Latest / The Man of the House / Another Study of Woman - Honore de Balzac

Transcript

Another Study of Woman - Honore de Balzac · The Man of the House

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section one of another study of women. This is the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Recording by Nicholas Clifford, Middlebury, Vermont, U s A. Another
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Marriage eighteen sixty five to nineteen forty six and others.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Section one. At Paris, there are almost always two separate
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: parties going on at every ball and route. First, an
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: official party composed of the persons invited, a fashionable and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: much bored circle. Each one grimaces for his neighbor's I.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Most of the younger women are there for one person
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: only when each woman has assured herself that for that
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: one she is the handsomest woman in the room, and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that the opinion is perhaps shared by a few others.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: A few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as do you think
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of going away soon to la chromparde, how well, Madame
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: de Porten duer sang, who is that little woman with
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: such a load of diamonds? Or after firing off some
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: smart epigrams which give transient pleasure and leave wounds that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere look is
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: on go away, and the wax lights burn down to
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the sconces the mistress of the house. Then waylays a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: few artists, amusing people or intimate friends, saying, do not
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: go yet, we will have a snug little supper. These
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: collect in some small room. The second the real party,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: now begins a party where as of old, every one
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: can hear what is said conversations general. Each one is
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: bound to be witty and to contribute to the amusement
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: of all. Everything is made to tell honest laughter takes
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the place of the gloom, which company saddens the prettiest faces.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: In short, where the route ends, pleasure begins the route
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a cold display of luxury, a review of self conceits
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: in full dress. Is one of those English inventions which
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: tend to mechanize other nations. England seems bent on seeing
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the whole world as dull as itself, and dull in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the same way. So this second party is, in some
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: French houses, a happy protest on the part of the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: old spirit of our light hearted people. Only unfortunately, so
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: few houses protest, and the reason is a simple one.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: If we no longer have many suppers nowadays. It is
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: because never under any rule have there been fewer men placed,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: established and successful than under the reign of Louis Philippe.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: When the revolution began again lawfully, everybody is on the march,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: some whither or trotting at the heels of fortune. Time
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: has begun from the costliest commodity, so no one can
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: afford the lavish extravagance of going home tomorrow morning and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: getting up late. Hence there is no second soiree now
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: but at the houses of women rich enough to entertain,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And since July eighteen thirty such women may be counted
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: in Paris. In spite of the covert opposition of the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Faubours Saint Germains, two or three women, among them Madame
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: despal and Mademoiselle de Touche, have not chosen to give
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: up the share of influence they exercised in Paris, and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: have not closed their houses. The salon of Mademoiselle de
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Touche is noted in Paris as being the last refuge
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: where the old French wit has found a home, with
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: its reserved depths, its myriad subtle byways, and this exquisite
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: politeness you will there still find grace of manner, notwithstanding
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the conventionalities of courtesy, perfect freedom of talk, notwithstanding the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: reserve which is natural to persons of breeding, and above
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: all a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of keeping his thought for a play, and no one
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: regards a story as material for a book. In short,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the hideous skeleton of literature at Bay never stalks there
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: on the prowl for a clever sally or an interesting subject.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: The memory of one of these evenings especially dwells with
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: me less by reason of a confidence in which the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: illustrious de Marse opened up one of the deepest recesses
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of woman's heart, than on account of the reflections to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: which his narrative gave rise. As to the changes that
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: have taken place in the frenchwoman since the fateful Revolution
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of July, on that evening, chance had brought together several
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: persons whose indisputable merits have won the European reputations. This
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: is not a piece of flattery addressed to France, for
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: there were a good many foreigners present, and indeed the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: men who most shonn were not the most famous ingenious repartee.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Acute remarks, admirable banter pictures sketched with brilliant precision, all
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: sparkled and flowed without elaboration, were poured out without disdain
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: but without effort, and were exquisitely expressed and delicately appreciated.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: The men of the world especially, were conscious for their
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: really artistic grace and spirit. Elsewhere in Europe you will
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: find elegant manners, cordiality, genial fellowship and knowledge. But only
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: in Paris, in this drawing room and those to which
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I have alluded, does the particular wit abound, which gives
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: an agreeable and changeful unity to all these social qualities,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: an indescribable river like flow which makes this profusion of ideas,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of definitions, of anecdotes of historical incidents meander with ease. Paris,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the capital of taste, alone possesses the science which makes
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: conversation attorney, in which each type of wit is condensed
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: into a shaft. Each speaker utters his phrase and cast
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: his experience in a word in which everyone finds amusement, relaxation,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and exercise. Here, then alone will you exchange ideas. Here
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: You need not, like the dolphin and the fable, carry
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a monkey on your shoulders. Here you will be understood,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and will not risk staking your gold pieces against base metal.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Here again secrets neatly betrayed, and talk lighter, deep play
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and eddy changing their aspect and hue, and every phrase,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: eager criticism and crisp anecdotes lead from one to the next.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: All eyes are listening. A gesture asks a question, and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: then expressive look gives the answer. In short and in
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a word, everything is wit and mine. The phenomenon of speech, which,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: when yuly studied and well handled, is the power of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the actor and the story teller, had never so completely
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: bewitched me, nor was I alone under the influence of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: its spell. We all spent a delightful evening. The conversation
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: had drifted into anecdote and brought out, in its rushing course,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: some curious confessions, several portraits, and a thousand follies, which
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: make this enchanting improvisation impossible to record. Still, By setting
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: these things down, in all their natural freshness and abruptness,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: their elusive devarications, you may perhaps feel the charm of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a real French evening, taken at the moment when the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: most engaging familiarity makes each one forget his own interests,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: his personal conceit, or if you like, his pretensions. At
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: about two in the morning, as supper ended, no one
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: was left sitting round the table, but illipit friends proved
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: by intercourse of fifteen years, and some persons of great
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: taste and good breeding, who knew the world. By tacit
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: agreement perfectly carried out at supper, every one renounced his
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: pretensions to importance. Perfect equality set the tone. But indeed
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: there was no one present who was not very proud
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: of being himself. Mademoiselle de Touche always insisted on her
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: guests remaining at table till they leave, having frequently remarked
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a change which a move produces in the spirit of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a party between the dining room and a drawing room,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the charm is destroyed. According to Sterne, the ideas of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: an author after shaving are different from those he had before.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: If Sterne is right, may it not be boldly asserted
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that the frame of mind of a party at table
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: is not the same as that of the same person's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: return to the drawing room. The atmosphere is not heavy,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the eye no longer contemplates the brilliant disorder.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Of the dessert.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Lost are the happy effects of that laxness of mood,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: that benevolence which comes over us, while we remain in
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the humor peculiar to the well filled man settled comfortably
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: on one of the springy chairs which are made in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: these days, Perhaps we are not more ready to talk
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: face to face with the dessert, and in the society
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of good wine during the delightful interval when every one
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: may sit with an elbow on the table and his
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: head resting on his hand. Not only does every one
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: like to talk then, but also to listen the gestion,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: which is almost always a tent, is loquacious or silent.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: As characters differ, then every one finds his opportunity. Was
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of the narrative by which a celebrated man now dead
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: depicted the innocent jesuitry of women, painting it with a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: subtlely peculiar to persons who have seen much of them
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the world, and which makes statesmen such as delightful story tellers, when,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: like Prince Taleheran and Prince Metinich, they vouchsafe to tell
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a story. De Marseilles prime minister for some six months
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: had already even proofs of superior capabilities. Those who had
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: known him long were not indeed surprised to see him
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: display all the talents and various aptitudes of a statesman. Still,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: it might yet be a question whether he would prove
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to be a solid politician or had merely been molded
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in the fire of circumstance. This question had just been
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: asked by a man whom he had made a prephe,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: a man of wit and observation, who had for a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: long time been a journalist, and who admired De Marseilles,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: without confusing into his admiration that dash of acrid criticism
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: by which in Paris one superior man excused as himself
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: from admiring another. Was there, ever, said he, in your
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: former life, any event? And he thought or wish which
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: told you what your vacation was, asked Emil Blonde. For
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we all, like Duton, have our apple which falls and
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: leads us to the spot where our faculties develop. Yes,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: said de Marseilles, I will tell you about it. Pretty women,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: political dandies, artists, old men. De Marseilles's intimate friends all
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: settled themselves comfortably, each in his favored attitude to look
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: at the minister. Need it be said that the servants
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: had left, that the doors were shut and the curtains
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: drawn over them. The silence was so complete that the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: murmurs of the coachman's voices could be heard from the courtyard,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and the pawing and champing made by horses when asking
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to be taken back to their stable. The statesman, my friends,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: exists by one single quality, said the Minister, playing with
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: his gold and mother of pearl dessert knife, to wit,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the power of always being master of it self, of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: profiting more or less under all circumstances, by every event,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: however fortuitous, in short of having within himself a cold
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and disinterested other self, who looks on as a spectator
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: at all the changes of life, noting our passions and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: our sentiments, and whispering to us in every case the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: judgment of a sort of moral ready reckoner. That explains
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: why a statesman is so rare a thing in France,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: said old Lord Dudley. From a sentimental point of view,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: this is horrible, the minister went on. Hence, when such
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a phenomenon is seen in a young man, Richilieu, who
