Eugene broke the seal and read:--

“Sir,--I have heard from my father that you are fond of Italian

music. I shall be delighted if you will do me the pleasure of

accepting a seat in my box. La Fodor and Pellegrini will sing on

Saturday, so I am sure that you will not refuse me. M. de Nucingen

and I shall be pleased if you will dine with us; we shall be quite

by ourselves. If you will come and be my escort, my husband will

be glad to be relieved from his conjugal duties. Do not answer,

but simply come.--Yours sincerely, D. DE N.”

“Let me see it,” said Father Goriot, when Eugene had read the letter.

“You are going, aren’t you?” he added, when he had smelled the

writing-paper. “How nice it smells! Her fingers have touched it, that is

certain.”

“A woman does not fling herself at a man’s head in this way,” the

student was thinking. “She wants to use me to bring back de Marsay;

nothing but pique makes a woman do a thing like this.”

“Well,” said Father Goriot, “what are you thinking about?”

Eugene did not know the fever or vanity that possessed some women in

those days; how should he imagine that to open a door in the Faubourg

Saint-Germain a banker’s wife would go to almost any length. For the

coterie of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was a charmed circle, and the

women who moved in it were at that time the queens of society; and among

the greatest of these _Dames du Petit-Chateau_, as they were called,

were Mme. de Beauseant and her friends the Duchesse de Langeais and the

Duchesse de Maufrigneause. Rastignac was alone in his ignorance of the

frantic efforts made by women who lived in the Chausee-d’Antin to enter

this seventh heaven and shine among the brightest constellations of

their sex. But his cautious disposition stood him in good stead,

and kept his judgment cool, and the not altogether enviable power of

imposing instead of accepting conditions.

“Yes, I am going,” he replied.

So it was curiosity that drew him to Mme. de Nucingen; while, if she had

treated him disdainfully, passion perhaps might have brought him to her

feet. Still he waited almost impatiently for to-morrow, and the hour

when he could go to her. There is almost as much charm for a young

man in a first flirtation as there is in first love. The certainty of

success is a source of happiness to which men do not confess, and all

the charm of certain women lies in this. The desire of conquest springs

no less from the easiness than from the difficulty of triumph, and every

passion is excited or sustained by one or the other of these two motives

which divide the empire of love. Perhaps this division is one result of

the great question of temperaments; which, after all, dominates social

life. The melancholic temperament may stand in need of the tonic of

coquetry, while those of nervous or sanguine complexion withdraw if

they meet with a too stubborn resistance. In other words, the lymphatic

temperament is essentially despondent, and the rhapsodic is bilious.

Eugene lingered over his toilette with an enjoyment of all its little

details that is grateful to a young man’s self-love, though he will not

own to it for fear of being laughed at. He thought, as he arranged his

hair, that a pretty woman’s glances would wander through the dark curls.

He indulged in childish tricks like any young girl dressing for a dance,

and gazed complacently at his graceful figure while he smoothed out the

creases of his coat.

“There are worse figures, that is certain,” he said to himself.

Then he went downstairs, just as the rest of the household were sitting

down to dinner, and took with good humor the boisterous applause excited

by his elegant appearance. The amazement with which any attention to

dress is regarded in a lodging-house is a very characteristic trait. No

one can put on a new coat but every one else must say his say about it.

“Clk! clk! clk!” cried Bianchon, making the sound with his tongue

against the roof of his mouth, like a driver urging on a horse.

“He holds himself like a duke and a peer of France,” said Mme. Vauquer.

“Are you going a-courting?” inquired Mlle. Michonneau.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” cried the artist.

“My compliments to my lady your wife,” from the _employe_ at the Museum.

“Your wife; have you a wife?” asked Poiret.

“Yes, in compartments, water-tight and floats, guaranteed fast color,

all prices from twenty-five to forty sous, neat check patterns in the

latest fashion and best taste, will wash, half-linen, half-cotton,

half-wool; a certain cure for toothache and other complaints under the

patronage of the Royal College of Physicians! children like it! a remedy

for headache, indigestion, and all other diseases affecting the

throat, eyes, and ears!” cried Vautrin, with a comical imitation of the

volubility of a quack at a fair. “And how much shall we say for this

marvel, gentlemen? Twopence? No. Nothing of the sort. All that is left

in stock after supplying the Great Mogul. All the crowned heads of

Europe, including the Gr-r-rand Duke of Baden, have been anxious to get

a sight of it. Walk up! walk up! gentlemen! Pay at the desk as you go

in! Strike up the music there! Brooum, la, la, trinn! la, la, boum!

boum! Mister Clarinette, there you are out of tune!” he added gruffly;

“I will rap your knuckles for you!”

“Goodness! what an amusing man!” said Mme. Vauquer to Mme. Couture; “I

should never feel dull with him in the house.”

This burlesque of Vautrin’s was the signal for an outburst of merriment,

and under cover of jokes and laughter Eugene caught a glance from Mlle.

Taillefer; she had leaned over to say a few words in Mme. Couture’s ear.

“The cab is at the door,” announced Sylvie.

“But where is he going to dine?” asked Bianchon.

“With Madame la Baronne de Nucingen.”

“M. Goriot’s daughter,” said the law student.

At this, all eyes turned to the old vermicelli maker; he was gazing at

Eugene with something like envy in his eyes.

Rastignac reached the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, one of those

many-windowed houses with a mean-looking portico and slender columns,

which are considered the thing in Paris, a typical banker’s house,

decorated in the most ostentatious fashion; the walls lined with stucco,

the landings of marble mosaic. Mme. de Nucingen was sitting in a little

drawing-room; the room was painted in the Italian fashion, and decorated

like a restaurant. The Baroness seemed depressed. The effort that she

made to hide her feelings aroused Eugene’s interest; it was plain

that she was not playing a part. He had expected a little flutter of

excitement at his coming, and he found her dispirited and sad. The

disappointment piqued his vanity.

“My claim to your confidence is very small, madame,” he said, after

rallying her on her abstracted mood; “but if I am in the way, please

tell me so frankly; I count on your good faith.”

“No, stay with me,” she said; “I shall be all alone if you go. Nucingen

is dining in town, and I do not want to be alone; I want to be taken out

of myself.”

“But what is the matter?”

“You are the very last person whom I should tell,” she exclaimed.

“Then I am connected in some way in this secret. I wonder what it is?”

“Perhaps. Yet, no,” she went on; “it is a domestic quarrel, which ought

to be buried in the depths of the heart. I am very unhappy; did I not

tell you so the day before yesterday? Golden chains are the heaviest of

all fetters.”

When a woman tells a young man that she is very unhappy, and when the

young man is clever, and well dressed, and has fifteen hundred francs

lying idle in his pocket, he is sure to think as Eugene said, and he

becomes a coxcomb.

“What can you have left to wish for?” he answered. “You are young,

beautiful, beloved, and rich.”

“Do not let us talk of my affairs,” she said shaking her head

mournfully. “We will dine together _tete-a-tete_, and afterwards we will

go to hear the most exquisite music. Am I to your taste?” she went on,

rising and displaying her gown of white cashmere, covered with Persian

designs in the most superb taste.

“I wish that you were altogether mine,” said Eugene; “you are charming.”

“You would have a forlorn piece of property,” she said, smiling

bitterly. “There is nothing about me that betrays my wretchedness;

and yet, in spite of appearances, I am in despair. I cannot sleep; my

troubles have broken my night’s rest; I shall grow ugly.”

“Oh! that is impossible,” cried the law student; “but I am curious to

know what these troubles can be that a devoted love cannot efface.”

“Ah! if I were to tell you about them, you would shun me,” she said.

“Your love for me is as yet only the conventional gallantry that men use

to masquerade in; and, if you really loved me, you would be driven to

despair. I must keep silence, you see. Let us talk of something else,

for pity’s sake,” she added. “Let me show you my rooms.”

“No; let us stay here,” answered Eugene; he sat down on the sofa

before the fire, and boldly took Mme. de Nucingen’s hand in his. She

surrendered it to him; he even felt the pressure of her fingers in one

of the spasmodic clutches that betray terrible agitation.

“Listen,” said Rastignac; “if you are in trouble, you ought to tell me

about it. I want to prove to you that I love you for yourself alone. You

must speak to me frankly about your troubles, so that I can put an end

to them, even if I have to kill half-a-dozen men; or I shall go, never

to return.”

“Very well,” she cried, putting her hand to her forehead in an agony of

despair, “I will put you to the proof, and this very moment. Yes,” she

said to herself, “I have no other resource left.”

She rang the bell.

“Are the horses put in for the master?” she asked of the servant.

“Yes, madame.”

“I shall take his carriage myself. He can have mine and my horses. Serve

dinner at seven o’clock.”

“Now, come with me,” she said to Eugene, who thought as he sat in

the banker’s carriage beside Mme. de Nucingen that he must surely be

dreaming.

“To the Palais-Royal,” she said to the coachman; “stop near the

Theatre-Francais.”

She seemed to be too troubled and excited to answer the innumerable

questions that Eugene put to her. He was at a loss what to think of her

mute resistance, her obstinate silence.

“Another moment and she will escape me,” he said to himself.

When the carriage stopped at last, the Baroness gave the law student a

glance that silenced his wild words, for he was almost beside himself.

“Is it true that you love me?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, and in his manner and tone there was no trace of the

uneasiness that he felt.

“You will not think ill of me, will you, whatever I may ask of you?”

“No.”

“Are you ready to do my bidding?”

“Blindly.”

“Have you ever been to a gaming-house?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

“Never.”

“Ah! now I can breathe. You will have luck. Here is my purse,” she said.

“Take it! there are a hundred francs in it, all that such a fortunate

woman as I can call her own. Go up into one of the gaming-houses--I do

not know where they are, but there are some near the Palais-Royal. Try

your luck with the hundred francs at a game they call roulette; lose

it all or bring me back six thousand francs. I will tell you about my

troubles when you come back.”

“Devil take me, I’m sure, if I have a glimmer of a notion of what I am

about, but I will obey you,” he added, with inward exultation, as he

thought, “She has gone too far to draw back--she can refuse me nothing

now!”

Eugene took the dainty little purse, inquired the way of a second-hand

clothes-dealer, and hurried to number 9, which happened to be the

nearest gaming-house. He mounted the staircase, surrendered his hat, and

asked the way to the roulette-table, whither the attendant took him, not

a little to the astonishment of the regular comers. All eyes were fixed

on Eugene as he asked, without bashfulness, where he was to deposit his

stakes.

