“Under no circumstances whatever?” asked Esther.

“The wretch always addresses me as Madame, and preserves the most

perfect coolness imaginable at moments when every man is more or less

amenable. To him love-making!--on my word, it is nothing more nor less

than shaving himself. He wipes the razor, puts it back in its case, and

looks in the glass as if he were saying, ‘I have not cut myself!’

“Then he treats me with such respect as is enough to send a woman mad.

That odious Milord Potboiler amuses himself by making poor Theodore hide

in my dressing-room and stand there half the day. In short, he tries

to annoy me in every way. And as stingy!--As miserly as Gobseck and

Gigonnet rolled into one. He takes me out to dinner, but he does not pay

the cab that brings me home if I happen not to have ordered my carriage

to fetch me.”

“Well,” said Esther, “but what does he pay you for your services?”

“Oh, my dear, positively nothing. Five hundred francs a month and not a

penny more, and the hire of a carriage. But what is it? A machine such

as they hire out for a third-rate wedding to carry an epicier to the

Mairie, to Church, and to the Cadran bleu.--Oh, he nettles me with his

respect.

“If I try hysterics and feel ill, he is never vexed; he only says:

‘I wish my lady to have her own way, for there is nothing more

detestable--no gentleman--than to say to a nice woman, “You are a

cotton bale, a bundle of merchandise.”--Ha, hah! Are you a member of the

Temperance Society and anti-slavery?’ And my horror sits pale, and cold,

and hard while he gives me to understand that he has as much respect for

me as he might have for a Negro, and that it has nothing to do with his

feelings, but with his opinions as an abolitionist.”

“A man cannot be a worse wretch,” said Esther. “But I will smash up that

outlandish Chinee.”

“Smash him up?” replied Madame du Val-Noble. “Not if he does not love

me. You, yourself, would you like to ask him for two sous? He would

listen to you solemnly, and tell you, with British precision that would

make a slap in the face seem genial, that he pays dear enough for the

trifle that love can be to his poor life;” and, as before, Madame du

Val-Noble mimicked Peyrade’s bad French.

“To think that in our line of life we are thrown in the way of such

men!” exclaimed Esther.

“Oh, my dear, you have been uncommonly lucky. Take good care of your

Nucingen.”

“But your nabob must have got some idea in his head.”

“That is what Adele says.”

“Look here, my dear; that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that he

will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time.”

“Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up knowing

that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks,” answered Madame

du Val-Noble. “That is why I introduced him to you this evening. Oh, if

only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I could play with you

and Nucingen!”

“And you don’t get angry?” asked Esther; “you don’t speak your mind now

and then?”

“Try it--you are sharp and smooth.--Well, in spite of your sweetness, he

would kill you with his icy smiles. ‘I am anti-slavery,’ he would say,

‘and you are free.’--If you said the funniest things, he would only

look at you and say, ‘Very good!’ and you would see that he regards you

merely as a part of the show.”

“And if you turned furious?”

“The same thing; it would still be a show. You might cut him open under

the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals are of

tinned-iron, I am sure. I told him so. He replied, ‘I am quite satisfied

with that physical constitution.’

“And always polite. My dear, he wears gloves on his soul...

“I shall endure this martyrdom for a few days longer to satisfy my

curiosity. But for that, I should have made Philippe slap my lord’s

cheek--and he has not his match as a swordsman. There is nothing else

left for it----”

“I was just going to say so,” cried Esther. “But you must ascertain

first that Philippe is a boxer; for these old English fellows, my dear,

have a depth of malignity----”

“This one has no match on earth. No, if you could but see him asking my

commands, to know at what hour he may come--to take me by surprise, of

course--and pouring out respectful speeches like a so-called gentleman,

you would say, ‘Why, he adores her!’ and there is not a woman in the

world who would not say the same.”

“And they envy us, my dear!” exclaimed Esther.

“Ah, well!” sighed Madame du Val-Noble; “in the course of our lives we

learn more or less how little men value us. But, my dear, I have never

been so cruelly, so deeply, so utterly scorned by brutality as I am by

this great skinful of port wine.

“When he is tipsy he goes away--‘not to be unpleasant,’ as he tells

Adele, and not to be ‘under two powers at once,’ wine and woman. He

takes advantage of my carriage; he uses it more than I do.--Oh! if only

we could see him under the table to-night! But he can drink ten bottles

and only be fuddled; when his eyes are full, he still sees clearly.”

“Like people whose windows are dirty outside,” said Esther, “but who can

see from inside what is going on in the street.--I know that property in

man. Du Tillet has it in the highest degree.”

“Try to get du Tillet, and if he and Nucingen between them could only

catch him in some of their plots, I should at least be revenged. They

would bring him to beggary!

“Oh! my dear, to have fallen into the hands of a hypocritical Protestant

after that poor Falleix, who was so amusing, so good-natured, so full of

chaff! How we used to laugh! They say all stockbrokers are stupid. Well,

he, for one, never lacked wit but once----”

“When he left you without a sou? That is what made you acquainted with

the unpleasant side of pleasure.”

Europe, brought in by Monsieur de Nucingen, put her viperine head in at

the door, and after listening to a few words whispered in her ear by her

mistress, she vanished.

At half-past eleven that evening, five carriages were stationed in

the Rue Saint-Georges before the famous courtesan’s door. There was

Lucien’s, who had brought Rastignac, Bixiou, and Blondet; du Tillet’s,

the Baron de Nucingen’s, the Nabob’s, and Florine’s--she was invited by

du Tillet. The closed and doubly-shuttered windows were screened by

the splendid Chinese silk curtains. Supper was to be served at one;

wax-lights were blazing, the dining-room and little drawing-room

displayed all their magnificence. The party looked forward to such an

orgy as only three such women and such men as these could survive. They

began by playing cards, as they had to wait about two hours.

“Do you play, milord?” asked du Tillet to Peyrade.

“I have played with O’Connell, Pitt, Fox, Canning, Lord Brougham,

Lord----”

“Say at once no end of lords,” said Bixiou.

“Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Ellenborough, Lord Hertford, Lord----”

Bixiou was looking at Peyrade’s shoes, and stooped down.

“What are you looking for?” asked Blondet.

“For the spring one must touch to stop this machine,” said Florine.

“Do you play for twenty francs a point?”

“I will play for as much as you like to lose.”

“He does it well!” said Esther to Lucien. “They all take him for an

Englishman.”

Du Tillet, Nucingen, Peyrade, and Rastignac sat down to a whist-table;

Florine, Madame du Val-Noble, Esther, Blondet, and Bixiou sat round the

fire chatting. Lucien spent the time in looking through a book of fine

engravings.

“Supper is ready,” Paccard presently announced, in magnificent livery.

Peyrade was placed at Florine’s left hand, and on the other side of him

Bixiou, whom Esther had enjoined to make the Englishman drink freely,

and challenge him to beat him. Bixiou had the power of drinking an

indefinite quantity.

Never in his life had Peyrade seen such splendor, or tasted of such

cookery, or seen such fine women.

“I am getting my money’s worth this evening for the thousand crowns la

Val-Noble has cost me till now,” thought he; “and besides, I have just

won a thousand francs.”

“This is an example for men to follow!” said Suzanne, who was sitting by

Lucien, with a wave of her hand at the splendors of the dining-room.

Esther had placed Lucien next herself, and was holding his foot between

her own under the table.

“Do you hear?” said Madame du Val-Noble, addressing Peyrade, who

affected blindness. “This is how you ought to furnish a house! When a

man brings millions home from India, and wants to do business with the

Nucingens, he should place himself on the same level.”

“I belong to a Temperance Society!”

“Then you will drink like a fish!” said Bixiou, “for the Indies are

uncommon hot, uncle!”

It was Bixiou’s jest during supper to treat Peyrade as an uncle of his,

returned from India.

“Montame du Fal-Noble tolt me you shall have some iteas,” said Nucingen,

scrutinizing Peyrade.

“Ah, this is what I wanted to hear,” said du Tillet to Rastignac; “the

two talking gibberish together.”

“You will see, they will understand each other at last,” said Bixiou,

guessing what du Tillet had said to Rastignac.

“Sir Baronet, I have imagined a speculation--oh! a very comfortable

job--bocou profitable and rich in profits----”

“Now you will see,” said Blondet to du Tillet, “he will not talk one

minute without dragging in the Parliament and the English Government.”

“It is in China, in the opium trade----”

“Ja, I know,” said Nucingen at once, as a man who is well acquainted

with commercial geography. “But de English Gover’ment hafe taken up de

opium trate as a means dat shall open up China, and she shall not allow

dat ve----”

“Nucingen has cut him out with the Government,” remarked du Tillet to

Blondet.

“Ah! you have been in the opium trade!” cried Madame du Val-Noble. “Now

I understand why you are so narcotic; some has stuck in your soul.”

“Dere! you see!” cried the Baron to the self-styled opium merchant,

and pointing to Madame du Val-Noble. “You are like me. Never shall a

millionaire be able to make a voman lofe him.”

“I have loved much and often, milady,” replied Peyrade.

