ct to which the symphony in C minor owes its
supremacy over its glorious sisters. A radiant fairy springs forward,
lifting high her wand. We hear the rustle of the violet silken curtains
which the angels raise. Sculptured golden doors, like those of the
baptistery at Florence, turn on their diamond hinges. The eye is lost in
splendid vistas: it sees a long perspective of rare palaces where beings
of a loftier nature glide. The incense of all prosperities sends up its
smoke, the altar of all joy flames, the perfumed air circulates! Beings
with divine smiles, robed in white tunics bordered with blue, flit
lightly before the eyes and show us visions of supernatural beauty,
shapes of an incomparable delicacy. The Loves hover in the air and waft
the flames of their torches! We feel ourselves beloved; we are happy
as we breathe a joy we understand not, as we bathe in the waves of a
harmony that flows for all, and pours out to all the ambrosia that
each desires. We are held in the grasp of our secret hopes which are
realized, for an instant, as we listen. When he has led us through the
skies, the great magician, with a deep mysterious transition of the
basses, flings us back into the marshes of cold reality, only to draw us
forth once more when, thirsting for his divine melodies, our souls cry
out, "Again! Again!" The psychical history of that rare moment in the
glorious finale of the C minor symphony is also that of the emotions
excited by this fete in the souls of Cesar and of Constance. The flute
of Collinet sounded the last notes of their commercial symphony.

Weary, but happy, the Birotteaus fell asleep in the early morning amid
echoes of the fete,--which for building, repairs, furnishing, suppers,
toilets, and the library (repaid to Cesarine), cost not less, though
Cesar was little aware of it, than sixty thousand francs. Such was the
price of the fatal red ribbon fastened by the king to the buttonhole
of an honest perfumer. If misfortunes were to overtake Cesar Birotteau,
this mad extravagance would be sufficient to arraign him before the
criminal courts. A merchant is amenable to the laws if, in the event of
bankruptcy, he is shown to have been guilty of "excessive expenditure."
It is perhaps more dreadful to go before the lesser courts charged with
folly or blundering mistakes, than before the Court of Assizes for an
enormous fraud. In the eyes of some people, it is better to be criminal
than a fool.

PART