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diff --git a/1481-0.txt b/1481-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6b29b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/1481-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4658 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1481 *** + +A DAUGHTER OF EVE + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley + + + + DEDICATION + + To Madame la Comtesse Bolognini, nee Vimercati. + + If you remember, madame, the pleasure your conversation gave to a + traveller by recalling Paris to his memory in Milan, you will not + be surprised to find him testifying his gratitude for many + pleasant evenings passed beside you by laying one of his works at + your feet, and begging you to protect it with your name, as in + former days that name protected the tales of an ancient writer + dear to the Milanese. + + You have an Eugenie, already beautiful, whose intelligent smile + gives promise that she has inherited from you the most precious + gifts of womanhood, and who will certainly enjoy during her + childhood and youth all those happinesses which a rigid mother + denied to the Eugenie of these pages. Though Frenchmen are taxed + with inconstancy, you will find me Italian in faithfulness and + memory. While writing the name of “Eugenie,” my thoughts have + often led me back to that cool stuccoed salon and little garden in + the Vicolo dei Cappucini, which echoed to the laughter of that + dear child, to our sportive quarrels and our chatter. But you have + left the Corso for the Tre Monasteri, and I know not how you are + placed there; consequently, I am forced to think of you, not among + the charming things with which no doubt you have surrounded + yourself, but like one of those fine figures due to Raffaelle, + Titian, Correggio, Allori, which seem abstractions, so distant are + they from our daily lives. + + If this book should wing its way across the Alps, it will prove to + you the lively gratitude and respectful friendship of + + Your devoted servant, + De Balzac. + + + + + +A DAUGHTER OF EVE + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE TWO MARIES + + +In one of the finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at half-past +eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the fireplace of +a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade, with shimmering +reflections, which French industry has lately learned to fabricate. Over +the doors and windows were draped soft folds of blue cashmere, the tint +of the hangings, the work of one of those upholsterers who have +just missed being artists. A silver lamp studded with turquoise, and +suspended by chains of beautiful workmanship, hung from the centre of +the ceiling. The same system of decoration was followed in the smallest +details, and even to the ceiling of fluted blue silk, with long bands +of white cashmere falling at equal distances on the hangings, where +they were caught back by ropes of pearl. A warm Belgian carpet, thick +as turf, of a gray ground with blue posies, covered the floor. The +furniture, of carved ebony, after a fine model of the old school, +gave substance and richness to the rather too decorative quality, as +a painter might call it, of the rest of the room. On either side of a +large window, two etageres displayed a hundred precious trifles, flowers +of mechanical art brought into bloom by the fire of thought. On +a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble were figures in old Dresden, +shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate bouquets in their hands, German +fantasticalities surrounding a platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques. +Above it sparkled the brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in +ebony, with figures carved in relief, evidently obtained from some +former royal residence. Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic +product of a hot-house, pale, but divine flowers, the treasures of +botany. + +In this cold, orderly boudoir, where all things were in place as if +for sale, no sign existed of the gay and capricious disorder of a happy +home. At the present moment, the two young women were weeping. Pain +seemed to predominate. The name of the owner, Ferdinand du Tillet, one +of the richest bankers in Paris, is enough to explain the luxury of the +whole house, of which this boudoir is but a sample. + +Though without either rank or station, having pushed himself forward, +heaven knows how, du Tillet had married, in 1831, the daughter of +the Comte de Granville, one of the greatest names in the French +magistracy,--a man who became peer of France after the revolution of +July. This marriage of ambition on du Tillet’s part was brought about +by his agreeing to sign an acknowledgment in the marriage contract of a +dowry not received, equal to that of her elder sister, who was married +to Comte Felix de Vandenesse. On the other hand, the Granvilles obtained +the alliance with de Vandenesse by the largeness of the “dot.” Thus the +bank repaired the breach made in the pocket of the magistracy by rank. +Could the Comte de Vandenesse have seen himself, three years later, the +brother-in-law of a Sieur Ferdinand DU Tillet, so-called, he might not +have married his wife; but what man of rank in 1828 foresaw the strange +upheavals which the year 1830 was destined to produce in the political +condition, the fortunes, and the customs of France? Had any one +predicted to Comte Felix de Vandenesse that his head would lose the +coronet of a peer, and that of his father-in-law acquire one, he would +have thought his informant a lunatic. + +Bending forward on one of those low chairs then called “chaffeuses,” in +the attitude of a listener, Madame du Tillet was pressing to her bosom +with maternal tenderness, and occasionally kissing, the hand of her +sister, Madame Felix de Vandenesse. Society added the baptismal name +to the surname, in order to distinguish the countess from her +sister-in-law, the Marquise Charles de Vandenesse, wife of the former +ambassador, who had married the widow of the Comte de Kergarouet, +Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine. + +Half lying on a sofa, her handkerchief in the other hand, her breathing +choked by repressed sobs, and with tearful eyes, the countess had been +making confidences such as are made only from sister to sister when +two sisters love each other; and these two sisters did love each other +tenderly. We live in days when sisters married into such antagonist +spheres can very well not love each other, and therefore the historian +is bound to relate the reasons of this tender affection, preserved +without spot or jar in spite of their husbands’ contempt for each other +and their own social disunion. A rapid glance at their childhood will +explain the situation. + +Brought up in a gloomy house in the Marais, by a woman of narrow mind, +a “devote” who, being sustained by a sense of duty (sacred phrase!), had +fulfilled her tasks as a mother religiously, Marie-Angelique and Marie +Eugenie de Granville reached the period of their marriage--the first at +eighteen, the second at twenty years of age--without ever leaving the +domestic zone where the rigid maternal eye controlled them. Up to that +time they had never been to a play; the churches of Paris were their +theatre. Their education in their mother’s house had been as rigorous as +it would have been in a convent. From infancy they had slept in a room +adjoining that of the Comtesse de Granville, the door of which stood +always open. The time not occupied by the care of their persons, their +religious duties and the studies considered necessary for well-bred +young ladies, was spent in needlework done for the poor, or in walks +like those an Englishwoman allows herself on Sunday, saying, apparently, +“Not so fast, or we shall seem to be amusing ourselves.” + +Their education did not go beyond the limits imposed by confessors, who +were chosen by their mother from the strictest and least tolerant of +the Jansenist priests. Never were girls delivered over to their husbands +more absolutely pure and virgin than they; their mother seemed to +consider that point, essential as indeed it is, the accomplishment of +all her duties toward earth and heaven. These two poor creatures had +never, before their marriage, read a tale, or heard of a romance; their +very drawings were of figures whose anatomy would have been masterpieces +of the impossible to Cuvier, designed to feminize the Farnese Hercules +himself. An old maid taught them drawing. A worthy priest instructed +them in grammar, the French language, history, geography, and the very +little arithmetic it was thought necessary in their rank for women +to know. Their reading, selected from authorized books, such as the +“Lettres Edifiantes,” and Noel’s “Lecons de Litterature,” was done aloud +in the evening; but always in presence of their mother’s confessor, for +even in those books there did sometimes occur passages which, +without wise comments, might have roused their imagination. Fenelon’s +“Telemaque” was thought dangerous. + +The Comtesse de Granville loved her daughters sufficiently to wish to +make them angels after the pattern of Marie Alacoque, but the poor girls +themselves would have preferred a less virtuous and more amiable mother. +This education bore its natural fruits. Religion, imposed as a yoke and +presented under its sternest aspect, wearied with formal practice these +innocent young hearts, treated as sinful. It repressed their feelings, +and was never precious to them, although it struck its roots deep down +into their natures. Under such training the two Maries would either +have become mere imbeciles, or they must necessarily have longed for +independence. Thus it came to pass that they looked to marriage as soon +as they saw anything of life and were able to compare a few ideas. Of +their own tender graces and their personal value they were absolutely +ignorant. They were ignorant, too, of their own innocence; how, then, +could they know life? Without weapons to meet misfortune, without +experience to appreciate happiness, they found no comfort in the +maternal jail, all their joys were in each other. Their tender +confidences at night in whispers, or a few short sentences exchanged if +their mother left them for a moment, contained more ideas than the words +themselves expressed. Often a glance, concealed from other eyes, by +which they conveyed to each other their emotions, was like a poem +of bitter melancholy. The sight of a cloudless sky, the fragrance of +flowers, a turn in the garden, arm in arm,--these were their joys. The +finishing of a piece of embroidery was to them a source of enjoyment. + +Their mother’s social circle, far from opening resources to their hearts +or stimulating their minds, only darkened their ideas and depressed +them; it was made up of rigid old women, withered and graceless, whose +conversation turned on the differences which distinguished various +preachers and confessors, on their own petty indispositions, on +religious events insignificant even to the “Quotidienne” or “l’Ami de +la Religion.” As for the men who appeared in the Comtesse de Granville’s +salon, they extinguished any possible torch of love, so cold and sadly +resigned were their faces. They were all of an age when mankind is sulky +and fretful, and natural sensibilities are chiefly exercised at table +and on the things relating to personal comfort. Religious egotism had +long dried up those hearts devoted to narrow duties and entrenched +behind pious practices. Silent games of cards occupied the whole +evening, and the two young girls under the ban of that Sanhedrim +enforced by maternal severity, came to hate the dispiriting personages +about them with their hollow eyes and scowling faces. + +On the gloom of this life one sole figure of a man, that of a +music-master, stood vigorously forth. The confessors had decided that +music was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed +within her. The two Maries were therefore permitted to study music. +A spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the piano in a +neighboring convent, wearied them with exercises; but when the +eldest girl was ten years old, the Comte de Granville insisted on the +importance of giving her a master. Madame de Granville gave all the +value of conjugal obedience to this needed concession,--it is part of a +devote’s character to make a merit of doing her duty. + +The master was a Catholic German; one of those men born old, who seem +all their lives fifty years of age, even at eighty. And yet, his brown, +sunken, wrinkled face still kept something infantile and artless in its +dark creases. The blue of innocence was in his eyes, and a gay smile of +springtide abode upon his lips. His iron-gray hair, falling naturally +like that of the Christ in art, added to his ecstatic air a certain +solemnity which was absolutely deceptive as to his real nature; for he +was capable of committing any silliness with the most exemplary +gravity. His clothes were a necessary envelope, to which he paid not the +slightest attention, for his eyes looked too high among the clouds to +concern themselves with such materialities. This great unknown artist +belonged to the kindly class of the self-forgetting, who give their time +and their soul to others, just as they leave their gloves on every table +and their umbrella at all doors. His hands were of the kind that are +dirty as soon as washed. In short, his old body, badly poised on its +knotted old legs, proving to what degree a man can make it the mere +accessory of his soul, belonged to those strange creations which have +been properly depicted only by a German,--by Hoffman, the poet of that +which seems not to exist but yet has life. + +Such was Schmucke, formerly chapel-master to the Margrave of Anspach; a +musical genius, who was now examined by a council of devotes, and asked +if he kept the fasts. The master was much inclined to answer, “Look at +me!” but how could he venture to joke with pious dowagers and Jansenist +confessors? This apocryphal old fellow held such a place in the lives +of the two Maries, they felt such friendship for the grand and +simple-minded artist, who was happy and contented in the mere +comprehension of his art, that after their marriage, they each gave him +an annuity of three hundred francs a year,--a sum which sufficed to pay +for his lodging, beer, pipes, and clothes. Six hundred francs a year and +his lessons put him in Eden. Schmucke had never found courage to confide +his poverty and his aspirations to any but these two adorable young +girls, whose hearts were blooming beneath the snow of maternal rigor and +the ice of devotion. This fact explains Schmucke and the girlhood of the +two Maries. + +No one knew then, or later, what abbe or pious spinster had discovered +the old German then vaguely wandering about Paris, but as soon as +mothers of families learned that the Comtesse de Granville had found +a music-master for her daughters, they all inquired for his name and +address. Before long, Schmucke had thirty pupils in the Marais. This +tardy success was manifested by steel buckles to his shoes, which were +lined with horse-hair soles, and by a more frequent change of linen. His +artless gaiety, long suppressed by noble and decent poverty, reappeared. +He gave vent to witty little remarks and flowery speeches in his +German-Gallic patois, very observing and very quaint and said with an +air which disarmed ridicule. But he was so pleased to bring a laugh +to the lips of his two pupils, whose dismal life his sympathy had +penetrated, that he would gladly have made himself wilfully ridiculous +had he failed in being so by nature. + +According to one of the nobler ideas of religious education, the young +girls always accompanied their master respectfully to the door. There +they would make him a few kind speeches, glad to do anything to give +him pleasure. Poor things! all they could do was to show him their +womanhood. Until their marriage, music was to them another life within +their lives, just as, they say, a Russian peasant takes his dreams for +reality and his actual life for a troubled sleep. With the instinct +of protecting their souls against the pettiness that threatened to +overwhelm them, against the all-pervading asceticism of their home, they +flung themselves into the difficulties of the musical art, and spent +themselves upon it. Melody, harmony, and composition, three daughters +of heaven, whose choir was led by an old Catholic faun drunk with music, +were to these poor girls the compensation of their trials; they +made them, as it were, a rampart against their daily lives. Mozart, +Beethoven, Gluck, Paesiello, Cimarosa, Haydn, and certain secondary +geniuses, developed in their souls a passionate emotion which never +passed beyond the chaste enclosure of their breasts, though it permeated +that other creation through which, in spirit, they winged their flight. +When they had executed some great work in a manner that their master +declared was almost faultless, they embraced each other in ecstasy and +the old man called them his Saint Cecilias. + +The two Maries were not taken to a ball until they were sixteen years +of age, and then only four times a year in special houses. They were not +allowed to leave their mother’s side without instructions as to their +behavior with their partners; and so severe were those instructions that +they dared say only yes or no during a dance. The eye of the countess +never left them, and she seemed to know from the mere movement of their +lips the words they uttered. Even the ball-dresses of these poor little +things were piously irreproachable; their muslin gowns came up to their +chins with an endless number of thick ruches, and the sleeves came down +to their wrists. Swathing in this way their natural charms, this costume +gave them a vague resemblance to Egyptian hermae; though from these +blocks of muslin rose enchanting little heads of tender melancholy. +They felt themselves the objects of pity, and inwardly resented it. What +woman, however innocent, does not desire to excite envy? + +No dangerous idea, unhealthy or even equivocal, soiled the pure pulp of +their brain; their hearts were innocent, their hands were horribly red, +and they glowed with health. Eve did not issue more innocent from the +hands of God than these two girls from their mother’s home when they +went to the mayor’s office and the church to be married, after receiving +the simple but terrible injunction to obey in all things two men with +whom they were henceforth to live and sleep by day and by night. To +their minds, nothing could be worse in the strange houses where they +were to go than the maternal convent. + +Why did the father of these poor girls, the Comte de Granville, a wise +and upright magistrate (though sometimes led away by politics), refrain +from protecting the helpless little creatures from such crushing +despotism? Alas! by mutual understanding, about ten years after +marriage, he and his wife were separated while living under one roof. +The father had taken upon himself the education of his sons, leaving +that of the daughters to his wife. He saw less danger for women than for +men in the application of his wife’s oppressive system. The two Maries, +destined as women to endure tyranny, either of love or marriage, would +be, he thought, less injured than boys, whose minds ought to have freer +play, and whose manly qualities would deteriorate under the powerful +compression of religious ideas pushed to their utmost consequences. Of +four victims the count saved two. + +The countess regarded her sons as too ill-trained to admit of the +slightest intimacy with their sisters. All communication between the +poor children was therefore strictly watched. When the boys came home +from school, the count was careful not to keep them in the house. The +boys always breakfasted with their mother and sisters, but after that +the count took them off to museums, theatres, restaurants, or, during +the summer season, into the country. Except on the solemn days of some +family festival, such as the countess’s birthday or New Year’s day, or +the day of the distribution of prizes, when the boys remained in their +father’s house and slept there, the sisters saw so little of their +brothers that there was absolutely no tie between them. On those days +the countess never left them for an instant alone together. Calls +of “Where is Angelique?”--“What is Eugenie about?”--“Where are my +daughters?” resounded all day. As for the mother’s sentiments towards +her sons, the countess raised to heaven her cold and macerated eyes, as +if to ask pardon of God for not having snatched them from iniquity. + +Her exclamations, and also her reticences on the subject of her sons, +were equal to the most lamenting verses in Jeremiah, and completely +deceived the sisters, who supposed their sinful brothers to be doomed to +perdition. + +When the boys were eighteen years of age, the count gave them rooms +in his own part of the house, and sent them to study law under the +supervision of a solicitor, his former secretary. The two Maries knew +nothing therefore of fraternity, except by theory. At the time of the +marriage of the sisters, both brothers were practising in provincial +courts, and both were detained by important cases. Domestic life in +many families which might be expected to be intimate, united, and +homogeneous, is really spent in this way. Brothers are sent to a +distance, busy with their own careers, their own advancement, occupied, +perhaps, about the good of the country; the sisters are engrossed in +a round of other interests. All the members of such a family live +disunited, forgetting one another, bound together only by some feeble +tie of memory, until, perhaps, a sentiment of pride or self-interest +either joins them or separates them in heart as they already are in +fact. Modern laws, by multiplying the family by the family, has created +a great evil,--namely, individualism. + +In the depths of this solitude where their girlhood was spent, Angelique +and Eugenie seldom saw their father, and when he did enter the grand +apartment of his wife on the first floor, he brought with him a saddened +face. In his own home he always wore the grave and solemn look of a +magistrate on the bench. When the little girls had passed the age of +dolls and toys, when they began, about twelve, to use their minds (an +epoch at which they ceased to laugh at Schmucke) they divined the secret +of the cares that lined their father’s forehead, and they recognized +beneath that mask of sternness the relics of a kind heart and a fine +character. They vaguely perceived how he had yielded to the forces of +religion in his household, disappointed as he was in his hopes of a +husband, and wounded in the tenderest fibres of paternity,--the love of +a father for his daughters. Such griefs were singularly moving to the +hearts of the two young girls, who were themselves deprived of all +tenderness. Sometimes, when pacing the garden between his daughters, +with an arm round each little waist, and stepping with their own short +steps, the father would stop short behind a clump of trees, out of sight +of the house, and kiss them on their foreheads; his eyes, his lips, his +whole countenance expressing the deepest commiseration. + +“You are not very happy, my dear little girls,” he said one day; “but I +shall marry you early. It will comfort me to have you leave home.” + +“Papa,” said Eugenie, “we have decided to take the first man who +offers.” + +“Ah!” he cried, “that is the bitter fruit of such a system. They want to +make saints, and they make--” he stopped without ending his sentence. + +Often the two girls felt an infinite tenderness in their father’s +“Adieu,” or in his eyes, when, by chance, he dined at home. They pitied +that father so seldom seen, and love follows often upon pity. + +This stern and rigid education was the cause of the marriages of the two +sisters welded together by misfortune, as Rita-Christina by the hand +of Nature. Many men, driven to marriage, prefer a girl taken from a +convent, and saturated with piety, to a girl brought up to worldly +ideas. There seems to be no middle course. A man must marry either an +educated girl, who reads the newspapers and comments upon them, who +waltzes with a dozen young men, goes to the theatre, devours novels, +cares nothing for religion, and makes her own ethics, or an ignorant and +innocent young girl, like either of the two Maries. Perhaps there may +be as much danger with the one kind as with the other. Yet the vast +majority of men who are not so old as Arnolphe, prefer a religious Agnes +to a budding Celimene. + +The two Maries, who were small and slender, had the same figure, the +same foot, the same hand. Eugenie, the younger, was fair-haired, like +her mother, Angelique was dark-haired, like the father. But they both +had the same complexion,--a skin of the pearly whiteness which shows the +richness and purity of the blood, where the color rises through a +tissue like that of the jasmine, soft, smooth, and tender to the touch. +Eugenie’s blue eyes and the brown eyes of Angelique had an expression of +artless indifference, of ingenuous surprise, which was rendered by the +vague manner with which the pupils floated on the fluid whiteness of +the eyeball. They were both well-made; the rather thin shoulders would +develop later. Their throats, long veiled, delighted the eye when their +husbands requested them to wear low dresses to a ball, on which occasion +they both felt a pleasing shame, which made them first blush behind +closed doors, and afterwards, through a whole evening in company. + +On the occasion when this scene opens, and the eldest, Angelique, was +weeping, while the younger, Eugenie, was consoling her, their hands and +arms were white as milk. Each had nursed a child,--one a boy, the other +a daughter. Eugenie, as a girl, was thought very giddy by her mother, +who had therefore treated her with especial watchfulness and severity. +In the eyes of that much-feared mother, Angelique, noble and proud, +appeared to have a soul so lofty that it would guard itself, whereas, +the more lively Eugenie needed restraint. There are many charming beings +misused by fate,--beings who ought by rights to prosper in this life, +but who live and die unhappy, tortured by some evil genius, the victims +of unfortunate circumstances. The innocent and naturally light-hearted +Eugenie had fallen into the hands and beneath the malicious despotism of +a self-made man on leaving the maternal prison. Angelique, whose nature +inclined her to deeper sentiments, was thrown into the upper spheres of +Parisian social life, with the bridle lying loose upon her neck. + + + + +CHAPTER II. A CONFIDENCE BETWEEN SISTERS + + +Madame de Vandenesse, Marie-Angelique, who seemed to have broken down +under a weight of troubles too heavy for her soul to bear, was lying +back on the sofa with bent limbs, and her head tossing restlessly. She +had rushed to her sister’s house after a brief appearance at the Opera. +Flowers were still in her hair, but others were scattered upon the +carpet, together with her gloves, her silk pelisse, and muff and hood. +Tears were mingling with the pearls on her bosom; her swollen eyes +appeared to make strange confidences. In the midst of so much luxury her +distress was horrible, and she seemed unable to summon courage to speak. + +“Poor darling!” said Madame du Tillet; “what a mistaken idea you have of +my marriage if you think that I can help you!” + +Hearing this revelation, dragged from her sister’s heart by the violence +of the storm she herself had raised there, the countess looked with +stupefied eyes at the banker’s wife; her tears stopped, and her eyes +grew fixed. + +“Are you in misery as well, my dearest?” she said, in a low voice. + +“My griefs will not ease yours.” + +“But tell them to me, darling; I am not yet too selfish to listen. Are +we to suffer together once more, as we did in girlhood?” + +“But alas! we suffer apart,” said the banker’s wife. “You and I live in +two worlds at enmity with each other. I go to the Tuileries when you are +not there. Our husbands belong to opposite parties. I am the wife of an +ambitious banker,--a bad man, my darling; while you have a noble, kind, +and generous husband.” + +“Oh! don’t reproach me!” cried the countess. “To understand my position, +a woman must have borne the weariness of a vapid and barren life, and +have entered suddenly into a paradise of light and love; she must +know the happiness of feeling her whole life in that of another; of +espousing, as it were, the infinite emotions of a poet’s soul; of living +a double existence,--going, coming with him in his courses through +space, through the world of ambition; suffering with his griefs, rising +on the wings of his high pleasures, developing her faculties on some +vast stage; and all this while living calm, serene, and cold before an +observing world. Ah! dearest, what happiness in having at all hours an +enormous interest, which multiplies the fibres of the heart and varies +them indefinitely! to feel no longer cold indifference! to find one’s +very life depending on a thousand trifles!