“MY FRIEND,--If the cook you have sent me had not already been in
my service, I might have thought that your purpose was to let me
know how often you had fainted yesterday on receiving my three
notes. (What can I say? I was very nervous that day; I was
thinking over the memories of my miserable existence.) But I know
how sincere Asie is. Still, I cannot repent of having caused you
so much pain, since it has availed to prove to me how much you
love me. This is how we are made, we luckless and despised
creatures; true affection touches us far more deeply than finding
ourselves the objects of lavish liberality. For my part, I have
always rather dreaded being a peg on which you would hang your
vanities. It annoyed me to be nothing else to you. Yes, in spite
of all your protestations, I fancied you regarded me merely as a
woman paid for.
“Well, you will now find me a good girl, but on condition of your
always obeying me a little.
“If this letter can in any way take the place of the doctor’s
prescription, prove it by coming to see me after the Bourse
closes. You will find me in full fig, dressed in your gifts, for I
am for life your pleasure-machine,
“ESTHER.”
At the Bourse the Baron de Nucingen was so gay, so cheerful, seemed so
easy-going, and allowed himself so many jests, that du Tillet and the
Kellers, who were on ‘change, could not help asking him the reason of
his high spirits.
“I am belofed. Ve shall soon gife dat house-varming,” he told du Tillet.
“And how much does it cost you?” asked Francois Keller rudely--it was
said that he had spent twenty-five thousand francs a year on Madame
Colleville.
“Dat voman is an anchel! She never has ask’ me for one sou.”
“They never do,” replied du Tillet. “And it is to avoid asking that they
have always aunts or mothers.”
Between the Bourse and the Rue Taitbout seven times did the Baron say to
his servant:
“You go so slow--vip de horse!”
He ran lightly upstairs, and for the first time he saw his mistress in
all the beauty of such women, who have no other occupation than the care
of their person and their dress. Just out of her bath the flower was
quite fresh, and perfumed so as to inspire desire in Robert d’Arbrissel.
Esther was in a charming toilette. A dress of black corded silk trimmed
with rose-colored gimp opened over a petticoat of gray satin, the
costume subsequently worn by Amigo, the handsome singer, in _I
Puritani_. A Honiton lace kerchief fell or floated over her shoulders.
The sleeves of her gown were strapped round with cording to divide the
puffs, which for some little time fashion has substituted for the large
sleeves which had grown too monstrous. Esther had fastened a Mechlin
lace cap on her magnificent hair with a pin, _a la folle_, as it is
called, ready to fall, but not really falling, giving her an appearance
of being tumbled and in disorder, though the white parting showed
plainly on her little head between the waves of her hair.
“Is it not a shame to see madame so lovely in a shabby drawing-room like
this?” said Europe to the Baron, as she admitted him.
“Vel, den, come to the Rue Saint-Georches,” said the Baron, coming to a
full stop like a dog marking a partridge. “The veather is splendit, ve
shall drife to the Champs Elysees, and Montame Saint-Estefe and Eugenie
shall carry dere all your clo’es an’ your linen, an’ ve shall dine in de
Rue Saint-Georches.”
“I will do whatever you please,” said Esther, “if only you will be so
kind as to call my cook Asie, and Eugenie Europe. I have given those
names to all the women who have served me ever since the first two. I do
not love change----”
“Asie, Europe!” echoed the Baron, laughing. “How ver’ droll you are.--You
hafe infentions.--I should hafe eaten many dinners before I should hafe
call’ a cook Asie.”
“It is our business to be droll,” said Esther. “Come, now, may not a
poor girl be fed by Asia and dressed by Europe when you live on the
whole world? It is a myth, I say; some women would devour the earth, I
only ask for half.--You see?”
“Vat a voman is Montame Saint-Estefe!” said the Baron to himself as he
admired Esther’s changed demeanor.
“Europe, my girl, I want my bonnet,” said Esther. “I must have a black
silk bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with lace.”
“Madame Thomas has not sent it home.--Come, Monsieur le Baron; quick,
off you go! Begin your functions as a man-of-all-work--that is to say,
of all pleasure! Happiness is burdensome. You have your carriage here,
go to Madame Thomas,” said Europe to the Baron. “Make your servant ask
for the bonnet for Madame van Bogseck.--And, above all,” she added in
his ear, “bring her the most beautiful bouquet to be had in Paris. It is
winter, so try to get tropical flowers.”
The Baron went downstairs and told his servants to go to “Montame
Thomas.”
The coachman drove to a famous pastrycook’s.
“She is a milliner, you damn’ idiot, and not a cake-shop!” cried the
Baron, who rushed off to Madame Prevot’s in the Palais-Royal, where he
had a bouquet made up for the price of ten louis, while his man went to
the great modiste.
A superficial observer, walking about Paris, wonders who the fools
can be that buy the fabulous flowers that grace the illustrious
bouquetiere’s shop window, and the choice products displayed by Chevet
of European fame--the only purveyor who can vie with the _Rocher de
Cancale_ in a real and delicious _Revue des deux Mondes_.
Well, every day in Paris a hundred or more passions a la Nucingen come
into being, and find expression in offering such rarities as queens dare
not purchase, presented, kneeling, to baggages who, to use Asie’s word,
like to cut a dash. But for these little details, a decent citizen would
be puzzled to conceive how a fortune melts in the hands of these women,
whose social function, in Fourier’s scheme, is perhaps to rectify the
disasters caused by avarice and cupidity. Such squandering is, no doubt,
to the social body what a prick of the lancet is to a plethoric subject.
In two months Nucingen had shed broadcast on trade more than two hundred
thousand francs.
By the time the old lover returned, darkness was falling; the bouquet
was no longer of any use. The hour for driving in the Champs-Elysees
in winter is between two and four. However, the carriage was of use to
convey Esther from the Rue Taitbout to the Rue Saint-Georges, where she
took possession of the “little palace.” Never before had Esther been the
object of such worship or such lavishness, and it amazed her; but, like
all royal ingrates, she took care to express no surprise.
When you go into St. Peter’s at Rome, to enable you to appreciate the
extent and height of this queen of cathedrals, you are shown the little
finger of a statue which looks of a natural size, and which measures
I know not how much. Descriptions have been so severely criticised,
necessary as they are to a history of manners, that I must here follow
the example of the Roman Cicerone. As they entered the dining-room,
the Baron could not resist asking Esther to feel the stuff of which the
window curtains were made, draped with magnificent fulness, lined with
white watered silk, and bordered with a gimp fit to trim a Portuguese
princess’ bodice. The material was silk brought from Canton, on which
Chinese patience had painted Oriental birds with a perfection only to
be seen in mediaeval illuminations, or in the Missal of Charles V., the
pride of the Imperial library at Vienna.
“It hafe cost two tousand franc’ an ell for a milord who brought it from
Intia----”
“It is very nice, charming,” said Esther. “How I shall enjoy drinking
champagne here; the froth will not get dirty here on a bare floor.”
“Oh! madame!” cried Europe, “only look at the carpet!”
“Dis carpet hafe been made for de Duc de Torlonia, a frient of mine,
who fount it too dear, so I took it for you who are my qveen,” said
Nucingen.
By chance this carpet, by one of our cleverest designers, matched
with the whimsicalities of the Chinese curtains. The walls, painted
by Schinner and Leon de Lora, represented voluptuous scenes, in carved
ebony frames, purchased for their weight in gold from Dusommerard, and
forming panels with a narrow line of gold that coyly caught the light.
From this you may judge of the rest.
“You did well to bring me here,” said Esther. “It will take me a week to
get used to my home and not to look like a parvenu in it----”
“_My_ home! Den you shall accept it?” cried the Baron in glee.
“Why, of course, and a thousand times of course, stupid animal,” said
she, smiling.
“Animal vas enough----”
“Stupid is a term of endearment,” said she, looking at him.
The poor man took Esther’s hand and pressed it to his heart. He was
animal enough to feel, but too stupid to find words.
“Feel how it beats--for ein little tender vort----”
And he conducted his goddess to her room.
“Oh, madame, I cannot stay here!” cried Eugenie. “It makes me long to go
to bed.”
“Well,” said Esther, “I mean to please the magician who has worked all
these wonders.--Listen, my fat elephant, after dinner we will go to the
play together. I am starving to see a play.”
It was just five years since Esther had been to a theatre. All Paris
was rushing at that time to the Porte-Saint-Martin, to see one of those
pieces to which the power of the actors lends a terrible expression of
reality, _Richard Darlington_. Like all ingenuous natures, Esther loved
to feel the thrills of fear as much as to yield to tears of pathos.
“Let us go to see Frederick Lemaitre,” said she; “he is an actor I
adore.”
“It is a horrible piece,” said Nucingen foreseeing the moment when he
must show himself in public.
He sent his servant to secure one of the two stage-boxes on the grand
tier.--And this is another strange feature of Paris. Whenever success,
on feet of clay, fills a house, there is always a stage-box to be
had ten minutes before the curtain rises. The managers keep it for
themselves, unless it happens to be taken for a passion a la Nucingen.
This box, like Chevet’s dainties, is a tax levied on the whims of the
Parisian Olympus.
It would be superfluous to describe the plate and china. Nucingen had
provided three services of plate--common, medium, and best; and the
best--plates, dishes, and all, was of chased silver gilt. The banker,
to avoid overloading the table with gold and silver, had completed the
array of each service with porcelain of exquisite fragility in the
style of Dresden china, which had cost more than the plate. As to the
linen--Saxony, England, Flanders, and France vied in the perfection of
flowered damask.
At dinner it was the Baron’s turn to be amazed on tasting Asie’s
cookery.
“I understant,” said he, “vy you call her Asie; dis is Asiatic cooking.”
“I begin to think he loves me,” said Esther to Europe; “he has said
something almost like a _bon mot_.”
