mind to play the part of romantic Innocence, a role much understudied
subsequently by other women, for the misfortune of modern youth. Her
Grace of Maufrigneuse had just come out as an angel at a moment’s
notice, precisely as she meant to turn to literature and science
somewhere about her fortieth year instead of taking to devotion. She
made a point of being like nobody else. Her parts, her dresses, her
caps, opinions, toilettes, and manner of acting were all entirely new
and original. Soon after her marriage, when she was scarcely more than
a girl, she had played the part of a knowing and almost depraved woman;
she ventured on risky repartees with shallow people, and betrayed her
ignorance to those who knew better. As the date of that marriage made
it impossible to abstract one little year from her age without the
knowledge of Time, she had taken it into her head to be immaculate. She
scarcely seemed to belong to earth; she shook out her wide sleeves as
if they had been wings. Her eyes fled to heaven at too warm a glance, or
word, or thought.
There is a madonna painted by Piola, the great Genoese painter, who bade
fair to bring out a second edition of Raphael till his career was
cut short by jealousy and murder; his madonna, however, you may dimly
discern through a pane of glass in a little street in Genoa.
A more chaste-eyed madonna than Piola’s does not exist but compared
with Mme. de Maufrigneuse, that heavenly creature was a Messalina.
Women wondered among themselves how such a giddy young thing had been
transformed by a change of dress into the fair veiled seraph who seemed
(to use an expression now in vogue) to have a soul as white as new
fallen snow on the highest Alpine crests. How had she solved in such
short space the Jesuitical problem how to display a bosom whiter than
her soul by hiding it in gauze? How could she look so ethereal while her
eyes drooped so murderously? Those almost wanton glances seemed to give
promise of untold languorous delight, while by an ascetic’s sigh of
aspiration after a better life the mouth appeared to add that none of
those promises would be fulfilled. Ingenuous youths (for there were a
few to be found in the Guards of that day) privately wondered whether,
in the most intimate moments, it were possible to speak familiarly to
this White Lady, this starry vapor slidden down from the Milky Way.
This system, which answered completely for some years at a stretch, was
turned to good account by women of fashion, whose breasts were lined
with a stout philosophy, for they could cloak no inconsiderable
exactions with these little airs from the sacristy. Not one of the
celestial creatures but was quite well aware of the possibilities of
less ethereal love which lay in the longing of every well-conditioned
male to recall such beings to earth. It was a fashion which permitted
them to abide in a semi-religious, semi-Ossianic empyrean; they could,
and did, ignore all the practical details of daily life, a short and
easy method of disposing of many questions. De Marsay, foreseeing the
future developments of the system, added a last word, for he saw that
Rastignac was jealous of Victurnien.
“My boy,” said he, “stay as you are. Our Nucingen will make your
fortune, whereas the Duchess would ruin you. She is too expensive.”
Rastignac allowed de Marsay to go without asking further questions. He
knew Paris. He knew that the most refined and noble and disinterested
of women--a woman who cannot be induced to accept anything but a
bouquet--can be as dangerous an acquaintance for a young man as any
opera girl of former days. As a matter of fact, the opera girl is an
almost mythical being. As things are now at the theatres, dancers and
actresses are about as amusing as a declaration of the rights of woman,
they are puppets that go abroad in the morning in the character of
respected and respectable mothers of families, and act men’s parts in
tight-fitting garments at night.
Worthy M. Chesnel, in his country notary’s office, was right; he had
foreseen one of the reefs on which the Count might shipwreck. Victurnien
was dazzled by the poetic aureole which Mme. de Maufrigneuse chose to
assume; he was chained and padlocked from the first hour in her company,
bound captive by that girlish sash, and caught by the curls twined round
fairy fingers. Far corrupted the boy was already, but he really believed
in that farrago of maidenliness and muslin, in sweet looks as much
studied as an Act of Parliament. And if the one man, who is in duty
bound to believe in feminine fibs, is deceived by them, is not that
enough?
For a pair of lovers, the rest of their species are about as much alive
as figures on the tapestry. The Duchess, flattery apart, was avowedly
and admittedly one of the ten handsomest women in society. “The
loveliest woman in Paris” is, as you know, as often met with in the
world of love-making as “the finest book that has appeared in this
generation,” in the world of letters.
