The most lively, but also the most mixed, company to be found in any of the houses where Mme. de Vandenesse visited, was decidedly that which met at the Comtesse de Montcornet’s. She was a charming little woman, who opened her doors to distinguished artists, commercial princes, and celebrated literary men; but the tests to which she submitted them before admission were so rigorous that the most exclusive need not fear rubbing up against persons of an inferior grade; the most unapproachable were safe from pollution. During the winter, society (which never loses its rights, and at all costs will be amused) began to rally again, and a few drawing-rooms⁠—including those of Mmes. d’Espard and de Listomère, of Mlle. des Touches, and of the Duchesse de Grandlieu⁠—had picked up recruits from among the latest celebrities in art, science, literature, and politics. At a concert given by the Comtesse de Montcornet, toward the end of the winter, Raoul Nathan, a well-known name in literature and politics, made his entry, introduced by Émile Blondet, a very brilliant but also very indolent writer. Blondet too was a celebrity, but only among the initiated few; much made of by the critics, he was unknown to the general public. Blondet was perfectly aware of this, and in general was a man of few illusions. In regard to fame, he said, among other disparaging remarks, that it was a poison best taken in small doses.

Raoul Nathan had a long struggle before emerging to the surface. Having reached it, he had at once made capital out of that sudden craze for external form then distinguishing certain exquisites, who swore by the Middle Ages, and were humorously known as “young France.” He adopted the eccentricities of genius, and enrolled himself among these worshipers of art, whose intentions at least we cannot but admire, since nothing is more absurd than the dress of a Frenchman of the nineteenth century, and courage was needed to change it. Raoul, to do him justice, has something unusual and fantastic in his person, which seems to demand a setting. His enemies or his friends⁠—there is little to choose between them⁠—are agreed that nothing in the world so well matches the inner Nathan as the outer. He would probably look even more remarkable if left to nature than he is when touched by art. His worn and wasted features suggest a wrestling with spirits, good or evil. His face has some likeness to that which German painters give to the dead Christ, and bears innumerable traces of a constant struggle between weak human nature and the powers on high. But the deep hollows of his cheeks, the knobs on his craggy and furrowed skull, the cavities round his eyes and temples, point to nothing weak in the constitution. There is remarkable solidity about the tough tissues and prominent bones; and though the skin, tanned by excess, sticks to them as though parched by same fire within, it none the less covers a massive framework. He is tall and thin. His long hair, which always needs brushing, aims at effect. He is a Byron, badly groomed and badly put together, with legs like a heron’s, congested knees, an exaggeratedly small waist, a hand with muscles of whipcord, the grip of a crab’s claw, and lean, nervous fingers.

Raoul’s eyes are Napoleonic, blue and soul-piercing; his nose is sensitive and finely chiseled, his mouth charming and adorned with teeth white enough to excite a woman’s envy. There is life and fire in the head, genius on the brow. Raoul belongs to the small number of men who would not pass unnoticed in the street, and who, in a drawing-room, at once form a centre of light, drawing all eyes. He attracts attention by his negligee if one may borrow from Molière the word used in Éliante to describe personal slovenliness. His clothes look as though they had been pulled about, frayed, and crumpled on purpose to harmonize with his countenance. He habitually thrusts one hand into his open waistcoat in the pose which Girodet’s portrait of Chateaubriand has made famous, but not so much for the sake of copying Chateaubriand (he would disdain to copy anyone) as to take the stiffness out of his shirt front. His tie becomes all in a moment a mere wisp, from a trick he has of throwing back his head with a sudden convulsive movement, like that of a racehorse champing its bit and tossing its head in the effort to break loose from bridle and curb. His long, pointed beard is very different from that of the dandy, combed, brushed, scented, sleek, shaped like a fan or cut into a peak; Nathan’s is left entirely to nature. His hair, caught in by his coat-collar and tie, and lying thick upon his shoulders, leaves a grease spot wherever it rests. His dry, stringy hands are innocent of nailbrush or the luxury of a lemon. There are even journalists who declare that only on rare occasions is their grimy skin laved in baptismal waters.

