PART I

Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien de Rubempré had left Angoulême behind, and

were traveling together upon the road to Paris. Not one of the party who

made that journey alluded to it afterwards; but it may be believed

that an infatuated youth who had looked forward to the delights of

an elopement, must have found the continual presence of Gentil, the

man-servant, and Albertine, the maid, not a little irksome on the way.

Lucien, traveling post for the first time in his life, was horrified to

see pretty nearly the whole sum on which he meant to live in Paris for

a twelvemonth dropped along the road. Like other men who combine great

intellectual powers with the charming simplicity of childhood, he openly

expressed his surprise at the new and wonderful things which he saw, and

thereby made a mistake. A man should study a woman very carefully before

he allows her to see his thoughts and emotions as they arise in him.

A woman, whose nature is large as her heart is tender, can smile upon

childishness, and make allowances; but let her have ever so small

a spice of vanity herself, and she cannot forgive childishness, or

littleness, or vanity in her lover. Many a woman is so extravagant a

worshiper that she must always see the god in her idol; but there are

yet others who love a man for his sake and not for their own, and adore

his failings with his greater qualities.

Lucien had not guessed as yet that Mme. de Bargeton’s love was grafted

on pride. He made another mistake when he failed to discern the meaning

of certain smiles which flitted over Louise’s lips from time to

time; and instead of keeping himself to himself, he indulged in the

playfulness of the young rat emerging from his hole for the first time.

The travelers were set down before daybreak at the sign of the

Gaillard-Bois in the Rue de l’Échelle, both so tired out with the

journey that Louise went straight to bed and slept, first bidding Lucien

to engage the room immediately overhead. Lucien slept on till four

o’clock in the afternoon, when he was awakened by Mme. de Bargeton’s

servant, and learning the hour, made a hasty toilet and hurried

downstairs.

Louise was sitting in the shabby inn sitting-room. Hôtel accommodation

is a blot on the civilization of Paris; for with all its pretensions to

elegance, the city as yet does not boast a single inn where a well-to-do

traveler can find the surroundings to which he is accustomed at home.

To Lucien’s just-awakened, sleep-dimmed eyes, Louise was hardly

recognizable in this cheerless, sunless room, with the shabby

window-curtains, the comfortless polished floor, the hideous furniture

bought second-hand, or much the worse for wear.

Some people no longer look the same when detached from the background

of faces, objects, and surroundings which serve as a setting, without

which, indeed, they seem to lose something of their intrinsic worth.

Personality demands its appropriate atmosphere to bring out its values,

just as the figures in Flemish interiors néed the arrangement of light

and shade in which they are placed by the painter’s genius if they

are to live for us. This is especially true of provincials. Mme. de

Bargeton, moreover, looked more thoughtful and dignified than was

necessary now, when no barriers stood between her and happiness.

Gentil and Albertine waited upon them, and while they were present

Lucien could not complain. The dinner, sent in from a neighboring

restaurant, fell far below the provincial average, both in quantity

and quality; the essential goodness of country fare was wanting, and

in point of quantity the portions were cut with so strict an eye to

business that they savored of short commons. In such small matters Paris

does not show its best side to travelers of moderate fortune. Lucien

waited till the meal was over. Some change had come over Louise, he

thought, but he could not explain it.

And a change had, in fact, taken place. Events had occurred while he

slept; for reflection is an event in our inner history, and Mme. de

Bargeton had been reflecting.

About two o’clock that afternoon, Sixte du Châtelet made his appearance

in the Rue de l’Échelle and asked for Albertine. The sleeping damsel

was roused, and to her he expressed his wish to speak with her mistress.

Mme. de Bargeton had scarcely time to dress before he came back again.

The unaccountable apparition of M. du Châtelet roused the lady’s

curiosity, for she had kept her journey a profound secret, as she

thought. At three o’clock the visitor was admitted.

“I have risked a reprimand from headquarters to follow you,” he said, as

he greeted her; “I foresaw coming events. But if I lose my post for it,

YOU, at any rate, shall not be lost.”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Mme. de Bargeton.

“I can see plainly that you love Lucien,” he continued, with an air

of tender resignation. “You must love indeed if _you_ can act thus

recklessly, and disregard the conventions which you know so well. Dear

adored Naïs, can you really imagine that Mme. d’Espard’s salon, or any

other salon in Paris, will not be closed to you as soon as it is

known that you have fled from Angoulême, as it were, with a young man,

especially after the duel between M. de Bargeton and M. de Chandour? The

fact that your husband has gone to the Escarbas looks like a separation.

Under such circumstances a gentleman fights first and afterwards leaves

his wife at liberty. By all means, give M. de Rubempré your love and

your countenance; do just as you please; but you must not live in

the same house. If anybody here in Paris knew that you had traveled

together, the whole world that you have a mind to see would point the

finger at you.

“And, Naïs, do not make these sacrifices for a young man whom you have

as yet compared with no one else; he, on his side, has been put to no

proof; he may forsake you for some Parisienne, better able, as he may

fancy, to further his ambitions. I mean no harm to the man you love, but

you will permit me to put your own interests before his, and to beg you

to study him, to be fully aware of the serious nature of this step that

you are taking. And, then, if you find all doors closed against you, and

that none of the women call upon you, make sure at least that you will

feel no regret for all that you have renounced for him. Be very certain

first that he for whom you will have given up so much will always be

worthy of your sacrifices and appreciate them.

“Just now,” continued Châtelet, “Mme. d’Espard is the more prudish and

particular because she herself is separated from her husband, nobody

knows why. The Navarreins, the Lenoncourts, the Blamont-Chauvrys,

and the rest of the relations have all rallied round her; the most

strait-laced women are seen at her house, and receive her with respect,

and the Marquis d’Espard has been put in the wrong. The first call that

you pay will make it clear to you that I am right; indeed, knowing Paris

as I do, I can tell you beforehand that you will no sooner enter the

Marquise’s salon than you will be in despair lest she should find out

that you are staying at the Gaillard-Bois with an apothecary’s son,

though he may wish to be called M. de Rubempré.

“You will have rivals here, women far more astute and shrewd than

Amélie; they will not fail to discover who you are, where you are, where

you come from, and all that you are doing. You have counted upon your

incognito, I see, but you are one of those women for whom an incognito

is out of the question. You will meet Angoulême at every turn. There are

the deputies from the Charente coming up for the opening of the session;

there is the Commandant in Paris on leave. Why, the first man or woman

from Angoulême who happens to see you would cut your career short in a

strange fashion. You would simply be Lucien’s mistress.

“If you néed me at any time, I am staying with the Receiver-General in

the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, two steps away from Mme. d’Espard’s.

I am sufficiently acquainted with the Maréchale de Carigliano, Mme.

de Sérizy, and the President of the Council to introduce you to those

houses; but you will meet so many people at Mme. d’Espard’s, that you

are not likely to require me. So far from wishing to gain admittance to

this set or that, every one will be longing to make your acquaintance.”

Châtelet talked on; Mme. de Bargeton made no interruption. She was

struck with his perspicacity. The queen of Angoulême had, in fact,

counted upon preserving her incognito.

“You are right, my dear friend,” she said at length; “but what am I to

do?”

“Allow me to find suitable furnished lodgings for you,” suggested

Châtelet; “that way of living is less expensive than an inn. You will

have a home of your own; and, if you will take my advice, you will sleep

in your new rooms this very night.”

“But how did you know my address?” queried she.

“Your traveling carriage is easily recognized; and, besides, I was

following you. At Sèvres your postilion told mine that he had brought

you here. Will you permit me to act as your harbinger? I will write as

soon as I have found lodgings.”

“Very well, do so,” said she. And in those seemingly insignificant

words, all was said. The Baron du Châtelet had spoken the language

of worldly wisdom to a woman of the world. He had made his appearance

before her in faultless dress, a neat cab was waiting for him at the

door; and Mme. de Bargeton, standing by the window thinking over the

position, chanced to see the elderly dandy drive away.

A few moments later Lucien appeared, half awake and hastily dressed.

He was handsome, it is true; but his clothes, his last year’s nankeen

trousers, and his shabby tight jacket were ridiculous. Put Antinous

or the Apollo Belvedere himself into a water-carrier’s blouse, and how

shall you recognize the godlike creature of the Greek or Roman chisel?

The eyes note and compare before the heart has time to revise the swift

involuntary judgment; and the contrast between Lucien and Châtelet was

so abrupt that it could not fail to strike Louise.

Towards six o’clock that evening, when dinner was over, Mme. de Bargeton

beckoned Lucien to sit beside her on the shabby sofa, covered with a

flowered chintz—a yellow pattern on a red ground.

“Lucien mine,” she said, “don’t you think that if we have both of us

done a foolish thing, suicidal for both our interests, it would only

be common sense to set matters right? We ought not to live together

in Paris, dear boy, and we must not allow anyone to suspect that we

traveled together. Your career depends so much upon my position that I

ought to do nothing to spoil it. So, to-night, I am going to remove into

lodgings near by. But you will stay on here, we can see each other every

day, and nobody can say a word against us.”

