as my confidential man was not on hand, I took it myself. The river +lay between us; I had all Paris to cross. When I came within suitable +distance of her house I called a porter and told him to deliver the +letter immediately. Then the fine idea came into my head of driving +past the house in a hackney-coach to see if the letter was delivered +promptly. Just as I passed in front of it, about two o’clock in the +afternoon, the great gate opened to admit the carriage of--whom do +you suppose? The substitute! It is fifteen years since that happened; +well! as I tell you of it, this exhausted orator, this minister dried +to the core by contact with public business, still feels the boiling of +something in his heart and a fire in his diaphragm. At the end of an +hour I passed again--the carriage was still in the courtyard; my note +had doubtless not been taken up to her. At last, at half-past three +o’clock, the carriage drove away and I was able to study the face of my +rival. He was grave, he did not smile; but he was certainly in love, +and no doubt some plan was in the wind. At the appointed hour I kept +my tryst; the queen of my soul was calm and serene. Here I must tell +you that I have always thought Othello not only stupid, but guilty of +very bad taste. No man but one who was half a Negro would have behaved +as he did. Shakespeare felt that when he called his play the Moor of +Venice. The mere sight of the beloved woman has something so healing to +the heart, that it dissipates all vexations, doubts, sorrows; my wrath +subsided and I smiled again. This, at my present age, would have been +horribly dissimulating, but then it was simply the result of my youth +and love. My jealousy thus buried, I had the power to observe. I was +visibly ill; the horrible doubts which had tortured me increased the +appearance of illness, and she showed me the most tender solicitude. +I found occasion, however, to slip in the words: ‘Had you any visitor +this morning?’ explaining that I had wondered how she would amuse +herself after receiving my first note. + +“‘I?’ she said, ‘how could I think of any amusement after hearing of +your illness? Until your second note came I was planning how to go to +you.’ + +“‘Then you were quite alone?’ + +“‘Quite,’ she answered, looking at me with so perfect an expression +of innocence that it rivaled that which drove the Moor to kill his +Desdemona. As she alone occupied her house, that word was a shocking +falsehood. A single lie destroys that absolute confidence which, for +certain souls, is itself the basis of love. To express to you what went +on inside of me at that moment, it is necessary to admit that we have +an inner being of which the visible man is the scabbard, and that that +being, brilliant as light itself, is as delicate as a vapor. Well, that +glorious inward _I_ was thenceforth and forever clothed in crêpe. +Yes, I felt a cold and fleshless hand placing upon me the shroud of +experience, imposing upon my soul the eternal mourning which follows a +first betrayal. Lowering my eyes not to let her see my dazed condition, +a proud thought came into my mind which restored to me some strength: +‘If she deceives you she is unworthy of you.’ I excused the flush in +my face, and a few tears that came into my eyes, on the ground of +increased illness, and the gentle creature insisted on taking me home +in her carriage. On the way she was tenderness itself; her solicitude +would have deceived the same Moor of Venice whom I take for my point of +comparison. In fact, if that big child had hesitated two seconds longer +he would, as any intelligent spectator divines, have asked pardon of +Desdemona. Therefore, to kill a woman is the act of a child. She wept +as she left me at my own door, so unhappy was she at not being able +to nurse me herself! She wished she were my valet, she was jealous of +his cares! All this was written to me the next day as a happy Clarissa +might have written it. There is always the soul of a monkey in the +sweetest and most angelic of women!” + +At these words the women present lowered their eyes as if wounded by a +cruel truth so brutally stated. + +“I tell you nothing of the night, nor of the week that I passed,” +continued de Marsay, “but it was then that I saw myself a statesman.” + +Those words were so finely uttered that, one and all, we made a gesture +of admiration. + +“While reflecting, with an infernal spirit, on all the forms of cruel +vengeance to which we can subject a woman,” continued de Marsay--“and +there were many and irreparable ones in this case--I suddenly despised +myself; I felt that I was commonplace, and I formulated, insensibly, a +dreadful code, that of Indulgence. To take revenge upon a woman--does +not such an act admit that there is but one woman in the world for us, +and that we cannot live without her? If so, is vengeance a means to +recover her? But if she is not indispensable to us, if there are others +for us, why not allow her the same right to change that we claim for +ourselves? This, you must fully understand, applies only to passion; +otherwise it would be anti-social; nothing proves the necessity of +indissoluble marriage more than the instability of passion. The two +sexes need to be chained together like the wild beasts that they +are, in laws as mute and unchangeable as fate. Suppress revenge, and +betrayal becomes nothing in love, its teeth are drawn. Those who think +that there exists but one woman in the world for them, _they_ +may take to vengeance, and then there is but one form for it--that of +Othello. Mine was different; it was this--” + +The last three words produced among us that imperceptible movement +which journalists describe in parliamentary debates as “profound +sensation.” + +“Cured of my cold and of pure, absolute, divinest love, I let myself go +into an adventure with another heroine, who was charming, of a style +of beauty exactly opposite to that of my deceiving angel. I took good +care, however, not to break with that very clever creature and good +comedian, for I don’t know whether a true love can of itself give more +graceful enjoyments than accomplished treachery. Such hypocrisy equals +virtue. I don’t say this for you Englishmen,” added the minister, +gently, addressing Lady Marimore, daughter of Lord Dudley. “Well, I +even tried to fall in love. It happened that I wanted for this new +angel a little gift done with my own hair, and I went to a certain +artist in hair, much in vogue in those days, who lived in the rue +Boucher. This man had a monopoly of gifts done in hair, and I give his +address for the benefit of those who haven’t much hair of their own; he +keeps locks of all kinds and all colors. After receiving my order, he +showed me his work. I then saw products of patients surpassing those of +fairy tales and even of convicts; and he put me up to all the caprices +and fashions which reigned in the realm of hair. + +“‘For the last year,’ he said to me, ‘there has been a rage for marking +linen with hair; happily, I had a fine collection on hand and excellent +work-women.’ + +“Hearing these words, a suspicion crossed my mind. I drew out my +handkerchief and said to him: + +“‘Probably this was done at your place, with false hair?’ + +“He looked attentively at the handkerchief and said: + +“‘That lady was very difficult to suit; she insisted on matching the +very shade of her hair. My wife marked those handkerchiefs herself. +You have there, monsieur, one of the finest things of the kind ever +executed.’ + +“Before this last flash of light I might still have believed in +something; I could still have given some attention to a woman’s word. +I left that shop having faith in pleasure, but, in the matter of love, +as much of an atheist as a mathematician. Two months later I was seated +beside my angelic deceiver on a sofa in her boudoir. I was holding one +of her hands, which were very beautiful, and together we were climbing +the Alps of sentiment, gathering flowers by the way, plucking the +petals from the daisies (there is always a moment in life when we pluck +out the daisy petals, though it may be in a salon where there are no +daisies). At the moment of deepest tenderness, when we seem to love the +most, love is so conscious of its lack of duration that one feels an +invincible need to ask: ‘Do you love me?’--‘Will you love me always?’ +I seized that lyrical moment, so warm, so flowery, so expansive, to +make her tell her finest lies, with the ravishing exaggerations of that +Gascon poetry peculiar to love. Charlotte then displayed the choicest +flowers of her deception: she could not live without me; I was the +only man in all the world to her; yet she feared to weary me, for in my +presence her mind forsook her; near me her faculties became all love; +she was too loving not to have many fears; of late she had sought a +means to attach me forever to her side; but God alone could do that.” + +The women who were listening to de Marsay seemed offended by his +mimicry; for he accompanied these words with pantomime, poses of the +head, and affectations of manner, which conveyed the scene. + +“At the moment when I was expected to believe these adorable +falsehoods, I said to her, still holding her right hand in mine: + +“‘When do you marry the duke?’ + +“The thrust was so direct, my glance met hers so straight, that the +quiver of her hand lying softly in mine, slight as it was, could not +be completely concealed. Her eyes fell before mine, and a slight flush +came into her cheeks. + +“‘The duke!’ she said, feigning the utmost astonishment. ‘What can you +mean?’ + +“‘I know all,’ I replied. ‘In my opinion you had better not delay the +marriage. He is rich, he is a duke; but also, he is religious--more +than that, he is a bigot! You don’t seem aware how urgent it is that +you should make him commit himself in his own eyes and before God; if +you don’t do this soon you will never gain your end.’ + +“‘Is this a dream?’ she said, pushing up her hair from her forehead +with Malibran’s celebrated gesture, fifteen years before Malibran ever +made it. + +“‘Come, don’t play the babe unborn, my angel,’ I said, trying to take +both her hands. But she crossed them in front of her with an angry and +prudish little air. ‘Marry him, I am willing,’ I continued. ‘In fact, I +strongly advise it.’ + +“‘But,’ she said, falling at my feet, ‘there’s some horrible mistake +here; I love no man but you in this world; you can ask me for any proof +you like.’ + +“‘Rise, my dear,’ I said, ‘and do me the honor to be frank.’ + +“‘Yes, before Heaven.’ + +“‘Do you doubt my love?’ + +“‘No.’ + +“‘My fidelity?’ + +“‘No.’ + +“‘Well, then, I have committed the greatest of crimes,’ I went on. ‘I +have doubted your love and your fidelity; and I have looked at the +matter calmly--’ + +“‘Calmly!’ she cried, sighing. ‘Enough, Henri, I see that you no longer +love me.’ + +“You observe that she was quick to seize that way of escape. In such +scenes an adverb is often very dangerous. But luckily curiosity induced +her to add: + +“‘What have you seen or heard? Have I ever spoken to the duke except +in society? Have you ever noticed in my eyes--’ + +“‘No,’ I said, ‘but I have in his. You have made me go eight times to +Saint-Thomas d’Aquin to see you both hearing mass together.’ + +“‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘at last I have made you jealous!’ + +“‘I wish I could be,’ I replied, admiring the suppleness of that quick +mind, and the acrobatic feats by which she strove to blind me. ‘But, +by dint of going to church, I have become an unbeliever. The day of +my first cold and your first deception you received the duke when you +thought me safe in bed, and you told me you had seen no man.’ + +“‘Do you know that your conduct is infamous?’ + +“‘How so? I think your marriage with the duke an excellent affair; he +gives you a fine name, the only position that is really suited to you, +an honorable and brilliant future. You will be one of the queens of +Paris. I should do you a great wrong if I placed any obstacles in the +way of this arrangement, this honorable life, this superb alliance. +Ah! some day, Charlotte, you will do me justice by discovering how +different my character is from that of other young men. You are on the +point of being forced to break with me, and yet you would have found it +very difficult to do so. The duke is watching you; his virtue is very +stern, and it is high time that you and I should part. You will have to +be a prude, I warn you of that. The duke is a vain man, and he wants +to be proud of his wife.’ + +“‘Ah!’ she said, bursting into tears, ‘Henri, if you had only spoken!’ +(you see she was determined to put the blame on me)--‘yes, if you had +wished it we could have lived all our lives together, married, happy +before the world, or in some quiet corner of it.’ + +“‘Well, it is too late now,’ I said, kissing her hands and assuming the +air of a victim. + +“‘But I can undo it all,’ she said. + +“‘No, you have gone too far with the duke. I shall even make a journey, +to separate us from each other more completely. We should each have to +fear the love of our own hearts.’ + +“‘Do you think, Henri, that the duke has any suspicions?’ + +“‘I think not,’ I replied, ‘but he is watching you. Make yourself +_dévote_, attend to your religious duties, for the duke is seeking +proof; he is hesitating, and you ought to make him come to a decision.’ + +“She rose, walked about the boudoir in a state of agitation either +feigned or real; then she found a pose and a glance which she no doubt +felt to be in harmony with the situation; for she stopped before me, +held out her hand, and said in a voice full of emotion: + +“‘Henri, you are a loyal, noble, charming man, and I shall never forget +you.’ + +“This was excellent strategy. She was enchanting in this attitude, +which was necessary to the situation in which she wanted to stand +toward me. I assumed the manner of a man so distressed that she took me +by the hand and led me--almost threw me, though gently--on the sofa, +saying, after a moment’s silence: ‘I am deeply grieved, my friend. You +love me truly?’ + +“‘Oh, yes.’ + +“‘Then what will become of you?’” + +Here all the women present exchanged glances. + +“I have suffered once more in thus recalling her treachery, but at +any rate I still laugh at the air of conviction and soft inward +satisfaction which she felt, if not at my death, at least at my eternal +unhappiness,” continued de Marsay. “Oh! you needn’t laugh yet,” he +said to the guests; “the best is still to come. I looked at her very +tenderly, after a pause, and said: + +“‘Yes, that is what I have asked myself.’ + +“‘What will you do?’ + +“‘I asked myself that question the morning after the cold I told you +of.’ + +“‘And?--’ she said, with visible uneasiness. + +“‘I began to pay court to that little lady whom I had for my +substitute.’ + +“Charlotte sprang up from the sofa like a frightened doe; she trembled +like a leaf, as she cast upon me one of those looks in which a woman +forgets her dignity, her modesty, her craftiness, even her grace--the +glittering glance of a hunted serpent, forced to its hole--and said: + +“‘I, who loved him! I, who struggled! I, who--’ + +“On that third idea, which I leave you to guess, she made the finest +organ pause ears ever listened to. + +“‘Good heavens!’ she cried, ‘how wretched women are! We are never truly +loved. There is nothing genuine to men in the purest sentiments. But, +let me tell you, though you trick us, you are still our dupes.’ + +“‘So I see,’ I said with a contrite air. ‘You have too much wit in your +anger for your heart to suffer much.’ + +“This modest sarcasm redoubled her wrath; she now wept tears of rage. + +“‘You have degraded life and the world in my eyes,’ she said; ‘you have +torn away all my illusions, you have debased my heart--’ + +“In short, she said to me all that I had the right to say to her, with +an unconcealed simplicity, a naive effrontery, which would certainly +have got the better of any man but me. + +“‘What will become of us, poor hapless women, in the social life which +Louis XVIII’s Charter has created for us? Yes, we were born to suffer. +As for love, we are always above you, and you are always below us, in +loyalty. None of you have honesty in your hearts. For you, love is a +game in which you think it fair to cheat.’ + +“‘Dear,’ I said, ‘to take things seriously in our present social life +would be to play at perfect love with an actress.’ + +“‘What infamous treachery!’ she cried. ‘So this has all been reasoned +out?’ + +“‘No; it is simply reasonable.’ + +“‘Farewell, Monsieur de Marsay,’ she said; ‘you have deceived me +shamefully.’ + +“‘Will Madame la duchesse,’ I asked in a submissive manner, ‘remember +Charlotte’s wrongs?’ + +“‘Assuredly,’ she said in a bitter tone. + +“‘So then, you detest me?’ + +“She inclined her head; and I left her to a sentiment which allowed her +to think that she had something to avenge. My friends, I have deeply +studied the lives of men who have had success with women; and I feel +sure that neither the Maréchal de Richelieu, nor Lauzun, nor Louis de +Valois ever made, for the first time, so able a retreat. As for my own +heart and mind, they were formed then and forever; and the control I +gained over the unreflecting impulses which cause us to commit so many +follies gave me the coolness and self-possession which you know of.” + +“How I pity the second woman!” said the Baronne de Nucingen. + +An almost imperceptible smile which flickered for a moment on de +Marsay’s pale lips made Delphine de Nucingen color. + +“How people forget!” cried the Baron de Nucingen. + +The naiveté of the celebrated banker had such success that his wife, +who had been that “second” of de Marsay’s, could not help laughing with +the rest of the company. + +“You are all disposed to condemn that woman,” said Lady Dudley, “but I +can understand why she should not consider her marriage in the light +of an inconstancy. Men never will distinguish between constancy and +fidelity. I knew the woman whose history Monsieur de Marsay has just +related; she was one of the last of your great ladies.” + +“Alas! you are right there,” said de Marsay. “For the last fifty +years we have been taking part in the steady destruction of all +social distinctions. We ought to have saved women from the great +shipwreck, but the Civil Code has passed its level over their heads. +However terrible the words may be, they must be said; the duchess is +disappearing, and so is the marquise. As for baronesses (I ask pardon +of Madame de Nucingen, who will make herself a true countess when +her husband becomes peer of France), the baronesses have never been +regarded seriously.” + +“Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,” remarked Blondet, smiling. + +“Countesses will remain,” said de Marsay. “An elegant woman will +always be more or less a countess--countess of the Empire, or of +yesterday, countess of the _vieille roche_, or, as they say in +Italy, countess of civility. But as for the _great lady_, she is +dead--dead with the grandiose surroundings of the last century; dead +with her powder, _mouches_, and high-heeled slippers, and her +busked corset adorned with its triangle of flowing ribbons. Duchesses +in the present day can pass through ordinary doors that are not widened +to admit a hoop. The Empire saw the last of the gowns with trains. +Napoleon little imagined the effects of the Code of which he was so +proud. That man, by creating his _duchesses_, generated the race +of _comme il faut_[2] women whom we see today--the resulting +product of his legislation.” + +“Thought, used as a hammer by the lad leaving school and the nameless +journalist, has demolished the splendors of the social state,” said the +Comte de Vandenesse. “Today, any absurd fellow who can hold his head +above a collar, cover his manly breast with half a yard of satin in the +form of a waistcoat, present a brow shining with future genius under +his frizzed hair, and blunder along in varnished pumps and silk socks +costing half a dozen francs, now wears a glass in the arch of one eye +by squeezing his cheek against it and--whether he’s a lawyer’s clerk, +the son of a contractor, or a banker’s bastard--ogles impertinently the +prettiest duchess, rates her charms as she comes down the staircase of +a theater, and says to his friend (clothed by Buisson, like the rest of +us), ‘There, my dear fellow, is a _comme il faut_ woman.’” + +“You have never made yourselves,” said Lord Dudley, “into a party; +it will be long now before you have any place politically. A great +deal has been said in France about organizing labor, but property has +never yet organized. Here is what is happening to you: A duke, no +matter who (there were still a few under Louis XVIII and Charles X +who possessed two hundred thousand francs a year, a splendid mansion +and a retinue of servants),--that duke could still behave like a +great seigneur. The last of these great French lords is the Prince de +Talleyrand. This duke dies, and, let us suppose, leaves four children, +two of whom are daughters. Each of these heirs, supposing that he has +managed to marry them well, will inherit, at most, sixty to eighty +thousand francs a year; each is father or mother of several children, +consequently obliged to live on one floor, probably the ground-floor, +of a house, with the strictest economy--it may be that they are even +obliged to borrow money. The wife of the eldest son, who is a duchess +in name only, has neither carriage, nor servants, nor opera-box, nor +time of her own; she hasn’t even her own suite of rooms in a family +mansion, nor her own fortune, nor her personal baubles. She is buried +in marriage as a wife of the rue Saint Denis is buried in commerce; she +buys the socks of her dear babes, feeds and teaches her daughters, whom +she no longer puts to school in a convent. Your women of rank simply +sit upon their nests.” + +“Alas, yes!” said Joseph Bridau. “Our epoch no longer possesses those +exquisite feminine flowers which adorned the great centuries of the +French monarchy. The fan of the great lady is broken. Woman no longer +blushes, whispers sly malice, hides her face behind her fan only to +show it--the fan serves merely to fan her! When a thing is no longer +anything but what it _is_, it is too useful to belong to luxury.” + +“Everything in France has assisted in producing the _comme il +faut_ woman,” said Daniel d’Arthèz. “The aristocracy has consented +to this state of things by retreating to its estates to hide and +die--emigrating to the interior before ideas as formerly it emigrated +to foreign parts before the populace. Women who could have established +European salons, controlled opinion and turned it like a glove, who +should have ruled the world by guiding the men of art and thought who +outwardly ruled it, have committed the fatal blunder of abandoning +their ground, ashamed to have to struggle with a bourgeoisie +intoxicated by power and making its début on the world’s stage only, +perhaps, to be hacked in pieces by the barbarians who are at its +heels. Where the bourgeois affects to see princesses, there are none +but so-called fashionable women. Princes no longer find great ladies +to distinguish; they cannot even render famous a woman taken from the +ranks. The Duc de Bourbon was the last prince to use that privilege.” + +“And Heaven knows what it cost him!” said Lord Dudley. + +“The press follows suit,” remarked Rastignac. “Women no longer have +the charm of spoken _feuilletons_, delightful satires uttered in +choicest language. In like manner we nowadays read _feuilletons_ +written in a _patois_ which changes every three years, and ‘little +journals,’ as lively as undertakers, and as light as the lead of their +own type. French conversation is now carried on in revolutionary +Iroquois from end to end of France, where the long printed columns of +the newspapers take the place in ancient mansions of those brilliant +coteries of men and women who _conversed_ there in former days.” + +“The knell of Great Society has sounded, do you know it?” said a +Russian prince; “and the first stroke of its iron tongue is your modern +French term: _femme comme il faut_.” + +“You are right prince,” said de Marsay. “That woman, issuing from +the ranks of the nobility, or growing from the bourgeoisie, coming +from any and every region, even the provinces, is the expression of +the spirit of our day--a last image of good taste, wit, intellect, +grace, and distinction united, but all diminishing. We shall see no +more _grandes dames_ in France, but for a long time still to come +there will be _comme il faut_ women, sent by public opinion to +the Upper Feminine Chamber--women who will be to the fair sex what the +‘gentleman’ is among his fellows in England.” + +“And they call that progress!” said Mademoiselle des Touches. “I would +like to know what progress is.” + +“_This_,” said Madame de Nucingen: “Formerly a woman might have +the voice of a fish-wife, the walk of a grenadier, the forehead of the +boldest hussy, a fat foot, a thick hand, but nevertheless that woman +was a ‘great lady’; but now, be she a Montmorency--if the Demoiselles +de Montmorency could ever have such attributes--she would _not_ be +a woman _comme il faut_.” + +“What is meant by a woman _comme il faut_?” asked Comte Adam +Laginski, naively. + +“She’s a modern creation, a deplorable triumph of the elective system +applied to the fair sex,” said de Marsay. “Every revolution has its +term, or saying, in which it is summed up and described. Our social +revolution has ended in the _comme il faut_ woman.” + +“You are right,” said the Russian prince, who had come to Paris to make +himself a literary reputation. “To explain certain terms or sayings +added century by century to your noble language, would be to write a +glorious history. _Organize_, for instance, is the word of the +Empire; it contains Napoleon--the whole of him.” + +“But all that is not telling us what you mean by the woman _comme il +faut_,” cried the young Pole, with some impatience. + +“I’ll explain her to you,” said Emile Blondet. “On a fine morning you +are lounging about Paris. It is more than two o’clock, but not yet +five. You see a woman coming toward you; the first glance you cast +upon her is like the preface to a fine book; it makes you anticipate +a world of refined and elegant things. Like the botanist crossing +hill and valley as he searches for specimens, among all varieties of +Parisian commonness you have found a rare flower. Either this woman +is accompanied by two very distinguished-looking men, one of whom is +decorated, or by a footman in undress livery who follows her at a +little distance. She wears neither startling colors, nor open-worked +stockings, nor over-ornamental buckles, nor drawers with embroidered +frills visible at her ankles. You notice that her shoes are either +prunella, with strings crossed on the instep over thread stockings of +extreme fineness, or gray silk stockings that are perfectly plain; or +else she wears dainty little boots of exquisite simplicity. Some pretty +and inexpensive stuff makes you notice her gown, the shape of which +surprises the bourgeois, it is almost always a pelisse, fastened by +knots of ribbon and delicately edged with a silken cord or an almost +imperceptible binding. The lady has an art of her own in putting on +a shawl or a mantle; she knows how to wrap it from her waist to her +throat, forming a sort of carapace which would make a bourgeoise +look like a tortoise, but under which the _comme il faut_ woman +contrives to suggest a beautiful figure while concealing it. How? by +what means? That is a secret which she keeps, without the protection +of any patent. She walks with a certain concentric and harmonious +motion, which makes her sweet alluring figure quiver under the stuffs +as an adder at midday makes the green grass-tops above him move. +Does she owe to angel or devil that graceful undulation which plays +beneath the black silk mantle, sways the lace of its border, and sheds +a balmy air which I shall venture to call the breeze-Parisian? You +remark upon her arms, about her waist, around her neck, a science of +folds draping even a restive stuff, which reminds you of the ancient +Mnemosyne. Ah! how well she understands--forgive me the expression--the +technique of walking. Examine well the way in which she puts her +foot forward, moulding an outline beneath her gown with a decent +precision which excites the admiration, restrained by respect, of +those who pass her. If an Englishwoman tried that walk she would look +like a grenadier marching to the assault of a redoubt. To the woman +of Paris belongs the genius of gait. The municipality has long owed +her our coming asphalt pavements. You will observe that this lady +jostles no one. In order to pass, she stands still, waiting with proud +modesty until a way is made for her. Her attitude, both tranquil and +disdainful, obliges the most insolent dandy to step aside. Her bonnet, +of remarkable simplicity, has fresh strings. Possibly, there may be +flowers upon it; but the cleverest of these women wear only ribbons. +Feathers require a carriage, flowers attract the eye. Beneath the +bonnet you see the cool and restful face of a woman who is sure of +herself, but without self-conceit; who looks at nothing, but sees all; +and whose vanity, lulled by continual gratification, gives to her +countenance an expression of indifference which piques curiosity. She +knows she is being studied; she is well aware that nearly everyone, +even women, turn round to look at her. She passes through Paris like +a film of gossamer, as white and as pearly. This beautiful specimen +of her sex prefers the warmest latitudes and the cleanest longitudes +in Paris; you will therefore find her between the 10th and the 110th +arcade of the rue de Rivoli, along the line of the boulevards, from +the equator of the Panorama, where the productions of the Indies +flourish and the finest creations of industry are blooming, to the cape +of the Madeleine; you will find her also in the least muddy regions +of the bourgeoisie, between number 30 and number 150 of the rue du +Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. During the winter she takes her pleasure on +the terrace of the Feuillants, and not upon the bituminous pavements +which skirt it. According to weather, she glides through the alleys +of the Champs Elysées. Never will you meet this charming variety of +woman in the hyperboreal regions of the rue Saint-Denis, never in the +Kamchatka of muddy streets small and commercial, and never anywhere +in rainy weather. These flowers of Paris, opening to the sun, perfume +the promenades and fold their leaves by five in the afternoon like a +convolvulus. The women whom you will see later having slightly the same +air and trying to imitate them are of another race. This fair unknown, +the Beatrice of our day, is the _comme il faut_ woman. + +“It is not always easy, my dear count,” said Blondet, interrupting +himself for a moment, “for foreigners to perceive the differences by +which a connoisseur _emeritus_ distinguishes the two species, +for women are born comedians. But those differences strike the eye of +all Parisians: hooks are visible, tapes show their yellowish white +through a gap at the back of the gown; shoes are worn at heel, bonnet +strings have been ironed, the gown puffs out too much, the bustle is +flattened. You notice a sort of effort in the premeditated lowering +of the eyelids. The attitude is conventional. As for the bourgeoise, +it is impossible to confound her with the woman who is _comme il +faut_; she makes an admirable foil to her, she explains the charm +the unknown lady has cast upon you. The bourgeoise is busy; she is +out in all weathers; comes and goes and trots; is undecided whether +she will, or whether she will not enter a shop. Where the _comme +il faut_ woman knows perfectly well what she wants and what she +means to do, the bourgeoise is undecided, pulls up her gown to cross a +gutter, drags a child after her, and is forced to watch for carriages; +she is a mother in public and lectures her daughter; carries money +in a hand-bag and wears open-work stockings, a boa above a fur cape +in winter, and a shawl with a scarf in summer--the bourgeoise is an +adept at the superfluities of the toilet. As for your Beatrice, you +will find her in the evening at the Opera, or in a ballroom. She +then appears under an aspect so different that you fancy her two +different creations without relationship. The woman has issued from +her morning vestments like a butterfly from its larva. She serves, +as a dainty morsel to your raptured senses, the form which her shawl +scarce outlined in the morning. At the theater the woman of society +never goes higher than the second tier of boxes, unless at the Italian +opera. You can therefore study at your ease the precise slowness of +her movements. This adorable maneuverer uses all the little artifices +of woman’s manner with a natural ease that precludes the idea of art +and premeditation. Is her hand royally beautiful, the most suspicious +man would believe it absolutely necessary to roll, or fasten up, or +toss aside whichever ringlet or curl she may touch. Has she nobility of +profile, you will think she is merely giving irony or charm to what she +says to her neighbor, by turning her head in a manner to produce that +magic effect, so dear to great painters, which draws the light to the +cheek, defines the nose with a clear outline, illumines the pink of the +nostril, carves the forehead with sharp prominence, and leaves a touch +of high light on the chin. If she has a pretty foot she throws herself +on a sofa with the coquetry of a cat in the sunshine, her feet forward, +without your seeing anything more in that pretty pose than a charming +model of lassitude for a sculptor. No other woman but the woman +_comme il faut_ is ever perfectly at her ease in her clothes; +nothing disturbs her. You will never see her putting in place, like a +bourgeoise, a rebellious shoulder-knot, or looking to see if the lace +of her chemisette fulfills it purpose of unfaithful guardian to the +sparkling whiteness of her bosom; never will you find her looking in a +mirror to learn whether her coiffure is perfectly intact. Her toilet +is always in harmony with her character; she had had time to study +herself and to decide what suits her; she has long known what does not +suit her. You never see her when the audience of a theater disperses; +she departs before the end of the play. If by chance she is seen, calm +and sedate, upon the steps of the staircase, some strong sentiment +has prompted her. She is there to order; she has some look to give, +some promise to receive. Perhaps she is descending slowly to gratify +the vanity of a slave whom she occasionally obeys. If you meet her in +society, at a ball or a _soirée_, you will gather the honey, real +or affected, of her practised voice; you will be enchanted with her +idle talk, to which she contrives to impart the semblance of thought +with inimitable skill--” + +“Then it isn’t necessary for the _comme il faut_ woman to have +intellect?” said the young Polish count. + +“It is impossible to be that kind of woman without taste,” said the +Princesse de Cadignan. + +“And to have taste is, in France, to have more than mind,” said the +Russian prince. + +“The mind of this woman is the triumph of an art that is wholly +plastic,” replied Blondet. “You don’t know what she says, but you are +charmed. She has nodded her head or sweetly shrugged her handsome +shoulders, or gilded some meaningless phrase with a smile or a +charming pout, or put Voltaire’s epigram into an ‘Oh!’ an ‘Ah!’ an ‘Is +it possible?’ The turn of her head is an active interrogation; she +gives meaning of some kind to the movement with which she dances a +vinaigrette fastened by a chain to her finger. These are artificial +great effects obtained by very small ones: she lets her hand fall nobly +from the arm of her chair, and all is said; she has rendered judgment +without appeal, fit to move the most insensible. She has listened to +you, she has given you an opportunity to show your wit; and--I appeal +to your modesty--such moments in society are rare.” + +The innocent air of the young Pole whom Blondet was addressing made +every one laugh heartily. + +“You can’t talk half an hour with a bourgeoise before she brings to +light her husband under one form or another,” continued Blondet, whose +gravity was not shaken; “but if your _comme il faut_ woman is +married she has the tact to conceal her husband, and the perseverance +of a Christopher Columbus would hardly enable you to discover him. If +you have not been able to question others on this point, you will see +her toward the end of the evening fix her eyes steadily on a man of +middle age, who inclines his head and leaves the room; she has told her +husband to call up the carriage, and she departs. In her own house no +_comme il faut_ woman is ever seen before four o’clock, the hour +at which she receives. She is wise enough to make you wait even then. +You will find good taste throughout her house; her luxury is intended +for use, and is renewed when needful; you will see nothing there under +glass cases, nor any swathings of protective gauze. The staircase is +warm; flowers gladden you everywhere; flowers are the only presents +she accepts, and those from a few persons only; bouquets give pleasure +and live for a single day and are then renewed. To her they are, as in +the East, a symbol and a promise. The costly trifles of fashion are +spread about, but her salons are not turned into a museum or an old +curiosity shop. You will find her seated on a sofa at the corner of the +fireplace, whence she will bow to you without rising. Her conversation +is no longer that of the ballroom; in her own house she is bound to +entertain you. The _comme il faut_ woman possesses all these +shades of behavior in perfection. She welcomes in you a man who will +swell the circle of her society, the great object of the cares and +anxieties of all women of the world. Consequently, to attach you to +her salon she will make herself charmingly coquettish. You will feel +above all, in that salon, how isolated women are in the present day and +why they endeavor to have a little society about them in which they +can shine as constellations. But this is the death of conversation; +conversation is impossible without generalities.” + +“Yes,” said de Marsay, “you have seized upon the great defect of +our epoch. Epigram, that book in a word, no longer falls, as in the +eighteenth century, on persons and on things, but on petty events and +dies with the day.” + +“The wit of the _comme il faut_ woman, when she has any,” +resumed