PAZ

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated by

 Katharine Prescott Wormeley

 DEDICATION

 Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei. 

 PAZ (LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)

 I

In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourgSaint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of theMarquis du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a youngPolish exile. 

We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced, to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants bywhich the Slave language protects its vowels, --probably not to losethem, considering how few there are. 

The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princelyfortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with aDemoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother's side Clementinedu Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame deSerizy for aunt. On her father's side she had another uncle in theeccentric person of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of thehouse, an old bachelor who had become very rich by speculating inlands and houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune tolose both his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son ofMadame de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africain the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand betweenthe danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, orof extinguishing their names if they have too few, --a singular resultof the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn offortune Clementine became, in spite of her father having squanderedhis substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses inParis), a great heiress. The Marquis de Ronquerolles, a cleverdiplomatist under the new dynasty, his sister, Madame de Serizy, andthe Chevalier du Rouvre agreed, in order to save their fortunes fromthe dissipations of the marquis, to settle them on their niece, towhom, moreover, they each pledged themselves to pay ten thousandfrancs a year from the day of her marriage. 

It is quite unnecessary to say that the Polish count, though an exile, was no expense to the French government. Comte Adam Laginski belongedto one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Poland, whichwas allied to many of the princely houses of Germany, --Sapieha, Radziwill, Mniszech, Rzewuski, Czartoryski, Leczinski, Lubormirski, and all the other great Sarmatian SKIS. But heraldic knowledge is notthe most distinguishing feature of the French nation underLouis-Philippe, and Polish nobility was no great recommendation toThe bourgeoisie who were lording it in those days. Besides, when Adamfirst made his appearance, in 1833, on the boulevard des Italiens, atFrascati, and at the Jockey-Club, he was leading the life of a youngman who, having lost his political prospects, was taking his pleasurein Parisian dissipation. At first he was thought to be a student. 

The Polish nationality had at this period fallen as low in Frenchestimation, thanks to a shameful governmental reaction, as therepublicans had sought to raise it. The singular struggle of theMovement against Resistance (two words which will be inexplicablethirty years hence) made sport of what ought to have been trulyrespected, --the name of a conquered nation to whom the French hadoffered hospitality, for whom fetes had been given (with songs anddances by subscription), above all, a nation which in the Napoleonicstruggle between France and Europe had given us six thousand men, andwhat men!

Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that ofthe Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against theEmperor. It would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion intotales that are intended to amuse or interest. Besides, Russia andPoland were both right, --one to wish the unity of its empire, theother to desire its liberty. Let us say in passing that Poland mighthave conquered Russia by the influence of her morals instead offighting her with weapons; she should have imitated China which, inthe end, Chinesed the Tartars, and will, it is to be hoped, Chinesethe English. Poland ought to have Polonized Russia. Poniatowski triedto do so in the least favorable portion of the empire; but as a kinghe was little understood, --because, possibly, he did not fullyunderstand himself. 

But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people whowere the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famousreview at which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? ThePoles were held up to them as the allies of the republican party, andthey never once remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats. From that day forth the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt theexiles of the nation it had worshipped a few days earlier. The wind ofa riot is always enough to veer the Parisians from north to southunder any regime. It is necessary to remember these suddenfluctuations of feeling in order to understand why it was that in 1835the word "Pole" conveyed a derisive meaning to a people who considerthemselves the wittiest and most courteous nation on earth, and theircity of Paris the focus of enlightenment, with the sceptre of arts andliterature within its grasp. 

There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles, --the republican Poles, sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is PrinceAdam Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but whycomplain of that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles, no matter of what nation they may be, or in what countries they takerefuge. They carry their countries and their hatreds with them. TwoFrench priests, who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution, showed the utmost horror of each other, and when one of them was askedwhy, he replied with a glance at his companion in misery: "Why?because he's a Jansenist!" Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf hadhe met him in exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the Frenchagainst the venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shownto the better class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars andthe licensed Alexanders of Paris. 

In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a buttfor Parisian pleasantry. 

"He is rather nice, though he is a Pole, " said Rastignac. 

"All these Poles pretend to be great lords, " said Maxime de Trailles, "but this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think hemust have property. "

Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allowable toremark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatiancharacter does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians, who, by the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as thePoles do. The French aristocracy, so nobly succored during theRevolution by the Polish lords, certainly did not return the kindnessin 1832. Let us have the melancholy courage to admit this, and to saythat the faubourg Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland. 

Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer? Thisproblem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful toinstructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who heldthat all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court ofthe Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proofof the political quality which was then dignified by the name ofsagacity. They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom theyhad all been on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely becauseit was said that the Emperor Nicholas gave him the cold shoulder. Between the caution of the court and the prudence of the diplomates, the Polish exiles of distinction lived in Paris in the Biblicalsolitude of "super flumina Babylonis, " or else they haunted a fewsalons which were the neutral ground of all opinions. In a city ofpleasure, like Paris, where amusements abound on all sides, theheedless gayety of a Pole finds twice as many encouragements as itneeds to a life of dissipation. 

It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him, --hisappearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole, as there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is notvery handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the secondcategory of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression, looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fairhair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more likea goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyescaught you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How camehe, in spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess reallyexquisite manners and a distinguished air? The problem is solvedpartly by the care and elegance of his dress, and partly by thetraining given him by his mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted todaring, but his mind was not more than was needed for the ephemeraltalk and pleasantry of Parisian conversation. And yet it would havebeen difficult to find among the young men of fashion in Paris asingle one who was his superior. Young men talk a great deal too muchin these days of horses, money, taxes, deputies; French _conversation_is no longer what it was. Brilliancy of mind needs leisure and certainsocial inequalities to bring it out. There is, probably, more realconversation in Vienna or St. Petersburg than in Paris. Equals do notneed to employ delicacy or shrewdness in speech; they blurt out thingsas they are. Consequently the dandies of Paris did not discover thegreat seigneur in the rather heedless young fellow who, in theirtalks, would flit from one subject to another, all the more intentupon amusement because he had just escaped from a great peril, and, finding himself in a city where his family was unknown, felt atliberty to lead a loose life without the risk of disgracing his name. 

But one fine day in 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de laPepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none inParis. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously hehad seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love withher. A year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madamed'Espard was the first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters thenlearned too late that as far back as the year 900 the family of theLaginski was among the most illustrious of the North. By an act ofprudence which was very unPolish, the mother of the young count hadmortgaged her entire property on the breaking out of the insurrectionfor an immense sum lent by two Jewish bankers in Paris. Comte Adam wasnow in possession of eighty thousand francs a year. When this wasdiscovered society ceased to be surprised at the imprudence which hadbeen laid to the charge of Madame de Serizy, the Marquis deRonquerolles, and the Chevalier du Rouvre in yielding to the foolishpassion of their niece. People jumped, as usual, from one extreme ofjudgment to the other. 

During the winter of 1836 Comte Adam was the fashion, and ClementineLaginska one of the queens of Paris. Madame Laginska is now a memberof that charming circle of young women represented by Mesdames deLestorade, de Portenduere, Marie de Vandenesse, du Guenic, and deMaufrigneuse, the flowers of our present Paris, who live at suchimmeasurable distance from the parvenus, the vulgarians, and thespeculators of the new regime. 

This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one ofthose noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our timeadmit, --actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering, are hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossingwaves of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St. Petersburg, --or what you will. 

If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and moralswas ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830, during the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the oldfortunes are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of ourancestors are constantly being demolished and replaced by species ofphalansteries, in which the peers of July occupy the third floor abovesome newly enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of stylesis confusedly employed. As there is no longer a real court or nobilityto give the tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never, on the other hand, has architecture discovered so many economical waysof imitating the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, moretalent, in distributing them. Propose to an architect to build uponthe garden at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up alittle Louvre overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in acourtyard, stables, and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the househe will accommodate a quantity of little rooms and passages. He is soclever in deceiving the eye that you think you will have plenty ofspace; but it is only a nest of small rooms, after all, in which aducal family has to turn itself about in the space that its ownbakehouse formerly occupied. 

The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one ofthese creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, inthe court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouseand stables. The porter's lodge is between two charmingportes-cocheres. The chief luxury of the house is a delightfulgreenhouse contrived at the end of a boudoir on the ground-floor whichopens upon an admirable suite of reception rooms. An Englishphilanthropist had built this architectural bijou, designed the garden, added the greenhouse, polished the doors, bricked the courtyard, paintedthe window-frames green, and realized, in short, a dream which resembled(proportions excepted) George the Fourth's Pavilion at Brighton. Theinventive and industrious Parisian workmen had moulded the doors andwindow-frames; the ceilings were imitated from the middle-ages orthose of a Venetian palace; marble veneering abounded on the outerwalls. Steinbock and Francois Souchet had designed the mantel-piecesand the panels above the doors; Schinner had painted the ceilings inhis masterly manner. The beauties of the staircase, white as a woman'sarm, defied those of the hotel Rothschild. On account of the riots andthe unsettled times, the cost of this folly was only about elevenhundred thousand francs, --to an Englishman a mere nothing. All thisluxury, called princely by persons who do not know what real princesare, was built in the garden of the house of a purveyor made a Croesusby the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels and died there aftergoing into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in Paris, of Paris; for tomany persons Paris is a disease, --sometimes several diseases. Hiswidow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little nabob establishment, and ordered it to be sold. Comte Adam bought it at a bargain; and howhe came to do so shall presently be made known, for bargains were notat all in his line as a grand seigneur. 

Behind the house lay the verdant velvet of an English lawn shaded atthe lower end by a clump of exotic trees, in the midst of which stooda Chinese pagoda with soundless belfries and motionless golden eggs. The greenhouse concealed the garden wall on the northern side, theopposite wall was covered with climbing plants trained upon polespainted green and connected with crossway trellises. This lawn, thisworld of flowers, the gravelled paths, the simulated forest, theverdant palisades, were contained within the space of five and twentysquare rods, which are worth to-day four hundred thousand francs, --thevalue of an actual forest. Here, in this solitude in the middle ofParis, the birds sang, thrushes, nightingales, warblers, bulfinches, and sparrows. The greenhouse was like an immense jardiniere, fillingthe air with perfume in winter as in summer. The means by which itsatmosphere was made to order, torrid as in China or temperate as inItaly, were cleverly concealed. Pipes in which hot water circulated, or steam, were either hidden under ground or festooned with plantsoverhead. The boudoir was a large room. The miracle of the modernParisian fairy named Architecture is to get all these many and greatthings out of a limited bit of ground. 

