ding spirit is a Madame de la Chanterie, and
whose members are a priest and three old gentlemen. These people are
devoting what remains to them of their existence to alleviating pain
and distress. Godefroi is admitted into the association, and, during
his novice expedition, has a curious experience which leads to the
disclosure of Madame de la Chanterie's past. This is narrated in the
second half of the book. We get the whole of that lady's tragic
history, an unjust trial of which she was the victim, the Nemesis
which punished the bad judge in his daughter's frightful malady and
his poverty, and the heaping of coals of fire on his head by the woman
who had suffered so direly through him. On arriving at the end of the
story we cannot recognize it as the one we were made acquainted with
at the outset. The tangle of episode and explanation--the latter
confusing more than it explains--which intervenes in the middle,
issues in a coarser thread that persists till the close. And yet the
start was a fair one.

With _Cousin Bette_, we are back among the monstrosities. Bette is the
poor relation who, unlike Pons, revenges herself for her humiliations
and the insults bestowed on her. She aids in the pecuniary and moral
ruin of the Hulot family, acts in cold blood, and attains her object
before she dies. She is not the only perverted nature delineated.
There is the Baron Hulot, whose odious licentiousness brings him to a
veritable cretinism. There is Crevel, a grotesque, contemptible dupe;
there are the Marneffes, sinks of corruption; and, with these, other
minor characters--the vindictive Brazilian who wreaks his wrath on
Madame Marneffe and on Crevel by his mysterious death-causing gift.
The ideally virtuous Adeline Hulot also the novelist belittles, making
her offer herself to Crevel to save her husband from the consequences
of his degrading passions. Nearly all the book is harrowing, and even
the atmosphere of the bohemian circles, where conversation is one
sparkle of satire, is heavily tainted with vice.

George Sand protested against Madame Hulot's portrait as unnatural;
and, herself being the contrary of prudish in sexual relations, the
opinion cannot be called prejudiced. Balzac defended his treatment,
while admitting there was force in what she said. Arguing with her on
their respective methods, he replied: "You seek to paint man as he
ought to be. I take him as he is. Believe me, we are both right. Both
ways lead to the