Florine proved no difficulty in the early stages of Raoul’s passion. Foreseeing financial disappointments in the hazardous scheme into which he had plunged, she begged leave of absence for six months. Raoul took an active part in the negotiation, and by bringing it to a successful issue still further endeared himself to Florine. With the good sense of the peasant in La Fontaine’s fable, who makes sure of his dinner while the patricians are chattering over plans, the actress hurried off to the provinces and abroad, to glean the wherewithal to support the great man during his place-hunting.

Up to the present time the art of fiction has seldom dealt with love as it shows itself in the highest society, a compound of noble impulse and hidden wretchedness. There is a terrible strain in the constant check imposed on passion by the most trivial and trumpery incidents, and not unfrequently the thread snaps from sheer lassitude. Perhaps some glimpse of what it means may be obtained here.

The day after Lady Dudley’s ball, although nothing approaching a declaration had escaped on either side, Marie felt that Raoul’s love was the realization of her dreams, and Raoul had no doubt that he was the chosen of Marie’s heart. Neither of the two had reached that point of depravity where preliminaries are curtailed, and yet they advanced rapidly towards the end. Raoul, sated with pleasure, was in the mood for Platonic affection; whilst Marie, from whom the idea of an actual fault was still remote, had never contemplated passing beyond it. Never, therefore, was love more pure and innocent in fact, or more impassioned and rapturous in thought, than this of Raoul and Marie. The Countess had been fascinated by ideas which, though clothed in modern dress, belonged to the times of chivalry. In her role, as she conceived it, her husband’s dislike to Nathan no longer appeared an obstacle to her love. The less Raoul merited esteem, the nobler was her mission. The inflated language of the poet stirred her imagination rather than her blood. It was charity which wakened at the call of passion. This queen of the virtues lent what in the eyes of the Countess seemed almost a sanction to the tremors, the delights, the turbulence of her love. She felt it a fine thing to be the human providence of Raoul. How sweet to think of supporting with her feeble, white hand this colossal figure, whose feet of clay she refused to see, of sowing life where none had been, of working in secret at the foundation of a great destiny. With her help this man of genius should wrestle with and overcome his fate; her hand should embroider his scarf for the tourney, buckle on his armor, give him a charm against sorcery, and balm for all his wounds!

In a woman with Marie’s noble nature and religious upbringing this passionate charity was the only form love could assume. Hence her boldness. The pure in mind have a superb disdain for appearances, which may be mistaken for the shamelessness of the courtesan. No sooner had the Countess assured herself by casuistical arguments that her husband’s honor ran no risk, than she abandoned herself completely to the bliss of loving Raoul. The most trivial things in life had now a charm for her. The boudoir in which she dreamed of him became a sanctuary. Even her pretty writing-table recalled to her the countless joys of correspondence; there she would have to read, to hide, his letters; there reply to them. Dress, that splendid poem of a woman’s life, the significance of which she had either exhausted or ignored, now appeared to her full of a magic hitherto unknown. Suddenly it became to her what it is to all women⁠—a continuous expression of the inner thought, a language, a symbol. What wealth of delight in a costume designed for his pleasure, in his honor! She threw herself with all simplicity into those charming nothings which make the business of a Paris woman’s life, and which charge with meaning every detail in her house, her person, her clothes. Rare indeed are the women who frequent dress shops, milliners, and fashionable tailors simply for their own pleasure. As they become old they cease to think of dress. Scrutinize the face which in passing you see for a moment arrested before a shopfront: “Would he like me better in this?” are the words written plain in the clearing brow, in eyes sparkling with hope, and in the smile that plays upon the lips.