The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste ofthe artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house. It is too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarceknows where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with theirmyriads of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topazmounted on filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures inthe style which Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbockconceived but often could not execute, statuettes modelled by geniuspursued by creditors (the real explanation of the Arabian myth), superb sketches by our best artists, lids of chests made into panelsalternating with fluted draperies of Italian silk, portieres hangingfrom rods of old oak in tapestried masses on which the figures of somehunting scene are swarming, pieces of furniture worthy to havebelonged to Madame de Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a lastgraceful touch, all these elegant things were subdued by thehalf-light which filtered through embroidered curtains and added totheir charm. On a table between the windows, among various curiosities, lay a whip, the handle designed by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, whichproved that the countess rode on horseback. 

Such is a lady's boudoir in 1837, --an exhibition of the contents ofmany shops, which amuse the eye, as if ennui were the one thing to bedreaded by the social world of the liveliest and most stirring capitalin Europe. Why is there nothing of an inner life? nothing which leadsto revery, nothing reposeful? Why indeed? Because no one in our day issure of the future; we are living our lives like prodigal annuitants. 

One morning Clementine appeared to be thinking of something. She waslying at full length on one of those marvellous couches from which itis almost impossible to rise, the upholsterer having invented them forlovers of the "far niente" and its attendant joys of laziness to sinkinto. The doors of the greenhouse were open, letting the odors ofvegetation and the perfume of the tropics pervade the room. The youngwife was looking at her husband who was smoking a narghile, the onlyform of pipe she would have suffered in that room. The portieres, heldback by cords, gave a vista through two elegant salons, one white andgold, comparable only to that of the hotel Forbin-Janson, the other inthe style of the Renaissance. The dining-room, which had no rival inParis except that of the Baron de Nucingen, was at the end of a shortgallery decorated in the manner of the middle-ages. This galleryopened on the side of the courtyard upon a large antechamber, throughwhich could be seen the beauties of the staircase. 

The count and countess had just finished breakfast; the sky was asheet of azure without a cloud, April was nearly over. They had beenmarried two years, and Clementine had just discovered for the firsttime that there was something resembling a secret or a mystery in herhousehold. The Pole, let us say it to his honor, is usually helplessbefore a woman; he is so full of tenderness for her that in Poland hebecomes her inferior, though Polish women make admirable wives. Now aPole is still more easily vanquished by a Parisian woman. ConsequentlyComte Adam, pressed by questions, did not even attempt the innocentroguery of selling the suspected secret. It is always wise with awoman to get some good out of a mystery; she will like you the betterfor it, as a swindler respects an honest man the more when he finds hecannot swindle him. Brave in heart but not in speech, Comte Adammerely stipulated that he should not be compelled to answer until hehad finished his narghile. 

"If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling, " said Clementine, "you always dismissed it by saying, 'Paz will settle that. ' You neverwrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying, 'the captain, the captain. ' If I want the carriage--'the captain. ' Isthere a bill to pay--'the captain. ' If my horse is not properlybitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game ofdominoes--Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I neversee Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don't you bring forth your Paz?"

"Isn't everything going on right?" asked the count, taking the"bocchettino" of his narghile from his lips. 

"Everything is going on so right that other people with an income oftwo hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at ourpace, and we have only one hundred and ten thousand. "

So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). Afootman entered, dressed like a minister. 

"Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him. "

"If you think you are going to find out anything that way--" saidComte Adam, laughing. 

It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December, 1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, andGermany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning toParis in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the firsttime as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, andshe then became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and whollydumb but very useful, of a species of factotum who was personallyinvisible, named Paz, --spelt thus, but pronounced "Patz. "

"Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him, "said the footman, returning. "He is at the stables; as soon as he haschanged his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame. "

"What was he doing at the stables?"

"He was showing them how to groom Madame's horse, " said the man. "Hewas not pleased with the way Constantin did it. "

The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and didnot add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usuallycomment on the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogatefrom his position. 

"Ah! he was grooming Cora. "

"Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?" said thefootman, leaving the room without further answer. 

"Is Paz a Pole?" asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who noddedby way of affirmation. 

Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extendedupon a cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge ofits nest listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemedenchanting even to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her hairin curls, she was not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in theKeepsakes, especially when dressed, as she was this morning, in abreakfast gown of Persian silk, the folds of which could not disguisethe beauty of her figure or the slimness of her waist. The silk withits brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring ofthe neck, --its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones ofa guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their longblack lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity whichpuckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled, an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the trueParisian woman, --self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessibleto vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, werehanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the taperingfingers, slightly turned up at their points, showed nails likealmonds, which caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife's impatience, and looked at her with a glance which two years of married life hadnot yet chilled. Already the little countess had made herself mistressof the situation, for she scarcely paid attention to her husband'sadmiration. In fact, in the look which she occasionally cast at him, there seemed to be the consciousness of a Frenchwoman's ascendancyover the puny, volatile, and red-haired Pole. 

"Here comes Paz, " said the count, hearing a step which echoed throughthe gallery. 

The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing onhis face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secretendurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoatswhich were then called "polonaise. " Thick, black hair, rather unkempt, covered his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad foreheadshining like a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap inhis hand. The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robusthealth flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman noseand reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silkcravat added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, witheyes of jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers, which allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed hisfaithfulness to the fashions of his own land. There was somethingreally burlesque to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no onecould fail to remark between the captain and the count, the littlePole with his pinched face and the stalwart soldier. 

"Good morning, Adam, " he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously ashe asked Clementine what he could do for her. 

"You are Laginski's friend!" exclaimed the countess. 

"For life and death, " answered Paz, to whom the count threw a smile ofaffection as he drew a last puff from his perfumed pipe. 

"Then why don't you take your meals with us? why did you not accompanyus to Italy and Switzerland? why do you hide yourself in such a waythat I am unable to thank you for the constant services that you dofor us?" said the countess, with much vivacity of manner but nofeeling. 

In fact, she thought she perceived in Paz a sort of voluntaryservitude. Such an idea carried with it in her mind a certain contemptfor a social amphibian, a being half-secretary, half-bailiff, and yetneither the one nor the other, a poor relation, an embarrassingfriend. 

"Because, countess, " he answered with perfect ease of manner, "thereare no thanks due. I am Adam's friend, and it gives me pleasure totake care of his interests. "

"And you remain standing for your pleasure, too, " remarked Comte Adam. 

Paz sat down on a chair near the door. 

"I remember seeing you about the time I was married, and afterwards inthe courtyard, " said Clementine. "But why do you put yourself in aposition of inferiority, --you, Adam's friend?"

"I am perfectly indifferent to the opinion of the Parisians, " hereplied. "I live for myself, or, if you like, for you two. "

"But the opinion of the world as to a friend of my husband is notindifferent to me--"

"Ah, madame, the world will be satisfied if you tell them I am 'anoriginal. '"

After a moment's silence he added, "Are you going out to-day?"

"Will you come with us to the Bois?"

"Certainly. "

So saying, Paz bowed and withdrew. 

"What a good soul he is!" said Adam. "He has all the simplicity of achild. "

"Now tell me all about your relations with him, " said Clementine. 

"Paz, my dear, " said Laginski, "belongs to a noble family as old andillustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time oftheir disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of hisproperty and founded the Paz family, to which the title of count wasgranted. This family, which distinguished itself greatly in theglorious days of our royal republic, became rich. The graft from thetree that was felled in Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland thatthere are several branches of the family still there. I need not tellyou that some are rich and some are poor. Our Paz is the scion of apoor branch. He was an orphan, without other fortune than his sword, when he served in the regiment of the Grand Duke Constantine at thetime of our revolution. Joining the Polish cause, he fought like aPole, like a patriot, like a man who has nothing, --three good reasonsfor fighting well. In his last affair, thinking he was followed by hismen, he dashed upon a Russian battery and was taken prisoner. I wasthere. His brave act roused me. 'Let us go and get him!' I said to mytroop, and we charged the battery like a lot of foragers. I got Paz--Iwas the seventh man; we started twenty and came back eight, countingPaz. After Warsaw was sold we were forced to escape those Russians. Bya curious chance, Paz and I happened to come together again, at thesame hour and the same place, on the other side of the Vistula. I sawthe poor captain arrested by some Prussians, who made themselves theblood-hounds of the Russians. When we have fished a man out of theStyx we cling to him. This new danger for poor Paz made me so unhappythat I let myself be taken too, thinking I could help him. Two men canget away where one will perish. Thanks to my name and some familyconnections in Prussia, the authorities shut their eyes to my escape. I got my dear captain through as a man of no consequence, a familyservant, and we reached Dantzic. There we got on board a Dutch vesseland went to London. It took us two months to get there. My mother wasill in England, and expecting me. Paz and I took care of her till herdeath, which the Polish troubles hastened. Then we left London andcame to France. Men who go through such adversities become likebrothers. When I reached Paris, at twenty-two years of age, and foundI had an income of over sixty thousand francs a year, without countingthe proceeds of the diamonds and the pictures sold by my mother, Iwanted to secure the future of my dear Paz before I launched intodissipation. I had often noticed the sadness in his eyes--sometimestears were in them. I had had good reason to understand his soul, which is noble, grand, and generous to the core. I thought he mightnot like to be bound by benefits to a friend who was six years youngerthan himself, unless he could repay them. I was careless andfrivolous, just as a young fellow is, and I knew I was certain to ruinmyself at play, or get inveigled by some woman, and Paz and I mightthen be parted; and though I had every intention of always looking outfor him, I knew I might sometime or other forget to provide for him. In short, my dear angel, I wanted to spare him the pain andmortification of having to ask me for money, or of having to hunt meup if he got into distress. SO, one morning, after breakfast, when wewere sitting with our feet on the andirons smoking pipes, I produced, --with the utmost precaution, for I saw him look at me uneasily, --acertificate of the Funds payable to bearer for a certain sum of moneya year. "

Clementine jumped up and went and seated herself on Adam's knee, puther arms round his neck, and kissed him. "Dear treasure!" she said, "how handsome he is! Well, what did Paz do?"

