the duke by a look, a
gesture, that it is useless to try to express in words. I went away with
tears in my eyes, planning terrible and outrageous schemes of vengeance
without end.

"I often used to go with her to the theatre. Love utterly absorbed me
as I sat beside her; as I looked at her I used to give myself up to the
pleasure of listening to the music, putting all my soul into the double
joy of love and of hearing every emotion of my heart translated into
musical cadences. It was my passion that filled the air and the stage,
that was triumphant everywhere but with my mistress. Then I would take
Foedora's hand. I used to scan her features and her eyes, imploring of
them some indication that one blended feeling possessed us both, seeking
for the sudden harmony awakened by the power of music, which makes
our souls vibrate in unison; but her hand was passive, her eyes said
nothing.

"When the fire that burned in me glowed too fiercely from the face
I turned upon her, she met it with that studied smile of hers, the
conventional expression that sits on the lips of every portrait in every
exhibition. She was not listening to the music. The divine pages of
Rossini, Cimarosa, or Zingarelli called up no emotion, gave no voice to
any poetry in her life; her soul was a desert.

"Foedora presented herself as a drama before a drama. Her lorgnette
traveled restlessly over the boxes; she was restless too beneath the
apparent calm; fashion tyrannized over her; her box, her bonnet, her
carriage, her own personality absorbed her entirely. My merciless
knowledge thoroughly tore away all my illusions. If good breeding
consists in self-forgetfulness and consideration for others, in
constantly showing gentleness in voice and bearing, in pleasing others,
and in making them content in themselves, all traces of her plebeian
origin were not yet obliterated in Foedora, in spite of her cleverness.
Her self-forgetfulness was a sham, her manners were not innate but
painfully acquired, her politeness was rather subservient. And yet for
those she singled out, her honeyed words expressed natural kindness, her
pretentious exaggeration was exalted enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized
her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to conceal
her real nature from the world; her trickery no longer deceived me; I
had sounded the depths of that feline nature. I blushed for her when
some donkey or other flattered and complimented her. And