“MY DEAR BOY,--The tailor behaved very well; but as thy profound
retrospective glance led thee to forbode, the cravats, the hats,
and the silk hosen perplexed our souls, for there was nothing in
our purse to be perplexed thereby. As said Blondet, so say we;
there is a fortune awaiting the establishment which will supply
young men with inexpensive articles on credit; for when we do not
pay in the beginning, we pay dear in the end. And by the by, did
not the great Napoleon, who missed a voyage to the Indies for want
of boots, say that, ‘If a thing is easy, it is never done?’ So
everything went well--except the boots. I beheld a vision of thee,
fully dressed, but without a hat! appareled in waistcoats, yet
shoeless! and bethought me of sending a pair of moccasins given to
Florine as a curiosity by an American. Florine offered the huge
sum of forty francs, that we might try our luck at play for you.
Nathan, Blondet, and I had such luck (as we were not playing for
ourselves) that we were rich enough to ask La Torpille, des
Lupeaulx’s sometime ‘rat,’ to supper. Frascati certainly owed us
that much. Florine undertook the shopping, and added three fine
shirts to the purchases. Nathan sends you a cane. Blondet, who won
three hundred francs, is sending you a gold chain; and the gold
watch, the size of a forty-franc piece, is from La Torpille; some
idiot gave the thing to her, and it will not go. ‘Trumpery
rubbish,’ she says, ‘like the man that owned it.’ Bixiou, who came
to find us up at the _Rocher de Cancale_, wished to enclose a bottle
of Portugal water in the package. Said our first comic man, ‘If
this can make him happy, let him have it!’ growling it out in a
deep bass voice with the _bourgeois_ pomposity that he can act to
the life. Which things, my dear boy, ought to prove to you how
much we care for our friends in adversity. Florine, whom I have
had the weakness to forgive, begs you to send us an article on
Nathan’s hat. Fare thee well, my son. I can only commiserate you
on finding yourself back in the same box from which you emerged
when you discovered your old comrade.
“ETIENNE L.”
“Poor fellows! They have been gambling for me,” said Lucien; he was
quite touched by the letter. A waft of the breeze from an unhealthy
country, from the land where one has suffered most, may seem to bring
the odors of Paradise; and in a dull life there is an indefinable
sweetness in memories of past pain.
Eve was struck dumb with amazement when her brother came down in his new
clothes. She did not recognize him.
“Now I can walk out in Beaulieu,” he cried; “they shall not say it of me
that I came back in rags. Look, here is a watch which I shall return to
you, for it is mine; and, like its owner, it is erratic in its ways.”
“What a child he is!” exclaimed Eve. “It is impossible to bear you any
grudge.”
“Then do you imagine, my dear girl, that I sent for all this with the
silly idea of shining in Angoulême? I don’t care _that_ for Angoulême”
(twirling his cane with the engraved gold knob). “I intend to repair the
wrong I have done, and this is my battle array.”
Lucien’s success in this kind was his one real triumph; but the triumph,
be it said, was immense. If admiration freezes some people’s tongues,
envy loosens at least as many more, and if women lost their heads over
Lucien, men slandered him. He might have cried, in the words of
the songwriter, “I thank thee, my coat!” He left two cards at the
prefecture, and another upon Petit-Claud. The next day, the day of the
banquet, the following paragraph appeared under the heading “Angoulême”
in the Paris newspapers:--
“ANGOULEME.
“The return of the author of _The Archer of Charles IX._ has been
the signal for an ovation which does equal honor to the town and
to M. Lucien de Rubempré, the young poet who has made so brilliant
a beginning; the writer of the one French historical novel not
written in the style of Scott, and of a preface which may be
called a literary event. The town hastened to offer him a
patriotic banquet on his return. The name of the
recently-appointed prefect is associated with the public
demonstration in honor of the author of the _Marguerites_, whose
talent received such warm encouragement from Mme. du Châtelet at
the outset of his career.”
In France, when once the impulse is given, nobody can stop. The
colonel of the regiment offered to put his band at the disposal of the
committee. The landlord of the _Bell_ (renowned for truffled turkeys,
despatched in the most wonderful porcelain jars to the uttermost parts
of the earth), the famous innkeeper of L’Houmeau, would supply the
repast. At five o’clock some forty persons, all in state and festival
array, were assembled in his largest ball, decorated with hangings,
crowns of laurel, and bouquets. The effect was superb. A crowd of
onlookers, some hundred persons, attracted for the most part by the
military band in the yard, represented the citizens of Angoulême.
Petit-Claud went to the window. “All Angoulême is here,” he said,
looking out.
“I can make nothing of this,” remarked little Postel to his wife
(they had come out to hear the band play). “Why, the prefect and the
receiver-general, and the colonel and the superintendent of the powder
factory, and our mayor and deputy, and the headmaster of the school,
and the manager of the foundry at Ruelle, and the public prosecutor, M.
Milaud, and all the authorities, have just gone in!”
The bank struck up as they sat down to table with variations on the air
_Vive le roy, vive la France_, a melody which has never found popular
favor. It was then five o’clock in the evening; it was eight o’clock
before dessert was served. Conspicuous among the sixty-five dishes
appeared an Olympus in confectionery, surmounted by a figure of France
modeled in chocolate, to give the signal for toasts and speeches.
“Gentlemen,” called the prefect, rising to his feet, “the King! the
rightful ruler of France! To what do we owe the generation of poets and
thinkers who maintain the sceptre of letters in the hands of France, if
not to the peace which the Bourbons have restored----”
“Long live the King!” cried the assembled guests (ministerialists
predominated).
The venerable headmaster rose.
“To the hero of the day,” he said, “to the young poet who combines the
gift of the _prosateur_ with the charm and poetic faculty of Petrarch in
that sonnet-form which Boileau declares to be so difficult.”
Cheers.
The colonel rose next. “Gentlemen, to the Royalist! for the hero of this
evening had the courage to fight for sound principles!”
“Bravo!” cried the prefect, leading the applause.
Then Petit-Claud called upon all Lucien’s schoolfellows there present.
“To the pride of the grammar-school of Angoulême! to the venerable
headmaster so dear to us all, to whom the acknowledgment for some part
of our triumph is due!”
The old headmaster dried his eyes; he had not expected this toast.
Lucien rose to his feet, the whole room was suddenly silent, and the
poet’s face grew white. In that pause the old headmaster, who sat on his
left, crowned him with a laurel wreath. A round of applause followed,
and when Lucien spoke it was with tears in his eyes and a sob in his
throat.
“He is drunk,” remarked the attorney-general-designate to his neighbor,
Petit-Claud.
