It was one o’clock in the morning, during the winter of 1829-30, but in
the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu’s salon two persons stayed on who did not
belong to her family circle. A young and good-looking man heard the
clock strike, and took his leave. When the courtyard echoed with the
sound of a departing carriage, the Vicomtesse looked up, saw that no one
was present save her brother and a friend of the family finishing their
game of piquet, and went across to her daughter. The girl, standing by
the chimney-piece, apparently examining a transparent fire-screen,
was listening to the sounds from the courtyard in a way that justified
certain maternal fears.
“Camille,” said the Vicomtesse, “if you continue to behave to young
Comte de Restaud as you have done this evening, you will oblige me to
see no more of him here. Listen, child, and if you have any confidence
in my love, let me guide you in life. At seventeen one cannot judge of
past or future, nor of certain social considerations. I have only one
thing to say to you. M. de Restaud has a mother, a mother who would
waste millions of francs; a woman of no birth, a Mlle. Goriot; people
talked a good deal about her at one time. She behaved so badly to her
own father, that she certainly does not deserve to have so good a son.
The young Count adores her, and maintains her in her position with
dutifulness worthy of all praise, and he is extremely good to his
brother and sister.--But however admirable _his_ behavior may be,” the
Vicomtesse added with a shrewd expression, “so long as his mother lives,
any family would take alarm at the idea of intrusting a daughter’s
fortune and future to young Restaud.”
“I overheard a word now and again in your talk with Mlle. de Grandlieu,”
cried the friend of the family, “and it made me anxious to put in a word
of my own.--I have won, M. le Comte,” he added, turning to his opponent.
“I shall throw you over and go to your niece’s assistance.”
“See what it is to have an attorney’s ears!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse.
“My dear Derville, how could you know what I was saying to Camille in a
whisper?”
“I knew it from your looks,” answered Derville, seating himself in a low
chair by the fire.
Camille’s uncle went to her side, and Mme. de Grandlieu took up her
position on a hearth stool between her daughter and Derville.
“The time has come for telling a story, which should modify your
judgment as to Ernest de Restaud’s prospects.”
“A story?” cried Camille. “Do begin at once, monsieur.”
The glance that Derville gave the Vicomtesse told her that this tale was
meant for her. The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, be it said, was one of the
greatest ladies in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, by reason of her fortune
and her ancient name; and though it may seem improbable that a Paris
attorney should speak so familiarly to her, or be so much at home in her
house, the fact is nevertheless easily explained.
When Mme. de Grandlieu returned to France with the Royal family, she
came to Paris, and at first lived entirely on the pension allowed her
out of the Civil List by Louis XVIII.--an intolerable position. The
Hotel de Grandlieu had been sold by the Republic. It came to Derville’s
knowledge that there were flaws in the title, and he thought that it
ought to return to the Vicomtesse. He instituted proceedings for nullity
of contract, and gained the day. Encouraged by this success, he used
legal quibbles to such purpose that he compelled some institution or
other to disgorge the Forest of Liceney. Then he won certain lawsuits
against the Canal d’Orleans, and recovered a tolerably large amount
of property, with which the Emperor had endowed various public
institutions. So it fell out that, thanks to the young attorney’s
skilful management, Mme. de Grandlieu’s income reached the sum of some
sixty thousand francs, to say nothing of the vast sums returned to her
by the law of indemnity. And Derville, a man of high character, well
informed, modest, and pleasant in company, became the house-friend of
the family.
By his conduct of Mme. de Grandlieu’s affairs he had fairly earned the
esteem of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and numbered the best families
among his clients; but he did not take advantage of his popularity, as
an ambitious man might have done. The Vicomtesse would have had him sell
his practice and enter the magistracy, in which career advancement would
have been swift and certain with such influence at his disposal; but he
persistently refused all offers. He only went into society to keep up
his connections, but he occasionally spent an evening at the Hotel de
Grandlieu. It was a very lucky thing for him that his talents had been
brought into the light by his devotion to Mme. de Grandlieu, for his
practice otherwise might have gone to pieces. Derville had not an
attorney’s soul. Since Ernest de Restaud had appeared at the Hotel de
Grandlieu, and he had noticed that Camille felt attracted to the young
man, Derville had been as assiduous in his visits as any dandy of the
Chausee-d’Antin newly admitted to the noble Faubourg. At a ball only
a few days before, when he happened to stand near Camille, and said,
indicating the Count:
“It is a pity that yonder youngster has not two or three million francs,
is it not?”
“Is it a pity? I do not think so,” the girl answered. “M. de Restaud
has plenty of ability; he is well educated, and the Minister, his
chief, thinks well of him. He will be a remarkable man, I have no doubt.
‘Yonder youngster’ will have as much money as he wishes when he comes
into power.”
“Yes, but suppose that he were rich already?”
“Rich already?” repeated Camille, flushing red. “Why all the girls
in the room would be quarreling for him,” she said, glancing at the
quadrilles.
“And then,” retorted the attorney, “Mlle. de Grandlieu might not be the
one towards whom his eyes are always turned? That is what that red color
means! You like him, do you not? Come, speak out.”
Camille suddenly rose to go.
“She loves him,” Derville thought.
Since that evening, Camille had been unwontedly attentive to the
attorney, who approved of her liking for Ernest de Restaud. Hitherto,
although she knew well that her family lay under great obligations to
Derville, she had felt respect rather than real friendship for him,
their relation was more a matter of politeness than of warmth of
feeling; and by her manner, and by the tones of her voice, she had
always made him sensible of the distance which socially lay between
them. Gratitude is a charge upon the inheritance which the second
generation is apt to repudiate.
“This adventure,” Derville began after a pause, “brings the one romantic
event in my life to my mind. You are laughing already,” he went on;
“it seems so ridiculous, doesn’t it, that an attorney should speak of
a romance in his life? But once I was five-and-twenty, like everybody
else, and even then I had seen some queer things. I ought to begin at
the beginning by telling you about some one whom it is impossible that
you should have known. The man in question was a usurer.
“Can you grasp a clear notion of that sallow, wan face of his? I wish
the _Academie_ would give me leave to dub such faces the _lunar_
type. It was like silver-gilt, with the gilt rubbed off. His hair was
iron-gray, sleek, and carefully combed; his features might have been
cast in bronze; Talleyrand himself was not more impassive than this
money-lender. A pair of little eyes, yellow as a ferret’s, and with
scarce an eyelash to them, peered out from under the sheltering peak of
a shabby old cap, as if they feared the light. He had the thin lips that
you see in Rembrandt’s or Metsu’s portraits of alchemists and shrunken
old men, and a nose so sharp at the tip that it put you in mind of a
gimlet. His voice was so low; he always spoke suavely; he never flew
into a passion. His age was a problem; it was hard to say whether he had
grown old before his time, or whether by economy of youth he had saved
enough to last him his life.
