“Oh, that youngster will always be a fine gentleman, and will always have such lofty notions as will place him far above many men who think themselves his betters,” replied Rastignac.

At this moment journalists, dandies, and idlers were all examining the charming subject of their bet as horse-dealers examine a horse for sale.  These connoisseurs, grown old in familiarity with every form of Parisian depravity, all men of superior talent each his own way, equally corrupt, equally corrupting, all given over to unbridled ambition, accustomed to assume and to guess everything, had their eyes centered on a masked woman, a woman whom no one else could identify.  They, and certain habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone recognize under the long shroud of the black domino, the hood and falling ruff which make the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form, the individuality of figure and gait, the sway of the waist, the carriage of the head—­the most intangible trifles to ordinary eyes, but to them the easiest to discern.

In spite of this shapeless wrapper they could watch the most appealing of dramas, that of a woman inspired by a genuine passion.  Were she La Torpille, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, or Madame de Serizy, on the lowest or highest rung of the social ladder, this woman was an exquisite creature, a flash from happy dreams.  These old young men, like these young old men, felt so keen an emotion, that they envied Lucien the splendid privilege of working such a metamorphosis of a woman into a goddess.  The mask was there as though she had been alone with Lucien; for that woman the thousand other persons did not exist, nor the evil and dust-laden atmosphere; no, she moved under the celestial vault of love, as Raphael’s Madonnas under their slender oval glory.  She did not feel herself elbowed; the fire of her glance shot from the holes in her mask and sank into Lucien’s eyes; the thrill of her frame seemed to answer to every movement of her companion.  Whence comes this flame that radiates from a woman in love and distinguishes her above all others?  Whence that sylph-like lightness which seems to negative the laws of gravitation?  Is the soul become ambient?  Has happiness a physical effluence?

The ingenuousness of a girl, the graces of a child were discernible under the domino.  Though they walked apart, these two beings suggested the figures of Flora and Zephyr as we see them grouped by the cleverest sculptors; but they were beyond sculpture, the greatest of the arts; Lucien and his pretty domino were more like the angels busied with flowers or birds, which Gian Bellini has placed beneath the effigies of the Virgin Mother.  Lucien and this girl belonged to the realm of fancy, which is as far above art as cause is above effect.

When the domino, forgetful of everything, was within a yard of the group, Bixiou exclaimed: 

“Esther!”

The unhappy girl turned her head quickly at hearing herself called, recognized the mischievous speaker, and bowed her head like a dying creature that has drawn its last breath.