who are my qveen," said
Nucingen.

By chance this carpet, by one of our cleverest designers, matched
with the whimsicalities of the Chinese curtains. The walls, painted
by Schinner and Leon de Lora, represented voluptuous scenes, in carved
ebony frames, purchased for their weight in gold from Dusommerard, and
forming panels with a narrow line of gold that coyly caught the light.

From this you may judge of the rest.

"You did well to bring me here," said Esther. "It will take me a week to
get used to my home and not to look like a parvenu in it----"

"_My_ home! Den you shall accept it?" cried the Baron in glee.

"Why, of course, and a thousand times of course, stupid animal," said
she, smiling.

"Animal vas enough----"

"Stupid is a term of endearment," said she, looking at him.

The poor man took Esther's hand and pressed it to his heart. He was
animal enough to feel, but too stupid to find words.

"Feel how it beats--for ein little tender vort----"

And he conducted his goddess to her room.

"Oh, madame, I cannot stay here!" cried Eugenie. "It makes me long to go
to bed."

"Well," said Esther, "I mean to please the magician who has worked all
these wonders.--Listen, my fat elephant, after dinner we will go to the
play together. I am starving to see a play."

It was just five years since Esther had been to a theatre. All Paris
was rushing at that time to the Porte-Saint-Martin, to see one of those
pieces to which the power of the actors lends a terrible expression of
reality, _Richard Darlington_. Like all ingenuous natures, Esther loved
to feel the thrills of fear as much as to yield to tears of pathos.

"Let us go to see Frederick Lemaitre," said she; "he is an actor I
adore."

"It is a horrible piece," said Nucingen foreseeing the moment when he
must show himself in public.

He sent his servant to secure one of the two stage-boxes on the grand
tier.--And this is another strange feature of Paris. Whenever success,
on feet of clay, fills a house, there is always a stage-box to be
had ten minutes before the curtain rises. The managers keep it for
themselves, unless it happens to be taken for a passion a la Nucingen.
This box, like Chevet's dainties, is a tax levied on the whims of the
Parisian Olympus.

It would be superfluous to describe the plate and china. Nucingen had
provided three services of plate--common, medium, and best; and the
best--plates, dishes, and all, was of chased silver gilt.