you mean to do? Where shall we go this evening?
Anything new? What weather! I don't feel well, etc., etc.'

"All these variations upon the same theme--the interrogation
point--which compose Fischtaminel's repertory, will drive me mad. Add to
these leaden arrows everlastingly shot off at me, one last trait which
will complete the description of my happiness, and you will understand
my life.

"Monsieur de Fischtaminel, who went away in 1809, with the rank of
sub-lieutenant, at the age of eighteen, has had no other education than
that due to discipline, to the natural sense of honor of a noble and a
soldier: but though he possesses tact, the sentiment of probity, and
a proper subordination, his ignorance is gross, he knows absolutely
nothing, and he has a horror of learning anything. Oh, dear mother, what
an accomplished door-keeper this colonel would have made, had he
been born in indigence! I don't think a bit the better of him for his
bravery, for he did not fight against the Russians, the Austrians, or
the Prussians: he fought against ennui. When he rushed upon the enemy,
Captain Fischtaminel's purpose was to get away from himself. He married
because he had nothing else to do.

"We have another slight difficulty to content with: my husband harasses
the servants to such a degree that we change them every six months.

"I so ardently desire, dear mother, to remain a virtuous woman, that I
am going to try the effect of traveling for half the year. During the
winter, I shall go every evening to the Italian or the French opera,
or to parties: but I don't know whether our fortune will permit such an
expenditure. Uncle Cyrus ought to come to Paris--I would take care of
him as I would of an inheritance.

"If you discover a cure for my woes, let your daughter know of it--your
daughter who loves you as much as she deplores her misfortunes, and who
would have been glad to call herself by some other name than that of

"NINA FISCHTAMINEL."

Besides the necessity of describing this petty trouble, which could only
be described by the pen of a woman,--and what a woman she was!--it was
necessary to make you acquainted with a character whom you saw only in
profile in the first half of this book, the queen of the particular set
in which Caroline lived,--a woman both envied and adroit, who succeeded
in conciliating, at an early date, what she owed to the world with the
requirements of the heart. This letter is her absoluti