LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
Mr. H. H. KM iani
UCSB LIBRARX
V- 1^73 \
H. DE BALZAC
THE COMEDIE HUMAINE
PORTRAIT OF BALZAC
H. DE BALZAC
THE
WILD Ass' SKIN
(LA PEAU DE CHAGRIN)
AND OTHER STORIES
TRANSLATED BY
ELLEN MARRIAGE
WITH A PREFACE BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
PHILADELPHIA
THE GEBBIE PUBLISHING Co., Ltd.
1897
CONTENTS
PREFACE TO 'THE WILD ASS 1 SKIN 1 ix
BRIEF SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR . . . .13
AUTHORS INTRODUCTION 41
THE WILD ASS' SKIN
I. THE TALISMAN I
II. A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART 73
III. THE AGONY 184
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE 286
A STUDY OF WOMAN 313
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF BALZAC Frontispiece
By H. Crickmore.
PAGE
A LITTLE OLD MAN TURNED THE LIGHT OF A LAMP UPON
HIM 2 4
Drawn by W. Boucher.
I CANNOT RECOLLECT PAYING FOR WATER; I WENT OUT TO
FETCH IT EVERY MORNING 89
Drawn by W. Boucher.
PAULINE DREW HER HANDS AWAY, LAID THEM ON RAPHAEL'S
SHOULDERS, AND DREW HIM TOWARDS HER . . . 205
Drawn by W. Boucher.
VALENTIN HURRIEDLY SOUGHT THE WILD ASS* SKIN TO SEE
WHAT ANOTHER MAN'S LIFE HAD COST HIM . . . 263
Drawn by W. Boucher.
PREFACE.
THE " Wild Ass' Skin " is the one book of Balzac's which
it is difficult for those who know it to approach without a
somewhat uncritical enthusiasm. It is not faultless ; no book
of his is, and this cannot challenge the epithet even to the ex-
tent to which not a few others can challenge it. It is earlier
than almost any of the mature novels, except " The Chouans;"
and it bears in some respects the marks of its earliness as well
as, in others, those of that rather artificial scheme of repre-
senting life, which was so strongly characteristic of the author,
and which, while it helped him in conceiving the "Comedie
Humaine," imposed a certain restraint and hamper on the
" Comedie" itself. We could spare a good deal of the jour-
nalist and other talk at the orgie; and more persons than Emile
have gone to sleep over, or have escaped sleep only by skip-
ping, the unconscionable length of Raphael's story.
But these are the merest and most miserable of details. In
the first place, the conception is of the very finest. You may
call it a philosophic study, or you may not ; you may class it
as an " allegory " on the banks of the Nile or the Seine, or any
other river, if you like. Neither title will do it any harm,
and neither can explain it or exalt it higher. The law of
Nemesis the law that every extraordinary expansion or satis-
faction of heart or brain or will is paid for paid for inevit-
ably, incommutably, without the possibility of putting off or
transferring the payment is one of the truths about which
no human being with a soul a little above the brute has the
slightest doubt. It may be put religiously as, " Know that
for all these things God will bring thee into judgment;" or
philosophically, as in the same book, "All things are double,
one against the other;" or in any other fashion or language.
(ix)
x PREFACE.
But it is an eternal and immutable verity, and the soul of
man bears witness to it.
It is Balzac's way to provide abundant, and not always
economically arranged backgrounds and contrasts for his cen-
tral pictures ; and the gaming-house (the model of how many
gaming-houses since!), the gorgeous disorder of the curi-
osity shop, and the " orgie " provide these in the present
case lavishly enough. The orgie is undoubtedly the weakest.
It is only touched with others by the pleasant and good-
humor skit of Gautier in " Les Jeune-France ;" but the note
there struck is, as usual with "Theo," the right one. You
cannot "organize" an orgie; the thing comes naturally or
not at all ; and in the splendors of Taillefer, as in those of
Trimalchio, there is a certain coldness.
But this is soon forgotten in the absorbing interest of the
skin and its master. The only adverse comment which has
ever occurred to me is, that one might perhaps have expected
a longer period of indifference, of more or less reckless en-
joyment of the privileges, to elapse before a vivid conscious-
ness of the curse and of the penalty. I know no answer,
unless it be that Balzac took the orgie itself to be, as it were,
the wild oats of Raphael's period in which case he had not
much to show for it. But when the actual consciousness
wakes, when the Skin has been measured on the napkin, and
its shrinking noted, nothing is questionable any longer. The
frenzied anxiety of the victim is not overdone ; the way in
which his very frenzy leads him to make greater and ever
greater drafts on his capital of power without any correspond-
ing satisfaction is masterly. And the close is more masterly
still. To some tastes the actual conclusion may be a thought too
allegorical, but in eighteen-hundred-and-thirty your allegory
was your only wear; and Gautier, in the pleasant book above
cited, was thoroughly in the fashion when he audaciously put
a hidden literary meaning on the merry tale of " Celle-ci et
celle-la." Here, too, if anywhere, the opposition of Pauline
PREFACE. xi
and Fcedora in this way is justified. It softens off the too
high-strung tragedy of the catastrophe at the same time that it
points the moral, and it rounds as much as it adorns the tale.
It has been observed, in no carping or hypercritical spirit,
that passages of the book are somewhat high-flown in style.
The fact is that Balzac had rather a tendency to this style, and
only outgrew it, if he ever did outgrow it, by dint of its
greater and greater unfitness for his chosen subjects. Here,
if anywhere, it was excusable, just as here, if anywhere, the
gigantic element in his genius found scope and play. There
had been some "inventories " in literature before, and there
have been many more since the description of the curiosity
shop ; but none, if we except the brief Shakespearian perfec-
tion of that in Clarence's dream, and none at all in a heaped
and minute style, can approach this. The thing is night-
marish you see the magots and the armor, the pictures and
the statues, and amongst them all the sinister " piece of shag-
reen,"* with the ineffaceable letters stamped on it.
And so over all the book there is the note of the seer, of
the seer who sees and who makes others see. This note is
seldom an idyllic or merely pleasant one ; the writer who
has it must have, even in such a book as the " Country
Doctor," a black thread in his twist, a sombre background
to his happy valley. Here the subject not only excuses, but
demands a constant sombreness, a tone of thunder in the air,
of eclipse and earthquake. And the tone is given. A very
miserable person would he be who endeavored to pick out
burlesque points in the " Wild Ass' Skin," the most apoc-
alyptic of the novels of the nineteenth century, and yet one
of the most soberly true in general theme and theory. When
one thinks of the tireless efforts which have been made,
especially of late years, to " pejorate " pessimism and blacken
*I hesitated between " The Piece of Shagreen " and " The Wild Ass'
Skin " for the title, but Balzac's own remarks decided me. " The Magic
Skin " is very weak, and " The Skin of Shagreen " hideous.
xii PREFACE.
gloom, and of the too general conclusion of yawn or laugh
to which they bring us, it is doubly curious to come" back
to this sermon by a very unpriestly preacher on the simple
text, " Whom the gods curse, to him they grant the desires
of his heart."
"The Wild Ass' Skin" appeared first in August, 1831,
published in two volumes, by Gosselin and Canel, with a
Preface and a ' ' Moral, ' ' which the author afterwards cut out.
Of its four chapters or divisions the first originally bore the
title of the whole book, and the last that of " Conclusion,"
not " Epilogue," which was afterwards affixed to it. One or
two fragments, not incorporated in the finished book, exist,
having been previously published. Balzac reviewed it him-
self, more than once, in the Caricature and elsewhere, both
at its first appearance and afterwards, when it reappeared in
the same year with other stories and a new preface by Philarete
Chasles as " Philosophical Tales and Romances." This was
republished more than once till, in 1835, it took rank anew in
the "Philosophical Studies," while ten years later, under the
same sub-title, it was finally classed in the first complete ar-
rangement of the " Com6die Humaine."
"L'Elixir de longue Vie" (The Elixir of Life), in which
Balzac acknowledges (I do not know whether by trick or not)
indebtedness to Hoffmann or somebody else, is also "style of
1830," and to speak with perfect frankness, would have been
done much better by Merim6e or Gautier than by Balzac.
But it is done well.
The first " Etude de Femme " (A Study of Woman) came
out in La Mode in March, 1830, next year at the end of the
" Peau de Chagrin," in 1835 (with a new title, Profi I de
Marquise) in "Scenes de la vie Parisienne." When the
" Comedie " was collected its actual title was taken and it
was given a position among the shorter stories.
G. S.
BRIEF SKETCH
OF
HONORE DE BALZAC.
Honore de Balzac was born at Tours on the 2oth of May,
1799. The family was a respectable one, though its right to
the particle which Balzac always carefully assumed, subscrib-
ing himself (with dubious correctness, though the point is an
argued one) " de Balzac" was contested. And there appears
to be no proof of their connection with Jean Guez de Balzac,
the founder, as some will have him, of modern French prose,
and the contemporary and fellow-reformer of Malherbe.
Indeed, as the novelist pointed out with sufficient pertinence,
his earlier namesake had no hereditary right to the name at
all, and merely took it from some property. Balzac's father,
who, as the zac pretty surely indicates, was a southerner and
a native of Languedoc, was fifty-three years old at the birth
of his son, whose Christian name was selected on the ordinary
principle of accepting that of the saint on whose day he was
born. Balzac the elder had been a barrister before the Revo-
lution, but under it he obtained a post in the commissariat,
and rose to be head of that department for a military division.
His wife, who was much younger than himself, and who sur-
vived her son, is said to have possessed both beauty and for-
tune, and was evidently endowed with the business faculties
so common among Frenchwomen. When Honore was born,
the family had not long been established at Tours, where
Balzac the elder (besides his duties) had a house and some
land; and this town continued to be their headquarters till
(xiii)
xiv BRIEF SKETCH OF
the novelist, who was the eldest of the family, was about six-
teen. He had two sisters (of whom the elder, Laure, after-
wards Madame Surville, was his confidante and his only
authoritative biographer) and a younger brother, who seems
to have been, if not a scapegrace, rather a burden to his
friends, and who later went abroad.
The eldest boy was, in spite of Rousseau, put out to nurse,
and at seven years old was sent to the Oratorian grammar
school at Vendome, where he stayed another seven years,
going through, according to his own account, the future ex-
periences and performances of Louis Lambert, but making no
reputation for himself in the ordinary school course. If, how-
ever, he would not work in his teacher's way, he overworked
himself in his own by devouring books ; and was sent home
at fourteen in such a state of health that his grandmother
(who, after the French fashion, was living with her daughter
and son-in-law), ejaculated, "And this is the way the college
returns the fine children we send her!" It would seem,
indeed, that after making all due allowance for grand-
motherly and sisterly partiality, Balzac was actually a very
good-looking boy and young man, though the portraits of
him in later life may not satisfy the more romantic expecta-
tions of his admirers. He must have had at all times eyes
full of character, perhaps the only feature that never fails in
men of intellectual eminence ; but he certainly does not seem
to have been in his manhood either exactly handsome or ex-
actly (to use a foolish-sounding term which yet has no exact
equivalent of better sound) "distinguished-looking." But
the portraits of the middle of the century are, as a rule,
rather wanting in this characteristic when compared with
those of its first and last periods.
For a short time he was left pretty much to himself, and
recovered rapidly. But late in 1814 a change of official
duties removed the Balzacs to Paris, and when they had estab-
lished themselves in the famous old bourgeois quarter of the
HONORE DE BALZAC. xv
Marais, Honore was sent to divers private tutors or private
schools till he had "finished his classes " in 1816 at the age
of seventeen and a half. Then he attended lectures at the
Sorbonne, where Villemain, Guizot aud Cousin were lectur-
ing, and heard them, as his sister tells us, enthusiastically,
though there are probably no three writers of any considera-
ble repute in the history of French literature who stand fur-
ther apart from Balzac. For all three made and kept their
fame by spirited and agreeable generalizations and expatia-
tions, as different as possible from the savage labor of observa-
tion on the one hand and the gigantic developments of
imagination on the other, which were to compose Balzac's
appeal. His father destined him for the law ; and for three
years more he dutifully attended the offices of an attorney
and a notary, besides going through the necessary lectures
and examinations. All these trials he seems to have passed,
if not brilliantly, yet sufficiently.
And then came the inevitable crisis, which was of an un-
usually severe nature. A notary, who was a friend of the
elder Balzac and owed him some gratitude, offered not merely
to take Honore into his office, but to allow him to succeed
to his business, which was a very good one, in a few years on
very favorable terms. Most fathers, and nearly all French
fathers, would have jumped at this ; and it so happened that
about the same time M. de Balzac was undergoing that un-
pleasant process of compulsory retirement which his son has
described in one of the best passages of the " Works of His
Youth," * the opening scene of " Argow le Pirate." It does
not appear that Honore had revolted during his probation
indeed he is said, and we can easily believe it from his books,
to have acquired a very solid knowledge of law, especially in
bankruptcy matters, of which he was himself to have a very
close shave in future. A solicitor, indeed, told Laure de
Balzac that he found "Cesar Birotteau," a kind of " Balzac on
* CEuvres de Jeunnesse.
xvi BRIEF SKETCH OF
Bankruptcy;" but this may have been only the solicitor's
fun.
It was no part of Honore's intentions to use this knowl-
edge however content he had been to acquire it in the
least interesting, if nearly the most profitable, of the branches
of the legal profession ; and he protested eloquently, and not
unsuccessfully, that he would be a man of letters and nothing
else. Not unsuccessfully ; but at the same time with distinctly
qualified success. He was not turned out of doors ; nor were
the supplies, as in Quinet's case only a few month's later,
absolutely withheld even for a short time. But his mother
(who seems to have been less placable than her husband)
thought that cutting them down to the lowest point might
have some effect. So, as the family at this time (April, 1819)
left Paris for a house some twenty miles out of it, she estab-
lished her eldest son in a garret furnished in the most Spartan
fashion, with a starvation allowance and an old woman to
look after him. He did not literally stay in this garret for
the ten years of his astonishing and unparalleled probation ;
but without too much metaphor it may be said to have been
his Wilderness, and his Wanderings in it to have lasted for
that very considerable time.
We know, in detail, very little of him during this period.
For the first years, between 1819 and 1822, we have a good
number of letters to Laure; between 1822 and 1829, when he
first made his mark, very few. He began, of course, with
verse, for which he never had the slightest vocation, and
almost equally of course with a tragedy. But by degrees, and
apparently pretty soon, he slipped into what was his vocation,
and like some, though not very many, great writers, at first
did little better in it than if it had not been his vocation at
all. The singular tentatives which, after being allowed for a
time a sort of outhouse in the structure of the " Comedie
Humaine," were excluded from the octavo " Edition Defini-
tive " five-and-twenty years ago, have never been the object
HONORS DE BALZAC. xvii
of that exhaustive bibliographical and critical attention which
has been bestowed on those which follow them. They were
not absolutely unproductive we hear of sixty, eighty., a hun-
dred pounds being paid for them, though whether this was
the amount of Balzac's always sanguine expectations, or hard
cash actually handed over, we cannot say. They were very
numerous, though the reprints never extended to more than
ten.
It is generally agreed that these singular " Works of His
Youth" were of service to Balzac as exercises, and no doubt
they were so ; but something may be said on the other side.
They must have done a little, if not much, to lead him into
and confirm him in those defects of style and form which dis-
tinguish him so remarkably from most writers of his rank.
It very seldom happens when a very young man writes very
much, be it book-writing or journalism, without censure and
without " editing," that he does not at the same time get into
loose and slipshod habits. And we may set down to this
peculiar form of apprenticeship of Balzac's not merely his
failure ever to attain, except in passages and patches, a thor-
oughly great style, but also that extraordinary method of
composition which in after days cost him and his publishers
so much money.
However, if these ten years of probation taught him his
trade, they taught him also a most unfortunate avocation or
by-trade, which he never ceased to practise, or to try to prac-
tise, which never did him the very least good, and which not un-
frequently lost him much of the not too abundant gains which
he earned with such enormous labor. This was the "game
of speculation." His sister puts the tempter's part on an
unknown "neighbor," who advised him to try to procure
independence by a good speculation. Those who have read
Balzac's books and his letters will hardly think that he re-
quired much tempting. He began by trying to publish an
attempt which has never yet succeeded with a single man of
xviii BRIEF SKETCH OF
letters, so far as we can remember. His scheme was not a
bad one ; indeed, it was one which has brought much money
to other pockets since, being neither more nor less than the
issuing of cheap one-volume editions of French classics. But
he had hardly any capital ; he was naturally quite ignorant of
his trade, and as naturally the established publishers and
booksellers boycotted him as an intruder. So his " Moliere "
and his " La Fontaine " are said to have been sold as waste
paper, though if any copies escaped they would probably
bring a very comfortable price now. Then, such capital as
he had having been borrowed, the lender, either out of good
nature or avarice, determined to throw the helve after the
hatchet. He partly advanced himself, and partly induced
Balzac's parents to advance more, in order to start the young
man as a printer, to which business Honore himself added
that of typefounder. The story was just the same : knowl-
edge and capital were again wanting, and though actual
bankruptcy was avoided, Balzac got out of the matter at the
cost not merely of giving the two businesses to a friend (in
whose hands they proved profitable), but of a margin of debt
from which he may be said never to have fully cleared
himself.
He had more than twenty years to live, but he never cured
himself of this hankering after a good speculation. Some-
times it was ordinary stock-exchange gambling ; but his
special weakness was, to do him justice, for schemes that had
something more grandiose in them. Thus, to finish here with
the subject, though the chapter of it never actually finished
till his death, he made years afterwards, when he was a suc-
cessful and a desperately busy author, a long, troublesome,
and costly journey to Sardinia to carry out a plan of resmelt-
ing the slag from Roman and other mines there. Thus in
his very latest days, when he was living at Vierzschovnia with
the Hanska and Mniszech household, he conceived the mag-
nificently absurd notion of cutting down twenty thousand
HO NO RE DE BALZAC. xix
acres of oak wood in the Ukraine, and sending it by railway
right across Europe to be sold in France. And he was rather
reluctantly convinced that by the time a single log reached its
market the freight would have eaten up the value of a whole
plantation.
It was perhaps not entirely chance that the collapse of the
printing scheme, which took place in 1827, the ninth year of
the Wanderings in the Wilderness, coincided with or immedi-
ately preceded the conception of the book which was to give
Balzac passage into the Promised Land. This was " The
Chouans," called at its first issue, which differed considerably
from the present form, " The Last Chouan or Brittany in
1800" (later 1799). It was published in 1829 without any
of the previous anagrammatic pseudonyms, and whatever were
the reasons which had induced him to make his bow in person
to the public, they were well justified, for the book was a dis-
tinct success, if not a great one. It occupies a kind of mid-
dle position between the melodramatic romance of his nonage
and the strictly analytic romance-novel of his later time ; and,
though dealing with war and love chiefly, inclines in concep-
tion distinctly to the latter. Corentin, Hulot, and other per-
sonages of the actual Comedy (then by no means planned or
at least avowed) appear ; and though the influence of Scott is
in a way paramount on the surface, the under- work is quite
different, and the whole scheme of the loves of Montauran
and Mademoiselle de Verneuil is pure Balzac.
It would seem as if nothing but this sun of popular approval
had been wanted to make Balzac's genius burst out in full
bloom. Although we have a fair number of letters for the
ensuing years, it is not very easy to make out the exact
sequence of production of the marvelous harvest which his
genius gave. It is sufficient to say that in the three years
following 1829 there were actually published the charming
story of " The Sign of the Cat and the Racket," the " Wild
Ass' Skin," the most original and splendid, if not the most
xx BRIEF SKETCH OF
finished and refined of all Balzac's novels, most of the short
"Philosophical Stories," of which some are among their
author's greatest triumphs, many other stories (chiefly included
in the "Scenes of Private Life,") and the beginning of the
"Droll Stories."
It is well known that from the time almost of his success as
a novelist he was given, like too many successful novelists
(not like Scott), to rather undignified and foolish attacks on
critics. The explanation may or may not be found in the
fact that we have abundant critical work of his, and that it is
nearly all bad. Now and then we have an acute remark in
his own special sphere ; but as a rule he cannot be compli-
mented on these performances, and when he was half-way
through his career this critical tendency of his culminated in
the unlucky Revue Parisienne, which he wrote almost entirely
himself, with slight assistance from his friends, MM. de
Belloy and de Grammont. It covers a wide range, but the
literary part of it is considerable, and this part contains that
memorable and disastrous attack on Sainte-Beuve, for which
the critic afterwards took a magnanimous revenge in his
obituary chat. Although the thing is not quite unex-
ampled, it is not easily to be surpassed in the blind fury of its
abuse. Sainte-Beuve was by no means invulnerable, and an
anti-critic who kept his head might have found, as M. de
Pontmartin and others did find, the joints in his armor. But
when, apropos of the " Port Royal " more especially, and of
the other works in general, Balzac informs us that Sainte-
Beuve's great characteristic as a writer is tediousness, tedi-
ousness knee-deep that his style is intolerable, that his
historical handling is like that of Gibbon, Hume and other
dull people, when he jeers at him for exhuming "The Holy
Mother," and scolds him for presuming to obscure the
glory of the " Sun King," the thing is partly ludicrous,
partly melancholy. One remembers that agreeable Bohemian,
who at a symposium once interrupted his host by crying,
HONOR DE BALZAC. xxi
" Man o' the hoose, gie us less o' yer clack and mair o' yer
Jairman wine ! " Only in human respect and other, we
phrase it: " Oh, dear M. de Balzac ! give us more ' Eugenie
Grandets,' more ' Pere Goriots,' more ' Peaux de Chagrin,'
and don't talk about what you do not understand ! "
Balzac was a great politician also, and here, though he
may not have been very much more successful, he talked with
more knowledge and competence. He must have given him-
self immense trouble in reading the papers, foreign as well as
French ; he had really mastered a good deal of the political
religion of a French publicist. It is curious to read, sixty
years after date, his grave assertion that " France should make
a conquest of Madagascar," and with certain very pardonable
defects (such as his Anglophobia), his politics may be pro-
nounced not unintelligent and not ungenerous, though some-
what inconsistent and not very distinctly traceable to any
coherent theory. As for the Anglophobia, the Englishman
who thinks the less of him for that must have very poor and
unhappy brains. A Frenchman who does not more or
less hate and fear England, an Englishman who does not
regard France with a more or less good-humored impatience,
is usually " either a god or a beast," as Aristotle saith. Bal-
zac began with an odd but not unintelligible compound,
something like Hugo's, of Napoleonism and Royalism. In
1824, when he was still in the shades of anonymity, he wrote
and published two by no means despicable pamphlets in favor
of primogeniture and the Jesuits, the latter of which was
reprinted in 1880 at the last Jesuitical Congress in France.
His "Letters on Paris," in 1830-31, and his "France and
the Foreigner," in 1836, are two considerable series of letters
from " Our Own Correspondent," handling the affairs of the
world with boldness and industry if not invariably with wis-
dom. They rather suggest (as does the later Revue Parisicnnc
still more) the political writing of the age of Anne in Eng-
land, and perhaps a little later, when "the wits" handled
xxii BRIEF SKETCH OF
politics and society, literature and things in general with
unquestioned competence and an easy universality.
Besides this work in books, pamphlets, etc., Balzac, as has
been said, did a certain amount of journalism, especially in
the Caricature, his performances including, we regret to say,
more than one puff of his own work; and in this, as well as
by the success of "The Chouans," he became known about
1830 to a much wider circle, both of literary and of private
acquaintance. It cannot indeed be said that he ever mixed
much in society ; it was impossible that he should do so, con-
sidering the vast amount of work he did and the manner in
which he did it. This subject, like that of his speculations,
may be better finished off in a single passage than dealt with
by scattered indications here and there. He was not one of
those men who can do work by fits and starts in the intervals
of business or of amusement ; nor was he one who, like Scott,
could work very rapidly. It is true that he often achieved
immense quantities of work (subject to a caution to be given
presently) in a very few days, but then his working day was
of the most peculiar character. He could not bear disturb-
ance ; he wrote (as probably most people do) best at night,
and he could not work at all after heavy meals. His favorite
plan (varied sometimes in detail) was therefore to dine lightly
about five or six, then to go to bed and sleep till eleven,
twelve, or one, and then to get up, and with the help only of
coffee (which he drank very strong and in enormous quanti-
ties) to work for indefinite stretches of time into the morning
or afternoon of the next day. He speaks of a sixteen hours'
day as a not uncommon shift or spell of work, and almost a
regular one with him ; and on one occasion he avers that in
the course of forty-eight hours he took but three of rest,
working for twenty-two hours and a half continuously on each
side thereof. In such spells, supposing reasonable facility of
composition, and mechanical power in the hand to keep going
all the time, an enormous amount can of course be accom-
HONORS DE BALZAC. xxiii
plished. A thousand words an hour is anything but an extra-
ordinary rate of writing, and fifteen hundred by no means
unheard of with persons who do not write rubbish.
The references to this subject in Balzac's letters are very
numerous; but it is not easy to extract very definite informa-
tion from them. It would be not only impolite but incorrect
to charge him with unveracity. But the very heat of imagi-
nation which enabled him to produce his work created a sort
of mirage, through which he seems always to have regarded
it ; and in writing to publishers, editors, creditors, and even
his own family, it was too obviously his interest to make the
most of his labor, his projects, and his performance. Even
his contemporary, though elder, Southey, the hardest-working
and the most scrupulously honest man of letters in England
who could pretend to genius, seems constantly to have exag-
gerated the idea of what he could perform, if not of what he
had performed in a given time. The most definite statement
of Balzac's is one which claims the second number of "Sur
Catherine de Medicis" (" La Confidence des Ruggieri ") as
the production of a single night, and not one of the most
extravagant of his nights. Now, " La Confidence des Rug-
gieri " fills, in the small edition, eighty pages of nearer four
hundred than three hundred words each, or some thirty thou-
. sand words in all. Nobody in the longest of nights could
manage that, except by dictating it to shorthand clerks. But
in the very context of this assertion Balzac assigns a much
longer period to the correction than to the composition, and
this brings us to one of the most curious and one of the most
famous points of his literary history.
Some doubts have been thrown on the most minute account
of his ways of composition which we have, that of the pub-
lisher Werdet. But there is too great a consensus of evidence
as to his general system to make the received description of
it doubtful. According to this, the first draft of Balzac's
work never presented it in anything like fulness, and some-
xxiv BRIEF SKETCH OF
times did not amount to a quarter of the bulk finally pub-
lished. This being returned to him from the printer " in
slip" on sheets with very large margins, he would set to
work on the correction ; that is to say, on the practical re-
writing of the thing, with excisions, alterations, and above
all, additions. A " revise " being executed, he would attack
this revise in the same manner, and not unfrequently more
than once, so that the expenses of mere composition and
correction of the press were enormously heavy (so heavy as to
eat into not merely his publisher's but his own profits), and
that the last state of the book, when published, was something
utterly different from its first state in manuscript. And it
will be obvious that if anything like this was usual with him,
it is quite impossible to judge his actual rapidity of composi-
tion by the extent of the published result.
However this may be (and it is at least certain that in the
years above referred to he must have worked his very hardest,
even if some of the work then published had been more or
less excogitated and begun during the wilderness period), he
certainly so far left his eremitical habits as to become ac-
quainted with most of the great men of letters of the early
thirties, and also with certain ladies of more or less high
rank, who were to supply, if not exactly the full models, the
texts and starting-points for some of the most interesting
figures of the "Comedie." He knew Victor Hugo, but
certainly not at this time intimately ; for as late as 1839 the
letter in which he writes to Hugo to come and breakfast with
him at Les Jardies (with interesting and minute directions
how to find that frail abode of genius) is couched in anything
but the tone of a familiar friendship. The letters to Beyle
of about the same date are also incompatible with intimate
knowledge. Nodier (after some contrary expressions) he
seems to have regarded as most good people did regard that
true man of letters and charming tale-teller ; while among the
younger generation Theophile Gautier and Charles de Bernard*
HONORE DE BALZAC. xxv
as well as Gozlan and others, were his real and constant
friends. But he does not figure frequently or eminently in
any of the genuine gossip of the time as a haunter of literary
circles, and it is very nearly certain that the assiduity with
which some of his heroes attend salons and clubs had no
counterpart in his own life. In the first place he was too
busy ; in the second he would not have been at home there.
Like the young gentleman in Punch, who " did not read
books but wrote them," though in no satiric sense, he felt it
his business not to frequent society but to create it.
He was, however, aided in the task of creation by the ladies
already spoken of, who were fairly numerous and of divers
degrees. The most constant after his sister Laure was that
sister's schoolfellow, Madame Zulma Carraud, the wife of a
military official at Angouleme and the possessor of a small
country estate at Frapesle, near Tours. At both of these
places Balzac, till he was a very great man, was a constant
visitor, and with Madame Carraud he kept up for years a
correspondence which has been held to be merely friendly,
and which was certainly in the vulgar sense innocent, but
which seems to us to be tinged with something of that feeling,
midway between love and friendship, which appears in Scott's
letters to Lady Abercorn, and which is probably not so rare
as some think. Madame de Berny, another family friend of
higher rank, was the prototype of most of his "angelic"
characters, but she died in 1836. He knew the Duchess
d'Abrantes, otherwise Madame Junot, and Madame deGirardin,
otherwise Delphine Gay ; but neither seems to have exercised
much influence over him. It was different with another and
more authentic duchess, Madame de Castries, after whom he
dangled for a considerable time, who certainly first encour-
aged him and probably then snubbed him, and who is
thought to have been the model of his wickeder great
ladies. And it was comparatively early in the thirties that
he met the woman whom, after nearly twenty years,
xxvi BRIEF SKETCH OF
he was at last to marry, getting his death in so doing, the
Polish Madame Hanska. These, with some relations of the
last named, especially her daughter, and with a certain
"Louise" an unknown who never ceased to be so were
Balzac's chief correspondents of the other sex, and as far
as is known, his chief friends in it.
About his life, without extravagant "padding" of guess-
work or of mere quotation and abstract of his letters, it
would be not so much difficult as impossible to say much;
and accordingly it is a matter of fact that most lives of
Balzac, including all good ones, are rather critical than
narrative. From his real debut with "The Last Chouan "
to his departure for Poland on the long visit, or brace of
visits, from which he returned finally to die, this life con-
sisted solely of work. One of his earliest utterances, " I must
keep digging away," was his motto to the very last, varied
only by a certain amount of traveling. Balzac was always
a considerable traveler ; indeed if he had not been so his
constitution would probably have broken down long before
it actually did ; and the expense of these voyagings (though
by his own account he generally conducted his affairs with
the most rigid economy), together with the interruption to
his work which they occasioned, entered no doubt for some-
thing into his money difficulties. He would go to Baden
or Vienna for a day's sight of Madame Hanska; his Sar-
dinian visit has been already noted ; and as a specimen of
others it may be mentioned that he once journeyed from
Paris to Besancon, then from Besancon right across France
to Angouleme, and then back to Paris on some business of
selecting paper for one of the editions of his books, which
his publishers would probably have done much better and at
much less expense.
Still his actual receipts were surprisingly small, partly, it
may be, owing to his expensive habits of composition, but
far more, according to his own account, because of the
HO NO RE DE BALZAC. xxvii
Belgian piracies, from which all popular French authors
suffered till the government of Napoleon the Third managed
to put a stop to them. He also lived in such a thick atmos-
phere of bills and advances and cross-claims on and by his
publishers, that even if there were more documents than there
are it would be exceedingly difficult to get at facts which are,
after all, not very important. He never seems to have been
paid much more than $2500 for the newspaper publication
(the most valuable by far because the pirates could not inter-
fere with its profits) of any one of his novels. And to
expensive fashions of composition and complicated accounts,
a steady back-drag of debt and the rest, must be added the
very delightful, and to a novelist not useless, but very expen-
sive mania of the collector. Balzac had a genuine taste for,
and thought himself a genuine connoisseur in, pictures,
sculpture, and objects of art of all kinds, old and new ; and
though prices in his day were not what they are in these, a
great deal of money must have run through his hands in this
way. He calculated the value of the contents of the house,
which in his last days he furnished with such loving care for
his wife, and which turned out to be a chamber rather of
death than of marriage, at some $80,000. But part of this
was of Madame Hanska's own purchasing, and there were
offsets of indebtedness against it almost to the last. In
short, though during the last twenty years of his life such
actual " want of pence " as vexed him was not due, as it had
been earlier, to the fact that the pence refused to come
in, but only to imprudent management of them, it certainly
cannot be said that Honore de Balzac, the most desperately
hard worker in all literature for such time as was allotted
him, and perhaps the man of greatest genius who was ever a
desperately hard worker, falsified that most uncomfortable but
truest of proverbs, " Hard work never made money."
If, however, he was but scantily rewarded with the money
for which he had a craving (not absolutely devoid of a touch
xxviii BRIEF SKETCH OF
of genuine avarice, but consisting chiefly of the artist's desire
for pleasant and beautiful things, and partly presenting a
variety or phase of the grandiose imagination, which was his
ruling characteristic), Balzac had plenty of the fame, for
which he cared quite as much as he cared for money. Per-
haps no writer except Voltaire and Goethe earlier made such
a really European reputation ; and his books were of a kind
to be more widely read by the general public than either
Goethe's or Voltaire's. In England, this popularity was, for
obvious reasons, rather less than elsewhere. The respectful
vogue which French literature had had in England in the
eighteenth century had ceased, owing partly to the national
enmity revived and fostered by the great war, and partly to
the growth of a fresh and magnificent literature at home dur-
ing the first thirty years of the nineteenth. But Balzac could
not fail to be read almost at once by the lettered ; and he
was translated pretty early, though not perhaps to any great
extent.
It was in England, it may be said, that by far his greatest
follower appeared, and appeared very shortly. For it would
be absurd in the most bigoted admirer of Thackeray to deny
that the author of "Vanity Fair," who was in Paris and
narrowly watching French literature and French life at the
very time of Balzac's most exuberant flourishing and educa-
tion, owed something to the author of "Father Goriot."
There was no copying or imitation ; the lessons taught by
Balzac were too much blended with those of native masters,
such as Fielding, too much informed and transformed by indi-
vidual genius. Some may think it is a point at issue not
merely between Frenchmen and Englishmen, but between
good judges of both nations on each side that in absolute
veracity and likeness to life, in limiting the operation of the
inner consciousness on the outward observation to strictly
artistic scale, Thackeray excelled Balzac as far as he fell short
of him in the powers of the seer and in the gigantic imagina-
HO NO RE DE BALZAC. xxix
tion of the prophet. But the relations of pupil and master in
at least some degree are not deniable.
So things went on in light and in shade, in home-keeping
and in travel, in debts and in earnings, but always in work of
some kind or another, for eighteen years from the turning
point of 1829. By degrees he gained fame and ceased to be
in the most pressing want of money, Balzac left off to some
extent, though never entirely, those miscellaneous writings
reviews (including puffs), comic or general sketches, political
diatribes, "physiologies" and the like which with his dis-
carded prefaces and much other interesting matter, were at
last, not many years ago, included in four stout volumes of
the " Edition Definitive." With the exception of the " Physi-
ologies " (a sort of short satiric analysi? of this or that class,
character or personage), which were very popular in the reign
of Louis Philippe in France, and which Albert Smith and
others introduced into England, Balzac did not do any of this
miscellaneous work extremely well. Very shrewd observations
are to be found in his reviews, for instance, his indication, in
reviewing La Touche's " Fragoletta," of that common fault
of ambitious novels, a sort of woolly and '" ungraspable "
looseness of construction and story, which const: ntly bewilders
the reader as to what is going on. But, as a rule> he was think-
ing too much of his own work and his own principles of
working to enter very thoroughly into the work of others. His
politics, those of a moderate but decided Royalist and Con-
servative, were, as has been said, intelligent in theory, but in
practice a little distinguished by that neglect of actual busi-
ness detail which has been noticed in his speculations.
At last, in the summer of 1847, it seemed as if the Rachel
for whom he had served nearly if not quite the full fourteen
years already, and whose husband had long been out of the
way, would at last grant herself to him. He was invited to
Vierzschovnia in the Ukraine, the seat of Madame Hanska, or
in strictness of her son-in-law, Count Georges Mniszech ; and
xxx BRIEF SKETCH OF
as the visit was apparently for no restricted period, and Bal-
zac's pretensions to the lady's hand were notorious, it might
have seemed that he was as good as accepted. But to assume
this would have been to mistake what perhaps the greatest
creation of Balzac's great English contemporary and coun-
terpart on the one side, as Thackeray was his contemporary
and counterpart on the other, considered to be the malignity
of widows. What the reasons were which made Madame
Hanska delay so long in doing what she did at last, and might
just as well, it would seem, have done years before, is not
certainly known, and it would be quite unprofitable to discuss
them. But it was on the 8th of October, 1847, tnat Balzac
first wrote to his sister from Vierzschovnia, and it was not till
the i4th of March, 1850, that, " in the parish church of Saint
Barbara at Berditchef, by the Count Abbe Czarski, represent-
ing the Bishop of Jitomir [this as characteristic of Balzac in
one way as what follows is in another], a Madame Eve de
Balzac, born Countess Rzevuska, or a Madame Honore de
Balzac or a Madame de Balzac the elder " came into existence.
It does not appear that Balzac was exactly unhappy during
this huge probation, which was broken by one short visit to
Paris. The interest of uncertainty was probably much for his
ardent and unquiet spirit, and though he did very little literary
work for him, one may suspect that he would not have done
very much if he had stayed at Paris, for signs of exhaustion,
not of genius but of physical power, had shown themselves
before he left home. But it is not unjust or cruel to say that
by the delay " Madame Eve de Balzac " (her actual baptismal
name was Evelina) practically killed her husband. These
winters in the severe climate of Russian Poland were abso-
lutely fatal to a constitution, and especially to lungs already
deeply affected. At Vierzschovnia itself he had illnesses, from
which he narrowly escaped with life, before the marriage; his
heart broke down after it ; and he and his wife did not reach
Paris till the end of May. Less than three months afterwards,
HONORE DE BALZAC. xxxi
on the i8th of August, he died, having been visited on the
very day of his death in the Paradise of bric-a-brac which he
had created for his Eve in the Rue Fortunee a name too
provocative of Nemesis by Victor Hugo, the chief maker in
verse as he himself was the chief maker in prose of France.
He was buried at Pere la Chaise. The after fortunes of his
house and its occupants were not happy ; but they do not
concern us.
In person Balzac was a typical Frenchman, as indeed he
was in most ways. From his portraits there would seem to
have been more force and address than distinction or refine-
ment in his appearance, but, as has been already observed, his
period was one ungrateful to the iconographer. His charac-
ter, not as a writer, but as a man, must occupy us a little
longer. For some considerable time indeed it may be said
until the publication of his letters it was not very favorably
judged on the whole. We may, of course, dismiss the childish
scandals (arising, as usual, from clumsy or malevolent misin-
terpretation), which gave rise to caricatures of him such as
that of which we read, representing him in a monk's dress at
a table covered with bottles and supporting a young person
on his knee, the whole garnished with the epigraph : " Scenes
of Hidden Life." They seem to have given him, personally,
a very unnecessary annoyance, and indeed he was always
rather sensitive to critcism. This kind of stupid libel will
never cease to be devised by the envious, swallowed by the
vulgar, and simply neglected by the wise. But Balzac's
peculiarities, both of life and of work, lent themselves rather
fatally to a subtler misconstruction which he also anticipated
and tried to remove, but which took a far stronger hold. He
was represented and in the absence of any intimate male
friends to contradict the representation, it was certain to
obtain some currency as in his artistic person a sardonic
libeler of mankind, who cared only to take foibles and vices
for his subjects, and who either left goodness and virtue out
xxxii BRIEF SKETCH OF
of sight altogether, or represented them as the qualities of
fools. In private life he was held up as at the best a self-
centred egotist who cared for nothing but himself and his own
work, capable of interrupting one friend who told him of the
death of a sister by a suggestion that they should change the
subject and talk of "something real, of ' Eugenie Grandet,' '
and of levying a fifty percent, commission on another who
had written a critical notice of his, Balzac's life and works.
With the first of these charges he himself, on different occa-
sions, rather vainly endeavored to grapple, once drawing up
an elaborate list of his virtuous and vicious women, and show-
ing that the former outnumbered the latter ; and, again, labor-
ing (with that curious lack of sense of humor which distin-
guishes of all Frenchmen but a very few, and distinguished him
eminently) to show that though no doubt it is very difficult
to make virtuous persons interesting, he, Honore de Balzac,
had attempted it, and succeeded in it, on a quite surprising
number of occasions.
The fact is that if he had handled this last matter rather
more lightly his answer would have been a sufficient one, and
that in any case the charge is not worth answering. It does
not lie against the whole of his work ; and if it lay as con-
clusively as it does against Swift's, it would not necessarily
matter. To the artist in analysis as opposed to the romance-
writer, folly always, and villainy sometimes, does supply a
much better subject than virtuous success, and if he makes his
fools and his villains lifelike and supplies them with a fair
contrast of better things, there is nothing more to be said.
He will not, indeed, be a Shakespeare, or a Dante, or even a
Scott ; but we may be very well satisfied with him as a Field-
ing, a Thackeray, or a Balzac. His education in a lawyer's
office, the accursed advice about the bonne speculation, and
his constant straitenings for money, will account for his some-
times looking after the main chance rather too narrowly ; and
as for the "Eugenie Grandet" story it requires no great
HONORE DE BALZAC. xxxiii
stretch of charity or comprehension to see in it nothing more
than the awkward, very easily misconstrued, but not neces-
sarily in the least heartless or brutal attempt of a rather absent
and very much self-centred recluse absorbed in one subject,
to get his interlocutor as well as himself out of painful and
useless dwelling on sorrowful matters. Self-centred and self-
absorbed Balzac no doubt was ; he could not have lived his
life or produced his work if he had been anything else. And
it must be remembered that he owed extremely little to
others ; that he had the independence as well as the isolation
of the self-centred ; that he never spunged or fawned on a
great man, or wronged others of what was due to them. The
only really unpleasant thing about him, perhaps due to ignor-
ance of all sides of the matter, is a slight touch of snobbish-
ness now and then, especially in those late letters from
Vierzschovnia to Madame de Balzac and Madame Surville,
in which, while inundating his mother and sister with com-
missions and requests for service, he points out to them what
great people the Hanskas and Mniszechs are, what infinite
honor and profit it will be to be connected with them, and
how desirable it is to keep struggling engineer brothers-in-law
and ne'er-do-well brothers in the colonies out of sight lest
they should disgust the magnates.
But these are "sma' sums, sma' sums," as Bailie Jarvie
says ; and smallness of any kind has, whatever it may have
to do with Balzac the man, nothing to do with Balzac the
writer. With him as with some others, but not as with the
larger number, the sense of greatness increases the longer
and the more fully he is studied. He resembles Goethe
more than any other man of letters certainly more than
any other of the present century in having done work
which is very frequently, if not even commonly, faulty, and
in yet requiring that his work shall be known as a whole.
His appeal is cumulative ; it repeats itself on each occasion
with a slight difference, and though there may now and
xxxiv BRIEF SKETCH OF
then be the same faults to be noticed, they are almost in-
variably accompanied, not merely by the same, but by fresh
merits.
There are two things which it is more especially desirable to
keep constantly before one in reading Balzac two tilings,
which, taken together, constitute his almost unique value, and
two things which not a few critics have failed to take together
in him, being under the impression that the one excludes the
other, and that to admit the other is tantamount to a denial
of the one. These two things are, first, an immense attention
to detail, sometimes observed, sometimes invented or im-
agined ; and, secondly, a faculty of regarding these details
through a mental lens or arrangement of lenses almost peculiar
to himself, which at once combines, enlarges, and invests them
with a peculiar magical halo or mirage. The two thousand
personages of the " Comedie Humaine " are, for the most
part, "signaled," as the French official word has it, marked
and denoted by the minutest traits of character, gesture, gait,
clothing, abode, what not; the transactions recorded are very
often (more often indeed than not) given with a scrupulous
and microscopic accuracy of reporting which no detective
could outdo. Defoe is not more circumstantial in detail of
fact than Balzac ; Richardson is hardly more prodigal of char-
acter-stroke. Yet a very large proportion of these characters,
of these circumstances, are evidently things invented or im-
agined, not observed. And in addition to this the artist's
magic glass, his Balzacian speculum, if we may so say (for
none else has ever had it) transform even the most rigid ob-
servation into something flickering and fanciful, the outline as
of shadows on the wall, not the precise contour of etching or
of the camera.
It is curious, but not unexampled, that both Balzac himself
when he struggled in argument with his critics and those of
his partisans who have been most jealously devoted to him,
have usually tried to exalt the first and less remarkable of these
HONOR& DE BALZAC. xxxv
gifts over the second and infinitely more remarkable. Balzac
protested strenuously against the use of the word "gigan-
tesque " in reference to his work; and of course it is susceptible
of an unhandsome innuendo. But if we leave that innuendo
aside, if we adopt the same reflection that " gigantesque "
does not exclude "gigantic," or assert a constant failure of
greatness, but only indicates that the magnifying process is
carried on with a certain indiscriminateness, we shall find
none, I think, which so thoroughly well describes him.
The effect of this singular combination of qualities, appar-
ently the most opposite, may be partly anticipated, but not
quite. It results occasionally in a certain shortcoming as
regards the very truth, absolute artistic truth to nature. Those
who would range Balzac in point of such artistic veracity on
a level with poetical and universal realists like Shakespeare
and Dante, or prosaic and particular realists like Thackeray
and Fielding, seem not only to be utterly wrong but to pay
their idol the worst of all compliments, that of ignoring his
own special qualifications. The province of Balzac may not
be I do not think it is identical, much less coextensive,
with that of nature. But it is his own a partly real, partly
fantastic region, where the lights, the shades, the dimensions,
and physical laws are slightly different from those of this
world of ours, but with which, owing to things it has in com-
mon with that world, we are able to sympathize, which we
can traverse and comprehend. Every now and then the artist
uses his observing faculty more, and his magnifying and (since
there is no better word) distorting lens less ; every now and
then he reverses the proportion. Some tastes will like him
best in the one stage ; some in the other ; the happier con-
stituted will like him best in both. These latter declined to
put "Eugenie Grandet " above the " Wild Ass' Skin," or
" Father Goriot " above the wonderful handful of tales which
includes "The Quest of the Absolute" and "The Unknown
Masterpiece," though they will no doubt recognize that even
xxxvi BRIEF SKETCH OF
in the two first named members of these pairs of the Bal-
zacian quality, that of magnifying and rendering grandiose,
is present, and that the martyrdom of Eugenie, the avarice
of her father, the blind self-devotion of Goriot to his thank-
less and worthless children, would not be what they are if they
were seen through a perfectly achromatic and normal medium.
This specially Balzacian quality is unique. It is like it
may almost be said to be the poetic imagination, present in
magnificent volume and degree, but in some miraculous way
deprived and sterilized of the specially poetical quality. By
this we do not of course mean that Balzac did not write in
verse ; we have a few verses of his, and they are pretty poor,
but that is neither here nor there. The difference between
Balzac and a great poet lies not in the fact that the one fills
the whole page with printed words, and the other only a part
of it but in something else. If we could put that something
else into distinct words we should therein attain the philoso-
pher's stone, the elixir of life, the first cause, the great
secret, not merely of criticism but of all things. It might
be possible to coast about it, to hint at it, by adumbrations
and in consequences. But it is better and really more helpful
to face the difficulty boldly, and to say that Balzac, approach-
ing a great poet nearer perhaps than any other prose writer in
any language, is distinguished from one by the absence of the
very last touch, the finally constituting quiddity, which makes
a great poet different from Balzac.
Now, when we make this comparison, it is of the first in-
terest to remember and it is one of the uses of the compari-
son, that it suggests the remembrance of the fact that the
great poets have usually been themselves extremely exact ob-
servers of detail. It has not made them great poets ; but
they would not be great poets without it. And when Eugenie
Grandet starts from the little wooden bench at the reference to
it in her scoundrelly cousin's letter (to take only one instance
out of a thousand), we see in Balzac the same observation.
HO NO RE DE BALZAC. xxxvii
subject to the limitations just mentioned, that we see in Dante
and Shakespeare, in Chaucer and Tennyson. But the great
poets do not as a rule accumulate detail. Balzac does, and
from his very accumulation he manages to derive that singular
gigantesque vagueness differing from poetic vague, but rank-
ing next to it which we have here ventured to note as his
distinguishing quality. He bewilders us a very little by it,
and he gives us the impression that he has slightly bewildered
himself. But the compensations of the bewilderment are
large.
For in this labyrinth and whirl of things, in this heat and
hurry of observation and imagination, the special intoxication
of Balzac consists. Every great artist has his own means of
producing this intoxication, and it differs in result like the
stimulus of beauty or of wine. Those persons who are unfor-
tunate enough to see in Balzac little or nothing but an inge-
nious piler-up of careful strokes a man of science taking his
human documents and classing them after an orderly fashion
in portfolio and deed-box must miss this intoxication alto-
gether. It is much more agreeable as well as much more
accurate to see in the manufacture of the "Comedie" the
process of a Cyclopean workshop the bustle, the hurry, the
glare and shadow, the steam and sparks of Vulcan ian forging.
The results, it is true, are by no means confused or disorderly
neither were those of the forges that worked under Lipari
but there certainly went much more to them than the dainty
fingering of a literary fretwork-maker or the dull rummagings
of a realist a la Zola.
In part no doubt, and in great part, the work of Balzac is
dream-stuff rather than life-stuff, and it is all the better for
that. What is better than dreams ? But the coherence of
his visions, their bulk, their solidity, the way in which they
return to us and we return to them, make them such dream-
stuff as there is all too little of in this world. If it is true
that evil on the whole predominates over good in the vision
xxxviii BRIEF SKETCH OF
of this " Voyant," as Philarete Chasles so justly called him
(and we think it does, though not to the same extent as we
once thought), two very respectable, and in one case very
large, though somewhat opposed divisions of mankind, the
philosophic pessimist and the convinced and consistent Chris-
tian believer, will tell us that this is at least not one of the
points in which it is unfaithful to life. If the author is closer
and more faithful in his study of meanness and vice than in
his studies of nobility and virtue, the blame is due at least as
much to his models as to himself. If, as we fear must be
confessed, he has seldom succeeded in combining a really
passionate with a really noble conception of love, very few
of his countrymen have been more fortunate in that respect.
If in some of his types his journalists, his married women,
and others he seems to have sacrificed to conventions, let us
remember that those who know attribute to his conventions
such a powerful if not altogether such a holy influence that
two generations of the people he painted have actually lived
more and more up to his painting of them.
And last of all, but also greatest, has to be considered the
immensity of his imaginative achievement, the huge space
that he has filled for us with vivid creation, the range of
amusement, of instruction, of (after a fashion) edification
which he has thrown open for us to walk in. It is possible
that he himself and others more or less well-meaningly,
though more or less maladroitly, following his lead, may have
exaggerated the coherence and the architectural design of the
" Comedie." But it has coherence and it has design; nor
shall we find anything exactly to parallel it. In mere bulk
the " Comedie " probably, if not certainly, exceeds the pro-
duction of any novelist of the first class in any kind of fiction
except Dumas, and with Dumas, for various and well-known
reasons, there is no possibility of comparing it. All others
yield in bulk ; all in a certain concentration and intensity ;
none even aims at anything like the same system and com-
HONORE DE BALZAC. xxxix
pleteness. It must be remembered that owing to shortness
of life, lateness of beginning, and the diversion of the author
to other work, the " Comedie " is the production, and not
the sole production, of some seventeen or eighteen years at
most. Not a volume of it, for all that failure to reach the
completes! perfection in form and style which has been
acknowledged, can be accused of thinness, of scamped work,
of mere repetition, of mere cobbling up. Every one bears
the marks of steady and ferocious labor, as well as of the
genius which had at last come where it had been so earnestly
called and had never gone away again. It is possible to
overpraise Balzac in parts or to mispraise him as a whole.
But so long as inappropriate and superfluous comparisons are
avoided and as his own excellence is recognized and appre-
ciated, it is scarcely possible to overestimate that excellence
in itself and for itself. He stands alone ; even with Dickens,
who is his nearest analogue, he shows far more points of
difference than of likeness. His vastness of bulk is not more
remarkable than his peculiarity of quality ; and when these
two things coincide in literature or elsewhere, then that in
which they coincide may be called, and must be called,
Great, without hesitation and without reserve.
INTRODUCTION.
IN giving the general title of " The Comedie Humaine " to
a work begun nearly thirteen years since, it is necessary to
explain its motive, to relate its origin, and briefly sketch its
plan, while endeavoring to speak of these matters as though
I had no personal interest in them. This is not so difficult
as the public might imagine. Few works conduce to much
vanity; much labor conduces to great diffidence. This obser-
vation accounts for the study of their own works made by
Corneille, Moliere, and other great writers ; if it is impossible
to equal them in their fine conceptions, we may try to imitate
them in this feeling.
The idea of "The Comedie Humaine" was at first as a
dream to me, one of those impossible projects which we
caress and then let fly ; a chimera that gives us a glimpse of
its smiling woman's face, and forthwith spreads its wings and
returns to a heavenly realm of phantasy. But this chimera,
like many another, has become a reality; has its behests, its
tyranny, which must be obeyed.
The idea originated in a comparison between humanity
and animality.
It is a mistake to suppose that the great dispute which has
lately made a stir, between Cuvier and Geoffroi Saint-Hilaire,
arose from a scientific innovation. Unity of structure, under
other names, had occupied the greatest minds during the two
previous centuries. As we read the extraordinary writings of
the mystics who studied the sciences in their relation to infin-
ity, such as Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, and the
works of the greatest authors on Natural History Leibnitz,
BufFon, Charles Bonnet, etc., we detect in the monads of Leib-
(xli)
xlii INTRODUCTION.
nitz, in the organic molecules of Buffon, in the vegetative force
of Needham, in the correlation of similar organs of Charles
Bonnet who in 1760 was so bold as to write, "Animals
vegetate as plants do " we detect, I say, the rudiments of
the great law of self for self, which lies at the root of unity
of plan. There is but one animal. The Creator works on a
single model for every organized being. "The animal" is
elementary, and takes its external form, or, to be accurate,
the differences in its form, from the environment in which it
is obliged to develop. Zoological species are the result of these
differences. The announcement and defence of this system,
which is indeed in harmony with our preconceived ideas of
divine power, will be the eternal glory of Geoffroi Saint-
Hilaire, Cuvier's victorious opponent on this point of higher
science, whose triumph was hailed by Goethe in the last
article he wrote.
I, for my part, convinced of this scheme of nature long
before the discussion to which it has given rise, perceived that
in this respect society resembled nature. For does not society
modify man, according to the conditions in which he lives and
acts, into men as manifold as the species in zoology? The
differences between a soldier, an artisan, a man of business, a
lawyer, an idler, a student, a statesman, a merchant, a sailor,
a poet, a beggar, a priest, are as great, though not so easy to
define, as those between the wolf, the lion, the ass, the crow,
the shark, the seal, the sheep, etc. Thus social species have
always existed, and will always exist, just as there are zoolog-
ical species. If Buffon could produce a magnificent work by
attempting to represent in a book the whole realm of zoology,
was there not room for a work of the same kind on society ?
But the limits set by nature to the variations of animals have
no existence in society. When Buffon describes the lion, lie
dismisses the lioness with a few phrases ; but in society a wife
is not always the female of the male. There may be two per-
fectly dissimilar beings in one household. The wife of a
INTRODUCTION. xliii
shopkeeper is sometimes worthy of a prince, and the wife of a
prince is often worthless compared with the wife of an artisan.
The social state has freaks which nature does not allow her-
self; it is nature plus society. The description of social
species would thus be at least double that of animal species,
merely in view of the two sexes. Then, among animals the
drama is limited; there is scarcely any confusion ; they turn
and rend each other that is all. Men, too, rend each other ;
but their greater or less intelligence makes the struggle far
more complicated. Though some savants do not yet admit
that the animal nature flows into human nature through an
immense tide of life, the grocer certainly becomes a peer, and
the noble sometimes sinks to the lowest social grade. Again,
Buffon found that life was extremely simple among animals.
Animals have little property, and neither arts nor sciences ;
while man, by a law that has yet to be sought, has a tendency
to express his culture, his thoughts, and his life in everything
he appropriates to his use. Though Leuwenhoek, Swammer-
dam, Spallanzani, Reaumur, Charles Bonnet, Miiller, Hallen
and other patient investigators have shown us how interesting
are the habits of animals, those of each kind are, at least to
our eyes, always and in every age alike ; whereas the dress,
the manners, the speech, the dwelling of a prince, a banker,
an artist, a citizen, a priest, and a pauper are absolutely
unlike, and change with every phase of civilization.
Hence the work to be written needed a threefold form
men, women, and things; that is to say, persons and the
material expression of their minds ; man, in short, and life.
As we read the dry and discouraging list of events called
history, who can have failed to note that the writers of all
periods, in Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, have forgotten
to give us the history of manners? The fragment of Pet-
ronius on the private life of the Romans excites rather than
satisfies our curiosity. It was from observing this great void
in the field of history that the Abbe Barthelemy devoted his
xliv INTRODUCTION.
life to a reconstruction of Greek manners in "Le Jeune
Anacharsis."
But how could such a drama, with the four or five thousand
persons which a society offers, be made interesting ? How,
at the same time, please the poet, the philosopher, and the
masses who want both poetry and philosophy under striking
imagery? Though I could conceive of the importance and
of the poetry of such a history of the human heart, I saw no
way of writing it ; for hitherto the most famous story-tellers
had spent their talent in creating two or three typical actors,
in depicting one aspect of life. It was with this idea that I
read the works of Walter Scott. Walter Scott, the modern
troubadour, or finder (trouvere trouveur), had just then
given an aspect of grandeur to a class of composition unjustly
regarded as of the second rank. Is it not really more diffi-
cult to compete with personal and parochial interests by writ-
ing of Daphnis and Chloe, Roland, Amadis, Panurge, Don
Quixote, Manon Lescaut, Clarissa, Lovelace, Robinson Crusoe,
Gil Bias, Ossian, Julie d'Etanges, My Uncle Toby, Werther,
Corinne, Adolphe, Paul and Virginia, Jeanie Deans, Claver-
house, Ivanhoe, Manfred, Mignon, than to set forth in order
facts more or less similar in every country, to investigate the
spirit of laws that have fallen into desuetude, to review the
theories which mislead nations, or, like some metaphysicians,
to explain what Is ? In the first place, these actors, whose
existence becomes more prolonged and more authentic than
that of the generations which saw their birth, almost always
live solely on condition of there being a vast reflection of the
present. Conceived in the womb of their own period, the
whole heart of humanity stirs within their frame, which often
covers a complete system of philosophy. Thus Walter Scott
raised to the dignity of the philosophy of history the liter-
ature which, from age to age, sets perennial gems in the poetic
crown of every nation where letters are cultivated. He vivi-
fied it with the spirit of the past; he combined drama, dia-
// TR OD UCTION. xlv
logue, portrait, scenery, and description ; he fused the
marvelous with truth the two elements of the times ; and he
brought poetry into close contact with the familiarity of the
humblest speech. But as he had not so much devised a
system as hit upon a manner in the ardor of his work, or as
its logical outcome, he never thought of connecting his com-
positions in such a way as to form a complete history of which
each chapter was a novel, and each novel the picture of a
period.
It was by discerning this lack of unity, which in no way
detracts from the Scottish writer's greatness, that I perceived
at once the scheme which would favor the execution of my
purpose, and the possibility of executing it. Though dazzled,
so to speak, by Walter Scott's amazing fertility, always himself
and always original, I did not despair, for I found the source
of his genius in the infinite variety of human nature. Chance
is the greatest romancer in the world ; we have only to study
it. French society would be the real author ; I should only
be the secretary. By drawing up an inventory of vices and
virtues, by collecting the chief facts of the passions, by
depicting characters, by choosing the principal incidents of
social life, by composing types out of a combination of
homogeneous characteristics, I might perhaps succeed in writ-
ing the history which so many historians have neglected: that
of manners. By patience and perseverance I might produce
for France in the nineteenth century the book which we
must all regret that Rome, Athens, Tyre, Memphis, Persia,
and India have not bequeathed to us ; that history of their
social life which, prompted by the Abbe Barthelemy, Mon-
teil patiently and steadily tried to write for the middle ages,
but in an unattractive form.
The work, so far, was nothing. By adhering to the strict
lines of a reproduction a writer might be a more or less
faithful, and more or less successful painter of types of
humanity, a narrator of the dramas of private life, an arch-
xlvi INTRODUCTION.
geologist of social furniture, a cataloguer of professions, a
registrar of good and evil ; but to deserve the praise of
which every artist must be ambitious, must I not also inves-
tigate the reasons or the cause of these social effects, detect
the hidden sense of this vast assembly of figures, passions,
and incidents? And finally, having sought I will not say
having found this reason, this motive power, must I not
reflect on first principles, and discover in what particulars
societies approach or deviate from the eternal law of truth
and beauty ? In spite of the wide scope of the prelimi-
naries, which might of themselves constitute a book, the work,
to be complete, would need a conclusion. Thus depicted,
society ought to bear in itself the reason of its working.
The law of the writer, in virtue of which he is a writer,
and which I do not hesitate to say makes him the equal,
or perhaps the superior, of the statesman, is his judgment,
whatever it may be, on human affairs, and his absolute devo-
tion to certain principles. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bossuet,
Leibnitz, Kant, Montesquieu are the science which statesmen
apply. " A writer ought to have some settled opinions on
morals and politics ; he should regard himself as a tutor
of men; for men need no masters to teach them to doubt,"
says Bonald. I took these noble words as my guide long
ago ; they are the written law of the monarchical writer.
And those who would confute me by my own words will
find that they have misinterpreted some ironical phrase, or
that they have turned against me a speech given to one of
my actors a trick peculiar to calumniators.
As to the intimate purpose, the soul of this work, these
are the principles on which it is based.
Man is neither good nor bad ; he is born with instincts
and capabilities ; society, far from depraving him, as Rousseau
asserts, improves him, makes him better ; but self-interest
also develops his evil tendencies. Christianity, above all,
Catholicism, being as I have pointed out in the " Country
INTRODUCTION. xlvii
Doctor " (Le Medecin de Campagne) a complete system for
the repression of the depraved tendencies of man, is the
most powerful element of social order.
In reading attentively the presentment of society cast, as
it were, from the life, with all that is good and all that is bad
in it, we learn this lesson if thought, or if passion, which
combines thought and feeling, is the vital social element, it is
also its destructive element. In this respect social life is like the
life of man. Nations live long only by moderating their vital
energy. Teaching, or rather education, by religious bodies is
the grand principle of life for nations, the only means for
diminishing the sum of evil and increasing the sum of good
in all society. Thought, the living principle of good and ill,
can only be trained, quelled, and guided by religion. The
only possible religion is Christianity (see the letter from Paris
in "Louis Lambert," in which the young mystic explains, a
propos to Swedenborg's doctrines, how there has ever been
but one religion since the world began). Christianity created
modern nationalities, and it will preserve them. Hence, no
doubt, the necessity for the monarchical principle. Catholi-
cism and royalty are twin principles.
As to the limits within which these two principles should be
confined by various institutions, so that they may not become
absolute, every one will feel that a brief preface ought not to
be a political treatise. I cannot, therefore, enter on religious
discussion, nor on the political discussions of the day. I
write under the light of two eternal truths religion and mon-
archy ; two necessities, as they are shown to be by contem-
porary events, towards which every writer of sound sense
ought to try to guide the country back. Without being an
enemy to election, which is an excellent principle as a basis
of legislation, I reject election regarded as the only social
instrument, especially so badly organized as it now is ; for it
fails to represent imposing minorities, whose ideas and inter-
ests would occupy the attention of a monarchical government.
xlviii INTRODUCTION.
Elective power extended to all gives us government by the
masses, the only irresponsible form of government, under
which tyranny is unlimited, for it calls itself law. Besides, I
regard the family and not the individual as the true social
unit. In this respect, at the risk of being thought retrograd-
ing, I side with Bossuet and Bonald instead of going with
modern innovators. Since election has become the only social
instrument, if I myself were to exercise it no contradiction
between my acts and my words should be inferred. An engi-
neer points out that a bridge is about to fall, that it is danger-
ous for any one to cross it ; but he crosses it himself when it
is the only road to the town. Napoleon adapted election to
the spirit of the French nation with wonderful skill. The
least important members of his legislative body became the
most famous orators of the chamber after the Restoration. No
chamber has ever been the equal of the " Corps Legislatif,"
(Legislative Body), comparing them man for man. The elec-
tive system of the empire was, then, indisputably the best.
Some persons may, perhaps, think that this declaration is
somewhat autocratic and self-assertive. They will quarrel
with the novelist for wanting to be an historian, and will call
him to account for writing politics. I am simply fulfilling an
obligation that is my reply. The work I have undertaken
will be as long as a history ; I was compelled to explain the
logic of it, hitherto unrevealed, and its principles and moral
purpose.
Having been obliged to withdraw the prefaces formerly
published, in response to essentially ephemeral criticisms, I
will retain only one remark.
Writers who have a purpose in view, were it only a rever-
sion to principles familiar in the past because they are eternal,
should always clear the ground. Now every one who, in the
domain of ideas, brings his stone by pointing out an abuse, or
setting a mark on some evil that it may be removed every
such man is stigmatized as immoral. The accusation of
INTRODUCTION. xlix
immorality, which has never failed to be cast at the cour-
ageous writer, is, after all, the last that can be brought when
nothing else remains to be said to a romancer. If you are
truthful in your pictures; if by dint of daily and nightly
toil you succeed in writing the most difficult language in the
world, the word " immoral" is flung in your teeth. Socrates
was immoral; Jesus Christ was immoral ; they both were per-
secuted in the name of the society they overset or reformed.
When a man is to be killed he is taxed with immorality.
These tactics, familiar in party warfare, are a disgrace to
those who use them. Luther and Calvin knew well what they
were about when they shielded themselves behind damaged
worldly interests ! And they lived all the days of their life.
When depicting all society, sketching it in the immensity
of its turmoil, it happened it could not but happen that the
picture displayed more of evil than of good ; that some part of
the fresco represented a guilty couple ; and the critics at once
raised the cry of immorality, without pointing out the moral-
ity of another portion intended to be a perfect contrast. As
the critic knew nothing of the general plan I could forgive
him, all the more because one can no more hinder criticism
than the use of eyes, tongues and judgment. Also the time
for an impartial verdict has not yet come for me. And, after
all, the author who cannot make up his mind to face the fire
of criticism should no more think of writing than a traveler
should start on his journey counting on a perpetually clear
sky. On this point it remains to be said that the most con-
scientious moralists doubt greatly whether society can show
as many good actions as bad ones ; and in the picture I
have painted of it there are more virtuous figures than repre-
hensible ones. Blameworthy actions, faults and crimes, from
the lightest to the most atrocious, always meet with punish-
ment, human or divine, signal or secret. I have done better
than the historian, for I am free. Cromwell here on earth
escaped all punishment but that inflicted by thoughtful men.
1 INTRODUCTION.
And on this point there have been divided schools. Bossuet
even showed some consideration for the great regicide.
William of Orange, the usurper, Hugues Capet, another
usurper, lived to old age with no more qualms or fears than
Henri IV. or Charles I. The lives of Catherine II. and of
Frederic of Prussia would be conclusive against any kind of
moral law, if they were judged by the twofold aspect of the
morality which guides ordinary mortals, and that which is in
use by crowned heads ; for, as Napoleon said, for kings and
statesmen there are the lesser and the higher morality. My
scenes of political life are founded on this profound observa-
tion. It is not a law to history, as it is to romance, to make
for a beautiful ideal. History is, or ought to be, what it was ;
while romance ought to be " the better world," as was said
by Mme. Necker, one of the most distinguished thinkers of the
last century.
Still, with this noble falsity, romance would be nothing if
it were not true in detail. Walter Scott, obliged as he was
to conform to the ideas of an essentially hypocritical nation,
was false to humanity in his picture of woman, because his
models were schismatics. The Protestant woman has no
ideal. She may be chaste, pure, virtuous ; but her unexpan-
sive love will always be as calm and methodical as the fulfil-
ment of a duty. It might seem as though the Virgin Mary
had chilled the hearts of those sophists who have banished
her from heaven with her treasures of lovingkindness. In
Protestantism there is no possible future for the woman who
has sinned ; while, in the Catholic Church, the hope of for-
giveness makes her sublime. Hence, for the Protestant writer
there is but one woman, while the Catholic writer finds a new
woman in each new situation. If Walter Scott had been a
Catholic, if he had set himself the task of describing truly
the various phases of society which have successively existed
in Scotland, perhaps the painter of Effie and Alice the two
figures for which he blamed himself in his later years might
INTR OD UCTION. \\
have admitted passion with its sins and punishments, and the
virtues revealed by repentance. Passion is the sum-total of
humanity. Without passion, religion, history, romance, art,
would all be useless.
Some persons, seeing me collect such a mass of facts and
paint them as they are, with passion for their motive power,
have supposed, but wrongly, that I must belong to the school
of sensualism and materialism two aspects of the same thing
Pantheism. But their misapprehension was perhaps justi-
fied or inevitable. I do not share the belief in indefinite
progress for society as a whole ; I believe in man's improve-
ment in himself. Those who insist on reading in me the
intention to consider man as a finished creation are strangely
mistaken. Seraphita, the doctrine in action of the Christian
Buddha, seems to me an ample answer to this rather heedless
accusation.
In certain fragments of this long work I have tried to
popularize the amazing facts, I may say the marvels of elec-
tricity, which in man is metamorphosed into an incalculable
force ; but in what way do the phenomena of brain and nerves,
which prove the existence of an undiscovered world of psy-
chology, modify the necessary and undoubted relations of the
worlds to God ? In what way can they shake the Catholic
dogma ? Though irrefutable facts should some day place
thought in the class of fluids which are discerned only by
their effects while their substance evades our senses, even
when aided by so many mechanical means, the result will
be the same as when Christopher Columbus detected that the
earth is a sphere, and Galileo demonstrated its rotation. Our
future will be unchanged. The wonders of animal magnetism,
with which I have been familiar since 1820; the beautiful
experiments of Gall, Lavater's successor ; all the men who
have studied mind as opticians have studied light two not
dissimilar things point to a conclusion in favor of the
mystics, the disciples of St. John, and of those great thinkers
lii INTRODUCTION.
who have established the spiritual world the sphere in which
are revealed the relations of God and man.
A sure grasp of the purport of this work will make it clear
that I attach to common, daily facts, hidden or patent to the
eye, to the acts of individual lives, and to their causes and
principles, the importance which historians have hitherto
ascribed to the events of public national life. The unknown
struggle which goes on in a valley of the Indre between Mme.
de Mortsauf and her passion is perhaps as great as the most
famous of battles (Z<? Lys dans la Vallee). In one the glory
of the victor is at stake; in the other it is heaven. The
misfortunes of the two Birotteaus, the priest and the perfumer,
tOrme are those of mankind. LaFosseuse (in " The Country
Doctor ")and Mme. Graslin(in "The Village Pastor") are
almost the sum-total of woman. We all suffer thus every day.
I have had to do a hundred times what Richardson did but
once. Lovelace has a thousand forms, for social corruption
takes the hues of the medium in which it lives. Clarissa, on
the contrary, the lovely image of impassioned virtue, is drawn
in lines of distracting purity. To create a variety of virgins
it needs a Raphael. In this respect, perhaps literature must
yield to painting.
Still, I may be allowed to point out how many irreproach-
able figures as regards their virtue are to be found in the
portions of this work already published : Pierrette, Lorrain,
Ursule Mirouet, Constance Birotteau, La Fosseuse, Eugenie
Grandet, Marguerite Claes, Pauline de Villenoix, Madame
Jules, Madame de la Chanterie, Eve Chardon, Mademoiselle
d'Esgrignon, Madame Firmiani, Agathe Rouget, Renee de
Maucombe ; besides several figures in the middle-distance,
who, though less conspicuous than these, nevertheless, offer
the reader an example of domestic virtue ; Joseph Lebas,
Genestas, Benassis, Bonnet the cure, Minoret the doctor,
Pillerault, David Schard, the two Birotteaus, Chaperon the
priest, Judge Popinot, Bourgeat, the Sauviats, the Tascherons,
INTR OD UC TION. liii
and many more. Do not all these solve the difficult liter-
ary problem which consists in making a virtuous person
interesting?
It was no small task to depict the two or three thousand
conspicuous types of a period ; for this is, in fact, the number
presented to us by each generation, and which the " Comedie
Humaine " will require. This crowd of actors, of characters,
this multitude of lives, needed a setting if I may be par-
doned the expression, a gallery. Hence the very natural
division, as already known, into Scenes of Private Life, of
Provincial Life, of Parisian, Political, Military, and Country
Life. Under these six heads are classified all the studies of
manners which form the history of society at large, of all its
doings and movements, as our ancestors would have said.
These six classes correspond, indeed, to familiar conceptions.
Each has its own sense and meaning, and answers to an epoch
in the life of man. I may repeat here, but very briefly, what
was written by Felix Davin a young genius snatched from
literature by an early death. After being informed of my plan,
he said that the Scenes of Private Life represented childhood
and youth and their errors, as the Scenes of Provincial Life
represented the age of passion, scheming, self-interest and
ambition. Then the Scenes of Parisian Life give a picture
of the tastes and vice and unbridled powers which conduce
to the habits peculiar to great cities, where the extremes of
good and evil meet. Each of these divisions has its local
color Paris and the Provinces a great social antithesis which
held for me immense resources.
And not man alone, but the principal events of life, fall
into classes by types. There are situations which occur in
every life, typical phases, and this is one of the details I most
sought after. I have tried to give an idea of the different
districts of our fine country. My work has its geography, as
it has its genealogy and its families, its places and things, its
persons and their deeds ; as it has its heraldry, its nobles and
liv INTRODUCTION.
commonalty, its artisans and peasants, its politicians and
dandies, its army in short, a whole world of its own.
After describing social life in these three portions, I had to
delineate certain exceptional lives, which comprehend the
interests of many people, or of every body, and are in a degree
outside of the general law. Hence we have Scenes of Political
Life. This vast picture of society being finished and com-
plete, was it not needful to display it in its most violent
phase, beside itself, as it were, either in self-defence, or for
the sake of conquest ? Hence the Scenes of Military Life, as
yet the most incomplete portion of my work, but for which
room will be allowed in this edition, that it may form part of
it when done. Finally, the Scenes of Country Life are, in a
way, the evening of this long day, if I may so call the social
drama. In that part are to be found the purest natures, and
the application of the great principles of order, politics and
morality.
Such is the foundation, full of actors, full of comedies and
tragedies, on which are raised the Philosophical Studies the
second part of my work, in which the social instrument of all
these effects is displayed, and the ravages of the mind are
painted, feeling after feeling; the first of this series, "Wild
Ass' Skin," to some extent forms a link between the Philo-
sophical Studies and Studies of Manners, by a work of almost
Oriental fancy, in which life itself is shown in a mortal strug-
gle with the very element of all passion.
In looking forward to what remains to be done, my readers
will perhaps echo what my publishers say, " Please God to spare
you ! " I only ask to be less tormented by men and things
than I have hitherto been since I began this terrific labor. I
have had this in my favor, and I thank God for it, that the
talents of the time, the finest characters and the truest friends,
as noble in their private lives as the former are in public life,
have wrung my hand and said " courage ! "
And why should I not confess that this friendship, and the
INTRODUCTION. Iv
testimony here and there of persons unknown to me, have up-
held me in my career, both against myself and against unjust
attacks ; against the calumny which has often persecuted me,
against discouragement, and against the too eager hopefulness,
whose utterances are misinterpreted as those of overweening
conceit? I had resolved to display stolid stoicism in the face
of abuse and insults ; but on two occasions base slanders have
necessitated a reply. Though the advocates of forgiveness of
injuries may regret that I should have displayed my skill in
literary fence, there are many Christians who are of opinion
that we live in times when it is as well to show sometimes
that silence springs from generosity.
