



Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny





ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN


By Honore De Balzac



Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell




                             DEDICATION

       To Leon Gozlan as a Token of Literary Good-fellowship.





ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN


At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at
every ball and rout. First, an official party, composed of the persons
invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle. Each one grimaces for his
neighbor's eye; most of the younger women are there for one person
only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the
handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared
by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as: "Do
you think of going away soon to La Crampade?" "How well Madame de
Portenduere sang!" "Who is that little woman with such a load of
diamonds?" Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give
transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin
out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the
sconces.

The mistress of the house then waylays a few artists, amusing people
or intimate friends, saying, "Do not go yet; we will have a snug little
supper." These collect in some small room. The second, the real party,
now begins; a party where, as of old, every one can hear what is said,
conversation is general, each one is bound to be witty and to contribute
to the amusement of all. Everything is made to tell, honest laughter
takes the place of the gloom which in company saddens the prettiest
faces. In short, where the rout ends pleasure begins.

The Rout, a cold display of luxury, a review of self-conceits in full
dress, is one of those English inventions which tend to _mechanize_
other nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull
as itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some
French houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our
light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and
the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppers nowadays,
it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewer men placed,
established, and successful than under the reign of Louis Philippe, when
the Revolution began again, lawfully. Everybody is on the march some
whither, or trotting at the heels of Fortune. Time has become the
costliest commodity, so no one can afford the lavish extravagance of
going home to-morrow morning and getting up late. Hence, there is no
second soiree now but at the houses of women rich enough to entertain,
and since July 1830 such women may be counted in Paris.

In spite of the covert opposition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, two or
three women, among them Madame d'Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches,
have not chosen to give up the share of influence they exercised in
Paris, and have not closed their houses.

The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches is noted in Paris as being the
last refuge where the old French wit has found a home, with its reserved
depths, its myriad subtle byways, and its exquisite politeness. You will
there still find grace of manner notwithstanding the conventionalities
of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk notwithstanding the reserve which
is natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of
ideas. No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one
regards a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton
of literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally
or an interesting subject.

The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with me, less by
reason of a confidence in which the illustrious de Marsay opened up
one of the deepest recesses of woman's heart, than on account of the
reflections to which his narrative gave rise, as to the changes that
have taken place in the French woman since the fateful revolution of
July.

On that evening chance had brought together several persons, whose
indisputable merits have won them European reputations. This is not
a piece of flattery addressed to France, for there were a good many
foreigners present. And, indeed, the men who most shone were not the
most famous. Ingenious repartee, acute remarks, admirable banter,
pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all sparkled and flowed
without elaboration, were poured out without disdain, but without
effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated. The
men of the world especially were conspicuous for their really artistic
grace and spirit.

Elsewhere in Europe you will find elegant manners, cordiality, genial
fellowship, and knowledge; but only in Paris, in this drawing-room,
and those to which I have alluded, does the particular wit abound which
gives an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social qualities,
an indescribable river-like flow which makes this profusion of ideas, of
definitions, of anecdotes, of historical incidents, meander with ease.
Paris, the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes
conversation a tourney in which each type of wit is condensed into a
shaft, each speaker utters his phrase and casts his experience in a
word, in which every one finds amusement, relaxation, and exercise.
Here, then, alone, will you exchange ideas; here you need not, like the
dolphin in the fable, carry a monkey on your shoulders; here you will
be understood, and will not risk staking your gold pieces against base
metal.

Here, again, secrets neatly betrayed, and talk, light or deep, play and
eddy, changing their aspect and hue at every phrase. Eager criticism and
crisp anecdotes lead on from one to the next. All eyes are listening,
a gesture asks a question, and an expressive look gives the answer. In
short, and in a word, everything is wit and mind.

The phenomenon of speech, which, when duly studied and well handled,
is the power of the actor and the story-teller, had never so completely
bewitched me. Nor was I alone under the influence of its spell; we all
spent a delightful evening. The conversation had drifted into anecdote,
and brought out in its rushing course some curious confessions,
several portraits, and a thousand follies, which make this enchanting
improvisation impossible to record; still, by setting these things
down in all their natural freshness and abruptness, their elusive
divarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of a real French evening,
taken at the moment when the most engaging familiarity makes each one
forget his own interests, his personal conceit, or, if you like, his
pretensions.

At about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one was left sitting
round the table but intimate friends, proved by intercourse of fifteen
years, and some persons of great taste and good breeding, who knew the
world. By tacit agreement, perfectly carried out, at supper every one
renounced his pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the tone.
But indeed there was no one present who was not very proud of being
himself.

Mademoiselle des Touches always insists on her guests remaining at table
till they leave, having frequently remarked the change which a move
produces in the spirit of a party. Between the dining-room and the
drawing-room the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the ideas
of an author after shaving are different from those he had before. If
Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted that the frame of mind of
a party at table is not the same as that of the same persons returned
to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the eye no longer
contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost are the happy
effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence which comes over us
while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled man, settled
comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are made in these days.
Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to face with the dessert and
in the society of good wine, during the delightful interval when every
one may sit with an elbow on the table and his head resting on his
hand. Not only does every one like to talk then, but also to listen.
Digestion, which is almost always attent, is loquacious or silent, as
characters differ. Then every one finds his opportunity.

Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons
who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such
delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince
Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?

De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given proofs
of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not indeed
surprised to see him display all the talents and various aptitudes of a
statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he would prove to
be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded in the fire of
circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man whom he had
made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who had for a long time
been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay without infusing into his
admiration that dash of acrid criticism by which, in Paris, one superior
man excuses himself from admiring another.

"Was there ever," said he, "in your former life, any event, any thought
or wish which told you what your vocation was?" asked Emile Blondet;
"for we all, like Newton, have our apple, which falls and leads us to
the spot where our faculties develop----"

"Yes," said de Marsay; "I will tell you about it."

Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, de Marsay's intimate
friends,--all settled themselves comfortably, each in his favorite
attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the servants had
left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn over them? The
silence was so complete that the murmurs of the coachmen's voices could
be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing and champing made by horses
when asking to be taken back to their stable.

"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the
Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To
wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self, who
looks on as a spectator at all the changes of life, noting our passions
and our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the judgment of a
sort of moral ready-reckoner."

"That explains why a statesman is so rare a thing in France," said old
Lord Dudley.

"From a sentimental point of view, this is horrible," the Minister went
on. "Hence, when such a phenomenon is seen in a young man--Richelieu,
who, when warned overnight by a letter of Concini's peril, slept till
midday, when his benefactor was killed at ten o'clock--or say Pitt, or
Napoleon, he was a monster. I became such a monster at a very early age,
thanks to a woman."

"I fancied," said Madame de Montcornet with a smile, "that more
politicians were undone by us than we could make."

"The monster of which I speak is a monster just because he withstands
you," replied de Marsay, with a little ironical bow.

"If this is a love-story," the Baronne de Nucingen interposed, "I
request that it may not be interrupted by any reflections."

"Reflection is so antipathetic to it!" cried Joseph Bridau.

