depths of hearts; amazing scenes of the moral world, for which a
painter is wanted. Madame Jules sat down, leaving her husband to make
a turn around the salon. After she was seated she seemed uneasy, and,
while talking with her neighbor, she kept a furtive eye on Monsieur
Jules Desmarets, her husband, a broker chiefly employed by the Baron
de Nucingen. The following is the history of their home life.

Monsieur Desmarets was, five years before his marriage, in a broker's
office, with no other means than the meagre salary of a clerk. But he
was a man to whom misfortune had early taught the truths of life, and
he followed the strait path with the tenacity of an insect making for
its nest; he was one of those dogged young men who feign death before
an obstacle and wear out everybody's patience with their own
beetle-like perseverance. Thus, young as he was, he had all the
republican virtue of poor peoples; he was sober, saving of his time,
an enemy to pleasure. He waited. Nature had given him the immense
advantage of an agreeable exterior. His calm, pure brow, the shape of
his placid, but expressive face, his simple manners,--all revealed in
him a laborious and resigned existence, that lofty personal dignity
which is imposing to others, and the secret nobility of heart which
can meet all events. His modesty inspired a sort of respect in those
who knew him. Solitary in the midst of Paris, he knew the social world
only by glimpses during the brief moments which he spent in his
patron's salon on holidays.

There were passions in this young man, as in most of the men who live
in that way, of amazing profundity,--passions too vast to be drawn
into petty incidents. His want of means compelled him to lead an
ascetic life, and he conquered his fancies by hard work. After paling
all day over figures, he found his recreation in striving obstinately