Many tales, rich in situations, or made dramatic by the endless sport of chance, carry their plot in themselves, and can be related artistically or simply by any lips without the smallest loss of the beauty of the subject; but there are some incidents of human life to which only the accents of the heart can give life; there are certain anatomical details, so to speak, of which the delicacy appears only under the most skilful infusions of mind. Again, there are portraits which demand a soul, and are nothing without the more ethereal features of the responsive countenance. Finally, there are certain things which we know not how to say, or to depict, without I know not what unconceived harmonies that are under the influence of a day or an hour, of a happy conjunction of celestial signs, or of some occult moral predisposition.

Such revelations as these are absolutely required for the telling of this simple story, in which I would fain interest some of those naturally melancholy and pensive souls which are fed on bland emotions. If the writer, like a surgeon by the side of a dying friend, has become imbued with a sort of respect for the subject he is handling, why should not the reader share this inexplicable feeling? Is it so difficult to throw oneself into that vague, nervous melancholy which sheds gray hues on all our surroundings, which is half an illness, though its languid suffering is sometimes a pleasure?

If you are thinking by chance of the dear friends you have lost; if you are alone, and it is night, or the day is dying, read this narrative; otherwise, throw the book aside, here. If you have never buried some kind aunt, an invalid or poor, you will not understand these pages. To some, they will be odorous as of musk; to others, they will be as colorless, as strictly virtuous as those of Florian. In short, the reader must have known the luxury of tears; must have felt the wordless grief of a memory that drifts lightly by, bearing a shade that is dear but remote; he must possess some of those remembrances that make us at the same time regret those whom the earth has swallowed, and smile over vanished joys. And now the author would have you believe that for all the wealth of England he would not extort from poetry even one of her fictions to add grace to this narrative. This is a true story, on which you may pour out the treasure of your sensibilities, if you have any.

In these days, our language has as many dialects as there are men in the great human family. And it is a really curious and interesting thing to listen to the different views or versions of one and the same thing, or event, as given by the various species which make up the monograph of the Parisian⁠—the Parisian being taken as a generic term. Thus you might ask a man of the matter-of-fact type, “Do you know Madame Firmiani?” and this man would interpret Madame Firmiani by such an inventory as this: “A large house in the Rue du Bac, rooms handsomely furnished, fine pictures, a hundred thousand francs a year in good securities, and a husband who was formerly receiver-general in the department of Montenotte.” Having thus spoken, your matter-of-fact man⁠—stout and roundabout, almost always dressed in black⁠—draws up his lower lip, so as to cover the upper lip, and nods his head, as much as to say, “Very respectable people, there is nothing to be said against them.” Ask him no more. Your matter-of-fact people state everything in figures, dividends, or real estate⁠—a great word in their dictionary.

Turn to your right, go and question that young man, who belongs to the lounger species, and repeat your inquiry.

“Madame Firmiani?” says he. “Yes, yes, I know her very well. I go to her evenings. She receives on Wednesdays; a very good house to know.” Madame Firmiani is always metamorphosed into a house. The house is not a mere mass of stones architecturally put together; no, this word, in the language of the lounger, has no equivalent. And here your lounger, a dry-looking man, with a pleasant smile, saying clever nothings, but always with more acquired wit than natural wit, bends to your ear, and says with a knowing air: “I never saw Monsieur Firmiani. His social position consists in managing estates in Italy. But Madame Firmiani is French, and spends her income as a Parisian should. She gives excellent tea! It is one of the few houses where you really can amuse yourself, and where everything they give you is exquisite. It is very difficult to get introduced, and the best society is to be seen in her drawing-rooms.” Then the lounger emphasizes his last words by gravely taking a pinch of snuff; he applies it to his nose in little dabs, and seems to be saying: “I go to the house, but do not count on my introducing you.”

To folks of this type Madame Firmiani keeps a sort of inn without a sign.

“Why on earth can you want to go to Madame Firmiani’s? It is as dull there as it is at Court. Of what use are brains if they do not keep you out of such drawing-rooms, where, with poetry such as is now current, you hear the most trivial little ballad just hatched out.”

You have asked one of your friends who comes under the class of petty autocrats⁠—men who would like to have the universe under lock and key, and have nothing done without their leave. They are miserable at other people’s enjoyment, can forgive nothing but vice, wrongdoing, and infirmities, and want nothing but protégés. Aristocrats by taste, they are republicans out of spite, simply to discover many inferiors among their equals.

“Oh, Madame Firmiani, my dear fellow, is one of those adorable women whom Nature feels to be a sufficient excuse for all the ugly ones she has created by mistake; she is bewitching, she is kind! I should like to be in power, to be king, to have millions of money, solely (and three words are whispered in your ear). Shall I introduce you to her?”