“His room, and everything in it, from the green baize of the bureau
to the strip of carpet by the bed, was as clean and threadbare as the
chilly sanctuary of some elderly spinster who spends her days in rubbing
her furniture. In winter time, the live brands of the fire smouldered
all day in a bank of ashes; there was never any flame in his grate. He
went through his day, from his uprising to his evening coughing-fit,
with the regularity of a pendulum, and in some sort was a clockwork man,
wound up by a night’s slumber. Touch a wood-louse on an excursion across
your sheet of paper, and the creature shams death; and in something the
same way my acquaintance would stop short in the middle of a sentence,
while a cart went by, to save the strain to his voice. Following the
example of Fontenelle, he was thrifty of pulse-strokes, and concentrated
all human sensibility in the innermost sanctuary of Self.
“His life flowed soundless as the sands of an hour-glass. His victims
sometimes flew into a rage and made a great deal of noise, followed by a
great silence; so is it in a kitchen after a fowl’s neck has been wrung.
“Toward evening this bill of exchange incarnate would assume ordinary
human shape, and his metals were metamorphosed into a human heart. When
he was satisfied with his day’s business, he would rub his hands; his
inward glee would escape like smoke through every rift and wrinkle of
his face;--in no other way is it possible to give an idea of the mute
play of muscle which expressed sensations similar to the soundless
laughter of _Leather Stocking_. Indeed, even in transports of joy,
his conversation was confined to monosyllables; he wore the same
non-committal countenance.
“This was the neighbor Chance found for me in the house in the Rue
de Gres, where I used to live when as yet I was only a second clerk
finishing my third year’s studies. The house is damp and dark, and
boasts no courtyard. All the windows look on the street; the whole
dwelling, in claustral fashion, is divided into rooms or cells of equal
size, all opening upon a long corridor dimly lit with borrowed lights.
The place must have been part of an old convent once. So gloomy was it,
that the gaiety of eldest sons forsook them on the stairs before they
reached my neighbor’s door. He and his house were much alike; even so
does the oyster resemble his native rock.
“I was the one creature with whom he had any communication, socially
speaking; he would come in to ask for a light, to borrow a book or a
newspaper, and of an evening he would allow me to go into his cell,
and when he was in the humor we would chat together. These marks of
confidence were the results of four years of neighborhood and my own
sober conduct. From sheer lack of pence, I was bound to live pretty much
as he did. Had he any relations or friends? Was he rich or poor? Nobody
could give an answer to these questions. I myself never saw money in his
room. Doubtless his capital was safely stowed in the strong rooms of the
Bank. He used to collect his bills himself as they fell due, running
all over Paris on a pair of shanks as skinny as a stag’s. On occasion he
would be a martyr to prudence. One day, when he happened to have gold in
his pockets, a double napoleon worked its way, somehow or other, out of
his fob and fell, and another lodger following him up the stairs picked
up the coin and returned it to its owner.
“‘That isn’t mine!’ said he, with a start of surprise. ‘Mine indeed! If
I were rich, should I live as I do!’
“He made his cup of coffee himself every morning on the cast-iron
chafing dish which stood all day in the black angle of the grate; his
dinner came in from a cookshop; and our old porter’s wife went up at the
prescribed hour to set his room in order. Finally, a whimsical chance,
in which Sterne would have seen predestination, had named the man
Gobseck. When I did business for him later, I came to know that he was
about seventy-six years old at the time when we became acquainted. He
was born about 1740, in some outlying suburb of Antwerp, of a Dutch
father and a Jewish mother, and his name was Jean-Esther Van Gobseck.
You remember how all Paris took an interest in that murder case, a
woman named _La belle Hollandaise_? I happened to mention it to my old
neighbor, and he answered without the slightest symptom of interest or
surprise, ‘She is my grandniece.’
“That was the only remark drawn from him by the death of his sole
surviving next of kin, his sister’s granddaughter. From reports of the
case I found that _La belle Hollandaise_ was in fact named Sara Van
Gobseck. When I asked by what curious chance his grandniece came to bear
his surname, he smiled:
“‘The women never marry in our family.’
“Singular creature, he had never cared to find out a single relative
among four generations counted on the female side. The thought of his
heirs was abhorrent to him; and the idea that his wealth could pass into
other hands after his death simply inconceivable.
“He was a child, ten years old, when his mother shipped him off as a
cabin boy on a voyage to the Dutch Straits Settlements, and there he
knocked about for twenty years. The inscrutable lines on that sallow
forehead kept the secret of horrible adventures, sudden panic,
unhoped-for luck, romantic cross events, joys that knew no limit,
hunger endured and love trampled under foot, fortunes risked, lost, and
recovered, life endangered time and time again, and saved, it may be, by
one of the rapid, ruthless decisions absolved by necessity. He had known
Admiral Simeuse, M. de Lally, M. de Kergarouet, M. d’Estaing, _le Bailli
de Suffren_, M. de Portenduere, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Hastings, Tippoo
Sahib’s father, Tippoo Sahib himself. The bully who served Mahadaji
Sindhia, King of Delhi, and did so much to found the power of the
Mahrattas, had had dealings with Gobseck. Long residence at St. Thomas
brought him in contact with Victor Hughes and other notorious pirates.
In his quest of fortune he had left no stone unturned; witness an
attempt to discover the treasure of that tribe of savages so famous in
Buenos Ayres and its neighborhood. He had a personal knowledge of the
events of the American War of Independence. But if he spoke of the
Indies or of America, as he did very rarely with me, and never with
anyone else, he seemed to regard it as an indiscretion and to repent of
it afterwards. If humanity and sociability are in some sort a religion,
Gobseck might be ranked as an infidel; but though I set myself to study
him, I must confess, to my shame, that his real nature was impenetrable
up to the very last. I even felt doubts at times as to his sex. If all
usurers are like this one, I maintain that they belong to the neuter
gender.
“Did he adhere to his mother’s religion? Did he look on Gentiles as
his legitimate prey? Had he turned Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Mahometan,
Brahmin, or what not? I never knew anything whatsoever about his
religious opinions, and so far as I could see, he was indifferent rather
than incredulous.
“One evening I went in to see this man who had turned himself to gold;
the usurer, whom his victims (his clients, as he styled them) were
wont to call Daddy Gobseck, perhaps ironically, perhaps by way of
antiphrasis. He was sitting in his armchair, motionless as a statue,
staring fixedly at the mantel-shelf, where he seemed to read the figures
of his statements. A lamp, with a pedestal that had once been green, was
burning in the room; but so far from taking color from its smoky light,
his face seemed to stand out positively paler against the background. He
pointed to a chair set for me, but not a word did he say.
“‘What thoughts can this being have in his mind?’ said I to myself.