And Louise explained conventions to Lucien, who opened wide eyes. He had

still to learn that when a woman thinks better of her folly, she thinks

better of her love; but one thing he understood—he saw that he was

no longer the Lucien of Angoulême. Louise talked of herself, of _her_

interests, _her_ reputation, and of the world; and, to veil her egoism,

she tried to make him believe that this was all on his account. He had

no claim upon Louise thus suddenly retransformed into Mme. de Bargeton,

and, more serious still, he had no power over her. He could not keep

back the tears that filled his eyes.

“If I am your glory,” cried the poet, “you are yet more to me—you are

my one hope, my whole future rests with you. I thought that if you meant

to make my successes yours, you would surely make my adversity yours

also, and here we are going to part already.”

“You are judging my conduct,” said she; “you do not love me.”

Lucien looked at her with such a dolorous expression, that in spite of

herself, she said:

“Darling, I will stay if you like. We shall both be ruined, we shall

have no one to come to our aid. But when we are both equally wretched,

and every one shuts their door upon us both; when failure (for we must

look all possibilities in the face), when failure drives us back to the

Escarbas, then remember, love, that I foresaw the end, and that at

the first I proposed that we should make your way by conforming to

established rules.”

“Louise,” he cried, with his arms around her, “you are wise; you

frighten me! Remember that I am a child, that I have given myself up

entirely to your dear will. I myself should have preferred to overcome

obstacles and win my way among men by the power that is in me; but if I

can reach the goal sooner through your aid, I shall be very glad to owe

all my success to you. Forgive me! You mean so much to me that I cannot

help fearing all kinds of things; and, for me, parting means that

desertion is at hand, and desertion is death.”

“But, my dear boy, the world’s demands are soon satisfied,” returned

she. “You must sleep here; that is all. All day long you will be with

me, and no one can say a word.”

A few kisses set Lucien’s mind completely at rest. An hour later Gentil

brought in a note from Châtelet. He told Mme. de Bargeton that he had

found lodgings for her in the Rue Nueve-de-Luxembourg. Mme. de Bargeton

informed herself of the exact place, and found that it was not very far

from the Rue de l’Échelle. “We shall be neighbors,” she told Lucien.

Two hours afterwards Louise stepped into the hired carriage sent by

Châtelet for the removal to the new rooms. The apartments were of the

class that upholsterers furnish and let to wealthy deputies and persons

of consideration on a short visit to Paris—showy and uncomfortable. It

was eleven o’clock when Lucien returned to his inn, having seen nothing

as yet of Paris except the part of the Rue Saint-Honore which lies

between the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg and the Rue de l’Échelle. He lay

down in his miserable little room, and could not help comparing it in

his own mind with Louise’s sumptuous apartments.

Just as he came away the Baron du Châtelet came in, gorgeously arrayed

in evening dress, fresh from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, to

inquire whether Mme. de Bargeton was satisfied with all that he had done

on her behalf. Naïs was uneasy. The splendor was alarming to her mind.

Provincial life had reacted upon her; she was painfully conscientious

over her accounts, and economical to a degree that is looked upon as

miserly in Paris. She had brought with her twenty thousand francs in the

shape of a draft on the Receiver-General, considering that the sum would

more than cover the expenses of four years in Paris; she was afraid

already lest she should not have enough, and should run into debt; and

now Châtelet told her that her rooms would only cost six hundred francs

per month.

“A mere trifle,” added he, seeing that Naïs was startled. “For five

hundred francs a month you can have a carriage from a livery stable;

fifty louis in all. You néed only think of your dress. A woman moving

in good society could not well do less; and if you mean to obtain a

Receiver-General’s appointment for M. de Bargeton, or a post in the

Household, you ought not to look poverty-stricken. Here, in Paris, they

only give to the rich. It is most fortunate that you brought Gentil

to go out with you, and Albertine for your own woman, for servants are

enough to ruin you here. But with your introductions you will seldom be

home to a meal.”

Mme. de Bargeton and the Baron de Châtelet chatted about Paris. Châtelet

gave her all the news of the day, the myriad nothings that you are bound

to know, under penalty of being a nobody. Before very long the Baron

also gave advice as to shopping, recommending Herbault for toques and

Juliette for hats and bonnets; he added the address of a fashionable

dressmaker to supersede Victorine. In short, he made the lady see the

necessity of rubbing off Angoulême. Then he took his leave after a final

flash of happy inspiration.

“I expect I shall have a box at one of the theatres to-morrow,” he

remarked carelessly; “I will call for you and M. de Rubempré, for you

must allow me to do the honors of Paris.”

“There is more generosity in his character than I thought,” said Mme. de

Bargeton to herself when Lucien was included in the invitation.

In the month of June ministers are often puzzled to know what to do with

boxes at the theatre; ministerialist deputies and their constituents

are busy in their vineyards or harvest fields, and their more exacting

acquaintances are in the country or traveling about; so it comes to

pass that the best seats are filled at this season with heterogeneous

theatre-goers, never seen at any other time of year, and the house is

apt to look as if it were tapestried with very shabby material. Châtelet

had thought already that this was his opportunity of giving Naïs the

amusements which provincials crave most eagerly, and that with very

little expense.

The next morning, the very first morning in Paris, Lucien went to the

Rue Nueve-de-Luxembourg and found that Louise had gone out. She had gone

to make some indispensable purchases, to take counsel of the mighty and

illustrious authorities in the matter of the feminine toilette, pointed

out to her by Châtelet, for she had written to tell the Marquise

d’Espard of her arrival. Mme. de Bargeton possessed the self-confidence

born of a long habit of rule, but she was exceedingly afraid of

appearing to be provincial. She had tact enough to know how greatly the

relations of women among themselves depend upon first impressions; and

though she felt that she was equal to taking her place at once in such a

distinguished set as Mme. de d’Espard’s, she felt also that she stood in

néed of goodwill at her first entrance into society, and was resolved,

in the first place, that she would leave nothing undone to secure

success. So she felt boundlessly thankful to Châtelet for pointing out

these ways of putting herself in harmony with the fashionable world.

A singular chance so ordered it that the Marquise was delighted to find

an opportunity of being useful to a connection of her husband’s family.

The Marquis d’Espard had withdrawn himself without apparent reason from

society, and ceased to take any active interest in affairs, political or

domestic. His wife, thus left mistress of her actions, felt the néed of

the support of public opinion, and was glad to take the Marquis’ place

and give her countenance to one of her husband’s relations. She meant to

be ostentatiously gracious, so as to put her husband more evidently

in the wrong; and that very day she wrote, “Mme. de Bargeton _née_

Nègrepelisse” a charming billet, one of the prettily worded compositions

of which time alone can discover the emptiness.

“She was delighted that circumstances had brought a relative, of whom

she had heard, whose acquaintance she had desired to make, into closer

connection with her family. Friendships in Paris were not so solid but

that she longed to find one more to love on earth; and if this might not

be, there would only be one more illusion to bury with the rest. She put

herself entirely at her cousin’s disposal. She would have called upon

her if indisposition had not kept her to the house, and she felt that

she lay already under obligations to the cousin who had thought of her.”

Lucien, meanwhile, taking his first ramble along the Rue de la Paix and

through the Boulevards, like all newcomers, was much more interested in

the things that he saw than in the people he met. The general effect of

Paris is wholly engrossing at first. The wealth in the shop windows, the

high houses, the streams of traffic, the contrast everywhere between the

last extremes of luxury and want struck him more than anything else. In

his astonishment at the crowds of strange faces, the man of imaginative

temper felt as if he himself had shrunk, as it were, immensely. A man of

any consequence in his native place, where he cannot go out but he meets

with some recognition of his importance at every step, does not readily

accustom himself to the sudden and total extinction of his consequence.

You are somebody in your own country, in Paris you are nobody.

The transition between the first state and the last should be made

gradually, for the too abrupt fall is something like annihilation.

Paris could not fail to be an appalling wilderness for a young poet,

who looked for an echo for all his sentiments, a confidant for all his

thoughts, a soul to share his least sensations.

Lucien had not gone in search of his luggage and his best blue coat; and

painfully conscious of the shabbiness, to say no worse, of his clothes,

he went to Mme. de Bargeton, feeling that she must have returned. He

found the Baron du Châtelet, who carried them both off to dinner at the

_Rocher de Cancale_. Lucien’s head was dizzy with the whirl of Paris,

the Baron was in the carriage, he could say nothing to Louise, but he

squeezed her hand, and she gave a warm response to the mute confidence.