--on a walk where an eye +will beam to us from a crowd, on a glance which pales the sun! Ah! what +intoxication, dear, to live! to _live_ when other women are praying on +their knees for emotions that never come to them! Remember, darling, +that for this poem of delight there is but a single moment,--youth! In +a few years winter comes, and cold. Ah! if you possessed these living +riches of the heart, and were threatened with the loss of them--” + +Madame du Tillet, terrified, had covered her face with her hands during +the passionate utterance of this anthem. + +“I did not even think of reproaching you, my beloved,” she said at last, +seeing her sister’s face bathed in hot tears. “You have cast into my +soul, in one moment, more brands than I have tears to quench. Yes, the +life I live would justify to my heart a love like that you picture. Let +me believe that if we could have seen each other oftener, we should not +now be where we are. If you had seen my sufferings, you must have valued +your own happiness the more, and you might have strengthened me to +resist my tyrant, and so have won a sort of peace. Your misery is an +incident which chance may change, but mine is daily and perpetual. To +my husband I am a peg on which to hang his luxury, the sign-post of his +ambition, a satisfaction to his vanity. He has no real affection for +me, and no confidence. Ferdinand is hard and polished as that piece of +marble,” she continued, striking the chimney-piece. “He distrusts me. +Whatever I may want for myself is refused before I ask it; but as for +what flatters his vanity and proclaims his wealth, I have no occasion to +express a wish. He decorates my apartments; he spends enormous sums upon +my entertainments; my servants, my opera-box, all external matters are +maintained with the utmost splendor. His vanity spares no expense; he +would trim his children’s swaddling-clothes with lace if he could, but +he would never hear their cries, or guess their needs. Do you understand +me? I am covered with diamonds when I go to court; I wear the richest +jewels in society, but I have not one farthing I can use. Madame du +Tillet, who, they say, is envied, who appears to float in gold, has not +a hundred francs she can call her own. If the father cares little for +his child, he cares less for its mother. Ah! he has cruelly made me +feel that he bought me, and that in marrying me without a ‘dot’ he was +wronged. I might perhaps have won him to love me, but there’s an outside +influence against it,--that of a woman, who is over fifty years of age, +the widow of a notary, who rules him. I shall never be free, I know +that, so long as he lives. My life is regulated like that of a queen; my +meals are served with the utmost formality; at a given hour I must drive +to the Bois; I am always accompanied by two footmen in full dress; I am +obliged to return at a certain hour. Instead of giving orders, I +receive them. At a ball, at the theatre, a servant comes to me and says: +‘Madame’s carriage is ready,’ and I am obliged to go, in the midst, +perhaps, of something I enjoy. Ferdinand would be furious if I did not +obey the etiquette he prescribes for his wife; he frightens me. In the +midst of this hateful opulence, I find myself regretting the past, and +thinking that our mother was kind; she left us the nights when we could +talk together; at any rate, I was living with a dear being who loved me +and suffered with me; whereas here, in this sumptuous house, I live in a +desert.” + +At this terrible confession the countess caught her sister’s hand and +kissed it, weeping. + +“How, then, can I help you,” said Eugenie, in a low voice. “He would be +suspicious at once if he surprised us here, and would insist on knowing +all that you have been saying to me. I should be forced to tell a lie, +which is difficult indeed with so sly and treacherous a man; he would +lay traps for me. But enough of my own miseries; let us think of yours. +The forty thousand francs you want would be, of course, a mere nothing +to Ferdinand, who handles millions with that fat banker, Baron de +Nucingen. Sometimes, at dinner, in my presence, they say things to each +other which make me shudder. Du Tillet knows my discretion, and they +often talk freely before me, being sure of my silence. Well, robbery and +murder on the high-road seem to me merciful compared to some of their +financial schemes. Nucingen and he no more mind destroying a man than +if he were an animal. Often I am told to receive poor dupes whose fate +I have heard them talk of the night before,--men who rush into some +business where they are certain to lose their all. I am tempted, like +Leonardo in the brigand’s cave, to cry out, ‘Beware!’ But if I did, +what would become of me? So I keep silence. This splendid house is a +cut-throat’s den! But Ferdinand and Nucingen will lavish millions for +their own caprices. Ferdinand is now buying from the other du Tillet +family the site of their old castle; he intends to rebuild it and add +a forest with large domains to the estate, and make his son a count; +he declares that by the third generation the family will be noble. +Nucingen, who is tired of his house in the rue Saint-Lazare, is building +a palace. His wife is a friend of mine--Ah!” she cried, interrupting +herself, “she might help us; she is very bold with her husband; her +fortune is in her own right. Yes, she could save you.” + +“Dear heart, I have but a few hours left; let us go to her this evening, +now, instantly,” said Madame de Vandenesse, throwing herself into Madame +du Tillet’s arms with a burst of tears. + +“I can’t go out at eleven o’clock at night,” replied her sister. + +“My carriage is here.” + +“What are you two plotting together?” said du Tillet, pushing open the +door of the boudoir. + +He came in showing a torpid face lighted now by a speciously amiable +expression. The carpets had dulled his steps and the preoccupation +of the two sisters had kept them from noticing the noise of his +carriage-wheels on entering the court-yard. The countess, in whom the +habits of social life and the freedom in which her husband had left +her had developed both wit and shrewdness,--qualities repressed in +her sister by marital despotism, which simply continued that of their +mother,--saw that Eugenie’s terror was on the point of betraying them, +and she evaded that danger by a frank answer. + +“I thought my sister richer than she is,” she replied, looking straight +at her brother-in-law. “Women are sometimes embarrassed for money, and +do not wish to tell their husbands, like Josephine with Napoleon. I came +here to ask Eugenie to do me a service.” + +“She can easily do that, madame. Eugenie is very rich,” replied du +Tillet, with concealed sarcasm. + +“Is she?” replied the countess, smiling bitterly. + +“How much do you want?” asked du Tillet, who was not sorry to get his +sister-in-law into his meshes. + +“Ah, monsieur! but I have told you already we do not wish to let +our husbands into this affair,” said Madame de Vandenesse, +cautiously,--aware that if she took his money, she would put herself at +the mercy of the man whose portrait Eugenie had fortunately drawn +for her not ten minutes earlier. “I will come to-morrow and talk with +Eugenie.” + +“To-morrow?” said the banker. “No; Madame du Tillet dines to-morrow with +a future peer of France, the Baron de Nucingen, who is to leave me his +place in the Chamber of Deputies.” + +“Then permit her to join me in my box at the Opera,” said the countess, +without even glancing at her sister, so much did she fear that Eugenie’s +candor would betray them. + +“She has her own box, madame,” said du Tillet, nettled. + +“Very good; then I will go to hers,” replied the countess. + +“It will be the first time you have done us that honor,” said du Tillet. + +The countess felt the sting of that reproach, and began to laugh. + +“Well, never mind; you shall not be made to pay anything this time. +Adieu, my darling.” + +“She is an insolent woman,” said du Tillet, picking up the flowers that +had fallen on the carpet. “You ought,” he said to his wife, “to study +Madame de Vandenesse. I’d like to see you before the world as insolent +and overbearing as your sister has just been here. You have a silly, +bourgeois air which I detest.” + +Eugenie raised her eyes to heaven as her only answer. + +“Ah ca, madame! what have you both been talking of?” said the banker, +after a pause, pointing to the flowers. “What has happened to make your +sister so anxious all of a sudden to go to your opera-box?” + +The poor helot endeavored to escape questioning on the score of +sleepiness, and turned to go into her dressing-room to prepare for the +night; but du Tillet took her by the arm and brought her back under +the full light of the wax-candles which were burning in two silver-gilt +sconces between fragrant nosegays. He plunged his light eyes into hers +and said, coldly:-- + +“Your sister came here to borrow forty thousand francs for a man in +whom she takes an interest, who’ll be locked up within three days in a +debtor’s prison.” + +The poor woman was seized with a nervous trembling, which she endeavored +to repress. + +“You alarm me,” she said. “But my sister is far too well brought up, +and she loves her husband too much to be interested in any man to that +extent.” + +“Quite the contrary,” he said, dryly. “Girls brought up as you two were, +in the constraints and practice of piety, have a thirst for liberty; +they desire happiness, and the happiness they get in marriage is never +as fine as that they dreamt of. Such girls make bad wives.” + +“Speak for me,” said poor Eugenie, in a tone of bitter feeling, “but +respect my sister. The Comtesse de Vandenesse is happy; her husband +gives her too much freedom not to make her truly attached to him. +Besides, if your supposition were true, she would never have told me of +such a matter.” + +“It is true,” he said, “and I forbid you to have anything to do with the +affair. My interests demand that the man shall go to prison. Remember my +orders.” + +Madame du Tillet left the room. + +“She will disobey me, of course, and I shall find out all the facts by +watching her,” thought du Tillet, when alone in the boudoir. “These poor +fools always think they can do battle against us.” + +He shrugged his shoulders and rejoined his wife, or to speak the truth, +his slave. + +The confidence made to Madame du Tillet by Madame Felix de Vandenesse is +connected with so many points of the latter’s history for the last six +years, that it would be unintelligible without a succinct account of the +principal events of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE HISTORY OF A FORTUNATE WOMAN + + +Among the remarkable men who owed their destiny to the Restoration, but +whom, unfortunately, the restored monarchy kept, with Martignac, aloof +from the concerns of government, was Felix de Vandenesse, removed, with +several others, to the Chamber of peers during the last days of Charles +X. This misfortune, though, as he supposed, temporary, made him think of +marriage, towards which he was also led, as so many men are, by a sort +of disgust for the emotions of gallantry, those fairy flowers of the +soul. There comes a vital moment to most of us when social life appears +in all its soberness. + +Felix de Vandenesse had been in turn happy and unhappy, oftener unhappy +than happy, like men who, at their start in life, have met with Love in +its most perfect form. Such privileged beings can never subsequently be +satisfied; but, after fully experiencing life, and comparing characters, +they attain to a certain contentment, taking refuge in a spirit of +general indulgence. No one deceives them, for they delude themselves no +longer; but their resignation, their disillusionment is always graceful; +they expect what comes, and therefor they suffer less. Felix might +still rank among the handsomest and most agreeable men in Paris. He was +originally commended to many women by one of the noblest creatures of +our epoch, Madame de Mortsauf, who had died, it was said, out of love +and grief for him; but he was specially trained for social life by the +handsome and well-known Lady Dudley. + +In the eyes of many Parisian women, Felix, a sort of hero of romance, +owed much of his success to the evil that was said of him. Madame de +Manerville had closed the list of his amorous adventures; and perhaps +her dismissal had something to do with his frame of mind. At any rate, +without being in any way a Don Juan, he had gathered in the world +of love as many disenchantments as he had met with in the world +of politics. That ideal of womanhood and of passion, the type of +which--perhaps to his sorrow--had lighted and governed his dawn of life, +he despaired of ever finding again. + +At thirty years of age, Comte Felix determined to put an end to the +burden of his various felicities by marriage. On that point his ideas +were extremely fixed; he wanted a young girl brought up in the strictest +tenets of Catholicism. It was enough for him to know how the Comtesse +de Granville had trained her daughters to make him, after he had once +resolved on marriage, request the hand of the eldest. He himself had +suffered under the despotism of a mother; he still remembered his +unhappy childhood too well not to recognize, beneath the reserves of +feminine shyness, the state to which such a yoke must have brought the +heart of a young girl, whether that heart was soured, embittered, or +rebellious, or whether it was still peaceful, lovable, and ready to +unclose to noble sentiments. Tyranny produces two opposite effects, +the symbols of which exist in two grand figures of ancient slavery, +Epictetus and Spartacus,--hatred and evil feelings on the one hand, +resignation and tenderness, on the other. + +The Comte de Vandenesse recognized himself in Marie-Angelique de +Granville. In choosing for his wife an artless, innocent, and pure young +girl, this young old man determined to mingle a paternal feeling with +the conjugal feeling. He knew his own heart was withered by the world +and by politics, and he felt that he was giving in exchange for +a dawning life the remains of a worn-out existence. Beside those +springtide flowers he was putting the ice of winter; hoary experience +with young and innocent ignorance. After soberly judging the position, +he took up his conjugal career with ample precaution; indulgence and +perfect confidence were the two anchors to which he moored it. Mothers +of families ought to seek such men for their daughters. A good mind +protects like a divinity; disenchantment is as keen-sighted as a +surgeon; experience as foreseeing as a mother. Those three qualities are +the cardinal virtues of a safe marriage. All that his past career had +taught to Felix de Vandenesse, the observations of a life that was busy, +literary, and thoughtful by turns, all his forces, in fact, were now +employed in making his wife happy; to that end he applied his mind. + +When Marie-Angelique left the maternal purgatory, she rose at once into +the conjugal paradise prepared for her by Felix, rue du Rocher, in +a house where all things were redolent of aristocracy, but where the +varnish of society did not impede the ease and “laisser-aller” which +young and loving hearts desire so much. From the start, Marie-Angelique +tasted all the sweets of material life to the very utmost. For two years +her husband made himself, as it were, her purveyor. He explained to her, +by degrees, and with great art, the things of life; he initiated her +slowly into the mysteries of the highest society; he taught her the +genealogies of noble families; he showed her the world; he guided her +taste in dress; he trained her to converse; he took her from theatre +to theatre, and made her study literature and current history. This +education he accomplished with all the care of a lover, father, master, +and husband; but he did it soberly and discreetly; he managed both +enjoyments and instructions in such a manner as not to destroy the value +of her religious ideas. In short, he carried out his enterprise with the +wisdom of a great master. At the end of four years, he had the happiness +of having formed in the Comtesse de Vandenesse one of the most lovable +and remarkable young women of our day. + +Marie-Angelique felt for Felix precisely the feelings with which Felix +desired to inspire her,--true friendship, sincere gratitude, and a +fraternal love, in which was mingled, at certain times, a noble and +dignified tenderness, such as tenderness between husband and wife ought +to be. She was a mother, and a good mother. Felix had therefore attached +himself to his young wife by every bond without any appearance of +garroting her,--relying for his happiness on the charms of habit. + +None but men trained in the school of life--men who have gone round +the circle of disillusionment, political and amorous--are capable of +following out a course like this. Felix, however, found in his work +the same pleasure that painters, writers, architects take in their +creations. He doubly enjoyed both the work and its fruition as he +admired his wife, so artless, yet so well-informed, witty, but natural, +lovable and chaste, a girl, and yet a mother, perfectly free, though +bound by the chains of righteousness. The history of all good homes is +that of prosperous peoples; it can be written in two lines, and has in +it nothing for literature. So, as happiness is only explicable to and +by itself, these four years furnish nothing to relate which was not as +tender as the soft outlines of eternal cherubs, as insipid, alas! as +manna, and about as amusing as the tale of “Astrea.” + +In 1833, this edifice of happiness, so carefully erected by Felix +de Vandenesse, began to crumble, weakened at its base without his +knowledge. The heart of a woman of twenty-five is no longer that of a +girl of eighteen, any more than the heart of a woman of forty is that +of a woman of thirty. There are four ages in the life of woman; each +age creates a new woman. Vandenesse knew, no doubt, the law of these +transformations (created by our modern manners and morals), but he +forgot them in his own case,--just as the best grammarian will forget a +rule of grammar in writing a book, or the greatest general in the field +under fire, surprised by some unlooked-for change of base, forgets his +military tactics. The man who can perpetually bring his thought to bear +upon his facts is a man of genius; but the man of the highest genius +does not display genius at all times; if he did, he would be like to +God. + +After four years of this life, with never a shock to the soul, nor +a word that produced the slightest discord in this sweet concert of +sentiment, the countess, feeling herself developed like a beautiful +plant in a fertile soil, caressed by the sun of a cloudless sky, awoke +to a sense of a new self. This crisis of her life, the subject of this +Scene, would be incomprehensible without certain explanations, which may +extenuate in the eyes of women the wrong-doing of this young countess, a +happy wife, a happy mother, who seems, at first sight, inexcusable. + +Life results from the action of two opposing principles; when one of +them is lacking the being suffers. Vandenesse, by satisfying every need, +had suppressed desire, that king of creation, which fills an enormous +place in the moral forces. Extreme heat, extreme sorrow, complete +happiness, are all despotic principles that reign over spaces devoid of +production; they insist on being solitary; they stifle all that is not +themselves. Vandenesse was not a woman, and none but women know the art +of varying happiness; hence their coquetry, refusals, fears, quarrels, +and the all-wise clever foolery with which they put in doubt the things +that seemed to be without a cloud the night before. Men may weary by +their constancy, but women never. Vandenesse was too thoroughly kind +by nature to worry deliberately the woman he loved; on the contrary, he +kept her in the bluest and least cloudy heaven of love. The problem of +eternal beatitude is one of those whose solution is known only to God. +Here, below, the sublimest poets have simply harassed their readers when +attempting to picture paradise. Dante’s reef was that of Vandenesse; all +honor to such courage! + +Felix’s wife began to find monotony in an Eden so well arranged; +the perfect happiness which the first woman found in her terrestrial +paradise gave her at length a sort of nausea of sweet things, and made +the countess wish, like Rivarol reading Florian, for a wolf in the fold. +Such, judging by the history of ages, appears to be the meaning of that +emblematic serpent to which Eve listened, in all probability, out of +ennui. This deduction may seem a little venturesome to Protestants, who +take the book of Genesis more seriously than the Jews themselves. + +The situation of Madame de Vandenesse can, however, be explained without +recourse to Biblical images. She felt in her soul an enormous power that +was unemployed. Her happiness gave her no suffering; it rolled along +without care or uneasiness; she was not afraid of losing it; each +morning it shone upon her, with the same blue sky, the same smile, the +same sweet words. That clear, still lake was unruffled by any breeze, +even a zephyr; she would fain have seen a ripple on its glassy surface. +Her desire had something so infantine about it that it ought to be +excused; but society is not more indulgent than the God of Genesis. +Madame de Vandenesse, having now become intelligently clever, was +aware that such sentiments were not permissible, and she refrained from +confiding them to her “dear little husband.” Her genuine simplicity had +not invented any other name for him; for one can’t call up in cold blood +that delightfully exaggerated language which love imparts to its victims +in the midst of flames. + +Vandenesse, glad of this adorable reserve, kept his wife, by deliberate +calculations, in the temperate regions of conjugal affection. He never +condescended to seek a reward or even an acknowledgment of the infinite +pains which he gave himself; his wife thought his luxury and good taste +her natural right, and she felt no gratitude for the fact that her pride +and self-love had never suffered. It was thus in everything. Kindness +has its mishaps; often it is attributed to temperament; people are +seldom willing to recognize it as the secret effort of a noble soul. + +About this period of her life, Madame Felix de Vandenesse had attained +to a degree of worldly knowledge which enabled her to quit +the insignificant role of a timid, listening, and observing +supernumerary,--a part played, they say, for some time, by Giulia Grisi +in the chorus at La Scala. The young countess now felt herself capable +of attempting the part of prima-donna, and she did so on several +occasions. To the great satisfaction of her husband, she began to mingle +in conversations. Intelligent ideas and delicate observations put into +her mind by her intercourse with her husband, made her remarked upon, +and success emboldened her. Vandenesse, to whom the world admitted that +his wife was beautiful, was delighted when the same assurance was given +that she was clever and witty. On their return from a ball, concert, or +rout where Marie had shone brilliantly, she would turn to her husband, +as she took off her ornaments, and say, with a joyous, self-assured +air,-- + +“Were you pleased with me this evening?” + +The countess excited jealousies; among others that of her husband’s +sister, Madame de Listomere, who until now had patronized her, thinking +that she protected a foil to her own merits. A countess, beautiful, +witty and virtuous!--what a prey for the tongues of the world! Felix had +broken with too many women, and too many women had broken with him, +to leave them indifferent to his marriage. When these women beheld in +Madame de Vandenesse a small woman with red hands, and rather awkward +manner, saying little, and apparently not thinking much, they +thought themselves sufficiently avenged. The disasters of July, 1830, +supervened; society was dissolved for two years; the rich evaded the +turmoil and left Paris either for foreign travel or for their estates in +the country, and none of the salons reopened until 1833. When that time +came, the faubourg Saint-Germain still sulked, but it held intercourse +with a few houses, regarding them as neutral ground,--among others that +of the Austrian ambassador, where the legitimist society and the new +social world met together in the persons of their best representatives. + +Attached by many ties of the heart and by gratitude to the exiled +family, and strong in his personal convictions, Vandenesse did not +consider himself obliged to imitate the silly behavior of his party. +In times of danger, he had done his duty at the risk of his life; his +fidelity had never been compromised, and he determined to take his +wife into general society without fear of its becoming so. His former +mistresses could scarcely recognize the bride they had thought so +childish in the elegant, witty, and gentle countess, who now appeared +in society with the exquisite manners of the highest female aristocracy. +Mesdames d’Espard, de Manerville, and Lady Dudley, with others less +known, felt the serpent waking up in the depths of their hearts; they +heard the low hissings of angry pride; they were jealous of Felix’s +happiness, and would gladly have given their prettiest jewel to do him +some harm; but instead of being hostile to the countess, these kind, +ill-natured women surrounded her, showed her the utmost friendship, and +praised her to me. Sufficiently aware of their intentions, Felix watched +their relations with Marie, and warned her to distrust them. They all +suspected the uneasiness of the count at their intimacy with his wife, +and they redoubled their attentions and flatteries, so that they gave +her an enormous vogue in society, to the great displeasure of her +sister-in-law, the Marquise de Listomere, who could not understand it. +The Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse was cited as the most charming and +the cleverest woman in Paris. Marie’s other sister-in-law, the Marquise +Charles de Vandenesse, was consumed with vexation at the confusion +of names and the comparisons it sometimes brought about. Though the +marquise was a handsome and clever woman, her rivals took delight in +comparing her with her sister-in-law, with all the more point because +the countess was a dozen years younger. These women knew very well what +bitterness Marie’s social vogue would bring into her intercourse with +both of her sisters-in-law, who, in fact, became cold and disobliging +in proportion to her triumph in society. She was thus surrounded by +dangerous relations and intimate enemies. + +Every one knows that French literature at that particular period was +endeavoring to defend itself against an apathetic indifference (the +result of the political drama) by producing works more or less Byronian, +in which the only topics really discussed were conjugal delinquencies. +Infringements of the marriage tie formed the staple of reviews, books, +and dramas. This eternal subject grew more and more the fashion. The +lover, that nightmare of husbands, was everywhere, except perhaps in +homes, where, in point of fact, under the bourgeois regime, he was less +seen than formerly. It is not when every one rushes to their window and +cries “Thief!” and lights the streets, that robbers abound. It is true +that during those years so fruitful of turmoil--urban, political, +and moral--a few matrimonial catastrophes took place; but these were +exceptional, and less observed than they would have been under the +Restoration. Nevertheless, women talked a great deal together about +books and the stage, then the two chief forms of poesy. The lover thus +became one of their leading topics,--a being rare in point of act and +much desired. The few affairs which were known gave rise to discussions, +and these discussions were, as usually happens, carried on by immaculate +women. + +A fact worthy of remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by +women who are enjoying some illicit happiness; they maintain before the +eyes of the world a reserved, prudish, and even timid countenance; +they seem to ask silence on the subject, or some condonation of their +pleasure from society. When, on the contrary, a woman talks freely of +such catastrophes, and seems to take pleasure in doing so, allowing +herself to explain the emotions that justify the guilty parties, we may +be sure that she herself is at the crossways of indecision, and does not +know what road she might take. + +During this winter, the Comtesse de Vandenesse heard the great voice of +the social world roaring in her ears, and the wind of its stormy gusts +blew round her. Her pretended friends, who maintained their reputations +at the height of their rank and their positions, often produced in +her presence the seductive idea of the lover; they cast into her soul +certain ardent talk of love, the “mot d’enigme” which life propounds to +woman, the grand passion, as Madame de Stael called it,--preaching by +example. When the countess asked naively, in a small and select circle +of these friends, what difference there was between a lover and a +husband, all those who wished evil to Felix took care to reply in a way +to pique her curiosity, or fire her imagination, or touch her heart, or +interest her mind. + +“Oh! my dear, we vegetate with a husband, but we live with a lover,” + said her sister-in-law, the marquise. + +“Marriage, my dear, is our purgatory; love is paradise,” said Lady +Dudley. + +“Don’t believe her,” cried Mademoiselle des Touches; “it is hell.” + +“But a hell we like,” remarked Madame de Rochefide. “There is often more +pleasure in suffering than in happiness; look at the martyrs!” + +“With a husband, my dear innocent, we live, as it were, in our own +life; but to love, is to live in the life of another,” said the Marquise +d’Espard. + +“A lover is forbidden fruit, and that to me, says all!” cried the pretty +Moina de Saint-Heren, laughing. + +When she was not at some diplomatic rout, or at a ball given by rich +foreigners, like Lady Dudley or the Princesse Galathionne, the Comtesse +de Vandenesse might be seen, after the Opera, at the houses of Madame +d’Espard, the Marquise de Listomere, Mademoiselle des Touches, the +Comtesse de Montcornet, or the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, the only +aristocratic houses then open; and never did she leave any one of them +without some evil seed of the world being sown in her heart. She heard +talk of completing her life,--a saying much in fashion in those days; of +being comprehended,--another word to which women gave strange meanings. +She often returned home uneasy, excited, curious, and thoughtful. She +began to find something less, she hardly knew what, in her life; but she +did not yet go so far as to think it lonely. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. A CELEBRATED MAN + + +The most amusing society, but also the most mixed, which Madame Felix +de Vandenesse frequented, was that of the Comtesse de Montcornet, +a charming little woman, who received illustrious artists, leading +financial personages, distinguished writers; but only after subjecting +them to so rigid an examination that the most exclusive aristocrat had +nothing to fear in coming in contact with this second-class society. The +loftiest pretensions were there respected. + +During the winter of 1833, when society rallied after the revolution of +July, some salons, notably those of Mesdames d’Espard and de Listomere, +Mademoiselle des Touches, and the Duchesse de Grandlieu, had selected +certain of the celebrities in art, science, literature, and politics, +and received them. Society can lose nothing of its rights, and it must +be amused. At a concert given by Madame de Montcornet toward the close +of the winter of 1833, a man of rising fame in literature and politics +appeared in her salon, brought there by one of the wittiest, but also +one of the laziest writers of that epoch, Emile Blondet, celebrated +behind closed doors, highly praised by journalists, but unknown beyond +the barriers. Blondet himself was well aware of this; he indulged in no +illusions, and, among his other witty and contemptuous sayings, he was +wont to remark that fame is a poison good to take in little doses. + +From the moment when the man we speak of, Raoul Nathan, after a long +struggle, forced his way to the public gaze, he had put to profit the +sudden infatuation for form manifested by those elegant descendants +of the middle ages, jestingly called Young France. He assumed the +singularities of a man of genius and enrolled himself among those +adorers of art, whose intentions, let us say, were excellent; for surely +nothing could be more ridiculous than the costume of Frenchmen in the +nineteenth century, and nothing more courageous than an attempt to +reform it. Raoul, let us do him this justice, presents in his person +something fine, fantastic, and extraordinary, which needs a frame. +His enemies, or his friends, they are about the same thing, agree that +nothing could harmonize better with his mind than his outward form. + +Raoul Nathan would, perhaps, be more singular if left to his natural +self than he is with his various accompaniments. His worn and haggard +face gives him an appearance of having fought with angels or devils; +it bears some resemblance to that the German painters give to the dead +Christ; countless signs of a constant struggle between failing human +nature and the powers on high appear in it. But the lines in his hollow +cheeks, the projections of his crooked, furrowed skull, the caverns +around his eyes and behind his temples, show nothing weakly in his +constitution. His hard membranes, his visible bones are the signs of +remarkable solidity; and though his skin, discolored by excesses, clings +to those bones as if dried there by inward fires, it nevertheless covers +a most powerful structure. He is thin and tall. His long hair, always +in disorder, is worn so for effect. This ill-combed, ill-made Byron has +heron legs and stiffened knee-joints, an exaggerated stoop, hands with +knotty muscles, firm as a crab’s claws, and long, thin, wiry fingers. +Raoul’s eyes are Napoleonic, blue eyes, which pierce to the soul; his +nose is crooked and very shrewd; his mouth charming, embellished +with the whitest teeth that any woman could desire. There is fire and +movement in the head, and genius on that brow. Raoul belongs to the +small number of men who strike your mind as you pass them, and who, in a +salon, make a luminous spot to which all eyes are attracted. + +He makes himself remarked also by his “neglige,” if we may borrow from +Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal +neatness. His clothes always seem to have been twisted, frayed, and +crumpled intentionally, in order to harmonize with his physiognomy. He +keeps one of his hands habitually in the bosom of his waistcoat in the +pose which Girodet’s portrait of Monsieur de Chateaubriand has rendered +famous; but less to imitate that great man (for he does not wish to +resemble any one) than to rumple the over-smooth front of his shirt. His +cravat is no sooner put on than it is twisted by the convulsive motions +of his head, which are quick and abrupt, like those of a thoroughbred +horse impatient of harness, and constantly tossing up its head to rid +itself of bit and bridle. His long and pointed beard is neither combed, +nor perfumed, nor brushed, nor trimmed, like those of the elegant young +men of society; he lets it alone, to grow as it will. His hair, getting +between the collar of his coat and his cravat, lies luxuriantly on his +shoulders, and greases whatever spot it touches. His wiry, bony hands +ignore a nailbrush and the luxury of lemon. Some of his cofeuilletonists +declare that purifying waters seldom touch their calcined skin. + +In short, the terrible Raoul is grotesque. His movements are jerky, as +if produced by imperfect machinery; his gait rejects all idea of order, +and proceeds by spasmodic zig-zags and sudden stoppages, which knock him +violently against peaceable citizens on the streets and boulevards +of Paris. His conversation, full of caustic humor, of bitter satire, +follows the gait of his body; suddenly it abandons its tone of vengeance +and turns sweet, poetic, consoling, gentle, without apparent reason; he +falls into inexplicable silences, or turns somersets of wit, which +at times are somewhat wearying. In society, he is boldly awkward, and +exhibits a contempt for conventions and a critical air about things +respected which makes him unpleasant to narrow minds, and also to those +who strive to preserve the doctrines of old-fashioned, gentlemanly +politeness; but for all that there is a sort of lawless originality +about him which women do not dislike. Besides, to them, he is often most +amiably courteous; he seems to take pleasure in making them forget his +personal singularities, and thus obtains a victory over antipathies +which flatters either his vanity, his self-love, or his pride. + +“Why do you present yourself like that?” said the Marquise de Vandenesse +one day. + +“Pearls live in oyster-shells,” he answered, conceitedly. + +To another who asked him somewhat the same question, he replied,-- + +“If I were charming to all the world, how could I seem better still to +the one woman I wish to please?” + +Raoul Nathan imports this same natural disorder (which he uses as a +banner) into his intellectual life; and the attribute is not misleading. +His talent is very much that of the poor girls who go about in bourgeois +families to work by the day. He was first a critic, and a great critic; +but he felt himself cheated in that vocation. His articles were equal +to books, he said. The profits of theatrical work then allured him; +but, incapable of the slow and steady application required for stage +arrangement, he was forced to associate with himself a vaudevillist, du +Bruel, who took his ideas, worked them over, and reduced them into those +productive little pieces, full of wit, which are written expressly +for actors and actresses. Between them, they had invented Florine, an +actress now in vogue. + +Humiliated by this association, which was that of the Siamese twins, +Nathan had produced alone, at the Theatre-Francais, a serious drama, +which fell with all the honors of war amid salvos of thundering +articles. In his youth he had once before appeared at the great and +noble Theatre-Francais in a splendid romantic play of the style of +“Pinto,”--a period when the classic reigned supreme. The Odeon was so +violently agitated for three nights that the play was forbidden by the +censor. This second piece was considered by many a masterpiece, and won +him more real reputation than all his productive little pieces done with +collaborators,--but only among a class to whom little attention is paid, +that of connoisseurs and persons of true taste. + +“Make another failure like that,” said Emile Blondet, “and you’ll be +immortal.” + +But instead of continuing in that difficult path, Nathan had fallen, out +of sheer necessity, into the powder and patches of eighteenth-century +vaudeville, costume plays, and the reproduction, scenically, of +successful novels. + +Nevertheless, he passed for a great mind which had not said its last +word. He had, moreover, attempted permanent literature, having published +three novels, not to speak of several others which he kept in press like +fish in a tank. One of these three books, the first (like that of many +writers who can only make one real trip into literature), had obtained a +very brilliant success. This work, imprudently placed in the front rank, +this really artistic work he was never weary of calling the finest book +of the period, the novel of the century. + +Raoul complained bitterly of the exigencies of art. He was one of those +who contributed most to bring all created work, pictures, statues, +books, building under the single standard of Art. He had begun his +career by committing a volume of verse, which won him a place in the +pleiades of living poets; among these verses was a nebulous poem that +was greatly admired. Forced by want of means to keep on producing, he +went from the theatre to the press, and from the press to the theatre, +dissipating and scattering his talent, but believing always in his vein. +His fame was therefore not unpublished like that of so many great minds +in extremity, who sustain themselves only by the thought of work to be +done. + +Nathan resembled a man of genius; and had he marched to the scaffold, +as he sometimes wished he could have done, he might have struck his brow +with the famous action of Andre Chenier. Seized with political +ambition on seeing the rise to power of a dozen authors, professors, +metaphysicians, and historians, who encrusted themselves, so to speak, +upon the machine during the turmoils of 1830 and 1833, he regretted that +he had not spent his time on political instead of literary articles. He +thought himself superior to all those parvenus, whose success inspired +him with consuming jealousy. He belonged to the class of minds ambitious +of everything, capable of all things, from whom success is, as it were, +stolen; who go their way dashing at a hundred luminous points, and +settling upon none, exhausting at last the good-will of others. + +At this particular time he was going from Saint-Simonism into +republicanism, to return, very likely, to ministerialism. He looked for +a bone to gnaw in all corners, searching for a safe place where he +could bark secure from kicks and make himself feared. But he had the +mortification of finding he was held to be of no account by de Marsay, +then at the head of the government, who had no consideration whatever +for authors, among whom he did not find what Richelieu called a +consecutive mind, or more correctly, continuity of ideas; he counted as +any minister would have done on the constant embarrassment of Raoul’s +business affairs. Sooner or later, necessity would bring him to accept +conditions instead of imposing them. + +The real, but carefully concealed character of Raoul Nathan is of a +piece with his public career. He is a comedian in good faith, selfish as +if the State were himself, and a very clever orator. No one knows better +how to play off sentiments, glory in false grandeurs, deck himself with +moral beauty, do honor to his nature in language, and pose like Alceste +while behaving like Philinte. His egotism trots along protected by this +cardboard armor, and often almost reaches the end he seeks. Lazy to a +superlative degree, he does nothing, however, until he is prodded by +the bayonets of need. He is incapable of continued labor applied to the +creation of a work; but, in a paroxysm of rage caused by wounded vanity, +or in a crisis brought on by creditors, he leaps the Eurotas and +attains to some great triumph of his intellect. After which, weary, and +surprised at having created anything, he drops back into the marasmus +of Parisian dissipation; wants become formidable; he has no strength to +face them; and then he comes down from his pedestal and compromises. + +Influenced by a false idea of his grandeur and of his future,--the +measure of which he reckons on the noble success of one of his +former comrades, one of the few great talents brought to light by the +revolution of July,--he allows himself, in order to get out of his +embarrassments, certain laxities of principle with persons who are +friendly to him,--laxities which never come to the surface, but are +buried in private life, where no one ever mentions or complains of them. +The shallowness of his heart, the impurity of his hand, which clasps +that of all vices, all evils, all treacheries, all opinions, have made +him as inviolable as a constitutional king. Venial sins, which excite a +hue and cry against a man of high character, are thought nothing of +in him; the world hastens to excuse them. Men who might otherwise be +inclined to despise him shake hands with him, fearing that the day may +come when they will need him. He has, in fact, so many friends that he +wishes for enemies. + +Judged from a literary point of view, Nathan lacks style and +cultivation. Like most young men, ambitious of literary fame, he +disgorges to-day what he acquired yesterday. He has neither the time nor +the patience to write carefully; he does not observe, but he listens. +Incapable of constructing a vigorously framed plot, he sometimes makes +up for it by the impetuous ardor of his drawing. He “does passion,” + to use a term of the literary argot; but instead of awaking ideas, his +heroes are simply enlarged individualities, who excite only fugitive +sympathies; they are not connected with any of the great interests of +life, and consequently they represent nothing. Nevertheless, Nathan +maintains his ground by the quickness of his mind, by those lucky hits +which billiard-players call a “good stroke.” He is the cleverest shot at +ideas on the fly in all Paris. His fecundity is not his own, but that +of his epoch; he lives on chance events, and to control them he distorts +their meaning. In short, he is not _true_; his presentation is false; +in him, as Comte Felix said, is the born juggler. Moreover, his pen gets +its ink in the boudoir of an actress. + +Raoul Nathan is a fair type of the Parisian literary youth of the day, +with its false grandeurs and its real misery. He represents that youth +by his incomplete beauties and his headlong falls, by the turbulent +torrent of his existence, with its sudden reverses and its unhoped-for +triumphs. He is truly the child of a century consumed with envy,--a +century with a thousand rivalries lurking under many a system, which +nourish to their own profit that hydra of anarchy which wants wealth +without toil, fame without talent, success without effort, but whose +vices force it, after much rebellion and many skirmishes, to accept the +budget under the powers that be. When so many young ambitions, starting +on foot, give one another rendezvous at the same point, there is always +contention of wills, extreme wretchedness, bitter struggles. In this +dreadful battle, selfishness, the most overbearing or the most adroit +selfishness, gains the victory; and it is envied and applauded in spite, +as Moliere said, of outcries, and we all know it. + +When, in his capacity as enemy to the new dynasty, Raoul was introduced +in the salon of Madame de Montcornet, his apparent grandeurs were +flourishing. He was accepted as the political critic of the de Marsays, +the Rastignacs, and the Roche-Hugons, who had stepped into power. Emile +Blondet, the victim of incurable hesitation and of his innate repugnance +to any action that concerned only himself, continued his trade of +scoffer, took sides with no one, and kept well with all. He was friendly +with Raoul, friendly with Rastignac, friendly with Montcornet. + +“You are a political triangle,” said de Marsay, laughing, when they met +at the Opera. “That geometric form, my dear fellow, belongs only to +the Deity, who has nothing to do; ambitious men ought to follow curved +lines, the shortest road in politics.” + +Seen from a distance, Raoul Nathan was a very fine meteor. Fashion +accepted his ways and his appearance. His borrowed republicanism +gave him, for the time being, that Jansenist harshness assumed by the +defenders of the popular cause, while they inwardly scoff at it,--a +quality not without charm in the eyes of women. Women like to perform +prodigies, break rocks, and soften natures which seem of iron. + +Raoul’s moral costume was therefore in keeping with his clothes. He was +fitted to be what he became to the Eve who was bored in her paradise +in the rue du Rocher,--the fascinating serpent, the fine talker with +magnetic eyes and harmonious motions who tempted the first woman. No +sooner had the Comtesse Marie laid eyes on Raoul than she felt an inward +emotion, the violence of which caused her a species of terror. The +glance of that fraudulent great man exercised a physical influence upon +her, which quivered in her very heart, and troubled it. But the trouble +was pleasure. The purple mantle which celebrity had draped for a moment +round Nathan’s shoulders dazzled the ingenuous young woman. When tea was +served, she rose from her seat among a knot of talking women, where she +had been striving to see and hear that extraordinary being. Her silence +and absorption were noticed by her false friends. + +The countess approached the divan in the centre of the room, where Raoul +was perorating. She stood there with her arm in that of Madame Octave +de Camp, an excellent woman, who kept the secret of the involuntary +trembling by which these violent emotions betrayed themselves. Though +the eyes of a captivated woman are apt to shed wonderful sweetness, +Raoul was too occupied at that moment in letting off fireworks, too +absorbed in his epigrams going up like rockets (in the midst of which +were flaming portraits drawn in lines of fire) to notice the naive +admiration of one little Eve concealed in a group of women. Marie’s +curiosity--like that which would undoubtedly precipitate all Paris into +the Jardin des Plantes to see a unicorn, if such an animal could be +found in those mountains of the moon, still virgin of the tread of +Europeans--intoxicates a secondary mind as much as it saddens great +ones; but Raoul was enchanted by it; although he was then too anxious to +secure all women to care very much for one alone. + +“Take care, my dear,” said Marie’s kind and gracious companion in her +ear, “and go home.” + +The countess looked at her husband to ask for his arm with one of those +glances which husbands do not always understand. Felix did so, and took +her home. + +“My dear friend,” said Madame d’Espard in Raoul’s ear, “you are a lucky +fellow. You have made more than one conquest to-night, and among them +that of the charming woman who has just left us so abruptly.” + +“Do you know what the Marquise d’Espard meant by that?” said Raoul to +Rastignac, when they happened to be comparatively alone between one and +two o’clock in the morning. + +“I am told that the Comtesse de Vandenesse has taken a violent fancy to +you. You are not to be pitied!” said Rastignac. + +“I did not see her,” said Raoul. + +“Oh! but you will see her, you scamp!” cried Emile Blondet, who was +standing by. “Lady Dudley is going to ask you to her grand ball, that +you may meet the pretty countess.” + +Raoul and Blondet went off with Rastignac, who offered them his +carriage. All three laughed at the combination of an eclectic +under-secretary of State, a ferocious republican, and a political +atheist. + +“Suppose we sup at the expense of the present order of things?” said +Blondet, who would fain recall suppers to fashion. + +Rastignac took them to Very’s, sent away his carriage, and all three +sat down to table to analyze society with Rabelaisian laughs. During +the supper, Rastignac and Blondet advised their provisional enemy not to +neglect such a capital chance of advancement as the one now offered to +him. The two “roues” gave him, in fine satirical style, the history of +Madame Felix de Vandenesse; they drove the scalpel of epigram and the +sharp points of much good wit into that innocent girlhood and happy +marriage. Blondet congratulated Raoul on encountering a woman guilty +of nothing worse so far than horrible drawings in red chalk, attenuated +water-colors, slippers embroidered for a husband, sonatas executed with +the best intentions,--a girl tied to her mother’s apron-strings till she +was eighteen, trussed for religious practices, seasoned by Vandenesse, +and cooked to a point by marriage. At the third bottle of champagne, +Raoul unbosomed himself as he had never done before in his life. + +“My friends,” he said, “you know my relations with Florine; you also +know my life, and you will not be surprised to hear me say that I am +absolutely ignorant of what a countess’s love may be like. I have often +felt mortified that I, a poet, could not give myself a Beatrice, a +Laura, except in poetry. A pure and noble woman is like an unstained +conscience,--she represents us to ourselves under a noble form. +Elsewhere we may soil ourselves, but with her we are always proud, +lofty, and immaculate. Elsewhere we lead ill-regulated lives; with her +we breathe the calm, the freshness, the verdure of an oasis--” + +“Go on, go on, my dear fellow!” cried Rastignac; “twang that fourth +string with the prayer in ‘Moses’ like Paganini.” + +Raoul remained silent, with fixed eyes, apparently musing. + +“This wretched ministerial apprentice does not understand me,” he said, +after a moment’s silence. + +So, while the poor Eve in the rue du Rocher went to bed in the sheets +of shame, frightened at the pleasure with which she had listened to that +sham great poet, these three bold minds were trampling with jests over +the tender flowers of her dawning love. Ah! if women only knew the +cynical tone that such men, so humble, so fawning in their presence, +take behind their backs! how they sneer at what they say they adore! +Fresh, pure, gracious being, how the scoffing jester disrobes and +analyzes her! but, even so, the more she loses veils, the more her +beauty shines. + +Marie was at this moment comparing Raoul and Felix, without imagining +the danger there might be for her in such comparisons. Nothing could +present a greater contrast than the disorderly, vigorous Raoul to +Felix de Vandenesse, who cared for his person like a dainty woman, wore +well-fitting clothes, had a charming “desinvoltura,” and was a votary of +English nicety, to which, in earlier days, Lady Dudley had trained him. +Marie, as a good and pious woman, soon forbade herself even to think of +Raoul, and considered that she was a monster of ingratitude for making +the comparison. + +“What do you think of Raoul Nathan?” she asked her husband the next day +at breakfast. + +“He is something of a charlatan,” replied Felix; “one of those volcanoes +who are easily calmed down with a little gold-dust. Madame de Montcornet +makes a mistake in admitting him.” + +This answer annoyed Marie, all the more because Felix supported his +opinion with certain facts, relating what he knew of Raoul Nathan’s +life,--a precarious existence mixed up with a popular actress. + +“If the man has genius,” he said in conclusion, “he certainly has +neither the constancy nor the patience which sanctifies it, and makes it +a thing divine. He endeavors to impose on the world by placing himself +on a level which he does nothing to maintain. True talent, pains-taking +and honorable talent does not act thus. Men who possess such talent +follow their path courageously; they accept its pains and penalties, and +don’t cover them with tinsel.” + +A woman’s thought is endowed with incredible elasticity. When she +receives a knockdown blow, she bends, seems crushed, and then renews her +natural shape in a given time. + +“Felix is no doubt right,” thought she. + +But three days later she was once more thinking of the serpent, recalled +to him by that singular emotion, painful and yet sweet, which the +first sight of Raoul had given her. The count and countess went to Lady +Dudley’s grand ball, where, by the bye, de Marsay appeared in society +for the last time. He died about two months later, leaving the +reputation of a great statesman, because, as Blondet remarked, he was +incomprehensible. + +Vandenesse and his wife again met Raoul Nathan at this ball, which was +remarkable for the meeting of several personages of the political drama, +who were not a little astonished to find themselves together. It was +one of the first solemnities of the great world. The salons presented +a magnificent spectacle to the eye,--flowers, diamonds, and brilliant +head-dresses; all jewel-boxes emptied; all resources of the toilet put +under contribution. The ball-room might be compared to one of those +choice conservatories where rich horticulturists collect the most superb +rarities,--same brilliancy, same delicacy of texture. On all sides +white or tinted gauzes like the wings of the airiest dragon-fly, crepes, +laces, blondes, and tulles, varied as the fantasies of entomological +nature; dentelled, waved, and scalloped; spider’s webs of gold and +silver; mists of silk embroidered by fairy fingers; plumes colored by +the fire of the tropics drooping from haughty heads; pearls twined in +braided hair; shot or ribbed or brocaded silks, as though the genius of +arabesque had presided over French manufactures,--all this luxury was in +harmony with the beauties collected there as if to realize a “Keepsake.” + The eye received there an impression of the whitest shoulders, some +amber-tinted, others so polished as to seem colandered, some dewy, some +plump and satiny, as though Rubens had prepared their flesh; in short, +all shades known to man in white. Here were eyes sparkling like onyx or +turquoise fringed with dark lashes; faces of varied outline presenting +the most graceful types of many lands; foreheads noble and majestic, +or softly rounded, as if thought ruled, or flat, as if resistant will +reigned there unconquered; beautiful bosoms swelling, as George IV. +admired them, or widely parted after the fashion of the eighteenth +century, or pressed together, as Louis XV. required; some shown boldly, +without veils, others covered by those charming pleated chemisettes +which Raffaelle painted. The prettiest feet pointed for the dance, the +slimmest waists encircled in the waltz, stimulated the gaze of the most +indifferent person present. The murmur of sweet voices, the rustle of +gowns, the cadence of the dance, the whir of the waltz harmoniously +accompanied the music. A fairy’s wand seemed to have commanded this +dazzling revelry, this melody of perfumes, these iridescent lights +glittering from crystal chandeliers or sparkling in candelabra. This +assemblage of the prettiest women in their prettiest dresses stood +out upon a gloomy background of men in black coats, among whom the eye +remarked the elegant, delicate, and correctly drawn profile of nobles, +the ruddy beards and grave faces of Englishmen, and the more gracious +faces of the French aristocracy. All the orders of Europe glittered on +the breasts or hung from the necks of these men. + +Examining this society carefully, it was seen to present not only +the brilliant tones and colors and outward adornment, but to have +a soul,--it lived, it felt, it thought. Hidden passions gave it a +physiognomy; mischievous or malignant looks were exchanged; fair and +giddy girls betrayed desires; jealous women told each other scandals +behind their fans, or paid exaggerated compliments. Society, anointed, +curled, and perfumed, gave itself up to social gaiety which went to the +brain like a heady liquor. It seemed as if from all foreheads, as well +as from all hearts, ideas and sentiments were exhaling, which presently +condensed and reacted in a volume on the coldest persons present, and +excited them. At the most animated moment of this intoxicating party, in +a corner of a gilded salon where certain bankers, ambassadors, and the +immoral old English earl, Lord Dudley, were playing cards, Madame Felix +de Vandenesse was irresistibly drawn to converse with Raoul Nathan. +Possibly she yielded to that ball-intoxication which sometimes wrings +avowals from the most discreet. + +At sight of such a fete, and the splendors of a world in which he had +never before appeared, Nathan was stirred to the soul by fresh ambition. +Seeing Rastignac, whose younger brother had just been made bishop at +twenty-seven years of age, and whose brother-in-law, Martial de la +Roche-Hugon, was a minister, and who himself was under-secretary of +State, and about to marry, rumor said, the only daughter of the Baron +de Nucingen,--a girl with an illimitable “dot”; seeing, moreover, in the +diplomatic body an obscure writer whom he had formerly known translating +articles in foreign journals for a newspaper turned dynastic since 1830, +also professors now made peers of France,--he felt with anguish that he +was left behind on a bad road by advocating the overthrow of this new +aristocracy of lucky talent, of cleverness crowned by success, and +of real merit. Even Blondet, so unfortunate, so used by others in +journalism, but so welcomed here, who could, if he liked, enter a career +of public service through the influence of Madame de Montcornet, seemed +to Nathan’s eyes a striking example of the power of social relations. +Secretly, in his heart, he resolved to play the game of political +opinions, like de Marsay, Rastignac, Blondet, Talleyrand, the leader +of this set of men; to rely on facts only, turn them to his own profit, +regard his system as a weapon, and not interfere with a society so well +constituted, so shrewd, so natural. + +“My influence,” he thought, “will depend on the influence of some woman +belonging to this class of society.” + +With this thought in his mind, conceived by the flame of this frenzied +desire, he fell upon the Comtesse de Vandenesse like a hawk on its prey. +That charming young woman in her head-dress of marabouts, which produced +the delightful “flou” of the paintings of Lawrence and harmonized +well with her gentle nature, was penetrated through and through by the +foaming vigor of this poet wild with ambition. Lady Dudley, whom nothing +escaped, aided this tete-a-tete by throwing the Comte de Vandenesse with +Madame de Manerville. Strong in her former ascendancy over him, Natalie +de Manerville amused herself by leading Felix into the mazes of a +quarrel of witty teasing, blushing half-confidences, regrets coyly flung +like flowers at his feet, recriminations in which she excused herself +for the sole purpose of being put in the wrong. + +These former lovers were speaking to each other for the first time since +their