the embers to see if a spark were yet alive, Madame Felix de
Vandenesse was undergoing those violent palpitations which a woman

feels at the certainty of doing wrong, and stepping on forbidden
ground,--emotions that are not without charm, and which awaken various

dormant faculties. Women are fond of using Bluebeard's bloody key,
that fine mythological idea for which we are indebted to Perrault.

The dramatist--who knew his Shakespeare--displayed his wretchedness,
related his struggle with men and things, made his hearer aware of his

baseless grandeur, his unrecognized political genius, his life without
noble affections. Without saying a single definite word, he contrived

to suggest to this charming woman that she should play the noble part
of Rebecca in Ivanhoe, and love and protect him. It was all, of

course, in the ethereal regions of sentiment. Forget-me-nots are not
more blue, lilies not more white than the images, thoughts, and

radiantly illumined brow of this accomplished artist, who was likely
to send his conversation to a publisher. He played his part of reptile

to this poor Eve so cleverly, he made the fatal bloom of the apple so
dazzling to her eyes, that Marie left the ball-room filled with that

species of remorse which resembles hope, flattered in all her
vanities, stirred to every corner of her heart, caught by her own

virtues, allured by her native pity for misfortune.
Perhaps Madame de Manerville had taken Vandenesse into the salon where

his wife was talking with Nathan; perhaps he had come there himself to
fetch Marie, and take her home; perhaps his conversation with his

former flame had awakened slumbering griefs; certain it is that when
his wife took his arm to leave the ball-room, she saw that his face

was sad and his look serious. The countess wondered if he was
displeased with her. No sooner were they seated in the carriage than

she turned to Felix and said, with a mischievous smile,--
"Did not I see you talking half the evening with Madame de

Manerville?"
Felix was not out of the tangled paths into which his wife had led him

by this charming little quarrel, when the carriage turned into their
court-yard. This was Marie's first artifice dictated by her new

emotion; and she even took pleasure in triumphing over a man who,
until then, had seemed to her so superior.

CHAPTER V
FLORINE

Between the rue Basse-du-Rempart and the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins,
Raoul had, on the third floor of an ugly and narrow house, in the

Passage Sandrie, a poor enough lodging, cold and bare, where he lived
ostensibly for the general public, for literary neophytes, and for his

creditors, duns, and other annoying persons whom he kept on the
threshold of private life. His real home, his fine existence, his

presentation of himself before his friends, was in the house of
Mademoiselle Florine, a second-class comedyactress, where, for ten

years, the said friends, journalists, certain authors, and writers in
general disported themselves in the society of equally illustrious

actresses. For ten years Raoul had attached himself so closely to this
woman that he passed more than half his life with her; he took all his

meals at her house unless he had some friend to invite, or an
invitation to dinner elsewhere.

To consummatecorruption, Florine added a lively wit, which
intercourse with artists had developed and practice sharpened day by

day. Wit is thought to be a quality rare in comedians. It is so
natural to suppose that persons who spend their lives in showing

things on the outside have nothing within. But if we reflect on the
small number of actors and actresses who live in each century, and

also on how many dramatic authors and fascinating women this
population has supplied relatively to its numbers, it is allowable to

refute that opinion, which rests, and apparently will rest forever, on
a criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticism made against dramatic artists,--namely, that their

personal sentiments are destroyed by the plastic presentation of
passions; whereas, in fact, they put into their art only their gifts

of mind, memory, and imagination. Great artists are beings who, to
quote Napoleon, can cut off at will the connection which Nature has

put between the senses and thought. Moliere and Talma, in their old
age, were more in love than ordinary men in all their lives.

