it requires of this or that man or woman? There are
some persons who may do anything; they may behave totally
irrationally, anything becomes them, and it is who shall be first to
justify their conduct; then, on the other hand, there are those on
whom the world is unaccountably severe, they must do everything well,
they are not allowed to fail nor to make mistakes, at their peril they
do anything foolish; you might compare these last to the much-admired
statues which must come down at once from their pedestal if the frost
chips off a nose or a finger. They are not permitted to be human; they
are required to be for ever divine and for ever impeccable. So one
glance exchanged between Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien outweighed twelve
years of Zizine's connection with Francis in the social balance; and a
squeeze of the hand drew down all the thunders of the Charente upon
the lovers.

David had brought a little secret hoard back with him from Paris, and
it was this sum that he set aside for the expenses of his marriage and
for the building of the second floor in his father's house. His
father's house it was; but, after all, was he not working for himself?
It would all be his again some day, and his father was sixty-eight
years old. So David build a timbered second story for Lucien, so as
not to put too great a strain on the old rifted house-walls. He took
pleasure in making the rooms where the fair Eve was to spend her life
as brave as might be.

It was a time of blithe and unmixed happiness for the friends. Lucien
was tired of the shabbiness of provincial life, and weary of the
sordid frugality that looked on a five-franc piece as a fortune, but
he bore the hardships and the pinching thrift without grumbling. His
moody looks had been succeeded by an expression of radiant hope. He
saw the star shining above his head, he had dreams of a great time to
come, and built the fabric of his good fortune on M. de Bargeton's
tomb. M. de Bargeton, troubled with indigestion from time to time,
cherished the happy delusion that indigestion after dinner was a
complaint to be cured by a hearty supper.

By the beginning of September, Lucien had ceased to be a printer's
foreman; he was M. de Rubempre, housed sumptuously in comparison with
his late quarters in the tumbledown attic with the dormer-window,
where "young Chardon" had lived in L'Houmeau; he was not even a "man
of L'Houmeau"; he lived in the heights of Angouleme, and dined four
time