ur second. I am disappointed and sick of everything.
The Alsacienne, whom it was proposed that I should marry, had six toes
on her left foot; I cannot possibly live with a woman who has six toes!
It would get about to a certainty, and then I should be ridiculous.
Her income was only eighteen thousand francs; her fortune diminished
in quantity as her toes increased. The devil take it; if we begin an
outrageous sort of life, we may come on some bit of luck, perhaps!'

"Rastignac's eloquence carried me away. The attractions of the plan
shone too temptingly, hopes were kindled, the poetical aspects of the
matter appealed to a poet.

"'How about money?' I said.

"'Haven't you four hundred and fifty francs?'

"'Yes, but debts to my landlady and the tailor----'

"'You would pay your tailor? You will never be anything whatever, not so
much as a minister.'

"'But what can one do with twenty louis?'

"'Go to the gaming-table.'

"I shuddered.

"'You are going to launch out into what I call systematic dissipation,'
said he, noticing my scruples, 'and yet you are afraid of a green
table-cloth.'

"'Listen to me,' I answered. 'I promised my father never to set foot in
a gaming-house. Not only is that a sacred promise, but I still feel an
unconquerable disgust whenever I pass a gambling-hell; take the money
and go without me. While our fortune is at stake, I will set my own
affairs straight, and then I will go to your lodgings and wait for you.'

"That was the way I went to perdition. A young man has only to come
across a woman who will not love him, or a woman who loves him too well,
and his whole life becomes a chaos. Prosperity swallows up our energy
just as adversity obscures our virtues. Back once more in my Hotel de
Saint-Quentin, I gazed about me a long while in the garret where I had
led my scholar's temperate life, a life which would perhaps have been
a long and honorable one, and that I ought not to have quitted for
the fevered existence which had urged me to the brink of a precipice.
Pauline surprised me in this dejected attitude.

"'Why, what is the matter with you?' she asked.

"I rose and quietly counted out the money owing to her mother, and added
to it sufficient to pay for six months' rent in advance. She watched me
in some alarm.

"'I am going to leave you, dear Pauline.'

"'I knew it!' she exclaimed.

"'Listen, my child. I have not given up the idea of coming back. Keep
my room for me for six mon