In a word, this awe-inspiring Raoul is a caricature. He moves in a jerky way, as though propelled by some faulty machinery; and when walking the boulevards of Paris he offends all sense of order by impetuous zigzags and unexpected halts, which bring him into collision with peaceful citizens as they stroll along. His conversation, full of caustic humor and stinging epigrams, imitates the gait of his body; of a sudden it will drop the tone of fury to become, for no apparent reason, gracious, dreamy, soothing, and gentle; then come unaccountable pauses or mental somersaults, which at times grow fatiguing. In society he does not conceal an unblushing awkwardness, a scorn of convention, and an attitude of criticism towards things usually held in respect there, which make him objectionable to plain people, as well as to those who strive to keep up the traditions of old-world courtliness. Yet, after all, he is an oddity, like a Chinese image, and women have a weakness for such things. Besides, with women he often puts on an air of elaborate suavity, and seems to take a pleasure in making them forget his grotesque exterior, and in vanquishing their antipathy. This is a salve to his vanity, his self-esteem, and his pride.

“Why do you behave so?” said the Marquise de Vandenesse to him one day.

“Are not pearls found in oyster shells?” was the pompous reply.

To someone else, who put a similar question, he answered:

“If I made myself agreeable to everyone, what should I have left for her whom I design to honor supremely?”

Raoul Nathan carries into his intellectual life the irregularity which he has made his badge. Nor is the device misleading: like poor girls, who go out as maids-of-all-work in humble homes, he can turn his hand to anything. He began with serious criticism, but soon became convinced that this was a losing trade. His articles, he said, cost as much as books. The profits of the theatre attracted him, but, incapable of the slow, sustained labor involved in putting anything on the boards, he was driven to ally himself with du Bruel, who worked up his ideas and converted them into light paying pieces with plenty of humor, and composed in view of some particular actor or actress. Between them they unearthed Florine, a popular actress.

Ashamed, however, of this Siamese-like union, Nathan, unaided, brought out at the Théâtre Français a great drama, which fell with all the honors of war amidst salvoes from the artillery of the press. In his youth he had already tried the theatre which represents the fine traditions of the French drama with a splendid romantic play in the style of Pinto, and this at a time when classicism held undisputed sway. The result was that the Odéon became for three nights the scene of such disorder that the piece had to be stopped. The second play, no less than the first, seemed to many people a masterpiece, and it won for him, though only within the select world of judges and connoisseurs, a far higher reputation than the light remunerative pieces at which he worked with others.

“One more such failure,” said Émile Blondet, “and you will be immortal.”

But Nathan, instead of sticking to this arduous path, was driven by stress of poverty to fall back upon more profitable work, such as the production of spectacular pieces or of an eighteenth-century powder and patches vaudeville, and the adaptation of popular novels to the stage. Nevertheless, he was still counted as a man of great ability, whose last word had not yet been heard. He made an excursion also into pure literature and published three novels, not reckoning those which he kept going in the press, like fishes in an aquarium. As often happens, when a writer has stuff in him for only one work, the first of these three was a brilliant success. Its author rashly put it at once in the front rank of his works as an artistic creation, and lost no opportunity of getting it puffed as the “finest book of the period,” the “novel of the century.”

Yet he complained loudly of the exigencies of art, and did as much as any man towards having it accepted as the one standard for all kinds of creative work⁠—painting, sculpture, literature, architecture. He had begun by perpetrating a book of verse, which won him a place in the pleiad of poets of the day, and which contained one obscure poem that was greatly admired. Compelled by straitened circumstances to go on producing, he turned from the theatre to the press, and from the press back to the theatre, breaking up and scattering his powers, but with unshaken confidence in his inspiration. He did not suffer, therefore, from lack of a publisher for his fame, differing in this from certain celebrities, whose nickering flame is kept from extinction by the titles of books still in the future, for which a public will be a more pressing necessity than a new edition.

