The Magic Skin...................................................................................................................................................1

Honore de Balzac .....................................................................................................................................1

I. THE TALISMAN .................................................................................................................................1

II. A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART.................................................................................................37

III. THE AGONY..................................................................................................................................91

Towards the end of the month of October 1829 a young man entered the PalaisRoyal just as the

gaminghouses opened, agreeably to the law which protects a passion by its very nature easily excisable. He

mounted the staircase of one of the gambling hells distinguished by the number 36, without too much

"Your hat, sir, if you please?" a thin, querulous voice called out. A little old man, crouching in the darkness

behind a railing, suddenly rose and exhibited his features, carved after a mean design.

As you enter a gaminghouse the law despoils you of your hat at the outset. Is it by way of a parable, a divine

revelation? Or by exacting some pledge or other, is not an infernal compact implied? Is it done to compel you

to preserve a respectful demeanor towards those who are about to gain money of you? Or must the detective,

who squats in our social sewers, know the name of your hatter, or your own, if you happen to have written it

on the lining inside? Or, after all, is the measurement of your skull required for the compilation of statistics as

to the cerebral capacity of gamblers? The executive is absolutely silent on this point. But be sure of this, that

though you have scarcely taken a step towards the tables, your hat no more belongs to you now than you

belong to yourself. Play possesses you, your fortune, your cap, your cane, your cloak.

As you go out, it will be made clear to you, by a savage irony, that Play has yet spared you something, since

your property is returned. For all that, if you bring a new hat with you, you will have to pay for the

The evident astonishment with which the young man took a numbered tally in exchange for his hat, which

was fortunately somewhat rubbed at the brim, showed clearly enough that his mind was yet untainted; and the

little old man, who had wallowed from his youth up in the furious pleasures of a gambler's life, cast a dull,

indifferent glance over him, in which a philosopher might have seen wretchedness lying in the hospital, the

vagrant lives of ruined folk, inquests on numberless suicides, lifelong penal servitude and transportations to

His pallid, lengthy visage appeared like a haggard embodiment of the passion reduced to its simplest terms.

There were traces of past anguish in its wrinkles. He supported life on the glutinous soups at Darcet's, and

gambled away his meagre earnings day by day. Like some old hackney which takes no heed of the strokes of

the whip, nothing could move him now. The stifled groans of ruined players, as they passed out, their mute

imprecations, their stupefied faces, found him impassive. He was the spirit of Play incarnate. If the young

man had noticed this sorry Cerberus, perhaps he would have said, "There is only a pack of cards in that heart

The stranger did not heed this warning writ in flesh and blood, put here, no doubt, by Providence, who has set

loathing on the threshold of all evil haunts. He walked boldly into the saloon, where the rattle of coin brought

his senses under the dazzling spell of an agony of greed. Most likely he had been drawn thither by that most

convincing of Jean Jacques' eloquent periods, which expresses, I think, this melancholy thought, "Yes, I can

imagine that a man may take to gambling when he sees only his last shilling between him and death."

There is an illusion about a gambling saloon at night as vulgar as that of a bloodthirsty drama, and just as

effective. The rooms are filled with players and onlookers, with povertystricken age, which drags itself

thither in search of stimulation, with excited faces, and revels that began in wine, to end shortly in the Seine.

The passion is there in full measure, but the great number of the actors prevents you from seeing the

gamblingdemon face to face. The evening is a harmony or chorus in which all take part, to which each

instrument in the orchestra contributes his share. You would see there plenty of respectable people who have

come in search of diversion, for which they pay as they pay for the pleasures of the theatre, or of gluttony, or

they come hither as to some garret where they cheapen poignant regrets for three months to come.

Do you understand all the force and frenzy in a soul which impatiently waits for the opening of a gambling

hell? Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a

careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window. Only with morning comes the real throb of

the passion and the craving in its stark horror. Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten,

slept, thought, nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his

desire for a coup of trenteetquarante. At that accursed hour you encounter eyes whose calmness terrifies

you, faces that fascinate, glances that seem as if they had power to turn the cards over and consume them.

The grandest hours of a gambling saloon are not the opening ones. If Spain has bullfights, and Rome once

had her gladiators, Paris waxes proud of her PalaisRoyal, where the inevitable roulettes cause blood to flow

in streams, and the public can have the pleasure of watching without fear of their feet slipping in it.

Take a quiet peep at the arena. How bare it looks! The paper on the walls is greasy to the height of your head,

there is nothing to bring one reviving thought. There is not so much as a nail for the convenience of suicides.

The floor is worn and dirty. An oblong table stands in the middle of the room, the tablecloth is worn by the

friction of gold, but the strawbottomed chairs about it indicate an odd indifference to luxury in the men who

will lose their lives here in the quest of the fortune that is to put luxury within their reach.

This contradiction in humanity is seen wherever the soul reacts powerfully upon itself. The gallant would

clothe his mistress in silks, would deck her out in soft Eastern fabrics, though he and she must lie on a

trucklebed. The ambitious dreamer sees himself at the summit of power, while he slavishly prostrates

himself in the mire. The tradesman stagnates in his damp, unhealthy shop, while he builds a great mansion

for his son to inherit prematurely, only to be ejected from it by law proceedings at his own brother's instance.

After all, is there a less pleasing thing in the world than a house of pleasure? Singular question! Man is

always at strife with himself. His present woes give the lie to his hopes; yet he looks to a future which is not

his, to indemnify him for these present sufferings; setting upon all his actions the seal of inconsequence and

of the weakness of his nature. We have nothing here below in full measure but misfortune.

There were several gamblers in the room already when the young man entered. Three baldheaded seniors

were lounging round the green table. Imperturbable as diplomatists, those plastercast faces of theirs

betokened blunted sensibilities, and hearts which had long forgotten how to throb, even when a woman's

dowry was the stake. A young Italian, olivehued and darkhaired, sat at one end, with his elbows on the

table, seeming to listen to the presentiments of luck that dictate a gambler's "Yes" or "No." The glow of fire

and gold was on that southern face. Some seven or eight onlookers stood by way of an audience, awaiting a

drama composed of the strokes of chance, the faces of the actors, the circulation of coin, and the motion of

the croupier's rake, much as a silent, motionless crowd watches the headsman in the Place de Greve. A tall,

thin man, in a threadbare coat, held a card in one hand, and a pin in the other, to mark the numbers of Red or

Black. He seemed a modern Tantalus, with all the pleasures of his epoch at his lips, a hoardless miser

drawing in imaginary gains, a sane species of lunatic who consoles himself in his misery by chimerical

dreams, a man who touches peril and vice as a young priest handles the unconsecrated wafer in the white

One or two experts at the game, shrewd speculators, had placed themselves opposite the bank, like old

convicts who have lost all fear of the hulks; they meant to try two or three coups, and then to depart at once

with the expected gains, on which they lived. Two elderly waiters dawdled about with their arms folded,

looking from time to time into the garden from the windows, as if to show their insignificant faces as a sign

The croupier and banker threw a ghastly and withering glance at the punters, and cried, in a sharp voice,

"Make your game!" as the young man came in. The silence seemed to grow deeper as all heads turned

curiously towards the new arrival. Who would have thought it? The jaded elders, the fossilized waiters, the

onlookers, the fanatical Italian himself, felt an indefinable dread at sight of the stranger. Is he not wretched

indeed who can excite pity here? Must he not be very helpless to receive sympathy, ghastly in appearance to

raise a shudder in these places, where pain utters no cry, where wretchedness looks gay, and despair is

decorous? Such thoughts as these produced a new emotion in these torpid hearts as the young man entered.

Were not executioners known to shed tears over the fairhaired, girlish heads that had to fall at the bidding of

The gamblers saw at a glance a dreadful mystery in the novice's face. His young features were stamped with a

melancholy grace, his looks told of unsuccess and many blighted hopes. The dull apathy of the suicide had

made his forehead so deadly pale, a bitter smile carved faint lines about the corners of his mouth, and there

was an abandonment about him that was painful to see. Some sort of demon sparkled in the depths of his eye,

which drooped, wearied perhaps with pleasure. Could it have been dissipation that had set its foul mark on

the proud face, once pure and bright, and now brought low? Any doctor seeing the yellow circles about his

eyelids, and the color in his cheeks, would have set them down to some affection of the heart or lungs, while

poets would have attributed them to the havoc brought by the search for knowledge and to nightvigils by the

But a complaint more fatal than any disease, a disease more merciless than genius or study, had drawn this

young face, and had wrung a heart which dissipation, study, and sickness had scarcely disturbed. When a

notorious criminal is taken to the convict's prison, the prisoners welcome him respectfully, and these evil

spirits in human shape, experienced in torments, bowed before an unheardof anguish. By the depth of the

wound which met their eyes, they recognized a prince among them, by the majesty of his unspoken irony, by

the refined wretchedness of his garb. The frockcoat that he wore was well cut, but his cravat was on terms

so intimate with his waistcoat that no one could suspect him of underlinen. His hands, shapely as a woman's

were not perfectly clean; for two days past indeed he had ceased to wear gloves. If the very croupier and the

waiters shuddered, it was because some traces of the spell of innocence yet hung about his meagre,

He looked only about twentyfive years of age, and any trace of vice in his face seemed to be there by

accident. A young constitution still resisted the inroads of lubricity. Darkness and light, annihilation and

existence, seemed to struggle in him, with effects of mingled beauty and terror. There he stood like some

erring angel that has lost his radiance; and these emeritusprofessors of vice and shame were ready to bid the

novice depart, even as some toothless crone might be seized with pity for a beautiful girl who offers herself

The young man went straight up to the table, and, as he stood there, flung down a piece of gold which he held

in his hand, without deliberation. It rolled on to the Black; then, as strong natures can, he looked calmly, if

The interest this coup awakened was so great that the old gamesters laid nothing upon it; only the Italian,

inspired by a gambler's enthusiasm, smiled suddenly at some thought, and punted his heap of coin against the

The banker forgot to pronounce the phrases that use and wont have reduced to an inarticulate cry"Make

your game. . . . The game is made. . . . Bets are closed." The croupier spread out the cards, and seemed to

wish luck to the newcomer, indifferent as he was to the losses or gains of those who took part in these sombre

pleasures. Every bystander thought he saw a drama, the closing scene of a noble life, in the fortunes of that

bit of gold; and eagerly fixed his eyes on the prophetic cards; but however closely they watched the young

man, they could discover not the least sign of feeling on his cool but restless face.

"Even! red wins," said the croupier officially. A dumb sort of rattle came from the Italian's throat when he

saw the folded notes that the banker showered upon him, one after another. The young man only understood

his calamity when the croupiers's rake was extended to sweep away his last napoleon. The ivory touched the

coin with a little click, as it swept it with the speed of an arrow into the heap of gold before the bank. The

stranger turned pale at the lips, and softly shut his eyes, but he unclosed them again at once, and the red color

returned as he affected the airs of an Englishman, to whom life can offer no new sensation, and disappeared

without the glance full of entreaty for compassion that a desperate gamester will often give the bystanders.

How much can happen in a second's space; how many things depend on a throw of the die!

"That was his last cartridge, of course," said the croupier, smiling after a moment's silence, during which he

"He is a cracked brain that will go and drown himself," said a frequenter of the place. He looked round about

"If we had but followed HIS example," said an old gamester to the others, as he pointed out the Italian.

Everybody looked at the lucky player, whose hands shook as he counted his banknotes.

"A voice seemed to whisper to me," he said. "The luck is sure to go against that young man's despair."

"He is a new hand," said the banker, "or he would have divided his money into three parts to give himself

The young man went out without asking for his hat; but the old watchdog, who had noted its shabby

condition, returned it to him without a word. The gambler mechanically gave up the tally, and went

downstairs whistling Di tanti Palpiti so feebly, that he himself scarcely heard the delicious notes.

He found himself immediately under the arcades of the PalaisRoyal, reached the Rue Saint Honore, took the

direction of the Tuileries, and crossed the gardens with an undecided step. He walked as if he were in some

desert, elbowed by men whom he did not see, hearing through all the voices of the crowd one voice

alonethe voice of Death. He was lost in the thoughts that benumbed him at last, like the criminals who

used to be taken in carts from the Palais de Justice to the Place de Greve, where the scaffold awaited them

There is something great and terrible about suicide. Most people's downfalls are not dangerous; they are like

children who have not far to fall, and cannot injure themselves; but when a great nature is dashed down, he is

bound to fall from a height. He must have been raised almost to the skies; he has caught glimpses of some

heaven beyond his reach. Vehement must the storms be which compel a soul to seek for peace from the

How much young power starves and pines away in a garret for want of a friend, for lack of a woman's

consolation, in the midst of millions of fellowcreatures, in the presence of a listless crowd that is burdened

by its wealth! When one remembers all this, suicide looms large. Between a selfsought death and the

abundant hopes whose voices call a young man to Paris, God only knows what may intervene; what

contending ideas have striven within the soul; what poems have been set aside; what moans and what despair

have been repressed; what abortive masterpieces and vain endeavors! Every suicide is an awful poem of

sorrow. Where will you find a work of genius floating above the seas of literature that can compare with this

"Yesterday, at four o'clock, a young woman threw herself into the Seine from the Pont des Arts."

Dramas and romances pale before this concise Parisian phrase; so must even that old frontispiece, The

Lamentations of the glorious king of Kaernavan, put in prison by his children, the sole remaining fragment of

a lost work that drew tears from Sterne at the bare perusalthe same Sterne who deserted his own wife and

The stranger was beset with such thoughts as these, which passed in fragments through his mind, like tattered

flags fluttering above the combat. If he set aside for a moment the burdens of consciousness and of memory,

to watch the flower heads gently swayed by the breeze among the green thickets, a revulsion came over him,

life struggled against the oppressive thought of suicide, and his eyes rose to the sky: gray clouds, melancholy

He bent his way toward the Pont Royal, musing over the last fancies of others who had gone before him. He

smiled to himself as he remembered that Lord Castlereagh had satisfied the humblest of our needs before he

cut his throat, and that the academician Auger had sought for his snuffbox as he went to his death. He

analyzed these extravagances, and even examined himself; for as he stood aside against the parapet to allow a

porter to pass, his coat had been whitened somewhat by the contact, and he carefully brushed the dust from

his sleeve, to his own surprise. He reached the middle of the arch, and looked forebodingly at the water.

"Wretched weather for drowning yourself," said a ragged old woman, who grinned at him; "isn't the Seine

His answer was a ready smile, which showed the frenzied nature of his courage; then he shivered all at once

as he saw at a distance, by the door of the Tuileries, a shed with an inscription above it in letters twelve

A vision of M. Dacheux rose before him, equipped by his philanthropy, calling out and setting in motion the

too efficacious oars which break the heads of drowning men, if unluckily they should rise to the surface; he

saw a curious crowd collecting, running for a doctor, preparing fumigations, he read the maundering

paragraph in the papers, put between notes on a festivity and on the smiles of a balletdancer; he heard the

francs counted down by the prefect of police to the watermen. As a corpse, he was worth fifteen francs; but

now while he lived he was only a man of talent without patrons, without friends, without a mattress to lie on,

or any one to speak a word for hima perfect social cipher, useless to a State which gave itself no trouble

A death in broad daylight seemed degrading to him; he made up his mind to die at night so as to bequeath an

unrecognizable corpse to a world which had disregarded the greatness of life. He began his wanderings again,

turning towards the Quai Voltaire, imitating the lagging gait of an idler seeking to kill time. As he came

down the steps at the end of the bridge, his notice was attracted by the secondhand books displayed on the

parapet, and he was on the point of bargaining for some. He smiled, thrust his hands philosophically into his

pockets, and fell to strolling on again with a proud disdain in his manner, when he heard to his surprise some

A smile of hope lit his face, and slid from his lips over his features, over his brow, and brought a joyful light

to his eyes and his dark cheeks. It was a spark of happiness like one of the red dots that flit over the remains

of a burnt scrap of paper; but as it is with the black ashes, so it was with his face, it became dull again when

the stranger quickly drew out his hand and perceived three pennies. "Ah, kind gentleman! carita, carita; for

A little chimney sweeper, with puffed cheeks, all black with soot, and clad in tatters, held out his hand to beg

Two paces from the little Savoyard stood an old pauvre honteux, sickly and feeble, in wretched garments of

But the young man turned his eyes on him, and the old beggar stopped without another word, discerning in

The stranger threw the coins to the old man and the child, left the footway, and turned towards the houses; the

As he reached the shop window of a printseller, this man on the brink of death met a young woman

alighting from a showy carriage. He looked in delight at her prettiness, at the pale face appropriately framed

by the satin of her fashionable bonnet. Her slender form and graceful movements entranced him. Her skirt

had been slightly raised as she stepped to the pavement, disclosing a daintily fitting white stocking over the

delicate outlines beneath. The young lady went into the shop, purchased albums and sets of lithographs;

giving several gold coins for them, which glittered and rang upon the counter. The young man, seemingly

occupied with the prints in the window, fixed upon the fair stranger a gaze as eager as man can give, to

receive in exchange an indifferent glance, such as lights by accident on a passerby. For him it was a

leavetaking of love and of woman; but his final and strenuous questioning glance was neither understood

nor felt by the slightnatured woman there; her color did not rise, her eyes did not droop. What was it to her?

one more piece of adulation, yet another sigh only prompted the delightful thought at night, "I looked rather

The young man quickly turned to another picture, and only left it when she returned to her carriage. The

horses started off, the final vision of luxury and refinement went under an eclipse, just as that life of his

would soon do also. Slowly and sadly he followed the line of the shops, listlessly examining the specimens

on view. When the shops came to an end, he reviewed the Louvre, the Institute, the towers of Notre Dame, of

the Palais, the Pont des Arts; all these public monuments seemed to have taken their tone from the heavy gray

Fitful gleams of light gave a foreboding look to Paris; like a pretty woman, the city has mysterious fits of

ugliness or beauty. So the outer world seemed to be in a plot to steep this man about to die in a painful trance.

A prey to the maleficent power which acts relaxingly upon us by the fluid circulating through our nerves, his

whole frame seemed gradually to experience a dissolving process. He felt the anguish of these throes passing

through him in waves, and the houses and the crowd seemed to surge to and fro in a mist before his eyes. He

tried to escape the agitation wrought in his mind by the revulsions of his physical nature, and went toward the

shop of a dealer in antiquities, thinking to give a treat to his senses, and to spend the interval till nightfall in

He sought, one might say, to regain courage and to find a stimulant, like a criminal who doubts his power to

reach the scaffold. The consciousness of approaching death gave him, for the time being, the intrepidity of a

duchess with a couple of lovers, so that he entered the place with an abstracted look, while his lips displayed

a set smile like a drunkard's. Had not life, or rather had not death, intoxicated him? Dizziness soon overcame

him again. Things appeared to him in strange colors, or as making slight movements; his irregular pulse was

no doubt the cause; the blood that sometimes rushed like a burning torrent through his veins, and sometimes

lay torpid and stagnant as tepid water. He merely asked leave to see if the shop contained any curiosities

A plumpfaced young shopman with red hair, in an otterskin cap, left an old peasant woman in charge of

the shopa sort of feminine Caliban, employed in cleaning a stove made marvelous by Bernard Palissy's

"Look round, monsieur! We have nothing very remarkable here downstairs; but if I may trouble you to go up

to the first floor, I will show you some very fine mummies from Cairo, some inlaid pottery, and some carved

In the stranger's fearful position this cicerone's prattle and shopman's empty talk seemed like the petty

vexations by which narrow minds destroy a man of genius. But as he must even go through with it, he

appeared to listen to his guide, answering him by gestures or monosyllables; but imperceptibly he arrogated

the privilege of saying nothing, and gave himself up without hindrance to his closing meditations, which were

appalling. He had a poet's temperament, his mind had entered by chance on a vast field; and he must see

At a first glance the place presented a confused picture in which every achievement, human and divine, was

mingled. Crocodiles, monkeys, and serpents stuffed with straw grinned at glass from church windows,

seemed to wish to bite sculptured heads, to chase lacquered work, or to scramble up chandeliers. A Sevres

vase, bearing Napoleon's portrait by Mme. Jacotot, stood beside a sphinx dedicated to Sesostris. The

beginnings of the world and the events of yesterday were mingled with grotesque cheerfulness. A kitchen

jack leaned against a pyx, a republican sabre on a mediaeval hackbut. Mme. du Barry, with a star above her

head, naked, and surrounded by a cloud, seemed to look longingly out of Latour's pastel at an Indian chibook,

while she tried to guess the purpose of the spiral curves that wound towards her. Instruments of death,

poniards, curious pistols, and disguised weapons had been flung down pellmell among the paraphernalia of

daily life; porcelain tureens, Dresden plates, translucent cups from china, old saltcellars, comfitboxes

belonging to feudal times. A carved ivory ship sped full sail on the back of a motionless tortoise.

The Emperor Augustus remained unmoved and imperial with an airpump thrust into one eye. Portraits of

French sheriffs and Dutch burgomasters, phlegmatic now as when in life, looked down pallid and

Every land of earth seemed to have contributed some stray fragment of its learning, some example of its art.

Nothing seemed lacking to this philosophical kitchenmidden, from a redskin's calumet, a green and golden

slipper from the seraglio, a Moorish yataghan, a Tartar idol, to the soldier's tobacco pouch, to the priest's

ciborium, and the plumes that once adorned a throne. This extraordinary combination was rendered yet more

bizarre by the accidents of lighting, by a multitude of confused reflections of various hues, by the sharp

contrast of blacks and whites. Broken cries seemed to reach the ear, unfinished dramas seized upon the

imagination, smothered lights caught the eye. A thin coating of inevitable dust covered all the multitudinous

corners and convolutions of these objects of various shapes which gave highly picturesque effects.

First of all, the stranger compared the three galleries which civilization, cults, divinities, masterpieces,

dominions, carousals, sanity, and madness had filled to repletion, to a mirror with numerous facets, each

depicting a world. After this first hazy idea he would fain have selected his pleasures; but by dint of using his

eyes, thinking and musing, a fever began to possess him, caused perhaps by the gnawing pain of hunger. The

spectacle of so much existence, individual or national, to which these pledges bore witness, ended by

numbing his sensesthe purpose with which he entered the shop was fulfilled. He had left the real behind,

and had climbed gradually up to an ideal world; he had attained to the enchanted palace of ecstasy, whence

the universe appeared to him by fragments and in shapes of flame, as once the future blazed out before the

A crowd of sorrowing faces, beneficent and appalling, dark and luminous, far and near, gathered in numbers,

in myriads, in whole generations. Egypt, rigid and mysterious, arose from her sands in the form of a mummy

swathed in black bandages; then the Pharaohs swallowed up nations, that they might build themselves a

tomb; and he beheld Moses and the Hebrews and the desert, and a solemn antique world. Fresh and joyous, a

marble statue spoke to him from a twisted column of the pleasureloving myths of Greece and Ionia. Ah!

who would not have smiled with him to see, against the earthen red background, the brownfaced maiden

dancing with gleeful reverence before the god Priapus, wrought in the fine clay of an Etruscan vase? The

The whims of Imperial Rome were there in life, the bath was disclosed, the toilette of a languid Julia,

dreaming, waiting for her Tibullus. Strong with the might of Arabic spells, the head of Cicero evoked

memories of a free Rome, and unrolled before him the scrolls of Titus Livius. The young man beheld Senatus

Populusque Romanus; consuls, lictors, togas with purple fringes; the fighting in the Forum, the angry people,

Then Christian Rome predominated in his vision. A painter had laid heaven open; he beheld the Virgin Mary

wrapped in a golden cloud among the angels, shining more brightly than the sun, receiving the prayers of

sufferers, on whom this second Eve Regenerate smiles pityingly. At the touch of a mosaic, made of various

lavas from Vesuvius and Etna, his fancy fled to the hot tawny south of Italy. He was present at Borgia's

orgies, he roved among the Abruzzi, sought for Italian love intrigues, grew ardent over pale faces and dark,

almondshaped eyes. He shivered over midnight adventures, cut short by the cool thrust of a jealous blade, as

he saw a mediaeval dagger with a hilt wrought like lace, and spots of rust like splashes of blood upon it.

India and its religions took the shape of the idol with his peaked cap of fantastic form, with little bells, clad in

silk and gold. Close by, a mat, as pretty as the bayadere who once lay upon it, still gave out a faint scent of

sandal wood. His fancy was stirred by a goggleeyed Chinese monster, with mouth awry and twisted limbs,

the invention of a people who, grown weary of the monotony of beauty, found an indescribable pleasure in an

infinite variety of ugliness. A salt cellar from Benvenuto Cellini's workshop carried him back to the

Renaissance at its height, to the time when there was no restraint on art or morals, when torture was the sport

of sovereigns; and from their councils, churchmen with courtesans' arms about them issued decrees of

On a cameo he saw the conquests of Alexander, the massacres of Pizarro in a matchbox, and religious wars

disorderly, fanatical, and cruel, in the shadows of a helmet. Joyous pictures of chivalry were called up by a

suit of Milanese armor, brightly polished and richly wrought; a paladin's eyes seemed to sparkle yet under the

This sea of inventions, fashions, furniture, works of art and fiascos, made for him a poem without end.

Shapes and colors and projects all lived again for him, but his mind received no clear and perfect conception.

It was the poet's task to complete the sketches of the great master, who had scornfully mingled on his palette

the hues of the numberless vicissitudes of human life. When the world at large at last released him, when he

had pondered over many lands, many epochs, and various empires, the young man came back to the life of

the individual. He impersonated fresh characters, and turned his mind to details, rejecting the life of nations

Yonder was a sleeping child modeled in wax, a relic of Ruysch's collection, an enchanting creation which

brought back the happiness of his own childhood. The cotton garment of a Tahitian maid next fascinated him;

he beheld the primitive life of nature, the real modesty of naked chastity, the joys of an idleness natural to

mankind, a peaceful fate by a slow river of sweet water under a plantain tree that bears its pleasant manna

without the toil of man. Then all at once he became a corsair, investing himself with the terrible poetry that

Lara has given to the part: the thought came at the sight of the motherofpearl tints of a myriad seashells,

and grew as he saw madrepores redolent of the seaweeds and the storms of the Atlantic.

The sea was forgotten again at a distant view of exquisite miniatures; he admired a precious missal in

manuscript, adorned with arabesques in gold and blue. Thoughts of peaceful life swayed him; he devoted

himself afresh to study and research, longing for the easy life of the monk, devoid alike of cares and

pleasures; and from the depths of his cell he looked out upon the meadows, woods, and vineyards of his

convent. Pausing before some work of Teniers, he took for his own the helmet of the soldier or the poverty of

the artisan; he wished to wear a smokebegrimed cap with these Flemings, to drink their beer and join their

game at cards, and smiled upon the comely plumpness of a peasant woman. He shivered at a snowstorm by

Mieris; he seemed to take part in Salvator Rosa's battlepiece; he ran his fingers over a tomahawk form

Illinois, and felt his own hair rise as he touched a Cherokee scalpingknife. He marveled over the rebec that

he set in the hands of some lady of the land, drank in the musical notes of her ballad, and in the twilight by

the gothic arch above the hearth he told his love in a gloom so deep that he could not read his answer in her

He caught at all delights, at all sorrows; grasped at existence in every form; and endowed the phantoms

conjured up from that inert and plastic material so liberally with his own life and feelings, that the sound of

his own footsteps reached him as if from another world, or as the hum of Paris reaches the towers of Notre

He ascended the inner staircase which led to the first floor, with its votive shields, panoplies, carved shrines,

and figures on the wall at every step. Haunted by the strangest shapes, by marvelous creations belonging to

the borderland betwixt life and death, he walked as if under the spell of a dream. His own existence became a

matter of doubt to him; he was neither wholly alive nor dead, like the curious objects about him. The light

began to fade as he reached the showrooms, but the treasures of gold and silver heaped up there scarcely

seemed to need illumination from without. The most extravagant whims of prodigals, who have run through

millions to perish in garrets, had left their traces here in this vast bazar of human follies. Here, beside a

writing desk, made at the cost of 100,000 francs, and sold for a hundred pence, lay a lock with a secret worth

a king's ransom. The human race was revealed in all the grandeur of its wretchedness; in all the splendor of

its infinite littleness. An ebony table that an artist might worship, carved after Jean Goujon's designs, in years

of toil, had been purchased perhaps at the price of firewood. Precious caskets, and things that fairy hands

"You must have the worth of millions here!" cried the young man as he entered the last of an immense suite

"Thousands of millions, you might say," said the florid shopman; "but you have seen nothing as yet. Go up to

The stranger followed his guide to a fourth gallery, where one by one there passed before his wearied eyes

several pictures by Poussin, a magnificent statue by Michael Angelo, enchanting landscapes by Claude

Lorraine, a Gerard Dow (like a stray page from Sterne), Rembrandts, Murillos, and pictures by Velasquez, as

dark and full of color as a poem of Byron's; then came classic basreliefs, finelycut agates, wonderful

cameos! Works of art upon works of art, till the craftsman's skill palled on the mind, masterpiece after

masterpiece till art itself became hateful at last and enthusiasm died. He came upon a Madonna by Raphael,

but he was tired of Raphael; a figure by Correggio never received the glance it demanded of him. A priceless

vase of antique porphyry carved round about with pictures of the most grotesquely wanton of Roman

The ruins of fifteen hundred vanished years oppressed him; he sickened under all this human thought; felt

bored by all this luxury and art. He struggled in vain against the constantly renewed fantastic shapes that

Are not fearful poisons set up in the soul by a swift concentration of all her energies, her enjoyments, or

ideas; as modern chemistry, in its caprice, repeats the action of creation by some gas or other? Do not many

men perish under the shock of the sudden expansion of some moral acid within them?

"What is there in that box?" he inquired, as he reached a large closet final triumph of human skill,

originality, wealth, and splendor, in which there hung a large, square mahogany coffer, suspended from a nail

"Ah, monsieur keeps the key of it," said the stout assistant mysteriously. "If you wish to see the portrait, I will

"I don't know what he is," the other answered. Equally astonished, each looked for a moment at the other.

Then construing the stranger's silence as an order, the apprentice left him alone in the closet.

Have you never launched into the immensity of time and space as you read the geological writings of Cuvier?

Carried by his fancy, have you hung as if suspended by a magician's wand over the illimitable abyss of the

past? When the fossil bones of animals belonging to civilizations before the Flood are turned up in bed after

bed and layer upon layer of the quarries of Montmartre or among the schists of the Ural range, the soul

receives with dismay a glimpse of millions of peoples forgotten by feeble human memory and unrecognized

by permanent divine tradition, peoples whose ashes cover our globe with two feet of earth that yields bread to

Is not Cuvier the great poet of our era? Byron has given admirable expression to certain moral conflicts, but

our immortal naturalist has reconstructed past worlds from a few bleached bones; has rebuilt cities, like

Cadmus, with monsters' teeth; has animated forests with all the secrets of zoology gleaned from a piece of

coal; has discovered a giant population from the footprints of a mammoth. These forms stand erect, grow

large, and fill regions commensurate with their giant size. He treats figures like a poet; a naught set beside a

He can call up nothingness before you without the phrases of a charlatan. He searches a lump of gypsum,

finds an impression in it, says to you, "Behold!" All at once marble takes an animal shape, the dead come to

life, the history of the world is laid open before you. After countless dynasties of giant creatures, races of fish

and clans of mollusks, the race of man appears at last as the degenerate copy of a splendid model, which the

Creator has perchance destroyed. Emboldened by his gaze into the past, this petty race, children of yesterday,

can overstep chaos, can raise a psalm without end, and outline for themselves the story of the Universe in an

Apocalypse that reveals the past. After the tremendous resurrection that took place at the voice of this man,

the little drop in the nameless Infinite, common to all spheres, that is ours to use, and that we call Time,

seems to us a pitiable moment of life. We ask ourselves the purpose of our triumphs, our hatreds, our loves,

overwhelmed as we are by the destruction of so many past universes, and whether it is worth while to accept

the pain of life in order that hereafter we may become an intangible speck. Then we remain as if dead,

completely torn away from the present till the valet de chambre comes in and says, "Madame la comtesse

All the wonders which had brought the known world before the young man's mind wrought in his soul much

the same feeling of dejection that besets the philosopher investigating unknown creatures. He longed more

than ever for death as he flung himself back in a curule chair and let his eyes wander across the illusions

composing a panorama of the past. The pictures seemed to light up, the Virgin's heads smiled on him, the

statues seemed alive. Everything danced and swayed around him, with a motion due to the gloom and the

tormenting fever that racked his brain; each monstrosity grimaced at him, while the portraits on the canvas

closed their eyes for a little relief. Every shape seemed to tremble and start, and to leave its place gravely or

flippantly, gracefully or awkwardly, according to its fashion, character, and surroundings.

A mysterious Sabbath began, rivaling the fantastic scenes witnessed by Faust upon the Brocken. But these

optical illusions, produced by weariness, overstrained eyesight, or the accidents of twilight, could not alarm

the stranger. The terrors of life had no power over a soul grown familiar with the terrors of death. He even

gave himself up, half amused by its bizarre eccentricities, to the influence of this moral galvanism; its

phenomena, closely connected with his last thoughts, assured him that he was still alive. The silence about

him was so deep that he embarked once more in dreams that grew gradually darker and darker as if by magic,

as the light slowly faded. A last struggling ray from the sun lit up rosy answering lights. He raised his head

and saw a skeleton dimly visible, with its skull bent doubtfully to one side, as if to say, "The dead will none

He passed his hand over his forehead to shake off the drowsiness, and felt a cold breath of air as an unknown

furry something swept past his cheeks. He shivered. A muffled clatter of the windows followed; it was a bat,

he fancied, that had given him this chilly sepulchral caress. He could yet dimly see for a moment the shapes

that surrounded him, by the vague light in the west; then all these inanimate objects were blotted out in

uniform darkness. Night and the hour of death had suddenly come. Thenceforward, for a while, he lost

consciousness of the things about him; he was either buried in deep meditation or sleep overcame him,

brought on by weariness or by the stress of those many thoughts that lacerated his heart.

Suddenly he thought that an awful voice called him by name; it was like some feverish nightmare, when at a

step the dreamer falls headlong over into an abyss, and he trembled. He closed his eyes, dazzled by bright

rays from a red circle of light that shone out from the shadows. In the midst of the circle stood a little old man

who turned the light of the lamp upon him, yet he had not heard him enter, nor move, nor speak. There was

something magical about the apparition. The boldest man, awakened in such a sort, would have felt alarmed

at the sight of this figure, which might have issued from some sarcophagus hard by.

A curiously youthful look in the unmoving eyes of the spectre forbade the idea of anything supernatural; but

for all that, in the brief space between his dreaming and waking life, the young man's judgment remained

philosophically suspended, as Descartes advises. He was, in spite of himself, under the influence of an

unaccountable hallucination, a mystery that our pride rejects, and that our imperfect science vainly tries to

Imagine a short old man, thin and spare, in a long black velvet gown girded round him by a thick silk cord.

His long white hair escaped on either side of his face from under a black velvet cap which closely fitted his

head and made a formal setting for his countenance. His gown enveloped his body like a winding sheet, so

that all that was left visible was a narrow bleached human face. But for the wasted arm, thin as a draper's

wand, which held aloft the lamp that cast all its light upon him, the face would have seemed to hang in mid

air. A gray pointed beard concealed the chin of this fantastical appearance, and gave him the look of one of

those Jewish types which serve artists as models for Moses. His lips were so thin and colorless that it needed

a close inspection to find the lines of his mouth at all in the pallid face. His great wrinkled brow and hollow

bloodless cheeks, the inexorably stern expression of his small green eyes that no longer possessed eyebrows

or lashes, might have convinced the stranger that Gerard Dow's "Money Changer" had come down from his

frame. The craftiness of an inquisitor, revealed in those curving wrinkles and creases that wound about his

temples, indicated a profound knowledge of life. There was no deceiving this man, who seemed to possess a

The wisdom and the moral codes of every people seemed gathered up in his passive face, just as all the

productions of the globe had been heaped up in his dusty showrooms. He seemed to possess the tranquil

luminous vision of some god before whom all things are open, or the haughty power of a man who knows all

With two strokes of the brush a painter could have so altered the expression of this face, that what had been a

serene representation of the Eternal Father should change to the sneering mask of a Mephistopheles; for

though sovereign power was revealed by the forehead, mocking folds lurked about the mouth. He must have

sacrificed all the joys of earth, as he had crushed all human sorrows beneath his potent will. The man at the

brink of death shivered at the thought of the life led by this spirit, so solitary and remote from our world;

joyless, since he had no one illusion left; painless, because pleasure had ceased to exist for him. There he

stood, motionless and serene as a star in a bright mist. His lamp lit up the obscure closet, just as his green

This was the strange spectacle that startled the young man's returning sight, as he shook off the dreamy

fancies and thoughts of death that had lulled him. An instant of dismay, a momentary return to belief in

nursery tales, may be forgiven him, seeing that his senses were obscured. Much thought had wearied his

mind, and his nerves were exhausted with the strain of the tremendous drama within him, and by the scenes

that had heaped on him all the horrid pleasures that a piece of opium can produce.

But this apparition had appeared in Paris, on the Quai Voltaire, and in the nineteenth century; the time and

place made sorcery impossible. The idol of French scepticism had died in the house just opposite, the disciple

of GayLussac and Arago, who had held the charlatanism of intellect in contempt. And yet the stranger

submitted himself to the influence of an imaginative spell, as all of us do at times, when we wish to escape

from an inevitable certainty, or to tempt the power of Providence. So some mysterious apprehension of a

strange force made him tremble before the old man with the lamp. All of us have been stirred in the same

way by the sight of Napoleon, or of some other great man, made illustrious by his genius or by fame.

"You wish to see Raphael's portrait of Jesus Christ, monsieur?" the old man asked politely. There was

He set the lamp upon a broken column, so that all its light might fall on the brown case.

At the sacred names of Christ and Raphael the young man showed some curiosity. The merchant, who no

doubt looked for this, pressed a spring, and suddenly the mahogany panel slid noiselessly back in its groove,

and discovered the canvas to the stranger's admiring gaze. At sight of this deathless creation, he forgot his

fancies in the show rooms and the freaks of his dreams, and became himself again. The old man became a

being of flesh and blood, very much alive, with nothing chimerical about him, and took up his existence at

The sympathy and love, and the gentle serenity in the divine face, exerted an instant sway over the younger

spectator. Some influence falling from heaven bade cease the burning torment that consumed the marrow of

his bones. The head of the Saviour of mankind seemed to issue from among the shadows represented by a

dark background; an aureole of light shone out brightly from his hair; an impassioned belief seemed to glow

through him, and to thrill every feature. The word of life had just been uttered by those red lips, the sacred

sounds seemed to linger still in the air; the spectator besought the silence for those captivating parables,

hearkened for them in the future, and had to turn to the teachings of the past. The untroubled peace of the

divine eyes, the comfort of sorrowing souls, seemed an interpretation of the Evangel. The sweet triumphant

smile revealed the secret of the Catholic religion, which sums up all things in the precept, "Love one

another." This picture breathed the spirit of prayer, enjoined forgiveness, overcame self, caused sleeping

powers of good to waken. For this work of Raphael's had the imperious charm of music; you were brought

under the spell of memories of the past; his triumph was so absolute that the artist was forgotten. The

witchery of the lamplight heightened the wonder; the head seemed at times to flicker in the distance,

"I covered the surface of that picture with gold pieces," said the merchant carelessly.

"And now for death!" cried the young man, awakened from his musings. His last thought had recalled his fate

to him, as it led him imperceptibly back from the forlorn hopes to which he had clung.

"Ah, ha! then my suspicions were well founded!" said the other, and his hands held the young man's wrists in

"You, sir, have nothing to fear; it is not your life, but my own that is in question. . . . But why should I hide a

harmless fraud?" he went on, after a look at the anxious old man. "I came to see your treasures to while away

the time till night should come and I could drown myself decently. Who would grudge this last pleasure to a

While he spoke, the jealous merchant watched the haggard face of his pretended customer with keen eyes.

Perhaps the mournful tones of his voice reassured him, or he also read the dark signs of fate in the faded

features that had made the gamblers shudder; he released his hands, but, with a touch of caution, due to the

experience of some hundred years at least, he stretched his arm out to a sideboard as if to steady himself, took

"Have you been a supernumerary clerk of the Treasury for three years without receiving any perquisites?"

"Perhaps your father has expressed his regret for your birth a little too sharply? Or have you disgraced

"You have been hissed perhaps at the Funambules? Or you have had to compose couplets to pay for your

mistress' funeral? Do you want to be cured of the gold fever? Or to be quit of the spleen? For what blunder is

"You must not look among the common motives that impel suicides for the reason of my death. To spare

myself the task of disclosing my unheardof sufferings, for which language has no name, I will tell you

thisthat I am in the deepest, most humiliating, and most cruel trouble, and," he went on in proud tones that

harmonized ill with the words just uttered, "I have no wish to beg for either help or sympathy."

The two syllables which the old man pronounced resembled the sound of a rattle. Then he went on thus:

"Without compelling you to entreat me, without making you blush for it, and without giving you so much as

a French centime, a para from the Levant, a German heller, a Russian kopeck, a Scottish farthing, a single

obolus or sestertius from the ancient world, or one piastre from the new, without offering you anything

whatever in gold, silver, or copper, notes or drafts, I will make you richer, more powerful, and of more

The young man thought that the older was in his dotage, and waited in bewilderment without venturing to

"Turn round," said the merchant, suddenly catching up the lamp in order to light up the opposite wall; "look

The young man rose abruptly, and showed some surprise at the sight of a piece of shagreen which hung on

the wall behind his chair. It was only about the size of a fox's skin, but it seemed to fill the deep shadows of

the place with such brilliant rays that it looked like a small comet, an appearance at first sight inexplicable.

The young sceptic went up to this socalled talisman, which was to rescue him from all points of view, and

he soon found out the cause of its singular brilliancy. The dark grain of the leather had been so carefully

burnished and polished, the striped markings of the graining were so sharp and clear, that every particle of the

surface of the bit of Oriental leather was in itself a focus which concentrated the light, and reflected it vividly.

He accounted for this phenomenon categorically to the old man, who only smiled meaningly by way of

answer. His superior smile led the young scientific man to fancy that he himself had been deceived by some

imposture. He had no wish to carry one more puzzle to his grave, and hastily turned the skin over, like some

"Ah," he cried, "here is the mark of the seal which they call in the East the Signet of Solomon."

"So you know that, then?" asked the merchant. His peculiar method of laughter, two or three quick breathings

"Is there anybody in the world simple enough to believe in that idle fancy?" said the young man, nettled by

the spitefulness of the silent chuckle. "Don't you know," he continued, "that the superstitions of the East have

perpetuated the mystical form and the counterfeit characters of the symbol, which represents a mythical

dominion? I have no more laid myself open to a charge of credulity in this case, than if I had mentioned

"As you are an Orientalist," replied the other, "perhaps you can read that sentence."

He held the lamp close to the talisman, which the young man held towards him, and pointed out some

characters inlaid in the surface of the wonderful skin, as if they had grown on the animal to which it once

"I must admit," said the stranger, "that I have no idea how the letters could be engraved so deeply on the skin

of a wild ass." And he turned quickly to the tables strewn with curiosities and seemed to look for something.

"Something that will cut the leather, so that I can see whether the letters are printed or inlaid."

The old man held out his stiletto. The stranger took it and tried to cut the skin above the lettering; but when

he had removed a thin shaving of leather from them, the characters still appeared below, so clear and so

exactly like the surface impression, that for a moment he was not sure that he had cut anything away after all.

"The craftsmen of the Levant have secrets known only to themselves," he said, half in vexation, as he eyed

"Yes," said the old man, "it is better to attribute it to man's agency than to God's."

"So you read Sanskrit fluently," said the old man. "You have been in Persia perhaps, or in Bengal?"

"No, sir," said the stranger, as he felt the emblematical skin curiously. It was almost as rigid as a sheet of

The old merchant set the lamp back again upon the column, giving the other a look as he did so. "He has

"I don't know how to answer you. I have offered this talisman with its terrible powers to men with more

energy in them than you seem to me to have; but though they laughed at the questionable power it might

exert over their futures, not one of them was ready to venture to conclude the fateful contract proposed by an

"Tried it!" exclaimed the old man. "Suppose that you were on the column in the Place Vendome, would you

try flinging yourself into space? Is it possible to stay the course of life? Has a man ever been known to die by

halves? Before you came here, you had made up your mind to kill yourself, but all at once a mystery fills

your mind, and you think no more about death. You child! Does not any one day of your life afford mysteries

more absorbing? Listen to me. I saw the licentious days of Regency. I was like you, then, in poverty; I have

begged my bread; but for all that, I am now a centenarian with a couple of years to spare, and a millionaire to

boot. Misery was the making of me, ignorance has made me learned. I will tell you in a few words the great

secret of human life. By two instinctive processes man exhausts the springs of life within him. Two verbs

cover all the forms which these two causes of death may takeTo Will and To have your Will. Between

these two limits of human activity the wise have discovered an intermediate formula, to which I owe my good

fortune and long life. To Will consumes us, and To have our Will destroys us, but To Know steeps our feeble

organisms in perpetual calm. In me Thought has destroyed Will, so that Power is relegated to the ordinary

functions of my economy. In a word, it is not in the heart which can be broken, or in the senses that become

deadened, but it is in the brain that cannot waste away and survives everything else, that I have set my life.

Moderation has kept mind and body unruffled. Yet, I have seen the whole world. I have learned all

languages, lived after every manner. I have lent a Chinaman money, taking his father's corpse as a pledge,

slept in an Arab's tent on the security of his bare word, signed contracts in every capital of Europe, and left

my gold without hesitation in savage wigwams. I have attained everything, because I have known how to

"My one ambition has been to see. Is not Sight in a manner Insight? And to have knowledge or insight, is not

that to have instinctive possession? To be able to discover the very substance of fact and to unite its essence

to our essence? Of material possession what abides with you but an idea? Think, then, how glorious must be

the life of a man who can stamp all realities upon his thought, place the springs of happiness within himself,

and draw thence uncounted pleasures in idea, unspoiled by earthly stains. Thought is a key to all treasures;

the miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoyments have

been intellectual joys. I have reveled in the contemplation of seas, peoples, forests, and mountains! I have

seen all things, calmly, and without weariness; I have set my desires on nothing; I have waited in expectation

of everything. I have walked to and fro in the world as in a garden round about my own dwelling. Troubles,

loves, ambitions, losses, and sorrows, as men call them, are for me ideas, which I transmute into waking

dreams; I express and transpose instead of feeling them; instead of permitting them to prey upon my life, I

dramatize and expand them; I divert myself with them as if they were romances which I could read by the

power of vision within me. As I have never overtaxed my constitution, I still enjoy robust health; and as my

mind is endowed with all the force that I have not wasted, this head of mine is even better furnished than my

galleries. The true millions lie here," he said, striking his forehead. "I spend delicious days in communings

with the past; I summon before me whole countries, places, extents of sea, the fair faces of history. In my

imaginary seraglio I have all the women that I have never possessed. Your wars and revolutions come up

before me for judgment. What is a feverish fugitive admiration for some more or less brightly colored piece

of flesh and blood; some more or less rounded human form; what are all the disasters that wait on your erratic

whims, compared with the magnificent power of conjuring up the whole world within your soul, compared

with the immeasurable joys of movement, unstrangled by the cords of time, unclogged by the fetters of space;

the joys of beholding all things, of comprehending all things, of leaning over the parapet of the world to

question the other spheres, to hearken to the voice of God? There," he burst out, vehemently, "there are To

Will and To have your Will, both together," he pointed to the bit of shagreen; "there are your social ideas,

your immoderate desires, your excesses, your pleasures that end in death, your sorrows that quicken the pace

of life, for pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure. Who could determine the point where pleasure becomes

pain, where pain is still a pleasure? Is not the utmost brightness of the ideal world soothing to us, while the

lightest shadows of the physical world annoy? Is not knowledge the secret of wisdom? And what is folly but

"Very good then, a life of riotous excess for me!" said the stranger, pouncing upon the piece of shagreen.

"I had resolved my existence into thought and study," the stranger replied; "and yet they have not even

supported me. I am not to be gulled by a sermon worthy of Swedenborg, nor by your Oriental amulet, nor yet

by your charitable endeavors to keep me in a world wherein existence is no longer possible for me. . . . Let

me see now," he added, clutching the talisman convulsively, as he looked at the old man, "I wish for a royal

banquet, a carouse worthy of this century, which, it is said, has brought everything to perfection! Let me have

young boon companions, witty, unwarped by prejudice, merry to the verge of madness! Let one wine succeed

another, each more biting and perfumed than the last, and strong enough to bring about three days of

delirium! Passionate women's forms should grace that night! I would be borne away to unknown regions

beyond the confines of this world, by the car and fourwinged steed of a frantic and uproarious orgy. Let us

ascend to the skies, or plunge ourselves in the mire. I do not know if one soars or sinks at such moments, and

I do not care! Next, I bid this enigmatical power to concentrate all delights for me in one single joy. Yes, I

must comprehend every pleasure of earth and heaven in the final embrace that is to kill me. Therefore, after

the wine, I wish to hold high festival to Priapus, with songs that might rouse the dead, and kisses without end;

the sound of them should pass like the crackling of flame through Paris, should revive the heat of youth and

A laugh burst from the little old man. It rang in the young man's ears like an echo from hell; and tyrannously

"Do you imagine that my floors are going to open suddenly, so that luxuriouslyappointed tables may rise

through them, and guests from another world? No, no, young madcap. You have entered into the compact

now, and there is an end of it. Henceforward, your wishes will be accurately fulfilled, but at the expense of

your life. The compass of your days, visible in that skin, will contract according to the strength and number

of your desires, from the least to the most extravagant. The Brahmin from whom I had this skin once

explained to me that it would bring about a mysterious connection between the fortunes and wishes of its

possessor. Your first wish is a vulgar one, which I could fulfil, but I leave that to the issues of your new

existence. After all, you were wishing to die; very well, your suicide is only put off for a time."

