s; and not one too many--each is a masterpiece. In this enormous
work there are something like two thousand characters, and these appear
in some books in principal, in other books in subordinate, parts. Balzac
speaks of them as we should of real people. A young lady is going to the
opera and to a ball afterwards, and he says--

"'It is easy to imagine her delight and expectation, for was she not
going to meet the delicious Duchesse de la Maufregneuse, and her friend
the celebrated Madame d'Espard, Coralis, Lucien de Rubempre and
Rastignac.'

"These people are only mentioned in the _Memoires de deux jeunes
Mariees_. But they are heroes and heroines in other books, in _Les
Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, Le Pere Goriot_, and _Les Illusions
Perdues_." Before you even begin to know Balzac, you must have read at
least twenty volumes. There is a vulgarity about those who don't know
Balzac; we, his worshippers, recognise in each other a refinement of
sense and a peculiar comprehension of life. We are beings apart; we are
branded with the seal of that great mind. You should hear us talk among
ourselves. Everyone knows that Popinot is the sublime hero of
_L'Interdiction_, but for the moment some feeble Balzacian does not
remember the other books he appears in, and is ashamed to ask.... But
I'm boring you."

"No, no; I love to listen. It is more interesting than any play."

Owen looked at her questioningly, as if he doubted the flattery, which,
at the bottom of his heart, he knew to be quite sincere.

"You cannot understand Paris until you have read Balzac. Balzac
discovered Paris; he created Paris. You remember just now what I said of
those villas? I was thinking at the moment of Balzac. For he begins one
story by a reading of the human characteristics to be perceived in its
streets. He says that there are mean streets, and streets that are
merely honest; there are young streets about whose morality the public
has not yet formed any opinion; there are murderous streets--streets
older than the oldest hags; streets that we may esteem--clean streets,
work-a-day streets and commercial streets. Some streets, he says, begin
well and end badly. The Rue Montmartre, for instance, has a fine head,
but it ends in the tail of a fish. How good that is. You don't know the
Rue Montmartre? I'll point it out next time we're that way. But you know
the Rue de la Paix?"

"Yes; what does that mean?"

"The Rue de la Paix, he says, is a l