Nathan kept near to being a genius, and, had destiny crowned his ambition by marching him to the scaffold, he would have been justified in striking his forehead after André de Chénier. The sudden accession to power of a dozen authors, professors, metaphysicians, and historians fired him with emulation, and he regretted not having devoted his pen to politics rather than to literature. He believed himself superior to these upstarts, who had foisted themselves on to the party-machine during the troubles of 1830⁠–⁠3 and whose fortune now filled him with consuming envy. He belonged to the type of man who covets everything and looks on all success as a fraud on himself, who is always stumbling on some luminous track but settles down nowhere, drawing all the while on the tolerance of his neighbors. At this moment he was traveling from Saint-Simonism to Republicanism, which might serve, perhaps, as a stage to Ministerialism. His eye swept every corner for some bone to pick, some safe shelter whence he might bark beyond the reach of kicks, and make himself a terror to the passersby. He had, however, the mortification of finding himself not taken seriously by the great de Marsay, then at the head of affairs, who had a low opinion of authors as lacking in what Eichelieu called the logical spirit, or rather in coherence of ideas. Besides, no minister could have failed to reckon on Raoul’s constant pecuniary difficulties which, sooner or later, would drive him into the position of accepting rather than imposing conditions.

Raoul’s real and studiously suppressed character accords with that which he shows to the public. He is carried away by his own acting, declaims with great eloquence, and could not be more self-centered were he, like Louis XIV, the State in person. None knows better how to play at sentiment or to deck himself out in a shoddy greatness. The grace of moral beauty and the language of self-respect are at his command, he is a very Alceste in pose, while acting like Philinte. His selfishness ambles along under cover of this painted cardboard, and not seldom attains the end he has in view. Excessively idle, he never works except under the prick of necessity. Continuous labor applied to the construction of a lasting fabric is beyond his conception; but in a paroxysm of rage, the result of wounded vanity, or in some crisis precipitated by his creditors, he will leap the Eurotas and perform miracles of mental forestalment; after which, worn out and amazed at his own fertility, he falls back into the enervating dissipations of Paris life. Does necessity once more threaten, he has no strength to meet it; he sinks a step and traffics with his honor. Impelled by a false idea of his talents and his future, founded on the rapid rise of one of his old comrades (one of the few cases of administrative ability brought to light by the Revolution of July), he tries to regain his footing by taking liberties with his friends, which are nothing short of a moral outrage, though they remain buried among the skeletons of private life, without a word of comment or blame.

His heart, devoid of nicety, his shameless hand, hail-fellow-well-met with every vice, every degradation, every treachery, every party, have placed him as much beyond reach of attack as a constitutional king. The peccadillo, which would raise hue and cry after a man of high character, counts for nothing in him; while conduct bordering on grossness is barely noticed. In making his excuses people find their own.

The very man who would fain despise him shakes him by the hand, fearing to need his help. So numerous are his friends that he would prefer enemies. This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice. There are men who, by exacting this general slackness of conscience, get themselves absolved for playing the traitor and the turncoat. Thus it is that the most enlightened portion of the nation becomes the least worthy of respect.

From the literary point of view, Nathan is deficient in style and information. Like most young aspirants in literature, he gives out today what he learned yesterday. He has neither the time nor the patience to make an author. He does not use his own eyes, but can pick up from others, and, while he fails in producing a vigorously constructed plot, he sometimes covers this defect by the fervor he throws into it. He “went in” for passion, to use a slang word, because there is no limit to the variety of modes in which passion may express itself, while the task of genius is to sift out from these various expressions the element in each which will appeal to everyone as natural. His heroes do not stir the imagination; they are magnified individuals, exciting only a passing sympathy; they have no connection with the wider interests of life, and therefore stand for nothing but themselves. Yet the author saves himself by means of a ready wit and of those lucky hits which billiard players call “flukes.” He is the best man for a flying shot at the ideas which swoop down upon Paris, or which Paris starts. His teeming brain is not his own, it belongs to the period. He lives upon the event of the day, and, in order to get all he can from it, exaggerates its bearing. In short, we miss the accent of truth, his words ring false; there is something of the juggler in him, as Count Félix said. One feels that his pen has dipped in the ink of an actress’ dressing-room.

