“Come, that is just like you! I know you by that----”

“Nay, hear all, raving poet,” said the priest. “La Torpille is no more.”

Lucien flew at Herrera to seize him by the throat, with such violence

that any other man must have fallen backwards; but the Spaniard’s arm

held off his assailant.

“Come, listen,” said he coldly. “I have made another woman of her,

chaste, pure, well bred, religious, a perfect lady. She is being

educated. She can, if she may, under the influence of your love, become

a Ninon, a Marion Delorme, a du Barry, as the journalist at the opera

ball remarked. You may proclaim her your mistress, or you may retire

behind a curtain of your own creating, which will be wiser. By either

method you will gain profit and pride, pleasure and advancement; but if

you are as great a politician as you are a poet, Esther will be no more

to you than any other woman of the town; for, later, perhaps she may

help us out of difficulties; she is worth her weight in gold. Drink, but

do not get tipsy.

“If I had not held the reins of your passion, where would you be now?

Rolling with La Torpille in the slough of misery from which I dragged

you. Here, read this,” said Herrera, as simply as Talma in _Manlius_,

which he had never seen.

A sheet of paper was laid on the poet’s knees, and startled him from

the ecstasy and surprise with which he had listened to this astounding

speech; he took it, and read the first letter written by Mademoiselle

Esther:--

To Monsieur l’Abbe Carlos Herrera.

“MY DEAR PROTECTOR,--Will you not suppose that gratitude is

stronger in me than love, when you see that the first use I make

of the power of expressing my thoughts is to thank you, instead of

devoting it to pouring forth a passion that Lucien has perhaps

forgotten. But to you, divine man, I can say what I should not

dare to tell him, who, to my joy, still clings to earth.

“Yesterday’s ceremony has filled me with treasures of grace, and I

place my fate in your hands. Even if I must die far away from my

beloved, I shall die purified like the Magdalen, and my soul will

become to him the rival of his guardian angel. Can I ever forget

yesterday’s festival? How could I wish to abdicate the glorious

throne to which I was raised? Yesterday I washed away every stain

in the waters of baptism, and received the Sacred Body of my

Redeemer; I am become one of His tabernacles. At that moment I

heard the songs of angels, I was more than a woman, born to a life

of light amid the acclamations of the whole earth, admired by the

world in a cloud of incense and prayers that were intoxicating,

adorned like a virgin for the Heavenly Spouse.

“Thus finding myself worthy of Lucien, which I had never hoped to

be, I abjured impure love and vowed to walk only in the paths of

virtue. If my flesh is weaker than my spirit, let it perish. Be

the arbiter of my destiny; and if I die, tell Lucien that I died

to him when I was born to God.”

Lucien looked up at the Abbe with eyes full of tears.

“You know the rooms fat Caroline Bellefeuille had, in the Rue Taitbout,”

the Spaniard said. “The poor creature, cast off by her magistrate, was

in the greatest poverty; she was about to be sold up. I bought the place

all standing, and she turned out with her clothes. Esther, the angel who

aspired to heaven, has alighted there, and is waiting for you.”

At this moment Lucien heard his horses pawing the ground in the

courtyard; he was incapable of expressing his admiration for a devotion

which he alone could appreciate; he threw himself into the arms of the

man he had insulted, made amends for all by a look and the speechless

effusion of his feelings. Then he flew downstairs, confided Esther’s

address to his tiger’s ear, and the horses went off as if their master’s

passion had lived in their legs.

The next day a man, who by his dress might have been mistaken by the

passers-by for a gendarme in disguise, was passing the Rue Taitbout,

opposite a house, as if he were waiting for some one to come out; he

walked with an agitated air. You will often see in Paris such vehement

promenaders, real gendarmes watching a recalcitrant National Guardsman,

bailiffs taking steps to effect an arrest, creditors planning a trick

on the debtor who has shut himself in, lovers, or jealous and suspicious

husbands, or friends doing sentry for a friend; but rarely do you meet a

face portending such coarse and fierce thoughts as animated that of the

gloomy and powerful man who paced to and fro under Mademoiselle Esther’s

windows with the brooding haste of a bear in its cage.

At noon a window was opened, and a maid-servant’s hand was put out

to push back the padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her

dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who

saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty English

vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes of the

Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had been shot,

gave a cry of horror.

“There is that terrible priest,” said she, pointing him out to Lucien.

“He!” said Lucien, smiling, “he is no more a priest than you are.”

“What then?” she said in alarm.

“Why, an old villain who believes in nothing but the devil,” said

Lucien.

This light thrown on the sham priest’s secrets, if revealed to any one

less devoted than Esther, might have ruined Lucien for ever.

As they went along the corridor from their bedroom to the dining-room,

where their breakfast was served, the lovers met Carlos Herrera.

“What have you come here for?” said Lucien roughly.

“To bless you,” replied the audacious scoundrel, stopping the pair and

detaining them in the little drawing-room of the apartment. “Listen

to me, my pretty dears. Amuse yourselves, be happy--well and good!

Happiness at any price is my motto.--But you,” he went on to Esther,

“you whom I dragged from the mud, and have soaped down body and soul,

you surely do not dream that you can stand in Lucien’s way?--As for you,

my boy,” he went on after a pause, looking at Lucien, “you are no longer

poet enough to allow yourself another Coralie. This is sober prose. What

can be done with Esther’s lover? Nothing. Can Esther become Madame de

Rubempre? No.

“Well, my child,” said he, laying his hand on Esther’s, and making her

shiver as if some serpent had wound itself round her, “the world must

never know of your existence. Above all, the world must never know that

a certain Mademoiselle Esther loves Lucien, and that Lucien is in love

with her.--These rooms are your prison, my pigeon. If you wish to go

out--and your health will require it--you must take exercise at night,

at hours when you cannot be seen; for your youth and beauty, and the

style you have acquired at the Convent, would at once be observed in

Paris. The day when any one in the world, whoever it be,” he added in

an awful voice, seconded by an awful look, “learns that Lucien is your

lover, or that you are his mistress, that day will be your last but one

on earth. I have procured that boy a patent permitting him to bear the

name and arms of his maternal ancestors. Still, this is not all; we have

not yet recovered the title of Marquis; and to get it, he must marry

a girl of good family, in whose favor the King will grant this

distinction. Such an alliance will get Lucien on in the world and at

Court. This boy, of whom I have made a man, will be first Secretary to

an Embassy; later, he shall be Minister at some German Court, and God,

or I--better still--helping him, he will take his seat some day on the

bench reserved for peers----”

“Or on the bench reserved for----” Lucien began, interrupting the man.

“Hold your tongue!” cried Carlos, laying his broad hand on Lucien’s

mouth. “Would you tell such a secret to a woman?” he muttered in his

ear.

“Esther! A woman!” cried the poet of _Les Marguerites_.

“Still inditing sonnets!” said the Spaniard. “Nonsense! Sooner or later

all these angels relapse into being women, and every woman at moments

is a mixture of a monkey and a child, two creatures who can kill us for

fun.--Esther, my jewel,” said he to the terrified girl, “I have secured

as your waiting-maid a creature who is as much mine as if she were my

daughter. For your cook, you shall have a mulatto woman, which

gives style to a house. With Europe and Asie you can live here for a

thousand-franc note a month like a queen--a stage queen. Europe has

been a dressmaker, a milliner, and a stage super; Asie has cooked for an

epicure Milord. These two women will serve you like two fairies.”

Seeing Lucien go completely to the wall before this man, who was guilty

at least of sacrilege and forgery, this woman, sanctified by her love,

felt an awful fear in the depths of her heart. She made no reply, but

dragged Lucien into her room, and asked him:

“Is he the devil?”

“He is far worse to me!” he vehemently replied. “But if you love me,

try to imitate that man’s devotion to me, and obey him on pain of

death!----”

“Of death!” she exclaimed, more frightened than ever.

“Of death,” repeated Lucien. “Alas! my darling, no death could be

compared with that which would befall me if----”

Esther turned pale at his words, and felt herself fainting.

“Well, well,” cried the sacrilegious forger, “have you not yet spelt out

your daisy-petals?”

Esther and Lucien came out, and the poor girl, not daring to look at the

mysterious man, said:

“You shall be obeyed as God is obeyed, monsieur.”

“Good,” said he. “You may be very happy for a time, and you will need

only nightgowns and wrappers--that will be very economical.”

The two lovers went on towards the dining-room, but Lucien’s patron

signed to the pretty pair to stop. And they stopped.

“I have just been talking of your servants, my child,” said he to

Esther. “I must introduce them to you.”

The Spaniard rang twice. The women he had called Europe and Asie came

in, and it was at once easy to see the reason of these names.

Asie, who looked as if she might have been born in the Island of Java,

showed a face to scare the eye, as flat as a board, with the copper

complexion peculiar to Malays, with a nose that looked as if it had been

driven inwards by some violent pressure. The strange conformation of the

maxillary bones gave the lower part of this face a resemblance to

that of the larger species of apes. The brow, though sloping, was not

deficient in intelligence produced by habits of cunning. Two fierce

little eyes had the calm fixity of a tiger’s, but they never looked you

straight in the face. Asie seemed afraid lest she might terrify people.

Her lips, a dull blue, were parted over prominent teeth of dazzling

whiteness, but grown across. The leading expression of this animal

countenance was one of meanness. Her black hair, straight and

greasy-looking like her skin, lay in two shining bands, forming an edge

to a very handsome silk handkerchief. Her ears were remarkably pretty,

and graced with two large dark pearls. Small, short, and squat, Asie

bore a likeness to the grotesque figures the Chinese love to paint on

screens, or, more exactly, to the Hindoo idols which seem to be imitated

from some non-existent type, found, nevertheless, now and again by

travelers. Esther shuddered as she looked at this monstrosity, dressed

out in a white apron over a stuff gown.

“Asie,” said the Spaniard, to whom the woman looked up with a gesture

that can only be compared to that of a dog to its master, “this is your

mistress.”

And he pointed to Esther in her wrapper.

Asie looked at the young fairy with an almost distressful expression;

but at the same moment a flash, half hidden between her thick,

short eyelashes, shot like an incendiary spark at Lucien, who, in a

magnificent dressing-gown thrown open over a fine Holland linen shirt

and red trousers, with a fez on his head, beneath which his fair hair

fell in thick curls, presented a godlike appearance.

Italian genius could invent the tale of Othello; English genius could

put it on the stage; but Nature alone reserves the power of throwing

into a single glance an expression of jealousy grander and more complete

than England and Italy together could imagine. This look, seen by

Esther, made her clutch the Spaniard by the arm, setting her nails in it

as a cat sets its claws to save itself from falling into a gulf of which

it cannot see the bottom.

The Spaniard spoke a few words, in some unfamiliar tongue, to the

Asiatic monster, who crept on her knees to Esther’s feet and kissed

them.

“She is not merely a good cook,” said Herrera to Esther; “she is a

past-master, and might make Careme mad with jealousy. Asie can do

everything by way of cooking. She will turn you out a simple dish of

beans that will make you wonder whether the angels have not come down to

add some herb from heaven. She will go to market herself every morning,

and fight like the devil she is to get things at the lowest prices; she

will tire out curiosity by silence.