The stranger was surprised and irritated that this peculiar old man persisted in not taking him seriously. A

half philanthropic intention peeped so clearly forth from his last jesting observation, that he exclaimed:

"I shall soon see, sir, if any change comes over my fortunes in the time it will take to cross the width of the

quay. But I should like us to be quits for such a momentous service; that is, if you are not laughing at an

unlucky wretch, so I wish that you may fall in love with an operadancer. You would understand the

pleasures of intemperance then, and might perhaps grow lavish of the wealth that you have husbanded so

He went out without heeding the old man's heavy sigh, went back through the galleries and down the

staircase, followed by the stout assistant who vainly tried to light his passage; he fled with the haste of a

robber caught in the act. Blinded by a kind of delirium, he did not even notice the unexpected flexibility of

the piece of shagreen, which coiled itself up, pliant as a glove in his excited fingers, till it would go into the

pocket of his coat, where he mechanically thrust it. As he rushed out of the door into the street, he ran up

These three friendly exclamations quickly followed the insults, as the light of a street lamp, flickering in the

"My dear fellow, you must come with us!" said the young man that Raphael had all but knocked down.

By fair means or foul, Raphael must go along with his friends towards the Pont des Arts; they surrounded

"We have been after you for about a week," the speaker went on. "At your respectable hotel de Saint Quentin,

where, by the way, the sign with the alternate black and red letters cannot be removed, and hangs out just as it

did in the time of Jean Jacques, that Leonarda of yours told us that you were off into the country. For all that,

we certainly did not look like duns, creditors, sheriff's officers, or the like. But no matter! Rastignac had seen

you the evening before at the Bouffons; we took courage again, and made it a point of honor to find out

whether you were roosting in a tree in the ChampsElysees, or in one of those philanthropic abodes where

the beggars sleep on a twopenny rope, or if, more luckily, you were bivouacking in some boudoir or other.

We could not find you anywhere. Your name was not in the jailers' registers at the St. Pelagie nor at La

Force! Government departments, cafes, libraries, lists of prefects' names, newspaper offices, restaurants,

greenroomsto cut it short, every lurking place in Paris, good or bad, has been explored in the most expert

manner. We bewailed the loss of a man endowed with such genius, that one might look to find him at Court

or in the common jails. We talked of canonizing you as a hero of July, and, upon my word, we regretted

As he spoke, the friends were crossing the Pont des Arts. Without listening to them, Raphael looked at the

Seine, at the clamoring waves that reflected the lights of Paris. Above that river, in which but now he had

thought to fling himself, the old man's prediction had been fulfilled, the hour of his death had been already

"We really regretted you," said his friend, still pursuing his theme. "It was a question of a plan in which we

included you as a superior person, that is to say, somebody who can put himself above other people. The

constitutional thimblerig is carried on today, dear boy, more seriously than ever. The infamous monarchy,

displaced by the heroism of the people, was a sort of drab, you could laugh and revel with her; but La Patrie

is a shrewish and virtuous wife, and willy nilly you must take her prescribed endearments. Then besides, as

you know, authority passed over from the Tuileries to the journalists, at the time when the Budget changed its

quarters and went from the Faubourg SaintGermain to the Chaussee de Antin. But this you may not know

perhaps. The Government, that is, the aristocracy of lawyers and bankers who represent the country today,

just as the priests used to do in the time of the monarchy, has felt the necessity of mystifying the worthy

people of France with a few new words and old ideas, like philosophers of every school, and all strong

intellects ever since time began. So now Royalistnational ideas must be inculcated, by proving to us that it is

far better to pay twelve million francs, thirtythree centimes to La Patrie, represented by Messieurs

Suchand Such, than to pay eleven hundred million francs, nine centimes to a king who used to say _I_

instead of WE. In a word, a journal, with two or three hundred thousand francs, good, at the back of it, has

just been started, with a view to making an opposition paper to content the discontented, without prejudice to

the national government of the citizenking. We scoff at liberty as at despotism now, and at religion or

incredulity quite impartially. And since, for us, 'our country' means a capital where ideas circulate and are

sold at so much a line, a succulent dinner every day, and the play at frequent intervals, where profligate

women swarm, where suppers last on into the next day, and light loves are hired by the hour like cabs; and

since Paris will always be the most adorable of all countries, the country of joy, liberty, wit, pretty women,

mauvais sujets, and good wine; where the truncheon of authority never makes itself disagreeably felt, because

one is so close to those who wield it,we, therefore, sectaries of the god Mephistopheles, have engaged to

whitewash the public mind, to give fresh costumes to the actors, to put a new plank or two in the government

booth, to doctor doctrinaires, and warm up old Republicans, to touch up the Bonapartists a bit, and revictual

the Centre; provided that we are allowed to laugh in petto at both kings and peoples, to think one thing in the

morning and another at night, and to lead a merry life a la Panurge, or to recline upon soft cushions, more

"The sceptre of this burlesque and macaronic kingdom," he went on, "we have reserved for you; so we are

taking you straightway to a dinner given by the founder of the said newspaper, a retired banker, who, at a loss

to know what to do with his money, is going to buy some brains with it. You will be welcomed as a brother,

we shall hail you as king of these free lances who will undertake anything; whose perspicacity discovers the

intentions of Austria, England, or Russia before either Russia, Austria or England have formed any. Yes, we

will invest you with the sovereignty of those puissant intellects which give to the world its Mirabeaus,

Talleyrands, Pitts, and Metternichsall the clever Crispins who treat the destinies of a kingdom as gamblers'

stakes, just as ordinary men play dominoes for Kirschenwasser. We have given you out to be the most

undaunted champion who ever wrestled in a drinkingbout at close quarters with the monster called

Carousal, whom all bold spirits wish to try a fall with; we have gone so far as to say that you have never yet

been worsted. I hope you will not make liars of us. Taillefer, our amphitryon, has undertaken to surpass the

circumscribed saturnalias of the petty modern Lucullus. He is rich enough to infuse pomp into trifles, and

style and charm into dissipation . . . Are you listening, Raphael?" asked the orator, interrupting himself.

"Yes," answered the young man, less surprised by the accomplishment of his wishes than by the natural

He could not bring himself to believe in magic, but he marveled at the accidents of human fate.

"Yes, you say, just as if you were thinking of your grandfather's demise," remarked one of his neighbors.

"Ah!" cried Raphael, "I was thinking, my friends, that we are in a fair way to become very great scoundrels,"

and there was an ingenuousness in his tones that set these writers, the hope of young France, in a roar. "So far

our blasphemies have been uttered over our cups; we have passed our judgments on life while drunk, and

taken men and affairs in an afterdinner frame of mind. We were innocent of action; we were bold in words.

But now we are to be branded with the hot iron of politics; we are going to enter the convict's prison and to

drop our illusions. Although one has no belief left, except in the devil, one may regret the paradise of one's

youth and the age of innocence, when we devoutly offered the tip of our tongue to some good priest for the

consecrated wafer of the sacrament. Ah, my good friends, our first peccadilloes gave us so much pleasure

because the consequent remorse set them off and lent a keen relish to them; but nowadays"

"There is a word as high as the gallows and deeper than the Seine," said Raphael.

"Oh, you don't understand me; I mean political crime. Since this morning, a conspirator's life is the only one I

covet. I don't know that the fancy will last over tomorrow, but tonight at least my gorge rises at the

anaemic life of our civilization and its railroad evenness. I am seized with a passion for the miseries of retreat

from Moscow, for the excitements of the Red Corsair, or for a smuggler's life. I should like to go to Botany

Bay, as we have no Chartreaux left us here in France; it is a sort of infirmary reserved for little Lord Byrons

who, having crumpled up their lives like a serviette after dinner, have nothing left to do but to set their

country ablaze, blow their own brains out, plot for a republic or clamor for a war"

"Emile," Raphael's neighbor called eagerly to the speaker, "on my honor, but for the revolution of July I

would have taken orders, and gone off down into the country somewhere to lead the life of an animal,

"Not bad that, for a journalist! But hold your tongue, we are going through a crowd of subscribers.

Journalism, look you, is the religion of modern society, and has even gone a little further."

Chatting thus, like good fellows who have known their De Viris illustribus for years past, they reached a

Emile was a journalist who had acquired more reputation by dint of doing nothing than others had derived

from their achievements. A bold, caustic, and powerful critic, he possessed all the qualities that his defects

permitted. An outspoken giber, he made numberless epigrams on a friend to his face; but would defend him,

if absent, with courage and loyalty. He laughed at everything, even at his own career. Always impecunious,

he yet lived, like all men of his calibre, plunged in unspeakable indolence. He would fling some word

containing volumes in the teeth of folk who could not put a syllable of sense into their books. He lavished

promises that he never fulfilled; he made a pillow of his luck and reputation, on which he slept, and ran the

risk of waking up to old age in a workhouse. A steadfast friend to the gallows foot, a cynical swaggerer with

"In the language of Maitre Alcofribas, we are about to make a famous troncon de chiere lie," he remarked to

Raphael as he pointed out the flowerstands that made a perfumed forest of the staircase.

"I like a vestibule to be well warmed and richly carpeted," Raphael said. "Luxury in the peristyle is not

"And up above we are going to drink and make merry once more, my dear Raphael. Ah! yes," he went on,

"and I hope we are going to come off conquerors, too, and walk over everybody else's head."

As he spoke, he jestingly pointed to the guests. They were entering a large room which shone with gilding

and lights, and there all the younger men of note in Paris welcomed them. Here was one who had just

revealed fresh powers, his first picture vied with the glories of Imperial art. There, another, who but yesterday

had launched forth a volume, an acrid book filled with a sort of literary arrogance, which opened up new

ways to the modern school. A sculptor, not far away, with vigorous power visible in his rough features, was

chatting with one of those unenthusiastic scoffers who can either see excellence anywhere or nowhere, as it

happens. Here, the cleverest of our caricaturists, with mischievous eyes and bitter tongue, lay in wait for

epigrams to translate into pencil strokes; there, stood the young and audacious writer, who distilled the

quintessence of political ideas better than any other man, or compressed the work of some prolific writer as

he held him up to ridicule; he was talking with the poet whose works would have eclipsed all the writings of

the time if his ability had been as strenuous as his hatreds. Both were trying not to say the truth while they

kept clear of lies, as they exchanged flattering speeches. A famous musician administered soothing

consolation in a rallying fashion, to a young politician who had just fallen quite unhurt, from his rostrum.

Young writers who lacked style stood beside other young writers who lacked ideas, and authors of poetical

At the sight of all these incomplete beings, a simple Saint Simonian, ingenuous enough to believe in his own

doctrine, charitably paired them off, designing, no doubt, to convert them into monks of his order. A few men

of science mingled in the conversation, like nitrogen in the atmosphere, and several vaudevillistes shed rays

like the sparking diamonds that give neither light nor heat. A few paradox mongers, laughing up their

sleeves at any folk who embraced their likes or dislikes in men or affairs, had already begun a twoedged

policy, conspiring against all systems, without committing themselves to any side. Then there was the

selfappointed critic who admires nothing, and will blow his nose in the middle of a cavatina at the Bouffons,

who applauds before any one else begins, and contradicts every one who says what he himself was about to

say; he was there giving out the sayings of wittier men for his own. Of all the assembled guests, a future lay

before some five; ten or so should acquire a fleeting renown; as for the rest, like all mediocrities, they might

The anxious jocularity of a man who is expending two thousand crowns sat on their host. His eyes turned

impatiently towards the door from time to time, seeking one of his guests who kept him waiting. Very soon a

stout little person appeared, who was greeted by a complimentary murmur; it was the notary who had

invented the newspaper that very morning. A valetdechambre in black opened the doors of a vast

diningroom, whither every one went without ceremony, and took his place at an enormous table.

Raphael took a last look round the room before he left it. His wish had been realized to the full. The rooms

were adorned with silk and gold. Countless wax tapers set in handsome candelabra lit up the slightest details

of gilded friezes, the delicate bronze sculpture, and the splendid colors of the furniture. The sweet scent of

rare flowers, set in stands tastefully made of bamboo, filled the air. Everything, even the curtains, was

pervaded by elegance without pretension, and there was a certain imaginative charm about it all which acted

"An income of a hundred thousand livres a year is a very nice beginning of the catechism, and a wonderful

assistance to putting morality into our actions," he said, sighing. "Truly my sort of virtue can scarcely go

afoot, and vice means, to my thinking, a garret, a threadbare coat, a gray hat in winter time, and sums owing

to the porter. . . . I should like to live in the lap of luxury a year, or six months, no matter! And then

afterwards, die. I should have known, exhausted, and consumed a thousand lives, at any rate."

"Why, you are taking the tone of a stockbroker in good luck," said Emile, who overheard him. "Pooh! your

riches would be a burden to you as soon as you found that they would spoil your chances of coming out

above the rest of us. Hasn't the artist always kept the balance true between the poverty of riches and the riches

of poverty? And isn't struggle a necessity to some of us? Look out for your digestion, and only look," he

added, with a mockheroic gesture, "at the majestic, thrice holy, and edifying appearance of this amiable

capitalist's diningroom. That man has in reality only made his money for our benefit. Isn't he a kind of

sponge of the polyp order, overlooked by naturalists, which should be carefully squeezed before he is left for

his heirs to feed upon? There is style, isn't there, about those bas reliefs that adorn the walls? And the

lustres, and the pictures, what luxury well carried out! If one may believe those who envy him, or who know,

or think they know, the origins of his life, then this man got rid of a German and some othershis best friend

for one, and the mother of that friend, during the Revolution. Could you house crimes under the venerable

Taillefer's silvering locks? He looks to me a very worthy man. Only see how the silver sparkles, and is every

glittering ray like a stab of a dagger to him? . . . Let us go in, one might as well believe in Mahomet. If

common report speak truth, here are thirty men of talent, and good fellows too, prepared to dine off the flesh

and blood of a whole family; . . . and here are we ourselves, a pair of youngsters full of openhearted

enthusiasm, and we shall be partakers in his guilt. I have a mind to ask our capitalist whether he is a

"No, not now," cried Raphael, "but when he is dead drunk, we shall have had our dinner then."

The two friends sat down laughing. First of all, by a glance more rapid than a word, each paid his tribute of

admiration to the splendid general effect of the long table, white as a bank of freshlyfallen snow, with its

symmetrical line of covers, crowned with their pale golden rolls of bread. Rainbow colors gleamed in the

starry rays of light reflected by the glass; the lights of the tapers crossed and recrossed each other indefinitely;

Few words were spoken. Neighbors exchanged glances as the Maderia circulated. Then the first course

appeared in all its glory; it would have done honor to the late Cambaceres, BrillatSavarin would have

celebrated it. The wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, white and red, were royally lavished. This first part of

the banquet might been compared in every way to a rendering of some classical tragedy. The second act grew

a trifle noisier. Every guest had had a fair amount to drink, and had tried various crus at this pleasure, so that

as the remains of the magnificent first course were removed, tumultuous discussions began; a pale brow here

and there began to flush, sundry noses took a purpler hue, faces lit up, and eyes sparkled.

While intoxication was only dawning, the conversation did not overstep the bounds of civility; but banter and

bon mots slipped by degrees from every tongue; and then slander began to rear its little snake's heard, and

spoke in dulcet tones; a few shrewd ones here and there gave heed to it, hoping to keep their heads. So the

second course found their minds somewhat heated. Every one ate as he spoke, spoke while he ate, and drank

without heeding the quantity of the liquor, the wine was so biting, the bouquet so fragrant, the example

around so infectious. Taillefer made a point of stimulating his guests, and plied them with the formidable

The champagne, impatiently expected and lavishly poured out, was a scourge of fiery sparks to these men;

released like posthorses from some mailcoach by a relay; they let their spirits gallop away into the wilds of

argument to which no one listened, began to tell stories which had no auditors, and repeatedly asked

questions to which no answer was made. Only the loud voice of wassail could be heard, a voice made up of a

hundred confused clamors, which rose and grew like a crescendo of Rossini's. Insidious toasts, swagger, and

Each renounced any pride in his own intellectual capacity, in order to vindicate that of hogsheads, casks, and

vats; and each made noise enough for two. A time came when the footmen smiled, while their masters all

talked at once. A philosopher would have been interested, doubtless, by the singularity of the thoughts

expressed, a politician would have been amazed by the incongruity of the methods discussed in the melee of

words or doubtfully luminous paradoxes, where truths, grotesquely caparisoned, met in conflict across the

uproar of brawling judgments, of arbitrary decisions and folly, much as bullets, shells, and grapeshot are

It was at once a volume and a picture. Every philosophy, religion, and moral code differing so greatly in

every latitude, every government, every great achievement of the human intellect, fell before a scythe as long

as Time's own; and you might have found it hard to decide whether it was wielded by Gravity intoxicated, or

by Inebriation grown sober and clearsighted. Borne away by a kind of tempest, their minds, like the sea

raging against the cliffs, seemed ready to shake the laws which confine the ebb and flow of civilization;

unconsciously fulfilling the will of God, who has suffered evil and good to abide in nature, and reserved the

secret of their continual strife to Himself. A frantic travesty of debate ensued, a Walpurgisrevel of intellects.

Between the dreary jests of these children of the Revolution over the inauguration of a newspaper, and the

talk of the joyous gossips at Gargantua's birth, stretched the gulf that divides the nineteenth century from the

sixteenth. Laughingly they had begun the work of destruction, and our journalists laughed amid the ruins.

"What is the name of that young man over there?" said the notary, indicating Raphael. "I thought I heard

"What stuff is this?" said Emile, laughing; "plain Valentin, say you? Raphael DE Valentin, if you please. We

bear an eagle or, on a field sable, with a silver crown, beak and claws gules, and a fine motto: NON CECIDIT

ANIMUS. We are no foundling child, but a descendant of the Emperor Valens, of the stock of the

Valentinois, founders of the cities of Valence in France, and Valencia in Spain, rightful heirs to the Empire of

the East. If we suffer Mahmoud on the throne of Byzantium, it is out of pure condescension, and for lack of

With a fork flourished above Raphael's head, Emile outlined a crown upon it. The notary bethought himself a

moment, but soon fell to drinking again, with a gesture peculiar to himself; it was quite impossible, it seemed

to say to secure in his clientele the cities of Valence and Byzantium, the Emperor Valens, Mahmoud, and the

"Should not the destruction of those anthills, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, and Venice, each crushed beneath

the foot of a passing giant, serve as a warning to man, vouchsafed by some mocking power?" said Claude

Vignon, who must play the Bossuet, as a sort of purchased slave, at the rate of fivepence a line.

"Perhaps Moses, Sylla, Louis XI., Richelieu, Robespierre, and Napoleon were but the same man who crosses

our civilizations now and again, like a comet across the sky," said a disciple of Ballanche.

"Come, now," said the man who set up for a critic, "there is nothing more elastic in the world than your

"Well, sir, Louis XIV. sacrificed more lives over digging the foundations of the Maintenon's aqueducts, than

the Convention expended in order to assess the taxes justly, to make one law for everybody, and one nation of

France, and to establish the rule of equal inheritance," said Massol, whom the lack of a syllable before his

"Are you going to leave our heads on our shoulders?" asked Moreau (of the Oise), a substantial farmer. "You,

"Where is the use? Aren't the principles of social order worth some sacrifices, sir?"

"Hi! Bixiou! What'shisname, the Republican, considers a landowner's head a sacrifice!" said a young man

"Men and events count for nothing," said the Republican, following out his theory in spite of hiccoughs; "in

"What an abomination! Then you would ruthlessly put your friends to death for a shibboleth?"

"Eh, sir! the man who feels compunction is your thorough scoundrel, for he has some notion of virtue; while

Peter the Great and the Duke of Alva were embodied systems, and the pirate Monbard an organization."

"That stupid Republic of yours makes me feel queasy. We sha'n't be able to carve a capon in peace, because

"Ah, my little Brutus, stuffed with truffles, your principles are all right enough. But you are like my valet, the

rogue is so frightfully possessed with a mania for property that if I left him to clean my clothes after his

"Crass idiots!" replied the Republican, "you are for setting a nation straight with toothpicks. To your way of

"Aren't they a bore with their politics!" said the notary Cardot. "Shut up. That's enough of it. There is no

knowledge nor virtue worth shedding a drop of blood for. If Truth were brought into liquidation, we might

"It would be much less trouble, no doubt, to amuse ourselves with evil, rather than dispute about good.

Moreover, I would give all the speeches made for forty years past at the Tribune for a trout, for one of

"Quite right! . . . Hand me the asparagus. Because, after all, liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to

despotism, and despotism back again to liberty. Millions have died without securing a triumph for any one

system. Is not that the vicious circle in which the whole moral world revolves? Man believes that he has

"Oh! oh!" cried Cursy, the vaudevilliste; "in that case, gentlemen, here's to Charles X., the father of liberty."

"Why not?" asked Emile. "When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.

"Let us drink to the imbecility of authority, which gives us such an authority over imbeciles!" said the good

"Napoleon left us glory, at any rate, my good friend!" exclaimed a naval officer who had never left Brest.

"Glory is a poor bargain; you buy it dear, and it will not keep. Does not the egotism of the great take the form

"The first inventor of ditches must have been a weakling, for society is only useful to the puny. The savage

and the philosopher, at either extreme of the moral scale, hold property in equal horror."

"All very fine!" said Cardot; "but if there were no property, there would be no documents to draw up."

"Gentlemen, listen to me! HOW TO KILL AN UNCLE. Silence! (Cries of "Hush! hush!") In the first place,

take an uncle, large and stout, seventy years old at least, they are the best uncles. (Sensation.) Get him to eat a

"Then," the speaker on uncles went on, "tell him, while he is digesting it, that his banker has failed."

"Oh, ho! No and yes, is not that the sumup of all religious, political, or literary dissertations? Man is a

"Education, there's a pretty piece of tomfoolery. M. Heineffettermach estimates the number of printed

volumes at more than a thousand millions; and a man cannot read more than a hundred and fifty thousand in

his lifetime. So, just tell me what that word education means. For some it consists in knowing the name of

Alexander's horse, of the dog Berecillo, of the Seigneur d'Accords, and in ignorance of the man to whom we

owe the discovery of rafting and the manufacture of porcelain. For others it is the knowledge how to burn a

will and live respected, be looked up to and popular, instead of stealing a watch with halfa dozen

aggravating circumstances, after a previous conviction, and so perishing, hated and dishonored, in the Place

"The consequence of a Constitution is the immediate stultification of intellects. Art, science, public works,

everything, is consumed by a horribly egoistic feeling, the leprosy of the time. Three hundred of your

bourgeoisie, set down on benches, will only think of planting poplars. Tyranny does great things lawlessly,

"Your reciprocal instruction will turn out counters in human flesh," broke in an Absolutist. "All individuality

"For all that, is not the aim of society to secure happiness to each member of it?" asked the SaintSimonian.

"If you had an income of fifty thousand livres, you would not think much about the people. If you are smitten

with a tender passion for the race, go to Madagascar; there you will find a nice little nation all ready to

SaintSimonize, classify, and cork up in your phials, but here every one fits into his niche like a peg in a

hole. A porter is a porter, and a blockhead is a fool, without a college of fathers to promote them to those

"And why not? Despotism pleases me; it implies a certain contempt for the human race. I have no animosity

against kings, they are so amusing. Is it nothing to sit enthroned in a room, at a distance of thirty million

"Let us once more take a broad view of civilization," said the man of learning who, for the benefit of the

inattentive sculptor, had opened a discussion on primitive society and autochthonous races. "The vigor of a

nation in its origin was in a way physical, unitary, and crude; then as aggregations increased, government

advanced by a decomposition of the primitive rule, more or less skilfully managed. For example, in remote

ages national strength lay in theocracy, the priest held both sword and censer; a little later there were two

priests, the pontiff and the king. Today our society, the latest word of civilization, has distributed power

according to the number of combinations, and we come to the forces called business, thought, money, and

eloquence. Authority thus divided is steadily approaching a social dissolution, with interest as its one

opposing barrier. We depend no longer on either religion or physical force, but upon intellect. Can a book

replace the sword? Can discussion be a substitute for action? That is the question."

"Intellect has made an end of everything," cried the Carlist. "Come now! Absolute freedom has brought about

national suicides; their triumph left them as listless as an English millionaire."

"Won't you tell us something new? You have made fun of authority of all sorts today, which is every bit as

vulgar as denying the existence of God. So you have no belief left, and the century is like an old Sultan worn

out by debauchery! Your Byron, in short, sings of crime and its emotions in a final despair of poetry."

"Don't you know," replied Bianchon, quite drunk by this time, "that a dose of phosphorus more or less makes

the man of genius or the scoundrel, a clever man or an idiot, a virtuous person or a criminal?"

"Can any one treat of virtue thus?" cried Cursy. "Virtue, the subject of every drama at the theatre, the

"Be quiet, you ass. You are an Achilles for virtue, without his heel," said Bixiou.

"What will you bet that I will drink a bottle of champagne like a flash, at one pull?"

"Drunk as lords," muttered a young man gravely, trying to give some wine to his waistcoat.

"Opinion? That is the most vicious jade of all. According to you moralists and politicians, the laws you set up

are always to go before those of nature, and opinion before conscience. You are right and wrong both.

Suppose society bestows down pillows on us, that benefit is made up for by the gout; and justice is likewise

"Wretch!" Emile broke in upon the misanthrope, "how can you slander civilization here at table, up to the

eyes in wines and exquisite dishes? Eat away at that roebuck with the gilded horns and feet, and do not carp

"Is it any fault of mine if Catholicism puts a million deities in a sack of flour, that Republics will end in a

Napoleon, that monarchy dwells between the assassination of Henry IV. and the trial of Louis XVI., and

"So you want to discount heaven, a thoroughly commercial notion. Ancient religions were but the unchecked

development of physical pleasure, but we have developed a soul and expectations; some advance has been

"What can you expect, my friends, of a century filled with politics to repletion?" asked Nathan. "What befell

The History of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, a most entrancing conception? . . ."

"I say," the wouldbe critic cried down the whole length of the table. "The phrases might have been drawn at

"Ah, I can't stand upright, perhaps?" asked the pugnacious Nathan, straightening himself up like a stagbeetle

He stared stupidly round the table, then, completely exhausted by the effort, sank back into his chair, and

"Would it not have been nice," the critic said to his neighbor, "to fight about a book I have neither read nor

"Kant? Yet another ball flung out for fools to sport with, sir! Materialism and spiritualism are a fine pair of

battledores with which charlatans in long gowns keep a shuttlecock agoing. Suppose that God is

everywhere, as Spinoza says, or that all things proceed from God, as says St. Paul . . . the nincompoops, the

door shuts or opens, but isn't the movement the same? Does the fowl come from the egg, or the egg from the

"Professors' chairs were not made for philosophy, but philosophy for the professors' chairs. Put on a pair of

"Where but in Paris will you find such a ready and rapid exchange of thought?" cried Bixiou in a deep, bass

The artist buttoned his black coat to the collar, put on yellow gloves, and began to burlesque the Revue des

Deux Mondes by acting a squinting old lady; but the uproar drowned his voice, and no one heard a word of

the satire. Still, if he did not catch the spirit of the century, he represented the Revue at any rate, for his own

Dessert was served as if by magic. A huge epergne of gilded bronze from Thomire's studio overshadowed the

table. Tall statuettes, which a celebrated artist had endued with ideal beauty according to conventional

European notions, sustained and carried pyramids of strawberries, pines, fresh dates, golden grapes,

clearskinned peaches, oranges brought from Setubal by steamer, pomegranates, Chinese fruit; in short, all

the surprises of luxury, miracles of confectionery, the most tempting dainties, and choicest delicacies. The

coloring of this epicurean work of art was enhanced by the splendors of porcelain, by sparkling outlines of

gold, by the chasing of the vases. Poussin's landscapes, copied on Sevres ware, were crowned with graceful

The revenue of a German prince would not have defrayed the cost of this arrogant display. Silver and

motherofpearl, gold and crystal, were lavished afresh in new forms; but scarcely a vague idea of this

almost Oriental fairyland penetrated eyes now heavy with wine, or crossed the delirium of intoxication. The

fire and fragrance of the wines acted like potent philters and magical fumes, producing a kind of mirage in

the brain, binding feet, and weighing down hands. The clamor increased. Words were no longer distinct,

glasses flew in pieces, senseless peals of laughter broke out. Cursy snatched up a horn and struck up a

flourish on it. It acted like a signal given by the devil. Yells, hisses, songs, cries, and groans went up from the

maddened crew. You might have smiled to see men, lighthearted by nature, grow tragical as Crebillon's

dramas, and pensive as a sailor in a coach. Hardheaded men blabbed secrets to the inquisitive, who were

long past heeding them. Saturnine faces were wreathed in smiles worthy of a pirouetting dancer. Claude

Animal likenesses, so curiously traced by physiologists in human faces, came out in gestures and behavior. A

book lay open for a Bichat if he had repaired thither fasting and collected. The master of the house, knowing

his condition, did not dare stir, but encouraged his guests' extravangances with a fixed grimacing smile,

meant to be hospitable and appropriate. His large face, turning from blue and red to a purple shade terrible to

see, partook of the general commotion by movements like the heaving and pitching of a brig.

"Capital punishment is going to be abolished, they say, in favor of the Revolution of July," answered

"And on his tombstone," Emile began, with a sardonic laugh, "the stonemason will carve 'Passerby, accord a

tear, in memory of one that's here!' Oh," he continued, "I would cheerfully pay a hundred sous to any

mathematician who would prove the existence of hell to me by an algebraical equation."

"Don't look!" Raphael cried, pouncing upon it. "Who knows? Suspense is so pleasant."

"Unluckily," Emile said, with burlesque melancholy, "I can see no haltingplace between the unbeliever's

arithmetic and the papal Pater noster. Pshaw! let us drink. Trinq was, I believe, the oracular answer of the

"We owe our arts and monuments to the Pater noster, and our knowledge, too, perhaps; and a still greater

benefitmodern governmentwhereby a vast and teeming society is wondrously represented by some five

hundred intellects. It neutralizes opposing forces and gives free play to CIVILIZATION, that Titan queen

who has succeeded the ancient terrible figure of the KING, that sham Providence, reared by man between

himself and heaven. In the face of such achievements, atheism seems like a barren skeleton. What do you

"I am thinking of the seas of blood shed by Catholicism." Emile replied, quite unimpressed. "It has drained

our hearts and veins dry to make a mimic deluge. No matter! Every man who thinks must range himself

beneath the banner of Christ, for He alone has consummated the triumph of spirit over matter; He alone has

revealed to us, like a poet, an intermediate world that separates us from the Deity."

"Believest thou?" asked Raphael with an unaccountable drunken smile. "Very good; we must not commit

And they drained the chalice filled up with science, carbonic acid gas, perfumes, poetry, and incredulity.

"If the gentlemen will go to the drawingroom, coffee is ready for them," said the majordomo.

There was scarcely one of those present whose mind was not floundering by this time in the delights of

chaos, where every spark of intelligence is quenched, and the body, set free from its tyranny, gives itself up to

the frenetic joys of liberty. Some who had arrived at the apogee of intoxication were dejected, as they

painfully tried to arrest a single thought which might assure them of their own existence; others, deep in the

heavy morasses of indigestion, denied the possibility of movement. The noisy and the silent were oddly

For all that, when new joys were announced to them by the stentorian tones of the servant, who spoke on his

master's behalf, they all rose, leaning upon, dragging or carrying one another. But on the threshold of the

room the entire crew paused for a moment, motionless, as if fascinated. The intemperate pleasures of the

banquet seemed to fade away at this titillating spectacle, prepared by their amphitryon to appeal to the most

Beneath the shining waxlights in a golden chandelier, round about a table inlaid with gilded metal, a group

of women, whose eyes shone like diamonds, suddenly met the stupefied stare of the revelers. Their toilettes

were splendid, but less magnificent than their beauty, which eclipsed the other marvels of this palace. A light

shone from their eyes, bewitching as those of sirens, more brilliant and ardent than the blaze that streamed

down upon the snowy marble, the delicately carved surfaces of bronze, and lit up the satin sheen of the

tapestry. The contrasts of their attitudes and the slight movements of their heads, each differing in character

and nature of attraction, set the heart afire. It was like a thicket, where blossoms mingled with rubies,

sapphires, and coral; a combination of gossamer scarves that flickered like beaconlights; of black ribbons

about snowy throats; of gorgeous turbans and demurely enticing apparel. It was a seraglio that appealed to

every eye, and fulfilled every fancy. Each form posed to admiration was scarcely concealed by the folds of

cashmere, and half hidden, half revealed by transparent gauze and diaphanous silk. The little slender feet

Demure and fragilelooking girls, pictures of maidenly innocence, with a semblance of conventional unction

about their heads, were there like apparitions that a breath might dissipate. Aristocratic beauties with haughty

glances, languid, flexible, slender, and complaisant, bent their heads as though there were royal protectors

still in the market. An Englishwoman seemed like a spirit of melancholysome coy, pale, shadowy form

among Ossian's mists, or a type of remorse flying from crime. The Parisienne was not wanting in all her

beauty that consists in an indescribable charm; armed with her irresistible weakness, vain of her costume and

her wit, pliant and hard, a heartless, passionless siren that yet can create factitious treasures of passion and

Italians shone in the throng, serene and selfpossessed in their bliss; handsome Normans, with splendid

figures; women of the south, with black hair and wellshaped eyes. Lebel might have summoned together all

the fair women of Versailles, who since morning had perfected all their wiles, and now came like a troupe of

Oriental women, bidden by the slave merchant to be ready to set out at dawn. They stood disconcerted and

confused about the table, huddled together in a murmuring group like bees in a hive. The combination of

timid embarrassment with coquettishness and a sort of expostulation was the result either of calculated effect

or a spontaneous modesty. Perhaps a sentiment of which women are never utterly divested prescribed to them

the cloak of modesty to heighten and enhance the charms of wantonness. So the venerable Taillefer's designs

seemed on the point of collapse, for these unbridled natures were subdued from the very first by the majesty

with which woman is invested. There was a murmur of admiration, which vibrated like a soft musical note.

Wine had not taken love for traveling companion; instead of a violent tumult of passions, the guests thus

taken by surprise, in a moment of weakness, gave themselves up to luxurious raptures of delight.

Artists obeyed the voice of poetry which constrains them, and studied with pleasure the different delicate tints

of these chosen examples of beauty. Sobered by a thought perhaps due to some emanation from a bubble of

carbonic acid in the champagne, a philosopher shuddered at the misfortunes which had brought these women,

once perhaps worthy of the truest devotion, to this. Each one doubtless could have unfolded a cruel tragedy.

Infernal tortures followed in the train of most of them, and they drew after them faithless men, broken vows,

and pleasures atoned for in wretchedness. Polite advances were made by the guests, and conversations began,

as varied in character as the speakers. They broke up into groups. It might have been a fashionable

drawingroom where ladies and young girls offer after dinner the assistance that coffee, liqueurs, and sugar

afford to diners who are struggling in the toils of a perverse digestion. But in a little while laughter broke out,

the murmur grew, and voices were raised. The saturnalia, subdued for a moment, threatened at times to renew

itself. The alternations of sound and silence bore a distant resemblance to a symphony of Beethoven's.

The two friends, seated on a silken divan, were first approached by a tall, wellproportioned girl of stately

bearing; her features were irregular, but her face was striking and vehement in expression, and impressed the

mind by the vigor of its contrasts. Her dark hair fell in luxuriant curls, with which some hand seemed to have

played havoc already, for the locks fell lightly over the splendid shoulders that thus attracted attention. The

long brown curls half hid her queenly throat, though where the light fell upon it, the delicacy of its fine

outlines was revealed. Her warm and vivid coloring was set off by the dead white of her complexion. Bold

and ardent glances came from under the long eyelashes; the damp, red, halfopen lips challenged a kiss. Her

frame was strong but compliant; with a bust and arms strongly developed, as in figures drawn by the Caracci,

she yet seemed active and elastic, with a panther's strength and suppleness, and in the same way the energetic

But though she might romp perhaps and laugh, there was something terrible in her eyes and her smile. Like a

pythoness possessed by the demon, she inspired awe rather than pleasure. All changes, one after another,

flashed like lightning over every mobile feature of her face. She might captivate a jaded fancy, but a young

man would have feared her. She was like some colossal statue fallen from the height of a Greek temple, so

grand when seen afar, too roughly hewn to be seen anear. And yet, in spite of all, her terrible beauty could

have stimulated exhaustion; her voice might charm the deaf; her glances might put life into the bones of the

dead; and therefore Emile was vaguely reminded of one of Shakespeare's tragediesa wonderful maze, in

which joy groans, and there is something wild even about love, and the magic of forgiveness and the warmth

of happiness succeed to cruel storms of rage. She was a siren that can both kiss and devour; laugh like a devil,

or weep as angels can. She could concentrate in one instant all a woman's powers of attraction in a single

effort (the sighs of melancholy and the charms of maiden's shyness alone excepted), then in a moment rise in

fury like a nation in revolt, and tear herself, her passion, and her lover, in pieces.

Dressed in red velvet, she trampled under her reckless feet the stray flowers fallen from other heads, and held

out a salver to the two friends, with careless hands. The white arms stood out in bold relief against the velvet.

Proud of her beauty; proud (who knows?) of her corruption, she stood like a queen of pleasure, like an

incarnation of enjoyment; the enjoyment that comes of squandering the accumulations of three generations;

that scoffs at its progenitors, and makes merry over a corpse; that will dissolve pearls and wreck thrones, turn

old men into boys, and make young men prematurely old; enjoyment only possible to giants weary of their

"Yes," she answered. "Just as a pope takes a new name when he is exalted above all other men, I, too, took

"Then have you, like your patron saint, a terrible and noble lover, a conspirator, who would die for you?"

"Once I had," she answered. "But I had a rival too in La Guillotine. I have worn something red about me ever

"Oh, if you are going to get her on to the story of those four lads of La Rochelle, she will never get to the end

of it. That's enough, Aquilina. As if every woman could not bewail some lover or other, though not every one

has the luck to lose him on the scaffold, as you have done. I would a great deal sooner see a lover of mine in a

All this in the gentlest and most melodious accents, and pronounced by the prettiest, gentlest, and most

innocentlooking little person that a fairy wand ever drew from an enchanted eggshell. She had come up

noiselessly, and they became aware of a slender, dainty figure, charmingly timid blue eyes, and white

transparent brows. No ingenue among the naiads, a truant from her river spring, could have been shyer,

whiter, more ingenuous than this young girl, seemingly about sixteen years old, ignorant of evil and of the

storms of life, and fresh from some church in which she must have prayed the angels to call her to heaven

before the time. Only in Paris are such natures as this to be found, concealing depths of depravity behind a

fair mask, and the most artificial vices beneath a brow as young and fair as an opening flower.

At first the angelic promise of those soft lineaments misled the friends. Raphael and Emile took the coffee

which she poured into the cups brought by Aquilina, and began to talk with her. In the eyes of the two poets

she soon became transformed into some sombre allegory, of I know not what aspect of human life. She

opposed to the vigorous and ardent expression of her commanding acquaintance a revelation of heartless

corruption and voluptuous cruelty. Heedless enough to perpetrate a crime, hardy enough to feel no

misgivings; a pitiless demon that wrings larger and kinder natures with torments that it is incapable of

knowing, that simpers over a traffic in love, sheds tears over a victim's funeral, and beams with joy over the

reading of the will. A poet might have admired the magnificent Aquilina; but the winning Euphrasia must be

repulsive to every onethe first was the soul of sin; the second, sin without a soul in it.

"I should dearly like to know," Emile remarked to this pleasing being, "if you ever reflect upon your future?"

"My future!" she answered with a laugh. "What do you mean by my future? Why should I think about

something that does not exist as yet? I never look before or behind. Isn't one day at a time more than I can

concern myself with as it is? And besides, the future, as we know, means the hospital."

"What is there so alarming about the hospital?" asked the terrific Aquilina. "When we are neither wives nor

mothers, when old age draws black stockings over our limbs, sets wrinkles on our brows, withers up the

woman in us, and darkens the light in our lover's eyes, what could we need when that comes to pass? You

would look on us then as mere human clay; we with our habiliments shall be for you like so much mud

worthless, lifeless, crumbling to pieces, going about with the rustle of dead leaves. Rags or the daintiest

finery will be as one to us then; the ambergris of the boudoir will breathe an odor of death and dry bones; and

suppose there is a heart there in that mud, not one of you but would make mock of it, not so much as a

memory will you spare to us. Is not our existence precisely the same whether we live in a fine mansion with

lapdogs to tend, or sort rags in a workhouse? Does it make much difference whether we shall hide our gray

heads beneath lace or a handkerchief striped with blue and red; whether we sweep a crossing with a birch

broom, or the steps of the Tuileries with satins; whether we sit beside a gilded hearth, or cower over the ashes

in a red earthen pot; whether we go to the Opera or look on in the Place de Greve?"

"Aquilina mia, you have never shown more sense than in this depressing fit of yours," Euphrasia remarked.

"Yes, cashmere, point d'Alencon, perfumes, gold, silks, luxury, everything that sparkles, everything pleasant,

belongs to youth alone. Time alone may show us our folly, but good fortune will acquit us. You are laughing

at me," she went on, with a malicious glance at the friends; "but am I not right? I would sooner die of

pleasure than of illness. I am not afflicted with a mania for perpetuity, nor have I a great veneration for

human nature, such as God has made it. Give me millions, and I would squander them; I should not keep one

centime for the year to come. Live to be charming and have power, that is the decree of my every heartbeat.

Society sanctions my life; does it not pay for my extravagances? Why does Providence pay me every

morning my income, which I spend every evening? Why are hospitals built for us? And Providence did not

put good and evil on either hand for us to select what tires and pains us. I should be very foolish if I did not

"Others? Oh, well, they must manage for themselves. I prefer laughing at their woes to weeping over my

"I myself have been forsaken for an inheritance," she said, striking an attitude that displayed all her charms;

"and yet I had worked night and day to keep my lover! I am not to be gulled by any smile or vow, and I have

"It may be so," Aquilina answered; "but is it nothing to be conscious of admiration and flattery; to triumph

over other women, even over the most virtuous, humiliating them before our beauty and our splendor? Not

only so; one day of our life is worth ten years of a bourgeoise existence, and so it is all summed up."

Euphrasia's glance was like a viper's, as she said, with an irony in her voice that cannot be rendered:

"Virtue! we leave that to deformity and to ugly women. What would the poor things be without it?"

"Hush, be quiet," Emile broke in. "Don't talk about something you have never known."

"That I have never known!" Euphrasia answered. "You give yourself for life to some person you abominate;

you must bring up children who will neglect you, who wound your very heart, and you must say, 'Thank you!'

for it; and these are the virtues you prescribe to woman. And that is not enough. By way of requiting her

selfdenial, you must come and add to her sorrows by trying to lead her astray; and though you are rebuffed,

she is compromised. A nice life! How far better to keep one's freedom, to follow one's inclinations in love,

"Even then," she said, "instead of mingling pleasures and troubles, my life will consist of two separate

partsa youth of happiness is secure, and there may come a hazy, uncertain old age, during which I can

"She has never loved," came in the deep tones of Aquilina's voice. "She never went a hundred leagues to

drink in one look and a denial with untold raptures. She has not hung her own life on a thread, nor tried to

stab more than one man to save her sovereign lord, her king, her divinity. . . . Love, for her, meant a

"Here she is with her La Rochelle," Euphrasia made answer. "Love comes like the wind, no one knows

whence. And, for that matter, if one of those brutes had once fallen in love with you, you would hold sensible

"Brutes are put out of the question by the Code," said the tall, sarcastic Aquilina.

"How happy they are in their power of dethroning their reason in this way," Raphael exclaimed.

"Happy?" asked Aquilina, with dreadful look, and a smile full of pity and terror. "Ah, you do not know what

it is to be condemned to a life of pleasure, with your dead hidden in your heart. . . ."

A moment's consideration of the rooms was like a foretaste of Milton's Pandemonium. The faces of those still

capable of drinking wore a hideous blue tint, from burning draughts of punch. Mad dances were kept up with

wild energy; excited laughter and outcries broke out like the explosion of fireworks. The boudoir and a small

adjoining room were strewn like a battlefield with the insensible and incapable. Wine, pleasure, and dispute

had heated the atmosphere. Wine and love, delirium and unconsciousness possessed them, and were written

upon all faces, upon the furniture; were expressed by the surrounding disorder, and brought light films over

the vision of those assembled, so that the air seemed full of intoxicating vapor. A glittering dust arose, as in

the luminous paths made by a ray of sunlight, the most bizarre forms flitted through it, grotesque struggles

were seen athwart it. Groups of interlaced figures blended with the white marbles, the noble masterpieces of

Though the two friends yet preserved a sort of fallacious clearness in their ideas and voices, a feeble

appearance and faint thrill of animation, it was yet almost impossible to distinguish what was real among the

fantastic absurdities before them, or what foundation there was for the impossible pictures that passed

unceasingly before their weary eyes. The strangest phenomena of dreams beset them, the lowering heavens,

the fervid sweetness caught by faces in our visions, and unheardof agility under a load of chains,all these

so vividly, that they took the pranks of the orgy about them for the freaks of some nightmare in which all

movement is silent, and cries never reach the ear. The valet de chambre succeeded just then, after some little

"If noise alarms them, why don't they lay down straw before their doors?" was Taillefer's rejoinder.

Raphael's sudden burst of laughter was so unseasonable and abrupt, that his friend demanded the reason of

"You will hardly understand me," he replied. "In the first place, I must admit that you stopped me on the Quai

Voltaire just as I was about to throw myself into the Seine, and you would like to know, no doubt, my

motives for dying. And when I proceed to tell you that by an almost miraculous chance the most poetic

memorials of the material world had but just then been summed up for me as a symbolical interpretation of

human wisdom; whilst at this minute the remains of all the intellectual treasures ravaged by us at table are

comprised in these two women, the living and authentic types of folly, would you be any the wiser? Our

profound apathy towards men and things supplied the halftones in a crudely contrasted picture of two

theories of life so diametrically opposed. If you were not drunk, you might perhaps catch a gleam of

"And if you had not both feet on that fascinating Aquilina, whose heavy breathing suggests an analogy with

the sounds of a storm about to burst," replied Emile, absently engaged in the harmless amusement of winding

and unwinding Euphrasia's hair, "you would be ashamed of your inebriated garrulity. Both your systems can

be packed in a phrase, and reduced to a single idea. The mere routine of living brings a stupid kind of wisdom

with it, by blunting our intelligence with work; and on the other hand, a life passed in the limbo of the

abstract or in the abysses of the moral world, produces a sort of wisdom run mad. The conditions may be

summed up in brief; we may extinguish emotion, and so live to old age, or we may choose to die young as

martyrs to contending passions. And yet this decree is at variance with the temperaments with which we were

"Idiot!" Raphael burst in. "Go on epitomizing yourself after that fashion, and you will fill volumes. If I

attempted to formulate those two ideas clearly, I might as well say that man is corrupted by the exercise of his

wits, and purified by ignorance. You are calling the whole fabric of society to account. But whether we live

with the wise or perish with the fool, isn't the result the same sooner or later? And have not the prime

constituents of the quintessence of both systems been before expressed in a couple of wordsCarymary,

"You make me doubt the existence of a God, for your stupidity is greater than His power," said Emile. "Our

beloved Rabelais summed it all up in a shorter word than your 'Carymary, Carymara'; from his Peutetre

Montaigne derived his own Que saisje? After all, this last word of moral science is scarcely more than the

cry of Pyrrhus set betwixt good and evil, or Buridan's ass between the two measures of oats. But let this

everlasting question alone, resolved today by a 'Yes' and a 'No.' What experience did you look to find by a

jump into the Seine? Were you jealous of the hydraulic machine on the Pont Notre Dame?"

"Pooh," said Emile; "I did not think you could be so commonplace; that remark is hackneyed. Don't you

"What a mountebank art thou with thy 'Ah'! Look here, now. Does some disease of the mind or body, by

contracting your muscles, bring back of a morning the wild horses that tear you in pieces at night, as with

Damiens once upon a time? Were you driven to sup off your own dog in a garret, uncooked and without salt?

Have your children ever cried, 'I am hungry'? Have you sold your mistress' hair to hazard the money at play?

Have you ever drawn a sham bill of exchange on a fictitious uncle at a sham address, and feared lest you

should not be in time to take it up? Come now, I am attending! If you were going to drown yourself for some

woman, or by way of a protest, or out of sheer dulness, I disown you. Make your confession, and no lies! I

don't at all want a historical memoir. And, above all things, be as concise as your clouded intellect permits; I

"You silly fool!" said Raphael. "When has not suffering been keener for a more susceptible nature? Some day

when science has attained to a pitch that enables us to study the natural history of hearts, when they are

named and classified in genera, subgenera, and families; into crustaceae, fossils, saurians, infusoria, or

whatever it is, then, my dear fellow, it will be ascertained that there are natures as tender and fragile as

flowers, that are broken by the slight bruises that some stony hearts do not even feel"

"For pity's sake, spare me thy exordium," said Emile, as, half plaintive, half amused, he took Raphael's hand.

"Perhaps it is an effect of the fumes of punchI really cannot tell this clearness of mind that enables me

to comprise my whole life in a single picture, where figures and hues, lights, shades, and halftones are

faithfully rendered. I should not have been so surprised at this poetical play of imagination if it were not

accompanied with a sort of scorn for my past joys and sorrows. Seen from afar, my life appears to contract by

some mental process. That long, slow agony of ten years' duration can be brought to memory today in some

few phrases, in which pain is resolved into a mere idea, and pleasure becomes a philosophical reflection.

"Very likely," said Raphael submissively. "I spare you the first seventeen years of my life for fear of abusing

a listener's patience. Till that time, like you and thousands of others, I had lived my life at school or the lycee,

with its imaginary troubles and genuine happinesses, which are so pleasant to look back upon. Our jaded

palates still crave for that Lenten fare, so long as we have not tried it afresh. It was a pleasant life, with the

tasks that we thought so contemptible, but which taught us application for all that. . . ."