“My dear fellow-countrymen, my dear comrades,” Lucien said at last, “I
could wish that all France might witness this scene; for thus men rise
to their full stature, and in such ways as these our land demands great
deeds and noble work of us. And when I think of the little that I
have done, and of this great honor shown to me to-day, I can only
feel confused and impose upon the future the task of justifying your
reception of me. The recollection of this moment will give me renewed
strength for efforts to come. Permit me to indicate for your homage my
earliest muse and protectress, and to associate her name with that of
my birthplace; so--to the Comtesse du Châtelet and the noble town of
Angoulême!”
“He came out of that pretty well!” said the public prosecutor, nodding
approval; “our speeches were all prepared, and his was improvised.”
At ten o’clock the party began to break up, and little knots of guests
went home together. David Séchard heard the unwonted music.
“What is going on in L’Houmeau?” he asked of Basine.
“They are giving a dinner to your brother-in-law, Lucien----”
“I know that he would feel sorry to miss me there,” he said.
At midnight Petit-Claud walked home with Lucien. As they reached the
Place du Mûrier, Lucien said, “Come life, come death, we are friends, my
dear fellow.”
“My marriage contract,” said the lawyer, “with Mlle. Françoise de la
Haye will be signed to-morrow at Mme. de Senonches’ house; do me the
pleasure of coming. Mme. de Senonches implored me to bring you, and you
will meet Mme. du Châtelet; they are sure to tell her of your speech,
and she will feel flattered by it.”
“I knew what I was about,” said Lucien.
“Oh! you will save David.”
“I am sure I shall,” the poet replied.
Just at that moment David appeared as if by magic in the Place du
Mûrier. This was how it had come about. He felt that he was in a rather
difficult position; his wife insisted that Lucien must neither go to
David nor know of his hiding-place; and Lucien all the while was writing
the most affectionate letters, saying that in a few days’ time all
should be set right; and even as Basine Clerget explained the reason why
the band played, she put two letters into his hands. The first was from
Eve.
“DEAREST,” she wrote, “do as if Lucien were not here; do not
trouble yourself in the least; our whole security depends upon the
fact that your enemies cannot find you; get that idea firmly into
your head. I have more confidence in Kolb and Marion and Basine
than in my own brother; such is my misfortune. Alas! poor Lucien
is not the ingenuous and tender-hearted poet whom we used to know;
and it is simply because he is trying to interfere on your behalf,
and because he imagines that he can discharge our debts (and this
from pride, my David), that I am afraid of him. Some fine clothes
have been sent from Paris for him, and five gold pieces in a
pretty purse. He gave the money to me, and we are living on it.
“We have one enemy the less. Your father has gone, thanks to
Petit-Claud. Petit-Claud unraveled his designs, and put an end to
them at once by telling him that you would do nothing without
consulting him, and that he (Petit-Claud) would not allow you to
concede a single point in the matter of the invention until you
had been promised an indemnity of thirty thousand francs; fifteen
thousand to free you from embarrassment, and fifteen thousand more
to be yours in any case, whether your invention succeeds or no. I
cannot understand Petit-Claud. I embrace you, dear, a wife’s kiss
for her husband in trouble. Our little Lucien is well. How strange
it is to watch him grow rosy and strong, like a flower, in these
stormy days! Mother prays God for you now, as always, and sends
love only less tender than mine.--Your
“EVE.”
As a matter of fact, Petit-Claud and the Cointets had taken fright at
old Séchard’s peasant shrewdness, and got rid of him so much the more
easily because it was now vintage time at Marsac. Eve’s letter enclosed
another from Lucien:--
“MY DEAR DAVID,--Everything is going well. I am armed _cap-à-pie_;
to-day I open the campaign, and in forty-eight hours I shall have
made great progress. How glad I shall be to embrace you when you
are free again and my debts are all paid! My mother and sister
persist in mistrusting me; their suspicion wounds me to the quick.
As if I did not know already that you are hiding with Basine, for
every time that Basine comes to the house I hear news of you and
receive answers to my letters; and besides, it is plain that my
sister could not find any one else to trust. It hurts me cruelly
to think that I shall be so near you to-day, and yet that you will
not be present at this banquet in my honor. I owe my little
triumph to the vainglory of Angoulême; in a few days it will be
quite forgotten, and you alone would have taken a real pleasure in
it. But, after all, in a little while you will pardon everything
to one who counts it more than all the triumphs in the world to be
your brother,
“LUCIEN.”
Two forces tugged sharply at David’s heart; he adored his wife; and
if he held Lucien in somewhat less esteem, his friendship was scarcely
diminished. In solitude our feelings have unrestricted play; and a man
preoccupied like David, with all-absorbing thoughts, will give way
to impulses for which ordinary life would have provided a sufficient
counterpoise. As he read Lucien’s letter to the sound of military music,
and heard of this unlooked-for recognition, he was deeply touched by
that expression of regret. He had known how it would be. A very slight
expression of feeling appeals irresistibly to a sensitive soul, for
they are apt to credit others with like depths. How should the drop fall
unless the cup were full to the brim?
So at midnight, in spite of all Basine’s entreaties, David must go to
see Lucien.
“Nobody will be out in the streets at this time of night,” he said;
“I shall not be seen, and they cannot arrest me. Even if I should meet
people, I can make use of Kolb’s way of going into hiding. And besides,
it is so intolerably long since I saw my wife and child.”
The reasoning was plausible enough; Basine gave way, and David went.
Petit-Claud was just taking leave as he came up and at his cry of
_“Lucien!”_ the two brothers flung their arms about each other with
tears in their eyes.
Life holds not many moments such as these. Lucien’s heart went out in
response to this friendship for its own sake. There was never question
of debtor and creditor between them, and the offender met with no
reproaches save his own. David, generous and noble that he was, was
longing to bestow pardon; he meant first of all to read Lucien a
lecture, and scatter the clouds that overspread the love of the brother
and sister; and with these ends in view, the lack of money and its
consequent dangers disappeared entirely from his mind.
“Go home,” said Petit-Claud, addressing his client; “take advantage of
your imprudence to see your wife and child again, at any rate; and you
must not be seen, mind you!--How unlucky!” he added, when he was alone
in the Place du Mûrier. “If only Cérizet were here----”
The buildings magniloquently styled the Angoulême Law Courts were then
in process of construction. Petit-Claud muttered these words to himself
as he passed by the hoardings, and heard a tap upon the boards, and a
voice issuing from a crack between two planks.
“Here I am,” said Cérizet; “I saw David coming out of L’Houmeau. I was
beginning to have my suspicions about his retreat, and now I am sure;
and I know where to have him. But I want to know something of Lucien’s
plans before I set the snare for David; and here are you sending him
into the house! Find some excuse for stopping here, at least, and when
David and Lucien come out, send them round this way; they will think
they are quite alone, and I shall overhear their good-bye.”
“You are a very devil,” muttered Petit-Claud.
“Well, I’m blessed if a man wouldn’t do anything for the thing you
promised me.”