The vastness of a plan which includes both a history and a
criticism of society, an analysis of its evils, and a discussion
of its principles, authorizes me, I think, in giving my work
the title under which it now appears "THE COMEDIE
HUMAINE." Is this too ambitious ? Is it not exact ? That,
when it is complete, the public must pronounce.
PARIS, July, 1842.
THE WILD ASS' SKIN
To MONSIEUR SAVARY
Member of L! Academic des Sciences
STERNE Tristram Shandy, ch. cccxzi
THE TALISMAN.
TOWARDS the end of the month of October, 1829, a young
man entered the Palais-Royal just as the gaming-houses
opened, agreeably to the law which protect* a passion by its
very nature easily excitable. He mounted the staircase of
one of the gambling hells distinguished by the number 36,
without too much deliberation.
"Your hat, sir, if you please?" a thin, querulous voice
called out. A little old man, crouching in the darkness be-
hind a railing, suddenly rose and exhibited his features,
carved after a mean design.
2 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
As you enter a gaming-house the law despoils you of your
hat at the outset. Is it by way of a parable, a divine revelation?
Or by exacting some pledge or other, is not an infernal com-
pact implied ? Is it done to compel you to preserve a re-
spectful demeanor towards those who are about to gain money
of you ? Or must the detective who squats in our social sewers
know the name of your hatter, or your own, if you happen to
have written it on the lining inside ? Or, after all, is the
measurement of your skull required for the compilation of
statistics as to the cerebral capacity of gamblers ? The execu-
tive is absolutely silent on this point. But be sure of this,
that though you have scarcely taken a step towards the tables,
your hat no more belongs to you now than you belong to
yourself. Play possesses you, your fortune, your cap, your
cane, your cloak.
As you go out, it will be made clear to you, by a savage
irony, that play has yet spared you something, since your
property is returned. For all that, if you bring a new hat
with you, you will have to pay for the knowledge that a
special costume is needed for a gambler.
The evident astonishment with which the young man took
a numbered tally in exchange for his hat, which was fortu-
nately somewhat rubbed at the brim, showed clearly enough
that his mind was yet untainted ; and the little old man, who
had wallowed from his youth up in the furious pleasures of a
gambler's life, cast a dull, indifferent glance over him, in
which a philosopher might have seen wretchedness lying in
the hospital, the vagrant lives of ruined folk, inquests on
numberless suicides, life-long penal servitude and transporta-
tions to Guazacoalco.
His pallid, lengthy visage appeared like a haggard embodi-
ment of the passion reduced to its simplest terms. There
were traces of past anguish in its wrinkles. He supported
life on the glutinous soups at Darcet's, and gambled away his
meagre earnings day by day. Like some old hackney which
THE TALISMAN. 3
takes no heed of the strokes of the whip, nothing could move
him now. The stifled groans of ruined players, as they passed
out, their mute imprecations, their stupefied faces, found him
impassive. He was the spirit of play incarnate. If the
young man had noticed this sorry Cerberus, perhaps he would
have said, " There is only a pack of cards in that heart of
his."
The stranger did not heed this warning written in flesh and
blood, put there, no doubt, by Providence, who has set loath-
ing on the threshold of all evil haunts. He walked boldly into
the saloon, where the rattle of coin brought his senses under the
dazzling spell of an agony of greed. Most likely he had been
drawn thither by that most convincing of Jean Jacques' elo~
quent periods, which expresses, I think, this melancholy
thought, " Yes, I can imagine that a man may take to gam-
bling when he sees only his last shilling between him and
death."
There is an illusion about a gambling saloon at night as vul-
gar as that of a bloodthirsty drama, and just as effective. The
rooms are filled with players and onlookers, with poverty-
stricken age, which drags itself thither in search of stimulation,
with excited faces, and revels that began in wine, to end
shortly in the Seine. The passion is there in full measure,
but the great number of the actors prevents you from seeing
the gambling-demon face to face. The evening is a harmony
or chorus in which all take part, to which each instrument in
the orchestra contributes its share. You would see there
plenty of respectable people who have come in search of di-
version, for which they pay as they pay for the pleasures of the
theatre, or of gluttony, or they come hither as to some garret
where they cheapen poignant regrets for three months to come.
Do you understand all the force and frenzy in a soul
which impatiently waits for the opening of a gambling hell ?
Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there
is the same difference that lies between a careless husband
4 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
and the lover swooning under his lady's window. Only with
morning comes the real throb of the passion and the crav-
ing in its stark horror. Then you can admire the real gam-
bler, who has neither eaten, slept, thought, nor lived, he has
so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered
on the rack of his desire for a game or two of cards. At
that accursed hour you encounter eyes whose calmness ter-
rifies you, faces that fascinate, glances that seem as if they had
power to turn the cards over and consume them. The grand-
est hours of a gambling saloon are not the opening ones. If
Spain has bull-fights, and Rome once had her gladiators,
Paris waxes proud of her Palais-Royal, where the inevitable
roulettes cause blood to flow in streams, and the public can
have the pleasure of watching without fear of their feet slip-
ping in it.
Take a quiet peep at the arena. How bare it looks ! The
paper on the walls is greasy to the height of your head, there
is nothing to bring one reviving thought. There is not so
much as a nail for the convenience of suicides. The floor is
worn and dirty. An oblong table stands in the middle of
the room, the tablecloth is worn by the friction of gold, but
the straw-bottomed chairs about it indicate an odd indiffer-
ence to luxury in the men who will lose their lives here in
the quest of the fortune that is to put luxury within their
reach.
This contradiction in humanity is seen wherever the soul
reacts powerfully upon itself. The gallant would clothe his
mistress in silks, would deck her out in soft Eastern fabrics,
though he and she must lie on a truckle-bed. The ambitious
dreamer sees himself at the summit of power, while he slav-
ishly prostrates himself in the mire. The tradesman stagnates
in his damp, unhealthy shop, while he builds a great mansion
for his son to inherit prematurely, only to be ejected from it
by law proceedings at his own brother's instance.
After all, is there a less pleasing thing in the world than a
THE TALISMAN. 5
house of pleasure ? Singular question ! Man is always at
strife with himself. His present woes give the lie to his
hopes ; yet he looks to a future which is not his, to indemnify
him for these present sufferings ; setting upon all his actions
the seal of inconsequence and of the weakness of his nature.
We have nothing here below in full measure but mis-
fortune.
There were several gamblers in the room already when the
young man entered. Three bald-headed- seniors were loung-
ing round the green table. Imperturbable as diplomatists,
those plaster-cast faces of theirs betokened blunted sensibil-
ities, and hearts which had long forgotten how to throb, even
when a woman's dowry was the stake. A young Italian,
olive-hued and dark-haired, sat at one end, with his elbows
on the table, seeming to listen to the presentiments of luck
that dictate a gambler's " Yes " or " No." The glow of fire
and gold was on that southern face. Some seven or eight
onlookers stood, by way of an audience, awaiting a drama
composed of the strokes of chance, the faces of the actors,
the circulation of coin, and the motion of the croupier's
rake, much as a silent, motionless crowd watches the heads-
man in the Place de Greve. A tall, thin man, in a threadbare
coat, held a card in one hand, and a pin in the other, to
mark the numbers of red or black. He seemed a modern
Tantalus, with all the pleasures of his epoch at his lips, a
hoardless miser drawing in imaginary gains, a sane species of
lunatic who consoles himself in his misery by chimerical
dreams, a man who touches peril and vice as a young priest
handles the unconsecrated wafer in the white mass.
One or two experts at the game, shrewd speculators, had
placed themselves opposite the bank, like old convicts, who
have lost all fear of the hulks ; they meant to try two or
three coups, and then to depart at once with the expected
gains, on which they lived. Two elderly waiters dawdled
about with their arms folded, looking from time to time into
6 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
the garden from the windows, as if to show their insignificant
faces as a sign to passers-by.
The croupier and banker threw a ghastly and withering
glance at the punters, and cried, in a sharp voice, " Make
your game!" as the young man came in. The silence
seemed to grow deeper as all heads turned curiously towards
the new arrival. Who would have thought it ? The jaded
elders, the fossilized waiters, the onlookers, the fanatical
Italian himself, felt an indefinable dread at sight of the
stranger. Is he not wretched indeed who can excite pity
here ? Must he not be very helpless to receive sympathy,
ghastly in appearance to raise a shudder in these places,
where pain utters no cry, where wretchedness looks gay, and
despair is decorous ? Such thoughts as these produced a
new -emotion in these torpid hearts as the young man entered.
Were not executioners known to shed tears over the fair-
haired, girlish heads that had to fall at the bidding of the
Revolution?
The gamblers saw at a glance a dreadful mystery in the
novice's face. His young features were stamped with a
melancholy grace, his looks told of unsuccess and many
blighted hopes. The dull apathy of the suicide had made
his forehead so deadly pale, a bitter smile carved faint lines
about the corners of his mouth, and there was an abandon-
ment about him that was painful to see. Some sort of a
demon sparkled in the depth of his eyes, which drooped,
wearied perhaps with pleasure. Could it have been dissi-
pation that had set its foul mark on the proud face, once
pure and bright, and now brought low? Any doctor seeing
the yellow circles about his eyelids, and the color in his
cheeks, would have set them down to some affection of
the heart or lungs, while poets would have attributed them
to the havoc brought by the search for knowledge and to
night-vigils by the student's lamp.
But a complaint more fatal than any disease, a disease
THE TALISMAN. 7
more merciless than genius or study, had drawn this young
face, and had wrung a heart which dissipation, study, and
sickness had scarcely disturbed. When a notorious criminal
is taken to the convicts' prison, the prisoners welcome him
respectfully, and these evil spirits in human shape, experi-
enced in torments, bowed before an unheard-of anguish. By
the depth of the wound which met their eyes, they recog-
nized a prince among them, by the majesty of his unspoken
irony, by the refined wretchedness of his garb. The frock-
coat that he wore was well cut, but his cravat was on terms
so intimate with his waistcoat that no one could suspect
him of underlinen. His hands, shapely as a woman's, were
not perfectly clean ; for two days past indeed he had ceased
to wear gloves. If the very croupier and the waiters shud-
dered, it was because some traces of the spell of innocence
yet hung about his meagre, delicately-shaped form, and his
scanty fair hair in its natural curls.
He looked only about twenty-five years of age, and any
trace of vice in his face seemed to be there by accident. A
young constitution still resisted the inroads of lubricity.
Darkness and light, annihilation and existence, seemed to
struggle in him, with effects of mingled beauty and terror.
There he stood like some erring angel that has lost his radi-
ance ; and these emeritus-professors of vice and shame were
ready to bid the novice depart, even as some toothless crone
might be seized with pity for a beautiful girl who offers
herself up to infamy.
The young man went straight up to the table, and, as
he stood there, flung down a piece of gold which he held
in his hand, without deliberation. It rolled on to the black;
then, as strong natures can, he looked calmly, if anxious-
ly, at the croupier, as if he held useless subterfuges in
scorn.
The interest this coup awakened was so great that the old
gamesters laid nothing upon it ; only the Italian, inspired
8 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
by a gambler's enthusiasm, ^smiled suddenly at some thought,
and punted his heap of coin against the stranger's stake.
The banker forgot to pronounce the phrases that use and
wont have reduced to an inarticulate cry "Make your
game The game is made Bets are closed ! " The
croupier spread out the cards, and seemed to wish luck to
the new-comer, indifferent as he was to the losses or gains
of those who took part in these sombre pleasures. Every
bystander thought he saw a drama, the closing scene of a
noble life, in the fortunes of that bit of gold ; and eagerly
fixed his eyes on the prophetic cards; but however closely
they watched the young man, they could discover not the
least sign of feeling on his cool but restless face.
"Even! ra/wins," said the croupier officially. A dumb
sort of rattle came from the Italian's throat when he saw
the folded notes that the banker showered upon him, one
after another. The young man only understood his calamity
when the croupier's rake was extended to sweep away his
last napoleon. The ivory touched the coin with a little
click, as it swept it with the speed of an arrow into the
heap of gold before the bank. The stranger turned pale at
the lips, and softly shut his eyes, but he unclosed them again
at once, and the red color returned as he affected the airs
of an Englishman, to whom life can offer no new sensation,
and disappeared without the glance full of entreaty for com-
passion that a desperate gamester will often give the bystanders.
How much can happen in a second's space; how many
things depend on a throw of the die !
"That was his last cartridge, of course," said the croupier,
smiling after a moment's silence, during which he picked up
the coin between his finger and thumb and held it up.
" He is a cracked brain that will go and drown him-
self," said a frequenter of the place. He looked round about
at the other players, who all knew each other.
"Bah!" said a waiter, as he took a pinch of snuff.
THE TALISMAN. y
"If we had but followed his example," said an old game-
ster to the others, as he pointed out the Italian.
Everybody looked at the lucky player, whose hands shook
as he counted his bank-notes.
" A voice seemed to whisper to me, " he said. " The luck
is sure to go against that young man's despair."
" He is a new hand," said the banker, " or he would have
divided his money into three parts to give himself more
chance."
The young man went out without asking for his hat ; but
the old watch-dog, who had noted its shabby condition,
returned it to him without a word. The gambler mechani-
cally gave up the tally, and went down-stairs whistling Di
tanti Palpiti so feebly, that he himself scarcely heard the delic-
ious notes.
He found himself immediately under the arcades of the
Palais- Royal, reached the Rue Saint Honore, took the direc-
tion of the Tuileries, and crossed the gardens with an unde-
cided step. He walked as if he were in some desert, elbowed
by men whom he did not see, hearing through all the voices
of the crowd one voice alone the voice of Death. He was
lost in the thoughts that benumbed him at last, like the crim-
inals who used to be taken in carts from the Palais de Justice
to the Place de Greve, where the scaffold awaited them red-
dened with all the blood spilt there since 1793.
There is something great and terrible about suicide. Most
people's downfalls are not dangerous ; they are like children
who have not far to fall, and cannot injure themselves ; but
when a great nature is dashed down, he is bound to fall from
a height. He must have been raised almost to the skies;
he has caught glimpses of some heaven beyond his reach.
Vehement must the storms be which compel a soul to seek
for peace from the trigger of a pistol.
How much young power starves and pines away in a garret
for want of a friend, for lack of a woman's consolation, in the
10 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
midst of millions of fellow-creatures, in the presence of a
listless crowd that is burdened by its wealth ! When one
remembers all this, suicide looms large. Between a self-
sought death and the abundant hopes whose voices call a
young man to Paris, God only knows what may intervene ;
what contending ideas have striven within the soul ; what
poems have been set aside ; what moans and what despair
have been repressed ; what abortive masterpieces and vain
endeavors ! Every suicide is an awful poem of sorrow.
Where will you find a work of genius floating above the seas
of literature that can compare with this paragraph :
"Yesterday, at four o'clock, a young woman threw herself
into the Seine from the Pont des Arts."
Dramas and romances pale before this concise Parisian
phrase; so must even that old frontispiece, "The Lamenta-
tions of the glorious king of Kaernavan, put in prison by his
children," the sole remaining fragment of a lost work that
drew tears from Sterne at the bare perusal the same Sterne
who deserted his own wife and family.
The stranger was beset with such thoughts as these, which
passed in fragments through his mind, like tattered flags flut-
tering above the combat. If he set aside for a moment the
burdens of consciousness and of memory, to watch the flower
heads gently swayed by the breeze among the green thickets,
a revulsion came over him, life struggled against the oppres-
sive thought of suicide, and his eyes rose to the sky : gray
clouds, melancholy gusts of the wind, the stormy atmosphere,
all decreed that he should die.
He bent his way toward the Pont Royal, musing over the
last fancies of others who had gone before him. He smiled
to himself as he remembered that Lord Castlereagh had satis-
fied the humblest of our needs before he cut his throat, and
that the academician Auger had sought for his snuff-box as
he went to his death. He analyzed these extravagances, and
even examined himself; for as he stood aside against the
THE TALISMAN. 11
parapet to allow a porter to pass, his coat had been whit-
ened somewhat by the contact, and he carefully brushed the
dust from his sleeve, to his own surprise. He reached the
middle of the arch, and looked forebodingly at the water.
" Wretched weather for drowning yourself," said a ragged
old woman, who grinned at him ; " isn't the Seine cold and
dirty?"
His answer was a ready smile, which showed the frenzied
nature of his courage ; then he shivered all at once as he saw
at a distance, by the door of the Tuileries, a shed with an
inscription above it in letters twelve inches high : THE ROYAL
HUMANE SOCIETY'S APPARATUS.
A vision of M. Dacheux rose before him, equipped by his
philanthropy, calling out and setting in motion the too effi-
cacious oars which break the heads of drowning men, if
unluckily they should rise to the surface ; he saw a curious
crowd collecting, running for a doctor, preparing fumigations;
he read the maundering paragraph in the papers, put between
notes on a festivity and on the smiles of a ballet dancer; he
heard the francs counted down by the prefect of police to the
watermen. As a corpse, he was worth fifteen francs ; but now
while he lived he was only a man of talent without patrons,
without friends, without a mattress to lie on, or any one to
speak a word for him a perfect social cipher, useless to a
State which gave itself no trouble about him.
A death in broad daylight seemed degrading to him ; he
made up his mind to die at night so as to bequeath an unrecog-
nizable corpse to a world which had disregarded the greatness
of his life. He began his wanderings again, turning towards
the Quai Voltaire, imitating the lagging gait of an idler seek-
ing to kill time. As he came down the steps at the end of
the bridge, his attention was drawn to the second-hand books
displayed on the parapet, and he was on the point of bargain-
ing for some. He smiled, thrust his hands philosophically
into his pockets, and fell to strolling on again with a proud
12 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
disdain in his manner, when he heard to his surprise some
coin rattling fantastically in his pocket.
A smile of hope lit his face, and slid from his lips over his
features, over his brow, and brought a joyful light to his eyes
and his dark cheeks. It was a spark of happiness like one of
the red dots that flit over the remains of a burnt scrap of
paper ; but as it is with the black ashes, so it was with his face,
it became dull again when he drew out his hand and perceived
only three pennies.
A little chimney-sweeper, with puffed cheeks, all black with
soot, and clad in tatters, held out his hand to beg for the
man's last pence.
"Ah, kind gentleman ! charity, charity : for the love of St.
Catherine ! only a halfpenny to buy some bread ! "
Two paces from the little Savoyard stood an old pauvre
hontcux,* sickly and feeble, in wretched garments of ragged
druggeting, who asked in a thick, muffled voice
"Anything you like to give, monsieur; I will pray to God
for you "
But the young man turned his eyes on him, and the old
beggar stopped without another word, discerning in that
mournful face an abandonment of wretchedness more bitter
than his own.
"Charity! charity!"
The young man threw the coins to the old man and the
child, left the footway, and turned towards the houses ; the
harrowing sight of the Seine fretted him beyond endurance.
" May God lengthen your days !" cried the two beggars.
As he reached the shop window of a print seller, this man
on the brink of death met a young woman alighting from a
showy carriage. He looked in delight at her prettiness, at
the pale face appropriately framed by the satin of her fashion-
able bonnet. Her slender form and graceful movements
entranced him. Her skirt had been slightly raised as she
* Bashful beggar.
THE TALISMAN. 13
stepped to the pavement, disclosing a daintily-fitting white
stocking over the delicate outlines beneath. The young lady
went into the shop and purchased albums and sets of litho-
graphs ; giving several gold coins for them, which glittered
and rang upon the counter. The young man, seemingly occu-
pied with the prints in the window, fixed upon the fair stranger
a gaze as eager as man can give, to receive in exchange an
indifferent glance, such as lights by accident on a passer-by.
For him it was a leave-taking of love and of woman ! but his
final and strenuous questioning glance was neither understood
nor felt by the slight-natured woman there ; her color did not
rise, her eyes did not droop. What was it to her? one more
piece of adulation, yet another sigh only prompted the delight-
ful thought at night, "I looked rather well to-day."
The young man quickly turned to another picture, and only
left it when she returned to her carriage. The horses started
off, the final vision of luxury and refinement went under an
eclipse, just as that life of his would soon do also. Slowly
and sadly he followed the line of the shops, listlessly examin-
ing the specimens on view. When the shops came to an end,
he reviewed the Louvre, the Institute, the towers of Notre
Dame, of the Palais, the Pont des Arts ; all these public
monuments seemed to have taken their tone from the heavy
gray sky.
Fitful gleams of light gave a foreboding look to Paris ; like
a pretty woman, the city has mysterious fits of ugliness or
beauty. So the outer world seemed to be in a plot to steep
this man about to die in a painful trance. A prey to the
maleficent power which acts relaxingly upon us by the fluid
circulating through our nerves, his whole frame seemed gradu-
ally to experience a dissolving process. He felt the anguish
of these throes passing through him in waves, and the houses
and the crowd seemed to surge to and fro in a mist before his
eyes. He tried to escape the agitation wrought in his mind
by the revulsions of his physical nature, and went toward the
2
14 THE WILD ASS 1 SKIN.
shop of a dealer in antiquities, thinking to give a treat to his
senses, and to spend the interval till nightfall in bargaining
over curiosities.
He sought, one might say, to regain courage and to find a
stimulant, like a criminal who doubts his power to reach the
scaffold. The consciousness of approaching death gave him,
for the time being, the intrepidity of a duchess with a couple
of lovers, so that he entered the place with an abstracted look,
while his lips displayed a set smile like a drunkard's. Had
not life, or rather had not death, intoxicated him ? Dizziness
soon overcame him again. Things appeared to him in strange
colors, or as making slight movements ; his irregular pulse
was no doubt the cause ; the blood that sometimes rushed like
a burning torrent through his veins, and sometimes lay torpid
and stagnant as tepid water. He merely asked leave to see if
the shop contained any curiosities y which he required.
A plump-faced young shopman with red hair, in an otter-
skin cap, left an old peasant woman in charge of the shop a
sort of feminine Caliban, employed in cleaning a stove made
marvelous by Bernard Palissy's work. This youth remarked
carelessly
"Look round, monsieur! We have nothing very re-
markable here down stairs ; but if I may trouble you to go
up to the first floor, I will show you some very fine mum-
mies from Cairo, some inlaid pottery, and some carved ebony
genuine Renaissance work, just come in, and of perfect
beauty."
In the young man's fearful position this cicerone's prattle and
shopman's empty talk seemed like the petty vexations by which
narrow minds destroy a man of genius. But as he must even
go through with it, he appeared to listen to his guide, answer-
ing him by gestures or monosyllables; but imperceptibly he
arrogated the privilege of saying nothing, and gave himself
up without hindrance to his closing meditations, which were
appalling. He had a poet's temperament, his mind had
THE TALISMAN. 15
entered by chance on a vast field ; and he must see perforce
the dry bones of twenty future worlds.
At a first glance the place presented a confused picture in
which every achievement, human and divine, was mingled.
Crocodiles, monkeys, and serpents stuffed with straw grinned
at glass from church windows, seemed to wish to bite sculp-
tured heads, to chase lacquered work, or to scramble up chan-
deliers. A Sevres vase, bearing Napoleon's portrait by Mine.
Jacotot, stood beside a sphinx dedicated to Sesostris. The
beginnings of the world and the events of yesterday were
mingled with grotesque cheerfulness. A kitchen jack leaned
against a pyx, a republican sabre on a mediaeval hackbut.
Mme. du Barry, with a star above her head, naked, and sur-
rounded by a cloud, seemed to look longingly out of Latour's
pastel at an Indian chibook, while she tried to guess the pur-
pose of the spiral curves that wound towards her. Instru-
ments of death, poniards, curious pistols, and disguised
weapons had been flung down pell-mell among the parapher-
nalia of daily life ; porcelain tureens, Dresden plates, trans-
lucent cups from China, old salt-cellars, comfit-boxes belong-
ing to feudal times. A carved ivory ship sped full sail on
the back of a motionless tortoise.
The Emperor Augustus remained unmoved and imperial
with an air-pump thrust into one eye. Portraits of French
sheriffs and Dutch burgomasters, phlegmatic now as when in
life, looked down pallid and unconcerned on the chaos of
past ages below them.
Every land of earth seemed to have contributed some stray
fragment of its learning, some example of its art. Nothing
seemed lacking to this philosophical kitchen-midden, from a
redskin's calumet, a green and golden slipper from the serag-
lio, a Moorish yataghan, a Tartar idol, to the soldier's tobacco
pouch, to the priest's ciborium, and the plumes that once
adorned a throne. This extraordinary combination was ren-
dered yet more bizarre by the accidents of lighting, by a
16 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
multitude of confused reflections of various hues, by the
sharp contrast of blacks and whites. Broken cries seemed to
reach the ear, unfinished dramas seized upon the imagination,
smothered lights caught the eye. A thin coating of invisi-
ble dust covered all the multitudinous corners and convolu-
tions of these objects of various shapes which gave highly
picturesque effects.
First of all, the young man compared the three galleries
which civilization, cults, divinities, masterpieces, dominions,
carousals, sanity, and madness had filled to repletion, to a
mirror with numerous facets, each depicting a world. After
this first hazy idea he would fain have selected his pleasures,
but by dint of using his eyes, thinking and musing, a fever
began to possess him, caused perhaps by the gnawing pain of
hunger. The spectacle of so much existence, individual or
national, to which these pledges bore witness, ended by
numbing his senses the purpose with which he entered
the shop was fulfilled. He had left the real behind, and
had climbed gradually up to an ideal world ; he had at
tained to the enchanted palace of ecstasy, whence the universe
appeared to him by fragments and in shapes of flame, as
once the future blazed out before the eyes of St. John in
Patmos.
A crowd of sorrowing faces, beneficent and appalling, dark
and luminous, far and near, gathered in numbers, in myriads,
in whole generations. Egypt, rigid and mysterious, arose
from her sands in the form of a mummy swathed in black
bandages ; then the Pharaohs swallowed up nations, that they
might build themselves a tomb; and he beheld Moses and
the Hebrews and the desert, and a solemn antique world.
Fresh and joyous, a marble statue spoke to him from a twisted
column of the pleasure-loving myths of Greece and Ionia.
Ah ! who would not have smiled with him to see, against the
earthen, red background, the brown-faced maiden dancing
with gleeful reverence before the god Priapus, wrought in the
THE TALISMAN. 17
fine clay of an Etruscan vase ? The Latin queen caressed her
chimera.
The whims of imperial Rome were there in life, the bath
was disclosed, the toilette of a languid Julia, dreaming, wait-
ing for her Tibullus. Strong with the might of Arabic spells,
the head of Cicero evoked memories of a free Rome, and
unrolled before him the scrolls of Titus Livius. The young
man beheld Senatus Pc/pulusque Romanus ; consuls, lictors,
togas with purple fringes ; the fighting in the Forum, the
angry people, passed in review before him like the cloudy
faces of a dream.
Then Christian Rome predominated in his vision. A
painter had laid heaven open ; he beheld the Virgin Mary
wrapped in a golden cloud among the angels, shining more
brightly than the sun, receiving the prayers of sufferers,
on whom this second Eve Regenerate smiles pityingly. At
the touch of a mosaic, made of various lavas from Vesuvius
and Etna, his fancy fled to the hot tawny south of Italy.
He was present at Borgia's orgies, he roved among the
Abruzzi, sought for Italian love intrigues, grew ardent over
pale faces and dark, almond-shaped eyes. He shivered over
midnight adventures, cut short by the cool thrust of a jealous
blade, as he saw a mediaeval dagger with a hilt wrought like
lace, and spots of rust like splashes of blood upon it.
India and its religions took the shape of the idol with his
peaked cap of fantastic form, with little bells, clad in silk
and gold. Close by, a mat, as pretty as the bayadere who
once lay upon it, still gave out a faint scent of sandal wood.
His fancy was stirred by a goggle-eyed Chinese monster, with
mouth awry and twisted limbs, the invention of a people
who, grown weary of the monotony of beauty, found an
indescribable pleasure in an infinite variety of ugliness. A
salt-cellar from Benvenuto Cellini's workshop carried him
back to the Renaissance at its height, to the time when there
was no restraint on art or morals, when torture was the sport
18 THE WILD ASS 1 SKIN.
of sovereigns ; and from their councils, churchmen with
courtesans' arms about them issued decrees of chastity for
simple priests.
On a cameo he saw the conquests of Alexander, the mas-
sacres of Pizarro in a matchlock, and religious wars dis-
orderly, fanatical, and cruel, in the shadows of a helmet.
Joyous pictures of chivalry were called up by a suit of Milan-
ese armor, brightly polished and richly wrought ; a paladin's
eyes seemed to sparkle yet under the visor.
This sea of inventions, fashions, furniture, works of art
and fiascos, made for him a poem without end. Shapes and
colors and projects all lived again for him, but his mind re-
ceived no clear and perfect conception. It was the poet's
task to complete the sketches of the great master, who had
scornfully mingled on his palette the hues of the numberless
vicissitudes of human life. When the world at large at last
released him, when he had pondered over many lands, many
epochs, and various empires, the young man came back to the
life of the individual. He impersonated fresh characters,
and turned his mind to details, rejecting the life of nations
as a burden too overwhelming for a single soul.
Yonder was a sleeping child, modeled in wax, a relic of
Ruysch's collection, an enchanting creation which brought
back the happiness of his own childhood. The cotton gar-
ment of a Tahitian maid next fascinated him ; he beheld the
primitive life of nature, the real modesty of naked chastity,
the joys of an idleness natural to mankind, a peaceful fate by
a slow river of sweet water under a plantain tree that bears its
pleasant manna without the toil of man. Then all at once
he became a corsair, investing himself with the terrible
poetry that Lara has given to the part : the thought came at the
sight of the mother-of-pearl tints of a myriad of sea-shells, and
grew as he saw madrepores redolent of the sea-weeds and the
storms of the Atlantic.
The sea was forgotten again at a distant view of exquisite
THE TALISMAN. 19
miniatures; he admired a precious missal in manuscript,
adorned with arabesques in gold and blue. Thoughts of
peaceful life swayed him ; he devoted himself afresh to study
and research, longing for the easy life of the monk, devoid
alike of cares and pleasures; and from the depths of his cell
he looked out upon the meadows, woods, and vineyards of his
convent. Pausing before some work of Teniers, he took for
his own the helmet of the soldier or the poverty of the arti-
san ; he wished to wear a smoke-begrimed cap with these
Flemings, to drink their beer and join their game at cards,
and smiled upon the comely plumpness of a peasant woman.
He shivered at a snowstorm by Mieris ; he seemed to take
part in Salvator Rosa's battle-piece; he ran his fingers over a
tomahawk from Illinois, and felt his own hair rise as he
touched a Cherokee scalping-knife. He marveled over the
rebec that he set in the hands of some lady of the land, drank
in the musical notes of her ballad, and in the twilight by the
Gothic arch above the hearth he told his love in a gloom so
deep that he could not read his answer in her eyes.
He caught at all delights, at all sorrows ; grasped at exist-
ence in every form ; and endowed the phantoms conjured up
from that inert and plastic material so liberally with his own
life and feelings, that the sound of his own footsteps reached
him as if from another world, or as the hum of Paris reaches
the towers of Notre Dame.
He ascended the inner staircase which led to the first floor,
with its votive shields, panoplies, carved shrines, and figures
on the wall at every step. Haunted by the strangest shapes,
by marvelous creations belonging to the borderland betwixt
life and death, he walked as if under the spell of a dream.
His own existence became a matter of doubt to him ; he
was neither wholly alive nor dead, like the curious objects
about him. The light began to fade as he reached the show-
rooms, but the treasures of gold and silver heaped up there
scarcely seemed to need illumination from without. The
20 THE WILD ASS* SKIN.
most extravagant whims of prodigals, who have run through
millions to perish in garrets, had left their traces here in this
vast bazaar of human follies. Here, beside a writing desk,
made at the cost of 100,000 francs, and sold for a hundred
pence, lay a lock with a secret worth a king's ransom. The
human race was revealed in all the grandeur of its wretched-
ness ; in all the splendor of its infinite littleness. An ebony
table that an artist might worship, carved after Jean Goujon
designs, in years of toil, had been purchased perhaps at the
price of firewood. Precious caskets, and things that fairy
hands might have fashioned, lay there in heaps like rubbish.
"You must have the worth of millions here! " cried the
young man as he entered the last of an immense suite of
rooms, all decorated and gilded by eighteenth century artists.
"Thousands of millions, you might say," said the florid
shopman; "but you have seen nothing as yet. Go up to the
third floor, and you shall see ! "
The young man followed his guide to a fourth gallery,
where one by one there passed before his wearied eyes several
pictures by Poussin, a magnificent statue by Michael Angelo,
enchanting landscapes by Claude Lorraine, a Gerard Dow
(like a stray page from Sterne), Rembrandts, Murillos, and
pictures by Velasquez, as dark and full of color as a poem of
Byron's; then came classic bas-reliefs, finely-cut agates,
wonderful cameos! Works of art upon works of art, till the
craftsman's skill palled on the mind, masterpiece after master-
piece till art itself became hateful at last and enthusiasm died.
He came upon a Madonna by Raphael, but he was tired of
Raphael; a figure by Correggio never received the glance it
demanded of him. A priceless vase of antique porphyry
carved round about with pictures of the most grotesquely
wanton of Roman divinities, the pride of some Corinna,
scarcely drew a smile from him.
.The ruins of fifteen hundred vanished years oppressed him;
he sickened under all this human thought; felt bored by all
THE TALISMAN. 21
this luxury and art. He struggled in vain against the con-
stantly renewed fantastic shapes that sprang up from under
his feet, like children of some sportive demon.
Are not fearful poisons set up in the soul by a swift concen-
tration of all her energies, her enjoyments, or ideas ; as
modern chemistry, in its caprice, repeats the action of crea-
tion by some gas or other? Do not many men perish under
the shock of the sudden expansion of some moral acid within
them?
"What is there in that box?" he inquired, as he reached
a large closet final triumph of human skill, originality,
wealth, and splendor, in which there hung a large, square
mahogany coffer, suspended from a nail by a silver chain.
"Ah, monsieur keeps the key of it," said the stout assistant
mysteriously. "If you wish to see the portrait, I will gladly
venture to tell him."
" Venture ! " said the young man ; "then is your master a
prince?"
"I don't know what he is," the other answered. Equally
astonished, each looked for a moment at the other. Then
construing the young man's silence as an order, the appren-
tice left him alone in the closet.
Have you never launched into the immensity of time and
space as you read the geological writings of Cuvier? Carried
by his fancy, have you hung as if suspended by a magician's
wand over the illimitable abyss of the past ? When the fossil
bones of animals belonging to civilizations before the Flood
are turned up in bed after bed and layer upon layer of the
quarries of Montmartre or among the schists of the Ural
range, the soul receives with dismay a glimpse of millions
of peoples forgotten by feeble human memory and unrec-
ognized by permanent divine tradition, peoples whose ashes
cover our globe with two feet of earth that yields bread to
us and flowers.
Is not Cuvier the great poet of our era ? Byron has given
22 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
admirable expression to certain moral conflicts, but our im-
mortal naturalist has reconstructed past worlds from a few
bleached bones; has rebuilt cities, like Cadmus, with mon-
sters' teeth; has animated forests with all the secrets of
zoology gleaned from a piece of coal ; has discovered a giant
population from the footprints of a mammoth. These forms
stand erect, grow large, and fill regions commensurate with
their giant size. He treats figures like a poet; a nought set
beside a seven by him produces awe.
He can call up nothingness before you without the phrases
of a charlatan. He searches a lump of gypsum, finds an im-
pression in it, says to you, "Behold!" All at once marble
takes an animal shape, the dead come to life, the history of
the world is laid open before you. After countless dynasties
of giant creatures, races of fish and clans of molluscs, the race
of man appears at last as the degenerate copy of a splendid
model, which the Creator has perchance destroyed. Em-
boldened by his gaze into the past, this petty race, children
of yesterday, can overstep chaos, can raise a psalm without
end, and outline for themselves the story of the Universe in
an Apocalypse that reveals the past. After the tremendous
resurrection that took place at the voice of this man, the
little drop in the nameless Infinite, common to all the spheres,
that is ours to use, and that we call Time, seems to us a
pitiable moment of life. We ask ourselves the purpose of
our triumphs, our hatreds, our loves, overwhelmed as we are
by the destruction of so many past universes, and whether
it is worth while to accept the pain of life in order that here-
after we may become an intangible speck. Then we remain
as if dead, completely torn away from the present till the
valet de chambre comes in and says, " Madame la comtesse
answers that she is expecting monsieur."
All the wonders which had brought the known world
before the young man's mind wrought in his soul much the
same feeling of dejection that besets the philosopher investi-
THE TALISMAN. 23
gating unknown creations. He longed more than ever for
death as he flung himself back in a curule chair and let his
eyes wander across the illusions composing a panorama of
the past. The pictures seemed to light up, the Virgin's
heads smiled on him, the statues seemed alive. Everything
danced and swayed around him, with a motion due to the
gloom and the tormenting fever that racked his brain ; each
monstrosity grimaced at him, while the portraits on the
canvas closed their eyes for a little relief. Every shape
seemed to tremble and start, and to leave its place gravely
or flippantly, gracefully or awkwardly, according to its fashion,
character, and surroundings.
A mysterious Sabbath began, rivalling the fantastic scenes
witnessed by Faust upon the Brocken. But these optical
illusions, produced by weariness, over-strained eyesight, or the
accidents of twilight, could not alarm the young man. The
terrors of life had no power over a soul grown familiar with
the terrors of death. He even gave himself up, half -amused
by its bizarre eccentricities, to the influence of this moral
galvanism ; its phenomena, closely connected with his last
thoughts, assured him that he was still alive. The silence
about him was so deep that he embarked once more in dreams
that grew gradually darker and darker as if by magic, as the
light slowly faded. A last struggling ray from the sun lit up
rosy answering lights. He raised his head and saw a skeleton
dimly visible, with its skull bent doubtfully to one side, as
if to say, " The dead will none of thee as yet."
He passed his hand over his forehead to shake off the drow-
siness, and felt a cold breath of air as an unknown furry some-
thing swept past his cheeks. He shivered. A muffled clatter
of the windows followed ; it was a bat, he fancied, that had
given him this chilly sepulchral caress. He could yet dimly
see for a moment the shapes that surrounded him, by the
vague light in the west ; then all these inanimate objects
were blotted out in uniform darkness. Night and the hour
34 THE WILD ASS' SA'IW.
of death had suddenly come. Thenceforward, for a while,
he lost consciousness of the things about him ; he was either
buried in deep meditation, or sleep overcame him, brought
on by weariness or by the stress of those many thoughts that
lacerated his heart.
Suddenly he thought that an awful voice called him by
name ; it was like some feverish nightmare, when at a step
the dreamer falls headlong over into an abyss, and he trembled.
He closed his eyes, dazzled by bright rays from a red circle
of light that shone out from the shadows. In the midst of
the circle stood a little old man who turned the light of a
lamp upon him, yet he had not heard him enter, nor move,
nor speak. There was something magical about the appari-
tion. The boldest man, awakened in such a way, would have
felt alarm at the sight of this figure, which might have issued
from some sarcophagus hard by.
A curiously youthful look in the unmoving eyes of the
spectre forbade the idea of anything supernatural ; but for all
that, in the brief space between his dreaming and waking life,
the young man's judgment remained philosophically sus-
pended, as Descartes claims. He was, in spite of himself,
under the influence of an unaccountable hallucination, a
mystery that our pride rejects, and that our imperfect science
vainly tries to solve.
Imagine a short old man, thin and spare, in a long black
velvet gown girded round him by a thick silk cord. His long
white hair escaped on either side of his face from under a
black velvet cap which closely fitted his head and made a
formal setting for his countenance. His gown enveloped his
body like a winding-sheet, so that all that was left visible was
a narrow bleached human face. But for the wasted arm, thin
as a draper's wand, which held aloft the lamp that cast all its
light upon him, the face would have seemed to hang in mid-
air. A gray pointed beard concealed the chin of this fantas-
tical appearance, and gave him the look of one of those
A LITTLE OLD MAN TURNED THE LIGHT OF A LAMP
UPON HIM.
THE TALISMAN. 25
Jewish types which serve artists as models for Moses. His
lips were so thin and colorless that it needed a close inspec-
tion to find the lines of his mouth at all in the pallid face.
His great wrinkled brow and hollow bloodless cheeks, the
inexorably stern expression of his small green eyes that no
longer possessed eyebrows or lashes, might have convinced
the young man that Gerard Dow's "Money Changer" had
come down from his frame. The craftiness of an inquisitor,
revealed in those curving wrinkles and creases that wound
about his temples, indicated a profound knowledge of life.
There was no deceiving this man, who seemed to possess a
power of detecting the secrets of the most wary heart.
The wisdom and the moral codes of every people seemed
gathered up in his passive face, just as all the productions of
the globe had been heaped up in his dusty show-rooms. He
seemed to possess the tranquil luminous vision of some god
before whom all things are open, or the haughty power of a
man who knows all things.
With two strokes of the brush a painter could have so
altered the expression of this face, that what had been a
serene representation of the Eternal Father should change
to the sneering mask of a Mephistopheles ; for though
sovereign power was revealed by the forehead, mocking
folds lurked about the mouth. He must have sacrificed
all the joys of earth, as he had crushed all human sorrows
beneath his potent will. The man at the brink of death shiv-
ered at the thought of the life led by this spirit, so solitary
and remote from our world ; joyless, since he had no one
illusion left; painless, because pleasure had ceased to exist
for him. There he stood, motionless and serene as a star in
a bright mist. His lamp lit up the obscure closet, just as his
green eyes, with their quiet malevolence, seemed to shed a
light on the moral world.
This was the strange spectacle that startled the young man's
returning sight, as he shook off the dreamy fancies and
26 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
thoughts of death that had lulled him. An instant of dismay,
a momentary return to belief in nursery tales, may be for-
given him, seeing that his senses were obscured. Much
thought had wearied his mind, and his nerves were exhausted
with the strain of the tremendous drama within him, and by
the scenes that had heaped on him all the horrid pleasures
that a piece of opium can produce.
But this apparition .had appeared in Paris, on the Quai
Voltaire, and in the nineteenth century ; the time and place
made sorcery impossible. The idol of French scepticism had
died in the house just opposite, the disciple of Gay-Lussac
and Arago, who had held the charlatanism of intellect in con-
tempt. And yet the young man submitted himself to the
influence of an imaginative spell, as all of us do at times, when
we wish to escape from an inevitable certainty, or to tempt
the power of Providence. So some mysterious apprehension
of a strange force made him tremble before the old man with
the lamp. All of us have been stirred in the same way by
the sight of Napoleon, or of some other great man, made
illustrious by his genius or by fame.
"You wish to see Raphael's portrait of Jesus Christ, mon-
sieur?" the old man asked politely. There was something
metallic in the clear, sharp ring of his voice.
He set the lamp upon a broken column, so that all its light
might fall on the brown case.
At the sacred names of Christ and Raphael the young man
showed some curiosity. The merchant, who no doubt looked
for this, pressed a spring, and suddenly the mahogany panel
slid noiselessly back in its groove, and discovered the canvas
to the young man's admiring gaze. At sight of this death-
less creation, he forgot his fancies in the show-rooms and the
freaks of his dreams, and became himself again, The old
man became a being of flesh and blood, very much alive, with
nothing chimerical about him, and took up his existence at
once upon solid earth.
THE TALISMAN. 27
The sympathy and love, and the gentle serenity in the
divine face, exerted an instant sway over the younger spec-
tator. Some influence failing from heaven bade cease the
burning torment that consumed the marrow of his bones.
The head of the Saviour of mankind seemed to issue from
among the shadows represented by a dark background ; an
aureole of light shone out brightly from his hair; an impas-
sioned belief seemed to glow through him, and to thrill every
feature. The word of life had just been uttered by those red
lips, the sacred sounds seemed to linger still in the air; the
spectator besought the silence for those captivating parables,
hearkened for them in the future, and had to turn to the
teachings of the past. The untroubled peace of the divine
eyes, the comfort of sorrowing souls, seemed an interpreta-
tion of the Evangel. The sweet triumphant smile revealed
the secret of the Catholic religion, which sums up all things
in the precept, "Love one another." This picture breathed
the spirit of prayer, enjoined forgiveness, overcame self,
caused sleeping powers of good to waken. For this work
of Raphael's had the imperious charm of music; you were
brought under the spell of memories of the past ; his triumph
was so absolute that the artist was forgotten. The witchery
of the lamplight heightened the wonder ; the head seemed
at times to flicker in the distance, enveloped in cloud.
"I covered the surface of that picture with gold-pieces,"
said the merchant carelessly.
"And now for death !" cried the young man, awakened from
his musings. His last thought had recalled his fate to him,
as it led him imperceptibly back from the forlorn hopes to
which he clung.
"Ah, ha! then my suspicions were well founded !" said the
other, and his hands held the young man's wrists in a grip
like that of a vise.
The young man smiled wearily at his mistake, and said
gently
28 7 HE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"You, sir, have nothing to fear; it is not your life, but
my own that is in question But why should I hide a
harmless fraud?" he went on, after a look at the anxious old
man. "I came to see your treasure to while away the time
till night should come and I could drown myself decently.
Who would grudge this last pleasure to a poet and a man of
science?"
While he spoke, the jealous merchant watched the haggard
face of his pretended customer with keen eyes. Perhaps the
mournful tones of his voice reassured him, or he also read the
dark signs of fate in the faded features that had made the
gamblers shudder; he released his hands, but with a touch of
caution, due to the experience of some hundred years at least,
he stretched his arm out to a sideboard as if to steady himself,
took up a little dagger and said
" Have you been a supernumerary clerk of the Treasury for
three years without receiving any perquisites?"
The young man could scarcely suppress a smile as he shook
his head.
" Perhaps your father has expressed his regret for your birth
a little too sharply? Or have you disgraced yourself?"
"If I meant to be disgraced, I should live."
"You have been hissed perhaps at the Funambules? Or
you have had to compose couplets to pay for your mistress'
funeral? Do you want to be cured of the gold fever? Or
to be quit of the spleen ? For what blunder is your life a
forfeit?"
"You must not look among the common motives that
impel suicides for the reason of my death. To spare myself
the task of disclosing my unheard-of sufferings, for which
language has no name, I will tell you this that I am in the
deepest, most humiliating, and most cruel trouble, and," he
went on in proud tones that harmonized ill with the words
just uttered, " I have no wish to beg for either help or sym-
pathy."
THE TALISMAN. 29
"Eh! eh!"
The two syllables which the old man pronounced resembled
the sound of a rattle. Then he went on thus :
" Without compelling you to entreat me, without making
you blush for it, and without giving you so much as a French
centime, a para from the Levant, a German heller, a Russian
kopeck, a Scottish farthing, a single obolus or sestercius from
the ancient world, or one piastre from the new, without offer-
ing you anything whatever in gold, silver, or copper, notes or
drafts, I will make you richer, more powerful, and of more
consequence than a constitutional king."
The young man thought that the old man must be in his
dotage, and waited in bewilderment without venturing to reply.
"Turn round," said the merchant, suddenly catching up
the lamp in order to light up the opposite wall ; " look at that
leathern skin," he went on.
The young man rose abruptly, and showed some surprise at
the sight of a piece of shagreen which hung on the wall behind
his chair. It was only about the size of a fox's skin, but
it seemed to fill the deep shadows of the place with such
brilliant rays that it looked like a small comet, an appearance
at first sight inexplicable. The young sceptic went up to this
so-called talisman, which was to rescue him from his woes,
with a scoffing phrase in his thoughts. Still a harmless curi-
osity led him to bend over it and look at it from all points of
view, and he soon found out the cause of its singular brilliancy.
The dark grain of the leather had been so carefully burnished
and polished, the striped markings of the graining were so
sharp and clear, that every particle of the surface of the bit
of Oriental leather was in itself a focus which concentrated
the light, and reflected it vividly.
He accounted for this phenomenon categorically to the old
man, who only smiled meaningly by way of answer. His
superior smile led the young scientific man to fancy that he
himself had been deceived by some imposture. He had no
30 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
wish to carry one more puzzle to his grave, and hastily turned
the skin over, like some child eager to find out the mysteries
of a new toy.
"All," he cried, "here is the mark of a seal which they
call in the East the Signet of Solomon."
"So you know that then," asked the merchant. His pecu-
liar method of laughter, two or three quick breathings
through the nostrils, said more than any words however elo-
quent.
" Is there anybody in the world simple enough to believe
in that idle fancy?" said the young man, nettled by the spite-
fulness of the silent chuckle. " Don't you know," he con-
tinued, " that the superstitions of the East have perpetuated
the mystical form and the counterfeit characters of the symbol,
which represents a mythical dominion ? I have no more laid
myself open to a charge of credulity in this case, than if I
had mentioned sphinxes or griffins, whose existence mythology
in a manner admits."
"As you are an Orientalist," replied the other, "perhaps
you can read that sentence."
He held the lamp close to the talisman, which the young
man held towards him, and pointed out some characters
inlaid in the surface of the wonderful skin, as if they had
grown on the animal to which it once belonged.
"I must admit," said the young man, "that I have no
idea how the letters could be engraved so deeply on the skin
of a wild ass." And he turned quickly to the tables strewn
with curiosities, and seemed to look for something.
"What is it that you want?" asked the old man.
" Something that will cut the leather, so that I can see
whether the letters are printed or inlaid."
The old man held out his stiletto. The young man took
it and tried to cut the skin above the lettering ; but when
he had removed a thin shaving of leather from them, the
characters still appeared below, so clear and so exactly like
THE TALISMAN. 31
the surface impression, that for a moment he was not sure
that he had cut anything away after all.
" The craftsmen of the Levant have secrets known only to
themselves," he said, half in vexation, as he eyed the char-
acters of this Oriental sentence.
"Yes," said the old man, "it is better to attribute it to
man's agency than to God's."
The mysterious words were thus arranged :
Or, as it runs in English :
POSSESSING ME THOU SHALT POSSESS ALL THINGS,
BUT THY LIFE IS MINE, FOR GOD HAS SO WILLED IT.
WISH, AND THY WISHES SHALL BE FULFILLED ;
BUT MEASURE THY DESIRES, ACCORDING
TO THE LIFE THAT IS IN THEE.
THIS IS THY LIFE,
WITH EACH WISH I MUST SHRINK
EVEN AS THY OWN DAYS.
WILT THOU HAVE ME? TAKE ME.
GOD WILL HEARKEN UNTO THEE.
SO BE IT!
32 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
" So you read Sanskrit fluently," said the old man. " You
have been in Persia perhaps, or in Bengal?"
"No, sir," said the stranger, as he felt the emblematical
skin curiously. It was almost as rigid as a sheet of metal.
The old merchant set the lamp back again upon the column,
giving the other a lock as he did so. " He has given up the
notion of dying already," the glance said with phlegmatic
irony.
"Is it a jest, or is it an enigma?" asked the young man.
The other shook his head and said soberly
"I don't know how to answer you. I have offered this
talisman with its terrible powers to men with more energy in
them than you seem to me to have; but though they laughed
at the questionable power it might exert over their futures,
not one of them was ready to venture to conclude the fateful
contract ' proposed by an unknown force. I am of their
opinion, I have doubted and refrained, and
"Have you never even tried its power?" interrupted the
young stranger.
"Tried it ! " exclaimed the old man. " Suppose that you
were on the column in the Place Vendome, would you try
flinging yourself into space ? Is it possible to stay the course
of life? Has a man ever been known to die by halves?
Before you came here, you had made up your mind to kill
yourself, but all at once a mystery fills your mind, and you think
no more about death. You child ! Does not any one day
of your life afford mysteries more absorbing ? Listen to me.
I saw the licentious days of the Regency. I was like you,
then, in poverty ; I have begged my bread; but for all that, I
am now a centenarian with a couple of years to spare, and a
millionaire to boot. Misery was the making of me, ignorance
has made me learned. I will tell you in a few words the
great secret of human life. By two instinctive processes man
exhausts the springs of life within him. Two verbs cover all
the forms which these two causes of death may take ' To
THE TALISMAN. 33
will and to have your will.' Between these two limits of
human activity the wise have discovered an intermediate
formula, to which I owe my good fortune and long life. ' To
will ' consumes us, and ' To have our will ' destroys us, but ' To
know' steeps our feeble organisms in perpetual calm. In me
Thought has destroyed Will, so that Power is relegated to the
ordinary functions of my economy. In a word, it is not in
the heart which can be broken, nor in the senses that become
deadened, but it is in the brain that cannot waste away and
survives everything else, that I have set my life. Moderation
has kept mind and body unruffled. Yet I have seen the
whole world. I have learned all languages, lived after every
manner. I have loaned a Chinaman money, taking his father's
corpse as a pledge, slept in an Arab's tent on the security of
his bare word, signed contracts in every capital of Europe,
and left my gold without hesitation in savage wigwams. I
have attained everything, because I have known how to
despise all things.
" My one ambition has been to see. Is not sight in a
manner insight? And to have knowledge or insight, is not
that to have instinctive possession? To be able to discover
the very substance of fact and to unite its essence to our
essence ? Of material possession what abides with you but an
idea? Think, then, how glorious must be the life of a man
who can stamp all realities upon his thought, place the springs
of happiness within himself, and draw thence uncounted
pleasures in idea, unsoiled by earthly stains. Thought is a
key to all treasures; the miser's gains are ours without his
cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoy-
ments have been intellectual joys. I have reveled in the
contemplation of seas, peoples, forests, and mountains ! I
have seen all things, calmly, and without weariness ; I have
set my desires on nothing ; I have waited in expectation of
everything. I have walked to and fro in the world as in a
garden round about my own dwelling. Troubles, loves,
34 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
ambitions, losses, and sorrows, as men call them, are for me
ideas, which I transmute into waking dreams ; I express and
transpose instead of feeling them ; instead of permitting them
to prey upon my life, I dramatize and expand them ; I divert
myself with them as if they were romances which I could read
by the power of vision within me. As I have never overtaxed
my constitution, I still enjoy robust health ; and as my mind
is endowed with all the force that I have not wasted, this
head of mine is even better furnished than my galleries. The
true millions lie here," he said, striking his forehead. "I
spend delicious days in communings with the past; I summon
before me whole countries, places, extents of sea, the fair
faces of history. In my imaginary seraglio I have all the
women I have never possessed. Your wars and revolutions
come up before me for judgment. What is a feverish fugitive
admiration for some more or less brightly colored piece of
flesh and blood ; some more or less rounded human form ;
what are all the disasters that wait on your erratic whims, com-
pared with the magnificent power of conjuring up the whole
world within your soul, compared with the immeasurable
joys of movements, unstrangled by the cords of time, un-
clogged by the fetters of space ; the joys of beholding all
things, of comprehending all things, of leaning over the
parapet of the world to question the other spheres, to hearken
to the voice of God? There," he burst out, vehemently,
"there are To Will and To have your Will, both together," he
pointed to the bit of shagreen ; " there are your social ideas,
your immoderate desires, your excesses, your pleasures that
end in death, your sorrows that quicken the pace of life, for
pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure. Who could determine
the point where pleasure becomes pain, where pain is still a
pleasure? Is not the utmost brightness of the ideal world
soothing to us, while the lightest shadows of the physical
world annoy? Is not knowledge the secret of wisdom? And
what is folly but a riotous expenditure of Will or Power ?"
THE TALISMAN. 35
"Very good, then, a life of riotous excess for me! " said
the young man, pouncing upon the piece of shagreen.
"Young man, beware!" cried the other with incredible
vehemence.
" I had resolved my existence into thought and study," the
young man replied; "and yet they have not even supported
me. I am not to be gulled by a sermon worthy of Sweden-
borg, nor by your Oriental amulet, nor yet by your charitable
endeavors to keep me in a world wherein existence is no
longer possible for me. Let me see, now," he added,
clutching the talisman convulsively, as he looked at the old
man, "I wish for a royal banquet, a carouse worthy'of this
century, which, it is said, has brought everything to perfec-
tion ! Let me have young boon companions, witty, unwarped
by prejudice, merry to the verge of madness ! Let one wine
succeed another, each more biting and perfumed than the
last, and strong enough to bring about three days of delirium !
Passionate women's forms should grace that night ! I would
be borne away to unknown regions beyond the confines of
this world by the car and four-winged steeds of a frantic and
uproarious orgie. Let us ascend to the skies, or plunge our-
selves in the mire. I do not know if one soars or sinks at
such moments, and I do not care ! Next, I bid this enig-
matical power to concentrate all delights for me in one single
joy. Yes, I must comprehend every pleasure of earth and
heaven in the final embrace that is to kill me. Therefore,
after the wine, I wish to hold high festival to Priapus, with
songs that might rouse the dead, and kisses without end ; the
sound of them should pass like the crackling of flame through
Paris, should revive the heat of youth and passion in husband
and wife, even in hearts of seventy years."
A laugh burst from the little old man. It rang in the
young man's ears like an echo from hell, and tyrannously cut
him short. He said no more.
" Do you imagine that my floors are going to open sud-
36 THE WILD ^ASS* SKIN.
denly, so that luxuriously-appointed tables may rise through
them, and guests from another world ? No, no, young mad-
cap. You have entered into the compact now, and there is
an end of, it. Henceforward, your wishes will be accurately
fulfilled, but at the expense of your life. The compass of
your days, visible in that skin, will contract according to the
strength and number of your desires, from the least to the
most extravagant. The Brahmin from whom I had this skin
once explained to me that it would bring about a mysterious
connection between the fortunes and the wishes of its pos-
sessor. Your first wish is a vulgar one, which I could fulfil,
but I leave that to the issues of your new existence. After
all, you were wishing to die ; very well, your suicide is only
put off for a time."
The young man was surprised and irritated because the
singular old man persisted in not taking him seriously. A
half philanthropic intention peeped so clearly forth from his
last jesting observation, that he exclaimed
" I shall soon see, sir, if any change comes over my fortunes
in the time it will take to cross the width of the quay. But
I should like us to be quits for such a momentous service ; that
is, if you are not laughing at an unlucky wretch, so I wish
that you may fall in love with an opera-dancer. You would
understand the pleasures of intemperance then, and might
perhaps grow lavish of the wealth that you have husbanded so
philosophically."
He went out without heeding the old man's heavy sigh,
went back through the galleries and down the staircase, fol-
lowed by the stout assistant who vainly tried to light his pas-
sage ; he fled with the haste of a robber caught in the
act. Blinded by a kind of delirium, he did not even notice
the unexpected flexibility of the piece of shagreen, which
coiled itself up, pliant as a glove in his excited fingers, till it
would go into the pocket of his coat, where he mechani-
cally thrust it. As he rushed out of the door into the street,
THE TALISMAN. 37
he ran up against three young men who were passing arm in
arm.
"Brute ! "
"Idiot! "
Such were the gratifying expressions exchanged between
them.
"Why, it is Raphael ! "
" Good ! we were looking for you."
" What ! it is you, then ? "
These three friendly exclamations quickly followed the in-
sults, as the light of a street lamp, flickering in the wind, fell
upon the astonished faces of the group.
" My dear fellow, you must come with us ! " said the
young man that Raphael had all but knocked down.
" What is all this about? "
" Come along, and I will tell you the history of it as
we go."
By fair means or foul, Raphael must go along with his
friends towards the Pont des Arts ; they surrounded him, and
linked him by the arm among their merry band.
" We have been after you for about a week," the speaker
went on. " At your respectable hotel de Saint Quentin,
where, by the way, the sign with the alternate black and red
letters cannot be removed, and hangs out just as it did in the
time of Jean Jacques, that Leonarda of yours told us that you
were off into the country. For all that, we certainly did not
look like duns, creditors, sheriffs officers, or the like. But
no matter ! Rastignac had seen you the evening before at the
Bouffons; we took courage again, and made it a point of
honor to find out whether you were roosting in a tree in the
Champs Elysees, or in one of those philanthropic abodes
where the beggars sleep on a twopenny rope, or if, more
lucky, you were bivouacking in some boudoir or other. We
could not find you anywhere. Your name was not in the
jailer's registers at St. Pelagic nor at La Force ! Government
38 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
departments, cafes, libraries, lists of prefects' names, news-
paper offices, restaurants, greenrooms to cut it short, every
lurking place in Paris, good or bad, has been explored in the
most expert manner. We bewailed the loss of a man endowed
with such genius, that one might look to find him either at
Court or in the common jails. We talked of canonizing you
as a hero of July, and, upon my word, we regretted you ! "
As he spoke, the friends were crossing the Pont des Arts.
Without listening to them, Raphael looked at the Seine, at
the clamoring waves that reflected the lights of Paris. Above
that river, in which but now he had thought to fling himself,
the old man's prediction had been fulfilled, the hour of his
death had been already put back by fate.
" We really regretted you," said his friend, still pursuing
his theme. " It was a question of a plan in which we in-
cluded you as a superior person, that is to say, somebody who
can put himself above other people. The constitutional
thimble-rig is carried on to-day, dear boy, more seriously than
ever. The infamous monarchy, displaced by the heroism of
the people, was a sort of drab, you could laugh and revel with
her ; but La Patrie is a shrewish and virtuous wife, and willy-
nilly you must take her prescribed endearments. Then be-
sides, as you know, authority passed over from the Tuileries
to the journalists, at the time when the Budget changed its
quarters and went from the Faubourg Saint Germain to the
Chaussee d'Antin. But this you may not know, perhaps.
The Government, that is, the aristocracy of lawyers and bank-
ers who represent the country to-day, just as the priests used
to do in the time of the monarchy, has felt the necessity of
mystifying the worthy people of France with a few new words
and old ideas, like philosophers of every school, and all strong
intellects ever since time began. So now Royalist-national
ideas must be inculcated, by proving to us that it is far better
to pay twelve hundred million francs thirty-three centimes to
La Patrie, represented by Messieurs Such-and-Such, than to
THE TALISMAN". 3D
pay eleven hundred million francs nine centimes to a king
who used to say /instead of we. In a word, a journal, with
two or three hundred thousand francs, good, at the back of it,
has just been started, with a view to making an opposition
paper to content the discontented, without prejudice to the
national government of the citizen-king. We scoff at liberty
.as at despotism now, and at religion or incredulity quite im-
partially. And since, for us, 'our country' means a capital
where ideas circulate and are sold at so much a line, a succu-
lent dinner every day, and the play at frequent intervals,
where profligate women swarm, where suppers last on into the
next day, and light loves are hired by the hour like cabs ; and
since Paris will always be the most adorable of all countries,
the country of joy, liberty, wit, pretty women, mauvais sujets^
and good wine ; where the truncheon of authority never makes
itself disagreeably felt, because one is so close to those who
wield it we, therefore, sectaries of the god Mephisiopheles,
have engaged to whitewash the public mind, to give fresh
costumes to the actors, to put a new plank or two in the Gov-
ernment booth, to doctor doctrinaires, and warm up old Re-
publicans, to touch up the Bonapartists a bit, and revictual
the Centre ; provided that we are allowed to laugh in secret
at both kings and peoples, to think one thing in the morning
and another at night, and to lead a merry life a la Panurge,
or to recline upon soft cushions, like the Orientals.
"The sceptre of this burlesque and macaronic kingdom,"
he went on, "we have reserved for you; so we are taking
you straightway to a dinner given by the founder of the said
newspaper, a retired banker, who, at a loss to know what to
do with his money, is going to buy some brains with it. You
will be welcomed as a brother, we shall hail you as king of
these free lances who will undertake anything ; whose per-
spicacity discovers the intentions of Austria, England, or Russia,
before either Russia, Austria, or England have formed any.
* Good-for-nothings.
40 THE WILD ASh
Yes, we will invest you with the sovereignty of those puissant
intellects which give to the world its Mirabeaus, Talleyrands,
Pitts, and Metternichs all the clever Crispins who treat the
destinies of a kingdom as gamblers' stakes, just as ordinary
men play dominoes for kirschenwasser. We have given you
out to be the most undaunted champion who ever wrestled in
a drinking-bout at close quarters with the monster called
Carousal, who all bold spirits wish to try a fall with ; we have
gone so far as to say that you have never yet been worsted.
I hope you will not make liars of us. Taillefer, our amphi-
tryon, has undertaken to surpass the circumscribed saturnalias
of the petty modern Lucullus. He is rich enough to infuse
pomp into trifles, and style and charm into dissipation.
Are you listening, Raphael?" asked the orator, interrupting
himself.
"Yes," answered the young man, less surprised by the ac-
complishment of his wishes than by the natural manner in
which the events had come about.
He could not bring himself to believe in magic, but he
marveled at the accidents of human fate.
"Yes, you say, just as if you were thinking of your grand-
father's demise," remarked one of his neighbors.
"Ah !" cried Raphael, " I was thinking, my friends, that
we are in a fair way to become very great scoundrels, ' ' and there
was an ingenuousness in his tones that set these writers, the
hope of young France, in a roar. " So far our blasphemies
have been uttered over our cups ; we have passed our judg-
ments on life while drunk, and taken men and affairs in an
after-dinner frame of mind. We were innocent of action ;
we were bold in words. But now we are to be branded
with the hot iron of politics; we are going to enter the con-
vict's prison and to drop our illusions. Although one has no
belief left, except in the devil, one may regret the paradise
of one's youth and the age of innocence, when we devoutly
offered the tip of our tongue to some good priest for the con-
THE TALISMAN. 41
secrated wafer of the sacrament. Ah, my good friends, our
first peccadilloes gave us so much pleasure because the conse-
quent remorse set them off and lent a keen relish to them ;
but nowadays "
" Oh ! now," said the first speaker, " there is still left
" What?" asked another.
" Crime "
" There is a word as high as the gallows and deeper than
the Seine," said Raphael.
"Oh, you don't understand me; I mean political crime.
Since this morning, a conspirator's life is the only one I covet.
I don't know that the fancy will last over to-morrow, but
to-night at least my gorge rises at the anaemic life of our civil-
ization and its railroad evenness. I am seized with a passion
for the miseries of the retreat from Moscow, for the excite-
ments of the Red Corsair, or for a smuggler's life. I should
like to go to Botany Bay, as we have no Chartreux left us
here in France ; it is a sort of infirmary reserved for little
Lord Byrons, who, having crumpled up their lives like a
serviette after dinner, have nothing left to do but to set their
country ablaze, blow their own brains out, plot for a republic,
or clamor for a war "
" Emile," Raphael's neighbor called eagerly to the speaker,
"on my honor, but for the revolution of July I would have
taken orders, and gone off down into the country somewhere
to lead the life of an animal, and "
"And you would have read your Breviary through every
day."
"Yes."
"You are a coxcomb."
"Why we read the newspapers as it is !"
"Not bad that for a journalist! But hold your tongue,
we are going through a crowd of subscribers. Journalism,
look you, is the religion of modern society, and has even
gone a little further."
42 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
" What do you mean ?"
"Its pontiffs are not obliged to believe in it any more than
the people are."
Chatting thus, like good fellows who have known their De
Viris illustribus for years past, they reached a mansion in the
Rue Joubert.
Emile was a journalist who had acquired more reputation
by dint of doing nothing than others had derived from their
achievements. A bold, caustic, and powerful critic, he pos-
sessed all the qualities that his defects permitted. An out-
spoken giber, he made numberless epigrams on a friend to
his face, but would defend him if absent with courage and
loyalty. He laughed at everything, even at his own career.
Always impecunious, he yet lived, like all men of his calibre,
plunged in unspeakable indolence. He would fling some
word containing whole volumes in the teeth of folk who could
not put a syllable of sense into their books. He lavished
promises that he never fulfilled ; he made a pillow of his luck
and reputation, on which he slept, and ran the risk of waking
up to old age in a workhouse. A steadfast friend to the
gallows foot, a cynical swaggerer with a child's simplicity, a
worker only from necessity or caprice.
" In the language of Maitre Alcofribas, we are about to
make famous a piece of good cheer," he remarked to Raphael
as he pointed out the flower-stands that made a perfumed
forest of the staircase.
" I like a vestibule to be well warmed and richly carpeted,"
Raphael said. " Luxury in the peristyle is not common in
France. I feel as if life had begun anew here."
"And up above we are going to drink and make merry once
more, my dear Raphael. Ah! yes," he went on, "and I
hope we are going to come off conquerors, too, and walk over
everybody else's head."
As he spoke, he jestingly pointed to the guests. They were
entering a large room which shone with gilding and lights,
THE TALISMAN. 43
and there all the younger men of note in Paris welcomed
them. Here was one who had just revealed fresh powers ;
his first picture vied with the glories of imperial art. There,
another, who but yesterday had launched forth a volume, an
acrid book filled with a sort of literary arrogance, which opened
up new ways to the modern school. A sculptor, not far away,
with vigorous power visible in his rough features, was chatting
with one of those unenthusiastic scoffers who can either see
excellence anywhere or nowhere, as it happens. Here, the
cleverest of our caricaturists, with mischievous eyes and bitter
tongue, lay in wait for epigrams to translate into pencil
strokes; there stood the young and audacious writer, who
distilled the quintessence of political ideas better than any
other man, or compressed the work of some prolific writer as
he held him up to ridicule ; he was talking with the poet
whose works would have eclipsed all the writings of the time
if his ability had been as strenuous as his hatreds. Both were
trying not to say the truth while they kept clear of lies, as
they exchanged flattering speeches. A famous musician admin-
istered soothing consolation in a rallying fashion to a young
politician who had just fallen, quite unhurt, from his rostrum.
Young writers who lacked style stood beside other young
writers who lacked ideas, and authors of political prose by
prosaic poets.
At the sight of all these incomplete beings, a simple Saint
Simonian, ingenuous enough to believe in his own doctrine,
charitably paired them off, designing, no doubt, to convert
them into monks of his order. A few men of science mingled
in the conversation, like nitrogen in the atmosphere, and
several vaudevillistes shed rays like the sparkling diamonds
that give neither light nor heat. A few paradox-mongers,
laughing up their sleeves at any folk who embraced their likes
or dislikes in men or affairs, had already begun a two-edged
policy, conspiring against all systems, without committing
themselves to any side. Then there was the self-appointed
44 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
critic who admires nothing, and will blow his nose in the
middle of a cavatina at the Bouffons, who applauds before
any one else begins, and contradicts every one who says what
he himself was about to say ; he was there giving out the
sayings of wittier men for his own. Of all the assembled
guests, a future lay before some five ; ten or so should
acquire a fleeting renown ; as for the rest, like all medioc-
rities, they might apply to themselves the famous falsehood of
Louis XVIII., Union and oblivion.
The anxious jocularity of a man who is expending two
thousand crowns sat on their host. His eyes turned impa-
tiently towards the door from time to time, seeking one of
his guests who kept him waiting. Very soon a stout little
person appeared, who was greeted by a complimentary
murmur ; it was the notary who had invented the newspaper
that very morning. A valet-de-chambre in black opened the
doors of a vast dining-room, whither every one went without
ceremony, and took his place at an enormous table.
Raphael took a last look round the room before he left it.
His wish had been realized to the full. The rooms were
adorned with silk and gold. Countless wax tapers set in
handsome candelabra lit up the slightest details of gilded
friezes, the delicate bronze sculpture, and the splendid colors
of the furniture. The sweet scent of rare flowers, set in
stands tastefully made of bamboo, filled the air. Everything,
even the curtains, was pervaded by elegance without preten-
sion, and there was a certain imaginative charm about it all
which acted like a spell on the mind of a needy man.
" An income of a hundred thousand livres a year is a very
nice beginning of the catechism, and a wonderful assistance
to putting morality into our actions," he said, sighing.
"Truly my sort of virtue can scarcely go afoot, and vice
means, to my thinking, a garret, a threadbare coat, a gray hat
in winter time, and sums owing to the porter. I should like
to live in the lap of luxury a year, or six months, no
THE TALISMAN. 45
matter ! And then afterwards, die. I should have known,
exhausted, and consumed a thousand lives at any rate."
" Why, you are taking the tone of a stockbroker in good
luck," said Emile, who overheard him. "Pooh! your riches
would be a burden to you as soon as you found that they
would spoil your chances of coming out above the rest of us.
Hasn't the artist always kept the balance true between the
poverty of riches and the riches of poverty? And isn't
struggle a necessity to some of us ? Look out for your diges-
tion, and only look," he added, with a mock-heroic gesture,
" at the majestic, thrice holy, and edifying appearance of this
amiable capitalist's dining-room. That man has in reality
only made his money for our benefit. Isn't he a kind of
sponge of the polyp order, overlooked by naturalists, which
should be carefully squeezed before he is left for his heirs to
feed upon ? There is style, isn't there, about those bas-reliefs
that adorn the walls? And the lustres, and the pictures,
what luxury well carried out ! If one may believe those
who envy him, or who know, or think they know, the origins
of his life, then this man got rid of a German and some
others his best friend for one, and the mother of that friend,
during the Revolution. Could you house crimes under the
venerable Taillefer's silvering locks? He looks to me a very
worthy man. Only see how the silver sparkles, and is every
glittering ray like the stab of a dagger to him ? Let us
go in, one might as well believe in Mahomet. If common
report speaks truth, here are thirty men of talent, and good
fellows too, prepared to dine off the flesh and blood of a
whole family ; and here are we ourselves, a pair of
youngsters full of open-hearted enthusiasm, and we shall be
partakers in his guilt. I have a mind to ask our capitalist
whether he is a respectable character. "
" No, not now," cried Raphael, " but when he is dead
drunk; we shall have had our dinner then."
The two friends sat down laughing. First of all, by a
4
46 THE WILD ASS' SA'f.V.
glance more rapid than a word, each paid his tribute of admi-
ration to the splendid general effect of the long table, white
as a bank of freshly-fallen snow, with its symmetrical line of
covers, crowned with their pale golden rolls of bread. Rain-
bow colors gleamed in the starry rays of light reflected by the
glass ; the lights of the tapers crossed and recrossed each
other indefinitely; the dishes covered with their silver domes
whetted both appetite and curiosity.
Few words were spoken. Neighbors exchanged glances as
the Madeira circulated. Then the first course appeared in all
its glory ; it would have done honor to the late Cambaceres,
Brillat-Savarin would have celebrated it. The wines of Bor-
deaux and Burgundy, white and red, were royally lavished.
This first part of the banquet might have been compared in
every way to a rendering of some classical tragedy. The
second act grew a trifle noisier. Every guest had had a fair
amount to drink, had tried various grades at his pleasure, so
that as the remains of the magnificent first course were re-
moved, tumultuous discussions began ; a pale brow here and
there began to flush, sundry noses took a purpler hue, faces lit
up, and eyes sparkled.
While intoxication was only dawning, the conversation did
not overstep the bounds of civility ; but banter and bon mots
slipped by degrees from every tongue; and then slander
began to rear its little snake's head, and spoke in dulcet
tones ; a few shrewd ones here and there gave heed to it,
hoping to keep their heads. So the second course found
their minds somewhat heated. Every one ate as he spoke,
spoke while he ate, and drank without heeding the quantity
of the liquor, the wine was so biting, the bouquet so fragrant,
the example around so infectious. Taillefer made a point of
stimulating his guests, and plied them with the formidable
wines of the Rhone, with fierce Tokay, and heady old
Roussillon.
The champagne, impatiently expected and lavishly poured
THE TALISMAN. 47
out, was a scourge of fiery sparks to these men, released like
posthorses from some mail-coach by a relay ; they let their
spirits gallop away into the wilds of argument to which no one
listened, began to tell stories which had no auditors, and
repeatedly asked questions to which no answer was made.
