ve
happiness. I, a seeker after impressions, admired the faces about
me, enlivened by smiles, beaming in the light of the wax candles, and
somewhat flushed by our late good cheer; their diverse expressions
producing piquant effects seen among the porcelain baskets, the fruits,
the glasses, and the candelabra.

All of a sudden my imagination was caught by the aspect of a guest who
sat directly in front of me. He was a man of medium height, rather fat
and smiling, having the air and manner of a stock-broker, and apparently
endowed with a very ordinary mind. Hitherto I had scarcely noticed him,
but now his face, possibly darkened by a change in the lights, seemed to
me to have altered its character; it had certainly grown ghastly; violet
tones were spreading over it; you might have thought it the cadaverous
head of a dying man. Motionless as the personages painted on a diorama,
his stupefied eyes were fixed on the sparkling facets of a cut-glass
stopper, but certainly without observing them; he seemed to be engulfed
in some weird contemplation of the future or the past. When I had long
examined that puzzling face I began to reflect about it. "Is he ill?" I
said to myself. "Has he drunk too much wine? Is he ruined by a drop in
the Funds? Is he thinking how to cheat his creditors?"

"Look!" I said to my neighbor, pointing out to her the face of the
unknown man, "is that an embryo bankrupt?"

"Oh, no!" she answered, "he would be much gayer." Then, nodding her head
gracefully, she added, "If that man ever ruins himself I'll tell it in
Pekin! He possesses a million in real estate. That's a former purveyor
to the imperial armies; a good sort of man, and rather original. He
married a second time by way of speculation; but for all that he makes
his wife extremely happy. He has a pretty daughter, whom he refused for
many years to recognize; but the death of his son, unfortunately
killed in a duel, has compelled him to take her home, for he could not
otherwise have children. The poor girl has suddenly become one of the
richest heiresses in Paris. The death of his son threw the poor man into
an agony of grief, which sometimes reappears on the surface."

At that instant the purveyor raised his eyes and rested them upon
me; that glance made me quiver, so full was it of gloomy thought. But
suddenly his face grew lively; he picked up the cut-glass stopper and
put it, with a mechanical movement, into a decanter full of water that
was