"Thaddeus turned pale, " said the count, "but he didn't say a word. "

"Oh! his name is Thaddeus, is it?"

"Yes; Thaddeus folded the paper and gave it back to me, and then hesaid: 'I thought, Adam, that we were one for life or death, and thatwe should never part. Do you want to be rid of me?' 'Oh!' I said, 'ifyou take it that way, Thaddeus, don't let us say another word aboutit. If I ruin myself you shall be ruined too. ' 'You haven't fortuneenough to live as a Laginski should, ' he said, 'and you need a friendwho will take care of your affairs, and be a father and a brother anda trusty confidant. ' My dear child, as Paz said that he had in hislook and voice, calm as they were, a maternal emotion, and also thegratitude of an Arab, the fidelity of a dog, the friendship of asavage, --not displayed, but ever ready. Faith! I seized him, as wePoles do, with a hand on each shoulder, and I kissed him on the lips. 'For life and death, then! all that I have is yours--do what you willwith it. ' It was he who found me this house and bought it for next tonothing. He sold my Funds high and bought in low, and we have paid forthis barrack with the profits. He knows horses, and he manages to buyand sell at such advantage that my stable really costs very little;and yet I have the finest horses and the most elegant equipages in allParis. Our servants, brave Polish soldiers chosen by him, would gothrough fire and water for us. I seem, as you say, to be ruiningmyself; and yet Paz keeps the house with such method and economy thathe has even repaired some of my foolish losses at play, --thethoughtless folly of a young man. My dear, Thaddeus is as shrewd astwo Genoese, as eager for gain as a Polish Jew, and provident as agood housekeeper. I never could force him to live as I did when I wasa bachelor. Sometimes I had to use a sort of friendly coercion to makehim go to the theatre with me when I was alone, or to the joviallittle dinners I used to give at a tavern. He doesn't like sociallife. "

"What does he like, then?" asked Clementine. 

"Poland; he loves Poland and pines for it. His only spendings are sumshe gives, more in my name than in his own, to some of our poorbrother-exiles. "

"Well, I shall love him, the fine fellow!" said the countess, "helooks to me as simple-hearted as he is grand. "

"All these pretty things you have about you, " continued Adam, whopraised his friend in the noblest sincerity, "he picked up; he boughtthem at auction, or as bargains from the dealers. Oh! he's keener thanthey are themselves. If you see him rubbing his hands in thecourtyard, you may be sure he has traded away one good horse for abetter. He lives for me; his happiness is to see me elegant, in aperfectly appointed equipage. The duties he takes upon himself are allaccomplished without fuss or emphasis. One evening I lost twentythousand francs at whist. 'What will Paz say?' thought I as I walkedhome. Paz paid them to me, not without a sigh; but he never reproachedme, even by a look. But that sigh of his restrained me more than theremonstrances of uncles, mothers, or wives could have done. 'Do youregret the money?' I said to him. 'Not for you or me, no, ' he replied;'but I was thinking that twenty poor Poles could have lived a year onthat sum. ' You must understand that the Pazzi are fully the equal ofthe Laginski, so I couldn't regard my dear Paz as an inferior. I neverwent out or came in without going first to Paz, as I would to myfather. My fortune is his; and Thaddeus knows that if dangerthreatened him I would fling myself into it and drag him out, as Ihave done before. "

"And that is saying a good deal, my dear friend, " said the countess. "Devotion is like a flash of lightning. Men devote themselves inbattle, but they no longer have the heart for it in Paris. "

"Well, " replied Adam, "I am always ready, as in battle, to devotemyself to Paz. Our two characters have kept their natural asperitiesand defects, but the mutual comprehension of our souls has tightenedthe bond already close between us. It is quite possible to save aman's life and kill him afterwards if we find him a bad fellow; butPaz and I know THAT of each other which makes our friendshipindissoluble. There's a constant exchange of happy thoughts andimpressions between us; and really, perhaps, such a friendship as oursis richer than love. "

A pretty hand closed the count's mouth so promptly that the action wassomewhat like a blow. 

"Yes, " he said, "friendship, my dear angel, knows nothing of bankruptsentiments and collapsed joys. Love, after giving more than it has, ends by giving less than it receives. "

"One side as well as the other, " remarked Clementine laughing. 

"Yes, " continued Adam, "whereas friendship only increases. You neednot pucker up your lips at that, for we are, you and I, as muchfriends as lovers; we have, at least I hope so, combined the twosentiments in our happy marriage. "

"I'll explain to you what it is that has made you and Thaddeus suchgood friends, " said Clementine. "The difference in the lives you leadcomes from your tastes and from necessity; from your likings, not yourpositions. As far as one can judge from merely seeing a man once, andalso from what you tell me, there are times when the subaltern mightbecome the superior. "

"Oh, Paz is truly my superior, " said Adam, naively; "I have noadvantage over him except mere luck. "

His wife kissed him for the generosity of those words. 

"The extreme care with which he hides the grandeur of his feelings isone form of his superiority, " continued the count. "I said to himonce: 'You are a sly one; you have in your heart a vast domain withinwhich you live and think. ' He has a right to the title of count; butin Paris he won't be called anything but captain. "

"The fact is that the Florentine of the middle-ages has reappeared inour century, " said the countess. "Dante and Michael Angelo are inhim. "

"That's the very truth, " cried Adam. "He is a poet in soul. "

"So here I am, married to two Poles, " said the young countess, with agesture worthy of some genius of the stage. 

"Dear child!" said Adam, pressing her to him, "it would have made mevery unhappy if my friend did not please you. We were both ratherafraid of it, he and I, though he was delighted at my marriage. Youwill make him very happy if you tell him that you love him, --yes, asan old friend. "

"I'll go and dress, the day is so fine; and we will all three ridetogether, " said Clementine, ringing for her maid. 

 II

Paz was leading so subterranean a life that the fashionable world ofParis asked who he was when the Comtesse Laginska was seen in the Boisde Boulogne riding between her husband and a stranger. During the rideClementine insisted that Thaddeus should dine with them. This capriceof the sovereign lady compelled Paz to make an evening toilet. Clementine dressed for the occasion with a certain coquetry, in astyle that impressed even Adam himself when she entered the salonwhere the two friends awaited her. 

"Comte Paz, " she said, "you must go with us to the Opera. "

This was said in the tone which, coming from a woman means: "If yourefuse we shall quarrel. "

"Willingly, madame, " replied the captain. "But as I have not thefortune of a count, have the kindness to call me captain. "

"Very good, captain; give me your arm, " she said, --taking it andleading the way to the dining-room with the flattering familiaritywhich enchants all lovers. 

The countess placed the captain beside her; his behavior was that of apoor sub-lieutenant dining at his general's table. He let Clementinetalk, listened deferentially as to a superior, did not differ with herin anything, and waited to be questioned before he spoke at all. Heseemed actually stupid to the countess, whose coquettish little waysmissed their mark in presence of such frigid gravity and conventionalrespect. In vain Adam kept saying: "Do be lively, Thaddeus; one wouldreally suppose you were not at home. You must have made a wager todisconcert Clementine. " Thaddeus continued heavy and half asleep. Whenthe servants left the room at the end of the dessert the captainexplained that his habits were diametrically opposite to those ofsociety, --he went to bed at eight o'clock and got up very early in themorning; and he excused his dulness on the ground of being sleepy. 

"My intention in taking you to the Opera was to amuse you, captain;but do as you prefer, " said Clementine, rather piqued. 

"I will go, " said Paz. 

"Duprez sings 'Guillaume Tell, '" remarked Adam. "But perhaps you wouldrather go to the 'Varietes'?"

The captain smiled and rang the bell. "Tell Constantin, " he said tothe footman, "to put the horses to the carriage instead of the coupe. We should be rather squeezed otherwise, " he said to the count. 

"A Frenchman would have forgotten that, " remarked Clementine, smiling. 

"Ah! but we are Florentines transplanted to the North, " answeredThaddeus with a refinement of accent and a look in his eyes which madehis conduct at table seem assumed for the occasion. There was tooevident a contrast between his involuntary self-revelation in thisspeech and his behavior during dinner. Clementine examined the captainwith a few of those covert glances which show a woman's surprise andalso her capacity for observation. 

It resulted from this little incident that silence reigned in thesalon while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying toAdam, who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine nolonger tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand, retreated within his military stiffness and came out of it no more, neither on the way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to beasleep. 

"You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man, " he said during thedance in the last act of "Guillaume Tell. " "Am I not right to keep, asthe saying is, to my own specialty?"

"In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of theworld, but you are perhaps Polish. "

"Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, yourhousehold--it is all I am good for. "

"Tartufe! pooh!" cried Adam, laughing. "My dear, he is full of ardor;he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in anysalon. Clementine, don't believe his modesty. "

"Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I willtake the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you. "

Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying. 

"What a bear!" she said to the count. "You are a great deal nicer. "

Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking. 

"Poor, dear Thaddeus, " he said, "he is trying to make himselfdisagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I. "

"Oh!" she said, "I am not sure but what there is some _calculation_in his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman. "

Half an hour later, when the chasseur, Boleslas, called out "Gate!"and the carriage was waiting for it to swing back, Clementine said toher husband, "Where does the captain perch?"

"Why, there!" replied Adam, pointing to a floor above theporte-cochere which had one window looking on the street. "Hisapartments are over the coachhouse. "

"Who lives on the other side?" asked the countess. 

"No one as yet, " said Adam; "I mean that apartment for our childrenand their instructors. "

"He didn't go to bed, " said the countess, observing lights inThaddeus's rooms when the carriage had passed under the porticosupported by columns copied from those of the Tuileries, whichreplaced a vulgar zinc awning painted in stripes like cloth. 