Blondet, “consists in putting a doubt on everything, while +the bourgeoise uses hers to affirm everything. There lies a great +difference between the two women. The bourgeoise is certain of her +virtue; the _comme il faut_ woman is not sure whether she has any +yet, or whether she has always had it. This hesitation about everything +is one of the last graces our horrible epoch has granted her. She +seldom goes to church, but she will talk religion to you and try to +convert you, if you have the good sense to play the freethinker, for +that will open the way to the stereotyped phrases, the motions of the +head and the gestures which belong to such women: ‘Ah, fie! I thought +you had more intelligence than to attack religion. Society is crumbling +already and you remove its prop. But religion at this moment is you and +I, it is property, it is the future of our children! Ah! let us not +be egotists. Individualism is the disease of our epoch, and religion +is the sole remedy; it unites the families that your laws disunite,’ +etc., etc. She begins in this way a neo-Christian sermon sprinkled with +political ideas, which is neither Catholic nor Protestant, but moral +(oh! devilishly moral), in which you will find echoes of every protest +that modern doctrines driven to bay have given voice to.” + +The women present could not help laughing at the mincing affectations +of their sex with which Emile Blondet illustrated his sarcasms. + +“Those remarks, my dear Comte Adam,” said Blondet, looking at the +young Pole, “will show you that the _comme il faut_ woman +represents intellectual hodge-podge as well as political jumble; just +as she lives surrounded by the brilliant but not lasting products of +modern industry, which aims at the destruction of its work in order +to replace it. You will leave her house saying to yourself, ‘She +has, decidedly, very superior ideas’; and you think so all the more +because she has sounded your heart and mind with a delicate hand; she +has sought your secrets--for the _comme il faut_ woman feigns +ignorance of everything, in order to discover everything; but she is +discreet; there are things she never admits knowing, however well she +may know them. Nevertheless you will feel uneasy, you are ignorant of +the real state of her heart. Formerly the great ladies loved openly, +banners displayed; now the woman _comme il faut_ has her little +passion ruled like a sheet of music paper with its signs and notes, +its minims, rests, and sharps and flats. Always weak, she will neither +sacrifice her love, her husband, or the future of her children. +She’s a woman of ambiguous middle-paths, of squint-eyed temporizing +with conventions, of unavowed passions carried along between two +breakwaters. She fears her servants like an Englishwoman who sees +before her the perspective of a divorce suit. This woman, so apparently +at her ease in a ballroom, so charming on the street, is a slave at +home. She has no independence, unless locked in with her own ideas. +She is determined to remain outwardly the woman _comme il faut_. +That’s her theory of life. A woman separated from her husband, reduced +to a pittance, without carriage or luxury or opera-box, is today +neither wife, maid, nor bourgeoise; she dissolves, she becomes a +thing. What is to become of her? The Carmelites won’t take married +women. Will her lover always want her? That’s a question. Therefore +the _comme il faut_ woman may sometimes cause calumny, but never +condemnation.” + +“That is all true, horribly true,” said the Princesse de Cadignan. + +“Consequently, the _comme il faut_ woman,” continued Blondet, +“lives between English hypocrisy and the frankness of the eighteenth +century--a bastard system emblematic of a period when nothing that +comes is like that which goes, when transitions lead nowhere, when +the great figures of the past are blotted out, and distinctions are +purely personal. In my opinion it is impossible for a woman, even +though she be born on the steps of a throne, to acquire before the +age of twenty-five, the encyclopedic science of nothings, the art of +maneuvering, the various great little things--music of the voice, +harmonies of color, angelic deviltries and innocent wickedness, the +language and the silence, the gravity and the folly, the wit and the +stupidity, the diplomacy and the ignorance which constitute the woman +_comme il faut_.” + +“Accepting the description you have just given of her,” said +Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, “where do you class the +authoress? Is _she_ a woman _comme il faut_!” + +“When she is not gifted with genius, she is a woman _comme il n’en +faut pas_,”[3] replied Emile Blondet, accompanying his answer with a +glance which might pass for a frank compliment to Camille Maupin. “But +that is not my own saying; it belongs to Napoleon, who hated women of +genius,” he added. + + + +“Don’t be too hard on Napoleon,” said Canalis, with an emphatic tone +and gesture, “It was one of his littlenesses--for he had them--to be +jealous of literary fame. Who can explain, or describe, or comprehend +Napoleon?--a man represented always with folded arms, yet who did all +things; who was the greatest known Power, the most concentrated power, +the most corrosive and acid of all powers; a strong genius which led +an armed civilization throughout the world and fixed it nowhere; a +man who could do all because he willed all; prodigious phenomenon of +Will!--subduing disease by a battle, yet doomed to die of disease +in his bed after living unscathed amid cannon-balls and bullets; +a man who had in his head a Code and a Sword, word and action; a +clear-sighted mind which divined all except his own fall; a capricious +politician who played his soldiers like pawns and yet respected three +heads--Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, and Metternich, diplomatists whose +death would have saved the French Empire, but whose life seemed to him +of more value than that of thousands of soldiers; a man to whom, by +some rare privilege, nature had left a heart in his iron body; a man +at midnight kind and laughing among women, and the next day handling +Europe without gloves; hypocritical and generous; loving vulgarity and +simplicity; without taste, but protecting Art; and, in spite of these +antitheses, grand in all things by instinct or by organization; Caesar +at twenty-five years of age, Cromwell at thirty, but a good husband and +a good father like any bourgeois of Père Lachaise; a man who created +great public buildings, empires, kings, codes, poems, and one romance, +and all with greater range than accuracy. Did he not attempt to make +Europe France; and after bearing our weight upon the earth until it +changed the laws of gravitation, has he not left us poorer than the day +he put his hand upon us? He who made an empire with his name, lost that +name on the borders of his empire in a sea of blood and slaughtered +men. A man all thought and action, who was able to comprehend both +Desaix and Fouché.” + +“Despotic power and legal justice, each in due season, makes the true +ruler,” said de Marsay. + +“But,” said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the other women with +a smile both dubious and satirical, “have we women really deteriorated +as these gentlemen seem to think? Because today, under a system which +belittles everything, you men like little dishes, little apartments, +little paintings, little journals, little books, is that any reason why +women should be less grand than they have been? Does the human heart +change because you change your habits? In all epochs passions remain +the same. I know splendid devotions, sublime endurances which lack +publicity--fame, if you prefer to call it so. Many a woman is not less +an Agnes Sorel because she never saved a king of France. Do you think +our Marquise d’Espard worth less than Madame Doublet or Madame du +Deffand, in whose salon so much harm was said and done? Isn’t Taglioni +the equal of Camargo? and Malibran of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets +superior to those of the eighteenth century? If, at this moment, thanks +to the grocers who govern us, we have no style of our own, didn’t the +Empire have a style as fully its own as that of Louis XV? And its +splendor was surely fabulous. Have the arts and sciences lost ground?” + +“I agree with you, madame,” said Général de Montriveau. “In my opinion +the women of this epoch are truly great. When posterity gives a +verdict upon us will not Madame Recamier’s fame be equal to that of +the loveliest women of past ages? We have made history so fast that +we lack historians to write it down. The reign of Louis XIV had but +one Madame de Sévigné, while we have a thousand today in Paris who +can write better letters, but do not publish them. Whether the French +woman calls herself _femme comme il faut_ or great lady, she will +always be the pre-eminent woman. Emile Blondet has made us a picture of +the manners and charms of a woman of the present day; but, if occasion +offered, this mincing, affected being, who plays a part and warbles out +the ideas of Monsieur this, that, and the other, would show herself +heroic! Even your faults, mesdames, seem the more poetic because they +are and always will be hedged about with great dangers. I have seen +much of the world, perhaps I have studied it too late; but, under +circumstances in which the illegality of your sentiments might find +excuse, I have always observed the effects of some chance--you may +call it Providence if you like--which fatally overtake those women whom +we call frail.” + +“I hope,” said Madame de Camps, “that we are able to be great in other +ways.” + +“Oh, let the Marquis de Montriveau preach to us!” cried Madame de +Sérizy. + +“All the more because he has preached by example,” said the Baronne de +Nucingen. + +“Alas!” said Général de Montriveau, “of the many dramas--that’s a word +you are constantly using,” he said with a nod to Blondet, “in which to +my knowledge the hand of God has showed itself, the most terrible was +one that was partly my own doing.” + +“Oh, tell it to us!” cried Lady Barimore. “I love to shudder.” + +“The taste of a virtuous woman,” said de Marsay replying to the +charming daughter of Lord Dudley. + +“During the campaign of 1812,” said Général de Montriveau, “I was +the involuntary cause of a terrible misfortune, which may serve you, +Docteur Bianchon,” he said, turning to me--“you, who take so much note +of the human mind while you study the human body--to solve certain of +your riddles concerning the will. I was making my second campaign; I +liked the danger and I laughed at everything, simple young lieutenant +of artillery that I was! When we reached the Beresina the army no +longer kept, as you know, any discipline; military obedience was at an +end. A crowd of men of all nations was making its way instinctively +from north to south. Soldiers drove their bare-footed and ragged +general from their camp-fires if he brought them neither wood nor +provisions. After the passage of that famous river, the disorder was +checked. I came out quietly, alone, without food, from the marshes of +Zembin, and I walked along looking for a house where some one might +be willing to admit me. Finding none all day, being driven away from +those I came to, I fortunately saw late in the evening a miserable +little Polish farmhouse, of which I can give you no idea unless you +have seen the wooden houses of lower Normandy or the poorest hovels +of La Beauce. These Polish dwellings consist of a single room, one +end of which is divided off by a plank partition and serves as a +storehouse for provisions. I saw in the twilight a light smoke rising +from this building, and hoping to find comrades more compassionate than +the persons I had hitherto approached, I marched boldly to the door. +Entering, I found a table spread. Several officers, among whom was +a woman (a not unusual sight), were eating potatoes and horse-flesh +broiled on the embers, and frozen beets. I recognized two or three +captains of artillery belonging to the regiment in which I had first +served. I was received with a volley of hails which would greatly have +surprised me on the other side of the Beresina; but at this moment +the cold was less intense, my comrades were resting, they were warm, +they were eating, and piles of straw at the end of the room offered +them the prospect of a delightful night. We didn’t ask for much in +those days. My comrades could be generous gratis--a very common way +of being generous, by the bye. At the end of the table, near the door +which led into the small room filled with straw and hay, I saw my +former colonel, one of the most extraordinary men I have ever met in +the varied collection of men it has been my lot to know. He was an +Italian. Whenever human beings are handsome in southern countries they +are sublimely handsome. Have you ever noticed the peculiar whiteness +of Italians when they are white? It is magnificent, especially in the +light. When I read the fantastic portrait Charles Nodier has given +us of Colonel Oudet, I found my own impressions expressed in every +sentence. Italian, like most of the officers of his regiment--borrowed +by the Emperor from the army of Prince Eugène--my colonel was a man of +great height, admirably proportioned, possibly a trifle too stout, but +amazingly vigorous and light, agile as a greyhound. His black hair, +curling profusely, set into brilliant relief a clear white skin like +that of a woman. He had handsome feet, small hands, a charming mouth, +and an aquiline nose with delicate lines, the tip of which contracted +naturally and turned white when he was angry, which was often. His +irascibility so passed all belief that I shall tell you nothing of it; +you shall judge for yourself. No one was ever at ease in his presence. +Perhaps I was the only man who did not fear him. It is true that he +had taken a singular liking to me; he thought whatever I did was good. +When anger worked within him, his forehead contracted, his muscles +stood out in the middle of it like the horse-shoe of Red-gauntlet. That +sign would have terrified you more than the magnetic lightning of his +blue eyes. His whole body would then quiver, and his strength, always +so great in his normal condition, passed all bounds. He rolled his +r’s excessively. His voice, certainly as powerful as that of Charles +Nodier’s Oudet, gave an indescribable richness of sound to the syllable +which contained that consonant. Though this vice of pronunciation was, +in him, and at all times, a charm, you cannot imagine the power that +accent, considered so vulgar in Paris, was capable of expressing when +he commanded a maneuver, or was in any way excited. You must have heard +it to understand it. When the colonel was tranquil his blue eyes were +full of angelic sweetness; his pure brow sparkled with an expression +that was full of charm. At a parade of the Army of Italy no man could +compare with him. Even d’Orsay himself, the handsome d’Orsay, was +vanquished by our colonel at the last review held by Napoleon before +his entrance into Russia. In this gifted man all was contradiction. +Passion lives by contrasts. Therefore do not ask me whether he was +conscious of those irresistible influences to which our nature” (the +general looked toward the Princesse de Cadignan) “bends like molten +glass beneath the blower’s pipe; but it so chanced that by some unusual +fatality the colonel had had but few love-affairs, or had neglected +to have them. To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in +two words what I once saw him do in a fit of anger. We were marching +with our cannon along a very narrow road, bordered on one side by woods +and on the other by a rather steep bank. Half way along this road we +met another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching with it. This +colonel wanted to make the captain of our regiment at the head of the +first battery give way to his troop. Naturally our captain refused. +But the colonel of the other regiment made a sign to his first battery +to advance, and in spite of the care the first driver took to keep +close into the woods the wheel of the gun carriage caught the right +leg of our captain, broke it, and flung him to the other side of his +horse. It was done in a moment. Our colonel, who happened to be at a +little distance, saw the quarrel, and galloped furiously up through +the trees and among the wheels at the risk of being flung with all his +hoofs in the air, reaching the spot in face of the other colonel just +as the captain cried out, ‘Help!’ and fell. No! our Italian colonel +was no longer a man. Foam, like that of champagne, boiled from his +mouth, he growled like a lion. Incapable of uttering a word, even a +cry, he made a dreadful sign to his adversary, pointing to the wood, +and drew his sabre. They entered it. In two seconds we saw the other +colonel on the ground with his head split in two. The soldiers of that +regiment retreated, ha! the devil! and in quick time, too! Our captain, +who just missed being killed, and who was yelping in the ditch where +the wheel of the gun-carriage had flung him, had a wife, a charming +Italian woman from Messina, who was not indifferent to our colonel. +This circumstance had greatly increased his fury. His protection was +due to the husband; he was bound to defend him as well as the wife. +Now, in the miserable Polish cabin this side of Zembin, where, as +I told you, I received such cordial welcome, this very captain sat +opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end of the table opposite +to the colonel. She was a little woman, named Rosina, very dark, but +bearing in her black eyes, shaped like almonds, all the ardor of the +sun of Sicily. At this moment she was deplorably thin, her cheeks were +covered with dust like a peach exposed to the weather on a high road. +Scarcely clothed and all in rags, wearied by marches, her hair in +disorder beneath the fragment of a shawl tied across her head, there +was still all the presence of a woman about her; her movements were +pretty, her rosy, dimpled mouth, her white teeth, the lines of her face +and bust, charms which misery, cold, and want of care had not entirely +effaced--still told of love and sweetness to anyone whose mind could +dwell upon a woman. Rosina evidently possessed one of those natures +which are fragile in appearance, but are full of nervous strength. +The face of the husband, a Piedmontese nobleman, expressed a sort of +jeering good-humor, if it is permissible to ally those two words. +Brave, intelligent and educated, he nevertheless seemed to ignore the +relations which had existed between his wife and the colonel for nearly +three years. I attributed this indifference to the strange customs +of Italy, or to some secret in their own home; but there was in the +man’s face one feature which had always inspired me with involuntary +distrust. His underlip, thin and very flexible, turned down at its two +extremities instead of turning up, which seemed to me to reveal an +underlying cruelty in a character apparently phlegmatic and indolent. +You can well imagine that the conversation was not brilliant when I +entered. My weary comrades were eating in silence, but they naturally +asked me a few questions; and we related our several misfortunes, +mingling them with reflections on the campaign, the generals, their +blunders, the Russians, and the cold. Soon after my arrival, the +colonel, having finished his meagre meal, wiped his mustache, wished us +good-night, cast his black eye toward the woman, and said, ‘Rosina.’ +Then without awaiting any reply he went into the space partitioned off +for forage. The meaning of his summons was evident; and the young woman +made an indescribable gesture, which expressed both the annoyance that +she felt at seeing her dependance thus exhibited without respect for +human feelings, and her sense of the affront offered to her dignity as +a woman and to her husband. And yet in the strained expression of her +features and in the violent contraction of her eyebrows, there seemed +to be a sort of foreboding; perhaps a presentiment of her fate came +over her. Rosina continued to sit tranquilly at the table; a moment +later the colonel’s voice was heard repeating her name, ‘Rosina!’ +The tone of this new summons was even more brutal than that of the +first. The rolling accent of the colonel’s voice and the echo which +the Italian language gives to vowels and final letters revealed in a +startling manner the tyranny, impatience, and will of that man. Rosina +turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and joined the colonel. +All my comrades maintained a rigid silence; but I, unhappily, after +looking round at them, began to laugh, and the laugh was then repeated +from mouth to mouth. ‘You laugh?’ said the husband. ‘Faith, comrade,’ I +replied, becoming serious, ‘I did wrong, I admit it; I ask ten thousand +pardons; and if you are not content with such excuses I am ready to +give you satisfaction.’ ‘It is not you who have done wrong, it is I,’ +he replied coldly. Thereupon we all shook down our straw about the +room and were soon lost in the sleep of weariness. The next day each +man, without awaking his neighbor, without looking for a journeying +companion, started on his way with that utter egotism which made our +retreat from Russia one of the most horrible dramas of personality, +sadness, and horror which ever took place beneath the heavens. Yet +after each man had gone some seven or eight hundred yards from our +night’s lodging, we came together and marched along like geese led in +flocks by the unconscious dominance of a child. A common necessity was +driving us along. When we reached a slight elevation from which we +could see the house where we had passed the night, we heard sounds that +resembled the roaring of lions in the desert or the bellowing of bulls; +but no! that clamor could not be compared to any known sound. Mingled +with that horrible and sinister roar came the feeble cry of a woman. We +all turned round, seized with a sensation--I know not how to describe +it--of fear; the house was no longer visible, only a burning pile; the +building, which someone had barricaded, was in flames. Clouds of smoke, +driven by the wind, rolled toward us, bringing raucous sounds and a +strong indescribable odor. A few steps from us marched the captain, who +had quietly joined our caravan; we looked at him in silence, for none +of us dared question him. But he, divining our curiosity, touched his +breast with the forefinger of his right hand and pointed with the left +to the conflagration. ‘Son io!’ he said. We continued our way without +another word to him.” + +“There is nothing more fearful than the revolt of sheep,” said de +Marsay. + +“It would be too dreadful to let us part with that horrible scene in +our minds,” said Madame de Montcornet. “I shall dream of it.” + +“Tell us, before we go, what punishment befell Monsieur de Marsay’s +first love,” said Lord Dudley, smiling. + +“When Englishmen jest their foils are buttoned,” remarked Emile Blondet. + +“Monsieur Bianchon can tell you that,” replied de Marsay, turning to +me. “He saw her die.” + +“Yes,” I said, “and her death was one of the most beautiful I ever +witnessed. The duke and I had passed the night beside the pillow of +the dying woman, whose disease, consumption, was then in its final +stages; no hope remained, and she had received the last offices of +the Church the preceding evening. The duke had fallen asleep. Madame +la duchesse, waking about four in the morning, made me, in a touching +manner and with a smile, a tender little sign to let him sleep; and yet +she felt she was about to die! She had reached a stage of extraordinary +thinness, but her face preserved its features, and its outlines were +truly sublime. Her pallor made her skin resemble porcelain behind +which a light has been placed. Her brilliant eyes and the color in her +cheeks shone out upon this skin so softly beautiful, while the whole +countenance seemed to breathe forth a commanding tranquility. Evidently +she pitied the duke, and the feeling took its rise in a lofty sentiment +which seemed to see no limit in the approach of death. The silence was +profound. The chamber, softly lighted by a lamp, had the appearance of +all sick-chambers at the moment of death. At that instant the clock +struck. The duke awoke, and was in despair at having slept. I did not +see the gesture of impatience with which he showed the regret he felt +at having lost his wife from sight during the few last moments granted +to him; but it is certain that any other person than the dying woman +might have been mistaken about him. A statesman, preoccupied with the +interests of France, the duke had many of those apparent oddities which +often make men of genius pass for fools, though the explanation may be +found in the exquisite nature and requirements of their mind. He now +took a chair beside the bed and looked fixedly at his wife. The dying +woman put out her hand and took that of her husband which she pressed +gently, saying in a soft but trembling voice: + +“‘My poor friend, who will understand you in the future?’ + +“So saying, she died, looking at him.” + + +[Footnote 1: Translated by George Milburn.] + +[Footnote 2: “As it should be”--correct, ideal, perfect.] + +[Footnote 3: “As it shouldn’t be,” the opposite of _comme il +faut_.] + + + + + =TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES= + +Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced. + +Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78270 *** diff --git a/78270-h/78270-h.htm b/78270-h/78270-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6528e6c --- /dev/null +++ b/78270-h/78270-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1670 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Another Study of Woman | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +/* General headers */ + +h1 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2, h3 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} + +.nind {text-indent:0;} + +.nindc {text-align:center; text-indent:0;} + +.large {font-size: 125%;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +.space-above2 { margin-top: 2em; } + +.space-below2 { margin-bottom: 2em; } + +.spa1 { + margin-top: 1em + } + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +/* Images */ + +img {max-width: 100%; width: 100%; height: auto;} +.width500 {max-width: 500px;} +.x-ebookmaker .width500 {width: 100%;} + + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: 1px dashed;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78270 ***</div> + +<figure class="figcenter width500" id="cover" style="width: 1707px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="1707" height="2560" alt="Parisian +salon gathering where men swap cynical tales about women and love. +De Marsay's confessed affair — secretive, passionate, ending in +cold-blooded betrayal — is the centrepiece."> +</figure> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"><span style="display:inline-block;">LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO.<br> +<small>Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</small></span> +<span style="display:inline-block; margin-left:0.5em; vertical-align:top; font-size:1.8em">1044</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<h1>Another Study +of Woman</h1> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2"><span class="large">Honoré de Balzac</span></p> + + + + +<p class="nindc space-above2 space-below2">HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY<br> +GIRARD, KANSAS +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"> +Copyright, 1926,<br> +Haldeman-Julius Company<br> +<br> +<br> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"> +ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="nindc"> +TO LEON GOZLAN<br> +<br> +<br> +AS A TESTIMONY TO GOOD LITERARY<br> +BROTHERHOOD<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ANOTHER_STUDY_OF_WOMAN">ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="nindc space-above2"> +THE SALON OF MADEMOISELLE DES TOUCHES</p> + + +<p>In Parisian society you will almost always find two very different +evenings in the balls and social affairs. First, the official evening, +at which all the invited guests are present—a gay world bored with +itself and others. Each person poses for his neighbor. The majority of +the young women have come there to meet only one person. When each is +satisfied that she is the handsomest woman present in the eyes of that +person, and that his opinion is probably shared by some others, she +is ready to leave—after the exchange of a few trivial speeches, such +as “Shall you go early to La Crampade?”—“Madame de Portenduère sang +very well, I think.”—“Who is that little woman over there, weighted +down with diamonds?” Or, perhaps, after throwing out a few epigrams, +which give passing pleasure and permanent wounds, the groups begin to +disperse, mere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> acquaintances take leave, and then the mistress of the +house stops her personal friends and a few artists and lively fellows, +saying in a whisper: “Don’t go, we shall have supper presently.”</p> + +<p>The company then gathers in a little salon. The second, the real +evening begins—an evening like those of the old régime, when everybody +understands what is talked about, conversation is general, and each +person present is expected to show his wit and to contribute to the +general entertainment. The scene has changed: frank laughter succeeds +the stiff artificial air which dulls the prettiest faces in society. +In short, pleasure begins as the social time ends. The ball, that cold +review of luxury, the parade of self-loves in full costume, is one of +those English inventions which tend to turn all other nations into +mere machines. England seems desirous that all the world should be +as much and as often bored as herself. This second party succeeding +the first is therefore in some French houses a lively protest of the +former spirits of our joyous land. But, unfortunately, few houses thus +protest; and the reason is plain: if suppers are no longer in vogue it +is because at no time, under any régime, were there ever so few persons +in France with settled positions, surroundings, fortunes, families, and +names as under the reign of Louis Philippe, in which the Revolution +was begun again legally. All the world is marching toward some end, or +it is trotting after wealth. Time has become the most costly of all +chattels;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> no one can allow himself the great indulgence of coming home +late and sleeping late the next morning. The second party is therefore +only found among women rich enough really to entertain; and since July, +1830, such women may be counted on one’s fingers.</p> + +<p>In spite of the mute opposition of the faubourg Saint-Germain, two or +three women, among them the Marquise d’Espard and Mademoiselle des +Touches, refused to renounce the influence they had held up to that +time over Paris, and did not close their salons.</p> + +<p>The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches, which was very celebrated in +Paris, was the last asylum of the true French wit of other days, with +its hidden profundity, its thousand casuistries, and its exquisite +politeness. There you might observe the grace of manner which underlay +the conventions of politeness; the easy flow of conversation in spite +of the natural reserve of well-bred persons; and, above all, generosity +and tolerance of ideas. There, no one dreamed of reserving his thought +for a drama; no one had in mind a book to be made out of a narrative. +In short, the hideous skeleton of literature in want did not rise and +show itself in the face of some piquant sally or some interesting topic.</p> + +<p>During the evening which I shall now describe, chance had collected +in the salon of Mademoiselle des Touches a number of persons whose +undeniable merits had won for them European reputations. This is not +flattery of France, for several foreigners were among us.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> The men +who shone most brilliantly were by no means the most distinguished. +Ingenious repartees, shrewd observations, excellent satires, +descriptions given with brilliant clearness, sparkled and flowed +extemporaneously, lavished themselves without reserve as without +assumption, and were delightfully felt and delicately enjoyed. The men +of the world were particularly noticeable for a grace, warmth of fancy +that was wholly artistic. You will meet elsewhere in Europe elegant +manners, cordiality, good-fellowship and knowledge, but in Paris +only, in this salon and those I have just mentioned, will be found +in perfection that particular form of intellect which gives to these +social qualities an agreeable and varied harmony, a flowing motion by +which this wealth of thoughts, of formulas, or narratives, of history +itself, meanders easily along.</p> + +<p>Paris, the capital of taste, alone knows the science which changes +conversation to a tournament in which the quality of each mind is +condensed into a flash, where each tilter says his word and casts his +experience into it, where all are amused, refreshed, and have their +faculties exercised. There alone you can exchange ideas; there you +do not carry, like the dolphin in the fable, a monkey on your back; +there you are understood, and you run no risk of staking your gold +against counterfeit coin or copper. There, in short, talk, light and +deep, floats, undulates, and turns, changing aspect and color at every +sentence; there, too, secrets are well betrayed. Lively criticism +and pithy narrative lead each other on. Eyes are listening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> as well +as ears; gestures put questions to which faces reply. There all is, +in a word, thought and wit. Never had the oral phenomenon—which, if +well studied and well-managed, makes the power of the orator and the +narrator—so completely bewitched me.</p> + +<p>I was not the only one sensitive to these influences, and we passed +a delightful evening. The conversation finally turned to narrative, +and led, in its rapid course, to curious confidences, striking +portraits, and a multitude of fancies, which render that delightful +improvisation altogether untransferable to paper. But, by leaving to a +few things their pungency, their abrupt naturalness, their sophistical +sinuosities, perhaps you will understand the charm of a true French +soirée, taken at the moment when the pleasantest familiarity has made +everyone forget his self-interests, self-loves, or, if you prefer so to +call them, pretensions and affectations.</p> + +<p>At about two in the morning, when supper was over, none but a few +intimates, all proved friends, tried by an intercourse of fifteen +years, and certain men of the world, well-bred and gifted with taste, +remained around the table. A tone of absolute equality held sway among +them; and yet there was no one present who did not feel proud of being +himself.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle des Touches always obliged her guests to remain at table +until they took their leave, having many times noticed the total change +that takes place in the minds of those present by removal to another +room. On the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> way between a dining-room and a salon the charm snaps. +According to Sterne, the ideas of an author are different after he +has shaved from what they were before. If Sterne is right, we may +boldly assert that the inclinations of people still seated around a +dinner-table are not those of the same persons when returned to the +salon. The atmosphere is heavier, the eye is no longer enlivened by +the delightful disorder of the dessert; they have lost the benefits +of that softening of the spirit, that kindliness and good-will which +pervaded their being in the pleasant state of mind of those who have +eaten well, and are sitting at their ease on chairs as comfortable as +they can be made. Perhaps we talk more willingly in presence of the +dessert and in company with choice wines, during the delightful moment +when we rest our elbows on the table and lean our heads on our hands. +Certain it is that people not only like to talk at such times, but +they like to listen. Digestion, nearly always attentive, is, according +to characters, either talkative or silent. Each person present then +follows his inclination.</p> + +<p>This preamble was needed to introduce you to the charms of a +confidential narrative in which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted +the innocent jesuitism of a woman with the crafty shrewdness of a man +who has seen much of the world—a quality which makes public men the +most delightful narrators when, like Talleyrand and Metternich, they +condescend to tell a tale.</p> + +<p>De Marsay, who had been prime minister for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> more than six months, had +already given proofs of superior capacity. Though friends who had long +known him were not surprised to see him display both the talents and +aptitudes of a statesman, they were still asking themselves whether +he felt within himself a great political strength, or whether he had +simply developed in the heat of circumstances. This question had just +been put to him, with an evidently philosophical intention, by a man of +intellect and observation whom he had made a prefect—a man who was a +journalist for a long time, and who admired the prime minister without +mingling his admiration with that touch of sour criticism by which, in +Paris, one superior man excuses himself for admiring another.</p> + +<p>“Has there been in your earlier life any fact, thought, or desire, +which made you foresee your vocation?” asked Emile Blondet, “for we all +have, like Newton, our particular apple which falls, and takes us to +the surroundings in which our faculties can develop.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied de Marsay, “and I’ll tell you about it.”</p> + +<p>Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, all de Marsay’s +intimates, settled themselves comfortably, each in his own way, and +looked at the prime minister. Is it necessary to say that the servants +had left the dining-room, that the doors were closed and the portières +drawn? The silence which now fell was so deep that the murmur of the +coachmen’s voices and the subdued stamping of the horses impatient for +their stable came up from the courtyard.