"Yes, there are more Russian princesses there than anywhere else, and Russian princesses are the only women left in this world who will marry a man without a farthing. Then, too, I was prepared to be contented with a princess who was not very well off. I was not at all exacting, and would have come down without a murmur to thirty thousand pounds a year. That was my very lowest figure though."
"Indeed!" said Renée laughing. "And what should you have done with all that money?"
"I should just have poured it away in streams between my fingers; it would have been something astounding to see; something that I have never seen rich people do with their money. I think all the millionaires ought to be ashamed of themselves. For instance, from the way in which a man lives who has four thousand a year, and the way a man lives who has forty thousand, could you tell their difference of fortune? Now with me you would have known. For a whole year I should have flung away my money in all kinds of caprices, fancies, and follies; I should have dazzled and fairly humiliated Paris; I should have been like a sun-god showering bank-notes down; I should have positively degraded my gold by all kinds of prodigalities; and at the end of a year, day for day, I should have left my wife."
"Nonsense!"
"Certainly; in order to prove to myself that I did not love money. If I had not left her, I should have considered myself dishonoured."
"Well, what extraordinary ideas! I must confess that I haven't arrived at your philosophy yet. A large fortune and all that it gives you, all kinds of enjoyment and luxuries, houses, carriages, and then the pleasure of making the people you don't like envious—of annoying them. Oh, I think it would be most delightful to be rich."
"I told you just now, Renée, that you were a woman—merely a woman."
XXX
Denoisel had spoken as he really felt. If he had sometimes wished for wealth, he had never envied people who had it. He had a sincere and thorough contempt for money—the contempt of a man who is rich with very little.