The captain, in his dressing-gown with a pipe in his mouth, waswatching Clementine as she entered the vestibule. The day had been ahard one for him. And here is the reason why: A great and terribleemotion had taken possession of his heart on the day when Adam madehim go to the Opera to see and give his opinion on Mademoiselle duRouvre; and again when he saw her on the occasion of her marriage, andrecognized in her the woman whom a man is forced to love exclusively. For this reason Paz strongly advised and promoted the long journey toItaly and elsewhere after the marriage. At peace so long as Clementinewas away, his trial was renewed on the return of the happy household. As he sat at his window on this memorable night, smoking his latakiain a pipe of wild-cherry wood six feet long, given to him by Adam, these are the thoughts that were passing through his mind:--

"I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone knowhow I love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love norher dislike?"

And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme. 

It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, inthe midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance, were a source of inward joy to him. Since the return of the count andcountess he had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himselfnecessary to a household which, without his devotion to its interests, would infallibly have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strainof reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthriftfather, knew nothing of the management of a household which the womenof the present day, however rich or noble they are, are oftencompelled to undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep asteward. Adam, on the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lordswho let themselves be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapableof managing even the wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes arevast in Poland), was not of a nature to check his own fancies or thoseof his wife. Left to himself he would probably have been ruined beforehis marriage. Paz had prevented him from gambling at the Bourse, andthat says all. 

Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementinein spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house andtravelling in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, thekey-note of his life, held him bound to that household where he alonecould look after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absenceof Adam and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess hadreturned more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriagebrings to a Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife andthe nameless attraction she gains from the happiness, or theindependence, bestowed upon her by a young man as trustful, aschivalric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was the pivoton which the splendor the household depended, to see Clementine whenshe got out of her carriage on returning from some fete, or got intoit in the morning when she took her drive, to meet her on theboulevards in her pretty equipage, looking like a flower in a whorl ofleaves, inspired poor Thaddeus with mysterious delights, which glowedin the depths of his heart but gave no signs upon his face. 

How happened it that for five whole months the countess had neverperceived the captain? Because he hid himself from her knowledge, andcarefully concealed the pains he took to avoid her. Nothing soresembles the Divine love as hopeless human love. A man must havegreat depth of heart to devote himself in silence and obscurity to awoman. In such a heart is the worship of love for love's sake only--sublime avarice, sublime because ever generous and founded on themysterious existence of the principles of creation. _Effect_ is nature, and nature is enchanting; it belongs to man, to the poet, the painter, the lover. But _Cause_, to a few privileged souls and to certain mightythinkers, is superior to nature. Cause is God. In the sphere of causeslive the Newtons and all such thinkers as Laplace, Kepler, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Buffon; also the true poets and solitarys of thesecond Christian century, and the Saint Teresas of Spain, and suchsublime ecstatics. All human sentiments bear analogy to theseconditions whenever the mind abandons Effect for Cause. Thaddeus hadreached this height, at which all things change their relative aspect. Filled with the joys unutterable of a creator he had attained in hislove to all that genius has revealed to us of grandeur. 

"No, " he was thinking to himself as he watched the curling smoke ofhis pipe, "she was not entirely deceived. She might break up myfriendship with Adam if she took a dislike to me; but if she coquettedwith me to amuse herself, what would become of me?"

The conceit of this last supposition was so foreign to the modestnature and Teutonic timidity of the captain that he scolded himselffor admitting it, and went to bed, resolved to await events beforedeciding on a course. 

The next day Clementine breakfasted very contentedly without Paz, andwithout even noticing his disobedience to her orders. It happened tobe her reception day, when the house was thrown open with a splendorthat was semi-royal. She paid no attention to the absence of ComtePaz, on whom all the burden of these parade days fell. 

"Good!" thought he, as he heard the last carriages driving away at twoin the morning; "it was only the caprice or the curiosity of aParisian woman that made her want to see me. "

After that the captain went back to his ordinary habits and ways, which had been somewhat upset by this incident. Diverted by herParisian occupations, Clementine appeared to have forgotten Paz. Itmust not be thought an easy matter to reign a queen over fickle Paris. Does any one suppose that fortunes alone are risked in the great game?The winters are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to thesoldiers of the Empire. What works of art and genius are expended on agown or a garland in which to make a sensation! A fragile, delicatecreature will wear her stiff and brilliant harness of flowers anddiamonds, silk and steel, from nine at night till two and often threeo'clock in the morning. She eats little, to attract remark to herslender waist; she satisfied her hunger with debilitating tea, sugaredcakes, ices which heat her, or slices of heavy pastry. The stomach ismade to yield to the orders of coquetry. The awakening comes too late. A fashionable woman's whole life is in contradiction to the laws ofnature, and nature is pitiless. She has no sooner risen than she makesan elaborate morning toilet, and thinks of the one which she means towear in the afternoon. The moment she is dressed she has to receiveand make visits, and go to the Bois either on horseback or in acarriage. She must practise the art of smiling, and must keep her mindon the stretch to invent new compliments which shall seem neithercommon nor far-fetched. All women do not succeed in this. It is nosurprise, therefore, to find a young woman who entered fashionablesociety fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the end of threeyears. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the wounds ofthe winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysteriousailments, --gastritis, and so forth, --ills unknown to women when theybusied themselves about their households. In the olden time women onlyappeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene. Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited, and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulnessexacted by this contest with her rivals left little time even to loveher husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the monthof May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Parisfor Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticedThaddeus, elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths ofthe Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing hisbeautiful countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horsesand sparkling liveries, --in short, his beloved family the admired ofall. 

"There's the captain, " she said to her husband. 

"He's happy!" said Adam. "This is his delight. He knows there's noequipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think thatsome people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him therenearly every day. "

"I wonder what he is thinking about now, " said Clementine. 

"He is thinking that this winter has cost a good deal, and that it istime we went to economize with your old uncle Ronquerolles, " repliedAdam. 

The countess stopped the carriage near Paz, and bade him take the seatbeside her. Thaddeus grew as red as a cherry. 

"I shall poison you, " he said; "I have been smoking. "

"Doesn't Adam poison me?" she said. 

"Yes, but he is Adam, " returned the captain. 

"And why can't Thaddeus have the same privileges?" asked the countess, smiling. 

That divine smile had a power which triumphed over the heroicresolutions of poor Paz; he looked at Clementine with all the fire ofhis soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tempered by theangelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue. The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on hercushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked atthe people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resignedsoul reached her sensibilities. What was Adam's merit in her eyes? Itwas natural enough to have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus--surely Thaddeus possessed, or seemed to possess, some greatsuperiority over Adam. They were dangerous thoughts which tookpossession of the countess's mind as she again noticed the contrast ofthe fine presence that distinguished Thaddeus, and the puny frame inwhich Adam showed the degenerating effects of intermarriage among thePolish aristocratic families. The devil alone knew the thoughts thatwere in Clementine's head, for she sat still, with thoughtful, dreamyeyes, and without saying a word until they reached home. 

"You will dine with us; I shall be angry if you disobey me, " she saidas the carriage turned in. "You are Thaddeus to me, as you are toAdam. I know your obligations to him, but I also know those we areunder to you. Both generosities are natural--but you are generousevery day and all day. My father dines here to-day, also my uncleRonquerolles and my aunt Madame de Serizy. Dress yourself therefore, "she said, taking the hand he offered to assist her from the carriage. 

Thaddeus went to his own room to dress with a joyful heart, thoughshaken by an inward dread. He went down at the last moment and behavedthrough dinner as he had done on the first occasion, that is, like asoldier fit only for his duties as a steward. But this time Clementinewas not his dupe; his glance had enlightened her. The Marquis deRonquerolles, one of the ablest diplomates after Talleyrand, who hadserved with de Marsay during his short ministry, had been informed byhis niece of the real worth and character of Comte Paz, and knew howmodestly he made himself the steward of his friend Laginski. 

"And why is this the first time I have the pleasure of seeing ComtePaz?" asked the marquis. 

"Because he is so shy and retiring, " replied Clementine with a look atPaz telling him to change his behavior. 

Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of rendering thecaptain less interesting, but Paz, though superior to his friend Adam, was not a man of parts. His apparent superiority was due to hismisfortunes. In his lonely and poverty-stricken life in Warsaw he hadread and taught himself a good deal; he had compared and meditated. But the gift of original thought which makes a great man he did notpossess, and it can never be acquired. Paz, great in heart only, approached in heart to the sublime; but in the sphere of sentiments, being more a man of action than of thought, he kept his thoughts tohimself; and they only served therefore to eat his heart out. What, after all, is a thought unexpressed?

After Clementine's little speech, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and hissister exchanged a singular glance, embracing their niece, Comte Adam, and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place only inFrance and Italy, --the two regions of the world (all courts excepted)where eyes can say everything. To communicate to the eye the fullpower of the soul, to give it the value of speech, needs either thepressure of extreme servitude, or complete liberty. Adam, the Marquisdu Rouvre, and Clementine did not observe this luminous by-play of theold coquette and the old diplomatist, but Paz, the faithful watchdog, understood its meaning. It was, we must remark, an affair of twoseconds; but to describe the tempest it roused in the captain's soulwould take far too much space in this brief history. 

"What!" he said to himself, "do the aunt and uncle think I might beloved? Then my happiness only depends on my own audacity! But Adam--"

Ideal love and desire clashed with gratitude and friendship, allequally powerful, and, for a moment, love prevailed. The lover wouldhave his day. Paz became brilliant, he tried to please, he told thestory of the Polish insurrection in noble words, being questionedabout it by the diplomatist. By the end of dinner Paz saw Clementinehanging upon his lips and regarding him as a hero, forgetting thatAdam too, after sacrificing a third of his vast fortune, had been anexile. At nine o'clock, after coffee had been served, Madame de Serizykissed her niece on the forehead, pressed her hand, and went away, taking Adam with her and leaving the Marquis de Ronquerolles and theMarquis du Rouvre, who soon followed. Paz and Clementine were alonetogether. 

"I will leave you now, madame, " said Thaddeus. "You will of courserejoin them at the Opera?"

"No, " she answered, "I don't like dancing, and they give an odiousballet to-night 'La Revolte au Serail. '"

There was a moment's silence. 

"Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera without me, " saidClementine, not looking at Paz. 

"He loves you madly, " replied Thaddeus. 

"Yes, and because he loves me madly he is all the more likely not tolove me to-morrow, " said the countess. 