“I said many vorts,” said he.
“Well! he is more like Turcaret than I had heard he was!” cried the
girl, laughing at this reply, worthy of the many artless speeches for
which the banker was famous.
The dishes were so highly spiced as to give the Baron an indigestion, on
purpose that he might go home early; so this was all he got in the way
of pleasure out of his first evening with Esther. At the theatre he was
obliged to drink an immense number of glasses of eau sucree, leaving
Esther alone between the acts.
By a coincidence so probable that it can scarcely be called chance,
Tullia, Mariette, and Madame du Val-Noble were at the play that
evening. _Richard Darlington_ enjoyed a wild success--and a deserved
success--such as is seen only in Paris. The men who saw this play all
came to the conclusion that a lawful wife might be thrown out of window,
and the wives loved to see themselves unjustly persecuted.
The women said to each other: “This is too much! we are driven to
it--but it often happens!”
Now a woman as beautiful as Esther, and dressed as Esther was, could not
show off with impunity in a stage-box at the Porte-Saint-Martin. And so,
during the second act, there was quite a commotion in the box where
the two dancers were sitting, caused by the undoubted identity of the
unknown fair one with La Torpille.
“Heyday! where has she dropped from?” said Mariette to Madame du
Val-Noble. “I thought she was drowned.”
“But is it she? She looks to me thirty-seven times younger and handsomer
than she was six years ago.”
“Perhaps she has preserved herself in ice like Madame d’Espard and
Madame Zayonchek,” said the Comte de Brambourg, who had brought the
three women to the play, to a pit-tier box. “Isn’t she the ‘rat’ you
meant to send me to hocus my uncle?” said he, addressing Tullia.
“The very same,” said the singer. “Du Bruel, go down to the stalls and
see if it is she.”
“What brass she has got!” exclaimed Madame du Val-Noble, using an
expressive but vulgar phrase.
“Oh!” said the Comte de Brambourg, “she very well may. She is with my
friend the Baron de Nucingen--I will go----”
“Is that the immaculate Joan of Arc who has taken Nucingen by storm, and
who has been talked of till we are all sick of her, these three months
past?” asked Mariette.
“Good-evening, my dear Baron,” said Philippe Bridau, as he went
into Nucingen’s box. “So here you are, married to Mademoiselle
Esther.--Mademoiselle, I am an old officer whom you once on a time were
to have got out of a scrape--at Issoudun--Philippe Bridau----”
“I know nothing of it,” said Esther, looking round the house through her
opera-glasses.
“Dis lady,” said the Baron, “is no longer known as ‘Esther’ so short!
She is called Montame de Champy--ein little estate vat I have bought for
her----”
“Though you do things in such style,” said the Comte, “these ladies are
saying that Madame de Champy gives herself too great airs.--If you do
not choose to remember me, will you condescend to recognize Mariette,
Tullia, Madame du Val-Noble?” the parvenu went on--a man for whom the
Duc de Maufrigneuse had won the Dauphin’s favor.
“If these ladies are kind to me, I am willing to make myself pleasant to
them,” replied Madame de Champy drily.
“Kind! Why, they are excellent; they have named you Joan of Arc,”
replied Philippe.
“Vell den, if dese ladies vill keep you company,” said Nucingen, “I
shall go ‘vay, for I hafe eaten too much. Your carriage shall come for
you and your people.--Dat teufel Asie!”
“The first time, and you leave me alone!” said Esther. “Come, come, you
must have courage enough to die on deck. I must have my man with me as I
go out. If I were insulted, am I to cry out for nothing?”
The old millionaire’s selfishness had to give way to his duties as a
lover. The Baron suffered but stayed.
Esther had her own reasons for detaining “her man.” If she admitted her
acquaintance, she would be less closely questioned in his presence than
if she were alone. Philippe Bridau hurried back to the box where the
dancers were sitting, and informed them of the state of affairs.
“Oh! so it is she who has fallen heir to my house in the Rue
Saint-Georges,” observed Madame du Val-Noble with some bitterness; for
she, as she phrased it, was on the loose.
“Most likely,” said the Colonel. “Du Tillet told me that the Baron had
spent three times as much there as your poor Falleix.”
“Let us go round to her box,” said Tullia.
“Not if I know it,” said Mariette; “she is much too handsome, I will
call on her at home.”
“I think myself good-looking enough to risk it,” remarked Tullia.
So the much-daring leading dancer went round between the acts and
renewed acquaintance with Esther, who would talk only on general
subjects.
“And where have you come back from, my dear child?” asked Tullia, who
could not restrain her curiosity.
“Oh, I was for five years in a castle in the Alps with an Englishman, as
jealous as a tiger, a nabob; I called him a nabot, a dwarf, for he was
not so big as le bailli de Ferrette.
“And then I came across a banker--from a savage to salvation, as Florine
might say. And now here I am in Paris again; I long so for amusement
that I mean to have a rare time. I shall keep open house. I have five
years of solitary confinement to make good, and I am beginning to do
it. Five years of an Englishman is rather too much; six weeks are the
allowance according to the advertisements.”
“Was it the Baron who gave you that lace?”
“No, it is a relic of the nabob.--What ill-luck I have, my dear! He was
as yellow as a friend’s smile at a success; I thought he would be dead
in ten months. Pooh! he was a strong as a mountain. Always distrust men
who say they have a liver complaint. I will never listen to a man who
talks of his liver.--I have had too much of livers--who cannot die. My
nabob robbed me; he died without making a will, and the family turned me
out of doors like a leper.--So, then, I said to my fat friend here, ‘Pay
for two!’--You may as well call me Joan of Arc; I have ruined England,
and perhaps I shall die at the stake----”
“Of love?” said Tullia.
“And burnt alive,” answered Esther, and the question made her
thoughtful.
The Baron laughed at all this vulgar nonsense, but he did not always
follow it readily, so that his laughter sounded like the forgotten
crackers that go off after fireworks.
We all live in a sphere of some kind, and the inhabitants of every
sphere are endowed with an equal share of curiosity.
Next evening at the opera, Esther’s reappearance was the great news
behind the scenes. Between two and four in the afternoon all Paris in
the Champs-Elysees had recognized La Torpille, and knew at last who was
the object of the Baron de Nucingen’s passion.
“Do you know,” Blondet remarked to de Marsay in the greenroom at the
opera-house, “that La Torpille vanished the very day after the evening
when we saw her here and recognized her in little Rubempre’s mistress.”
In Paris, as in the provinces, everything is known. The police of the
Rue de Jerusalem are not so efficient as the world itself, for every
one is a spy on every one else, though unconsciously. Carlos had fully
understood the danger of Lucien’s position during and after the episode
of the Rue Taitbout.
No position can be more dreadful than that in which Madame du Val-Noble
now found herself; and the phrase to be on the loose, or, as the
French say, left on foot, expresses it perfectly. The recklessness and
extravagance of these women precludes all care for the future. In that
strange world, far more witty and amusing than might be supposed, only
such women as are not gifted with that perfect beauty which time can
hardly impair, and which is quite unmistakable--only such women, in
short, as can be loved merely as a fancy, ever think of old age and save
a fortune. The handsomer they are, the more improvident they are.
“Are you afraid of growing ugly that you are saving money?” was a speech
of Florine’s to Mariette, which may give a clue to one cause of this
thriftlessness.
Thus, if a speculator kills himself, or a spendthrift comes to the
end of his resources, these women fall with hideous promptitude from
audacious wealth to the utmost misery. They throw themselves into the
clutches of the old-clothes buyer, and sell exquisite jewels for a mere
song; they run into debt, expressly to keep up a spurious luxury, in the
hope of recovering what they have lost--a cash-box to draw upon.
These ups and downs of their career account for the costliness of such
connections, generally brought about as Asie had hooked (another word of
her vocabulary) Nucingen for Esther.
And so those who know their Paris are quite aware of the state
of affairs when, in the Champs-Elysees--that bustling and mongrel
bazaar--they meet some woman in a hired fly whom six months or a year
before they had seen in a magnificent and dazzling carriage, turned out
in the most luxurious style.
“If you fall on Sainte-Pelagie, you must contrive to rebound on the
Bois de Boulogne,” said Florine, laughing with Blondet over the little
Vicomte de Portenduere.
Some clever women never run the risk of this contrast. They bury
themselves in horrible furnished lodgings, where they expiate their
extravagance by such privations as are endured by travelers lost in a
Sahara; but they never take the smallest fancy for economy. They venture
forth to masked balls; they take journeys into the provinces; they turn
out well dressed on the boulevards when the weather is fine. And then
they find in each other the devoted kindness which is known only among
proscribed races. It costs a woman in luck no effort to bestow some
help, for she says to herself, “I may be in the same plight by Sunday!”
However, the most efficient protector still is the purchaser of dress.
When this greedy money-lender finds herself the creditor, she stirs
and works on the hearts of all the old men she knows in favor of the
mortgaged creature in thin boots and a fine bonnet.
In this way Madame du Val-Noble, unable to foresee the downfall of one
of the richest and cleverest of stockbrokers, was left quite unprepared.
She had spent Falleix’s money on her whims, and trusted to him for all
necessaries and to provide for the future.
“How could I have expected such a thing in a man who seemed such a good
fellow?”
In almost every class of society the good fellow is an open-handed man,
who will lend a few crowns now and again without expecting them back,
who always behaves in accordance with a certain code of delicate feeling
above mere vulgar, obligatory, and commonplace morality. Certain men,
regarded as virtuous and honest, have, like Nucingen, ruined their
benefactors; and certain others, who have been through a criminal court,
have an ingenious kind of honesty towards women. Perfect virtue, the
dream of Moliere, an Alceste, is exceedingly rare; still, it is to be
found everywhere, even in Paris. The “good fellow” is the product of a
certain facility of nature which proves nothing. A man is a good fellow,
as a cat is silky, as a slipper is made to slip on to the foot. And so,
in the meaning given to the word by a kept woman, Falleix ought to have
warned his mistress of his approaching bankruptcy and have given her
enough to live upon.