In Nathan we find an image of the literary youth of the day, with their sham greatness and real poverty; he represents their irregular charm and their terrible falls, their life of seething cataracts, sudden reverses, and unlooked-for triumphs. He is a true child of this jealousy-ridden age, in which a thousand personal rivalries, cloaking themselves under the name of schools, make profit out of their failures by feeding fat with them a hydra-headed anarchy; an age which expects fortune without work, glory without talent, and success without effort, but which, after many a revolt and skirmish, is at last brought by its vices to swell the civil list, in submission to the powers that be. When so many young ambitions start on foot to meet at the same goal, there must be competing wills, frightful destitution, and a relentless struggle. In this merciless combat it is the fiercest or the adroitest selfishness which wins. The lesson is not lost on an admiring world; spite of bawling, as Molière would say, it acquits and follows suit.

When, in his capacity of opponent to the new dynasty, Raoul was introduced to Mme. de Montcornet’s drawing-room his specious greatness was at its height. He was recognized as the political critic of the de Marsays, the Rastignacs, and the la Roche-Hugons, who constituted the party in power. His sponsor, Émile Blondet, handicapped by his fatal indecision and dislike of action where his own affairs were concerned, stuck to his trade of scoffer and took sides with no party, while on good terms with all. He was the friend of Raoul, of Rastignac, and of Montcornet.

“You are a political triangle,” said de Marsay, with a laugh, when he met him at the Opera; “that geometrical form is the peculiar property of the deity, who can afford to be idle; but a man who wants to get on should adopt a curve, which is the shortest road in politics.”

Beheld from afar, Raoul Nathan was a resplendent meteor. The fashion of the day justified his manner and appearance. His pose as a Republican gave him, for the moment, that puritan ruggedness assumed by champions of the popular cause, men whom Nathan in his heart derided. This is not without attraction for women, who love to perform prodigies, such as shattering rocks, melting an iron will. Raoul’s moral costume, therefore, was in keeping with the external. He was bound to be, and he was, for this Eve, listless in her paradise of the Rue du Rocher, the insidious serpent, bright to the eye and flattering to the ear, with magnetic gaze and graceful motion, who ruined the first woman.

Marie, on seeing Raoul, at once felt that inward shock, the violence of which is almost terrifying. This would-be great man, by a mere glance, sent a thrill right through to her heart, causing a delicious flutter there. The regal mantle which fame had for the moment draped on Nathan’s shoulders dazzled this simple-minded woman. When tea came Marie left the group of chattering women, among whom she had stood silent since the appearance of this wonderful being⁠—a fact which did not escape her so-called friends. The Countess drew near the ottoman in the centre of the room where Raoul was perorating. She remained standing, her arm linked in that of Mme. Octave de Camps, an excellent woman, who kept the secret of the nervous quivering by which Marie betrayed her strong emotion. Despite the sweet magic distilled from the eye of the woman who loves or is startled into self-betrayal, Raoul was just then entirely occupied with a regular display of fireworks. He was far too busy letting off epigrams like rockets, winding and unwinding indictments like Catherine-wheels, and tracing blazing portraits in lines of fire, to notice the naive admiration of a little Eve, lost in the crowd of women surrounding him. The love of novelty which would bring Paris flocking to the Zoological Gardens, if a unicorn had been brought there from those famous Mountains of the Moon, virgin yet of European tread, intoxicates minds of a lower stamp, as much as it saddens the truly wise. Raoul was enraptured and far too much engrossed with women in general to pay attention to one woman in particular.

“Take care, dear, you had better come away,” her fair companion, sweetest of women, whispered to Marie.

The Countess turned to her husband and, with one of those speaking glances which husbands are sometimes slow in interpreting, begged for his arm. Félix led her away.

“Well, you are in luck, my good friend,” said Mme. d’Espard in Raoul’s ear. “You’ve done execution in more than one quarter tonight, and, best of all, with that charming Countess who has just left us so abruptly.”

“Do you know what the Marquise d’Espard meant?” asked Raoul of Blondet, repeating the great lady’s remark, when almost all the other guests had departed, between one and two in the morning.

“Why, yes, I have just heard that the Comtesse de Vandenesse has fallen wildly in love with you. Lucky dog!”

“I did not see her,” said Raoul.

“Ah! but you will see her, you rascal,” said Émile Blondet, laughing. “Lady Dudley has invited you to her great ball with the very purpose of bringing about a meeting.”