"How inexplicable Parisian women are!" exclaimed Thaddeus. "When theyare loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when theyare loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all. "

"And they are quite right. Thaddeus, " she went on, smiling, "I knowAdam well; I am not angry with him; he is volatile and above all grandseigneur. He will always be content to have me as his wife and he willnever oppose any of my tastes, but--"

"Where is the marriage in which there are no 'buts'?" said Thaddeus, gently, trying to give another direction to Clementine's mind. 

The least presuming of men might well have had the thought which camenear rendering this poor lover beside himself; it was this: "If I donot tell her now that I love her I am a fool, " he kept saying tohimself. 

Neither spoke; and there came between the pair one of those deepsilences that are crowded with thoughts. The countess examined Pazcovertly, and Paz observed her in a mirror. Buried in an armchair likea man digesting his dinner, the image of a husband or an indifferentold man, Paz crossed his hands upon his stomach and twirled his thumbsmechanically, looking stupidly at them. 

"Why don't you tell me something good of Adam?" cried Clementinesuddenly. "Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well. "

The cry was fine. 

"Now is the time, " thought poor Paz, "to put an insurmountable barrierbetween us. Tell you good of Adam?" he said aloud. "I love him; youwould not believe me; and I am incapable of telling you harm. Myposition is very difficult between you. "

Clementine lowered her head and looked down at the tips of hisvarnished boots. 

"You Northern men have nothing but physical courage, " she saidcomplainingly; "you have no constancy in your opinions. "

"How will you amuse yourself alone, madame?" said Paz, assuming acareless air. 

"Are not you going to keep me company?"

"Excuse me for leaving you. "

"What do you mean? Where are you going?"

The thought of a heroic falsehood had come into his head. 

"I--I am going to the Circus in the Champs Elysees; it opens to-night, and I can't miss it. "

"Why not?" said Clementine, questioning him by a look that washalf-anger. 

"Must I tell you why?" he said, coloring; "must I confide to you whatI hide from Adam, who thinks my only love is Poland. "

"Ah! a secret in our noble captain?"

"A disgraceful one--which you will perhaps understand, and pity. "

"You, disgraced?"

"Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am madly in love with a girl who travels allover France with the Bouthor family, --people who have the rival circusto Franconi; but they play only at fairs. I have made the director atthe Cirque-Olympique engage her. "

"Is she handsome?"

"To my thinking, " said Paz, in a melancholy tone. "Malaga (that's herstage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to allother women in the world?--well, I can't tell you. When I look at her, with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on herbare and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a whitetunic with a gold edge, and a knitted silk bodice that makes her looklike a living Greek statue, and when I see her carrying those flags inher hand to the sound of martial music, and jumping through the paperhoops which tear as she goes through, and lighting so gracefully onthe galloping horse to such applause, --no hired clapping, --well, allthat moves me. "

"More than a handsome woman in a ballroom?" asked Clementine, withamazement and curiosity. 

"Yes, " answered Paz, in a choking voice. "Such agility, such graceunder constant danger seems to me the height of triumph for a woman. Yes, madame, Cinti and Malibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pasta andEllsler, all who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't becompared, to my mind, with Malaga, who can jump on or off a horse atfull gallop, or stand on the point of one foot and fall easily intothe saddle, and knit stockings, break eggs, and make an omelette withthe horse at full speed, to the admiration of the people, --the realpeople, peasants and soldiers. Malaga, madame, is dexteritypersonified; her little wrist or her little foot can rid her of threeor four men. She is the goddess of gymnastics. "

"She must be stupid--"

"Oh, no, " said Paz, "I find her as amusing as the heroine of 'Peverilof the Peak. ' Thoughtless as a Bohemian, she says everything thatcomes into her head; she thinks no more about the future than you doof the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things sometimes. You couldn't make her believe that an old diplomatist was a handsomeyoung man, not if you offered her a million of francs. Such love ashers is perpetual flattery to a man. Her health is positivelyinsolent, and she has thirty-two oriental pearls in lips of coral. Hermuzzle--that's what she calls the lower part of her face--has, asShakespeare expresses it, the savor of a heifer's nose. She can make aman unhappy. She likes handsome men, strong men, Alexanders, gymnasts, clowns. Her trainer, a horrible brute, used to beat her to make hersupple, and graceful, and intrepid--"

"You are positively intoxicated with Malaga. "

"Oh, she is called Malaga only on the posters, " said Paz, with apiqued air. "She lives in the rue Saint-Lazare, in a pretty apartmenton the third story, all velvet and silk, like a princess. She has twolives, her circus life and the life of a pretty woman. "

"Does she love you?"

"She loves me--now you will laugh--solely because I'm a Pole. She sawan engraving of Poles rushing with Poniatowski into the Elster, --forall France persists in thinking that the Elster, where it isimpossible to get drowned, is an impetuous flood, in which Poniatowskiand his followers were engulfed. But in the midst of all this I amvery unhappy, madame. "

A tear of rage fell from his eyes and affected the countess. 

"You men have such a passion for singularity. "

"And you?" said Thaddeus. 

"I know Adam so well that I am certain he could forget me for somemountebank like your Malaga. Where did you first see her?"

"At Saint-Cloud, last September, on the fete-day. She was at a cornerof a booth covered with flags, where the shows are given. Hercomrades, all in Polish costumes, were making a horrible racket. Iwatched her standing there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw amelancholy expression in her face; in truth there was enough about herto sadden a girl of twenty. That touched me. "

The countess was sitting in a delicious attitude, pensive and rathermelancholy. 

"Poor, poor Thaddeus!" she exclaimed. Then, with the kindliness of atrue great lady she added, not without a malicious smile, "Well go, goto your Circus. "

Thaddeus took her hand, kissed it, leaving a hot tear upon it, andwent out. 

Having invented this passion for a circus-rider, he bethought him thathe must give it some reality. The only truth in his tale was themomentary attention he had given to Malaga at Saint-Cloud; and he hadsince seen her name on the posters of the Circus, where the clown, fora tip of five francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling, stolen perhaps. Thaddeus now went to the Circus and saw her again. Forten francs one of the grooms (who take the place in circuses of thedressers at a theatre) informed him that Malaga was named MargueriteTurquet, and lived on the fifth story of a house in the rue desFosses-du-Temple. 

The following day Paz went to the faubourg du Temple, found the house, and asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer wassubstituting for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and asupernumerary at a boulevard theatre in winter. 

"Malaga!" cried the portress, rushing into the attic, "there's a finegentleman wanting you. He is getting information from Chapuzot, who isplaying him off to give me time to tell you. "

"Thank you, M'ame Chapuzot; but what will he think of me if he findsme ironing my gown?"

"Pooh! when a man's in love he loves everything about us. "

"Is he an Englishman? they are fond of horses. "

"No, he looks to me Spanish. "

"That's a pity; they say Spaniards are always poor. Stay here with me, M'ame Chapuzot; I don't want him to think I'm deserted. "

"Who is it you are looking for, monsieur?" asked Madame Chapuzot, opening the door for Thaddeus, who had now come upstairs. 

"Mademoiselle Turquet. "

"My dear, " said the portress, with an air of importance, "here is someone to see you. "

A line on which the clothes were drying caught the captain's hat andknocked it off. 

"What is it you wish, monsieur?" said Malaga, picking up the hat andgiving it to him. 

"I saw you at the Circus, " said Thaddeus, "and you reminded me of adaughter whom I have lost, mademoiselle; and out of affection for myHeloise, whom you resemble in a most striking manner, I should like tobe of some service to you, if you will permit me. "

"Why, certainly; pray sit down, general, " said Madame Chapuzot;"nothing could be more straightforward, more gallant. "

"But I am not gallant, my good lady, " exclaimed Paz. "I am anunfortunate father who tries to deceive himself by a resemblance. "

"Then am I to pass for your daughter?" said Malaga, slyly, and not inthe least suspecting the perfect sincerity of his proposal. 

"Yes, " said Paz, "and I'll come and see you sometimes. But you shallbe lodged in better rooms, comfortably furnished. "

"I shall have furniture!" cried Malaga, looking at Madame Chapuzot. 

"And servants, " said Paz, "and all you want. "

Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously. 

"What countryman is monsieur?"

"I am a Pole. "

"Oh! then I accept, " she said. 

Paz departed, promising to return. 

"Well, that's a stiff one!" said Marguerite Turquet, looking at MadameChapuzot; "I'm half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancyof his own--Pooh! I'll risk it. "

A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living ina comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam's own upholsterer, Pazhaving judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotelLaginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of theArabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in thedouble capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Margueritewere constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end ofthree months none of them were able to make out the meaning of thePolish count's caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hourthere once a week, during which time he sat in the salon, and neverwent into Malaga's boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of theclever manoeuvring of the Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. Thecount would ask questions as to the small events of Marguerite's life, and each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francseach on the mantel-piece. 

"He looks as if he didn't care to be here, " said Madame Chapuzot. 

"Yes, " said Malaga, "the man's as cold as an icicle. "

"But he's a good fellow all the same, " cried Chapuzot, who was happyin a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked likethe servant of some minister. 

The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined toMalaga's meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous livingcompared with her former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds ofthe Circus about Malaga's good-luck. Her vanity increased the sixthousand francs which Paz had spent on her furniture to sixtythousand. According to the clowns and the supers, Malaga wassquandering money; and she now appeared at the Circus wearing burnousand shawls and elegant scarfs. The Pole, it was agreed on all sides, was the best sort of man a circus-rider had ever encountered, notfault-finding nor jealous, and willing to let Malaga do just what sheliked. 

"Some women have the luck of it, " said Malaga's rival, "and I'm notone of them, --though I do draw a third of the receipts. "

Malaga wore pretty things, and occasionally "showed her head" (a termin the lexicon of such characters) in the Bois, where the fashionableyoung men of the day began to remark her. In fact, before long Malagawas very much talked about in the questionable world of equivocalwomen, who presently attacked her good fortune by calumnies. They saidshe was a somnambulist, and the Pole was a magnetizer who was usingher to discover the philosopher's stone. Some even more envenomedscandals drove her to a curiosity that was greater than Psyche's. Shereported them in tears to Paz. 

