" ' "When can I see her?"

" ' "At twelve o'clock."
" ' "Is Madame la Comtesse ill?"

" ' "No, sir, but she only came home at three o'clock this morning
from a ball."

" ' "My name is Gobseck, tell her that I shall call again at twelve
o'clock," and I went out, leaving traces of my muddy boots on the

carpet which covered the paved staircase. I like to leave mud on a
rich man's carpet; it is not petty spite; I like to make them feel a

touch of the claws of Necessity. In the Rue Montmartre I thrust open
the old gateway of a poor-looking house, and looked into a dark

courtyard where the sunlight never shines. The porter's lodge was
grimy, the window looked like the sleeve of some shabby wadded gown--

greasy, dirty, and full of holes.
" ' "Mlle. Fanny Malvaut?"

" ' "She has gone out; but if you have come about a bill, the money is
waiting for you."

" ' "I will look in again," said I.
" 'As soon as I knew that the porter had the money for me, I wanted to

know what the girl was like; I pictured her as pretty. The rest of the
morning I spent in looking at the prints in the shop windows along the

boulevard; then, just as it struck twelve, I went through the
Countess' ante-chamber.

" ' "Madame has just this minute rung for me," said the maid; "I don't
think she can see you yet."

" ' "I will wait," said I, and sat down in an easy-chair.
" 'Venetian shutters were opened, and presently the maid came hurrying

back.
" ' "Come in, sir."

" 'From the sweet tone of the girl's voice, I knew that the mistress
could not be ready to pay. What a handsome woman it was that I saw in

another moment! She had flung an Indian shawl hastily over her bare
shoulders, covering herself with it completely, while it revealed the

bare outlines of the form beneath. She wore a loose gown trimmed with
snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress' bills amounted

to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her
dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted

carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed
lay in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid

money to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious
hanging draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider-

down quilt, its lace border standing out in contrast against the
background of blue silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the

imagination. A pair of satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin
rug spread by the carved mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had

flung them off in her weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung
over a chair, the sleeves touching the floor; stockings which a breath

would have blown away were twisted about the leg of an easy-chair;
while ribbon garters straggled over a settee. A fan of price, half

unfolded, glittered on the chimney-piece. Drawers stood open; flowers,
diamonds, gloves, a bouquet, a girdle, were littered about. The room

was full of vague sweet perfume. And--beneath all the luxury and
disorder, beauty and incongruity, I saw Misery crouching in wait for

her or for her adorer, Misery rearing its head, for the Countess had
begun to feel the edge of those fangs. Her tired face was an epitome

of the room strewn with relics of past festival. The scattered
gewgaws, pitiable this morning, when gathered together and coherent,

had turned heads the night before.
" 'What efforts to drink of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read in

these traces of love stricken by the thunderboltremorse--in this
visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There

were faint red marks on her young face, signs of the fineness of the
skin; but her features were coarsened, as it were, and the circles

about her eyes were unwontedly dark. Nature nevertheless was so
vigorous in her, that these traces of past folly did not spoil her

beauty. Her eyes glittered. She looked like some Herodias of da
Vinci's (I have dealt in pictures), so magnificently full of life and

energy was she; there was nothing starved nor stinted in feature or
outline; she awakened desire; it seemed to me that there was some

passion in her yet stronger than love. I was taken with her. It was a
long while since my heart had throbbed; so I was paid then and there--

for I would give a thousand francs for a sensation that should bring
me back memories of youth.

" ' "Monsieur," she said, finding a chair for me, "will you be so good
as to wait?"

" ' "Until this time to-morrow, madame," I said, folding up the bill
again. "I cannot legally protest this bill any sooner." And within

myself I said--"Pay the price of your luxury, pay for your name, pay
for your ease, pay for the monopoly which you enjoy! The rich have

invented judges and courts of law to secure their goods, and the
guillotine--that candle in which so many lie in silk, under silken

coverlets, there is remorse, and grinding of teeth beneath a smile,
and those fantastical lions' jaws are gaping to set their fangs in

your heart."
" ' "Protest the bill! Can you mean it?" she cried, with her eyes upon

me; "could you have so little consideration for me?"
" ' "If the King himself owed money to me, madame, and did not pay it,

I should summons him even sooner than any other debtor."
" 'While we were speaking, somebody tapped gently at the door.

" ' "I cannot see any one," she cried imperiously.
" ' "But, Anastasie, I particularly wish to speak to you."

" ' "Not just now, dear," she answered in a milder tone, but with no
sign of relenting.

" ' "What nonsense! You are talking to some one," said the voice, and
in came a man who could only be the Count.

" 'The Countess gave me a glance. I saw how it was. She was thoroughly
in my power. There was a time, when I was young, and might perhaps

have been stupid enough not to protest the bill. At Pondicherry, in
1763, I let a woman off, and nicely she paid me out afterwards. I

deserved it; what call was there for me to trust her?
" ' "What does this gentleman want?" asked the Count.

" 'I could see that the Countess was trembling from head to foot; the
white satin skin of her throat was rough, "turned to goose flesh," to

use the familiar expression. As for me, I laughed in myself without
moving a muscle.

" ' "This gentleman is one of my tradesmen," she said.
" 'The Count turned his back on me; I drew the bill half out of my

pocket. After that inexorable movement, she came over to me and put a
diamond into my hands. "Take it," she said, "and be gone."

" 'We exchanged values, and I made my bow and went. The diamond was
quite worth twelve hundred francs to me. Out in the courtyard I saw a

swarm of flunkeys, brushing out their liveries, waxing their boots,
and cleaning sumptuous equipages.

" ' "This is what brings these people to me!" said I to myself. "It is
to keep up this kind of thing that they steal millions with all due

formalities, and betray their country. The great lord, and the little
man who apes the great lord, bathes in mud once for all to save

himself a splash or two when he goes afoot through the streets."
" 'Just then the great gates were opened to admit a cabriolet. It was

the same young fellow who had brought the bill to me.
" ' "Sir," I said, as he alighted, "here are two hundred francs, which

I beg you to return to Mme. la Comtesse, and have the goodness to tell
her that I hold the pledge which she deposited with me this morning at

her disposition for a week."
" 'He took the two hundred francs, and an ironical smile stole over

his face; it was as if he had said, "Aha! so she has paid it, has she?
. . . Faith, so much the better!" I read the Countess' future in his

face. That good-looking, fair-haired young gentleman is a heartless
gambler; he will ruin himself, ruin her, ruin her husband, ruin the

children, eat up their portions, and work more havoc in Parisian
salons than a whole battery of howitzers in a regiment.

" 'I went back to see Mlle. Fanny in the Rue Montmartre, climbed a
very steep, narrow staircase, and reached a two-roomed dwelling on the

fifth floor. Everything was as neat as a new ducat. I did not see a
speck of dust on the furniture in the first room, where Mlle. Fanny