D’Estourny, the dashing swindler, was a good fellow; he cheated at
cards, but he had set aside thirty thousand francs for his mistress. And
at carnival suppers women would retort on his accusers: “No matter.
You may say what you like, Georges was a good fellow; he had charming
manners, he deserved a better fate.”
These girls laugh laws to scorn, and adore a certain kind of generosity;
they sell themselves, as Esther had done, for a secret ideal, which is
their religion.
After saving a few jewels from the wreck with great difficulty, Madame
du Val-Noble was crushed under the burden of the horrible report: “She
ruined Falleix.” She was almost thirty; and though she was in the prime
of her beauty, still she might be called an old woman, and all the
more so because in such a crisis all a woman’s rivals are against her.
Mariette, Florine, Tullia would ask their friend to dinner, and gave her
some help; but as they did not know the extent of her debts, they did
not dare to sound the depths of that gulf. An interval of six years
formed rather too long a gap in the ebb and flow of the Paris tide,
between La Torpille and Madame du Val-Noble, for the woman “on foot” to
speak to the woman in her carriage; but La Val-Noble knew that Esther
was too generous not to remember sometimes that she had, as she said,
fallen heir to her possessions, and not to seek her out by some meeting
which might seem accidental though arranged. To bring about such an
accident, Madame du Val-Noble, dressed in the most lady-like way, walked
out every day in the Champs-Elysees on the arm of Theodore Gaillard, who
afterwards married her, and who, in these straits, behaved very well to
his former mistress, giving her boxes at the play, and inviting her to
every spree. She flattered herself that Esther, driving out one fine
day, would meet her face to face.
Esther’s coachman was Paccard--for her household had been made up in
five days by Asie, Europe, and Paccard under Carlos’ instructions, and
in such a way that the house in the Rue Saint-Georges was an impregnable
fortress.
Peyrade, on his part, prompted by deep hatred, by the thirst for
vengeance, and, above all, by his wish to see his darling Lydie married,
made the Champs-Elysees the end of his walks as soon as he heard from
Contenson that Monsieur de Nucingen’s mistress might be seen there.
Peyrade could dress so exactly like an Englishman, and spoke French so
perfectly with the mincing accent that the English give the language; he
knew England itself so well, and was so familiar with all the customs of
the country, having been sent to England by the police authorities three
times between 1779 and 1786, that he could play his part in London and
at ambassadors’ residences without awaking suspicion. Peyrade, who had
some resemblance to Musson the famous juggler, could disguise himself so
effectually that once Contenson did not recognize him.
Followed by Contenson dressed as a mulatto, Peyrade examined Esther and
her servants with an eye which, seeming heedless, took everything in.
Hence it quite naturally happened that in the side alley where the
carriage-company walk in fine dry weather, he was on the spot one day
when Esther met Madame du Val-Noble. Peyrade, his mulatto in livery
at his heels, was airing himself quite naturally, like a nabob who is
thinking of no one but himself, in a line with the two women, so as to
catch a few words of their conversation.
“Well, my dear child,” said Esther to Madame du Val-Noble, “come and see
me. Nucingen owes it to himself not to leave his stockbroker’s mistress
without a sou----”
“All the more so because it is said that he ruined Falleix,” remarked
Theodore Gaillard, “and that we have every right to squeeze him.”
“He dines with me to-morrow,” said Esther; “come and meet him.” Then she
added in an undertone:
“I can do what I like with him, and as yet he has not that!” and she put
the nail of a gloved finger under the prettiest of her teeth with the
click that is familiarly known to express with peculiar energy: “Just
nothing.”
“You have him safe----”
“My dear, as yet he has only paid my debts.”
“How mean!” cried Suzanne du Val-Noble.
“Oh!” said Esther, “I had debts enough to frighten a minister of
finance. Now, I mean to have thirty thousand a year before the first
stroke of midnight. Oh! he is excellent, I have nothing to complain
of. He does it well.--In a week we give a house-warming; you must
come.--That morning he is to make me a present of the lease of the house
in the Rue Saint-Georges. In decency, it is impossible to live in such
a house on less than thirty thousand francs a year--of my own, so as to
have them safe in case of accident. I have known poverty, and I want
no more of it. There are certain acquaintances one has had enough of at
once.”
“And you, who used to say, ‘My face is my fortune!’--How you have
changed!” exclaimed Suzanne.
“It is the air of Switzerland; you grow thrifty there.--Look here; go
there yourself, my dear! Catch a Swiss, and you may perhaps catch a
husband, for they have not yet learned what such women as we are can be.
And, at any rate, you may come back with a passion for investments in
the funds--a most respectable and elegant passion!--Good-bye.”
Esther got into her carriage again, a handsome carriage drawn by the
finest pair of dappled gray horses at that time to be seen in Paris.
“The woman who is getting into the carriage is handsome,” said Peyrade
to Contenson, “but I like the one who is walking best; follow her, and
find out who she is.”
“That is what that Englishman has just remarked in English,” said
Theodore Gaillard, repeating Peyrade’s remark to Madame du Val-Noble.
Before making this speech in English, Peyrade had uttered a word or
two in that language, which had made Theodore look up in a way that
convinced him that the journalist understood English.
Madame du Val-Noble very slowly made her way home to very decent
furnished rooms in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, glancing round now and then
to see if the mulatto were following her.
This establishment was kept by a certain Madame Gerard, whom Suzanne
had obliged in the days of her splendor, and who showed her gratitude
by giving her a suitable home. This good soul, an honest and virtuous
citizen, even pious, looked on the courtesan as a woman of a superior
order; she had always seen her in the midst of luxury, and thought of
her as a fallen queen; she trusted her daughters with her; and--which
is a fact more natural than might be supposed--the courtesan was as
scrupulously careful in taking them to the play as their mother
could have been, and the two Gerard girls loved her. The worthy, kind
lodging-house keeper was like those sublime priests who see in these
outlawed women only a creature to be saved and loved.
Madame du Val-Noble respected this worth; and often, as she chatted with
the good woman, she envied her while bewailing her own ill-fortune.
“Your are still handsome; you may make a good end yet,” Madame Gerard
would say.
But, indeed, Madame du Val-Noble was only relatively impoverished. This
woman’s wardrobe, so extravagant and elegant, was still sufficiently
well furnished to allow of her appearing on occasion--as on that evening
at the Porte-Saint-Martin to see _Richard Darlington_--in much splendor.
And Madame Gerard would most good-naturedly pay for the cabs needed by
the lady “on foot” to go out to dine, or to the play, and to come home
again.
“Well, dear Madame Gerard,” said she to this worthy mother, “my luck is
about to change, I believe.”
“Well, well, madame, so much the better. But be prudent; do not run into
debt any more. I have such difficulty in getting rid of the people who
are hunting for you.”
“Oh, never worry yourself about those hounds! They have all made no end
of money out of me.--Here are some tickets for the Varietes for your
girls--a good box on the second tier. If any one should ask for me this
evening before I come in, show them up all the same. Adele, my old maid,
will be here; I will send her round.”
Madame du Val-Noble, having neither mother nor aunt, was obliged to
have recourse to her maid--equally on foot--to play the part of a
Saint-Esteve with the unknown follower whose conquest was to enable her
to rise again in the world. She went to dine with Theodore Gaillard,
who, as it happened, had a spree on that day, that is to say, a dinner
given by Nathan in payment of a bet he had lost, one of those orgies
when a man says to his guests, “You can bring a woman.”
It was not without strong reasons that Peyrade had made up his mind to
rush in person on to the field of this intrigue. At the same time, his
curiosity, like Corentin’s, was so keenly excited, that, even in the
absence of reasons, he would have tried to play a part in the drama.
At this moment Charles X.’s policy had completed its last evolution.
After confiding the helm of State to Ministers of his own choosing, the
King was preparing to conquer Algiers, and to utilize the glory that
should accrue as a passport to what has been called his _Coup d’Etat_.
There were no more conspiracies at home; Charles X. believed he had no
domestic enemies. But in politics, as at sea, a calm may be deceptive.
Thus Corentin had lapsed into total idleness. In such a case a true
sportsman, to keep his hand in, for lack of larks kills sparrows.
Domitian, we know, for lack of Christians, killed flies. Contenson,
having witnessed Esther’s arrest, had, with the keen instinct of a spy,
fully understood the upshot of the business. The rascal, as we have
seen, did not attempt to conceal his opinion of the Baron de Nucingen.
“Who is benefiting by making the banker pay so dear for his passion?”
was the first question the allies asked each other. Recognizing Asie as
a leader in the piece, Contenson hoped to find out the author through
her; but she slipped through his fingers again and again, hiding like
an eel in the mud of Paris; and when he found her again as the cook
in Esther’s establishment, it seemed to him inexplicable that the
half-caste woman should have had a finger in the pie. Thus, for the
first time, these two artistic spies had come on a text that they could
not decipher, while suspecting a dark plot to the story.
After three bold attempts on the house in the Rue Taitbout, Contenson
still met with absolute dumbness. So long as Esther dwelt there the
lodge porter seemed to live in mortal terror. Asie had, perhaps,
promised poisoned meat-balls to all the family in the event of any
indiscretion.
On the day after Esther’s removal, Contenson found this man rather
more amenable; he regretted the lady, he said, who had fed him with the
broken dishes from her table. Contenson, disguised as a broker, tried to
bargain for the rooms, and listened to the porter’s lamentations while
he fooled him, casting a doubt on all the man said by a questioning
“Really?”