"I was seventeen," de Marsay went on; "the Restoration was being
consolidated; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then. I
was in love for the first time, and I was--I may say so now--one of
the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of
a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.--Like all youths, I was in
love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,"
said he, looking carefully round the table, "can suspect her name or
recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret.
He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is
gone," said the Minister, looking round.

"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.

"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on, "but
incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and
the frail joy of the young. I treasured _her_ old gloves; I drank an
infusion of the flowers _she_ had worn; I got out of bed at night to go
and gaze at _her_ window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled
the perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a
stove with a marble casing."

"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de Montcornet with a
smile.

"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who first
uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said de Marsay. "You
are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point. These
few words will remind you of your own follies.

"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children--oh! all
was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we
fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?

"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm
we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was perfection
then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful women in
Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to win one of her
glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient for a
woman who had loved and was adored; but the Restoration, to which she
owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate in comparison with her
name. In my position I was so fatuous as never to dream of a
suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a hundred and twenty
Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in me as gold in the
nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me if I had been
so base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel--so fragile and so
strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose blue eyes allowed
my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart with adorable
submissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy in her attitude,
her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready for the Beloved
like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!' Ah! my friends!" sadly
exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a man must hit his head very
hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"

This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.

"Every morning, riding Sultan--the fine horse you sent me from England,"
de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, "I rode past her open
carriage, the horses' pace being intentionally reduced to a walk, and
read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her bouquet
in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though we saw each
other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me every day, to
deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had adopted a scheme of
conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid meeting; to speak ill
of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or playing the disdained
swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to compare on either part
with a false passion professed for an indifferent person and an air of
indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers will only play that
game, the world will always be deceived; but then they must be very
secure of each other.

"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us; six
years' difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of my
fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I, on my
part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her knowledge
and her experience of the world, would have married her without a
thought. At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she had been the
first to speak of marriage in a certain tone, I might perhaps have noted
it as vulgar in that accomplished soul.

"Six months, full and perfect--a diamond of the purest water! That has
been my portion of love in this base world.

"One morning, attacked by the feverish stiffness which marks the
beginning of a cold, I wrote her a line to put off one of those secret
festivals which are buried under the roofs of Paris like pearls in the
sea. No sooner was the letter sent than remorse seized me: she will not
believe that I am ill! thought I. She was wont to affect jealousy and
suspiciousness.--When jealousy is genuine," said de Marsay, interrupting
himself, "it is the visible sign of an unique passion."

"Why?" asked the Princesse de Cadignan eagerly.

"Unique and true love," said de Marsay, "produces a sort of corporeal
apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind
complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns
them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as delightful as it
is distressing."

A foreign minister smiled as, by the light of memory, he felt the truth
of this remark.

"Besides," de Marsay went on, "I said to myself, why miss a happy hour?
Was it not better to go, even though feverish? And, then, if she learns
that I am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and compromising
herself. I made an effort; I wrote a second letter, and carried it
myself, for my confidential servant was now gone. The river lay between
us. I had to cross Paris; but at last, within a suitable distance of
her house, I caught sight of a messenger; I charged him to have the note
sent up to her at once, and I had the happy idea of driving past her
door in a hackney cab to see whether she might not by chance receive the
two letters together. At the moment when I arrived it was two o'clock;
the great gate opened to admit a carriage. Whose?--That of the
stalking-horse!

"It is fifteen years since--well, even while I tell the tale, I, the
exhausted orator, the Minister dried up by the friction of public
business, I still feel a surging in my heart and the hot blood about my
diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed once more; the carriage was
still in the courtyard! My note no doubt was in the porter's hands. At
last, at half-past three, the carriage drove out. I could observe my
rival's expression; he was grave, and did not smile; but he was in love,
and no doubt there was business in hand.

"I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her
calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought
that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man
who is half a <DW64> could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when
he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The sight of the woman we love
is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt,
and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this
cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the most atrocious
dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love. My jealousy once
buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing condition was evident;
the horrible doubts that had fermented in me increased it. At last I
found an opening for putting in these words: 'You have had no one with
you this morning?' making a pretext of the uneasiness I had felt in the
fear lest she should have disposed of her time after receiving my first
note.--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'only a man could have such ideas! As if
I could think of anything but your suffering. Till the moment when I
received your second note I could think only of how I could contrive to
see you.'--'And you were alone?'--'Alone,' said she, looking at me with
a face of innocence so perfect that it must have been his distrust of
such a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived
alone in the house, the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys
the absolute confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of
happiness.

"To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
that we have an internal self of which the exterior _I_ is but the husk;
that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade--well,
that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in crape.
Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-sheet
of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might not
observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my strength:
'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'

"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great
child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing the woman
is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was she distressed
at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my valet, in
whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was as elegantly
expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her happiness. There is
always a precious ape in the prettiest and most angelic woman!"

At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
truth so brutally stated.

"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de Marsay
went on. "I discovered that I was a statesman."

It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.

"As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,"
said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal ingenuity--for,
as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges
were possible--I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I insensibly
formulated a horrible code--that of Indulgence. In taking vengeance on
a woman, do we not in fact admit that there is but one for us, that we
cannot do without her? And, then, is revenge the way to win her back? If
she is not indispensable, if there are other women in the world, why not
grant her the right to change which we assume?

"This, of course, applies only to passion; in any other sense it
would be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the necessity for
indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The two sexes
must be chained up, like wild beasts as they are, by inevitable law,
deaf and mute. Eliminate revenge, and infidelity in love is nothing.
Those who believe that for them there is but one woman in the world must
be in favor of vengeance, and then there is but one form of it--that of
Othello.

"Mine was different."

The words produced in each of us the imperceptible movement which
newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the words:
_great sensation_.

"Cured of my cold, and of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung myself
into an adventure, of which the heroine was charming, and of a style of
beauty utterly opposed to that of my deceiving angel. I took care not to
quarrel with this clever woman, who was so good an actress, for I doubt
whether true love can give such gracious delights as those lavished by
such a dexterous fraud. Such refined hypocrisy is as good as virtue.--I
am not speaking to you Englishwomen, my lady," said the Minister,
suavely, addressing Lady Barimore, Lord Dudley's daughter. "I tried to
be the same lover.

"I wished to have some of my hair worked up for my new angel, and I went
to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in the Rue Boucher. The man
had a monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his address for the
benefit of those who have not much hair; he has plenty of every kind and
every color. After I had explained my order, he showed me his work. I
then saw achievements of patience surpassing those which the story books
ascribe to fairies, or which are executed by prisoners. He brought me up
to date as to the caprices and fashions governing the use of hair. 'For
the last year,' said he, 'there has been a rage for marking linen
with hair; happily I had a fine collection of hair and skilled
needlewomen,'--on hearing this a suspicion flashed upon me; I took out
my handkerchief and said, 'So this was done in your shop, with false
hair?'--He looked at the handkerchief, and said, 'Ay! that lady was
very particular, she insisted on verifying the tint of the hair. My
wife herself marked those handkerchiefs. You have there, sir, one of the
finest pieces of work we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of
light I might have believed something--might have taken a woman's word.
I left the shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was
concerned I was as atheistical as a mathematician.

