d abruptly, and the tones
of his voice were full of the vehement energy that women like so well.

"Oh, everywhere!" said she, "in the Bois, at the Bouffons, in my own
house."

With the impetuosity of his adventurous southern temper, he did all he
could to cultivate an acquaintance with this lovely countess, making the
best of his opportunities in the quadrille and during a waltz that she
gave him. When he told her that he was a cousin of Mme. de Beauseant's,
the Countess, whom he took for a great lady, asked him to call at her
house, and after her parting smile, Rastignac felt convinced that he
must make this visit. He was so lucky as to light upon some one who did
not laugh at his ignorance, a fatal defect among the gilded and insolent
youth of that period; the coterie of Maulincourts, Maximes de Trailles,
de Marsays, Ronquerolles, Ajuda-Pintos, and Vandenesses who shone there
in all the glory of coxcombry among the best-dressed women of fashion
in Paris--Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de
Kergarouet, Mme. de Serizy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, the Comtesse
Ferraud, Mme. de Lanty, the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani,
the Marquise de Listomere and the Marquise d'Espard, the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse and the Grandlieus. Luckily, therefore, for him, the novice
happened upon the Marquis de Montriveau, the lover of the Duchesse de
Langeais, a general as simple as a child; from him Rastignac learned
that the Comtesse lived in the Rue du Helder.

Ah, what it is to be young, eager to see the world, greedily on the
watch for any chance that brings you nearer the woman of your dreams,
and behold two houses open their doors to you! To set foot in the
Vicomtesse de Beauseant's house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; to fall
on your knees before a Comtesse de Restaud in the Chaussee d'Antin;
to look at one glance across a vista of Paris drawing-rooms, conscious
that, possessing sufficient good looks, you may hope to find aid and
protection there in a feminine heart! To feel ambitious enough to spurn
the tight-rope on which you must walk with the steady head of an acrobat
for whom a fall is impossible, and to find in a charming woman the best
of all balancing poles.

He sat there with his thoughts for a while, Law on the one hand, and
Poverty on the other, beholding a radiant vision of a woman rise above
the dull, smouldering fire. Who would not have paused and questioned
the future as Eugene was doing? who