Lady Dudley’s ball took place on a Saturday evening; on the Monday the Countess went to the opera, allured by the certainty of seeing Raoul. Raoul, in fact, was there, planted on one of the staircases which lead down to the amphitheatre stalls. He lowered his eyes as the Countess entered her box. With what ecstasy did Mme. de Vandenesse observe the unwonted carefulness of her lover’s attire! This contemner of the laws of elegance might be seen with well-brushed hair, which shone with scent in the recesses of every curl, a fashionable waistcoat, a well-fastened tie, and an immaculate shirtfront. Under the yellow gloves, which were the order of the day, his hands showed very white. Raoul kept his arms crossed over his breast, as though posing for his portrait, superbly indifferent to the whole house, which murmured with barely restrained impatience. His eyes, though bent on the ground, seemed turned towards the red velvet bar on which Marie’s arm rested. Félix, seated in the opposite corner of the box, had his back to Nathan. The Countess had been adroit enough to place herself so that she looked straight down on the pillar against which Raoul leaned. In a single hour, then, Marie had brought this clever man to abjure his cynicism in dress. The humblest, as well as the most distinguished, woman must feel her head turned by the first open declaration of her power in such a transformation. Every change is a confession of servitude.

“They were right, there is a great happiness in being understood,” she said to herself, calling to mind her unworthy instructors.

When the two lovers had scanned the house in a rapid all-embracing survey, they exchanged a glance of intelligence. For both it was as though a heavenly dew had fallen with cooling power upon their fevered suspense. “I have been in hell for an hour; now the heavens open,” spoke the eyes of Raoul.

“I knew you were there, but am I free?” replied those of the Countess.

None but slaves of every variety, including thieves, spies, lovers, and diplomatists, know all that a flash of the eye can convey of information or delight. They alone can grasp the intelligence, the sweetness, the humor, the wrath, and the malice with which this changeful lightning of the soul is pregnant. Raoul felt his passion kick against the pricks of necessity and grow more vigorous in presence of obstacles. Between the step on which he was perched and the box of the Comtesse Félix de Vandenesse was a space of barely thirty feet, impassable for him. To a passionate man who, so far in his life, had known but little interval between desire and satisfaction, this abyss of solid ground, which could not be spanned, inspired a wild desire to spring upon the Countess in a tiger-like bound. In a paroxysm of fury he tried to feel his way. He bowed openly to the Countess, who replied with a slight, scornful inclination of the head, such as women use for snubbing their admirers. Félix turned to see who had greeted his wife, and perceiving Nathan, of whom he took no notice beyond a mute inquiry as to the cause of this liberty, turned slowly away again, with some words probably approving of his wife’s assumed coldness. Plainly the door of the box was barred against Nathan, who hurled a threatening glance at Félix, which it required no great wit to interpret by one of Florine’s sallies, “Look out for your hat; it will soon not rest on your head!”

Mme. d’Espard, one of the most insolent women of her time, who had been watching these manoeuvres from her box, now raised her voice in some meaningless bravo. Raoul, who was standing beneath her, turned. He bowed, and received in return a gracious smile, which so clearly said, “If you are dismissed there, come to me!” that Raoul left his column and went to pay a visit to Mme. d’Espard. He wanted to be seen there in order to show that fellow Vandenesse that his fame was equal to a patent of nobility, and that before Nathan blazoned doors flew open. The Marchioness made him sit down in the front of the box opposite to her. She intended to play the inquisitor.

“Mme. Félix de Vandenesse looks charming tonight,” she said, congratulating him on the lady’s dress, as though it were a book he had just published.

“Yes,” said Raoul carelessly, “marabouts are very becoming to her. But she is too constant, she wore them the day before yesterday,” he added, with an easy air, as though by his critical attitude to repudiate the flattering complicity which the Marchioness had laid to his charge.

“You know the proverb?” she replied. “ ‘Every feast day should have a morrow.’ ”

At the game of repartee literary giants are not always equal to ladies of title. Raoul took refuge in a pretended stupidity, the last resource of clever men.

“The proverb is true for me,” he said, casting an admiring look on the Marchioness.

“Your pretty speech, sir, comes too late for me to accept it,” she replied, laughing. “Come, come, don’t be a prude; in the small hours of yesterday morning, you thought Mme. de Vandenesse entrancing in marabouts; she was perfectly aware of it, and puts them on again to please you. She is in love with you, and you adore her; no time has been lost, certainly; still I see nothing in it but what is most natural. If it were not as I say, you would not be tearing your glove to pieces in your rage at having to sit here beside me, instead of in the box of your idol⁠—which has just been shut in your face by supercilious authority⁠—whispering low what you would fain hear said aloud.”

