Some men believe that an Indian shawl worth a thousand louis
only cost five hundred francs, others that a shawl costing five
hundred francs is worth a hundred louis. There are women, too, with
narrow incomes, who scrape and save and starve their children to pay
for a dress. I am innocent of these base meannesses. But this is the
last extremity of my torture. Some women will sell themselves to their
husbands, and so obtain their way, but I, at any rate, am free. If I
chose, Nucingen would cover me with gold, but I would rather weep on
the breast of a man whom I can respect. Ah! tonight, M. de Marsay will
no longer have a right to think of me as a woman whom he has paid."
She tried to conceal her tears from him, hiding her face in her hands;
Eugene drew them away and looked at her; she seemed to him sublime at
that moment.
"It is hideous, is it not," she cried, "to speak in a breath of money
and affection. You cannot love me after this," she added.
The incongruity between the ideas of honor which make women so great,
and the errors in conduct which are forced upon them by the
constitution of society, had thrown Eugene's thoughts into confusion;
he uttered soothing and consoling words, and wondered at the beautiful
woman before him, and at the artless imprudence of her cry of pain.
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