"When I want to injure a woman, " she said in conclusion, "I don'tcalumniate her; I don't declare that some one magnetizes her to getstones out of her, but I say plainly that she is humpbacked, and Iprove it. Why do you compromise me in this way?"

Paz maintained a cruel silence. Madame Chapuzot was not long indiscovering the name and title of Comte Paz; then she heard certainpositive facts at the hotel Laginski: for instance, that Paz was abachelor, and had never been known to have a daughter, alive or dead, in Poland or in France. After that Malaga could not control a feelingof terror. 

"My dear child, " Madame Chapuzot would say, "that monster--" (a manwho contented himself with only looking, in a sly way, --not daring tocome out and say things, --and such a beautiful creature too, asMalaga, --of course such a man was a monster, according to MadameChapuzot's ideas) "--that monster is trying to get a hold upon you, and make you do something illegal and criminal. Holy Father, if youshould get into the police-courts! it makes me tremble from head tofoot; suppose they should put you in the newspapers! I'll tell youwhat I should do in your place; I'd warn the police. "

One particular day, after many foolish notions had fermented for sometime in Malaga's mind, Paz having laid his money as usual on themantel-piece, she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face, crying out, "I don't want stolen money!"

The captain gave the gold to Chapuzot, went away without a word, anddid not return. 

Clementine was at this time at her uncle's place in Burgundy. 

When the Circus troop discovered that Malaga had lost her Polishcount, much excitement was produced among them. Malaga's display ofhonor was considered folly by some, and shrewdness by others. Theconduct of the Pole, however, even when discussed by the cleverest ofwomen, seemed inexplicable. Thaddeus received in the course of thenext week thirty-seven letters from women of their kind. Happily forhim, his astonishing reserve did not excite the curiosity of thefashionable world, and was only discussed in the demi-mondaineregions. 

Two weeks later the handsome circus-rider, crippled by debt, wrote thefollowing letter to Comte Paz, which, having fallen into the hands ofComte Adam, was read by several of the dandies of the day, whopronounced it a masterpiece:--

 "You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me after all that has passed, --which you have so ill understood? My heart disavows whatever may have wounded your feelings. If I was fortunate enough to charm you and keep you beside me in the past, return to me; otherwise, I shall fall into despair. Poverty has overtaken me, and you do not know what _horrid things_ it brings with it. Yesterday I lived on a herring at two sous, and one sou of bread. Is that a breakfast for the woman you loved? The Chapuzots have left me, though they seemed so devoted. Your desertion has caused me to see to the bottom of all human attachments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Chapuzots have gone. A sheriff has seized everything on behalf of the landlord, who has no heart, and the jeweller, who refused to wait even ten days, --for when we lose the confidence of such as you, credit goes too. What a position for women who have nothing to reproach themselves with but the happiness they have given! My friend, I have taken all I have of any value to _my uncle's_; I have nothing but the memory of you left, and here is the winter coming on. I shall be fireless when it turns cold; for the boulevards are to play only melodramas, in which I have nothing but little bits of parts which don't _pose_ a woman. How could you misunderstand the nobleness of my feelings for you?--for there are two ways of expressing gratitude. You who seemed so happy in seeing me well-off, how can you leave me in poverty? Oh, my sole friend on earth, before I go back to the country fairs with Bouthor's circus, where I can at least make a living, forgive me if I wish to know whether I have lost you forever. If I were to let myself think of you when I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs by losing _a time_. Whatever may be the result, I am yours for life. 

"Marguerite Turquet. "

"That letter, " thought Thaddeus, shouting with laughter, "is worth theten thousand francs I have spent upon her. "

 III

Clementine came home the next day, and the day after that Paz beheldher again, more beautiful and graceful than ever. After dinner, duringwhich the countess treated Paz with an air of perfect indifference, alittle scene took place in the salon between the count and his wifewhen Thaddeus had left them. On pretence of asking Adam's advice, Thaddeus had left Malaga's letter with him, as if by mistake. 

"Poor Thaddeus!" said Adam, as Paz disappeared, "what a misfortune fora man of his distinction to be the plaything of the lowest kind ofcircus-rider. He will lose everything, and get lower and lower, andwon't be recognizable before long. Here, read that, " added the count, giving Malaga's letter to his wife. 

Clementine read the letter, which smelt of tobacco, and threw it fromher with a look of disgust. 

"Thick as the bandage is over his eyes, " continued Adam, "he must havefound out something; Malaga tricked him, no doubt. "

"But he goes back to her, " said Clementine, "and he will forgive her!It is for such horrible women as that that you men have indulgence. "

"Well, they need it, " said Adam. 

"Thaddeus used to show some decency--in living apart from us, " sheremarked. "He had better go altogether. "

"Oh, my dear angel, that's going too far, " said the count, who did notwant the death of the sinner. 

Paz, who knew Adam thoroughly, had enjoined him to secrecy, pretendingto excuse his dissipations, and had asked his friend to lend him a fewthousand francs for Malaga. 

"He is a very firm fellow, " said Adam. 

"How so?" asked Clementine. 

"Why, for having spent no more than ten thousand francs on her, andletting her send him that letter before he would ask me for enough topay her debts. For a Pole, I call that firm. "

"He will ruin you, " said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisianwoman, when she shows her feline distrusts. 

"Oh, I know him, " said Adam; "he will sacrifice Malaga, if I ask him. "

"We shall see, " remarked the countess. 

"If it is best for his own happiness, I sha'n't hesitate to ask him toleave her. Constantin says that since Paz has been with her he, soberas he is, has sometimes come home quite excited. If he takes tointoxication I shall be just as grieved as if he were my own son. "

"Don't tell me anything more about it, " cried the countess, with agesture of disgust. 

Two days later the captain perceived in the manner, the tones ofvoice, but, above all, in the eyes of the countess, the terribleresults of Adam's confidences. Contempt had opened a gulf between thebeloved woman and himself. He was suddenly plunged into the deepestdistress of mind, for the thought gnawed him, "I have myself made herdespise me!" His own folly stared him in the face. Life then became aburden to him, the very sun turned gray. And yet, amid all thesebitter thoughts, he found again some moments of pure joy. There weretimes when he could give himself up wholly to his admiration for hismistress, who paid not the slightest attention to him. Hanging aboutin corners at her parties and receptions, silent, all heart and eyes, he never lost one of her attitudes, nor a tone of her voice when shesang. He lived in her life; he groomed the horse which _she_ rode, hestudied the ways and means of that splendid establishment, to theinterests of which he was now more devoted than ever. These silentpleasures were buried in his heart like those of a mother, whose hearta child never knows; for is it knowing anything unless we know it all?His love was more perfect than the love of Petrarch for Laura, whichfound its ultimate reward in the treasures of fame, the triumph of thepoem which she had inspired. Surely the emotion that the Chevalierd'Assas felt in dying must have been to him a lifetime of joy. Suchemotions as these Paz enjoyed daily, --without dying, but also withoutthe guerdon of immortality. 

But what is Love, that, in spite of all these ineffable delights, Pazshould still have been unhappy? The Catholic religion has so magnifiedLove that she has wedded it indissolubly to respect and nobility ofspirit. Love is therefore attended by those sentiments and qualitiesof which mankind is proud; it is rare to find true Love existing wherecontempt is felt. Thaddeus was suffering from the wounds his own handhad given him. The trial of his former life, when he lived beside hismistress, unknown, unappreciated, but generously working for her, wasbetter than this. Yes, he wanted the reward of his virtue, herrespect, and he had lost it. He grew thin and yellow, and so ill withconstant low fever that during the month of January he was obliged tokeep his bed, though he refused to see a doctor. Comte Adam becamevery uneasy about him; but the countess had the cruelty to remark:"Let him alone; don't you see it is only some Olympian trouble?" Thisremark, being repeated to Thaddeus, gave him the courage of despair;he left his bed, went out, tried a few amusements, and recovered hishealth. 

About the end of February Adam lost a large sum of money at theJockey-Club, and as he was afraid of his wife, he begged Thaddeus tolet the sum appear in the accounts as if he had spent it on Malaga. 

"There's nothing surprising in your spending that sum on the girl; butif the countess finds out that I have lost it at cards I shall belowered in her opinion, and she will always be suspicious in future. "

"Ha! this, too!" exclaimed Thaddeus, with a sigh. 

"Now, Thaddeus, if you will do me this service we shall be foreverquits, --though, indeed, I am your debtor now. "

"Adam, you will have children; don't gamble any more, " said Paz. 

"So Malaga has cost us another twenty thousand francs, " cried thecountess, some time later, when she discovered this new generosity toPaz. "First, ten thousand, now twenty more, --thirty thousand! theincome of which is fifteen hundred! the cost of my box at the Opera, and the whole fortune of many a bourgeois. Oh, you Poles!" she said, gathering some flowers in her greenhouse; "you are reallyincomprehensible. Why are you not furious with him?"

"Poor Paz is--"

"Poor Paz, poor Paz, indeed!" she cried, interrupting him, "what gooddoes he do us? I shall take the management of the household myself. You can give him the allowance he refused, and let him settle it as helikes with his Circus. "

"He is very useful to us, Clementine. He has certainly saved overforty thousand francs this last year. And besides, my dear angel, hehas managed to put a hundred thousand with Nucingen, which a stewardwould have pocketed. "

Clementine softened down; but she was none the less hard in herfeelings to Thaddeus. A few days later, she requested him to come tothat boudoir where, one year earlier, she had been surprised intocomparing him with her husband. This time she received him alone, without perceiving the slightest danger in so doing. 

"My dear Paz, " she said, with the condescending familiarity of thegreat to their inferiors, "if you love Adam as you say you do, youwill do a thing which he will not ask of you, but which I, his wife, do not hesitate to exact. "

"About Malaga?" said Thaddeus, with bitterness in his heart. 

"Well, yes, " she said; "if you wish to end your days in this house andcontinue good friends with us, you must give her up. How an oldsoldier--"

"I am only thirty-five, and haven't a white hair. "

"You look old, " she said, "and that's the same thing. How so careful amanager, so distinguished a--"

The horrible part of all this was her evident intention to rouse asense of honor in his soul which she thought extinct. 