“If you put a louis on one only of those thirty-six numbers, and it

turns up, you will win thirty-six louis,” said a respectable-looking,

white-haired old man in answer to his inquiry.

Eugene staked the whole of his money on the number 21 (his own age).

There was a cry of surprise; before he knew what he had done, he had

won.

“Take your money off, sir,” said the old gentleman; “you don’t often win

twice running by that system.”

Eugene took the rake that the old man handed to him, and drew in his

three thousand six hundred francs, and, still perfectly ignorant of

what he was about, staked again on the red. The bystanders watched him

enviously as they saw him continue to play. The disc turned, and again

he won; the banker threw him three thousand six hundred francs once

more.

“You have seven thousand, two hundred francs of your own,” the old

gentleman said in his ear. “Take my advice and go away with your

winnings; red has turned up eight times already. If you are charitable,

you will show your gratitude for sound counsel by giving a trifle to an

old prefect of Napoleon who is down on his luck.”

Rastignac’s head was swimming; he saw ten of his louis pass into the

white-haired man’s possession, and went down-stairs with his seven

thousand francs; he was still ignorant of the game, and stupefied by his

luck.

“So, that is over; and now where will you take me?” he asked, as soon as

the door was closed, and he showed the seven thousand francs to Mme. de

Nucingen.

Delphine flung her arms about him, but there was no passion in that wild

embrace.

“You have saved me!” she cried, and tears of joy flowed fast.

“I will tell you everything, my friend. For you will be my friend, will

you not? I am rich, you think, very rich; I have everything I want, or

I seem as if I had everything. Very well, you must know that M. de

Nucingen does not allow me the control of a single penny; he pays all

the bills for the house expenses; he pays for my carriages and opera

box; he does not give me enough to pay for my dress, and he reduces

me to poverty in secret on purpose. I am too proud to beg from him. I

should be the vilest of women if I could take his money at the price at

which he offers it. Do you ask how I, with seven hundred thousand francs

of my own, could let myself be robbed? It is because I was proud, and

scorned to speak. We are so young, so artless when our married life

begins! I never could bring myself to ask my husband for money; the

words would have made my lips bleed, I did not dare to ask; I spent my

savings first, and then the money that my poor father gave me, then I

ran into debt. Marriage for me is a hideous farce; I cannot talk about

it, let it suffice to say that Nucingen and I have separate rooms, and

that I would fling myself out of the window sooner than consent to any

other manner of life. I suffered agonies when I had to confess to my

girlish extravagance, my debts for jewelry and trifles (for our poor

father had never refused us anything, and spoiled us), but at last I

found courage to tell him about them. After all, I had a fortune of my

own. Nucingen flew into a rage; he said that I should be the ruin of

him, and used frightful language! I wished myself a hundred feet down

in the earth. He had my dowry, so he paid my debts, but he stipulated at

the same time that my expenses in future must not exceed a certain fixed

sum, and I gave way for the sake of peace. And then,” she went on, “I

wanted to gratify the self-love of some one whom you know. He may have

deceived me, but I should do him the justice to say that there was

nothing petty in his character. But, after all, he threw me over

disgracefully. If, at a woman’s utmost need, _somebody_ heaps gold upon

her, he ought never to forsake her; that love should last for ever!

But you, at one-and-twenty, you, the soul of honor, with the unsullied

conscience of youth, will ask me how a woman can bring herself to accept

money in such a way? _Mon Dieu_! is it not natural to share everything

with the one to whom we owe our happiness? When all has been given, why

should we pause and hesitate over a part? Money is as nothing between

us until the moment when the sentiment that bound us together ceases to

exist. Were we not bound to each other for life? Who that believes in

love foresees such an end to love? You swear to love us eternally; how,

then, can our interests be separate?

“You do not know how I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to give

me six thousand francs; he spends as much as that every month on his

mistress, an opera dancer! I thought of killing myself. The wildest

thoughts came into my head. There have been moments in my life when I

have envied my servants, and would have changed places with my maid. It

was madness to think of going to our father, Anastasie and I have bled

him dry; our poor father would have sold himself if he could have raised

six thousand francs that way. I should have driven him frantic to no

purpose. You have saved me from shame and death; I was beside myself

with anguish. Ah! monsieur, I owed you this explanation after my mad

ravings. When you left me just now, as soon as you were out of sight, I

longed to escape, to run away... where, I did not know. Half the women

in Paris lead such lives as mine; they live in apparent luxury, and in

their souls are tormented by anxiety. I know of poor creatures even

more miserable than I; there are women who are driven to ask their

tradespeople to make out false bills, women who rob their husbands. Some

men believe that an Indian shawl worth a thousand louis only cost five

hundred francs, others that a shawl costing five hundred francs is worth

a hundred louis. There are women, too, with narrow incomes, who scrape

and save and starve their children to pay for a dress. I am innocent

of these base meannesses. But this is the last extremity of my torture.

Some women will sell themselves to their husbands, and so obtain their

way, but I, at any rate, am free. If I chose, Nucingen would cover me

with gold, but I would rather weep on the breast of a man whom I can

respect. Ah! tonight, M. de Marsay will no longer have a right to think

of me as a woman whom he has paid.” She tried to conceal her tears from

him, hiding her face in her hands; Eugene drew them away and looked at

her; she seemed to him sublime at that moment.

“It is hideous, is it not,” she cried, “to speak in a breath of money

and affection. You cannot love me after this,” she added.

The incongruity between the ideas of honor which make women so great,

and the errors in conduct which are forced upon them by the constitution

of society, had thrown Eugene’s thoughts into confusion; he uttered

soothing and consoling words, and wondered at the beautiful woman before

him, and at the artless imprudence of her cry of pain.

“You will not remember this against me?” she asked; “promise me that you

will not.”

“Ah! madame, I am incapable of doing so,” he said. She took his hand and

held it to her heart, a movement full of grace that expressed her deep

gratitude.

“I am free and happy once more, thanks to you,” she said. “Oh! I have

felt lately as if I were in the grasp of an iron hand. But after this

I mean to live simply and to spend nothing. You will think me just as

pretty, will you not, my friend? Keep this,” she went on, as she took

only six of the banknotes. “In conscience I owe you a thousand crowns,

for I really ought to go halves with you.”

Eugene’s maiden conscience resisted; but when the Baroness said, “I

am bound to look on you as an accomplice or as an enemy,” he took the

money.

“It shall be a last stake in reserve,” he said, “in case of misfortune.”

“That was what I was dreading to hear,” she cried, turning pale. “Oh,

if you would that I should be anything to you, swear to me that you will

never re-enter a gaming-house. Great Heaven! that I should corrupt you!

I should die of sorrow!”

They had reached the Rue Saint-Lazare by this time. The contrast between

the ostentation of wealth in the house, and the wretched condition of

its mistress, dazed the student; and Vautrin’s cynical words began to

ring in his ears.

“Seat yourself there,” said the Baroness, pointing to a low chair beside

the fire. “I have a difficult letter to write,” she added. “Tell me what

to say.”

“Say nothing,” Eugene answered her. “Put the bills in an envelope,

direct it, and send it by your maid.”

“Why, you are a love of a man,” she said. “Ah! see what it is to have

been well brought up. That is the Beauseant through and through,” she

went on, smiling at him.

“She is charming,” thought Eugene, more and more in love. He looked

round him at the room; there was an ostentatious character about the

luxury, a meretricious taste in the splendor.

“Do you like it?” she asked, as she rang for the maid.

“Therese, take this to M. de Marsay, and give it into his hands

yourself. If he is not at home, bring the letter back to me.”

Therese went, but not before she had given Eugene a spiteful glance.

Dinner was announced. Rastignac gave his arm to Mme. de Nucingen, she

led the way into a pretty dining-room, and again he saw the luxury of

the table which he had admired in his cousin’s house.

“Come and dine with me on opera evenings, and we will go to the Italiens

afterwards,” she said.

“I should soon grow used to the pleasant life if it could last, but I am

a poor student, and I have my way to make.”

“Oh! you will succeed,” she said laughing. “You will see. All that you

wish will come to pass. _I_ did not expect to be so happy.”

It is the wont of women to prove the impossible by the possible, and to

annihilate facts by presentiments. When Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac

took their places in her box at the Bouffons, her face wore a look of

happiness that made her so lovely that every one indulged in those small

slanders against which women are defenceless; for the scandal that

is uttered lightly is often seriously believed. Those who know Paris,

believe nothing that is said, and say nothing of what is done there.

Eugene took the Baroness’ hand in his, and by some light pressure of the

fingers, or a closer grasp of the hand, they found a language in which

to express the sensations which the music gave them. It was an evening

of intoxicating delight for both; and when it ended, and they went out

together, Mme. de Nucingen insisted on taking Eugene with her as far as

the Pont Neuf, he disputing with her the whole of the way for a single

kiss after all those that she had showered upon him so passionately at

the Palais-Royal; Eugene reproached her with inconsistency.

“That was gratitude,” she said, “for devotion that I did not dare to

hope for, but now it would be a promise.”

“And will you give me no promise, ingrate?”

He grew vexed. Then, with one of those impatient gestures that fill a

lover with ecstasy, she gave him her hand to kiss, and he took it with a

discontented air that delighted her.

“I shall see you at the ball on Monday,” she said.

As Eugene went home in the moonlight, he fell to serious reflections.

He was satisfied, and yet dissatisfied. He was pleased with an adventure

which would probably give him his desire, for in the end one of the

prettiest and best-dressed women in Paris would be his; but, as a

set-off, he saw his hopes of fortune brought to nothing; and as soon as

he realized this fact, the vague thoughts of yesterday evening began to

take a more decided shape in his mind. A check is sure to reveal to us

the strength of our hopes. The more Eugene learned of the pleasures of

life in Paris, the more impatient he felt of poverty and obscurity. He

crumpled the banknote in his pocket, and found any quantity of plausible

excuses for appropriating it.

He reached the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve at last, and from the

stairhead he saw a light in Goriot’s room; the old man had lighted a

candle, and set the door ajar, lest the student should pass him by, and

go to his room without “telling him all about his daughter,” to use

his own expression. Eugene, accordingly, told him everything without

reserve.

“Then they think that I am ruined!” cried Father Goriot, in an agony of

jealousy and desperation. “Why, I have still thirteen hundred livres a

year! _Mon Dieu!_ Poor little girl! why did she not come to me? I would

have sold my rentes; she should have had some of the principal, and I

would have bought a life-annuity with the rest. My good neighbor, why

did not _you_ come to tell me of her difficulty? How had you the

heart to go and risk her poor little hundred francs at play? This is

heart-breaking work. You see what it is to have sons-in-law. Oh! if I

had hold of them, I would wring their necks. _Mon Dieu! crying!_ Did you

say she was crying?”