"When I left school," Raphael went on, with a gesture that claimed the right of speaking, "my father

submitted me to a strict discipline; he installed me in a room near his own study, and I had to rise at five in

the morning and be in bed by nine at night. He meant me to take my law studies seriously. I attended the

Schools, and read with an advocate as well, but my lectures and work were so narrowly circumscribed by the

laws of time and space, and my father required such a strict account of my doings, at dinner, that . . ."

"The devil take you!" said Raphael. "How are you to enter into my feelings if I do not relate the facts that

insensibly shaped my character, made me timid, and prolonged the period of youthful simplicity? In this

manner I cowered under as strict a despotism as a monarch's till I came of age. To depict the tedium of my

life, it will be perhaps enough to portray my father to you. He was tall, thin, and slight, with a hatchet face,

and pale complexion; a man of few words, fidgety as an old maid, exacting as a senior clerk. His paternal

solicitude hovered over my merriment and gleeful thoughts, and seemed to cover them with a leaden pall.

Any effusive demonstration on my part was received by him as a childish absurdity. I was far more afraid of

"I seem to see him before me at this moment. In his chestnutbrown frockcoat he looked like a red herring

wrapped up in the cover of a pamphlet, and he held himself as erect as an Easter candle. But I was fond of my

father, and at heart he was right enough. Perhaps we never hate severity when it has its source in greatness of

character and pure morals, and is skilfully tempered with kindness. My father, it is true, never left me a

moment to myself, and only when I was twenty years old gave me so much as ten francs of my own, ten

knavish prodigals of francs, such a hoard as I had long vainly desired, which set me adreaming of

unutterable felicity; yet, for all that he sought to procure relaxations for me. When he had promised me a treat

beforehand, he would take me to Les Boufoons, or to a concert or ball, where I hoped to find a mistress. . . .

A mistress! that meant independence. But bashful and timid as I was, knowing nobody, and ignorant of the

dialect of drawingrooms, I always came back as awkward as ever, and swelling with unsatisfied desires, to

be put in harness like a troop horse next day by my father, and to return with morning to my advocate, the

Palais de Justice, and the law. To have swerved from the straight course which my father had mapped out for

me, would have drawn down his wrath upon me; at my first delinquency, he threatened to ship me off as a

cabinboy to the Antilles. A dreadful shiver ran through me if I had ventured to spend a couple of hours in

"Imagine the most wandering imagination and passionate temperament, the tenderest soul and most artistic

nature, dwelling continually in the presence of the most flinthearted, atrabilious, and frigid man on earth;

think of me as a young girl married to a skeleton, and you will understand the life whose curious scenes can

only be a hearsay tale to you; the plans for running away that perished at the sight of my father, the despair

soothed by slumber, the dark broodings charmed away by music. I breathed my sorrows forth in melodies.

Beethoven or Mozart would keep my confidences sacred. Nowadays, I smile at recollections of the scruples

"If I set foot in a restaurant, I gave myself up for lost; my fancy led me to look on a cafe as a disreputable

haunt, where men lost their characters and embarrassed their fortunes; as for engaging in play, I had not the

money to risk. Oh, if I needed to send you to sleep, I would tell you about one of the most frightful pleasures

of my life, one of those pleasures with fangs that bury themselves in the heart as the brandingiron enters the

convict's shoulder. I was at a ball at the house of the Duc de Navarreins, my father's cousin. But to make my

position the more perfectly clear, you must know that I wore a threadbare coat, illfitting shoes, a tie fit for a

stableman, and a soiled pair of gloves. I shrank into a corner to eat ices and watch the pretty faces at my

leisure. My father noticed me. Actuated by some motive that I did not fathom, so dumfounded was I by this

act of confidence, he handed me his keys and purse to keep. Ten paces away some men were gambling. I

heard the rattling of gold; I was twenty years old; I longed to be steeped for one whole day in the follies of

my time of life. It was a license of the imagination that would find a parallel neither in the freaks of

courtesans, nor in the dreams of young girls. For a year past I had beheld myself well dressed, in a carriage,

with a pretty woman by my side, playing the great lord, dining at Very's, deciding not to go back home till the

morrow; but was prepared for my father with a plot more intricate than the Marriage of Figaro, which he

could not possibly have unraveled. All this bliss would cost, I estimated, fifty crowns. Was it not the artless

"I went into a small adjoining room, and when alone counted my father's money with smarting eyes and

trembling fingersa hundred crowns! The joys of my escapade rose before me at the thought of the amount;

joys that flitted about me like Macbeth's witches round their caldron; joys how alluring! how thrilling! how

delicious! I became a deliberate rascal. I heeded neither my tingling ears nor the violent beating of my heart,

but took out two twentyfranc pieces that I seem to see yet. The dates had been erased, and Bonaparte's head

simpered upon them. After I had put back the purse in my pocket, I returned to the gamingtable with the two

pieces of gold in the palms of my damp hands, prowling about the players like a sparrowhawk round a coop

of chickens. Tormented by inexpressible terror, I flung a sudden clairvoyant glance round me, and feeling

quite sure that I was seen by none of my acquaintance, betted on a stout, jovial little man, heaping upon his

head more prayers and vows than are put up during two or three storms at sea. Then, with an intuitive

scoundrelism, or Machiavelism, surprising in one of my age, I went and stood in the door, and looked about

me in the rooms, though I saw nothing; for both mind and eyes hovered about that fateful green cloth.

"That evening fixes the date of a first observation of a physiological kind; to it I owe a kind of insight into

certain mysteries of our double nature that I have since been enabled to penetrate. I had my back turned on

the table where my future felicity lay at stake, a felicity but so much the more intense that it was criminal.

Between me and the players stood a wall of onlookers some five feet deep, who were chatting; the murmur of

voices drowned the clinking of gold, which mingled in the sounds sent up by this orchestra; yet, despite all

obstacles, I distinctly heard the words of the two players by a gift accorded to the passions, which enables

them to annihilate time and space. I saw the points they made; I knew which of the two turned up the king as

well as if I had actually seen the cards; at a distance of ten paces, in short, the fortunes of play blanched my

"My father suddenly went by, and then I knew what the Scripture meant by 'The Spirit of God passed before

his face.' I had won. I slipped through the crowd of men who had gathered about the players with the

quickness of an eel escaping through a broken mesh in a net. My nerves thrilled with joy instead of anguish. I

felt like some criminal on the way to torture released by a chance meeting with the king. It happened that a

man with a decoration found himself short by forty francs. Uneasy eyes suspected me; I turned pale, and

drops of perspiration stood on my forehead, I was well punished, I thought, for having robbed my father.

Then the kind little stout man said, in a voice like an angel's surely, 'All these gentlemen have paid their

stakes,' and put down the forty francs himself. I raised my head in triumph upon the players. After I had

returned the money I had taken from it to my father's purse, I left my winnings with that honest and worthy

gentleman, who continued to win. As soon as I found myself possessed of a hundred and sixty francs, I

wrapped them up in my handkerchief, so that they could neither move or rattle on the way back; and I played

" 'What were you doing at the cardtable?' said my father as we stepped into the carriage.

" 'But it would have been nothing out of the common if you had been prompted by selflove to put some

money down on the table. In the eyes of men of the world you are quite old enough to assume the right to

commit such follies. So I should have pardoned you, Raphael, if you had made use of my purse. . . . .'

"I did not answer. When we reached home, I returned the keys and money to my father. As he entered his

study, he emptied out his purse on the mantelpiece, counted the money, and turned to me with a kindly look,

" 'My boy, you are very nearly twenty now. I am satisfied with you. You ought to have an allowance, if only

to teach you how to lay it out, and to gain some acquaintance with everyday business. Henceforward I shall

let you have a hundred francs each month. Here is your first quarter's income for this year,' he added,

fingering a pile of gold, as if to make sure that the amount was correct. 'Do what you please with it.'

"I confess that I was ready to fling myself at his feet, to tell him that I was a thief, a scoundrel, and, worse

than all, a liar! But a feeling of shame held me back. I went up to him for an embrace, but he gently pushed

" 'You are a man now, MY CHILD,' he said. 'What I have just done was a very proper and simple thing, for

which there is no need to thank me. If I have any claim to your gratitude, Raphael,' he went on, in a kind but

dignified way, 'it is because I have preserved your youth from the evils that destroy young men in Paris. We

will be two friends henceforth. In a year's time you will be a doctor of law. Not without some hardship and

privations you have acquired the sound knowledge and the love of, and application to, work that is

indispensable to public men. You must learn to know me, Raphael. I do not want to make either an advocate

or a notary of you, but a statesman, who shall be the pride of our poor house. . . . Goodnight,' he added.

"From that day my father took me fully into confidence. I was an only son; and ten years before, I had lost

my mother. In time past my father, the head of a historic family remembered even now in Auvergne, had

come to Paris to fight against his evil star, dissatisfied at the prospect of tilling the soil, with his useless sword

by his side. He was endowed with the shrewdness that gives the men of the south of France a certain

ascendency when energy goes with it. Almost unaided, he made a position for himself near the fountain of

power. The revolution brought a reverse of fortune, but he had managed to marry an heiress of good family,

and, in the time of the Empire, appeared to be on the point of restoring to our house its ancient splendor.

"The Restoration, while it brought back considerable property to my mother, was my father's ruin. He had

formerly purchased several estates abroad, conferred by the Emperor on his generals; and now for ten years

he struggled with liquidators, diplomatists, and Prussian and Bavarian courts of law, over the disputed

possession of these unfortunate endowments. My father plunged me into the intricate labyrinths of law

proceedings on which our future depended. We might be compelled to return the rents, as well as the

proceeds arising from sales of timber made during the years 1814 to 1817; in that case my mother's property

would have barely saved our credit. So it fell out that the day on which my father in a fashion emancipated

me, brought me under a most galling yoke. I entered on a conflict like a battlefield; I must work day and

night; seek interviews with statesmen, surprise their convictions, try to interest them in our affairs, and gain

them over, with their wives and servants, and their very dogs; and all this abominable business had to take the

form of pretty speeches and polite attentions. Then I knew the mortifications that had left their blighting

traces on my father's face. For about a year I led outwardly the life of a man of the world, but enormous

labors lay beneath the surface of gadding about, and eager efforts to attach myself to influential kinsmen, or

to people likely to be useful to us. My relaxations were lawsuits, and memorials still furnished the staple of

my conversation. Hitherto my life had been blameless, from the sheer impossibility of indulging the desires

of youth; but now I became my own master, and in dread of involving us both in ruin by some piece of

"While we are young, and before the world has rubbed off the delicate bloom from our sentiments, the

freshness of our impressions, the noble purity of conscience which will never allow us to palter with evil, the

sense of duty is very strong within us, the voice of honor clamors within us, and we are open and

straightforward. At that time I was all these things. I wished to justify my father's confidence in me. But

lately I would have stolen a paltry sum from him, with secret delight; but now that I shared the burden of his

affairs, of his name and of his house, I would secretly have given up my fortune and my hopes for him, as I

was sacrificing my pleasures, and even have been glad of the sacrifice! So when M. de Villele exhumed, for

our special benefit, an imperial decree concerning forfeitures, and had ruined us, I authorized the sale of my

property, only retaining an island in the middle of the Loire where my mother was buried. Perhaps arguments

and evasions, philosophical, philanthropic, and political considerations would not fail me now, to hinder the

perpetration of what my solicitor termed a 'folly'; but at oneandtwenty, I repeat, we are all aglow with

generosity and affection. The tears that stood in my father's eyes were to me the most splendid of fortunes,

and the thought of those tears has often soothed my sorrow. Ten months after he had paid his creditors, my

father died of grief; I was his idol, and he had ruined me! The thought killed him. Towards the end of the

autumn of 1826, at the age of twentytwo, I was the sole mourner at his gravesidethe grave of my father

and my earliest friend. Not many young men have found themselves alone with their thoughts as they

followed a hearse, or have seen themselves lost in crowded Paris, and without money or prospects. Orphans

rescued by public charity have at any rate the future of the battlefield before them, and find a shelter in some

institution and a father in the government or in the procureur du roi. I had nothing.

"Three months later, an agent made over to me eleven hundred and twelve francs, the net proceeds of the

winding up of my father's affairs. Our creditors had driven us to sell our furniture. From my childhood I had

been used to set a high value on the articles of luxury about us, and I could not help showing my

" 'Oh, rococo, all of it!' said the auctioneer. A terrible word that fell like a blight on the sacred memories of

my childhood, and dispelled my earliest illusions, the dearest of all. My entire fortune was comprised in this

'account rendered,' my future lay in a linen bag with eleven hundred and twelve francs in it, human society

stood before me in the person of an auctioneer's clerk, who kept his hat on while he spoke. Jonathan, an old

servant who was much attached to me, and whom my mother had formerly pensioned with an annuity of four

hundred francs, spoke to me as I was leaving the house that I had so often gaily left for a drive in my

"Such were the events, dear Emile, that ruled my destinies, moulded my character, and set me, while still

young, in an utterly false social position," said Raphael after a pause. "Family ties, weak ones, it is true,

bound me to a few wealthy houses, but my own pride would have kept me aloof from them if contempt and

indifference had not shut their doors on me in the first place. I was related to people who were very

influential, and who lavished their patronage on strangers; but I found neither relations nor patrons in them.

Continually circumscribed in my affections, they recoiled upon me. Unreserved and simple by nature, I must

have appeared frigid and sophisticated. My father's discipline had destroyed all confidence in myself. I was

shy and awkward; I could not believe that my opinion carried any weight whatever; I took no pleasure in

myself; I thought myself ugly, and was ashamed to meet my own eyes. In spite of the inward voice that must

be the stay of a man with anything in him, in all his struggles, the voice that cries, 'Courage! Go forward!' in

spite of sudden revelations of my own strength in my solitude; in spite of the hopes that thrilled me as I

compared new works, that the public admired so much, with the schemes that hovered in my brain,in spite

"An overweening ambition preyed upon me; I believed that I was meant for great things, and yet I felt myself

to be nothing. I had need of other men, and I was friendless. I found I must make my way in the world, where

"All through the year in which, by my father's wish, I threw myself into the whirlpool of fashionable society,

I came away with an inexperienced heart, and fresh in mind. Like every grown child, I sighed in secret for a

love affair. I met, among young men of my own age, a set of swaggerers who held their heads high, and

talked about trifles as they seated themselves without a tremor beside women who inspired awe in me. They

chattered nonsense, sucked the heads of their canes, gave themselves affected airs, appropriated the fairest

women, and laid, or pretended that they had laid their heads on every pillow. Pleasure, seemingly, was at

their beck and call; they looked on the most virtuous and prudish as an easy prey, ready to surrender at a

word, at the slightest impudent gesture or insolent look. I declare, on my soul and conscience, that the

attainment of power, or of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory than a success with some

"So I found the tumult of my heart, my feelings, and my creeds all at variance with the axioms of society. I

had plenty of audacity in my character, but none in my manner. Later, I found out that women did not like to

be implored. I have from afar adored many a one to whom I devoted a soul proof against all tests, a heart to

break, energy that shrank from no sacrifice and from no torture; THEY accepted fools whom I would not

have engaged as hall porters. How often, mute and motionless, have I not admired the lady of my dreams,

swaying in the dance; given up my life in thought to one eternal caress, expressed all my hopes in a look, and

laid before her, in my rapture, a young man's love, which should outstrip all fables. At some moments I was

ready to barter my whole life for one single night. Well, as I could never find a listener for my impassioned

proposals, eyes to rest my own upon, a heart made for my heart, I lived on in all the sufferings of impotent

force that consumes itself; lacking either opportunity or courage or experience. I despaired, maybe, of making

myself understood, or I feared to be understood but too well; and yet the storm within me was ready to burst

at every chance courteous look. In spite of my readiness to take the semblance of interest in look or word for

a tenderer solicitude, I dared neither to speak nor to be silent seasonably. My words grew insignificant, and

my silence stupid, by sheer stress of emotion. I was too ingenuous, no doubt, for that artificial life, led by

candlelight, where every thought is expressed in conventional phrases, or by words that fashion dictates;

and not only so, I had not learned how to employ speech that says nothing, and silence that says a great deal.

In short, I concealed the fires that consumed me, and with such a soul as women wish to find, with all the

elevation of soul that they long for, and a mettle that fools plume themselves upon, all women have been

"So in my simplicity I admired the heroes of this set when they bragged about their conquests, and never

suspected them of lying. No doubt it was a mistake to wish for a love that springs for a word's sake; to expect

to find in the heart of a vain, frivolous woman, greedy for luxury and intoxicated with vanity, the great sea of

passion that surged tempestuously in my own breast. Oh! to feel that you were born to love, to make some

woman's happiness, and yet to find not one, not even a noble and courageous Marceline, not so much as an

old Marquise! Oh! to carry a treasure in your wallet, and not find even some child, or inquisitive young girl,

"Let me pass sentence on my life," Raphael answered. "If your friendship is not strong enough to bear with

my elegy, if you cannot put up with half an hour's tedium for my sake, go to sleep! But, then, never ask again

for the reason of suicide that hangs over me, that comes nearer and calls to me, that I bow myself before. If

you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the

outward events of a man's life would only serve to make a chronological tablea fool's notion of history."

Emile was so much struck with the bitter tones in which these words were spoken, that he began to pay close

"Now," continued the speaker, "all these things that befell me appear in a new light. The sequence of events

that I once thought so unfortunate created the splendid powers of which, later, I became so proud. If I may

believe you, I possess the power of readily expressing my thoughts, and I could take a forward place in the

great field of knowledge; and is not this the result of scientific curiosity, of excessive application, and a love

of reading which possessed me from the age of seven till my entry on life? The very neglect in which I was

left, and the consequent habits of selfrepression and self concentration; did not these things teach me how

to consider and reflect? Nothing in me was squandered in obedience to the exactions of the world, which

humble the proudest soul and reduce it to a mere husk; and was it not this very fact that refined the emotional

part of my nature till it became the perfected instrument of a loftier purpose than passionate desires? I

remember watching the women who mistook me with all the insight of contemned love.

"I can see now that my natural sincerity must have been displeasing to them; women, perhaps, even require a

little hypocrisy. And I, who in the same hour's space am alternately a man and a child, frivolous and

thoughtful, free from bias and brimful of superstition, and oftentimes myself as much a woman as any of

them; how should they do otherwise than take my simplicity for cynicism, my innocent candor for

impudence? They found my knowledge tiresome; my feminine languor, weakness. I was held to be listless

and incapable of love or of steady purpose; a too active imagination, that curse of poets, was no doubt the

cause. My silence was idiotic; and as I daresay I alarmed them by my efforts to please, women one and all

have condemned me. With tears and mortification, I bowed before the decision of the world; but my distress

was not barren. I determined to revenge myself on society; I would dominate the feminine intellect, and so

have the feminine soul at my mercy; all eyes should be fixed upon me, when the servant at the door

announced my name. I had determined from my childhood that I would be a great man; I said with Andre

Chenier, as I struck my forehead, 'There is something underneath that!' I felt, I believed, the thought within

me that I must express, the system I must establish, the knowledge I must interpret.

"Let me pour out my follies, dear Emile; today I am barely twentysix years old, certain of dying

unrecognized, and I have never been the lover of the woman I dreamed of possessing. Have we not all of us,

more or less, believed in the reality of a thing because we wished it? I would never have a young man for my

friend who did not place himself in dreams upon a pedestal, weave crowns for his head, and have complaisant

mistresses. I myself would often be a general, nay, emperor; I have been a Byron, and then a nobody. After

this sport on these pinnacles of human achievement, I became aware that all the difficulties and steeps of life

were yet to face. My exuberant self esteem came to my aid; I had that intense belief in my destiny, which

perhaps amounts to genius in those who will not permit themselves to be distracted by contact with the world,

as sheep that leave their wool on the briars of every thicket they pass by. I meant to cover myself with glory,

and to work in silence for the mistress I hoped to have one day. Women for me were resumed into a single

type, and this woman I looked to meet in the first that met my eyes; but in each and all I saw a queen, and as

queens must make the first advances to their lovers, they must draw near to meto me, so sickly, shy, and

poor. For her, who should take pity on me, my heart held in store such gratitude over and beyond love, that I

had worshiped her her whole life long. Later, my observations have taught me bitter truths.

"In this way, dear Emile, I ran the risk of remaining companionless for good. The incomprehensible bent of

women's minds appears to lead them to see nothing but the weak points in a clever man, and the strong points

of a fool. They feel the liveliest sympathy with the fool's good qualities, which perpetually flatter their own

defects; while they find the man of talent hardly agreeable enough to compensate for his shortcomings. All

capacity is a sort of intermittent fever, and no woman is anxious to share in its discomforts only; they look to

find in their lovers the wherewithal to gratify their own vanity. It is themselves that they love in us! But the

artist, poor and proud, along with his endowment of creative power, is furnished with an aggressive egotism!

Everything about him is involved in I know not what whirlpool of his ideas, and even his mistress must

gyrate along with them. How is a woman, spoilt with praise, to believe in the love of a man like that? Will

she go to seek him out? That sort of lover has not the leisure to sit beside a sofa and give himself up to the

sentimental simperings that women are so fond of, and on which the false and unfeeling pride themselves. He

cannot spare the time from his work, and how can he afford to humble himself and go amasquerading! I was

ready to give my life once and for all, but I could not degrade it in detail. Besides, there is something

indescribably paltry in a stockbroker's tactics, who runs on errands for some insipid affected woman; all this

disgusts an artist. Love in the abstract is not enough for a great man in poverty; he has need of its utmost

devotion. The frivolous creatures who spend their lives in trying on cashmeres, or make themselves into

clothespegs to hang the fashions from, exact the devotion which is not theirs to give; for them, love means

the pleasure of ruling and not of obeying. She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow

wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered. Ambitious men need

those Oriental women whose whole thought is given to the study of their requirements; for unhappiness

means for them the incompatibility of their means with their desires. But I, who took myself for a man of

genius, must needs feel attracted by these very shecoxcombs. So, as I cherished ideas so different from

those generally received; as I wished to scale the heavens without a ladder, was possessed of wealth that

could not circulate, and of knowledge so wide and so imperfectly arranged and digested that it overtaxed my

memory; as I had neither relations nor friends in the midst of this lonely and ghastly desert, a desert of paving

stones, full of animation, life, and thought, wherein every one is worse than inimical, indifferent to wit; I

made a very natural if foolish resolve, which required such unknown impossibilities, that my spirits rose. It

was as if I had laid a wager with myself, for I was at once the player and the cards.

"This was my plan. The eleven hundred francs must keep life in me for three yearsthe time I allowed

myself in which to bring to light a work which should draw attention to me, and make me either a name or a

fortune. I exulted at the thought of living on bread and milk, like a hermit in the Thebaid, while I plunged into

the world of books and ideas, and so reached a lofty sphere beyond the tumult of Paris, a sphere of silent

labor where I would entomb myself like a chrysalis to await a brilliant and splendid new birth. I imperiled my

life in order to live. By reducing my requirements to real needs and the barest necessaries, I found that three

hundred and sixtyfive francs sufficed for a year of penury; and, in fact, I managed to exist on that slender

"I lived for nearly three years in that way," Raphael answered, with a kind of pride. "Let us reckon it out.

Three sous for bread, two for milk, and three for cold meat, kept me from dying of hunger, and my mind in a

state of peculiar lucidity. I have observed, as you know, the wonderful effects produced by diet upon the

imagination. My lodgings cost me three sous daily; I burnt three sous more in oil at night; I did my own

housework, and wore flannel shirts so as to reduce the laundress' bill to two sous per day. The money I spent

yearly in coal, if divided up, never cost more than two sous for each day. I had three years' supply of clothing,

and I only dressed when going out to some library or public lecture. These expenses, all told, only amounted

to eighteen sous, so two were left over for emergencies. I cannot recollect, during that long period of toil,

either crossing the Pont des Arts, or paying for water; I went out to fetch it every morning from the fountain

in the Place Saint Michel, at the corner of the Rue de Gres. Oh, I wore my poverty proudly. A man urged on

towards a fair future walks through life like an innocent person to his death; he feels no shame about it.

"I would not think of illness. Like Aquilina, I faced the hospital without terror. I had not a moment's doubt of

my health, and besides, the poor can only take to their beds to die. I cut my own hair till the day when an

angel of love and kindness . . . But I do not want to anticipate the state of things that I shall reach later. You

must simply know that I lived with one grand thought for a mistress, a dream, an illusion which deceives us

all more or less at first. Today I laugh at myself, at that self, holy perhaps and heroic, which is now no more.

I have since had a closer view of society and the world, of our manners and customs, and seen the dangers of

my innocent credulity and the superfluous nature of my fervent toil. Stores of that sort are quite useless to

"Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake.

While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the

weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and

destitute in ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.

While the first kind study, the second march ahead; the one sort is modest, and the other impudent; the man

of genius is silent about his own merits, but these schemers make a flourish of theirs, and they are bound to

get on. It is so strongly to the interest of men in office to believe in readymade capacity, and in

brazenfaced merit, that it is downright childish of the learned to expect material rewards. I do not seek to

paraphrase the commonplace moral, the song of songs that obscure genius is for ever singing; I want to come,

in a logical manner, by the reason of the frequent successes of mediocrity. Alas! study shows us such a

mother's kindness that it would be a sin perhaps to ask any other reward of her than the pure and delightful

"Often I remember soaking my bread in milk, as I sat by the window to take the fresh air; while my eyes

wandered over a view of roofs brown, gray, or red, slated or tiled, and covered with yellow or green

mosses. At first the prospect may have seemed monotonous, but I very soon found peculiar beauties in it.

Sometimes at night, streams of light through halfclosed shutters would light up and color the dark abysses

of this strange landscape. Sometimes the feeble lights of the street lamps sent up yellow gleams through the

fog, and in each street dimly outlined the undulations of a crowd of roofs, like billows in a motionless sea.

Very occasionally, too, a face appeared in this gloomy waste; above the flowers in some skyey garden I

caught a glimpse of an old woman's crooked angular profile as she watered her nasturtiums; or, in a crazy

attic window, a young girl, fancying herself quite alone as she dressed herselfa view of nothing more than

"I liked to see the shortlived plantlife in the gutterspoor weeds that a storm soon washed away. I studied

the mosses, with their colors revived by showers, or transformed by the sun into a brown velvet that fitfully

caught the light. Such things as these formed my recreations the passing poetic moods of daylight, the

melancholy mists, sudden gleams of sunlight, the silence and the magic of night, the mysteries of dawn, the

smoke wreaths from each chimney; every chance event, in fact, in my curious world became familiar to me. I

came to love this prison of my own choosing. This level Parisian prairie of roofs, beneath which lay populous

"Sudden descents into the world from the divine height of scientific meditation are very exhausting; and,

besides, I had apprehended perfectly the bare life of the cloister. When I made up my mind to carry out this

new plan of life, I looked for quarters in the most outoftheway parts of Paris. One evening, as I returned

home to the Rue des Cordiers from the Place de l'Estrapade, I saw a girl of fourteen playing with a battledore

at the corner of the Rue de Cluny, her winsome ways and laughter amused the neighbors. September was not

yet over; it was warm and fine, so that women sat chatting before their doors as if it were a feteday in some

country town. At first I watched the charming expression of the girl's face and her graceful attitudes, her pose

fit for a painter. It was a pretty sight. I looked about me, seeking to understand this blithe simplicity in the

midst of Paris, and saw that the street was a blind alley and but little frequented. I remembered that Jean

Jacques had once lived here, and looked up the Hotel SaintQuentin. Its dilapidated condition awakened

"I found myself in a room with a low ceiling; the candles, in classic looking copper candlesticks, were set

in a row under each key. The predominating cleanliness of the room made a striking contrast to the usual

state of such places. This one was as neat as a bit of genre; there was a charming trimness about the blue

coverlet, the cooking pots and furniture. The mistress of the house rose and came to me. She seemed to be

about forty years of age; sorrows had left their traces on her features, and weeping had dimmed her eyes. I

deferentially mentioned the amount I could pay; it seemed to cause her no surprise; she sought out a key from

the row, went up to the attics with me, and showed me a room that looked out on the neighboring roofs and

"Nothing could be uglier than this garret, awaiting its scholar, with its dingy yellow walls and odor of

poverty. The roofing fell in a steep slope, and the sky was visible through chinks in the tiles. There was room

for a bed, a table, and a few chairs, and beneath the highest point of the roof my piano could stand. Not being

rich enough to furnish this cage (that might have been one of the Piombi of Venice), the poor woman had

never been able to let it; and as I had saved from the recent sale the furniture that was in a fashion peculiarly

mine, I very soon came to terms with my landlady, and moved in on the following day.

"For three years I lived in this airy sepulchre, and worked unflaggingly day and night; and so great was the

pleasure that study seemed to me the fairest theme and the happiest solution of life. The tranquillity and peace

that a scholar needs is something as sweet and exhilarating as love. Unspeakable joys are showered on us by

the exertion of our mental faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil contemplation of knowledge; delights

indescribable, because purely intellectual and impalpable to our senses. So we are obliged to use material

terms to express the mysteries of the soul. The pleasure of striking out in some lonely lake of clear water,

with forests, rocks, and flowers around, and the soft stirring of the warm breeze,all this would give, to

those who knew them not, a very faint idea of the exultation with which my soul bathed itself in the beams of

an unknown light, hearkened to the awful and uncertain voice of inspiration, as vision upon vision poured

"No earthly pleasure can compare with the divine delight of watching the dawn of an idea in the space of

abstractions as it rises like the morning sun; an idea that, better still, attains gradually like a child to puberty

and man's estate. Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings. The wretched desk covered with

brown leather at which I wrote, my piano, bed, and armchair, the odd wallpaper and furniture seemed to

have for me a kind of life in them, and to be humble friends of mine and mute partakers of my destiny. How

often have I confided my soul to them in a glance! A warped bit of beading often met my eyes, and suggested

new developments,a striking proof of my system, or a felicitous word by which to render my all but

inexpressible thought. By sheer contemplation of the things about me I discerned an expression and a

character in each. If the setting sun happened to steal in through my narrow window, they would take new

colors, fade or shine, grow dull or gay, and always amaze me with some new effect. These trifling incidents

of a solitary life, which escape those preoccupied with outward affairs, make the solace of prisoners. And

what was I but the captive of an idea, imprisoned in my system, but sustained also by the prospect of a

brilliant future? At each obstacle that I overcame, I seemed to kiss the soft hands of a woman with a fair face,

a wealthy, welldressed woman, who should some day say softly, while she caressed my hair:

"I had undertaken two great worksone a comedy that in a very short time must bring me wealth and fame,

and an entry into those circles whither I wished to return, to exercise the royal privileges of a man of genius.

You all saw nothing in that masterpiece but the blunder of a young man fresh from college, a babyish fiasco.

Your jokes clipped the wings of a throng of illusions, which have never stirred since within me. You, dear

Emile, alone brought soothing to the deep wounds that others had made in my heart. You alone will admire

my 'Theory of the Will.' I devoted most of my time to that long work, for which I studied Oriental languages,

physiology and anatomy. If I do not deceive myself, my labors will complete the task begun by Mesmer,

"There ends that fair life of mine, the daily sacrifice, the unrecognized silkworm's toil, that is, perhaps, its

own sole recompense. Since attaining years of discretion, until the day when I finished my 'Theory,' I

observed, learned, wrote, and read unintermittingly; my life was one long imposition, as schoolboys say.

Though by nature effeminately attached to Oriental indolence, sensual in tastes, and a wooer of dreams, I

worked incessantly, and refused to taste any of the enjoyments of Parisian life. Though a glutton, I became

abstemious; and loving exercise and sea voyages as I did, and haunted by the wish to visit many countries,

still child enough to play at ducks and drakes with pebbles over a pond, I led a sedentary life with a pen in my

fingers. I liked talking, but I went to sit and mutely listen to professors who gave public lectures at the

Bibliotheque or the Museum. I slept upon my solitary pallet like a Benedictine brother, though woman was

my one chimera, a chimera that fled from me as I wooed it! In short, my life has been a cruel contradiction, a

"Sometimes my natural propensities broke out like a fire long smothered. I was debarred from the women

whose society I desired, stripped of everything and lodged in an artist's garret, and by a sort of mirage or

calenture I was surrounded by captivating mistresses. I drove through the streets of Paris, lolling on the soft

cushions of a fine equipage. I plunged into dissipation, into corroding vice, I desired and possessed

everything, for fasting had made me lightheaded like the tempted Saint Anthony. Slumber, happily, would

put an end at last to these devastating trances; and on the morrow science would beckon me, smiling, and I

was faithful to her. I imagine that women reputed virtuous, must often fall a prey to these insane tempests of

desire and passion, which rise in us in spite of ourselves. Such dreams have a charm of their own; they are

something akin to evening gossip round the winter fire, when one sets out for some voyage in China. But

what becomes of virtue during these delicious excursions, when fancy overleaps all difficulties?

"During the first ten months of seclusion I led the life of poverty and solitude that I have described to you; I

used to steal out unobserved every morning to buy my own provisions for the day; I tidied my room; I was at

once master and servant, and played the Diogenes with incredible spirit. But afterwards, while my hostess

and her daughter watched my ways and behavior, scrutinized my appearance and divined my poverty, there

could not but be some bonds between us; perhaps because they were themselves so very poor. Pauline, the

charming child, whose latent and unconscious grace had, in a manner, brought me there, did me many

services that I could not well refuse. All women fallen on evil days are sisters; they speak a common

language; they have the same generositythe generosity that possesses nothing, and so is lavish of its

"Imperceptibly Pauline took me under her protection, and would do things for me. No kind of objection was

made by her mother, whom I even surprised mending my linen; she blushed for the charitable occupation. In

"In order to understand the peculiar condition of my mind, my preoccupation with work must be

remembered, the tyranny of ideas, and the instinctive repugnance that a man who leads an intellectual life

must ever feel for the material details of existence. Could I well repulse the delicate attentions of Pauline,

who would noiselessly bring me my frugal repast, when she noticed that I had taken nothing for seven or

eight hours? She had the tact of a woman and the inventiveness of a child; she would smile as she made sign

to me that I must not see her. Ariel glided under my roof in the form of a sylph who foresaw every want of

"One evening Pauline told me her story with touching simplicity. Her father had been a major in the horse

grenadiers of the Imperial Guard. He had been taken prisoner by the Cossacks, at the passage of Beresina;

and when Napoleon later on proposed an exchange, the Russian authorities made search for him in Siberia in

vain; he had escaped with a view of reaching India, and since then Mme. Gaudin, my landlady, could hear no

news of her husband. Then came the disasters of 1814 and 1815; and, left alone and without resource, she had

"She always hoped to see her husband again. Her greatest trouble was about her daughter's education; the

Princess Borghese was her Pauline's godmother; and Pauline must not be unworthy of the fair future

promised by her imperial protectress. When Mme. Gaudin confided to me this heavy trouble that preyed upon

her, she said, with sharp pain in her voice, 'I would give up the property and the scrap of paper that makes

Gaudin a baron of the empire, and all our rights to the endowment of Wistchnau, if only Pauline could be

brought up at SaintDenis?' Her words struck me; now I could show my gratitude for the kindnesses

expended on me by the two women; all at once the idea of offering to finish Pauline's education occurred to

me; and the offer was made and accepted in the most perfect simplicity. In this way I came to have some

hours of recreation. Pauline had natural aptitude; she learned so quickly, that she soon surpassed me at the

piano. As she became accustomed to think aloud in my presence, she unfolded all the sweet refinements of a

heart that was opening itself out to life, as some flowercup opens slowly to the sun. She listened to me,

pleased and thoughtful, letting her dark velvet eyes rest upon me with a half smile in them; she repeated her

lessons in soft and gentle tones, and showed childish glee when I was satisfied with her. Her mother grew

more and more anxious every day to shield the young girl from every danger (for all the beauty promised in

early life was developing in the crescent moon), and was glad to see her spend whole days indoors in study.

My piano was the only one she could use, and while I was out she practised on it. When I came home,

Pauline would be in my room, in her shabby dress, but her slightest movement revealed her slender figure in

its attractive grace, in spite of the coarse materials that she wore. As with the heroine of the fable of

'Peaud'Ane,' a dainty foot peeped out of the clumsy shoes. But all her wealth of girlish beauty was as lost

upon me. I had laid commands upon myself to see a sister only in Pauline. I dreaded lest I should betray her

mother's faith in me. I admired the lovely girl as if she had been a picture, or as the portrait of a dead

mistress; she was at once my child and my statue. For me, another Pygmalion, the maiden with the hues of

life and the living voice was to become a form of inanimate marble. I was very strict with her, but the more I

"If a generous feeling strengthened me in my reserve and self restraint, prudent considerations were not

lacking beside. Integrity of purpose cannot, I think, fail to accompany integrity in money matters. To my

mind, to become insolvent or to betray a woman is the same sort of thing. If you love a young girl, or allow

yourself to be beloved by her, a contract is implied, and its conditions should be thoroughly understood. We

are free to break with the woman who sells herself, but not with the young girl who has given herself to us

and does not know the extent of her sacrifice. I must have married Pauline, and that would have been

madness. Would it not have given over that sweet girlish heart to terrible misfortunes? My poverty made its

selfish voice heard, and set an iron barrier between that gentle nature and mine. Besides, I am ashamed to say,

that I cannot imagine love in the midst of poverty. Perhaps this is a vitiation due to that malady of mankind

called civilization; but a woman in squalid poverty would exert no fascination over me, were she attractive as

"Ah, vive l'amour! But let it be in silk and cashmere, surrounded with the luxury which so marvelously

embellishes it; for is it not perhaps itself a luxury? I enjoy making havoc with an elaborate erection of scented

hair; I like to crush flowers, to disarrange and crease a smart toilette at will. A bizarre attraction lies for me in

burning eyes that blaze through a lace veil, like flame through cannon smoke. My way of love would be to

mount by a silken ladder, in the silence of a winter night. And what bliss to reach, all powdered with snow, a

perfumed room, with hangings of painted silk, to find a woman there, who likewise shakes away the snow

from her; for what other name can be found for the white muslin wrappings that vaguely define her, like

some angel form issuing from a cloud! And then I wish for furtive joys, for the security of audacity. I want to

see once more that woman of mystery, but let it be in the throng, dazzling, unapproachable, adored on all

sides, dressed in laces and ablaze with diamonds, laying her commands upon every one; so exalted above us,

"She gives me a stolen glance, amid her court, a look that exposes the unreality of all this; that resigns for me

the world and all men in it! Truly I have scorned myself for a passion for a few yards of lace, velvet, and fine

lawn, and the hairdresser's feats of skill; a love of waxlights, a carriage and a title, a heraldic coronet painted

on window panes, or engraved by a jeweler; in short, a liking for all that is adventitious and least woman in

"A woman of rank with her subtle smile, her highborn air, and self esteem captivates me. The barriers she

erects between herself and the world awaken my vanity, a good half of love. There would be more relish for

me in bliss that all others envied. If my mistress does nothing that other women do, and neither lives nor

conducts herself like them, wears a cloak that they cannot attain, breathes a perfume of her own, then she

seems to rise far above me. The further she rises from earth, even in the earthlier aspects of love, the fairer

"Luckily for me we have had no queen in France these twenty years, for I should have fallen in love with her.

A woman must be wealthy to acquire the manners of a princess. What place had Pauline among these

farfetched imaginings? Could she bring me the love that is death, that brings every faculty into play, the

nights that are paid for by life? We hardly die, I think, for an insignificant girl who gives herself to us; and I

could never extinguish these feelings and poet's dreams within me. I was born for an inaccessible love, and

"How often have I set satin shoes on Pauline's tiny feet, confined her form, slender as a young poplar, in a

robe of gauze, and thrown a loose scarf about her as I saw her tread the carpets in her mansion and led her out

to her splendid carriage! In such guise I should have adored her. I endowed her with all the pride she lacked,

stripped her of her virtues, her natural simple charm, and frank smile, in order to plunge her heart in our Styx

of depravity that makes invulnerable, load her with our crimes, make of her the fantastical doll of our

drawingrooms, the frail being who lies about in the morning and comes to life again at night with the dawn

of tapers. Pauline was fresh hearted and affectionateI would have had her cold and formal.

"In the last days of my frantic folly, memory brought Pauline before me, as it brings the scenes of our

childhood, and made me pause to muse over past delicious moments that softened my heart. I sometimes saw

her, the adorable girl who sat quietly sewing at my table, wrapped in her meditations; the faint light from my

window fell upon her and was reflected back in silvery rays from her thick black hair; sometimes I heard her

young laughter, or the rich tones of her voice singing some canzonet that she composed without effort. And

often my Pauline seemed to grow greater, as music flowed from her, and her face bore a striking resemblance

to the noble one that Carlo Dolci chose for the type of Italy. My cruel memory brought her back athwart the

dissipations of my existence, like a remorse, or a symbol of purity. But let us leave the poor child to her own

fate. Whatever her troubles may have been, at any rate I protected her from a menacing tempestI did not

"Until last winter I led the uneventful studious life of which I have given you some faint picture. In the

earliest days of December 1829, I came across Rastignac, who, in spite of the shabby condition of my

wardrobe, linked his arm in mine, and inquired into my affairs with a quite brotherly interest. Caught by his

engaging manner, I gave him a brief account of my life and hopes; he began to laugh, and treated me as a

mixture of a man of genius and a fool. His Gascon accent and knowledge of the world, the easy life his clever

management procured for him, all produced an irresistible effect upon me. I should die an unrecognized

failure in a hospital, Rastignac said, and be buried in a pauper's grave. He talked of charlatanism. Every man

of genius was a charlatan, he plainly showed me in that pleasant way of his that makes him so fascinating. He

insisted that I must be out of my senses, and would be my own death, if I lived on alone in the Rue des

Cordiers. According to him, I ought to go into society, to accustom people to the sound of my name, and to

rid myself of the simple title of 'monsieur' which sits but ill on a great man in his lifetime.

" 'Those who know no better,' he cried, 'call this sort of business SCHEMING, and moral people condemn it

for a "dissipated life." We need not stop to look at what people think, but see the results. You work, you say?

Very good, but nothing will ever come of that. Now, I am ready for anything and fit for nothing. As lazy as a

lobster? Very likely, but I succeed everywhere. I go out into society, I push myself forward, the others make

way before me; I brag and am believed; I incur debts which somebody else pays! Dissipation, dear boy, is a

methodical policy. The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business

speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital. Suppose a merchant runs a

risk of a million, for twenty years he can neither sleep, eat, nor amuse himself, he is brooding over his

million, it makes him run about all over Europe; he worries himself, goes to the devil in every way that man

has invented. Then comes a liquidation, such as I have seen myself, which very often leaves him penniless

and without a reputation or a friend. The spendthrift, on the other hand, takes life as a serious game and sees

his horses run. He loses his capital, perhaps, but he stands a chance of being nominated Receiver General, of

making a wealthy marriage, or of an appointment of attache to a minister or ambassador; and he has his

friends left and his name, and he never wants money. He knows the standing of everybody, and uses every

one for his own benefit. Is this logical, or am I a madman after all? Haven't you there all the moral of the

comedy that goes on every day in this world? . . . Your work is completed' he went on after a pause; 'you are

immensely clever! Well, you have only arrived at my startingpoint. Now, you had better look after its

success yourself; it is the surest way. You will make allies in every clique, and secure applause beforehand. I

mean to go halves in your glory myself; I shall be the jeweler who set the diamonds in your crown. Come

here tomorrow evening, by way of a beginning. I will introduce you to a house where all Paris goes, all

OUR Paris, that isthe Paris of exquisites, millionaires, celebrities, all the folk who talk gold like

Chrysostom. When they have taken up a book, that book becomes the fashion; and if it is something really

good for once, they will have declared it to be a work of genius without knowing it. If you have any sense,

my dear fellow, you will ensure the success of your "Theory," by a better understanding of the theory of

success. Tomorrow evening you shall go to see that queen of the momentthe beautiful Countess Foedora.

" 'You Hottentot!' laughed Rastignac; 'you do not know Foedora? A great match with an income of nearly

eighty thousand livres, who has taken a fancy to nobody, or else no one has taken a fancy to her. A sort of

feminine enigma, a half Russian Parisienne, or a half Parisian Russian. All the romantic productions that

never get published are brought out at her house; she is the handsomest woman in Paris, and the most

gracious! You are not even a Hottentot; you are something between the Hottentot and the beast. . . .

"He swung round on his heel and made off without waiting for my answer. It never occurred to him that a

reasoning being could refuse an introduction to Foedora. How can the fascination of a name be explained?

FOEDORA haunted me like some evil thought, with which you seek to come to terms. A voice said in me,

'You are going to see Foedora!' In vain I reasoned with that voice, saying that it lied to me; all my arguments

were defeated by the name 'Foedora.' Was not the name, and even the woman herself, the symbol of all my

"The name called up recollections of the conventional glitter of the world, the upper world of Paris with its

brilliant fetes and the tinsel of its vanities. The woman brought before me all the problems of passion on

which my mind continually ran. Perhaps it was neither the woman nor the name, but my own propensities,

that sprang up within me and tempted me afresh. Here was the Countess Foedora, rich and loveless, proof

against the temptations of Paris; was not this woman the very incarnation of my hopes and visions? I

fashioned her for myself, drew her in fancy, and dreamed of her. I could not sleep that night; I became her

lover; I overbrimmed a few hours with a whole lifetimea lover's lifetime; the experience of its prolific

"The next day I could not bear the tortures of delay; I borrowed a novel, and spent the whole day over it, so

that I could not possibly think nor keep account of the time till night. Foedora's name echoed through me

even as I read, but only as a distant sound; though it could be heard, it was not troublesome. Fortunately, I

owned a fairly creditable black coat and a white waistcoat; of all my fortune there now remained abut thirty

francs, which I had distributed about among my clothes and in my drawers, so as to erect between my whims

and the spending of a fivefranc piece a thorny barrier of search, and an adventurous peregrination round my

room. While I as dressing, I dived about for my money in an ocean of papers. This scarcity of specie will give

you some idea of the value of that squandered upon gloves and cabhire; a month's bread disappeared at one

fell swoop. Alas! money is always forthcoming for our caprices; we only grudge the cost of things that are

useful or necessary. We recklessly fling gold to an operadancer, and haggle with a tradesman whose hungry

family must wait for the settlement of our bill. How many men are there that wear a coat that cost a hundred

francs, and carry a diamond in the head of their cane, and dine for twentyfive SOUS for all that! It seems as

"Rastignac, punctual to his appointment, smiled at the transformation, and joked about it. On the way he gave

me benevolent advice as to my conduct with the countess; he described her as mean, vain, and suspicious; but

though mean, she was ostentatious, her vanity was transparent, and her mistrust goodhumored.

" 'You know I am pledged,' he said, 'and what I should lose, too, if I tried a change in love. So my observation

of Foedora has been quite cool and disinterested, and my remarks must have some truth in them. I was

looking to your future when I thought of introducing you to her; so mind very carefully what I am about to

say. She has a terrible memory. She is clever enough to drive a diplomatist wild; she would know it at once if

he spoke the truth. Between ourselves, I fancy that her marriage was not recognized by the Emperor, for the

Russian ambassador began to smile when I spoke of her; he does not receive her either, and only bows very

coolly if he meets her in the Bois. For all that, she is in Madame de Serizy's set, and visits Mesdames de

Nucingen and de Restaud. There is no cloud over her here in France; the Duchesse de Carigliano, the

moststraitlaced marechale in the whole Bonapartist coterie, often goes to spend the summer with her at her

country house. Plenty of young fops, sons of peers of France, have offered her a title in exchange for her

fortune, and she has politely declined them all. Her susceptibilities, maybe, are not to be touched by anything

less than a count. Aren't you a marquis? Go ahead if you fancy her. This is what you may call receiving your

"His raillery made me think that Rastignac wished to joke and excite my curiosity, so that I was in a

paroxysm of my extemporized passion by the time that we stopped before a peristyle full of flowers. My

heart beat and my color rose as we went up the great carpeted staircase, and I noticed about me all the studied

refinements of English comfort; I was infatuatedly bourgeois; I forgot my origin and all my personal and

family pride. Alas! I had but just left a garret, after three years of poverty, and I could not just then set the

treasures there acquired above such trifles as these. Nor could I rightly estimate the worth of the vast

intellectual capital which turns to riches at the moment when opportunity comes within our reach,

opportunity that does not overwhelm, because study has prepared us for the struggles of public life.

"I found a woman of about twentytwo years of age; she was of average height, was dressed in white, and

held a feather firescreen in her hand; a group of men stood around her. She rose at the sight of Rastignac,

and came towards us with a gracious smile and a musically uttered compliment, prepared no doubt

beforehand, for me. Our friend had spoken of me as a rising man, and his clever way of making the most of

me had procured me this flattering reception. I was confused by the attention that every one paid to me; but

Rastignac had luckily mentioned my modesty. I was brought in contact with scholars, men of letters,

exministers, and peers of France. The conversation, interrupted a while by my coming, was resumed. I took

courage, feeling that I had a reputation to maintain, and without abusing my privilege, I spoke when it fell to

me to speak, trying to state the questions at issue in words more or less profound, witty or trenchant, and I

made a certain sensation. Rastignac was a prophet for the thousandth time in his life. As soon as the gathering

was large enough to restore freedom to individuals, he took my arm, and we went round the rooms.

