Vicomtesse de Beauseant. She has a magnificent house; the rooms are hung
with silk--in short, it was a splendid affair, and I was as happy as a
king---”
“Fisher,” put in Vautrin, interrupting.
“What do you mean, sir?” said Eugene sharply.
“I said ‘fisher,’ because kingfishers see a good deal more fun than
kings.”
“Quite true; I would much rather be the little careless bird than a
king,” said Poiret the ditto-ist, “because----”
“In fact”--the law-student cut him short--“I danced with one of the
handsomest women in the room, a charming countess, the most exquisite
creature I have ever seen. There was peach blossom in her hair, and she
had the loveliest bouquet of flowers--real flowers, that scented the
air----but there! it is no use trying to describe a woman glowing with
the dance. You ought to have seen her! Well, and this morning I met this
divine countess about nine o’clock, on foot in the Rue de Gres. Oh! how
my heart beat! I began to think----”
“That she was coming here,” said Vautrin, with a keen look at the
student. “I expect that she was going to call on old Gobseck, a
money-lender. If ever you explore a Parisian woman’s heart, you will
find the money-lender first, and the lover afterwards. Your countess is
called Anastasie de Restaud, and she lives in the Rue du Helder.”
The student stared hard at Vautrin. Father Goriot raised his head at the
words, and gave the two speakers a glance so full of intelligence and
uneasiness that the lodgers beheld him with astonishment.
“Then Christophe was too late, and she must have gone to him!” cried
Goriot, with anguish in his voice.
“It is just as I guessed,” said Vautrin, leaning over to whisper in Mme.
Vauquer’s ear.
Goriot went on with his breakfast, but seemed unconscious of what he was
doing. He had never looked more stupid nor more taken up with his own
thoughts than he did at that moment.
“Who the devil could have told you her name, M. Vautrin?” asked Eugene.
“Aha! there you are!” answered Vautrin. “Old Father Goriot there knew it
quite well! and why should I not know it too?”
“M. Goriot?” the student cried.
“What is it?” asked the old man. “So she was very beautiful, was she,
yesterday night?”
“Who?”
“Mme. de Restaud.”
“Look at the old wretch,” said Mme. Vauquer, speaking to Vautrin; “how
his eyes light up!”
“Then does he really keep her?” said Mlle. Michonneau, in a whisper to
the student.
“Oh! yes, she was tremendously pretty,” Eugene answered. Father Goriot
watched him with eager eyes. “If Mme. de Beauseant had not been there,
my divine countess would have been the queen of the ball; none of the
younger men had eyes for any one else. I was the twelfth on her list,
and she danced every quadrille. The other women were furious. She must
have enjoyed herself, if ever creature did! It is a true saying
that there is no more beautiful sight than a frigate in full sail, a
galloping horse, or a woman dancing.”
“So the wheel turns,” said Vautrin; “yesterday night at a duchess’
ball, this morning in a money-lender’s office, on the lowest rung of the
ladder--just like a Parisienne! If their husbands cannot afford to pay
for their frantic extravagance, they will sell themselves. Or if
they cannot do that, they will tear out their mothers’ hearts to find
something to pay for their splendor. They will turn the world upside
down. Just a Parisienne through and through!”
Father Goriot’s face, which had shone at the student’s words like the
sun on a bright day, clouded over all at once at this cruel speech of
Vautrin’s.
“Well,” said Mme. Vauquer, “but where is your adventure? Did you speak
to her? Did you ask her if she wanted to study law?”
“She did not see me,” said Eugene. “But only think of meeting one of the
prettiest women in Paris in the Rue des Gres at nine o’clock! She could
not have reached home after the ball till two o’clock this morning.
Wasn’t it queer? There is no place like Paris for this sort of
adventures.”
“Pshaw! much funnier things than _that_ happen here!” exclaimed Vautrin.
Mlle. Taillefer had scarcely heeded the talk, she was so absorbed by the
thought of the new attempt that she was about to make. Mme. Couture made
a sign that it was time to go upstairs and dress; the two ladies went
out, and Father Goriot followed their example.
“Well, did you see?” said Mme. Vauquer, addressing Vautrin and the rest
of the circle. “He is ruining himself for those women, that is plain.”
“Nothing will ever make me believe that that beautiful Comtesse de
Restaud is anything to Father Goriot,” cried the student.
“Well, and if you don’t,” broke in Vautrin, “we are not set on
convincing you. You are too young to know Paris thoroughly yet; later on
you will find out that there are what we call men with a passion----”
Mlle. Michonneau gave Vautrin a quick glance at these words. They seemed
to be like the sound of a trumpet to a trooper’s horse. “Aha!” said
Vautrin, stopping in his speech to give her a searching glance, “so we
have had our little experiences, have we?”
The old maid lowered her eyes like a nun who sees a statue.
“Well,” he went on, “when folk of that kind get a notion into their
heads, they cannot drop it. They must drink the water from some
particular spring--it is stagnant as often as not; but they will sell
their wives and families, they will sell their own souls to the devil to
get it. For some this spring is play, or the stock-exchange, or music,
or a collection of pictures or insects; for others it is some woman who
can give them the dainties they like. You might offer these last all the
women on earth--they would turn up their noses; they will have the only
one who can gratify their passion. It often happens that the woman
does not care for them at all, and treats them cruelly; they buy their
morsels of satisfaction very dear; but no matter, the fools are never
tired of it; they will take their last blanket to the pawnbroker’s to
give their last five-franc piece to her. Father Goriot here is one of
that sort. He is discreet, so the Countess exploits him--just the way of
the gay world. The poor old fellow thinks of her and of nothing else.
In all other respects you see he is a stupid animal; but get him on
that subject, and his eyes sparkle like diamonds. That secret is not
difficult to guess. He took some plate himself this morning to the
melting-pot, and I saw him at Daddy Gobseck’s in the Rue des Gres. And
now, mark what follows--he came back here, and gave a letter for the
Comtesse de Restaud to that noodle of a Christophe, who showed us the
address; there was a receipted bill inside it. It is clear that it was
an urgent matter if the Countess also went herself to the old money
lender. Father Goriot has financed her handsomely. There is no need to
tack a tale together; the thing is self-evident. So that shows you, sir
student, that all the time your Countess was smiling, dancing, flirting,
swaying her peach-flower crowned head, with her gown gathered into her
hand, her slippers were pinching her, as they say; she was thinking of
her protested bills, or her lover’s protested bills.”
“You have made me wild to know the truth,” cried Eugene; “I will go to
call on Mme. de Restaud to-morrow.”
“Yes,” echoed Poiret; “you must go and call on Mme. de Restaud.”
“And perhaps you will find Father Goriot there, who will take payment
for the assistance he politely rendered.”
Eugene looked disgusted. “Why, then, this Paris of yours is a slough.”
“And an uncommonly queer slough, too,” replied Vautrin. “The mud
splashes you as you drive through it in your carriage--you are a
respectable person; you go afoot and are splashed--you are a scoundrel.
You are so unlucky as to walk off with something or other belonging
to somebody else, and they exhibit you as a curiosity in the Place du
Palais-de-Justice; you steal a million, and you are pointed out in every
salon as a model of virtue. And you pay thirty millions for the police
and the courts of justice, for the maintenance of law and order! A
pretty slate of things it is!”
“What,” cried Mme. Vauquer, “has Father Goriot really melted down his
silver posset-dish?”
“There were two turtle-doves on the lid, were there not?” asked Eugene.
“Yes, that there were.”
“Then, was he fond of it?” said Eugene. “He cried while he was breaking
up the cup and plate. I happened to see him by accident.”
“It was dear to him as his own life,” answered the widow.
“There! you see how infatuated the old fellow is!” cried Vautrin. “The
woman yonder can coax the soul out of him.”
The student went up to his room. Vautrin went out, and a few moments
later Mme. Couture and Victorine drove away in a cab which Sylvie had
called for them. Poiret gave his arm to Mlle. Michonneau, and they went
together to spend the two sunniest hours of the day in the Jardin des
Plantes.
“Well, those two are as good as married,” was the portly Sylvie’s
comment. “They are going out together to-day for the first time. They
are such a couple of dry sticks that if they happen to strike against
each other they will draw sparks like flint and steel.”
“Keep clear of Mlle. Michonneau’s shawl, then,” said Mme. Vauquer,
laughing; “it would flare up like tinder.”
