absurd superstitions.
" 'You are very credulous, Pauline!'

" 'The woman whom you will love is going to kill you--there is no
doubt of it,' she said, looking at me with alarm.

"She took up her brush again and dipped it in the color; her great
agitation was evident; she looked at me no longer. I was ready to give

credence just then to superstitious fancies; no man is utterly
wretched so long as he is superstitious; a belief of that kind is

often in reality a hope.
"I found that those two magnificent five-franc pieces were lying, in

fact, upon my table when I reached my room. During the first confused
thoughts of early slumber, I tried to audit my accounts so as to

explain this unhoped-for windfall; but I lost myself in useless
calculations, and slept. Just as I was leaving my room to engage a box

the next morning, Pauline came to see me.
" 'Perhaps your ten francs is not enough,' said the amiable, kind-

hearted girl; 'my mother told me to offer you this money. Take it,
please, take it!'

"She laid three crowns upon the table, and tried to escape, but I
would not let her go. Admiration dried the tears that sprang to my

eyes.
" 'You are an angel, Pauline,' I said. 'It is not the loan that

touches me so much as the delicacy with which it is offered. I used to
wish for a rich wife, a fashionable woman of rank; and now, alas! I

would rather possess millions, and find some girl, as poor as you are,
with a generous nature like your own; and I would renounce a fatal

passion which will kill me. Perhaps what you told me will come true.'
" 'That is enough,' she said, and fled away; the fresh trills of her

birdlike voice rang up the staircase.
" 'She is very happy in not yet knowing love,' I said to myself,

thinking of the torments I had endured for many months past.
"Pauline's fifteen francs were invaluable to me. Foedora, thinking of

the stifling odor of the crowded place where we were to spend several
hours, was sorry that she had not brought a bouquet; I went in search

of flowers for her, as I had laid already my life and my fate at her
feet. With a pleasure in which compunction mingled, I gave her a

bouquet. I learned from its price the extravagance of superficial
gallantry in the world. But very soon she complained of the heavy

scent of a Mexican jessamine. The interior of the theatre, the bare
bench on which she was to sit, filled her with intolerable disgust;

she upbraided me for bringing her there. Although she sat beside me,
she wished to go, and she went. I had spent sleepless nights, and

squandered two months of my life for her, and I could not please her.
Never had that tormenting spirit been more unfeeling or more

fascinating.
"I sat beside her in the cramped back seat of the vehicle; all the way

I could feel her breath on me and the contact of her perfumed glove; I
saw distinctly all her exceeding beauty; I inhaled a vague scent of

orris-root; so wholly a woman she was, with no touch of womanhood.
Just then a sudden gleam of light lit up the depths of this mysterious

life for me. I thought all at once of a book just published by a poet,
a genuineconception of the artist, in the shape of the statue of

Polycletus.
"I seemed to see that monstrouscreation, at one time an officer,

breaking in a spirited horse; at another, a girl, who gives herself up
to her toilette and breaks her lovers' hearts; or again, a false lover

driving a timid and gentle maid to despair. Unable to analyze Foedora
by any other process, I told her this fanciful story; but no hint of

her resemblance to this poetry of the impossible crossed her--it
simply diverted her; she was like a child over a story from the

Arabian Nights.
" 'Foedora must be shielded by some talisman,' I thought to myself as

I went back, 'or she could not resist the love of a man of my age, the
infectious fever of that splendid malady of the soul. Is Foedora, like

Lady Delacour, a prey to a cancer? Her life is certainly an unnatural
one.'

"I shuddered at the thought. Then I decided on a plan, at once the
wildest and the most rational that lover ever dreamed of. I would

study this woman from a physical point of view, as I had already
studied her intellectually, and to this end I made up my mind to spend

a night in her room without her knowledge. This project preyed upon me
as a thirst for revenge gnaws at the heart of a Corsican monk. This is

how I carried it out. On the days when Foedora received, her rooms
were far too crowded for the hall-porter to keep the balance even

between goers and comers; I could remain in the house, I felt sure,
without causing a scandal in it, and I waited the countess' coming

soiree with impatience. As I dressed I put a little English penknife
into my waistcoat pocket, instead of a poniard. That literary

implement, if found upon me, could awaken no suspicion, but I knew not
whither my romanticresolution might lead, and I wished to be

prepared.
"As soon as the rooms began to fill, I entered the bedroom and

examined the arrangements. The inner and outer shutters were closed;
this was a good beginning; and as the waiting-maid might come to draw

back the curtains that hung over the windows, I pulled them together.
I was running great risks in venturing to manoeuvrebeforehand in this

way, but I had accepted the situation, and had deliberately reckoned
with its dangers.

"About midnight I hid myself in the embrasure of the window. I tried
to scramble on to a ledge of the wainscoting, hanging on by the

fastening of the shutters with my back against the wall, in such a
position that my feet could not be visible. When I had carefully

considered my points of support, and the space between me and the
curtains, I had become sufficiently acquainted with all the

difficulties of my position to stay in it without fear of detection if
undisturbed by cramp, coughs, or sneezings. To avoid useless fatigue,

I remained standing until the critical moment, when I must hang
suspended like a spider in its web. The white-watered silk and muslin

of the curtains spread before me in great pleats like organ-pipes.
With my penknife I cut loopholes in them, through which I could see.

"I heard vague murmurs from the salons, the laughter and the louder
tones of the speakers. The smothered commotion and vague uproar

lessened by slow degrees. One man and another came for his hat from
the countess' chest of drawers, close to where I stood. I shivered, if

the curtains were disturbed, at the thought of the mischances
consequent on the confused and hasty investigations made by the men in

a hurry to depart, who were rummaging everywhere. When I experienced
no misfortunes of this kind, I augured well of my enterprise. An old

wooer of Foedora's came for the last hat; he thought himself quite
alone, looked at the bed, and heaved a great sigh, accompanied by some

inaudible exclamation, into which he threw sufficient energy. In the
boudoir close by, the countess, finding only some five or six intimate

acquaintances about her, proposed tea. The scandals for which existing
society has reserved the little faculty of belief that it retains,

mingled with epigrams and trenchant witticisms, and the clatter of
cups and spoons. Rastignac drew roars of laughter by merciless

sarcasms at the expense of my rivals.
" 'M. de Rastignac is a man with whom it is better not to quarrel,'

said the countess, laughing.
" 'I am quite of that opinion,' was his candid reply. 'I have always

been right about my aversions--and my friendships as well,' he added.
'Perhaps my enemies are quite as useful to me as my friends. I have

made a particular study of modern phraseology, and of the natural
craft that is used in all attack or defence. Official eloquence is one

of our perfect social products.
" 'One of your friends is not clever, so you speak of his integrity

and his candor. Another's work is heavy; you introduce it as a piece
of conscientious labor; and if the book is ill written, you extol the

ideas it contains. Such an one is treacherous and fickle, slips
through your fingers every moment; bah! he is attractive, bewitching,

he is delightful! Suppose they are enemies, you fling every one, dead
or alive, in their teeth. You reverse your phraseology for their

benefit, and you are as keen in detecting their faults as you were
before adroit in bringing out the virtues of your friends. This way of

using the mental lorgnette is the secret of conversation nowadays, and
the whole art of the complete courtier. If you neglect it, you might

as well go out as an unarmed knight-banneret to fight against men in
armor. And I make use of it, and even abuse it at times. So we are

respected--I and my friends; and, moreover, my sword is quite as sharp
as my tongue.'

"One of Foedora's most fervid worshipers, whose presumption was