บทที่ บทที่ 11 · 第11章

“Mademoiselle might make application for aliment pending her suit; she

is not eating anything. Eh! eh! just see how Father Goriot is staring at

Mlle. Victorine.”

The old man had forgotten his dinner, he was so absorbed in gazing at

the poor girl; the sorrow in her face was unmistakable,--the slighted

love of a child whose father would not recognize her.

“We are mistaken about Father Goriot, my dear boy,” said Eugene in a low

voice. “He is not an idiot, nor wanting in energy. Try your Gall system

on him, and let me know what you think. I saw him crush a silver dish

last night as if it had been made of wax; there seems to be something

extraordinary going on in his mind just now, to judge by his face. His

life is so mysterious that it must be worth studying. Oh! you may laugh,

Bianchon; I am not joking.”

“The man is a subject, is he?” said Bianchon; “all right! I will dissect

him, if he will give me the chance.”

“No; feel his bumps.”

“Hm!--his stupidity might perhaps be contagious.”

The next day Rastignac dressed himself very elegantly, and about three

o’clock in the afternoon went to call on Mme. de Restaud. On the way

thither he indulged in the wild intoxicating dreams which fill a young

head so full of delicious excitement. Young men at his age take

no account of obstacles nor of dangers; they see success in every

direction; imagination has free play, and turns their lives into a

romance; they are saddened or discouraged by the collapse of one of the

visionary schemes that have no existence save in their heated fancy. If

youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

Eugene took unheard-of pains to keep himself in a spotless condition,

but on his way through the streets he began to think about Mme. de

Restaud and what he should say to her. He equipped himself with wit,

rehearsed repartees in the course of an imaginary conversation, and

prepared certain neat speeches a la Talleyrand, conjuring up a series of

small events which should prepare the way for the declaration on which

he had based his future; and during these musings the law student was

bespattered with mud, and by the time he reached the Palais Royal he was

obliged to have his boots blacked and his trousers brushed.

“If I were rich,” he said, as he changed the five-franc piece he had

brought with him in case anything might happen, “I would take a cab,

then I could think at my ease.”

At last he reached the Rue du Helder, and asked for the Comtesse de

Restaud. He bore the contemptuous glances of the servants, who had seen

him cross the court on foot, with the cold fury of a man who knows that

he will succeed some day. He understood the meaning of their glances at

once, for he had felt his inferiority as soon as he entered the court,

where a smart cab was waiting. All the delights of life in Paris

seemed to be implied by this visible and manifest sign of luxury and

extravagance. A fine horse, in magnificent harness, was pawing the

ground, and all at once the law student felt out of humor with himself.

Every compartment in his brain which he had thought to find so full of

wit was bolted fast; he grew positively stupid. He sent up his name

to the Countess, and waited in the ante-chamber, standing on one foot

before a window that looked out upon the court; mechanically he leaned

his elbow against the sash, and stared before him. The time seemed long;

he would have left the house but for the southern tenacity of purpose

which works miracles when it is single-minded.

“Madame is in her boudoir, and cannot see any one at present, sir,”

said the servant. “She gave me no answer; but if you will go into the

dining-room, there is some one already there.”

Rastignac was impressed with a sense of the formidable power of the

lackey who can accuse or condemn his masters by a word; he coolly opened

the door by which the man had just entered the ante-chamber, meaning,

no doubt, to show these insolent flunkeys that he was familiar with the

house; but he found that he had thoughtlessly precipitated himself into

a small room full of dressers, where lamps were standing, and hot-water

pipes, on which towels were being dried; a dark passage and a back

staircase lay beyond it. Stifled laughter from the ante-chamber added to

his confusion.

“This way to the drawing-room, sir,” said the servant, with the

exaggerated respect which seemed to be one more jest at his expense.

Eugene turned so quickly that he stumbled against a bath. By good luck,

he managed to keep his hat on his head, and saved it from immersion in

the water; but just as he turned, a door opened at the further end of

the dark passage, dimly lighted by a small lamp. Rastignac heard voices

and the sound of a kiss; one of the speakers was Mme. de Restaud,

the other was Father Goriot. Eugene followed the servant through the

dining-room into the drawing-room; he went to a window that looked

out into the courtyard, and stood there for a while. He meant to know

whether this Goriot was really the Goriot that he knew. His heart

beat unwontedly fast; he remembered Vautrin’s hideous insinuations. A

well-dressed young man suddenly emerged from the room almost as Eugene

entered it, saying impatiently to the servant who stood at the door: “I

am going, Maurice. Tell Madame la Comtesse that I waited more than half

an hour for her.”