Petit-Claud walked away from the hoarding, and paced up and down in the
Place du Mûrier; he watched the windows of the room where the family
sat together, and thought of his own prospects to keep up his courage.
Cérizet’s cleverness had given him the chance of striking the final
blow. Petit-Claud was a double-dealer of the profoundly cautious
stamp that is never caught by the bait of a present satisfaction, nor
entangled by a personal attachment, after his first initiation into the
strategy of self-seeking and the instability of the human heart. So,
from the very first, he had put little trust in Cointet. He foresaw that
his marriage negotiations might very easily be broken off, saw also that
in that case he could not accuse Cointet of bad faith, and he had
taken his measures accordingly. But since his success at the Hôtel de
Bargeton, Petit-Claud’s game was above board. A certain under-plot of
his was useless now, and even dangerous to a man with his political
ambitions. He had laid the foundations of his future importance in the
following manner:--
Gannerac and a few of the wealthy men of business in L’Houmeau formed
a sort of Liberal clique in constant communication (through commercial
channels) with the leaders of the Opposition. The Villèle ministry,
accepted by the dying Louis XVIII., gave the signal for a change of
tactics in the Opposition camp; for, since the death of Napoleon, the
liberals had ceased to resort to the dangerous expedient of conspiracy.
They were busy organizing resistance by lawful means throughout the
provinces, and aiming at securing control of the great bulk of electors
by convincing the masses. Petit-Claud, a rabid Liberal, and a man of
L’Houmeau, was the instigator, the secret counselor, and the very life
of this movement in the lower town, which groaned under the tyranny of
the aristocrats at the upper end. He was the first to see the danger
of leaving the whole press of the department in the control of the
Cointets; the Opposition must have its organ; it would not do to be
behind other cities.
“If each one of us gives Gannerac a bill for five hundred francs,
he would have some twenty thousand francs and more; we might buy
up Séchard’s printing-office, and we could do as we liked with the
master-printer if we lent him the capital,” Petit-Claud had said.
Others had taken up the idea, and in this way Petit-Claud strengthened
his position with regard to David on the one side and the Cointets on
the other. Casting about him for a tool for his party, he naturally
thought that a rogue of Cérizet’s calibre was the very man for the
purpose.
“If you can find Séchard’s hiding-place and put him in our hands,
somebody will lend you twenty thousand francs to buy his business, and
very likely there will be a newspaper to print. So, set about it,” he
had said.
Petit-Claud put more faith in Cérizet’s activity than in all the
Doublons in existence; and then it was that he promised Cointet that
Séchard should be arrested. But now that the little lawyer cherished
hopes of office, he saw that he must turn his back upon the Liberals;
and, meanwhile, the amount for the printing-office had been subscribed
in L’Houmeau. Petit-Claud decided to allow things to take their natural
course.
“Pooh!” he thought, “Cérizet will get into trouble with his paper, and
give me an opportunity of displaying my talents.”
He walked up to the door of the printing-office and spoke to Kolb, the
sentinel. “Go up and warn David that he had better go now,” he said,
“and take every precaution. I am going home; it is one o’clock.”
Marion came to take Kolb’s place. Lucien and David came down together
and went out, Kolb a hundred paces ahead of them, and Marion at the
same distance behind. The two friends walked past the hoarding, Lucien
talking eagerly the while.
“My plan is extremely simple, David; but how could I tell you about it
while Eve was there? She would never understand. I am quite sure that at
the bottom of Louise’s heart there is a feeling that I can rouse, and I
should like to arouse it if it is only to avenge myself upon that idiot
the prefect. If our love affair only lasts for a week, I will contrive
to send an application through her for the subvention of twenty thousand
francs for you. I am going to see her again to-morrow in the little
boudoir where our old affair of the heart began; Petit-Claud says that
the room is the same as ever; I shall play my part in the comedy; and I
will send word by Basine to-morrow morning to tell you whether the
actor was hissed. You may be at liberty by then, who knows?--Now do you
understand how it was that I wanted clothes from Paris? One cannot act
the lover’s part in rags.”
At six o’clock that morning Cérizet went to Petit-Claud.
“Doublon can be ready to take his man to-morrow at noon, I will
answer for it,” he said; “I know one of Mlle. Clerget’s girls, do you
understand?” Cérizet unfolded his plan, and Petit-Claud hurried to find
Cointet.
“If M. Francis du Hautoy will settle his property on Françoise, you
shall sign a deed of partnership with Séchard in two days. I shall not
be married for a week after the contract is signed, so we shall both
be within the terms of our little agreement, tit for tat. To-night,
however, we must keep a close watch over Lucien and Mme. la Comtesse du
Châtelet, for the whole business lies in that. . . . If Lucien hopes to
succeed through the Countess’ influence, I have David safe----”
“You will be Keeper of the Seals yet, it is my belief,” said Cointet.
“And why not? No one objects to M. de Peyronnet,” said Petit-Claud. He
had not altogether sloughed his skin of Liberalism.
Mlle. de la Haye’s ambiguous position brought most of the upper town
to the signing of the marriage contract. The comparative poverty of the
young couple and the absence of a _corbeille_ quickened the interest
that people love to exhibit; for it is with beneficence as with
ovations, we prefer the deeds of charity which gratify self-love. The
Marquise de Pimentel, the Comtesse du Châtelet, M. de Senonches, and
one or two frequenters of the house had given Françoise a few wedding
presents, which made great talk in the city. These pretty trifles,
together with the trousseau which Zéphirine had been preparing for the
past twelve months, the godfather’s jewels, and the usual wedding
gifts, consoled Françoise and roused the curiosity of some mothers of
daughters.
Petit-Claud and Cointet had both remarked that their presence in
the Angoulême Olympus was endured rather than courted. Cointet was
Françoise’s trustee and quasi-guardian; and if Petit-Claud was to sign
the contract, Petit-Claud’s presence was as necessary as the attendance
of the man to be hanged at an execution; but though, once married, Mme.
Petit-Claud might keep her right of entry to her godmother’s house,
Petit-Claud foresaw some difficulty on his own account, and resolved to
be beforehand with these haughty personages.
He felt ashamed of his parents. He had sent his mother to stay at
Mansle; now he begged her to say that she was out of health and to give
her consent in writing. So humiliating was it to be without relations,
protectors, or witnesses to his signature, that Petit-Claud thought
himself in luck that he could bring a presentable friend at the
Countess’ request. He called to take up Lucien, and they drove to the
Hôtel de Bargeton.