Raoul and Blondet left together, and joining Rastignac, who offered them a place in his carriage, the three made merry over this conjunction of an eclectic Undersecretary of State with a fierce Republican and a political sceptic.

“Suppose we sup at the expense of law and order?” said Blondet, who had a fancy for reviving the old-fashioned supper.

Rastignac took them to Véry’s, and dismissed his carriage; the three then sat down to table and set themselves to pull to pieces their contemporaries amidst Rabelaisian laughter. During the course of supper Rastignac and Blondet urged their counterfeit opponent not to neglect the magnificent opportunity thrown in his way. The story of Marie de Vandenesse was caricatured by these two profligates, who applied the scalpel of epigram and the keen edge of mockery to that transparent childhood, that happy marriage. Blondet congratulated Raoul on having found a woman who so far had been guilty only of execrable red-chalk drawings and feeble watercolor landscapes, of embroidering slippers for her husband, and performing sonatas with a most ladylike absence of passion; a woman who had been tied for eighteen years to her mother’s apron-strings, pickled in devotion, trained by Vandenesse, and cooked to a turn by marriage for the palate of love. At the third bottle of champagne Raoul Nathan became more expansive than he had ever shown himself before.

“My dear friends,” he said, “you know my relations with Florine, you know my life, you will not be surprised to hear me confess that I have never yet seen the color of a Countess’ love. It has often been a humiliating thought to me that only in poetry could I find a Beatrice, a Laura! A pure and noble woman is like a spotless conscience, she raises us in our own estimation. Elsewhere we may be soiled, with her we keep our honor, pride, and purity. Elsewhere life is a wild frenzy, with her we breathe the peace, the freshness, the bloom of the oasis.”

“Come, come, my good soul,” said Rastignac, “shift the prayer of Moses on to the high notes, as Paganini does.”

Raoul sat speechless with fixed and besotted eyes. At last he opened his mouth.

“This beast of a ’prentice minister does not understand me!”

Thus, whilst the poor Eve of the Rue du Rocher went to bed, swathed in shame, terrified at the delight which had filled her while listening to this poetic pretender, hovering between the stern voice of gratitude to Vandenesse and the flattering tongue of the serpent, these three shameless spirits trampled on the tender white blossoms of her opening love. Ah! if women knew how cynical those men can be behind their backs, who show themselves all meekness and cajolery when by their side! if they knew how they mock their idols! Fresh, lovely, and timid creature, whose charms lie at the mercy of some graceless buffoon! And yet she triumphs! The more the veils are rent, the clearer her beauty shines.

Marie at this moment was comparing Raoul and Félix, all-ignorant of the danger to her heart in such a process. No better contrast could be found to the robust and unconventional Raoul than Félix de Vandenesse, with his clothes fitting like a glove, the finish of a fine lady in his person, his charming natural disinvoltura, combined with a touch of English refinement, picked up from Lady Dudley. A contrast like this pleases the fancy of a woman, ever ready to fly from one extreme to another. The Countess was too well-principled and pious not to forbid her thoughts dwelling on Raoul, and next day, in the heart of her paradise, she took herself to task for base ingratitude.

“What do you think of Raoul Nathan?” she asked her husband during lunch.

“He is a charlatan,” replied the Count; “one of those volcanoes which a sprinkling of gold-dust will keep tranquil. The Comtesse de Montcornet ought not to have had him at her house.”

This reply was the more galling to Marie because Félix, who knew the literary world well, supported his verdict with proofs drawn from the life of Raoul⁠—a life of shifts, in which Florine, a well-known actress, played a large part.

“Granting the man has genius,” he concluded, “he is without the patience and persistency which make genius a thing apart and sacred. He tries to impress people by assuming a position which he cannot live up to. That is not the behavior of really able men and students; if they are honorable men they stick to their own line, and don’t try to hide their rags under frippery.”

A woman’s thought has marvelous elasticity; it may sink under a blow, to all appearance crushed, but in a given time it is up again, as though nothing had happened.

“Félix must be right,” was the first thought of the Countess.

