"Curses on me!" said he, promenading with a feverish and unequal step. "Why did I ever see that damned blonde woman with the black eyebrows, blue eyes, pale complexion, impudent face, and provoking figure? She seems to me more attractive even than that little girl hardly grown. Curses on me! will these two faces always pursue me? or, rather, will my disordered mind always evoke them? Misery! have I not been fool enough, brute enough? I do not know how, but the thing was so easy, so practical, that is what makes me furious. Surely, rich as I am, I ought to be able to marry this little girl and have the other for a mistress, because I do not doubt she is the mistress of that archduke, confound him! and I defy him to give her as much money as I would have given her. Yes, yes," continued he, clenching his fists in excess of rage, "I am becoming a fool, a furious fool, but I did not ask to have the Empress of Russia for a mistress, or to marry the daughter of the Queen of England or any other queen. What did I wish? To marry a little citizen, niece of an old magistrate who has not a cent. Are there not thousands of such marriages? And I could not succeed! and I have thirty millions! Misery! my fortune is to fine purpose, not to take away a mistress from this automaton German prince! After all, she only loves him for his money. He is nearly forty; he is as proud as a peacock, stupid as a goose, and cold as an icicle. I am younger than he, not any uglier, and if he is an archduke, am I not a millionaire? And then I have the advantage of having put him at my feet, for this accursed and insolent woman heard me treat her imbecile prince as a poor creature; she reproached him before me for enduring the humiliations I heaped upon him. She ought to despise that man, and, like all women of her kind, have a weakness for a rough and energetic man who put this crowned, lanky fellow at his feet. She treated me cruelly before him, that is true, but it was to flatter him; we all understand those profligates. Oh, if I could only take this woman away from him, what a triumph! what a revenge! what a consolation for my lost marriage! Consolation? No; for one of these women could not make me forget the other. I do not know if it is my age, but I have never known such tenacity of desire as I feel for this little girl. But no matter, if I could only take his mistress away from this prince, half of my will would be accomplished; and who knows? This woman is acquainted with Antonine; she seems to have influence over her. Yes, who knows, if once mine, I would not be able by means of money to decide her to--Misery!" cried Pascal, with an explosion of ferocious joy, "what a triumph, to take a wife from this blond youth, and his beautiful mistress from the archduke! If my fortune can do it, it shall be done!" And our hero, holding up his head, seemed to develop into an attitude of imperious will, while his features took on an expression of satanic joy.