On that memorable evening the poet dressed to outshine every man
present. Mme. de Senonches had spoken of him as the hero of the hour,
and a first interview between two estranged lovers is the kind of scene
that provincials particularly love. Lucien had come to be the lion
of the evening; he was said to be so handsome, so much changed, so
wonderful, that every well-born woman in Angoulême was curious to see
him again. Following the fashion of the transition period between the
eighteenth century small clothes and the vulgar costume of the present
day, he wore tight-fitting black trousers. Men still showed their
figures in those days, to the utter despair of lean, clumsily-made
mortals; and Lucien was an Apollo. The open-work gray silk stockings,
the neat shoes, and the black satin waistcoat were scrupulously drawn
over his person, and seemed to cling to him. His forehead looked the
whiter by contrast with the thick, bright curls that rose above it
with studied grace. The proud eyes were radiant. The hands, small as
a woman’s, never showed to better advantage than when gloved. He had
modeled himself upon de Marsay, the famous Parisian dandy, holding
his hat and cane in one hand, and keeping the other free for the very
occasional gestures which illustrated his talk.
Lucien had quite intended to emulate the famous false modesty of those
who bend their heads to pass beneath the Porte Saint-Denis, and to slip
unobserved into the room; but Petit-Claud, having but one friend, made
him useful. He brought Lucien almost pompously through a crowded room
to Mme. de Senonches. The poet heard a murmur as he passed; not so very
long ago that hum of voices would have turned his head, to-day he was
quite different; he did not doubt that he himself was greater than the
whole Olympus put together.
“Madame,” he said, addressing Mme. de Senonches, “I have already
congratulated my friend Petit-Claud (a man with the stuff in him of
which Keepers of the Seals are made) on the honor of his approaching
connection with you, slight as are the ties between godmother and
goddaughter----” (this with the air of a man uttering an epigram, by
no means lost upon any woman in the room, for every woman was listening
without appearing to do so.) “And as for myself,” he continued, “I am
delighted to have the opportunity of paying my homage to you.”
He spoke easily and fluently, as some great lord might speak under the
roof of his inferiors; and as he listened to Zéphirine’s involved reply,
he cast a glance over the room to consider the effect that he wished
to make. The pause gave him time to discover Francis du Hautoy and the
prefect; to bow gracefully to each with the proper shade of difference
in his smile, and, finally, to approach Mme. du Châtelet as if he
had just caught sight of her. That meeting was the real event of the
evening. No one so much as thought of the marriage contract lying in
the adjoining bedroom, whither Françoise and the notary led guest
after guest to sign the document. Lucien made a step towards Louise de
Nègrepelisse, and then spoke with that grace of manner now associated,
for her, with memories of Paris.
“Do I owe to you, madame, the pleasure of an invitation to dine at the
Prefecture the day after to-morrow?” he said.
“You owe it solely to your fame, monsieur,” Louise answered drily,
somewhat taken aback by the turn of a phrase by which Lucien
deliberately tried to wound her pride.
“Ah! Madame la Comtesse, I cannot bring you the guest if the man is in
disgrace,” said Lucien, and, without waiting for an answer, he turned
and greeted the Bishop with stately grace.
“Your lordship’s prophecy has been partially fulfilled,” he said, and
there was a winning charm in his tones; “I will endeavor to fulfil it to
the letter. I consider myself very fortunate since this evening brings
me an opportunity of paying my respects to you.”
Lucien drew the Bishop into a conversation that lasted for ten minutes.
The women looked on Lucien as a phenomenon. His unexpected insolence
had struck Mme. du Châtelet dumb; she could not find an answer. Looking
round the room, she saw that every woman admired Lucien; she watched
group after group repeating the phrases by which Lucien crushed her with
seeming disdain, and her heart contracted with a spasm of mortification.
“Suppose that he should not come to the Prefecture after this, what talk
there would be!” she thought. “Where did he learn this pride? Can Mlle.
des Touches have taken a fancy for him? . . . He is so handsome. They
say that she hurried to see him in Paris the day after that actress
died. . . . Perhaps he has come to the rescue of his brother-in-law, and
happened to be behind our calèche at Mansle by accident. Lucien looked
at us very strangely that morning.”
A crowd of thoughts crossed Louise’s brain, and unluckily for her, she
continued to ponder visibly as she watched Lucien. He was talking with
the Bishop as if he were the king of the room; making no effort to find
any one out, waiting till others came to him, looking round about him
with varying expression, and as much at his ease as his model de Marsay.
M. de Senonches appeared at no great distance, but Lucien still stood
beside the prelate.
At the end of ten minutes Louise could contain herself no longer. She
rose and went over to the Bishop and said:
“What is being said, my lord, that you smile so often?”
Lucien drew back discreetly, and left Mme. du Châtelet with his
lordship.
“Ah! Mme. la Comtesse, what a clever young fellow he is! He was
explaining to me that he owed all he is to you----”
“_I_ am not ungrateful, madame,” said Lucien, with a reproachful glance
that charmed the Countess.
“Let us have an understanding,” she said, beckoning him with her fan.
“Come into the boudoir. My Lord Bishop, you shall judge between us.”
“She has found a funny task for his lordship,” said one of the Chandour
camp, sufficiently audibly.
“Judge between us!” repeated Lucien, looking from the prelate to the
lady; “then, is one of us in fault?”
Louise de Nègrepelisse sat down on the sofa in the familiar boudoir. She
made the Bishop sit on one side and Lucien on the other, then she began
to speak. But Lucien, to the joy and surprise of his old love, honored
her with inattention; her words fell unheeded on his ears; he sat like
Pasta in _Tancredi_, with the words _O patria!_ upon her lips, the music
of the great cavatina _Dell Rizzo_ might have passed into his face.
Indeed, Coralie’s pupil had contrived to bring the tears to his eyes.
“Oh! Louise, how I loved you!” he murmured, careless of the Bishop’s
presence, heedless of the conversation, as soon as he knew that the
Countess had seen the tears.
“Dry your eyes, or you will ruin me here a second time,” she said in an
aside that horrified the prelate.
“And once is enough,” was Lucien’s quick retort. “That speech from Mme.
d’Espard’s cousin would dry the eyes of a weeping Magdalene. Oh me! for
a little moment old memories, and lost illusions, and my twentieth year
came back to me, and you have----”
His lordship hastily retreated to the drawing-room at this; it seemed
to him that his dignity was like to be compromised by this sentimental
pair. Every one ostentatiously refrained from interrupting them, and a
quarter of an hour went by; till at last Sixte du Châtelet, vexed by the
laughter and talk, and excursions to the boudoir door, went in with a
countenance distinctly overclouded, and found Louise and Lucien talking
excitedly.
“Madame,” said Sixte in his wife’s ear, “you know Angoulême better than
I do, and surely you should think of your position as Mme. la Préfète
and of the Government?”
“My dear,” said Louise, scanning her responsible editor with a
haughtiness that made him quake, “I am talking with M. de Rubempré of
matters which interest you. It is a question of rescuing an inventor
about to fall a victim to the basest machinations; you will help us.
As to those ladies yonder, and their opinion of me, you shall see how I
will freeze the venom of their tongues.”