“As a result of temperance,” said Bixiou, who had just seen Peyrade

finish his third bottle of claret, and now had a bottle of port wine

uncorked.

“Oh!” cried Peyrade, “it is very fine, the Portugal of England.”

Blondet, du Tillet, and Bixiou smiled at each other. Peyrade had the

power of travestying everything, even his wit. There are very few

Englishmen who will not maintain that gold and silver are better in

England than elsewhere. The fowls and eggs exported from Normandy to the

London market enable the English to maintain that the poultry and eggs

in London are superior (very fine) to those of Paris, which come from

the same district.

Esther and Lucien were dumfounded by this perfection of costume,

language, and audacity.

They all ate and drank so well and so heartily, while talking and

laughing, that it went on till four in the morning. Bixiou flattered

himself that he had achieved one of the victories so pleasantly related

by Brillat-Savarin. But at the moment when he was saying to himself,

as he offered his “uncle” some more wine, “I have vanquished England!”

Peyrade replied in good French to this malicious scoffer, “Toujours, mon

garcon” (Go it, my boy), which no one heard but Bixiou.

“Hallo, good men all, he is as English as I am!--My uncle is a Gascon! I

could have no other!”

Bixiou and Peyrade were alone, so no one heard this announcement.

Peyrade rolled off his chair on to the floor. Paccard forthwith picked

him up and carried him to an attic, where he fell sound asleep.

At six o’clock next evening, the Nabob was roused by the application

of a wet cloth, with which his face was being washed, and awoke to find

himself on a camp-bed, face to face with Asie, wearing a mask and a

black domino.

“Well, Papa Peyrade, you and I have to settle accounts,” said she.

“Where am I?” asked he, looking about him.

“Listen to me,” said Asie, “and that will sober you.--Though you do not

love Madame du Val-Noble, you love your daughter, I suppose?”

“My daughter?” Peyrade echoed with a roar.

“Yes, Mademoiselle Lydie.”

“What then?”

“What then? She is no longer in the Rue des Moineaux; she has been

carried off.”

Peyrade breathed a sigh like that of a soldier dying of a mortal wound

on the battlefield.

“While you were pretending to be an Englishman, some one else was

pretending to be Peyrade. Your little Lydie thought she was with her

father, and she is now in a safe place.--Oh! you will never find her!

unless you undo the mischief you have done.”

“What mischief?”

“Yesterday Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre had the door shut in his face at

the Duc de Grandlieu’s. This is due to your intrigues, and to the man

you let loose on us. Do not speak, listen!” Asie went on, seeing Peyrade

open his mouth. “You will have your daughter again, pure and spotless,”

she added, emphasizing her statement by the accent on every word, “only

on the day after that on which Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre walks out of

Saint-Thomas d’Aquin as the husband of Mademoiselle Clotilde. If, within

ten days Lucien de Rubempre is not admitted, as he has been, to the

Grandlieus’ house, you, to begin with, will die a violent death, and

nothing can save you from the fate that threatens you.--Then, when you

feel yourself dying, you will have time before breathing your last to

reflect, ‘My daughter is a prostitute for the rest of her life!’

“Though you have been such a fool as give us this hold for our clutches,

you still have sense enough to meditate on this ultimatum from our

government. Do not bark, say nothing to any one; go to Contenson’s, and

change your dress, and then go home. Katt will tell you that at a word

from you your little Lydie went downstairs, and has not been seen since.

If you make any fuss, if you take any steps, your daughter will begin

where I tell you she will end--she is promised to de Marsay.

“With old Canquoelle I need not mince matters, I should think, or wear

gloves, heh?----Go on downstairs, and take care not to meddle in our

concerns any more.”

Asie left Peyrade in a pitiable state; every word had been a blow with

a club. The spy had tears in his eyes, and tears hanging from his cheeks

at the end of a wet furrow.

“They are waiting dinner for Mr. Johnson,” said Europe, putting her head

in a moment after.

Peyrade made no reply; he went down, walked till he reached a cab-stand,

and hurried off to undress at Contenson’s, not saying a word to him; he

resumed the costume of Pere Canquoelle, and got home by eight o’clock.

He mounted the stairs with a beating heart. When the Flemish woman heard

her master, she asked him:

“Well, and where is mademoiselle?” with such simplicity, that the old

spy was obliged to lean against the wall. The blow was more than he

could bear. He went into his daughter’s rooms, and ended by fainting

with grief when he found them empty, and heard Katt’s story, which

was that of an abduction as skilfully planned as if he had arranged it

himself.

“Well, well,” thought he, “I must knock under. I will be revenged later;

now I must go to Corentin.--This is the first time we have met our foes.

Corentin will leave that handsome boy free to marry an Empress if he

wishes!--Yes, I understand that my little girl should have fallen in

love with him at first sight.--Oh! that Spanish priest is a knowing one.

Courage, friend Peyrade! disgorge your prey!”

The poor father never dreamed of the fearful blow that awaited him.

On reaching Corentin’s house, Bruno, the confidential servant, who knew

Peyrade, said:

“Monsieur is gone away.”

“For a long time?”

“For ten days.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.

“Good God, I am losing my wits! I ask him where--as if we ever told

them----” thought he.

A few hours before the moment when Peyrade was to be roused in his

garret in the Rue Saint-Georges, Corentin, coming in from his country

place at Passy, had made his way to the Duc de Grandlieu’s, in the

costume of a retainer of a superior class. He wore the ribbon of the

Legion of Honor at his button-hole. He had made up a withered old face

with powdered hair, deep wrinkles, and a colorless skin. His eyes

were hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles. He looked like a retired

office-clerk. On giving his name as Monsieur de Saint-Denis, he was led

to the Duke’s private room, where he found Derville reading a letter,

which he himself had dictated to one of his agents, the “number” whose

business it was to write documents. The Duke took Corentin aside to tell

him all he already knew. Monsieur de Saint-Denis listened coldly and

respectfully, amusing himself by studying this grand gentleman, by

penetrating the tufa beneath the velvet cover, by scrutinizing this

being, now and always absorbed in whist and in regard for the House of

Grandlieu.

“If you will take my advice, monsieur,” said Corentin to Derville,

after being duly introduced to the lawyer, “we shall set out this very

afternoon for Angouleme by the Bordeaux coach, which goes quite as fast

as the mail; and we shall not need to stay there six hours to obtain

the information Monsieur le Duc requires. It will be enough--if I have

understood your Grace--to ascertain whether Monsieur de Rubempre’s

sister and brother-in-law are in a position to give him twelve hundred

thousand francs?” and he turned to the Duke.

“You have understood me perfectly,” said the Duke.

“We can be back again in four days,” Corentin went on, addressing

Derville, “and neither of us will have neglected his business long

enough for it to suffer.”

“That was the only difficulty I was about to mention to his Grace,” said

Derville. “It is now four o’clock. I am going home to say a word to

my head-clerk, and pack my traveling-bag, and after dinner, at eight

o’clock, I will be----But shall we get places?” he said to Monsieur de

Saint-Denis, interrupting himself.

“I will answer for that,” said Corentin. “Be in the yard of the Chief

Office of the Messageries at eight o’clock. If there are no places,

they shall make some, for that is the way to serve Monseigneur le Duc de

Grandlieu.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Duke most graciously, “I postpone my thanks----”

Corentin and the lawyer, taking this as a dismissal, bowed, and

withdrew.

At the hour when Peyrade was questioning Corentin’s servant, Monsieur

de Saint-Denis and Derville, seated in the Bordeaux coach, were studying

each other in silence as they drove out of Paris.

Next morning, between Orleans and Tours, Derville, being bored, began

to converse, and Corentin condescended to amuse him, but keeping his

distance; he left him to believe that he was in the diplomatic service,

and was hoping to become Consul-General by the good offices of the Duc

de Grandlieu. Two days after leaving Paris, Corentin and Derville got

out at Mansle, to the great surprise of the lawyer, who thought he was

going to Angouleme.

“In this little town,” said Corentin, “we can get the most positive

information as regards Madame Sechard.”

“Do you know her then?” asked Derville, astonished to find Corentin so

well informed.

“I made the conductor talk, finding he was a native of Angouleme. He

tells me that Madame Sechard lives at Marsac, and Marsac is but a league

away from Mansle. I thought we should be at greater advantage here than

at Angouleme for verifying the facts.”

“And besides,” thought Derville, “as Monsieur le Duc said, I act merely

as the witness to the inquiries made by this confidential agent----”

The inn at Mansle, _la Belle Etoile_, had for its landlord one of those

fat and burly men whom we fear we may find no more on our return; but

who still, ten years after, are seen standing at their door with as much

superfluous flesh as ever, in the same linen cap, the same apron,

with the same knife, the same oiled hair, the same triple chin,--all

stereotyped by novel-writers from the immortal Cervantes to the immortal

Walter Scott. Are they not all boastful of their cookery? have they not

all “whatever you please to order”? and do not all end by giving you the

same hectic chicken, and vegetables cooked with rank butter? They

all boast of their fine wines, and all make you drink the wine of the

country.

