The Girl With the Golden Eyes Read Online Free Page A

Then on the upper deck, its soldiers, driven by exploration or ambition, will land on every shore, and, while spreading their lively luster, strive for a glory that is pleasure, or love affairs that need gold.
    Hence the fierce impulses of the proletariat, hence the depraved interests that crush the lower and middle classes, hence the cruelties of the artist’s thoughts, and the excesses of pleasure constantly sought by the upper class—all these explain the normal ugliness of Parisian physiognomy. Only in the Orient does the human race offer a magnificent countenance; but it is a result of the constant calm affected by those profound philosophers with their long pipes, little legs, and boxy torsos, who scorn movement and loathe it; whereas in Paris, the Petty, the Average, and the Great all run, jump, and caper about, whipped by the pitiless goddess, Need: need for money, fame, or fun. A fresh, restful, gracious, truly young face is the most extraordinary of exceptions here: It is rarely encountered. If you see such a one, it must either belong to a young and fervent curate, or to some good abbé in his forties, with a triple chin; or to a young individual of purehabits, such as might be bred in certain middle-class families; to a twenty-year-old mother, still full of illusions, breastfeeding her firstborn; to a green youngster newly arrived from the provinces, and confided to the care of a pious dowager who keeps him penniless; or perhaps to some shop boy, who goes to bed at midnight, tired out from folding or unfolding calico, and who gets up at seven in the morning to arrange the window display; or, often, to a man of science or poetry, who lives monastically in harmony with a sublime idea, who remains sober, patient, and chaste; or to some idiot, pleased with himself, feeding on stupidity, bursting with health, always smiling at himself; or to the happy and flaccid species of idlers, the only people truly happy in Paris, who every hour sample its shifting poesies.
    Nonetheless, there is in Paris a company of privileged beings who profit from this extravagant movement of inventions, interests, business, arts, and gold. These beings are women. Although they too have a thousand secret causes that here, more than elsewhere, erode their physiognomy, one can find, in feminine society, little happy tribes who live in the oriental manner, and can preserve their beauty; but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets; they remain hidden, like rare plants that unfurl their petals only at certain times, and that constitute veritable exotic exceptions.
    Yet Paris is essentially a land of contrasts. If true sentiments are rare here, one can also find, here as well as elsewhere, noble friendships, unbounded devotion. On this battlefield of interests and passions, just as in the midst of those societies on the march where egoism triumphs, where everyone is forced to defend himself alone, and that we call “armies,” it seems that when feelings show themselves at all they have to be full-blown, and achieve nobility through contrast. So it is with faces. In Paris, sometimes, in the high aristocracy, a few ravishing faces of young men can be seen here and there, flowers of exceptional education and extraordinary manners. To the youthful beauty of English blood they join the firmness of southern traits, French wit, purity of form. The fire in their eyes, a delicious redness in their lips, the lustrous black of their fine hair, a fair complexion, the distinguished features of their face make them into beautiful human blossoms, magnificent to view above the mass of other dull, aged, crooked, grimacing physiognomies. Admire these young men with that greedy pleasure men take in looking at a pretty, decent, gracious individual, adorned with all the virginities with which our imagination likes to embellish the perfect girl.
    If this glance swiftly directed at the population of Paris has made you realize the rarity of a facelike