ow him unseen, for lovers rarely look
behind them. She escorted him as far as Madame Hulot's house, where he
went in like an accustomed visitor.

This crowning proof, confirming Madame Marneffe's revelations, put
Lisbeth quite beside herself.

She arrived at the newly promoted Major's door in the state of mental
irritation which prompts men to commit murder, and found Monsieur Crevel
_senior_ in his drawing-room awaiting his children, Monsieur and Madame
Hulot _junior_.

But Celestin Crevel was so unconscious and so perfect a type of the
Parisian parvenu, that we can scarcely venture so unceremoniously into
the presence of Cesar Birotteau's successor. Celestin Crevel was a world
in himself; and he, even more than Rivet, deserves the honors of the
palette by reason of his importance in this domestic drama.

Have you ever observed how in childhood, or at the early stages of
social life, we create a model for our own imitation, with our own
hands as it were, and often without knowing it? The banker's clerk, for
instance, as he enters his master's drawing-room, dreams of possessing
such another. If he makes a fortune, it will not be the luxury of
the day, twenty years later, that you will find in his house, but the
old-fashioned splendor that fascinated him of yore. It is impossible to
tell how many absurdities are due to this retrospective jealousy; and
in the same way we know nothing of the follies due to the covert rivalry
that urges men to copy the type they have set themselves, and exhaust
their powers in shining with a reflected light, like the moon.

Crevel was deputy mayor because his predecessor had been; he was Major
because he coveted Cesar Birotteau's epaulettes. In the same way,
struck by the marvels wrought by Grindot the architect, at the time
when Fortune had carried his master to the top of the wheel, Crevel had
"never looked at both sides of a crown-piece," to use his own language,
when he wanted to "do up" his rooms; he had gone with his purse open and
his eyes shut to Grindot, who by this time was quite forgotten. It
is impossible to guess how long an extinct reputation may survive,
supported by such stale admiration.

So Grindot, for the thousandth time had displayed his white-and-gold
drawing-room paneled with crimson damask. The furniture, of rosewood,
clumsily carved, as such work is done for the trade, had in the country
been the source of just pride in Paris workmanship on the occasion of