Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012867903 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PQ2161.W92 
 
 V.I 
 
 The works of Honore de Balzac / 
 
 3 1924 012 867 903 
 
THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 By H. DE BALZAC. 
 
 SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 PERE GO RIOT. 
 
 -o 
 
^ ff 41] ilq'. l> T^c^'^o- Bro3 
 
Rastignac and Goriot. 
 
THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 HONORE DE BALZAC 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 
 VOLUME I 
 
 PERE GORIOT 
 MODESTE MIGNON 
 
 KUttstrateTr 
 
 By p. G. Jeanniot and Adrien Moreau 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 BOSTON 
 
Copyright, 1888, 1895, 1896, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 All rig/its reserved. 
 
 JEntbersttg ^Prcsg: 
 
 John VV(lson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
TO 
 
 THE GREAT AND ILLUSTRIOUS 
 
 GEOFFROY DE SAINT-HILAIRE 
 
 AS A TKSTIMONY OF ADMIRATION FOR 
 HIS WORKS AND HIS GENIUS. 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 Caius M. Hoffman '32 
 
 OLIN LIBRARY 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Designed by Jeanniot, and reproduced in photogravure hy 
 Goupil ^ Co., Paris, 
 
 Page 
 E.ASTIGNAO AND GoETOT Frontispiece 
 
 " ' But I have heard that Madame de Restaud is a pupil 
 
 of Monsieur de Trailles,' said the duchess "... 94 
 
 " ' Well, do you agree ? ' said Gondureau to the old maid " 209 
 
 " ' Guess what I bring you,' said Eugene, sitting down be- 
 side her and lifting her arm that he might kiss her 
 hand" 27S 
 
J>REFACE.' 
 
 Ik giving to ft wdrk, begun nearly thirt46n years age, the 
 title of " The Comedy of Human Life," it is necessary that 
 I should state its purpose, relate its origin, and give some 
 explanation of its plan ; endeavoring to do so as if I had no 
 personal interest in the matter. This is not as difficult as the 
 publie might imagine. The writing of a few boofcs makes a 
 man self-sufficient; but much labor and hard toil bring hu- 
 mility. This reflection explains the survey which Corneille, 
 Molifere, and other great authors made of jtheir writings. If 
 it is impossible to equal them in the grandeur of their con- 
 ceptions, at least we may share the spirit with wrhich they 
 examined them. 
 
 The leading idea of this human Comedy came to me at 
 first like a dream; like one of those impossible visions which 
 we try to clasp as they elude us; a Smiling fancy showing for 
 a moment a woman's face, as it spreads its wings and rises 
 to the ideal heavens. But soon this vision, this chimera, 
 changed, after the fashion of chimeras, into a living shape 
 with compelling will and tyrannous power, to which I yielded 
 myself up. The idea came from the study of human life in 
 comparison with the life of animals. 
 
 1 This preface, written forty-three years ago, is placed here to give 
 Balzac's own interpretation of his books. Without it they will not be 
 fully utiderstood. ttis letters, published after his death, reveal iii like 
 mantief the iHan himself, Itis Wdndefftil titethod of Wotit, Slid the sin- 
 cerity of this preface. 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the controversy which in 
 these latter days has arisen between Cuvier and Geoffroy 
 Saint-Hilaire rests upon a scientific innovation. Synthetic 
 unity filled, under various definitions, the greatest minds of 
 the two preceding centuries. In reading the strange books 
 of those mystical writers who drew science into their concep- 
 tions of the infinite, — such as Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, 
 and others; also the writings of the great naturalists, Leib- 
 nitz, BufEon, Charles Bonnet, etc., — we find in the monads of 
 Leibnitz, in the organic rnolecules of BufEon, in the vegetative 
 force of Needham, in the encasement of germs of Charles 
 Bonnet, who was bold enough to write in 1760, " animal life 
 vegetates like plant life," — we find, I say, the rudiments of 
 that strong law of self-preservation upon which rests the the- 
 ory of synthetic unity. There is but one animal. The Cre- 
 ator used one and the same principle for all organized being. 
 An animal is an essence which takes external form; or, to 
 speak more correctly, takes the differences of its form from 
 the centres or conditions in which it comes to its develop- 
 y ment. All zoological species grow out of these differences. 
 The announcement and pursuit of this theory, keeping it as 
 he did in harmony with preconceived ideas of the Divine 
 power, will be the lasting glory of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the 
 conqueror of Cuvier in this particular branch of science, — 
 a fact recognized by the great Goethe in the last words which 
 came from his pen. 
 
 Filled with these ideas, I had perceived, long before this 
 ./''discussion arose, that Sofciety in these respects is like Nature. 
 Society makes the man; he develops according to the social 
 centres in which he is placed: there are as many difleren'; 
 men as there are species in zoology. The differences between 
 a soldier, a workman, a governor, a lawyer, a man of leisure, a 
 scholar, a statesman, a merchant, a sailor, a poet, a beggar, a 
 priest, though more difficult to decipher, are at least as marked 
 as those which separate the wolf, the lion, the ass, the crow, 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 the shark, the seal, the lamb, etc. There have always been, 
 and always will be, social species just as there are zoological 
 species. If Buifoii achieved a great work when he put together 
 in one book the whole scheme of zoology, is there not a work 
 of the same kind to be done for Society ? Nature imposes 
 upon the animal kingdom limitations which do not bind the 
 social realm. When Biiffon had described a lion, he could dis- 
 miss the lioness with a word; but in the world of men, woman 
 is far from being the female of the male. Two species of man- 
 kind may exist in one household: the wife of a shopkeeper 
 is sometimes fit to be the wife of a prince; often the wife of 
 a prince is unworthy to be the companion of the meanest 
 laborer. The Social kingdom has uncertainties and acci- 
 dents which are not to be found in the natural world, for it 
 is itself Nature plus Society. Any description of the social 
 species, consequently, doubles all description of the animal 
 species in the matter of the sexes alone. 
 
 Moreover, among animals there is no drama, no current of 
 events to excite and move them; the circumstances of their 
 life are not confusing; they attack each other, and that is all. 
 Men attack each other in like manner, but their greater or 
 lesser intelligence renders the struggle far more complicated. 
 If some scientific men do not yet admit that the animal world 
 is transfused into the human world by the current of the 
 original principle of life, it is at least certain that a grocer 
 can become peer of France, and a noble may fall to the lowest 
 social stratum. Further than this : . Buffon found the life of 
 animals extremely simple. They have no belongings, neither 
 arts nor sciences; while man, by a law still unexplained, feels 
 the need to set the stamp of his habits, his thoughts, his be- 
 ing, upon all that he collects to meet his wants. Though 
 Leuwenhoec, Swammerdam, Spallanzani, Reaumur, Charles 
 Bonnet, Muller, Haller, and other patient zoologists proclaim 
 the interest which attaches to the habits of animals, yet to 
 our eyes at least they remain perpetually the same ; whereas 
 
 ^ 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 the habits, clothing, methods of speech, the abodes of princes, 
 bankers, artists, citizens, priests, and paupers, are all widely 
 dissimilar, and change with the whims of civilization. 
 
 For these reasons my ideal work took on a triple form, — 
 men, women, and things; that is to say, persons and the 
 material Tepresentation which they gave to their being: in 
 short, man and his life. 
 / In reading the dry and sapless dictionaries of facts which 
 aie called history, who does not feel that the writers of all 
 epochs — Egyptian, Persian, Grecian, Roman — have for- 
 gotten to give us the vital history of manners and customs? 
 That fragment of Petronius upon the private life of Rome 
 provokes more curiosity than it satisfies. It was a sense of 
 this enormous void in the history of the world that led the 
 Abb^ Barthelemy to spend his life in reproducing Grecian 
 manners by his " Anacharsis." 
 
 But how was it possible to bring within the compass of a 
 reader's interest the three or four thousand personages who 
 form Society? How could I satisfy at one and the same 
 time the poets, the philosophers, and the multitude who must 
 have their poetry and their philosophy presented to them 
 under salient forms? However just my conception of the 
 dignity and the poetry of this history of the human heart 
 might be, I could see no way to put it into execution. Up 
 to our own time all celebrated tellers of tales had spent 
 / their talent on creating two or three typical characters, or 
 V in painting some one limited aspect of human life. 
 
 Thus thinking, I turned to the works of Walter Scott. 
 Walter Scott, the troubadour of modern times, had then just 
 placed the imprint of his wondrous method upon a species of 
 composition hitherto unjustly rated as secondary. Is it not 
 far more difficult to enter the lists against ordinary life with 
 Daphne and Chloe, Roland, Amadis, Panurge, Don Quixote, 
 Manon Lescaut, Clarissa Harlowe, Lovelace, Robinson Crusoe, 
 . Gil Bias, Ossian, Julie d'Etanges, My Uncle Toby, Wertber,- 
 
Prefuce. ix 
 
 Rene, Corinne, Paul and Virginia, Jeanie Deans, Claver- 
 house, Ivanhoe, Manfred, Mignon, than to put in order his- 
 torical facts whiph are much the same in all nations, or search 
 out the meaning of laws long fallen into disuse; to i-evive for- 
 gotten theories that once led nations astray, or explain, like 
 certain metaphysicians, the secret of the things that be ? In 
 the first place, nearly all these characters, whose lives are 
 longer and far more vital than those of the generation in 
 which they were born, live only so far as they are allied to 
 the life of the present day. Conceived in the womb of their 
 century, the human heart within thera beats for all time, and 
 holds in many instances the germ of a philosophy. Walter 
 Scott raised to the philosophical value of history that form of 
 literature which from age to age has starred with immortal 
 gems the poetic crown of nations where letters and the arts 
 ^■e cultivated. He put into it the mind of the days of old ; 
 he brought together drama, dialogue, portraiture, description, 
 scenery, the supernatural with the natural, — two elements 
 of his epoch; and side by side with poesy and majesty he 
 placed the familiarities of the humblest speech. Yet with all 
 this he did not so much conceive a system, as find a method 
 in the inspiration of his work, or in the logic of it; and thus 
 he never dreamed of binding his compositions one to another 
 as a complete history, of which each chapter should be a ro- 
 mance, and each romance an epoch. 
 
 In perceiving this lack of unity, which nevertheless does 
 not render the great Scotchman less great, I came to see the 
 system under which I ought to execute my idea, and also the 
 possibility of executing it. Though dazzled, so to speak, by 
 the amazing fecundity of Walter Scott, who is always in har- 
 mony with himself and always original, I was not disheart- 
 ened; for I knew that this faculty grew out of the infinite va- 
 riety of human life. Chance is the great romance-maker of 
 the ages : we have only to study it if we seek to be fertile in 
 representation- 
 
X Preface. 
 
 Society as it exists in France was therefore to be the his- 
 torian ; 1 was to be its secretary. In drawing up the inven- 
 tory of its virtues and its vices, in collecting the facts of its 
 manifold passions, in picturing its characters, in choosing 
 its leading events, in constructing types by putting together 
 traits of homogeneous natures, I might perhaps attain to the 
 writing of that history forgotten by historians, — the history 
 of manners and the ways of life. By the exercise of much 
 patience and much courage I might hope to accomplish for 
 France of the nineteenth century what Rome, Athens, Tyre, 
 Memphis, Persia, India, had unhappily failed to bestow upon 
 their civilizations, — a work such as the patient and cour- 
 ageous Monteil, following the example of the Abbe Barthe- 
 lemy, had endeavored, but with little attraction, to accomplish 
 for the Middle Ages. 
 
 This, however, was not all. A writer who placed before 
 his mind the duty of exact reproduction might become a 
 painter of human types more or less faithful, successful, 
 courageous, and patient; he might be the annalist of the 
 dramas of private life, the archaeologist of the social fabric, 
 the sponsor of trades and professions, the registj-ar of good 
 and evil. And yet, to merit the applause at which all artists 
 should aim, ought he not also to study the reasons — or the 
 reason — of the conditions of social life; ought he not to seize 
 /the hidden meaning of this vast accretion of beings, of pas- 
 sions, of events ? Finally, having sought — I will not say 
 found — this reason, this social mainspring, was he not bound 
 to study natural law, and discover why and when Society ap- 
 proached or swerved away from the eternal principles of 
 truth and beauty ? Notwithstanding the range of these 
 premises, which in themselves would fill a volume, the work 
 in its entirety should be shown to have a final meaning. 
 Thus depicted. Society might be made to wear upon its brow 
 the reasons of its being. 
 
 The law of the writer, — that which makes biro a teacher 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 of men ; that which, I presume to say, renders him the equal 
 and even the superior of the statesman, — is to pass judg-i, 
 ment upon human affairs with a single eye to their originat- 
 ing causes. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bossuet, Leibnitz, Kant, 
 Montesquieu, divulge th'e science which statesmen apply. 
 " A writer should have fixed opinions in ethics and in 
 politics ; he should regard himself as an instructor : and 
 mankind does not need to be instructed how to doubt," 
 said Bonald. I took these noble words early to heart as the 
 rule of my work : they are the law of all monarchical writers. 
 Therefore when my critics quote me against myself, it will be 
 found that they have misunderstood some irony, or distorted 
 to my injury some saying of my personages, — a trick not 
 uncommon among calumniators. As for the inward meaning, 
 the soul of my work, the following principles are the founda- 
 tion on which it rests: — 
 
 Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and 
 capacities. Society, far from depraving him, as Rousseau 
 asserts, perfects and lifts him higher; but self-interest in- 
 tei-poses, and develops his evil tendencies. Christianity, 
 and especially Catholicism, being, as I have said in " The 
 Country Doctor," it, complete system for the repression of 
 the selfish instincts of mankind, is the strongest element 
 of the social order. 
 
 If we study carefully a representation of Society moulded 
 as it were upon the living form, with all its good and all its 
 evil, we shall find that while thought, — or rather passion, 
 which is thought and feeling combined, • — is the social ele- 
 ment and bond, it is also an element of destruction. In this 
 respect the social life is like the physical life: races and men 
 attain longevity only by the non-exhaustion of the vital force. 
 Conseq'uently instruction — or, to speak more correctly, reli- 
 gious education — is the great principle of the life of Society, 
 the only means of diminishing the total of evil and augment- 
 ing the total of good in human life. Thought, the fountaiq 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 ot all good and of all evil, cannot be trained, mastered, and 
 directed except bj' religion ; and the only possible religion is 
 Christianity, which created the modern world and will pre- 
 serve it.i From it sprang the need of the monarchical prin- 
 ciple; in fact; Christianity and monarchy are twin principles. 
 As to the limits within which both should be held and regu- 
 lated lest they develop to their inherent conclusions, my 
 readers will agree with me that this brief preface is not thd 
 place for such discussion. Neither can I enter upon the 
 religious and political dissensions of the present day. I 
 write by the light of two eternal truths, — religion and mon- 
 archy : two necessities proclaimed by contemporaneous events, 
 and towards which every writer of sound judgment will en- 
 deavor to bring back this nation. Though I am not an 
 enemy to election, which is a sound principle in the consti- 
 tution of law, I reject it when taken as the sole expression of 
 the social will, and especially when organized as it is at this 
 moment. The suffrage, if granted to all, will give us govern- 
 ment by the masses, — the only government that is. irrespon- 
 sible, and whose tyranny will be without check because 
 exei-pised under the name of law. For myself, I regard the 
 family and not the individual as the true essence of social 
 life. In this respect, and at the risk of being thought retro- 
 grade, I stand by Bossuet and Bonald, instead of advancing 
 with modern innovators. 
 
 There are persons to whom these remarks will seem arro- 
 gant and presumptuous; they will quarrel with a novelist who 
 assumes to be an historian, and ask why he thus promulgates 
 his theories. My sole reply is, that I obey a sense of duty. 
 The work I have undertaken will spread to the proportions 
 of history, and it is due to my readers that I should state its 
 
 1 See a letter written from Paris in " Louis Lambert," in which the 
 mystical young philosopher shows, apropos of the doctrine of Swe- 
 denborg, tjiat there has been but one religion since the creation of the 
 world. 
 
Preface. xiii 
 
 purpose, hitherto unexplained, together with its principles 
 and ethics. 
 
 Having withdrawn various prefaces which were published 
 in reply to criticisms essentially ephemeral, I shall here 
 recall only one of the observations which I have heretofore 
 made upon my books. 
 
 Writers who have an end in view, be it even a return to 
 the principles of the past for the reason that they contain 
 truths which are eternal, should be careful to clear then- way 
 of all difficulties. Now, whoever attacks the realm of pre- 
 conceived ideas, whoever points out an abuse, or sets a mark 
 on evils that they may be checked and curtailed, is held, 
 almost invariably, to be unprincipled. The reproach of 
 immorality has never failed to pursue a courageous writer, 
 and is often the only arrow in the quiver of those who can 
 say nothing else against a poet. If a man is faithful in his 
 portraiture ; if, toiling night and day, he attains at last to a 
 full expression of that life and' language which of all others 
 is the most difficult to render, — the stigma of immorality 
 is flung upon him. Thus Socrates was immoral; so was 
 Christ : both were pursued in the name of that social order 
 which they overthrew or reformed. When a man is to be 
 destroyed, this charge is brought against him ; but the trick, 
 practised by partisans of all conditions, recoils with shame 
 upon the heads of those who employ it. 
 
 In copying the whole of Society, and in trying to seize its 
 likeness from the midst of the seething struggle, it necessarily 
 happens that more of evil than of good is shown. Thus 
 some portion of the fresco representing a guilty group excites 
 the cry of immorality, while the critic fails to point eut a 
 corresponding part which was intended to show a moral con- 
 trast. As such critics were ignorant of my general plan I 
 readily pardon their mistake, for an author can no more 
 hinder criticism than he can hinder the use of sight or hear- 
 ing or language. Besides, the day of impartial judgment 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 has not yet dawned for me ; and I may add that the writer 
 ■who cannot stand the fire of criticism is no more fit to start 
 upon the career of authorship than a traveller is fit to under- 
 take a journey if he is prepared only for fine weather. I 
 shall merely remark, that although the most scrupulous mor- 
 alists have doubted whether Society is able to show as much 
 good as it shows evil, yet in the pictures which I have made 
 of it virtuous characters outnumber the bad. Blameworthy 
 conduct, faults, and crimes have invariably i-eceived their 
 punishment, human or divine, startling or secret. In this 
 I have done better than the historian, for I have been free to 
 do so. Cromwell here below received no other chastisement 
 than that inflicted by the thoughts of men; and even those 
 were vacillating, for Bossuet himself dealt charitably with 
 the great regicide. William of Orange the usurper, and 
 Hugh Capet that other usurper, died full of days, without 
 more to suffer or to fear than Henry IV. or Charles I. The 
 lives of Catherine of Russia and Frederick the Great weie at 
 war with every species of morality, even if judged from the 
 double point of view of the virtue which regulates men at 
 large, and of that other virtue reserved for crowned heads, 
 which claims, with Napoleon, that for kings and statesmen 
 there are two moralities, — a greater and a lesser. My 
 " Scenes from Political Life " are based on this reflection. 
 History does not, like the novel, hold up the law of a higher 
 ideal. History is, or should be, the world as it has been ; the 
 novel — to use a saying of Madame Neoker, one of the J'emark- 
 able minds of the last century — should paint a possible tetter 
 world. 
 
 Yet even so, the novel would be worth little if it pictured 
 only such august fiction, and failed in truth of detail. 
 Here it is that Walter Scott, forced to conform to the ideas 
 of a public essentially hypocritical, was false to humanity in 
 his delineation of women : he drew them from the point of 
 view of a schismatic. The woman of Protestant nations is 
 
Preface. xv 
 
 without ideal. She is chaste, pure, virtuous; but her love, 
 without flow of thought or emotion, remains calm, like a 
 duty fulfilled. It would seem as if the loss of the Virgin 
 Mary had chilled the hearts of the sophists who banished her' 
 from heaven, with all her treasures of mercy and of pity. 
 Under the Protestant system there is nothing left for a wo- 
 man who has once fallen ; but in the Catholic Church the 
 hope of pardon still ennobles her life. Thus there is but 
 one woman for the Protestant writer, while for the Catholic 
 there is an ever new woman in all her varying situations. 
 If Walter Scott had been a Catholic, and if he had placed 
 before his mind the task of describing truthfully those phases 
 of Society through which Scotland has passed, perhaps the 
 painter of Effie and Alice (two characters which in his latter 
 days he reproached himself for having drawn) would have 
 admitted into his work the history of passions, with their 
 fault's, their punishments, and the virtues which repentance 
 brings. Passion is humanity; without it religion, history, 
 romance, art, would not exist. 
 
 In seeing me collect this mass of facts and paint them as 
 they are, in their element of passionate emotion, some per- 
 sons, have imagined, very erroneously, that I belong to the 
 school of materialists and sensualists, — two aspects of Pan- 
 theism. They are mistaken. I put no faith in any indefi- 
 nite advancement of Society ; I believe in the progress and 
 development of the individual man. Those who find in me 
 a disposition to look on man as a completed being are 
 strangely deceived. " Seraphita," which gives what I may 
 call the doctrine of the Christian Buddha, is my answer to 
 this accusation. 
 
 In certain parts of my long work I have tried to popularize 
 those amazing facts, those prodigies of electricity, which pro- 
 duce within a man some unexplained magnetic power. But 
 how,, let me ask, can any such phenomena of the brain and 
 nerves, even though they denote the existence of a new moral 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 world, affect or change the known and necessary relations 
 between mankind and God? In what way can they shake 
 Catholic dogma? If incontestable facts hereafter prove that 
 thought must be classed among the fluids which are known 
 only hy their effects, and of which the substance escapes Our 
 human perceptions, aided though they be by all mechanical 
 facilities," still this would be no more amazing than the cir- 
 cumference of the globe perceived by Columbus, or its rota- 
 tory motion revealed through Galileo. Our future will remain 
 the same. Animal magnetism, with whose miracles I have 
 been familiar since 1820; the phrenological researches of 
 Gall, successor to Lavater ; in fact the works of all those who 
 for fifty years have studied thought as opticians have studied 
 light, — two things not dissimilar, — give evidence both for 
 the mystics and the disciples of St. John the Apostle; and also 
 for those great thinkers who have endeavored to think out a 
 spiritual world, a new sphere, in which shall be revealed the 
 relations between man and God. 
 
 If the meaning of my woi'k is understood, my readers will 
 see that 1 give to the recurring events of daily life, — secret or 
 manifest, — and. to the actions of individuals, with their hid-i 
 den springs and motives, as much importance as the historJMi 
 bestows on the public life of a nation. The obscure battle 
 fought in the valley of the Indre between Madame de Mort- 
 sauf and her temptation ("The Lily of the Valley") was 
 perhaps as great a struggle as the most illustrious combat 
 ever related in history. In the latter, fame was the conquer- 
 or's guerdon ; in hers, the peace of heaven. The misfortunes 
 of the Birotteaus, the priest and the perfumer, are to me the 
 woes of humanity. La Fosseuse in " The Country Doctor " 
 and Madame Graslin in " The Village Rector," reveal nearly 
 the whole of woman's life. We suffer day by day all that, 
 these people suffered. I have had to do a hiuidred times 
 what Richardson did once. Lovelace presents himself under 
 a thousand shapes, for social corruption takes the color of 
 
Preface. xvii 
 
 the centres in which it develops. On tlie other hand Clarissa, 
 that lovely image of passionate virtue, has lines of purity that 
 fill rae with despair. To create many virgins one needs to be 
 a Raphael, for literature in this respect falls below art. Nev- 
 ertheless, I here call my readers' attention to the large num- 
 ber of virtuous and irreproachable characters which may be 
 found in my works, — Pierrette Lorrain, Ursule Mirouet, 
 Constance Birotteau, La Fosseuse, Eugenie Grandet, Mar- 
 guerite Claes, Pauline de Villenoix, Madame Jules, Madame 
 de la Chanterie, ilve Chardon, Mademoiselle d'Esgrignon, 
 Madame Firmiani, Agathe Rouget, Renee de JMaucombe; 
 together with many characters on the second plane, which, 
 though less important to the story, keep before the reader's 
 mind the simple practical virtues of domestic life, — such 
 for instance as Joseph Lebas, Genestas, Benassis, the rector 
 Bonnet, the doctor Minoret, Pillerault, David Sechard, the 
 tvyo Birotteaus, the curate Chaperon, the judge Popinot, 
 Bourgeat, Sauviat, the Tascherons, and many others; have 
 they not solved the diiRcult literary problem of making virtue 1/ 
 interesting? 
 
 It has been no light task to paint the three or four thou- 
 sand salient figures of an epoch, — for that is about the num- 
 ber of types presented by the generation of which this human 
 comedy is the contemporary and the exponent. This number 
 of figures, of characters, this multitude of portraits needed 
 frames, permit me even to say galleries. Out of this neces- 
 sity grew the classification of my work into Scenes, — scenes 
 from private, provincial, Parisian, political, military, and coun- 
 try life. Under these heads I have classed all those studies 
 of manners and morals which form the general history of 
 Society and of its " conduct of life and noble deeds " (fails 
 etgestes), to use the language of our ancestors. These six 
 divisions follow a general idea ; each has its meaning and 
 signification, and represents a distinct phase in human life. 
 The " Scenes from private life " are those of childhood and of 
 
 b 
 
xvl Preface. 
 
 world, affect or change the known and necessary relations 
 between mankind and God? In what way can they shake 
 Catholic dogma? If incontestable facts hereafter prove that 
 thought must be classed among the fluids which are known 
 only by their effects, and of which the substance escapes our 
 human perceptions, aided though they be by all mechanical 
 facilities," still this would be no more amazing than the cir- 
 cumference of the globe perceived by Columbus, or its rota- 
 tory motion revealed through Galileo. Our future will remain 
 the same. Animal magnetism, with whose mii-acles I have 
 been familiar since 1820; the phrenological researches of 
 Gall, successor to Lavater ; in fact the works of all those who 
 for fifty years have studied thought as opticians have studied 
 light, — two things not dissimilar, — give evidence both for 
 the mystics and the disciples of St. John the Apostle, and also 
 for those great thinkers who have endeavored to think out a 
 spiritual world, a new sphere, in which shall be revealed the 
 relations between man and God. 
 
 If the meaning of. my work is understood, my readers will 
 see that I give to the recurring events of daily life, — secret or 
 manifest, — and. to the actions of individuals, with their hid^ 
 den springs and motives, as much importance as the historiaa 
 bestows on the public life of a nation. The obscure battle 
 fought in the valley of the Indre between Madame de Mort- 
 sauf and her temptation ("The Lily of the Valley") was 
 perhaps as great a struggle as the most illustrious combat 
 ever related in history. In the latter, farne was the conquer- 
 or's guerdon; in hers, the peace of heaven. The misfortunes 
 of the Birotteaus, the priest and the perfumer, are to me the 
 woes of humanity. La Fosseuse in " The Country Doctor," 
 and Madame Graslin in " The Village Rector,'' reveal nearly 
 the whole of woman's life. We suffer day by day all that 
 these people suffered, I have had to do a hundred times, 
 what Richardson did once. Lovelace presents himself under 
 a thousand shapes, for social corruption takes the color of 
 
Preface. xvii 
 
 the centres iu which it develops. On tlie other hand Clarissa, 
 that lovely image of passionate virtue, has lines of purity that 
 fill me with despair. To create many virgins one needs to be 
 a Raphael, for literature in this respect falls below art. Nev- 
 ertheless, I here call my readers' attention to the large num- 
 ber of virtuous and irreproachable characters which may be 
 found in my works, — Pierrette Lorrain, Ursule Mirouet, 
 Constance Birotteau, La Fosseuse, Eugenie Grandet, Mar- 
 guerite Claes, Pauline de Villenoix, Madame Jules, Madame 
 de la Chanterie, ilve Chardon, Mademoiselle d'Esgrignon, 
 Madame Firmiani, Agathe Rouget, Renee de JNlaucombe; 
 together with many characters on the second plane, which, 
 though less important to the story, keep before the reader's 
 mind the simple practical virtues of domestic life, — such 
 for instance as Joseph Lebas, Genestas, Benassis, the rector 
 Bonnet, the doctor Minoret, Pillerault, David Sechard, the 
 two Birotteaus, the curate Chaperon, the judge Popinot, 
 Bourgeat, Sauviat, the Tascherons, and many others; have 
 they not solved the difficult literary problem of making virtue t 
 interesting? 
 
 It has been no light task to paint the three or four thou- 
 sand salient figures of an epoch, — for that is about the num- 
 ber of types presented by the generation of which this human 
 comedy is the contemporary and the exponent. This number 
 of figures, of characters, this multitude of portraits needed 
 frames, permit me even to say galleries. Out of this neces- 
 sity grew the classification of my work into Scenes, — scenes 
 from private, provincial, Parisian, political, military, and coun- 
 try life. Under these heads I have classed all those studies 
 of manners and morals which form the general history of 
 Society and of its " conduct of life and noble deeds " {faits 
 etgestes), to use the language of our ancestors. These six 
 divisions follow a general idea ; each has its meaning and 
 signification, and represents a distinct phase in human life. 
 The " Scenes from private life " are those of childhood and of 
 
 b 
 
xviii Preface. 
 
 youth, just as the " Scenes from provincial life " represent the 
 age of passions, calculations, self-interest, and ambition. 
 The " Scenes from Parisian life " draw the picture of tastes, 
 fashions, sentiments, vices, and all those unbridled extrava- 
 gances excited by the life of great cities, where meet together 
 the extremes of good and the extremes of evil. Each of 
 these three divisions has its local color. ■ Paris and the pro- 
 vinces — that social antithesis — furnished the data. Not 
 only men but events may be formulated by types ; and there 
 are situations in the lives of all, typical phases, which I have 
 sought out and studied carefully. I have also tried to give 
 an idea of the different regions of our beautiful land. My 
 work thus has its geography as it has its genealogy, its fami- 
 lies, its centres, persons, actions; its armorial history, its 
 nobles, artisans, citizens, peasants; its politics, its men of 
 fashion, its army, — in short, its world of men and things. 
 
 After drawing these three sections of Society, I wished to 
 show certain other phases of life which unite the interests 
 of some or of all, and yet are partly aloof from the common 
 order. Out of this desire came the ' ' Scenes from political 
 life," also the ■' Scenes from militury life; " in the latter I 
 have sought to show Society in convulsion, carried out Of itself 
 either for conquest or for defence. Finally, the " Scenes 
 from country life " are, as it were, the evening of my long 
 day's-work, if I may so call this social drama. In this 
 division will be found my purest characters; also the appli- 
 cation of the great principles-of order, of patriotism, and of 
 morality. 
 
 Such is the structure, teeming with life, full of comedy 
 and of tragedy, on which I base the " Philosophical Studies " 
 which form the second part of ray work. In these I have 
 shown the keynote of that vast assemblage of all that strikes 
 the eye, that captivates the mind or touches the heart; I 
 have shown the havoc that has followed thought, step by 
 
Preface. xix 
 
 step, from emotion to emotion. The first of these volumes, 
 "The jMagic Slcin,'' unites the philosophical study to a pic- 
 ture of manners and morals by means of a fantasy, partly 
 Oiiental, which shows the principle of life itself in a struggle 
 with the principle of all passion. 
 
 Above these again will be found the " Analytical Studies," 
 of which I shall say nothing, as only one of them has been 
 published. Later, I hope to give other works of the same 
 class, — the "Pathology of Social life," the "Anatomy pf 
 Educating bodies," the " Monograpii of Virtue," etc. 
 
 Looking at the work still to be done, pei'haps my readers 
 will join niy publishers in saying, " May your life be prp- 
 longed! " My own prayer is. that I may not be so tortured*' 
 by men and events as I have been in the past, since the be- 
 ginning of my great and terrible labor. Yet I have had one 
 support, for which I return thanks to God. The highest 
 talent of our day, the noblest characters, the truest friends, 
 have clasped my hand and said to me, "Take courage!" 
 Why should I not own that such proofs of affection, such 
 testimonials given now and then by strangers, have upheld 
 me in my career in spite of myself, in spite of unjust attacks, 
 in spite of calumnies that have pursued me, — upheld me 
 against disheartennient, and also against that too-vivid hope, 
 the expression of which has been mistaken for excessive 
 conceit. 
 
 The extent of a plan which embraces both the history and 
 the criticism of Society, which analyzes its evils and lays 
 bare its hidden springs, justifies me, I think, in giving to my 
 work the title under which it now appears, — " The Comedy 
 of Human Life." Is it ambitious ? Is it not just.aud legiti- 
 mate ? The public, when my work is done, will decide, 
 
 Paris, July, 1842. 
 
SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 PilEE GORIOT. 
 
 Madame Vatjquer, nee de Conflans, is an old lady 
 who for forty years has kept a second-class boarding- 
 house in Pai-is, — 1\. pension hourgeoise, — in the Rne 
 Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, between the Latin quarter 
 and the faubourg Saint-Marceau. This peyision, known 
 as the Maison Vauquer, is for both sexes and all ages; 
 and up to the time of which we write, scandal had 
 found nothing to say against the manners or' the morals 
 of so respectable an establishment. It must be admit- 
 ted, however, that for more than thirty years no young 
 woman had ever lived in the house, and it is certain that 
 any young man who may have done so received but a 
 slender allowance from his fiimily. Nevertheless, in 
 1819, the date of the opening of this drama, we shall 
 find a poor young girl living there. 
 
 Though the word drama has been recklessly ill-used 
 and misapplied in our degenerate modern literature, 
 it. is necessary to employ it here ; not that this story is 
 dramatic in the true sense of the word, but that when 
 it ends some reader may perchance have dropped a 
 
 1 
 
2 Pere Goriot. 
 
 tear intra muros et extra. Will it be comprehended 
 beyond the walls of Paris? I doubt it. Its minute 
 points of personal observation and local color can be 
 caught only by the inhabitants of that valley which lies 
 between the hills of Montmartre and the higher ele- 
 vations of Montrouge, — a valley full of plastered archi- 
 tecture crumbling to swift decay, its gutters black with 
 foulest mud ; a valley teeming with sufferings cruelly 
 real, and with joys often as cruelly false ; a place so 
 full of terrible agitation that only some abnormal event 
 occurring there can give rise to more than a passing 
 sensation. And yet, here and there, even in Paris, we 
 encounter griefs to which attendant circumstances of 
 vice or virtue lend a solemn dignity. In their presence 
 self and self-interest pause, checked by a momentary 
 pity. But the impression made is like that of a tooth- 
 some fruit, forgotten as soon as eaten. The car- of 
 civilization, like that of Juggernaut, is hardly stayed a 
 moment by the resistance of some heart less easily 
 ground to atoms than its fellows : the wheels roll on, 
 the heart is crushed, the car advances on its glorious 
 way. You will do the same, — you my reader, now 
 holding this book in your white hand, and saying to 
 yourself in the depths of your easy-chair : " I wonder 
 if it will amuse me ! " When you have read the sorrows 
 of Pere Goriot you will lay the book aside and eat your 
 dinner with an appetite, and excuse your own callous- 
 ness by taxing the author with exaggeration and poetic 
 license. Ah ! believe me, this drama is no fiction, no 
 romance. All is true, — so true that you may recog- 
 nize its elements in your experience, and even find its 
 seeds within your soul. 
 
Pere Groriot. S 
 
 The house in which '^e> pension is carried on belongs 
 to Madame Vauquer. It is situated at the lower end 
 of the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, where the ground 
 slopes toward the Rue Aibalete so steeply and abruptly 
 that horses rarely come up or down. This contributes 
 to the silence which reigns in the nest of little streets 
 crowded together between the dome of the Val-de- 
 Grace and that of the Pantheon, — two buildings which 
 change the very color of the atmosphere in their neigb- 
 borhood, throwing into it a yellow tone, and darlfen- 
 ing all by the shadows flung from their cupolas. The 
 pavements of these streets are dry, unless it rains ; the 
 gutters are free from mud and water ; grass grows in 
 tufts along the walls. The most light-hearted of men 
 catches someth.ing as he passes of the eommon sadness 
 of a place where the houses resemble prisons and the 
 roU of a carriage is an event. A Parisian, wandering 
 into it by chance, will find there only these gray peiv- 
 sions and charitable institutions, sombre with the gloom 
 of poverty and ennui, — the gloom of old age slowly 
 passing through the shadow of death ; of youth, whose 
 youthfulness is crushed out of it by the necessities of 
 toil. 
 
 No part of Paris is so depressing, nor, we may add. 
 so little known. The Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, 
 above all, may be likened to an iron frame, — the only 
 frame fit to hold the coming narrative, to which the 
 reader's mind must be led by sombre colors and sol- 
 emn thoughts; just as, step by step, when the traveller 
 descends into the catacombs, the light fades and the 
 song of the guide is hushed. An apt comparison! 
 Who shall say which is the more awful, — to watch 
 
4 Pere Groriot. 
 
 the withering of a living heart, or to gaze upon the 
 mouldering of sknlls and bones? 
 
 The front of Madame Vauquer's house looks out 
 upon a tiny garden, so that the building runs at right 
 angles from the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve at its 
 steepest part. Along this front, between the house 
 and garden, is a gutter-like piece of paved work six 
 feet wide ; in front of this runs a gravel walk bordered 
 by geraniums, Inuristinus, and pomegranates growing 
 in large vases of blue and white pottery. The street 
 gate opens on this path, and is surmounted by the 
 inscription, " Maison Vauquer," in large letters : under- 
 neath a;ppears, " Pension Bourgeoise for both sexes, and 
 others." During the day this gate, with an open iron" 
 lattice, fitted also with a shrill bell, permits those who 
 pass the house to look into the garden. There, at 
 the end of the pavement and opposite to the street, 
 the wall has been painted by some artist of the neigh- 
 borhood to resemble an alcove of green marble. Be- 
 fore this fictitious depression of the wall is a statue 
 of Cupid ; a half-effaced inscription on the pedestal 
 indicating that the age of this ornament is coeval with 
 the popular enthusiasm for Voltaire on his return to 
 Paris in 1778 : — 
 
 Whoe'er thou art, thy master see ! 
 He is, he was, or he will be.i 
 
 At dusk this gate with its barred openings gives 
 place to a stout wooden door. The garden, wide as 
 Xhefagade of the house, is inclosed by the street wall 
 
 1 Qui que tu sois, voici ton maitre ! 
 II Test, le fut, ou le doit etre. 
 
Fere G-oriot. 5 
 
 and by the wall which divides it from the garden of 
 the next house. From these fall a drapery of ivy 
 which conceals them, and which attracts attention by 
 a picturesque effect not common in a city. On both 
 walls fruit-trees have been trained and grape-vines, 
 whose sickly, dusty products are every year the objects 
 of Madame Vauquer's solicitude, and afford a topic of 
 conversation between herself and her guests. Under 
 each wall runs a narrow path leading to a spot shaded 
 by lindens, — tiUeuls. The word tilleuls Madame Vau- 
 quer, though presumably of good family, being nee de 
 Conflans, persists in pronouncing tieuilles, although 
 she has often been corrected for it by her more 
 grammatical Parisians. Between these paths is a bed 
 of aa-tichokes, flanked by a row of fruit-trees trained 
 as standards ; and the whole is bordered by pot- 
 herbs, • sorrel, lettuce, and parsley. Under the lindens 
 stands a round table, pamteJ green and surrounded by 
 benches. Here, during the dog-days, those guests who 
 can afford to take coffee come forth to enjoy it in heat 
 sufficient to hatch out a brood of chickens. 
 
 The house is of three storeys, with attic chambers. 
 It is built of rough blocks of stone, plastered with the 
 yellow wash that gives so contemptible a character to 
 half the houses of Paris. The five windows of each 
 storey of the fagade have small panes and are pro- 
 vided with green blinds, none of which correspond in 
 height, giving to the outside of the house an aspect of 
 uncomfortable irregularity. At the narrow or street 
 end, the house has two windows on each storey; those 
 on the ground-floor have no blinds, and are protected 
 by iron gratings. Behind the house i« a court-yard 
 
6 Pere Croriot. 
 
 twenty feet square, where dwells a "happy family" of 
 pigs, rabbits, and fowls. At the far end is a wood-shed. 
 Between this shed and the kitchen window the meat- 
 safe is hung up directly over the spot where the greasy 
 water from the sink runs into the ground. The court 
 has a small door opening on the Rue Neuve Salnte- 
 Genevieve, through which the cook sweeps the garbage 
 of the house into the street gutters when she washes 
 out the drain with great sluicings of water, — a needful 
 precaution against pestilence. 
 
 The ground-floor, necessarily the part of the how?® 
 where the affairs of such an establishment are carried 
 on, consists, Brst, of a parlor lighted by two windoWvS 
 looking upon the street, which is entered through a 
 glass door. This, the common sitting-room, leads into 
 the dining-room, which is separated from the kitchen 
 by the well of the staircase, the steps of which are of 
 wood, laid in squares and polished. . Nothing can be 
 more dismal than this sitting-room, furnished with 
 chairs and armchairs covered with a species of striped 
 horsehair. In the centre stands a round table with a 
 marble top, and upon it one of those white porcelain 
 tea-sets with gilt edges half effaced, which now^a-days 
 may be seen everywhere. The room has a shabby 
 ceiling, and is wainscoted a third of the way up ; the 
 rest of the wall being covered by varnished paper rep- 
 resenting the adventures of Telemachus, — the princi- 
 pal classic personages being clad in color. The space 
 between the barred windows offers to the guests at 
 Madame Vauquer's table a view of the feast prepared 
 by Calypso for the son of Ulysses. For foi'ty years this 
 feast has served the younger members of the household 
 
Pere Groriot. T 
 
 with a theme for jests, and enables them to feel supe-. 
 rior to their position by making fun of the wretched 
 fare to which for lack of means they are condemned. 
 The mantel is of marble, and the hearth, always clean,' 
 gives evidence that a fire is never kindled there except 
 on great occasions. The mantel-shelf is adorned by 
 two vases, filled with old and faded artificial flowers 
 under glass cases, which flank a clock of blueish marble 
 of the worst taste. This room is pervaded by a smell 
 for which thei-e is no name in any language. We must 
 call it an odeur de pension, Vodeur du renfernii, =- 
 the odor of the shut-in. It suggests used air, rancid 
 grease, and mildew. It strikes a chill as of malaria to 
 tjae bones ; it penetrates the clothes with fetid moisture ; 
 it tastes in the mouth like the stale fumes of a dinner; 
 it fills the nostrils with the mingled odors of a scullery 
 and a hospital. Possibly it might be described if we 
 could invent a process for analyzing the nauseous ca- 
 tarrhal elements thrown off by the physical conditions 
 and idiosyncrasies of a long procession of inmates, 
 young and old. And yet, in spite of these horrors, 
 compare the salon with the dining-room, and you will 
 end by thinking it as elegant and as fragrant as a lady's 
 boudoir. 
 
 The dining-room, with panelled walls, was once 
 painted of a color no longer discernible, which now 
 forms a background on which layers of dirt, more or 
 less thick, have made a variety of curious patterns. 
 The room is surrounded by shelves serving as side- 
 boards, upon which stand chipped water-bottles, cloudy 
 and dim, round mats of zinc metal, and piles of plates 
 made of thick stone-ware with blue edges, from the 
 
8 Pere Croriot. 
 
 manufactory at Tournai. In one corner is a box with 
 pigeon-holes, in which are placed, according to number, 
 the wine-stained and greasy napkins of the various 
 guests. The whole room is a depository of worthless 
 furniture, rejected elsewhere and gathered here, as the 
 battered relics of humanity are gathered in hospitals 
 for the incurable. Here may be seen a barometer with 
 a hooded monk, who steps out when it rains ; exe- 
 crable engravings that turn the stomach, framed in 
 varnished black wood with a thread of gilding; a 
 clock-case of tortoise-shell inlaid with copper ; a green 
 porcelain stove; lamps with dust floating on the oil; a 
 long table covered with oilcloth, so greasy that a face- 
 tious guest has been seen to scratch his name upon it 
 with his finger-nail ; wretched little mats made of 
 broom-straw, slipping from the feet yet always in the 
 way ; dilapidated foot-warmers, with their internal ar- 
 rangements so worn out that the wood is beginning to 
 be charred. To describe how old, how ragged, rotten, 
 rusty, moth-eaten, maimed, shabby, and infirm these 
 remnants are would delay too long the current of this 
 story, and readers in haste to follow it might complain. 
 The red-tiled floor is uneven, worn in places either 
 by hard iiibbing or by the crumbling action of the 
 color. In a word, here is poverty without relieving 
 sentiment ; hard, bitter, rasping poverty. If filth is 
 not yet seen, foul stains are there; rags and tatters 
 may not appear, but rottenness has eaten into warp 
 and woof with a sure decay. 
 
 The room appears in full perfection when at seven 
 o'clock in the morning Madame Vauquer's tom-cat 
 walks in, preceding the arrival of his mistress. He 
 
Pete Croriot. 9 
 
 jumps upon the sideboard, sniffs at the bowls of milk, 
 each covered by a plate, and purrs his matinal content- 
 ment. The widow follows in a tulle cap and front of 
 false hair set on awry, her slippers flapping as she 
 walks slip-shod across the room. Her faded and flabby 
 cheeks, from which projects a nose like the beak ot a 
 parrot, her fat hands and plump person, with its bust 
 too plump and undulating visibly, are all in keejaing 
 with that room, where misfortune oozes from the very 
 walls, and greed crouches in the corners, and whose 
 fetid air its owner breathes without sickening. Hur 
 face, chilling as the first frosts of autumn, her eyes and 
 wrinkled brows changing in expression from the hollow 
 smile of a danseuse to the grasping frown of a money- 
 lender," — all express the character of her pension, ^m&I 
 as the pension itself implies its mistress. The pasty 
 plumpness of this woman is the unwholesome out-come 
 of her life, as pyaemia is the product of the exhalations 
 of a hospital. Her knitted worsted skirt drops below 
 a petticoat made out of an old gown, of which the wad- 
 ding shows through gaps in the worn covering : it 
 sums up to the eye the salon, the dining-room, and the 
 tiny garden, and gives an inkling of the cookery and 
 the character of the guests. 
 
 About fifty years of age at the time of which wt 
 write, Madame Vauquer looked as women commonly 
 look who tell you they have seen better days. Her 
 eyes were light and glassy, and could take on the inno- 
 cent expression of one who would serve an evil pur- 
 pose and make her innocence raise the price of it ; a 
 woman who, to better her own condition, would betray 
 Georges or Pichegru, if Georges and Pichegru still had 
 
10 Pere Goriot. 
 
 a market value. And yet, — "after all, she is a good 
 ci-eature " is the set phrase with which her lodgers 
 speak of her ; for, as she goes moaning and coughing 
 about the house, they take her to be as poor as they 
 ar.e themselves. But how about Monsieur Vauquer? 
 Madame has never given any information concerning 
 her late husband. How did he lose his fortune ? By 
 reverses, she implie'^. He had not been a good hus- 
 band ; he had left her nothing but her eyes to weep 
 with and this house to live in, and the privilege of hav- 
 ing no pity to give to others, because, so she said, she 
 had already suffered ns much as it was possible for her 
 to bear. 
 
 When Sylvie, the fat cook, hears her mistress in the 
 dining-room, she knows that it is time to serve lip 
 breakfast to those lodgers who are inmates of the 
 house. The table guests usually come only for dinner, 
 which costs them thirty francs a month. Wlien this 
 story opens, there are but seven lodgers. The first floor, 
 — that is, the floor up one flight of stairs, — contained 
 the two best suites of rooms. Madame Yauquer lived 
 in the smaller of these; the other was occupied by 
 Madame Couture, widow of a paymaster in the army 
 under the French Republic. Living with her was a 
 young girl nnmed Victovine Taillefer, whom she treated 
 as a daughter : the board of these ladies amounted to 
 eighteen hundred' francs a year. The two suites on 
 the second floor were taken, one by an old gentleman 
 named Poiret ; the other by a man of forty, who wore 
 a black wig, dyed his whiskers, said he was in business, 
 and called himself Monsieur Vautrin. The third Storey 
 Was divided into four single rooms, of which one t^aS 
 
Pere Groriot. 11 
 
 occupied by an old maid named Mademoiselle Michon- 
 neau ; and anotlier by an aged manufacturer of vermi- 
 celli and other Italian pastes, who allowed himself to 
 be called Pere Goriot. The two remaining chambers 
 were kept for birds of passage, who, like Pere Goriot 
 and Mademoiselle Michonnean, could only afford to 
 pay forty-fi\e francs a month for board and lodging. 
 But Madame Vauquer was not desirous of such guests, 
 and only, took them when she could do no better ; for, 
 to tell the truth, their appetites made them unprofit- 
 able. At this time one of these rooms was occupied 
 by a young man who had come to Paiis to study law 
 from the neighborhood of Angouleme, where his family 
 were practising the strictest economy to provide him 
 with the twelve hundred francs a year which enabled 
 him to live. 
 
 Eugene de Rastignac — such was his name — was 
 one of that large class of young men taught to work by 
 sheer necessity ; men who understand from infancy 
 the hopes their parents place upon them, and who pr& 
 pare for success in life by directing all their studies to 
 fit them to take advantage of the future set of the cur- 
 rent; and thus be among- the first to ijrofit by any on- 
 ward movement of society. Unless we were aided by 
 this, young man's powers of observation, and by the 
 address which enabled him to make his way in the 
 great world, this story could not have been colored to 
 the life, as we now hope it may be, owing to his saga- 
 city, his perseverance in penetrating, and also his good- 
 will in conveying to us for the purposes of this narrative 
 (without which we might have been unable to compile 
 
12 P^re Goriot. 
 
 it) the mystevies of a terrible situation, — mj-steries 
 carefully concealed both b}' those who created them, 
 and by him who was their victim. 
 
 Above the third storey was a loft where clothes were 
 dried, and two attic rooms, in one of which slept a man 
 of all work named Christophe, and in the other Sylvie, 
 the fat cook. Besides her regular house-lodgers, 
 Madame Vauq^uer usually had, one year with another, 
 about eight students of law and medicine, and two or 
 three habitues of the neighborhood, all of whom came 
 to dinner only. The dining-room could seat eighteen 
 persons comfortably, and squeeze in twenty. In the 
 mornings, however, there were but seven to breakfast, 
 — a circumstance which made that meal seem a family 
 affair. Every one came down in slippers, confidential 
 observations were exchanged concerning the dress and 
 manners of the dinner guests, and comments were made 
 on the e\'ents of the previous evening with all the free- 
 dom of intimacy. The seven lodgers were supposed 
 to be in especial favor with Madame Vauquer, who 
 meted out to them with the precision of an astronomer 
 their just dues of care and consideration, based on the 
 arithmetic of their board-bills. The same standard 
 governed the intercourse of the guests with each other, 
 although mere chance, poor waifs, had thrown them 
 here together. 
 
