Chương Chương 29 · 第29章

“Oh! you will succeed,” she said laughing. “You will see. All that you

wish will come to pass. _I_ did not expect to be so happy.”

It is the wont of women to prove the impossible by the possible, and to

annihilate facts by presentiments. When Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac

took their places in her box at the Bouffons, her face wore a look of

happiness that made her so lovely that every one indulged in those small

slanders against which women are defenceless; for the scandal that

is uttered lightly is often seriously believed. Those who know Paris,

believe nothing that is said, and say nothing of what is done there.

Eugene took the Baroness’ hand in his, and by some light pressure of the

fingers, or a closer grasp of the hand, they found a language in which

to express the sensations which the music gave them. It was an evening

of intoxicating delight for both; and when it ended, and they went out

together, Mme. de Nucingen insisted on taking Eugene with her as far as

the Pont Neuf, he disputing with her the whole of the way for a single

kiss after all those that she had showered upon him so passionately at

the Palais-Royal; Eugene reproached her with inconsistency.

“That was gratitude,” she said, “for devotion that I did not dare to

hope for, but now it would be a promise.”

“And will you give me no promise, ingrate?”

He grew vexed. Then, with one of those impatient gestures that fill a

lover with ecstasy, she gave him her hand to kiss, and he took it with a

discontented air that delighted her.

“I shall see you at the ball on Monday,” she said.

As Eugene went home in the moonlight, he fell to serious reflections.

He was satisfied, and yet dissatisfied. He was pleased with an adventure

which would probably give him his desire, for in the end one of the

prettiest and best-dressed women in Paris would be his; but, as a

set-off, he saw his hopes of fortune brought to nothing; and as soon as

he realized this fact, the vague thoughts of yesterday evening began to

take a more decided shape in his mind. A check is sure to reveal to us

the strength of our hopes. The more Eugene learned of the pleasures of

life in Paris, the more impatient he felt of poverty and obscurity. He

crumpled the banknote in his pocket, and found any quantity of plausible

excuses for appropriating it.

He reached the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve at last, and from the

stairhead he saw a light in Goriot’s room; the old man had lighted a

candle, and set the door ajar, lest the student should pass him by, and

go to his room without “telling him all about his daughter,” to use

his own expression. Eugene, accordingly, told him everything without

reserve.

“Then they think that I am ruined!” cried Father Goriot, in an agony of

jealousy and desperation. “Why, I have still thirteen hundred livres a

year! _Mon Dieu!_ Poor little girl! why did she not come to me? I would

have sold my rentes; she should have had some of the principal, and I

would have bought a life-annuity with the rest. My good neighbor, why

did not _you_ come to tell me of her difficulty? How had you the

heart to go and risk her poor little hundred francs at play? This is

heart-breaking work. You see what it is to have sons-in-law. Oh! if I

had hold of them, I would wring their necks. _Mon Dieu! crying!_ Did you

say she was crying?”

“With her head on my waistcoat,” said Eugene.

“Oh! give it to me,” said Father Goriot. “What! my daughter’s tears have

fallen there--my darling Delphine, who never used to cry when she was

a little girl! Oh! I will buy you another; do not wear it again; let me

have it. By the terms of her marriage-contract, she ought to have the

use of her property. To-morrow morning I will go and see Derville; he is

an attorney. I will demand that her money should be invested in her own

name. I know the law. I am an old wolf, I will show my teeth.”

“Here, father; this is a banknote for a thousand francs that she wanted

me to keep out of our winnings. Keep them for her, in the pocket of the

waistcoat.”

Goriot looked hard at Eugene, reached out and took the law student’s

hand, and Eugene felt a tear fall on it.

“You will succeed,” the old man said. “God is just, you see. I know an

honest man when I see him, and I can tell you, there are not many men

like you. I am to have another dear child in you, am I? There, go to

sleep; you can sleep; you are not yet a father. She was crying! and I

have to be told about it!--and I was quietly eating my dinner, like an

idiot, all the time--I, who would sell the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to

save one tear to either of them.”

“An honest man!” said Eugene to himself as he lay down. “Upon my word, I

think I will be an honest man all my life; it is so pleasant to obey

the voice of conscience.” Perhaps none but believers in God do good in

secret; and Eugene believed in a God.