‘Does he know that a God exists; does he know there are such things
as feeling, woman, happiness?’ I pitied him as I might have pitied a
diseased creature. But, at the same time, I knew quite well that while
he had millions of francs at his command, he possessed the world no
less in idea--that world which he had explored, ransacked, weighed,
appraised, and exploited.
“‘Good day, Daddy Gobseck,’ I began.
“He turned his face towards me with a slight contraction of his bushy,
black eyebrows; this characteristic shade of expression in him meant as
much as the most jubilant smile on a Southern face.
“‘You look just as gloomy as you did that day when the news came of the
failure of that bookseller whose sharpness you admired so much, though
you were one of his victims.’
“‘One of his victims?’ he repeated, with a look of astonishment.
“‘Yes. Did you not refuse to accept composition at the meeting of
creditors until he undertook privately to pay you your debt in full; and
did he not give you bills accepted by the insolvent firm; and then, when
he set up in business again, did he not pay you the dividend upon those
bills of yours, signed as they were by the bankrupt firm?’
“‘He was a sharp one, but I had it out of him.’
“‘Then have you some bills to protest? To-day is the 30th, I believe.’
“It was the first time I had spoken to him of money. He looked
ironically up at me; then in those bland accents, not unlike the husky
tones which the tyro draws from a flute, he answered, ‘I am amusing
myself.’
“‘So you amuse yourself now and again?’
“‘Do you imagine that the only poets in the world are those who print
their verses?’ he asked, with a pitying look and shrug of the shoulders.
“‘Poetry in that head!’ thought I, for as yet I knew nothing of his
life.
“‘What life could be as glorious as mine?’ he continued, and his eyes
lighted up. ‘You are young, your mental visions are colored by youthful
blood, you see women’s faces in the fire, while I see nothing but coals
in mine. You have all sorts of beliefs, while I have no beliefs at
all. Keep your illusions--if you can. Now I will show you life with
the discount taken off. Go wherever you like, or stay at home by the
fireside with your wife, there always comes a time when you settle down
in a certain groove, the groove is your preference; and then happiness
consists in the exercise of your faculties by applying them to
realities. Anything more in the way of precept is false. My principles
have been various, among various men; I had to change them with every
change of latitude. Things that we admire in Europe are punishable in
Asia, and a vice in Paris becomes a necessity when you have passed the
Azores. There are no such things as hard-and-fast rules; there are only
conventions adapted to the climate. Fling a man headlong into one social
melting pot after another, and convictions and forms and moral systems
become so many meaningless words to him. The one thing that always
remains, the one sure instinct that nature has implanted in us, is the
instinct of self-interest. If you had lived as long as I have, you would
know that there is but one concrete reality invariable enough to be
worth caring about, and that is--GOLD. Gold represents every form of
human power. I have traveled. I found out that there were either hills
or plains everywhere: the plains are monotonous, the hills a weariness;
consequently, place may be left out of the question. As to manners; man
is man all the world over. The same battle between the poor and the rich
is going on everywhere; it is inevitable everywhere; consequently, it is
better to exploit than to be exploited. Everywhere you find the man of
thews and sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself;
and pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are
exhausted, all that survives is Vanity--Vanity is the abiding substance
of us, the _I_ in us. Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods.
Our dreams need time and physical means and painstaking thought before
they can be realized. Well, gold contains all things in embryo; gold
realizes all things for us.
“‘None but fools and invalids can find pleasure in shuffling cards all
evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the end.
None but driveling idiots could spend time in inquiring into all that
is happening around them, whether Madame Such-an-One slept single on
her couch or in company, whether she has more blood than lymph, more
temperament than virtue. None but the dupes, who fondly imagine that
they are useful to their like, can interest themselves in laying down
rules for political guidance amid events which neither they nor any one
else foresees, nor ever will foresee. None but simpletons can delight
in talking about stage players and repeating their sayings; making the
daily promenade of a caged animal over a rather larger area; dressing
for others, eating for others, priding themselves on a horse or a
carriage such as no neighbor can have until three days later. What is
all this but Parisian life summed up in a few phrases? Let us find a
higher outlook on life than theirs. Happiness consists either in strong
emotions which drain our vitality, or in methodical occupation which
makes existence like a bit of English machinery, working with the
regularity of clockwork. A higher happiness than either consists in a
curiosity, styled noble, a wish to learn Nature’s secrets, or to attempt
by artificial means to imitate Nature to some extent. What is this in
two words but Science and Art, or passion or calm?--Ah! well, every
human passion wrought up to its highest pitch in the struggle for
existence comes to parade itself before me--as I live in calm. As for
your scientific curiosity, a kind of wrestling bout in which man is
never uppermost, I replace it by an insight into all the springs of
action in man and woman. To sum up, the world is mine without effort of
mine, and the world has not the slightest hold on me. Listen to this,’
he went on, ‘I will tell you the history of my morning, and you will
divine my pleasures.’
“He got up, pushed the bolt of the door, drew a tapestry curtain across
it with a sharp grating sound of the rings on the rod, then he sat down
again.
“‘This morning,’ he said, ‘I had only two amounts to collect; the rest
of the bills that were due I gave away instead of cash to my customers
yesterday. So much saved, you see, for when I discount a bill I always
deduct two francs for a hired brougham--expenses of collection. A pretty
thing it would be, would it not, if my clients were to set _me_ trudging
all over Paris for half-a-dozen francs of discount, when no man is my
master, and I only pay seven francs in the shape of taxes?
“‘The first bill for a thousand francs was presented by a young fellow,
a smart buck with a spangled waistcoat, and an eyeglass, and a tilbury
and an English horse, and all the rest of it. The bill bore the
signature of one of the prettiest women in Paris, married to a Count, a
great landowner. Now, how came that Countess to put her name to a
bill of exchange, legally not worth the paper it was written upon, but
practically very good business; for these women, poor things, are afraid
of the scandal that a protested bill makes in a family, and would give
themselves away in payment sooner than fail? I wanted to find out what
that bill of exchange really represented. Was it stupidity, imprudence,
love or charity?
“‘The second bill, bearing the signature “Fanny Malvaut,” came to me
from a linen-draper on the highway to bankruptcy. Now, no creature who
has any credit with a bank comes to _me_. The first step to my door
means that a man is desperately hard up; that the news of his failure
will soon come out: and, most of all, it means that he has been
everywhere else first. The stag is always at bay when I see him, and a
pack of creditors are hard upon his track. The Countess lived in the Rue
du Helder, and my Fanny in the Rue Montmartre. How many conjectures I
made as I set out this morning! If these two women were not able to pay,
they would show me more respect than they would show their own fathers.
What tricks and grimaces would not the Countess try for a thousand
francs! She would be so nice to me, she would talk to me in that
ingratiating tone peculiar to endorsers of bills, she would pour out
a torrent of coaxing words, perhaps she would beg and pray, and I...’