"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in
her boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they were very
beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest
flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a moment when
one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing-room and there
are no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness, and when we are
most in love, love is so well aware of its own short duration that
we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love me? Will you love
me always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so
full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in the
enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest
allurements: She could not live without me; I was to her the only man in
the world; she feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her of all
her wits; with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was indeed
too tender to escape alarms; for the last six months she had been
seeking some way to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew that
secret; in short, I was her god!"

The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing themselves so
well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and sidelong attitudes,
and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.

"At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable
falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, 'When
are you to marry the Duke?'

"The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand
lay so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not
be disguised; her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush 
her cheeks.--'The Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting great
astonishment.--'I know everything,' replied I; 'and in my opinion, you
should delay no longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than
devout, he is religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have been
faithful to me, thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently
necessary it is that you should compromise him with himself and with
God; short of that you will never bring him to the point.'--'Is this
a dream?' said she, pushing her hair from her forehead, fifteen
years before Malibran, with the gesture which Malibran has made so
famous.--'Come, do not be childish, my angel,' said I, trying to take
her hands; but she folded them before her with a little prudish and
indignant mein.--'Marry him, you have my permission,' said I, replying
to this gesture by using the formal _vous_ instead of _tu_. 'Nay,
better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she, falling at my knees,
'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world but you; you
may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my dear,' said I, 'and do
me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before God.'--'Do you doubt my
love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well, I have committed the
greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your love and your fidelity.
Between two intoxications I looked calmly about me.'--'Calmly!' sighed
she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no longer love me.'

"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her
add: 'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting in
public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but in his.
And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin to see you
listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then I have
made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I, admiring the
pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can
only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by dint of going to
church I have become very incredulous. On the day of my first cold, and
your first treachery, when you thought I was in bed, you received the
Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.'--'Do you know that your
conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I consider your marriage to the
Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a great name, the only rank
that suits you, a brilliant and distinguished position. You will be one
of the queens of Paris. I should be doing you a wrong if I placed any
obstacle in the way of this prospect, this distinguished life, this
splendid alliance. Ah! Charlotte, some day you will do me justice by
discovering how unlike my character is to that of other young men. You
would have been compelled to deceive me; yes, you would have found it
very difficult to break with me, for he watches you. It is time that we
should part, for the Duke is rigidly virtuous. You must turn prude;
I advise you to do so. The Duke is vain; he will be proud of his
wife.'--'Oh!' cried she, bursting into tears, 'Henri, if only you
had spoken! Yes, if you had chosen'--it was I who was to blame, you
understand--'we would have gone to live all our days in a corner,
married, happy, and defied the world.'--'Well, it is too late now,' said
I, kissing her hands, and putting on a victimized air.--'Good God! But I
can undo it all!' said she.--'No, you have gone too far with the Duke. I
ought indeed to go a journey to part us more effectually. We should both
have reason to fear our own affection----'--'Henri, do you think the
Duke has any suspicions?' I was still 'Henri,' but the _tu_ was lost for
ever.--'I do not think so,' I replied, assuming the manner of a friend;
'but be as devout as possible, reconcile yourself to God, for the Duke
waits for proofs; he hesitates, you must bring him to the point.'

"She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected
agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming the
new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her hand,
and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you are loyal,
noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'

"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to place
herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the
look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly assumed
dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me along
almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you love
me?'--'Oh! yes.'--'Well, then, what will become of you?'"

At this point the women all looked at each other.

"Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at
her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must
die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy," de Marsay went on.
"Oh! do not laugh yet!" he said to his listeners; "there is better to
come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her,
'Yes, that is what I have been wondering.'--'Well, what will you
do?'--'I asked myself that the day after my cold.'--'And----?' she asked
with eager anxiety.--'And I have made advances to the little lady to
whom I was supposed to be attached.'

"Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling
like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their
dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the
sparkling glitter of a hunted viper's eye when driven into a corner, and
said, 'And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have----' On this
last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made the most impressive
pause I ever heard.--'Good God!' she cried, 'how unhappy are we women!
we never can be loved. To you there is nothing serious in the
purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you still are our
dupes!'--'I see that plainly,' said I, with a stricken air; 'you have
far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.'--This
modest epigram increased her rage; she found some tears of vexation.
'You disgust me with the world and with life.' she said; 'you snatch
away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.'

"She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simple
effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailed any
man but me on the spot.--'What is to become of us poor women in a state
of society such as Louis XVIII.'s charter made it?'--(Imagine how her
words had run away with her.)--'Yes, indeed, we are born to suffer. In
matters of passion we are always superior to you, and you are beneath
all loyalty. There is no honesty in your hearts. To you love is a
game in which you always cheat.'--'My dear,' said I, 'to take anything
serious in society nowadays would be like making romantic love to
an actress.'--'What a shameless betrayal! It was deliberately
planned!'--'No, only a rational issue.'--'Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,'
said she; 'you have deceived me horribly.'--'Surely,' I replied,
taking up a submissive attitude, 'Madame la Duchesse will not remember
Charlotte's grievances?'--'Certainly,' she answered bitterly.--'Then,
in fact, you hate me?'--She bowed, and I said to myself, 'There is
something still left!'

"The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe that
she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have carefully
studied the lives of men who have had great success with women, but I
do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, or Lauzun, or Louis de
Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first attempt. As
to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then and there, once
for all, and the power of control I thus acquired over the thoughtless
impulses which make us commit so many follies gained me the admirable
presence of mind you all know."

"How deeply I pity the second!" exclaimed the Baronne de Nucingen.

A scarcely perceptible smile on de Marsay's pale lips made Delphine de
Nucingen color.

"How we do forget!" said the Baron de Nucingen.

The great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll, that his wife, who
was de Marsay's "second," could not help laughing like every one else.

"You are all ready to condemn the woman," said Lady Dudley. "Well,
I quite understand that she did not regard her marriage as an act
of inconstancy. Men will never distinguish between constancy and
fidelity.--I know the woman whose story Monsieur de Marsay has told us,
and she is one of the last of your truly great ladies."

"Alas! my lady, you are right," replied de Marsay. "For very nearly
fifty years we have been looking on at the progressive ruin of all
social distinctions. We ought to have saved our women from this great
wreck, but the Civil Code has swept its leveling influence over their
heads. However terrible the words, they must be spoken: Duchesses are
vanishing, and marquises too! As to the baronesses--I must apologize to
Madame de Nucingen, who will become a countess when her husband is made
a peer of France--baronesses have never succeeded in getting people to
take them seriously."

"Aristocracy begins with the viscountess," said Blondet with a smile.

"Countesses will survive," said de Marsay. "An elegant woman will be
more or less of a countess--a countess of the Empire or of yesterday,
a countess of the old block, or, as they say in Italy, a countess by
courtesy. But as to the great lady, she died out with the dignified
splendor of the last century, with powder, patches, high-heeled
slippers, and stiff bodices with a delta stomacher of bows. Duchesses
in these days can pass through a door without any need to widen it for
their hoops. The Empire saw the last of gowns with trains! I am still
puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished to see his drawing-room
swept by ducal satin and velvet did not make indestructible laws.
Napoleon never guessed the results of the Code he was so proud of.
That man, by creating duchesses, founded the race of our 'ladies' of
to-day--the indirect offspring of his legislation."