“You are to be supposed to have been in India, and Asie will help you to

give effect to this fiction, for she is one of those Parisians who are

born to be of any nationality they please. But I do not advise that you

should give yourself out to be a foreigner.--Europe, what do you say?”

Europe was a perfect contrast to Asie, for she was the smartest

waiting-maid that Monrose could have hoped to see as her rival on the

stage. Slight, with a scatter-brain manner, a face like a weasel, and a

sharp nose, Europe’s features offered to the observer a countenance worn

by the corruption of Paris life, the unhealthy complexion of a girl fed

on raw apples, lymphatic but sinewy, soft but tenacious. One little foot

was set forward, her hands were in her apron-pockets, and she fidgeted

incessantly without moving, from sheer excess of liveliness. Grisette

and stage super, in spite of her youth she must have tried many trades.

As full of evil as a dozen Madelonnettes put together, she might have

robbed her parents, and sat on the bench of a police-court.

Asie was terrifying, but you knew her thoroughly from the first; she

descended in a straight line from Locusta; while Europe filled you with

uneasiness, which could not fail to increase the more you had to do with

her; her corruption seemed boundless. You felt that she could set the

devils by the ears.

“Madame might say she had come from Valenciennes,” said Europe in a

precise little voice. “I was born there--Perhaps monsieur,” she added

to Lucien in a pedantic tone, “will be good enough to say what name he

proposes to give to madame?”

“Madame van Bogseck,” the Spaniard put in, reversing Esther’s name.

“Madame is a Jewess, a native of Holland, the widow of a merchant,

and suffering from a liver-complaint contracted in Java. No great

fortune--not to excite curiosity.”

“Enough to live on--six thousand francs a year; and we shall complain of

her stinginess?” said Europe.

“That is the thing,” said the Spaniard, with a bow. “You limbs of

Satan!” he went on, catching Asie and Europe exchanging a glance that

displeased him, “remember what I have told you. You are serving a queen;

you owe her as much respect as to a queen; you are to cherish her as you

would cherish a revenge, and be as devoted to her as to me. Neither

the door-porter, nor the neighbors, nor the other inhabitants of the

house--in short, not a soul on earth is to know what goes on here. It is

your business to balk curiosity if any should be roused.--And madame,”

he went on laying his broad hairy hand on Esther’s arm, “madame must not

commit the smallest imprudence; you must prevent it in case of need, but

always with perfect respect.

“You, Europe, are to go out for madame in anything that concerns her

dress, and you must do her sewing from motives of economy. Finally,

nobody, not even the most insignificant creature, is ever to set foot in

this apartment. You two, between you, must do all there is to be done.

“And you, my beauty,” he went on, speaking to Esther, “when you want

to go out in your carriage by night, you can tell Europe; she will know

where to find your men, for you will have a servant in livery, of my

choosing, like those two slaves.”

Esther and Lucien had not a word ready. They listened to the Spaniard,

and looked at the two precious specimens to whom he gave his orders.

What was the secret hold to which he owed the submission and servitude

that were written on these two faces--one mischievously recalcitrant,

the other so malignantly cruel?

He read the thoughts of Lucien and Esther, who seemed paralyzed, as Paul

and Virginia might have been at the sight of two dreadful snakes, and he

said in a good-natured undertone:

“You can trust them as you can me; keep no secrets from them; that

will flatter them.--Go to your work, my little Asie,” he added to the

cook.--“And you, my girl, lay another place,” he said to Europe; “the

children cannot do less than ask papa to breakfast.”

When the two women had shut the door, and the Spaniard could hear Europe

moving to and fro, he turned to Lucien and Esther, and opening a wide

palm, he said:

“I hold them in the hollow of my hand.”

The words and gesture made his hearers shudder.

“Where did you pick them up?” cried Lucien.

“What the devil! I did not look for them at the foot of the throne!”

replied the man. “Europe has risen from the mire, and is afraid of

sinking into it again. Threaten them with Monsieur Abbe when they do

not please you, and you will see them quake like mice when the cat is

mentioned. I am used to taming wild beasts,” he added with a smile.

“You strike me as being a demon,” said Esther, clinging closer to

Lucien.

“My child, I tried to win you to heaven; but a repentant Magdalen is

always a practical joke on the Church. If ever there were one, she would

relapse into the courtesan in Paradise. You have gained this much: you

are forgotten, and have acquired the manners of a lady, for you learned

in the convent what you never could have learned in the ranks of infamy

in which you were living.--You owe me nothing,” said he, observing a

beautiful look of gratitude on Esther’s face. “I did it all for him,”

and he pointed to Lucien. “You are, you will always be, you will die a

prostitute; for in spite of the delightful theories of cattle-breeders,

you can never, here below, become anything but what you are. The man who

feels bumps is right. You have the bump of love.”

The Spaniard, it will be seen, was a fatalist, like Napoleon, Mahomet,

and many other great politicians. It is a strange thing that most men of

action have a tendency to fatalism, just as most great thinkers have a

tendency to believe in Providence.

“What I am, I do not know,” said Esther with angelic sweetness; “but I

love Lucien, and shall die worshiping him.”

“Come to breakfast,” said the Spaniard sharply. “And pray to God that

Lucien may not marry too soon, for then you would never see him again.”

“His marriage would be my death,” said she.

She allowed the sham priest to lead the way, that she might stand on

tiptoe and whisper to Lucien without being seen.

“Is it your wish,” said she, “that I should remain in the power of this

man who sets two hyenas to guard me?”

Lucien bowed his head.

The poor child swallowed down her grief and affected gladness, but

she felt cruelly oppressed. It needed more than a year of constant and

devoted care before she was accustomed to these two dreadful creatures

whom Carlos Herrera called the two watch-dogs.

Lucien’s conduct since his return to Paris had borne the stamp of such

profound policy that it excited--and could not fail to excite--the

jealousy of all his former friends, on whom he took no vengeance but by

making them furious at his success, at his exquisite “get up,” and his

way of keeping every one at a distance. The poet, once so communicative,

so genial, had turned cold and reserved. De Marsay, the model adopted by

all the youth of Paris, did not make a greater display of reticence in

speech and deed than did Lucien. As to brains, the journalist had ere

now proved his mettle. De Marsay, against whom many people chose to

pit Lucien, giving a preference to the poet, was small-minded enough to

resent this.

Lucien, now in high favor with men who secretly pulled the wires of

power, was so completely indifferent to literary fame, that he did not

care about the success of his romance, republished under its real title,

_L’Archer de Charles IX._, or the excitement caused by his volume of

sonnets called _Les Marguerites_, of which Dauriat sold out the edition

in a week.

“It is posthumous fame,” said he, with a laugh, to Mademoiselle des

Touches, who congratulated him.

The terrible Spaniard held his creature with an iron hand, keeping him

in the road towards the goal where the trumpets and gifts of victory

await patient politicians. Lucien had taken Beaudenord’s bachelor

quarters on the Quai Malaquais, to be near the Rue Taitbout, and his

adviser was lodging under the same roof on the fourth floor. Lucien kept

only one horse to ride and drive, a man-servant, and a groom. When he

was not dining out, he dined with Esther.

Carlos Herrera kept such a keen eye on the service in the house on the

Quai Malaquais, that Lucien did not spend ten thousand francs a year,

all told. Ten thousand more were enough for Esther, thanks to the

unfailing and inexplicable devotion of Asie and Europe. Lucien took the

utmost precautions in going in and out at the Rue Taitbout. He never

came but in a cab, with the blinds down, and always drove into the

courtyard. Thus his passion for Esther and the very existence of the

establishment in the Rue Taitbout, being unknown to the world, did him

no harm in his connections or undertakings. No rash word ever escaped

him on this delicate subject. His mistakes of this sort with regard

to Coralie, at the time of his first stay in Paris, had given him

experience.

In the first place, his life was marked by the correct regularity under

which many mysteries can be hidden; he remained in society every night

till one in the morning; he was always at home from ten till one in the

afternoon; then he drove in the Bois de Boulogne and paid calls

till five. He was rarely seen to be on foot, and thus avoided old

acquaintances. When some journalist or one of his former associates

waved him a greeting, he responded with a bow, polite enough to avert

annoyance, but significant of such deep contempt as killed all French

geniality. He thus had very soon got rid of persons whom he would rather

never have known.

An old-established aversion kept him from going to see Madame d’Espard,

who often wished to get him to her house; but when he met her at those

of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of Mademoiselle des Touches, of the

Comtesse de Montcornet or elsewhere, he was always exquisitely polite

to her. This hatred, fully reciprocated by Madame d’Espard, compelled

Lucien to act with prudence; but it will be seen how he had added fuel

to it by allowing himself a stroke of revenge, which gained him indeed a

severe lecture from Carlos.

“You are not yet strong enough to be revenged on any one, whoever it may

be,” said the Spaniard. “When we are walking under a burning sun we do

not stop to gather even the finest flowers.”

Lucien was so genuinely superior, and had so fine a future before him,

that the young men who chose to be offended or puzzled by his return to

Paris and his unaccountable good fortune were enchanted whenever they

could do him an ill turn. He knew that he had many enemies, and was well

aware of those hostile feelings among his friends. The Abbe, indeed,

took admirable care of his adopted son, putting him on his guard against

the treachery of the world and the fatal imprudence of youth. Lucien

was expected to tell, and did in fact tell the Abbe each evening, every

trivial incident of the day. Thanks to his Mentor’s advice, he put the

keenest curiosity--the curiosity of the world--off the scent. Entrenched

in the gravity of an Englishman, and fortified by the redoubts cast up

by diplomatic circumspection, he never gave any one the right or the

opportunity of seeing a corner even of his concerns. His handsome young

face had, by practice, become as expressionless in society as that of a

princess at a ceremonial.

Towards the middle of 1829 his marriage began to be talked of to the

eldest daughter of the Duchesse de Grandlieu, who at that time had no

less than four daughters to provide for. No one doubted that in honor of

such an alliance the King would revive for Lucien the title of Marquis.

This distinction would establish Lucien’s fortune as a diplomate, and he

would probably be accredited as Minister to some German Court. For the

last three years Lucien’s life had been regular and above reproach;

indeed, de Marsay had made this remarkable speech about him:

“That young fellow must have a very strong hand behind him.”

Thus Lucien was almost a person of importance. His passion for Esther

had, in fact, helped him greatly to play his part of a serious man. A

habit of this kind guards an ambitious man from many follies; having

no connection with any woman of fashion, he cannot be caught by the

reactions of mere physical nature on his moral sense.

As to happiness, Lucien’s was the realization of a poet’s dreams--a

penniless poet’s, hungering in a garret. Esther, the ideal courtesan in

love, while she reminded Lucien of Coralie, the actress with whom he

had lived for a year, completely eclipsed her. Every loving and devoted

woman invents seclusion, incognito, the life of a pearl in the depths of

the sea; but to most of them this is no more than one of the delightful

whims which supply a subject for conversation; a proof of love which

they dream of giving, but do not give; whereas Esther, to whom her first

enchantment was ever new, who lived perpetually in the glow of Lucien’s

first incendiary glance, never, in four yours, had an impulse of

curiosity. She gave her whole mind to the task of adhering to the terms

of the programme prescribed by the sinister Spaniard. Nay, more! In the

midst of intoxicating happiness she never took unfair advantage of the

unlimited power that the constantly revived desire of a lover gives to

the woman he loves to ask Lucien a single question regarding Herrera, of

whom indeed she lived in constant awe; she dared not even think of him.