" 'Don't look as if you were too much struck by the princess,' he said, 'or she will guess your object in coming

"The rooms were furnished in excellent taste. Each apartment had a character of its own, as in wealthy

English houses; and the silken hangings, the style of the furniture, and the ornaments, even the most trifling,

were all subordinated to the original idea. In a gothic boudoir the doors were concealed by tapestried curtains,

and the paneling by hangings; the clock and the pattern of the carpet were made to harmonize with the gothic

surroundings. The ceiling, with its carved crossbeams of brown wood, was full of charm and originality; the

panels were beautifully wrought; nothing disturbed the general harmony of the scheme of decoration, not

even the windows with their rich colored glass. I was surprised by the extensive knowledge of decoration that

some artist had brought to bear on a little modern room, it was so pleasant and fresh, and not heavy, but

subdued with its dead gold hues. It had all the vague sentiment of a German ballad; it was a retreat fit for

some romance of 1827, perfumed by the exotic flowers set in their stands. Another apartment in the suite was

a gilded reproduction of the Louis Quatorze period, with modern paintings on the walls in odd but pleasant

" 'You would not be so badly lodged,' was Rastignac's slightly sarcastic comment. 'It is captivating, isn't it?'

he added, smiling as he sat down. Then suddenly he rose, and led me by the hand into a bedroom, where the

softened light fell upon the bed under its canopy of muslin and white watered silka couch for a young fairy

" 'Isn't it wantonly bad taste, insolent and unbounded coquetry,' he said, lowering his voice, 'that allows us to

see this throne of love? She gives herself to no one, and anybody may leave his card here. If I were not

" 'The boldest and even the cleverest adventurers among us, acknowledge themselves defeated, and continue

"His words seemed to intoxicate me; I had jealous fears already of the past. I leapt for joy, and hurried back

to the countess, whom I had seen in the gothic boudoir. She stopped me by a smile, made me sit beside her,

and talked about my work, seeming to take the greatest interest in it, and all the more when I set forth my

theories amusingly, instead of adopting the formal language of a professor for their explanation. It seemed to

divert her to be told that the human will was a material force like steam; that in the moral world nothing

could resist its power if a man taught himself to concentrate it, to economize it, and to project continually its

fluid mass in given directions upon other souls. Such a man, I said, could modify all things relatively to man,

even the peremptory laws of nature. The questions Foedora raised showed a certain keenness of intellect. I

took a pleasure in deciding some of them in her favor, in order to flatter her; then I confuted her feminine

reasoning with a word, and roused her curiosity by drawing her attention to an everyday matter to sleep, a

thing so apparently commonplace, that in reality is an insoluble problem for science. The countess sat in

silence for a moment when I told her that our ideas were complete organic beings, existing in an invisible

world, and influencing our destinies; and for witnesses I cited the opinions of Descartes, Diderot, and

"So I had the honor of amusing this woman; who asked me to come to see her when she left me; giving me

les grande entrees, in the language of the court. Whether it was by dint of substituting polite formulas for

genuine expressions of feeling, a commendable habit of mine, or because Foedora hailed in me a coming

celebrity, an addition to her learned menagerie; for some reason I thought that I had pleased her. I called all

my previous physiological studies and knowledge of woman to my aid, and minutely scrutinized this singular

person and her ways all evening. I concealed myself in the embrasure of a window, and sought to discover

her thoughts from her bearing. I studied the tactics of the mistress of the house, as she came and went, sat and

chatted, beckoned to this one or that, asked questions, listened to the answers, as she leaned against the frame

of the door; I detected a languid charm in her movements, a grace in the flutterings of her dress, remarked the

nature of the feelings she so powerfully excited, and became very incredulous as to her virtue. If Foedora

would none of love today, she had had strong passions at some time; past experience of pleasure showed

itself in the attitudes she chose in conversation, in her coquettish way of leaning against the panel behind her;

she seemed scarcely able to stand alone, and yet ready for flight from too bold a glance. There was a kind of

eloquence about her lightly folded arms, which, even for benevolent eyes, breathed sentiment. Her fresh red

lips sharply contrasted with her brilliantly pale complexion. Her brown hair brought out all the golden color

in her eyes, in which blue streaks mingled as in Florentine marble; their expression seemed to increase the

significance of her words. A studied grace lay in the charms of her bodice. Perhaps a rival might have found

the lines of the thick eyebrows, which almost met, a little hard; or found a fault in the almost invisible down

that covered her features. I saw the signs of passion everywhere, written on those Italian eyelids, on the

splendid shoulders worthy of the Venus of Milo, on her features, in the darker shade of down above a

somewhat thick underlip. She was not merely a woman, but a romance. The whole blended harmony of

lines, the feminine luxuriance of her frame, and its passionate promise, were subdued by a constant

inexplicable reserve and modesty at variance with everything else about her. It needed an observation as keen

as my own to detect such signs as these in her character. To explain myself more clearly; there were two

women in Foedora, divided perhaps by the line between head and body: the one, the head alone, seemed to be

susceptible, and the other phlegmatic. She prepared her glance before she looked at you, something

unspeakably mysterious, some inward convulsion seemed revealed by her glittering eyes.

"So, to be brief, either my imperfect moral science had left me a good deal to learn in the moral world, or a

lofty soul dwelt in the countess, lent to her face those charms that fascinated and subdued us, and gave her an

"I went away completely enraptured with this woman, dazzled by the luxury around her, gratified in every

faculty of my soulnoble and base, good and evil. When I felt myself so excited, eager, and elated, I thought

I understood the attraction that drew thither those artists, diplomatists, men in office, those stockjobbers

encased in triple brass. They came, no doubt, to find in her society the delirious emotion that now thrilled

through every fibre in me, throbbing through my brain, setting the blood atingle in every vein, fretting even

the tiniest nerve. And she had given herself to none, so as to keep them all. A woman is a coquette so long as

" 'Well,' I said to Rastignac, 'they married her, or sold her perhaps, to some old man, and recollections of her

"I walked home from the Faubourg St. Honore, where Foedora lived. Almost all the breadth of Paris lies

between her mansion and the Rue des Cordiers, but the distance seemed short, in spite of the cold. And I was

to lay siege to Foedora's heart, in winter, and a bitter winter, with only thirty francs in my possession, and

such a distance as that lay between us! Only a poor man knows what such a passion costs in cabhire, gloves,

linen, tailor's bills, and the like. If the Platonic stage lasts a little too long, the affair grows ruinous. As a

matter of fact, there is many a Lauzun among students of law, who finds it impossible to approach a ladylove

living on a first floor. And I, sickly, thin, poorly dressed, wan and pale as any artist convalescent after a work,

how could I compete with other young men, curled, handsome, smart, outcravatting Croatia; wealthy men,

" 'Bah, death or Foedora!' I cried, as I went round by a bridge; 'my fortune lies in Foedora.'

"That gothic boudoir and Louis Quatorze salon came before my eyes. I saw the countess again in her white

dress with its large graceful sleeves, and all the fascinations of her form and movements. These pictures of

Foedora and her luxurious surroundings haunted me even in my bare, cold garret, when at last I reached it, as

disheveled as any naturalist's wig. The contrast suggested evil counsel; in such a way crimes are conceived. I

cursed my honest, selfrespecting poverty, my garret where such teeming fancies had stirred within me. I

trembled with fury, I reproached God, the devil, social conditions, my own father, the whole universe, indeed,

with my fate and my misfortunes. I went hungry to bed, muttering ludicrous imprecations, but fully

determined to win Foedora. Her heart was my last ticket in the lottery, my fortune depended upon it.

"I spare you the history of my earlier visits, to reach the drama the sooner. In my efforts to appeal to her, I

essayed to engage her intellect and her vanity on my side; in order to secure her love, I gave her any quantity

of reasons for increasing her selfesteem; I never left her in a state of indifference; women like emotions at

any cost, I gave them to her in plenty; I would rather have had her angry with me than indifferent.

"At first, urged by a strong will and a desire for her love, I assumed a little authority, but my own feelings

grew stronger and mastered me; I relapsed into truth, I lost my head, and fell desperately in love.

"I am not very sure what we mean by the word love in our poetry and our talk; but I know that I have never

found in all the ready rhetorical phrases of JeanJacques Rousseau, in whose room perhaps I was lodging;

nor among the feeble inventions of two centuries of our literature, nor in any picture that Italy has produced, a

representation of the feelings that expanded all at once in my double nature. The view of the lake of Bienne,

some music of Rossini's, the Madonna of Murillo's now in the possession of General Soult, Lescombat's

letters, a few sayings scattered through collections of anecdotes; but most of all the prayers of religious

ecstatics, and passages in our fabliaux,these things alone have power to carry me back to the divine heights

"Nothing expressed in human language, no thought reproducible in color, marble, sound, or articulate speech,

could ever render the force, the truth, the completeness, the suddenness with which love awoke in me. To

speak of art, is to speak of illusion. Love passes through endless transformations before it passes for ever into

our existence and makes it glow with its own color of flame. The process is imperceptible, and baffles the

artist's analysis. Its moans and complaints are tedious to an uninterested spectator. One would need to be very

much in love to share the furious transports of Lovelace, as one reads Clarissa Harlowe. Love is like some

fresh spring, that leaves its cresses, its gravel bed and flowers to become first a stream and then a river,

changing its aspect and its nature as it flows to plunge itself in some boundless ocean, where restricted

natures only find monotony, but where great souls are engulfed in endless contemplation.

"How can I dare to describe the hues of fleeting emotions, the nothings beyond all price, the spoken accents

that beggar language, the looks that hold more than all the wealth of poetry? Not one of the mysterious scenes

that draw us insensibly nearer and nearer to a woman, but has depths in it which can swallow up all the

poetry that ever was written. How can the inner life and mystery that stirs in our souls penetrate through our

glozes, when we have not even words to describe the visible and outward mysteries of beauty? What

enchantment steeped me for how many hours in unspeakable rapture, filled with the sight of Her! What made

me happy? I know not. That face of hers overflowed with light at such times; it seemed in some way to glow

with it; the outlines of her face, with the scarcely perceptible down on its delicate surface, shone with a

beauty belonging to the far distant horizon that melts into the sunlight. The light of day seemed to caress her

as she mingled in it; rather it seemed that the light of her eyes was brighter than the daylight itself; or some

shadow passing over that fair face made a kind of change there, altering its hues and its expression. Some

thought would often seem to glow on her white brows; her eyes appeared to dilate, and her eyelids trembled;

a smile rippled over her features; the living coral of her lips grew full of meaning as they closed and

unclosed; an indistinguishable something in her hair made brown shadows on her fair temples; in each new

phase Foedora spoke. Every slight variation in her beauty made a new pleasure for my eyes, disclosed charms

my heart had never known before; I tried to read a separate emotion or a hope in every change that passed

over her face. This mute converse passed between soul and soul, like sound and answering echo; and the

shortlived delights then showered upon me have left indelible impressions behind. Her voice would cause a

frenzy in me that I could hardly understand. I could have copied the example of some prince of Lorraine, and

held a live coal in the hollow of my hand, if her fingers passed caressingly through my hair the while. I felt

no longer mere admiration and desire: I was under the spell; I had met my destiny. When back again under

my own roof, I still vaguely saw Foedora in her own home, and had some indefinable share in her life; if she

"How often has she not stood before me, called by the power of ecstasy, in the silence of the night!

Sometimes she would break in upon me like a ray of light, make me drop my pen, and put science and study

to flight in grief and alarm, as she compelled my admiration by the alluring pose I had seen but a short time

before. Sometimes I went to seek her in the spirit world, and would bow down to her as to a hope, entreating

her to let me hear the silver sounds of her voice, and I would wake at length in tears.

"Once, when she had promised to go to the theatre with me, she took it suddenly into her head to refuse to go

out, and begged me to leave her alone. I was in such despair over the perversity which cost me a day's work,

and (if I must confess it) my last shilling as well, that I went alone where she was to have been, desiring to

see the play she had wished to see. I had scarcely seated myself when an electric shock went through me. A

voice told me, 'She is here!' I looked round, and saw the countess hidden in the shadow at the back of her box

in the first tier. My look did not waver; my eyes saw her at once with incredible clearness; my soul hovered

about her life like an insect above its flower. How had my senses received this warning? There is something

in these inward tremors that shallow people find astonishing, but the phenomena of our inner consciousness

are produced as simple as those of external vision; so I was not surprised, but much vexed. My studies of our

mental faculties, so little understood, helped me at any rate to find in my own excitement some living proofs

of my theories. There was something exceedingly odd in this combination of lover and man of science, of

downright idolatry of a woman with the love of knowledge. The causes of the lover's despair were highly

interesting to the man of science; and the exultant lover, on the other hand, put science far away from him in

his joy. Foedora saw me, and grew grave: I annoyed her. I went to her box during the first interval, and

finding her alone, I stayed there. Although we had not spoken of love, I foresaw an explanation. I had not told

her my secret, still there was a kind of understanding between us. She used to tell me her plans for

amusement, and on the previous evening had asked with friendly eagerness if I meant to call the next day.

After any witticism of hers, she would give me an inquiring glance, as if she had sought to please me alone

by it. She would soothe me if I was vexed; and if she pouted, I had in some sort a right to ask an explanation.

Before she would pardon any blunder, she would keep me a suppliant for long. All these things that we so

relished, were so many lovers' quarrels. What arch grace she threw into it all! and what happiness it was to

"But now we stood before each other as strangers, with the close relation between us both suspended. The

"There had been a sudden change in the weather, and sleet was falling in showers as we went out. Foedora's

carriage was unable to reach the doorway of the theatre. At the sight of a welldressed woman about to cross

the street, a commissionaire held an umbrella above us, and stood waiting at the carriagedoor for his tip. I

would have given ten years of life just then for a couple of halfpence, but I had not a penny. All the man in

me and all my vainest susceptibilities were wrung with an infernal pain. The words, 'I haven't a penny about

me, my good fellow!' came from me in the hard voice of thwarted passion; and yet I was that man's brother in

misfortune, as I knew too well; and once I had so lightly paid away seven hundred thousand francs! The

footman pushed the man aside, and the horses sprang forward. As we returned, Foedora, in real or feigned

abstraction, answered all my questions curtly and by monosyllables. I said no more; it was a hateful moment.

When we reached her house, we seated ourselves by the hearth, and when the servant had stirred the fire and

left us alone, the countess turned to me with an inexplicable expression, and spoke. Her manner was almost

" 'Since my return to France, more than one young man, tempted by my money, has made proposals to me

which would have satisfied my pride. I have come across men, too, whose attachment was so deep and

sincere that they might have married me even if they had found me the penniless girl I used to be. Besides

these, Monsieur de Valentin, you must know that new titles and newlyacquired wealth have been also

offered to me, and that I have never received again any of those who were so illadvised as to mention love

to me. If my regard for you was but slight, I would not give you this warning, which is dictated by friendship

rather than by pride. A woman lays herself open to a rebuff of some kind, if she imagines herself to be loved,

and declines, before it is uttered, to listen to language which in its nature implies a compliment. I am well

acquainted with the parts played by Arsinoe and Araminta, and with the sort of answer I might look for under

such circumstances; but I hope today that I shall not find myself misconstrued by a man of no ordinary

"She spoke with the cool selfpossession of some attorney or solicitor explaining the nature of a contract or

the conduct of a lawsuit to a client. There was not the least sign of feeling in the clear soft tones of her voice.

Her steady face and dignified bearing seemed to me now full of diplomatic reserve and coldness. She had

planned this scene, no doubt, and carefully chosen her words beforehand. Oh, my friend, there are women

who take pleasure in piercing hearts, and deliberately plunge the dagger back again into the wound; such

women as these cannot but be worshiped, for such women either love or would fain be loved. A day comes

when they make amends for all the pain they gave us; they repay us for the pangs, the keenness of which they

recognize, in joys a hundredfold, even as God, they tell us, recompenses our good works. Does not their

perversity spring from the strength of their feelings? But to be so tortured by a woman, who slaughters you

"Foedora did not know it, but in that minute she trampled all my hopes beneath her feet; she maimed my life

and she blighted my future with the cool indifference and unconscious barbarity of an inquisitive child who

" 'Later on,' resumed Foedora, 'you will learn, I hope, the stability of the affection that I keep for my friends.

You will always find that I have devotion and kindness for them. I would give my life to serve my friends;

but you could only despise me, if I allowed them to make love to me without return. That is enough. You are

"At first I could not speak, or master the tempest that arose within me; but I soon repressed my emotions in

" 'If I own that I love you,' I said, 'you will banish me at once; if I plead guilty to indifference, you will make

me suffer for it. Women, magistrates, and priests never quite lay the gown aside. Silence is noncommittal;

be pleased then, madame, to approve my silence. You must have feared, in some degree, to lose me, or I

should not have received this friendly admonition; and with that thought my pride ought to be satisfied. Let

us banish all personal considerations. You are perhaps the only woman with whom I could discuss rationally

a resolution so contrary to the laws of nature. Considered with regard to your species, you are a prodigy. Now

let us investigate, in good faith, the causes of this psychological anomaly. Does there exist in you, as in many

women, a certain pride in self, a love of your own loveliness, a refinement of egoism which makes you

shudder at the idea of belonging to another; is it the thought of resigning your own will and submitting to a

superiority, though only of convention, which displeases you? You would seem to me a thousand times fairer

for it. Can love formerly have brought you suffering? You probably set some value on your dainty figure and

graceful appearance, and may perhaps wish to avoid the disfigurements of maternity. Is not this one of your

strongest reasons for refusing a too importunate love? Some natural defect perhaps makes you insusceptible

in spite of yourself? Do not be angry; my study, my inquiry is absolutely dispassionate. Some are born blind,

and nature may easily have formed women who in like manner are blind, deaf, and dumb to love. You are

really an interesting subject for medical investigation. You do not know your value. You feel perhaps a very

legitimate distaste for mankind; in that I quite concur to me they all seem ugly and detestable. And you are

right,' I added, feeling my heart swell within me; 'how can you do otherwise than despise us? There is not a

"I will not repeat all the biting words with which I ridiculed her. In vain; my bitterest sarcasms and keenest

irony never made her wince nor elicited a sign of vexation. She heard me, with the customary smile upon her

lips and in her eyes, the smile that she wore as a part of her clothing, and that never varied for friends, for

" 'Isn't it very nice of me to allow you to dissect me like this?' she said at last, as I came to a temporary

standstill, and looked at her in silence. 'You see,' she went on, laughing, 'that I have no foolish

oversensitiveness about my friendship. Many a woman would shut her door on you by way of punishing

" 'You could banish me without needing to give me the reasons for your harshness.' As I spoke I felt that I

" 'Did you never think,' I went on, 'of the effects of passionate love? A desperate man has often murdered his

" 'It is better to die than to live in misery,' she said coolly. 'Such a man as that would run through his wife's

"This calm calculation dumfounded me. The gulf between us was made plain; we could never understand

"For a moment's space I hurled at her in a glance all the love I must forego; she stood there with than banal

smile of hers, the detestable chill smile of a marble statue, with none of the warmth in it that it seemed to

express. Can you form any idea, my friend, of the pain that overcame me on the way home through rain and

snow, across a league of icysheeted quays, without a hope left? Oh, to think that she not only had not

guessed my poverty, but believed me to be as wealthy as she was, and likewise borne as softly over the rough

ways of life! What failure and deceit! It was no mere question of money now, but of the fate of all that lay

"I went at haphazard, going over the words of our strange conversation with myself. I got so thoroughly lost

in my reflections that I ended by doubts as to the actual value of words and ideas. But I loved her all the

same; I loved this woman with the untouched heart that might surrender at any momenta woman who daily

disappointed the expectations of the previous evening, by appearing as a new mistress on the morrow.

"As I passed under the gateway of the Institute, a fevered thrill ran through me. I remembered that I was

fasting, and that I had not a penny. To complete the measure of my misfortune, my hat was spoiled by the

rain. How was I to appear in the drawingroom of a woman of fashion with an unpresentable hat? I had

always cursed the inane and stupid custom that compels us to exhibit the lining of our hats, and to keep them

always in our hands, but with anxious care I had so far kept mine in a precarious state of efficiency. It had

been neither strikingly new, nor utterly shabby, neither napless nor overglossy, and might have passed for

the hat of a frugally given owner, but its artificially prolonged existence had now reached the final stage, it

was crumpled, forlorn, and completely ruined, a downright rag, a fitting emblem of its master. My painfully

"What unrecognized sacrifices I had made in the past three months for Foedora! How often I had given the

price of a week's sustenance to see her for a moment! To leave my work and go without food was the least of

it! I must traverse the streets of Paris without getting splashed, run to escape showers, and reach her rooms at

last, as neat and spruce as any of the coxcombs about her. For a poet and a distracted wooer the difficulties of

this task were endless. My happiness, the course of my love, might be affected by a speck of mud upon my

only white waistcoat! Oh, to miss the sight of her because I was wet through and bedraggled, and had not so

much as five sous to give to a shoeblack for removing the least little spot of mud from my boot! The petty

pangs of these nameless torments, which an irritable man finds so great, only strengthened my passion.

"The unfortunate must make sacrifices which they may not mention to women who lead refined and

luxurious lives. Such women see things through a prism that gilds all men and their surroundings. Egoism

leads them to take cheerful views, and fashion makes them cruel; they do not wish to reflect, lest they lose

their happiness, and the absorbing nature of their pleasures absolves their indifference to the misfortunes of

others. A penny never means millions to them; millions, on the contrary, seem a mere trifle. Perhaps love

must plead his cause by great sacrifices, but a veil must be lightly drawn across them, they must go down into

silence. So when wealthy men pour out their devotion, their fortunes, and their lives, they gain somewhat by

these commonly entertained opinions, an additional lustre hangs about their lovers' follies; their silence is

eloquent; there is a grace about the drawn veil; but my terrible distress bound me over to suffer fearfully or

"Was it a sacrifice after all? Was I not richly rewarded by the joy I took in sacrificing everything to her?

There was no commonest event of my daily life to which the countess had not given importance, had not

overfilled with happiness. I had been hitherto careless of my clothes, now I respected my coat as if it had

been a second self. I should not have hesitated between bodily harm and a tear in that garment. You must

enter wholly into my circumstances to understand the stormy thoughts, the gathering frenzy, that shook me as

I went, and which, perhaps, were increased by my walk. I gloated in an infernal fashion which I cannot

describe over the absolute completeness of my wretchedness. I would have drawn from it an augury of my

future, but there is no limit to the possibilities of misfortune. The door of my lodginghouse stood ajar. A

light streamed from the heartshaped opening cut in the shutters. Pauline and her mother were sitting up for

" 'Raphael is much nicerlooking than the student in number seven,' said Pauline; 'his fair hair is such a pretty

color. Don't you think there is something in his voice, too, I don't know what it is, that gives you a sort of a

thrill? And, then, though he may be a little proud, he is very kind, and he has such fine manners; I am sure

" 'You might be fond of him yourself, to hear you talk,' was Madame Gaudin's comment.

" 'He is just as dear to me as a brother,' she laughed. 'I should be finely ungrateful if I felt no friendship for

him. Didn't he teach me music and drawing and grammar, and everything I know in fact? You don't much

notice how I get on, dear mother; but I shall know enough, in a while, to give lessons myself, and then we can

"I stole away softly, made some noise outside, and went into their room to take the lamp, that Pauline tried to

light for me. The dear child had just poured soothing balm into my wounds. Her outspoken admiration had

given me fresh courage. I so needed to believe in myself and to come by a just estimate of my advantages.

This revival of hope in me perhaps colored my surroundings. Perhaps also I had never before really looked at

the picture that so often met my eyes, of the two women in their room; it was a scene such as Flemish

painters have reproduced so faithfully for us, that I admired in its delightful reality. The mother, with the kind

smile upon her lips, sat knitting stockings by the dying fire; Pauline was painting hand screens, her brushes

and paints, strewn over the tiny table, made bright spots of color for the eye to dwell on. When she had left

her seat and stood lighting my lamp, one must have been under the yoke of a terrible passion indeed, not to

admire her faintly flushed transparent hands, the girlish charm of her attitude, the ideal grace of her head, as

the lamplight fell full on her pale face. Night and silence added to the charms of this industrious vigil and

peaceful interior. The lightheartedness that sustained such continuous toil could only spring from devout

"There was an indescribable harmony between them and their possessions. The splendor of Foedora's home

did not satisfy; it called out all my worst instincts; something in this lowly poverty and unfeigned goodness

revived me. It may have been that luxury abased me in my own eyes, while here my selfrespect was

restored to me, as I sought to extend the protection that a man is so eager to make felt, over these two women,

who in the bare simplicity of the existence in their brown room seemed to live wholly in the feelings of their

hearts. As I came up to Pauline, she looked at me in an almost motherly way; her hands shook a little as she

" 'Dieu! how pale you are! and you are wet through! My mother will try to wipe you dry. Monsieur Raphael,'

she went on, after a little pause, 'you are so very fond of milk, and tonight we happen to have some cream.

"She pounced like a kitten, on a china bowl full of milk. She did it so quickly, and put it before me so prettily,

"The pride in each felt for the other's pride. It was Pauline's poverty that seemed to humiliate her, and to

reproach me with my want of consideration, and I melted at once and accepted the cream that might have

been meant for her morning's breakfast. The poor child tried not to show her joy, but her eyes sparkled.

" 'I needed it badly,' I said as I sat down. (An anxious look passed over her face.) 'Do you remember that

passage, Pauline, where Bossuet tells how God gave more abundant reward for a cup of cold water than for a

" 'Well, as we shall part very soon, now,' I went on in an unsteady voice, 'you must let me show my gratitude

" 'Oh, don't let us cast accounts,' she said laughing. But her laughter covered an agitation that gave me pain. I

" 'My piano is one of Erard's best instruments; and you must take it. Pray accept it without hesitation; I really

"Perhaps the melancholy tones in which I spoke enlightened the two women, for they seemed to understand,

and eyed me with curiosity and alarm. Here was the affection that I had looked for in the glacial regions of

the great world, true affection, unostentatious but tender, and possibly lasting.

" 'Don't take it to heart so,' the mother said; 'stay on here. My husband is on his way towards us even now,'

she went on. 'I looked into the Gospel of St. John this evening while Pauline hung our door key in a Bible

from her fingers. The key turned; that means that Gaudin is in health and doing well. Pauline began again for

you and for the young man in number sevenit turned for you, but not for him. We are all going to be rich.

Gaudin will come back a millionaire. I dreamed once that I saw him in a ship full of serpents; luckily the

"The silly, friendly words were like the crooning lullaby with which a mother soothes her sick child; they in a

manner calmed me. There was a pleasant heartiness in the worthy woman's looks and tones, which, if it could

not remove trouble, at any rate soothed and quieted it, and deadened the pain. Pauline, keenersighted than

her mother, studied me uneasily; her quick eyes seemed to read my life and my future. I thanked the mother

and daughter by an inclination of the head, and hurried away; I was afraid I should break down.

"I found myself alone under my roof, and laid myself down in my misery. My unhappy imagination

suggested numberless baseless projects, and prescribed impossible resolutions. When a man is struggling in

the wreck of his fortunes, he is not quite without resources, but I was engulfed. Ah, my dear fellow, we are

too ready to blame the wretched. Let us be less harsh on the results of the most powerful of all social

solvents. Where poverty is absolute there exist no such things as shame or crime, or virtue or intelligence. I

knew not what to do; I was as defenceless as a maiden on her knees before a beast of prey. A penniless man

who has no ties to bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless wretch who is in love no longer

belongs to himself, and may not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life

of another that we revere within us; then and so it begins for us the cruelest trouble of allthe misery with a

hope in it, a hope for which we must even bear our torments. I thought I would go to Rastignac on the

" 'Ah, ha!' cried Rastignac, as he saw me enter his lodging at nine o'clock in the morning. 'I know what brings

you here. Foedora has dismissed you. Some kind souls, who were jealous of your ascendency over the

countess, gave out that you were going to be married. Heaven only knows what follies your rivals have

" 'That explains everything!' I exclaimed. I remembered all my presumptuous speeches, and gave the countess

credit for no little magnanimity. It pleased me to think that I was a miscreant who had not been punished

nearly enough, and I saw nothing in her indulgence but the longsuffering charity of love.

" 'Not quite so fast,' urged the prudent Gascon; 'Foedora has all the sagacity natural to a profoundly selfish

woman; perhaps she may have taken your measure while you still coveted only her money and her splendor;

in spite of all your care, she could have read you through and through. She can dissemble far too well to let

any dissimulation pass undetected. I fear,' he went on, 'that I have brought you into a bad way. In spite of her

cleverness and her tact, she seems to me a domineering sort of person, like every woman who can only feel

pleasure through her brain. Happiness for her lies entirely in a comfortable life and in social pleasures; her

sentiment is only assumed; she will make you miserable; you will be her head footman.'

"He spoke to the deaf. I broke in upon him, disclosing, with an affectation of lightheartedness, the state of

" 'Yesterday evening,' he rejoined, 'luck ran against me, and that carried off all my available cash. But for that

trivial mishap, I would gladly have shared my purse with you. But let us go and breakfast at the restaurant;

"He dressed, and had his tilbury brought round. We went to the Cafe de Paris like a couple of millionaires,

armed with all the audacious impertinence of the speculator whose capital is imaginary. That devil of a

Gascon quite disconcerted me by the coolness of his manners and his absolute selfpossession. While we

were taking coffee after an excellent and wellordered repast, a young dandy entered, who did not escape

Rastignac. He had been nodding here and there among the crowd to this or that young man, distinguished

" 'Here's your man,' as he beckoned to this gentleman with a wonderful cravat, who seemed to be looking for

" 'That rogue has been decorated for bringing out books that he doesn't understand a word of,' whispered

Rastignac; 'he is a chemist, a historian, a novelist, and a political writer; he has gone halves, thirds, or

quarters in the authorship of I don't know how many plays, and he is as ignorant as Dom Miguel's mule. He is

not a man so much as a name, a label that the public is familiar with. So he would do well to avoid shops

inscribed with the motto, "Ici l'on peut ecrire soi meme." He is acute enough to deceive an entire congress

of diplomatists. In a couple of words, he is a moral halfcaste, not quite a fraud, nor entirely genuine. But,

hush! he has succeeded already; nobody asks anything further, and every one calls him an illustrious man.'

" 'Well, my esteemed and excellent friend, and how may Your Intelligence be?' So Rastignac addressed the

" 'Neither well nor ill; I am overwhelmed with work. I have all the necessary materials for some very curious

historical memoirs in my hands, and I cannot find any one to whom I can ascribe them. It worries me, for I

" 'What are the memoirscontemporaneous, ancient, or memoirs of the court, or what?'

" 'Now, isn't that a coincidence?' said Rastignac, turning to me and laughing. He looked again to the literary

" 'This is M. de Valentin, one of my friends, whom I must introduce to you as one of our future literary

celebrities. He had formerly an aunt, a marquise, much in favor once at court, and for about two years he has

" 'He is a man of talent, and a simpleton that will do your memoirs for you, in his aunt's name, for a hundred

" 'Yes, but you must give me twentyfive louis as commission, and you will pay him in advance for each

" 'No, no. He shall only have fifty crowns on account, and then I shall be sure of having my manuscript

"Rastignac repeated this business conversation to me in low tones; and then, without giving me any voice in

"We rose. Rastignac flung some money to the waiter, put the bill in his pocket, and we went out. I was quite

stupified by the flippancy and ease with which he had sold my venerable aunt, la Marquise de Montbauron.

" 'I would sooner take ship for the Brazils, and give the Indians lessons in algebra, though I don't know a

" 'How dense you are! Take the fifty crowns in the first instance, and write the memoirs. When you have

finished them, you will decline to publish them in your aunt's name, imbecile! Madame de Montbauron, with

her hooped petticoat, her rank and beauty, rouge and slippers, and her death upon the scaffold, is worth a

great deal more than six hundred francs. And then, if the trade will not give your aunt her due, some old

adventurer, or some shady countess or other, will be found to put her name to the memoirs.'

" 'Oh,' I groaned; 'why did I quit the blameless life in my garret? This world has aspects that are very vilely

" 'Yes,' said Rastignac, 'that is all very poetical, but this is a matter of business. What a child you are! Now,

listen to me. As to your work, the public will decide upon it; and as for my literary middleman, hasn't he

devoted eight years of his life to obtaining a footing in the booktrade, and paid heavily for his experience?

You divide the money and the labor of the book with him very unequally, but isn't yours the better part?

Twentyfive louis means as much to you as a thousand francs does to him. Come, you can write historical

memoirs, a work of art such as never was, since Diderot once wrote six sermons for a hundred crowns!'

" 'After all,' I said, in agitation, 'I cannot choose but do it. So, my dear friend, my thanks are due to you. I

" 'Richer than you think,' he laughed. 'If I have my commission from Finot in this matter, it goes to you, can't

you see? Now let us go to the Bois de Boulogne,' he said; 'we shall see your countess there, and I will show

you the pretty little widow that I am to marrya charming woman, an Alsacienne, rather plump. She reads

Kant, Schiller, Jean Paul, and a host of lachrymose books. She has a mania for continually asking my

opinion, and I have to look as if I entered into all this German sensibility, and to know a pack of

balladsdrugs, all of them, that my doctor absolutely prohibits. As yet I have not been able to wean her from

her literary enthusiasms; she sheds torrents of tears as she reads Goethe, and I have to weep a little myself to

please her, for she has an income of fifty thousand livres, my dear boy, and the prettiest little hand and foot in

the world. Oh, if she would only say mon ange and brouiller instead of mon anche and prouiller, she would

"We saw the countess, radiant amid the splendors of her equipage. The coquette bowed very graciously to us

both, and the smile she gave me seemed to me to be divine and full of love. I was very happy; I fancied

myself beloved; I had money, a wealth of love in my heart, and my troubles were over. I was lighthearted,

blithe, and content. I found my friend's ladylove charming. Earth and air and heavenall natureseemed

"As we returned through the ChampsElysees, we paid a visit to Rastignac's hatter and tailor. Thanks to the

'Necklace,' my insignificant peacefooting was to end, and I made formidable preparations for a campaign.

Henceforward I need not shrink from a contest with the spruce and fashionable young men who made

Foedora's circle. I went home, locked myself in, and stood by my dormer window, outwardly calm enough,

but in reality I bade a last goodbye to the roofs without. I began to live in the future, rehearsed my life

drama, and discounted love and its happiness. Ah, how stormy life can grow to be within the four walls of a

garret! The soul within us is like a fairy; she turns straw into diamonds for us; and for us, at a touch of her

wand, enchanted palaces arise, as flowers in the meadows spring up towards the sun.

"Towards noon, next day, Pauline knocked gently at my door, and brought mewho could guess it?a note

from Foedora. The countess asked me to take her to the Luxembourg, and to go thence to see with her the

" 'The man is waiting for an answer,' said Pauline, after quietly waiting for a moment.

"I hastily scrawled my acknowledgements, and Pauline took the note. I changed my dress. When my toilette

was ended, and I looked at myself with some complaisance, an icy shiver ran through me as I thought:

" 'Will Foedora walk or drive? Will it rain or shine?No matter, though,' I said to myself; 'whichever it is,

can one ever reckon with feminine caprice? She will have no money about her, and will want to give a dozen

"I had not a brass farthing, and should have no money till the evening came. How dearly a poet pays for the

intellectual prowess that method and toil have brought him, at such crises of our youth! Innumerable

painfully vivid thoughts pierced me like barbs. I looked out of my window; the weather was very unsettled. If

things fell out badly, I might easily hire a cab for the day; but would not the fear lie on me every moment that

I might not meet Finot in the evening? I felt too weak to endure such fears in the midst of my felicity. Though

I felt sure that I should find nothing, I began a grand search through my room; I looked for imaginary coins in

the recesses of my mattress; I hunted about everywhereI even shook out my old boots. A nervous fever

seized me; I looked with wild eyes at the furniture when I had ransacked it all. Will you understand, I

wonder, the excitement that possessed me when, plunged deep in the listlessness of despair, I opened my

writingtable drawer, and found a fair and splendid ten franc piece that shone like a rising star, new and

sparkling, and slily hiding in a cranny between two boards? I did not try to account for its previous reserve

and the cruelty of which it had been guilty in thus lying hidden; I kissed it for a friend faithful in adversity,

and hailed it with a cry that found an echo, and made me turn sharply, to find Pauline with a face grown

" 'I thought,' she faltered, 'that you had hurt yourself! The man who brought the letter' (she broke off as

if something smothered her voice). 'But mother has paid him,' she added, and flitted away like a wayward,

capricious child. Poor little one! I wanted her to share in my happiness. I seemed to have all the happiness in

the world within me just then; and I would fain have returned to the unhappy, all that I felt as if I had stolen

"The intuitive perception of adversity is sound for the most part; the countess had sent away her carriage. One

of those freaks that pretty women can scarcely explain to themselves had determined her to go on foot, by

"As it fell out, the weather was fine while we went through the Luxembourg; when we came out, some drops

fell from a great cloud, whose progress I had watched uneasily, and we took a cab. At the Museum I was

about to dismiss the vehicle, and Foedora (what agonies!) asked me not to do so. But it was like a dream in

broad daylight for me, to chat with her, to wander in the Jardin des Plantes, to stray down the shady alleys, to

feel her hand upon my arm; the secret transports repressed in me were reduced, no doubt, to a fixed and

foolish smile upon my lips; there was something unreal about it all. Yet in all her movements, however

alluring, whether we stood or whether we walked, there was nothing either tender or loverlike. When I tried

to share in a measure the action of movement prompted by her life, I became aware of a check, or of

something strange in her that I cannot explain, or an inner activity concealed in her nature. There is no

suavity about the movements of women who have no soul in them. Our wills were opposed, and we did not

keep step together. Words are wanting to describe this outward dissonance between two beings; we are not

accustomed to read a thought in a movement. We instinctively feel this phenomenon of our nature, but it

"I did not dissect my sensations during those violent seizures of passion," Raphael went on, after a moment of

silence, as if he were replying to an objection raised by himself. "I did not analyze my pleasures nor count my

heartbeats then, as a miser scrutinizes and weighs his gold pieces. No; experience sheds its melancholy light

over the events of the past today, and memory brings these pictures back, as the seawaves in fair weather

cast up fragment after fragment of the debris of a wrecked vessel upon the strand.

" 'It is in your power to render me a rather important service,' said the countess, looking at me in an

embarrassed way. 'After confiding in you my aversion to lovers, I feel myself more at liberty to entreat your

good offices in the name of friendship. Will there not be very much more merit in obliging me today?' she

"I looked at her in anguish. Her manner was coaxing, but in no wise affectionate; she felt nothing for me; she

seemed to be playing a part, and I thought her a consummate actress. Then all at once my hopes awoke once

more, at a single look and word. Yet if reviving love expressed itself in my eyes, she bore its light without

any change in the clearness of her own; they seemed, like a tiger's eyes, to have a sheet of metal behind them.

" 'The influence of the Duc de Navarreins would be very useful to me, with an allpowerful person in Russia,'

she went on, persuasion in every modulation of her voice, 'whose intervention I need in order to have justice

done me in a matter that concerns both my fortune and my position in the world, that is to say, the

recognition of my marriage by the Emperor. Is not the Duc de Navarreins a cousin of yours? A letter from

" 'You are very nice,' she said, pressing my hand. 'Come and have dinner with me, and I will tell you

"So this discreet, suspicious woman, who had never been heard to speak a word about her affairs to any one,

" 'Oh, how dear to me is this silence that you have imposed on me!' I cried; 'but I would rather have had some

sharper ordeal still.' And she smiled upon the intoxication in my eyes; she did not reject my admiration in any

"Fortunately, my purse held just enough to satisfy her cabman. The day spent in her house, alone with her,

was delicious; it was the first time that I had seen her in this way. Hitherto we had always been kept apart by

the presence of others, and by her formal politeness and reserved manners, even during her magnificent

dinners; but now it was as if I lived beneath her own roofI had her all to myself, so to speak. My

wandering fancy broke down barriers, arranged the events of life to my liking, and steeped me in happiness

and love. I seemed to myself her husband, I liked to watch her busied with little details; it was a pleasure to

me even to see her take off her bonnet and shawl. She left me alone for a little, and came back, charming,

with her hair newly arranged; and this dainty change of toilette had been made for me!

"During the dinner she lavished attention upon me, and put charm without end into those numberless trifles to

all seeming, that make up half of our existence nevertheless. As we sat together before a crackling fire, on

silken cushions surrounded by the most desirable creations of Oriental luxury; as I saw this woman whose

famous beauty made every heart beat, so close to me; an unapproachable woman who was talking and

bringing all her powers of coquetry to bear upon me; then my blissful pleasure rose almost to the point of

suffering. To my vexation, I recollected the important business to be concluded; I determined to go to keep

"She loved me, then! or I thought so at least, from the bland tones in which those two words were uttered. I

would then have bartered a couple of years of life for every hour she chose to grant to me, and so prolong my

ecstasy. My happiness was increased by the extent of the money I sacrificed. It was midnight before she

dismissed me. But on the morrow, for all that, my heroism cost me a good many remorseful pangs; I was

afraid the affair of the Memoirs, now of such importance for me, might have fallen through, and rushed off to

"Finot read over a brief agreement to me, in which nothing whatever was said about my aunt, and when it had

been signed he paid me down fifty crowns, and the three of us breakfasted together. I had only thirty francs

left over, when I had paid for my new hat, for sixty tickets at thirty sous each, and settled my debts; but for

some days to come the difficulties of living were removed. If I had but listened to Rastignac, I might have

had abundance by frankly adopting the 'English system.' He really wanted to establish my credit by setting

me to raise loans, on the theory that borrowing is the basis of credit. To hear him talk, the future was the

largest and most secure kind of capital in the world. My future luck was hypothecated for the benefit of my

creditors, and he gave my custom to his tailor, an artist, and a young man's tailor, who was to leave me in

"The monastic life of study that I had led for three years past ended on this day. I frequented Foedora's house

very diligently, and tried to outshine the heroes or the swaggerers to be found in her circle. When I believed

that I had left poverty for ever behind me, I regained my freedom of mind, humiliated my rivals, and was

looked upon as a very attractive, dazzling, and irresistible sort of man. But acute folk used to say with regard

to me, 'A fellow as clever as that will keep all his enthusiasms in his brain,' and charitably extolled my

faculties at the expense of my feelings. 'Isn't he lucky, not to be in love!' they exclaimed. 'If he were, could he

be so lighthearted and animated?' Yet in Foedora's presence I was as dull as love could make me. When I

was alone with her, I had not a word to say, or if I did speak, I renounced love; and I affected gaiety but ill,

like a courtier who has a bitter mortification to hide. I tried in every way to make myself indispensable in her

life, and necessary to her vanity and to her comfort; I was a plaything at her pleasure, a slave always at her

side. And when I had frittered away the day in this way, I went back to my work at night, securing merely

"But I had not, like Rastignac, the 'English system' at my finger ends, and I very soon saw myself without a

penny. I fell at once into that precarious way of life which industriously hides cold and miserable depths

beneath an elusive surface of luxury; I was a coxcomb without conquests, a penniless fop, a nameless gallant.

The old sufferings were renewed, but less sharply; no doubt I was growing used to the painful crisis. Very

often my sole diet consisted of the scanty provision of cakes and tea that is offered in drawingrooms, or one

of the countess' great dinners must sustain me for two whole days. I used all my time, and exerted every

effort and all my powers of observation, to penetrate the impenetrable character of Foedora. Alternate hope

and despair had swayed my opinions; for me she was sometimes the tenderest, sometimes the most unfeeling

of women. But these transitions from joy to sadness became unendurable; I sought to end the horrible conflict

within me by extinguishing love. By the light of warning gleams my soul sometimes recognized the gulfs that

lay between us. The countess confirmed all my fears; I had never yet detected any tear in her eyes; an

affecting scene in a play left her smiling and unmoved. All her instincts were selfish; she could not divine

"I had rejoiced over a sacrifice to make for her, and almost humiliated myself in seeking out my kinsman, the

Duc de Navarreins, a selfish man who was ashamed of my poverty, and had injured me too deeply not to hate

me. He received me with the polite coldness that makes every word and gesture seem an insult; he looked so

ill at ease that I pitied him. I blushed for this pettiness amid grandeur, and penuriousness surrounded by

luxury. He began to talk to me of his heavy losses in the three per cents, and then I told him the object of my

visit. The change in his manners, hitherto glacial, which now gradually, became affectionate, disgusted me.

"On him Foedora exercised spells and witcheries unheard of; she drew him into her power, and arranged her

whole mysterious business with him; I was left out, I heard not a word of it; she had made a tool of me! She

did not seem to be aware of my existence while my cousin was present; she received me less cordially

perhaps than when I was first presented to her. One evening she chose to mortify me before the duke by a

look, a gesture, that it is useless to try to express in words. I went away with tears in my eyes, planning

"I often used to go with her to the theatre. Love utterly absorbed me as I sat beside her; as I looked at her I

used to give myself up to the pleasure of listening to the music, putting all my soul into the double joy of love

and of hearing every emotion of my heart translated into musical cadences. It was my passion that filled the

air and the stage, that was triumphant everywhere but with my mistress. Then I would take Foedora's hand. I

used to scan her features and her eyes, imploring of them some indication that one blended feeling possessed

us both, seeking for the sudden harmony awakened by the power of music, which makes our souls vibrate in

"When the fire that burned in me glowed too fiercely from the face I turned upon her, she met it with that

studied smile of hers, the conventional expression that sits on the lips of every portrait in every exhibition.

She was not listening to the music. The divine pages of Rossini, Cimarosa, or Zingarelli called up no

"Foedora presented herself as a drama before a drama. Her lorgnette traveled restlessly over the boxes; she

was restless too beneath the apparent calm; fashion tyrannized over her; her box, her bonnet, her carriage, her

own personality absorbed her entirely. My merciless knowledge thoroughly tore away all my illusions. If

good breeding consists in selfforgetfulness and consideration for others, in constantly showing gentleness in

voice and bearing, in pleasing others, and in making them content in themselves, all traces of her plebeian

origin were not yet obliterated in Foedora, in spite of her cleverness. Her selfforgetfulness was a sham, her

manners were not innate but painfully acquired, her politeness was rather subservient. And yet for those she

singled out, her honeyed words expressed natural kindness, her pretentious exaggeration was exalted

enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to conceal

her real nature from the world; her trickery no longer deceived me; I had sounded the depths of that feline

nature. I blushed for her when some donkey or other flattered and complimented her. And yet I loved her

through it all! I hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a poet's love. If I could only have made

her feel all the greatness that lies in devotion, then I should have seen her perfected, she would have been an

angel. I loved her as a man, a lover, and an artist; if it had been necessary not to love her so that I might win

her, some coolheaded coxcomb, some selfpossessed calculator would perhaps have had an advantage over

me. She was so vain and sophisticated, that the language of vanity would appeal to her; she would have

allowed herself to be taken in the toils of an intrigue; a hard, cold nature would have gained a complete

ascendency over her. Keen grief had pierced me to my very soul, as she unconsciously revealed her absolute

love of self. I seemed to see her as she one day would be, alone in the world, with no one to whom she could

stretch her hand, with no friendly eyes for her own to meet and rest upon. I was bold enough to set this before

her one evening; I painted in vivid colors her lonely, sad, deserted old age. Her comment on this prospect of

" 'I shall always have money,' she said; 'and with money we can always inspire such sentiments as are

"I went away confounded by the arguments of luxury, by the reasoning of this woman of the world in which

she lived; and blamed myself for my infatuated idolatry. I myself had not loved Pauline because she was

poor; and had not the wealthy Foedora a right to repulse Raphael? Conscience is our unerring judge until we

finally stifle it. A specious voice said within me, 'Foedora is neither attracted to nor repulses any one; she has

her liberty, but once upon a time she sold herself to the Russian count, her husband or her lover, for gold. But

temptation is certain to enter into her life. Wait till that moment comes!' She lived remote from humanity, in a

sphere apart, in a hell or a heaven of her own; she was neither frail nor virtuous. This feminine enigma in

embroideries and cashmeres had brought into play every emotion of the human heart in mepride, ambition,

"There was a craze just then for praising a play at a little Boulevard theatre, prompted perhaps by a wish to

appear original that besets us all, or due to some freak of fashion. The countess showed some signs of a wish

to see the floured face of the actor who had so delighted several people of taste, and I obtained the honor of

taking her to a first presentation of some wretched farce or other. A box scarcely cost five francs, but I had

not a brass farthing. I was but halfway through the volume of Memoirs; I dared not beg for assistance of

Finot, and Rastignac, my providence, was away. These constant perplexities were the bane of my life.

"We had once come out of the theatre when it was raining heavily, Foedora had called a cab for me before I

could escape from her show of concern; she would not admit any of my excusesmy liking for wet weather,

and my wish to go to the gamingtable. She did not read my poverty in my embarrassed attitude, or in my

forced jests. My eyes would redden, but she did not understand a look. A young man's life is at the mercy of

the strangest whims! At every revolution of the wheels during the journey, thoughts that burned stirred in my

heart. I tried to pull up a plank from the bottom of the vehicle, hoping to slip through the hole into the street;

but finding insuperable obstacles, I burst into a fit of laughter, and then sat stupefied in calm dejection, like a

man in a pillory. When I reached my lodging, Pauline broke in through my first stammering words with:

"Ah, the music of Rossini was as nothing compared with those words. But to return to the performance at the

"I thought of pawning the circlet of gold round my mother's portrait in order to escort the countess. Although

the pawnbroker loomed in my thoughts as one of the doors of a convict's prison, I would rather myself have

carried my bed thither than have begged for alms. There is something so painful in the expression of a man

who asks money of you! There are loans that mulct us of our selfrespect, just as some rebuffs from a friend's

"Pauline was working; her mother had gone to bed. I flung a stealthy glance over the bed; the curtains were

drawn back a little; Madame Gaudin was in a deep sleep, I thought, when I saw her quiet, sallow profile

" 'Is it possible that she loves me?' I thought. 'Pauline,' I began. I went and sat near to her, so as to study her.

My tones had been so searching that she read my thought; her eyes fell, and I scrutinized her face. It was so

pure and frank that I fancied I could see as clearly into her heart as into my own.

"Then she did not love me. Her jesting tones, and a little gleeful movement that escaped her, expressed

nothing beyond a girlish, blithe goodwill. I told her about my distress and the predicament in which I found

" 'You do not wish to go to the pawnbroker's yourself, M. Raphael,' she answered, 'and yet you would send

"I blushed in confusion at the child's reasoning. She took my hand in hers as if she wanted to compensate for

" 'Oh, I would willingly go,' she said, 'but it is not necessary. I found two fivefranc pieces at the back of the

piano, that had slipped without your knowledge between the frame and the keyboard, and I laid them on your

" 'You will soon be coming into some money, M. Raphael,' said the kind mother, showing her face between

" 'Bah! why should you?' she said petulantly. Her hand shook in mine with the throbbing of her pulse; she

" 'You will marry a rich wife,' she said, 'but she will give you a great deal of trouble. Ah, Dieu! she will be

"In her exclamation there was something like belief in her mother's absurd superstitions.

