Sometimes I determine to abandon Paris and bury myself in some rural retreat, where lonely meditation may fill my sorrowing heart with the balm of oblivion; but in charity to myself I wish to avoid the absurdity of this self-deception.  Nothing is more hurtful than trying a useless remedy, for it destroys your confidence in all other remedies, and fills your soul with despair.  Then, again, Paris is peculiarly fitted for curing these nameless maladies—­’tis the modern Thebais, deserted because ’tis crowded—­silent because ’tis noisy; there, every man can pitch his tent and nurse his favorite sorrows without being disturbed by intruders.  Solitude is the worst of companions when you wish to drown the past in Lethe’s soothing stream.  However, ’tis useless for me to reason in this apparently absurd way in order to compel myself to remain in the heart of this great city, for I cannot and must not quit Paris at present; ’tis the central point of my operations; here I can act with the greatest efficacy in the combinations of my searches—­to leave Paris is to break the threads of my labyrinth.  Besides, my duties as a man of the world impose cruel tortures upon me; if fate continues to work against me and I am compelled to retire from the world, the consolation of having escaped these social tortures will be mine; so you see, after all, there is a silver lining to my dark cloud.  When we cannot attain good we can mitigate the evil.

Last Thursday Countess L. opened the season with an unusual event—­a betrothment ball.  Her select friends were invited to a sort of rehearsal of the wedding party; her beautiful cousin is to be married to our young friend Didier, whom we named Scipio Africanus.  Marshal Bugeaud has given him a six-months’ leave, and healed his wounded shoulder with a commander’s epaulette.

Now, I know you will agree with me that my presence was necessary at this ball.  I nerved myself for this new agony, and arrived there in the middle of a quadrille.  Never did a comedian, stepping on the stage, study his manner and assume a gay look with more care than I did as I entered the room.  I glided through the figures of the dance, and reached the further end of the ball-room which was filled with gossiping dowagers.  Now I began to play my role of a happy man.

Everybody knows I am weak enough to enjoy a ball with all the passion of a young girl, therefore I willingly joined the dancers.  I selected a sinfully ugly woman, so as to direct my devotions to the antipodes of beauty—­the more unlike Irene the better for me.  My partner possessed that charming wit that generally accompanies ideal ugliness in a woman.  We talked, laughed, danced with foolish gayety—­each note of the music was accompanied by a witticism—­we exchanged places and sallies at the same time—­we invented a new style of conversation, very preferable to the dawdling gossip of a drawing-room.  There is an exhilaration attending a conversation carried