“With her head on my waistcoat,” said Eugene.

“Oh! give it to me,” said Father Goriot. “What! my daughter’s tears have

fallen there--my darling Delphine, who never used to cry when she was

a little girl! Oh! I will buy you another; do not wear it again; let me

have it. By the terms of her marriage-contract, she ought to have the

use of her property. To-morrow morning I will go and see Derville; he is

an attorney. I will demand that her money should be invested in her own

name. I know the law. I am an old wolf, I will show my teeth.”

“Here, father; this is a banknote for a thousand francs that she wanted

me to keep out of our winnings. Keep them for her, in the pocket of the

waistcoat.”

Goriot looked hard at Eugene, reached out and took the law student’s

hand, and Eugene felt a tear fall on it.

“You will succeed,” the old man said. “God is just, you see. I know an

honest man when I see him, and I can tell you, there are not many men

like you. I am to have another dear child in you, am I? There, go to

sleep; you can sleep; you are not yet a father. She was crying! and I

have to be told about it!--and I was quietly eating my dinner, like an

idiot, all the time--I, who would sell the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to

save one tear to either of them.”

“An honest man!” said Eugene to himself as he lay down. “Upon my word, I

think I will be an honest man all my life; it is so pleasant to obey

the voice of conscience.” Perhaps none but believers in God do good in

secret; and Eugene believed in a God.

The next day Rastignac went at the appointed time to Mme. de Beauseant,

who took him with her to the Duchesse de Carigliano’s ball. The

Marechale received Eugene most graciously. Mme. de Nucingen was there.

Delphine’s dress seemed to suggest that she wished for the admiration

of others, so that she might shine the more in Eugene’s eyes; she

was eagerly expecting a glance from him, hiding, as she thought, this

eagerness from all beholders. This moment is full of charm for one who

can guess all that passes in a woman’s mind. Who has not refrained from

giving his opinion, to prolong her suspense, concealing his pleasure

from a desire to tantalize, seeking a confession of love in her

uneasiness, enjoying the fears that he can dissipate by a smile? In

the course of the evening the law student suddenly comprehended his

position; he saw that, as the cousin of Mme. de Beauseant, he was a

personage in this world. He was already credited with the conquest

of Mme. de Nucingen, and for this reason was a conspicuous figure;

he caught the envious glances of other young men, and experienced the

earliest pleasures of coxcombry. People wondered at his luck, and scraps

of these conversations came to his ears as he went from room to room;

all the women prophesied his success; and Delphine, in her dread of

losing him, promised that this evening she would not refuse the kiss

that all his entreaties could scarcely win yesterday.

Rastignac received several invitations. His cousin presented him to

other women who were present; women who could claim to be of the highest

fashion; whose houses were looked upon as pleasant; and this was

the loftiest and most fashionable society in Paris into which he was

launched. So this evening had all the charm of a brilliant debut; it

was an evening that he was to remember even in old age, as a woman looks

back upon her first ball and the memories of her girlish triumphs.

The next morning, at breakfast, he related the story of his success for

the benefit of Father Goriot and the lodgers. Vautrin began to smile in

a diabolical fashion.

“And do you suppose,” cried that cold-blooded logician, “that a young

man of fashion can live here in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the

Maison Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable boarding-house in every way,

I grant you, but an establishment that, none the less, falls short

of being fashionable? The house is comfortable, it is lordly in its

abundance; it is proud to be the temporary abode of a Rastignac; but,

after all, it is in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be

out of place here, where we only aim at the purely _patriarchalorama_.

If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend,” Vautrin

continued, with half-paternal jocularity, “you must have three horses,

a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the evening; you

should spend altogether about nine thousand francs on your stables. You

would show yourself unworthy of your destiny if you spent no more than

three thousand francs with your tailor, six hundred in perfumery, a

hundred crowns to your shoemaker, and a hundred more to your hatter. As

for your laundress, there goes another thousand francs; a young man of

fashion must of necessity make a great point of his linen; if your linen

comes up to the required standard, people often do not look any further.

Love and the Church demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand

francs. I am saying nothing of losses at play, bets, and presents; it

is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I

have led that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the

cost of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand

francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants

of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in

our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing

at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye to

your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom! Is Christophe

going to carry your _billets-doux_ for you? Do you mean to employ the

stationery you use at present? Suicidal policy! Hearken to the wisdom

of your elders!” he went on, his bass voice growing louder at each

syllable. “Either take up your quarters in a garret, live virtuously,

and wed your work, or set about the thing in a different way.”

Vautrin winked and leered in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer to enforce

his remarks by a look which recalled the late tempting proposals by

which he had sought to corrupt the student’s mind.

Several days went by, and Rastignac lived in a whirl of gaiety. He dined

almost every day with Mme. de Nucingen, and went wherever she went, only

returning to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve in the small hours. He rose

at mid-day, and dressed to go into the Bois with Delphine if the day was

fine, squandering in this way time that was worth far more than he knew.

He turned as eagerly to learn the lessons of luxury, and was as quick

to feel its fascination, as the flowers of the date palm to receive the

fertilizing pollen. He played high, lost and won large sums of money,

and at last became accustomed to the extravagant life that young men

lead in Paris. He sent fifteen hundred francs out of his first winnings

to his mother and sisters, sending handsome presents as well as the

money. He had given out that he meant to leave the Maison Vauquer; but

January came and went, and he was still there, still unprepared to go.

One rule holds good of most young men--whether rich or poor. They never

have money for the necessaries of life, but they have always money to

spare for their caprices--an anomaly which finds its explanation in

their youth and in the almost frantic eagerness with which youth grasps

at pleasure. They are reckless with anything obtained on credit, while

everything for which they must pay in ready money is made to last as

long as possible; if they cannot have all that they want, they make

up for it, it would seem, by squandering what they have. To state the

matter simply--a student is far more careful of his hat than of his

coat, because the latter being a comparatively costly article of dress,

it is in the nature of things that a tailor should be a creditor; but

it is otherwise with the hatter; the sums of money spent with him are so

modest, that he is the most independent and unmanageable of his tribe,

and it is almost impossible to bring him to terms. The young man in the

balcony of a theatre who displays a gorgeous waistcoat for the benefit

of the fair owners of opera glasses, has very probably no socks in his

wardrobe, for the hosier is another of the genus of weevils that nibble

at the purse. This was Rastignac’s condition. His purse was always

empty for Mme. Vauquer, always full at the demand of vanity; there was

a periodical ebb and flow in his fortunes, which was seldom favorable

to the payment of just debts. If he was to leave that unsavory and mean

abode, where from time to time his pretensions met with humiliation, the

first step was to pay his hostess for a month’s board and lodging, and

the second to purchase furniture worthy of the new lodgings he must take

in his quality of dandy, a course that remained impossible. Rastignac,

out of his winnings at cards, would pay his jeweler exorbitant prices

for gold watches and chains, and then, to meet the exigencies of play,

would carry them to the pawnbroker, that discreet and forbidding-looking

friend of youth; but when it was a question of paying for board or

lodging, or for the necessary implements for the cultivation of his

Elysian fields, his imagination and pluck alike deserted him. There was

no inspiration to be found in vulgar necessity, in debts contracted for

past requirements. Like most of those who trust to their luck, he put

off till the last moment the payment of debts that among the bourgeoisie

are regarded as sacred engagements, acting on the plan of Mirabeau,

who never settled his baker’s bill until it underwent a formidable

transformation into a bill of exchange.

It was about this time when Rastignac was down on his luck and fell into

debt, that it became clear to the law student’s mind that he must have

some more certain source of income if he meant to live as he had been

doing. But while he groaned over the thorny problems of his precarious

situation, he felt that he could not bring himself to renounce the

pleasures of this extravagant life, and decided that he must continue it

at all costs. His dreams of obtaining a fortune appeared more and more

chimerical, and the real obstacles grew more formidable. His initiation

into the secrets of the Nucingen household had revealed to him that if

he were to attempt to use this love affair as a means of mending his

fortunes, he must swallow down all sense of decency, and renounce all

the generous ideas which redeem the sins of youth. He had chosen this

life of apparent splendor, but secretly gnawed by the canker worm of

remorse, a life of fleeting pleasure dearly paid for by persistent pain;

like _Le Distrait_ of La Bruyere, he had descended so far as to make

his bed in a ditch; but (also like _Le Distrait_) he himself was

uncontaminated as yet by the mire that stained his garments.

“So we have killed our mandarin, have we?” said Bianchon one day as they

left the dinner table.

“Not yet,” he answered, “but he is at his last gasp.”

The medical student took this for a joke, but it was not a jest. Eugene

had dined in the house that night for the first time for a long while,

and had looked thoughtful during the meal. He had taken his place beside

Mlle. Taillefer, and stayed through the dessert, giving his neighbor an

expressive glance from time to time. A few of the boarders discussed

the walnuts at the table, and others walked about the room, still taking

part in the conversation which had begun among them. People usually went

when they chose; the amount of time that they lingered being determined

by the amount of interest that the conversation possessed for them, or

by the difficulty of the process of digestion. In winter-time the room

was seldom empty before eight o’clock, when the four women had it all to

themselves, and made up for the silence previously imposed upon them by

the preponderating masculine element. This evening Vautrin had noticed

Eugene’s abstractedness, and stayed in the room, though he had seemed

to be in a hurry to finish his dinner and go. All through the talk

afterwards he had kept out of the sight of the law student, who quite

believed that Vautrin had left the room. He now took up his position

cunningly in the sitting-room instead of going when the last boarders

went. He had fathomed the young man’s thoughts, and felt that a crisis

was at hand. Rastignac was, in fact, in a dilemma, which many another

young man must have known.