(here the old man turned his pale eyes upon me)--‘and I not to be moved,
inexorable!’ he continued. ‘I am there as the avenger, the apparition of
Remorse. So much for hypotheses. I reached the house.
“‘“Madame la Comtesse is asleep,” says the maid.
“‘“When can I see her?”
“‘“At twelve o’clock.”
“‘“Is Madame la Comtesse ill?”
“‘“No, sir, but she only came home at three o’clock this morning from a
ball.”
“‘“My name is Gobseck, tell her that I shall call again at twelve
o’clock,” and I went out, leaving traces of my muddy boots on the carpet
which covered the paved staircase. I like to leave mud on a rich man’s
carpet; it is not petty spite; I like to make them feel a touch of the
claws of Necessity. In the Rue Montmartre I thrust open the old gateway
of a poor-looking house, and looked into a dark courtyard where the
sunlight never shines. The porter’s lodge was grimy, the window looked
like the sleeve of some shabby wadded gown--greasy, dirty, and full of
holes.
“‘“Mlle. Fanny Malvaut?”
“‘“She has gone out; but if you have come about a bill, the money is
waiting for you.”
“‘“I will look in again,” said I.
“‘As soon as I knew that the porter had the money for me, I wanted to
know what the girl was like; I pictured her as pretty. The rest of the
morning I spent in looking at the prints in the shop windows along the
boulevard; then, just as it struck twelve, I went through the Countess’
ante-chamber.
“‘“Madame has just this minute rung for me,” said the maid; “I don’t
think she can see you yet.”
“‘“I will wait,” said I, and sat down in an easy-chair.
“‘Venetian shutters were opened, and presently the maid came hurrying
back.
“‘“Come in, sir.”
“‘From the sweet tone of the girl’s voice, I knew that the mistress
could not be ready to pay. What a handsome woman it was that I saw in
another moment! She had flung an Indian shawl hastily over her bare
shoulders, covering herself with it completely, while it revealed the
bare outlines of the form beneath. She wore a loose gown trimmed with
snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress’ bills amounted
to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her
dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted
carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed lay
in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid money
to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious hanging
draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider-down quilt,
its lace border standing out in contrast against the background of blue
silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the imagination. A pair of
satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin rug spread by the carved
mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had flung them off in her
weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung over a chair, the sleeves
touching the floor; stockings which a breath would have blown away were
twisted about the leg of an easy-chair; while ribbon garters straggled
over a settee. A fan of price, half unfolded, glittered on the
chimney-piece. Drawers stood open; flowers, diamonds, gloves, a bouquet,
a girdle, were littered about. The room was full of vague sweet perfume.
And--beneath all the luxury and disorder, beauty and incongruity, I saw
Misery crouching in wait for her or for her adorer, Misery rearing its
head, for the Countess had begun to feel the edge of those fangs.
Her tired face was an epitome of the room strewn with relics of past
festival. The scattered gewgaws, pitiable this morning, when gathered
together and coherent, had turned heads the night before.
“‘What efforts to drink of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read
in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse--in this
visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There
were faint red marks on her young face, signs of the fineness of the
skin; but her features were coarsened, as it were, and the circles about
her eyes were unwontedly dark. Nature nevertheless was so vigorous in
her, that these traces of past folly did not spoil her beauty. Her eyes
glittered. She looked like some _Herodias_ of da Vinci’s (I have dealt
in pictures), so magnificently full of life and energy was she; there
was nothing starved nor stinted in feature or outline; she awakened
desire; it seemed to me that there was some passion in her yet stronger
than love. I was taken with her. It was a long while since my heart
had throbbed; so I was paid then and there--for I would give a thousand
francs for a sensation that should bring me back memories of youth.
“‘“Monsieur,” she said, finding a chair for me, “will you be so good as
to wait?”
“‘“Until this time to-morrow, madame,” I said, folding up the bill
again. “I cannot legally protest this bill any sooner.” And within
myself I said--“Pay the price of your luxury, pay for your name, pay for
your ease, pay for the monopoly which you enjoy! The rich have invented
judges and courts of law to secure their goods, and the guillotine--that
candle in which so many lie in silk, under silken coverlets, there is
remorse, and grinding of teeth beneath a smile, and those fantastical
lions’ jaws are gaping to set their fangs in your heart.”
“‘“Protest the bill! Can you mean it?” she cried, with her eyes upon me;
“could you have so little consideration for me?”
“‘“If the King himself owed money to me, madame, and did not pay it, I
should summons him even sooner than any other debtor.”
“‘While we were speaking, somebody tapped gently at the door.
“‘“I cannot see any one,” she cried imperiously.
“‘“But, Anastasie, I particularly wish to speak to you.”
“‘“Not just now, dear,” she answered in a milder tone, but with no sign
of relenting.
“‘“What nonsense! You are talking to some one,” said the voice, and in
came a man who could only be the Count.
“‘The Countess gave me a glance. I saw how it was. She was thoroughly
in my power. There was a time, when I was young, and might perhaps have
been stupid enough not to protest the bill. At Pondicherry, in 1763, I
let a woman off, and nicely she paid me out afterwards. I deserved it;
what call was there for me to trust her?
“‘“What does this gentleman want?” asked the Count.
“‘I could see that the Countess was trembling from head to foot; the
white satin skin of her throat was rough, “turned to goose flesh,” to
use the familiar expression. As for me, I laughed in myself without
moving a muscle.
“‘“This gentleman is one of my tradesmen,” she said.
“‘The Count turned his back on me; I drew the bill half out of my
pocket. After that inexorable movement, she came over to me and put a
diamond into my hands. “Take it,” she said, “and be gone.”
“‘We exchanged values, and I made my bow and went. The diamond was quite
worth twelve hundred francs to me. Out in the courtyard I saw a swarm of
flunkeys, brushing out their liveries, waxing their boots, and cleaning
sumptuous equipages.
“‘“This is what brings these people to me!” said I to myself. “It is
to keep up this kind of thing that they steal millions with all due
formalities, and betray their country. The great lord, and the little
man who apes the great lord, bathes in mud once for all to save himself
a splash or two when he goes afoot through the streets.”
“‘Just then the great gates were opened to admit a cabriolet. It was the
same young fellow who had brought the bill to me.
“‘“Sir,” I said, as he alighted, “here are two hundred francs, which I
beg you to return to Mme. la Comtesse, and have the goodness to tell her
that I hold the pledge which she deposited with me this morning at her
disposition for a week.”
“‘He took the two hundred francs, and an ironical smile stole over his
face; it was as if he had said, “Aha! so she has paid it, has she? ...
Faith, so much the better!” I read the Countess’ future in his face.