rupture; and while her husband’s former love was stirring the +embers to see if a spark were yet alive, Madame Felix de Vandenesse +was undergoing those violent palpitations which a woman feels at the +certainty of doing wrong, and stepping on forbidden ground,--emotions +that are not without charm, and which awaken various dormant faculties. +Women are fond of using Bluebeard’s bloody key, that fine mythological +idea for which we are indebted to Perrault. + +The dramatist--who knew his Shakespeare--displayed his wretchedness, +related his struggle with men and things, made his hearer aware of his +baseless grandeur, his unrecognized political genius, his life without +noble affections. Without saying a single definite word, he contrived +to suggest to this charming woman that she should play the noble part of +Rebecca in Ivanhoe, and love and protect him. It was all, of course, +in the ethereal regions of sentiment. Forget-me-nots are not more blue, +lilies not more white than the images, thoughts, and radiantly +illumined brow of this accomplished artist, who was likely to send his +conversation to a publisher. He played his part of reptile to this poor +Eve so cleverly, he made the fatal bloom of the apple so dazzling to her +eyes, that Marie left the ball-room filled with that species of remorse +which resembles hope, flattered in all her vanities, stirred to every +corner of her heart, caught by her own virtues, allured by her native +pity for misfortune. + +Perhaps Madame de Manerville had taken Vandenesse into the salon where +his wife was talking with Nathan; perhaps he had come there himself to +fetch Marie, and take her home; perhaps his conversation with his former +flame had awakened slumbering griefs; certain it is that when his wife +took his arm to leave the ball-room, she saw that his face was sad and +his look serious. The countess wondered if he was displeased with her. +No sooner were they seated in the carriage than she turned to Felix and +said, with a mischievous smile,-- + +“Did not I see you talking half the evening with Madame de Manerville?” + +Felix was not out of the tangled paths into which his wife had led him +by this charming little quarrel, when the carriage turned into their +court-yard. This was Marie’s first artifice dictated by her new emotion; +and she even took pleasure in triumphing over a man who, until then, had +seemed to her so superior. + + + + +CHAPTER V. FLORINE + + +Between the rue Basse-du-Rempart and the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, Raoul +had, on the third floor of an ugly and narrow house, in the Passage +Sandrie, a poor enough lodging, cold and bare, where he lived ostensibly +for the general public, for literary neophytes, and for his creditors, +duns, and other annoying persons whom he kept on the threshold of +private life. His real home, his fine existence, his presentation of +himself before his friends, was in the house of Mademoiselle Florine, +a second-class comedy actress, where, for ten years, the said friends, +journalists, certain authors, and writers in general disported +themselves in the society of equally illustrious actresses. For ten +years Raoul had attached himself so closely to this woman that he passed +more than half his life with her; he took all his meals at her house +unless he had some friend to invite, or an invitation to dinner +elsewhere. + +To consummate corruption, Florine added a lively wit, which intercourse +with artists had developed and practice sharpened day by day. Wit is +thought to be a quality rare in comedians. It is so natural to suppose +that persons who spend their lives in showing things on the outside +have nothing within. But if we reflect on the small number of actors +and actresses who live in each century, and also on how many dramatic +authors and fascinating women this population has supplied relatively +to its numbers, it is allowable to refute that opinion, which rests, +and apparently will rest forever, on a criticism made against dramatic +artists,--namely, that their personal sentiments are destroyed by the +plastic presentation of passions; whereas, in fact, they put into their +art only their gifts of mind, memory, and imagination. Great artists are +beings who, to quote Napoleon, can cut off at will the connection which +Nature has put between the senses and thought. Moliere and Talma, in +their old age, were more in love than ordinary men in all their lives. + +Accustomed to listen to journalists, who guess at most things, putting +two and two together, to writers, who foresee and tell all that they +see; accustomed also to the ways of certain political personages, +who watched one another in her house, and profited by all admissions, +Florine presented in her own person a mixture of devil and angel, which +made her peculiarly fitted to receive these roues. They delighted in her +cool self-possession; her anomalies of mind and heart entertained them +prodigiously. Her house, enriched by gallant tributes, displayed the +exaggerated magnificence of women who, caring little about the cost of +things, care only for the things themselves, and give them the value of +their own caprices,--women who will break a fan or a smelling-bottle +fit for queens in a moment of passion, and scream with rage if a servant +breaks a ten-franc saucer from which their poodle drinks. + +Florine’s dining-room, filled with her most distinguished offerings, +will give a fair idea of this pell-mell of regal and fantastic luxury. +Throughout, even on the ceilings, it was panelled in oak, picked out, +here and there, by dead-gold lines. These panels were framed in relief +with figures of children playing with fantastic animals, among which the +light danced and floated, touching here a sketch by Bixiou, that maker +of caricatures, there the cast of an angel holding a vessel of holy +water (presented by Francois Souchet), farther on a coquettish painting +of Joseph Bridau, a gloomy picture of a Spanish alchemist by Hippolyte +Schinner, an autograph of Lord Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb, framed in +carved ebony, while, hanging opposite as a species of pendant, was a +letter from Napoleon to Josephine. All these things were placed about +without the slightest symmetry, but with almost imperceptible art. On +the chimney-piece, of exquisitely carved oak, there was nothing except +a strange, evidently Florentine, ivory statuette attributed to Michael +Angelo, representing Pan discovering a woman under the skin of a young +shepherd, the original of which is in the royal palace of Vienna. On +either side were candelabra of Renaissance design. A clock, by Boule, on +a tortoise-shell stand, inlaid with brass, sparkled in the centre of one +panel between two statuettes, undoubtedly obtained from the demolition +of some abbey. In the corners of the room, on pedestals, were lamps +of royal magnificence, as to which a manufacturer had made strong +remonstrance against adapting his lamps to Japanese vases. On a +marvellous sideboard was displayed a service of silver plate, the gift +of an English lord, also porcelains in high relief; in short, the luxury +of an actress who has no other property than her furniture. + +The bedroom, all in violet, was a dream that Florine had indulged from +her debut, the chief features of which were curtains of violet velvet +lined with white silk, and looped over tulle; a ceiling of white +cashmere with violet satin rays, an ermine carpet beside the bed; in +the bed, the curtains of which resembled a lily turned upside down was +a lantern by which to read the newspaper plaudits or criticisms before +they appeared in the morning. A yellow salon, its effect heightened by +trimmings of the color of Florentine bronze, was in harmony with the +rest of these magnificences, a further description of which would make +our pages resemble the posters of an auction sale. To find comparisons +for all these fine things, it would be necessary to go to a certain +house that was almost next door, belonging to a Rothschild. + +Sophie Grignault, surnamed Florine by a form of baptism common in +theatres, had made her first appearances, in spite of her beauty, +on very inferior boards. Her success and her money she owed to Raoul +Nathan. This association of their two fates, usual enough in the +dramatic and literary world, did no harm to Raoul, who kept up the +outward conventions of a man of the world. Moreover, Florine’s actual +means were precarious; her revenues came from her salary and her +leaves of absence, and barely sufficed for her dress and her household +expenses. Nathan gave her certain perquisites which he managed to levy +as critic on several of the new enterprises of industrial art. But +although he was always gallant and protecting towards her, that +protection had nothing regular or solid about it. + +This uncertainty, and this life on a bough, as it were, did not alarm +Florine; she believed in her talent, and she believed in her beauty. +Her robust faith was somewhat comical to those who heard her staking her +future upon it, when remonstrances were made to her. + +“I can have income enough when I please,” she was wont to say; “I have +invested fifty francs on the Grand-livre.” + +No one could ever understand how it happened that Florine, handsome as +she was, had remained in obscurity for seven years; but the fact is, +Florine was enrolled as a supernumerary at thirteen years of age, and +made her debut two years later at an obscure boulevard theatre. At +fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist; a woman is simply all promise. + +She was now twenty-eight,--the age at which the beauties of a French +woman are in their glory. Painters particularly admired the lustre of +her white shoulders, tinted with olive tones about the nape of the neck, +and wonderfully firm and polished, so that the light shimmered over +them as it does on watered silk. When she turned her head, superb folds +formed about her neck, the admiration of sculptors. She carried on this +triumphant neck the small head of a Roman empress, the delicate, round, +and self-willed head of Pompeia, with features of elegant correctness, +and the smooth forehead of a woman who drives all care away and all +reflection, who yields easily, but is capable of balking like a mule, +and incapable at such times of listening to reason. That forehead, +turned, as it were, with one cut of the chisel, brought out the beauty +of the golden hair, which was raised in front, after the Roman fashion, +in two equal masses, and twisted up behind the head to prolong the line +of the neck, and enhance that whiteness by its beautiful color. Black +and delicate eyebrows, drawn by a Chinese brush, encircled the soft +eyelids, which were threaded with rosy fibres. The pupils of the eyes, +extremely bright, though striped with brown rays, gave to her glance the +cruel fixity of a beast of prey, and betrayed the cold maliciousness +of the courtesan. The eyes were gray, fringed with black lashes,--a +charming contrast, which made their expression of calm and contemplative +voluptuousness the more observable; the circle round the eyes showed +marks of fatigue, but the artistic manner in which she could turn +her eyeballs, right and left, or up and down, to observe, or seem to +mediate, the way in which she could hold them fixed, casting out their +vivid fire without moving her head, without taking from her face its +absolute immovability (a manoeuvre learned upon the stage), and the +vivacity of their glance, as she looked about a theatre in search of a +friend, made her eyes the most terrible, also the softest, in short, the +most extraordinary eyes in the world. Rouge had destroyed by this +time the diaphanous tints of her cheeks, the flesh of which was still +delicate; but although she could no longer blush or turn pale, she had +a thin nose with rosy, passionate nostrils, made to express irony,--the +mocking irony of Moliere’s women-servants. Her sensual mouth, expressive +of sarcasm and love of dissipation, was adorned with a deep furrow that +united the upper lip with the nose. Her chin, white and rather fat, +betrayed the violence of passion. Her hands and arms were worthy of a +sovereign. + +But she had one ineradicable sign of low birth,--her foot was short +and fat. No inherited quality ever caused greater distress. Florine had +tried everything, short of amputation, to get rid of it. The feet were +obstinate, like the Breton race from which she came; they resisted all +treatment. Florine now wore long boots stuffed with cotton, to give +length, and the semblance of an instep. Her figure was of medium height, +threatened with corpulence, but still well-balanced, and well-made. + +Morally, she was an adept in all the attitudinizing, quarrelling, +alluring, and cajoling of her business; and she gave to those actions a +savor of their own by playing childlike innocence, and slipping in among +her artless speeches philosophical malignities. Apparently ignorant and +giddy, she was very strong on money-matters and commercial law,--for the +reason that she had gone through so much misery before attaining to her +present precarious success. She had come down, story by story, from the +garret to the first floor, through so many vicissitudes! She knew life, +from that which begins in Brie cheese and ends at pineapples; from +that which cooks and washes in the corner of a garret on an earthenware +stove, to that which convokes the tribes of pot-bellied chefs and +saucemakers. She had lived on credit and not killed it; she was ignorant +of nothing that honest women ignore; she spoke all languages: she was +one of the populace by experience; she was noble by beauty and physical +distinction. Suspicious as a spy, or a judge, or an old statesman, she +was difficult to impose upon, and therefore the more able to see clearly +into most matters. She knew the ways of managing tradespeople, and how +to evade their snares, and she was quite as well versed in the prices of +things as a public appraiser. To see her lying on her sofa, like a young +bride, fresh and white, holding her part in her hand and learning it, +you would have thought her a child of sixteen, ingenuous, ignorant, and +weak, with no other artifice about her but her innocence. Let a creditor +contrive to enter, and she was up like a startled fawn, and swearing a +good round oath. + +“Hey! my good fellow; your insolence is too dear an interest on the +money I owe you,” she would say. “I am sick of seeing you. Send the +sheriff here; I’d prefer him to your silly face.” + +Florine gave charming dinners, concerts, and well-attended soirees, +where play ran high. Her female friends were all handsome; no old woman +had ever appeared within her precincts. She was not jealous; in fact, +she would have thought jealousy an admission of inferiority. She had +known Coralie and La Torpille in their lifetimes, and now knew Tullia, +Euphrasie, Aquilina, Madame du Val-Noble, Mariette,--those women who +pass through Paris like gossamer through the atmosphere, without our +knowing where they go nor whence they came; to-day queens, to-morrow +slaves. She also knew the actresses, her rivals, and all the +prima-donnas; in short, that whole exceptional feminine society, so +kindly, so graceful in its easy “sans-souci,” which absorbs into its own +Bohemian life all who allow themselves to be caught in the frantic +whirl of its gay spirits, its eager abandonment, and its contemptuous +indifference to the future. + +Though this Bohemian life displayed itself in her house in tumultuous +disorder, amid the laughter of artists of every description, the queen +of the revels had ten fingers on which she knew better how to count than +any of her guests. In that house secret saturnalias of literature and +art, politics and finance were carried on; there, desire reigned a +sovereign; there, caprice and fancy were as sacred as honor and virtue +to a bourgeoise; thither came Blondet, Finot, Etienne Lousteau, Vernou +the feuilletonist, Couture, Bixiou, Rastignac in his earlier days, +Claude Vignon the critic, Nucingen the banker, du Tillet, Conti the +composer,--in short, that whole devil-may-care legion of selfish +materialists of all kinds; friends of Florine and of the singers, +actresses and “danseuses” collected about her. They all hated or liked +one another according to circumstances. + +This Bohemian resort, to which celebrity was the only ticket of +admission, was a Hades of the mind, the galleys of the intellect. No +one could enter there without having legally conquered fortune, done +ten years of misery, strangled two or three passions, acquired some +celebrity, either by books or waistcoats, by dramas or fine equipages; +plots were hatched there, means of making fortune scrutinized, all +things were discussed and weighed. But every man, on leaving it, resumed +the livery of his own opinions; there he could, without compromising +himself, criticise his own party, admit the knowledge and good play of +his adversaries, formulate thoughts that no one admits thinking,--in +short, say all, as if ready to do all. Paris is the only place in the +world where such eclectic houses exist; where all tastes, all vices, +all opinions are received under decent guise. Therefore it is not yet +certain that Florine will remain to the end of her career a second-class +actress. + +Florine’s life was by no means an idle one, or a life to be envied. Many +persons, misled by the magnificent pedestal that the stage gives to a +woman, suppose her in the midst of a perpetual carnival. In the dark +recesses of a porter’s lodge, beneath the tiles of an attic roof, many a +poor girl dreams, on returning from the theatre, of pearls and diamonds, +gold-embroidered gowns and sumptuous girdles; she fancies herself +adored, applauded, courted; but little she knows of that treadmill life, +in which the actress is forced to rehearsals under pain of fines, to +the reading of new pieces, to the constant study of new roles. At each +representation Florine changes her dress at least two or three times; +often she comes home exhausted and half-dead; but before she can rest, +she must wash off with various cosmetics the white and the red she has +applied, and clean all the powder from her hair, if she has played a +part from the eighteenth century. She scarcely has time for food. When +she plays, an actress can live no life of her own; she can neither +dress, nor eat, nor talk. Florine often has no time to sup. On returning +from a play, which lasts, in these days, till after midnight, she does +not get to bed before two in the morning; but she must rise early to +study her part, order her dresses, try them on, breakfast, read her +love-letters, answer them, discuss with the leader of the “claque” the +place for the plaudits, pay for the triumphs of the last month in solid +cash, and bespeak those of the month ahead. In the days of Saint-Genest, +the canonized comedian who fulfilled his duties in a pious manner and +wore a hair shirt, we must suppose that an actor’s life did not demand +this incessant activity. Sometimes Florine, seized with a bourgeois +desire to get out into the country and gather flowers, pretends to the +manager that she is ill. + +But even these mechanical operations are nothing in comparison with +the intrigues to be carried on, the pains of wounded vanity to be +endured,--preferences shown by authors, parts taken away or given to +others, exactions of the male actors, spite of rivals, naggings of the +stage manager, struggles with journalists; all of which require another +twelve hours to the day. But even so far, nothing has been said of the +art of acting, the expression of passion, the practice of positions and +gesture, the minute care and watchfulness required on the stage, where +a thousand opera-glasses are ready to detect a flaw,--labors which +consumed the life and thought of Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, Clairon, +Champmesle. In these infernal “coulisses” self-love has no sex; the +artist who triumphs, be it man or woman, has all the other men and women +against him or her. Then, as to money, however many engagements Florine +may have, her salary does not cover the costs of her stage toilet, +which, in addition to its costumes, requires an immense variety of long +gloves, shoes, and frippery; and all this exclusive of her personal +clothing. The first third of such a life is spent in struggling and +imploring; the next third, in getting a foothold; the last third, in +defending it. If happiness is frantically grasped, it is because it +is so rare, so long desired, and found at last only amid the odious +fictitious pleasures and smiles of such a life. + +As for Florine, Raoul’s power in the press was like a protecting +sceptre; he spared her many cares and anxieties; she clung to him less +as a lover than a prop; she took care of him like a father, she deceived +him like a husband; but she would readily have sacrificed all she had +to him. Raoul could, and did do everything for her vanity as an actress, +for the peace of her self-love, and for her future on the stage. Without +the intervention of a successful author, there is no successful actress; +Champmesle was due to Racine, like Mars to Monvel and Andrieux. Florine +could do nothing in return for Raoul, though she would gladly have been +useful and necessary to him. She reckoned on the charms of habit to +keep him by her; she was always ready to open her salons and display the +luxury of her dinners and suppers for his friends, and to further his +projects. She desired to be for him what Madame de Pompadour was to +Louis XV. All actresses envied Florine’s position, and some journalists +envied that of Raoul. + +Those to whom the inclination of the human mind towards chance, +opposition, and contrasts is known, will readily understand that after +ten years of this lawless Bohemian life, full of ups and downs, of fetes +and sheriffs, of orgies and forced sobrieties, Raoul was attracted to +the idea of another love,--to the gentle, harmonious house and presence +of a great lady, just as the Comtesse Felix instinctively desired to +introduce the torture of great emotions into a life made monotonous by +happiness. This law of life is the law of all arts, which exist only by +contrasts. A work done without this incentive is the loftiest expression +of genius, just as the cloister is the highest expression of the +Christian life. + +On returning to his lodging from Lady Dudley’s ball, Raoul found a +note from Florine, brought by her maid, which an invincible sleepiness +prevented him from reading at that moment. He fell asleep, dreaming of a +gentle love that his life had so far lacked. Some hours later he opened +the note, and found in it important news, which neither Rastignac nor +de Marsay had allowed to transpire. The indiscretion of a member of the +government had revealed to the actress the coming dissolution of the +Chamber after the present session. Raoul instantly went to Florine’s +house and sent for Blondet. In the actress’s boudoir, with their feet on +the fender, Emile and Raoul analyzed the political situation of France +in 1834. On which side lay the best chance of fortune? They reviewed +all parties and all shades of party,--pure republicans, presiding +republicans, republicans without a republic, constitutionals without a +dynasty, ministerial conservatives, ministerial absolutists; also the +Right, the aristocratic Right, the legitimist, henriquinquist Right, and +the Carlist Right. Between the party of resistance and that of action +there was no discussion; they might as well have hesitated between life +and death. + +At this period a flock of newspapers, created to represent all shades of +opinion, produced a fearful pell-mell of political principles. Blondet, +the most judicious mind of the day,--judicious for others, never +for himself, like some great lawyers unable to manage their own +affairs,--was magnificent in such a discussion. The upshot was that he +advised Nathan not to apostatize too suddenly. + +“Napoleon said it; you can’t make young republics of old monarchies. +Therefore, my dear fellow, become the hero, the support, the creator of +the Left Centre in the new Chamber, and you’ll succeed. Once admitted +into political ranks, once in the government, you can be what you +like,--of any opinion that triumphs.” + +Nathan was bent on creating a daily political journal and becoming +the absolute master of an enterprise which should absorb into it the +countless little papers then swarming from the press, and establish +ramifications with a review. He had seen so many fortunes made all +around him by the press that he would not listen to Blondet, who warned +him not to trust to such a venture, declaring that the plan was +unsound, so great was the present number of newspapers, all fighting +for subscribers. Raoul, relying on his so-called friends and his own +courage, was all for daring it; he sprang up eagerly and said, with a +proud gesture,-- + +“I shall succeed.” + +“But you haven’t a sou.” + +“I will write a play.” + +“It will fail.” + +“Let it fail!” replied Nathan. + +He rushed through the various rooms of Florine’s apartment, followed +by Blondet, who thought him crazy, looking with a greedy eye upon the +wealth displayed there. Blondet understood that look. + +“There’s a hundred and more thousand francs in them,” he remarked. + +“Yes,” said Raoul, sighing, as he looked at Florine’s sumptuous +bedstead; “but I’d rather be a pedler all my life on the boulevard, and +live on fried potatoes, than sell one item of this apartment.” + +“Not one item,” said Blondet; “sell all. Ambition is like death; it +takes all or nothing.” + +“No, a hundred times no! I would take anything from my new countess; but +rob Florine of her shell? no.” + +“Upset our money-box, break one’s balance-pole, smash our refuge,--yes, +that would be serious,” said Blondet with a tragic air. + +“It seems to me from what I hear that you want to play politics instead +of comedies,” said Florine, suddenly appearing. + +“Yes, my dear, yes,” said Raoul, affectionately taking her by the neck +and kissing her forehead. “Don’t make faces at that; you won’t lose +anything. A minister can do better than a journalist for the queen of +the boards. What parts and what holidays you shall have!” + +“Where will you get the money?” she said. + +“From my uncle,” replied Raoul. + +Florine knew Raoul’s “uncle.” The word meant usury, as in popular +parlance “aunt” means pawn. + +“Don’t worry yourself, my little darling,” said Blondet to Florine, +tapping her shoulder. “I’ll get him the assistance of Massol, a lawyer +who wants to be deputy; also Finot, who has never yet got beyond his +‘petit-journal,’ and Pantin, who wants to be master of petitions, and +who dabbles in reviews. Yes, I’ll save him from himself; we’ll convoke +here to supper Etienne Lousteau, who can do the feuilleton; Claude +Vignon for criticisms; Felicien Vernou as general care-taker; the +lawyer will work, and du Tillet may take charge of the Bourse, the money +article, and all industrial questions. We’ll see where these various +talents and slaves united will land the enterprise.” + +“In a hospital or a ministry,--where all men ruined in body or mind are +apt to go,” said Raoul, laughing. + +“Where and when shall we invite them?” + +“Here, five days hence.” + +“Tell me the sum you want,” said Florine, simply. + +“Well, the lawyer, du Tillet, and Raoul will each have to put up a +hundred thousand francs before they embark on the affair,” replied +Blondet. “Then the paper can run eighteen months; about long enough for +a rise and fall in Paris.” + +Florine gave a little grimace of approval. The two friends jumped into +a cabriolet to go about collecting guests and pens, ideas and +self-interests. + +Florine meantime sent for certain dealers in old furniture, bric-a-brac, +pictures, and jewels. These men entered her sanctuary and took an +inventory of every article, precisely as if Florine were dead. She +declared she would sell everything at public auction if they did not +offer her a proper price. She had had the luck to please, she said, an +English lord, and she wanted to get rid of all her property and look +poor, so that he might give her a fine house and furniture, fit to rival +the Rothschilds. But in spite of these persuasions and subterfuges, all +the dealers would offer her for a mass of belongings worth a hundred +and fifty thousand was seventy thousand. Florine thereupon offered to +deliver over everything in eight days for eighty thousand,--“To take +or leave,” she said,--and the bargain was concluded. After the men +had departed she skipped for joy, like the hills of King David, and +performed all manner of follies, not having thought herself so rich. + +When Raoul came back she made him a little scene, pretending to be hurt; +she declared that he abandoned her; that she had reflected; men did not +pass from one party to another, from the stage to the Chamber, without +some reason; there was a woman at the bottom; she had a rival! In short, +she made him swear eternal fidelity. Five days later she gave a splendid +feast. The new journal was baptized in floods of wine and wit, with +oaths of loyalty, fidelity, and good-fellowship. The name, forgotten +now like those of the Liberal, Communal, Departmental, Garde National, +Federal, Impartial, was something in “al” that was equally imposing and +evanescent. At three in the morning Florine could undress and go to bed +as if alone, though no one had left the house; these lights of the epoch +were sleeping the sleep of brutes. And when, early in the morning, the +packers and vans arrived to remove Florine’s treasures she laughed to +see the porters moving the bodies of the celebrated men like pieces of +furniture that lay in their way. “Sic transit” all her fine things! all +her presents and souvenirs went to the shops of the various dealers, +where no one on seeing them would know how those flowers of luxury had +been originally paid for. It was agreed that a few little necessary +articles should be left, for Florine’s personal convenience until +evening,--her bed, a table, a few chairs, and china enough to give her +guests their breakfast. + +Having gone to sleep beneath the draperies of wealth and luxury, these +distinguished men awoke to find themselves within bare walls, full of +nail-holes, degraded into abject poverty. + +“Why, Florine!