"--so distinguished a man as you are, Thaddeus, " she resumed after amomentary pause which a gesture of his hand had led her to make, "canallow yourself to be caught like a boy! Your proceedings have madethat woman celebrated. My uncle wanted to see her, and he did see her. My uncle is not the only one; Malaga receives a great many gentlemen. I did think you such a noble soul. For shame! Will she be such a lossthat you can't replace her?"

"Madame, if I knew any sacrifice I could make to recover your esteem Iwould make it; but to give up Malaga is not one--"

"In your position, that is what I should say myself, if I were a man, "replied Clementine. "Well, if I accept it as a great sacrifice therecan be no ill-will between us. "

Paz left the room, fearing he might commit some great folly, andfeeling that wild ideas were getting the better of him. He went towalk in the open air, lightly dressed in spite of the cold, butwithout being able to cool the fire in his cheeks or on his brow. 

"I thought you had a noble soul, "--the words still rang in his ears. 

"A year ago, " he said to himself, "she thought me a hero who couldfight the Russians single-handed!"

He thought of leaving the hotel Laginski, and taking service with thespahis and getting killed in Africa, but the same great fear checkedhim. "Without me, " he thought, "what would become of them? they wouldsoon be ruined. Poor countess! what a horrible life it would be forher if she were reduced to even thirty thousand francs a year. No, since all is lost for me in this world, --courage! I will keep on as Iam. "

Every one knows that since 1830 the carnival in Paris has undergone atransformation which has made it European, and far more burlesque andotherwise lively than the late Carnival of Venice. Is it that thediminishing fortunes of the present time have led Parisians to inventa way of amusing themselves collectively, as for instance at theirclubs, where they hold salons without hostesses and without manners, but very cheaply? However this may be, the month of March was prodigalof balls, at which dancing, joking, coarse fun, excitement, grotesquefigures, and the sharp satire of Parisian wit, produced extravaganteffects. These carnival follies had their special Pandemonium in therue Saint-Honore and their Napoleon in Musard, a small man bornexpressly to lead an orchestra as noisy as the disorderly audience, and to set the time for the galop, that witches' dance, which was oneof Auber's triumphs, for it did not really take form or poesy till thegrand galop in "Gustave" was given to the world. That tremendousfinale might serve as the symbol of an epoch in which for the lastfifty years all things have hurried by with the rapidity of a dream. 

Now, it happened that the grave Thaddeus, with one divine andimmaculate image in his heart, proposed to Malaga, the queen of thecarnival dances, to spend an evening at the Musard ball; because heknew the countess, disguised to the teeth, intended to come there withtwo friends, all three accompanied by their husbands, and look on atthe curious spectacle of one of these crowded balls. 

On Shrove Tuesday, of the year 1838, at four o'clock in the morning, the countess, wrapped in a black domino and sitting on the lower stepof the platform in the Babylonian hall, where Valentino has since thengiven his concerts, beheld Thaddeus, as Robert Macaire, threading thegalop with Malaga in the dress of a savage, her head garnished withplumes like the horse of a hearse, and bounding through the crowd likea will-o-the-wisp. 

"Ah!" said Clementine to her husband, "you Poles have no honor at all!I did believe in Thaddeus. He gave me his word that he would leavethat woman; he did not know that I should be here, seeing all unseen. "

A few days later she requested Paz to dine with them. After dinnerAdam left them alone together, and Clementine reproved Paz and let himknow very plainly that she did not wish him to live in her house anylonger. 

"Yes, madame, " said Paz, humbly, "you are right; I am a wretch; I didgive you my word. But you see how it is; I put off leaving Malaga tillafter the carnival. Besides, that woman exerts an influence over mewhich--"

"An influence!--a woman who ought to be turned out of Musard's by thepolice for such dancing!"

"I agree to all that; I accept the condemnation and I'll leave yourhouse. But you know Adam. If I give up the management of your propertyyou must show energy yourself. I may have been to blame about Malaga, but I have taken the whole charge of your affairs, managed yourservants, and looked after the very least details. I cannot leave youuntil I see you prepared to continue my management. You have now beenmarried three years, and you are safe from the temptations toextravagance which come with the honeymoon. I see that Parisian women, and even titled ones, do manage both their fortunes and theirhouseholds. Well, as soon as I am certain not so much of your capacityas of your perseverance I shall leave Paris. "

"It is Thaddeus of Warsaw, and not that Circus Thaddeus who speaksnow, " said Clementine. "Go, and come back cured. "

"Cured! never, " said Paz, his eyes lowered and fixed on Clementine'spretty feet. "You do not know, countess, what charm, what unexpectedpiquancy of mind she has. " Then, feeling his courage fail him, headded hastily, "There is not a woman in society, with her mincingairs, that is worth the honest nature of that young animal. "

"At any rate, I wish nothing of the animal about me, " said thecountess, with a glance like that of an angry viper. 

After that evening Comte Paz showed Clementine the exact state of heraffairs; he made himself her tutor, taught her the methods anddifficulties of the management of property, the proper prices to payfor things, and how to avoid being cheated by her servants. He toldher she could rely on Constantin and make him her major-domo. Thaddeushad trained the man thoroughly. By the end of May he thought thecountess fully competent to carry on her affairs alone; for Clementinewas one of those far-sighted women, full of instinct, who have aninnate genius as mistress of a household. 

This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, didnot end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not tobe as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor loverforgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, andThaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend. His devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employingher perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishmentimposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; butwomen see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of theirsouls--love is their sole illuminator. 

During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearingto think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think ofher. Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though hedid not die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris inconsultation. 

"If he comes safely out of this, " said the most distinguished of themall, "it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those whonurse him to watch for the moment when they must second nature. Thecount's life is in the hands of his nurses. "

Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of theconsultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as muchfor a little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and notembarrass them. As he walked along the winding gravelled path whichled to the pavilion, Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of anabyss described by Dante. The unfortunate man had never dreamed thatthe possibility might arise of becoming Clementine's husband, and nowhe had drowned himself in a ditch of mud. His face was convulsed, whenhe reached the kiosk, with an agony of grief; his head, like Medusa's, conveyed despair. 

"Is he dead?" said Clementine. 

"They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not goin; they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings. "

"Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him, " shesaid. 

"You have made him very happy, " said Thaddeus; "you ought to be easyon that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him. "

"My loss would be irreparable. "

"But, dear, you judged him justly. "

"I was never blind to his faults, " she said, "but I loved him as awife should love her husband. "

"Then you ought, in case you lose him, " said Thaddeus, in a voicewhich Clementine had never heard him use, "to grieve for him less thanif you lost a man who was your pride, your love, and all your life, --as some men are to you women. Surely you can be frank at this momentwith a friend like me. I shall grieve, too; long before your marriageI had made him my child, I had sacrificed my life to him. If he dies Ishall be without an interest on earth; but life is still beautiful toa widow of twenty-four. "

"Ah! but you know that I love no one, " she said, with the impatienceof grief. 

"You don't yet know what it is to love, " said Thaddeus. 

"Oh, as husbands are, I have sense enough to prefer a child like mypoor Adam to a superior man. It is now over a month that we have beensaying to each other, 'Will he live?' and these alternations haveprepared me, as they have you, for this loss. I can be frank with you. Well, I would give my life to save Adam. What is a woman'sindependence in Paris? the freedom to let herself be taken in byruined or dissipated men who pretend to love her. I pray to God toleave me this husband who is so kind, so obliging, so littlefault-finding, and who is beginning to stand in awe of me. "

"You are honest, and I love you the better for it, " said Thaddeus, taking her hand which she yielded to him, and kissing it. "In solemnmoments like these there is unspeakable satisfaction in finding awoman without hypocrisy. It is possible to converse with you. Let uslook to the future. Suppose that God does not grant your prayer, --andno one cries to him more than I do, 'Leave me my friend!' Yes, thesefifty nights have not weakened me; if thirty more days and nights areneeded I can give them while you sleep, --yes, I will tear him fromdeath if, as the doctors say, nursing can save him. But suppose thatin spite of you and me, the count dies, --well, then, if you wereloved, oh, adored, by a man of a heart and soul that are worthy ofyou--"

"I may have wished for such love, foolishly, but I have never met withit. "

"Perhaps you are mistaken--"

Clementine looked fixedly at Thaddeus, imagining that there was lessof love than of cupidity in his thoughts; her eyes measured him fromhead to foot and poured contempt upon him; then she crushed him withthe words, "Poor Malaga!" uttered in tones which a great lady alonecan find to give expression to her disdain. She rose, leaving Thaddeushalf unconscious behind her, slowly re-entered her boudoir, and wentback to Adam's chamber. 

An hour later Paz returned to the sick-room, and began anew, withdeath in his heart, his care of the count. From that moment he saidnothing. He was forced to struggle with the patient, whom he managedin a way that excited the admiration of the doctors. At all hours hiswatchful eyes were like lamps always lighted. He showed no resentmentto Clementine, and listened to her thanks without accepting them; heseemed both dumb and deaf. To himself he was saying, "She shall owehis life to me, " and he wrote the thought as it were in letters offire on the walls of Adam's room. On the fifteenth day Clementine wasforced to give up the nursing, lest she should utterly break down. Pazwas unwearied. At last, towards the end of August, Bianchon, thefamily physician, told Clementine that Adam was out of danger. 

"Ah, madame, you are under no obligation to me, " he said; "without hisfriend, Comte Paz, we could not have saved him. "

The day after the meeting of Paz and Clementine in the kiosk, theMarquis de Ronquerolles came to see his nephew. He was on the eve ofstarting for Russia on a secret diplomatic mission. Paz took occasionto say a few words to him. The first day that Adam was able to driveout with his wife and Thaddeus, a gentleman entered the courtyard asthe carriage was about to leave it, and asked for Comte Paz. Thaddeus, who was sitting on the front seat of the caleche, turned to take aletter which bore the stamp of the ministry of Foreign affairs. Havingread it, he put it into his pocket in a manner which preventedClementine or Adam from speaking of it. Nevertheless, by the time theyreached the porte Maillot, Adam, full of curiosity, used the privilegeof a sick man whose caprices are to be gratified, and said toThaddeus: "There's no indiscretion between brothers who love eachother, --tell me what there is in that despatch; I'm in a fever ofcuriosity. "

Clementine glanced at Thaddeus with a vexed air, and remarked to herhusband: "He has been so sulky with me for the last two months that Ishall never ask him anything again. "

"Oh, as for that, " replied Paz, "I can't keep it out of thenewspapers, so I may as well tell you at once. The Emperor Nicholashas had the grace to appoint me captain in a regiment which is to takepart in the expedition to Khiva. "

"You are not going?" cried Adam. 

