STUDY OF A WOMAN

The Marquise de Listomere is one of those young women who have been

brought up in the spirit of the Restoration. She has principles, she

fasts, takes the sacrament, and goes to balls and operas very

elegantly dressed; her confessor permits her to combine the mundane

with sanctity. Always in conformity with the Church and with the

world, she presents a living image of the present day, which seems to

have taken the word "legality" for its motto. The conduct of the

marquise shows precisely enough religious devotion to attain under a

new Maintenon to the gloomy piety of the last days of Louis XIV., and

enough worldliness to adopt the habits of gallantry of the first years

of that reign, should it ever be revived. At the present moment she is

strictly virtuous from policy, possibly from inclination. Married for

the last seven years to the Marquis de Listomere, one of those

deputies who expect a peerage, she may also consider that such conduct

will promote the ambitions of her family. Some women are reserving

their opinion of her until the moment when Monsieur de Listomere

becomes a peer of France, when she herself will be thirty-six years of

age,--a period of life when most women discover that they are the

dupes of social laws.



The marquis is a rather insignificant man. He stands well at court;

his good qualities are as negative as his defects; the former can no

more make him a reputation for virtue than the latter can give him the

sort of glamor cast by vice. As deputy, he never speaks, but he votes

RIGHT. He behaves in his own home as he does in the Chamber.

Consequently, he is held to be one of the best husbands in France.

Though not susceptible of lively interest, he never scolds, unless, to

be sure, he is kept waiting. His friends have named him "dull

weather,"--aptly enough, for there is neither clear light nor total

darkness about him. He is like all the ministers who have succeeded

one another in France since the Charter. A woman with principles could

not have fallen into better hands. It is certainly a great thing for a

virtuous woman to have married a man incapable of follies.



Occasionally some fops have been sufficiently impertinent to press the

hand of the marquise while dancing with her. They gained nothing in

return but contemptuous glances; all were made to feel the shock of

that insulting indifference which, like a spring frost, destroys the

germs of flattering hopes. Beaux, wits, and fops, men whose sentiments

are fed by sucking their canes, those of a great name, or a great

fame, those of the highest or the lowest rank in her own world, they

all blanch before her. She has conquered the right to converse as long

and as often as she chooses with the men who seem to her agreeable,

without being entered on the tablets of gossip. Certain coquettish

women are capable of following a plan of this kind for seven years in

order to gratify their fancies later; but to suppose any such

reservations in the Marquise de Listomere would be to calumniate her.



I have had the happiness of knowing this phoenix. She talks well; I

know how to listen; consequently I please her, and I go to her

parties. That, in fact, was the object of my ambition.



Neither plain nor pretty, Madame de Listomere has white teeth, a

dazzling skin, and very red lips; she is tall and well-made; her foot

is small and slender, and she does not put it forth; her eyes, far

from being dulled like those of so many Parisian women, have a gentle

glow which becomes quite magical if, by chance, she is animated. A

soul is then divined behind that rather indefinite form. If she takes

an interest in the conversation she displays a grace which is

otherwise buried beneath the precautions of cold demeanor, and then

she is charming. She does not seek success, but she obtains it. We

find that for which we do not seek: that saying is so often true that

some day it will be turned into a proverb. It is, in fact, the moral

of this adventure, which I should not allow myself to tell if it were

not echoing at the present moment through all the salons of Paris.



The Marquise de Listomere danced, about a month ago, with a young man

as modest as he is lively, full of good qualities, but exhibiting,

chiefly, his defects. He is ardent, but he laughs at ardor; he has

talent, and he hides it; he plays the learned man with aristocrats,

and the aristocrat with learned men. Eugene de Rastignac is one of

those extremely clever young men who try all things, and seem to sound

others to discover what the future has in store. While awaiting the

age of ambition, he scoffs at everything; he has grace and

originality, two rare qualities because the one is apt to exclude the

other. On this occasion he talked for nearly half an hour with madame

de Listomere, without any predetermined idea of pleasing her. As they

followed the caprices of conversation, which, beginning with the opera

of "Guillaume Tell," had reached the topic of the duties of women, he

looked at the marquise, more than once, in a manner that embarrassed

her; then he left her and did not speak to her again for the rest of

the evening. He danced, played at ecarte, lost some money, and went

home to bed. I have the honor to assure you that the affair happened

precisely thus. I add nothing, and I suppress nothing.



