Paris, more vague than the ocean, glimmered before Emma's eyes in an

atmosphere of vermilion. The many lives that stirred amid this tumult

were, however, divided into parts, classed as distinct pictures. Emma

perceived only two or three that hid from her all the rest, and in

themselves represented all humanity. The world of ambassadors moved over

polished floors in drawing rooms lined with mirrors, round oval tables

covered with velvet and gold-fringed cloths. There were dresses with

trains, deep mysteries, anguish hidden beneath smiles. Then came the

society of the duchesses; all were pale; all got up at four o'clock; the

women, poor angels, wore English point on their petticoats; and the men,

unappreciated geniuses under a frivolous outward seeming, rode horses to

death at pleasure parties, spent the summer season at Baden, and towards

the forties married heiresses. In the private rooms of restaurants,

where one sups after midnight by the light of wax candles, laughed the

motley crowd of men of letters and actresses. They were prodigal as

kings, full of ideal, ambitious, fantastic frenzy. This was an existence

outside that of all others, between heaven and earth, in the midst of

storms, having something of the sublime. For the rest of the world it

was lost, with no particular place and as if non-existent. The nearer

things were, moreover, the more her thoughts turned away from them.

All her immediate surroundings, the wearisome country, the middle-class

imbeciles, the mediocrity of existence, seemed to her exceptional, a

peculiar chance that had caught hold of her, while beyond stretched, as

far as eye could see, an immense land of joys and passions. She confused

in her desire the sensualities of luxury with the delights of the heart,

elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment. Did not love, like

Indian plants, need a special soil, a particular temperature? Signs

by moonlight, long embraces, tears flowing over yielded hands, all

the fevers of the flesh and the languors of tenderness could not be

separated from the balconies of great castles full of indolence,

from boudoirs with silken curtains and thick carpets, well-filled

flower-stands, a bed on a raised dias, nor from the flashing of precious

stones and the shoulder-knots of liveries.

The lad from the posting house who came to groom the mare every morning

passed through the passage with his heavy wooden shoes; there were holes

in his blouse; his feet were bare in list slippers. And this was the

groom in knee-britches with whom she had to be content! His work done,

he did not come back again all day, for Charles on his return put up

his horse himself, unsaddled him and put on the halter, while the

servant-girl brought a bundle of straw and threw it as best she could

into the manger.




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