At four o’clock that evening, when Goriot came in, he saw, by the light
of two smoky lamps, that Victorine’s eyes were red. Mme. Vauquer was
listening to the history of the visit made that morning to M. Taillefer;
it had been made in vain. Taillefer was tired of the annual application
made by his daughter and her elderly friend; he gave them a personal
interview in order to arrive at an understanding with them.
“My dear lady,” said Mme. Couture, addressing Mme. Vauquer, “just
imagine it; he did not even ask Victorine to sit down, she was standing
the whole time. He said to me quite coolly, without putting himself in a
passion, that we might spare ourselves the trouble of going there; that
the young lady (he would not call her his daughter) was injuring her
cause by importuning him (_importuning!_ once a year, the wretch!); that
as Victorine’s mother had nothing when he married her, Victorine ought
not to expect anything from him; in fact, he said the most cruel things,
that made the poor child burst out crying. The little thing threw
herself at her father’s feet and spoke up bravely; she said that she
only persevered in her visits for her mother’s sake; that she would
obey him without a murmur, but that she begged him to read her poor dead
mother’s farewell letter. She took it up and gave it to him, saying the
most beautiful things in the world, most beautifully expressed; I do not
know where she learned them; God must have put them into her head, for
the poor child was inspired to speak so nicely that it made me cry like
a fool to hear her talk. And what do you think the monster was doing all
the time? Cutting his nails! He took the letter that poor Mme. Taillefer
had soaked with tears, and flung it on to the chimney-piece. ‘That is
all right,’ he said. He held out his hands to raise his daughter, but
she covered them with kisses, and he drew them away again. Scandalous,
isn’t it? And his great booby of a son came in and took no notice of his
sister.”
“What inhuman wretches they must be!” said Father Goriot.
“And then they both went out of the room,” Mme. Couture went on, without
heeding the worthy vermicelli maker’s exclamation; “father and son bowed
to me, and asked me to excuse them on account of urgent business! That
is the history of our call. Well, he has seen his daughter at any rate.
How he can refuse to acknowledge her I cannot think, for they are as
alike as two peas.”
The boarders dropped in one after another, interchanging greetings and
empty jokes that certain classes of Parisians regard as humorous and
witty. Dulness is their prevailing ingredient, and the whole point
consists in mispronouncing a word or a gesture. This kind of argot is
always changing. The essence of the jest consists in some catchword
suggested by a political event, an incident in the police courts, a
street song, or a bit of burlesque at some theatre, and forgotten in a
month. Anything and everything serves to keep up a game of battledore
and shuttlecock with words and ideas. The diorama, a recent invention,
which carried an optical illusion a degree further than panoramas, had
given rise to a mania among art students for ending every word with
_rama_. The Maison Vauquer had caught the infection from a young artist
among the boarders.
“Well, Monsieur-r-r Poiret,” said the _employe_ from the Museum, “how
is your health-orama?” Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned to
Mme. Couture and Victorine with a “Ladies, you seem melancholy.”
“Is dinner ready?” cried Horace Bianchon, a medical student, and a
friend of Rastignac’s; “my stomach is sinking _usque ad talones_.”
“There is an uncommon _frozerama_ outside,” said Vautrin. “Make room
there, Father Goriot! Confound it, your foot covers the whole front of
the stove.”
“Illustrious M. Vautrin,” put in Bianchon, “why do you say _frozerama_?
It is incorrect; it should be _frozenrama_.”
“No, it shouldn’t,” said the official from the Museum; “_frozerama_ is
right by the same rule that you say ‘My feet are _froze_.’”
“Ah! ah!”
“Here is his Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the Law of
Contraries,” cried Bianchon, seizing Eugene by the throat, and almost
throttling him.
“Hallo there! hallo!”
Mlle. Michonneau came noiselessly in, bowed to the rest of the party,
and took her place beside the three women without saying a word.
“That old bat always makes me shudder,” said Bianchon in a low voice,
indicating Mlle. Michonneau to Vautrin. “I have studied Gall’s system,
and I am sure she has the bump of Judas.”
“Then you have seen a case before?” said Vautrin.
“Who has not?” answered Bianchon. “Upon my word, that ghastly old maid
looks just like one of the long worms that will gnaw a beam through,
give them time enough.”
“That is the way, young man,” returned he of the forty years and the
dyed whiskers:
“The rose has lived the life of a rose--
A morning’s space.”
“Aha! here is a magnificent _soupe-au-rama_,” cried Poiret as Christophe
came in bearing the soup with cautious heed.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mme. Vauquer; “it is _soupe aux choux_.”
All the young men roared with laughter.
“Had you there, Poiret!”
“Poir-r-r-rette! she had you there!”
“Score two points to Mamma Vauquer,” said Vautrin.
“Did any of you notice the fog this morning?” asked the official.
“It was a frantic fog,” said Bianchon, “a fog unparalleled, doleful,
melancholy, sea-green, asthmatical--a Goriot of a fog!”
“A Goriorama,” said the art student, “because you couldn’t see a thing
in it.”
“Hey! Milord Gaoriotte, they air talking about yoo-o-ou!”
Father Goriot, seated at the lower end of the table, close to the door
through which the servant entered, raised his face; he had smelt at a
scrap of bread that lay under his table napkin, an old trick acquired in
his commercial capacity, that still showed itself at times.
“Well,” Madame Vauquer cried in sharp tones, that rang above the rattle
of spoons and plates and the sound of other voices, “and is there
anything the matter with the bread?”
“Nothing whatever, madame,” he answered; “on the contrary, it is made of
the best quality of corn; flour from Etampes.”
“How could you tell?” asked Eugene.
“By the color, by the flavor.”
“You knew the flavor by the smell, I suppose,” said Mme. Vauquer. “You
have grown so economical, you will find out how to live on the smell of
cooking at last.”
“Take out a patent for it, then,” cried the Museum official; “you would
make a handsome fortune.”
“Never mind him,” said the artist; “he does that sort of thing to delude
us into thinking that he was a vermicelli maker.”
“Your nose is a corn-sampler, it appears?” inquired the official.
“Corn _what_?” asked Bianchon.
“Corn-el.”
“Corn-et.”
“Corn-elian.”
“Corn-ice.”
“Corn-ucopia.”
“Corn-crake.”
“Corn-cockle.”
“Corn-orama.”
The eight responses came like a rolling fire from every part of the
room, and the laughter that followed was the more uproarious because
poor Father Goriot stared at the others with a puzzled look, like a
foreigner trying to catch the meaning of words in a language which he
does not understand.
“Corn?...” he said, turning to Vautrin, his next neighbor.
“Corn on your foot, old man!” said Vautrin, and he drove Father Goriot’s
cap down over his eyes by a blow on the crown.
The poor old man thus suddenly attacked was for a moment too bewildered
to do anything. Christophe carried off his plate, thinking that he had
finished his soup, so that when Goriot had pushed back his cap from his
eyes his spoon encountered the table. Every one burst out laughing. “You
are a disagreeable joker, sir,” said the old man, “and if you take any
further liberties with me----”
“Well, what then, old boy?” Vautrin interrupted.
“Well, then, you shall pay dearly for it some day----”
“Down below, eh?” said the artist, “in the little dark corner where they
put naughty boys.”
“Well, mademoiselle,” Vautrin said, turning to Victorine, “you are
eating nothing. So papa was refractory, was he?”
“A monster!” said Mme. Couture.
“Mademoiselle might make application for aliment pending her suit; she
is not eating anything. Eh! eh! just see how Father Goriot is staring at
Mlle. Victorine.”
The old man had forgotten his dinner, he was so absorbed in gazing at
the poor girl; the sorrow in her face was unmistakable,--the slighted
love of a child whose father would not recognize her.
“We are mistaken about Father Goriot, my dear boy,” said Eugene in a low
voice. “He is not an idiot, nor wanting in energy. Try your Gall system
on him, and let me know what you think. I saw him crush a silver dish
last night as if it had been made of wax; there seems to be something
extraordinary going on in his mind just now, to judge by his face. His
life is so mysterious that it must be worth studying. Oh! you may laugh,
Bianchon; I am not joking.”
“The man is a subject, is he?” said Bianchon; “all right! I will dissect
him, if he will give me the chance.”
“No; feel his bumps.”
“Hm!--his stupidity might perhaps be contagious.”