Only the loud voice of wassail could be heard, a voice made
up of a hundred confused clamors, which rose and grew like
a crescendo of Rossini's. Insidious toasts, swagger, and chal-
lenges followed.
Each renounced any pride in his own intellectual capacity,
in order to vindicate that of hogsheads, casks, and vats ; and
each made noise enough for two. A time came when the
footmen smiled, while their masters all talked at once. A
philosopher would have been interested, doubtless, by the
singularity of the thoughts expressed, a politician would have
been amazed by the incongruity of the methods discussed
in that melee of words or doubtfully luminous paradoxes,
where truths, grotesquely caparisoned, met in conflict across
the uproar of brawling judgments, of arbitrary decisions and
folly, much as bullets, shells, and grapeshot are hurled across a
battlefield.
It was at once a volume and a picture. Every philosophy,
religion, and moral code differing so greatly in every latitude,
every government, every great achievement of the human
intellect fell before a scythe as long as Time's own ; and
you might have found it hard to decide whether it was
wielded by Gravity intoxicated, or by Inebriation grown
sober and clear-sighted. Borne away by a kind of tempest,
their minds, like the sea raging against the cliffs, seemed
ready to shake the laws which confine the ebb and flow
of civilizations ; unconsciously fulfilling the will of God,
who has suffered evil and good to abide in nature, and re-
served the secret of their continual strife to Himself. A
frantic travesty of debate ensued, a Walpurgis-revel of intel-
lects. Between the dreary jests of these children of the
48 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Revolution over the inauguration of a newspaper, and the
talk of the joyous gossips at Gargantua's birth, stretched the
gulf that divides the nineteenth century from the sixteenth.
Laughingly they had begun the work of destruction, and our
journalists laughed amid the ruins.
"What is the name of that young man over there?" said
the notary, indicating Raphael. " I thought I heard some
one call him Valentin."
" What stuff is this ? " said Emile, laughing ; " plain Val-
entin, say you? Raphael de Valentin, if you please. We
bear an eagle or, on a field sable, with a silver crown, beak,
and claws gules, and a fine motto : NON CECIDIT ANIMUS.
We are no foundling child, but a descendant of the Emperor
Valens, of the stock of the Valentinois, founders of the cities
of Valence in France, and Valencia in Spain, rightful heirs to
the Empire of the East. If we suffer Mahmoud on the
throne of Byzantium, it is out of pure condescension, and for
lack of funds and soldiers."
With a fork flourished above Raphael's head, Emile out-
lined a crown upon it. The notary bethought himself a
moment, but soon fell to drinking again, with a gesture
peculiar to himself; it was quite impossible, it seemed to
say, to secure in his clientele the cities of Valence and Byzan-
tium, the Emperor Valens, Mahmoud, and the house of Valen-
tinois.
" Should not the destruction of those ant-hills, Babylon,
Tyre, Carthage, and Venice, each crushed beneath the foot
of a passing giant, serve as a warning to man, vouchsafed by
some mocking power? " said Claude Vignon, who must play
the Bossuet, as a sort of purchased slave, at the rate of five-
pence a line.
" Perhaps Moses, Sylla, Louis XL, Richelieu, Robespierre,
and Napoleon were but the same men who cross our civili-
zations now and again, like a comet across the sky," said a
disciple of Ballanche.
THE TALISMAN. 49
"Why try to fathom the designs of Providence?" said
Canalis, maker of ballads.
" Come, now," said the man who set up for a critic,
" there is nothing more elastic in the world than your Prov-
idence."
" Well, sir, Louis XIV. sacrified more lives over digging the
foundations of the Maintenon's aqueducts, than the Conven-
tion expended in order to assess the taxes justly, to make one
law for everybody, and one nation of France, and to establish
the rule of equal inheritance," said Massol, whom the lack
of a syllable before his name had made a Republican.
"Are you going to leave our heads on our shoulders?"
asked Moreau (of the Oise), a substantial farmer. " You,
sir, who took blood for wine just now?"
" Where is the use? Aren't the principles of social order
worth some sacrifices, sir ? "
" Hi ! Bixiou ! What's-his-name, the Republican, con-
siders a landowner's head a sacrifice ! " said a young man to
his neighbor.
" Men and events count for nothing," said the Republican,
following out his theory in spite of hiccoughs; " in politics,
as in philosophy, there are only principles and ideas."
" What an abomination ! Then you would ruthlessly put
your friends to death for a shibboleth?"
" Eh, sir ! the man who feels compunction is your thorough
scoundrel, for he has some notion of virtue ; while Peter the
Great and the Duke of Alva were embodied systems, and the
pirate Monbard an organization."
"But can't society rid itself of your systems and organiza-
tions?" said Canalis.
''Oh, granted ! " cried the Republican.
" That stupid Republic of yours makes me feel queasy.
We sha'n't be able to carve a capon in peace, because we
shall find the agrarian law inside it."
" Ah, my little Brutus, stuffed with truffles, your principles
50 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
are all right enough. But you are like my valet, the rogue is
so frightfully possessed with a mania for property that if I
left him to clean my clothes after his fashion, he would soon
clean me out."
"Crass idiots!" replied the Republican, "you are for
setting a nation straight with tooth-picks. To your way of
thinking, justice is more dangerous than thieves."
" Oh, dear ! " cried the attorney Desroches.
"Aren't they a bore with their politics ! " said the notary
Cardot. " Shut up ! That's enough of it. There is no knowl-
edge nor virtue worth shedding a drop of blood for. If Truth
were brought into liquidation, we might find her insolent."
"It would be much less trouble, no doubt, to amuse our-
selves with evil, rather than dispute about good. Moreover,
I would give all the speeches made for forty years past at the
Tribune for a trout, for one of Perrault's tales or Charlet's
sketches."
"Quite right! Hand me the asparagus. Because, after
all, liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and
despotism back again to liberty. Millions have died without
securing a triumph for any one system. Is not that the
vicious circle in which the whole moral world revolves? Man
believes that he has reached perfection, when in fact he has
but re-arranged matters."
" Oh ! oh ! " cried Cursy, the vaudevilliste ; "in that case,
gentlemen, here's to Charles X., the father of liberty."
" Why not ?" asked Emile. "When law becomes des-
potic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.""
" Let us drink to the imbecility of authority, which gives us
such an authority over imbeciles ! " said the banker.
"Napoleon left us glory, at any rate, my good friend ! "
exclaimed a naval officer who had never left Brest.
" Glory is a poor bargain ; you buy it dear, and it will not
keep. Does not the egotism of the great take the form of
glory, just as for nobodies it is their own well-being?"
77/7: TALISMAN. 51
" You are very fortunate, sir "
"The first inventor of ditches must have been a weakling,
for society is only useful to the puny. The savage and the
philosopher, at either extreme of the moral scale, hold prop-
erty in equal horror."
"All very fine!" said Cardot ; "but if there were no
property, there would be no documents to draw up."
" These green peas are excessively delicious ! "
"And the cure was found dead in his bed in the morning.
" Who is talking about death? Pray don't trifle, I have
an uncle."
" Could you bear his loss with resignation?"
"No question."
" Gentlemen, listen to me ! How TO KILL AN UNCLE.
Silence! (Cries of "Hush! hush!") In the first place,
take an uncle, large and stout, seventy years old at least, they
are the best uncles. (Sensation.) Get him to eat a pate de
foie gras, any pretext will do."
"Ah, but my uncle is a thin, tall man, and very niggardly
and abstemious."
"That sort of uncle is a monster; he misappropriates
existence."
"Then," the speaker on uncles went on, "tell him, while
he is digesting it, that his banker has failed."
" How if he bears up ? "
" Let loose a pretty girl on him."
"And if ?" asked the other, with a shake of the
head.
" Then he wouldn't be an uncle an uncle is a gay dog by
nature."
" Malibran has lost two notes in her voice."
" No, sir, she has not."
"Yes, sir, she has."
"Oh, ho ! No and yes, is not the sum-up of all religious,
52 THE U'lLD ASS' SKIN.
political, or literary dissertations? Man is a clown dancing
on the edge of an abyss."
"You would make out that I am a fool."
"On the contrary, you cannot make me out."
"Education, there's a pretty piece of tomfoolery. M.
Heineffettermach estimates the number of printed volumes
at more than a thousand millions ; and a man cannot read
more than a hundred and fifty thousand in his lifetime.
So, just tell me what that word education means. For some
it consists in knowing the names of Alexander's horse, of the
dog Berecillo, of the Seigneur d'Accords, and in ignorance
of the man to whom we owe the discovery of rafting and the
manufacture of porcelain. For others it is the knowledge
how to burn a will and live respected, be looked up to and
popular, instead of stealing a watch with half-a-dozen aggra-
vating circumstances, after a previous conviction, and so
perishing, hated and dishonored, in the Place de Greve."
" Will Nathan's work live? "
" He has very clever collaborators, sir."
"Or Canalis'?"
" He is a great man ; let us say no more about him."
"You are all drunk! "
" The consequence of a Constitution is the immediate stul-
tification of intellects. Art, science, public works, every-
thing, is consumed by a horribly egotistic feeling, the leprosy
of the time. Three hundred of your bourgeoisie, set down on
benches, will only think of planting poplars. Tyranny does
great things lawlessly, while Liberty will scarcely trouble her-
self to do petty ones lawfully."
"Your reciprocal instruction will turn out counters in
human flesh," broke in an Absolutist. "All individuality
will disappear in a people brought to a dead level by educa-
tion."
"For all that, is not the aim of society to secure happiness
to each member of it? " asked the Saint-Simonian.
THE TALISMAN. 53
"If you had an income of fifty thousand livres, you would
not think much about the people. If you are smitten with a
tender passion for the race, go to Madagascar ; there you will
find a nice little nation all ready to Saint-Simonize, classify,
and cork up in your phials, but here every one fits into his
niche like a peg in a hole. A porter is a porter, and a block-
head is a fool, without a college of fathers to promote them
to those positions."
"You are a Carlist."
" And why not ? " Despotism pleases me ; it implies a cer-
tain contempt for the human race. I have no animosity against
kings, they are so amusing. Is it nothing to sit enthroned in
a room, at a distance of thirty million leagues from the sun ? "
" Let us once more take a broad view of civilization," said
the man of learning who, for the benefit of the inattentive
sculptor, had opened a discussion on primitive society and
autochthono s races. " The vigor of a nation in its origin was
in a way pi ysical, unitary, and crude ; then as aggregations
increased, grvernment advanced by a decomposition of the
primitive rule, more or less skilfully managed. For example.
in remote ages national strength lay in theocracy, the priest
held both sword and censer; a little later there were two
priests, the pontiff and the king. To-day our society, the
latest word of civilization, has distributed power according to
the number of combinations, and we come to the forces called
business, thought, money, and eloquence. Authority thus
divided is steadily approaching a social dissolution, with in-
terest as its one opposing barrier. We depend no longer
on either religion or physical force, but upon intellect. Can
a book replace the sword ? Can discussion be a substitute for
action? That is the question."
"Intellect has made an end of everything," cried the
Carlist. " Come, now ! Absolute freedom has brought
about national suicides ; their triumph left them as listless as
an English millionaire."
54 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
11 Won't you tell us something new? You have made fun
of authority of all sorts to-day, which is every bit as vulgar
as denying the existence of God. So you have no belief left,
and the century is like an old Sultan worn out by debauchery !
Your Byron, in short, sings of crime and its emotions in a
final despair of poetry."
"Don't you know," replied Bianchon, quite drunk by this
time, " that a dose of phosphorus more or less makes the man
of genius or the scoundrel, a clever man or an idiot, a virtuous
person or a criminal ? "
"Can any one treat of virtue thus?" cried Cursy.
" Virtue, the subject of every drama at the theatre, the
denoument of every play, the foundation of every court of
law."
" Be quiet, you ass. You are an Achilles for virtue, with-
out his heel," said Bixiou.
"Some drink ! "
" What will you bet that I will drink a bottle of cham-
pagne like a flash, at one pull ? "
"What a flash of wit ! "
" Drunk as lords," muttered a young man gravely, trying
to give some wine to his waistcoat.
"Yes, sir; real government is the art of ruling by public
opinion."
" Opinion ? That is the most vicious jade of all. Accord-
ing to you moralists and politicians, the laws you set up are
always to go before those of nature, and opinion before con-
science. You are right and wrong both. Suppose society
bestows down pillows on us, that benefit is made up for by
the gout; and justice is likewise tempered by red-tape, and
colds accompany Cashmere shawls."
"Wretch ! " Emile broke in upon the misanthrope, "how
can you slander civilization here at table, up to the eyes in
wines and exquisite dishes? Eat away at that roebuck with
gilded horns and feet, and do not carp at your mother."
THE TALISMAN. Oo
"Is it any fault of mine if Catholicism puts a million deities
in a sack of flour, that Republics will end in a Napoleon, that
monarchy dwells between the assassination of Henry IV.
and the trial of Louis XVI., and Liberalism produces La
Fayettes?"
" Didn't you embrace him in July ? "
"No."
"Then hold your tongue, you sceptic."
" Sceptics are the most conscientious of men."
"They have no conscience."
" What are you saying? They have two a piece, at least."
" So you want to discount heaven, a thoroughly commercial
notion. Ancient religions were but the unchecked develop-
ment of physical pleasure, but we have developed a soul and
expectations; some advance has been made."
" What can you expect, my friends, of a century filled with
politics to repletion?" asked Nathan. " What befell " The
History of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles" a
most entrancing conception?
" I say," the would-be critic cried down the whole length
of the table, "the phrases might have been drawn at hap-
hazard from a hat, 'twas a work written ' down to Charen-
ton.' '
"You area fool ! "
" And you are a rogue ! "
"Oh! oh!"
"Ah! ah! "
" They are going to fight."
" No, they aren't."
" You will find me to-morrow, sir."
" This very moment," Nathan answered.
" Come, come, you pair of fire-eaters."
" You are another ! " said the prime mover in the quarrel.
" They can hardly stand on their legs."
" Ah, I can't stand upright, perhaps," said the pugna-
56 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
cious Nathan, straightening himself up like a stag-beetle
about to fly.
He stared stupidly round the table, then completely ex-
hausted by the effort, sank back into his chair, and mutely
hung his head.
" Would it not have been nice," the critic said to his
neighbor, " to fight about a book I have neither read nor
seen?"
" Emile, look out for your coat, your neighbor is growing
pale," said Bixiou.
" Kant? Yet another ball flung out for fools to sport with,
sir ! Materialism and spiritualism are a fine pair of battle-
dores with which charlatans in long gowns keep a shuttle-cock
a-going. Suppose that God is everywhere, as Spinoza says,
or that all things proceed from God, as says St. Paul.
the nincompoops, the door shuts or opens, but isn't the move-
ment the same ? Does the fowl come from the egg, or the
egg from the fowl ? Just hand me some duck and
there, you have all science."
"Simpleton ! " cried the man of science, ''your problem
is settled by fact ! ' '
"What fact?"
"Professors' chairs were not made for philosophy, but
philosophy for professors' chairs. Put on a pair of spectacles
and read the budget."
"Thieves ! "
"Nincompoops! "
" Knaves! "
"Gulls!"
" Where but in Paris will you find such a ready and rapid
exchange of thought? " cried Bixiou, in a deep, bass voice.
" Bixiou ! Act a classical farce for us ! Come, now ! "
" Would you like me to depict the nineteenth century?"
"Silence! "
"Pay attention ! "
THE TALISMAN. 57
" Clap a muffle on your trumpets ! "
"Shut up, you Turk! "
" Give him some wine, and let that fellow keep quiet."
" Now, then, Bixiou ! "
The artist buttoned his black coat to the collar, put on
yellow gloves, and began to burlesqne the Revue des Deux
Mondes by acting a squinting old lady ; but the upi ->ar
drowned his voice, and no one heard a word of the satiri;,,
Still, if he did not catch the spirit of the century, he repre^i
sented the Revue at any rate, for his own intentions were not
very clear to him.
Dessert was served as if by magic. A huge epergne of
gilded bronze from Thomire's studio overshadowed the table.
Tall statuettes, which a celebrated artist had endued with
ideal beauty according to conventional European notions,
sustained and carried pyramids of strawberries, pines, fresh
dates, golden grapes, clear-skinned peaches, oranges brought
from Setubal by steamer, pomegranates, Chinese fruit ; in
short, all the surprises of luxury, miracles of confectionery,
the most tempting dainties, and choicest delicacies. The
coloring of this epicurean work of art was enhanced by the
splendors of porcelain, by sparkling outlines of gold, by the
chasing of the vases. Poussin's landscapes, copied on Sevres
ware, were crowned with graceful fringes of moss, green,
translucent and fragile as ocean weeds.
The revenue of a German prince would not have defrayed
the cost of this arrogant display. Silver and mother-of-
pearl, gold and crystal, were lavished afresh in new forms;
but scarcely a vague idea of this almost Oriental fairyland
penetrated eyes now heavy with wine, or crossed the delirium
of intoxication. The fire and fragrance of the wines acted
like potent philtres and magical fumes, producing a kind of
mirage in the brain, binding feet, and weighing down hands.
The pyramids of fruit were ransacked, voices grew thicker,
the clamor increased. Words were no longer distinct, glasses
58 THE WILD ASS' SfCIA T .
flew in pieces, senseless peals of laughter broke out. Cursy
snatched up a horn and struck up a flourish on it. It acted
like a signal given by the devil. Yells, hisses, songs, cries,
and groans went up from the maddened crew. You might
have smiled to see men, light-hearted by nature, grow tragical
as Crebillon's dramas, and pensive as a sailor in a coach.
Hard-headed men blabbed secrets to the inquisitive, who were
long passed heeding them. Saturnine faces were wreathed in
smiles worthy of a pirouetting dancer. Claude Vignon
shuffled about like a bear in a cage. Intimate friends began
to fight.
Animal likenesses, so curiously traced by physiologists, in
human faces, came out in gestures and behavior. A book lay
open for a Bichat if he had repaired thither fasting and col-
lected. The master of the house, knowing his condition, did
not dare to stir, but encouraged his guests' extravagances
with a fixed grimacing smile, meant to be hospitable and
appropriate. His large face, turning from blue and red to a
purple shade terrible to see, partook of the general commo-
tion by movements like the heaving and pitching of a brig.
" Now, did you murder them?" Emile asked him.
" Capital punishment is going to be abolished, they say, in
favor of the Revolution of July?" answered Taillefer, raising
his eyebrows with drunken sagacity.
"Don't they rise up before you in dreams at times?"
Raphael persisted.
"There's a statute of limitations," said the murderer
Croesus.
" And on his tombstone," Emile began, with a sardonic
laugh, "the stonemason will carve, 'Passer-by, accord a
tear, in memory of one that's here.' Oh," he continued,
" I would cheerfully pay a hundred sous to any mathematician
who would prove the existence of hell to me by an algebraical
equation."
He flung up a coin and cried
THE TALISMAN. 59
" Heads for the existence of God ! "
" Don't look ! " Raphael cried, pouncing upon it. " Who
knows? Suspense is so pleasant."
"Unluckily," Emile said, with burlesque melancholy, " I
can see no halting-place between the unbeliever's arithmetic
and the papal Pater noster. Pshaw ! let us drink. Clink
glasses was, I believe, the oracular answer of the Epicureans
and final conclusion of Pantagruel."
" We owe our arts and monuments to the Pater noster, and
our knowledge, too, perhaps ; and a still greater benefit
modern government whereby a vast and teeming society is
wondrously represented by some five hundred intellects. It
neutralizes opposing forces and gives free play to CIVILIZA-
TION, that Titan queen who has succeeded the ancient terrible
figure of the KING, that sham Providence, reared by man
between himself and heaven. In the face of such achieve-
ments atheism seems like a barren skeleton. What do you
say?"
"I am thinking of the seas of blood shed by Catholicism,"
Emile replied, quite unimpressed. " It has drained our hearts
and veins dry to make a mimic deluge. No matter ! Every
man who thinks must range himself beneath the banner of
Christ, for He alone has consummated the triumph of spirit over
matter ; He alone has revealed to us, like a poet, an interme-
diate world that separates us from the Deity."
" Believest thou?" asked Raphael, with an unaccountable
drunken smile. " Very good ; we must not commit ourselves;
so we will drink the celebrated toast, Diis ignotis /"
And they drained the chalice filled up with science, car-
bonic acid gas, perfumes, poetry, and incredulity.
" If the gentlemen will go to the drawing-room, coffee is
ready for them," said the major-domo.
There was scarcely one of those present whose mind was
not floundering by this time in the delights of chaos, where
every spark of intelligence is quenched, and the body, set free
60 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
from its tyranny, gives itself up to the frenetic joys of liberty.
Some who had arrived at the apogee of intoxication were
dejected, as they painfully tried to arrest a single thought
which might assure them of their own existence; others, deep
in the heavy morasses of indigestion, denied the possibility of
movement. The noisy and the silent were oddly assorted.
For all that, when new joys were announced to them by the
stentorian tones of the servant, who spoke on his master's
behalf, they all rose, leaning upon, dragging or carrying one
another. But on the threshold of the room the entire crew
paused for a moment, motionless, as if fascinated. The intem-
perate pleasures of the banquet seemed to fade away at this
titillating spectacle, prepared by their amphitryon to appeal
to the most sensual of their instincts.
Beneath the shining wax-lights in a golden chandelier,
round about a table inlaid with gilded metal, a group of
women, whose eyes shone like diamonds, suddenly met the
stupefied stare of the revelers. Their toilettes were splendid,
but less magnificent than their beauty, which eclipsed the
other marvels of this palace. A light shone from their eyes,
bewitching as those of sirens, more brilliant and ardent than
the blaze that streamed down upon the snowy marble, the
delicately carved surfaces of bronze, and lit up the satin sheen
of the tapestry. The contrasts of their attitudes and the
slight movements of their heads, each differing in character
and nature of attraction, set the heart afire. It was like a
thicket, where blossoms mingled with rubies, sapphires, and
coral ; a combination of gossamer scarves that flickered like
beacon-lights; of black ribbons about snowy throats; of gor-
geous turbans and demurely enticing apparel. It was a seraglio
that appealed to every eye, and fulfilled every fancy. Each
form posed to admiration was scarcely concealed by the folds
of cashmere, and half-hidden, half-revealed, by transparent
gauze and diaphanous silk. The little slender feet were elo-
quent, though the fresh red lips uttered no sound.
THE TALISMAN. 61
Demure and fragile-looking girls, pictures of maidenly inno-
cence, with a semblance of conventual unction about their
heads, were there like apparitions that a breath might dissipate.
Aristocratic beauties with haughty glances; languid, flexible,
slender, and complaisant, bent their heads as though there
were royal protectors still in the market. An Englishwoman
seemed like a spirit of melancholy some coy, pale, shadowy
form among Ossian's mists, or a type of remorse flying from
crime. The Parisienne was not wanting in all her beauty
that consists in an indescribable charm ; armed with her irre-
sistible weakness, vain of her costume and her wit, pliant and
hard, a heartless, passionless siren that yet can create factitious
treasures of passion and counterfeit emotion.
Italians shone in the throng, serene and self-possessed in their
bliss ; handsome Normans, with splendid figures ; women of the
south, with black hair and well-shaped eyes. Lebel might have
summoned together all the fair women of Versailles, who since
morning had perfected all their wiles and now came like a
troop of Oriental women, bidden by the slave merchant to be
ready to set out at dawn. They stood disconcerted and con-
fused about the table, huddled together in a murmuring group
like bees in a hive. The combination of timid embarrass-
ment with coquettishness and a sort of expostulation was the
result either of calculated effect or spontaneous modesty.
Perhaps a sentiment of which women are never utterly divested
prescribed to them the cloak of modesty to heighten and en-
hance the charms of wantonness. So the venerable Taillefer's
designs seemed on the point of collapse; for these unbridled
natures were subdued from the very first by the majesty with
which woman is invested. There was a murmur of admira-
tion, which vibrated like a soft musical note. Wine had not
taken love for traveling companion ; instead of violent tumult
of passions, the guests thus taken by surprise, in a moment
of weakness, gave themselves up to luxurious raptures of
delight.
5
62 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Artists obeyed the voice of poetry which constrains them,
and studied with pleasure the different delicate tints of these
chosen examples of beauty. Sobered by a thought perhaps
due to some emanation from a bubble of carbonic acid in the
champagne, a philosopher shuddered at the misfortunes which
had brought these women, once perhaps worthy of the truest
devotion, to this. Each one doubtless could have unfolded
a cruel tragedy. Infernal tortures followed in the train of
most of them, and they drew after them faithless men, broken
vows, and pleasures atoned for in wretchedness. Polite ad-
vances were made by the guests, and conversations began, as
varied in character as the speakers. They broke up into
groups. It might have been a fashionable drawing-room
where ladies and young girls offer after dinner the assistance
that coffee, liqueurs, and sugar afford to diners who are strug-
gling in the toils of a perverse digestion. But in a little
while laughter broke out, the murmur grew, and voices were
raised. The saturnalia, subdued for a moment, threatened at
times to renew itself. The alternations of sound and silence
bore a distant resemblance to a symphony of Beethoven's.
The two friends, seated on a silken divan, were first ap-
proached by a tall, well-proportioned girl of stately bearing ;
her features were irregular, but her face was striking and vehe-
ment in expression, and impressed the mind by the vigor of
its contrasts. Her dark hair fell in luxuriant curls, with
which some hand seemed to have played havoc already, for
the locks fell lightly over the splendid shoulders that thus
attracted attention. The long brown curls half hid her
queenly throat, though where the light fell upon it, the delicacy
of its fine outlines was revealed. Her warm and vivid color-
ing was set off by the dead white of her complexion. Bold
and ardent glances came from under the long eyelashes ; the
damp, red, half-open lips challenged a kiss. Her frame was
strong but compliant ; with a bust and arms strongly developed,
as in figures drawn by the Caracci, she yet seemed active and
THE TALISMAN. 63
elastic, with a panther's strength and suppleness, and in the
same way the energetic grace of her figure suggested fierce
pleasures.
But though she might romp perhaps and laugh, there was
something terrible in her eyes and her smile. Like a python-
ess possessed by the demon, she inspired awe rather than
pleasure. All changes, one after another, flashed like light-
ning over every mobile feature of her face. She might cap-
tivate a jaded fancy, but a young man would have feared her.
She was like some colossal statue fallen from the height of a
Greek temple, so grand when seen afar, too roughly hewn to
be seen anear. And yet, in spite of all, her terrible beauty
could have stimulated exhaustion ; her voice might charm the
deaf; her glances might put life into the bones of the dead ;
and therefore Emile was vaguely reminded of one of Shakes-
peare's tragedies a wonderful maze, in which joy groans,
and there is something wild even about love, and the magic
of forgiveness and the warmth of happiness succeed to cruel
storms of rage. She was a siren that can both kiss and devour ;
laugh like a devil, or weep as angels can. She could con-
centrate in one instant all a woman's powers of attraction in
a single effort (the sighs of melancholy and the charms of
maiden's shyness alone excepted), then in a moment rise in
fury like a nation in revolt, and tear herself, her passion, and
her lover in pieces.
Dressed in red velvet, she trampled under her reckless feet
the stray flowers fallen from other heads, and held out a salver
to the two friends, with careless hands. The white arms stood
out in bold relief against the velvet. Proud of her beauty;
proud (who knows?) of her corruption, she stood like a queen
of pleasure, like an incarnation of enjoyment ; the enjoyment
that comes of squandering the accumulations of three genera-
tions ; that scoffs at its progenitors, and makes merry over a
corpse; that will dissolve pearls and wreck thrones, turn old
men into boys, and make young men prematurely old ; enjoy-
G4 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
ment only possible to giants weary of their power, tormented
by reflection, or for whom strife has become a plaything.
" What is your name ? " asked Raphael.
" Aquilina."
" Out of Venice Preserved 7" exclaimed Emile.
" Yes," she answered. " Just as a pope takes a new name
when he is exalted above all other men, I, too, took another
name when I raised myself above women's level."
" Then have you, like your patron saint, a terrible and
noble lover, a conspirator, who would die for you ?" cried
Emile eagerly this gleam of poetry had aroused his interest.
" Once I had," she answered. " But I had a rival, too, in
La Guillotine. I have worn something red about me ever
since, lest any happiness should carry me away."
"Oh, if you are going to get her on to the story of those
four lads of La Rochelle, she will never get to the end of it.
That's enough, Aquilina. As if every woman could not
bewail some lover or other, though not every one has the luck
to lose him on the scaffold, as you have done. I would a
great deal sooner see a lover of mine in a trench at the back
of Clamart than in a rival's arms."
All this in the gentlest and most melodious accents, and
pronounced by the prettiest, gentlest, and most innocent-
looking little person that a fairy wand ever drew from an
enchanted eggshell. She had come up noiselessly, and they
became aware of a slender, dainty figure, charmingly timid
blue eyes, and white transparent brows. No ingenue among
the naiads, a truant from her river spring, could have been
shyer, whiter, more ingenuous than this young girl, seemingly
about sixteen years old, ignorant of evil and of the storms of
life, and fresh from some church in which she must have
prayed the angels to call her to heaven before the time. Only
in Paris are such natures as this to be found, concealing
depths of depravity behind a fair mask, and the most artificial
vires beneath a brow as young and fair as an opening flower.
THE TALISMAN. 65
At first the angelic promise of those soft lineaments misled
the friends. Raphael and Emile took the coffee which she
poured into the cups brought by Aquilina, and began to talk
with her. In the eyes of the two poets she soon became
transformed into some sombre allegory of I know not what
aspect of human life. She opposed to the vigorous and
ardent expression of her commanding acquaintance a revela-
tion of heartless corruption and voluptuous cruelty. Heed-
less enough to perpetrate a crime, hardy enough to feel no
misgivings; a pitiless demon that wrings larger and kinder
natures with torments that it is incapable of knowing, that
simpers over a traffic in love, sheds tears over a victim's
funeral, and beams with joy over the reading of the will. A
poet might have admired the magnificent Aquilina ; but the
winning Euphrasia must be repulsive to every one the first
was the soul of sin ; the second, sin without a soul in it.
"I should dearly like to know," Emile remarked to this
pleasing being, " if you ever reflect upon your future? "
"My future!" she answered with a laugh. "What do
you mean by my future ? Why should I think about some-
thing that does not exist as yet ? I never look before or
behind. Isn't one day at a time more than I can concern
myself with as it is? And besides, the future, as we know,
means the hospital."
" How can you foresee a future in the hospital, and make
no effort to avert it ? "
"What is there so alarming about the hospital ?" asked
the terrific Aquilina. "When we are neither wives nor
mothers, when old age draws black stockings over our limbs,
sets wrinkles on our brows, withers up the woman in us, and
darkens the light in our lover's eyes, what could we need
when that comes to pass ? You would look on us then as
mere human clay ; we with our habiliments shall be for you
like so much mud worthless, lifeless, crumbling to pieces,
going about with the rustle of dead leaves. Rags or the
66 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
daintiest finery will be as one to us then ; the ambergris of
the boudoir will breathe an odor of death and dry bones ;
and suppose there is a heart there in that mud, not one of you
but would make mock of it, not so much as a memory will
you spare to us. Is not our existence precisely the same
whether we live in a fine mansion with lap-dogs to tend, or
sort rags in a workhouse ? Does it make much difference
whether we shall hide our gray heads beneath lace or a hand-
kerchief striped with blue and red ; whether we sweep a
crossing with a birch broom, or the steps of the Tuileries
with satins ; whether we sit beside a gilded hearth, or cower
over the ashes in a red earthen pot ; whether we go to the
opera or look on in the Place de Greve ? "
" Aquilina mia, you have never shown more sense than in
this depressing fit of yours," Euphrasia remarked. "Yes,
cashmere, point d'Alenc.on, perfumes, gold, silks, luxury,
everything that sparkles, everything pleasant, belongs to
youth alone. Time alone may show us our folly, but good
fortune will acquit us. You are laughing at me," she went
on, with a malicious glance at the friends; " but am I not
right? I would sooner die of pleasure than of illness. I am
not afflicted with a mania for perpetuity, nor have I a great
veneration for human nature, such as God has made it. Give
me millions, and I would squander them ; I should not keep
one centime for the year to come. Live to be charming and
have power, that is the decree of my every heart-beat.
Society sanctions my life ; does it not pay for my extrava-
gances ? Why does Providence pay me every morning my
income, which I spend every evening ? Why are hospitals
built for us ? And Providence did not put good and evil on
either hand for us to select what tires and pains us. I should
be very foolish if I did not amuse myself."
" And how about others? " asked Emile.
"Others? Oh, well, they must manage for themselves. I
THE TALISMAN. 67
prefer laughing at their woes to weeping over my own. I
defy any man to give me the slightest uneasiness."
"What have you suffered to make you think like this? "
asked Raphael.
"I myself have been forsaken for an inheritance," she
said, striking an attitude that displayed all her charms; and
yet I had worked night and day to keep my love ! I am not
to be gulled by any smile or vow, and I have set myself to
make one long entertainment of my life."
"But does not happiness come from the soul within?"
cried Raphael.
"It maybe so," Aquilina answered; "but is it nothing
to be conscious of admiration, of flattery ; to triumph over
other women, even over the most virtuous, humiliating them
before our beauty and our splendor? Not only so; one day
of our life is worth ten years of middle-class existence, and so
it is all summed up."
"Is not a woman hateful without virtue?" Emile said to
Raphael.
Euphrasia's glance was like a viper's, as she said with an
irony in her voice that cannot be rendered
"Virtue! we leave that to deformity and to ugly women.
What would the poor things be without it ? "
"Hush, be quiet," Emile broke in, "Don't talk about
something you have never known."
"That I have never known ! " Euphrasia answered. "You
give yourself for life to some person you abominate ; you
must bring up children who will neglect you, who wound
your rery heart, and you must say, ' Thank you ! ' for it ; and
these are the virtues you prescribe to women. And that is
not enough. By way of requiting her self-denial, you must
come and add to her sorrows by trying to lead her astray ;
and though you are rebuffed, she is compromised. A nice
life ! How far better to keep one's freedom, to follow one's
inclinations in love, and die young."
68 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
" Have you no fear of the price to be paid some day for
all this?"
" Even then," she said, " instead of mingling pleasures and
troubles, my life will consist of two separate parts a youth
of happiness is secure, and there may come a hazy, uncertain
old age, during which I can suffer at my leisure."
"She has never loved," came in the deep tones of Aquilina's
voice. "She never went a hundred leagues to drink in one
look and a denial with untold raptures. She has not hung
her own life on a thread, nor tried to stab more than one man
to save her sovereign lord, her king, her divinity. Love, for
her, meant a fascinating colonel."
"Here she is with her La Rochelle," Euphrasia made
answer. "Love comes like the wind, no one knows whence.
And, for that matter, if one of those brutes had once fallen
in love with you, you would hold sensible men in horror."
" Brutes are put out of the question by the Code," said the
tall, sarcastic Aquilina.
"I thought you had more kindness for the army," laughed
Euphrasia.
"How happy they are in their power of dethroning their
reason in this way," Raphael exclaimed.
"Happy!" asked Aquilina, with a dreadful look, and a
smile full of pity and terror, "Ah, you do not know what
it is to be condemned to a life of pleasure, with your dead
hidden in your heart."
A moment's consideration of the rooms was like a foretaste
of Milton's Pandemonium. The faces of those still capable
of drinking were a hideous blue tint, from burning draughts
of punch. Mad dances were kept up with wild energy,
excited laughter and outcries broke out like the explosion of
fireworks. The boudoir and a small adjoining room were
strewn like a battlefield with the insensible and incapable.
Wine, pleasure, and dispute had heated the atmosphere.
Wine and love, delirium and unconsciousness possessed them,
THE TALISMAN. 69
and were written upon all faces, upon the furniture ; were
expressed by the surrounding disorder, and brought light
films over the vision of those assembled, so that the air seemed
full of intoxicating vapor. A glittering dust arose, as in the
luminous paths made by a ray of sunlight, the most bizarre
forms flitted through it, grotesque struggles were seen athwart
it. Groups of interlaced figures blended with the white
marbles, the noble masterpieces of sculpture that adorned the
rooms.
Though the two friends yet preserved a sort of fallacious
clearness in their ideas and voices, a feeble appearance and
faint thrill of animation, it was yet almost impossible to dis-
tinguish what was real among the fantastic absurdities before
them, or what foundation there was for the impossible pictures
that passed unceasingly before their weary eyes. The
strangest phenomena of dreams beset them, the lowering
heavens, the fervid sweetness caught by faces in our visions,
and unheard-of agility under a load of chains, all these so
vividly, that they took the pranks of the orgy about them for
the freaks of some nightmare in which all movement is silent,
and cries never reach the ear. The valet de chambre suc-
ceeded just then, after some little difficulty, in drawing his
master into the ante-chamber to whisper to him
"The neighbors'are all at their windows, complaining of
the racket, sir."
"If noise alarms them, why don't they lay down straw
before their doors? " was Taillefer's rejoinder.
Raphael's sudden burst of laughter was so unseasonable and
abrupt, that his friend demanded the reason of his unseemly
hilarity.
"You will hardly understand me," he replied. " In the
first place, I must admit that you stopped me on the Quai
Voltaire just as I was about to throw myself into the Seine,
and you would like to know, no doubt, my motives for dying.
And when I proceed to tell you that by an almost miraculous
70 THE WILD .-ISS' SKIN.
chance the most poetic memorials of the material world had
but just then been summed up for me as a symbolical inter-
pretation of human wisdom ; whilst at this minute the remains
of all the intellectual treasures ravaged by us at table are com-
prised in these two women, the living and authentic types of
folly, would you be any the wiser? Our profound apathy
towards men and things supplied the half-tones in a crudely
contrasted picture of two theories of life so diametrically
opposed. If you were not drunk, you might perhaps catch a
gleam of philosophy in this."
" And if you had not both feet on that fascinating Aquilina,
whose heavy breathing suggests an analogy with the sounds
of a storm about to burst," replied Emile, absently engaged
in the harmless amusement of winding and unwinding Eu-
phrasia's hair, " you would be ashamed of your inebriated
garrulity. Both your systems can be packed in a phrase, and
reduced to a single idea. The mere routine of living brings
a stupid kind of wisdom with it, by blunting our intelligence
with work; and on the other hand, a life passed in the limbo
of the abstract or in the abysses of the moral world, produces
a sort of wisdom run mad. The conditions may be summed
up in brief; we may extinguish emotion, and so live to old
age, or we may choose to die young as martyrs to contending
passions. And yet this decree is at variance with the tem-
peraments with which we were endowed by the bitter jester
who modeled all creatures."
"Idiot!" Raphael burst in. "Go on epitomizing your-
self after that fashion, and you will fill volumes. If I at-
tempted to formulate those two ideas clearly, I might as well
say that man is corrupted by the exercise of his wits, and
purified by ignorance. You are calling the whole fabric of
society to account. But whether we live with the wise or
perish with the fool, isn't the result the same sooner or later?
And have not the prime constituents of the quintessence of
THE TALISMAN. 71
both systems been before expressed in a couple of words
Carymary, earymara"
" You make me doubt the existence of a God, for your
stupidity is greater than His power," said Emile. "Our
beloved Rabelais summed it all up in a shorter word than
your Carymary, carymara ; from his 'Perhaps' Montaigne
derived his own ' What do I know? ' After all, this last word
of moral science is scarcely more than the cry of Pyrrhus set
betwixt good and evil, or Buridan's ass between the two
measures of oats. But let this everlasting question alone,
resolved to-day by a 'Yes* and a 'No.' What experience
did you look to find by a jump into the Seine ? Were you
jealous of the hydraulic machine on the Pont Notre Dame? "
"Ah, if you but knew my history."
"Pooh," said Emile ; " I did not think you could be so
commonplace; that remark is hackneyed. Don't you know
that every one of us claims to have suffered as no other
ever did?"
"Ah! " Raphael sighed.
"What a mountebank art thou with thy 'Ah!' Look
here, now ! Does some disease of mind or body, by con-
tracting your muscles, bring back of a morning the wild
horses that tear you in pieces at night, as with Damiens once
upon a time? Were you driven to sup off your own dog in
a garret, uncooked and without salt ? Have your children
ever cried, ' I am hungry ? ' Have you sold your mistress'
hair to hazard the money at play? Have you ever drawn a
sham bill of exchange on a fictitious uncle at a sham address,
and feared lest you should not be in time to take it up?
Come now, I am attending ! If you were going to drown
yourself for some woman, or by way of a protest, or out of
sheer dulness, I disown you. Make your confession, and no
lies ! I don't at all want a historical memoir. And, above
all things, be as concise as your clouded intellect permits ; I
72 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
am as critical as a professor, and as sleepy as a woman at her
vespers."
"You silly fool ! " said Raphael. "When has not suffer-
ing been keener for a more susceptible nature? Some day
when science has attained to a pitch that enables us to study
the natural history of hearts, when they are named and class-
ified in genera, sub-genera, and families ; into crustacese,
fossils, saurians, infusoria, or whatever it is, then, my dear
fellow, it will be ascertained that there are natures as tender
and fragile as flowers, that are broken by the slight bruises
that some stony hearts do not even feel ."
" For pity's sake, spare me thy exordium," said Emile, as,
half plaintive, half amused, he took Raphael's hand.
II.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART.
AFTER a moment's silence, Raphael said with a careless
gesture
" Perhaps it is an effect of the fumes of punch I really
cannot tell this clearness of mind that enables me to com-
prise my whole life in a single picture, where figures and hues,
lights, shades, and half-tones are faithfully rendered. I
should not have been so surprised at this poetical play of
imagination if it were not accompanied with a sort of scorn
for my past joys and sorrows. Seen from afar, my life
appears to contract by some mental process. That long, slow
agony of ten years' duration can be brought to memory to-
day in some few phrases, in which pain is resolved into a
mere idea, and pleasure becomes a philosophical reflection.
Instead of feeling things, I weigh and consider them "
"You are as tiresome as the explanation of an amend-
ment," cried Emile.
" Very likely," said Raphael submissively. " I spare you
the first seventeen years of my life for fear of abusing a lis-
tener's patience. Till that time, like you and thousands of
others, I had lived my life at school or the Lyceum, with its
imaginary troubles and genuine happinesses, which are so
pleasant to look back upon. Our jaded palates still crave
that Lenten fare, so long as we have not tried it afresh. It
was a pleasant life, with the tasks that we thought so contempt-
ible, but which taught us application for all that."
"Let the drama begin," said Emile, half-plaintively, half-
comically.
" When I left school," Raphael went on, with a gesture
that claimed the right of speaking, " my father submitted me
(73)
74 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
to a strict discipline ; he installed me in a room near his own
study, and I had to rise at five in the morning and be in bed
by nine at night. He meant me to take my law studies seri-
ously. I attended the schools, and read with an advocate as
well ; but my lectures and work were so narrowly circum-
scribed by the laws of time and space, and my father required
such a strict account of my doings, at dinner, that "
"What is this to me?" asked Emile.
" The devil take you ! " said Raphael. " How are you to
enter into my feelings if I do not relate the facts that insensi-
bly shaped my character, made me timid, and prolonged the
period of youthful simplicity? In this manner I cowered
under as strict a despotism as a monarch's till I came of age.
To depict the tedium of my life, it will be perhaps enough to
portray my father for you. He was tall, thin, and slight,
with a hatchet face, and pale complexion ; a man of few
words, fidgety as an old maid, exacting as a senior clerk.
His paternal solicitude hovered over my merriment and gleeful
thoughts, and seemed to cover them with a leaden pall. Any
effusive demonstration on my part was received by him as a
childish absurdity. I was far more afraid of him than I had
been of any of our masters at school.
"I seem to see him before me at this moment. In his
chestnut-brown frock-coat he looked like a red herring
wrapped up in the cover of a pamphlet, and he held him-
self as erect as an Easter candle. But I was fond of my father,
and at heart he was right enough. Perhaps we never hate
severity when it has its source in greatness of character and
pure morals, and is skilfully tempered with kindness. My
father, it is true, never left me a moment to myself, and only
when I was twenty years old gave me so much as ten francs
of my own, ten knavish prodigals of francs, such a hoard as
I had long vainly desired, which set me a-dreaming of unutter-
able felicity; yet, for all that, he sought to procure relaxations
for me. When he had promised me a treat months before-
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 75
hand, he would take me to Les Bouffons, or to a concert or
ball, where I hoped to find a mistress. A mistress ! that
meant independence. But bashful and timid as I was, knowing
nobody, and ignorant of the dialect of drawing-rooms, I
always came back as awkward as ever, and swelling with
unsatisfied desires, to be put in harness like a troop horse
next day by my father, and to return with morning to my
advocate, the Palais de Justice, and the law. To have
swerved from the straight course which my father had mapped
out for me would have drawn down his wrath upon me ;
at my first delinquency, he threatened to ship me off as a
cabin-boy to the Antilles. A dreadful shiver ran through
me if I had ventured to spend a couple of hours in some
pleasure party.
" Imagine the most wandering imagination and passionate
temperament, the tenderest soul and most artistic nature,
dwelling continually in the presence of the most flint-hearted,
atrabilious, and frigid man on earth ; think of me as a young
girl married to a skeleton, and you will understand the life
whose curious scenes can only be a hearsay tale to you ; the
plans for running away that perished at the sight of my father,
the despair soothed by slumber, the dark broodings charmed
away by music. I breathed my sorrows forth in melodies.
Beethoven or Mozart would keep my confidences sacred.
Nowadays, I smile at recollections of the scruples which bur-
dened my conscience at that epoch of innocence and virtue.
" If I set foot in a restaurant, I gave myself up for lost;
my fancy led me to look on a cafe as a disreputable haunt,
where men lost their characters and embarrassed their fortunes ;
as for engaging in play, I had not the money to risk. Oh, if
I needed to send you to sleep, I would tell you about one of
the most frightful pleasures of my life, one of those pleasures
with fangs that bury themselves in the heart, as the branding-
iron enters the convict's shoulder. I was at a ball at the
house of the Due de Navarreins, my father's cousin. But to
76 THE WILD ASS' SKIM
make my position the more perfectly clear, you must know
that I wore a threadbare coat, ill-fitting shoes, a tie fit for a
stableman, and a soiled pair of gloves. I shrank into a corner
to eat ices and watch the pretty faces at my leisure. My
father noticed me. Actuated by some motive that I did not
fathom, so dumbfounded was I by this act of confidence, he
handed me his keys and purse to keep. Ten paces away some
men were gambling. I heard the rattling of gold ; I was
twenty years old ; I longed to be steeped for one whole day
in the follies of my time of life. It was a license of the im-
agination that would find a parallel neither in the freaks of
courtesans, nor in the dreams of young girls. For a year
past I had beheld myself well dressed, in a carriage, with a
pretty woman by my side, playing the great lord, dining at
Very's, deciding not to go back home till the morrow ; but
was prepared for my father with a plot more intricate than
the Marriage of Figaro, which he could not possibly have
unraveled. All this bliss would cost, I estimated, fifty crowns.
Was it not the artless idea of playing truant that still had
charms for me ?
" I went into a small adjoining room, and when alone
counted my father's money with smarting eyes and trembling
fingers a hundred crowns ! The joys of my escapade rose
before me at the thought of the amount ; joys that flitted
about me like Macbeth's witches around their caldron ; joys
how alluring ! how thrilling ! how delicious ! I became a
deliberate rascal. I heeded neither my tingling ears nor
the violent beating of my heart, but took out two twenty-franc
pieces that I seem to see yet. The dates had been erased,
and Bonaparte's head simpered upon them. After I had
put back the purse in my pocket, I returned to a gaming-table
with the two pieces of gold in the palms of my damp hands,
prowling about the players like a sparrow-hawk round a coop
of chickens. Tormented by inexpressible terror, I flung a
sudden clairvoyant glance round me, and feeling quite sure
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 77
that I was seen by none of my acquaintances, betted on a
stout, jovial little man, heaping upon his head more prayers
and vows than are put up during two or three storms at sea.
Then with an intuitive scoundrelism, or Machiavelism, sur-
prising in one of my age, I went and stood in the door, and
looked about me in the rooms, though I saw nothing ; for
both mind and eyes hovered about that fateful green cloth.
" That evening fixes the date of a first observation of a
physiological kind ; to it I owe a kind of insight into certain
mysteries of our double nature that I have since been enabled
to penetrate. I had my back turned on the table where my
future felicity lay at stake, a felicity but so much the more in-
tense that it was criminal. Between me and the players stood a
wall of onlookers some five deep, who were chatting ; the mur-
mur of voices drowned the clinking of gold, which mingled
in the sounds sent up by this orchestra ; yet, despite all
obstacles, I distinctly heard the words of the two players by
a gift accorded to the passions, which enables them to annihi-
late time and space. I saw the points they made ; I knew
which of the two turned up the king as well as if I had actu-
ally seen the cards ; at a distance of ten paces, in short, the
fortunes of play blanched my face.
" My father suddenly went by, and then I knew what the
Scripture meant by 'The Spirit of God passed before his face.'
I had won. I slipped through the crowd of men who had
gathered about the players with the quickness of an eel escap-
ing through a broken mesh in a net. My nerves thrilled with
joy instead of anguish. I felt like some criminal on the way
to torture released by a chance meeting with the king. It
happened that a man with a decoration found himself short
by forty francs. Uneasy eyes suspected me ; I turned pale,
and drops of perspiration stood on my forehead. I was well
punished, I thought, for having robbed my father. Then the
kind little stout man said, in a voice like an angel's surely,
'All these gentlemen have paid their stakes,' and put down
6
78 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
the forty francs himself. I raised my head in triumph upon
the players. After I had returned the money I had taken
from it to my father's purse, I left my winnings with that
honest and worthy gentleman, who continued to win. As
soon as 1 found myself possessed of a hundred and sixty
francs, I wrapped them up in my handkerchief, so that they
could neither move nor rattle on the way back ; and I played
no more.
" ' What were you doing at the card-table?' said my father
as we stepped into the carriage.
" ' I was looking on,' I answered, trembling.
" ' But it would have been nothing out of the common if
you had been prompted by self-love to put some money down
on the table. In the eyes of men of the world you are quite
old enough to assume the right to commit such follies. So I
should have pardoned you, Raphael, if you had made use of
my purse.'
"I did not answer. When we reached home, I returned
the keys and the money to my father. As he entered his
study, he emptied out his purse on the mantelpiece, counted
the money, and turned to me with a kindly look, saying,
with more or less long and significant pauses between each
phrase
" ' My boy, you are very nearly twenty now. I am satis-
fied with you. You ought to have an allowance, if only to
teach you how to lay it out, and to gain some acquaintance
with everyday business. Henceforward I shall let you have
a hundred francs each month. Here is your first quarter's
income for this year,' he added, fingering a pile of gold, as if
to make sure that the amount was correct. ' Do what you
please with it."
"I confess that I was ready to fling myself at his feet, to
tell him that I was a thief, a scoundrel, and, worse than all, a
liar ! But a feeling of shame held me back. I went up to
him for an embrace, but he gently pushed me away.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 79
" 'You are a man now, my child,' lie said. ' What I have
just done was a very proper and simple thing, for which there
is no need to thank me. If I have any claim to your grati-
tude, Raphael,' he went on in a kind but dignified way, 'it
is because I have preserved your youth from the evils that
destroy young men in Paris. We will be two friends hence-
forth. In a year's time you will be a doctor of law. Not
without some hardship and privation you have acquired the
sound knowledge and the love of, and application to, work
that is indispensable to public men. You must learn to know
me, Raphael. I do not want to make either an advocate or
a notary of you, but a statesman, who shall be the pride of
our humble house. Good-night,' he added.
" From that day my father took me fully into confidence.
I was an only son ; and, ten years before, I had lost my
mother. In time past my father, the head of a historic family
remembered even now in Auvergne, had come to Paris to
fight against his evil star, dissatisfied at the prospect of tilling
the soil, with his useless sword by his side. He was endowed
with the shrewdness that gives the men of the south of France
a certain ascendancy when energy goes with it. Almost
unaided, he made a position for himself near the fountain of
power. The Revolution brought a reverse of fortune, but he
had managed to marry an heiress of good family, and, in the
time of the Empire, appeared to be on the point of restoring
to our house its ancient splendor.
" The Restoration, while it brought back considerable prop-
erty to my mother, was my father's ruin. He had formerly
purchased several estates abroad, conferred by the Emperor
on his generals ; and now for ten years he struggled with
liquidators, diplomatists, and Prussian and Bavarian courts
of law, over the disputed possession of these unfortunate
endowments. My father plunged me into the intricate
labyrinths of law proceedings on which our future depended.
We might be compelled to return the rents, as well as the
80 77/7? WILD ASS' SKIN.
proceeds arising from sales of timber made during the years
1814 to 1817; in that case my mother's property would
have barely saved our credit. So it fell out that the day
on which my father in a fashion emancipated me, brought
me under a most galling yoke. I entered on a conflict like
a battlefield; I must work day and night; seek interviews
with statesmen, surprise their convictions, try to interest them
in our affairs, and gain them over, with their wives and ser-
vants, and their very clogs ; and all this abominable business
had to take the form of pretty speeches and polite attentions.
Then I knew the mortifications that had left their blighting
traces on my father's face. For about a year I led outwardly
the life of a man of the world, but enormous labors lay
beneath the surface of gadding about, and eager efforts to
attach myself to influential kinsmen, or to people likely to be
useful to us. My relaxations were lawsuits, and memorials
still furnished the staple of my conversation. Hitherto my
life had been blameless, from the sheer impossibility of in-
dulging the desires of youth ; but now I became my own
master, and in dread of involving us both in ruin by some
piece of negligence, I did not dare to allow myself any
pleasure or expenditure.
" While we are young, and before the world has rubbed
off the delicate bloom from our sentiments, the freshness of
our impressions, the noble purity of conscience which will
never allow us to palter with evil, the sense of duty is very
strong within us, the voice of honor clamors within us, and
we are. open and straightforward. At that time I was all
these things. I wished to justify my father's confidence in
me. But lately I would have stolen a paltry sum from
him, with secret delight ; but now that I shared the burden
of his affairs, of his name and of his house, I would secretly
have given up my fortune and my hopes for him, as I was
sacrificing my pleasures, and even have been glad of the
sacrifice ! So when Mde. Villele exhumed, for our special
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 81
benefit, an imperial decree concerning forfeitures, and had
ruined us, I authorized the sale of my property, only retain-
ing an island in the middle of the Loire, where my mother was
buried. Perhaps arguments and evasions, philosophical,
philanthropic, and political considerations would not fail me
now, to hinder the perpetration of what my solicitor termed a
folly ; but at one-and-twenty, I repeat, we are all aglow with
generosity and affection. The tears that stood in my father's
eyes were to me the most splendid of fortunes, and the thought
of those tears has often soothed my sorrow. Ten months after
he had paid his creditors, my father died of grief; I was
his idol, and he had ruined me ! The thought killed him.
Towards the end of the autumn of 1826, at the age of twenty-
two, I was the sole mourner at his graveside the grave of
my father and my earliest friend. Not many young men have
found themselves alone with their thoughts as they followed
a hearse, or have seen themselves lost in crowded Paris,
and without money or prospects. Orphans rescued by public
charity have at any rate the future of the battlefield before
them, and find a shelter in some institution and a father in
the government or in the agent of the King. I had nothing.
" Three months later, an agent made over to me eleven
hundred and twelve francs, the net proceeds of the winding
up of my father's affairs. Our creditors had driven us to sell
our furniture. From my childhood I had been used to set a
high value on the articles of luxury about us, and I could not
help showing my astonishment at the sight of this meagre
balance.
" ' Oh, rococo, all of it ! ' said the auctioneer. A terrible
word that fell like a blight on the sacred memories of
my childhood, and dispelled my earliest illusions, the
dearest of all. My entire fortune was comprised in this
account rendered, my future lay in a linen bag with eleven
hundred and twelve francs in it, human society stood be-
fore me in the person of an auctioneer's clerk, who kept
82 THE WILD ASS^ SKIN.
his hat on while he spoke. Jonathan, an old servant who
was much attached to me, and whom my mother had form-
erly pensioned with an annuity of four hundred francs,
spoke to me as I was leaving the house that I had so often
gaily left for a drive in my childhood.
" ' Be very economical, Monsieur Raphael ! '
The good fellow was crying.
" Such were the events, dear Emile, that ruled my desti-
nies, moulded my character, and set me, while still young, in
an utterly false social position," said Raphael after a pause.
" Family ties, weak ones, it is true, bound me to a few
wealthy houses, but my own pride would have kept me aloof
from them if contempt and indifference had not shut their
doors to me in the first place. I was related to people who
were very influential, and who lavished their patronage on
strangers ; but I found neither relations nor patrons in them.
Continually circumscribed in my affections, they recoiled
upon me. Unreserved and simple by nature, I must have
appeared frigid and sophisticated. My father's discipline
had destroyed all confidence in myself. I was shy and
awkward ; I could not believe that my opinion carried any
weight whatever; I took no pleasure in myself; I thought
myself ugly, and was ashamed to meet my own eyes. In
spite of the inward voice that must be the stay of a man with
anything in him, in all his struggles, the voice that cries,
' Courage ! Go forward ! ' in spite of sudden revelations of
my own strength in my solitude ; in spite of the hopes that
thrilled me as I compared new works, that the public admired
so much, with the schemes that hovered in my brain, in
spite of all this, I had a childish mistrust of myself.
" An overweening ambition preyed upon me; I believed
that I was meant for great things, and yet I felt myself to
be nothing. I had need of other men, and I was friendless.
I found I must make my way in the world, where I was
quite alone, and bashful, rather than afraid.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. S:j
" All through the year in which, by my father's wish, I
threw myself into the whirlpool of fashionable society, I
came away with an inexperienced heart, and fresh in mind.
Like every grown child, I sighed in secret for a love affair.
I met, among young men of my own age, a set of swag-
gerers who held their heads high, and talked about trifles
as they seated themselves without a tremor beside women who
inspired awe in me. They chattered nonsense, sucked the
heads of their canes, gave themselves affected airs, appro-
priated the fairest women, and laid, or pretended that they
had laid their heads on every pillow. Pleasure, seemingly,
was at their beck and call ; they looked on the most virtuous
and prudish as an easy prey, ready to surrender at a word,
at the slightest impudent gesture or insolent look. I declare,
on my soul and conscience, that the attainment of power, or
of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory
than a success with some young, witty, and gracious lady of
high degree.
" So I found the tumult of my heart, my feelings, and my
creeds all at variance with the axioms of society. I had
plenty of audacity in my character, but none in my manner.
Later, I found out that women did not like to be implored.
I have from afar adored many a one to whom I devoted a
soul proof against all tests, a heart to break, energy that
shrank from no sacrifice and from no torture ; they accepted
fools whom I would not have engaged as hall porters. How
often, mute and motionless, have I not admired the lady of
my dreams, swaying in the dance ; given up my life in
thought to one eternal caress, expressed all my hopes in a
look, and laid before her, in my rapture, a young man's love,
which should outstrip all fables. At some moments I was
ready to barter my whole life for one single night. Well, as
I could never find a listener for my impassioned proposals,
eyes to rest my own upon, a heart made for my heart, I lived
on in all the sufferings of impotent force that consumes
84 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
itself; lacking either opportunity or courage or experience.
I despaired, maybe, of making myself understood, or I feared
to be understood but too well ; and yet the storm within me
was ready to burst at every chance courteous look. In spite
of my readiness to take the semblance of interest in look or
word for a tenderer solicitude, I dared neither to speak nor to
be silent seasonably. My words grew insignificant, and my
silence stupid, by sheer stress of emotion. I was too ingen-
uous, no doubt, for that artificial life, led by candle-light,
where every thought is expressed in conventional phrases, or
by words that fashion dictates ; and not only so, I had not
learned how to employ speech that says nothing, and silence
that says a great deal. In short, I concealed the fires that
consumed me, and with such a soul as women wish to find,
with all the elevation of soul that they long for, and a mettle
that fools plume themselves upon, all women have been
cruelly treacherous to me.
" So in my simplicity I admired the heroes of this set when
they bragged about their conquests, and never suspected them
of lying. No doubt it was a mistake to wish for a love that
springs for a word's sake ; to expect to find in the heart of a
vain, frivolous woman, greedy for luxury and intoxicated with
vanity, the great sea of passion that surged tempestuously
in my own breast. Oh ! to feel that you were born to love,
to make some woman's happiness, and yet to find not one,
not even a noble and courageous Marceline, not so much as
an old marquise ! Oh ! to carry a treasure in your wallet,
and not find even some child, or inquisitive young girl, to
admire it ! In my despair I often wished to kill myself."
" Finely tragical to-night! " cried Emile.
"Let me pass sentence on my life," Raphael answered.
" If your friendship is not strong enough to bear with my
elegy, if you cannot put up with half an hour's tedium for
my sake, go to sleep ! But, then, never ask again for the
reason of the suicide that hangs over me, that comes nearer
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 85
and calls to me, that I bow myself before. If you are to
judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and
feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man's life
would only serve to make a chronological table a fool's
notion of history."
Emile was so much struck with the bitter tones in which
these words were spoken, that he began to pay close attention
to Raphael, whom he watched with a bewildered expression.
"Now," continued the speaker, "all these things that be-
fell me appear in a new light. The sequence of events that
I once thought so unfortunate created the splendid powers of
which, later, I became so proud. If I may believe you, I
possess the power of readily expressing my thoughts, and I
could take a forward place in the great field of knowledge ;
and is not this the result of scientific curiosity, of excessive
application, and a love of reading which possessed me from
the age of seven till my entry on life? The very neglect in
which I was left, and the consequent habits of self-repression
and self-concentration ; did not these things teach me how to
consider and reflect? Nothing in me was squandered in
obedience to the exactions of the world, which humble the
proudest soul and reduce it to a mere husk; and was it not
this very fact that refined the emotional part of my nature
till it became the perfected instrument of a loftier purpose
than passionate desires ? I remember watching the women
who mistook me with all the insight of contemned love.
" I can see now that my natural sincerity must have been
displeasing to them ; women, perhaps, even require a little
hypocrisy. And I, who in the same hour's space am alter-
nately a man and a child, frivolous and thoughtful, free from
bias and brimful of superstition, and oftentimes myself as
much a woman as an-y of them ; how should they do other-
wise than take my simplicity for cynicism, my innocent can-
dor for impudence ? They found my knowledge tiresome ;
my feminine languor, weakness. I was held to be listless and
86 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
incapable of love or of steady purpose ; a too active imagina-
tion, that curse of poets, was no doubt the cause. My silence
was idiotic ; and as I dare say I alarmed them by my efforts
to please, women one and all have condemned me. With
tears and mortification, I bowed before the decision of the
world; but my distress was not barren. I determined to re-
venge myself on society ; I would dominate the feminine
intellect, and so have the feminine soul at my mercy ; all eyes
should be fixed upon me, when the servant at the door
announced my name. I had determined from my childhood
that I would be a great man ; I said with Andre Chenier, as
I struck my forehead, ' There is something underneath that ! '
I felt, I believed, the thought within me that I must express,
the system I must establish, the knowledge I must interpret.
"Let me pour out my follies, dear Emile; to-day I am
barely twenty-six years old, certain of dying unrecognized,
and I have never been the lover of the woman I dreamed of
possessing. Have we not all of us, more or less, believed in
the reality of a thing because we wished it ? I would never
have a young man for my friend who did not place himself
in dreams upon a pedestal, weave crowns for his head, and
have complaisant mistresses. I myself would often be a gen-
eral, nay, emperor ; I have been a Byron, and then a nobody.
After this sport on these pinnacles of human achievement, I
became aware that all the difficulties and steeps of life were
yet to face. My exuberant self-esteem came to my aid ; I had
that intense belief in my destiny, which perhaps amounts to
genius in those who will not permit themselves to be distracted
by contact with the world, as sheep that leave their wool on
the briars of every thicket they pass by. I meant to cover
myself with glory, and to work in silence for the mistress I
hoped to have one day. Woman for me was resolved into a
single type, and this woman I hoped to meet in the first that
met my eyes ; but in each and all I saw. a queen, and as queens
must make the first advances to their lovers, they must draw
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 87
near to me to me, so sickly, shy, and poor. For her, who
should take pity on me, my heart held in store such gratitude
over and beyond love, that I had worshipped her her whole
life long. Later, my observations have taught me bitter
truths.
" In this way, dear Emile, I ran the risk of remaining com-
panionless for good. The incomprehensible bent of women's
minds appears to lead them to see nothing but the weak points
in a clever man, and the strong points of a fool. They feel the
liveliest sympathy with the fool's good qualities, which per-
petually flatter their own defects ; while they find the man of
talent hardly agreeable enough to compensate for his short-
comings. All capacity is a sort of intermittent fever, and no
woman is anxious to share in its discomforts only ; they look
to find in their lovers the wherewithal to gratify their own
vanity. It is themselves that they love in us ! But the artist,
poor and proud, along with his endowment of creative power,
is furnished with an aggressive egotism ! Everything about
him is involved in I know not what whirlpool of his ideas,
and even his mistress must gyrate along with them. How is
a woman, spoilt with praise, to believe in the love of a man
like that? Will she go to seek him out ? That sort of a lover
has not the leisure to sit beside a sofa and give himself up to
the sentimental simperings that women are so fond of, and on
which the false and unfeeling pride themselves. He cannot
spare the time from his work, and how can he afford to
humble himself and go a masquerading? I was ready to give
my life once and for all, but I could not degrade it in detail.
Besides, there is something indescribably paltry in a stock-
broker's tactics, who runs on errands for some insipid affected
woman ; all this disgusts an artist. Love in the abstract is
not enough for a great man in poverty; he has need of its
utmost devotion. The frivolous creatures who spend their
lives in trying on cashmeres, or make themselves into clothes-
pegs to hang the fashions from, exact the devotion which is
88 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
not theirs to give ; for them, love means the pleasure of ruling
and not of obeying. She who is really a wife, one in heart,
flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her
life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centred. Am-
bitious men need those Oriental women whose whole thought
is given to the study of their requirements; for unhappiness
means for them the incompatibility of their means with their
desires. But I, who took myself for a man of genius, must
needs feel attracted by these very she-coxcombs. So, as I
cherished ideas so different from those generally received ; as
I wished to scale the heavens without a ladder, was possessed
of wealth that could not circulate, and of knowledge so wide
and so imperfectly arranged and digested that it overtaxed
my memory ; as I had neither relations nor friends in the midst
of this lonely and ghastly desert, a desert of paving stones,
full of animation, life, and thought, wherein every one is
worse than inimical, indifferent to wit, I made a very natural,
if foolish, resolve, which required such unknown impossibili-
ties, that my spirits rose. It was as if I had laid a wager with
myself, for I was at once the player and the cards.
" This was my plan. The eleven hundred francs must keep
life in me for three years the time I allowed myself in which
to bring to light a work which should draw attention to me,
and make me either a name or a fortune. I exulted at the
thought of living on bread and milk, like a hermit in the
Thebaid, while I plunged into the world of books and ideas,
and so reached a lofty sphere beyond the tumult of Paris, a
sphere of silent labor where I would entomb myself like a
chrysalis to await a brilliant and splendid new birth. I im-
periled my life in order to live. By reducing my require-
ments to real needs and the barest necessaries, I found that
three hundred and sixty-five francs sufficed for a year of
penury ; and, in fact, I managed to exist on that slender sum,
so long as I submitted to my own claustral discipline."
"Impossible!" cried Emile.
/ CANNOT RECOLLECT PAYING FOR WATER; I WENT OUT
TO FETCH IT EVERY MORNING.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 89
"I lived for nearly three years in that way," Raphael
answered, with a kind of pride. "Let us reckon it out.
Three sous for bread, two for milk, and three for cold meat,
kept me from dying of hunger, and my mind in a state of
peculiar lucidity. I have observed, as you know, the wonder-
ful effects produced by diet upon the imagination. My lodg-
ings cost me three sous daily; I burnt three sous more in oil
at night ; I did my own housework, and wore flannel shirts so
as to reduce the laundress' bill to two sons per day. The
money I spent yearly in coal, if divided up, never cost more
than two sous for each day. I had three years' supply of
clothing, and I only dressed when going out to some library
or public lecture. These expenses, all told, only amounted to
eighteen sous, so two were left over for emergencies. I cannot
recollect, during that long period of toil, either crossing the
Pont des Arts, or paying for water; I went out to fetch it every
morning from the fountain in the Place Saint Michel, at the
corner of the Rue de Gres. Oh, I wore my poverty proudly.
A man urged on towards a fair future walks through life like
an innocent person to his death ; he feels no shame about it.
"I would not think of illness. Like Aquilina, I faced the
hospital without terror. I had not a moment's doubt of rny
health, and besides, the poor can only take to their beds to
die. I cut my own hair till the day when an angel of love
and kindness But I do not want to anticipate the state of
things that I shall reach later. You must simply know that I
lived with one grand thought for a mistress, a dream, an illusion
which deceives us all more or less at first. To-day I laugh at
myself, at that self, holy perhaps and heroic, which is now no
more. I have since had a closer view of society and the
world, of our manners and customs, and see the dangers of
my innocent credulity and the superfluous nature of my fervent
toil. Stores of that sort are quite useless to aspirants for
fame. Light should be the baggage of seekers after fortune !
"Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves
90 THE WILD ASS' SKTN.
worthy of patronage ; it is their great mistake. While the
foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy,
so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible
posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are
wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant,
and creep into the confidence of those who have a little
knowledge. While the first kind study, the second march
ahead ; the one sort is modest, and the other impudent ; the
man of genius is silent about his own merit, but these schemers
make a flourish of theirs, and they are bound to get on. It
is so strongly to the interest of men in office to believe in
ready-made capacity, and in brazen-faced merit, that it is
downright childish of the learned to expect material rewards.
I do not seek to paraphrase the commonplace moral, the song
of songs that obscure genius is forever singing; I want to come,
in a logical manner, by the reason of the frequent successes
of mediocrity. Alas ! study shows us such a mother's kind-
ness that it would be a sin perhaps to ask any other reward of
her than the pure and delightful pleasures with which she sus-
tains her children.
" Often I remember soaking my bread in milk, as I sat by
the window to take the fresh air, while my eyes wandered
over a view of roofs brown, gray, or red, slated or tiled, and
covered with yellow or green mosses. At first the prospect
may have seemed monotonous, but I very soon found peculiar
beauties in it. Sometimes at night, streams of light through
half-closed shutters would light up and color the dark abysses
of this strange landscape. Sometimes the feeble lights of the
street lamps sent up yellow gleams through the fog, and in
each street dimly outlined the undulations of a crowd of roofs,
like billows in a motionless sea. Very occasionally, too, a
face appeared in this gloomy waste ; above the flowers in some
skyey garden I caught a glimpse of an old woman's crooked
angular profile as she watered her nasturtiums ; or, in a crazy
attic window, a young girl, fancying herself quite alone as
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 91
she dressed herself a view of nothing more than a fair fore-
head and long tresses held above her by a pretty white arm.
" I liked to see the short-lived plant-life in the gutters poor
weeds that a storm soon washed away. I studied the mosses,
with their colors revived by showers, or transformed by the
sun into a brown velvet that fitfully caught the light. Such
things as these formed my recreations the passing poetic
moods of daylight, the melancholy mists, sudden gleams of
sunlight, the silence and the magic of night, the mysteries of
dawn, the smoke wreaths from each chimney ; every chance
event, in fact, in my curious world became familiar to me. I
came to love this prison of my own choosing. This level
Parisian prairie of roofs, beneath which lay populous abysses,
suited my humor, and harmonized with my thoughts.
" Sudden descents into the world from the divine height
of scientific meditation are very exhausting ; and, besides, I
had apprehended perfectly the bare life of the cloister. When
I made up my mind to carry out this new plan of life, I looked
for quarters in the most out-of-the-way parts of Paris. One
evening, as I returned home to the Rue des Cordiers from the
Place de 1'Estrapade, I saw a girl of fourteen playing with a
battledore at the corner of the Rue de Cluny ; her winsome
ways and laughter amused the neighbors. September was not
yet over ; it was warm and fine, so that women sat chatting
before their doors as if it were a fete-day in some country
town. At first I watched the charming expression of the
girl's face and her graceful attitudes, her pose fit for a painter.
It was a pretty sight. I looked about me, seeking to under-
stand this blithe simplicity in the midst of Paris, and saw that
the street was a blind alley and but little frequented. I re-
membered that Jean Jacques had once lived here, and looked
up the Hotel Saint-Quentin. Its dilapidated condition
awakened hopes of a cheap lodging, and I determined to enter.
" I found myself in a room with a low ceiling ; the candles,
in classic-looking copper candlesticks, were set in a row under
92 THE WILD ASS* SKIN.
each key. The predominating cleanliness of the room made
a striking contrast to the usual state of such places. This one
was as neat as a bit of genre ; there was a charming trimness
about the blue coverlet, the cooking pots and furniture. The
mistress of the house rose and came to me. She seemed to be
about forty years of age ; sorrows had left their traces on her
features, and weeping had dimmed her eyes. I deferentially
mentioned the amount I could pay ; it seemed to cause her
no surprise ; she sought out a key from the row, went up to
the attics with me, and showed me a room that looked out on
the neighboring roofs and courts ; long poles with linen dry-
ing on them hung out of the window.
" Nothing could be uglier than this garret, awaiting its
scholar, with its dingy yellow walls and odor of poverty.
The roofing fell in a deep slope, and the sky was visible
through chinks in the tiles. There was room for a bed, a
table, and a few chairs, and beneath the highest point of the
roof my piano could stand. Not being rich enough to fur-
nish this cage (that might have been one of the Piombi of
Venice), the poor woman had never been able to let it; and
as I had saved from the recent sale the furniture that was in
a fashion peculiarly mine, I very soon came to terms with my
landlady, and moved in on the following day.
" For three years I lived in this airy sepulchre, and worked
unflaggingly day and night ; and so great was the pleasure,
that study seemed to me the fairest theme and the happiest
solution of life. The tranquillity and peace that a scholar
needs is something as sweet and exhilarating as love. Un-
speakable joys are showered on us by the exertion of our
mental faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil contem-
plation of knowledge ; delights indescribable, because purely
intellectual and impalpable to our senses. So we are obliged
to use material terms to express the mysteries of the soul.
The pleasure of striking out in some lonely lake of clear
water, with forests, rocks, and flowers around, and the soft
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 93
stirring of the warm breeze, all this would give to those
who knew them not a very faint idea of the exultation with
which my soul bathed itself in the beams of an unknown light,
hearkened to the awful and uncertain voice of inspiration, as
vision upon vision poured from some unknown source through
my throbbing brain.
" No earthly pleasure can compare with the divine delight
of watching the dawn of an idea in the space of abstractions,
as it rises like the morning sun ; an idea that, better still,
attains gradually like a child to puberty and man's estate.
Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.
The wretched desk covered with brown leather at which I
wrote, my piano, bed, and arm-chair, the old wall-paper and
furniture, seemed to have for me a kind of life in them, and
to be humble friends of mine and mute partakers of my
destiny. How often have I confided my soul to them in a
glance ! A warped bit of beading often met my eyes, and
suggested new developments, a striking proof of my system,
or a felicitous word by which to render my all but inexpress-
ible thought. By sheer contemplation of the things about me
I discerned an expression and a character in each. If the
setting sun happened to steal in through my narrow window,
they would take new colors, fade or shine, grow dull or gay,
and always amaze me with some new effect. These trifling
incidents of a solitary life, which escape those preoccupied
with outward affairs, make the solace of prisoners. And what
was I but the captive of an idea, imprisoned in my system,
but sustained also by the prospect of a brilliant future? At
each obstacle that I overcame, I seemed to kiss the soft hands
of a woman with a fair face, a wealthy, well-dressed woman,
who should some day say softly, while she caressed my hair
" ' Poor angel, how thou hast suffered ! '
" I had undertaken two great works one a comedy that in
a very short time must bring me wealth and fame, and an
entry into those circles whither I wished to return, to exercise
7
94 THE WILD ASS 1 SKIN.
the royal privilege of a man of genius. You all saw nothing
in that masterpiece but the blunder of a young man fresh from
college, a babyish fiasco. Your jokes clipped the wings of a
throng of illusions, which have never stirred since within me.