" 'The woman whom you will love is going to kill youthere is no doubt of it,' she said, looking at me with

"She took up her brush again and dipped it in the color; her great agitation was evident; she looked at me no

longer. I was ready to give credence just then to superstitious fancies; no man is utterly wretched so long as

"I found that those two magnificent fivefranc pieces were lying, in fact, upon my table when I reached my

room. During the first confused thoughts of early slumber, I tried to audit my accounts so as to explain this

unhopedfor windfall; but I lost myself in useless calculations, and slept. Just as I was leaving my room to

" 'Perhaps your ten francs is not enough,' said the amiable, kind hearted girl; 'my mother told me to offer

"She laid three crowns upon the table, and tried to escape, but I would not let her go. Admiration dried the

" 'You are an angel, Pauline,' I said. 'It is not the loan that touches me so much as the delicacy with which it is

offered. I used to wish for a rich wife, a fashionable woman of rank; and now, alas! I would rather possess

millions, and find some girl, as poor as you are, with a generous nature like your own; and I would renounce

" 'That is enough,' she said, and fled away; the fresh trills of her birdlike voice rang up the staircase.

" 'She is very happy in not yet knowing love,' I said to myself, thinking of the torments I had endured for

"Pauline's fifteen francs were invaluable to me. Foedora, thinking of the stifling odor of the crowded place

where we were to spend several hours, was sorry that she had not brought a bouquet; I went in search of

flowers for her, as I had laid already my life and my fate at her feet. With a pleasure in which compunction

mingled, I gave her a bouquet. I learned from its price the extravagance of superficial gallantry in the world.

But very soon she complained of the heavy scent of a Mexican jessamine. The interior of the theatre, the bare

bench on which she was to sit, filled her with intolerable disgust; she upbraided me for bringing her there.

Although she sat beside me, she wished to go, and she went. I had spent sleepless nights, and squandered two

months of my life for her, and I could not please her. Never had that tormenting spirit been more unfeeling or

"I sat beside her in the cramped back seat of the vehicle; all the way I could feel her breath on me and the

contact of her perfumed glove; I saw distinctly all her exceeding beauty; I inhaled a vague scent of orrisroot;

so wholly a woman she was, with no touch of womanhood. Just then a sudden gleam of light lit up the depths

of this mysterious life for me. I thought all at once of a book just published by a poet, a genuine conception of

"I seemed to see that monstrous creation, at one time an officer, breaking in a spirited horse; at another, a girl,

who gives herself up to her toilette and breaks her lovers' hearts; or again, a false lover driving a timid and

gentle maid to despair. Unable to analyze Foedora by any other process, I told her this fanciful story; but no

hint of her resemblance to this poetry of the impossible crossed herit simply diverted her; she was like a

" 'Foedora must be shielded by some talisman,' I thought to myself as I went back, 'or she could not resist the

love of a man of my age, the infectious fever of that splendid malady of the soul. Is Foedora, like Lady

"I shuddered at the thought. Then I decided on a plan, at once the wildest and the most rational that lover ever

dreamed of. I would study this woman from a physical point of view, as I had already studied her

intellectually, and to this end I made up my mind to spend a night in her room without her knowledge. This

project preyed upon me as a thirst for revenge gnaws at the heart of a Corsican monk. This is how I carried it

out. On the days when Foedora received, her rooms were far too crowded for the hallporter to keep the

balance even between goers and comers; I could remain in the house, I felt sure, without causing a scandal in

it, and I waited the countess' coming soiree with impatience. As I dressed I put a little English penknife into

my waistcoat pocket, instead of a poniard. That literary implement, if found upon me, could awaken no

suspicion, but I knew not whither my romantic resolution might lead, and I wished to be prepared.

"As soon as the rooms began to fill, I entered the bedroom and examined the arrangements. The inner and

outer shutters were closed; this was a good beginning; and as the waitingmaid might come to draw back the

curtains that hung over the windows, I pulled them together. I was running great risks in venturing to

manoeuvre beforehand in this way, but I had accepted the situation, and had deliberately reckoned with its

"About midnight I hid myself in the embrasure of the window. I tried to scramble on to a ledge of the

wainscoting, hanging on by the fastening of the shutters with my back against the wall, in such a position that

my feet could not be visible. When I had carefully considered my points of support, and the space between

me and the curtains, I had become sufficiently acquainted with all the difficulties of my position to stay in it

without fear of detection if undisturbed by cramp, coughs, or sneezings. To avoid useless fatigue, I remained

standing until the critical moment, when I must hang suspended like a spider in its web. The whitewatered

silk and muslin of the curtains spread before me in great pleats like organpipes. With my penknife I cut

"I heard vague murmurs from the salons, the laughter and the louder tones of the speakers. The smothered

commotion and vague uproar lessened by slow degrees. One man and another came for his hat from the

countess' chest of drawers, close to where I stood. I shivered, if the curtains were disturbed, at the thought of

the mischances consequent on the confused and hasty investigations made by the men in a hurry to depart,

who were rummaging everywhere. When I experienced no misfortunes of this kind, I augured well of my

enterprise. An old wooer of Foedora's came for the last hat; he thought himself quite alone, looked at the bed,

and heaved a great sigh, accompanied by some inaudible exclamation, into which he threw sufficient energy.

In the boudoir close by, the countess, finding only some five or six intimate acquaintances about her,

proposed tea. The scandals for which existing society has reserved the little faculty of belief that it retains,

mingled with epigrams and trenchant witticisms, and the clatter of cups and spoons. Rastignac drew roars of

" 'M. de Rastignac is a man with whom it is better not to quarrel,' said the countess, laughing.

" 'I am quite of that opinion,' was his candid reply. 'I have always been right about my aversionsand my

friendships as well,' he added. 'Perhaps my enemies are quite as useful to me as my friends. I have made a

particular study of modern phraseology, and of the natural craft that is used in all attack or defence. Official

" 'One of your friends is not clever, so you speak of his integrity and his candor. Another's work is heavy; you

introduce it as a piece of conscientious labor; and if the book is ill written, you extol the ideas it contains.

Such an one is treacherous and fickle, slips through your fingers every moment; bah! he is attractive,

bewitching, he is delightful! Suppose they are enemies, you fling every one, dead or alive, in their teeth. You

reverse your phraseology for their benefit, and you are as keen in detecting their faults as you were before

adroit in bringing out the virtues of your friends. This way of using the mental lorgnette is the secret of

conversation nowadays, and the whole art of the complete courtier. If you neglect it, you might as well go out

as an unarmed knightbanneret to fight against men in armor. And I make use of it, and even abuse it at

times. So we are respectedI and my friends; and, moreover, my sword is quite as sharp as my tongue.'

"One of Foedora's most fervid worshipers, whose presumption was notorious, and who even made it

contribute to his success, took up the glove thrown down so scornfully by Rastignac. He began an

unmeasured eulogy of me, my performances, and my character. Rastignac had overlooked this method of

detraction. His sarcastic encomiums misled the countess, who sacrificed without mercy; she betrayed my

" 'There is a future before him,' said Rastignac. 'Some day he may be in a position to take a cruel revenge; his

talents are at least equal to his courage; and I should consider those who attack him very rash, for he has a

" 'And writes Memoirs,' put in the countess, who seemed to object to the deep silence that prevailed.

" 'Memoirs of a sham countess, madame,' replied Rastignac. 'Another sort of courage is needed to write that

" 'I give him credit for plenty of courage,' she answered; 'he is faithful to me.'

"I was greatly tempted to show myself suddenly among the railers, like the shade of Banquo in Macbeth. I

should have lost a mistress, but I had a friend! But love inspired me all at once, with one of those treacherous

"If Foedora loved me, I thought, she would be sure to disguise her feelings by some mocking jest. How often

" 'What! already?' asked she in a coaxing voice that set my heart beating. 'Will you not give me a few more

minutes? Have you nothing more to say to me? will you never sacrifice any of your pleasures for me?'

"She pulled a cord energetically till the sound of a bell rang through the place; then, humming a few notes of

Pria che spunti, the countess entered her room. No one had ever heard her sing; her muteness had called forth

the wildest explanations. She had promised her first lover, so it was said, who had been held captive by her

talent, and whose jealousy over her stretched beyond his grave, that she would never allow others to

"I exerted every power of my soul to catch the sounds. Higher and higher rose the notes; Foedora's life

seemed to dilate within her; her throat poured forth all its richest tones; something wellnigh divine entered

into the melody. There was a bright purity and clearness of tone in the countess' voice, a thrilling harmony

which reached the heart and stirred its pulses. Musicians are seldom unemotional; a woman who could sing

like that must know how to love indeed. Her beautiful voice made one more puzzle in a woman mysterious

enough before. I beheld her then, as plainly as I see you at this moment. She seemed to listen to herself, to

experience a secret rapture of her own; she felt, as it were, an ecstasy like that of love.

"She stood before the hearth during the execution of the principal theme of the rondo; and when she ceased

her face changed. She looked tired; her features seemed to alter. She had laid the mask aside; her part as an

actress was over. Yet the faded look that came over her beautiful face, a result either of this performance or

"She set her foot on a bronze bar of the fender as if to warm it, took off her gloves, and drew over her head

the gold chain from which her bejeweled scentbottle hung. It gave me a quite indescribable pleasure to

watch the feline grace of every movement; the supple grace a cat displays as it adjusts its toilette in the sun.

She looked at herself in the mirror and said aloud illhumoredly'I did not look well this evening, my

complexion is going with alarming rapidity; perhaps I ought to keep earlier hours, and give up this life of

dissipation. Does Justine mean to trifle with me?' She rang again; her maid hurried in. Where she had been I

cannot tell; she came in by a secret staircase. I was anxious to make a study of her. I had lodged accusations,

in my romantic imaginings, against this invisible waitingwoman, a tall, wellmade brunette.

"Justine knelt down before her, unlaced her sandals and drew them off, while her mistress lay carelessly back

on her cushioned armchair beside the fire, yawned, and scratched her head. Every movement was perfectly

natural; there was nothing whatever to indicate the secret sufferings or emotions with which I had credited

" 'George must be in love!' she remarked. 'I shall dismiss him. He has drawn the curtains again tonight.

"All the blood in my veins rushed to my heart at this observation, but no more was said about curtains.

" 'Life is very empty,' the countess went on. 'Ah! be careful not to scratch me as you did yesterday. Just look

here, I still have the marks of your nails about me,' and she held out a silken knee. She thrust her bare feet

into velvet slippers bound with swan'sdown, and unfastened her dress, while Justine prepared to comb her

" 'Children!' she cried; 'it wants no more than that to finish me at once; and a husband! What man is there to

" 'That way of crimping your hair too much is the least becoming way possible for you. Large, smooth curls

" 'Marriage? never, never! Marriage is a commercial arrangement, for which I was never made.'

"What a disheartening scene for a lover! Here was a lonely woman, without friends or kin, without the

religion of love, without faith in any affection. Yet however slightly she might feel the need to pour out her

heart, a craving that every human being feels, it could only be satisfied by gossiping with her maid, by trivial

"Justine unlaced her. I watched her carefully when she was at last unveiled. Her maidenly form, in its

rosetinged whiteness, was visible through her shift in the taper light, as dazzling as some silver statue

behind its gauze covering. No, there was no defect that need shrink from the stolen glances of love. Alas, a

"The maid lighted the taper in the alabaster sconce that hung before the bed, while her mistress sat thoughtful

and silent before the fire. Justine went for a warmingpan, turned down the bed, and helped to lay her

mistress in it; then, after some further time spent in punctiliously rendering various services that showed how

seriously Foedora respected herself, her maid left her. The countess turned to and fro several times, and

sighed; she was ill at ease; faint, just perceptible sounds, like sighs of impatience, escaped from her lips. She

reached out a hand to the table, and took a flask from it, from which she shook four or five drops of some

brown liquid into some milk before taking it; again there followed some painful sighs, and the exclamation,

"The cry, and the tone in which it was uttered, wrung my heart. By degrees she lay motionless. This

frightened me; but very soon I heard a sleeper's heavy, regular breathing. I drew the rustling silk curtains

apart, left my post, went to the foot of the bed, and gazed at her with feelings that I cannot define. She was so

enchanting as she lay like a child, with her arm above her head; but the sweetness of the fair, quiet visage,

surrounded by the lace, only irritated me. I had not been prepared for the torture to which I was compelled to

" 'Mon Dieu!' that scrap of a thought which I understood not, but must even take as my sole light, had

suddenly modified my opinion of Foedora. Trite or profoundly significant, frivolous or of deep import, the

words might be construed as expressive of either pleasure or pain, of physical or of mental suffering. Was it a

prayer or a malediction, a forecast or a memory, a fear or a regret? A whole life lay in that utterance, a life of

"The mystery that lurked beneath this fair semblance of womanhood grew afresh; there were so many ways

of explaining Foedora, that she became inexplicable. A sort of language seemed to flow from between her

lips. I put thoughts and feelings into the accidents of her breathing, whether weak or regular, gentle, or

labored. I shared her dreams; I would fain have divined her secrets by reading them through her slumber. I

hesitated among contradictory opinions and decisions without number. I could not deny my heart to the

woman I saw before me, with the calm, pure beauty in her face. I resolved to make one more effort. If I told

her the story of my life, my love, my sacrifices, might I not awaken pity in her or draw a tear from her who

"As I set all my hopes on this last experiment, the sounds in the streets showed that day was at hand. For a

moment's space I pictured Foedora waking to find herself in my arms. I could have stolen softly to her side

and slipped them about her in a close embrace. Resolved to resist the cruel tyranny of this thought, I hurried

into the salon, heedless of any sounds I might make; but, luckily, I came upon a secret door leading to a little

staircase. As I expected, the key was in the lock; I slammed the door, went boldly out into the court, and

gained the street in three bounds, without looking round to see whether I was observed.

"A dramatist was to read a comedy at the countess' house in two days' time; I went thither, intending to

outstay the others, so as to make a rather singular request to her; I meant to ask her to keep the following

evening for me alone, and to deny herself to other comers; but when I found myself alone with her, my

courage failed. Every tick of the clock alarmed me. It wanted only a quarter of an hour of midnight.

" 'If I do not speak,' I thought to myself, 'I must smash my head against the corner of the mantelpiece.'

"I gave myself three minutes' grace; the three minutes went by, and I did not smash my head upon the marble;

" 'To be candid with you, I ought to explain the full scope of your promise: I want to spend this evening by

your side, as if we were brother and sister. Have no fear; I am aware of your antipathies; you must have

divined me sufficiently to feel sure that I should wish you to do nothing that could be displeasing to you;

presumption, moreover, would not thus approach you. You have been a friend to me, you have shown me

kindness and great indulgence; know, therefore, that tomorrow I must bid you farewell.Do not take back

"At eight o'clock one evening towards the end of May, Foedora and I were alone together in her gothic

boudoir. I feared no longer; I was secure of happiness. My mistress should be mine, or I would seek a refuge

in death. I had condemned my fainthearted love, and a man who acknowledges his weakness is strong

"The countess, in her blue cashmere gown, was reclining on a sofa, with her feet on a cushion. She wore an

Oriental turban such as painters assign to early Hebrews; its strangeness added an indescribable coquettish

grace to her attractions. A transitory charm seemed to have laid its spell on her face; it might have furnished

the argument that at every instant we become new and unparalleled beings, without any resemblance to the

" 'I will not disappoint it,' I said quietly, as I seated myself near to her and took the hand that she surrendered

" 'You have never heard me sing!' she exclaimed, starting involuntarily with surprise.

" 'I will prove that it is quite otherwise, whenever it is necessary. Is your delightful singing still to remain a

"We spent about an hour in familiar talk. While I adopted the attitude and manner of a man to whom Foedora

must refuse nothing, I showed her all a lover's deference. Acting in this way, I received a favorI was

allowed to kiss her hand. She daintily drew off the glove, and my whole soul was dissolved and poured forth

in that kiss. I was steeped in the bliss of an illusion in which I tried to believe.

"Foedora lent herself most unexpectedly to my caress and my flatteries. Do not accuse me of

faintheartedness; if I had gone a step beyond these fraternal compliments, the claws would have been out of

the sheath and into me. We remained perfectly silent for nearly ten minutes. I was admiring her, investing her

with the charms she had not. She was mine just then, and mine only,this enchanting being was mine, as

was permissible, in my imagination; my longing wrapped her round and held her close; in my soul I wedded

her. The countess was subdued and fascinated by my magnetic influence. Ever since I have regretted that this

subjugation was not absolute; but just then I yearned for her soul, her heart alone, and for nothing else. I

longed for an ideal and perfect happiness, a fair illusion that cannot last for very long. At last I spoke, feeling

" 'Hear me, madame. I love you, and you know it; I have said so a hundred times; you must have understood

me. I would not take upon me the airs of a coxcomb, nor would I flatter you, nor urge myself upon you like a

fool; I would not owe your love to such arts as these! so I have been misunderstood. What sufferings have I

not endured for your sake! For these, however, you were not to blame; but in a few minutes you shall decide

for yourself. There are two kinds of poverty, madame. One kind openly walks the street in rags, an

unconscious imitator of Diogenes, on a scanty diet, reducing life to its simplest terms; he is happier, maybe,

than the rich; he has fewer cares at any rate, and accepts such portions of the world as stronger spirits refuse.

Then there is poverty in splendor, a Spanish pauper, concealing the life of a beggar by his title, his bravery,

and his pride; poverty that wears a white waistcoat and yellow kid gloves, a beggar with a carriage, whose

whole career will be wrecked for lack of a halfpenny. Poverty of the first kind belongs to the populace; the

second kind is that of blacklegs, of kings, and of men of talent. I am neither a man of the people, nor a king,

nor a swindler; possibly I have no talent either, I am an exception. With the name I bear I must die sooner

than beg. Set your mind at rest, madame,' I said; 'today I have abundance, I possess sufficient of the clay for

my needs'; for the hard look passed over her face which we wear whenever a welldressed beggar takes us by

surprise. 'Do you remember the day when you wished to go to the Gymnase without me, never believing that

" 'I had laid out my last fivefranc piece that I might see you there. Do you recollect our walk in the Jardin

"I told her about my sacrifices, and described the life I led; heated not with wine, as I am today, but by the

generous enthusiasm of my heart, my passion overflowed in burning words; I have forgotten how the feelings

within me blazed forth; neither memory nor skill of mine could possibly reproduce it. It was no colorless

chronicle of blighted affections; my love was strengthened by fair hopes; and such words came to me, by

love's inspiration, that each had power to set forth a whole lifelike echoes of the cries of a soul in torment.

In such tones the last prayers ascend from dying men on the battlefield. I stopped, for she was weeping.

GRAND DIEU! I had reaped an actor's reward, the success of a counterfeit passion displayed at the cost of

" 'Do not finish the sentence,' I broke in. 'Even now I love you well enough to murder you'

" 'Do not call any one,' I said. 'I shall leave you to finish your life in peace. It would be a blundering kind of

hatred that would murder you! You need not fear violence of any kind; I have spent a whole night at the foot

" 'Monsieur' she said, blushing; but after that first impulse of modesty that even the most hardened

" 'Do you think that I set such value on your beauty, madame,' I answered, guessing the thoughts that moved

her. 'Your beautiful face is for me a promise of a soul yet more beautiful. Madame, those to whom a woman

is merely a woman can always purchase odalisques fit for the seraglio, and achieve their happiness at a small

cost. But I aspired to something higher; I wanted the life of close communion of heart and heart with you that

have no heart. I know that now. If you were to belong to another, I could kill him. And yet, no; for you would

" 'If it is any comfort to you,' she retorted cheerfully, 'I can assure you that I shall never belong to any

" 'So you offer an affront to God Himself,' I interrupted; 'and you will be punished for it. Some day you will

lie upon your sofa suffering unheardof ills, unable to endure the light or the slightest sound, condemned to

live as it were in the tomb. Then, when you seek the causes of those lingering and avenging torments, you

will remember the woes that you distributed so lavishly upon your way. You have sown curses, and hatred

will be your reward. We are the real judges, the executioners of a justice that reigns here below, which

" 'No doubt it is very culpable in me not to love you,' she said, laughing. 'Am I to blame? No. I do not love

you; you are a man, that is sufficient. I am happy by myself; why should I give up my way of living, a selfish

way, if you will, for the caprices of a master? Marriage is a sacrament by virtue of which each imparts

nothing but vexations to the other. Children, moreover, worry me. Did I not faithfully warn you about my

nature? Why are you not satisfied to have my friendship? I wish I could make you amends for all the troubles

I have caused you, through not guessing the value of your poor five franc pieces. I appreciate the extent of

your sacrifices; but your devotion and delicate tact can be repaid by love alone, and I care so little for you,

" 'I am fully aware of my absurdity,' I said, unable to restrain my tears. 'Pardon me,' I went on, 'it was a

delight to hear those cruel words you have just uttered, so well I love you. O, if I could testify my love with

" 'Men always repeat these classic formulas to us, more or less effectively,' she answered, still smiling. 'But it

appears very difficult to die at our feet, for I see corpses of that kind about everywhere. It is twelve o'clock.

" 'Like the day before yesterday! Yes,' she said, 'I was thinking of my stockbroker; I had forgotten to tell him

to convert my five per cent stock into threes, and the three per cents had fallen during the day.'

"I looked at her, and my eyes glittered with anger. Sometimes a crime may be a whole romance; I understood

that just then. She was so accustomed, no doubt, to the most impassioned declarations of this kind, that my

" 'Permit me to accompany you to the door,' she said, cutting irony in her tones, in the poise of her head, and

" 'You wish to be a duchess?' I cried, excited by a sort of madness that her insolence roused in me. 'You are

wild for honors and titles? Well, only let me love you; bid my pen write and my voice speak for you alone; be

the inmost soul of my life, my guiding star! Then, only accept me for your husband as a minister, a peer of

" 'You made good use of the time you spent with the advocate,' she said smiling. 'There is a fervency about

" 'The present is yours,' I cried, 'but the future is mine! I only lose a woman; you are losing a name and a

family. Time is big with my revenge; time will spoil your beauty, and yours will be a solitary death; and

" 'Thanks for your peroration!' she said, repressing a yawn; the wish that she might never see me again was

"That remark silenced me. I flung at her a glance full of hatred, and hurried away.

"Foedora must be forgotten; I must cure myself of my infatuation, and betake myself once more to my lonely

studies, or die. So I set myself tremendous tasks; I determined to complete my labors. For fifteen days I never

left my garret, spending whole nights in pallid thought. I worked with difficulty, and by fits and starts, despite

my courage and the stimulation of despair. The music had fled. I could not exorcise the brilliant mocking

image of Foedora. Something morbid brooded over every thought, a vague longing as dreadful as remorse. I

imitated the anchorites of the Thebaid. If I did not pray as they did, I lived a life in the desert like theirs,

hewing out my ideas as they were wont to hew their rocks. I could at need have girdled my waist with spikes,

" 'You are killing yourself,' she said imploringly; 'you should go out and see your friends'

" 'Pauline, you were a true prophet; Foedora is killing me, I want to die. My life is intolerable.'

" 'Is there only one woman in the world?' she asked, smiling. 'Why make yourself so miserable in so short a

"I looked at Pauline in bewilderment. She left me before I noticed her departure; the sound of her words had

reached me, but not their sense. Very soon I had to take my Memoirs in manuscript to my literary

contractor. I was so absorbed by my passion, that I could not remember how I had managed to live without

money; I only knew that the four hundred and fifty francs due to me would pay my debts. So I went to

" 'That woman is killing me,' I answered; 'I can neither despise her nor forget her.'

" 'You had much better kill her, then perhaps you would think no more of her,' he said, laughing.

" 'I have often thought of it,' I replied; 'but though sometimes the thought of a crime revives my spirits, of

violence and murder, either or both, I am really incapable of carrying out the design. The countess is an

" 'I am mad,' I cried; 'I can feel the madness raging at times in my brain. My ideas are like shadows; they flit

before me, and I cannot grasp them. Death would be preferable to this life, and I have carefully considered

the best way of putting an end to the struggle. I am not thinking of the living Foedora in the Faubourg Saint

Honore, but of my Foedora here,' and I tapped my forehead. 'What to you say to opium?'

" 'And if you miscalculate, you disfigure yourself for life. Listen to me,' he went on, 'like all young men, I

have pondered over suicide. Which of us hasn't killed himself two or three times before he is thirty? I find

there is no better course than to use existence as a means of pleasure. Go in for thorough dissipation, and your

passion or you will perish in it. Intemperance, my dear fellow, commands all forms of death. Does she not

wield the thunderbolt of apoplexy? Apoplexy is a pistolshot that does not miscalculate. Orgies are lavish in

all physical pleasures; is not that the small change for opium? And the riot that makes us drink to excess

bears a challenge to mortal combat with wine. That butt of Malmsey of the Duke of Clarence's must have had

a pleasanter flavor than Seine mud. When we sink gloriously under the table, is not that a periodical death by

drowning on a small scale? If we are picked up by the police and stretched out on those chilly benches of

theirs at the policestation, do we not enjoy all the pleasures of the Morgue? For though we are not blue and

green, muddy and swollen corpses, on the other hand we have the consciousness of the climax.

" 'Ah,' he went on, 'this protracted suicide has nothing in common with the bankrupt grocer's demise.

Tradespeople have brought the river into disrepute; they fling themselves in to soften their creditors' hearts.

In your place I should endeavor to die gracefully; and if you wish to invent a novel way of doing it, by

struggling with life after this manner, I will be your second. I am disappointed and sick of everything. The

Alsacienne, whom it was proposed that I should marry, had six toes on her left foot; I cannot possibly live

with a woman who has six toes! It would get about to a certainty, and then I should be ridiculous. Her income

was only eighteen thousand francs; her fortune diminished in quantity as her toes increased. The devil take it;

if we begin an outrageous sort of life, we may come on some bit of luck, perhaps!'

"Rastignac's eloquence carried me away. The attractions of the plan shone too temptingly, hopes were

" 'You would pay your tailor? You will never be anything whatever, not so much as a minister.'

" 'You are going to launch out into what I call systematic dissipation,' said he, noticing my scruples, 'and yet

" 'Listen to me,' I answered. 'I promised my father never to set foot in a gaminghouse. Not only is that a

sacred promise, but I still feel an unconquerable disgust whenever I pass a gamblinghell; take the money

and go without me. While our fortune is at stake, I will set my own affairs straight, and then I will go to your

"That was the way I went to perdition. A young man has only to come across a woman who will not love

him, or a woman who loves him too well, and his whole life becomes a chaos. Prosperity swallows up our

energy just as adversity obscures our virtues. Back once more in my Hotel de SaintQuentin, I gazed about

me a long while in the garret where I had led my scholar's temperate life, a life which would perhaps have

been a long and honorable one, and that I ought not to have quitted for the fevered existence which had urged

"I rose and quietly counted out the money owing to her mother, and added to it sufficient to pay for six

" 'Listen, my child. I have not given up the idea of coming back. Keep my room for me for six months. If I do

not return by the fifteenth of November, you will come into possession of my things. This sealed packet of

manuscript is the fair copy of my great work on "The Will," ' I went on, pointing to a package. 'Will you

deposit it in the King's Library? And you may do as you wish with everything that is left here.'

"Her look weighed heavily on my heart; Pauline was an embodiment of conscience there before me.

"I gently drew her towards me, and set a kiss on that innocent fair brow of hers, like snow that has not yet

touched the eartha father's or a brother's kiss. She fled. I would not see Madame Gaudin, hung my key in

its wonted place, and departed. I was almost at the end of the Rue de Cluny when I heard a woman's light

" 'I have embroidered this purse for you,' Pauline said; 'will you refuse even that?'

"By the light of the street lamp I thought I saw tears in Pauline's eyes, and I groaned. Moved perhaps by a

common impulse, we parted in haste like people who fear the contagion of the plague.

"As I waited with dignified calmness for Rastignac's return, his room seemed a grotesque interpretation of the

sort of life I was about to enter upon. The clock on the chimneypiece was surmounted by a Venus resting on

her tortoise; a halfsmoked cigar lay in her arms. Costly furniture of various kindslove tokens, very

likelywas scattered about. Old shoes lay on a luxurious sofa. The comfortable armchair into which I had

thrown myself bore as many scars as a veteran; the arms were gnashed, the back was overlaid with a thick,

stale deposit of pomade and hairoil from the heads of all his visitors. Splendor and squalor were oddly

mingled, on the walls, the bed, and everywhere. You might have thought of a Neapolitan palace and the

groups of lazzaroni about it. It was the room of a gambler or a mauvais sujet, where the luxury exists for one

individual, who leads the life of the senses and does not trouble himself over inconsistencies.

"There was a certain imaginative element about the picture it presented. Life was suddenly revealed there in

its rags and spangles as the incomplete thing it really is, of course, but so vividly and picturesquely; it was

like a den where a brigand has heaped up all the plunder in which he delights. Some pages were missing from

a copy of Byron's poems: they had gone to light a fire of a few sticks for this young person, who played for

stakes of a thousand francs, and had not a faggot; he kept a tilbury, and had not a whole shirt to his back. Any

day a countess or an actress or a run of luck at ecarte might set him up with an outfit worthy of a king. A

candle had been stuck into the green bronze sheath of a vestaholder; a woman's portrait lay yonder, torn out

of its carved gold setting. How was it possible that a young man, whose nature craved excitement, could

renounce a life so attractive by reason of its contradictions; a life that afforded all the delights of war in the

midst of peace? I was growing drowsy when Rastignac kicked the door open and shouted:

"He held out his hat filled with gold to me, and put it down on the table; then we pranced round it like a pair

of cannibals about to eat a victim; we stamped, and danced, and yelled, and sang; we gave each other blows

fit to kill an elephant, at sight of all the pleasures of the world contained in that hat.

" 'Twentyseven thousand francs,' said Rastignac, adding a few bank notes to the pile of gold. 'That would

be enough for other folk to live upon; will it be sufficient for us to die on? Yes! we will breathe our last in a

"We divided the windfall. We began with doublenapoleons, and came down to the smaller coins, one by

one. 'This for you, this for me,' we kept saying, distilling our joy drop by drop.

"Next day I went to Lesage and chose my furniture, took the rooms that you know in the Rue Taitbout, and

left the decoration to one of the best upholsterers. I bought horses. I plunged into a vortex of pleasures, at

once hollow and real. I went in for play, gaining and losing enormous sums, but only at friends' houses and in

ballrooms; never in gaminghouses, for which I still retained the holy horror of my early days. Without

meaning it, I made some friends, either through quarrels or owing to the easy confidence established among

those who are going to the bad together; nothing, possibly, makes us cling to one another so tightly as our

"I made several ventures in literature, which were flatteringly received. Great men who followed the

profession of letters, having nothing to fear from me, belauded me, not so much on account of my merits as to

"I became a 'freeliver,' to make use of the picturesque expression appropriated by the language of excess. I

made it a point of honor not to be long about dying, and that my zeal and prowess should eclipse those

displayed by all others in the jolliest company. I was always spruce and carefully dressed. I had some

reputation for cleverness. There was no sign about me of the fearful way of living which makes a man into a

"Very soon Debauch rose before me in all the majesty of its horror, and I grasped all that it meant. Those

prudent, steadygoing characters who are laying down wine in bottles for their heirs, can barely conceive, it

is true, of so wide a theory of life, nor appreciate its normal condition; but when will you instill poetry into

the provincial intellect? Opium and tea, with all their delights, are merely drugs to folk of that calibre.

"Is not the imperfect sybarite to be met with even in Paris itself, that intellectual metropolis? Unfit to endure

the fatigues of pleasure, this sort of person, after a drinking bout, is very much like those worthy bourgeois

who fall foul of music after hearing a new opera by Rossini. Does he not renounce these courses in the same

frame of mind that leads an abstemious man to forswear Ruffec pates, because the first one, forsooth, gave

"Debauch is as surely an art as poetry, and is not for craven spirits. To penetrate its mysteries and appreciate

its charms, conscientious application is required; and as with every path of knowledge, the way is thorny and

forbidding at the outset. The great pleasures of humanity are hedged about with formidable obstacles; not its

single enjoyments, but enjoyment as a system, a system which establishes seldom experienced sensations and

makes them habitual, which concentrates and multiplies them for us, creating a dramatic life within our life,

and imperatively demanding a prompt and enormous expenditure of vitality. War, Power, Art, like Debauch,

are all forms of demoralization, equally remote from the faculties of humanity, equally profound, and all are

alike difficult of access. But when man has once stormed the heights of these grand mysteries, does he not

walk in another world? Are not generals, ministers, and artists carried, more or less, towards destruction by

the need of violent distractions in an existence so remote from ordinary life as theirs?

"War, after all, is the Excess of bloodshed, as the Excess of self interest produces Politics. Excesses of every

sort are brothers. These social enormities possess the attraction of the abyss; they draw towards themselves as

St. Helena beckoned Napoleon; we are fascinated, our heads swim, we wish to sound their depths though we

cannot account for the wish. Perhaps the thought of Infinity dwells in these precipices, perhaps they contain

some colossal flattery for the soul of man; for is he not, then, wholly absorbed in himself?

"The wearied artist needs a complete contrast to his paradise of imaginings and of studious hours; he either

craves, like God, the seventh day of rest, or with Satan, the pleasures of hell; so that his senses may have free

play in opposition to the employment of his faculties. Byron could never have taken for his relaxation to the

independent gentleman's delights of boston and gossip, for he was a poet, and so must needs pit Greece

"In war, is not man an angel of extirpation, a sort of executioner on a gigantic scale? Must not the spell be

strong indeed that makes us undergo such horrid sufferings so hostile to our weak frames, sufferings that

encircle every strong passion with a hedge of thorns? The tobacco smoker is seized with convulsions, and

goes through a kind of agony consequent upon his excesses; but has he not borne a part in delightful festivals

in realms unknown? Has Europe ever ceased from wars? She has never given herself time to wipe the stains

from her feet that are steeped in blood to the ankle. Mankind at large is carried away by fits of intoxication, as

"For men in private life, for a vegetating Mirabeau dreaming of storms in a time of calm, Excess comprises

all things; it perpetually embraces the whole sum of life; it is something better stillit is a duel with an

antagonist of unknown power, a monster, terrible at first sight, that must be seized by the horns, a labor that

"Suppose that nature has endowed you with a feeble stomach or one of limited capacity; you acquire a

mastery over it and improve it; you learn to carry your liquor; you grow accustomed to being drunk; you pass

whole nights without sleep; at last you acquire the constitution of a colonel of cuirassiers; and in this way you

"A man transformed after this sort is like a neophyte who has at last become a veteran, has accustomed his

mind to shot and shell and his legs to lengthy marches. When the monster's hold on him is still uncertain, and

it is not yet known which will have the better of it, they roll over and over, alternately victor and vanquished,

in a world where everything is wonderful, where every ache of the soul is laid to sleep, where only the

"This furious struggle has already become a necessity for us. The prodigal has struck a bargain for all the

enjoyments with which life teems abundantly, at the price of his own death, like the mythical persons in

legends who sold themselves to the devil for the power of doing evil. For them, instead of flowing quietly on

in its monotonous course in the depths of some countinghouse or study, life is poured out in a boiling

"Excess is, in short, for the body what the mystic's ecstasy is for the soul. Intoxication steeps you in fantastic

imaginings every whit as strange as those of ecstatics. You know hours as full of rapture as a young girl's

dreams; you travel without fatigue; you chat pleasantly with your friends; words come to you with a whole

life in each, and fresh pleasures without regrets; poems are set forth for you in a few brief phrases. The coarse

animal satisfaction, in which science has tried to find a soul, is followed by the enchanted drowsiness that

men sigh for under the burden of consciousness. Is it not because they all feel the need of absolute repose?

"Look at all great men; nature made them pleasureloving or base, every one. Some mocking or jealous

power corrupted them in either soul or body, so as to make all their powers futile, and their efforts of no

"All men and all things appear before you in the guise you choose, in those hours when wine has sway. You

are lord of all creation; you transform it at your pleasure. And throughout this unceasing delirium, Play may

"Some day you will fall into the monster's power. Then you will have, as I had, a frenzied awakening, with

impotence sitting by your pillow. Are you an old soldier? Phthisis attacks you. A diplomatist? An aneurism

hangs death in your heart by a thread. It will perhaps be consumption that will cry out to me, 'Let us be

"In this way I have existed. I was launched into the world too early or too late. My energy would have been

dangerous there, no doubt, if I had not have squandered it in such ways as these. Was not the world rid of an

"There are some, the sport of Destiny, who must either have heaven or hell, the hospice of St. Bernard or

riotous excess. Only just now I lacked the heart to moralize about those two," and he pointed to Euphrasia

and Aquilina. "They are types of my own personal history, images of my life! I could scarcely reproach them;

"In the midst of this drama that I was enacting, and while my distracting disorder was at its height, two crises

supervened; each brought me keen and abundant pangs. The first came a few days after I had flung myself,

like Sardanapalus, on my pyre. I met Foedora under the peristyle of the Bouffons. We both were waiting for

"That was the meaning of her smile, and probably of the spiteful words she murmured in the ear of her

cicisbeo, telling him my history no doubt, rating mine as a common love affair. She was deceived, yet she

was applauding her perspicacity. Oh, that I should be dying for her, must still adore her, always see her

through my potations, see her still when I was overcome with wine, or in the arms of courtesans; and know

that I was a target for her scornful jests! Oh, that I should be unable to tear the love of her out of my breast

"Well, I quickly exhausted my funds, but owing to those three years of discipline, I enjoyed the most robust

health, and on the day that I found myself without a penny I felt remarkably well. In order to carry on the

process of dying, I signed bills at short dates, and the day came when they must be met. Painful excitements!

but how they quicken the pulses of youth! I was not prematurely aged; I was young yet, and full of vigor and

"At my first debt all my virtues came to life; slowly and despairingly they seemed to pace towards me; but I

could compound with themthey were like aged aunts that begin with a scolding and end by bestowing tears

"Imagination was less yielding; I saw my name bandied about through every city in Europe. 'One's name is

oneself' says Eusebe Salverte. After these excursions I returned to the room I had never quitted, like a

"I used to see with indifference a banker's messenger going on his errands through the streets of Paris, like a

commercial Nemesis, wearing his master's liverya gray coat and a silver badge; but now I hated the species

in advance. One of them came one morning to ask me to meet some eleven bills that I had scrawled my name

upon. My signature was worth three thousand francs! Taking me altogether, I myself was not worth that

amount. Sheriff's deputies rose up before me, turning their callous faces upon my despair, as the hangman

regards the criminal to whom he says, 'It has just struck halfpast three.' I was in the power of their clerks;

they could scribble my name, drag it through the mire, and jeer at it. I was a defaulter. Has a debtor any right

to himself? Could not other men call me to account for my way of living? Why had I eaten puddings a la

chipolata? Why had I iced my wine? Why had I slept, or walked, or thought, or amused myself when I had

"At any moment, in the middle of a poem, during some train of thought, or while I was gaily breakfasting in

the pleasant company of my friends, I might look to see a gentleman enter in a coat of chestnut brown, with

a shabby hat in his hand. This gentleman's appearance would signify my debt, the bill I had drawn; the

spectre would compel me to leave the table to speak to him, blight my spirits, despoil me of my cheerfulness,

"Remorse itself is more easily endured. Remorse does not drive us into the street nor into the prison of

SaintePelagie; it does not force us into the detestable sink of vice. Remorse only brings us to the scaffold,

where the executioner invests us with a certain dignity; as we pay the extreme penalty, everybody believes in

our innocence; but people will not credit a penniless prodigal with a single virtue.

"My debts had other incarnations. There is the kind that goes about on two feet, in a green cloth coat, and

blue spectacles, carrying umbrellas of various hues; you come face to face with him at the corner of some

street, in the midst of your mirth. These have the detestable prerogative of saying, 'M. de Valentin owes me

something, and does not pay. I have a hold on him. He had better not show me any offensive airs!' You must

bow to your creditors, and moreover bow politely. 'When are you going to pay me?' say they. And you must

lie, and beg money of another man, and cringe to a fool seated on his strongbox, and receive sour looks in

return from these horseleeches; a blow would be less hateful; you must put up with their crass ignorance and

calculating morality. A debt is a feat of the imaginative that they cannot appreciate. A borrower is often

carried away and overmastered by generous impulses; nothing great, nothing magnanimous can move or

dominate those who live for money, and recognize nothing but money. I myself held money in abhorrence.

"Or a bill may undergo a final transformation into some meritorious old man with a family dependent upon

him. My creditor might be a living picture for Greuze, a paralytic with his children round him, a soldier's

widow, holding out beseeching hands to me. Terrible creditors are these with whom we are forced to

sympathize, and when their claims are satisfied we owe them a further debt of assistance.

"The night before the bills fell due, I lay down with the false calm of those who sleep before their

approaching execution, or with a duel in prospect, rocked as they are by delusive hopes. But when I woke,

when I was cool and collected, when I found myself imprisoned in a banker's portfolio, and floundering in

statements covered with red ink then my debts sprang up everywhere, like grasshoppers, before my eyes.

There were my debts, my clock, my armchairs; my debts were inlaid in the very furniture which I liked best

to use. These gentle inanimate slaves were to fall prey to the harpies of the Chatelet, were to be carried off by

the broker's men, and brutally thrown on the market. Ah, my property was a part of myself!

"The sound of the doorbell rang through my heart; while it seemed to strike at me, where kings should be

struck atin the head. Mine was a martyrdom, without heaven for its reward. For a magnanimous nature,

debt is a hell, and a hell, moreover, with sheriff's officers and brokers in it. An undischarged debt is

something mean and sordid; it is a beginning of knavery; it is something worse, it is a lie; it prepares the way

for crime, and brings together the planks for the scaffold. My bills were protested. Three days afterwards I

"A speculator came, offering to buy the island in the Loire belonging to me, where my mother lay buried. I

closed with him. When I went to his solicitor to sign the deeds, I felt a cavernlike chill in the dark office that

made me shudder; it was the same cold dampness that had laid hold upon me at the brink of my father's

grave. I looked upon this as an evil omen. I seemed to see the shade of my mother, and to hear her voice.

What power was it that made my own name ring vaguely in my ears, in spite of the clamor of bells?

"The money paid down for my island, when all my debts were discharged, left me in possession of two

thousand francs. I could now have returned to the scholar's tranquil life, it is true; I could have gone back to

my garret after having gained an experience of life, with my head filled with the results of extensive

observation, and with a certain sort of reputation attaching to me. But Foedora's hold upon her victim was not

relaxed. We often met. I compelled her admirers to sound my name in her ears, by dint of astonishing them

with my cleverness and success, with my horses and equipages. It all found her impassive and uninterested;

"I charged the world at large with my revenge, but I was not happy. While I was fathoming the miry depths

of life, I only recognized the more keenly at all times the happiness of reciprocal affection; it was a shadow

that I followed through all that befell me in my extravagance, and in my wildest moments. It was my

misfortune to be deceived in my fairest beliefs, to be punished by ingratitude for benefiting others, and to

receive uncounted pleasures as the reward of my errorsa sinister doctrine, but a true one for the prodigal!

"The contagious leprosy of Foedora's vanity had taken hold of me at last. I probed my soul, and found it

cankered and rotten. I bore the marks of the devil's claw upon my forehead. It was impossible to me

thenceforward to do without the incessant agitation of a life fraught with danger at every moment, or to

dispense with the execrable refinements of luxury. If I had possessed millions, I should still have gambled,

reveled, and racketed about. I wished never to be alone with myself, and I must have false friends and

courtesans, wine and good cheer to distract me. The ties that attach a man to family life had been permanently

broken for me. I had become a galleyslave of pleasure, and must accomplish my destiny of suicide. During

the last days of my prosperity, I spent every night in the most incredible excesses; but every morning death

cast me back upon life again. I would have taken a conflagration with as little concern as any man with a life

annuity. However, I at last found myself alone with a twentyfranc piece; I bethought me then of Rastignac's

"Eh, eh!" Raphael exclaimed, interrupting himself, as he remembered the talisman and drew it from his

pocket. Perhaps he was wearied by the long day's strain, and had no more strength left wherewith to pilot his

head through the seas of wine and punch; or perhaps, exasperated by this symbol of his own existence, the

torrent of his own eloquence gradually overwhelmed him. Raphael became excited and elated and like one

"The devil take death!" he shouted, brandishing the skin; "I mean to live! I am rich, I have every virtue;

nothing will withstand me. Who would not be generous, when everything is in his power? Aha! Aha! I

wished for two hundred thousand livres a year, and I shall have them. Bow down before me, all of you,

wallowing on the carpets like swine in the mire! You all belong to mea precious property truly! I am rich; I

could buy you all, even the deputy snoring over there. Scum of society, give me your benediction! I am the

Raphael's vociferations had been hitherto drowned by a thoroughbass of snores, but now they became

suddenly audible. Most of the sleepers started up with a cry, saw the cause of the disturbance on his feet,

"Silence!" shouted Raphael. "Back to your kennels, you dogs! Emile, I have riches, I will give you Havana

"I am listening," the poet replied. "Death or Foedora! On with you! That silky Foedora deceived you. Women

are all daughters of Eve. There is nothing dramatic about that rigmarole of yours."

"Wake up!" Raphael shouted, beating Emile with the piece of shagreen as if he meant to draw electric fluid

"TONNERRE!" said Emile, springing up and flinging his arms round Raphael; "my friend, remember the sort

"But, Raphael, we are in queer company, and you ought to keep quiet for the sake of your own dignity."

"My life has been silent too long. I mean to have my revenge now on the world at large. I will not amuse

myself by squandering paltry fivefranc pieces; I will reproduce and sum up my epoch by absorbing human

lives, human minds, and human souls. There are the treasures of pestilencethat is no paltry kind of wealth,

is it? I will wrestle with feversyellow, blue, or greenwith whole armies, with gibbets. I can possess

FoedoraYet no, I do not want Foedora; she is a disease; I am dying of Foedora. I want to forget Foedora."

"Do you see this skin? It is Solomon's will. Solomon belongs to mea little varlet of a king! Arabia is mine,

Arabia Petraea to boot; and the universe, and you too, if I choose. If I choose Ah! be careful. I can buy up

all our journalist's shop; you shall be my valet. You shall be my valet, you shall manage my newspaper.

Valet! VALET, that is to say, free from aches and pains, because he has no brains."

"All right," he remarked; "yes, my friend, I am your valet. But you are about to be editorinchief of a

newspaper; so be quiet, and behave properly, for my sake. Have you no regard for me?"

"Regard for you! You shall have Havana cigars, with this bit of shagreen: always with this skin, this supreme

bit of shagreen. It is a cure for corns, and efficacious remedy. Do you suffer? I will remove them."

"Senseless, my friend? Not at all. This skin contracts whenever I form a wish'tis a paradox. There is a

Brahmin underneath it! The Brahmin must be a droll fellow, for our desires, look you, are bound to

"You don't believe me. I know you, my friend; you are as full of lies as a newmade king."

"Goodness! he will never get off to sleep," exclaimed Emile, as he watched Raphael rummaging busily in the

Thanks to the peculiar clearness with which external objects are sometimes projected on an inebriated brain,

in sharp contrast to its own obscure imaginings, Valentin found an inkstand and a tablenapkin, with the

The two friends spread out the tablenapkin and laid the Magic Skin upon it. As Emile's hand appeared to be

steadier than Raphael's, he drew a line with pen and ink round the talisman, while his friend said:

"I wished for an income of two hundred thousand livres, didn't I? Well, when that comes, you will observe a

"Yesnow go to sleep. Shall I make you comfortable on that sofa? Now then, are you all right?"

"Yes, my nursling of the press. You shall amuse me; you shall drive the flies away from me. The friend of

adversity should be the friend of prosperity. So I will give you some Havanacig"

"You! sleep off your paragraphs! Goodnight! Say goodnight to Nebuchadnezzar!Love! Wine!

Very soon the snorings of the two friends were added to the music with which the rooms resoundedan

ineffectual concert! The lights went out one by one, their crystal sconces cracking in the final flare. Night

threw dark shadows over this prolonged revelry, in which Raphael's narrative had been a second orgy of

speech, of words without ideas, of ideas for which words had often been lacking.

Towards noon, next day, the fair Aquilina bestirred herself. She yawned wearily. She had slept with her head

upon a painted velvet footstool, and her cheeks were mottled over by contact with the surface. Her movement

awoke Euphrasia, who suddenly sprang up with a hoarse cry; her pretty face, that had been so fresh and fair

in the evening, was sallow now and pallid; she looked like a candidate for the hospital. The rest awoke also

by degrees, with portentous groanings, to feel themselves over in every stiffened limb, and to experience the

A servant came in to throw back the shutters and open the windows. There they all stood, brought back to

consciousness by the warm rays of sunlight that shone upon the sleepers' heads. Their movements during

slumber had disordered the elaborately arranged hair and toilettes of the women. They presented a ghastly

spectacle in the bright daylight. Their hair fell ungracefully about them; their eyes, lately so brilliant, were

heavy and dim; the expression of their faces was entirely changed. The sickly hues, which daylight brings out

so strongly, were frightful. An olive tint had crept over the lymphatic faces, so fair and soft when in repose;

the dainty red lips were grown pale and dry, and bore tokens of the degradation of excess. Each disowned his

mistress of the night before; the women looked wan and discolored, like flowers trampled under foot by a

The men who scorned them looked even more horrible. Those human faces would have made you shudder.