The converse which Victurnien held with the Duchess can be kept up at
his age without too great a strain. He was young enough and ignorant
enough of life in Paris to feel no necessity to be upon his guard, no
need to keep a watch over his lightest words and glances. The religious
sentimentalism, which finds a broadly humorous commentary in the
after-thoughts of either speaker, puts the old-world French chat of men
and women, with its pleasant familiarity, its lively ease, quite out of
the question; they make love in a mist nowadays.
Victurnien was just sufficient of an unsophisticated provincial to
remain suspended in a highly appropriate and unfeigned rapture which
pleased the Duchess; for women are no more to be deceived by the
comedies which men play than by their own. Mme. de Maufrigneuse
calculated, not without dismay, that the young Count’s infatuation was
likely to hold good for six whole months of disinterested love. She
looked so lovely in this dove’s mood, quenching the light in her eyes by
the golden fringe of their lashes, that when the Marquise d’Espard bade
her friend good-night, she whispered, “Good! very good, dear!” And with
those farewell words, the fair Marquise left her rival to make the tour
of the modern Pays du Tendre; which, by the way, is not so absurd a
conception as some appear to think. New maps of the country are engraved
for each generation; and if the names of the routes are different, they
still lead to the same capital city.
In the course of an hour’s tete-a-tete, on a corner sofa, under the eyes
of the world, the Duchess brought young d’Esgrignon as far as Scipio’s
Generosity, the Devotion of Amadis, and Chivalrous Self-abnegation
(for the Middle Ages were just coming into fashion, with their daggers,
machicolations, hauberks, chain-mail, peaked shoes, and romantic painted
card-board properties). She had an admirable turn, moreover, for leaving
things unsaid, for leaving ideas in a discreet, seeming careless way, to
work their way down, one by one, into Victurnien’s heart, like needles
into a cushion. She possessed a marvelous skill in reticence; she was
charming in hypocrisy, lavish of subtle promises, which revived hope and
then melted away like ice in the sun if you looked at them closely, and
most treacherous in the desire which she felt and inspired. At the
close of this charming encounter she produced the running noose of an
invitation to call, and flung it over him with a dainty demureness which
the printed page can never set forth.
“You will forget me,” she said. “You will find so many women eager to
pay court to you instead of enlightening you.... But you will come back
to me undeceived. Are you coming to me first?... No. As you will.--For
my own part, I tell you frankly that your visits will be a great
pleasure to me. People of soul are so rare, and I think that you are one
of them.--Come, good-bye; people will begin to talk about us if we talk
together any longer.”
She made good her words and took flight. Victurnien went soon
afterwards, but not before others had guessed his ecstatic condition;
his face wore the expression peculiar to happy men, something between
an Inquisitor’s calm discretion and the self-contained beatitude of a
devotee, fresh from the confessional and absolution.
“Mme. de Maufrigneuse went pretty briskly to the point this evening,”
said the Duchesse de Grandlieu, when only half-a-dozen persons were
left in Mlle. des Touches’ little drawing-room--to wit, des Lupeaulx,
a Master of Requests, who at that time stood very well at court,
Vandenesse, the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, Canalis, and Mme. de Serizy.
“D’Esgrignon and Maufrigneuse are two names that are sure to cling
together,” said Mme. de Serizy, who aspired to epigram.
“For some days past she has been out at grass on Platonism,” said des
Lupeaulx.
“She will ruin that poor innocent,” added Charles de Vandenesse.
“What do you mean?” asked Mlle. des Touches.
“Oh, morally and financially, beyond all doubt,” said the Vicomtesse,
rising.
The cruel words were cruelly true for young d’Esgrignon.
Next morning he wrote to his aunt describing his introduction into the
high world of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in bright colors flung by the
prism of love, explaining the reception which met him everywhere in a
way which gratified his father’s family pride. The Marquis would have
the whole long letter read to him twice; he rubbed his hands when
he heard of the Vidame de Pamiers’ dinner--the Vidame was an old
acquaintance--and of the subsequent introduction to the Duchess; but at
Blondet’s name he lost himself in conjectures. What could the younger
son of a judge, a public prosecutor during the Revolution, have been
doing there?