“Yes, monsieur, the lady lived here for five years without ever going
out, and more by token, her lover, desperately jealous though she was
beyond reproach, took the greatest precautions when he came in or went
out. And a very handsome young man he was too!”
Lucien was at this time still staying with his sister, Madame Sechard;
but as soon as he returned, Contenson sent the porter to the Quai
Malaquais to ask Monsieur de Rubempre whether he were willing to part
with the furniture left in the rooms lately occupied by Madame van
Bogseck. The porter then recognized Lucien as the young widow’s
mysterious lover, and this was all that Contenson wanted. The deep but
suppressed astonishment may be imagined with which Lucien and Carlos
received the porter, whom they affected to regard as a madman; they
tried to upset his convictions.
Within twenty-four hours Carlos had organized a force which detected
Contenson red-handed in the act of espionage. Contenson, disguised as a
market-porter, had twice already brought home the provisions purchased
in the morning by Asie, and had twice got into the little mansion in the
Rue Saint-Georges. Corentin, on his part, was making a stir; but he was
stopped short by recognizing the certain identity of Carlos Herrera; for
he learned at once that this Abbe, the secret envoy of Ferdinand VII.,
had come to Paris towards the end of 1823. Still, Corentin thought it
worth while to study the reasons which had led the Spaniard to take an
interest in Lucien de Rubempre. It was soon clear to him, beyond
doubt, that Esther had for five years been Lucien’s mistress; so the
substitution of the Englishwoman had been effected for the advantage of
that young dandy.
Now Lucien had no means; he was rejected as a suitor for Mademoiselle de
Grandlieu; and he had just bought up the lands of Rubempre at the cost
of a million francs.
Corentin very skilfully made the head of the General Police take the
first steps; and the Prefet de Police a propos to Peyrade, informed his
chief that the appellants in that affair had been in fact the Comte de
Serizy and Lucien de Rubempre.
“We have it!” cried Peyrade and Corentin.
The two friends had laid plans in a moment.
“This hussy,” said Corentin, “has had intimacies; she must have some
women friends. Among them we shall certainly find one or another who is
down on her luck; one of us must play the part of a rich foreigner and
take her up. We will throw them together. They always want something of
each other in the game of lovers, and we shall then be in the citadel.”
Peyrade naturally proposed to assume his disguise as an Englishman.
The wild life he should lead during the time that he would take to
disentangle the plot of which he had been the victim, smiled on his
fancy; while Corentin, grown old in his functions, and weakly too,
did not care for it. Disguised as a mulatto, Contenson at once evaded
Carlos’ force. Just three days before Peyrade’s meeting with Madame du
Val-Noble in the Champs-Elysees, this last of the agents employed by
MM. de Sartine and Lenoir had arrived, provided with a passport, at the
Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de la Paix, having come from the Colonies via le
Havre, in a traveling chaise, as mud-splashed as though it had really
come from le Havre, instead of no further than by the road from
Saint-Denis to Paris.
Carlos Herrera, on his part, had his passport _vise_ at the Spanish
Embassy, and arranged everything at the Quai Malaquais to start for
Madrid. And this is why. Within a few days Esther was to become the
owner of the house in the Rue Saint-Georges and of shares yielding
thirty thousand francs a year; Europe and Asie were quite cunning enough
to persuade her to sell these shares and privately transmit the money
to Lucien. Thus Lucien, proclaiming himself rich through his sister’s
liberality, would pay the remainder of the price of the Rubempre
estates. Of this transaction no one could complain. Esther alone could
betray herself; but she would die rather than blink an eyelash.
Clotilde had appeared with a little pink kerchief round her crane’s
neck, so she had won her game at the Hotel de Grandlieu. The shares
in the Omnibus Company were already worth thrice their initial value.
Carlos, by disappearing for a few days, would put malice off the scent.
Human prudence had foreseen everything; no error was possible. The false
Spaniard was to start on the morrow of the day when Peyrade met Madame
du Val-Noble. But that very night, at two in the morning, Asie came in
a cab to the Quai Malaquais, and found the stoker of the machine smoking
in his room, and reconsidering all the points of the situation here
stated in a few words, like an author going over a page in his book to
discover any faults to be corrected. Such a man would not allow himself
a second time such an oversight as that of the porter in the Rue
Taitbout.
“Paccard,” whispered Asie in her master’s ear, “recognized Contenson
yesterday, at half-past two, in the Champs-Elysees, disguised as a
mulatto servant to an Englishman, who for the last three days has been
seen walking in the Champs-Elysees, watching Esther. Paccard knew the
hound by his eyes, as I did when he dressed up as a market-porter.
Paccard drove the girl home, taking a round so as not to lose sight of
the wretch. Contenson is at the Hotel Mirabeau; but he exchanged so many
signs of intelligence with the Englishman, that Paccard says the other
cannot possibly be an Englishman.”
“We have a gadfly behind us,” said Carlos. “I will not leave till the
day after to-morrow. That Contenson is certainly the man who sent the
porter after us from the Rue Taitbout; we must ascertain whether this
sham Englishman is our foe.”
At noon Mr. Samuel Johnson’s black servant was solemnly waiting on his
master, who always breakfasted too heartily, with a purpose. Peyrade
wished to pass for a tippling Englishman; he never went out till he was
half-seas over. He wore black cloth gaiters up to his knees, and padded
to make his legs look stouter; his trousers were lined with the thickest
fustian; his waistcoat was buttoned up to his cheeks; a red scratch
wig hid half his forehead, and he had added nearly three inches to his
height; in short, the oldest frequenter of the Cafe David could not have
recognized him. From his squarecut coat of black cloth with full skirts
he might have been taken for an English millionaire.
Contenson made a show of the cold insolence of a nabob’s confidential
servant; he was taciturn, abrupt, scornful, and uncommunicative, and
indulged in fierce exclamations and uncouth gestures.
Peyrade was finishing his second bottle when one of the hotel waiters
unceremoniously showed in a man in whom Peyrade and Contenson both at
once discerned a gendarme in mufti.
“Monsieur Peyrade,” said the gendarme to the nabob, speaking in his ear,
“my instructions are to take you to the Prefecture.”
Peyrade, without saying a word, rose and took down his hat.
“You will find a hackney coach at the door,” said the man as they went
downstairs. “The Prefet thought of arresting you, but he decided on
sending for you to ask some explanation of your conduct through the
peace-officer whom you will find in the coach.”
“Shall I ride with you?” asked the gendarme of the peace-officer when
Peyrade had got in.
“No,” replied the other; “tell the coachman quietly to drive to the
Prefecture.”
Peyrade and Carlos were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a
stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust,
quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or being
surprised, on arriving at his journey’s end, to find a dead body in
his cab. No inquiries are ever made about a spy. The law almost always
leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the rights of
the case.
Peyrade looked with his keenest eye at the magistrate sent to examine
him by the Prefet of Police. Carlos struck him as satisfactory: a bald
head, deeply wrinkled at the back, and powdered hair; a pair of very
light gold spectacles, with double-green glasses over weak eyes, with
red rims, evidently needing care. These eyes seemed the trace of some
squalid malady. A cotton shirt with a flat-pleated frill, a shabby
black satin waistcoat, the trousers of a man of law, black spun silk
stockings, and shoes tied with ribbon; a long black overcoat, cheap
gloves, black, and worn for ten days, and a gold watch-chain--in every
point the lower grade of magistrate known by a perversion of terms as a
peace-officer.
“My dear Monsieur Peyrade, I regret to find such a man as you the object
of surveillance, and that you should act so as to justify it. Your
disguise is not to the Prefet’s taste. If you fancy that you can thus
escape our vigilance, you are mistaken. You traveled from England by way
of Beaumont-sur-Oise, no doubt.”
“Beaumont-sur-Oise?” repeated Peyrade.
“Or by Saint-Denis?” said the sham lawyer.
Peyrade lost his presence of mind. The question must be answered. Now
any reply might be dangerous. In the affirmative it was farcical; in the
negative, if this man knew the truth, it would be Peyrade’s ruin.
“He is a sharp fellow,” thought he.
He tried to look at the man and smile, and he gave him a smile for an
answer; the smile passed muster without protest.
“For what purpose have you disguised yourself, taken rooms at the
Mirabeau, and dressed Contenson as a black servant?” asked the
peace-officer.
“Monsieur le Prefet may do what he chooses with me, but I owe no account
of my actions to any one but my chief,” said Peyrade with dignity.
“If you mean me to infer that you are acting by the orders of the
General Police,” said the other coldly, “we will change our route, and
drive to the Rue de Grenelle instead of the Rue de Jerusalem. I have
clear instructions with regard to you. But be careful! You are not in
any deep disgrace, and you may spoil your own game in a moment. As for
me--I owe you no grudge.--Come; tell me the truth.”
“Well, then, this is the truth,” said Peyrade, with a glance at his
Cerberus’ red eyes.
The sham lawyer’s face remained expressionless, impassible; he was doing
his business, all truths were the same to him, he looked as though
he suspected the Prefet of some caprice. Prefets have their little
tantrums.
“I have fallen desperately in love with a woman--the mistress of that
stockbroker who is gone abroad for his own pleasure and the displeasure
of his creditors--Falleix.”
“Madame du Val-Noble?”
“Yes,” replied Peyrade. “To keep her for a month, which will not cost me
more than a thousand crowns, I have got myself up as a nabob and taken
Contenson as my servant. This is so absolutely true, monsieur, that
if you like to leave me in the coach, where I will wait for you, on my
honor as an old Commissioner-General of Police, you can go to the hotel
and question Contenson. Not only will Contenson confirm what I have the
honor of stating, but you may see Madame du Val-Noble’s waiting-maid,
who is to come this morning to signify her mistress’ acceptance of my
offers, or the conditions she makes.
