The Firm of Nucingen

DedicationTO MADAME ZULMA CARRAUD
  To whom, madame, but to you should I inscribe this work; to you
  whose lofty and candid intellect is a treasury to your friends;
  to you that are to me not only a whole public, but the most
  indulgent of sisters as well? Will you deign to accept a token of
  the friendship of which I am proud? You, and some few souls as
  noble, will grasp the whole of the thought underlying The Firm of
  Nucingen, appended to Cesar Birotteau. Is there not a whole social
  lesson in the contrast between the two stories?

                                                       DE BALZAC.
The Firm of NucingenYou know how slight the partitions are between the private rooms of
fashionable restaurants in Paris; Very's largest room, for instance,
is cut in two by a removable screen. This Scene is not laid at Very's,
but in snug quarters, which for reasons of my own I forbear to
specify. We were two, so I will say, like Henri Monnier's Prudhomme,
"I should not like to compromise her!"
We had remarked the want of solidity in the wall-structure, so we
talked with lowered voices as we sat together in the little private
room, lingering over the dainty dishes of a dinner e

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