The Thirteen

e salons the two social worlds of Paris met as on neutral ground. Auguste passed through the rooms without finding the woman who now exercised so mighty an influence on his f

to behold the pauper of the rue Coquilliere, the Ferragus of Ida, the lodger in the rue So

his coat. "Monsieur," he continued, and his voice was sibilant like that of a hyena, "you increase my efforts against you by having recourse to the police. You will pe

the card-room. Fe

seizing Ferragus by the collar. But Ferragus quickly disengaged himse

d in it to make it

Marsay, the spectator of this scene, "but I know

ertake him until he reached the peristyle, where he saw Ferragus, who looked at him

and addressing de Marsay, whom he knew, "I entre

some one here can

s hair, he saw Madame Jules in all her dazzling beauty, fresh, gracious, artless, resplendent with the sanctity of womanhood which had won his love. This creature, now infernal to him, exci

avi have missed

u have had several unfortunate accidents lately, which I have gre

employed against me by t

nsi

account, not for my happine

Jules Desmarets

saying to my w

u are curious," said Maulincour, moving away, and l

omes to them the foundation of speech; truth is exceptional; they tell it, if they are virtuous, by caprice or by calculation. According to individual character, some women laugh when they lie; others weep; others are grave; some grow angry. After beginning life by feigning indifference to the homage that deeply flatters them, they often end by lying to themselves. Who has not admired their apparent superiority to everything at the very moment when they are trembling for the secret treasures of their love? Who has never studied their ease, their readiness, their freedom of mind in the greatest embarrassments of life? In them, nothing is put on. Deception comes as the snow from heaven. And then, with what art they discover the truth in others! With what shrewdness they employ a direct logic in answer to some passionate question which has revealed to them the secret of the heart of a man who was guileless enough to proceed by questioning! To question a woman! why, that is delivering one's self

er, and he still said nothing. Jules looked out of the carriage window at the black walls of the silent houses before which they passed; but suddenly, as if driven by a determining thought, when turning the corner of a street he exami

affect you so keenly?" said Jules; "and why do

n his house that I cannot

study of their walls. Another question would imply suspicion, distrust. To suspect a woman is a crime in love. Jules had already killed a man for doubting his wife. Clemence did

coupes with lanterns, which light both the street and the carriage, those with their windows unshaded; in short, legitimate coupes, in which couples can quarrel without caring for the eyes of pedestrians, because the civil code gives a right to provoke, or beat, or kiss, a wife in a carriage or elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere! Ho

old," remarke

r her; he was studying the

st, "forgive me the quest

k her by the waist,

I fear is that this may lead to some fatal affair between you. I would rather that we both forget this unpleasant moment. But, in any case, swear to me that you will let this singular adventure explain itself naturally. Here are the facts. Monsieur de Maulincour declared to me that the three accidents you have heard mentioned-the falling of a stone on his servant, the breaking down of his cabriolet, and his duel about Madame de Serizy-were the result of some plot I had laid against him. He also threatened to reveal to you the cause of my desire to destroy him. Can you imagine what all this means? My emotion came from the sight of his face convulsed with madness, his haggard eyes, and also his words, br

topped under the peristyle of their house. He gave his arm

ve's secrets, to glide beneath the ceilings of a marriage chamber, not shamelessly, but like Trilby, frightening neither Dougal nor Jeannie, a

hite, a silver-gilt dinner service, and porcelain of exquisite purity, lighted by transparent candles, where miracles of cookery are served under silver covers bearing coats of arms, you must, to be consistent, leave the garrets at the tops of the houses, and the grisettes in the streets, abandon garrets, grisettes, umbrellas, and overshoes to men who pay for their dinners with tickets; and you must also comprehend Love to be a principle which develops in all its grace only on Savonnerie carpets, beneath the opal gleams of an alabaster lamp, between guarded walls silk-hun

n impossible equality, the more we shall get away from it in our manners and customs. Thus, rich people are beginning, in France, to become more exclusive in their tastes and their belongings, than they have been for the last thirty years. Madame Jules knew very well how to carry out this programme; and everything about her was arranged in harmony with a luxury

ands or the jewels that adorned it. No more mysteries! all is over for the husband; no more painting or decoration for him. The corset-half the time it is a corset of a reparative kind-lies where it is thrown, if the maid is too sleepy to take it away with her. The whalebone bustle, the oiled-silk protections round the sleeves, the pads, the hair bought from a coiffeur, all the false woman is there, scattered about in open sight. Disjecta memb

sband; but dainty and elegant and adorned for others, for the rival of al

r love the necessary impulse to fulfil all those minute personal cares which ought never to be relaxed, because they perpetuate love. Besides, such personal cares a

wound in heavy coils around her head; a woman always more simple, more beautiful there than she was before the world; a woman just refreshed in water, whose only artifice consisted in being whiter than her muslins, sweeter than all perfumes, more seductive than any siren, always loving and therefore always loved. This admirable understandi

