beneath the malicious despotism of a self-made man on leaving the

maternal prison. Angelique, whose nature inclined her to deeper
sentiments, was thrown into the upper spheres of Parisian social life,

with the bridle lying loose upon her neck.
CHAPTER II

A CONFIDENCE BETWEEN SISTERS
Madame de Vandenesse, Marie-Angelique, who seemed to have broken down

under a weight of troubles too heavy for her soul to bear, was lying
back on the sofa with bent limbs, and her head tossing restlessly. She

had rushed to her sister's house after a brief appearance at the
Opera. Flowers were still in her hair, but others were scattered upon

the carpet, together with her gloves, her silk pelisse, and muff and
hood. Tears were mingling with the pearls on her bosom; her swollen

eyes appeared to make strange confidences. In the midst of so much
luxury her distress was horrible, and she seemed unable to summon

courage to speak.
"Poor darling!" said Madame du Tillet; "what a mistaken idea you have

of my marriage if you think that I can help you!"
Hearing this revelation, dragged from her sister's heart by the

violence of the storm she herself had raised there, the countess
looked with stupefied eyes at the banker's wife; her tears stopped,

and her eyes grew fixed.
"Are you in misery as well, my dearest?" she said, in a low voice.

"My griefs will not ease yours."
"But tell them to me, darling; I am not yet too selfish to listen. Are

we to suffer together once more, as we did in girlhood?"
"But alas! we suffer apart," said the banker's wife. "You and I live

in two worlds at enmity with each other. I go to the Tuileries when
you are not there. Our husbands belong to opposite parties. I am the

wife of an ambitiousbanker,--a bad man, my darling; while you have a
noble, kind, and generous husband."

"Oh! don't reproach me!" cried the countess. "To understand my
position, a woman must have borne the weariness of a vapid and barren

life, and have entered suddenly into a paradise of light and love; she
must know the happiness of feeling her whole life in that of another;

of espousing, as it were, the infinite emotions of a poet's soul; of
living a double existence,--going, coming with him in his courses

through space, through the world of ambition; suffering with his
griefs, rising on the wings of his high pleasures, developing her

faculties on some vast stage; and all this while living calm, serene,
and cold before an observing world. Ah! dearest, what happiness in

having at all hours an enormous interest, which multiplies the fibres
of the heart and varies them indefinitely! to feel no longer cold

indifference! to find one's very life depending on a thousand trifles!
--on a walk where an eye will beam to us from a crowd, on a glance

which pales the sun! Ah! what intoxication, dear, to live! to LIVE
when other women are praying on their knees for emotions that never

come to them! Remember, darling, that for this poem of delight there
is but a single moment,--youth! In a few years winter comes, and cold.

Ah! if you possessed these living riches of the heart, and were
threatened with the loss of them--"

Madame du Tillet, terrified, had covered her face with her hands
during the passionateutterance of this anthem.

"I did not even think of reproaching you, my beloved," she said at
last, seeing her sister's face bathed in hot tears. "You have cast

into my soul, in one moment, more brands than I have tears to quench.
Yes, the life I live would justify to my heart a love like that you

picture. Let me believe that if we could have seen each other oftener,
we should not now be where we are. If you had seen my sufferings, you

must have valued your own happiness the more, and you might have
strengthened me to resist my tyrant, and so have won a sort of peace.

Your misery is an incident which chance may change, but mine is daily
and perpetual. To my husband I am a peg on which to hang his luxury,

the sign-post of his ambition, a satisfaction to his vanity. He has no
real affection for me, and no confidence. Ferdinand is hard and

polished as that piece of marble," she continued, striking the
chimney-piece. "He distrusts me. Whatever I may want for myself is

refused before I ask it; but as for what flatters his vanity and
proclaims his wealth, I have no occasion to express a wish. He

decorates my apartments; he spends enormous sums upon my
entertainments; my servants, my opera-box, all external matters are

maintained with the utmostsplendor. His vanity spares no expense; he
would trim his children's swaddling-clothes with lace if he could, but

he would never hear their cries, or guess their needs. Do you
understand me? I am covered with diamonds when I go to court; I wear

the richest jewels in society, but I have not one farthing I can use.
Madame du Tillet, who, they say, is envied, who appears to float in

gold, has not a hundred francs she can call her own. If the father
cares little for his child, he cares less for its mother. Ah! he has

cruelly made me feel that he bought me, and that in marrying me
without a "dot" he was wronged. I might perhaps have won him to love

me, but there's an outside influence against it,--that of a woman, who
is over fifty years of age, the widow of a notary, who rules him. I

shall never be free, I know that, so long as he lives. My life is
regulated like that of a queen; my meals are served with the utmost

formality; at a given hour I must drive to the Bois; I am always
accompanied by two footmen in full dress; I am obliged to return at a

certain hour. Instead of giving orders, I receive them. At a ball, at
the theatre, a servant comes to me and says: 'Madame's carriage is

ready,' and I am obliged to go, in the midst, perhaps, of something I
enjoy. Ferdinand would be furious if I did not obey the etiquette he

prescribes for his wife; he frightens me. In the midst of this hateful
opulence, I find myself regretting the past, and thinking that our

mother was kind; she left us the nights when we could talk together;
at any rate, I was living with a dear being who loved me and suffered

with me; whereas here, in this sumptuous house, I live in a desert."
At this terrible confession the countess caught her sister's hand and

kissed it, weeping.
"How, then, can I help you," said Eugenie, in a low voice. "He would

be suspicious at once if he surprised us here, and would insist on
knowing all that you have been saying to me. I should be forced to

tell a lie, which is difficult indeed with so sly and treacherous a
man; he would lay traps for me. But enough of my own miseries; let us

think of yours. The forty thousand francs you want would be, of
course, a mere nothing to Ferdinand, who handles millions with that

fat banker, Baron de Nucingen. Sometimes, at dinner, in my presence,
they say things to each other which make me shudder. Du Tillet knows

my discretion, and they often talk freely before me, being sure of my
silence. Well, robbery and murder on the high-road seem to me merciful

compared to some of their financial schemes. Nucingen and he no more
mind destroying a man than if he were an animal. Often I am told to

receive poor dupes whose fate I have heard them talk of the night
before,--men who rush into some business where they are certain to

lose their all. I am tempted, like Leonardo in the brigand's cave, to
cry out, 'Beware!' But if I did, what would become of me? So I keep

silence. This splendid house is a cut-throat's den! But Ferdinand and
Nucingen will lavish millions for their own caprices. Ferdinand is now

buying from the other du Tillet family the site of their old castle;
he intends to rebuild it and add a forest with large domains to the

estate, and make his son a count; he declares that by the third
generation the family will be noble. Nucingen, who is tired of his

house in the rue Saint-Lazare, is building a palace. His wife is a
friend of mine--Ah!" she cried, interrupting herself, "she might help

us; she is very bold with her husband; her fortune is in her own
right. Yes, she could save you."

"Dear heart, I have but a few hours left; let us go to her this