d; my old friends know how impetuous and fervid I was then. I
was in love for the first time, and I was--I may say so now--one of
the handsomest young fellows in Paris. I had youth and good looks, two
advantages due to good fortune, but of which we are all as proud as of
a conquest. I must be silent as to the rest.--Like all youths, I was in
love with a woman six years older than myself. No one of you here,"
said he, looking carefully round the table, "can suspect her name or
recognize her. Ronquerolles alone, at the time, ever guessed my secret.
He had kept it well, but I should have feared his smile. However, he is
gone," said the Minister, looking round.

"He would not stay to supper," said Madame de Nucingen.

"For six months, possessed by my passion," de Marsay went on, "but
incapable of suspecting that it had overmastered me, I had abandoned
myself to that rapturous idolatry which is at once the triumph and
the frail joy of the young. I treasured _her_ old gloves; I drank an
infusion of the flowers _she_ had worn; I got out of bed at night to go
and gaze at _her_ window. All my blood rushed to my heart when I inhaled
the perfume she used. I was miles away from knowing that woman is a
stove with a marble casing."

"Oh! spare us your terrible verdicts," cried Madame de Montcornet with a
smile.

"I believe I should have crushed with my scorn the philosopher who first
uttered this terrible but profoundly true thought," said de Marsay. "You
are all far too keen-sighted for me to say any more on that point. These
few words will remind you of your own follies.

"A great lady if ever there was one, a widow without children--oh! all
was perfect--my idol would shut herself up to mark my linen with her
hair; in short, she responded to my madness by her own. And how can we
fail to believe in passion when it has the guarantee of madness?

"We each devoted all our minds to concealing a love so perfect and so
beautiful from the eyes of the world; and we succeeded. And what charm
we found in our escapades! Of her I will say nothing. She was perfection
then, and to this day is considered one of the most beautiful women in
Paris; but at that time a man would have endured death to win one of her
glances. She had been left with an amount of fortune sufficient for a
woman who had loved and was adored; but the Restoration, to which she
owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate in comparison with her
name. In my position I was