After dinner Châtelet took his guests to the Vaudeville. Lucien, in his

heart, was not over well pleased to see Châtelet again, and cursed the

chance that had brought the Baron to Paris. The Baron said that

ambition had brought him to town; he had hopes of an appointment as

secretary-general to a government department, and meant to take a seat

in the Council of State as Master of Requests. He had come to Paris to

ask for fulfilment of the promises that had been given him, for a man of

his stamp could not be expected to remain a comptroller all his life;

he would rather be nothing at all, and offer himself for election as

deputy, or re-enter diplomacy. Châtelet grew visibly taller; Lucien

dimly began to recognize in this elderly beau the superiority of the man

of the world who knows Paris; and, most of all, he felt ashamed to owe

his evening’s amusement to his rival. And while the poet looked ill

at ease and awkward, Her Royal Highness’ ex-secretary was quite in his

element. He smiled at his rival’s hesitations, at his astonishment, at

the questions he put, at the little mistakes which the latter ignorantly

made, much as an old salt laughs at an apprentice who has not found his

sea legs; but Lucien’s pleasure at seeing a play for the first time in

Paris outweighed the annoyance of these small humiliations.

That evening marked an epoch in Lucien’s career; he put away a good

many of his ideas as to provincial life in the course of it. His

horizon widened; society assumed different proportions. There were

fair Parisiennes in fresh and elegant toilettes all about him; Mme. de

Bargeton’s costume, tolerably ambitious though it was, looked dowdy by

comparison; the material, like the fashion and the color, was out of

date. That way of arranging her hair, so bewitching in Angoulême, looked

frightfully ugly here among the daintily devised coiffures which he saw

in every direction.

“Will she always look like that?” said he to himself, ignorant that the

morning had been spent in preparing a transformation.

In the provinces comparison and choice are out of the question; when

a face has grown familiar it comes to possess a certain beauty that is

taken for granted. But transport the pretty woman of the provinces to

Paris, and no one takes the slightest notice of her; her prettiness is

of the comparative degree illustrated by the saying that among the blind

the one-eyed are kings. Lucien’s eyes were now busy comparing Mme. de

Bargeton with other women, just as she herself had contrasted him

with Châtelet on the previous day. And Mme. de Bargeton, on her part,

permitted herself some strange reflections upon her lover. The poet cut

a poor figure notwithstanding his singular beauty. The sleeves of his

jacket were too short; with his ill-cut country gloves and a waistcoat

too scanty for him, he looked prodigiously ridiculous, compared with

the young men in the balcony—“positively pitiable,” thought Mme. de

Bargeton. Châtelet, interested in her without presumption, taking care

of her in a manner that revealed a profound passion; Châtelet, elegant,

and as much at home as an actor treading the familiar boards of his

theatre, in two days had recovered all the ground lost in the past six

months.

Ordinary people will not admit that our sentiments towards each other

can totally change in a moment, and yet certain it is, that two lovers

not seldom fly apart even more quickly than they drew together. In Mme.

de Bargeton and in Lucien a process of disenchantment was at work; Paris

was the cause. Life had widened out before the poet’s eyes, as society

came to wear a new aspect for Louise. Nothing but an accident now was

néeded to sever finally the bond that united them; nor was that blow, so

terrible for Lucien, very long delayed.

Mme. de Bargeton set Lucien down at his inn, and drove home with

Châtelet, to the intense vexation of the luckless lover.

“What will they say about me?” he wondered, as he climbed the stairs to

his dismal room.

“That poor fellow is uncommonly dull,” said Châtelet, with a smile, when

the door was closed.

“That is the way with those who have a world of thoughts in their heart

and brain. Men who have so much in them to give out in great works long

dreamed of, profess a certain contempt for conversation, a commerce in

which the intellect spends itself in small change,” returned the haughty

Nègrepelisse. She still had courage to defend Lucien, but less for

Lucien’s sake than for her own.

“I grant it you willingly,” replied the Baron, “but we live with human

beings and not with books. There, dear Naïs! I see how it is, there is

nothing between you yet, and I am delighted that it is so. If you decide

to bring an interest of a kind hitherto lacking into your life, let

it not be this so-called genius, I implore you. How if you have made a

mistake? Suppose that in a few days’ time, when you have compared

him with men whom you will meet, men of real ability, men who have

distinguished themselves in good earnest; suppose that you should

discover, dear and fair siren, that it is no lyre-bearer that you have

borne into port on your dazzling shoulders, but a little ape, with

no manners and no capacity; a presumptuous fool who may be a wit in

L’Houmeau, but turns out a very ordinary specimen of a young man in

Paris? And, after all, volumes of verse come out every week here, the

worst of them better than all M. Chardon’s poetry put together. For

pity’s sake, wait and compare! To-morrow, Friday, is Opera night,” he

continued as the carriage turned into the Rue Nueve-de-Luxembourg; “Mme.

d’Espard has the box of the First Gentlemen of the Chamber, and will

take you, no doubt. I shall go to Mme. de Sérizy’s box to behold you in

your glory. They are giving _Les Danaïdes_.”

“Good-bye,” said she.

Next morning Mme. de Bargeton tried to arrange a suitable toilette

in which to call on her cousin, Mme. d’Espard. The weather was rather

chilly. Looking through the dowdy wardrobe from Angoulême, she found

nothing better than a certain green velvet gown, trimmed fantastically

enough. Lucien, for his part, felt that he must go at once for his

celebrated blue best coat; he felt aghast at the thought of his tight

jacket, and determined to be well dressed, lest he should meet the

Marquise d’Espard or receive a sudden summons to her house. He must

have his luggage at once, so he took a cab, and in two hours’ time spent

three or four francs, matter for much subsequent reflection on the scale

of the cost of living in Paris. Having dressed himself in his best, such

as it was, he went to the Rue Nueve-de-Luxembourg, and on the doorstep

encountered Gentil in company with a gorgeously be-feathered chasseur.

“I was just going round to you, sir, madame gave me a line for you,”

said Gentil, ignorant of Parisian forms of respect, and accustomed to

homely provincial ways. The chasseur took the poet for a servant.

Lucien tore open the note, and learned that Mme. de Bargeton had gone to

spend the day with the Marquise d’Espard. She was going to the Opera

in the evening, but she told Lucien to be there to meet her. Her cousin

permitted her to give him a seat in her box. The Marquise d’Espard was

delighted to procure the young poet that pleasure.

“Then she loves me! my fears were all nonsense!” said Lucien to himself.

“She is going to present me to her cousin this very evening.”

He jumped for joy. He would spend the day that separated him from the

happy evening as joyously as might be. He dashed out in the direction

of the Tuileries, dreaming of walking there until it was time to dine

at Véry’s. And now, behold Lucien frisking and skipping, light of foot

because light of heart, on his way to the Terrasse des Feuillants to

take a look at the people of quality on promenade there. Pretty women

walk arm-in-arm with men of fashion, their adorers, couples greet each

other with a glance as they pass; how different it is from the terrace

at Beaulieu! How far finer the birds on this perch than the Angoulême

species! It is as if you beheld all the colors that glow in the plumage

of the feathered tribes of India and America, instead of the sober

European families.

Those were two wretched hours that Lucien spent in the Garden of the

Tuileries. A violent revulsion swept through him, and he sat in judgment

upon himself.

In the first place, not a single one of these gilded youths wore a

swallow-tail coat. The few exceptions, one or two poor wretches, a clerk

here and there, an annuitant from the Marais, could be ruled out on

the score of age; and hard upon the discovery of a distinction between

morning and evening dress, the poet’s quick sensibility and keen eyes

saw likewise that his shabby old clothes were not fit to be seen; the

defects in his coat branded that garment as ridiculous; the cut was

old-fashioned, the color was the wrong shade of blue, the collar

outrageously ungainly, the coat tails, by dint of long wear, overlapped

each other, the buttons were reddened, and there were fatal white lines

along the seams. Then his waistcoat was too short, and so grotesquely

provincial, that he hastily buttoned his coat over it; and, finally, no

man of any pretension to fashion wore nankeen trousers. Well-dressed

men wore charming fancy materials or immaculate white, and every one

had straps to his trousers, while the shrunken hems of Lucien’s nether

garments manifested a violent antipathy for the heels of boots which

they wedded with obvious reluctance. Lucien wore a white cravat with

embroidered ends; his sister had seen that M. du Hautoy and M. de

Chandour wore such things, and hastened to make similar ones for her

brother. Here, no one appeared to wear white cravats of a morning

except a few grave seniors, elderly capitalists, and austere public

functionaries, until, in the street on the other side of the railings,

Lucien noticed a grocer’s boy walking along the Rue de Rivoli with a

basket on his head; him the man of Angoulême detected in the act of

sporting a cravat, with both ends adorned by the handiwork of some

adored shop-girl. The sight was a stab to Lucien’s breast; penetrating

straight to that organ as yet undefined, the seat of our sensibility,

the region whither, since sentiment has had any existence, the sons of

men carry their hands in any excess of joy or anguish. Do not accuse

this chronicle of puerility. The rich, to be sure, never having

experienced sufferings of this kind, may think them incredibly petty and

small; but the agonies of less fortunate mortals are as well worth our

attention as crises and vicissitudes in the lives of the mighty and

privileged ones of earth. Is not the pain equally great for either?