The next day Rastignac dressed himself very elegantly, and about three
o’clock in the afternoon went to call on Mme. de Restaud. On the way
thither he indulged in the wild intoxicating dreams which fill a young
head so full of delicious excitement. Young men at his age take
no account of obstacles nor of dangers; they see success in every
direction; imagination has free play, and turns their lives into a
romance; they are saddened or discouraged by the collapse of one of the
visionary schemes that have no existence save in their heated fancy. If
youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
Eugene took unheard-of pains to keep himself in a spotless condition,
but on his way through the streets he began to think about Mme. de
Restaud and what he should say to her. He equipped himself with wit,
rehearsed repartees in the course of an imaginary conversation, and
prepared certain neat speeches a la Talleyrand, conjuring up a series of
small events which should prepare the way for the declaration on which
he had based his future; and during these musings the law student was
bespattered with mud, and by the time he reached the Palais Royal he was
obliged to have his boots blacked and his trousers brushed.
“If I were rich,” he said, as he changed the five-franc piece he had
brought with him in case anything might happen, “I would take a cab,
then I could think at my ease.”
At last he reached the Rue du Helder, and asked for the Comtesse de
Restaud. He bore the contemptuous glances of the servants, who had seen
him cross the court on foot, with the cold fury of a man who knows that
he will succeed some day. He understood the meaning of their glances at
once, for he had felt his inferiority as soon as he entered the court,
where a smart cab was waiting. All the delights of life in Paris
seemed to be implied by this visible and manifest sign of luxury and
extravagance. A fine horse, in magnificent harness, was pawing the
ground, and all at once the law student felt out of humor with himself.
Every compartment in his brain which he had thought to find so full of
wit was bolted fast; he grew positively stupid. He sent up his name
to the Countess, and waited in the ante-chamber, standing on one foot
before a window that looked out upon the court; mechanically he leaned
his elbow against the sash, and stared before him. The time seemed long;
he would have left the house but for the southern tenacity of purpose
which works miracles when it is single-minded.
“Madame is in her boudoir, and cannot see any one at present, sir,”
said the servant. “She gave me no answer; but if you will go into the
dining-room, there is some one already there.”
Rastignac was impressed with a sense of the formidable power of the
lackey who can accuse or condemn his masters by a word; he coolly opened
the door by which the man had just entered the ante-chamber, meaning,
no doubt, to show these insolent flunkeys that he was familiar with the
house; but he found that he had thoughtlessly precipitated himself into
a small room full of dressers, where lamps were standing, and hot-water
pipes, on which towels were being dried; a dark passage and a back
staircase lay beyond it. Stifled laughter from the ante-chamber added to
his confusion.
“This way to the drawing-room, sir,” said the servant, with the
exaggerated respect which seemed to be one more jest at his expense.
Eugene turned so quickly that he stumbled against a bath. By good luck,
he managed to keep his hat on his head, and saved it from immersion in
the water; but just as he turned, a door opened at the further end of
the dark passage, dimly lighted by a small lamp. Rastignac heard voices
and the sound of a kiss; one of the speakers was Mme. de Restaud,
the other was Father Goriot. Eugene followed the servant through the
dining-room into the drawing-room; he went to a window that looked
out into the courtyard, and stood there for a while. He meant to know
whether this Goriot was really the Goriot that he knew. His heart
beat unwontedly fast; he remembered Vautrin’s hideous insinuations. A
well-dressed young man suddenly emerged from the room almost as Eugene
entered it, saying impatiently to the servant who stood at the door: “I
am going, Maurice. Tell Madame la Comtesse that I waited more than half
an hour for her.”
Whereupon this insolent being, who, doubtless, had a right to be
insolent, sang an Italian trill, and went towards the window where
Eugene was standing, moved thereto quite as much by a desire to see the
student’s face as by a wish to look out into the courtyard.
“But M. le Comte had better wait a moment longer; madame is disengaged,”
said Maurice, as he returned to the ante-chamber.
Just at that moment Father Goriot appeared close to the gate; he had
emerged from a door at the foot of the back staircase. The worthy soul
was preparing to open his umbrella regardless of the fact that the great
gate had opened to admit a tilbury, in which a young man with a ribbon
at his button-hole was seated. Father Goriot had scarcely time to start
back and save himself. The horse took fright at the umbrella, swerved,
and dashed forward towards the flight of steps. The young man looked
round in annoyance, saw Father Goriot, and greeted him as he went out
with constrained courtesy, such as people usually show to a money-lender
so long as they require his services, or the sort of respect they feel
it necessary to show for some one whose reputation has been blown upon,
so that they blush to acknowledge his acquaintance. Father Goriot gave
him a little friendly nod and a good-natured smile. All this happened
with lightning speed. Eugene was so deeply interested that he forgot
that he was not alone till he suddenly heard the Countess’ voice.
“Oh! Maxime, were you going away?” she said reproachfully, with a shade
of pique in her manner. The Countess had not seen the incident nor the
entrance of the tilbury. Rastignac turned abruptly and saw her standing
before him, coquettishly dressed in a loose white cashmere gown with
knots of rose-colored ribbon here and there; her hair was carelessly
coiled about her head, as is the wont of Parisian women in the morning;
there was a soft fragrance about her--doubtless she was fresh from
a bath;--her graceful form seemed more flexible, her beauty more
luxuriant. Her eyes glistened. A young man can see everything at a
glance; he feels the radiant influence of woman as a plant discerns and
absorbs its nutriment from the air; he did not need to touch her hands
to feel their cool freshness. He saw faint rose tints through the
cashmere of the dressing gown; it had fallen slightly open, giving
glimpses of a bare throat, on which the student’s eyes rested. The
Countess had no need of the adventitious aid of corsets; her girdle
defined the outlines of her slender waist; her throat was a challenge
to love; her feet, thrust into slippers, were daintily small. As Maxime
took her hand and kissed it, Eugene became aware of Maxime’s existence,
and the Countess saw Eugene.
“Oh! is that you M. de Rastignac? I am very glad to see you,” she said,
but there was something in her manner that a shrewd observer would have
taken as a hint to depart.
Maxime, as the Countess Anastasie had called the young man with the
haughty insolence of bearing, looked from Eugene to the lady, and from
the lady to Eugene; it was sufficiently evident that he wished to be rid
of the latter. An exact and faithful rendering of the glance might be
given in the words: “Look here, my dear; I hope you intend to send this
little whipper-snapper about his business.”
The Countess consulted the young man’s face with an intent
submissiveness that betrays all the secrets of a woman’s heart, and
Rastignac all at once began to hate him violently. To begin with, the
sight of the fair carefully arranged curls on the other’s comely
head had convinced him that his own crop was hideous; Maxime’s boots,
moreover, were elegant and spotless, while his own, in spite of all
his care, bore some traces of his recent walk; and, finally, Maxime’s
overcoat fitted the outline of his figure gracefully, he looked like a
pretty woman, while Eugene was wearing a black coat at half-past two.
The quick-witted child of the Charente felt the disadvantage at which he
was placed beside this tall, slender dandy, with the clear gaze and
the pale face, one of those men who would ruin orphan children without
scruple. Mme. de Restaud fled into the next room without waiting for
Eugene to speak; shaking out the skirts of her dressing-gown in her
flight, so that she looked like a white butterfly, and Maxime hurried
after her. Eugene, in a fury, followed Maxime and the Countess, and
the three stood once more face to face by the hearth in the large
drawing-room. The law student felt quite sure that the odious Maxime
found him in the way, and even at the risk of displeasing Mme. de
Restaud, he meant to annoy the dandy. It had struck him all at once that
he had seen the young man before at Mme. de Beauseant’s ball; he guessed
the relation between Maxime and Mme. de Restaud; and with the youthful
audacity that commits prodigious blunders or achieves signal success, he
said to himself, “This is my rival; I mean to cut him out.”
Rash resolve! He did not know that M. le Comte Maxime de Trailles would
wait till he was insulted, so as to fire first and kill his man. Eugene
was a sportsman and a good shot, but he had not yet hit the bulls’s eye
twenty times out of twenty-two. The young Count dropped into a low chair
by the hearth, took up the tongs, and made up the fire so violently and
so sulkily, that Anastasie’s fair face suddenly clouded over. She turned
to Eugene, with a cool, questioning glance that asked plainly, “Why do
you not go?” a glance which well-bred people regard as a cue to make
their exit.
Eugene assumed an amiable expression.