There was joy that evening among the Collection of Antiquities. They
talked over the young Count’s success. So discreet were they with regard
to Mme. de Maufrigneuse, that the one man who heard the secret was the
Chevalier. There was no financial postscript at the end of the letter,
no unpleasant reference to the sinews of war, which every young man
makes in such a case. Mlle. Armande showed it to Chesnel. Chesnel was
pleased and raised not a single objection. It was clear, as the Marquis
and the Chevalier agreed, that a young man in favor with the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse would shortly be a hero at court, where in the old
days women were all-powerful. The Count had not made a bad choice. The
dowagers told over all the gallant adventures of the Maufrigneuses
from Louis XIII. to Louis XVI.--they spared to inquire into preceding
reigns--and when all was done they were enchanted.--Mme. de Maufrigneuse
was much praised for interesting herself in Victurnien. Any writer of
plays in search of a piece of pure comedy would have found it well worth
his while to listen to the Antiquities in conclave.
Victurnien received charming letters from his father and aunt, and also
from the Chevalier. That gentleman recalled himself to the Vidame’s
memory. He had been at Spa with M. de Pamiers in 1778, after a certain
journey made by a celebrated Hungarian princess. And Chesnel also wrote.
The fond flattery to which the unhappy boy was only too well accustomed
shone out of every page; and Mlle. Armande seemed to share half of Mme.
de Maufrigneuse’s happiness.
Thus happy in the approval of his family, the young Count made a
spirited beginning in the perilous and costly ways of dandyism. He had
five horses--he was moderate--de Marsay had fourteen! He returned the
Vidame’s hospitality, even including Blondet in the invitation, as well
as de Marsay and Rastignac. The dinner cost five hundred francs, and the
noble provincial was feted on the same scale. Victurnien played a good
deal, and, for his misfortune, at the fashionable game of whist.
He laid out his days in busy idleness. Every day between twelve and
three o’clock he was with the Duchess; afterwards he went to meet her
in the Bois de Boulogne and ride beside her carriage. Sometimes the
charming couple rode together, but this was early in fine summer
mornings. Society, balls, the theatre, and gaiety filled the Count’s
evening hours. Everywhere Victurnien made a brilliant figure, everywhere
he flung the pearls of his wit broadcast. He gave his opinion on men,
affairs, and events in profound sayings; he would have put you in
mind of a fruit-tree putting forth all its strength in blossom. He
was leading an enervating life wasteful of money, and even yet more
wasteful, it may be of a man’s soul; in that life the fairest talents
are buried out of sight, the most incorruptible honesty perishes, the
best-tempered springs of will are slackened.
The Duchess, so white and fragile and angel-like, felt attracted to
the dissipations of bachelor life; she enjoyed first nights, she liked
anything amusing, anything improvised. Bohemian restaurants lay outside
her experience; so d’Esgrignon got up a charming little party at the
Rocher de Cancale for her benefit, asked all the amiable scamps whom
she cultivated and sermonized, and there was a vast amount of merriment,
wit, and gaiety, and a corresponding bill to pay. That supper led to
others. And through it all Victurnien worshiped her as an angel. Mme.
de Maufrigneuse for him was still an angel, untouched by any taint of
earth; an angel at the Varietes, where she sat out the half-obscene,
vulgar farces, which made her laugh; an angel through the cross-fire of
highly-flavored jests and scandalous anecdotes, which enlivened a stolen
frolic; a languishing angel in the latticed box at the Vaudeville;
an angel while she criticised the postures of opera dancers with the
experience of an elderly habitue of le coin de la reine; an angel at
the Porte Saint-Martin, at the little boulevard theatres, at the masked
balls, which she enjoyed like any schoolboy. She was an angel who
asked him for the love that lives by self-abnegation and heroism and
self-sacrifice; an angel who would have her lover live like an English
lord, with an income of a million francs. D’Esgrignon once exchanged a
horse because the animal’s coat did not satisfy her notions. At play
she was an angel, and certainly no bourgeoise that ever lived could have
bidden d’Esgrignon “Stake for me!” in such an angelic way. She was so
divinely reckless in her folly, that a man might well have sold his
soul to the devil lest this angel should lose her taste for earthly
pleasures.
The first winter went by. The Count had drawn on M. Cardot for the
trifling sum of thirty thousand francs over and above Chesnel’s
remittance. As Cardot very carefully refrained from using his right
of remonstrance, Victurnien now learned for the first time that he had
overdrawn his account. He was the more offended by an extremely polite
refusal to make any further advance, since it so happened that he had
just lost six thousand francs at play at the club, and he could not very
well show himself there until they were paid.
