ued
to search the _Human Comedy_ for a woman resembling Evelyn. "You are
essentially Balzacian--all interesting things are--but I cannot remember
any woman in the _Human Comedy_ like you--Honorine, perhaps."

"What does she do?"

"She's a married woman who has left her husband for a lover who very
soon deserts her. Her husband tries in vain to love other women, but
his wife holds his affections and he makes every effort to win her back.
The story is mainly an account of these efforts."

"Does he succeed?"

"Yes. Honorine goes back to her husband, but it cost her her life. She
cannot live with a man she doesn't love. That is the point of the
story."

"I wonder why that should remind you of me?"

"There is something delicate, rare, and mystical about you both. But I
can't say I place _Honorine_ very high among Balzac's works. There are
beautiful touches in it, but I think he failed to realise the type. You
are more virile, more real to me than Honorine. No; on the whole, Balzac
has not done you. He perceived you dimly. If he had lived it might, it
certainly would, have been otherwise. There is, of course, the Duchesse
Langeais. There is something of you in her; but she is no more than a
brilliant sketch, no better than Honorine. There is Eugene Grandet. But
no; Balzac never painted your portrait."

Like all good talkers, he knew how to delude his listeners into the
belief that they were taking an important part in the conversation. He
allowed them to speak, he solicited their opinions, and listened as if
they awakened the keenest interest in him; he developed what they had
vaguely suggested. He paused before their remarks, he tempted his
listener into personal appreciations and sudden revelations of
character. He addressed an intimate vanity and became the inspiration of
every choice, and in a mysterious reticulation of emotions, tastes and
ideas, life itself seemed to converge to his ultimate authority. And
having induced recognition of the wisdom of his wishes, he knew how to
make his yoke agreeable to bear; it never galled the back that bore it,
it lay upon it soft as a silken gown. Evelyn enjoyed the gentle
imposition of his will. Obedience became a delight, and in its
intellectual sloth life floated as in an opium dream without end,
dissolving as the sunset dissolves in various modulations. Obedience is
a divine sensualism; it is the sensualism of the saints; its lassitudes
are animated with deep pauses and