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p> + +<p>“A statesman, my friends, exists through one quality only,” said the +minister, playing with his pearl-handled and gold dessert-knife. +“To know how at all moments to be master of himself; to be able, on +all occasions, to meet the crisis of events, however unexpected and +accidental it may be; in short, to have, in his inner self, a cool, +detached being, which looks on as a spectator at all the movements of +our life, our passions, our sentiments, and which inspires us apropos +of all things, with the decision of a kind of ready-reckoner.”</p> + +<p>“You are explaining to us why statesmen are so rare in France,” said +old Lord Dudley.</p> + +<p>“From a sentimental point of view it is certainly horrible,” said +the minister, “and therefore when this phenomenon appears in a young +man—Richelieu, warned of Concini’s danger by a letter over-night, +slept till midday, when he knew his benefactor would be killed at ten +o’clock—that young man, be he Pitt, or Napoleon if you like, is a +monstrosity. I became that monster very early in life, thanks to a +woman.”</p> + +<p>“I thought,” said Madame de Montcornet (Virginie Blondet), smiling, +“that we unmade more statesmen than we make.”</p> + +<p>“The monster of whom I speak is only a monster inasmuch as he resists +your sex,” said the narrator, with an ironical bow.</p> + +<p>“If this tale relates to a love-affair,” said the Baronne de Nucingen, +“I request that it may not be interrupted by reflections.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p> + +<p>“Reflection being so contrary to love,” remarked Joseph Bridau.</p> + +<p>“I was nineteen years of age,” resumed de Marsay; “the Restoration was +becoming re-established—my oldest friends know how impetuous and fiery +I then was. I was in love for the first time, and I may, at this late +day, be permitted to say that I was one of the handsomest young men in +Paris. I had youth and beauty, two advantages due to chance, of which +we are as proud as if we had won them. I say nothing about the rest. +Like all young men, I was in love with a woman about six years older +than myself. Only one of you,” he said, looking round the table, “will +guess her name or recognize her. Ronquerolles was the only one in those +days who guessed my secret, and he kept it carefully. I might fear +<i>his</i> smile, but he seems to be gone,” said the minister, again +looking about him.</p> + +<p>“He would not stay to supper,” said his sister, Madame de Sérizy.</p> + +<p>“For six months possessed by this love, but incapable of suspecting +that it mastered me,” continued the minister, “I gave myself up to that +adorable worship which is both the triumph and the fragile happiness +of youth. I treasured <i>her</i> glove, I drank infusions of the +flowers <i>she</i> had worn, I rose from my bed to go to stand beneath +<i>her</i> windows. All my blood rushed to my heart as I breathed the +perfume that <i>she</i> preferred. I was then a thousand leagues from +suspecting that women are furnaces without and marble within.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, spare us those horrible sentiments,” said Madame de Camps, +laughing.</p> + +<p>“I would then have blasted with contempt the philosopher who published +to the world that terrible opinion, so profoundly true,” replied de +Marsay. “You are all too wise and witty to need me to say more on that +point; but perhaps the rest that I have to tell may recall to you your +own follies. Well—a great lady, if ever there was one, a widow without +children (oh! she had every advantage), my idol went so far as to shut +herself up to mark my handkerchiefs with her own hair; in short, she +responded to my follies with follies of her own. How is it possible +not to believe in a passion when it is guaranteed by folly? We had +put, each of us, all our wits into concealing so complete and glorious +a love from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. Of her, I shall +tell you nothing; perfect in those days, she was considered until quite +recently one of the handsomest women in Paris; at the time of which I +speak men would have risked death to secure her favor. She was left +comfortably as to fortune, for a woman who loved and was beloved; but +the Restoration, to which she was indebted for higher honors, made her +wealth insufficient to meet the requirements of her name and rank. As +for me, I had the self-conceit that conceives no suspicions. Although +my natural jealousy had in those days a hundred-and-twenty-Othello +power, that terrible sentiment slumbered in my breast like gold in +its bed of ore. I would have made my valet flog me had I felt the +baseness to doubt the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> purity and fidelity of that angel, so frail, so +strong, so fair, so naive, so pure, so candid, whose blue eyes let me +penetrate with adorable submission to the bottom of her heart. Never +the least hesitation in pose, or look, or word; always white and fresh +and tender to her beloved as the eastern lily of the Song of Songs. Ah, +my friends!” cried the minister, sorrowfully, becoming for the moment +a young man, “we must knock our heads very hard against the marble to +dispel that poetry.”</p> + +<p>This cry of nature, which found its echo among the guests, piqued their +curiosity, already so cleverly excited.</p> + +<p>“Every morning, mounted on that splendid Sultan you sent me from +England,” he said to Lord Dudley, “I rode past her <i>calèche</i> and +read my orders for the day in her bouquet, prepared in case we were +unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each other nearly every +evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, we had invented, +in order to deceive the world and baffle observation, a system of +behavior. Not to look at each other, to avoid ever being together, +to speak slightingly of each other’s qualities, all those well-worn +maneuvers were of little value compared with our device of a mutual +false devotion to an indifferent person, and an air of indifference to +the true idol. If two lovers will play that game they can always dupe +society, but they must be very sure of each other. Her substitute was +a man high in court favor, cold and devout, whom she did not receive +in her own house. Our comedy was only played for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> benefit of fools +in salons. The question of marriage had not been discussed between us; +six years’ difference in our ages might cause her to reflect. She knew +nothing of the amount of my fortune, which, on principle, I have always +concealed. As for me, charmed by her mind, her manners, the extent of +her information and her knowledge of the world, I would have married +her without reflection. And yet her reserve pleased me. Had she been +the first to speak to me of marriage, I might have found something +vulgar in that accomplished soul. Six full and perfect months! a +diamond of the purest water! That was my allowance of love in this low +world. One morning, being attacked by one of those bone-fevers which +begin a severe cold, I wrote her a note putting off the happiness of a +meeting for another day. No sooner was the letter gone than I regretted +it. ‘She certainly will not believe that I am ill,’ I said to myself; +for she was fond of seeming jealous and suspicious. When jealousy is +real,” said de Marsay, interrupting himself, “it is the evident sign of +a single-minded love.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked the Princesse de Cadignan, eagerly.</p> + +<p>“A true and single-minded love,” said de Marsay, “produces a sort of +bodily apathy in harmony with the contemplation into which the person +falls. The mind then complicates all things; it works upon itself, it +sets up fantasies in place of realities, which only torture it; but +this jealousy is as fascinating as it is embarrassing.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>A foreign minister smiled, recognizing by the light of memory the truth +of this remark.</p> + +<p>“‘Besides,’ I said to myself, ‘why lose a happy day?’” continued de +Marsay, resuming his narrative. “Wasn’t it better to go, ill as I was? +For if she thought me ill I believed her capable of coming to see me +and so compromising herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, +and as my confidential man was not on hand, I took it myself. The river +lay between us; I had all Paris to cross. When I came within suitable +distance of her house I called a porter and told him to deliver the +letter immediately. Then the fine idea came into my head of driving +past the house in a hackney-coach to see if the letter was delivered +promptly. Just as I passed in front of it, about two o’clock in the +afternoon, the great gate opened to admit the carriage of—whom do +you suppose? The substitute! It is fifteen years since that happened; +well! as I tell you of it, this exhausted orator, this minister dried +to the core by contact with public business, still feels the boiling of +something in his heart and a fire in his diaphragm. At the end of an +hour I passed again—the carriage was still in the courtyard; my note +had doubtless not been taken up to her. At last, at half-past three +o’clock, the carriage drove away and I was able to study the face of my +rival. He was grave, he did not smile; but he was certainly in love, +and no doubt some plan was in the wind. At the appointed hour I kept +my tryst; the queen of my soul was calm and serene. Here I must tell +you that I have always thought Othello<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> not only stupid, but guilty of +very bad taste. No man but one who was half a Negro would have behaved +as he did. Shakespeare felt that when he called his play the Moor of +Venice. The mere sight of the beloved woman has something so healing to +the heart, that it dissipates all vexations, doubts, sorrows; my wrath +subsided and I smiled again. This, at my present age, would have been +horribly dissimulating, but then it was simply the result of my youth +and love. My jealousy thus buried, I had the power to observe. I was +visibly ill; the horrible doubts which had tortured me increased the +appearance of illness, and she showed me the most tender solicitude. +I found occasion, however, to slip in the words: ‘Had you any visitor +this morning?’ explaining that I had wondered how she would amuse +herself after receiving my first note.</p> + +<p>“‘I?’ she said, ‘how could I think of any amusement after hearing of +your illness? Until your second note came I was planning how to go to +you.’</p> + +<p>“‘Then you were quite alone?’</p> + +<p>“‘Quite,’ she answered, looking at me with so perfect an expression +of innocence that it rivaled that which drove the Moor to kill his +Desdemona. As she alone occupied her house, that word was a shocking +falsehood. A single lie destroys that absolute confidence which, for +certain souls, is itself the basis of love. To express to you what went +on inside of me at that moment, it is necessary to admit that we have +an inner being of which the visible man<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> is the scabbard, and that that +being, brilliant as light itself, is as delicate as a vapor. Well, that +glorious inward <i>I</i> was thenceforth and forever clothed in crêpe. +Yes, I felt a cold and fleshless hand placing upon me the shroud of +experience, imposing upon my soul the eternal mourning which follows a +first betrayal. Lowering my eyes not to let her see my dazed condition, +a proud thought came into my mind which restored to me some strength: +‘If she deceives you she is unworthy of you.’ I excused the flush in +my face, and a few tears that came into my eyes, on the ground of +increased illness, and the gentle creature insisted on taking me home +in her carriage. On the way she was tenderness itself; her solicitude +would have deceived the same Moor of Venice whom I take for my point of +comparison. In fact, if that big child had hesitated two seconds longer +he would, as any intelligent spectator divines, have asked pardon of +Desdemona. Therefore, to kill a woman is the act of a child. She wept +as she left me at my own door, so unhappy was she at not being able +to nurse me herself! She wished she were my valet, she was jealous of +his cares! All this was written to me the next day as a happy Clarissa +might have written it. There is always the soul of a monkey in the +sweetest and most angelic of women!”</p> + +<p>At these words the women present lowered their eyes as if wounded by a +cruel truth so brutally stated.</p> + +<p>“I tell you nothing of the night, nor of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> week that I passed,” +continued de Marsay, “but it was then that I saw myself a statesman.”</p> + +<p>Those words were so finely uttered that, one and all, we made a gesture +of admiration.</p> + +<p>“While reflecting, with an infernal spirit, on all the forms of cruel +vengeance to which we can subject a woman,” continued de Marsay—“and +there were many and irreparable ones in this case—I suddenly despised +myself; I felt that I was commonplace, and I formulated, insensibly, a +dreadful code, that of Indulgence. To take revenge upon a woman—does +not such an act admit that there is but one woman in the world for us, +and that we cannot live without her? If so, is vengeance a means to +recover her? But if she is not indispensable to us, if there are others +for us, why not allow her the same right to change that we claim for +ourselves? This, you must fully understand, applies only to passion; +otherwise it would be anti-social; nothing proves the necessity of +indissoluble marriage more than the instability of passion. The two +sexes need to be chained together like the wild beasts that they +are, in laws as mute and unchangeable as fate. Suppress revenge, and +betrayal becomes nothing in love, its teeth are drawn. Those who think +that there exists but one woman in the world for them, <i>they</i> +may take to vengeance, and then there is but one form for it—that of +Othello. Mine was different; it was this—”</p> + +<p>The last three words produced among us that imperceptible movement +which journalists<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> describe in parliamentary debates as “profound +sensation.”</p> + +<p>“Cured of my cold and of pure, absolute, divinest love, I let myself go +into an adventure with another heroine, who was charming, of a style +of beauty exactly opposite to that of my deceiving angel. I took good +care, however, not to break with that very clever creature and good +comedian, for I don’t know whether a true love can of itself give more +graceful enjoyments than accomplished treachery. Such hypocrisy equals +virtue. I don’t say this for you Englishmen,” added the minister, +gently, addressing Lady Marimore, daughter of Lord Dudley. “Well, I +even tried to fall in love. It happened that I wanted for this new +angel a little gift done with my own hair, and I went to a certain +artist in hair, much in vogue in those days, who lived in the rue +Boucher. This man had a monopoly of gifts done in hair, and I give his +address for the benefit of those who haven’t much hair of their own; he +keeps locks of all kinds and all colors. After receiving my order, he +showed me his work. I then saw products of patients surpassing those of +fairy tales and even of convicts; and he put me up to all the caprices +and fashions which reigned in the realm of hair.</p> + +<p>“‘For the last year,’ he said to me, ‘there has been a rage for marking +linen with hair; happily, I had a fine collection on hand and excellent +work-women.’</p> + +<p>“Hearing these words, a suspicion crossed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> my mind. I drew out my +handkerchief and said to him:</p> + +<p>“‘Probably this was done at your place, with false hair?’</p> + +<p>“He looked attentively at the handkerchief and said:</p> + +<p>“‘That lady was very difficult to suit; she insisted on matching the +very shade of her hair. My wife marked those handkerchiefs herself. +You have there, monsieur, one of the finest things of the kind ever +executed.’</p> + +<p>“Before this last flash of light I might still have believed in +something; I could still have given some attention to a woman’s word. +I left that shop having faith in pleasure, but, in the matter of love, +as much of an atheist as a mathematician. Two months later I was seated +beside my angelic deceiver on a sofa in her boudoir. I was holding one +of her hands, which were very beautiful, and together we were climbing +the Alps of sentiment, gathering flowers by the way, plucking the +petals from the daisies (there is always a moment in life when we pluck +out the daisy petals, though it may be in a salon where there are no +daisies). At the moment of deepest tenderness, when we seem to love the +most, love is so conscious of its lack of duration that one feels an +invincible need to ask: ‘Do you love me?’—‘Will you love me always?’ +I seized that lyrical moment, so warm, so flowery, so expansive, to +make her tell her finest lies, with the ravishing exaggerations of that +Gascon poetry peculiar to love. Charlotte then displayed the choicest +flowers of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> her deception: she could not live without me; I was the +only man in all the world to her; yet she feared to weary me, for in my +presence her mind forsook her; near me her faculties became all love; +she was too loving not to have many fears; of late she had sought a +means to attach me forever to her side; but God alone could do that.”</p> + +<p>The women who were listening to de Marsay seemed offended by his +mimicry; for he accompanied these words with pantomime, poses of the +head, and affectations of manner, which conveyed the scene.</p> + +<p>“At the moment when I was expected to believe these adorable +falsehoods, I said to her, still holding her right hand in mine:</p> + +<p>“‘When do you marry the duke?’</p> + +<p>“The thrust was so direct, my glance met hers so straight, that the +quiver of her hand lying softly in mine, slight as it was, could not +be completely concealed. Her eyes fell before mine, and a slight flush +came into her cheeks.</p> + +<p>“‘The duke!’ she said, feigning the utmost astonishment. ‘What can you +mean?’</p> + +<p>“‘I know all,’ I replied. ‘In my opinion you had better not delay the +marriage. He is rich, he is a duke; but also, he is religious—more +than that, he is a bigot! You don’t seem aware how urgent it is that +you should make him commit himself in his own eyes and before God; if +you don’t do this soon you will never gain your end.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> + +<p>“‘Is this a dream?’ she said, pushing up her hair from her forehead +with Malibran’s celebrated gesture, fifteen years before Malibran ever +made it.</p> + +<p>“‘Come, don’t play the babe unborn, my angel,’ I said, trying to take +both her hands. But she crossed them in front of her with an angry and +prudish little air. ‘Marry him, I am willing,’ I continued. ‘In fact, I +strongly advise it.’</p> + +<p>“‘But,’ she said, falling at my feet, ‘there’s some horrible mistake +here; I love no man but you in this world; you can ask me for any proof +you like.’</p> + +<p>“‘Rise, my dear,’ I said, ‘and do me the honor to be frank.’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes, before Heaven.