This young man is a Schoolboy, known for his audacious bearing among men and his extreme shyness in private.

“Madame Firmiani!” cries another, twirling his cane in the air. “I will tell you what I think of her. She is a woman of between thirty and thirty-five, face a little passée, fine eyes, a flat figure, a worn contralto voice, dresses a great deal, rouges a little, manners charming; in short, my dear fellow, the remains of a pretty woman which are still worthy of a passion.”

This verdict is pronounced by a specimen of the genus Coxcomb, who, having just breakfasted, does not weigh his words, and is going out riding. At such moments a coxcomb is pitiless.

“She has a collection of magnificent pictures in her house. Go and see her,” says another; “nothing can be finer.”

You have come upon the species Amateur. This individual quits you to go to Pérignon’s, or to Tripet’s. To him Madame Firmiani is a number of painted canvases.

A Wife.⁠—“Madame Firmiani? I will not have you go there.” This phrase is the most suggestive view of all.⁠—Madame Firmiani! A dangerous woman! A siren! She dresses well, has good taste; she spoils the night’s rest of every wife.⁠—The speaker is of the species Shrew.

An Attaché to an Embassy.⁠—“Madame Firmiani? From Antwerp, is not she? I saw that woman, very handsome, about ten years ago. She was then at Rome.”

Men of the order of Attachés have a mania for utterances à la Talleyrand, their wit is often so subtle that their perception is imperceptible. They are like those billiard players who miss the balls with infinite skill. These men are not generally great talkers; but when they talk it is of nothing less than Spain, Vienna, Italy, or Saint-Petersburg. The names of countries act on them like springs; you press them, and the machinery plays all its tunes.

“Does not that Madame Firmiani see a great deal of the Faubourg Saint-Germain?” This is asked by a person who desires claims to distinction. She adds a de to everybody’s name⁠—to Monsieur Dupin, senior, to Monsieur Lafayette; she flings it right and left and spatters people with it. She spends her life in anxieties as to what is correct; but, for her sins, she lives in the unfashionable Marais, and her husband was an attorney⁠—but an attorney in the King’s Court.

“Madame Firmiani, monsieur? I do not know her.” This man is of the class of Dukes. He recognizes no woman who has not been presented. Excuse him; he was created Duke by Napoleon.

“Madame Firmiani? Was she not a singer at the Italian opera house?”⁠—A man of the genus Simpleton. The individuals of this genus must have an answer to everything. They would rather speak calumnies than be silent.

Two old Ladies (the wives of retired lawyers).⁠—The First (she has a cap with bows of ribbon, her face is wrinkled, her nose sharp, she holds a prayerbook, and her voice is harsh).⁠—“What was her maiden name?⁠—this Madame Firmiani?”

The Second (she has a little red face like a lady-apple, and a gentle voice).⁠—“She was a Cadignan, my dear, niece of the old Prince de Cadignan, and cousin, consequently, to the Due de Maufrigneuse.”

Madame Firmiani then is a Cadignan. Bereft of virtues, fortune, and youth, she would still be a Cadignan; that, like a prejudice, is always rich and living.

An Eccentric⁠—“My dear fellow, I never saw any clogs in her anteroom; you may go to her house without compromising yourself, and play there without hesitation; for if there should be any rogues, they will be people of quality, consequently there is no quarreling.”

An old man of the species Observer.⁠—“You go to Madame Firmiani’s, my dear fellow, and you find a handsome woman lounging indolently by the fire. She will scarcely move from her chair; she rises only to greet women, or ambassadors, or dukes⁠—people of importance. She is very gracious, she charms you, she talks well, and likes to talk of everything. She bears every indication of a passionate soul, but she is credited with too many adorers to have a lover. If suspicion rested on only two or three intimate visitors, we might know which was her cavaliere servente. But she is all mystery; she is married, and we have never seen her husband; Monsieur Firmiani is purely a creature of fancy, like the third horse we are made to pay for when traveling post, and which we never see; Madame, if you believe the professionals, has the finest contralto voice in Europe, and has not sung three times since she came to Paris; she receives numbers of people, and goes nowhere.”

The Observer speaks as an oracle. His words, his anecdotes, his quotations must all be accepted as truth, or you risk being taken for a man without knowledge of the world, without capabilities. He will slander you lightly in twenty drawing-rooms, where he is as essential as the first piece in the bill⁠—pieces so often played to the benches, but which once upon a time were successful. The Observer is a man of forty, never dines at home, and professes not to be dangerous to women; he wears powder and a maroon-colored coat; he can always have a seat in various boxes at the Théâtre des Bouffons. He is sometimes mistaken for a parasite, but he has held too high positions to be suspected of sponging, and, indeed, possesses an estate, in a department of which the name has never leaked out.

