s so? I
fancied myself under some fatal spell; the unhappy events of my past
life rose up and struggled with the purely personal pleasure I had just
enjoyed. Before reaching Frapesle I turned to look at Clochegourde
and saw beneath its windows a little boat, called in Touraine a punt,
fastened to an ash-tree and swaying on the water. This punt belonged to
Monsieur de Mortsauf, who used it for fishing.

"Well," said Monsieur de Chessel, when we were out of ear-shot. "I
needn't ask if you found those shoulders; I must, however, congratulate
you on the reception Monsieur de Mortsauf gave you. The devil! you
stepped into his heart at once."

These words followed by those I have already quoted to you raised my
spirits. I had not as yet said a word, and Monsieur de Chessel may have
attributed my silence to happiness.

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"He never, to my knowledge, received any one so well."

"I will admit that I am rather surprised myself," I said, conscious of a
certain bitterness underlying my companion's speech.

Though I was too inexpert in social matters to understand its cause, I
was much struck by the feeling Monsieur de Chessel betrayed. His real
name was Durand, but he had had the weakness to discard the name of
a worthy father, a merchant who had made a large fortune under
the Revolution. His wife was sole heiress of the Chessels, an old
parliamentary family under Henry IV., belonging to the middle classes,
as did most of the Parisian magistrates. Ambitious of higher flights
Monsieur de Chessel endeavored to smother the original Durand. He first
called himself Durand de Chessel, then D. de Chessel, and that made him
Monsieur de Chessel. Under the Restoration he entailed an estate with
the title of count in virtue of letters-patent from Louis XVIII. His
children reaped the fruits of his audacity without knowing what it cost
him in sarcastic comments. Parvenus are like monkeys, whose cleverness
they possess; we watch them climbing, we admire their agility, but
once at the summit we see only their absurd and contemptible parts. The
reverse side of my host's character was made up of pettiness with the
addition of envy. The peerage and he were on diverging lines. To have an
ambition and gratify it shows merely the insolence of strength, but to
live below one's avowed ambition is a constant source of ridicule
to petty minds. Monsieur de Chessel did not advance with the
straightforward step of a strong man