The hollow eyes with the dark circles round them seemed to see nothing; they were dull with wine and

stupefied with heavy slumbers that had been exhausting rather than refreshing. There was an indescribable

ferocious and stolid bestiality about these haggard faces, where bare physical appetite appeared shorn of all

the poetical illusion with which the intellect invests it. Even these fearless champions, accustomed to measure

themselves with excess, were struck with horror at this awakening of vice, stripped of its disguises, at being

confronted thus with sin, the skeleton in rags, lifeless and hollow, bereft of the sophistries of the intellect and

the enchantments of luxury. Artists and courtesans scrutinized in silence and with haggard glances the

surrounding disorder, the rooms where everything had been laid waste, at the havoc wrought by heated

Demoniac laughter broke out when Taillefer, catching the smothered murmurs of his guests, tried to greet

them with a grin. His darkly flushed, perspiring countenance loomed upon this pandemonium, like the image

of a crime that knows no remorse (see L'Auberge Rouge). The picture was complete. A picture of a foul life

in the midst of luxury, a hideous mixture of the pomp and squalor of humanity; an awakening after the frenzy

of Debauch has crushed and squeezed all the fruits of life in her strong hands, till nothing but unsightly refuse

is left to her, and lies in which she believes no longer. You might have thought of Death gloating over a

The sweet scents and dazzling lights, the mirth and the excitement were all no more; disgust with its

nauseous sensations and searching philosophy was there instead. The sun shone in like truth, the pure outer

air was like virtue; in contrast with the heated atmosphere, heavy with the fumes of the previous night of

Accustomed as they were to their life, many of the girls thought of other days and other wakings; pure and

innocent days when they looked out and saw the roses and honeysuckle about the casement, and the fresh

countryside without enraptured by the glad music of the skylark; while earth lay in mists, lighted by the

dawn, and in all the glittering radiance of dew. Others imagined the family breakfast, the father and children

round the table, the innocent laughter, the unspeakable charm that pervaded it all, the simple hearts and their

An artist mused upon his quiet studio, on his statue in its severe beauty, and the graceful model who was

waiting for him. A young man recollected a lawsuit on which the fortunes of a family hung, and an important

transaction that needed his presence. The scholar regretted his study and that noble work that called for him.

Emile appeared just then as smiling, blooming, and fresh as the smartest assistant in a fashionable shop.

"You are all as ugly as bailiffs. You won't be fit for anything today, so this day is lost, and I vote for

At this Taillefer went out to give some orders. The women went languidly up to the mirrors to set their

toilettes in order. Each one shook herself. The wilder sort lectured the steadier ones. The courtesans made fun

of those who looked unable to continue the boisterous festivity; but these wan forms revived all at once,

stood in groups, and talked and smiled. Some servants quickly and adroitly set the furniture and everything

The guests hurried into the diningroom. Everything there bore indelible marks of yesterday's excess, it is

true, but there were at any rate some traces of ordinary, rational existence, such traces as may be found in a

sick man's dying struggles. And so the revelry was laid away and buried, like carnival of a Shrove Tuesday,

by masks wearied out with dancing, drunk with drunkenness, and quite ready to be persuaded of the pleasures

As soon as these bold spirits surrounded the capitalist's breakfast table, Cardot appeared. He had left the rest

to make a night of it after the dinner, and finished the evening after his own fashion in the retirement of

domestic life. Just now a sweet smile wandered over his features. He seemed to have a presentiment that

there would be some inheritance to sample and divide, involving inventories and engrossing; an inheritance

rich in fees and deeds to draw up, and something as juicy as the trembling fillet of beef in which their host

"You have come here just at the right time," said the banker, indicating the breakfast; "you can jot down the

"There is no will to make here, but contracts of marriage there may be, perhaps," said the scholar, who had

"One moment," cried Cardot, fairly deafened by a chorus of wretched jokes. "I came here on serious business.

I am bringing six millions for one of you." (Dead silence.) "Monsieur," he went on, turning to Raphael, who

at the moment was unceremoniously wiping his eyes on a corner of the tablenapkin, "was not your mother a

"Have you your certificate of birth about you," Cardot went on, "and Mme. de Valentin's as well?"

"Very well then, monsieur; you are the sole heir of Major O'Flaharty, who died in August 1828 at Calcutta."

"The Major having bequeathed several amounts to public institutions in his will, the French Government sent

in a claim for the remainder to the East India Company," the notary continued. "The estate is clear and ready

to be transferred at this moment. I have been looking in vain for the heirs and assigns of Mlle. Barbara Marie

Just then Raphael suddenly staggered to his feet; he looked like a man who has just received a blow.

Acclamation took the form of silence, for stifled envy had been the first feeling in every breast, and all eyes

devoured him like flames. Then a murmur rose, and grew like the voice of a discontented audience, or the

first mutterings of a riot, as everybody made some comment on this news of great wealth brought by the

This abrupt subservience of fate brought Raphael thoroughly to his senses. He immediately spread out the

tablenapkin with which he had lately taken the measure of the piece of shagreen. He heeded nothing as he

laid the talisman upon it, and shuddered involuntarily at the sight of a slight difference between the present

"Why, what is the matter with him?' Taillefer cried. "He comes by his fortune very cheaply."

A ghastly white hue overspread every line of the wan features of the heiratlaw. His face was drawn, every

outline grew haggard; the hollows in his livid countenance grew deeper, and his eyes were fixed and staring.

The opulent banker, surrounded by faded women, and faces with satiety written on them, the enjoyment that

Raphael looked thrice at the talisman, which lay passively within the merciless outlines on the tablenapkin;

he tried not to believe it, but his incredulity vanished utterly before the light of an inner presentiment. The

whole world was his; he could have all things, but the will to possess them was utterly extinct. Like a traveler

in the midst of the desert, with but a little water left to quench his thirst, he must measure his life by the

draughts he took of it. He saw what every desire of his must cost him in the days of his life. He believed in

the powers of the Magic Skin at last, he listened to every breath he drew; he felt ill already; he asked himself:

The hurrah set up by the jovial assembly rang in Valentin's ears, but he could not grasp the sense of a single

word. Vague thoughts crossed him of the Breton peasant's life of mechanical labor, without a wish of any

kind; he pictured him burdened with a family, tilling the soil, living on buckwheat meal, drinking cider out of

a pitcher, believing in the Virgin and the King, taking the sacrament at Easter, dancing of a Sunday on the

green sward, and understanding never a word of the rector's sermon. The actual scene that lay before him, the

gilded furniture, the courtesans, the feast itself, and the surrounding splendors, seemed to catch him by the

"Bravo!" Taillefer exclaimed; "you understand your position; a fortune confers the privilege of being

impertinent. You are one of us. Gentlemen, let us drink to the might of gold! M. Valentin here, six times a

millionaire, has become a power. He is a king, like all the rich; everything is at his disposal, everything lies

under his feet. From this time forth the axiom that 'all Frenchmen are alike in the eyes of the law,' is for him a

fib at the head of the Constitutional Charter. He is not going to obey the lawthe law is going to obey him.

"What are you doing?" said Emile, checking his movement. "Gentlemen," he added, addressing the company,

who were rather taken aback by Raphael's behavior, "you must know that our friend Valentin herewhat am

I saying?I mean my Lord Marquis de Valentinis in the possession of a secret for obtaining wealth. His

wishes are fulfilled as soon as he knows them. He will make us all rich together, or he is a flunkey, and

"Oh, Raphael dear, I should like a set of pearl ornaments!" Euphrasia exclaimed.

"If he has any gratitude in him, he will give me a couple of carriages with fast steppers," said Aquilina.

These phrases flew about like the last discharge of rockets at the end of a display of fireworks; and were

"My good friend," Emile said solemnly, "I shall be quite satisfied with an income of two hundred thousand

"A nice excuse!" the poet cried; "ought we not to sacrifice ourselves for our friends?"

"I have almost a mind to wish that you all were dead," Valentin made answer, with a dark, inscrutable look at

"Dying people are frightfully cruel," said Emile, laughing. "You are rich now," he went on gravely; "very

well, I will give you two months at most before you grow vilely selfish. You are so dense already that you

cannot understand a joke. You have only to go a little further to believe in your Magic Skin."

Raphael kept silent, fearing the banter of the company; but he drank immoderately, trying to drown in

In the early days of December an old man of some seventy years of age pursued his way along the Rue de

Varenne, in spite of the falling rain. He peered up at the door of each house, trying to discover the address of

the Marquis Raphael de Valentin, in a simple, childlike fashion, and with the abstracted look peculiar to

philosophers. His face plainly showed traces of a struggle between a heavy mortification and an authoritative

nature; his long, gray hair hung in disorder about a face like a piece of parchment shriveling in the fire. If a

painter had come upon this curious character, he would, no doubt, have transferred him to his sketchbook on

his return, a thin, bony figure, clad in black, and have inscribed beneath it: "Classical poet in search of a

rhyme." When he had identified the number that had been given to him, this reincarnation of Rollin knocked

"My Lord the Marquis sees nobody," said the servant, swallowing a huge morsel that he had just dipped in a

"There is his carriage," said the elderly stranger, pointing to a fine equipage that stood under the wooden

canopy that sheltered the steps before the house, in place of a striped linen awning. "He is going out; I will

"Then you might wait here till tomorrow morning, old boy," said the Swiss. "A carriage is always waiting

for monsieur. Please to go away. If I were to let any stranger come into the house without orders, I should

A tall old man, in a costume not unlike that of a subordinate in the Civil Service, came out of the vestibule

and hurried part of the way down the steps, while he made a survey of the astonished elderly applicant for

Fellowfeeling of some kind, or curiosity, brought the two old men together in a central space in the great

entrancecourt. A few blades of grass were growing in the crevices of the pavement; a terrible silence

reigned in that great house. The sight of Jonathan's face would have made you long to understand the mystery

that brooded over it, and that was announced by the smallest trifles about the melancholy place.

When Raphael inherited his uncle's vast estate, his first care had been to seek out the old and devoted servitor

of whose affection he knew that he was secure. Jonathan had wept tears of joy at the sight of his young

master, of whom he thought he had taken a final farewell; and when the marquis exalted him to the high

office of steward, his happiness could not be surpassed. So old Jonathan became an intermediary power

between Raphael and the world at large. He was the absolute disposer of his master's fortune, the blind

instrument of an unknown will, and a sixth sense, as it were, by which the emotions of life were

"I should like to speak with M. Raphael, sir," said the elderly person to Jonathan, as he climbed up the steps

"To speak with my Lord the Marquis?" the steward cried. "He scarcely speaks even to me, his fosterfather!"

"But I am likewise his fosterfather," said the old man. "If your wife was his fostermother, I fed him myself

with the milk of the Muses. He is my nursling, my child, carus alumnus! I formed his mind, cultivated his

understanding, developed his genius, and, I venture to say it, to my own honor and glory. Is he not one of the

most remarkable men of our epoch? He was one of my pupils in two lower forms, and in rhetoric. I am his

"Hush! hush!" Jonathan called to two underlings, whose voices broke the monastic silence that shrouded the

"My dear sir," Jonathan replied, "Heaven only knows what is the matter with my master. You see, there are

not a couple of houses like ours anywhere in Paris. Do you understand? Not two houses. Faith, that there are

not. My Lord the Marquis had this hotel purchased for him; it formerly belonged to a duke and a peer of

France; then he spent three hundred thousand francs over furnishing it. That's a good deal, you know, three

hundred thousand francs! But every room in the house is a perfect wonder. 'Good,' said I to myself when I

saw this magnificence; 'it is just like it used to be in the time of my lord, his late grandfather; and the young

marquis is going to entertain all Paris and the Court!' Nothing of the kind! My lord refused to see any one

whatever. 'Tis a funny life that he leads, M. Porriquet, you understand. An inconciliable life. He rises every

day at the same time. I am the only person, you see, that may enter his room. I open all the shutters at seven

o'clock, summer or winter. It is all arranged very oddly. As I come in I say to him:

"Then he rises and dresses himself. I have to give him his dressing gown, and it is always after the same

pattern, and of the same material. I am obliged to replace it when it can be used no longer, simply to save him

the trouble of asking for a new one. A queer fancy! As a matter of fact, he has a thousand francs to spend

every day, and he does as he pleases, the dear child. And besides, I am so fond of him that if he gave me a

box on the ear on one side, I should hold out the other to him! The most difficult things he will tell me to do,

and yet I do them, you know! He gives me a lot of trifles to attend to, that I am well set to work! He reads the

newspapers, doesn't he? Well, my instructions are to put them always in the same place, on the same table. I

always go at the same hour and shave him myself; and don't I tremble! The cook would forfeit the annuity of

a thousand crowns that he is to come into after my lord's death, if breakfast is not served inconciliably at ten

o'clock precisely. The menus are drawn up for the whole year round, day after day. My Lord the Marquis has

not a thing to wish for. He has strawberries whenever there are any, and he has the earliest mackerel to be had

in Paris. The programme is printed every morning. He knows his dinner by rote. In the next place, he dresses

himself at the same hour, in the same clothes, the same linen, that I always put on the same chair, you

understand? I have to see that he always has the same cloth; and if it should happen that his coat came to grief

(a mere supposition), I should have to replace it by another without saying a word about it to him. If it is fine,

"He says Yes, or No. If he has a notion that he will go out, he doesn't wait for his horses; they are always

ready harnessed; the coachman stops there inconciliably, whip in hand, just as you see him out there. In the

evening, after dinner, my master goes one day to the Opera, the other to the Italno, he hasn't yet gone to

the Italiens, though, for I could not find a box for him until yesterday. Then he comes in at eleven o'clock

precisely, to go to bed. At any time in the day when he has nothing to do, he readshe is always reading,

you seeit is a notion he has. My instructions are to read the Journal de la Librairie before he sees it, and to

buy new books, so that he finds them on his chimneypiece on the very day that they are published. I have

orders to go into his room every hour or so, to look after the fire and everything else, and to see that he wants

nothing. He gave me a little book, sir, to learn off by heart, with all my duties written in ita regular

catechism! In summer I have to keep a cool and even temperature with blocks of ice and at all seasons to put

fresh flowers all about. He is rich! He has a thousand francs to spend every day; he can indulge his fancies!

And he hadn't even necessaries for so long, poor child! He doesn't annoy anybody; he is as good as gold; he

never opens his mouth, for instance; the house and garden are absolutely silent. In short, my master has not a

single wish left; everything comes in the twinkling of an eye, if he raises his hand, and INSTANTER. Quite

right, too. If servants are not looked after, everything falls into confusion. You would never believe the

lengths he goes about things. His rooms are allwhat do you call it?ereren suite. Very well; just

suppose, now, that he opens his room door or the door of his study; presto! all the other doors fly open of

themselves by a patent contrivance; and then he can go from one end of the house to the other and not find a

single door shut; which is all very nice and pleasant and convenient for us great folk! But, on my word, it cost

" 'Jonathan, you will look after me as if I were a baby in long clothes,' Yes, sir, 'long clothes!' those were his

very words. 'You will think of all my requirements for me.' I am the master, so to speak, and he is the servant,

you understand? The reason of it? Ah, my word, that is just what nobody on earth knows but himself and God

"You think he is writing a poem, sir? It's a very absorbing affair, then! But, you know, I don't think he is. He

wants to vergetate. Only yesterday he was looking at a tulip while he was dressing, and he said to me:

" 'There is my own lifeI am vergetating, my poor Jonathan.' Now, some of them insist that that is

"All this makes it very clear to me, Jonathan," the professor answered, with a magisterial solemnity that

greatly impressed the old servant, "that your master is absorbed in a great work. He is deep in vast

meditations, and has no wish to be distracted by the petty preoccupations of ordinary life. A man of genius

"Newton, a great geometrician," Porriquet went on, "once sat for twentyfour hours leaning his elbow on the

table; when he emerged from his musings, he was a day out in his reckoning, just as if he had been sleeping. I

"Not for a moment!" Jonathan cried. "Not though you were King of FranceI mean the real old one. You

could not go in unless you forced the doors open and walked over my body. But I will go and tell him you are

here, M. Porriquet, and I will put it to him like this, 'Ought he to come up?' And he will say Yes or No. I

never say, 'Do you wish?' or 'Will you?' or 'Do you want?' Those words are scratched out of the dictionary.

Jonathan left the old schoolmaster in the vestibule, signing to him to come no further, and soon returned with

a favorable answer. He led the old gentleman through one magnificent room after another, where every door

stood open. At last Porriquet beheld his pupil at some distance seated beside the fire.

Raphael was reading the paper. He sat in an armchair wrapped in a dressinggown with some large pattern

on it. The intense melancholy that preyed upon him could be discerned in his languid posture and feeble

frame; it was depicted on his brow and white face; he looked like some plant bleached by darkness. There

was a kind of effeminate grace about him; the fancies peculiar to wealthy invalids were also noticeable. His

hands were soft and white, like a pretty woman's; he wore his fair hair, now grown scanty, curled about his

The Greek cap that he wore was pulled to one side by the weight of its tassel; too heavy for the light material

of which it was made. He had let the paperknife fall at his feet, a malachite blade with gold mounting,

which he had used to cut the leaves of the book. The amber mouthpiece of a magnificent Indian hookah lay

on his knee; the enameled coils lay like a serpent in the room, but he had forgotten to draw out its fresh

perfume. And yet there was a complete contradiction between the general feebleness of his young frame and

the blue eyes, where all his vitality seemed to dwell; an extraordinary intelligence seemed to look out from

That expression was painful to see. Some would have read despair in it, and others some inner conflict

terrible as remorse. It was the inscrutable glance of helplessness that must perforce consign its desires to the

depths of its own heart; or of a miser enjoying in imagination all the pleasures that his money could procure

for him, while he declines to lessen his hoard; the look of a bound Prometheus, of the fallen Napoleon of

1815, when he learned at the Elysee the strategical blunder that his enemies had made, and asked for twenty

four hours of command in vain; or rather it was the same look that Raphael had turned upon the Seine, or

He was submitting his intelligence and his will to the homely common sense of an old peasant whom fifty

years of domestic service had scarcely civilized. He had given up all the rights of life in order to live; he had

despoiled his soul of all the romance that lies in a wish; and almost rejoiced at thus becoming a sort of

automaton. The better to struggle with the cruel power that he had challenged, he had followed Origen's

The day after he had seen the diminution of the Magic Skin, at his sudden accession of wealth, he happened

to be at his notary's house. A wellknown physician had told them quite seriously, at dessert, how a Swiss

attacked by consumption had cured himself. The man had never spoken a word for ten years, and had

compelled himself to draw six breaths only, every minute, in the close atmosphere of a cowhouse, adhering

all the time to a regimen of exceedingly light diet. "I will be like that man," thought Raphael to himself. He

wanted life at any price, and so he led the life of a machine in the midst of all the luxury around him.

The old professor confronted this youthful corpse and shuddered; there seemed something unnatural about

the meagre, enfeebled frame. In the Marquis, with his eager eyes and careworn forehead, he could hardly

recognize the freshcheeked and rosy pupil with the active limbs, whom he remembered. If the worthy

classicist, sage critic, and general preserver of the traditions of correct taste had read Byron, he would have

"Good day, pere Porriquet," said Raphael, pressing the old schoolmaster's frozen fingers in his own damp

"I am very well," replied the other, alarmed by the touch of that feverish hand. "But how about you?"

"No," Raphael answered. "Exegi monumemtum, pere Porriquet; I have contributed an important page to

science, and have now bidden her farewell for ever. I scarcely know where my manuscript is."

"The style is no doubt correct?" queried the schoolmaster. "You, I hope, would never have adopted the

barbarous language of the new school, which fancies it has worked such wonders by discovering Ronsard!"

"Oh, then, there is no more to be said," the schoolmaster answered. "Grammar must yield to the exigencies of

discovery. Nevertheless, young man, a lucid and harmonious stylethe diction of Massillon, of M. de

Buffon, of the great Racinea classical style, in short, can never spoil anythingBut, my friend," the

schoolmaster interrupted himself, "I was forgetting the object of my visit, which concerns my own interests."

Too late Raphael recalled to mind the verbose eloquence and elegant circumlocutions which in a long

professorial career had grown habitual to his old tutor, and almost regretted that he had admitted him; but just

as he was about to wish to see him safely outside, he promptly suppressed his secret desire with a stealthy

glance at the Magic Skin. It hung there before him, fastened down upon some white material, surrounded by a

red line accurately traced about its prophetic outlines. Since that fatal carouse, Raphael had stifled every least

whim, and had lived so as not to cause the slightest movement in the terrible talisman. The Magic Skin was

like a tiger with which he must live without exciting its ferocity. He bore patiently, therefore, with the old

Porriquet spent an hour in telling him about the persecutions directed against him ever since the Revolution

of July. The worthy man, having a liking for strong governments, had expressed the patriotic wish that

grocers should be left to their counters, statesmen to the management of public business, advocates to the

Palais de Justice, and peers of France to the Luxembourg; but one of the popularityseeking ministers of the

Citizen King had ousted him from his chair, on an accusation of Carlism, and the old man now found himself

without pension or post, and with no bread to eat. As he played the part of guardian angel to a poor nephew,

for whose schooling at Saint Sulpice he was paying, he came less on his own account than for his adopted

child's sake, to entreat his former pupil's interest with the new minister. He did not ask to be reinstated, but

QRaphael had fallen a victim to unconquerable drowsiness by the time that the worthy man's monotonous

voice ceased to sound in his ears. Civility had compelled him to look at the pale and unmoving eyes of the

deliberate and tedious old narrator, till he himself had reached stupefaction, magnetized in an inexplicable

"Well, my dear pere Porriquet," he said, not very certain what the question was to which he was replying,

"but I can do nothing for you, nothing at all. I WISH VERY HEARTILY that you may succeed"

All at once, without seeing the change wrought on the old man's sallow and wrinkled brow by these

conventional phrases, full of indifference and selfishness, Raphael sprang to his feet like a startled roebuck.

He saw a thin white line between the black piece of hide and the red tracing about it, and gave a cry so fearful

"Old fool! Go!" he cried. "You will be appointed as headmaster! Couldn't you have asked me for an annuity

of a thousand crowns rather than a murderous wish? Your visit would have cost me nothing. There are a

hundred thousand situations to be had in France, but I have only one life. A man's life is worth more than all

"This is your doing, doubledistilled idiot! What made you suggest that I should see M. Porriquet?" and he

pointed to the old man, who was petrified with fright. "Did I put myself in your hands for you to tear me in

pieces? You have just shortened my life by ten years! Another blunder of this kind, and you will lay me

where I have laid my father. Would I not far rather have possessed the beautiful Foedora? And I have obliged

that old hulk insteadthat rag of humanity! I had money enough for him. And, moreover, if all the

Raphael's face was white with anger; a slight froth marked his trembling lips; there was a savage gleam in his

eyes. The two elders shook with terror in his presence like two children at the sight of a snake. The young

man fell back in his armchair, a kind of reaction took place in him, the tears flowed fast from his angry eyes.

"Oh, my life!" he cried, "that fair life of mine. Never to know a kindly thought again, to love no more;

He turned to the professor and went on in a gentle voice"The harm is done, my old friend. Your services

have been well repaid; and my misfortune has at any rate contributed to the welfare of a good and worthy

His tones betrayed so much feeling that the almost unintelligible words drew tears from the two old men,

"I understand your kind intentions, my friend," Raphael answered gently. "You would make excuses for me.

Illhealth cannot be helped, but ingratitude is a grievous fault. Leave me now," he added. "To morrow or

the next day, or possibly tonight, you will receive your appointment; Resistance has triumphed over Motion.

The old schoolmaster went away, full of keen apprehension as to Valentin's sanity. A thrill of horror ran

through him; there had been something supernatural, he thought, in the scene he had passed through. He

could hardly believe his own impressions, and questioned them like one awakened from a painful dream.

"Now attend to me, Jonathan," said the young man to his old servant. "Try to understand the charge confided

"All the pleasures of life disport themselves round my bed of death, and dance about me like fair women; but

if I beckon to them, I must die. Death always confronts me. You must be the barrier between the world and

"Yes, my Lord Marquis," said the old servant, wiping the drops of perspiration from his wrinkled forehead.

"But if you don't wish to see pretty women, how will you manage at the Italiens this evening? An English

family is returning to London, and I have taken their box for the rest of the season, and it is in a splendid

Do you see that splendid equipage, a brougham painted a dark brown color, but with the arms of an ancient

and noble family shining from the panels? As it rolls past, all the shopgirls admire it, and look longingly at

the yellow satin lining, the rugs from la Savonnerie, the daintiness and freshness of every detail, the silken

cushions and tightlyfitting glass windows. Two liveried footmen are mounted behind this aristocratic

carriage; and within, a head lies back among the silken cushions, the feverish face and hollow eyes of

Raphael, melancholy and sad. Emblem of the doom of wealth! He flies across Paris like a rocket, and reaches

the peristyle of the Theatre Favart. The passersby make way for him; the two footmen help him to alight, an

"What has that fellow done to be so rich?" asks a poor lawstudent, who cannot listen to the magical music of

Raphael walked slowly along the gangway; he expected no enjoyment from these pleasures he had once

coveted so eagerly. In the interval before the second act of Semiramide he walked up and down in the lobby,

and along the corridors, leaving his box, which he had not yet entered, to look after itself. The instinct of

property was dead within him already. Like all invalids, he thought of nothing but his own sufferings. He was

leaning against the chimneypiece in the greenroom. A group had gathered about it of dandies, young and

old, of ministers, of peers without peerages, and peerages without peers, for so the Revolution of July had

ordered matters. Among a host of adventurers and journalists, in fact, Raphael beheld a strange, unearthly

figure a few paces away among the crowd. He went towards this grotesque object to see it better,

"What a wonderful bit of painting!" he said to himself. The stranger's hair and eyebrows and a Mazarin tuft

on the chin had been dyed black, but the result was a spurious, glossy, purple tint that varied its hues

according to the light; the hair had been too white, no doubt, to take the preparation. Anxiety and cunning

were depicted in the narrow, insignificant face, with its wrinkles incrusted by thick layers of red and white

paint. This red enamel, lacking on some portions of his face, strongly brought out his natural feebleness and

livid hues. It was impossible not to smile at this visage with the protuberant forehead and pointed chin, a face

not unlike those grotesque wooden figures that German herdsmen carve in their spare moments.

An attentive observer looking from Raphael to this elderly Adonis would have remarked a young man's eyes

set in a mask of age, in the case of the Marquis, and in the other case the dim eyes of age peering forth from

behind a mask of youth. Valentin tried to recollect when and where he had seen this little old man before. He

was thin, fastidiously cravatted, booted and spurred like oneandtwenty; he crossed his arms and clinked his

spurs as if he possessed all the wanton energy of youth. He seemed to move about without constraint or

difficulty. He had carefully buttoned up his fashionable coat, which disguised his powerful, elderly frame,

and gave him the appearance of an antiquated coxcomb who still follows the fashions.

For Raphael this animated puppet possessed all the interest of an apparition. He gazed at it as if it had been

some smokebegrimed Rembrandt, recently restored and newly framed. This idea found him a clue to the

truth among his confused recollections; he recognized the dealer in antiquities, the man to whom he owed his

A noiseless laugh broke just then from the fantastical personage, straightening the line of his lips that

stretched across a row of artificial teeth. That laugh brought out, for Raphael's heated fancy, a strong

resemblance between the man before him and the type of head that painters have assigned to Goethe's

Mephistopheles. A crowd of superstitious thoughts entered Raphael's sceptical mind; he was convinced of the

powers of the devil and of all the sorcerer's enchantments embodied in mediaeval tradition, and since worked

up by poets. Shrinking in horror from the destiny of Faust, he prayed for the protection of Heaven with all the

ardent faith of a dying man in God and the Virgin. A clear, bright radiance seemed to give him a glimpse of

the heaven of Michael Angelo or of Raphael of Urbino: a venerable whitebearded man, a beautiful woman

seated in an aureole above the clouds and winged cherub heads. Now he had grasped and received the

meaning of those imaginative, almost human creations; they seemed to explain what had happened to him, to

But when the greenroom of the Italiens returned upon his sight he beheld, not the Virgin, but a very

handsome young person. The execrable Euphrasia, in all the splendor of her toilette, with its orient pearls,

had come thither, impatient for her ardent, elderly admirer. She was insolently exhibiting herself with her

defiant face and glittering eyes to an envious crowd of stockbrokers, a visible testimony to the inexhaustible

Raphael recollected the mocking wish with which he had accepted the old man's luckless gift, and tasted all

the sweets of revenge when he beheld the spectacle of sublime wisdom fallen to such a depth as this, wisdom

for which such humiliation had seemed a thing impossible. The centenarian greeted Euphrasia with a ghastly

smile, receiving her honeyed words in reply. He offered her his emaciated arm, and went twice or thrice

round the greenroom with her; the envious glances and compliments with which the crowd received his

mistress delighted him; he did not see the scornful smiles, nor hear the caustic comments to which he gave

"In what cemetery did this young ghoul unearth that corpse of hers?" asked a dandy of the Romantic faction.

Euphrasia began to smile. The speaker was a slender, fairhaired youth, with bright blue eyes, and a

moustache. His short dress coat, hat tilted over one ear, and sharp tongue, all denoted the species.

"How many old men," said Raphael to himself, "bring an upright, virtuous, and hardworking life to a close

"Well, sir," exclaimed Valentin, stopping the merchant's progress, while he stared hard at Euphrasia, "have

"Ah, I am as happy now as a young man," said the other, in a cracked voice. "I used to look at existence from

The playgoers heard the bell ring, and left the greenroom to take their places again. Raphael and the old

merchant separated. As he entered his box, the Marquis saw Foedora sitting exactly opposite to him on the

other side of the theatre. The Countess had probably only just come, for she was just flinging off her scarf to

leave her throat uncovered, and was occupied with going through all the indescribable manoeuvres of a

coquette arranging herself. All eyes were turned upon her. A young peer of France had come with her; she

asked him for the lorgnette she had given him to carry. Raphael knew the despotism to which his successor

had resigned himself, in her gestures, and in the way she treated her companion. He was also under the spell

no doubt, another dupe beating with all the might of a real affection against the woman's cold calculations,

Foedora's face lighted up with indescribable joy. After directing her lorgnette upon every box in turn, to make

a rapid survey of all the dresses, she was conscious that by her toilette and her beauty she had eclipsed the

loveliest and bestdressed women in Paris. She laughed to show her white teeth; her head with its wreath of

flowers was never still, in her quest of admiration. Her glances went from one box to another, as she diverted

herself with the awkward way in which a Russian princess wore her bonnet, or over the utter failure of a

All at once she met Raphael's steady gaze and turned pale, aghast at the intolerable contempt in her rejected

lover's eyes. Not one of her exiled suitors had failed to own her power over them; Valentin alone was proof

against her attractions. A power that can be defied with impunity is drawing to its end. This axiom is as

deeply engraved on the heart of woman as in the minds of kings. In Raphael, therefore, Foedora saw the

deathblow of her influence and her ability to please. An epigram of his, made at the Opera the day before,

was already known in the salons of Paris. The biting edge of that terrible speech had already given the

Countess an incurable wound. We know how to cauterize a wound, but we know of no treatment as yet for

the stab of a phrase. As every other woman in the house looked by turns at her and at the Marquis, Foedora

would have consigned them all to the oubliettes of some Bastille; for in spite of her capacity for

dissimulation, her discomfiture was discerned by her rivals. Her unfailing consolation had slipped from her at

last. The delicious thought, "I am the most beautiful," the thought that at all times had soothed every

At the opening of the second act a woman took up her position not very far from Raphael, in a box that had

been empty hitherto. A murmur of admiration went up from the whole house. In that sea of human faces there

was a movement of every living wave; all eyes were turned upon the stranger lady. The applause of young

and old was so prolonged, that when the orchestra began, the musicians turned to the audience to request

silence, and then they themselves joined in the plaudits and swelled the confusion. Excited talk began in

every box, every woman equipped herself with an opera glass, elderly men grew young again, and polished

the glasses of their lorgnettes with their gloves. The enthusiasm subsided by degrees, the stage echoed with

the voices of the singers, and order reigned as before. The aristocratic section, ashamed of having yielded to a

spontaneous feeling, again assumed their wonted politely frigid manner. The welltodo dislike to be

astonished at anything; at the first sight of a beautiful thing it becomes their duty to discover the defect in it

which absolves them from admiring it,the feeling of all ordinary minds. Yet a few still remained

motionless and heedless of the music, artlessly absorbed in the delight of watching Raphael's neighbor.

Valentin noticed Taillefer's mean, obnoxious countenance by Aquilina's side in a lower box, and received an

approving smirk from him. Then he saw Emile, who seemed to say from where he stood in the orchestra,

"Just look at that lovely creature there, close beside you!" Lastly, he saw Rastignac, with Mme. de Nucingen

and her daughter, twisting his gloves like a man in despair, because he was tethered to his place, and could

Raphael's life depended upon a covenant that he had made with himself, and had hitherto kept sacred. He

would give no special heed to any woman whatever; and the better to guard against temptation, he used a

cunningly contrived operaglass which destroyed the harmony of the fairest features by hideous distortions.

He had not recovered from the terror that had seized on him in the morning when, at a mere expression of

civility, the Magic Skin had contracted so abruptly. So Raphael was determined not to turn his face in the

direction of his neighbor. He sat imperturbable as a duchess with his back against the corner of the box,

thereby shutting out half of his neighbor's view of the stage, appearing to disregard her, and even to be

His neighbor copied Valentin's position exactly; she leaned her elbow on the edge of her box and turned her

face in threequarter profile upon the singers on the stage, as if she were sitting to a painter. These two

people looked like two estranged lovers still sulking, still turning their backs upon each other, who will go

Now and again his neighbor's ostrich feathers or her hair came in contact with Raphael's head, giving him a

pleasurable thrill, against which he sternly fought. In a little while he felt the touch of the soft frill of lace that

went round her dress; he could hear the gracious sounds of the folds of her dress itself, light rustling noises

full of enchantment; he could even feel her movements as she breathed; with the gentle stir thus imparted to

her form and to her draperies, it seemed to Raphael that all her being was suddenly communicated to him in

an electric spark. The lace and tulle that caressed him imparted the delicious warmth of her bare, white

shoulders. By a freak in the ordering of things, these two creatures, kept apart by social conventions, with the

abysses of death between them, breathed together and perhaps thought of one another. Finally, the subtle

perfume of aloes completed the work of Raphael's intoxication. Opposition heated his imagination, and his

fancy, become the wilder for the limits imposed upon it, sketched a woman for him in outlines of fire. He

turned abruptly, the stranger made a similar movement, startled no doubt at being brought in contact with a

Each surveyed the other, both of them petrified with astonishment. Raphael noticed Pauline's daintily simple

costume. A woman's experienced eyes would have discerned and admired the outlines beneath the modest

gauze folds of her bodice and the lily whiteness of her throat. And then her more than mortal clearness of

soul, her maidenly modesty, her graceful bearing, all were unchanged. Her sleeve was quivering with

"Come to the Hotel de SaintQuentin tomorrow for your papers," she said. "I will be there at noon. Be

She rose hastily, and disappeared. Raphael thought of following Pauline, feared to compromise her, and

stayed. He looked at Foedora; she seemed to him positively ugly. Unable to understand a single phrase of the

music, and feeling stifled in the theatre, he went out, and returned home with a full heart.

"Jonathan," he said to the old servant, as soon as he lay in bed, "give me half a drop of laudanum on a piece

"I want Pauline to love me!" he cried next morning, looking at the talisman the while in unspeakable anguish.

The skin did not move in the least; it seemed to have lost its power to shrink; doubtless it could not fulfil a

"Ah!" exclaimed Raphael, feeling as if a mantle of lead had fallen away, which he had worn ever since the

day when the talisman had been given to him; "so you are playing me false, you are not obeying me, the pact

is broken! I am free; I shall live. Then was it all a wretched joke?" But he did not dare to believe in his own

He dressed himself as simply as had formerly been his wont, and set out on foot for his old lodging, trying to

go back in fancy to the happy days when he abandoned himself without peril to vehement desires, the days

when he had not yet condemned all human enjoyment. As he walked he beheld Paulinenot the Pauline of

the Hotel Saint Quentin, but the Pauline of last evening. Here was the accomplished mistress he had so often

dreamed of, the intelligent young girl with the loving nature and artistic temperament, who understood poets,

who understood poetry, and lived in luxurious surroundings. Here, in short, was Foedora, gifted with a great

soul; or Pauline become a countess, and twice a millionaire, as Foedora had been. When he reached the worn

threshold, and stood upon the broken step at the door, where in the old days he had had so many desperate

"Oh no, sir. Mme. Gaudin is a baroness now. She lives in a fine house of her own on the other side of the

river. Her husband has come back. My goodness, he brought back thousands and thousands. They say she

could buy up all the Quartier SaintJacques if she liked. She gave me her basement room for nothing, and the

remainder of her lease. Ah, she's a kind woman all the same; she is no more proud today than she was

Raphael hurried up the staircase to his garret; as he reached the last few steps he heard the sounds of a piano.

Pauline was there, simply dressed in a cotton gown, but the way that it was made, like the gloves, hat, and

shawl that she had thrown carelessly upon the bed, revealed a change of fortune.

"Ah, there you are!" cried Pauline, turning her head, and rising with unconcealed delight.

Raphael went to sit beside her, flushed, confused, and happy; he looked at her in silence.

"Why did you leave us then?" she asked, dropping her eyes as the flush deepened on his face. "What became

"Alas!" she said, filled with pitying tenderness. "I guessed your fate yesterday when I saw you so well

dressed, and apparently so wealthy; but in reality? Eh, M. Raphael, is it as it always used to be with you?"

He went no further, love sparkled in his eyes, and his emotion overflowed his face.

Raphael felt himself unable to say one word; he bent his head. The young girl took his hand at this; she

"Rich, rich, happy and rich! Your Pauline is rich. But I? Oh, I ought to be very poor today. I have said,

times without number, that I would give all the wealth upon this earth for those words, 'He loves me!' O my

Raphael! I have millions. You like luxury, you will be glad; but you must love me and my heart besides, for

there is so much love for you in my heart. You don't know? My father has come back. I am a wealthy heiress.

Both he and my mother leave me completely free to decide my own fate. I am freedo you understand?"

Seized with a kind of frenzy, Raphael grasped Pauline's hands and kissed them eagerly and vehemently, with

an almost convulsive caress. Pauline drew her hands away, laid them on Raphael's shoulders, and drew him

towards her. They understood one anotherin that close embrace, in the unalloyed and sacred fervor of that

one kiss without an afterthoughtthe first kiss by which two souls take possession of each other.

"Ah, I will not leave you any more," said Pauline, falling back in her chair. "I do not know how I come to be

"Bold, my Pauline? Do not fear it. It is love, love true and deep and everlasting like my own, is it not?"

"Loved you? MON DIEU! How often I have wept here, setting your room straight, and grieving for your

poverty and my own. I would have sold myself to the evil one to spare you one vexation! You are MY

Raphael today, really my own Raphael, with that handsome head of yours, and your heart is mine too; yes,

that above all, your heartO wealth inexhaustible! Well, where was I?" she went on after a pause. "Oh yes!

We have three, four, or five millions, I believe. If I were poor, I should perhaps desire to bear your name, to

be acknowledged as your wife; but as it is, I would give up the whole world for you, I would be your servant

still, now and always. Why, Raphael, if I give you my fortune, my heart, myself today, I do no more than I

did that day when I put a certain fivefranc piece in the drawer there," and she pointed to the table. "Oh, how

"Oh, why are you rich?" Raphael cried; "why is there no vanity in you? I can do nothing for you."

"When you are the Marquise de Valentin, I know that the title and the fortune for thee, heavenly soul, will not

"I have millions too. But what is wealth to either of us now? There is my lifeah, that I can offer, take it."

"Your love, Raphael, your love is all the world to me. Are your thoughts of me? I am the happiest of the

"Kiss me!" she cried, "after all the pain you have given me; to blot out the memory of the grief that your joys

have caused me; and for the sake of the nights that I spent in painting handscreens"

"Now that we are rich, my darling, I can tell you all about it. Poor boy! how easy it is to delude a clever man!

Could you have had white waistcoats and clean shirts twice a week for three francs every month to the

laundress? Why, you used to drink twice as much milk as your money would have paid for. I deceived you all

roundover firing, oil, and even money. O Raphael mine, don't have me for your wife, I am far too

"I used to work till two o'clock in the morning; I gave my mother half the money made by my screens, and

"Some day we shall have to pay for this happiness by some terrible sorrow," cried Raphael.

"Perhaps you are married?" said Pauline. "Oh, I will not give you up to any other woman."

She slipped down upon her knees, clasped her hands, and looked at Raphael in an enthusiasm of devotion.

"I am afraid I shall go mad. How handsome you are!" she went on, passing her fingers through her lover's fair

hair. "How stupid your Countess Foedora is! How pleased I was yesterday with the homage they all paid to

me! SHE has never been applauded. Dear, when I felt your arm against my back, I heard a vague voice within

me that cried, 'He is there!' and I turned round and saw you. I fled, for I longed so to throw my arms about

"How happy you areyou can speak!" Raphael exclaimed. "My heart is overwhelmed; I would weep, but I

cannot. Do not draw your hand away. I could stay here looking at you like this for the rest of my life, I think;

"Ah, what are words?" answered Valentin, letting a hot tear fall on Pauline's hands. "Some time I will try to

"You," she said, "with your lofty soul and your great genius, with that heart of yours that I know so well; are

"For ever and ever, my sweet creature," said Raphael in an uncertain voice. "You shall be my wife, my

protecting angel. My griefs have always been dispelled by your presence, and my courage revived; that

angelic smile now on your lips has purified me, so to speak. A new life seems about to begin for me. The

cruel past and my wretched follies are hardly more to me than evil dreams. At your side I breathe an

atmosphere of happiness, and I am pure. Be with me always," he added, pressing her solemnly to his beating

"I wish that no one might enter this dear garret again, my Raphael," said Pauline, after two hours of silence.

"We must have the door walled up, put bars across the window, and buy the house," the Marquis answered.

"Yes, we will," she said. Then a moment later she added: "Our search for your manuscripts has been a little

"Pshaw! I don't care a jot for the whole circle of the sciences," Raphael answered.

"You used to be very miserable as you made these little scratches and scrawls," she said, turning the papers

"What a long way apart we shall be until" She stopped, and looked at her lover with a mischievous and

"Really! we are to be married in a fortnight?" and she jumped for joy like a child.

"I am an unnatural daughter!" she went on. "I give no more thought to my father or my mother, or to anything

in the world. Poor love, you don't know that my father is very ill? He returned from the Indies in very bad

health. He nearly died at Havre, where we went to find him. Good heavens!" she cried, looking at her watch;

"it is three o'clock already! I ought to be back again when he wakes at four. I am mistress of the house at

home; my mother does everything that I wish, and my father worships me; but I will not abuse their kindness,

that would be wrong. My poor father! He would have me go to the Italiens yesterday. You will come to see

"I am going to take the key of this room away with me," she said. "Isn't our treasurehouse a palace?"

"A thousand, MON DIEU!" she said, looking at Raphael. "Will it always be like this? I feel as if I were

They went slowly down the stairs together, step for step, with arms closely linked, trembling both of them

beneath their load of joy. Each pressing close to the other's side, like a pair of doves, they reached the Place

"I want to go home with you," she said. "I want to see your own room and your study, and to sit at the table

She spoke to the servant. "Joseph, before returning home I am going to the Rue de Varenne. It is a

quarterpast three now, and I must be back by four o'clock. George must hurry the horses." And so in a few

"How glad I am to have seen all this for myself!" Pauline cried, creasing the silken bedcurtains in Raphael's

room between her fingers. "As I go to sleep, I shall be here in thought. I shall imagine your dear head on the

pillow there. Raphael, tell me, did no one advise you about the furniture of your hotel?"

"Oh, I know I am fearfully jealous. You have good taste. I will have a bed like yours tomorrow."

"I will take you back to him," cried Valentin, "for I want to be away from you as little as possible."

It would be tedious to set down accurately the charming prattle of the lovers, for tones and looks and gestures

that cannot be rendered alone gave it significance. Valentin went back with Pauline to her own door, and

When he was seated in his armchair beside the fire, thinking over the sudden and complete way in which his

wishes had been fulfilled, a cold shiver went through him, as if the blade of a dagger had been plunged into

his breasthe thought of the Magic Skin, and saw that it had shrunk a little. He uttered the most tremendous

of French oaths, without any of the Jesuitical reservations made by the Abbess of Andouillettes, leant his

head against the back of the chair, and sat motionless, fixing his unseeing eyes upon the bracket of the curtain

He took a pair of compasses and measured the extent of existence that the morning had cost him.

A cold sweat broke out over him; moved by an ungovernable spasm of rage, he seized the Magic Skin,

He rushed out of the house and across the garden, and flung the talisman down a well.

So Raphael gave himself up to the happiness of being beloved, and led with Pauline the life of heart and

heart. Difficulties which it would be somewhat tedious to describe had delayed their marriage, which was to

take place early in March. Each was sure of the other; their affection had been tried, and happiness had taught

them how strong it was. Never has love made two souls, two natures, so absolutely one. The more they came

to know of each other, the more they loved. On either side there was the same hesitating delicacy, the same

transports of joy such as angels know; there were no clouds in their heaven; the will of either was the other's

Wealthy as they both were, they had not a caprice which they could not gratify, and for that reason had no

caprices. A refined taste, a feeling for beauty and poetry, was instinct in the soul of the bride; her lover's

smile was more to her than all the pearls of Ormuz. She disdained feminine finery; a muslin dress and flowers

Pauline and Raphael shunned every one else, for solitude was abundantly beautiful to them. The idlers at the

Opera, or at the Italiens, saw this charming and unconventional pair evening after evening. Some gossip went

the round of the salons at first, but the harmless lovers were soon forgotten in the course of events which took

place in Paris; their marriage was announced at length to excuse them in the eyes of the prudish; and as it

happened, their servants did not babble; so their bliss did not draw down upon them any very severe

One morning towards the end of February, at the time when the brightening days bring a belief in the

nearness of the joys of spring, Pauline and Raphael were breakfasting together in a small conservatory, a kind

of drawingroom filled with flowers, on a level with the garden. The mild rays of the pale winter sunlight,

breaking through the thicket of exotic plants, warmed the air somewhat. The vivid contrast made by the

varieties of foliage, the colors of the masses of flowering shrubs, the freaks of light and shadow, gladdened

the eyes. While all the rest of Paris still sought warmth from its melancholy hearth, these two were laughing

in a bower of camellias, lilacs, and blossoming heath. Their happy faces rose above lilies of the valley,

narcissus blooms, and Bengal roses. A mat of plaited African grass, variegated like a carpet, lay beneath their

feet in this luxurious conservatory. The walls, covered with a green linen material, bore no traces of damp.

The surfaces of the rustic wooden furniture shone with cleanliness. A kitten, attracted by the odor of milk,

had established itself upon the table; it allowed Pauline to bedabble it in coffee; she was playing merrily with

it, taking away the cream that she had just allowed the kitten to sniff at, so as to exercise its patience, and

keep up the contest. She burst out laughing at every antic, and by the comical remarks she constantly made,

she hindered Raphael from perusing the paper; he had dropped it a dozen times already. This morning picture

seemed to overflow with inexpressible gladness, like everything that is natural and genuine.

Raphael, still pretending to read his paper, furtively watched Pauline with the cathis Pauline, in the

dressinggown that hung carelessly about her; his Pauline, with her hair loose on her shoulders, with a tiny,

white, blueveined foot peeping out of a velvet slipper. It was pleasant to see her in this negligent dress; she

was delightful as some fanciful picture by Westall; halfgirl, halfwoman, as she seemed to be, or perhaps

more of a girl than a woman, there was no alloy in the happiness she enjoyed, and of love she knew as yet

only its first ecstasy. When Raphael, absorbed in happy musing, had forgotten the existence of the

newspaper, Pauline flew upon it, crumpled it up into a ball, and threw it out into the garden; the kitten sprang

after the rotating object, which spun round and round, as politics are wont to do. This childish scene recalled

Raphael to himself. He would have gone on reading, and felt for the sheet he no longer possessed. Joyous

"I am quite jealous of the paper," she said, as she wiped away the tears that her childlike merriment had

brought into her eyes. "Now, is it not a heinous offence," she went on, as she became a woman all at once, "to

read Russian proclamations in my presence, and to attend to the prosings of the Emperor Nicholas rather than

Just then the gravel walk outside the conservatory rang with the sound of the gardener's heavily nailed boots.

"I beg your pardon, my Lord Marquisand yours, too, madameif I am intruding, but I have brought you a

curiosity the like of which I never set eyes on. Drawing a bucket of water just now, with due respect, I got out

this strange saltwater plant. Here it is. It must be thoroughly used to water, anyhow, for it isn't saturated or

even damp at all. It is as dry as a piece of wood, and has not swelled a bit. As my Lord Marquis certainly

knows a great deal more about things than I do, I thought I ought to bring it, and that it would interest him."

Therewith the gardener showed Raphael the inexorable piece of skin; there were barely six square inches of it

"What is the matter with you, my angel; you are growing quite white!" Pauline cried.

"Your voice frightens me," the girl went on; "it is so strangely altered. What is it? How are you feeling?

"Hush, my Pauline," Raphael answered, as he regained composure. "Let us get up and go. Some flower here

Pauline flew upon the innocent plant, seized it by the stalk, and flung it out into the garden; then, with all the

might of the love between them, she clasped Raphael in a close embrace, and with languishing coquetry

"Dear angel," she cried, "when I saw you turn so white, I understood that I could not live on without you;

your life is my life too. Lay your hand on my back, Raphael mine; I feel a chill like death. The feeling of cold

"There is something very extraordinary going on in your mind, Raphael! Do not dissimulate. I shall very soon

"You are my executioner!" the young man exclaimed, glancing in horror at the talisman.

"How changed your voice is!" cried Pauline, as she dropped the fatal symbol of destiny.

