and daughter placed as we then were. But I braved them all, my mother,
my husband, the world, by public coquetries which society talked of,--

and heaven knows how it talked! You can see, my friend, how the men
with whom I was accused of folly were to me the dagger with which to

stab my enemies. Thinking only of my vengeance, I did not see or feel
the wounds I was inflicting on myself. Innocent as a child, I was

thought a wicked woman, the worst of women, and I knew nothing of it!
The world is very foolish, very blind, very ignorant; it can penetrate

no secrets but those which amuse it and serve its malice: noble
things, great things, it puts its hand before its eyes to avoid

seeing. But, as I look back, it seems to me that I had an attitude and
aspect of indignantinnocence, with movements of pride, which a great

painter would have recognized. I must have enlivened many a ball with
my tempests of anger and disdain. Lost poesy! such sublime poems are

only made in the glowing indignation which seizes us at twenty. Later,
we are wrathful no longer, we are too weary, vice no longer amazes us,

we are cowards, we fear. But then--oh! I kept a great pace! For all
that I played the silliest personage in the world; I was charged with

crimes by which I never benefited. But I had such pleasure in
compromising myself. That was my revenge! Ah! I have played many

childish tricks! I went to Italy with a thoughtless youth, whom I
crushed when he spoke to me of love, but later, when I herd that he

was compromised on my account (he had committed a forgery to get
money) I rushed to save him. My mother and husband kept me almost

without means; but, this time, I went to the king. Louis XVIII., that
man without a heart, was touched; he gave me a hundred thousand francs

from his privy purse. The Marquis d'Esgrignon--you must have seen him
in society for he ended by making a rich marriage--was saved from the

abyss into which he had plunged for my sake. That adventure, caused by
my own folly, led me to reflect. I saw that I myself was the first

victim of my vengeance. My mother, who knew I was too proud, too
d'Uxelles, to conduct myself really ill, began to see the harm that

she had done me and was frightened by it. She was then fifty-two years
of age; she left Paris and went to live at Uxelles. There she expiates

her wrong-doing by a life of devotion and expresses the utmost
affection for me. After her departure I was face to face, alone, with

Monsieur de Maufrigneuse. Oh! my friend, you men can never know what
an old man of gallantry can be. What a home is that of a man

accustomed to the adulation of women of the world, when he finds
neither incense nor censer in his own house! dead to all! and yet,

perhaps for that very reason, jealous. I wished--when Monsieur de
Maufrigneuse was wholly mine--I wished to be a good wife, but I found

myself repulsed with the harshness of a soured spirit by a man who
treated me like a child and took pleasure in humiliating my self-

respect at every turn, in crushing me under the scorn of his
experience, and in convicting me of total ignorance. He wounded me on

all occasions. He did everything to make me detest him and to give me
the right to betray him; but I was still the dupe of my own hope and

of my desire to do right through several years. Shall I tell you the
cruel saying that drove me to further follies? 'The Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse has gone back to her husband,' said the world. 'Bah! it
is always a triumph to bring the dead to life; it is all she can now

do,' replied my best friend, a relation, she, at whose house I met
you--"

"Madame d'Espard!" cried Daniel, with a gesture of horror.
"Oh! I have forgiven her. Besides, it was very witty; and I have

myself made just as cruel epigrams on other poor women as innocent as
myself."

D'Arthez again kissed the hand of that saintly woman who, having
hacked her mother in pieces, and turned the Prince de Cadignan into an

Othello, now proceeded to accuse herself in order to appear in the
eyes of that innocent great man as immaculate as the silliest or the

wisest of women desire to seem at all costs to their lovers.
"You will readily understand, my friend, that I returned to society

for the purpose of excitement and I may say of notoriety. I felt that
I must conquer my independence. I led a life of dissipation. To divert

my mind, to forget my real life in fictitious enjoyments I was gay, I
shone, I gave fetes, I played the princess, and I ran in debt. At home

I could forget myself in the sleep of weariness, able to rise the next
day gay, and frivolous for the world; but in that sad struggle to

escape my real life I wasted my fortune. The revolution of 1830 came;
it came at the very moment when I had met, at the end of that Arabian

Nights' life, a pure and sacred love which (I desire to be honest) I
had longed to know. Was it not natural in a woman whose heart,

repressed by many causes and accidents, was awakening at an age when a
woman feels herself cheated if she has never known, like the women she

sees about her, a happy love? Ah! why was Michel Chrestien so
respectful? Why did he not seek to meet me? There again was another

mockery! But what of that? in falling, I have lost everything; I have
no illusions left; I had tasted of all things except the one fruit for

which I have no longer teeth. Yes, I found myself disenchanted with
the world at the very moment when I was forced to leave it.

Providential, was it not? like all those strange insensibilities which
prepare us for death" (she made a gesture full of pious unction). "All

things served me then," she continued; "the disasters of the monarchy
and its ruin helped me to bury myself. My son consoles me for much.

Maternal love takes the place of all frustrated feelings. The world is
surprised at my retirement, but to me it has brought peace. Ah! if you

knew how happy the poor creature before you is in this little place.
In sacrificing all to my son I forget to think of joys of which I am

and ever must be ignorant. Yes, hope has flown, I now fear everything;
no doubt I should repulse the truest sentiment, the purest and most

veritable love, in memory of the deceptions and the miseries of my
life. It is all horrible, is it not? and yet, what I have told you is

the history of many women."
The last few words were said in a tone of easy pleasantry which

recalled the presence of the woman of the world. D'Arthez was
dumbfounded. In his eyes convicts sent to the galleys for murder, or

aggravated robbery, or for putting a wrong name to checks, were saints
compared to the men and women of society. This atrocious elegy, forged

in the arsenal of lies, and steeped in the waters of the Parisian
Styx, had been poured into his ears with the inimitable accent of

truth. The grave author contemplated for a moment that adorable woman
lying back in her easy-chair, her two hands pendant from its arms like

dewdrops from a rose-leaf, overcome by her own revelation, living over
again the sorrows of her life as she told them--in short an angel of

melancholy.
"And judge," she cried, suddenly lifting herself with a spring and

raising her hand, while lightning flashed from eyes where twenty
chaste years shone--"judge of the impression the love of a man like

Michel must have made upon me. But by some irony of fate--or was it
the hand of God?--well, he died; died in saving the life of, whom do

you suppose? of Monsieur de Cadignan. Are you now surprised to find me
thoughtful?"

This was the last drop; poor d'Arthez could bear no more. He fell upon
his knees, and laid his head on Diane's hand, weeping soft tears such

as the angels shed,--if angels weep. As Daniel was in that bent
posture, Madame de Cadignan could safely let a malicious smile of

triumphflicker on her lips, a smile such as the monkeys wear after
playing a sly trick--if monkeys smile.

"Ah! I have him," thought she; and, indeed, she had him fast.
"But you are--" he said, raising his fine head and looking at her with

eyes of love.
"Virgin and martyr," she replied, smiling at the commonness of that

hackneyed expression, but giving it a freshness of meaning by her
smile, so full of painful gayety. "If I laugh," she continued, "it is

that I am thinking of that princess whom the world thinks it knows,
that Duchesse de Maufrigneuse to whom it gives as lovers de Marsay,

that infamous de Trailles (a political cutthroat), and that little
fool of a d'Esgrignon, and Rastignac, Rubempre, ambassadors,

ministers, Russian generals, heaven knows who! all Europe! They have
gossiped about that album which I ordered made, believing that those

who admired me were my friends. Ah! it is frightful! I wonder that I