Mme. de Nucingen might love him, or might merely be playing with

him, but in either case Rastignac had been made to experience all

the alternations of hope and despair of genuine passion, and all

the diplomatic arts of a Parisienne had been employed on him. After

compromising herself by continually appearing in public with Mme. de

Beauseant’s cousin she still hesitated, and would not give him the

lover’s privileges which he appeared to enjoy. For a whole month she had

so wrought on his senses, that at last she had made an impression on

his heart. If in the earliest days the student had fancied himself to be

master, Mme. de Nucingen had since become the stronger of the two, for

she had skilfully roused and played upon every instinct, good or bad, in

the two or three men comprised in a young student in Paris. This was not

the result of deep design on her part, nor was she playing a part, for

women are in a manner true to themselves even through their grossest

deceit, because their actions are prompted by a natural impulse. It may

have been that Delphine, who had allowed this young man to gain such an

ascendency over her, conscious that she had been too demonstrative, was

obeying a sentiment of dignity, and either repented of her concessions,

or it pleased her to suspend them. It is so natural to a Parisienne,

even when passion has almost mastered her, to hesitate and pause before

taking the plunge; to probe the heart of him to whom she intrusts her

future. And once already Mme. de Nucingen’s hopes had been betrayed,

and her loyalty to a selfish young lover had been despised. She had good

reason to be suspicious. Or it may have been that something in Eugene’s

manner (for his rapid success was making a coxcomb of him) had warned

her that the grotesque nature of their position had lowered her somewhat

in his eyes. She doubtless wished to assert her dignity; he was young,

and she would be great in his eyes; for the lover who had forsaken her

had held her so cheap that she was determined that Eugene should not

think her an easy conquest, and for this very reason--he knew that

de Marsay had been his predecessor. Finally, after the degradation of

submission to the pleasure of a heartless young rake, it was so sweet

to her to wander in the flower-strewn realms of love, that it was not

wonderful that she should wish to dwell a while on the prospect, to

tremble with the vibrations of love, to feel the freshness of the breath

of its dawn. The true lover was suffering for the sins of the false.

This inconsistency is unfortunately only to be expected so long as men

do not know how many flowers are mown down in a young woman’s soul by

the first stroke of treachery.

Whatever her reasons may have been, Delphine was playing with Rastignac,

and took pleasure in playing with him, doubtless because she felt sure

of his love, and confident that she could put an end to the torture

as soon as it was her royal pleasure to do so. Eugene’s self-love was

engaged; he could not suffer his first passage of love to end in a

defeat, and persisted in his suit like a sportsman determined to

bring down at least one partridge to celebrate his first Feast of

Saint-Hubert. The pressure of anxiety, his wounded self-love, his

despair, real or feigned, drew him nearer and nearer to this woman. All

Paris credited him with this conquest, and yet he was conscious that he

had made no progress since the day when he saw Mme. de Nucingen for the

first time. He did not know as yet that a woman’s coquetry is sometimes

more delightful than the pleasure of secure possession of her love, and

was possessed with helpless rage. If, at this time, while she denied

herself to love, Eugene gathered the springtide spoils of his life,

the fruit, somewhat sharp and green, and dearly bought, was no less

delicious to the taste. There were moments when he had not a sou in

his pockets, and at such times he thought in spite of his conscience of

Vautrin’s offer and the possibility of fortune by a marriage with Mlle.

Taillefer. Poverty would clamor so loudly that more than once he was on

the point of yielding to the cunning temptations of the terrible sphinx,

whose glance had so often exerted a strange spell over him.

Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau went up to their rooms; and Rastignac,

thinking that he was alone with the women in the dining-room, sat

between Mme. Vauquer and Mme. Couture, who was nodding over the woolen

cuffs that she was knitting by the stove, and looked at Mlle. Taillefer

so tenderly that she lowered her eyes.

“Can you be in trouble, M. Eugene?” Victorine said after a pause.

“Who has not his troubles?” answered Rastignac. “If we men were sure

of being loved, sure of a devotion which would be our reward for the

sacrifices which we are always ready to make, then perhaps we should

have no troubles.”

For answer Mlle. Taillefer only gave him a glance but it was impossible

to mistake its meaning.

“You, for instance, mademoiselle; you feel sure of your heart to-day,

but are you sure that it will never change?”

A smile flitted over the poor girl’s lips; it seemed as if a ray of

light from her soul had lighted up her face. Eugene was dismayed at the

sudden explosion of feeling caused by his words.

“Ah! but suppose,” he said, “that you should be rich and happy

to-morrow, suppose that a vast fortune dropped down from the clouds

for you, would you still love the man whom you loved in your days of

poverty?”

A charming movement of the head was her only answer.

“Even if he were very poor?”

Again the same mute answer.

“What nonsense are you talking, you two?” exclaimed Mme. Vauquer.

“Never mind,” answered Eugene; “we understand each other.”

“So there is to be an engagement of marriage between M. le Chevalier

Eugene de Rastignac and Mlle. Victorine Taillefer, is there?” The words

were uttered in Vautrin’s deep voice, and Vautrin appeared at the door

as he spoke.

“Oh! how you startled me!” Mme. Couture and Mme. Vauquer exclaimed

together.

“I might make a worse choice,” said Rastignac, laughing. Vautrin’s voice

had thrown him into the most painful agitation that he had yet known.

“No bad jokes, gentlemen!” said Mme. Couture. “My dear, let us go

upstairs.”

Mme. Vauquer followed the two ladies, meaning to pass the evening in

their room, an arrangement that economized fire and candlelight. Eugene

and Vautrin were left alone.

“I felt sure you would come round to it,” said the elder man with the

coolness that nothing seemed to shake. “But stay a moment! I have as

much delicacy as anybody else. Don’t make up your mind on the spur of

the moment; you are a little thrown off your balance just now. You are

in debt, and I want you to come over to my way of thinking after sober

reflection, and not in a fit of passion or desperation. Perhaps you want

a thousand crowns. There, you can have them if you like.”

The tempter took out a pocketbook, and drew thence three banknotes,

which he fluttered before the student’s eyes. Eugene was in a most

painful dilemma. He had debts, debts of honor. He owed a hundred louis

to the Marquis d’Ajuda and to the Count de Trailles; he had not the

money, and for this reason had not dared to go to Mme. de Restaud’s

house, where he was expected that evening. It was one of those informal

gatherings where tea and little cakes are handed round, but where it is

possible to lose six thousand francs at whist in the course of a night.

“You must see,” said Eugene, struggling to hide a convulsive tremor,

“that after what has passed between us, I cannot possibly lay myself

under any obligation to you.”

“Quite right; I should be sorry to hear you speak otherwise,” answered

the tempter. “You are a fine young fellow, honorable, brave as a lion,

and as gentle as a young girl. You would be a fine haul for the devil! I

like youngsters of your sort. Get rid of one or two more prejudices, and

you will see the world as it is. Make a little scene now and then, and

act a virtuous part in it, and a man with a head on his shoulders can

do exactly as he likes amid deafening applause from the fools in the

gallery. Ah! a few days yet, and you will be with us; and if you would

only be tutored by me, I would put you in the way of achieving all your

ambitions. You should no sooner form a wish than it should be realized

to the full; you should have all your desires--honors, wealth, or women.

Civilization should flow with milk and honey for you. You should be our

pet and favorite, our Benjamin. We would all work ourselves to death for

you with pleasure; every obstacle should be removed from your path. You

have a few prejudices left; so you think that I am a scoundrel, do you?

Well, M. de Turenne, quite as honorable a man as you take yourself to

be, had some little private transactions with bandits, and did not

feel that his honor was tarnished. You would rather not lie under any

obligation to me, eh? You need not draw back on that account,” Vautrin

went on, and a smile stole over his lips. “Take these bits of paper

and write across this,” he added, producing a piece of stamped paper,

“_Accepted the sum of three thousand five hundred francs due this day

twelvemonth_, and fill in the date. The rate of interest is stiff enough

to silence any scruples on your part; it gives you the right to call me

a Jew. You can call quits with me on the score of gratitude. I am quite

willing that you should despise me to-day, because I am sure that you

will have a kindlier feeling towards me later on. You will find out

fathomless depths in my nature, enormous and concentrated forces that

weaklings call vices, but you will never find me base or ungrateful.

In short, I am neither a pawn nor a bishop, but a castle, a tower of

strength, my boy.”

“What manner of man are you?” cried Eugene. “Were you created to torment

me?”

“Why no; I am a good-natured fellow, who is willing to do a dirty piece

of work to put you high and dry above the mire for the rest of your

days. Do you ask the reason of this devotion? All right; I will tell you

that some of these days. A word or two in your ear will explain it. I

have begun by shocking you, by showing you the way to ring the changes,

and giving you a sight of the mechanism of the social machine; but your

first fright will go off like a conscript’s terror on the battlefield.

You will grow used to regarding men as common soldiers who have made up

their minds to lose their lives for some self-constituted king. Times

have altered strangely. Once you could say to a bravo, ‘Here are a

hundred crowns; go and kill Monsieur So-and-so for me,’ and you could

sup quietly after turning some one off into the dark for the least thing

in the world. But nowadays I propose to put you in the way of a handsome

fortune; you have only to nod your head, it won’t compromise you in any

way, and you hesitate. ‘Tis an effeminate age.”

Eugene accepted the draft, and received the banknotes in exchange for

it.

“Well, well. Come, now, let us talk rationally,” Vautrin continued. “I

mean to leave this country in a few months’ time for America, and set

about planting tobacco. I will send you the cigars of friendship. If

I make money at it, I will help you in your career. If I have no

children--which will probably be the case, for I have no anxiety to

raise slips of myself here--you shall inherit my fortune. That is what

you may call standing by a man; but I myself have a liking for you. I

have a mania, too, for devoting myself to some one else. I have done it

before. You see, my boy, I live in a loftier sphere than other men do;

I look on all actions as means to an end, and the end is all that I look

at. What is a man’s life to me? Not _that_,” he said, and he snapped his

thumb-nail against his teeth. “A man, in short, is everything to me, or

just nothing at all. Less than nothing if his name happens to be Poiret;

you can crush him like a bug, he is flat and he is offensive. But a man

is a god when he is like you; he is not a machine covered with a skin,

but a theatre in which the greatest sentiments are displayed--great

thoughts and feelings--and for these, and these only, I live. A

sentiment--what is that but the whole world in a thought? Look at Father

Goriot. For him, his two girls are the whole universe; they are the clue

by which he finds his way through creation. Well, for my own part,

I have fathomed the depths of life, there is only one real

sentiment--comradeship between man and man. Pierre and Jaffier, that is

my passion. I knew _Venice Preserved_ by heart. Have you met many men

plucky enough when a comrade says, ‘Let us bury a dead body!’ to go and

do it without a word or plaguing him by taking a high moral tone? I have

done it myself. I should not talk like this to just everybody, but you

are not like an ordinary man; one can talk to you, you can understand

things. You will not dabble about much longer among the tadpoles in

these swamps. Well, then, it is all settled. You will marry. Both of us

carry our point. Mine is made of iron, and will never soften, he! he!”

