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Updated: May 31, 2025
"My dear Foedora, what are you thinking about?" resumed the princess to her niece, who was leaning on a gilded mantel covered with flowers, absorbed in deep reflection and deaf to all remonstrances. "Foedora," repeated her aunt, tugging gently at her sleeve, "what are you dreaming about?" "I am thinking of M. de Saint-Herem," said the conntess, regretfully awakening from her reverie.
"Foedora, are you ill?" broke in the princess. "No, indeed," declared the countess, "the emotion I experience is, on the contrary, full of sweetness and charm. To tell you the truth, my dear duke, I scarcely know how to express " "In mercy, explain yourself countess," urged the duke, anxiously. "The strong perfume of these flowers probably affects you strangely." "No, that is not it.
As we returned, Foedora, in real or feigned abstraction, answered all my questions curtly and by monosyllables. I said no more; it was a hateful moment. When we reached her house, we seated ourselves by the hearth, and when the servant had stirred the fire and left us alone, the countess turned to me with an inexplicable expression, and spoke. Her manner was almost solemn.
What made you suggest that I should see M. Porriquet?" and he pointed to the old man, who was petrified with fright. "Did I put myself in your hands for you to tear me in pieces? You have just shortened my life by ten years! Another blunder of this kind, and you will lay me where I have laid my father. Would I not far rather have possessed the beautiful Foedora?
"'Well, I said to Rastignac, 'they married her, or sold her perhaps, to some old man, and recollections of her first marriage have caused her aversion for love. "I walked home from the Faubourg St. Honore, where Foedora lived. Almost all the breadth of Paris lies between her mansion and the Rue des Cordiers, but the distance seemed short, in spite of the cold.
"The mystery that lurked beneath this fair semblance of womanhood grew afresh; there were so many ways of explaining Foedora, that she became inexplicable. A sort of language seemed to flow from between her lips. I put thoughts and feelings into the accidents of her breathing, whether weak or regular, gentle, or labored.
Not one of her exiled suitors had failed to own her power over them; Valentin alone was proof against her attractions. A power that can be defied with impunity is drawing to its end. This axiom is as deeply engraved on the heart of woman as in the minds of kings. In Raphael, therefore, Foedora saw the deathblow of her influence and her ability to please.
Ah, how stormy life can grow to be within the four walls of a garret! The soul within us is like a fairy; she turns straw into diamonds for us; and for us, at a touch of her wand, enchanted palaces arise, as flowers in the meadows spring up towards the sun. "Towards noon, next day, Pauline knocked gently at my door, and brought me who could guess it? a note from Foedora.
Here was the Countess Foedora, rich and loveless, proof against the temptations of Paris; was not this woman the very incarnation of my hopes and visions? I fashioned her for myself, drew her in fancy, and dreamed of her. I could not sleep that night; I became her lover; I overbrimmed a few hours with a whole lifetime a lover's lifetime; the experience of its prolific delights burned me.
"On him Foedora exercised spells and witcheries unheard of; she drew him into her power, and arranged her whole mysterious business with him; I was left out, I heard not a word of it; she had made a tool of me! She did not seem to be aware of my existence while my cousin was present; she received me less cordially perhaps than when I was first presented to her.
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