"It was logic, handled as a hammer by boys just out of school and
by obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of the social
state," said the Comte de Vandenesse. "In these days every rogue who can
hold his head straight in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an
ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a brow where apocryphal genius
gleams under curling locks, and strut in a pair of patent-leather pumps
graced by silk socks which cost six francs, screws his eye-glass into
one of his eye-sockets by puckering up his cheek, and whether he be an
attorney's clerk, a contractor's son, or a banker's bastard, he stares
impertinently at the prettiest duchess, appraises her as she walks
downstairs, and says to his friend--dressed by Buisson, as we all are,
and mounted in patent-leather like any duke himself--'There, my boy,
that is a perfect lady.'"

"You have not known how to form a party," said Lord Dudley; "it will
be a long time yet before you have a policy. You talk a great deal in
France about organizing labor, and you have not yet organized property.
So this is what happens: Any duke--and even in the time of Louis XVIII.
and Charles X. there were some left who had two hundred thousand
francs a year, a magnificent residence, and a sumptuous train of
servants--well, such a duke could live like a great lord. The last of
these great gentlemen in France was the Prince de Talleyrand.--This duke
leaves four children, two of them girls. Granting that he has great luck
in marrying them all well, each of these descendants will have but sixty
or eighty thousand francs a year now; each is the father or mother of
children, and consequently obliged to live with the strictest economy in
a flat on the ground floor or first floor of a large house. Who knows
if they may not even be hunting a fortune? Henceforth the eldest son's
wife, a duchess in name only, has no carriage, no people, no opera-box,
no time to herself. She has not her own rooms in the family mansion, nor
her fortune, nor her pretty toys; she is buried in trade; she buys socks
for her dear little children, nurses them herself, and keeps an eye on
her girls, whom she no longer sends to school at a convent. Thus your
noblest dames have been turned into worthy brood-hens."

"Alas! it is true," said Joseph Bridau. "In our day we cannot show
those beautiful flowers of womanhood which graced the golden ages of the
French Monarchy. The great lady's fan is broken. A woman has nothing now
to blush for; she need not slander or whisper, hide her face or reveal
it. A fan is of no use now but for fanning herself. When once a thing is
no more than what it is, it is too useful to be a form of luxury."

"Everything in France has aided and abetted the 'perfect lady,'" said
Daniel d'Arthez. "The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating
to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has hidden itself to
die--emigrating inland before the march of ideas, as of old to foreign
lands before that of the masses. The women who could have founded
European _salons_, could have guided opinion and turned it inside out
like a glove, could have ruled the world by ruling the men of art or
of intellect who ought to have ruled it, have committed the blunder of
abandoning their ground; they were ashamed of having to fight against
the citizen class drunk with power, and rushing out on to the stage of
the world, there to be cut to pieces perhaps by the barbarians who are
at its heels. Hence, where the middle class insist on seeing princesses,
these are really only ladylike young women. In these days princes can
find no great ladies whom they may compromise; they cannot even confer
honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc de Bourbon was the last
prince to avail himself of this privilege."

"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.

"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-box
with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a hair's
breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen
class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor altogether
_bourgeoises_," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.

"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
longer has the quality of a spoken _feuilleton_--delightful calumnies
graced by elegant language. We read _feuilletons_ written in a dialect
which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
an undertaker's mute, and as light as the lead of their type. French
conversation is carried on from one end of the country to the other in
a revolutionary jargon, through long columns of type printed in old
mansions where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
company used to meet."

"The knell of the highest society is tolling," said a Russian Prince.
"Do you hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word _lady_."

"You are right, Prince," said de Marsay. "The 'perfect lady,' issuing
from the ranks of the nobility, or sprouting from the citizen class, and
the product of every soil, even of the provinces is the expression of
these times, a last remaining embodiment of good taste, grace, wit,
and distinction, all combined, but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
ladies in France, but there will be 'ladies' for a long time, elected by
public opinion to form an upper chamber of women, and who will be among
the fair sex what a 'gentleman' is in England."

"And that they call progress!" exclaimed Mademoiselle des Touches. "I
should like to know where the progress lies?"

"Why, in this," said Madame de Nucingen. "Formerly a woman might have
the voice of a fish-seller, the walk of a grenadier, the face of an
impudent courtesan, her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot, a
thick hand--she was a great lady in spite of it all; but in these days,
even if she were a Montmorency--if a Montmorency would ever be such a
creature--she would not be a lady."

"But what do you mean by a 'perfect lady'?" asked Count Adam Laginski.

"She is a modern product, a deplorable triumph of the elective system
as applied to the fair sex," said the Minister. "Every revolution has a
word of its own which epitomizes and depicts it."

"You are right," said the Russian, who had come to make a literary
reputation in Paris. "The explanation of certain words added from time
to time to your beautiful language would make a magnificent history.
_Organize_, for instance, is the word of the Empire, and sums up
Napoleon completely."

"But all that does not explain what is meant by a lady!" the young Pole
exclaimed, with some impatience.

"Well, I will tell you," said Emile Blondet to Count Adam. "One fine
morning you go for a saunter in Paris. It is past two, but five has not
yet struck. You see a woman coming towards you; your first glance at her
is like the preface to a good book, it leads you to expect a world
of elegance and refinement. Like a botanist over hill and dale in his
pursuit of plants, among the vulgarities of Paris life you have at
last found a rare flower. This woman is attended by two very
distinguished-looking men, of whom one, at any rate, wears an order; or
else a servant out of livery follows her at a distance of ten yards. She
displays no gaudy colors, no open-worked stockings, no over-elaborate
waist-buckle, no embroidered frills to her drawers fussing round her
ankles. You will see that she is shod with prunella shoes, with sandals
crossed over extremely fine cotton stockings, or plain gray silk
stockings; or perhaps she wears boots of the most exquisite simplicity.
You notice that her gown is made of a neat and inexpensive material, but
made in a way that surprises more than one woman of the middle class;
it is almost always a long pelisse, with bows to fasten it, and neatly
bound with fine cord or an imperceptible braid. The Unknown has a way of
her own in wrapping herself in her shawl or mantilla; she knows how to
draw it round her from her hips to her neck, outlining a carapace, as it
were, which would make an ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which
in her sets off the most beautiful forms while concealing them. How does
she do it? This secret she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.

"As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious
twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under the
stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass. Is it
to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation which plays
under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill, sheds an airy
balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of a Parisienne? You may
recognize over her arms, round her waist, about her throat, a science of
drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.

"Oh! how thoroughly she understands the _cut_ of her gait--forgive the
expression. Study the way she puts her foot forward moulding her
skirt with such a decent preciseness that the passer-by is filled with
admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by deep respect. When an
Englishwoman attempts this step, she looks like a grenadier marching
forward to attack a redoubt. The women of Paris have a genius for
walking. The municipality really owed them asphalt footwalks.

"Our Unknown jostles no one. If she wants to pass, she waits with
proud humility till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to
a well-bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she holds her
shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom. Even as she walks she has a
little air of serene dignity, like Raphael's Madonnas in their frames.
Her aspect, at once quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent dandy
step aside for her.

"Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed with crisp
ribbons; there may be flowers in it, but the cleverest of such women
wear only bows. Feathers demand a carriage; flowers are too showy.
Beneath it you see the fresh unworn face of a woman who, without
conceit, is sure of herself; who looks at nothing, and sees everything;
whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified, stamps her face
with an indifference which piques your curiosity. She knows that she is
looked at, she knows that everybody, even women, turn round to see her
again. And she threads her way through Paris like a gossamer, spotless
and pure.

"This delightful species affects the hottest latitudes, the cleanest
longitudes of Paris; you will meet her between the 10th and 110th Arcade
of the Rue de Rivoli; along the line of the Boulevards from the equator
of the Passage des Panoramas, where the products of India flourish,
where the warmest creations of industry are displayed, to the Cape of
the Madeleine; in the least muddy districts of the citizen quarters,
between No. 30 and No. 130 of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. During
the winter, she haunts the terrace of the Feuillants, but not the
asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According to the weather, she may
be seen flying in the Avenue of the Champs-Elysees, which is bounded on
the east by the Place Louis XV., on the west by the Avenue de Marigny,
to the south by the road, to the north by the gardens of the Faubourg
Saint-Honore. Never is this pretty variety of woman to be seen in the
hyperborean regions of the Rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of
miry, narrow, commercial streets, never anywhere in bad weather.
These flowers of Paris, blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume the
highways; and after five o'clock fold up like morning-glory flowers.
The women you will see later, looking a little like them, are would-be
ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is a 'perfect
lady.'

"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
differences by which the observer _emeritus_ distinguishes them--women
are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of
Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white
tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed
bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see
a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There is
something conventional in the attitude.

"As to the _bourgeoise_, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,
and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not
know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady knows
just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is undecided,
tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand,
which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in
public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has
open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her
fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the
redundancies of dress.

"You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opera,
at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you
would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged
from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon.
She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms
which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she
never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens.
You can there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her
movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off all the little political
artifices of her sex so naturally as to exclude all idea of art
or premeditation. If she has a royally beautiful hand, the most
perspicacious beholder will believe that it is absolutely necessary that
she should twist, or refix, or push aside the ringlet or curl she plays
with. If she has some dignity of profile, you will be persuaded that she
is giving irony or grace to what she says to her neighbor, sitting in
such a position as to produce the magical effect of the 'lost profile,'
so dear to great painters, by which the cheek catches the high light,
the nose is shown in clear outline, the nostrils are transparently rosy,
the forehead squarely modeled, the eye has its spangle of fire, but
fixed on space, and the white roundness of the chin is accentuated by
a line of light. If she has a pretty foot, she will throw herself on
a sofa with the coquettish grace of a cat in the sunshine, her feet
outstretched without your feeling that her attitude is anything but the
most charming model ever given to a sculptor by lassitude.

"Only the perfect lady is quite at her ease in full dress; nothing
inconveniences her. You will never see her, like the woman of the
citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a
rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office
of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing
in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place. Her toilet
is always in harmony with her character; she had had time to study
herself, to learn what becomes her, for she has long known what does not
suit her. You will not find her as you go out; she vanishes before the
end of the play. If by chance she is to be seen, calm and stately, on
the stairs, she is experiencing some violent emotion; she has to bestow
a glance, to receive a promise. Perhaps she goes down so slowly on
purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave whom she sometimes obeys. If
your meeting takes place at a ball or an evening party, you will gather
the honey, natural or affected of her insinuating voice; her empty
words will enchant you, and she will know how to give them the value of
thought by her inimitable bearing."

"To be such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever?" asked the
Polish Count.

"It is necessary to have great taste," replied the Princesse de
Cadignan.

"And in France taste is more than cleverness," said the Russian.

"This woman's cleverness is the triumph of a purely plastic art,"
Blondet went on. "You will not know what she said, but you will be
fascinated. She will toss her head, or gently shrug her white shoulders;
she will gild an insignificant speech with a charming pout and smile; or
throw a Voltairean epigram into an 'Indeed!' an 'Ah!' a 'What then!'
A jerk of her head will be her most pertinent form of questioning; she
will give meaning to the movement by which she twirls a vinaigrette
hanging to her finger by a ring. She gets an artificial grandeur out
of superlative trivialities; she simply drops her hand impressively,
letting it fall over the arm of her chair as dewdrops hang on the cup of
a flower, and all is said--she has pronounced judgment beyond appeal, to
the apprehension of the most obtuse. She knows how to listen to you;
she gives you the opportunity of shining, and--I ask your modesty--those
moments are rare?"

The candid simplicity of the young Pole, to whom Blondet spoke, made all
the party shout with laughter.

"Now, you will not talk for half-an-hour with a _bourgeoise_ without
her alluding to her husband in one way or another," Blondet went on
with unperturbed gravity; "whereas, even if you know that your lady
is married, she will have the delicacy to conceal her husband so
effectually that it will need the enterprise of Christopher Columbus to
discover him. Often you will fail in the attempt single-handed. If you
have had no opportunity of inquiring, towards the end of the evening you
detect her gazing fixedly at a middle-aged man wearing a decoration, who
bows and goes out. She has ordered her carriage, and goes.

"You are not the rose, but you have been with the rose, and you go
to bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream, which will last
perhaps after Sleep, with his heavy finger, has opened the ivory gates
of the temple of dreams.

"The lady, when she is at home, sees no one before four; she is shrewd
enough always to keep you waiting. In her house you will find everything
in good taste; her luxury is for hourly use, and duly renewed; you will
see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings hanging about, and
looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase warmed. Flowers on
all sides will charm your sight--flowers, the only gift she accepts, and
those only from certain people, for nosegays live but a day; they give
pleasure, and must be replaced; to her they are, as in the East, a
symbol and a promise. The costly toys of fashion lie about, but not so
as to suggest a museum or a curiosity shop. You will find her sitting by
the fire in a low chair, from which she will not rise to greet you.
Her talk will not now be what it was at the ball; there she was our
creditor; in her own home she owes you the pleasure of her wit. These
are the shades of which the lady is a marvelous mistress. What she
likes in you is a man to swell her circle, an object for the cares
and attentions which such women are now happy to bestow. Therefore, to
attract you to her drawing-room, she will be bewitchingly charming. This
especially is where you feel how isolated women are nowadays, and
why they want a little world of their own, to which they may seem a
constellation. Conversation is impossible without generalities."

"Yes," said de Marsay, "you have truly hit the fault of our age.
The epigram--a volume in a word--no longer strikes, as it did in the
eighteenth century, at persons or at things, but at squalid events, and
it dies in a day."

