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The light-heartedness that sustained such continuous toil could only spring from devout submission and the lofty feelings that it brings. "There was an indescribable harmony between them and their possessions. The splendor of Foedora's home did not satisfy; it called out all my worst instincts; something in this lowly poverty and unfeigned goodness revived me.
An old wooer of Foedora's came for the last hat; he thought himself quite alone, looked at the bed, and heaved a great sigh, accompanied by some inaudible exclamation, into which he threw sufficient energy. In the boudoir close by, the countess, finding only some five or six intimate acquaintances about her, proposed tea.
"One of Foedora's most fervid worshipers, whose presumption was notorious, and who even made it contribute to his success, took up the glove thrown down so scornfully by Rastignac. He began an unmeasured eulogy of me, my performances, and my character. Rastignac had overlooked this method of detraction.
My future luck was hypothecated for the benefit of my creditors, and he gave my custom to his tailor, an artist, and a young man's tailor, who was to leave me in peace until I married. "The monastic life of study that I had led for three years past ended on this day. I frequented Foedora's house very diligently, and tried to outshine the heroes or the swaggerers to be found in her circle.
And I was to lay siege to Foedora's heart, in winter, and a bitter winter, with only thirty francs in my possession, and such a distance as that lay between us! Only a poor man knows what such a passion costs in cab-hire, gloves, linen, tailor's bills, and the like. If the Platonic stage lasts a little too long, the affair grows ruinous.
Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life of another that we revere within us; then and so it begins for us the cruelest trouble of all the misery with a hope in it, a hope for which we must even bear our torments. I thought I would go to Rastignac on the morrow to confide Foedora's strange resolution to him, and with that I slept.
It was my misfortune to be deceived in my fairest beliefs, to be punished by ingratitude for benefiting others, and to receive uncounted pleasures as the reward of my errors a sinister doctrine, but a true one for the prodigal! "The contagious leprosy of Foedora's vanity had taken hold of me at last. I probed my soul, and found it cankered and rotten.
Love utterly absorbed me as I sat beside her; as I looked at her I used to give myself up to the pleasure of listening to the music, putting all my soul into the double joy of love and of hearing every emotion of my heart translated into musical cadences. It was my passion that filled the air and the stage, that was triumphant everywhere but with my mistress. Then I would take Foedora's hand.
Foedora's carriage was unable to reach the doorway of the theatre. At the sight of a well-dressed woman about to cross the street, a commissionaire held an umbrella above us, and stood waiting at the carriage-door for his tip. I would have given ten years of life just then for a couple of halfpence, but I had not a penny.
'Isn't he lucky, not to be in love! they exclaimed. 'If he were, could he be so light-hearted and animated? Yet in Foedora's presence I was as dull as love could make me. When I was alone with her, I had not a word to say, or if I did speak, I renounced love; and I affected gaiety but ill, like a courtier who has a bitter mortification to hide.
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