That good-looking, fair-haired young gentleman is a heartless gambler;
he will ruin himself, ruin her, ruin her husband, ruin the children, eat
up their portions, and work more havoc in Parisian salons than a whole
battery of howitzers in a regiment.
“‘I went back to see Mlle. Fanny in the Rue Montmartre, climbed a very
steep, narrow staircase, and reached a two-roomed dwelling on the fifth
floor. Everything was as neat as a new ducat. I did not see a speck of
dust on the furniture in the first room, where Mlle. Fanny was sitting.
Mlle. Fanny herself was a young Parisian girl, quietly dressed, with a
delicate fresh face, and a winning look. The arrangement of her neatly
brushed chestnut hair in a double curve on her forehead lent a refined
expression to blue eyes, clear as crystal. The broad daylight streaming
in through the short curtains against the window pane fell with softened
light on her girlish face. A pile of shaped pieces of linen told me that
she was a sempstress. She looked like a spirit of solitude. When I held
out the bill, I remarked that she had not been at home when I called in
the morning.
“‘“But the money was left with the porter’s wife,” said she.
“‘I pretended not to understand.
“‘“You go out early, mademoiselle, it seems.”
“‘“I very seldom leave my room; but when you work all night, you are
obliged to take a bath sometimes.”
“‘I looked at her. A glance told me all about her life. Here was a girl
condemned by misfortune to toil, a girl who came of honest farmer folk,
for she had still a freckle or two that told of country birth. There
was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as if I were
breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing to my lungs.
Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there was a crucifix
and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little painted wooden
bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that way. I felt ready
to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and so give something
towards establishing her in a good way of business.
“‘“But maybe she has a little youngster of a cousin,” I said to myself,
“who would raise money on her signature and sponge on the poor girl.”
“‘So I went away, keeping my generous impulses well under control; for
I have frequently had occasion to observe that when benevolence does no
harm to him who gives it, it is the ruin of him who takes. When you came
in I was thinking that Fanny Malvaut would make a nice little wife; I
was thinking of the contrast between her pure, lonely life and the life
of the Countess--she has sunk as low as a bill of exchange already, she
will sink to the lowest depths of degradation before she has done!’--I
scrutinized him during the deep silence that followed, but in a moment
he spoke again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘do you think that it is nothing to
have this power of insight into the deepest recesses of the human heart,
to embrace so many lives, to see the naked truth underlying it all?
There are no two dramas alike: there are hideous sores, deadly chagrins,
love scenes, misery that soon will lie under the ripples of the Seine,
young men’s joys that lead to the scaffold, the laughter of despair,
and sumptuous banquets. Yesterday it was a tragedy. A worthy soul of
a father drowned himself because he could not support his family.
To-morrow is a comedy; some youngster will try to rehearse the scene
of M. Dimanche, brought up to date. You have heard the people extol the
eloquence of our latter day preachers; now and again I have wasted my
time by going to hear them; they produced a change in my opinions, but
in my conduct (as somebody said, I can’t recollect his name), in my
conduct--never!--Well, well; these good priests and your Mirabeaus and
Vergniauds and the rest of them, are mere stammering beginners compared
with these orators of mine.
“‘Often it is some girl in love, some gray-headed merchant on the verge
of bankruptcy, some mother with a son’s wrong-doing to conceal, some
starving artist, some great man whose influence is on the wane, and, for
lack of money, is like to lose the fruit of all his labors--the power
of their pleading has made me shudder. Sublime actors such as these play
for me, for an audience of one, and they cannot deceive me. I can look
into their inmost thoughts, and read them as God reads them. Nothing is
hidden from me. Nothing is refused to the holder of the purse-strings to
loose and to bind. I am rich enough to buy the consciences of those
who control the action of ministers, from their office boys to their
mistresses. Is not that power?--I can possess the fairest women, receive
their softest caresses; is not that Pleasure? And is not your whole
social economy summed up in terms of Power and Pleasure?
“‘There are ten of us in Paris, silent, unknown kings, the arbiters of
your destinies. What is life but a machine set in motion by money? Know
this for certain--methods are always confounded with results; you
will never succeed in separating the soul from the senses, spirit from
matter. Gold is the spiritual basis of existing society.--The ten of us
are bound by the ties of common interest; we meet on certain days of the
week at the Cafe Themis near the Pont Neuf, and there, in conclave, we
reveal the mysteries of finance. No fortune can deceive us; we are in
possession of family secrets in all directions. We keep a kind of Black
Book, in which we note the most important bills issued, drafts on public
credit, or on banks, or given and taken in the course of business. We
are the Casuists of the Paris Bourse, a kind of Inquisition weighing and
analyzing the most insignificant actions of every man of any fortune,
and our forecasts are infallible. One of us looks out over the judicial
world, one over the financial, another surveys the administrative, and
yet another the business world. I myself keep an eye on eldest
sons, artists, people in the great world, and gamblers--on the most
sensational side of Paris. Every one who comes to us lets us into his
neighbor’s secrets. Thwarted passion and mortified vanity are great
babblers. Vice and disappointment and vindictiveness are the best of
all detectives. My colleagues, like myself, have enjoyed all things, are
sated with all things, and have reached the point when power and money
are loved for their own sake.
“‘Here,’ he said, indicating his bare, chilly room, ‘here the most
high-mettled gallant, who chafes at a word and draws swords for a
syllable elsewhere will entreat with clasped hands. There is no city
merchant so proud, no woman so vain of her beauty, no soldier of so bold
a spirit, but that they entreat me here, one and all, with tears of rage
or anguish in their eyes. Here they kneel--the famous artist, and the
man of letters, whose name will go down to posterity. Here, in short’
(he lifted his hand to his forehead), ‘all the inheritances and all the
concerns of all Paris are weighed in the balance. Are you still of the
opinion that there are no delights behind the blank mask which so often
has amazed you by its impassiveness?’ he asked, stretching out that
livid face which reeked of money.
“I went back to my room, feeling stupefied. The little, wizened old man
had grown great. He had been metamorphosed under my eyes into a strange
visionary symbol; he had come to be the power of gold personified. I
shrank, shuddering, from life and my kind.
“‘Is it really so?’ I thought; ‘must everything be resolved into gold?’
“I remember that it was long before I slept that night. I saw heaps
of gold all about me. My thoughts were full of the lovely Countess; I
confess, to my shame, that the vision completely eclipsed another quiet,
innocent figure, the figure of the woman who had entered upon a life of
toil and obscurity; but on the morrow, through the clouds of slumber,
Fanny’s sweet face rose before me in all its beauty, and I thought of
nothing else.”
“Will you take a glass of _eau sucree_?” asked the Vicomtesse,
interrupting Derville.
“I should be glad of it.”