 The two lodgers on the second floor paid seventy- 
 two francs a month. This extremely cheap board, 
 which could have been found only in the Faubourg 
 Saint-Marcel, between La Bourbe and the Salpgtriere, 
 and to which Madame Couture made the sole excep- 
 tion, gave sufficient proof that every inhabitant of that 
 
JPere Goriot. 18 
 
 house was weighted with the cares of poverty. In fact, 
 the wretchedness of the whole place was reflected in 
 the shabby dress of its inmates. All the men wore 
 frock-coats of an uncertain color, frayed linen, thread- 
 bare trousers, and boots or shoes which would have 
 been flung away in the more prosperous parts of the 
 city. The gowns of the women were shabby, dyed, 
 and faded, their lace darned, thtir gloves sliiny from 
 long service, their collars soiled, and their Jichus frayed 
 at the edges. Such were the clothes they wore, and 
 yet the wearers themselves looked sound ; their consti- 
 tutions appeared to have resisted the storms of life ; 
 their cold, hard, washed-out countenances resembled 
 the effigy on a well-worn silver coin ; their withered 
 lips covered teeth still keen. They gave the impres- 
 sion of having had, or having still, a share in some life- 
 drama ; not a drama acted before the foot-lights amid 
 painted scenery, but a drama of life itself, dumb, icy, 
 yet living, and acted with throbbing hearts, — a drama 
 going on, and on, without conclusion. 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau was in the habit of wear- 
 ing a dingy green-silk shade over her weak eyes, — a 
 shade stiffened by a wire rim, which must have scared 
 the very Angel of Pity. Her shawl, with its melan- 
 choly mangy fringes, seemed wrapped about a skeleton. 
 What drop of acid in her cup of life had deprived this 
 tbrlorn creature of all feminine lines of grace? She 
 must have had them once. Had she lost them through 
 her faults, her sorrows, her cupidity? Had she once 
 loved, — not wisely? Was she expiating the insolent 
 triumphs of her youth by a despised old age? Her 
 blank gaze chilled you ; her sapless features made you 
 
14 Pere Croriot, 
 
 shndder ; her voice was like that of a cricket in the 
 bushes, lamenting shrilly the approach of winter. She 
 said that she had once taken care of an old gentleman 
 afflicted with an incurable disease, who had been cast 
 off by his children under the belief that he had no 
 property. The old man, however, had saved money, 
 and left her an annuity of a thousand francs, which 
 his heirs-at-law disputed at every payment, reviving 
 scandals of which she was the object. Though the 
 play of passions had seared her face, she retained some 
 slight traces of past beauty, and also a certain delicacy 
 of complexion which allowed it to be supposed that her 
 form still kept a fragment of its charm. 
 
 Monsieur Poiret was a species of automaton. Had 
 you seen him" flitting like a gray ghost through the 
 alleys of the Jardin des Planles, a shapeless cap on 
 his head, his cane with its discolored ivory knob 
 dangling from his limp hand, his faded coat ilying 
 loose, disclosing to view breeches which seemed well- 
 nigh empty, lank legs in blue stockings which quav- 
 ered like those of a drunkard, a dirty white -waistcoat, 
 and a crumpled shirt-front of coarse cotton which 
 barely met the old cravat twisted about a neck as long 
 and wrinkled as a turkey's, — you might indeed have 
 asked if this spectral figure could belong to the gay 
 race of those sons of Japhet who sunned themselves 
 like butterflies on the Boulevard des Italiens. What 
 occupation in life could have shrunk the makings of a 
 man to this? What passions had blotched that bul- 
 bous face which caricature itself could not exaggerate ? 
 What had he been ? Well, possibly a clerk of the De- 
 partment of Justice, — in that ofiice wlaere they keep 
 
Pere Goriot. 15 
 
 the record of moneys spent on tlie black veils of par- 
 ricides, or bran for the baskets of the guillotine, and 
 count the cost of pack-thread to hold the blades in 
 place. Could he have been the receiver of beasts at a 
 slaughterhouse; or a sub-inspector of public health and 
 sewers ? Whatever his occupation, he was surely one 
 of the asses which are used to turn the mill of our sys- 
 tem of civilization ; a pivot round which had once re- 
 volved the misfortunes and impurities of society ; a 
 being of whom we say, in vulgar formula, " It takes all 
 sorts to make a world." Gay Paris has no eye for faces 
 pale through physical or moral wretchedness. But 
 Paris is an ocean ; heave your lead, and you will nev^r 
 find the bottom. Fathom it, describe it, — yet how- 
 ever carefully you search, however minutely you de- 
 scribe, however numerous may be yoiir exploration?, 
 there will remain some virgin region, some unsus23§ct?(J 
 cavern in the depths, where flowers or pearls or hid- 
 eous sea-monsters still lie safe, undiscovered by the 
 divers of literature. The Maison Vauquer i? one pf 
 these hidden monsters. 
 
 Two figures stand out in striking contrast to the 
 rest of the household. Though Mademoiselle Vjctor- 
 ine Taillefer was of a sickly paleness like a girl in 
 feeble health, and though thi.s paleness, joined to an 
 habitual expression of sadness and self-restraint, linked 
 her with the general misery which formed the back- 
 ground of the life about hei-, yet her face was not an 
 old face, and her movements and her voice were young 
 and sprightly. She seemed like a sickly shrub trans- 
 planted into uncongenial soil. Her fair complexion, 
 her auburn hair, her tpo-sleuder figure, gave her the 
 
16 Pere Goriot. 
 
 grace whicli modern critics find in the art of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. Her eyes, which were gray with a radiation 
 of dark strealcs, expressed the sweetness and resigna- 
 tion of a Christian. Her dress was simple and cheap, 
 but it revealed a youthful shape. She was pretty by 
 juxtaposition. Had she been happy she might have 
 been lovely ; for happiness lends poetic charm to 
 women, and dress adorns them like a delicate tinge of 
 rouge. If the pleasures of a ball had called out the 
 rose-tints on her pallid face; if the comforts and elegan- 
 cies of life had filled out and remodelled her cheeks, 
 already, alas! too hollow; if love had ever brightened 
 her sad eyes, — tlien Victorine miglit have held her own 
 among the fairest of her sex and age. She needed 
 two things, — two things whicli are the second birth of 
 women, — the pretty trifles of her sex, and tlie shy 
 delight of love-letters. The pooi- girl's story told at 
 length would fill a volume. Her fatlier believed that 
 lie had reasons for not acknowledging her; he refused 
 to let her live with him, and only gave her six hundred 
 francs a year for her sujjport ; moreover he had arranged 
 to leave his fortune wholly to his son. Madame Couture 
 was a distant relative of Viotorine's motlier, who had 
 died of sorrow in her arms; and she had brought up 
 the little orphan as her own. Unfortunately, the 
 widow of a paymaster in the army of the French 
 Republic had nothing but her dower and her pension. 
 The time might come when she would have to leave 
 the poor girl, without money or experience, to the 
 tender mercies of a cruel world. The good woman 
 took Victorine to mass every Sunday, and to confession 
 twice a month, hoping to prepare her for the -chances 
 
Fere- Goriot. 17 
 
 of her f\ite by making her a jmous woman. She was 
 right ; this cast-off daughter might come to find in her 
 religion a refuge and a home. Meantime poor Victor- 
 ine loved her father, and once a year she went to his 
 house to assure him of the dying foigiveness of her 
 mother. In vain she knocked at that closed door ; it 
 was inexorably shut. Hei' brother, wlio alone could 
 have interceded in her behalf, neglected her, and gave 
 her neither sympathy nor succor. She prayed to 
 God to enlighten the eyes of her father and to soften 
 the heart of her brother ; but her prayers conveyed 
 no reproach. When Madame Ccuture and Madame 
 Vauquer strove for words to characterize this barbar- 
 ous conduct, and loaded the millionaire with abuse, 
 Victorine interposed lier gentle remonstrance like the 
 ciy of the wounded wood-pigeon, whose note of suffer- 
 ing is still the note of love. 
 
 Eugene de Rastignac had a face altogether of the 
 sunny south, — a pure skin, black hair, and blue eyes. 
 His bearing, his manners, his habitual attitudes, marked 
 him as belonging to a good family, where his earliest 
 training must have been in accordance with the tradi- 
 tions of high birth. If ordinarily he was careful of his 
 clothes, wearing on working-days coats of a past fashion, 
 he always dressed with care and elegance when he 
 went into the world. At other times he appeared 
 in an old frock-coat, an old waistcoat, a shabby black 
 cravat tied in a wisp after the manner of students, 
 trousers out of shape, and boots resoled. 
 
 Between these two young people and the rest of the 
 household Vautrin — the man of forty, with dyed whis- 
 kers — formed a cmnnecting link. He M'as one of those 
 
 2 
 
18 Pere Goridt. 
 
 whom people choose to call " a jolly fellow ! " He had 
 brdad shoulders, a deep cliest, muscles well developed, 
 and strong square hands, the knuckles marked by tufts 
 6f red hair. His face, prematurely furrowed, showed 
 signs of a hard nature not in keeping with his com- 
 pliant and cordial manners ; but his strong barytone 
 voice, which harmonized with his boisterous gayety, was 
 not unpleasing. He was obliging and always cheerful. 
 If a lock were out of order he would unscrew it, mend 
 it, oil it, file it, and put it On again, saying, " Oh, I know 
 how ! " In fact he knew something about many things ; 
 about ships, the sea, France, foreign countries, business, 
 public events, men, laws, hotels, prisons. If any orie 
 complained of hard hick, Vnutrin offered his services. 
 Several times he had lent money to Madame Vauquer, 
 and even to her guests; and these creditors would have 
 died sooner than not repay him, for in spite of his ap- 
 parent good temper there was a keen and resolute ex- 
 pression in his eye which inspired them with fear. His 
 very method of spitting marked his imperturbable sang- 
 froid, — the sang-froid which shrinks frotn no crime to 
 escape personal difficulty or danger. A stern judge, 
 his keen eye pierced to the core of all questions, into 
 all consciences, and even into the depths of all feelings. 
 His custom was to go out after breakfast, to come 
 home to dinner, to be off again for the whole evening, 
 and to get in late at night with a latch-key which 
 Madame Vauquer intrusted to him alone. He was on 
 the best terms with his landlady, calling her " Mamma 
 Vauquer," and calcbing lier affectionately round the 
 waist, — a flattery not understood on its real merits, for 
 the widow believed it an easy feat, whereas Vautriu 
 
Pere Gtoriot. 19 
 
 was the only man in the house whose arms were long 
 enough to encircle that solid circumference. One trait 
 of his character was to pay lavishly fifteen francs a 
 month for the gloria (coffee with brandy in it) which 
 he took at dessert. People less superficial than those 
 about him, who were chiefly young men carried away by 
 the whirl of life in the great city, or old men indifferent 
 to all that did not touch them personally, would have 
 examined into the doubts Avith which Vautrin inspired 
 them. He knew, or guessed, the private afilxirs of every 
 one about liiiu ; yet no one knew anything of his, nor 
 of his thoughts and occupations. He set up his good 
 humor, his obligingness, and his unfailing gayety as a 
 barrier between himself and others ; but through it 
 gleamed from time to time alarming flashes of his hid- 
 den nature. Sometimes a saying A\'ni'thy of Juvenal es- 
 caped his lips, as if it gave him pleasure to scout at law, 
 to lash society, or drag to light its inconsistencies; as 
 if he cherished some grudge against the cause of order, 
 or hid some mystery in the dark recesses of his life. 
 
 Attracted, unconsciously, by the strength of one man 
 and the beauty of the other, Mademoiselle Taillefer 
 divided her shy glances and her secret thoughts between 
 the man of forty and the law student. Neither of 
 them appeared to take notice of her, although her posi- 
 tion might at any time undergo a cliauge which would 
 make her a. match worth looking after. None of 
 Madame Vauquer's guests were at much pains to in- 
 quire into the misfortunes which their co-inmates 
 claimed to have suffered. Profound indifference, min- 
 gled with distrust, was the ujishot of their relations to 
 each other. They knew they had no help to offer ; 
 
20 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 each had heard the tale of sorrows till their cup of con- 
 solation held nothing but the dregs. Like old married 
 couples, they had nothing more to say to one another ; 
 their daily intercourse was now mechanical; the fric- 
 tion of machinery unoiled. All could pass a blind man 
 in the street without looking at him, or listen, un- 
 touched, to a tale of woe ; death was for them the solu- 
 tion of the problem of jjoverty, and they stood coldly 
 beside its bitterest agony. The happiest among these 
 hapless beings was Madame Vauquer herself, the ruler 
 of this asylum for broken lives. To her the little garden, 
 arid as a steppe, chill, silent, dusty, humid, was a smiling 
 pleasure-ground. To her the dismal yellow house, which 
 smelt of the corrosions of life, had its delights. Its 
 dungeoii cells belonged to her. She fed the prisoners 
 who lived in them, — prisoners sentenced to hard 
 labor for life, — and she knew how to luuke her au- 
 thority I'espected. Indeed, as she said to herself, where 
 could these people find elsewhere in Paris, at so low a 
 price, food that was as wholesome and as plentiful as 
 that which she gave them ? Each had his own room 
 which he was free to keep sweet and clean, if he could 
 not make it elegant or comfortable. They knew this 
 well themselves, and had she been guilty of even cry- 
 ing injustice her victims would have borne it without 
 complaint. 
 
 Such a household might be expected to offer, and 
 did offer, in miniature, the elements of a complete so- 
 ciety. Among the eighteen inmates, there was, as may 
 be seen in schools or in the great world, one repulsed 
 and rejected ci'eature, — a souffre-douleur, the butt of 
 jests and ridicule. At the beginning of his second 
 
PeVe Q-oriot. 21 
 
 year, this figure became to Eugene de Eastignac the 
 most prominent of those among whom necessity com- 
 pelled him to live. This pariah of the household was 
 the old paste-maker, Pere Goriot, upon whose head a 
 painter would have cast, as Ihe historian casts, all the 
 light of the picture. How came this scorn dashed 
 with a tinge of hate, this persecution mixed with a 
 passing pity, this insolence towards misfortune, to fall 
 upon the oldest member of the pension ? Had he pro- 
 voked such treatment by oddities and absurdities less 
 easily forgiven by his fellows than actual vice ? These 
 are questions which bear closely on many an instance 
 of social injustice. Human nature is hard on those 
 who suffer humbly from a consciousness that they are 
 too feeble to resist, or wearily indifferent to their fate. 
 Do we not all like to test our power by working our 
 will on something or on somebody ? The weakest of 
 beings, the ragged street-boy, rings our door-bell and 
 runs away, or climbs some monument to scratch his 
 name upon the unsullied marble. 
 
22 Fere. Goribt. 
 
 ii. 
 
 In 1813, Pere Goi'iot, then .".bout sixty-two years 
 of age, came to live at Madame Vauquer's, having, 
 as he said, given up business. He took the apart- 
 ment afterwards occupied by Madame Couture, paying 
 twelve hundred francs a year, like a man to whom five 
 louis more or less was of little consequence. Madanie 
 V'auquer fitted up at his expense the three rooms of 
 this suite for a sum which just repaid her, she said, for 
 the outlay. They were miserably furnished with yel- 
 low cotton curtains, chairs of painted pine covered with 
 worsted velvet, and a few worthless colored prints upon 
 the walls, which were hung with papers rejected, one 
 might suppose, by the wineshops of the suburbs. Per- 
 haps the careless liberality shown in this transaction 
 by Pore Goriot, who at that period was respectfully 
 called Monsieur Goriot, caused his landlady to consider 
 him as a simpleton who knew little of business. 
 
 Goriot brought with him a well-furnished wardrobe, 
 suitable for a rich tradesman who on retiring from 
 business could afford to make himself comfortable. 
 Madame Vauquer e.^pecially admired eighteen linen 
 shirts of the best quality, to which attention was at- 
 tracted by two pins worn on bis shirt-frill and united 
 by a chain, in each of which shone a large diamond. 
 The old man usually wore a light-blue coat, and he 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 23 
 
 put on a clean white waistcoat every day, beneath 
 which rose and fell his portly stomach, upheaving as 
 he breathed a thick gold chain adorned with seals and 
 charms. His snuff-box was of gold, with a medallion 
 on the cover containing hair, which created a suspicion 
 of bonnes fortunes ; and when Madame Vauquer ac- 
 cused him of gallantry, the complacent smile of a man 
 whose vanity is tickled flickered on his lips. His 
 closets, ses armoires (he pronounced the word ormoires 
 after the manner of common people), were full of sil- 
 ver plate, the relics of his housekeeping. The widow's 
 eyes sparkled wlien she helped him to unpack aiid 
 arrange these treasures, — ladles, forks, and spoons; 
 castors, sauce-boats, dishes, and a breakfast service in 
 silver gilt, the various pieces weighing many ounces, 
 all of which he had been unwilling to part vvith ori 
 breaking up liis home, many of them recalling events 
 which were sacred in his family history. " This," be 
 said to Madame Vauquer as he put away a dish and 
 porringer, on the cover of which were two turtle-doves 
 fondling each other with their beaks, " was the first 
 gift my wife made me. She gave it to me on the an- 
 niversary of our wedding-day. Poor dear ! it cost her 
 all the little money she had saved up before our mar- 
 riage. Ah ! Madame, I would rather scratch a living 
 with my nails out of the ground than part with that 
 porringer-j but, thank God ! I can drink my coffee out 
 of it as long as I live. I am not badly off: I have 
 plenty of bread baked, as they say, for some time to 
 come." 
 
 In addition to this, Madame Vauquer's prying eyes 
 had seen a certain entry in what is called the great 
 
24 Fire Goriot. 
 
 book, le grand livre, — that is, the list of those who 
 have money in the state funds, — from which, roughly 
 calculated, it was evident that the worthy Goriot had 
 an income of eight to ten thousand francs. From that 
 moment Madame Vauquer, nee de Conflans, who was 
 then forty-eight years old, and owned to thirty-nine, 
 nourished a dream of ambition. Though Monsieur 
 Goriot's eyelids were swollen, and an obstruction of 
 the tear-passage caused him to wipe his eyes fre- 
 quently, she thought his person agreeable and his 
 manners comme-il-faut. Moreover, the stout calves of 
 his legs, and even his long square nose, seemed to her 
 to denote points of character which suited her inten- 
 tions ; and this opinion was confirmed by the round- 
 ness of his face and the wc«y silliness of its expression. 
 She put him down for a sturdy fool, whose mind ran 
 to sentiment, and who could be led by his feelings 
 in any direction. His hair, which he wore in " pigeon- 
 wings," ailes de pigeon, — that is to say, drawn low 
 over the ears and tied behind in a queue, — was dressed 
 and powdered daily by the hair-dresser of the Eoole 
 Polytechnique, who arranged five points on his low 
 forehead, which she thought very becoming. Though 
 somewhat uncouth in manner, he was always spick and 
 span in his dress, and took snufF with so opulent an 
 air, scattering it liberally as if confident the box would 
 be always full of the very best, that the night after his 
 arrival Madame Vauquer went to bed turning over in 
 her mind a project for shuffling oft the shroud of Vau- 
 quer and coming to life again as Madame Goriot. To 
 be married ; to get rid of \iex pension ; to have the arm 
 of this high flower of bourgeoisie ; to become a nota- 
 
Pere Groriot. 25 
 
 bility ill her own quarter; to queter once a month for 
 the poor; to make up little parties for Sunday jaunts 
 to Choisy, Soissy, or Geutilly ; to go to the play when 
 she liked, and sit in a box she should pay for, instead 
 of waiting for free passes given to her occhsionally and 
 only in July, — in short, all the Eldorado of Parisian 
 lower-class middle-life seemed possible for her if she 
 married Monsieur Goriot. She had never told any one 
 that she had forty thousand francs laid by, scraped 
 together sou by son. Thus she was an equal match 
 for the worthy man in point of fortune; and "as 
 to everything else, I am quite as good as he," she 
 reflected, turning over' in her bed, where the fat 
 Sylvie found every morning the impress of her fair 
 form. 
 
 From that day, and for about three months, Madame 
 Vauquer employed the hair-dresser of Monsieur Goriot 
 and made some improvements in her toilette, which 
 she explained by the necessity of keeping the decoruni 
 of her house on a level with the distinguished people 
 who frequented it. She did her best to make thepew- 
 sion select, by giving out that henceforth she would 
 admit no one who had not some special pretentions to 
 gentility. If a stranger came to inspect the rooms, he 
 was made aware of the preference whicli Monsieur 
 Goriot — "one of the most distinguished and respect- 
 able men of business in Paris " — had given to the es- 
 tablishment. She sent out a prospectus headed Maison 
 Vauquee. " It was," she stated, " one of the oldest 
 and best patronized pensions bourgeoises in the Latin 
 quarter. It commanded a fine View of the valley of 
 the Gobelins " (seen from one window in the third 
 
26 Pere Goriot. 
 
 storey), and had a lovely gai-deii, at the end of whicli 
 stretched an Avenue of Lindens." She concluded by 
 extolling its pure air and the quiet of its retired situa- 
 tion. This prospectus brought her Madame la Com- 
 tesse de I'Ambermesnil, a viomnn thirty-six years of 
 age, who was expecting the final settlement of the af- 
 fairs of her late husband and the payments due to her 
 as the widow of a general officer who had died, as she 
 phrased it, upon fields of battle. Madame Vauquer 
 now took pains with her table, made fires in the sqblon 
 and the dining-room, and justified her prospectus so 
 well that she was actually out of pocket by her liber- 
 ality. The countess was so pleased that she promised 
 Madame Vauquer, whom she called her " dearest 
 friend," to bring to the house the Baronne de Vau- 
 merland and the widow of Colonel Piqueoiseau, two 
 of her acquaintances then living at a pension in the 
 Marais, — an establishment more expensive than the 
 Maison Vauquer. All these ladies expected to be in 
 easy circumstances when the War Office made up its 
 accounts. " But,'' as they said, " government officer 
 keep you waiting so long ! " 
 
 Madame de I'Ambermesnil used to join Madame 
 Vauquer in her private room after dinner, where thej 
 gossipped over small glasses of ratifia and tit-bits from 
 the table, set aside for the mistress of the house. The 
 countess much approved the views of her hostess as to 
 th§ alliance with Monsieur Goriot. The idea, she said, 
 was excellent; she had planned it from the moment of 
 her arrival. 
 
 "'Ah! my dear lady, he is all a man ought to be," 
 said .the widow ; " a man thoroughly well preserved. 
 
Pei-ti G-oriot. 27 
 
 He mightmake a woman very happy for several years 
 to come." 
 
 The countess was not chary of her criticisms on 
 Madame Vnuquer's dress, which harmonized ill with 
 her intentions. '• You must put yourself on a war- 
 footing,'' she said. 
 
 After much consultation the two widows repaired to 
 the Palais Royal, where, in the Galeries de Bois, they 
 bought a hat, and a bonnet with many feathers. Then 
 the countess enticed her friend to the famous shop 
 called La Petite Jeannette, where they chose a dress 
 and mantle. When these preparations were made, arid 
 the widow was fairly under arms, she looked a good 
 deal like the figure on a sign-board of the Baeuf a la 
 Mode, However, she thought herself so changed for 
 the better, and so much indebted to her friend, that, 
 though naturally stingy, she begged her acceptance of 
 a hat costing twenty francs. It is true she expected 
 in return her good offices with Monsieur Goriot, and 
 asked her to sound him as to his views. Madame de 
 I'Ambermesnil was quite ready to undertake the nego- 
 tiation, and got round the old gentleman so far as to 
 bring him to a conference ; from which, however, find- 
 ing him shy — not to say refractory — when she niade 
 advances to him (on her own account), she came away 
 disgusted, and pronounced him a mere boor. 
 
 " My angel," she said to her dear friend, " you will 
 never make anything of that man. He is a miser, a 
 fool, a perfect wretch, who will give you i:iothing but 
 annoyance." 
 
 Whatever may have taken place between Madame 
 de I'Ambermesnil and Monsieur Goriot, the result of 
 
28 Fire Goriot. 
 
 the interview was that the former declared she would 
 not remain in the house with him. The next morning 
 she went off, forgetting to pay her bill, and leaving 
 nothing behind her but a parcel of old clothes to the 
 value of iiAe francs; and although Madame Vauquer 
 did her best to get upon her t'races, she could never 
 discover in all Paris the smallest sign of Madame la 
 Comtesse de I'Ambermesnil. 
 
 She often alluded to this trying affair, and invariably 
 blamed herself for her rash confidence in human nature, 
 though she was in reality more distrustful than a cat 
 in her dealings with her fellow-men. But like many 
 other people, while suspecting those about her, she fell 
 an easy prey to persons she did not know, — a curious 
 and contradictory fact ; but the root of its paradox 
 will be found in the human heart. There are people 
 who come at last to perceive that ihey have nothing 
 more to gain from those who know them well. To 
 such they have shown the hollowness of their natures ; 
 they know themselves judged and severely judged ; yet 
 so insatiable is their craving for flattery, so devouring 
 their desire to assume in the eyes of others the virtues 
 which they have not got, that they court the esteem 
 and afTeotion of strangers who do not know them and 
 therefore cannot judge them, taking the risk of losing 
 all such credit eventually. There is also another class 
 of minds born selfish, who will not do good to friends 
 or neighboi's because it is their duty to do it, while by 
 paying attentions to strangers they secure a return 
 of thanks and praise which feeds their self-love. The 
 nearer people stand to them the less they will do for 
 them ; M'iden the circle, and they are more ready to 
 
PeVe Q-oriot. 29 
 
 lend a helping hand. Madame Vauquer's nature was 
 allied to both classes ; it was essentially mean, false, 
 and sordid. 
 
 " If I had been here," Vautrin used to say to her, 
 " this would never have happened. I 'd have unmasked 
 the woman fast enough. I know their tricks." 
 
 Like all narrow-minded people, Madame Vauquer 
 never looked beyond the limits of the events around 
 her, nor troubled herself about their hidden causes. 
 She liked to blame others for her own mistakes. When 
 this disaster happened, she chose to consider the old 
 vermicelli maker as the author of her woe, and began 
 from that time to get sober, as she phrased it — to se 
 
 degrisei about him. No sooner did she recognize 
 
 the inutility of her advances and of her outlay upon 
 allurements, than she set up a theory to account for it. 
 The old man must, she said, have liaisons elsewhere. 
 She admitted that the hopes she had nursed were built 
 upon imaginary foundations ; that the countess, who 
 appeared to know what she was talking about, was 
 right in saying that nothing could be made of such a 
 man. Of course she went further in hate than she had 
 gone in friendship, her hatred not being the child of 
 love, but of hopes disappointed. If the human heart 
 pauses to rest by the wayside, as it mounts to the sum- 
 mits of affection, it finds no stopping-place when it 
 starts on the down-incline. 
 
 Monsieur Goriot, however, was her lodger, and the 
 widow was obliged to repress all outward expression of 
 her wounded feelings, to smother the sighs caused by 
 her self-deception, and to choke down her desires for 
 vengeance, like a monk taunted by his superior. Little 
 
30 Pere Groriot. 
 
 minds vent their feelings, bad or good, in little w<i3's. 
 The widow used her woman's wit to invent subtle per- 
 secutions for her victim. She began by cutting off the 
 sui^erfluities of her housekeeping. " No more pickles, 
 no more anchovies," she said to Sylvie the morning she 
 went back to the old programme ; "pickles and ancho- 
 vies are delusions." Monsieur Goriot, however, was a 
 frugal man, habitually parsimonious, as most men are 
 who have saved up their fortunes :, soup, bouilli, and 
 one dish of vegetables was, and always had been, the 
 dinner he liked best ; so that it was difficult for Madame 
 Vauquer to annoy him by offending his tastes in this 
 line. Disheartened by her failure, she now began to 
 treat him with contempt, and to snub him before the 
 other guests, who, chiefly for amusement, joined in the 
 persecution, and thus assisted her revenge. At the end 
 of a year she had pushed her ill of)inion of him so far 
 as to ask herself why a man with eight to ten thousand 
 francs a year, and superb plate and jewelry, should live 
 in her house and pay a price so small in proportion to 
 his fortune ? 
 
 During the greater part of his first year Goriot had 
 dined out once or twice a week ; then by degrees, only 
 once in two weeks. His absence had suited Madame 
 Vauquer so well that she was displeased at the regu- 
 larity with which he now came to his meals. This 
 change she attributed to a falling off in his means ; also 
 to a wish to disoblige her. One of the despicable 
 traits in lilliputian natures is their habit of attributing 
 their own meannesses to others. Unfortunately, at the 
 end of his second year Monsieur Goriot confirmed some 
 of the gossip in circulation by asking Madame Vauquer 
 
Pere Goriot. 31 
 
 if he could take . rooms on the second storey and pay 
 only nine hundred francs a year; and he became so 
 economical that ho went without a fire in his room 
 all winter. The widow, under this new arrangement, 
 demanded payment in advance, to which Monsieur 
 Goriot consented; and from that day forth she called 
 him Pere Goriot. It now became a question with 
 the whole household, why was he going down in the 
 world? Difficult to answer. As the false countess 
 had said, Pere Goriot was reticent and sly. Accord- 
 ing to the logic of empty lieads who tattle because 
 they have brains for nothing else, people who keep 
 their own counsel must have something suspicious to 
 conceal. The late distinguished man of business now 
 sank into a cheat ; the elderly gallant became a dissi- 
 pated rogue. Some, following Vautrin (who by this 
 time was living at Madame Vauquer's), thought he 
 dabbled at the Bourse, where, having ruined himself 
 by speculations, he now picked up a few francs by 
 fleecing others. Some said he was a petty gambler 
 playing for ten francs a night; others that lie was a 
 spy of the police, though Vautrin declared him "not 
 deep enough for that." Then he became a usurer, 
 lending money by the week in small sums at extor- 
 tionate interest; finally a speculator in lotteries. In 
 turn, they guessed him to be all that vice, impotence, 
 and trickery made most shameful and mysterious. 
 Yet, however low his conduct or his vices, the aver- 
 sion he inspired never went so far as to propose that 
 he should leave the house. He paid his board regu- 
 larly. Besides, in a way they found him useful. On 
 him they could vent their good and evil humors by 
 
32 Pere aoriot. 
 
 jests or stinging sarcasms. The opinion generally 
 adopted among them was Madame Vauqiier's. Ac- 
 cording to her, the man slie liad lately pronounced 
 " all that he ought to be ; a man who might make a 
 woman happy for years to come," was a libertine 
 with extraordinary tastes. 
 
 Here are the facts on whicli the widow based her 
 calumnies. Some months after the departure of the 
 disastrous countess who had lived six months at her 
 expense, she was awakened eai-ly one morning by the 
 rustle of a silk dress and the light foot-fall of a young 
 woman going up to Goriot's apartment, the outer 
 door of which was left conveniently ajar. A few 
 moments later, Sylvie came to tell her that a " creature 
 much too pretty to be what she ought to be," dressed 
 like a goddess, wearing prunella slippers " not even 
 muddy," had glided like an eel from the street to the 
 kitchen, and had asked her the way to Monsieur Gori- 
 ot's apartment. Mistress and maid listened, and 
 caught several words pronounced in tender tones. 
 The visit lasted some time. When Monsieur Goriot 
 conducted his lady downstairs, Sylvie j^icked up her 
 basket and pretended to be going to market as an 
 excuse for following them. 
 
 " Madame," she said to her mistress when she re- 
 turned, " ^Monsieur Goriot must be deucedly rich to 
 carry matters in that way. Would you believe it? at 
 the corner of the Estrapade there was a splendid car- 
 riage waiting, ami he put her into it ! " 
 
 That day at dinner Madame Vauquer drew down a 
 curtain to shade the old man's eyes into which the sun 
 was shining. 
 
PeVe Goriot. 33 
 
 "I see that you know how to attract pretty women, 
 Monsieur Goriot," sliu said as she did so; "the sun 
 follows-you," alluding by means of the proverb to his 
 visitor. " Well, you have good taste ; she is very 
 pretty." 
 
 " That was my daughter," he said, with a gleam of 
 pride, which those present mistook for the conceit of 
 an old man pretending to save appearances. 
 
 A month after this visit Monsieur Goriot received 
 another. His daughter, who came the first time in 
 morning dress, now came after dinner in full evening 
 toilette. The company, who were all sitting in the 
 salon, saw, as she passed, that she was a lovely blonde, 
 slender, graceful, and far too distinguished looking to 
 be the daughter of a Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Why, he's got two ! " cried Sylvie, who did not ' 
 recognize her. 
 
 A few days later another daughter came, — tall, dark, 
 with black hair and brilliant eyes ; she too asked for 
 Monsieur Goriot. 
 
 " Three ! " said Sylvie. 
 
 This lady, who came early in the morning at her 
 first visit, came again a few days later in a carriage 
 and dressed for a ball. 
 
 " That makes four ! " exclaimed Madame Vauquer 
 and Sylvie, who did not recognize in the fine lady of 
 the evening the simply dressed young woman who 
 paid her first visit on foot at an early hour. 
 
 Goriot was still paying twelve hundred francs a 
 year when this took place ; and Madame Vauquer was 
 indulgent, nay, even amused at what she thought his 
 adroitness in passing these ladies off as his daughters. 
 
34 P^re Croriot. 
 
 Still, as the visits explained his indifference to her own 
 attractions, she permitted herself to call him an old 
 scamp ; and when, soon after, he suddenly fell to pay- 
 ing nine hundred francs a year, she fiercely asked whiit 
 business he had to receive people of that kind in her 
 house. Pere Goriot answered that the lady she alluded 
 to was his eldest daughter. 
 
 " I suppose you will tell me next that you have 
 thirty-six daughters," she said sharply. 
 
 " I have only two," he replied, with the gentleness of 
 a broken spirit beaten down to the docility of misery. 
 
 Towards the end of the third year, Pere Goriot re- 
 duced his expenses still further, by going up to the 
 third storey and paying only forty-five francs a month. 
 He gave up snuff, dismissed his barber, and ceased to 
 wear powder. When he appeared for the first time 
 without it, his landlady uttered an exclamation of sur- 
 prise on seeing the color of his hair. It was a dirty, 
 greenish gray. His face, which had grown sadder day 
 by day under the influence of some secret sorrow, was 
 now the most desolate of all those that met around 
 that dismal dinner-table. The widow had no longer 
 any doubt. Here was a miserable wretch who had 
 worn himself out by his excesses. 
 
 When his stock of linen was exhausted, he replaced 
 it by cotton at fourteen sous a yard. His diamonds, 
 his gold snufi'-box, his chain, his jewels, disappeared 
 one after the other. The light-blue coat was given up 
 with the rest of his comfortable clothing, and he now 
 wore, summer and winter, a frock-coat of coarse brown 
 cloth, a waistcoat of cheap cotton and woollen stuff, 
 and trousers of gray twill. He grew thinner and thin- 
 
Pire Goriot. 36 
 
 ner ; the calves of his legs shrank ; his face, which 
 once had the beaming roundness of a well-to-do bour- 
 geois, was now furrowed with wrinkles, the lines on 
 his forehead deepened, and his jaws grew gaunt and 
 sharp. At the end of his fourth year in the Rue Neuve 
 Sainte-Genevieve he bore no likeness to his former self. 
 The sound old paste-maker of sixty-two, who might 
 have passed for forty ; the jolly, fat bourgeois, foolish 
 and simple-minded, whose jaunty bearing amused even 
 those who passed him on the street, and whose smile 
 had something of the gayety of youth, — seemed now a 
 worn-out septuagenarian, stupid, vacillating, wan. His 
 lively blue eyes had tarnished into a dull steel-gray. 
 They never watered now ; but the red rims still en- 
 circled them, and seemed to weep tears of blood. Some 
 people regarded him with horror, others pitied him. 
 The young medical students, who observed the drop of 
 his under lip and took note of his facial angle, said to 
 each other, after teasing and tormenting him and get- 
 ting no reply, that he was falling into imbecility. 
 
 One day, after dinner, Madame Vauquer said to him, 
 " So your daughters don't come to see you any more ? " 
 in a tone as though she doubted the relationship. He 
 started as if she had pricked him with a dagger. 
 
 " They do come — ■ sometimes," he said sadly. 
 
 "Ah, ah! so you still see them sometimes — some- 
 iimes ? " cried the students. " Bravo, Pere Goriot ! " 
 
 But the old man did not hear the jests that followed 
 bis simple answer. He had fallen back into that pas- 
 sive state which those who observed him superficially 
 took for senile indifference. If they had really known 
 what was passing before their eyes, they might have 
 
36 Pere Groriot. 
 
 felt an interest m his state as a moi-al and physica\ 
 problem. But they did not know, nor would it have 
 been easy to know, the old man's real life. The elderly 
 people of the pension, who alone felt any interest in 
 it, never went out of the neighborhood, — they lived 
 like oysters in a bed ; and as for the young men,, the 
 excitements of their Parisian life put the poor old man 
 at whom they gibed out of their heads as soon as they 
 turned the corner of the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve. 
 To narrow minds, like those of these thoughtless stu- 
 dents, the blank misery of Pere Goriot and his dull 
 stupidity were incompatible with the possession of any 
 means or indeed of any capacity whatever. As to the 
 women whom he called his daughters, every one shared 
 the opinion of Madame Vauquer, who argued — with 
 that severity of logic which the habit of attributing low 
 motives cultivates in old women given over to gossip- 
 ping — that "if Pere Goriot had daughters as rich as 
 these women seemed to be, he would not be living in 
 my house, paying forty-five francs a month, and dress- 
 ing like a beggar." These inductions could not be 
 gainsaid ; so that by the end of the month of Novem- 
 ber, 1819, the time of the opening of this drama, every 
 one in the house had made up his or her mind concern- 
 ing the unhappy old man. He had never had, they 
 declared, either wife or daughter ; he was a snail, a 
 mollusk, "to be classed with the shell-fish," said one of 
 them, an employe at a neighboring museum. Poiret 
 was an eagle, a gentleman of fashion, beside Goriot. 
 Poiret could talk, argue, and answer. To be sure he 
 said nothing, for his talking, arguing, and reasoning 
 were only the repetition in his own words of the last 
 
PeVe 0-oriot. 37 
 
 thing said by other people. But at least he took a 
 share in the common talk, he was alive, he seemed to 
 have his faculties ; while Pere Goriot, as another em- 
 ploye at the museum remarked, was "always below 
 
38 Pere Groriot. 
 
 III. 
 
 EtTGiNB DE Rastignac had returned from his vaca- 
 tion in a state of mind not uncommon in young men of 
 talent, or in those to whom circumstances of difficulty 
 impart for a time the qualities of picked men. During 
 his first year in Paris the slight application required to 
 pass through the first stages of his profession had left 
 him free to enjoy the external charms of the capital. 
 A student finds his time well filled up if he wishes to 
 study the windings of the Parisian labyrinth, to see all 
 that is worth seeing at the theatres, to know the cus- 
 toms, to learn the language, to get used to the special 
 pleasures of the great capital, to ransack all its corners 
 good and bad, to attend those lectures that may amuse 
 him, and make a mental catalogue of the treasures 
 collected in the museums. He begins by an enthusi- 
 asm for some foolery that he thinks grandiose. He 
 chooses a hero, — possibly a professor who is paid to 
 keep himself above the level of his audience -^ or he 
 pulls up his cravat and assumes an attitude at the 
 Opera-Coraique, glancing at some lady in the first tier 
 of boxes. But after these initiations he usually peels 
 . off his husk, enlarges the horizon of his life, and ends 
 by getting an idea of the various human strata which 
 make society. If he begins by admiring the carriages 
 on a fine day in the Champs-Elysees, be ends by envy- 
 ing those who own them. 
 
Pere Goriot. 39 
 
 Eugene had unconsciously gone through much of all 
 this before his vacation, when he went back to his 
 father's house with his bachelor's degree in Law and 
 Letters. The faith of his childhood, his icUes de priiv- 
 i)ice, gradually outgrown, had left him. His enlaiged 
 intelligence, his excited ambition, made him now see 
 the true condition of things in his old home. His father, 
 mother, two brothers, two sisters, and an aunt who had 
 only a life income, lived on the little estate of Rastig- 
 nac. This property at no titue brought in more than 
 three thousand francs a year, which was subject to the 
 uncertainties attendant upon gra[>e culture; and yet 
 out of that limited revenue twelve hundred francs 
 were subtracted for Eugene's expenses. The sight of 
 their perpetual pinching," which they tried generously 
 to conceal from him ; the comparison he was forced to 
 make between his sisters, whom he once thought pretty 
 girls, and the Parisian women who realized the loveli- 
 ness of his boyish dreams; the uncertain prospects of 
 the large family dependent on his success ; the frugality 
 with which evei-ything was cared for; the wine squeezed 
 for family use out of the last strainings of the press ; 
 together with innumerable shifts that need not be told 
 here, — increased ten-fold his desires for success, and 
 made him thirst for the distinctions of the world. At 
 first he felt, .as high-strung spirits do feel, tha: he 
 would owe nothing except to his own merits. But 
 his nature was eminently southern ; when the time 
 for action came, he was liable to be assailed by hesita- 
 tions such as seize men in mid-ocean when they have 
 lost their reckoning and know not how to lay their 
 course, nor at what angle to set their sails. At first 
 
40 Pere Cforiot. 
 
 he had been eager to fling himself body and soul into 
 the work of his profession ; then he was led away by 
 the importance of forming social ties. He observed 
 the influence which women exert ui^on society ; and 
 he suddenly resolved to try for success in the great 
 world, and to win the help and protection of -women 
 of social standing. Surely, they might be won by a 
 young man, ardent and intelligent, whose mental gifts 
 were aided by the personal charm of elegance, and 
 who possessed the beauty which eminently attracts 
 women, — the beauty of strength. 
 
 These ideas worked within him as he walked about 
 the fields listening to the merry chatter of his sisters, 
 who thought him greatly changed. His aunt, Madame 
 de Marcillac, had been ut court in the days before the 
 French Revolution, and her associates were among 
 the greatest people of that time. All at once it oc- 
 curred to him, as he pondered his ambitious designs, 
 that among the recollections of her past life, with 
 which she had amused his boyhood, were the elements 
 of a social success ujore brilliant than any he could 
 hope to attain by the study of law. He questioned 
 her as to family ties, which she might renew on his 
 behalf. After shaking the branches of her genealogi- 
 cal tree, the old lady came to the conclusion, that, of 
 all the persons who might be useful to him among the 
 careless multitude of her great relatives, Madame la 
 VicorntessedeBeauseant was likely to prove the most 
 available. She therefore wrote to this young woman 
 an old-fashioned letter of introduction, and told 
 Eugene that if he ])leased Madame de Beauseant 
 she would undoubtedly present him to the rest of his 
 
Pere Goriot. 41 
 
 relatives. A few days after liis return to Paris, 
 Rastignac sent iiis aunt's letter to the viscountess, 
 who replied by an invitation to a ball for the next 
 evening. 
 
 Such, then, was the general situation of affairs in 
 the Maison Vauquer at the end of November, 1819. 
 Two days later, Eugene, having been to Madame de 
 Beauseant's ball, came home about two o'clock in the 
 morning. That he might redeem the time lost in 
 gayety, he had made a vow, in the middle of a dance, to 
 sit up and read law till daylight. It was the first time 
 he had stayed awake in that still and silent quarter of 
 Paris, but he was prepai'ed for it by the strong excite- 
 ment of his introduction to the splendors of the great 
 world. Eugene had not dined that day at the Maison 
 Vauquer, and the household were left to suppose that 
 he would not return before daylight, as had sometimes 
 happened after a fete at the Prado, or a ball at the 
 Odeon, to the detriment of his silk-stockings and the 
 stretching of his dancing-shoes. Before slipping the 
 bolts of the front door for the night, Christophe had 
 opened it and stood looking down the street. At 
 that moment Rastignac came in and went up to his 
 room without making any noise, followed by Chris- 
 tophe who made a great deal. Eugene took off his 
 evening coat, put on his slippers, and an old dressing- 
 gown, lit his fire of mottes, — little blocks of refuse bark 
 prepared as a cheap fuel, — and sat down so quickly 
 to his work that the noise of Christophe's heavy foot- 
 steps drowned the lesser sound of his own movements. 
 He stood thinking a few moments before he opened 
 his books. 
 
42 Pere Goriot. 
 
 He had found Madame de Beauseant one of the 
 queens of Parisian society, and her house considered 
 the most agreeable in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. 
 She was by birth and fortune an aclcnowledged leader 
 in the fashionable world. Thanks to his aunt de Mar- 
 oillae, the poor student had been welcomed in this bril- 
 liant house ; though as yet he did not realize the extent 
 of the favor. To be admitted into those gilded salo7is 
 was equivalent to a patent of nobility. Once launched 
 in the society he met there, the most exclusive of al' 
 societies, he had obtained the right to go everywhere. 
 Dazzled by the brilliancy that sui-rounded him, Eugene, 
 after exchanging a few words with his hostess, had 
 given all his attention to one lady in that circle of 
 Parisian goddesses, — a lady whose beauty was of a 
 type that attracts at first sight the admiration of young 
 men. Countess Anastasie de Restaud, tall and well- 
 made, was thought to have one of the finest figures in 
 Paris. With large dark eyes, beautiful hands, a well- 
 turned foot, vivacity and grace in all her movements, 
 she was a woman whom such an authority as the Mar- 
 quis de Ronquerolles declared to be '• thoroughbred." 
 Her high-strung, nervous temperament had not im- 
 paired her beauty. The lines of her figure were full 
 and rounded, though not at all inclining to embonjioint. 
 "Thoroughbred," "pure-blooded," — these expressions 
 were beginning to take the place of the old forms 
 of approval, — "angels of heaven," hyperboles from 
 Ossian, and all the mythological vocabulary rejected 
 by modern dandyism. To Rastignac, Madame de 
 Restaud seemed the woman who might serve his pur- 
 pose. He secured two dances in the list written 
 
Pere Croriot. 43 
 
 upon her fan, and talked to her during the pauses of 
 a quadrille. 
 
 " Where may I hope to meet you again, Madame?" 
 he said, with that insistent admiration which has so 
 much charm for women. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " in the Bois, at the opera, at home, 
 — everywhere." 
 
 And this bold son of the south jjressed his way with 
 the charming countess as far as a man could go in the 
 intervals of a waltz and a quadrille. When he told 
 her that he was cousin to Madame de Beauseant, the 
 countess, whom he took for a great lady, invited him 
 to visit her. From the smile she gave him at parting, 
 Rastignao judged that the invitation was one he might 
 accept immediately. He had the good fortune, in the 
 course of the evening, to make the acquaintance of a 
 man too noble to ridicule his ignorance, — a vice in the 
 eyes of the impertinent young dandies of the period, 
 gifted themselves with the vice of superciliousness. 
 They were all there in full force : the Maulincourts, 
 the Ronquerolles, the Maxime de Trailles, the de Mar- 
 says, the Adjuda-Pintos, in the glory of their self- 
 conceit, and dancing attendance on the most elegant 
 women of Paris, — Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de 
 Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouet, Madame de 
 Serizy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, Comtesse Ferraud, 
 Madame de Lanty, the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Ma- 
 dame Firmiani, the Marquise de Listomere and the 
 Marquise d' Espard, the Duchesse de jMaufrigneuse, 
 and the de Grandlieus.' HajDpily, therefore, for the 
 
 1 These were all living people to de Balzac, and their histories 
 can be found in his other books. 
 
44 Pere Goriot. 
 
 inexperienced student, he stumbled upon the Marquis 
 de Montrivenu, who was present in attendance on the 
 Duchesse de Langeais, — a general, a brave soldier, 
 and simple-hearted as a child. Fi'om him Eugene 
 learned that Madame de Restaud lived in the Rue du 
 Helder. 
 
 To be young, to thirst for distinction, to hunger for 
 the smiles of a woman, to see unclosing before him the 
 doors of these great mansions, to plant his foot in the 
 Faubourg at Madame de Beauseant's, to bend the knee 
 in the Chaussee d' Antin at Madame de Restaud's, to 
 glance th rough tlie long vista of Parisian salons and 
 know himself attractive and fit to win help and protec- 
 tion from a woman, to feel that he could tread firmly 
 the social tight-rope, where safety depends upon nerve 
 and self-confidence, and to have found already in one 
 of these rare women the balance-pole of his ambition, 
 — with such thoughts, with visions of this woman rising 
 in the smoke of his bark fire. Law on the one hand, 
 Poverty on the other, what wonder that Eugene pierced 
 the future in a waking dream, and attained in fancy to 
 his goal, — success? His vagrant thoughts were in 
 full career, and he was picturing himself by the side of 
 Madame de Restaud, when a sigh broke the silence of 
 the night, — a sigh so deep and piteous that it echoed 
 in the heart of the young man as though it tiad been 
 a death-rattle- 
 He opened his door softly, and slipping into the 
 corridor, saw a line of light along Pere Goriot's thresh- 
 old. Fearing that his neighbor was ill, he stooped 
 and looked through the key-hole. The old man was 
 at work in a way so apparently criminal that Rastignac 
 
Pere Groriot. 45 
 
 thought the interests of society required him to watch 
 and see what came of it. Pere Goriot had fastened 
 two pieces of plate, a bowl of some kind with the dish 
 belonging to it, to the leg of his table. He had twisted 
 a piece of rope round these objects, which were richly 
 embossed, and was pulling upon it with all his strength, 
 evidently trying to reduce them to a mere .lump of 
 silver. 
 
 "The devil! What a fellow!" cried Rastignac to 
 himself; as he saw the strong arms of the old man 
 kneading up the silver as if it had been dough. " Can 
 he be a rubber ; or a receiver of stolen goods ? Does 
 he make believe to be a fool, that he may carry on his 
 iniquities in secret ? Is this what makes him live here 
 like a beggar?" added Eugene, taking his eye from 
 the key-hole. 
 
 He looked again. Pere Goriot had unwound his 
 rope. He took the lump of silver and laid it on the 
 table, where he had spread a cloth, and rolled it into a 
 bar, — an operation he performed with the utmost ease. 
 
 " Why, he must have arms like Augustus the Strong, 
 King of Poland ! " cried Eugene, when the bar was 
 nearly fashioned. 
 