“Madame,” he began, “I hastened to call upon you----”
He stopped short. The door opened, and the owner of the tilbury suddenly
appeared. He had left his hat outside, and did not greet the Countess;
he looked meditatively at Rastignac, and held out his hand to Maxime
with a cordial “Good morning,” that astonished Eugene not a little. The
young provincial did not understand the amenities of a triple alliance.
“M. de Restaud,” said the Countess, introducing her husband to the law
student.
Eugene bowed profoundly.
“This gentleman,” she continued, presenting Eugene to her husband,
“is M. de Rastignac; he is related to Mme. la Vicomtesse de Beauseant
through the Marcillacs; I had the pleasure of meeting him at her last
ball.”
_Related to Mme. la Vicomtesse de Beauseant through the Marcillacs!_
These words, on which the countess threw ever so slight an emphasis, by
reason of the pride that the mistress of a house takes in showing
that she only receives people of distinction as visitors in her house,
produced a magical effect. The Count’s stiff manner relaxed at once as
he returned the student’s bow.
“Delighted to have an opportunity of making your acquaintance,” he said.
Maxime de Trailles himself gave Eugene an uneasy glance, and suddenly
dropped his insolent manner. The mighty name had all the power of a
fairy’s wand; those closed compartments in the southern brain flew open
again; Rastignac’s carefully drilled faculties returned. It was as if a
sudden light had pierced the obscurity of this upper world of Paris, and
he began to see, though everything was indistinct as yet. Mme. Vauquer’s
lodging-house and Father Goriot were very far remote from his thoughts.
“I thought that the Marcillacs were extinct,” the Comte de Restaud said,
addressing Eugene.
“Yes, they are extinct,” answered the law student. “My great-uncle, the
Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress of the Marcillac family.
They had only one daughter, who married the Marechal de Clarimbault,
Mme. de Beauseant’s grandfather on the mother’s side. We are the younger
branch of the family, and the younger branch is all the poorer because
my great-uncle, the Vice-Admiral, lost all that he had in the King’s
service. The Government during the Revolution refused to admit our
claims when the Compagnie des Indes was liquidated.”
“Was not your great-uncle in command of the _Vengeur_ before 1789?”
“Yes.”
“Then he would be acquainted with my grandfather, who commanded the
_Warwick_.”
Maxime looked at Mme. de Restaud and shrugged his shoulders, as who
should say, “If he is going to discuss nautical matters with that
fellow, it is all over with us.” Anastasie understood the glance that M.
de Trailles gave her. With a woman’s admirable tact, she began to smile
and said:
“Come with me, Maxime; I have something to say to you. We will leave
you two gentlemen to sail in company on board the _Warwick_ and the
_Vengeur_.”
She rose to her feet and signed to Maxime to follow her, mirth and
mischief in her whole attitude, and the two went in the direction of the
boudoir. The _morganatic_ couple (to use a convenient German expression
which has no exact equivalent) had reached the door, when the Count
interrupted himself in his talk with Eugene.
“Anastasie!” he cried pettishly, “just stay a moment, dear; you know
very well that----”
“I am coming back in a minute,” she interrupted; “I have a commission
for Maxime to execute, and I want to tell him about it.”
She came back almost immediately. She had noticed the inflection in her
husband’s voice, and knew that it would not be safe to retire to the
boudoir; like all women who are compelled to study their husbands’
characters in order to have their own way, and whose business it is
to know exactly how far they can go without endangering a good
understanding, she was very careful to avoid petty collisions in
domestic life. It was Eugene who had brought about this untoward
incident; so the Countess looked at Maxime and indicated the law student
with an air of exasperation. M. de Trailles addressed the Count, the
Countess, and Eugene with the pointed remark, “You are busy, I do not
want to interrupt you; good-day,” and he went.
“Just wait a moment, Maxime!” the Count called after him.
“Come and dine with us,” said the Countess, leaving Eugene and her
husband together once more. She followed Maxime into the little
drawing-room, where they sat together sufficiently long to feel sure
that Rastignac had taken his leave.
The law student heard their laughter, and their voices, and the pauses
in their talk; he grew malicious, exerted his conversational powers for
M. de Restaud, flattered him, and drew him into discussions, to the
end that he might see the Countess again and discover the nature of her
relations with Father Goriot. This Countess with a husband and a lover,
for Maxime clearly was her lover, was a mystery. What was the secret tie
that bound her to the old tradesman? This mystery he meant to penetrate,
hoping by its means to gain a sovereign ascendency over this fair
typical Parisian.
“Anastasie!” the Count called again to his wife.
“Poor Maxime!” she said, addressing the young man. “Come, we must resign
ourselves. This evening----”
“I hope, Nasie,” he said in her ear, “that you will give orders not to
admit that youngster, whose eyes light up like live coals when he looks
at you. He will make you a declaration, and compromise you, and then you
will compel me to kill him.”
“Are you mad, Maxime?” she said. “A young lad of a student is, on the
contrary, a capital lightning-conductor; is not that so? Of course, I
mean to make Restaud furiously jealous of him.”
Maxime burst out laughing, and went out, followed by the Countess, who
stood at the window to watch him into his carriage; he shook his whip,
and made his horse prance. She only returned when the great gate had
been closed after him.
“What do you think, dear?” cried the Count, her husband, “this
gentleman’s family estate is not far from Verteuil, on the Charente; his
great-uncle and my grandfather were acquainted.”
“Delighted to find that we have acquaintances in common,” said the
Countess, with a preoccupied manner.
“More than you think,” said Eugene, in a low voice.
“What do you mean?” she asked quickly.
“Why, only just now,” said the student, “I saw a gentleman go out at
the gate, Father Goriot, my next door neighbor in the house where I am
lodging.”
At the sound of this name, and the prefix that embellished it, the
Count, who was stirring the fire, let the tongs fall as though they had
burned his fingers, and rose to his feet.
“Sir,” he cried, “you might have called him ‘Monsieur Goriot’!”
The Countess turned pale at first at the sight of her husband’s
vexation, then she reddened; clearly she was embarrassed, her answer
was made in a tone that she tried to make natural, and with an air of
assumed carelessness:
“You could not know any one who is dearer to us both...”
She broke off, glanced at the piano as if some fancy had crossed her
mind, and asked, “Are you fond of music, M. de Rastignac?”
“Exceedingly,” answered Eugene, flushing, and disconcerted by a dim
suspicion that he had somehow been guilty of a clumsy piece of folly.
“Do you sing?” she cried, going to the piano, and, sitting down before
it, she swept her fingers over the keyboard from end to end. R-r-r-rah!
“No, madame.”
The Comte de Restaud walked to and fro.
“That is a pity; you are without one great means of success.--_Ca-ro,
ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non du-bi-ta-re_,” sang the Countess.
Eugene had a second time waved a magic wand when he uttered Goriot’s
name, but the effect seemed to be entirely opposite to that produced by
the formula “related to Mme. de Beauseant.” His position was not
unlike that of some visitor permitted as a favor to inspect a private
collection of curiosities, when by inadvertence he comes into collision
with a glass case full of sculptured figures, and three or four heads,
imperfectly secured, fall at the shock. He wished the earth would open
and swallow him. Mme. de Restaud’s expression was reserved and chilly,
her eyes had grown indifferent, and sedulously avoided meeting those of
the unlucky student of law.
“Madame,” he said, “you wish to talk with M. de Restaud; permit me to
wish you good-day----”
The Countess interrupted him by a gesture, saying hastily, “Whenever you
come to see us, both M. de Restaud and I shall be delighted to see you.”
Eugene made a profound bow and took his leave, followed by M. de
Restaud, who insisted, in spite of his remonstrances, on accompanying
him into the hall.
“Neither your mistress nor I are at home to that gentleman when he
calls,” the Count said to Maurice.
As Eugene set foot on the steps, he saw that it was raining.
“Come,” said he to himself, “somehow I have just made a mess of it, I
do not know how. And now I am going to spoil my hat and coat into the
bargain. I ought to stop in my corner, grind away at law, and never
look to be anything but a boorish country magistrate. How can I go
into society, when to manage properly you want a lot of cabs, varnished
boots, gold watch chains, and all sorts of things; you have to wear
white doeskin gloves that cost six francs in the morning, and primrose
kid gloves every evening? A fig for that old humbug of a Goriot!”