“But I can see nothing in this that can touch our concerns,” said Mme.
de Grandlieu, as she rang the bell.
“Sardanapalus!” cried Derville, flinging out his favorite invocation.
“Mademoiselle Camille will be wide awake in a moment if I say that her
happiness depended not so long ago upon Daddy Gobseck; but as the old
gentleman died at the age of ninety, M. de Restaud will soon be in
possession of a handsome fortune. This requires some explanation. As for
poor Fanny Malvaut, you know her; she is my wife.”
“Poor fellow, he would admit that, with his usual frankness, with a
score of people to hear him!” said the Vicomtesse.
“I would proclaim it to the universe,” said the attorney.
“Go on, drink your glass, my poor Derville. You will never be anything
but the happiest and the best of men.”
“I left you in the Rue du Helder,” remarked the uncle, raising his face
after a gentle doze. “You had gone to see a Countess; what have you done
with her?”
“A few days after my conversation with the old Dutchman,” Derville
continued, “I sent in my thesis, and became first a licentiate in
law, and afterwards an advocate. The old miser’s opinion of me went up
considerably. He consulted me (gratuitously) on all the ticklish bits
of business which he undertook when he had made quite sure how he stood,
business which would have seemed unsafe to any ordinary practitioner.
This man, over whom no one appeared to have the slightest influence,
listened to my advice with something like respect. It is true that he
always found that it turned out very well.
“At length I became head-clerk in the office where I had worked for
three years and then I left the Rue des Gres for rooms in my employer’s
house. I had my board and lodging and a hundred and fifty francs per
month. It was a great day for me!
“When I went to bid the usurer good-bye, he showed no sign of feeling,
he was neither cordial nor sorry to lose me, he did not ask me to come
to see him, and only gave me one of those glances which seemed in some
sort to reveal a power of second-sight.
“By the end of a week my old neighbor came to see me with a tolerably
thorny bit of business, an expropriation, and he continued to ask for my
advice with as much freedom as if he paid for it.
“My principal was a man of pleasure and expensive tastes; before the
second year (1818-1819) was out he had got himself into difficulties,
and was obliged to sell his practice. A professional connection in those
days did not fetch the present exorbitant prices, and my principal asked
a hundred and fifty thousand francs. Now an active man, of competent
knowledge and intelligence, might hope to pay off the capital in ten
years, paying interest and living respectably in the meantime--if
he could command confidence. But I as the seventh child of a small
tradesman at Noyon, I had not a sou to my name, nor personal knowledge
of any capitalist but Daddy Gobseck. An ambitious idea, and an
indefinable glimmer of hope, put heart into me. To Gobseck I betook
myself, and slowly one evening I made my way to the Rue des Gres. My
heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the gloomy house. I
recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at a time when I
myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the anguish awaiting
those who crossed his threshold. Now it was I who was about to beg and
pray like so many others.
“‘Well, no, not _that_,’ I said to myself; ‘an honest man must keep his
self-respect wherever he goes. Success is not worth cringing for; let us
show him a front as decided as his own.’
“Daddy Gobseck had taken my room since I left the house, so as to have
no neighbor; he had made a little grated window too in his door since
then, and did not open until he had taken a look at me and saw who I
was.
“‘Well,’ said he, in his thin, flute notes, ‘so your principal is
selling his practice?’
“‘How did you know that?’ said I; ‘he has not spoken of it as yet except
to me.’
“The old man’s lips were drawn in puckers, like a curtain, to either
corner of his mouth, as a soundless smile bore a hard glance company.
“‘Nothing else would have brought you here,’ he said drily, after a
pause, which I spent in confusion.
“‘Listen to me, M. Gobseck,’ I began, with such serenity as I could
assume before the old man, who gazed at me with steady eyes. There was a
clear light burning in them that disconcerted me.
“He made a gesture as if to bid me ‘Go on.’ ‘I know that it is not
easy to work on your feelings, so I will not waste my eloquence on the
attempt to put my position before you--I am a penniless clerk, with no
one to look to but you, and no heart in the world but yours can form
a clear idea of my probable future. Let us leave hearts out of the
question. Business is business, and business is not carried on with
sentimentality like romances. Now to the facts. My principal’s practice
is worth in his hands about twenty thousand francs per annum; in my
hands, I think it would bring in forty thousand. He is willing to
sell it for a hundred and fifty thousand francs. And _here_,’ I
said, striking my forehead, ‘I feel that if you would lend me the
purchase-money, I could clear it off in ten years’ time.’
“‘Come, that is plain speaking,’ said Daddy Gobseck, and he held out his
hand and grasped mine. ‘Nobody since I have been in business has stated
the motives of his visit more clearly. Guarantees?’ asked he, scanning
me from head to foot. ‘None to give,’ he added after a pause, ‘How old
are you?’
“‘Twenty-five in ten days’ time,’ said I, ‘or I could not open the
matter.’
“‘Precisely.’
“‘Well?’
“‘It is possible.’
“‘My word, we must be quick about it, or I shall have some one buying
over my head.’
“‘Bring your certificate of birth round to-morrow morning, and we will
talk. I will think it over.’
“‘Next morning, at eight o’clock, I stood in the old man’s room. He took
the document, put on his spectacles, coughed, spat, wrapped himself
up in his black greatcoat, and read the whole certificate through from
beginning to end. Then he turned it over and over, looked at me, coughed
again, fidgeted about in his chair, and said, ‘We will try to arrange
this bit of business.’
“I trembled.
“‘I make fifty per cent on my capital,’ he continued, ‘sometimes I make
a hundred, two hundred, five hundred per cent.’
“I turned pale at the words.
“‘But as we are acquaintances, I shall be satisfied to take twelve and
a half per cent per--(he hesitated)--‘well, yes, from you I would be
content to take thirteen per cent per annum. Will that suit you?’
“‘Yes,’ I answered.
“‘But if it is too much, stick up for yourself, Grotius!’ (a name he
jokingly gave me). ‘When I ask you for thirteen per cent, it is all in
the way of business; look into it, see if you can pay it; I don’t like a
man to agree too easily. Is it too much?’
“‘No,’ said I, ‘I will make up for it by working a little harder.’
“‘Gad! your clients will pay for it!’ said he, looking at me wickedly
out of the corner of his eyes.
“‘No, by all the devils in hell!’ cried I, ‘it shall be I who will pay.
I would sooner cut my hand off than flay people.’
“‘Good-night,’ said Daddy Gobseck.
“‘Why, fees are all according to scale,’ I added.