 Pere Goriot looked sadly at his work, and his tears 
 fell fast upon the silver. He then blew out the rushlight 
 by whose glimmer he had done the deed, and Eugene 
 heard him lie down upon his bed with a heavy sigh. 
 
 " He must be mad ! " thought the student. 
 
 " Poor child ! " groaned Pere Goriot. 
 
 On hearing these words Rastignac suddenly resolved 
 to say nothing about what he had seen, and not to 
 condemn his neighbor too hastily. He was about to 
 
46 P^re Croriot. 
 
 return to his room when he became aware of another 
 noise, and one difficult to define, as if men in felt shoes 
 were treading softly on the staii-s. Eugene listened, 
 and was sure that he heard the breathing of two men. 
 No door creaked, and no distinct steps were heard, but 
 he caught a sudden gleam of lighten the second storey 
 shining tln-ough the chinks of Vautrin's door. 
 
 " Mysteries enough for one night in a pension hour- 
 geoise" he said to himself. He went down a few stairs 
 and listened intently. The chink of gold coin struck 
 his ear. In a few moments the light was extinguished, 
 the breathing of two men was again heard, but again 
 no door creaked. The men were going softly down the 
 stairs, and the slight noise of their steps died away. 
 
 "Who is there?" cried Madame Vauquer, opening 
 a window in her apartment which looked on the stairs. 
 
 "I have just come in. Mamma Vauquer," replied the 
 strong voice of Vautrin. 
 
 " That 's odd," said Eugene returning to his chamber, 
 "for I am certain I saw Christophe slip the bolts! 
 They say you must sit up all night in Paris if you want 
 to know what your neighbors do." 
 
 His dreams of amorous ambition being dispelled by 
 these interruptions, Eugene now began to study; but 
 with little profit. His mind wandered to the suspicions 
 roused by Pere Goriot, then to the face of Madame de 
 Restaud rising before him as the pharos of a brilliant 
 destiny; and before long he went to bed and to sleep 
 with his hands clinched. Out of every ten nights which 
 young people vow to study seven are spent in sleep. 
 Ah ! we must be more than twenty to stay awake all 
 night. 
 
PeVe Goriot. 47 
 
 rv. 
 
 The next morning Paris was enveloped in a dense 
 fog; one of those fogs that wrap themselves about the 
 city and make the atmosphere so dark that even punc- 
 tual people lose rote of time. Business engagements 
 are not kept, and many think it eight o'clock when it 
 is nearly midilay. It was half-past nine, and Madame 
 Vauquer was not out of bed. Christophe and Sylvie, 
 who were both behindhand, were taking their coffee, — 
 made with the top skimmings of the milk, the rest of 
 which Sylvie boiled a long time to thicken it, so that 
 ifadame Yauquer might not discover the tithe thus 
 illegally levied. 
 
 " Sylvie," said Christophe, soaking his first bit of 
 toast, " Monsieur Vautrin — a good fellow all the same 
 — had two more men to see him last night. If Madame 
 asks about it, you need n't say much." 
 
 "Did he give you anything? " 
 
 " Paid me five francs for his month ; that 's as much 
 as to say, ' Hold your tongue.' " 
 
 " He and Madame Couture," said Sylvie, " are not 
 mean ; all the rest would like to take back with their 
 left hands what their right hands give us on New 
 Year's Day." 
 
 " And what 's that, anyhow ?" cried Christophe. " A 
 miserable five-franc piece, — that 's all ! There 's Pere 
 
48 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 Goriot, who has blacked his own boots these two 
 months. That old miser, Poiret, won't use blacking ; 
 he'd drink it sooner than put it on his broken old 
 shoes. As to that slip of a student, he only gives me 
 forty sous a month. Forty sons doesn't pay for my 
 brashes ; and he sells his old clothes into the bargain. 
 What a hovel, to be sure ! " 
 
 "Bah!" said Sylvie, slowly sipping her coffee,' " our 
 places are the best in the quarter. AVe do very well. 
 But as to that big Vautrin — Christophe, did anybody 
 ever ask you about him ?" 
 
 " Yes, I met a gentleman a few days ago in the 
 street, and said he, ' Have n't you got at your house a 
 stout gentleman who dyes his whiskers ? ' I said, ' No ; 
 our stout gentleman's whiskers are not dyed ; a man 
 who goes the pace he does has n't the time to dye his 
 whiskers.' I told Monsieur Vautrin about it, and he 
 said, ' Quite right, my boy ; always answer such ques- 
 tions like that. There 's nothing more disagreeable 
 than to have people finding out your little infirmities. 
 Marriages can be balked that way.' " 
 
 " Weil, in the market the other day," said Sylvie, 
 "they tried to lime me too. A man asked if I had 
 ever seen him putting on his shirt. Tliink of that, 
 now! — Goodness!" she cried, interrupting herself, 
 " there 's a quarter to ten striking on the Val de Grace ; 
 and everybody in bed ! " 
 
 " Pooh ! they are all out. Madame Couture and her 
 young person went to mass at Saint-Etienne's at eight 
 o'clock. Pfere Goriot was off early with a bundle ; the 
 student won't be back till after lecture. I saw them 
 all go out as I was cleaning my stairs. Pere Goriot 
 
Pere Gforiot. 49 
 
 knocked me as he passed witli the thing he was carry- 
 ing ; it was as hard as iron. What on earth is he 
 about, that old fellow? All the rest of them spin hirn 
 round like a top. But he 's a good man, I can tell you; 
 worth more than the whole of them put together. He 
 does not give me a great deal, but the ladies where he 
 sends me give' famously. They are finely dressed out, 
 I can tell you." 
 
 " Them that he calls his daughters, — heiii? Why, 
 there 's a dozen of them ! " 
 
 " I only go to two, — the two that came here." 
 
 " There ! I hear Madame getting up. She '11 make 
 an uproar about it 's being late. I must go. Look 
 after the milk, Ciu'istojjhe, and see that the cat doesn't 
 get it." 
 
 So saying, Sylvie went upstairs to Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Why, Sylvie, how is this ? A quarter to ten, and 
 you have let me sleep so late. I have slept like a 
 dormouse. Such a thing never happened to me 
 before." 
 
 " It 's the fog ; yon could out it with a knife." 
 
 " But abont breakfast — " 
 
 "Bah! the devil got into the lodgers, and they 
 turned out des le2)C(fron-jaquet'''' (at daybreak). 
 
 " Sylvie, do s])eak properly, and say le paf.ro/i-niinet." 
 
 " Well, Madame, any way you like. But you '11 all 
 breakfast to-day at ten o'clock. Old Michonneau and 
 Poiret are not out of their beds. There 's no one else 
 in the house, and those two sleep like logs — as they 
 are." 
 
 " But, Sylvie, why do you always mention them to 
 gather, as if — " 
 
50 Pere Groriot. 
 
 "As if what?" said Sylvie, with her horse-laugh, 
 "why not? Two make a pair." 
 
 " Something happened —very odd — last night, Syl- 
 vie. How did Monsiem- Vautrin get in after Chris- 
 tophe had bolted the front door?" 
 
 " Oh ! it was this way, Madame. Christophe heard 
 Monsieur Vautrin, and he came down and unfastened 
 the door. That's why you thought^" 
 
 " Give nae my wrapper, and go and see about break- 
 fast. You can hash up the remains of that mutton 
 with potatoes ; and give us some baked pears, — those 
 that cost three sous a dozen." 
 
 A few minutes later, Madame Vauquer came into the 
 dining-room just as her cat had knocked off a ])late 
 which covered a bowl of milk, and was laiaping the 
 contents. 
 
 " Mistigris ! " she cried. The cat scampered off, but 
 soon returned and rubbed uj) against her legs. " Yes, 
 yes, you old hypocrite ! you can coax when you 've 
 been stealing. Sylvie ! Sylvie ! " 
 
 "Yes, what is it, Madame ?" 
 
 " Just see how much the cat has stolen ! " 
 
 " That animal of a Christophe ! it's his fault. I told 
 him to watch the cat, and set the table. Where has 
 he gone to, I wonder ? Never mind, Madame, I '11 keep 
 that milk for Pere Goriot. I '11 put some water to it, 
 and he '11 never know. He takes no notice of what he 
 puts in his mouth." 
 
 "What took him out early this morning, the old 
 heathen ? " said Madame Vauquer, as she put the plates 
 round the table. 
 
 " Who knows? He trades with all the five hundred 
 devils." 
 
Pere, Groriot. 51 
 
 " I believe I slept too long," said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 "But the sleep has made Madame as fresh as a 
 rose." 
 
 At this moment the door-bell rang, and Vautrin came 
 into the salon, singing in his strong voice, — 
 
 '"Long have I wandered here and there, 
 And wherever by chance 
 I cast my glance — ' 
 
 "Oh! Oh', good morning, Mamma Vauquer," he 
 cried, as soon as he perceived his landlady, gallantly 
 . catching her round the waist. 
 
 " Come, come — don't ! " she said. 
 
 "• Say, ' Don't, you impertinent rascal ! ' Ah ! do as I 
 tell you ; say so ! Now I '11 help you to set the table. 
 I 'm a pretty good fellow, am I not ? 
 
 " ' I courted the brown, and I courted the fair — ' 
 
 I saw something odd just now — 
 
 " ' When I happened by chance 
 To cast my glance — ' " 
 
 " What was it ? " exclaimed the widow. 
 
 " Pere Goriot, at half-past eight o'clock, in the gold- 
 smith's shop in the Rue Dauphine, — the fellow, you 
 know, who buys old spoons and gold lace. Pere Goriot 
 sold him, for a good round sum, some sort of utensil in 
 silver-gilt quite skilfully twisted out of shape, — con- 
 sidering he has never followed the profession." 
 
 "Bah! really?" 
 
 " Yes, truly. I was coming back that way after see- 
 ing off a friend by the Messageries Royales. I followed 
 Goriot to see what he would do next — just for fun. 
 He turned into the Rue des Gres, where he went to the 
 
52 Pere Groriot. 
 
 house of an old usurer whom everybody knows, named 
 Gobseck, — a thorough rascal, capable of turning his 
 father's bones into dominos ; a Jew, an Arab, a Greek, 
 a Bohemian, a fellow confoundedly hard for a man to 
 rob ; puts all his money into the bank." 
 
 "But what does this old Goriot really do? " 
 
 " He does nothing," said Vautrin ; " he undoes. He 
 is fool enough to ruin himself for worthless women, 
 who — " 
 
 " He 's coming in," said Sylyie. 
 
 " Christophe ! " called P6re Goriot from Without, 
 *' come up to my room." 
 
 Christophe did as he was bid, and came back for his 
 hat in a few moments. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " On a message for Monsieur Goriot." 
 
 " What have you got there ? " cried Vautrin, snatch- 
 ing a letter out of Christophe's hand and reading the 
 address, — To Madame la Comtesse Anastasie de 
 Restaud. 
 
 " Where are you going to take it ? " he continued, 
 giving the letter back to Christophe. 
 
 " Rue du Helder. I was told to give it into the 
 hands of Madame la- comtesse herself." 
 
 " I wonder what 's inside of it ? " said Vautrin, tak- 
 ing it back again, and holding it up to the light; "a 
 bank-note ? No — " he peeped into the envelope — 
 " it 's a cancelled note ! " he cried. " What a gal- 
 lant old rascal ! Be off, my boy ! " he added, putting 
 the palm of his big hand on Christophe's head, and 
 spinning him round like a thimble. " You ought tr 
 get a good pour-hoire^ 
 
Pere Goriot. 53 
 
 The table being set, Sylvie proceeded to boil the 
 milk ; Madame Vauquer lit the dining-room stove, and 
 Vautrin helped her, still humming, — 
 
 "Long have I wandered here and there.'' 
 
 By the time all was ready, Madame Coutm-e and 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer came in. 
 
 "Where have you been so early, my dear lady?" 
 said Madame Yauquer to Madame Couture. 
 
 " We have been to pray at Saint-Etienne du Mont. 
 Tins is the day, you know, we are to go to Monsieur 
 Taillefer. Victorine, poor little thing, is trembling like 
 a leaf," said Madame Couture, sitting down before the 
 stove, and putting up her damp feet, which began to 
 smoke. 
 
 " Pray warm yourself, Victorine," said Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " It is all very right, Mademoiselle, to pray to the 
 good God to soften your father's heart," said Vautrin 
 to the young lady ; "but that 's not enough. You need 
 a friend who will speak his mind to the fierce old fel- 
 low, — a savage, they say, who has three millions of 
 francs, and actually won't give you a dot. Every 
 pretty girl needs a dot in times like these." 
 
 "Poor darling!" said Madame Yauquer, "your 
 monster of a father will bring punishment on his own 
 head." 
 
 At these words tears started in the eyes of the poor 
 girl, and Madame Vauquer stopped, restrained by a 
 sign from Madame Couture. 
 
 " If we could only see him, — if I might speak to 
 him and give him the last letter of his poor wife," said 
 
54 Fere Goriot. 
 
 the paymaster's widow. " I have never dared to send 
 it to him by post ; he knows my writing." 
 
 " ' O woman ! innocent, unhappy, persecuted,' as the 
 poet says," cried Vaijtrin, " see what you have come 
 to ! In a few days I shall interfere in your affairs, 
 and then things will go better." 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur ! " said Victorine, casting a look at 
 once tearful and eager upon Vautrin, who seemed quite 
 unmoved by it ; " if you know any way of communi- 
 cating with my father, tell him that his love and the 
 honor of my mother are dearer to me than all the 
 liches of the world. If you could succeed in making 
 him less harsh to me, I would pray God for you. Be 
 sure that my gratitude — " 
 
 " Long liave I wandered here and there," 
 
 sang Vautrin, in a tone of irony. 
 
 At that moment Goriot, Mademoiselle Michonneau, 
 and Poiret came down, attracted probably by the sa- 
 vory smell of Sylvie's mutton. Just as the seven sat 
 down to table and exchanged good mornings, half-pnst 
 ten struck, and the step of the student was heard on 
 the gravel. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Eugene," said Sylvie, "to-day you 
 will get your breakfast with the others." 
 
 The young man bowed to the company, and took his 
 seat by Pere Goriot. 
 
 "I have just had a strange adventure," he said, 
 helping himself liberally to the mutton, and cutting a 
 slice of bread which Madame Vauquer measured with 
 her eye. 
 
 " An adventure ! " repeated Poiret. 
 
Pere Goriot. 55 
 
 " Well, old fellow, why should that astonish you ? " 
 said Vautrin. " iMonsieur looks as if he were made 
 for adventures." 
 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer glanced timidly at the young 
 man. 
 
 " Come, tell us ! " said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Last night I was at a ball at the house of my cou- 
 sin, Madame la Vicomtesse de Beau.seant. She has a 
 splendid house, — - rooms hung with silk ; in short, she 
 gave us a magnificent fete, where I amused myself as 
 much as a king — " 
 
 " Fisher," interpolated Vautrin. 
 
 "Monsieur,'' said Eugene angrily, "what do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 "I svadi fisher, because kingfishers amuse themselves 
 a great deal better tlian kings." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; I 'd rather be a little bird that has 
 no cares, than a king; because — because — " said 
 Poiret, m.an of echoes. 
 
 " Well, anyway," continued the student, "I danced 
 with one of the loveliest women at the ball, — a 
 charming countess, the most delightful creature I have 
 ever seen. She wore peach-blossoms in her hair, and 
 flowers at her waist, — natural flowers of delicious fra- 
 grance. Pshaw! you ought to have seen her; it is 
 impossible to describe a lovely woman animated by 
 dancing. Well, this morning I met this same divine 
 countess about nine o'clock, on foot, in the Rue des 
 Gres. Oh ! my heart jumped ! I fancied for a 
 mom.ent — " 
 
 " That she was coming here," said Vautrin, looking 
 the young man through and through. " She was 
 
56 P^re Qoriot. 
 
 probably going to look np Papa Gobseck, the money- 
 lender. Young man, if you ever get an insight into 
 the hearts of Parisian women, you will find money 
 more potent there than love. Your countess's name 
 was Anastasie de Restaud, and she lives in the Rue 
 du Helder." 
 
 At this the student turned and stared at Vautrin. 
 Pere Goriot raised his head quickly and shot at the 
 two speakers a glance so keen and anxious that he 
 astonished the other guests who noticed him. " Chris- 
 tophe will get there' too late ; she will have gone,'' he 
 murmured sadly. 
 
 " I guessed right, you see," said ' Vauti'in, leaning 
 over and whispering to Madame Vauquer. 
 
 Goriot went on eating his breakfast without know- 
 ing what he was doing; he sank back into himself, 
 and never looked more stupid and self-absorbed than 
 at this moment. 
 
 " Who the devil, Monsieur Vautrin," cried Eugene de 
 Rastignao, "could have told you that lady's name?" 
 
 "Ha, ha!" laughed Vautrin. "Pere Goriot knew 
 it, — why should n't I ? " 
 
 " Monsieur Goriot ! " cried the student. 
 
 "What did you say?" asked the' poor old man. 
 " Was she very beautiful last night ! " 
 
 " Who ■> " 
 
 "Madame de Restaud." 
 
 " Look at the old wretch ; how his eyes sparkle ! " 
 whispered Madame Vauquer to her neighbor. 
 
 "Yes, she was marvellously beautiful," replied 
 Eugene, at whom Pere Goriot was now looking 
 eagerly. "If Madame de Beauseant had been absent, 
 
Pere Goriot. 67 
 
 my divine countess would have been queen of the ball. 
 The young men had no eyes but for her. I was the 
 twelfth written on her list ; she d.nneed all the eve- 
 ning. The other women were jealous of her. If any 
 creature was happy last night, it was she. The old 
 saying is true, — the three most beautiful things in 
 motion are a frigate under sail, a horse at full speed, 
 and a woman dancing." 
 
 " Last night at the top of the wheel, at the ball of a 
 duchess ; this morning down in the mud in the shop 
 of a' money-lender," said Vautrin. " If their husbands 
 cannot pay for their unbridled extravagance, they will 
 get the money in other ways. They would rip open 
 their mother's breasts to get the means of outshining 
 their rivals at a ball." 
 
 Pere Goriot's face, which at the praise of Madame de 
 Restaud had lighted up like a limdscape when the sun 
 falls upon it, clouded over as he listened to these words. 
 
 "Well," said Madame Vauquer, "how about your 
 adventure, Monsieur Eugene ? Did you speak to her? 
 Did you ask her if she was coming into this neighbor- 
 hood to study law?" 
 
 " She did not see me," said Eugene ; "but to meet 
 such a lady in the Rue des Gres at nine o'clock in the 
 morning, — a woman who could not have got home 
 from the ball for some hours after midnight, — does 
 seem to me very singular. Paris is the only place for 
 such strange things." 
 
 " Bah ! there are many far more strange," said 
 Vautrin. 
 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer had scarcely listened, so pre- 
 occupied was she by the fresh effort she was about to 
 
58 Pere Croriot. 
 
 make to see her father. Madame Couture made her 
 a sign to leave the room, and Pere Goriot left also. 
 
 " Did you notice him ? " said Madame Vauquer to 
 Vautrin and the rest. " I am convinced those women 
 are his ruin." 
 
 " You will never make me believe," cried the stu- 
 dent, " that the beautiful Comtesse de Restaud has 
 anything to do with Pero Goriot — " 
 
 " Who wants you to believe it? "said Vautrin, in- 
 terrupting him. "You don't know Paris yet, — you 
 are too young. You'll find out later that there are 
 men absorbed by passions, — a passion." At these 
 words Mademoiselle Michonneau raised her head, like 
 a war-horse that hears the sound of a trumpet. "Ah!" 
 said Vautrin, checking himself to send her a pierc- 
 ing glance ; " we 've had our little passions, have 
 we ? "- (The old maid lowered her eyes like a nun who 
 sees statues.) " Yes," he resumed, " such men pursue 
 one idea, one passion, and never relinquish it. Tliey 
 thirst for one water, from one fountain, — often stag- 
 nant. To gain it they will sell wife and children, — 
 they will sell their own souls. For some this fountain 
 is play, or stocks, collections of pictures, — even in- 
 sects, music. For others it is a woman who ministers 
 to some taste ; to these you may offer every other 
 woman upon earth, — they will not look at them. 
 They will have the woman who satisfies their want, 
 whatever it is. Often this woman does not love them, 
 — nay, will ill-treat them, and despoil them, and make 
 them pay dearly for small shreds of satisfaction. No 
 matter, — the fools will not let go ; they will pawn their 
 last blanket for her sake, and bring her their last sou. 
 
Pire Goriot. 59 
 
 Pere Goriot is one of these men. Youi- countess gets 
 nil slie can out of him, — he is safe and silent. The 
 poor fellow has no thought except for her. Watch 
 him : outside of this passion he is little more than a 
 dumb animal ; rouse him about her, and his eyes spai'- 
 kle like diamonds. It is easy enough to guess his 
 secret. He carried his bit of plate this morning to be 
 melted ; I saw him afterwards going into Gobseck's, in 
 the Rue des Gres. Now, mark ! as soon as he got 
 home he sent that simpleton Christophe to Madame 
 de Eestaud with a letter containing a cancelled note. 
 Christophe showed us the address. It is clear that 
 the matter was pi-essing, for the countess went lierself 
 to the old money-lender. Pere Goriot has been rais- 
 ing money for her. It does n't take much cleverness 
 to put two and two togetlier here. And this shows 
 you, my young student, that last night, when your 
 countess was laughing and dancing and playing her 
 tricks, and fluttering her peach-blossoms and shaking 
 out her gown, her heart was down in the soles of her 
 little satin slippers, thinking of some note of hers that 
 was going to protest — or, of her lover's." 
 
 " You make me savage to know the truth," cried 
 Eugene ; " I will go to-morrow and call on Madame 
 de Restaud." 
 
 " Yes, to-morrow," said Poiret ; " better call to- 
 morrow on Madame de Restaud." 
 
 " But, Paris ! " said Eugene, in a tone of disgust, 
 " what a sink of iniquity your Paris must be." 
 
 " Yes," replied Vautrin, " and a queer sink, too. 
 Those who get muddy in their carriages are virtuous ; 
 those who get muddy afoot are knaves. Hook a trifle 
 
60 Pere Groriot. 
 
 that is not your own, and they show you up on the 
 Place du Palais de Justice as a public curiosity ; steal 
 a million, and you are received in good society and 
 called ' a clever fellow.' And you pay thirty millions 
 annually to the law courts and the police to keep up 
 that sort of morality ! Pah ! " 
 
 " Do you mean to say," said Madame Vauquer, " that 
 Pere Goriot has melted up his silver-gilt porringer?" 
 
 " Were there two turtle-doves on the cover ?" asked 
 Eugene. 
 
 " Yes, there were." 
 
 " He must have cared for it. He wept when he 
 broke it up. I happened to see him — by chance," 
 said Eugene. 
 
 " He did care for it, as for his life," answered Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " Now see the force of passion ! " said Vautrin. " That 
 woman can wring his very soul." 
 
 Eugene went up to his own chamber. Vautrin went 
 out. A few minutes later Madame Couture and Victo- 
 rine got into a hackney coach which Sylvie had called. 
 Poiret gave his arm to Mademoiselle Michonneau, and 
 they walked off together to wander in the Jardin des 
 Plantes during the fine part of the day. 
 
 " Don't they look almost married ? " said Sylvie. 
 "They are so dried up that if they knock together, 
 they'll make sparks like flint and steel." 
 
 "Look out, then, for Mademoiselle Michonneau's 
 shawl, — it will catch like tinder," observed Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
Pere Qoriot. 61 
 
 V. 
 
 At four o'clock, when Pere Goriot returned, he saw 
 by the dim light of two smoky lamps Victorirje Taille- 
 fer sitting silent with red eyes, while Madame Couture 
 was volubly relating the result of the visit made to the 
 father. Tired of refusing to see his daughter and her 
 old friend, Taillefer had granted them an interview. 
 
 "My dear lady," Madame Couture was saying to 
 Madame Vauquer, " would you believe me, he did not 
 so much as ask Victorine to sit down ; she stood all the 
 time that we were there. He told me, without any 
 anger, but sternly, that we might for the future spare 
 ourselves the trouble of coming; that mademoiselle 
 (he did not say daughter) only injured herself by per- 
 sisting in coming after him — once a year ! the mon- 
 ster ! He said that as Victorine's mother had brought 
 him no fortune, her daughter was not entitled to ex- 
 pect any ; in short, he said all kinds of cruel things 
 which made the poor dear cry. She flung herself at 
 her father's feet, and found courage to tell him that she 
 only pressed her case for her mother's sake ; that she 
 would obey him without a murmur if he would only 
 read the last words of his wife. She offered him the 
 letter, saying the most touching things you ever heard. 
 I don't know where she got them ; God must have in- 
 spired them, for the poor child was so carried away that 
 
62 Pere Crorioi. 
 
 I, as I listened to her, wept like a fool. "What do you 
 suppose that bi-utal man did while she was speaking? 
 He pared his nails ! He took the letter which his poor 
 wife had written with so many tears, and flung it into 
 the fire, saying, 'That's enough.' He tried to make his 
 daughter get up from her knees : she wanted to kiss his 
 hand, but he would not let her. Wasn't it atrocious? 
 His great booby of a son came in while we were there, 
 but he would not take any notice of his sister." 
 
 " Can such monsters be ? " said Pere Goriot. 
 
 " And then," continued Madame Couture, paying no 
 attention to this interruption, " father and son walked 
 off together, begging me to excuse them, and saying 
 they had pressing business. So ended our visit. Well ! 
 at any rate he has seen his daughter. I don't know how 
 he can refuse to acknowledge her, for they are as like 
 as two raindrops." 
 
 All the guests now came in, one after another, wish- 
 ing each other good day, and interchanging a style of 
 jest by which certain classes of the Parisian world keep 
 up a spirit of drollery of which sheer nonsense is the 
 principal ingredient, the fun being chiefly confined to 
 gesture and pronunciation. This sort of argot varies 
 continually. The best joke never lasts over a month. 
 An event in politics, a trial in the criminal courts, a 
 street ballad, or an actor's jest, sets the fun afloat and 
 keeps it going ; the amusement consisting, above all, 
 in treating ideas and words like shuttlecocks, and ban- 
 dying them to and fro with the utmost rapidity. 
 
 Just at this time the invention of the diorama, an ex- 
 hibition which carried optical illusion beyond that of 
 the panorama, had set the artists in their studios to 
 
Pere Goriot. 63 
 
 ending all their words in "rama." The fashion had 
 been introduced into the Maison Vauquer by a young 
 painter, one of the dinner guests. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur-re Poiret," said the employe at 
 the Museum, " how goes your healihoraina '/ " Then 
 not waiting for a reply, " Ladies," he said to Madame 
 Couture and Yictorine, " I regret to see that some- 
 thing has gone wrong witli you to-day." 
 
 "Are we going to f^jwirtre .^ " cried Horace Bianchon, 
 a medical student and a friend of Rastignac ; " my 
 little stomach has gone down usque ad talonesP. 
 
 " It is a \'egu\a\- frostinorania,^'' said Vautrin. " Draw 
 back a little, Pere Goriot; your foot takes up the 
 whole front of the stove." 
 
 "Illustrious Vautrin," cried Bianchon, "why do you 
 say frostinorama ? Tiiat's wrong; you should say 
 frostormna.''' 
 
 " No ! " cried the employe at the Museum, " it isfrost- 
 inoratna. I have frost in my toes." 
 
 "Hal Pla!" 
 
 " Here comes his excellency the Marquis de Ras- 
 tignac, Doctor of Laws," cried Bianchon, catching 
 Eugene round the neck and hugging him till he 
 was nearly strangled. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! Help, all of you ! Help ! Oh ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau here entered stealthily, 
 bowed silently to the guests, and took her place among 
 the ladies. 
 
 " That old bat of a woman makes me shiver," 
 whispered Bianchon to Vautrin. " I am studying 
 phrenology, and I tell you she has the bumps of 
 Judas." 
 
64 Pere Groriot. 
 
 " Do you know anything about her ? " asked Vautrin. 
 
 '•Nothing but what I see. I give you my word 
 of honor that her lanky whiteness puts me in mind 
 of those long worms that eat their way through 
 beams." 
 
 " I '11 tell you what she is, young man," said the 
 man of forty, pulling his whiskers : — 
 
 " ' Rose, she has liveJ the life of a rose, — 
 The space of a summer's day ' " 
 
 " Here comes a famous souporama," cried Poiret, as 
 Christophe entered respectfully bearing the tureen. 
 
 " Pardon me, Mo.nsieur," said Madame Vatiquer ; 
 ''it is soupe aux choux." 
 
 All the young men burst out laughing. 
 
 " Beaten, Poiret ! " 
 
 '■ Poir-r-r-rette is done for ! " 
 
 " Score two for Mamma Vauquer," cried Vautrin. 
 
 " Did any one notice the fog this morning?" asked 
 the employ^. 
 
 " It was a fog out of all reason," cried Bianchon ; 
 " a fog without a parallel ; a dismal, melancholy, green, 
 stupid kind of a fog, — a fog Goriot." 
 
 " Goriorama" cried the painter; "because it is no 
 go when you want to see through it." 
 
 "Ha ! my lord Goriot; they are 'talking of you." 
 
 Sitting at the lower end of the table, near the door 
 opening on the pantry, Pere Goriot looked up at this, 
 smelling, as he did so, at the piece of bread placed 
 under his napkin, — according to an old habit in sam- 
 pling flour, which mechanically reappeared when he 
 forgot himself at table. 
 
Pere Goriot. 65 
 
 " Well ! " cried Madame Vauquer sharply, in a voice 
 that rose above the general clatter ; " don't you find 
 the bread good enough for you ? " 
 
 " It is very good, Madame," he replied ; " it is made 
 of Etampes flour, first quality." 
 
 " How do you know that?" asked Eugene. 
 
 " By it's taste ; by it's color.'' 
 
 " By the taste of the nose, you mean ; for you have 
 done nothing but smell it," said Madame Vauquer. 
 " You are getting so economical that by and by you 
 will be trying to get your meals by snifiing the smells 
 of the kitchen." 
 
 " Take out a patent for the j^rocess," cried the em- 
 ploye ; " you will make your fortune." 
 
 " Let him alone; he does it to make us believe he real- 
 ly has been engaged in selling flour," said the painter. 
 
 ."Is your nose a corn-chandler?" asked the young 
 man from the Museum. 
 
 " Corn-what?" said Bianchon. 
 
 " Corn-market." 
 
 " Corn-stalk." 
 
 " Corn-starch." 
 
 " Corn-et." 
 
 " Corn-er." 
 
 " Corn-elian." 
 
 " Corn-ucopia." 
 
 " Corn-orama." 
 
 These eight answers rattled from all parts of the 
 table like a volley of musketry, and made everybody 
 laugh, — all the more when poor Pere Goriot looked 
 round with an air of utter bewilderment, like a man 
 trying to make out some meaning in a foreign tongue. 
 
 5 
 
66 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 " Cor ? " he said to Vautrin, who sat next to him. 
 
 " Corn, — corns on your toes, old gentleman," said 
 Vautrin, patting him on the head in such a way as to 
 drive his hat down over his eyes. 
 
 The poor old man, stupefied by this brusque attack, 
 remained motionless for a moment, during which 
 Christophe carried away his soup ; so that when Pere 
 Goriot, having taken off his hat, picked up his spoon 
 to begin his dinner, it tapped upon the table instead 
 of a plate. All present burst out laughing. 
 
 " Monsieur," said the old man, " that was a poor 
 joke ; and if you give me any more such — " 
 
 "Well, what then, papa?" said Vautrin, interrupt- 
 ing him. 
 
 "Well, you shall pay dearly for it some day — " 
 
 ''Ah ! in the infernal regions, — that 's it," said the 
 painter; "in the little black hole Tyhere they put 
 naughty children." 
 
 " Well, Mademoiselle ! " said Vautrin, addressing 
 Victorine ; " you seem to eat nothing. Was your 
 papa refractory to-day ? " 
 
 " He was horrible ! " said Madame Couture. 
 
 "Ah!" cried Vautrin; "we must bring him to 
 reason." 
 
 Rastignac, who was sitting next to Bianchon, said 
 to him : — 
 
 "Mademoiselle can't bring an action for alimony, 
 for she eats nothing. Eh ! eh ! just see how Pere 
 Goriot is looking at her." 
 
 The old man had stopped eating to gaze at the 
 young girl, whose face was convulsed with grief, — 
 the grief of a child repulsed by the father she loves. 
 
Pere Goriot. 67 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Rastignac in a whisper, " we 
 are all astray about Pere Goriot. He is neither weak 
 nor imbecile. Just turn a phrenological eye on him, 
 and tell me how he, strikes you. I saw him last night 
 twist up a silver dish as if it had been wax ; and at 
 this very moment his face shows that his mind is full 
 of strange emotions. His life seems to me so myste- 
 rious that it might be worth some pains to study him. 
 Oh, very well, Bianchon ; you may laugh, but I 'm not 
 joking." 
 
 " I grant you the man has a medical interest ; he is 
 a case," said Bianchon. " If he '11 let me, I '11 dissect 
 him." 
 
 " No, — just feel his head." 
 
 "I don't know about that; his stupidity might be 
 catching." 
 
68 Pere Qoriot. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The next day Kastignac, elegantly dressed, started 
 about three o'clock in the afternoon to call upon Ma- 
 dame de Restaud, indulging as he went along in those 
 adventurous hopes which fill the lives of young men 
 with varying emotions. In moods like these they take 
 no account of obstacles or dangers ; success is their only 
 vista; life is made poetic by the play of imagination, 
 and they are saddened or unhappy by the overthrow 
 of projects that exist only in their unbridled faiicy. If 
 they were not handicapped by their ignorance and 
 their timidity this social world of ours would be an 
 impossibility. Eugene went along the muddy streets, 
 taking every precaution to keep his boots clean ; and 
 as he walked he turned over in his mind what he 
 should say to Madame de Restaud, — providing him- 
 self with the repartees and witty sayings of an imagi- 
 nary conversation, rehearsing phrases a la Talleyrand, 
 and inventing tender scenes favorable to his project of 
 pushing his future in society. He did get his boots 
 muddy, however, and had to have them blacked and 
 his trousers brushed in the Palais-Royal. " If I w«re 
 rich," he said to himself as he changed a five-franc 
 piece which he had put into his pocket ("in case of 
 accident"), "I should have driven in a carriage to make 
 
Pere Groriot. 69 
 
 my call, and could have thought things over at my 
 ease." 
 
 At last he reached the Rue du Helder, and asked for 
 Madame de Restaud. With the silent wrath of a man 
 certain of futui-e triumph, he noticed the impertinent 
 looks of the lacqueys, who saw him crossing the court- 
 yard on foot heralded by no sound of carriage wheels 
 at the gate. Those looks were the more galling be- 
 cause already he had been smitten by a sense of social 
 inferiority on seeing, as he entered the courtyard, a 
 fine horse in glittering harness attached to one of those 
 exquisite cabriolets, which evince the luxury of extra^ 
 vagant existence and the habit of taking part in the 
 pleasures of Parisian life. Eugene grew out of temper 
 with himself. His brains, which he had stored with 
 clever sayings, refused to work ; he became stupid. 
 While waiting to know if the countess would receive 
 him, he stood by a window in the antechamber, leaning 
 his arm on the knob of its fastening and looking down 
 mechanically into the courtyard. He thought he was 
 kept waiting a long time, and would have gone away 
 in displeasure had he not been gifted with that southern 
 tenacity which works wonders if kept to a straight 
 line. 
 
 " Monsieur," said the footman, "Madame is in her 
 boudoir, and is very much occupied ; she did not an- 
 swer me. But if Monsieur will go into the salon, he 
 will find some one there who is also waiting." 
 
 Wondering within himself at the power possessed 
 by servants to judge and to betray their masters by a 
 word, Rastignac deliberately opened the door through 
 which the man had just passed, wishing, perhaps, to 
 
70 Pere Goriot. 
 
 prove to the lacqueys in attendance that he knew the 
 ways of the house. But he brought up like a fool in s, 
 press-room, full of lamps and wardrobes, and an appa- 
 ratus for warming bath- towels, which led to a dark 
 passage and some back stairs. Smothered sounds of 
 laughter in the antechamber behind him put the finish- 
 ing stroke to his confusion. 
 
 " Monsieur, the salon is this way," said the footman, 
 with that false respect which is the last touch of 
 impertinence. 
 
 Eugene stepped back with such precipitation that 
 he knocked against a bath-tub, but happily held fast to 
 his hat so that it did not fall into the water. At this 
 moment a door opened at the end of the dark passage 
 (which was lighted by a lamp), and Rastignac heard 
 Madame de Restaud's voice, Pere Goriot's voice, and 
 the sound of kisses. He went back into the ante- 
 chamber, crossed it, followed the servant, and entered 
 the first salon, where he took his station at a window 
 which he saw at once must command the courtyard. 
 He wanted to see if Pere Goriot could really be Pere 
 Goriot. His heart beat violently as he remetnbered 
 the horrible insinuations of Vautrin. The footman 
 stood waiting to usher him through the door of an 
 inner drawing-room, when out of it came an elegant 
 young man, who said to the servant, crossly, — 
 
 " I am going, Maurice ; you can tell Madame la 
 comtesse that I waited for her more than half an 
 hour." 
 
 This gay young man of fashion, who evidently had 
 the right of entrance, walked on, humming an Itahan 
 melody, until he came near the window at which 
 
Pere Gtoriot. 71 
 
 Eugene was standing. He tried to see the face of the 
 student, and he also wished to get a ghmpse into the 
 courtyard. 
 
 " Monsieur le comte had better stay a moment 
 longer ; Madame is now at liberty," said M aurice, go- 
 ing back into the antechamber. 
 
 At this moment Pere Goriot came out of the house 
 near the porie-coc/tere, through a door that opened from 
 the back stair-case. The old man raised his umbrella, 
 and was about to open it without noticing that the 
 gates had been thrown back to admit a young man 
 wearing th^ ribbon of the Legion of Honor, who was 
 driving himself in a tilbury. Pere Goriot had only 
 time to step backward ; a moment more and he would 
 have been run over. The opening of the umbrella had 
 frightened the horse, which shied, and then dashed for- 
 ward to the steps of the portico. The young man 
 looked round angrily, saw Pere Goriot, and bowed to 
 him with the constrained civility often bestowed upon 
 a money-lender whom it is advisable to propitiate, or 
 vouchsafed to some smirched man I'eluctantly, and with 
 an after sense of shame. P6re Goriot returned it with 
 a little friendly nod, full of kindness. These things 
 passed like a flash. Too absorbed to notice that be 
 was not alone, Eugene suddenly heard the voice of 
 Madame de Restaud. 
 
 " Maxime, are you going?" she cried in a tone of 
 reproach, not unmingled with vexation. 
 
 The countess had not noticed the arrival of the til- 
 bury. Rastignac turned and saw her, dressed coquet- 
 tishly in a breakfast gown of white cashmere with pink 
 ribbons, her hair put up with the simplicity Avhich is 
 
72 Pere Goriot. 
 
 the morning fashion of Parisian women. A fragrance 
 diffused about her seemed to suggest that she had just 
 taken her bath ; her eyes were limpid, and her beauty 
 was softened by an air of injiolence and languor. Young 
 men have the eyes to see these things ; theii- minds 
 open to all the rays of a woman's charm as plants as- 
 similate from the air they breathe the substances which 
 give them life. Eugene felt the soft freshness of her 
 hands without touching them ; he saw through . the 
 folds of her cashmere the lines of her beautiful figure. 
 She needed no steels or lacings, — a belt alone held in 
 her flexible and rounded waist ; her feet were pretty 
 even in their slijjpers. 
 
 When Maxime raised her beautiful hand to his lips 
 Eugene for the first time perceived Maxime, and 
 Madame de Restaud perceived Eugene. 
 
 " Ah ! is that you, Monsieur de Rastignac ? I am 
 very glad to see you," she said in a tone which a man 
 of the world would have accepted as a dismissal. 
 
 Maxime looked first at Eugene and then at the 
 countess with an expression which might well have ex- 
 pelled the intruder. " What impertinence ! " it seemed 
 to say ; " my dear, I hope you are going to show that 
 puppy the door." 
 
 Rastignac took a violent aversion to this man. In 
 the first place, the blond and well-trimmed head of 
 Maxime made him ashamed of his own hair ; then 
 Maxime's boots were elegant and spotless, while on 
 his, in spite of all his care, there were spots of mud. 
 Maxime wore a frock-coat, which fitted him round the 
 waist like the corset of a pretty woman ; Eugene, on 
 the contrary, was wearing a black coat in the middle 
 
Pere Croriot. 73 
 
 of the afternoon. The clever son of the Charente felt 
 the advantages dress gave to this superciHous dandy 
 with his tall slender figure, light eyes, and pale skin,— 
 a man, he thought to himselt; capable of bringing ruin 
 on the fatherless. 
 
 Meantime Madame de Restaud, without waiting for 
 any reply, flitted back into the great salon, the lappets 
 of her dress floating backward as she went, in a way 
 that ga\e her the appearance of a butterfly on the 
 wing. Maxinie followed her ; Eugene, in a savage 
 mood, followed Mnxime ; and all three stood before 
 the fireplace in the great salon. The student knew 
 well enough that he was in the way of that odious 
 Maxime ; but even at the risk of displeasing Madame 
 de Restaud, he was determined to annoy him. Sud- 
 denly he remembered seeing the young man at Madame 
 de Beauseant's ball, and guessed what might be his rela- 
 tions to Madume de Restaud ; but with that youthful 
 andacity which makes a man commit great follies or 
 secures him great successes, he said to himself, "That 
 man is my rival. I will put him out of my way." 
 Imprudent youth ! He did not know that Count 
 Maxime de Trailles was a dead shot, always ready to 
 take up an insult and kill his man. Eugene was a good 
 sportsman, but he could not hit the mark nineteen 
 times out of twenty in a shooting-gallery. The young 
 count threw himself into an easy-chair by the fire, 
 picked up the tongs, and tossed the wood about in so 
 violent and savage a manner, that the fair face of An- 
 astasie clouded over with distress. She turned to 
 Eugene and gave hirn one of those chill interrogative 
 looks which plainly say, " Why don't you go away ? " 
 
74 Pere Goriot. 
 
 to which well-bred people at once reply by what we 
 may call the phrases of leave-taking. 
 
 Eugene, however, put on an agreeable mnnner, and 
 said, " Madame, I was in haste to see you, because — " 
 
 He stopped short, for a door opened, anrl the gentle- 
 man who had driven into the courtyard entered the 
 room. He was without a hat, and did not bow to the 
 countess, but looked attentively at Rastignao, and held 
 out his hand to Maxime saying, " Good morning," with 
 an air of intimacy which greatly surprised Eugene. 
 
 " Monsieur de Restaud, " said the countess to the 
 student, motioning towards her husband. " Monsieur," 
 she said, presenting Eugene to the Comte de Restaud, 
 "is Monsieur de Rastignao, a relative of Madame de 
 Beaus^ant, through the Marcillacs. I had the pleasure 
 of meeting him at her bull." 
 
 "A relative of Madame de Beaitseant, tltrough the 
 Marcillacs" — these words, uttered by the countess 
 with a certain emphasis (for a lady likes to make known 
 that she receives only those who are people of dis- 
 tinction), had an almost magical effect. The count 
 lost his coldly ceremonious air, and bowed to the 
 student. 
 
 " Delighted, Monsieur, to be able to make your ac- 
 quaintance," he said courteously. 
 
 Ev6n Count Maxime de Trailles, casting an uneasy 
 look at de Rastignao, abandoned his imiDertinent man- 
 ner. This touch of a fairy wand, the magic of an aris- 
 tocratic name, let a flood of light into the brain of the 
 yo\mg southerner and gave him back liis premeditated 
 cleverness. He suddenly caught a glimpse into the 
 great world of Paris, hitherto only cloud-land for him^ 
 
P^re Cioriot. 75 
 
 and the Maison Vauquer and Peve Goriot vanished 
 from his thoughts. 
 
 "I thought tlie Marcillacs were extinct?" said Mon- 
 sieui" de Restaud to Eugene. 
 
 " You are right, Monsieur," he replied ; " my great- 
 uncle, the Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress 
 of the house of Mareillao. They had only one daughter, 
 who married the Marechal de Clarimbault, Madame de 
 Beauseant's grandfather on the mother's side. We are 
 the younger branch ; all the pooi-er for the fact that my 
 great uncle, the Vice-Adrairal, lost his fortune in the 
 service of the King. The Revolutionary government 
 would not admit our claims when it wound up the 
 affairs of the India Company." 
 
 " Did not Monsieur, your great-uncle, command the 
 ' Vengeur ' previous to 1789 ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " Then he must have known my grandfather, at that 
 time commanding the 'Warwick.' " 
 
 Here Maxime shrugged his shoulders slightly with a 
 glance at Madame de Restaud, which meant, "If they 
 begin to talk of naval affairs we shall not get a word 
 with each other." 
 
 Anastasie understood the look, and with the ease of 
 a practised woman she smiled and said, " Come this 
 way, Maxime ; I will show you what I want you to do 
 for me. Gentlemen, we will leave you to sail in com- 
 pany with the 'Warwick' and the 'Vengeur.'" 
 
 She rose as she spoke, making a treacherous little 
 sign to Maxime, and the two turned to leave the room. 
 As this morganatic couple (morganatic is a pretty and 
 expressive German word, which as yet has no equiva- 
 
76 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 lent in the French language) were leaving the room, 
 the . count stopped short in his conversation with 
 Eugene. 
 
 " Aiiastasie," he said sharply, " don't go, my dear ; 
 you know very well — " 
 
 " I shall be back in a moment," she said, interrupt- 
 ing what he was about to say. " It will only take me 
 a second to tell Maxime what I want him to do." 
 
 And she did come back. Like all women who study 
 the character of their husbands that they may be able 
 themselves to live as they please, she knew just how 
 far she could go without straining his forbearance, and 
 was careful not to offend him in the lesser things of 
 daily life. She was now aware from the tone of his 
 voice that it would not be safe to prolong her absence. 
 These contretemps were due to Eugene. The countess 
 expressed this by a glance and a gesture of vexation di- 
 rected to Maxime, who said pointedly to the count, his 
 wife, and de Rastignac, " I see you are all engaged. 
 I do not wish to be in your way. Adieu,'' and he left 
 the salon. 
 
 " Don't go, Maxime," cried the count. 
 
 " Come to dinner," said the countess, leaving Eugene 
 and the coilnt together for the second time, and fol- 
 lowing Maxime into the outer salon, where they re- 
 mained long enough, as they thought, for Monsieur de 
 Restaud to get rid of his visitor. 
 
 Eugene heard them laughing together, talking and 
 pausing at intervals ; but the perverse youth continued 
 Jiis conversation with Monsieur de Restaud, flattering 
 him and drawing him into discussions solely that he 
 might see the countess again and find out the secret 
 
Pire Goriot. 11 
 
 of her relations to Pere Goriot. That this woman, 
 evidently in love with Maxime, yet all-powerful with 
 her husband, should be secretly connected in any way 
 with the old paste-maker, seemed to him a singular 
 mystery. He was resolved to penetrate it. It might 
 give him, he thought, some power over a woman so 
 eminently Parisian, that might serve the ends of his 
 ambition. 
 
 " Anastasie," said the count, again calling her. 
 
 "Well, Maxime," she said to the young man, "we 
 must put up with it. This evening — " 
 
 " I do hope, Nasie," he whispered, " that you will 
 give orders never to admit that young fool, whose 
 eyes spai-kle like live coals when he looks at you. He 
 will make love to you and compromise you, and I 
 .shall have to kill him." 
 
 " Don't be absurd, Maxime," she said ; " these little 
 students are, on the contrary, very useful — as light- 
 ning-rods. Restaud shall be the man to deal with 
 him." 
 
 Maxime laughed, and left the countess standing at 
 the window to see him get into his cabriolet and flour- 
 ish his whip over the champing steed. She did not 
 come back till the outer gates were closed. 
 
 "Just think, my dear," said the count, as she en- 
 tered ; " the country-seat of Monsieur's family is not 
 far from Vertueil on the Chnrente. His great-uncle 
 and my grandfather used to know each other." 
 
 " Charmed to be so nearly connected," said the 
 countess, with an absent manner. 
 
 "Nearer, perhaps, than you think for," said Eugene 
 in a low voice. 
 
78 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " In what way ? " she said quickly. 
 
 "Why," said the student, " I have just seen leaving 
 your house some one whose room is next to mine in 
 our pension, — Pere Goriot." 
 
 At the jovial word " Pere," so disrespectfully ap- 
 plied, the count, who was mending the fire, flung 
 down the tongs as if they burned his fingers, and 
 started from his chair. 
 
 " Monsieui-, you might at least say Monsieur 
 Goriot," he cried. 
 
 The countess turned pale when she saw her hus- 
 band's displeasure ; then she bluslied, and was evi- 
 dently embarrassed. She replied in a voice which she 
 strove to render natural, and with an air of assumed 
 ease : " It is impossible to know any one whom we 
 love more." Here she stopjjed ; and looking, at her 
 piano as if struck by a sudden thought, she said : — 
 
 " Do you like music, iMonsieur ? " 
 
 " Very much," said Eugene, flushing, and stupefied 
 by a confused sense that he must have committed 
 some enormous blunder. 
 
 "Do you sing?" she said, going to the piano and 
 running a brilliant scale, from C in the bass to F in 
 the treble, — r-r-r-rah ! 
 
 "No, Madame." 
 
 Monsieur de Restaud was walking up and down the 
 room. 
 
 " That 's a pity ; you are cut ofi" from one great 
 means of social success. Ca-ro, cu-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non 
 ihibitare ! " sang the countess. 
 
 By pronouncing the name of Pere Goriot, Eugene 
 had for the second tinre waved a magic wand ; but its 
 
PeVe Goriot. 79 
 
 effect was the opposite of that produced by the words, 
 "a relation of Madame de Beauseant." He was like a 
 man introduced by favor into the cabinet of a collec- 
 tor of curios, who touching thoughtlessly a case full 
 of sculptured figures, knocks off by accident three or 
 four heads which have been ill glued on. He felt 
 like jumping into an abyss. The face of Madame de 
 Restaud wore an expression of cold and hard indif- 
 ference, and her eyes pointedly avoided his. 
 
