| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: 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
Ferragus |