"Hence," said Blondet, "the intelligence of the lady, if she has any,
consists in casting doubts on everything. Here lies the great difference
between two women; the townswoman is certainly virtuous; the lady
does not know yet whether she is, or whether she always will be; she
hesitates and struggles where the other refuses point-blank and falls
full length. This hesitancy in everything is one of the last graces left
to her by our horrible times. She rarely goes to church, but she will
talk to you of religion; and if you have the good taste to affect
Free-thought, she will try to convert you, for you will have opened
the way for the stereotyped phrases, the head-shaking and gestures
understood by all these women: 'For shame! I thought you had too much
sense to attack religion. Society is tottering, and you deprive it
of its support. Why, religion at this moment means you and me; it is
property, and the future of our children! Ah! let us not be selfish!
Individualism is the disease of the age, and religion is the only
remedy; it unites families which your laws put asunder,' and so forth.
Then she plunges into some neo-Christian speech sprinkled with political
notions which is neither Catholic nor Protestant--but moral? Oh! deuced
moral!--in which you may recognize a fag end of every material woven by
modern doctrines, at loggerheads together."

The women could not help laughing at the airs by which Blondet
illustrated his satire.

"This explanation, dear Count Adam," said Blondet, turning to the
Pole, "will have proved to you that the 'perfect lady' represents
the intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as she is
surrounded by the showy and not very lasting products of an industry
which is always aiming at destroying its work in order to replace it by
something else. When you leave her you say to yourself: She certainly
has superior ideas! And you believe it all the more because she will
have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have asked you your
secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything; there are some
things she never knows, not even when she knows them. You alone will
be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her heart. The
great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with newspapers and
advertisements; in these days the lady has her little passion neatly
ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and quavers and minims,
its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign the key. A mere weak women,
she is anxious not to compromise her love, or her husband, or the future
of her children. Name, position, and fortune are no longer flags so
respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise on board. The whole
aristocracy no longer advances in a body to screen the lady. She has
not, like the great lady of the past, the demeanor of lofty antagonism;
she can crush nothing under foot, it is she who would be crushed. Thus
she is apt at Jesuitical _mezzo termine_, she is a creature of equivocal
compromises, of guarded proprieties, of anonymous passions steered
between two reef-bound shores. She is as much afraid of her servants as
an Englishwoman who lives in dread of a trial in the divorce-court. This
woman--so free at a ball, so attractive out walking--is a slave at home;
she is never independent but in perfect privacy, or theoretically. She
must preserve herself in her position as a lady. This is her task.

"For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the divine
accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a townswoman;
she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will not receive a
married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still have anything
to say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect lady may perhaps
give occasion to calumny, never to slander."

"It is all so horribly true," said the Princesse de Cadignan.

"And so," said Blondet, "our 'perfect lady' lives between English
hypocrisy and the delightful frankness of the eighteenth century--a
bastard system, symptomatic of an age in which nothing that grows up
is at all like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads
nowhere, everything is a matter of degree; all the great figures shrink
into the background, and distinction is purely personal. I am fully
convinced that it is impossible for a woman, even if she were born
close to a throne, to acquire before the age of five-and-twenty the
encyclopaedic knowledge of trifles, the practice of manoeuvring, the
important small things, the musical tones and harmony of coloring, the
angelic bedevilments and innocent cunning, the speech and the silence,
the seriousness and the banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the
diplomacy and the ignorance which make up the perfect lady."

"And where, in accordance with the sketch you have drawn," said
Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, "would you class the female
author? Is she a perfect lady, a woman _comme il faut_?"

"When she has no genius, she is a woman _comme il n'en faut pas_,"
Blondet replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance, which might
make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Maupin. "This epigram
is not mine, but Napoleon's," he added.

"You need not owe Napoleon any grudge on that score," said Canalis,
with an emphatic tone and gesture. "It was one of his weaknesses to be
jealous of literary genius--for he had his mean points. Who will ever
explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms
folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known,
the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces;
a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every direction
without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything because
he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an
illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after
living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a
sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw
everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who risked men
by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads--those of
Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich, diplomatists whose
death would have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of
greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a
rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and
kind at midnight amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe as
a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water in her bath!
Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoid of
taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these antitheses,
really great in everything by instinct or by temperament; Caesar at
five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer buried in
Pere Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, he improvised
public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance--and all with
more range than precision. Did he not aim at making all Europe France?
And after making us weigh on the earth in such a way as to change the
laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on the day when he first
laid hands on us; while he, who had taken an empire by his name, lost
his name on the frontier of his empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A
man all thought and all action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouche."

"All despotism and all justice at the right moments. The true king!"
said de Marsay.

"Ah! vat a pleashre it is to dichest vile you talk," said Baron de
Nucingen.

"But do you suppose that the treat we are giving you is a common one?"
asked Joseph Bridau. "If you had to pay for the charms of conversation
as you do for those of dancing or of music, your fortune would be
inadequate! There is no second performance of the same flash of wit."

"And are we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think?" said
the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile at once
sceptical and ironical. "Because, in these days, under a regime which
makes everything small, you prefer small dishes, small rooms, small
pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books, does that prove
that women too have grown smaller? Why should the human heart change
because you change your coat? In all ages the passions remain the same.
I know cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime sufferings, which lack
the publicity--the glory, if you choose--which formerly gave lustre to
the errors of some women. But though one may not have saved a King of
France, one is not the less an Agnes Sorel. Do you believe that our
dear Marquise d'Espard is not the peer of Madame Doublet, or Madame
du Deffant, in whose rooms so much evil was spoken and done? Is not
Taglioni a match for Camargo? or Malibran the equal of Saint-Huberti?
Are not our poets superior to those of the eighteenth century? If at
this moment, through the fault of the Grocers who govern us, we have not
a style of our own, had not the Empire its distinguishing stamp as
the age of Louis XV. had, and was not its splendor fabulous? Have the
sciences lost anything?"

"I am quite of your opinion, madame; the women of this age are truly
great," replied the Comte de Vandenesse. "When posterity shall have
followed us, will not Madame Recamier appear in proportions as fine
as those of the most beautiful women of the past? We have made so much
history that historians will be lacking. The age of Louis XIV. had but
one Madame de Sevigne; we have a thousand now in Paris who certainly
write better than she did, and who do not publish their letters. Whether
the Frenchwoman be called 'perfect lady,' or great lady, she will always
be _the_ woman among women.

"Emile Blondet has given us a picture of the fascinations of a woman
of the day; but, at need, this creature who bridles or shows off, who
chirps out the ideas of Mr. This and Mr. That, would be heroic. And it
must be said, your faults, mesdames, are all the more poetical, because
they must always and under all circumstances be surrounded by greater
perils. I have seen much of the world, I have studied it perhaps too
late; but in cases where the illegality of your feelings might
be excused, I have always observed the effects of I know not what
chance--which you may call Providence--inevitably overwhelming such as
we consider light women."

"I hope," said Madame de Vandenesse, "that we can be great in other
ways----"

"Oh, let the Comte de Vandenesse preach to us!" exclaimed Madame de
Serizy.

"With all the more reason because he has preached a great deal by
example," said the Baronne de Nucingen.

"On my honor!" said General de Montriveau, "in all the dramas--a word
you are very fond of," he said, looking at Blondet--"in which the finger
of God has been visible, the most frightful I ever knew was very near
being by my act----"

"Well, tell us all about it!" cried Lady Barimore; "I love to shudder!"

"It is the taste of a virtuous woman," replied de Marsay, looking at
Lord Dudley's lovely daughter.