“An old monkey knows what grimaces mean: I have offered her a thousand
francs a month and a carriage--that comes to fifteen hundred; five
hundred francs’ worth of presents, and as much again in some outings,
dinners and play-going; you see, I am not deceiving you by a centime
when I say a thousand crowns.--A man of my age may well spend a thousand
crowns on his last fancy.”
“Bless me, Papa Peyrade! and you still care enough for women to----?
But you are deceiving me. I am sixty myself, and I can do without
‘em.--However, if the case is as you state it, I quite understand that
you should have found it necessary to get yourself up as a foreigner to
indulge your fancy.”
“You can understand that Peyrade, or old Canquoelle of the Rue des
Moineaux----”
“Ay, neither of them would have suited Madame du Val-Noble,” Carlos
put in, delighted to have picked up Canquoelle’s address. “Before
the Revolution,” he went on, “I had for my mistress a woman who had
previously been kept by the gentleman-in-waiting, as they then called
the executioner. One evening at the play she pricked herself with a pin,
and cried out--a customary ejaculation in those days--‘Ah! Bourreau!’ on
which her neighbor asked her if this were a reminiscence?--Well, my dear
Peyrade, she cast off her man for that speech.
“I suppose you have no wish to expose yourself to such a slap in the
face.--Madame du Val-Noble is a woman for gentlemen. I saw her once at
the opera, and thought her very handsome.
“Tell the driver to go back to the Rue de la Paix, my dear Peyrade. I
will go upstairs with you to your rooms and see for myself. A verbal
report will no doubt be enough for Monsieur le Prefet.”
Carlos took a snuff-box from his side-pocket--a black snuff-box
lined with silver-gilt--and offered it to Peyrade with an impulse of
delightful good-fellowship. Peyrade said to himself:
“And these are their agents! Good Heavens! what would Monsieur Lenoir
say if he could come back to life, or Monsieur de Sartines?”
“That is part of the truth, no doubt, but it is not all,” said the sham
lawyer, sniffing up his pinch of snuff. “You have had a finger in the
Baron de Nucingen’s love affairs, and you wish, no doubt, to entangle
him in some slip-knot. You missed fire with the pistol, and you are
aiming at him with a field-piece. Madame du Val-Noble is a friend of
Madame de Champy’s----”
“Devil take it. I must take care not to founder,” said Peyrade to
himself. “He is a better man than I thought him. He is playing me; he
talks of letting me go, and he goes on making me blab.”
“Well?” asked Carlos with a magisterial air.
“Monsieur, it is true that I have been so foolish as to seek a woman in
Monsieur de Nucingen’s behoof, because he was half mad with love. That
is the cause of my being out of favor, for it would seem that quite
unconsciously I touched some important interests.”
The officer of the law remained immovable.
“But after fifty-two years’ experience,” Peyrade went on, “I know the
police well enough to have held my hand after the blowing up I had from
Monsieur le Prefet, who, no doubt, was right----”
“Then you would give up this fancy if Monsieur le Prefet required it
of you? That, I think, would be the best proof you could give of the
sincerity of what you say.”
“He is going it! he is going it!” thought Peyrade. “Ah! by all that’s
holy, the police to-day is a match for that of Monsieur Lenoir.”
“Give it up?” said he aloud. “I will wait till I have Monsieur le
Prefet’s orders.--But here we are at the hotel, if you wish to come up.”
“Where do you find the money?” said Carlos point-blank, with a sagacious
glance.
“Monsieur, I have a friend----”
“Get along,” said Carlos; “go and tell that story to an examining
magistrate!”
This audacious stroke on Carlos’ part was the outcome of one of those
calculations, so simple that none but a man of his temper would have
thought it out.
At a very early hour he had sent Lucien to Madame de Serizy’s. Lucien
had begged the Count’s private secretary--as from the Count--to go and
obtain from the Prefet of Police full particulars concerning the agent
employed by the Baron de Nucingen. The secretary came back provided with
a note concerning Peyrade, a copy of the summary noted on the back of
his record:--
“In the police force since 1778, having come to Paris from Avignon
two years previously.
“Without money or character; possessed of certain State secrets.
“Lives in the Rue des Moineaux under the name of Canquoelle, the
name of a little estate where his family resides in the department
of Vaucluse; very respectable people.
“Was lately inquired for by a grand-nephew named Theodore de la
Peyrade. (See the report of an agent, No. 37 of the Documents.)”
“He must be the man to whom Contenson is playing the mulatto servant!”
cried Carlos, when Lucien returned with other information besides this
note.
Within three hours this man, with the energy of a Commander-in-Chief,
had found, by Paccard’s help, an innocent accomplice capable of
playing the part of a gendarme in disguise, and had got himself up as
a peace-officer. Three times in the coach he had thought of killing
Peyrade, but he had made it a rule never to commit a murder with his own
hand; he promised himself that he would get rid of Peyrade all in good
time by pointing him out as a millionaire to some released convicts
about the town.
Peyrade and his Mentor, as they went in, heard Contenson’s voice arguing
with Madame du Val-Noble’s maid. Peyrade signed to Carlos to remain
in the outer room, with a look meant to convey: “Thus you can assure
yourself of my sincerity.”
“Madame agrees to everything,” said Adele. “Madame is at this moment
calling on a friend, Madame de Champy, who has some rooms in the Rue
Taitbout on her hands for a year, full of furniture, which she will let
her have, no doubt. Madame can receive Mr. Johnson more suitably there,
for the furniture is still very decent, and monsieur might buy it for
madame by coming to an agreement with Madame de Champy.”
“Very good, my girl. If this is not a job of fleecing, it is a bit of
the wool,” said the mulatto to the astonished woman. “However, we will
go shares----”
“That is your darkey all over!” cried Mademoiselle Adele. “If your nabob
is a nabob, he can very well afford to give madame the furniture. The
lease ends in April 1830; your nabob may renew it if he likes.”
“I am quite willing,” said Peyrade, speaking French with a strong
English accent, as he came in and tapped the woman on the shoulder.
He cast a knowing look back at Carlos, who replied by an assenting nod,
understanding that the nabob was to keep up his part.
But the scene suddenly changed its aspect at the entrance of a person
over whom neither Carlos nor Peyrade had the least power. Corentin
suddenly came in. He had found the door open, and looked in as he went
by to see how his old friend played his part as nabob.
“The Prefet is still bullying me!” said Peyrade in a whisper to
Corentin. “He has found me out as a nabob.”
“We will spill the Prefet,” Corentin muttered in reply.
Then after a cool bow he stood darkly scrutinizing the magistrate.
“Stay here till I return,” said Carlos; “I will go to the Prefecture. If
you do not see me again, you may go your own way.”
Having said this in an undertone to Peyrade, so as not to humiliate him
in the presence of the waiting-maid, Carlos went away, not caring to
remain under the eye of the newcomer, in whom he detected one of those
fair-haired, blue-eyed men, coldly terrifying.
“That is the peace-officer sent after me by the Prefet,” said Peyrade.
“That?” said Corentin. “You have walked into a trap. That man has three
packs of cards in his shoes; you can see that by the place of his foot
in the shoe; besides, a peace-officer need wear no disguise.”
Corentin hurried downstairs to verify his suspicions: Carlos was getting
into the fly.
“Hallo! Monsieur l’Abbe!” cried Corentin.
Carlos looked around, saw Corentin, and got in quickly. Still, Corentin
had time to say:
“That was all I wanted to know.--Quai Malaquais,” he shouted to the
driver with diabolical mockery in his tone and expression.
“I am done!” said Jacques Collin to himself. “They have got me. I must
get ahead of them by sheer pace, and, above all, find out what they want
of us.”
Corentin had seen the Abbe Carlos Herrera five or six times, and the
man’s eyes were unforgettable. Corentin had suspected him at once from
the cut of his shoulders, then by his puffy face, and the trick of three
inches of added height gained by a heel inside the shoe.
“Ah! old fellow, they have drawn you,” said Corentin, finding no one in
the room but Peyrade and Contenson.
“Who?” cried Peyrade, with metallic hardness; “I will spend my last days
in putting him on a gridiron and turning him on it.”
“It is the Abbe Carlos Herrera, the Corentin of Spain, as I suppose.
This explains everything. The Spaniard is a demon of the first water,
who has tried to make a fortune for that little young man by coining
money out of a pretty baggage’s bolster.--It is your lookout if you
think you can measure your skill with a man who seems to me the very
devil to deal with.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Contenson, “he fingered the three hundred thousand
francs the day when Esther was arrested; he was in the cab. I remember
those eyes, that brow, and those marks of the smallpox.”
“Oh! what a fortune my Lydie might have had!” cried Peyrade.
“You may still play the nabob,” said Corentin. “To keep an eye on Esther
you must keep up her intimacy with Val-Noble. She was really Lucien’s
mistress.”
“They have got more than five hundred thousand francs out of Nucingen
already,” said Contenson.
“And they want as much again,” Corentin went on. “The Rubempre estate is
to cost a million.--Daddy,” added he, slapping Peyrade on the shoulder,
“you may get more than a hundred thousand francs to settle on Lydie.”
“Don’t tell me that, Corentin. If your scheme should fail, I cannot tell
what I might not do----”
“You will have it by to-morrow perhaps! The Abbe, my dear fellow, is
most astute; we shall have to kiss his spurs; he is a very superior
devil. But I have him sure enough. He is not a fool, and he will knock
under. Try to be a gaby as well as a nabob, and fear nothing.”
In the evening of this day, when the opposing forces had met face to
face on level ground, Lucien spent the evening at the Hotel Grandlieu.
The party was a large one. In the face of all the assembly, the Duchess
kept Lucien at her side for some time, and was most kind to him.
“You are going away for a little while?” said she.
