“Gentlemen,” said Bixiou, “a love that does not imply an indissoluble friendship, to my thinking, is momentary libertinage.  What sort of entire surrender is it that keeps something back?  Between these two diametrically opposed doctrines, the one as profoundly immoral as the other, there is no possible compromise.  It seems to me that any shrinking from a complete union is surely due to a belief that the union cannot last, and if so, farewell to illusion.  The passion that does not believe that it will last for ever is a hideous thing. (Here is pure unadulterated Fenelon for you!) At the same time, those who know the world, the observer, the man of the world, the wearers of irreproachable gloves and ties, the men who do not blush to marry a woman for her money, proclaim the necessity of a complete separation of sentiment and interest.  The other sort are lunatics that love and imagine that they and the woman they love are the only two beings in the world; for them millions are dirt; the glove or the camellia flower that She wore is worth millions.  If the squandered filthy lucre is never to be found again in their possession, you find the remains of floral relics hoarded in dainty cedar-wood boxes.  They cannot distinguish themselves one from the other; for them there is no ‘I’ left. Thou—­that is their Word made flesh.  What can you do?  Can you stop the course of this ‘hidden disease of the heart’?  There are fools that love without calculation and wise men that calculate while they love.”

“To my thinking Bixiou is sublime,” cried Blondet.  “What does Finot say to it?”

“Anywhere else,” said Finot, drawing himself up in his cravat, “anywhere else, I should say, with the ‘gentlemen’; but here, I think——­”

“With the scoundrelly scapegraces with whom you have the honor to associate?” said Bixiou.

“Upon my word, yes.”

“And you?” asked Bixiou, turning to Couture.

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Couture.  “The woman that will not make a stepping-stone of her body, that the man she singles out may reach his goal, is a woman that has no heart except for her own purposes.”

“And you, Blondet?”

“I do not preach, I practise.”

“Very good,” rejoined Bixiou in his most ironical tones.  “Rastignac was not of your way of thinking.  To take without repaying is detestable, and even rather bad form; but to take that you may render a hundred-fold, like the Lord, is a chivalrous deed.  This was Rastignac’s view.  He felt profoundly humiliated by his community of interests with Delphine de Nucingen; I can tell you that he regretted it; I have seen him deploring his position with tears in his eyes.  Yes, he shed tears, he did indeed—­after supper.  Well, now to our way of thinking——­”

“I say, you are laughing at us,” said Finot.