d gold-fringed cloths. There were skirts with
trains; deep mysteries, anguish hidden beneath smiles. Then came the
society of the duchesses; all were pale; all got up at four o'clock; the
women, poor angels, wore English point on their petticoats; and the men,
unappreciated geniuses under a frivolous outward seeming, rode horses to
death at pleasure parties, spent the summer season at Baden, and towards
the forties married heiresses. In the private rooms of restaurants,
where one sups after midnight by the light of wax candles, laughed the
motley crowd of men of letters and actresses. They were prodigal as
kings, full of ideal, ambitious, fantastic frenzy. This was an existence
outside that of all others, between heaven and earth, in the midst of
storms, having something of the sublime. For the rest of the world it
was lost, with no particular place, and as if non-existent. The nearer
things were, moreover, the more her thoughts turned away from them. All
her immediate surroundings, the wearisome country, the middle-class
imbeciles, the mediocrity of existence, seemed to her exceptional, a
peculiar chance that had caught hold of her, while beyond stretched as
far as eye could see an immense land of joys and of passions. She
confused in her desire the sensualities of luxury with the delights of
the heart, elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment. Did not love,
like Indian plants, need a special soil, a particular temperature? Sighs
by moonlight, long embraces, tears flowing over yielded hands, all the
fevers of the flesh and the languors of tenderness could not be
separated from the balconies of great castles full of indolence, from
boudoirs with silken curtains and thick carpets, well-filled
flower-stands, a bed on a raised dais, nor from the flashing of precious
stones and the shoulder-knots of liveries.

The lad from the posting-house, who came to groom the mare every
morning, passed through the passage with his heavy wooden shoes; there
were holes in his blouse; his feet were bare in list slippers. And this
was the groom in knee-breeches with whom she had to be content! His work
done, he did not come back again all day, for Charles on his return put
up his horse himself, unsaddled him and put on the halter, while the
servant-girl brought a bundle of straw and threw it as best she could
into the manger.

To replace Nastasie (who left Tostes shedding torrents of tears) Emma
took into her service a young girl of