Vautrin went out. He would not wait to hear the student’s repudiation,

he wished to put Eugene at his ease. He seemed to understand the secret

springs of the faint resistance still made by the younger man; the

struggles in which men seek to preserve their self-respect by justifying

their blameworthy actions to themselves.

“He may do as he likes; I shall not marry Mlle. Taillefer, that is

certain,” said Eugene to himself.

He regarded this man with abhorrence, and yet the very cynicism of

Vautrin’s ideas, and the audacious way in which he used other men for

his own ends, raised him in the student’s eyes; but the thought of a

compact threw Eugene into a fever of apprehension, and not until he

had recovered somewhat did he dress, call for a cab, and go to Mme. de

Restaud’s.

For some days the Countess had paid more and more attention to a young

man whose every step seemed a triumphal progress in the great world; it

seemed to her that he might be a formidable power before long. He paid

Messieurs de Trailles and d’Ajuda, played at whist for part of the

evening, and made good his losses. Most men who have their way to make

are more or less of fatalists, and Eugene was superstitious; he chose to

consider that his luck was heaven’s reward for his perseverance in the

right way. As soon as possible on the following morning he asked Vautrin

whether the bill he had given was still in the other’s possession; and

on receiving a reply in the affirmative, he repaid the three thousand

francs with a not unnatural relief.

“Everything is going on well,” said Vautrin.

“But I am not your accomplice,” said Eugene.

“I know, I know,” Vautrin broke in. “You are still acting like a child.

You are making mountains out of molehills at the outset.”

Two days later, Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau were sitting together on

a bench in the sun. They had chosen a little frequented alley in the

Jardin des Plantes, and a gentleman was chatting with them, the same

person, as a matter of fact, about whom the medical student had, not

without good reason, his own suspicions.

“Mademoiselle,” this M. Gondureau was saying, “I do not see any

cause for your scruples. His Excellency, Monseigneur the Minister of

Police----”

“Yes, his Excellency is taking a personal interest in the matter,” said

Gondureau.

Who would think it probable that Poiret, a retired clerk, doubtless

possessed of some notions of civic virtue, though there might be nothing

else in his head--who would think it likely that such a man would

continue to lend an ear to this supposed independent gentleman of the

Rue de Buffon, when the latter dropped the mask of a decent citizen by

that word “police,” and gave a glimpse of the features of a detective

from the Rue de Jerusalem? And yet nothing was more natural. Perhaps the

following remarks from the hitherto unpublished records made by certain

observers will throw a light on the particular species to which Poiret

belonged in the great family of fools. There is a race of quill-drivers,

confined in the columns of the budget between the first degree of

latitude (a kind of administrative Greenland where the salaries begin at

twelve hundred francs) to the third degree, a more temperate zone, where

incomes grow from three to six thousand francs, a climate where

the _bonus_ flourishes like a half-hardy annual in spite of some

difficulties of culture. A characteristic trait that best reveals the

feeble narrow-mindedness of these inhabitants of petty officialdom is a

kind of involuntary, mechanical, and instinctive reverence for the Grand

Lama of every Ministry, known to the rank and file only by his signature

(an illegible scrawl) and by his title--“His Excellency Monseigneur

le Ministre,” five words which produce as much effect as the _il Bondo

Cani_ of the _Calife de Bagdad_, five words which in the eyes of this

low order of intelligence represent a sacred power from which there is

no appeal. The Minister is administratively infallible for the clerks

in the employ of the Government, as the Pope is infallible for good

Catholics. Something of this peculiar radiance invests everything he

does or says, or that is said or done in his name; the robe of office

covers everything and legalizes everything done by his orders; does not

his very title--His Excellency--vouch for the purity of his intentions

and the righteousness of his will, and serve as a sort of passport and

introduction to ideas that otherwise would not be entertained for a

moment? Pronounce the words “His Excellency,” and these poor folk will

forthwith proceed to do what they would not do for their own interests.

Passive obedience is as well known in a Government department as in

the army itself; and the administrative system silences consciences,

annihilates the individual, and ends (give it time enough) by fashioning

a man into a vise or a thumbscrew, and he becomes part of the machinery

of Government. Wherefore, M. Gondureau, who seemed to know something

of human nature, recognized Poiret at once as one of those dupes of

officialdom, and brought out for his benefit, at the proper moment, the

_deus ex machina_, the magical words “His Excellency,” so as to dazzle

Poiret just as he himself unmasked his batteries, for he took Poiret and

the Michonneau for the male and female of the same species.

“If his Excellency himself, his Excellency the Minister... Ah! that is

quite another thing,” said Poiret.

“You seem to be guided by this gentleman’s opinion, and you hear what he

says,” said the man of independent means, addressing Mlle. Michonneau.

“Very well, his Excellency is at this moment absolutely certain that the

so-called Vautrin, who lodges at the Maison Vauquer, is a convict

who escaped from penal servitude at Toulon, where he is known by the

nickname _Trompe-la-Mort_.”

“Trompe-la-Mort?” said Pioret. “Dear me, he is very lucky if he deserves

that nickname.”

“Well, yes,” said the detective. “They call him so because he has been

so lucky as not to lose his life in the very risky businesses that he

has carried through. He is a dangerous man, you see! He has qualities

that are out of the common; the thing he is wanted for, in fact, was a

matter which gained him no end of credit with his own set----”

“Then is he a man of honor?” asked Poiret.

“Yes, according to his notions. He agreed to take another man’s crime

upon himself--a forgery committed by a very handsome young fellow that

he had taken a great fancy to, a young Italian, a bit of a gambler,

who has since gone into the army, where his conduct has been

unexceptionable.”

“But if his Excellency the Minister of Police is certain that M.

Vautrin is this _Trompe-la-Mort_, why should he want me?” asked Mlle.

Michonneau.

“Oh yes,” said Poiret, “if the Minister, as you have been so obliging as

to tell us, really knows for a certainty----”

“Certainty is not the word; he only suspects. You will soon understand

how things are. Jacques Collin, nicknamed _Trompe-la-Mort_, is in the

confidence of every convict in the three prisons; he is their man of

business and their banker. He makes a very good thing out of managing

their affairs, which want a _man of mark_ to see about them.”

“Ha! ha! do you see the pun, mademoiselle?” asked Poiret. “This

gentleman calls himself a _man of mark_ because he is a _marked

man_--branded, you know.”

“This so-called Vautrin,” said the detective, “receives the money

belonging to my lords the convicts, invests it for them, and holds it at

the disposal of those who escape, or hands it over to their families if

they leave a will, or to their mistresses when they draw upon him for

their benefit.”

“Their mistresses! You mean their wives,” remarked Poiret.

“No, sir. A convict’s wife is usually an illegitimate connection. We

call them concubines.”

“Then they all live in a state of concubinage?”

“Naturally.”

“Why, these are abominations that his Excellency ought not to allow.

Since you have the honor of seeing his Excellency, you, who seem to have

philanthropic ideas, ought really to enlighten him as to their immoral

conduct--they are setting a shocking example to the rest of society.”

“But the Government does not hold them up as models of all the virtues,

my dear sir----”

“Of course not, sir; but still----”

“Just let the gentleman say what he has to say, dearie,” said Mlle.

Michonneau.

“You see how it is, mademoiselle,” Gondureau continued. “The Government

may have the strongest reasons for getting this illicit hoard into its

hands; it mounts up to something considerable, by all that we can

make out. Trompe-la-Mort not only holds large sums for his friends the

convicts, but he has other amounts which are paid over to him by the

Society of the Ten Thousand----”

“Ten Thousand Thieves!” cried Pioret in alarm.

“No. The Society of the Ten Thousand is not an association of petty

offenders, but of people who set about their work on a large scale--they

won’t touch a matter unless there are ten thousand francs in it. It is

composed of the most distinguished of the men who are sent straight to

the Assize Courts when they come up for trial. They know the Code

too well to risk their necks when they are nabbed. Collin is their

confidential agent and legal adviser. By means of the large sums of

money at his disposal he has established a sort of detective system of

his own; it is widespread and mysterious in its workings. We have had

spies all about him for a twelvemonth, and yet we could not manage to

fathom his games. His capital and his cleverness are at the service of

vice and crime; this money furnishes the necessary funds for a regular

army of blackguards in his pay who wage incessant war against society.

If we can catch Trompe-la-Mort, and take possession of his funds,

we should strike at the root of this evil. So this job is a kind of

Government affair--a State secret--and likely to redound to the honor

of those who bring the thing to a successful conclusion. You, sir, for

instance, might very well be taken into a Government department again;

they might make you secretary to a Commissary of Police; you could

accept that post without prejudice to your retiring pension.”

Mlle. Michonneau interposed at this point with, “What is there to hinder

Trompe-la-Mort from making off with the money?”

“Oh!” said the detective, “a man is told off to follow him everywhere he

goes, with orders to kill him if he were to rob the convicts. Then it is

not quite as easy to make off with a lot of money as it is to run away

with a young lady of family. Besides, Collin is not the sort of fellow

to play such a trick; he would be disgraced, according to his notions.”

“You are quite right, sir,” said Poiret, “utterly disgraced he would

be.”

“But none of all this explains why you do not come and take him without

more ado,” remarked Mlle. Michonneau.

“Very well, mademoiselle, I will explain--but,” he added in her ear,

“keep your companion quiet, or I shall never have done. The old boy

ought to pay people handsomely for listening to him.--Trompe-la-Mort,

when he came back here,” he went on aloud “slipped into the skin of an

honest man; he turned up disguised as a decent Parisian citizen, and

took up his quarters in an unpretending lodging-house. He is cunning,

that he is! You don’t catch him napping. Then M. Vautrin is a man of

consequence, who transacts a good deal of business.”

“Naturally,” said Poiret to himself.

“And suppose that the Minister were to make a mistake and get hold of

the real Vautrin, he would put every one’s back up among the business

men in Paris, and public opinion would be against him. M. le Prefet de

Police is on slippery ground; he has enemies. They would take advantage

of any mistake. There would be a fine outcry and fuss made by the

Opposition, and he would be sent packing. We must set about this just as

we did about the Coignard affair, the sham Comte de Sainte-Helene; if

he had been the real Comte de Sainte-Helene, we should have been in the

wrong box. We want to be quite sure what we are about.”

“Yes, but what you want is a pretty woman,” said Mlle. Michonneau

briskly.

“Trompe-la-Mort would not let a woman come near him,” said the

detective. “I will tell you a secret--he does not like them.”

