to share everything
with the one to whom we owe our happiness? When all has been given, why
should we pause and hesitate over a part? Money is as nothing between
us until the moment when the sentiment that bound us together ceases to
exist. Were we not bound to each other for life? Who that believes in
love foresees such an end to love? You swear to love us eternally; how,
then, can our interests be separate?

"You do not know how I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to give
me six thousand francs; he spends as much as that every month on his
mistress, an opera dancer! I thought of killing myself. The wildest
thoughts came into my head. There have been moments in my life when I
have envied my servants, and would have changed places with my maid. It
was madness to think of going to our father, Anastasie and I have bled
him dry; our poor father would have sold himself if he could have raised
six thousand francs that way. I should have driven him frantic to no
purpose. You have saved me from shame and death; I was beside myself
with anguish. Ah! monsieur, I owed you this explanation after my mad
ravings. When you left me just now, as soon as you were out of sight, I
longed to escape, to run away... where, I did not know. Half the women
in Paris lead such lives as mine; they live in apparent luxury, and in
their souls are tormented by anxiety. I know of poor creatures even
more miserable than I; there are women who are driven to ask their
tradespeople to make out false bills, women who rob their husbands. Some
men believe that an Indian shawl worth a thousand louis only cost five
hundred francs, others that a shawl costing five hundred francs is worth
a hundred louis. There are women, too, with narrow incomes, who scrape
and save and starve their children to pay for a dress. I am innocent
of these base meannesses. But this is the last extremity of my torture.
Some women will sell themselves to their husbands, and so obtain their
way, but I, at any rate, am free. If I chose, Nucingen would cover me
with gold, but I would rather weep on the breast of a man whom I can
respect. Ah! tonight, M. de Marsay will no longer have a right to think
of me as a woman whom he has paid." She tried to conceal her tears from
him, hiding her face in her hands; Eugene drew them away and looked at
her; she seemed to him sublime at that moment.

"It is hideous, is it not," she cried, "to speak in a breath of money
and affection. You cannot lo