Here begins one of those unseen comedies, played in the secret regions of the consciousness between two beings of whom one will be the dupe of the other, though it keeps on this side of wickedness; one of those dark and comic dramas to which that of Tartuffe is mere child’s play, —­dramas that do not enter the scenic domain, although they are natural, conceivable, and even justifiable by necessity; dramas which may be characterized as not vice, only the other side of it.

The princess began by sending for d’Arthez’s books, of which she had never, as yet, read a single word, although she had managed to maintain a twenty minutes’ eulogism and discussion of them without a blunder.  She now read them all.  Then she wanted to compare these books with the best that contemporary literature had produced.  By the time d’Arthez came to see her she was having an indigestion of mind.  Expecting this visit, she had daily made a toilet of what may be called the superior order; that is, a toilet which expresses an idea, and makes it accepted by the eye without the owner of the eye knowing why or wherefore.  She presented an harmonious combination of shades of gray, a sort of semi-mourning, full of graceful renunciation,—­the garments of a woman who holds to life only through a few natural ties, —­her child, for instance,—­but who is weary of life.  Those garments bore witness to an elegant disgust, not reaching, however, as far as suicide; no, she would live out her days in these earthly galleys.

She received d’Arthez as a woman who expected him, and as if he had already been to see her a hundred times; she did him the honor to treat him like an old acquaintance, and she put him at his ease by pointing to a seat on a sofa, while she finished a note she was then writing.  The conversation began in a commonplace manner:  the weather, the ministry, de Marsay’s illness, the hopes of the legitimists.  D’Arthez was an absolutist; the princess could not be ignorant of the opinions of a man who sat in the Chamber among the fifteen or twenty persons who represented the legitimist party; she found means to tell him how she had fooled de Marsay to the top of his bent, then, by an easy transition to the royal family and to “Madame,” and the devotion of the Prince de Cadignan to their service, she drew d’Arthez’s attention to the prince:—­

“There is this to be said for him:  he loved his masters, and was faithful to them.  His public character consoles me for the sufferings his private life has inflicted upon me—­ Have you never remarked,” she went on, cleverly leaving the prince aside, “you who observe so much, that men have two natures:  one of their homes, their wives, their private lives,—­this is their true self; here no mask, no dissimulation; they do not give themselves the trouble to disguise a feeling; they are what they are, and it is often horrible!  The other man is for others, for the world, for salons; the court, the sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of admirable qualities.  What a horrible jest it is!—­and the world is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain women, at their air of superiority to their husbands, and their indifference—­”