But Corentin, from his earliest youth, had known the art of getting out

of an innkeeper things more essential to himself than doubtful dishes

and apocryphal wines. So he gave himself out as a man easy to please,

and willing to leave himself in the hands of the best cook in Mansle, as

he told the fat man.

“There is no difficulty about being the best--I am the only one,” said

the host.

“Serve us in the side room,” said Corentin, winking at Derville. “And

do not be afraid of setting the chimney on fire; we want to thaw out the

frost in our fingers.”

“It was not warm in the coach,” said Derville.

“Is it far to Marsac?” asked Corentin of the innkeeper’s wife, who came

down from the upper regions on hearing that the diligence had dropped

two travelers to sleep there.

“Are you going to Marsac, monsieur?” replied the woman.

“I don’t know,” he said sharply. “Is it far from hence to Marsac?” he

repeated, after giving the woman time to notice his red ribbon.

“In a chaise, a matter of half an hour,” said the innkeeper’s wife.

“Do you think that Monsieur and Madame Sechard are likely to be there in

winter?”

“To be sure; they live there all the year round.”

“It is now five o’clock. We shall still find them up at nine.”

“Oh yes, till ten. They have company every evening--the cure, Monsieur

Marron the doctor----”

“Good folks then?” said Derville.

“Oh, the best of good souls,” replied the woman, “straight-forward,

honest--and not ambitious neither. Monsieur Sechard, though he is very

well off--they say he might have made millions if he had not allowed

himself to be robbed of an invention in the paper-making of which the

brothers Cointet are getting the benefit----”

“Ah, to be sure, the Brothers Cointet!” said Corentin.

“Hold your tongue,” said the innkeeper. “What can it matter to these

gentlemen whether Monsieur Sechard has a right or no to a patent for his

inventions in paper-making?--If you mean to spend the night here--at the

_Belle Etoile_----” he went on, addressing the travelers, “here is the

book, and please to put your names down. We have an officer in this town

who has nothing to do, and spends all his time in nagging at us----”

“The devil!” said Corentin, while Derville entered their names and

his profession as attorney to the lower Court in the department of the

Seine, “I fancied the Sechards were very rich.”

“Some people say they are millionaires,” replied the innkeeper. “But

as to hindering tongues from wagging, you might as well try to stop the

river from flowing. Old Sechard left two hundred thousand francs’ worth

of landed property, it is said; and that is not amiss for a man who

began as a workman. Well, and he may have had as much again in savings,

for he made ten or twelve thousand francs out of his land at last. So,

supposing he were fool enough not to invest his money for ten years,

that would be all told. But even if he lent it at high interest, as

he is suspected of doing there would be three hundred thousand francs

perhaps, and that is all. Five hundred thousand francs is a long way

short of a million. I should be quite content with the difference, and

no more of the _Belle Etoile_ for me!”

“Really!” said Corentin. “Then Monsieur David Sechard and his wife have

not a fortune of two or three millions?”

“Why,” exclaimed the innkeeper’s wife, “that is what the Cointets are

supposed to have, who robbed him of his invention, and he does not get

more than twenty thousand francs out of them. Where do you suppose such

honest folks would find millions? They were very much pinched while the

father was alive. But for Kolb, their manager, and Madame Kolb, who is

as much attached to them as her husband, they could scarcely have lived.

Why, how much had they with La Verberie!--A thousand francs a year

perhaps.”

Corentin drew Derville aside and said:

“In vino veritas! Truth lives under a cork. For my part, I regard an inn

as the real registry office of the countryside; the notary is not

better informed than the innkeeper as to all that goes on in a small

neighborhood.--You see! we are supposed to know all about the Cointets

and Kolb and the rest.

“Your innkeeper is the living record of every incident; he does the work

of the police without suspecting it. A government should maintain

two hundred spies at most, for in a country like France there are ten

millions of simple-minded informers.--However, we need not trust to this

report; though even in this little town something would be known about

the twelve hundred thousand francs sunk in paying for the Rubempre

estate. We will not stop here long----”

“I hope not!” Derville put in.

“And this is why,” added Corentin; “I have hit on the most natural way

of extracting the truth from the mouth of the Sechard couple. I rely

upon you to support, by your authority as a lawyer, the little trick I

shall employ to enable you to hear a clear and complete account of their

affairs.--After dinner we shall set out to call on Monsieur Sechard,”

said Corentin to the innkeeper’s wife. “Have beds ready for us, we want

separate rooms. There can be no difficulty ‘under the stars.’”

“Oh, monsieur,” said the woman, “we invented the sign.”

“The pun is to be found in every department,” said Corentin; “it is no

monopoly of yours.”

“Dinner is served, gentlemen,” said the innkeeper.

“But where the devil can that young fellow have found the money? Is

the anonymous writer accurate? Can it be the earnings of some handsome

baggage?” said Derville, as they sat down to dinner.

“Ah, that will be the subject of another inquiry,” said Corentin.

“Lucien de Rubempre, as the Duc de Chaulieu tells me, lives with a

converted Jewess, who passes for a Dutch woman, and is called Esther van

Bogseck.”

“What a strange coincidence!” said the lawyer. “I am hunting for

the heiress of a Dutchman named Gobseck--it is the same name with a

transposition of consonants.”

“Well,” said Corentin, “you shall have information as to her parentage

on my return to Paris.”

An hour later, the two agents for the Grandlieu family set out for La

Verberie, where Monsieur and Madame Sechard were living.

Never had Lucien felt any emotion so deep as that which overcame him at

La Verberie when comparing his own fate with that of his brother-in-law.

The two Parisians were about to witness the same scene that had so much

struck Lucien a few days since. Everything spoke of peace and abundance.

At the hour when the two strangers were arriving, a party of four

persons were being entertained in the drawing-room of La Verberie:

the cure of Marsac, a young priest of five-and-twenty, who, at Madame

Sechard’s request, had become tutor to her little boy Lucien; the

country doctor, Monsieur Marron; the Maire of the commune; and an old

colonel, who grew roses on a plot of land opposite to La Verberie on the

other side of the road. Every evening during the winter these persons

came to play an artless game of boston for centime points, to borrow the

papers, or return those they had finished.

When Monsieur and Madame Sechard had bought La Verberie, a fine house

built of stone, and roofed with slate, the pleasure-grounds consisted of

a garden of two acres. In the course of time, by devoting her savings to

the purpose, handsome Madame Sechard had extended her garden as far as

a brook, by cutting down the vines on some ground she purchased, and

replacing them with grass plots and clumps of shrubbery. At the present

time the house, surrounded by a park of about twenty acres, and enclosed

by walls, was considered the most imposing place in the neighborhood.

Old Sechard’s former residence, with the outhouses attached, was now

used as the dwelling-house for the manager of about twenty acres of

vineyard left by him, of five farmsteads, bringing in about six thousand

francs a year, and ten acres of meadow land lying on the further side

of the stream, exactly opposite the little park; indeed, Madame Sechard

hoped to include them in it the next year. La Verberie was already

spoken of in the neighborhood as a chateau, and Eve Sechard was known

as the Lady of Marsac. Lucien, while flattering her vanity, had only

followed the example of the peasants and vine-dressers. Courtois, the

owner of the mill, very picturesquely situated a few hundred yards from

the meadows of La Verberie, was in treaty, it was said, with Madame

Sechard for the sale of his property; and this acquisition would give

the finishing touch to the estate and the rank of a “place” in the

department.

Madame Sechard, who did a great deal of good, with as much judgment

as generosity, was equally esteemed and loved. Her beauty, now really

splendid, was at the height of its bloom. She was about six-and-twenty,

but had preserved all the freshness of youth from living in the

tranquillity and abundance of a country life. Still much in love with

her husband, she respected him as a clever man, who was modest enough to

renounce the display of fame; in short, to complete her portrait, it is

enough to say that in her whole existence she had never felt a throb of

her heart that was not inspired by her husband or her children.

The tax paid to grief by this happy household was, as may be supposed,

the deep anxiety caused by Lucien’s career, in which Eve Sechard

suspected mysteries, which she dreaded all the more because, during

his last visit, Lucien roughly cut short all his sister’s questions by

saying that an ambitious man owed no account of his proceedings to any

one but himself.

In six years Lucien had seen his sister but three times, and had not

written her more than six letters. His first visit to La Verberie had

been on the occasion of his mother’s death; and his last had been paid

with a view to asking the favor of the lie which was so necessary to his

advancement. This gave rise to a very serious scene between Monsieur

and Madame Sechard and their brother, and left their happy and respected

life troubled by the most terrible suspicions.

The interior of the house, as much altered as the surroundings, was

comfortable without luxury, as will be understood by a glance round

the room where the little party were now assembled. A pretty Aubusson

carpet, hangings of gray cotton twill bound with green silk brocade, the

woodwork painted to imitate Spa wood, carved mahogany furniture covered

with gray woolen stuff and green gimp, with flower-stands, gay with

flowers in spite of the time of year, presented a very pleasing and

homelike aspect. The window curtains, of green brocade, the chimney

ornaments, and the mirror frames were untainted by the bad taste that

spoils everything in the provinces; and the smallest details, all

elegant and appropriate, gave the mind and eye a sense of repose and of

poetry which a clever and loving woman can and ought to infuse into her

home.