"During the campaign of 1812," General de Montriveau began, "I was the
involuntary cause of a terrible disaster which may be of use to you,
Doctor Bianchon," turning to me, "since, while devoting yourself to the
human body, you concern yourself a good deal with the mind; it may tend
to solve some of the problems of the will.

"I was going through my second campaign; I enjoyed danger, and laughed
at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant of artillery that
I was. When we reached the Beresina, the army had, as you know, lost all
discipline, and had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley of men
of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to south. The
soldiers would drive a general in rags and bare-foot away from their
fire if he brought neither wood nor victuals. After the passage of this
famous river disorder did not diminish. I had come quietly and alone,
without food, out of the marshes of Zembin, and was wandering in search
of a house where I might be taken in. Finding none or driven away from
those I came across, happily towards evening I perceived a wretched
little Polish farm, of which nothing can give you any idea unless
you have seen the wooden houses of Lower Normandy, or the poorest
farm-buildings of la Beauce. These dwellings consist of a single room,
with one end divided off by a wooden partition, the smaller division
serving as a store-room for forage.

"In the darkness of twilight I could just see a faint smoke rising above
this house. Hoping to find there some comrades more compassionate than
those I had hitherto addressed, I boldly walked as far as the farm.
On going in, I found the table laid. Several officers, and with them
a woman--a common sight enough--were eating potatoes, some horseflesh
broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen beetroots. I recognized among
the company two or three artillery captains of the regiment in which
I had first served. I was welcomed with a shout of acclamation, which
would have amazed me greatly on the other side of the Beresina; but at
this moment the cold was less intense; my fellow-officers were resting,
they were warm, they had food, and the room, strewn with trusses of
straw, gave the promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for so
much in those days. My comrades could be philanthropists _gratis_--one
of the commonest ways of being philanthropic. I sat down to eat on one
of the bundles of straw.

"At the end of the table, by the side of the door opening into the
smaller room full of straw and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the most
extraordinary men I ever saw among all the mixed collection of men it
has been my lot to meet. He was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature
is truly fine in the lands of the South, it is really sublime. I do not
know whether you have ever observed the extreme fairness of Italians
when they are fair. It is exquisite, especially under an artificial
light. When I read the fantastical portrait of Colonel Oudet sketched
by Charles Nodier, I found my own sensations in every one of his elegant
phrases. Italian, then, as were most of the officers of his regiment,
which had, in fact, been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene's army,
my colonel was a tall man, at least eight or nine inches above the
standard, and was admirably proportioned--a little stout perhaps, but
prodigiously powerful, active, and clean-limbed as a greyhound. His
black hair in abundant curls showed up his complexion, as white as a
woman's; he had small hands, a shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and
an aquiline nose delicately formed, of which the tip used to become
naturally pinched and white whenever he was angry, as happened often.
His irascibility was so far beyond belief that I will tell you nothing
about it; you will have the opportunity of judging of it. No one could
be calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps, was not afraid of him; he had
indeed taken such a singular fancy to me that he thought everything I
did right. When he was in a rage his brow was knit and the muscles of
the middle of his forehead set in a delta, or, to be more explicit, in
Redgauntlet's horseshoe. This mark was, perhaps, even more terrifying
than the magnetic flashes of his blue eyes. His whole frame quivered,
and his strength, great as it was in his normal state, became almost
unbounded.

"He spoke with a strong guttural roll. His voice, at least as powerful
as that of Charles Nordier's Oudet, threw an incredible fulness of
tone into the syllable or the consonant in which this burr was sounded.
Though this faulty pronunciation was at times a grace, when commanding
his men, or when he was excited, you cannot imagine, unless you had
heard it, what force was expressed by this accent, which at Paris is so
common. When the Colonel was quiescent, his blue eyes were angelically
sweet, and his smooth brow had a most charming expression. On parade,
or with the army of Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed,
d'Orsay himself, the handsome d'Orsay, was eclipsed by our colonel on
the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon before the invasion of
Russia.

"Everything was in contrasts in this exceptional man. Passion lives
on contrast. Hence you need not ask whether he exerted over women the
irresistible influences to which our nature yields"--and the general
looked at the Princesse de Cadignan--"as vitreous matter is moulded
under the pipe of the glass-blower; still, by a singular fatality--an
observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon--the Colonel was not a
lady-killer, or was indifferent to such successes.

"To give you an idea of his violence, I will tell you in a few words
what I once saw him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging our guns
up a very narrow road, bordered by a somewhat high <DW72> on one side,
and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met another
regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This colonel
wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost battery
back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the colonel of the
other regiment signed to his foremost battery to advance, and in spite
of the care the driver took to keep among the scrub, the wheel of the
first gun struck our captain's right leg and broke it, throwing him over
on the near side of his horse. All this was the work of a moment. Our
Colonel, who was but a little way off, guessed that there was a quarrel;
he galloped up, riding among the guns at the risk of falling with his
horse's four feet in the air, and reached the spot, face to face with
the other colonel, at the very moment when the captain fell, calling out
'Help!' No, our Italian colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth
of champagne rose to his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion.
Incapable of uttering a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal
to his antagonist, pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The
two colonels went aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent
stretched on the ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his
regiment backed--yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.

"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in
the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,
a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our Colonel.
This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to protect
the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the woman
herself.

"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end
of the table, facing the Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named
Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her
black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her
face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a
highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close
over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were
engaging, her small rose mouth and white teeth, the outline of her
features and figure, charms which misery, cold, and neglect had not
altogether defaced, still suggested love to any man who could think of
a woman. Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in appearance,
but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman of Piedmont, had
a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if it is allowable to ally
the two words. Brave and well informed, he seemed to know nothing of
the connections which had subsisted between his wife and the Colonel for
three years past. I ascribed this unconcern to Italian manners, or to
some domestic secret; yet there was in the man's countenance one feature
which always filled me with involuntary distrust. His under lip, which
was thin and very restless, turned down at the corners instead of
turning up, and this, as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in a
character which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent.

"As you may suppose the conversation was not very sparkling when I went
in. My weary comrades ate in silence; of course, they asked me some
questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with reflections on
the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians, and the cold.
A minute after my arrival the colonel, having finished his meagre meal,
wiped his moustache, bid us good-night, shot a black look at the Italian
woman, saying, 'Rosina?' and then, without waiting for a reply, went
into the little barn full of hay, to bed. The meaning of the Colonel's
utterance was self-evident. The young wife replied by an indescribable
gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not feel at seeing her
thralldom thus flaunted without human decency, and the offence to her
dignity as a woman, and to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigid
setting of her features and the tight knitting of her brows a sort of
presentiment; perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina remained quietly in
her place.

"A minute later, and apparently when the Colonel was snug in his couch
of straw or hay, he repeated, 'Rosina?'

"The tone of this second call was even more brutally questioning than
the first. The Colonel's strong burr, and the length which the
Italian language allows to be given to vowels and the final syllable,
concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience, and strength of will.
Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us, and went to the
Colonel.

"All the party sat in utter silence; I, unluckily, after looking at them
all, began to laugh, and then they all laughed too.--'_Tu ridi?_--you
laugh?' said the husband.

