Chương Chương 22 · 第22章

“But where is such a girl to be found?” asked Eugene.

“Under your eyes; she is yours already.”

“Mlle. Victorine?”

“Precisely.”

“And what was that you said?”

“She is in love with you already, your little Baronne de Rastignac!”

“She has not a penny,” Eugene continued, much mystified.

“Ah! now we are coming to it! Just another word or two, and it will all

be clear enough. Her father, Taillefer, is an old scoundrel; it is said

that he murdered one of his friends at the time of the Revolution. He is

one of your comedians that sets up to have opinions of his own. He is a

banker--senior partner in the house of Frederic Taillefer and Company.

He has one son, and means to leave all he has to the boy, to the

prejudice of Victorine. For my part, I don’t like to see injustice of

this sort. I am like Don Quixote, I have a fancy for defending the weak

against the strong. If it should please God to take that youth away from

him, Taillefer would have only his daughter left; he would want to leave

his money to some one or other; an absurd notion, but it is only human

nature, and he is not likely to have any more children, as I know.

Victorine is gentle and amiable; she will soon twist her father round

her fingers, and set his head spinning like a German top by plying him

with sentiment! She will be too much touched by your devotion to

forget you; you will marry her. I mean to play Providence for you,

and Providence is to do my will. I have a friend whom I have attached

closely to myself, a colonel in the Army of the Loire, who has just been

transferred into the _garde royale_. He has taken my advice and turned

ultra-royalist; he is not one of those fools who never change their

opinions. Of all pieces of advice, my cherub, I would give you

this--don’t stick to your opinions any more than to your words. If any

one asks you for them, let him have them--at a price. A man who prides

himself on going in a straight line through life is an idiot who

believes in infallibility. There are no such things as principles; there

are only events, and there are no laws but those of expediency: a man of

talent accepts events and the circumstances in which he finds himself,

and turns everything to his own ends. If laws and principles were fixed

and invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we change

our shirts. The individual is not obliged to be more particular than the

nation. A man whose services to France have been of the very slightest

is a fetich looked on with superstitious awe because he has always

seen everything in red; but he is good, at the most, to be put into the

Museum of Arts and Crafts, among the automatic machines, and labeled La

Fayette; while the prince at whom everybody flings a stone, the man who

despises humanity so much that he spits as many oaths as he is asked for

in the face of humanity, saved France from being torn in pieces at the

Congress of Vienna; and they who should have given him laurels fling

mud at him. Oh! I know something of affairs, I can tell you; I have the

secrets of many men! Enough. When I find three minds in agreement as

to the application of a principle, I shall have a fixed and immovable

opinion--I shall have to wait a long while first. In the Tribunals you

will not find three judges of the same opinion on a single point of law.

To return to the man I was telling you of. He would crucify Jesus Christ

again, if I bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick

a quarrel with a scamp that will not send so much as five francs to his

sister, poor girl, and” (here Vautrin rose to his feet and stood like a

fencing-master about to lunge)--“turn him off into the dark!” he added.

“How frightful!” said Eugene. “You do not really mean it? M. Vautrin,

you are joking!”

“There! there! Keep cool!” said the other. “Don’t behave like a baby.

But if you find any amusement in it, be indignant, flare up! Say that

I am a scoundrel, a rascal, a rogue, a bandit; but do not call me a

blackleg nor a spy! There, out with it, fire away! I forgive you; it is

quite natural at your age. I was like that myself once. Only remember

this, you will do worse things yourself some day. You will flirt with

some pretty woman and take her money. You have thought of that, of

course,” said Vautrin, “for how are you to succeed unless love is laid

under contribution? There are no two ways about virtue, my dear student;

it either is, or it is not. Talk of doing penance for your sins! It is

a nice system of business, when you pay for your crime by an act of

contrition! You seduce a woman that you may set your foot on such and

such a rung of the social ladder; you sow dissension among the children

of a family; you descend, in short, to every base action that can be

committed at home or abroad, to gain your own ends for your own pleasure

or your profit; and can you imagine that these are acts of faith, hope,

or charity? How is it that a dandy, who in a night has robbed a boy of

half his fortune, gets only a couple of months in prison; while a poor

devil who steals a banknote for a thousand francs, with aggravating

circumstances, is condemned to penal servitude? Those are your laws. Not

a single provision but lands you in some absurdity. That man with yellow

gloves and a golden tongue commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but

he drains his victim’s veins as surely; a desperado forces open a door

with a crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one

of those things that I suggest to you to-day, bar the bloodshed. Do

you believe that there is any absolute standard in this world? Despise

mankind and find out the meshes that you can slip through in the net of

the Code. The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss

to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was

properly executed.”