Madame Sechard, still in mourning for her father, sat by the fire

working at some large piece of tapestry with the help of Madame Kolb,

the housekeeper, to whom she intrusted all the minor cares of the

household.

“A chaise has stopped at the door!” said Courtois, hearing the sound

of wheels outside; “and to judge by the clatter of metal, it belongs to

these parts----”

“Postel and his wife have come to see us, no doubt,” said the doctor.

“No,” said Courtois, “the chaise has come from Mansle.”

“Montame,” said Kolb, the burly Alsatian we have made acquaintance with

in a former volume (_Illusions perdues_), “here is a lawyer from Paris

who wants to speak with monsieur.”

“A lawyer!” cried Sechard; “the very word gives me the colic!”

“Thank you!” said the Maire of Marsac, named Cachan, who for twenty

years had been an attorney at Angouleme, and who had once been required

to prosecute Sechard.

“My poor David will never improve; he will always be absent-minded!”

said Eve, smiling.

“A lawyer from Paris,” said Courtois. “Have you any business in Paris?”

“No,” said Eve.

“But you have a brother there,” observed Courtois.

“Take care lest he should have anything to say about old Sechard’s

estate,” said Cachan. “_He_ had his finger in some very queer concerns,

worthy man!”

Corentin and Derville, on entering the room, after bowing to the

company, and giving their names, begged to have a private interview with

Monsieur and Madame Sechard.

“By all means,” said Sechard. “But is it a matter of business?”

“Solely a matter regarding your father’s property,” said Corentin.

“Then I beg you will allow monsieur--the Maire, a lawyer formerly at

Angouleme--to be present also.”

“Are you Monsieur Derville?” said Cachan, addressing Corentin.

“No, monsieur, this is Monsieur Derville,” replied Corentin, introducing

the lawyer, who bowed.

“But,” said Sechard, “we are, so to speak, a family party; we have no

secrets from our neighbors; there is no need to retire to my study,

where there is no fire--our life is in the sight of all men----”

“But your father’s,” said Corentin, “was involved in certain mysteries

which perhaps you would rather not make public.”

“Is it anything we need blush for?” said Eve, in alarm.

“Oh, no! a sin of his youth,” said Corentin, coldly setting one of his

mouse-traps. “Monsieur, your father left an elder son----”

“Oh, the old rascal!” cried Courtois. “He was never very fond of

you, Monsieur Sechard, and he kept that secret from you, the deep old

dog!--Now I understand what he meant when he used to say to me, ‘You

shall see what you shall see when I am under the turf.’”

“Do not be dismayed, monsieur,” said Corentin to Sechard, while he

watched Eve out of the corner of his eye.

“A brother!” exclaimed the doctor. “Then your inheritance is divided

into two!”

Derville was affecting to examine the fine engravings, proofs before

letters, which hung on the drawing-room walls.

“Do not be dismayed, madame,” Corentin went on, seeing amazement written

on Madame Sechard’s handsome features, “it is only a natural son. The

rights of a natural son are not the same as those of a legitimate child.

This man is in the depths of poverty, and he has a right to a certain

sum calculated on the amount of the estate. The millions left by your

father----”

At the word millions there was a perfectly unanimous cry from all the

persons present. And now Derville ceased to study the prints.

“Old Sechard?--Millions?” said Courtois. “Who on earth told you that?

Some peasant----”

“Monsieur,” said Cachan, “you are not attached to the Treasury? You may

be told all the facts----”

“Be quite easy,” said Corentin, “I give you my word of honor I am not

employed by the Treasury.”

Cachan, who had just signed to everybody to say nothing, gave expression

to his satisfaction.

“Monsieur,” Corentin went on, “if the whole estate were but a million, a

natural child’s share would still be something considerable. But we

have not come to threaten a lawsuit; on the contrary, our purpose is to

propose that you should hand over one hundred thousand francs, and we

will depart----”

“One hundred thousand francs!” cried Cachan, interrupting him. “But,

monsieur, old Sechard left twenty acres of vineyard, five small farms,

ten acres of meadowland here, and not a sou besides----”

“Nothing on earth,” cried David Sechard, “would induce me to tell a lie,

and less to a question of money than on any other.--Monsieur,” he

said, turning to Corentin and Derville, “my father left us, besides the

land----”

Courtois and Cachan signaled in vain to Sechard; he went on:

“Three hundred thousand francs, which raises the whole estate to about

five hundred thousand francs.”

“Monsieur Cachan,” asked Eve Sechard, “what proportion does the law

allot to a natural child?”

“Madame,” said Corentin, “we are not Turks; we only require you to swear

before these gentlemen that you did not inherit more than five

hundred thousand francs from your father-in-law, and we can come to an

understanding.”

“First give me your word of honor that you really are a lawyer,” said

Cachan to Derville.

“Here is my passport,” replied Derville, handing him a paper folded in

four; “and monsieur is not, as you might suppose, an inspector from the

Treasury, so be easy,” he added. “We had an important reason for wanting

to know the truth as to the Sechard estate, and we now know it.”

Derville took Madame Sechard’s hand and led her very courteously to the

further end of the room.

“Madame,” said he, in a low voice, “if it were not that the honor

and future prospects of the house of Grandlieu are implicated in this

affair, I would never have lent myself to the stratagem devised by this

gentleman of the red ribbon. But you must forgive him; it was necessary

to detect the falsehood by means of which your brother has stolen a

march on the beliefs of that ancient family. Beware now of allowing it

to be supposed that you have given your brother twelve hundred thousand

francs to repurchase the Rubempre estates----”

“Twelve hundred thousand francs!” cried Madame Sechard, turning pale.

“Where did he get them, wretched boy?”

“Ah! that is the question,” replied Derville. “I fear that the source of

his wealth is far from pure.”

The tears rose to Eve’s eyes, as her neighbors could see.

“We have, perhaps, done you a great service by saving you from abetting

a falsehood of which the results may be positively dangerous,” the

lawyer went on.

Derville left Madame Sechard sitting pale and dejected with tears on her

cheeks, and bowed to the company.

“To Mansle!” said Corentin to the little boy who drove the chaise.

There was but one vacant place in the diligence from Bordeaux to Paris;

Derville begged Corentin to allow him to take it, urging a press of

business; but in his soul he was distrustful of his traveling companion,

whose diplomatic dexterity and coolness struck him as being the result

of practice. Corentin remained three days longer at Mansle, unable to

get away; he was obliged to secure a place in the Paris coach by writing

to Bordeaux, and did not get back till nine days after leaving home.

Peyrade, meanwhile, had called every morning, either at Passy or in

Paris, to inquire whether Corentin had returned. On the eighth day he

left at each house a note, written in their peculiar cipher, to explain

to his friend what death hung over him, and to tell him of Lydie’s

abduction and the horrible end to which his enemies had devoted them.

Peyrade, bereft of Corentin, but seconded by Contenson, still kept up

his disguise as a nabob. Even though his invisible foes had discovered

him, he very wisely reflected that he might glean some light on the

matter by remaining on the field of the contest.

Contenson had brought all his experience into play in his search for

Lydie, and hoped to discover in what house she was hidden; but as the

days went by, the impossibility, absolutely demonstrated, of tracing the

slightest clue, added, hour by hour, to Peyrade’s despair. The old

spy had a sort of guard about him of twelve or fifteen of the most

experienced detectives. They watched the neighborhood of the Rue des

Moineaux and the Rue Taitbout--where he lived, as a nabob, with Madame

du Val-Noble. During the last three days of the term granted by Asie to

reinstate Lucien on his old footing in the Hotel de Grandlieu, Contenson

never left the veteran of the old general police office. And the poetic

terror shed throughout the forests of America by the arts of inimical

and warring tribes, of which Cooper made such good use in his

novels, was here associated with the petty details of Paris life. The

foot-passengers, the shops, the hackney cabs, a figure standing at a

window,--everything had to the human ciphers to whom old Peyrade had

intrusted his safety the thrilling interest which attaches in Cooper’s

romances to a beaver-village, a rock, a bison-robe, a floating canoe, a

weed straggling over the water.

“If the Spaniard has gone away, you have nothing to fear,” said

Contenson to Peyrade, remarking on the perfect peace they lived in.

“But if he is not gone?” observed Peyrade.

“He took one of my men at the back of the chaise; but at Blois, my man

having to get down, could not catch the chaise up again.”

Five days after Derville’s return, Lucien one morning had a call from

Rastignac.

“I am in despair, my dear boy,” said his visitor, “at finding myself

compelled to deliver a message which is intrusted to me because we are

known to be intimate. Your marriage is broken off beyond all hope of

reconciliation. Never set foot again in the Hotel de Grandlieu. To marry

Clotilde you must wait till her father dies, and he is too selfish to

die yet awhile. Old whist-players sit at table--the card-table--very

late.