Raoul was in fact twisting one of his gloves, and the hand which he showed was surprisingly white.

“She has won from you,” she went on, fixing his hand with an impertinent stare, “sacrifices which you refused to society. She ought to be enchanted at her success, and, I daresay, she is a little vain of it; but in her place I think I should be more so. So far she has only been a woman of good parts, now she will pass for a woman of genius. We shall find her portrait in one of those delightful books of yours. But, my dear friend, do me the kindness not to forget Vandenesse. That man is really too fatuous. I could not stand such self-complacency in Jupiter Olympus himself, who is said to have been the only god in mythology exempt from domestic misfortune.”

“Madame,” cried Raoul, “you credit me with a very base soul if you suppose that I would make profit out of my feelings, out of my love. Sooner than be guilty of such literary dishonor, I would follow the English custom, and drag a woman to market with a rope round her neck.”

“But I know Marie; she will ask you to do it.”

“No, she is incapable of it,” protested Raoul.

“You know her intimately then?”

Nathan could not help laughing that he, a playwright, should be caught in this little comedy dialogue.

“The play is no longer there,” he said, pointing to the footlights; “it rests with you.”

To hide his confusion, he took the opera-glass and began to examine the house.

“Are you vexed with me?” said the Marchioness, with a sidelong glance at him. “Wouldn’t your secret have been mine in any case? It won’t be hard to make peace. Come to my house, I am at home every Wednesday; the dear Countess won’t miss an evening when she finds you come, and I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes to me between four and five o’clock; I will be very good-natured, and add you to the select few admitted at that hour.”

“Only see,” said Raoul, “how unjust people are! I was told you were spiteful.”

“Oh! so I am,” she said, “when I want to be. One has to fight for one’s own hand. But as for your Countess, I adore her. You have no idea how charming she is! You will be the first to have your name inscribed on her heart with that infantine joy which causes all lovers, even drill-sergeants, to cut their initials on the bark of a tree. A woman’s first love is a luscious fruit. Later, you see, there is always some calculation in our attentions and caresses. I’m an old woman, and can say what I like; nothing frightens me, not even a journalist. Well, then, in the autumn of life, we know how to make you happy; but when love is a new thing, we are happy ourselves, and that gives endless satisfaction to your pride. We are full of delicious surprises then, because the heart is fresh. You, who are a poet, must prefer flowers to fruit. Six months hence you shall tell me about it.”

Raoul began with denying everything, as all men do when they are brought to the bar, but found that this only supplied weapons to so practised a champion. Entangled in the noose of a dialogue, manipulated with all the dangerous adroitness of a woman and a Parisian, he dreaded to let fall admissions which would serve as fuel for the lady’s wit, and he beat a prudent retreat when he saw Lady Dudley enter.

“Well,” said the Englishwoman, “how far have they gone?”

“They are desperately in love. Nathan has just told me so.”

“I wish he had been uglier,” said Lady Dudley, with a venomous scowl at Félix. “Otherwise, he is exactly what I would have wished; he is the son of a Jewish broker, who died bankrupt shortly after his marriage; unfortunately, his mother was a Catholic, and has made a Christian of him.”

Nathan’s origin, which he kept a most profound secret, was a new discovery to Lady Dudley, who gloated in advance over the delight of drawing thence some pointed shaft to aim at Vandenesse.

“And I’ve just asked him to my house!” exclaimed the Marchioness.

“Wasn’t he at my ball yesterday?” replied Lady Dudley. “There are pleasures, my dear, for which one pays heavily.”

The news of a mutual passion between Raoul and Mme. de Vandenesse went the round of society that evening, not without calling forth protests and doubts; but the Countess was defended by her friends, Lady Dudley, Mmes. d’Espard, and de Manerville, with a clumsy eagerness which gained some credence for the rumor. Yielding to necessity, Raoul went on Wednesday evening to Mme. d’Espard’s, and found there the usual distinguished company. As Félix did not accompany his wife, Raoul was able to exchange a few words with Marie, the tone of which expressed more than the matter. The Countess, warned against malicious gossips by Mme. Octave de Camps, realized her critical position before society, and contrived to make Raoul understand it also.