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: when warned over night by a letter of Concini's peril
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: sleck till midday when his manufactor was killed at ten o'clock,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: or say Pitt or Napoleon. He was a monster. I
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: became such a monster at a very early age, thanks
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to a woman I fancied, said Madame de Montcornay, with
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a smile. That more politicians were undone by us than.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: We could make.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: The monster of which I speak is the monster just
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: because he withstands you, replied de Marseille, with a little
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: ironical bow.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: If this is a love.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Story, the Baron de nisse Jan interposed, I request that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: it may not be interrupted by any reflections. Reflection is
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: so antipathetic to it, cried Joseph Bridau. I was seventeen.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: De Marcieres went on. The restoration was being consolidated. My
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was. Then
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I was in love for the first time, and I was,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I may say so now, one of the handsomest young
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks. Two
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: advantage is due to good fortune, but of which we
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: are all as proud as of a conquest. I must
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: be silent as to the rest. Like all youths, I
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: was in love with a woman six years older than myself.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: No one of you here, said he, looking carefully round
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the table. Can suspect her name or recognize her? Roncerroll,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: at the time, ever guessed my secret. He had kept
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it well, but I should have feared his smile. However,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: he is gone, said the minister, looking round. He would
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: not stay to supper, said Madame de luicy.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Jean, for six months.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Possessed by my passion, De Marseilles went on, but incapable
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: of suspecting that it had overmastered me. I had abandoned
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: myself to that rapturous idolatry, which is at once the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: triumph and the frail joy of the young. I treasured
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: her old gloves. I drank an infusion of the flowers
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: she had worn. I got out of bed at night
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to go and gaze at her window. All my blood
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: rushed to my heart when I inhaled the perfume she used.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I was miles away from knowing that woman is a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: stove with a marble casing. Oh spars, your terrible verdicts,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: cried Madame de Montcort, with a smile. I believe I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: should have crushed with my scorn. The philosopher who first
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought said, doalce, you
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: are all far too keen sighted for me to say
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: any more on that point. These few words will remind
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you of your own follies. A great lady, if ever
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: there was one, a widow without children, oh all was perfect.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: My idol would shut herself up to mark my linen
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: with her hair. In short, she responded to my madness
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: by her own. And how can we fail to believe
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: in passion when it has the guarantee of madness. We
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: perfect and so beautiful from the eyes of the world,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and we succeeded. And what charm we found in our
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: escapades of her? I will say nothing. She was perfection then,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and to this day is considered one of the most
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: beautiful women in Paris. But at that time a man
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: would have endured death to win one of her glances.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: for a woman who had loved and was adored, But
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the restoration to which she owed renewed luster made it
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: seem inadequate in comparison.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: With her name.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: In my position, I was so fatuous as never to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: dream of his suspicion, though my jealousy would have been
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of a hundred and twenty othellow power. That terrible passion
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: slumbered in me as gold in the nugget. I would
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: have ordered my servant to thrash me if I had
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: been so base as ever to doubt the purity of
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that angel, so fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and whose blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: through the very depths of her heart with adorable submissiveness.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Never was there the slightest hesitancy in her attitude, her
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: look or word, always white and fresh and ready for
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the beloved, like the oriental lily of the song of songs. Ah,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: my friends, sadly exclaimed the minister grown young again. A
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: man must hit his head very hard on the marble
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: to dispel that poem. This cry of nature finding an
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: echo in the listener's, spurred the curiosity he had excited
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: in that with so much skill, every morning riding Sultan,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the fine horse you sent me from England, De Mauseie
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: went on, addressing Lord Dudley. I rode past her open carriage,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the horse's pace being intentionally reduced to a walk, and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: read the order of the day, signaled to me by
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the flowers of her bouquet, in case we were unable
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to exchange a few words, though we saw each other
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: almost every evening in society, and she wrote to me
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: every day. To deceive the curious and mislead the observant,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: we had adopted a scheme of conduct, never to look
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: at each other, to avoid meeting, to speak ill of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: each other self, admiration swagger, or playing the disdained swain.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: All these old maneuvers are not to compare on either part,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: with a false passion professed for an indifferent person and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: an air of indifference towards the true idol. If two
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: lovers will only play that game, the world will always
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: be deceived.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: But then they.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Must be very secure of each other. Her stalking horse
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: was a man in high favor, a courtier, cold and sanctimonious,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: whom she never received at her own house. This little
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: comedy was performed for the benefit of simpletons and drawing
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: room circles, who laughed at it. Marriage was never spoken
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: of between us six years difference in age might give
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: her pause. She knew nothing of my fortune, of which
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: on principle I have always kept a secret. I, for
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: my part, fascinated by her wit and manners, by the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: extent of her knowledge and her experience of the world,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: would have married her.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Without a thought.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: At the same time, her reserve charmed me. If she
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: had been the first to speak of marriage in a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: certain tone, I might perhaps have noted it as vulgar
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: in that accomplished soul, six months full and perfect, a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: diamond of the purest water that has been my portion
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of love in this base world. One morning, attacked by
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the feverish stiffness which marks the beginning of a cold,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I wrote her a line to put off one of
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: those secret festivals which are buried under the roofs of
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Paris like pearls in the sea. No sooner was the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: letter sent than remorse seized me.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: She will not believe that I.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Am ill thought I she was wont to affect jealousy
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and suspiciousness. When jealousy is genuine, said Demalciye, interrupting himself.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: It is the visible sign of a unique passion. Why
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: asked the Princess de Cadigno. Eagerly unique and true love,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: said de Marseille, produces a sort of corporeal apathy, attuned
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: of the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: complicates everything, it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: them into reality and torment. And such jealousy is as
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: delightful as it is distressing. A foreign minister smiled, as
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: by the light of memory he felt the truth of
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: this remark. Besides, de Marcille went on, I said to myself,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: why miss a happy hour? Was it not better to go,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: even though feverish? And then if she learns that I
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: am ill, I believe her capable of hurrying here and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: compromising herself.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I made an effort.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I wrote a second letter and carried it myself, for
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: my confidential servant was now gone. The river lay between us.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I had to cross Paris. But at last, within a
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: suitable distance of her house, I caught sight of a messenger.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I charged him to have the note sent up to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: her at once, and I had the happy idea of
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: driving past her door in the hackney cab, to see
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: whether she might not, by chance receive the two letters together.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: At the moment when I arrived, it was two o'clock.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: The great gate opened to admit a carriage whose that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of the stalking Horse. It is fifteen years since. Well,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: even while I tell the tale, I the exhausted orator,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the minister dried up by the friction of public business.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I still feel as surging in my heart, and the
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: hot blood about my diaphragm. At the end of an hour,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I passed once more. The carriage was still in the courtyard.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: My note, no doubt, was in the porter's hands. At last,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: at half past three, the carriage drove out. I could
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: observe my rival's expression. He was grave and did not smile,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: but he was in love, and no doubt there was
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: business in hand. I went to keep my appointment. The
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Queen of my heart met me. I saw her calm,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: pure serene. And here I must confess that I have
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: always thought that Othello was not only stupid, but showed
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: very bad taste. Only a man who was half a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Negro could behave so. Indeed, Shakespeare felt this when he
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: called his play The Moor of Venice. The sight of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the woman we love is such a balm to the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt and sorrow. All
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this cheerfulness,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: which at my age now would be the most atrocious dissimulation,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: was the result of my youth and my love.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: My jealousy.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Once buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: condition was evident. The horrible doubts that had fermented in
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: me increased it.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: At last I.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Found an opening for putting in these words, you have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: had no one with you this morning, making a pretext
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: of the uneasiness I had felt in the fear lest
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: she should have disposed of her time. After receiving my
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: first note, ah, she exclaimed, only a man could have
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: such ideas, as if I could think of anything but
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: your suffering. Till the moment when I received your second doubt,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I could think only of how I could contrive.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: To see you. And you were alone, alone.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: She said, looking at me with a face of innocence
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: so perfect that it must have been his distrust of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: such a look as that which made the Moor kill
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Desdemona as she lived alone in the house. The word
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys the absolute
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of happiness.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: To explain to you what passed in me at that moment,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it must be assumed that we have an internal self,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: of which the exterior eye is but the husk. That
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a shade. Well, that beautiful self was in me, thenceforth,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: forever shrouded in crape. Yes, I felt a cold and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: fleshless hand cast over me, the winding sheet of experience,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that she might not observe my dizziness, this proud thought
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: somewhat restored my strength. If she is deceiving you, she
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is unworthy of you. I ascribed my sudden reddening in
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the tears which started my eyes to an attack of pain,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and the sweet creature insisted on driving me home, with
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the blinds of the cab drawn on the way. She
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: was full of a solicitude and tenderness that might have
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: deceived the Moor of Venice, whom I have taken as
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great eight child
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: would to hesitate two seconds longer. Every intelligent spectator feels
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that he would ask dos the moana's forgiveness. Thus, killing