-gown round her waist, defining the lines of her bust; she allowed her hair to fall upon her beautifully modelled shoulders. A perfumed bath had given her a delightful fragrance, and her little bare feet were in velvet slippers. Strong in a sense of her advantages she came in ste

thinking abo

evil thoughts. The woman who loves has a full knowledge of her

ou," he

abou

es

a very dou

he fell asleep, Madame

ome evil. Jules' mind is preoccupied, disturbe

,-that arm in which she had slept, peacefully and happy, for five years; an arm she had never wearied. A voice said to her, "Jules suffers, Jules is weeping." She raised her head, and then sat up; felt that her husband's place was col

Speak to me, if you love me!" and she poured out

sed her hands and knees, and

ng I have not said myself for the last three hours? Yes, for three hours, I have been here, watching you as you slept, so beautiful! admiring that pure, peaceful brow. Yes, yes! you have always told me your thoughts, have you not? I alone am in that soul. While I look at you, while my eyes can plunge into yours I see all plainly. Your life is as pure as your glance is clear. No, there is no secret behind those transparent eyes." He rose and kissed their lids. "Let me avow to you, dearest soul," he said, "that for the last five years each day has increased my happiness, through the knowledge that you are all mine, and that no natural affection even can take an

in remembering my mother's dying farewell, said in a voice sweeter than all music, and in feeling the sol

ith a nervous force greater than that of men,

for any. I feel I am more wife than mother. Well, then, can you fear? Listen to me, my own beloved, promise to forget, not this hour of mingled tenderness and doubt, but the words of that madman. Jules, you must. Promise me not to see him, not to go to him. I have a deep conviction that if you set one foot in that maze we shall both roll down a precipice where I shall perish-but with your name upon my lips, your heart in my heart. Why hold me so high in that heart and yet so low in reality? What! you who give credit to so many as to

press a shudder,

t Jules, as he lifted his wife in

angel," he said. "I have

sweet words, softly repeated. Jules, as h

n blights it. To that young soul, that tender

disperse, leaves in those souls a trace of its passage. Either love gains a stronger life, as the earth after rain, or the shock still echoes

th, or was it only a memory of their nocturnal scene? They did not know themselves. But they loved each other so purely that the impression of that scene, both cruel and beneficent, could not fail to leave its traces in their souls; both were eager to make those traces disappear, each striving to be the first to return to the other, and thus they could not fail to think of the cause of their first vari

both, which are all novel. Jules studied his wife's voice; he watched her glances with the freshness of feeling that inspired him in the earliest days of his passion

ephemeral flowers, born neither of yesterday nor belonging to the morrow. Jules and Clemence now enjoyed this day as though they forboded it to be the last of their loving life. What name shall we give to that mysterious power which hastens the steps of travellers before the storm is visible; which makes the life and beauty of the dying so resplendent, and fills the parting soul with joy

d to go to the Bourse on his usual business, asked his wife, as usual, i

he day is too unpl

asury. At four o'clock, as he left the Bourse, he came face to face with Monsieur de Ma

to have recourse to anonymous letters with which to trouble your peace of mind; I prefer to speak to you in person. Believe me, if my v

ns Madame Desmarets," replied Jules,

ame Jules on the prisoner's bench at the court of assi

alse calmness. Drawing the baron under one of the temporary sheds of the Bourse, near which

you; but there will be a due

ware that your wife may have assisted in poisoning me last Saturday night. Yes, monsieur, since then some extraordinary evil has devel

Jules' husband had good reason to be more amazed than any other human being. Here his character displayed itself; he was more amazed than overcome. Made a judge, and the judge of an adored woman, he found in his soul the equity of a judge as

traces an intelligent man. As I returned that night I remembered, by a fortunate chance, the name of Madame Meynardie, mentioned in that letter of Ida, the presumed mistress of

l await them. I shall seek the truth of this strange affair courageously; but you must permit me to doubt everything until the evidence o

return

ed his wife, when she saw him. "

the room where all things spoke to him of love and happiness,-t

day?" he asked, as

of thoughts which had gathered themselves together into a lu

, in a tone that w

ain. Jules was a passionate man, but he was also full of delicacy. It was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. When such a

ter's lodge, and said to the porter, a

uth; dismissal if you deceive me; and nothing at al

's face, leading him under th

go out thi

o three, and I think I saw her

rue, upon

mons

ut if you speak of this, re

urned to

not be offended at the inquiry I am going to make. Have I not g

e said,-"f

ou spen

first place, I had to pay sev

in this way," thought Jules. "I

s master, who opened it indifferently, but as soon as his eyes had li

e of your peace of mi

iting you this letter

own to you; but my po

rtune compel me to

ing circumstances und

sieur Auguste de Maul

of mental derangement

ppiness by fancies

Pamiers and myself d

it right, therefor

hope, curable; but it

on the honor of our fa

e must rely, monsi

cre

or I could have gone t

ke no doubt that you w

begs you to des

ance of my perfe

aulincour, n

torture!"