Accustomed to listen to journalists, who guess at most things, putting
two and two together, to writers, who foresee and tell all that they

see; accustomed also to the ways of certain political personages, who
watched one another in her house, and profited by all admissions,

Florine presented in her own person a mixture of devil and angel,
which made her peculiarly fitted to receive these roues. They

delighted in her cool self-possession; her anomalies of mind and heart
entertained them prodigiously. Her house, enriched by gallant

tributes, displayed the exaggerated magnificence of women who, caring
little about the cost of things, care only for the things themselves,

and give them the value of their own caprices,--women who will break a
fan or a smelling-bottle fit for queens in a moment of passion, and

scream with rage if a servant breaks a ten-franc saucer from which
their poodle drinks.

Florine's dining-room, filled with her most distinguished offerings,
will give a fair idea of this pell-mell of regal and fantasticluxury.

Throughout, even on the ceilings, it was panelled in oak, picked out,
here and there, by dead-gold lines. These panels were framed in relief

with figures of children playing with fantastic animals, among which
the light danced and floated, touching here a sketch by Bixiou, that

maker of caricatures, there the cast of an angel holding a vessel of
holy water (presented by Francois Souchet), farther on a coquettish

painting of Joseph Bridau, a gloomy picture of a Spanish alchemist by
Hippolyte Schinner, an autograph of Lord Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb,

framed in carved ebony, while, hanging opposite as a species of
pendant, was a letter from Napoleon to Josephine. All these things

were placed about without the slightest symmetry, but with almost
imperceptible art. On the chimney-piece, of exquisitely carved oak,

there was nothing except a strange, evidently Florentine, ivory
statuette attributed to Michael Angelo, representing Pan discovering a

woman under the skin of a young shepherd, the original of which is in
the royal palace of Vienna. On either side were candelabra of

Renaissance design. A clock, by Boule, on a tortoise-shell stand,
inlaid with brass, sparkled in the centre of one panel between two

statuettes, undoubtedly obtained from the demolition of some abbey. In
the corners of the room, on pedestals, were lamps of royal

magnificence, as to which a manufacturer had made strong remonstrance
against adapting his lamps to Japanese vases. On a marvellous

sideboard was displayed a service of silver plate, the gift of an
English lord, also porcelains in high relief; in short, the luxury of

an actress who has no other property than her furniture.
The bedroom, all in violet, was a dream that Florine had indulged from

her debut, the chief features of which were curtains of violet velvet
lined with white silk, and looped over tulle; a ceiling of white

cashmere with violet satin rays, an ermine carpet beside the bed; in
the bed, the curtains of which resembled a lily turned upside down was

a lantern by which to read the newspaper plaudits or criticism" target="_blank" title="n.批评；评论(文)">criticisms before
they appeared in the morning. A yellow salon, its effect heightened by

trimmings of the color of Florentine bronze, was in harmony with the
rest of these magnificences, a further description of which would make

our pages resemble the posters of an auction sale. To find comparisons
for all these fine things, it would be necessary to go to a certain

house that was almost next door, belonging to a Rothschild.
Sophie Grignault, surnamed Florine by a form of baptism common in

theatres, had made her first appearances, in spite of her beauty, on
very inferior boards. Her success and her money she owed to Raoul

Nathan. This association of their two fates, usual enough in the
dramatic and literary world, did no harm to Raoul, who kept up the

outward conventions of a man of the world. Moreover, Florine's actual
means were precarious; her revenues came from her salary and her

leaves of absence, and barely sufficed for her dress and her household
expenses. Nathan gave her certain perquisites which he managed to levy

as critic on several of the new enterprises of industrial art. But
although he was always gallant and protecting towards her, that

protection had nothing regular or solid about it.
This uncertainty, and this life on a bough, as it were, did not alarm

Florine; she believed in her talent, and she believed in her beauty.
Her robust faith was somewhat comical to those who heard her staking

her future upon it, when remonstrances were made to her.
"I can have income enough when I please," she was wont to say; "I have

invested fifty francs on the Grand-livre."
No one could ever understand how it happened that Florine, handsome as

she was, had remained in obscurity for seven years; but the fact is,
Florine was enrolled as a supernumerary at thirteen years of age, and