Amidst this gay assembly, the lovers found their only joy in a long draught of the delicious sensations arising from the words, the voice, the gestures, and the bearing of the loved one. The soul clings desperately to such trifles. At times the eyes of both will converge upon the same spot, embedding there, as it were, a thought of which they thus risk the interchange. They talk, and longing looks follow the peeping foot, the quivering hand, the fingers which toy with some ornament, flicking it, twisting it about, then dropping it, in significant fashion. It is no longer words or thoughts which make themselves heard, it is things; and that in so clear a voice, that often the man who loves will leave to others the task of handing a cup of tea, a sugar-basin, or whatnot, to his ladylove, in dread lest his agitation should be visible to eyes which, apparently seeing nothing, see all. Thronging desires, mad wishes, passionate thoughts, find their way into a glance and die out there. The pressure of a hand, eluding a thousand Argus eyes, is eloquent as written pages, burning as a kiss. Love grows by all that it denies itself; it treads on obstacles to reach the higher. And barriers, more often cursed than cleared, are hacked and cast into the fire to feed its flames. Here it is that women see the measure of their power, when love, that is boundless, coils up and hides itself within a thirsty glance, a nervous thrill, behind the screen of formal civility. How often has not a single word, on the last step of a staircase, paid the price of an evening’s silent agony and empty talk!

Raoul, careless of social forms, gave rein to his anger in brilliant oratory. Everybody present could hear the lion’s roar, and recognized the artist’s nature, intolerant of disappointment. This Orlando-like rage, this cutting and slashing wit, this laying on of epigrams as with a club, enraptured Marie and amused the onlookers, much as the spectacle of a maddened bull, covered with streamers, in a Spanish amphitheatre, might have done.

“Hit out as much as you like, you can’t clear the ring,” Blondet said to him.

This sarcasm restored to Raoul his presence of mind; he ceased making an exhibition of himself and his vexation. The Marchioness came to offer him a cup of tea, and said, loud enough for Marie to hear:

“You are really very amusing; come and see me sometimes at four o’clock.”

Raoul took offence at the word “amusing,” although it had served as passport to the invitation. He began to give ear, as actors do, when they are attending to the house and not to the stage. Blondet took pity on him.

“My dear fellow,” he said, drawing him aside into a corner, “you behave in polite society exactly as you might at Florine’s. Here nobody flies into a passion, nobody lectures; from time to time a smart thing may be said, and you must look most impassive at the very moment when you long to throw someone out of the window; a gentle raillery is allowed, and some show of attention to the lady you adore, but you can’t lie down and kick like a donkey in the middle of the road. Here, my good soul, love proceeds by rule. Either carry off Mme. de Vandenesse or behave like a gentleman. You are too much the lover of one of your own romances.”

Nathan listened with hanging head; he was a wild beast caught in the toils.

“I shall never set foot here again,” said he. “This papier-mâché Marchioness puts too high a price upon her tea. She thinks me amusing, does she? Now I know why St. Just guillotined all these people.”

“You’ll come back tomorrow.”

Blondet was right. Passion is as cowardly as it is cruel. The next day, after fluctuating long between “I’ll go” and “I won’t go,” Raoul left his partners in the middle of an important discussion to hasten to the Faubourg St. Honoré and Mme. d’Espard’s house. The sight of Rastignac’s elegant cabriolet driving up as he was paying his cabman at the door hurt Nathan’s vanity; he too would have such a cabriolet, he resolved, and the correct tiger. The carriage of the Countess was in the court, and Raoul’s heart swelled with joy as he perceived it. Marie’s movements responded to her longings with the regularity of a clock-hand propelled by its spring. She was reclining in an armchair by the fireplace in the small drawing-room. Instead of looking at Nathan as he entered, she gazed at his reflection in the mirror, feeling sure that the mistress of the house would turn to him. Love, baited by society, is forced to have recourse to these little tricks; it endows with life mirrors, muffs, fans, and numberless objects, the purpose of which is not clear at first sight, and is indeed never found out by many of the women who use them.