“Madame Firmiani? Why, my dear boy, she was a mistress of Murat’s.” This gentleman is a Contradictory. They supply the errata to every memory, rectify every fact, bet you a hundred to one, are cocksure of everything. You catch them out in a single evening in flagrant delicts of ubiquity. They assert that they were in Paris at the time of Mallet’s conspiracy, forgetting that half an hour before they had crossed the Beresina. The Contradictories are almost all members of the Legion of Honor; they talk very loud, have receding foreheads, and play high. “Madame Firmiani, a hundred thousand francs a year? Are you mad? Really some people scatter thousands a year with the liberality of authors, to whom it costs nothing to give their heroines handsome fortunes. But Madame Firmiani is a flirt who ruined a young fellow the other day, and hindered him from making a very good marriage. If she were not handsome, she would be penniless.”

This speaker you recognize: he is one of the Envious, and we will not sketch his least feature. The species is as well-known as that of the domestic felis. How is the perpetuity of envy to be explained? A vice which is wholly unprofitable!

People of fashion, literary people, very good people, and people of every kind were, in the month of January 1824, giving out so many different opinions on Madame Firmiani that it would be tiresome to report them all. We have only aimed at showing that a man wishing to know her, without choosing, or being able, to go to her house, would have been equally justified in the belief that she was a widow or a wife⁠—silly or witty, virtuous or immoral, rich or poor, gentle or devoid of soul, handsome or ugly; in fact, there were as many Mesdames Firmiani as there are varieties in social life, or sects in the Catholic Church. Frightful thought! We are all like lithographed plates, of which an endless number of copies are taken off by slander. These copies resemble or differ from the original by touches so imperceptibly slight that, but for the calumnies of our friends and the witticisms of newspapers, reputation would depend on the balance struck by each hearer between the limping truth and the lies to which Parisian wit lends wings.

Madame Firmiani, like many other women of dignity and noble pride, who close their hearts as a sanctuary and scorn the world, might have been very hardly judged by Monsieur de Bourbonne, an old gentleman of fortune, who had thought a good deal about her during the past winter. As it happened, this gentleman belonged to the Provincial Landowner class, folks who are accustomed to inquire into everything, and to make bargains with peasants. In this business a man grows keen-witted in spite of himself, as a soldier, in the long run, acquires the courage of routine. This inquirer, a native of Touraine, and not easily satisfied by the Paris dialects, was a very honorable gentleman who rejoiced in a nephew, his sole heir, for whom he planted his poplars. Their more than natural affection gave rise to much evil-speaking, which individuals of the various species of Tourangeau formulated with much mother wit; but it would be useless to record it; it would pale before that of Parisian tongues. When a man can think of his heir without displeasure, as he sees fine rows of poplars improving every day, his affection increases with each spadeful of earth he turns at the foot of his trees. Though such phenomena of sensibility may be uncommon, they still are to be met with in Touraine.

This much-loved nephew, whose name was Octave de Camps, was descended from the famous Abbé de Camps, so well known to the learned, or to the bibliomaniacs, which is not the same thing.

Provincial folks have a disagreeable habit of regarding young men who sell their reversions with a sort of respectable horror. This Gothic prejudice is bad for speculation, which the Government has hitherto found it necessary to encourage. Now, without consulting his uncle, Octave had on a sudden disposed of an estate in favor of the speculative builders. The château of Villaines would have been demolished but for the offers made by his old uncle to the representatives of the demolishing fraternity. To add to the testator’s wrath, a friend of Octave’s, a distant relation, one of those cousins with small wealth and great cunning, who lead their prudent neighbors to say, “I should not like to go to law with him!” had called, by chance, on Monsieur de Bourbonne and informed him that his nephew was ruined. Monsieur Octave de Camps, after dissipating his fortune for a certain Madame Firmiani, and not daring to confess his sins, had been reduced to giving lessons in mathematics, pending his coming into his uncle’s leavings. This distant cousin⁠—a sort of Charles Moor⁠—had not been ashamed of giving this disastrous news to the old country gentleman at the hour when, sitting before his spacious hearth, he was digesting a copious provincial dinner. But would-be legatees do not get rid of an uncle so easily as they could wish. This uncle, thanks to his obstinacy, refusing to believe the distant cousin, came out victorious over the indigestion brought on by the biography of his nephew. Some blows fall on the heart, others on the brain; the blow struck by the distant cousin fell on the stomach, and produced little effect, as the good man had a strong one.