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the woman is the act of a boy. She wept
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: as we parted. So much was she distressed at being
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my valet,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in whose happiness she found a cause of envy.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And all this was as elegantly.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Expressed, Oh as Clarissa might have written in her happiness,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: there is always a precious ape in the prettiest and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: most angelic woman. At these words, all the women looked down,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: as if hurt by this brutal truth. So brutally stated,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I will say nothing of the night, nor of the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: week I spent, De Marcy went on. I discovered that
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I was a statesman. It was so well said that
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: we all uttered an admiring exclamation as I thought over
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: said De Marseilles, continuing his story with infernal ingenuity. For
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: revenges were possible. I despised myself. I felt how common
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I was. I insensibly formulated a horrible code, that of
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: indulgence in taking vengeance on a woman? Do we not,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: in fact admit that there is but one for us
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: that we cannot do without her? And then is revenge
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the way to win her back? If she is not indispensable,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: if there are other women in the world, why not
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: grant her the right to change what we assume? This,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: of course, applies only to passion. In any other sense
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it would be socially wrong. Nothing more clearly proves the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: necessity for indissoluble marriage than the instability of passion. The
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: two sexes must be chained up, like wild beasts, as
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: they are by the inevitable law deafen muse eliminate revenge
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and infidelity in love is nothing.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Those who believe that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: For them there is but one woman in the world
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: must be in favor of vengeance, and then there is
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: but one form.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Of it, that of Othello.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Mine was different the words produced in each of us,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the imperceptible movement which newspaper writers represent in parliamentary reports
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: by the words great sensation. Cured of my cold and
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of my pure, absolute, divine love, I flung myself into
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: an adventure of which the heroine was charming and of
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a style of beauty utterly opposed to that of my
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: deceiving angel. I took care not to quarrel with this
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: clever woman, who was so good an actress, for I
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: doubt where the true love can give such gracious delights
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: as those lavished by such a dexterous fraud. Such refined
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: hypocrisy is as good as virtue. I am not speaking
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to you English women, my lady, said the minister, suavely
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: addressing Lady Barrymore, Lord Dudley's daughter. I tried to be
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the same lover. I wished to have some of my
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: hair worked up for my new angel, and I went
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to a skilled artist who at that time dwelt in
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the rubouche.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: The man had a.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Monopoly of capillary keepsakes, and I mention his address for
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the benefit of those who have not much hair. He
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: has plenty of every kind and every color. After I
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: had explained my order, he showed me his work. I
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: then saw achievements of patients surpassing those which the story
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: books ascribed to fairies, or which are executed by prisoners.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: He brought me up the date as to the caprices
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and the fashions governing the use of hair. For the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: last year, said he, there has been a rage for
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: marking linen with hair. Happily, I have a fine collection
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: of hair and skilled needlewomen. On hearing this, a suspicion
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: flashed upon me. I took out my handkerchief and said,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: so this was done in your shop with false hair.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: He looked at the handkerchief and said I that lady
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: was very particular. She insisted on verifying the tint of
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the hair. My wife herself marked those handkerchiefs you have there, sir,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: one of the finest pieces of work we have ever executed.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Before this last ray of light, I might have believed
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: something might have taken a woman's word. I left the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was concerned,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I was as atheistical as a mathematician. Two months later
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: in her boudoir on her sofa. I was holding one
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of her hands. They were very beautiful, and we scaled
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest flowers and pulling
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: off the daisy petals. There is always a moment when
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: a drawing room and there are no daisies. At the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: intensest moment of tenderness, and when we are most in love,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: love is so well aware of its own short duration
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that we are irresistibly urged to ask, do you love me?
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Will you love me? Always?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: full blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: lies in the enchanting language of love. Charlotte displayed her
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: choicest endurements. She could not live without me. I was
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: to her the only man in the world. She feared
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to weary me because MY presence bereft her of all
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: her wits. With me, all her faculties were.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Lost in love.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: She was indeed too tender to escape alarms. For the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: last six months she had been seeking some way to
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: bind me to her eternally, and God alone you that sea.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: In short, I was her God. The women who heard
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: de Marseille seemed offended by seeing themselves so well acted,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: for he seconded the words by airs and sidelong attitudes
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and mincing grimaces, which were quite illusory. At the very
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: moment when I might have believed these adorable falsehoods. As
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I still held her right hand in mine, I said
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to her, when are you to marry the duke? The
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: thrust was so direct, my gaze met her so boldly,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and her hand lay so tightly in mine, that her start,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: slight as it was, could not be disguised. Her eyes
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: fell before mine, and a faint blush colored her cheeks.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: The duke, what do you mean, she said, affecting great astonishment.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I know everything, replied I, and in my opinion, you
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: should delay no longer. He is rich, he is a duke,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: but he is more than devout. He is religious. I
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: am sure there for that you have been faithful to
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: me thanks to his scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: necessary it is that you should compromise him with himself
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: and with God. Short of that, you will never bring
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: him to the point.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Is this a dream?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: She said, pushing her hair from her forehead, fifteen years
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: before Malipron with the gesture which Malipron has made so famous. Come,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: do not be childish, my angel, said I, trying to
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: take her hands, but she folded them before her with
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: a little prudish and indignant mien marry him. You have
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: my permission, said I, replying to this gesture by using
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the formal vous instead of tea nay better. I beg
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: you to do so, but cried she, falling at my knees.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: There is some horrible mistake. I love no one in
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the world but you. You may demand any proofs you
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: please rise, my dear, said I, and do me the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: honor of being truthful as before God. Do you doubt
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: my love no nor my fidelity? No? Well, I have
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: committed the greatest crime, I went on. I have doubted
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: your love and your fidelity between two intoxications. I looked
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: calmly about me. Calmly, sighed she.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: That is enough. Unri, you no longer love me. She
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: had at once found.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: You perceive a loopo for escape and scenes like these
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: an adverb is dangerous, but happily curiosity made her add
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the duke, excepting in public? Have you detected in my eyes? No,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: said I, but in his? And you have eight times
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: made me go to sainto may Dakin to see you
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: listen to the same mass as he Ah, she exclaimed.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Then I have made you jealous. Oh, I only wish
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I could be said, I admiring the pliancy of her
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: quick intelligence and these acrobatic feats which can only be
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: successful in the eyes of the blind. But by dint
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: of going to church, I have become very incredulous. On
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the day of my first cold and your first treachery,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: when you thought I was in bed, you received the Duke,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and you told me you had seen no one. Do
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you know that your conduct is infamous? In what respect?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I consider your marriage? So the Duke an excellent arrangement.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: He gives you a great name, the only rank that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: suits you, a brilliant and distinguished position.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: You will be one of the queens of Paris. I
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: should be doing.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: You are wrong if I placed any obstacle in the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: way of this prospect, this distinguished life, this splendid alliance.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Ah Charlot, some day you will do me justice by
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: discovering how unlike my character is to that of other
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: young men. You would have been compelled to deceive me. Yes,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you would have found it very difficult to break.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: With me, for he watches you.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: It is time that we should part, for the Duke
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: is rigidly virtuous.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: You must turn prude. I advise you to do so.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: The Duke is vain.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: He will be proud of his wife, Oh, cried she,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: bursting into tears. Are if only you had spoken yes,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: if you had chosen it was I who was to blame.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: You understand, we would have gone to live all our
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: days in a corner, married, happy, and defied the world.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Well it is too late now, said I, kissing her
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: hands and putting on a victimized air. Good God, but
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I can undo it all, said she. No, you have
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: gone too far with the Duke. I ought, indeed to
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: go on a journey to part us more effectually. We
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: should both have reason to fear our own affection. Are
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: do you think the Duke has any suspicions? I was
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: still awrie, but the tea was lost forever. I do
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: not think so, I replied, assuming the manner of a friend.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: But be as devout as possible. Reconcile yourself to God,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: for the Duke waits for proofs. He hesitates, and you
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: must bring.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Him to the point.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: She rose and walked twice round the boudoir in real
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: or affected agitation. Then she no doubt found an attitude
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: and a look beseeming the new state of affairs. For
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: she stopped in front of me, held out her hand,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and said, in a voice broken by emotion, Well, unre
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: you are loyal, noble, and a charming man. I shall
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: never forget you. These were admirable tactics she was bewitching
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: in this transition of feeling indispensable to the situation in
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: which she wished to place herself. In regard to me,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the look
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: of a man so deeply distressed that I saw her
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: too newly assumed dignity giving way. She looked at me,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: took my hand, drew me along, almost threw me on
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: the sofa, but quite gently, and after a moment's silence,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Do you love me? Oh?
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, Well, then what will become of you? At this point,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the women all looked at each other. Though I can
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: at her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I must die or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: De Marseille went on, Oh, do not laugh yet, he said,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to his listers. There is better to come. I looked
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: at her very tenderly, after a pause, and said to her, Yes.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: That is what I have been wondering. Well, what will
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: you do?