“Clotilde is setting out for Italy with Madeleine de

Lenoncourt-Chaulieu. The poor girl is so madly in love with you, my dear

fellow, that they have to keep an eye on her; she was bent on coming to

see you, and had plotted an escape. That may comfort you in misfortune!”

Lucien made no reply; he sat gazing at Rastignac.

“And is it a misfortune, after all?” his friend went on. “You will

easily find a girl as well born and better looking than Clotilde! Madame

de Serizy will find you a wife out of spite; she cannot endure the

Grandlieus, who never would have anything to say to her. She has a

niece, little Clemence du Rouvre----”

“My dear boy,” said Lucien at length, “since that supper I am not on

terms with Madame de Serizy--she saw me in Esther’s box and made a

scene--and I left her to herself.”

“A woman of forty does not long keep up a quarrel with so handsome a

man as you are,” said Rastignac. “I know something of these sunsets.--It

lasts ten minutes in the sky, and ten years in a woman’s heart.”

“I have waited a week to hear from her.”

“Go and call.”

“Yes, I must now.”

“Are you coming at any rate to the Val-Noble’s? Her nabob is returning

the supper given by Nucingen.”

“I am asked, and I shall go,” said Lucien gravely.

The day after this confirmation of his disaster, which Carlos heard of

at once from Asie, Lucien went to the Rue Taitbout with Rastignac and

Nucingen.

At midnight nearly all the personages of this drama were assembled in

the dining-room that had formerly been Esther’s--a drama of which the

interest lay hidden under the very bed of these tumultuous lives, and

was known only to Esther, to Lucien, to Peyrade, to Contenson, the

mulatto, and to Paccard, who attended his mistress. Asie, without

its being known to Contenson and Peyrade, had been asked by Madame du

Val-Noble to come and help her cook.

As they sat down to table, Peyrade, who had given Madame du Val-Noble

five hundred francs that the thing might be well done, found under his

napkin a scrap of paper on which these words were written in pencil,

“The ten days are up at the moment when you sit down to supper.”

Peyrade handed the paper to Contenson, who was standing behind him,

saying in English:

“Did you put my name here?”

Contenson read by the light of the wax-candles this “Mene, Tekel,

Upharsin,” and slipped the scrap into his pocket; but he knew how

difficult it is to verify a handwriting in pencil, and, above all, a

sentence written in Roman capitals, that is to say, with mathematical

lines, since capital letters are wholly made up of straight lines and

curves, in which it is impossible to detect any trick of the hand, as in

what is called running-hand.

The supper was absolutely devoid of spirit. Peyrade was visibly

absent-minded. Of the men about town who give life to a supper, only

Rastignac and Lucien were present. Lucien was gloomy and absorbed in

thought; Rastignac, who had lost two thousand francs before supper,

ate and drank with the hope of recovering them later. The three women,

stricken by this chill, looked at each other. Dulness deprived the

dishes of all relish. Suppers, like plays and books, have their good and

bad luck.

At the end of the meal ices were served, of the kind called plombieres.

As everybody knows, this kind of dessert has delicate preserved fruits

laid on the top of the ice, which is served in a little glass, not

heaped above the rim. These ices had been ordered by Madame du Val-Noble

of Tortoni, whose shop is at the corner of the Rue Taitbout and the

Boulevard.

The cook called Contenson out of the room to pay the bill.

Contenson, who thought this demand on the part of the shop-boy rather

strange, went downstairs and startled him by saying:

“Then you have not come from Tortoni’s?” and then went straight upstairs

again.

Paccard had meanwhile handed the ices to the company in his absence. The

mulatto had hardly reached the door when one of the police constables

who had kept watch in the Rue des Moineaux called up the stairs:

“Number twenty-seven.”

“What’s up?” replied Contenson, flying down again.

“Tell Papa that his daughter has come home; but, good God! in what a

state. Tell him to come at once; she is dying.”

At the moment when Contenson re-entered the dining-room, old Peyrade,

who had drunk a great deal, was swallowing the cherry off his ice. They

were drinking to the health of Madame du Val-Noble; the nabob filled his

glass with Constantia and emptied it.

In spite of his distress at the news he had to give Peyrade, Contenson

was struck by the eager attention with which Paccard was looking at

the nabob. His eyes sparkled like two fixed flames. Although it seemed

important, still this could not delay the mulatto, who leaned over his

master, just as Peyrade set his glass down.

“Lydie is at home,” said Contenson, “in a very bad state.”

Peyrade rattled out the most French of all French oaths with such a

strong Southern accent that all the guests looked up in amazement.

Peyrade, discovering his blunder, acknowledged his disguise by saying to

Contenson in good French:

“Find me a coach--I’m off.”

Every one rose.

“Why, who are you?” said Lucien.

“Ja--who?” said the Baron.

“Bixiou told me you shammed Englishman better than he could, and I would

not believe him,” said Rastignac.

“Some bankrupt caught in disguise,” said du Tillet loudly. “I suspected

as much!”

“A strange place is Paris!” said Madame du Val-Noble. “After being

bankrupt in his own part of town, a merchant turns up as a nabob or a

dandy in the Champs-Elysees with impunity!--Oh! I am unlucky! bankrupts

are my bane.”

“Every flower has its peculiar blight!” said Esther quietly. “Mine is

like Cleopatra’s--an asp.”

“Who am I?” echoed Peyrade from the door. “You will know ere long; for

if I die, I will rise from my grave to clutch your feet every night!”

He looked at Esther and Lucien as he spoke, then he took advantage of

the general dismay to vanish with the utmost rapidity, meaning to run

home without waiting for the coach. In the street the spy was gripped

by the arm as he crossed the threshold of the outer gate. It was Asie,

wrapped in a black hood such as ladies then wore on leaving a ball.

“Send for the Sacraments, Papa Peyrade,” said she, in the voice that had

already prophesied ill.

A coach was waiting. Asie jumped in, and the carriage vanished as though

the wind had swept it away. There were five carriages waiting; Peyrade’s

men could find out nothing.

On reaching his house in the Rue des Vignes, one of the quietest and

prettiest nooks of the little town of Passy, Corentin, who was known

there as a retired merchant passionately devoted to gardening, found

his friend Peyrade’s note in cipher. Instead of resting, he got into the

hackney coach that had brought him thither, and was driven to the Rue

des Moineaux, where he found only Katt. From her he heard of Lydie’s

disappearance, and remained astounded at Peyrade’s and his own want of

foresight.

“But they do not know me yet,” said he to himself. “This crew is capable

of anything; I must find out if they are killing Peyrade; for if so, I

must not be seen any more----”

The viler a man’s life is, the more he clings to it; it becomes at every

moment a protest and a revenge.

Corentin went back to the cab, and drove to his rooms to assume the

disguise of a feeble old man, in a scanty greenish overcoat and a tow

wig. Then he returned on foot, prompted by his friendship for Peyrade.

He intended to give instructions to his most devoted and cleverest

underlings.

As he went along the Rue Saint-Honore to reach the Rue Saint-Roch from

the Place Vendome, he came up behind a girl in slippers, and dressed

as a woman dresses for the night. She had on a white bed-jacket and a

nightcap, and from time to time gave vent to a sob and an involuntary

groan. Corentin out-paced her, and turning round, recognized Lydie.

“I am a friend of your father’s, of Monsieur Canquoelle’s,” said he in

his natural voice.

“Ah! then here is some one I can trust!” said she.

“Do not seem to have recognized me,” Corentin went on, “for we are

pursued by relentless foes, and are obliged to disguise ourselves. But

tell me what has befallen you?”

“Oh, monsieur,” said the poor child, “the facts but not the story can be

told--I am ruined, lost, and I do not know how----”

“Where have you come from?”

“I don’t know, monsieur. I fled with such precipitancy, I have come

through so many streets, round so many turnings, fancying I was being

followed. And when I met any one that seemed decent, I asked my way to

get back to the Boulevards, so as to find the Rue de la Paix. And at

last, after walking----What o’clock is it, monsieur?”

“Half-past eleven,” said Corentin.

“I escaped at nightfall,” said Lydie. “I have been walking for five

hours.”

“Well, come along; you can rest now; you will find your good Katt.”

“Oh, monsieur, there is no rest for me! I only want to rest in the

grave, and I will go and wait for death in a convent if I am worthy to

be admitted----”

“Poor little girl!--But you struggled?”

“Oh yes! Oh! if you could only imagine the abject creatures they placed

me with----!”

“They sent you to sleep, no doubt?”

“Ah! that is it” cried poor Lydie. “A little more strength and I

should be at home. I feel that I am dropping, and my brain is not quite

clear.--Just now I fancied I was in a garden----”

Corentin took Lydie in his arms, and she lost consciousness; he carried

her upstairs.

“Katt!” he called.

Katt came out with exclamations of joy.

“Don’t be in too great a hurry to be glad!” said Corentin gravely; “the

girl is very ill.”