“Silence, sir! I will not hear any more; you make me doubt myself. At

this moment my sentiments are all my science.”

“Just as you please, my fine fellow; I did think you were so

weak-minded,” said Vautrin, “I shall say no more about it. One last

word, however,” and he looked hard at the student--“you have my secret,”

he said.

“A young man who refuses your offer knows that he must forget it.”

“Quite right, quite right; I am glad to hear you say so. Somebody else

might not be so scrupulous, you see. Keep in mind what I want to do for

you. I will give you a fortnight. The offer is still open.”

“What a head of iron the man has!” said Eugene to himself, as he watched

Vautrin walk unconcernedly away with his cane under his arm. “Yet Mme.

de Beauseant said as much more gracefully; he has only stated the case

in cruder language. He would tear my heart with claws of steel. What

made me think of going to Mme. de Nucingen? He guessed my motives before

I knew them myself. To sum it up, that outlaw has told me more about

virtue than all I have learned from men and books. If virtue admits of

no compromises, I have certainly robbed my sisters,” he said, throwing

down the bags on the table.

He sat down again and fell, unconscious of his surroundings, into deep

thought.

“To be faithful to an ideal of virtue! A heroic martyrdom! Pshaw! every

one believes in virtue, but who is virtuous? Nations have made an idol

of Liberty, but what nation on the face of the earth is free? My youth

is still like a blue and cloudless sky. If I set myself to obtain wealth

or power, does it mean that I must make up my mind to lie, and fawn, and

cringe, and swagger, and flatter, and dissemble? To consent to be the

servant of others who have likewise fawned, and lied, and flattered?

Must I cringe to them before I can hope to be their accomplice? Well,

then, I decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single heart. I

will work day and night; I will owe my fortune to nothing but my own

exertions. It may be the slowest of all roads to success, but I shall

lay my head on the pillow at night untroubled by evil thoughts. Is there

a greater thing than this--to look back over your life and know that

it is stainless as a lily? I and my life are like a young man and his

betrothed. Vautrin has put before me all that comes after ten years of

marriage. The devil! my head is swimming. I do not want to think at all;

the heart is a sure guide.”

Eugene was roused from his musings by the voice of the stout Sylvie,

who announced that the tailor had come, and Eugene therefore made his

appearance before the man with the two money bags, and was not ill

pleased that it should be so. When he had tried on his dress suit, he

put on his new morning costume, which completely metamorphosed him.

“I am quite equal to M. de Trailles,” he said to himself. “In short, I

look like a gentleman.”

“You asked me, sir, if I knew the houses where Mme. de Nucingen goes,”

Father Goriot’s voice spoke from the doorway of Eugene’s room.

“Yes.”

“Very well then, she is going to the Marechale Carigliano’s ball on

Monday. If you can manage to be there, I shall hear from you whether my

two girls enjoyed themselves, and how they were dressed, and all about

it in fact.”

“How did you find that out, my good Goriot?” said Eugene, putting a

chair by the fire for his visitor.

“Her maid told me. I hear all about their doings from Therese and

Constance,” he added gleefully.

The old man looked like a lover who is still young enough to be made

happy by the discovery of some little stratagem which brings him

information of his lady-love without her knowledge.

“_You_ will see them both!” he said, giving artless expression to a pang

of jealousy.

“I do not know,” answered Eugene. “I will go to Mme. de Beauseant and

ask her for an introduction to the Marechale.”

Eugene felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought of appearing before the

Vicomtesse, dressed as henceforward he always meant to be. The “abysses

of the human heart,” in the moralists’ phrase, are only insidious

thoughts, involuntary promptings of personal interest. The instinct of

enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid changes of purpose which have

furnished the text for so much rhetoric are calculations prompted by

the hope of pleasure. Rastignac beholding himself well dressed and

impeccable as to gloves and boots, forgot his virtuous resolutions.

Youth, moreover, when bent upon wrongdoing does not dare to behold

himself in the mirror of consciousness; mature age has seen itself; and

therein lies the whole difference between these two phases of life.