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I ask myself that the day after my cold, And
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: she asked, with eager anxiety, and I have made advances
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: to the little lady to whom I was supposed to
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: be attached. Charlotte started up from the sofa like a
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: frightened doe, trembling like a leaf. Gave me one of
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: those looks in which women forego all their dignity, all
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the sparkling
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: glitter of a hundred viper's eye when driven into a corner,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: and said, and I have loved this man. I have struggled.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I have on this last thought, which I leave you
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to guess. She made the most impressive pause I ever heard.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Good God, she cried, how unhappy are we women? We
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: can never be loved to you. There is nothing serious
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: in the purest feelings. But never mind when you cheat us,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: you are still our dupes. I see that, plainly, said I,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: with a stricken air. You have far too much wit
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: This modest epigram increased her rage. She found some tear
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: years of vexation. You disgust me with the world and
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: with life, she said, you snatch away all my illusions,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You deprave my heart. She sent to me all that
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I had a right to say to her, and with
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a simple effrouttery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: nailed any man but me on the spot. What is
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: to become of us, poor women, in a state of
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: society such as Lewis? The eighteenth Charter made it imagine
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: how her words had run away with her. Yes, indeed,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: we are born to suffer in matters of passion. We
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: are always superior to you, and you are beneath all loyalty.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: There is no honesty in your hearts. To you, love
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: is a game in which you always cheat, My dear,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: said I to take anything serious in society nowadays would
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: be like making romantic love to an actress. What a
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: shameless betrayal. It was deliberately planned, No, only a rational issue.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Good Bye, Monsieur de marcies, She said, you have deceived
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: me horribly. Surely, I replied, taking up a submissive attitude.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Madame la duches will not remember Charlotte's grievances, certainly, she
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: answered bitterly. Then, in fact, you hate me. She bowed,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and I said to myself, there is something still left.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: her to believe that she still had something to avenge. Well,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: my friends, I have carefully studied the lives of men
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: who have had great success with women. But I do
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: not believe that the Marechal de Richilieu, or Louisa or
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Louis de Valois ever affected a more judicious retreat at
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the first attempt. As to my mind and heart, they
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: were cast in a mold then and there once for all,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: And the power of control I thus acquired over the
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: thoughtless impass which make us commit so many follies, gained
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: me the admirable presence of mind you all know. End
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: of section one, section two of another study of Woman
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage eighteen sixty
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: five to nineteen forty six and others. This LibriVox, according
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. How deeply I pity the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: second exclaimed de Baron de NISI Jean a scarcely perceptible
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: smile on de Marseilles's pale lips made Delphine de Nisijean color.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: How we do forget, said the Baron de Nuisijean. The
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: great banker's simplicity was so extremely droll that his wife,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: who was de Marseilles's second, could not help laughing. Like
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: everyone else. You are all ready to condemn the woman,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: said lady Dudley. Well, I quite understand that she did
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: not regard her marriage as an act of inconstancy. Men
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: will never distinguish between constancy and fidelity. I know the
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: woman whose story Monsieur de Marseilles has told us, and
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: she is one of the last of your truly great ladies. Alas,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: my lady, you are right, replied de Marseilles. For very
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: nearly fifty years we have been looking on at the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: progressive ruin of all social distinctions. We ought to have
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: saved our women from this great wreck, but the civil
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Code has swept its leveling influence over their heads. However
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: terrible the words they must be spoken. Duchesses are vanishing,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and marquess's too. As to the baronesses, I must apologize
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to Madame Dunici Jean, who will become a countess when
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: her husband has made a peer of France. Baronesses have
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: never succeeded in getting people to take them seriously. Aristocracy
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: begins with the viscountess, said Blonde with a smile. Countesses
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: will survive, said de Marseilles. An elegant woman will be
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: more or less of a countess, the countess of the empire,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: or of yesterday, a countess of the old block, or
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: as they say in Italy, a count is by courtesy.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: But as to the great lady, she died out with
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: a dignified splendor of the last century, with powder patches,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: high heeled slippers, and stiff modices, with a delta's stomacher
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of bows. Duchesses in these days can pass through a
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: door without any need to widen it for their hoops.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: The empires so the last of gowns with trains. I
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: am still puzzled to understand how a sovereign who wished
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to see his drawing room swept by ducal satin and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: velvet did not make indestructible laws. Napoleon never guessed the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: results of the code. He was so proud of that man,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: by creating duchesses, founded the race of our ladies of
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to day, the indirect offspring of his legislation. It was
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: logic handled as the hammer by boys just out of
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: school and by obscure journalists, which demolished the splendors of
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the social state, said the Comte de von Deiness. In
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: these days, every rogue who can hold his head straight
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: in his collar, cover his manly bosom with half an
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: ell of satin by way of a cuirass, display a
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: brow where apocryphal genius gleams under curling locks, and struck
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: in a pair of patent leather pumps graced by silk
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: socks which cost six francs, screws his eye glass into
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: one of his eye sockets by puckering up his cheek.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: And whether he be an attorney's clerk, a contractor's son,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: or a banker's bastard, he stares impertinently at the prettiest duchess,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: appraises her as she walks downstairs, and says to his friend,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: dressed by baisson as we all are, and mounted in
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: patent leather like any duke himself. There, my boy, that
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: is a perfect lady. You have not known how to
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: form a party, said Lord Dudley, it will be a
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: long time before you have a policy. You talk a
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: great deal in France about organizing labor, and you have
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: not yet organized property. So this is what happens any duke.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: And even in the time of Louis the eighteenth and
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Charles the tenth, there were some left to add two
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand francs a year, a magnificent residence, and the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: sumptuous train of servants. Well, such a duke could live
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: like a great lord. The last of these great gentlemen
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: in France was the Prince de Tallyran. This duke leaves
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: four children, two of them girls, granting that he has
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: great luck in marrying them all. Well, each of these
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: descendants will have but sixty or eighty thousand and franks
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: a year. Now each is the father or mother of children,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: and consequently obliged to live with the strictest economy in
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a flat on the ground floor or first floor of
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: a large house. Who knows if they may not even
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: be hunting a fortune. Henceforth, the eldest son's wife, a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: duchess in name only, has no carriage, no people, no
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: opera box, no time to herself. She has not her
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: own rooms in the family mansion, nor her fortune, nor
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: her pretty toys. She is buried in trade. She buys
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: socks for her dear little children, nurses them herself, and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: keeps an eye on her girls, whom she no longer
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: ascends to school at a convent. Thus your noblest names
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: have been turned into worthy brood hands. Alas it is true,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: said Joseph Brido. In our day, we cannot show those
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: beautiful flowers of womanhood which grace the golden ages of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the French monarchy. The great ladies fan is broken. A
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: woman has nothing now to blush, for she need not
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: slander or whisper, hide her face, or reveal it. A
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: fan is of no use now but for fanning herself.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: When once a thing is no more than what it is.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: It is too useful to be a form of luxury.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Everything in France has aided and abetted the perfect lady,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: said Dania Leftes. The aristocracy has acknowledged her by retreating
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: to the recesses of its landed estates, where it has
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: hidden itself to die. Emigrating inland before the march of ideas,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: as of old, of foreign lands, before that of the masses.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: The women who could have founded European salonce, could have
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: guided opinion and turned it inside out like a glove,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: could have ruled the world by ruling. The men of
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: art or of intellect who ought to have ruled it
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: have committed the blunder of abandoning their ground. They were
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: ashamed of having to fight against the citizen class. Drunk
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: with power, and rushing out under the stage of the world.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: They are to be cut to pieces, perhaps by the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: barbarians who are at its heels. Hence, where the middle
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: class insist on seeing princesses, these are really only lady
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: like young women. In these days princes can find no
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: great ladies whom they may compromise. They cannot even confer
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: honor on a woman taken up at random. The Duc
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: de Beaurmont with the last prince to avail himself of
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: this privilege, and God alone knows how dearly he paid
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: for it, said Lord Dudley. Nowadays princes have lady like wives,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: obliged to share their opera box with other ladies. Royal
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: favor could not raise them higher by a hair's breadth.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: They glide unremarkable between the waters of the citizen class
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and those of the nobility, not altogether noble, nor altogether bourgeoise,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: said the Marquise de rosquille Acridly, the press has fallen
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: heir to the woman, exclaimed Rastignac. She no longer has
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: the quality of a spoken filleton delightful calumnies graced by
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: elegant language. We read feriotomis written in a dialect which
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: changes every three years. Society papers about as mirthful as
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: an undertake is mute, and as light as the lead
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: of their type. French conversation is carried on from one
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: end of the country to the other in a revolutionary
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: jargon through long columns of type printed in old mansions,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: where a press groans in the place where formerly elegant