 " Madame," said he, " I leave you to converse with 
 Monsieur de Restaud. Be pleased to accept my hom- 
 age, and permit me — " 
 
 " Whenever you come to see us," said the countess 
 quickly, cutting him short by a gesture, " you will be 
 sure of giving Monsieur de Restaud and myself the 
 greatest pleasure." 
 
 Eugene bowed low to husband and wife, and went 
 out, followed, in spite of his remonstrances, by Mon- 
 sieur de Restaud, who accompanied him through the 
 antechamber. 
 
 " Whenever that gentleman calls again," said the 
 count to Maurice, " remember that Madame and I are 
 not at home." 
 
 When Eugene came out on the poi'tico he found 
 that it was raining. 
 
 " Well," he said to himself, " 1 have made some 
 horrible blunder, — I don't know what it is, nor what 
 it may lead to ; and now I am going to spoil my hat 
 and clothes! I'd better have stayed at home grub- 
 bing at law, and contented myself with being a coun-- 
 try magistrate. How am I to go into the world, when 
 to get along with decency one must have lots of 
 
80 Pere Croriot. 
 
 tilings, — cabriolets, dress-boots, riggings that are ab- 
 solutely indisjjensable, gold chains, buckskin gloves for 
 the morning that cost six francs, and kid gloves for 
 the evening? Old rogue of a Pere Goriot, — vaf' 
 
 When he found himself in the street the driver of a 
 glass coach, who had probably just disposed of a bri- 
 dal party and was ready to pick up a fare on his own 
 account before returning to his stable, made a sign to 
 Eugene, seeing him without an umbrella, in a black 
 coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, and varnished 
 boots. Eugene was in one of those blind rages which 
 prompt young men to plunge deeper into the gulf 
 they have fallen into, under the idea of finding some 
 lucky way of getting out. He signed to the coach- 
 man, and got into the carriage, where a few orange- 
 blossoms and scraps of silver ribbon attested the recent 
 presence of a bridal party. 
 
 " Where to. Monsieur ? " said the man, who had taken 
 off his white gloves. 
 
 " Hang it ! " thought Eugene, " since I am in for it 
 I may as well get something out of it. To the H6tel 
 Beauseant," he said aloud. 
 
 " Which one ? " asked the coachman. 
 
 This question wholly confounded our e.mbryo man 
 of fashion, who was not aware that there were two 
 Hotels Beauseants, and did not know how rich he was 
 in grand relations to whom he was equally unknown. 
 
 "Vicorate de Beauseant, Rue — " 
 
 " De Grenelle," said the driver, nodding and inter- 
 rupting the direction. "You see there's the hotel of 
 the Comte and the Marquis de Beauseant, Rue Saint- 
 Dominique," he added, putting up the steps. 
 
Pere Goriot. 81 
 
 " I am aware of it," said Eugene dryly. " Is every- 
 body laughing at me to-day ? " he said to himself, an- 
 grily flinging his hat upon the seat before him. " I 'm 
 launched on a prank which is going to cost me a king's 
 ransom. But at least I'll pay a visit to my so-called 
 cousin in a style that is solidly aristocratic. Pere 
 Gariot has cost me not less than ten francs — the old 
 sco"undrel ! Confound it ! I '11 tell the whole story 
 to Madame de Beauseant ; perhaps it will make her 
 laugh. She may know what bond of iniquity unites 
 that old i-at without a tail to his beautiful countess. 
 I had better on the whole stick to my cousin, and not 
 run after that shameless woman ; besides, I foresee 
 it would be horribly expensive. If the very name 
 of the vicomtesse is so powerful, of what weight must 
 her personal power be ! Aim high ! when we seek for 
 something in the skies we mitst needs look to God ! " 
 
 These words contain the substance of the thousand 
 and one thoughts which floated through his mind. He 
 recovered some calmness and self-possession as he saw 
 the rain falling, for he said to himself that if he was 
 forced to part with two of his precious five-franc pieces 
 they wei'e well spent in saving his best coat and hat 
 and boots. He heard, with a touch of hilarity, the 
 coachman call " Gate, if you please ! " A Suisse, in red 
 livery and gold lace, made it swing on its hinges, and 
 Rastignac, with much comp)lacenoy, saw his carriage 
 pass in under the archway, turn round in the courtyard, 
 and draw up under the roof of the portico. The coach- 
 man, in a big great-coat of blue with red facings, let 
 down the steps. As he got out of the carriage Eugene 
 heard sounds of stifled laughter proceeding from the 
 
82 Pere Goriot. 
 
 men-servants, three or four of whom were watching 
 the bridal coach from the colonnade. Their mirth en- 
 lightened the student, who now compared his vulgar 
 equipage with one of the most elegant coupes in Paris, 
 drawn by a pair of bay horses with roses in their head- 
 stalls, that were champing their bits under the charge 
 of a powdered coachman who kept a tight hand. on 
 his reins. In the Chaussee d'Antin the stylish cabrio- 
 let of a dandy of twenty-six stood in the courtyard of 
 Madame de Restaud, while in the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain waited, in all the pomp of a grand-seigneur, 
 an equipage that thirty thousand francs would scarcely 
 have paid for. 
 
 " Who can that be ?" thought Eugene, beginning to 
 be conscious that in Paris all women of fashion have 
 their private engagements ; and that the conquest of 
 one of these queens of society might cost more money 
 than blood. 
 
 " The deuce ! my cousin too may have her Maxime." 
 He went up the broad front steps with a sinking 
 heart. A glass door opened before him, and he found 
 the footmen within looking, by this time, as solemn as 
 donkeys under the curry-comb. The ball had been 
 given in the state apartments which were on the 
 ground-floor of the hotel. Having had no time to call 
 upon his cousin between the invitation and the ball, he 
 had not yet penetrated to her private apartments, and 
 he was now to see for the first time those marvels of 
 personal elegance which indicate the habits and the 
 tastes of a woman of distinction, — a study all the 
 more interesting because the salon of Madame de Res- 
 taud had given him a standard of coniparison. At 
 
Pere Goriot. 83 
 
 half-past four the viscountess was visible; five minutes 
 earlier he would not have been admitted. Eugene, 
 who knew nothing of these various shades of Parisian 
 etiquette, was shown up the grand staircase, which was 
 banked with flowers and was white in tone, with gilt 
 balusters and a red carpet, to the rooms of Madame de 
 Beaus^ant. Although she was his cousin he knew 
 nothing of her biography, and was not aware that her 
 affairs were at this time passing from ear to ear in the 
 salons of Paris. 
 
84 Pere Groriot. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Foe three years -the Vicomtesse de Beaus^ant had 
 been on terms of great intimacy with a wealthy and 
 celebrated Portuguese nobleman, the Marquis d'Ad- 
 juda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent friendships 
 which have so great a charm for those who are tlms 
 allied that they cannot endure to share the companion- 
 ship with others. The Vicomte de Beauseant himself 
 set the example of respecting, willingly or unwillingly, 
 this Platonic intimacy. Visitors who in the early days 
 of the alliance came to call U230n the viscountess at two 
 o'clock always found the Marquis d'Adjuda-Pinto in 
 her salon. Madame de Beauseant was not a woman 
 to close her doors to society ; but she ]-eceived her 
 visitors so coldly, and her manner was so jireoccupied, 
 that they soon found out they were in her way at that 
 hour. When it was understood in Paris that Madame 
 de Beauseant preferred not to receive visitors between 
 two and four o'clock, she was left in peace at those 
 hours. She went to the Bouffons or the opera accom- 
 panied by Monsieur de Beauseant and Monsieur d'Ad- 
 juda-Pinto ; but Monsieur de Beauseant had the tact to 
 leave his wife with her friend the Portuguese after he 
 had established her for the evening. Monsieur d'Ad- 
 juda was now about to be married. He was engaged 
 to a Mademoiselle de Rochefide ; and in all society 
 
Pere Goriot. 85 
 
 there was but one person who knew nothing of this en- 
 gagement. That one was Madame de Beauseant. Some 
 of her friends had indeed vaguely alluded to the event 
 as possible ; but she had laughed, believing that they 
 wished to trouble a happiness of which they were jeal- 
 ous. The banns, however, were on the eve of being 
 published , and the handsome Portuguese had come to 
 tell the viscountess on the day of which we write, but 
 had not yet dared to put his treachery into words. 
 There is nothing a man dreads more than to break to 
 a woman the inevitable end of their relations. He 
 would rather defend himself against another man's 
 rapier pointed at his thro.at than meet the reproaches 
 of a woman, who, after bewailing her wrongs for hours, 
 faints at his feet, and asks for salts. At this moment 
 Monsieur d'Adjuda-Piiito sat on thorns and was think- 
 ing of taking leave, saying to himself that Madame 
 de Beauseant would surely hear the news from others; 
 that he would write to her ; and that it would be easier 
 to administer the fatal stab by letter. When, there- 
 fore, the footman announced Monsieur de Rastignac, 
 Monsieur d'Adjuda- Pinto made a slight gesture of 
 relief. Alas ! a loving woman is more ingenious in 
 perceiving her wrongs than in varying pleasures for 
 the man she loves. When about to be forsaken, her 
 instinct divines the meaning of a gesture as unerr- 
 ingly as Virgil's courser divined in distant pastures 
 the presence of his mares. Therefore we may be sure 
 that Madame de Beauseant saw and understood that 
 slight yet significant movement of relief. 
 
 Eugene had not yet learned that before entering 
 society in Paris a man should inform himself, through 
 
86 P^re Goriot. 
 
 some frtend of each family, about the history of hus- 
 band, wife, and children, lest he commit any of tliose 
 gross blunders which require him, as they say in Po- 
 land, to " harness oxen to his carriage," — meaning, 
 doubtless, that the force of an ox-team alone can drag 
 the blunderer out of the mud-hole into which he has 
 plunged. If as yet there is no term in the French 
 language for such convei-sational mistakes, it is be- 
 cause they are practically imjDossible for Parisians by 
 reason of the publicity which all kinds of scandal in- 
 stantly obtain. After having gone heels over head 
 into the mire at Madame de Restaud's, where he had 
 no chance to harness his oxen, it seemed likely that 
 our provincial might yet need the services of a team- 
 ster by presenting himself at an equally inopportune 
 moment at Madame de Beauseant's. However, if his 
 visit had been horribly annoying to Madame de Res- 
 taud and Monsieur de Trailles, he was now, on the 
 contrary, most welcome to Monsieur d'Adjuda. 
 
 " Adieu," said this gentleman, making for the door 
 as Eugene was shown into the charming inner draw- 
 ing-room, all rose and gray, combining luxury with 
 elegance. 
 
 "But this evening?" said Madame de Beauseant, 
 tm-ning from Eugene and looking after Adjuda ; " are 
 we not going to the Bouffons?" 
 
 " I cannot," he said, laying his hand on the door- 
 knob. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant rose and called him back, 
 without paying the least attention to Eugene, who 
 was left standing, bewildered by the sparkle of great 
 wealth, — the reality, to his mind, of the "Arabian 
 
Pere Groriot. 87 
 
 Nights," — and much embarrassed to kiiow what to do 
 with himself in the presence of a woman who took no 
 notice of hira. Madame de Beauseant lifted her right 
 forefinger, and by a graceful gesture signed to the 
 marquis to come back to her. There was something 
 so passionately imperative in her air tliat he let go the 
 handle of the door and came back into the salon. Eu- 
 gene looked at him with eyes of envy. 
 
 " That 's the man who owns the coupe," he said to 
 himself. "Must one have blood horses, and liveries 
 all covered with gold lace, to make one's way in Paris 
 with a fashionable woman ?" 
 
 The devil Belial bit into his mind ; the fever of 
 money-getting was in his veins ; the thirst for gold 
 parched his heart. He had one hundred and thirty 
 francs left, to Inst him >three months. His father, 
 mother, brothers, sisters, and aunt had but two hun- 
 dred francs a month among them all. This rapid 
 comparison of the realities of his position with the end 
 that he was planning to attain, staggered hira. 
 
 " Why cannot you go to the theatre ? " said the vis- 
 countess, smiling. 
 
 "I have business. I dine with the English ambas- 
 sador." 
 
 " But you can come away early." 
 
 When a man deceives, he is forced to prop one false- 
 hood by another. Monsieur d'Adjuda answered, 
 smiling, — 
 
 " You insist, then ? " 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 "Ah! that was just what I wanted to make you 
 say!" he replied, giving her a look sufficient to reas- 
 
88 Pere Goriot. 
 
 sure any other woman. He took her hand, kissed it, 
 and went out. 
 
 Eugene passed his fingers through his hair and 
 turned toward Madnme de Beauseant to make his 
 bow, thinking slie would now give her attention to 
 him. To his surprise, she sprang from her chair, ran 
 into the gallery, and looked out at Monsieur d'Adjuda 
 as he got into his carriage. She listened for his or- 
 ders, and heard the chasseur repeating to the coach- 
 man, "To Monsieur de Rochefide's." 
 
 These words, and the way d'Adjuda plunged into 
 his coupe, were like a flash of lightning and a thunder- 
 clap to the poor woman. She drew back sick with 
 dread. The worst catastrophes in the great world 
 take place thus quietly 'and suddenly. The viscountess 
 turned aside into her bed-room, took a dainty sheet of 
 note-paper, and wrote as follows : " When you have 
 dined at the Rochefide's (and not at the English 
 ambassador's), you owe me an explanation. I shall 
 expect you." After straightening a few letters made 
 illegible by the ti-embling of lier hand, she added a 
 C, which meant " Claire de Bourgogne," and rang the 
 bell. 
 
 "Jacques," she said to her footman, "at half-past 
 seven take this note to Monsieur de Rochefide's, and 
 ask for the Marquis d'Adjuda. If he is there, have 
 the note taken to him at once. There is no answer. 
 If- he is not there, bring it back to me." 
 
 " Madame la vicomtesse has a visitor in the salon." 
 
 "Yes, true," she said, closing the door. 
 
 Eugene began to feel very ill at ease ; but Madame 
 de Beauseant at last came in and said in a voice whose 
 
Pere Goriot. 89 
 
 emotion thrilled him to the heart, " I beg your pardon, 
 Monsieur ; I had to write a few words. Now I am 
 quite at your service." 
 
 She did not know what she was saying. She was 
 thinking, " Ah ! he must be going to marry Mademoi- 
 selle de Roohefide. But will he? Can he? To-night 
 this marriage shall be broken off, or T — But, no ! it 
 shall be ! " 
 
 " Cousin," said Eugene. 
 
 " Hein ? " said the viscountess, giving him a look 
 whose cold displeasure froze his very blood. He under- 
 stood her exclamation, for he had learned much during 
 the last few hours, and his mind was on the alert. 
 
 " Madame," he resumed, coloring ; he stopped short, 
 and then continued, "forgive me; I need help so 
 much, — and this little shred of relationship would be 
 everything to me." 
 
 Madame de Beauseant smiled, but the smile was sad. 
 
 "If you knew the situation of my family,'' he con- 
 tinued, "I think yon would find pleasure in playing 
 the part of a fairy godmother who removes all difficul- 
 ties out of the way of her godchild." 
 
 " Well, cousin," she said laughing, " what can I do 
 for you ? " 
 
 " How can I tell you ? To be ackno\vl edged as your 
 relative, though the link is so far back as to be scarcely 
 visible, is in itself a fortune. I am confused, — I don't 
 know what I had to say to you. You are the only 
 person whom I know in Paris. Ah ! I ask your advice ; 
 look on me as you might on some poor child clinging 
 to your dress, — as one who would die for you." 
 
 " Would you kill a man for my sake ? " 
 
90 PeVe G.oriot. 
 
 " I would kill two ! " exobiimed Eugene. 
 
 " Foolish boy ! — for boy you ai'e," she said, repress- 
 ing her tears. " You could love truly, faithfully ? " 
 
 " Ah !" he replied, throwing back his head. 
 
 The viscountess felt a sudden interest in the .youth, 
 and smiled at his answer. This son of the south was 
 at the dawn of his ambition. As he passed from the 
 blue boudoir of Madame de Restaud to the rose-colored 
 drawing-room of Madame de Beauseant he had taken 
 a three-years' course in the social code of Paris, — a 
 code never formulated in words, but constituting a high 
 social jurisprudence, which, if well studied and well 
 applied, leads to fortune. 
 
 " Already," said Eugene, " I was attracted at your 
 ball by Madame de Restaud, and this morning I went 
 to call upon her.'' 
 
 " You must have been very much in her way," re- 
 marked Madame de ]5eauseant. 
 
 " Indeed I was, I am an ignoi'amus who will set 
 everybody against him if you refuse -to help me. I 
 think it must be difficult in Paris to find a young, beau- 
 tiful, rich, and elegant woman who is not already occu- 
 pied by the attachment of some man. I need one who 
 will teach \\\e what you women know far better than 
 we do, — life. Unless you guide me 1 shall be forever 
 stumbling on some Maxime de Trailles. I have come 
 to ask you in the first place to solve a riddle and ex- 
 plain to me the nature of a blunder I have committed 
 at Madame de Restaud's. I mentioned a Pere — " 
 
 "Madame la Duchesse de Langeais," said Jacques, 
 cutting short Eugene's words. He made a gesture as 
 if greatly annoyed by the interruption. 
 
Pere Goriot. 91 
 
 " If you wish to succeed in society," said Madame 
 de Beauseant, in a low voice, " you must begin by be- 
 ing less demonstrative. — Ah, good morning, dear," 
 she cried, rising and going to meet the duchess, whose 
 hands she pressed tenderly, while the duchess responded 
 by fond little caresses. 
 
 "They are dear friends," thought Rnstignac; "heart 
 answers to heart. I shall have two protectoresses, both 
 taking interest in my future." 
 
 " To what happy thought do I owe the pleasure of 
 seeing you to-day, dear Antoinette ? " said Madame de 
 Beauseant. 
 
 "I saw Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pnito going into Mon- 
 sieur de Rochefide's, and I knew that I should find 
 yon alone." 
 
 Madame de' Beauseant did not bite her lips, nor 
 blush, nor did the expression of her face change; on 
 the contrary her bi'ow seemed to clear as Madame de 
 Langeais uttered the fatal words. 
 
 " If I had known you were engaged — " added the 
 duchess, glancing at Eugene. 
 
 " Monsieur is Monsieur Eugene de Rastignac, one of 
 my cousins," said Madame de Beauseant. "• Have you 
 heard," she continued, "of General Montriveau lately? 
 Serizy told me yesterday that no one sees him now. 
 Has he been with you to-day '? " 
 
 People said that the Marquis de Montriveau had 
 broken with Madame de Langeais, who was deeply in 
 love with him. She felt the intended stab, and blushed 
 as she answered, " He was at the Elysee yesterday." 
 
 " On duty ? " asked Madame de Beauseant. 
 
 " Clara, of course you know," said the duchess, spite 
 
92 Pere Goriot. 
 
 gleaming in her eyes, " that to-morrow the banns are 
 to be published between Monsieur cTAdjuda-Pinto and 
 Mademoiselle de Rochefide." 
 
 This blow struck home. The viscountess grew pale, 
 but she nnswered, laughing, — 
 
 "That is merely a piece of gossip set afloat by 
 people who know nothing. Why should Monsieur 
 d'Adjuda-Pinto ally one of the noblest names in Por- 
 tugal with that of the Rochefides ? Their title dates 
 from yesterday.'' 
 
 " They say Berthe will have two hundred thousand 
 francs a year." 
 
 " Monsieur d'Adjuda is too rich to marry for money." 
 
 '■But, my dear Clara, Mademoiselle de Rochefide is 
 charming." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 '' He dines there to-day ; the settlements are drawn ; 
 I am astonished that no one has told you." 
 
 " What was that blander you were telling me about, 
 Monsieur ? " said Madame de Beaus^ant, turning to 
 Eugene. " Poor Monsieur de Rastignac has so re- 
 cently entered the gay world, dear Antoinette," she 
 continued, " that he cannot understand our conversa- 
 tion. Be good to him, and put off all you have to say 
 about this news until to-morrow. To-morrow we shall 
 know it officially, and you can be just as officious then, 
 you know." 
 
 The duchess gave Eugene one of those ineffable 
 looks which envelop a man from head to foot, strike 
 him flat, and let him drop to zero. 
 
 " Madame," he said, " without knowing what I was 
 about, I seem to have plunged a dagger into the heart 
 
PeVe Goriot. 93 
 
 of Madame de Restaud. Had I done this on purpose 
 I might not have been in disgrace ; my fault lay in not 
 knowing what- 1 was doing." Eugene's natural clevei-- 
 ness made him conscious of the bitterness underlying 
 the affectionate words of the two ladies. " People," 
 he added, " do not break with the friend who inten- 
 tionally wounds them, though they may fear him for 
 the future. But he who wounds unconscipusly is a 
 poor fool, — a man of too little tact to turn anything 
 to profit, and every one despises him." 
 
 Madame de Beaus(5ant gave the student a look that 
 expressed her gratitude, and yet was full of dignity. 
 This glance was balm to the wound inflicted by the 
 duchess when she looked him over and over with the 
 eye of a detective. 
 
 "About my blunder — you must know," resumed 
 Eugene, "that I had succeeded in securing the good- 
 will of Monsieur de Restaud, for — " turning to the 
 duchess with a manner partly humble, partly mischiev- 
 ous, " I ought to inform you, Madame, that I am as 
 yet only a poor devil of a law-student, very lonely, 
 very poor — " 
 
 " Never say so. Monsieur de Rastignac ; we women 
 do not value that which is not valued by others." 
 
 " But," said Eugene, " I am only twenty-two, and I 
 must learn to put up with the natural misfortunes of 
 my age. Besides, I am making my confession : could 
 I kneel in a more charming confessional ? Here we 
 commit the sins for which we receive penance in 
 the other." 
 
 The duchess listened to these irreligious remarks with 
 studied coldness, and marked her sense of their bad 
 
94 P^re Q-oriot. 
 
 taste by saying to the viscountess : " Monsieur has 
 just arrived ? " 
 
 Madame de Beauseant laughed iheartily both at her 
 cousin and at the duchess. " Yes," she said, " he has 
 just arrived in Paris, my dear, in search of a precep- 
 tress to teach him taste and manners." 
 
 " Madame la duchesse," said Eugene, " is it not per- 
 missible to try to possess ourselves of the secrets of 
 those who charm us ? — There ! " he said to himself ; 
 "now I am talking just like a hair-dresser — " 
 
 "But I have heard that Madame de Restaud is a 
 pupil of Monsieur de Trailles," said the duchess. 
 
 "I did not know it, Madame," resumed the student ; 
 " and like a fool I broke in upon them. However, I 
 was getting on very well with the husband, and the 
 wife had apparently made up her mind to put up with 
 me, when I must needs tell them that I recognized a 
 man whom I had just seen leave their house by a back 
 door, and who kissed the countess at the end of the 
 passage — " 
 
 " Who was it?" exclaimed both ladies at once. 
 
 " An old man, who lives for two louis a month in the 
 Faubourg Saint-Mar5eau, where I, a poor student, live 
 myself; a forlorn old man, whom we all ridicule and 
 call Pere Goriot." 
 
 " Oh, child that you are ! " exclaimed the viscount- 
 ess ; " Madame de Restaud was a Mademoiselle 
 Goriot." 
 
 "Daughter of a man who makes vermicelli," said 
 the duchess; "a person who was presented at court 
 on the same day as a pastry-cook's daughter. Don't 
 you remember, Clara ? The king laughed, and said a 
 
' ' But 1 have heard that Madame de Restaud is a 
 pupil of Monsieur de Trailles,' said the duchess." 
 
Pire Goriot. 95 
 
 good thing in Latin about flour — people — how was 
 it ? People — " 
 
 '■'■ Ejusdem farinm" suggested Eugene. 
 
 " That was it ! " said the duchess. 
 
 "And so he is really her father?" exclaimed the 
 student, with a gesture of disgust. 
 
 "Just so; the man had two daughters, and was 
 quite foolish about them. Both of them have since 
 cast him off." 
 
 "The youngest," said Madame de Beaust^ant, ad- 
 dressing Madame de Langeais, " is married, is she not, 
 to a banker with a German name, — a Baron de Nu- 
 cingen? Is not her name Delphine, — a fair woman, 
 who has a side box at the opera, and who comes to 
 the Bouffons, and laughs a great deal to attract 
 attention ? " 
 
 The duchess smiled as she answered, " My dear, 
 you astonish me. Why do you care to know about 
 such people ? A man must be madly in love, as they 
 say Restaud was with Mademoiselle Anastasie, to 
 powder himself with flour. Ah ! but he made a poor 
 bargain ! She has fallen into Monsieur de Trailles' 
 hands, and he will ruin her." 
 
 " Did you say that they have cast off their father ? " 
 asked Eugene. 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; their father, the father, a father," 
 cried the viscountess ; " a good father, who gave these 
 daughters all he had, — to each of them seven or 
 eight hundred thousand francs, — that he might secure 
 their happiness by great marriages, and kept for him- 
 self only eight or ten thousand francs a year; thinking 
 that his daughters would remain his daughters, — that 
 
96 Fire Cioriot. 
 
 he would have two homes in his old age, two families 
 where he would be adored and taken care of. Before 
 three years were over, both sons-in-law cast him out 
 as if he had been the veriest wretch living — " 
 
 Tears gathered in the eyes of Eugene de Rastignac, 
 who had recently renewed the pure and sacred ties of 
 home, and still clung to the beliefs of his boyhood. 
 He was making his first encounter with the world on 
 the battle-field of Parisian civilization. Real feeling 
 is contagious ; and for a moment all three looked at 
 each other in silence. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Madame de Langeais ; " it 
 seems horrible ; and yet we see the same thing every 
 day. And why ? My dear Clara, have you never 
 thought what it would be to have a son-in-law ? A 
 son-in-law is a man for whom we may bring up — you 
 or I — a dear little creature to whom we should be 
 bound by a thousand tender ties ; who for seventeen 
 years would be the darling of the family, — 'the white 
 soul of her home,' as Lamartine says, — and who might 
 end by becoming its curse. When the man for whom 
 we brought her up takes her away, he will use her love 
 for him as an axe to cut her free from every tie that 
 binds her to her family. Yesterday our little daugh- 
 ter was our own, and we were all in all to her ; to- 
 morrow she will seem to be our enemy. Don't we 
 see such tragedies around us every day? The daugh- 
 ter-in-law coolly impertinent to the father who has 
 sacrificed everything for her husband, the son-in-law 
 thrusting his wife's mother out of doors ? I hear peo- 
 ple say that there is nothing dramatic now-a-days in 
 society. Why, this drama of the son-in-law is horrible, 
 
Pire Groriot. 97 
 
 — not to speak of our marriages, which have become 
 sad follies, to say the least. I perfectly recollect the 
 history of that vermicelli man, Foriot — " 
 
 " Goriot, Madame." 
 
 " Yes, true ; Moriot was president of his section 
 during the Revolution. He was behind the scenes, 
 and when the great scarcity was at hand he made his 
 fortune by selling flour for ten times what it cost him. 
 My grandmother's bailiff sold him wheat to an im- 
 mense amount. Goriot no doubt divided his profits — 
 as all those people did — with the Committee of Pub- 
 lic Safety. I recollect the bailiff saying to my grand- 
 mother that she might feel quite safe at Grand villiers, 
 because her crops were an excellent certificate of citi- 
 zenship. Well ! this Loriot, who sold flour to the men 
 who cut our heads oflP, had but one passion, — he adored 
 his daughters. He contrived to perch the eldest in 
 the Restaud family, and graft the other on the Baron 
 de Nucingen, — a rich banker who pretends to be a 
 Royalist. You understand that during the Empire 
 the sons-in-law did not so much mind having the old 
 Jacobin of '93 uader their roof : under Bonaparte 
 what did it signify ? But when the Bourbons came 
 back, the old man was a great annoyance to Monsieur 
 de Restaud, and still more so to the banker. The 
 daughters, who for aught I know may have been fond 
 of their father, tried to 'run with the hare and hold 
 with the hounds,' as we say. They asked Goriot to 
 their houses when they had nobody there ; invented, 
 I have no doubt, pretty pretexts : ' Oh, do come, 
 papa ! It will be so pleasant : we shall have you all 
 to ourselves,' — and so on. My dear, I always main- 
 
 7 
 
98 Pere Goriot. 
 
 tain that real feeling is sharp-sighted ; if so, poor old 
 '93's heart must have bled. He saw that his daughters 
 were ashamed of him, and that if they loved their 
 husbands he was injuring them. He saw the sacrifice 
 which was required of him, and he made it, — made 
 it as only a father can. He sacrificed himself; he 
 banished himself from their homes ; and when he saw 
 his daughters happy he was satisfied. Father and 
 daughters were accomplices in this crime against pa- 
 ternity. We see this sort of thing every day. You 
 can well imagine Pere Doriot to have been like a spot 
 of cart-gvease in his daughters' drawing-rooms. He 
 would have felt it himself, and suffered from it. What 
 happened to him as a father, my dear, happens to the 
 prettiest woman in the world with the man she loves 
 best. If her love wearies him he will go elsewhere, 
 and will treat her like a coward to get .iwny. That is 
 the upshot of all extravag.ant attachments. The heart 
 is a treasury : empty it all at once, and you will find 
 yourself ruined. We think just as little of those who 
 expend all their love as we do of a man who flings 
 away his last penny. This father gave his all. For 
 twenty years he had lavished his love, his life, on these 
 two girls; his fortune he gave them in one day. The 
 lemon was squeezed, and the daughters flung the rind 
 into the gutter." 
 
 " The world is infamous ! " said the viscountess, 
 fringing her ribbon and not looking up, for Madame 
 de Langeais' allusions to herself as she told the story 
 cut her to the quick. 
 
 "Infamous? — No," replied the duchess. "The 
 world goes on its own way, that is all. I only want 
 
Pire Q-oriot. 99 
 
 to prove to you that I am not its dupe. Yes, I think 
 iis you do," she added, taking the viscountess's hand, — 
 " if the world is a slough, let us stand upon high ground 
 and keep ourselves out of the slime." 
 
 She rose and kissed Madame de Beauseant on the 
 forehead, saying, " You are lovely at this moment, 
 dear heart ; you have the prettiest color I ever 
 saw," and she left the room with a slight how to the 
 student. 
 
 "Pere Goriot is sublime!" cried Eugene, remember- 
 ing how he had seen him destroy his pieces of silver 
 in the night-time. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant did not hear him ; she was 
 thinking deeply. A few moments passed in silence, 
 and our poor youth, in a stupor of shyness, dared 
 neither go nor stay, nor speak to her. 
 
 "The world is wicked — it is cruel," said the vis- 
 countess at last. " When misfortune overtakes us 
 there is never a friend wanting to tell it in our ear ; to 
 probe our heart with a dagger and ask us to admire 
 the hilt. Alieady sarcasm ! already the mocking 
 tongues! Ah! I will defend myself!" She lifted her 
 head proudly like the grande dame that she so truly 
 was, and her eyes flashed. " Ah !" she exclaimed, see- 
 ing Eugene, "you here ? " 
 
 '' Still here," he answered humbly. 
 
 " Monsieur de Rastignac," she said, " learn to treat 
 society as it deserves. You wish to succeed in it ; I 
 will help you. You will find out how deep is the cor- 
 ruption among women ; how wide the range of the 
 contemptible vanity of rrien. I thought myself well 
 read in the book of the world ; I find pages hitherto 
 
100 P^re G-oriot. 
 
 unknown to me. Now I know all. The more cold- 
 blooded your purpose the surer you will be of success. 
 Strike without pity, and the world will fear you. Treat 
 men and women as post-horses : never mind if you 
 founder them, so long as they get you to the next relay. 
 In the first place, you will make no progress unless 
 you find some woman to take you up and be interested 
 in you. She must be young, rich, and elegant. But 
 if you really care for her, hide your feelings ; don't let 
 her suspect them, or you are lost : instead of being the 
 executioner, you will be the victim. If you love, keep 
 your own secret. Never reveal it until you know well 
 the friend to whom you bare your heart. Learn to 
 mistrust the world. Let me tell you, Miguel [she did 
 not notice her mistake], there is something in those 
 Goriot sisters even more shocking than their neglect 
 of their father, whom they wish dead. I mean their 
 rivaliy to each other. Restaud is of ancient family ; 
 his wife has been adopted by his relatives and pre- 
 sented at court. But her sister, her rich sister, the 
 beautiful Madame Deljjhine de Nucingen, though the 
 wife of a man made of money, is dying with envy, — 
 the victim of jealousy. She is a hundred leagues lower 
 in society than her sister. Her sister is no longer her 
 sister; they renounce each other as they both re- 
 nounced their father. Madame de Nucingen would 
 lap up all the mud between the Rue Saint-Lazare and 
 the Rue de Grenelle to gain admittance to my salon. 
 She thought deMarsay could arrange it for her, and she 
 has been the slave of de Marsay, and has simply bored 
 de Marsay. De Marsay cares very little for her. My 
 cousin, here is your opportunity. If you present her 
 
Pere Goriot. 101 
 
 to me she will adore you, and lavish everything upon 
 you. You may adore her if you can, but at any rate 
 make use of her. I will let her come here to two or 
 three balls, — but only to balls, with the crowd ; I will 
 never receive her in the morning. I will bow to her, 
 and that will be quite enough. You have shut her 
 sister's doors against you by pronouncing the name 
 of Pere Goriot. Yes, my dear cousin, you may call 
 twenty times at Madame de Eestaud's, and twenty 
 times you will be told that she is out. Orders have 
 been given to refuse you admission. Well, make Pere 
 Goriot introduce you to her sister ; wear the colors 
 of the handsome Madame Delphine de Nucingen ; let 
 it be known that you are the man she distinguishes, 
 and other women will go distracted about you. Her 
 rivals, her friends, — her dearest friends, — will try to 
 win you from her. Some women prefer a man who is 
 the property of another woman, — just as women of the 
 middle class think they acquire our manners when they 
 copy our millinery. You will succeed ; and in Paris 
 success is everything, — it is the key to power. If wo- 
 men think you clever, men will believe you so unless 
 you undeceive them. From this point you may aim at 
 what you will, — you have your foot upon the ladder. 
 You will find out that society is a mixture of dupes 
 and cheats. Try to be neither the one nor the other. 
 My cousin, I give you my name, like the clew of Ari- 
 adne, to lead you into the heart of the labyrinth. Do 
 not disgrace it," she added, turnmg to him with the 
 glance of a queen ; " give it back to me unsullied. Now 
 leave me. Women have their battles to fight as well 
 as men." 
 
102 PeVe Q-oriot. 
 
 " If you need a man ready to fire a mine for you — " 
 began Eugene. 
 
 " What if I should ? " she cried. 
 
 He laid his hand upon his heart, smiled in answer to 
 her smile, and went out. 
 
 It was five o'clock; he was very hungry and half 
 afraid he should not get home in time for dinner. This 
 fear made him apjoreciate the advantages of whirl- 
 ing along in his glass coach. The fast motion made 
 his mind run on the new thoughts that assailed him. 
 When a youth of his age meets with a rebuff he loses 
 his temper, he grows furious, shakes his fist at socie- 
 ty, and vows to be revenged ; but at the same time 
 his confidence in himself is shaken. Rastignac was 
 overwhelmed by the words still ringing in his ears, — 
 " You have closed the doors of the countess against 
 you." 
 
 " I will call there again and again," he cried ; "and 
 if Madame de Beauseant is right, if she has given 
 orders not to admit me, — I — • Madame de Restaud 
 shall meet me at every house she visits — I will make 
 myself a sure shot ; I will kill her Maxime." 
 
 " But how about money ? " cried a voice within 
 him. " Where will you get it ? You need money for 
 everything." 
 
 At this thought, the wealth that shone round Ma- 
 dame de Restaud glittered before his eyes. He had 
 seen her lapjjed in luxury that was doubtless dear to 
 a demoiselle Goriot ; gilded and costly ornaments lay 
 strewn about her salons with the unmeaning profusion 
 that betrays the taste of a parvenue and her passion 
 for squandering money. The fascinations of mere 
 
PeVe Goriot. 103 
 
 costliness had been effaced by the grandeur of the 
 H6tel Beauseant. His imagination now whirled him 
 to the summits of Parisian life, and suggested thoughts 
 which seared his heart, while they stimulated his in- 
 telligence and widened his perceptions. He saw the 
 world in its true colors. He saw wealth triumphant 
 over morality, — triumphant over law and order. He 
 saw in riches the ultima ratio mundi. " Vautrin is 
 right," he cried, " luck makes the difference between 
 vice and virtue." 
 
 Having reached the Rue Neuve Saiiite-Genevieve, 
 he ran rapidly to his room and returi\ed bringing ten 
 francs for his coachman, and then entered the sicken- 
 ing dining-room where the eighteen guests sat eating 
 their food like animals at a manger. The sight of their 
 collective poverty and the dinginess of the place weie 
 horrible to him. The transition from the wealth and 
 grace and beauty he had left was too abrupt, too com- 
 plete, not to excite beyond all bounds his growing am- 
 bition. On the one hand fresh and lovely images of 
 all that was elegant in social life, framed in marvels of 
 art and luxury, and passionate with poetical emotion ; 
 on the other, a dark picture of degradation, —sinister 
 faces where passions had blighted all but the sinews 
 and the mere mechanism. The advice wrung from 
 Madame de Beauseant in her anguish, and her tempting 
 offers to his ambition came back to his memory, and the 
 misery about him was tlieir commentary. He resolved 
 to open two parallel trenches, — law and love; and 
 to win fortune by his profession and as a man of the 
 world. Child that he was ! these lines are geometric 
 aliens, asymptotes that never touch. 
 
104 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " You are solemn, Monsieur le marquis," said Vau- 
 trin, giving liim one of those keen glances by which 
 this singular man seemed to catch the hidden thoughts 
 of those around him. 
 
 " I am not disposed to permit jokes from people who 
 call me Monsieur le marquis," Eugene replied. " To 
 be a marquis in Paris requires an income of a hundred 
 thousand francs, and those who live in the Maison 
 Vauquer are not exactly favorites of fortune." 
 
 Vautrin looked at Rastignac with a patronizing air, 
 which seemed to say contemptuously, " You young 
 brat I I could gobble you up at a mouthful ; " but he 
 answered, " You are in a bad humor because you have 
 not succeeded with the beautiful countess." 
 
 " She has shut her doors against me for saying that 
 her father dined here with me at this table," cried 
 Eugene angrily. 
 
 All present looked at one another. Pere Goriot 
 looked down and turned aside to wipe his eyes. 
 
 " You have blown your snuff into my face," he said 
 to his neighbor. 
 
 " Whoever annoys Pere Goriot will answer for it to 
 me," cried Eugene, looking at the man who sat next 
 to the old paste-maker. " He is better than any of 
 us. I don't include the ladies," he added, bowing to 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer. 
 
 This speech brought the matter to a conclusion, for 
 Eugene had uttered it in a way to silence all the others 
 except Vautrin, who said sarcastically, " If you are 
 going to take up Pere Goriot and make yourself re- 
 sponsible for all he says and does, you will have to 
 learn to use a sword and fire a pistol." 
 
Pire Goriot. 105 
 
 " I mean to," said Eugene. 
 
 " You declare war then ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I do," replied Rastignac ; " but I owe no 
 man an account of my conduct, especially as I don't 
 try to find out what other people are doing in the 
 middle of the night." 
 
 Vautrin shot a side-glance at him. 
 
 " My young friend," said he, " those who don't want 
 to be deceived at a puppet-show had better go into the 
 booth and not try to peep through holes in the curtain. 
 That 's enough for the present," he added, seeing that 
 Eugene was about to reply ; " we will have a little talk 
 by ourselves whenever you like." 
 
 The rest of the dinner passed in silence. Pere 
 Goriot, absorbed by the pang of hearing Eugene's re- 
 mark about liis daughter, was not conscious that a 
 change had taken place concerning him in the opinion 
 of others, and that a young man able to put his perse- 
 cutors to silence had taken up his defence. 
 
 " Can it be possible," said Madame Vauquer, in a 
 whisper, " that Pere Goriot is really the fatlier of a 
 countess ? " 
 
 " And of a baroness, too," said Eugene. 
 
 " The father is all there is of him," said Bianchon to 
 Rastignac. " I have felt his head. It has rim to one 
 bump, — philoprogenitiveness, the bump of paternity. 
 He is all father — Eternal Father, I should say." 
 
 Eugene was too preoccupied to laugh. He, was con- 
 sidering how to profit by Madame de Beauseant's ad- 
 vice, and in what way he could provide himself with 
 money. He was silent and self-absorbed as he saw 
 the rich plains of high society stretching afar as in a 
 
106 Pire Q-oriot. ■ 
 
 vision. The others rose and left him alone when 
 dinner was over. 
 
 "You have seen my daughter?" said Goriot in a 
 voice wliich betrayed emotion. 
 
 Startled from his meditation, Eugene took the old 
 man by the hand and said, as he looked at him almost 
 tenderly, — 
 
 "You are a good and honorable man. We will talk 
 by and by about your daughters," and without allow- 
 ing Pere Goriot to say more he went to his i-oom and 
 wrote the following letter to his mother : — 
 
 My dear Mother, — See if you cannot provide for your 
 grown-up son out of your own breast as you did for him in 
 his infancy. I am in a position which may speedily lead to 
 fortune. I want twelve hundred francs, and 1 must have them 
 at any price. Do not speak of this to my father. He miglit ob- 
 ject ; and if I cannot get this money I shall be in such despair 
 as to be almost ready to blow my brains out. I will tell you all 
 about it when I see you, for I should have to write volumes 
 if I tried to explain to you the situation. I have not gambled, 
 dear mother, and I have no debts ; but if you want to preserve 
 the life you gave me, you must manage to find me this money. 
 I have been to visit the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, who taltes 
 me under her protection. I have to go into society, and I have 
 not a sou to buy gloves to wear. I would willingly eat noth- 
 ing but bread, and drink nothing but water ; I could live on 
 almost nothing if necessary, but I cannot do without my tools 
 to work with, —tools which cultivate the vines in this part of 
 the world. I must either make my way or stay in a mud-hole. 
 I know what hopes you have placed on me ; and I want as 
 soon as possible to realize them. Dearest mother, sell some 
 of your old jewels ; before long I will give them back to you. 
 I know the situation of our family weU enough to appreciate 
 
Pere Groriot. 107 
 
 such sacrifices, and you may be sure that I would not ask you 
 to make them in vain, — if I did I should be a monster. 1 
 beseech you to see in this request aery of imperative necessity. 
 Our future depends on this loan, with which I can open my 
 campaign, — for this life of Paris is a ceaseless battle. If 
 to make up the sum there is no other resource than to sell my. 
 aunt's old lace, tell her I will hereafter send her some far moi'e 
 beautiful, etc. 
 
 He wrote also to his sisters, begging them to send 
 him all their little savings ; and as it was necessary 
 that this sacrifice (which he knew they would make 
 gladly for his sake) should not come to the ears of his 
 parents, he enlisted their delicacy by touching those 
 chords of honor which ring so true in the hearts of 
 innocent young girls. 
 
 After writing these letters, he was assailed by doubts 
 and fears ; he printed and trembled. His ambitious 
 young heart knew the p\ire nobleness of those tender 
 souls hidden away in the country solitudes ; he knew 
 what privations he was bringing on the sisters, yet 
 with what joy they would welcome his request. He 
 could hear them whispering in the distant fields of the 
 " dear, dear brother ; " he saw them counting over their 
 little hoard, inventing girlish devices to send it to him 
 secretly, — practising a first deception for his sake. 
 His conscience leapt to the light. " A sister's heart is 
 like a diamond," he said to himself ; " a running stream 
 of tenderness, clear and pure." 
 
 He was ashamed of what he had written. Plow 
 they would pray for him ! How they would lift their 
 souls to Heaven for his success ! With what passion- 
 ate delight they would sacrifice themselves for hia 
 
108 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 advantage ! How grieved his mother would be if she 
 could not send him the whole sum ! And all this good- 
 ness, all these sacnfices, were to serve him as a ladder 
 to mount into the favor of Delphine de Nucingen ! A 
 few tears — grains of incense flung for the last time 
 on the sacred altar of his home — dropped from his 
 eyes. He walked up and down the room in a state of 
 agitation and despair. Pere Goriot seeing him thus, 
 for the door of his room was left ajar, came in and 
 asked, — 
 
 " Is anything the matter, Monsieur ? " 
 
 " Ah ! my good neighbor," Eugene replied ; " I am 
 a son and a brother, even as you are a father. You 
 may well tremble for the Countess Anastasie. She is 
 in the power of Monsieur de Ti'ailles, and he will be 
 her ruin.'' 
 
 Pere Goriot drew back to his own room, muttering 
 a few words whose meaning was not intelligible. 
 , The next morning Rastignac went out and posted 
 his letters. He hesitated up to the last moment ; but 
 as he flung them into the box he cried, " I shall suc- 
 ceed ! " So says the gambler; so says the great com- 
 mander. Superstitious words, that have ruined more 
 men than they have ever saved I 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 109 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A FEW days later Eugene went ngain to call on 
 Madame de Restaud, and was not received. Three 
 times he tried her door, and three times he found it 
 closed against him, though he chose hours when he 
 knew Monsieur Maxirae de Trailles was not there. 
 Madame de Beauseant was right : he was to visit her 
 no more. 
 
 Our student now ceased to study. He went to 
 the Law School merely to answer at roll-call ; when 
 " that was over he decamped. He had persuaded him- 
 self, as students often do, that he might as well put 
 off study until it was time to prepare for the exam- 
 inations. He resolved to take his second and third 
 terms together, and to study law with all his might at 
 the last moment. He could thus count on fifteen 
 months of leisure in which to navigate the ocean of 
 Paris, to try what women's influence might do for him, 
 and find the way to fish for fortune. 
 
 During this week he called twice on Madame de 
 Beauseant, taking care not to go till he had seen the 
 carriage of Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pinto driven out of the 
 courtyard. For a little while this distinguished woman, 
 the most poetic figure in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, 
 remained mistress of her field of battle. She broke 
 off for a time the engagement of Monsieur d'Adjudar 
 
110 P^re Goriot. 
 
 Pinto to Mademoiselle de Rochefide ; but these last 
 days of intimacy, made feverish by fears that she must 
 finally lose her friend, only served to precipitate the 
 catastrophe. Both the marquis and the Rochefides' 
 looked on the estrangement and reconciliation as for- 
 tunate circumstances. They hoped that Madame de 
 Beauseant would gradually grow reconciled to the 
 marriage, and by sacrificing the daily visits hitherto 
 so dear to her, permit the marquis to fulfil the destiny 
 that belongs to every man. He himself was playing a 
 part, notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary 
 made daily to Madame de Beauseant. She, meantime, 
 though not deceived, liked his efforts to deceive her. 
 "Instead of bravely jumping out of the window, she 
 has preferred to roll down stairs step by step," said 
 her best friend the Duchesse de Langeais. Still, these 
 final moments lasted long enough to let the viscountess 
 launch her young relative, to whom she had taken an 
 almost superstitious fancy, upon the Paris world. He 
 had shown himself full of feeling for her at a time 
 when women find small pity or sympathy from others ; 
 if a man utters tender words at such a time, he usually 
 does it on speculation. 
 
 For the purpose of knowing his ground before lay- 
 ing siege to Madame de Nucingen, Eugene tried to 
 learn all he could about the early history of Pere 
 Goriot ; and he gathered certain accurate information, 
 which may briefly be given here. 
 
 Jean Joachim Goriot had been, before the Revolu- 
 tion, a journeyman vermicelli-maker; skilful, frugal, 
 and sufficiently successful to buy up the business of his 
 master when the latter was killed by chance in the first 
 
PeVe Goriot. Ill 
 
 insurrection of 1789. His place of business was in 
 the Rue Jussienne, near the Halle aux Bles (Corn- 
 market) ; and he had the sound good sense to accept 
 the office of president of the section, and thus secure 
 for his business the protection of the persons who had 
 most influence in those dangerous times. This fore- 
 sight laid the foundation of his fortune, which began 
 in the time of the great scarcity, real or pretended, 
 in consequence of which flour went up to enormous 
 prices in Paris. People trampled each other to death 
 at the shops of the bakers, while others quietly bought 
 the Italian pastes without difficulty from the grocers. 
 That year Citizen Goriot acquired capital enough to 
 carry on his future business with all the advantages of 
 a man who has plenty of ready money. During the 
 worst days of the Revolution he escaped through a 
 circumstance which he shared with other men of lim- 
 ited capacity, — his mediocrity saved him. Moreover, 
 as he was not known to be rich until the danger of 
 being so was at an end, he excited no envy. . The 
 flour market seemed to have absorbed all his faculties. 
 In any matter that had to do with wheat, flour, or 
 refuse grain, — whether it were to sample their various 
 qualities or know where they could best be bought; to 
 keep them in good order or foresee the markets ; to 
 prophesy the results of a harvest, bad or bountiful, 
 and buy breadstuffs at the right moment or import 
 them from Sicily or southern Russia, — Pere Goriot 
 had not his equal. To see him at his desk explaining 
 the laws that regulate the importation of grain, ex- 
 posing their influence upon trade, and pointing out 
 their deficiencies, he might have been thought fit for 
 
112 Pire Goriot. 
 
 n, cabinet minister. Patient, active, energetic, always 
 on hand, quick to seize an advantage in business, he 
 had the eye of an eagle in his trade. He foresaw 
 everything, jirovided for everything, knew everything, 
 and kept his own counsel. Diplomatist in laying his 
 plans, he was a general in executing them. But take 
 him away from his specialty, — from his little dai-k 
 shop, on the threshold of which he spent his leisure 
 moments Ic.ining against the post of its street door, — 
 and he fell back into a mere journeyman, rough, stu- 
 pid, incapable of understanding an argument, insensi- 
 ble to mental enjoyment ; a man who would go to 
 sleep at the theatre, and whose only strong point was 
 his dense stupidity. 
 
 Men of this type are always much alike; in nearly 
 all of them you will find one deep feeling hidden in 
 their souls. The heart of the old paste-maker held 
 two affections; they absorbed its juices just as the 
 grain-market absorbed his brain. His wife, the only 
 daughter of a rich farmer at Brie, was tlie object of 
 his fervent admiration ; his love for her was unbounded. 
 In her nature, fragile yet firm, sensible and sweet, he 
 found a happy contrast to his own. If thei-e is any 
 sentiment inborn in the heart of man, it is one of pride 
 in protecting a being weaker than himself Add love 
 to this and the gratitude that simple natures feel to- 
 wards one who is the fount of all their happiness, and 
 you will comprehend various moral singularities other- 
 wise inexplicable. After seven years of married life 
 without a cloud, Goriot, unhappily for himself, lost his 
 wife. She was beginning to acquire astrong influence 
 over him beyond the simple range of his affections. 
 
PeVe Goriot. 113 
 
 Had she lived, she might have cultivated his sluggish 
 nature and roused it to some knowledge of life and the 
 world about him. Left to himself, fatherhood became 
 his absorbing passion, and it developed under his lonely 
 circumstances until it passed the bounds of reason. 
 His affections, balked by death, were now concentrated 
 on his daughters, who for a time satisfied to the full 
 his need of love. 
 
 Though many prosperous marriages were proposed 
 to him by merchants and farmers who would gladly 
 have given him their daughters, he persisted in remain- 
 ing a widower. His father-in-law, the only man for 
 whom he had ever felt a liking, declared that Goriot 
 had promised his wife never to be faithless even to her 
 memory. The frequenters of the Halle aux Bles, 
 incapable of understanding so refined a folly, jested 
 roughly on his fidelity. The first who did so in his 
 hearing received a sudden blow on the shoulder from 
 the paste-maker's strong fist, which sent him head fore- 
 most on the curbstone of the Rue Oblin. The blind 
 devotion, the sensitive and nervous affection which 
 Goriot gave to his daughters was so well known, that 
 one day at the Halle a rival in the market, wishing 
 to get him out of the way for a short time, told him 
 that his daughter Delphine had been run over by a 
 cabriolet. Pale as a ghost he left the Halle. On 
 reaching home he found the story false, but was ill 
 for several days from the agitation it had caused him. 
 This time he did not punish with a blow the man 
 who played the trick, but he hunted him from the 
 markets, and forced him at a critical moment into 
 bankruptcy. 
 
114 Pere Groriot 
 
 The education of his daughters was, naturally, inju- 
 dicious. As he had sixty thousand francs a year, and 
 spent about twelve hundred francs upon himself, he 
 had enough to satisfy every girlish caprice. The best 
 masters were em])loyed to teach them those accomplish- 
 ments which are thought to make a good education. 
 They had a dmne decompagnie who, ha])pily for them, 
 was a woman of sense and spirit. They rode on horse- 
 back ; they drove in carriages ; they lived in luxury. 
 If they expressed a wish, no matter what the cost, 
 their father was eager to grant it ; all he asked in re- 
 turn was a caress. He ranked them with the angels, 
 far above himself in every way. Poor man, he loved 
 even the pain they caused him. When they were of 
 nge to be married he permitted them to choose their 
 husbands. Each was to have for dowry half her 
 father's fortune. Anastasie, the eldest, had aristocratic 
 tastes, and was courted by the Comte de Restaud for 
 her beauty. She left her father's house to enter an 
 exalted social sphere. Delphine loved money. She 
 married Nucingen, a banker of German oiigin and a 
 baron of the Holy Empire. Goriot remained a ver 
 micelli-maker. Plis daughters and sons-in-law were 
 ashamed that he continued this business, although the 
 occupation was life itself to him. After resisting their 
 appeals for five years he consented to retire on the 
 profits of these last years. This capital, as Madame 
 Vauquer ascertained when he first went to live with 
 her, yielded .an income of from eight to ten thousand 
 francs. It was despair that drove him to the Maison 
 Vauquer ; despair at the discovery that his daugh- 
 ters were forced by their husbands not only to refuse 
 
Pire Goriot, 115 
 
 him a home, but even to receive him openly in their 
 houses. 
 
 Such vras the substance of the information given to 
 Rastignac by a Monsieur Muret, who liad purchased 
 the business from Goriot. The account given by the 
 Duchesse de Langeais was thus confirmed, and here 
 ends the introduction to an obscure but terrible 
 Parisian tragedy. 
 
 Towards the end of the first week in December 
 Rastignac received letters from his mother and his eld- 
 est sister. Their well-known handwriting made his 
 heart beat fast-, partly with relief and partly with appre- 
 hension. Those slender papers held the sentence of 
 life or death to his ambition. If he dreaded failure as 
 he thought of his parents' poverty, he knew their love 
 for him too well not to tremble lest they might grant 
 his prayer at the cost of their life's blood. His mother's 
 letter was as follows : — 
 
 My dear Child, — -I send you what you ask for. Make 
 good use of this money, for if your life depended on it I could 
 not raise so large a sum again without speaking to your 
 father, and that would cause trouble for our family. To get 
 it we should he obliged to iriortgage our property. I cannot 
 judge of the value of plans that I know nothing about; but 
 what can they be if you are afraid to tell them to nie ? An 
 explanation would not requite volumes ; we mothers under- 
 stand our children at a word, and that word would have saved 
 me some sharp pangs of doubt and anxiety. I cannot hide 
 from you the painful impression made upon me by your letter. 
 My dear son, what is it that has led you to make me so uneasy f 
 You must have suffered in writing that letter, for I have suffered 
 so much iu reading it. What project have you for the future f 
 
116 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 Does your life, your happiness, — as you say, — depend upon 
 appearing what you are not ; upon entering a world where you 
 cannot live without spending money which you cannot afford ; 
 nor without losing time most precious for your studies ? 
 
 My own Eugfene, believe your mother when she tells you 
 that crooked paths cannot lead to noble ends. Patience and 
 self-sacrifice are the virtues which young men in your position 
 must cultivate. But I am not reproaching you ; I would not 
 mar our offering by a bitter word. I speak as a mother who 
 trusts her son, even though she cautions him. You know 
 your duty, and I know the purity of your heart and the loyalty 
 of your intentions. Therefore I do not fear to say, — If all be 
 right, my dearest, follow out your plans. I tremble because 
 I am your mother ; but every step you make in life will have 
 my prayers and blessing. You M-ill need to be good and to 
 be wise, for the future of five beings near and dear to you is 
 in your hands. Yes, our prosperity is bound up in your pros- 
 perity, as your happiness is our joy. We, pray God to be with 
 you in all your undertakings. 
 
 Your aunt Maroillac has been unspeakably kind in this 
 aflair; she even understood and sympathized with what you 
 said of your gloves. " But, theu,'' as she said laughing, " I 
 have always had a soft spot in my heart for the eldest son." 
 My Eugene, be grateful to your aunt. I will not tell you what 
 she has done for you until you have succeeded; if I did, the 
 money might scorch your fingers. Ah ! you children little 
 know what a pang it is to part with souvenirs ; but what would 
 we not do for you ! She begs me to say that she sends a kiss, 
 and wishes her kiss could give you strength to prosper. Dear, 
 good woman! she would have written herself but she has 
 gout in her fingers. Your father is well. The grape. harvest 
 of 1819 proves better than we expected. Good-by, my dear 
 boy. I say nothing about the sisters, for Laure is writing to 
 you. I leave her the pleasure of telling all the little gossip of 
 the family. Heaven grant you may do well ! Ah, prosper, ' 
 
Pire G-oriot. 117 
 
 my Eugene ! Thou hast made mo too anxious — I could not 
 bear it a second time. I know at last what it is to be poor, 
 and to long for money that I might givo.it to my child. 
 
 Well ! — adieu. Write to us constantly ; and take the kiss 
 thy mother sends thee. 
 
 Wjien Eugene had read this letter he was in tears. 
 He was thinking of Pere Goriot destroying his porrin- 
 ger and selling it to pay his daughter's note of hand. 
 "My mother has given her jewels," he cried, turning 
 fiercely on himself. " My aunt must have wept as she 
 sold her family relics. What right have I to con- 
 demn Anastasie ? I have done for self what she did 
 for her lover ! Which is the worst, — she or I ? " His 
 whole being was wrung with intolerable remorse. He 
 would relinquish his ambition, — he would not toucli 
 the money. He was seized by one of those noble 
 secret returns of conscience so little comprehended by 
 men as they judge their fellows ; so often, we may 
 believe, taken into the great account when the angels 
 receive the sinners condemned by the justice of the 
 world. Rastignao opened his sister's letter, and its 
 innocent, tender trustfulness fell like balm upon his 
 spirit : — 
 
 Your letter came just at the right moment, dear brother. 
 Agathe and I had debated so long what to do with our money, 
 and we had thought of so many ways of spending it, that we 
 could not decide upon anything. You are like the servant of the 
 King of Spain when he threw down all his master's watches, 
 — you have made us agree. Really and truly, we were always 
 disputing which of our fancies we should follow ; but, dear 
 Euglne, we never thought of this, which exactly suits us both. 
 Agathe jumped for joy. In fact, we were all day in such high 
 
118 Fire Gforiot. 
 
 spirits " on sufficient grounds " (aunt's style) that mamma put 
 on her severe manner and said, " Young ladies, wliat is the 
 matter with you ? " If she had scolded us a little bit, I do be- 
 lieve it would have made us happier still. Surely women must 
 enjoy making sacrifices for those they love. But I was sad in 
 the midst of my joy. I am afraid I shall make a bad wife, I 
 am so extravagant. I had just bought myself two sashes, and 
 a stiletto to punch eyelets in my corsets, — mere foolishness ! 
 — and so I had less money than that fat Agathe, who is 
 economical and hoards her five-franc pieces like a magpie. 
 She had two hundred francs; while I, O dear Eugene, had 
 only a hundred and fifty! I was well punished for my extrava- 
 gance. I wanted to fling my sash into the well. I know I 
 shall never have any pleasure in wearing it ; I shall feel as if 
 I had stolen it from you. Agathe vas so kind: she said, 
 " Let us send the three hundred and fifty all together.'' But I 
 feel as if I must tell you just how it was. Do you want to 
 know how we managed so as not to let any one susiject what 
 we were doing? — as you said we must keep the secret. We 
 took our precious money and went out for a walk. When we 
 got to the high-road we ran as fast as we could to Ruffec. 
 There we gave all the money to Monsieur Grimbert at the 
 Messageries-Royales coach office. We flew home like swal- 
 lows, — so fast because we were so light-hearted, Agathe 
 said. We said lots of things to each other which I should not 
 like to repeat to you. Monsieur le Parisien. They were all 
 about you. Oh ! dear brother, we love you — there ! it is all 
 in those three words. 
 
 As, for keeping the secret, naughty little girls, as aunt calls 
 us, can do anything, — even keep silent ! Mamma went to 
 Angoulenie mysteriously with aunt the other day, and they 
 would not tell us a word about the high and mighty purposes 
 of the expedition. They have held long private conferences ; 
 but we are sent out of the room, and even Monsieur le baron 
 is not admitted. Great afiairs occupy all minds in the king- 
 
Pire Goriot. 119 
 
 dom of Rastignao. The muslin dress, embroidered in satin- 
 stitch by the infantas fortlie queen, her majesty, is getting on, 
 tliough they can only work at it in the utmost secresy. There 
 are now only two breadths to finish. It has been decided to 
 build no wall toward Verteuil ; there is to be a hedge. This 
 will deprive the natives of wall-fruit, but offers a fine view to 
 foreigners. If the heir-presumptive wants any handkerchiefs, 
 he is hereby informed that the dowager-countess de Marcillac, 
 turning over the treasures in her trunks (excavations in Her- 
 culaneum aiid Pompeii), came upon a lovely piece of linen cam- 
 bric, which she did not know she had. The princesses Laure 
 and Agathe put their thread, needles, and fingers — the latter, 
 alas ! a little too red — at his highness's orders. The two 
 young princes, Don Henri and Don Gabriel, keep at their old 
 tricks, gorging themselves with grapes, worrying their sistei-.s, 
 learning nothing, bird's-nesting, making a racket, and cut- 
 ting, in defiance of the laws of the State, willow twigs for 
 switches. The Pope's nuncio, commonly called Monsieur le 
 cur6, threatens to excommunicate them if the sacred canons 
 of grammar are neglected for popguns. 
 
 Adieu, dear brother. Never did a letter carry deeper wishes 
 for your happiness, nor so much grateful love. How many 
 things you M'ill have to tell us when you come home ! You 
 will tell me all, I know, — I am the eldest. Aunt threw out 
 a mysterious hint of success in the great woi'ld : — 
 
 " A lady's name she whispered, — but, hush ! for all the rest,'' 
 a word to the wise, you know, — we understand each other ! 
 
 Tell me, Eugene, would you like shirts instead of hand- 
 kerchiefs ? AVe can make thein for you. Answer this at 
 once. If you want some. fine shirts, very nicely made, we 
 must set to work immediately. And if there are any new 
 ways of making them in Paris which we do not know here, 
 send us a pattern, — particularly for the cuffs. Adieu, adieu. 
 I kiss you over your left eyebrow, for that spot belongs exclu- 
 sively to me. I leave the other page for Agathe, who has 
 
120 Fere G-oriot. 
 
 promised not to lools at what I have written ; but to make 
 sure, I shall stay behind her till she has finished. 
 Thy sister who loves thee, 
 
 Laure de Kastignac. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! '" cried Eugene : " yes ! — fortune at any 
 price! l^o treasures could repay them for their devo- 
 tion. I will shower upon them every happiness. Fif- 
 teen hundred francs ! " he added, after a pause. " Every 
 five-franc piece must do its work. Laure is right ; my 
 shirts are all too coarse. A young girl becomes as cun- 
 ning as a thief when she plans for others. Innocent 
 herself, far-sighted for me! She is like the angels, 
 who forgive the human faults they cannot share." 
 
 The world was all before him ! Already a tailor had 
 been called, sounded, and selected. When Eugene first 
 beheld Monsieur de Trailles, he became conscious of 
 the enormous influence tailors exert over the lives of 
 young men. A man's tailor must be either his mortal 
 enemy or his trusted friend. Eugene's choice fell upon 
 a man who took a fatherly position towards his patrons, 
 and considered himself a link between the present and 
 the future of young men who aspired to get on in the 
 wrorld. Rastignac showed his gratitude, and made the 
 man's fortune by one of those clever sayings for which 
 he became celebrated in after years. " I have known 
 him make two pairs of trousers which made two mar- 
 riages of forty thousand francs a year," he said. 
 
Pere Q-oriot. 121 
 
 IX. 
 
 Fifteen hundred francs and all the clothes he needed ! 
 Our ardent son of the south flung his hesitations to the 
 wind, and went down to breakfast with that indefinable 
 air which a youth puts on when he is conscious of pos- 
 sessing money. The moment that a student jingles 
 coin in his pocket he feels that he is leaning on a pillar 
 of sti-ength. His step becomes assured ; his lever has a 
 fulcrum to work on : he looks ahead ; he sees his way ; 
 his very movements grow alert. Yesterday, timid and 
 despondent, he could hardly resent an injury; to-day 
 he is ready to offer one to the chief of state. A curi- 
 ous transformation is at work within him. He wants 
 all things, feels himself capable of all things ; his desires 
 rush forth at random ; he is gay, generous, and open- 
 hearted, — the fledgling has found his wings. As a 
 penniless student he had been content to snatch a scrap 
 of pleasure as a dog steals a bone, cracks it, sucks the 
 marrow furtively, and runs away. But the young man 
 who rattles money in his breeches pocket can afford to 
 linger over his enjoyments; he can suck their juice at 
 leisure ; he floats in summer air ; for him the harsh 
 word poverty no longer has a meaning, — all Paris be- 
 longs to him. In youth how these things glitter ! how 
 they sparkle and flame ! Age of glad strength, by 
 which few profit, either men or women ; age of debts 
 
122 PeVe aoriot. 
 
 and anxieties which enhance the joys ! He who has 
 never haunted the left bank of the Seine between the 
 Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue des Saint-Peres knows 
 little of the comedy, or the tragedy, of human life. 
 
 " Ah ! if the women of Paris did but know J " 
 thought Eugene, as he devoured Madame Vauquer's 
 baked pears at a farthing apiece, " they would want 
 me to love them." 
 
 At this moment a messenger from the Messageries- 
 Royales came into the dining-room, having rung at 
 the gate-bell. He asked for Monsieur Eugene de Ras- 
 tiguac, for whom he brought two bags of silver coin 
 and the register for signature. 
 
 Vautrin threw a glance round Rastignac as keen and 
 sharp as the lash of a whip. 
 
 "You will be able to pay for your fencing lessons," 
 he said, " and your pistols too." 
 
 " The galleons have come in," said Madame Vauquer, 
 glancing at the bags. 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau dared not cast her eyes 
 at them, fearing to show her covetousness. 
 
 " You have a good mother," said Madame Couture. 
 
 " Monsieur has a good mother," repeated Poiret. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Mamma has bled herself," said Vautrin, 
 " and now you may take your fling if you like ; go into 
 the world and fish for dots, or dance with countesses 
 and peach-blossoms, ^nt take my advice, young man, 
 — stick to the pistol-gallery." 
 
 Vautrin put himself in the attitude of taking aim at 
 an adversary. Rastignac felt in his pocket for a. pour- 
 hoire to the messenger, but found nothing ; Vautrin 
 put his hand in his, and flung the man a franc. 
 
Pire Goriot. 123 
 
 " Your credit is good," he observed, looking at the 
 student. 
 
 Rastignac was forced to thank him, although since 
 the sharp words they had exchanged after his first visit 
 to Madame de Beaus^ant the man had become intoler- 
 able to him. For a week Eug6ne and Vautrin had not 
 spoken, and each had silently watched the other. The 
 student in vain asked himself the reason. There is no 
 doubt that ideas strike with a force proportionate to the 
 vigor of their conception ; they hit the mark at which 
 they are aimed by some such mathematical law as that 
 which guides the shell when it leaves the mouth of the 
 cannon. The eflfects are various. There are tender 
 natures which ideas penetrate and blast to ashes ; there 
 are vigorous natures, skulls of iron, from which the 
 thoughts and wills of other men glance off like bullets 
 flattened as they strike a wall ; others, again, are soft 
 and cottony, and into them ideas sink dead, like can- 
 non-balls that bury themselves in the earth-works of a 
 fortification. 
 
 Rastignac's nature was a powder-flask ready to ex- 
 plode at a touch. He had too much youthful vitality 
 not to be open to this imposition of ideas, — this mag- 
 netism of mind upon mind, whose capricious phenomena 
 affect us on all sides without our being aware of it. 
 His moral perceptions were as clear as his eyes, keen 
 as those of a lynx. Mentally and physically he had 
 that mysterious power to take and give impressions at 
 which we marvel in men of superior calibre : skilful 
 swordsmen quick to know the weak places in every 
 breastplate. During the past month Eugene's finer 
 qualities had developed in common with his defects. 
 
124 PeVe Croriot. 
 
 His defects were nourished by his entrance into the 
 great world, and by some slight accomplishment of his 
 ambitious dreams. Among his finer qualities may be 
 counted that southern vivacity of spirit which compels 
 a man to go straight at a difficulty and master it, and 
 will not suffer him to be baffled by uncertainty. This 
 quality northern people regard as a defect. To their 
 minds, if it was the cause of Murat's rise, it was also the 
 cause of his death : from which we may conclude that 
 when a man unites the trickery of the north to the au- 
 dacity of the region south of the Loire, he has reached 
 perfection and may aspire to be king of Sweden. Ras- 
 tignac could not, therefore, long remain passive under 
 Vautrin's fire without making up his mind whether the 
 man was his friend or his enemy. From time to time 
 he was certain that this strange being penetrated his 
 motives, divined his passions, and read his heart ; hold- 
 ing guard at the same time over his own secrets with 
 the impassiveness of the sphinx who sees and knows 
 all, and reveals nothing. His pockets being now full 
 of money, Eugene mutinied. 
 
 "Do me the favor towait," he said to Vautrin, who 
 had risen to leave the room after drinking, the last 
 drops of his coffee. 
 
 " Why ? " asked the latter, putting on his broad- 
 brimmed hat, and picking up his cane. This cane was 
 loaded with iron, and he was fond of twirling it about 
 his head with the air of a man who thought himself a 
 match for half-a-dozen robbers. 
 
 " I wish to return your money," replied Rastignac, 
 unfastening one of his bags and counting out a hun- 
 dred and forty francs for Madame Vauquer. " Short 
 
P^re Q-oriot. 125 
 
 accounts make long friends," he said to the widow. 
 " Now I have paid up to the last day of December 
 Can you change me this five-franc piece ?" 
 
 " Long friends make short accounts," echoed Poiret, 
 looking at Vautrin. 
 
 " Here are your twenty sous," said Rastignac, hold- 
 ing out a franc to the sphinx in a wig. 
 
 " One would think you were afraid to owe me any- 
 thing," cried Vautrin, plunging his divining glance into 
 the very soul of the young man, and giving him one of 
 those mocking Diogenistic smiles which Eugene had 
 again and again been on the point of resenting. 
 
 " Well — yes," said the student, lifting his bags and 
 preparing to go upstairs. 
 
 Vautrin went out of the door that led into the salon; 
 the student passed through that leading to the staircase. 
 
 " Do you know, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignaco- 
 rama, that what you said to me just now. was not ex- 
 actly polite?" said Vautrin, coming through the door 
 leading from the salon into the passage, and speaking 
 to the student, who looked at him coolly. 
 
 Rastignac shut the dining-room door, and drew Vau- 
 trin to the foot of the staircase, in the little square 
 space that separated the dining-room from the kitchen. 
 In this passage there was a glass door opening upon 
 the garden, the glass of which was protected by iron 
 bars. There the student said, before Sylvie, who was 
 coming out of her kitchen, — 
 
 " Monsieur Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my 
 name is not Rastignacorama." 
 
 "They are going to fight," said Mademoiselle Mi- 
 chonneau in a tone of indifference. 
 
126 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Fight a duel," repeated Poiret. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Madame Vauquer, fingering her pile 
 of five-franc pieces. 
 
 " Oh, see ! They have gone dovim under the lin- 
 dens," cried Mademoiselle Victorine, getting up and 
 looking into the garden. " And he was in the right — 
 that poor young man ! " 
 
 " Let us go to our rooms, my dearest," said Madame 
 Couture, "these things do not concern us." 
 
 As Madame Couture and Victorine turned to leave 
 the room they met Sylvie in the doorway, who barred 
 their passage. 
 
 " What 's the matter ? " she cried. " Monsieur Vautrin 
 said to Monsieur Eugene, ' Let us have an explanation,' 
 and he took him by the arm, and there they are, tramp- 
 ling down our artichokes." 
 
 At this moment Vautrin re-appeared. " Madame 
 Vauquer," he said, smiling, " don't be afraid ; I am 
 going to try my pistols under the trees yonder." 
 
 " Oh ! Monsieur," cried Victorine, clasping her hands, 
 " why do you wish to kill Monsieur Eugene ? " 
 
 Vautrin made a step backward and looked at her. 
 
 " Oh ! ho ! — a new story," he cried, vs^ith an amused air 
 which brought a blush to her pale cheek. " He is very 
 nice, is n't he?' A charming young man ! Youhavegiven 
 me an idea. I '11 make you both happy, my little girl." 
 
 Madame Couture had taken her charge by the arm 
 and now drew her away hastily, saying in an under- 
 tone, " Victorine ! what has come over you to-day? " 
 
 "I beg you will fire no pistols in my garden," said 
 Madame Vauquer. " Don't go and frighten the whole 
 neighborhood, and bring the police upon us." 
 
PeVe Groriot. 127 
 
 « Oh, keep calm, Mamma Vauquer," replied Vautrin, 
 "There, there — it's all right. We will go to the 
 pistol-gallery."' 
 
 He went back to Rastignac and took him familiarly 
 by the arm : " If I prove to you that at thirty-six paces 
 I can put a bullet fi\e times through the ace of spades, 
 it won't take away your courage. You look to me 
 like a man who would balk at nothing when his blood 
 was up, and get himself killed as soon as not — like a 
 simpleton." 
 
 " You wish to back out of it," said Eugene. 
 
 " Don't provoke me," replied Vautrin. " Come and 
 sit down yonder," he added, pointing to the benches 
 painted green ; "it is not cold, and nobody can over- 
 hear us there. You are a good fellow, to whom 1 wish 
 no harm. I like you, on the honor of Tromp — thunder ! 
 — honor of Vautrin ; and I '11 tell you why I like you. 
 In the first place, I know you inside and out, just as 
 well as if I had made you ; and I will prove it to you. 
 Put your bags down there," he added, pointing to the 
 round table. 
 
 Rastignac put his money on the table and sat down, 
 devoured by curiosity as to this sudden change in a 
 man who having just proposed to kill him, now as- 
 sumed to be his protector. 
 
 " You want to know who I am, what I have done, 
 and what I am doing," resumed Vautrin. " You are too 
 inquisitive, young man — stop, stop ! be calm ! you have 
 more of that to hear. I have had misfortunes. Listen 
 to me first ; you can talk afterwards. Here is my past 
 life in three words : Who am I ? Vautrin. — What do 
 I do ? Just what I please — Pass on. Do you want to 
 
128 Pire Goriot. 
 
 know my character ? Good to those who are good to 
 me ; whose heart answers to mine. From them I '11 
 take anything. They may kick me on the shins if 
 they like, I won't even say, ' Take care ! ' But, nom 
 d'une pipe, I'm as wicked as the devil to those who 
 annoy me, or those I don't like. It is as well to let 
 you know at once that I don't mind killing a man any 
 more than — that ! [spitting before him.J Only, I en- 
 deavor to kill him properly, and when it can't be helped. 
 I am what you may call an artist. I have read the 
 memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, — • and read them in 
 Italian too, which may surprise you. I learned from 
 that man — bold, determined fellow that he was ! — to 
 imitate the ways of Providence, who kills at random, 
 and to love the beautiful wherever I see it. And, after 
 all, is n't it a fine thing to stand single-handed against 
 the world, with the luck on our side? 
 
 " I have reflected deeply on the forces that govern 
 your social order — or disorder. My lad, duels are 
 child's play, — absurdities. When in the course of 
 human events one of two living men has to disappear, 
 they must be idiots to leave anything to chance. A 
 duel ! heads or tails ! — that 's what, it is. I can put 
 five balls running through the same hole in the ace of 
 spades, — and at thirty-six paces, to boot. When any 
 one is gifted with that little talent, he might be sup- 
 posed to be certain of killing his man. Well, for all 
 that, I 've fired at a man at twenty paces, and missed 
 him ; and the scoundrel had never pulled a trigger in 
 his life ! See," he continued, opening his shirt and 
 showing a breast as shaggy as a bear's back, with long 
 hair like the mane of a wild animal, which caused a 
 
P^re Goriot. 129 
 
 sickening sensation ©f fear and repulsion; "that green- 
 horn scorched me," he added, catching Rastignac's 
 hand and putting his finger into the scar. 
 
 " But in those days 1 was a youngster ; only twenty- 
 one, —just your age ; and I still believed in something, 
 — woman's love, for instance, and a heap of nonsense 
 into which you are just plunging. We might have 
 fought, and you might have killed me, just now. 
 Suppose I was underground, where would you be? 
 Obliged to fly to Switzerland and live on papa's 
 money, — only he has n't got any. Now, I am going 
 to put before you the position in which you stand ; 
 and I shall do it with the authority of a man who has 
 looked into things in this lower world, and knows that 
 there are but two paths open to us, — blind obedience 
 or revolt. I don't obey, — take that for granted. Now, 
 do you know what you need, at the pace you are 
 going? A million of francs, immediately. If you 
 don't get them, with your excitable temperament 
 you'll be wandering with your feet in the nets at 
 Saint-Cloud and your head in the air looking for the 
 Supreme Being, before long. I '11 give you your 
 million." 
 
 He paused and looked at Eugene. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! We are getting friendly to Papa Vau- 
 trin. When he offers us a million, we are like a young 
 girl to whom the lover says, ' To-night,' and she begins 
 to prink like a little cat licking her fur when she has 
 lapped her milk. All right! Well, then, between 
 ourselves, this is how it is with you, young man. 
 Down yonder in the country there 's papa and mamma, 
 and our great-aunt, and two sisters (seventeen and 
 
 9 
 
130 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 eighteen years of age), and two little brothers (ten 
 and fifteen). There 's the whole ship's company. The 
 aunt teaches the sisters, the cui'd imparts Latin to the 
 boys. The family eat more boiled chestnuts than 
 wheat bread ; papa tries not to wear out his breeches ; 
 mamma can hardly buy herself a new gown summer or 
 winter; the sisters get along as they can. I know it 
 all, — I 've lived in the south of France. Somehow 
 they manage to send you twelve hundred francs a 
 year, though the property only brings iu three thou- 
 sand. We keep a cook and a man-servant for the 
 sake of appearances : papa is a baron, you know. As 
 for ourself, we are ambitious. We have the Beauseants 
 for allies ; but we have to go afoot, which does not 
 please us. We want a fortune, and we haven't a sou. 
 We eat Mamma Vauquer's messes, but we long for 
 the feasts in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. We sleep 
 on a pallet, but we dream of a mansion. I don't blame 
 you. You are ambitious. It is not every one, my 
 brave boy, who is blessed with ambition. Ask women 
 what sort of men they like best, — ambitious men. 
 Their blood has more iron in it, their hearts are 
 warmer. 
 
 " I 've summed up your wants as a preface to a 
 question. Here it is. We are as hungry as a wolf ; 
 our milk-teeth are very sharp ; how are we going to 
 fill the pot ? Shall we stay our appetite on law ? 
 Studying law is dull work; and, besides, it teaches 
 nothing. However, call it the best we can do, — for 
 we must do something. So be it, then. Well, we 
 graduate ; and by and by we get an appointment as 
 judge in some petty criminal court, and send off poor 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 13X 
 
 devils better than ourselves with T F bi-anded on 
 their shoulders, that rich men may sleep in peace. 
 Small fun in that ! and besides, it is long in coming. 
 In the first place, two years of weary waiting, — look- 
 ing at the sugarplums we long for, but cannot have. 
 It is hard to be always craving, never getting what we 
 want. If you were a poor, pale moUusk of a man, 
 there would be nothing to fear ; but, no ! we have the 
 blood of a lion in our veins, and the capacity for com- 
 mitting twenty follies a day. You will never bear the 
 trial ; you will sink under it ; it is the worst torture 
 that we have yet heard of in the hell of a good God. 
 But suppose you are irreproachable, -r^ that you drink 
 milk and write hymns. After all your privations, — 
 enough to drive a dog mad, not to speak of a generous 
 young fellow like you, — you will have to begin by tak- 
 ing another man's place in some hole of a town where 
 the Government will pay you a thousand francs a year, 
 just as they fling a bone to the watch-dog. Bark at 
 tlie robbers, win the cause of the rich, and send to the 
 guillotine men of heart and pluck ? — No, thank you ! 
 If you have no one to push your fortunes, you will rot 
 in your petty judgeship. When you are thirty you 
 will be promoted to twelve hundred francs per an- 
 num, — unless by that time you have flung your 
 gown to the nettles. At forty you will marry a mil- 
 ler's daughter, with six thousand francs a year for 
 her portion. 
 
 *' To all this you aay, Never ! Well, if you have 
 influence you may possibly at thirty get to be pro- 
 cureur du roi, with a beggarly stipend of five thousand 
 francs a year, and marry the mayor's daughter. If 
 
132 Pere Goriot. 
 
 you have the luck to do any little meanness for the 
 Government, — such as reading the name oi Villele 
 from the register, instead of Manuel, — you may at 
 forty become procureur-general, and lise to be a dep- 
 uty. But take notice, my young friend, that by this 
 " time we shall have torn some big rents in our con- 
 science ; we shall have had twenty years of weary 
 waiting and bitter poverty, and by that time the 
 sisters auront coiffe Saint- Catherine, and will have 
 turned into old maids. I have also the honor to 
 point out to you that there are only twenty procu- 
 reurs-generaux in France ; and that twenty thou- 
 sand young aspirants are standing in line, among 
 whom you will find fellows who would sell their 
 own families to advance a step. 
 
 " If this prospect seems unpleasant, let us turn to 
 something else. Would the Baron de Rastignac like 
 to become an avocat — a barrister ? Delightful ! In 
 that case he will earn nothing for ten years, spend a 
 thousand francs a month, need a law-library and an 
 oflSce, kiss the robe of an attorney to get briefs, and 
 lick up the law courts with his tongue. If all this 
 would lead to anything it might be very well. But 
 find me six barristers in Paris who at fifty years of 
 age earn fifty thousand francs a year. Bah ! sooner 
 than belittle my soul like that I'd take to piracy. 
 Well, then, how else can we make money? These 
 prospects are certainly not brilliant. There 's another 
 resource; and that's a wife's fortune. But if you 
 marry, you tie a stone round your neck for life ; and 
 if you marry for money, what becomes of our fine sen- 
 timents about noblesse and honor ? You might as well 
 
Pire Goriot. 133 
 
 not put off your revolt against the conventional ideas 
 of humanity. To make such a marriage j'ou would 
 have to wriggle like a snake at some woman's feet, and 
 lick her mother's shoes, and humiliate yourself to things 
 that would disgust a pig — pah ! And, after all, you 
 need n't expect happiness. You would wear out like 
 the stones of a drain through continual dropping, if you 
 married a wife in this way. Better fight with men 
 than try your strength against a woman. Hei'e you 
 are, young man, at the cross-roads of your life. Choose 
 your path. You have chosen ? You have been to see 
 our cousin de Beauseant, and you have breathed the 
 atmosphere of luxury. You have been to visit Madame 
 de Restaud, daughter of Pere Goriot, and you have 
 scented the Parisienne. You came home from those 
 visits with a word written on your forehead. I read 
 it, — it was success / — success at any price. Bravo ! 
 I said, that's the fellow to suit me. You wanted 
 money. You cast about to see how you might get 
 it. You bled your sisters : all brothers sponge more 
 or less upon their sisters. And now that you have 
 got your fifteen hundred francs, squeezed . — Heaven 
 knows how ! — out of a land where chestnuts are more 
 plentiful than five-franc pieces, you will find them dis- 
 appear like soldiers on a forage. 
 
 " What next ? Will you set to work again ? The 
 sort of work that you call work at present leads in old 
 age to a bed-room in a pension like Madame Vauquer's, 
 fit for chaps like Poiret. At this very moment fifty 
 thousand young men, situated just as you are, are re- 
 volving in their minds how to make a rapid fortune. 
 You are a unit among fifty thousand. Make your 
 
134 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 estimate of the chances and the fierceness of the fight 
 before you. The fifty thousand will have to eat each 
 other up, like spiders in a jug; for of course there 
 are not fifty thousand good positions, — one apiece all 
 round ! Do you know how to win a first place in the 
 struggle ? I will tell you. By the highest genius, or 
 the lowest corruption. You must either rend a way 
 for yourself through the crowd like a cannon-ball, or 
 you must creep through it silently like a pestilence. 
 Honesty and uprightness won't help you. People 
 bend beneath the power of genius, but they hate it. 
 Genius is calumniated because it takes what it can get 
 and never shares its takings ; but the world bows 
 before its strength. In other words, the world wor- 
 ships on its knees those whom it cannot smother in 
 the mud. Corruption is also strength. Genius is 
 rare. It follows that corruption is the resource of 
 the great commonplace majority ; and you will find 
 it everywhere. You will see women whose husbands' 
 pay is six thousand francs at most, spending ten thou- 
 sand upon their toilettes. You will see employes who 
 have a salary of twelve hundred francs acquiring 
 landed property. You will see women prostituting 
 themselves to drive to Longchamps in the carriage 
 of the son of a peer of France which has a right to 
 the middle highway. You have seen that poor fool 
 of a Pere Goriot obliged to pay the note indorsed 
 by his daughter, whose husband has sixty thousand 
 francs per annum. I defy you to walk two steps in 
 Paris without stumbling on some infernal perfidy. 
 I 'd bet my head to one of those old salad stumps 
 that you will stick your nose into a wasp's-nest the 
 
PeVe Goriot. 135 
 
 first time you fall in love with any woman, no mat- 
 ter how wealthy, or young, or handsome she may be. 
 All women of fashion walk in crooked ways ; all are 
 at variance with their husbands. If I were to tell 
 you what things are done for lovers and for frippery, 
 for children and for show, and above all for vanity, I 
 should never have done. Not much that is virtuous 
 you may be sure. An honest man is deemed a com- 
 mon enemy. But where can we find an honest man ? 
 In Paris, honor and honesty consist in refusing to go 
 shares, and holding one's tongue. I am not speaking 
 now of those poor Helots who stick to honesty and 
 virtue without expecting any recompense for their 
 labors in this world, — • the Brotherhood of the Old 
 Shoes of the Good Lord, I call tliem. Of course they 
 are the flower of virtuous foolishness, but they are 
 always poor. I can imagine the blank faces of that 
 saintly crowd if Heaven were to play us such a joke 
 as. to omit the Day of Judgment. 
 
 " Now, it follows that if you wish to get on quickly 
 you must either be rich or make believe to be so. To 
 grow rich you must play a strong game, — not a trum- 
 pery cautious one ; no ! no ! If in the hundred profes- 
 sions a man can choose from he makes a rapid fortune, 
 the world says he must have done it dishonestly. 
 Draw your own conclusions. Such is life. It is no 
 better than a kitchen full of bad smells. If you have 
 fish to fry, you must soil your hands in frying them ; 
 only be sure to wash them when you have done your 
 cookery. That is the moral of the times we live in. 
 I own that in speaking to you thus I know myself to 
 have wrongs to avenge upon society. Do you think I 
 
136 PeVe 0-oriot. 
 
 blame it for its enmity to me ? Not at all ; it is nat- 
 ural. Moralists will make no radical changes, depend 
 upon it, in the morality of the great woi-ld. Human 
 nature is imperfect. Every man is a hypocrite, and ac- 
 cording as he is more or less of one fools will cry out 
 that he is better or worse. I don't say that the rich 
 are any worse than the poor. Man is the same at the 
 top or at the bottom or in the middle of society. You '11 
 find ten bold fellows in every million of such cattle who 
 dare to set things at defiance — including your laws. 
 I am one of them. If you feel yourself to be a man 
 superior to other men, you may walk a straight line 
 possibly and hold your head high. But you will have 
 to struggle with envy, calumny, and mediocrity, in 
 short, against the world. Najjoleon came near being 
 sent off to the colonies by a minister of war named 
 Aubry. Put yourself to the proof, — see if you can 
 get up every morning with more energy than you felt 
 the day before. There 's a test. 
 
 " Now, in view of all these circumstances, I am 
 going to make you a proposition that I think no man 
 in your position should i-efuse. Listen ! I myself 
 cherish an ideal. My ideal existence is that of a patri- 
 arch dwelling upon a vast estate — say a hundred 
 thousand acres — in one of the Southern States of 
 North America. I should like to be a planter, to own 
 slaves, and amass a few millions by selling my cattle, 
 my tobacco, and timber. There, living like a king, 
 with every creature round me subject to my will, I 
 should lead a sort of life not conceived of in this 
 country, where people crowd themselves in streets of 
 stucco. I am a poet, — only my poems are not made 
 
Pere Groriot. 137 
 
 in verse ; they have their rise in sentiment, and I 
 turn them into action. I possess at this moment about 
 fifty thousand francs, which would barely buy me 
 forty negroes. I want two hundred thousand francs, 
 because I need two hundred negroes to carry out 
 my dreams of patriarchal existence. You see, negroes 
 are ready-made children ; you may do whatever you 
 please with them, without any inquisitive procureur 
 du roi pouncing down upon you with questions. 
 With this black capital, in ten years I should make 
 three or four millions. If I succeed, no man will 
 ask ' Who are you ? ' I shall be Monsieur Quatre- 
 Millions, citizen of the United States. I shall be 
 fifty by that time, — still in my prime, and eager to 
 amuse myself. In two words, — if I get you a dot 
 of a million, will you give me two hundred thousand 
 francs ? Twenty per cent commission, — hein ? — is 
 that too dear ? You will win the affection of your 
 little wife. When you have been married a few 
 weeks you can let her see that you have something 
 on your mind ; you can seem disquieted, uneasy. 
 Then, some night, between two kisses, you can own 
 that you are in debt, — two hundred thousand francs 
 — in debt, darling ! This farce is acted every day, by 
 young men of good family. No young wife will i-efuse 
 her money to the man she loves. Do you think you 
 will be the poorer ? Not at all. You can easily get 
 back your two hundred thousand francs in a good 
 speculation. With your money and your enterprise, 
 you will make as large a fortune as heart could wish. 
 Mrgo, in six months I shall have made your happiness 
 and that of a sweet little wife. And happiest of all 
 
138 Pire Goriot. 
 
 will be Papa Vautrin; to say nothing of your own 
 family, who are now blowing their fingers, to keep 
 warm, for lack of fire-wood. You need not be aston- 
 ished at what I ofTer, nor at what I ask. Out of sixty 
 good matches , made in Paris, forty-seven owe their 
 origin to a similar understanding. The Chambre des 
 Notaires obliged Monsieur — " 
 
 " But what is there to be done on my part?" asked 
 Eugene, eagerly interrupting Vautrin. 
 
 " Almost nothing," replied the other, letting a sound 
 escape liim like the click of satisfaction given by an 
 angler when he feels the fish at the end of his line. 
 " Listen. The heart of a young girl used to neglect 
 and poverty is a sponge ready to absorb any iiffeotion 
 offered to her, — a dry sponge, which begins to swell 
 as soon as a drop of love falls upon it. To make love 
 to a young girl under such circumstances, — a poor, 
 lonely, and dispirited girl, a girl who knows nothing of 
 the prospect of great wealth that is in store for her, — 
 damn it ! it is like holding quinte and quatorze at 
 piquet ; it is like putting into a lottery when you know 
 the numbers ; it is like baying into the funds when 
 you 've found out the secrets of diplomacy. You are 
 building on a sure foundation. If the young girl 
 inherits millions, she will pour them at your feet as if 
 they were pebble-stones. She will say, ' Ah ! take 
 them, dearest ! Take them, Alfred, Adolphe, Eugene ! ' 
 — especially if Adolphe, Alfred, or Eugene have had 
 the sense to make sacrifices for her. By sacrifices I 
 mean such as selling an old coat that he .nnd she may 
 go together to the Cadran-Bleu and eat mushroom 
 toast, or to the Ambigu-Comique, — or else pawning 
 
Pire Goriot. 139 
 
 your watch to buy her a new shawl. I say nothing 
 about love-scribbling, and all the stuff and nonsense 
 women make so much of, — such as sprinkling water 
 on your letter to make it look like tears, when you are 
 parted from her. I fancy you know all that argot of 
 the heart well enough already. Paris is like a forest 
 peopled by twenty different tribes of red Indians, — 
 Iroquois, Hurons, and the like, — who all live by hunt- 
 ing the prosperous classes. You are bent on bagging 
 millions. Your trapping will require snares, decoys, 
 and bird-lime. There are many ways of going after 
 that kind of game. Some hunt for dots ; others grow 
 rich by bankruptcy ; others angle for consciences, and 
 sell their victims bound hand and foot. He who comes 
 home with a good bag is congratulated, fgted, and re- 
 ceived in good society. Let us do justice to the hos- 
 pitality of Paris ; it is the easiest city to get on in in 
 the world. Though the proud aristocracy of every 
 other capital in Europe may decline to countenance a 
 rascally millionnaire, Paris will open her arms to him, 
 rush to his parties, eat his dinners, and hob-nob with 
 him and his infamy." 
 
 " But where can I find such a girl ? " said Eugene. 
 
 " She is here ; close at hand." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Victorine ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " But how can that be ? " 
 
 " She loves you already, — your little Baronne de 
 Rastignac." 
 
 " She has not a sou ! " cried Eugene in amazement. 
 
 " Ah ! now we are coming to the point. Two word* 
 more," said Vautrin, "and then you will understand 
 
140 P^re Goriot. 
 
 me. Papa Taillefer is an old rascal, who is said to 
 have murdered his best friend during the Revolution. 
 He is one of those fellows I spoke ofi who are not tied 
 down by sci'uples or conventionnlities. He is a banker, 
 — head of the house of Frederic Taillefer & Co. He 
 has one sou, to whom he intends to leave his whole 
 fortune and disinherit Victoriue. I object to such in- 
 justice. I am like Don. Quixote, — I delight in taking 
 the part of the weak against the strong. If it pleased 
 a wise Providence to kill his son, old Taillefer would 
 take back his daughter. He would want some kind 
 of an heir, for that is a folly common to human na- 
 ture ; and he won't have any more children^ I know. 
 Victorine is pretty and amiable ; she will soon work 
 her way into his favor, and spin him round like a 
 whipping top ; her whip will be the liking he will take 
 for her. She will be too grateful to you for loving her 
 when she was poor to throw you over when she is rich, 
 and you will marry her. Well, I take upon myself 
 the duty of a wise Providence, — I will play the part 
 of Destiny. I have a friend for whom I have done 
 much, very much, — a colonel in the army of the 
 Loire, who has lately pome to Paris to enter the 
 Garde Royale. He has taken my advice and become 
 an ultra-royalist : he is not one of those fools who 
 stick to their opinions. I may as well give you an- 
 other bit of advice, my friend. Don't keep your opin- 
 ions any more than your promises. When people 
 need them, sell them. When a man boasts that he 
 holds fast to one opinion, he pledges himself to walk a 
 straight line, and is one of those ninnies who believe 
 in infallibility. There are no such things as principles, 
 
Pire Groriot. 141 
 
 — there are events. Neither are there laws, — only 
 cu'cumstances. A wise man grasps circumstances and 
 events, and guides them. If there were essential prin- 
 ciples or fundamental laws, the populations could not 
 change them, as they now change them, like a shirt. 
 A man is not bound to be wiser than his generation. 
 The man of all others whose political career has been 
 of least service to France is now an ancient fetich, 
 adored because he was a red republican. He is good 
 for nothing, now, but to be shelved in a Museum and 
 ticketed Za Fayette; while Talleyrand, at whom 
 everybody casts a stone, and who despises mankind so 
 utterly that he will spit back into the world's face any 
 promises it may require of him, hindered the dismem- 
 berment of France at the Congress of Vienna. lie 
 ought to be honored with crowns ; but the world flings 
 mud at him. Oh, I know how things work ! I have 
 many a man's secret in my keeping. Enough of this. 
 I shall begin to hold fixed opinions on the day when 
 I find any three men agreeing on the practical applica- 
 tion of a principle. I expect to wait a good while. 
 You can't find three judges in accord on a question 
 of law. To come back to my man. He would sell 
 his soul — it belongs to me — if I asked him. If 
 Papa Vautrin speaks the word, he will pick a quarrel 
 with that young blackguard who never sends a five- 
 franc piece to his poor sister, and then — " 
 
 Here Vautrin rose, put himself on guard, and made 
 a pass as if with a sword — " To the shades ! " he 
 added. 
 
 " Monstrous ! " cried Eugene ; " you must be joking, 
 Monsieur Vautrin." 
 
142 Pere Qor'wt. 
 
 " There, there, keep calm ! " replied the other, " don't 
 be a baby. Still, if it will do you any good, get angry, 
 furious ; tell me I am a wretch, a villain, a scoundrel, 
 a robber, — anything you like, except cheat or spy. 
 Go on ; speak ; fire your broadside, — I '11 foi'give you. 
 It is natural at your age ; I did the same in my time, 
 even I. But remember this, — you will do worse than 
 that some day. You will win some pretty woman 
 and accept her money. You have thought of it al- 
 ready," said Vautrin ; " how else do you expect to 
 succeed if you don't turn her to advantage? Virtue, 
 my dear student, is not a thing you can have by halves. 
 It is — or it is not. We are told to repent of our sins. 
 Another pretty system, that lets a man get rid of his 
 crimes by a mere act of contrition ! To plan a woman's 
 infamy that you may mount the social ladder; to put a 
 strain of illegitimacy among the children; to be guilty 
 of cruelties and wrongs for your own pleasure and ad- 
 vantage, — are those what you calFworks of faith, hope, 
 and charity ? Why should a man of fashion be lightly 
 dealt with for defrauding the i-ightful heir of half his 
 fortune, while the poor devil who steals a thousand- 
 franc note goes to the galleys ? But such is law. 
 Every enactment may be stretched to an absurdity. 
 Between what I propose to you and what you will do 
 some day there is no difference. You believe that there 
 are certain principles as fixed as Fate in this world. 
 Study men, and see how many loop-holes there are 
 through which they set laws and principles at defiance. 
 The secret of a great fortune made without apparent 
 cause is soon forgotten, if the crime is committed in a 
 respectable way." 
 
Pere Q-oriot. 143 
 
 " Silence, Monsieur ! I will hear no more. You will 
 make me doubt myself, — and my only guide is the in- 
 stinct of my own heart." 
 
 "As you please, bel enfant ! I thought you stronger 
 than I find you," said Yautrin. " I will say no more — 
 yes, a last word." He looked steadily at the student, 
 " You have my secret," he said. 
 
 "A young man who declines your offer will know 
 how to forget it." 
 
 " That is well said ; I am glad you have said it. 
 Some one, you know, may be less scrupulous. Think 
 over what I have ■fished to do for you. I will give you 
 two weeks. Take my offer or leave it — as you will." 
 
 " Man of iron ! " thought Rastignac, as he watched 
 Yautrin walk leisurely away with his cane under his 
 arm. " He told me bluntly what Madame de Beauseant 
 said in more ambiguous words. He has torn my heart 
 with his steel claws. Why am I going to Madame de 
 Nucingen's ? He guessed my motives, — guessed them 
 as soon as I conceived them. This brigand has told 
 me in two words more about virtue than books or men 
 have ever taught me. If there is no compromise with 
 virtue, then I have robbed my sisters,'' he cried, push- 
 ing the money-bags away from him and sitting down 
 at the table. His thoughts bewildered him. " To be 
 faithful to virtue," he said to himself, " is it to suffer 
 martyrdom ? Bah ! every one believes in virtue, but 
 who is virtuous ? Nations take liberty for their idol, 
 but is there upon earth one nation free? My youth 
 is still unsullied as the blue of heaven. If I resolve to 
 be rich and great, must I bring myself to stooping, ly- 
 ing, grovelling, threatening, flattering, deceiving ? Shall 
 
144 Pere Groriot. 
 
 I make myself the lacquey of those who lie and crawl 
 and deceive ? Before I become their accomplice shall 
 I be'^fprced to do them service? No! I will not 1. I 
 will toil nobly in the fear of God ; I will labor night 
 and day. I will owe my fortune to myself, and my- 
 self only. It may be slow in coming, but each night I 
 shall lay my head upon my pillow without a shameful 
 thought. What can be more blessed than to look back 
 upon one's life, and see it pure and stainless as a lily ? 
 My life and I are like a bride and her lover — Ah ! 
 Vautrin showed me what comes to pass after ten years 
 of marriage. God! My head swims — I will not 
 reason ; the heart is my true guide — " 
 
P^re Groriot, 146 
 
 X, ■ 
 
 Eugene was awakened from his reverie by the voice 
 of Sylvie announcing the arrival of his tailor. He went 
 in to meet him, carrying his bags of money, a trifling 
 circumstance which gave him pleasure. After trying 
 on his evening suit, he put on the morning one which 
 transformed him completely. " I am quite up to Mon- 
 sieur de Trailles," he said to himself complacently. 
 " At last I look like a gentleman." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Pere Goriot, coming into Eugene's 
 chamber, " you asked me if I knew to whose house 
 Madame de Nucingen was going." 
 
 " Ye.s." 
 
 " Well, next Monday she is going to a ball at the 
 Mar^chale Carigliano's. If you are there you will tell 
 me how my daughters enjoyed themselves, how they 
 were dressed, and all about them?" 
 
 "How did you find it out, my good Pere Goriot?" 
 said Eugene, making him sit down by the fire. 
 
 " Her maid told me. I know all they do through 
 Therese and Constance," he said gleefully. The old 
 man was like a lover, still boyish enough to be de- 
 lighted with a stratagem which put him in communi- 
 cation with the object of his adoration without her 
 knowing it. 
 
 " And you will be there to see them ! ". he said in a 
 tone of mixed envy and suffering. 
 
 10 
 
146 Pire Goriot. 
 
 " I don't know yet," replied Eugene. " I am going 
 to call on Madame de Beauseant, and I shall ask her 
 to introduce me to the Marechale." He was thinking 
 with inward joy of showing himself to the viscountess 
 in his new clothes, and: looking as he intended to look 
 for the rest of his days. What moralists call great 
 crises in the human heart are commonly the offspring 
 of deceptive and involuntary movements of self-interest. 
 Sudden changes of purpose hard to understand, unac- 
 countable reversals of a iirst desire, spring generally 
 from some calculation in favor of self-indulgence. 
 When Rastignac beheld himself well dressed, well 
 gloved, well booted, he forgot his virtuous resolutions. 
 The young dare not look at themselves in the glass of 
 conscience when it reveals them as they should be and 
 not as they would be ; older men have the nerve to 
 see themselves reflected undisguised. In this lies the 
 difference between the ages. 
 
 For some days past Eugene and Pere Goriot had be- 
 come close friends. Their intimacy had its origin in 
 the same psychological mystery which produced the 
 opposite effect upon the student in his relations with 
 Vautrin. The bold philosopher who seeks to show 
 the influence of mind upon our material being may ob- 
 tain many a proof by observing the relations between 
 man and animals. What physiognomist is so quick to 
 discern character as a dog is to know whether a stranger 
 likes or dislikes him ? ies atomes crochus (elective 
 affinities) is an expression which has passed into a pro- 
 verb, and contains one of those facts permanently im- ■ 
 bedded in language as a protest against the stupidity 
 of those who make it their business to winnow out of 
 
Pere Goriot. 147 
 
 our speech its primitive words.^ We feel ourselves 
 beloved. The feeling stamps itself on everything, and 
 ignores space. A letter holds beneath its seal a human 
 soul. It is so faithful an echo of the voice that speaks 
 too far away for us to hear, that the - heart prizes 
 written words as among the richest treasures in the 
 gift of love. Pere Goriot, raised by his instinctive sen- 
 timent to the sublimest heights attainable by canine 
 nature, had guessed intuitively the compassion, the 
 friendly admiration, and the fresh young sympathy 
 which moved the heart of the student towards him. 
 But this understanding had ;is yet led to no confidence 
 between them. Though Eugene had expressed a wish 
 to see Madame de Nucingen, it was not because he ex- 
 pected to be introduced to her by her father ; he merely 
 hoped that through hira something might tin-n up to 
 aid his plans. Pere Goriot had said nothing to him 
 about his daughters, except in connection with what 
 had passed in public on the day of his visit to the 
 countess. 
 
 "My dear Monsieur," the old man had remarked the 
 next morning, " how could you think that Madame de 
 Restaud was displeased with you for mentioning my 
 name ? My daughters both love me dearly. I am a 
 very happy fxther ; only my sons-in-law have not be- 
 haved well to me. I did not wish to make my two 
 dear children suffer because of my misunderstandings 
 with their husbands ; so I prefer to see them secretly. 
 This mystery gives me many enjoyments, such as fathers 
 
 1 Atomes crodms (hooked atoms), — atoms supposed to be 
 hooked, according to the system of Democritus and Epicurus, so 
 that they catch and hold each other wlieii they meet. — Litlre. 
 
148 PeVe Croriot. 
 
 never feel who can see their daughters at any moment. 
 I cannot always — you understand. If I do not see 
 them at their homes I go to the Champs-Elysees, — 
 after finding out from their maids whether they are 
 going out that day. I wait to see them pass. How 
 my heart beats when I see their carriages ! "When 
 they come near I admire their toilettes, and they 
 give me a pretty laugh as they drive by, which gilds 
 the world around me like a ray of sunshine. Then I 
 stay about till they return. I see them again. The 
 fresh air has done them good ; they have a color in 
 their cheeks. I hear people saying, ' There goes a 
 beautiful woman,' and my heart leaps for joy. Are 
 they not mine? — my own flesh and blood? I love 
 the very horses in their carriages. I shoidd like to be 
 the lap-dog lying on their knees. I live in their happi- 
 ness. Everybody has his own way of loving, — mine 
 does no harm to any one. Why should people trouble 
 themselves about me? I am happy after my own 
 fashion. No law forbids my standing in the street to 
 see my daughters when they come out of their houses 
 to go to a ball. Ah ! what a disappointment if I get 
 there too late, and the porter says, ' Madame is gone.' 
 Once I waited till three in the morning to see my 
 Nasie : I had not seen her for two days. Please never 
 speak as if my daughters were not kind to me. They 
 want to give me all manner of presents ; but I will 
 not let them. I always say, ' Keep your money ; what 
 could I do with it ? I don't want for anything.' In- 
 deed, my dear Monsieur, what am I but an old car- 
 cass whose soul is with his daughters all the time? 
 When you have seen Madame de ISTucingen you must 
 
Pire Croriot. 149 
 
 tell me which of the two you like better," added the 
 old man after a moment's silence, watching Eugene, 
 who was making ready to go to the Tuileries and 
 lounge away the time until he could call on Madame 
 de Beauseant. 
 
 That lounge was fatal to our Student. He was so 
 young, so handsome, and so well dressed that several 
 women took notice of him. When he felt himself the 
 object of their admiring glances he forgot the sisters 
 and the aunt whom he had despoiled, and all his virtu- 
 ous repugnance to crooked paths. Satan, that fallen 
 angel, — still angelic to the eye, — passed in the air 
 about him floating on prismatic wing ; that fatal an- 
 gel who scatters rubies, wraps women in purple, wings 
 golden arrows at the gates of palaces, and sheds a false 
 radiance upon thrones once in their origin so simple. 
 He gave ear to this demon of vain glory, whose tinsel 
 is the symbol of its power. The words of Vautfin, 
 cynical as they wei'e, had lodged in his heart and seared 
 their way. 
 
 After idling about till five o'clock, Eugene presented 
 himself at Madame de Beauseant's, and received one 
 of those sharjj checks against which young hearts are 
 defenceless. Up to this time he had always fouud the 
 viscountess full of the gracious honeyed courtesy which 
 is attainable only through aristocratic training, though 
 it is never in perfection unless it springs from the 
 heart. 
 
 When he entered, Madame de Beauseant made' a 
 chilling gesture, and said coldly, " Monsieur de Ras- 
 tignac, I cannot possibly see you to-day ; certainly not 
 at this moment — I am occupied." 
 
150 Pire Goriot. 
 
 Rastignac had now become a quick observer. The 
 words, gesture, look, the tone of voice, were all signs 
 of the habits and character of her caste. He perceived 
 the iron hand within the velvet glove, the personality 
 and the egoism beneath the manner, the grain of the 
 wood below the polish. He heard the Moi, le lioi, — 
 " I, the King," — which begins at the throne, but echoes 
 from every well-born gentleman and gentlewoman. 
 Eugene had trusted too implicitly to the generous im- 
 pulses of women. He had signed in good faith the 
 charming covenant whose first article proclaims the 
 equality of all noble hearts. Kindness given and 
 received aright, and knitting two hearts into one, is 
 a thing of heaven, as rare in this world as a perfect 
 love; both are the overflow of only very rare and 
 beautiful souls. 
 
 Rastignac was bent on going to the ball of the 
 Uutihesse de Carigliano, and therefore he swallowed 
 his mortification. 
 
 " Madame," he said in a low voice, " were it not that 
 I had something to ask I would not trouble you. Be 
 so gracious as to let me see you later. I will wait.'' 
 
 " Well, come and dine," she said, rather sorry for 
 the harshness with which she had treated him ; for at 
 heart she was kind as well as stately. 
 
 Though somewhat touched by this sudden relenting, 
 Rastignac said to himself as he left the courtyard, 
 " Crawl, if you must ; bear everything. What can 
 other women be, if in a moment the best among them 
 forgets her promises of friendship and casts me aside 
 like an old shoe ? Well, each man for himself ! It is 
 true her house is not a shop where I have the right to 
 
, Pere Goriot. 151 
 
 buy the things I want. I do wrong to have need of 
 her. As Vautrin says, one should be a cannon-ball, 
 and make one's way accordingly." 
 
 Thus, by a sort of fatality, even the trifling events 
 of his life conspired to push him into a career where, 
 as the terrible sphinx of the Maison Vauquer warned 
 him, he must slay to escape being slain, deceive lest 
 he should be deceived, lay down heart and conscience 
 at the threshold, put on a mask, use men for his pur- 
 poses without pity, and, like the Spartan boy, snatch 
 fortune unperceived, if he wished to wear the crown. 
 
 When he went back to dinner at the Hotel Beause- 
 ant he found its mistress full of the gracious kmdness 
 she had hitherto shown him. They went together into 
 the dining-room, where Monsieur de Beauseant was 
 awaiting his wife, and where Eugene saw for the first 
 time all that table luxury which, as every one knows, 
 was carried under the Restoration to the highest pitch 
 of perfection. Monsieur de Beauseant, like other men 
 wearied witli the pleasures of the world, cared for lit- 
 tle now but good eating. His taste in cookery was 
 of the school of Louis XVIH. and the Due d'Escars. 
 His table offered a double luxury to his guests, in the 
 perfection of its service and the perfection of its 'menu. 
 Nothing of the kind had ever come into the experi- 
 ence of Eugene, who was dining for the first time in 
 one of those great houses where domestic splendor is 
 an hereditary tradition. Fashion had done away with 
 the suppers that formerly wound up tlie balls of the 
 Empire, and as yet Eugene had only been invited to 
 balls. The social assurance and self-possession for which 
 be subsequently became so distinguished, and which 
 
152 Pere Croriot.^ 
 
 began to show itself even at this early stage of his ca- 
 reer, prevented hitn from betraying his wonder. But 
 the sight of all that glittering silver and the thousand 
 refinements of a sumptuous table, the pleasure enjoyed 
 for the first time of being served noiselessly and with- 
 out confusion, made it natural for a youth of lively 
 imagination to contrast this elegance with the life of 
 privation he had declared himself willing to embrace 
 only a few hours before. His thoughts went back for 
 a moment to the pension ; and such horror of it filled 
 his mind that he swore under his breath to leave it on 
 the 1st of January, — as much to find himself a better 
 lodging as to escape Vautrin, whose huge hand he 
 seemed always to feel upon his shoulder. 
 
 If we remember the thousand shapes that vice takes, 
 disguisedly or undisguisedly, in Paris, a man of sense 
 must wonder what aberration of mind has led the Gov- 
 ernment to place schools and colleges within the city, 
 and to collect in the very heart of it a vast assemblage 
 of young men. But when we come to discover how 
 seldom crimes, or even misdemeanors, are committed 
 by students, with what respect must we regard these 
 patient sons of Tantalus, who nearly always come off 
 conquerors in their combat with temptation. This 
 struggle of the student against the world of Paris, if 
 it could be painted by the hand of a great master, _ 
 would be the most dramatic subject for art in our 
 modern civilization. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant now looked inquiringly at 
 Eugene, expecting him to explain what he had to 
 ask of her ; but Eugene would say nothing before the 
 viscount. 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 163 
 
 " Shall you take me to-night to the opera ? " asked 
 the viscountess of her husband. 
 
 " You cannot doubt the pleasure it would give me 
 to be at your disposal," he replied, with an elaborate 
 gallantry, of which the student was the dupe; " but I 
 have promised to join some one at the Variet^s." 
 
 " His mistress ! " she said to herself. 
 
 " Is not d'Adjuda coming this evening?" he asked, 
 
 " No," slie replied shortly. 
 
 " Well, if you are really in need of an escort, here is 
 Monsieur de Rastignac." 
 
 The viscountess looked at Eugene with a smile. 
 
 " It may seriously compromise you," she said. 
 
 " ' A Frenchman courts danger, if it leads to glory,' 
 as Monsieur de Chateaubriand says," replied Eugene, 
 with a bow. 
 
 A few moments later he was driving rapidly with 
 Madame de Beauseant to the fashionable theatre, and 
 felt himself in fairy-land as he entered a box facing 
 the stage, and perceived how many opera-glasses were 
 levelled at himself and the viscountess, whose toilette 
 that evening was particularly charming. Our poor 
 student passed from one enchantment to another. 
 
 " You had something to say to me .'' " said Madame 
 de Beauseant. "Ah! stay, — there is Madame de 
 Nucingen, three boxes from ours. Her sister and 
 Monsieur de Trailles are on the other side of the 
 house." 
 
 As she said this, the viscountess was looking at the 
 box where she expected to see Mademoiselle de 
 Rochefide ; not finding Monsieur d'Adjuda there, her 
 face brightened exceedingly. 
 
154 PeVe Qoriot. 
 
 " She is pretty," said Eugene, after having looked 
 at Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " She has white eyebrows." 
 
 " But what a pretty waist ! " 
 
 " She has large hands." 
 
 " Fine eyes." 
 
 " Her face is too long." 
 
 " A long face is said to give distinction." 
 
 " That is lucky for her, then. See how she picks up 
 her opera-glass and puts it down ! You can see the 
 Goriot in every movement," said the viscountess, much 
 to the amazement of Eugene. 
 
 The truth was, Madame de Beauseant, while appar- 
 ently looking over all parts of the house and paying 
 no attention to Madame de Nucingen, did not lose a 
 single one of her movements. The audience was re- 
 markably elegant that night, and Delphine de Nu- 
 cingen was not a little pleased to perceive that she 
 engrossed the attention of Madame de Beausdant's 
 handsome cousin, who seemed to single her out for 
 observation. 
 
 " If you continue to look at her you will create a 
 scandal, Monsieur de Rastignac," said the viscountess. 
 "You will never succeed if you fling yourself head- 
 long at people in that way." 
 
 " My dear cousin," said Eugene, " you have already 
 taken me under your protection. If you would now 
 complete your work, I will only ask you to do me one 
 more favor. It will not hurt you, and it will be of the 
 greatest help to me. Do you know, I have taken a 
 fancy to her." 
 
 "Already?" 
 
Pere Goriot. 155 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " That woman ! " 
 
 "Would my devotion be acceptable elsewhere?" he 
 asked, with a keen glance at his cousin. After a pause 
 he resumed, — 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse de Carigliano is attached to 
 the household of Madame la Duchesse de Berri. You 
 know her, of course. Do me the kindness to introduce 
 me to her, and take me to her ball next Monday. I 
 shall meet Madame de Nucingen there, and make my 
 first essay." 
 
 " Willingly," she said ; " if you really fancy her, you 
 will get on easily. There is de Marsay in Princess 
 Galathionne's box. Madame de Nucingen can hardly 
 contain herself for spite. There could not be a better 
 moment for making your way with a woman, especially 
 a banker's wife. Those Chau8s6e d'Antin ladies dearly 
 love revenge." 
 
 " What would you do under similar circumstances ? " 
 
 " Suffer, and make no sign." 
 
 At that moment the Marquis d'Adjuda came into 
 the box. " I have dispatched my business very badly 
 that I might be in time to join you," he said. " I tell 
 you this, because if it seems a sacrifice in your eyes 
 it is no longer one to me." 
 
 The light that broke over her face taught Eugene 
 the difference between a real affection and the shams 
 of coquetry. He admired his cousin. He grew silent, 
 and yielded his place to Monsieur d'Adjuda with a 
 sio-h. " What a noble creature such a woman is ! " 
 he thought ; " and this man gives her up for a wax 
 doll ! " 
 
156 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 He felt as angry as a boy. He would have liked to 
 fall down at Madame de Beaus^ant's feet and offer her 
 an unlimited devotion, and he looked at Madame de 
 Nucingen with a revulsion of feeling, as a man looks 
 at an adversary. 
 
 The viscountess turned her head and thanked him 
 for his consideration with a little motion of the eyelids. 
 The first act was now over. 
 
 " Do you know Madame de Nucingen well enough 
 to introduce to her Monsieur de Rastignac ? " she said 
 to the Marquis d'Adjuda. 
 
 " She will be charmed to know Monsieur," said the 
 marquis. 
 
 The handsome Portuguese rose, took the student by 
 the arm, and in a moment they were in the box of 
 Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " Madame la baronne," said the marquis, " I have 
 the honor to present to you the Chevalier Eugene de 
 Rastignac, a cousin of Madame de Beausdant. You 
 have made so great an imjiression on him that I am 
 delighted to complete his happiness by bringing him 
 into the presence of his divinity." 
 
 These words were said with a slight tone of irony, 
 which made the speech a little impertinent. But this 
 tone skilfully applied is not altogether displeasing to 
 women. Madame de N^ucingen smiled and offered 
 Eugene her husband's seat, the baron having just left 
 the box. 
 
 " I dare not propose to you to remain with me, Mon- 
 sieur," she said ; " when any one has the happiness to 
 be placed near Madame de Beaus6ant his first wish is 
 to remain there." 
 
Pere Goriot. 157 
 
 " But, Madame," said Eugene, lowering his voice, 
 " it seems to im that if I wish to please my cousin I 
 shall stay here. Before Monsieur le marquis came into 
 her box we were talking of you," he said aloud, " and 
 of your air of distinction." 
 
 Monsieur d'Adjudii retired. 
 
 " Are you really going to remain with me. Monsieur?" 
 said the baronne ; " shall we at last make acquaintance 
 with one anotliei V Madame de Restaud has given me 
 a great w^ish to know you." 
 
 " She is very insincere then. She has shut her doors 
 against me." 
 
 "Row is that?" 
 
 " Madame, I will tell you plainly the reason , but I 
 must ask. your indulgence if I do so. I am the neigh- 
 bor of Monsieur, your father, — our rooms adjoin. I 
 did not know that Madame de Re.staud was his daugh- 
 ter. I had the want of tact to speak of him, most inno- 
 cently but in a way that oiFended Madame de Restaud 
 and her husband. You cannot imagine how much 
 Madame la Duchesse de Langeais and my cousin con- 
 demn the want of filial feeling on the part of your 
 sister. I told them the story, and they laughed at my 
 blunder. It was then that, comparing you with your 
 sister, Madame de Beauseant spoke most warmly of 
 you, and told me how kind you are to my neighbor 
 Monsieur Goriot. How indeed could you help loving 
 him ? He adores you so passionately that I feel jeal- 
 ous already. We were talking of you two hours this 
 morning. This evening, as my mind dwelt on what 
 he had told me, I said to my cousin with whom I 
 was dining, that I did not believe you could be as 
 
158 Pere Qoriot. 
 
 beautiful in person as you were amiable in heart. 
 Willing no doubt to favor my admiration, Madame de 
 Beauseant brought me with her this evening, telling 
 me, in her gracious way, that I should certainly see 
 you here." 
 
 "Ah ! Monsieur, do I owe you gratitude already?" 
 said the banker's wife ; " a little more and we shall be 
 old friends." 
 
 " Friendship must be a noble sentiment when in- 
 spired by you,'' said Rastignac ; " but I shall never ask 
 for your friendship.'' 
 
 Such stereotyped nonsense in the mouths of debit- 
 tants seem to please women, and are only absurd when 
 written down in cold blood. The gesture, the tone, 
 and the glance of a young man lends to such sjjeeches 
 a certain charm. Madame de Nucingen was delighted 
 with Eugene. Then, as she could say nothing in reply 
 to such sentiments, she responded to another part of 
 his speech : — 
 
 " Yes, my sister does herself harm by the way she 
 neglects our poor father, who has been a perfect Provi- 
 dence to both of us. Monsieur de Nucingen was 
 obliged to give me peremptory orders not to receive 
 my father among my other guests before I would yield 
 the point to him. It hns made me very miserable ; I 
 have wept over it. His violence on this subject, joined 
 to other conjugal unkindness, has greatly troubled my 
 domestic happiness. I may be a fortunate woman in 
 the eyes of Paris, but I consider myself one of the 
 most pitiable. You will think me mad to speak to you 
 in this way. But since you know my father I cannot 
 feel to you as a stranger." 
 
Pere Goriot. 159 
 
 « Indeed you could meet no one," cried Eugene, 
 "more desirous of doing you service. What are all 
 women striving for? Is it not happiness? And if 
 happiness for a woman is," he added, in a low voice, 
 " to be Icved, adored ; to possess a friend in whom 
 she may unhesitatingly confide her desires, her fan- 
 cies, her griefs, her joys, — before whom she can lay 
 bare her heart with all its excellences and all its 
 weaknesses, and know that her confidence will never 
 be betrayed, — then, believe me, such a friend can 
 only be found in a young man full of illusions, who 
 knows nothing of the world, nor ever will know, 
 because you will be all the world to him. You will 
 laugh at my naivete when I tell you that I have just 
 come up from the country, that I am new to the world, 
 that I have never known any one who was not good 
 and true. I thought I should live without love here 
 in Paris; but I have been thrown with my cousin, who 
 has deeply touched my feelings ; she has let me see into 
 her heart, and I have guessed at treasures of affection. 
 Like Cherubin, I am the lover of all women until I 
 may devote myself to one. When I saw you to-night 
 for the first time, I felt as if I were floated towards 
 you by the force of a current. I had been thinking of 
 you so much ! But in my dreams you were not as 
 beautiful as you are in reality. Madame de Beauseant 
 ordered me not to fix my eyes upon you. She could 
 not understand the attraction of your sweet lips, your 
 lovely color, your soft eyes. I, too, am talking madly, 
 but suffer me to say these things to you." 
 
 Nothing pleases some women more than to hear 
 ^uch honeyed words. The strictest among them will 
 
160 Pere Goriot. 
 
 listen, even though she does not respond. Having 
 thus begun, Rastignac ran on with more of the same 
 kind, telling his beads of coquetry in a low and vi- 
 brant voice ; while Madame de Nucingen encouraged 
 him by her smiles, all the while keeping an eye upon 
 de Marsay, who was still in tlie box of the Princess 
 Galathionne. 
 
 Rastignac stayed with Madame de Nucingen till her 
 husband came to take her home. 
 
 " Madame," said Eugene, " I shall have the honor of 
 calling upon you before the ball of the Duchesse de 
 Carigliano." 
 
 " If Matame bresents you there," said the baron, a 
 fat Alsatian, whose round face showed signs of danger- 
 ous cunning, " so vill you be veil receifed." 
 
 " I am getting on apace," thought Eugene. " She 
 was not the least angry when I said, ' Could you love 
 me?' I have bridled my mare; now let me ride her." 
 So thuiking, he w.ent to Madame de Beaus^ant's box 
 to make his bow. She was leaving with Monsieur 
 d'Adjuda. Our inexperienced student little knew 
 that Madame de Nucingen had not listened to half 
 that he said to her. Her mind was occupied by a 
 letter she was expecting from de Marsay, that would 
 decide her fate. Charmed, however, with his im- 
 aginary success, Eugene accompanied the viscountess 
 to the vestibule, where all were waiting for their 
 carriages. 
 
 " Your cousin does not seem like himself," said the 
 Portuguese, laughing, when EugLne had quitted them. 
 " He has the air of a fellow who means to break the 
 bank. He is as supple as an eel, and I think he will 
 
Pere Groriot. 161 
 
 get QQ. It was elever of you to pick. out for him a 
 woman in need of consolation." 
 
 "Ah!" said Madame de Beauseant ; "but all de- 
 pends, you know, ou whether she loves the man who 
 is forsaking her." 
 
 Eugene walked back from the theatre to the Rue 
 Neuve Sainte-Genevieve with his head brimful of 
 visions. He had noticed the attention with which 
 Madame de Restaud observed him when in the box 
 of the viscountess, and also in that -of Madame de 
 Nucingen ; and he argued that her doors would not 
 long be closed against him. Already he had made 
 four important acquisitions in the great world of 
 Paris ; for he took it for granted that he should win 
 the good graces of the Marechnle. Without pre- 
 cisely settling how to carry out his plans, he was 
 intuitively conscious that in the game he had to 
 play among so many complicated interests, he would 
 do well to attach himself to some one chariot that 
 would whirl him onward, conscious that he was 
 strong enough, when his end was gained, to put on 
 the brakes. 
 
 " If Madame de Nucingen is interested in me," he 
 thought, " I will teach her to m.anage her husband. 
 The baron makes money hand over hand : he might 
 help me to some stroke of fortune." 
 
 He did not say this bluntly ; the notion was but a 
 light cloud floating above the verge of his horizon ; he 
 was not as yet sufficiently advanced to sum up possibili- 
 ties and make his calculations, — but his ideas, though 
 they had not the crude ugliness of Vautrin's, would 
 scarcely, if tested, in tlie crucible of conscience, have 
 
 11 
 
162 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 shown much that was pure. It is by a course of 
 mental compromises of this kind that men reach the 
 stage of relaxed morality which characterizes our 
 epoch, — an epocu when it is rare, rarer than in any 
 other age of the world's history, to find men of high 
 principle, men with a sturdy sense of right and wrong, 
 firm wills that never bow the knee to evil, natures to 
 whom the smallest deviation from the straight path 
 seems a sin. Such interpretation of virtue has given 
 to the world two masterpieces, — one, the Aleeste of 
 Malifere; the other, Jeannie Deans and her father, by 
 Sir Walter Scott. Perhaps the same subject seen 
 from its other side — a picture of the shifts and wind- 
 ings of a man of the world ; an ambitious man, with 
 no fixed conscience, who seeks to pick his way along 
 the edge of wickedness, and yet save appearances ■ 
 while he gains his end — may be neither less useful, 
 less moral, nor less dramatic. 
 
 By the time Eastiguac reached his own door he had 
 worked himself into a sham passion for Madame de 
 Nucingen. He thought her graceful as a swallow ; he 
 admired the enchanting softness of her eyes, the deli- 
 cate and silky texture of her skin tinged with the 
 blood that flowed beneath it, the music of her voice, 
 and her abundant fair hair, — he remembered every 
 particular ; and perhajjs his walk, which had quickened 
 his pulses, added to the fascination. He knocked 
 sharply at Pere Goriot's door. 
 
 " My neighbor," he said, " I have seen Madame 
 Delphine." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 "At the opera." 
 
Pere Groriot. 16.3 
 
 " Did she enjoy herself? Come in," said the old 
 man, who got out of bed in his shirt and opened his 
 door, and then went back to bed again. " Tell me all 
 about her," he said. 
 
 Eugene, who found himself for the first time in 
 Pere Goriot's chamber, could not repress a start of 
 amazement at the wretchedness in which the father 
 lived, — comparing it with what he knew of the luxury 
 of his daughters. 
 
 The window had no curtain ; the paper had peeled 
 in strips from the damp wall, showing the plaster yel- 
 low with smoke and age. The old man lay upon a 
 wretched bed, with one thin blanket and a wadded 
 quilt made out of scraps of Madame Vauquer's old 
 gowns. The tiles of the floor were damp, and their 
 crevices were filled with dust and dirt. Against the 
 wall, opposite to the window, stood an old bureau with 
 a swelled front and brass handles representing grape- 
 shoots intertwined with leaves and flowers, and a 
 wooden stand on which was a water-jug in its basin, 
 and a number of shaving utensils. In one corner of 
 the room a heap of shoes ; at the bed's head a dilapi- 
 dated night-stand without a door. Beside the fire- 
 place, where there were no traces of fire, stood the 
 square walnut table which had enabled Pere Goriot to • 
 destroy his porringer. A miserable writing-desk with 
 the old man's hat upon it, an arm-chair stuffed with 
 straw, and two smaller chairs made up the wretched 
 furniture. The pole of the bedstead, fastened by a 
 rag to a hook in the ceiling, upheld a coarse curtain of 
 red checked gingham. The p'oorest errand-boy in a 
 garret was surely not so miserably lodged as Pere 
 
164 Pere Groriot. 
 
 Goriot at Madame Vauquer's. The aspect of the 
 room chilled and wrung the heart ; it was desolate as 
 the condemned cell of a prison. 
 
 Fortunately, Pere Goriot could not see the expres- 
 sion on Eugene's face as he put his candlestick on the 
 table at the head of the bed. The old man turned 
 towards him, and lay covered up to the chin. 
 
 " Well, which do you like better ? " he asked, 
 "Madame de Restaud or Madame de Nncingen?" 
 
 " I prefer Madame Deljjhine," replied the student, 
 " because she loves you best." 
 
 As Eugene said these Avords warmly, Pere, Goriot 
 put his arm out of bed and pressed his hand. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you ! " he cried eagerly. " What 
 did she say about me ? " 
 
 The student repeated the words of the baronne, 
 adding some affectionate touches of his own, the old 
 man listening as if to a voice from heaven. 
 
 " Dear child ! " he said. " Yes, yes, she loves me 
 dearly. But you must not believe what she told you 
 of Anastasie. The sisters are a little jealous of each 
 other. It is another proof of their affection. Madame 
 de Restaud loves me dearly too ; I know it. A father 
 is to his daughters what the good God is to all. He 
 sees into their hearts, he knows their springs of action. 
 Both are affectionate. Oh! if I had had good sons-in- 
 law I should have been a happy man! I suppose there 
 is no perfect happiness on earth. If I had been able 
 to live with them, to hear their voices, to know them 
 near me, to see them as they went out and came in, 
 as I did before they married, my heart might not have 
 borne such joy. Were they well-dressed ? " 
 
Pere Groriot. 165 
 
 "Yes," said Eugene. " Biit, Monsieur Goriot, how is 
 it that with daugliters so wealthy as yours, you live 
 in this wretched lodging?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said the old man carelessly, " what better do 
 I want ? I cannot explain exerything to you ; I never 
 could put words together. It is all here !" he added, 
 striking his breast. " My life is bound up in iny daugh- 
 ters. If they enjoy themselves, if they are well-dressed, 
 and have carpets under their feet, what matters it 
 what kind of coat I wear, or what sort of a jjlace 
 i sleep in ? I am not cold if they are warm ; I am 
 not dull if I know they laugh ; I have no sorrows but 
 theirs. When you have children you will say, as yini 
 watch the little creatures prattling round you, ' They 
 are part of myself, of my flesh and my blood, the 
 flower of my own being.' Yes, I live anew in their 
 bodies ; I move with their limbs ; I hear their -voices 
 answering to mine. One look of theirs, if they are sad, 
 chills my bloOfl. Some day yon will know that it 
 is better to be happy in our children's happiness than 
 in our own. I cannot explain it. There are wells of 
 inward joy that nourish life. I live three lives, — my 
 own and theirs. Shall I tell you a strange thing ? 
 When I became a father I comprehended God. He is 
 present in all things, because all Nature has proceeded 
 from him. Monsieur, I am so with my daughters ; 
 only I sometimes think our world, such as it is, cannot 
 seem so beautiful to God as ray girls are to me. My 
 heart has such strange connection with all concerning 
 them that I know what is happening to them. I knew 
 that you would see them this evening. Ah, me ! if any 
 one would make my little Deli^hiue hapiiy, I would 
 
166 Pere Goriot. 
 
 black his boots and do his errands. How could she 
 have brought herself to marry that dull log of an 
 Alsatian ? They ought to have had noble young hus- 
 bands, manly and amiable and good, — but they chose 
 for themselves ! " 
 
 Pere Goiiot was stiiTed out of himself. Never till 
 now had Eugene seen him thus lighted up by the pas- 
 sion of paternity. We may here remark on the in- 
 filtrating, transforming power of an over -mastering 
 emotion. However coarse the fibre of the individual, 
 let him be held by a strong and genuine affection, and 
 he 'exhales, as it were, an essence which illuminates 
 his features, inspires his gestures, and gives cadence to 
 his voice. It happens sometimes that the dullest soul 
 under the lash of passion attains to such eloquence of 
 thought, if not of language, that it seems to move in lu- 
 minous air. As the old man spoke, his voice and man- 
 ner had the magnetic power of noble acting. Are not 
 our loftiest emotions the poetry of the human will ? 
 
 " I am to see Madame Delphine to-morrow," said 
 Eugene, " and I am to meet her at the ball of the 
 Duchesse de Carigliano on Monday." 
 
 " Ah ! how I should love you, my young friend, if 
 you could shed a ray of brightness on her life ! You 
 are good yourself, and kind. But I forget, — this room 
 is too cold for you. Mb?i Dieu, you heard her voice ! 
 What message did she give you for me ? " 
 
 " None at all," thought Eugene ; but he said aloud, 
 " She told me to tell you that she sent you a daughter's 
 kiss." 
 
 " Adieu, my friend. Sleep sound ; dream pleasant 
 dreams ; mine will be perfect with that kiss to think 
 
Pire Goriot. 167 
 
 of. You have been to me to-night like a blessed angel. 
 The fragrance of my daughter hangs about you still." 
 
 "Poor man!" sighed Eugene as he went to bed. 
 "What he says would touoh a heart of stone. His 
 daughter no more thought of him than she did of the 
 Grand Turk." 
 
 After this conversation, Pere Goriot and his young 
 neighbor became intimate friends. Between them ex- 
 isted the sole link that could have bound the old man 
 to a human being. Strong passions never miscalculate. 
 Pere Goriot saw in Rastignac a means of communica- 
 tion with his daughters and the possibility of drawing 
 nearer to them if the student became intimate with 
 the baronne. Eugene was, to use his own expression, 
 the most engaging young fellow he had ever seen ; 
 and the old man admitted him to his friendship and 
 encouraged an intercourse which alone has made it 
 possible for us to relate circumstantially the develop- 
 ment of this tale. 
 
168 Pere Qoriot. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The next morning at breakfast the interest with 
 which Pere Goriot looked at Eugene as he took his 
 place beside him at the breakfast table, the few words 
 that were exchanged between them, and the great 
 change in the old man's face, usually as dull as a lump 
 of plaster, surprised the other guests. Vautrin, who 
 saw the student for the first time since their conference, 
 tried to read his soul. During the night-watches Eu- 
 gene, far too restless to sleep, had surveyed the fields 
 before him, and having naturally thought of Mademoi- 
 selle Taillefer and her dot, now looked at her as the 
 most virtuous young man in the world looks at a rich 
 heiress. It happened that their eyes met. The poor 
 girl thought Eugene charming in his new clothes. 
 The glance they exchanged was significant enough to 
 show liim that he was the object of those confused 
 desires which come into the hearts of all young girls 
 and attach themselves to the first comer who proves 
 attractive. A \oice witliin him cried, " Eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs ! " Then, with a look at Vautrin, 
 he went back to recollections of the opera, and fancied 
 that his sham passion for Madame de Nucingen would 
 be the antidote to involuntary thoughts of evil. 
 
 " They gave us Rossini's ' Barber of Seville ' last 
 night," he said. "I never heard such delicious music. 
 
Pere Gtoriot. 169 
 
 Dear lae! how delightful it must be to have a box at 
 the opei-a ! " 
 
 P^re Goriot snatelied at this speech like a dog 
 snapping at a morsel flung from his master's hand. 
 
 " Ah ! you men live in clover," cried Madame 
 Vnuquer ; " you can have anything you wish for." 
 
 " How did you get home? " asked Vautrin. 
 
 " On foot," said Eugene. 
 
 "For my part," said the tempter, <' I don't like half 
 pleasures. I should prefer to drive to the opera in my 
 own carriage, sit in my own box, and come home 
 comfortably. All or nothing, — that's my motto." 
 
 " And a very good one," said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Perhaps you will see Madame de Nucingen to- 
 day," said Eugene in a low voice to Peie Goriot. 
 " She will receive you with open arms ; she will like 
 to hear some particulars about me. I have heard that 
 she wishes to be invited to my cousin's, Madame de 
 Beauseant. Don't forget to tell her how much' I 
 admire her, and that I hope to have the pleasure of 
 procuring her the invitation." 
 
 Then Rastignac rose and went off to his lecture, 
 not caring to spend a moment more than he could help 
 in that odious pension. He loitered about the streets 
 nearly all day with the fever of youth and its first 
 hopes coursing through his veins. He was pondering 
 the conditions of social life as revealed by Vautrin's 
 chain of reasoning when he met Bianchon in the 
 gardens of the Luxembourg. 
 
 '' What makes you so grave, old fellow ? " said the 
 medical student, taking his arm as they walked along 
 the front of the palace. 
 
170 Pert Goriot. 
 
 " I am tormented by evil thoughts." 
 
 "What sort of evil thoughts? Tell me; thoughts 
 can be cured." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " By giving in to them." 
 
 " You don't know what you are laughing at. Did 
 you ever read Rousseau ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Do you remember where he asks the reader what 
 he would do if he could make himself rich by killing 
 an old mandarin in China by simply willing it in 
 Paris?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I want your opinion. What would you do ? " 
 
 " Pooh ! I 've got to my thirty-third mandarin." 
 
 " Don't joke ; be sei-ious. Suppose it was proved to 
 you tlint such a thing was possible, and that it only 
 needed just a nod from you, — would you do it ? " 
 
 •"Is the mandarin very old? — But, bah! young 
 or old, well or paralyzed, — Heavens and earth ! — 
 the deuce ! Well, then — No ! " 
 
 " You are a good fellow, Biancbon. But suppose 
 you loved a woman well enough to turn your soul 
 wrong-side out for her; and if she wanted money, 
 lots of money, for her toilette, her caniage, her 
 whims — " 
 
 " You bewilder my faculties, and then you want me 
 to reason ! " 
 
 "Well, see here! Bianchon, I am mad. I want 
 you to cure me. I have two sisters who are angels of 
 beauty and goodness, and I want them to be happy. 
 How can I, between now and five years hence, get 
 
PeVe G-oriot. ITl 
 
 two hundred thousand francs for their dot'i There 
 are circumstances you know in which one must play 
 high and not waste one's hick in winning pennies." 
 
 " But that 's the very question that stands upon the 
 threshold of every man's life; and you want to cut the 
 Gordian knot with the sword ! To do this, my dear 
 fellow, one mvist be Alexander, — or else we commit 
 some crime and are sent to the galleys. For my part, 
 I am quite content with the life which I expect to lead 
 in the provinces, where I shall succeed my father in a 
 commonplace way. After all, a man's affections can 
 be as fully satisfied iii a little round as in a vast cir- 
 cumference. Napoleon could not eat two dinners a 
 day. A man's happiness lies between the soles of his 
 feet and the crown of his head. Whether that happi- 
 ness costs a million of francs a year, or a hundred louis, 
 our intrinsic perception of it is the same. So I go in 
 for letting the mandarin alone." 
 
 "Thank you, you have done me good, Bianchon. 
 Let us always be friends." 
 
 "Look here!" resumed the medical student, as they 
 left the Cours de Cuvier in the Jardin des Plantes, 
 " I have just seen old Michonneau and Poiret on a 
 bench talking with a man whom I saw during the 
 troubles of last year in the neighborhood of the 
 Chamber of Deputies. He looks to me like a police- 
 spy disguised as a respectable bourgeois living on 
 his income. Let us watch that couple. I will tell 
 you why later. Adieu, I must be oflP to the four- 
 o'clock call." 
 
 When Eugene returned to Madame Vauquer's, he 
 found P^re Goriot waiting for him. 
 
172 P^re Croriot. 
 
 "See," said the old man, "here is a note from her. 
 Hein ! what j^ratty writing ! " 
 
 Eugene broke the seal ami read : — 
 
 Monsieur, — My father tells me that you are fond of 
 Italian nuisic. I should be happy if you would do me the 
 pleasure to accept a seat in niy box on Saturday next. We 
 shall have Fodor and Pellegrini ; I am sure therefore that 
 you will not refuse my invitation. Monsieur de Nucingea 
 joins me in begging you to dine with us on thrit day without 
 ceremony. If you accept, you will render him grateful to he 
 released from his conjugal duty of escorting me to the opera. 
 Do not reply, but come. Accept my compliments. 
 
 D. de N. 
 
 " Let me look at it," said P6re Goriot to Eugene 
 when he had read the letter. "You will certainly go, 
 won't you? " he added, putting his cheek to the pajjer, 
 " How good it smells ! Her fingers have touched it !" 
 
 " A woman does not fling herself at a man without 
 some motive," said the student to himself. " She 
 must want to make use of me to get de Marsay back 
 again. Nothing but spite could account for her send- 
 ing me such a letter." 
 
 " Well," said Pere Goriot, " what are you thinking 
 of?" 
 
 Eugene knew nothing of a social delirium that 
 possessed the women of the Chaussee d'Antin at that 
 period. He was not aware that the wife of a banker 
 in that quarter would do almost anything that might 
 open her way into the salons of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain. At that period fashion was just beginning 
 to exalt above all other women those who composed 
 the society of the old nobility, known by the name of 
 
Pere Groriot. 173 
 
 Les Dames dit petit Ghdteati. Among them Madame 
 de Beauseant, her friend the Duchesse de Langeais, and 
 the Duchesse de Mauf rigneuse held the first rank. Ras- 
 tignac was the only man with an entree to these houses 
 who was not aware of the eagerness of the Chauss6e 
 d'Antin ladies to enter that superior sphere and shine 
 among its constellations. But his mistrustfulness be- 
 friended him on this occasion. It made him receive the 
 invitation very coldly, and gave him the poor power of 
 doing a favor instead of accepting one. 
 
 " Yes, I will go," he said. 
 
 Thus the chief motive that took Jiim to Madame de 
 Nucingen's was curiosity ; had she shown indifference, 
 he might have been influenced by passion. Never- 
 theless, he looked forward to the meeting with some 
 impatience, and enjoyed, as he dressed for dinner, 
 all those little satisfactions which young people are 
 ashamed to speak of for fear of ridicule, but which 
 pleasantly stimulate their self-love. He thought as 
 he arranged his hair how the eyes of a pretty woman 
 would lingei* among the black curls; he played the 
 little tricks and vanities of a young girl dressing for 
 her first ball, and smiled at the reflection of his slim 
 figure as he smoothed out the folds of his new coat, 
 and turned himself about before the glass. 
 
 "One thing is very certain," he said complacently; 
 " it is not every man who is well-made." 
 
 He went downstairs at the moment wh.en the house- 
 hold were sitting down to dinner, and laughed as he 
 received a broadside of nonsensical remarks on his 
 elegant appearance. The excitement produced by any 
 attention to the toilet is a trait of manners peculiar to 
 
174 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 pensions bourgeoises, where every one has a word to 
 say on the unaccustomed appearance of a new dress or 
 a new coat. 
 
 " Kt, kt, kt, kt ! " cried Bianchon, clicking his tongue 
 as if exciting a horse. 
 
 " Duke and peer of Prance!" said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Monsieur is arrayed for conquest," observed Ma- 
 demoiselle Miehonneau. 
 
 " Cock-a-doodle-doo I " crowed the painter. 
 
 " My compliments to your wife," said the employe 
 at the museum. 
 
 " Has Monsieur a wife ? " asked Poiret. 
 
 "A wife in compartments — that will go in the wa- 
 ter — warranted fast colors — at all pi'ices from twenty- 
 five to foi'ty — the most fashionable patterns in jDlaids — 
 sure to wash — very pretty wear — half thread, half 
 cotton, half wool — cures the- toothache and all other 
 maladies under the patronage of the Academy of 
 Medicine — excellent for children — better still for 
 head-ache, plethora, and other affections of the stomach, 
 ears, and eyes! " — cried Vautrin, with the intonation 
 and volubility of an auctioneer. '' I-Tow much do you 
 bid for this wonder, gentlemen? Two sous! What 
 did you say? Nothing? It is the last article made 
 for the Great JMogul, which all the Reigning Sov- 
 ereigns of Europe, including the Gr-r-r-r-r-rand Duke 
 of Baden, have been on the look-out for. Walk in ; 
 keep straight before you ; pass into the inner office. 
 Strike up the music! Brooum, la, la, trinn ! la, la, 
 bourn, boum ! Monsieur the clarionet, you ai'e out 
 of tune," he went on in a hoarse voice; " I '11 rap you 
 over the knuckles ! " 
 
PeVe Q-oriot. 175 
 
 ^ Mon Dieu! how agreeable that man can make 
 himself !" said Madame Vauquer to Madame Couture, 
 " I should never have a moment's ennui if I lived with 
 him." 
 
 In the midst of the laughter and the jokes led off 
 by this absurdity, Eugene intercepted a furtive glance 
 of admiration from Mademoiselle Taillefer, who whis- 
 pered a few words in her aunt's ear. 
 
 " The cabriolet is here," announced Sylvie. 
 
 "Where does he dine?" asked Bianchon. 
 
 " With Madame la Baronne de Nucingen." 
 
 " P6re Goriot's daughter," added the student. 
 
 At these words everybody looked at the old man, 
 who was gazing at Eugene with envy in his eyes. 
 
 Rastignao found the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare 
 one of those flimsy buildings, with slim pillars and fan- 
 ciful porticos, which in Paris are classed as pretty; a 
 banker's house, in short, ^ overloaded with costly orna- 
 ment and stucco, the hiills and staircase-landings inlaid 
 with marbles. Madame de Nucingen received him in 
 a small room filled with Italian pictures and decorated 
 in the style of a restaurant. She seemed to be in 
 trouble, and the efforts which she made to conceal her 
 feelings affected Eugene all the more because they 
 were evidently genuine. He came expecting to charm 
 her by his presence ; he found her the image of des- 
 pair, and the disappointment piqued his self-love. 
 
 "I have little claim to your confidence, Madame," 
 he said, after bantering her slightly on her preoccupa- 
 tion, "and if I am in your way I count upon your 
 kindness to tell me so frankly." 
 
176 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " No, stay," she said ; " I should be alone if you left 
 me. Nucingen dines out to-day, and I do not wish to 
 be alone. I need something to interest me." 
 
 " What troubles you ? " 
 
 '' You are the last person I could tell it to," she 
 cried. 
 
 "But you must tell me. Have I anything to do 
 with it?" 
 
 " Perhaps — But, no ! " she resumed, " it is one of 
 those family quarrels that ought to be hidden from 
 other eyes. Did I not tell you the other eyening that 
 I am far from happy? A chain of gold is the heaviest 
 to bear." 
 
 When a woman tells a young man that she is not 
 happy, and when the young man is clever, handsome, 
 well-dressed, and has fifteen hundred francs worth of 
 leisure in his pocket, he will probably think all that 
 Rastignac now thought, and speak as he did, — like a 
 coxcomb. 
 
 " What can you lack ? " he said. " You are young, 
 beautiful, wealthy, and ■ — -belove.d! " 
 
 " Do not let us talk of myself," she cried, arresting 
 him with a gesture. " We will dine together tete-a-tete, 
 and then go and hear some delicious, music. Do you 
 like me in this dress?" she continued, rising and dis- 
 playing a robe of white cashmere embroidered with 
 Persian designs, very elegant and costly. 
 
 " I would you were altogether mine ! " cried Eugene. 
 " You are lovely !" 
 
 " You would have a melancholy possession," she said 
 with a bitter smile. " Nothing about me indicates 
 unhappiness, and yet in spite of appearances I am 
 
PeVe Goriot. 177 
 
 wretched. I cannot sleep for thinking of my troubles. 
 I am growing ugly — " 
 
 " Oh, that can never be ! " cried the student. " Tell 
 me, what troubles have you that my devotion cannot 
 cure ? " 
 
 " Ah ! if I told you, you would turn and leave me," 
 she said ; " your love for me is only the conventional 
 gallantry that men affect towards women. If you 
 really loved me, and I were to tell you my troubles 
 you would fall into despair. So you see I must not 
 tell you. For pity's sake," she added, "let us talk of 
 other things. Come and see my ajiartments." 
 
 " No, let us stay here," said Eugene, seating himself 
 on a low couch near the fire beside Madame de Nucin- 
 gen, and taking her hand with assurance. She allowed 
 him to do so, and even pressed Lis fingers with the ner- 
 vous grasp that betrays strong emotion. 
 
 "Listen!" said Rastignac, " if you have griefs, con- 
 fide them to me. Let me prove how much I love you. 
 Either'speak, and tell me these troubles and let me help 
 you, — I am capable of killing six men for your sake, — 
 or I will leave this house never to return." 
 
 " Well, then ! " she exclaimed, moved by an impulse 
 which made her strike her forehead with her hand, " I 
 will put you to the proof at once. Yes," she added, 
 " there is no other way." 
 
 She rang the bell. 
 
 "Is Monsieur's carriage waiting?" she said to the 
 servant. 
 
 " Yes, Madame." 
 
 "I will take it. You can give him mine and my 
 horses. You need not serve dinner till seven o'clock." 
 
 13 
 
178 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Now, come," she said to Eugene, who found himself 
 as in a dream sitting beside her in Monsieur de Nucin- 
 gen's coupe. 
 
 " To the Palais-Royal," she said to the coachman, 
 " and stop near the Theatre Frangais." 
 
 As they drove on she seemed greatly agitated, and 
 would not answer Eugene, who knew not what to 
 think of the mute obtuse resistance -she ojjposed to his 
 inquiries. 
 
 " In another moment she may escape me," he said to 
 himself. 
 
 When the carriage stopped, she looked at him with 
 an expression which silenced the foolish speeches he 
 was beginning to utter. 
 
 " Do you love me then so very much ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, concealing his uneasiness. 
 
 " You will think no evil of me whatever I ask of 
 you?" 
 
 '• No." 
 
 "Will you obey me?" 
 
 ' Blindly." 
 