"'On my honor, old comrade,' said I, becoming serious again, 'I confess
that I was wrong; I ask your pardon a thousand times, and if you are not
satisfied by my apologies I am ready to give you satisfaction.'

"'Oh! it is not you who are wrong, it is I!' he replied coldly.

"Thereupon we all lay down in the room, and before long all were sound
asleep.

"Next morning each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking
companionship, set out again on his way, with that selfishness
which made our rout one of the most horrible dramas of self-seeking,
melancholy, and horror which ever was enacted under heaven.
Nevertheless, at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter we,
most of us, met again and walked on together, like geese led in flocks
by a child's wilful tyranny. The same necessity urged us all.

"Having reached a knoll where we could still see the farmhouse where we
had spent the night, we heard sounds resembling the roar of lions in the
desert, the bellowing of bulls--no, it was a noise which can be compared
to no known cry. And yet, mingling with this horrible and ominous roar,
we could hear a woman's feeble scream. We all looked round, seized by I
know not what impulse of terror; we no longer saw the house, but a huge
bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded, and was in flames. Swirls
of smoke borne on the wind brought us hoarse cries and an indescribable
pungent smell. A few yards behind, the captain was quietly approaching
to join our caravan; we gazed at him in silence, for no one dared
question him; but he, understanding our curiosity, pointed to his breast
with the forefinger of his right hand, and, waving the left in the
direction of the fire, he said, '_Son'io_.'

"We all walked on without saying a word to him."

"There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep," said de
Marsay.

"It would be frightful to let us leave with this horrible picture in our
memory," said Madame de Montcornet. "I shall dream of it----"

"And what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marsay's 'First'?" said Lord
Dudley, smiling.

"When the English are in jest, their foils have the buttons on," said
Blondet.

"Monsieur Bianchon can tell us, for he saw her dying," replied de
Marsay, turning to me.

"Yes," said I; "and her end was one of the most beautiful I ever
saw. The Duke and I had spent the night by the dying woman's pillow;
pulmonary consumption, in the last stage, left no hope; she had taken
the sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,
waking at about four in the morning, signed to me in the most touching
way, with a friendly smile, to bid me leave him to rest, and she
meanwhile was about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her face
had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her pallor made
her skin look like porcelain with a light within. Her bright eyes
and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion, and her
countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed to pity the Duke,
and the feeling had its origin in a lofty tenderness which, as death
approached, seemed to know no bounds. The silence was absolute. The
room, softly lighted by a lamp, looked like every sickroom at the hour
of death.

"At this moment the clock struck. The Duke awoke, and was in despair at
having fallen asleep. I did not see the gesture of impatience by which
he manifested the regret he felt at having lost sight of his wife for a
few of the last minutes vouchsafed to him; but it is quite certain
that any one but the dying woman might have misunderstood it. A busy
statesman, always thinking of the interests of France, the Duke had a
thousand odd ways on the surface, such as often lead to a man of genius
being mistaken for a madman, and of which the explanation lies in the
exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect. He came to seat
himself in an armchair by his wife's side, and looked fixedly at her.
The dying woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband's and
clasped it feebly; and in a low but agitated voice she said, 'My poor
dear, who is left to understand you now?' Then she died, looking at
him."

"The stories the doctor tells us," said the Comte de Vandenesse, "always
leave a deep impression."

"But a sweet one," said Mademoiselle des Touches, rising.


PARIS, June 1839-42.




ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bianchon, Horace  Father Goriot
  The Atheist's Mass
  Cesar Birotteau
  The Commission in Lunacy
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  A Bachelor's Establishment
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Government Clerks
  Pierrette
  A Study of Woman
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Honorine
  The Seamy Side of History
  The Magic Skin
  A Second Home
  A Prince of Bohemia
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Muse of the Department
  The Imaginary Mistress
  The Middle Classes
  Cousin Betty
  The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:  La Grande Breteche

Blondet, Emile  Jealousies of a Country Town
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Modeste Mignon
  The Secrets of a Princess
  A Daughter of Eve
  The Firm of Nucingen
  The Peasantry

Blondet, Virginie (Madame Montcornet)  Jealousies of a Country Town
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Peasantry
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  The Member for Arcis
  A Daughter of Eve

Bridau, Joseph  The Purse
  A Bachelor's Establishment
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  A Start in Life
  Modeste Mignon
  Pierre Grassou
  Letters of Two Brides
  Cousin Betty
  The Member for Arcis

Canalis, Constant-Cyr-Melchior, Baron de  Letters of Two Brides
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Modeste Mignon
  The Magic Skin
  A Start in Life
  Beatrix
  The Unconscious Humorists
  The Member for Arcis

Dudley, Lord  The Lily of the Valley
  The Thirteen
  A Man of Business
  A Daughter of Eve

Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d'
  The Commission in Lunacy
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Gondreville Mystery
  The Secrets of a Princess
  A Daughter of Eve
  Beatrix

Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas  The Imaginary Mistress
  Cousin Betty

Marsay, Henri de  The Thirteen
  The Unconscious Humorists
  The Lily of the Valley
  Father Goriot
  Jealousies of a Country Town
  Ursule Mirouet
  A Marriage Settlement
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Ball at Sceaux
  Modeste Mignon
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Gondreville Mystery
  A Daughter of Eve

Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de  The Secrets of a Princess
  Modeste Mignon
  Jealousies of a Country Town
  The Muse of the Department
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Gondreville Mystery
  The Member for Arcis

Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de  The Thirteen
  Father Goriot
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Pierrette
  The Member for Arcis

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de  The Firm of Nucingen
  Father Goriot
  Pierrette
  Cesar Birotteau
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Secrets of a Princess
  A Man of Business
  Cousin Betty
  The Muse of the Department
  The Unconscious Humorists

Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de  Father Goriot
  The Thirteen
  Eugenie Grandet
  Cesar Birotteau
  Melmoth Reconciled
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  The Commission in Lunacy
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Modeste Mignon
  The Firm of Nucingen
  A Daughter of Eve
  The Member for Arcis

Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de  Ursule Mirouet
  Beatrix

Rastignac, Eugene de  Father Goriot
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Ball at Sceaux
  The Commission in Lunacy
  A Study of Woman
  The Magic Skin
  The Secrets of a Princess
  A Daughter of Eve
  The Gondreville Mystery
  The Firm of Nucingen
  Cousin Betty
  The Member for Arcis
  The Unconscious Humorists

Ronquerolles, Marquis de  The Imaginary Mistress
  The Peasantry
  Ursule Mirouet
  A Woman of Thirty
  The Thirteen
  The Member for Arcis

Serizy, Comtesse de  A Start in Life
  The Thirteen
  Ursule Mirouet
  A Woman of Thirty
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

  The Imaginary Mistress

Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des  Beatrix
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  A Bachelor's Establishment
  A Daughter of Eve
  Honorine
  Beatrix
  The Muse of the Department

Vandenesse, Comte Felix de  The Lily of the Valley
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Cesar Birotteau
  Letters of Two Brides
  A Start in Life
  The Marriage Settlement
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Gondreville Mystery
  A Daughter of Eve






End of Project Gutenberg's Another Study of Woman, by Honore de Balzac

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