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: company used to meet.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: The knell of the.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Highest society is tolling, said a Russian prince. Do you
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: hear it? And the first stroke is your modern word. Lady,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: You are right, prince, said de Marseilles. The perfect lady,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: issuing from the ranks of the nobility, or spouting from
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the citizen class, and the product of every soil, even
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: of the provinces, is the expression of these times, a
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: last remaining embodiment of good taste grace, wit and distinction,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: all combined but dwarfed. We shall see no more great
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: ladies in France, but there will be ladies for a
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: long time elected by public opinion to form an upper
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: chamber of women. And who will be among the fair Sex.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: What a gentleman is in England, and that they call progress,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Mademoiselle de Touche.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: I should like to know where.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: The progress lies? Why in this, said Madame de Nicijean.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Formerly a woman might have the voice of a fish cellar,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the walk of a grenadier, the face of an impudent courtesan,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: her hair too high on her forehead, a large foot,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: a thick hand. She was a great lady in in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: spite of it all. But in these days even if
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: she were a mont Morosy, if a mont Mossy would
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: ever be such a creature, she would not be a lady.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: But what do you mean by a perfect lady, asked
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Count Adam Lazinski. She is a modern product, a deplorable
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: triumph of the elective system as it applied to the
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: fair Sex, said the Minister. Every revolution has a word
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: of its own which epitomizes and depicts it. You are right,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: said the Russian who had come to make a literary
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: reputation in Paris. The explanation of certain words added from
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: time to time to your beautiful language would make a
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: magnificent history organize. For instance, is the word of the
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Empire and sums up Napoleon completely. But all that does
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: not explain what is meant by a lady. The young
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: pole exclaimed with some impatience. Well, I will tell you,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: said Emmy Blonde to Count Adam. One fine morning you
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: go for a sauter in Paris. It is past two,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: but five has not yet struck. You see a woman
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: coming towards you. Your first glance at her is like
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the preface to a good book. It leads you to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: expect a world of elegance and refinement, Like a botanist
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: over Hillendale, in his pursuit of plants. Among the vulgarities
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: of Paris life, you have at last found a rare flower.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: This woman is attended by two very distinguished looking men,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: of whom one, at any rate wears an order, or
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: else a servant out of livery follows her at a
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: distance of ten yards. She displays no gaudy colors, no
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: open worked stockings, no over elaborate waist buckle, no embroidered
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: frills to her drawers. Fussing round her ankles, you will
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: see that she is shod with prunella shoes with sandals
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: crossed over extremely cotton stockings or plain gray silk stockings,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: or perhaps she wears boots of the most exquisite simplicity.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: You notice that her gown is made of a neat
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and inexpensive material, but made in a way that surprises
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: more than one woman of the middle class. It is
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: almost always a long pelisse, with moose to fasten it,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: and neatly bound with fine cord or an imperceptible braid.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: The unknown has a way of her own in wrapping
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: herself in a shawl or mantilla. She knows how to
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: draw it round her from her hips to her neck,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: outlining a carapace, as it were, which would make an
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which in her
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: sets off the most beautiful forms while concealed them. How
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: does she do it? This secret she keeps, though unguarded
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: by any patent. As she walks, she gives herself a
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: little concentric and harmonious twist, which makes her supple or
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: dangerous slenderness. Writhe under the stuff, as a snake does
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: under the green gauze of trembling grass. Is it to
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: undulation which plays under her long black cape, stirs its lace,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: frill sheds an airy bomb, and what I should like
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: to call the breeze of a Parisienne. You may recognize
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: over her arms, round her waist, around her throat, a
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: science of drapery, recalling the ancient nemosene. Oh, how thoroughly
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: she understands the cut of her gait, forgive the expression.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Study the way she puts her foot forward, molding her
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: skirt with such a decent preciseness that the passer by
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: is filled with admiration, mingled with desire, but subdued by
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: deep respect. When an english woman attempts this step, she
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: looks like a grenadier marching forward to attack of a doubt.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Women of Paris have a genius for walking. The municipality
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: really owed them. Asphalt foot walks our unknown, jostles no one.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: If she wants to pass, she waits with proud humility
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: till some one makes way. The distinction peculiar to a
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: well bred woman betrays itself, especially in the way she
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: holds her shawl or cloak crossed over her bosom even
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: as she walks. She has a little air of serene dignity,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: like Raphael's madonnas in their frames. Her aspect, at once
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: quiet and disdainful, makes the most insolent dandies step aside
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: for her. Her bonnet, remarkable for its simplicity, is trimmed
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: with crisp ribands. There may be flowers in it, but
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: the cleverest of such women wear only bows. Feathers demand
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: the carriage flowers are too showy. Beneath it you see
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the fresh, unworn face of a woman who, without conceit,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: assure of herself, who looks at nothing and sees everything,
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: whose vanity, satiated by being constantly gratified, stamps her face
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: with an indifference which piques your curiosity. She knows that
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: she is looked at, She knows that everybody, even women,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: turn round to see her again. And she threads her
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: way through Paris like a gossamer, Spotless and pure. This
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: delightful species afvexed the hottest latitudes, the cleanest longitudes of Paris.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: You will meet her.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Between the tenth and the hundred tenth arcade of the
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Rue de Rivolis, along the line of the boulevards, from
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: the equator of the Passage de Panorama, where the products
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: of India flourish, where the warmest creations of industry are displayed,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: to the cape of the Madeleine, in the least muddy
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: district of the citizen quarters, between number thirty a number
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: one hundred thirty of the Rue de Faubours Honore. During
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: the winter, she haunts the terrace of the Villon, but
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: not the asphalt pavement that lies parallel. According to the weather,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: she may be seen flying in the Avenue of the
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Chansis Lize, which is bounded on the east by the
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Place Luis Canes, on the west by the Avenue de Marinis,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to the south by the road to the north by
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: the gardens of the Faubour Saint Honore. Never is this
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: pretty variety of women to be seen in the hyperborean
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: regions of the Rue Saint Denis, Never in the camchatka
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: of miry narrow commercial streets, Never anywhere in bad weather.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: These flowers of Paris, blooming only in oriental weather perfume
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the highways, and after five o'clock fold up like morning
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: glory flowers. The women you will see later looking a
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: little like them, or would be ladies. While the fair unknown,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: your beatrice of a day, is a perfect lady. It
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear count,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: to recognize the difference by which the observer emeritus distinguishes them.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Women are such consummate actresses, but they are glaring in
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: the eyes of Parisians. Hook's ill fastened string, showing loops
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: of rusty white tape through a gaping slit in the back,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: rubbed shoe, leather, ironed bonnet strings, an overfull skirt, and
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: overtight waist. You will see a certain effort in the
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: intentional droop of the eyelid. There is something conventional in
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: the attitude as to the bourgeoise, the citizen womankind. She
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: cannot possibly be mistaken for the spell cast over you
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: by the unknown. She is bustling and goes out in
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not know
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: whether she will or will not go into her shop,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: where the lady knows just what she wants and what
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: she is doing. The townswoman is undecided, tucks up her
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: which compels her to look out for the vehicles. She
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: is a mother in public and talks to her daughter.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: She carries money in her bag and has open work
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: stockings on her feet. In winter she wears a boa
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: over her fur cloak, in summer a shawl and a scarf.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: She is accomplished even in the redundancies of dress. You
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: will meet the fair unknown again at the Italian, at
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: the opera, at a ball. She will then appear under
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: such a different aspect that you would think them two beings,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: devoid of any analogy.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: The woman has.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Emerged from those mysterious garments, like a butterfly from its
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: silky cocoon. She serves up, like some rare dainty to
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: your lavished eyes, the forms which her body scarcely revealed
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: in the morning.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: As to see at her.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: She never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the Italian. You can there watch at your leisure the
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: studied deliberateness of her movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: all the little political artifices of her sex so naturally
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: as to exclude all idea of art or premeditation. If
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: she has a royally beautiful hand, the most perspicacious beholder
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: will believe that it is absolutely necessary that she should
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: twist or refix, or push aside the ringlet or curl
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: she plays with. If she has some dignity of profile,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: you will be persuaded that she is giving irony or
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: grace to what she says to her neighbor. Sitting in
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: such a position as to produce the magical effect of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the lost profile so dear to great painters, by which
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the cheek catches the high light. The nose is shown
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: in clear outline, The nostrils are transparently rosy, the forehead
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: squarely modeled, The eye has its spangle of fire but
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: fixed on space, and the white roundness of the chin
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: is accentuated by a line of light. If she has
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: a pretty foot, she will throw herself on a sofa
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: with a coquettish grace of a cat in the sunshine,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: her feet outstretched, without your feeling that her attitude is
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: anything but the most charming model ever given to a sculptor.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: By lassitude. Only the perfect lady is quite at her
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: ease in full dress, nothing inconveniences her. You will never
