"No--He is certainly a most impertinent man," reflected the marquise. I request all women to imagine for themselves the reflections of which this was the first. Madame de Listomere ended hers by a formal decision to forbid her porter to admit Monsieur de Rastignac, and to show him, herself, something more than disdain when she met him in society; for his insolence far surpassed that of other men which the marquise had ended by overlooking. At first she thought of keeping the letter; but on second thoughts she burned it. "Madame had just received such a fine love-letter; and she read it," said Caroline to the housemaid. "I should never have thought that of madame," replied the other, quite surprised. That evening Madame de Listomere went to a party at the Marquis de Beauseant's, where Rastignac would probably betake himself. It was Saturday. The Marquis de Beauseant was in some way a connection of Monsieur de Rastignac, and the young man was not likely to miss coming. By two in the morning Madame de Listomere, who had gone there solely for the purpose of crushing Eugene by her coldness, discovered that she was waiting in vain. A brilliant man--Stendhal--has given the fantastic name of "crystallization" to the process which Madame de Listomere's thoughts went through before, during, and after this evening. Four days later Eugene was scolding his valet. "Ah ca! Joseph; I shall soon have to send you away, my lad." "What is it, monsieur?" "You do nothing but make mistakes. Where did you carry those letters I gave you Saturday?" Joseph became stolid. Like a statue in some cathedral porch, he stood motionless, entirely absorbed in the labors of imagination. Suddenly he smiled idiotically, and said:-- "Monsieur, one was for the Marquise de Listomere, the other was for Monsieur's lawyer." "You are certain of what you say?" Joseph was speechless. I saw plainly that I must interfere, as I happened to be again in Eugene's apartment. "Joseph is right," I said. Eugene turned and looked at me. "I read the addresses quite involuntarily, and--" "And," interrupted Eugene, "one of them was _not_ for Madame de Nucingen?" "No, by all the devils, it was not. Consequently, I supposed, my dear fellow, that your heart was wandering from the rue Saint-Lazare to the rue Saint-Dominique." Eugene struck his forehead with the flat of his hand and began to laugh; by which Joseph perceived that the blame was not on him.