The elaborate benefactions of that extraordinary man, to whom Esther

undoubtedly owed her feminine accomplishment and her well-bred manner,

struck the poor girl as advances on account of hell.

“I shall have to pay for all this some day,” she would tell herself with

dismay.

Every fine night she went out in a hired carriage. She was driven with

a rapidity no doubt insisted on by the Abbe, in one or another of

the beautiful woods round Paris, Boulogne, Vincennes, Romainville, or

Ville-d’Avray, often with Lucien, sometimes alone with Europe. There she

could walk about without fear; for when Lucien was not with her, she was

attended by a servant dressed like the smartest of outriders, armed

with a real knife, whose face and brawny build alike proclaimed him a

ruthless athlete. This protector was also provided, in the fashion of

English footmen, with a stick, but such as single-stick players use,

with which they can keep off more than one assailant. In obedience to an

order of the Abbe’s, Esther had never spoken a word to this escort.

When madame wished to go home, Europe gave a call; the man in waiting

whistled to the driver, who was always within hearing.

When Lucien was walking with Esther, Europe and this man remained about

a hundred paces behind, like two of the infernal minions that figure in

the _Thousand and One Nights_, which enchanters place at the service of

their devotees.

The men, and yet more the women of Paris, know nothing of the charm of a

walk in the woods on a fine night. The stillness, the moonlight effects,

the solitude, have the soothing effect of a bath. Esther usually went

out at ten, walked about from midnight till one o’clock, and came in at

half-past two. It was never daylight in her rooms till eleven. She then

bathed and went through an elaborate toilet which is unknown to most

women, for it takes up too much time, and is rarely carried out by

any but courtesans, women of the town, or fine ladies who have the day

before them. She was only just ready when Lucien came, and appeared

before him as a newly opened flower. Her only care was that her poet

should be happy; she was his toy, his chattel; she gave him entire

liberty. She never cast a glance beyond the circle where she shone. On

this the Abbe had insisted, for it was part of his profound policy that

Lucien should have gallant adventures.

Happiness has no history, and the story-tellers of all lands have

understood this so well that the words, “They are happy,” are the end of

every love tale. Hence only the ways and means can be recorded of this

really romantic happiness in the heart of Paris. It was happiness in its

loveliest form, a poem, a symphony, of four years’ duration. Every woman

will exclaim, “That was much!” Neither Esther nor Lucien had ever

said, “This is too much!” And the formula, “They were happy,” was

more emphatically true, than even in a fairy tale, for “they had _no_

children.”

So Lucien could coquet with the world, give way to his poet’s caprices,

and, it may be plainly admitted, to the necessities of his position. All

this time he was slowly making his way, and was able to render secret

service to certain political personages by helping them in their work.

In such matters he was eminently discreet. He cultivated Madame de

Serizy’s circle, being, it was rumored, on the very best terms with

that lady. Madame de Serizy had carried him off from the Duchesse

de Maufrigneuse, who, it was said, had “thrown him over,” one of the

phrases by which women avenge themselves on happiness they envy. Lucien

was in the lap, so to speak, of the High Almoner’s set, and intimate

with women who were the Archbishop’s personal friends. He was modest and

reserved; he waited patiently. So de Marsay’s speech--de Marsay was

now married, and made his wife live as retired a life as Esther--was

significant in more ways that one.

But the submarine perils of such a course as Lucien’s will be

sufficiently obvious in the course of this chronicle.

Matters were in this position when, one fine night in August, the Baron

de Nucingen was driving back to Paris from the country residence of a

foreign banker, settled in France, with whom he had been dining. The

estate lay at eight leagues from Paris in the district of la Brie. Now,

the Baron’s coachman having undertaken to drive his master there and

back with his own horses, at nightfall ventured to moderate the pace.

As they entered the forest of Vincennes the position of beast, man, and

master was as follows:--The coachman, liberally soaked in the kitchen

of the aristocrat of the Bourse, was perfectly tipsy, and slept soundly,

while still holding the reins to deceive other wayfarers. The footman,

seated behind, was snoring like a wooden top from Germany--the land

of little carved figures, of large wine-vats, and of humming-tops. The

Baron had tried to think; but after passing the bridge at Gournay, the

soft somnolence of digestion had sealed his eyes. The horses understood

the coachman’s plight from the slackness of the reins; they heard the

footman’s basso continuo from his perch behind; they saw that they

were masters of the situation, and took advantage of their few minutes’

freedom to make their own pace. Like intelligent slaves, they gave

highway robbers the chance of plundering one of the richest capitalists

in France, the most deeply cunning of the race which, in France,

have been energetically styled lynxes--loups-cerviers. Finally, being

independent of control, and tempted by the curiosity which every one

must have remarked in domestic animals, they stopped where four roads

met, face to face with some other horses, whom they, no doubt, asked

in horses’ language: “Who may you be? What are you doing? Are you

comfortable?”

When the chaise stopped, the Baron awoke from his nap. At first he

fancied that he was still in his friend’s park; then he was startled

by a celestial vision, which found him unarmed with his usual

weapon--self-interest. The moonlight was brilliant; he could have read

by it--even an evening paper. In the silence of the forest, under this

pure light, the Baron saw a woman, alone, who, as she got into a hired

chaise, looked at the strange spectacle of this sleep-stricken carriage.

At the sight of this angel the Baron felt as though a light had flashed

into glory within him. The young lady, seeing herself admired, pulled

down her veil with terrified haste. The man-servant gave a signal which

the driver perfectly understood, for the vehicle went off like an arrow.

The old banker was fearfully agitated; the blood left his feet cold and

carried fire to his brain, his head sent the flame back to his heart; he

was chocking. The unhappy man foresaw a fit of indigestion, but in spite

of that supreme terror he stood up.

“Follow qvick, fery qvick.--Tam you, you are ashleep!” he cried. “A

hundert franc if you catch up dat chaise.”

At the words “A hundred francs,” the coachman woke up. The servant

behind heard them, no doubt, in his dreams. The baron reiterated his

orders, the coachman urged the horses to a gallop, and at the Barriere

du Trone had succeeded in overtaking a carriage resembling that in which

Nucingen had seen the divine fair one, but which contained a swaggering

head-clerk from some first-class shop and a lady of the Rue Vivienne.

This blunder filled the Baron with consternation.

“If only I had prought Chorge inshtead of you, shtupid fool, he should

have fount dat voman,” said he to the servant, while the excise officers

were searching the carriage.

“Indeed, Monsieur le Baron, the devil was behind the chaise, I believe,

disguised as an armed escort, and he sent this chaise instead of hers.”

“Dere is no such ting as de Teufel,” said the Baron.

The Baron de Nucingen owned to sixty; he no longer cared for women, and

for his wife least of all. He boasted that he had never known such love

as makes a fool of a man. He declared that he was happy to have done

with women; the most angelic of them, he frankly said, was not worth

what she cost, even if you got her for nothing. He was supposed to be so

entirely blase, that he no longer paid two thousand francs a month for

the pleasure of being deceived. His eyes looked coldly down from

his opera box on the corps de ballet; never a glance was shot at the

capitalist by any one of that formidable swarm of old young girls, and

young old women, the cream of Paris pleasure.

Natural love, artificial and love-of-show love, love based on

self-esteem and vanity, love as a display of taste, decent, conjugal

love, eccentric love--the Baron had paid for them all, had known them

all excepting real spontaneous love. This passion had now pounced down

on him like an eagle on its prey, as it did on Gentz, the confidential

friend of His Highness the Prince of Metternich. All the world knows

what follies the old diplomate committed for Fanny Elssler, whose

rehearsals took up a great deal more of his time than the concerns of

Europe.

The woman who had just overthrown that iron-bound money-box, called

Nucingen, had appeared to him as one of those who are unique in their

generation. It is not certain that Titian’s mistress, or Leonardo da

Vinci’s Monna Lisa, or Raphael’s Fornarina were as beautiful as this

exquisite Esther, in whom not the most practised eye of the most

experienced Parisian could have detected the faintest trace of the

ordinary courtesan. The Baron was especially startled by the noble and

stately air, the air of a well-born woman, which Esther, beloved, and

lapped in luxury, elegance, and devotedness, had in the highest degree.

Happy love is the divine unction of women; it makes them all as lofty as

empresses.

For eight nights in succession the Baron went to the forest of

Vincennes, then to the Bois de Boulogne, to the woods of Ville-d’Avray,

to Meudon, in short, everywhere in the neighborhood of Paris, but failed

to meet Esther. That beautiful Jewish face, which he called “a face out

of te Biple,” was always before his eyes. By the end of a fortnight he

had lost his appetite.

Delphine de Nucingen, and her daughter Augusta, whom the Baroness was

now taking out, did not at first perceive the change that had come over

the Baron. The mother and daughter only saw him at breakfast in the

morning and at dinner in the evening, when they all dined at home, and

this was only on the evenings when Delphine received company. But by

the end of two months, tortured by a fever of impatience, and in a state

like that produced by acute home-sickness, the Baron, amazed to find

his millions impotent, grew so thin, and seemed so seriously ill, that

Delphine had secret hopes of finding herself a widow. She pitied her

husband, somewhat hypocritically, and kept her daughter in seclusion.

She bored her husband with questions; he answered as Englishmen answer

when suffering from spleen, hardly a word.

Delphine de Nucingen gave a grand dinner every Sunday. She had chosen

that day for her receptions, after observing that no people of fashion

went to the play, and that the day was pretty generally an open one. The

emancipation of the shopkeeping and middle classes makes Sunday almost

as tiresome in Paris as it is deadly in London. So the Baroness invited

the famous Desplein to dinner, to consult him in spite of the sick man,

for Nucingen persisted in asserting that he was perfectly well.

Keller, Rastignac, de Marsay, du Tillet, all their friends had made the

Baroness understand that a man like Nucingen could not be allowed to die

without any notice being taken of it; his enormous business transactions

demanded some care; it was absolutely necessary to know where he stood.

These gentlemen also were asked to dinner, and the Comte de Gondreville,

Francois Keller’s father-in-law, the Chevalier d’Espard, des Lupeaulx,

Doctor Bianchon--Desplein’s best beloved pupil--Beaudenord and his wife,

the Comte and Comtesse de Montcornet, Blondet, Mademoiselle des Touches

and Conti, and finally, Lucien de Rubempre, for whom Rastignac had for

the last five years manifested the warmest regard--by order, as the

advertisements have it.

“We shall not find it easy to get rid of that young fellow,” said

Blondet to Rastignac, when he saw Lucien come in handsomer than ever,

and uncommonly well dressed.

“It is wiser to make friends with him, for he is formidable,” said

Rastignac.

“He?” said de Marsay. “No one is formidable to my knowledge but men

whose position is assured, and his is unattacked rather than attackable!

Look here, what does he live on? Where does his money come from? He has,

I am certain, sixty thousand francs in debts.”

“He has found a friend in a very rich Spanish priest who has taken a

fancy to him,” replied Rastignac.

“He is going to be married to the eldest Mademoiselle de Grandlieu,”

said Mademoiselle des Touches.

