y their bad
conduct, or their lack of affection. Wives are betrayed. Mistresses
are cast aside, abandoned. Talk of friendship! Is there such a thing! I
would turn pious to-morrow if I did not know that I can remain like the
inaccessible summit of a cliff amid the tempests of life. If the future
of the Christian is an illusion too, at all events it is not destroyed
until after death. Leave me to myself."

"Ah!" said I, "you know how to punish."

"Am I in the wrong?"

"Yes," I replied, with a sort of desperate courage. "By finishing this
story, which is well known in Italy, I can give you an excellent idea of
the progress made by the civilization of the present day. There are none
of those wretched creatures now."

"Paris," said she, "is an exceedingly hospitable place; it welcomes one
and all, fortunes stained with shame, and fortunes stained with blood.
Crime and infamy have a right of asylum here; virtue alone is without
altars. But pure hearts have a fatherland in heaven! No one will have
known me! I am proud of it."

And the marchioness was lost in thought.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Father Goriot

Lanty, Comte de
The Member for Arcis

Lanty, Comtesse de
The Member for Arcis

Lanty, Marianina de
The Member for Arcis

Lanty, Filippo de
The Member for Arcis

Rochefide, Marquise de
Beatrix
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
A Prince of Bohemia

Sarrasine, Ernest-Jean
The Member for Arcis

Vien, Joseph-Marie
The Member for Arcis

Zambinella
The Member for Arcis

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