Another Study of Woman | Page 6

her name or
recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret.
He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is
gone," said the Minister, looking round.
"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.
"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on, "but
incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and the
frail joy of the young. I treasured /her/ old gloves; I drank an infusion
of the flowers /she/ had worn; I got out of bed at night to go and gaze at
/her/ window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled the
perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a
stove with a marble casing."
"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de Montcornet
with a smile.
"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who
first uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said de Marsay.
"You are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point.
These few words will remind you of your own follies.
"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children--oh! all

was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can
we fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?
"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what
charm we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was
perfection then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful
women in Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to
win one of her glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune
sufficient for a woman who had loved and was adored; but the
Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre, made it seem
inadequate in comparison with her name. In my position I was so
fatuous as never to dream of a suspicion. Though my jealousy would
have been of a hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion
slumbered in me as gold in the nugget. I would have ordered my
servant to thrash me if I had been so base as ever to doubt the purity of
that angel--so fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless,
and whose blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very depths of
her heart with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the slightest
hesitancy in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and fresh, and
ready for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!' Ah!
my friends!" sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a man
must hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"
This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the curiosity
he had excited in them with so much skill.
"Every morning, riding Sultan--the fine horse you sent me from
England," de Marsay went on, addressing Lord Dudley, "I rode past her
open carriage, the horses' pace being intentionally reduced to a walk,
and read the order of the day signaled to me by the flowers of her
bouquet in case we were unable to exchange a few words. Though we
saw each other almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me
every day, to deceive the curious and mislead the observant we had
adopted a scheme of conduct: never to look at each other; to avoid
meeting; to speak ill of each other. Self-admiration, swagger, or
playing the disdained swain,--all these old manoeuvres are not to
compare on either part with a false passion professed for an indifferent
person and an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two lovers

will only play that game, the world will always be deceived; but then
they must be very secure of each other.
"Her stalking-horse was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and
sanctimonious, whom she never received at her own house. This little
comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing-room
circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken of between us;
six years' difference of age might give her pause; she knew nothing of
my fortune, of which, on principle, I have always kept the secret. I, on
my part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the extent of her
knowledge and her experience of the world, would have married her
without a thought. At the