s. Now
in the social order, as in Nature's order, there are more young shoots
than there are trees, more spawn than full-grown fish, and many great
capacities (Athanase Granson, for instance) which die withered for want
of moisture, like seeds on stony ground. There are, unquestionably,
household women, accomplished women, ornamental women, women who are
exclusively wives, or mothers, or sweethearts, women purely spiritual
or purely material; just as there are soldiers, artists, artisans,
mathematicians, poets, merchants, men who understand money, or
agriculture, or government, and nothing else. Besides all this, the
eccentricity of events leads to endless cross-purposes; many are called
and few are chosen is the law of earth as of heaven. Madame Rabourdin
conceived herself fully capable of directing a statesman, inspiring an
artist, helping an inventor and pushing his interests, or of devoting
her powers to the financial politics of a Nucingen, and playing a
brilliant part in the great world. Perhaps she was only endeavouring to
excuse to her own mind a hatred for the laundry lists and the duty of
overlooking the housekeeping bills, together with the petty economies
and cares of a small establishment. She was superior only in those
things where it gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling as keenly as she
did the thorns of a position which can only be likened to that of
Saint-Laurence on his grid-iron, is it any wonder that she sometimes
cried out? So, in her paroxysms of thwarted ambition, in the moments
when her wounded vanity gave her terrible shooting pains, Celestine
turned upon Xavier Rabourdin. Was it not her husband's duty to give her
a suitable position in the world? If she were a man she would have had
the energy to make a rapid fortune for the sake of rendering an adored
wife happy! She reproached him for being too honest a man. In the mouth
of some women this accusation is a charge of imbecility. She sketched
out for him certain brilliant plans in which she took no account of the
hindrances imposed by men and things; then, like all women under the
influence of vehement feeling, she became in thought as Machiavellian
as Gondreville, and more unprincipled than Maxime de Trailles. At such
times Celestine's mind took a wide range, and she imagined herself at
the summit of her ideas.

When these fine visions first began Rabourdin, who saw the practical
side, was cool. Celestine, much grieved, thought her husband
narr