Whereupon this insolent being, who, doubtless, had a right to be

insolent, sang an Italian trill, and went towards the window where

Eugene was standing, moved thereto quite as much by a desire to see the

student’s face as by a wish to look out into the courtyard.

“But M. le Comte had better wait a moment longer; madame is disengaged,”

said Maurice, as he returned to the ante-chamber.

Just at that moment Father Goriot appeared close to the gate; he had

emerged from a door at the foot of the back staircase. The worthy soul

was preparing to open his umbrella regardless of the fact that the great

gate had opened to admit a tilbury, in which a young man with a ribbon

at his button-hole was seated. Father Goriot had scarcely time to start

back and save himself. The horse took fright at the umbrella, swerved,

and dashed forward towards the flight of steps. The young man looked

round in annoyance, saw Father Goriot, and greeted him as he went out

with constrained courtesy, such as people usually show to a money-lender

so long as they require his services, or the sort of respect they feel

it necessary to show for some one whose reputation has been blown upon,

so that they blush to acknowledge his acquaintance. Father Goriot gave

him a little friendly nod and a good-natured smile. All this happened

with lightning speed. Eugene was so deeply interested that he forgot

that he was not alone till he suddenly heard the Countess’ voice.

“Oh! Maxime, were you going away?” she said reproachfully, with a shade

of pique in her manner. The Countess had not seen the incident nor the

entrance of the tilbury. Rastignac turned abruptly and saw her standing

before him, coquettishly dressed in a loose white cashmere gown with

knots of rose-colored ribbon here and there; her hair was carelessly

coiled about her head, as is the wont of Parisian women in the morning;

there was a soft fragrance about her--doubtless she was fresh from

a bath;--her graceful form seemed more flexible, her beauty more

luxuriant. Her eyes glistened. A young man can see everything at a

glance; he feels the radiant influence of woman as a plant discerns and

absorbs its nutriment from the air; he did not need to touch her hands

to feel their cool freshness. He saw faint rose tints through the

cashmere of the dressing gown; it had fallen slightly open, giving

glimpses of a bare throat, on which the student’s eyes rested. The

Countess had no need of the adventitious aid of corsets; her girdle

defined the outlines of her slender waist; her throat was a challenge

to love; her feet, thrust into slippers, were daintily small. As Maxime

took her hand and kissed it, Eugene became aware of Maxime’s existence,

and the Countess saw Eugene.

“Oh! is that you M. de Rastignac? I am very glad to see you,” she said,

but there was something in her manner that a shrewd observer would have

taken as a hint to depart.

Maxime, as the Countess Anastasie had called the young man with the

haughty insolence of bearing, looked from Eugene to the lady, and from

the lady to Eugene; it was sufficiently evident that he wished to be rid

of the latter. An exact and faithful rendering of the glance might be

given in the words: “Look here, my dear; I hope you intend to send this

little whipper-snapper about his business.”

The Countess consulted the young man’s face with an intent

submissiveness that betrays all the secrets of a woman’s heart, and

Rastignac all at once began to hate him violently. To begin with, the

sight of the fair carefully arranged curls on the other’s comely

head had convinced him that his own crop was hideous; Maxime’s boots,

moreover, were elegant and spotless, while his own, in spite of all

his care, bore some traces of his recent walk; and, finally, Maxime’s

overcoat fitted the outline of his figure gracefully, he looked like a

pretty woman, while Eugene was wearing a black coat at half-past two.

The quick-witted child of the Charente felt the disadvantage at which he

was placed beside this tall, slender dandy, with the clear gaze and

the pale face, one of those men who would ruin orphan children without

scruple. Mme. de Restaud fled into the next room without waiting for

Eugene to speak; shaking out the skirts of her dressing-gown in her

flight, so that she looked like a white butterfly, and Maxime hurried

after her. Eugene, in a fury, followed Maxime and the Countess, and

the three stood once more face to face by the hearth in the large

drawing-room. The law student felt quite sure that the odious Maxime

found him in the way, and even at the risk of displeasing Mme. de

Restaud, he meant to annoy the dandy. It had struck him all at once that

he had seen the young man before at Mme. de Beauseant’s ball; he guessed

the relation between Maxime and Mme. de Restaud; and with the youthful

audacity that commits prodigious blunders or achieves signal success, he

said to himself, “This is my rival; I mean to cut him out.”