Monsieur de Bourbonne, as a worthy disciple of Saint Thomas, came to Paris without telling Octave, and tried to get information as to his heir’s insolvency. The old gentleman, who had friends in the Faubourg Saint-Germain⁠—the Listomères, the Lenoncourts, and the Vandenesses⁠—heard so much slander, so much that was true, and so much that was false concerning Madame Firmiani, that he determined to call on her, under the name of Monsieur de Rouxellay, the name of his place. The prudent old man took care, in going to study Octave’s mistress⁠—as she was said to be⁠—to choose an evening when he knew that the young man was engaged on work to be well paid for; for Madame Firmiani was always at home to her young friend, a circumstance that no one could account for. As to Octave’s ruin, that, unfortunately, was no fiction.

Monsieur de Rouxellay was not at all like a stage uncle. As an old musketeer, a man of the best society, who had his successes in his day, he knew how to introduce himself with a courtly air, remembered the polished manners of the past, had a pretty wit, and understood almost all the roll of nobility. Though he loved the Bourbons with noble frankness, believed in God as gentlemen believe, and read only the Quotidienne, he was by no means so ridiculous as the Liberals of his department would have wished. He could hold his own with men about the Court, so long as he was not expected to talk of Mosè, or the play, or romanticism, or local color, or railways. He had not got beyond Monsieur de Voltaire, Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, Peyronnet, and the Chevalier Gluck, the Queen’s private musician.

“Madame,” said he to the Marquise de Listomère, to whom he had given his arm to go into Madame Firmiani’s room, “if this woman is my nephew’s mistress, I pity her. How can she bear to live in the midst of luxury and know that he is in a garret? Has she no soul? Octave is a fool to have invested the price of the estate of Villaines in the heart of a⁠—”

Monsieur de Bourbonne was of a Fossil species, and spoke only the language of a past day.

“But suppose he had lost it at play?”

“Well, madame, he would have had the pleasure of playing.”

“You think he has had no pleasure for his money?⁠—Look, here is Madame Firmiani.”

The old uncle’s brightest memories paled at the sight of his nephew’s supposed mistress. His anger died in a polite speech wrung from him by the presence of Madame Firmiani. By one of these chances which come only to pretty women, it was a moment when all her beauties shone with particular brilliancy, the result, perhaps, of the glitter of wax lights, of an exquisitely simple dress, of an indefinable reflection from the elegance in which she lived and moved. Only long study of the petty revolutions of an evening party in a Paris salon can enable one to appreciate the imperceptible shades that can tinge and change a woman’s face. There are moments when, pleased with her dress, feeling herself brilliant, happy at being admired and seeing herself the queen of a room full of remarkable men all smiling at her, a Parisian is conscious of her beauty and grace; she grows the lovelier by all the looks she meets; they give her animation, but their mute homage is transmitted by subtle glances to the man she loves. In such a moment a woman is invested, as it were, with supernatural power, and becomes a witch, an unconscious coquette; she involuntarily inspires the passion which is a secret intoxication to herself, she has smiles and looks that are fascinating. If this excitement which comes from the soul lends attractiveness even to ugly women, with what splendor does it not clothe a naturally elegant creature, finely made, fair, fresh, bright-eyed, and, above all, dressed with such taste as artists and even her most spiteful rivals must admit.

Have you ever met, for your happiness, some woman whose harmonious tones give to her speech the charm that is no less conspicuous in her manners, who knows how to talk and to be silent, who cares for you with delicate feeling, whose words are happily chosen and her language pure? Her banter flatters you, her criticism does not sting; she neither preaches nor disputes, but is interested in leading a discussion, and stops it at the right moment. Her manner is friendly and gay, her politeness is unforced, her eagerness to please is not servile; she reduces respect to a mere gentle shade; she never tires you, and leaves you satisfied with her and yourself. You will see her gracious presence stamped on the things she collects about her. In her home everything charms the eye, and you breathe, as it seems, your native air. This woman is quite natural. Yon never feel an effort, she flaunts nothing, her feelings are expressed with simplicity because they are genuine. Though candid, she never wounds the most sensitive pride; she accepts men as God made them, pitying the vicious, forgiving defects and absurdities, sympathizing with every age, and vexed with nothing because she has the tact to forefend everything. At once tender and lively, she first constrains and then consoles you. You love her so truly, that if this angel does wrong, you are ready to justify her.⁠—Then you know Madame Firmiani.