When Lydie was laid on her bed and recognized her own room by the light

of two candles that Katt lighted, she became delirious. She sang scraps

of pretty airs, broken by vociferations of horrible sentences she had

heard. Her pretty face was mottled with purple patches. She mixed up

the reminiscences of her pure childhood with those of these ten days

of infamy. Katt sat weeping; Corentin paced the room, stopping now and

again to gaze at Lydie.

“She is paying her father’s debt,” said he. “Is there a Providence

above? Oh, I was wise not to have a family. On my word of honor, a child

is indeed a hostage given to misfortune, as some philosopher has said.”

“Oh!” cried the poor child, sitting up in bed and throwing back her fine

long hair, “instead of lying here, Katt, I ought to be stretched in the

sand at the bottom of the Seine!”

“Katt, instead of crying and looking at your child, which will never

cure her, you ought to go for a doctor; the medical officer in the first

instance, and then Monsieur Desplein and Monsieur Bianchon----We must

save this innocent creature.”

And Corentin wrote down the addresses of these two famous physicians.

At this moment, up the stairs came some one to whom they were familiar,

and the door was opened. Peyrade, in a violent sweat, his face purple,

his eyes almost blood-stained, and gasping like a dolphin, rushed from

the outer door to Lydie’s room, exclaiming:

“Where is my child?”

He saw a melancholy sign from Corentin, and his eyes followed his

friend’s hand. Lydie’s condition can only be compared to that of a

flower tenderly cherished by a gardener, now fallen from its stem, and

crushed by the iron-clamped shoes of some peasant. Ascribe this simile

to a father’s heart, and you will understand the blow that fell on

Peyrade; the tears started to his eyes.

“You are crying!--It is my father!” said the girl.

She could still recognize her father; she got out of bed and fell on her

knees at the old man’s side as he sank into a chair.

“Forgive me, papa,” said she in a tone that pierced Peyrade’s heart, and

at the same moment he was conscious of what felt like a tremendous blow

on his head.

“I am dying!--the villains!” were his last words.

Corentin tried to help his friend, and received his latest breath.

“Dead! Poisoned!” said he to himself. “Ah! here is the doctor!” he

exclaimed, hearing the sound of wheels.

Contenson, who came with his mulatto disguise removed, stood like a

bronze statue as he heard Lydie say:

“Then you do not forgive me, father?--But it was not my fault!”

She did not understand that her father was dead.

“Oh, how he stares at me!” cried the poor crazy girl.

“We must close his eyes,” said Contenson, lifting Peyrade on to the bed.

“We are doing a stupid thing,” said Corentin. “Let us carry him into his

own room. His daughter is half demented, and she will go quite mad when

she sees that he is dead; she will fancy that she has killed him.”

Lydie, seeing them carry away her father, looked quite stupefied.

“There lies my only friend!” said Corentin, seeming much moved when

Peyrade was laid out on the bed in his own room. “In all his life

he never had but one impulse of cupidity, and that was for his

daughter!--Let him be an example to you, Contenson. Every line of life

has its code of honor. Peyrade did wrong when he mixed himself up with

private concerns; we have no business to meddle with any but public

cases.

“But come what may, I swear,” said he with a voice, an emphasis, a look

that struck horror into Contenson, “to avenge my poor Peyrade! I will

discover the men who are guilty of his death and of his daughter’s ruin.

And as sure as I am myself, as I have yet a few days to live, which I

will risk to accomplish that vengeance, every man of them shall die at

four o’clock, in good health, by a clean shave on the Place de Greve.”

“And I will help you,” said Contenson with feeling.

Nothing, in fact, is more heart-stirring than the spectacle of passion

in a cold, self-contained, and methodical man, in whom, for twenty

years, no one has ever detected the smallest impulse of sentiment. It

is like a molten bar of iron which melts everything it touches. And

Contenson was moved to his depths.

“Poor old Canquoelle!” said he, looking at Corentin. “He has treated me

many a time.--And, I tell you, only your bad sort know how to do such

things--but often has he given me ten francs to go and gamble with...”

After this funeral oration, Peyrade’s two avengers went back to Lydie’s

room, hearing Katt and the medical officer from the Mairie on the

stairs.

“Go and fetch the Chief of Police,” said Corentin. “The public

prosecutor will not find grounds for a prosecution in the case; still,

we will report it to the Prefecture; it may, perhaps, be of some use.

“Monsieur,” he went on to the medical officer, “in this room you will

see a dead man. I do not believe that he died from natural causes; you

will be good enough to make a post-mortem in the presence of the Chief

of the Police, who will come at my request. Try to discover some traces

of poison. You will, in a few minutes, have the opinion of Monsieur

Desplein and Monsieur Bianchon, for whom I have sent to examine the

daughter of my best friend; she is in a worse plight than he, though he

is dead.”

“I have no need of those gentlemen’s assistance in the exercise of my

duty,” said the medical officer.

“Well, well,” thought Corentin. “Let us have no clashing, monsieur,”

he said. “In a few words I give you my opinion--Those who have just

murdered the father have also ruined the daughter.”

By daylight Lydie had yielded to fatigue; when the great surgeon and the

young physician arrived she was asleep.

The doctor, whose duty it was to sign the death certificate, had now

opened Peyrade’s body, and was seeking the cause of death.

“While waiting for your patient to awake,” said Corentin to the two

famous doctors, “would you join one of your professional brethren in an

examination which cannot fail to interest you, and your opinion will be

valuable in case of an inquiry.”

“Your relations died of apoplexy,” said the official. “There are all the

symptoms of violent congestion of the brain.”

“Examine him, gentlemen, and see if there is no poison capable of

producing similar symptoms.”

“The stomach is, in fact, full of food substances; but short of chemical

analysis, I find no evidence of poison.

“If the characters of cerebral congestion are well ascertained, we

have here, considering the patient’s age, a sufficient cause of death,”

observed Desplein, looking at the enormous mass of material.

“Did he sup here?” asked Bianchon.

“No,” said Corentin; “he came here in great haste from the Boulevard,

and found his daughter ruined----”

“That was the poison if he loved his daughter,” said Bianchon.

“What known poison could produce a similar effect?” asked Corentin,

clinging to his idea.

“There is but one,” said Desplein, after a careful examination. “It is a

poison found in the Malayan Archipelago, and derived from trees, as yet

but little known, of the strychnos family; it is used to poison that

dangerous weapon, the Malay kris.--At least, so it is reported.”

The Police Commissioner presently arrived; Corentin told him his

suspicions, and begged him to draw up a report, telling him where and

with whom Peyrade had supped, and the causes of the state in which he

found Lydie.

Corentin then went to Lydie’s rooms; Desplein and Bianchon had been

examining the poor child. He met them at the door.

“Well, gentlemen?” asked Corentin.

“Place the girl under medical care; unless she recovers her wits when

her child is born--if indeed she should have a child--she will end her

days melancholy-mad. There is no hope of a cure but in the maternal

instinct, if it can be aroused.”

Corentin paid each of the physicians forty francs in gold, and then

turned to the Police Commissioner, who had pulled him by the sleeve.

“The medical officer insists on it that death was natural,” said this

functionary, “and I can hardly report the case, especially as the dead

man was old Canquoelle; he had his finger in too many pies, and we

should not be sure whom we might run foul of. Men like that die to order

very often----”

“And my name is Corentin,” said Corentin in the man’s ear.

The Commissioner started with surprise.

“So just make a note of all this,” Corentin went on; “it will be very

useful by and by; send it up only as confidential information. The crime

cannot be proved, and I know that any inquiry would be checked at the

very outset.--But I will catch the criminals some day yet. I will watch

them and take them red-handed.”

The police official bowed to Corentin and left.

“Monsieur,” said Katt. “Mademoiselle does nothing but dance and sing.

What can I do?”

“Has any change occurred then?”

“She has understood that her father is just dead.”

“Put her into a hackney coach, and simply take her to Charenton; I will

write a note to the Commissioner-General of Police to secure her being

suitably provided for.--The daughter in Charenton, the father in a

pauper’s grave!” said Corentin--“Contenson, go and fetch the parish

hearse. And now, Don Carlos Herrera, you and I will fight it out!”

“Carlos?” said Contenson, “he is in Spain.”

“He is in Paris,” said Corentin positively. “There is a touch of Spanish

genius of the Philip II. type in all this; but I have pitfalls for

everybody, even for kings.”

Five days after the nabob’s disappearance, Madame du Val-Noble was

sitting by Esther’s bedside weeping, for she felt herself on one of the

slopes down to poverty.

“If I only had at least a hundred louis a year! With that sum, my dear,

a woman can retire to some little town and find a husband----”

“I can get you as much as that,” said Esther.

“How?” cried Madame du Val-Noble.

“Oh, in a very simple way. Listen. You must plan to kill yourself; play

your part well. Send for Asie and offer her ten thousand francs for two

black beads of very thin glass containing a poison which kills you in a

second. Bring them to me, and I will give you fifty thousand francs for

them.”

“Why do you not ask her for them yourself?” said her friend.

“Asie would not sell them to me.”

“They are not for yourself?” asked Madame du Val-Noble.

“Perhaps.”