You, dear Emile, alone brought soothing to the deep wounds
that others had made in my heart. You alone will admire
my ' Theory of the Will.' I devoted most of my time to that
long work, for which I studied Oriental languages, physiology
and anatomy. If I do not deceive myself, my labors will
complete the task begun by Mesmer, Lavater, Gale, and
Bichat, and open up new paths in science.
"There ends that fair life of mine, the daily sacrifice, the
unrecognized silkworm's toil, that is, perhaps, its own sole
recompense. Since attaining years of discretion, until the
day when I finished my ' Theory/ 1 observed, learned, wrote,
and read unintermittingly ; my life was one long imposition,
as schoolboys say. Though by nature effeminately attached
to Oriental indolence, sensual in tastes, and a wooer of
dreams, I worked incessantly, and refused to taste any of the
enjoyments of Parisian life. Though a glutton, I became
abstemious; and loving exercise and sea voyages as I did,
and haunted by the wish to visit many countries, still child
enough to play at ducks and drakes with pebbles over a pond,
I led a sedentary life with a pen in my fingers. I liked talk-
ing, but I went to sit and mutely listen to professors who
gave public lectures at the Library or the museum. I
slept upon my solitary pallet like a Benedictine brother,
though woman was my one chimera, a chimera that fled from
me as I wooed it ! In short, my life has been a cruel contra-
diction, a perpetual cheat. After that, judge a man !
" Sometimes my natural propensities broke out like a fire
long smothered. I was debarred from the women whose so-
ciety I desired, stripped of everything and lodged in an
artist's garret, and by a sort of mirage or calenture I was sur-
rounded by captivating mistresses. I drove through the
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 95
streets of Paris, lolling on the soft cushions of a fine equi-
page. I plunged into dissipation, into corroding vice, I
desired and possessed everything, for fasting had made me
light-headed like the tempted St. Anthony. Slumber, hap-
pily, would put an end at last to these devastating trances ;
and on the morrow science would beckon me, smiling, and I
was faithful to her. I imagine that women reputed virtuous
must often fall a prey to these insane tempests of desire and
passion, which rise in us in spite of ourselves. Such dreams
have a charm of their own ; they are something akin to
evening gossip round the winter fire, when one sets out for
some voyage in China. But what becomes of virtue during
these delicious excursions, when fancy overleaps all diffi-
culties?
" During the first ten months of seclusion I led the life of
poverty and solitude that I have described to you ; I used to
steal out unobserved every morning to buy my own provi-
sions for the day ; I tidied my room ; I was at once master
and servant, and played the Diogenes with incredible spirit.
But afterwards, while my hostess and her daughter watched
my ways and behavior, scrutinized my appearance and divined
my poverty, there could not but be some bonds between us ;
perhaps because they were themselves so very poor. Pauline,
the charming child, whose latent and unconscious grace had,
in a manner, brought me there, did me many services that I
could not well refuse. All women fallen on evil days are
sisters ; they speak a common language ; they have the same
generosity the generosity that possesses nothing, and so is
lavish of its affection, of its time, and of its very self.
" Imperceptibly Pauline took me under her protection, and
would do things for me. No kind of objection was made by
her mother, whom I even surprised mending my linen ; she
blushed for the charitable occupation. In spite of myself,
they took charge of me, and I accepted their services.
" In order to understand the peculiar condition of my
96 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
mind, my preoccupation with work must be remembered, the
tyranny of ideas, and the instinctive repugnance that a man
who leads an intellectual life must ever feel for the material
details of existence. Could I well repulse the delicate atten-
tions of Pauline, who would noiselessly bring me my frugal
repast, when she noticed that I had taken nothing for seven
or eight hours ? She had the tact of a woman and the inven-
tiveness of a child ; she would smile as she would make sign
to me that I must not see her. Ariel glided under my roof
in the form of a sylph who foresaw every want of mine.
" One evening Pauline told me her story with touching
simplicity. Her father had been a major in the horse grena-
diers of the imperial guard. He had been taken prisoner by
the Cossacks, at the passage of the Beresina; and when
Napoleon later on proposed an exchange, the Russian authori-
ties made search for him in Siberia in vain ; he had escaped
with a view of reaching India, and since then Mme. Gaudin,
my landlady, could hear no news of her husband. Then
came the disasters of 1814 and 1815 ; and, left alone and
without resource, she had decided to let furnished lodgings in
order to keep herself and her daughter.
" She always hoped to see her husband again. Her great-
est trouble was about her daughter's education ; the Princess
Borghese was her Pauline's godmother ; and Pauline must not
be unworthy of the fair future promised by her imperial pro-
tectress. When Mme. Gaudin confided to me this heavy
trouble that preyed upon her, she said with sharp pain in her
voice, ' I would give up the property and the scrap of paper
that makes Gaudin a baron of the empire, and all our rights
to the endowment of Wistchnau, if only Pauline could be
brought up at Saint-Denis 1 ' Her words struck me ; now I
could show my gratitude for the kindnesses expended on me
by the two women ; all at once the idea of offering to finish
Pauline's education occurred to me ; and the offer was made
and accepted in the most perfect simplicity. In this way I
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEAR7\ 97
came to have some hours of recreation. Pauline had natural
aptitude ; she learned so quickly that she soon surpassed me
at the piano. As she became accustomed to think aloud m
my presence, she unfolded all the sweet refinements of a heart
that was opening itself out to life, as some flower-cup opens
slowly to the sun. She listened to me, pleased and thought-
ful, letting her dark velvet eyes rest upon me with a half-
smile in them ; she repeated her lessons in soft and gentle
tones, and showed childish glee when I was satisfied with her.
Her mother grew more and more anxious every day to shield
the young girl from every danger (for all the beauty promised
in early life was developing in the crescent moon), and was
glad to see her spend whole days indoors in study. My piano
was the only one she could use, and while I was out she prac-
tised on it. When I came home, Pauline would be in my
room, in her shabby dress, but her slightest movement revealed
her slender figure in its attractive grace, in spite of the coarse
materials that she wore. As with the heroine of the fable of
' Peau d'Ane,' a dainty foot peeped out of the clumsy shoes.
But all her wealth of girlish beauty was as lost upon me. I
had laid commands upon myself to see a sister only in Pauline.
I dreaded lest I should betray her mother's faith in me. I
admired the lovely girl as if she had been a picture, or as the
portrait of a dead mistress ; she was at once my child and my
statue. For me, another Pygmalion, the maiden with the
hues of life and the living voice was to become a form of in-
animate marble. I was very strict with her, but the more I
made her feel my pedagogue's severity, the more gentle and
submissive she grew.
" If a generous feeling strengthened me in my reserve and
self-restraint, prudent considerations were not lacking beside.
Integrity of purpose cannot, I think, fail to accompany integ-
rity in money matters. To my mind, to become insolvent or
to betray a woman is the same sort of thing. If you love a
young girl, or allow yourself to be beloved by her, a contract
98 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
is implied, and its conditions should be thoroughly under-
stood. We are free to break with the woman who sells her-
self, but not with the young girl who has given herself to us
and does not know the extent of her sacrifice. I must have
married Pauline, and that would have been madness. Would
it not have given over that sweet girlish heart to terrible mis-
fortunes? My poverty made its selfish voice heard, and set
an iron barrier between that gentle nature and mine. Besides,
I am ashamed to say, that I cannot imagine love in the midst
of poverty. Perhaps this is a vitiation due to that malady
of mankind called civilization; but a woman in squalid pov-
erty would exert no fascination over me, were she attractive
as Homer's Galatea, the fair Helen.
"Ah, vive T amour.' But let it be in silk and cashmere,
surrounded with the luxury which so marvelously embellishes
it ; for is it not perhaps itself a luxury ? I enjoy making
havoc with an elaborate erection of scented hair ; I like to
crush flowers, to disarrange and crease a smart toilette at will.
A bizarre attraction lies for me in burning eyes that blaze
through a lace veil, like flame through cannon smoke. My
way of love would be to mount by a silken ladder, in the
silence of a winter night. And what bliss to reach, all pow-
dered with snow, a perfumed room, with hangings of painted
silk, to find a woman there, who likewise shakes away the
snow from her ; for what other name can be found for the
white muslin wrappings that vaguely define her, like some
angel form issuing from a cloud ! And then I wish for furtive
joys, for the security of audacity. I want to see once more
that woman of mystery, but let it be in the throng, dazzling,
unapproachable, adored on all sides, dressed in laces and
ablaze with diamonds, laying her commands upon every one;
so exalted above us that she inspires awe, and none dares to
pay his homage to her.
"She gives me a stolen glance, amid her court, a look that
exposes the unreality of all this ; that resigns for me the
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 99
world and all men in it ! Truly I have scorned myself for a
passion for a few yards of lace, velvet, and fine lawn, and
the hairdresser's feats of skill ; a love of wax-lights, a carriage
and a title, a heraldic coronet painted on window panes, or
engraved by a jeweler; in short, a liking for all that is adven-
titious and least womanly in woman. I have scorned and
reasoned with myself, but all in vain.
" A woman of rank with her subtle smile, her high-born
air, and self-esteem captivates me. The barriers she erects
between herself and the world awaken my vanity, a good
half of love. There would be more relish for me in bliss
that all others envied. If my mistress does nothing that
other women do, and neither lives nor conducts herself like
them, wears a cloak that they cannot attain, breathes a per-
fume of her own, then she seems to rise far above me. The
further she rises from earth, even in the earthlier aspects of
love, the fairer she becomes for me.
" Luckily for me we have had no queen in France these
twenty years, for I should have fallen in love with her. A
woman must be wealthy to acquire the manners of a princess.
What place had Pauline among these far-fetched imaginings?
Could she bring me the love that is death, that brings every
faculty into play, the nights that are paid for by life ? We
hardly die, I think, for an insignificant girl who gives her.
self to us; and I could never extinguish these feelings and
poet's dreams within me. I was born for an inaccessible
love, and fortune has overtopped my desire.
" How often have I set satin shoes on Pauline's tiny feet,
confined her form, slender as a young poplar, in a robe of
gauze, and thrown a loose scarf about her as I saw her tread
the carpets in her mansion and led her out to her splendid
carriage ! In such guise I should have adored her. I endowed
her with all the pride she lacked, stripped her of her virtues,
her natural simple charm, and frank smile, in order to plunge
her heart in our Styx of depravity and make it invulnerable,
100 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
load her with our crimes, make of her the fantastical doll of
our drawing-rooms, the frail being who lies a-bed in the
morning and comes to life again at night with the dawn of
tapers. Pauline was fresh-hearted and affectionate I would
have had her cold and formal.
" In the last days of my frantic folly, memory brought
Pauline before me, as it brings the scene of our childhood,
and made me pause to muse over past delicious moments that
softened my heart. I sometimes saw her, the adorable girl
who sat quietly sewing at my table, wrapped in her medita-
tions ; the faint light from my window fell upon her and was
reflected back in silvery rays from her thick black hair ; some-
times I heard her young laughter, or the rich tones of her
young voice singing some canzonet that she composed without
effort. And often my Pauline seemed to grow greater, as
music flowed from her, and her face bore a striking resem-
blance to the noble one that Carlo Dolci chose for the type of
Italy. My cruel memory brought her back athwart the dissi-
pations of my existence, like a remorse, or a symbol of purity.
But let us leave the poor child to her own fate. Whatever
her troubles may have been, at any rate I protected her from
menacing tempest I did not drag her down into my hell.
"Until last winter lied the uneventful studious life of
which I have given you some faint picture. In the earliest
days of December, 1829, I came across Rastignac, who, in
spite of the shabby condition of my wardrobe, linked his arm
in mine, and inquired into my affairs with a quite brotherly
interest. Caught by his engaging manner, I gave him a
brief account of my life and hopes ; he began to laugh, and
treated me as a mixture, of a man of genius and a fool. His
Gascon accent and knowledge of the world, the easy life his
clever management procured for him, all produced an irresist-
ible effect upon me. I should die an unrecognized failure in
a hospital, Rastignac said, and be buried in a pauper's grave.
He talked of charlatanism. Every man of genius was a
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 101
charlatan, he plainly showed me in that pleasant way of his
that makes him so fascinating. He insisted that I must be
out of my senses, and would be my own death, if I lived on
alone in the Rue des Cordiers. According to him I ought to
go into society, to accustom people to the sound of my name,
and to rid myself of the simple title of 'Monsieur' which
sits but ill on a great man in his lifetime.
" 'Those who know no better,' he cried, 'call this sort
of business scheming, and moral people condemn it for a
"dissipated life." We need not stop to look at what people
think, but see the results. You work, you say ? Very good,
but nothing will ever come of that. Now, I am ready for
anything and fit for nothing. As lazy as a lobster very likely :
but I succeed everywhere. I go out into society, I push
myself forward, the others make way before me ; I brag and
am believed ; I incur debts which somebody else pays ! Dis-
sipation, dear boy, is a methodical policy. The life of a man
who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a
business speculation ; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and
acquaintances are his capital. Suppose a merchant runs a risk
of a million for twenty years, he can neither sleep, eat, nor
amuse himself; he is brooding over his million ; it makes
him run about all over Europe ; he worries himself, goes to
the devil in every way that man has invented. Then comes
a liquidation, such as I have seen myself, which very often
leaves him penniless and without a reputation or a friend.
The spendthrift, on the other hand, takes life as a serious
game, and sees his horses run. He loses his capital, perhaps,
but he stands a chance of being nominated Receiver-General,
of making a wealthy marriage, or of an appointment as
attache' to a minister or an ambassador; and he has his friends
left and his name, and he never wants money. He knows the
standing of everybody, and uses every one for his own ben-
efit. Is this logical, or am I a madman after all? Haven't
you there all the moral of the comedy that goes on every day
102 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
.in this world? Your work is completed/ he went on after a
pause ; ' you are immensely clever ! Well, you have only
arrived at my starting-point. Now, you had better look after
its success yourself; it is the surest way. You will make allies
in every clique, and secure applause beforehand. I mean to
go halves in your glory myself; I shall be the jeweler who
set the diamonds in your crown. Come here to-morrow
evening, by way of a beginning. I will introduce you to a
house where all Paris goes, all our Paris, that is the Paris of
exquisites, millionaires, celebrities, all the folk who talk gold
like Chrysostom. When they have taken up a book, that
book becomes the fashion ; and if it is something really good
for once, they will have declared it to be a work of genius
without knowing it. If you have any sense, my dear fellow,
you will insure the success of your "Theory," by a better
understanding of the theory of success. To-morrow evening
you shall go to see that queen of the moment the beautiful
Countess Foedora.'
" ' I have never heard of her.' . . .
" ' You Hottentot ! ' laughed Rastignac ; t you do not know
Foedora? A great match with an income of nearly eighty
thousand livres, who has taken a fancy to nobody, or else no
one has taken a fancy to her. A sort of feminine enigma, a
half-Russian Parisienne, or a half-Parisian Russian. All the
romantic productions that never get published are brought out
at her house ; she is the handsomest woman in Paris, and the
most gracious ! You are not even a Hottentot ; you are
something between the Hottentot and the beast. Good-bye
till to-morrow.'
" He swung round on his heel and made off without wait-
ing for any answer. It never occurred to him that a reason-
ing being could refuse an introduction to Fcedora. How can
the fascination of a name be explained ? FCEDORA haunted
me like some evil thought, with which you seek to come to
terms. A voice said in me, ' You are going to see Fcedora ! '
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 103
In vain I reasoned with that voice, saying that it lied to me ;
all my arguments were defeated by the name 'Fcedora.'
Was not the name, and even the woman herself, the symbol
of all my desires, and the object of my life?
"The name called up recollections of the conventional
glitter of the world, the upper world of Paris with its brilliant
fetes and the tinsel of its vanities. The woman brought be-
fore me all the problems of passion on which my mind con-
tinually ran. Perhaps it was neither the woman nor the name,
but my own propensities, that sprang up within me and
tempted me afresh. Here was the Countess Fcedora, rich
and loveless, proof against the temptations of Paris ; was not
this woman the very incarnation of my hopes and visions?
I fashioned her for myself, drew her in fancy, and dreamed
of her. I could not sleep that night ; I became her lover ; I
overbrimmed a few hours with a whole lifetime a lover's
lifetime; the experience of its prolific delights burned me.
"The next day I could not bear the tortures of delay; I
borrowed a novel, and spent the whole day over it, so that I
could not possibly think nor keep account of the time till
night. Fcedora's name echoed through me even as I read,
but only as a distant sound : though it could be heard, it was
not troublesome. Fortunately, I owned a fairly creditable
black coat and a white waistcoat ; of all my fortune there now
remained about thirty francs, which I had distributed about
among my clothes and in my drawers, so as to erect between my
whims and the spending of a five-franc piece a thorny barrier
of search, and an adventurous peregrination round my room.
While I was dressing, I dived about for my money in an
ocean of papers. This scarcity of specie will give you some
idea of the value of that squandered upon gloves and cab-hire ;
a month's bread disappeared at one fell swoop. Alas ! money
is always forthcoming for our caprices ; we only grudge the
cost of things that are useful or necessary. We recklessly
fling gold to an opera-dancer, and haggle with a tradesman
104 THE WILD ASS* SKIN.
whose hungry family must wait for the settlement of our bill.
How many men are there that wear a coat that costs a hundred
francs, carry a diamond in the head of their cane, and dine
for twenty-five sous for all that ! It seems as though we could
never pay enough for the pleasures of vanity.
" Rastignac, punctual to his appointment, smiled at the
transformation, and joked about it. On the way he gave me
benevolent advice as to my conduct with the countess ; he
described her as mean, vain, and suspicious ; but though
mean, she was ostentatious, her vanity was transparent, and
her mistrust good-humored.
" ' You know I am pledged,' he said, 'and what I should
lose, too, if I tried a change in love. So my observation of
Fcedora has been quite cool and disinterested, and my re-
marks must have some truth in them. I was looking to your
future when I thought of introducing you to her ; so mind
very carefully what I am about to say. She has a terrible
memory. She is clever enough to drive a diplomatist wild ;
she would know it at once if he spoke the truth. Between
ourselves, I fancy that her marriage was not recognized by
the Emperor, for the Russian ambassador began to smile when
I spoke of her ; he does not receive her either, and only bows
very coolly if he meets her in the Bois. For all that, she
is in Madame de Serizy's set, and visits Mesdames de Nucin-
gen and de Restaud. There is no cloud over her here in
France ; the Duchesse de Carigliano, the most strait-laced
marechale in the whole Bonapartist coterie, often goes to
spend the summer with her at her country house. Plenty of
young fops, sons of peers of France, have offered her a title in
exchange for her fortune, and she has politely declined them
all. Her susceptibilities, may be, are not to be touched by
anything less than a count. Aren't you a marquis? Go
ahead if you fancy her. This is what you may call " receiving
your instructions.' '
" His raillery made me think that Rastignac wished to
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 105
joke and excite my curiosity, so that I was in a paroxysm of
my extemporized passion by the time that we stopped before
a peristyle full of flowers. My heart beat and my color rose
as we went up the great carpeted staircase, and I noticed
about me all the studied refinements of English comfort ; I
was infatuatedly bourgeois; I forgot my origin and all my
personal and family pride. Alas ! I had just left a garret,
after three years of poverty, and I could not just then set the
treasures there acquired above such trifles as these. Nor could
I rightly estimate the worth of the vast intellectual capital
which turns to riches at the moment when opportunity comes
within our reach, opportunity that does not overwhelm,
because study has prepared us for the struggles of public
life.
" I found a woman of about twenty-two years of age ; she
was of average height, was dressed in white, and held a feather
fire-screen in her hand ; a group of men stood around her.
She rose at the sight of Rastignac, and came towards us with
a gracious smile and a musically-uttered compliment, prepared
no doubt beforehand, for me. Our friend had spoken of me
as a rising man, and his clever way of making the most of me
had procured me this flattering reception. I was confused by
the attention which every one paid to me ; but Rastignac had
luckily mentioned my modesty. I was brought in contact
with scholars, men of letters, ex-ministers, and peers of
France. The conversation, interrupted awhile by my coming,
was resumed. I took courage, feeling that I had a reputation
to maintain, and, without abusing my privilege, I spoke when
it fell to me to speak, trying to state the questions at issue in
words more or less profound, witty or trenchant, and I made
a certain sensation. Rastignac was a prophet for the thou-
sandth time in his life. As soon as the gathering was large
enough to restore freedom to individuals, he took my arm,
and we went round the rooms.
" ' Don't look as if you were too much struck by the prin-
106 THE WILD ASS' SKIX.
cess,' he said, 'or she will guess your object in coming to
visit her.'
"The rooms were furnished in excellent taste. Each
apartment had a character of its own, as in wealthy English
houses; and the silken hangings, the style of the furniture,
and the ornaments, even the most trifling, were all subordi-
nated to the original idea. In a gothic boudoir the doors
were concealed by tapestried curtains, and the paneling by
hangings ; the clock and the pattern of the carpet were made
to harmonize with the gothic surroundings. The ceiling,
with its carved cross-beams of brown wood, was full of charm
and originality; the panels were beautifully wrought ; nothing
disturbed the general harmony of the scheme of decoration,
not even the windows with their rich colored glass. I was
surprised by the extensive knowledge of decoration that some
artist had brought to bear on a little modern room, it was so
pleasant and fresh, and not heavy, but subdued with its dead
gold hues. It had all the vague sentiment of a German
ballad; it was a retreat fit for some romance of 1827, per-
fumed by the exotic flowers set in their stands. Another
apartment in the suite was a gilded reproduction of the Louis
Quatorze period, with modern paintings on the walls in odd
but pleasant contrast.
" ' You would not be so badly lodged,' was Rastignac's
slightly sarcastic comment. ' It is captivating, isn't it?' he
added, smiling as he sat down. Then suddenly he rose, and
led me by the hand into a bedroom, where the softened light
fell upon the bed under its canopy of muslin and white
watered silk a couch for a young fairy betrothed to one of
the genii.
" ' Isn't it wantonly bad taste, insolent and unbounded
coquetry,' he said, lowering his voice, 'that allows us to see
this throne of love? She gives herself to no one, and any-
body may leave his card here. If I were not committed, I
should like to see her at my feet all tears and submission.'
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 107
" ' Are you so certain of her virtue? '
" 'The boldest and even the cleverest adventurers among
us acknowledge themselves defeated, and continue to be her
lovers and devoted friends. Isn't that woman a puzzle?'
" His words seemed to intoxicate me; I had jealous fears
already of the past. I leaped for joy, and hurried back to the
Countess, whom I had seen in the gothic boudoir. She
stopped me by a smile, made me sit beside her, and talked
about my work, seeming to take the greatest interest in it,
and all the more when I set forth my theories amusingly, in-
stead of adopting the formal language of a professor for their
explanation. It seemed to divert her to be told that the hu-
man will was a material force like steam ; that in the moral
world nothing could resist its power if a man taught himself
to concentrate it, to economize it, and to project continually
its fluid mass in given directions upon other souls. Such a
man, I said, could modify all things relatively to man, even
the peremptory laws of nature. The questions Foedora raised
showed a certain keenness of intellect. I took a pleasure in
deciding some of them in her favor, in order to flatter her ;
then I confuted her feminine reasoning with a word, and
roused her curiosity by drawing her attention to an every-day
matter to sleep, a thing so apparently commonplace that in
reality it is an insoluble problem for science. The Countess
sat in silence for a moment when I told her that our ideas
were complete organic beings, existing in an invisible world,
and influencing our destinies ; and for witnesses I cited the
opinions of Descartes, Diderot, and Napoleon, who had
directed, and still directed, all the currents of the age.
"So I had the honor of amusing this woman; she asked
me to come to see her when she left me, giving me lesgrandes
entrees, in the language of the court. Whether it was by
dint of substituting polite formulas for genuine expressions of
feeling, a commendable habit of mine, or because Fcedora
hailed in me a coming celebrity, an addition to her learned
108 THE WILD ASS* SKIN.
menagerie; for some reason I thought I had pleased her. I
called all my previous physiological studies and knowledge of
woman to my aid, and minutely scrutinized this singular
person and her ways all the evening. I concealed myself
in the embrasure of a window, and sought to discover her
thoughts from her bearing. I studied the tactics of the
mistress of the house, as she came and went, sat and chatted,
beckoned to this one or that, asked questions, listened to
the answers, as she leaned against the frame of the door ;
I detected a languid charm in her movements, a grace in
the flutterings of her dress, remarked the nature of the feel-
ings she so powerfully excited, and became very incredulous
as to her virtue. If Foedora would none of love to-day, she
had had strong passions at some time ; past experience of
pleasure showed itself in the attitudes she chose in conversa-
tion, in her coquettish way of leaning against the panel be-
hind her, she seemed scarcely able to stand alone, and yet
ready for flight from too bold a glance. There was a kind of
eloquence about her lightly folded arms, which, even for
benevolent eyes, breathed sentiment. Her fresh red lips
sharply contrasted with her brilliantly pale complexion. Her
brown hair brought out all the golden color in her eyes, in
which blue streaks mingled as in Florentine marble ; their ex-
pression seemed to increase the significance of her words.
A studied grace lay in the charms of her bodice. Perhaps a
rival might have found the lines of the thick eyebrows, which
almost met, a little hard ; or found a fault in the almost in-
visible down that covered her features. I saw the signs of
passion everywhere, written on those Italian eyelids, on the
splendid shoulders worthy of the Venus of Milo, on her
features, in the darker shade of down above a somewhat thick
under-lip. She was not merely a woman, but a romance.
The whole blended harmony of lines, the feminine luxuriance
of her frame, and its passionate promise, were subdued by a
constant inexplicable reserve and modesty at variance with
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 109
everything else about her. It needed an observation as keen
as my own to detect such signs as these in her character. To
explain myself more clearly, there were two women in Fcedora,
divided perhaps by the line between head and body ; the one,
the head alone, seemed to be susceptible, and the other
phlegmatic. She prepared her glance before she looked at
you, something unspeakably mysterious, some inward con-
vulsion seemed revealed by her glittering eyes.
" So, to be brief, either my imperfect moral science had
left me a good deal to learn in the moral world, or a lofty soul
dwelt in the Countess, lent to her face those charms that fas-
cinated and subdued us, and gave her an ascendancy only the
more complete because it comprehended a sympathy of desire.
"I went away completely enraptured with this woman,
dazzled by the luxury around her, gratified in every faculty
of my soul noble and base, good and evil. When I felt
myself so excited, eager, and elated, I thought I understood
the attraction that drew thither those artists, diplomatists,
men in office, those stock-jobbers encased in triple brass.
They came, no doubt, to find in her society the delirious emo-
tion that now thrilled through every fibre in me, throbbing
through my brain, setting the blood a-tingle in every vein,
fretting even the tiniest nerve. And she had given herself to
none, so as to keep them all. A woman is a coquette so long
as she knows not love.
" 'Well,' I said to Rastignac, ' they married her, or sold
her, perhaps, to some old man, and recollections of her first
marriage have caused her aversion for love.'
"I walked home from the Faubourg St. Honor6, where
Foedora lived. Almost all the breadth of Paris lies between
her mansion and the Rue des Cordiers, but the distance
seemed short, in spite of the cold. And I was to lay siege
to Fcedora's heart, in winter, and a bitter winter, with only
thirty francs in my possession, and such a distance as that lay
between us ! Only a poor man knows what such a passion
110 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
costs in cab-hire, gloves, linen, tailor's bills, and the like.
If the Platonic stage lasts a little too long, the affair grows
ruinous. As a matter of fact, there is many a Lauzun among
students of law, who find it impossible to approach a lady-
love living on a first floor. And I, sickly, thin, poorly
dressed, wan and pale as any artist convalescent after a work,
how could I compete with other young men, curled, hand-
some, smart, outcravating Croatia; wealthy men, equipped
with tilburys, and armed with assurance ?
" ' Bah, death or Foedora ! ' I cried, as I went round by a
bridge ; ' my fortune lies in Foedora.'
" That gothic boudoir and Louis Quatorze salon came be-
fore my eyes. I saw the Countess again in her white dress
with its large graceful sleeves, and all the fascinations of her
form and movements. These pictures of Foedora and her
luxurious surroundings haunted me even in my bare, cold
garret, when at last I reached it, as disheveled as any natural-
ist's wig. The contrast suggested evil counsel ; in such a
way crimes are conceived. I cursed my honest, self-respect-
ing poverty, my garret where such teeming fancies had stirred
within me. I trembled with fury, I reproached God, the
devil, social conditions, my own father, the whole universe,
indeed, with my fate and my misfortunes. I went hungry to
bed, muttering ludicrous imprecations, but fully determined
to win Fcedora. Her heart was my last ticket in the lottery,
my fortune depended upon it.
" I spare you the history of my earlier visits, to reach the
drama the sooner. In my efforts to appeal to her, I essayed
to engage her intellect and her vanity on my side; in order
to secure her love, I gave her any quantity of reasons for
increasing her self-esteem ; I never left her in a state of indif-
ference ; women like emotions at any cost, I gave them to
her in plenty ; I would rather have had her angry with me
than indifferent.
" At first, urged by a strong will and a desire for her love, I
A WO MAX WITHOUT A HEART. Ill
assumed a little authority, but my own feelings grew stronger
and mastered me ; I relapsed into truth, I lost my head, and
fell desperately in love.
" I am not very sure what we mean by the word love in our
poetry and talk, but I know that I have never found in all the
ready rhetorical phrases of Jean Jacques Rousseau, in whose
room perhaps I was lodging; nor among the feeble inventions
of two centuries of our literature, nor in any picture that
Italy has produced, a representation of the feelings that ex-
panded all at once in my double nature. The view of the
lake of Bienne, some music of Rossini's, the Madonna of
Murillo now in the possession of General Soult, Lescombat's
letters, a few sayings scattered through collections of anec-
dotes; but most of all the prayers of religious ecstatics, and
passages in our fables these things alone have power to
carry me back to the divine heights of my first love.
" Nothing expressed in human language, no thought repro-
ducible in color, marble, sound, or articulate speech, could
ever render the force, the truth, the completeness, the sudden-
ness with which love awoke in me. To speak of art is to
speak of illusion. Love passes through endless transforma-
tions before it passes forever into our existence and makes it
glow with its own color of flame. The process is imperceptible,
and baffles the artist's analysis. Its moans and complaints
are tedious to an uninterested spectator. One would need to
be very much in love to share the furious transports of Love-
lace, as one reads ' Clarissa Harlowe.' Love is like some
fresh spring, that leaves its cresses, its gravel bed and flowers,
to become first a stream and then a river, changing its aspect
and its nature as it flows to plunge itself in some boundless
ocean, where restricted natures only find monotony, and where
great souls are engulfed in endless contemplation.
" How can I dare to describe the hues of fleeting emotions,
the nothings beyond all price, the spoken accents that beggar
language, the looks that hold more than all the wealth of
112 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
poetry? Not one of the mysterious scenes that draw us in-
sensibly nearer and nearer to a woman, but has depths in it
which can swallow up all the poetry that ever was written.
How can the inner life and mystery that stirs in our souls
penetrate through our glozes, when we have not even words to
describe the visible and outward mysteries of beauty ? What
enchantment steeped me for how many hours in unspeakable
rapture, filled with the sight of her ! What made me happy?
I know not. That face of hers overflowed with light at such
times ; it seemed in some way to glow with it ; the outlines
of her face, with the scarcely perceptible down on its delicate
surface, shone with a beauty belonging to the far-distant horizon
that melts into the sunlight. The light of day seemed to
caress her as she mingled in it; rather it seemed that the light of
her eyes was brighter than the daylight itself; or some shadow
passing over that fair face made a kind of change there, alter-
ing its hues and its expression. Some thought would often
seem to glow on her white brows ; her eyes appeared to dilate,
and her eyelids trembled ; a smile rippled over her features :
the living coral of her lips grew full of meaning as they closed
and unclosed ; an indistinguishable something in her hair made
brown shadows on her fair temples : in each new phase Fcedora
spoke. Every slight variation in her beauty made a new
pleasure for my eyes, disclosed charms my heart had never
known before ; I tried to read a separate emotion or a hope
in every change that passed over her face. This mute con-
verse passed between soul and soul, like sound and answering
echo; and the short-lived delights then showered upon me
have left indelible impressions behind. Her voice would
cause a frenzy in me that I could hardly understand. I could
have copied the example of some prince of Lorraine, and
held a live coal in the hollow of my hand, if her fingers
passed caressingly through my hair the while. I felt no longer
mere admiration and desire : I was under the spell ; I had
met my destiny. When back again under my own roof, I
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 113
still vaguely saw Fcedora in her own home, and had some
indefinable share in her life ; if she felt ill, I suffered too.
The next day I used to say to her
" 'You were not well yesterday.'
"How often has she not stood before me, called by the
power of ecstasy, in the silence of the night ! Sometimes
she would break in upon me like a ray of light, make me drop
my pen, and put science and study to flight in grief and alarm,
as she compelled my admiration by the alluring pose I had
seen but a short time before. Sometimes I went to seek her
in the spirit world, and would bow down to her as to a hope,
entreating her to let me hear the silvery sounds of her voice,
and I would wake at length in tears.
" Once, when she had promised to go to the theatre with
me, she took it suddenly into her head to refuse to go out,
and begged me to leave her alone. I was in such despair
over the perversity which cost me a day's work, and (if I
must confess it) my last shilling as well, that I went alone
where she was to have been, desiring to see the play she had
wished to see. I had scarcely seated myself when an electric
shock went through me. A voice told me, ' She is here ! ' I
looked round, and saw the Countess hidden in the shadow at
the back of her box in the first tier. My look did not waver;
my eyes saw her at once with incredible clearness ; my soul
hovered about her life like an insect above its flower. How
had my senses received this warning? There is something in
these inward tremors that shallow people find astonishing, but
t'le phenomena of our inner consciousness are produced as
simply as those of external vision ; so I was not surprised, but
much vexed. My studies of our mental faculties, so little
understood, helped me at any rate to find in my own excite-
ment some living proofs of my theories. There was some-
thing exceedingly odd in this combination of lover and man
of science, of downright idolatry of a woman with the love
of knowledge. The causes of the lover's despair were highly
114 7'ffE WILD ASS* SKIN.
interesting to the man of science ; and the exultant lover, on the
other hand, put science far away from him in his joy. Foedora
saw me, and grew grave : I annoyed her. I went to her box
during the first interval, and, finding her alone, I stayed there.
Although we had not spoken of love, I foresaw an explanation.
I had not told her my secret, still there was a kind of under-
standing between us. She used to tell me her plans for amuse-
ment, and on the previous evening had asked with friendly
eagerness if I meant to call next day. After any witticism of
hers, she would give me an inquiring glance, as if she had
sought to please me alone by it. She would soothe me if I was
vexed : and if she pouted, I had in some sort a right to ask
an explanation. Before she would pardon any blunder, she
would keep me a suppliant for v long. All these things that- we
so relished were so many lovers' quarrels. What arch grace
she threw into it all ! and what happiness it was to me !
"But now we stood before each other as strangers, with
the close relation between us both suspended. The Countess
was glacial : a presentiment of trouble filled me.
" ' Will you come home with me ? ' she said, when the play
was over.
"There had been a sudden change in the weather, and
sleet was falling in showers as we went out. Foedora's carriage
was unable to reach the doorway of the theatre. At the sight
of a well-dressed woman about to cross the street, a commis-
sionaire held an umbrella above us, and stood waiting at the
carriage-door for his tip. I would have given ten years of
life just then for a couple of halfpence, but I had not a penny.
All the man in me and all my vainest susceptibilities were
wrung with an infernal pain. The words, ' I haven't a penny
about me, my good fellow ! ' came from me in the hard voice
of thwarted passion ; and yet I was that man's brother in
misfortunes, as I knew too well ; and once I had so lightly
paid away seven hundred thousand francs ! The footman
pushed the man aside, and the horses sprang forward ! As
A WOMAN WITHOU'I A HEART. 115
we returned, Foedora, in real or feigned abstraction, answered
all my questions curtly and by monosyllables, I said no
more ; it was a hateful moment. When we reached her house,
we seated ourselves by the hearth, and when the servant had
stirred the fire and left us alone, the Countess turned to me
with an inexplicable expression, and spoke. Her manner was
almost solemn.
" ' Since my return to France, more than one young man,
tempted by my money, has made proposals to me which
would have satisfied my pride. I have come across men,
too, whose attachment was so deep and sincere that they
might have married me even if they had found me the
penniless girl I used to be. Besides these, Monsieur de Val-
entin, you must know that new titles and newly-acquired
wealth have been also offered to me, and that I have never
received again any of those who were so ill-advised as to
mention love to me. If my regard for you was but slight,
I would not give you this warning, which is dictated by
friendship rather than by pride. A woman lays herself open to
a rebuff of some kind, if she imagines herself to be loved,
and declines, before it is uttered, to listen to language which
in its nature implies a compliment. I am well acquainted
with the parts played by Arsinoe and Araminta, and with
the sort of answer I might look for under such circum-
stances ; but I hope to-day that I shall not find myself mis-
construed by a man of no ordinary character, because I have
frankly spoken my mind.'
" She spoke with the cool self-possession of some attorney
or solicitor explaining the nature of a contract or the con-
duct of a lawsuit to a client. There was not the least sign of
feeling in the clear soft tones of her voice. Her steady face
and dignified bearing seemed to me now full of diplomatic
reserve and coldness. She had planned this scene, no doubt,
and carefully chosen her words beforehand. Oh, my friend,
there are women who take pleasure in piercing hearts, and
116 THE H'/f.D ASS' SKIX.
deliberately plunge the dagger back again into the wound ;
such women as these cannot but be worshipped, for such women
either love or would fain be loved. A day comes when
they make amends for all the pain they gave us; they
repay us for the pangs, the keenness of which they recog-
nize, in joys a hundredfold, even as God, they tell us, recom-
penses our good works. Does not their perversity spring
from the strength of their feelings ? But to be so tortured
by a woman, who slaughters you with indifference ! was not
the suffering intolerable ?
" Fcedora did not know it, but in that minute she trampled
all my hopes beneath her feet ; she maimed my life and she
blighted my future with the cool indifference and unconscious
barbarity of an inquisitive child who plucks its wings from a
butterfly.
"'Later on,' resumed Fcedora, 'you will learn, I hope,
the stability of the affection that I keep for my friends. You
will always find that I have devotion and kindness for them.
I would give my life to serve my friends ; but you could only
despise me, if I allowed them to make love to me without
return. That is enough. You are the only man to whom I
have spoken such words as these last. '
" At first I could not speak, or master the tempest that
arose within me; but I soon repressed my emotions in the
depths of my soul, and began to smile.
" ' If I own that I love you,' I said, 'you will banish me at
once ; if I plead guilty to indifference you will make me
suffer for it. Women, magistrates, and priests never quite lay
the gown aside. Silence is non-committal ; be pleased then,
madame, to approve my silence. You must have feared, in
some degree, to lose me, or I should not have received this
friendly admonition ; and with that thought my pride ought
to be satisfied. Let us banish all personal considerations.
You are perhaps the only woman with whom I could discuss
rationally a resolution so contrary to the laws of nature. Con-
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 117
sidered with regard to your species, you are a prodigy. Now
let us investigate, in good faith, the causes of this psycholog-
ical anomaly. Does there exist in you, as in many women, a
certain pride in self, a love of your own loveliness, a refine-
ment of egotism which makes you shudder at the idea of
belonging to another; is it the thought of resigning your
own will and submitting to a superiority, though only of con-
vention, which displeases you? You would seem to me a
thousand times the fairer for it. Can love formerly have
brought you suffering ? You probably set some value on your
dainty figure and graceful appearance, and may perhaps wish
to avoid the disfigurements of maternity. Is not this one of
your strongest reasons for refusing a too importunate love ?
Some natural defect perhaps makes you insusceptible in spite
of yourself? Do not be angry ; my study, my inquiry is
absolutely dispassionate. Some are born blind, and nature
may easily have formed women who in like manner are
blind, deaf, and dumb to love. You are really an interesting
subject for medical investigation. You do not know your
value. You feel perhaps a very legitimate distaste for man-
kind ; in that I quite concur to me they all seem ugly and
detestable. And you are right,' I added, feeling my heart
swell within me; ' how can you do otherwise than despise us?
There is not a man living who is worthy of you.'
"I will not repeat all the biting words with which I ridi-
culed her. In vain ; my bitterest sarcasms and keenest irony
never made her wince nor elicited a sign of vexation. She
heard me, with the customary smile upon her lips and in her
eyes, the smile that she wore as a part of her clothing, and
that never varied for friends, for mere acquaintances, or for
strangers.
"'Isn't it very nice of me to allow you to dissect me
like this ? ' she said at last, as I came to a temporary stand-
still, and looked at her in silence. 'You see,' she went on,
laughing, ' that I have no foolish over-sensitiveness about
118 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
my friendship. Many a woman would shut her door on
you by way of punishing you for your impertinence.'
" 'You could banish me without needing to give me the
reasons for your harshness.' As I spoke I felt that I could
kill her if she dismissed me.
"'You are mad,' she said, smiling still.
" 'Did you never think,' I went on, 'of the effects of
passionate love ? A desperate man has often murdered his
mistress.
" ' It is better to die than to live in misery,' she said
coolly. ' Such a man as that would run through his wife's
money, desert her, and leave her at last in utter wretch-
edness.'
"This calm calculation dumbfounded me. The gulf
between us was made plain ; we could never understand each
other.
" ' Good-bye,' I said proudly.
"'Good-bye, till to-morrow,' she answered, with a little
friendly bow.
"For a moment's space I hurled at her in a glance all the
love I must forego ; she stood there with that banal smile of
hers, the detestable chill smile of a marble statue, with none
of the warmth in it that it seemed to express. Can you form
any idea, my friend, of the pain that overcame me on the
way home through rain and snow, across a league of icy-
sheeted quays, without a hope left? Oh, to think that she
not only had not guessed my poverty, but believed me to be
as wealthy as she was, and likewise borne as softly over the
rough ways of life ! What failure and deceit ! It was no
mere question of money now, but of the fate of all that lay
within me.
" I went at haphazard, going over the words of our strange
conversation with myself. I got so thoroughly lost in my
reflections that I ended by doubts as to the actual value of
words and ideas. But I loved her all the same ; I loved this
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 119
woman with the untouched heart that might surrender at any
moment a woman who daily disappointed the expectations
of the previous evening, by appearing as a new mistress on
the morrow.
" As I passed under the gateway of the Institute, a fevered
thrill ran through me. I remembered that I was fasting, and
that I had not a penny. To complete the measure of my
misfortune, my hat was spoiled by the rain. How was I to
appear in the drawing-room of a woman of fashion with an
unpresentable hat ! I had always cursed the inane and stupid
custom that compels us to exhibit the lining of our hats, and
to keep them always in our hands, but with anxious care I had
so far kept mine in a precarious state of efficiency. It had
been neither strikingly new, nor utterly shabby, neither nap-
less nor over-glossy, and might have passed for the hat of a
frugally given owner; but its artificially prolonged existence
had now reached the final stage, it was crumpled, forlorn, and
completely ruined, a downright rag, a fitting emblem of its
master. My painfully preserved elegance must collapse for
want of thirty sous.
" What unrecognized sacrifices I had made in the past three
months for Fcedora ! How often I had given the price of a
week's sustenance to see her for a moment ! To leave my
work and go without food was the least of it ! I must traverse
the streets of Paris without getting splashed, run to escape
showers, and reach her rooms at last, as neat and spruce as
any of the coxcombs about her. For a poet and a distracted
wooer the difficulties of this task were endless. My happiness,
the course of my love, might be affected by a speck of mud
upon my only white waistcoat ! Oh, to miss the sight of her
because I was wet through and bedraggled, and had not so
much as five sous to give to a shoeblack for removing the least
little spot of mud from my boot ! The petty pangs of the^e
nameless torments, which an irritable man finds so great, only
strengthened my passion.
120 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"The unfortunate must make sacrifices which they may not
mention to women who lead refined and luxurious lives. Such
women see things through a prism that gilds all men and their
surroundings. Egoism leads them to take cheerful views, and
fashion makes them cruel ; they do not wish to reflect, lest
they lose their happiness, and the absorbing nature of their
pleasures absolves their indifference to the misfortunes of
others. A penny never means millions to them ; millions, on
the contrary, seem a mere trifle. Perhaps love must plead
his cause by great sacrifices, but a veil must be lightly drawn
across them, they must go down into silence. So when wealthy
men pour out their devotion, their fortunes, and their lives,
they gain somewhat by these commonly entertained opinions,
an additional lustre hangs about their lovers' follies ; their
silence is eloquent ; there is a grace about the drawn veil ;
but my terrible distress bound me over to suffer fearfully ere
I might speak of my love or of dying for her sake.
" Was it a sacrifice after all? Was I not richly rewarded
by the joy I took in sacrificing everything to her? There was
no ordinary event of my daily life to which the Countess had
not given importance, had not overfilled with happiness. I had
been hitherto careless of my clothes, now I respected my coat
as if it had been a second self. I should not have hesitated
between bodily harm and a tear in that garment. You must
enter wholly into my circumstances to understand the stormy
thoughts, the gathering frenzy, that shook me as I went, and
which, perhaps, were increased by my walk. I gloated in an
infernal fashion which I cannot describe over the absolute
completeness of my wretchedness. I would have drawn from
it an augury of my future, but there is no limit to the possi-
bilities of misfortune. The door of my lodging-house stood
ajar. A light streamed from the heart-shaped opening cut in
the shutters. Pauline and her mother were sitting up for me
and talking. I heard my name spoken and listened.
"'Raphael is much nicer-looking than the student in num-
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 121
ber seven,' said Pauline; ' his fair hair is such a pretty color.
Don't you think there is something in his voice, too, I don't
know what it is, that gives you a sort of thrill? And, then,
though he may be a little proud, he is very kind, and he has
such fine manners ; I am sure that all the ladies must be quite
wild about him.'
" 'You might be fond of him yourself, to hear you talk,'
was Madame Gaudin's comment.
" ' He is just as dear to me as a brother,' she laughingly
replied. ' 1 should be finely ungrateful if I felt no friendship
for him. Didn't he teach me music and drawing and gram-
mar, and everything I know in fact? You don't much notice
how I get on, dear mother; but I shall know enough, after a
while, to give lessons myself, and then we can keep a servant.'
" I stole away softly, made some noise outside, and went
into their room to take the lamp, that Pauline tried to light
for me. The dear child had just poured soothing balm into
my wounds. Her outspoken admiration had given me fresh
courage. I so needed to believe in myself and to come by
a just estimate of my advantages. This revival of hope in
me perhaps colored my surroundings. Perhaps, also, I had
never before really looked at the picture that so often met my
eyes, of the two women in their room ; it was a scene such as
Flemish painters have reproduced so faithfully for us, that I
admired it in its delightful reality. The mother, with the
kind smile upon her lips, sat knitting stockings by the dying
fire ; Pauline was painting hand-screens, her brushes and
paints, strewn over the tiny table, made bright spots of color
for the eye to dwell on. When she had left her seat and stood
lighting my lamp, one must have been under the yoke of a
terrible passion, indeed, not to admire her faintly flushed trans-
parent hands, the girlish charm of her attitude, the ideal grace
of her head, as the lamplight fell full on her pale face. Night
and silence added to the charms of this industrious vigil and
peaceful interior. The light-heartedness that sustained such
122 THE WILD ASS' SKIA T .
continuous toil could only spring from devout submission and
the lofty feelings that it brings.
" There was an indescribable harmony between them and
their possessions. The splendor of Foedora's home did not
satisfy; it called out all my worst instincts; something in this
lowly poverty and unfeigned goodness revived me. It may
have been that luxury abased me in my own eyes, while here
my self-respect was restored to me, as I sought to extend the
protection that a man is so eager to make felt, over these two
women, who in the bare simplicity of the existence in their
brown room seemed to live wholly in the feelings of their
hearts. As I came up to Pauline, she looked at me in an
almost motherly way ; her hands shook a little as she held the
lamp, so that the light fell on me, and cried
'"Dieu! how pale you are! and you are wet through!
My mother will try to wipe you dry. Monsieur Raphael,' she
went on, after a little pause, ' you are so very fond of milk,
and to-night we happen to have some cream. Here, will you
not take some ? '
" She pounced like a kitten, on a china bowl full of milk.
She did it so quickly, and put it before me so prettily, that I
hesitated.
" 'You are going to refuse me?' she said, and her tones
changed.
"The pride in each felt for the other's pride. It was
Pauline's poverty that seemed to humiliate her, and to re-
proach me with want of consideration, and I melted at once,
and accepted the cream that might have been meant for her
morning's breakfast. The poor child tried not to show her
joy, but her eyes sparkled.
" ' I needed it badly,' I said as I sat down. (An anxious
look passed over her face.) 'Do you remember that pass-
age, Pauline, where Bossuet tells how God gives more abun-
dant reward for a cup of cold water than for a vic-
tory?'
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 12;}
" ' Yes,' she said, her heart beating like some wild bird's in
a child's hands.
" ' Well, as we shall part very soon, now,' I went on in an
unsteady voice, ' you must let me show my gratitude to you
and to your mother for all the care you have taken of me.'
" ' Oh, don't let us cast accounts,' she said, laughing.
But her laughter covered an agitation that gave me pain. I
went on without appearing to hear her words
" ' My piano is one of Erard's best instruments; and you
must take it. Pray accept it without hesitation ; I really
could not take it with me on the journey I am about to make.'
" Perhaps the melancholy tones in which I spoke enlight-
ened the two women, for they seemed to understand, and
eyed me with curiosity and alarm. Here was the affection
that I had looked for in the glacial regions of the great world,
true affection, unostentatious but tender, and possibly lasting.
" ' Don't take it to heart so,' the mother said ; ' stay on
here. My husband is on his way towards us even now,' she
went on. ' I looked into the Gospel of St. John this evening
while Pauline hung our door-key in a Bible from her fingers.
The key turned ; that means that Gaudin is in health and
doing well. Pauline began again for you and for the young
man in number seven it turned for you, but not for him.
We are all going to be rich. Gaudin will come back a mil-
lionaire. I dreamed once that I saw him in a ship full of
serpents ; luckily the water was rough, and that means gold
or precious stones from over-sea.'
" The silly, friendly words were like the crooning lullaby
with which a mother soothes her sick child ; they in a manner
calmed me. There was a pleasant heaftiness in the worthy
woman's looks and tones, which, if it could not remove
trouble, at any rate soothed and quieted it, and deadened the
pain. Pauline, keener-sighted than her mother, studied me
uneasily; her quick eyes seemed to read my life and my
future. I thanked the mother and daughter by an inclination
124 THE WILD ASS' SJCJN.
of the head, and turned away ; I was afraid I should break
down.
"I found myself alone under my roof, and laid myself
down in my misery. My unhappy imagination suggested
numberless baseless projects, and prescribed impossible resolu-
tions. When a man is struggling in the wreck of his fortunes,
he is not quite without resources, but I was engulfed. Ah,
my dear fellow, we are too ready to blame the wretched. Let
us be less harsh on the results of the most powerful of all
social solvents. Where poverty is absolute there exist no such
things as shame or crime, or virtue or intelligence. I knew
not what to do ; I was as defenceless as a maiden on her knees
before a beast of prey. A penniless man who has no ties to
bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless
wretch who is in love no longer belongs to himself, and may
not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our
own eyes ; it is the life of another that we revere within us
then ; and so begins for us the cruellest trouble of all the
misery with a hope in it, a hope for which we must even bear
our torments. I thought I would go to Rastignac on the
morrow to confide Foedora's strange resolution to him, and
with that I slept.
" ' Ah, ha ! ' cried Rastignac, as he saw me enter his lodg-
ing at nine o'clock in the morning. ' I know what brings
you here. Foedora has dismissed you. Some kind souls, who
were jealous of your ascendency over the Countess, gave out
that you were going to be married. Heaven only knows
what follies your rivals have equipped you with, and what
slanders have been directed at you.'
" ' That explains everything ! ' I exclaimed. I remembered
all my presumptuous speeches, and gave the Countess credit
for no little magnanimity. It pleased me to think that I was
a miscreant who had not been punished nearly enough, and I
saw nothing in her indulgence but the long-suffering charity
of love.
A WO MAX WITHOUT A HEART. 125
" ' Not quite so fast,' urged the prudent Gascon ; ' Fcedora
has all the sagacity natural to a profoundly selfish woman ;
perhaps she may have taken your measure while you still
coveted only her money and her splendor ; in spite of all
your care, she could have read you through and through. She
can dissemble far too well to let any dissimulation pass unde-
tected. I fear,' he went on, ' that I have brought you into a
bad way. In spite of her cleverness and her tact, she seems
to me a domineering sort of person, like every woman who
can only feel pleasure through her brain. Happiness for her
lies entirely in a comfortable life and in social pleasures ; her
sentiment is only assumed ; she will make you miserable ;
you will be her head footman.'
" He spoke to the deaf. I broke in upon him, disclosing,
with an affectation of light-heartedness, the state of my
finances.
" 'Yesterday evening,' he rejoined, Muck ran against me,
and that carried off all my available cash. But for that
trivial mishap, I would gladly have shared my purse with you.
But let us go and breakfast at the restaurant ; perhaps there
is good counsel in oysters.'
" He dressed, and had his tilbury brought round. We
went to the Cafe de Paris like a couple of millionaires, armed
with all the audacious impertinence of the speculator whose
capital is imaginary. That devil of a Gascon quite discon-
certed me by the coolness of his manners and his absolute
self-possession. While we were taking coffee after an excel-
lent and well-ordered repast, a young dandy entered, who
did not escape Rastignac. He had been nodding here and
there among the crowd to this or that young man, distin-
guished both by personal attractions and elegant attire, and
now he said to me
" ' Here's your man,' as he beckoned to this gentleman
with a wonderful cravat, who seemed to be looking for a table
that suited his ideas. .
9
126 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
" 'That rogue has been decorated for bringing out books
that he doesn't understand a word of,' whispered Rastignac ;
'he is a chemist, a historian, a novelist, and a political writer ;
he has gone halves, thirds, or quarters in the authorship of I
don't know how many plays, and he is as ignorant as Dom
Miguel's mule. He is not a man so much as a name, a label
that the public is familiar with. So he would do well to avoid
shops inscribed with the motto, " IciT onpeutteriresoi-m&me"*
He is acute enough to deceive an entire congress of diplo-
matists. In a couple of words, he is a moral half-caste, not
quite a fraud, nor entirely genuine. But, hush ! he has suc-
ceeded already ; nobody asks anything further, and every one
calls him an illustrious man.'
"'Well, my esteemed and excellent friend, and how may
your intelligence be ? ' So Rastignac addressed the stranger
as he sat down at a neighboring table.
" ' Neither well nor ill ; I am overwhelmed with work. I
have all the necessary materials for some very curious historical
memoirs in my hands, and I cannot find any one to whom I
can ascribe them. It worries me, for I shall have to be quick
about it. Memoirs are falling out of fashion.'
" ' What are the memoirs contemporaneous, ancient, or
memoirs of the court, or what ? '
" ' They relate to the Necklace affair.'
" ' Now, isn't that a coincidence? ' said Rastignac, turning
to me and laughing. He looked again to the literary specu-
lator, and said, indicating me
" ' This is M. de Valentin, one of my friends, whom I must
introduce to you as one of our future literary celebrities. He
had formerly an aunt, a marquise, much in favor once at court,
and for about two years he has been writing a Royalist history
of the Revolution.'
"Then, bending over this singular man of business, he
went on
* " Here one may compose himself."
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 127
" ' He is a man of talent, and a simpleton that will do your
memoirs for you, in his aunt's name, for a hundred crowns a
volume. 1
" ' It's a bargain,' said the other, adjusting his cravat.
' Waiter, my oysters. '
" ' Yes, but you must give me twenty-five louis as commis-
sion, and you will pay him in advance for each volume,' said
Rastignac.
" ' No, no. He shall only have fifty crowns on account,
and then I shall be sure of having my manuscript punctually.'
" Rastignac repeated this business conversation to me in
low tones; and then, without giving me any voice in the
matter, he replied
"'We agree to your proposal. When can we call upon
you to arrange the affair? '
"'Oh, well! Come and dine here to-morrow at seven
o'clock.'
"We rose. Rastignac flung some money to the waiter, put
the bill in his pocket, and we went out. I was quite stupefied
by the flippancy and ease with which he had sold my vener-
able aunt, la Marquise de Montbauron.
" * I would sooner take ship for the Brazils, and give the
Indians lessons in algebra, though I don't know a word of it,
than tarnish my family name.'
" Rastignac burst out laughing.
" ' How dense you are! Take the fifty crowns in the first
instance, and write the memoirs. When you have finished
them, you will decline to publish them in your aunt's name,
imbecile ! Madame de Montbauron, with her hooped petti-
coat, her rank and beauty, rouge and slippers, and her death
upon the scaffold, is worth a great deal more than six hundred
francs. And then, if the trade will not give your aunt her
due, some old adventurer, or some shady countess or other,
will be found to put her name to the memoirs.'
" ' Oh,' I groaned ; ' why did I quit the blameless life in
128 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
my garret ? This world has aspects that are very vilely dis-
honorable.'
" ' Yes,' said Rastignac, " that is all very poetical, but this
is a matter of business. What a child you are ! Now, listen
to me. As to your work, the public will decide upon it ; and
as for my literary middle-man, hasn't he devoted eight v years
of his life to obtaining a footing in the book-trade, and paid
heavily for his experience ? You divide the money and the
labor of the book with him very unequally, but isn't yours the
better part ? Twenty-five louis means as much to you as a
thousand francs does to him. Come, you can write historical
memoirs, a work of art such as never was, since Diderot once
wrote six sermons for a hundred crowns ? '
" 'After all,' I said, in agitation, 'I cannot choose but do
it. So, my dear friend, my thanks are due to you. I shall
be quite rich with twenty-five louis.'
" ' Richer than you think,' he laughed. ' If I have my com-
mission from Finot in this matter, it goes to you, can't you
see? Now let us go to the Bois de Boulogne,' he said; 'we
shall see your Countess there, and I will show you the pretty
little widow that I am to marry a charming woman, an
Alsacienne, rather plump. She reads Kant, Schiller, Jean
Paul, and a host of lachrymose books. She has a mania for
continually asking my opinion, and I have to look as if I
entered into all this German sensibility, and to know a pack
of ballads drugs, all of them, that my doctor absolutely
prohibits. As yet I have not been able to wean her from her
literary enthusiasms ; she sheds torrents of tears as she reads
Goethe, and I have to weep a little myself to please her, for
she has an income of fifty thousand livres, my dear boy, and
the prettiest little hand and foot in the world. Oh, if she
would only say my angel and grumbler instead of my flute
and my fumbler, she would be perfection ! '
"We saw the Countess, radiant amid the splendors of her
equipage. The coquette bowed very graciously to us both,
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 129
and the smile she gave me seemed to me to be divine and full
of love. I was very happy ; I fancied myself beloved ; I had
money, a wealth of love in my heart, and my troubles were
over. I was light-hearted, blithe, and content. I found my
friend's lady-love charming. Earth and air and heaven all
nature seemed to reflect Fcedora's smile for me.
"As we returned through the Champs-Elysees, we paid a
visit to Rastignac's hatter and tailor. Thanks to the ' Neck-
lace,' my insignificant peace-footing was to end, and I made
formidable preparations for a campaign. Henceforward I
need not shrink from a contest with the spruce and fashionable
young men who made Fcedora's circle. I went home, locked
myself in, and stood by my dormer window, outwardly calm
enough, but in reality I bade a last good-bye to the roofs
without. I began to live in the future, rehearsed my life
drama, and discounted love and its happiness. Ah, how
stormy life can grow to be within the four walls of a garret !
The soul within us is like a fairy ; she turns straw into dia-
monds for us ; and for us, at a touch of her wand, enchanted
palaces arise, as flowers in the meadows spring up towards the
sun.
" Towards noon, next day, Pauline knocked gently at my
door, and brought me who could guess it ? a note from
Fcedora. The Countess asked me to take her to the Luxem-
bourg, and to go thence to see with her the Museum and
Jardin des Plantes.
" ' The man is waiting for an answer,' said Pauline, after
quietly waiting for a moment.
" I hastily scrawled my acknowledgments, and Pauline
took the note. I changed my dress. When my toilette was
ended, and I looked at myself with some complaisance, an
icy shiver ran through me as I thought
" 'Will Fcedora walk or drive? Will it rain or shine?
No matter, though,' I said to myself; ' whichever it is, can
one ever reckon with feminine caprice ! She will have no
130 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
money about her, and will want to give a dozen francs to some
little Savoyard because his rags are picturesque.'
"I had not a brass farthing, and should have no money till
the evening came. How dearly a poet pays for the intellec-
tual prowess that method and toil have brought him, at such
crises of our youth ! Innumerable painfully vivid thoughts
pierced me like barbs. I looked out of my window ; the
weather was very unsettled. If things fell out badly, I might
easily have a cab for the day ; but would not the fear lie on
me every moment that I might not meet Finot in the evening?
I felt too weak to endure such fears in the midst of my felicity.
Though I felt sure that I should find nothing, I began a grand
search through my room ; I looked for imaginary coins in the
recesses of my mattress; I hunted about everywhere I even
shook out my old boots. A nervous fever seized me ; I
looked with wild eyes at the furniture when I had ransacked
it all. Will you understand, I wonder, the excitement that
possessed me when, plunged deep in the listlessness of de-
spair, I opened my writing-table drawer, and found a fair and
splendid ten-franc piece that shone like a rising star, new and
sparkling, and slily hiding in a cranny between two boards?
I did not try to account for its previous reserve and the cruelty
of which it had been guilty in thus lying hidden ; I kissed it
for a friend faithful in adversity, and hailed it with a cry that
found an echo, and made me turn sharply, to find Pauline
with a face grown white.
" ' I thought,' she faltered, ' that you had hurt yourself !
The man who brought the letter ' (she broke off as if
something smothered her voice). ' But mother has paid him,'
she added, and flitted away like a wayward, capricious child.
Poor little one ! I wanted her to share my happiness. I
seemed to have all the happiness in the world within me just
then ; and I would fain have returned to the unhappy, all that
I felt as if I had stolen from them.
" The intuitive perception of adversity is sound for the
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 131
most part ; the Countess had sent away her carriage. One
of those freaks that pretty women can scarcely explain to
themselves had determined her to go on foot, by way of the
boulevards, to the Jardin des Plantes.
" ' It will rain,' I told her, and it pleased her to contra-
dict me.
"As it fell out, the weather was fine while we went through
the Luxembourg ; when we came out, some drops fell from a
great cloud, whose progress I had watched uneasily, and we
took a cab. At the Museum I was about to dismiss the vehi-
cle, and Foedora (what agonies !) asked me not to do so. But
it was like a dream in broad daylight for me, to chat with
her, to wander in the Jardin des Plantes, to stray down the
shady alleys, to feel her hand upon my arm ; the secret trans-
ports repressed in me were reduced, no doubt, to a fixed and
foolish smile upon my lips ; there was something unreal about
it all. Yet in all her movements, however alluring, whether we
stood or whether we walked, there was nothing either tender
or lover-like. When I tried to share in a measure the action
of movement prompted by her life, I became aware of a
check, or of something strange in her that I cannot explain,
of an inner activity concealed in her nature. There is no
suavity about the movements of women who have no soul
in them. Our wills were opposed, and we did not keep step
together. Words are wanting to describe this outward dis-
sonance between two beings ; we are not accustomed to read
a thought in a movement. We instinctively feel this phe-
nomenon of our nature, but it cannot be expressed.
"I did not dissect my sensations during those violent
seizures of passion," Raphael went on, after a moment of
silence, as if he were replying to an objection raised by him-
self. " I did not analyze my pleasures nor count my heart-
beats then, as a miser scrutinizes and weighs his gold-pieces.
No ; experience sheds its melancholy light over the events of
the past to-day, and memory brings these pictures back, as
132 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
the sea- waves in fair weather cast up fragment after fragment
of the debris of a wrecked vessel upon the strand.
" ' It is in your power to render me a rather important
service,' said the Countess, looking at me in an embarrassed
way. ' After confiding to you my aversion for lovers, I feel
myself more at liberty to entreat your good offices in the
name of friendship. Will there not be very much more merit
in obliging me to-day ? ' she asked, laughing.
" I looked at her in anguish. Her manner was coaxing,
but in no wise affectionate ; she felt nothing for me ; she
seemed to be playing a part, and I thought her a consummate
actress. Then all at once my hopes awoke once more, at a
single look and word. Yet if reviving love expressed itself
in my eyes, she bore its light without any change in the clear-
ness of her own ; they seemed, like a tiger's eyes, to have a
sheet of metal behind them. I used to hate her in such
moments.
"'The influence of the Due de Navarreins would be
very useful to me, with an all-powerful person in Russia,'
she went on, persuasion in every modulation of her voice,
' whose intervention I need in order to have justice done me
in a matter that concerns both my fortune and my posi-
tion in the world, that is to say, the recognition of my
marriage by the Emperor. Is not the Due de Navarreins a
cousin of yours ? A letter from him would settle everything.
" ' I am yours,' I answered ; 'command me.'
" ' You are very nice,' she said, pressing my hand. ' Come
and have dinner with me, and I will tell you everything, as if
you were my confessor.'
"So this discreet, suspicious woman, who had never been
heard to speak a word about her affairs to any one, was going
to consult me.
" ' Oh, how dear to me is this silence that you have imposed
on me ! ' I cried, ' but I would rather have had some sharper
ordeal still.' And she smiled upon the intoxication in my
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 133
eyes ; she did not reject my admiration in any way ; surely
she loved me !
" Fortunately, my purse held just enough to satisfy the
cabman. The day spent in her house, alone with her, was
delicious; it was the first time that I had seen her in this way.
Hitherto we had always been kept apart by the presence
of others, and by her formal politeness and reserved manners,
even during her magnificent dinners; but now it was as if
I lived beneath her own roof I had her all to myself, so to
speak. My wandering fancy broke down barriers, arranged
the events of life to my liking, and steeped me in happiness
and love. I seemed to myself her husband, I liked to watch
her busied with little details ; it was a pleasure to me even
to see her take off her bonnet and shawl. She left me alone
for a while, and came back, charming, with her hair newly
arranged ; and this dainty change of toilette had been made
for me !
" During the dinner she lavished attention upon me, and
put charm without end into those numberless trifles to all
seeming, that make up half of our existence nevertheless.
As we sat together before a crackling fire, on silken cushions,
surrounded by the most desirable creations of Oriental
luxury ; as I saw this woman whose famous beauty made
every heart beat, so close to me ; an unapproachable woman
who was talking and bringing all her powers of coquetry to
bear upon me ; then my blissful pleasure rose almost to the
point of suffering. To my vexation, I recollected the impor-
tant business to be concluded ; I determined to go to keep the
appointment made for me for this evening.
"'So soon ? ' she said, seeing me take my hat.
" She loved me, then ! or I thought so at least, from the
bland tones in which those two words were uttered. I would
then have bartered a couple of years of life for every hour she
chose to grant me, and so prolong my ecstasy. My happi-
ness was increased by the extent of the money I sacrificed. It
134 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
was midnight before she dismissed me. But on the morrow,
for all that, my heroism cost me a good many remorseful
pangs ; I was afraid the affair of the memoirs, now of such
importance for me, might have fallen through, and rushed off
to Rastignac. We found the nominal author of my future
labors just getting up.
"Finot read over a brief agreement to me, in which noth-
ing whatever was said about my aunt, and when it had
been signed he paid me down fifty crowns, and the three
of us breakfasted together. I had only thirty francs left
over, when I had paid for my new hat, for sixty tickets at
thirty sous each, and settled my debts ; but for some days
to come the difficulties of living were removed. If I had
but listened to Rastignac, I might have had abundance by
frankly adopting the ' English system.' He really wanted to
establish my credit by setting me to raise loans, on the theory
that borrowing is the basis of credit. To hear him talk, the
future was the largest and most secure kind of capital in the
world. My future luck was hypothecated for the benefit of
my creditors, and he gave my custom to his tailor, an artist,
and a young man's tailor, who was to leave me in peace until
I married.
"The monastic life of study that I had led for three years
past ended on this day. I frequented Foedora's house very
diligently, and tried to outshine the heroes or the swaggerers to
be found in her circle. When I believed that I had left
poverty forever behind me, I regained my freedom of mind,
humiliated my rivals, and was looked upon as a very attrac-
tive, dazzling, and irresistible sort of man. But acute folks
used to say with regard to me, 'A fellow as clever as that will
keep all his enthusiasms in his brain,' and charitably extolled
my faculties at the expense of my feelings. ' Isn't he lucky not
to be in love !' they exclaimed. 'If he were could he be so
light-hearted and animated !' Yet in Fcedora's presence I
was as dull as love could make me. When I was alone with
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 135
her I had not a word to say, or if I did speak I renounced
love; and I affected gaiety but ill, like a courtier who has a
a bitter mortification to hide. I tried in every way to make
myself indispensable in her life, and necessary to her vanity
and to her comfort ; I was a plaything at her pleasure, a slave
always at her side. And when I had frittered away the day
in this way, I went back to my work at night, securing merely
two or three hours' sleep in the early morning.
"But I had not, like Rastignac, the 'English system' at
my finger-ends, and I very soon saw myself without a penny.
I fell at once into that precarious way of life which industri-
ously hides cold and miserable depths beneath an elusive sur-
face of luxury; I was a coxcomb without conquests, a penni-
less fop, a nameless gallant. The old sufferings were renewed,
but less sharply ; no doubt I was growing used to the painful
crises. Very often my sole diet consisted of the scanty pro-
vision of cakes and tea that is offered in drawing-rooms, or
one of the Countess' great dinners must sustain me for two
whole days. I used all my time, and exerted every effort and
all my powers of observation, to penetrate the imperturbable
character of Fcedora. Alternate hope and despair had swayed
my opinions; for me she was sometimes the tenderest, some-
times the most unfeeling of women. But these transitions
from joy to sadness became unendurable ; I sought to end the
horrible conflict within me by extinguishing love. By the
light of warning gleams my soul sometimes recognized the
gulfs that lay between us. The Countess confinmed all my fears ;
I had never yet detected any tear in her eyes ; an affecting
scene in a play left her smiling and unmoved. All her instincts
were selfish ; she could not divine another's joy or sorrow.
She had made a fool of me, in fact.
" I had rejoiced over a sacrifice to make for her, and almost
humiliated myself in seeking out my kinsman, the Due de
Navarreins, a selfish man who was ashamed of my poverty,
and had injured me too deeply not to hate me. He received
136 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
me with the polite coldness that makes every word and gesture
seem an insult ; he looked so ill at ease that I pitied him. I
blushed for this pettiness amid grandeur, and penuriousness
surrounded by luxury. He began to talk to me of his heavy
losses in the three per cents., and then I told him the object
of my visit. The change in his manners, hitherto glacial,
which now gradually became affectionate, disgusted me.
" Well, he called upon the Countess, and completely eclipsed
me with her.
"On him Fcedora exercised spells and witcheries unheard
of; she drew him into her power, and arranged her whole
mysterious business with him ; I was left out, I heard not a
word of it ; she had made a tool of me ! She did not seem
to be aware of my existence while my cousin was present ;
she received me less cordially perhaps than when I was first
presented to her. One evening she chose to mortify me before
the Duke by a look, a gesture, that it is useless to try to ex-
press in words. I went away with tears in my eyes, planning
terrible and outrageous schemes of vengeance without end.
" I often used to go with her to the theatre. Love utterly
absorbed me as I sat beside her ; as I looked at her I used to
give myself up to the pleasure of listening to the music, put-
ting all my soul into the double joy of love and of hearing
every emotion of my heart translated into musical cadences.
It was my passion that filled the air and the stage, that was
triumphant everywhere, but with my mistress. Then I would
take Fcedora's hand. I used to scan her features and her
eyes, imploring of them some indication that one blended
feeling possessed us both, seeking for the sudden harmony
awakened by the power of music, which makes our souls vibrate
in unison ; but her hand was passive, her eyes said nothing.
"When the fire that burned in me glowed too fiercely from
the face I turned upon her, she met it with that studied smile
of hers, the conventional expression that sits on the lips of
every portrait in every exhibition. She was not listening to
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 137
the music. The divine pages of Rossini, Cimarosa, or Zingarelli
called up no emotion, gave no voice to any poetry in her life ;
her soul was a desert.
" Fcedora presented herself as a drama before a drama.
Her lorgnette traveled restlessly over the boxes ; she was rest-
less too beneath the apparent calm ; fashion tyrannized over
her; her box, her bonnet, her carriage, her own personality
absorbed her entirely. My merciless knowledge thoroughly
tore away all my illusions. If good breeding consists in self-for-
getfulness and consideration for others, in constantly showing
gentleness in voice and bearing, in pleasing others, and in
making them content in themselves, all traces of her plebeian
origin were not yet obliterated in Fredora, in spite of her
cleverness. Her self-forgetfulness was a sham, her manners
were not innate but painfully acquired, her politeness was
rather subservient. And yet for those she singled out, her
honeyed words expressed natural kindness, her pretentious ex-
aggeration was exalted enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized
her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to
conceal her real nature from the world ; her trickery no longer
deceived me ; I had sounded the depths of that feline nature.
I blushed for her when some donkey or other flattered and
complimented her. And yet I loved her through it all ! I
hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a poet's
love. If I could only have made her heart capable of a
woman's tenderness, if I could have made her feel all the
greatness that lies in devotion, then I should have seen her
perfected, she would have been an angel. I loved her as a man,
a lover, and an artist ; if it had been necessary not to love
her so that I might win her, some cool-headed coxcomb, some
self-possessed calculator would perhaps have had the advantage
over me. She was so vain and sophisticated, that the language
of vanity would appeal to her; she would have allowed her-
self to be taken in the toils of an intrigue ; a hard, cold nature
would have gained a complete ascendency over her. Keen
138 THE WILD ASV SKIN.
grief had pierced me to my very soul, as she unconsciously
revealed her absolute love of self. I seemed to see her as she
one day would be, alone in the world, with no one to whom
she could stretch her hand, with no friendly eyes for her own
to meet and rest upon. I was bold enough to set this before
her one evening ; I painted in vivid colors her lonely, sad,
deserted old age. Her comment on this prospect of so ter-
rible a revenge of thwarted nature was horrible.
" ' I shall always have money," she said ; ' and with money
we can always inspire such sentiments as are necessary for our
comfort in those about us.'
" I went away confounded by the arguments of luxury, by
the reasoning of this woman, of the world in which she lived;
and blamed myself for my infatuated idolatry. I myself had
not loved Pauline because she was poor ; and had not the
wealthy Foedora aright to repulse Raphael? Conscience is our
unerring judge until we finally stifle it. A specious voice said
within me, ' Fcedora is neither attracted to nor repulses any
one ; she has her liberty, but once upon a time she sold her-
self to the Russian count, her husband or her lover, for gold.
But temptation is certain to enter into her life. Wait till that
moment comes ! ' She lived remote from humanity, in a
sphere apart, in a hell or a heaven of her own ; she was
neither frail nor virtuous. This feminine enigma in embroid-
eries and cashmeres had brought into play every emotion of
the human heart in me pride, ambition, love, curiosity.
