ses creatures who despatch, medically
speaking, a dozen young folks in a season. Morality is powerless
against a dozen vices which destroy society and which nothing can
punish.--Another cup!--Upon my word of honor! man is a jester dancing
upon a precipice. They talk to us about the immorality of the _Liaisons
Dangereuses_, and any other book you like with a vulgar reputation; but
there exists a book, horrible, filthy, fearful, corrupting, which is
always open and will never be shut, the great book of the world; not to
mention another book, a thousand times more dangerous, which is composed
of all that men whisper into each other's ears, or women murmur behind
their fans, of an evening in society."

"Henri, there is certainly something extraordinary the matter with you;
that is obvious in spite of your active discretion."

"Yes!... Come, I must kill the time until this evening. Let's to the
tables.... Perhaps I shall have the good luck to lose."

De Marsay rose, took a handful of banknotes and folded them into his
cigar-case, dressed himself, and took advantage of Paul's carriage to
repair to the Salon des Etrangers, where until dinner he consumed the
time in those exciting alternations of loss and gain which are the last
resource of powerful organizations when they are compelled to exercise
themselves in the void. In the evening he repaired to the trysting-place
and submitted complacently to having his eyes bandaged. Then, with
that firm will which only really strong men have the faculty of
concentrating, he devoted his attention and applied his intelligence to
the task of divining through what streets the carriage passed. He had
a sort of certitude of being taken to the Rue Saint-Lazare, and
being brought to a halt at the little gate in the garden of the Hotel
San-Real. When he passed, as on the first occasion, through this gate,
and was put in a litter, carried, doubtless by the mulatto and the
coachman, he understood, as he heard the gravel grate beneath their
feet, why they took such minute precautions. He would have been able,
had he been free, or if he had walked, to pluck a twig of laurel,
to observe the nature of the soil which clung to his boots; whereas,
transported, so to speak, ethereally into an inaccessible mansion, his
good fortune must remain what it had been hitherto, a dream. But it is
man's despair that all his work, whether for good or evil, is imperfect.
All his labors, physical or intellectual, a