he might be drinking a glass of champagne, that dreamy look, that
air of silently despising life, that nebulous expression which belongs,
though for other reasons, to _blases_ men,--men dissatisfied with hollow
lives. To love without hope, to be disgusted with life, constitute, in
these days, a social position. The enterprise of winning the heart of
a sovereign might give, perhaps, more hope than a love rashly conceived
for a happy woman. Therefore Maulincour had sufficient reason to be
grave and gloomy. A queen has the vanity of her power; the height of her
elevation protects her. But a pious _bourgeoise_ is like a hedgehog, or
an oyster, in its rough wrappings.

At this moment the young officer was beside his unconscious mistress,
who certainly was unaware that she was doubly faithless. Madame
Jules was seated, in a naive attitude, like the least artful woman in
existence, soft and gentle, full of a majestic serenity. What an abyss
is human nature! Before beginning a conversation, the baron looked
alternately at the wife and at the husband. How many were the
reflections he made! He recomposed the "Night Thoughts" of Young in a
second. And yet the music was sounding through the salons, the light was
pouring from a thousand candles. It was a banker's ball,--one of those
insolent festivals by means of which the world of solid gold endeavored
to sneer at the gold-embossed salons where the faubourg Saint-Germain
met and laughed, not foreseeing the day when the bank would invade the
Luxembourg and take its seat upon the throne. The conspirators were now
dancing, indifferent to coming bankruptcies, whether of Power or of
the Bank. The gilded salons of the Baron de Nucingen were gay with that
peculiar animation that the world of Paris, apparently joyous at any
rate, gives to its fetes. There, men of talent communicate their wit to
fools, and fools communicate that air of enjoyment that characterizes
them. By means of this exchange all is liveliness. But a ball in Paris
always resembles fireworks to a certain extent; wit, coquetry, and
pleasure sparkle and go out like rockets. The next day all present have
forgotten their wit, their coquetry, their pleasure.

"Ah!" thought Auguste, by way of conclusion, "women are what the vidame
says they are. Certainly all those dancing here are less irreproachable
actually than Madame Jules appears to be, and yet Madame Jules went to
the rue Soly!"

The rue Soly was like an illness to hi