Suffering exalts all things. And, after all, suppose that we change

the terms, and for a suit of clothes, more or less fine, put instead a

ribbon, or a star, or a title; have not brilliant careers been tormented

by reason of such apparent trifles as these? Add, moreover, that

for those people who must seem to have that which they have not, the

question of clothes is of enormous importance, and not unfrequently the

appearance of possession is the shortest road to possession at a later

day.

A cold sweat broke out over Lucien as he bethought himself that to-night

he must make his first appearance before the Marquise in this dress—the

Marquise d’Espard, relative of a First Gentleman of the Bedchamber,

a woman whose house was frequented by the most illustrious among

illustrious men in every field.

“I look like an apothecary’s son, a regular shop-drudge,” he raged

inwardly, watching the youth of the Faubourg Saint-Germain pass

under his eyes; graceful, spruce, fashionably dressed, with a certain

uniformity of air, a sameness due to a fineness of contour, and a

certain dignity of carriage and expression; though, at the same time,

each one differed from the rest in the setting by which he had chosen

to bring his personal characteristics into prominence. Each one made the

most of his personal advantages. Young men in Paris understand the art

of presenting themselves quite as well as women. Lucien had inherited

from his mother the invaluable physical distinction of race, but the

metal was still in the ore, and not set free by the craftsman’s hand.

His hair was badly cut. Instead of holding himself upright with

an elastic corset, he felt that he was cooped up inside a hideous

shirt-collar; he hung his dejected head without resistance on the part

of a limp cravat. What woman could guess that a handsome foot was hidden

by the clumsy boots which he had brought from Angoulême? What young man

could envy him his graceful figure, disguised by the shapeless blue sack

which hitherto he had mistakenly believed to be a coat? What bewitching

studs he saw on those dazzling white shirt fronts, his own looked

dingy by comparison; and how marvelously all these elegant persons were

gloved, his own gloves were only fit for a policeman! Yonder was a youth

toying with a cane exquisitely mounted; there, another with dainty gold

studs in his wristbands. Yet another was twisting a charming riding-whip

while he talked with a woman; there were specks of mud on the ample

folds of his white trousers, he wore clanking spurs and a tight-fitting

jacket, evidently he was about to mount one of the two horses held by

a hop-o’-my-thumb of a tiger. A young man who went past drew a watch no

thicker than a five-franc piece from his pocket, and looked at it

with the air of a person who is either too early or too late for an

appointment.

Lucien, seeing these petty trifles, hitherto unimagined, became aware of

a whole world of indispensable superfluities, and shuddered to think of

the enormous capital néeded by a professional pretty fellow! The more he

admired these gay and careless beings, the more conscious he grew of his

own outlandishness; he knew that he looked like a man who has no idea of

the direction of the streets, who stands close to the Palais Royal and

cannot find it, and asks his way to the Louvre of a passer-by, who tells

him, “Here you are.” Lucien saw a great gulf fixed between him and this

new world, and asked himself how he might cross over, for he meant to be

one of these delicate, slim youths of Paris, these young patricians who

bowed before women divinely dressed and divinely fair. For one kiss from

one of these, Lucien was ready to be cut in pieces like Count Philip of

Konigsmark. Louise’s face rose up somewhere in the shadowy background of

memory—compared with these queens, she looked like an old woman. He saw

women whose names will appear in the history of the nineteenth century,

women no less famous than the queens of past times for their wit,

their beauty, or their lovers; one who passed was the heroine Mlle. des

Touches, so well known as Camille Maupin, the great woman of letters,

great by her intellect, great no less by her beauty. He overheard the

name pronounced by those who went by.

“Ah!” he thought to himself, “she is Poetry.”

What was Mme. de Bargeton in comparison with this angel in all the glory

of youth, and hope, and promise of the future, with that sweet smile of

hers, and the great dark eyes with all heaven in them, and the glowing

light of the sun? She was laughing and chatting with Mme. Firmiani, one

of the most charming women in Paris. A voice indeed cried, “Intellect is

the lever by which to move the world,” but another voice cried no less

loudly that money was the fulcrum.

He would not stay any longer on the scene of his collapse and defeat,

and went towards the Palais Royal. He did not know the topography of his

quarter yet, and was obliged to ask his way. Then he went to Véry’s and

ordered dinner by way of an initiation into the pleasures of Paris,

and a solace for his discouragement. A bottle of Bordeaux, oysters

from Ostend, a dish of fish, a partridge, a dish of macaroni and

dessert,—this was the _ne plus ultra_ of his desire. He enjoyed this

little debauch, studying the while how to give the Marquise d’Espard

proof of his wit, and redeem the shabbiness of his grotesque

accoutrements by the display of intellectual riches. The total of the

bill drew him down from these dreams, and left him the poorer by fifty

of the francs which were to have gone such a long way in Paris. He

could have lived in Angoulême for a month on the price of that dinner.

Wherefore he closed the door of the palace with awe, thinking as he did

so that he should never set foot in it again.

“Eve was right,” he said to himself, as he went back under the stone

arcading for some more money. “There is a difference between Paris

prices and prices in L’Houmeau.”

He gazed in at the tailors’ windows on the way, and thought of the

costumes in the Garden of the Tuileries.

“No,” he exclaimed, “I will _not_ appear before Mme. d’Espard dressed

out as I am.”

He fled to his inn, fleet as a stag, rushed up to his room, took out

a hundred crowns, and went down again to the Palais Royal, where his

future elegance lay scattered over half a score of shops. The first

tailor whose door he entered tried as many coats upon him as he would

consent to put on, and persuaded his customer that all were in the very

latest fashion. Lucien came out the owner of a green coat, a pair of

white trousers, and a “fancy waistcoat,” for which outfit he gave two

hundred francs. Ere long he found a very elegant pair of ready-made

shoes that fitted his foot; and, finally, when he had made all necessary

purchases, he ordered the tradespeople to send them to his address, and

inquired for a hairdresser. At seven o’clock that evening he called

a cab and drove away to the Opera, curled like a Saint John of a

Procession Day, elegantly waistcoated and gloved, but feeling a little

awkward in this kind of sheath in which he found himself for the first

time.

In obedience to Mme. de Bargeton’s instructions, he asked for the box

reserved for the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The man at the box

office looked at him, and beholding Lucien in all the grandeur assumed

for the occasion, in which he looked like a best man at a wedding, asked

Lucien for his order.

“I have no order.”

“Then you cannot go in,” said the man at the box office drily.

“But I belong to Mme. d’Espard’s party.”

“It is not our business to know that,” said the man, who could not help

exchanging a barely perceptible smile with his colleague.

A carriage stopped under the peristyle as he spoke. A chasseur, in a

livery which Lucien did not recognize, let down the step, and two women

in evening dress came out of the brougham. Lucien had no mind to

lay himself open to an insolent order to get out of the way from the

official. He stepped aside to let the two ladies pass.

“Why, that lady is the Marquise d’Espard, whom you say you know, sir,”

said the man ironically.

Lucien was so much the more confounded because Mme. de Bargeton did not

seem to recognize him in his new plumage; but when he stepped up to her,

she smiled at him and said:

“This has fallen out wonderfully—come!”

The functionaries at the box office grew serious again as Lucien

followed Mme. de Bargeton. On their way up the great staircase the lady

introduced M. de Rubempré to her cousin. The box belonging to the First

Gentleman of the Bedchamber is situated in one of the angles at the

back of the house, so that its occupants see and are seen all over

the theatre. Lucien took his seat on a chair behind Mme. de Bargeton,

thankful to be in the shadow.

“M. de Rubempré,” said the Marquise with flattering graciousness, “this

is your first visit to the Opera, is it not? You must have a view of the

house; take this seat, sit in front of the box; we give you permission.”

Lucien obeyed as the first act came to an end.

“You have made good use of your time,” Louise said in his ear, in her

first surprise at the change in his appearance.

Louise was still the same. The near presence of the Marquise d’Espard, a

Parisian Mme. de Bargeton, was so damaging to her; the brilliancy of the

Parisienne brought out all the defects in her country cousin so clearly

by contrast; that Lucien, looking out over the fashionable audience in

the superb building, and then at the great lady, was twice enlightened,

and saw poor Anaïs de Nègrepelisse as she really was, as Parisians

saw her—a tall, lean, withered woman, with a pimpled face and faded

complexion; angular, stiff; affected in her manner; pompous and

provincial in her speech; and, and above all these things, dowdily

dressed. As a matter of fact, the creases in an old dress from Paris

still bear witness to good taste, you can tell what the gown was meant

for; but an old dress made in the country is inexplicable, it is a thing

to provoke laughter. There was neither charm nor freshness about the

dress or its wearer; the velvet, like the complexion had seen wear.

Lucien felt ashamed to have fallen in love with this cuttle-fish bone,

and vowed that he would profit by Louise’s next fit of virtue to leave

her for good. Having an excellent view of the house, he could see

the opera-glasses pointed at the aristocratic box par excellence. The

best-dressed women must certainly be scrutinizing Mme. de Bargeton, for

they smiled and talked among themselves.