"So!" cried Raphael, when he was alone. "In an enlightened age, when we have found out that diamonds are a

crystallized form of charcoal, at a time when everything is made clear, when the police would hale a new

Messiah before the magistrates, and submit his miracles to the Academie des Sciencesin an epoch when

we no longer believe in anything but a notary's signaturethat I, forsooth, should believe in a sort of Mene,

Tekel, Upharsin! No, by Heaven, I will not believe that the Supreme Being would take pleasure in torturing a

Between the Halle des Vins, with its extensive assembly of barrels, and the Salpetriere, that extensive

seminary of drunkenness, lies a small pond, which Raphael soon reached. All sorts of ducks of rare varieties

were there disporting themselves; their colored markings shone in the sun like the glass in cathedral windows.

Every kind of duck in the world was represented, quacking, dabbling, and moving abouta kind of

parliament of ducks assembled against its will, but luckily without either charter or political principles, living

in complete immunity from sportsmen, under the eyes of any naturalist that chanced to see them.

"That is M. Lavrille," said one of the keepers to Raphael, who had asked for that high priest of zoology.

The Marquis saw a short man buried in profound reflections, caused by the appearance of a pair of ducks.

The man of science was middleaged; he had a pleasant face, made pleasanter still by a kindly expression,

but an absorption in scientific ideas engrossed his whole person. His peruke was strangely turned up, by

being constantly raised to scratch his head; so that a line of white hair was left plainly visible, a witness to an

enthusiasm for investigation, which, like every other strong passion, so withdraws us from mundane

considerations, that we lose all consciousness of the "I" within us. Raphael, the student and man of science,

looked respectfully at the naturalist, who devoted his nights to enlarging the limits of human knowledge, and

whose very errors reflected glory upon France; but a shecoxcomb would have laughed, no doubt, at the

break of continuity between the breeches and striped waistcoat worn by the man of learning; the interval,

moreover, was modestly filled by a shirt which had been considerably creased, for he stooped and raised

After the first interchange of civilities, Raphael thought it necessary to pay M. Lavrille a banal compliment

"Oh, we are well off for ducks," the naturalist replied. "The genus, moreover, as you doubtless know, is the

most prolific in the order of palmipeds. It begins with the swan and ends with the zinzin duck, comprising in

all one hundred and thirtyseven very distinct varieties, each having its own name, habits, country, and

character, and every one no more like another than a white man is like a negro. Really, sir, when we dine off

He interrupted himself as he saw a small pretty duck come up to the surface of the pond.

"There you see the cravatted swan, a poor native of Canada; he has come a very long way to show us his

brown and gray plumage and his little black cravat! Look, he is preening himself. That one is the famous

eider duck that provides the down, the eiderdown under which our fine ladies sleep; isn't it pretty? Who

would not admire the little pinkish white breast and the green beak? I have just been a witness, sir," he went

on, "to a marriage that I had long despaired of bringing about; they have paired rather auspiciously, and I

shall await the results very eagerly. This will be a hundred and thirty eighth species, I flatter myself, to

which, perhaps, my name will be given. That is the newly matched pair," he said, pointing out two of the

ducks; "one of them is a laughing goose (anas albifrons), and the other the great whistling duck, Buffon's

anas ruffina. I have hesitated a long while between the whistling duck, the duck with white eyebrows, and the

shoveler duck (anas clypeata). Stay, that is the shovelerthat fat, brownish black rascal, with the greenish

neck and that coquettish iridescence on it. But the whistling duck was a crested one, sir, and you will

understand that I deliberated no longer. We only lack the variegated blackcapped duck now. These

gentlemen here, unanimously claim that that variety of duck is only a repetition of the curvebeaked teal, but

for my own part,"and the gesture he made was worth seeing. It expressed at once the modesty and pride of

a man of science; the pride full of obstinacy, and the modesty well tempered with assurance.

"I don't think it is," he added. "You see, my dear sir, that we are not amusing ourselves here. I am engaged at

While they went towards a rather pleasant house in the Rue du Buffon, Raphael submitted the skin to M.

"I know the product," said the man of science, when he had turned his magnifying glass upon the talisman. "It

used to be used for covering boxes. The shagreen is very old. They prefer to use skate's skin nowadays for

making sheaths. This, as you are doubtless aware, is the hide of the raja sephen, a Red Sea fish."

"This," the man of science interrupted, as he resumed, "this is quite another thing; between these two

shagreens, sir, there is a difference just as wide as between sea and land, or fish and flesh. The fish's skin is

harder, however, than the skin of the land animal. This," he said, as he indicated the talisman, "is, as you

"This," replied the man of science, as he flung himself down into his armchair, "is an ass' skin, sir."

"A very rare variety of ass found in Persia," the naturalist continued, "the onager of the ancients, equus

asinus, the koulan of the Tartars; Pallas went out there to observe it, and has made it known to science, for as

a matter of fact the animal for a long time was believed to be mythical. It is mentioned, as you know, in Holy

Scripture; Moses forbade that it should be coupled with its own species, and the onager is yet more famous

for the prostitutions of which it was the object, and which are often mentioned by the prophets of the Bible.

Pallas, as you know doubtless, states in his Act. Petrop. tome II., that these bizarre excesses are still devoutly

believed in among the Persians and the Nogais as a sovereign remedy for lumbago and sciatic gout. We poor

"What a magnificent animal!" he continued. "It is full of mystery; its eyes are provided with a sort of

burnished covering, to which the Orientals attribute the powers of fascination; it has a glossier and finer coat

than our handsomest horses possess, striped with more or less tawny bands, very much like the zebra's hide.

There is something pliant and silky about its hair, which is sleek to the touch. Its powers of sight vie in

precision and accuracy with those of man; it is rather larger than our largest domestic donkeys, and is

possessed of extraordinary courage. If it is surprised by any chance, it defends itself against the most

dangerous wild beasts with remarkable success; the rapidity of its movements can only be compared with the

flight of birds; an onager, sir, would run the best Arab or Persian horses to death. According to the father of

the conscientious Doctor Niebuhr, whose recent loss we are deploring, as you doubtless know, the ordinary

average pace of one of these wonderful creatures would be seven thousand geometric feet per hour. Our own

degenerate race of donkeys can give no idea of the ass in his pride and independence. He is active and

spirited in his demeanor; he is cunning and sagacious; there is grace about the outlines of his head; every

movement is full of attractive charm. In the East he is the king of beasts. Turkish and Persian superstition

even credits him with a mysterious origin; and when stories of the prowess attributed to him are told in

Thibet or in Tartary, the speakers mingle Solomon's name with that of this noble animal. A tame onager, in

short, is worth an enormous amount; it is wellnigh impossible to catch them among the mountains, where

they leap like roebucks, and seem as if they could fly like birds. Our myth of the winged horse, our Pegasus,

had its origin doubtless in these countries, where the shepherds could see the onager springing from one rock

to another. In Persia they breed asses for the saddle, a cross between a tamed onager and a sheass, and they

paint them red, following immemorial tradition. Perhaps it was this custom that gave rise to our own proverb,

'Surely as a red donkey.' At some period when natural history was much neglected in France, I think a

traveler must have brought over one of these strange beasts that endures servitude with such impatience.

Hence the adage. The skin that you have laid before me is the skin of an onager. Opinions differ as to the

origin of the name. Some claim that Chagri is a Turkish word; others insist that Chagri must be the name of

the place where this animal product underwent the chemical process of preparation so clearly described by

Pallas, to which the peculiar graining that we admire is due; Martellens has written to me saying that Chaagri

"I thank you, sir, for the information that you have given me; it would furnish an admirable footnote for some

Dom Calmet or other, if such erudite hermits yet exist; but I have had the honor of pointing out to you that

this scrap was in the first instance quite as large as that map," said Raphael, indicating an open atlas to

"Quite so," said the man of science. "I understand. The remains of any substance primarily organic are

naturally subject to a process of decay. It is quite easy to understand, and its progress depends upon

atmospherical conditions. Even metals contract and expand appreciably, for engineers have remarked

somewhat considerable interstices between great blocks of stone originally clamped together with iron bars.

The field of science is boundless, but human life is very short, so that we do not claim to be acquainted with

"Pardon the question that I am about to ask you, sir," Raphael began, half embarrassed, "but are you quite

sure that this piece of skin is subject to the ordinary laws of zoology, and that it can be stretched?"

"Certainlyoh, bother!" muttered M. Lavrille, trying to stretch the talisman. "But if you, sir, will go

to see Planchette," he added, "the celebrated professor of mechanics, he will certainly discover some method

"Ah, sir, you are the preserver of my life," and Raphael took leave of the learned naturalist and hurried off to

Planchette, leaving the worthy Lavrille in his study, all among the bottles and dried plants that filled it up.

Quite unconsciously Raphael brought away with him from this visit, all of science that man can grasp, a

terminology to wit. Lavrille, the worthy man, was very much like Sancho Panza giving to Don Quixote the

history of the goats; he was entertaining himself by making out a list of animals and ticking them off. Even

now that his life was nearing its end, he was scarcely acquainted with a mere fraction of the countless

numbers of the great tribes that God has scattered, for some unknown end, throughout the ocean of worlds.

Raphael was well pleased. "I shall keep my ass well in hand," cried he. Sterne had said before his day, "Let us

take care of our ass, if we wish to live to old age." But it is such a fantastic brute!

Planchette was a tall, thin man, a poet of a surety, lost in one continual thought, and always employed in

gazing into the bottomless abyss of Motion. Commonplace minds accuse these lofty intellects of madness;

they form a misinterpreted race apart that lives in a wonderful carelessness of luxuries or other people's

notions. They will spend whole days at a stretch, smoking a cigar that has gone out, and enter a

drawingroom with the buttons on their garments not in every case formally wedded to the buttonholes.

Some day or other, after a long time spent in measuring space, or in accumulating Xs under AaGg, they

succeed in analyzing some natural law, and resolve it into its elemental principles, and all on a sudden the

crowd gapes at a new machine; or it is a handcart perhaps that overwhelms us with astonishment by the apt

simplicity of its construction. The modest man of science smiles at his admirers, and remarks, "What is that

invention of mine? Nothing whatever. Man cannot create a force; he can but direct it; and science consists in

The mechanician was standing bolt upright, planted on both feet, like some victim dropped straight from the

gibbet, when Raphael broke in upon him. He was intently watching an agate ball that rolled over a sundial,

and awaited its final settlement. The worthy man had received neither pension nor decoration; he had not

known how to make the right use of his ability for calculation. He was happy in his life spent on the watch for

a discovery; he had no thought either of reputation, of the outer world, nor even of himself, and led the life of

"It is inexplicable," he exclaimed. "Ah, your servant, sir," he went on, becoming aware of Raphael's

"And I also could have lived thus," thought Raphael, as he recalled the learned man from his meditations by

asking of him how to produce any effect on the talisman, which he placed before him.

"Although my credulity must amuse you, sir," so the Marquis ended, "I will conceal nothing from you. That

"People of fashion, sir, always treat science rather superciliously," said Planchette. "They all talk to us pretty

much as the incroyable did when he brought some ladies to see Lalande just after an eclipse, and remarked,

'Be so good as to begin it over again!' What effect do you want to produce? The object of the science of

mechanics is either the application or the neutralization of the laws of motion. As for motion pure and simple,

I tell you humbly, that we cannot possibly define it. That disposed of, unvarying phenomena have been

observed which accompany the actions of solids and fluids. If we set up the conditions by which these

phenomena are brought to pass, we can transport bodies or communicate locomotive power to them at a

predetermined rate of speed. We can project them, divide them up in a few or an infinite number of pieces,

accordingly as we break them or grind them to powder; we can twist bodies or make them rotate, modify,

compress, expand, or extend them. The whole science, sir, rests upon a single fact.

"You see this ball," he went on; "here it lies upon this slab. Now, it is over there. What name shall we give to

what has taken place, so natural from a physical point of view, so amazing from a moral? Movement,

locomotion, changing of place? What prodigious vanity lurks underneath the words. Does a name solve the

difficulty? Yet it is the whole of our science for all that. Our machines either make direct use of this agency,

this fact, or they convert it. This trifling phenomenon, applied to large masses, would send Paris flying. We

can increase speed by an expenditure of force, and augment the force by an increase of speed. But what are

speed and force? Our science is as powerless to tell us that as to create motion. Any movement whatever is an

immense power, and man does not create power of any kind. Everything is movement, thought itself is a

movement, upon movement nature is based. Death is a movement whose limitations are little known. If God

is eternal, be sure that He moves perpetually; perhaps God is movement. That is why movement, like God is

inexplicable, unfathomable, unlimited, incomprehensible, intangible. Who has ever touched, comprehended,

or measured movement? We feel its effects without seeing it; we can even deny them as we can deny the

existence of a God. Where is it? Where is it not? Whence comes it? What is its source? What is its end? It

surrounds us, it intrudes upon us, and yet escapes us. It is evident as a fact, obscure as an abstraction; it is at

once effect and cause. It requires space, even as we, and what is space? Movement alone recalls it to us;

without movement, space is but an empty meaningless word. Like space, like creation, like the infinite,

movement is an insoluble problem which confounds human reason; man will never conceive it, whatever else

"Between each point in space occupied in succession by that ball," continued the man of science, "there is an

abyss confronting human reason, an abyss into which Pascal fell. In order to produce any effect upon an

unknown substance, we ought first of all to study that substance; to know whether, in accordance with its

nature, it will be broken by the force of a blow, or whether it will withstand it; if it breaks in pieces, and you

have no wish to split it up, we shall not achieve the end proposed. If you want to compress it, a uniform

impulse must be communicated to all the particles of the substance, so as to diminish the interval that

separates them in an equal degree. If you wish to expand it, we should try to bring a uniform eccentric force

to bear on every molecule; for unless we conform accurately to this law, we shall have breaches in continuity.

The modes of motion, sir, are infinite, and no limit exists to combinations of movement. Upon what effect

"I want any kind of pressure that is strong enough to expand the skin indefinitely," began Raphael, quite of

"Substance is finite," the mathematician put in, "and therefore will not admit of indefinite expansion, but

pressure will necessarily increase the extent of surface at the expense of the thickness, which will be

"Bring about that result, sir," Raphael cried, "and you will have earned millions."

"Then I should rob you of your money," replied the other, phlegmatic as a Dutchman. "I am going to show

you, in a word or two, that a machine can be made that is fit to crush Providence itself in pieces like a fly. It

would reduce a man to the conditions of a piece of waste paper; a manboots and spurs, hat and cravat,

"Instead of flinging their brats into the water, the Chinese ought to make them useful in this way," the man of

Quite absorbed by his idea, Planchette took an empty flowerpot, with a hole in the bottom, and put it on the

surface of the dial, then he went to look for a little clay in a corner of the garden. Raphael stood spellbound,

like a child to whom his nurse is telling some wonderful story. Planchette put the clay down upon the slab,

drew a pruningknife from his pocket, cut two branches from an elder tree, and began to clean them of pith

"There are the rudiments of the apparatus," he said. Then he connected one of the wooden pipes with the

bottom of the flowerpot by way of a clay joint, in such a way that the mouth of the elder stem was just under

the hole of the flowerpot; you might have compared it to a big tobaccopipe. He spread a bed of clay over

the surface of the slab, in a shovelshaped mass, set down the flowerpot at the wider end of it, and laid the

pipe of the elder stem along the portion which represented the handle of the shovel. Next he put a lump of

clay at the end of the elder stem and therein planted the other pipe, in an upright position, forming a second

elbow which connected it with the first horizontal pipe in such a manner that the air, or any given fluid in

circulation, could flow through this improvised piece of mechanism from the mouth of the vertical tube,

"This apparatus, sir," he said to Raphael, with all the gravity of an academician pronouncing his initiatory

The man of science smiled. He went up to a fruittree and took down a little phial in which the druggist had

sent him some liquid for catching ants; he broke off the bottom and made a funnel of the top, carefully fitting

it to the mouth of the vertical hollowed stem that he had set in the clay, and at the opposite end to the great

reservoir, represented by the flowerpot. Next, by means of a wateringpot, he poured in sufficient water to

rise to the same level in the large vessel and in the tiny circular funnel at the end of the elder stem.

"Water is considered today, sir, to be an incompressible body," said the mechanician; "never lose sight of

that fundamental principle; still it can be compressed, though only so very slightly that we should regard its

faculty for contracting as a zero. You see the amount of surface presented by the water at the brim of the

"Very good; now suppose that that surface is a thousand times larger than the orifice of the elder stem

"Well, then, if by any method whatever I increase the volume of that quantity of water by pouring in yet more

through the mouth of the little tube; the water thus compelled to flow downwards would rise in the reservoir,

"But there is this difference," the other went on. "Suppose that the thin column of water poured into the little

vertical tube there exerts a force equal, say, to a pound weight, for instance, its action will be punctually

communicated to the great body of the liquid, and will be transmitted to every part of the surface represented

by the water in the flowerpot so that at the surface there will be a thousand columns of water, every one

pressing upwards as if they were impelled by a force equal to that which compels the liquid to descend in the

vertical tube; and of necessity they reproduce here," said Planchette, indicating to Raphael the top of the

flowerpot, "the force introduced over there, a thousandfold," and the man of science pointed out to the

"In other words," he went on, with the mathematician's natural stubborn propensity for logic, "in order to

resist the force of the incoming water, it would be necessary to exert, upon every part of the large surface, a

force equal to that brought into action in the vertical column, but with this differenceif the column of

liquid is a foot in height, the thousand little columns of the wide surface will only have a very slight elevating

"Now," said Planchette, as he gave a fillip to his bits of stick, "let us replace this funny little apparatus by

steel tubes of suitable strength and dimensions; and if you cover the liquid surface of the reservoir with a

strong sliding plate of metal, and if to this metal plate you oppose another, solid enough and strong enough to

resist any test; if, furthermore, you give me the power of continually adding water to the volume of liquid

contents by means of the little vertical tube, the object fixed between the two solid metal plates must of

necessity yield to the tremendous crushing force which indefinitely compresses it. The method of continually

pouring in water through a little tube, like the manner of communicating force through the volume of the

liquid to a small metal plate, is an absurdly primitive mechanical device. A brace of pistons and a few valves

would do it all. Do you perceive, my dear sir," he said taking Valentin by the arm, "there is scarcely a

substance in existence that would not be compelled to dilate when fixed in between these two indefinitely

"He and no other, sir. The science of mechanics knows no simpler nor more beautiful contrivance. The

opposite principle, the capacity of expansion possessed by water, has brought the steamengine into being.

But water will only expand up to a certain point, while its incompressibility, being a force in a manner

"If this skin is expanded," said Raphael, "I promise you to erect a colossal statue to Blaise Pascal; to found a

prize of a hundred thousand francs to be offered every ten years for the solution of the grandest problem of

mechanical science effected during the interval; to find dowries for all your cousins and second cousins, and

finally to build an asylum on purpose for impoverished or insane mathematicians."

"That would be exceedingly useful," Planchette replied. "We will go to Spieghalter tomorrow, sir," he

continued, with the serenity of a man living on a plane wholly intellectual. "That distinguished mechanic has

just completed, after my own designs, an improved mechanical arrangement by which a child could get a

"Talk of mechanics!" cried Raphael; "isn't it the greatest of the sciences? The other fellow with his onagers,

classifications, ducks, and species, and his phials full of bottled monstrosities, is at best only fit for a

The next morning Raphael went off in great spirits to find Planchette, and together they set out for the Rue de

la Santeauspicious appellation! Arrived at Spieghalter's, the young man found himself in a vast foundry;

his eyes lighted upon a multitude of glowing and roaring furnaces. There was a storm of sparks, a deluge of

nails, an ocean of pistons, vices, levers, valves, girders, files, and nuts; a sea of melted metal, baulks of timber

and barsteel. Iron filings filled your throat. There was iron in the atmosphere; the men were covered with it;

everything reeked of iron. The iron seemed to be a living organism; it became a fluid, moved, and seemed to

shape itself intelligently after every fashion, to obey the worker's every caprice. Through the uproar made by

the bellows, the crescendo of the falling hammers, and the shrill sounds of the lathes that drew groans from

the steel, Raphael passed into a large, clean, and airy place where he was able to inspect at his leisure the

great press that Planchette had told him about. He admired the castiron beams, as one might call them, and

"If you were to give seven rapid turns to that crank," said Spieghalter, pointing out a beam of polished steel,

"you would make a steel bar spurt out in thousands of jets, that would get into your legs like needles."

Planchette himself slipped the piece of skin between the metal plates of the allpowerful press; and, brimful

"Lie flat, all of you; we are dead men!" thundered Spieghalter, as he himself fell prone on the floor.

A hideous shrieking sound rang through the workshops. The water in the machine had broken the chamber,

and now spouted out in a jet of incalculable force; luckily it went in the direction of an old furnace, which

"Ha!" remarked Planchette serenely, "the piece of skin is as safe and sound as my eye. There was a flaw in

"No, no; I know my reservoir. The devil is in your contrivance, sir; you can take it away," and the German

pounced upon a smith's hammer, flung the skin down on an anvil, and, with all the strength that rage gives,

dealt the talisman the most formidable blow that had ever resounded through his workshops.

"There is not so much as a mark on it!" said Planchette, stroking the perverse bit of skin.

The workmen hurried in. The foreman took the skin and buried it in the glowing coal of a forge, while, in a

semicircle round the fire, they all awaited the action of a huge pair of bellows. Raphael, Spieghalter, and

Professor Planchette stood in the midst of the grimy expectant crowd. Raphael, looking round on faces dusted

over with iron filings, white eyes, greasy blackened clothing, and hairy chests, could have fancied himself

transported into the wild nocturnal world of German ballad poetry. After the skin had been in the fire for ten

The foreman held it out by way of a joke. The Marquis readily handled it; it was cool and flexible between

his fingers. An exclamation of alarm went up; the workmen fled in terror. Valentin was left alone with

"There is certainly something infernal in the thing!" cried Raphael, in desperation. "Is no human power able

"I made a mistake, sir," said the mathematician, with a penitent expression; "we ought to have subjected that

peculiar skin to the action of a rolling machine. Where could my eyes have been when I suggested

The mathematician heaved a sigh of relief, like a culprit acquitted by a dozen jurors. Still, the strange

problem afforded by the skin interested him; he meditated a moment, and then remarked:

"This unknown material ought to be treated chemically by reagents. Let us call on Japhetperhaps the

Valentin urged his horse into a rapid trot, hoping to find the chemist, the celebrated Japhet, in his laboratory.

"Well, old friend," Planchette began, seeing Japhet in his armchair, examining a precipitate; "how goes

"Gone to sleep. Nothing new at all. The Academie, however, has recognized the existence of salicine, but

"Since you cannot invent substances," said Raphael, "you are obliged to fall back on inventing names."

"Here," said Planchette, addressing the chemist, "try to analyze this composition; if you can extract any

element whatever from it, I christen it diaboline beforehand, for we have just smashed a hydraulic press in

"Let's see! let's have a look at it!" cried the delighted chemist; "it may, perhaps, be a fresh element."

Baron Japhet applied the nervous fibres of his tongue to the skin; he had skill in thus detecting salts, acids,

Subjected to the influence of this ready solvent of animal tissue, the skin underwent no change whatsoever.

"It is not shagreen at all!" the chemist cried. "We will treat this unknown mystery as a mineral, and try its

mettle by dropping it in a crucible where I have at this moment some red potash."

"Allow me to cut away a bit of this strange substance, sir," he said to Raphael; "it is so extraordinary"

"A bit!" exclaimed Raphael; "not so much as a hair'sbreadth. You may try, though," he added, half

The chemist broke a razor in his desire to cut the skin; he tried to break it by a powerful electric shock; next

he submitted it to the influence of a galvanic battery; but all the thunderbolts his science wotted of fell

It was seven o'clock in the evening. Planchette, Japhet, and Raphael, unaware of the flight of time, were

awaiting the outcome of a final experiment. The Magic Skin emerged triumphant from a formidable

encounter in which it had been engaged with a considerable quantity of chloride of nitrogen.

"It is all over with me," Raphael wailed. "It is the finger of God! I shall die!" and he left the two amazed

"We must be very careful not to talk about this affair at the Academie; our colleagues there would laugh at

us," Planchette remarked to the chemist, after a long pause, in which they looked at each other without daring

to communicate their thoughts. The learned pair looked like two Christians who had issued from their tombs

to find no God in the heavens. Science had been powerless; acids, so much clear water; red potash had been

discredited; the galvanic battery and electric shock had been a couple of playthings.

Each spoke in character. The universe for a mechanician is a machine that requires an operator; for

chemistrythat fiendish employment of decomposing all thingsthe world is a gas endowed with the

"Pshaw! those gentlemen the doctrinaires have invented a nebulous aphorism for our consolationStupid as

They began to laugh, and went off to dine like folk for whom a miracle is nothing more than a phenomenon.

Valentin reached his own house shivering with rage and consumed with anger. He had no more faith in

anything. Conflicting thoughts shifted and surged to and fro in his brain, as is the case with every man

brought face to face with an inconceivable fact. He had readily believed in some hidden flaw in Spieghalter's

apparatus; he had not been surprised by the incompetence and failure of science and of fire; but the flexibility

of the skin as he handled it, taken with its stubbornness when all means of destruction that man possesses had

been brought to bear upon it in vainthese things terrified him. The incontrovertible fact made him dizzy.

"I am mad," he muttered. "I have had no food since the morning, and yet I am neither hungry nor thirsty, and

He put back the skin in the frame where it had been enclosed but lately, drew a line in red ink about the actual

He leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair, propped his head with his left hand, and so remained, lost in

secret dark reflections and consuming thoughts that men condemned to die bear away with them.

"O Pauline!" he cried. "Poor child! there are gulfs that love can never traverse, despite the strength of his

Just then he very distinctly heard a smothered sigh, and knew by one of the most tender privileges of

"That is my death warrant," he said to himself. "If she were there, I should wish to die in her arms."

A burst of gleeful and hearty laughter made him turn his face towards the bed; he saw Pauline's face through

the transparent curtains, smiling like a child for gladness over a successful piece of mischief. Her pretty hair

fell over her shoulders in countless curls; she looked like a Bengal rose upon a pile of white roses.

"I cajoled Jonathan," said she. "Doesn't the bed belong to me, to me who am your wife? Don't scold me,

darling; I only wanted to surprise you, to sleep beside you. Forgive me for my freak."

She sprang out of bed like a kitten, showed herself gleaming in her lawn raiment, and sat down on Raphael's

"Love, what gulf were you talking about?" she said, with an anxious expression apparent upon her face.

"You hurt me," she answered. "There are some thoughts upon which we, poor women that we are, cannot

dwell; they are death to us. Is it strength of love in us, or lack of courage? I cannot tell. Death does not

frighten me," she began again, laughingly. "To die with you, both together, tomorrow morning, in one last

embrace, would be joy. It seems to me that even then I should have lived more than a hundred years. What

does the number of days matter if we have spent a whole lifetime of peace and love in one night, in one

"You are right; Heaven is speaking through that pretty mouth of yours. Grant that I may kiss you, and let us

Towards nine o'clock in the morning the daylight streamed through the chinks of the window shutters.

Obscured somewhat by the muslin curtains, it yet sufficed to show clearly the rich colors of the carpet, the

silks and furniture of the room, where the two lovers were lying asleep. The gilding sparkled here and there.

A ray of sunshine fell and faded upon the soft down quilt that the freaks of live had thrown to the ground. The

outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a cheval glass, appeared like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty shoes had

been left at a distance from the bed. A nightingale came to perch upon the sill; its trills repeated over again,

"For me to die," he said, following out a thought begun in his dream, "my organization, the mechanism of

flesh and bone, that is quickened by the will in me, and makes of me an individual MAN, must display some

perceptible disease. Doctors ought to understand the symptoms of any attack on vitality, and could tell me

He gazed at his sleeping wife. She had stretched her head out to him, expressing in this way even while she

slept the anxious tenderness of love. Pauline seemed to look at him as she lay with her face turned towards

him in an attitude as full of grace as a young child's, with her pretty, halfopened mouth held out towards

him, as she drew her light, even breath. Her little pearly teeth seemed to heighten the redness of the fresh lips

with the smile hovering over them. The red glow in her complexion was brighter, and its whiteness was, so to

speak, whiter still just then than in the most impassioned moments of the waking day. In her unconstrained

grace, as she lay, so full of believing trust, the adorable attractions of childhood were added to the

Even the most unaffected women still obey certain social conventions, which restrain the free expansion of

the soul within them during their waking hours; but slumber seems to give them back the spontaneity of life

which makes infancy lovely. Pauline blushed for nothing; she was like one of those beloved and heavenly

beings, in whom reason has not yet put motives into their actions and mystery into their glances. Her profile

stood out in sharp relief against the fine cambric of the pillows; there was a certain sprightliness about her

loose hair in confusion, mingled with the deep lace ruffles; but she was sleeping in happiness, her long lashes

were tightly pressed against her cheeks, as if to secure her eyes from too strong a light, or to aid an effort of

her soul to recollect and to hold fast a bliss that had been perfect but fleeting. Her tiny pink and white ear,

framed by a lock of her hair and outlined by a wrapping of Mechlin lace, would have made an artist, a

painter, an old man, wildly in love, and would perhaps have restored a madman to his senses.

Is it not an ineffable bliss to behold the woman that you love, sleeping, smiling in a peaceful dream beneath

your protection, loving you even in dreams, even at the point where the individual seems to cease to exist,

offering to you yet the mute lips that speak to you in slumber of the latest kiss? Is it not indescribable

happiness to see a trusting woman, halfclad, but wrapped round in her love as by a cloak modesty in the

midst of dishevelmentto see admiringly her scattered clothing, the silken stocking hastily put off to please

you last evening, the unclasped girdle that implies a boundless faith in you. A whole romance lies there in

that girdle; the woman that it used to protect exists no longer; she is yours, she has become YOU;

In this softened mood Raphael's eyes wandered over the room, now filled with memories and love, and where

the very daylight seemed to take delightful hues. Then he turned his gaze at last upon the outlines of the

woman's form, upon youth and purity, and love that even now had no thought that was not for him alone,

above all things, and longed to live for ever. As his eyes fell upon Pauline, her own opened at once as if a ray

The grace of love and youth, of silence and dawn, shone in their faces, making a divine picture, with the

fleeting spell over it all that belongs only to the earliest days of passion, just as simplicity and artlessness are

the peculiar possession of childhood. Alas! love's springtide joys, like our own youthful laughter, must even

take flight, and live for us no longer save in memory; either for our despair, or to shed some soothing

"What made me wake you?" said Raphael. "It was so great a pleasure to watch you sleeping that it brought

"And to mine, too," she answered. "I cried in the night while I watched you sleeping, but not with happiness.

Raphael, dear, pray listen to me. Your breathing is labored while you sleep, and something rattles in your

chest that frightens me. You have a little dry cough when you are asleep, exactly like my father's, who is

dying of phthisis. In those sounds from your lungs I recognized some of the peculiar symptoms of that

complaint. Then you are feverish; I know you are; your hand was moist and burningDarling, you are

young," she added with a shudder, "and you could still get over it if unfortunatelyBut, no," she cried

cheerfully, "there is no 'unfortunately,' the disease is contagious, so the doctors say."

She flung both arms about Raphael, drawing in his breath through one of those kisses in which the soul

"I do not wish to live to old age," she said. "Let us both die young, and go to heaven while flowers fill our

"We always make such designs as those when we are well and strong," Raphael replied, burying his hands in

Pauline's hair. But even then a horrible fit of coughing came on, one of those deep ominous coughs that seem

to come from the depths of the tomb, a cough that leaves the sufferer ghastly pale, trembling, and perspiring;

with aching sides and quivering nerves, with a feeling of weariness pervading the very marrow of the spine,

and unspeakable languor in every vein. Raphael slowly laid himself down, pale, exhausted, and overcome,

like a man who has spent all the strength in him over one final effort. Pauline's eyes, grown large with terror,

"Let us commit no more follies, my angel," she said, trying not to let Raphael see the dreadful forebodings

that disturbed her. She covered her face with her hands, for she saw Death before herthe hideous skeleton.

Raphael's face had grown as pale and livid as any skull unearthed from a churchyard to assist the studies of

some scientific man. Pauline remembered the exclamation that had escaped from Valentin the previous

"Yes, there are gulfs that love can never cross, and therein love must bury itself."

On a March morning, some days after this wretched scene, Raphael found himself seated in an armchair,

placed in the window in the full light of day. Four doctors stood round him, each in turn trying his pulse,

feeling him over, and questioning him with apparent interest. The invalid sought to guess their thoughts,

putting a construction on every movement they made, and on the slightest contractions of their brows. His

last hope lay in this consultation. This court of appeal was about to pronounce its decisionlife or death.

Valentin had summoned the oracles of modern medicine, so that he might have the last word of science.

Thanks to his wealth and title, there stood before him three embodied theories; human knowledge fluctuated

round the three points. Three of the doctors brought among them the complete circle of medical philosophy;

they represented the points of conflict round which the battle raged, between Spiritualism, Analysis, and

The fourth doctor was Horace Bianchon, a man of science with a future before him, the most distinguished

man of the new school in medicine, a discreet and unassuming representative of a studious generation that is

preparing to receive the inheritance of fifty years of experience treasured up by the Ecole de Paris, a

generation that perhaps will erect the monument for the building of which the centuries behind us have

collected the different materials. As a personal friend of the Marquis and of Rastignac, he had been in

attendance on the former for some days past, and was helping him to answer the inquiries of the three

professors, occasionally insisting somewhat upon those symptoms which, in his opinion, pointed to

"You have been living at a great pace, leading a dissipated life, no doubt, and you have devoted yourself

largely to intellectual work?" queried one of the three celebrated authorities, addressing Raphael. He was a

squareheaded man, with a large frame and energetic organization, which seemed to mark him out as

"I made up my mind to kill myself with debauchery, after spending three years over an extensive work, with

The great doctor shook his head, and so displayed his satisfaction. "I was sure of it," he seemed to say to

himself. He was the illustrious Brisset, the successor of Cabanis and Bichat, head of the Organic School, a

doctor popular with believers in material and positive science, who see in man a complete individual, subject

solely to the laws of his own particular organization; and who consider that his normal condition and

After this reply, Brisset looked, without speaking, at a middlesized person, whose darkly flushed

countenance and glowing eyes seemed to belong to some antique satyr; and who, leaning his back against the

corner of the embrasure, was studying Raphael, without saying a word. Doctor Cameristus, a man of creeds

and enthusiasms, the head of the "Vitalists," a romantic champion of the esoteric doctrines of Van Helmont,

discerned a lofty informing principle in human life, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon which mocks

at the scalpel, deceives the surgeon, eludes the drugs of the pharmacopoeia, the formulae of algebra, the

demonstrations of anatomy, and derides all our efforts; a sort of invisible, intangible flame, which, obeying

some divinely appointed law, will often linger on in a body in our opinion devoted to death, while it takes

A bitter smile hovered upon the lips of the third doctor, Maugredie, a man of acknowledged ability, but a

Pyrrhonist and a scoffer, with the scalpel for his one article of faith. He would consider, as a concession to

Brisset, that a man who, as a matter of fact, was perfectly well was dead, and recognize with Cameristus that

a man might be living on after his apparent demise. He found something sensible in every theory, and

embraced none of them, claiming that the best of all systems of medicine was to have none at all, and to stick

to facts. This Panurge of the Clinical Schools, the king of observers, the great investigator, a great sceptic, the

"I should very much like to be a witness of the coincidence of its retrenchment with your wish," he said to the

"In short," Maugredie made answer, with affected solemnity, and handing the piece of skin to Raphael as he

spoke, "the shriveling faculty of the skin is a fact inexplicable, and yet quite natural, which, ever since the

All Valentin's observation could discover no trace of a feeling for his troubles in any of the three doctors. The

three received every answer in silence, scanned him unconcernedly, and interrogated him unsympathetically.

Politeness did not conceal their indifference; whether deliberation or certainty was the cause, their words at

any rate came so seldom and so languidly, that at times Raphael thought that their attention was wandering.

From time to time Brisset, the sole speaker, remarked, "Good! just so!" as Bianchon pointed out the existence

of each desperate symptom. Cameristus seemed to be deep in meditation; Maugredie looked like a comic

author, studying two queer characters with a view to reproducing them faithfully upon the stage. There was

deep, unconcealed distress, and grave compassion in Horace Bianchon's face. He had been a doctor for too

short a time to be untouched by suffering and unmoved by a deathbed; he had not learned to keep back the

sympathetic tears that obscure a man's clear vision and prevent him from seizing like the general of an army,

upon the auspicious moment for victory, in utter disregard of the groans of dying men.

After spending about half an hour over taking in some sort the measure of the patient and the complaint,

much as a tailor measures a young man for a coat when he orders his wedding outfit, the authorities uttered

several commonplaces, and even talked of politics. Then they decided to go into Raphael's study to exchange

"May I not be present during the discussion, gentlemen?" Valentin had asked them, but Brisset and

Maugredie protested against this, and, in spite of their patient's entreaties, declined altogether to deliberate in

Raphael gave way before their custom, thinking that he could slip into a passage adjoining, whence he could

easily overhear the medical conference in which the three professors were about to engage.

"Permit me, gentlemen," said Brisset, as they entered, "to give you my own opinion at once. I neither wish to

force it upon you nor to have it discussed. In the first place, it is unbiased, concise, and based on an exact

similarity that exists between one of my own patients and the subject that we have been called in to examine;

and, moreover, I am expected at my hospital. The importance of the case that demands my presence there will

excuse me for speaking the first word. The subject with which we are concerned has been exhausted in an

equal degree by intellectual laborswhat did he set about, Horace?" he asked of the young doctor.

"The devil! but that's a big subject. He is exhausted, I say, by too much brainwork, by irregular courses, and

by the repeated use of too powerful stimulants. Violent exertion of body and mind has demoralized the whole

system. It is easy, gentlemen, to recognize in the symptoms of the face and body generally intense irritation

of the stomach, an affection of the great sympathetic nerve, acute sensibility of the epigastric region, and

contraction of the right and left hypochondriac. You have noticed, too, the large size and prominence of the

liver. M. Bianchon has, besides, constantly watched the patient, and he tells us that digestion is troublesome

and difficult. Strictly speaking, there is no stomach left, and so the man has disappeared. The brain is

atrophied because the man digests no longer. The progressive deterioration wrought in the epigastric region,

the seat of vitality, has vitiated the whole system. Thence, by continuous fevered vibrations, the disorder has

reached the brain by means of the nervous plexus, hence the excessive irritation in that organ. There is

monomania. The patient is burdened with a fixed idea. That piece of skin really contracts, to his way of

thinking; very likely it always has been as we have seen it; but whether it contracts or no, that thing is for him

just like the fly that some Grand Vizier or other had on his nose. If you put leeches at once on the

epigastrium, and reduce the irritation in that part, which is the very seat of man's life, and if you diet the

patient, the monomania will leave him. I will say no more to Dr. Bianchon; he should be able to grasp the

whole treatment as well as the details. There may be, perhaps, some complication of the diseasethe

bronchial tubes, possibly, may be also inflamed; but I believe that treatment for the intestinal organs is very

much more important and necessary, and more urgently required than for the lungs. Persistent study of

abstract matters, and certain violent passions, have induced serious disorders in that vital mechanism.

However, we are in time to set these conditions right. Nothing is too seriously affected. You will easily get

"Our learned colleague is taking the effect for the cause," Cameristus replied. "Yes, the changes that he has

observed so keenly certainly exist in the patient; but it is not the stomach that, by degrees, has set up nervous

action in the system, and so affected the brain, like a hole in a window pane spreading cracks round about it.

It took a blow of some kind to make a hole in the window; who gave the blow? Do we know that? Have we

investigated the patient's case sufficiently? Are we acquainted with all the events of his life?

"The vital principle, gentlemen," he continued, "the Archeus of Van Helmont, is affected in his casethe

very essence and centre of life is attacked. The divine spark, the transitory intelligence which holds the

organism together, which is the source of the will, the inspiration of life, has ceased to regulate the daily

phenomena of the mechanism and the functions of every organ; thence arise all the complications which my

learned colleague has so thoroughly appreciated. The epigastric region does not affect the brain but the brain

affects the epigastric region. No," he went on, vigorously slapping his chest, "no, I am not a stomach in the

form of a man. No, everything does not lie there. I do not feel that I have the courage to say that if the

"We cannot trace," he went on more mildly, "to one physical cause the serious disturbances that supervene in

this or that subject which has been dangerously attacked, nor submit them to a uniform treatment. No one

man is like another. We have each peculiar organs, differently affected, diversely nourished, adapted to

perform different functions, and to induce a condition necessary to the accomplishment of an order of things

which is unknown to us. The sublime will has so wrought that a little portion of the great All is set within us

to sustain the phenomena of living; in every man it formulates itself distinctly, making each, to all

appearance, a separate individual, yet in one point coexistent with the infinite cause. So we ought to make a

separate study of each subject, discover all about it, find out in what its life consists, and wherein its power

lies. From the softness of a wet sponge to the hardness of pumicestone there are infinite fine degrees of

difference. Man is just like that. Between the sponge like organizations of the lymphatic and the vigorous

iron muscles of such men as are destined for a long life, what a margin for errors for the single inflexible

system of a lowering treatment to commit; a system that reduces the capacities of the human frame, which

you always conclude have been overexcited. Let us look for the origin of the disease in the mental and not

in the physical viscera. A doctor is an inspired being, endowed by God with a special giftthe power to read

the secrets of vitality; just as the prophet has received the eyes that foresee the future, the poet his faculty of

evoking nature, and the musician the power of arranging sounds in an harmonious order that is possibly a

"There is his everlasting system of medicine, arbitrary, monarchical, and pious," muttered Brisset.

"Gentlemen," Maugredie broke in hastily, to distract attention from Brisset's comment, "don't let us lose sight

"What is the good of science?" Raphael moaned. "Here is my recovery halting between a string of beads and

a rosary of leeches, between Dupuytren's bistoury and Prince Hohenlohe's prayer. There is Maugredie

suspending his judgment on the line that divides facts from words, mind from matter. Man's 'it is,' and 'it is

not,' is always on my track; it is the Carymary Carymara of Rabelais for evermore: my disorder is spiritual,

Carymary, or material, Carymara. Shall I live? They have no idea. Planchette was more straightforward with

"The patient suffers from monomania; very good, I am quite of that opinion," he said, "but he has two

hundred thousand a year; monomaniacs of that kind are very uncommon. As for knowing whether his

epigastric region has affected his brain, or his brain his epigastric region, we shall find that out, perhaps,

whenever he dies. But to resume. There is no disputing the fact that he is ill; some sort of treatment he must

have. Let us leave theories alone, and put leeches on him, to counteract the nervous and intestinal irritation,

as to the existence of which we all agree; and let us send him to drink the waters, in that way we shall act on

both systems at once. If there really is tubercular disease, we can hardly expect to save his life; so that"

Raphael abruptly left the passage, and went back to his armchair. The four doctors very soon came out of the

"These gentlemen," he told him, "have unanimously agreed that leeches must be applied to the stomach at

once, and that both physical and moral treatment are imperatively needed. In the first place, a carefully

prescribed rule of diet, so as to soothe the internal irritation"here Brisset signified his approval; "and in the

second, a hygienic regimen, to set your general condition right. We all, therefore, recommend you to go to

take the waters in Aix in Savoy; or, if you like it better, at Mont Dore in Auvergne; the air and the situation

are both pleasanter in Savoy than in the Cantal, but you will consult your own taste."

"These gentlemen," Bianchon continued, "having recognized a slight affection of the respiratory organs, are

agreed as to the utility of the previous course of treatment that I have prescribed. They think that there will be

no difficulty about restoring you to health, and that everything depends upon a wise and alternate

"And that is the cause of the milk in the cocoanut," said Raphael, with a smile, as he led Horace into his study

"Their conclusions are logical," the young doctor replied. "Cameristus feels, Brisset examines, Maugredie

doubts. Has not man a soul, a body, and an intelligence? One of these three elemental constituents always

influences us more or less strongly; there will always be the personal element in human science. Believe me,

Raphael, we effect no cures; we only assist them. Another systemthe use of mild remedies while Nature

exerts her powerslies between the extremes of theory of Brisset and Cameristus, but one ought to have

known the patient for some ten years or so to obtain a good result on these lines. Negation lies at the back of

all medicine, as in every other science. So endeavor to live wholesomely; try a trip to Savoy; the best course

It was a month later, on a fine summerlike evening, that several people, who were taking the waters at Aix,

returned from the promenade and met together in the salons of the Club. Raphael remained alone by a

window for a long time. His back was turned upon the gathering, and he himself was deep in those

involuntary musings in which thoughts arise in succession and fade away, shaping themselves indistinctly,

passing over us like thin, almost colorless clouds. Melancholy is sweet to us then, and delight is shadowy, for

the soul is half asleep. Valentin gave himself up to this life of sensations; he was steeping himself in the

warm, soft twilight, enjoying the pure air with the scent of the hills in it, happy in that he felt no pain, and had

tranquilized his threatening Magic Skin at last. It grew cooler as the red glow of the sunset faded on the

"Will you be so kind as not to close the windows, sir?" said an old lady; "we are being stifled"

The peculiarly sharp and jarring tones in which the phrase was uttered grated on Raphael's ears; it fell on

them like an indiscreet remark let slip by some man in whose friendship we would fain believe, a word which

reveals unsuspected depths of selfishness and destroys some pleasing sentimental illusion of ours. The

Marquis glanced, with the cool inscrutable expression of a diplomatist, at the old lady, called a servant, and,

Great surprise was clearly expressed on all faces at the words. The whole roomful began to whisper to each

other, and turned their eyes upon the invalid, as though he had given some serious offence. Raphael, who had

never quite managed to rid himself of the bashfulness of his early youth, felt a momentary confusion; then he

shook off his torpor, exerted his faculties, and asked himself the meaning of this strange scene.

A sudden and rapid impulse quickened his brain; the past weeks appeared before him in a clear and definite

vision; the reasons for the feelings he inspired in others stood out for him in relief, like the veins of some

corpse which a naturalist, by some cunningly contrived injection, has colored so as to show their least

He discerned himself in this fleeting picture; he followed out his own life in it, thought by thought, day after

day. He saw himself, not without astonishment, an absent gloomy figure in the midst of these lively folk,

always musing over his own fate, always absorbed by his own sufferings, seemingly impatient of the most

harmless chat. He saw how he had shunned the ephemeral intimacies that travelers are so ready to

establishno doubt because they feel sure of never meeting each other againand how he had taken little

heed of those about him. He saw himself like the rocks without, unmoved by the caresses or the stormy

Then, by a gift of insight seldom accorded, he read the thoughts of all those about him. The light of a candle

revealed the sardonic profile and yellow cranium of an old man; he remembered now that he had won from

him, and had never proposed that the other should have his revenge; a little further on he saw a pretty woman,

whose lively advances he had met with frigid coolness; there was not a face there that did not reproach him

with some wrong done, inexplicably to all appearance, but the real offence in every case lay in some

mortification, some invisible hurt dealt to selflove. He had unintentionally jarred on all the small

His guests on various occasions, and those to whom he had lent his horses, had taken offence at his luxurious

ways; their ungraciousness had been a surprise to him; he had spared them further humiliations of that kind,

and they had considered that he looked down upon them, and had accused him of haughtiness ever since. He

could read their inmost thoughts as he fathomed their natures in this way. Society with its polish and varnish

grew loathsome to him. He was envied and hated for his wealth and superior ability; his reserve baffled the

inquisitive; his humility seemed like haughtiness to these petty superficial natures. He guessed the secret

unpardonable crime which he had committed against them; he had overstepped the limits of the jurisdiction

of their mediocrity. He had resisted their inquisitorial tyranny; he could dispense with their society; and all of

them, therefore, had instinctively combined to make him feel their power, and to take revenge upon this

incipient royalty by submitting him to a kind of ostracism, and so teaching him that they in their turn could

Pity came over him, first of all, at this aspect of mankind, but very soon he shuddered at the thought of the

power that came thus, at will, and flung aside for him the veil of flesh under which the moral nature is hidden

away. He closed his eyes, so as to see no more. A black curtain was drawn all at once over this unlucky

phantom show of truth; but still he found himself in the terrible loneliness that surrounds every power and

dominion. Just then a violent fit of coughing seized him. Far from receiving one single wordindifferent,

and meaningless, it is true, but still containing, among wellbred people brought together by chance, at least

some pretence of civil commiserationhe now heard hostile ejaculations and muttered complaints. Society

there assembled disdained any pantomime on his account, perhaps because he had gauged its real nature too

Raphael rose and walked about the rooms to screen himself from their unanimous execrations. He thought to

find a shelter, and went up to a young pretty lady who sat doing nothing, minded to address some pretty

speeches to her; but as he came towards her, she turned her back upon him, and pretended to be watching the

dancers. Raphael feared lest he might have made use of the talisman already that evening; and feeling that he

had neither the wish nor the courage to break into the conversation, he left the salon and took refuge in the

billiardroom. No one there greeted him, nobody spoke to him, no one sent so much as a friendly glance in

his direction. His turn of mind, naturally meditative, had discovered instinctively the general grounds and

reasons for the aversion he inspired. This little world was obeying, unconsciously perhaps, the sovereign law

which rules over polite society; its inexorable nature was becoming apparent in its entirety to Raphael's eyes.

A glance into the past showed it to him, as a type completely realized in Foedora.

He would no more meet with sympathy here for his bodily ills than he had received it at her hands for the

distress in his heart. The fashionable world expels every suffering creature from its midst, just as the body of

a man in robust health rejects any germ of disease. The world holds suffering and misfortune in abhorrence; it

dreads them like the plague; it never hesitates between vice and trouble, for vice is a luxury. Illfortune may

possess a majesty of its own, but society can belittle it and make it ridiculous by an epigram. Society draws

caricatures, and in this way flings in the teeth of fallen kings the affronts which it fancies it has received from

them; society, like the Roman youth at the circus, never shows mercy to the fallen gladiator; mockery and

money are its vital necessities. "Death to the weak!" That is the oath taken by this kind of Equestrian order,

instituted in their midst by all the nations of the world; everywhere it makes for the elevation of the rich, and

its motto is deeply graven in hearts that wealth has turned to stone, or that have been reared in aristocratic

Assemble a collection of schoolboys together. That will give you a society in miniature, a miniature which

represents life more truly, because it is so frank and artless; and in it you will always find poor isolated

beings, relegated to some place in the general estimations between pity and contempt, on account of their

weakness and suffering. To these the Evangel promises heaven hereafter. Go lower yet in the scale of

organized creation. If some bird among its fellows in the courtyard sickens, the others fall upon it with their

beaks, pluck out its feathers, and kill it. The whole world, in accordance with its character of egotism, brings

all its severity to bear upon wretchedness that has the hardihood to spoil its festivities, and to trouble its joys.