“Yes,” said the Chevalier d’Espard, “but they require him to buy an

estate worth thirty thousand francs a year as security for the fortune

he is to settle on the young lady, and for that he needs a million

francs, which are not to be found in any Spaniard’s shoes.”

“That is dear, for Clotilde is very ugly,” said the Baroness.

Madame de Nucingen affected to call Mademoiselle de Grandlieu by her

Christian name, as though she, nee Goriot, frequented that society.

“No,” replied du Tillet, “the daughter of a duchess is never ugly to the

like of us, especially when she brings with her the title of Marquis

and a diplomatic appointment. But the great obstacle to the marriage is

Madame de Serizy’s insane passion for Lucien. She must give him a great

deal of money.”

“Then I am not surprised at seeing Lucien so serious; for Madame de

Serizy will certainly not give him a million francs to help him to marry

Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. He probably sees no way out of the scrape,”

said de Marsay.

“But Mademoiselle de Grandlieu worships him,” said the Comtesse de

Montcornet; “and with the young person’s assistance, he may perhaps make

better terms.”

“And what will he do with his sister and brother-in-law at Angouleme?”

asked the Chevalier d’Espard.

“Well, his sister is rich,” replied Rastignac, “and he now speaks of her

as Madame Sechard de Marsac.”

“Whatever difficulties there may be, he is a very good-looking fellow,”

said Bianchon, rising to greet Lucien.

“How ‘do, my dear fellow?” said Rastignac, shaking hands warmly with

Lucien.

De Marsay bowed coldly after Lucien had first bowed to him.

Before dinner Desplein and Bianchon, who studied the Baron while amusing

him, convinced themselves that this malady was entirely nervous; but

neither could guess the cause, so impossible did it seem that the great

politician of the money market could be in love. When Bianchon, seeing

nothing but love to account for the banker’s condition, hinted as much

to Delphine de Nucingen, she smiled as a woman who has long known all

her husband’s weaknesses. After dinner, however, when they all adjourned

to the garden, the more intimate of the party gathered round the banker,

eager to clear up this extraordinary case when they heard Bianchon

pronounce that Nucingen must be in love.

“Do you know, Baron,” said de Marsay, “that you have grown very thin?

You are suspected of violating the laws of financial Nature.”

“Ach, nefer!” said the Baron.

“Yes, yes,” replied de Marsay. “They dare to say that you are in love.”

“Dat is true,” replied Nucingen piteously; “I am in lof for somebody I

do not know.”

“You, in love, you? You are a coxcomb!” said the Chevalier d’Espard.

“In lof, at my aje! I know dat is too ridiculous. But vat can I help it!

Dat is so.”

“A woman of the world?” asked Lucien.

“Nay,” said de Marsay. “The Baron would not grow so thin but for a

hopeless love, and he has money enough to buy all the women who will or

can sell themselves!”

“I do not know who she it,” said the Baron. “And as Motame de Nucingen

is inside de trawing-room, I may say so, dat till now I have nefer known

what it is to lof. Lof! I tink it is to grow tin.”

“And where did you meet this innocent daisy?” asked Rastignac.

“In a carriage, at mitnight, in de forest of Fincennes.”

“Describe her,” said de Marsay.

“A vhite gaze hat, a rose gown, a vhite scharf, a vhite feil--a face

just out of de Biple. Eyes like Feuer, an Eastern color----”

“You were dreaming,” said Lucien, with a smile.

“Dat is true; I vas shleeping like a pig--a pig mit his shkin full,” he

added, “for I vas on my vay home from tinner at mine friend’s----”

“Was she alone?” said du Tillet, interrupting him.

“Ja,” said the Baron dolefully; “but she had ein heiduque behind dat

carriage and a maid-shervant----”

“Lucien looks as if he knew her,” exclaimed Rastignac, seeing Esther’s

lover smile.

“Who doesn’t know the woman who would go out at midnight to meet

Nucingen?” said Lucien, turning on his heel.

“Well, she is not a woman who is seen in society, or the Baron would

have recognized the man,” said the Chevalier d’Espard.

“I have nefer seen him,” replied the Baron. “And for forty days now I

have had her seeked for by de Police, and dey do not find her.”

“It is better that she should cost you a few hundred francs than cost

you your life,” said Desplein; “and, at your age, a passion without hope

is dangerous, you might die of it.”

“Ja, ja,” replied the Baron, addressing Desplein. “And vat I eat does

me no goot, de air I breade feels to choke me. I go to de forest of

Fincennes to see de place vat I see her--and dat is all my life. I could

not tink of de last loan--I trust to my partners vat haf pity on me. I

could pay one million franc to see dat voman--and I should gain by dat,

for I do nothing on de Bourse.--Ask du Tillet.”

“Very true,” replied du Tillet; “he hates business; he is quite unlike

himself; it is a sign of death.”

“A sign of lof,” replied Nucingen; “and for me, dat is all de same

ting.”

The simple candor of the old man, no longer the stock-jobber, who, for

the first time in his life, saw that something was more sacred and

more precious than gold, really moved these world-hardened men; some

exchanged smiles; other looked at Nucingen with an expression that

plainly said, “Such a man to have come to this!”--And then they all

returned to the drawing-room, talking over the event.

For it was indeed an event calculated to produce the greatest sensation.

Madame de Nucingen went into fits of laughter when Lucien betrayed her

husband’s secret; but the Baron, when he heard his wife’s sarcasms, took

her by the arm and led her into the recess of a window.

“Motame,” said he in an undertone, “have I ever laughed at all at your

passions, that you should laugh at mine? A goot frau should help her

husband out of his difficulty vidout making game of him like vat you

do.”

From the description given by the old banker, Lucien had recognized his

Esther. Much annoyed that his smile should have been observed, he took

advantage of a moment when coffee was served, and the conversation

became general, to vanish from the scene.

“What has become of Monsieur de Rubempre?” said the Baroness.

“He is faithful to his motto: Quid me continebit?” said Rastignac.

“Which means, ‘Who can detain me?’ or ‘I am unconquerable,’ as you

choose,” added de Marsay.

“Just as Monsieur le Baron was speaking of his unknown lady, Lucien

smiled in a way that makes me fancy he may know her,” said Horace

Bianchon, not thinking how dangerous such a natural remark might be.

“Goot!” said the banker to himself.

Like all incurables, the Baron clutched at everything that seemed at all

hopeful; he promised himself that he would have Lucien watched by some

one besides Louchard and his men--Louchard, the sharpest commercial

detective in Paris--to whom he had applied about a fortnight since.

Before going home to Esther, Lucien was due at the Hotel Grandlieu,

to spend the two hours which made Mademoiselle Clotilde Frederique

de Grandlieu the happiest girl in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. But the

prudence characteristic of this ambitious youth warned him to inform

Carlos Herrera forthwith of the effect resulting from the smile wrung

from him by the Baron’s description of Esther. The banker’s passion for

Esther, and the idea that had occurred to him of setting the police to

seek the unknown beauty, were indeed events of sufficient importance

to be at once communicated to the man who had sought, under a priest’s

robe, the shelter which criminals of old could find in a church. And

Lucien’s road from the Rue Saint-Lazare, where Nucingen at that time

lived, to the Rue Saint-Dominique, where was the Hotel Grandlieu, led

him past his lodgings on the Quai Malaquais.

Lucien found his formidable friend smoking his breviary--that is to say,

coloring a short pipe before retiring to bed. The man, strange rather

than foreign, had given up Spanish cigarettes, finding them too mild.

“Matters look serious,” said the Spaniard, when Lucien had told him all.

“The Baron, who employs Louchard to hunt up the girl, will certainly be

sharp enough to set a spy at your heels, and everything will come out.

To-night and to-morrow morning will not give me more than enough time

to pack the cards for the game I must play against the Baron; first and

foremost, I must prove to him that the police cannot help him. When our

lynx has given up all hope of finding his ewe-lamb, I will undertake to

sell her for all she is worth to him----”

“Sell Esther!” cried Lucien, whose first impulse was always the right

one.

“Do you forget where we stand?” cried Carlos Herrera.

“No money left,” the Spaniard went on, “and sixty thousand francs of

debts to be paid! If you want to marry Clotilde de Grandlieu, you must

invest a million of francs in land as security for that ugly creature’s

settlement. Well, then, Esther is the quarry I mean to set before that

lynx to help us to ease him of that million. That is my concern.”

“Esther will never----”

“That is my concern.”

“She will die of it.”

“That is the undertaker’s concern. Besides, what then?” cried the

savage, checking Lucien’s lamentations merely by his attitude. “How many

generals died in the prime of life for the Emperor Napoleon?” he asked,

after a short silence. “There are always plenty of women. In 1821

Coralie was unique in your eyes; and yet you found Esther. After her

will come--do you know who?--the unknown fair. And she of all women

is the fairest, and you will find her in the capital where the Duc de

Grandlieu’s son-in-law will be Minister and representative of the King

of France.--And do you tell me now, great Baby, that Esther will die of

it? Again, can Mademoiselle de Grandlieu’s husband keep Esther?

“You have only to leave everything to me; you need not take the trouble

to think at all; that is my concern. Only you must do without Esther for

a week or two; but go to the Rue Taitbout, all the same.--Come, be off

to bill and coo on your plank of salvation, and play your part well;

slip the flaming note you wrote this morning into Clotilde’s hand, and

bring me back a warm response. She will recompense herself for many woes

in writing. I take to that girl.

“You will find Esther a little depressed, but tell her to obey. We must

display our livery of virtue, our doublet of honesty, the screen behind

which all great men hide their infamy.--I must show off my handsomer

self--you must never be suspected. Chance has served us better than

my brain, which has been beating about in a void for these two months

past.”

All the while he was jerking out these dreadful sentences, one by one,

like pistol shots, Carlos Herrera was dressing himself to go out.

“You are evidently delighted,” cried Lucien. “You never liked poor

Esther, and you look forward with joy to the moment when you will be rid

of her.”

“You have never tired of loving her, have you? Well, I have never

tired of detesting her. But have I not always behaved as though I were

sincerely attached to the hussy--I, who, through Asie, hold her life

in my hands? A few bad mushrooms in a stew--and there an end. But

Mademoiselle Esther still lives!--and is happy!--And do you know why?

Because you love her. Do not be a fool. For four years we have been

waiting for a chance to turn up, for us or against us; well, it will

take something more than mere cleverness to wash the cabbage luck has

flung at us now. There are good and bad together in this turn of the

wheel--as there are in everything. Do you know what I was thinking of

when you came in?”

“No.”

“Of making myself heir here, as I did at Barcelona, to an old bigot, by

Asie’s help.”

“A crime?”

“I saw no other way of securing your fortune. The creditors are making

a stir. If once the bailiffs were at your heels, and you were turned out

of the Hotel Grandlieu, where would you be? There would be the devil to

pay then.”

And Carlos Herrera, by a pantomimic gesture, showed the suicide of a man

throwing himself into the water; then he fixed on Lucien one of those

steady, piercing looks by which the will of a strong man is injected,

so to speak, into a weak one. This fascinating glare, which relaxed

all Lucien’s fibres of resistance, revealed the existence not merely

of secrets of life and death between him and his adviser, but also of

feelings as far above ordinary feeling as the man himself was above his

vile position.