When he reached the street door, the driver of a hackney coach, who had
probably just deposited a wedding party at their door, and asked nothing
better than a chance of making a little money for himself without his
employer’s knowledge, saw that Eugene had no umbrella, remarked his
black coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, and varnished boots, and
stopped and looked at him inquiringly. Eugene, in the blind desperation
that drives a young man to plunge deeper and deeper into an abyss, as if
he might hope to find a fortunate issue in its lowest depths, nodded
in reply to the driver’s signal, and stepped into the cab; a few stray
petals of orange blossom and scraps of wire bore witness to its recent
occupation by a wedding party.
“Where am I to drive, sir?” demanded the man, who, by this time, had
taken off his white gloves.
“Confound it!” Eugene said to himself, “I am in for it now, and at least
I will not spend cab-hire for nothing!--Drive to the Hotel Beauseant,”
he said aloud.
“Which?” asked the man, a portentous word that reduced Eugene to
confusion. This young man of fashion, species incerta, did not know that
there were two Hotels Beauseant; he was not aware how rich he was in
relations who did not care about him.
“The Vicomte de Beauseant, Rue----”
“De Grenelle,” interrupted the driver, with a jerk of his head. “You
see, there are the hotels of the Marquis and Comte de Beauseant in the
Rue Saint-Dominique,” he added, drawing up the step.
“I know all about that,” said Eugene, severely.--“Everybody is laughing
at me to-day, it seems!” he said to himself, as he deposited his hat on
the opposite seat. “This escapade will cost me a king’s ransom, but,
at any rate, I shall call on my so-called cousin in a thoroughly
aristocratic fashion. Goriot has cost me ten francs already, the old
scoundrel. My word! I will tell Mme. de Beauseant about my adventure;
perhaps it may amuse her. Doubtless she will know the secret of the
criminal relation between that handsome woman and the old rat without a
tail. It would be better to find favor in my cousin’s eyes than to
come in contact with that shameless woman, who seems to me to have very
expensive tastes. Surely the beautiful Vicomtesse’s personal interest
would turn the scale for me, when the mere mention of her name produces
such an effect. Let us look higher. If you set yourself to carry the
heights of heaven, you must face God.”
The innumerable thoughts that surged through his brain might be summed
up in these phrases. He grew calmer, and recovered something of his
assurance as he watched the falling rain. He told himself that though
he was about to squander two of the precious five-franc pieces that
remained to him, the money was well laid out in preserving his coat,
boots, and hat; and his cabman’s cry of “Gate, if you please,” almost
put him in spirits. A Swiss, in scarlet and gold, appeared, the great
door groaned on its hinges, and Rastignac, with sweet satisfaction,
beheld his equipage pass under the archway and stop before the flight
of steps beneath the awning. The driver, in a blue-and-red greatcoat,
dismounted and let down the step. As Eugene stepped out of the cab, he
heard smothered laughter from the peristyle. Three or four lackeys
were making merry over the festal appearance of the vehicle. In
another moment the law student was enlightened as to the cause of their
hilarity; he felt the full force of the contrast between his equipage
and one of the smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with powdered
hair, seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited horses, who
stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud’s courtyard, in the Chaussee
d’Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of six-and-twenty;
in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the luxurious equipage of a man
of rank; thirty thousand francs would not have purchased it.
“Who can be here?” said Eugene to himself. He began to understand,
though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to find many women in
Paris who were not already appropriated, and that the capture of one
of these queens would be likely to cost something more than bloodshed.
“Confound it all! I expect my cousin also has her Maxime.”
He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The glass
door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as jackasses under
the curry comb. So far, Eugene had only been in the ballroom on the
ground floor of the Hotel Beauseant; the fete had followed so closely on
the invitation, that he had not had time to call on his cousin, and had
therefore never seen Mme. de Beauseant’s apartments; he was about to
behold for the first time a great lady among the wonderful and elegant
surroundings that reveal her character and reflect her daily life.
He was the more curious, because Mme. de Restaud’s drawing-room had
provided him with a standard of comparison.
At half-past four the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was visible. Five minutes
earlier she would not have received her cousin, but Eugene knew nothing
of the recognized routine of various houses in Paris. He was conducted
up the wide, white-painted, crimson-carpeted staircase, between the
gilded balusters and masses of flowering plants, to Mme. de Beauseant’s
apartments. He did not know the rumor current about Mme. de Beauseant,
one of the biographies told, with variations, in whispers, every evening
in the salons of Paris.
For three years past her name had been spoken of in connection with
that of one of the most wealthy and distinguished Portuguese nobles,
the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent _liaisons_ which
possess so much charm for the two thus attached to each other that
they find the presence of a third person intolerable. The Vicomte de
Beauseant, therefore, had himself set an example to the rest of the
world by respecting, with as good a grace as might be, this morganatic
union. Any one who came to call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of
this friendship was sure to find the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto there. As,
under the circumstances, Mme. de Beauseant could not very well shut her
door against these visitors, she gave them such a cold reception, and
showed so much interest in the study of the ceiling, that no one could
fail to understand how much he bored her; and when it became known in
Paris that Mme. de Beauseant was bored by callers between two and four
o’clock, she was left in perfect solitude during that interval. She
went to the Bouffons or to the Opera with M. de Beauseant and M.
d’Ajuda-Pinto; and M. de Beauseant, like a well-bred man of the world,
always left his wife and the Portuguese as soon as he had installed
them. But M. d’Ajuda-Pinto must marry, and a Mlle. de Rochefide was the
young lady. In the whole fashionable world there was but one person who
as yet knew nothing of the arrangement, and that was Mme. de Beauseant.
Some of her friends had hinted at the possibility, and she had laughed
at them, believing that envy had prompted those ladies to try to make
mischief. And now, though the bans were about to be published, and
although the handsome Portuguese had come that day to break the news to
the Vicomtesse, he had not found courage as yet to say one word about
his treachery. How was it? Nothing is doubtless more difficult than the
notification of an ultimatum of this kind. There are men who feel more
at their ease when they stand up before another man who threatens their
lives with sword or pistol than in the presence of a woman who, after
two hours of lamentations and reproaches, falls into a dead swoon and
requires salts. At this moment, therefore, M. d’Ajuda-Pinto was on
thorns, and anxious to take his leave. He told himself that in some
way or other the news would reach Mme. de Beauseant; he would write, it
would be much better to do it by letter, and not to utter the words that
should stab her to the heart.
So when the servant announced M. Eugene de Rastignac, the Marquis
d’Ajuda-Pinto trembled with joy. To be sure, a loving woman shows even
more ingenuity in inventing doubts of her lover than in varying the
monotony of his happiness; and when she is about to be forsaken, she
instinctively interprets every gesture as rapidly as Virgil’s courser
detected the presence of his companion by snuffing the breeze. It was
impossible, therefore, that Mme. de Beauseant should not detect that
involuntary thrill of satisfaction; slight though it was, it was
appalling in its artlessness.
Eugene had yet to learn that no one in Paris should present himself in
any house without first making himself acquainted with the whole history
of its owner, and of its owner’s wife and family, so that he may avoid
making any of the terrible blunders which in Poland draw forth the
picturesque exclamation, “Harness five bullocks to your cart!” probably
because you will need them all to pull you out of the quagmire into
which a false step has plunged you. If, down to the present day, our
language has no name for these conversational disasters, it is probably
because they are believed to be impossible, the publicity given in Paris
to every scandal is so prodigious. After the awkward incident at Mme. de
Restaud’s, no one but Eugene could have reappeared in his character
of bullock-driver in Mme. de Beauseant’s drawing-room. But if Mme. de
Restaud and M. de Trailles had found him horribly in the way, M. d’Ajuda
hailed his coming with relief.
“Good-bye,” said the Portuguese, hurrying to the door, as Eugene made
his entrance into a dainty little pink-and-gray drawing-room, where
luxury seemed nothing more than good taste.
“Until this evening,” said Mme. de Beauseant, turning her head to give
the Marquis a glance. “We are going to the Bouffons, are we not?”
“I cannot go,” he said, with his fingers on the door handle.
Mme. de Beauseant rose and beckoned to him to return. She did not
pay the slightest attention to Eugene, who stood there dazzled by the
sparkling marvels around him; he began to think that this was some story
out of the Arabian Nights made real, and did not know where to hide
himself, when the woman before him seemed to be unconscious of his
existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the forefinger of her right hand,
and gracefully signed to the Marquis to seat himself beside her. The
Marquis felt the imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back
towards her. Eugene watched him, not without a feeling of envy.
“That is the owner of the brougham!” he said to himself. “But is it
necessary to have a pair of spirited horses, servants in livery, and
torrents of gold to draw a glance from a woman here in Paris?”
The demon of luxury gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his veins, his
throat was parched with the thirst of gold.
He had a hundred and thirty francs every quarter. His father, mother,
brothers, sisters, and aunt did not spend two hundred francs a month
among them. This swift comparison between his present condition and the
aims he had in view helped to benumb his faculties.
“Why not?” the Vicomtesse was saying, as she smiled at the Portuguese.
“Why cannot you come to the Italiens?”
“Affairs! I am to dine with the English Ambassador.”
“Throw him over.”
When a man once enters on a course of deception, he is compelled to
add lie to lie. M. d’Ajuda therefore said, smiling, “Do you lay your
commands on me?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“That was what I wanted to have you say to me,” he answered, dissembling
his feelings in a glance which would have reassured any other woman.
He took the Vicomtesse’s hand, kissed it, and went.
Eugene ran his fingers through his hair, and constrained himself to bow.
He thought that now Mme. de Beauseant would give him her attention;
but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed to a window in the gallery, and
watched M. d’Ajuda step into his carriage; she listened to the order
that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it to the coachman:
“To M. de Rochefide’s house.”
Those words, and the way in which M. d’Ajuda flung himself back in the
carriage, were like a lightning flash and a thunderbolt for her; she
walked back again with a deadly fear gnawing at her heart. The most
terrible catastrophes only happen among the heights. The Vicomtesse
went to her own room, sat down at a table, and took up a sheet of dainty
notepaper.
“When, instead of dining with the English Ambassador,”
she wrote, “you go to the Rochefides, you owe me an
explanation, which I am waiting to hear.”
She retraced several of the letters, for her hand was trembling so that
they were indistinct; then she signed the note with an initial C for
“Claire de Bourgogne,” and rang the bell.
“Jacques,” she said to the servant, who appeared immediately, “take
this note to M. de Rochefide’s house at half-past seven and ask for the
Marquis d’Ajuda. If M. d’Ajuda is there, leave the note without waiting
for an answer; if he is not there, bring the note back to me.”
“Madame la Vicomtess, there is a visitor in the drawing-room.”
“Ah! yes, of course,” she said, opening the door.
Eugene was beginning to feel very uncomfortable, but at last the
Vicomtesse appeared; she spoke to him, and the tremulous tones of her
voice vibrated through his heart.
“Pardon me, monsieur,” she said; “I had a letter to write. Now I am
quite at liberty.”
She scarcely knew what she was saying, for even as she spoke she
thought, “Ah! he means to marry Mlle. de Rochefide? But is he still
free? This evening the marriage shall be broken off, or else... But
before to-morrow I shall know.”
“Cousin...” the student replied.
“Eh?” said the Countess, with an insolent glance that sent a cold
shudder through Eugene; he understood what that “Eh?” meant; he had
learned a great deal in three hours, and his wits were on the alert. He
reddened:
“Madame...” he began; he hesitated a moment, and then went on.
“Pardon me; I am in such need of protection that the nearest scrap of
relationship could do me no harm.”
Mme. de Beauseant smiled but there was sadness in her smile; even now
she felt forebodings of the coming pain, the air she breathed was heavy
with the storm that was about to burst.
“If you knew how my family are situated,” he went on, “you would love to
play the part of a beneficent fairy godmother who graciously clears the
obstacles from the path of her protege.”
“Well, cousin,” she said, laughing, “and how can I be of service to
you?”
“But do I know even that? I am distantly related to you, and this
obscure and remote relationship is even now a perfect godsend to me. You
have confused my ideas; I cannot remember the things that I meant to say
to you. I know no one else here in Paris.... Ah! if I could only ask you
to counsel me, ask you to look upon me as a poor child who would fain
cling to the hem of your dress, who would lay down his life for you.”
“Would you kill a man for me?”
“Two,” said Eugene.
“You, child. Yes, you are a child,” she said, keeping back the tears
that came to her eyes; “you would love sincerely.”
“Oh!” he cried, flinging up his head.
The audacity of the student’s answer interested the Vicomtesse in him.
The southern brain was beginning to scheme for the first time. Between
Mme. de Restaud’s blue boudoir and Mme. de Beauseant’s rose-colored
drawing-room he had made a three years’ advance in a kind of law which
is not a recognized study in Paris, although it is a sort of higher
jurisprudence, and, when well understood, is a highroad to success of
every kind.
“Ah! that is what I meant to say!” said Eugene. “I met Mme. de Restaud
at your ball, and this morning I went to see her.
“You must have been very much in the way,” said Mme. de Beauseant,
smiling as she spoke.
“Yes, indeed. I am a novice, and my blunders will set every one against
me, if you do not give me your counsel. I believe that in Paris it is
very difficult to meet with a young, beautiful, and wealthy woman of
fashion who would be willing to teach me, what you women can explain so
well--life. I shall find a M. de Trailles everywhere. So I have come to
you to ask you to give me a key to a puzzle, to entreat you to tell me
what sort of blunder I made this morning. I mentioned an old man----”
“Madame la Duchess de Langeais,” Jacques cut the student short; Eugene
gave expression to his intense annoyance by a gesture.
“If you mean to succeed,” said the Vicomtesse in a low voice, “in the
first place you must not be so demonstrative.”
“Ah! good morning, dear,” she continued, and rising and crossing the
room, she grasped the Duchess’ hands as affectionately as if they had
been sisters; the Duchess responded in the prettiest and most gracious
way.
“Two intimate friends!” said Rastignac to himself. “Henceforward I shall
have two protectresses; those two women are great friends, no doubt, and
this newcomer will doubtless interest herself in her friend’s cousin.”
“To what happy inspiration do I owe this piece of good fortune, dear
Antoinette?” asked Mme. de Beauseant.
“Well, I saw M. d’Ajuda-Pinto at M. de Rochefide’s door, so I thought
that if I came I should find you alone.”
Mme. de Beauseant’s mouth did not tighten, her color did not rise, her
expression did not alter, or rather, her brow seemed to clear as the
Duchess uttered those deadly words.
“If I had known that you were engaged----” the speaker added, glancing
at Eugene.
“This gentleman is M. Eugene de Rastignac, one of my cousins,” said the
Vicomtesse. “Have you any news of General de Montriveau?” she continued.
“Serizy told me yesterday that he never goes anywhere now; has he been
to see you to-day?”
It was believed that the Duchess was desperately in love with M. de
Montriveau, and that he was a faithless lover; she felt the question in
her very heart, and her face flushed as she answered:
“He was at the Elysee yesterday.”
“In attendance?”
“Claire,” returned the Duchess, and hatred overflowed in the glances she
threw at Mme. de Beauseant; “of course you know that M. d’Ajuda-Pinto
is going to marry Mlle. de Rochefide; the bans will be published
to-morrow.”
This thrust was too cruel; the Vicomtesse’s face grew white, but she
answered, laughing, “One of those rumors that fools amuse themselves
with. What should induce M. d’Ajuda to take one of the noblest names
in Portugal to the Rochefides? The Rochefides were only ennobled
yesterday.”
“But Bertha will have two hundred thousand livres a year, they say.”
“M. d’Ajuda is too wealthy to marry for money.”
“But, my dear, Mlle. de Rochefide is a charming girl.”
“Indeed?”
“And, as a matter of fact, he is dining with them to-day; the thing
is settled. It is very surprising to me that you should know so little
about it.”
Mme. de Beauseant turned to Rastignac. “What was the blunder that you
made, monsieur?” she asked. “The poor boy is only just launched into the
world, Antoinette, so that he understands nothing of all this that
we are speaking of. Be merciful to him, and let us finish our talk
to-morrow. Everything will be announced to-morrow, you know, and
your kind informal communication can be accompanied by official
confirmation.”
The Duchess gave Eugene one of those insolent glances that measure a man
from head to foot, and leave him crushed and annihilated.
“Madame, I have unwittingly plunged a dagger into Mme. de Restaud’s
heart; unwittingly--therein lies my offence,” said the student of law,
whose keen brain had served him sufficiently well, for he had detected
the biting epigrams that lurked beneath this friendly talk. “You
continue to receive, possibly you fear, those who know the amount of
pain that they deliberately inflict; but a clumsy blunderer who has no
idea how deeply he wounds is looked upon as a fool who does not know how
to make use of his opportunities, and every one despises him.”