Any sufferer in mind or body, any helpless or poor man, is a pariah. He had better remain in his solitude; if he

crosses the boundaryline, he will find winter everywhere; he will find freezing cold in other men's looks,

manners, words, and hearts; and lucky indeed is he if he does not receive an insult where he expected that

sympathy would be expended upon him. Let the dying keep to their bed of neglect, and age sit lonely by its

fireside. Portionless maids, freeze and burn in your solitary attics. If the world tolerates misery of any kind, it

is to turn it to account for its own purposes, to make some use of it, saddle and bridle it, put a bit in its mouth,

Crotchety spinsters, ladies' companions, put a cheerful face upon it, endure the humors of your socalled

benefactress, carry her lapdogs for her; you have an English poodle for your rival, and you must seek to

understand the moods of your patroness, and amuse her, andkeep silence about yourselves. As for you,

unblushing parasite, uncrowned king of unliveried servants, leave your real character at home, let your

digestion keep pace with your host's laugh when he laughs, mingle your tears with his, and find his epigrams

amusing; if you want to relieve your mind about him, wait till he is ruined. That is the way the world shows

Such thoughts as these welled up in Raphael's heart with the suddenness of poetic inspiration. He looked

around him, and felt the influence of the forbidding gloom that society breathes out in order to rid itself of the

unfortunate; it nipped his soul more effectually than the east wind grips the body in December. He locked his

arms over his chest, set his back against the wall, and fell into a deep melancholy. He mused upon the meagre

happiness that this depressing way of living can give. What did it amount to? Amusement with no pleasure in

it, gaiety without gladness, joyless festivity, fevered dreams empty of all delight, firewood or ashes on the

hearth without a spark of flame in them. When he raised his head, he found himself alone, all the billiard

"I have only to let them know my power to make them worship my coughing fits," he said to himself, and

Next day the resident doctor came to call upon him, and took an anxious interest in his health. Raphael felt a

thrill of joy at the friendly words addressed to him. The doctor's face, to his thinking, wore an expression that

was kind and pleasant; the pale curls of his wig seemed redolent of philanthropy; the square cut of his coat,

the loose folds of his trousers, his big Quakerlike shoes, everything about him down to the powder shaken

from his queue and dusted in a circle upon his slightly stooping shoulders, revealed an apostolic nature, and

spoke of Christian charity and of the selfsacrifice of a man, who, out of sheer devotion to his patients, had

compelled himself to learn to play whist and trictrac so well that he never lost money to any of them.

"My Lord Marquis," said he, after a long talk with Raphael, "I can dispel your uneasiness beyond all doubt. I

know your constitution well enough by this time to assure you that the doctors in Paris, whose great abilities I

know, are mistaken as to the nature of your complaint. You can live as long as Methuselah, my Lord

Marquis, accidents only excepted. Your lungs are as sound as a blacksmith's bellows, your stomach would

put an ostrich to the blush; but if you persist in living at high altitude, you are running the risk of a prompt

interment in consecrated soil. A few words, my Lord Marquis, will make my meaning clear to you.

"Chemistry," he began, "has shown us that man's breathing is a real process of combustion, and the intensity

of its action varies according to the abundance or scarcity of the phlogistic element stored up by the organism

of each individual. In your case, the phlogistic, or inflammatory element is abundant; if you will permit me to

put it so, you generate superfluous oxygen, possessing as you do the inflammatory temperament of a man

destined to experience strong emotions. While you breath the keen, pure air that stimulates life in men of

lymphatic constitution, you are accelerating an expenditure of vitality already too rapid. One of the conditions

for existence for you is the heavier atmosphere of the plains and valleys. Yes, the vital air for a man

consumed by his genius lies in the fertile pasturelands of Germany, at Toplitz or BadenBaden. If England

is not obnoxious to you, its misty climate would reduce your fever; but the situation of our baths, a thousand

feet above the level of the Mediterranean, is dangerous for you. That is my opinion at least," he said, with a

deprecatory gesture, "and I give it in opposition to our interests, for, if you act upon it, we shall unfortunately

But for these closing words of his, the affable doctor's seeming good nature would have completely won

Raphael over; but he was too profoundly observant not to understand the meaning of the tone, the look and

gesture that accompanied that mild sarcasm, not to see that the little man had been sent on this errand, no

doubt, by a flock of his rejoicing patients. The floridlooking idlers, tedious old women, nomad English

people, and fine ladies who had given their husbands the slip, and were escorted hither by their loversone

and all were in a plot to drive away a wretched, feeble creature to die, who seemed unable to hold out against

a daily renewed persecution! Raphael accepted the challenge, he foresaw some amusement to be derived

"As you would be grieved at losing me," said he to the doctor, "I will endeavor to avail myself of your good

advice without leaving the place. I will set about having a house built tomorrow, and the atmosphere within

The doctor understood the sarcastic smile that lurked about Raphael's mouth, and took his leave without

The Lake of Bourget lies seven hundred feet above the Mediterranean, in a great hollow among the jagged

peaks of the hills; it sparkles there, the bluest drop of water in the world. From the summit of the Cat's Tooth

the lake below looks like a stray turquoise. This lovely sheet of water is about twentyseven miles round, and

Under the cloudless sky, in your boat in the midst of the great expanse of water, with only the sound of the

oars in your ears, only the vague outline of the hills on the horizon before you; you admire the glittering

snows of the French Maurienne; you pass, now by masses of granite clad in the velvet of green turf or in

lowgrowing shrubs, now by pleasant sloping meadows; there is always a wilderness on the one hand and

fertile lands on the other, and both harmonies and dissonances compose a scene for you where everything is

at once small and vast, and you feel yourself to be a poor onlooker at a great banquet. The configuration of

the mountains brings about misleading optical conditions and illusions of perspective; a pinetree a hundred

feet in height looks to be a mere weed; wide valleys look as narrow as meadow paths. The lake is the only

one where the confidences of heart and heart can be exchanged. There one can live; there one can meditate.

Nowhere on earth will you find a closer understanding between the water, the sky, the mountains, and the

fields. There is a balm there for all the agitations of life. The place keeps the secrets of sorrow to itself, the

sorrow that grows less beneath its soothing influence; and to love, it gives a grave and meditative cast,

deepening passion and purifying it. A kiss there becomes something great. But beyond all other things it is

the lake for memories; it aids them by lending to them the hues of its own waves; it is a mirror in which

everything is reflected. Only here, with this lovely landscape all around him, could Raphael endure the

burden laid upon him; here he could remain as a languid dreamer, without a wish of his own.

He went out upon the lake after the doctor's visit, and was landed at a lonely point on the pleasant slope

where the village of Saint Innocent is situated. The view from this promontory, as one may call it,

comprises the heights of Bugey with the Rhone flowing at their foot, and the end of the lake; but Raphael

liked to look at the opposite shore from thence, at the melancholy looking Abbey of Haute Combe, the

buryingplace of the Sardinian kings, who lie prostrate there before the hills, like pilgrims come at last to

their journey's end. The silence of the landscape was broken by the even rhythm of the strokes of the oar; it

seemed to find a voice for the place, in monotonous cadences like the chanting of monks. The Marquis was

surprised to find visitors to this usually lonely part of the lake; and as he mused, he watched the people seated

in the boat, and recognized in the stern the elderly lady who had spoken so harshly to him the evening before.

No one took any notice of Raphael as the boat passed, except the elderly lady's companion, a poor old maid

of noble family, who bowed to him, and whom it seemed to him that he saw for the first time. A few seconds

later he had already forgotten the visitors, who had rapidly disappeared behind the promontory, when he

heard the fluttering of a dress and the sound of light footsteps not far from him. He turned about and saw the

companion; and, guessing from her embarrassed manner that she wished to speak with him, he walked

She was somewhere about thirtysix years of age, thin and tall, reserved and prim, and, like all old maids,

seemed puzzled to know which way to look, an expression no longer in keeping with her measured,

springless, and hesitating steps. She was both young and old at the same time, and, by a certain dignity in her

carriage, showed the high value which she set upon her charms and perfections. In addition, her movements

were all demure and discreet, like those of women who are accustomed to take great care of themselves, no

"Your life is in danger, sir; do not come to the Club again!" she said, stepping back a pace or two from

"But, mademoiselle," said Raphael, smiling, "please explain yourself more clearly, since you have

"Ah," she answered, "unless I had had a very strong motive, I should never have run the risk of offending the

"True," the old maid answered. She looked at him, quaking like an owl out in the sunlight. "But think of

yourself," she went on; "several young men, who want to drive you away from the baths, have agreed to pick

"Mademoiselle," began the Marquis, "my gratitude" But his protectress had fled already; she had heard

"Poor girl! unhappiness always understands and helps the unhappy," Raphael thought, and sat himself down

The key of every science is, beyond cavil, the mark of interrogation; we owe most of our greatest discoveries

to a WHY? and all the wisdom in the world, perhaps, consists in asking WHEREFORE? in every connection.

So Valentin, having taken the old maid's kindly action for the text of his wandering thoughts, without the

"It is not at all extraordinary that a gentlewoman's gentlewoman should take a fancy to me," said he to

himself. "I am twentyseven years old, and I have a title and an income of two hundred thousand a year. But

that her mistress, who hates water like a rabid catfor it would be hard to give the palm to either in that

matterthat her mistress should have brought her here in a boat! Is not that very strange and wonderful?

Those two women came into Savoy to sleep like marmots; they ask if day has dawned at noon; and to think

that they could get up this morning before eight o'clock, to take their chances in running after me!"

Very soon the old maid and her elderly innocence became, in his eyes, a fresh manifestation of that artificial,

malicious little world. It was a paltry device, a clumsy artifice, a piece of priest's or woman's craft. Was the

duel a myth, or did they merely want to frighten him? But these petty creatures, impudent and teasing as flies,

had succeeded in wounding his vanity, in rousing his pride, and exciting his curiosity. Unwilling to become

their dupe, or to be taken for a coward, and even diverted perhaps by the little drama, he went to the Club that

He stood leaning against the marble chimneypiece, and stayed there quietly in the middle of the principal

saloon, doing his best to give no one any advantage over him; but he scrutinized the faces about him, and

gave a certain vague offence to those assembled, by his inspection. Like a dog aware of his strength, he

awaited the contest on his own ground, without necessary barking. Towards the end of the evening he strolled

into the cardroom, walking between the door and another that opened into the billiardroom, throwing a

glance from time to time over a group of young men that had gathered there. He heard his name mentioned

after a turn or two. Although they lowered their voices, Raphael easily guessed that he had become the topic

Just as Valentin, curious to learn the matter of the wager, came up to pay closer attention to what they were

saying, a tall, strong, good looking young fellow, who, however, possessed the impertinent stare peculiar to

"I am deputed, sir," he said coolly addressing the Marquis, "to make you aware of something which you do

not seem to know; your face and person generally are a source of annoyance to every one here, and to me in

particular. You have too much politeness not to sacrifice yourself to the public good, and I beg that you will

"This sort of joke has been perpetrated before, sir, in garrison towns at the time of the Empire; but nowadays

"I am not joking," the young man answered; "and I repeat it: your health will be considerably the worse for a

stay here; the heat and light, the air of the saloon, and the company are all bad for your complaint."

"I took my bachelor's degree on Lepage's shootingground in Paris, and was made a doctor at Cerizier's, the

"There is one last degree left for you to take," said Valentin; "study the ordinary rules of politeness, and you

The young men all came out of the billiardroom just then, some disposed to laugh, some silent. The

attention of other players was drawn to the matter; they left their cards to watch a quarrel that rejoiced their

instincts. Raphael, alone among this hostile crowd, did his best to keep cool, and not to put himself in any

way in the wrong; but his adversary having ventured a sarcasm containing an insult couched in unusually

"We cannot box men's ears, sir, in these days, but I am at a loss for any word by which to stigmatize such

"That's enough, that's enough. You can come to an explanation to morrow," several young men exclaimed,

Raphael left the room in the character of aggressor, after he had accepted a proposal to meet near the Chateau

de Bordeau, in a little sloping meadow, not very far from the newly made road, by which the man who came

off victorious could reach Lyons. Raphael must now either take to his bed or leave the baths. The visitors had

gained their point. At eight o'clock next morning his antagonist, followed by two seconds and a surgeon,

"We shall do very nicely here; glorious weather for a duel!" he cried gaily, looking at the blue vault of sky

above, at the waters of the lake, and the rocks, without a single melancholy presentiment or doubt of the

issue. "If I wing him," he went on, "I shall send him to bed for a month; eh, doctor?"

"At the very least," the surgeon replied; "but let that willow twig alone, or you will weary your wrist, and

then you will not fire steadily. You might kill your man instead of wounding him."

"Here he is," said the seconds, who soon descried a caleche coming along the road; it was drawn by four

"What a queer proceeding!" said Valentin's antagonist; "here he comes posthaste to be shot."

The slightest incident about a duel, as about a stake at cards, makes an impression on the minds of those

deeply concerned in the results of the affair; so the young man awaited the arrival of the carriage with a kind

of uneasiness. It stopped in the road; old Jonathan laboriously descended from it, in the first place, to assist

Raphael to alight; he supported him with his feeble arms, and showed him all the minute attentions that a

lover lavishes upon his mistress. Both became lost to sight in the footpath that lay between the highroad and

the field where the duel was to take place; they were walking slowly, and did not appear again for some time

after. The four onlookers at this strange spectacle felt deeply moved by the sight of Valentin as he leaned on

his servant's arm; he was wasted and pale; he limped as if he had the gout, went with his head bowed down,

and said not a word. You might have taken them for a couple of old men, one broken with years, the other

worn out with thought; the elder bore his age visibly written in his white hair, the younger was of no age.

The icy tone and terrible glance that went with the words made the real aggressor shudder; he know that he

was in the wrong, and felt in secret ashamed of his behavior. There was something strange in Raphael's

bearing, tone, and gesture; the Marquis stopped, and every one else was likewise silent. The uneasy and

"There is yet time," he went on, "to offer me some slight apology; and offer it you must, or you will die sir!

You rely even now on your dexterity, and do not shrink from an encounter in which you believe all the

advantage to be upon your side. Very good, sir; I am generous, I am letting you know my superiority

beforehand. I possess a terrible power. I have only to wish to do so, and I can neutralize your skill, dim your

eyesight, make your hand and pulse unsteady, and even kill you outright. I have no wish to be compelled to

exercise my power; the use of it costs me too dear. You would not be the only one to die. So if you refuse to

apologize to me, not matter what your experience in murder, your ball will go into the waterfall there, and

Confused voices interrupted Raphael at this point. All the time that he was speaking, the Marquis had kept his

intolerably keen gaze fixed upon his antagonist; now he drew himself up and showed an impassive face, like

"Make him hold his tongue," the young man had said to one of his seconds; "that voice of his is tearing the

"Say no more, sir; it is quite useless," cried the seconds and the surgeon, addressing Raphael.

"Gentlemen, I am fulfilling a duty. Has this young gentleman any final arrangements to make?"

The Marquis remained standing steadily, never for a moment losing sight of his antagonist; and the latter

seemed, like a bird before a snake, to be overwhelmed by a wellnigh magical power. He was compelled to

The two antagonists were placed at fifteen paces' distance from each other. Each of them had a brace of

pistols at hand, and, according to the programme prescribed for them, each was to fire twice when and how

"What are you doing, Charles?" exclaimed the young man who acted as second to Raphael's antagonist; "you

"I am a dead man," he muttered, by way of answer; "you have put me facing the sun"

"The sun lies behind you," said Valentin sternly and solemnly, while he coolly loaded his pistol without

heeding the fact that the signal had been given, or that his antagonist was carefully taking aim.

There was something so appalling in this supernatural unconcern, that it affected even the two postilions,

brought thither by a cruel curiosity. Raphael was either trying his power or playing with it, for he talked to

Jonathan, and looked towards him as he received his adversary's fire. Charles' bullet broke a branch of

willow, and ricocheted over the surface of the water; Raphael fired at random, and shot his antagonist through

the heart. He did not heed the young man as he dropped; he hurriedly sought the Magic Skin to see what

another man's life had cost him. The talisman was no larger than a small oak leaf.

"What are you gaping at, you postilions over there? Let us be off," said the Marquis.

That same evening he crossed the French border, immediately set out for Auvergne, and reached the springs

of Mont Dore. As he traveled, there surged up in his heart, all at once, one of those thoughts that come to us

as a ray of sunlight pierces through the thick mists in some dark valleya sad enlightenment, a pitiless

sagacity that lights up the accomplished fact for us, that lays our errors bare, and leaves us without excuse in

our own eyes. It suddenly struck him that the possession of power, no matter how enormous, did not bring

with it the knowledge how to use it. The sceptre is a plaything for a child, an axe for a Richelieu, and for a

Napoleon a lever by which to move the world. Power leaves us just as it finds us; only great natures grow

greater by its means. Raphael had had everything in his power, and he had done nothing.

At the springs of Mont Dore he came again in contact with a little world of people, who invariably shunned

him with the eager haste that animals display when they scent afar off one of their own species lying dead,

and flee away. The dislike was mutual. His late adventure had given him a deep distaste for society; his first

care, consequently, was to find a lodging at some distance from the neighborhood of the springs. Instinctively

he felt within him the need of close contact with nature, of natural emotions, and of the vegetative life into

The day after he arrived he climbed the Pic de Sancy, not without difficulty, and visited the higher valleys,

the skyey nooks, undiscovered lakes, and peasants' huts about Mont Dore, a country whose stern and wild

features are now beginning to tempt the brushes of our artists, for sometimes wonderfully fresh and charming

views are to be found there, affording a strong contrast to the frowning brows of those lonely hills.

Barely a league from the village Raphael discovered a nook where nature seemed to have taken a pleasure in

hiding away all her treasures like some glad and mischievous child. At the first sight of this unspoiled and

picturesque retreat, he determined to take up his abode in it. There, life must needs be peaceful, natural, and

Imagine for yourself an inverted cone of granite hollowed out on a large scale, a sort of basin with its sides

divided up by queer winding paths. On one side lay level stretches with no growth upon them, a bluish

uniform surface, over which the rays of the sun fell as upon a mirror; on the other lay cliffs split open by

fissures and frowning ravines; great blocks of lava hung suspended from them, while the action of rain slowly

prepared their impending fall; a few stunted trees tormented by the wind, often crowned their summits; and

here and there in some sheltered angle of their ramparts a clump of chestnut trees grew tall as cedars, or

some cavern in the yellowish rocks showed the dark entrance into its depths, set about by flowers and

At the bottom of this cup, which perhaps had been the crater of an oldworld volcano, lay a pool of water as

pure and bright as a diamond. Granite boulders lay around the deep basin, and willows, mountainash trees,

yellowflag lilies, and numberless aromatic plants bloomed about it, in a realm of meadow as fresh as an

English bowling green. The fine soft grass was watered by the streams that trickled through the fissures in

the cliffs; the soil was continually enriched by the deposits of loam which storms washed down from the

heights above. The pool might be some three acres in extent; its shape was irregular, and the edges were

scalloped like the hem of a dress; the meadow might be an acre or two acres in extent. The cliffs and the

water approached and receded from each other; here and there, there was scarcely width enough for the cows

After a certain height the plant life ceased. Aloft in air the granite took upon itself the most fantastic shapes,

and assumed those misty tints that give to high mountains a dim resemblance to clouds in the sky. The bare,

bleak cliffs, with the fearful rents in their sides, pictures of wild and barren desolation, contrasted strongly

with the pretty view of the valley; and so strange were the shapes they assumed, that one of the cliffs had

been called "The Capuchin," because it was so like a monk. Sometimes these sharppointed peaks, these

mighty masses of rock, and airy caverns were lighted up one by one, according to the direction of the sun or

the caprices of the atmosphere; they caught gleams of gold, dyed themselves in purple; took a tint of glowing

rosecolor, or turned dull and gray. Upon the heights a drama of color was always to be seen, a play of ever

Oftentimes at sunrise or at sunset a ray of bright sunlight would penetrate between two sheer surfaces of lava,

that might have been split apart by a hatchet, to the very depths of that pleasant little garden, where it would

play in the waters of the pool, like a beam of golden light which gleams through the chinks of a shutter into a

room in Spain, that has been carefully darkened for a siesta. When the sun rose above the old crater that some

antediluvian revolution had filled with water, its rocky sides took warmer tones, the extinct volcano glowed

again, and its sudden heat quickened the sprouting seeds and vegetation, gave color to the flowers, and

As Raphael reached it, he noticed several cows grazing in the pasture land; and when he had taken a few

steps towards the water, he saw a little house built of granite and roofed with shingle in the spot where the

meadowland was at its widest. The roof of this little cottage harmonized with everything about it; for it had

long been overgrown with ivy, moss, and flowers of no recent date. A thin smoke, that did not scare the birds

away, went up from the dilapidated chimney. There was a great bench at the door between two huge honey

suckle bushes, that were pink with blossom and full of scent. The walls could scarcely be seen for branches of

vine and sprays of rose and jessamine that interlaced and grew entirely as chance and their own will bade

them; for the inmates of the cottage seemed to pay no attention to the growth which adorned their house, and

Some clothes spread out on the gooseberry bushes were drying in the sun. A cat was sitting on a machine for

stripping hemp; beneath it lay a newly scoured brass caldron, among a quantity of potatoparings. On the

other side of the house Raphael saw a sort of barricade of dead thornbushes, meant no doubt to keep the

poultry from scratching up the vegetables and potherbs. It seemed like the end of the earth. The dwelling

was like some bird'snest ingeniously set in a cranny of the rocks, a clever and at the same time a careless bit

of workmanship. A simple and kindly nature lay round about it; its rusticity was genuine, but there was a

charm like that of poetry in it; for it grew and throve at a thousand miles' distance from our elaborate and

conventional poetry. It was like none of our conceptions; it was a spontaneous growth, a masterpiece due to

As Raphael reached the place, the sunlight fell across it from right to left, bringing out all the colors of its

plants and trees; the yellowish or gray bases of the crags, the different shades of the green leaves, the masses

of flowers, pink, blue, or white, the climbing plants with their belllike blossoms, and the shot velvet of the

mosses, the purpletinted blooms of the heather,everything was either brought into relief or made fairer

yet by the enchantment of the light or by the contrasting shadows; and this was the case most of all with the

sheet of water, wherein the house, the trees, the granite peaks, and the sky were all faithfully reflected.

Everything had a radiance of its own in this delightful picture, from the sparkling micastone to the bleached

tuft of grass hidden away in the soft shadows; the spotted cow with its glossy hide, the delicate water plants

that hung down over the pool like fringes in a nook where blue or emerald colored insects were buzzing

about, the roots of trees like a sandbesprinkled shock of hair above grotesque faces in the flinty rock

The odor of the tepid water; the scent of the flowers, and the breath of the caverns which filled the lonely

place gave Raphael a sensation that was almost enjoyment. Silence reigned in majesty over these woods,

which possibly are unknown to the taxcollector; but the barking of a couple of dogs broke the stillness all at

once; the cows turned their heads towards the entrance of the valley, showing their moist noses to Raphael,

stared stupidly at him, and then fell to browsing again. A goat and her kid, that seemed to hang on the side of

the crags in some magical fashion, capered and leapt to a slab of granite near to Raphael, and stayed there a

moment, as if to seek to know who he was. The yapping of the dogs brought out a plump child, who stood

agape, and next came a whitehaired old man of middle height. Both of these two beings were in keeping

with the surroundings, the air, the flowers, and the dwelling. Health appeared to overflow in this fertile

region; old age and childhood thrived there. There seemed to be, about all these types of existence, the

freedom and carelessness of the life of primitive times, a happiness of use and wont that gave the lie to our

philosophical platitudes, and wrought a cure of all its swelling passions in the heart.

The old man belonged to the type of model dear to the masculine brush of Schnetz. The countless wrinkles

upon his brown face looked as if they would be hard to the touch; the straight nose, the prominent

cheekbones, streaked with red veins like a vineleaf in autumn, the angular features, all were characteristics

of strength, even where strength existed no longer. The hard hands, now that they toiled no longer, had

preserved their scanty white hair, his bearing was that of an absolutely free man; it suggested the thought that,

had he been an Italian, he would have perhaps turned brigand, for the love of the liberty so dear to him. The

child was a regular mountaineer, with the black eyes that can face the sun without flinching, a deeply tanned

complexion, and rough brown hair. His movements were like a bird's swift, decided, and unconstrained;

his clothing was ragged; the white, fair skin showed through the rents in his garments. There they both stood

in silence, side by side, both obeying the same impulse; in both faces were clear tokens of an absolutely

identical and idle life. The old man had adopted the child's amusements, and the child had fallen in with the

old man's humor; there was a sort of tacit agreement between two kinds of feebleness, between failing powers

Very soon a woman who seemed to be about thirty years old appeared on the threshold of the door, spinning

as she came. She was an Auvergnate, a highcolored, comfortablelooking, straightforward sort of person,

with white teeth; her cap and dress, the face, full figure, and general appearance, were of the Auvergne

peasant stamp. So was her dialect; she was a thorough embodiment of her district; its hardworking ways, its

She greeted Raphael, and they began to talk. The dogs quieted down; the old man went and sat on a bench in

the sun; the child followed his mother about wherever she went, listening without saying a word, and staring

"What should we be afraid of, sir? When we bolt the door, who ever could get inside? Oh, no, we aren't afraid

at all. And besides," she said, as she brought the Marquis into the principal room in the house, "what should

She designated the room as she spoke; the smokeblackened walls, with some brilliant pictures in blue, red,

and green, an "End of Credit," a Crucifixion, and the "Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard" for their sole

ornament; the furniture here and there, the old wooden fourpost bedstead, the table with crooked legs, a few

stools, the chest that held the bread, the flitch that hung from the ceiling, a jar of salt, a stove, and on the

mantleshelf a few discolored yellow plaster figures. As he went out again Raphael noticed a man halfway

"That's my man, sir," said the Auvergnate, unconsciously smiling in peasant fashion; "he is at work up there."

"Asking your pardon, sir, he is my man's grandfather. Such as you see him, he is a hundred and two, and yet

quite lately he walked over to Clermont with our little chap! Oh, he has been a strong man in his time; but he

does nothing now but sleep and eat and drink. He amuses himself with the little fellow. Sometimes the child

Valentin made up his mind immediately. He would live between this child and old man, breathe the same air;

eat their bread, drink the same water, sleep with them, make the blood in his veins like theirs. It was a dying

man's fancy. For him the prime model, after which the customary existence of the individual should be

shaped, the real formula for the life of a human being, the only true and possible life, the lifeideal, was to

become one of the oysters adhering to this rock, to save his shell a day or two longer by paralyzing the power

of death. One profoundly selfish thought took possession of him, and the whole universe was swallowed up

and lost in it. For him the universe existed no longer; the whole world had come to be within himself. For the

sick, the world begins at their pillow and ends at the foot of the bed; and this countryside was Raphael's

Who has not, at some time or other in his life, watched the comings and goings of an ant, slipped straws into

a yellow slug's one breathinghole, studied the vagaries of a slender dragonfly, pondered admiringly over

the countless veins in an oakleaf, that bring the colors of a rose window in some Gothic cathedral into

contrast with the reddish background? Who has not looked long in delight at the effects of sun and rain on a

roof of brown tiles, at the dewdrops, or at the variously shaped petals of the flowercups? Who has not sunk

into these idle, absorbing meditations on things without, that have no conscious end, yet lead to some definite

thought at last. Who, in short, has not led a lazy life, the life of childhood, the life of the savage without his

labor? This life without a care or a wish Raphael led for some days' space. He felt a distinct improvement in

his condition, a wonderful sense of ease, that quieted his apprehensions and soothed his sufferings.

He would climb the crags, and then find a seat high up on some peak whence he could see a vast expanse of

distant country at a glance, and he would spend whole days in this way, like a plant in the sun, or a hare in its

form. And at last, growing familiar with the appearances of the plantlife about him, and of the changes in

the sky, he minutely noted the progress of everything working around him in the water, on the earth, or in the

air. He tried to share the secret impulses of nature, sought by passive obedience to become a part of it, and to

lie within the conservative and despotic jurisdiction that regulates instinctive existence. He no longer wished

Just as criminals in olden times were safe from the pursuit of justice, if they took refuge under the shadow of

the altar, so Raphael made an effort to slip into the sanctuary of life. He succeeded in becoming an integral

part of the great and mighty fruitproducing organization; he had adapted himself to the inclemency of the

air, and had dwelt in every cave among the rocks. He had learned the ways and habits of growth of every

plant, had studied the laws of the watercourses and their beds, and had come to know the animals; he was at

last so perfectly at one with this teeming earth, that he had in some sort discerned its mysteries and caught the

The infinitely varied forms of every natural kingdom were, to his thinking, only developments of one and the

same substance, different combinations brought about by the same impulse, endless emanations from a

measureless Being which was acting, thinking, moving, and growing, and in harmony with which he longed

to grow, to move, to think, and act. He had fancifully blended his life with the life of the crags; he had

deliberately planted himself there. During the earliest days of his sojourn in these pleasant surroundings,

Valentin tasted all the pleasures of childhood again, thanks to the strange hallucination of apparent

convalescence, which is not unlike the pauses of delirium that nature mercifully provides for those in pain.

He went about making trifling discoveries, setting to work on endless things, and finishing none of them; the

evening's plans were quite forgotten in the morning; he had no cares, he was happy; he thought himself

One morning he had lain in bed till noon, deep in the dreams between sleep and waking, which give to

realities a fantastic appearance, and make the wildest fancies seem solid facts; while he was still uncertain

that he was not dreaming yet, he suddenly heard his hostess giving a report of his health to Jonathan, for the

first time. Jonathan came to inquire after him daily, and the Auvergnate, thinking no doubt that Valentin was

"No better and no worse," she said. "He coughed all last night again fit to kill himself. Poor gentleman, he

coughs and spits till it is piteous. My husband and I often wonder to each other where he gets the strength

from to cough like that. It goes to your heart. What a cursed complaint it is! He has no strength at all. I am

always afraid I shall find him dead in his bed some morning. He is every bit as pale as a waxen Christ.

DAME! I watch him while he dresses; his poor body is as thin as a nail. And he does not feel well now; but

no matter. It's all the same; he wears himself out with running about as if he had health and to spare. All the

same, he is very brave, for he never complains at all. But really he would be better under the earth than on it,

for he is enduring the agonies of Christ. I don't wish that myself, sir; it is quite in our interests; but even if he

didn't pay us what he does, I should be just as fond of him; it is not our own interest that is our motive.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" she continued, "Parisians are the people for these dogs' diseases. Where did he catch it,

now? Poor young man! And he is so sure that he is going to get well! That fever just gnaws him, you know; it

eats him away; it will be the death of him. He has no notion whatever of that; he does not know it, sir; he sees

nothingYou mustn't cry about him, M. Jonathan; you must remember that he will be happy, and will not

suffer any more. You ought to make a neuvaine for him; I have seen wonderful cures come of the nine days'

prayer, and I would gladly pay for a wax taper to save such a gentle creature, so good he is, a paschal

As Raphael's voice had grown too weak to allow him to make himself heard, he was compelled to listen to

this horrible loquacity. His irritation, however, drove him out of bed at length, and he appeared upon the

Jonathan meant to be obedient, but in the look full of pity and devotion that he gave the Marquis before he

went, Raphael read his own deathwarrant. Utterly disheartened, brought all at once to a sense of his real

position, Valentin sat down on the threshold, locked his arms across his chest, and bowed his head. Jonathan

In the hours of the next morning, Raphael climbed the crags, and sat down in a mossy cleft in the rocks,

whence he could see the narrow path along which the water for the dwelling was carried. At the base of the

hill he saw Jonathan in conversation with the Auvergnate. Some malicious power interpreted for him all the

woman's forebodings, and filled the breeze and the silence with her ominous words. Thrilled with horror, he

took refuge among the highest summits of the mountains, and stayed there till the evening; but yet he could

not drive away the gloomy presentiments awakened within him in such an unfortunate manner by a cruel

The Auvergne peasant herself suddenly appeared before him like a shadow in the dusk; a perverse freak of

the poet within him found a vague resemblance between her black and white striped petticoat and the bony

"The damp is falling now, sir," said she. "If you stop out there, you will go off just like rotten fruit. You must

come in. It isn't healthy to breathe the damp, and you have taken nothing since the morning, besides."

"TONNERRE DE DIEU! old witch," he cried; "let me live after my own fashion, I tell you, or I shall be off

altogether. It is quite bad enough to dig my grave every morning; you might let it alone in the evenings at

"Your grave, sir! I dig your grave!and where may your grave be? I want to see you as old as father there,

and not in your grave by any manner of means. The grave! that comes soon enough for us all; in the

The feeling of pity in others is very difficult for a man to bear, and it is hardest of all when the pity is

deserved. Hatred is a tonicit quickens life and stimulates revenge; but pity is death to usit makes our

weakness weaker still. It is as if distress simpered ingratiatingly at us; contempt lurks in the tenderness, or

tenderness in an affront. In the centenarian Raphael saw triumphant pity, a wondering pity in the child's eyes,

an officious pity in the woman, and in her husband a pity that had an interested motive; but no matter how the

A poet makes a poem of everything; it is tragical or joyful, as things happen to strike his imagination; his

lofty soul rejects all half tones; he always prefers vivid and decided colors. In Raphael's soul this

compassion produced a terrible poem of mourning and melancholy. When he had wished to live in close

contact with nature, he had of course forgotten how freely natural emotions are expressed. He would think

himself quite alone under a tree, whilst he struggled with an obstinate coughing fit, a terrible combat from

which he never issued victorious without utter exhaustion afterwards; and then he would meet the clear,

bright eyes of the little boy, who occupied the post of sentinel, like a savage in a bent of grass; the eyes

scrutinized him with a childish wonder, in which there was as much amusement as pleasure, and an

indescribable mixture of indifference and interest. The awful BROTHER, YOU MUST DIE, of the Trappists

seemed constantly legible in the eyes of the peasants with whom Raphael was living; he scarcely knew which

he dreaded most, their unfettered talk or their silence; their presence became torture.

One morning he saw two men in black prowling about in his neighborhood, who furtively studied him and

took observations. They made as though they had come there for a stroll, and asked him a few indifferent

questions, to which he returned short answers. He recognized them both. One was the cure and the other the

doctor at the springs; Jonathan had no doubt sent them, or the people in the house had called them in, or the

scent of an approaching death had drawn them thither. He beheld his own funeral, heard the chanting of the

priests, and counted the tall wax candles; and all that lovely fertile nature around him, in whose lap he had

thought to find life once more, he saw no longer, save through a veil of crape. Everything that but lately had

spoken of length of days to him, now prophesied a speedy end. He set out the next day for Paris, not before

he had been inundated with cordial wishes, which the people of the house uttered in melancholy and wistful

He traveled through the night, and awoke as they passed through one of the pleasant valleys of the

Bourbonnais. View after view swam before his gaze, and passed rapidly away like the vague pictures of a

dream. Cruel nature spread herself out before his eyes with tantalizing grace. Sometimes the Allier, a liquid

shining ribbon, meandered through the distant fertile landscape; then followed the steeples of hamlets, hiding

modestly in the depths of a ravine with its yellow cliffs; sometimes, after the monotony of vineyards, the

watermills of a little valley would be suddenly seen; and everywhere there were pleasant chateaux, hillside

villages, roads with their fringes of queenly poplars; and the Loire itself, at last, with its wide sheets of water

sparkling like diamonds amid its golden sands. Attractions everywhere, without end! This nature, all astir

with a life and gladness like that of childhood, scarcely able to contain the impulses and sap of June,

possessed a fatal attraction for the darkened gaze of the invalid. He drew the blinds of his carriage windows,

Towards evening, after they had passed Cesne, he was awakened by lively music, and found himself

confronted with a village fair. The horses were changed near the marketplace. Whilst the postilions were

engaged in making the transfer, he saw the people dancing merrily, pretty and attractive girls with flowers

about them, excited youths, and finally the jolly wineflushed countenances of old peasants. Children

prattled, old women laughed and chatted; everything spoke in one voice, and there was a holiday gaiety about

everything, down to their clothing and the tables that were set out. A cheerful expression pervaded the square

and the church, the roofs and windows; even the very doorways of the village seemed likewise to be in

Raphael could not repress an angry exclamation, nor yet a wish to silence the fiddles, annihilate the stir and

bustle, stop the clamor, and disperse the illtimed festival; like a dying man, he felt unable to endure the

slightest sound, and he entered his carriage much annoyed. When he looked out upon the square from the

window, he saw that all the happiness was scared away; the peasant women were in flight, and the benches

were deserted. Only a blind musician, on the scaffolding of the orchestra, went on playing a shrill tune on his

clarionet. That piping of his, without dancers to it, and the solitary old man himself, in the shadow of the

limetree, with his curmudgeon's face, scanty hair, and ragged clothing, was like a fantastic picture of

Raphael's wish. The heavy rain was pouring in torrents; it was one of those thunderstorms that June brings

about so rapidly, to cease as suddenly. The thing was so natural, that, when Raphael had looked out and seen

some pale clouds driven over by a gust of wind, he did not think of looking at the piece of skin. He lay back

The next day found him back in his home again, in his own room, beside his own fireside. He had had a large

fire lighted; he felt cold. Jonathan brought him some letters; they were all from Pauline. He opened the first

one without any eagerness, and unfolded it as if it had been the graypaper form of application for taxes

"Gone! This really is a flight, my Raphael. How is it? No one can tell me where you are. And who should

He did not wish to learn any more. He calmly took up the letters and threw them in the fire, watching with

dull and lifeless eyes the perfumed paper as it was twisted, shriveled, bent, and devoured by the capricious

flames. Fragments that fell among the ashes allowed him to see the beginning of a sentence, or a halfburnt

thought or word; he took a pleasure in deciphering thema sort of mechanical amusement.

"Sitting at your doorexpectedCapriceI obeyRivalsI, never! thy Paulineloveno more of

Pauline?If you had wished to leave me for ever, you would not have deserted meLove eternalTo

The words caused him a sort of remorse; he seized the tongs, and rescued a last fragment of the letter from

"I have murmured," so Pauline wrote, "but I have never complained, my Raphael! If you have left me so far

behind you, it was doubtless because you wished to hide some heavy grief from me. Perhaps you will kill me

one of these days, but you are too good to torture me. So do not go away from me like this. There! I can bear

the worst of torment, if only I am at your side. Any grief that you could cause me would not be grief. There is

far more love in my heart for you than I have ever yet shown you. I can endure anything, except this weeping

Raphael laid the scorched scrap on the mantelpiece, then all at once he flung it into the fire. The bit of paper

"Can you prescribe a draught for mesome mild opiate which will always keep me in a somnolent

"Nothing is easier," the young doctor replied; "but you will have to keep on your feet for a few hours daily, at

"A few hours!" Raphael broke in; "no, no! I only wish to be out of bed for an hour at most."

"To sleep; for so one keeps alive, at any rate," the patient answered. "Let no one come in, not even Mlle.

Pauline de Wistchnau!" he added to Jonathan, as the doctor was writing out his prescription.

"Well, M. Horace, is there any hope?" the old servant asked, going as far as the flight of steps before the

"He may live for some time yet, or he may die tonight. The chances of life and death are evenly balanced in

his case. I can't understand it at all," said the doctor, with a doubtful gesture. "His mind ought to be diverted."

"Diverted! Ah, sir, you don't know him! He killed a man the other day without a word!Nothing can divert

For some days Raphael lay plunged in the torpor of this artificial sleep. Thanks to the material power that

opium exerts over the immaterial part of us, this man with the powerful and active imagination reduced

himself to the level of those sluggish forms of animal life that lurk in the depths of forests, and take the form

of vegetable refuse, never stirring from their place to catch their easy prey. He had darkened the very sun in

heaven; the daylight never entered his room. About eight o'clock in the evening he would leave his bed, with

no very clear consciousness of his own existence; he would satisfy the claims of hunger and return to bed

immediately. One dull blighted hour after another only brought confused pictures and appearances before

him, and lights and shadows against a background of darkness. He lay buried in deep silence; movement and

intelligence were completely annihilated for him. He woke later than usual one evening, and found that his

"You can go," he said. "I have made you rich; you shall be happy in your old age; but I will not let you

muddle away my life any longer. Miserable wretch! I am hungrywhere is my dinner? How is it?Answer

A satisfied smile stole over Jonathan's face. He took a candle that lit up the great dark rooms of the mansion

with its flickering light; brought his master, who had again become an automaton, into a great gallery, and

flung a door suddenly open. Raphael was all at once dazzled by a flood of light and amazed by an unheardof

His chandeliers had been filled with waxlights; the rarest flowers from his conservatory were carefully

arranged about the room; the table sparkled with silver, gold, crystal, and porcelain; a royal banquet was

spreadthe odors of the tempting dishes tickled the nervous fibres of the palate. There sat his friends; he

saw them among beautiful women in full evening dress, with bare necks and shoulders, with flowers in their

hair; fair women of every type, with sparkling eyes, attractively and fancifully arrayed. One had adopted an

Irish jacket, which displayed the alluring outlines of her form; one wore the "basquina" of Andalusia, with its

wanton grace; here was a half clad Dian the huntress, there the costume of Mlle. de la Valliere, amorous and

As Raphael's deathpale face showed itself in the doorway, a sudden outcry broke out, as vehement as the

blaze of this improvised banquet. The voices, perfumes, and lights, the exquisite beauty of the women,

produced their effect upon his senses, and awakened his desires. Delightful music, from unseen players in the

next room, drowned the excited tumult in a torrent of harmonythe whole strange vision was complete.

Raphael felt a caressing pressure on is own hand, a woman's white, youthful arms were stretched out to grasp

him, and the hand was Aquilina's. He knew now that this scene was not a fantastic illusion like the fleeting

pictures of his disordered dreams; he uttered a dreadful cry, slammed the door, and dealt his heartbroken old

"Monster!" he cried, "so you have sworn to kill me!" and trembling at the risks he had just now run, he

summoned all his energies, reached his room, took a powerful sleeping draught, and went to bed.

"The devil!" cried Jonathan, recovering himself. "And M. Bianchon most certainly told me to divert his

It was close upon midnight. By that time, owing to one of those physical caprices that are the marvel and the

despair of science, Raphael, in his slumber, became radiant with beauty. A bright color glowed on his pale

cheeks. There was an almost girlish grace about the forehead in which his genius was revealed. Life seemed

to bloom on the quiet face that lay there at rest. His sleep was sound; a light, even breath was drawn in

between red lips; he was smilinghe had passed no doubt through the gate of dreams into a noble life. Was

he a centenarian now? Did his grandchildren come to wish him length of days? Or, on a rustic bench set in

the sun and under the trees, was he scanning, like the prophet on the mountain heights, a promised land, a

The words, uttered in silver tones, dispelled the shadowy faces of his dreams. He saw Pauline, in the

lamplight, sitting upon the bed; Pauline grown fairer yet through sorrow and separation. Raphael remained

bewildered by the sight of her face, white as the petals of some water flower, and the shadow of her long,

dark hair about it seemed to make it whiter still. Her tears had left a gleaming trace upon her cheeks, and

hung there yet, ready to fall at the least movement. She looked like an angel fallen from the skies, or a spirit

that a breath might waft away, as she sat there all in white, with her head bowed, scarcely creasing the quilt

"Ah, I have forgotten everything!" she cried, as Raphael opened his eyes. "I have no voice left except to tell

you, 'I am yours.' There is nothing in my heart but love. Angel of my life, you have never been so beautiful

before! Your eyes are blazing But come, I can guess it all. You have been in search of health without

"Go! go! leave me," Raphael muttered at last. "Why do you not go? If you stay, I shall die. Do you want to

"Die?" she echoed. "Can you die without me? Die? But you are young; and I love you! Die?" she asked, in a

deep, hollow voice. She seized his hands with a frenzied movement. "Cold!" she wailed. "Is it all an

Raphael drew the little bit of skin from under his pillow; it was as tiny and as fragile as a periwinkle petal. He

"Yes. This is a talisman that grants me all my wishes, and that represents my span of life. See here, this is all

The young girl thought that Valentin had grown lightheaded; she took the talisman and went to fetch the

lamp. By its tremulous light which she shed over Raphael and the talisman, she scanned her lover's face and

the last morsel of the magic skin. As Pauline stood there, in all the beauty of love and terror, Raphael was no

longer able to control his thoughts; memories of tender scenes, and of passionate and fevered joys,

overwhelmed the soul that had so long lain dormant within him, and kindled a fire not quite extinct.

A dreadful cry came from the girl's throat, her eyes dilated with horror, her eyebrows were distorted and

drawn apart by an unspeakable anguish; she read in Raphael's eyes the vehement desire in which she had

once exulted, but as it grew she felt a light movement in her hand, and the skin contracted. She did not stop to

"Pauline! Pauline!" cried the dying man, as he rushed after her; "I love you, I adore you, I want you, Pauline!

With unnatural strength, the last effort of ebbing life, he broke down the door, and saw his mistress writhing

upon a sofa. Pauline had vainly tried to pierce her heart, and now thought to find a rapid death by strangling

"If I die, he will live," she said, trying to tighten the knot that she had made.

In her struggle with death her hair hung loose, her shoulders were bare, her clothing was disordered, her eyes

were bathed in tears, her face was flushed and drawn with the horror of despair; yet as her exceeding beauty

met Raphael's intoxicated eyes, his delirium grew. He sprang towards her like a bird of prey, tore away the

The dying man sought for words to express the wish that was consuming his strength; but no sounds would

come except the choking deathrattle in his chest. Each breath he drew sounded hollower than the last, and

seemed to come from his very entrails. At the last moment, no longer able to utter a sound, he set his teeth in

Pauline's breast. Jonathan appeared, terrified by the cries he had heard, and tried to tear away the dead body

"What do you want?" she asked. "He is mine, I have killed him. Did I not foresee how it would be?"

"Pauline? Ah! Do you sometimes spend a pleasant winter evening by your own fireside, and give yourself up

luxuriously to memories of love or youth, while you watch the glow of the fire where the logs of oak are

burning? Here, the fire outlines a sort of chessboard in red squares, there it has a sheen like velvet; little blue

flames start up and flicker and play about in the glowing depths of the brasier. A mysterious artist comes and

adapts that flame to his own ends; by a secret of his own he draws a visionary face in the midst of those

flaming violet and crimson hues, a face with unimaginable delicate outlines, a fleeting apparition which no

chance will ever bring back again. It is a woman's face, her hair is blown back by the wind, her features speak

of a rapture of delight; she breathes fire in the midst of the fire. She smiles, she dies, you will never see her

any more. Farewell, flower of the flame! Farewell, essence incomplete and unforeseen, come too early or too

"You do not see, then? I will begin again. Make way! make way! She comes, she is here, the queen of

illusions, a woman fleeting as a kiss, a woman bright as lightning, issuing in a blaze like lightning from the

sky, a being uncreated, of spirit and love alone. She has wrapped her shadowy form in flame, or perhaps the

flame betokens that she exists but for a moment. The pure outlines of her shape tell you that she comes from

heaven. Is she not radiant as an angel? Can you not hear the beating of her wings in space? She sinks down

beside you more lightly than a bird, and you are entranced by her awful eyes; there is a magical power in her

light breathing that draws your lips to hers; she flies and you follow; you feel the earth beneath you no longer.

If you could but once touch that form of snow with your eager, deluded hands, once twine the golden hair

round your fingers, place one kiss on those shining eyes! There is an intoxicating vapor around, and the spell

of a siren music is upon you. Every nerve in you is quivering; you are filled with pain and longing. O joy for

which there is no name! You have touched the woman's lips, and you are awakened at once by a horrible

pang. Oh! ah! yes, you have struck your head against the corner of the bedpost, you have been clasping its

brown mahogany sides, and chilly gilt ornaments; embracing a piece of metal, a brazen Cupid."

"What, again? Listen. One lovely morning at Tours a young man, who held the hand of a pretty woman in

his, went on board the Ville d'Angers. Thus united they both looked and wondered long at a white form that

rose elusively out of the mists above the broad waters of the Loire, like some child of the sun and the river, or

some freak of air and cloud. This translucent form was a sylph or a naiad by turns; she hovered in the air like

a word that haunts the memory, which seeks in vain to grasp it; she glided among the islands, she nodded her

head here and there among the tall poplar trees; then she grew to a giant's height; she shook out the countless

folds of her drapery to the light; she shot light from the aureole that the sun had litten about her face; she

hovered above the slopes of the hills and their little hamlets, and seemed to bar the passage of the boat before

the Chateau d'Usse. You might have thought that La dame des belles cousines sought to protect her country

"Oh! Foedora, you are sure to meet with her! She was at the Bouffons last night, and she will go to the Opera

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Mass Cesar Birotteau The Commission in Lunacy Lost

Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The

Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side

of History A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The

Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated

Canalis, ConstantCyrMelchior, Baron de Letters of Two Brides A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Modeste Mignon Another Study of Woman A Start in Life Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists The Member

Dudley, Lady Arabella The Lily of the Valley The Ball at Sceaux The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of

Massol Scenes from a Courtesan's Life A Daughter of Eve Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Navarreins, Duc de A Bachelor's Establishment Colonel Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen

Jealousies of a Country Town The Peasantry Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The

Rastignac, Eugene de Father Goriot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The

Ball at Sceaux The Interdiction A Study of Woman Another Study of Woman The Secrets of a Princess A

Daughter of Eve The Gondreville Mystery The Firm of Nucingen Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis The