“Feel your pulse. Think whether you can get up morning after morning,
strengthened in yesterday’s purpose. In that case I will make you an
offer that no one would decline. Listen attentively. You see, I have an
idea of my own. My idea is to live a patriarchal life on a vast estate,
say a hundred thousand acres, somewhere in the Southern States of
America. I mean to be a planter, to have slaves, to make a few snug
millions by selling my cattle, timber, and tobacco; I want to live an
absolute monarch, and to do just as I please; to lead such a life as no
one here in these squalid dens of lath and plaster ever imagines. I am a
great poet; I do not write my poems, I feel them, and act them. At this
moment I have fifty thousand francs, which might possibly buy forty
negroes. I want two hundred thousand francs, because I want to have
two hundred negroes to carry out my notions of the patriarachal life
properly. Negroes, you see, are like a sort of family ready grown, and
there are no inquisitive public prosecutors out there to interfere with
you. That investment in ebony ought to mean three or four million francs
in ten years’ time. If I am successful, no one will ask me who I am. I
shall be Mr. Four Millions, an American citizen. I shall be fifty years
old by then, and sound and hearty still; I shall enjoy life after my own
fashion. In two words, if I find you an heiress with a million, will you
give me two hundred thousand francs? Twenty per cent commission, eh? Is
that too much? Your little wife will be very much in love with you. Once
married, you will show signs of uneasiness and remorse; for a couple of
weeks you will be depressed. Then, some night after sundry grimacings,
comes the confession, between two kisses, ‘Two hundred thousand francs
of debts, my darling!’ This sort of farce is played every day in Paris,
and by young men of the highest fashion. When a young wife has given her
heart, she will not refuse her purse. Perhaps you are thinking that
you will lose the money for good? Not you. You will make two hundred
thousand francs again by some stroke of business. With your capital and
your brains you should be able to accumulate as large a fortune as you
could wish. _Ergo_, in six months you will have made your own fortune,
and our old friend Vautrin’s, and made an amiable woman very happy, to
say nothing of your people at home, who must blow on their fingers
to warm them, in the winter, for lack of firewood. You need not be
surprised at my proposal, nor at the demand I make. Forty-seven out
of every sixty great matches here in Paris are made after just such a
bargain as this. The Chamber of Notaries compels my gentleman to----”
“What must I do?” said Rastignac, eagerly interrupting Vautrin’s speech.
“Next to nothing,” returned the other, with a slight involuntary
movement, the suppressed exultation of the angler when he feels a bite
at the end of his line. “Follow me carefully! The heart of a girl whose
life is wretched and unhappy is a sponge that will thirstily absorb
love; a dry sponge that swells at the first drop of sentiment. If you
pay court to a young girl whose existence is a compound of loneliness,
despair, and poverty, and who has no suspicion that she will come into
a fortune, good Lord! it is quint and quatorze at piquet; it is knowing
the numbers of the lottery before-hand; it is speculating in the funds
when you have news from a sure source; it is building up a marriage on
an indestructible foundation. The girl may come in for millions, and she
will fling them, as if they were so many pebbles, at your feet. ‘Take
it, my beloved! Take it, Alfred, Adolphe, Eugene!’ or whoever it
was that showed his sense by sacrificing himself for her. And as for
sacrificing himself, this is how I understand it. You sell a coat that
is getting shabby, so that you can take her to the _Cadran bleu_, treat
her to mushrooms on toast, and then go to the Ambigu-Comique in the
evening; you pawn your watch to buy her a shawl. I need not remind you
of the fiddle-faddle sentimentality that goes down so well with all
women; you spill a few drops of water on your stationery, for instance;
those are the tears you shed while far away from her. You look to me as
if you were perfectly acquainted with the argot of the heart. Paris, you
see, is like a forest in the New World, where you have to deal with
a score of varieties of savages--Illinois and Hurons, who live on the
proceed of their social hunting. You are a hunter of millions; you set
your snares; you use lures and nets; there are many ways of hunting.
Some hunt heiresses, others a legacy; some fish for souls, yet others
sell their clients, bound hand and foot. Every one who comes back from
the chase with his game-bag well filled meets with a warm welcome in
good society. In justice to this hospitable part of the world, it must
be said that you have to do with the most easy and good-natured of
great cities. If the proud aristocracies of the rest of Europe refuse
admittance among their ranks to a disreputable millionaire, Paris
stretches out a hand to him, goes to his banquets, eats his dinners, and
hobnobs with his infamy.”
“But where is such a girl to be found?” asked Eugene.
“Under your eyes; she is yours already.”
“Mlle. Victorine?”
“Precisely.”
“And what was that you said?”
“She is in love with you already, your little Baronne de Rastignac!”
“She has not a penny,” Eugene continued, much mystified.
“Ah! now we are coming to it! Just another word or two, and it will all
be clear enough. Her father, Taillefer, is an old scoundrel; it is said
that he murdered one of his friends at the time of the Revolution. He is
one of your comedians that sets up to have opinions of his own. He is a
banker--senior partner in the house of Frederic Taillefer and Company.
He has one son, and means to leave all he has to the boy, to the
prejudice of Victorine. For my part, I don’t like to see injustice of
this sort. I am like Don Quixote, I have a fancy for defending the weak
against the strong. If it should please God to take that youth away from
him, Taillefer would have only his daughter left; he would want to leave
his money to some one or other; an absurd notion, but it is only human
nature, and he is not likely to have any more children, as I know.
Victorine is gentle and amiable; she will soon twist her father round
her fingers, and set his head spinning like a German top by plying him
with sentiment! She will be too much touched by your devotion to
forget you; you will marry her. I mean to play Providence for you,
and Providence is to do my will. I have a friend whom I have attached
closely to myself, a colonel in the Army of the Loire, who has just been
transferred into the _garde royale_. He has taken my advice and turned
ultra-royalist; he is not one of those fools who never change their
opinions. Of all pieces of advice, my cherub, I would give you
this--don’t stick to your opinions any more than to your words. If any
one asks you for them, let him have them--at a price. A man who prides
himself on going in a straight line through life is an idiot who
believes in infallibility. There are no such things as principles; there
are only events, and there are no laws but those of expediency: a man of
talent accepts events and the circumstances in which he finds himself,
and turns everything to his own ends. If laws and principles were fixed
and invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we change
our shirts. The individual is not obliged to be more particular than the
nation. A man whose services to France have been of the very slightest
is a fetich looked on with superstitious awe because he has always
seen everything in red; but he is good, at the most, to be put into the
Museum of Arts and Crafts, among the automatic machines, and labeled La
Fayette; while the prince at whom everybody flings a stone, the man who
despises humanity so much that he spits as many oaths as he is asked for
in the face of humanity, saved France from being torn in pieces at the
Congress of Vienna; and they who should have given him laurels fling
mud at him. Oh! I know something of affairs, I can tell you; I have the
secrets of many men! Enough. When I find three minds in agreement as
to the application of a principle, I shall have a fixed and immovable
opinion--I shall have to wait a long while first. In the Tribunals you
will not find three judges of the same opinion on a single point of law.
To return to the man I was telling you of. He would crucify Jesus Christ
again, if I bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick
a quarrel with a scamp that will not send so much as five francs to his
sister, poor girl, and” (here Vautrin rose to his feet and stood like a
fencing-master about to lunge)--“turn him off into the dark!” he added.
“How frightful!” said Eugene. “You do not really mean it? M. Vautrin,
you are joking!”
“There! there! Keep cool!” said the other. “Don’t behave like a baby.
But if you find any amusement in it, be indignant, flare up! Say that
I am a scoundrel, a rascal, a rogue, a bandit; but do not call me a
blackleg nor a spy! There, out with it, fire away! I forgive you; it is
quite natural at your age. I was like that myself once. Only remember
this, you will do worse things yourself some day. You will flirt with
some pretty woman and take her money. You have thought of that, of
course,” said Vautrin, “for how are you to succeed unless love is laid
under contribution? There are no two ways about virtue, my dear student;
it either is, or it is not. Talk of doing penance for your sins! It is
a nice system of business, when you pay for your crime by an act of
contrition! You seduce a woman that you may set your foot on such and
such a rung of the social ladder; you sow dissension among the children
of a family; you descend, in short, to every base action that can be
committed at home or abroad, to gain your own ends for your own pleasure
or your profit; and can you imagine that these are acts of faith, hope,
or charity? How is it that a dandy, who in a night has robbed a boy of
half his fortune, gets only a couple of months in prison; while a poor
devil who steals a banknote for a thousand francs, with aggravating
circumstances, is condemned to penal servitude? Those are your laws. Not
a single provision but lands you in some absurdity. That man with yellow
gloves and a golden tongue commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but
he drains his victim’s veins as surely; a desperado forces open a door
with a crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one
of those things that I suggest to you to-day, bar the bloodshed. Do
you believe that there is any absolute standard in this world? Despise
mankind and find out the meshes that you can slip through in the net of
the Code. The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss
to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was
properly executed.”
“Silence, sir! I will not hear any more; you make me doubt myself. At
this moment my sentiments are all my science.”
“Just as you please, my fine fellow; I did think you were so
weak-minded,” said Vautrin, “I shall say no more about it. One last
word, however,” and he looked hard at the student--“you have my secret,”
he said.
“A young man who refuses your offer knows that he must forget it.”
“Quite right, quite right; I am glad to hear you say so. Somebody else
might not be so scrupulous, you see. Keep in mind what I want to do for
you. I will give you a fortnight. The offer is still open.”
“What a head of iron the man has!” said Eugene to himself, as he watched
Vautrin walk unconcernedly away with his cane under his arm. “Yet Mme.
de Beauseant said as much more gracefully; he has only stated the case
in cruder language. He would tear my heart with claws of steel. What
made me think of going to Mme. de Nucingen? He guessed my motives before
I knew them myself. To sum it up, that outlaw has told me more about
virtue than all I have learned from men and books. If virtue admits of
no compromises, I have certainly robbed my sisters,” he said, throwing
down the bags on the table.
He sat down again and fell, unconscious of his surroundings, into deep
thought.
“To be faithful to an ideal of virtue! A heroic martyrdom! Pshaw! every
one believes in virtue, but who is virtuous? Nations have made an idol
of Liberty, but what nation on the face of the earth is free? My youth
is still like a blue and cloudless sky. If I set myself to obtain wealth
or power, does it mean that I must make up my mind to lie, and fawn, and
cringe, and swagger, and flatter, and dissemble? To consent to be the
servant of others who have likewise fawned, and lied, and flattered?
Must I cringe to them before I can hope to be their accomplice? Well,
then, I decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single heart. I
will work day and night; I will owe my fortune to nothing but my own
exertions. It may be the slowest of all roads to success, but I shall
lay my head on the pillow at night untroubled by evil thoughts. Is there
a greater thing than this--to look back over your life and know that
it is stainless as a lily? I and my life are like a young man and his
betrothed. Vautrin has put before me all that comes after ten years of
marriage. The devil! my head is swimming. I do not want to think at all;
the heart is a sure guide.”
Eugene was roused from his musings by the voice of the stout Sylvie,
who announced that the tailor had come, and Eugene therefore made his
appearance before the man with the two money bags, and was not ill
pleased that it should be so. When he had tried on his dress suit, he
put on his new morning costume, which completely metamorphosed him.
“I am quite equal to M. de Trailles,” he said to himself. “In short, I
look like a gentleman.”
“You asked me, sir, if I knew the houses where Mme. de Nucingen goes,”
Father Goriot’s voice spoke from the doorway of Eugene’s room.
“Yes.”
“Very well then, she is going to the Marechale Carigliano’s ball on
Monday. If you can manage to be there, I shall hear from you whether my
two girls enjoyed themselves, and how they were dressed, and all about
it in fact.”
“How did you find that out, my good Goriot?” said Eugene, putting a
chair by the fire for his visitor.
“Her maid told me. I hear all about their doings from Therese and
Constance,” he added gleefully.
The old man looked like a lover who is still young enough to be made
happy by the discovery of some little stratagem which brings him
information of his lady-love without her knowledge.
“_You_ will see them both!” he said, giving artless expression to a pang
of jealousy.
“I do not know,” answered Eugene. “I will go to Mme. de Beauseant and
ask her for an introduction to the Marechale.”
Eugene felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought of appearing before the
Vicomtesse, dressed as henceforward he always meant to be. The “abysses
of the human heart,” in the moralists’ phrase, are only insidious
thoughts, involuntary promptings of personal interest. The instinct of
enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid changes of purpose which have
furnished the text for so much rhetoric are calculations prompted by
the hope of pleasure. Rastignac beholding himself well dressed and
impeccable as to gloves and boots, forgot his virtuous resolutions.
Youth, moreover, when bent upon wrongdoing does not dare to behold
himself in the mirror of consciousness; mature age has seen itself; and
therein lies the whole difference between these two phases of life.
A friendship between Eugene and his neighbor, Father Goriot, had
been growing up for several days past. This secret friendship and the
antipathy that the student had begun to entertain for Vautrin arose
from the same psychological causes. The bold philosopher who shall
investigate the effects of mental action upon the physical world
will doubtless find more than one proof of the material nature of our
sentiments in other animals. What physiognomist is as quick to discern
character as a dog is to discover from a stranger’s face whether this
is a friend or no? Those by-words--“atoms,” “affinities”--are facts
surviving in modern languages for the confusion of philosophic wiseacres
who amuse themselves by winnowing the chaff of language to find its
grammatical roots. We _feel_ that we are loved. Our sentiments make
themselves felt in everything, even at a great distance. A letter is
a living soul, and so faithful an echo of the voice that speaks in it,
that finer natures look upon a letter as one of love’s most precious
treasures. Father Goriot’s affection was of the instinctive order, a
canine affection raised to a sublime pitch; he had scented compassion in
the air, and the kindly respect and youthful sympathy in the student’s
heart. This friendship had, however, scarcely reached the stage at which
confidences are made. Though Eugene had spoken of his wish to meet Mme.
de Nucingen, it was not because he counted on the old man to introduce
him to her house, for he hoped that his own audacity might stand him in
good stead. All that Father Goriot had said as yet about his daughters
had referred to the remarks that the student had made so freely in
public on that day of the two visits.
“How could you think that Mme. de Restaud bore you a grudge for
mentioning my name?” he had said on the day following that scene at
dinner. “My daughters are very fond of me; I am a happy father; but
my sons-in-law have behaved badly to me, and rather than make trouble
between my darlings and their husbands, I choose to see my daughters
secretly. Fathers who can see their daughters at any time have no idea
of all the pleasure that all this mystery gives me; I cannot always see
mine when I wish, do you understand? So when it is fine I walk out in
the Champs-Elysees, after finding out from their waiting-maids whether
my daughters mean to go out. I wait near the entrance; my heart beats
fast when the carriages begin to come; I admire them in their dresses,
and as they pass they give me a little smile, and it seems as if
everything was lighted up for me by a ray of bright sunlight. I wait,
for they always go back the same way, and then I see them again; the
fresh air has done them good and brought color into their cheeks; all
about me people say, ‘What a beautiful woman that is!’ and it does my
heart good to hear them.
“Are they not my own flesh and blood? I love the very horses that draw
them; I envy the little lap-dog on their knees. Their happiness is my
life. Every one loves after his own fashion, and mine does no one any
harm; why should people trouble their heads about me? I am happy in my
own way. Is there any law against going to see my girls in the evening
when they are going out to a ball? And what a disappointment it is when
I get there too late, and am told that ‘Madame has gone out!’ Once I
waited till three o’clock in the morning for Nasie; I had not seen her
for two whole days. I was so pleased, that it was almost too much for
me! Please do not speak of me unless it is to say how good my daughters
are to me. They are always wanting to heap presents upon me, but I will
not have it. ‘Just keep your money,’ I tell them. ‘What should I do
with it? I want nothing.’ And what am I, sir, after all? An old carcase,
whose soul is always where my daughters are. When you have seen Mme.
de Nucingen, tell me which you like the most,” said the old man after a
moment’s pause, while Eugene put the last touches to his toilette. The
student was about to go out to walk in the Garden of the Tuileries
until the hour when he could venture to appear in Mme. de Beauseant’s
drawing-room.
That walk was a turning-point in Eugene’s career. Several women noticed
him; he looked so handsome, so young, and so well dressed. This almost
admiring attention gave a new turn to his thoughts. He forgot his
sisters and the aunt who had robbed herself for him; he no longer
remembered his own virtuous scruples. He had seen hovering above his
head the fiend so easy to mistake for an angel, the Devil with rainbow
wings, who scatters rubies, and aims his golden shafts at palace fronts,
who invests women with purple, and thrones with a glory that dazzles the
eyes of fools till they forget the simple origins of royal dominion; he
had heard the rustle of that Vanity whose tinsel seems to us to be the
symbol of power. However cynical Vautrin’s words had been, they had made
an impression on his mind, as the sordid features of the old crone who
whispers, “A lover, and gold in torrents,” remain engraven on a young
girl’s memory.
Eugene lounged about the walks till it was nearly five o’clock, then
he went to Mme. de Beauseant, and received one of the terrible blows
against which young hearts are defenceless. Hitherto the Vicomtesse had
received him with the kindly urbanity, the bland grace of manner that is
the result of fine breeding, but is only complete when it comes from the
heart.
To-day Mme. de Beauseant bowed constrainedly, and spoke curtly:
“M. de Rastignac, I cannot possibly see you, at least not at this
moment. I am engaged...”