Mme. de Beauseant gave the student a glance, one of those glances in
which a great soul can mingle dignity and gratitude. It was like balm
to the law student, who was still smarting under the Duchess’ insolent
scrutiny; she had looked at him as an auctioneer might look at some
article to appraise its value.
“Imagine, too, that I had just made some progress with the Comte de
Restaud; for I should tell you, madame,” he went on, turning to the
Duchess with a mixture of humility and malice in his manner, “that as
yet I am only a poor devil of a student, very much alone in the world,
and very poor----”
“You should not tell us that, M. de Rastignac. We women never care about
anything that no one else will take.”
“Bah!” said Eugene. “I am only two-and-twenty, and I must make up my
mind to the drawbacks of my time of life. Besides, I am confessing
my sins, and it would be impossible to kneel in a more charming
confessional; you commit your sins in one drawing-room, and receive
absolution for them in another.”
The Duchess’ expression grew colder, she did not like the flippant tone
of these remarks, and showed that she considered them to be in bad
taste by turning to the Vicomtesse with--“This gentleman has only just
come----”
Mme. de Beauseant began to laugh outright at her cousin and at the
Duchess both.
“He has only just come to Paris, dear, and is in search of some one who
will give him lessons in good taste.”
“Mme. la Duchesse,” said Eugene, “is it not natural to wish to be
initiated into the mysteries which charm us?” (“Come, now,” he said to
himself, “my language is superfinely elegant, I’m sure.”)
“But Mme. de Restaud is herself, I believe, M. de Trailles’ pupil,” said
the Duchess.
“Of that I had no idea, madame,” answered the law student, “so I rashly
came between them. In fact, I got on very well with the lady’s husband,
and his wife tolerated me for a time until I took it into my head to
tell them that I knew some one of whom I had just caught a glimpse as he
went out by a back staircase, a man who had given the Countess a kiss at
the end of a passage.”
“Who was it?” both women asked together.
“An old man who lives at the rate of two louis a month in the Faubourg
Saint-Marceau, where I, a poor student, lodge likewise. He is a truly
unfortunate creature, everybody laughs at him--we all call him ‘Father
Goriot.’”
“Why, child that you are,” cried the Vicomtesse, “Mme. de Restaud was a
Mlle. Goriot!”
“The daughter of a vermicelli manufacturer,” the Duchess added; “and
when the little creature went to Court, the daughter of a pastry-cook
was presented on the same day. Do you remember, Claire? The King began
to laugh, and made some joke in Latin about flour. People--what was
it?--people----”
“_Ejusdem farinoe_,” said Eugene.
“Yes, that was it,” said the Duchess.
“Oh! is that her father?” the law student continued, aghast.
“Yes, certainly; the old man had two daughters; he dotes on them, so to
speak, though they will scarcely acknowledge him.”
“Didn’t the second daughter marry a banker with a German name?” the
Vicomtesse asked, turning to Mme. de Langeais, “a Baron de Nucingen? And
her name is Delphine, is it not? Isn’t she a fair-haired woman who has
a side-box at the Opera? She comes sometimes to the Bouffons, and laughs
loudly to attract attention.”
The Duchess smiled and said:
“I wonder at you, dear. Why do you take so much interest in people of
that kind? One must have been as madly in love as Restaud was, to be
infatuated with Mlle. Anastasie and her flour sacks. Oh! he will not
find her a good bargain! She is in M. de Trailles’ hands, and he will
ruin her.”
“And they do not acknowledge their father!” Eugene repeated.
“Oh! well, yes, their father, the father, a father,” replied the
Vicomtesse, “a kind father who gave them each five or six hundred
thousand francs, it is said, to secure their happiness by marrying
them well; while he only kept eight or ten thousand livres a year for
himself, thinking that his daughters would always be his daughters,
thinking that in them he would live his life twice over again, that
in their houses he should find two homes, where he would be loved
and looked up to, and made much of. And in two years’ time both his
sons-in-law had turned him out of their houses as if he were one of the
lowest outcasts.”
Tears came into Eugene’s eyes. He was still under the spell of youthful
beliefs, he had just left home, pure and sacred feelings had been
stirred within him, and this was his first day on the battlefield of
civilization in Paris. Genuine feeling is so infectious that for a
moment the three looked at each other in silence.
“_Eh, mon Dieu!_” said Mme. de Langeais; “yes, it seems very horrible,
and yet we see such things every day. Is there not a reason for it?
Tell me, dear, have you ever really thought what a son-in-law is? A
son-in-law is the man for whom we bring up, you and I, a dear little
one, bound to us very closely in innumerable ways; for seventeen years
she will be the joy of her family, its ‘white soul,’ as Lamartine says,
and suddenly she will become its scourge. When HE comes and takes her
from us, his love from the very beginning is like an axe laid to the
root of all the old affection in our darling’s heart, and all the ties
that bound her to her family are severed. But yesterday our little
daughter thought of no one but her mother and father, as we had no
thought that was not for her; by to-morrow she will have become a
hostile stranger. The tragedy is always going on under our eyes. On the
one hand you see a father who has sacrificed himself to his son, and
his daughter-in-law shows him the last degree of insolence. On the other
hand, it is the son-in-law who turns his wife’s mother out of the house.
I sometimes hear it said that there is nothing dramatic about society in
these days; but the Drama of the Son-in-law is appalling, to say nothing
of our marriages, which have come to be very poor farces. I can explain
how it all came about in the old vermicelli maker’s case. I think I
recollect that Foriot----”
“Goriot, madame.”
“Yes, that Moriot was once President of his Section during the
Revolution. He was in the secret of the famous scarcity of grain, and
laid the foundation of his fortune in those days by selling flour for
ten times its cost. He had as much flour as he wanted. My grandmother’s
steward sold him immense quantities. No doubt Noriot shared the plunder
with the Committee of Public Salvation, as that sort of person always
did. I recollect the steward telling my grandmother that she might live
at Grandvilliers in complete security, because her corn was as good as
a certificate of civism. Well, then, this Loriot, who sold corn to
those butchers, has never had but one passion, they say--he idolizes his
daughters. He settled one of them under Restaud’s roof, and grafted the
other into the Nucingen family tree, the Baron de Nucingen being a rich
banker who had turned Royalist. You can quite understand that so long as
Bonaparte was Emperor, the two sons-in-law could manage to put up with
the old Ninety-three; but after the restoration of the Bourbons, M. de
Restaud felt bored by the old man’s society, and the banker was still
more tired of it. His daughters were still fond of him; they wanted
‘to keep the goat and the cabbage,’ so they used to see Joriot whenever
there was no one there, under pretence of affection. ‘Come to-day, papa,
we shall have you all to ourselves, and that will be much nicer!’
and all that sort of thing. As for me, dear, I believe that love has
second-sight: poor Ninety-three; his heart must have bled. He saw that
his daughters were ashamed of him, that if they loved their husbands
his visits must make mischief. So he immolated himself. He made the
sacrifice because he was a father; he went into voluntary exile. His
daughters were satisfied, so he thought that he had done the best thing
he could; but it was a family crime, and father and daughters were
accomplices. You see this sort of thing everywhere. What could this old
Doriot have been but a splash of mud in his daughters’ drawing-rooms? He
would only have been in the way, and bored other people, besides being
bored himself. And this that happened between father and daughters may
happen to the prettiest woman in Paris and the man she loves the best;
if her love grows tiresome, he will go; he will descend to the basest
trickery to leave her. It is the same with all love and friendship. Our
heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are
bankrupt. We show no more mercy to the affection that reveals its utmost
extent than we do to another kind of prodigal who has not a penny left.
Their father had given them all he had. For twenty years he had given
his whole heart to them; then, one day, he gave them all his fortune
too. The lemon was squeezed; the girls left the rest in the gutter.”
“The world is very base,” said the Vicomtesse, plucking at the threads
of her shawl. She did not raise her head as she spoke; the words that
Mme. de Langeais had meant for her in the course of her story had cut
her to the quick.
“Base? Oh, no,” answered the Duchess; “the world goes its own way, that
is all. If I speak in this way, it is only to show that I am not duped
by it. I think as you do,” she said, pressing the Vicomtesse’s hand.
“The world is a slough; let us try to live on the heights above it.”
She rose to her feet and kissed Mme. de Beauseant on the forehead as
she said: “You look very charming to-day, dear. I have never seen such a
lovely color in your cheeks before.”