“Yes, Madame la Duchesse. My sister, in her anxiety to promote my
marriage, has made great sacrifices, and I have been enabled to
repurchase the lands of the Rubempres, to reconstitute the whole estate.
But I have found in my Paris lawyer a very clever man, who has managed
to save me from the extortionate terms that the holders would have asked
if they had known the name of the purchaser.”
“Is there a chateau?” asked Clotilde, with too broad a smile.
“There is something which might be called a chateau; but the wiser plan
would be to use the building materials in the construction of a modern
residence.”
Clotilde’s eyes blazed with happiness above her smile of satisfaction.
“You must play a rubber with my father this evening,” said she. “In a
fortnight I hope you will be asked to dinner.”
“Well, my dear sir,” said the Duc de Grandlieu, “I am told that you have
bought the estate of Rubempre. I congratulate you. It is an answer to
those who say you are in debt. We bigwigs, like France or England, are
allowed to have a public debt; but men of no fortune, beginners, you
see, may not assume that privilege----”
“Indeed, Monsieur le Duc, I still owe five hundred thousand francs on my
land.”
“Well, well, you must marry a wife who can bring you the money; but you
will have some difficulty in finding a match with such a fortune in our
Faubourg, where daughters do not get large dowries.”
“Their name is enough,” said Lucien.
“We are only three wisk players--Maufrigneuse, d’Espard, and I--will you
make a fourth?” said the Duke, pointing to the card-table.
Clotilde came to the table to watch her father’s game.
“She expects me to believe that she means it for me,” said the Duke,
patting his daughter’s hands, and looking round at Lucien, who remained
quite grave.
Lucien, Monsieur d’Espard’s partner, lost twenty louis.
“My dear mother,” said Clotilde to the Duchess, “he was so judicious as
to lose.”
At eleven o’clock, after a few affectionate words with Mademoiselle de
Grandlieu, Lucien went home and to bed, thinking of the complete triumph
he was to enjoy a month hence; for he had not a doubt of being accepted
as Clotilde’s lover, and married before Lent in 1830.
On the morrow, when Lucien was smoking his cigarettes after breakfast,
sitting with Carlos, who had become much depressed, M. de Saint-Esteve
was announced--what a touch of irony--who begged to see either the Abbe
Carlos Herrera or Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre.
“Was he told downstairs that I had left Paris?” cried the Abbe.
“Yes, sir,” replied the groom.
“Well, then, you must see the man,” said he to Lucien. “But do not say
a single compromising word, do not let a sign of surprise escape you. It
is the enemy.”
“You will overhear me,” said Lucien.
Carlos hid in the adjoining room, and through the crack of the door
he saw Corentin, whom he recognized only by his voice, such powers of
transformation did the great man possess. This time Corentin looked like
an old paymaster-general.
“I have not had the honor of being known to you, monsieur,” Corentin
began, “but----”
“Excuse my interrupting you, monsieur, but----”
“But the matter in point is your marriage to Mademoiselle Clotilde de
Grandlieu--which will never take place,” Corentin added eagerly.
Lucien sat down and made no reply.
“You are in the power of a man who is able and willing and ready to
prove to the Duc de Grandlieu that the lands of Rubempre are to be paid
for with the money that a fool has given to your mistress, Mademoiselle
Esther,” Corentin went on. “It will be quite easy to find the minutes of
the legal opinions in virtue of which Mademoiselle Esther was summoned;
there are ways too of making d’Estourny speak. The very clever
manoeuvres employed against the Baron de Nucingen will be brought to
light.
“As yet all can be arranged. Pay down a hundred thousand francs, and you
will have peace.--All this is no concern of mine. I am only the agent of
those who levy this blackmail; nothing more.”
Corentin might have talked for an hour; Lucien smoked his cigarette with
an air of perfect indifference.
“Monsieur,” replied he, “I do not want to know who you are, for men
who undertake such jobs as these have no name--at any rate, in my
vocabulary. I have allowed you to talk at your leisure; I am at
home.--You seem to me not bereft of common sense; listen to my dilemma.”
There was a pause, during which Lucien met Corentin’s cat-like eye fixed
on him with a perfectly icy stare.
“Either you are building on facts that are absolutely false, and I need
pay no heed to them,” said Lucien; “or you are in the right; and in that
case, by giving you a hundred thousand francs, I put you in a position
to ask me for as many hundred thousand francs as your employer can find
Saint-Esteves to ask for.
“However, to put an end, once and for all, to your kind intervention, I
would have you know that I, Lucien de Rubempre, fear no one. I have
no part in the jobbery of which you speak. If the Grandlieus make
difficulties, there are other young ladies of very good family ready
to be married. After all, it is no loss to me if I remain single,
especially if, as you imagine, I deal in blank bills to such advantage.”
“If Monsieur l’Abbe Carlos Herrera----”
“Monsieur,” Lucien put in, “the Abbe Herrera is at this moment on the
way to Spain. He has nothing to do with my marriage, my interests are no
concern of his. That remarkable statesman was good enough to assist
me at one time with his advice, but he has reports to present to
his Majesty the King of Spain; if you have anything to say to him, I
recommend you to set out for Madrid.”
“Monsieur,” said Corentin plainly, “you will never be Mademoiselle
Clotilde de Grandlieu’s husband.”
“So much the worse for her!” replied Lucien, impatiently pushing
Corentin towards the door.
“You have fully considered the matter?” asked Corentin coldly.
“Monsieur, I do not recognize that you have any right either to meddle
in my affairs, or to make me waste a cigarette,” said Lucien, throwing
away his cigarette that had gone out.
“Good-day, monsieur,” said Corentin. “We shall not meet again.--But
there will certainly be a moment in your life when you would give half
your fortune to have called me back from these stairs.”
In answer to this threat, Carlos made as though he were cutting off a
head.
“Now to business!” cried he, looking at Lucien, who was as white as
ashes after this dreadful interview.
If among the small number of my readers who take an interest in the
moral and philosophical side of this book there should be only one
capable of believing that the Baron de Nucingen was happy, that one
would prove how difficult it is to explain the heart of a courtesan by
any kind of physiological formula. Esther was resolved to make the poor
millionaire pay dearly for what he called his day of triumph. And at
the beginning of February 1830 the house-warming party had not yet been
given in the “little palace.”
“Well,” said Esther in confidence to her friends, who repeated it to the
Baron, “I shall open house at the Carnival, and I mean to make my man as
happy as a cock in plaster.”
The phrase became proverbial among women of her kidney.
The Baron gave vent to much lamentation; like married men, he made
himself very ridiculous, he began to complain to his intimate friends,
and his dissatisfaction was generally known.
Esther, meanwhile, took quite a serious view of her position as the
Pompadour of this prince of speculators. She had given two or three
small evening parties, solely to get Lucien into the house. Lousteau,
Rastignac, du Tillet, Bixiou, Nathan, the Comte de Brambourg--all the
cream of the dissipated crew--frequented her drawing-room. And, as
leading ladies in the piece she was playing, Esther accepted
Tullia, Florentine, Fanny Beaupre, and Florine--two dancers and two
actresses--besides Madame du Val-Noble. Nothing can be more dreary than
a courtesan’s home without the spice of rivalry, the display of dress,
and some variety of type.
In six weeks Esther had become the wittiest, the most amusing, the
loveliest, and the most elegant of those female pariahs who form the
class of kept women. Placed on the pedestal that became her, she enjoyed
all the delights of vanity which fascinate women in general, but still
as one who is raised above her caste by a secret thought. She cherished
in her heart an image of herself which she gloried in, while it made
her blush; the hour when she must abdicate was ever present to her
consciousness; thus she lived a double life, really scorning herself.
Her sarcastic remarks were tinged by the temper which was roused in
her by the intense contempt felt by the Angel of Love, hidden in the
courtesan, for the disgraceful and odious part played by the body in the
presence, as it were, of the soul. At once actor and spectator, victim
and judge, she was a living realization of the beautiful Arabian Tales,
in which a noble creature lies hidden under a degrading form, and of
which the type is the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of books--the
Bible. Having granted herself a lease of life till the day after her
infidelity, the victim might surely play awhile with the executioner.
Moreover, the enlightenment that had come to Esther as to the secretly
disgraceful means by which the Baron had made his colossal fortune
relieved her of every scruple. She could play the part of Ate, the
goddess of vengeance, as Carlos said. And so she was by turns enchanting
and odious to the banker, who lived only for her. When the Baron had
been worked up to such a pitch of suffering that he wanted only to be
quit of Esther, she brought him round by a scene of tender affection.
Herrera, making a great show of starting for Spain, had gone as far
as Tours. He had sent the chaise on as far as Bordeaux, with a servant
inside, engaged to play the part of master, and to wait for him
at Bordeaux. Then, returning by diligence, dressed as a commercial
traveler, he had secretly taken up his abode under Esther’s roof,
and thence, aided by Asie and Europe, carefully directed all his
machinations, keeping an eye on every one, and especially on Peyrade.
About a fortnight before the day chosen for her great entertainment,
which was to be given in the evening after the first opera ball, the
courtesan, whose witticisms were beginning to make her feared, happened
to be at the Italian opera, at the back of a box which the Baron--forced
to give a box--had secured in the lowest tier, in order to conceal his
mistress, and not to flaunt her in public within a few feet of Madame de
Nucingen. Esther had taken her seat, so as to “rake” that of Madame de
Serizy, whom Lucien almost invariably accompanied. The poor girl made
her whole happiness centre in watching Lucien on Tuesdays, Thursdays,
and Saturdays by Madame de Serizy’s side.
At about half-past nine in the evening Esther could see Lucien enter
the Countess’ box, with a care-laden brow, pale, and with almost drawn
features. These symptoms of mental anguish were legible only to Esther.
The knowledge of a man’s countenance is, to the woman who loves him,
like that of the sea to a sailor.