By the time old Bourbonne had talked with this woman for a quarter of an hour, sitting by her side, his nephew was absolved. He understood that, true or false, Octave’s connection with Madame Firmiani no doubt covered some mystery. Returning to the illusions of his youth, and judging of Madame Firmiani’s heart by her beauty, the old gentleman thought that a woman so sure of her dignity as she seemed, was incapable of a base action. Her black eyes spoke of so much peace of mind, the lines of her face were so noble, the forms so pure, and the passion of which she was accused seemed to weigh so little on her heart, that, as he admired all the pledges given to love and to virtue by that adorable countenance, the old man said to himself, “My nephew has committed some folly.”

Madame Firmiani owned to twenty-five. But the Matter-of-facts could prove that, having been married in 1813 at the age of sixteen, she must be at least eight-and-twenty in 1825. Nevertheless the same persons declared that she had never at any period of her life been so desirable, so perfectly a woman. She had no children, and had never had any; the hypothetical Firmiani, a respectable man of forty in 1813, had, it was said, only his name and fortune to offer her. So Madame Firmiani had come to the age when a Parisian best understands what passion is, and perhaps longs for it innocently in her unemployed hours; she had everything that the world can sell, or lend, or give. The Attachés declared she knew everything, the Contradictories said she had yet many things to learn; the Observers noticed that her hands were very white, her foot very small, her movements a little too undulating; but men of every species envied or disputed Octave’s good fortune, agreeing that she was the most aristocratic beauty in Paris.

Still young, rich, a perfect musician, witty, exquisite; welcomed, for the sake of the Cadignans, to whom she was related through her mother, by the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the oracle of the aristocratic quarter; beloved by her rivals the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse her cousin, the Marquise d’Espard, and Madame de Macumer, she flattered every vanity which feeds or excites love. And, indeed, she was the object of too many desires not to be the victim of fashionable attraction and those delightful calumnies which are wittily hinted behind a fan or in a whispered aside. Hence the remarks with which this story opened were necessary to mark the contrast between the real Firmiani and the Firmiani known to the world. Though some women forgave her for being happy, others could not overlook her respectability; now there is nothing so terrible, especially in Paris, as suspicion without foundation; it is impossible to kill it.

This sketch of a personality so admirable by nature can only give a feeble idea of it; it would need the brush of an Ingres to represent the dignity of the brow, the mass of fine hair, the majesty of the eyes, all the thoughts betrayed by the varying hues of the complexion. There was something of everything in this woman; poets could see in her both Joan of Arc and Agnès Sorel; but there was also the unknown woman⁠—the soul hidden behind this deceptive mask⁠—the soul of Eve, the wealth of evil, and the treasures of goodness, wrong and resignation, crime and self-sacrifice⁠—the Doña Julia and Haidee of Byron’s Don Juan.

The old soldier very boldly remained till the last in Madame Firmiani’s drawing-room; she found him quietly seated in an armchair, and staying with the pertinacity of a fly that must be killed to be got rid of. The clock marked two in the morning.

“Madame,” said the old gentleman, just as Madame Firmiani rose in the hope of making her guest understand that it was her pleasure that he should go. “Madame, I am Monsieur Octave de Camps’ uncle.”

Madame Firmiani at once sat down again, and her agitation was evident. In spite of his perspicacity, the planter of poplars could not make up his mind whether shame or pleasure made her turn pale. There are pleasures which do not exist without a little coy bashfulness⁠—delightful emotions which the chastest soul would fain keep behind a veil. The more sensitive a woman is, the more she lives to conceal her soul’s greatest joys. Many women, incomprehensible in their exquisite caprices, at times long to hear a name spoken by all the world, while they sometimes would sooner bury it in their hearts. Old Bourbonne did not read Madame Pirmiani’s agitation quite in this light; but forgive him; the country gentleman was suspicious.

“Indeed, monsieur?” said Madame Firmiani, with one of those clear and piercing looks in which we men can never see anything, because they question us too keenly.

“Indeed, madame; and do you know what I have been told⁠—I, in the depths of the country? That my nephew has ruined himself for you; and the unhappy boy is in a garret, while you live here in gold and silks. You will, I hope, forgive my rustic frankness, for it may be useful to you to be informed of the slander.”

“Stop, monsieur,” said Madame Firmiani, interrupting the gentleman with an imperious gesture, “I know all that. You are too polite to keep the conversation to this subject when I beg you to change it. You are too gallant, in the old-fashioned sense of the word,” she added, with a slightly ironical emphasis, “not to acknowledge that you have no right to cross-question me. However, it is ridiculous in me to justify myself. I hope you have a good enough opinion of my character to believe in the utter contempt I feel for money, though I was married without any fortune whatever to a man who had an immense fortune. I do not know whether your nephew is rich or poor; if I have received him, if I still receive him, it is because I regard him as worthy to move in the midst of my friends. All my friends, monsieur, respect each other; they know that I am not so philosophical as to entertain people whom I do not esteem. That, perhaps, shows a lack of charity; but my guardian angel has preserved in me, to this day, an intense aversion for gossip and dishonor.”