r mind?" asked his wife, ex

er, "to ask myself whether it can be you who have sent me th

etting fall the paper. "I pity him;

e that he has

him, in spite of your prom

in presence of this great peril. Explain to me why you went out this morning. Women think they have the right to tell us little falsehood

essing-room and bro

d that she did not mean to go out. There are so many reasons for changing our plans! Caprices, whims, are they not your right? Women are not required to be consistent with themselves. You had forgotten something,-a service to render, a visit, some kind action. But nothing hinders a woman from telling her husband what she does.

e confidence; without which you will lay up for yourself terrible remorse. Jules, my Jules, trust is the virtue of love.

not first in your heart, I am no longer thine own self-well, Clemence, even so, I prefer t

ths!" she cried,

dden a thought f

happiness depends upo

l!" he exclaimed, w

ere heard,-the yelping of a shrill li

cried. "Yes, I shall go in; I

antechamber was violently burst open. A young woman entered

at home. She answered that she knew very well madame had been out, but she saw her co

he two men. "What do you want, mademoisell

antastic Paris itself. She holds to vice by one thread only, and she breaks away from it at a thousand other points of the social circumference. Besides, she lets only one trait of her character be known, and that the only one which renders her blamable; her noble virtues are hidden; she prefers to glory in her naive libertinism. Most incompletely rendered in dramas and tales where she is put upon the scene with all her poesy, she is nowhere really true but in her garret; elsewhere she is invariably calumniated or over-praised. Rich, she deteriorates; poor, she is misunderstood. She has too many vic

so often, with its red-calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet furniture, its tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the sofa, the little moquette carpet, the alabaster clock and candlesticks (under glass cases), the yellow bedroom, the eider-down quilt,-in short, all the domestic joys of a grisette's life; and in addition, the woman-of-all-work (a former grisette herself, now the owner of a moustache), theatre-pa

grisette of Paris; but she is even more distinctive to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her garments are made to adhere to her form, which they clearly define. On this occasion she was trigly dressed in a green gown, with a white chemisette, which allowed the beauty of her bust to be seen; her sha

are here, to come and take from a poor girl a man with whom I'm as good as married, morally, and who did talk of making it right by marrying me before the municipality. There's plenty of handsome young men in the world-ain't

s turned to

hear no more of all this," she

it; but I can't help that," resumed Ida. "Why d

selle," said Jules, stupef

Then it's very wrong, monsieur,-isn't it?-for a woman who has the happiness

da by the arm and pulling her into an adjoi

nsieur F

s dead,"

old man with jewelry who wears corsets,-told me that Madame Jules was my rival. That name, monsieur, sounds mighty like a feigned one; but if it is yours, excuse me. But this I say, if Madame Jules was a court duchess, Henri is rich enough to satisfy all her fancies, and it is my business to protect my property; I've a right to, f

" said Jules. "W

nsieur,-Ida Gruget, corset-maker, at your se

man whom you cal

, perhaps, than you are. But why do you ask me his address when your wife knows it? He told me not to give it. Am

sand francs to tell me where Mon

this singular reply with a popular gesture. "There's no sum in the world could m

notice. The whole world seemed to crumble beneath his fe

served," sa

the dining-room a quarter of an ho

to-day," said the wa

er, Josephine?"

got some love-affair on hand, and it has been discovered at a very bad time. I wouldn't an

o go after pleasures, he, who hasn't slept out of madame's room for five years, who goes to his study at ten and never leaves it till br

said the maid, takin

three times that dinner was ready," continued the val

s entered the

madame?"

ead aches," replied the maid,

otmen composedly: "You can take aw

her weeping, but endeavoring to smo

o reproaches from me. Why should I avenge myself? If you have not

er sobs and the accent in which they were sa

continued. "But I should never have the courage; I would rath

t end his

d, flinging herself at hi

ace, tried to shake her off, dragg

alone,"

f you love me no longer I shal

es

of the bed, holding her between his legs. Then, looking at

k," h

s began

nd death. If I tell it, I-No,

ve betr

nk so now, but soon

to see, a man enriched by crime, if he does n

Jul

ctor?-the man to whom we owe our for

said

m I killed

one deat

e you money, if it is you, on the contrary, who

he were?"

marets cross

n you and your mother have both deceived me? Besides, does a

d fainted a

. "And suppose

e; called Josephine, and

said Madame Jules, re

d for Monsieur Desplein; send also to my br

rother?" as

d already le