Carlos Herrera, a man at once ignoble and magnanimous, obscure and

famous, compelled to live out of the world from which the law had banned

him, exhausted by vice and by frenzied and terrible struggles, though

endowed with powers of mind that ate into his soul, consumed especially

by a fever of vitality, now lived again in the elegant person of Lucien

de Rubempre, whose soul had become his own. He was represented in social

life by the poet, to whom he lent his tenacity and iron will. To him

Lucien was more than a son, more than a woman beloved, more than a

family, more than his life; he was his revenge; and as souls cling more

closely to a feeling than to existence, he had bound the young man to

him by insoluble ties.

After rescuing Lucien’s life at the moment when the poet in desperation

was on the verge of suicide, he had proposed to him one of those

infernal bargains which are heard of only in romances, but of which

the hideous possibility has often been proved in courts of justice by

celebrated criminal dramas. While lavishing on Lucien all the delights

of Paris life, and proving to him that he yet had a great future before

him, he had made him his chattel.

But, indeed, no sacrifice was too great for this strange man when it

was to gratify his second self. With all his strength, he was so weak to

this creature of his making that he had even told him all his secrets.

Perhaps this abstract complicity was a bond the more between them.

Since the day when La Torpille had been snatched away, Lucien had known

on what a vile foundation his good fortune rested. That priest’s robe

covered Jacques Collin, a man famous on the hulks, who ten years since

had lived under the homely name of Vautrin in the Maison Vauquer, where

Rastignac and Bianchon were at that time boarders.

Jacques Collin, known as _Trompe-la-Mort_, had escaped from Rochefort

almost as soon as he was recaptured, profiting by the example of the

famous Comte de Sainte-Helene, while modifying all that was ill planned

in Coignard’s daring scheme. To take the place of an honest man and

carry on the convict’s career is a proposition of which the two terms

are too contradictory for a disastrous outcome not to be inevitable,

especially in Paris; for, by establishing himself in a family, a convict

multiplies tenfold the perils of such a substitution. And to be safe

from all investigation, must not a man assume a position far above the

ordinary interests of life. A man of the world is subject to risks such

as rarely trouble those who have no contact with the world; hence the

priest’s gown is the safest disguise when it can be authenticated by an

exemplary life in solitude and inactivity.

“So a priest I will be,” said the legally dead man, who was quite

determined to resuscitate as a figure in the world, and to satisfy

passions as strange as himself.

The civil war caused by the Constitution of 1812 in Spain, whither this

energetic man had betaken himself, enabled him to murder secretly the

real Carlos Herrera from an ambush. This ecclesiastic, the bastard son

of a grandee, long since deserted by his father, and not knowing to what

woman he owed his birth, was intrusted by King Ferdinand VII., to whom

a bishop had recommended him, with a political mission to France. The

bishop, the only man who took any interest in Carlos Herrera, died

while this foundling son of the Church was on his journey from Cadiz

to Madrid, and from Madrid to France. Delighted to have met with this

longed-for opportunity, and under the most desirable conditions, Jacques

Collin scored his back to efface the fatal letters, and altered his

complexion by the use of chemicals. Thus metamorphosing himself face

to face with the corpse, he contrived to achieve some likeness to his

Sosia. And to complete a change almost as marvelous as that related in

the Arabian tale, where a dervish has acquired the power, old as he is,

of entering into a young body, by a magic spell, the convict, who spoke

Spanish, learned as much Latin as an Andalusian priest need know.

As banker to three hulks, Collin was rich in the cash intrusted to his

known, and indeed enforced, honesty. Among such company a mistake is

paid for by a dagger thrust. To this capital he now added the money

given by the bishop to Don Carlos Herrera. Then, before leaving Spain,

he was able to possess himself of the treasure of an old bigot at

Barcelona, to whom he gave absolution, promising that he would make

restitution of the money constituting her fortune, which his penitent

had stolen by means of murder.

Jacques Collin, now a priest, and charged with a secret mission which

would secure him the most brilliant introductions in Paris, determined

to do nothing that might compromise the character he had assumed, and

had given himself up to the chances of his new life, when he met Lucien

on the road between Angouleme and Paris. In this youth the sham priest

saw a wonderful instrument for power; he saved him from suicide saying:

“Give yourself over to me as to a man of God, as men give themselves

over to the devil, and you will have every chance of a new career. You

will live as in a dream, and the worst awakening that can come to you

will be death, which you now wish to meet.”

The alliance between these two beings, who were to become one, as

it were, was based on this substantial reasoning, and Carlos Herrera

cemented it by an ingeniously plotted complicity. He had the very genius

of corruption, and undermined Lucien’s honesty by plunging him into

cruel necessity, and extricating him by obtaining his tacit consent to

bad or disgraceful actions, which nevertheless left him pure, loyal, and

noble in the eyes of the world. Lucien was the social magnificence under

whose shadow the forger meant to live.

“I am the author, you are the play; if you fail, it is I who shall be

hissed,” said he on the day when he confessed his sacrilegious disguise.

Carlos prudently confessed only a little at a time, measuring the

horrors of his revelations by Lucien’s progress and needs. Thus

_Trompe-la-Mort_ did not let out his last secret till the habit of

Parisian pleasures and success, and gratified vanity, had enslaved the

weak-minded poet body and soul. Where Rastignac, when tempted by this

demon, had stood firm, Lucien, better managed, and more ingeniously

compromised, succumbed, conquered especially by his satisfaction in

having attained an eminent position. Incarnate evil, whose poetical

embodiment is called the Devil, displayed every delightful seduction

before this youth, who was half a woman, and at first gave much and

asked for little. The great argument used by Carlos was the eternal

secret promised by Tartufe to Elmire.

The repeated proofs of absolute devotion, such as that of Said to

Mahomet, put the finishing touch to the horrible achievement of Lucien’s

subjugation by a Jacques Collin.

At this moment not only had Esther and Lucien devoured all the funds

intrusted to the honesty of the banker of the hulks, who, for their

sakes, had rendered himself liable to a dreadful calling to account, but

the dandy, the forger, and the courtesan were also in debt. Thus, as the

very moment of Lucien’s expected success, the smallest pebble under

the foot of either of these three persons might involve the ruin of the

fantastic structure of fortune so audaciously built up.

At the opera ball Rastignac had recognized the man he had known as

Vautrin at Madame Vauquer’s; but he knew that if he did not hold his

tongue, he was a dead man. So Madame de Nucingen’s lover and Lucien

had exchanged glances in which fear lurked, on both sides, under an

expression of amity. In the moment of danger, Rastignac, it is clear,

would have been delighted to provide the vehicle that should convey

Jacques Collin to the scaffold. From all this it may be understood that

Carlos heard of the Baron’s passion with a glow of sombre satisfaction,

while he perceived in a single flash all the advantage a man of his

temper might derive by means of a hapless Esther.

“Go on,” said he to Lucien. “The Devil is mindful of his chaplain.”

“You are smoking on a powder barrel.”

“Incedo per ignes,” replied Carlos with a smile. “That is my trade.”

The House of Grandlieu divided into two branches about the middle of the

last century: first, the ducal line destined to lapse, since the present

duke has only daughters; and then the Vicomtes de Grandlieu, who will

now inherit the title and armorial bearings of the elder branch. The

ducal house bears gules, three broad axes or in fess, with the famous

motto: Caveo non timeo, which epitomizes the history of the family.

The coat of the Vicomtes de Grandlieu is the same quartered with that

of Navarreins: gules, a fess crenelated or, surmounted by a knight’s

helmet, with the motto: Grands faits, grand lieu. The present

Viscountess, widowed in 1813, has a son and a daughter. Though she

returned from the Emigration almost ruined, she recovered a considerable

fortune by the zealous aid of Derville the lawyer.

The Duc and Duchesse de Grandlieu, on coming home in 1804, were the

object of the Emperor’s advances; indeed, Napoleon, seeing them come to

his court, restored to them all of the Grandlieu estates that had been

confiscated to the nation, to the amount of about forty thousand francs

a year. Of all the great nobles of the Faubourg Saint-Germain

who allowed themselves to be won over by Napoleon, this Duke and

Duchess--she was an Ajuda of the senior branch, and connected with the

Braganzas--were the only family who afterwards never disowned him and

his liberality. When the Faubourg Saint-Germain remembered this as a

crime against the Grandlieus, Louis XVIII. respected them for it; but

perhaps his only object was to annoy _Monsieur_.

A marriage was considered likely between the young Vicomte de Grandlieu

and Marie-Athenais, the Duke’s youngest daughter, now nine years old.

Sabine, the youngest but one, married the Baron du Guenic after

the revolution of July 1830; Josephine, the third, became Madame

d’Ajuda-Pinto after the death of the Marquis’ first wife, Mademoiselle

de Rochefide, or Rochegude. The eldest had taken the veil in 1822. The

second, Mademoiselle Clotilde Frederique, at this time seven-and-twenty

years of age, was deeply in love with Lucien de Rubempre. It need not be

asked whether the Duc de Grandlieu’s mansion, one of the finest in

the Rue Saint-Dominique, did not exert a thousand spells over Lucien’s

imagination. Every time the heavy gate turned on its hinges to admit his

cab, he experienced the gratified vanity to which Mirabeau confessed.

“Though my father was a mere druggist at l’Houmeau, I may enter here!”

This was his thought.

And, indeed, he would have committed far worse crimes than allying

himself with a forger to preserve his right to mount the steps of that

entrance, to hear himself announced, “Monsieur de Rubempre” at the door

of the fine Louis XIV. drawing-room, decorated in the time of the grand

monarque on the pattern of those at Versailles, where that choicest

circle met, that cream of Paris society, called then le petit chateau.

The noble Portuguese lady, one of those who never care to go out of

their own home, was usually the centre of her neighbors’ attentions--the

Chaulieus, the Navarreins, the Lenoncourts. The pretty Baronne de

Macumer--nee de Chaulieu--the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, Madame d’Espard,

Madame de Camps, and Mademoiselle des Touches--a connection of the

Grandlieus, who are a Breton family--were frequent visitors on their way

to a ball or on their return from the opera. The Vicomte de Grandlieu,

the Duc de Rhetore, the Marquis de Chaulieu--afterwards Duc de

Lenoncourt-Chaulieu--his wife, Madeleine de Mortsauf, the Duc de

Lenoncourt’s grand-daughter, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto, the Prince de

Blamont-Chauvry, the Marquis de Beauseant, the Vidame de Pamiers,

the Vandenesses, the old Prince de Cadignan, and his son the Duc de

Maufrigneuse, were constantly to be seen in this stately drawing-room,

where they breathed the atmosphere of a Court, where manners, tone, and

wit were in harmony with the dignity of the Master and Mistress whose

aristocratic mien and magnificence had obliterated the memory of their

servility to Napoleon.

The old Duchesse d’Uxelles, mother of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, was

the oracle of this circle, to which Madame de Serizy had never gained

admittance, though nee de Ronquerolles.

Lucien was brought thither by Madame de Maufrigneuse, who had won over

her mother to speak in his favor, for she had doted on him for two

years; and the engaging young poet had kept his footing there, thanks

to the influence of the high Almoner of France, and the support of

the Archbishop of Paris. Still, he had not been admitted till he had

obtained the patent restoring to him the name and arms of the Rubempre

family. The Duc de Rhetore, the Chevalier d’Espard, and some others,

jealous of Lucien, periodically stirred up the Duc de Grandlieu’s

prejudices against him by retailing anecdotes of the young man’s

previous career; but the Duchess, a devout Catholic surrounded by the

great prelates of the Church, and her daughter Clotilde would not give

him up.

