Edouard passed a large part of his days in the academies, and his nights with Madame de Géran, at whose house there was gambling of the wildest sort. People reasonably well dressed, but whose faces denoted the vilest sort of characters, resorted every evening to the house of the general’s widow, where they were certain to find Monsieur Murville and some other dupes, over whom the schemers and kept women disputed. But Madame de Géran did not lose sight of her lover; she did not propose that her slave should escape her; she was an adept at working all the springs of coquetry; all sorts of stratagems, all methods were employed to bewilder and blind a man who believed himself to be adored, and who made every conceivable sacrifice to gratify the wishes of his mistress. Madame de Géran led her lovers a rapid pace: cards, theatres, dinners, drives, select parties, dresses, shawls, jewels, suppers, love, caresses!--only with the aid of all these could one rely even upon ostensible fidelity from her. But it must be confessed too, that amid all these diversions, Edouard had not a moment to himself; he did not even find time to be bored; and that is rarely the case when one is surfeited with everything. But luck had ceased to be favorable to him. After winning at roulette several times in succession, he experienced the inconstancy of fortune and lost considerable sums. Instead of stopping, he persisted obstinately in going on; that is the inevitable result of a first gain, which acts as a bait to people who are beginning to frequent gambling hells; so that the bankers watch with a smile the gambler who goes out with his pockets full of gold, feeling very sure that the next day the unfortunate wretch will lose twice what he has won. “S’il est quelque joueur qui vive de son gain, On en voit tous les jours mille mourir de faim.”[C] [C] If some gamblers there be who live by their gains, We see thousands who but starve for their pains. After trying trente-et-un, dice and roulette, and after losing twenty thousand francs in an hour, the last remnant of the sum which Dufresne had handed him before his wife’s departure, Edouard returned to his house, gloomy and anxious; he scolded his servants and talked roughly to everybody without reason; but he felt the need of venting a part of his ill-humor upon his people. He entered his office, where he found the clerk asleep on his desk; he shook him roughly. “What are you doing here? Is this the way you attend to your work?” The young man yawned, stretched his arms, rubbed his eyes, and gazed at his employer, who was pacing the floor of the office. “Well! do you hear me, monsieur? Why aren’t you at work?” “Why, monsieur, you know very well that I haven’t any.” “Why aren’t you writing circulars for the provinces?” “Monsieur knows too that we sent several of his circulars to the same people, and they haven’t answered.”