If Mme. d’Espard knew the object of their sarcasms from those feminine

smiles and gestures, she was perfectly insensible to them. In the first

place, anybody must see that her companion was a poor relation from the

country, an affliction with which any Parisian family may be visited.

And, in the second, when her cousin had spoken to her of her dress with

manifest misgivings, she had reassured Anaïs, seeing that, when once

properly dressed, her relative would very easily acquire the tone of

Parisian society. If Mme. de Bargeton néeded polish, on the other

hand she possessed the native haughtiness of good birth, and that

indescribable something which may be called “pedigree.” So, on Monday

her turn would come. And, moreover, the Marquise knew that as soon as

people learned that the stranger was her cousin, they would suspend

their banter and look twice before they condemned her.

Lucien did not foresee the change in Louise’s appearance shortly to be

worked by a scarf about her throat, a pretty dress, an elegant coiffure,

and Mme. d’Espard’s advice. As they came up the staircase even now, the

Marquise told her cousin not to hold her handkerchief unfolded in her

hand. Good or bad taste turns upon hundreds of such almost imperceptible

shades, which a quick-witted woman discerns at once, while others will

never grasp them. Mme. de Bargeton, plentifully apt, was more than

clever enough to discover her shortcomings. Mme. d’Espard, sure that her

pupil would do her credit, did not decline to form her. In short, the

compact between the two women had been confirmed by self-interest on

either side.

Mme. de Bargeton, enthralled, dazzled, and fascinated by her cousin’s

manner, wit, and acquaintances, had suddenly declared herself a votary

of the idol of the day. She had discerned the signs of the occult power

exerted by the ambitious great lady, and told herself that she could

gain her end as the satellite of this star, so she had been outspoken

in her admiration. The Marquise was not insensible to the artlessly

admitted conquest. She took an interest in her cousin, seeing that she

was weak and poor; she was, besides, not indisposed to take a pupil with

whom to found a school, and asked nothing better than to have a sort

of lady-in-waiting in Mme. de Bargeton, a dependent who would sing her

praises, a treasure even more scarce among Parisian women than a staunch

and loyal critic among the literary tribe. The flutter of curiosity

in the house was too marked to be ignored, however, and Mme. d’Espard

politely endeavored to turn her cousin’s mind from the truth.

“If any one comes to our box,” she said, “perhaps we may discover the

cause to which we owe the honor of the interest that these ladies are

taking——”

“I have a strong suspicion that it is my old velvet gown and Angoumoisin

air which Parisian ladies find amusing,” Mme. de Bargeton answered,

laughing.

“No, it is not you; it is something that I cannot explain,” she added,

turning to the poet, and, as she looked at him for the first time, it

seemed to strike her that he was singularly dressed.

“There is M. du Châtelet,” exclaimed Lucien at that moment, and he

pointed a finger towards Mme. de Sérizy’s box, which the renovated beau

had just entered.

Mme. de Bargeton bit her lips with chagrin as she saw that gesture,

and saw besides the Marquise’s ill-suppressed smile of contemptuous

astonishment. “Where does the young man come from?” her look said, and

Louise felt humbled through her love, one of the sharpest of all pangs

for a Frenchwoman, a mortification for which she cannot forgive her

lover.

In these circles where trifles are of such importance, a gesture or a

word at the outset is enough to ruin a newcomer. It is the principal

merit of fine manners and the highest breeding that they produce the

effect of a harmonious whole, in which every element is so blended that

nothing is startling or obtrusive. Even those who break the laws of this

science, either through ignorance or carried away by some impulse, must

comprehend that it is with social intercourse as with music, a single

discordant note is a complete negation of the art itself, for the

harmony exists only when all its conditions are observed down to the

least particular.

“Who is that gentleman?” asked Mme. d’Espard, looking towards Châtelet.

“And have you made Mme. de Sérizy’s acquaintance already?”

“Oh! is that the famous Mme. de Sérizy who has had so many adventures

and yet goes everywhere?”

“An unheard-of-thing, my dear, explicable but unexplained. The most

formidable men are her friends, and why? Nobody dares to fathom the

mystery. Then is this person the lion of Angoulême?”

“Well, M. le Baron du Châtelet has been a good deal talked about,”

answered Mme. de Bargeton, moved by vanity to give her adorer the title

which she herself had called in question. “He was M. de Montriveau’s

traveling companion.”

“Ah!” said the Marquise d’Espard, “I never hear that name without

thinking of the Duchesse de Langeais, poor thing. She vanished like

a falling star.—That is M. de Rastignac with Mme. de Nucingen,” she

continued, indicating another box; “she is the wife of a contractor, a

banker, a city man, a broker on a large scale; he forced his way into

society with his money, and they say that he is not very scrupulous as

to his methods of making it. He is at endless pains to establish his

credit as a staunch upholder of the Bourbons, and has tried already to

gain admittance into my set. When his wife took Mme. de Langeais’ box,

she thought that she could take her charm, her wit, and her success as

well. It is the old fable of the jay in the peacock’s feathers!”

“How do M. and Mme. de Rastignac manage to keep their son in Paris,

when, as we know, their income is under a thousand crowns?” asked

Lucien, in his astonishment at Rastignac’s elegant and expensive dress.

“It is easy to see that you come from Angoulême,” said Mme. d’Espard,

ironically enough, as she continued to gaze through her opera-glass.

Her remark was lost upon Lucien; the all-absorbing spectacle of the

boxes prevented him from thinking of anything else. He guessed the

comments made upon Mme. de Bargeton, and saw that he himself was an

object of no small curiosity. Louise, on the other hand, was

exceedingly mortified by the evident slight esteem in which the

Marquise held Lucien’s beauty.

“He cannot be so handsome as I thought him,” she said to herself; and

between “not so handsome” and “not so clever as I thought him” there was

but one step.

The curtain fell. Châtelet was now paying a visit to the Duchesse de

Carigliano in an adjourning box; Mme. de Bargeton acknowledged his bow

by a slight inclination of the head. Nothing escapes a woman of the

world; Châtelet’s air of distinction was not lost upon Mme. d’Espard.

Just at that moment four personages, four Parisian celebrities, came

into the box, one after another.

The most striking feature of the first comer, M. de Marsay, famous for

the passions which he had inspired, was his girlish beauty; but its

softness and effeminacy were counteracted by the expression of his eyes,

unflinching, steady, untamed, and hard as a tiger’s. He was loved and he

was feared. Lucien was no less handsome; but Lucien’s expression was so

gentle, his blue eyes so limpid, that he scarcely seemed to possess

the strength and the power which attract women so strongly. Nothing,

moreover, so far had brought out the poet’s merits; while de Marsay,

with his flow of spirits, his confidence in his power to please, and

appropriate style of dress, eclipsed every rival by his presence. Judge,

therefore, the kind of figure that Lucien, stiff, starched, unbending in

clothes as new and unfamiliar as his surroundings, was likely to cut

in de Marsay’s vicinity. De Marsay with his wit and charm of manner

was privileged to be insolent. From Mme. d’Espard’s reception of this

personage his importance was at once evident to Mme. de Bargeton.

The second comer was a Vandenesse, the cause of the scandal in which

Lady Dudley was concerned. Félix de Vandenesse, amiable, intellectual,

and modest, had none of the characteristics on which de Marsay prided

himself, and owed his success to diametrically opposed qualities. He had

been warmly recommended to Mme. d’Espard by her cousin Mme. de Mortsauf.

The third was General de Montriveau, the author of the Duchesse de

Langeais’ ruin.

The fourth, M. de Canalis, one of the most famous poets of the day, and

as yet a newly risen celebrity, was prouder of his birth than of his

genius, and dangled in Mme. d’Espard’s train by way of concealing

his love for the Duchesse de Chaulieu. In spite of his graces and the

affectation that spoiled them, it was easy to discern the vast, lurking

ambitions that plunged him at a later day into the storms of political

life. A face that might be called insignificantly pretty and caressing

manners thinly disguised the man’s deeply-rooted egoism and habit of

continually calculating the chances of a career which at that time

looked problematical enough; though his choice of Mme. de Chaulieu (a

woman past forty) made interest for him at Court, and brought him the

applause of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and the gibes of the Liberal

party, who dubbed him “the poet of the sacristy.”

Mme. de Bargeton, with these remarkable figures before her, no longer

wondered at the slight esteem in which the Marquise held Lucien’s good

looks. And when conversation began, when intellects so keen, so subtle,

were revealed in two-edged words with more meaning and depth in them

than Anaïs de Bargeton heard in a month of talk at Angoulême; and,

most of all, when Canalis uttered a sonorous phrase, summing up a

materialistic epoch, and gilding it with poetry—then Anaïs felt all the

truth of Châtelet’s dictum of the previous evening. Lucien was nothing

to her now. Every one cruelly ignored the unlucky stranger; he was

so much like a foreigner listening to an unknown language, that the

Marquise d’Espard took pity upon him. She turned to Canalis.

