voluptuous decorous dance? Such a girl does not knock audaciously at

your heart, like the dark-haired damsels that seem to say after the
fashion of Spanish beggars, 'Your money or your life; give me five

francs or take my contempt!' These insolent and somewhat dangerous
beauties may find favor in the sight of many men, but to my thinking

the blonde that has the good fortune to look extremely tender and
yielding, while foregoing none of her rights to scold, to tease, to

use unmeasured language, to be jealous without grounds, to do
anything, in short, that makes woman adorable,--the fair-haired girl,

I say, will always be more sure to marry than the ardent brunette.
Firewood is dear, you see.

"Isaure, white as an Alsacienne (she first saw the light at
Strasbourg, and spoke German with a slight and very agreeable French

accent), danced to admiration. Her feet, omitted on the passport,
though they really might have found a place there under the heading

Distinguishing Signs, were remarkable for their small size, and for
that particular something which old-fashioned dancing masters used to

call flic-flac, a something that put you in mind of Mlle. Mars'
agreeablelivery" target="_blank" title="n.送交；分娩；交货">delivery, for all the Muses are sisters, and the dancer and

poet alike have their feet upon the earth. Isaure's feet spoke lightly
and swiftly with a clearness and precision which augured well for

things of the heart. 'Elle a duc flic-flac,' was old Marcel's highest
word of praise, and old Marcel was the dancing master that deserved

the epithet of 'the Great.' People used to say 'the Great Marcel,' as
they said 'Frederick the Great,' and in Frederick's time."

"Did Marcel compose any ballets?" inquired Finot.
"Yes, something in the style of Les Quatre Elements and L'Europe

galante."
"What times they were, when great nobles dressed the dancers!" said

Finot.
"Improper!" said Bixiou. "Isaure did not raise herself on the tips of

her toes, she stayed on the ground, she swayed in the dance without
jerks, and neither more nor less voluptuously than a young lady ought

to do. There was a profoundphilosophy in Marcel's remark that every
age and condition had its dance; a married woman should not dance like

a young girl, nor a little jackanapes like a capitalist, nor a soldier
like a page; he even went so far as to say that the infantry" target="_blank" title="n.步兵(部队)">infantry ought not

to dance like the cavalry, and from this point he proceeded to
classify the world at large. All these fine distinctions seem very far

away."
"Ah!" said Blondet, "you have set your finger on a great calamity. If

Marcel had been properly understood, there would have been no French
Revolution."

"It had been Godefroid's privilege to run over Europe," resumed
Bixiou, "nor had he neglected his opportunities of making a thorough

comparative study of European dancing. Perhaps but for profound
diligence in the pursuit of what is usually held to be useless

knowledge, he would never have fallen in love with this young lady; as
it was, out of the three hundred guests that crowded the handsome

rooms in the Rue Saint-Lazare, he alone comprehended the unpublished
romance revealed by a garrulous quadrille. People certainly noticed

Isaure d'Aldrigger's dancing; but in this present century the cry is
'Skim lightly over the surface, do not lean your weight on it;' so one

said (he was a notary's clerk), 'There is a girl that dances
uncommonly well;' another (a lady in a turban), 'There is a young lady

that dances enchantingly;' and a third (a woman of thirty), 'That
little thing is not dancing badly.'--But to return to the great

Marcel, let us parody his best known saying with, 'How much there is
in an avant-deux.' "

"And let us get on a little faster," said Blondet; "you are
maundering."

"Isaure," continued Bixiou, looking askance at Blondet, "wore a simple
white crepe dress with green ribbons; she had a camellia in her hair,

a camellia at her waist, another camellia at her skirt-hem, and a
camellia----"

"Come, now! here comes Sancho's three hundred goats."
"Therein lies all literature, dear boy. Clarissa is a masterpiece,

there are fourteen volumes of her, and the most wooden-headed
playwright would give you the whole of Clarissa in a single act. So

long as I amuse you, what have you to complain of? That costume was
positively lovely. Don't you like camillias? Would you rather have

dahlias? No? Very good, chestnuts then, here's for you." (And probably
Bixiou flung a chestnut across the table, for we heard something drop

on a plate.)
"I was wrong, I acknowledge it. Go on," said Blondet.

"I resume. 'Pretty enough to marry, isn't she?' said Rastignac, coming
up to Godefroid de Beaudenord, and indicating the little one with the

spotless white camellias, every petal intact.
"Rastignac being an intimate friend, Godefroid answered in a low

voice, 'Well, so I was thinking. I was saying to myself that instead
of enjoying my happiness with fear and trembling at every moment;

instead of taking a world of trouble to whisper a word in an
inattentive ear, of looking over the house at the Italiens to see if

some one wears a red flower or a white in her hair, or watching along
the Corso for a gloved hand on a carriage door, as we used to do at

Milan; instead of snatching a mouthful of baba like a lackey finishing
off a bottle behind a door, or wearing out one's wits with giving and

receiving letters like a postman--letters that consist not of a mere
couple of tender lines, but expand to five folio volumes to-day and

contract to a couple of sheets to-morrow (a tiresome practice);
instead of dragging along over the ruts and dodging behind hedges--it

would be better to give way to the adorable passion that Jean-Jacques
Rousseau envied, to fall frankly in love with a girl like Isaure, with

a view to making her my wife, if upon exchange of sentiments our
hearts respond to each other; to be Werther, in short, with a happy

ending.'
" 'Which is a common weakness,' returned Rastignac without laughing.

'Possibly in your place I might plunge into the unspeakable delights
of that ascetic course; it possesses the merits of novelty and

originality, and it is not very expensive. Your Monna Lisa is sweet,
but inane as music for the ballet; I give you warning.'

"Rastignac made this last remark in a way which set Beaudenord
thinking that his friend had his own motives for disenchanting him;

Beaudenord had not been a diplomatist for nothing; he fancied that
Rastignac wanted to cut him out. If a man mistakes his vocation, the

false start none the less influences him for the rest of his life.
Godefroid was so evidentlysmitten with Mlle. Isaure d'Aldrigger, that

Rastignac went off to a tall girl chatting in the card-room.--
'Malvina,' he said, lowering his voice, 'your sister has just netted a

fish worth eighteen thousand francs a year. He has a name, a manner,
and a certain position in the world; keep an eye on them; be careful

to gain Isaure's confidence; and if they philander, do not let her
send word to him unless you have seen it first----'

"Towards two o'clock in the morning, Isaure was standing beside a
diminutive Shepherdess of the Alps, a little woman of forty,

coquettish as a Zerlina. A footman announced that 'Mme. la Baronne's
carriage stops the way,' and Godefroid forthwith saw his beautiful

maiden out of a German song draw her fantastical mother into the
cloakroom, whither Malvina followed them; and (boy that he was) he

must needs go to discover into what pot of preserves the infant Joby
had fallen, and had the pleasure of watching Isaure and Malvina

coaxing that sparkling person, their mamma, into her pelisse, with all
the little tender precautions required for a night journey in Paris.

Of course, the girls on their side watched Beaudenord out of the
corners of their eyes, as well-taught kittens watch a mouse, without

seeming to see it at all. With a certain satisfaction Beaudenord noted
the bearing, manner, and appearance, of the tall well-gloved Alsacien

servant in livery who brought three pairs of fur-lined overshoes for
his mistresses.

"Never were two sisters more unlike than Isaure and Malvina. Malvina
the elder was tall and dark-haired, Isaure was short and fair, and her