“The Prime Minister,” said Mme. d’Espard, with a glance at de Marsay, as she drew Nathan into the conversation, “was just declaring, when you came in, that there is an understanding between the Royalists and Republicans. What do you say? You ought to know something about it.”

“Supposing it were so, where would be the harm?” said Raoul. “The object of our animosity is the same; we agree in our hatred, and differ only in what we love.”

“The alliance is at least singular,” said de Marsay, with a glance which embraced Raoul and the Comtesse Félix.

“It will not last,” said Rastignac, who, like all novices, took his politics a little too seriously.

“What do you say, darling?” asked Mme. d’Espard of the Countess.

“I! oh! I know nothing about politics.”

“You will learn, madame,” said de Marsay, “and then you will be doubly our enemy.”

Neither Nathan nor Marie understood de Marsay’s sally till he had gone. Rastignac followed him, and Mme. d’Espard went with them both as far as the door of the first drawing-room. Not another thought did the lovers give to the minister’s epigram; they saw the priceless wealth of a few minutes before them. Marie swiftly removed her glove, and held out her hand to Raoul, who took it and kissed it with the fervor of eighteen. The eyes of the Countess were eloquent of a devotion so generous and absolute that Raoul felt his own moisten. A tear is always at the command of men of nervous temperament.

“Where can I see you⁠—speak to you?” he said. “It will kill me if I must perpetually disguise my looks and my voice, my heart and my love.”

Moved by the tear, Marie promised to go to the Bois whenever the weather did not make it impossible. This promise gave Raoul more happiness than Florine had brought him in five years.

“I have so much to say to you! I suffer so from the silence to which we are condemned.”

The Countess was gazing at him rapturously, unable to reply, when the Marchioness returned.

“So!” she exclaimed as she entered, “you had no retort for de Marsay!”

“One must respect the dead,” replied Raoul. “Don’t you see that he is at the last gasp? Rastignac is acting as nurse, and hopes to be mentioned in the will.”

The Countess made an excuse of having calls to pay, and took leave, as a precaution against gossip. For this quarter of an hour Raoul had sacrificed precious time and most urgent claims. Marie as yet knew nothing of the details of a life which, while to all appearance gay and idle as a bird’s, had yet its side of very complicated business and extremely taxing work. When two beings, united by an enduring love, lead a life which each day knits them more closely in the bonds of mutual confidence and by the interchange of counsel over difficulties as they arise; when two hearts pour forth their sorrows, night and morning, with mingled sighs; when they share the same suspense and shudder together at a common danger, then everything is taken into account. The woman then can measure the love in an averted gaze, the cost of a hurried visit, she has her part in the business, the hurrying to and fro, the hopes and anxieties of the hard-worked, harassed man. If she complains, it is only of the actual conditions; her doubts are at rest, for she knows and appreciates the details of his life. But in the opening chapters of passion, when all is eagerness, suspicion, and demands; when neither of the two know themselves or each other; when, in addition, the woman is an idler, expecting love to stand guard all day at her door⁠—one of those who have an exaggerated estimate of their own claims, and choose to be obeyed even when obedience spells ruin to a career⁠—then love, in Paris and at the present time, becomes a superhuman task. Women of fashion have not yet thrown off the traditions of the eighteenth century, when every man had his own place marked out for him. Few of them know anything of the difficulties of existence for the bulk of men, all with a position to carve out, a distinction to win, a fortune to consolidate. Men of well-established fortune are, at present, rare exceptions. Only the old have time for love; men in their prime are chained, like Nathan, to the galleys of ambition.

Women, not yet reconciled to this change of habits, cannot bring themselves to believe any man short of the time which is so cheap a commodity with them; they can imagine no occupations or aims other than their own. Had the gallant vanquished the hydra of Lerna to get at them, he would not rise one whit in their estimation; the joy of seeing him is everything. They are grateful because he makes them happy, but never think of asking what their happiness has cost him. Whereas, if they, in an idle hour, have devised some stratagem such as they abound in, they flaunt it in your eyes as something superlative. You have wrenched the iron bars of destiny, while they have played with subterfuge and diplomacy⁠—and yet the palm is theirs, dispute were vain. After all, are they not right? The woman who gives up all for you, should she not receive all? She exacts no more than she gives.