" There was a craze just then for praising a play at a little
Boulevard theatre, prompted perhaps by a wish to appear
original that besets us all, or due to some freak of fashion.
The Countess showed some signs of a wish to see the floured
face of tke actor who had so delighted several people of taste,
and I obtained the honor of taking her to a first representa-
tion of some wretched farce or other. A box scarcely cost
five francs, but I had not a brass farthing. I was but half-
way through the volume of memoirs; I dared not beg for
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 139
assistance of Finot, and Rastignac, my providence, was away.
These constant perplexities were the bane of my life.
" We had once come out of the theatre when it was raining
heavily ; Fcedora had called a cab for me before I could
escape from her show of concern ; she would not admit any
of my excuses my liking for wet weather, and my wish to go
to the gaming-table. She did not read my poverty in my em-
barrassed attitude, nor in my forced jests. My eyes would
redden, but she did not understand a look. A young man's
life is at the mercy of the strangest whims ! At every
revolution of the wheels during the journey, thoughts that
burned stirred in my heart. I tried to pull up a plank from
the bottom of the vehicle, hoping to slip through the hole
into the street ; but finding insuperable obstacles I burst
into a fit of laughter, and then sat stupefied in calm dejec-
tion, like a man in the pillory. When I reached my lodg-
ing, Pauline broke in through my first stammering words
with
" ' If you haven't any money ? '
"Ah, the music of Rossini was as nothing compared with
those words. But to return to the performance at the
Funambules.
" I thought of pawning the circlet of gold round my
mother's portrait in order to escort the Countess. Although
the pawnbroker loomed in my thoughts as one of the doors
of a convinct's prison, I would rather myself have carried my
bed thither than have begged for alms. There is something
so painful in the expression of a man who asks money of you !
There are loans that mulct us of our self-respect, just as some
rebuffs from a friend's lips sweep away our last illusion.
"Pauline was working ; her mother had gone to bed. I
flung a stealthy glance over the bed ; the curtains were drawn
back a little ; Madame Gaudin was in a deep sleep, I thought,
when I saw her quiet, sallow profile outlined against the
pillow.
140 THE WILD ASS' SKfN.
"'You are in trouble?' Pauline said, dipping her brush
into the coloring.
" 'It is in your power to do me a great service, my dear
child,' I answered.
"The gladness in her eyes frightened me.
" ' Is it possible that she loves me ? ' I thought. ' Pauline,'
I began. I went and sat near to her, so as to study her. My
tones had been so searching that she read my thought ; her
eyes fell, and I scrutinized her face. It was so pure and
frank that I fancied I could see as clearly into her heart as
into my own.
" ' Do you love me ? ' I asked.
" ' A little, passionately not a bit,' she cried.
"Then she did not love me. Her jesting tones, and a
little gleeful movement that escaped her, expressed nothing
beyond a girlish, blithe goodwill. I told her about my dis-
tress and the predicament in which I found myself, and asked
her to help me.
" ' You do not wish to go to the pawnbroker's yourself, M.
Raphael,' she answered, ' and yet you would send me ! '
" I blushed in confusion at the child's reasoning. She took
my hand in hers as if she wanted to compensate for this home-
truth by her light touch upon it.
" ' Oh, I would willingly go,' she said, ' but it is not neces-
sary. I found two five-franc pieces at the back of the piano,
that had slipped without your knowledge between the frame
and the keyboard, and I laid them on your table.'
" 'You will soon be coming into some money, M. Raphael,'
said the kind mother, showing her face between the curtains,
* and I can easily lend you a few crowns meanwhile.'
" ' Oh, Pauline ! ' I cried, as I pressed her hand, ' how I
wish that I were rich ! '
" ' Bah ! why should you ? ' she said petulantly. Her
hand shook in mine with the throbbing of her pulse; she
snatched it away, and looked at both of mine.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 141
" ' You will marry a rich wife,' she said, ' but she will give
you a great deal of trouble. Ah, Dieu ! she will be your
death, I am sure of it.'
" In her exclamation there was something like belief in her
mother's absurd superstitions.
" ' You are very credulous, Pauline ! '
" ' The woman whom you will love is going to kill you
there is no doubt of it,' she said, looking at me with alarm.
" She took up her brush again and dipped it in the color;
her great agitation was evident ; she looked at me no longer.
I was ready to give credence just then to superstitious fancies ;
no man is utterly wretched so long as he is superstitious ;
a belief of that kind is often in reality a hope.
" I found that those two magnificent five-franc pieces were
lying, in fact, upon my table when I reached my room.
During the first confused thoughts of early slumber, I tried to
audi f my accounts so as to explain this unhoped-for windfall ;
but I lost myself in useless calculations, and slept. Just as I
was leaving my room to engage a box the next morning,
Pauline came to see me.
" ' Perhaps your ten francs is not enough,' said the amiable,
kind-hearted girl ; ' my mother told me to offer you this
money. Take it, please, take it ! '
" She laid three crowns upon the table, and tried to escape,
but I would not let her go. Admiration dried the tears that
sprang to my eyes.
" ' You are an angel, Pauline,' I said. ' It is not the loan
that touches me so much as the delicacy with which it is
offered. I used to wish for a rich wife, a fashionable woman
of rank ; and now, alas ! I would rather possess millions, and
find some girl, as poor as you are, with a generous nature like
your own ; and I would renounce a fatal passion which will
kill me. Perhaps what you told me will come true.'
"'That is enough,' she said, and fled away; the fresh
trills of her bird -like voice rang up the staircase.'
10
142 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
'' ' She is very happy in not yet knowing love,' I said to
myself, thinking of the torments I had endured for many
months past.
" Pauline's fifteen francs were invaluable to me. Foedora,
thinking of the stifling odor of the crowded place where
we were to spend several hours, was sorry that she had not
brought a bouquet ; I went in search of flowers for her, as
I had laid already my life and my fate at her feet. With a
pleasure in which compunction mingled, I gave her a bouquet.
I learned from its 'price the extravagance of superficial gal-
lantry in the world. But very soon she complained of the
heavy scent of a Mexican jessamine. The interior of the
theatre, the bare bench on which she was to sit, filled her
with intolerable disgust ; she upbraided me for bringing her
there. Although she sat beside me, she wished to go,
and she went. I had spent sleepless nights, and squandered
two months of my life for her, and I could not please her.
Never had that tormenting spirit been more unfeeling or more
fascinating.
"I sat beside her in the cramped back seat of the vehicle ;
all the way I could feel her breath on me and the contact of
her perfumed glove ; I saw distinctly all her exceeding beauty ;
I inhaled a vague scent of orris-root ; so wholly a woman she
was, with no touch of womanhood. Just then a sudden
gleam of light lit up the depths of this mysterious life for me.
I thought all at once of a book just published by a poet, a
genuine conception of the artist, in the shape of the statue of
Polycletus.
" I seemed to see that monstrous creation, at one time an
officer, breaking in a spirited horse; at another, a girl, who
gives herself up to her toilette and breaks her lovers' hearts;
or, again, a false lover driving a timid and gentle maid to
despair. Unable to analyze Fcedora by any other process, I
told her this fanciful story; but no hint of her resemblance
to this poetry of the impossible crossed her it simply diverted
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 143
her ; she was like a child over a story from the ' Arabian
Nights.'
" ' Fcedora must be shielded by some talisman,' I thought
to myself as I went back, 'or she could not resist the love ot
a man of my age, the infectious fever of that splendid malady
of the soul. Is Foedora, like Lady Delacour, a prey to a
cancer? Her life is certainly an unnatural one.'
" I shuddered at the thought. Then I decided on a plan,
at once the wildest and the most rational that lover ever
dreamed of. I would study this woman from a physical
point of view, as I had already studied her intellectually, and
to this end I made up my mind to spend a night in her room
without her knowledge. This project preyed upon me as a
thirst for revenge gnaws at the heart of a Corsican monk.
This is how I carried it out. On the days when Fcedora re-
ceived, her rooms were far too crowded for the hall-porter to
keep the balance even between goers and comers ; I could
remain in the house, I felt sure, without causing a scandal in
it, and I waited the Countess' coming soiree with impatience.
As I dressed I put a little English penknife into my waistcoat
pocket, instead of a poniard. That literary implement, if
found upon me, could awaken no suspicion, but I knew not
whither my romantic resolution might lead, and I wished to
be prepared.
" As soon as the rooms began to fill, I entered the bedroom
and examined the arrangements. The inner and outer shut-
ters were closed ; this was a good beginning ; and as the
waiting-maid might come to draw back the curtains that hung
over the windows, I pulled them together. I was running
great risks in venturing to manoeuvre beforehand in this way,
but I had accepted the situation, and had deliberately reck-
oned with its dangers.
"About midnight I hid myself in the embrasure of the
window. I tried to scramble on to a ledge of the wainscot-
ing, hanging on by the fastening of the shutters with my
144 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
back against the wall, in such a position that my feet could
not be visible. When I had carefully considered my points
of support, and the space between me and the curtains, I had
become sufficiently acquainted with all the difficulties of my
position to stay in it without fear of detection if undisturbed
by cramp, coughs, or sneezings. To avoid useless fatigue, I
remained standing until the critical moment, when I must
hang suspended like a spider in its web. The white-watered
silk and muslin of the curtains spread before me in great
pleats like organ-pipes. With my penknife I cut loop-holes
in them through which I could see.
" I heard vague murmurs from the salons, the laughter and
the louder tones of the speakers. The smothered commotion
and vague uproar lessened by slow degrees. One man and
another came for his hat from the Countess' chest of drawers,
close to where I stood. I shivered, if the curtains were dis-
turbed, at the thought of the mischances consequent on the
confused and hasty investigations made by the men in a hurry
to depart, who were rummaging everywhere. When I experi-
enced no misfortunes of this kind, I argued well of my enter-
prise. An old wooer of Fcedora's came for the last hat ; he
thought himself quite alone, looked at the bed, and heaved a
great sigh, accompanied by some inaudible exclamation, into
which he threw sufficient energy. In the boudoir close by,
the Countess, finding only some five or six intimate acquaint-
ances about her, proposed tea. The scandals for which exist-
ing society has reserved the little faculty of belief that it
retains, mingled with epigrams and trenchant witticisms, and
the clatter of cups and spoons. Rastignac drew roars of
laughter by his merciless sarcasms at the expense of my
rivals.
" ' M. de Rastignac is a man with whom it is better not to
quarrel,' said the Countess, laughing.
" 'I am quite of that opinion,' was his candid reply. 'I
have always been right about my aversions and my friendships
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 145
as well,' he added. ' Perhaps my enemies are quite as useful
to me as my friends. I have made a particular study of
modern phraseology, and of the natural craft that is used in
all attack or defence. Official eloquence is one of our perfect
social products.
" ' One of your friends is not clever, so you speak of his
integrity and his candor. Another's work is heavy ; you intro-
duce it as a piece of conscientious labor ; and if the book is
ill written, you extol the ideas it contains. Such an one is
treacherous and fickle, slips through your fingers every moment ;
bah ! he is attractive, bewitching, he is delightful ! Suppose
they are enemies, you fling every one, dead or alive, in
their teeth. You reverse your phraseology for their benefit,
and you are as keen in detecting their faults as you were
before adroit in bringing out the virtues of your friends.
This way of using the mental lorgnette is the secret of con-
versation nowadays, and the whole art of the complete courtier.
If you neglect it, you might as well go out as an unarmed
knight-banneret to fight against men in armor. And I make
use of it, and even abuse it at times. So we are respected
I, my friends, and, moreover, my sword is quite as sharp as
my tongue.'
"One of Fcedora's most fervid worshippers, whose pre-
sumption was notorious, and who even made it contribute to
his success, took up the glove thrown down so scornfully by
Rastignac. He began an unmeasured eulogy of me, my per-
formances, and my character. Rastignac had overlooked
this method of detraction. His sarcastic encomiums misled
the Countess, who sacrificed without mercy ; she betrayed my
secrets, and derided my pretentions and my hopes, to divert
her friends.
"'There is a future before him,' said Rastignac. 'Some
day he may be in a position to take a cruel revenge ; his talents
are at least equal to his courage ; and I should consider those
who attack him very rash, for he has a good memory '
146 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"'And writes memoirs,' put in the Countess, who seemed
to object to the deep silence that prevailed.
"'Memoirs of a sham countess, madame,' replied Rastig-
nac. 'Another sort of courage is needed to write that sort
of thing.'
" ' I give him credit for plenty of courage/ she answered;
'he is faithful to me.'
"I was greatly tempted to show myself suddenly among
the railers, like the shade of Banquo in Macbeth. I should
have lost the Countess ; but I had a friend. But love inspired
me all at once with one of those treacherous and fallacious
subtleties that it can use to soothe all our pangs.
"If Fcedora loved me, I thought, she would be sure to dis-
guise her feelings by some mocking jest. How often the
heart protests against a lie on the lips !
" Well, very soon my audacious rival, left alone with the
Countess, rose to go.
" ' What ! already ? ' asked she in a coaxing voice that set rny
heart beating. ' Will you not give me a few more minutes ?
Have you nothing more to say to me ? will you never sacrifice
any of your pleasures for me ? '
" He went away.
" ' Ah ! ' she yawned ; ' how very tiresome they all are ! '
" She pulled a cord energetically till the sound of a bell
rang through the place ; then, humming a few notes of " Pria
che spunti," the Countess entered her room. No one had ever
heard her sing ; her muteness had called forth the wildest
explanations. She had promised her first lover, so it was
said, who had been held captive by her talent, and whose
jealousy over her stretched beyond his grave, that she would
never allow others to experience a happiness that he wished to
be his and his alone.
" I exerted every power of my soul to catch the sounds.
Higher and higher rose the notes ; Fcedora's life seemed to
dilate within her ; her throat poured forth all its richest tones;
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 147
something well-nigh divine entered into the melody. There
was a bright purity and clearness of tone in the Countess*
voice, a thrilling harmony which reached the heart and stirred
its pulses. Musicians are seldom unemotional ; a woman who
could sing like that must know how to love indeed. Her
beautiful voice made one more puzzle in a woman mysterious
enough before. I beheld her then as plainly as I see you at
this moment. She seemed to listen to herself, to experience
a secret rapture of her own ; she felt, as it were, an ecstacy
like that of love.
"She stood before the hearth during the execution of the
principal theme of the rondo ; and when she ceased her face
changed. She looked tired ; her features seemed to alter.
She had laid the mask aside ; her part as an actress was over.
Yet the faded look that came over her beautiful face, a result
either of this performance or of the evening's fatigues, had its
charms, too.
" ' This is her real self,' I thought.
" She set her foot on a bronze bar of the fender as if to
warm it, took off her gloves, and drew over her head the gold
chain from which her bejeweled scent-bottle hung. It gave
me a quite indescribable pleasure to watch the feline grace of
every movement ; the supple grace a cat displays as it adjusts
its toilette in the sun. She looked at herself in the mirror
and said aloud ill-humoredly ' I did not look well this even-
ing; my complexion is going with alarming rapidity; perhaps
I ought to keep earlier hours, and give up this life of dissipa-
tion. Does Justine mean to trifle with me ? ' She rang
again ; her maid hurried in. Where she had been I cannot
tell ; she came in by a secret staircase. I was anxious to
make a study of her. I had lodged accusations, in my roman-
tic imaginings, against this invisible waiting-woman, a tall,
well-made brunette.
" ' Did madame ring ? ' exclaimed the waiting-maid as she
hurriedly entered the room.
148 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
'"Yes, twice,' answered Fcedora; 'are you really growing
deaf nowadays ? '
" ' I was preparing madame's milk of almonds.'
" Justine knelt down before her, unlaced her sandals and
drew them off, while her mistress lay carelessly back on her
cushioned armchair beside the fire, yawned, and scratched
her head. Every movement was perfectly natural ; there was
nothing whatever to indicate the secret sufferings or emotions
with which I had credited her.
" ' George must be in love ! ' she remarked. ' I shall dis-
miss him. He has drawn the curtains again to-night ! What
does he mean by it ? '
"All the blood in my veins rushed to my heart at this
observation, but no more was said about curtains.
" ' Life is very empty,' the Countess went on. ' Ah ! be
careful not to scratch me as you did yesterday. Just look
here, I still have the marks of your nails about me,' and she
held out a little silken knee. She thrust her bare feet into
velvet slippers bound with swan's-down, and unfastened her
dress, while Justine prepared to comb her hair.'
" 'You ought to marry, madame, and have children.'
" ' Children ! ' she cried ; ' it wants no more than that to
finish me at once ; and a husband ! What man is there to
whom I could ? Was my hair well arranged to-night?'
" ' Not particularly.'
" ' You are a fool ! '
" ' That way of crimping your hair too much is the least
becoming way possible for you. Large, smooth curls suit you
a great deal better.'
"'Really?'
" 'Yes, really, madame; that wavy style only looks nice in
fair hair.'
"'Marriage? never, never! Marriage is a commercial
arrangement, for which I was never made.'
" What a disheartening scene for a lover ! Here was a
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 149
lonely woman, without friends or kin, without the religion
of love, without faith in any affection. Yet however slightly
she might feel the need to pour out her heart, a craving that
every human being feels, it could only be satisfied by gossip-
ing with her maid, by trivial and indifferent talk. 1
grieved for her.
" Justine unlaced her. I watched her carefully when she
was at last unveiled. Her maidenly form, in its rose-tinged
whiteness, was visible through her shift in the taper light, as
dazzling as some silver statue behind its gauze covering.
No, there was no defect that need shrink from the stolen
glances of love. Alas, a fair form will overcome the stoutest
resolutions !
" The maid lighted the taper in the alabaster sconce that
hung before the bed, while her mistress sat thoughtful and
silent before the fire. Justine went for a warming-pan, turned
down the bed, and helped to lay her mistress in it ; then,
after some further time spent in punctiliously rendering vari-
ous services that showed how seriously Fcedora respected
herself, her maid left her. The Countess turned to and fro
several times, and sighed ; she was ill at ease ; faint, just
perceptible sounds, like signs of impatience, escaped from
her lips. She reached out a hand to the table, and took
a flask from it, from which she shook four or five drops of
some brown liquid into some milk before taking it ; again
there followed some painful sighs, and the exclamation, ' Mon
Dieu ! '
" The cry, and the tone in which it was uttered, wrung my
heart. By degrees she lay motionless. This frightened me ;
but very soon I heard a sleeper's heavy, regular breathing.
I drew the rustling silk curtains apart, left my post, went to
the foot of the bed, and gazed at her with feelings that I can-
not define. She was so enchanting as she lay like a child,
with her arm above her head ; but the sweetness of the fair,
quiet visage, surrounded by the lace, only irritated me. I
160 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
had not been prepared for the torture to which I was com-
pelled to submit.
" ' Man Dieu!' that scrap of a thought which I under-
stood not, but must even take as my sole light, had suddenly
modified my opinion of Fcedora. Trite or profoundly signi-
cant, frivolous or of deep import, the words might be con-
strued as expressive of either pleasure or pain, of physical or
of mental suffering. Was it a prayer or a malediction, a fore-
cast or a memory, a fear or a regret ? A whole life lay in that
utterance, a life of wealth or of penury ; perhaps it contained a
crime !
"The mystery that lurked beneath this fair semblance
of womanhood grew afresh ; there were so many ways of
explaining Foedora, that she became inexplicable. Some sort
of language seemed to flow from between her lips. I put
thoughts and feelings into the accidents of her breathing,
.whether weak or regular, gentle or labored. I shared her
dreams ; I would fain have divined her secrets by reading
them through her slumber. I hesitated among contradictory
opinions and decisions without number. I could not deny
my heart to the woman I saw before me, with the calm, pure
beauty in her face. I resolved to make one more effort. If I
told her the story of my life, my love, my sacrifices, might I not
awaken pity in her or draw a tear from her who never wept ?
"As I set all my hopes on this last experiment, the sounds
in the streets showed that day was at hand. For a moment's
space I pictured Fcedora waking to find herself in my arms.
I could have stolen softly to her side and slipped them about
her in a close embrace. Resolved to resist the cruel tyranny
of this thought, I hurried into the salon, heedless of any
sounds I might make ; but luckily I came upon a secret door
leading to a little staircase. As I had expected, the key was
in the lock ; I slammed the door, went boldly out into the
court, and gained the street in three bounds, without looking
round to see whether I was observed.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 151
" A dramatist was to read a comedy at the Countess' house
in two days' time; I went thither, intending to outstay the
others, so as to make a rather singular request of her ; I meant
to ask her to keep the following evening for me alone, and to
deny herself to other comers ; but when I found myself alone
with her my courage failed. Every tick of the clock alarmed
me. It wanted only a quarter of an hour of midnight.
"'If I do not speak,' I thought to myself, 'I must smash
my head against the corner of the mantelpiece.'
"I gave myself three minutes' grace; the three minutes
went by, and I did not smash my head upon the marble ; my
heart grew heavy, like a sponge with water.
" 'You are exceedingly amusing,' said she.
"'Ah, madame, if you could but understand me! 1 I an-
swered.
"'What is the matter with you?' she asked. 'You are
turning pale.'
" ' I am hesitating to ask a favor of you.'
" Her gesture revived my courage. I asked her to make
the appointment with me.
" 'Willingly,' she answered; 'but why will you not speak
to me now ? '
" 'To be candid with you, I ought to explain the full scope
of your promise : I want to spend this evening by your side,
as if we were brother and sister. Have no fear; I am aware
of your antipathies ; you must have divined me sufficiently to
feel sure that I should wish you to do nothing that could be
displeasing to you ; presumption, moreover, would not thus
approach you. You have been a friend to me, you have
shown me kindness and great indulgence ; know, therefore,
that to-morrow I must bid you farewell. Do not take back
your word,' I exclaimed, seeing her about to speak, and I
went away.
"At eight o'clock one evening towards the end of May,
Fcedora and I were alone together in her gothic boudoir. I
152 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
feared no longer ; I was secure of happiness. The Countess
should be mine, or I would seek a refuge in death. I had
condemned my faint-hearted love, and a man who acknowl-
edges his weakness is strong indeed.
"The Countess, in her blue cashmere gown, was reclining
on a sofa, with her feet on a cushion. She wore an Oriental
turban such as painters assign to early Hebrews ; its strange-
ness added an indescribable coquettish grace to her attractions.
A transitory charm seemed to have laid its spell on her face ;
it might have furnished the argument that at every instant we
become new and unparalleled beings, without any resemblance
to the us of the future or of the past. I had never yet seen
her so radiant.
" ' Do you know that you have piqued my curiosity? ' she
said, laughing.
" ' I will not disappoint it,' I said quietly, as I seated my-
self near her and took the hand that she surrendered to me.
' You have a very beautiful voice ! '
" ' You have never heard me sing ! ' she exclaimed, starting
involuntarily with surprise.
" ' I will prove that it is quite otherwise, whenever it is
necessary. Is your delightful singing still to remain a mys-
tery? Have no fear, I do not wish to penetrate it.'
" We spent about'an hour in familiar talk. While I adopted
the attitude and manner of a man to whom Fcedora must re-
fuse nothing, I showed her all a lover's deference. Acting in
this way, I received a favor I was allowed to kiss her hand.
She daintily drew off the glove ; and my whole soul was dis-
solved and poured forth in that kiss. I was steeped in the
bliss of an illusion in which I tried to believe.
" Fcedora lent herself most unexpectedly to my caress and
my flatteries. Do not accuse me of faint-heartedness ; if I
had gone a step beyond these fraternal compliments, the claws
would have been out of the sheath and into me. We re-
mained perfectly silent for nearly ten minutes. I was
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 153
admiring her, investing her with the charms she had not.
She was mine just then, and mine only, this enchanting
being was mine, as was permissible, in my imagination ; my
longing wrapped her round and held her close ; in my soul I
wedded her. The Countess was subdued and fascinated by
my magnetic influence. Ever since I have regretted that this
subjugation was not absolute; but just then I yearned for her
soul, her heart alone, and for nothing else. I longed for an
ideal and perfect happiness, a fair illusion that cannot last for
very long. At last I spoke, feeling that the last hours of my
frenzy were at hand.
"'Hear me, madame. I love you, and you know it; I
have said so a hundred times; you must have understood me.
I would not take upon me the airs of a coxcomb, nor would I
flatter you, nor urge myself upon you like a fool ; I would not
owe your love to such arts as these ; so I have been misunder-
stood. What sufferings have I not endured for your sake !
For these, however, you were not to blame ; but in a few
minutes you shall decide for yourself. There are two kinds
of poverty, madame. One kind openly walks the street in
rags, an unconscious imitator of Diogenes, on a scanty diet,
reducing life to its simplest terms ; he is happier, maybe, than
the rich; he has fewer cares at any rate, and accepts such
portions of the world as stronger spirits refuse. Then there is
poverty in splendor, a Spanish pauper, concealing the life of
a beggar by his title, his bravery, and his pride ; poverty that
wears a white waistcoat and yellow kid gloves, a beggar with
a carriage, whose whole career will be wrecked for lack of a
half-penny. Poverty of the first kind belongs to the popu-
lace ; the second kind is that of blacklegs, of kings, and of
men of talent. I am neither a man of the people, nor a king,
nor a swindler ; possibly I have no talent either ; I am an
exception. With the name I bear I must die sooner than beg.
Set your mind at rest, madame,' I said ; 'to-day I have
abundance, I possess sufficient of the clay for my needs ; ' for
154 THE WILD ASS> SKIN.
the hard look passed over her face which we wear whenever a
well-dressed beggar takes us by surprise. ' Do you remember
the day when you wished to go to the Gymnase without me,
never believing that I should be there? ' I went on.
"She nodded.
" ' I had laid out my last five-franc piece that I might see
you there. Do you recollect our walk in the Jardin des
Plantes? The hire of your cab took everything I had.'
" I told her about my sacrifices, and described the life I led ;
heated not with wine, as I am to-day, but by the generous en-
thusiasm of my heart, my passion overflowed in burning words ;
I have forgotten how the feelings within me blazed forth ;
neither memory nor skill of mine could possibly reproduce it.
It was no colorless chronicle of blighted affections ; my love
was strengthened by fair hopes ; and such words came to me,
by love's inspiration, that each had power to set forth a whole
life like echoes of the cries of a soul in torment. In such
tones the last prayers ascend from dying men on the battle-
field. I stopped, for she was weeping. Grand Dieu ! I
had reaped an actor's reward, the success of a counterfeit
passion displayed at the cost of five francs paid at the theatre
door. I had drawn tears from her.
" ' If I had known ' she said.
" ' Do not finish the sentence," I broke in. ' Even now I
love you well enough to murder you '
"She reached for the bell-pull. I burst into a roar of
laughter.
" ' Do not call any one,' I said. ' I shall leave you to finish
your life in peace. It would be a blundering kind of hatred
that would murder you ! You need not fear violence of any
kind ; I have spent a whole night at the foot of your bed
without '
"'Monsieur 'she exclaimed, blushing; but after that
first impulse of modesty that even the most hardened women
must surely own, she flung a scornful glance at me, and said
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 155
" 'You must have been very cold.'
" ' Do you think that I set such value on your beauty,
madame,' I answered, guessing the thoughts that moved her.
' Your beautiful face is for me a promise of a soul yet more
beautiful. Madame, those to whom a woman is merely a
woman can always purchase odalisques fit for the seraglio, and
achieve their happiness at a small cost. But I aspired to
something higher ; I wanted the life of close communion of
heart and heart with you that have no heart. I know that
now. If you were to belong to another, I could kill him.
And yet, no ; for you would love him, and his death might
hurt you perhaps. What agony this is ! ' I cried.
" ' If it is any comfort to you,' she retorted cheerfully,
' I can assure you that I shall never belong to any one "
" ' So you offer an affront to God Himself,' I interrupted ;
' and you will be punished for it. Some day you will lie upon
your sofa suffering unheard-of ills, unable to endure the light
or the slightest sound, condemned to live as it were in the
tomb. Then, when you seek the causes of those lingering
and avenging torments, you will remember the woes that you
distributed so lavishly upon your way. You have sown curses,
and hatred will be your reward. We are the real judges,
the executioners of a justice that reigns here below, which
overrules the justice of man and the laws of God.'
" ' No doubt it is very culpable in me not to love you,' she
said, laughing. ' Am I to blame ? No. I do not love you ;
you are a man, that is sufficient. I am happy by myself; why
should I give up my way of living, a selfish way, if you will,
for the caprices of a master ? Marriage is a sacrament by
virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the
other. Children, moreover, worry me. Did I not faithfully
warn you about my nature ? Why are you not satisfied to
have my friendship ? I wish I could make you amends for all
the troubles I have caused you, through not guessing the value
of your poor five- franc pieces. I appreciate the extent of your
156 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
sacrifices ; but your devotion and delicate tact can be repaid
by love alone, and I care so little for you, that this scene has
a disagreeable effect upon me.'
"'I am fully aware of my absurdity,' I said, unable to
restrain my tears. ' Pardon me,' I went on, ' it was a delight
to hear those cruel words you have just uttered, so well I love
you. O, if I could testify my love with every drop of blood
in me ! '
" ' Men always repeat these classical formulas to us, more
or less effectively,' she answered, still smiling. ' But it appears
very difficult to die at our feet, for I see corpses of that kind
about me everywhere. It is twelve o'clock. Allow me to
go to bed.'
" 'And in two hours' time you will cry to yourself, Ah, mon
Dieu .' '
" 'Like the day before yesterday! Yes,' she said, 'I was
thinking of my stockbroker ; I had forgotten to tell him to
convert my five per cent, stock into the threes, and the three
per cents, had fallen during the day.'
" I looked at her and my eyes glittered with anger. Some-
times a crime may be a whole romance ; I understood that
just then. She was so accustomed, no doubt, to the most im-
passioned declarations of this kind, that my words and my
tears were forgotten already.
' ' ' Would you marry a peer of France ? ' I demanded
abruptly.
" ' If he were a duke I might.'
" I snzed my hat and made her a bow.
" ' Permit me to accompany you to the door,' she said,
cutting irony in her tones, in the poise of her head, and in
her gesture.
" ' Madame '
" ' Monsieur?'
" ' I shall never see you again.'
" 'I hope not,' and she insolently inclined her head.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 157
" ' You wish to be a duchess? ' I cried, excited by a sort of
madness that her insolence roused in me. ' You are wild for
honors and titles ? Well, only let me love you ; bid my pen
write and my voice speak for you alone ; be the inmost soul
of my life, my guiding star ! Then only accept me for your
husband as a minister, a peer of France, a duke. I will make
of myself whatever you would have me be !'
" 'You made good use of the time you spent with the ad-
vocate,' she said, smiling. 'There is a fervency about your
pleadings. '
" ' The present is yours,' I cried, ' but the future is mine !
I only lose a woman ; you are losing a name and a family.
Time is big with my revenge ; time will spoil your beauty,
and yours will be a solitary death ; and enduring glory waits
for me !'
"'Thanks for your peroration!' she said, repressing a
yawn ; the wish that she might never see me again was ex-
pressed in her whole bearing.
" That remark silenced me. I flung at her a glance full of
hatred, and hurried away.
"Fcedora must be forgotten; I must cure myself of my
infatuation, and betake myself once more to my lonely studies,
or die. So I set myself tremendous tasks ; I determined to
complete my labors. For fifteen days I never left my garret,
spending whole nights in pallid thought. I worked with diffi-
culty, and by fits and starts, despite my courage and the
stimulation of despair. The muse had fled. I could not
exorcise the brilliant mocking image of Fcedora. Something
morbid brooded over every thought, a vague longing as dread-
ful as remorse. I imitated the anchorites of the Thebaid. If
I did not pray as they did, I lived a life in the desert like
theirs, hewing out my ideas as they were wont to hew their
rocks. I could at need have girdled my waist with spikes,
that physical suffering might quell mental anguish.
" One evening Pauline found her way into my room.
11
158 THE WILD ASS' SKIA'.
"'You are killing yourself,' she said, imploringly; 'you
should go out and see your friends
" ' Pauline, you were a true prophet ; Foadora is killing me,
I want to die. My life is intolerable."
" ' Is there only one woman in the world ?' she asked smil-
ing. ' Why make yourself so miserable in so short a life?'
" I looked at Pauline in bewilderment. She left me before
I noticed her departure; the sound of her words had reached
me, but not their sense. Very soon I had to take my memoirs
in manuscript to my literary contractor. I was so absorbed
by my passion, that I could not remember how I had managed
to live without money; I only knew that the four hundred
and fifty francs due to me would pay my debts. So I went to
receive my salary, and met Rastignac, who thought me
changed and thinner.
" ' What hospital have you been discharged from ? ' he
asked.
" 'That woman is killing me,' I answered ; ' I can neither
despise her nor forget her.'
" ' You had much better kill her, then perhaps you would
think no more of her,' he said, laughing.
" ' I have often thought of it,' I replied ; ' but though some-
times the thought of a crime revives my spirits, of violence
and murder, either or both, I am really incapable of carrying
out the design. The Countess is an admirable monster who
would crave for pardon, and not every man, you know, is an
Othello.'
"'She is like every woman who is beyond our reach,'
Rastignac interrupted.
" ' I am mad,' I cried ; ' I can feel the madness raging at
times in my brain. My ideas are like shadows ; they flit
before me, and I cannot grasp them. Death would be pref-
erable to this life, and I have carefully considered the best
way of putting an end to the struggle. I am not thinking of
the living Fcedora in the Faubourg Saint Honore, but of my
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 159
Foedora here,' and I tapped my forehead. ' What do you say
to opium ? '
" ' Pshaw ! horrid agonies,' said Rastignac.
" ' Or charcoal fumes ? '
" ' A low dodge.'
" 'Or the Seine? '
" ' The drag-nets, and the morgue too, are filthy.'
" ' A pistol-shot?'
" 'And if you miscalculate, you disfigure yourself for life.
Listen to me,' he went on, ' like all young men, I have pon-
dered over suicide. Which of us hasn't killed himself two or
three times before he is thirty? I find there is no better
course than to use existence as a means of pleasure. Go in
for thorough dissipation, and your passion or you will perish
in it. Intemperance, my dear fellow, commands all forms of
death. Does she not wield the thunderbolt of apoplexy ?
Apoplexy is a pistol-shot that does not miscalculate. Orgies
are lavish in all physical pleasures ; is not that the small
change for opium ? And the riot that makes us drink to
excess bears a challenge to mortal combat with wine. That
butt of Malmsey of the Duke of Clarence's must have had a
pleasanter flavor than Seine mud. When we sink gloriously
under the table, is not that a periodical death by drowning
on a small scale ? If we are picked up by the police and
stretched out on those chilly benches of theirs at the police-
station, do we not enjoy all the pleasures of the morgue ? For
though we are not blue and green, muddy and swollen corpses,
on the other hand we have the consciousness of the climax.
" ' Ah,' he went on, ' this protracted suicide has nothing in
common with a bankrupt grocer's demise. Tradespeople
have brought the river into disrepute ; they fling themselves
in to soften their creditors' hearts. In your place I should
endeavor to die gracefully ; and if you wish to invent a novel
way of doing it, by struggling with life after this manner, I
will be your second. I am disappointed and sick of every-
160 THE IVH.D ASS' SKIN.
thing. The Alsacienne, whom it was proposed that I should
marry, had six toes on her left foot ; I cannot possibly live
with a woman who has six toes ! It would get about to a
certainty, and then I should be ridiculous. Her income was
only eighteen thousand francs; her fortune diminished in
quantity as her toes increased. The devil take it ; if we
begin an outrageous sort of life, we may come on some bit of
luck, perhaps ! '
" Rastignac's eloquence carried me away. The attrac-
tions of the plan shone too temptingly, hopes were kindled,
the poetical aspects of the matter appealed to a poet.
" ' How about money ? ' I said.
" ' Haven't you four hundred and fifty francs ? '
" ' Yes, but debts to my landlady and the tailor '
" ' You would pay your tailor ? You will never be any-
thing whatever, not so much as a minister.'
" ' But can one do with twenty louis ? '
" ' Go to the gaming-table.'
" I shuddered.
" ' You are going to launch out into what I call systematic
dissipation,' said he, noticing my scruples, ' and yet you are
afraid of a green table-cloth.'
" ' Listen to me,' I answered. ' I promised my father never
to set foot in a gaming-house. Not only is that a sacred
promise, but I still feel an unconquerable disgust whenever I
pass a gambling-hell ; take the money and go without me.
While our fortune is at stake, I will set my own affairs straight,
and then I will go to your lodgings and wait for you."
" That was the way I went to perdition. A young man
has only to come across a woman who will not love him,
or a woman who loves him too well, and his whole life
becomes a chaos. Prosperity swallows up our energy just
as adversity obscures our virtues. Back once more in my
Hotel de Saint-Quentin, I gazed about me a long while in
the garret where I had led my scholar's temperate life, a life
A WOMAX WITHOUT A HEART. 161
which would perhaps have been a long and honorable one,
and that I ought not to have quitted for the fevered existence
which had urged me to the brink of a precipice. Pauline
surprised me in this dejected attitude.
< Why, what is the matter with you ? ' she asked.
" I rose and quietly counted out the money owing to her
mother, and added to it sufficient to pay for six months' rent
in advance. She watched me in some alarm.
" ' I am going to leave you, dear Pauline.'
" ' I knew it ! ' she exclaimed.
" ' Listen, my child. I have not given up the idea of coming
back. Keep my room for me for six months. If I do not
return by the fifteenth of November, you will come into pos-
session of my things. This sealed packet of manuscript is the
fair copy of my great work on ' The Will, " I went on, point-
ing to a package. Will you deposit it in the King's Library ?
And you may do as you wish with everything that is left
here.'
" Her look weighed heavily on my heart ; Pauline was an
embodiment of conscience there before me.
" ' I shall have no more lessons,' she said, pointing to the
piano.'
" I did not answer that.
" ' Will you write to me ? '
" 'Good-bye, Pauline.'
" I gently drew her towards me, and set a kiss on that inno-
cent fair brow of hers, like snow that has not yet touched the
earth a father's or a brother's kiss. She fled. I would not
see Madame Gaudin, hung my key in its wonted place, and
departed. I was almost at the end of the Rue de Cluny when
I heard a woman's light footstep behind me.
" ' I have embroidered this purse for you," Pauline said ;
' will you refuse even that ? '
" By the light of the street lamp I thought I saw tears in
Pauline's eyes, and I groaned. Moved perhaps by a common
162 THE WILD ASS' SKTN.
impulse, we parted in haste like people who fear the conta-
gion of the plague.
" As I waited with dignified calmness for Rastignac's return,
his room seemed a grotesque interpretation of the sort of life
I was about to enter upon. The clock on the chimney-piece
was surmounted by a Venus resting on her tortoise ; a half-
smoked cigar lay in her arms. Costly furniture of various
kinds love-tokens, very likely was scattered about. Old
shoes lay on a luxurious sofa. The comfortable armchair into
which I had thrown myself bore as many scars as a veteran ;
the arms were gashed, the back was overlaid with a thick,
stale deposit of pomade and hair-oil from the heads of all his
visitors. Splendor and squalor were oddly mingled, on the
walls, the bed, and everywhere else. You might have thought
of a Neapolitan palace and the groups of beggars about it.
It was the room of a gambler or a good-for-nothing, where
the luxury exists merely for one individual, who leads the
life of the senses and does not trouble himself over incon-
sistencies.
" There was a certain imaginative element about the picture
it presented. Life was suddenly revealed there in its rags and
spangles as the incomplete thing it really is, of course, but so
vividly and picturesquely; it was like a den where a brigand
has heaped up all the plunder in which he delights. Some
pages were missing from a copy of Byron's poems ; they had
gone to light a fire of a few sticks for this young person, who
played for stakes of a thousand francs, and had not a faggot ;
who kept a tilbury, and had not a whole shirt to his back.
Any day a countess or an actress or a run of luck at ecarte
might set him up with an outfit worthy of a king. A candle
had been stuck into the green bronze sheath of a vestaholder ;
a woman's portrait lay yonder, torn out of its carved gold
setting. How was it possible that a young man, whose nature
craved excitement, could renounce a life so attractive by
reason of its contradictions; a life that afforded all the de-
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 163
lights of war in the midst of peace ? I was growing drowsy
when Rastignac kicked the door open and shouted
" ' Victory ! Now we can take our time about dying.'
" He held out his hat filled with gold to me, and put it
down on the table ; then we pranced round it like a pair of
cannibals about to eat a victim ; we stamped, and danced,
and yelled, and sang; we gave each other blows fit to kill an
elephant, at sight of all the pleasures of the world contained in
that hat.
"'Twenty-seven thousand francs,' said Rastignac, adding
a few bank-notes to the pile of gold. ' That would be enough
for other folk to live upon ; will it be sufficient for us to die
on ? Yes ! we will breathe our last in a bath of gold
hurrah !' and we capered afresh.
"We divided the windfall. We began with double-napo-
leons, and came down to the smaller coins, one by one.
'This for you, this for me,' we kept on saying, distilling our
joy drop by drop.
"'We won't go to sleep,' cried Rastignac. 'Joseph!
some punch ! '
" He threw gold to his faithful attendant.
" 'There is your share," he said, 'go and bury yourself, if
you can.'
" Next day I went to Lesage and chose my furniture, took
the rooms that you know in the Rue Taitbout, and left the
decoration to one of the best upholsterers. I bought horses.
I plunged into a vortex of pleasures, at once hollow and real.
I went in for play, gaining and losing enormous sums, but
only at friends' houses and in ball-rooms ; never in gaming-
houses, for which I still retained the holy horror of my early
days. Without meaning it, I made some friends, either
through quarrels or owing to the easy confidence established
among those who are going to the bad together; nothing,
possibly, makes us cling to one another so tightly as our evil
propensities.
164 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"I made several ventures in literature, which were flatter-
ingly received. Great men who followed the profession of
letters, having nothing to fear from me, belauded me, not so
much on account of my merits as to cast a slur on those of
their rivals.
"I became a 'free-liver,' to make use of the picturesque
expression appropriated by the language of excess. I made it
a point of honor not to be long about dying, and that my zeal
and prowess should eclipse those displayed by all others in the
jolliest company. I was always spruce and carefully dressed.
I had some reputation for cleverness. There was no sign
about me of that fearful way of living which makes a man into
a mere digesting apparatus, a funnel, a pampered beast.
"Very soon debauch rose before me in all the majesty of
its horror, and I grasped all that it meant. Those prudent,
steady-going characters who are laying down wine in bottles
for their heirs, can barely conceive, it is true, of so wide a
theory of life, nor appreciate its normal condition; but when
will you instil poetry into the provincial intellect? Opium
and tea, with all their delights, are merely drugs to folk of
that calibre.
"Is not the imperfect sybarite to be met with even in Paris
itself, that intellectual metropolis? Unfit to endure the
fatigues of pleasure, this sort of person, after a drinking bout,
is very much like those worthy bourgeois who fall foul of
music after hearing a new opera by Rossini. Does he not re-
nounce these courses in the same frame of mind that leads an
abstemious man to forswear RufFec pates, because the first one,
forsooth, gave him the indigestion ?
" Debauch is as surely an art as poetry, and is not for craven
spirits. To penetrate its mysteries and appreciate its charms,
conscientious application is required ; and as with every path
of knowledge, the way is thorny and forbidding at the outset.
The great pleasures of humanity are hedged about with for-
midable obstacles; not its single enjoyments, but enjoyment
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 165
as a system, a system which establishes seldom-experienced
sensations and makes them habitual, which concentrates and
multiplies them for us, creating a dramatic life within our life,
and imperatively demanding a prompt and enormous expendi-
ture of vitality. War, power, art, like debauch, are all forms of
demoralization, equally remote from the faculties of humanity,
equally profound, and all are alike difficult of access. But
when man has once stormed the heights of these grand mys-
teries, does he not walk in another world ? Are not generals,
ministers, and artists carried, more or less, towards destruction
by the need of violent distractions in an existence so remote
from ordinary life as theirs ?
" War, after all, is the excess of bloodshed, as the excess
of self-interest produces politics. Excesses of every sort are
brothers. These social enormities possess the attraction of
the abyss; they draw us towards themselves as St. Helena
beckoned Napoleon ; we are fascinated, our heads swim, we
wish to sound their depths, though we cannot account for the
wish. Perhaps the thought of infinity dwells in these preci-
pices, perhaps they contain some colossal flattery for the soul
of man ; for is he not, then, wholly absorbed in himself?
"The wearied artist needs a complete contrast to his para-
dise of imaginings and of studious hours ; he either craves,
like God, the seventh day of rest, or with Satan, the pleasures
of hell ; so that his senses may have free play in opposition to
the employment of his faculties. Byron could never have
taken for his relaxation to the independent gentleman's de-
lights of boston and gossip, for he was a poet, and so must
needs pit Greece against Mahmoud.
"In war, is not man an angel of extirpation, a sort of
executioner on a gigantic scale? Must not the spell be strong
indeed that makes us undergo such horrid sufferings so hostile
to our weak frames, sufferings that encircle every strong pas-
sion with a hedge of thorns ? The tobacco-smoker is seized
with convulsions, and goes through a kind of agony conse-
166 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
quent upon his excesses ; but has he not borne a part in de-
lightful festivals in realms unknown ? Has Europe ever ceased
from wars? She has never given herself time to wipe the
stains from her feet that are steeped in blood to the ankle.
Mankind at large is carried away by fits of intoxication, as
nature has its accessions of love.
" For men in private life, for a vegetating Mirabeau dreaming
of storms in a time of calm, excess comprises all things ; it
perpetually embraces the whole sum of life ; it is something
better still it is a duel with an antagonist of unknown
power, a monster, terrible at first sight, that must be seized
by the horns, a labor that cannot be imagined.
" Suppose that nature has endowed you with a feeble
stomach or one of limited capacity ; you acquire a mastery
over it and improve it ; you learn to carry your liquor ; you
grow accustomed to being drunk ; you pass whole nights with-
out sleep ; at last you acquire the constitution of a colonel of
cuirassiers ; and in this way you create yourself afresh, as if
to fly in the face of Providence.
"A man transformed after this sort is like a neophyte who
has at last become a veteran, has accustomed his mind to shot
and shell and his legs to lengthy marches. When the monster's
hold on him is still uncertain, and it is not yet known which
will have the better of it, they roll over and over, alternately
victor and vanquished, in a world where everything is wonder-
ful, where every ache of the soul is laid to sleep, where only
the shadows of ideas are revived.
"This furious struggle has already become a necessity for
us. The prodigal has struck a bargain for all the enjoyments
with which life teems abundantly, at the price of his own
death, like the mythical persons in the legends who sold them-
selves to the devil for the power of doing evil. For them,
instead of flowing quietly on its monotonous course in the
depths of some counting-house or study, life is poured out in
a boiling torrent.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 167
" Excess is, in short, for the body what the mystic's ecstasy
is for the soul. Intoxication steeps you in fantastic imaginings
every whit as strange as those of ecstatics. You know hours
as full of rapture as a young girl's dreams ; you travel withoyt
fatigue; you chat pleasantly with your friends; words come
to you with a whole life in each, and fresh pleasures without
regrets ; poems are set forth for you in a few brief phrases.
The coarse animal satisfaction, in which science has tried to
find a soul, is followed by the enchanted drowsiness that men
sigh for under the burden of consciousness. Is it not because
they all feel the need of absolute repose ? Because excess is
a sort of toll that genius pays to pain ?
"Look at all great men; nature made them pleasure-
loving or base, every one. Some mocking or jealous power
corrupted them in either soul or body, so as to make all their
powers futile, and their efforts of no avail.
"All men and all things appear before you in the guise you
choose, in those hours when wine has sway. You are lord of
all creation ; you transform it at your pleasure. And through-
out this unceasing delirium, play may pour, at your will, its
molten lead into your veins.
"Some day you will fall into the monster's power. Then
you will have, as I had, a frenzied awakening, with impotence
sitting by your pillow. Are you an old soldier? Phthisis
attacks you. A diplomatist ? An aneurism hangs death in
your heart by a thread. It will perhaps be consumption that
will cry to me, ' Let us be going !' as to Raphael of Urbino,
in old time, killed by an excess of love.
" In this way I have existed. I was launched into the world
too early or too late. My energy would have been dangerous
there, no doubt, if I had not squandered it in such ways as
these. Was not the world rid of an Alexander, by the cup
of Hercules, at the close of a drinking bout.
" There are some, the sport of destiny, who must either
have heaven or hell, the hospice of St. Bernard or riotous
168 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
excess. Only just now I lacked the heart to moralize about
those two," and he pointed to Euphrasia and Aquilina. " They
are types of my own personal history, images of my life ! I
could scarcely reproach them ; they stood before me like
judges.
"In the midst of this drama that I was enacting, and while
my distracting disorder was at its height, two crises super-
vened ; each brought me keen and abundant pangs. The
first came a few days after I had flung myself, like Sardana-
palus, on my pyre. I met Fcedora under the peristyle of the
Bouffons. We both were waiting for our carriages.
" 'Ah ! so you are living yet.'
"That was the meaning of her smile, and probably of the
spiteful words she murmured into the ear of her cicisbeo, tell-
ing him my history, no doubt, rating mine as a common love
affair. She was deceived, yet she was applauding her per-
spicacity. Oh, that I should be dying for her, must still
adore her, always see her through my potations, see her still
when I was overcome with wine, or in the arms of courtesans ;
and know that I was a target for her scornful jests ? Oh, that I
should be unable to tear the love of her out of my breast and
to fling it at her feet !
" Well, I quickly exhausted my funds, but owing to those
three years of discipline I enjoyed the most robust health,
and on the day that I found myself without a penny I felt
remarkably well. In order to carry on the process of dying,
I signed bills at short dates, and the day came when they must
be met. Painful excitements ! but how they quicken the pulses
of youth ! I was not prematurely aged ; I was young yet, and
full of vigor and life.
" At my first debt all my virtues came to life; slowly and
despairingly they seemed to pace towards me ; but I could com-
pound with them they were like aged aunts that begin with
a scolding and end by bestowing tears and money upon you.
" Imagination was less yielding ; I saw my name bandied
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 169
about through every city in Europe. ' One's name is oneself,'
says Eusebe Salverte. After these excursions I returned to
the room I had never quitted, like a doppel-ganger in a Ger-
man tale, and came to myself with a start.
" I used to see with indifference a banker's messenger going
on his errands through the streets of Paris, like a commercial
Nemesis, wearing his master's livery a gray coat and a silver
badge ; but now I hated the species in advance. One of them
came one morning to ask me to meet eleven bills that I had
scrawled my name upon. My. signature was worth three
thousand francs ! Taking me altogether, I myself was not
worth that amount. Sheriff's deputies rose up before me,
turning their callous faces upon my despair, as the hangman
regards the criminal to whom he says, ' It has just struck half-
past three.' I was in the power of their clerks; they could
scribble my name, drag it through the mire, and jeer at it. I
was a defaulter. Has a debtor any right to himself? Could
not other men call me to account for my way of living?
Why had I eaten puddings a la chipolata ? Why had I iced
my wine ? Why had I slept, or walked, or thought, or amused
myself when I had not paid them ?
"At any moment, in the middle of a poem, during some
train of thought, or while I was gaily breakfasting in the
pleasant company of my friends, I might look to see a gentle-
man enter in a coat of chestnut-brown, with a shabby hat in
his hand. This gentleman's appearance would signify my
debt. The bill I had drawn ; the spectre would compel me
to leave the table to speak to him, blight my spirits, despoil
me of my cheerfulness, of my mistress, of all I possessed,
down to my very bedstead.
"Remorse itself is more easily endured. Remorse does
not drive us into the street nor into the prison of Sainte-
Pelagie ; it does not force us into the detestable sink of vice.
Remorse only brings us to the scaffold, where the executioner
invests us with a certain dignity; as we pay the extreme
170 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
penalty, everybody believes in our innocence ; but people will
not credit a penniless prodigal with a single virtue.
" My debts had other incarnations. There is the kind that
goes about on two feet, in a green-cloth coat, and blue spec-
tacles, carrying umbrellas of various hues ; you come face to
face with him at the corner of some street, in the midst of
your mirth. These have the detestable prerogative of saying,
' M. de Valentin owes me something and does not pay. I
have a hold on him. He had better not show me any offen-
sive airs!' You must bow to your creditors, and, moreover,
bow politely. ' When are you going to pay me?' say they.
And you must lie, and beg money of another man, and cringe
to a fool seated on his strong box, and receive sour looks in
return from these horse-leeches; a blow would be less hateful;
you must put up with their crass ignorance and calculating
morality. A debt is a feat of the imaginative that they can-
not appreciate. A borrower is often carried away and over-
mastered by generous impulses ; nothing great, nothing
magnanimous can move or dominate those who live for money,
and recognize nothing but money. I myself held money in
abhorrence.
"Or a bill may undergo a final transformation into some
meritorious old man with a family dependent upon him. My
creditor may be a living picture for Greuze, a paralytic with
his children round him, a soldier's widow, holding out be-
seeching hands to me. Terrible creditors are those with whom
we are forced to sympathize, and when their claims are satisfied
we owe them a further debt of assistance.
"The night before the bills fell due, I lay down with the
false calm of those who sleep before their approaching execu-
tion, or with a duel in prospect, rocked as they are by delusive
hopes. But when I woke, when I was cool and collected,
when I found myself imprisoned in a banker's portfolio, and
floundering in statements covered with red ink then my
debts sprang up everywhere, like grasshoppers, before my eyes.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 171
There were my debts, my clock, my armchairs ; my debts were
inlaid in the very furniture which I liked best to use. These
gentle inanimate slaves were to fall a prey to the harpies of the
Chatelet, were to be carried off by the broker's men, and
brutally thrown on the market. Ah, my property was a part
of myself!
" The sound of the door-bell rang through my heart ; while
it seemed to strike at me, where kings should be struck at in
the head. Mine was a martyrdom, without heaven for its re-
ward. For a magnanimous nature, debt is a hell, and a hell,
moreover, with sheriffs officers and brokers in it. An undis-
charged debt is something mean and sordid ; it is a beginning
of knavery ; it is something worse, it is a lie ; it prepares the
way for crime, and brings together the planks for the scaffold.
My bills were protested. Three days afterwards I met them,
and this is how it happened.
"A speculator came, offering to buy the island in the Loire
belonging to me, where my mother lay buried. I closed with
him. When I went to his solicitor to sign the deeds, I felt a
cavern-like chill in the dark office that made me shudder ; it
was the same cold dampness that had lain hold upon me at
the brink of my father's grave. I looked upon this as an evil
omen. I seemed to see the shade of my mother, and to hear
her voice. What power was it that made my own name ring
vaguely in my ears, in spite of the clamor of bells ?
"The money paid down for my island, when all my debts
were discharged, left me in possession of two thousand francs.
I could now have returned to a scholar's tranquil life, it is
true ; I could have gone back to my garret after having gained
an experience of life, with my head filled with the, results of
extensive observation, and with a certain sort of reputation
attaching to me. But Foedora's hold upon her victim was
not relaxed. We often met. I compelled her admirers to
sound my name in her ears, by dint of astonishing them with
my cleverness and success, with my horses and equipages. It
172 THE WILD ASS' SJTLV.
all found her impassive and uninterested ; so did an ugly phrase
of Rastignac's, 'He is killing himself for you.'
"I charged the world at large with my revenge, but I was
not happy. While I was fathoming the miry depths of life,
I only recognized the more keenly at all times the happi-
ness of reciprocal affection ; it was a shadow that I followed
through all that befell me in my extravagance, and in my
wildest moments. It was my misfortune to be deceived in
my fairest beliefs, to be punished by ingratitude for benefiting
others, and to receive uncounted pleasures as the reward of
my errors a sinister doctrine, but a true one for the prodigal !
" The contagious leprosy of Fcedora's vanity had taken
hold of me at last. I probed my soul, and found it cankered
and rotten. I bore the marks of the devil's claw upon my
forehead. It was impossible to me thenceforward to do with-
out the incessant agitation of a life fraught with danger at
every moment, or to dispense with the execrable refinements
of luxury. If I had possessed millions, I should still have
gambled, reveled, and, racketed about. I wished never to be
alone with myself, and I must have false friends and courte-
sans, wine and good cheer to distract me. The ties that
attach a man to family life had been permanently broken for
me. I had become a galley-slave of pleasure, and must accom-
plish my destiny of suicide. During the last days of my pros-
perity, I spent every night in the most incredible excesses ;
but every morning death cast me back upon life again. I
would have taken a conflagration with as little concern as any
man with a life annuity. However, I at last found myself
alone with a twenty-franc piece; I bethought me then of
Rastignac's luck
"Eh, eh! " Raphael exclaimed, interrupting himself,
as he remembered the talisman and drew it from his pocket.
Perhaps he was wearied by the long day's strain, and had no
more strength left wherewith to pilot his head through the
seas of wine and punch ; or perhaps, exasperated by this
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 173
symbol of his own existence, the torrent of his own eloquence
gradually overwhelmed him. Raphael became excited and
elated and like one completely deprived of reason.
"The devil take death!" he shouted, brandishing the
skin ; "I mean to live ! I am rich, I have every virtue ;
nothing will withstand me. Who would not be generous,
when everything is in his power ? Aha ! aha ! I wished for
two hundred thousand livres a year, and I shall have them.
Bow down before me, all of you, wallowing on the carpets
like swine in the mire ! You all belong to me a precious
property truly ! I am rich ! I could buy you all, even the
deputy snoring over there. Scum of society, give me your
benediction ! I am the Pope."
Raphael's vociferations had been hitherto drowned by a
thorough-bass of snores, but now they became suddenly
audible. Most of the sleepers started up with a cry, saw the
cause of the disturbance on his feet, tottering uncertainly, and
cursed him in concert for a drunken brawler.
"Silence !" shouted Raphael. "Back to your kennels,
you dogs! Emile, I have riches, I will give you Havana
cigars ! ' '
"I am listening," the poet replied. "Death or Foedora !
On with you ! That silky Foedora deceived you. Women
are all daughters of Eve. There is nothing dramatic about
that rigmarole of yours."
"Ah, but you were sleeping, slyboots."
" No' Death or Foedora ! 'I have it ! "
"Wake up!" Raphael shouted, beating Emile with the
piece of shagreen as if he meant to draw electric fluid out of it.
" Thunder!" said Emile, springing up and flinging his
arms round Raphael ; " my friend, remember the sort of
women you are with."
" I am a millionaire ! "
" If you are not a millionaire, you are most certainly
drunk."
12
174 THE WILD ASS'
" Drunk with power. I can kill you ! Silence ! I am
Nero ! I am Nebuchadnezzar ! "
"But, Raphael, we are in queer company, and you ought
to keep quiet for the sake of your own dignity."
" My life has been silent too long. I mean to have my
revenge now on the world at large. I will not amuse myself
by squandering paltry five-franc pieces ; I will reproduce and
sum up my epoch by absorbing human lives, human minds, and
human souls. There are the treasures of pestilence that is
no paltry kind of wealth, is it ? I will wrestle with fevers
yellow, blue, or green with whole armies, with gibbets.
I can possess Fcedora. Yet no, I do not want Fcedora ; she
is a disease ; I am dying of Fcedora. I want to forget
Fcedora ! ' '
" If you keep on calling out like this, I shall take you into
the dining-room."
"Do you see this skin? It is Solomon's will. Solomon
belongs to me a little varlet of a king ! Arabia is mine,
Arabia Petrsea to boot ; and the universe, and you too, if I
choose. If I choose ah ! be careful. I can buy up all your
journalist's shop ; you shall be my valet. You shall be my
valet, you shall manage my newspaper. Valet ! valet, that is
to say, free from aches and pains, because he has no brains."
At the word, Emile carried Raphael off into the dining-
room.
"All right," he remarked; "yes, my friend, I am yotr
valet. But you are about to be editor-in-chief of a newspaper ;
so be quiet, and behave properly, for my sake. Have you no
regard for me ? "
" Regard for you ! You shall have Havana cigars, with
this bit of shagreen; always with this skin, this supreme bit
of shagreen. It is a cure for corns, an efficacious remedy.
Do you suffer? I will remove them."
"Never have I known you so senseless "
"Senseless, my friend? Not at all. This skin contracts
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 17-")
whenever I form a wish 'tis a paradox. There is a Brahmin
underneath it ! The Brahmin must be a droll fellow, for our
desires, look you, are bound to expand "
"Yes, yes "
"I tell you "
" Yes, yes, very true, I am quite of your opinion our
desires expand "
"The skin, I tell you."
"Yes."
" You don't believe me. I know you, my friend ; you are
as full of lies as a new-made king."
" How can you expect me to follow your drunken maun-
derings?"
" I will bet you I can prove it. Let us measure it "
"Goodness! he will never get off to sleep," exclaimed
Emile, as he watched Raphael rummaging busily in the
dining-room.
Thanks to the peculiar clearness with which external objects
are sometimes projected on an inebriated brain, in sharp con-
trast to its own obscure imaginings, Valentin found an ink-
stand and a table-napkin, with the quickness of a monkey,
repeating all the time
" Let us measure it ! Let us measure it ! "
"All right," said Emile ; " let us measure it."
The two friends spread out the table-napkin and laid the
Wild Ass' Skin upon it. As Emile's hand appeared to be
steadier than Raphael's, he drew a line with pen and ink
round the talisman, while his friend said
"I wished for an income of two hundred thousand livres,
didn't I? Well, when that comes, you will observe a mighty
diminution of my shagreen."
"Yes now go to sleep. Shall I make you comfortable on
that sofa? Now then, are you all right? "
" Yes, my nursling of the press. You shall amuse me ; you
shall drive the flies away from me. The friend of adversity
176 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
should be the friend of prosperity. So I will give you some
Havan na cig '
" Come, now, sleep. Sleep off your gold, you millionaire !"
"You! sleep off your paragraphs! Good-night! Say
good-night to Nebuchadnezzar! love! wine! France!
glory and tr treas "
Very soon the snorings of the two friends were added to
the music with which the rooms resounded an ineffectual
concert ! The lights went out one by one, their crystal
sconces cracking in the final flare. Night threw dark shadows
over this prolonged revelry, in which Raphael's narrative had
been a second orgy of speech, of words without ideas, of ideas
for which words had often been lacking.
Towards noon, next day, the fair Aquilina bestirred her-
self. She yawned wearily. She had slept with her head
upon a painted ^velvet footstool, and her cheeks were mottled
over by contact with the surface. Her movements awoke
Euphrasia, who suddenly sprang up with a hoarse cry ; her
pretty face, that had been so fresh and fair in the evening,
was sallow now and pallid ; she looked like a candidate for
the hospital. The rest awoke also by degrees, with portentous
groanings, to feel themselves over in every stiffened limb, and
to experience the infinite varieties of weariness that weighed
upon them.
A servant came in to throw back the shutters and open the
windows. There they all stood, brought back to conscious-
ness by the warm rays of sunlight that shone upon the sleepers'
heads. Their movements during slumber had disordered the
elaborately arranged hair and toilettes of the women. They
presented a ghastly spectacle in the bright daylight. Their
hair fell ungracefully about them ; their eyes, lately so bril-
liant, were heavy and dim; the expression of their faces was
entirely changed. The sickly hues, which daylight brings
out so strongly, were frightful. An olive tint had crept over
the lymphatic faces, so fair and soft when in repose; the
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 177
dainty red lips were grown pale and dry, and bore tokens of
the degradation of excess. Each disowned his mistress of the
night before ; the women looked wan and discolored, like
flowers trampled under foot by a passing procession.
The men who scorned them looked even more horrible.
Those human faces would have made you shudder. The
hollow eyes with the dark circles round them seemed to see
nothing ; they were dull with wine and stupefied with heavy
slumbers that had been exhausting rather than refreshing.
There was an indescribable, ferocious and stolid bestiality
about the haggard faces, where bare physical appetite appeared
shorn of all the poetical illusion with which the intellect in-
vests it. Even these fearless champions, accustomed to meas-
ure themselves with excess, were struck with horror at this
awakening of vice, stripped of its disguises, at being con-
fronted thus with sin, the skeleton in rags, lifeless and hollow,
bereft of the sophistries of the intellect and the enchantments
of luxury. Artists and courtesans scrutinized in silence and
with haggard glances the surrounding disorder, the rooms
where everything had been laid waste at the havoc wrought
by heated passions.
Demoniac laughter broke out when Taillefer, catching the
smothered murmurs of his guests, tried to greet them with a
grin. His darkly flushed, perspiring countenance loomed upon
this pandemonium, like the image of a crime that knows no
remorse (see " L'Auberge rouge"). The picture was com-
plete. A picture of foul life in the midst of luxury, a hideous
mixture of the pomp and squalor of humanity ; an awakening
after the frenzy of debauch has crushed and squeezed all the
fruits of life in her strong hands, till nothing but unsightly
refuse is left to her, and lies in which she believes no longer.
You might have thought of death gloating over a family
stricken with the plague.
The sweet scents and dazzling lights, the mirth and the
excitement were all no more; disgust with its nauseous sensa-
178 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
tions and searching philosophy was there instead. The sun
shone in like truth, the pure outer air was like virtue ; in con-
trast with the heated atmosphere, heavy with the fumes of the
previous night of revelry.
Accustomed as they were to their life, many of the girls
thought of other days and other wakings ; pure and innocent
days when they looked out and saw the roses and honeysuckle
about the casement, and the fresh country-side without enrap-
tured by the gkd music of the skylark ; while earth lay
in mists, lighted by the dawn, and all the glittering radiance
of dew. Others imagined the family breakfast, the father
and children round the table, the innocent laughter, the un-
speakable charm that pervaded it all, the simple hearts and
their meal as simple.
An artist mused upon his quiet studio, on his statue in its
severe beauty, and the graceful model who was waiting for
him. A young man recollected a lawsuit on which the fortunes
of a family hung, and an important transaction that needed
his presence. The scholar regretted his study and the noble
work that called for him. Nearly everybody was sorry for
himself. Emile appeared just then as smiling, blooming, and
fresh as the smartest assistant in a fashionable shop.
" You are all as ugly as bailiffs. You won't be fit for any-
thing to-day, so this day is lost, and I vote for breakfast."
At this Taillefer went out to give some orders. The women
went languidly up to the mirrors to set their toilettes in order.
Each one shook herself. The wilder sort lectured the steadier
ones. The courtesans made fun of those who looked unable
to continue the boisterous festivity ; but these wan forms
revived at once, stood in groups, and talked and smiled. Some
servants quickly and adroitly set the furniture and everything
else in its place, and a magnificent breakfast was gotten ready.
The guests hurried to the dining-room. Everything there
bore indelible marks of yesterday's excess, it is true, but there
were at any rate some traces of ordinary, rational existence,
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 179
such traces as may be found in a sick man's dying struggles.
And so the revelry was laid away and buried, like carnival of a
Shrove Tuesday by masks, wearied out with dancing, drunk
with drunkenness, and quite ready to be persuaded of the
pleasures of lassitude, lest they be forced to admit their own
exhaustion.
As soon as these bold spirits surrounded the capitalist's
breakfast table, Cardot appeared. He had left the rest to
make a night of it after the dinner, and finished the evening
after his own fashion in the retirement of domestic life. Just
now a sweet smile wandered over his features. He seemed to
have a presentiment that there would be some inheritance to
sample and divide, involving inventories and engrossing; an
inheritance rich in fees and deeds to draw up, and something
as juicy as the trembling fillet of beef in which their host had
just plunged his knife.
" Oh, ho ! we are to have breakfast in the presence of a
notary," cried Cursy.
"You have come here just at the right time," said the
banker, indicating the breakfast; "you can jot down the
numbers, and initial off all the dishes."
"There is no will to make here, but contracts of marriage
there may be, perhaps," said the scholar, who had made a
satisfactory arrangement on this occasion for the first time in
twelve months.
"Oh! Oh!"
"Ah! Ah!"
"One moment," cried Cardot, fairly deafened by a chorus
of wretched jokes. "I came here on serious business. I am
bringing six millions for one of you. (Dead silence.) " Mon-
sieur," he went on, turning to Raphael, who at that moment
was unceremoniously wiping his eyes on a corner of the table-
napkin, " was not your mother a Mile. O'Flaharty?"
"Yes," said Raphael, mechanically enough; "Barbara
Marie."
180 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"Have you your certificate of birth about you," Cardot
went on, "and Mme. de Valentin's as well?"
"I believe so."
"Very well, then, monsieur; you are the sole heir of
Major O'Flaharty, who died in August, 1828, at Calcutta."
" An incalculable fortune," said the critic.
"The Major having bequeathed several amounts to public
institutions in his will, the French government sent in a claim
for the remainder to the East India Company," the notary
continued. " The estate is clear and ready to be transferred
at this moment. I had been looking in vain for the heirs and
assigns of Mile. Barbara Marie O'Flaharty for a fortnight
past, when yesterday at dinner "
Just then Raphael suddenly staggered to his feet; he looked
like a man who has just received a blow. Acclamation took
the form of silence, for stifled envy had been the first feeling
in every breast, and all eyes devoured him like flames. Then
a murmur rose, and grew like the voice of a discontented
audience, or the first mutterings of a riot, as everybody made
some comment on this news of great wealth brought by the
notary.
This abrupt subservience of fate brought Raphael thor-
oughly to his senses. He immediately spread out the table-
napkin with which he had lately taken the measure of the
piece of shagreen. He heeded nothing as he laid the talisman
upon it, and shuddered involuntarily at the sight of a slight
difference between the present size of the skin and the outline
traced upon the linen.
" Why, what is the matter with him?" Taillefer cried.
" He comes by his fortune very cheaply."
"Support him," said Bixiou to Emile. "The joy will
kill him."
A ghastly white hue overspread every line of the wan
features of the heir-at-law. His face was drawn, every out-
line grew haggard ; the hollows in his livid countenance grew
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 181'
deeper, and his eyes were fixed and staring. He was facing
death.
The opulent banker, surrounded by faded women, and
faces with satiety written on them, the enjoyment that had
reached the pitch of agony, was a living illustration of his
own life.
Raphael looked thrice at the talisman, which lay passively
within the merciless outlines on the table-napkin ; he tried
not to believe it, but his incredulity vanished utterly before
the light of an inner presentiment. The whole world was
his ; he could have all things, but the will to possess them was
utterly extinct. Like a traveler in the midst of the desert,
with but a little water left to quench his thirst, he must
measure his life by the draughts he took of it. He saw what
every desire of his must cost him in the days of his life. He
believed in the powers of the Wild Ass' Skin at last ; he
listened to every breath he drew; he felt ill already; he
asked himself:
"Am I not consumptive? Did not my mother die of a
lung complaint? "
" Aha, Raphael ! what fun you will have ! What will you
give me?" asked Aquilina.
" Here's to the death of his uncle, Major O'Flaharty !
There's a man for you ! "
" He will be a peer of France."
"Pooh ! what is a peer of France since July? " said the
amateur critic.
" Are you going to take a box at the Bouffons ? "
" You are going to treat us all, I hope ? " put in Bixiou.
"A man of his sort will be sure to do things in style,"
said Emile.
The hurrah set up by the jovial assembly rang in Valentin's
ears, but he could not grasp the sense of a single word.
Vague thoughts crossed him of the Breton peasant's life of
mechanical labor, without a wish of any kind ; he pictured
182 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
him burdened with a family, tilling the soil, living on buck-
wheat meal, drinking cider out of a pitcher, believing in the
Virgin and the King, taking the sacrament at Easter, dancing
of a Sunday on the green sward, and understanding never a
word of the rector's sermon. The actual scene that lay before
him, the gilded furniture, the courtesans, the feast itself, and
the surrounding splendors, seemed to catch him by the throat
and made him cough.
" Do you wish for some asparagus? " the banker cried.
" 1 'wish for nothing /" thundered Raphael.
"Bravo!" Taillefer exclaimed; "you understand your
position ; a fortune confers the privilege of being impertinent.
You are one of us. Gentlemen, let us drink to the might of
gold ! M. Valentin here, six times a millionaire, has become a
power. He is a king, like all the rich ; everything is at his dis-
posal, everything lies under his feet. From this time forth the
axiom that ' all Frenchmen are alike in the eyes of the law,' is
for him a fib at the head of the Constitutional Charter. He is
not going to obey the law the law is going to obey him.
There are neither scaffolds nor executioners for millionaires."
" Yes, there are," said Raphael ; " they are their own exe-
cutioners."
" Here is another victim of prejudices," cried the banker.
"Let us drink !" Raphael said, putting the talisman into
his pocket.
"What are you doing?" said Emile, checking his move-
ment. "Gentlemen," he added, addressing the company,
who were rather taken aback by Raphael's behavior, "yon
must know that our friend Valentin here what am I saying?
I mean my Lord Marquis de Valentin is in possession of
a secret for obtaining wealth. His wishes are fulfilled as soon
as he knows them. He will make us all rich together, or he
is a flunkey, and devoid of all decent feeling."
" Oh, Raphael dear, I should like a set of pearl ornaments !"
Euphrasia exclaimed.
A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART. 183
"If he has any gratitude in him, he will give me a couple
of carriages with fast steppers," said Aquilina.
" Wish for a hundred thousand a year for me ! "
" India shawls !"
"Pay my debts!"
" Send an apoplexy to my uncle, the old stick ! "
" Ten thousand a year in the funds, and I'll cry quits with
you, Raphael ! "
" Deeds of gift and no mistake," was the notary's com-
ment.
" He ought, at least, to rid me of the gout ! "
" Lower the funds ! " shouted the banker.
These phrases flew about like the last discharge of rockets
at the end of a display of fireworks ; and were uttered, per-
haps more in earnest than in jest.
" My good friend," Emile said solemnly, "I shall be quite
satibfied with an income of two hundred thousand livres.
Please to set about it at once."
" Do you not know the cost, Emile?" asked Raphael.
" A nice excuse ! " the poet cried ; " ought we not to sacri-
fice ourselves for our friends?"
"I have almost a mind to wish that you were all dead,"
Valentin made answer, with a dark, inscrutable look at his
boon companions.
" Dying people are frightfully cruel," said Emile, laughing.
" You are rich now," he went on gravely ; " very well, I will
give you two months at most before you grow vilely selfish.
You are so dense already that you cannot understand a joke.
You have only to go a little further to believe in your Wild
Ass' Skin.
Raphael kept silent, fearing the banter of the company ;
but he drank immoderately, trying to drown in intoxication
the recollection of his fatal power.
Ill
THE AGONY.
IN the early days of December an old man of some seventy
years of age pursued his way along the Rue de Varenne,
in spite of the falling rain. He peered up at the door of
each house, trying to discover the address of the Marquis
Raphael de Valentin, in a simple, childlike fashion, and with
the abstracted look peculiar to philosophers. His face plainly
showed traces of a struggle between a heavy mortification and
an authoritative nature ; his long gray hair hung in disorder
about a face like a piece of parchment, shriveling in the fire.
If a painter had come upon this curious character, he would,
no doubt, have transferred him .to his sketch-book on his
return, a thin, bony figure, clad in black, and have inscibed
beneath it : "Classical poet in search of a rhyme." When
he had identified the number that had been given to him,
this re-incarnation of Rollin knocked meekly at the door of a
splendid mansion.
" Is Monsieur Raphael in?" the worthy man inquired of
the Swiss in livery.
"My Lord the Marquis sees nobody," said the servant,
swallowing a huge morsel that he had just dipped in a large
bowl of coffee.
" There is his carriage," said the elderly stranger, pointing
to a fine equipage that stood under the wooden canopy that
sheltered the steps before the house, in place of a striped linen
awning. " He is going out ; I will wait for him."
"Then you might wait here till to-morrow morning, old
boy," said the Swiss. "A carriage is always waiting for
monsieur. Please go away. If I were to let any stranger
(184)
THE AGONY. 185
come into the house without orders, I should lose an income
of six hundred francs."