Lucien accounted for these hostilities by his connection with Madame de

Bargeton, Madame d’Espard’s cousin, and now Comtesse du Chatelet. Then,

feeling the importance of allying himself to so powerful a family, and

urged by his privy adviser to win Clotilde, Lucien found the courage of

the parvenu; he came to the house five days in the week, he swallowed

all the affronts of the envious, he endured impertinent looks, and

answered irony with wit. His persistency, the charm of his manners, and

his amiability, at last neutralized opposition and reduced obstacles. He

was still in the highest favor with Madame de Maufrigneuse, whose ardent

letters, written under the influence of her passion, were preserved by

Carlos Herrera; he was idolized by Madame de Serizy, and stood well

in Mademoiselle des Touches’ good graces; and well content with being

received in these houses, Lucien was instructed by the Abbe to be as

reserved as possible in all other quarters.

“You cannot devote yourself to several houses at once,” said his Mentor.

“The man who goes everywhere finds no one to take a lively interest in

him. Great folks only patronize those who emulate their furniture, whom

they see every day, and who have the art of becoming as necessary to

them as the seat they sit on.”

Thus Lucien, accustomed to regard the Grandlieus’ drawing-room as his

arena, reserved his wit, his jests, his news, and his courtier’s graces

for the hours he spent there every evening. Insinuating, tactful, and

warned by Clotilde of the shoals he should avoid, he flattered Monsieur

de Grandlieu’s little weaknesses. Clotilde, having begun by envying

Madame de Maufrigneuse her happiness, ended by falling desperately in

love with Lucien.

Perceiving all the advantages of such a connection, Lucien played his

lover’s part as well as it could have been acted by Armand, the latest

_jeune premier_ at the _Comedie Francaise_.

He wrote to Clotilde, letters which were certainly masterpieces of

literary workmanship; and Clotilde replied, vying with him in genius in

the expression of perfervid love on paper, for she had no other outlet.

Lucien went to church at Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin every Sunday, giving

himself out as a devout Catholic, and he poured forth monarchical

and pious harangues which were a marvel to all. He also wrote some

exceedingly remarkable articles in papers devoted to the “Congregation,”

refusing to be paid for them, and signing them only with an “L.” He

produced political pamphlets when required by King Charles X. or the

High Almoner, and for these he would take no payment.

“The King,” he would say, “has done so much for me, that I owe him my

blood.”

For some days past there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to the

prime minister’s cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame d’Espard

brought so many persons into the field in opposition to Lucien, that

Charles X.’s _Maitre Jacques_ hesitated to clinch the matter. Nor was

Lucien’s position by any means clear; not only did the question, “What

does he live on?” on everybody’s lips as the young man rose in life,

require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity--as much as malevolent

curiosity--went on from one inquiry to another, and found more than one

joint in the ambitious youth’s harness.

Clotilde de Grandlieu unconsciously served as a spy for her father and

mother. A few days since she had led Lucien into a recess and told him

of the difficulties raised by her family.

“Invest a million francs in land, and my hand is yours: that is my

mother’s ultimatum,” Clotilde had explained.

“And presently they will ask you where you got the money,” said Carlos,

when Lucien reported this last word in the bargain.

“My brother-in-law will have made his fortune,” remarked Lucien; “we can

make him the responsible backer.”

“Then only the million is needed,” said Carlos. “I will think it over.”

To be exact as to Lucien’s position in the Hotel Grandlieu, he had never

dined there. Neither Clotilde, nor the Duchesse d’Uxelles, nor Madame de

Maufrigneuse, who was always extremely kind to Lucien, could ever

obtain this favor from the Duke, so persistently suspicious was the old

nobleman of the man that he designated as “le Sire de Rubempre.” This

shade of distinction, understood by every one who visited at the house,

constantly wounded Lucien’s self-respect, for he felt that he was no

more than tolerated. But the world is justified in being suspicious; it

is so often taken in!

To cut a figure in Paris with no known source of wealth and no

recognized employment is a position which can by no artifice be long

maintained. So Lucien, as he crept up in the world, gave more and more

weight to the question, “What does he live on?” He had been obliged

indeed to confess to Madame de Serizy, to whom he owed the patronage of

Monsieur Granville, the Public Prosecutor, and of the Comte Octave de

Bauvan, a Minister of State, and President of one of the Supreme Courts:

“I am dreadfully in debt.”

As he entered the courtyard of the mansion where he found an excuse

for all his vanities, he was saying to himself as he reflected on

_Trompe-la-Mort’s_ scheming:

“I can hear the ground cracking under my feet!”

He loved Esther, and he wanted to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu! A

strange dilemma! One must be sold to buy the other.

Only one person could effect this bargain without damage to Lucien’s

honor, and that was the supposed Spaniard. Were they not bound to be

equally secret, each for the other? Such a compact, in which each is in

turn master and slave, is not to be found twice in any one life.

Lucien drove away the clouds that darkened his brow, and walked into the

Grandlieu drawing-room gay and beaming. At this moment the windows were

open, the fragrance from the garden scented the room, the flower-basket

in the centre displayed its pyramid of flowers. The Duchess, seated on

a sofa in the corner, was talking to the Duchesse de Chaulieu. Several

women together formed a group remarkable for their various attitudes,

stamped with the different expression which each strove to give to an

affected sorrow. In the fashionable world nobody takes any interest in

grief or suffering; everything is talk. The men were walking up and

down the room or in the garden. Clotilde and Josephine were busy at

the tea-table. The Vidame de Pamiers, the Duc de Grandlieu, the Marquis

d’Ajuda-Pinto, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse were playing Wisk, as they

called it, in a corner of the room.

When Lucien was announced he walked across the room to make his bow to

the Duchess, asking the cause of the grief he could read in her face.

“Madame de Chaulieu has just had dreadful news; her son-in-law, the

Baron de Macumer, ex-duke of Soria, is just dead. The young Duc de Soria

and his wife, who had gone to Chantepleurs to nurse their brother, have

written this sad intelligence. Louise is heart-broken.”

“A women is not loved twice in her life as Louise was loved by her

husband,” said Madeleine de Mortsauf.

“She will be a rich widow,” observed the old Duchesse d’Uxelles, looking

at Lucien, whose face showed no change of expression.

“Poor Louise!” said Madame d’Espard. “I understand her and pity her.”

The Marquise d’Espard put on the pensive look of a woman full of soul

and feeling. Sabine de Grandlieu, who was but ten years old, raised

knowing eyes to her mother’s face, but the satirical glance was

repressed by a glance from the Duchess. This is bringing children up

properly.

“If my daughter lives through the shock,” said Madame de Chaulieu,

with a very maternal manner, “I shall be anxious about her future life.

Louise is so very romantic.”

“It is so difficult nowadays,” said a venerable Cardinal, “to reconcile

feeling with the proprieties.”

Lucien, who had not a word to say, went to the tea-table to do what was

polite to the demoiselles de Grandlieu. When the poet had gone a few

yards away, the Marquise d’Espard leaned over to whisper in the Duchess’

ear:

“And do you really think that that young fellow is so much in love with

your Clotilde?”

The perfidy of this question cannot be fully understood but with the

help of a sketch of Clotilde. That young lady was, at this moment,

standing up. Her attitude allowed the Marquise d’Espard’s mocking eye to

take in Clotilde’s lean, narrow figure, exactly like an asparagus stalk;

the poor girl’s bust was so flat that it did not allow of the artifice

known to dressmakers as _fichus menteurs_, or padded habitshirts. And

Clotilde, who knew that her name was a sufficient advantage in life, far

from trying to conceal this defect, heroically made a display of it. By

wearing plain, tight dresses she achieved the effect of that stiff prim

shape which medieval sculptors succeeded in giving to the statuettes

whose profiles are conspicuous against the background of the niches in

which they stand in cathedrals.

Clotilde was more than five feet four in height; if we may be allowed

to use a familiar phrase, which has the merit at any rate of being

perfectly intelligible--she was all legs. These defective proportions

gave her figure an almost deformed appearance. With a dark complexion,

harsh black hair, very thick eyebrows, fiery eyes, set in sockets that

were already deeply discolored, a side face shaped like the moon in

its first quarter, and a prominent brow, she was the caricature of her

mother, one of the handsomest women in Portugal. Nature amuses herself

with such tricks. Often we see in one family a sister of wonderful

beauty, whose features in her brother are absolutely hideous, though the

two are amazingly alike. Clotilde’s lips, excessively thin and sunken,

wore a permanent expression of disdain. And yet her mouth, better than

any other feature of her face, revealed every secret impulse of her

heart, for affection lent it a sweet expression, which was all the more

remarkable because her cheeks were too sallow for blushes, and her

hard, black eyes never told anything. Notwithstanding these defects,

notwithstanding her board-like carriage, she had by birth and education

a grand air, a proud demeanor, in short, everything that has been well

named le je ne sais quoi, due partly, perhaps, to her uncompromising

simplicity of dress, which stamped her as a woman of noble blood. She

dressed her hair to advantage, and it might be accounted to her for a

beauty, for it grew vigorously, thick and long.

She had cultivated her voice, and it could cast a spell; she sang

exquisitely. Clotilde was just the woman of whom one says, “She has fine

eyes,” or, “She has a delightful temper.” If any one addressed her in

the English fashion as “Your Grace,” she would say, “You mean ‘Your

leanness.’”

“Why should not my poor Clotilde have a lover?” replied the Duchess to

the Marquise. “Do you know what she said to me yesterday? ‘If I am

loved for ambition’s sake, I undertake to make him love me for my own

sake.’--She is clever and ambitious, and there are men who like those

two qualities. As for him--my dear, he is as handsome as a vision; and

if he can but repurchase the Rubempre estates, out of regard for us the

King will reinstate him in the title of Marquis.--After all, his mother

was the last of the Rubempres.”

“Poor fellow! where is he to find a million francs?” said the Marquise.

“That is no concern of ours,” replied the Duchess. “He is certainly

incapable of stealing the money.--Besides, we would never give Clotilde

to an intriguing or dishonest man even if he were handsome, young, and a

poet, like Monsieur de Rubempre.”

“You are late this evening,” said Clotilde, smiling at Lucien with

infinite graciousness.

“Yes, I have been dining out.”

“You have been quite gay these last few days,” said she, concealing her

jealousy and anxiety behind a smile.

“Quite gay?” replied Lucien. “No--only by the merest chance I have been

dining every day this week with bankers; to-day with the Nucingens,

yesterday with du Tillet, the day before with the Kellers----”

Whence, it may be seen, that Lucien had succeeded in assuming the tone

of light impertinence of great people.

“You have many enemies,” said Clotilde, offering him--how graciously!--a

cup of tea. “Some one told my father that you have debts to the amount

of sixty thousand francs, and that before long Sainte-Pelagie will be

your summer quarters.--If you could know what all these calumnies are to

me!--It all recoils on me.--I say nothing of my own suffering--my

father has a way of looking that crucifies me--but of what you must be

suffering if any least part of it should be the truth.”