After growing indignant with Maitre Cardot, who had trusted him with
thirty thousand francs (Cardot had written to Chesnel, but to the fair
Duchess’ favorite he made the most of his so-called confidence in him),
after all this, d’Esgrignon was obliged to ask the lawyer to tell
him how to set about raising the money, since debts of honor were in
question.
“Draw bills on your father’s banker, and take them to his correspondent;
he, no doubt, will discount them for you. Then write to your family, and
tell them to remit the amount to the banker.”
An inner voice seemed to suggest du Croisier’s name in this predicament.
He had seen du Croisier on his knees to the aristocracy, and of the
man’s real disposition he was entirely ignorant. So to du Croisier he
wrote a very offhand letter, informing him that he had drawn a bill of
exchange on him for ten thousand francs, adding that the amount would be
repaid on receipt of the letter either by M. Chesnel or by Mlle. Armande
d’Esgrignon. Then he indited two touching epistles--one to Chesnel,
another to his aunt. In the matter of going headlong to ruin, a young
man often shows singular ingenuity and ability, and fortune favors him.
In the morning Victurnien happened on the name of the Paris bankers in
correspondence with du Croisier, and de Marsay furnished him with the
Kellers’ address. De Marsay knew everything in Paris. The Kellers
took the bill and gave him the sum without a word, after deducting the
discount. The balance of the account was in du Croisier’s favor.
But the gaming debt was as nothing in comparison with the state of
things at home. Invoices showered in upon Victurnien.
“I say! Do you trouble yourself about that sort of thing?” Rastignac
said, laughing. “Are you putting them in order, my dear boy? I did not
think you were so business-like.”
“My dear fellow, it is quite time I thought about it; there are twenty
odd thousand francs there.”
De Marsay, coming in to look up d’Esgrignon for a steeplechase, produced
a dainty little pocket-book, took out twenty thousand francs, and handed
them to him.
“It is the best way of keeping the money safe,” said he; “I am twice
enchanted to have won it yesterday from my honored father, Milord
Dudley.”
Such French grace completely fascinated d’Esgrignon; he took it for
friendship; and as to the money, punctually forgot to pay his debts
with it, and spent it on his pleasures. The fact was that de Marsay was
looking on with an unspeakable pleasure while young d’Esgrignon “got out
of his depth,” in dandy’s idiom; it pleased de Marsay in all sorts of
fondling ways to lay an arm on the lad’s shoulder; by and by he should
feel its weight, and disappear the sooner. For de Marsay was jealous;
the Duchess flaunted her love affair; she was not at home to other
visitors when d’Esgrignon was with her. And besides, de Marsay was one
of those savage humorists who delight in mischief, as Turkish women in
the bath. So when he had carried off the prize, and bets were settled at
the tavern where they breakfasted, and a bottle or two of good wine had
appeared, de Marsay turned to d’Esgrignon with a laugh:
“Those bills that you are worrying over are not yours, I am sure.”
“Eh! if they weren’t, why should he worry himself?” asked Rastignac.
“And whose should they be?” d’Esgrignon inquired.
“Then you do not know the Duchess’ position?” queried de Marsay, as he
sprang into the saddle.
“No,” said d’Esgrignon, his curiosity aroused.
“Well, dear fellow, it is like this,” returned de Marsay--“thirty
thousand francs to Victorine, eighteen thousand francs to Houbigaut,
lesser amounts to Herbault, Nattier, Nourtier, and those Latour
people,--altogether a hundred thousand francs.”
“An angel!” cried d’Esgrignon, with eyes uplifted to heaven.
“This is the bill for her wings,” Rastignac cried facetiously.
“She owes all that, my dear boy,” continued de Marsay, “precisely
because she is an angel. But we have all seen angels in this position,”
he added, glancing at Rastignac; “there is this about women that is
sublime: they understand nothing of money; they do not meddle with it,
it is no affair of theirs; they are invited guests at the ‘banquet of
life,’ as some poet or other said that came to an end in the workhouse.”
“How do you know this when I do not?” d’Esgrignon artlessly returned.
“You are sure to be the last to know it, just as she is sure to be the
last to hear that you are in debt.”
“I thought she had a hundred thousand livres a year,” said d’Esgrignon.