She came out of the boudoir on Lucien’s arm, and drew him across to sign
the contract with a great lady’s audacity.
“Write your name after mine,” she said, handing him the pen. And Lucien
submissively signed in the place indicated beneath her name.
“M. de Senonches, would you have recognized M. de Rubempré?” she
continued, and the insolent sportsman was compelled to greet Lucien.
She returned to the drawing-room on Lucien’s arm, and seated him on
the awe-inspiring central sofa between herself and Zéphirine.
There, enthroned like a queen, she began, at first in a low voice, a
conversation in which epigram evidently was not wanting. Some of her
old friends, and several women who paid court to her, came to join the
group, and Lucien soon became the hero of the circle. The Countess drew
him out on the subject of life in Paris; his satirical talk flowed with
spontaneous and incredible spirit; he told anecdotes of celebrities,
those conversational luxuries which the provincial devours with such
avidity. His wit was as much admired as his good looks. And Mme. la
Comtesse Sixte du Châtelet, preparing Lucien’s triumph so patiently, sat
like a player enraptured with the sound of his instrument; she gave him
opportunities for a reply; she looked round the circle for applause so
openly, that not a few of the women began to think that their return
together was something more than a coincidence, and that Lucien and
Louise, loving with all their hearts, had been separated by a double
treason. Pique, very likely, had brought about this ill-starred match
with Châtelet. And a reaction set in against the prefect.
Before the Countess rose to go at one o’clock in the morning, she
turned to Lucien and said in a low voice, “Do me the pleasure of coming
punctually to-morrow evening.” Then, with the friendliest little nod,
she went, saying a few words to Châtelet, who was looking for his hat.
“If Mme. du Châtelet has given me a correct idea of the state of
affairs, count on me, my dear Lucien,” said the prefect, preparing to
hurry after his wife. She was going away without him, after the Paris
fashion. “Your brother-in-law may consider that his troubles are at an
end,” he added as he went.
“M. le Comte surely owes me so much,” smiled Lucien.
Cointet and Petit-Claud heard these farewell speeches.
“Well, well, we are done for now,” Cointet muttered in his confederate’s
ear. Petit-Claud, thunderstruck by Lucien’s success, amazed by his
brilliant wit and varying charm, was gazing at Françoise de la Haye;
the girl’s whole face was full of admiration for Lucien. “Be like your
friend,” she seemed to say to her betrothed. A gleam of joy flitted over
Petit-Claud’s countenance.
“We still have a whole day before the prefect’s dinner; I will answer
for everything.”
An hour later, as Petit-Claud and Lucien walked home together,
Lucien talked of his success. “Well, my dear fellow, I came, I saw, I
conquered! Séchard will be very happy in a few hours’ time.”
“Just what I wanted to know,” thought Petit-Claud. Aloud he said--“I
thought you were simply a poet, Lucien, but you are a Lauzun too, that
is to say--twice a poet,” and they shook hands--for the last time, as it
proved.
“Good news, dear Eve,” said Lucien, waking his sister, “David will have
no debts in less than a month!”
“How is that?”
“Well, my Louise is still hidden by Mme. du Châtelet’s petticoat.
She loves me more than ever; she will send a favorable report of our
discovery to the Minister of the Interior through her husband. So we
have only to endure our troubles for one month, while I avenge myself on
the prefect and complete the happiness of his married life.”
Eve listened, and thought that she must be dreaming.
“I saw the little gray drawing-room where I trembled like a child two
years ago; it seemed as if scales fell from my eyes when I saw the
furniture and the pictures and the faces again. How Paris changes one’s
ideas!”
“Is that a good thing?” asked Eve, at last beginning to understand.
“Come, come; you are still asleep. We will talk about it to-morrow after
breakfast.”
Cérizet’s plot was exceedingly simple, a commonplace stratagem
familiar to the provincial bailiff. Its success entirely depends
upon circumstances, and in this case it was certain, so intimate was
Cérizet’s knowledge of the characters and hopes of those concerned.
Cérizet had been a kind of Don Juan among the young work-girls, ruling
his victims by playing one off against another. Since he had been the
Cointet’s extra foreman, he had singled out one of Basine Clerget’s
assistants, a girl almost as handsome as Mme. Séchard. Henriette
Signol’s parents owned a small vineyard two leagues out of Angoulême,
on the road to Saintes. The Signols, like everybody else in the country,
could not afford to keep their only child at home; so they meant her to
go out to service, in country phrase. The art of clear-starching is
a part of every country housemaid’s training; and so great was
Mme. Prieur’s reputation, that the Signols sent Henriette to her as
apprentice, and paid for their daughter’s board and lodging.
Mme. Prieur was one of the old-fashioned mistresses, who consider that
they fill a parent’s place towards their apprentices. They were part of
the family; she took them with her to church, and looked scrupulously
after them. Henriette Signol was a tall, fine-looking girl, with bold
eyes, and long, thick, dark hair, and the pale, very fair complexion
of girls in the South--white as a magnolia flower. For which reasons
Henriette was one of the first on whom Cérizet cast his eyes; but
Henriette came of “honest farmer folk,” and only yielded at last to
jealousy, to bad example, and the treacherous promise of subsequent
marriage. By this time Cérizet was the Cointet’s foreman. When he
learned that the Signols owned a vineyard worth some ten or twelve
thousand francs, and a tolerably comfortable cottage, he hastened to
make it impossible for Henriette to marry any one else. Affairs had
reached this point when Petit-Claud held out the prospect of a printing
office and twenty thousand francs of borrowed capital, which was to
prove a yoke upon the borrower’s neck. Cérizet was dazzled, the offer
turned his head; Henriette Signol was now only an obstacle in the way
of his ambitions, and he neglected the poor girl. Henriette, in her
despair, clung more closely to her seducer as he tried to shake her off.
When Cérizet began to suspect that David was hiding in Basine’s house,
his views with regard to Henriette underwent another change, though he
treated her as before. A kind of frenzy works in a girl’s brain when she
must marry her seducer to conceal her dishonor, and Cérizet was on the
watch to turn this madness to his own account.
During the morning of the day when Lucien had set himself to reconquer
his Louise, Cérizet told Basine’s secret to Henriette, giving her to
understand at the same time that their marriage and future prospects
depended upon the discovery of David’s hiding-place. Thus instructed,
Henriette easily made certain of the fact that David was in Basine
Clerget’s inner room. It never occurred to the girl that she was doing
wrong to act the spy, and Cérizet involved her in the guilt of betrayal
by this first step.
Lucien was still sleeping while Cérizet, closeted with Petit-Claud,
heard the history of the important trifles with which all Angoulême
presently would ring.
The Cointets’ foreman gave a satisfied nod as Petit-Claud came to an
end. “Lucien surely has written you a line since he came back, has he
not?” he asked.