“Permit me to introduce M. de Rubempré,” she said. “You rank too high in

the world of letters not to welcome a _debutant_. M. de Rubempré is from

Angoulême, and will néed your influence, no doubt, with the powers that

bring genius to light. So far, he has no enemies to help him to success

by their attacks upon him. Is there enough originality in the idea of

obtaining for him by friendship all that hatred has done for you to

tempt you to make the experiment?”

The four newcomers all looked at Lucien while the Marquise was speaking.

De Marsay, only a couple of paces away, put up an eyeglass and looked

from Lucien to Mme. de Bargeton, and then again at Lucien, coupling them

with some mocking thought, cruelly mortifying to both. He scrutinized

them as if they had been a pair of strange animals, and then he smiled.

The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Félix de

Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau looked Lucien through

and through.

“Madame,” M. de Canalis answered with a bow, “I will obey you, in spite

of the selfish instinct which prompts us to show a rival no favor; but

you have accustomed us to miracles.”

“Very well, do me the pleasure of dining with me on Monday with M. de

Rubempré, and you can talk of matters literary at your ease. I will

try to enlist some of the tyrants of the world of letters and the great

people who protect them, the author of _Ourika_, and one or two young

poets with sound views.”

“Mme. la Marquise,” said de Marsay, “if you give your support to this

gentleman for his intellect, I will support him for his good looks. I

will give him advice which will put him in a fair way to be the luckiest

dandy in Paris. After that, he may be a poet—if he has a mind.”

Mme. de Bargeton thanked her cousin by a grateful glance.

“I did not know that you were jealous of intellect,” Montriveau said,

turning to de Marsay; “good fortune is the death of a poet.”

“Is that why your lordship is thinking of marriage?” inquired the dandy,

addressing Canalis, and watching Mme. d’Espard to see if the words went

home.

Canalis shrugged his shoulders, and Mme. d’Espard, Mme. de Chaulieu’s

niece, began to laugh. Lucien in his new clothes felt as if he were an

Egyptian statue in its narrow sheath; he was ashamed that he had nothing

to say for himself all this while. At length he turned to the Marquise.

“After all your kindness, madame, I am pledged to make no failures,” he

said in those soft tones of his.

Châtelet came in as he spoke; he had seen Montriveau, and by hook or

crook snatched at the chance of a good introduction to the Marquise

d’Espard through one of the kings of Paris. He bowed to Mme. de

Bargeton, and begged Mme. d’Espard to pardon him for the liberty he took

in invading her box; he had been separated so long from his traveling

companion! Montriveau and Châtelet met for the first time since they

parted in the desert.

“To part in the desert, and meet again in the opera-house!” said Lucien.

“Quite a theatrical meeting!” said Canalis.

Montriveau introduced the Baron du Châtelet to the Marquise, and the

Marquise received Her Royal Highness’ ex-secretary the more graciously

because she had seen that he had been very well received in three

boxes already. Mme. de Sérizy knew none but unexceptionable people, and

moreover he was Montriveau’s traveling companion. So potent was this

last credential, that Mme. de Bargeton saw from the manner of the

group that they accepted Châtelet as one of themselves without demur.

Châtelet’s sultan’s airs in Angoulême were suddenly explained.

At length the Baron saw Lucien, and favored him with a cool, disparaging

little nod, indicative to men of the world of the recipient’s inferior

station. A sardonic expression accompanied the greeting, “How does _he_

come here?” he seemed to say. This was not lost on those who saw it;

for de Marsay leaned towards Montriveau, and said in tones audible to

Châtelet:

“Do ask him who the queer-looking young fellow is that looks like a

dummy at a tailor’s shop-door.”

Châtelet spoke a few words in his traveling companion’s ear, and while

apparently renewing his acquaintance, no doubt cut his rival to pieces.

If Lucien was surprised at the apt wit and the subtlety with which these

gentlemen formulated their replies, he felt bewildered with epigram and

repartee, and, most of all, by their offhand way of talking and their

ease of manner. The material luxury of Paris had alarmed him that

morning; at night he saw the same lavish expenditure of intellect. By

what mysterious means, he asked himself, did these people make such

piquant reflections on the spur of the moment, those repartees which

he could only have made after much pondering? And not only were they at

ease in their speech, they were at ease in their dress, nothing looked

new, nothing looked old, nothing about them was conspicuous, everything

attracted the eyes. The fine gentleman of to-day was the same yesterday,

and would be the same to-morrow. Lucien guessed that he himself looked

as if he were dressed for the first time in his life.

“My dear fellow,” said de Marsay, addressing Félix de Vandenesse, “that

young Rastignac is soaring away like a paper-kite. Look at him in the

Marquise de Listomère’s box; he is making progress, he is putting up

his eyeglass at us! He knows this gentleman, no doubt,” added the dandy,

speaking to Lucien, and looking elsewhere.

“He can scarcely fail to have heard the name of a great man of whom we

are proud,” said Mme. de Bargeton. “Quite lately his sister was present

when M. de Rubempré read us some very fine poetry.”

Félix de Vandenesse and de Marsay took leave of the Marquise d’Espard,

and went off to Mme. de Listomère, Vandenesse’s sister. The second act

began, and the three were left to themselves again. The curious women

learned how Mme. de Bargeton came to be there from some of the party,

while the others announced the arrival of a poet, and made fun of his

costume. Canalis went back to the Duchesse de Chaulieu, and no more was

seen of him.

Lucien was glad when the rising of the curtain produced a diversion. All

Mme. de Bargeton’s misgivings with regard to Lucien were increased by

the marked attention which the Marquise d’Espard had shown to Châtelet;

her manner towards the Baron was very different from the patronizing

affability with which she treated Lucien. Mme. de Listomère’s box was

full during the second act, and, to all appearance, the talk turned upon

Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien. Young Rastignac evidently was entertaining

the party; he had raised the laughter that néeds fresh fuel every day in

Paris, the laughter that seizes upon a topic and exhausts it, and leaves

it stale and threadbare in a moment. Mme. d’Espard grew uneasy. She knew

that an ill-natured speech is not long in coming to the ears of those

whom it will wound, and waited till the end of the act.

After a revulsion of feeling such as had taken place in Mme. de Bargeton

and Lucien, strange things come to pass in a brief space of time, and

any revolution within us is controlled by laws that work with great

swiftness. Châtelet’s sage and politic words as to Lucien, spoken on

the way home from the Vaudeville, were fresh in Louise’s memory. Every

phrase was a prophecy, it seemed as if Lucien had set himself to fulfil

the predictions one by one. When Lucien and Mme. de Bargeton had parted

with their illusions concerning each other, the luckless youth, with

a destiny not unlike Rousseau’s, went so far in his predecessor’s

footsteps that he was captivated by the great lady and smitten with

Mme. d’Espard at first sight. Young men and men who remember their young

emotions can see that this was only what might have been looked for.

Mme. d’Espard with her dainty ways, her delicate enunciation, and the

refined tones of her voice; the fragile woman so envied, of such high

place and high degree, appeared before the poet as Mme. de Bargeton had

appeared to him in Angoulême. His fickle nature prompted him to desire

influence in that lofty sphere at once, and the surest way to secure

such influence was to possess the woman who exerted it, and then

everything would be his. He had succeeded at Angoulême, why should he

not succeed in Paris?

Involuntarily, and despite the novel counter fascination of the stage,

his eyes turned to the Célimène in her splendor; he glanced furtively at

her every moment; the longer he looked, the more he desired to look at

her. Mme. de Bargeton caught the gleam in Lucien’s eyes, and saw that

he found the Marquise more interesting than the opera. If Lucien had

forsaken her for the fifty daughters of Danaus, she could have borne his

desertion with equanimity; but another glance—bolder, more ardent and

unmistakable than any before—revealed the state of Lucien’s feelings.

She grew jealous, but not so much for the future as for the past.

“He never gave me such a look,” she thought. “Dear me! Châtelet was

right!”

Then she saw that she had made a mistake; and when a woman once begins

to repent of her weaknesses, she sponges out the whole past. Every

one of Lucien’s glances roused her indignation, but to all outward

appearance she was calm. De Marsay came back in the interval, bringing

M. de Listomère with him; and that serious person and the young coxcomb

soon informed the Marquise that the wedding guest in his holiday suit,

whom she had the bad luck to have in her box, had as much right to the

appellation of Rubempré as a Jew to a baptismal name. Lucien’s father

was an apothecary named Chardon. M. de Rastignac, who knew all about

Angoulême, had set several boxes laughing already at the mummy whom the

Marquise styled her cousin, and at the Marquise’s forethought in having

an apothecary at hand to sustain an artificial life with drugs. In

short, de Marsay brought a selection from the thousand-and-one jokes

made by Parisians on the spur of the moment, and no sooner uttered than

forgotten. Châtelet was at the back of it all, and the real author of

this Punic faith.

Mme. d’Espard turned to Mme. de Bargeton, put up her fan, and said, “My

dear, tell me if your protégé’s name is really M. de Rubempré?”

“He has assumed his mother’s name,” said Anaïs, uneasily.

“But who was his father?”