“Do not let such nonsense worry you; love me as I love you, and give

me time--a few months----” said Lucien, replacing his empty cup on the

silver tray.

“Do not let my father see you; he would say something disagreeable; and

as you could not submit to that, we should be done for.--That odious

Marquise d’Espard told him that your mother had been a monthly nurse and

that your sister did ironing----”

“We were in the most abject poverty,” replied Lucien, the tears rising

to his eyes. “That is not calumny, but it is most ill-natured gossip. My

sister now is a more than millionaire, and my mother has been dead

two years.--This information has been kept in stock to use just when I

should be on the verge of success here----”

“But what have you done to Madame d’Espard?”

“I was so rash, at Madame de Serizy’s, as to tell the story, with some

added pleasantries, in the presence of MM. de Bauvan and de Granville,

of her attempt to get a commission of lunacy appointed to sit on her

husband, the Marquis d’Espard. Bianchon had told it to me. Monsieur de

Granville’s opinion, supported by those of Bauvan and Serizy, influenced

the decision of the Keeper of the Seals. They all were afraid of the

_Gazette des Tribunaux_, and dreaded the scandal, and the Marquise got

her knuckles rapped in the summing up for the judgment finally recorded

in that miserable business.

“Though M. de Serizy by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe,

I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte

Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I

stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their information

to be guessed at. The Marquis d’Espard was so clumsy as to call upon me,

regarding me as the first cause of his winning the day in that atrocious

suit.”

“I will rescue you from Madame d’Espard,” said Clotilde.

“How?” cried Lucien.

“My mother will ask the young d’Espards here; they are charming boys,

and growing up now. The father and sons will sing your praises, and then

we are sure never to see their mother again.”

“Oh, Clotilde, you are an angel! If I did not love you for yourself, I

should love you for being so clever.”

“It is not cleverness,” said she, all her love beaming on her lips.

“Goodnight. Do not come again for some few days. When you see me in

church, at Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin, with a pink scarf, my father will be in

a better temper.--You will find an answer stuck to the back of the chair

you are sitting in; it will comfort you perhaps for not seeing me. Put

the note you have brought under my handkerchief----”

This young person was evidently more than seven-and-twenty.

Lucien took a cab in the Rue de la Planche, got out of it on the

Boulevards, took another by the Madeleine, and desired the driver to

have the gates opened and drive in at the house in the Rue Taitbout.

On going in at eleven o’clock, he found Esther in tears, but dressed as

she was wont to dress to do him honor. She awaited her Lucien reclining

on a sofa covered with white satin brocaded with yellow flowers, dressed

in a bewitching wrapper of India muslin with cherry-colored bows;

without her stays, her hair simply twisted into a knot, her feet in

little velvet slippers lined with cherry-colored satin; all the candles

were burning, the hookah was prepared. But she had not smoked her own,

which stood beside her unlighted, emblematical of her loneliness. On

hearing the doors open she sprang up like a gazelle, and threw her arms

round Lucien, wrapping him like a web caught by the wind and flung about

a tree.

“Parted.--Is it true?”

“Oh, just for a few days,” replied Lucien.

Esther released him, and fell back on her divan like a dead thing.

In these circumstances, most women babble like parrots. Oh! how they

love! At the end of five years they feel as if their first happiness

were a thing of yesterday, they cannot give you up, they are magnificent

in their indignation, despair, love, grief, dread, dejection,

presentiments. In short, they are as sublime as a scene from

Shakespeare. But make no mistake! These women do not love. When they are

really all that they profess, when they love truly, they do as Esther

did, as children do, as true love does; Esther did not say a word, she

lay with her face buried in the pillows, shedding bitter tears.

Lucien, on his part, tried to lift her up, and spoke to her.

“But, my child, we are not to part. What, after four years of happiness,

is this the way you take a short absence.--What on earth do I do to all

these girls?” he added to himself, remembering that Coralie had loved

him thus.

“Ah, monsieur, you are so handsome,” said Europe.

The senses have their own ideal. When added to this fascinating beauty

we find the sweetness of nature, the poetry, that characterized Lucien,

it is easy to conceive of the mad passion roused in such women, keenly

alive as they are to external gifts, and artless in their admiration.

Esther was sobbing quietly, and lay in an attitude expressive of the

deepest distress.

“But, little goose,” said Lucien, “did you not understand that my life

is at stake?”

At these words, which he chose on purpose, Esther started up like a wild

animal, her hair fell, tumbling about her excited face like wreaths of

foliage. She looked steadily at Lucien.

“Your life?” she cried, throwing up her arms, and letting them drop with

a gesture known only to a courtesan in peril. “To be sure; that friend’s

note speaks of serious risk.”

She took a shabby scrap of paper out of her sash; then seeing Europe,

she said, “Leave us, my girl.”

When Europe had shut the door she went on--“Here, this is what he

writes,” and she handed to Lucien a note she had just received from

Carlos, which Lucien read aloud:--

“You must leave to-morrow at five in the morning; you will be

taken to a keeper’s lodge in the heart of the Forest of

Saint-Germain, where you will have a room on the first floor. Do

not quit that room till I give you leave; you will want for nothing.

The keeper and his wife are to be trusted. Do not write to Lucien.

Do not go to the window during daylight; but you may walk by night

with the keeper if you wish for exercise. Keep the carriage blinds

down on the way. Lucien’s life is at stake.

“Lucien will go to-night to bid you good-bye; burn this in his

presence.”

Lucien burned the note at once in the flame of a candle.

“Listen, my own Lucien,” said Esther, after hearing him read this letter

as a criminal hears the sentence of death; “I will not tell you that

I love you; it would be idiotic. For nearly five years it has been as

natural to me to love you as to breathe and live. From the first day

when my happiness began under the protection of that inscrutable being,

who placed me here as you place some little curious beast in a cage, I

have known that you must marry. Marriage is a necessary factor in your

career, and God preserve me from hindering the development of your

fortunes.

“That marriage will be my death. But I will not worry you; I will not

do as the common girls do who kill themselves by means of a brazier

of charcoal; I had enough of that once; twice raises your gorge, as

Mariette says. No, I will go a long way off, out of France. Asie

knows the secrets of her country; she will help me to die quietly. A

prick--whiff, it is all over!

“I ask but one thing, my dearest, and that is that you will not deceive

me. I have had my share of living. Since the day I first saw you, in

1824, till this day, I have known more happiness than can be put into

the lives of ten fortunate wives. So take me for what I am--a woman as

strong as I am weak. Say ‘I am going to be married.’ I will ask no more

of you than a fond farewell, and you shall never hear of me again.”

There was a moment’s silence after this explanation as sincere as her

action and tone were guileless.

“Is it that you are going to be married?” she repeated, looking into

Lucien’s blue eyes with one of her fascinating glances, as brilliant as

a steel blade.

“We have been toiling at my marriage for eighteen months past, and it is

not yet settled,” replied Lucien. “I do not know when it can be settled;

but it is not in question now, child!--It is the Abbe, I, you.--We are

in real peril. Nucingen saw you----”

“Yes, in the wood at Vincennes,” said she. “Did he recognize me?”

“No,” said Lucien. “But he has fallen so desperately in love with

you, that he would sacrifice his coffers. After dinner, when he

was describing how he had met you, I was so foolish as to smile

involuntarily, and most imprudently, for I live in a world like a savage

surrounded by the traps of a hostile tribe. Carlos, who spares me

the pains of thinking, regards the position as dangerous, and he has

undertaken to pay Nucingen out if the Baron takes it into his head

to spy on us; and he is quite capable of it; he spoke to me of the

incapacity of the police. You have lighted a flame in an old chimney

choked with soot.”

“And what does your Spaniard propose to do?” asked Esther very softly.

“I do not know in the least,” said Lucien; “he told me I might sleep

soundly and leave it to him;”--but he dared not look at Esther.

“If that is the case, I will obey him with the dog-like submission I

profess,” said Esther, putting her hand through Lucien’s arm and leading

him into her bedroom, saying, “At any rate, I hope you dined well, my

Lulu, at that detestable Baron’s?”

“Asie’s cooking prevents my ever thinking a dinner good, however famous

the chef may be, where I happen to dine. However, Careme did the dinner

to-night, as he does every Sunday.”

Lucien involuntarily compared Esther with Clotilde. The mistress was so

beautiful, so unfailingly charming, that she had as yet kept at arm’s

length the monster who devours the most perennial loves--Satiety.

“What a pity,” thought he, “to find one’s wife in two volumes. In

one--poetry, delight, love, devotion, beauty, sweetness----”

Esther was fussing about, as women do, before going to bed; she came and

went and fluttered round, singing all the time; you might have thought

her a humming-bird.

“In the other--a noble name, family, honors, rank, knowledge of the

world!--And no earthly means of combining them!” cried Lucien to

himself.

Next morning, at seven, when the poet awoke in the pretty pink-and-white

room, he found himself alone. He rang, and Europe hurried in.

“What are monsieur’s orders?”

“Esther?”

“Madame went off this morning at a quarter to five. By Monsieur l’Abbe’s

order, I admitted a new face--carriage paid.”

“A woman?”

“No, sir, an English woman--one of those people who do their day’s work

by night, and we are ordered to treat her as if she were madame. What

can you have to say to such hack!--Poor Madame, how she cried when she

got into the carriage. ‘Well, it has to be done!’ cried she. ‘I left

that poor dear boy asleep,’ said she, wiping away her tears; ‘Europe, if

he had looked at me or spoken my name, I should have stayed--I could but

have died with him.’--I tell you, sir, I am so fond of madame, that I

did not show her the person who has taken her place; some waiting maids

would have broken her heart by doing so.”

“And is the stranger there?”

“Well, sir, she came in the chaise that took away madame, and I hid her

in my room in obedience to my instructions----”

“Is she nice-looking?”

“So far as such a second-hand article can be. But she will find her part

easy enough if you play yours, sir,” said Europe, going to fetch the

false Esther.

The night before, ere going to bed, the all-powerful banker had given

his orders to his valet, who, at seven in the morning, brought in to him

the notorious Louchard, the most famous of the commercial police, whom

he left in a little sitting-room; there the Baron joined him, in a

dressing gown and slippers.

“You haf mate a fool of me!” he said, in reply to this official’s

greeting.

“I could not help myself, Monsieur le Baron. I do not want to lose my

place, and I had the honor of explaining to you that I could not meddle

in a matter that had nothing to do with my functions. What did I promise

you? To put you into communication with one of our agents, who, as it

seemed to me, would be best able to serve you. But you know, Monsieur le

Baron, the sharp lines that divide men of different trades: if you build

a house, you do not set a carpenter to do smith’s work. Well, there

are two branches of the police--the political police and the judicial

police. The political police never interfere with the other branch, and

vice versa. If you apply to the chief of the political police, he must

get permission from the Minister to take up our business, and you would

not dare to explain it to the head of the police throughout the kingdom.

A police-agent who should act on his own account would lose his place.

“Well, the ordinary police are quite as cautious as the political

police. So no one, whether in the Home Office or at the Prefecture of

Police, ever moves excepting in the interests of the State or for the

ends of Justice.