A tall old man, in a costume not unlike that of a subordi-
nate in the civil service, came out of the vestibule and hurried
part of the way down the steps, while he made a survey of the
astonished elderly applicant for admission.
" What is more, here is M. Jonathan," the Swiss remarked ;
" speak to him."
Fellow-feeling of some kind, or curiosity, brought the two
old men together in a central space in the great entrance
court. A few blades of grass were growing in the crevices of
the pavement ; a terrible silence reigned in that great house.
The sight of Jonathan's face would have made you long to
understand the mystery that brooded over it, and that was
announced by the smallest trifles about the melancholy place.
When Raphel inherited his uncle's vast estate, his first care
had been to seek out the old and devoted servitor of whose
affection he knew that he was secure. Jonathan had wept
tears of joy at the sight of his young master, of whom he
thought he had taken a final farewell ; and when the Marquis
exalted him to the high office of steward, his happiness could
not be surpassed. So old Jonathan became an intermediary
power between Raphael and the world at large. He was the
absolute disposer of his master's fortune, the blind instrument
of an unknown will, and a sixth sense, as it were, by which
the emotions of life were communicated to Raphael.
."I should like to speak with M. Raphael, sir," said the
elderly person to Jonathan, as he climbed up the steps some
way, into a shelter from the rain.
"To speak with my lord the Marquis ? " the steward cried.
" He scarcely speaks even to me, his foster-father !"
"But I am likewise his foster-father," said the old man.
" If your wife was his foster-mother, I fed him myself with
the milk of the Muses. He is my nursling, my child, carus
alumnus ! I formed his mind, cultivated his understanding,
18G 7'HE WILD ASS' SKIN.
developed his genius, and, I venture to say it, to my own
honor and glory. Is he not one of the most remarkable men
of our epoch? He was one of my pupils in two lower forms,
and in rhetoric. I am his professor."
" Ah, sir, then you are M. Porriquet ? "
" Exactly, sir, but
" Hush ! hush ! " Jonathan called to two underlings, whose
voices broke the monastic silence that shrouded the house.
''But is the Marquis ill, sir?" the professor continued.
"My dear sir," Jonathan replied, "heaven only knows
what is the matter with my master. You see, there are not a
couple of houses like ours anywhere in Paris. Do you under-
stand ? Not two houses. Faith, that there are not. My
lord the Marquis had this hotel purchased for him ; it form-
erly belonged to a duke and a peer of France ; then he spent
three hundred thousand francs over furnishing it. That's a
good deal, you know, three hundred thousand francs ! But
every room in the house is a perfect wonder. ' Good,' said
I to myself when I saw this magnificence ; ' it is just like it
used to be in the time of my lord, his late grandfather; and
the young Marquis is going to entertain all Paris and the
Court ! ' Nothing of the kind ! My lord refused to see any
one whatever. 'Tis a funny life that he leads, M. Porriquet,
you understand. An inconciliable life. He rises everyday at
the same time. I am the only person, you see, that may
enter his room. I open the shutters at seven o'clock, summer
or winter. It is all arranged very oddly. As I come in I
say to him
" 'You must get up and dress, my lord Marquis.'
" Then he rises and dresses hinself. I have to give him
his dressing-gown, and it is always after the same pattern,
and of the same material. I am obliged to replace it when it
can be used no longer, simply to save him the trouble of ask-
ing for a new one. A queer fancy ! As a matter of fact, he
has a thousand francs to spend every day, and he does as he
THE AGONY. 187
pleases, the dear child. And besides, I am so fond of him
that if he gave me a box on the ear on one side, I should hold
out the other to him ! The most difficult things he will tell
me to do, and yet I do them, you know ! He gives me such a lot
of trifles to attend to, that I am well set to work ! He reads
the newspapers, doesn't he? Well, my instructions are to
put them always in the same place, on the same table. I
always go at the same hour and shave him myself; and don't
I tremble ! The cook would forfeit the annuity of a thousand
crowns that he is to come into after my lord's death, if break-
fast is not served inconciliably at ten o'clock precisely. The
menus are drawn up for the whole year round, day after day.
My lord the Marquis has not a thing to wish for. He has
strawberries whenever there are any, and he has the earliest
mackerel to be had in Paris. The programme is printed
every morning. He knows his dinner by rote. In the next
place, he dresses himself at the same hour, in the same clothes,
the same linen, that I always put on the same chair, you
understand ? I have to see that he always has the same cloth ;
and if it should happen that his coat came to grief (a mere
supposition), I should have to replace it by another without
saying a word about it to him. If it is fine, I go in and say
to my master
" ' You ought to go out, sir.'
" He says Yes, or No. If he has a notion that he will go
out, he doesn't wait for his horses ; they are always ready
harnessed; the coachman stops there inconciliably, whip in
hand, just as you see him out there. In the evening, after
dinner, my master goes one day to the opera, the other to the
Ital no, he hasn't yet gone to the Italiens, though, for I
could not find a box for him until yesterday. Then he comes
in at eleven o'clock precisely, to go to bed. At any time in
the day when he has nothing to do, he reads he is always
reading, you see it is a notion he has. My instructions are
to read the Journal dela Librairie before he sees it, and to
188 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
buy new books, so that he finds them on his chimney-piece on
the very day that they are published. I have orders to go
into his room every hour or so, to look after the fire and
everything else, and to see that he wants nothing. He gave
me a little book, sir, to learn off by heart, with all my duties
written in it a regular catechism ! In summer I have to
keep a cool and even temperature with blocks of ice, and at
all seasons to put fresh flowers all about. He is rich ! He
has a thousand francs to spend every day ; he can indulge his
fancies! And he hadn't even necessaries for so long, poor
child ! He doesn't annoy anybody; he is as good as gold ;
he never opens his mouth, for instance; the house and garden
are absolutely silent. In short, my master has not a single
wish left ; everything comes in the twinkling of an eye, if he
raises his hand, and instanter. Quite right, too. If servants
are not looked after, everything falls into confusion. You
would never believe the lengths he goes about things. His
rooms are all what do you call it ! er er en suite. Very
well ; just suppose, now, that he opens his room door or the
door of his study ; presto ! all the other doors fly open them-
selves by a patent contrivance ; and then he can go from one
end of the house to the other and not find a single door shut;
which is all very nice and pleasant and convenient for us great
folk ! But, on my word, it costs us a lot of money ! And,
after all, M. Porriquet, he said to me at last
" ' Jonathan, you will look after me as if I were a baby in
long clothes.' Yes, sir, 'long clothes! ' those were his very
words. 'You will think of all my requirements for me.' I
am the master, so to speak, and he is the servant, you under-
stand? The reason of it? Ah, my word, that is just what
nobody on earth knows but he himself and God Almighty.
It is quite inconciliable ! "
" He is writing a poem ! " exclaimed the old professor.
"You think he is writing a poem, sir ? It is a very absorbing
affair, then ! But, you know, I don't think he is. He often
THE AGONY. 189
tells me that he wants to live like a vergetation ; he wants to
vergetate. Only yesterday he was looking at a tulip while he
was dressing, and he said to me
" 'There is my own life I am vergetating, my poor Jona-
than.' Now, some of them insist that that is monomania.
It is inconciliable ! ' '
"All this makes it very clear to me, Jonathan," the pro-
fessor answered, with a magisterial solemnity that greatly im-
pressed the old servant, "that your master is absorbed in a
great work. He is deep in vast meditations, and has no wish
to be distracted by the petty preoccupations of ordinary life.
A man of genius forgets everything among his intellectual
labors. One day the famous Newton "
"Newton? oh, ah! I don't know the name," said
Jonathan.
" Newton, a great geometrician," Porriquet went on," once
sat for twenty-four hours leaning his elbow on the table ; when
he emerged from his musings, he was a day out in his reckon-
ing, just as if he had been sleeping. I will go to see him,
dear lad ; I may perhaps be of some use to him."
" Not for a moment ! " Jonathan cried. " Not though you
were King of France I mean the real one. You could not
go in unless you forced the doors open and walked over my
body. But I will go and tell him you are here, M. Porriquet,
and I will put it to him like this, ' Ought he to come up ? '
And he will say Yes or No. I never say, ' Do you wish ? ' or
' Will you ? ' or ' Do you want ? ' Those words are scratched
out of the dictionary. He let out at me once with a ' Do you
want to kill me? ' he was so very angry."
Jonathan left the old schoolmaster in the vestibule, signing
to him to come no further, and soon returned with a favor-
able answer. He led the old gentleman through one magnifi-
cent room after another, where every door stood open. At
last Porriquet beheld his pupil at some distance seated beside
the fire.
13
190 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Raphael was reading the paper. He sat in an arm-chair,
wrapped in a dressing-gown with some large pattern on it.
The intense melancholy that preyed upon him could be dis-
cerned in his languid posture and feeble frame ; it was depicted
on his brow and white face ; he looked like some plant
bleached by darkness. There was a kind of effeminate grace
about him ; the fancies peculiar to wealthy invalids were also
noticeable. His hands were soft and white, like a pretty
woman's ; he wore his fair hair, now grown scanty, curled
about his temples with a refinement of vanity.
The Greek cap that he wore was pulled to one side by the
weight of its tassel ; too heavy for the light material of which
it was made. He had let the paper-knife fall at his feet, a
malachite blade with gold mounting, which he had used to
cut the leaves of a book. The amber mouth-piece of a mag-
nificent India hookah lay on his knee ; the enameled coils
lay like a serpent in the room, but he had forgotten to draw
out its fresh perfume. And yet there was a complete contra-
diction between the general feebleness of his young frame and
the blue eyes, where all his vitality seemed to dwell ; an
extraordinary intelligence seemed to look out from them and
to grasp everything at once.
That expression was painful to see. Some would have read
despair in it, and others some inner conflict terrible as remorse.
It was the inscrutable glance of helplessness that must perforce
consign its desires to the depth of its own heart ; or of a
miser enjoying in imagination all the pleasures that his money
could procure for him, while he declines to lessen his hoard ;
the look of a bound Prometheus, of the fallen Napoleon of
1815, when he learned at the Elysee the strategical blunder
that his enemies had made, and asked for twenty-four hours
of command in vain ; or rather it was the same look that
Raphael had turned upon the Seine, or upon his last piece of
gold at the gaming table only a few months ago.
He was submitting his intelligence and his will to the homely
THE AGONY. 191
common-sense of an old peasant whom fifty years of domestic
service had scarcely civilized. He had given up all the rights
of life in order to live ; he had despoiled his soul of all the
romance that lies in a wish ; and almost rejoiced at thus be-
coming a sort of automaton. The better to struggle with the
cruel power that he had challenged, he had followed Origen's
example, and had maimed and chastened his imagination.
The day after he had seen the dimunition of the Wild
Ass' Skin, at his sudden accession of wealth, he happened to
be at his notary's house. A well-known physician had told
them quite seriously, at dessert, how a Swiss attacked by con-
sumption had cured himself. The man had never spoken a
word for ten years, and had compelled himself to draw six
breaths only, every minute, in the close atmosphere of a cow-
house, adhering all the time to a regimen of exceedingly light
diet. " I will be like that man," thought Raphael to himself.
He wanted life at any price, and so he led the life of a
machine in the midst of all the luxury around him.
The old professor confronted this youthful corpse and shud-
dered ; there seemed something unnatural about the meagre,
enfeebled frame. In the Marquis, with his eager eyes and
careworn forehead, he could hardly recognize the fresh-cheeked
and rosy pupil with the active limbs, whom he remembered.
If the worthy classicist, sage critic, and general preserver of
the traditions of correct taste had read Byron, he would have
thought that he had come on a Manfred when he looked to find
Childe Harold.
"Good-day, Pere Porriquet, " said Raphael, pressing the
old schoolmaster's frozen fingers in his own hot damp ones ;
" how are you? "
"I am very well," replied the other, alarmed by the touch
of that feverish hand. " But how about you ? "
" Oh, I am hoping to keep myself in health."
"You are engaged on some great work, no doubt?"
"No," Raphael answered. "Exegimonumentum,*P&e'PoT-
192 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
riquet ; I have contributed an important page to science, and
have now bidden her farewell forever. I scarcely know where
my manuscript is."
" The style is no doubt correct ? ' ' queried the schoolmaster.
" You, I hope, would never have adopted the barbarous lan-
guage of the new school, which fancies it has worked such
wonders by discovering Ronsard ! "
" My work treats of physiology pure and simple."
"Oh, then, there is no more to be said," the schoolmaster
answered. "Grammar must yield to the exigencies of dis-
covery. Nevertheless, young man, a lucid and harmonious
style the diction of Massillon, of M. de Buffon, of the great
Racine a classical style, in short, can never spoil anything
But, my friend," the schoolmaster interrupted himself, "I
was forgetting the object of my visit, which concerns my own
interests."
Too late Raphael recalled to mind the verbose eloquence
and elegant circumlocutions which in a long professorial career
had grown habitual to his old tutor, and almost regretted that
he had admitted him ; but just as he was about to wish to see
him safely outside, he promptly suppressed his secret desire
with a stealthy glance at the Wild Ass' Skin. It hung there
before him, fastened down upon some white material, sur-
rounded by a red line accurately traced about its prophetic
outlines. Since that fatal carouse, Raphael had stifled every
least whim, and had lived so as not to cause the slightest
movement in the terrible talisman. The Wild Ass' Skin was
like a tiger with which he must live without exciting its fero-
city. He bore patiently, therefore, with the old schoolmaster's
prolixity.
Porriquet spent an hour in telling him about the persecu-
tions directed against him ever since the Revolution of July.
The worthy man, having a liking for strong governments, had
expressed the patriotic wish that grocers should be left to
their counters, statesmen to the management of public busi-
THE AGONY. 193
ness, advocates to the Palais de Justice, and the peers of
France to the Luxembourg; but one of the popularity-seeking
ministers of the Citizen King had ousted him from his chair,
on an accusation of Charlism, and the old man now found
himself without pension or post, and with no bread to eat.
As he played the part of guardian angel to a poor nephew,
for whose schooling at Saint Sulpice he was paying, he came
less on his own account than for his adopted child's sake, to
entreat his former pupil's interest with the new minister. He
did not ask to be reinstated, but only for a position at the
head of some provincial school.
Raphael had fallen a victim to unconquerable drowsiness
by the time that the worthy man's monotonous voice ceased
to sound in his ears. Civility had compelled him to look at
the pale and unmoving eyes of the deliberate and tedious old
narrator, till he himself had reached stupefaction, magnetized
in an inexplicable way by the power of inertia.
" Well, my dear Pere Porriquet," he said, not very certain
what the question was to which he was replying, "but I can
do nothing for you, nothing at all. I wish very heartily that
you may succeed "
All at once, without seeing the change wrought on the old
man's sallow and wrinkled brow by these conventional phrases,
full of indifference and selfishness, Raphael sprang to his feet
like a startled roebuck. He saw a thin white line between
the black piece of hide and the red tracing about it, and gave
a cry so fearful that the poor professor was frightened by it.
" Old fool ! Go ! " he cried. " You will be appointed as
headmaster. Couldn't you have asked me for an annuity of
a thousand crowns rather than a murderous wish ? Your vi'sit
would have cost me nothing. There are a hundred thousand
situations to be had in France, but I have only one life. A
man's life is worth more than all the situations in the world.
Jonathan ! "
Jonathan appeared.
194 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
" This is your doing, double-distilled idiot ! What made
you suggest that I should see M. Porriquet ? " and he pointed
to the old man, who was petrified with fright. " Did I put
myself into your hands for you to tear me in pieces ? You
have just shortened my life by ten years ! Another blunder
of this kind, and you will lay me where I have laid my father.
Would I not far rather have possessed the beautiful Foedora ?
And I have obliged that old hulk instead that rag of hu-
manity ! I had money enough for him. And, moreover, if
all the Porriquets in the world were dying of hunger, what is
that to me ? "
Raphael's face was white with anger ; a slight froth marked
his trembling lips ; there was a savage gleam in his eyes.
The two elders shook with terror in his presence like two chil-
dren at the sight of a snake. The young man fell back in his
armchair, a kind of reaction took place in him, the tears
flowed fast from his angry eyes.
"Oh, my life ! " he cried, " that fair life of mine. Never
to know a kindly thought again, to love no more ; nothing is
left to me! "
He turned to the professor and went on in a gentle voice
" The harm is done, my old friend. Your services have been
well repaid ; and my misfortune has at any rate contributed
to the welfare of a good and worthy man."
His tones betrayed so much feeling that the almost unin-
telligible words drew tears from the two old men, such tears
as are shed over some pathetic song in a foreign tongue.
" He is epileptic," muttered Porriquet.
"I understand your kind intentions, my friend," Raphael
answered gently. "You would make excuses for me. Ill-
health cannot be helped, but ingratitude is a grievous fault.
Leave me now," he added. "To-morrow, or the next day,
or possibly to-night, you will receive your appointment ;
resistance has triumphed over motion. Farewell."
The old schoolmaster went away, full of keen apprehension
THE AGONY. 195
as to Valentin's sanity. A thrill of horror ran through him ;
there had been something supernatural, he thought, in the
scene he had passed through. He could hardly believe his
own impressions, and questioned them like one awakened
from a painful dream.
" Now attend to me, Jonathan," said the young man to his
old servant. "Try to understand the charge confided to
you."
"Yes, my Lord Marquis."
" I am as a man outlawed from humanity."
"Yes, my Lord Marquis."
"All the pleasures of life disport themselves round my bed
of death, and dance about me like fair women ; but if I
beckon to them I must die. Death always confronts me.
You must be the barrier between the world and me."
"Yes, my Lord Marquis," said the old servant, wiping the
drops of perspiration from his wrinkled forehead. " But if
you don't wish to see pretty women how will you manage at
the Italiens this evening? An English family is returning to
London, and I have taken their box for the rest of the season,
and it is in a splendid position superb; in the first row."
Raphael, deep in his own musings, paid no attention to
him.
Do you see that splendid equipage, a brougham painted a
dark brown color, but with the arms of an ancient and noble
family shining from the panels ? As it rolls past, all the shop-
girls admire it, and look longingly at the yellow satin lining,
the rugs from la Savonnerie, the daintiness and freshness of
every detail, the silken cushions and tightly-fitting glass
windows. Two liveried footmen are mounted behind this
aristocratic carriage ; and within, a head lies back among the
silken cushions, the feverish face and hollow eyes of Raphael,
melancholy and sad. Emblem of the doom of wealth ! He
flies across Paris like a rocket, and reaches the peristyle of the
The&tre Favart. The passers-by make way for him; the
196 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
two footmen help him to alight, an envious crowd looking on
the while.
"What has that fellow done to be so rich ? " asks a poor
law-student, who cannot listen to the magical music of Ros-
sini for lack of a five-franc piece.
Raphael walked slowly along the gangway ; he expected no
enjoyment from these pleasures he had once coveted so eagerly.
In the interval before the second act of Semiramide he walked
up and down in the lobby, and along the corridors, leaving
his box, which he had not yet entered, to look after itself.
The instinct of property was dead within him already. Like
all invalids, he thought of nothing but his own sufferings. He
was leaning against the chimney-piece in the green-room. A
group had gathered about it of dandies, young and old, of
ministers and ex-ministers, of peers without peerages, and peer-
ages without peers, for so the Revolution of July had ordered
matters. Among a host of adventurers and journalists, in
fact, Raphael beheld a strange, unearthly figure a few paces
away among the crowd. He went towards this grotesque
object to see it better, half-closing his eyes with exceeding
superciliousness.
" What a wonderful bit of painting ! " he said to himself.
The stranger's hair and eyebrows and a Mazarin tuft on the
chin had been dyed black, but the result was a spurious,
glossy, purple tint that varied its hues according to the
light ; the hair had been too white, no doubt, to take the
preparation. Anxiety and cunning were depicted in the
narrow, insignificant face, with its wrinkles incrusted by thick
layers of red and white paint. This red enamel, lacking on
some portions of his face, strongly brought out his natural
feebleness and livid hues. It was impossible not to smile
at this visage with the protuberant forehead and pointed
chin, a face not unlike those grotesque wooden figures that
German herdsmen carve in their spare moments.
An attentive observer looking from Raphael to this elderly
THE AGONY. 197
Adonis would have remarked a young man's eyes set in a mask
of age, in the case of the marquis, and in the other case the
dim eyes of age peering forth from behind a mask of youth.
Valentin tried to recollect when and where he had seen this
little old man before. He was thin, fastidiously cravatted,
booted and spurred like one-and-twenty ; he crossed his arms
and clinked his spurs as if he possessed all the wanton energy
of youth. He seemed to move about without constraint or
difficulty. He had carefully buttoned up his fashionable
coat, which disguised his powerful, elderly frame, and gave
him the appearance of an antiquated coxcomb who still follows
the fashions.
For Raphael this animated puppet possessed all the interest
of an apparition. He gazed at it as if it had been some
smoke-begrimed Rembrandt, recently restored and newly
framed. This idea found him a clue to the truth among his
confused recollections ; he recognized the dealer in antiqui-
ties, the man to whom he owed his calamities !
A noiseless laugh broke just then from the fantastical per-
sonage, straightening the line of his lips that stretched across
a row of artificial teeth. That laugh brought out, for
Raphael's heated fancy, a strong resemblance between the
man before him and the type of head that painters have as-
signed to Goethe's Mephistopheles. A crowd of superstitious
thoughts entered Raphael's sceptical mind ; he was convinced
of the powers of the devil and of all the sorcerer's enchant-
ments embodied in mediaeval tradition, and since worked up
by poets. Shrinking in horror from the destiny of Faust, he
prayed for the protection of Heaven with all the ardent faith
of a dying man in God and the Virgin. A clear, bright radi-
ance seemed to give him a glimpse of the heaven of Michel
Angelo or of Raphael of Urbino : a venerable white-bearded
man, a beautiful woman seated in an aureole of the clouds
and winged cherub heads. Now he had grasped and received
the meaning of those imaginative, almost human creations;
198 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
they seemed to explain what had happened to him, to leave
him yet one hope.
But when the greenroom of the Italiens returned upon his
sight, he beheld not the Virgin, but a very handsome young
person. The execrable Euphrasia, in all the splendor of her
toilette, with its orient pearls, had come thither, impatient
for her ardent, elderly admirer. She was insolently exhibiting
herself with her defiant face and glittering eyes to an envious
crowd of stockbrokers, a visible testimony to the inexhaustible
wealth that the old dealer permitted her to squander.
Raphael recollected the mocking wish with which he had
accepted the old man's luckless gift, and tasted all the sweets
of revenge when he beheld the spectacle of sublime wisdom
fallen to such a depth as this, wisdom for which such humilia-
tion had seemed a thing impossible. The centenarian greeted
Euphrasia with a ghastly smile, receiving her honeyed words
in reply. He offered her his emaciated arm, and went twice
or thrice round the greenroom with her ; the envious glances
and compliments with which the crowd received his mistress
delighted him ; he did not see the scornful smiles, nor hear
the caustic comments to which he gave rise.
" In what cemetery did this young ghoul unearth that
corpse of hers? " asked the dandy of the romantic faction.
"Euphrasia began to smile. The speaker was a slender,
fair-haired youth, with bright blue eyes, and a moustache.
His short dress coat, hat tilted over one ear, and sharp tongue,
all denoted the species.
"How many old men," said Raphael to himself, "bring
an upright, virtuous, and hard-working life to a close in folly !
His feet are cold already, and he is making love."
"Well, sir," exclaimed Valentin, stopping the merchant's
progress, while he stared hard at Euphrasia, " have you quite
forgotten the stringent maxims of your philosophy? "
"Ah, I am as happy now as a young man," said the other,
in a cracked voice. "I used to look at existence from a
THE AGONY. 199
wrong standpoint. One hour of love has a whole life in it."
The playgoers heard the bell ring, and left the greenroom
to take their places again. Raphael and the old merchant sepa-
rated. As he entered his box, the Marquis saw Foedora sitting
exactly opposite to him on the other side of the theatre. The
Countess had probably only just come, for she was just flinging
off her scarf to leave her throat uncovered, and was occupied
with going through all the indescribable manoeuvres of a
coquette arranging herself. All eyes were turned upon her.
A young peer of France had come with her; she asked him
for the lorgnette which she had given him to carry. Raphael
knew the despotism to which his successor had resigned him-
self, in her gestures, and in the way she treated her companion.
He was also under the spell no doubt, another dupe beating
with all the might of a real affection against the woman's cold
calculations, enduring all the tortures from which Valentin
had luckily freed himself.
Fcedora's face lighted up with indescribable joy. After
directing her lorgnette upon every box in turn, to make a rapid
survey of all the dresses, she was conscious that by her toilette
and her beauty she had eclipsed the loveliest and best-dressed
women in Paris. She laughed to show her white teeth ; her
head with its wreath of flowers was never still, in her quest
of admiration. Her glances went from one box to another,
as she diverted herself with the awkward way in which a
Russian princess wore her bonnet, or over the utter failure of
a bonnet with which a banker's daughter had disfigured her-
self.
All at once she met Raphael's steady gaze and turned pale,
aghast at the intolerable contempt in her rejected lover's eyes.
Not one of her exiled suitors had failed to own her power over
them ; Valentin alone was proof against her attractions. A
power that can be defied with impunity is drawing to its end.
This axiom is as deeply engraved on the heart of woman as
in the minds of kings. In Raphael, therefore, Fcedora saw
200 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
the deathblow of her influence and her ability to please. An
epigram of his, made at the opera the day before, was already
known in the salons of Paris. The biting edge of that terrible
speech had already given the Countess an incurable wound.
We know how to cauterize a wound, but we know of no treat-
ment as yet for the stab of a phrase. As every other woman
in the house looked by turns at her and at the Marquis, Fcedora
would have consigned them all to the dungeons of some Bas-
tille ; for in spite of her capacity for dissimulation, her discom-
fiture was discerned by her rivals. Her unfailing consolation
had slipped from her at last. The delicious thought, " I am
the most beautiful," the thought that all times had soothed
every mortification, had turned into a lie.
At the opening of the second act a woman took up her
position not very far from Raphael, in a box that had been
empty hitherto. A murmur of admiration went up from the
whole house. In that sea of human faces there was a move-
ment of every living wave ; all eyes were turned upon the
stranger lady. The applause of young and old were so pro-
longed, that when the orchestra began, the musicians turned
to the audience to request silence, and then they themselves
joined in the plaudits and swelled the confusion. Excited
talk began in every box, every woman equipped herself with
an opera glass, elderly men grew young again, and polished
the glasses of their lorgnettes with their gloves. The enthus-
iasm subsided by degrees, the stage echoed with the voices of
the singers, and order reigned as before. The aristocratic
section, ashamed of having yielded to a spontaneous feeling,
again assumed their wonted politely frigid manner. The well-
to-do dislike to be astonished at anything ; at the first sight
of a beautiful thing it becomes their duty to discover the
defect in it which absolves them from admiring it the feeling
of all ordinary minds. Yet a few still remained motionless
and heedless of the music, artlessly absorbed in the delight
of watching Raphael's neighbor.
THE AGONY. 201
Valentin noticed Taillefer's mean, obnoxious countenance
by Aquilina's side in a lower box, and received an approving
smirk from him. Then he saw Emile, who seemed to say
from where he stood in the orchestra, " Just look at that lovely
creature there, close beside you ! " Lastly, he saw Rastignac,
with Mme. de Nucingen and her daughter, twisting his gloves
like a man in despair, because he was tethered to his place,
and could not leave it to go any nearer to the unknown fair
divinity.
Raphael's life depended upon a covenant that he had made
with himself, and had hitherto kept sacred. He would give
no special heed to any woman whatever ; and the better to
guard against temptation, he used a cunningly contrived opera-
glass which destroyed the harmony of the fairest features by
hideous distortions. He had not recovered from the terror
that had seized on him in the morning when, at a mere ex-
pression of civility, the Wild Ass' Skin had contracted so
abruptly. So Raphael was determined not to turn his face in
the direction of his neighbor. He sat imperturbable as a
duchess, with his back against the corner of the box, thereby
shutting out half of his neighbor's view of the stage, appear-
ing to disregard her, and even to be unaware that a pretty
woman sat there just behind him.
His neighbor copied Valentin's position exactly ! she leaned
her elbow on the edge of her box and turned her face in three-
quarter profile upon the singers on the stage, as if she were
sitting to a painter. These two people looked like two
estranged lovers still sulking, still turning their backs upon
each other, who will go into each other's arms at the first
tender word.
Now and again his neighbor's ostrich feathers or her hair
came in contact with Raphael's head, giving him a pleasur-
able thrill, against which he sternly fought. In a little
while he felt the touch of the soft frill of lace that went
round her dress; he could hear the gracious sounds of the
202 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
folds of her dress itself, light rustling noises full of enchant-
ment ; he could even feel her movements as she breathed,
with the gentle stir thus imparted to her form and to her
draperies, it seemed to Raphael that all her being was suddenly
communicated to him in an electric spark. The lace and
tulle that caressed him imparted the delicious warmth of her
bare, white shoulders. By a freak in the ordering of things,
these two creatures, kept apart by social conventions, with
the abysses of death between them, breathed together and
perhaps thought of one another. Finally, the subtle perfume
of aloes completed the work of Raphael's intoxication.
Opposition heated his imagination, and his fancy, become
the wilder for the limits imposed upon it, sketched a woman
for him in outlines of fire. He turned abruptly, the stranger
made a similar movement, startled no doubt at being brought
in contact with a stranger ; and they remained face to face,
each with the same thought.
"Pauline! "
"M. Raphael! "
Each surveyed the other, both of them petrified with aston-
ishment. Raphael noticed Pauline's daintily simple costume.
A woman's experienced eyes would have discerned and ad-
mired the outlines beneath the modest gauze folds of her
bodice and the lily whiteness of her throat. And then her
more than mortal clearness of soul, her maidenly modesty,
her graceful bearing, all were unchanged. Her sleeve was
quivering with agitation, for the beating of her heart was
shaking her whole frame.
" Come to the Hotel de Saint-Quentin to-morrow for your
papers," she said. " I will be there at noon. Be punctual."
She rose hastily and disappeared. Raphael thought of
following Pauline, feared to compromise her, and stayed. He
looked at Fcedora ; she seemed to him positively ugly. Un-
able to understand a single phrase of the music, and feeling
stifled in the theatre, he went out, and returned home.
THE AGONY. 203
"Jonathan," he said to the old servant, as soon as he lay
in bed, "give me half a drop of laudanum on a piece of
sugar, and don't wake me to-morrow till twenty minutes to
twelve."
"I want Pauline to love me," he cried next morning,
looking at the talisman the while in unspeakable anguish.
The skin did not move in the least ; it seemed to have lost
its power to shrink ; doubtless it could not fulfil a wish ful-
filled already.
"Ah ! " exclaimed Raphael, feeling as if a mantle of lead
had fallen away, which he had worn ever since the day when
the talisman had been given to him ; " so you are playing me
false, you are not obeying me, the pact is broken ! I am
free; I shall live. Then was it all a wretched joke?" But
he did not dare to believe in his own thought as he uttered it.
He dressed himself as simply as had formerly been his
wont, and set out on foot for his old lodging, trying to go
back in fancy to the happy days when he abandoned himself
without peril to vehement desires, the days when he had not
yet condemned all human enjoyment. As he walked he
beheld Pauline not the Pauline of the Hotel Saint-Quentin,
but the Pauline of last evening. Here was the accomplished
mistress he had so often dreamed of, the intelligent young
girl with the loving nature and artistic temperament, who
understood poets, who understood poetry, and lived in luxu-
rious surroundings. Here, in short, was Fcedora, gifted with
a great soul ; or Pauline become a countess, and twice a
millionaire, as Fcedora had been. When he reached the worn
threshold, and stood upon the broken step at the door, where
in other days he had so many desperate thoughts, an old
woman came out of the room within and spoke to him.
"You are M. Raphael de Valentin, are you not? "
" Yes, good mother," he replied.
" You know your old room then," she replied ; " you are
expected up there."
204 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
" Does Mme. Gaudin still own the house? " Raphael asked.
" Oh no, sir. Mme. Gaudin is a baroness now. She lives
in a fine house of her own on the other side of the river. Her
husband has come back. My goodness, he brought back
thousands and thousands, They say she could buy up all
the Quartier Saint-Jacques if she liked. She gave me her
basement room for nothing, and the remainder of her lease.
Ah, she's a kind woman all the same; she is no more proud
to-day than she was yesterday."
Raphael hurried up the staircase to his garret ; as he
reached the last few steps he heard the sounds of a piano.
Pauline was there, simply dressed in a cotton gown, but the
way that it was made, like the gloves, hat, and shawl that she
had thrown down carelessly upon the bed, revealed a change
of fortune.
" Ah, there you are ! " cried Pauline, turning her head, and
rising with unconcealed delight.
Raphael went to sit beside her, flushed, confused, and
happy ; he looked at her in silence.
"Why did you leave us then?" she asked, dropping hei
eyes as the flush deepened on his face. "What became of
you ? ' '
" Ah, I have been very miserable, Pauline ; I am very
miserable still."
"Alas!" she said, filled with pitying tenderness. "I
guessed your fate yesterday when I saw you so well dressed,
and apparently so wealthy; but in reality? Eh, M. Raphael,
is it as it always used to be with you?"
Valentin could not restrain the tears that sprang to his
eyes.
"Pauline," he exclaimed, "I "
He went no further, love sparkled in his eyes, and his
emotion overflowed his face.
" Oh, he loves me ! he loves me ! " cried Pauline.
Raphael felt himself unable to say one word ; he bent his
PAULINE DREW HER HANDS AWAY, LAID THEM ON
RAPHAEL'S SHOULDERS, AVD DREW HIM
TOWARDS HER.
THE AGONY. 205
head. The young girl took his hand at this ; she pressed
it as she said, half-sobbing and half-laughing
" Rich, rich, happy and rich ! Your Pauline is rich. But
I ? Oh, I ought to be very poor to-day. I have said, times
without number, that I would give all the wealth upon this
earth for those words, ' He loves me ! ' O my Raphael !
I have millions. You like luxury, you will be glad ; but
you must love me and my heart besides, for there is so much
love for you in my heart. You don't know ! My father has
come back. I am a wealthy heiress. Both he and my
mother leave me completely free to decide my own fate. I
am free do you understand ! "
Seized with a kind of frenzy, Raphael grasped Pauline's
hands and kissed them eagerly and vehemently, with an almost
convulsive caress. Pauline drew her hands away, laid them
on Raphael's shoulders, and drew him towards her. They
understood one another in that close embrace, in the
unalloyed and sacred fervor of that one kiss without an
afterthought the first kiss by which two souls take posses-
sion of each other.
"Ah, I will not leave you any more," said Pauline, falling
back in her chair. " I do not know how I come to be so
bold ! " she added, blushing.
" Bold, my Pauline ! Do not fear it. It is love, love true
and deep and everlasting like my own, is it not ? "
"Speak!" she cried. "Go on speaking, so long your
lips have been dumb for me."
" Then you have loved me all along ? "
" Loved you? Mon Dieu ! How often I have wept here,
setting your room straight, and grieving for your poverty and
my own. I would have sold myself to the evil one to spare
you one vexation ! You are my Raphael to-day, really my
own Raphael, with that handsome head of yours, and your
heart is mine too; yes, that above all, your heart O wealth
inexhaustible! Well, where was I? "she went on after a
14
206 THE WILD ASS 1 SKIN.
pause. " Oh yes ! We have three, four, or five millions, I
believe. If I were poor, I should perhaps desire to bear your
name, to be acknowledged as your wife ; but as it is, I would
give up the whole world for you, I would be your servant still,
now and always. Why, Raphael, if I give you my fortune,
my heart, myself to-day, I do no more than I did that day when
I put a certain five-franc piece in the drawer there," and she
pointed to the table. "Oh, how your exultation hurt me
then!"
" Oh, why are you rich ? " Raphael cried ; " why is there
no vanity in you? I can do nothing for you."
He wrung his hands in despair and happiness and love.
"When you are the Marquise de Valentin, I know that the
title and the fortune for thee, heavenly soul, will not be
worth "
"One hair of your head," she cried.
" I have millions too. But what is wealth to either of us
now? There is my life ah, that I can offer, take it."
" Your love, Raphael, your love is all the world to me.
Are your thoughts of me? I am the happiest of the happy ! "
" Can any one overhear us? " asked Raphael.
"Nobody," she replied, with a mischievous gesture.
"Come, then ! " cried Valentin, holding out his arms.
She sprang upon his knees and clasped her arms about his
neck.
" Kiss me ! " she cried, " after all the pain you have given
me ; to blot out the memory of the grief that your joys have
caused me; and for the sake of the nights that I spent in
painting hand-screens "
" Those hand-screens of yours?"
" Now that we are rich, my darling, I can tell you all about
it. Poor boy ! how easy it is to delude a clever man ! Could
you have had white waistcoats and clean shirts twice a week
for three francs every month to the laundress? Why, you
used to drink twice as much milk as your money would have
THE AGONY. 207
paid for. I deceived you all round over firing, oil, and
even money. O Raphael mine, don't have me for your wife,
I am far too cunning ! " she said laughingly.
" How did you manage it ? "
"I used to work till two o'clock in the morning; I gave
my mother half the money made by my screens, and the other
half went to you."
They looked at one another for a moment, both bewildered
by love and gladness.
" Some day we shall have to pay for this happiness by some
terrible sorrow," cried Raphael.
11 Perhaps you are married ! " cried Pauline. "Oh, I will
not give you up to another woman."
" I am free, my beloved."
" Free ? ' ' she repeated. " Free, and mine ? "
She slipped down upon her knees, clasped her hands, and
looked at Raphael in an enthusiasm of devotion.
" I am afraid I shall go mad. How handsome you are ! "
she went on, passing her fingers through her lover's fair hair.
" How stupid your Countess Fcedora is ! How pleased I was
yesterday with the homage they all paid to me ! She has
never been applauded. Dear, when I felt your arm against
my back, I heard a vague voice within me that cried, ' He is
there ! ' and I turned round and saw you. I fled, for I longed
so to throw my arms about you before them all."
"How happy you are you can speak!" Raphael ex-
claimed. " My heart is overwhelmed ; I would weep, but I
cannot. Do not draw your hand away. I could stay here
looking at you like this for the rest of my life, I think ; happy
and content."
" O my love, say that once more ! "
"Ah, what are words? " answered Valentin, letting a hot
tear fall on Pauline's hands. " Some time I will try to tell
you of my love ; just now I can only feel it."
"You," she said, " with your lofty soul and your great
208 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
genius, with that heart of yours, that I know so well ; are
you really mine, as I am yours ? ' '
" For ever and ever, my sweet creature," said Raphael in
an uncertain voice. " You shall be my wife, my protecting
angel. My griefs have always been dispelled by your pres-
ence, and my courage revived ; that angelic smile now on
your lips has purified me, so to speak. A new life seems about
to begin for me. The cruel past and my wretched follies are
hardly more to me than evil dreams. At your side I breathe
an atmosphere of happiness, and I am pure. Be with
me always," he added, pressing her solemnly to his beating
heart.
" Death may come when it will," said Pauline in ecstasy;
" I have lived ! "
Happy he who shall divine their joy, for he must have
experienced it.
" I wish that no one might enter this dear garret again, my
Raphael," said Pauline, after two hours of silence.
" We must have the door walled up, put bars across the
windows, and buy the house," the Marquis answered.
"Yes, we will," she said. Then a moment later she added :
" Our search for your manuscripts has been a little lost sight
of," and they both laughed like children.
"Pshaw! I don't care a jot for the whole circle of the
sciences," Raphael answered.
' Ah, sir, and how about glory ? "
" I glory in you alone."
" You used to be very miserable as you made these little
scratches and scrawls," she said, turning the papers over.
"My Pauline "
"Oh, yes, I am your Pauline and what then? "
" Where are you living now? "
" In the Rue Saint Lazare. And you? "
" In the Rue de Varenne."
"What a long way apart we shall be until " She
THE AGONY. 209
stopped, and looked at her lover with a mischievous and
coquettish expression.
"But at the most we need only be separated for a fort-
night," Raphael answered.
" Really ! we are to be married in a fortnight? " and she
jumped for joy like a child.
"I am an unnatural daughter? " she went on. "I give
no more thought to my father or my mother, or to anything
in the world. Poor love, you don't know that my father is
very ill ? He returned from the Indies in very bad health.
He nearly died at Havre, where we went to find him. Good
heavens! " she cried, looking at her watch; "it is three
o'clock already ! I ought to be back again when he wakes at
four. I am mistress of the house at home ; my mother does
everything that I wish, and my father worships me ; but I
will not abuse their kindness ; that would be wrong. My
poor father ! He would have me go to the Italiens yesterday.
You will come to see him to-morrow, will you not ? "
"Will Madame la Marquise de Valentin honor me by tak-
ing my arm?"
" I am going to take the key of this room away with me,"
she said. " Isn't our treasure-house a palace? "
"One more kiss, Pauline."
"A thousand, Mon Dieu /" she said, looking at Raphael.
" Will it always be like this? I feel as if I were dreaming."
They went slowly down the stairs together, step for step,
with arms closely linked, trembling both of them beneath
their load of joy. Each pressing close to the other's side, like
a pair of doves, they reached the Place de la Sorbonne, where
Pauline's carriage was waiting.
" I want to go home with you," she said. " I want to see
your own room and your study, and sit at the table where you
work. It will be like old times," she said, blushing.
She spoke to the servant. " Joseph, before returning home
I am going to the Rue de Varenne. It is a quarter-past three
210 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
now, and I must be back again by four o'clock. George must
hurry the horses." And so in a few moments the lovers came
to Valentin's abode.
" How glad I am to have seen all this for myself! " Pauline
cried, creasing the silken bed-curtains in Raphael's room be-
tween her fingers. "As I go to sleep, I shall be here in
thought. I shall imagine your dear head on the pillow there.
Raphael, tell me, did no one advise you about the furniture
of your hotel ? "
" No one whatever."
"Really? It was not a woman who "
"Pauline! "
" Oh, I know I am fearfully jealous. You have good taste.
I will have a bed like yours to-morrow."
Quite beside himself with happiness, Raphael caught Pauline
in his arms.
" Oh, my father ! " she said ; "my father "
" I will take you back to him," cried Valentin, " for I want
to be away from you as little as possible."
" How loving you are ! 1 did not venture to suggest it '"
"Are you not my life?"
It would be tedious to set down accurately me charm-
ing prattle of the lovers, for tones and looks and gestures
that cannot be rendered alone gave it significance. Valentin
went back with Pauline to her own door, and returned
with as much happiness i.i his heart as mortal man can
know.
When he was seated in his armchair beside the fire, think-
ing over the sudden and complete way in which his wishes Kad
been fulfilled, a cold shiver went through him, as if the blade
of a dagger had been plunged into his breast he thought
of the Wild Ass' Skin, and saw that it had shrunk a little. He
uttered the most tremendous French oaths, without any of the
Jesuitical reservations made by the Abbess of Andouillettes,
leaned his head against the back of the chair, and sat motion-
THE AGONY. 211
less, fixing his unseeing eyes upon the bracket of the curtain
pole.
"Good God!" he cried; every wish! Every desire of
mine! Poor Pauline "
He took a pair of compasses and measured the extent of
existence that the morning had cost him.
" I have scarcely enough for two months ! " he said.
A cold sweat broke out over him ; moved by an ungovern-
able spasm of rage, he seized the Wild Ass' Skin, exclaiming
" I am a perfect fool ! "
He rushed out of the house and across the garden, and flung
the talisman down a well.
"Vogue la galere," cried he. The devil take all this non-
sense."
So Raphael gave himself up to the happiness of being be-
loved, and led with Pauline the life of heart and heart.
Difficulties which it would be somewhat tedious to describe
had delayed their marriage, which was to take place early in
March. Each was sure of the other ; their affection had been
tried, and happiness had taught them how strong it was.
Never has love made two souls, two natures, so absolutely one.
The more they came to know each other, the more they loved.
On either side there was the same hesitating delicacy, the
same transports of joy such as angels know ; there were no
clouds in their heaven ; the will of either was the other's law.
Wealthy as they both were, they had not a caprice which
they could not gratify, and for that reason had no caprices.
A refined taste, a feeling for beauty and poetry, was instinct
in the soul of the bride ; her lover's smile was more to her
than all the pearls of Ormuz. She disdained feminine finery;
a muslin dress and flowers formed her most elaborate toilette.
Pauline and Raphael shunned every one else, for solitude
was abundantly beautiful to them. The idlers at the opera,
or at the Italiens, saw this charming and unconventional pair
evening after evening. Some gossip went the round of the
212 THE WILD ASS> SKIN.
salons at first, but the harmless lovers were soon forgotten in
the course of events which took place in Paris; their marriage
was announced at length to 'excuse them in the eyes of the
prudish; and as it happened, their servants did not babble;
so their bliss did not draw down upon them any very severe
punishment.
One morning towards the end of February, at the time
when the brightening days bring a belief in the nearness of the
joys of spring, Pauline and Raphael were breakfasting to-
gether in a small conservatory, a kind of a drawing-room
filled with flowers, on a level with the garden. The mild
rays of the pale winter sunlight, breaking through the thicket
of exotic plants, warmed the air somewhat. The vivid con-
trast made by the variety of foliage, the colors of the masses
of flowing shrubs, the freaks of light and shadow, gladdened
the eyes. While all the rest of Paris still sought warmth from
its melancholy hearth, these two were laughing in a bower of
camellias, lilacs, and blossoming heath. Their happy faces rose
above lilies of the valley, narcissus blooms, and Bengal roses.
A mat of plaited African grass, variegated like a carpet, lay
beneath their feet in this luxurious conservatory. The walls,
covered with a green linen material, bore no traces of damp.
The surfaces of the rustic wooden furniture shone with clean-
liness. A kitten, attracted by the odor of milk, had estab-
lished itself upon the table ; it allowed Pauline to bedabble
it in coffee ; she was playing merrily with it, taking away the
cream that she had just allowed the kitten to sniff at, so as to
exercise its patience, and to keep up the contest. She burst
out laughing at every antic, and by the comical remarks she
constantly made, she hindered Raphael from perusing the
paper; he had dropped it a dozen times already. This morn-
ing picture seemed to overflow with inexpressible gladness,
like everything that is natural and genuine.
Raphael, still pretending to read his paper, furtively watched
Pauline with the cat his Pauline, in the dressing-gown that
THE AGONY. 213
hung carelessly about her ; his Pauline, with her hair loose
on her shoulders, with a tiny, white, blue-veined foot peeping
out of a velvet slipper. It was pleasant to see her in this
negligent dress ; she was delightful as some fanciful picture
by Westall; half-girl, half-woman, as she seemed to be, or
perhaps more of a girl than a woman, there was no alloy in
the happiness she enjoyed, and of love she knew as yet only
its first ecstasy. When Raphael, absorbed in happy musing,
had forgotten the existence of the newspaper, Pauline flew
upon it, crumpled it up into a ball, and threw it out into the
garden ; the kitten sprang after the rotating object, which
spun round and round, as politics are wont to do. This
childish scene recalled Raphael to himself. He would have
gone on reading, and felt for the sheet he no longer possessed.
Joyous laughter rang out like the song of a bird, one peal
leading to another.
" I am quite jealous of the paper," she said, as she wiped
away the tears that her childlike merriment had brought into
her eyes. "Now, is it not a heinous offence," she went
on, as she became a woman all at once, "to read Russian
proclamations in my presence, and to attend to the prosings
of the Emperor Nicholas rather than to looks and words
of love! "
"I was not reading, my dear angel; I was looking at
you."
Just then the gravel walk outside the conservatory rang with
the sound of the gardener's heavily nailed boots.
"I beg your pardon, my Lord Marquis and yours, too,
madame if I am intruding, but I have brought you a curi-
osity the like of which I never set eyes on. Drawing a
bucket of water just now, with due respect, I got out this
strange salt-water plant. Here it is. It must be thoroughly
used to water, anyhow, for it isn't saturated or even damp at
all. It is as dry as a piece of wood, and has not swelled a
bit. As my Lord Marquis certainly knows a great deal more
214 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
about things than I do, I thought I ought to bring it, and
that it would interest him."
Therewith the gardener showed Raphael the inexorable
piece of skin ; there were barely six square inches of the skin
left.
"Thanks, Vaniere," Raphael said. "The thing is very
curious."
" What is the matter with you, my angel ; you are growing
quite white ! " Pauline cried.
"You can go, Vaniere."
" Your voice frightens me," the girl went on; it is so
strangely altered. What is it? How are you feeling? Where
is the pain ? You are in pain ! Jonathan ! here ! call a
doctor ! " she cried.
" Hush, my Pauline," Raphael answered, as he regained
composure. " Let us get up and go. Some flower here has
a scent that is too much for me. It is that verbena, perhaps."
Pauline flew upon the innocent plant, seized it by the stalk,
and flung it out into the garden ; then with all the might of
the love between them, she clasped Raphael in a close em-
brace, and with languishing coquetry raised her red lips to his
for a kiss.
" Dear angel," she cried, " when I saw you turn so white
I understood that I could not live on without you ; your life
is my life too. Lay your hand on my back, Raphael mine;
I feel a chill like death ; the feeling of cold is there yet.
Your lips are burning. How is your hand? Cold as ice,"
she added.
" Mad girl ! " exclaimed Raphael.
" Why that tear ? Let me drink it."
" O Pauline, Pauline, you love me far too much ! "
" There is something very extraordinary going on in your
mind, Raphael ! Do not dissimulate. I shall very soon find
out your secret. Give that to me," she went on, taking the
Wild Ass' Skin.
THE AGONY. 215
"You are my executioner !" the young man exclaimed,
glancing in horror at the talisman.
"How changed your voice is!" cried Pauline, as she
dropped the fatal symbol of destiny.
" Do you love me? " he asked.
" Do I love you ? Is there any doubt? "
" Then leave me ; go away ! "
The poor child went.
"So! " cried Raphael, when he was alone. " In an en-
lightened age, when we have found out that diamonds are a
crystallized form of charcoal, at a time when everything is
made clear, when the police would hail a new Messiah before
the magistrates, and submit his miracles to the Academic des
Sciences in an epoch when we no longer believe in anything
but a notary's signature that I, forsooth, should believe in a
sort of Mene, Tekel, Upharsin ! No, by heaven, I will not
believe that the Supreme Being would take pleasure in tortur-
ing a harmless creature Let us see the learned about it."
Between the Halle des Vins, with its extensive assembly of
barrels, and the Salpetriere, that extensive seminary of drunk-
enness, lies a small pond, which Raphael soon reached. All
sorts of ducks of rare varieties were there disporting them-
selves ; their colored markings shone in the sun like the glass
in cathedral windows. Every kind of duck in the world was
represented, quacking, dabbling, and moving about a kind
of parliament of ducks assembled against its will, but luckily
without either charter or political principles, living in com-
plete immunity from sportsmen, under the eyes of any natur-
alist that chanced to see them.
"That is M. Lavrille," said one of the keepers to Raphael,
who had asked for that high priest of zoology.
The Marquis saw a short man buried in protound reflections,
caused by the appearance of a pair of ducks. The man of
science was middle aged ; he had a pleasant face, made pleas-
anter still by a kindly expression, but an absorption in scien-
216 THE WILD ASS' SKTN.
tific ideas engrossed his whole person. His peruke was
strangely turned up, by being constantly raised to scratch his
head ; so that a line of white hair was left plainly visible, a
witness to an enthusiasm for investigation, which, like every
other strong passion, so withdraws us from mundane consid-
erations, that we lose all consciousness of the " I " within us.
Raphael, the student and man of science, looked respectfully
at the naturalist, who devoted his nights to enlarging the
limits of human knowledge, and whose very errors reflected
glory upon France ; but a she-coxcomb would have laughed,
no doubt, at the break in continuity between the breeches and
striped waistcoat worn by the man of learning ; the interval,
moreover, was modestly filled by a shirt which had been con-
siderably creased, for he stooped and raised himself by turns,
as his zoological observations required.
After the first interchange of civilities, Raphael thought it
necessary to pay M. Lavrille a bland compliment upon his
ducks.
"Oh, we are well off for ducks," the naturalist replied.
"The genus, moreover, as you doubtless know, is the most
prolific in the order of palmipeds. It begins with the swan
and ends with the zin-zin duck, comprising in all one hundred
and thirty-seven very distinct varieties, each having its own
name, habits, country, and character, and every one no more
like another than a white man is like a negro. Really, sir,
when we dine off a duck, we have no notion for the most part
of the vast extent "
"He interrupted himself as he saw a small pretty duck
come up to the surface of the pound.
" There you see the cravatted swan, a poor native of
Canada ; he has come a very long way to show us his brown
and gray plumage and his little black cravat ! Look, he is
preening himself. That one is the famous eider duck that
provides the down, the eider-down under which our fine ladies
sleep; isn't it pretty? Who wouldn't admire the little pink-
THE AGONY. 217
ish white breast and the green beak? I have just been a
witness, sir," he went on, "to a marriage that I had long
despaired of bringing about ; they have paired rather auspici-
ously, and I shall await the results very eagerly. This will be
a hundred and thirty-eighth species, I flatter myself, to which,
perhaps, my name will be given. That is the newly-mated
pair," he said, pointing out two of the ducks ; "one of them
is a laughing goose (anas albifrons], and the other the great
whistling duck, Buffon's anas ruffina. I have hesitated a long
while between the whistling duck, the duck with white eye-
brows, and the shoveler duck (anas clypeata). Stay, that is
the shoveler that fat, brownish-black rascal, with the green-
ish neck and that coquettish iridescence on it. But the whist-
ling duck was a crested one, sir, and you will understand that
I deliberated no longer. We only lack the variegated black-
capped duck now. These gentlemen here, unanimously claim
that that variety of duck is only a repetition of the curve-
beaked teal, but for my own part," and the gesture he made
was worth seeing. He expressed at once the modesty and
pride of a man of science; the pride full of obstinacy, and the
modesty well tempered with assurance.
" I don't think it is," he added. " You see, my dear sir,
that we are not amusing ourselves here. I am engaged at this
moment upon a monograph on the genus duck. But I am at
your disposal."
While they went towards a rather pleasant house in the
Rue de Buffon, Raphael submitted the skin to M. Lavrille's
inspection.
" I know the product," said the man of science, when he
had turned his magnifying glass upon the talisman. "It
used to be used for covering boxes. The shagreen is very old.
They prefer to use skate's skin nowadays for making sheaths.
This, as you are doubtless aware, is the hide of the raja
sephen, a Red Sea fish."
"But this, sir, since you are so exceedingly good "
218 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"This," the man of science interrupted, as he resumed,
" this is quite another thing ; between these two shagreens,
sir, there is a difference just as wide as between sea and land,
or fish and flesh. The fish's skin is harder, however, than the
skin of the land animal. This," he said, as he indicated the
talisman, " is, as you doubtless know, one of the most curious
of zoological products."
" But to proceed " said Raphael.
" This," replied the man of science, as he flung himself
down into his armchair, " is an ass' skin, sir."
" Yes, I know," said the young man.
"A very rare variety of ass is found in Persia," the natur-
alist continued, " the onager of the ancients, equusasinus, the
koulan of the Tartars ; Pallas went out there to observe it,
and has made it known to science, for as a matter of fact the
animal for a long time was believed to be mythical. It is
mentioned, as you know, in Holy Scripture; Moses forbade
that it should be coupled with its own species, and the onager
is yet more famous for the prostitutions of which it was the
object, and which are often mentioned by the prophets of the
Bible. Pallas, as you know doubtless, states in his Act. Petropy. ,
tome II., that these bizarre excesses are still devoutly believed
in among the Persians and the Nogais as a sovereign remedy
for lumbago and sciatic gout. We poor Parisians scarcely
believe that. The Museum has no example of the onager.
" What a magnificent animal ! " he continued. " It is full
of mystery ; its eyes are provided with a sort of burnished
covering, to which the Orientals attribute the powers of fasci-
nation ; it has a glossier and finer coat than our handsomest
horses possess, striped with more or less tawny bands, very
much like the zebra's hide. There is something pliant and
silky about its hair, which is sleek to the touch. Its powers
of sight vie in precision and accuracy with those of man ;
it is rather larger than our largest domestic donkeys, and
is possessed of extraordinary courage. If it is surprised by
THE AGONY. 219
any chance, it defends itself against the most dangerous wild
beasts with remarkable success; the rapidity of its move-
ments can only be compared with the flight of birds; an
onager, sir, would run the best Arab or Persian horses to
death. According to the father of the conscientious Doctor
Niebuhr, whose recent loss we are deploring, as you doubt-
less know, the ordinary average pace of one of these won-
derful creatures would be seven thousand geometric feet
per hour. Our own degenerate race of donkeys can give no
idea of the ass in his pride and independence. He is active
and spirited in his demeanor ; he is cunning and sagacious ;
there is grace about the outlines of his head ; every move-
ment is full of attractive charm. In the East he is the king
of beasts. Turkish aud Persian superstition even credits him
with a mysterious origin ; and when stories of the prowess
attributed to him are told in Thibet or in Tartary, the
speakers mingle Solomon's name with that of this noble
animal. A tame onager, in short, is worth an enormous
amount ; it is well-nigh impossible to catch them among the
mountains, where they leap like roe-bucks, and seem as if
they could fly like birds. Our myth of the winged horse,
our Pegasus, had its origin doubtless in these countries, where
the shepherds could see the onager springing from one rock to
another. In Persia they breed asses for the saddle, a cross
between a tamed onager and a she-ass, and they paint them
red, following immemorial tradition. Perhaps it was this
custom that gave rise to our own proverb, ' Surly as a red
donkey.' At some period when natural history was much
neglected in France, I think a traveler must have brought
over one of these strange beasts that endures servitude with
such impatience. Hence the adage. The skin that you have
lain before me is the skin of an onager. Opinions differ as
to the origin of the name. Some claim that Chagri is a
Turkish word ; others insist that Chagri must be the name of
the place where this animal product underwent the chemical
220 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
process of preparation so clearly described by Pallas, to
which the peculiar graining that we admire is due ; Martellens
has written to me saying that Chaagri\& a river "
" I thank you, sir, for the information that you have given
me ; it would furnish an admirable footnote for some Dom
Calmet or other, if such erudite hermits yet exist; but I have
had the honor of pointing out to you that this scrap was in
the first instance quite as large as that map," said Raphael,
indicating an open atlas to Lavrille; "but it has shrunk
visibly in three months' time '
"Quite so," said the man of science. "I understand.
The remains of any substance primarily organic are naturally
subject to a process of decay. It is quite easy to understand,
and its progress depends upon atmospherical conditions.
Even metals contract and expand appreciably, for engineers
have remarked somewhat considerable interstices between
great blocks of stone originally clamped together with iron
bars. The field of science is boundless, but human life is
very short, so that we do not claim to be acquainted with
all the phenomena of nature."
"Pardon the question that I am about to ask you, sir,"
Raphael began, half-embarassed, " but are you quite sure that
this piece of skin is subject to the ordinary laws of zoology,
and that it can be stretched ? "
"Certainly oh, bother!" muttered M. Lavrille,
trying to stretch the talisman. " But if you, sir, will go to
see Planchette," he added, "the celebrated professor of
mechanics, he will certainly discover some method of acting
upon this skin, of softening and expanding it."
" Ah, sir, you are the preserver of my life," and Raphael
took leave of the learned naturalist and hurried off to Plan-
chette, leaving the worthy Lavrille in his study, all among the
bottles and dried plants that filled it up.
Quite unconsciously Raphael brought away with him from
this visit, all of science that man can grasp, and terminology
THE AGONY. 221
to wit. Lavrille, the worthy man, was very much like Sancho
Panza giving to Don Quixote the history of the goats ; he was
entertaining himself by making out a list of animals and tick-
ing them off. Even now that his life was nearing its end, he
was scarcely acquainted with a mere fraction of the countless
numbers of the great tribes that God has scattered, for some
unknown end, throughout the ocean of worlds.
Raphael was well pleased. "I shall keep my ass well in
hand," cried he. Sterne had said before his day, "Let us
take care of our ass, if we wish to live to old age." But it is
such a fantastic brute !
Planchette was a tall, thin man, a poet of a surety, lost in
one continual thought, and always employed in gazing into
the bottomless abyss of motion. Commonplace minds accuse
these lofty intellects of madness ; they form a misinterpreted
race that lives apart in a wonderful carelessness of luxuries
or other people's notions. They will spend whole days at a
stretch, smoking a cigar that has gone out, and enter a draw-
ing-room with the buttons on their garments not in every case
formally wedded to the button-holes. Some day or other,
after a longtime spent in measuring space, or in accumulating
Xs under Aa-Gg, they succeed in analyzing some natural law,
and resolve it into its elemental principles, and all on a sud-
den the crowd gapes at a new machine ; or it is a handcart
perhaps that overwhelms us with astonishment by the apt sim-
plicity of its construction. The modest man of science
smiles at his admirers, and remarks, " What is that invention
of mine? Nothing whatever. Man cannot create a force;
he can but direct it ; and science consists in learning from
nature."
The mechanician was standing bolt upright, planted on
both feet, like some victim dropped straight from the gibbet,
when Raphael broke in upon him. He was intently watching
an agate ball that rolled over a sun-dial, and awaited its final
settlement. The worthy man had received neither pension nor
15
222 THE WILD .4SS'
decoration ; he had not known how to make the right use of his
ability for calculation. He was happy in his life spent on the
watch for a discovery ; he had no thought either of reputa-
tion, of the outer world, nor even of himself, and led the
life of science for the sake of science.
"It is inexplicable," he exclaimed. "Ah, your servant,
sir," he went on, becoming aware of Raphael's existence.
" How is your mother ? You must go and see my wife."
" And I also could have lived thus," thought Raphael, as
he recalled the learned man from his meditations by asking
of him how to produce any effect on the talisman, which he
placed before him.
" Although my credulity must amuse you, sir," so the
Marquis ended, "I will conceal nothing from you. That
skin seems to me to be endowed with an insuperable power
of resistance."
" People of fashion, sir, always treat science rather super-
ciliously," said Planchette. "They all talk to us pretty
much as the incredulous did when he brought some ladies to
see Lalande just after an eclipse, and remarked, ' Be so good
as to begin it over again.' What effect do you want to pro-
duce? The object of the science of mechanics is either the
application or the neutralization of the laws of motion. As
for motion pure and simple, I tell you humbly, that we cannot
possibly define it. That disposed of, unvarying phenomena
have been observed which accompany the actions of solids
and fluids. If we set up the conditions by which these phe-
nomena are brought to pass, we can transport bodies or com-
municate locomotive power to them at a predetermined rate
of speed. We can project them, divide them up in a few or
an infinite number of pieces, accordingly as we break them or
grind them to powder ; we can twist bodies or make them
rotate, modify, compress, expand, or extend them. The
whole science, sir, rests upon a single fact.
"You see this ball," he went on; "here it lies upon this
THE AGONY. 223
slab. Now, it is over there. What name shall we give
to what has taken place, so natural from a physical point
of view, so amazing from a moral ? Movement, loco-
motion, changing of place? What prodigious vanity lurks
underneath the words. Does a name solve the difficulty ?
Yet it is the whole of our science for all that. Our machines
either make direct use of this agency, this fact, or they con-
vert it. This trifling phenomenon, applied to large masses,
would send Paris flying. We can increase speed by an expendi-
ture of force, and augment the force by an increase of speed.
But what are speed and force ? Our science is as powerless to
tell us that as to create motion. Any movement whatever is
an immense power, and man does not create power of any
kind. Everything is movement, thought itself is a move-
ment, upon movement nature is based. Death is a movement
whose limitations are little known. If God is eternal, be sure
that He moves perpetually; perhaps God is movement. That
is why movement, like God, is inexplicable, unfathomable, un-
limited, incomprehensible, intangible. Who has ever touched,
comprehended, or measured movement ? We feel its effects
without seeing it ; we can even deny them as we can deny
the existence of a God. Where is it? Where is it not?
Whence comes it ? What is its source ? What is its end ?
It surrounds us, it intrudes upon us, and yet escapes us. It is
evident as a fact, .obscure as an abstraction ; it is at once
effect and cause. It requires space, even as we, and what is
space? Movement alone recalls it to us; without movement,
space is but an empty meaningless word. Like space, like
creation, like the infinite, movement is an insoluble prob-
lem which confounds human reason ; man will never conceive
it, whatever else he may be permitted to conceive.
" Between each point in space occupied in succession by
that ball," continued the man of science, "there is an abyss
confronting human reason, an abyss into which Pascal fell. In
order to produce any effect upon an unknown substance, we
224 THE WILD ASS' SKIA r .
ought first of all to study that substance ; to know whether.
in accordance with its nature, it will be broken by the force
of a blow, or whether it will withstand it ; if it breaks in
pieces, and you have no wish to split it up, we shall not achieve
the end proposed. If you want to compress it, a uniform
impulse must be communicated to all the particles of the sub-
stance, so as to diminish the interval that separates them in
an equal degree. If you wish to expand it, we should try to
bring a uniform eccentric force to bear on every molecule ;
for unless we conform accurately to this law, we shall have
breaches in continuity. The modes of motion, sir, are in-
finite, and no limit exists to combinations of movement.
Upon what effect have you determined?"
" I want any kind of pressure that is strong enough to
expand the skin indefinitely," began Raphael, quite out of
patience.
"Substance is finite," the mathematician put in, "and
therefore will not admit of indefinite expansion, but pressure
will necessarily increase the extent of surface at the expense
of the thickness, which will be diminished until the point is
reached when the material gives out
"Bring about that result, sir," Raphael cried, "and you
will have earned millions."
" Then I should rob you of your money," replied the other,
phlegmatic as a Dutchman. " I am going to show you, in a
word or two, that a machine can be made that is fit to crush
Providence itself in pieces like a fly. It would reduce a man
to the condition of a piece of wastepaper ; a man boots
and spurs, hat and cravat, trinkets and gold and all "
" What a fearful machine ! "
" Instead of flinging their brats into the water, the Chinese
ought to make them useful in this way," the man of science
went on, without reflecting on the regard man has for his
progeny.
Quite absorbed by his idea, Planchette took an empty flower-
THE AGONY. 225
pot, with a hole in the bottom, and put it on the surface of
the dial, then he went to look for a little clay in a corner of
the garden. Raphael stood spellbound, like a child to whom
his nurse is telling some wonderful story. Planchette put the
clay down upon the slab, drew a pruning-knife from his pocket,
cut two branches from an elder tree, and began to clear them
of pith by blowing through them, as if Raphael had not been
present.
"There are the rudiments of the apparatus," he said.
Then he connected one of the wooden pipes with the bottom
of the flower-pot by a clay joint, in such a way that the
mouth of the elder stem was just under the hole of the
flower-pot ; you might have compared it to a big tobacco-
pipe. He spread a bed of clay over the surface of the slab,
in a shovel-shaped mass, set down the flower-pot at the wider
end of it, and laid the pipe of elder stem along the portion
which represented the handle of the shovel. Next he put a
lump of clay at the end of the elder stem and therein planted
the other pipe, in an upright position, forming a second elbow
which connected it with the first horizontal pipe in such a
manner that the air, or any given fluid in circulation, could
flow through this improvised piece of mechanism from the
mouth of the vertical tube, along the intermediate passages,
and so into the large empty flower-pot.
"This apparatus, sir," he said to Raphael, with all the
gravity of an academician pronouncing his initiatory discourse,
"is one of the great Pascal's grandest claims upon our
admiration."
" I don't understand."
The man of science smiled. He went up to a fruit-tree and
took down a little phial in which the druggist had sent him
some liquid for catching ants ; he broke off the bottom and
made a funnel of the top, carefully fitting it to the mouth of
the vertical hollowed stem that he had set in the clay, and at
the opposite end to the great reservoir, represented by the
226 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
flower-pot. Next, by means of a watering-pot, he poured
in sufficient water to rise to the same level in the large
vessel and in the tiny circular funnel at the end of the
elder stem.
Raphael was thinking of his piece of skin.
"Water is considered to-day, sir, to be an incompressible
body," said the mechanician; "never lose sight of that
fundamental principle ; still it can be compressed, though
only so very slightly that we should regard its faculty for
contracting as a zero. You see the amount of surface pre-
sented by the water at the brim of the flower-pot? "
" Yes, sir."
" Very good ; now suppose that that surface is a thousand
times larger than the orifice of the elder stem through which
I poured out the liquid. Here, I am taking the funnel
away
"Granted."
" Well, then, if by any method whatever I increase the volume
of that quantity of water by pouring in yet more through the
mouth of the little tube ; the water thus compelled to flow
downwards would rise in the reservoir, represented by the
flower-pot, until it reached the same level at either end."
" That is quite clear," cried Raphael.
"But there is this difference," the other went on. "Suppose
that the thin column of water poured into the little vertical
tube there exerts a force equal, say, to a pound weight, for
instance, its action will be punctually communicated to the
great body of the liquid, and will be transmitted to every
part of the surface represented by the water in the flower-pot,
so that at the surface there will be a thousand columns of
water, every one pressing upwards as if they were impelled by
a force equal to that which compels the liquid to descend in
the vertical tube; and of necessity they reproduce here,"
said Planchette, indicating to Raphael the top of the flower-
pot, "the force introduced over there, a thousandfold, "and
THE AGONY. 227
the man of science pointed out to the Marquis the upright
wooden pipe set in the clay.
" That is quite simple," said Raphael.
Planchette smiled again.
"In other words," he went on, with the mathematician's
natural stubborn propensity for logic, " in order to resist the
force of the incoming water, it would be necessary to exert,
upon every part of the large surface, a force equal to that
brought into action in the vertical column, but with this
difference if the column of liquid is a foot in height, the
thousand little columns of the wide surface will only have a
very slight elevating power.
" Now," said Planchette, as he gave a fillip to his bits of
stick, " let us replace this funny little apparatus by steel tubes
of suitable strength and dimensions; and if you cover the
liquid surface of the reservoir with a strong sliding plate of
metal, and if to this metal plate you oppose another, solid
enough and strong enough to resist any test, if, furthermore,
you give me the power of continually adding water to the
volume of liquid contents by means of the little vertical tube,
the object fixed between the two solid metal plates must of
necessity yield to the tremendous crushing force which in-
definitely compresses it. The method of continually pouring
in water through a little tube, like the manner of communica-
ting force through the volume of the liquid to a metal plate,
is an absurdly primitive mechanical device. A brace of
pistons and a few valves would do it all. Do you perceive,
my dear sir," he said, taking Valentin by the arm, "there is
scarcely a substance in existence that would not be compelled
to dilate when fixed in between these two indefinitely resisting
surfaces ? ' '
" What t the author of the Lettres provinciates invented
it?" Raphael exclaimed.
" He and no other, sir. The science of mechanics knows
no simpler nor more beautiful contrivance. The opposite
228 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
principle, the capacity of expansion possessed by water,
has brought the steam-engine into being. But water will
only expand up to a certain point, while its incompressibility,
being a force in a manner negative, is, of necessity,
infinite."
"If this skin is expanded," said Raphael, "I promise you
to erect a colossal statue to Blaise Pascal ; to found a prize of
a hundred thousand francs to be offered every ten years for
the solution of the grandest problem of mechanical science
effected during the interval ; to find dowries for all your
cousins and second cousins, and finally to build an asylum on
purpose for impoverished or insane mathematicians."
"That would be exceedingly useful," Planchette replied.
"We will go to Spieghalter to-morrow, sir," he continued,
with the serenity of a man living on a plane wholly intellect-
ual. " That distinguished mechanic has just completed, after
my own designs, an improved mechanical arrangement by
which a child could get a thousand trusses of hay inside his
cap."
"Then good-bye till to-morrow."
" Till to-morrow, sir."
"Talk of mechanics!" cried Raphael; "isn't it the
greatest of the sciences ? The other fellow with his onagers,
classifications, ducks, and species, and his phials full of bottled
monstrosities, is at best only fit for a billiard-marker in a
saloon."
The next morning Raphael went off in great spirits to find
Planchette, and together they set out for the Rue de la Sant6
auspicious appellation ! Arrived at Spieghalter's, the young
man found himself in a vast foundry ; his eyes lighted upon a
multitude of glowing and roaring furnaces. There was a
storm of sparks, a deluge of nails, an ocean of pistons, vices,
levers, valves, girders, files, and nuts ; a sea of melted metal,
balks of timber and bar-steel. Iron filings filled your throat.
There was iron in the atmosphere ; the men were covered
THE AGONY. 229
with it ; everything reeked of iron. The iron seemed to be a
living organism ; it became a fluid, moved, and seemed to
shape itself intelligently after every fashion, to obey the
worker's every caprice. Through the uproar made by the
bellows, the crescendo of the falling hammers, and the shrill
sounds of the lathes that drew groans from the steel, Raphael
passed into a large, clean, and airy place where he was able
to inspect at his leisure the great press that Planchette had
told him about. He admired the cast-iron beams, as one
might call them, and the twin bars of steel coupled together
with indestructible bolts.
"If you were to give seven rapid turns to that crank,"
said Spieghalter, pointing out a beam of polished steel, "you
would make a steel bar spurt out in thousands of jets, that
would get into your legs like needles."
" The deuce," exclaimed Raphael.
Planchette himself slipped the piece of skin between the
metal plates of the all-powerful press; and, brimful of the
certainty of a scientific conviction, he worked the crank ener-
getically.
"Lie flat, all of you; we are dead men!" thundered
Spieghalter, as he himself fell prone on the floor.
A hideous shrieking sound rang through the workshops.
The water in the machine had broken the chamber, and now
spouted out in a jet of incalculable force ; luckily it went in
the direction of an old furnace, which was overthrown,
knocked to pieces, and twisted like a house that has been
enveloped and carried away by a waterspout.
" Ha ! " remarked Planchette serenely, " the piece of skin
is as safe and sound as my eye. There was a flaw in your
reservoir somewhere, or a crevice in the large tube "
" No, no ; I know my reservoir. The devil is in your
contrivance, sir; you can take it away," and the German
pounced upon a smith's hammer, flung the skin down on an
anvil, and, with all the strength that rage gives, dealt the
230 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
talisman the most formidable blow that had ever resounded
through his workshops.
" There is not so much as a mark on it ! " said Planchette,
stroking the perverse bit of skin.
The workmen hurried in. The foreman took the skin and
buried it in the glowing coal of a forge, while, in a semicircle
round the fire, they all awaited the action of a huge pair of
bellows. Raphael, Spieghalter, and Professor Planchette
stood in the midst of the grimy, expectant crowd. Raphael,
looking round on faces dusted over with iron filings, white
eyes, greasy, blackened clothing, and hairy chests, could
have fancied himself transported into the wild nocturnal
world of German ballad poetry. After the skin had been
in the fire for ten minutes, the foreman pulled it out with
a pair of pincers.
" Hand it over to me," said Raphael.
The foreman held it out by way of a joke. The Marquis
readily handled it ; it was cool and flexible between his
fingers. An exclamation of alarm went up ; the workmen
fled in terror. Valentin was left alone with Planchette in
the empty workshop.
"There is certainly something infernal in the thing!"
cried Raphael, in desperation. "Is no human power able
to give me one day more of existence?"
"I made a mistake, sir," said the mathematician, with
a penitent expression ; " we ought to have subjected that
peculiar skin to the action of a rolling machine. Where
could my eyes have been when I suggested the use of com-
pression?"
"It was I that asked for it," Raphael answered.
The mathematician heaved a sigh of relief, like a culprit
acquitted by a dozen jurors. Still, the strange problem
afforded by the skin interested him ; he meditated a mo-
ment, and then remarked
" This unknown material ought to be treated chemically
THE AGONY. 231
by reagents. Let us call on Japhet perhaps the chemist
may have better luck than the mechanic."