Raoul, during his walk home, pondered on the difficulty of directing at one and the same time a fashionable intrigue, the ten-horse chariot of journalism, his theatrical pieces, and his entangled personal affairs.

“It will be a wretched paper tonight,” he said to himself as he went; “nothing from my hand, and the second number too!”

Mme. Félix de Vandenesse went three times to the Bois de Boulogne without seeing Raoul; she came home agitated and despairing. Nathan was determined not to show himself till he could do so in all the glory of a press magnate. He spent the week in looking out for a pair of horses and a suitable cabriolet and tiger, in persuading his partners of the necessity of sparing time so valuable as his, and in getting the purchase put down to the general expenses of the paper. Massol and du Tillet agreed so readily to this request, that he thought them the best fellows in the world. But for this assistance, life would have been impossible for Raoul. As it was, it became so taxing, in spite of the exquisite delights of ideal love with which it was mingled, that many men, even of excellent constitution, would have broken down under the strain of such distractions. A violent and reciprocal passion is bound to bulk largely even in an ordinary life; but when its object is a woman of conspicuous position, like Mme. de Vandenesse, it cannot fail to play havoc with that of a busy man like Nathan.

Here are some of the duties to which his passion gave the first place. Almost every day between two and three o’clock he rode to the Bois de Boulogne in the style of the purest dandy. He then learned in what house or at what theatre he might meet Mme. de Vandenesse again that evening. He never left a reception till close upon midnight, when he had at last succeeded in snapping up some long watched-for words, a few crumbs of tenderness, artfully dropped below the table, or in a corridor, or on the way to the carriage. Marie, who had launched him in the world of fashion, generally got him invitations to dinner at the houses where she visited. Nothing could be more natural. Raoul was too proud, and also too much in love, to say a word about business. He had to obey every caprice and whim of his innocent tyrant; while, at the same time, following closely the debates in the Chamber and the rapid current of politics, directing his paper, and bringing out two plays which were to furnish the sinews of war. If ever he asked to be let off a ball, a concert, or a drive, a look of annoyance from Mme. de Vandenesse was enough to make him sacrifice his interests to her pleasure.

When he returned home from these engagements at one or two in the morning, he worked till eight or nine, leaving scant time for sleep. Directly he was up, he plunged into consultations with influential supporters as to the policy of the paper. A thousand and one internal difficulties meantime would await his settlement, for journalism nowadays has an all-embracing grasp. Business, public and private interests, new ventures, the personal sensitiveness of literary men, as well as their compositions⁠—nothing is alien to it. When, harassed and exhausted, Nathan flew from his office to the theatre, from the theatre to the Chamber, from the Chamber to a creditor, he had next to present himself, calm and smiling, before Marie, and canter beside her carriage with the ease of a man who has no cares, and whose only business is pleasure. When, as sole reward for so many unnoticed acts of devotion, he found only the gentlest of words or prettiest assurances of undying attachment, a warm pressure of the hand, if by chance they escaped observation for a moment, or one or two passionate expressions in response to his own, Raoul began to feel that it was mere Quixotism not to make known the extravagant price he paid for these “modest favors,” as our fathers might have called them.

The opportunity for an explanation was not long of coming. On a lovely April day the Countess took Nathan’s arm in a secluded corner of the Bois de Boulogne. She had a pretty little quarrel to pick with him about one of those molehills which women have the art of turning into mountains. There was no smiling welcome, no radiant brow, the eyes did not sparkle with fun or happiness; it was a serious and burdened woman who met him.

“What is wrong?” said Nathan.

“Oh! Why worry about trifles?” she said. “Surely you know how childish women are.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Should I be here?”

“But you don’t smile, you don’t seem a bit glad to see me.”

“I suppose you mean that I am cross,” she said, with the resigned air of a woman determined to be a martyr.

