“In January 1823, after Godefroid de Beaudenord had set foot in the various social circles which it pleased him to enter, and knew his way about in them, and felt himself secure amid these joys, he saw the necessity of a sunshade—­the advantage of having a great lady to complain of, instead of chewing the stems of roses bought for fivepence apiece of Mme. Prevost, after the manner of the callow youngsters that chirp and cackle in the lobbies of the Opera, like chickens in a coop.  In short, he resolved to centre his ideas, his sentiments, his affections upon a woman, one woman?—­LA PHAMME!  Ah! . . . .

“At first he conceived the preposterous notion of an unhappy passion, and gyrated for a while about his fair cousin, Mme. d’Aiglemont, not perceiving that she had already danced the waltz in Faust with a diplomatist.  The year ’25 went by, spent in tentatives, in futile flirtations, and an unsuccessful quest.  The loving object of which he was in search did not appear.  Passion is extremely rare; and in our time as many barriers have been raised against passion in social life as barricades in the streets.  In truth, my brothers, the ‘improper’ is gaining upon us, I tell you!

“As we may incur reproach for following on the heels of portrait painters, auctioneers, and fashionable dressmakers, I will not inflict any description upon you of her in whom Godefroid recognized the female of his species.  Age, nineteen; height, four feet eleven inches; fair hair, eyebrows idem, blue eyes, forehead neither high nor low, curved nose, little mouth, short turned-up chin, oval face; distinguishing signs—­none.  Such was the description on the passport of the beloved object.  You will not ask more than the police, or their worships the mayors, of all the towns and communes of France, the gendarmes and the rest of the powers that be?  In other respects—­I give you my word for it—­she was a rough sketch of a Venus dei Medici.

“The first time that Godefroid went to one of the balls for which Mme. de Nucingen enjoyed a certain not undeserved reputation, he caught a glimpse of his future lady-love in a quadrille, and was set marveling by that height of four feet eleven inches.  The fair hair rippled in a shower of curls about the little girlish head, she looked as fresh as a naiad peeping out through the crystal pane of her stream to take a look at the spring flowers. (This is quite in the modern style, strings of phrases as endless as the macaroni on the table a while ago.) On that ‘eyebrows idem’ (no offence to the prefect of police) Parny, that writer of light and playful verse, would have hung half-a-dozen couplets, comparing them very agreeably to Cupid’s bow, at the same time bidding us to observe that the dart was beneath; the said dart, however, was neither very potent nor very penetrating, for as yet it was controlled by the namby-pamby sweetness of a Mlle. de la Valliere as depicted on fire-screens, at the moment when she solemnizes her betrothal in the sight of heaven, any solemnization before the registrar being quite out to the question.