“You! who live in the midst of pleasure and luxury, in a house of your

own? And on the eve of an entertainment which will be the talk of Paris

for ten years--which is to cost Nucingen twenty thousand francs! There

are to be strawberries in mid-February, they say, asparagus, grapes,

melons!--and a thousand crowns’ worth of flowers in the rooms.”

“What are you talking about? There are a thousand crowns’ worth of roses

on the stairs alone.”

“And your gown is said to have cost ten thousand francs?”

“Yes, it is of Brussels point, and Delphine, his wife, is furious. But I

had a fancy to be disguised as a bride.”

“Where are the ten thousand francs?” asked Madame du Val-Noble.

“It is all the ready money I have,” said Esther, smiling. “Open my table

drawer; it is under the curl-papers.”

“People who talk of dying never kill themselves,” said Madame du

Val-Noble. “If it were to commit----”

“A crime? For shame!” said Esther, finishing her friend’s thought, as

she hesitated. “Be quite easy, I have no intention of killing anybody.

I had a friend--a very happy woman; she is dead, I must follow her--that

is all.”

“How foolish!”

“How can I help it? I promised her I would.”

“I should let that bill go dishonored,” said her friend, smiling.

“Do as I tell you, and go at once. I hear a carriage coming. It is

Nucingen, a man who will go mad with joy! Yes, he loves me!--Why do we

not love those who love us, for indeed they do all they can to please

us?”

“Ah, that is the question!” said Madame du Val-Noble. “It is the old

story of the herring, which is the most puzzling fish that swims.”

“Why?”

“Well, no one could ever find out.”

“Get along, my dear!--I must ask for your fifty thousand francs.”

“Good-bye then.”

For three days past, Esther’s ways with the Baron de Nucingen had

completely changed. The monkey had become a cat, the cat had become a

woman. Esther poured out treasures of affection on the old man; she

was quite charming. Her way of addressing him, with a total absence of

mischief or bitterness, and all sorts of tender insinuation, had carried

conviction to the banker’s slow wit; she called him Fritz, and he

believed that she loved him.

“My poor Fritz, I have tried you sorely,” said she. “I have teased you

shamefully. Your patience has been sublime. You loved me, I see, and I

will reward you. I like you now, I do not know how it is, but I should

prefer you to a young man. It is the result of experience perhaps.--In

the long run we discover at last that pleasure is the coin of the soul;

and it is not more flattering to be loved for the sake of pleasure than

it is to be loved for the sake of money.

“Besides, young men are too selfish; they think more of themselves than

of us; while you, now, think only of me. I am all your life to you.

And I will take nothing more from you. I want to prove to you how

disinterested I am.”

“Vy, I hafe gifen you notink,” cried the Baron, enchanted. “I propose to

gife you to-morrow tirty tousant francs a year in a Government bond. Dat

is mein vedding gift.”

Esther kissed the Baron so sweetly that he turned pale without any

pills.

“Oh!” cried she, “do not suppose that I am sweet to you only for your

thirty thousand francs! It is because--now--I love you, my good, fat

Frederic.”

“Ach, mein Gott! Vy hafe you kept me vaiting? I might hafe been so happy

all dese tree monts.”

“In three or in five per cents, my pet?” said Esther, passing her

fingers through Nucingen’s hair, and arranging it in a fashion of her

own.

“In trees--I hat a quantity.”

So next morning the Baron brought the certificate of shares; he came

to breakfast with his dear little girl, and to take her orders for the

following evening, the famous Saturday, the great day!

“Here, my little vife, my only vife,” said the banker gleefully, his

face radiant with happiness. “Here is enough money to pay for your keep

for de rest of your days.”

Esther took the paper without the slightest excitement, folded it up,

and put it in her dressing-table drawer.

“So now you are quite happy, you monster of iniquity!” said she, giving

Nucingen a little slap on the cheek, “now that I have at last accepted a

present from you. I can no longer tell you home-truths, for I share the

fruit of what you call your labors. This is not a gift, my poor old boy,

it is restitution.--Come, do not put on your Bourse face. You know that

I love you.”

“My lofely Esther, mein anchel of lofe,” said the banker, “do not speak

to me like dat. I tell you, I should not care ven all de vorld took me

for a tief, if you should tink me ein honest man.--I lofe you every day

more and more.”

“That is my intention,” said Esther. “And I will never again say

anything to distress you, my pet elephant, for you are grown as artless

as a baby. Bless me, you old rascal, you have never known any innocence;

the allowance bestowed on you when you came into the world was bound to

come to the top some day; but it was buried so deep that it is only

now reappearing at the age of sixty-six. Fished up by love’s barbed

hook.--This phenomenon is seen in old men.

“And this is why I have learned to love you, you are young--so young! No

one but I would ever have known this, Frederic--I alone. For you were

a banker at fifteen; even at college you must have lent your

school-fellows one marble on condition of their returning two.”

Seeing him laugh, she sprang on to his knee.

“Well, you must do as you please! Bless me! plunder the men--go ahead,

and I will help. Men are not worth loving; Napoleon killed them off

like flies. Whether they pay taxes to you or to the Government, what

difference does it make to them? You don’t make love over the budget,

and on my honor!--go ahead, I have thought it over, and you are right.

Shear the sheep! you will find it in the gospel according to Beranger.

“Now, kiss your Esther.--I say, you will give that poor Val-Noble all

the furniture in the Rue Taitbout? And to-morrow I wish you would give

her fifty thousand francs--it would look handsome, my duck. You see,

you killed Falleix; people are beginning to cry out upon you, and this

liberality will look Babylonian--all the women will talk about it! Oh!

there will be no one in Paris so grand, so noble as you; and as the

world is constituted, Falleix will be forgotten. So, after all, it will

be money deposited at interest.”

“You are right, mein anchel; you know the vorld,” he replied. “You shall

be mein adfiser.”

“Well, you see,” said Esther, “how I study my man’s interest, his

position and honor.--Go at once and bring those fifty thousand francs.”

She wanted to get rid of Monsieur de Nucingen so as to get a stockbroker

to sell the bond that very afternoon.

“But vy dis minute?” asked he.

“Bless me, my sweetheart, you must give it to her in a little satin box

wrapped round a fan. You must say, ‘Here, madame, is a fan which I hope

may be to your taste.’--You are supposed to be a Turcaret, and you will

become a Beaujon.”

“Charming, charming!” cried the Baron. “I shall be so clever

henceforth.--Yes, I shall repeat your vorts.”

Just as Esther had sat down, tired with the effort of playing her part,

Europe came in.

“Madame,” said she, “here is a messenger sent from the Quai Malaquais by

Celestin, M. Lucien’s servant----”

“Bring him in--no, I will go into the ante-room.”

“He has a letter for you, madame, from Celestin.”

Esther rushed into the ante-room, looked at the messenger, and saw that

he looked like the genuine thing.

“Tell _him_ to come down,” said Esther, in a feeble voice and dropping

into a chair after reading the letter. “Lucien means to kill himself,”

she added in a whisper to Europe. “No, take the letter up to him.”

Carlos Herrera, still in his disguise as a bagman, came downstairs at

once, and keenly scrutinized the messenger on seeing a stranger in the

ante-room.

“You said there was no one here,” said he in a whisper to Europe.

And with an excess of prudence, after looking at the messenger, he went

straight into the drawing-room. _Trompe-la-Mort_ did not know that

for some time past the famous constable of the detective force who had

arrested him at the Maison Vauquer had a rival, who, it was supposed,

would replace him. This rival was the messenger.

“They are right,” said the sham messenger to Contenson, who was waiting

for him in the street. “The man you describe is in the house; but he is

not a Spaniard, and I will burn my hand off if there is not a bird for

our net under that priest’s gown.”

“He is no more a priest than he is a Spaniard,” said Contenson.

“I am sure of that,” said the detective.

“Oh, if only we were right!” said Contenson.

Lucien had been away for two days, and advantage had been taken of

his absence to lay this snare, but he returned this evening, and the

courtesan’s anxieties were allayed. Next morning, at the hour when

Esther, having taken a bath, was getting into bed again, Madame du

Val-Noble arrived.

“I have the two pills!” said her friend.

“Let me see,” said Esther, raising herself with her pretty elbow buried

in a pillow trimmed with lace.

Madame du Val-Noble held out to her what looked like two black currants.

The Baron had given Esther a pair of greyhounds of famous pedigree,

which will be always known by the name of the great contemporary poet

who made them fashionable; and Esther, proud of owning them, had called

them by the names of their parents, Romeo and Juliet. No need here

to describe the whiteness and grace of these beasts, trained for the

drawing-room, with manners suggestive of English propriety. Esther

called Romeo; Romeo ran up on legs so supple and thin, so strong and

sinewy, that they seemed like steel springs, and looked up at his

mistress. Esther, to attract his attention, pretended to throw one of

the pills.

“He is doomed by his nature to die thus,” said she, as she threw the

pill, which Romeo crushed between his teeth.

The dog made no sound, he rolled over, and was stark dead. It was all

over while Esther spoke these words of epitaph.

“Good God!” shrieked Madame du Val-Noble.

“You have a cab waiting. Carry away the departed Romeo,” said Esther.