Nathan walked on a few steps, an overshadowing fear gripping at his heart. After a moment’s silence, he went on:

“It can only be one of those idle fears, those vague suspicions, to which you give such exaggerated importance. A straw, a thread in your hands is enough to upset the balance of the world!”

“Satire next!⁠ ⁠… Well, I expected it,” she said, hanging her head.

“Marie, my beloved, do you not see that I say this only to wring your secret from you?”

“My secret will remain a secret, even after I have told you.”

“Well, tell me⁠ ⁠…”

“I am not loved,” she said, with the stealthy side-look, which is a woman’s instrument for probing the man she means to torture.

“Not loved!” exclaimed Nathan.

“No; you have too many things on your mind. What am I in the midst of this whirl? You are only too glad to forget me. Yesterday I came to the Bois, I waited for you⁠—”

“But⁠—”

“I had put on a new dress for you, and you did not come. Where were you?”

“But⁠—”

“I couldn’t tell. I went to Mme. d’Espard’s; you were not there.”

“But⁠—”

“At the opera in the evening my eyes never left the balcony. Every time the door opened my heart beat so that I thought it would break.”

“But⁠—”

“What an evening! You have no conception of such agony!”

“But⁠—”

“It eats into life⁠—”

“But⁠—”

“Well?” she said.

“Yes,” replied Nathan, “it does eat into life, and in a few months you will have consumed mine. Your wild reproaches have torn from me my secret also.⁠ ⁠… Ah! you are not loved? My God, you are loved too well.”

He drew a graphic picture of his straits. He told her how he sat up at nights, how he had to keep certain engagements at fixed hours, and how, above all things, he was bound to succeed. He showed her how insatiable were the claims of a paper, compelled, at risk of losing its reputation, to be beforehand with an accurate judgment on every event that took place, and how incessant was the call for a rapid survey of questions, which chased each other like clouds over the horizon in that period of political convulsions.

In a moment the mischief was done. Raoul had been told by the Marquise d’Espard that nothing is so ingenuous as a first love, and it soon appeared that the Countess erred in loving too much. A loving woman meets every difficulty with delight and with fresh proof of her passion. On seeing the panorama of this varied life unrolled before her, the Countess was filled with admiration. She had pictured Nathan a great man, but now he seemed transcendent. She blamed herself for an excessive love, and begged him to come only when he was at liberty; Nathan’s ambitious struggles sank to nothing before the glance she cast towards Heaven! She would wait! Henceforth her pleasure should be sacrificed. She, who had wished to be a stepping-stone, had proved only an obstacle.⁠ ⁠… She wept despairingly.

“Women, it seems,” she said with tearful eyes, “are fit only to love. Men have a thousand different ways of spending their energy; all we can do is to dream, and pray, and worship.”

So much love deserved a recompense. Peeping round, like a nightingale ready to alight from its branch beside a spring of water, she tried to make sure whether they were alone in this solitude, and whether no spectator lurked in the silence. Then raising her head to Raoul, who bent his to meet her, she allowed him a kiss, the first, the only, contraband kiss she was destined to give. At that instant she was happier than she had been for five years, while Raoul felt himself repaid for all that he had gone through.

They had to return to their carriages, and walked on, hardly knowing whither, along the road from Auteuil to Boulogne, moving with the even rhythmic step familiar to lovers. Confidence came to Raoul in that kiss, tendered with the modest frankness that is the outcome of a pure mind. All the evil came from society, not from this woman, who was so absolutely his. The hardships of his frenzied existence were nothing now to him; and Marie, in the ardor of her first passion, was bound, womanlike, soon to forget them, since she could not witness from hour to hour the terrible throes of a life too exceptional to be easily imagined.

Marie, penetrated by the grateful veneration, characteristic of a woman’s love, hastened with resolute and active tread along the sand-strewn alley. Like Raoul, she spoke but little, but that little came from the heart, and was full of meaning. The sky was clear; buds were forming on the larger trees, where already spots of green enlivened the delicate brown tracery; while the shrubs, birches, willows, and poplars showed their first tender and unsubstantial foliage. What heart can resist the harmony of such a scene? Love was now interpreting nature to the Countess, as it had already interpreted the ways of men.