Three days later, however, her mind traveled back to the tempter, allured by that sweet yet ruthless emotion which it was the mistake of Vandenesse not to have aroused. The Count and Countess went to Lady Dudley’s great ball, where de Marsay made his last appearance in society. Two months later he died, leaving the reputation of a statesman so profound that, as Blondet said, he was unfathomable. Here Vandenesse and his wife again met Raoul Nathan, amid a concourse of people made remarkable by the number of actors in the political drama whom, to their mutual surprise, it brought together.

It was one of the chief social functions in the great world. The reception-rooms offered a magic picture to the eye. Flowers, diamonds, shining hair, the plunder of countless jewel-cases, every art of the toilet⁠—all contributed to the effect. The room might be compared to one of those show hothouses where wealthy amateurs collect the most marvelous varieties. There was the same brilliancy, the same delicacy of texture. It seemed as though the art of man would compete also with the animal world. On all sides fluttered gauze, white or painted like the wings of prettiest dragonfly, crepe, lace, blonde, tulle, pucked, puffed, or notched, vying in eccentricity of form with the freaks of nature in the insect tribe. There were spider’s threads in gold or silver, clouds of silk, flowers which some fairy might have woven or imprisoned spirit breathed into life; feathers, whose rich tints told of a tropical sun, drooping willow-like over haughty heads, ropes of pearls, drapery in broad folds, ribbed, or slashed, as though the genius of arabesque had presided over French millinery.

This splendor harmonized with the beauties gathered together as though to form a “keepsake.” The eye roamed over a wealth of fair shoulders in every tone of white that man could conceive⁠—some amber-tinted, others glistening like some glazed surface or glossy as satin, others, again, of a rich lustreless color which the brush of Rubens might have mixed. Then the eyes, sparkling like onyx stones or turquoises, with their dark velvet edging or fair fringes; and profiles of every contour, recalling the noblest types of different lands. There were brows lofty with pride; rounded brows, index of thought within; level brows, the seat of an indomitable will. Lastly⁠—most bewitching of all in a scene of such studied splendor⁠—necks and bosoms in the rich voluptuous folds adored by George IV, or with the more delicate modeling which found favor in the eighteenth century and at the Court of Louis XV; but all, whatever the type, frankly exhibited, either without drapery or through the dainty plaited tuckers of Raphael’s portraits, supreme triumph of his laborious pupils. Prettiest of feet, itching for the dance, figures yielding softly to the embrace of the waltz, roused the most apathetic to attention; murmurings of gentle voices, rustling dresses, whispering partners, vibrations of the dance, made a fantastic burden to the music.

A fairy’s wand might have called forth this witchery, bewildering to the senses, the harmony of scents, the rainbow tints flashing in the crystal chandeliers, the blaze of the candles, the mirrors which repeated the scene on every side. The groups of lovely women in lovely attire stood out against a dark background of men, where might be observed the delicate, regular features of the aristocracy, the tawny moustache of the sedate Englishman, the gay, smiling countenance of the French noble. Every European order glittered in the room, some hanging from a collar on the breast, others dangling by the side.

To a watchful observer the scene presented more than this gaily decorated surface. It had a soul; it lived, it thought, it felt, it found expression in the hidden passions which now and again forced their way to the surface. Now it would be an interchange of malicious glances; now some fair young girl, carried away by excitement and novelty, would betray a touch of passion; jealous women talked scandal behind their fans and paid each other extravagant compliments. Society, decked out, curled, and perfumed, abandoned itself to that frenzy of the fête which goes to the head like the fumes of wine. From every brow, as from every heart, seemed to emanate sensations and thoughts, which, forming together one potent influence, inflamed the most cold-blooded.

It was the most exciting moment of this entrancing evening. In a corner of the gilded drawing-room, where a few bankers, ambassadors, and retired ministers, together with that old reprobate, Lord Dudley (an unexpected arrival), were seated at play, Mme. Félix de Vandenesse found herself unable to resist the impulse to enter into conversation with Nathan. She, too, may have been yielding to that ballroom intoxication which has wrung many a confession from the lips of the most coy.