“‘Not for compromises and settlements out of Court, and cases where
litigants come to terms,’ said he. ‘You can send in a bill for thousands
of francs, six thousand even at a swoop (it depends on the importance of
the case), for conferences with So-and-so, and expenses, and drafts, and
memorials, and your jargon. A man must learn to look out for business of
this kind. I will recommend you as a most competent, clever attorney. I
will send you such a lot of work of this sort that your colleagues will
be fit to burst with envy. Werbrust, Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies,
shall hand over their expropriations to you; they have plenty of them,
the Lord knows! So you will have two practices--the one you are buying,
and the other I will build up for you. You ought almost to pay me
fifteen per cent on my loan.’
“‘So be it, but no more,’ said I, with the firmness which means that a
man is determined not to concede another point.
“Daddy Gobseck’s face relaxed; he looked pleased with me.
“‘I shall pay the money over to your principal myself,’ said he, ‘so as
to establish a lien on the purchase and caution-money.’
“‘Oh, anything you like in the way of guarantees.’
“‘And besides that, you will give me bills for the amount made payable
to a third party (name left blank), fifteen bills of ten thousand francs
each.’
“‘Well, so long as it is acknowledged in writing that this is a
double----’
“‘No!’ Gobseck broke in upon me. ‘No! Why should I trust you any more
than you trust me?’
“I kept silence.
“‘And furthermore,’ he continued, with a sort of good humor, ‘you will
give me your advice without charging fees as long as I live, will you
not?’
“‘So be it; so long as there is no outlay.’
“‘Precisely,’ said he. “Ah, by the by, you will allow me to go to see
you?’ (Plainly the old man found it not so easy to assume the air of
good-humor.)
“‘I shall always be glad.’
“‘Ah! yes, but it would be very difficult to arrange of a morning. You
will have your affairs to attend to, and I have mine.’
“‘Then come in the evening.’
“‘Oh, no!’ he answered briskly, ‘you ought to go into society and see
your clients, and I myself have my friends at my cafe.’
“‘His friends!’ thought I to myself.--‘Very well,’ said I, ‘why not come
at dinner-time?’
“‘That is the time,’ said Gobseck, ‘after ‘Change, at five o’clock.
Good, you will see me Wednesdays and Saturdays. We will talk over
business like a pair of friends. Aha! I am gay sometimes. Just give me
the wing of a partridge and a glass of champagne, and we will have our
chat together. I know a great many things that can be told now at
this distance of time; I will teach you to know men, and what is
more--women!’
“‘Oh! a partridge and a glass of champagne if you like.’
“‘Don’t do anything foolish, or I shall lose my faith in you. And don’t
set up housekeeping in a grand way. Just one old general servant. I will
come and see that you keep your health. I have capital invested in your
head, he! he! so I am bound to look after you. There, come round in the
evening and bring your principal with you!’
“‘Would you mind telling me, if there is no harm in asking, what was the
good of my birth certificate in this business?’ I asked, when the little
old man and I stood on the doorstep.
“Jean-Esther Van Gobseck shrugged his shoulders, smiled maliciously, and
said, ‘What blockheads youngsters are! Learn, master attorney (for learn
you must if you don’t mean to be taken in), that integrity and brains
in a man under thirty are commodities which can be mortgaged. After that
age there is no counting on a man.’
“And with that he shut the door.
“Three months later I was an attorney. Before very long, madame, it was
my good fortune to undertake the suit for the recovery of your estates.
I won the day, and my name became known. In spite of the exorbitant rate
of interest, I paid off Gobseck in less than five years. I married Fanny
Malvaut, whom I loved with all my heart. There was a parallel between
her life and mine, between our hard work and our luck, which increased
the strength of feeling on either side. One of her uncles, a well-to-do
farmer, died and left her seventy thousand francs, which helped to clear
off the loan. From that day my life has been nothing but happiness and
prosperity. Nothing is more utterly uninteresting than a happy man,
so let us say no more on that head, and return to the rest of the
characters.
“About a year after the purchase of the practice, I was dragged into a
bachelor breakfast-party given by one of our number who had lost a
bet to a young man greatly in vogue in the fashionable world. M. de
Trailles, the flower of the dandyism of that day, enjoyed a prodigious
reputation.”
“But he is still enjoying it,” put in the Comte de Born. “No one wears
his clothes with a finer air, nor drives a tandem with a better grace.
It is Maxime’s gift; he can gamble, eat, and drink more gracefully than
any man in the world. He is a judge of horses, hats, and pictures. All
the women lose their heads over him. He always spends something like a
hundred thousand francs a year, and no creature can discover that he has
an acre of land or a single dividend warrant. The typical knight errant
of our salons, our boudoirs, our boulevards, an amphibian half-way
between a man and a woman--Maxime de Trailles is a singular being, fit
for anything, and good for nothing, quite as capable of perpetrating a
benefit as of planning a crime; sometimes base, sometimes noble, more
often bespattered with mire than besprinkled with blood, knowing more of
anxiety than of remorse, more concerned with his digestion than with any
mental process, shamming passion, feeling nothing. Maxime de Trailles is
a brilliant link between the hulks and the best society; he belongs to
the eminently intelligent class from which a Mirabeau, or a Pitt, or a
Richelieu springs at times, though it is more wont to produce Counts of
Horn, Fouquier-Tinvilles, and Coignards.”
“Well,” pursued Derville, when he had heard the Vicomtesse’s brother to
the end, “I had heard a good deal about this individual from poor old
Goriot, a client of mine; and I had already been at some pains to avoid
the dangerous honor of his acquaintance, for I came across him sometimes
in society. Still, my chum was so pressing about this breakfast-party of
his that I could not well get out of it, unless I wished to earn a name
for squeamishness. Madame, you could hardly imagine what a bachelor’s
breakfast-party is like. It means superb display and a studied
refinement seldom seen; the luxury of a miser when vanity leads him to
be sumptuous for a day.
“You are surprised as you enter the room at the neatness of the table,
dazzling by reason of its silver and crystal and linen damask. Life is
here in full bloom; the young fellows are graceful to behold; they smile
and talk in low, demure voices like so many brides; everything about
them looks girlish. Two hours later you might take the room for a
battlefield after the fight. Broken glasses, serviettes crumpled and
torn to rags lie strewn about among the nauseous-looking remnants of
food on the dishes. There is an uproar that stuns you, jesting toasts, a
fire of witticisms and bad jokes; faces are empurpled, eyes inflamed
and expressionless, unintentional confidences tell you the whole truth.
Bottles are smashed, and songs trolled out in the height of a diabolical
racket; men call each other out, hang on each other’s necks, or fall
to fisticuffs; the room is full of a horrid, close scent made up of a
hundred odors, and noise enough for a hundred voices. No one has any
notion of what he is eating or drinking or saying. Some are depressed,
others babble, one will turn monomaniac, repeating the same word over
and over again like a bell set jangling; another tries to keep the
tumult within bounds; the steadiest will propose an orgy. If any one in
possession of his faculties should come in, he would think that he had
interrupted a Bacchanalian rite.