“His father’s name was Chardon.”

“And what was this Chardon?”

“A druggist.”

“My dear friend, I felt quite sure that all Paris could not be laughing

at any one whom I took up. I do not care to stay here when wags come in

in high glee because there is an apothecary’s son in my box. If you will

follow my advice, we will leave it, and at once.”

Mme. d’Espard’s expression was insolent enough; Lucien was at a loss to

account for her change of countenance. He thought that his waistcoat was

in bad taste, which was true; and that his coat looked like a caricature

of the fashion, which was likewise true. He discerned, in bitterness

of soul, that he must put himself in the hands of an expert tailor,

and vowed that he would go the very next morning to the most celebrated

artist in Paris. On Monday he would hold his own with the men in the

Marquise’s house.

Yet, lost in thought though he was, he saw the third act to an end, and,

with his eyes fixed on the gorgeous scene upon the stage, dreamed out

his dream of Mme. d’Espard. He was in despair over her sudden coldness;

it gave a strange check to the ardent reasoning through which he

advanced upon this new love, undismayed by the immense difficulties in

the way, difficulties which he saw and resolved to conquer. He roused

himself from these deep musings to look once more at his new idol,

turned his head, and saw that he was alone; he had heard a faint

rustling sound, the door closed—Madame d’Espard had taken her cousin

with her. Lucien was surprised to the last degree by the sudden

desertion; he did not think long about it, however, simply because it

was inexplicable.

When the carriage was rolling along the Rue de Richelieu on the way to

the Faubourg Saint-Honore, the Marquise spoke to her cousin in a tone of

suppressed irritation.

“My dear child, what are you thinking about? Pray wait till an

apothecary’s son has made a name for himself before you trouble yourself

about him. The Duchesse de Chaulieu does not acknowledge Canalis even

now, and he is famous and a man of good family. This young fellow is

neither your son nor your lover, I suppose?” added the haughty dame,

with a keen, inquisitive glance at her cousin.

“How fortunate for me that I kept the little scapegrace at a distance!”

thought Madame de Bargeton.

“Very well,” continued the Marquise, taking the expression in her

cousin’s eyes for an answer, “drop him, I beg of you. Taking an

illustrious name in that way!—Why, it is a piece of impudence that will

meet with its desserts in society. It is his mother’s name, I dare say;

but just remember, dear, that the King alone can confer, by a special

ordinance, the title of de Rubempré on the son of a daughter of the

house. If she made a _mésalliance_, the favor would be enormous, only

to be granted to vast wealth, or conspicuous services, or very powerful

influence. The young man looks like a shopman in his Sunday suit;

evidently he is neither wealthy nor noble; he has a fine head, but he

seems to me to be very silly; he has no idea what to do, and has nothing

to say for himself; in fact, he has no breeding. How came you to take

him up?”

Mme. de Bargeton renounced Lucien as Lucien himself had renounced her; a

ghastly fear lest her cousin should learn the manner of her journey shot

through her mind.

“Dear cousin, I am in despair that I have compromised you.”

“People do not compromise me,” Mme. d’Espard said, smiling; “I am only

thinking of you.”

“But you have asked him to dine with you on Monday.”

“I shall be ill,” the Marquise said quickly; “you can tell him so, and I

shall leave orders that he is not to be admitted under either name.”

During the interval Lucien noticed that every one was walking up and

down the lobby. He would do the same. In the first place, not one of

Mme. d’Espard’s visitors recognized him nor paid any attention to him,

their conduct seemed nothing less than extraordinary to the provincial

poet; and, secondly, Châtelet, on whom he tried to hang, watched him

out of the corner of his eye and fought shy of him. Lucien walked to and

fro, watching the eddying crowd of men, till he felt convinced that his

costume was absurd, and he went back to his box, ensconced himself in

a corner, and stayed there till the end. At times he thought of nothing

but the magnificent spectacle of the ballet in the great Inferno

scene in the fifth act; sometimes the sight of the house absorbed him,

sometimes his own thoughts; he had seen society in Paris, and the sight

had stirred him to the depths.

“So this is my kingdom,” he said to himself; “this is the world that I

must conquer.”

As he walked home through the streets he thought over all that had

been said by Mme. d’Espard’s courtiers; memory reproducing with strange

faithfulness their demeanor, their gestures, their manner of coming and

going.

Next day, towards noon, Lucien betook himself to Staub, the great tailor

of that day. Partly by dint of entreaties, and partly by virtue of cash,

Lucien succeeded in obtaining a promise that his clothes should be ready

in time for the great day. Staub went so far as to give his word that

a perfectly elegant coat, a waistcoat, and a pair of trousers should

be forthcoming. Lucien then ordered linen and pocket-handkerchiefs, a

little outfit, in short, of a linen-draper, and a celebrated bootmaker

measured him for shoes and boots. He bought a neat walking cane at

Verdier’s; he went to Mme. Irlande for gloves and shirt studs; in short,

he did his best to reach the climax of dandyism. When he had satisfied

all his fancies, he went to the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg, and found that

Louise had gone out.

“She was dining with Mme. la Marquise d’Espard,” her maid said, “and

would not be back till late.”

Lucien dined for two francs at a restaurant in the Palais Royal, and

went to bed early. The next day was Sunday. He went to Louise’s lodging

at eleven o’clock. Louise had not yet risen. At two o’clock he returned

once more.

“Madame cannot see anybody yet,” reported Albertine, “but she gave me a

line for you.”

“Cannot see anybody yet?” repeated Lucien. “But I am not anybody——”

“I do not know,” Albertine answered very impertinently; and Lucien, less

surprised by Albertine’s answer than by a note from Mme. de Bargeton,

took the billet, and read the following discouraging lines:—

“Mme. d’Espard is not well; she will not be able to see you on Monday. I

am not feeling very well myself, but I am about to dress and go to keep

her company. I am in despair over this little disappointment; but your

talents reassure me, you will make your way without charlatanism.”

“And no signature!” Lucien said to himself. He found himself in the

Tuileries before he knew whither he was walking.

With the gift of second-sight which accompanies genius, he began to

suspect that the chilly note was but a warning of the catastrophe to

come. Lost in thought, he walked on and on, gazing at the monuments in

the Place Louis Quinze.

It was a sunny day; a stream of fine carriages went past him on the

way to the Champs Élysées. Following the direction of the crowd of

strollers, he saw the three or four thousand carriages that turn the

Champs Élysées into an improvised Longchamp on Sunday afternoons in

summer. The splendid horses, the toilettes, and liveries bewildered him;

he went further and further, until he reached the Arc de Triomphe, then

unfinished. What were his feelings when, as he returned, he saw Mme. de

Bargeton and Mme. d’Espard coming towards him in a wonderfully

appointed calèche, with a chasseur behind it in waving plumes and that

gold-embroidered green uniform which he knew only too well. There was

a block somewhere in the row, and the carriages waited. Lucien beheld

Louise transformed beyond recognition. All the colors of her toilette

had been carefully subordinated to her complexion; her dress was

delicious, her hair gracefully and becomingly arranged, her hat, in

exquisite taste, was remarkable even beside Mme. d’Espard, that leader

of fashion.

There is something in the art of wearing a hat that escapes definition.

Tilted too far to the back of the head, it imparts a bold expression to

the face; bring it too far forward, it gives you a sinister look; tipped

to one side, it has a jaunty air; a well-dressed woman wears her hat

exactly as she means to wear it, and exactly at the right angle. Mme.

de Bargeton had solved this curious problem at sight. A dainty girdle

outlined her slender waist. She had adopted her cousin’s gestures and

tricks of manner; and now, as she sat by Mme. d’Espard’s side, she

played with a tiny scent bottle that dangled by a slender gold chain

from one of her fingers, displayed a little well-gloved hand without

seeming to do so. She had modeled herself on Mme. d’Espard without

mimicking her; the Marquise had found a cousin worthy of her, and seemed

to be proud of her pupil.

The men and women on the footways all gazed at the splendid carriage,

with the bearings of the d’Espards and Blamont-Chauvrys upon the panels.

Lucien was amazed at the number of greetings received by the cousins;

he did not know that the “all Paris,” which consists in some score of

salons, was well aware already of the relationship between the ladies.

A little group of young men on horseback accompanied the carriage in

the Bois; Lucien could recognize de Marsay and Rastignac among them,

and could see from their gestures that the pair of coxcombs were

complimenting Mme. de Bargeton upon her transformation. Mme. d’Espard

was radiant with health and grace. So her indisposition was simply a

pretext for ridding herself of him, for there had been no mention of

another day!

The wrathful poet went towards the calèche; he walked slowly, waited

till he came in full sight of the two ladies, and made them a bow. Mme.

de Bargeton would not see him; but the Marquise put up her eyeglass,

and deliberately cut him. He had been disowned by the sovereign lords of

Angoulême, but to be disowned by society in Paris was another thing; the

booby-squires by doing their utmost to mortify Lucien admitted his power

and acknowledged him as a man; for Mme. d’Espard he had positively no

existence. This was no sentence, it was a refusal of justice. Poor poet!

a deadly cold seized on him when he saw de Marsay eying him through his

glass; and when the Parisian lion let that optical instrument fall, it

dropped in so singular a fashion that Lucien thought of the knife-blade

of the guillotine.