“Good God! what can be the matter? What has happened? Does he want to
speak with that angel of hell, who is to him a guardian angel, and who
lives in an attic between those of Europe and Asie?”
Tormented by such reflections, Esther scarcely listened to the music.
Still less, it may be believed, did she listen to the Baron, who held
one of his “Anchel’s” hands in both his, talking to her in his horrible
Polish-Jewish accent, a jargon which must be as unpleasant to read as it
is to hear spoken.
“Esther,” said he, releasing her hand, and pushing it away with a slight
touch of temper, “you do not listen to me.”
“I tell you what, Baron, you blunder in love as you gibber in French.”
“_Der teufel_!”
“I am not in my boudoir here, I am at the opera. If you were not a
barrel made by Huret or Fichet, metamorphosed into a man by some trick
of nature, you would not make so much noise in a box with a woman who is
fond of music. I don’t listen to you? I should think not! There you sit
rustling my dress like a cockchafer in a paper-bag, and making me laugh
with contempt. You say to me, ‘You are so pretty, I should like to
eat you!’ Old simpleton! Supposing I were to say to you, ‘You are
less intolerable this evening than you were yesterday--we will go
home?’--Well, from the way you puff and sigh--for I feel you if I don’t
listen to you--I perceive that you have eaten an enormous dinner, and
your digestion is at work. Let me instruct you--for I cost you enough to
give some advice for your money now and then--let me tell you, my dear
fellow, that a man whose digestion is so troublesome as yours is, is not
justified in telling his mistress that she is pretty at unseemly hours.
An old soldier died of that very folly ‘in the arms of Religion,’ as
Blondet has it.
“It is now ten o’clock. You finished dinner at du Tillet’s at nine
o’clock, with your pigeon the Comte de Brambourg; you have millions and
truffles to digest. Come to-morrow night at ten.”
“Vat you are cruel!” cried the Baron, recognizing the profound truth of
this medical argument.
“Cruel!” echoed Esther, still looking at Lucien. “Have you not consulted
Bianchon, Desplein, old Haudry?--Since you have had a glimpse of future
happiness, do you know what you seem like to me?”
“No--vat?”
“A fat old fellow wrapped in flannel, who walks every hour from his
armchair to the window to see if the thermometer has risen to the degree
marked ‘_Silkworms_,’ the temperature prescribed by his physician.”
“You are really an ungrateful slut!” cried the Baron, in despair at
hearing a tune, which, however, amorous old men not unfrequently hear at
the opera.
“Ungrateful!” retorted Esther. “What have you given me till now? A great
deal of annoyance. Come, papa! Can I be proud of you? You! you are proud
of me; I wear your livery and badge with an air. You paid my debts? So
you did. But you have grabbed so many millions--come, you need not sulk;
you admitted that to me--that you need not think twice of that. And
this is your chief title to fame. A baggage and a thief--a well-assorted
couple!
“You have built a splendid cage for a parrot that amuses you. Go and ask
a Brazilian cockatoo what gratitude it owes to the man who placed it in
a gilded cage.--Don’t look at me like that; you are just like a Buddist
Bonze.
“Well, you show your red-and-white cockatoo to all Paris. You say, ‘Does
anybody else in Paris own such a parrot? And how well it talks, how
cleverly it picks its words!’ If du Tillet comes in, it says at once,
‘How’do, little swindler!’--Why, you are as happy as a Dutchman who has
grown an unique tulip, as an old nabob pensioned off in Asia by England,
when a commercial traveler sells him the first Swiss snuff-box that
opens in three places.
“You want to win my heart? Well, now, I will tell you how to do it.”
“Speak, speak, dere is noting I shall not do for you. I lofe to be
fooled by you.”
“Be young, be handsome, be like Lucien de Rubempre over there by your
wife, and you shall have gratis what you can never buy with all your
millions!”
“I shall go ‘vay, for really you are too bat dis evening!” said the
banker, with a lengthened face.
“Very well, good-night then,” said Esther. “Tell Georches to make your
pillows very high and place your fee low, for you look apoplectic this
evening.--You cannot say, my dear, that I take no interest in your
health.”
The Baron was standing up, and held the door-knob in his hand.
“Here, Nucingen,” said Esther, with an imperious gesture.
The Baron bent over her with dog-like devotion.
“Do you want to see me very sweet, and giving you sugar-and-water, and
petting you in my house, this very evening, old monster?”
“You shall break my heart!”
“Break your heart--you mean bore you,” she went on. “Well, bring me
Lucien that I may invite him to our Belshazzar’s feast, and you may
be sure he will not fail to come. If you succeed in that little
transaction, I will tell you that I love you, my fat Frederic, in such
plain terms that you cannot but believe me.”
“You are an enchantress,” said the Baron, kissing Esther’s glove. “I
should be villing to listen to abuse for ein hour if alvays der vas a
kiss at de ent of it.”
“But if I am not obeyed, I----” and she threatened the Baron with her
finger as we threaten children.
The Baron raised his head like a bird caught in a springe and imploring
the trapper’s pity.
“Dear Heaven! What ails Lucien?” said she to herself when she was alone,
making no attempt to check her falling tears; “I never saw him so sad.”
This is what had happened to Lucien that very evening.
At nine o’clock he had gone out, as he did every evening, in his
brougham to go to the Hotel de Grandlieu. Using his saddle-horse and
cab in the morning only, like all young men, he had hired a brougham
for winter evenings, and had chosen a first-class carriage and splendid
horses from one of the best job-masters. For the last month all had gone
well with him; he had dined with the Grandlieus three times; the Duke
was delightful to him; his shares in the Omnibus Company, sold for three
hundred thousand francs, had paid off a third more of the price of the
land; Clotilde de Grandlieu, who dressed beautifully now, reddened inch
thick when he went into the room, and loudly proclaimed her attachment
to him. Some personages of high estate discussed their marriage as a
probable event. The Duc de Chaulieu, formerly Ambassador to Spain, and
now for a short while Minister for Foreign Affairs, had promised the
Duchesse de Grandlieu that he would ask for the title of Marquis for
Lucien.
So that evening, after dining with Madame de Serizy, Lucien had driven
to the Faubourg Saint-Germain to pay his daily visit.
He arrives, the coachman calls for the gate to be opened, he drives into
the courtyard and stops at the steps. Lucien, on getting out, remarks
four other carriages in waiting. On seeing Monsieur de Rubempre, one of
the footmen placed to open and shut the hall-door comes forward and out
on to the steps, in front of the door, like a soldier on guard.
“His Grace is not at home,” says he.
“Madame la Duchesse is receiving company,” observes Lucien to the
servant.
“Madame la Duchesse is gone out,” replies the man solemnly.
“Mademoiselle Clotilde----”
“I do not think that Mademoiselle Clotilde will see you, monsieur, in
the absence of Madame la Duchesse.”
“But there are people here,” replies Lucien in dismay.
“I do not know, sir,” says the man, trying to seem stupid and to be
respectful.
There is nothing more fatal than etiquette to those who regard it as the
most formidable arm of social law. Lucien easily interpreted the meaning
of this scene, so disastrous to him. The Duke and Duchess would not
admit him. He felt the spinal marrow freezing in the core of his
vertebral column, and a sickly cold sweat bedewed his brow. The
conversation had taken place in the presence of his own body-servant,
who held the door of the brougham, doubting whether to shut it. Lucien
signed to him that he was going away again; but as he stepped into
the carriage, he heard the noise of people coming downstairs, and the
servant called out first, “Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu’s people,”
then “Madame la Vicomtesse de Grandlieu’s carriage!”
Lucien merely said, “To the Italian opera”; but in spite of his haste,
the luckless dandy could not escape the Duc de Chaulieu and his son, the
Duc de Rhetore, to whom he was obliged to bow, for they did not speak
a word to him. A great catastrophe at Court, the fall of a formidable
favorite, has ere now been pronounced on the threshold of a royal study,
in one word from an usher with a face like a plaster cast.
“How am I to let my adviser know of this disaster--this instant----?”
thought Lucien as he drove to the opera-house. “What is going on?”
He racked his brain with conjectures.
This was what had taken place. That morning, at eleven o’clock, the
Duc de Grandlieu, as he went into the little room where the family all
breakfasted together, said to Clotilde after kissing her, “Until further
orders, my child, think no more of the Sieur de Rubempre.”
Then he had taken the Duchesse by the hand, and led her into a window
recess to say a few words in an undertone, which made poor Clotilde turn
pale; for she watched her mother as she listened to the Duke, and saw
her expression of extreme surprise.
“Jean,” said the Duke to one of his servants, “take this note to
Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, and beg him to answer by you, Yes or No.--I
am asking him to dine here to-day,” he added to his wife.
Breakfast had been a most melancholy meal. The Duchess was meditative,
the Duke seemed to be vexed with himself, and Clotilde could with
difficulty restrain her tears.
“My child, your father is right; you must obey him,” the mother had said
to the daughter with much emotion. “I do not say as he does, ‘Think no
more of Lucien.’ No--for I understand your suffering”--Clotilde kissed
her mother’s hand--“but I do say, my darling, Wait, take no step, suffer
in silence since you love him, and put your trust in your parents’
care.--Great ladies, my child, are great just because they can do their
duty on every occasion, and do it nobly.”
“But what is it about?” asked Clotilde as white as a lily.
“Matters too serious to be discussed with you, my dearest,” the Duchess
replied. “For if they are untrue, your mind would be unnecessarily
sullied; and if they are true, you must never know them.”
At six o’clock the Duc de Chaulieu had come to join the Duc de
Grandlieu, who awaited him in his study.