The next day Rastignac went at the appointed time to Mme. de Beauseant,

who took him with her to the Duchesse de Carigliano’s ball. The

Marechale received Eugene most graciously. Mme. de Nucingen was there.

Delphine’s dress seemed to suggest that she wished for the admiration

of others, so that she might shine the more in Eugene’s eyes; she

was eagerly expecting a glance from him, hiding, as she thought, this

eagerness from all beholders. This moment is full of charm for one who

can guess all that passes in a woman’s mind. Who has not refrained from

giving his opinion, to prolong her suspense, concealing his pleasure

from a desire to tantalize, seeking a confession of love in her

uneasiness, enjoying the fears that he can dissipate by a smile? In

the course of the evening the law student suddenly comprehended his

position; he saw that, as the cousin of Mme. de Beauseant, he was a

personage in this world. He was already credited with the conquest

of Mme. de Nucingen, and for this reason was a conspicuous figure;

he caught the envious glances of other young men, and experienced the

earliest pleasures of coxcombry. People wondered at his luck, and scraps

of these conversations came to his ears as he went from room to room;

all the women prophesied his success; and Delphine, in her dread of

losing him, promised that this evening she would not refuse the kiss

that all his entreaties could scarcely win yesterday.

Rastignac received several invitations. His cousin presented him to

other women who were present; women who could claim to be of the highest

fashion; whose houses were looked upon as pleasant; and this was

the loftiest and most fashionable society in Paris into which he was

launched. So this evening had all the charm of a brilliant debut; it

was an evening that he was to remember even in old age, as a woman looks

back upon her first ball and the memories of her girlish triumphs.

The next morning, at breakfast, he related the story of his success for

the benefit of Father Goriot and the lodgers. Vautrin began to smile in

a diabolical fashion.

“And do you suppose,” cried that cold-blooded logician, “that a young

man of fashion can live here in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the

Maison Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable boarding-house in every way,

I grant you, but an establishment that, none the less, falls short

of being fashionable? The house is comfortable, it is lordly in its

abundance; it is proud to be the temporary abode of a Rastignac; but,

after all, it is in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be

out of place here, where we only aim at the purely _patriarchalorama_.

If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend,” Vautrin

continued, with half-paternal jocularity, “you must have three horses,

a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the evening; you

should spend altogether about nine thousand francs on your stables. You

would show yourself unworthy of your destiny if you spent no more than

three thousand francs with your tailor, six hundred in perfumery, a

hundred crowns to your shoemaker, and a hundred more to your hatter. As

for your laundress, there goes another thousand francs; a young man of

fashion must of necessity make a great point of his linen; if your linen

comes up to the required standard, people often do not look any further.

Love and the Church demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand

francs. I am saying nothing of losses at play, bets, and presents; it

is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I

have led that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the

cost of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand

francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants

of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in

our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing

at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye to

your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom! Is Christophe

going to carry your _billets-doux_ for you? Do you mean to employ the

stationery you use at present? Suicidal policy! Hearken to the wisdom

of your elders!” he went on, his bass voice growing louder at each

syllable. “Either take up your quarters in a garret, live virtuously,

and wed your work, or set about the thing in a different way.”

Vautrin winked and leered in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer to enforce

his remarks by a look which recalled the late tempting proposals by

which he had sought to corrupt the student’s mind.

Several days went by, and Rastignac lived in a whirl of gaiety. He dined

almost every day with Mme. de Nucingen, and went wherever she went, only

returning to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve in the small hours. He rose

at mid-day, and dressed to go into the Bois with Delphine if the day was

fine, squandering in this way time that was worth far more than he knew.

He turned as eagerly to learn the lessons of luxury, and was as quick

to feel its fascination, as the flowers of the date palm to receive the

fertilizing pollen. He played high, lost and won large sums of money,

and at last became accustomed to the extravagant life that young men

lead in Paris. He sent fifteen hundred francs out of his first winnings

to his mother and sisters, sending handsome presents as well as the

money. He had given out that he meant to leave the Maison Vauquer; but

January came and went, and he was still there, still unprepared to go.