“Her husband,” replied de Marsay, “lives apart from her. He stays with
his regiment and practises economy, for he has one or two little debts
of his own as well, has our dear Duke. Where do you come from? Just
learn to do as we do and keep our friends’ accounts for them. Mlle.
Diane (I fell in love with her for the name’s sake), Mlle. Diane
d’Uxelles brought her husband sixty thousand livres of income; for the
last eight years she has lived as if she had two hundred thousand. It is
perfectly plain that at this moment her lands are mortgaged up to their
full value; some fine morning the crash must come, and the angel will be
put to flight by--must it be said?--by sheriff’s officers that have the
effrontery to lay hands on an angel just as they might take hold of one
of us.”
“Poor angel!”
“Lord! it costs a great deal to dwell in a Parisian heaven; you must
whiten your wings and your complexion every morning,” said Rastignac.
Now as the thought of confessing his debts to his beloved Diane had
passed through d’Esgrignon’s mind, something like a shudder ran through
him when he remembered that he still owed sixty thousand francs, to
say nothing of bills to come for another ten thousand. He went back
melancholy enough. His friends remarked his ill-disguised preoccupation,
and spoke of it among themselves at dinner.
“Young d’Esgrignon is getting out of his depth. He is not up to Paris.
He will blow his brains out. A little fool!” and so on and so on.
D’Esgrignon, however, promptly took comfort. His servant brought him two
letters. The first was from Chesnel. A letter from Chesnel smacked
of the stale grumbling faithfulness of honesty and its consecrated
formulas. With all respect he put it aside till the evening. But the
second letter he read with unspeakable pleasure. In Ciceronian phrases,
du Croisier groveled before him, like a Sganarelle before a Geronte,
begging the young Count in future to spare him the affront of first
depositing the amount of the bills which he should condescend to draw.
The concluding phrase seemed meant to convey the idea that here was
an open cashbox full of coin at the service of the noble d’Esgrignon
family. So strong was the impression that Victurnien, like Sganarelle
or Mascarille in the play, like everybody else who feels a twinge of
conscience at his finger-tips, made an involuntary gesture.
Now that he was sure of unlimited credit with the Kellers, he opened
Chesnel’s letter gaily. He had expected four full pages, full of
expostulation to the brim; he glanced down the sheet for the familiar
words “prudence,” “honor,” “determination to do right,” and the like,
and saw something else instead which made his head swim.
“MONSIEUR LE COMTE,--Of all my fortune I have now but two hundred
thousand francs left. I beg of you not to exceed that amount, if
you should do one of the most devoted servants of your family the
honor of taking it. I present my respects to you.
“CHESNEL.”
“He is one of Plutarch’s men,” Victurnien said to himself, as he tossed
the letter on the table. He felt chagrined; such magnanimity made him
feel very small.
“There! one must reform,” he thought; and instead of going to a
restaurant and spending fifty or sixty francs over his dinner, he
retrenched by dining with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and told her
about the letter.
“I should like to see that man,” she said, letting her eyes shine like
two fixed stars.
“What would you do?”
“Why, he should manage my affairs for me.”
Diane de Maufrigneuse was divinely dressed; she meant her toilet to do
honor to Victurnien. The levity with which she treated his affairs or,
more properly speaking, his debts fascinated him.
The charming pair went to the Italiens. Never had that beautiful and
enchanting woman looked more seraphic, more ethereal. Nobody in the
house could have believed that she had debts which reached the sum total
mentioned by de Marsay that very morning. No single one of the cares of
earth had touched that sublime forehead of hers, full of woman’s pride
of the highest kind. In her, a pensive air seemed to be some gleam of
an earthly love, nobly extinguished. The men for the most part were
wagering that Victurnien, with his handsome figure, laid her under
contribution; while the women, sure of their rival’s subterfuge, admired
her as Michael Angelo admired Raphael, in petto. Victurnien loved Diane,
according to one of these ladies, for the sake of her hair--she had
the most beautiful fair hair in France; another maintained that Diane’s
pallor was her principal merit, for she was not really well shaped, her
dress made the most of her figure; yet others thought that Victurnien
loved her for her foot, her one good point, for she had a flat figure.
But (and this brings the present-day manner of Paris before you in
an astonishing manner) whereas all the men said that the Duchess was
subsidizing Victurnien’s splendor, the women, on the other hand, gave
people to understand that it was Victurnien who paid for the angel’s
wings, as Rastignac said.