Valentin thereupon urged his horse into a rapid trot,
hoping to find the chemist, the celebrated Japhet, in his
laboratory.
"Well, old friend," Planchette began, seeing Japhet in
his armchair, examining a precipitate; "how goes chem-
istry?"
"Gone to sleep. Nothing new at all. The Academic,
however, has recognized the existence of salicine, but sali-
cine, asparagine, vanqueline, and digitaline are not really
discoveries ' '
"Since you cannot invent substances," said Raphael,
" you are obliged to fall back on inventing names."
" Most emphatically true, young man."
"Here," said Planchette, addressing the chemist, "try to
analyze this composition ; if you can extract any element
whatever from it, I christen it diaboline beforehand, for we
have just smashed a hydraulic press in trying to compress it."
"Let's see! let's have a look at it!" cried the delighted
chemist; "it may, perhaps, be a fresh element."
"It is simply a piece of the skin of an ass, sir," said
Raphael.
" Sir ! " said the illustrious chemist sternly.
" I am not joking," the Marquis answered, laying the piece
of skin before him.
Baron Japhet applied the nervous fibres of his tongue to
the skin ; he had skill in thus detecting salts, acids, alkalis,
and gases. After several experiments, he remarked
" No taste whatever ! Come, we will give it a little fluoric
acid to drink."
Subjected to the influence of this ready solvent of animal
tissue, the skin underwent no change whatsoever.
" It is not shagreen at all !" the chemist cried. " We will
treat this unknown mystery as a mineral, and try its mettle by
232 THE WILD ASS SKIN.
dropping it in a crucible where I have at this moment some
red potash."
Japhet went out, and returned almost immediately.
"Allow me to cut away a bit of this strange substance, sir,"
he said to Raphael ; " it is so extraordinary "
"A bit ! " exclaimed Raphael; "not so much as a hair's-
breadth. You may try though," he added half-banteringly,
half-sadly.
The chemist broke a razor in his desire to cut the skin ; he
tried to break it by a powerful electric shock ; next he sub-
mitted it to the influence of a galvanic battery ; but all the
thunderbolts his science wotted of fell harmless on the dread-
ful talisman.
It was seven o'clock in the evening. Planchette, Japhet,
and Raphael, unaware of the flight of time, were awaiting the
outcome of a final experiment. The Wild Ass' Skin emerged
triumphant from a formidable encounter in which it had been
engaged with a considerable quantity of chloride of nitrogen.
" It is all over with me," Raphael wailed. "It is the finger
of God? I shall die! "and he left the two amazed
scientific men.
"We must be very careful not to talk about this affair at
the Academic; our colleagues there would laugh at us,"
Planchette remarked to the chemist, after a long pause, in
which they looked at each other without daring to communi-
cate their thoughts. The learned pair looked like two Chris-
tians who had issued from their tombs to find no God in the
heavens. Science had been powerless ; acids so much clear
water ; red potash had been discredited ; the galvanic battery
and electric shock had been a couple of playthings.
"A hydraulic press broken like a biscuit!" commented
Planchette.
"I believe in the devil," said the Baron Japhet, after a
moment's silence.
"And I in God," replied Planchette.
THE AGONY. 233
Each spoke in character. The universe for a mechanician
is a machine that requires an operator; for chemistry that
fiendish employment of decomposing all things the world is
a gas endowed with the power of movement.
"We cannot deny the fact," the chemist replied.
"Pshaw! those gentlemen the doctrinaires have invented a
nebulous aphorism for our consolation ' Stupid as a fact.' '
"Your aphorism," said the chemist, "seems to me as a
fact very stupid."
They began to laugh, and went off to dine like folk for
whom a miracle is nothing more than a phenomenon.
Valentin reached his own house shivering with rage and
consumed with anger. He had no more faith in anything.
Conflicting thoughts shifted and surged to and fro in his brain,
as is the case with every man brought face to face with an in-
conceivable fact. He had readily believed in some hidden
flaw in Spieghalter's apparatus ; he had not been surprised by
the incompetence and failure of science and of fire ; but the
flexibility of the skin as he handled it, taken with its stubborn-
ness when all the means of destruction that man possesses had
been brought to bear upon it in vain these things terrified
him. The incontrovertible fact made him dizzy.
"I am mad," he muttered. "I have had no food since
the morning, and yet I am neither hungry nor thirsty, and
there is a fire in my breast that burns me."
He put back the skin in the frame where it had been en-
closed but lately, drew a line in red ink about the actual con-
figuration of the talisman, and seated himself in his armchair.
"Eight o'clock already!" he exclaimed. "To-day has
gone like a dream."
He leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair, propped his
head with his left hand, and so remained, lost in secret dark
reflections and consuming thoughts that men condemned to
die bear away with them.
"O Pauline! " he cried. "Poor child! there are gulfs
234 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
that love can never traverse, despite the strength of his wings."
Just then he very distinctly heard a smothered sigh, and
knew by one of the most tender privileges of passionate love
that it was Pauline's breathing.
"That is my death warrant," he said to himself. " If she
were there, I should wish to die in her arms."
A burst of gleeful and heavy laughter made him turn his
face towards the bed ; he saw Pauline's face through the
transparent curtains, smiling like a child for gladness over a
successful piece of mischief. Her pretty hair fell over her
shoulders in countless curls ; she looked like a Bengal rose
upon a pile of white roses.
"I cajoled Jonathan," said she. "Doesn't the bed be-
long to me, to me who am your wife? Don't scold me, dar-
ling; I only wanted to surprise you, to sleep beside you.
Forgive me for my freak."
She sprang out of bed like a kitten, showed herself gleaming
in her lawn raiment, and sat down on Raphael's knee.
" Love, what gulf were you talking about ? " she said, with
an anxious expression apparent upon her face.
"Death."
" You hurt me," she answered. " There are some thoughts
upon which we, poor women that we are, cannot dwell ; they
are death to us. Is it strength of love in us, or lack of cour-
age ? I cannot tell. Death does not frighten me," she be-
gan again, laughingly. "To die with you, both together,
to-morrow morning, in one last embrace, would be joy. It
seems to me that even then I should have lived more than a
hundred years. What does the number of days matter if we
have spent a whole lifetime of peace and love in one night, in
one hour? "
"You are right; Heaven is speaking through that pretty
mouth of yours. Grant that I may kiss you, and let us die,"
said Raphael.
" Then let us die," she said, laughing.
THE AGONY. 235
Towards nine o'clock in the morning the daylight streamed
through the chinks of the window shutters. Obscured some-
what by the muslin curtains, it yet sufficed to show clearly the
rich colors of the carpet, the silks and furniture of the room,
where the two lovers were lying asleep. The gilding sparkled
here and there. A ray of sunlight fell and faded upon the
soft down quilt that the freaks of love had thrown to the
floor. The outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a
cheval glass, appeared like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty
shoes had been left at a distance from the bed. A nightin-
gale came to perch upon the sill ; its trills repeated over
again, and the sounds of its wings suddenly shaken out for
flight, awoke Raphael.
"For me to die," he said, following out a thought begun
in his dream, " my organization, the mechanism of flesh and
bone, that is quickened by the will in me, and makes of me
an individual man, must display some perceptible disease.
Doctors ought to understand the symptoms of any attack on
vitality, and could tell me whether I am sick or sound."
He gazed at his sleeping wife. She had stretched her head
out to him, expressing in this way even while she slept the
anxious tenderness of love. Pauline seemed to look at him
as she lay with her face turned towards him in an attitude as
full of grace as a young child's, with her pretty, half-opened
mouth held out towards him, as she drew her light, even
breath. Her little pearly teeth seemed to heighten the red-
ness of the fresh lips with the smile hovering over them.
The red glow in her complexion was brighter, and its white-
ness was, so to speak, whiter still just then than in the most
impassioned moments of the waking day. In her uncon-
strained grace, as she lay, so full of believing trust, the ador-
able attractions of childhood were added to the enchantments
of love.
Even the most unaffected women still obey certain social
conventions, which restrain the free expansion of the soul
236 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
within them during their waking hours ; but slumber seems to
give them back the spontaneity of life which makes infancy
lovely. Pauline blushed for nothing ; she was like one of
those beloved and heavenly beings, in whom reason has not
yet put motives into their actions and mystery into their
glances. Her profile stood out in sharp relief against the
fine cambric of the pillows ; there was a certain sprightliness
about her loose hair in confusion, mingled with the deep lace
ruffles ', but she was sleeping in happiness, her long lashes
were tightly pressed against her cheeks, as if to secure her
eyes from too strong a light, or to aid an effort of her soul to
recollect and to hold fast a bliss that had been perfect but
fleeting. Her tiny pink and white ear, framed by a lock
of her hair and outlined by a wrapping of Mechlin lace,
would have made an artist, a painter, an old man, wildly
in love, and would perhaps have restored a madman to his
senses.
Is it not an ineffable bliss to behold the woman that you
love, sleeping, smiling in a peaceful dream beneath your pro-
tection, loving you even in dreams, even at the point where
the individual seems to cease to exist, offering to you yet the
mute lips that speak to you in slumber of the latest kiss ? Is
it not indescribable happiness to see a trusting woman, half-
clad, but wrapped round in her love as by a cloak modesty
in the midst of dishevelment to see admiringly her scattered
clothing, the silken stocking hastily put off to please you last
evening, the unclasped girdle that implies a boundless faith in
you. A whole romance lies there in that girdle ; the woman
that it used to protect exists no longer ; she is yours, she has
become you ; henceforward any betrayal of her is a blow
dealt at yourself.
In this softened mood Raphael's eyes wandered over the
room, now filled with memories and love, and where the very
daylight seemed to take delightful hues. Then he turned his
gaze at last upon the outlines of the woman's form, upon
THE AGONY. 237
youth and purity, and love that even now had no thought that
was not for him alone, above all things, and longed to live
for ever. As his eyes fell upon Pauline, her own opened at
once as if a ray of sunlight had lighted on them.
"Good morning," she said, smiling. "How handsome
you are, bad man ! "
The grace of love and youth, of silence and dawn, shone in
their faces, making a divine picture, with the fleeting spell
over it all that belongs only to the earliest days of passion,
just as simplicity and artlessness are the peculiar possession of
childhood. Alas ! love's springtide joys, like our own youth-
ful laughter, must even take flight, and live for us no longer
save in memory ; either for our despair, or to shed some
soothing fragrance over us, according to the bent of our
inmost thoughts.
"What made me wake you?" said Raphael. "It was
so great a pleasure to watch you sleeping that it brought
tears to my eyes."
"And to mine, too," she answered. "I cried in the
night while I watched you sleeping, but not with happi-
ness. Raphael, dear, pray listen to me. Your breathing is
labored while you sleep, and something rattles in your chest
that frightens me. You have a little dry cough when you
are asleep, exactly like my father's, who is dying of phthisis.
In those sounds from your lungs I recognized some of the
peculiar symptoms of that complaint. Then you are fever-
ish ; I know you are, your hand was moist and burning
Darling, you are young," she added with a shudder, "and
you could still get over it if unfortunately But, no,"
she cried cheerfully, " there is no ' unfortunately,' the dis-
ease is contagious, so the doctors say."
She flung both arms about Raphael, drawing in his breath
through one of those kisses in which the soul reaches its
end.
"I do not wish to live to old age," she said. "Let us
16
238 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
both die young, and go to heaven while flowers fill our
hands."
" We always make such designs as those when we are well
and strong," Raphael replied, burying his hands in Pauline's
hair. But even then a horrible fit of coughing came on, one
of those deep ominous coughs that seem to come from the
depths of the tomb, a cough that leaves the sufferer ghastly
pale, trembling, and perspiring ; with aching sides and quiver-
ing nerves, with a feeling of weariness pervading the very
marrow of the spine, and unspeakable languor in every vein.
Raphael slowly laid himself down, pale, exhausted, and over-
come, like a man who has spent all the strength in him over
one final effort. Pauline's eyes, grown large with terror, were
fixed upon him ; she lay quite motionless, pale, and silent.
"Let us commit no more follies, my angel," she said, try-
ing not to let Raphael see the dreadful forebodings that dis-
turbed her. She covered her face with her hands, for she saw
death before her the hideous skeleton. Raphael's face had
grown as pale and livid as any skull unearthed from a church-
yard to assist the studies of some scientific man. Pauline
remembered the exclamation that had escaped from Valentin
the previous evening, and to herself she said
"Yes, there are gulfs that love can never cross, and therein
love must bury itself."
On a March morning, some days after this wretched scene,
Raphael found himself seated in an armchair, placed in the
window in the full light of day. Four doctors stood round
him, each in turn trying his pulse, feeling him over, and
questioning him with apparent interest. The invalid sought
to guess their thoughts, putting a construction on every move-
ment they made, and on the slightest contraction of their
brows. His last hope lay in this consultation. This court
of appeal was about to pronounce its decision life or death.
Valentin had summoned the oracles of modern medicine,
so that he might have the last word of science. Thanks to his
THE AGONY. 239
wealth and title, there stood before him three embodied
theories ; human knowledge fluctuated round the three points.
Three of the doctors brought among them the complete circle
of medical philosophy; they represented the points of con-
flict round which the battle raged, between spiritualism,
analysis, and goodness knows what in the way of mocking
eclecticism.
The fourth doctor was Horace Bianchon, a man of science
with a future before him, the most distinguished man of the
new school in medicine, a discreet and unassuming repre-
sentative of a studious generation that is preparing to receive
the inheritance of fifty years of experience treasured up by
the Ecole de Paris, a generation that perhaps will erect the
monument for the building of which the centuries behind us
have collected the different materials. As a personal friend
of the Marquis and of Rastignac, he had been in attendance
on the former for some days past, and was helping him to
answer the inquiries of the three professors, occasionally
insisting somewhat upon those symptoms which, in his opinion,
pointed to pulmonary disease.
" You have been living at a great pace, leading a dissipated
life, no doubt, and you have devoted yourself largely to in-
tellectual work?" queried one of the three celebrated authori-
ties, addressing Raphael. He was a square-headed man, with
a large frame and energetic organization, which seemed to
mark him as superior to his two rivals.
" I made up my mind to kill myself with debauchery, after
spending three years over an extensive work, with which per-
haps you may some day occupy yourselves," Raphael replied.
The great doctor shook his head, and so displayed his satis-
faction. " I was sure of it," he seemed to say to himself. He
was the illustrious Brisset, the successor of Cabanis and Bichat,
head of the Organic School, a doctor popular with believers
in material and positive science, who see in man a complete
individual, subject solely to the laws of his own particular
240 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
organization ; and who consider that his normal condition
and abnormal states of disease can both be traced to obvious
causes.
After this reply, Brisset looked, without speaking, at a
middle-sized person, whose darkly flushed countenance and
glowing eyes seemed to belong to some antique satyr , and
who, leaning his back against the corner of the embrasure,
was studying Raphael, without saying a word. Doctor Came-
ristus, a man of creeds and enthusiasms, the head of the
" Vitalists," a romantic champion of the esoteric doctrines
of Van Helmont, discerned a lofty informing principle in
human life, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon which
mocks at the scalpel, deceives the surgeon, eludes the drugs
of the pharmacopoeia, the formulae of algebra, the demonstra-
tions of anatomy, and derides all our efforts ; a sort of invisi-
ble, intangible flame, which, obeying some divinely appointed
law, will often linger on in a body in our opinion devoted to
death, while it takes flight from an organization well fitted
for prolonged existence.
A bitter smile hovered upon the lips of the third doctor,
Maugredie, a man of acknowledged ability, but a Pyrrhonist
and a scoffer, with the scalpel for his one article of faith. He
would consider, as a concession to Brisset, that a man who, as
a matter of fact, was perfectly well was dead, and recognize
with Cam6ristus that a man might be living on after his ap-
parent demise. He found something sensible in every theory,
and embraced none of them, claiming that the best of all
systems of medicine was to have none at all, and to stick to
the facts. This Panurge of the Clinical Schools, the king of
observers, the great investigator, great sceptic, the man of
desperate expedients, was scrutinizing the Wild Ass' Skin.
"I should very much like to be a witness of the coinci-
dence of its retrenchment with your wish," he said to the
Marquis.
"Where is the use?" cried Brisset.
THE AGONY. 241
" Where is the use ? " echoed Cameristus.
"Ah, you are both of the same mind," replied Maugredie.
"The contraction is perfectly simple," Brisset went on.
" It is supernatural," remarked Cameristus.
"In short," Maugredie made answer, with affected so-
lemnity, and handing the piece of skin to Raphael as he spoke,
" the shriveling faculty of the skin is a fact inexplicable, and
yet quite natural, which, ever since the world began, has been
the despair of medicine and of pretty women.
All Valentin's observation could discover no trace of a
feeling for his troubles in any of the three doctors. The three
received every answer in silence, scanned him unconcernedly,
and interrogated him unsympathetically. Politeness did not
conceal their indifference ; whether deliberation or certainty
was the cause, their words at any rate came so seldom and so
languidly, that at times Raphael thought that their attention
was wandering. From time to time Brisset, the sole speaker,
remarked, " Good! just so!" as Bianchon pointed out the
existence of each desperate symptom. Cameristus seemed
to be deep in meditation ; Maugredie looked like a comic
author, studying two queer characters with a view to repro-
ducing them faithfully upon the stage. There was deep, un-
concealed distress and grave compassion in Horace Bianchon's
face. He had been a doctor for too short a time to be un-
touched by suffering and unmoved by a deathbed ; he had not
learned to keep back the sympathetic tears that obscure a
man's clear vision and prevent him from seizing, like the
general of an army, upon the auspicious moment for victory,
in utter disregard of the groans of dying men.
After spending about half an hour over taking in some sort
the measure of the patient and the complaint, much as a tailor
measures a young man for a coat when he orders his wedding
outfit, the authorities uttered several commonplaces, and even
talked of politics. Then they decided to go into Raphael's
study to exchange their ideas and frame their verdict.
242 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"May I not be present during the discussion, gentlemen?"
Valentin had asked them, but Brisset and Maugredie protested
against this, and, in spite of their patient's entreaties, declined
altogether to deliberate in his presence.
Raphael gave way before their custom, thinking that he
could slip into a passage adjoining, whence he could easily
overhear the medical conference in which the three professors
were about to engage.
"Permit me, gentlemen," said Brisset, as they entered,
"to give you my own opinion at once. I neither wish to
force it upon you nor to have it discussed. In the first place,
it is unbiased, concise, and based on an exact similarity that
exists between one of my own patients and the subject that we
have been called in to examine; and, moreover, I am ex-
pected at my hospital. The importance of the case that de-
mands my presence there will excuse me for speaking the first
word. The subject with which we are concerned has been
exhausted in an equal degree by intellectual labors what did
he set about, Horace?" he asked of the young doctor.
"A 'Theory of the Will.' "
" The devil ! but that's a big subject. He is exhausted, I
say, by too much brain-work, by irregular courses, and by the
repeated use of too powerful stimulants. Violent exertion of
body and mind has demoralized the whole system. It is
easy, gentlemen, to recognize in the symptoms of the face and
body generally intense irritation of the stomach, an affection
of the great sympathetic nerve, acute sensibility of the epigas-
tric region, and contraction of the right and left hypochon-
driac. You have noticed, too, the large size and prominence
of the liver. M. Bianchon has, besides, constantly watched
the patient, and he tells us that indigestion is troublesome and
difficult. Strictly speaking, there is no stomach left, and so
the man has disappeared. The brain is atrophied because the
man digests no longer. The progressive deterioration wrought
in the epigastric region, the seat of vitality, has vitiated the
THE AGOi\Y. 243
whole system. Thence, by continued fevered vibrations, the
disorder has reached the brain by means of the nervous plexus,
hence the excessive irritation in that organ. There is mono-
mania. The patient is burdened with a fixed idea. That
piece of skin really contracts, to his way of thinking ; very
likely it always has been as we have seen it ; but whether
it contracts or no, that thing is for him just like the fly that
some Grand Vizier or other had on his nose. If you put
leeches at once on the epigastrium, and reduce the irritation
in that part, which is the very seat of man's life, and if you
diet the patient, the monomania will leave him. I will say
no more to Dr. Bianchon ; he should be able to grasp the
whole treatment as well as the details. There nuy be, per-
haps, some complication of the disease the bronchial tubes,
possibly, may be also inflamed ; but, I believe, that treatment
for the intestinal organs is very much more important and
necessary, and more urgently required than for the lungs.
Persistent study of abstract matters and certain violent pas-
sions have induced serious disorders in that vital mechanism.
However, we are in time to set these conditions right. Noth-
ing is too seriously affected. You will easily get your friend
round again," he remarked to Bianchon.
" Our learned colleague is taking the effect for the cause,"
Cameristus replied. " Yes, the changes that he has observed
so keenly certainly exist in the patient ; but it is not the
stomach that, by degrees, has set up nervous action in the
system, and so affected the brain, like a hole in a window-
pane spreading cracks round about it. It took a blow of
some kind to make a hole in the window ; who gave the
blow? Do we know that ? Have we investigated the patient's
case sufficiently? Are we acquainted with all the events of
his life ?
"The vital principle, gentlemen," he continued, "the
Archeus of Van Helmont, is affected in his case the very
essence and centre of life is attacked. The divine spark, the
244 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
transitory intelligence which holds the organism together,
which is the source of the will, the inspiration of life, has
ceased to regulate the daily phenomena of the mechanism and
the functions of every organ ; thence arise all the complica-
tions which my learned colleague has so thoroughly appre-
ciated. The epigastric region does not affect the brain, but
the brain affects the epigastric region. No," he went on,
vigorously slapping his chest, " no, I am not a stomach in the
form of a man. No, everything does not lie there. I do not
feel that I have the courage to say that if the epigastric region
is in good order, everything else is in a like condition
"We cannot trace," he went on more mildly, "to one
physical cause the serious disturbances that supervene in this
or that subject which has been dangerously attacked, nor sub-
mit them to a uniform treatment. No one man is like
another. We have each peculiar organs, differently affected,
diversely nourished, adapted to perform different functions,
and to induce a condition necessary to the accomplishment
of an order of things which is unknown to us. The sublime
will has so wrought that a little portion of the great All is set
within us to sustain the phenomena of living ; in every man
it formulates itself distinctly, making each, to all appearance,
a separate individual, yet in one point coexistent with the
infinite cause. So we ought to make a separate study of each
subject, discover all about it, find out in what its life consists,
and wherein its power lies. From the softness of a wet
sponge to the hardness of pumice-stone there are infinite fine
degrees of difference. Man is just like that. Between the
sponge-like organizations of the lymphatic and the vigorous
iron muscles of such men as are destined for a long life, what
a margin for errors for the single inflexible system of a lower-
ing treatment to commit ; a system that reduces the capacities
of the human frame, which you always conclude have been
over-excited. Let us look for the origin of the disease in the
mental and not in the physical viscera. A doctor is an
THE AGONY. 245
inspired being, endowed by God with a special gift the
power to read the secrets of vitality ; just as the prophet has
received the eyes that foresee the future, the poet his faculty
of evoking nature, and the musician the power of arranging
sounds in an harmonious order that is possibly a copy of an
ideal harmony on high."
" There is his everlasting system of medicine, arbitrary,
monarchical, and pious," muttered Brisset.
" Gentlemen," Maugredie broke in hastily, to distract
attention from Brisset's comment, " don't let us lose sight of
the patient."
"What is the good of science?" Raphael moaned.
" Here is my recovery halting between a string of beads and
a rosary of leeches, between Dupuytren's bistoury and Prince
Hohenlohe's prayer. There is Maugredie suspending his judg-
ment on the line that divides facts from words, mind from
matter. Man's ' it is,' ' and it is not,' is always on my track;
it is the Carymary Carymara of Rabelais for evermore : my dis-
order is spiritual, Carymary, or material, Carymara. Shall I
live? They have no idea. Planchette was more straight-
forward with me, at any rate, when he said, ' I do not know.'
Just then Valentin heard Maugredie's voice.
"The patient suffers from monomania; very good, I am
quite of that opinion," he said, "but he has two hundred
thousand a year ; monomaniacs of that kind are very un-
common. As for knowing whether his epigastric region has
affected his brain, or his brain his epigastric region, we shall
find that out, perhaps, whenever he dies. But to resume.
There is no disputing the fact that he is ill ; some sort of treat-
ment he must have. Let us leave theories alone, and put
leeches on him, tocounteract the nervous and intestinal irrita-
tion, as to the existence of which we all agree ; and let us
send him to drink the waters, in that way we shall act on
both systems at once. If there really is tubercular disease,
we can hardly expect to save his life ; so that "
246 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Raphael abruptly left the passage, and went back to his
armchair. The four doctors very soon came out of the study ;
Horace was the spokesman.
"These gentlemen," he told him, ''have unanimously
agreed that leeches must be applied to the stomach at once,
and that both physical and moral treatment are imperatively
needed. In the first place, a carefully prescribed rule of diet,
so as to soothe the internal irritation " here Brisset signified
his approval ; " and in the second, a hygienic regimen, to set
your general condition right. We all, therefore, recommend
you to go to take the waters at Aix in Savoy ; or, if you like
it better, at Mont Dore in Auvergne ; the air and the situa-
tion are both pleasanter in Savoy than in the Cantal, but you
will consult your own taste."
Here it was Cameristus who nodded assent.
" These gentlemen," Bianchon continued, " having recog-
nized a slight affection of the respiratory organs, are agreed
as to the utility of the previous course of treatment that I
have prescribed. They think that there will be no difficulty
about restoring you to health, and that everything depends
upon a wise and alternate employment of these various means.
And "
" And that is the cause of the milk in the cocoanut,"
said Raphael, with a smile, as he led Horace into his study
to pay the fees for this useless consultation.
"Their conclusions are logical," the young doctor replied.
" Cameristus feels, Brisset examines, Maugredie doubts. Has
not a man a soul, a body, and an intelligence? One of these
three elemental constituents always influences us more or less
strongly ; there will always be the personal element in human
science. Believe me, Raphael, we effect no cures ; we only
assist them. Another system the use of mild remedies while
nature exerts her powers lies between the extremes of theory
of Brisset and Cameristus, but one ought to have known the
patient for some ten years or so to obtain a good result on
THE AGONY. 247
these lines. Negation lies at the back of all medicine, as in
every other science. So endeavor to live wholesomely ; try
a trip to Savoy ; the best course is, and always will be, to
trust to nature."
It was a month later, on a fine summer-like evening, that
several people, who were taking the waters at Aix, returned
from the promenade and met together in the salons of the Club.
Raphael remained alone by a window for a long time. His
back was turned upon the gathering, and he himself was deep
in those involuntary musings in which thoughts arise in suc-
cession and fadeaway, shaping themselves indistinctly, passing
over us like thin, almost colorless clouds. Melancholy is
sweet to us then, and delight is shadowy, for the soul is half-
asleep. Valentin gave himself up to this life of sensations;
he was steeping himself in the warm, soft twilight, enjoying
the pure air with the scent of the hills in it, happy in that he
felt no pain, and had tranquillized his threatening Wild Ass'
Skin at last. It grew cooler as the red glow of the sunset
faded on the mountain-peaks ; he shut the window and left
his place.
"Will you be so kind as not to close the windows, sir?"
said an old lady ; "we are being stifled "
The peculiar sharp and jarring tones in which the phrase
was uttered grated on Raphael's ears ; it fell on them like an
indiscreet remark let slip by some man in whose friendship we
would fain believe, a word which reveals unsuspected depths
of selfishness and destroys some pleasing sentimental illusion
of ours. The Marquis glanced, with the cool inscrutable ex-
pression of a diplomatist, at the old lady, called a servant,
and, when he came, curtly bade him
"Open that window."
Great surprise was clearly expressed on all faces at the
words. The whole roomful began to whisper to each other,
and turned their eyes upon the invalid, as though he had given
some serious offence. Raphael, who had never quite managed
248 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
to rid himself of the bashfulness of his early youth, felt a
momentary confusion ; then he shook off his torpor, exerted
his faculties, and asked himself the meaning of this strange
scene.
A sudden and rapid impulse quickened his brain ; the past
weeks appeared before him in a clear and definite vision; the
reasons for the feelings he inspired in others stood out for him
in relief, like the veins of some corpse which a naturalist, by
some cunningly contrived injection, has colored so as to show
their least ramifications.
He discerned himself in this fleeting picture ; he followed
out his own life in it, thought by thought, day after day. He
saw himself, not without astonishment, an absent gloomy
figure in the midst of these lively folk, always musing over his
own fate, always absorbed by his own sufferings, seemingly
impatient of the most harmless chat. He saw how he had
shunned the ephemeral intimacies that travelers are so ready
to establish no doubt because they feel sure of never meet-
ing each other again and how he had taken little heed of
those about him. He saw himself like the rocks without,
unmoved by the caresses or the stormy surgings of the waves.
Then, by a gift of insight seldom accorded, he read the
thoughts of those about him. The light of a candle revealed
the sardonic profile and yellow cranium of an old man ; he
remembered now that he had won from him, and had never
proposed that the other should have his revenge ; a little
further on he saw a pretty woman, whose lively advances he
had met with frigid coolness ; there was not a face there that
did not reproach him with some wrong done, inexplicably to
all appearance, but the real offence in every case lay in some
mortification, some invisible hurt dealt to self-love. He had
unintentionally jarred on all the small susceptibilities of the
circle round about him.
His guests on various occasions, and those to whom he had
loaned his horses, had taken offence at his luxurious ways ;
THE AGONY. 249
their ungraciousness had been a surprise to him ; he had
spared them further humiliation of that kind, and they had
considered that he looked down upon them, and had accused
him of haughtiness ever since. He could read their inmost
thoughts as he fathomed their natures in this way. Society
with its polish and varnish grew loathsome to him. He was
envied and hated for his wealth and superior ability ; his
reserve baffled the inquisitive ; his humility seemed like
haughtiness to these petty superficial natures. He guessed the
secret unpardonable crime which he had committed against
them ; he had overstepped the limits of the jurisdiction of
their mediocrity. He had resisted their inquisitorial tyranny ;
he could dispense with their society; and all of them, there-
fore, had instinctively combined to make him feel their power,
and to take revenge upon this incipient royalty by submitting
him to a kind of ostracism, and so teaching him that they in
their turn could do without him.
Pity came over him, first of all, at this aspect of mankind,
but very soon he shuddered at the thought of the power that
came thus, at will, and flung aside for him the veil of flesh
under which the moral nature is hidden away. He closed his
eyes, so as to see no more. A black curtain was drawn all at
once over this unlucky phantom show of truth ; but still he
found himself in the terrible loneliness that surrounds every
power and dominion. Just then a violent fit of coughing seized
him. Far from receiving one single word indifferent and
meaningless, it is true, but still containing, among well-bred
people brought together by chance, at least, some pretence
of civil commiseration he now heard hostile ejaculations and
muttered complaints. Society there assembled disdained any
pantomime on his account, perhaps because he had gauged its
real nature too well.
"His complaint is contagious."
" The president of the club ought to forbid him to enter
the salon."
250 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
"It is contrary to all rules and regulations to cough in that
way ! "
"When a man is as ill as that, he ought not to come to
take the waters '
" He will drive me away from the place."
Raphael rose and walked about the room to screen himself
from their unanimous execrations. He thought to find a
shelter, and went up to a young lady who sat doing nothing,
minded to address some pretty speeches to her ; but as he
came towards her, she turned her back upon him, and pre-
tended to be watching the dancers. Raphael feared lest he
might have made use of the talisman already that evening ;
and feeling that he had neither the wish nor the courage to
break into the conversation, he left the salon and took refuge
in the billiard-room. No one there greeted him, nobody
spoke to him, no one sent so much as a friendly glance in his
direction. His turn of mind, naturally meditative, had dis-
covered instinctively the general grounds and reasons for the
aversions he inspired. This little world was obeying, uncon-
sciously perhaps, the sovereign law which rules over polite
society ; its inexorable nature was becoming apparent in its
entirety to Raphael's eyes. A glance into the past showed it
to him, as a type completely realized in Fcedora.
He would no more meet with sympathy here for his bodily
ills than he had received it at her hands for the distress in his
heart. The fashionable world expels every suffering creature
from its midst, just as the body of a man in robust health
rejects any germ of disease. The world holds suffering and
misfortune in abhorrence ; it dreads them like the plague ;
it never hesitates between vice and trouble, for vice is a
luxury. Ill-fortune may possess a majesty of its own, but
society can belittle it and make it ridiculous by an epigram.
Society draws caricatures, and in this way flings in the teeth
of fallen kings the affronts which it fancies it has received
from them ; society, like the Roman youth at the circus, never
THE AGONY. 251
shows mercy to the fallen gladiator ; mockery and money are
its vital necessities. "Death to the weak!" That is the
oath taken by this kind of equestrian order, instituted in their
midst by all the nations of the world ; everywhere it makes
for the elevation of the rich, and its motto is deeply graven
in hearts that wealth has turned to stone, or that have been
reared in aristocratic prejudices.
Assemble a collection of school-boys together. That will
give you a society in miniature, a miniature which represents
life more truly, because it is so frank and artless ; and in it
you will always find poor isolated beings, relegated to some
place in the general estimation between pity and contempt,
on account of their weakness and suffering. To these the
Evangel promises heaven hereafter. Go lower yet in the
scale of organized creation. If some bird among its fellows
in the court-yard sickens, the others fall upon it with their
beaks, pluck out its feathers, and kill it. The whole world,
in accordance with its charter of egotism, brings all its
severity to bear upon wretchedness that has the hardihood to
spoil its festivities, and to trouble its joys.
Any sufferer in mind or body, any helpless or poor man,
is a pariah. He had better remain in his solitude ; if he
crosses the boundary-line, he will find winter everywhere ;
he will find freezing cold in other men's looks, manners,
words, and hearts ; and lucky indeed is he if he does not
receive an insult where he expected that sympathy would be
expended upon him. Let the dying keep to their bed of
neglect, and age sit lonely by its fireside. Portionless maids,
freeze and burn in your solitary attics. If the world tolerates
misery of any kind, it is to turn it to account for its own pur-
poses, to make some use of it, saddle and bridle it, put a bit
in its mouth, ride it about, and get some fun out of it.
Crotchety spinsters, ladies' companions, put a cheerful face
upon it, endure the humors of your so-called benefactress,
carry her lapdogs for her ; you have an English poodle for
252 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
your rival, and you must seek to understand the moods of
your patroness, and amuse her, and keep silence about your-
selves. As for you, unblushing parasite, uncrowned king of
unliveried servants, leave your real character at home, let
your digestion keep pace with your host's, laugh when he
laughs, mingle your tears with his, and find his epigrams
amusing ; if you want to relieve your mind about him, wait
till he is ruined. That is the way the world shows its respect
for the unfortunate ; it persecutes them, or slays them ; it
deprives them of their manhood, or humbles them in the
dust.
Such thoughts as these welled up in Raphael's heart with
the suddenness of poetic inspiration. He looked around
him, and felt the influence of the forbidding gloom that
society breathes out in order to rid itself of the unfortunate ;
it nipped his soul more effectually than the east wind grips the
body in December. He locked his arms over his chest, set
his back against the wall, and fell into a deep melancholy.
He mused upon the meagre happiness that this depressing way
of living can give. What did it amount to? Amusement
with no pleasure in it, gaiety without gladness, joyless
festivity, fevered dreams empty of all delight, firewood or
ashes on the hearth without a spark of flame in them.
When he raised his head he found himself alone, all the
billiard players had gone.
" I have only to let them know my power to make them
worship my coughing fits," he said to himself, and wrapped
himself against the world in the cloak of his contempt.
Next day the resident doctor came to call upon him, and
took an anxious interest in his health. Raphael felt a thrill
of joy at the friendly words addressed to him. The doctor's
face, to his thinking, wore an expression that was kind and
pleasant ; the pale curls of his wig seemed redolent of philan-
thropy ; the square cut of his coat, the loose folds of his
trousers, his big Quaker-like shoes, everything about him
THE AGONY. 253
down to the powder shaken from his queue and dusted in
a circle upon his slightly stooping shoulders, revealed an
apostolic nature, and spoke of Christian charity and of the
self-sacrifice of a man, who, out of sheer devotion to his
patients, had compelled himself to learn to play whist and
tric-trac so well that he never lost money to any of them.
" My Lord Marquis," said he, after a long talk with
Raphael, " I can dispel your uneasiness beyond all doubt. I
know your constitution well enough by this time to assure you
that the doctors in Paris, whose great abilities I know, are
mistaken as to the nature of your complaint. You can live as
long as Methuselah, my Lord Marquis, accidents only excepted.
Your lungs are as sound as a blacksmith's bellows, your
stomach would put an ostrich to the blush ; but if you persist
in living at a high altitude, you are running the risk of prompt
interment in consecrated soil. A few words, my Lord Marquis,
will make my meaning clear to you.
" Chemistry," he began, " has shown us that man's breath-
ing is a real process of combustion, and the intensity of its
action varies according to the abundance or scarcity of the
phlogistic element stored up by the organism of each indi-
vidual. In your case, the phlogistic or inflammatory element
is abundant ; if you will permit me to put it so, you generate
superfluous oxygen, possessing as you do the inflammatory
temperament of a man destined to experience strong emotions.
While you breathe the keen, pure air that stimulates life in
men of lymphatic constitution, you are accelerating an expen-
diture of vitality already too rapid. One of the conditions
of existence for you is the heavier atmosphere of the plains
and valleys. Yes, the vital air for a man consumed by his
genius lies in the fertile pasture-lands of Germany, at Toplitz
or Baden-Baden. If England is not obnoxious to you, its
misty climate would reduce your fever; but the situation of
our baths, a thousand feet above the level of the Mediterra-
nean, is dangerous for you. That is my opinion at least,"
17
254 THE WILD ASS' SKIM.
he said, with a deprecatory gesture, " and I give it in oppo-
sition to our interests, for, if you act upon it, we shall unfor-
tunately lose you."
But for these closing words of his, the affable doctor's
seeming good-nature would have completely won Raphael
over ; but he was too profoundly observant not to under-
stand the meaning of the tone, the look and gesture that
accompanied that mild sarcasm, riot to see that the little
man had been sent on this errand, no doubt, by a flock of
his rejoicing patients. The florid-looking idlers, tedious
old women, nomad English people, and fine ladies who had
given their husbands the slip, and were escorted hither by
their lovers one and all were in a plot to drive away a
wretched, feeble creature about to die, who seemed unable
to hold out against a daily renewed persecution ! Raphael
accepted the challenge ; he foresaw some amusement to be
derived from their manoeuvres.
"As you would be so grieved at losing me," said he to
the doctor, " I will endeavor to avail myself of your good
advice without leaving the place. I will set about having
a house built to-morrow, and the atmosphere within it shall
be regulated by your instruction."
The doctor understood the sarcastic smile that lurked
about Raphael's mouth, and took his leave without finding
another word to say.
The Lake of Bourget lies seven hundred feet above the
Mediterranean, in a great hollow among the jagged peaks of
the hills ; it sparkles there, the bluest drop of water in the
world. From the summit of the Cat's Tooth the lake below
looks like a stray turquoise. This lovely sheet of water is
about twenty-seven miles round, and in some places is nearly
five hundred feet deep.
Under the cloudless sky, in your boat in the midst of the
great expanse of water, with only the sound of the oars in
your ears, only the vague outline of the hills on the horizon
THE AGONY. 255
before you ; you admire the glittering snows of the French
Maurienne ; you pass now by masses of granite clad in the
velvet of green turf or in low-growing shrubs, now by pleasant
sloping meadows ; there is always a wilderness on the one
hand and fertile lands on the other, and both harmonies and
dissonances compose a scene for you where everything is at once
small and vast, and you feel yourself to be a poor onlooker at
a grand banquet. The configuration of the mountains brings
about misleading optical conditions and illusions of perspec-
tive ; a pine-tree a hundred feet in height looks to be a mere
reed ; wide valleys look as narrow as meadow paths. The
lake is the only one where the confidences of heart and heart
can be exchanged. There one can love ; there one can medi-
tate. Nowhere on earth will you find a closer understanding
between the water, the sky, the mountains, and the fields.
There is a balm there for all the agitations of life. The place
keeps the secrets of sorrow to itself, the sorrow that grows less
beneath its soothing influence ; and to love, it gives a grave
and meditative cast, deepening passion and purifying it. A
kiss there becomes something great. But beyond all things
it is a lake for memories ; it aids them by lending to them
the hues of its own waves ; it is a mirror in which everything is
reflected. Only here, with this lovely landscape all round
him, could Raphael endure the burden laid upon him ; here
he could remain as a languid dreamer, without a wish of his
own.
He went out upon the lake after the doctor's visit, and was
landed at a lonely point on the pleasant slope where the village
of Saint-Innocent is situated. The view from this promon-
tory, as one may call it, comprises the heights of Bugey with
the Rhone flowing at their foot, and at the end of the lake ;
but Raphael liked to look at the opposite shore from thence,
at the melancholy looking Abbey of Haute-Combe, the bury-
ing-place of the Sardinian kings, who lie prostrate there before
the hills, like pilgrims come at last to their journey's end.
256 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
The silence of the landscape was broken by the even rhythm
of the strokes of the oar ; it seemed to find a voice for the
place, in monotonous cadences like the chanting of monks.
The Marquis was surprised to find visitors to this usually lonely
part of the lake ; and as he mused, he watched the people
seated in the boat, and recognized in the stern the elderly
lady who had spoken so harshly to him the evening before.
No one took any notice of Raphael as the boat passed,
except the elderly lady's companion, a poor old maid of noble
family, who bowed to him, and whom it seemed to him that
he saw for the first time. A few seconds later he had already
forgotten the visitors, who had rapidly disappeared behind
the promontory, when he heard the fluttering of a dress, and
the sound of light footsteps not far from him. He turned
about and saw the companion ; and, guessing from her em-
barrassed manner that she wished to speak with him, he walked
towards her.
She was somewhere about thirty-six years of age, thin and
tall, reserved and prim, and, like all old maids, seemed puzzled
to know which way to look, an expression no longer in keep-
ing with her measured, springless, and hesitating steps. She
was both young and old at the same time, and, by a certain
dignity in her carriage, showed the high value which she set
upon her charms and perfections. In addition, her movements
were all demure and discreet, like those of women who are
accustomed to take great care of themselves, no doubt because
they desire not to be cheated of love, their destined end.
"Your life is in danger, sir; do not come to the Club
again ! " she said, stepping back a pace or two from Raphael,
as if her reputation had been already compromised.
"But, mademoiselle," said Raphael, smiling, "please ex-
plain yourself more clearly, since you have condescended
so far "
"Ah," she answered, "unless I had had a very strong
motive, I should never have run the risk of offending the
THE AGONY. 257
Countess, for if she ever came to know that I had warned
you "
" And who would tell her, mademoiselle ? " cried Raphael.
"True," the old maid answered. She looked at him,
quaking like an owl out in the sunlight. " But think of your-
self," she went on; "several young men, who want to drive
you away from the baths, have agreed to pick a quarrel with
you, and to force you into a duel."
The elderly lady's voice sounded in the distance.
" Mademoiselle," began the Marquis, " my gratitude "
But his protectress had fled already ; she had heard the voice
of her mistress squeaking afresh among the rocks.
"Poor girl ! unhappiness always understands and helps the
unhappy," Raphael thought, and sat himself down at the foot
of a tree.
The key of every science is, beyond cavil, the mark of
interrogation ; we owe most of our greatest discoveries to a
Why ? and all the wisdom in the world, perhaps, consists in
asking Wherefore? in every connection. But, on the other
hand, this acquired prescience is the ruin of our illusions.
So Valentin, having taken the old maid's kindly action for
the text of his wandering thoughts, without the deliberate
promptings of philosophy, must find it full of gall and worm-
wood.
" It is not at all extraordinary that a gentlewoman's gentle-
woman should take a fancy to me," said he to himself. " I
am twenty-seven years old, and I have a title and an income
of two hundred thousand a year. But that her mistress, who
hates water like a rabid cat for it would be hard to give the
palm to either in that matter that her mistress should have
brought her here in a boat ! Is not that very strange and
wonderful ? Those two women came into Savoy to sleep like
marmots ; they ask if day has dawned at noon ; and to think
that they could get up this morning before eight o'clock to
take their chance in running after me ! "
258 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Very soon the old maid and her elderly innocence became
in his eyes, a fresh manifestation of that artificial, malicious
little world. It was a paltry device, a clumsy artifice, a piece
of priest's or woman's craft. Was the duel a myth, or did
they merely want to frighten him ? But these petty creatures,
impudent and teasing as flies, had succeeded in wounding his
vanity, in rousing his pride, and exciting his curiosity.
Unwilling to become their dupe, or to be taken for a coward,
and even diverted perhaps by the little drama, he went to the
Club that very evening.
He stood leaning against the marble chimney-piece, and
stayed there quietly in the middle of the principal salon,
doing his best to give no one any advantage over him ; but
he scrutinized the faces about him, and gave a certain vague
offence to those assembled, by his inspection. Like a dog
aware of his strength, he awaited the contest on his own
ground, without unnecessary barking. Towards the end of
the evening he strolled into the card-room, walking between
the door and another that opened into the billiard-room,
throwing a glance from time to time over a group of young
men that had gathered there. He heard his name mentioned
after a turn or two. Although they lowered their voices,
Raphael easily guessed that he had become the topic of their de-
bate, and he ended by catching a phrase or two spoken aloud.
"You?"
"Yes, I."
" I dare you to do it ! "
" Let us make a bet on it ! ! '
"Oh, he will do it."
Just as Valentin, curious to learn the matter of the
wager, came up to pay closer attention to what they were
saying, a tall, strong, good-looking young fellow, who, how-
ever, possessed the impertinent stare peculiar to people who
have material force at their back, came out of the billiard-
room.
THE AGONY. 259
"I am deputed, sir," he said coolly, addressing the Mar-
quis, " to make you aware of something which you do not
seem to know ; your face and person generally are a source
of annoyance to every one here, and to me in particular.
You have too much politeness not to sacrifice yourself to the
public good, and I beg that you will not show yourself in the
Club again."
"This sort of joke has been perpetrated before, sir, in gar-
rison towns at the time of the Empire ; but nowadays it is
exceedingly bad form," said Raphael drily.
"I am not joking," the young man answered; " and I
repeat it : your health will be considerably the worse for a
stay here ; the heat and light, the air of the salon, and the
company are all bad for your complaint."
" Where did you study medicine? " Raphael inquired.
" I took my bachelor's degree on Lepage's shooting-ground
in Paris, and was made a doctor at Cerizier's, the king of
foils."
"There is one last degree left for you to take," said Val-
entin ; " study the ordinary rules of politeness, and you will
be a perfect gentleman."
The young men all came out of the billiard-room just then,
some disposed to laugh, some silent. The attention of other
players was drawn to the matter ; they left their cards to
watch a quarrel that rejoiced their instincts. Raphael, alone
among this hostile crowd, did his best to keep cool, and not
to put himself in any way in the wrong ; but his adversary
having ventured a sarcasm containing an insult couched in
unusually keen language, he replied gravely
" We cannot box men's ears, sir, in these days, but I am at
a loss for any word by which to stigmatize such cowardly
behavior as yours."
"That's enough, that's enough. You can come to an
explanation to-morrow," several young men exclaimed, inter-
posing between the two champions.
260 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Raphael left the room in the character of aggressor, after
he had accepted a proposal to meet near the Chateau de
Bordeau, in a little sloping meadow, not very far from the
newly made road, by which the man who came off victorious
could reach Lyons. Raphael must now either take to his bed
or leave the baths. The visitors had gained their point. At
eight o'clock next morning his antagonist, followed by two
seconds and a surgeon, arrived first on the ground.
" We shall do very nicely here ; glorious weather for a
duel," he cried gaily, looking at the blue vault of sky above,
at the waters of the lake, and the rocks, without a single
melancholy presentiment or doubt of the issue. " If I wing
him," he went on, " I shall send him to bed for a month;
eh, doctor? "
"At the very least," the surgeon replied; "but let that
willow twig alone, or you will weary your wrist, and then you
will not fire steadily. You might kill your man then instead
of wounding him."
The noise of a carriage was heard approaching.
"Here he is," said the seconds, who soon descried a
caleche coming along the road ; it was drawn by four horses,
and there were two postilions.
" What a queer proceeding ! " said Valentin's antagonist ;
"here he comes post-haste to be shot."
The slightest incident about a duel, as about a stake at
cards, makes an impression on the minds of those deeply
concerned in the results of the affair ; so the young man
awaited the arrival of the carriage with a kind of uneasiness.
It stopped in the road ; old Jonathan laboriously descended
from it, in the first place, to assist Raphael to alight ; he
supported him with his feeble arms, and showed him all the
minute attentions that a lover lavishes upon his mistress.
Both became lost to sight in the footpath that lay between the
high-road and the field where the duel was to take place ;
they were walking slowly, and did not appear again for some
THE AGONY. 261
time after. The four onlookers at this strange spectacle felt
deeply moved by the sight of Valentin as he leaned on his
servant's arm ; he was wasted and pale ; he limped as if he
had the gout, went with his head bowed down, and said not a
word. You might have taken them for a couple of old men,
one broken with years, the other worn out with thought ; the
elder bore his age visibly written in his white hair, the
younger was of no age.
"I have not slept all night, sir; " so Raphael greeted his
antagonist.
The icy tone and terrible glance that went with the words
made the real aggressor shudder; he knew that he was in the
wrong, and felt in secret ashamed of his behavior. There
was something strange in Raphael's bearing, tone and gesture ;
the Marquis stopped, and every one else was likewise silent.
The uneasy and constrained feeling grew to a height.
" There is yet time," he went on, " to offer me some slight
apology ; and offer it you must, or you will die, sir ! You
rely even now on your dexterity, and do not shrink from an
encounter in which you believe all the advantage to be upon
your side. Very good, sir ; I am generous, I am letting you
know my superiority beforehand. I possess a terrible power.
I have only to wish to do so, and I can neutralize your skill,
dim your eyesight, make your hand and pulse unsteady, and
even kill you outright. I have no wish to be compelled to
exercise my power ; the use of it costs me too dear. You
would not be the only one to die. So if you refuse to apolo-
gize to me, no matter what your experience in murder, your
ball will go into the waterfall there, and mine will speed
straight to your heart though I do not aim it at you."
Confused voices interrupted Raphael at this point. All the
time that he was speaking, the Marquis had kept his intolera-
bly keen gaze fixed upon his antagonist; now he drew him-
self up and showed an impassive face, like that of a dangerous
madman.
262 7W WILD ASS' SKIN.
" Make him hold his tongue," the young man had said to
one of his seconds; "that voice of his is tearing the heart
out of me."
" Say no more, sir; it is quite useless," cried the seconds
and the surgeon, addressing Raphael.
"Gentlemen, I am fulfilling a duty. Has this young
gentleman any final arrangements to make ? "
"That is enough; that will do."
The Marquis remained standing steadily, never for a
moment losing sight of his antagonist ; and the latter seemed,
like a bird before a snake, to be overwhelmed by a well-nigh
magical power. He was compelled to endure that homicidal
gaze ; he met and shunned it incessantly.
"I am thirsty; give me some water " he said again to
the second.
"Are you nervous?"
"Yes," he answered. "There is a fascination about that
man's glowing eyes."
"Will you apologize? "
"It is too late now."
The two antagonists were placed at fifteen paces distant
from each other. One of them had a brace of pistols at hand,
and, according to the programme prescribed for them, each
was to fire twice when and how he pleased, but after the signal
had been given by the seconds.
" What are you doing, Charles ?" exclaimed the young man
who acted as second to Raphael's antagonist ; " you are put-
ting in the ball before the powder !"
" I am a dead man," he muttered, by way of answer ; " you
have put me facing the sun "
"The sun lies behind you," said Valentin sternly and
solemnly, while he coolly loaded his pistol without heeding
the fact that the signal had been given, or that his antagonist
was carefully taking aim.
There was something so appalling in this supernatural uncon-
VALENTIN HURRIEDLY SOUGHT THE WILD ASS- SKIN TO
SEE WHAT ANOTHER MAN'S LIFE HAD COST HIM.
THE AGONY. 263
cern, that it affected the two postilions, brought thither by a
cruel curiosity. Raphael was either trying his power or play-
ing with it, for he talked to Jonathan, and looked towards
him as he received his adversary's fire. Charles' bullet broke
a branch of willow, and ricocheted over the surface of the
water; Raphael fired at random, and shot his antagonist
through the heart. He did not heed the young man as he
dropped ; he hurriedly sought the Wild Ass' Skin to see what
another man's life had cost him. The talisman was no larger
than a small oak-leaf.
"What are you gaping at, you postilions over there? Let
us be off," said the Marquis.
That same evening he crossed the French border, immedi-
ately set out for Auvergne, and reached the springs of Mont
Dore. As he traveled, there surged up in his heart, all at
once, one of those thoughts that come to us as a ray of sun-
light pierces through the thick mists in some dark valley a sad
enlightenment, a pitiless sagacity that lights up the accom-
plished fact for us, that lays our errors bare, and leaves us with-
out excuse in our own eyes. It suddenly struck him that the
possession of power, no matter how enormous, did not bring
with it the knowledge how to use it. The sceptre is a play-
thing for a child, an axe for a Richelieu, and for a Napoleon
a lever by which to move the world. Power leaves us just as
it finds us ; only great natures grow greater by its means.
Raphael had had everything in his power, and he had done
nothing.
At the springs of Mont Dore he came again in contact with
a little world of people, who invariably shunned him with the
eager haste that animals display when they scent afar off one
of their own species lying dead, and flee away. The dislike
was mutual. His late adventure had given him a deep distaste
for society ; his first care, consequently, was to find a lodging
at some distance from the neighborhood of the springs. In-
stinctively he felt within him the need of close contact with
264 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
nature, of natural emotions, and of the vegetative life into
which we sink so gladly among the fields.
The day after he arrived he climbed the Pic de Sancy, not
without difficulty, and visited the higher valleys, the skyey
nooks, undiscovered lakes, and peasants' huts about Mont
Dore, a country whose stern and wild features are now begin-
ning to tempt the brushes of our artists, for sometimes wonder-
fully fresh and charming views are to be found there, affording
a strong contrast to the frowning brows of those lonely hills.
Barely a league from the village Raphael discovered a nook
where nature seemed to have taken a pleasure in hiding away
all her treasures like some glad and mischievous child. At
the first sight of this unspoiled and picturesque retreat, he
determined to take up his abode in it. There, life must
needs be peaceful, natural, and fruitful, like the life of a plant.
Imagine for yourself an inverted cone of granite hollowed
out on a large scale, a sort of basin with its sides divided up
by queer winding paths. On one side lay level stretches with
no growth upon them, a bluish uniform surface, over which
the rays of the sun fell as upon a mirror ; on the other lay
cliffs split open by fissures and frowning ravines ; great blocks
of lava hung suspended from them, while the action of rain
slowly prepared their impending fall ; a few stunted trees, tor-
mented by the wind, often crowned their summits; and here
and there in some sheltered angle of their ramparts a clump
of chestnut-trees grew tall as cedars, or some cavern in the
yellowish rock showed the dark entrance into its depths, set
about by flowers and brambles, decked by a little strip of
green turf.
"At the bottom of this cup, which perhaps had been the
crater of an old-world volcano, lay a pool of water as pure and
bright as a diamond. Granite boulders lay around the deep
basin, and willows, mountain-ash trees, yellow-flag lilies, and
numberless aromatic plants bloomed about it, in a realm of
meadow as fresh as an English bowling-green. The fine soft
THE AGONY. 265
grass was watered by the streams that trickled through the
fissures in the cliffs ; the soil was continually enriched by the
deposits of loam which storms washed down from the heights
above. The pool might be some three acres in extent ; its
shape was irregular, and the edges were scalloped like the hem
of a dress ; the meadow might be an acre or two acres in
extent. The cliffs and the water approached and receded
from each other ; here and there, there was scarcely width
enough for the cows to pass between them.
After a certain height the plant life ceased. Aloft in air
the granite took upon itself the most fantastic shapes, and
assumed those misty tints that give to high mountains a dim
resemblance to clouds in the sky. The bare, bleak cliffs, with
the fearful rents in their sides, pictures of wild and barren
desolation, contrasted strongly with the pretty view of the
valley ; and so strange were the shapes they assumed, that one
of the cliffs had been called "The Capuchin," because it was
so like a monk. Sometimes these sharp-pointed peaks, these
mighty masses of rock, and airy caverns were lighted up one
by one, according to the direction of the sun or the caprices
of the atmosphere ; they caught gleams of gold, dyed them-
selves in purple, took a tint of glowing rose-color, or turned
dull and gray. Upon the heights a drama of color was always
to be seen, a play of ever-shifting iridescent hues like those on
a pigeon's breast.
Oftentimes at sunrise or at sunset a ray of bright sunlight
would penetrate between two sheer surfaces of lava, that might
have been split apart by a hatchet, to the very depths of that
pleasant little garden, where it would play in the waters of the
\ ol, like a beam of golden light which gleams through the
chinks of a shutter into a room in Spain, that has been care-
fully darkened for a siesta. When the sun arose above the
old crater that some antediluvian revolution had filled with
water, its rocky sides took warmer tones, the extinct volcano
glowed again, and its sudden heat quickened the sprouting
266 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
seeds and vegetation, gave color to the flowers, and ripened
the fruits of this forgotten corner of the earth.
As Raphael readied it, he noticed several cows grazing in
the pasture-land ; and when he had taken a few steps towards
the water, he saw a little house built of granite and roofed
with shingle in the spot where the meadow-land was at its
widest. The roof of this little cottage harmonized with every-
thing about it ; for it had long been overgrown with ivy, moss,
and flowers of no recent date. A thin smoke, that did not
scare the birds away, went up from the dilapidated chimney.
There was a great bench at the door between huge honey-
suckle bushes, that were pink with blossom and full of scent.
The walls could scarcely be seen for branches of vine and
sprays of rose and jessamine that interlaced and grew entirely
as chance and their own will bade them ; for the inmates of
the cottage seemed to pay no attention to the growth which
adorned their house, and to take no care of it, leaving to it
the fresh capricious charm of nature.
Some clothes spread out on the gooseberry bushes were dry-
ing in the sun. A cat was sitting on a machine for stripping
hemp; beneath it lay a newly scoured brass caldron, among
a quantity of potato-parings. On the other side of the house
Raphael saw a sort of barricade of dead thorn-bushes, meant
no doubt to keep the poultry from scratching up the vegeta-
bles and pot-herbs. It seemed like the end of the earth.
The dwelling was like some bird's-nest ingeniously set in a
cranny of the rocks, a clever and at the same time a careless
bit of workmanship. A simple and kindly nature lay round
about it ; its rusticity was genuine, but there was a charm like
that of poetry in it ; for it grew and throve at a thousand
miles' distance from our elaborate and conventional poetry.
It was like none of our conceptions ; it was a spontaneous
growth, a masterpiece due to chance.
As Raphael reached the place, the sunlight fell across it
from right to left, bringing out all the colors of its plants and
THE AGONY. 267
trees ; the yellowish or gray bases of the crags, the different
shades of the green leaves, the masses of flowers, pink, blue,
or white, the climbing plants with their bell-like blossoms,
and the shot velvet of the mosses, the purple-tinted blooms
of the heather, everything was either brought into relief or
made fairer yet by the enchantment of the light or by the
contrasting shadows ; and this was the case most of all with
the sheet of water, wherein the house, the trees, the granite
peaks, and the sky were all faithfully reflected. Everything
had a radiance of its own in this delightful picture, from the
sparkling mica stone to the bleached tuft of grass hidden
away in the soft shadows ; the spotted cow with its glossy
hide, the delicate water-plants that hung down over the pool
like fringes in a nook where blue or emerald colored insects
were buzzing about, the roots of trees like a sand-besprinkled
shock of hair above grotesque faces in the flinty rock surface,
all these things made a harmony for the eye.
The odor of the tepid water, the scent of the flowers, and
the breath of the caverns which filled the lonely place, gave
Raphael a sensation that was almost enjoyment. Silence
reigned in majesty over these woods, which possibly are
unknown to the tax-collector; but the barking of a couple
of dogs broke the stillness all at once ; the cows turned their
heads towards the entrance of the valley, showing their moist
noses to Raphael, stared stupidly at him, and then fell to
browsing again. A goat and her kid, that seemed to hang on
the side of the crags in some magical fashion, capered and
leaped to a slab of granite near to Raphael, and stayed there
a moment, as if to seek to know who he was. The yapping
of the dogs brought out a plump child, who stood agape, and
next came a white-haired old man of middle height. Both
of these two beings were in keeping with the surroundings,
the air, the flowers, and the dwelling. Health appeared to
overflow in this fertile region ; old age and childhood thrived
there. There seemed to be, about all these types of exist-
268 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
ence, the freedom and carelessness of the life of primitive
times, a happiness of use and wont that gave the lie to our
philosophical platitudes, and wrought a cure of all its swelling
passions in the heart.
The old man belonged to the type of model dear to the
masculine brush of Schnetz. The countless wrinkles upon his
brown face looked as if they would be hard to the touch ; the
straight nose, the prominent cheek-bones, streaked with red
veins like a vine-leaf in autumn, the angular features, all were
characteristics of strength, even where strength existed no
longer. The hard hands, now that they toiled no longer,
had preserved their scanty white hair ; his bearing was that
of an absolutely free man ; it suggested the thought that, had
he been an Italian, he would have perhaps turned brigand, for
the love of the liberty so dear to him. The child was a reg-
ular mountaineer, with the black eyes that can face the sun
without flinching, a deeply-tanned complexion, and rough
brown hair. His movements were like a bird's swift, deci-
ded, and unconstrained ; his clothing was ragged ; the white,
fair skin showed through the rents in his garments. There
they both stood in silence, side by side, both obeying the
same impulse ; in both faces were clear tokens of an abso-
lutely identical and idle life. The old man had adopted the
child's amusements, and the child had fallen in with the old
man's humor; there was a sort of tacit agreement between two
kinds of feebleness, between failing powers well-nigh spent
and powers just about to unfold themselves.
Very soon a woman who seemed to be about thirty years old
appeared on the threshold of the door, spinning as she came.
She was an Auvergnate, a high-colored, comfortable-looking,
straightforward sort of person, with white teeth; her cap and
dress, the face, full figure, and general appearance were of
the Auvergne peasant stamp. So was her dialect ; she was a
thorough embodiment of her district ; its hard-working ways,
its thrift, ignorance, and heartiness all met in her.
THE AGONY. 269
She greeted Raphael, and they began to talk. The dogs
quieted down ; the old man went and sat on a bench in the
sun ; the child followed his mother about whenever she went,
listening without saying a word, and staring at the stranger.
" You are not afraid to live here, good woman ? "
"What should we be afraid of, sir? When we bolt the
door, whoever could get inside? Oh, no, we aren't afraid at
all. And besides," she said, as she brought the Marquis into
the principal room in the house, "what should thieves come
to take from us here ? ' '
She designated the room as she spoke ; the smoke-blackened
walls, with some brilliant pictures in blue, red and green, an
" End of Credit," a Crucifixion, and the " Grenadiers of the
Imperial Guard," for their sole ornament ; the furniture here
and there, the old wooden four-post bedstead, the table with
crooked legs, a few stools, the chest that held the bread, the
flitch that hung from the ceiling, a jar of salt, a stove, and
on the mantel-shelf a few discolored yellow plaster figures.
As he went out again Raphael noticed a man half-way up the
crags, leaning on a hoe, and watching the house with interest.
"That's my man, sir," said the Auvergnate, unconsciously
smiling in peasant fashion ; " he is at work up there."
" And that old man is your father ? "
"Asking your pardon, sir, he is my man's grandfather.
Such as you see him, he is a hundred and two, and yet quite
lately he walked over to Clermont with our little chap ! Oh,
he has been a strong man in his time ; but he does nothing
now but sleep and eat and drink. He amuses himself with
the little fellow. Sometimes the child trails him up the
hillsides, and he will just go up there along with him.
Valentin made up his mind immediately. He would live
between this child and old man, breathe the same air, eat
their bread, drink the same water, sleep with them, make
the blood in his veins like theirs. It was a dying man's
fancy. For him the prime model, after which the customary
18
270 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
existence of the individual should be shaped, the real formula
for the life of a human being, the only true and possible life,
the life-ideal, was to become one of the oysters adhering to
this rock, to save his shell a day or two longer by paralyzing
the power of death. One profoundly selfish thought took
possession of him, and the whole universe was swallowed up
and lost in it. For him the universe existed no longer ; the
whole world had come to be within himself. For the sick,
the world begins at their pillow and ends at the foot of the
bed ; and this country-side was Raphael's sick bed.
Who has not, at some time or other in his life, watched the
comings and goings of an ant, slipped straws into a yellow
slug's one breathing-hole, studied the vagaries of a slender
dragon-fly, pondered admiringly over the countless veins in
an oak-leaf, that bring the colors of a rose window in some
Gothic cathedral into contrast with the reddish background?
Who has not looked long in delight at the effects of sun and
rain on a roof of brown tiles, at the dewdrops, or at the
variously shaped petals of the flower-cups ? Who has not
sunk into these idle, absorbing meditations on things without,
that have no conscious end, yet lead to some definite thought
at last? Who, in short, has not led a lazy life, the life of
childhood, the life of the savage without his labor? This life
without a care or a wish, Raphael led for some days' space.
He felt a distinct improvement in his condition, a wonderful
sense of ease, that quieted his apprehensions and soothed his
sufferings.
He would climb the'crags, and then find a seat high up on
some peak whence he could see a vast expanse of distant
country at a glance, and he would spend whole days in this
way, like a plant in the sun, or a hare in its form. And at
last, growing familiar with the appearance of the plant-life
about him, and of the changes in the sky, he minutely noted
the progress of everything working around him in the water,
or in the air. He tried to share the secret impulses of nature,
THE AGONY. 271
sought by passive obedience to become a part of it, and to
lie within the conservative and despotic jurisdiction that regu-
lates instinctive existence. He no longer wished to steer his
own course.
Just as criminals in olden times were safe from the pursuit
of justice, if they took refuge under the shadow of the altar,
so Raphael made an effort to slip into the sancturary of life.
He succeeded in becoming an integral part of the great and
mighty fruit-producing organization ; he had adapted himself
to the inclemency of the air, and dwelt in every cave among
the rocks. He had learned the ways and habits of growth of
every plant, had studied the laws of the watercourses and
their beds, and had come to know the animals ; he was at last so
perfectly at one with this teeming earth, that he had in some
way discerned its mysteries and caught the spirit of it.
The infinitely varied forms of every natural kingdom were,
to his thinking, only developments of one and the same sub-
stance, different combinations brought about by the same im-
pulse, endless emanations from a measureless Being which
was aching, thinking, moving, and growing, and in harmony
with which he longed to grow, to move, to think, and act.
He had fancifully blended his life with the life of the crags ;
he had deliberately planted himself there. During the earliest
days of his sojourn in these pleasant surroundings, Valentin
tasted all the pleasures of childhood again, thanks to the strange
hallucination of apparent convalescence, which is not unlike
the pauses of delirium that nature mercifully provides for
those in pain. He went about making trifling discoveries,
setting to work on endless things, and finishing none of them;
the evening's plans were quite forgotten in the morning ; he
bad no cares, he was happy ; he thought himself saved.
One morning he had lain in bed till noon, deep in the
dreams between sleep and waking, which give to realities a
fantastic appearance, and make the wildest fancies seem solid
facts ; while he was still uncertain that he was not dreaming
272 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
yet, he suddenly heard his hostess giving a report of his health
to Jonathan, for the first time. Jonathan came to inquire
after him daily ; and the Auvergnate, thinking no doubt that
Valentin was still asleep, had not lowered the tones of a voice
developed in mountain air.
"No better and no worse," she said. "He coughed all
last night again fit to kill himself. Poor gentleman, he coughs
and spits till it is piteous. My husband and I often wonder
to each other where he gets the strength from to cough like
that. It goes to your heart. What a cursed complaint it is !
He has no strength at all. I am always afraid I shall find him
dead in his bed some morning. He is every bit as pale as a
waxen Christ. Dame ! I watch him as he dresses ; his poor
body is as thin as a nail. And he does not feel well now; but
no matter. It's all the same ; he wears himself out with run-
ning about as if he had health and to spare. All the same,
he is very brave, for he never complains at all. But really he
would be better under the earth than on it, for he is enduring
the agonies of Christ. I don't wish that myself, sir; it is
quite against our interests; but even if he didn't pay us what
he does, I should be just as fond of him ; it is not our own
interest that is our motive."
"Ah, mon Dieu ! " she continued, "Parisians are the
people for these dogs' diseases. Where did he catch it, now?
Poor young man ! And he is so sure that he is going to get
well! That fever just gnaws him, you know; it eats him
away ; it will be the death of him. He has no notion what-
ever of that ; he does not know it, sir ; he sees nothing
You mustn't cry about him, M. Jonathan ; you must remem-
ber that he will be happy, and will not suffer any more. You
ought to make a novena for him ; I have seen wonderful
cures come of a nine days' prayer, and I would gladly pay
for a wax taper to save such a gentle creature, so good he is,
a paschal lamb "
As Raphael's voice had grown too weak to allow him to
THE AGONY. 273
make himself heard, he was compelled to listen to this hor-
rible statement. His irritation, however, drove him out of
bed at length, and he appeared upon the threshold.
"Old scoundrel!" he shouted to Jonathan; "do you
mean to put me to death?"
The peasant woman took him for a ghost, and fled.
" I forbid you to have any anxiety whatever about my
health," Raphael went on.
"Yes, my Lord Marquis," said the old servant, wiping
away his tears.
" And for the future you had very much better not come
here without my orders."
Jonathan meant to be obedient, but in the look full of pity
and devotion that he gave the Marquis before he went,
Raphael read his own death-warrant. Utterly disheartened,
brought all at once to a sense of his real position, Valentin sat
down on the threshold, locked his arms across his chest, and
bowed his head. Jonathan turned to his master in alarm,
with "My Lord "
"Go away, go away," cried the invalid.
In the hours of the next morning, Raphael climbed the
crags, and sat down in a mossy cleft in the rocks, whence he
could see the narrow path along which the water for the
dwelling was carried. At the base of the hill he saw Jonathan
in conversation with the Auvergnate. Some malicious power
interpreted for him all the woman's head-shakings, melancholy
gestures, and garrulous forebodings, and filled the breeze
and the silence with her ominous words. Thrilled with
horror, he took refuge among the highest summits of the
mountains, and stayed there till the evening; but yet he
could not drive away the gloomy presentiments awakened
within him in such an unfortunate manner by a cruel solici-
tude on his account.
The Auvergne peasant herself suddenly appeared before
him like a shadow in the dusk; a perverse freak of the poet
274 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
within him found a vague resemblance between her black and
white striped petticoat and the bony frame of a spectre.
"The damp is falling now, sir," said she. "If you stop
out there, you will go off just like rotten fruit. You must
come in. It isn't healthy to breathe the damp, and you have
taken nothing since the morning, besides."
"God's thunder! old witch," he cried; "let me live
after my own fashion, I tell you, or I shall be off altogether.
It is quite bad enough to dig my grave every morning ; you
might let it alone in the evenings at least "
"Your grave, sir! I dig your grave! and where may
your grave be? I want to see you as old as father there, and
not in your grave by any manner of means. The grave ! that
comes soon enough for us all ; in the grave "
"That is enough," said Raphael.
"Take my arm, sir."
"No."
The feeling of pity in others is very difficult for a man to
bear, and it is hardest of all when the pity is deserved.
Hatred is a tonic it quickens life and stimulates revenge ;
but pity is death to us it makes our weakness weaker still.
It is as if distress simpered ingratiatingly at us ; contempt
lurks in the tenderness, or tenderness in an affront. In the
centenarian Raphael saw triumphant pity, a wondering pity
in the child's eyes, an officious pity in the woman, and in her
husband a pity that had an interested motive ; but no matter
how the sentiment declared itself, death was always its import.
A poet makes a poem of everything ; it is tragical or joy-
ful, as things happen to strike his imagination ; his lofty soul
rejects all half-tones ; he always prefers vivid and decided
colors. In Raphael's soul this compassion produced a terrible
poem of mourning and melancholy. When he had wished to
live in close contact with nature, he had of course forgotten
how freely natural emotions are expressed. He would think
himself quite alone under a tree, whilst he struggled with an
THE AGONY, 275
obstinate coughing fit, a terrible combat from which he never
issued victorious without utter exhaustion afterwards ; and
then he would meet the clear, bright eyes of the little boy,
who occupied the post of sentinel, like a savage in a bent of
grass ; the eyes scrutinized him with a childish wonder, in
which there was as much amusement as pleasure, and an
indescribable mixture of indifference and interest. The awful
Brother, you must die, of the Trappists seemed constantly
legible in the eyes of the peasants with whom Raphael was
living ; he scarcely knew which he dreaded most, their unfet-
tered talk or their silence ; their presence became torture.
One morning he saw two men in black prowling about in
his neighborhood, who furtively studied him and took obser-
vations. They acted as though they had come there for a
stroll, and asked him a few indifferent questions, to which he
returned short answers. He recognized them both. One
was the cure and the other the doctor at the springs ; Jona-
than had no doubt sent them, or the people in the house had
called them in, or the scent of an approaching death had
drawn them thither. He beheld his own funeral, heard the
chanting of the priests, and counted the tall wax candles ;
and all that lovely fertile nature around him, in whose lap he
had thought to find life once more, he saw no longer, save
through a veil of crape. Everything that but lately had
spoken of length of days to him, now prophesied a speedy
end. He set out the next day for Paris, not before he had
been inundated with cordial wishes, which the people of the
house uttered in melancholy and wistful tones for his benefit.
He traveled through the night, and awoke as they passed
through one of the pleasant valleys of the Bourbonnais. View
after view swam before his gaze, and passed rapidly away like
the vague pictures of a dream. Cruel nature spread herself
out before his eyes with tantalizing grace. Sometimes the
Allier, a liquid shining riband, meandered through the distant
fertile landscape ; then followed the steeples of hamlets,
276 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
hiding modestly in the depths of a ravine with its yeiiow
cliffs ; sometimes, after the monotony of vineyards, the water-
mills of a little valley would be suddenly seen ; and every-
where there were pleasant chateaux, hillside villages, roads
with their fringes of queenly poplars ; and the Loire itself, at,
last, with its wide sheets of water sparkling like diamonds
amid its golden sands. Attractions everywhere, without end !
This nature, all astir with a life and gladness like that of
childhood, scarcely able to contain the impulses and sap of
June, possessed a fatal attraction for the darkened gaze of the
invalid. He drew the blinds of his carriage windows, and
betook himself again to slumber.
Towards evening, after they had passed Cesne, he was
awakened by lively music, and found himself confronted with
a village fair. The horses were changed near the market-
place. Whilst the postilions were engaged in making the
transfer, he saw the people dancing merrily, pretty and attrac-
tive girls with flowers about them, excited youths, and finally
the jolly wine-flushed countenances of the old peasants. Chil-
dren prattled, old women laughed and chatted ; everything
spoke in one voice, and there was a holiday gaiety about
everything, down to their clothing and the tables that were
set out. A cheerful expression pervaded the square and the
church, the roofs and windows ; even the very doorways of
the village seemed likewise to be in holiday trim.