“If there is a plot or a crime to be followed up, then, indeed, the

heads of the corps are at your service; but you must understand,

Monsieur le Baron, that they have other fish to fry than looking after

the fifty thousand love affairs in Paris. As to me and my men, our only

business is to arrest debtors; and as soon as anything else is to be

done, we run enormous risks if we interfere with the peace and quiet of

any man or woman. I sent you one of my men, but I told you I could not

answer for him; you instructed him to find a particular woman in Paris;

Contenson bled you of a thousand-franc note, and did not even move. You

might as well look for a needle in the river as for a woman in Paris,

who is supposed to haunt Vincennes, and of whom the description answers

to every pretty woman in the capital.”

“And could not Contenson haf tolt me de truf, instead of making me pleed

out one tousand franc?”

“Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron,” said Louchard. “Will you give me a

thousand crowns? I will give you--sell you--a piece of advice?”

“Is it vort one tousand crowns--your atvice?” asked Nucingen.

“I am not to be caught, Monsieur le Baron,” answered Louchard. “You

are in love, you want to discover the object of your passion; you are

getting as yellow as a lettuce without water. Two physicians came to see

you yesterday, your man tells me, who think your life is in danger; now,

I alone can put you in the hands of a clever fellow.--But the deuce is

in it! If your life is not worth a thousand crowns----”

“Tell me de name of dat clefer fellow, and depent on my generosity----”

Louchard took up his hat, bowed, and left the room.

“Wat ein teufel!” cried Nucingen. “Come back--look here----”

“Take notice,” said Louchard, before taking the money, “I am only

selling a piece of information, pure and simple. I can give you the name

and address of the only man who is able to be of use to you--but he is a

master----”

“Get out mit you,” cried Nucingen. “Dere is not no name dat is vort one

tousant crown but dat von Varschild--and dat only ven it is sign at the

bottom of a bank-bill.--I shall gif you one tousant franc.”

Louchard, a little weasel, who had never been able to purchase an

office as lawyer, notary, clerk, or attorney, leered at the Baron in a

significant fashion.

“To you--a thousand crowns, or let it alone. You will get them back in a

few seconds on the Bourse,” said he.

“I will gif you one tousant franc,” repeated the Baron.

“You would cheapen a gold mine!” said Louchard, bowing and leaving.

“I shall get dat address for five hundert franc!” cried the Baron, who

desired his servant to send his secretary to him.

Turcaret is no more. In these days the smallest banker, like the

greatest, exercises his acumen in the smallest transactions; he bargains

over art, beneficence, and love; he would bargain with the Pope for a

dispensation. Thus, as he listened to Louchard, Nucingen had hastily

concluded that Contenson, Louchard’s right-hand man, must certainly

know the address of that master spy. Contenson would tell him for five

hundred francs what Louchard wanted to see a thousand crowns for.

The rapid calculation plainly proves that if the man’s heart was in

possession of love, his head was still that of the lynx stock-jobber.

“Go your own self, mensieur,” said the Baron to his secretary,

“to Contenson, dat spy of Louchart’s de bailiff man--but go in one

capriolette, very qvick, and pring him here qvick to me. I shall

vait.--Go out trough de garten.--Here is dat key, for no man shall see

dat man in here. You shall take him into dat little garten-house. Try to

do dat little business very clefer.”

Visitors called to see Nucingen on business; but he waited for

Contenson, he was dreaming of Esther, telling himself that before long

he would see again the woman who had aroused in him such unhoped-for

emotions, and he sent everybody away with vague replies and double-edged

promises. Contenson was to him the most important person in Paris, and

he looked out into the garden every minute. Finally, after giving orders

that no one else was to be admitted, he had his breakfast served in the

summer-house at one corner of the garden. In the banker’s office the

conduct and hesitancy of the most knowing, the most clearsighted, the

shrewdest of Paris financiers seemed inexplicable.

“What ails the chief?” said a stockbroker to one of the head-clerks.

“No one knows; they are anxious about his health, it would seem.

Yesterday, Madame la Baronne got Desplein and Bianchon to meet.”

One day, when Sir Isaac Newton was engaged in physicking one of his

dogs, named “Beauty” (who, as is well known, destroyed a vast amount of

work, and whom he reproved only in these words, “Ah! Beauty, you little

know the mischief you have done!”), some strangers called to see him;

but they at once retired, respecting the great man’s occupation. In

every more or less lofty life, there is a little dog “Beauty.” When the

Marechal de Richelieu came to pay his respects to Louis XV. after taking

Mahon, one of the greatest feats of arms of the eighteenth century,

the King said to him, “Have you heard the great news? Poor Lansmatt is

dead.”--Lansmatt was a gatekeeper in the secret of the King’s intrigues.

The bankers of Paris never knew how much they owed to Contenson. That

spy was the cause of Nucingen’s allowing an immense loan to be issued in

which his share was allotted to him, and which he gave over to them.

The stock-jobber could aim at a fortune any day with the artillery of

speculation, but the man was a slave to the hope of happiness.

The great banker drank some tea, and was nibbling at a slice of bread

and butter, as a man does whose teeth have for long been sharpened by

appetite, when he heard a carriage stop at the little garden gate. In a

few minutes his secretary brought in Contenson, whom he had run to earth

in a cafe not far from Sainte-Pelagie, where the man was breakfasting on

the strength of a bribe given to him by an imprisoned debtor for certain

allowances that must be paid for.

Contenson, you must know, was a whole poem--a Paris poem. Merely to

see him would have been enough to tell you that Beaumarchais’

_Figaro_, Moliere’s _Mascarille_, Marivaux’s _Frontin_, and Dancourt’s

_Lafleur_--those great representatives of audacious swindling, of

cunning driven to bay, of stratagem rising again from the ends of its

broken wires--were all quite second-rate by comparison with this giant

of cleverness and meanness. When in Paris you find a real type, he is no

longer a man, he is a spectacle; no longer a factor in life, but a whole

life, many lives.

Bake a plaster cast four times in a furnace, and you get a sort of

bastard imitation of Florentine bronze. Well, the thunderbolts of

numberless disasters, the pressure of terrible necessities, had bronzed

Contenson’s head, as though sweating in an oven had three times over

stained his skin. Closely-set wrinkles that could no longer be relaxed

made eternal furrows, whiter in their cracks. The yellow face was all

wrinkles. The bald skull, resembling Voltaire’s, was as parched as a

death’s-head, and but for a few hairs at the back it would have seemed

doubtful whether it was that of a living man. Under a rigid brow, a

pair of Chinese eyes, like those of an image under a glass shade in a

tea-shop--artificial eyes, which sham life but never vary--moved but

expressed nothing. The nose, as flat as that of a skull, sniffed at

fate; and the mouth, as thin-lipped as a miser’s, was always open, but

as expressionless as the grin of a letterbox.

Contenson, as apathetic as a savage, with sunburned hands, affected

that Diogenes-like indifference which can never bend to any formality of

respect.

And what a commentary on his life was written on his dress for any one

who can decipher a dress! Above all, what trousers! made, by long wear,

as black and shiny as the camlet of which lawyers’ gowns are made! A

waistcoat, bought in an old clothes shop in the Temple, with a deep

embroidered collar! A rusty black coat!--and everything well brushed,

clean after a fashion, and graced by a watch and an imitation gold

chain. Contenson allowed a triangle of shirt to show, with pleats in

which glittered a sham diamond pin; his black velvet stock set stiff

like a gorget, over which lay rolls of flesh as red as that of a

Caribbee. His silk hat was as glossy as satin, but the lining would have

yielded grease enough for two street lamps if some grocer had bought it

to boil down.

But to enumerate these accessories is nothing; if only I could give an

idea of the air of immense importance that Contenson contrived to impart

to them! There was something indescribably knowing in the collar of his

coat, and the fresh blacking on a pair of boots with gaping soles, to

which no language can do justice. However, to give some notion of this

medley of effect, it may be added that any man of intelligence would

have felt, only on seeing Contenson, that if instead of being a spy he

had been a thief, all these odds and ends, instead of raising a smile,

would have made one shudder with horror. Judging only from his dress,

the observer would have said to himself, “That is a scoundrel; he

gambles, he drinks, he is full of vices; but he does not get drunk, he

does not cheat, he is neither a thief nor a murderer.” And Contenson

remained inscrutable till the word spy suggested itself.

This man had followed as many unrecognized trades as there are

recognized ones. The sly smile on his lips, the twinkle of his green

eyes, the queer twitch of his snub nose, showed that he was not

deficient in humor. He had a face of sheet-tin, and his soul must

probably be like his face. Every movement of his countenance was a

grimace wrung from him by politeness rather than by any expression of

an inmost impulse. He would have been alarming if he had not seemed so

droll.

Contenson, one of the most curious products of the scum that rises to

the top of the seething Paris caldron, where everything ferments, prided

himself on being, above all things, a philosopher. He would say, without

any bitter feeling:

“I have great talents, but of what use are they? I might as well have

been an idiot.”

And he blamed himself instead of accusing mankind. Find, if you can,

many spies who have not had more venom about them than Contenson had.

“Circumstances are against me,” he would say to his chiefs. “We might be

fine crystal; we are but grains of sand, that is all.”

His indifference to dress had some sense. He cared no more about his

everyday clothes than an actor does; he excelled in disguising himself,

in “make-up”; he could have given Frederic Lemaitre a lesson, for he

could be a dandy when necessary. Formerly, in his younger days, he must

have mingled in the out-at-elbows society of people living on a humble

scale. He expressed excessive disgust for the criminal police corps;

for, under the Empire, he had belonged to Fouche’s police, and looked

upon him as a great man. Since the suppression of this Government

department, he had devoted his energies to the tracking of commercial

defaulters; but his well-known talents and acumen made him a valuable

auxiliary, and the unrecognized chiefs of the political police had kept

his name on their lists. Contenson, like his fellows, was only a super

in the dramas of which the leading parts were played by his chief when a

political investigation was in the wind.

“Go ‘vay,” said Nucingen, dismissing his secretary with a wave of the

hand.

“Why should this man live in a mansion and I in a lodging?” wondered

Contenson to himself. “He has dodged his creditors three times; he has

robbed them; I never stole a farthing; I am a cleverer fellow than he

is----”

“Contenson, mein freund,” said the Baron, “you haf vat you call pleed me

of one tousand-franc note.”

“My girl owed God and the devil----”

“Vat, you haf a girl, a mistress!” cried Nucingen, looking at Contenson

with admiration not unmixed with envy.

“I am but sixty-six,” replied Contenson, as a man whom vice has kept

young as a bad example.

“And vat do she do?”

“She helps me,” said Contenson. “When a man is a thief, and an honest

woman loves him, either she becomes a thief or he becomes an honest man.

I have always been a spy.”

“And you vant money--alvays?” asked Nucingen.

“Always,” said Contenson, with a smile. “It is part of my business

to want money, as it is yours to make it; we shall easily come to an

understanding. You find me a little, and I will undertake to spend it.

You shall be the well, and I the bucket.”

“Vould you like to haf one note for fife hundert franc?”

“What a question! But what a fool I am!--You do not offer it out of a

disinterested desire to repair the slights of Fortune?”

“Not at all. I gif it besides the one tousand-franc note vat you pleed

me off. Dat makes fifteen hundert franc vat I gif you.”

“Very good, you give me the thousand francs I have had and you will add

five hundred francs.”

“Yust so,” said Nucingen, nodding.