“This is all that I have,” answered the lawyer, and he held out a note
on Mme. Séchard’s writing-paper.
“Very well,” said Cérizet, “let Doublon be in wait at the Palet Gate
about ten minutes before sunset; tell him to post his gendarmes, and you
shall have our man.”
“Are you sure of _your_ part of the business?” asked Petit-Claud,
scanning Cérizet.
“I rely on chance,” said the ex-street boy, “and she is a saucy huzzy;
she does not like honest folk.
“You must succeed,” said Cérizet. “You have pushed me into this dirty
business; you may as well let me have a few banknotes to wipe off the
stains.”--Then detecting a look that he did not like in the attorney’s
face, he continued, with a deadly glance, “If you have cheated me, sir,
if you don’t buy the printing-office for me within a week--you will
leave a young widow;” he lowered his voice.
“If we have David on the jail register at six o’clock, come round to M.
Gannerac’s at nine, and we will settle your business,” said Petit-Claud
peremptorily.
“Agreed. Your will shall be done, governor,” said Cérizet.
Cérizet understood the art of washing paper, a dangerous art for the
Treasury. He washed out Lucien’s four lines and replaced them, imitating
the handwriting with a dexterity which augured ill for his own future:--
“MY DEAR DAVID,--Your business is settled; you need not fear to go
to the prefect. You can go out at sunset. I will come to meet you
and tell you what to do at the prefecture.--Your brother,
“LUCIEN.”
At noon Lucien wrote to David, telling him of his evening’s success.
The prefect would be sure to lend his influence, he said; he was full of
enthusiasm over the invention, and was drawing up a report that very day
to send to the Government. Marion carried the letter to Basine, taking
some of Lucien’s linen to the laundry as a pretext for the errand.
Petit-Claud had told Cérizet that a letter would in all probability
be sent. Cérizet called for Mlle. Signol, and the two walked by the
Charente. Henriette’s integrity must have held out for a long while, for
the walk lasted for two hours. A whole future of happiness and ease and
the interests of a child were at stake, and Cérizet asked a mere trifle
of her. He was very careful besides to say nothing of the consequences
of that trifle. She was only to carry a letter and a message, that was
all; but it was the greatness of the reward for the trifling service
that frightened Henriette. Nevertheless, Cérizet gained her consent at
last; she would help him in his stratagem.
At five o’clock Henriette must go out and come in again, telling Basine
Clerget that Mme. Séchard wanted to speak to her at once. Fifteen
minutes after Basine’s departure she must go upstairs, knock at the door
of the inner room, and give David the forged note. That was all. Cérizet
looked to chance to manage the rest.
For the first time in twelve months, Eve felt the iron grasp of
necessity relax a little. She began at last to hope. She, too, would
enjoy her brother’s visit; she would show herself abroad on the arm of a
man fêted in his native town, adored by the women, beloved by the proud
Comtesse du Châtelet. She dressed herself prettily, and proposed to
walk out after dinner with her brother to Beaulieu. In September all
Angoulême comes out at that hour to breathe the fresh air.
“Oh! that is the beautiful Mme. Séchard,” voices said here and there.
“I should never have believed it of her,” said a woman.
“The husband is in hiding, and the wife walks abroad,” said Mme. Postel
for young Mme. Séchard’s benefit.
“Oh, let us go home,” said poor Eve; “I have made a mistake.”
A few minutes before sunset, the sound of a crowd rose from the steps
that lead down to L’Houmeau. Apparently some crime had been committed,
for persons coming from L’Houmeau were talking among themselves.
Curiosity drew Lucien and Eve towards the steps.
“A thief has just been arrested no doubt, the man looks as pale as
death,” one of these passers-by said to the brother and sister. The
crowd grew larger.
Lucien and Eve watched a group of some thirty children, old women
and men, returning from work, clustering about the gendarmes, whose
gold-laced caps gleamed above the heads of the rest. About a hundred
persons followed the procession, the crowd gathering like a storm cloud.
“Oh! it is my husband!” Eve cried out.
_“David!”_ exclaimed Lucien.
“It is his wife,” said voices, and the crowd made way.
“What made you come out?” asked Lucien.
“Your letter,” said David, haggard and white.
“I knew it!” said Eve, and she fainted away. Lucien raised his sister,
and with the help of two strangers he carried her home; Marion laid her
in bed, and Kolb rushed off for a doctor. Eve was still insensible when
the doctor arrived; and Lucien was obliged to confess to his mother that
he was the cause of David’s arrest; for he, of course, knew nothing of
the forged letter and Cérizet’s stratagem. Then he went up to his room
and locked himself in, struck dumb by the malediction in his mother’s
eyes.
In the dead of night he wrote one more letter amid constant
interruptions; the reader can divine the agony of the writer’s mind from
those phrases, jerked out, as it were, one by one:--
“MY BELOVED SISTER,--We have seen each other for the last time. My
resolution is final, and for this reason. In many families there
is one unlucky member, a kind of disease in their midst. I am that
unlucky one in our family. The observation is not mine; it was
made at a friendly supper one evening at the _Rocher de Cancale_ by
a diplomate who has seen a great deal of the world. While we
laughed and joked, he explained the reason why some young lady or
some other remained unmarried, to the astonishment of the world
--it was ‘a touch of her father,’ he said, and with that he unfolded
his theory of inherited weaknesses. He told us how such and such a
family would have flourished but for the mother; how it was that a
son had ruined his father, or a father had stripped his children
of prospects and respectability. It was said laughingly, but we
thought of so many cases in point in ten minutes that I was struck
with the theory. The amount of truth in it furnished all sorts of
wild paradoxes, which journalists maintain cleverly enough for
their own amusement when there is nobody else at hand to mystify.
I bring bad luck to our family. My heart is full of love for you,
yet I behave like an enemy. The blow dealt unintentionally is the
cruelest blow of all. While I was leading a bohemian life in
Paris, a life made up of pleasure and misery; taking good
fellowship for friendship, forsaking my true friends for those who
wished to exploit me, and succeeded; forgetful of you, or
remembering you only to cause you trouble,--all that while you
were walking in the humble path of hard work, making your way
slowly but surely to the fortune which I tried so madly to snatch.
While you grew better, I grew worse; a fatal element entered into
my life through my own choice. Yes, unbounded ambition makes an
obscure existence simply impossible for me. I have tastes and
remembrances of past pleasures that poison the enjoyments within
my reach; once I should have been satisfied with them, now it is
too late. Oh, dear Eve, no one can think more hardly of me than I
do myself; my condemnation is absolute and pitiless. The struggle
in Paris demands steady effort; my will power is spasmodic, my
brain works intermittently. The future is so appalling that I do
not care to face it, and the present is intolerable.