“Still, I do not see what I can do, supposing that I did agree to

identify him for two thousand francs.”

“Nothing simpler,” said the stranger. “I will send you a little bottle

containing a dose that will send a rush of blood to the head; it will do

him no harm whatever, but he will fall down as if he were in a fit. The

drug can be put into wine or coffee; either will do equally well. You

carry your man to bed at once, and undress him to see that he is not

dying. As soon as you are alone, you give him a slap on the shoulder,

and _presto!_ the letters will appear.”

“Why, that is just nothing at all,” said Poiret.

“Well, do you agree?” said Gondureau, addressing the old maid.

“But, my dear sir, suppose there are no letters at all,” said Mlle.

Michonneau; “am I to have the two thousand francs all the same?”

“No.”

“What will you give me then?”

“Five hundred francs.”

“It is such a thing to do for so little! It lies on your conscience just

the same, and I must quiet my conscience, sir.”

“I assure you,” said Poiret, “that mademoiselle has a great deal of

conscience, and not only so, she is a very amiable person, and very

intelligent.”

“Well, now,” Mlle. Michonneau went on, “make it three thousand francs if

he is Trompe-la-Mort, and nothing at all if he is an ordinary man.”

“Done!” said Gondureau, “but on the condition that the thing is settled

to-morrow.”

“Not quite so soon, my dear sir; I must consult my confessor first.”

“You are a sly one,” said the detective as he rose to his feet.

“Good-bye till to-morrow, then. And if you should want to see me in a

hurry, go to the Petite Rue Saint-Anne at the bottom of the Cour de la

Sainte-Chapelle. There is one door under the archway. Ask there for M.

Gondureau.”

Bianchon, on his way back from Cuvier’s lecture, overheard the

sufficiently striking nickname of _Trompe-la-Mort_, and caught the

celebrated chief detective’s “_Done!_”

“Why didn’t you close with him? It would be three hundred francs a

year,” said Poiret to Mlle. Michonneau.

“Why didn’t I?” she asked. “Why, it wants thinking over. Suppose that M.

Vautrin is this Trompe-la-Mort, perhaps we might do better for ourselves

with him. Still, on the other hand, if you ask him for money, it would

put him on his guard, and he is just the man to clear out without

paying, and that would be an abominable sell.”

“And suppose you did warn him,” Poiret went on, “didn’t that gentleman

say that he was closely watched? You would spoil everything.”

“Anyhow,” thought Mlle. Michonneau, “I can’t abide him. He says nothing

but disagreeable things to me.”

“But you can do better than that,” Poiret resumed. “As that gentleman

said (and he seemed to me to be a very good sort of man, besides being

very well got up), it is an act of obedience to the laws to rid society

of a criminal, however virtuous he may be. Once a thief, always a thief.

Suppose he were to take it into his head to murder us all? The deuce! We

should be guilty of manslaughter, and be the first to fall victims into

the bargain!”

Mlle. Michonneau’s musings did not permit her to listen very closely to

the remarks that fell one by one from Poiret’s lips like water dripping

from a leaky tap. When once this elderly babbler began to talk, he would

go on like clockwork unless Mlle. Michonneau stopped him. He started

on some subject or other, and wandered on through parenthesis after

parenthesis, till he came to regions as remote as possible from his

premises without coming to any conclusions by the way.

By the time they reached the Maison Vauquer he had tacked together a

whole string of examples and quotations more or less irrelevant to

the subject in hand, which led him to give a full account of his own

deposition in the case of the Sieur Ragoulleau _versus_ Dame Morin, when

he had been summoned as a witness for the defence.

As they entered the dining-room, Eugene de Rastignac was talking apart

with Mlle. Taillefer; the conversation appeared to be of such thrilling

interest that the pair never noticed the two older lodgers as they

passed through the room. None of this was thrown away on Mlle.

Michonneau.

“I knew how it would end,” remarked that lady, addressing Poiret. “They

have been making eyes at each other in a heartrending way for a week

past.”

“Yes,” he answered. “So she was found guilty.”

“Who?”

“Mme. Morin.”

“I am talking about Mlle. Victorine,” said Mlle, Michonneau, as she

entered Poiret’s room with an absent air, “and you answer, ‘Mme. Morin.’

Who may Mme. Morin be?”

“What can Mlle. Victorine be guilty of?” demanded Poiret.

“Guilty of falling in love with M. Eugene de Rastignac and going further

and further without knowing exactly where she is going, poor innocent!”

That morning Mme. de Nucingen had driven Eugene to despair. In his own

mind he had completely surrendered himself to Vautrin, and deliberately

shut his eyes to the motive for the friendship which that extraordinary

man professed for him, nor would he look to the consequences of such an

alliance. Nothing short of a miracle could extricate him now out of the

gulf into which he had walked an hour ago, when he exchanged vows in the

softest whispers with Mlle. Taillefer. To Victorine it seemed as if she

heard an angel’s voice, that heaven was opening above her; the Maison

Vauquer took strange and wonderful hues, like a stage fairy-palace. She

loved and she was loved; at any rate, she believed that she was loved;

and what woman would not likewise have believed after seeing Rastignac’s

face and listening to the tones of his voice during that hour snatched

under the Argus eyes of the Maison Vauquer? He had trampled on his

conscience; he knew that he was doing wrong, and did it deliberately;

he had said to himself that a woman’s happiness should atone for this

venial sin. The energy of desperation had lent new beauty to his face;

the lurid fire that burned in his heart shone from his eyes. Luckily

for him, the miracle took place. Vautrin came in in high spirits, and

at once read the hearts of these two young creatures whom he had brought

together by the combinations of his infernal genius, but his deep voice

broke in upon their bliss.

“A charming girl is my Fanchette

In her simplicity,”

he sang mockingly.

Victorine fled. Her heart was more full than it had ever been, but it

was full of joy, and not of sorrow. Poor child! A pressure of the hand,

the light touch of Rastignac’s hair against her cheek, a word whispered

in her ear so closely that she felt the student’s warm breath on

her, the pressure of a trembling arm about her waist, a kiss upon her

throat--such had been her betrothal. The near neighborhood of the stout

Sylvie, who might invade that glorified room at any moment, only made

these first tokens of love more ardent, more eloquent, more entrancing

than the noblest deeds done for love’s sake in the most famous

romances. This _plain-song_ of love, to use the pretty expression of our

forefathers, seemed almost criminal to the devout young girl who went to

confession every fortnight. In that one hour she had poured out more of

the treasures of her soul than she could give in later days of wealth

and happiness, when her whole self followed the gift.

“The thing is arranged,” Vautrin said to Eugene, who remained. “Our two

dandies have fallen out. Everything was done in proper form. It is

a matter of opinion. Our pigeon has insulted my hawk. They will meet

to-morrow in the redoubt at Clignancourt. By half-past eight in the

morning Mlle. Taillefer, calmly dipping her bread and butter in her

coffee cup, will be sole heiress of her father’s fortune and affections.

A funny way of putting it, isn’t it? Taillefer’s youngster is an expert

swordsman, and quite cocksure about it, but he will be bled; I have just

invented a thrust for his benefit, a way of raising your sword point

and driving it at the forehead. I must show you that thrust; it is an

uncommonly handy thing to know.”

Rastignac heard him in dazed bewilderment; he could not find a word in

reply. Just then Goriot came in, and Bianchon and a few of the boarders

likewise appeared.

“That is just as I intended.” Vautrin said. “You know quite well what

you are about. Good, my little eaglet! You are born to command, you are

strong, you stand firm on your feet, you are game! I respect you.”

He made as though he would take Eugene’s hand, but Rastignac hastily

withdrew it, sank into a chair, and turned ghastly pale; it seemed to

him that there was a sea of blood before his eyes.

“Oh! so we still have a few dubious tatters of the swaddling clothes

of virtue about us!” murmured Vautrin. “But Papa Doliban has three

millions; I know the amount of his fortune. Once have her dowry in your

hands, and your character will be as white as the bride’s white dress,

even in your own eyes.”

Rastignac hesitated no longer. He made up his mind that he would go that

evening to warn the Taillefers, father and son. But just as Vautrin left

him, Father Goriot came up and said in his ear, “You look melancholy, my

boy; I will cheer you up. Come with me.”

The old vermicelli dealer lighted his dip at one of the lamps as he

spoke. Eugene went with him, his curiosity had been aroused.

“Let us go up to your room,” the worthy soul remarked, when he had

asked Sylvie for the law student’s key. “This morning,” he resumed, “you

thought that _she_ did not care about you, did you not? Eh? She would

have nothing to say to you, and you went away out of humor and out of

heart. Stuff and rubbish! She wanted you to go because she was expecting

_me_! Now do you understand? We were to complete the arrangements for

taking some chambers for you, a jewel of a place, you are to move

into it in three days’ time. Don’t split upon me. She wants it to be a

surprise; but I couldn’t bear to keep the secret from you. You will be

in the Rue d’Artois, only a step or two from the Rue Saint-Lazare, and

you are to be housed like a prince! Any one might have thought we were

furnishing the house for a bride. Oh! we have done a lot of things in

the last month, and you knew nothing about it. My attorney has appeared

on the scene, and my daughter is to have thirty-six thousand francs a

year, the interest on her money, and I shall insist on having her eight

hundred thousand invested in sound securities, landed property that

won’t run away.”

Eugene was dumb. He folded his arms and paced up and down in his

cheerless, untidy room. Father Goriot waited till the student’s back was

turned, and seized the opportunity to go to the chimney-piece and set

upon it a little red morocco case with Rastignac’s arms stamped in gold

on the leather.

“My dear boy,” said the kind soul, “I have been up to the eyes in this

business. You see, there was plenty of selfishness on my part; I have an

interested motive in helping you to change lodgings. You will not refuse

me if I ask you something; will you, eh?”

“What is it?”

“There is a room on the fifth floor, up above your rooms, that is to let

along with them; that is where I am going to live, isn’t that so? I am

getting old: I am too far from my girls. I shall not be in the way, but

I shall be there, that is all. You will come and talk to me about her

every evening. It will not put you about, will it? I shall have gone to

bed before you come in, but I shall hear you come up, and I shall say

to myself, ‘He has just seen my little Delphine. He has been to a dance

with her, and she is happy, thanks to him.’ If I were ill, it would do

my heart good to hear you moving about below, to know when you leave

the house and when you come in. It is only a step to the Champs-Elysees,

where they go every day, so I shall be sure of seeing them, whereas now

I am sometimes too late. And then--perhaps she may come to see you! I

shall hear her, I shall see her in her soft quilted pelisse tripping

about as daintily as a kitten. In this one month she has become my

little girl again, so light-hearted and gay. Her soul is recovering, and

her happiness is owing to you! Oh! I would do impossibilities for you.