--The poor girl has been seized for debt!” cried Bixiou, +who was one of the guests. “Quick! a subscription for her!” + +On this they all roused up. Every pocket was emptied and produced a +total of thirty-seven francs, which Raoul carried in jest to Florine’s +bedside. She burst out laughing and lifted her pillow, beneath which lay +a mass of bank-notes to which she pointed. + +Raoul called to Blondet. + +“Ah! I see!” cried Blondet. “The little cheat has sold herself out +without a word to us. Well done, you little angel!” + +Thereupon, the actress was borne in triumph into the dining-room where +most of the party still remained. The lawyer and du Tillet had departed. + +That evening Florine had an ovation at the theatre; the story of her +sacrifice had circulated among the audience. + +“I’d rather be applauded for my talent,” said her rival in the +green-room. + +“A natural desire in an actress who has never been applauded at all,” + remarked Florine. + +During the evening Florine’s maid installed her in Raoul’s apartment in +the Passage Sandrie. Raoul himself was to encamp in the house where the +office of the new journal was established. + +Such was the rival of the innocent Madame de Vandenesse. Raoul was the +connecting link between the actress and the countess,--a knot severed +by a duchess in the days of Louis XV. by the poisoning of Adrienne +Lecouvreur; a not inconceivable vengeance, considering the offence. + +Florine, however, was not in the way of Raoul’s dawning passion. She +foresaw the lack of money in the difficult enterprise he had undertaken, +and she asked for leave of absence from the theatre. Raoul conducted +the negotiation in a way to make himself more than ever valuable to her. +With the good sense of the peasant in La Fontaine’s fable, who makes +sure of a dinner while the patricians talk, the actress went into the +provinces to cut faggots for her celebrated man while he was employed in +hunting power. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. ROMANTIC LOVE + + +On the morrow of the ball given by Lady Dudley, Marie, without having +received the slightest declaration, believed that she was loved by Raoul +according to the programme of her dreams, and Raoul was aware that the +countess had chosen him for her lover. Though neither had reached the +incline of such emotions where preliminaries are abridged, both were on +the road to it. Raoul, wearied with the dissipations of life, longed for +an ideal world, while Marie, from whom the thought of wrong-doing was +far, indeed, never imagined the possibility of going out of such a +world. No love was ever more innocent or purer than theirs; but none was +ever more enthusiastic or more entrancing in thought. + +The countess was captivated by ideas worthy of the days of chivalry, +though completely modernized. The glowing conversation of the poet had +more echo in her mind than in her heart. She thought it fine to be his +providence. How sweet the thought of supporting by her white and feeble +hand this colossus,--whose feet of clay she did not choose to see; of +giving life where life was needed; of being secretly the creator of a +career; of helping a man of genius to struggle with fate and master it. +Ah! to embroider his scarf for the tournament! to procure him weapons! +to be his talisman against ill-fortune! his balm for every wound! For a +woman brought up like Marie, religious and noble as she was, such a love +was a form of charity. Hence the boldness of it. Pure sentiments often +compromise themselves with a lofty disdain that resembles the boldness +of courtesans. + +As soon as by her specious distinctions Marie had convinced herself that +she did not in any way impair her conjugal faith, she rushed into the +happiness of loving Raoul. The least little things of her daily life +acquired a charm. Her boudoir, where she thought of him, became a +sanctuary. There was nothing there that did not rouse some sense of +pleasure; even her ink-stand was the coming accomplice in the pleasures +of correspondence; for she would now have letters to read and answer. +Dress, that splendid poesy of the feminine life, unknown or exhausted by +her, appeared to her eyes endowed with a magic hitherto unperceived. It +suddenly became clear to her what it is to most women, the manifestation +of an inward thought, a language, a symbol. How many enjoyments in a +toilet arranged to please _him_, to do _him_ honor! She gave herself +up ingenuously to all those gracefully charming things in which so many +Parisian women spend their lives, and which give such significance to +all that we see about them, and in them, and on them. Few women go to +milliners and dressmakers for their own pleasure and interest. When old +they never think of adornment. The next time you meet in the street a +young woman stopping for a moment to look into a shop-window, examine +her face carefully. “Will he think I look better in that?” are the words +written on that fair brow, in the eyes sparkling with hope, in the smile +that flickers on the lips. + +Lady Dudley’s ball took place on a Saturday night. On the following +Monday the countess went to the Opera, feeling certain of seeing Raoul, +who was, in fact, watching for her on one of the stairways leading down +to the stalls. With what delight did she observe the unwonted care he +had bestowed upon his clothes. This despiser of the laws of elegance had +brushed and perfumed his hair; his waistcoat followed the fashion, his +cravat was well tied, the bosom of his shirt was irreproachably smooth. +Raoul was standing with his arms crossed as if posed for his portrait, +magnificently indifferent to the rest of the audience and full of +repressed impatience. Though lowered, his eyes were turned to the red +velvet cushion on which lay Marie’s arm. Felix, seated in the opposite +corner of the box, had his back to Nathan. + +So, in a moment, as it were, Marie had compelled this remarkable man to +abjure his cynicism in the line of clothes. All women, high or low, are +filled with delight on seeing a first proof of their power in one of +these sudden metamorphoses. Such changes are an admission of serfdom. + +“Those women were right; there is a great pleasure in being understood,” + she said to herself, thinking of her treacherous friends. + +When the two lovers had gazed around the theatre with that glance that +takes in everything, they exchanged a look of intelligence. It was for +each as if some celestial dew had refreshed their hearts, burned-up with +expectation. + +“I have been here for an hour in purgatory, but now the heavens are +opening,” said Raoul’s eyes. + +“I knew you were waiting, but how could I help it?” replied those of the +countess. + +Thieves, spies, lovers, diplomats, and slaves of any kind alone know the +resources and comforts of a glance. They alone know what it contains +of meaning, sweetness, thought, anger, villainy, displayed by the +modification of that ray of light which conveys the soul. Between the +box of the Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse and the step on which Raoul had +perched there were barely thirty feet; and yet it was impossible to wipe +out that distance. To a fiery being, who had hitherto known no +space between his wishes and their gratification, this imaginary but +insuperable gulf inspired a mad desire to spring to the countess with +the bound of a tiger. In a species of rage he determined to try the +ground and bow openly to the countess. She returned the bow with one of +those slight inclinations of the head with which women take from their +adorers all desire to continue their attempt. Comte Felix turned round +to see who had bowed to his wife; he saw Nathan, but did not bow, and +seemed to inquire the meaning of such audacity; then he turned back +slowly and said a few words to his wife. Evidently the door of that box +was closed to Nathan, who cast a terrible look of hatred upon Felix. + +Madame d’Espard had seen the whole thing from her box, which was just +above where Raoul was standing. She raised her voice in crying bravo +to some singer, which caused Nathan to look up to her; he bowed and +received in return a gracious smile which seemed to say:-- + +“If they won’t admit you there come here to me.” + +Raoul obeyed the silent summons and went to her box. He felt the need of +showing himself in a place which might teach that little Vandenesse that +fame was every whit as good as nobility, and that all doors turned on +their hinges to admit him. The marquise made him sit in front of her. +She wanted to question him. + +“Madame Felix de Vandenesse is fascinating in that gown,” she said, +complimenting the dress as if it were a book he had published the day +before. + +“Yes,” said Raoul, indifferently, “marabouts are very becoming to her; +but she seems wedded to them; she wore them on Saturday,” he added, in +a careless tone, as if to repudiate the intimacy Madame d’Espard was +fastening upon him. + +“You know the proverb,” she replied. “There is no good fete without a +morrow.” + +In the matter of repartees literary celebrities are often not as quick +as women. Raoul pretended dulness, a last resort for clever men. + +“That proverb is true in my case,” he said, looking gallantly at the +marquise. + +“My dear friend, your speech comes too late; I can’t accept it,” she +said, laughing. “Don’t be so prudish! Come, I know how it was; you +complimented Madame de Vandenesse at the ball on her marabouts and she +has put them on again for your sake. She likes you, and you adore her; +it may be a little rapid, but it is all very natural. If I were mistaken +you wouldn’t be twisting your gloves like a man who is furious at having +to sit here with me instead of flying to the box of his idol. She +has obtained,” continued Madame d’Espard, glancing at his person +impertinently, “certain sacrifices which you refused to make to society. +She ought to be delighted with her success,--in fact, I have no doubt +she is vain of it; I should be so in her place--immensely. She was never +a woman of any mind, but she may now pass for one of genius. I am sure +you will describe her in one of those delightful novels you write. +And pray don’t forget Vandenesse; put him in to please me. Really, his +self-sufficiency is too much. I can’t stand that Jupiter Olympian air of +his,--the only mythological character exempt, they say, from ill-luck.” + +“Madame,” cried Raoul, “you rate my soul very low if you think me +capable of trafficking with my feelings, my affections. Rather than +commit such literary baseness, I would do as they do in England,--put a +rope round a woman’s neck and sell her in the market.” + +“But I know Marie; she would like you to do it.” + +“She is incapable of liking it,” said Raoul, vehemently. + +“Oh! then you do know her well?” + +Nathan laughed; he, the maker of scenes, to be trapped into playing one +himself! + +“Comedy is no longer there,” he said, nodding at the stage; “it is here, +in you.” + +He took his opera-glass and looked about the theatre to recover +countenance. + +“You are not angry with me, I hope?” said the marquise, giving him a +sidelong glance. “I should have had your secret somehow. Let us make +peace. Come and see me; I receive every Wednesday, and I am sure the +dear countess will never miss an evening if I let her know you will be +there. So I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes between four +and five o’clock, and I’ll be kind and add you to the little set of +favorites I admit at that hour.” + +“Ah!” cried Raoul, “how the world judges; it calls you unkind.” + +“So I am when I need to be,” she replied. “We must defend ourselves. But +your countess I adore; you will be contented with her; she is charming. +Your name will be the first engraved upon her heart with that infantine +joy that makes a lad cut the initials of his love on the barks of +trees.” + +Raoul was aware of the danger of such conversations, in which a Parisian +woman excels; he feared the marquise would extract some admission from +him which she would instantly turn into ridicule among her friends. He +therefore withdrew, prudently, as Lady Dudley entered. + +“Well?” said the Englishwoman to the marquise, “how far have they got?” + +“They are madly in love; he has just told me so.” + +“I wish he were uglier,” said Lady Dudley, with a viperish look at Comte +Felix. “In other respects he is just what I want him: the son of a Jew +broker who died a bankrupt soon after his marriage; but the mother was a +Catholic, and I am sorry to say she made a Christian of the boy.” + +This origin, which Nathan thought carefully concealed, Lady Dudley had +just discovered, and she enjoyed by anticipation the pleasure she should +have in launching some terrible epigram against Vandenesse. + +“Heavens! I have just invited him to my house!” cried Madame d’Espard. + +“Didn’t I receive him at my ball?” replied Lady Dudley. “Some pleasures, +my dear love, are costly.” + +The news of the mutual attachment between Raoul and Madame de Vandenesse +circulated in the world after this, but not without exciting denials and +incredulity. The countess, however, was defended by her friends, Lady +Dudley, and Mesdames d’Espard and de Manerville, with an unnecessary +warmth that gave a certain color to the calumny. + +On the following Wednesday evening Raoul went to Madame d’Espard’s, +and was able to exchange a few sentences with Marie, more expressive by +their tones than their ideas. In the midst of the elegant assembly both +found pleasure in those enjoyable sensations given by the voice, the +gestures, the attitude of one beloved. The soul then fastens upon +absolute nothings. No longer do ideas or even language speak, but +things; and these so loudly, that often a man lets another pay the small +attentions--bring a cup of tea, or the sugar to sweeten it--demanded by +the woman he loves, fearful of betraying his emotion to eyes that seem +to see nothing and yet see all. Raoul, however, a man indifferent to +the eyes of the world, betrayed his passion in his speech and was +brilliantly witty. The company listened to the roar of a discourse +inspired by the restraint put upon him; restraint being that which +artists cannot endure. This Rolandic fury, this wit which slashed down +all things, using epigram as its weapon, intoxicated Marie and amused +the circle around them, as the sight of a bull goaded with banderols +amuses the company in a Spanish circus. + +“You may kick as you please, but you can’t make a solitude about you,” + whispered Blondet. + +The words brought Raoul to his senses, and he ceased to exhibit his +irritation to the company. Madame d’Espard came up to offer him a cup of +tea, and said loud enough for Madame de Vandenesse to hear:-- + +“You are certainly very amusing; come and see me sometimes at four +o’clock.” + +The word “amusing” offended Raoul, though it was used as the ground of +an invitation. Blondet took pity on him. + +“My dear fellow,” he said, taking him aside into a corner, “you are +behaving in society as if you were at Florine’s. Here no one shows +annoyance, or spouts long articles; they say a few words now and then, +they look their calmest when most desirous of flinging others out of the +window; they sneer softly, they pretend not to think of the woman they +adore, and they are careful not to roll like a donkey on the high-road. +In society, my good Raoul, conventions rule love. Either carry off +Madame de Vandenesse, or show yourself a gentleman. As it is, you are +playing the lover in one of your own books.” + +Nathan listened with his head lowered; he was like a lion caught in a +toil. + +“I’ll never set foot in this house again,” he cried. “That papier-mache +marquise sells her tea too dear. She thinks me amusing! I understand now +why Saint-Just wanted to guillotine this whole class of people.” + +“You’ll be back here to-morrow.” + +Blondet was right. Passions are as mean as they are cruel. The next day +after long hesitation between “I’ll go--I’ll not go,” Raoul left his new +partners in the midst of an important discussion and rushed to Madame +d’Espard’s house in the faubourg Saint-Honore. Beholding Rastignac’s +elegant cabriolet enter the court-yard while he was paying his cab at +the gate, Nathan’s vanity was stung; he resolved to have a cabriolet +himself, and its accompanying tiger, too. The carriage of the countess +was in the court-yard, and the sight of it swelled Raoul’s heart with +joy. Marie was advancing under the pressure of her desires with the +regularity of the hands of a clock obeying the mainspring. He found her +sitting at the corner of the fireplace in the little salon. Instead of +looking at Nathan when he was announced, she looked at his reflection in +a mirror. + +“Monsieur le ministre,” said Madame d’Espard, addressing Nathan, and +presenting him to de Marsay by a glance, “was maintaining, when you came +in, that the royalists and the republicans have a secret understanding. +You ought to know something about it; is it so?” + +“If it were so,” said Raoul, “where’s the harm? We hate the same thing; +we agree as to our hatreds, we differ only in our love. That’s the whole +of it.” + +“The alliance is odd enough,” said de Marsay, giving a comprehensively +meaning glance at the Comtesse Felix and Nathan. + +“It won’t last,” said Rastignac, thinking, perhaps, wholly of politics. + +“What do you think, my dear?” asked Madame d’Espard, addressing Marie. + +“I know nothing of public affairs,” replied the countess. + +“But you soon will, madame,” said de Marsay, “and then you will be +doubly our enemy.” + +So saying he left the room with Rastignac, and Madame d’Espard +accompanied them to the door of the first salon. The lovers had the room +to themselves for a few moments. Marie held out her ungloved hand to +Raoul, who took and kissed it as though he were eighteen years old. +The eyes of the countess expressed so noble a tenderness that the tears +which men of nervous temperament can always find at their service came +into Raoul’s eyes. + +“Where can I see you? where can I speak with you?” he said. “It is death +to be forced to disguise my voice, my look, my heart, my love--” + +Moved by that tear Marie promised to drive daily in the Bois, unless the +weather were extremely bad. This promise gave Raoul more pleasure than +he had found in Florine for the last five years. + +“I have so many things to say to you! I suffer from the silence to which +we are condemned--” + +The countess looked at him eagerly without replying, and at that moment +Madame d’Espard returned to the room. + +“Why didn’t you answer de Marsay?” she said as she entered. + +“We ought to respect the dead,” replied Raoul. “Don’t you see that he is +dying? Rastignac is his nurse,--hoping to be put in the will.” + +The countess pretended to have other visits to pay, and left the house. + +For this quarter of an hour Raoul had sacrificed important interests +and most precious time. Marie was perfectly ignorant of the life of such +men, involved in complicated affairs and burdened with exacting toil. +Women of society are still under the influence of the traditions of the +eighteenth century, in which all positions were definite and assured. +Few women know the harassments in the life of most men who in these days +have a position to make and to maintain, a fame to reach, a fortune to +consolidate. Men of settled wealth and position can now be counted; +old men alone have time to love; young men are rowing, like Nathan, +the galleys of ambition. Women are not yet resigned to this change of +customs; they suppose the same leisure of which they have too much in +those who have none; they cannot imagine other occupations, other ends +in life than their own. When a lover has vanquished the Lernean hydra in +order to pay them a visit he has no merit in their eyes; they are only +grateful to him for the pleasure he gives; they neither know nor care +what it costs. Raoul became aware as he returned from this visit how +difficult it would be to hold the reins of a love-affair in society, +the ten-horsed chariot of journalism, his dramas on the stage, and his +generally involved affairs. + +“The paper will be wretched to-night,” he thought, as he walked away. +“No article of mine, and only the second number, too!” + +Madame Felix de Vandenesse drove three times to the Bois de Boulogne +without finding Raoul; the third time she came back anxious and uneasy. +The fact was that Nathan did not choose to show himself in the Bois +until he could go there as a prince of the press. He employed a whole +week in searching for horses, a phantom and a suitable tiger, and in +convincing his partners of the necessity of saving time so precious +to them, and therefore of charging his equipage to the costs of the +journal. His associates, Massol and du Tillet agreed to this so readily +that he really believed them the best fellows in the world. Without this +help, however, life would have been simply impossible to Raoul; as it +was, it became so irksome that many men, even those of the strongest +constitutions, could not have borne it. A violent and successful +passion takes a great deal of space in an ordinary life; but when it is +connected with a woman in the social position of Madame de Vandenesse +it sucks the life out of a man as busy as Raoul. Here is a list of the +obligations his passion imposed upon him. + +Every day, or nearly every day, he was obliged to be on horseback in the +Bois, between two and three o’clock, in the careful dress of a gentleman +of leisure. He had to learn at what house or theatre he could meet +Madame de Vandenesse in the evening. He was not able to leave the party +or the play until long after midnight, having obtained nothing better +than a few tender sentences, long awaited, said in a doorway, or hastily +as he put her into her carriage. It frequently happened that Marie, who +by this time had launched him into the great world, procured for him +invitations to dinner in certain houses where she went herself. All this +seemed the simplest life in the world to her. Raoul moved by pride and +led on by his passion never told her of his labors. He obeyed the will +of this innocent sovereign, followed in her train, followed, also, the +parliamentary debates, edited and wrote for his newspaper, and put upon +the stage two plays, the money for which was absolutely indispensable +to him. It sufficed for Madame de Vandenesse to make a little face of +displeasure when he tried to excuse himself from attending a ball, a +concert, or from driving in the Bois, to compel him to sacrifice his +most pressing interests to her good pleasure. When he left society +between one and two in the morning he went straight to work until eight +or nine. He was scarcely asleep before he was obliged to be up and +concocting the opinions of his journal with the men of political +influence on whom he depended,--not to speak of the thousand and one +other details of the paper. Journalism is connected with everything in +these days; with industrial concerns, with public and private interests, +with all new enterprises, and all the schemes of literature, its +self-loves, and its products. + +When Nathan, harassed and fatigued, would rush from his editorial office +to the theatre, from the theatre to the Chamber, from the Chamber to +face certain creditors, he was forced to appear in the Bois with a calm +countenance, and gallop beside Marie’s carriage in the leisurely style +of a man devoid of cares and with no other duties than those of love. +When in return for this toilsome and wholly ignored devotion all he won +were a few sweet words, the prettiest assurances of eternal attachment, +ardent pressures of the hand on the very few occasions when they found +themselves alone, he began to feel he was rather duped by leaving +his mistress in ignorance of the enormous costs of these “little +attentions,” as our fathers called them. The occasion for an explanation +arrived in due time. + +On a fine April morning the countess accepted Nathan’s arm for a walk +through the sequestered path of the Bois de Boulogne. She intended to +make him one of those pretty little quarrels apropos of nothing, which +women are so fond of exciting. Instead of greeting him as usual, with +a smile upon her lips, her forehead illumined with pleasure, her eyes +bright with some gay or delicate thought, she assumed a grave and +serious aspect. + +“What is the matter?” said Nathan. + +“Why do you pretend to such ignorance?” she replied. “You ought to know +that a woman is not a child.” + +“Have I displeased you?” + +“Should I be here if you had?” + +“But you don’t smile to me; you don’t seem happy to see me.” + +“Oh! do you accuse me of sulking?” she said, looking at him with that +submissive air which women assume when they want to seem victims. + +Nathan walked on a few steps in a state of real apprehension which +oppressed him. + +“It must be,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “one of those frivolous +fears, those hazy suspicions which women dwell on more than they do +on the great things of life. You all have a way of tipping the world +sideways with a straw, a cobweb--” + +“Sarcasm!” she said, “I might have expected it!” + +“Marie, my angel, I only said those words to wring your secret out of +you.” + +“My secret would be always a secret, even if I told it to you.” + +“But all the same, tell it to me.” + +“I am not loved,” she said, giving him one of those sly oblique glances +with which women question so maliciously the men they are trying to +torment. + +“Not loved!” cried Nathan. + +“No; you are too occupied with other things. What am I to you in the +midst of them? forgotten on the least occasion! Yesterday I came to the +Bois and you were not here--” + +“But--” + +“I had put on a new dress expressly to please you; you did not come; +where were you?” + +“But--” + +“I did not know where. I went to Madame d’Espard’s; you were not there.” + +“But--” + +“That evening at the Opera, I watched the balcony; every time a door +opened my heart was beating!” + +“But--” + +“What an evening I had! You don’t reflect on such tempests of the +heart.” + +“But--” + +“Life is shortened by such emotions.” + +“But--” + +“Well, what?” she said. + +“You are right; life is shortened by them,” said Nathan, “and in a few +months you will utterly have consumed mine. Your unreasonable reproaches +drag my secret from me--Ha! you say you are not loved; you are loved too +well.” + +And thereupon he vividly depicted his position, told of his sleepless +nights, his duties at certain hours, the absolute necessity of +succeeding in his enterprise, the insatiable requirements of a newspaper +in which he was required to judge the events of the whole world without +blundering, under pain of losing his power, and so losing all, the +infinite amount of rapid study he was forced to give to questions which +passed as rapidly as clouds in this all-consuming age, etc., etc. + +Raoul made a great mistake. The Marquise d’Espard had said to him on +one occasion, “Nothing is more naive than a first love.” As he unfolded +before Marie’s eyes this life which seemed to her immense, the countess +was overcome with admiration. She had thought Nathan grand, she now +considered him sublime. She blamed herself for loving him too much; +begged him to come to her only when he could do so without difficulty. +Wait? indeed she could wait! In future, she should know how to sacrifice +her enjoyments. Wishing to be his stepping-stone was she really an +obstacle? She wept with despair. + +“Women,” she said, with tears in her eyes, “can only love; men act; they +have a thousand ways in which they are bound to act. But we can only +think, and pray, and worship.” + +A love that had sacrificed so much for her sake deserved a recompense. +She looked about her like a nightingale descending from a leafy covert +to drink at a spring, to see if she were alone in the solitude, if the +silence hid no witness; then she raised her head to Raoul, who bent his +own, and let him take one kiss, the first and the only one that she ever +gave in secret, feeling happier at that moment than she had felt in five +years. Raoul thought all his toils well-paid. They both walked forward +they scarcely knew where, but it was on the road to Auteuil; presently, +however, they were forced to return and find their carriages, pacing +together with the rhythmic step well-known to lovers. Raoul had faith in +that kiss given with the quiet facility of a sacred sentiment. All the +evil of it was in the mind of the world, not in that of the woman who +walked beside him. Marie herself, given over to the grateful admiration +which characterizes the love of woman, walked with a firm, light step +on the gravelled path, saying, like Raoul, but few words; yet those few +were felt and full of meaning. The sky was cloudless, the tall trees had +burgeoned, a few green shoots were already brightening their myriad +of brown twigs. The shrubs, the birches, the willows, the poplars were +showing their first diaphanous and tender foliage. No soul resists these +harmonies. Love explained Nature as it had already explained society to +Marie’s heart. + +“I wish you have never loved any one but me,” she said. + +“Your wish is realized,” replied Raoul. “We have awakened in each other +the only true love.” + +He spoke the truth as he felt it. Posing before this innocent +young heart as a pure man, Raoul was caught himself by his own fine +sentiments. At first purely speculative and born of vanity, his love had +now become sincere. He began by lying, he had ended in speaking truth. +In all writers there is ever a sentiment, difficult to stifle, which +impels them to admire the highest good. The countess, on her part, after +her first rush of gratitude and surprise, was charmed to have inspired +such sacrifices, to have caused him to surmount such difficulties. She +was beloved by a man who was worthy of her! Raoul was totally ignorant +to what his imaginary grandeur bound him. Women will not suffer their +idol to step down from his pedestal. They do not forgive the slightest +pettiness in a god. Marie was far from knowing the solution to the +riddle given by Raoul to his friends at Very’s. The struggle of this +writer, risen from the lower classes, had cost him the ten first years +of his youth; and now in the days of his success he longed to be loved +by one of the queens of the great world. Vanity, without which, as +Champfort says, love would be but a feeble thing, sustained his passion +and increased it day by day. + +“Can you swear to me,” said Marie, “that you belong and will never +belong to any other woman?” + +“There is neither time in my life nor place in my heart for any other +woman,” replied Raoul, not thinking that he told a lie, so little did he +value Florine. + +“I believe you,” she said. + +When they reached the alley where their carriages were waiting, Marie +dropped Raoul’s arm, and the young man assumed a respectful and distant +attitude as if he had just met her; he accompanied her, with his hat +off, to her carriage, then he followed her by the Avenue Charles X., +breathing in, with satisfaction, the very dust her caleche raised. + +In spite of Marie’s high renunciations, Raoul continued to follow her +everywhere; he adored the air of mingled pleasure and displeasure with +which she scolded him for wasting his precious time. She took direction +of his labors, she gave him formal orders on the employment of his time; +she stayed at home to deprive him of every pretext for dissipation. +Every morning she read his paper, and became the herald of his staff +of editors, of Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, whom she thought +delightful, of Felicien Vernou, of Claude Vignon,--in short, of the +whole staff. She advised Raoul to do justice to de Marsay when he died, +and she read with deep emotion the noble eulogy which Raoul published +upon the dead minister while blaming his Machiavelianism and his hatred +for the masses. She was present, of course, at the Gymnase on the +occasion of the first representation of the play upon the proceeds of +which Nathan relied to support his enterprise, and was completely duped +by the purchased applause. + +“You did not bid farewell to the Italian opera,” said Lady Dudley, to +whose house she went after the performance. + +“No, I went to the Gymnase. They gave a first representation.” + +“I can’t endure vaudevilles. I am like Louis XIV. about Teniers,” said +Lady Dudley. + +“For my part,” said Madame d’Espard, “I think actors have greatly +improved. Vaudevilles in the present day are really charming comedies, +full of wit, requiring great talent; they amuse me very much.” + +“The actors are excellent, too,” said Marie. “Those at the Gymnase +played very well to-night; the piece pleased them; the dialogue was +witty and keen.” + +“Like those of Beaumarchais,” said Lady Dudley. + +“Monsieur Nathan is not Moliere as yet, but--” said Madame d’Espard, +looking at the countess. + +“He makes vaudevilles,” said Madame Charles de Vandenesse. + +“And unmakes ministries,” added Madame de Manerville. + +The countess was silent; she wanted to answer with a sharp repartee; her +heart was bounding with anger, but she could find nothing better to say +than,-- + +“He will make them, perhaps.” + +All the women looked at each other with mysterious significance. When +Marie de Vandenesse departed Moina de Saint-Heren exclaimed:-- + +“She adores him.” + +“And she makes no secret of it,” said Madame d’Espard. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. SUICIDE + + +In the month of May Vandenesse took his wife, as usual, to their +country-seat, where she was consoled by the passionate letters she +received from Raoul, to whom she wrote every day. + +Marie’s absence might have saved Raoul from the gulf into which he was +falling, if Florine had been near him; but, unfortunately, he was alone +in the midst of friends who had become his enemies from the moment that +he showed his intention of ruling them. His staff of writers hated him +“pro tem.,” ready to hold out a hand to him and console him in case of +a fall, ready to adore him in case of success. So goes the world of +literature. No one is really liked but an inferior. Every man’s hand +is against him who is likely to rise. This wide-spread envy doubles the +chances of common minds who excite neither envy nor suspicion, who +make their way like moles, and, fools though they be, find themselves +gazetted in the “Moniteur,” for three or four places, while men of +talent are still struggling at the door to keep each other out. + +The underhand enmity of these pretended friends, which Florine would +have scented with the innate faculty of a courtesan to get at truth amid +a thousand misleading circumstances, was by no means Raoul’s greatest +danger. His partners, Massol the lawyer, and du Tillet the banker, had +intended from the first to harness his ardor to the chariot of their own +importance and get rid of him as soon as he was out of condition to feed +the paper, or else to deprive him of his power, arbitrarily, whenever +it suited their purpose to take it. To them Nathan represented a certain +amount of talent to use up, a literary force of the motive power of ten +pens to employ. Massol, one of those lawyers who mistake the faculty +of endless speech for eloquence, who possess the art of boring by +diffusiveness, the torment of all meetings and assemblies where +they belittle everything, and who desire to become personages at any +cost,--Massol no longer wanted the place as Keeper of the Seals; he +had seen some five or six different men go through that office in four +years, and the robes disgusted him. In exchange, his mind was now set on +obtaining a chair on the Board of Education and a place in the Council +of State; the whole adorned with the cross of the Legion of honor. Du +Tillet and Nucingen had guaranteed the cross to him, and the office of +Master of Petitions provided he obeyed them blindly. + +The better to deceive Raoul, these men allowed him to manage the paper +without control. Du Tillet used it only for his stock-gambling, about +which Nathan understood next to nothing; but he had given, through +Nucingen, an assurance to Rastignac that the paper would be tacitly +obliging to the government on the sole condition of supporting his +candidacy for Monsieur de Nucingen’s place as soon as he was nominated +peer of France. Raoul was thus being undermined by the banker and the +lawyer, who saw him with much satisfaction lording it in the newspaper, +profiting by all advantages, and harvesting the fruits of self-love, +while Nathan, enchanted, believed them to be, as on the occasion of his +equestrian wants, the best fellows in the world. He thought he managed +them! Men of imagination, to whom hope is the basis of existence, never +allow themselves to know that the most perilous moment in their affairs +is that when all seems going well according to their wishes. + +This was a period of triumph by which Nathan profited. He appeared as a +personage in the world, political and financial. Du Tillet presented him +to the Nucingens. Madame de Nucingen received him cordially, less for +himself than for Madame de Vandenesse; but when she ventured a few +words about the countess he thought himself marvellously clever in using +Florine as a shield; he alluded to his relations with the actress in a +tone of generous self-conceit. How could he desert a great devotion, for +the coquetries of the faubourg Saint-Germain? + +Nathan, manipulated by Nucingen and Rastignac, by du Tillet and Blondet, +gave his support ostentatiously to the “doctrinaires” of their new and +ephemeral cabinet. But in order to show himself pure of all bribery he +refused to take advantage of certain profitable enterprises which +were started by means of his paper,--he! who had no reluctance in +compromising friends or in behaving with little decency to mechanics +under certain circumstances. Such meannesses, the result of vanity +and of ambition, are found in many lives like his. The mantle must be +splendid before the eyes of the world, and we steal our friend’s or a +poor man’s cloth to patch it. + +Nevertheless, two months after the departure of the countess, Raoul had +a certain Rabelaisian “quart d’heure” which caused him some anxiety in +the midst of these triumphs. Du Tillet had advanced a hundred thousand +francs, Florine’s money had gone in the costs of the first establishment +of the paper, which were enormous. It was necessary to provide for the +future. The banker agreed to let the editor have fifty thousand francs +on notes for four months. Du Tillet thus held Raoul by the halter of an +IOU. By means of this relief the funds of the paper were secured for six +months. In the eyes of some writers six months is an eternity. +Besides, by dint of advertising and by offering illusory advantages to +subscribers two thousand had been secured; an influx of travellers added +to this semi-success, which was enough, perhaps, to excuse the throwing +of more bank-bills after the rest. A little more display of talent, a +timely political trial or crisis, an apparent persecution, and Raoul +felt certain of becoming one of those modern “condottieri” whose ink is +worth more than powder and shot of the olden time. + +This loan from du Tillet was already made when Florine returned with +fifty thousand francs. Instead of creating a savings fund with that sum, +Raoul, certain of success (simply because he felt it was necessary), +and already humiliated at having accepted the actress’s money, deceived +Florine as to his actual position, and persuaded her to employ the money +in refurnishing her house. The actress, who did not need persuasion, +not only spent the sum in hand, but she burdened herself with a debt of +thirty thousand francs, with which she obtained a charming little house +all to herself in the rue Pigale, whither her old society resorted. +Raoul had reserved the production of his great piece, in which was +a part especially suited to Florine, until her return. This +comedy-vaudeville was to be Raoul’s farewell to the stage. The +newspapers, with that good nature which costs nothing, prepared the way +for such an ovation to Florine that even the Theatre-Francais talked of +engaging her. The feuilletons proclaimed her the heiress of Mars. + +This triumph was sufficiently dazzling to prevent Florine from carefully +studying the ground on which Nathan was advancing; she lived, for the +time being, in a round of festivities and glory. According to those +about her, he was now a great political character; he was justified in +his enterprise; he would certainly be a deputy, probably a minister in +course of time, like so many others. As for Nathan himself, he firmly +believed that in the next session of the Chamber he should find himself +in government with two other journalists, one of whom, already a +minister, was anxious to associate some of his own craft with himself, +and so consolidate his power. After a separation of six months, Nathan +met Florine again with pleasure, and returned easily to his old way of +life. All his comforts came from the actress, but he embroidered the +heavy tissue of his life with the flowers of ideal passion; his letters +to Marie were masterpieces of grace and style. Nathan made her the +light of his life; he undertook nothing without consulting his “guardian +angel.” In despair at being on the popular side, he talked of going over +to that of the aristocracy; but, in spite of his habitual agility, +even he saw the absolute impossibility of such a jump; it was easier +to become a minister. Marie’s precious replies were deposited in one +of those portfolios with patent locks made by Huret or Fichet, two +mechanics who were then waging war in advertisements and posters all +over Paris, as to which could make the safest and most impenetrable +locks. + +This portfolio was left about in Florine’s new boudoir, where Nathan did +much of his work. No one is easier to deceive than a woman to whom a man +is in the habit of telling everything; she has no suspicions; she thinks +she sees and hears and knows all. Besides, since her return, Nathan had +led the most regular of lives under her very nose. Never did she +imagine that that portfolio, which she hardly glanced at as it lay there +unconcealed, contained the letters of a rival, treasures of admiring +love which the countess addressed, at Raoul’s request, to the office of +his newspaper. + +Nathan’s situation was, therefore, to all appearance, extremely +brilliant. He had many friends. The two plays lately produced had +succeeded well, and their proceeds supplied his personal wants and +relieved him of all care for the future. His debt to du Tillet, “his +friend,” did not make him in the least uneasy. + +“Why distrust a friend?” he said to Blondet, who from time to time +would cast a doubt on his position, led to do so by his general habit of +analyzing. + +“But we don’t need to distrust our enemies,” remarked Florine. + +Nathan defended du Tillet; he was the best, the most upright of men. + +This existence, which was really that of a dancer on the tight rope +without his balance-pole, would have alarmed any one, even the most +indifferent, had it been seen as it really was. Du Tillet watched it +with the cool eye and the cynicism of a parvenu. Through the friendly +good humor of his intercourse with Raoul there flashed now and then a +malignant jeer. One day, after pressing his hand in Florine’s boudoir +and watching him as he got into his carriage, du Tillet remarked to +Lousteau (envier par excellence):-- + +“That fellow is off to the Bois in fine style to-day, but he is just as +likely, six months hence, to be in a debtor’s prison.” + +“He? never!” cried Lousteau. “He has Florine.” + +“How do you know that he’ll keep her? As for you, who are worth a +dozen of him, I predict that you will be our editor-in-chief within six +months.” + +In October Nathan’s notes to du Tillet fell due, and the banker +graciously renewed them, but for two months only, with the discount +added and a fresh loan. Sure of victory, Raoul was not afraid of +continuing to put his hand in the bag. Madame Felix de Vandenesse was +to return in a few days, a month earlier than usual, brought back, of +course, by her unconquerable desire to see Nathan, who felt that he +could not be short of money at a time when he renewed that assiduous +life. + +Correspondence, in which the pen is always bolder than speech, and +thought, wreathing itself with flowers, allows itself to be seen without +disguise, and brought the countess to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. +She believed she saw in Raoul one of the noblest spirits of the epoch, +a delicate but misjudged heart without a stain and worthy of adoration; +she saw him advancing with a brave hand to grasp the sceptre of power. +Soon that speech so beautiful in love would echo from the tribune. Marie +now lived only in this life of a world outside her own. Her taste was +lost for the tranquil joys of home, and she gave herself up to the +agitations of this whirlwind life communicated by a clever and adoring +pen. She kissed Raoul’s letters, written in the midst of the ceaseless +battles of the press, with time taken from necessary studies; she felt +their value; she was certain of being loved, and loved only, with no +rival but the fame and ambition he adored. She found enough in her +country solitude to fill her soul and employ her faculties,--happy, +indeed, to have been so chosen by such a man, who to her was an angel. + +During the last days of autumn Marie and Raoul again met and renewed +their walks in the Bois, where alone they could see each other until +the salons reopened. But when the winter fairly began, Raoul appeared in +social life at his apogee. He was almost a personage. Rastignac, now +out of power with the ministry, which went to pieces on the death of de +Marsay, leaned upon Nathan, and gave him in return the warmest praise. +Madame de Vandenesse, feeling this change in public opinion, was +desirous of knowing if her husband’s judgment had altered also. She +questioned him again; perhaps with the hope of obtaining one of those +brilliant revenges which please all women, even the noblest and least +worldly,--for may we not believe that even the angels retain some +portion of their self-love as they gather in serried ranks before the +Holy of Holies? + +“Nothing was wanting to Raoul Nathan but to be the dupe he now is to a +parcel of intriguing sharpers,” replied the count. + +Felix, whose knowledge of the world and politics enabled him to judge +clearly, had seen Nathan’s true position. He explained to his wife that +Fieschi’s attempt had resulted in attaching to the interests threatened +by this attack on Louis-Philippe a large body of hitherto lukewarm +persons. The newspapers which were non-committal, and did not show their +colors, would lose subscribers; for journalism, like politics, was about +to be simplified by falling into regular lines. If Nathan had put his +whole fortune into that newspaper he would lose it. This judgment, +so apparently just and clear-cut, though brief and given by a man +who fathomed a matter in which he had no interest, alarmed Madame de +Vandenesse. + +“Do you take an interest in him?” asked her husband. + +“Only as a man whose mind interests me and whose conversation I like.” + +This reply was made so naturally that the count suspected nothing. + +The next day at four o’clock, Marie and Raoul had a long conversation +together, in a low voice, in Madame d’Espard’s salon. The countess +expressed fears which Raoul dissipated, only too happy to destroy +by epigrams the conjugal judgment. Nathan had a revenge to take. He +characterized the count as narrow-minded, behind the age, a man who +judged the revolution of July with the eyes of the Restoration, who +would never be willing to admit the triumph of the middle-classes--the +new force of all societies, whether temporary or lasting, but a real +force. Instead of turning his mind to the study of an opinion given +impartially and incidentally by a man well-versed in politics, Raoul +mounted his stilts and stalked about in the purple of his own glory. +Where is the woman who would not have believed his glowing talk sooner +than the cold logic of her husband? Madame de Vandenesse, completely +reassured, returned to her life of little enjoyments, clandestine +pressures of the hand, occasional quarrels,--in short, to her +nourishment of the year before, harmless in itself, but likely to drag a +woman over the border if the man she favors is resolute and impatient +of obstacles. Happily for her, Nathan was not dangerous. Besides, he +was too full of his immediate self-interests to think at this time of +profiting by his love. + +But toward the end of December, when the second notes fell due, du +Tillet demanded payment. The rich banker, who said he was embarrassed, +advised Raoul to borrow the money for a short time from a usurer, from +Gigonnet, the providence of all young men who were pressed for money. In +January, he remarked, the renewal of subscriptions to the paper would be +coming in, there would be plenty of money in hand, and they could then +see what had best be done. Besides, couldn’t Nathan write a play? As a +matter of pride Raoul determined to pay off the notes at once. Du Tillet +gave Raoul a letter to Gigonnet, who counted out the money on a note of +Nathan’s at twenty days’ sight. Instead of asking himself the reason of +such unusual facility, Raoul felt vexed at his folly in not having asked +for more. That is how men who are truly remarkable for the power of +thought are apt to behave in practical business; they seem to reserve +the power of their mind for their writings, and are fearful of lessening +it by putting it to use in the daily affairs of life. + +Raoul related his morning to Florine and Blondet. He gave them an +inimitable sketch of Gigonnet, his fireplace without fire, his shabby +wall-paper, his stairway, his asthmatic bell, his aged straw mattress, +his den without warmth, like his eye. He made them laugh about this +new uncle; they neither troubled themselves about du Tillet and his +pretended want of money, nor about an old usurer so ready to disburse. +What was there to worry about in that? + +“He has only asked you fifteen per cent,” said Blondet; “you ought to +be grateful to him. At twenty-five per cent you don’t bow to those old +fellows. This is money-lending; usury doesn’t begin till fifty per cent; +and then you despise the usurer.” + +“Despise him!” cried Florine; “if any of your friends lent you money at +that price they’d pose as your benefactors.” + +“She is right; and I am glad I don’t owe anything now to du Tillet,” + said Raoul. + +Why this lack of penetration as to their personal affairs in men whose +business it is to penetrate all things? Perhaps the mind cannot be +complete at all points; perhaps artists of every kind live too much in +the present moment to study the future; perhaps they are too observant +of the ridiculous to notice snares, or they may believe that none would +dare to lay a snare for such as they. However this may be, the future +arrived in due time. Twenty days later Raoul’s notes were protested, but +Florine obtained from the Court of commerce an extension of twenty-five +days in which to meet them. Thus pressed, Raoul looked into his affairs +and asked for the accounts, and it then appeared that the receipts +of the newspaper covered only two-thirds of the expenses, while the +subscriptions were rapidly dwindling. The great man now grew anxious +and gloomy, but to Florine only, in whom he confided. She advised him to +borrow money on unwritten plays, and write them at once, giving a lien +on his work. Nathan followed this advice and obtained thereby twenty +thousand francs, which reduced his debt to forty thousand. + +On the 10th of February the twenty-five days expired. Du Tillet, who did +not want Nathan as a rival before the electoral college, where he meant +to appear himself, instigated Gigonnet to sue Nathan without compromise. +A man locked up for debt could not present himself as a candidate for +election. Florine was herself in communication with the sheriff on the +subject of her personal debts, and no resource was left to her but the +“I” of Medea, for her new furniture and belongings were now attached. +The ambitious Raoul heard the cracking in all directions of his +prosperous edifice, built, alas! without foundations. His nerve failed +him; too weak already to sustain so vast an enterprise, he felt himself +incapable of attempting to build it up again; he was fated to perish in +its ashes. Love for the countess gave him still a few thrills of life; +his mask brightened for a moment, but behind it hope was dead. He did +not suspect the hand of du Tillet, and laid the blame of his misfortune +on the usurer. Rastignac, Blondet, Lousteau, Vernou, Finot, and Massol +took care not to enlighten him. Rastignac, who wanted to return to +power, made common cause with Nucingen and du Tillet. The others felt +a satisfaction in the catastrophe of an equal who had attempted to make +himself their master. None of them, however, would have said a word to +Florine; on the contrary, they praised Raoul to her. + +“Nathan,” they said, “has the shoulders of an Atlas; he’ll pull himself +through; all will come right.” + +“There were two new subscribers yesterday,” said Blondet, gravely. +“Raoul will certainly be elected deputy. As soon as the budget is voted +the dissolution is sure to take place.” + +But Nathan, sued, could no longer obtain even usury; Florine, with all +her personal property attached, could count on nothing but inspiring a +passion in some fool who might not appear at the right moment. Nathan’s +friends were all men without money and without credit. An arrest for +debt would destroy his hopes of a political career; and besides all +this, he had bound himself to do an immense amount of dramatic work for +which he had already received payment. He could see no bottom to the +gulf of misery that lay before him, into which he was about to roll. In +presence of such threatened evil his boldness deserted him. Would the +Comtesse de Vandenesse stand by him? Would she fly with him? Women are +never led into a gulf of that kind except by an absolute love, and the +love of Raoul and Marie had not bound them together by the mysterious +and inalienable ties of happiness. But supposing that the countess did +follow him to some foreign country; she would come without fortune, +despoiled of everything, and then, alas! she would merely be one more +embarrassment to him. A mind of a second order, and a proud mind like +that of Nathan, would be likely to see, under these circumstances, and +did see, in suicide the sword to cut the Gordian knots. The idea of +failure in the face of the world and that society he had so lately +entered and meant to rule, of leaving the chariot of the countess and +becoming once more a muddied pedestrian, was more than he could bear. +Madness began to dance and whirl and shake her bells at the gates of the +fantastic palace in which the poet had been dreaming. In this extremity, +Nathan waited for some lucky accident, determined not to kill himself +until the final moment. + +During the last days employed by the legal formalities required before +proceeding to arrest for debt, Raoul went about, in spite of himself, +with that coldly sullen and morose expression of face which may be +noticed in persons who are either fated to commit suicide or are +meditating it. The funereal ideas they are turning over in their minds +appear upon their foreheads in gray and cloudy tints, their smile has +something fatalistic in it, their motions are solemn. These unhappy +beings seem to want to suck the last juices of the life they mean to +leave; their eyes see things invisible, their ears are listening to a +death-knell, they pay no attention to the minor things about them. These +alarming symptoms Marie perceived one evening at Lady Dudley’s. Raoul +was sitting apart on a sofa in the boudoir, while the rest of the +company were conversing in the salon. The countess went to the door, but +he did not raise his head; he heard neither Marie’s breathing nor the +rustle of her silk dress; he was gazing at a flower in the carpet, with +fixed eyes, stupid with grief; he felt he had rather die than abdicate. +All the world can’t have the rock of Saint Helena for a pedestal. +Moreover, suicide was then the fashion in Paris. Is it not, in fact, the +last resource of all atheistical societies? Raoul, as he sat there, had +decided that the moment had come to die. Despair is in proportion to our +hopes; that of Raoul had no other issue than the grave. + +“What is the matter?” cried Marie, flying to him. + +“Nothing,” he answered. + +There is one way of saying that word “nothing” between lovers which +signifies its exact contrary. Marie shrugged her shoulders. + +“You are a child,” she said. “Some misfortune has happened to you.” + +“No, not to me,” he replied. “But you will know all soon enough, Marie,” + he added, affectionately. + +“What were you thinking of when I came in?” she asked, in a tone of +authority. + +“Do you want to know the truth?” She nodded. “I was thinking of you; I +was saying to myself that most men in my place would have wanted to be +loved without reserve. I am loved, am I not?” + +“Yes,” she answered. + +“And yet,” he said, taking her round the waist and kissing her forehead +at the risk of being seen, “I leave you pure and without remorse. I +could have dragged you into an abyss, but you remain in all your glory +on its brink without a stain. Yet one thought troubles me--” + +“What is it?” she asked. + +“You will despise me.” She smiled superbly. “Yes, you will never believe +that I have sacredly loved you; I shall be disgraced, I know that. Women +never imagine that from the depths of our mire we raise our eyes to +heaven and truly adore a Marie. They assail that sacred love with +miserable doubts; they cannot believe that men of intellect and poesy +can so detach their soul from earthly enjoyment as to lay it pure upon +some cherished altar. And yet, Marie, the worship of the ideal is more +fervent in men then in women; we find it in women, who do not even look +for it in us.” + +“Why are you making me that article?” she said, jestingly. + +“I am leaving France; and you will hear to-morrow, how and why, from a +letter my valet will bring you. Adieu, Marie.” + +Raoul left the house after again straining the countess to his heart +with dreadful pressure, leaving her stupefied and distressed. + +“What is the matter, my dear?” said Madame d’Espard, coming to look for +her. “What has Monsieur Nathan been saying to you? He has just left +us in a most melodramatic way. Perhaps you are too reasonable or too +unreasonable with him.” + +The countess got into a hackney-coach and was driven rapidly to the +newspaper office. At that hour the huge apartments which they occupied +in an old mansion in the rue Feydeau were deserted; not a soul was there +but the watchman, who was greatly surprised to see a young and pretty +woman hurrying through the rooms in evident distress. She asked him to +tell her where was Monsieur Nathan. + +“At Mademoiselle Florine’s, probably,” replied the man, taking Marie for +a rival who intended to make a scene. + +“Where does he work?” + +“In his office, the key of which he carries in his pocket.” + +“I wish to go there.” + +The man took her to a dark little room looking out on a rear court-yard. +The office was at right angles. Opening the window of the room she was +in, the countess could look through into the window of the office, and +she saw Nathan sitting there in the editorial arm-chair. + +“Break in the door, and be silent about all this; I’ll pay you well,” + she said. “Don’t you see that Monsieur Nathan is dying?” + +The man got an iron bar from the press-room, with which he burst in the +door. Raoul had actually smothered himself, like any poor work-girl, +with a pan of charcoal. He had written a letter to Blondet, which lay on +the table, in which he asked him to ascribe his death to apoplexy. The +countess, however, had arrived in time; she had Raoul carried to her +coach, and then, not knowing where else to care for him, she took him to +a hotel, engaged a room, and sent for a doctor. In a few hours Raoul was +out of danger; but the countess did not leave him until she had obtained +a general confession of the causes of his act. When he had poured into +her heart the dreadful elegy of his woes, she said, in order to make him +willing to live:-- + +“I can arrange all that.” + +But, nevertheless, she returned home with a heart oppressed with the +same anxieties and ideas that had darkened Nathan’s brow the night +before. + +“Well, what was the matter with your sister?” said Felix, when his wife +returned. “You look distressed.” + +“It is a dreadful history about which I am bound to secrecy,” she said, +summoning all her nerve to appear calm before him. + +In order to be alone and to think at her ease, she went to the Opera +in the evening, after which she resolved to go (as we have seen) and +discharge her heart into that of her sister, Madame du Tillet; relating +to her the horrible scene of the morning, and begging her advice and +assistance. Neither the one nor the other could then know that du Tillet +himself had lighted the charcoal of the vulgar brazier, the sight of +which had so justly terrified the countess. + +“He has but me in all the world,” said Marie to her sister, “and I will +not fail him.” + +That speech contains the secret motive of most women; they can be heroic +when they are certain of being all in all to a grand and irreproachable +being. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. A LOVER SAVED AND LOST + + +Du Tillet had heard some talk even in financial circles of the more or +less possible adoration of his sister-in-law for Nathan; but he was +one of those who denied it, thinking it incompatible with Raoul’s +known relations with Florine. The actress would certainly drive off the +countess, or vice versa. But when, on coming home that evening, he found +his sister-in-law with a perturbed face, in consultation with his wife +about money, it occurred to him that Raoul had, in all probability, +confided to her his situation. The countess must therefore love him; +she had doubtless come to obtain from her sister the sum due to old +Gigonnet. Madame du Tillet, unaware, of course, of the reasons for +her husband’s apparently supernatural penetration, had shown such +stupefaction when he told her the sum wanted, that du Tillet’s +suspicions became certainties. He was sure now that he held the thread +of all Nathan’s possible manoeuvres. + +No one knew that the unhappy man himself was in bed in a small hotel in +the rue du Mail, under the name of the office watchman, to whom Marie +had promised five hundred francs if he kept silence as to the events of +the preceding night and morning. Thus bribed, the man, whose name +was Francois Quillet, went back to the office and left word with the +portress that Monsieur Nathan had been taken ill in consequence of +overwork, and was resting. Du Tillet was therefore not surprised at +Raoul’s absence. It was natural for the journalist to hide under any +such pretence to avoid arrest. When the sheriff’s spies made inquiries +they learned that a lady had carried him away in a public coach early +in the morning; but it took three days to ferret out the number of the +coach, question the driver, and find the hotel where the debtor was +recovering his strength. Thus Marie’s prompt action had really gained +for Nathan a truce of four days. + +Both sisters passed a cruel night. Such a catastrophe casts the lurid +gleams of its charcoal over the whole of life, showing reefs, pools, +depths, where the eye has hitherto seen only summits and grandeurs. +Struck by the horrible picture of a young man lying back in his chair +to die, with the last proofs of his paper before him, containing in type +his last thoughts, poor Madame du Tillet could think of nothing else +than how to save him and restore a life so precious to her sister. It +is the nature of our mind to see effects before we analyze their causes. +Eugenie recurred to her first idea of consulting Madame Delphine de +Nucingen, with whom she was to dine, and she resolved to make the +attempt, not doubting of success. Generous, like all persons who are not +bound in the polished steel armor of modern society, Madame du Tillet +resolved to take the whole matter upon herself. + +The countess, on the other hand, happy in the thought that she had saved +Raoul’s life, spent the night in devising means to obtain the forty +thousand francs. In emergencies like these women are sublime; they find +contrivances which would astonish thieves, business men, and usurers, +if those three classes of industrials were capable of being astonished. +First, the countess sold her diamonds and decided on wearing paste; then +she resolved to ask the money from Vandenesse on her sister’s account; +but these were dishonorable means, and her soul was too noble not to +recoil at them; she merely conceived them, and cast them from her. +Ask money of Vandenesse to give to Nathan! She bounded in her bed with +horror at such baseness. Wear false diamonds to deceive her husband! +Next she thought of borrowing the money from the Rothschilds, who had +so much, or from the archbishop of Paris, whose mission it was to help +persons in distress; darting thus from thought to thought, seeking help +in all. She deplored belonging to a class opposed to the government. +Formerly, she could easily have borrowed the money on the steps of the +throne. She thought of appealing to her father, the Comte de Granville. +But that great magistrate had a horror of illegalities; his children +knew how little he sympathized with the trials of love; he was now a +misanthrope and held all affairs of the heart in horror. As for the +Comtesse de Granville, she was living a retired life on one of her +estates in Normandy, economizing and praying, ending her days between +priests and money-bags, cold as ever to her dying moment. Even supposing +that Marie had time to go to Bayeux and implore her, would her mother +give her such a sum unless she explained why she wanted it? Could she +say she had debts? Yes, perhaps her mother would be softened by the +wants of her favorite child. Well, then! in case all other means failed, +she _would_ go to Normandy. The dreadful sight of the morning, the +effects she had made to revive Nathan, the hours passed beside his +pillow, his broken confession, the agony of a great soul, a vast genius +stopped in its upward flight by a sordid vulgar obstacle,--all these +things rushed into her memory and stimulated her love. She went over +and over her emotions, and felt her love to be deeper in these days +of misery than in those of Nathan’s fame and grandeur. She felt the +nobility of his last words said to her in Lady Dudley’s boudoir. What +sacredness in that farewell! What grandeur in the immolation of a +selfish happiness which would have been her torture! The countess had +longed for emotions, and now she had them,--terrible, cruel, and yet +most precious. She lived a deeper life in pain than in pleasure. With +what delight she said to herself: “I have saved him once, and I will +save him again.” She heard him cry out when he felt her lips upon his +forehead, “Many a poor wretch does not know what love is!” + +“Are you ill?” said her husband, coming into her room to take her to +breakfast. + +“I am dreadfully worried about a matter that is happening at my +sister’s,” she replied, without actually telling a lie. + +“Your sister has fallen into bad hands,” replied Felix. “It is a shame +for any family to have a du Tillet in it,--a man without honor of any +kind. If disaster happened to her she would get no pity from him.” + +“What woman wants pity?” said the countess, with a convulsive motion. “A +man’s sternness is to us our only pardon.” + +“This is not the first time that I read your noble heart,” said the +count. “A woman who thinks as you do needs no watching.” + +“Watching!” she said; “another shame that recoils on you.” + +Felix smiled, but Marie blushed. When women are secretly to blame they +often show ostensibly the utmost womanly pride. It is a dissimulation of +mind for which we ought to be obliged to them. The deception is full of +dignity, if not of grandeur. Marie wrote two lines to Nathan under the +name of Monsieur Quillet, to tell him that all went well, and sent them +by a street porter to the hotel du Mail. That night, at the Opera, Felix +thought it very natural that she should wish to leave her box and go to +that of her sister, and he waited till du Tillet had left his wife +to give Marie his arm and take her there. Who can tell what emotions +agitated her as she went through the corridors and entered her sister’s +box with a face that was outwardly serene and calm! + +“Well?” she said, as soon as they were alone. + +Eugenie’s face was an answer; it was bright with a joy which some +persons might have attributed to the satisfaction of vanity. + +“He can be saved, dear; but for three months only; during which time we +must plan some other means of doing it permanently. Madame de Nucingen +wants four notes of hand, each for ten thousand francs, endorsed by any +one, no matter who, so as not to compromise you. She explained to me how +they were made, but I couldn’t understand her. Monsieur Nathan, however, +can make them for us. I thought of Schmucke, our old master. I am sure +he could be very useful in this emergency; he will endorse the notes. +You must add to the four notes a letter in which you guarantee +their payment to Madame de Nucingen, and she will give you the money +to-morrow. Do the whole thing yourself; don’t trust it to any one. I +feel sure that Schmucke will make no objection. To divert all suspicion +I told Madame de Nucingen you wanted to oblige our old music-master who +was in distress, and I asked her to keep the matter secret.” + +“You have the sense of angels! I only hope Madame de Nucingen won’t tell +of it until after she gives me the money,” said the countess. + +“Schmucke lives in the rue de Nevers on the quai Conti; don’t forget the +address, and go yourself.” + +“Thanks!” said the countess, pressing her sister’s hand. “Ah! I’d give +ten years of life--” + +“Out of your old age--” + +“If I could put an end to these anxieties,” said the countess, smiling +at the interruption. + +The persons who were at that moment levelling their opera-glasses at the +two sisters might well have supposed them engaged in some light-hearted +talk; but any observer who had come to the Opera more for the pleasure +of watching faces than for mere idle amusement might have guessed them +in trouble, from the anxious look which followed the momentary smiles +on their charming faces. Raoul, who did not fear the bailiffs at night, +appeared, pale and ashy, with anxious eye and gloomy brow, on the step +of the staircase where he regularly took his stand. He looked for the +Countess in her box and, finding it empty, buried his face in his hands, +leaning his elbows on the balustrade. + +“Can she be here!” he thought. + +“Look up, unhappy hero,” whispered Mme. du Tillet. + +As for Marie, at all risks she fixed on him that steady magnetic gaze, +in which the will flashes from the eye, as rays of light from the sun. +Such a look, mesmerizers say, penetrates to the person on whom it is +directed, and certainly Raoul seemed as though struck by a magic wand. +Raising his head, his eyes met those of the sisters. With that charming +feminine readiness which is never at fault, Mme. de Vandenesse seized +a cross, sparkling on her neck, and directed his attention to it by a +swift smile, full of meaning. The brilliance of the gem radiated +even upon Raoul’s forehead, and he replied with a look of joy; he had +understood. + +“Is it nothing then, Eugenie,” said the Countess, “thus to restore life +to the dead?” + +“You have a chance yet with the Royal Humane Society,” replied Eugenie, +with a smile. + +“How wretched and depressed he looked when he came, and how happy he +will go away!” + +At this moment du Tillet, coming up to Raoul with every mark of +friendliness, pressed his hand, and said: + +“Well, old fellow, how are you?” + +“As well as a man is likely to be who has just got the best possible +news of the election. I shall be successful,” replied Raoul, radiant. + +“Delighted,” said du Tillet. “We shall want money for the paper.” + +“The money will be found,” said Raoul. + +“The devil is with these women!” exclaimed du Tillet, still unconvinced +by the words of Raoul, whom he had nicknamed Charnathan. + +“What are you talking about?” said Raoul. + +“My sister-in-law is there with my wife, and they are hatching something +together. You seem in high favor with the Countess; she is bowing to you +right across the house.” + +“Look,” said Mme. du Tillet to her sister, “they told us wrong. See how +my husband fawns on M. Nathan, and it is he who they declared was trying +to get him put in prison!” + +“And men call us slanderers!” cried the Countess. “I will give him a +warning.” + +She rose, took the arm of Vandenesse, who was waiting in the passage, +and returned jubilant to her box; by and by she left the Opera and +ordered her carriage for the next morning before eight o’clock. + +The next morning, by half-past eight, Marie had driven to the quai +Conti, stopping at the hotel du Mail on her way. The carriage could not +enter the narrow rue de Nevers; but as Schmucke lived in a house at the +corner of the quai she was not obliged to walk up its muddy pavement, +but could jump from the step of her carriage to the broken step of the +dismal old house, mended like porter’s crockery, with iron rivets, +and bulging out over the street in a way that was quite alarming to +pedestrians. The old chapel-master lived on the fourth floor, and +enjoyed a fine view of the Seine from the pont Neuf to the heights of +Chaillot. + +The good soul was so surprised when the countess’s footman announced the +visit of his former scholar that in his stupefaction he let her enter +without going down to receive her. Never did the countess suspect or +imagine such an existence as that which suddenly revealed itself to her +eyes, though she had long known Schmucke’s contempt for dress, and the +little interest he held in the affairs of this world. But who could have +believed in such complete indifference, in the utter laisser-aller +of such a life? Schmucke was a musical Diogenes, and he felt no shame +whatever in his untidiness; in fact, he was so accustomed to it that +he would probably have denied its existence. The incessant smoking of +a stout German pipe had spread upon the ceiling and over a wretched +wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge. +The cat, a magnificently long-furred, fluffy animal, the envy of all +portresses, presided there like the mistress of the house, grave and +sedate, and without anxieties. On the top of an excellent Viennese piano +he sat majestically, and cast upon the countess, as she entered, that +coldly gracious look which a woman, surprised by the beauty of another +woman, might have given. He did not move, and merely waved the two +silver threads of his right whisker as he turned his golden eyes on +Schmucke. + +The piano, decrepit on its legs, though made of good wood painted black +and gilded, was dirty, defaced, and scratched; and its keys, worn like +the teeth of old horses, were yellowed with the fuliginous colors of the +pipe. On the desk, a little heap of ashes showed that the night before +Schmucke had bestrode the old instrument to some musical Walhalla. The +floor, covered with dried mud, torn papers, tobacco-dust, fragments +indescribable, was like that of a boy’s school-room, unswept for a week, +on which a mound of things accumulate, half rags, half filth. + +A more practised eye than that of the countess would have seen +certain other revelations of Schmucke’s mode of life,--chestnut-peels, +apple-parings, egg-shells dyed red in broken dishes smeared with +sauer-kraut. This German detritus formed a carpet of dusty filth which +crackled under foot, joining company near the hearth with a mass of +cinders and ashes descending majestically from the fireplace, where lay +a block of coal, before which two slender twigs made a show of burning. +On the chimney-piece was a mirror in a painted frame, adorned with +figures dancing a saraband; on one side hung the glorious pipe, on the +other was a Chinese jar in which the musician kept his tobacco. Two +arm-chairs bought at auction, a thin and rickety cot, a worm-eaten +bureau without a top, a maimed table on which lay the remains of a +frugal breakfast, made up a set of household belongings as plain as +those of an Indian wigwam. A shaving-glass, suspended to the fastening +of a curtainless window, and surmounted by a rag striped by many wipings +of a razor, indicated the only sacrifices paid by Schmucke to the Graces +and society. The cat, being the feebler and protected partner, had +rather the best of the establishment; he enjoyed the comforts of an old +sofa-cushion, near which could be seen a white china cup and plate. But +what no pen can describe was the state into which Schmucke, the cat, and +the pipe, that existing trinity, had reduced these articles. The pipe +had burned the table. The cat and Schmucke’s head had greased the green +Utrecht velvet of the two arm-chairs and reduced it to a slimy texture. +If it had not been for the cat’s magnificent tail, which played a useful +part in the household, the uncovered places on the bureau and the piano +would never have been dusted. In one corner of the room were a pile of +shoes which need an epic to describe them. The top of the bureau and +that of the piano were encumbered by music-books with ragged backs and +whitened corners, through which the pasteboard showed its many layers. +Along the walls the names and addresses of pupils written on scraps +of paper were stuck on by wafers,--the number of wafers without paper +indicating the number of pupils no longer taught. On the wall-papers +were many calculations written with chalk. The bureau was decorated with +beer-mugs used the night before, their newness appearing very brilliant +in the midst of this rubbish of dirt and age. Hygiene was represented by +a jug of water with a towel laid upon it, and a bit of common soap. Two +ancient hats hung to their respective nails, near which also hung the +self-same blue box-coat with three capes, in which the countess +had always seen Schmucke when he came to give his lessons. On the +window-sill were three pots of flowers, German flowers, no doubt, and +near them a stout holly-wood stick. + +Though Marie’s sight and smell were disagreeably affected, Schmucke’s +smile and glance disguised these abject miseries by rays of celestial +light which actually illuminated their smoky tones and vivified the +chaos. The soul of this dear man, which saw and revealed so many things +divine, shone like the sun. His laugh, so frank, so guileless at +seeing one of his Saint-Cecilias, shed sparkles of youth and gaiety and +innocence about him. The treasures he poured from the inner to the outer +were like a mantle with which he covered his squalid life. The most +supercilious parvenu would have felt it ignoble to care for the frame in +which this glorious old apostle of the musical religion lived and moved +and had his being. + +“Hey! by what good luck do I see you here, dear Madame la comtesse?” + he said. “Must I sing the canticle of Simeon at my age?” (This idea +so tickled him that he laughed immoderately.) “Truly I’m ‘en bonne +fortune.’” (And again he laughed like a merry child.) “But, ah!” he +said, changing to melancholy, “you come for the music, and not for a +poor old man like me. Yes, I know that; but come for what you will, I am +yours, you know, body and soul and all I have!” + +This was said in his unspeakable German accent, a rendition of which we +spare the reader. + +He took the countess’s hand, kissed it and left a tear there, for the +worthy soul was always on the morrow of her benefit. Then he seized a +bit of chalk, jumped on a chair in front of the piano, and wrote upon +the wall in big letters, with the rapidity of a young man, “February +17th, 1835.” This pretty, artless action, done in such a passion of +gratitude, touched the countess to tears. + +“My sister will come too,” she said. + +“The other, too! When? when? God grant it be before I die!” + +“She will come to thank you for a great service I am now here to ask of +you.” + +“Quick! quick! tell me what it is,” cried Schmucke. “What must I do? go +to the devil?” + +“Nothing more than write the words ‘Accepted for ten thousand francs,’ +and sign your name on each of these papers,” she said, taking from her +muff four notes prepared for her by Nathan. + +“Hey! that’s soon done,” replied the German, with the docility of a +lamb; “only I’m sure I don’t know where my pens and ink are--Get away +from there, Meinherr Mirr!” he cried to the cat, which looked composedly +at him. “That’s my cat,” he said, showing him to the countess. “That’s +the poor animal that lives with poor Schmucke. Hasn’t he fine fur?” + +“Yes,” said the countess. + +“Will you have him?” he cried. + +“How can you think of such a thing?” she answered. “Why, he’s your +friend!” + +The cat, who hid the inkstand behind him, divined that Schmucke wanted +it, and jumped to the bed. + +“He’s as mischievous as a monkey,” said Schmucke. “I call him Mirr in +honor of our great Hoffman of Berlin, whom I knew well.” + +The good man signed the papers with the innocence of a child who does +what his mother orders without question, so sure is he that all is +right. He was thinking much more of presenting the cat to the countess +than of the papers by which his liberty might be, according to the laws +relating to foreigners, forever sacrificed. + +“You assure me that these little papers with the stamps on them--” + +“Don’t be in the least uneasy,” said the countess. + +“I am not uneasy,” he said, hastily. “I only meant to ask if these +little papers will give pleasure to Madame du Tillet.” + +“Oh, yes,” she said, “you are doing her a service, as if you were her +father.” + +“I am happy, indeed, to be of any good to her--Come and listen to my +music!” and leaving the papers on the table, he jumped to his piano. + +The hands of this angel ran along the yellowing keys, his glance was +rising to heaven, regardless of the roof; already the air of some +blessed climate permeated the room and the soul of the old musician; but +the countess did not allow the artless interpreter of things celestial +to make the strings and the worn wood speak, like Raffaelle’s Saint +Cecilia, to the listening angels. She quickly slipped the notes into her +muff and recalled her radiant master from the ethereal spheres to which +he soared, by laying her hand upon his shoulder. + +“My good Schmucke--” she said. + +“Going already?” he cried. “Ah! why did you come?” + +He did not murmur, but he sat up like a faithful dog who listens to his +mistress. + +“My good Schmucke,” she repeated, “this is a matter of life and death; +minutes can save tears, perhaps blood.” + +“Always the same!” he said. “Go, angel! dry the tears of others. Your +poor Schmucke thinks more of your visit than of your gifts.” + +“But we must see each other often,” she said. “You must come and dine +and play to me every Sunday, or we shall quarrel. Remember, I shall +expect you next Sunday.” + +“Really and truly?” + +“Yes, I entreat you; and my sister will want you, too, for another day.” + +“Then my happiness will be complete,” he said; “for I only see you now +in the Champs Elysees as you pass in your carriage, and that is very +seldom.” + +This thought dried the tears in his eyes as he gave his arm to his +beautiful pupil, who felt the old man’s heart beat violently. + +“You think of us?” she said. + +“Always as I eat my food,” he answered,--“as my benefactresses; but +chiefly as the first young girls worthy of love whom I ever knew.” + +So respectful, faithful, and religious a solemnity was in this speech +that the countess dared say no more. That smoky chamber, full of dirt +and rubbish, was the temple of the two divinities. + +“There we are loved--and truly loved,” she thought. + +The emotion with which old Schmucke saw the countess get into her +carriage and leave him she fully shared, and she sent him from the tips +of her fingers one of those pretty kisses which women give each other +from afar. Receiving it, the old man stood planted on his feet for a +long time after the carriage had disappeared. + +A few moments later the countess entered the court-yard of the hotel de +Nucingen. Madame de Nucingen was not yet up; but anxious not to keep a +woman of the countess’s position waiting, she hastily threw on a shawl +and wrapper. + +“My visit concerns a charitable action, madame,” said the countess, “or +I would not disturb you at so early an hour.” + +“But I am only too happy to be disturbed,” said the banker’s wife, +taking the notes and the countess’s guarantee. She rang for her maid. + +“Therese,” she said, “tell the cashier to bring me up himself, +immediately, forty thousand francs.” + +Then she locked into a table drawer the guarantee given by Madame de +Vandenesse, after sealing it up. + +“You have a delightful room,” said the countess. + +“Yes, but Monsieur de Nucingen is going to take it from me. He is +building a new house.” + +“You will doubtless give this one to your daughter, who, I am told, is +to marry Monsieur de Rastignac.” + +The cashier appeared at this moment with the money. Madame de Nucingen +took the bank-bills and gave him the notes of hand. + +“That balances,” she said. + +“Except the discount,” replied the cashier. “Ha, Schmucke; that’s the +musician of Anspach,” he added, examining the signatures in a suspicious +manner that made the countess tremble. + +“Who is doing this business?” said Madame de Nucingen, with a haughty +glance at the cashier. “This is my affair.” + +The cashier looked alternately at the two ladies, but he could discover +nothing on their impenetrable faces. + +“Go, leave us--Have the kindness to wait a few moments that the people +in the bank may not connect you with this negotiation,” said Madame de +Nucingen to the countess. + +“I must ask you to add to all your other kindness that of keeping this +matter secret,” said Madame de Vandenesse. + +“Most assuredly, since it is for charity,” replied the baroness, +smiling. “I will send your carriage round to the garden gate, so that no +one will see you leave the house.” + +“You have the thoughtful grace of a person who has suffered,” said the +countess. + +“I do not know if I have grace,” said the baroness; “but I have suffered +much. I hope that your anxieties cost less than mine.” + +When a man has laid a plot like that du Tillet was scheming against +Nathan, he confides it to no man. Nucingen knew something of it, but +his wife knew nothing. The baroness, however, aware that Raoul was +embarrassed, was not the dupe of the two sisters; she guessed into +whose hands that money was to go, and she was delighted to oblige +the countess; moreover, she felt a deep compassion for all such +embarrassments. Rastignac, so placed that he was able to fathom the +manoeuvres of the two bankers, came to breakfast that morning with +Madame de Nucingen. + +Delphine and Rastignac had no secrets from each other; and the baroness +related to him her scene with the countess. Eugene, who had never +supposed that Delphine could be mixed up in the affair, which was only +accessory to his eyes,--one means among many others,--opened her eyes to +the truth. She had probably, he told her, destroyed du Tillet’s chances +of selection, and rendered useless the intrigues and deceptions of +the past year. In short, he put her in the secret of the whole affair, +advising her to keep absolute silence as to the mistake she had just +committed. + +“Provided the cashier does not tell Nucingen,” she said. + +A few moments after mid-day, while du Tillet was breakfasting, Monsieur +Gigonnet was announced. + +“Let him come in,” said the banker, though his wife was at table. “Well, +my old Shylock, is our man locked up?” + +“No.” + +“Why not? Didn’t I give you the address, rue du Mail, hotel--” + +“He has paid up,” said Gigonnet, drawing from his wallet a pile of +bank-bills. Du Tillet looked furious. “You should never frown at money,” + said his impassible associate; “it brings ill-luck.” + +“Where did you get that money, madame?” said du Tillet, suddenly turning +upon his wife with a look which made her color to the roots of her hair. + +“I don’t know what your question means,” she said. + +“I will fathom this mystery,” he cried, springing furiously up. “You +have upset my most cherished plans.” + +“You are upsetting your breakfast,” said Gigonnet, arresting +the table-clock, which was dragged by the skirt of du Tillet’s +dressing-gown. + +Madame du Tillet rose to leave the room, for her husband’s words alarmed +her. She rang the bell, and a footman entered. + +“The carriage,” she said. “And call Virginie; I wish to dress.” + +“Where are you going?” exclaimed du Tillet. + +“Well-bred husbands do not question their wives,” she answered. “I +believe that you lay claim to be a gentleman.” + +“I don’t recognize you ever since you have seen more of your impertinent +sister.” + +“You ordered me to be impertinent, and I am practising on you,” she +replied. + +“Your servant, madame,” said Gigonnet, taking leave, not anxious to +witness this family scene. + +Du Tillet looked fixedly at his wife, who returned the look without +lowering her eyes. + +“What does all this mean?” he said. + +“It means that I am no longer a little girl whom you can frighten,” she +replied. “I am, and shall be, all my life, a good and loyal wife to you; +you may be my master if you choose, my tyrant, never!” + +Du Tillet left the room. After this effort Marie-Eugenie broke down. + +“If it were not for my sister’s danger,” she said to herself, “I should +never have dared to brave him thus; but, as the proverb says, ‘There’s +some good in every evil.’” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. THE HUSBAND’S TRIUMPH + + +During the preceding night Madame du Tillet had gone over in her mind +her sister’s revelations. Sure, now, of Nathan’s safety, she was +no longer influenced by the thought of an imminent danger in that +direction. But she remembered the vehement energy with which the +countess had declared that she would fly with Nathan if that would save +him. She saw that the man might determine her sister in some paroxysm +of gratitude and love to take a step which was nothing short of madness. +There were recent examples in the highest society of just such flights +which paid for doubtful pleasures by lasting remorse and the disrepute +of a false position. Du Tillet’s speech brought her fears to a point; +she dreaded lest all should be discovered; she knew her sister’s +signature was in Nucingen’s hands, and she resolved to entreat Marie to +save herself by confessing all to Felix. + +She drove to her sister’s house, but Marie was not at home. Felix was +there. A voice within her cried aloud to Eugenie to save her sister; the +morrow might be too late. She took a vast responsibility upon herself, +but she resolved to tell all to the count. Surely he would be indulgent +when he knew that his honor was still safe. The countess was deluded +rather than sinful. Eugenie feared to be treacherous and base in +revealing secrets that society (agreeing on this point) holds to be +inviolable; but--she saw her sister’s future, she trembled lest +she should some day be deserted, ruined by Nathan, poor, suffering, +disgraced, wretched, and she hesitated no longer; she sent in her name +and asked to see the count. + +Felix, astonished at the visit, had a long conversation with his +sister-in-law, in which he seemed so calm, so completely master of +himself, that she feared he might have taken some terrible resolution. + +“Do not be uneasy,” he said, seeing her anxiety. “I will act in a manner +which shall make your sister bless you. However much you may dislike +to keep the fact that you have spoken to me from her knowledge, I must +entreat you to do so. I need a few days to search into mysteries which +you don’t perceive; and, above all, I must act cautiously. Perhaps I can +learn all in a day. I, alone, my dear sister, am the guilty person. +All lovers play their game, and it is not every woman who is able, +unassisted, to see life as it is.” + +Madame du Tillet returned home comforted. Felix de Vandenesse drew forty +thousand francs from the Bank of France, and went direct to Madame de +Nucingen He found her at home, thanked her for the confidence she had +placed in his wife, and returned the money, explaining that the countess +had obtained this mysterious loan for her charities, which were so +profuse that he was trying to put a limit to them. + +“Give me no explanations, monsieur, since Madame de Vandenesse has told +you all,” said the Baronne de Nucingen. + +“She knows the truth,” thought Vandenesse. + +Madame de Nucingen returned to him Marie’s letter of guarantee, and sent +to the bank for the four notes. Vandenesse, during the short time that +these arrangements kept him waiting, watched the baroness with the +eye of a statesman, and he thought the moment propitious for further +negotiation. + +“We live in an age, madame, when nothing is sure,” he said. “Even +thrones rise and fall in France with fearful rapidity. Fifteen years +have wreaked their will on a great empire, a monarchy, and a revolution. +No one can now dare to count upon the future. You know my attachment to +the cause of legitimacy. Suppose some catastrophe; would you not be glad +to have a friend in the conquering party?” + +“Undoubtedly,” she said, smiling. + +“Very good; then, will you have in me, secretly, an obliged friend who +could be of use to Monsieur de Nucingen in such a case, by supporting +his claim to the peerage he is seeking?” + +“What do you want of me?” she asked. + +“Very little,” he replied. “All that you know about Nathan’s affairs.” + +The baroness repeated to him her conversation with Rastignac, and said, +as she gave him the four notes, which the cashier had meantime brought +to her: + +“Don’t forget your promise.” + +So little did Vandenesse forget this illusive promise that he used it +again on Baron Eugene de Rastignac to obtain from him certain other +information. Leaving Rastignac’s apartments, he dictated to a street +amanuensis the following note to Florine. + + “If Mademoiselle Florine wishes to know of a part she may play she + is requested to come to the masked opera at the Opera next Sunday + night, accompanied by Monsieur Nathan.” + +To this ball he determined to take his wife and let her own eyes +enlighten her as to the relations between Nathan and Florine. He knew +the jealous pride of the countess; he wanted to make her renounce her +love of her own will, without causing her to blush before him, and then +to return to her her own letters, sold by Florine, from whom he expected +to be able to buy them. This judicious plan, rapidly conceived and +partly executed, might fail through some trick of chance which meddles +with all things here below. + +After dinner that evening, Felix brought the conversation round to the +masked balls of the Opera, remarking that Marie had never been to one, +and proposing that she should accompany him the following evening. + +“I’ll find you some one to ‘intriguer,’” he said. + +“Ah! I wish you would,” she replied. + +“To do the thing well, a woman ought to fasten upon some good prey, a +celebrity, a man of enough wit to give and take. There’s Nathan; will +you have him? I know, through a friend of Florine, certain secrets of +his which would drive him crazy.” + +“Florine?” said the countess. “Do you mean the actress?” + +Marie had already heard that name from the lips of the watchman Quillet; +it now shot like a flash of lightning through her soul. + +“Yes, his mistress,” replied the count. “What is there so surprising in +that?” + +“I thought Monsieur Nathan too busy to have a mistress. Do authors have +time to make love?” + +“I don’t say they love, my dear, but they are forced to _lodge_ +somewhere, like other men, and when they haven’t a home of their own +they _lodge_ with their mistresses; which may seem to you rather loose, +but it is far more agreeable than lodging in a prison.” + +Fire was less red than Marie’s cheeks. + +“Will you have him for a victim? I can help you to terrify him,” + continued the count, not looking at his wife’s face. “I’ll put you in +the way of proving to him that he is being tricked like a child by your +brother-in-law du Tillet. That wretch is trying to put Nathan in prison +so as to make him ineligible to stand against him in the electoral +college. I know, through a friend of Florine, the exact sum derived +from the sale of her furniture, which she gave to Nathan to found his +newspaper; I know, too, what she sent him out of her summer’s harvest +in the departments and in Belgium,--money which has really gone to the +profit of du Tillet, Nucingen, and Massol. All three of them, unknown to +Nathan, have privately sold the paper to the new ministry, so sure are +they of ejecting him.” + +“Monsieur Nathan is incapable of accepting money from an actress.” + +“You don’t know that class of people, my dear,” said the count. “He +would not deny the fact if you asked him.” + +“I will certainly go to the ball,” said the countess. + +“You will be very much amused,” replied Vandenesse. “With such weapons +in hand you can cut Nathan’s complacency to the quick, and you will +also do him a great service. You will put him in a fury; he’ll try to +be calm, though inwardly fuming; but, all the same, you will enlighten +a man of talent as to the peril in which he really stands; and you will +also have the satisfaction of laming the horses of the ‘juste-milieu’ in +their stalls--But you are not listening to me, my dear.” + +“On the contrary, I am listening intently,” she said. “I will tell you +later why I feel desirous to know the truth of all this.” + +“You shall know it,” said Vandenesse. “If you stay masked I will take +you to supper with Nathan and Florine; it would be rather amusing for +a woman of your rank to fool an actress after bewildering the wits of a +clever man about these important facts; you can harness them both to the +same hoax. I’ll make some inquiries about Nathan’s infidelities, and if +I discover any of his recent adventures you shall enjoy the sight of a +courtesan’s fury; it is magnificent. Florine will boil and foam like an +Alpine torrent; she adores Nathan; he is everything to her; she clings +to him like flesh to the bones or a lioness to her cubs. I remember +seeing, in my youth, a celebrated actress (who wrote like a scullion) +when she came to a friend of mine to demand her letters. I have never +seen such a sight again, such calm fury, such insolent majesty, such +savage self-control--Are you ill, Marie?” + +“No; they have made too much fire.” The countess turned away and threw +herself on a sofa. Suddenly, with an unforeseen movement, impelled by +the horrible anguish of her jealousy, she rose on her trembling legs, +crossed her arms, and came slowly to her husband. + +“What do you know?” she asked. “You are not a man to torture me; you +would crush me without making me suffer if I were guilty.” + +“What do you expect me to know, Marie?” + +“Well! about Nathan.” + +“You think you love him,” he replied; “but you love a phantom made of +words.” + +“Then you know--” + +“All,” he said. + +The word fell on Marie’s head like the blow of a club. + +“If you wish it, I will know nothing,” he continued. “You are standing +on the brink of a precipice, my child, and I must draw you from it. I +have already done something. See!” + +He drew from his pocket her letter of guarantee and the four notes +endorsed by Schmucke, and let the countess recognize them; then he threw +them into the fire. + +“What would have happened to you, my poor Marie, three months hence?” he +said. “The sheriffs would have taken you to a public court-room. Don’t +bow your head, don’t feel humiliated; you have been the dupe of noble +feelings; you have coquetted with poesy, not with a man. All women--all, +do you hear me, Marie?--would have been seduced in your position. How +absurd we should be, we men, we who have committed a thousand follies +through a score of years, if we were not willing to grant you one +imprudence in a lifetime! God keep me from triumphing over you or from +offering you a pity you repelled so vehemently the other day. Perhaps +that unfortunate man was sincere when he wrote to you, sincere in +attempting to kill himself, sincere in returning that same night to +Florine. Men are worth less than women. It is not for my own sake that +I speak at this moment, but for yours. I am indulgent, but the world is +not; it shuns a woman who makes a scandal. Is that just? I know not; but +this I know, the world is cruel. Society refuses to calm the woes itself +has caused; it gives its honors to those who best deceive it; it has no +recompense for rash devotion. I see and know all that. I can’t reform +society, but this I can do, I can protect you, Marie, against yourself. +This matter concerns a man who has brought you trouble only, and not +one of those high and sacred loves which do, at times, command our +abnegation, and even bear their own excuse. Perhaps I have been wrong in +not varying your happiness, in not providing you with gayer pleasures, +travel, amusements, distractions for the mind. Besides, I can explain +to myself the impulse that has driven you to a celebrated man, by the +jealous envy you have roused in certain women. Lady Dudley, Madame +d’Espard, and my sister-in-law Emilie count for something in all this. +Those women, against whom I ought to have put you more thoroughly on +your guard, have cultivated your curiosity more to trouble me and cause +me unhappiness, than to fling you into a whirlpool which, as I believe, +you would never have entered.” + +As she listened to these words, so full of kindness, the countess was +torn by many conflicting feelings; but the storm within her breast was +ruled by one of them,--a keen admiration for her husband. Proud and +noble souls are prompt to recognize the delicacy with which they +are treated. Tact is to sentiments what grace is to the body. Marie +appreciated the grandeur of the man who bowed before a woman in fault, +that he might not see her blush. She ran from the room like one beside +herself, but instantly returned, fearing lest her hasty action might +cause him uneasiness. + +“Wait,” she said, and disappeared again. + +Felix had ably prepared her excuse, and he was instantly rewarded for +his generosity. His wife returned with Nathan’s letters in her hand, and +gave them to him. + +“Judge me,” she said, kneeling down beside him. + +“Are we able to judge where we love?” he answered, throwing the letters +into the fire; for he felt that later his wife might not forgive him for +having read them. Marie, with her head upon his knee, burst into tears. + +“My child,” he said, raising her head, “where are your letters?” + +At this question the poor woman no longer felt the intolerable burning +of her cheeks; she turned cold. + +“That you may not suspect me of calumniating a man whom you think worthy +of you, I will make Florine herself return you those letters.” + +“Oh! Surely he would give them back to me himself.” + +“Suppose that he refused to do so?” + +The countess dropped her head. + +“The world disgusts me,” she said. “I don’t want to enter it again. I +want to live alone with you, if you forgive me.” + +“But you might get bored again. Besides, what would the world say if you +left it so abruptly? In the spring we will travel; we will go to Italy, +and all over Europe; you shall see life. But to-morrow night we must go +to the Opera-ball; there is no other way to get those letters without +compromising you; besides, by giving them up, Florine will prove to you +her power.” + +“And must I see that?” said the countess, frightened. + +“To-morrow night.” + +The next evening, about midnight, Nathan was walking about the foyer +of the Opera with a mask on his arm, to whom he was attending in a +sufficiently conjugal manner. Presently two masked women came up to him. + +“You poor fool! Marie is here and is watching you,” said one of them, +who was Vandenesse, disguised as a woman. + +“If you choose to listen to me I will tell you secrets that Nathan +is hiding from you,” said the other woman, who was the countess, to +Florine. + +Nathan had abruptly dropped Florine’s arm to follow the count, who +adroitly slipped into the crowd and was out of sight in a moment. +Florine followed the countess, who sat down on a seat close at hand, +to which the count, doubling on Nathan, returned almost immediately to +guard his wife. + +“Explain yourself, my dear,” said Florine, “and don’t think I shall +stand this long. No one can tear Raoul from me, I’ll tell you that; I +hold him by habit, and that’s even stronger than love.” + +“In the first place, are you Florine?” said the count, speaking in his +natural voice. + +“A pretty question! if you don’t know that, my joking friend, why should +I believe you?” + +“Go and ask Nathan, who has left you to look for his other mistress, +where he passed the night, three days ago. He tried to kill himself +without a word to you, my dear,--and all for want of money. That shows +how much you know about the affairs of a man whom you say you love, and +who leaves you without a penny, and kills himself,--or, rather, doesn’t +kill himself, for he misses it. Suicides that don’t kill are about as +absurd as a duel without a scratch.” + +“That’s a lie,” said Florine. “He dined with me that very day. The poor +fellow had the sheriff after him; he was hiding, as well he might.” + +“Go and ask at the hotel du Mail, rue du Mail, if he was not taken there +that morning, half dead of the fumes of charcoal, by a handsome young +woman with whom he has been in love over a year. Her letters are at +this moment under your very nose in your own house. If you want to teach +Nathan a good lesson, let us all three go there; and I’ll show you, +papers in hand, how you can save him from the sheriff and Clichy if you +choose to be the good girl that you are.” + +“Try that on others than Florine, my little man. I am certain that +Nathan has never been in love with any one but me.” + +“On the contrary, he has been in love with a woman in society for over a +year--” + +“A woman in society, he!” cried Florine. “I don’t trouble myself about +such nonsense as that.” + +“Well, do you want me to make him come and tell you that he will not +take you home from here to-night.” + +“If you can make him tell me that,” said Florine, “I’ll take _you_ home, +and we’ll look for those letters, which I shall believe in when I see +them, and not till then. He must have written them while I slept.” + +“Stay here,” said Felix, “and watch.” + +So saying, he took the arm of his wife and moved to a little distance. +Presently, Nathan, who had been hunting up and down the foyer like a +dog looking for its master, returned to the spot where the mask had +addressed him. Seeing on his face an expression he could not conceal, +Florine placed herself like a post in front of him, and said, +imperiously:-- + +“I don’t wish you to leave me again; I have my reasons for this.” + +The countess then, at the instigation of her husband, went up to Raoul +and said in his ear,-- + +“Marie. Who is this woman? Leave her at once, and meet me at the foot of +the grand staircase.” + +In this difficult extremity Raoul dropped Florine’s arm, and though she +caught his own and held it forcibly, she was obliged, after a moment, to +let him go. Nathan disappeared into the crowd. + +“What did I tell you?” said Felix in Florine’s astonished ears, offering +her his arm. + +“Come,” she said; “whoever you are, come. Have you a carriage here?” + +For all answer, Vandenesse hurried Florine away, followed by his wife. +A few moments later the three masks, driven rapidly by the Vandenesse +coachman, reached Florine’s house. As soon as she had entered her own +apartments the actress unmasked. Madame de Vandenesse could not restrain +a quiver of surprise at Florine’s beauty as she stood there choking with +anger, and superb in her wrath and jealousy. + +“There is, somewhere in these rooms,” said Vandenesse, “a portfolio, the +key of which you have never had; the letters are probably in it.” + +“Well, well, for once in my life I am bewildered; you know something +that I have been uneasy about for some days,” cried Florine, rushing +into the study in search of the portfolio. + +Vandenesse saw that his wife was turning pale beneath her mask. +Florine’s apartment revealed more about the intimacy of the actress and +Nathan than any ideal mistress would wish to know. The eye of a woman +can take in the truth of such things in a second, and the countess saw +vestiges of Nathan which proved to her the certainty of what Vandenesse +had said. Florine returned with the portfolio. + +“How am I to open it?” she said. + +The actress rang the bell and sent into the kitchen for the cook’s +knife. When it came she brandished it in the air, crying out in ironical +tones:-- + +“With this they cut the necks of ‘poulets.’” + +The words, which made the countess shiver, explained to her, even better +than her husband had done the night before, the depths of the abyss into +which she had so nearly fallen. + +“What a fool I am!” said Florine; “his razor will do better.” + +She fetched one of Nathan’s razors from his dressing-table, and slit the +leather cover of the portfolio, through which Marie’s letters dropped. +Florine snatched one up hap-hazard, and looked it over. + +“Yes, she must be a well-bred woman. It looks to me as if there were no +mistakes in spelling here.” + +The count gathered up the letters hastily and gave them to his wife, who +took them to a table as if to see that they were all there. + +“Now,” said Vandenesse to Florine, “will you let me have those letters +for these?” showing her five bank-bills of ten thousand francs each. +“They’ll replace the sums you have paid for him.” + +“Ah!” cried Florine, “didn’t I kill myself body and soul in the +provinces to get him money,--I, who’d have cut my hand off to serve +him? But that’s men! damn your soul for them and they’ll march over you +rough-shod! He shall pay me for this!” + +Madame de Vandenesse was disappearing with the letters. + +“Hi! stop, stop, my fine mask!” cried Florine; “leave me one to confound +him with.” + +“Not possible,” said Vandenesse. + +“Why not?” + +“That mask is your ex-rival; but you needn’t fear her now.” + +“Well, she might have had the grace to say thank you,” cried Florine. + +“But you have the fifty thousand francs instead,” said Vandenesse, +bowing to her. + +It is extremely rare for young men, when driven to suicide, to attempt +it a second time if the first fails. When it doesn’t cure life, it cures +all desire for voluntary death. Raoul felt no disposition to try it +again when he found himself in a more painful position than that from +which he had just been rescued. He tried to see the countess and explain +to her the nature of his love, which now shone more vividly in his soul +than ever. But the first time they met in society, Madame de Vandenesse +gave him that fixed and contemptuous look which at once and forever puts +an impassable gulf between a man and a woman. In spite of his natural +assurance, Nathan never dared, during the rest of the winter, either to +speak to the countess or even approach her. + +But he opened his heart to Blondet; to him he talked of his Laura and +his Beatrice, apropos of Madame de Vandenesse. He even made a paraphrase +of the following beautiful passage from the pen of Theophile Gautier, +one of the most remarkable poets of our day:-- + +“‘Ideala, flower of heaven’s own blue, with heart of gold, whose fibrous +roots, softer, a thousandfold, than fairy tresses, strike to our souls +and drink their purest essence; flower most sweet and bitter! thou canst +not be torn away without the heart’s blood flowing, without thy bruised +stems sweating with scarlet tears. Ah! cursed flower, why didst thou +grow within my soul?’” + +“My dear fellow,” said Blondet, “you are raving. I’ll grant it was a +pretty flower, but it wasn’t a bit ideal, and instead of singing like a +blind man before an empty niche, you had much better wash your hands and +make submission to the powers. You are too much of an artist ever to +be a good politician; you have been fooled by men of not one-half your +value. Think about being fooled again--but elsewhere.” + +“Marie cannot prevent my loving her,” said Nathan; “she shall be my +Beatrice.” + +“Beatrice, my good Raoul, was a little girl twelve years of age when +Dante last saw her; otherwise, she would not have been Beatrice. To make +a divinity, it won’t do to see her one day wrapped in a mantle, and the +next with a low dress, and the third on the boulevard, cheapening toys +for her last baby. When a man has Florine, who is in turn duchess, +bourgeoise, Negress, marquise, colonel, Swiss peasant, virgin of the sun +in Peru (only way she can play the part), I don’t see why he should go +rambling after fashionable women.” + +Du Tillet, to use a Bourse term, _executed_ Nathan, who, for lack +of money, gave up his place on the newspaper; and the celebrated man +received but five votes in the electoral college where the banker was +elected. + +When, after a long and happy journey in Italy, the Comtesse de +Vandenesse returned to Paris late in the following winter, all her +husband’s predictions about Nathan were justified. He had taken +Blondet’s advice and negotiated with the government, which employed his +pen. His personal affairs were in such disorder that one day, on the +Champs-Elysees, Marie saw her former adorer on foot, in shabby clothes, +giving his arm to Florine. When a man becomes indifferent to the heart +of a woman who has once loved him, he often seems to her very ugly, even +horrible, especially when he resembles Nathan. Madame de Vandenesse had +a sense of personal humiliation in the thought that she had once +cared for him. If she had not already been cured of all extra-conjugal +passion, the contrast then presented by the count to this man, grown +less and less worthy of public favor, would have sufficed her. + +To-day the ambitious Nathan, rich in ink and poor in will, has ended by +capitulating entirely, and has settled down into a sinecure, like +any other commonplace man. After lending his pen to all disorganizing +efforts, he now lives in peace under the protecting shade of a +ministerial organ. The cross of the Legion of honor, formerly the +fruitful text of his satire, adorns his button-hole. “Peace at any +price,” ridicule of which was the stock-in-trade of his revolutionary +editorship, is now the topic of his laudatory articles. Heredity, +attacked by him in Saint-Simonian phrases, he now defends with solid +arguments. This illogical conduct has its origin and its explanation +in the change of front performed by many men besides Raoul during our +recent political evolutions. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Bidault (known as Gigonnet) + The Government Clerks + Gobseck + The Vendetta + Cesar Birotteau + The Firm of Nucingen + + Blondet, Emile + Jealousies of a Country Town + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Modeste Mignon + Another Study of Woman + The Secrets of a Princess + The Firm of Nucingen + The Peasantry + + Blondet, Virginie + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Secrets of a Princess + The Peasantry + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Another Study of Woman + The Member for Arcis + + Bruel, Jean Francois du + A Bachelor’s Establishment + The Government Clerks + A Start in Life + A Prince of Bohemia + The Middle Classes + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + + Camps, Madame Octave de + Madame Firmiani + The Government Clerks + A Woman of Thirty + The Member for Arcis + + Dudley, Lord + The Lily of the Valley + The Thirteen + A Man of Business + Another Study of Woman + + Dudley, Lady Arabella + The Lily of the Valley + The Ball at Sceaux + The Magic Skin + The Secrets of a Princess + Letters of Two Brides + + Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d’ + The Commission in Lunacy + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Letters of Two Brides + Another Study of Woman + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + Beatrix + + Galathionne, Prince and Princess (both not in each story) + The Secrets of a Princess + The Middle Classes + Father Goriot + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Beatrix + + Grandlieu, Duchesse Ferdinand de + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Beatrix + + Grandlieu, Vicomtesse Juste de + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Gobseck + + Granville, Vicomte de + The Gondreville Mystery + A Second Home + Farewell (Adieu) + Cesar Birotteau + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Cousin Pons + + Granville, Comtesse Angelique de + A Second Home + The Thirteen + + Granville, Vicomte de + A Second Home + The Country Parson + + La Roche-Hugon, Martial de + Domestic Peace + The Peasantry + The Member for Arcis + The Middle Classes + Cousin Betty + + Listomere, Marquise de + The Lily of the Valley + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Daughter of Eve + + Lousteau, Etienne + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Beatrix + The Muse of the Department + Cousin Betty + A Prince of Bohemia + A Man of Business + The Middle Classes + The Unconscious Humorists + + Manerville, Comtesse Paul de + A Marriage Settlement + The Lily of the Valley + + Marsay, Henri de + The Thirteen + The Unconscious Humorists + Another Study of Woman + The Lily of the Valley + Father Goriot + Jealousies of a Country Town + Ursule Mirouet + A Marriage Settlement + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Letters of Two Brides + The Ball at Sceaux + Modeste Mignon + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + + Massol + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Magic Skin + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nathan, Raoul + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Secrets of a Princess + Letters of Two Brides + The Seamy Side of History + The Muse of the Department + A Prince of Bohemia + A Man of Business + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nathan, Madame Raoul (Florine) + The Muse of the Department + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Government Clerks + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Ursule Mirouet + Eugenie Grandet + The Imaginary Mistress + A Prince of Bohemia + The Unconscious Humorists + + Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de + Father Goriot + The Thirteen + Eugenie Grandet + Cesar Birotteau + Melmoth Reconciled + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Commission in Lunacy + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Modeste Mignon + The Firm of Nucingen + Another Study of Woman + The Member for Arcis + + Rastignac, Eugene de + Father Goriot + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + The Ball at Sceaux + The Commission in Lunacy + A Study of Woman + Another Study of Woman + The Magic Skin + The Secrets of a Princess + The Gondreville Mystery + The Firm of Nucingen + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + The Unconscious Humorists + + Rastignac, Monseigneur Gabriel de + Father Goriot + The Country Parson + + Rochefide, Marquise de + Beatrix + The Secrets of a Princess + Sarrasine + A Prince of Bohemia + + Roguin, Madame + Cesar Birotteau + At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + Pierrette + A Second Home + + Saint-Hereen, Comtesse Moina de + A Woman of Thirty + The Member for Arcis + + Schmucke, Wilhelm + Ursule Mirouet + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Cousin Pons + + Souchet, Francois + The Purse + The Imaginary Mistress + + Therese + Father Goriot + + Tillet, Ferdinand du + Cesar Birotteau + The Firm of Nucingen + The Middle Classes + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Pierrette + Melmoth Reconciled + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Secrets of a Princess + The Member for Arcis + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des + Beatrix + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Another Study of Woman + Honorine + Beatrix + The Muse of the Department + + Vandenesse, Marquis Charles de + A Woman of Thirty + A Start in Life + + Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de + Cesar Birotteau + The Ball at Sceaux + Ursule Mirouet + A Daughter of Eve + + Vandenesse, Comte Felix de + The Lily of the Valley + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Cesar Birotteau + Letters of Two Brides + A Start in Life + The Marriage Settlement + The Secrets of a Princess + Another Study of Woman + The Gondreville Mystery + + Vandenesse, Comtesse Felix de + A Second Home + The Muse of the Department + + Vernou, Felicien + A Bachelor’s Establishment + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life + Cousin Betty + + Vignon, Claude + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Honorine + Beatrix + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Daughter of Eve, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1481 *** |