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: see her like a woman of the citizen class, pulling
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: up of her fractory shoulder strap, or pushing down a
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: office and faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: or glancing in the mirrorge to see if her head
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: dress is keeping its place. Her toilet is always in
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: harmony with her character. She had had time to study
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: herself to learn what becomes her, for she has long
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: known what does not suit her. You will not find
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: her as you go out. She vanishes before the end
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: of the play. If by chance she is to be
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: seen calmly and stately on the stairs, she is experiencing
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: some violent emotion she has to bestow a glance to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: receive a promise. Perhaps she goes down so slowly on
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: purpose to gratify the vanity of a slave whom she
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: sometimes obeys. If your meeting takes place at a ball
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: or an evening party, you will gather the honey, natural
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: or affected, of her insinuating voice. Her empty words will
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: enchant you, and she will know how to give them
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the value of thought by her inimitable bearing. To be
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: such a woman, is it not necessary to be very clever,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: asked the Polish count. It is necessary to have great taste,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: replied the Princess de Cadignan. And in France, taste is
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: more than cleverness, said the Russian. This woman's cleverness is
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: the triumph of a purely plastic art. Londey went on.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: You will not know what she said, but you will
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: be fascinated. She will toss her head or gently shrug
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: her white shoulders. She will gild an insignificant speech with
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: a charming pout and smile, or throw a vultairian epigram
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: into an indeed an ah a what then a jerk
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: of her head will be her most pertinent form of questioning.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: She will give meaning to the movement by which she
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: twirls a vinagrette hanging to her finger by a ring.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: She gets an artificial grandeur out of superlative trivialities. She
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: simply drops her hand, impressively, letting it fall over the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: arm of her chair, as dewdrops hang on the cup
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: of a flower.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: And all is said.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: She has pronounced judgment beyond appeal to the apprehension of
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: the most obtuse. She knows how to listen to you.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: She gives you the opportunity of shining, and I ask
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: your modesty. Those moments are rare. The candid simplicity of
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: the young pole, to whom BLONDEI spoke made all the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: party shout with laughter. Now you will not talk for
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: half an hour with a bourgeoise without her alluding to
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: her husband in one way or another. Blonde went on
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: with unperturbed gravity. Whereas, even if you know that your
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: lady is married, she will have the delicacy to conceal
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: her husband so effectually that it will need the enterprise
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: of Christopher Columbus to discover him. Often you will fail
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: in the attempt single handed, if you have had no
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: opportunity of inquiring. Towards the end of the evening, you
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: detect her gazing fixedly at a middle aged man wearing
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: a decoration, who bows and goes out. She has ordered
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: her carriage and goes You are not the rose, but
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: you have been with the Rose. And you go to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: bed under the golden canopy of a delicious dream which
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: will las perhaps after sleep, where his heavy finger has
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: opened the ivory gates of the temple of dreams. The lady,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: when she is at home, sees no one before, for
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: she is shrewd enough always to keep you waiting. In
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: her house, you will find everything in good taste. Her
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: luxury is for hourly use and duly renewed. You will
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: see nothing under glass shades, no rags of wrappings hanging about,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and looking like a pantry. You will find the staircase
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: warmed flowers on all sides will charm your sight. Flowers
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the only gift she accepts, and those only from certain people.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: For nosegays live but a day. They give pleasure and
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: must be replaced to her. They are as in the east,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: a symbol and a promise. The costly toys of fashion
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: lie about, but not so as to suggest a museum
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: or a curiosity shop. You will not find her sitting
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: by the fire in a low chair from which you
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: will not rise to greet you. Her talk will not
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: now be what it was at the ball. There she
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: was our creditor. In her own home, she owes you
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the pleasure of her wit. These are the shades of
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: which the lady is a marvelous mistress. What she likes
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: in you is a man to swell her circle an
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: object for the cares and attentions which such women are
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: now happy to bestow. Therefore, to attract you to her
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: drawing room, she will be bewitchingly charming. This especially is
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: where you feel how isolated women are nowadays, and why
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: they want a little world of their own to which
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: they may seem a constellation. Conversation is impossible without generalities, Yes,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: said de Marseille, you have truly hit the fault of
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: our age. The epigram a volume and a word no
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: longer strikes as it did in the eighteenth century at
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: persons or at things, but of squaw at events, and
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: it dies in a day. Hence, said Blonde. The intelligence
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: of the lady, if she has any, consists in casting
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: doubts on everything. Here lies the great difference between two women.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: The townswoman is certainly virtuous. The lady does not know
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: yet whether she is or whether she always will be.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: She hesitates and struggles, where the other refuses point blank
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and falls full length. The hesitancy in everything is one
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: of the last graces left to her by our horrible times.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: She rarely goes to church, but she will talk to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: you of religion and if you have the good taste
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: to affect free thought, she will try to convert you,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: for you will have opened the way for the stereotyped phrases,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the head shaking and gestures understood by all these women.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: For shame, I thought you would too much sense to
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: attack religion. Society is tottering, and you deprive it of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: its support. Why religion at this moment means you and me.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: It is property and the future of our children. Ah,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: let us not be selfish. Individualism is the disease of
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: the age, and religion is the only remedy. It unites
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: families which your laws put us under, and so forth.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Then she plunges into some neo Christian speech sprinkled with
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: political notions, which is neither Catholic nor Protestant.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: But moral. Oh, deuce of moral, in which you.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: May recognize a fag end of every material woven by
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: modern doctrines. At loggerheads together, the women could not help
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: laughing at the airs by which Blonde illustrated as satire
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: this explanation, dear Count Adam, said, Blonde, turning to the pole,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: will have proved to you that the perfect lady represents
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: the intellectual no less than the political muddle, just as
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: she is surrounded by the showy and not very lasting
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: products of an industry which is always aiming at destroying
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: its work in order to replace it by something else.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: When you leave her, you say to yourself, she certainly
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: has superior ideas, and you believe it all the more
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: because she will have sounded your heart with a delicate touch,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: and have asked you your secrets. She affects ignorance to
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: learn everything. There are some things she never knows. Not
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: even when she knows them, you alone will be uneasy.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: You will know.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: Nothing of the state of her heart. The great ladies
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: of old flaunted their love affairs with newspapers and advertisements.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: In these days, the lady has her little passion neatly
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: ruled like a sheet of music, with its crotchets and quavers,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: and minims, its rests, its pauses, its sharps to sign
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: the key. A mere weak woman, she is anxious not
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: to compromise her love, or her husband, or the future
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: of her children. Nay, position and fortune are no longer
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: flags so respected as to protect all kinds of merchandise
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: on board. The whole aristocracy no longer advances in a
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: body to screen the lady. She has not, like the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: great lady of the past, the demeanor of lofty antagonism.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: She can crush nothing under foot. It is she who
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: would be crushed. Thus she is apt a jesuitical mezzo termine.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: She is a creature of equivocal compromises, of guarded proprieties,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: of anonymous passions, steered between two reef bound shores. She
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: is as much afraid of her servants as an englishwoman
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: who lives in dread of a trial in the divorce court.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: This woman, so free at of all, so attractive out walking,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: is a slave at home. She is never independent, but
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: in perfect privacy, or theoretically, she must preserve herself in
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: her position.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: As a lady. This is her task.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: For in our day, a woman repudiated by her husband,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: reduced to a meager allowance, with no carriage, no luxury,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: no opera box, none of the divine accessories of the toilet,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: is no longer a wife, a maid, or a townswoman.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: She is adrift and becomes a chattel. The carmelites will
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: not receive a married woman. It would be bigamy. Would
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: her lovers still have anything to say to her, that
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: is the question. Thus, your perfect Lady may perhaps give
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: occasion to calumny, never to slander. It is also horribly true,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: said the Princess de Cadignon, And so said Blonde. Our
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: perfect lady lives between English hypocrisy and the delightful frankness
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: of the eighteenth century, a bastard system symptomatic of an
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: age in which nothing that grows up is at all
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: like the thing that has vanished, in which transition leads nowhere.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Everything is a matter of degree, All the great figures
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: shrink into the background, and distinction is purely personal. I
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: am fully convinced that it is impossible for a woman,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: even if she were born close to her throne, to
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: acquire before the age of five and twenty the encyclopedic
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: knowledge of trifles, the practice of maneuvering the important small things,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the musical tones and harmony of coloring, the angelic benevolments
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: and innocent cunning, the speech and the silence, the seriousness
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: of the banter, the wit and the obtuseness, the diplomacy
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: and the ignorance, which make up the perfect lady, And
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: where in accordance with the sketchue of drawn, said Mademoiselle
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Destouche to Emi Blonde. Would you class the female author?
