strain of
political life. He lived with Adrienne in an artificial and overheated
atmosphere. Happy because he was loved, that his ambitions were
realized, that he charmed an assembly of men by the same power that had
obtained him the adoration of this woman, yes, he was happy, very happy:
to bless life, to excite envy, to arouse jealousy, to appear simply
ridiculous if he complained of destiny; and nevertheless, at the bottom
of his soul, discontented without knowing why, consumed by intangible,
feverish instincts, ill-defined desires for Parisian curiosities, having
dreamed in his youth of results very inferior to those he had realized,
yet finding when he analyzed the realities that he enjoyed, that the
promises of his dreams were more intoxicating than the best
realizations.

Vaudrey was an ambitious man, but he was ambitious to perform valiant
feats. Life had formerly seemed to him to be made up of glory, triumphal
entries into cities, accompanied by the fluttering of flags and the
flourish of trumpets. He pictured conquests, victories, exaltations!
Theatrical magnificence! But now, more ironical, he was contented with
quasi-triumphs, if his restless, anxious nature could be satisfied with
what he obtained.

Adrienne loved him. He loved her profoundly.

Why had the meeting with Marianne troubled him so profoundly, then?
Manifestly, Mademoiselle Kayser realized the picture of his vanished
dreams, and the desires of a particular love that the passion for
Adrienne, although absolute, could not satisfy. This man had a nature of
peculiar ardor--or rather, curious desires, a greedy desire to know, an
itching need to approach and peep into abysses.

Sometimes it seemed to Vaudrey that he had not lived at all, and this
was the fear and desire of his life: to live that Parisian life which
flattered all his instincts and awoke and reanimated all his dreams. But
yesterday it had appeared to him when he met this young woman who raised
her eyes to him, half-veiled by her long eyelashes, that a stage-curtain
had been raised, disclosing dazzling fairy scenery, and since then that
scenery had been always before him. It banished, during his drive, all
peace, and while the coupe threaded its way along the Faubourg
Saint-Honore toward the Arc-de-Triomphe, the minister who, but two hours
before, had been plunged in state affairs, settled himself down in a
corner of the carriage, his legs swaddled in a robe and his feet resting
on