Raphael could not repress an angry exclamation, nor yet a
wish to silence the fiddles, annihilate the stir and bustle, stop
the clamor, and disperse the ill-timed festival ; like a dying
man, he felt unable to endure the slightest sound, and he
entered his carriage much annoyed. When he looked out
upon the square from the window, he saw that all the happi-
ness was scared away ; the peasant women were in flight, and
the benches were deserted. Only a blind musician, on the
scaffolding of the orchestra, went on playing a shrill tune on
his clarionette. That piping of his, without dancers to it, and
THE AGONY. 277
the solitary old man himself, in the shadow of the lime-tree,
with his curmudgeon's face, scanty hair, and ragged clothing,
was like a fantastic picture of Raphael's wish. The heavy
rain was pouring in torrents ; it was one of those thunder-
storms that June brings about so rapidly, to cease as suddenly.
The thing was so natural that, when Raphael had looked out
and seen some pale clouds driven by a gust of wind, he did
not think of looking at the piece of skin. He lay back again
in the corner of his carriage, which was very soon rolling upon
its way.
The next day found him back in his home again, in his
own room, beside his own fireside. He had had a large fire
lighted ; he felt cold. Jonathan brought him some letters ;
they were all from Pauline. He opened the first one without
any eagerness, and unfolded it as if it had been the gray-
paper form of application for taxes made by the revenue col-
lector. He read the first sentence :
" Gone ! This really is a flight, my Raphael. How is it?
No one can tell me where you are. And who should know if
not I."
He did not wish to learn any more. He calmly took up
the letters and threw them in the fire, watching with dull and
lifeless eyes the perfumed paper as it was twisted, shriveled,
bent, and devoured by the capricious flames. Fragments that
fell among the ashes allowed him to see the beginning of a
sentence, or a half-burnt thought or word ; he took a pleasure
in deciphering them a sort of mechanical amusement.
" Sitting at your door expected Caprice I obey Rivals
I, never! thy Pauline love no more of Pauline? If
you had wished to leave me forever, you would not have de-
serted me Love eternal To die "
The words caused him a sort of remorse ; he seized the
tongs, and rescued a last fragment of the letter from the
flames.
" I have murmured," so Pauline wrote, " but I have never
278 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
complained, my Raphael ! If you have left me so far behind
you, it was doubtless because you wished to hide some heavy
grief from me. Perhaps you will kill me one of these days,
but you are too good to torture me. So do not go away from
me like this. There ! I can bear the worst of torment, if
only I am at your side. Any grief that you could cause me
would not be grief. There is far more love in my heart for
you than I have ever yet shown you. I can endure any-
thing, except this weeping far away from you, this ignorance
of your "
Raphael laid the scorched scrap on the mantel-piece, then
all at once he flung it in the fire. This bit of paper was too
clearly a symbol of his own love and luckless existence.
"Go and find M. Bianchon," he told Jonathan.
Horace came and found Raphael in bed.
" Can you prescribe a draught for me some mild opiate
which will always keep me in a somnolent condition, a draught
that will not be injurious although taken constantly."
" Nothing is easier," the young doctor replied ; " but you
will have to keep on your feet for a few hours daily, at any
rate, so as to take your food."
"A few hours!" Raphael broke in; " no, no ! I only
wish to be out of bed for an hour at most."
" What is your object ? " inquired Bianchon.
"To sleep; for so one keeps alive, at any rate," the
patient answered. " Let no one come in, not even Mile.
Pauline de Vitschnau ! " he added to Jonathan, as the doctor
was writing out his prescription.
"Well, M. Horace, is there any hope? " the old servant
asked, going as far as the flight of steps before the door, with
the young doctor.
" He may live for some time yet, or he may die to-night.
The chances of life and death are evenly balanced in his case.
I can't understand it at all," said the doctor, with a doubtful
gesture. " His mind ought to be diverted."
THE AGONY. 279
" Diverted ! Ah, sir, you don't know him ! He killed a
man the other day without a word ! Nothing can divert
him ! "
For some days Raphael lay plunged in the torpor of this
artificial sleep. Thanks to the material power that opium
exerts over the immaterial part of us, this man with the power-
ful and active imagination reduced himself to the level of
those sluggish forms of animal life that lurk in the depths
of forests, and take the form of vegetable refuse, never stir-
ring from their place to catch their easy prey. He had dark-
ened the very sun in heaven ; the daylight never entered his
room. About eight o'clock in the evening he would leave his
bed, with no very clear consciousness of his own existence ;
he would satisfy the claims of hunger and return to bed imme-
diately. One dull blighted hour after another only brought
confused pictures and appearances before him, and lights and
shadows against a background of darkness. He lay buried in
deep silence; movement and intelligence were completely
annihilated for him. He woke later than usual one evening,
and found that his dinner was not ready. He rang for
Jonathan.
" You can go," he said. " I have made you rich ; you
shall be happy in your old age ; but I will not let you muddle
away my life any longer. Miserable wretch ! I am hungry
where is my dinner ? How is it ?- Answer me ! "
A satisfied smile stole over Jonathan's face. He took a
candle that lit up the great dark rooms of the mansion with
its flickering light ; brought his master, who had again become
an automaton, into a great gallery, and flung a door suddenly
open. Raphael was all at once dazzled by a flood of light
and amazed by an unheard-of scene.
His chandeliers had been filled with wax-lights ; the rarest
flowers from his conservatory were carefully arranged about
the room ; the table sparkled with silver, gold, crystal, and
porcelain ; a royal banquet was spread the odors of the
280 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
tempting dishes tickled the nervous fibres of the palate.
There sat his friends ; he saw them among beautiful women in
full evening dress, with bare necks and shoulders, with flowers
in their hair; fair women of every type, with sparkling eyes,
attractively and fancifully arrayed. One had adopted an
Irish jacket, which displayed the alluring outlines of her
form; one wore the " basquina " of Andalusia, with its
wanton grace ; here was a half-clad Dian the huntress, there
the costume of Mile, dela Valliere, amorous and coy ; and all
of them alike were given up to the intoxication of the moment.
As Raphael's death-pale face showed itself in the doorway, a
sudden outcry broke out, as vehement as the blaze of this im-
provised banquet. The voices, perfumes, and lights, the
exquisite beauty of the women, produced their effect upon his
senses, and awakened his desires. Delightful music, from
unseen players in the next room, drowned the excited tumult
in a torrent of harmony the whole strange vision was com-
plete.
Raphael felt a caressing pressure of his own hand, a woman's
white, youthful arms were stretched out to grasp him, and the
hand was Aquilina's. He knew now that this scene was not
a fantastic illusion like the fleeting pictures of his disordered
dreams; he uttered a dreadful cry, slammed the door, and
dealt his heartbroken old servant a blow in the face.
"Monster!" he cried, "so you have sworn to kill me! "
and trembling at the risks he had just now run, he summoned
all his energies, reached his room, took a powerful sleeping
draught, and went to bed.
" The devil ! " cried Jonathan, recovering himself. "And
M. Bianchon most certainly told me to divert his mind."
It was close upon midnight. By that time, owing to one
of those physical caprices that are the marvel and the despair
of science, Raphael, in his slumber, became radiant with
beauty. A bright color glowed on his pale cheeks. There
was an almost girlish grace about the forehead in which his
THE AGONY. 281
genius was revealed. Life seemed to bloom on the quiet face
that lay there at rest. His sleep was sound ; a light, even
breath was drawn in between the red lips ; he was smiling
he had passed no doubt through the gate of dreams, into a
noble life. Was he a centenarian now? Did his grandchil-
dren come to wish him length of days? Or, on a rustic
bench set in the sun and under the trees, was he scanning,
like the prophet on the mountain-heights, a promised land, a
fer-off time of blessing.
" Here you are ! "
The words, uttered in silver tones, dispelled the shadowy
faces of his dreams. He saw Pauline, in the lamplight, sitting
upon the bed ; Pauline grown fairer yet through sorrow and
separation. Raphael remained bewildered by the sight of her
face, white as the petals of some water flower, and the shadow
of her long, dark hair about it seemed to make it whiter still.
Her tears had left a gleaming trace upon her cheeks, and
hung there yet, ready to fall at the least movement. She looked
like an angel fallen from the skies, or a spirit that a breath
might waft away, as she sat there all in white, with her head
bowed, scarcely creasing the quilt beneath her weight.
"Ah, I have forgotten everything ! " she cried, as Raphael
opened his eyes. "I have no voice left except to tell you,
' I am yours.' There is nothing in my heart but love. Angel
of my life, you have never been so beautiful before ! Your
eyes are blazing But come, I can guess it all. You have
been in search of health without me ; you were afraid of me
well "
"Go! go! leave me," Raphael uttered at last. "Why
do you not go ? If you stay, I shall die. Do you want to
see me die? "
" Die?" she echoed. " Can you die without me? Die?
But you are young ; and I love you ! Die ? " she asked, in a
deep, hollow voice. She seized his hands with a frenzied
movement. " Cold ! " she wailed. " Is it all an illusion ? "
282 THE WILD ASS' SKIN.
Raphael drew the little bit of skin from under his pillow ; it
was as tiny and as fragile as a periwinkle-petal. He showed
it to her.
" Pauline ! " he said, " fair image of my fair life, let us say
good-bye."
"Good-bye?" she echoed, looking surprised.
" Yes. This is a talisman that grants all my wishes, and
that represents my span of life. See here, this is all that
remains of it. If you look at me any longer, I shall die "
The young girl thought that Valentin had grown light-
headed ; she took the talisman and went to fetch the lamp.
By its tremulous light which she shed over Raphael and the
talisman, she scanned her lover's face and the last morsel of
the magic skin. As Pauline stood there, in all the beauty of
love and terror, Raphael was no longer able to control his
thoughts ; memories of tender scenes, and of passionate and
fevered joys, overwhelmed the soul that had so long lain dor-
mant within him, and kindled a fire not quite extinct.
" Pauline ! Pauline ! Come to me "
A dreadful cry came from the girl's throat, her eyes dilated
with horror, her eyebrows were distorted and drawn apart by
an unspeakable anguish ; she read in Raphael's eyes the vehe-
ment desire in which she had once exulted, but as it grew she
felt a light movement in her hand, and the skin contracted.
She did not stop to think ; she fled into the next room, and
locked the door.
"Pauline! Pauline!" cried the dying man, as he rushed
after her ; "I love you, I adore you, I want you, Pauline ! I
must curse you if you will not open the door for me. I wish
to die in your arms ! ' '
With unnatural strength, the last effort of ebbing life, he
broke down the door, and saw his mistress writhing upon a
sofa. Pauline had vainly tried to pierce her heart, and now
thought to find a rapid death by strangling herself with her
shawl.
THE AGONY. 283
" If I die, he will live," she said, trying to tighten the
knot that she had made.
In her struggle with death her hair hung loose, her shoul-
ders were bare, her clothing was disordered, her eyes were
bathed in tears, her face was flushed and drawn with the
horror of despair ; yet as her exceeding beauty met Raphael's
intoxicated eyes, his delirium grew. He sprang towards her
like a bird of prey, tore away the shawl, and tried to take
her in his arms.
The dying man sought for words to express the wish that
was consuming his strength ; but no sounds would come
except the choking death-rattle in his chest. Each breath he
drew sounded hollower than the last, and seemed to come
from his very entrails. At the last moment, no longer able to
utter a sound, he set his teeth in Pauline's breast. Jonathan
appeared, terrified by the cries he had heard, and tried to
tear away the dead body from the grasp of the girl who was
crouching with it in a corner.
" What do you want? " she asked. " He is mine ; I have
killed him. Did I not foresee how it would be ? "
EPILOGUE.
"And what became of Pauline? "
" Pauline ? Ah ! Do you sometimes spend a pleasant winter
evening by your own fireside, and give yourself up luxuriously
to memories of love or youth, while you watch the glow of
the fire where the logs of oak are burning ? Here, the fire
outlines a sort of chessboard in red squares, there it has a
sheen like velvet ; little blue flames start up and flicker and
play about in the glowing depths of the brasier. A mysteri-
ous artist comes and adapts that flame to his own ends ; by a
secret of his own he draws a visionary face in the midst of
those flaming violet and crimson hues, a face with unimagina-
284 THE WILD ASS' SJT7M
ble delicate outlines, a fleeting apparition which no chance
will ever bring back again. It is a woman's face, her hair is
blown back by the wind, her features speak of a rapture of
delight ; she breathes fire in the midst of the fire. She
smiles, she dies, you will never see her any more. Farewell,
flower of the flame ! Farewell, essence incomplete and un-
foreseen, come too early or too late to make the spark of
some glorious diamond."
"But, Pauline."
"You do not see, then? I will begin again. Make way!
make way ! She comes, she is here, the queen of illusions, a
woman fleeting as a kiss, a woman bright as lightning, issuing
in a blaze like lightning from the sky, a being uncreated, of
spirit and love alone. She has wrapped her shadowy form in
flame, or perhaps the flame betokens that she exists but for a
moment. The pure outlines of her shape tell you that she comes
from heaven. Is she not radiant as an angel ? Can you not
hear the beating of her wings in space ? She sinks down beside
you more lightly than a bird, and you are entranced by her
awful eyes ; there is a magical power in her light breathing that
draws your lips to hers ; she flies and you follow ; you feel the
earth beneath you no longer. If you could but once touch that
form of snow with your eager, deluded hands, once twine the
golden hair around your fingers, place one kiss on those shining
eyes ! There is an intoxicating vapor around, and the spell
of a siren music is upon you. Every nerve in you is quiver-
ing ; you are filled with pain and longing. O joy for which
there is no name ! You have touched the woman's lips, and
you are wakened at once by a horrible pang. Oh ! ah ! yes,
you have struck your head against the corner of the bedpost,
you have been clasping its brown mahogany sides, and chilly
gilt ornaments; embracing a piece of metal, a brazen cupid."
"But how about Pauline, sir?"
"What, again? Listen. One lovely morning at Tours a
young man, who held the hand of a pretty woman in his,
THE AGONY. 285
went on board the " Ville d' Angers." Thus united they both
looked and wondered long at a white form that rose elusively
out of the mists above the broad waters of the Loire, like
some child of the sun and the river, or some freak of air and
cloud. This translucent form was a sylph or a naiad by turns;
she hovered in the air like a word that haunts the memory,
which seeks in vain to grasp it ; she glided among the islands,
she nodded her head here and there among th'e tall poplar
trees ; then she grew to a giant's height ; she shook out the
countless folds of her drapery to the light ; she shot light
from the aureole that the sun had lit about her face ; she
hovered above the slopes of the hills and their little hamlets,
and seemed to bar the passage of the Chateau d'Usse. You
might have thought that La dame des belles cousines* sought
to protect her country from modern intrusion.
"Well, well, I understand. So it went with Pauline. But
how about Fredora ? "
" Oh ! Foedora, you are sure to meet with her! She was
at the Bouffons last night, and she will go to the opera this
evening, and if you like to take it so, she is society."
* The lady with pretty cousins.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
(V Elixir dc longue Vie.}
To THE READER.
AT the very outset of the writer's literary career, a friend,
long since dead, gave him the subject of this study. Later on
he found the same story in a collection published about the
beginning of the present century. To the best of his belief,
it is some stray fancy of the brain of Hoffmann, of Berlin ;
probably it appeared in some German almanac, and was
omitted in the published editions of his collected works. The
" Comedie Humaine " is sufficiently rich in original creations
for the author to own to this innocent piece of plagiarism ;
when, like the worthy La Fontaine, he has told unwittingly,
and after his own fashion, a tale already related by another.
This is not one of the hoaxes in vogue in the year 1830, when
every author wrote his "tale of horror" for the amusement
of young ladies. When you have read the account of Don
Juan's decorous parricide, try to picture to yourself the part
which would be played under very similar circumstances by
honest folk who, in this nineteenth century, will take a man's
money and undertake to pay him a life annuity on the faith
of a chill, or let a house to an ancient lady for the term of
her natural life? Would they be for resuscitating their
clients? I should dearly like a connoisseur in consciences to
consider how far there is a resemblance between a Don Juan
and fathers who marry their children to great expectations.
Does humanity, which, according to certain philosophers, is
making progress, look OH the art of waiting for dead men's
shoes as a step in the right direction ? To this art we owe sev-
(286)
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 287
eral honorable professions, which open up ways of living on
death. There are people who rely entirely on an expected
demise ; who brood over it, crouching each morning upon a
corpse, that serves again for their pillow at night. To this
class belong bishops' coadjutors, cardinals' supernumeraries,
tontiniers,* and the like. Add to the list many delicately
scrupulous persons eager to buy landed property beyond their
means, who calculate with dry logic and in cold blood the
probable duration of the life of a father or of a stepmother,
some old man or woman of eighty or ninety, saying to them-
selves, " I shall be sure to come in for it in three years' time,
and then " A murderer is less loathsome to us than a
spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad im-
pulse ; he may be penitent and amend ; but a spy is always a
spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad ; his
vileness pervades every moment of his life. Then what must
it be to live when every moment of your life is tainted with
murder ? And have we not just admitted that a host of
human creatures in our midst are led by our laws, customs,
and usages to dwell without ceasing on a fellow-creature's
death. There are men who put the weight of a coffin into
their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere shawls for
their wives, as they go up the staircase of a theatre, or think
of going to the Bouffons, or of setting up a carriage ; who
are murderers in thought when dear ones, with the irresistible
charm of innocence, hold up childish foreheads to be kissed
with a "Good-night, father ! " Hourly they meet the gaze
of eyes that they would fain close forever, eyes that still open
each morning to the light, like Belvidero's in this study.
God alone knows the number pf those who are parricides in
thought. Picture to yourself the state of mind of a man
who must pay a life annuity to some old woman whom he
scarcely knows; both live in the country with a brook between
them, both sides are free to hate cordially, without offending
* Possessors of Tontine Annuities on Survivorships.
288 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
against the social conventions that require two brothers to
wear a mask if the older will succeed to the entail, and the
other to the fortune of a younger son. The whole civilization
of Europe turns upon the principle of hereditary succession
as upon a pivot ; it would be madness to subvert the prin-
ciple ; but could we not, in an age that prides itself upon its
mechanical inventions, perfect this essential portion of the
social machinery?
If the author has preserved the old-fashioned style of
address "To the Reader" before a work wherein he en-
deavors to represent all literary forms, it is for the purpose, of
making a remark that applies to several of the studies, and
very specially to this. Every one of his compositions has
been based upon ideas more or less novel, which, as it seemed
to him, needed literary expression ; he can claim priority for
certain forms and for certain ideas which have since passed
into the domain of literature, and have there, in some
instances, become common property ; so that the date of the
first publication of each study cannot be a matter of indiffer-
ence to those of his readers who would fain do him justice.
Reading brings us unknown friends, and what friend is like
a reader ! We have friends in our own circle who read noth-
ing of ours. The author hopes to pay his debt, by dedica-
ting this work Diis ignotis.
ONE winter evening, in a princely palace at Ferrara, Don
Juan Belvidero was giving a banquet to a prince of the house
of Este. A banquet in those times was a marvelous spectacle
which only royal wealth or the power of a mighty lord could
furnish forth. Seated about a table lit up with perfumed
tapers, seven laughter-loving women were interchanging sweet
talk. The white marble of the noble works of art about
them stood out against the red stucco walls, and made strong
contrasts with the rich Turkey carpets. Clad in satin, glit-
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 289
taring with gold, and covered with gems less brilliant than
their eyes, each told a tale of energetic passions as diverse as
their styles of beauty. They differed neither in their ideas
nor in their language ; but the expression of their eyes, their
glances, occasional gestures, or the tones of their voices sup-
plied a commentary, dissolute, wanton, melancholy, or satir-
ical, to their words.
One seemed to be saying "The frozen heart of age might
kindle at my beauty."
Another " I love to lounge upon cushions, and think with
rapture of my adorers."
A third, a neophyte at these banquets, was inclined to blush.
" I feel remorse in the depths of my heart ! lam a Catholic,
and afraid of hell. But I love you, I love you so that I can
sacrifice my hereafter to you."
The fourth drained a cup of Chian wine. " Give me a
joyous life ! " she cried ; "I begin life afresh each day with
the dawn. Forgetful of the past, with the intoxication of
yesterday's rapture still upon me, I drink deep of life a
whole lifetime of pleasure and of love ! "
The woman who sat next to Juan Belvidero looked at him
with a feverish glitter in her eyes. She was silent. Then
" I should need no hired bravo to kill my lover if he forsook
me ! " she cried at last, and laughed, but the marvelously
wrought comfit box in her fingers was crushed by her con-
vulsive clutch.
"When are you to be Grand Duke?" asked the sixth.
There was the frenzy of a Bacchante in her eyes, and her
teeth gleamed between the lips parted with a smile of cruel
glee.
"Yes, when is that father of yours going to die?" asked
the seventh, throwing her bouquet at Don Juan with bewitch-
ing playfulness. It was a childish girl who spoke, and the
speaker was wont to make sport of sacred things.
"Oh ' don't talk about it," cried Don Juan, the young
290 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
and handsome giver of the banquet. " There is but one
eternal father, and, as ill luck will have it, he is mine."
The seven Ferrarese, Don Juan's friends, the prince him-
self, gave a cry of horror. Two hundred years later, in the
days of Louis XV., people of taste would have laughed at this
witticism. Or was it, perhaps, that at the outset of an orgy
there is a certain unwonted lucidity of mind ? Despite the
taper light, the clamor of the senses, the gleam of gold and
silver, the fumes of wine, and the exquisite beauty of the
women, there may perhaps have been in the depths of the
revelers' hearts some struggling glimmer of reverence for
things divine and human, until it was drowned in glowing
floods of wine? Yet even then the flowers had been crushed,
eyes were growing dull, and drunkenness, in Rabelais' phrase,
had "taken possession of them down to their sandals."
During that brief pause a door opened ; and as once the
Divine presence was revealed at Belshazzar's feast, so now it
seemed to be manifest in the apparition of an old white-haired
servant, who tottered in, and looked sadly from under knitted
brows at the revelers. He gave a withering glance at the
garlands, the golden cups, the pyramids of fruit, the dazzling
lights of the banquet, the flushed scared faces, the hues of the
cushions pressed by the white arms of the women.
" My Lord, your father is dying ! " he said ; and at those
solemn words, uttered in hollow tones, a veil of crape seemed
to be drawn over the wild mirth.
Don Juan rose to his feet with a gesture to his guests that
might be rendered by, " Excuse me; this kind of thing does
not happen every day."
Does it so seldom happen that a father's death surprises
youth in the full-blown splendor of life, in the midst of the
mad riot of an orgy ? Death is as unexpected in his caprice
as a courtesan in her disdain ; but death is truer death has
never forsaken any man.
Don Juan closed the door of the banqueting-hall ; and as
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 291
he went down the long gallery, through the cold and darkness,
he strove to assume an expression in keeping with the part he
had to play ; he had thrown off his mirthful mood, as he had
thrown down his table-napkin, at the first thought of this role.
The night was dark. The mute servitor, his guide to the
chamber where the dying man lay, lighted the way so dimly
that death, aided by cold, silence, and darkness, and it may
be by a reaction of drunkenness, could send some sober
thoughts through the spendthrift's soul. He examined his
life, became thoughtful, like a man involved in a lawsuit on
his way to the court.
Bartolommeo Belvidero, Don Juan's father, was an old man
of ninety, who had devoted the greatest part of his life to
business pursuits. He had acquired vast wealth in many a
journey in magical Eastern lands, and knowledge, so it was
said, more valuable than the gold and diamonds, which had
almost ceased to have any value for him.
" I would give more to have a tooth in my head than for a
ruby," he would say at times with a smile. The indulgent
father loved to hear Don Juan's story of this and that wild
freak of youth. " So long as these follies amuse you, dear
boy " he would say laughingly, as he lavished money on his
son. Age never took such pleasure in the sight of youth ;
the fond father did not remember his own decaying powers
while he looked on that brilliant young life.
Bartolommeo Belvidero, at the age of sixty, had fallen in
love with an angel of peace and beauty. Don Juan had been
the sole fruit of this late and short-lived love. For fifteen
years the widower had mourned the loss of his beloved Juana ;
and to this sorrow of age, his son and his numerous house-
hold had attributed the strange habits that he had contracted.
He had shut himself up in the least comfortable wing of his
palace, and very seldom left his apartments ; even Don Juan
himself must first ask permission before seeing his father. If
this hermit, unbound by vows, came or went in his palace or
292 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
in the streets of Ferrara, he walked as if he were in a dream,
wholly engrossed, like a man at strife with a memory, or a
wrestler with some thought.
The young Don Juan might give princely banquets, the
palace might echo with clamorous mirth, horses pawed the
ground in the courtyards, pages quarrelled and flung dice
upon the stairs, but Bartolommeo ate his seven ounces of
bread daily and drank water. A fowl was occasionally
dressed for him, simply that the black poodle, his faithful
companion, might have the bones. Bartolommeo never com-
plained of the noise. If huntsmen's horns and baying dogs
disturbed his sleep during his illness, he only said, "Ah!
Don Juan has come back again." Never on earth has there
been a father so little exacting and so indulgent ; and, in
consequence, young Belvidero, accustomed to treat his father
unceremoniously, had all the faults of a spoiled child. He
treated old Bartolommeo as a wilful courtesan treats an elderly
adorer; buying indemnity for insolence with a smile, selling
good-humor, submitting to be loved.
Don Juan, beholding scene after scene of his younger
years, saw that it would be a difficult task to find his father's
indulgence at fault. Some newborn remorse stirred the
depths of his heart ; he felt almost ready to forgive this father
now about to die for having lived so long. He had an acces-
sion of filial piety, like a thief's return in thought to honesty
at the prospect of a million adroitly stolen.
Before long Don Juan had crossed the lofty, chilly suite of
rooms in which his father lived ; the penetrating influences
of the damp, close air, the mustiness diffused by old tapestries
and presses thickly covered with dust had passed into him,
and now he stood in the old man's antiquated room, in the
repulsive presence of the death-bed, beside a dying fire. A
flickering lamp on a Gothic table sent broad uncertain shafts
of light, fainter or brighter, across the bed, so that the dying
man's face seemed to wear a different look at every moment.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE 293
The bitter wind whistled through the crannies of the ill-
fitting casements; there was a smothered sound of snow lash-
ing the windows. The harsh contrast of these sights and
sounds with the scenes which Don Juan had just quitted was
so sudden that he could not help shuddering. He turned
cold as he came towards the bed ; the lamp flared in a sudden
vehement gust of wind and lighted up his father's face ; the
features were wasted and distorted ; the skin that cleaved to
their bony outlines had taken wan, livid hues, all the more
ghastly by force of contrast with the white pillows on which
he lay. The muscles about the toothless mouth had con-
tracted with pain and drawn apart the lips ; the moans that
issued between them with appalling energy found an accom-
paniment in the howling of the storm without.
In spite of every sign of coming dissolution, the most strik-
ing thing about the dying face was its incredible power. It
was no ordinary spirit that wrestled there with death. The
eyes glared with strange fixity of gaze from the cavernous
sockets hollowed by disease. It seemed as if Bartolommeo
sought to kill some enemy sitting at the foot of his bed by
the intent gaze of dying eyes. That steady remorseless look
was the more appalling because the head that lay upon the
pillow was passive and motionless as a skull upon a doctor's
table. The outlines of the body, revealed by the coverlet,
were no less rigid and stiff; he lay there as one dead, save for
those eyes. There was something automatic about the moan-
ing sounds that came from the mouth. Don Juan felt some-
thing like shame that he must be brought thus to his father's
bedside, wearing a courtesan's bouquet, redolent of the fra-
grance of the banqueting-chamber and the fumes of wine.
"You were enjoying yourself!" the old man cried as he
saw his son.
Even as he spoke the pure high notes of a woman's voice,
sustained by the sound of the viol on which she accompanied
her song, rose above the rattle of the storm against the case-
294 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
ments, and floated up to the chamber of death. Don Juan
stopped his ears against the barbarous answer to his father's
speech.
" I bear you no grudge, my child," Bartolommeo went on.
The words were full of kindness, but they hurt Don Juan ;
he could not pardon this heart-searching goodness on his
father's part.
" What a remorseful memory for me ! " he cried, hypocrit-
ically.
"Poor Juanino," the dying man went on in a smothered
voice, " I have always been so kind to you, that you could
not surely desire my death? "
" Oh, if it were only possible to keep you here by giving
up a part of my own life ! " cried Don Juan.
("We can always say this sort of thing," the spendthrift
thought ; " it is as if I laid the whole world at my mistress'
feet.")
The thought had scarcely crossed his mind when the old
poodle barked. Don Juan shivered ; the response was so in-
telligent that he fancied the dog must have understood him.
" I was sure that I could count on you, my son ! " cried
the dying man. " I shall live. So be it ; you shall be satis-
fied. I shall live, but without depriving you of a single day
of your life."
"He is raving," thought Don Juan. Aloud he added,
"Yes, dearest father, yes; you shall live, of course, as long
as I live, for your image will be forever in my heart."
" It is not that kind of life that I mean," said the old noble,
summoning all his strength to sit up in bed ; for a thrill of
doubt ran through him, one of those suspicions that come
into being under a dying man's pillow. "Listen, my son,"
he went on, in a voice grown weak with that last effort," I
have no more wish to give up life than you to give up wine
and mistresses, horses and hounds, and hawks and gold "
"lean well believe it," thought the son; and he knelt
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 295
down by the bed and kissed Bartolommeo's cold hands. "But,
father, my dear father," he added aloud, " we must submit to
the will of God."
" I am God ! " muttered the dying man.
" Do not blaspheme ! " cried the other, as he saw the men-
acing expression on his father's face. " Beware what you
say ; you have received extreme unction, and I should be in-
consolable if you were to die before my eyes in mortal sin."
"Will you listen to me?" cried Bartolommeo, and his
mouth twitched.
Don Juan held his peace ; an ugly silence prevailed. Yet
above the muffled sound of the beating of the snow against
the windows rose the sounds of the beautiful voice and the
viol in unison, far off and faint as the dawn. The dying man
smiled.
"Thank you," he said, "for bringing those singing voices
and the music, a banquet, young and lovely women with
fair faces and dark tresses, all the pleasures of life ! Bid
them wait for me; for I am about to begin life anew."
" The delirium is at its height," said Don Juan to himself.
"I have found out a way of coming to life again," the
speaker went on. " There, just look in that table drawer,
press the spring hidden by the griffin, and it will fly open."
" I have found it, father."
" Well, then, now take out a little phial of rock crystal."
"I have it."
" I have spent twenty years in " but even as he spoke
the old man felt how very near the end had come, and sum-
moned all his dying strength to say, "As soon as the breath
is out of me, rub me all over with that liquid, and I shall
come to life again."
" There is very little of it," his son remarked.
Though Bartolommeo could no longer speak, he could still
hear and see. When those words dropped from Don Juan,
his head turned with appalling quickness, his neck was twisted
296 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
like the throat of some marble statue which the sculptor has
condemned to remain stretched out forever, the wide eyes had
come to have a ghastly fixity.
He was dead, and in death he lost his last and sole illusion.
He had sought a shelter in his son's heart, and it had
proved to be a sepulchre, a pit deeper than men dig for their
dead. The hair on his head had risen and stiffened with
horror, his agonized glance still spoke. He was a father rising
in just anger from his tomb, to demand vengeance at the
throne of God.
"There! it is all over with the old man!" cried Don
Juan.
He had been so interested in holding the mysterious phial
to the lamp, as a drinker holds up the wine-bottle at the end
of a meal, that he had not seen his father's eyes fade. The
cowering poodle looked from his master to the elixir, just as
Don Juan himself glanced again and again from his father to
the flask. The lamplight flickered. There was a deep silence ;
the viol was mute. Juan Belvidero thought that he saw his
father stir, and trembled. The changeless gaze of those ac-
cusing eyes frightened him ; he closed them hastily, as he
would have closed a loose shutter swayed by the wind of an
autumn night. He stood there motionless, lost in a world of
thought.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill sound like the
creaking of a rusty spring. It startled Don Juan ; he all but
dropped the phial. A sweat, colder than the blade of a
dagger, issued through every pore. It was only a piece of
clockwork, a wooden cock that sprang out and crowed three
times, an ingenious contrivance by which the learned of that
epoch were wont to be awakened at the appointed hour to
begin the labors of the day. Through the windows there
came already a flush of dawn. The thing, composed of wood,
and cords, and wheels, and pulleys, was more faithful in its
service than he in his duty to Bartolommeo he, a man with
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 297
that pecular piece of human mechanism within him, that we
call a heart.
Don Juan the sceptic shut the flask again in the secret
drawer in the gothic table he meant to run no more risks of
losing the mysterious liquid.
Even in that solemn moment he heard the murmur of a
crowd in the gallery, a confused sound of voices, of stifled
laughter and light footfalls, and the rustling of silks the
sounds of a band of revelers struggling for gravity. The
door opened, and in came the Prince and Don Juan's friends,
the seven courtesans, and the singers, disheveled and wild like
dancers surprised by the dawn, when the tapers that have
burned through the night struggle with the sunlight.
They had come to offer the customary condolence to the
young heir.
"Oho! is poor Don Juan really taking this seriously?"
said the Prince in Brambilla's ear.
"Well, his father was very good," she returned.
But Don Juan's night-thoughts had left such unmistakable
traces on his features, that the crew was awed into silence.
The men stood motionless. The women, with wine-parched
lips and cheeks marbled with kisses, knelt down and began a
prayer. Don Juan could scarce help trembling when he saw
splendor and mirth and laughter and song and youth and
beauty and power bowed in reverence before death. But
in those times, in that adorable Italy of the sixteenth cen-
tury, religion and revelry went hand in hand ; and religious
excess became a sort of debauch, and a debauch a religious
rite !
The Prince grasped Don Juan's hand affectionately, then
when all faces had simultaneously put on the same grimace
half-gloomy, half-indifferent the whole masque disappeared,
and left the chamber of death empty. It was like an allegory
of life.
As they went down the staircase, the Prince spoke to Riva-
298 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
barella : ''Now, who would have taken Don Juan's impiety
for a boast ? He loves his father."
" Did you see that black dog? " asked La Brambilla.
" He is enormously rich now," sighed Bianca Cavatolino.
" What is that to me? " cried the proud Veronese (she who
had crushed the comfit-box).
"What does it matter to you, forsooth?" cried the Duke.
"With his money he is as much a prince as I am."
At first Don Juan was swayed hither and thither by count-
less thoughts, and wavered between two decisions. He took
counsel with the gold heaped up by his father, and returned
in the evening to the chamber of death, his whole soul brim-
ming over with hideous selfishness. He found all his house-
hold busy there. " His lordship " was to lie in state to-mor-
row ; all Ferrara would flock to behold the wonderful spec-
tacle ; and the servants were busy decking the room and the
couch on which the dead man lay. At a sign from Don Juan
all his people stopped, dumbfounded and trembling.
" Leave me alone here," he said, and his voice was changed,"
"and do not return till I leave the room."
When the footsteps of the old servitor, who was the last to
go, echoed but faintly along the paved gallery, Don Juan
hastily locked the door, and, sure that he was quite alone,
" Let us try," he said to himself.
Bartolommeo's body was stretched on a long table. The
embalmers had laid a sheet over it, to hide from all eyes the
dreadful spectacle of a corpse so wasted and shrunken that it
seemed like a skeleton, and only the face was uncovered.
This mummy-like form lay in the middle of the room. The
limp clinging linen conformed itself to the outlines it shrouded
so sharp, bony, and thin. Large violet patches had already
begun to spread over the face; the embalmer's work had not
been finished too soon.
Don Juan, strong as he was in his scepticism, felt a tremor
as he opened the magic crystal flask. When he stood over
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 299
that face, he was trembling so violently that he was actually
obliged to wait for a moment. But Don Juan had acquired
an early familiarity with evil ; his morals had been corrupted
by a licentious court, a reflection worthy of the Duke of
Urbino crossed his mind, and it was a keen sense of curiosity
that goaded him into boldness. The devil himself might
have whispered the words that were echoing through his brain,
Moisten one of the eyes with the liquid ! He took up a linen
cloth, moistened it sparingly with the precious fluid, and
passed it lightly over the right eyelid of the corpse. The eye
unclosed.
"Aha ! " said Don Juan. He gripped the flask tightly, as
we clutch in dreams the branch from which we hang sus-
pended over a precipice.
For the eye was full of life. It was a young child's eye
set in a death's head ; the light quivered in the depths of its
youthful liquid brightness. Shaded by the long dark lashes,
it sparkled like the strange lights that travelers see in lonely
places in winter nights. That eye seemed as if it would fain
dart fire at Don Juan ; he saw it thinking, upbraiding, con-
demning, uttering accusations, threatening doom ; it cried
aloud, and gnashed upon him. All anguish that shakes hu-
man souls was gathered there ; supplications the most tender,
the wrath of kings, the love in a girl's heart pleading with
the headsman ; then, and after all these, the deeply searching
glance a man turns on his fellows as he mounts the last step
of the scaffold. Life so dilated in this fragment of life that
Don Juan shrank back ; he walked up and down the room, he
dared not meet that gaze, but he saw nothing else. The ceil-
ing and the hangings, the whole room was sown with living
points of fire and intelligence. Everywhere those gleaming
eyes haunted him.
" He might very likely have lived another hundred years,"
he cried involuntarily. Some diabolical influence had drawn
him to his father, and again he gazed at that luminous spark.
300 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
The eyelid closed and opened again abruptly ; it was like a
woman's sign of assent. It was an intelligent movement.
If a voice had cried, " Yes ! " Don Juan could not have been
more startled.
"What is to be done ? " he thought.
He nerved himself to try to close the white eyelid. In
vain.
"Kill it? That would perhaps be parricide," he debated
with himself.
"Yes," the eye said, with a strange sardonic quiver of
the lid.
"Aha ! " said Don Juan to himself, " here is witchcraft at
work!" And he went closer to crush the thing. A great
tear trickled over the hollow cheeks, and fell on Don Juan's
hand.
" It is scalding ! " he cried. He sat down. This struggle
exhausted him ; it was as if, like Jacob of old, he was
wrestling with an angel.
At last he rose. "So long as there is no blood "
he muttered.
Then, summoning all the courage needed for a coward's
crime, he extinguished the eye, pressing it with the linen
cloth, turning his head away. A terrible groan startled him.
It was the poor poodle, who died with a long-drawn howl.
" Could the brute have been in the secret? " thought Don
Juan, looking down at the faithful creature.
Don Juan Belvidero was looked upon as a dutiful son. He
reared a white marble monument on his father's tomb, and
employed the greatest sculptors of the time upon it. He did
not recover perfect ease of mind till the day when his father
knelt in marble before religion, and the heavy weight of the
stone had sealed the mouth of the grave in which he had laid
the one feeling of remorse that sometimes flitted through his
soul in moments of physical weariness.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 301
He had drawn up a list of the wealth heaped up by the old
merchant in the East, and he became a miser ; had he not to
provide for a second lifetime? His views of life were the
more profound and penetrating; he grasped its significance,
as a whole, the better, because he saw it across a grave. All
men, all things, he analyzed once and for all ; he summoned
up the past, represented by its records ; the present in the
law, its crystallized form ; the future, revealed by religion.
He took spirit and matter, and flung them into his crucible,
and found nothing. Thenceforward he became DON JUAN.
At the outset of his life, in the prime of youth and the
beauty of youth, he knew the illusions of life for what they
were ; he despised the world, and made the utmost of the
world. His felicity could not have been of the bourgeois
kind, rejoicing in periodically recurrent boiled meat, in the
comforts of a warming-pan, a lamp of a night, and a new pair
of slippers once a quarter. Nay, rather he seized upon exist-
ence as a monkey snatches a nut, and after no long toying
with it, proceeds deftly to strip off the mere husks to reach
the savory kernel within.
Poetry and the sublime transports of passion scarcely
reached ankle-depth with him now. He in nowise fell into
the error of strong natures who flatter themselves now and
again that little souls will believe in a great soul, and are
willing to barter their own lofty thoughts of the future for
the small change of our life-annuity ideas. He, even as
they, had he chosen, might well have walked with his feet
on the earth and his head in the skies ; but he liked better
to sit on earth, to wither the soft, fresh, fragrant lips of a
woman with kisses, for, like death, he devoured everything
without scruple as he passed ; he would have full fruition ;
he was an Oriental lover, seeking prolonged pleasures easily
obtained. He sought nothing but a woman in women, and
cultivated cynicism, until it became with him a habit of mind.
When his mistress, from the couch on which she lay, soared
20
302 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
and was lost in regions of ecstatic bliss, Don Juan followed
suit, earnest, expansive, serious as any German student. But
he said " I," while she, in the transports of intoxication, said
" We." He understood to admiration the art of abandoning
himself to the influence of a woman ; he was always clever
enough to make her believe that he trembled like some boy
fresh from college before his first partner at a dance, when
he asks her, "Do you like dancing?" But, no less, he
could be terrible at need, could unsheath a formidable
sword and make short work of commandants. Banter
lurked beneath his simplicity, mocking laughter behind his
tears for he had tears at need, like any woman nowadays
who says to her husband, " Give me a carriage, or I shall
go into a consumption."
For a merchant the world is a bale of goods or a mass
of circulating bills ; for most young men it is a woman, and
for a woman here and there it is a man ; for a certain order of
mind it is a salon, a coterie, a quarter of the town, or some
single city ; but Don Juan found his world in himself.
This model of grace and dignity, this captivating wit,
moored his bark by every shore ; but wherever he was led
he was never carried away, and was only steered in a course
of his own choosing. The more he saw, the more he
doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, be-
neath the surface, courage was often rashness ; and prudence,
cowardice ; generosity, a clever piece of calculation ; justice,
a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi ;
and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that
those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, gen-
erous, prudent, or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-
men.
" What a cold-blooded jest ! " said he to himself. " It
was not devised by a God."
From that time forth he renounced a better world, and
never uncovered himself when a name was pronounced, and
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 303
for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art.
He understood the mechanism of society too well to clash
wantonly with its prejudices ; for, after all, he was not as
powerful as the executioner, but he evaded social laws with
the wit and grace so well rendered in the scene with M.
Dimanche. He was, in fact, Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's
Faust, Byron's Manfred, Mathurin's Melmoth great allegor-
ical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe, to
which Mozart's harmonies, perhaps, do no more justice than
Rossini's lyre. Terrible allegorical figures that shall endure
as long as the principle of evil existing in the heart of man
shall produce a few copies from century to century. Some-
times the type becomes half-human when incarnate as a
Mirabeau, sometimes it is an inarticulate force in a Bonaparte,
sometimes it overwhelms the universe with irony as a Rabe-
lais; or, yet again, it appears when a Marechal de Richelieu
elects to laugh at human beings instead of scoffing at things,
or when one of the most famous of our ambassadors goes a
step further and scoffs at both men and things. But the pro-
found genius of Juan Belvidero anticipated and resumed all
these. All things were a jest to him. He was the life of a
mocking spirit. All men, all institutions, all realities, all
ideas were within its scope. As for eternity, after half an
hour of familiar conversation with Pope Julius II. he had said,
laughing
" If it is absolutely necessary to make a choice, I would
rather believe in God than in the devil; power combined
with goodness always offers more resources than the spirit of
evil can boast."
"Yes; still God requires repentance in this present world
"So you always think of your indulgences," returned
Don Juan Belvidero. " Well, well, I have another life in
reserve in which to repent of the sins of my previous
existence."
304 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
" Oh, if you regard old age in that light," cried the Pope,
" you are in danger of canonization."
" After your elevation to the Papacy nothing is incredible."
And they went to watch the workmen who were building the
huge basilica dedicated to Saint Peter.
" Saint Peter, as the man of genius who laid the foundation
of our double power," the Pope said to Don Juan, "deserves
this monument. Sometimes, though, at night, I think that a
deluge will wipe all this out as with a sponge, and it will be
all to begin over again."
Don Juan and the Pope began to laugh ; they understood
each other. A fool would have gone on the morrow to amuse
himself with Julius II. in Raphael's studio or at the delicious
Villa Madama ; not so Belvidero. He went to see the Pope
as pontiff, to be convinced of any doubts that he (Don Juan)
entertained. Over his cups the Rovere would have been
capable of denying his own infallibility and of commenting
on the Apocalypse.
Nevertheless, this legend has not been undertaken to fur-
nish materials for future biographies of Don Juan ; it is in-
tended to prove to honest folk that Belvidero did not die in a
duel with stone, as some lithographers would have us believe.
When Don Juan Belvidero reached the age of sixty he
settled in Spain, and there in his old age he married a young
and charming Andalusian wife. But of set purpose he was
neither a good husband nor a good father. He had observed
that we are never so tenderly loved as by women to whom we
scarcely give a thought. Dona Elvira had been devoutly
brought up by an old aunt in a castle a few leagues from San-
Lucar in a remote part of Andalusia. She was a model of
devotion and grace. Don Juan foresaw that this would be a
woman who would struggle long against a passion before
yielding, and therefore hoped to keep her virtuous until his
death. It was a jest undertaken in earnest, a game of chess
which he meant to reserve till his old age. Don Juan had
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 305
learned wisdom from the mistakes made by his father, Barto-
lommeo ; he determined that the least details of his life in old
age should be subordinated to one object the success of the
drama which was to be played out upon his deathbed.
For the same reason the largest part of his wealth was
buried in the cellars of his palace at Ferrara, whither he sel-
dom went. As for the rest of his fortune, it was invested in
.a life annuity, with a view to give his wife and children an
interest in keeping him alive ; but this Machiavellian piece of
foresight was scarcely necessary. His son, young Felipe Bel-
videro, grew up as a Spaniard as religiously conscientious as
his father was irreligious, in virtue, perhaps, of the old rule,
"A miser has a spendthrift son." The Abbot of San-Lucar
was chosen by Don Juan to be director of the consciences of
the Duchess of Belvidero and her son Felipe. The ecclesi-
astic was a holy man, well shaped and admirably well propor-
tioned. He had fine dark eyes, a head like that of Tiberius,
worn with fasting, bleached by an ascetic life, and, like all
dwellers in the wilderness, was daily tempted. The noble
lord had hopes, it may be, of despatching yet another monk
before his term of life was out.
But whether because the Abbot was every whit as clever as
Don Juan himself, or Dona Elvira possessed more discretion
or more virtue than Spanish wives are usually credited with,
Don Juan was compelled to spend his declining years beneath
his own roof, with no more scandal under it than if he had
been an ancient country parson. Occasionally he would take
wife and son to task for negligence in the duties of religion,
peremptorily insisting that they should carry out to the letter
the obligations imposed upon the flock by the Court of Rome.
Indeed, he was never so well pleased as when he had set the
courtly Abbot discussing some case of conscience with Dona
Elvira and Felipe.
At length, however, despite the prodigious care that the
great magnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the
.306 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
days of decrepitude came upon him, and with those days the
constant importunity of physical feebleness, an importunity
all the more distressing by contrast with the wealth of mem-
ories of his impetuous youth and the sensual pleasures of
middle age. The unbeliever who in the height of his cynical
humor had been wont to persuade others to believe in laws
and principles at which he scoffed, must repose nightly upon
a perhaps. The great Duke, the pattern of good breeding,
the champion of many a carouse, the proud ornament of
courts, the man of genius, the graceful winner of hearts that
he had wrung as carelessly as a peasant twists an osier withe,
was now the victim of a cough, of a ruthless sciatica, of an
unmannerly gout. His teeth gradually deserted him, as at the
end of an evening the fairest and best-dressed women take
their leave one by one till the room is left empty and desolate.
The active hands became palsy-stricken, the shapely legs tot-
tered as he walked. At last, one night, a stroke of apoplexy
caught him by the throat in its icy clutch. After that fatal
day he grew morose and stern.
He would reproach his wife and son with their devotion, cast-
ing it in their teeth that the affecting and thoughtful care that
they lavished so tenderly upon him was bestowed because they
knew that his money was invested in a life annuity. Then
Elvira and Felipe would shed bitter tears and redouble their
caresses, and the wicked old man's insinuating voice would
take an affectionate tone "Ah, you will forgive me, will you
not, dear friends, dear wife? I am rather a nuisance. Alas,
Lord in heaven, how canst Thou use me as the instrument by
which Thou provest these two angelic creatures? I who
should be the joy of their lives am become their scourge "
In this manner he kept them tethered to his pillow, blot-
ting out the memory of whole months of fretfulness and un-
kindness in one short hour when he chose to display for them
the ever-new treasures of his pinchbeck tenderness and
charm of manner a system of paternity that yielded him
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 307
an infinitely better return than his own father's indulgence
had formerly gained. At length his bodily infirmities reached
a point when the task of laying him in bed became as diffi-
cult as the navigation of a felucca in the perils of an intri-
cate channel. Then came the day of his death ; and this
brilliant sceptic, whose mental faculties alone had survived
the most dreadful of all destructions, found himself between
his two special antipathies th%$loctor and the confessor.
But he was jovial with them. Did he not see a light
gleaming in the future beyond the veil ? The pall that is
like lead for other men was thin and translucent for him ;
the light-footed, irresistible delights of youth danced beyond
it like shadows.
It was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt
the near approach of death. The sky of Spain was serene
and cloudless; the air was full of the scent of orange-
blossom ; the stars shed clear, pure gleams of light ; nature
without seemed to give the dying man assurance of ' resur-
rection ; a dutiful and obedient son sat there watching him
with loving and respectful eyes. Towards eleven o'clock
he desired to be left alone with this single-hearted being.
"Felipe," said the father, in tones so soft and affection-
ate that the young man trembled, and tears of gladness
came to his eyes ; never had that stern father spoken his
name in such a tone. "Listen, my son," the dying man
went on. " I am a great sinner. All my life long, how-
ever, I have thought of my death. I was once the friend
of the great Pope Julius II. ; and that illustrious Pontiff,
fearing lest the excessive excitability of my senses should
entangle me in mortal sin between the moment of my death
and the time of my anointing with the holy oil, gave me a
flask that contains a little of the holy water that once issued
from the rock in the wilderness. I have kept the secret of
this squandering of a treasure belonging to Holy Church, but
308 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
I am permitted to reveal the mystery in articulo mortis to my
son. You will find the flask in a drawer in that Gothic table
that always stands by the head of the bed. The precious
little crystal flask may be of use yet again for you, dearest
Felipe. Will you swear to me, by your salvation, to carry
out my instructions faithfully? "
Felipe looked at his father, and Don Juan was too deeply-
learned in the lore of the human countenance not to die in
peace with that look as his warrant, as his own father had
died in despair at meeting the expression in his son's eyes.
" You deserved to have a better father," Don Juan went
on. " I dare to confess, my child, that while the reverend
Abbot of San-Lucar was administering the Viaticum I was
thinking of the incompatibility of the coexistence of two
powers so infinite as God and the devil "
"Oh, father !"
"And I said to myself, when Satan makes his peace he
ought surely to stipulate for the pardon of his followers, or he
will be the veriest scoundrel. The thought haunted me ; so
I shall go to hell, my son, unless you carry out my wishes."
" Oh, quick; tell me quickly, father."
"As soon as I have closed my eyes," Don Juan went on,
"and that may be in a few minutes, you must take my body
before it grows cold and lay it on a table in this room. Then
put out the lamp ; the light of the stars should be sufficient.
Take off my clothes, reciting Aves and Paters the while,
raising your soul to God in prayer, and carefully anoint my
lips and eyes with this holy water; begin with the face, and
proceed successively to my limbs and the rest of my body ;
my dear son, the power of God is so great that you must be
astonished at nothing."
Don Juan felt death so near, that he added in a terrible
voice, " Be careful not to drop the flask."
Then he breathed his last gently in the arms of his son,
and his son's tears fell fast over his sardonic, haggard features.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 309
It was almost midnight when Don Felipe Belvidero laid his
father's body upon the table. He kissed the sinister brow
and the gray hair ; then he put out the lamp.
By the soft moonlight that lit strange gleams across the
country without, Felipe could dimly see his father's body, a
vague white thing among the shadows. The dutiful son
moistened a linen cloth with the liquid, and, absorbed in
prayer, he anointed the revered face. A deep silence reigned.
Felipe heard faint, indescribable rustlings ; it was the breeze
in the tree-tops, he thought. But when he had moistented
the right arm, he felt himself caught by the throat, a young,
strong hand held him in a tight grip it was his father's hand !
He shrieked aloud ; the flask dropped from his hand and
broke in pieces. The liquid evaporated ; the whole house-
hold hurried into the room, holding torches aloft. That
shriek had startled them, and filled them with as much terror
as if the trumpet of the angel sounding on the last day had
rung through earth and sky. The room was full of people,
and a horror-stricken crowd beheld the fainting Felipe upheld
by the strong arm of his father, who clutched him by the
throat. They saw another thing, an unearthly spectacle
Don Juan's face grown young and beautiful as Antinoiis, with
its dark hair and brilliant eyes and red lips, a head that made
horrible efforts, but could not move the dead, wasted
body.
An old servitor cried, " A miracle ! a miracle!" and all
the Spaniards echoed, " A miracle ! a miracle ! "
Dona Elvira, too pious to attribute this to magic, sent for the
Abbot of San-Lucar; and the Prior beholding the miracle
with his own eyes, being a clever man, and withal an Abbot
desirous of augmenting his revenues, determined to turn the
occasion to profit. He immediately gave out that Don Juan
would certainly be canonized ; he appointed a day for the
celebration of the apotheosis in his convent, which thencefor-
ward, he said, should be called the convent of San Juan of
310 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
Lucar. At these words a sufficiently facetious grimace passed
over the features of the late Duke.
The taste of the Spanish people for ecclesiastical solemnities
is so well known that it should not be difficult to imagine the
religious pantomime by which the Convent of San-Lucar
celebrated the translation of the blessed Don Juan Belvidero
to the abbey-church. The tale of the partial resurrection had
spread so quickly from village to village, that a day or two
after the death of the illustrious nobleman the report had
reached every place within fifty miles of San-Lucar, and it
was as good as a play to see the roads covered already with
crowds flocking in on all sides, their curiosity whetted still
further by the prospect of a Te Deum sung by torchlight.
The old abbey-church of San-Lucar, a marvelous building
erected by the Moors, a mosque of Allah, which for three
centuries had heard the name of Christ, could not hold the
throng that poured in to see the ceremony. Hidalgos in their
velvet mantles, with their good swords at their sides, swarmed
like ants, and were so tightly packed in among the pillars
that they had not room to bend the knees, which never bent
save to God. Charming peasant girls, in the basquina that
defines the luxuriant outlines of their figures, lent an arm to
white-haired old men. Young men, with eyes of fire, walked
beside aged crones in holiday array. Then came couples
tremulous with joy, young lovers led thither by curiosity,
newly-wedded folk ; children timidly clasping each other by
the hand. This throng, so rich in coloring, in vivid con-
trasts, laden with flowers, enameled like a meadow, sent up a
soft murmur through the quiet night. Then the great door
of the church opened.
Late comers who remained without saw afar, through the
three great open doorways, a scene of which the theatrical
illusions of modern opera can give but a faint idea. The vast
church was lighted up by thousands of candles, offered by
saints and sinners alike eager to win the favor of this new can-
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 311
didate for canonization, and these self-commending illumina-
tions turned the great building into an enchanted fairyland.
The black archways, the shafts and capitals, the recessed
chapels with gold and silver gleaming in their depths, the gal-
leries, the Arab traceries, all the most delicate outlines of that
delicate sculpture, burned in the excess of light like the fan-
tastic figures in the red heart of a brazier. At the further end
of the church, above that blazing sea, rose the high altar like
a splendid dawn. All the glories of the golden lamps and
silver candlesticks, of banners and tassels, of the shrines of
the saints and votive offerings, paled before the gorgeous
brightness of the reliquary in which Don Juan lay. The
blasphemer's body sparkled with gems, and flowers, and
crystal, with diamonds and gold, and plumes white as the
wings of seraphim ; they had set it up on the altar, where the
picture of Christ had stood. All about him blazed a host of
tall candles ; the air quivered in the radiant light. The
worthy Abbot of San-Lucar, in pontificial robes, with his
mitre set with precious stones, his rochet and golden crosier,
sat enthroned in imperial state among his clergy in the
choir. Rows of impassive aged faces, silver-haired old men
clad in fine linen albs, were grouped about him, as the
saints who confessed Christ on earth are set by painters,
each in his place, about the throne of God in heaven. The
precentor and the dignitaries of the chapter, adorned with
the gorgeous insignia of ecclesiastical vanity, came and went
through the clouds of incense, like stars upon their courses
in the firmament.
When the hour of triumph arrived, the bells awoke the
echoes far and wide, and the whole vast crowd raised to
God the first cry of praise that begins the Te Deum. A
sublime cry ! High, pure notes, the voices of women in
ecstasy, mingled in it with the sterner and deeper voices
of men ; thousands of voices sent up a volume of sound so
mighty, that the straining, groaning organ-pipes could not
312 THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.
dominate that harmony. But the shrill sound of children's
singing among the choristers, the reverberation of deep bass
notes, awakened gracious associations, visions of childhood,
and of man in his strength, and rose above that entrancing
harmony of human voices blended in one sentiment of love.
Te Deum laudamus !
The chant went up from the black masses of men and
women kneeling in the cathedral, like a sudden breaking out
of light in darkness, and the silence was shattered as by a
peal of thunder. The voices floated up with the clouds of
incense that had begun to cast thin bluish veils over the
fanciful marvels of the architecture, and the aisles were
filled with splendor and perfume and light and melody.
Even at the moment when that music of love and thanks-
giving soared up to the altar, Don Juan, too well bred not
to express his acknowledgments, too witty not to understand
how to take a jest, bridled up in his reliquary, and responded
with an appalling burst of laughter. Then the devil having
put him in mind of the risk he was running of being taken
for an ordinary man, a saint, a Boniface, a Pantaleone, he
interrupted the melody of love by a yell ; the thousand voices
of hell joined in it. Earth blessed, Heaven banned. The
church was shaken to its ancient foundations.
Te Deum laudamus ! cried the many voices.
" Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are ! Dios ! Dios !
Carajos demonios ! Idiots ! What fools you are with your
dotard-God ! " and a torrent of imprecations poured forth like
a stream of red-hot lava from the mouth of Vesuvius.
" Deus Sabaoth ! Sabaoth ! " cried the believers.
"You are insulting the majesty of hell," shouted Don
Juan, gnashing his teeth. In another moment the living arm
struggled out of the reliquary, and was brandished over the
assembly in mockery and despair.
"The saint is blessing us," cried the old women, children,
lovers, and the credulous among the crowd.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 313
And note how often we are deceived in the homage we pay ;
the great man scoffs at those who praise him, and pays com-
pliments now and again to those whom he laughs at in the
depths of his heart.
Just as the Abbot, prostrate before the altar, was chanting
" Sancte Johannes ora pro nobis / " he heard a voice exclaim
sufficiently distinct : " O coglione / "
" What can be going on up there?" cried the sub-prior,
as he saw the reliquary move.
" The saint is playing the devil," replied the Abbot.
Even as he spoke, the living head tore itself away from the
lifeless body, and dropped upon the sallow cranium of the
officiating priest.
" Remember Dona Elvira ! " cried the thing, with its teeth
set fast in the Abbot's head.
The Abbot's horror-stricken shriek disturbed the ceremony ;
all the ecclesiastics hurried up and crowded about their chief.
" Idiot, tell us now if there is a God ! " the voice cried,
as the Abbot, bitten through the brain, drew his last breath.
PARIS, October, 1830.
A STUDY OF WOMAN
{Etude de Fetnme)
Dedicated to the Marquis Jean- Charles di Negro.
THE Marquise de Listomere is a young woman brought up
in the spirit of the Restoration. She has principles, she fasts
in season, she takes the sacrament, she goes very much dressed
to balls, to the Bouffons, to the opera ; her spiritual director
allows her to combine the sacred and the profane. Always
on good terms with the church and the world, she is an incarna-
tion of the present time, and seems to have taken the word
"Legality" for her motto. The Marquise's conduct is marked
by exactly enough devotion to enable her, under another
Maintenon, to achieve the gloomy piety of the last days of
Louis XIV., and enough worldliness to adopt the manners and
gallantry of the earlier years of his reign, if they ever could
return.
Just now she is virtuous from interest, or, perhaps, by taste.
Married some seven years since to the Marquis de Listomere,
a deputy who expects a peerage, she perhaps thinks that her
conduct may promote the ambitions of the family. Some
women wait to pass judgment on her till Monsieur de Listo-
mere is made Pair de France, and till she is six-and-thirty a
time of life when most women discover that they are the dupes
of social laws.
The Marquis is an insignificant personage ; he is in favor
at court ; his good qualities, like his faults, are negative ; the
former can no more give him a reputation for virtue than the
latter can give him the sort of brilliancy bestowed by vice.
As a deputy he never speaks, but he votes "straight ;" and at
(314)
A STUDY OF WOMAN. 315
home, he behaves as he does in the Chamber. He is con-
sidered the best husband in France. Though he is incapable
of enthusiasms, he never scolds, unless he is kept waiting.
His friends nickname him "Cloudy weather;" and, in fact,
there is in him no excessively bright light, and no utter dark-
ness. He is exactly like all the ministers that have_succeeded
each other in France since the charter.
A woman with principles could hardly have fallen into
better hands. Is it not a great thing for a virtuous woman to
have married a man incapable of folly ? Dandies have been
known to venture on the impertinence of slightly pressing the
Marquise's hand when dancing with her; they met only looks
of scorn, and all have experienced that insulting indifference
which, like spring frosts, chills the germs of the fairest hopes.
Handsome men, witty men, coxcombs, sentimental men who
derive nourishment from sucking the knob of their walking-
sticks, men of name and men of fame, men of high birth
and of low, all have blanched before her. She has won the
right of talking as long and as often as she pleases with men
whom she thinks intelligent, without being entered in the
calendar of scandal. Some coquettes are capable of pursuing
this plan for seven years on end, to gratify their fancy at last ;
but to ascribe such a covert motive to Madame de Listomere
would be to calumniate her. I had been so fortunate as to
meet this phoenix of a marquise ; she talks well, I am a good
listener. I pleased her, and I go to her evening parties. This
was the object of my ambition.
Neither plain nor pretty, Madame de Listomere has white
teeth, a brilliant complexion, and very red lips ; she is tall
and well made, has a small, slender foot, which she does not
display ; her eyes, far from being dulled, as most eyes are in
Paris, have a soft gleam which becomes magical when by
chance she is animated. You feel there is a soul under this
ill-defined personality. When she is interested in the con-
versation, she reveals the grace that lies buried under the
316 A STUDY OF WOMAN.
prudery of cold demeanor, and then she is charming. She
does not crave for success, and she gets it. We always find
the thing we do not seek. This statement is too often true
not to become a proverb one day. It will be the moral of
this tale, which I should not allow myself to relate if it were
not at this moment the talk of every drawing-room in Paris.
One evening, about a month since, the Marquise de Lis-
tomere danced with a young man as modest as he is heedless,
full of good qualities, but showing only his bad ones; he is
impassioned, and laughs at passion ; he has talent, and hides
it ; he assumes the savant with aristocrats, and affects to be
aristocratic with savants.
Eugene de Rastignac is one of those very sensible young
men who try everything, and seem to sound other men to dis-
cover what the future will bring forth. Pending the age when
he will be ambitious, he laughs at everything ; he has grace
and originality two qualities which are rare, because they
exclude each other. Without aiming at success, he talked to
Madame de Listomere for about half an hour. While follow-
ing the deviations of a conversation which, beginning with
William Tell, went on to the duties of woman, he looked at
the Marquise more than once in a way to embarrass her ; then
he left her, and spoke to her no more all the evening. He
danced, sat down to ecarte, lost a little money, and went home
to bed. I have the honor of assuring you that this is exactly
what happened. I have added, I have omitted nothing.
The next morning Rastignac woke late, remained in bed,
where he gave himself up, no doubt, to some of those morn-
ing day-dreams in which a young man glides, like a sylph,
behind more than one curtain of silk, wool, or cotton. At
such moments, the heavier the body is with sleep, the more
nimble is the fancy. Finally Rastignac got up without yawn-
ing too much, as so many ill-bred people do, rang for his
man-servant, ordered some tea, and drank of it immoderately
which will not seem strange to those who like tea ; but, to
A STUDY OF WOMAN. 317
account for this to those persons who only regard tea as a
panacea for indigestion, I will add that Eugene was writing ;
he sat at his ease, and his feet were more often on the fire-
dogs than in his foot-muff.
Oh ! to sit with your feet on the polished bar that rests on
the two brackets of a fender, and dream of your love affairs
while wrapped in your dressing-gown, is so delightful a thing
that I deeply regret having no mistress, no fire-dogs, and no
dressing-gown. When I shall have all these good things, I
shall not write my experiences, I shall take the benefit of
them.
The first letter Eugene had to write was finished in a quarter
of an hour. He folded it, sealed it, and left it lying in front
of him without any address. The second letter, begun at
eleven o'clock, was not finished till noon. The four pages
were written all over.
" That woman runs in my head," said he to himself as he
folded the second missive, leaving it there, and intending to
address it after ending his involuntary reverie. He crossed
the fronts of his flowered dressing-gown, put his feet on a
stool, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his red cashmere
trousers, and threw himself back in a delicious armchair with
deep ears, of which the seat and back were set at the com-
fortable angle of a hundred and twenty degrees. He drank
no more tea, but remained passive, his eyes fixed on the little
gilt fist which formed the knob of his fire-shovel, without
seeing the shovel, or the hand, or the gilding. He did not
even make up the fire. This was a great mistake ! Is it not
an intense pleasure to fidget with the fire when dreaming of
women ? Our fancy lends speech to the little blue tongues
which suddenly burst up and babble on the hearth. We can
find a meaning in the sudden and noisy language of a
bourguignon.
At this word I must pause and insert, for the benefit of the
ignorant, an explanation vouchsafed by a very distinguished
21
318 A STUDY OF WOMAN.\
etymologist, who wishes to remain anonymous. Bourguignon
is the popular and symbolical name given, ever since the reign
of Charles VI., to the loud explosions which result in the
ejection on to a rug or a dress of a fragment of charcoal, the
germ of a conflagration. The heat, it is said, explodes a
bubble of air remaining in the heart of the wood, in the trail
of some gnawing grub. Inde amor, inde Burgundus. We
quake as we see the charred pieces coming down like an
avalanche when we had balanced them so industriously be-
tween two blazing logs. Oh ! making up a wood-fire when
you are in love is the material expression of your sentiments.
It was at this moment that I entered Eugene's room; he
started violently, and said
" So there you are, my dear Horace. How long have you
been here?"
" I have this moment come."
"Ah!"
He took the two letters, addressed them, and rang for his
servant.
" Take these two notes."
And Joseph went without a remark. Excellent servant !
And we proceeded to discuss the expedition to the Morea,
in which I wanted to be employed as surgeon. Eugene
pointed out that I should lose much by leaving Paris, and we
then talked of different things. I do not think I shall be
blamed for omitting our conversation.
When Madame de Listomere rose at about two in the after-
noon, her maid Caroline handed her a letter, which she read
while Caroline was dressing her hair. (An imprudence com-
mitted by a great many young wives.)
"Ah, dear angel of love, my treasure of life and happi-
ness! " on reading these words, the Marquise was going to
throw the letter into the fire ; but a fancy flashed through her
head, which any virtuous woman will understand to a marvel,
namely, to see how a man might end who began in this strain,
A STUDY OF WOMAN. 319
She read on. When she turned her fourth page, she dropped
her arms like a person who is tired.
" Caroline," said she, "go and find out who left this letter
for me."
" Madame, I took it from M. le Baron de Rastignac's man-
servant."
There was a long silence.
"Will Madame dress now?"
"No."
" He must be excessively impertinent ! " thought the Mar-
quise. I may ask any woman to make her own commentary.
Madame de Listomere closed hers with a formal resolution
to shut her door on Monsieur Eugene, and, if she should meet
him in company, to treat him with more than contempt ; for
his audacity was not to be compared with any of the other
instances which the Marquise had at last forgiven. At first
she thought she would keep the letter, but, on due reflection,
she burned it.
" Madame has just received such a flaming love-letter, and
she read it ! " said Caroline to the housemaid.
" I never should have thought it of Madame," said the old
woman, quite astonished.
That evening the Marquise was at the house of the Marquise
de Beauseant, where she would probably meet Rastignac. It
was a Saturday. The Marquise de Beauseant was distantly
related to Monsieur de Rastignac, so the young man could
not fail to appear in the course of the evening. At two in
the morning, Madame de Listomere, who had stayed so late
solely to crush Eugene by her coldness, had waited in vain.
A witty writer, Stendahl, has given the whimsical name of
crystallization to the process worked out by the Marquise's
mind before, during, and after this evening.
" Four days later Eugene was scolding his man-servant.
" Look here, Joseph; I shall be obliged to get rid of you,
my good fellow."
320 A STUDY OF WOMAN.
" I beg your pardon, sir ? "
" You do nothing but blunder. Where did you take the
two letters I gave you on Friday ? "
Joseph was bewildered. Like a statue in a cathedral
porch he stood motionless, wholly absorbed in the travail of
his ideas. Suddenly he smiled foolishly, and said
" Monsieur, one was for Madame la Marquise de Listomere,
Rue Saint-Dominique, and the other was for Monsieur's
lawyer "
" Are you sure of what you say ? "
Joseph stood dumbfounded. I must evidently interfere
happening to be present at the moment.
"Joseph is right," said I. Eugene turned round to me.
" I read the addresses quite involuntarily, and "
"And," said Eugene, interrupting me, "was not one of
them for Madame de Nucingen ? "
" No, by all the devils ! And so I supposed, my dear boy,
that your heart had pirouetted from the Rue Saint-Lazare to
the Rue Saint-Dominique."
Eugene struck his forehead with the palm of his hand, and
began to smile. Joseph saw plainly that the fault was none
of his.
Now, there are certain moral reflections on which all young
men should meditate. Mistake the first : Eugene thought it
amusing to have made Madame de Listomere laugh at the
blunder that had put her in possession of a love-letter which
was not intended for her. Mistake the second : He did not
go to see Madame de Listomere till four days after the misad-
venture, thus giving the thoughts of a virtuous young woman
time to crystallize. And there were a dozen more mistakes
which must be passed over in silence to give ladies exprofesso
the pleasure of deducing them for the benefit of those who
cannot guess them.
Eugene arrived at the Marquise's door; but as he was
going in, the porter stopped him, and told him that Madame
A STUDY OF WOMAN. 321
de Listomere was out. As he was getting into his carriage
again, the Marquis came in.
" Come up, Eugene," said he; " my wife is at home."
Oh ! forgive the Marquis. A husband, however admir-
able, scarcely ever attains to perfection.
Rastignac as he went upstairs discerned the ten fallacies
in worldly logic which stood on this page of the fair book
of his life.
When Madame de Listomere saw her husband come in
with Eugene, she could not help coloring. The young Baron
observed the sudden flush. If the most modest of men never
quite loses some little dregs of conceit, which he can no more
get rid of than a woman can throw off her inevitable vani-
ties, who can blame Eugene for saying to himself, "What !
this stronghold, too ? " and he settled his head in his cravat.
Though young men are not very avaricious, they all love to
add a head to their collection of medals.
Monsieur de Listomere seized on the Gazette de France,
which he saw in a corner by the fire-place, and went to the
window to form, by the help of the newspaper, an opinion
of his own as to the state of France. No woman, not even
a prude, is long in embarrassment even in the most difficult
situations in which she can find herself; she seems always to
carry in her hand the fig-leaf given to her by our mother
Eve. And so, when Eugene, having interpreted the orders
given to the porter in a sense flattering to his vanity, made
his bow to Madame de Listomere with a tolerably deliberate
air, she was able to conceal all her thoughts behind one of
those feminine smiles, which are more impenetrable than a
king's speech.
"Are you unwell, Madame? You had closed your door."
" No, Monsieur."
" You were going out perhaps ? "
"Not at all."
"You are expecting somebody ? "
322 A STUDY OF WOMAtf.
" Nobody."
"If my visit is ill-timed, you have only the Marquis to
blame. I was obeying your mysterious orders when he him-
self invited me into the sanctuary."
" Monsieur de Listomere was not in my confidence. There
are certain secrets which it is not always prudent to share with
one's husband."
The firm, mild tone in which the Marquise spoke these
words, and the imposing dignity of her glance, were enough
to make Rastignac feel that he had been in too much haste to
plume himself.
"I understand, Madame," said he, laughing; "I must
therefore congratulate myself all the more on having met
Monsieur le Marquis ; he has procured me an opportunity for
offering you an explanation, which would be fraught with
danger, but that you are kindness itself."
The Marquise looked at the young Baron with considerable
astonishment, but she replied with dignity.
"On your part, Monsieur, silence will be the best excuse.
On my side I promise you to forget entirely a forgiveness
you scarcely merit.
" Forgiveness is needless, Madame, where there has been
no offence. The letter you received," he added in an under-
tone, " and which you must have thought so unseemly, was
not intended for you."
The Marquise smiled in spite of herself; she wished to
appear offended.
"Why tell a falsehood?" she replied with an air of dis-
dainful amusement, but in a very friendly tone. " Now that
I have scolded you enough, I am quite ready to laugh at a
stratagem not devoid of skill. I know some poor women who
would be caught by it. " Good heavens, how he loves me ! "
they would say. She forced a laugh, and added with an
indulgent air, "If we are to remain friends, let me hear
nothing more of mistakes of which I cannot be the dupe."
A STUDY OF WOMAN. 323
" On my honor, Madame, you are far more so than you
fancy," Eugene eagerly replied.
" What are you talking about ? " asked Monsieur de Listo-
mere, who for a minute had been listening to the conver-
sation, without being able to pierce the darkness of its
meaning.
"Oh, nothing that will interest you," said Madame de
Listomere.
The Marquis quietly returned to his paper, saying, "I
see Madame de Mortsauf is dead ; your poor brother is at
Clochegourde no doubt."
"Do you know, Monsieur," said the Marquise, address-
ing Eugene, " that you have just made a very impertinent
speech?"
"If I did not know the strictness of your principles,"
he replied simply, " I should fancy you either meant to
put ideas into my head which I dare not allow myself, or
to wring my secret from me ; or perhaps, indeed, you wish
to make fun of me."
The Marquise smiled. This smile put Eugene out of
patience.
" May you always believe, Madame, in the offence I did
not commit ! " said he. "And I fervently hope that chance
may not lead you to discover in society the person who was
intended to read that letter "
" What ! Still Madame de Nucingen ? " cried Madame de
Listomere, more anxious to master the secret than to be
revenged on the young man for his retort.
Eugene reddened. A man must be more than five-and-
twenty not to redden when he is blamed for the stupid
fidelity which women laugh at only to avoid betraying how
much they envy its object. However, he said, calmly
enough, "Why not, Madame?"
These are the blunders we commit at five-and-twenty.
This confession agitated Madame de Listomere violently;
324 A STUDY OF WOMAN.
but Eugene was not yet able to analyze a woman's face
as seen in a glimpse, or from one side. Only her lips
turned white. She rang to have some wood put on the fire,
and so obliged Eugene to rise to take leave. "If that is the
case," said the Marquise, stopping Eugene by her cold, pre-
cise manner, " you will find it difficult, Monsieur, to explain
by what chance my name happened to come to your pen. An
address written on a letter is not like the first-come crush hat
which a man may heedlessly take for his own on leaving a
ball."
Eugene, put quite out of countenance, looked at the Mar-
quise with a mingled expression of stupidity and fatuous-
ness ; he felt that he was ridiculous, stammered out some
schoolboy speech, and left. A few days later Madame de
Listomere had indisputable proof of Eugene's veracity.
For more than a fortnight she has not gone into society.
The Marquis tells every one who asks him the reason of this
change
" My wife has a gastric attack."
I, who attend her, and who know her secret, know that
she is only suffering from a little nervous crisis, and takes
advantage of it to stay quietly at home.
PARIS, February, 1839.
Jvn
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