Kabanata Kabanata 7 · 第7章

If he begins by admiring the procession of carriages on sunny afternoons

in the Champs-Elysees, he soon reaches the further stage of envying

their owners. Unconsciously, Eugene had served his apprenticeship before

he went back to Angouleme for the long vacation after taking his degrees

as bachelor of arts and bachelor of law. The illusions of childhood had

vanished, so also had the ideas he brought with him from the provinces;

he had returned thither with an intelligence developed, with loftier

ambitions, and saw things as they were at home in the old manor house.

His father and mother, his two brothers and two sisters, with an aged

aunt, whose whole fortune consisted in annuities, lived on the little

estate of Rastignac. The whole property brought in about three thousand

francs; and though the amount varied with the season (as must always

be the case in a vine-growing district), they were obliged to spare an

unvarying twelve hundred francs out of their income for him. He saw

how constantly the poverty, which they had generously hidden from him,

weighed upon them; he could not help comparing the sisters, who had

seemed so beautiful to his boyish eyes, with women in Paris, who had

realized the beauty of his dreams. The uncertain future of the whole

family depended upon him. It did not escape his eyes that not a crumb

was wasted in the house, nor that the wine they drank was made from the

second pressing; a multitude of small things, which it is useless to

speak of in detail here, made him burn to distinguish himself, and his

ambition to succeed increased tenfold.

He meant, like all great souls, that his success should be owing

entirely to his merits; but his was pre-eminently a southern

temperament, the execution of his plans was sure to be marred by the

vertigo that seizes on youth when youth sees itself alone in a wide sea,

uncertain how to spend its energies, whither to steer its course, how

to adapt its sails to the winds. At first he determined to fling himself

heart and soul into his work, but he was diverted from this purpose by

the need of society and connections; then he saw how great an influence

women exert in social life, and suddenly made up his mind to go out

into this world to seek a protectress there. Surely a clever and

high-spirited young man, whose wit and courage were set off to advantage

by a graceful figure and the vigorous kind of beauty that readily

strikes a woman’s imagination, need not despair of finding a

protectress. These ideas occurred to him in his country walks with his

sisters, whom he had once joined so gaily. The girls thought him very

much changed.

His aunt, Mme. de Marcillac, had been presented at court, and had moved

among the brightest heights of that lofty region. Suddenly the young

man’s ambition discerned in those recollections of hers, which had been

like nursery fairy tales to her nephews and nieces, the elements of

a social success at least as important as the success which he had

achieved at the Ecole de Droit. He began to ask his aunt about those

relations; some of the old ties might still hold good. After much

shaking of the branches of the family tree, the old lady came to the

conclusion that of all persons who could be useful to her nephew among

the selfish genus of rich relations, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was

the least likely to refuse. To this lady, therefore, she wrote in the

old-fashioned style, recommending Eugene to her; pointing out to

her nephew that if he succeeded in pleasing Mme. de Beauseant, the

Vicomtesse would introduce him to other relations. A few days after his

return to Paris, therefore, Rastignac sent his aunt’s letter to Mme.

de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse replied by an invitation to a ball for

the following evening. This was the position of affairs at the Maison

Vauquer at the end of November 1819.

A few days later, after Mme. de Beauseant’s ball, Eugene came in at two

o’clock in the morning. The persevering student meant to make up for the

lost time by working until daylight. It was the first time that he had

attempted to spend the night in this way in that silent quarter. The

spell of a factitious energy was upon him; he had beheld the pomp and

splendor of the world. He had not dined at the Maison Vauquer; the

boarders probably would think that he would walk home at daybreak from

the dance, as he had done sometimes on former occasions, after a fete at

the Prado, or a ball at the Odeon, splashing his silk stockings thereby,

and ruining his pumps.

It so happened that Christophe took a look into the street before

drawing the bolts of the door; and Rastignac, coming in at that

moment, could go up to his room without making any noise, followed by

Christophe, who made a great deal. Eugene exchanged his dress suit for a

shabby overcoat and slippers, kindled a fire with some blocks of patent

fuel, and prepared for his night’s work in such a sort that the faint

sounds he made were drowned by Christophe’s heavy tramp on the stairs.

