me, as you suggest,
I shall marry you at the end of this week."

Raphael was now the happiest man in Paris. Seeing that the magic skin
had not shrunk with his last wish, he thought that the spell over his
life was removed. And that morning he had thrown the talisman down a
disused well in the garden.

At the end of the week, Pauline was sitting at breakfast with Raphael in
the conservatory overlooking the garden. She was wearing a light
dressing-gown; her long hair was all dishevelled, and her little, white,
blue-veined feet peeped out of their velvet slippers. She gave a little
cry of dismay, when the gardener appeared.

"I've just found this strange thing at the bottom of one of the wells,"
he said.

He gave Raphael the magic skin. It was now scarcely as large as a rose
leaf.

"Leave me, Pauline! Leave me at once!" cried Raphael. "If you remain I
shall die before your eyes."

"Die?" she said. "Die? You cannot. I love you--I love you!"

"Yes, die!" he exclaimed, showing her the little bit of skin. "Look,
dearest. This is a talisman which represents the length of my life, and
accomplishes my wishes. You see how little is left."

Pauline thought he had suddenly grown mad. She bent over him, and took
up the magic skin. As Raphael saw her, beautiful with love and terror,
he lost all control over his desires. To possess her again, and die on
her breast!

"Come to me Pauline!" he said.

She felt the skin tickling her hand as it rapidly shrivelled up. She
rushed into the bedroom, and closed the door.

"Pauline! Pauline!" cried the dying man, stumbling after her. "I love
you! I want you! I wish to die for you!"

With extraordinary strength--the last outburst of life--he tore the door
off the hinges, and saw Pauline in agony on a sofa. She had stabbed
herself.

"If I die, he will live!" she was crying.

Raphael staggered across the room, and fell into the arms of beautiful
Pauline, dead.

* * * * *

The Quest of the Absolute

"La Recherche de l'Absolu" was published in 1834, with a
touching dedication to Madame Josephine Delannoy: "Madame, may
it please God that this, my book, may live when I am dead,
that the gratitude which is due from me to you, and which
equals, I trust, your motherlike generosity to me, may hope to
endure beyond the limits set to human love." The novel became
a part of the "Human Comedy" in 1845. The struggle of