The sight of this splendid pageant of a world to which he was still a stranger stung Nathan to the heart with redoubled ambition. He looked at Rastignac, whose brother, at the age of twenty-seven, had just been made a Bishop, and whose brother-in-law, Martial de la Roche-Hugon, held office, while he himself was an Undersecretary of State, and about to marry, as rumor said, the only daughter of the Baron de Nucingen. He saw among the members of the diplomatic body an obscure writer who used to translate foreign newspapers for a journal that passed over to the reigning dynasty after 1830; he saw leader-writers members of the Council and professors peers of France. And he perceived, with bitterness, that he had taken the wrong road in preaching the overthrow of an aristocracy which counted among its ornaments the true nobility of fortunate talent and successful scheming. Blondet, though still a mere journalistic hack, was much made of in society, and had it yet in his power to strike the road to fortune by means of his intimacy with Mme. de Montcornet. Blondet, therefore, with all his ill-luck, was a striking example in Nathan’s eyes of the importance of having friends in high places. In the depths of his heart he resolved upon following the example of men like de Marsay, Rastignac, Blondet, and Talleyrand, the leader of the sect. He would throw conviction to the winds, paying allegiance only to accomplished facts, which he would wrest to his own advantage; no system should be to him more than an instrument; and on no account would he upset the balance of a society so admirably constructed, so decorative, and so consonant with nature.

“My future,” he said to himself, “is in the hands of a woman belonging to the great world.”

Full of this thought, the outcome of a frantic cupidity, Nathan pounced upon the Comtesse de Vandenesse like a hawk upon its prey. She was looking charming in a headdress of marabout feathers, which produced the delicious melting effect of Lawrence’s portraits, well suited to her gentle character. The fervid rhapsodies of the poet, crazed by ambition, carried the sweet creature quite off her feet. Lady Dudley, whose eye was everywhere, secured the tête-à-tête by handing over the Comte de Vandenesse to Mme. de Manerville. It was the first time the parted lovers had spoken face to face since their rupture. The woman, strong in the habit of ascendency, caught Félix in the toils of a coquettish controversy, with plenty of blushing confidences, regrets deftly cast like flowers at his feet, and recriminations, where self-defence was intended to stimulate reproach.

Whilst her husband’s former mistress was raking among the ashes of dead joys to find some spark of life, Mme. Félix de Vandenesse experienced those violent heartthrobs which assail a woman with the certainty of going astray and treading forbidden paths. These emotions are not without fascination, and rouse many dormant faculties. Now, as in the days of Bluebeard, all women love to use the bloodstained key, that splendid mythological symbol which is one of Perrault’s glories.

The dramatist, who knew his Shakespeare, unfolded the tale of his hardships, described his struggle with men and things, opened up glimpses of his unstable success, his political genius wasting in obscurity, his life unblessed by any generous affection. Without a word directly to that effect, he conveyed to this gracious lady the suggestion that she might play for him the noble part of Rebecca in Ivanhoe, might love and shelter him. Not a syllable overstepped the pure regions of sentiment. The blue of the forget-me-not, the white of the lily, are not more pure than were his flowers of rhetoric and the things signified by them; the radiance of a seraph lighted the brow of this artist, who might yet utilize his discourse with a publisher. He acquitted himself well of the serpent’s part, and flashed before the eyes of the Countess the tempting colors of the fatal fruit. Marie left the ball consumed by remorse, which was akin to hope, thrilled by compliments flattering to her vanity, and agitated to the remotest corner of her heart. Her very goodness was her snare; she could not resist her own pity for the unfortunate.

Whether Mme. de Manerville brought Vandenesse to the room where his wife was talking with Nathan, whether he came there of his own accord, or whether the conversation had roused in him a slumbering pain, the fact remains, whatever the cause, that, when his wife came to ask for his arm, she found him gloomy and abstracted. The Countess was afraid she had been seen. As soon as she was alone with Félix in the carriage, she threw him a smile full of meaning, and began:

“Was not that Mme. de Manerville with whom you were talking, dear?”

Félix had not yet got clear of the thorny ground, through which his wife’s neat little attack marched him, when the carriage stopped at their door. It was the first stratagem prompted by love. Marie was delighted to have thus got the better of a man whom till then she had considered so superior. She tasted for the first time the joy of victory at a critical moment.