Eugene sat absorbed in thought for a few moments before plunging into

his law books. He had just become aware of the fact that the Vicomtesse

de Beauseant was one of the queens of fashion, that her house was

thought to be the pleasantest in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And not

only so, she was, by right of her fortune, and the name she bore, one of

the most conspicuous figures in that aristocratic world. Thanks to the

aunt, thanks to Mme. de Marcillac’s letter of introduction, the poor

student had been kindly received in that house before he knew the extent

of the favor thus shown to him. It was almost like a patent of nobility

to be admitted to those gilded salons; he had appeared in the most

exclusive circle in Paris, and now all doors were open for him. Eugene

had been dazzled at first by the brilliant assembly, and had scarcely

exchanged a few words with the Vicomtesse; he had been content to single

out a goddess among this throng of Parisian divinities, one of those

women who are sure to attract a young man’s fancy.

The Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud was tall and gracefully made; she

had one of the prettiest figures in Paris. Imagine a pair of great dark

eyes, a magnificently moulded hand, a shapely foot. There was a fiery

energy in her movements; the Marquis de Ronquerolles had called her “a

thoroughbred,” “a pure pedigree,” these figures of speech have replaced

the “heavenly angel” and Ossianic nomenclature; the old mythology of

love is extinct, doomed to perish by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac,

Mme. Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He had

contrived to write his name twice upon the list of partners upon her

fan, and had snatched a few words with her during the first quadrille.

“Where shall I meet you again, Madame?” he asked abruptly, and the tones

of his voice were full of the vehement energy that women like so well.

“Oh, everywhere!” said she, “in the Bois, at the Bouffons, in my own

house.”

With the impetuosity of his adventurous southern temper, he did all he

could to cultivate an acquaintance with this lovely countess, making the

best of his opportunities in the quadrille and during a waltz that she

gave him. When he told her that he was a cousin of Mme. de Beauseant’s,

the Countess, whom he took for a great lady, asked him to call at her

house, and after her parting smile, Rastignac felt convinced that he

must make this visit. He was so lucky as to light upon some one who did

not laugh at his ignorance, a fatal defect among the gilded and insolent

youth of that period; the coterie of Maulincourts, Maximes de Trailles,

de Marsays, Ronquerolles, Ajuda-Pintos, and Vandenesses who shone there

in all the glory of coxcombry among the best-dressed women of fashion

in Paris--Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de

Kergarouet, Mme. de Serizy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, the Comtesse

Ferraud, Mme. de Lanty, the Marquise d’Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani,

the Marquise de Listomere and the Marquise d’Espard, the Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse and the Grandlieus. Luckily, therefore, for him, the novice

happened upon the Marquis de Montriveau, the lover of the Duchesse de

Langeais, a general as simple as a child; from him Rastignac learned

that the Comtesse lived in the Rue du Helder.

Ah, what it is to be young, eager to see the world, greedily on the

watch for any chance that brings you nearer the woman of your dreams,

and behold two houses open their doors to you! To set foot in the

Vicomtesse de Beauseant’s house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; to fall

on your knees before a Comtesse de Restaud in the Chaussee d’Antin;

to look at one glance across a vista of Paris drawing-rooms, conscious

that, possessing sufficient good looks, you may hope to find aid and

protection there in a feminine heart! To feel ambitious enough to spurn

the tight-rope on which you must walk with the steady head of an acrobat

for whom a fall is impossible, and to find in a charming woman the best

of all balancing poles.

He sat there with his thoughts for a while, Law on the one hand, and

Poverty on the other, beholding a radiant vision of a woman rise above

the dull, smouldering fire. Who would not have paused and questioned

the future as Eugene was doing? who would not have pictured it full of

success? His wondering thoughts took wings; he was transported out

of the present into that blissful future; he was sitting by Mme. de

Restaud’s side, when a sort of sigh, like the grunt of an overburdened

St. Joseph, broke the silence of the night. It vibrated through the

student, who took the sound for a death groan. He opened his door

noiselessly, went out upon the landing, and saw a thin streak of light

under Father Goriot’s door. Eugene feared that his neighbor had been

taken ill; he went over and looked through the keyhole; the old man

was busily engaged in an occupation so singular and so suspicious that

Rastignac thought he was only doing a piece of necessary service

to society to watch the self-styled vermicelli maker’s nocturnal

industries.