“I wanted to see you again. I should have done better to stay in
exile all my days. But exile without means of subsistence would be
madness; I will not add another folly to the rest. Death is better
than a maimed life; I cannot think of myself in any position in
which my overweening vanity would not lead me into folly.
“Some human beings are like the figure 0, another must be put
before it, and they acquire ten times their value. I am nothing
unless a strong inexorable will is wedded to mine. Mme. de
Bargeton was in truth my wife; when I refused to leave Coralie for
her I spoiled my life. You and David might have been excellent
pilots for me, but you are not strong enough to tame my weakness,
which in some sort eludes control. I like an easy life, a life
without cares; to clear an obstacle out of my way I can descend to
baseness that sticks at nothing. I was born a prince. I have more
than the requisite intellectual dexterity for success, but only by
moments; and the prizes of a career so crowded by ambitious
competitors are to those who expend no more than the necessary
strength, and retain a sufficient reserve when they reach the
goal.
“I shall do harm again with the best intentions in the world. Some
men are like oaks, I am a delicate shrub it may be, and I
forsooth, must needs aspire to be a forest cedar.
“There you have my bankrupt’s schedule. The disproportion between
my powers and my desires, my want of balance, in short, will bring
all my efforts to nothing. There are many such characters among
men of letters, many men whose intellectual powers and character
are always at variance, who will one thing and wish another. What
would become of me? I can see it all beforehand, as I think of
this and that great light that once shone on Paris, now utterly
forgotten. On the threshold of old age I shall be a man older than
my age, needy and without a name. My whole soul rises up against
the thought of such a close; I will not be a social rag. Ah, dear
sister, loved and worshiped at least as much for your severity at
the last as for your tenderness at the first--if we have paid so
dear for my joy at seeing you all once more, you and David may
perhaps some day think that you could grudge no price however high
for a little last happiness for an unhappy creature who loved you.
Do not try to find me, Eve; do not seek to know what becomes of
me. My intellect for once shall be backed by my will.
Renunciation, my angel, is daily death of self; my renunciation
will only last for one day; I will take advantage now of that
day. . . .
“_Two o’clock_.
“Yes, I have quite made up my mind. Farewell for ever, dear Eve.
There is something sweet in the thought that I shall live only in
your hearts henceforth, and I wish no other burying place. Once
more, farewell. . . . That is the last word from your brother
“LUCIEN.”
Lucien read the letter over, crept noiselessly down stairs, and left
it in the child’s cradle; amid falling tears he set a last kiss on the
forehead of his sleeping sister; then he went out. He put out his candle
in the gray dusk, took a last look at the old house, stole softly along
the passage, and opened the street door; but in spite of his caution, he
awakened Kolb, who slept on a mattress on the workshop floor.
“Who goes there?” cried Kolb.
“It is I, Lucien; I am going away, Kolb.”
“You vould haf done better gif you at nefer kom,” Kolb muttered audibly.
“I should have done better still if I had never come into the world,”
Lucien answered. “Good-bye, Kolb; I don’t bear you any grudge for
thinking as I think myself. Tell David that I was sorry I could not bid
him good-bye, and say that this was my last thought.”
By the time the Alsacien was up and dressed, Lucien had shut the house
door, and was on his way towards the Charente by the Promenade de
Beaulieu. He might have been going to a festival, for he had put on his
new clothes from Paris and his dandy’s trinkets for a drowning shroud.
Something in Lucien’s tone had struck Kolb. At first the man thought of
going to ask his mistress whether she knew that her brother had left
the house; but as the deepest silence prevailed, he concluded that the
departure had been arranged beforehand, and lay down again and slept.
Little, considering the gravity of the question, has been written on
the subject of suicide; it has not been studied. Perhaps it is a disease
that cannot be observed. Suicide is one effect of a sentiment which we
will call self-esteem, if you will, to prevent confusion by using the
word “honor.” When a man despises himself, and sees that others despise
him, when real life fails to fulfil his hopes, then comes the moment
when he takes his life, and thereby does homage to society--shorn of
his virtues or his splendor, he does not care to face his fellows.
Among atheists--Christians being without the question of suicide--among
atheists, whatever may be said to the contrary, none but a base coward
can take up a dishonored life.
There are three kinds of suicide--the first is only the last and acute
stage of a long illness, and this kind belongs distinctly to pathology;
the second is the suicide of despair; and the third the suicide based on
logical argument. Despair and deductive reasoning had brought Lucien to
this pass, but both varieties are curable; it is only the pathological
suicide that is inevitable. Not infrequently you find all three causes
combined, as in the case of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Lucien having made up his mind fell to considering methods. The poet
would fain die as became a poet. At first he thought of throwing himself
into the Charente and making an end then and there; but as he came
down the steps from Beaulieu for the last time, he heard the whole town
talking of his suicide; he saw the horrid sight of a drowned dead body,
and thought of the recognition and the inquest; and, like some other
suicides, felt that vanity reached beyond death.
He remembered the day spent at Courtois’ mill, and his thoughts returned
to the round pool among the willows that he saw as he came along by the
little river, such a pool as you often find on small streams, with a
still, smooth surface that conceals great depths beneath. The water is
neither green nor blue nor white nor tawny; it is like a polished steel
mirror. No sword-grass grows about the margin; there are no blue water
forget-me-nots, nor broad lily leaves; the grass at the brim is short
and thick, and the weeping willows that droop over the edge grow
picturesquely enough. It is easy to imagine a sheer precipice beneath
filled with water to the brim. Any man who should have the courage to
fill his pockets with pebbles would not fail to find death, and never be
seen thereafter.
At the time while he admired the lovely miniature of a landscape, the
poet had thought to himself, “‘Tis a spot to make your mouth water for a
_noyade_.”
He thought of it now as he went down into L’Houmeau; and when he took
his way towards Marsac, with the last sombre thoughts gnawing at his
heart, it was with the firm resolve to hide his death. There should be
no inquest held over him, he would not be laid in earth; no one should
see him in the hideous condition of the corpse that floats on the
surface of the water. Before long he reached one of the slopes, common
enough on all French highroads, and commonest of all between Angoulême
and Poitiers. He saw the coach from Bordeaux to Paris coming up at full
speed behind him, and knew that the passengers would probably alight
to walk up the hill. He did not care to be seen just then. Turning off
sharply into a beaten track, he began to pick the flowers in a vineyard
hard by.
When Lucien came back to the road with a great bunch of the yellow
stone-crop which grows everywhere upon the stony soil of the vineyards,
he came out upon a traveler dressed in black from head to foot. The
stranger wore powder, there were silver buckles on his shoes of Orléans
leather, and his brown face was scarred and seamed as if he had fallen
into the fire in infancy. The traveler, so obviously clerical in his
dress, was walking slowly and smoking a cigar. He turned as Lucien
jumped down from the vineyard into the road. The deep melancholy on
the handsome young face, the poet’s symbolical flowers, and his elegant
dress seemed to strike the stranger. He looked at Lucien with something
of the expression of a hunter that has found his quarry at last after
long and fruitless search. He allowed Lucien to come alongside in
nautical phrase; then he slackened his pace, and appeared to look along
the road up the hill; Lucien, following the direction of his eyes, saw a
light traveling carriage with two horses, and a post-boy standing beside
it.
