o Lousteau what Mademoiselle Delachaux was to
Gardane in Diderot's noble and true tale. But while sacrificing herself,
she committed the magnanimous blunder of sacrificing dress. She had her
gowns dyed, and wore nothing but black. She stank of black, as Malaga
said, making fun mercilessly of Lousteau.

By the end of 1839, Etienne, following the example of Louis XV., had,
by dint of gradual capitulations of conscience, come to the point of
establishing a distinction between his own money and the housekeeping
money, just as Louis XV. drew the line between his privy purse and the
public moneys. He deceived Dinah as to his earnings. On discovering
this baseness, Madame de la Baudraye went through fearful tortures of
jealousy. She wanted to live two lives--the life of the world and the
life of a literary woman; she accompanied Lousteau to every first-night
performance, and could detect in him many impulses of wounded vanity,
for her black attire rubbed off, as it were, on him, clouding his brow,
and sometimes leading him to be quite brutal. He was really the woman of
the two; and he had all a woman's exacting perversity; he would reproach
Dinah for the dowdiness of her appearance, even while benefiting by the
sacrifice, which to a mistress is so cruel--exactly like a woman who,
after sending a man through a gutter to save her honor, tells him she
"cannot bear dirt!" when he comes out.

Dinah then found herself obliged to gather up the rather loose reins
of power by which a clever woman drives a man devoid of will. But in
so doing she could not fail to lose much of her moral lustre. Such
suspicions as she betrayed drag a woman into quarrels which lead to
disrespect, because she herself comes down from the high level on which
she had at first placed herself. Next she made some concession; Lousteau
was allowed to entertain several of his friends--Nathan, Bixiou,
Blondet, Finot, whose manners, language, and intercourse were depraving.
They tried to convince Madame de la Baudraye that her principles and
aversions were a survival of provincial prudishness; and they preached
the creed of woman's superiority.

Before long, her jealousy put weapons into Lousteau's hands. During
the carnival of 1840, she disguised herself to go to the balls at the
Opera-house, and to suppers where she met courtesans, in order to keep
an eye on all Etienne's amusements.

On the day of Mid-Lent--or rather, at eight on the morning after--Dinah
came h