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you doubt my love?’</p> + +<p>“‘No.’</p> + +<p>“‘My fidelity?’</p> + +<p>“‘No.’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, then, I have committed the greatest of crimes,’ I went on. ‘I +have doubted your love and your fidelity; and I have looked at the +matter calmly—’</p> + +<p>“‘Calmly!’ she cried, sighing. ‘Enough, Henri, I see that you no longer +love me.’</p> + +<p>“You observe that she was quick to seize that way of escape. In such +scenes an adverb is often very dangerous. But luckily curiosity induced +her to add:</p> + +<p>“‘What have you seen or heard? Have I ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> spoken to the duke except +in society? Have you ever noticed in my eyes—’</p> + +<p>“‘No,’ I said, ‘but I have in his. You have made me go eight times to +Saint-Thomas d’Aquin to see you both hearing mass together.’</p> + +<p>“‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘at last I have made you jealous!’</p> + +<p>“‘I wish I could be,’ I replied, admiring the suppleness of that quick +mind, and the acrobatic feats by which she strove to blind me. ‘But, +by dint of going to church, I have become an unbeliever. The day of +my first cold and your first deception you received the duke when you +thought me safe in bed, and you told me you had seen no man.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you know that your conduct is infamous?’</p> + +<p>“‘How so? I think your marriage with the duke an excellent affair; he +gives you a fine name, the only position that is really suited to you, +an honorable and brilliant future. You will be one of the queens of +Paris. I should do you a great wrong if I placed any obstacles in the +way of this arrangement, this honorable life, this superb alliance. +Ah! some day, Charlotte, you will do me justice by discovering how +different my character is from that of other young men. You are on the +point of being forced to break with me, and yet you would have found it +very difficult to do so. The duke is watching you; his virtue is very +stern, and it is high time that you and I should part. You will have to +be a prude, I warn you of that.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> The duke is a vain man, and he wants +to be proud of his wife.’</p> + +<p>“‘Ah!’ she said, bursting into tears, ‘Henri, if you had only spoken!’ +(you see she was determined to put the blame on me)—‘yes, if you had +wished it we could have lived all our lives together, married, happy +before the world, or in some quiet corner of it.’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, it is too late now,’ I said, kissing her hands and assuming the +air of a victim.</p> + +<p>“‘But I can undo it all,’ she said.</p> + +<p>“‘No, you have gone too far with the duke. I shall even make a journey, +to separate us from each other more completely. We should each have to +fear the love of our own hearts.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you think, Henri, that the duke has any suspicions?’</p> + +<p>“‘I think not,’ I replied, ‘but he is watching you. Make yourself +<i>dévote</i>, attend to your religious duties, for the duke is seeking +proof; he is hesitating, and you ought to make him come to a decision.’</p> + +<p>“She rose, walked about the boudoir in a state of agitation either +feigned or real; then she found a pose and a glance which she no doubt +felt to be in harmony with the situation; for she stopped before me, +held out her hand, and said in a voice full of emotion:</p> + +<p>“‘Henri, you are a loyal, noble, charming man, and I shall never forget +you.’</p> + +<p>“This was excellent strategy. She was enchanting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> in this attitude, +which was necessary to the situation in which she wanted to stand +toward me. I assumed the manner of a man so distressed that she took me +by the hand and led me—almost threw me, though gently—on the sofa, +saying, after a moment’s silence: ‘I am deeply grieved, my friend. You +love me truly?’</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, yes.’</p> + +<p>“‘Then what will become of you?’”</p> + +<p>Here all the women present exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>“I have suffered once more in thus recalling her treachery, but at +any rate I still laugh at the air of conviction and soft inward +satisfaction which she felt, if not at my death, at least at my eternal +unhappiness,” continued de Marsay. “Oh! you needn’t laugh yet,” he +said to the guests; “the best is still to come. I looked at her very +tenderly, after a pause, and said:</p> + +<p>“‘Yes, that is what I have asked myself.’</p> + +<p>“‘What will you do?’</p> + +<p>“‘I asked myself that question the morning after the cold I told you +of.’</p> + +<p>“‘And?—’ she said, with visible uneasiness.</p> + +<p>“‘I began to pay court to that little lady whom I had for my +substitute.’</p> + +<p>“Charlotte sprang up from the sofa like a frightened doe; she trembled +like a leaf, as she cast upon me one of those looks in which a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> woman +forgets her dignity, her modesty, her craftiness, even her grace—the +glittering glance of a hunted serpent, forced to its hole—and said:</p> + +<p>“‘I, who loved him! I, who struggled! I, who—’</p> + +<p>“On that third idea, which I leave you to guess, she made the finest +organ pause ears ever listened to.</p> + +<p>“‘Good heavens!’ she cried, ‘how wretched women are! We are never truly +loved. There is nothing genuine to men in the purest sentiments. But, +let me tell you, though you trick us, you are still our dupes.’</p> + +<p>“‘So I see,’ I said with a contrite air. ‘You have too much wit in your +anger for your heart to suffer much.’</p> + +<p>“This modest sarcasm redoubled her wrath; she now wept tears of rage.</p> + +<p>“‘You have degraded life and the world in my eyes,’ she said; ‘you have +torn away all my illusions, you have debased my heart—’</p> + +<p>“In short, she said to me all that I had the right to say to her, with +an unconcealed simplicity, a naive effrontery, which would certainly +have got the better of any man but me.</p> + +<p>“‘What will become of us, poor hapless women, in the social life which +Louis XVIII’s Charter has created for us? Yes, we were born to suffer. +As for love, we are always above you, and you are always below us, in +loyalty. None of you have honesty in your hearts. For<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> you, love is a +game in which you think it fair to cheat.’</p> + +<p>“‘Dear,’ I said, ‘to take things seriously in our present social life +would be to play at perfect love with an actress.’</p> + +<p>“‘What infamous treachery!’ she cried. ‘So this has all been reasoned +out?’</p> + +<p>“‘No; it is simply reasonable.’</p> + +<p>“‘Farewell, Monsieur de Marsay,’ she said; ‘you have deceived me +shamefully.’</p> + +<p>“‘Will Madame la duchesse,’ I asked in a submissive manner, ‘remember +Charlotte’s wrongs?’</p> + +<p>“‘Assuredly,’ she said in a bitter tone.</p> + +<p>“‘So then, you detest me?’</p> + +<p>“She inclined her head; and I left her to a sentiment which allowed her +to think that she had something to avenge. My friends, I have deeply +studied the lives of men who have had success with women; and I feel +sure that neither the Maréchal de Richelieu, nor Lauzun, nor Louis de +Valois ever made, for the first time, so able a retreat. As for my own +heart and mind, they were formed then and forever; and the control I +gained over the unreflecting impulses which cause us to commit so many +follies gave me the coolness and self-possession which you know of.”</p> + +<p>“How I pity the second woman!” said the Baronne de Nucingen.</p> + +<p>An almost imperceptible smile which flickered for a moment on de +Marsay’s pale lips made Delphine de Nucingen color.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p> + +<p>“How people forget!” cried the Baron de Nucingen.</p> + +<p>The naiveté of the celebrated banker had such success that his wife, +who had been that “second” of de Marsay’s, could not help laughing with +the rest of the company.</p> + +<p>“You are all disposed to condemn that woman,” said Lady Dudley, “but I +can understand why she should not consider her marriage in the light +of an inconstancy. Men never will distinguish between constancy and +fidelity. I knew the woman whose history Monsieur de Marsay has just +related; she was one of the last of your great ladies.”</p> + +<p>“Alas! you are right there,” said de Marsay. “For the last fifty +years we have been taking part in the steady destruction of all +social distinctions. We ought to have saved women from the great +shipwreck, but the Civil Code has passed its level over their heads. +However terrible the words may be, they must be said; the duchess is +disappearing, and so is the marquise. As for baronesses (I ask pardon +of Madame de Nucingen, who will make herself a true countess when +her husband becomes peer of France), the baronesses have never been +regarded seriously.”</p> + +<p>“Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,” remarked Blondet, smiling.</p> + +<p>“Countesses will remain,” said de Marsay. “An elegant woman will +always be more or less a countess—countess of the Empire, or of +yesterday, countess of the <i>vieille roche</i>, or, as they say in +Italy, countess of civility. But as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> for the <i>great lady</i>, she is +dead—dead with the grandiose surroundings of the last century; dead +with her powder, <i>mouches</i>, and high-heeled slippers, and her +busked corset adorned with its triangle of flowing ribbons. Duchesses +in the present day can pass through ordinary doors that are not widened +to admit a hoop. The Empire saw the last of the gowns with trains. +Napoleon little imagined the effects of the Code of which he was so +proud. That man, by creating his <i>duchesses</i>, generated the race +of <i>comme il faut</i><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> women whom we see today—the resulting +product of his legislation.”</p> + +<p>“Thought, used as a hammer by the lad leaving school and the nameless +journalist, has demolished the splendors of the social state,” said the +Comte de Vandenesse. “Today, any absurd fellow who can hold his head +above a collar, cover his manly breast with half a yard of satin in the +form of a waistcoat, present a brow shining with future genius under +his frizzed hair, and blunder along in varnished pumps and silk socks +costing half a dozen francs, now wears a glass in the arch of one eye +by squeezing his cheek against it and—whether he’s a lawyer’s clerk, +the son of a contractor, or a banker’s bastard—ogles impertinently the +prettiest duchess, rates her charms as she comes down the staircase of +a theater, and says to his friend (clothed by Buisson, like the rest of +us), ‘There, my dear fellow, is a <i>comme il faut</i> woman.’”</p> + +<p>“You have never made yourselves,” said Lord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> Dudley, “into a party; +it will be long now before you have any place politically. A great +deal has been said in France about organizing labor, but property has +never yet organized. Here is what is happening to you: A duke, no +matter who (there were still a few under Louis XVIII and Charles X +who possessed two hundred thousand francs a year, a splendid mansion +and a retinue of servants),—that duke could still behave like a +great seigneur. The last of these great French lords is the Prince de +Talleyrand. This duke dies, and, let us suppose, leaves four children, +two of whom are daughters. Each of these heirs, supposing that he has +managed to marry them well, will inherit, at most, sixty to eighty +thousand francs a year; each is father or mother of several children, +consequently obliged to live on one floor, probably the ground-floor, +of a house, with the strictest economy—it may be that they are even +obliged to borrow money. The wife of the eldest son, who is a duchess +in name only, has neither carriage, nor servants, nor opera-box, nor +time of her own; she hasn’t even her own suite of rooms in a family +mansion, nor her own fortune, nor her personal baubles. She is buried +in marriage as a wife of the rue Saint Denis is buried in commerce; she +buys the socks of her dear babes, feeds and teaches her daughters, whom +she no longer puts to school in a convent. Your women of rank simply +sit upon their nests.”</p> + +<p>“Alas, yes!” said Joseph Bridau. “Our epoch no longer possesses those +exquisite feminine flowers which adorned the great centuries of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> the +French monarchy. The fan of the great lady is broken. Woman no longer +blushes, whispers sly malice, hides her face behind her fan only to +show it—the fan serves merely to fan her! When a thing is no longer +anything but what it <i>is</i>, it is too useful to belong to luxury.”</p> + +<p>“Everything in France has assisted in producing the <i>comme il +faut</i> woman,” said Daniel d’Arthèz. “The aristocracy has consented +to this state of things by retreating to its estates to hide and +die—emigrating to the interior before ideas as formerly it emigrated +to foreign parts before the populace. Women who could have established +European salons, controlled opinion and turned it like a glove, who +should have ruled the world by guiding the men of art and thought who +outwardly ruled it, have committed the fatal blunder of abandoning +their ground, ashamed to have to struggle with a bourgeoisie +intoxicated by power and making its début on the world’s stage only, +perhaps, to be hacked in pieces by the barbarians who are at its +heels. Where the bourgeois affects to see princesses, there are none +but so-called fashionable women. Princes no longer find great ladies +to distinguish; they cannot even render famous a woman taken from the +ranks. The Duc de Bourbon was the last prince to use that privilege.”</p> + +<p>“And Heaven knows what it cost him!” said Lord Dudley.</p> + +<p>“The press follows suit,” remarked Rastignac. “Women no longer have +the charm of spoken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> <i>feuilletons</i>, delightful satires uttered in +choicest language. In like manner we nowadays read <i>feuilletons</i> +written in a <i>patois</i> which changes every three years, and ‘little +journals,’ as lively as undertakers, and as light as the lead of their +own type. French conversation is now carried on in revolutionary +Iroquois from end to end of France, where the long printed columns of +the newspapers take the place in ancient mansions of those brilliant +coteries of men and women who <i>conversed</i> there in former days.”</p> + +<p>“The knell of Great Society has sounded, do you know it?” said a +Russian prince; “and the first stroke of its iron tongue is your modern +French term: <i>femme comme il faut</i>.”</p> + +<p>“You are right prince,” said de Marsay. “That woman, issuing from +the ranks of the nobility, or growing from the bourgeoisie, coming +from any and every region, even the provinces, is the expression of +the spirit of our day—a last image of good taste, wit, intellect, +grace, and distinction united, but all diminishing. We shall see no +more <i>grandes dames</i> in France, but for a long time still to come +there will be <i>comme il faut</i> women, sent by public opinion to +the Upper Feminine Chamber—women who will be to the fair sex what the +‘gentleman’ is among his fellows in England.”</p> + +<p>“And they call that progress!” said Mademoiselle des Touches. “I would +like to know what progress is.”</p> + +<p>“<i>This</i>,” said Madame de Nucingen: “Formerly a woman might have +the voice of a fish-wife,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> the walk of a grenadier, the forehead of the +boldest hussy, a fat foot, a thick hand, but nevertheless that woman +was a ‘great lady’; but now, be she a Montmorency—if the Demoiselles +de Montmorency could ever have such attributes—she would <i>not</i> be +a woman <i>comme il faut</i>.”</p> + +<p>“What is meant by a woman <i>comme il faut</i>?” asked Comte Adam +Laginski, naively.</p> + +<p>“She’s a modern creation, a deplorable triumph of the elective system +applied to the fair sex,” said de Marsay. “Every revolution has its +term, or saying, in which it is summed up and described. Our social +revolution has ended in the <i>comme il faut</i> woman.”</p> + +<p>“You are right,” said the Russian prince, who had come to Paris to make +himself a literary reputation. “To explain certain terms or sayings +added century by century to your noble language, would be to write a +glorious history. <i>Organize</i>, for instance, is the word of the +Empire; it contains Napoleon—the whole of him.”</p> + +<p>“But all that is not telling us what you mean by the woman <i>comme il +faut</i>,” cried the young Pole, with some impatience.