“You have allowed the coach to pass you, monsieur; you will lose your
place unless you care to take a seat in my calèche and overtake the
mail, for it is rather quicker traveling post than by the public
conveyance.” The traveler spoke with extreme politeness and a very
marked Spanish accent.
Without waiting for an answer, he drew a cigar-case from his pocket,
opened it, and held it out to Lucien.
“I am not on a journey,” said Lucien, “and I am too near the end of my
stage to indulge in the pleasure of smoking----”
“You are very severe with yourself,” returned the Spaniard. “Though I
am a canon of the cathedral of Toledo, I occasionally smoke a cigarette.
God gave us tobacco to allay our passions and our pains. You seem to be
downcast, or at any rate, you carry the symbolical flower of sorrow
in your hand, like the rueful god Hymen. Come! all your troubles will
vanish away with the smoke,” and again the ecclesiastic held out his
little straw case; there was something fascinating in his manner, and
kindliness towards Lucien lighted up his eyes.
“Forgive me, father” Lucien answered stiffly; “there is no cigar that
can scatter my troubles.” Tears came to his eyes at the words.
“It must surely be Divine Providence that prompted me to take a little
exercise to shake off a traveler’s morning drowsiness,” said the
churchman. “A divine prompting to fulfil my mission here on earth by
consoling you.--What great trouble can you have at your age?”
“Your consolations, father, can do nothing for me. You are a Spaniard,
I am a Frenchman; you believe in the commandments of the Church, I am an
atheist.”
“_Santa Virgen del Pilar_! you are an atheist!” cried the other, laying
a hand on Lucien’s arm with maternal solicitude. “Ah! here is one of the
curious things I promised myself to see in Paris. We, in Spain, do not
believe in atheists. There is no country but France where one can have
such opinions at nineteen years.”
“Oh! I am an atheist in the fullest sense of the word. I have no belief
in God, in society, in happiness. Take a good look at me, father; for in
a few hours’ time life will be over for me. My last sun has risen,” said
Lucien; with a sort of rhetorical effect he waved his hand towards the
sky.
“How so; what have you done that you must die? Who has condemned you to
die?”
“A tribunal from which there is no appeal--I myself.”
“You, child!” cried the priest. “Have you killed a man? Is the scaffold
waiting for you? Let us reason together a little. If you are resolved,
as you say, to return to nothingness, everything on earth is indifferent
to you, is it not?”
Lucien bowed assent.
“Very well, then; can you not tell me about your troubles? Some little
affair of the heart has taken a bad turn, no doubt?”
Lucien shrugged his shoulders very significantly.
“Are you resolved to kill yourself to escape dishonor, or do you despair
of life? Very good. You can kill yourself at Poitiers quite as easily
as at Angoulême, and at Tours it will be no harder than at Poitiers. The
quicksands of the Loire never give up their prey----”
“No, father,” said Lucien; “I have settled it all. Not three weeks ago I
chanced upon the most charming raft that can ferry a man sick and tired
of this life into the other world----”
“The other world? You are not an atheist.”
“Oh! by another world I mean my next transformation, animal or plant.”
“Have you some incurable disease?”
“Yes, father.”
“Ah! now we come to the point. What is it?”
“Poverty.”
The priest looked at Lucien. “The diamond does not know its own value,”
he said, and there was an inexpressible charm, and a touch of something
like irony in his smile.
“None but a priest could flatter a poor man about to die,” exclaimed
Lucien.
“You are not going to die,” the Spaniard returned authoritatively.
“I have heard many times of men that were robbed on the highroad, but I
have never yet heard of one that found a fortune there,” said Lucien.
“You will hear of one now,” said the priest, glancing towards the
carriage to measure the time still left for their walk together. “Listen
to me,” he continued, with his cigar between his teeth; “if you are
poor, that is no reason why you should die. I need a secretary, for
mine has just died at Barcelona. I am in the same position as the famous
Baron Goërtz, minister of Charles XII. He was traveling toward Sweden
(just as I am going to Paris), and in some little town or other he
chanced upon the son of a goldsmith, a young man of remarkable good
looks, though they could scarcely equal yours. . . . Baron Goërtz
discerned intelligence in the young man (just as I see poetry on your
brow); he took him into his traveling carriage, as I shall take you very
shortly; and of a boy condemned to spend his days in burnishing spoons
and forks and making trinkets in some little town like Angoulême, he
made a favorite, as you shall be mine.
“Arrived at Stockholm, he installed his secretary and overwhelmed him
with work. The young man spent his nights in writing, and, like all
great workers, he contracted a bad habit, a trick--he took to chewing
paper. The late M. de Malesherbes use to rap people over the knuckles;
and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit
depended upon him. The handsome young secretary began by chewing blank
paper, found it insipid for a while, and acquired a taste for manuscript
as having more flavor. People did not smoke as yet in those days. At
last, from flavor to flavor, he began to chew parchment and swallow
it. Now, at that time a treaty was being negotiated between Russia and
Sweden. The States-General insisted that Charles XII. should make peace
(much as they tried in France to make Napoleon treat for peace in 1814)
and the basis of these negotiations was the treaty between the two
powers with regard to Finland. Goërtz gave the original into his
secretary’s keeping; but when the time came for laying the draft before
the States-General, a trifling difficulty arose; the treaty was not to
be found. The States-General believed that the Minister, pandering
to the King’s wishes, had taken it into his head to get rid of the
document. Baron Goërtz was, in fact, accused of this, and the secretary
owned that he had eaten the treaty. He was tried and convicted and
condemned to death.--But you have not come to that yet, so take a cigar
and smoke till we reach the calèche.”
Lucien took a cigar and lit it, Spanish fashion, at the priest’s cigar.
“He is right,” he thought; “I can take my life at any time.”
“It often happens that a young man’s fortunes take a turn when despair
is darkest,” the Spaniard continued. “That is what I wished to tell you,
but I preferred to prove it by a case in point. Here was the handsome
young secretary lying under sentence of death, and his case the more
desperate because, as he had been condemned by the States-General, the
King could not pardon him, but he connived at his escape. The secretary
stole away in a fishing-boat with a few crowns in his pocket, and
reached the court of Courland with a letter of introduction from Goërtz,
explaining his secretary’s adventures and his craze for paper. The Duke
of Courland was a spendthrift; he had a steward and a pretty wife--three
several causes of ruin. He placed the charming young stranger with his
steward.