The calèche went by. Rage and a craving for vengeance took possession of

his slighted soul. If Mme. de Bargeton had been in his power, he could

have cut her throat at that moment; he was a Fouquier-Tinville gloating

over the pleasure of sending Mme. d’Espard to the scaffold. If only

he could have put de Marsay to the torture with refinements of savage

cruelty! Canalis went by on horseback, bowing to the prettiest women,

his dress elegant, as became the most dainty of poets.

“Great heavens!” exclaimed Lucien. “Money, money at all costs! money

is the one power before which the world bends the knée.” (“No!” cried

conscience, “not money, but glory; and glory means work! Work! that

was what David said.”) “Great heavens! what am I doing here? But I will

triumph. I will drive along this avenue in a calèche with a chasseur

behind me! I will possess a Marquise d’Espard.” And flinging out the

wrathful words, he went to Hurbain’s to dine for two francs.

Next morning, at nine o’clock, he went to the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg to

upbraid Louise for her barbarity. But Mme. de Bargeton was not at home

to him, and not only so, but the porter would not allow him to go up to

her rooms; so he stayed outside in the street, watching the house till

noon. At twelve o’clock Châtelet came out, looked at Lucien out of the

corner of his eye, and avoided him.

Stung to the quick, Lucien hurried after his rival; and Châtelet,

finding himself closely pursued, turned and bowed, evidently intending

to shake him off by this courtesy.

“Spare me just a moment for pity’s sake, sir,” said Lucien; “I want just

a word or two with you. You have shown me friendship, I now ask the most

trifling service of that friendship. You have just come from Mme.

de Bargeton; how have I fallen into disgrace with her and Mme.

d’Espard?—please explain.”

“M. Chardon, do you know why the ladies left you at the Opera that

evening?” asked Châtelet, with treacherous good-nature.

“No,” said the poor poet.

“Well, it was M. de Rastignac who spoke against you from the beginning.

They asked him about you, and the young dandy simply said that your name

was Chardon, and not de Rubempré; that your mother was a monthly nurse;

that your father, when he was alive, was an apothecary in L’Houmeau,

a suburb of Angoulême; and that your sister, a charming girl, gets up

shirts to admiration, and is just about to be married to a local printer

named Séchard. Such is the world! You no sooner show yourself than it

pulls you to pieces.

“M. de Marsay came to Mme. d’Espard to laugh at you with her; so the two

ladies, thinking that your presence put them in a false position, went

out at once. Do not attempt to go to either house. If Mme. de Bargeton

continued to receive your visits, her cousin would have nothing to do

with her. You have genius; try to avenge yourself. The world looks down

upon you; look down in your turn upon the world. Take refuge in some

garret, write your masterpieces, seize on power of any kind, and you

will see the world at your feet. Then you can give back the bruises

which you have received, and in the very place where they were given.

Mme. de Bargeton will be the more distant now because she has been

friendly. That is the way with women. But the question now for you is

not how to win back Anaïs’ friendship, but how to avoid making an enemy

of her. I will tell you of a way. She has written letters to you; send

all her letters back to her, she will be sensible that you are acting

like a gentleman; and at a later time, if you should néed her, she

will not be hostile. For my own part, I have so high an opinion of your

future, that I have taken your part everywhere; and if I can do anything

here for you, you will always find me ready to be of use.”

The elderly beau seemed to have grown young again in the atmosphere of

Paris. He bowed with frigid politeness; but Lucien, woe-begone, haggard,

and undone, forgot to return the salutation. He went back to his inn,

and there found the great Staub himself, come in person, not so much

to try his customer’s clothes as to make inquiries of the landlady

with regard to that customer’s financial status. The report had been

satisfactory. Lucien had traveled post; Mme. de Bargeton brought him

back from Vaudeville last Thursday in her carriage. Staub addressed

Lucien as “Monsieur le Comte,” and called his customer’s attention to

the artistic skill with which he had brought a charming figure into

relief.

“A young man in such a costume has only to walk in the Tuileries,” he

said, “and he will marry an English heiress within a fortnight.”

Lucien brightened a little under the influences of the German tailor’s

joke, the perfect fit of his new clothes, the fine cloth, and the sight

of a graceful figure which met his eyes in the looking-glass. Vaguely he

told himself that Paris was the capital of chance, and for the moment

he believed in chance. Had he not a volume of poems and a magnificent

romance entitled _The Archer of Charles IX._ in manuscript? He had hope

for the future. Staub promised the overcoat and the rest of the clothes

the next day.

The next day the bootmaker, linen-draper, and tailor all returned armed

each with his bill, which Lucien, still under the charm of provincial

habits, paid forthwith, not knowing how otherwise to rid himself of

them. After he had paid, there remained but three hundred and sixty

francs out of the two thousand which he had brought with him from

Angoulême, and he had been but one week in Paris! Nevertheless, he

dressed and went to take a stroll in the Terrassee des Feuillants. He

had his day of triumph. He looked so handsome and so graceful, he was so

well dressed, that women looked at him; two or three were so much struck

with his beauty, that they turned their heads to look again. Lucien

studied the gait and carriage of the young men on the Terrasse, and took

a lesson in fine manners while he meditated on his three hundred and

sixty francs.

That evening, alone in his chamber, an idea occurred to him which threw

a light on the problem of his existence at the Gaillard-Bois, where he

lived on the plainest fare, thinking to economize in this way. He asked

for his account, as if he meant to leave, and discovered that he was

indebted to his landlord to the extent of a hundred francs. The next

morning was spent in running around the Latin Quarter, recommended for

its cheapness by David. For a long while he looked about till, finally,

in the Rue de Cluny, close to the Sorbonne, he discovered a place where

he could have a furnished room for such a price as he could afford to

pay. He settled with his hostess of the Gaillard-Bois, and took up his

quarters in the Rue de Cluny that same day. His removal only cost him

the cab fare.

When he had taken possession of his poor room, he made a packet of Mme.

de Bargeton’s letters, laid them on the table, and sat down to write to

her; but before he wrote he fell to thinking over that fatal week. He

did not tell himself that he had been the first to be faithless; that

for a sudden fancy he had been ready to leave his Louise without knowing

what would become of her in Paris. He saw none of his own shortcomings,

but he saw his present position, and blamed Mme. de Bargeton for it.

She was to have lighted his way; instead she had ruined him. He grew

indignant, he grew proud, he worked himself into a paroxysm of rage, and

set himself to compose the following epistle:—

“What would you think, madame, of a woman who should take a fancy

to some poor and timid child full of the noble superstitions which

the grown man calls ‘illusions;’ and using all the charms of

woman’s coquetry, all her most delicate ingenuity, should feign a

mother’s love to lead that child astray? Her fondest promises, the

card-castles which raised his wonder, cost her nothing; she leads

him on, tightens her hold upon him, sometimes coaxing, sometimes

scolding him for his want of confidence, till the child leaves his

home and follows her blindly to the shores of a vast sea. Smiling,

she lures him into a frail skiff, and sends him forth alone and

helpless to face the storm. Standing safe on the rock, she laughs

and wishes him luck. You are that woman; I am that child.

“The child has a keepsake in his hands, something which might

betray the wrongs done by your beneficence, your kindness in

deserting him. You might have to blush if you saw him struggling

for life, and chanced to recollect that once you clasped him to

your breast. When you read these words the keepsake will be in

your own safe keeping; you are free to forget everything.

“Once you pointed out fair hopes to me in the skies, I awake to

find reality in the squalid poverty of Paris. While you pass, and

others bow before you, on your brilliant path in the great world,

I, whom you deserted on the threshold, shall be shivering in the

wretched garret to which you consigned me. Yet some pang may

perhaps trouble your mind amid festivals and pleasures; you may

think sometimes of the child whom you thrust into the depths. If

so, madame, think of him without remorse. Out of the depths of his

misery the child offers you the one thing left to him—his

forgiveness in a last look. Yes, madame, thanks to you, I have

nothing left. Nothing! was not the world created from nothing?

Genius should follow the Divine example; I begin with God-like

forgiveness, but as yet I know not whether I possess the God-like

power. You néed only tremble lest I should go astray; for you

would be answerable for my sins. Alas! I pity you, for you will

have no part in the future towards which I go, with work as my

guide.”

After penning this rhetorical effusion, full of the sombre dignity which

an artist of one-and-twenty is rather apt to overdo, Lucien’s thoughts

went back to them at home. He saw the pretty rooms which David had

furnished for him, at the cost of part of his little store, and a vision

rose before him of quiet, simple pleasures in the past. Shadowy figures

came about him; he saw his mother and Eve and David, and heard their

sobs over his leave-taking, and at that he began to cry himself, for he

felt very lonely in Paris, and friendless and forlorn.