"It is a discovery I owe to my horror of all tediums, all wearisome, long-protracted affairs,—a sort of horror which has been principally inspired by long political conferences and ministerial discussions. But to return to our game of amusing beneficence: I cannot, alas, aspire to possess that disinterested virtue which makes some people content to entrust others with the office of either ill or well distributing their bounty, and, if it merely required me to send one of my chamberlains to carry a few hundred louis to each of the divisions in and around Paris, I confess, to my shame, that the scheme would not interest me nearly as much as it does at present, while doing good, after my notions on the subject, is one of the most entertaining and exciting amusements you can imagine. I prefer the word 'amusing,' because to me it conveys the idea of all that pleases, charms, and allures us. And, really, madame, if you would only become my accomplice in a few dark intrigues of this sort, you would see that, apart from the praiseworthiness of the action, nothing is really more curious, inviting, attractive, or diverting, than these charitable adventures. And then, what mystery is requisite to conceal the benefits we render! what precautions to prevent ourselves from being discovered! what varied, yet powerful, emotions are excited at the aspect of poor but worthy people shedding tears of joy and calling down Heaven's blessing on your head! Depend upon it, such a group is, after all, more gratifying than the pale, angry countenance of either a jealous or an unfaithful lover, and there are very few who do not class either under one head or the other. The emotions I describe are closely allied to those you experienced this morning while going to the Rue du Temple. Simply dressed, that you may escape observation, you go forth with a palpitating heart; you also ascend with a throbbing breast some modest fiacre, carefully drawing down the blinds to prevent yourself from being seen; then, looking cautiously from side to side that you are not observed, you quickly enter a mean-looking dwelling, just like this morning, you see, the only difference being that, whereas to-day you said, 'If I am discovered I am lost!' then you would only smile as you mentally uttered, 'If I am discovered, they will overwhelm me with praises and blessings!' Now, since you possess your many adorable qualities in all their pure modesty, you would employ the most artful schemes, the most complicated manœuvres, to prevent yourself from being known, and, consequently, wept over and blessed as an angel of goodness."
"Ah, my lord," cried Madame d'Harville, deeply moved, "you are indeed my preserver! I cannot express the new ideas, the consoling hopes, awakened within me by your words. You are quite right; to endeavour to gain the blessing and gratitude of such as are poor and in misery is almost equal to being loved even as I would wish to be; nay, it is even superior in its purity and absence of self. When I compare the existence I now venture to anticipate with the shameful and degraded lot I was preparing for myself, my own reproaches become more bitter and severe."
"I should, indeed, be grieved," said Rodolph, smiling, "were that to be the case, since all my desire is to make you forget the past, and to prove to you that there are various modes of recreating and distracting our minds; the means of good and evil are very frequently nearly the same: it is the end, only, which differs. In a word, if good is as attractive, as amusing, as evil, why should we prefer the latter? I am going to use a very commonplace and hackneyed simile. Why do many women take as lovers men not nearly as worthy of that distinction as their own husbands? Because the greatest charm of love consists in the difficulties which surround it; for once deprived of the hopes, the fears, the anxieties, difficulties, mysteries, and dangers, and little or nothing would remain, merely the lover, stripped of all the prestige derivable from these causes, and a very every-day object he would appear; very much after the fashion of the individual who, when asked by a friend why he did not marry his mistress, replied, 'Why, I was thinking of it; but, if I did, where should I go to pass my evenings?'"
"Your picture is coloured after nature, my lord," said Madame d'Harville, smiling.
"Well, then, if I can find the means of enabling you to experience the fears, the anxieties, the excitement, which seem to have such charms for you, if I can render useful your natural love for mystery and romance, your inclination for dissimulation and artifice,—you see my bad opinion of your sex will peep out in spite of me," added Rodolph, gaily,—"shall I not change into fine and generous qualities instincts which otherwise are mere ungovernable and unmanageable impulses, excellent, if well employed, most fatal, if directed badly? Now, then, what do you say? Shall we get up all manner of benevolent plots and charitable dissipations? We will have our rendezvous, our correspondence, our secrets, and, above all, we will carefully conceal all our doings from the marquis, for your visit of to-day to the Morels has, in all probability, excited his suspicions. There, you see, it only requires your consent to commence a regular intrigue."
"I accept with joy and gratitude the mysterious associations you propose, my lord," said Clémence; "and, by way of beginning our romance, I will return to-morrow to visit those poor creatures to whom, unfortunately, this morning I could only utter a few words of consolation; for, taking advantage of my terror and alarm, the purse you so thoughtfully supplied me with was stolen from me by a lame boy as I ascended the stairs. Ah, my lord," added Clémence (and her countenance lost the expression of gentle gaiety by which a few minutes before it was animated), "if you only knew what misery, what a picture of wretchedness—no! oh, no! I never could have believed so horrid a scene, or that such want existed; and yet I bewail my condition and complain of my severe destiny."
Rodolph, wishing to conceal from Madame d'Harville how deeply he was touched at this application of the woes of others, as teaching patience and resignation, yet fully recognising in the meek and subdued spirit the fine and noble qualities of her mind, said, gaily:
"With your permission, I shall except the Morels from your jurisdiction; you shall resign them to my care, and, above all things, promise me not again to enter that miserable place, for, to tell you the truth, I live there."
"You, my lord? What an idea!"
"Nay, but you really must believe me when I say I live there, for it is actually true. I confess mine is somewhat a humble lodging, a mere matter of eight pounds a year, in addition to which I pay the large and liberal sum of six francs a month to the porteress, Madame Pipelet, that ugly old woman you saw; but, to make up for all this, I have as my next neighbour, Mlle. Rigolette, the prettiest grisette in the Quartier du Temple. And you must allow that, for a merchant's clerk, with a salary of only seventy-two pounds a year (I pass as a clerk), such a domicile is well suited to my means."