"Her maid told me. I hear all about their doings from Therese and
Constance," he added gleefully.
The old man looked like a lover who is still young enough to be made
happy by the discovery of some little stratagem which brings him
information of his lady-love without her knowledge.
"_You_ will see them both!" he said, giving artless expression to a pang
of jealousy.
"I do not know," answered Eugene. "I will go to Mme. de Beauseant and
ask her for an introduction to the Marechale."
Eugene felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought of appearing before
the Vicomtesse, dressed as henceforward he always meant to be. The
"abysses of the human heart," in the moralists' phrase, are only
insidious thoughts, involuntary promptings of personal interest. The
instinct of enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid changes of purpose
which have furnished the text for so much rhetoric are calculations
prompted by the hope of pleasure. Rastignac beholding himself well
dressed and impeccable as to gloves and boots, forgot his virtuous
resolutions. Youth, moreover, when bent upon wrongdoing does not dare
to behold himself in the mirror of consciousness; mature age has seen
itself; and therein lies the whole difference between these two phases
of life.
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