taxed his memory as to the most distinguished women of
the faubourg Saint-Germain, in order to convince himself that Natalie
could, if not eclipse them, at any rate stand among them on a footing of
perfect equality. All comparisons were to her advantage, for they rested
on his own imagination, which followed his desires. Paris would have
shown him daily other natures, young girls of other styles of beauty and
charm, and the multiplicity of impressions would have balanced his mind;
whereas in Bordeaux Natalie had no rivals, she was the solitary flower;
moreover, she appeared to him at a moment when Paul was under the
tyranny of an idea to which most men succumb at his age.

Thus these reasons of propinquity, joined to reasons of self-love and a
real passion which had no means of satisfaction except by marriage, led
Paul on to an irrational love, which he had, however, the good sense to
keep to himself. He even endeavored to study Mademoiselle Evangelista
as a man should who desires not to compromise his future life; for the
words of his friend de Marsay did sometimes rumble in his ears like a
warning. But, in the first place, persons accustomed to luxury have a
certain indifference to it which misleads them. They despise it, they
use it; it is an instrument, and not the object of their existence. Paul
never imagined, as he observed the habits of life of the two ladies,
that they covered a gulf of ruin. Then, though there may exist some
general rules to soften the asperities of marriage, there are none by
which they can be accurately foreseen and evaded. When trouble arises
between two persons who have undertaken to render life agreeable and
easy to each other, it comes from the contact of continual intimacy,
which, of course, does not exist between young people before they marry,
and will never exist so long as our present social laws and customs
prevail in France. All is more or less deception between the two young
persons about to take each other for life,--an innocent and involuntary
deception, it is true. Each endeavors to appear in a favorable light;
both take a tone and attitude conveying a more favorable idea of their
nature than they are able to maintain in after years. Real life, like
the weather, is made up of gray and cloudy days alternating with those
when the sun shines and the fields are gay. Young people, however,
exhibit fine weather and no clouds. Later they attribute to marriage the
evils inherent in li