We all know with what strange clairvoyance a mind possessed with a fixed idea discovers resemblances and allusions in accidental description.  Madame de Camors perceived without doubt some remote connection between her husband and Faust—­between herself and Marguerite; for she could not help showing that she was strangely agitated.  She could not restrain the violence of her emotion, when Marguerite in prison cries out, in her agony and madness: 

Marguerite.

Who has given you, headsman, this power over me?  You come to me while it is yet midnight.  Be merciful and let me live.

Is not to-morrow morning soon enough?

I am yet so young—­so young! and am to die already!  I was fair, too; that was my undoing.  My true love was near, now he is far away.

Torn lies my garland; scattered the flowers.  Don’t take hold of me so roughly! spare me! spare me.  What have I done to you?  Let me not implore you in vain!  I never saw you before in all my life; you know.

Faust.

Can I endure this misery?

Marguerite.

I am now entirely in thy power.  Only let me give suck to the child.  I pressed it this whole night to my heart.  They took it away to vex me, and now say I killed it, and I shall never be happy again.  They sing songs upon me!  It is wicked of the people.  An old tale ends so—­who bids them apply it?

Faust.

A lover lies at thy feet, to unloose the bonds of wickedness.

What a blending of confused sentiments, of powerful sympathies, of vague apprehensions, suddenly seized on the breast of the young Countess!  One can hardly imagine their force—­to the very verge of distracting her.  She turned on her fauteuil and closed her beautiful eyes, as if to keep back the tears which rolled under the fringe of the long lashes.

At this moment Vautrot ceased to read, dropped his book, sighed profoundly, and stared a moment.

Then he knelt at the feet of the Comtesse de Camors!  He took her hand; he said, with a tragic sigh, “Poor angel!”

It will be difficult to understand this incident and the unfortunately grave results that followed it, without having the moral and physical portrait of its principal actor.

M. Hippolyte Vautrot was a handsome man and knew it perfectly.  He even flattered himself on a certain resemblance to his patron, the Comte de Camors.  Partly from nature and partly from continual imitation, this idea had some foundation; for he resembled the Count as much as a vulgar man can resemble one of the highest polish.

He was the son of a small confectioner in the provinces; had received from his father an honestly acquired fortune, and had dissipated it in the varied enterprises of his adventurous life.  The influence of his college, however, obtained for him a place in the Seminary.  He left it to come to Paris and study law; placed himself with an attorney; attempted literature without success; gambled on the Bourse and lost there.