Though her voice was not quite firm at the beginning of this reply, the last words were spoken by Madame Firmiani with the cool decision of Célimène rallying the Misanthrope.

“Madame,” the Count resumed in a broken voice, “I am an old man⁠—I am almost a father to Octave⁠—I therefore must humbly crave your pardon beforehand for the only question I shall be so bold as to ask you; and I give you my word of honor as a gentleman that your reply will die here,” and he laid his hand on his heart with a really religious gesture. “Does gossip speak the truth; do you love Octave?”

“Monsieur,” said she, “I should answer anyone else with a look. But you, since you are almost a father to Monsieur de Camps, you I will ask what you would think of a woman who, in reply to your question, should say, Yes. To confess one’s love to the man we love⁠—when he loves us⁠—well, well; when we are sure of being loved forever, believe me, monsieur, it is an effort to us and a reward to him; but to anyone else!⁠—”

Madame Firmiani did not finish her sentence; she rose, bowed to the good gentleman, and vanished into her private rooms, where the sound of doors opened and shut in succession had language to the ears of the poplar planter.

“Damn it!” said he to himself, “what a woman! She is either a very cunning hussy or an angel;” and he went down to his hired fly in the courtyard, where the horses were pawing the pavement in silence. The coachman was asleep, after having cursed his customer a hundred times.

Next morning, by about eight o’clock, the old gentleman was mounting the stairs of a house in the Rue de l’Observance, where dwelt Octave de Camps. If there was in this world a man amazed, it was the young professor on seeing his uncle. The key was in the door, Octave’s lamp was still burning; he had sat up all night.

“Now, you rascal,” said Monsieur de Bourbonne, seating himself in an armchair. “How long has it been the fashion to make fools (speaking mildly) of uncles who have twenty-six thousand francs a year in good land in Touraine? and that, when you are sole heir? Do you know that formerly such relations were treated with respect? Pray, have you any fault to find with me? Have I bungled my business as an uncle? Have I demanded your respect? Have I ever refused you money? Have I shut my door in your face, saying you had only come to see how I was? Have you not the most accommodating, the least exacting uncle in France?⁠—I will not say in Europe, it would be claiming too much. You write to me, or you don’t write. I live on your professions of affection. I am laying out the prettiest estate in the neighborhood, a place that is the object of envy in all the department; but I do not mean to leave it you till the latest date possible⁠—a weakness that is very pardonable! And my gentleman sells his property, is lodged like a groom, has no servants, keeps no style⁠—”

“My dear uncle⁠—”

“It is not a case of uncle, but of nephew. I have a right to your confidence; so have it all out at once; it is the easiest way, I know by experience. Have you been gambling? Have you been speculating on the Bourse? Come, say, ‘Uncle, I am a wretch,’ and we kiss and are friends. But if you tell me any lie bigger than those I told at your age, I will sell my property, buy an annuity, and go back to the bad ways of my youth, if it is not too late.”

“Uncle⁠—”

“I went last night to see your Madame Firmiani,” said the uncle, kissing the tips of all his fingers together. “She is charming,” he went on. “You have the king’s warrant and approval, and your uncle’s consent, if that is any satisfaction to you. As to the sanction of the Church, that I suppose is unnecessary⁠—the sacraments, no doubt, are too costly. Come, speak out. Is it for her that you have ruined yourself?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Ah! the hussy! I would have bet upon it. In my day a woman of fashion could ruin a man more cleverly than any of your courtesans of today. I saw in her a resuscitation of the last century.”

“Uncle,” said Octave, in a voice that was at once sad and gentle, “you are under a mistake. Madame Firmiani deserves your esteem, and all the adoration of her admirers.”

“So hapless youth is always the same!” said Monsieur de Bourbonne, “Well, well! go on in your own way; tell me all the old stories once more. At the same time, you know, I dare say, that I am no chicken in such matters.”

“My dear uncle, here is a letter which will explain everything,” replied Octave, taking out an elegant letter-case⁠—her gift, no doubt. “When you have read it I will tell you the rest, and you will know Madame Firmiani as the world knows her not.”

“I have not got my spectacles,” said his uncle. “Read it to me.”

Octave began: “My dear love⁠—”

“Then you are very intimate with this woman?”

“Why, yes, uncle?”

“And you have not quarreled?”

“Quarreled!” echoed Octave in surprise. “We are married⁠—at Gretna Green.”