Only just now she said to me, ‘I am very happy, papa!’ When they say

‘father’ stiffly, it sends a chill through me; but when they call me

‘papa,’ it brings all the old memories back. I feel most their father

then; I even believe that they belong to me, and to no one else.”

The good man wiped his eyes, he was crying.

“It is a long while since I have heard them talk like that, a long, long

time since she took my arm as she did to-day. Yes, indeed, it must be

quite ten years since I walked side by side with one of my girls. How

pleasant it was to keep step with her, to feel the touch of her gown,

the warmth of her arm! Well, I took Delphine everywhere this morning; I

went shopping with her, and I brought her home again. Oh! you must let

me live near you. You may want some one to do you a service some of

these days, and I shall be on the spot to do it. Oh! if only that great

dolt of an Alsatian would die, if his gout would have the sense to

attack his stomach, how happy my poor child would be! You would be my

son-in-law; you would be her husband in the eyes of the world. Bah! she

has known no happiness, that excuses everything. Our Father in heaven is

surely on the side of fathers on earth who love their children. How fond

of you she is!” he said, raising his head after a pause. “All the time

we were going about together she chatted away about you. ‘He is so

nice-looking, papa; isn’t he? He is kind-hearted! Does he talk to you

about me?’ Pshaw! she said enough about you to fill whole volumes;

between the Rue d’Artois and the Passage des Panoramas she poured her

heart out into mine. I did not feel old once during that delightful

morning; I felt as light as a feather. I told her how you had given the

banknote to me; it moved my darling to tears. But what can this be on

your chimney-piece?” said Father Goriot at last. Rastignac had showed no

sign, and he was dying of impatience.

Eugene stared at his neighbor in dumb and dazed bewilderment. He thought

of Vautrin, of that duel to be fought to-morrow morning, and of this

realization of his dearest hopes, and the violent contrast between the

two sets of ideas gave him all the sensations of nightmare. He went to

the chimney-piece, saw the little square case, opened it, and found

a watch of Breguet’s make wrapped in paper, on which these words were

written:

“I want you to think of me every hour, _because_...

“DELPHINE.”

That last word doubtless contained an allusion to some scene that

had taken place between them. Eugene felt touched. Inside the gold

watch-case his arms had been wrought in enamel. The chain, the key, the

workmanship and design of the trinket were all such as he had imagined,

for he had long coveted such a possession. Father Goriot was radiant. Of

course he had promised to tell his daughter every little detail of the

scene and of the effect produced upon Eugene by her present; he shared

in the pleasure and excitement of the young people, and seemed to be not

the least happy of the three. He loved Rastignac already for his own as

well as for his daughter’s sake.

“You must go and see her; she is expecting you this evening. That great

lout of an Alsatian is going to have supper with his opera-dancer. Aha!

he looked very foolish when my attorney let him know where he was. He

says he idolizes my daughter, does he? He had better let her alone, or I

will kill him. To think that my Delphine is his”--he heaved a sigh--“it

is enough to make me murder him, but it would not be manslaughter to

kill that animal; he is a pig with a calf’s brains.--You will take me

with you, will you not?”

“Yes, dear Father Goriot; you know very well how fond I am of you----”

“Yes, I do know very well. You are not ashamed of me, are you? Not you!

Let me embrace you,” and he flung his arms around the student’s neck.

“You will make her very happy; promise me that you will! You will go to

her this evening, will you not?”

“Oh! yes. I must go out; I have some urgent business on hand.”

“Can I be of any use?”

“My word, yes! Will you go to old Taillefer’s while I go to Mme. de

Nucingen? Ask him to make an appointment with me some time this evening;

it is a matter of life and death.”

“Really, young man!” cried Father Goriot, with a change of countenance;

“are you really paying court to his daughter, as those simpletons were

saying down below?... _Tonnerre de dieu!_ you have no notion what a tap

_a la Goriot_ is like, and if you are playing a double game, I shall put

a stop to it by one blow of the fist... Oh! the thing is impossible!”

“I swear to you that I love but one woman in the world,” said the

student. “I only knew it a moment ago.”

“Oh! what happiness!” cried Goriot.

“But young Taillefer has been called out; the duel comes off to-morrow

morning, and I have heard it said that he may lose his life in it.”

“But what business is it of yours?” said Goriot.

“Why, I ought to tell him so, that he may prevent his son from putting

in an appearance----”

Just at that moment Vautrin’s voice broke in upon them; he was standing

at the threshold of his door and singing:

“Oh! Richard, oh my king!

All the world abandons thee!

Broum! broum! broum! broum! broum!

The same old story everywhere,

A roving heart and a... tra la la.”

“Gentlemen!” shouted Christophe, “the soup is ready, and every one is

waiting for you.”

“Here,” Vautrin called down to him, “come and take a bottle of my

Bordeaux.”

“Do you think your watch is pretty?” asked Goriot. “She has good taste,

hasn’t she? Eh?”

Vautrin, Father Goriot, and Rastignac came downstairs in company, and,

all three of them being late, were obliged to sit together.

Eugene was as distant as possible in his manner to Vautrin during

dinner; but the other, so charming in Mme. Vauquer’s opinion, had never

been so witty. His lively sallies and sparkling talk put the whole

table in good humor. His assurance and coolness filled Eugene with

consternation.

“Why, what has come to you to-day?” inquired Mme. Vauquer. “You are as

merry as a skylark.”

“I am always in spirits after I have made a good bargain.”

“Bargain?” said Eugene.

“Well, yes, bargain. I have just delivered a lot of goods, and I shall

be paid a handsome commission on them--Mlle. Michonneau,” he went on,

seeing that the elderly spinster was scrutinizing him intently, “have

you any objection to some feature in my face, that you are making those

lynx eyes at me? Just let me know, and I will have it changed to oblige

you... We shall not fall out about it, Poiret, I dare say?” he added,

winking at the superannuated clerk.

“Bless my soul, you ought to stand as model for a burlesque Hercules,”

said the young painter.

“I will, upon my word! if Mlle. Michonneau will consent to sit as the

Venus of Pere-Lachaise,” replied Vautrin.

“There’s Poiret,” suggested Bianchon.

“Oh! Poiret shall pose as Poiret. He can be a garden god!” cried

Vautrin; “his name means a pear----”

“A sleepy pear!” Bianchon put in. “You will come in between the pear and

the cheese.”

“What stuff are you all talking!” said Mme. Vauquer; “you would do

better to treat us to your Bordeaux; I see a glimpse of a bottle there.

It would keep us all in a good humor, and it is good for the stomach

besides.”

“Gentlemen,” said Vautrin, “the Lady President calls us to order. Mme.

Couture and Mlle. Victorine will take your jokes in good part, but

respect the innocence of the aged Goriot. I propose a glass or two of

Bordeauxrama, rendered twice illustrious by the name of Laffite, no

political allusions intended.--Come, you Turk!” he added, looking at

Christophe, who did not offer to stir. “Christophe! Here! What, you

don’t answer to your own name? Bring us some liquor, Turk!”

“Here it is, sir,” said Christophe, holding out the bottle.

Vautrin filled Eugene’s glass and Goriot’s likewise, then he

deliberately poured out a few drops into his own glass, and sipped it

while his two neighbors drank their wine. All at once he made a grimace.

“Corked!” he cried. “The devil! You can drink the rest of this,

Christophe, and go and find another bottle; take from the right-hand

side, you know. There are sixteen of us; take down eight bottles.”

“If you are going to stand treat,” said the painter, “I will pay for a

hundred chestnuts.”

“Oh! oh!”

“Booououh!”

“Prrr!”

These exclamations came from all parts of the table like squibs from a

set firework.

“Come, now, Mama Vauquer, a couple of bottles of champagne,” called

Vautrin.

“_Quien!_ just like you! Why not ask for the whole house at once. A

couple of bottles of champagne; that means twelve francs! I shall never

see the money back again, I know! But if M. Eugene has a mind to pay for

it, I have some currant cordial.”

“That currant cordial of hers is as bad as a black draught,” muttered

the medical student.

“Shut up, Bianchon,” exclaimed Rastignac; “the very mention of black

draught makes me feel----. Yes, champagne, by all means; I will pay for

it,” he added.

“Sylvie,” called Mme. Vauquer, “bring in some biscuits, and the little

cakes.”

“Those little cakes are mouldy graybeards,” said Vautrin. “But trot out

the biscuits.”

The Bordeaux wine circulated; the dinner table became a livelier scene

than ever, and the fun grew fast and furious. Imitations of the cries

of various animals mingled with the loud laughter; the Museum official

having taken it into his head to mimic a cat-call rather like the

caterwauling of the animal in question, eight voices simultaneously

struck up with the following variations:

“Scissors to grind!”

“Chick-weeds for singing bir-ds!”

“Brandy-snaps, ladies!”

“China to mend!”

“Boat ahoy!”

“Sticks to beat your wives or your clothes!”

“Old clo’!”

“Cherries all ripe!”

But the palm was awarded to Bianchon for the nasal accent with which he

rendered the cry of “Umbrellas to me-end!”

A few seconds later, and there was a head-splitting racket in the

room, a storm of tomfoolery, a sort of cats’ concert, with Vautrin

as conductor of the orchestra, the latter keeping an eye the while on

Eugene and Father Goriot. The wine seemed to have gone to their heads

already. They leaned back in their chairs, looking at the general

confusion with an air of gravity, and drank but little; both of them

were absorbed in the thought of what lay before them to do that evening,

and yet neither of them felt able to rise and go. Vautrin gave a side

glance at them from time to time, and watched the change that came over

their faces, choosing the moment when their eyes drooped and seemed

about to close, to bend over Rastignac and to say in his ear:--

“My little lad, you are not quite shrewd enough to outwit Papa Vautrin

yet, and he is too fond of you to let you make a mess of your affairs.