“If only I were your first love!” she breathed.

“You are,” replied Raoul. “We have each been the first to reveal true love to the other.”

Nor did he speak falsely. In posing before this fresh young heart as a man of pure life, he became affected by the noble sentiments with which he embroidered his talk. His passion, at first a matter of policy and ambition, had become sincere. Starting from falsehood, he had arrived at truth. Add to this that all authors have a natural instinct, repressed only with effort, to admire moral beauty. Lastly, a man has but to make enough sacrifices in order to become attached to the person demanding them. Women of the world know this intuitively, just as courtesans do, and it may even be that they unconsciously act upon the knowledge.

The Countess, after her first burst of surprised gratitude, was delighted to have inspired so much devotion and been the cause of such astounding feats. The man who loved her was worthy of her. Raoul had not the least idea to what this playing at greatness would commit him. He forgot that no woman will allow her lover to fall below her ideal of him, and that nothing paltry can be suffered in a god. Marie had never heard that solution of the problem which Raoul had disclosed to his friends in the course of the supper at Véry’s. His struggles as a man of letters, forcing his way upward from the masses, had filled the first ten years of early manhood; now he was resolved to be loved by one of the queens of the fashionable world. Vanity, without which, as Chamfort said, love has no backbone, sustained his passion, and could not fail to augment it day by day.

“Can you swear to me,” said Marie, “that you are nothing, and never will be anything, to another woman?”

“My life has no space for another, even were my heart free,” was his reply, made in all sincerity, so completely had Florine dropped out of sight.

And she believed him.

When they reached the road where the carriages were waiting, Marie let go the arm of Nathan, who at once assumed a respectful attitude, as though this were a chance meeting. He walked with her, hat in hand, as far as the carriage, and then followed it down the avenue Charles X, inhaling the dust it raised, and watching the drooping feathers swaying in the wind.

In spite of Marie’s generous resolutions of sacrifice, Raoul, spurred on by passion, continued to appear wherever she went; he adored the half-vexed, half-smiling air with which she vainly tried to scold him for wasting the time he could so badly spare. Marie began to take Raoul’s work in hand, laid down what he was to do every hour in the day, and remained at home herself, so as to leave him no excuse for taking a holiday. She read his paper every morning, and she trumpeted the praises of Étienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, whom she thought charming, of Félicien Vernou, Claude Vignon, and all the staff. It was she who advised Raoul to deal generously with de Marsay when he died, and she read with dizzy pride the fine dignified tribute which he paid the late minister, while deploring his Machiavellianism and hatred of the masses. She was of course present in a stage box at the Gymnase on the first night of the play, to which Raoul was trusting for the funds of his undertaking, and which seemed to her, deceived by the hired applause, an immense success.

“You did not come to say farewell to the opera?” asked Lady Dudley, to whose house she went after the performance.

“No; I was at the Gymnase. It was a first night.”

“I can’t bear vaudeville. I feel to it as Louis XIV did to a Teniers,” said Lady Dudley.

“For my part,” remarked Mme. d’Espard, “I think they have improved very much. Vaudevilles now are charming comedies, full of wit, and the work of very clever men. I enjoy them immensely.”

“The acting is so good too,” said Marie. “The play tonight at the Gymnase went capitally; it seemed to suit the actors, and the dialogue is spirited and amusing.”

“A regular Beaumarchais business,” said Lady Dudley.

“M. Nathan is not a Molière yet, but⁠—” said Mme. d’Espard, with a look at the Countess.

“But he makes vaudevilles,” said Mme. Charles de Vandenesse.

“And unmakes ministers,” retorted Mme. de Manerville.

The Countess remained silent; she racked her brains for pungent epigrams; her heart burned with rage, but nothing better occurred to her than⁠—

“Some day perhaps he will make one.”

All the women exchanged glances of mysterious understanding. When Mme. de Vandenesse had gone, Moïna de Saint-Héren exclaimed:

“Why, she adores Nathan!”

“She makes no mystery of it,” said Mme. d’Espard.