“Well, then, why do you dine for forty sous?”

“Let me proceed.”

“Very true. I am listening.”

Octave took up the letter again, and could not read certain passages without strong emotion.

“My beloved husband, you ask me the reason of my melancholy. Has it passed from my soul into my face, or have you only guessed it? And why should you not? Our hearts are so closely united. Besides, I cannot lie, though that perhaps is a misfortune. One of the conditions of being loved is, in a woman, to be always caressing and gay. Perhaps I ought to deceive you; but I would not do so, not even if it were to increase or to preserve the happiness you give me⁠—you lavish on me⁠—under which you overwhelm me. Oh, my dear, my love carries with it so much gratitude! And I must love forever, without measure. Yes, I must always be proud of you. Our glory⁠—a woman’s glory⁠—is all in the man she loves. Esteem, consideration, honor, are they not all his who has conquered everything? Well, and my angel has fallen. Yes, my dear, your last confession has dimmed my past happiness. From that moment I have felt myself humbled through you⁠—you, whom I believed to be the purest of men, as you are the tenderest and most loving. I must have supreme confidence in your still childlike heart to make an avowal which costs me so dear. What, poor darling, your father stole his fortune, and you know it, and you keep it! And you could tell me of this attorney’s triumph in a room full of the dumb witnesses of our love, and you are a gentleman, and you think yourself noble, and I am yours, and you are two-and-twenty! How monstrous all through!

“I have sought excuses for you; I have ascribed your indifference to your giddy youth; I know there is still much of the child in you. Perhaps you have never yet thought seriously of what is meant by wealth, and by honesty. Oh, your laughter hurt me so much! Only think, there is a family, ruined, always in grief, girls perhaps, who curse you day by day, an old man who says to himself every night, ‘I should not lack bread if Monsieur de Camps’ father had only been an honest man.’ ”

“What!” exclaimed Monsieur de Bourbonne, interrupting him, “were you such an idiot as to tell that woman the story of your father’s affair with the Bourgneufs? Women better understand spending a fortune than making one⁠—”

“They understand honesty. Let me go on, uncle!

“Octave, no power on earth is authorized to garble the language of honor. Look into your conscience, and ask it by what name to call the action to which you owe your riches.”

And the nephew looked at his uncle, who beat his head.

“I will not tell you all the thoughts that beset me; they can all be reduced to one, which is this: I cannot esteem a man who knowingly soils himself for a sum of money whether large or small. Five francs stolen at play, or six times a hundred thousand francs obtained by legal trickery, disgrace a man equally. I must tell you all: I feel myself sullied by a love which till now was all my joy. From the bottom of my soul there comes a voice I cannot stifle. I have wept to find that my conscience is stronger than my love. You might commit a crime, and I would hide you in my bosom from human justice if I could; but my devotion would go no further. Love, my dearest, is, in a woman, the most unlimited confidence, joined to I know not what craving to reverence and adore the being to whom she belongs. I have never conceived of love but as a fire in which the noblest feelings were yet further purified⁠—a fire which develops them to the utmost.

“I have but one thing more to say: Come to me poor, and I shall love you twice as much if possible: if not, give me up. If I see you no more, I know what is left to me to do.

“But, now, understand me clearly, I will not have you make restitution because I desire it. Consult your conscience. This is an act of justice, and must not be done as a sacrifice to love. I am your wife, and not your mistress; the point is not to please me, but to inspire me with the highest esteem. If I have misunderstood, if you have not clearly explained your father’s action, in short, if you can regard your fortune as legitimately acquired⁠—and how gladly would I persuade myself that you deserve no blame⁠—decide as the voice of conscience dictates; act wholly for yourself. A man who truly loves, as you love me, has too high a respect for all the holy inspiration he may get from his wife to be dishonorable.

“I blame myself now for all I have written. A word would perhaps have been enough, and my preaching instinct has carried me away. So I should like to be scolded⁠—not much, but a little. My dear, between you and me are not you the Power! You only should detect your own faults. Well, master mine, can you say I understand nothing about political discussion?”

“Well, uncle?” said Octave, whose eyes were full of tears.

“I see more writing, finish it.”

“Oh, there is nothing further but such things as only a lover may read.”

“Very good,” said the old man. “Very good, my dear boy. I was popular with the women in my day; but I would have you to believe that I too have loved; et ego in Arcadiâ. Still, I cannot imagine why you give lessons in mathematics.”