“His death would make a commotion here. I have given him to you, and you

have lost him--advertise for him. Make haste; you will have your fifty

thousand francs this evening.”

She spoke so calmly, so entirely with the cold indifference of a

courtesan, that Madame du Val-Noble exclaimed:

“You are the Queen of us all!”

“Come early, and look very well----”

At five o’clock Esther dressed herself as a bride. She put on her lace

dress over white satin, she had a white sash, white satin shoes, and a

scarf of English point lace over her beautiful shoulders. In her hair

she placed white camellia flowers, the simple ornament of an innocent

girl. On her bosom lay a pearl necklace worth thirty thousand francs, a

gift from Nucingen.

Though she was dressed by six, she refused to see anybody, even the

banker. Europe knew that Lucien was to be admitted to her room. Lucien

came at about seven, and Europe managed to get him up to her mistress

without anybody knowing of his arrival.

Lucien, as he looked at her, said to himself, “Why not go and live with

her at Rubempre, far from the world, and never see Paris again? I have

an earnest of five years of her life, and the dear creature is one of

those who never belie themselves! Where can I find such another perfect

masterpiece?”

“My dear, you whom I have made my God,” said Esther, kneeling down on a

cushion in front of Lucien, “give me your blessing.”

Lucien tried to raise her and kiss her, saying, “What is this jest,

my dear love?” And he would have put his arm round her, but she freed

herself with a gesture as much of respect as of horror.

“I am no longer worthy of you, Lucien,” said she, letting the tears rise

to her eyes. “I implore you, give me your blessing, and swear to me that

you will found two beds at the Hotel-Dieu--for, as to prayers in church,

God will never forgive me unless I pray myself.

“I have loved you too well, my dear. Tell me that I made you happy, and

that you will sometimes think of me.--Tell me that!”

Lucien saw that Esther was solemnly in earnest, and he sat thinking.

“You mean to kill yourself,” said he at last, in a tone of voice that

revealed deep reflection.

“No,” said she. “But to-day, my dear, the woman dies, the pure, chaste,

and loving woman who once was yours.--And I am very much afraid that I

shall die of grief.”

“Poor child,” said Lucien, “wait! I have worked hard these two days. I

have succeeded in seeing Clotilde----”

“Always Clotilde!” cried Esther, in a tone of concentrated rage.

“Yes,” said he, “we have written to each other.--On Tuesday morning

she is to set out for Italy, but I shall meet her on the road for an

interview at Fontainebleau.”

“Bless me! what is it that you men want for wives? Wooden laths?” cried

poor Esther. “If I had seven or eight millions, would you not marry

me--come now?”

“Child! I was going to say that if all is over for me, I will have no

wife but you.”

Esther bent her head to hide her sudden pallor and the tears she wiped

away.

“You love me?” said she, looking at Lucien with the deepest melancholy.

“Well, that is my sufficient blessing.--Do not compromise yourself.

Go away by the side door, and come in to the drawing-room through the

ante-room. Kiss me on the forehead.”

She threw her arms round Lucien, clasped him to her heart with frenzy,

and said again:

“Go, only go--or I must live.”

When the doomed woman appeared in the drawing-room, there was a cry of

admiration. Esther’s eyes expressed infinitude in which the soul sank

as it looked into them. Her blue-black and beautiful hair set off the

camellias. In short, this exquisite creature achieved all the effects

she had intended. She had no rival. She looked like the supreme

expression of that unbridled luxury which surrounded her in every form.

Then she was brilliantly witty. She ruled the orgy with the cold, calm

power that Habeneck displays when conducting at the Conservatoire, at

those concerts where the first musicians in Europe rise to the sublime

in interpreting Mozart and Beethoven.

But she observed with terror that Nucingen ate little, drank nothing,

and was quite the master of the house.

By midnight everybody was crazy. The glasses were broken that they might

never be used again; two of the Chinese curtains were torn; Bixiou was

drunk, for the second time in his life. No one could keep his feet,

the women were asleep on the sofas, and the guests were incapable of

carrying out the practical joke they had planned of escorting Esther

and Nucingen to the bedroom, standing in two lines with candles in their

hands, and singing _Buona sera_ from the _Barber of Seville_.

Nucingen simply gave Esther his hand. Bixiou, who saw them, though

tipsy, was still able to say, like Rivarol, on the occasion of the

Duc de Richelieu’s last marriage, “The police must be warned; there is

mischief brewing here.”

The jester thought he was jesting; he was a prophet.

Monsieur de Nucingen did not go home till Monday at about noon. But at

one o’clock his broker informed him that Mademoiselle Esther van Bogseck

had sold the bond bearing thirty thousand francs interest on Friday

last, and had just received the money.

“But, Monsieur le Baron, Derville’s head-clerk called on me just as I

was settling this transfer; and after seeing Mademoiselle Esther’s real

names, he told me she had come into a fortune of seven millions.”

“Pooh!”

“Yes, she is the only heir to the old bill-discounter Gobseck.--Derville

will verify the facts. If your mistress’ mother was the handsome Dutch

woman, _la Belle Hollandaise_, as they called her, she comes in for----”

“I know dat she is,” cried the banker. “She tolt me all her life. I

shall write ein vort to Derville.”

The Baron at down at his desk, wrote a line to Derville, and sent it by

one of his servants. Then, after going to the Bourse, he went back to

Esther’s house at about three o’clock.

“Madame forbade our waking her on any pretence whatever. She is in

bed--asleep----”

“Ach der Teufel!” said the Baron. “But, Europe, she shall not be

angry to be tolt that she is fery, fery rich. She shall inherit seven

millions. Old Gobseck is deat, and your mis’ess is his sole heir, for

her moter vas Gobseck’s own niece; and besides, he shall hafe left a

vill. I could never hafe tought that a millionaire like dat man should

hafe left Esther in misery!”

“Ah, ha! Then your reign is over, old pantaloon!” said Europe,

looking at the Baron with an effrontery worthy of one of Moliere’s

waiting-maids. “Shooh! you old Alsatian crow! She loves you as we love

the plague! Heavens above us! Millions!--Why, she may marry her lover;

won’t she be glad!”

And Prudence Servien left the Baron simply thunder-stricken, to be the

first to announce to her mistress this great stroke of luck. The old

man, intoxicated with superhuman enjoyment, and believing himself happy,

had just received a cold shower-bath on his passion at the moment when

it had risen to the intensest white heat.

“She vas deceiving me!” cried he, with tears in his eyes. “Yes, she

vas cheating me. Oh, Esther, my life! Vas a fool hafe I been! Can such

flowers ever bloom for de old men! I can buy all vat I vill except only

yout!--Ach Gott, ach Gott! Vat shall I do! Vat shall become of me!--She

is right, dat cruel Europe. Esther, if she is rich, shall not be for me.

Shall I go hank myself? Vat is life midout de divine flame of joy dat I

have known? Mein Gott, mein Gott!”

The old man snatched off the false hair he had combed in with his gray

hairs these three months past.

A piercing shriek from Europe made Nucingen quail to his very bowels.

The poor banker rose and walked upstairs on legs that were drunk with

the bowl of disenchantment he had just swallowed to the dregs, for

nothing is more intoxicating than the wine of disaster.

At the door of her room he could see Esther stiff on her bed, blue with

poison--dead!

He went up to the bed and dropped on his knees.

“You are right! She tolt me so!--She is dead--of me----”

Paccard, Asie, every one hurried in. It was a spectacle, a shock, but

not despair. Every one had their doubts. The Baron was a banker again.

A suspicion crossed his mind, and he was so imprudent as to ask what had

become of the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, the price of the

bond. Paccard, Asie, and Europe looked at each other so strangely that

Monsieur de Nucingen left the house at once, believing that robbery

and murder had been committed. Europe, detecting a packet of soft

consistency, betraying the contents to be banknotes, under her mistress’

pillow, proceeded at once to “lay her out,” as she said.

“Go and tell monsieur, Asie!--Oh, to die before she knew that she had

seven millions! Gobseck was poor madame’s uncle!” said she.

Europe’s stratagem was understood by Paccard. As soon as Asie’s back

was turned, Europe opened the packet, on which the hapless courtesan had

written: “To be delivered to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre.”

Seven hundred and fifty thousand-franc notes shone in the eyes of

Prudence Servien, who exclaimed:

“Won’t we be happy and honest for the rest of our lives!”

Paccard made no objection. His instincts as a thief were stronger than

his attachment to _Trompe-la-Mort_.

“Durut is dead,” he said at length; “my shoulder is still a proof before

letters. Let us be off together; divide the money, so as not to have all

our eggs in one basket, and then get married.”

“But where can we hide?” said Prudence.

“In Paris,” replied Paccard.

Prudence and Paccard went off at once, with the promptitude of two

honest folks transformed into robbers.

“My child,” said Carlos to Asie, as soon as she had said three words,

“find some letter of Esther’s while I write a formal will, and then take

the copy and the letter to Girard; but he must be quick. The will must

be under Esther’s pillow before the lawyers affix the seals here.”