“It was in the thick of such a chaos that M. de Trailles tried to
insinuate himself into my good graces. My head was fairly clear, I was
upon my guard. As for him, though he pretended to be decently drunk,
he was perfectly cool, and knew very well what he was about. How it was
done I do not know, but the upshot of it was that when we left Grignon’s
rooms about nine o’clock in the evening, M. de Trailles had thoroughly
bewitched me. I had given him my promise that I would introduce him the
next day to our Papa Gobseck. The words ‘honor,’ ‘virtue,’ ‘countess,’
‘honest woman,’ and ‘ill-luck’ were mingled in his discourse with
magical potency, thanks to that golden tongue of his.
“When I awoke next morning, and tried to recollect what I had done the
day before, it was with great difficulty that I could make a connected
tale from my impressions. At last, it seemed to me that the daughter of
one of my clients was in danger of losing her reputation, together
with her husband’s love and esteem, if she could not get fifty thousand
francs together in the course of the morning. There had been gaming
debts, and carriage-builders’ accounts, money lost to Heaven knows whom.
My magician of a boon companion had impressed it upon me that she was
rich enough to make good these reverses by a few years of economy. But
only now did I begin to guess the reasons of his urgency. I confess, to
my shame, that I had not the shadow of a doubt but that it was a matter
of importance that Daddy Gobseck should make it up with this dandy. I
was dressing when the young gentleman appeared.
“‘M. le Comte,’ said I, after the usual greetings, ‘I fail to see why
you should need me to effect an introduction to Van Gobseck, the most
civil and smooth-spoken of capitalists. Money will be forthcoming if he
has any, or rather, if you can give him adequate security.’
“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘it does not enter into my thoughts to force you
to do me a service, even though you have passed your word.’
“‘Sardanapalus!’ said I to myself, ‘am I going to let that fellow
imagine that I will not keep my word with him?’
“‘I had the honor of telling you yesterday,’ said he, ‘that I had fallen
out with Daddy Gobseck most inopportunely; and as there is scarcely
another man in Paris who can come down on the nail with a hundred
thousand francs, at the end of the month, I begged of you to make my
peace with him. But let us say no more about it----’
“M. de Trailles looked at me with civil insult in his expression, and
made as if he would take his leave.
“‘I am ready to go with you,’ said I.
“When we reached the Rue de Gres, my dandy looked about him with a
circumspection and uneasiness that set me wondering. His face grew
livid, flushed, and yellow, turn and turn about, and by the time that
Gobseck’s door came in sight the perspiration stood in drops on his
forehead. We were just getting out of the cabriolet, when a hackney cab
turned into the street. My companion’s hawk eye detected a woman in the
depths of the vehicle. His face lighted up with a gleam of almost savage
joy; he called to a little boy who was passing, and gave him his horse
to hold. Then we went up to the old bill discounter.
“‘M. Gobseck,’ said I, ‘I have brought one of my most intimate friends
to see you (whom I trust as I would trust the Devil,’ I added for the
old man’s private ear). ‘To oblige me you will do your best for him (at
the ordinary rate), and pull him out of his difficulty (if it suits your
convenience).’
“M. de Trailles made his bow to Gobseck, took a seat, and listened to us
with a courtier-like attitude; its charming humility would have touched
your heart to see, but my Gobseck sits in his chair by the fireside
without moving a muscle, or changing a feature. He looked very like the
statue of Voltaire under the peristyle of the Theatre-Francais, as you
see it of an evening; he had partly risen as if to bow, and the skull
cap that covered the top of his head, and the narrow strip of sallow
forehead exhibited, completed his likeness to the man of marble.
“‘I have no money to spare except for my own clients,’ said he.
“‘So you are cross because I may have tried in other quarters to ruin
myself?’ laughed the Count.
“‘Ruin yourself!’ repeated Gobseck ironically.
“‘Were you about to remark that it is impossible to ruin a man who has
nothing?’ inquired the dandy. ‘Why, I defy you to find a better _stock_
in Paris!’ he cried, swinging round on his heels.
“This half-earnest buffoonery produced not the slightest effect upon
Gobseck.
“‘Am I not on intimate terms with the Ronquerolles, the Marsays, the
Franchessinis, the two Vandenesses, the Ajuda-Pintos,--all the most
fashionable young men in Paris, in short? A prince and an ambassador
(you know them both) are my partners at play. I draw my revenues from
London and Carlsbad and Baden and Bath. Is not this the most brilliant
of all industries!’
“‘True.’
“‘You make a sponge of me, begad! you do. You encourage me to go and
swell myself out in society, so that you can squeeze me when I am hard
up; but you yourselves are sponges, just as I am, and death will give
you a squeeze some day.’
“‘That is possible.’
“‘If there were no spendthrifts, what would become of you? The pair of
us are like soul and body.’
“‘Precisely so.’
“‘Come, now, give us your hand, Grandaddy Gobseck, and be magnanimous if
this is “true” and “possible” and “precisely so.”’
“‘You come to me,’ the usurer answered coldly, ‘because Girard, Palma,
Werbrust, and Gigonnet are full up of your paper; they are offering it
at a loss of fifty per cent; and as it is likely they only gave you half
the figure on the face of the bills, they are not worth five-and-twenty
per cent of their supposed value. I am your most obedient! Can I in
common decency lend a stiver to a man who owes thirty thousand francs,
and has not one farthing?’ Gobseck continued. ‘The day before yesterday
you lost ten thousand francs at a ball at the Baron de Nucingen’s.’
“‘Sir,’ said the Count, with rare impudence, ‘my affairs are no concern
of yours,’ and he looked the old man up and down. ‘A man has no debts
till payment is due.’
“‘True.’
“‘My bills will be duly met.’
“‘That is possible.’
“‘And at this moment the question between you and me is simply whether
the security I am going to offer is sufficient for the sum I have come
to borrow.’
“‘Precisely.’
“A cab stopped at the door, and the sound of wheels filled the room.
“‘I will bring something directly which perhaps will satisfy you,’ cried
the young man, and he left the room.
“‘Oh! my son,’ exclaimed Gobseck, rising to his feet, and stretching
out his arms to me, ‘if he has good security, you have saved my life. It
would be the death of me. Werbrust and Gigonnet imagined that they were
going to play off a trick on me; and now, thanks to you, I shall have a
good laugh at their expense to-night.’
“There was something frightful about the old man’s ecstasy. It was the
one occasion when he opened his heart to me; and that flash of joy,
swift though it was, will never be effaced from my memory.
“‘Favor me so far as to stay here,’ he added. ‘I am armed, and a sure
shot. I have gone tiger-hunting, and fought on the deck when there
was nothing for it but to win or die; but I don’t care to trust yonder
elegant scoundrel.’
“He sat down again in his armchair before his bureau, and his face grew
pale and impassive as before.