 " Did you ever go to a gambling-house ? " and her 
 voice trembled. 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "Ah! then I breathe. You will have luck. Here 
 is my purse. Take it," she said, " yes, take it. There 
 are one hundred francs in it, — al! the money owned 
 by this wealthy and fortunate woman ! Go into 
 some gambling-room. I do not know where they 
 are, but I know there are many in the Palais-Royal. 
 Stake tliese hundred francs at a game they call rou- 
 lette, and either lose them all or bring me back six 
 
PeVe Goriot. ' 179 
 
 thousand francs. I will tell you my troubles when 
 you return.'' 
 
 " The devil take me if I understand what you wish 
 me to do, but I am ready to obey you," he said, reflect- 
 ing with satisfaction that she was thus puttiug herself 
 in his power. 
 
 He took the pretty purse and hastened to Number 
 Nine, after obtaining from a neighboring shopkeeper 
 the direction of the nearest gambling-house. He went 
 upstairs, permitted an attendaut to take his hat, and 
 entered the room, where he asked to be shown the 
 roulette. All present looked astonished as the man in 
 attendance took him to a long table. Eugene, who 
 was followed by the whole company, asked, without 
 the least embarrassment, where he was to place his 
 money. 
 
 " If you put one louis on any of these thirty-six num- 
 bers and it comes up, you will win thii-ty-six louis," said 
 a respectable-looking old man with white hair. 
 
 Eugene placed the whole hundred francs on the 
 number of his own age, — twenty-one. A cry of aston- 
 ishment broke from every one before he knew himself 
 what had happened. He had won. 
 
 " Take up your money," said the old gentleman ; 
 " people do not win twice in that way." 
 
 Eugene took a rake which the speaker handed to 
 him, and drew in three thousand six hundred francs. 
 Once more, knowing nothing of the game, he placed 
 his money on the red. The bystanders looked at him 
 with envy, seeing that he played on. The wheel turned, 
 — he won again ; and the croupier threw him another 
 three thousand six hundred francs, 
 
180 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " You have won seven thousand two hundred francs," 
 whispered the old gentleman. " Take my advice and 
 go away. The red has come up eight times. If you 
 are kind-hearted, you will acknowledge my good ad- 
 vice and have pity on the poverty of an old prefect 
 of Napoleon, who is penniless." 
 
 Eastignac, bewildered, suffered the old man with the 
 snow-white hair to help himself to ten louis, and then 
 went downstairs with his seven thousand francs, under- 
 standing nothing of the game, and stupefied by his 
 good fortune. 
 
 " Ah, ga ! where will yea take me now ? " he said, 
 showing the seven thousand francs to Madame de Nu- 
 cingen as soon as the carriage door was shut. 
 
 Delphine threw her arms about him and kissed him 
 effusively, but without passion. 
 
 " You have saved me ! " she cried. Tears flowed 
 down her cheeks. " I will tell you all, my friend, — 
 for you are my friend, are you not? You see me 
 rich and prosperous. I want for nothing — so it seems 
 to you ? Well, then, I must tell you that Monsieur de 
 Nucingen does not give me a single penny to spend as 
 I choose. He pays for everything, — for the household, 
 for my carriages, even my opera-box. He allows me 
 a sum insufficient for my toilette ; he has reduced me 
 to secret poverty. I am too proud to beg for money. 
 Do you ask why, when I brought him seven hundred 
 thousand francs, I have suffered myself to be thus 
 despoiled? Through pride, through indignation! A 
 girl is so young, so easily deceived, when she is first 
 married. To have asked my husband for money then 
 would have scorched niv mouth ; I dared not. I lived 
 
PeVe Goriot. 181 
 
 on what I had saved, and on what I could get from my 
 poor father. Then I ran in debt. My marriage from 
 first to last has been a horrible deception ; I cannot 
 speak of it. We live apart ; I would rather fling my- 
 self from a window than he reconciled to him. When 
 I was forced to tell him of my debts, for jewelry and 
 various whims and trifles (my poor father had accus- 
 tomed us to every indulgence), I suffered martyrdom. 
 At last I took courage and made iny confession — had 
 I not brought him a fortune ? Nucingen was furi- 
 ous. He said I .should ruin him — Oh ! he said such 
 horrible things! I wished myself a hundred feet 
 under ground. He paid my bills on that occasion be- 
 cause he had possession of my dot ; but he stipulated 
 that in future I should take a fixed annual allowance 
 for my personal expenses. I agreed, for the sake of 
 peace. Since then I have been anxious to do credit 
 to one whom you know of," she continued. " He has 
 not been true to me, but I must not cease to do justice 
 to the nobleness of his character. He has cruelly for- 
 saken me. — Oh ! no one should forsake a woman, es- 
 pecially when they have flung her a pile of money in 
 the day of her distress — oh ! they ought to love her 
 always. You, with the nobility of youth, pure and 
 fresh, you may well ask me how a woman could take 
 gold from a man in that relation ! But is it not natu- 
 ral to have all things in common with those to whom 
 we owe our happiness? Money has no importance 
 in itself, — none, until love grows cold. Do we not 
 fancy that love will last a lifetime ? Who calculates 
 on separation? Shall those who have vowed to be 
 true eternally set up divided interests ? I can never 
 
182 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 tell what I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to 
 give me six thousand francs, — -less than he gives each 
 month to his mistress, a danseuse at the opera! I 
 longed to kill myself : I envied my own waiting-maid. 
 Ask my father for money ? — it would be madness. 
 Anastasie and I have ruined him. My poor father 
 would sell himself for. either of us, if any one would 
 pay six thousand francs for him. I should drive him 
 to despair in vain. You have saved me from shame, 
 from death ! I was frantic in -my wretchedness. Ah! 
 Monsieur, I owe you this explanation. I have been 
 beside myself this evening, — let that be my excuse. 
 When you left me, when I lost sight of you, I had an 
 impulse to jump from the carriage and flee away on 
 foot, I knew not whither. Such is the life led by half 
 the women of Paris, — luxury without, and bitter cares 
 within. I know poor cieatures more wretched than I 
 am. There ;ire women who get their creditors to send 
 in false accounts, and rob their husbands. Some men 
 believe that cashmeres worth two thousand francs are 
 sold for five hundred ; others that a shawl worth five 
 hundred francs costs a thousand. There are Vomen 
 who even starve their children ; women who will com- 
 mit any meanness to get enough to buy a gown. I 
 am pure at least from such decej^tions. Ah ! to-night 
 Monsieur de Marsay will no longer have the right to 
 think of me as a woman he has paid ! " She dropped 
 her face between her hands that Eugene might not 
 see her tears ; but he drew them away and looked 
 at her. 
 
 " To mix up money with love ! — is it not horrible ?" 
 she said. " You can never think well of me ! " 
 
PeVe Qoriot. 183 
 
 This union of good feelings and acquired faults, — 
 faults forced upon her by the corrupt society in which 
 she lived, — overcame Eugene, who said soft words of 
 consolation as he gazed at the beautiful creature so 
 naively imprudent in the excitement of her grief 
 
 "You will not turn this confession against me? 
 Promise me that you never will," she said. 
 
 "Ah, Madame, I am incapable of doing so." 
 
 She took his hand and placed it on her heart, with a 
 gesture full of grace and gratitude. " Thanks to you 
 I am free and happy. I was pressed to earth by an 
 iron hand. I am free ; I will live simply from this, 
 moment ; I will spend little. You will like me as I am, 
 will you not? — as I am, my friend. Keep this,'' she 
 added, retaining six -notes of a thousand francs, and 
 offering Rastignac the seventh. " In strict justice I 
 owe you half, for I consider that we are partners." 
 
 Eugene protested with a sense of shame, till Madame 
 de Nuoingen exclaimed, " I shall regard you as my 
 enemy if you refuse to be my accomplice.'' 
 
 " Then T will hold it in reserve in case of future ill- 
 luck," he said, as he took the note. 
 
 " Ah ! that is what I feared," she said, turning pale. 
 " If you wish me to be your friend, promise me — 
 swear to me — that you will never return to the gam- 
 bling table. Alas, alas ! think of my corrupting you ! 
 I ought to perish sooner ! " 
 
 Thus they reached the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare. 
 The contrast of its opulence with the poverty of its 
 mistress stunned the student, in whose ears the words 
 of Vautrin re-echoed^as with fatal truth. 
 
 " Sit there," said Madame de Nuoingen, pointing to 
 
184 Pere Goriot. 
 
 a sofa near the fire, when they entered her room. " 1 
 have to write a trying letter. Give me your advice." 
 
 " Do not write at all," said Eugene. " Put the notes 
 in an envelope, address it merely, and send the letter 
 by your waiting-maid." 
 
 "Oh! you are too delightful!" she cried. "See, 
 Monsieur, what it is to have been brought up in the 
 traditions of good breeding. Ceci est du Beauseant 
 tout pur,^^ she addedj smiling. 
 
 " She is charming," thought Eugene, pleased with 
 the flattery. He looked round the room, which was 
 .arranged with a meretricious taste better suited, he 
 thought, to the quartier Breda. 
 
 " Do you like it ? " a^ed Madame de Nucingen, 
 ringing for her maid. " Therese, take this letter to 
 Monsieur de Marsay. Give it into his own hand. If 
 you do not find him, bring it back." 
 
 As Therese left the room she threw an inquisitive 
 glance at Eugene. Dinner was now served, and 
 Rastignac gave his arm to Madame de Nucingen, who 
 led him into a gorgeous dining-room where he again 
 found all the table luxury he had admired at his 
 cousin's. 
 
 " On the nights of the Italian opera you must 
 always dine with me," she said, " and escort me to the 
 theatre," 
 
 " I could soon accustom myself to so delightful a 
 life if it would only last," he answered ; " but I am 
 a poor student, with my fortune to make," 
 
 " It will make itself," she said laughing ; " you see 
 how things coiiie to pass. I little expected to be sq 
 happy." 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 185 
 
 It is the nature of women to nrgue the impossible 
 from the possible, and to destroy facts by building on 
 presentiments. 
 
 When Madame de Nucingen and Rastignao entered 
 their box at the opera she was so beautiful in her 
 recovered peace of mind that people began to whisper 
 those trifling calumnies against which women are 
 defenceless, however false may be the ])remises on 
 which they are based. Those who know Paris well 
 are careful to believe nothing that they hear, and also 
 to tell nothing that they know. Eugdne took the 
 hand of his companion, and they silently communicated 
 to each other by pressure the sensations with which 
 the music flooded their souls. The evening was full of 
 enchantment, and when they left the Opera House 
 Madame de Nucingen insisted on taking Eugene as 
 far as the Pont-Neuf, disputing with him on the way 
 another of those kisses which she had given him of her 
 own accord in the Palais-Royal. Eugene reproached 
 her for the inconsistency. 
 
 " No — then,'''' she said, " it was gratitude for an 
 unexpected deliverance; now it would be a pledge- — " 
 
 " And you will not grant me that pledge," he said, 
 half angrily. She made a gesture of impatience and 
 gave him her hand to kiss, which he took with an ill 
 grace that completely charmed her. 
 
 " Monday — at the ball," she said as they parted. 
 
 Eugene walked home in the brilliant moonlight 
 with his mind full of serious reflections. He was 
 pleased and yet dissatisfied : pleased at an adventure 
 which threw him into the closest intimacy with one of 
 the prettiest and most fashionable women of Paris ; 
 
186 PeVe Qoriot. 
 
 dissatisfied at seeing his projects for the future over- 
 thrown, — for he now {perceived how much he had 
 really built upon the vague visions of the day before. 
 Want of success increases rather than diminishes the 
 strength of our wishes. The more Eugene tasted the 
 pleasures of Parisian life, the less he liked the prospect 
 of toil and poverty. He fingered the bank-note in his 
 pocket, and thought of a hundred reasons to justify 
 him in keeping it. As he reached the Rue N^euve 
 Sainte-Genevieve and ran upstairs, he saw a light on 
 the landing. Pere Goriot had left his door ajar and 
 his rush-light burning, that the student might not 
 forget to come in and relate to him his .daughter, as he 
 expressed it. Eugene told him everything. 
 
 "What!" cried Peie Goriot, in a transport of 
 jealous despair, "do they think me ruined? I have 
 still an income of thirteen hundred francs. Mon 
 Dieu! my poor darling, why did she not come to me? 
 I could have sold out my stocks. I could have given 
 her what she wanted from the capital, and bought an 
 annuity with the rest. Why did you not come and 
 tell me, my good neighbor ? How could you have had 
 the heart to risk her poor little hundred francs. It 
 breaks my heart — This is what it is to have sons- 
 in-law ! And she' wept — you say she wept? — my 
 Delpliine, who never wept before when she was my 
 own little one ! By her marriage contract she is 
 entitled to her money. I shall see Derville the law- 
 yer, to-morrow. I shall insist on the separate invest- 
 ment of her fortune. I know the law. I am an old 
 wolf — yes ! and I shall get the use" of my teeth 
 again ! " 
 
PeVe Goriot. 187 
 
 " See, pere, here are a thousand francs which she 
 insisted on giving me out of our winnings. Keep 
 them for her." 
 
 Goriot looked at Eugi^no and grasped his hand, on 
 which the old man dropped a tear. 
 
 "You will succeed in life," he said. "God is just, 
 you know. I know what honesty is, and I tell you 
 few men would have done as you have done. My son, 
 go now; go — and sleep. You can sleep, for you are 
 not yet a father — Oh, she wept ! While I was 
 quietly eating my dinner, dull fool that I am, she was 
 suffering! I — who would sell my soul to save them 
 from unhappiness ! " 
 
 "On my honor," said Eugene, as he laid his head 
 on his pillow, "I will be an honest man as long as I 
 live. There is great happiness in following the in- 
 spirations of one's conscience." 
 
 Perhaps none but those who believe m a good God 
 can do good in secret. Eugene was a believer still. 
 
 On the evening of the ball Rastignac went to 
 Madame de Beaus^ant's, who took him with her and 
 presented him to the Duchesse de Carigliano. He had 
 a gracious reception from the Mnrechale, and found 
 Madame de Nucingen already there. Delphine, who 
 had dressed with the intention of pleasing others that 
 she might the better please Eugene, waited impatiently 
 to catch his eye, though carefully concealing her im- 
 patience. For one who can read a woman's heart 
 such a moment is full of charm. What man does not 
 delight in making a woman wait eagerly for' his 
 judgment, disguising his own pleasure that he may 
 
188 Pere Croriot. 
 
 win this signal of her prefei'ence, enjoying her uneasi- 
 ness as lie i)lays upon the fears he can set at rest by a 
 smile ? 
 
 As the evening advanced, Rastignac began to per- 
 ceive the full bearings of his position, and to under- 
 stand that he held rank among those around him as 
 the acknowledged cousin of Madame de Beauseant. 
 The conquest of Madame de Nucingen, with which he 
 was credited, placed him at once under observation ; 
 young men looked at him with envy, and as he caught 
 their glances he tasted the first sweets of gratified 
 social-vanity. Passing from room to room and from 
 group to group, he heard his own praises; ladies pre- 
 dicted his success ; and Delpbine, afraid of losing him, 
 promised not to refuse the kiss she had denied him the 
 day before. He received several invitations during 
 the evening, and was presented by his cousin to a num- 
 ber of ladies noted for their elegance, whose houses 
 ranked among the most agreeable in the Faubourg. 
 Thus he found himself admitted into the inner circle 
 of the great world of Paris. This evening was for 
 him a brilliant debut, remembered to the last hour of 
 his life, as a young girl remembers the ball where she 
 won her first triumphs. 
 
 The next morning, at the breakfast-table, when he 
 began to relate his successes to Pere Goriot in pre- 
 sence of the other guests, Vautrin listened with diabol- 
 ical amusement to the tale. 
 
 "Now, do you really think," exclaimed that fierce 
 logician, " that a young man of fashion can continue to 
 live in the Rue Neuve Sainte-Geneviijve, in the Maison 
 Vauquer? — & pension infinitely respectable in every 
 
Pire Goriot. 189 
 
 way, no doubt, but which assuredly is not fashioua^ 
 ble. It is comfortnble, it is cosey, dnlightful in its abun- 
 dance, proud of being temporarily the abode of a de 
 Erastignac ; but after all it is in -the Rue Neuve Sainte- 
 Genevi^ve, and it boasts no luxury, — being above all 
 things patriarchalorama. My young friend," contin- 
 ued Vautrin, with paternal irony, "if you hope to 
 make a figure in Paris, you must have three horses 
 and a tilbury for the morning, and a coupe for the 
 evening : nine thousand francs for the equipages alone. 
 You will fall shamefully below the requirements of 
 your destiny if you spend less than three thousand 
 with your tailor, six hundred with your perfumer, 
 and six hundred more between your bootmaker and 
 your hatter. As for your washerwoman, she will 
 cost you a thousand francs. Young men of fash- 
 ion are above all things bound to be irreproachable 
 in the matter of washing. Love and the Church 
 alike demand fine linen. Now, we have got up to 
 fourteen thousand. I don't count all that cards and 
 bets and presents will cost you, — you certainly can't 
 do with less than two thousand francs a year for 
 pocket-money. I have led that life myself, and I 
 know how it goes. Now, add to these things — which 
 are indispensable, mind you — three hundred louis for 
 subsistence, and a thousand francs for rent. That 
 brings us up, my boy, to the pretty little sum of twen- 
 ty-five thousand francs a year, which we must have in 
 hand, or over we go into the mud, with peojjle laugh- 
 ing at us, and our future lost, — including all our 
 youthful dreams of fortune and women ! All I I forgot 
 thQ groom and the valet. Could Christophe carry 
 
190 Pere Groriot. 
 
 your billets-doux ? Shall you write them upon law- 
 paper ? My dear boy, you would cut your throat. 
 Take the advice of an old man full of experience," he 
 ■concluded ; " either transport yourself into a virtuous 
 garret and wed toil, or — choose some other way to 
 reach your end." 
 
 Here Vautriu glanced at Mademoiselle Taillefer, 
 with an eye that recalled and emphasized the seduc- 
 Ltive arguments he had already dropped into the stu- 
 dent's heart to breed corruption. 
 
Pire Q-oriot. 191 
 
 XII. 
 
 Several days passed, and Rastignac led a dissipated 
 life. He dined constantly with Madame de N.u- 
 cingen, and accompanied her into the great world, 
 getting home at three or four o'clock in the morning. 
 He usnally rose at midday and made his toilet ; after 
 which, if it were fine, he drove to the Bois with Del- 
 phine, — idling away his days without.thought of. their 
 value, and assimilating the lessons and seductions of 
 luxury with the eagerness of the female date-tree as "it 
 absorbs the fecundating pollen from the atmosphere. 
 He played high, lost and won heavily, and soon accus- 
 tomed himself to the extravagant. habits of the young 
 men around him. Out of the first ihoney which he 
 won he sent fifteen hundred francs to his mother and 
 sisters, accompanying the restitution with some pretty 
 presents. Although he had given out his intention to 
 quit the Maison Vauquer, he was still there in the last 
 week of January, and did not well see how he could 
 get away. Young men are governed by a law that 
 seems at first, sight inexplicable, but which springs 
 from their youth and from the species of madness with 
 which they fling themselves into the enjoyments of 
 life. Be they rich or be they poor, they never have 
 money enough for the necessities of living, though 
 they always find the wherewithal to. spend on their 
 caprices. Lavish when they can buy on credit, stingy 
 
192 Pere Goriot. 
 
 as to all that they must pay for in hard cash, they 
 seem to indemnify themselves for the lack of what they 
 crave by squandering what they have. Thus, — by 
 Vf,&y of illustration, — a student takes more care of his 
 hat than he does of his coat. The enormous profit of 
 the tailor makes it reasonable that he should wait for 
 his money ; but the small gains of a hatter render him 
 impervious to the question of credit. Though the 
 young man sitting in the balcon of a theatre may dis- 
 play to the opera-glasses of pretty women the most 
 magnificent of waistcoats, no one can be certain that 
 his socks would bear inspection : the hosier is one of 
 those who must be paid in ready money. Rastignac 
 had reached this point in his career. His purse, always 
 empty for Madame Vauquer, always full for the needs 
 of vanity, had its ups and downs, its ebbs and flows, 
 which by no means agreed with the natural demands 
 upon it. Before quitting that abject and evil-smelling 
 abode, where his new pretensions were daily humili- 
 ated, must he not pay a month's lodging to his land- 
 lady, and buy furniture fit for a man of fashion before 
 he could install himself in a new apartment? This 
 remained steadfastly the thing impossible. To get 
 money for the gambling-table, Rastignac had readily 
 found out how to buy watches and chains from his 
 jeweller at enormous prices, to be paid for out of his 
 winnings, and to be pawned as soon as bought with 
 that solemn and discreet friend of youth, the Mont-de- 
 Piet6; but his ingenuity had failed to discover any 
 device whereby to pay Madame Vauquer, or to buy 
 the tools necessary to keep up his life of. elegance 'and 
 fashion. Tulgar present necessity, or the debts con- 
 
P§re G-orlot. 198 
 
 tracted for past pleasures, gave him no inspiration. 
 Like most of those who lead this life of chance, he put 
 off as long as possible paying his current debts (which 
 are the most sacred in. the eyes of plain people), after 
 the example of Mirabeau, who never paid his baker's 
 bill till it took the compelling form of a promissory note. 
 At this special time — the last of January — Rastignac 
 had been losing heavily, and was in debt. He- was 
 beginning to see that he coidd not continue to lead 
 this kind of life without fixed resources. But sighing 
 over the difficulties of his precarious position did not 
 bring him to resign the pleasures of the great world ; 
 on the contrary, he felt incapable of the sacrifice, and 
 resolute to push on at any price. The chances on 
 which at first be had built his hopes of fortune he 
 now- saw to be chimerical, while his real difficulties, 
 grew-greater every day. As he became familiar with 
 the domestic secrets of Monsieur and Madame de Nu- 
 cingen, he saw that -to convert love into an instrument 
 of fortune it was necessary to drink the cup of shame 
 to the very dregs, and renounce forever all those noble 
 ideas which are the absolution of youthful errors. To 
 this life, outwardly splendid, inwardly gnawed by the 
 tamas of remorse, and whose fugitive pleasures were 
 dearly paid for by persistent anguish, he was now 
 wedded. Like La Bruyere's absent-minded man, he 
 had made his bed in the slime of the ditch ; but, like 
 him again, he had as yet only soiled his clothes. 
 
 " Well ! have we killed the mandarin ? " said Bian- 
 chon one day as they rose from table. 
 
 " Not yet," he answered^ " but he is at his death- 
 rattloi'' 
 
 18 
 
194 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 The medical student took this for a joke, bijt he was 
 mistaken. Eugene, who had dined that day at the 
 pension after a long absence, seemed thoughtful and 
 preoccu23ied. Instead of leaving after the dessert, he 
 remained in the dining-room sitting near Mademoiselle 
 Taillefer, on whom from time to time he threw reflect- 
 ing glances. Some of the guests still lingered at table 
 eating nuts ; others were walking up and down con- 
 tinuing their conversation. They left the room, as they 
 did -every evening, each as he pleased, according to the 
 interest he took in the conversation or the amount of 
 rest required by his digestion. In winter the dining- 
 room was seldom empty before eight o'clock; after 
 which hour the four women remained alone and made 
 up for the silence imposed upon them by the masculine 
 majority. Struck by Eugene's preoccupation, Vautrin, 
 who at iirst had seemed in a Lurry to get away, stayed 
 after the others had departed, and placed himself cau- 
 tiously just within the door of the salon, so that Eugene 
 could not see him, and might therefore believe him 
 gone. He read the mind of the student, and saw that 
 a crisis was at hand. 
 
 Rastignac was in fact in a difficult though perhaps 
 not uncommon position. Whether Madame de Nucin- 
 gen loved him or was trifling with him, she had made 
 him pass through the fluctuations of a real passion, 
 and- had used against him all the resources at the 
 command of Parisian feminine dijilomacy. Having 
 compromised herself in the eyes of the world to se- 
 cure the devotion of a cousin of Madame de Beaus^- 
 ant, she- now repelled his advances and would go no 
 further. For a month she had coquetted with his 
 
Pere Qoriot. 195 
 
 feelings, and had ended by gaining some power over 
 his heart. If in the first hours of their intimacy the 
 student had been master of the situation, Madame de 
 Nucingen was now the stronger of the two. She had 
 contrived by skilful management to excite in Rastignac 
 the varied feelings, good and bad, of the two or three 
 men who exist in a young Parisian. Was this from 
 calculation ? No, women are always tiue even in the 
 midst of their utmost falsity ; they are true, because 
 they are influenced by native feeling. Perhaps Del- 
 phine, alarmed at the power she had at first allowed 
 Eugene to assume over her, and at the unguarded con- 
 fidence she had shown him, was prompted by a feeling 
 of dignity to assume reserve. She may have hesitated 
 before her fall, and have sought to test the character 
 of the man to whom she was about to commit her 
 future, having already had good reason to distrust the 
 faith of lovers. Perhaps she had noticed in Eugene's 
 manner— for his raj^id success had greatly increased 
 his self-conceit — a certain disrespect caused by the 
 singularities of their situation. Be this as it may, 
 whatever were her reasons, Eugene had made no pro- 
 gress with her since the first days of their intercourse. 
 He grew irritable, his self-love was deeply wounded ; 
 he was like a sportsman jealous for the honor of Saint- 
 Hubert if a partridge is not killed on the fii-st day of 
 the sport. His angry self-conceit, his futile hopes, 
 were they false or real, and his daily anxieties bound 
 him more and more to this woman. Yet sometimes 
 when he found himself penniless and without prospects,, 
 his mind turned, in defiance of his conscience, to the 
 chance Vautrin had held out to him" through a marriage 
 
196 Fire Groriot. 
 
 with Mademoiselle Taillefer. There were days when 
 his poverty was so importunate that he yielded almost 
 involuntarily to the snare of the terrible sphinx whose 
 glance dominated him with a. dangerous fascination. 
 
 When Poiret and Mademoiselle Michonneau had 
 gone up to their rooms, Rastignac, believing himself 
 alone between Madame Vauquer and Madame Couture, 
 the latter of whom was knitting herself a pair of njuf- 
 fetees and dozing by the stove, turned to Mademoiselle 
 Taillefer with a glance sufficiently tender to make her 
 eyes droop. 
 
 "Is anything troubling you, Monsieur Eugene?" she 
 said, after a slight pause, 
 
 " Who is without trouble ? " he replied. " Yet per- 
 haps if we young men were sure of being truly loved, 
 with a devotion that would compensate us for the 
 sacrifices we are ready to make, we should have no 
 troubles." 
 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer for all answer gave him a 
 look whose meaning was unmistakable. 
 
 " Even you, Mademoiselle, wh6 are so sure of your 
 heart to-day, can you be sure that you will never 
 change ? " 
 
 A smile played about the lips of the poor girl ; a ray 
 of sunshine from her heart lighted up her face with so' 
 bright a glow that Eugene was frightened at having 
 called forth such a manifestation of feeling. 
 
 "What! if to-morrow you were rich and happy, if 
 immense wealth came to you from the skies, would 
 you still love a poor young man who had pleased you 
 in the days of your own distress ? " 
 
 She made a pretty motion of her head. 
 
Fere Goriot. 197 
 
 " Jt_ very poor unhappy man ? " 
 
 Another sign. 
 
 " What nonsense are you talking ? " cried. Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " Never mind," said Eugene ; " we understand each 
 other." 
 
 " Ah ! an understanding ! ^f^p a promise of marriage 
 between the Chevalier Eugene de Rastignac and Made- 
 moiselle Victorine Taillefer ! " said Vautrin in his bluff 
 voiee^ as he stood on the threshold of the dining-room. 
 
 " How you frightened me ! " cried Madame Vauquer 
 and Madame Couture together. 
 
 "I might make a far worse choice," said Eugfene, 
 laraghing. 
 
 The voice of Vautrin at that moment caused him 
 the most painful emotion he had ever yet known. 
 
 " 'So jests on that subject, if you please, gentlemen," 
 said Madame Couture. " My dear, let us go upstairs." 
 
 Madame Vauquer followed the two ladies, that she 
 might economize fire and lights by spending the even- 
 ing in their room. Eugene found himself alone and 
 face to face with Vautrin. 
 
 " 1-knew you would come to it," said the latter, with 
 his imperturbable sang-froid. " But, stay ! I can be 
 delicate and considerate as well as others. Don't make 
 up your mind at this moment ; you are not altogether 
 yoursell; you are in trouble, in debt. I don't wish 
 it to be passion or despair but plain common-sense 
 which brings you to me. Perhaps^ you want a few 
 thousands ? Here, will you have them ? " 
 
 The tempter took a purse from his pocket and drew 
 out three bank-notes' of a thousand francs each, which 
 
198 PeVe Qoriot. 
 
 he fluttered before the eyes of the student. Eugene's 
 situation at this time was very harassing. He owed 
 the Marquis d'Adjuda and the Comte de Trailles a 
 hundred louia lost at cards. He had no money to pay 
 the debt, and dared not go that evening to Madame de 
 Restaud's where he was expected. It was one of those 
 informal parties where people drink tea and eat little 
 cakes, but lose their thousands at whist. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Eugene, striving to hide a convul-. 
 sive shiver, " after what you have confided to me, you 
 ought to know that I cannot put myself under obliga- 
 tions to you." 
 
 " Well," said Vautrin, " I should be sorry to- have 
 you say otherwise. You are a handsome young fellow,, 
 and sensitive ; proud as a lion and gentle as a little 
 girl. You would be a fine morsel for the Devil : I like 
 the strain. A little more study of men and morals, 
 and you will see the world in its true light. A man 
 of your stamp generally relieves his conscience by 
 playing a few scenes of virtuous indignation and self- 
 sacrifice, highly applauded by the fools in the pit. 
 In a few days you will be one of us. Ah ! if you be- 
 come my pupil, I will make you anything you please. 
 You could not form a wish but it should be gratified, 
 ^-were it for honor, fortune, or the love of women. 
 All civilization should be turned into ambrosia for 
 you. You should bo our spoiled child, our Benjamin ; 
 we would lay down our lives for you with pleasure. 
 Every obstacle in -your j)ath should be swept away! 
 If you are still scrupulous, I suppose you take me for 
 a scoundrel ? Let me tell you that a man who was 
 quite as high-minded as you can pretend to be, Mon- . 
 
Pire G-oriot. 199 
 
 sieur de Turenne, hacl his little arrangements with 
 the brigands of his day without thinking himself at 
 all compromised by it. You don't want to be under 
 obligations to me, hein ? That need not hinder," he 
 said with a smile ; " take the notes, and write across 
 this," be added, pulling out a stamped paper, " Ac- 
 cepted for the sum of three thousand, five hundred 
 francs, payable in twelvemonths ; sign it, and add the 
 date. Tlie five hundred francs interest is enough to 
 relieve you of all scruples. You may call me a Jew if 
 you like, and consider yourself entirely released from 
 gratitude. I have no objection to your despising me 
 now, for I am certain you will come to me in the end. 
 Yon will find in me the unfathomable depths and the 
 vast concentrated emotions which ninnies call vices ; 
 but you will never find me false or ungrateful. I 'm 
 not a pawn, nor a knight — I 'm a castle, a tower 
 of strength, imy boy ! " 
 
 " Who are you ? " cried Eugene. " Were you created 
 to torment me ? " 
 
 " No, jio ; I am a kind man, willing to get splashed 
 that you may be kept out of tlie mud for the rest of 
 your life, I have startled you a little with the chimes 
 of your Social Order, and by letting you see, perhaps 
 too soon, how the peal is rung. But the first fright 
 will pass, like that of a recruit on the battlefield. You 
 will get accustomed to the idea of men as well as of 
 soldiers dying to promote the good of others who have 
 crowned themselves kings and emperors. How times 
 have changed ! Formerly we could say to a bravo, 
 ' Plere are a hundred crowns ; go kill me So-and-so,' 
 and eat our ^suppers tranquilly after sending a man 
 
zoo P^re. Goriot. 
 
 to the shades by a yes or a no. To-jday II propose to 
 give you a handsome fortune ; and yet you hesitate^ 
 when all you have to do is to nod your head, ^^ a thing, 
 which cannot compromise you in any way. The age 
 is rotten J" 
 
 Eugene signed, the paper, and exchanged it for the 
 bank-notes. 
 
 " Come, let us talk sense," resumed Vautrin. " I 
 want to start, for America in a few months and jilant 
 my tobacco. I will send you the cigars of friendship. 
 If. L get rich I will lielp you. If I have no children 
 (and that is probable, for I am not anxious to propa- 
 gate myself), I will leave you all my fortune. Don't 
 you call that being a friend ? But I have a passion 
 for devoting myself to others -^ I have sacrificed, 
 myself before now in my life. I live in a sphere 
 above that of other men ; I look on actions as means 
 to ends, and I make straight for those ends. What is 
 the life of a man to me ? — not that ! " he added, click- 
 ing his thumb-nail against a tooth. " A man is all, 
 or nothing. Less than nothing when he is Poiret : 
 one may crush such a man as that like a bed-bug, — 
 he is flat and empty, and he stinks. But a man gifted 
 as you are is a. god; he is not a miichine in human 
 skin, but a theatre where noble sentiments are en- 
 acted. I live in sentiments ! A noble sentiment, 
 what is it ? — the whole of life in a thought. Look 
 at Pere Goriot: his two daughters are his universe, — 
 they are the threads of fate that guide him through 
 created things. I say again, I have dug deep into life, 
 and I know there is but one enduring sentiment, — 
 man's friendship for man. Pierre et Jaffier — I know 
 
PeVe Qoriot. 201 
 
 ' Venice Preserved ' by heart ! Have you seen many 
 men virile enough when a comrade said, ' Come, help 
 me bury a corpse ,' to follow witliout asking a question 
 or preaching a moral ? I have done that ! But you, 
 you are superior to others ; to you I can speak out, — 
 you will comprehend me. You '11 not paddle long in 
 the marsh with the dwarfs and the toads I — Well, 
 it is settled : you will marry her. Let us each .carry 
 Qur point. Mine is steel, and will never yield ! Ha ! 
 ha ! — " 
 
 Vautrin walked away without listening to the nega- 
 tive reply of Rastignac. He seemed to know the 
 secret of those feeble efforts at resistance, those in- 
 effectual struggles with which men try to cheat them- 
 selves, and which serve to excuse their evil actions to 
 their own minds. 
 
 "Let him do what he likes; I will never marry 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer," said Eugene. 
 
 The thought of a compact between himself and a 
 man he held in abhorrence, yet who was fast assuming 
 great proportions in his eyes by the cynicism of his 
 ideas and the boldness with which he clinched society, 
 threw Rastignac into an inward fever, from which, 
 however, he rallied in time to dress and go to Madame 
 de Restaud's. For some time past the countess had 
 shown him much attention, as a young man whose 
 every step led him more and more into the heart of 
 the great world, and whose influence might eventually 
 become formidable. He paid his debts to Messieurs 
 d'Adjuda and de Trailles, played whist far into the 
 night, and regained all he had lost. Being supersti- 
 tious, as most men are whose future J.ies before them to 
 
202 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 make or mav, and who are all more or less fatalists, he 
 chose to see the favor of Heaven in his run of luck, — a 
 recompense granted for his persistence in the path of 
 duty. The next morning he hastened to ask Vautrin 
 for the note of hand, and repaid the three thousand 
 francs with very natural satisfaction. 
 
 " All goes well," said Vautrin. 
 
 " But I am not your accomplice," said Eugene. 
 
 "I know, I know," replied the other, interrupting 
 him; "you are still hampered with some childish non- 
 sense. Once across the threshold, and you' 11 be all 
 right." 
 
 Two days later Poiret and Mademoiselle Michonrieau 
 were sitting on a ben'ch in the suri, in a quiet alley of 
 the Jardin des Plantes, talking with the gentleman who 
 had rightly enough been an object of suspicion to 
 Bianchon. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," said Monsieur Gondureau, " I can- 
 not see why you should have any scruples. His Excel- 
 lency Monseigneur the Minister of Police of this king- 
 dom,—" 
 
 " Ah ! His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister oi 
 Police of this kingdom," repeated Poiret. 
 
 "Yes; His Excellency is personally interested in 
 this afEiir," said Gondureau. 
 
 It seems at first sight improbable that Poiret, an old 
 government employe, who had presumably the virtues 
 of the bourgeois class though destitute of brains, should 
 have continued to listen to this man after he had plainly 
 acknowledged himself to be a jiolice spy, an agent of the 
 Rue de Jerusalem disguised as an honest citizen. Yet 
 
Fire aoriot. 203 
 
 the thing was really natural enough. The reader will 
 better understand the place that Poiret held in the 
 great family of fools after hearing some remarks made 
 not long since by certain keen observers of society, hut 
 which have never yet appeared in ])rint. There is a 
 nation of quill-drivers placed in the budget between 
 the Arctic zone of official life inhabited by clerks who 
 receive twelve hundred francs annually, — the Green- 
 land of our public offices, — and the tempei-ate regions 
 where salaries rise from three to six thousand francs, 
 nay, even blossom in spite of the difficulties of cultiva- 
 tion. One of the characteristic traits of the trib§ in- 
 habiting the middle region — a narrow, down-trodden 
 class — is its involuntary, mechanical, instinctive respect 
 for that Grand Llama of office, known personally to the 
 petty employe only by an illegible signature, and spoken 
 of with reverence as His Excellency Monseigneur the 
 Minister; five words equivalent to " II Hondo Oani," 
 of the Caliph of Bagdad, — words which to this hum 
 ble class represent a power sacred and beyond appeal. 
 What the Pope is among Christians, Monseigneur is to 
 the employe. Regarded as infallible in his adminiS' 
 trative capacity, the light that emanates from this 
 luminary is reflected in his acts and words, and in all 
 that he does by proxy. It covers with a mantle and 
 legalizes every act that he may ordain. His very title 
 of Excellency seems to attest the purity of his motives 
 and the sanctity of his intentions, and is a cloak to 
 ideas that would not otherwise be tolerated. Things 
 that these poor officials would never do to serve them- 
 selves, they do willingly in the great name of His Ex- 
 cellency. Public offices have their duty of passive 
 
204 Fire Goriot. 
 
 obedience as well as the army ; they are controlled by 
 a system which stifles conscience, annihilates manliness, 
 and ends by making the liumnn being a mere screw, 
 or nut, in the government machinery. Thus Monsieur 
 Gondureau, who appeared to have a knowledge of 
 men, soon discovered in Poiret the bureaucratic ninny, 
 and trotted out his Deus ex machind, the talismanic 
 words " His Excellency," at the moment when, un- 
 masking his batteries, it was desirable to dazzle the old 
 fellow, — whom he regarded as a male Michonneau, 
 just as the Michonneau appeared to him a female 
 Poiret. 
 
 " Since His Excellency himself, His Excellency Mon- 
 seigneur — ah ! that alters the case," said Poiret. 
 
 "You hear what Monsieur says, — a gentleman in 
 whose judgment you appenr to place confidence," said 
 the pretended boicrgeois, addressing Mademoiselle Mi- 
 chonneau. " Well, His Excellency has now obtained 
 the most complete certainty that a man calling himself 
 Vautrin, who lives in the Maison Vauquer, is doubtless 
 an escaped convict from the Toulon galleys, where he 
 was known by the name of Trompe-la-Mort — " 
 
 '' Ah ! Trompe-la-Mort, — one who cheats Death ! " 
 interrupted Poiret. " He is lucky if he has earned his 
 name." 
 
 "Yes," said the agent, "the nickname is due to the 
 luck he has had in never losing his life in any of th.e-ex- 
 tremely audacious enterprises he has engaged in. The 
 man is dangerous; he has qualities that make him very 
 remarkable. His condemnation itself was a thing that 
 did him infinite honor among his comrades." 
 
 "Is he a man of honor ? " asked Poiret. 
 
Pire G-oriot. 205 
 
 "After his own fashion, — yes. He consented to 
 plead guilty to the crime of another, — a forgery, com- 
 mitted by a handsome young man to whom he was 
 much attached ; an Italian and a gambler, who after- 
 wards went into the army, where he has conducted 
 himself with perfect jiropriety ever since." 
 
 " But if His Excellency the Minister of Police is 
 certain that Monsieur Vnutrin is Trompe-la-Mort, 
 what does he want of me?" asked Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau. 
 
 " Ah ! yes," echoed Poiret ; " if the Minister really, 
 as you do us the honor to say, has the certainty — " 
 
 " Certainty is not the word. The fact is strongly 
 suspected. Allow me to explain. Jacques Collin, 
 alias Trompe-la-Mort, has the entire confidence of the 
 prisoners of the three Bagnes [galleys]. They have 
 appointed him their agent and banker. He makes 
 money by taking care of their affairs, — an office which 
 necessarily requires a man of mark." 
 
 "Ha! ha! do you see the pun, Mademoiselle?" 
 cried Poiret. " Monsieur calls him a ' man of mark ' 
 because he has been branded ! " 
 
 " This Vautrin," continued the agent, " receives the 
 money of the convicts at the galleys, invests it, takes 
 care of it, and holds it until claimed by those who es- 
 cape, or by their families if disposed of by will, or by 
 their mistresses when drawn upon for their benefit." 
 
 " Their mistresses ! you mean their wives ? " said 
 Poiret. 
 
 "No, Monsieur, the convict seldom has any but an 
 illegitimate wife. We call them concubines." 
 
 " What ! do they live in concubinage ? " 
 
206 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 "That follows of course." 
 
 " Well," said Poiret, " these are horrors that Mon- 
 signeur if he hears of them will never, tolerate. Since 
 vou have the honor of communicatins: with His Excel- 
 lency, you, who seem to me to have philanthropic views, 
 should enlighten him on the bad example set to society 
 by the immoral conduct of these men." 
 
 "But, Monsieur, Government does not send them to 
 the galleys to offer a model of all the virtues." - 
 
 " True enough ; but still. Monsieur, allow — " 
 
 " Let Monsieur go on with what he was saying, my 
 dear," said Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 " You can undei'stand, Mademoiselle," resumed Gon- 
 dureau, " that Government might be very glad to put 
 its. hand on this illicit capital, which is said to amount 
 to a very large sum. Trompe-la-Mort has a great 
 deal of property in his possession from the moneys 
 turned over to him by (he convicts ; and also from 
 what is placed in his hands by the Society of the Ten 
 Thousand — " 
 
 "Ten thous.and thieves! " ejaculated Poiret, aghast. 
 
 "No. The Society of tlie Ten Thousand is an asso- 
 ciation of robbers of the iirst class ; men who work on 
 a large scale, and engage in no enterjDrise unless sure 
 of making at least ten thousand francs by it. This 
 Society is made up of the most distinguished men 
 among those who go through the criminal courts. They 
 know the law, and never risk their lives by doing any- 
 thing that could condemn them to the guillotine. 
 Collin is their trusted agent, their counsellor. By the 
 aid of his immense resources he has managed to get 
 up a force of private detectives, and has connections 
 
Pire 0-oriot. 207 
 
 widely extended which he wraps in a mystery really 
 impenetrable. For a year we have surromided him 
 with spies, but we have not yet been able to fathom 
 his game. His money and his ability are meantime 
 promoting vice, making a capital for crime, and sup- 
 porting a perfect army of bad men who are perpetually 
 making war upon society. To arrest Trompe-la-Mort 
 and seize his funds would pull the evil up by the roots. 
 The matter has thus become an affair of State and 
 of public policy, capable of doing honor to all who 
 engage in it. You, Monsieur, might perhaps be re- 
 employed by the Government, — as secretary, possibly, 
 of a police commissioner, which would not hinder you 
 from drawing your pension as a retired function nry." 
 
 " But," said Mademoiselle Michonneau, " why does 
 not Trompe-la-Mort run off with the money?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Gondureau, " wherever he went he 
 would be followed by a man with orders to kill him if 
 he stole from the Bagne. Money cannot be carried o£ 
 as quietly as a man can run away with a pretty girl. 
 Moreover, Collin is a fellow incapable of such an aqt. 
 He would feel himself dishonored." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Poiret, " you are right ; he would 
 be altogether dishonored." 
 
 " All this does not explain why you do not simply 
 arrest him at once," said Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 "Well, Mademoiselle, I will tell yon. But," he 
 whispered in her ear, " keep your gentleman from 
 interrupting me, or we shall never have done. He 
 ought to be very inch to get any one to sit and listen 
 to him. — Trompe-la-Mort when he came here put on 
 the skin of an honest man. He gave himself out as a 
 
208 Pire Goriot. 
 
 plain citizen, and took lodgings in a commonplace pen- 
 sion. Oh ! he is very cunning, I can tell you. He is 
 not a fish to be caught without a worm ! So Monsieur 
 Vautrin is a man of consideration, who carries on im- 
 portant business of some kind." 
 
 " Naturally," said Poii-et to himself. 
 
 " The minister, if any mistake should be made, and 
 if we were to arrest a real Vautrin, would bring down 
 upon himself all the tradespeople of Paris, and have to 
 face public opinion. Monsieur the prefect of police 
 is not very sure of his jjlace ; he has enemies ; and if 
 we were to make a mistake, those who want to stej) 
 into his shoes would profit by the yelpings and out- 
 cries of the liberals to get rid of liim. We must- act 
 now as we did in that affair of Coignard, the false 
 Comte de Sainte-Helene ; if he had been the real count 
 we should have been in the wrong box. So we are 
 careful to verify." 
 
 " Yes, but for that you want a pretty woman," said 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau quickly. 
 
 " Trorape-la-Mort will never put himself in the power 
 of any woman," said the detective. " He will have 
 nothing to do with them." 
 
 " Then I don't see how I could help you to the veri- 
 fication, even supposing I were willing to undertake it 
 for two thousand francs." 
 
 " Nothing easier. I will give you a phial containing 
 one dose of liquid which will produce a rush of blood 
 to the head, — not in the least dangerous, but with all 
 the symptoms of apoplexy. The drug may be put 
 either into his wine or his coffee. As soon as it has 
 had its effect, carry your man to his bed, undress him, 
 
' IVell, do you agree ? ' said Gondureau to 
 the old maid." 
 
p /n lit ip<,b by ^^b t+ Jir 
 
PeVe Goriot. 209 
 
 — to see if he is dying, or any other pretext, — con- 
 trive to be alone with him, and give him a smart slap 
 on the shoulder, paf ! and you will see the letters re- 
 appear," 
 
 " That's not much to do," said Poiret. 
 
 " Well, do you agree ? " said Gondureau to the old 
 maid. 
 
 " But, my dear Monsieur," said Mademoiselle Mi- 
 chonneau, '■ suppose there are no letters. Shall I have 
 the two thousand francs ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What will you pay me in that case?" 
 
 "Five hundred francti." 
 
 " It is very little for doing such a thing as that. 
 Either way it is equally hard upon my conscience. I 
 have my conscience to quiet, Monsieur." 
 
 " I assure you,'" said Puiret, " that Mademoiselle 
 has a great deal of conscience; and, besides, she is a 
 most amiable person and well informed." 
 
 " Well," said Mademoiselle Michonneau, " give me 
 three thousand francs if it is Trompe-la-Mort, and 
 nothing at all if he proves to be an honest man." 
 
 "Done!" said Gondureau, " but on condition that 
 you do it to-morrow." 
 
 " Not so fast, my dear Monsieur. I must consult 
 my confessor." 
 
 "You are a sly one!" said the detective rising. 
 " Well, I'll see you to-morrow then ; and if you want 
 me before then, come to the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne, 
 at the farther end of the Court of the SainteCh.ipelle. 
 There is only one door under the arch. Ask for 
 Monsieur Gondureau," 
 
 U 
 
210 PeVe Groriot. 
 
 Bianchon, whowas coming from the Coursde Cuvier, 
 caught the singular name of Tronipe-la-Mort, and heard 
 the "Done!" of the celebrated chief of the detective 
 police. 
 
 " Why did not you settle it at once ? " said Poiret 
 to Mademoiselle Michonneau. " It would give you 
 three hundred francs annuity." 
 
 " Why ?" said she. " Well, because I want to think 
 it over. If Monsieur Vautrin is really Trompe-la-Mort 
 perhaps it would be better to make a baigain with him. 
 Still, if I broached the subject I should give him warn- 
 ing, and he is just the man to decamp gratis. It would 
 bfi an abominable cheat.'' 
 
 " Even if he did get away," said Poiret, " Mdnsieur 
 told us he was watched by the police. But you, — you 
 will lose everything." 
 
 "There is this to be said," thought Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau, " I don't like him. He is always saying 
 disagreeable things to me." 
 
 " Besides," said Poiret, returning to the charge, 
 " you will be acting for the Government. According 
 to what that gentleman told us (he seemed to me a 
 very nice man, and very well dressed too), it is an act 
 of obedience to the laws ; it rids the world of a crimi- 
 nal, however virtuous he may be. He who has drunk 
 will drink. Suppose he took a fancy to murder us in 
 our beds — devil take me ! — we should be guilty of his 
 homicides ; and be ourselves the first victims." 
 
 The preoccupation of Mademoiselle Michonneau 
 prevented her from giving ear to these sentences, 
 which dropped one by one from the lips of Poiret 
 like water trickling through a spigot carelessly closed. 
 
Fire Goriot. 211 
 
 When once the old mnn was set going, and Mademoi- 
 selle Michonneau did not stop him, he ticked on like 
 a mechanism wound up to go till it runs down. Hav-- 
 ing broached ,i subject, he was usually led by his par- 
 entheses through a variety of irrelevant topics without 
 ever coming to a conclusion. By the time they reached 
 the Maison Vauquer he had maundered through a 
 quantity of examples and quotations 'which led him 
 finally to relate his own deposition in the affair of the 
 Sieur Ragoulleau and the Dame Morin, in which he had 
 figured as a witness for the defence. On entering the 
 house his companion observed that Eugene de Ras- 
 tignac was. engaged in close conversation with Ma- 
 demoiselle Taillcfer, and that their interest in each 
 other was so absorbing that they paid no heed to the 
 pair who passed them in crossing the dining-room. 
 
 " I knew it would come to that," said Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau to Poiret, " they have been making eyes 
 at each other for the last week." 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " but after all, she was pronounced 
 guilty." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " Madame Morin." 
 
 "I was talking of Mademoiselle Victorine," said 
 Michonneau, following Poiret into his chamber without 
 noticing where she was going, " and you answer me 
 by Madame Morin. Who is that woman ? " 
 
 "What has Mademoiselle Victorine been guilty of?" 
 asked Poiret. 
 