“My dear uncle, I am your nephew. Is not that as much as to say that I have made some inroads on the fortune left to me by my father? After reading that letter a complete revolution took place in me, in one instant I paid up the arrears of remorse. I could never describe to you the state in which I was. As I drove my cab to the Bois a voice cried to me, ‘Is that horse yours?’ As I ate my dinner, I said to myself, ‘Have you not stolen the food?’ I was ashamed of myself. My honesty was ardent in proportion to its youth. First I flew off to Madame Firmiani. Ah, my dear uncle, that day I had such joys of heart, such raptures of soul as were worth millions. With her I calculated how much I owed the Bourgneuf family; and I sentenced myself, against Madame Firmiani’s advice, to pay them interest at the rate of three percent. But my whole fortune was not enough to refund the sum. We were both of us lovers enough⁠—husband and wife enough⁠—for her to offer and for me to accept her savings⁠—”

“What, besides all her virtues, that adorable woman can save money!” cried the uncle.

“Do not laugh at her. Her position compels her to some thrift. Her husband went to Greece in 1820, and died about three years ago; but to this day it has been impossible to get legal proof of his death, or to lay hands on the will he no doubt made in favor of his wife; this important document was stolen, lost, or mislaid in a country where a man’s papers are not kept as they are in France, nor is there a Consul. So, not knowing whether she may not some day have to reckon with other and malignant heirs, she is obliged to be extremely careful, for she does not wish to have to give up her wealth as Chateaubriand has just given up the Ministry. Now I mean to earn a fortune that shall be mine, so as to restore my wife to opulence if she should be ruined.”

“And you never told me⁠—you never came to me. My dear nephew, believe me I love you well enough to pay your honest debts, your debts as a gentleman. I am the Uncle of the fifth act⁠—I will be revenged.”

“I know your revenges, uncle; but let me grow rich by my own toil. If you wish to befriend me, allow me a thousand crowns a year until I need capital for some business. I declare at this moment I am so happy that all I care about is to live. I give lessons that I may be no burden on anyone.

“Ah, if you could but know with what delight I made restitution. After making some inquiries I found the Bourgneufs in misery and destitution. They were living at Saint-Germain in a wretched house. The old father was manager in a lottery office; the two girls did the work of the house and kept the accounts. The mother was almost always ill. The two girls are charming, but they have learnt by bitter experience how little the world cares for beauty without fortune. What a picture did I find there! If I went to the house as the accomplice in a crime, I came out of it an honest man, and I have purged my father’s memory. I do not judge him, uncle; there is in a lawsuit an eagerness, a passion which may sometimes blind the most honest man alive. Lawyers know how to legitimatize the most preposterous claims; there are syllogisms in law to humor the errors of conscience, and judges have a right to make mistakes. My adventure was a perfect drama. To have played the part of Providence, to have fulfilled one of these hopeless wishes: ‘If only twenty thousand francs a year could drop from heaven!’⁠—a wish we all have uttered in jest; to see a sublime look of gratitude, amazement, and admiration take the place of a glance fraught with curses; to bring opulence into the midst of a family sitting round a turf fire in the evening, by the light of a wretched lamp⁠—No, words cannot paint such a scene. My excessive justice to them seemed unjust. Well, if there be a Paradise, my father must now be happy.⁠—As for myself, I am loved as man was never loved before. Madame Firmiani has given me more than happiness; she has taught me a delicacy of feeling which perhaps I lacked. Indeed, I call her Dear Conscience, one of those loving names that are the outcome of certain secret harmonies of spirit. Honesty is said to pay; I hope ere long to be rich myself; at this moment I am bent on solving a great industrial problem, and if I succeed I shall make millions.”

“My boy, you have your mother’s soul,” said the old man, hardly able to restrain the tears that rose at the remembrance of his sister.

At this instant, in spite of the height above the ground of Octave’s room, the young man and his uncle heard the noise of a carriage driving up.

“It is she! I know her horses by the way they pull up.”

And it was not long before Madame Firmiani made her appearance.

“Oh!” she cried, with an impulse of annoyance on seeing Monsieur de Bourbonne. “But our uncle is not in the way,” she went on with a sudden smile. “I have come to kneel at my husband’s feet and humbly beseech him to accept my fortune. I have just received from the Austrian Embassy a document proving Firmiani’s death. The paper, drawn up by the kind offices of the Austrian envoy at Constantinople, is quite formal, and the will which Firmiani’s valet had in keeping for me is subjoined.⁠—There, you are richer than I am, for you have there,” and she tapped her husband’s breast, “treasures which only God can add to.” Then, unable to disguise her happiness, she hid her face in Octave’s bosom.

“My sweet niece, we made love when I was young,” said the uncle, “but now you love. You women are all that is good and lovely in humanity, for you are never guilty of your faults; they always originate with us.”