</p> + +<p>“I’ll explain her to you,” said Emile Blondet. “On a fine morning you +are lounging about Paris. It is more than two o’clock, but not yet +five. You see a woman coming toward you; the first glance you cast +upon her is like the preface to a fine book; it makes you anticipate +a world of refined and elegant things. Like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> the botanist crossing +hill and valley as he searches for specimens, among all varieties of +Parisian commonness you have found a rare flower. Either this woman +is accompanied by two very distinguished-looking men, one of whom is +decorated, or by a footman in undress livery who follows her at a +little distance. She wears neither startling colors, nor open-worked +stockings, nor over-ornamental buckles, nor drawers with embroidered +frills visible at her ankles. You notice that her shoes are either +prunella, with strings crossed on the instep over thread stockings of +extreme fineness, or gray silk stockings that are perfectly plain; or +else she wears dainty little boots of exquisite simplicity. Some pretty +and inexpensive stuff makes you notice her gown, the shape of which +surprises the bourgeois, it is almost always a pelisse, fastened by +knots of ribbon and delicately edged with a silken cord or an almost +imperceptible binding. The lady has an art of her own in putting on +a shawl or a mantle; she knows how to wrap it from her waist to her +throat, forming a sort of carapace which would make a bourgeoise +look like a tortoise, but under which the <i>comme il faut</i> woman +contrives to suggest a beautiful figure while concealing it. How? by +what means? That is a secret which she keeps, without the protection +of any patent. She walks with a certain concentric and harmonious +motion, which makes her sweet alluring figure quiver under the stuffs +as an adder at midday makes the green grass-tops above him move. +Does she owe to angel or devil that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> graceful undulation which plays +beneath the black silk mantle, sways the lace of its border, and sheds +a balmy air which I shall venture to call the breeze-Parisian? You +remark upon her arms, about her waist, around her neck, a science of +folds draping even a restive stuff, which reminds you of the ancient +Mnemosyne. Ah! how well she understands—forgive me the expression—the +technique of walking. Examine well the way in which she puts her +foot forward, moulding an outline beneath her gown with a decent +precision which excites the admiration, restrained by respect, of +those who pass her. If an Englishwoman tried that walk she would look +like a grenadier marching to the assault of a redoubt. To the woman +of Paris belongs the genius of gait. The municipality has long owed +her our coming asphalt pavements. You will observe that this lady +jostles no one. In order to pass, she stands still, waiting with proud +modesty until a way is made for her. Her attitude, both tranquil and +disdainful, obliges the most insolent dandy to step aside. Her bonnet, +of remarkable simplicity, has fresh strings. Possibly, there may be +flowers upon it; but the cleverest of these women wear only ribbons. +Feathers require a carriage, flowers attract the eye. Beneath the +bonnet you see the cool and restful face of a woman who is sure of +herself, but without self-conceit; who looks at nothing, but sees all; +and whose vanity, lulled by continual gratification, gives to her +countenance an expression of indifference which piques curiosity. She +knows she is being studied; she is well aware that nearly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> everyone, +even women, turn round to look at her. She passes through Paris like +a film of gossamer, as white and as pearly. This beautiful specimen +of her sex prefers the warmest latitudes and the cleanest longitudes +in Paris; you will therefore find her between the 10th and the 110th +arcade of the rue de Rivoli, along the line of the boulevards, from +the equator of the Panorama, where the productions of the Indies +flourish and the finest creations of industry are blooming, to the cape +of the Madeleine; you will find her also in the least muddy regions +of the bourgeoisie, between number 30 and number 150 of the rue du +Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. During the winter she takes her pleasure on +the terrace of the Feuillants, and not upon the bituminous pavements +which skirt it. According to weather, she glides through the alleys +of the Champs Elysées. Never will you meet this charming variety of +woman in the hyperboreal regions of the rue Saint-Denis, never in the +Kamchatka of muddy streets small and commercial, and never anywhere +in rainy weather. These flowers of Paris, opening to the sun, perfume +the promenades and fold their leaves by five in the afternoon like a +convolvulus. The women whom you will see later having slightly the same +air and trying to imitate them are of another race. This fair unknown, +the Beatrice of our day, is the <i>comme il faut</i> woman.</p> + +<p>“It is not always easy, my dear count,” said Blondet, interrupting +himself for a moment, “for foreigners to perceive the differences by +which a connoisseur <i>emeritus</i> distinguishes the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> two species, +for women are born comedians. But those differences strike the eye of +all Parisians: hooks are visible, tapes show their yellowish white +through a gap at the back of the gown; shoes are worn at heel, bonnet +strings have been ironed, the gown puffs out too much, the bustle is +flattened. You notice a sort of effort in the premeditated lowering +of the eyelids. The attitude is conventional. As for the bourgeoise, +it is impossible to confound her with the woman who is <i>comme il +faut</i>; she makes an admirable foil to her, she explains the charm +the unknown lady has cast upon you. The bourgeoise is busy; she is +out in all weathers; comes and goes and trots; is undecided whether +she will, or whether she will not enter a shop. Where the <i>comme +il faut</i> woman knows perfectly well what she wants and what she +means to do, the bourgeoise is undecided, pulls up her gown to cross a +gutter, drags a child after her, and is forced to watch for carriages; +she is a mother in public and lectures her daughter; carries money +in a hand-bag and wears open-work stockings, a boa above a fur cape +in winter, and a shawl with a scarf in summer—the bourgeoise is an +adept at the superfluities of the toilet. As for your Beatrice, you +will find her in the evening at the Opera, or in a ballroom. She +then appears under an aspect so different that you fancy her two +different creations without relationship. The woman has issued from +her morning vestments like a butterfly from its larva. She serves, +as a dainty morsel to your raptured senses, the form which her shawl +scarce outlined in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> morning. At the theater the woman of society +never goes higher than the second tier of boxes, unless at the Italian +opera. You can therefore study at your ease the precise slowness of +her movements. This adorable maneuverer uses all the little artifices +of woman’s manner with a natural ease that precludes the idea of art +and premeditation. Is her hand royally beautiful, the most suspicious +man would believe it absolutely necessary to roll, or fasten up, or +toss aside whichever ringlet or curl she may touch. Has she nobility of +profile, you will think she is merely giving irony or charm to what she +says to her neighbor, by turning her head in a manner to produce that +magic effect, so dear to great painters, which draws the light to the +cheek, defines the nose with a clear outline, illumines the pink of the +nostril, carves the forehead with sharp prominence, and leaves a touch +of high light on the chin. If she has a pretty foot she throws herself +on a sofa with the coquetry of a cat in the sunshine, her feet forward, +without your seeing anything more in that pretty pose than a charming +model of lassitude for a sculptor. No other woman but the woman +<i>comme il faut</i> is ever perfectly at her ease in her clothes; +nothing disturbs her. You will never see her putting in place, like a +bourgeoise, a rebellious shoulder-knot, or looking to see if the lace +of her chemisette fulfills it purpose of unfaithful guardian to the +sparkling whiteness of her bosom; never will you find her looking in a +mirror to learn whether her coiffure is perfectly intact. Her toilet +is always in harmony with her character; she had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> had time to study +herself and to decide what suits her; she has long known what does not +suit her. You never see her when the audience of a theater disperses; +she departs before the end of the play. If by chance she is seen, calm +and sedate, upon the steps of the staircase, some strong sentiment +has prompted her. She is there to order; she has some look to give, +some promise to receive. Perhaps she is descending slowly to gratify +the vanity of a slave whom she occasionally obeys. If you meet her in +society, at a ball or a <i>soirée</i>, you will gather the honey, real +or affected, of her practised voice; you will be enchanted with her +idle talk, to which she contrives to impart the semblance of thought +with inimitable skill—”</p> + +<p>“Then it isn’t necessary for the <i>comme il faut</i> woman to have +intellect?” said the young Polish count.</p> + +<p>“It is impossible to be that kind of woman without taste,” said the +Princesse de Cadignan.</p> + +<p>“And to have taste is, in France, to have more than mind,” said the +Russian prince.</p> + +<p>“The mind of this woman is the triumph of an art that is wholly +plastic,” replied Blondet. “You don’t know what she says, but you are +charmed. She has nodded her head or sweetly shrugged her handsome +shoulders, or gilded some meaningless phrase with a smile or a +charming pout, or put Voltaire’s epigram into an ‘Oh!’ an ‘Ah!’ an ‘Is +it possible?’ The turn of her head is an active interrogation; she +gives meaning of some kind to the movement with which she dances a +vinaigrette fastened by a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> chain to her finger. These are artificial +great effects obtained by very small ones: she lets her hand fall nobly +from the arm of her chair, and all is said; she has rendered judgment +without appeal, fit to move the most insensible. She has listened to +you, she has given you an opportunity to show your wit; and—I appeal +to your modesty—such moments in society are rare.”</p> + +<p>The innocent air of the young Pole whom Blondet was addressing made +every one laugh heartily.</p> + +<p>“You can’t talk half an hour with a bourgeoise before she brings to +light her husband under one form or another,” continued Blondet, whose +gravity was not shaken; “but if your <i>comme il faut</i> woman is +married she has the tact to conceal her husband, and the perseverance +of a Christopher Columbus would hardly enable you to discover him. If +you have not been able to question others on this point, you will see +her toward the end of the evening fix her eyes steadily on a man of +middle age, who inclines his head and leaves the room; she has told her +husband to call up the carriage, and she departs. In her own house no +<i>comme il faut</i> woman is ever seen before four o’clock, the hour +at which she receives. She is wise enough to make you wait even then. +You will find good taste throughout her house; her luxury is intended +for use, and is renewed when needful; you will see nothing there under +glass cases, nor any swathings of protective gauze. The staircase is +warm; flowers gladden you everywhere; flowers are the only presents<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> +she accepts, and those from a few persons only; bouquets give pleasure +and live for a single day and are then renewed. To her they are, as in +the East, a symbol and a promise. The costly trifles of fashion are +spread about, but her salons are not turned into a museum or an old +curiosity shop. You will find her seated on a sofa at the corner of the +fireplace, whence she will bow to you without rising. Her conversation +is no longer that of the ballroom; in her own house she is bound to +entertain you. The <i>comme il faut</i> woman possesses all these +shades of behavior in perfection. She welcomes in you a man who will +swell the circle of her society, the great object of the cares and +anxieties of all women of the world. Consequently, to attach you to +her salon she will make herself charmingly coquettish. You will feel +above all, in that salon, how isolated women are in the present day and +why they endeavor to have a little society about them in which they +can shine as constellations. But this is the death of conversation; +conversation is impossible without generalities.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said de Marsay, “you have seized upon the great defect of +our epoch. Epigram, that book in a word, no longer falls, as in the +eighteenth century, on persons and on things, but on petty events and +dies with the day.”</p> + +<p>“The wit of the <i>comme il faut</i> woman, when she has any,” +resumed Blondet, “consists in putting a doubt on everything, while +the bourgeoise uses hers to affirm everything. There lies a great +difference between the two women.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> The bourgeoise is certain of her +virtue; the <i>comme il faut</i> woman is not sure whether she has any +yet, or whether she has always had it. This hesitation about everything +is one of the last graces our horrible epoch has granted her. She +seldom goes to church, but she will talk religion to you and try to +convert you, if you have the good sense to play the freethinker, for +that will open the way to the stereotyped phrases, the motions of the +head and the gestures which belong to such women: ‘Ah, fie! I thought +you had more intelligence than to attack religion. Society is crumbling +already and you remove its prop. But religion at this moment is you and +I, it is property, it is the future of our children! Ah! let us not +be egotists. Individualism is the disease of our epoch, and religion +is the sole remedy; it unites the families that your laws disunite,’ +etc., etc. She begins in this way a neo-Christian sermon sprinkled with +political ideas, which is neither Catholic nor Protestant, but moral +(oh! devilishly moral), in which you will find echoes of every protest +that modern doctrines driven to bay have given voice to.”</p> + +<p>The women present could not help laughing at the mincing affectations +of their sex with which Emile Blondet illustrated his sarcasms.</p> + +<p>“Those remarks, my dear Comte Adam,” said Blondet, looking at the +young Pole, “will show you that the <i>comme il faut</i> woman +represents intellectual hodge-podge as well as political jumble; just +as she lives surrounded by the brilliant but not lasting products of +modern industry, which aims at the destruction of its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> work in order +to replace it. You will leave her house saying to yourself, ‘She +has, decidedly, very superior ideas’; and you think so all the more +because she has sounded your heart and mind with a delicate hand; she +has sought your secrets—for the <i>comme il faut</i> woman feigns +ignorance of everything, in order to discover everything; but she is +discreet; there are things she never admits knowing, however well she +may know them. Nevertheless you will feel uneasy, you are ignorant of +the real state of her heart. Formerly the great ladies loved openly, +banners displayed; now the woman <i>comme il faut</i> has her little +passion ruled like a sheet of music paper with its signs and notes, +its minims, rests, and sharps and flats. Always weak, she will neither +sacrifice her love, her husband, or the future of her children. +She’s a woman of ambiguous middle-paths, of squint-eyed temporizing +with conventions, of unavowed passions carried along between two +breakwaters. She fears her servants like an Englishwoman who sees +before her the perspective of a divorce suit. This woman, so apparently +at her ease in a ballroom, so charming on the street, is a slave at +home. She has no independence, unless locked in with her own ideas. +She is determined to remain outwardly the woman <i>comme il faut</i>. +That’s her theory of life. A woman separated from her husband, reduced +to a pittance, without carriage or luxury or opera-box, is today +neither wife, maid, nor bourgeoise; she dissolves, she becomes a +thing. What is to become of her? The Carmelites won’t take married<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +women. Will her lover always want her? That’s a question. Therefore +the <i>comme il faut</i> woman may sometimes cause calumny, but never +condemnation.”</p> + +<p>“That is all true, horribly true,” said the Princesse de Cadignan.</p> + +<p>“Consequently, the <i>comme il faut</i> woman,” continued Blondet, +“lives between English hypocrisy and the frankness of the eighteenth +century—a bastard system emblematic of a period when nothing that +comes is like that which goes, when transitions lead nowhere, when +the great figures of the past are blotted out, and distinctions are +purely personal. In my opinion it is impossible for a woman, even +though she be born on the steps of a throne, to acquire before the +age of twenty-five, the encyclopedic science of nothings, the art of +maneuvering, the various great little things—music of the voice, +harmonies of color, angelic deviltries and innocent wickedness, the +language and the silence, the gravity and the folly, the wit and the +stupidity, the diplomacy and the ignorance which constitute the woman +<i>comme il faut</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Accepting the description you have just given of her,” said +Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, “where do you class the +authoress? Is <i>she</i> a woman <i>comme il faut</i>!”</p> + +<p>“When she is not gifted with genius, she is a woman <i>comme il n’en +faut pas</i>,”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> replied Emile Blondet, accompanying his answer with a +glance which might pass for a frank compliment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> to Camille Maupin. “But +that is not my own saying; it belongs to Napoleon, who hated women of +genius,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be too hard on Napoleon,” said Canalis, with an emphatic tone +and gesture, “It was one of his littlenesses—for he had them—to be +jealous of literary fame. Who can explain, or describe, or comprehend +Napoleon?—a man represented always with folded arms, yet who did all +things; who was the greatest known Power, the most concentrated power, +the most corrosive and acid of all powers; a strong genius which led +an armed civilization throughout the world and fixed it nowhere; a +man who could do all because he willed all; prodigious phenomenon of +Will!—subduing disease by a battle, yet doomed to die of disease +in his bed after living unscathed amid cannon-balls and bullets; +a man who had in his head a Code and a Sword, word and action; a +clear-sighted mind which divined all except his own fall; a capricious +politician who played his soldiers like pawns and yet respected three +heads—Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, and Metternich, diplomatists whose +death would have saved the French Empire, but whose life seemed to him +of more value than that of thousands of soldiers; a man to whom, by +some rare privilege, nature had left a heart in his iron body; a man +at midnight kind and laughing among women, and the next day handling +Europe without gloves; hypocritical and generous; loving vulgarity and +simplicity; without taste, but protecting Art; and, in spite of these +antitheses, grand in all things by instinct or by organization;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> Caesar +at twenty-five years of age, Cromwell at thirty, but a good husband and +a good father like any bourgeois of Père Lachaise; a man who created +great public buildings, empires, kings, codes, poems, and one romance, +and all with greater range than accuracy. Did he not attempt to make +Europe France; and after bearing our weight upon the earth until it +changed the laws of gravitation, has he not left us poorer than the day +he put his hand upon us? He who made an empire with his name, lost that +name on the borders of his empire in a sea of blood and slaughtered +men. A man all thought and action, who was able to comprehend both +Desaix and Fouché.”</p> + +<p>“Despotic power and legal justice, each in due season, makes the true +ruler,” said de Marsay.</p> + +<p>“But,” said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the other women with +a smile both dubious and satirical, “have we women really deteriorated +as these gentlemen seem to think? Because today, under a system which +belittles everything, you men like little dishes, little apartments, +little paintings, little journals, little books, is that any reason why +women should be less grand than they have been? Does the human heart +change because you change your habits? In all epochs passions remain +the same. I know splendid devotions, sublime endurances which lack +publicity—fame, if you prefer to call it so. Many a woman is not less +an Agnes Sorel because she never saved a king of France. Do you think +our Marquise d’Espard worth less than Madame Doublet or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> Madame du +Deffand, in whose salon so much harm was said and done? Isn’t Taglioni +the equal of Camargo? and Malibran of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets +superior to those of the eighteenth century? If, at this moment, thanks +to the grocers who govern us, we have no style of our own, didn’t the +Empire have a style as fully its own as that of Louis XV? And its +splendor was surely fabulous. Have the arts and sciences lost ground?”