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: Is she a perfect lady? A woman comet fool? When
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: she has no genius? She is a woman comillino fa
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: pas Blonde replied, emphasizing the words with a stolen glance,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: which might make them seem praise frankly addressed to Camille Mopin,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: this epigram is not mine, but Napoleon's, he added, end
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: of section two, section three of another study of Woman
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage eighteen sixty
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: five to nineteen forty six and others. This LibriVox recording
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. You need not owe Napoleon
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: any grudge on that score, said Canalis, with an emphatic
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: tone and gesture. It was one of his weaknesses to
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: be jealous of literary genius, for he had his mean points.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: Who will ever explain, depict or understand Napoleon, a man
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: represented with his arms folded, who did everything, Who was
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the greatest force ever known, the most concentrated, the most mordant,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: the most acid of all forces, A singular genius who
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: carried armed civilization in every direction without fixing it anywhere.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: A man who could do everything because he willed everything,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: yet doomed to die of disease in bed after living
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: in the midst of ball and bullets.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: A man with a cold.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: And a sword in his brain, word and deed, a
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: clear sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his own fall.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: A capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out of economy,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: and who spared three heads, those of Talehn, of Potsu
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Diiborgo and of Metternich, diplomatists whose death would have saved
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the French Empire, and who seemed to him of greater
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: weight than.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: Thousands of the soldiers.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: A man to whom nature, as a rare privilege, had
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: given a heart in a frame of bronze, mirthful and
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: kind at midnight amid women, and the next morning manipulating
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: water in her bath. Ipocritical and generous, loving tawdiness and simplicity,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: devoid of taste, but protecting the arts, and in spite
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: of these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: by temperament, Caesar at five and twenty, Cromwell at thirty,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: and then like my grocer, buried in Pale la chaise,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: a good husband and a good father. In short, he
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: improvised public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance, and
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: all with more range than precision. Did he not aim
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: at making all Europe France? And after making his way
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: on the earth in such a way as to change
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: the laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: the day when he first laid hands on us. While
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: he who had taken an empire by his name, lost
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: his name on the frontier of his empire, and a
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: sea of blood and soldiers, a man all thought and
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: all action, who comprehended des say and fouchet, all despotism
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: and all justice. At the right moments the true king.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Said Marcille. Ah.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: But the pleasure it is to the chest while you talk,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: said Baron de Nisijon. But do you suppose that the
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: treat we are giving you is a common one, asked
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: Joseph Bridau. If you ought to pay for the charms
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: of conversation, as you do for those of dancing or
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: of music, your fortune would be inadequate. There is no
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: second performance of the same flash of wit. And are
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: we really so much deteriorated as these gentlemen think, said
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: the Prancess de Cadignan, addressing the women with a smile
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: at once skeptical and ironical, Because in these days, under
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: a regime which makes everything small, you prefer small dishes,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: small rooms, small pictures, small articles, small newspapers, small books.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: Does that prove that women too have grown smaller? Why
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: should the human heart change because you change your coat?
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: In all ages the passions remain the same. I know
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: cases of beautiful devotion, of sublime sufferings which lack the
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: publicity the glory if you choose which formerly gave luster
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: to the errors of some women. But though one may
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: not have saved the King of France, one is not
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: the less an Anna Sorel.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Do you believe that.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Our dear Marquis de'espal is not the peer of Madame
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: Dublas or Madame du dufont in whose room so much
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: evil was spoken and done? Is not Taiglioni a match
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: for Camalgo Malipont, the equal of Saint Iberti? Are not
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: our poets superior to those of the eighteenth century. If
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: at this moment, through the fault of the grocers who
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: govern us, we have not a style of our own,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: had not the empire its distinguishing stamp, as the age
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: of Louis the fifteenth had, and was not its splendid
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: fabulous have the sciences lost anything? I am quite of
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: your opinion, Madame. The women of this age are truly great,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: replied the Comte de mont Deenise. When posterity shall have
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: followed us, will not Madame re Cambier appear in proportions
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: as fine as those of the most beautiful women of
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: the past. We have made so much history that historians
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: will be lacking. The Age of Louis the fourteenth had
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: but won, Madame de Sevignier. We have a thousand now
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: in Paris who certainly write better than she did, and
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: who do not publish their letters. Whether the French woman
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: be called perfect lady or great lady, she will always
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: be the woman among women. Emmy Blonde has given us
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: a picture of the fascinations of a woman of the day.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: But at need this creature who bridles or shows off,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: who chirps out the ideas of mister this and mister that,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: would be heroic, and it must be said, your false Madame,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: are all the more poetical because they must always, and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: under all circumstances, be surrounded by greater perils. I have
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: seen much of the world. I have studied it, perhaps
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: too late, but in cases where the illegality of your
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: feelings might be excused, I have always observed the effects
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: of I know not what chance, which you may call
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: providence inevitably overwhelming, such as we consider light women. I hope,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: said Madame de vnt Deness, that we can be great
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: in other ways. Oh, let the Comte de vnt Deness
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: preach to us, exclaimed Madame Serrizie, with all the more reason,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: because he has preached a great deal by example, said
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: the Baron de NISI jan on my honor, said General
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: de Montriveau. In all the dramas of words you are
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: very fond of, he said, Looking at blondeis in which
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: the finger of God has been visible. The most frightful
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: I ever knew, was very near being by my act. Well,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: tell us all about it, cried Lady Barrymore. I love
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: to shudder. It is the taste of a virtuous woman,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: replied de Marcilles, looking at Lord Dudley's lovely daughter. During
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: the campaign of eighteen twelve, General de Montrevau began, I
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: was the involuntary cause of a terrible disaster, which may
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: be of use to you, Doctor Bianchamp. Turning to me,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: since while devoting yourself to the human body, you will
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: concern yourself a good deal with the mind, it may
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: tend to solve some of the problems of the will.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: I was going through my second campaign. I enjoyed danger
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: and laughed at everything, like the young and foolish lieutenant
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: of artillery that I was. When we reached the Beresina,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: the army had, as you know, lost all discipline and
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: had forgotten military obedience. It was a medley of men
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: of all nations, instinctively making their way from north to south.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: The soldiers would drive a general in rags and barefoot
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: away from their fire if he brought neither wood nor vittals.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: After the passage of this famous river, disorder did not diminish.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: I had come quietly and alone, without food, out of
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: the marshes of Zembiin, and was wandering in search of
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: a house where I might be taken in, finding none
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: or driven away from those I came across happily towards evening,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: I perceived a wretched little Polish farm, of which nothing
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: can give you any idea unless you have seen the
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: wooden houses of Lower Normandy or the poorest farm buildings
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: of Labousse. These dwellings consist of a single room, with
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: one end divided off by a wooden partition, the smaller
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: division serving as store.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: Room for forage.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: In the darkness of twilight, I could just see a
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: faint smoke rising above this house. Hoping to find there
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: some comrades more compassionate than those I had hitherto addressed,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: I boldly walked as far as the farm. On going
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: in I found the table laid several offices, and with
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: them a woman. A common sight enough were eating potatoes,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: some horse flesh broiled over the charcoal, and some frozen
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: beet roots. I recognized among the company two or three
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: artillery captains of the regiment in which I had first served.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: I was welcomed with a shout of acclamation, which would
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: have amazed me greatly on the other side of the Beresina,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: But at this moment the cold was less intense. My
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: fellow office were resting. They were warm, They had food,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: and the room, strewn with trusses of straw, gave the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: promise of a delightful night. We did not ask for
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: so much. In those days my comrades could be philanthropists gratis.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: One of the commonest ways of being philanthropic. I sat
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: down to eat on one of the bundles of straw.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: At the end of the table. By the side of
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: the door opening into the smaller room full of straw
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: and hay, sat my old colonel, one of the most
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: extraordinary men I ever saw. Among all the mixed collection
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: of men, it has been my lot to meet. He
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: was an Italian. Now, whenever human nature is truly fine,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: in the lands of the South, it is really sublime.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: I do not know whether you have ever observed the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: extreme fairness of Italians. When they are fair, it is exquisite,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: especially under an artificial light. When I read the fantastical
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: portrait of Colonel Oude scale Chalnaudier, I found my own
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: sensations in every one of his elegant phrases. Italian then,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: as were most of the offices of his regiment, which
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: had in fact been borrowed by the Emperor from Eugene's army.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: My colonel was a tall man, at least eight or
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: nine inches above the standard, and was admirably proportioned, a
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: little stout, perhaps, but prodigiously powerful, active, and clean limbed
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: as a greyhound. His black hair in abundant curls showed
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: up his complexion as white as a woman's. He had
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: small hands, a shapely foot, a pleasant mouth, and an
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: aquiline nose delicately formed, of which the tip used to
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: become naturally pinched and white. Whenever he was angry, as
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: happened often, his harascibility was so far beyond belief that
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: I will tell you nothing about it, you will have
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: the opportunity of judging of it. No one could be
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: calm in his presence. I alone, perhaps was not afraid
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: of him. He had indeed taken such a singular fancy
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: to me that he thought everything I did right. When
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: he was in a rage, his brow was knit, and
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: the muscles of the middle of his forehid set in
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the delta, or, to be more explicit, in red Gauntlet's horseshoe.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: This mark was.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Perhaps even more terrifying than the magnetic flashes of his
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: blue eyes. His whole frame quivered, and his strength, great
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: as it was in his normal state, became almost unbounded.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: He spoke with a soft guttural roll. His voice at