“Tell me, Henri”--for the Dukes were on the most familiar terms, and
addressed each other by their Christian names. This is one of the shades
invented to mark a degree of intimacy, to repel the audacity of French
familiarity, and humiliate conceit--“tell me, Henri, I am in such a
desperate difficulty that I can only ask advice of an old friend who
understands business, and you have practice and experience. My daughter
Clotilde, as you know, is in love with that little Rubempre, whom I have
been almost compelled to accept as her promised husband. I have always
been averse to the marriage; however, Madame de Grandlieu could not bear
to thwart Clotilde’s passion. When the young fellow had repurchased
the family estate and paid three-quarters of the price, I could make no
further objections.
“But last evening I received an anonymous letter--you know how much
that is worth--in which I am informed that the young fellow’s fortune is
derived from some disreputable source, and that he is telling lies
when he says that his sister is giving him the necessary funds for his
purchase. For my daughter’s happiness, and for the sake of our family, I
am adjured to make inquiries, and the means of doing so are suggested to
me. Here, read it.”
“I am entirely of your opinion as to the value of anonymous letters,
my dear Ferdinand,” said the Duc de Chaulieu after reading the letter.
“Still, though we may contemn them, we must make use of them. We must
treat such letters as we would treat a spy. Keep the young man out of
the house, and let us make inquiries----
“I know how to do it. Your lawyer is Derville, a man in whom we have
perfect confidence; he knows the secrets of many families, and can
certainly be trusted with this. He is an honest man, a man of weight,
and a man of honor; he is cunning and wily; but his wiliness is only in
the way of business, and you need only employ him to obtain evidence you
can depend upon.
“We have in the Foreign Office an agent of the superior police who is
unique in his power of discovering State secrets; we often send him on
such missions. Inform Derville that he will have a lieutenant in the
case. Our spy is a gentleman who will appear wearing the ribbon of the
Legion of Honor, and looking like a diplomate. This rascal will do the
hunting; Derville will only look on. Your lawyer will then tell you if
the mountain brings forth a mouse, or if you must throw over this little
Rubempre. Within a week you will know what you are doing.”
“The young man is not yet so far a Marquis as to take offence at my
being ‘Not at home’ for a week,” said the Duc de Grandlieu.
“Above all, if you end by giving him your daughter,” replied the
Minister. “If the anonymous letter tells the truth, what of that? You
can send Clotilde to travel with my daughter-in-law Madeleine, who wants
to go to Italy.”
“You relieve me immensely. I don’t know whether I ought to thank you.”
“Wait till the end.”
“By the way,” exclaimed the Duc de Grandlieu, “what is your man’s name?
I must mention it to Derville. Send him to me to-morrow by five o’clock;
I will have Derville here and put them in communication.”
“His real name,” said M. de Chaulieu, “is, I think, Corentin--a name
you must never have heard, for my gentleman will come ticketed with
his official name. He calls himself Monsieur de Saint-Something--Saint
Yves--Saint-Valere?--Something of the kind.--You may trust him; Louis
XVIII. had perfect confidence in him.”
After this confabulation the steward had orders to shut the door on
Monsieur de Rubempre--which was done.
Lucien paced the waiting-room at the opera-house like a man who was
drunk. He fancied himself the talk of all Paris. He had in the Duc de
Rhetore one of those unrelenting enemies on whom a man must smile, as
he can never be revenged, since their attacks are in conformity with the
rules of society. The Duc de Rhetore knew the scene that had just taken
place on the outside steps of the Grandlieus’ house. Lucien, feeling
the necessity of at once reporting the catastrophe to his high privy
councillor, nevertheless was afraid of compromising himself by going
to Esther’s house, where he might find company. He actually forgot that
Esther was here, so confused were his thoughts, and in the midst of so
much perplexity he was obliged to make small talk with Rastignac,
who, knowing nothing of the news, congratulated him on his approaching
marriage.
At this moment Nucingen appeared smiling, and said to Lucien:
“Vill you do me de pleasure to come to see Montame de Champy, vat vill
infite you herself to von house-varming party----”
“With pleasure, Baron,” replied Lucien, to whom the Baron appeared as a
rescuing angel.
“Leave us,” said Esther to Monsieur de Nucingen, when she saw him come
in with Lucien. “Go and see Madame du Val-Noble, whom I discover in a
box on the third tier with her nabob.--A great many nabobs grow in the
Indies,” she added, with a knowing glance at Lucien.
“And that one,” said Lucien, smiling, “is uncommonly like yours.”
“And them,” said Esther, answering Lucien with another look of
intelligence, while still speaking to the Baron, “bring her here with
her nabob; he is very anxious to make your acquaintance. They say he
is very rich. The poor woman has already poured out I know not how many
elegies; she complains that her nabob is no good; and if you relieve him
of his ballast, perhaps he will sail closer to the wind.”
“You tink ve are all tieves!” said the Baron as he went away.
“What ails you, my Lucien?” asked Esther in her friend’s ear, just
touching it with her lips as soon as the box door was shut.
“I am lost! I have just been turned from the door of the Hotel de
Grandlieu under pretence that no one was admitted. The Duke and Duchess
were at home, and five pairs of horses were champing in the courtyard.”
“What! will the marriage not take place?” exclaimed Esther, much
agitated, for she saw a glimpse of Paradise.
“I do not yet know what is being plotted against me----”
“My Lucien,” said she in a deliciously coaxing voice, “why be worried
about it? You can make a better match by and by--I will get you the
price of two estates----”
“Give us supper to-night that I may be able to speak in secret to
Carlos, and, above all, invite the sham Englishman and Val-Noble. That
nabob is my ruin; he is our enemy; we will get hold of him, and we----”
But Lucien broke off with a gesture of despair.
“Well, what is it?” asked the poor girl.
“Oh! Madame de Serizy sees me!” cried Lucien, “and to crown our woes,
the Duc de Rhetore, who witnessed my dismissal, is with her.”
In fact, at that very minute, the Duc de Rhetore was amusing himself
with Madame de Serizy’s discomfiture.
“Do you allow Lucien to be seen in Mademoiselle Esther’s box?” said
the young Duke, pointing to the box and to Lucien; “you, who take an
interest in him, should really tell him such things are not allowed.
He may sup at her house, he may even--But, in fact, I am no longer
surprised at the Grandlieus’ coolness towards the young man. I have just
seen their door shut in his face--on the front steps----”
“Women of that sort are very dangerous,” said Madame de Serizy, turning
her opera-glass on Esther’s box.
“Yes,” said the Duke, “as much by what they can do as by what they
wish----”
“They will ruin him!” cried Madame de Serizy, “for I am told they cost
as much whether they are paid or no.”
“Not to him!” said the young Duke, affecting surprise. “They are far
from costing him anything; they give him money at need, and all run
after him.”
The Countess’ lips showed a little nervous twitching which could not be
included in any category of smiles.
“Well, then,” said Esther, “come to supper at midnight. Bring Blondet
and Rastignac; let us have two amusing persons at any rate; and we won’t
be more than nine.”
“You must find some excuse for sending the Baron to fetch Eugenie under
pretence of warning Asie, and tell her what has befallen me, so that
Carlos may know before he has the nabob under his claws.”
“That shall be done,” said Esther.
And thus Peyrade was probably about to find himself unwittingly under
the same roof with his adversary. The tiger was coming into the lion’s
den, and a lion surrounded by his guards.
When Lucien went back to Madame de Serizy’s box, instead of turning
to him, smiling and arranging her skirts for him to sit by her, she
affected to pay him not the slightest attention, but looked about the
house through her glass. Lucien could see, however, by the shaking of
her hand that the Countess was suffering from one of those terrible
emotions by which illicit joys are paid for. He went to the front of the
box all the same, and sat down by her at the opposite corner, leaving a
little vacant space between himself and the Countess. He leaned on the
ledge of the box with his elbow, resting his chin on his gloved hand;
then he half turned away, waiting for a word. By the middle of the act
the Countess had still neither spoken to him nor looked at him.
“I do not know,” said she at last, “why you are here; your place is in
Mademoiselle Esther’s box----”
“I will go there,” said Lucien, leaving the box without looking at the
Countess.
“My dear,” said Madame du Val-Noble, going into Esther’s box with
Peyrade, whom the Baron de Nucingen did not recognize, “I am delighted
to introduce Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is a great admirer of M. de
Nucingen’s talents.”
“Indeed, monsieur,” said Esther, smiling at Peyrade.
“Oh yes, bocou,” said Peyrade.
“Why, Baron, here is a way of speaking French which is as much like
yours as the low Breton dialect is like that of Burgundy. It will be
most amusing to hear you discuss money matters.--Do you know, Monsieur
Nabob, what I shall require of you if you are to make acquaintance with
my Baron?” said Esther with a smile.
“Oh!--Thank you so much, you will introduce me to Sir Baronet?” said
Peyrade with an extravagant English accent.
“Yes,” said she, “you must give me the pleasure of your company at
supper. There is no pitch stronger than champagne for sticking men
together. It seals every kind of business, above all such as you put
your foot in.--Come this evening; you will find some jolly fellows.--As
for you, my little Frederic,” she added in the Baron’s ear, “you have
your carriage here--just drive to the Rue Saint-Georges and bring Europe
to me here; I have a few words to say to her about the supper. I have
caught Lucien; he will bring two men who will be fun.--We will draw the
Englishman,” she whispered to Madame du Val-Noble.
Peyrade and the Baron left the women together.
“Oh, my dear, if you ever succeed in drawing that great brute, you will
be clever indeed,” said Suzanne.
“If it proves impossible, you must lend him to me for a week,” replied
Esther, laughing.
“You would but keep him half a day,” replied Madame du Val-Noble. “The
bread I eat is too hard; it breaks my teeth. Never again, to my dying
day, will I try to make an Englishman happy. They are all cold and
selfish--pigs on their hind legs.”
“What, no consideration?” said Esther with a smile.
“On the contrary, my dear, the monster has never shown the least
familiarity.”