The next morning Rastignac woke late and stayed in bed, giving himself

up to one of those matutinal reveries in the course of which a young

man glides like a sylph under many a silken, or cashmere, or cotton

drapery. The heavier the body from its weight of sleep, the more

active the mind. Rastignac finally got up, without yawning over-much

as many ill-bred persons are apt to do. He rang for his valet, ordered

tea, and drank immoderately of it when it came; which will not seem

extraordinary to persons who like tea; but to explain the circumstance

to others, who regard that beverage as a panacea for indigestion, I

will add that Eugene was, by this time, writing letters. He was

comfortably seated, with his feet more frequently on the andirons

than, properly, on the rug. Ah! to have one's feet on the polished bar

which connects the two griffins of a fender, and to think of our love

in our dressing-gown is so delightful a thing that I deeply regret the

fact of having neither mistress, nor fender, nor dressing-gown.



The first letter which Eugene wrote was soon finished; he folded and

sealed it, and laid it before him without adding the address. The

second letter, begun at eleven o'clock, was not finished till mid-day.

The four pages were closely filled.



"That woman keeps running in my head," he muttered, as he folded this

second epistle and laid it before him, intending to direct it as soon

as he had ended his involuntary revery.



He crossed the two flaps of his flowered dressing-gown, put his feet

on a stool, slipped his hands into the pockets of his red cashmere

trousers, and lay back in a delightful easy-chair with side wings, the

seat and back of which described an angle of one hundred and twenty

degrees. He stopped drinking tea and remained motionless, his eyes

fixed on the gilded hand which formed the knob of his shovel, but

without seeing either hand or shovel. He ceased even to poke the fire,

--a vast mistake! Isn't it one of our greatest pleasures to play with

the fire when we think of women? Our minds find speeches in those tiny

blue flames which suddenly dart up and babble on the hearth. We

interpret as we please the strong, harsh tones of a "burgundian."



Here I must pause to put before all ignorant persons an explanation of

that word, derived from a very distinguished etymologist who wishes

his name kept secret.



"Burgundian" is the name given, since the reign of Charles VI., to

those noisy detonations, the result of which is to fling upon the

carpet or the clothes a little coal or ember, the trifling nucleus of

a conflagration. Heat or fire releases, they say, a bubble of air left

in the heart of the wood by a gnawing worm. "Inde amor, inde

burgundus." We tremble when we see the structure we had so carefully

erected between the logs rolling down like an avalanche. Oh! to build

and stir and play with fire when we love is the material development

of our thoughts.



It was at this moment that I entered the room. Rastignac gave a jump

and said:--



"Ah! there you are, dear Horace; how long have you been here?"



"Just come."



"Ah!"



He took up the two letters, directed them, and rang for his servant.



"Take these," he said, "and deliver them."



Joseph departed without a word; admirable servant!



We began to talk of the expedition to Morea, to which I was anxious to


be appointed as physician. Eugene remarked that I should lose a great

deal of time if I left Paris. We then conversed on various matters,

and I think you will be glad if I suppress the conversation.



When the Marquise de Listomere rose, about half-past two in the

afternoon of that day, her waiting-maid, Caroline, gave her a letter

which she read while Caroline was doing her hair (an imprudence which

many young women are thoughtless enough to commit).



"Dear angel of love," said the letter, "treasure of my life and

happiness--"



At these words the marquise was about to fling the letter in the fire;

but there came into her head a fancy--which all virtuous women will

readily understand--to see how a man who began a letter in that style

could possibly end it. When she had turned the fourth page and read

it, she let her arms drop like a person much fatigued.



"Caroline, go and ask who left this letter."