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: least as powerful as that of Charles n'ordier's udet, threw
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: an incredible fullness of tone into the syllable or the
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: consonant at which this burr was sounded. Though this faulty
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: pronunciation was at times a grace when commanding his men
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: or when he was excited, you cannot imagine unless you
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: had heard it, what force was expressed by this accent,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: which at Paris is so common. When the Colonel was quiescent,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: his blue eyes were angelically sweet, and his smooth brow
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: had a most charming expression. On parade over the army
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: of Italy, not a man could compare with him. Indeed,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: d'rosy himself, the handsome d'rose, was eclipsed by our colonel
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: on the occasion of the last review held by Napoleon
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: before the invasion of Russia. Everything was in contrast in
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: this exceptional man. Passion lives on contrast. Hence you need
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: not ask whether he exerted over women. The irresistible influences
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: to which our nature yields, and the general looked at
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: the Princess de Cadignon. As vitreous matter is molded under
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: the pipe of the glass blower. Still by a single fatality,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: an observer might perhaps explain the phenomenon. The colonel was
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: not a lady killer, or was indifferent to such successes.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: To give you an idea of his violence, I will
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: tell you in a few words what I once saw
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: him do in a paroxysm of fury. We were dragging
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: our guns up a very narrow road, boarded by a
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: somewhat high slope on one side and by thickets on
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: the other. When we were half way up, we met
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: This colonel wanted to make the captain, who was at
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: the head of our foremost battery, back down again. The captain,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: of course refused, but the colonel of the other regiment
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: signed to his foremost battery to advance. And, in spite
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: of the care the driver took to keep among the scrub,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: the wheel of the first gun struck our captain's right
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: leg and broke it, throwing him over on the near
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: side of his horse. All this was the work of
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: a moment Our colonel, who was but a little way off,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: guessed as there was a quarrel. He galloped up, riding
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: among the guns at the risk falling with his horse's
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: four feet in the air, and reached the spot face
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: to face with the other colonel at the very moment
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: when the captain fell, calling out help. No, our Italian
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: colonel was no longer human. Foam, like the froth of Champagne,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: rose to his lips. He roared inarticulately like a lion,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: incapable of uttering a word or even a cry. He
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: made a terrific signal to his antagonist, pointing to the
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went aside.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: In two seconds, we saw our colonel's opponent stretched out
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: on the ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: of his regiment backed yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: lay yelping in the puddle where the gun carriage had
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: thrown him, had an Italian wife, a beautiful Sicilian of Messina,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: who was not indifferent to our colonel. This circumstance had
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: aggravated his rage. He was pledged to protect the husband,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: bound to defend him as he would have defended the
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: woman herself. Now in the hovel beyond Zambine, where I
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: was so well received, this captain was sitting opposite to me,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: and his wife was at the other end of the table,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: facing the colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named Rosina,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: very dark, but with all the fire of the southern
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: sun in her black alm and shaped eyes. At this
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: moment she was deplorably thin. Her face was covered with dust,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: like fruit exposed to the draft of a high road,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: disorder and clinging together under a piece of shawl tied
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: close over her head. Still she had the graces of
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: a woman. Her movements were engaging. Her small rose mouth
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: and white teeth. The outline of her features and figure, charms,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: which misery, cold and neglect had not altogether defaced, still
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: suggested love to any man who could think of a woman.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: Rosina had one of those frames which are fragile in appearance,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: but wiry and full of spring. Her husband, a gentleman
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: of Piedmont, had a face expressive of ironical simplicity, if
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: it is allowable to alie the two words brave and
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: well informed. He seemed to know nothing of the connections
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: which had subsisted between his wife and the Colonel for
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: three years past. I ascribed as unconcerned to Italian manners
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: or to some domestic secret. Yet there was in the
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: man's countenance one feature which always filled me with involuntary distrust.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: His under lip, which was thin and very restless, turned
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: down at the corners instead of turning up. And this,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: as I thought, betrayed a streak of cruelty in the character,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: which seemed so phlegmatic and indolent. As you may suppose,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: the conversation was not very sparkling. When I went in,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: my weary comrades ate in silence. Of course, they asked
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: me some questions, and we related our misadventures, mingled with
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: reflections of the campaign, the generals, their mistakes, the Russians,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: and the cold. A minute after my arrival, the Colonel,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: having finished his meager meal, white as mustache, bid us
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: good night, shot a black look at the Italian woman,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: saying Rosina, and then, with out waiting for a reply,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: went into the little barn full of hay to bed.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: The meaning of the.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: Colonel's utterance was self evident. The young wife replied by
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: an indescribable gesture, expressing all the annoyance she could not
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: feel at seeing her thralldom thus flaunted without human decency,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: and the offense to her dignity as a woman and
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: to her husband. But there was, too, in the rigids
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: setting of her features and the tight knitting of her brows,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: a sort of presentiment. Perhaps she foresaw her fate. Rosina
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: remained quietly in her place. A minute later, and apparently,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: when the colonel was snug in his couch of straw
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: or hay, he repeated Rosina. The tone of the second
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: call was even more brutally questioning than the first. The
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: colonel's strong burr and the length which the Italian language
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: allows to be given to vowels, and the final syllable
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: concentrated all the man's despotism, impatience and strength of will.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: Rosina turned pale, but she rose, passed behind us and
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: went to the colonel. All the party sat in utter silence.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: I unluckily, after looking at them, all began to laugh,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: and then they all laughed too. To reedy, you laugh,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: said the husband on my honor old comrades, said, I,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: becoming serious again, I confess that I was wrong. I
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: ask your pardon a thousand times, And if you are
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: not satisfied by my apologies, I am ready to give
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: you satisfaction. Oh it is not you who are wrong,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: It is I, he replied coldly. Thereupon we all lay
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: down in the room, and before long all were sound asleep.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: Next morning, each one, without rousing his neighbor or seeking companionship,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: set out again on his way with that selfishness which
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: made our route one of the most horrible dramas of
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: self seeking, melancholy and horror which ever was enacted under heaven. Nevertheless,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: at about seven or eight hundred paces from our shelter,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: we most of us met again and walked on together,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: like geese lead in flocks by a child's wilful tyranny.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: The same necessity urged us all, having reached to know
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: where we could still see the farm house where we
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: had spent the night, We heard sounds resembling the roar
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: of lions in the desert, the bellowing of bulls.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: No, it was the noise which can be.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: Compared to no known cry, and yet mingling with this
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: horrible and ominous roar, we could hear a woman's feeble scream.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: We all looked round, seized by I know not what
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: impulse of terror. We no longer saw the house but
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: a huge bonfire. The farmhouse had been barricaded and was
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: in flames. Swirls of smoke borne on the wind brought
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: us hoarse cries and an indescribable pungent smell. A few
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: yards behind, the captain was quietly approaching to join our caravan.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: We gazed at him in silence, for no one dared
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: question him. But he, understanding our curiosity, pointed to his
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: breast with the forefinger of his right hand, and waving
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: the left in the direction of the fire. He said,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: son ello. We all walked on without saying a word
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: to him. There is nothing more terrible than the revolt
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: of a sheep, said de Marseilles. It would be frightful
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: to let us leave with this horrible picture in our memory,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: said Madame de Moncorney. I shall dream of it. And
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: what was the punishment of Monsieur de Marcies first, said
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Lord Dudley, smiling. When the English are in jest, Dear foyls,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: have the buttons on, said blonde. Monsieur Bianchamp can tell us,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: for he saw her dying, replied de Marseilles, turning to me, yes,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: said I, and her end was one of the most
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: beautiful I ever saw. The Duke and I had spent
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: the night by the dying woman's pillow. Pulmonary consumption in
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: the last stage left no hope. She had taken the
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: sacrament the day before. The Duke had fallen asleep. The Duchess,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: waking up about four in the morning, signed to me
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: in the most touching way, with a friendly smile, to
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: bid me leave him to rest. And she meanwhile, was
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: about to die. She had become incredibly thin, but her
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: face had preserved its really sublime outline and features. Her
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: pallor made her skin look like porcelain with the light within.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: Her bright eyes and color contrasted with this languidly elegant complexion,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: and her countenance was full of expressive calm. She seemed
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: to pity the Duke, and the feeling had its origin
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: in a lofty tenderness, which, as death approached, seemed to.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: Know no bounds.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: The silence was absolute, the room softly lighted by a lamp,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: looked like every sick room at the hour of death.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: At this moment the clock struck, The Duke awoke and
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: was in despair at having fallen asleep. I did not
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: see the gesture of impatience by which she manifested the
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: regret he felt at having lost sight of his wife
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: for a few of the last minutes felt safe to him.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: But it is quite.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: Certain that any one but the dying woman might have
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: misunderstood it. A busy statesman, always thinking of the interests
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: of France, the Duke had a thousand odd ways on
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: the surface, such as often lead to a man of
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: genius being mistaken for a madman, and of which the
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: explanation lies in the exquisiteness and exacting needs of their intellect.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: He came to seat himself in an arm chair by
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: his wife's side, and looked fixedly at her. The dying
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: woman put her hand out a little way, took her husband's,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and clasped it feebly, and in a low but agitated voice,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: she said, my poor dear, who is left to understand
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: you now? Then she died, looking at him. The stories
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: the doctor tells us that the Comte de von Densse
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: always leave a deep impression, but a sweet one, said
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: Mademoiselle de Touche, Rising, Paris, eighteen thirty nine to forty two,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: end of Section three recording by Nicholas Clifford, Middlebury, Vermont,
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: u s. A. End of another study of woman by
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage eighteen sixty five
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: to nineteen forty six and others,