For those sarcastic persons who scoff at all things it may be a great amusement to detect the secret of a woman, to know that her chastity is a lie, that her calm face hides some anxious thought, that under that pure brow is a dreadful drama.  But there are other souls to whom the sight is saddening; and many of those who laugh in public, when withdrawn into themselves and alone with their conscience, curse the world while they despise the woman.  Such was the case with Auguste de Maulincour, as he stood there in presence of Madame Jules.  Singular situation!  There was no other relation between them than that which social life establishes between persons who exchange a few words seven or eight times in the course of a winter, and yet he was calling her to account on behalf of a happiness unknown to her; he was judging her, without letting her know of his accusation.

Many young men find themselves thus in despair at having broken forever with a woman adored in secret, condemned and despised in secret.  There are many hidden monologues told to the walls of some solitary lodging; storms roused and calmed without ever leaving the depths of hearts; amazing scenes of the moral world, for which a painter is wanted.  Madame Jules sat down, leaving her husband to make a turn around the salon.  After she was seated she seemed uneasy, and, while talking with her neighbor, she kept a furtive eye on Monsieur Jules Desmarets, her husband, a broker chiefly employed by the Baron de Nucingen.  The following is the history of their home life.

Monsieur Desmarets was, five years before his marriage, in a broker’s office, with no other means than the meagre salary of a clerk.  But he was a man to whom misfortune had early taught the truths of life, and he followed the strait path with the tenacity of an insect making for its nest; he was one of those dogged young men who feign death before an obstacle and wear out everybody’s patience with their own beetle-like perseverance.  Thus, young as he was, he had all the republican virtue of poor peoples; he was sober, saving of his time, an enemy to pleasure.  He waited.  Nature had given him the immense advantage of an agreeable exterior.  His calm, pure brow, the shape of his placid, but expressive face, his simple manners,—­all revealed in him a laborious and resigned existence, that lofty personal dignity which is imposing to others, and the secret nobility of heart which can meet all events.  His modesty inspired a sort of respect in those who knew him.  Solitary in the midst of Paris, he knew the social world only by glimpses during the brief moments which he spent in his patron’s salon on holidays.