When I have made up my mind to do a thing, no one short of Providence

can put me off. Aha! we were for going round to warn old Taillefer,

telling tales out of school! The oven is hot, the dough is kneaded, the

bread is ready for the oven; to-morrow we will eat it up and whisk away

the crumbs; and we are not going to spoil the baking? ... No, no, it is

all as good as done! We may suffer from a few conscientious scruples,

but they will be digested along with the bread. While we are having our

forty winks, Colonel Count Franchessini will clear the way to Michel

Taillefer’s inheritance with the point of his sword. Victorine will come

in for her brother’s money, a snug fifteen thousand francs a year. I

have made inquiries already, and I know that her late mother’s property

amounts to more than three hundred thousand----”

Eugene heard all this, and could not answer a word; his tongue seemed

to be glued to the roof of his mouth, an irresistible drowsiness was

creeping over him. He still saw the table and the faces round it, but it

was through a bright mist. Soon the noise began to subside, one by one

the boarders went. At last, when their numbers had so dwindled that the

party consisted of Mme. Vauquer, Mme. Couture, Mlle. Victorine, Vautrin,

and Father Goriot, Rastignac watched as though in a dream how Mme.

Vauquer busied herself by collecting the bottles, and drained the

remainder of the wine out of each to fill others.

“Oh! how uproarious they are! what a thing it is to be young!” said the

widow.

These were the last words that Eugene heard and understood.

“There is no one like M. Vautrin for a bit of fun like this,” said

Sylvie. “There, just hark at Christophe, he is snoring like a top.”

“Good-bye, mamma,” said Vautrin; “I am going to a theatre on the

boulevard to see M. Marty in _Le Mont Sauvage_, a fine play taken

from _Le Solitaire_.... If you like, I will take you and these two

ladies----”

“Thank you; I must decline,” said Mme. Couture.

“What! my good lady!” cried Mme. Vauquer, “decline to see a play founded

on the _Le Solitaire_, a work by Atala de Chateaubriand? We were so fond

of that book that we cried over it like Magdalens under the _line-trees_

last summer, and then it is an improving work that might edify your

young lady.”

“We are forbidden to go to the play,” answered Victorine.

“Just look, those two yonder have dropped off where they sit,” said

Vautrin, shaking the heads of the two sleepers in a comical way.

He altered the sleeping student’s position, settled his head more

comfortably on the back of his chair, kissed him warmly on the forehead,

and began to sing:

“Sleep, little darlings;

I watch while you slumber.”

“I am afraid he may be ill,” said Victorine.

“Then stop and take care of him,” returned Vautrin. “‘Tis your duty as

a meek and obedient wife,” he whispered in her ear. “The young fellow

worships you, and you will be his little wife--there’s your fortune for

you. In short,” he added aloud, “they lived happily ever afterwards,

were much looked up to in all the countryside, and had a numerous

family. That is how all the romances end.--Now, mamma,” he went on, as

he turned to Madame Vauquer and put his arm round her waist, “put on

your bonnet, your best flowered silk, and the countess’ scarf, while I

go out and call a cab--all my own self.”

And he started out, singing as he went:

“Oh! sun! divine sun!

Ripening the pumpkins every one.”

“My goodness! Well, I’m sure! Mme. Couture, I could live happily in a

garret with a man like that.--There, now!” she added, looking round for

the old vermicelli maker, “there is that Father Goriot half seas over.

_He_ never thought of taking me anywhere, the old skinflint. But he will

measure his length somewhere. My word! it is disgraceful to lose his

senses like that, at his age! You will be telling me that he couldn’t

lose what he hadn’t got--Sylvie, just take him up to his room!”

Sylvie took him by the arm, supported him upstairs, and flung him just

as he was, like a package, across the bed.

“Poor young fellow!” said Mme. Couture, putting back Eugene’s hair that

had fallen over his eyes; “he is like a young girl, he does not know

what dissipation is.”

“Well, I can tell you this, I know,” said Mme. Vauquer, “I have taken

lodgers these thirty years, and a good many have passed through my

hands, as the saying is, but I have never seen a nicer nor a more

aristocratic looking young man than M. Eugene. How handsome he looks

sleeping! Just let his head rest on your shoulder, Mme. Couture. Pshaw!

he falls over towards Mlle. Victorine. There’s a special providence for

young things. A little more, and he would have broken his head against

the knob of the chair. They’d make a pretty pair those two would!”

“Hush, my good neighbor,” cried Mme. Couture, “you are saying such

things----”

“Pooh!” put in Mme. Vauquer, “he does not hear.--Here, Sylvie! come and

help me to dress. I shall put on my best stays.”

“What! your best stays just after dinner, madame?” said Sylvie. “No, you

can get some one else to lace you. I am not going to be your murderer.

It’s a rash thing to do, and might cost you your life.”

“I don’t care, I must do honor to M. Vautrin.”

“Are you so fond of your heirs as all that?”

“Come, Sylvie, don’t argue,” said the widow, as she left the room.

“At her age, too!” said the cook to Victorine, pointing to her mistress

as she spoke.

Mme. Couture and her ward were left in the dining-room, and Eugene

slept on Victorine’s shoulder. The sound of Christophe’s snoring echoed

through the silent house; Eugene’s quiet breathing seemed all the

quieter by force of contrast, he was sleeping as peacefully as a child.

Victorine was very happy; she was free to perform one of those acts of

charity which form an innocent outlet for all the overflowing sentiments

of a woman’s nature; he was so close to her that she could feel the

throbbing of his heart; there was a look of almost maternal protection

and conscious pride in Victorine’s face. Among the countless thoughts

that crowded up in her young innocent heart, there was a wild flutter of

joy at this close contact.

“Poor, dear child!” said Mme. Couture, squeezing her hand.

The old lady looked at the girl. Victorine’s innocent, pathetic face,

so radiant with the new happiness that had befallen her, called to

mind some naive work of mediaeval art, when the painter neglected the

accessories, reserving all the magic of his brush for the quiet,

austere outlines and ivory tints of the face, which seems to have caught

something of the golden glory of heaven.

“After all, he only took two glasses, mamma,” said Victorine, passing

her fingers through Eugene’s hair.

“Indeed, if he had been a dissipated young man, child, he would have

carried his wine like the rest of them. His drowsiness does him credit.”

There was a sound of wheels outside in the street.

“There is M. Vautrin, mamma,” said the girl. “Just take M. Eugene. I

would rather not have that man see me like this; there are some ways of

looking at you that seem to sully your soul and make you feel as though

you had nothing on.”

“Oh, no, you are wrong!” said Mme. Couture. “M. Vautrin is a worthy man;

he reminds me a little of my late husband, poor dear M. Couture, rough

but kind-hearted; his bark is worse than his bite.”

Vautrin came in while she was speaking; he did not make a sound, but

looked for a while at the picture of the two young faces--the lamplight

falling full upon them seemed to caress them.

“Well,” he remarked, folding his arms, “here is a picture! It would have

suggested some pleasing pages to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (good

soul), who wrote _Paul et Virginie_. Youth is very charming, Mme.

Couture!--Sleep on, poor boy,” he added, looking at Eugene, “luck

sometimes comes while you are sleeping.--There is something touching and

attractive to me about this young man, madame,” he continued; “I know

that his nature is in harmony with his face. Just look, the head of

a cherub on an angel’s shoulder! He deserves to be loved. If I were a

woman, I would die (no--not such a fool), I would live for him.” He

bent lower and spoke in the widow’s ear. “When I see those two together,

madame, I cannot help thinking that Providence meant them for each

other; He works by secret ways, and tries the reins and the heart,” he

said in a loud voice. “And when I see you, my children, thus united by

a like purity and by all human affections, I say to myself that it is

quite impossible that the future should separate you. God is just.”--He

turned to Victorine. “It seems to me,” he said, “that I have seen the

line of success in your hand. Let me look at it, Mlle. Victorine; I am

well up in palmistry, and I have told fortunes many a time. Come, now,

don’t be frightened. Ah! what do I see? Upon my word, you will be one of

the richest heiresses in Paris before very long. You will heap riches

on the man who loves you. Your father will want you to go and live with

him. You will marry a young and handsome man with a title, and he will

idolize you.”

The heavy footsteps of the coquettish widow, who was coming down the

stairs, interrupted Vautrin’s fortune-telling. “Here is Mamma Vauquerre,

fair as a starr-r-r, dressed within an inch of her life.--Aren’t we a

trifle pinched for room?” he inquired, with his arm round the lady;

“we are screwed up very tightly about the bust, mamma! If we are much

agitated, there may be an explosion; but I will pick up the fragments

with all the care of an antiquary.”

“There is a man who can talk the language of French gallantry!” said the

widow, bending to speak in Mme. Couture’s ear.

“Good-bye, little ones!” said Vautrin, turning to Eugene and Victorine.

“Bless you both!” and he laid a hand on either head. “Take my word for

it, young lady, an honest man’s prayers are worth something; they should

bring you happiness, for God hears them.”

“Good-bye, dear,” said Mme. Vauquer to her lodger. “Do you think that M.

Vautrin means to run away with me?” she added, lowering her voice.

“Lack-a-day!” said the widow.

“Oh! mamma dear, suppose it should really happen as that kind M. Vautrin

said!” said Victorine with a sigh as she looked at her hands. The two

women were alone together.

“Why, it wouldn’t take much to bring it to pass,” said the elderly lady;

“just a fall from his horse, and your monster of a brother----”

“Oh! mamma.”

“Good Lord! Well, perhaps it is a sin to wish bad luck to an enemy,” the

widow remarked. “I will do penance for it. Still, I would strew

flowers on his grave with the greatest pleasure, and that is the truth.

Black-hearted, that he is! The coward couldn’t speak up for his own

mother, and cheats you out of your share by deceit and trickery. My

cousin had a pretty fortune of her own, but unluckily for you, nothing

was said in the marriage-contract about anything that she might come in

for.”

“It would be very hard if my fortune is to cost some one else his life,”

said Victorine. “If I cannot be happy unless my brother is to be taken

out of the world, I would rather stay here all my life.”

“_Mon Dieu!_ it is just as that good M. Vautrin says, and he is full of

piety, you see,” Mme. Couture remarked. “I am very glad to find that

he is not an unbeliever like the rest of them that talk of the Almighty

with less respect than they do of the Devil. Well, as he was saying, who

can know the ways by which it may please Providence to lead us?”

With Sylvie’s help the two women at last succeeded in getting Eugene

up to his room; they laid him on the bed, and the cook unfastened

his clothes to make him more comfortable. Before they left the room,

Victorine snatched an opportunity when her guardian’s back was turned,

and pressed a kiss on Eugene’s forehead, feeling all the joy that this

stolen pleasure could give her. Then she looked round the room, and

gathering up, as it were, into one single thought all the untold bliss

of that day, she made a picture of her memories, and dwelt upon it until

she slept, the happiest creature in Paris.