"Yes, I shall go, my dear fellow. Captain I came, and captain Ireturn. We shall dine together to-morrow for the last time. If I don'tstart at once for St. Petersburg I shall have to make the journey byland, and I am not rich, and I must leave Malaga a littleindependence. I ought to think of the only woman who has been able tounderstand me; she thinks me grand, superior. I dare say she isfaithless, but she would jump--"

"Through the hoop, for your sake and come down safely on the back ofher horse, " said Clementine sharply. 

"Oh, you don't know Malaga, " said the captain, bitterly, with asarcastic look in his eyes which made Clementine thoughtful anduneasy. 

"Good-by to the young trees of this beautiful Bois, which youParisians love, and the exiles who find a home here love too, " hesaid, presently. "My eyes will never again see the evergreens of theavenue de Mademoiselle, nor the acacias nor the cedars of therond-points. On the borders of Asia, fighting for the Emperor, promoted to the command, perhaps, by force of courage and by riskingmy life, it may happen that I shall regret these Champs-Elysees whereI have driven beside you, and where you pass. Yes, I shall grieve forMalaga's hardness--the Malaga of whom I am now speaking. "

This was said in a manner that made Clementine tremble. 

"Then you do love Malaga very much?" she asked. 

"I have sacrificed for her the honor that no man should eversacrifice. "

"What honor?"

"That which we desire to keep at any cost in the eyes of our idol. "

After that reply Thaddeus said no more; he was silent until, as theypassed a wooden building on the Champs Elysees, he said, pointing toit, "That is the Circus. "

He went to the Russian Embassy before dinner, and thence to theForeign office, and the next morning he had started for Havre beforethe count and countess were up. 

"I have lost a friend, " said Adam, with tears in his eyes, when heheard that Paz had gone, --"a friend in the true meaning of the word. Idon't know what has made him abandon me as if a pestilence were in myhouse. We are not friends to quarrel about a woman, " he said, lookingintently at Clementine. "You heard what he said yesterday aboutMalaga. Well, he has never so much as touched the little finger ofthat girl. "

"How do you know that?" said Clementine. 

"I had the natural curiosity to go and see Mademoiselle Turquet, andthe poor girl can't explain even to herself the absolute reserve whichThad--"

"Enough!" said the countess, retreating into her bedroom. "Can it bethat I am the victim of some noble mystification?" she asked herself. The thought had hardly crossed her mind when Constantin brought herthe following letter written by Thaddeus during the night:--

 "Countess, --To seek death in the Caucasus and carry with me your contempt is more than I can bear. A man should die untainted. When I saw you for the first time I loved you as we love a woman whom we shall love forever, even though she be unfaithful to us. I loved you thus, --I, the friend of the man you had chosen and were about to marry; I, poor; I, the steward, --a voluntary service, but still the steward of your household. 

 "In this immense misfortune I found a happy life. To be to you an indispensable machine, to know myself useful to your comfort, your luxury, has been the source of deep enjoyments. If these enjoyments were great when I thought only of Adam, think what they were to my soul when the woman I loved was the mainspring of all I did. I have known the pleasures of maternity in my love. I accepted life thus. Like the paupers who live along the great highways, I built myself a hut on the borders of your beautiful domain, though I never sought to approach you. Poor and lonely, struck blind by Adam's good fortune, I was, nevertheless, the giver. Yes, you were surrounded by a love as pure as a guardian-angel's; it waked while you slept; it caressed you with a look as you passed; it was happy in its own existence, --you were the sun of my native land to me, poor exile, who now writes to you with tears in his eyes as he thinks of the happiness of those first days. 

 "When I was eighteen years old, having no one to love, I took for my ideal mistress a charming woman in Warsaw, to whom I confided all my thoughts, my wishes; I made her the queen of my nights and days. She knew nothing of all this; why should she? I loved my love. 

 "You can fancy from this incident of my youth how happy I was merely to live in the sphere of your existence, to groom your horse, to find the new-coined gold for your purse, to prepare the splendor of your dinners and your balls, to see you eclipsing the elegance of those whose fortunes were greater than yours, and all by my own good management. Ah! with what ardor I have ransacked Paris when Adam would say to me, '_She_ wants this or that. ' It was a joy such as I can never express to you. You wished for a trifle at one time which kept me seven hours in a cab scouring the city; and what delight it was to weary myself for you. Ah! when I saw you, unseen by you, smiling among your flowers, I could forget that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles. 

 "I _must_ tell you these things to explain the strange presumption of my involuntary thoughts, --I would have died rather than avow it until now. 

 "You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to know the man who performed the household miracles you had sometimes noticed. I thought, --forgive me, madame, --I believed you might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a lover, seemed to me so dangerous--for me--that I invented that story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women cannot forgive. I did it in a moment when I felt that my love would be communicated, fatally, to you. Despise me, crush me with the contempt you have so often cast upon me when I did not deserve it; and yet I am certain that, if, on that evening when your aunt took Adam away from you, I had said what I have now written to you, I should, like the tamed tiger that sets his teeth once more in living flesh, and scents the blood, and--

 "Midnight. 

 "I could not go on; the memory of that hour is still too living. Yes, I was maddened. Was there hope for me in your eyes? then victory with its scarlet banners would have flamed in mine and fascinated yours. My crime has been to think all this; perhaps wrongly. You alone can judge of that dreadful scene when I drove back love, desire, all the most invincible forces of our manhood, with the cold hand of gratitude, --gratitude which must be eternal. 

 "Your terrible contempt has been my punishment. You have shown me there is no return from loathing or disdain. I love you madly. I should have gone had Adam died; all the more must I go because he lives. A man does not tear his friend from the arms of death to betray him. Besides, my going is my punishment for the thought that came to me that I would let him die, when the doctors said that his life depended on his nursing. 

 "Adieu, madame; in leaving Paris I lose all, but you lose nothing now in my being no longer near you. 

"Your devoted"Thaddeus Paz. "

"If my poor Adam says he has lost a friend, what have I lost?" thoughtClementine, sinking into a chair with her eyes fixed on the carpet. 

The following letter Constantin had orders to give privately to thecount:--

 "My dear Adam, --Malaga has told me all. In the name of all your future happiness, never let a word escape you to Clementine about your visits to that girl; let her think that Malaga has cost me a hundred thousand francs. I know Clementine's character; she will never forgive you either your losses at cards or your visits to Malaga. 

 "I am not going to Khiva, but to the Caucasus. I have the spleen; and at the pace at which I mean to go I shall be either Prince Paz in three years, or dead. Good-by; though I have taken sixty-thousand francs from Nucingen, our accounts are even. 

"Thaddeus. "

"Idiot that I was, " thought Adam; "I came near to cutting my throatjust now, talking about Malaga. "

It is now three years since Paz went away. The newspapers have as yetsaid nothing about any Prince Paz. The Comtesse Laginska is immenselyinterested in the expeditions of the Emperor Nicholas; she is Russianto the core, and reads with a sort of avidity all the news that comesfrom that distant land. Once or twice every winter she says to theRussian ambassador, with an air of indifference, "Do you know what hasbecome of our poor Comte Paz?"

Alas! most Parisian women, those beings who think themselves so cleverand clear-sighted, pass and repass beside a Paz and never recognizehim. Yes, many a Paz is unknown and misconceived, but--horrible tothink of!--some are misconceived even though they are loved. Thesimplest women in society exact a certain amount of conventional shamfrom the greatest men. A noble love signifies nothing to them if roughand unpolished; it needs the cutting and setting of a jeweller to giveit value in their eyes. 

In January, 1842, the Comtesse Laginska, with her charm of gentlemelancholy, inspired a violent passion in the Comte de La Palferine, one of the most daring and presumptuous lions of the day. La Palferinewas well aware that the conquest of a woman so guarded by reserve asthe Comtesse Laginska was difficult, but he thought he could inveiglethis charming creature into committing herself if he took herunawares, by the assistance of a certain friend of her own, a womanalready jealous of her. 

Quite incapable, in spite of her intelligence, of suspecting suchtreachery, the Comtesse Laginska committed the imprudence of goingwith her so-called friend to a masked ball at the Opera. About threein the morning, led away by the excitement of the scene, Clementine, on whom La Palferine had expended his seductions, consented to accepta supper, and was about to enter the carriage of her faithless friend. At this critical moment her arm was grasped by a powerful hand, andshe was taken, in spite of her struggles, to her own carriage, thedoor of which stood open, though she did not know it was there. 

"He has never left Paris!" she exclaimed to herself as she recognizedThaddeus, who disappeared when the carriage drove away. 

Did any woman ever have a like romance in her life? Clementine isconstantly hoping she may again see Paz. 

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Mass Cesar Birotteau The Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country ParsonIn addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of Woman La Grande Breteche

Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas Another Study of Woman Cousin Betty

La Palferine, Comte de A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business Cousin Betty Beatrix

Lelewel The Seamy Side of History

Nathan, Madame Raoul The Muse of the Department Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Government Clerks A Bachelor's Establishment Ursule Mirouet Eugenie Grandet A Prince of Bohemia A Daughter of Eve The Unconscious Humorists

Paz, Thaddee Cousin Betty

Ronquerolles, Marquis de The Peasantry Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Another Study of Woman The Thirteen The Member for Arcis

Rouvre, Marquis du A Start in Life Ursule Mirouet

Rouvre, Chevalier du Ursule Mirouet

Schinner, Hippolyte The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment Pierre Grassou A Start in Life Albert Savarus The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon The Unconscious Humorists

Serizy, Comtesse de A Start in Life The Thirteen Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Another Study of Woman

Serizy, Vicomte de A Start in Life Modeste Mignon

Souchet, Francois The Purse A Daughter of Eve

Steinbock, Count Wenceslas Cousin Betty

Turquet, Marguerite The Muse of the Department A Man of Business Cousin Betty