</p> + +<p>“I agree with you, madame,” said Général de Montriveau. “In my opinion +the women of this epoch are truly great. When posterity gives a +verdict upon us will not Madame Recamier’s fame be equal to that of +the loveliest women of past ages? We have made history so fast that +we lack historians to write it down. The reign of Louis XIV had but +one Madame de Sévigné, while we have a thousand today in Paris who +can write better letters, but do not publish them. Whether the French +woman calls herself <i>femme comme il faut</i> or great lady, she will +always be the pre-eminent woman. Emile Blondet has made us a picture of +the manners and charms of a woman of the present day; but, if occasion +offered, this mincing, affected being, who plays a part and warbles out +the ideas of Monsieur this, that, and the other, would show herself +heroic! Even your faults, mesdames, seem the more poetic because they +are and always will be hedged about with great dangers. I have seen +much of the world, perhaps I have studied it too late; but, under +circumstances in which the illegality of your sentiments might find +excuse, I have always observed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> the effects of some chance—you may +call it Providence if you like—which fatally overtake those women whom +we call frail.”</p> + +<p>“I hope,” said Madame de Camps, “that we are able to be great in other +ways.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, let the Marquis de Montriveau preach to us!” cried Madame de +Sérizy.</p> + +<p>“All the more because he has preached by example,” said the Baronne de +Nucingen.</p> + +<p>“Alas!” said Général de Montriveau, “of the many dramas—that’s a word +you are constantly using,” he said with a nod to Blondet, “in which to +my knowledge the hand of God has showed itself, the most terrible was +one that was partly my own doing.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, tell it to us!” cried Lady Barimore. “I love to shudder.”</p> + +<p>“The taste of a virtuous woman,” said de Marsay replying to the +charming daughter of Lord Dudley.</p> + +<p>“During the campaign of 1812,” said Général de Montriveau, “I was +the involuntary cause of a terrible misfortune, which may serve you, +Docteur Bianchon,” he said, turning to me—“you, who take so much note +of the human mind while you study the human body—to solve certain of +your riddles concerning the will. I was making my second campaign; I +liked the danger and I laughed at everything, simple young lieutenant +of artillery that I was! When we reached the Beresina the army no +longer kept, as you know, any discipline; military obedience was at an +end. A crowd of men of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> all nations was making its way instinctively +from north to south. Soldiers drove their bare-footed and ragged +general from their camp-fires if he brought them neither wood nor +provisions. After the passage of that famous river, the disorder was +checked. I came out quietly, alone, without food, from the marshes of +Zembin, and I walked along looking for a house where some one might +be willing to admit me. Finding none all day, being driven away from +those I came to, I fortunately saw late in the evening a miserable +little Polish farmhouse, of which I can give you no idea unless you +have seen the wooden houses of lower Normandy or the poorest hovels +of La Beauce. These Polish dwellings consist of a single room, one +end of which is divided off by a plank partition and serves as a +storehouse for provisions. I saw in the twilight a light smoke rising +from this building, and hoping to find comrades more compassionate than +the persons I had hitherto approached, I marched boldly to the door. +Entering, I found a table spread. Several officers, among whom was +a woman (a not unusual sight), were eating potatoes and horse-flesh +broiled on the embers, and frozen beets. I recognized two or three +captains of artillery belonging to the regiment in which I had first +served. I was received with a volley of hails which would greatly have +surprised me on the other side of the Beresina; but at this moment +the cold was less intense, my comrades were resting, they were warm, +they were eating, and piles of straw at the end of the room offered +them the prospect of a delightful night. We<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> didn’t ask for much in +those days. My comrades could be generous gratis—a very common way +of being generous, by the bye. At the end of the table, near the door +which led into the small room filled with straw and hay, I saw my +former colonel, one of the most extraordinary men I have ever met in +the varied collection of men it has been my lot to know. He was an +Italian. Whenever human beings are handsome in southern countries they +are sublimely handsome. Have you ever noticed the peculiar whiteness +of Italians when they are white? It is magnificent, especially in the +light. When I read the fantastic portrait Charles Nodier has given +us of Colonel Oudet, I found my own impressions expressed in every +sentence. Italian, like most of the officers of his regiment—borrowed +by the Emperor from the army of Prince Eugène—my colonel was a man of +great height, admirably proportioned, possibly a trifle too stout, but +amazingly vigorous and light, agile as a greyhound. His black hair, +curling profusely, set into brilliant relief a clear white skin like +that of a woman. He had handsome feet, small hands, a charming mouth, +and an aquiline nose with delicate lines, the tip of which contracted +naturally and turned white when he was angry, which was often. His +irascibility so passed all belief that I shall tell you nothing of it; +you shall judge for yourself. No one was ever at ease in his presence. +Perhaps I was the only man who did not fear him. It is true that he +had taken a singular liking to me; he thought whatever I did was good. +When anger worked within him,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> his forehead contracted, his muscles +stood out in the middle of it like the horse-shoe of Red-gauntlet. That +sign would have terrified you more than the magnetic lightning of his +blue eyes. His whole body would then quiver, and his strength, always +so great in his normal condition, passed all bounds. He rolled his +r’s excessively. His voice, certainly as powerful as that of Charles +Nodier’s Oudet, gave an indescribable richness of sound to the syllable +which contained that consonant. Though this vice of pronunciation was, +in him, and at all times, a charm, you cannot imagine the power that +accent, considered so vulgar in Paris, was capable of expressing when +he commanded a maneuver, or was in any way excited. You must have heard +it to understand it. When the colonel was tranquil his blue eyes were +full of angelic sweetness; his pure brow sparkled with an expression +that was full of charm. At a parade of the Army of Italy no man could +compare with him. Even d’Orsay himself, the handsome d’Orsay, was +vanquished by our colonel at the last review held by Napoleon before +his entrance into Russia. In this gifted man all was contradiction. +Passion lives by contrasts. Therefore do not ask me whether he was +conscious of those irresistible influences to which our nature” (the +general looked toward the Princesse de Cadignan) “bends like molten +glass beneath the blower’s pipe; but it so chanced that by some unusual +fatality the colonel had had but few love-affairs, or had neglected +to have them. To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in +two words what I once saw him do in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> fit of anger. We were marching +with our cannon along a very narrow road, bordered on one side by woods +and on the other by a rather steep bank. Half way along this road we +met another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching with it. This +colonel wanted to make the captain of our regiment at the head of the +first battery give way to his troop. Naturally our captain refused. +But the colonel of the other regiment made a sign to his first battery +to advance, and in spite of the care the first driver took to keep +close into the woods the wheel of the gun carriage caught the right +leg of our captain, broke it, and flung him to the other side of his +horse. It was done in a moment. Our colonel, who happened to be at a +little distance, saw the quarrel, and galloped furiously up through +the trees and among the wheels at the risk of being flung with all his +hoofs in the air, reaching the spot in face of the other colonel just +as the captain cried out, ‘Help!’ and fell. No! our Italian colonel +was no longer a man. Foam, like that of champagne, boiled from his +mouth, he growled like a lion. Incapable of uttering a word, even a +cry, he made a dreadful sign to his adversary, pointing to the wood, +and drew his sabre. They entered it. In two seconds we saw the other +colonel on the ground with his head split in two. The soldiers of that +regiment retreated, ha! the devil! and in quick time, too! Our captain, +who just missed being killed, and who was yelping in the ditch where +the wheel of the gun-carriage had flung him, had a wife, a charming +Italian woman from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> Messina, who was not indifferent to our colonel. +This circumstance had greatly increased his fury. His protection was +due to the husband; he was bound to defend him as well as the wife. +Now, in the miserable Polish cabin this side of Zembin, where, as +I told you, I received such cordial welcome, this very captain sat +opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end of the table opposite +to the colonel. She was a little woman, named Rosina, very dark, but +bearing in her black eyes, shaped like almonds, all the ardor of the +sun of Sicily. At this moment she was deplorably thin, her cheeks were +covered with dust like a peach exposed to the weather on a high road. +Scarcely clothed and all in rags, wearied by marches, her hair in +disorder beneath the fragment of a shawl tied across her head, there +was still all the presence of a woman about her; her movements were +pretty, her rosy, dimpled mouth, her white teeth, the lines of her face +and bust, charms which misery, cold, and want of care had not entirely +effaced—still told of love and sweetness to anyone whose mind could +dwell upon a woman. Rosina evidently possessed one of those natures +which are fragile in appearance, but are full of nervous strength. +The face of the husband, a Piedmontese nobleman, expressed a sort of +jeering good-humor, if it is permissible to ally those two words. +Brave, intelligent and educated, he nevertheless seemed to ignore the +relations which had existed between his wife and the colonel for nearly +three years. I attributed this indifference to the strange customs +of Italy, or to some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> secret in their own home; but there was in the +man’s face one feature which had always inspired me with involuntary +distrust. His underlip, thin and very flexible, turned down at its two +extremities instead of turning up, which seemed to me to reveal an +underlying cruelty in a character apparently phlegmatic and indolent. +You can well imagine that the conversation was not brilliant when I +entered. My weary comrades were eating in silence, but they naturally +asked me a few questions; and we related our several misfortunes, +mingling them with reflections on the campaign, the generals, their +blunders, the Russians, and the cold. Soon after my arrival, the +colonel, having finished his meagre meal, wiped his mustache, wished us +good-night, cast his black eye toward the woman, and said, ‘Rosina.’ +Then without awaiting any reply he went into the space partitioned off +for forage. The meaning of his summons was evident; and the young woman +made an indescribable gesture, which expressed both the annoyance that +she felt at seeing her dependance thus exhibited without respect for +human feelings, and her sense of the affront offered to her dignity as +a woman and to her husband. And yet in the strained expression of her +features and in the violent contraction of her eyebrows, there seemed +to be a sort of foreboding; perhaps a presentiment of her fate came +over her. Rosina continued to sit tranquilly at the table; a moment +later the colonel’s voice was heard repeating her name, ‘Rosina!’ +The tone of this new summons was even more brutal than that of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> the +first. The rolling accent of the colonel’s voice and the echo which +the Italian language gives to vowels and final letters revealed in a +startling manner the tyranny, impatience, and will of that man. Rosina +turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and joined the colonel. +All my comrades maintained a rigid silence; but I, unhappily, after +looking round at them, began to laugh, and the laugh was then repeated +from mouth to mouth. ‘You laugh?’ said the husband. ‘Faith, comrade,’ I +replied, becoming serious, ‘I did wrong, I admit it; I ask ten thousand +pardons; and if you are not content with such excuses I am ready to +give you satisfaction.’ ‘It is not you who have done wrong, it is I,’ +he replied coldly. Thereupon we all shook down our straw about the +room and were soon lost in the sleep of weariness. The next day each +man, without awaking his neighbor, without looking for a journeying +companion, started on his way with that utter egotism which made our +retreat from Russia one of the most horrible dramas of personality, +sadness, and horror which ever took place beneath the heavens. Yet +after each man had gone some seven or eight hundred yards from our +night’s lodging, we came together and marched along like geese led in +flocks by the unconscious dominance of a child. A common necessity was +driving us along. When we reached a slight elevation from which we +could see the house where we had passed the night, we heard sounds that +resembled the roaring of lions in the desert or the bellowing of bulls; +but no! that clamor could not be compared to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> any known sound. Mingled +with that horrible and sinister roar came the feeble cry of a woman. We +all turned round, seized with a sensation—I know not how to describe +it—of fear; the house was no longer visible, only a burning pile; the +building, which someone had barricaded, was in flames. Clouds of smoke, +driven by the wind, rolled toward us, bringing raucous sounds and a +strong indescribable odor. A few steps from us marched the captain, who +had quietly joined our caravan; we looked at him in silence, for none +of us dared question him. But he, divining our curiosity, touched his +breast with the forefinger of his right hand and pointed with the left +to the conflagration. ‘Son io!’ he said. We continued our way without +another word to him.”</p> + +<p>“There is nothing more fearful than the revolt of sheep,” said de +Marsay.</p> + +<p>“It would be too dreadful to let us part with that horrible scene in +our minds,” said Madame de Montcornet. “I shall dream of it.”</p> + +<p>“Tell us, before we go, what punishment befell Monsieur de Marsay’s +first love,” said Lord Dudley, smiling.</p> + +<p>“When Englishmen jest their foils are buttoned,” remarked Emile Blondet.</p> + +<p>“Monsieur Bianchon can tell you that,” replied de Marsay, turning to +me. “He saw her die.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “and her death was one of the most beautiful I ever +witnessed. The duke and I had passed the night beside the pillow of +the dying woman, whose disease, consumption, was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> then in its final +stages; no hope remained, and she had received the last offices of +the Church the preceding evening. The duke had fallen asleep. Madame +la duchesse, waking about four in the morning, made me, in a touching +manner and with a smile, a tender little sign to let him sleep; and yet +she felt she was about to die! She had reached a stage of extraordinary +thinness, but her face preserved its features, and its outlines were +truly sublime. Her pallor made her skin resemble porcelain behind +which a light has been placed. Her brilliant eyes and the color in her +cheeks shone out upon this skin so softly beautiful, while the whole +countenance seemed to breathe forth a commanding tranquility. Evidently +she pitied the duke, and the feeling took its rise in a lofty sentiment +which seemed to see no limit in the approach of death. The silence was +profound. The chamber, softly lighted by a lamp, had the appearance of +all sick-chambers at the moment of death. At that instant the clock +struck. The duke awoke, and was in despair at having slept. I did not +see the gesture of impatience with which he showed the regret he felt +at having lost his wife from sight during the few last moments granted +to him; but it is certain that any other person than the dying woman +might have been mistaken about him. A statesman, preoccupied with the +interests of France, the duke had many of those apparent oddities which +often make men of genius pass for fools, though the explanation may be +found in the exquisite nature and requirements of their mind. He now +took a chair beside the bed and looked fixedly at his wife. The dying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +woman put out her hand and took that of her husband which she pressed +gently, saying in a soft but trembling voice:</p> + +<p>“‘My poor friend, who will understand you in the future?’</p> + +<p>“So saying, she died, looking at him.”</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"> +<a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Translated by George Milburn.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"> +<a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> “As it should be”—correct, ideal, perfect.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="nind"> +<a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> “As it shouldn’t be,” the opposite of <i>comme il +faut</i>.</p> + +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="transnote spa1"> +<p class="nindc"><b>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</b></p> + + +<p>Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced +quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and +otherwise left unbalanced.</p> + +<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a +predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they +were not changed. +</p> +</div></div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78270 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78270-h/images/cover.jpg b/78270-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..988500f --- /dev/null +++ b/78270-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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