ing, in spite of the magnificence of the house,
it is quite possible that Madame la Marquise is in debt."

"What makes you think so?"

"I do not assert it; I am supposing. She talked of her soul as Louis
XVIII. used to talk of his heart. I tell you this: That fragile, fair
woman, with her chestnut hair, who pities herself that she may be
pitied, enjoys an iron constitution, an appetite like a wolf's, and
the strength and cowardice of a tiger. Gauze, and silk, and muslin were
never more cleverly twisted round a lie! Ecco."

"Bianchon, you frighten me! You have learned a good many things, then,
since we lived in the Maison Vauquer?"

"Yes, since then, my boy, I have seen puppets, both dolls and manikins.
I know something of the ways of the fine ladies whose bodies we attend
to, saving that which is dearest to them, their child--if they love
it--or their pretty faces, which they always worship. A man spends
his nights by their pillow, wearing himself to death to spare them the
slightest loss of beauty in any part; he succeeds, he keeps their secret
like the dead; they send to ask for his bill, and think it horribly
exorbitant. Who saved them? Nature. Far from recommending him, they
speak ill of him, fearing lest he should become the physician of their
best friends.

"My dear fellow, those women of whom you say, 'They are angels!'
I--I--have seen stripped of the little grimaces under which they hide
their soul, as well as of the frippery under which they disguise their
defects--without manners and without stays; they are not beautiful.

"We saw a great deal of mud, a great deal of dirt, under the waters of
the world when we were aground for a time on the shoals of the Maison
Vauquer.--What we saw there was nothing. Since I have gone into high
society, I have seen monsters dressed in satin, Michonneaus in white
gloves, Poirets bedizened with orders, fine gentlemen doing more
usurious business than old Gobseck! To the shame of mankind, when I have
wanted to shake hands with Virtue, I have found her shivering in a loft,
persecuted by calumny, half-starving on a income or a salary of fifteen
hundred francs a year, and regarded as crazy, or eccentric, or imbecile.

"In short, my dear boy, the Marquise is a woman of fashion, and I have
a particular horror of that kind of woman. Do you want to know why? A
woman who has a lofty soul, fine taste, gentle wit, a generously warm
heart, and who lives a simple life, has not a chan