Then she went out with a slight inclination of the head to the cousin.
“Father Goriot is sublime!” said Eugene to himself, as he remembered how
he had watched his neighbor work the silver vessel into a shapeless mass
that night.
Mme. de Beauseant did not hear him; she was absorbed in her own
thoughts. For several minutes the silence remained unbroken till the
law student became almost paralyzed with embarrassment, and was equally
afraid to go or stay or speak a word.
“The world is basely ungrateful and ill-natured,” said the Vicomtesse
at last. “No sooner does a trouble befall you than a friend is ready
to bring the tidings and to probe your heart with the point of a
dagger while calling on you to admire the handle. Epigrams and sarcasms
already! Ah! I will defend myself!”
She raised her head like the great lady that she was, and lightnings
flashed from her proud eyes.
“Ah!” she said, as she saw Eugene, “are you there?”
“Still,” he said piteously.
“Well, then, M. de Rastignac, deal with the world as it deserves. You
are determined to succeed? I will help you. You shall sound the depths
of corruption in woman; you shall measure the extent of man’s pitiful
vanity. Deeply as I am versed in such learning, there were pages in the
book of life that I had not read. Now I know all. The more cold-blooded
your calculations, the further you will go. Strike ruthlessly; you will
be feared. Men and women for you must be nothing more than post-horses;
take a fresh relay, and leave the last to drop by the roadside; in this
way you will reach the goal of your ambition. You will be nothing here,
you see, unless a woman interests herself in you; and she must be young
and wealthy, and a woman of the world. Yet, if you have a heart, lock
it carefully away like a treasure; do not let any one suspect it, or you
will be lost; you would cease to be the executioner, you would take
the victim’s place. And if ever you should love, never let your secret
escape you! Trust no one until you are very sure of the heart to which
you open your heart. Learn to mistrust every one; take every precaution
for the sake of the love which does not exist as yet. Listen,
Miguel”--the name slipped from her so naturally that she did not
notice her mistake--“there is something still more appalling than the
ingratitude of daughters who have cast off their old father and wish
that he were dead, and that is a rivalry between two sisters. Restaud
comes of a good family, his wife has been received into their circle;
she has been presented at court; and her sister, her wealthy sister,
Mme. Delphine de Nucingen, the wife of a great capitalist, is consumed
with envy, and ready to die of spleen. There is gulf set between the
sisters--indeed, they are sisters no longer--the two women who refuse
to acknowledge their father do not acknowledge each other. So Mme. de
Nucingen would lap up all the mud that lies between the Rue Saint-Lazare
and the Rue de Grenelle to gain admittance to my salon. She fancied
that she should gain her end through de Marsay; she has made herself
de Marsay’s slave, and she bores him. De Marsay cares very little about
her. If you will introduce her to me, you will be her darling, her
Benjamin; she will idolize you. If, after that, you can love her, do so;
if not, make her useful. I will ask her to come once or twice to one of
my great crushes, but I will never receive her here in the morning. I
will bow to her when I see her, and that will be quite sufficient.
You have shut the Comtesse de Restaud’s door against you by mentioning
Father Goriot’s name. Yes, my good friend, you may call at her house
twenty times, and every time out of the twenty you will find that she
is not at home. The servants have their orders, and will not admit you.
Very well, then, now let Father Goriot gain the right of entry into her
sister’s house for you. The beautiful Mme. de Nucingen will give the
signal for a battle. As soon as she singles you out, other women will
begin to lose their heads about you, and her enemies and rivals and
intimate friends will all try to take you from her. There are women who
will fall in love with a man because another woman has chosen him; like
the city madams, poor things, who copy our millinery, and hope thereby
to acquire our manners. You will have a success, and in Paris success is
everything; it is the key of power. If the women credit you with wit and
talent, the men will follow suit so long as you do not undeceive them
yourself. There will be nothing you may not aspire to; you will go
everywhere, and you will find out what the world is--an assemblage of
fools and knaves. But you must be neither the one nor the other. I am
giving you my name like Ariadne’s clue of thread to take with you into
the labyrinth; make no unworthy use of it,” she said, with a queenly
glance and curve of her throat; “give it back to me unsullied. And now,
go; leave me. We women also have our battles to fight.”
“And if you should ever need some one who would gladly set a match to a
train for you----”
“Well?” she asked.
He tapped his heart, smiled in answer to his cousin’s smile, and went.
It was five o’clock, and Eugene was hungry; he was afraid lest he should
not be in time for dinner, a misgiving which made him feel that it was
pleasant to be borne so quickly across Paris. This sensation of physical
comfort left his mind free to grapple with the thoughts that assailed
him. A mortification usually sends a young man of his age into a furious
rage; he shakes his fist at society, and vows vengeance when his belief
in himself is shaken. Just then Rastignac was overwhelmed by the words,
“You have shut the Countess’ door against you.”
“I shall call!” he said to himself, “and if Mme. de Beauseant is right,
if I never find her at home--I... well, Mme. de Restaud shall meet me
in every salon in Paris. I will learn to fence and have some pistol
practice, and kill that Maxime of hers!”
“And money?” cried an inward monitor. “How about money, where is that
to come from?” And all at once the wealth displayed in the Countess de
Restaud’s drawing-room rose before his eyes. That was the luxury which
Goriot’s daughter had loved too well, the gilding, the ostentatious
splendor, the unintelligent luxury of the parvenu, the riotous
extravagance of a courtesan. Then the attractive vision suddenly went
under an eclipse as he remembered the stately grandeur of the Hotel de
Beauseant. As his fancy wandered among these lofty regions in the great
world of Paris, innumerable dark thoughts gathered in his heart; his
ideas widened, and his conscience grew more elastic. He saw the world as
it is; saw how the rich lived beyond the jurisdiction of law and public
opinion, and found in success the _ultima ratio mundi_.
“Vautrin is right, success is virtue!” he said to himself.
Arrived in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he rushed up to his room for
ten francs wherewith to satisfy the demands of the cabman, and went
in to dinner. He glanced round the squalid room, saw the eighteen
poverty-stricken creatures about to feed like cattle in their stalls,
and the sight filled him with loathing. The transition was too sudden,
and the contrast was so violent that it could not but act as a powerful
stimulant; his ambition developed and grew beyond all social bounds. On
the one hand, he beheld a vision of social life in its most charming
and refined forms, of quick-pulsed youth, of fair, impassioned faces
invested with all the charm of poetry, framed in a marvelous setting of
luxury or art; and, on the other hand, he saw a sombre picture, the miry
verge beyond these faces, in which passion was extinct and nothing was
left of the drama but the cords and pulleys and bare mechanism. Mme. de
Beauseant’s counsels, the words uttered in anger by the forsaken lady,
her petulant offer, came to his mind, and poverty was a ready expositor.
Rastignac determined to open two parallel trenches so as to insure
success; he would be a learned doctor of law and a man of fashion.
Clearly he was still a child! Those two lines are asymptotes, and will
never meet.
“You are very dull, my lord Marquis,” said Vautrin, with one of the
shrewd glances that seem to read the innermost secrets of another mind.
“I am not in the humor to stand jokes from people who call me ‘my lord
Marquis,’” answered Eugene. “A marquis here in Paris, if he is not the
veriest sham, ought to have a hundred thousand livres a year at least;
and a lodger in the Maison Vauquer is not exactly Fortune’s favorite.”
Vautrin’s glance at Rastignac was half-paternal, half-contemptuous.
“Puppy!” it seemed to say; “I should make one mouthful of him!” Then he
answered:
“You are in a bad humor; perhaps your visit to the beautiful Comtesse de
Restaud was not a success.”
“She has shut her door against me because I told her that her father
dined at our table,” cried Rastignac.
Glances were exchanged all round the room; Father Goriot looked down.
“You have sent some snuff into my eye,” he said to his neighbor, turning
a little aside to rub his hand over his face.
“Any one who molests Father Goriot will have henceforward to reckon with
me,” said Eugene, looking at the old man’s neighbor; “he is worth all
the rest of us put together.--I am not speaking of the ladies,” he
added, turning in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer.
Eugene’s remarks produced a sensation, and his tone silenced the
dinner-table. Vautrin alone spoke. “If you are going to champion Father
Goriot, and set up for his responsible editor into the bargain, you
had need be a crack shot and know how to handle the foils,” he said,
banteringly.
“So I intend,” said Eugene.
“Then you are taking the field to-day?”