ressing, I dived
about for my money in an ocean of papers. This scarcity of specie will
give you some idea of the value of that squandered upon gloves and
cab-hire; a month's bread disappeared at one fell swoop. Alas! money is
always forthcoming for our caprices; we only grudge the cost of
things that are useful or necessary. We recklessly fling gold to an
opera-dancer, and haggle with a tradesman whose hungry family must wait
for the settlement of our bill. How many men are there that wear a coat
that cost a hundred francs, and carry a diamond in the head of their
cane, and dine for twenty-five SOUS for all that! It seems as though we
could never pay enough for the pleasures of vanity.

"Rastignac, punctual to his appointment, smiled at the transformation,
and joked about it. On the way he gave me benevolent advice as to
my conduct with the countess; he described her as mean, vain, and
suspicious; but though mean, she was ostentatious, her vanity was
transparent, and her mistrust good-humored.

"'You know I am pledged,' he said, 'and what I should lose, too, if I
tried a change in love. So my observation of Foedora has been quite cool
and disinterested, and my remarks must have some truth in them. I was
looking to your future when I thought of introducing you to her; so mind
very carefully what I am about to say. She has a terrible memory. She is
clever enough to drive a diplomatist wild; she would know it at once if
he spoke the truth. Between ourselves, I fancy that her marriage was
not recognized by the Emperor, for the Russian ambassador began to smile
when I spoke of her; he does not receive her either, and only bows very
coolly if he meets her in the Bois. For all that, she is in Madame de
Serizy's set, and visits Mesdames de Nucingen and de Restaud. There
is no cloud over her here in France; the Duchesse de Carigliano, the
most-strait-laced marechale in the whole Bonapartist coterie, often goes
to spend the summer with her at her country house. Plenty of young fops,
sons of peers of France, have offered her a title in exchange for her
fortune, and she has politely declined them all. Her susceptibilities,
maybe, are not to be touched by anything less than a count. Aren't you a
marquis? Go ahead if you fancy her. This is what you may call receiving
your instructions.'

"His raillery made me think that Rastignac wished to joke and excite my
curiosity, so that I was in a paroxysm of my extemporized passion by the