 " She is guilty of being in love with Monsieur 
 Eugene de Rastignac, and running headlong without 
 knowing what she is coming to, poor innocent ! " 
 
212 Pire Qoriot 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Eugene had that morning been driven to despair by 
 Madame de Nuoingen. In his inmost soul he now 
 yielded himself up to Vautrin, not choosing to fathom 
 either the motives of that strange man in befriending 
 him, or the future of the alliance that would be riveted 
 between them. Nothing but a miracle could save him 
 now from the abyss, on the verge of which he stood as 
 he exchanged with Mademoiselle Taillefer the sweetest 
 of all promises. Victorine listened as to the voice of 
 angels ; the heavens opened for her, the Maison Vau- 
 quer shone with tints that artists lavish upon palaces ; 
 she loved, and she was loved, — alas, she thought she 
 was! And what young girl would not have thought 
 so, as she looked at Rastignnc and lislened to him for 
 that one sweet hour stolen from the argus eyes that 
 watched'her ! While he fought his conscience, know- 
 ing that he was doing evil and choosing to do evil, 
 saying to himself that he would atone for this sin 
 by giving lifelong happiness to his wife, the fires of 
 the hell within him burned from the inner to the 
 Outer, and the anguish of his soul heightened the 
 beauty of his face. Mercifully for him the miracle 
 took place. 
 
 Vautrin entered gaily, reading at a glance the souls 
 of the young pair whom he had married by the machi- 
 
Pe>e Goriot. 213 
 
 nations of his infernal genius, and whose joy he killed 
 as he trolled forth in his strong mocking voice, — 
 
 " My Fanny is cViarming 
 In her simplicity." 
 
 Victorine fled away, carrying with her more of joy 
 than she had yet known of sorrow. Poor child , a pres- 
 sure of the hands, the sweep of her lovers' curls upon 
 her oheek, a word whispered in her ear so close that she 
 felt the warm touch of his lips, an arm folded trembling 
 about her, a kiss taken from her white throat, — these 
 were the troth-plights of her passion, which the near 
 presence of Sylvie, threatening to enter that radiant 
 dining-room, only rendered more ardent, more real, 
 more tender than the noblest jjledges of devotion re- 
 lated in the love-tales of tlie knights of old. These 
 menus suffrages, — to borrow the pretty expression 
 of ■ our ancestors — seemed almost crimes to the pure 
 heart that confessed itself weekly. In this short hour 
 she had lavished treasures of her soul more precious 
 far than hei-eafter, rich and happy, she could bestow 
 with the gift of her whole being. 
 
 " The affair is arranged," said Vautrin to Eugene. 
 " All passed very properly. Difference of opinion.. 
 Our pigeon insulted my falcon. It is for to-morrow, — 
 in the redoubt at Clignancourt. By half-past eight 
 o'clock Mademoiselle Taillefer will be heiress of all 
 the love and all the money of her father, while she 
 is quietly dipping her bits of toast into her coffee ! 
 Droll, isn't it? It seems young Taillefer is a good 
 swordsman, and he feels as sure of Imving the best of 
 it as if he held all the trumps in his hand. But he '11 
 
214 Fire G-oriot. 
 
 be' bled by a trick of mine; a pass I invented, — rais- 
 ing the sword and giving a quick thrust through the 
 foreliead. I'll show it to you sonie day, for it is 
 immensely useful." 
 
 Rastignac looked at him and listened in a stupid 
 manner, but said nothing. At this moment P^re 
 Goriot came in with Bianchon and some of the other 
 guests. 
 
 " You are taking it just as I hoped," said Vautrin. 
 " You know what you are about. All right, my young 
 eaglet, — you will govern men. You are strong, firm, 
 virile. I respect you." 
 
 He offered his hand, but Rastignac drew back 
 quickly and dropped into a chair, turning very pale ; a 
 sea of blood rolled at his feet. 
 
 " "Well, well ! we still have a rag of our swaddling- 
 clothes spotted with virtue," said Vautrin in a whis- 
 per. "The papa has three millions. I know his 
 fortune. The dot will make you white as the bridal 
 gown, — in your own eyes, too; never fear." 
 
 Rastignac hesitated no longer. He determined to 
 go that evening and warn the Taillefers, father and 
 son. At this moment, Vautrin having left him, P^re 
 Goriot said in his eai', — 
 
 " You seem out of spirits, my dear boy ; but I can 
 make you merry. Come ! " 
 
 The old man lit his rush-light at one of the lamps, 
 and went upstairs. Eugene followed him in silence. 
 
 " Let us go to your room," he said. " You thought 
 this morning that she did not care for you, hein? She 
 sent you away peremptorily ; and you went off angry. 
 Oh, you simpleton ! She was expecting me. We 
 
Pire G-oriot. 215 
 
 were going together, — yes, together, — to arrange a 
 little jewel of an appartement where you are to live 
 three days from now. Don't tell her that I told you. 
 It was to be a surprise ; but I can 't keep the secret 
 any longer. It is in the Rue d'Artois, two steps 
 from the Rue Saint-Lazare. You will be lodged like 
 a prince. We have been getting furniture fit for a 
 bride. We have been very busy together for the last 
 month, but I would not tell you anything about it. 
 My lawyer has taken the field. Delphine will have 
 her thirty thousand francs a year, the interest of her 
 dot; and I shall insist on her eight hundred thousand 
 francs being invested in good securities, — secui'ities 
 in open day-light, you know." 
 
 Eugene was silent. He walked' up and down the 
 miserable, untidy room with folded arms. Pere Goriot 
 seized a moment when his back was turned to put upon 
 the chimney-piece a red morocco case, on which the 
 arms of Rastignac were stamped in gold. 
 
 " My dear boy ! " said the poor old man, " I have 
 gone into this thing up to my chin. To tell you the 
 truth, there is some selfishness in it. I have my own 
 interests to serve in your change of quarters. I have 
 something to ask of you." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " There is a little room attached to the appartement 
 that will just suit me. I shall live there, shall I not ? 
 I am getting old — I live so far from my daughters. 
 I shall not be in your way ; but you will come and tell 
 me about them constantly, — every evening? That 
 will not trouble you, will it ? When you come in, and 
 I am in my bed, I shall hear you, and say to myself, 
 
216 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 ' He has seen ray little Delphine ; he has taken her to 
 a ball; she is happy with him.' If I wore ill, it would 
 be balm to my heart to hear you go out and come in. 
 It would bring me nearer to my daughters : you belong 
 to their world, but you are my friend. It will be but 
 a step to the Champs Elysdes, where they drive every 
 afternoon ; I could see them daily, whereas now I 
 often get there too late. Sometimes my little Del- 
 phine would come there, and then I should see her, 
 in her pretty wadded pelisse, trotting about as daintily 
 as a little cat. She has been so bright and merry for 
 a month past, — just what she was as a girl at home, 
 with me. She said to me just now as we walked 
 together, ' Pajja, I am so hapjjy ! ' When they say 
 ceremoniously, ' My father,' they freeze me ; but when 
 they call me 'Papa,' I seem to see my little ones again ; 
 the past comes back to me ; they are mine once 
 moj-e." 
 
 The old man wiped the tears from his eyes. " I had 
 not heard her say 'Papa' for so long! She had not 
 taken my arm for years : yes ! it is ten years since I 
 have walked beside either of my daughters. Oh ! it 
 was good to hear the flutter of her dress, to keep step 
 with her, to feel her so warm and soft beside me ! 
 This morning I went everywhere with Delphine ; she 
 took me into the shops ; I escorted her home. Ah ! 
 you and I will live together. If you have any want 
 I shall know it, — I shall be at hand. If that rough 
 log of an Alsatian would only die ! if his gout would fly 
 to his stomach ! then you could make my poor girl a 
 happy woman. She may have done wrong, but she 
 has been so wretched in her marriage that I excuse 
 
Pere Goriot. 217 
 
 all. Surely the Father in Heaven is not less kind than 
 an earthly father! — She was praising you to me," he 
 went on . after a pause. " She talked of you as we 
 walked : ' Is he not handsome, Papa? Is he not kind 
 and good ? Does he ever speak of me ? ' From the 
 Rue d'Artois to the Passage des Panoramas she talked 
 of you. All this happy morning I was no longer old, 
 
 — I was light as a feather, I told her how you gave 
 me the thousand-franc note. Oh ! the darling ! she 
 shed tears — Why ! what is that you have on your 
 chimney-piece ? " he said, impatient at Rastignac's 
 immobility. 
 
 Eugene, stunned and silent, looked at his neighbor 
 with a bewildered air. The duel, with all its conse- 
 quences, announced by Vautrin for the morrow, pre- 
 sented such a frightful contrast to this fulfilment of 
 his pleasant dreams that his mind struggled as it were 
 with a nightmare. He turned to the fireplace and 
 saw the little case, opened it, and found inside a scrap 
 of paper, beneath which lay a Breguet watch. On the 
 paper were written these words : — 
 
 " I wish you to think of me every hour, because — 
 
 " Dblphine." 
 
 The last word no doubt alluded to something that 
 had passed between them. Eugene was much affected. 
 His arms were inlaid in gold inside the case. This bijou, 
 
 — a pretty thing he had long coveted, — the chain, 
 the key, the case, the chasing, were all exactly what 
 he liked. Pere Goriot was delighted. He had doubt- 
 less promised to carry to his daughter an account of 
 how Eugtee received her unexpected gift ; for he was 
 
218 Pere Gtoriot. 
 
 a third in their youthful pleasures, and not the least 
 liappy of the three. 
 
 "You will go and see her this evening?," he said. 
 " She expects you. That log of an Alsatian sups with 
 his danseuse. You will take me with you, will you 
 not ? " 
 
 " Yes, ray good Pere Goriot. You know that I love 
 you — " 
 
 " Ah ! you are not ashamed of me, — not you ! Let 
 me kiss you ; " and he strained the student in his arms. 
 " To-night ! — we will go and see her to-night," 
 
 '' Yes ; but first I must go out on business which it 
 is impossible to postpone." 
 
 " Can I help you ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, you can. While I go to Madame de 
 Nucingen's, you might go to the house of Monsieur 
 Taillefer, the father, and beg him to give me an hour 
 this evening, to speak to him on a subject of the 
 utmost importance." 
 
 " Can it be possible, young man," cried Pfere Goriot, 
 whose whole aspect changed, — " can it be true that 
 you are paying court to his daughter, as those fools say 
 downstairs ? Heavens and earth ! You don't know 
 what it is to get a tap from Goriot. If you are playing 
 false, one blow of my fist — But it is not possible I " 
 
 "I swear to you, I love but one woman in the 
 world," cried the student ; " and I did not know it till 
 a moment ago. But young Taillefer is to fight a duel, 
 and he is certain to be killed." 
 
 " What is that to you ? " asked Goriot. 
 
 " I must tell the father to save his son 1 " cried 
 Eugene. 
 
Pere Goriot. 219 
 
 His words were interrupted by tiie voice of Vautrin 
 standing on the threshold of his chamber, singing, — 
 
 " ' O Richard, o raon roi ! 
 L'univers t' abandonne -^ ' 
 
 " Broum ! broum ! broum ! broum ! broum ! 
 
 " ' Loiig have I wandered here and there, 
 And wherever by chance — 
 Tra, la, la, la, la — '" 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Ohristophe, " the soup is waiting ; 
 everybody is at table." 
 
 " Here, Ohristophe," said Vautrin. " Come in and 
 get a bottle of my claret." 
 
 "Is the watch pretty?" whispered Pfere Goriot. 
 "Is it in good taste, — heinf'' 
 
 Vautrin, Pere Goriot, and Rustignac went down to 
 dinner, and by reason of their being late were placed to- 
 gether at the table. Eugene showed marked coldness 
 to Vautrin, though the man had never displayed greater 
 gifts of intellect; he sparkled with wit, and even roused 
 something of it in the other guests. His sang froid 
 and assurance struck Eugine with consternation. 
 
 "What herb have you trodden on to-day?" said Ma- 
 dame Vauquer to Vautrin ; " you are as gay as a lark." 
 
 "I am always gay when I have done a good stroke 
 of business." 
 
 " Business ! " said Eugene. 
 
 " Well, yes. I have delivered over some goods to- 
 day which will bring me in a handsome commission. 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau," he continued, perceiving 
 that the old maid was looking at him attentively, " is 
 there anything in my face which is not agreeable to 
 
220 Pere Groriot. 
 
 you, that you stai'e at me like an American? If so, 
 pvay mention it, and it shall be changed to please you. 
 Ha! Poiret, we won't quavrel about that, will we?" 
 he added, winking at the employ^. 
 
 " Sac-a-papier ! You ought to sit for the Joking 
 Hercules," said the young painter to Vautrin. 
 
 " Faith ! I 'm willing, if Mile. Minhonneau will pose 
 as the Venus of Pere-la-Chaise," replied Vautrin. 
 
 "And Poivet?" said Bianchon. 
 
 "Oh, Poiret shall sit — as Poiret, god of gardens ! " 
 cried Vautrin. " He derives from poire [pear]." 
 
 " All that is nonsense," said Madame Vauquer. 
 '• You had better give us some of your clai'et. Monsieur 
 Vautrin ; I see the neck of a bottle. It will keep up 
 our spirits, and it is good for the stomach." 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Vautrin, "Madame la pr^sidente 
 calls us to order. Madame Cputure and Mademoiselle 
 Victorine have not yet declared themselves shocked 
 by your jocular discourse, but please respect the inno- 
 cence of Pere Goriot. I propose to offer you a little 
 hottleorama of claret, which the name of Lafitte ren- 
 ders doubly illustrious : this remark, you will under- 
 stand, bears no allusion to politics. Come on, China- 
 man ! " he added, looking at Christophe, who did not 
 stir. "Here, Christofihe! don't you know your name? 
 Chinese ! bring forth the liquid ! " 
 
 " Here it is. Monsieur," said Christophe, giving him 
 the bottle. 
 
 After filling Eugene's glass and that of P^re Goriot, 
 he poured out a few drops for himself and tasted them 
 slowly, while the other two drank theirs off. Suddenly 
 he made a grimace. 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 221 
 
 " The devil ! " he cried ; ■■ this wine is corked. 
 
 Here, Christophe, you may have the rest of it; and 
 
 go and get some more. You know where it is, — i-ight 
 
 • hand side. Stay ! we are sixteen ; bring down eight 
 
 bottles." 
 
 " Regardless of cost," said the painter. " I '11 pay 
 for a hundred chestnuts." 
 
 "Ah! ah!" 
 
 "Bra-vo! Oh!" 
 
 " Hur-rah ! — rah ! " 
 
 Every one uttered an- exclamation, popping, as usual, 
 liKt 'fireworks. 
 
 "Come, Madame Vauquer, give us two bottles of 
 champagne," cried Vautrin. 
 
 " Listen to that ! You might as well ask for the 
 house itself ! Two bottles of champagne ! Why, 
 they cost twelve francs ! I don't make that in a 
 week. But. if Monsieur Eugene will pay for the' cham- 
 pagne, I '11 give some currant wine." 
 
 " Pah ! That stuff of hers is as bad as a black dose," 
 said the medical student in a whisper. 
 
 " Will you hold your tongue, Bianchon ! " said Ras- 
 tignac'; " the very name of a black dose makes me sick 
 at — Yes, bring on your champagne ! I '11 pay for 
 it," he added. 
 
 " Sylvie," said Madame "V^auquer, " give us the bis- 
 cuits and some little cakes." 
 
 " Tour little cakes are too old," said Vautrin ; " they 
 have grown a beard. As for the biscuits, produce 
 them \ " 
 
 In a few moments the claret circulated, the compaily 
 grew lively, the gayety redoubled. Above the din^ of 
 
222 Pere Goriot. 
 
 laughter rose a variety of cat-calls and imitations of 
 the noises of animals. The employe of the museum 
 reproduced a street-cry popularly supposed at that 
 time to resemble the amorous miaulings of the roof- 
 cats ; whereupon eight voices joined chorus in well- 
 known Paris ci ies : — 
 
 " Knives to grind — grhid !" 
 
 " Chick — weed for your little birds ! " 
 
 " Plaidr! ladies — Plaislr! taste my sweet Pluisir ! " 
 
 " China ! China to mend ! " 
 
 « To the barge ! To the barge ! " 
 
 " Beat your wives — • your coats ! Beat ypur cpats ! " 
 
 " Old clo'es, gold lace, old hats to sell ! " 
 
 " Cherries ! cherries! ripe cherries ! " 
 
 But the palin fell to Bianchon, as he miauled through 
 his nose, "Umbrellas! — Umbrellas to mend ! " 
 
 The racket was ear-splitting, the talk sheer nonsense, 
 a veritable medley, which Vnutrin conducted like the 
 leader of an orchestra, keeping an eye meanwhile on 
 Eugene and Pere Goriot, who both had the appearance 
 of being drunk already. Leaning back in their chairs, 
 they gazed stolidly at the extraordinary scene around 
 them, and drank little. Both were thinking of what 
 they had to do that evening, but neither felt able to 
 rise from his chair. Vautrin, who watched every 
 change in their faces out of the corner of his eye, 
 seized the moment when their heads were beginning" 
 to droop, to lean over Rastignac, and whisper in his 
 ear, — 
 
 " My lad, we are not clever enough to get the better 
 of Papa Vautrin. He loves you a great deal too well 
 to let you commit a folly. When I have made up my 
 
PeVe Qoriot. 223 
 
 mind, nothing but the hand of Provideuoe can stop 
 me. Ha ! ha ! my little scbool-boy ; we thought we 
 would go and tell Father Taillefer, did we ? Bah ! the 
 oven is hot, the dough is light, the bread is in the pan, 
 ^-^ to-morrow we will eat it and brush off the crumbs. 
 So you thought you could keep it out of the oven ! 
 No ! no ! it is bound to bake. If any little bits of 
 remorse stick in our gullet, they will pass off with the 
 digestion. While we are sleeping our sound little 
 sleep, Colonel Count Franchessini will open us a way 
 to the money-bags of Michel Taillefer with the point 
 of his sWord. Victorine as her brother's heire.ss will 
 have fifteen thousand francs a year at once. I have 
 made the proper inquiries ; the mother left more than 
 three hundred thousand." 
 
 Eugene heard, but he had no power to answer. His 
 tongue clove to the roof of his mouth ; he was over- 
 come with an unconquerable drowsiness. He saw the 
 table and the faces of the people tlirough a luminous 
 haze. Presently the noise diminished, the guests were 
 leaving one by one. When Madame Vauquer, Madame 
 Couture, Victorine, Vnutrin, and Pere Goriot alone 
 were left, Rastignac saw, as in a dream, Mad^une Vau- 
 quer going round the table collecting the bottles and 
 emptying their contents together to make full bottles. 
 
 "Are they not foolish; are they not yoimg?" she 
 said. Tho.se were the last words Eugene understood. 
 
 " There is nobody like Monsieur Vautrin for playing 
 such tricks," said Sylvie. " Just listen to Christophe 
 snoring like a top ! " 
 
 " Good-by, Mamma," said Vautrin. " I am off to the 
 boulevard to admire Monsieur Marty in Le Mont Sau- 
 
224 Pere Goriot. 
 
 vage, a new play taken from ' Le Solitaire.' If you 
 like, I will take you and these two ladies." 
 
 " I thank you, no," said Madame Couture. 
 
 " Oh ! my dear lady ! " said Madame Vauquer, 
 "how can you refuse to see a play taken from 'Le 
 Solitaire,' — a work by Atala de Chateaubriand, that 
 we all read and wept over under the tieuilles last sum- 
 mer ; a perfectly moral tale, which might edify your 
 young lady ? " 
 
 "We are forbidden to go to theatres," said Victorine. 
 
 " There ! those two are off," said Vautrin, looking 
 at Rastignac and Pere Goriot in a comical way, and 
 placing the student's head back in liis chair so that he 
 might rest more comfortably ; singing as he did so — 
 
 " ' Sleep ! sleep I for thy sweet sake, 
 I watch, I wake.' " 
 
 " I am afraid he is ill," said Victorine. 
 
 "Then stay and nurse him," replied Vautrin. "It 
 is," he whispered in her ear, " a part of your submis- 
 sive duty as a woman. He adores you, that young 
 man ; and you will be his little wife. Remember, I 
 predict it. And then" he added aloud, " they were 
 much esteemed throughout the neighborhood, and had 
 a large family, and lived happily ever after. That 's 
 the ending of all love-stories. Come, Mamma," he 
 continued, turning to Madame Vauquer, and putting 
 his arm round her. " Put on your bonnet and the 
 beautiful' dreas with the flowers all over it, and the 
 countess's scarf, and let us be off. I '11 call a coach 
 nayself," and he departed, singing, — 
 
 " ' Sun, Sun ! divinest Sun ! 
 That ripenest the lemons thou shinest on.' " 
 
Pere Goriot. 225 
 
 " Mon Dieii ! Mndame Couture, I could live happy 
 in a garret with that man ! " said Madame Vauquer. 
 " Look at P^re Goriot ! that old miser never offered 
 to take me nowhere. He '11 be on the floor presently. 
 Heavens! it isn't decent for a man of his age to lose 
 his senses in that way. I suppose you '11 say he never 
 had any. Sylvie, get him upstairs." 
 
 Sylvia took the old man under the arms and made 
 him walk up to his room, where she threw him, dressed 
 as he was, across the bed. 
 
 " Poor young man !" said Madame Couture, putting 
 back Eugene's hair which had fallen over his forehead ; 
 " he is like a young girl ; he did not know the wine 
 would be too much for him." 
 
 "I can tell you," said Madame Vauquer, "that 
 though I have kept Va'i^ pension forty years, and many 
 youiig men have passed in that time tlirough my hands, 
 I never knew one as well behaved and gentlemanly as 
 Monsieur Eugene. Is n't he handsome as he lies asleep? 
 Let him rest his head upon your shoulder, Madame 
 Couture. Ah ! lie has turned it towards Mademoi- 
 selle Victorine. Well, there 's a Providence for chil 
 dren ; a little more, and he would have* cracked his 
 skull" against the back of the chair. Are not they a 
 pretty couple ? " 
 
 "Please be silent," cried Madame Couture, "you are 
 saying things whicli — " 
 
 " Bah ! " said Madame Vauquer, " he can't hear any- 
 thing. Come, Sylvie, and dress me. I am going to 
 put on my best corset." 
 
 " Madame ! your best corset after dinner ! " cried 
 Sylvie. " No, get somebody else to lace it. I won't 
 
 16 
 
226 Pere Goriot. 
 
 be the death of you. You risk your life, I tell you 
 that ! " 
 
 "I don't care ; I am going to do honor to Monsieur 
 Vautrin." 
 
 " You must be very fond of your heirs ! " 
 
 " Come, Sylvie, no talking," said the widow, leaving 
 the room. 
 
 " At her age ! " said Sylvie, pointing at her mistress 
 and looking at Victoriiie. 
 
 Madame Couture and her wai-d remained alone iu 
 the dining-room, the head of Eugene resting against 
 Victorine's shoulder. Christophe's loud snoring echoed 
 through the house and made a contrast to the peaceful 
 slumbers of the student, who was sleeping as quietly 
 as an infant. Happy in allowing herself one of those 
 tender acts of charity so dear to womanhood, and in 
 feeling, without reproach, the heart of the young man 
 beating against her own, Victorine's sweet fiice took 
 on a look of maternal pride and pi-otection. Across 
 the thousand thoughts that stirred her heart there 
 came a tumultuous sense of her new joy, filling her 
 young veins with pure and sacred warmth. 
 
 "Poor darling ! " said Madame Couture, pressing her 
 hand. 
 
 The old lady gazed into the fair sad face, round 
 which for the first time shone the halo of human happi- 
 ness. Victorine resembled one of those quaint pictures 
 of the Middle Ages, where the accessories are meagre 
 or left to the imagination, while the artist spends the 
 magic of his calm and noble art upon the face of his 
 Madonna, yellow perhaps in tone, but reflecting from 
 the heaven above its golden tints of glory. 
 
Pire G-oriot. 227 
 
 "lie only drank two glasses, Mamma," she said, 
 passing her fingers over liis hair. 
 
 " If he were a dissipated man, my dear, he could have 
 taken his wine like all the rest ; the fact that it over- 
 came hiin proves the contrary." 
 
 The sound of carriage wheels was heard. 
 
 "Mamma," said the young girl hastily, " here comes 
 Monsieur Vaut-rin ; take my place by Monsieur Eugene. 
 I would rather not be seen thus by that man. He says 
 things that sully the soul, and his look abases me." 
 
 " No, no,'' said Madame Couture, " you do him in- 
 justice. Monsieur Vautrin is a worthy man, — some- 
 what in the style of the late Monsieur Couture, brusque 
 but kindly; a benevolent bear." 
 
 At this moment Vautrin came softly in and looked 
 at the young couple, on whom the light of a lamp fell 
 caressingly. 
 
 " Well, well ! " he said, folding his arras, " there 's a 
 scene that might have inspired some of the finest pages 
 of that good Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, author of ' Paul 
 and Virginia.' Youth is very beautiful, Madame Cou- 
 ture. Sleep, my poor boy," he added, looking down 
 on Eugene ; " our blessings come to us sleeping. Ma- 
 dame," he said presently, " what attaches me to this 
 young man, and moves my heart as I gaze upon him, 
 is that I know the beauty of his soul to be in harmony 
 with the beauty of his face. See ! is it not the head of 
 a cherubim resting on the shoulder of an angel? Ho is 
 worthy of a woman's love. If I were a woman I would 
 be willing to die — no ! not such a fool — to live for 
 him; As I gaze upon those two, Madame," he whis- 
 pered, bending till he almost touched her ear, "X 
 
228 Fire Croriot. 
 
 cannot help thinking that God has created them for one 
 another. The ways of Providence are full of mystery.; 
 theji- try the reins and the heart. Seeing you together, 
 my children," he added ah.)ud, " united by an equal 
 purity, and by every emotion of the human heart, I feel 
 it is impossible that anything should part you in -the 
 future. God is just. But," he continued, addressing 
 the young girl, •'! think I have noticed on your hand 
 the lines of prosperity. I know something of palm- 
 istry. I often tell fortunes. Let me take your hand, 
 Mademoiselle Vietorine, — -don't be afi-aid. Oh ! what 
 do I see ? On the word of an honest man, it will not 
 be long befoi-e you are one of the richest heiresses 
 in Paris ! Tou will make the man who loves you 
 supremely happy. Your father will call you to him. 
 You will marry a man of title, young, handsome, and 
 who adores you." 
 
 At this moment the heavy steps of the coquettish 
 widow interrupted Vautrin's prophecies. 
 
 " Here is Mamma Vauquer-r-re, as fair as a star-r-r, 
 and decked out like a carrot. Are wo not just a little 
 bit uncomfortable," he added, putting his hand on the 
 top of her busk. " It strikes me we are squeezed a 
 shade too tight, Mamma. If the play should make us 
 cry, there would be an explosion : but I will pick up 
 the pieces with the care of an antiquary." 
 
 " He knows the language of French gallantry, 
 does n't he ? " whispered the widow in the ear of Ma- 
 dame Couture. 
 
 " Farewell, my children ! " said Vautrin, turning 
 towards Victorine and Eugene. "I bless you," he 
 added, laying his hands upon their heads. " Believe 
 
Pire Croriot. 229 
 
 me, Mademoiselle, there is value in the blessing of an 
 honest man ; it will bring you joy, for God hears it." 
 
 "Good-by, my dear friend," s:iiil Madame Vauquer 
 to Madame Couture, "Do you think," she added in 
 a whisper, " that Monsieur Vautrin has intentions 
 towards me ? " 
 
 " Ah ! my dear mother," said Victorine, looking at her 
 hands with a sigh after the others had departed, "sup- 
 pose that good Monsieur Vautrin spoke the truth ? " 
 
 " One thing could make it true," replied the old 
 lady ; " your monster of a brother need only be thrown 
 from his horse — " 
 
 " Oh, Mamma ! " 
 
 " Mbn Dieu, perhaps it is a sin to wish harm to one's 
 enemy. Well, I will do penance for it. But, truly, I 
 should not be sorry to lay flowers on his grave. He 
 has a hard heart. He never defended his mother ; he 
 took all her fortune, and cheated you out of your share 
 of it. My cousin had a great dej\l of money. Unfor- 
 tunately for you there was no mention of her dot in 
 her marriage contract." 
 
 " My prospei-ity would be hard to bear if it cost 
 any one his life,'' said Victorine ; " and if to make me 
 happy my brother had to die, I would rather be as I 
 am now." 
 
 " Well, well ! As that good Monsieur Vautrin -says, 
 who, you see, is full of i-eligious ieeling," said Madame 
 Couture, — "I am glad to think he is not an unbe- 
 liever, like so many others, who talk of God with less 
 respect than they do of the Devil, — well, as he says, 
 who knows by wh;it ways it will please Providence to 
 guide us ? " 
 
230 Fire Goriot. 
 
 Aided by Sylvie, the two women took Eugene to 
 his chambei- and placed him on his bed, Sylvie un- 
 fastening his clothes to make him more comfortable. 
 Before leaving him, and when Madame Couture had 
 turned to go, Victorine laid a little kiss upon his fore- 
 head, with a rapture of happiness naturally to be ex- 
 pected from so oiiminal an act ! She looked round 
 the chamber, gathered up, as it were, in one thought 
 all the joys of this happy day, made a picture in her 
 memory that she treasured long, and fell asleep the 
 happiest creature in all Paris. 
 
 The gay frolic under cover of which Vautrin had 
 drugged the wine of Eugene and Pere Goriot decided 
 bis own fate. Bianchon, half tipsy, forgot to question 
 Mademoiselle IMiohonneau concerning Trompc-la-Mort. 
 If he had uttered that name he would have put Vau- 
 trin on hia guard, — or rather, to give him his true 
 name, Jacques Collin, one of the celebrities of the 
 galleys. Moreover, the nickname of Venus of Pere- 
 la-Chaise decided Mademoiselle Miohonneati to give 
 him up at the very moment when, confident of his lib- 
 erality, she had calculated that it was better policy 
 to warn him and let him escape during the night. 
 Accompanied by Poiret, she went in search of the 
 famous chief of detectives in the Petite Rue oainte- 
 Anne, under the impression that she was dealing with 
 an upper-class employe named Gondureau. The direc- 
 tor of the secret police received her graciously. Then, 
 after a conversation in which the preliminaries were 
 settled, Mademoiselle Michonneau asked for the dose 
 by the help of which she was to do her work. The 
 
Pire Goriot. 231 
 
 gesture of satisfaction made by the great man as he 
 searched for the phial in the drawer of his writing- 
 table, gave her a sudden conviction tha,t there was 
 more in this capt\n-e than the mere arrest of an escaped 
 convict. By dint of beating lier brains and putting 
 two and two together, she came to the conclusion that 
 the police lioped, through revelations made by con- 
 victs won over at the galleys, to lay their hands upon 
 a large amount of money. "When she expressed this 
 conjectui-e to the fox with whom she was dealing, he 
 smiled and tried to turn aside her suspicions. 
 
 "You are mistaken," he said. "Collin is the most 
 dangerous sorbonne ever known among our robbers. 
 That 's the whole of it. The rascals know this. He 
 is their shield, their banner, — their Bonaparte, in 
 short. They all love him. That scoundral will never 
 leave his tranche on the Place do Grfeve." 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonnean did not understand him ; 
 but Gondurean explaine 1 to her tlie slang expressions 
 he had made use of. Sorbonne and tranche ai-e two 
 energetic words of the thieves' vocabulary, inventad 
 because these gentry were the first to feel the need of 
 considering the human head from two standpoints. 
 Sorbonne is the head of the living man, — his intellect 
 and wisdom. Tranche is a word of contempt, express- 
 ing the worthlessness of the head after it is cut off. 
 
 " Collin baffles us," resumed the chief " When we 
 have to do with men- of liis stamp, of steel and iron, 
 the law allows us to kill them on the spot if, when ar- 
 rested, they m!ike the slightest resistance._ We expect 
 a struggle which will authorize us to shoot Collin to- 
 morrow morning. We thus avoid a trial and the coats 
 
232 Pere Goriot. 
 
 of imprisonment and subsistence, and society is quit 
 6f him. The lawyers and the witnesses, their pay and 
 exjienses, the execution, and all the rest that is re- 
 quired to rid us leg^illy of such villains cost more 
 than the three thousand francs we are to pay you. 
 Besides, it saves time. The thrust of a bayonet into 
 Trompe-la-Mdrt's paunch will prevent a hutidfed 
 crimes, and spare us the consequences of the corrup- 
 tion of fifty -ill-disposed scoundrels, who are always 
 hovering on- the verge of mischief. That 's the true 
 function of the policej — prevention of crime. Philan- 
 thropists will tell you so." 
 
 "It is serving one's country," cried Poiret. 
 
 " Yes," replied the chief ; " certainly we are serving 
 our country : you ai-e talking some sense this morning. 
 People are very unjust to us in this respect. We ren- 
 der society gi-eat services, and society overlooks them. 
 It takes superior men to endure prejudice; only a 
 ■Christian can accept the reproach that doing good in- 
 'cnrs when it is not done exactly in the line of received 
 traditions, Paris is Paris, you know. That saying 
 explains my life. — I have the honor to salute you, 
 Rlarleinoiselle. I shall be with my men in the Jardin 
 du Eoi to-morrow morning. Send Christophe to the 
 Rue de Buffon aud ask for Monsieur Gondureau at the 
 house where I was staying. Monsieur, your servant. 
 If anybody ever robs you, let me know, and I will re- 
 cover what is lost for you. I am at your service." 
 
 "Well," said Poiret to Mile. Michonneau, "there are 
 fools in the world who are all upset by the word ' detec- 
 tive.' That gentleman is very amiable; and what he 
 asks of you is as easy as saying ' How do you do ? ' " 
 
Pire G-oriot. 233 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The next day was one long remembered in the an- 
 nals of the Maison Vauquer. Hitherto the most re- 
 markable event in its history had been the meteoric 
 apparition of the fraudulent countess. But all was to 
 pale before the catastrophes of this great day, which 
 for the rest of her life supplied Madame Vauquer with 
 topics of conversation. In the first place, Pere Goridt 
 and Eugene slept till eleven o'clock. Madame Vaii- 
 quer, who did not get home from the theatre till very 
 late, stayed in bed till half-past ten. Christophe, who 
 had finished the bottle of wine made over to him; hy 
 Vautrin, slept so late that everything was behindhand 
 in the household. Poiret and Mademoiselle" Michon- 
 neau made no complaint about breakfast being late. 
 As for Victorine and Madame Couture, they al-so slept 
 far into the morning. Vautrin went out before "eight 
 o'clock, and got home just as breakfast was on the 
 t.able. No one, therefore, offered any remonstrance 
 when, at a quarter past eleven, Sylvie and Christophe 
 knocked at all the doors and said that breakfast was 
 served. While they were out of the dining-room. 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau, who was the first person 
 down that morning, poured her liquid into the silver 
 goblet belonging to Vautrin, in which the cream, for 
 his coffee was heating in the bain-marie, together 
 
234 Pere <3-oriot. 
 
 with the portions of the other guests. The old maid 
 had counted on this custom of the house to accom- 
 plish her purpose. 
 
 It was not without difficulty that the family were 
 finally got together. At the moment when Rastignac, 
 still stretching liimself, came last of all into the dining- 
 room, a messenger gave him a note from Madame de 
 Nuciiigen, which ran as follows : — 
 
 "I will not show false pride, nor will I be angry with you, 
 my friend. I waited, expecting you, till two in the morning. 
 To wait for one we love ! ■ — He who has known such pain 
 would not impose it on another. It proves to me that you 
 have never loved till now. What has happened ? I am very 
 anxious. If I did not fear to betray the secrets of my heart 1 
 should have gone to find out whether joy or sorrow had befallen 
 yoti. I feel the disadvantage of being only a wotnau. Re- 
 assure lije ; explain to me why you did not come after what 
 my father told you, I may be angry, but I shall forgive you. 
 A^TX you ill? Why do you live so far away from me ? One 
 Word for pity's sake ! You will be here soou, will you not ? 
 Say merely, ' I am coming,' or 'I am ill.' But if you were 
 ill, my father would have been, here to tell me. What has 
 happened ? — " 
 
 " Yes, what has happened ?" cried Eugene, hurriedly 
 entering the dining-room, and crumpling up his note 
 without reading the rest of it. " What o'clock is it ? " 
 
 "Half-past eleven," said Vautrin, putting sugar in 
 his coffee. 
 
 The escaped convict gave Eugene that glance of 
 cold compelling fascination which very magnetic people 
 have the power of giving, — a glance which is said to 
 subdue the maniacs in a mad-house. Eugene trembled 
 
P^re Goriot. 235 
 
 in evei-y limb. The roll of a carriage was heard in the 
 still street, and'a servant in the Taillefer livery, which 
 Madame Couture recognized at once, came hurriedly 
 into the dining-room, with an excited air. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he cried, " Monsieur your father 
 has sent for you. A great misfortune has befallen him. 
 Monsieur Frdderic has fonght a duel. He received a 
 sword-thrust in the forehead. The doctors have no 
 hope of saving him. You will hardly be in time to see 
 him breathe his last. He is unconscious already." 
 
 "Poor young man!" exclaim.ed Vautrin, "how can 
 people quarrel when they have thirty thousand francs 
 a year ! Most assuredly young men do not tread the 
 paths of wisdom — " 
 
 " Monsieur! " interrupted Eugene. 
 
 "Well! — and what of it, you big baby?" said 
 Vautrin, quietly finishing bis cup of coffee, an opera- 
 tion which Mademoiselle Michonn'eau watclied so in- 
 tently that she paid no heed to the extraordinary event 
 that stupefied the people around her. "Are there not 
 duels every day in Paris ? " 
 
 " I shall go with you, Victorine," said Madame 
 Couture. 
 
 The two women flew off without hats or shawls. 
 Victorine, with tears in her eyes, gave Eugene a part- 
 ing glance, which said, " I did not think our happiness 
 would so soon have turned to grief ! " 
 
 " Why, you are quite a prophet, Monsieur Vautrin," 
 said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " I am all things," replied Jacques Collin. 
 
 " It is most singular," said Madame Vauquer, break- 
 ing forth into a string of commoni^laces. '■ Death takes 
 
236 PeVe Goriot 
 
 us without warning. Young people are often called 
 before the aged. It is lucky for us women that we are 
 not expected to fight duels. But we have maladies 
 of our own unknown to men, — • child-bed especinlly. 
 What unexpected luck for Victorine ! Her father will 
 be forced to acknowledge her." 
 
 " Just think," said Vautrin, looking at Eugfene, 
 '" yesterday she had not a sou; this morning she has a 
 fortune of millions." 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieur Eugene," cried Madame Vauquer, 
 " you put your hand in the bng at the riglit moment." 
 
 As Madame Vauquer said this, Pere Goriot looker] at 
 "Eugene and saw the crumpled letter in his hand. 
 
 "You have not read it," he said. "Wliat does that 
 mean? Are you like all the rest?" 
 
 •• Madame, I shall never marry Mademoiselle Victo- 
 rine,'' said Eugene, addressing Madame Vauquer with 
 an expression of uiingled horror and disgust which 
 astonished the others at the table. 
 
 PM'e Goriot seized the student's hand and pressed 
 it ; he would fain have kissed it. 
 
 "Oh! oh!" said Vautrin, ''they have an excellent 
 saying in Italy, — col tempor 
 
 " I was to wait for an answer," said the messenger to 
 Kastignac. 
 '" " Say I am coming.'' 
 
 The man went away. Eugene's agitation was so 
 great that he could not be prudent. 
 
 " What can be done ? " he said aloud, though speak- 
 ing to himself, "I have no proofs." 
 
 Vautrin smiled. At this moment the potion ab- 
 sorlaed by the stomach began to take effect. Never- 
 
Pire Goriot. 237 
 
 theless the convict was so vigorous that he rose, lookcil 
 at Rastignac, and Said in a hollow voice, " Young man, 
 our blessings come to us while we sleep." 
 
 As he said the words he fell down, to all appearance 
 dead. 
 
 " The justice of God ! " cried Eugene. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter with hiii>, poor dear Mon- 
 sieur Vautrin," exclaimed Madame Vauquev. 
 
 " It is apoplexy," cried Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 "Sylvie! run, my girl, go for the doctor," said the 
 widow. " Ah, Monsieur Rastignac, go, please, and get 
 Monsieur Bianchon ; perhaps Sylvie will not find our 
 own doctor. Monsieur Griraprel." 
 
 Rastignac, glad of the excuse to escape from that 
 horrible den, rushed away at full speed. 
 
 " Christophe ! here, — go as fast as you can to the 
 apothecary's, and ask him to give you something for 
 apoplexy. Pere Goriol, help us to carry hitn up to his 
 own room." 
 
 Vautrin was seized ; dragged with difficulty up the 
 staircase, and laid upon his bed. 
 
 " I can be of no further use ; I am going to see my 
 daughter," said Monsieur Goriot. 
 
 " Selfish old thing ! " cried Madame Vauquer. " Go ! 
 I only wish you may die like a dog yourself." 
 
 " See if you have any ether, Madame Vauquer," said 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau, who with the aid of Poiret 
 had unfastened Vautrin's clothes. 
 
 Madame Vauquer went to her own room and left 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau mistress of the field. 
 
 "Come, quick!— take off his shirt and turn him 
 over. Be good for something — so far, at least, as to 
 
238 Pire aoriot. 
 
 save my modesty," she said to Poiiet ; " you stand 
 there like a fool." 
 
 Vautrin being turned over, Mademoiselle Miclion- 
 neau gave liini a smart tap on the shoulder, and the two 
 fatal letters appeared in the midst of the red circle. 
 
 " Well, j'ou have not had much trouble in earning 
 your three thousand francs," cried Poiret, holding 
 Vautrin up wliile Mademoiselle Michonneau was put- 
 ting on his shirt again, " Ouf ! but he is heavy," he 
 said, laying him down. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! I wonder if there is a strong- 
 box — or a safe ? " said the old maid with avidity, her 
 eyes almost looking through the walls as she glanced 
 eagerly at every bit of furniture in the room. "If one 
 could only open this writing-desk on some pretext," 
 she said. 
 
 ■'Perhaps that would n't be right," remarked Puii'et. 
 
 " Where 's the harm ? Stolen money belongs to no 
 one — it is anybody's. But we have not time, I hear 
 the Vauquer." 
 
 "Here is the ether,'' said the widow. "Well, I de- 
 clare, tliis is a day of adventures — but, look ! that man 
 cannot be so very ill; he is as white as a chicken." 
 
 " As a chicken," repeated Poiret. 
 
 " Ilis heart beats regularly," said Madame Vauquer, 
 placing her hand upon it. 
 
 "Regularly? — does it though?" said Poiret, sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " He is all right." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " asked Poiret. 
 
 " Why, yes ! he looks as if he were sleeping. Sylvie 
 has gone for the doctor. Look, Mademoiselle Michon- 
 
Pere Goriot. 239 
 
 neaii, he is sniflSng the ether. Bah ! it was only a 
 kind of spasm ; his pnise is good. He is as strong as 
 a Turk. Just see, Mademoiselle, what a fur tippet he 
 has got on his breast ! He will live to be a hundred, 
 he will ! Hie wig has n't tumbled off — goodness ! 
 why, it is glued on. He has got some hair of his own 
 — and it 's red ! They say men with red hair are 
 either very good or very bad : he is one of the good 
 ones." 
 
 " Good enough to hang," interrupted Poiret. 
 
 " Round a pretty woman's neck, you mean," cried 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau quickly. " Go downstairs, 
 Monsieur Poiret. It is our place to take care of you 
 men when you are ill. You had better go out and 
 take a walk, — for all the good you do," she added. 
 " Madame Vauquer and I will sit here and watch this 
 dear Monsieur Vautrin." 
 
 Thus admonished, Poiret slunk off without a mur- 
 mur, like a hound that has got a kick from its master. 
 
 Rastignac had gone to walk, to breathe fresh air, for 
 he was stifled. What had happened? The crime had 
 been committed at the hour fixed ; he had wanted to 
 put a stop to it the evening before — what had hin- 
 dered ? What must he do now ? He trembled lest iu 
 some way he was an accomplice. Vautrin's cool as- 
 surance horrified him still. 
 
 "Suppose he dies without speaking?" he asked 
 himself. 
 
 He was walking breathlessly along the alleys of the 
 Luxembourg, as if pursued by a pack of hounds : he 
 seemed to hear them yelping on his traces. 
 
240 P^re Goriot. 
 
 '• Here ! " cried the voice of Bianchon, ■' have you 
 seen the jPilote?" 
 
 The Pilote was a radical paper edited by Monsieur 
 Tissot, vs'hich made up a country edition a few hours 
 after the appearance of the morning papers, and often 
 contained items of bitei- news. 
 
 " There 's a great afilur in it," said Bianchon ; " young 
 Taillefer has fouglit a duel with Comte de Franchessini 
 of the Old Guard, who ran two inches of his sword 
 into his forehead. So now the little Victorine is one 
 of the best matches in Paris. Ilein ! if one had only 
 known it! What a game of chance life is — and 
 death, too. Is it true that Victorine looks upon you 
 with an eye of favor, my boy ? " 
 
 " Hush, Bianchon ! I will never marry her. I love 
 a charming woman, — a woman who loves me. I — " 
 
 " Well, you say it in a tone as if" you were goading 
 yourself not to give up your charming woman. . Show 
 me the lady worth the sacrifice of the wealth of the 
 house of Taillefer.'' 
 
 " Are all the devils on my track ? " cried Rastignac. 
 
 "Why, what are you about? Have you gone mad? 
 Give me your wrist," said Bianchon, " I want to feel 
 your pulse. You have got a fever." 
 
 " Go at once to Mother Vanquer's," said Eugene : 
 "that scoundrel Vautrin has just dropped dead." 
 
 " Ah-h ! " cried Bianchon, dropping Rastignac's 
 hand, ''that confirms my suspicions; I will make sure 
 about them." 
 
 During his long walk Eugdne passed through a 
 solemn crisis. He made, as it were, the circuit of his 
 conscience. If he struggled with his own soul, if 
 
PeV^ Q-oriot. 241 
 
 he hankered and hesitated, it must be owned that his 
 probity came out of that bitter and terrible discus- 
 sion like a bar of iron, proof against every test. He 
 remembered the secret P6re Goriot had let drop the 
 day -before. He thought of the appartement chosen 
 for him by Delphine in the Rue d'Artois. He took 
 out her letter, and re-read it, and kissed it. 
 
 "Her love is my sheet anchor," he said. " The poor 
 old man, too, — he has had much to suffer ! He says 
 nothing of his griefs, but who cannot guess what they 
 have been to him? Well, I will take care of him 
 as if he were my father ; I will give him the joys he 
 longs for. If she loves me she will sometimes come 
 and pass the day with him. — That grand Comtesse 
 de Restaud is a vile woman ; she shuts her doors 
 against her father. Dear Delphine ! she is kinder 
 to the poor old man — yes ! she is worth loving." 
 He drew out his watch and admired it. " Everything 
 will go well with me," he said. " When people love 
 each other, what harm is there in accepting mutual 
 gifts ? I may keep it. Besides, I shall succeed, 
 and "repay her a hundredfold. In this Ucdson there 
 is no crime, — notliing to make the strictest virtue 
 frown. We deceive no one : it is falsehood that makes 
 u-s vile. How many honorable people contract just 
 such unions! Her quarrel with her husband is irre- 
 mediable. — Suppose I were to ask him, tliat big 
 Alsatian, to give up to me a woman he can never 
 render happy ? " 
 
 The struggle of his mind lasted long. Though the 
 victory remained with the virtues of youth, and he 
 repulsed the temptation to make himself the accom- 
 
 IG 
 
242 Pere Goriot. 
 
 plice of a deed of blood, he was nevertheless drawn 
 back at dusk to the Maisoii Vauquer by an irresistible 
 impulse of curiosity. He swore to liimseH that he 
 would quit the place forever, but he must know if 
 Vautrin was dead. 
 
 Bianchon after administering an emetic had taken 
 the matters vomited by Vautrin to his hospital for 
 chemical analysis. When he saw Maderaoisalle Mich- 
 onneau's anxiety to have them thrown away his sus- 
 picions increased ; but Vautrin got over the attack so 
 quickly that he soon dropped the idea of a plot against 
 the life of that jovial meriy-maker. 
 
 When Eastignac came in, Vautrin was standing by- 
 the stove in the dining-room. The guests had come 
 together earlier than usual, anxious to learn the par- 
 ticulars of the duel and to know what influence it 
 would have on the future of Viotorine. As Eugene 
 entered, he caught the eye of the imperturbable sphinx. 
 The look the latter gave him pierced deep into his 
 heart, and touched some chords of evil with so pow- 
 erful a spell that he shivered. 
 
 "Well, m^ dear fellow," said'' the escaped convict, 
 " Death will have a fierce struggle to get hold of me. 
 These ladies tell me I have recovered from a rush of 
 blood to the head that would have killed an ox." 
 
 " Indeed, you might say a bull," said Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " Are you sorry to see me alive ? " said Vautrin to 
 Eugene in a whisper, divining his thought. " You 
 will find, on the contrary, that I am devilishly strong." 
 
 " Ah, by the by ! " exclaimed Bianchon, " the day 
 before yesterday Mademoiselle Michonneau was speak- 
 
Pire Croriot. 243 
 
 ing of a man named Trompe-la-Mort. That name 
 would suit you, Monsieur Vantrin." 
 
 The words were a thunderbolt to Vautrin. He 
 turned pale and staggered. His magnetic glance fell 
 on Mademoiselle Michonneau, who sank beneath the 
 power of his eye. She fell back on a chair, her knees 
 giving way under her. Poiret stepped nimbly between 
 the two, understanding instinctively that she was in 
 danger, so ferocious was the expression of the convict 
 as he threw off the mask of good humor under which 
 he had so long concealed his real nature. Without 
 the least comprehending what was taking place before 
 their eyes, the others saw that something was wrong, 
 and stood by bewildered. At that moment footsteps 
 were heard and the rattle of muskets in the street, as 
 a squad of soldiers brought their pieces to the pave- 
 ment. While Collin cast a quick glance at the win- 
 dows and the walls, instinctively looking for the means 
 of escape, four men showed themselves at the door of 
 the dining-room. The foremost was the chief of the 
 detective police, and the three others were members 
 of his force. 
 
 " In the name of the law and the King ! " said one of 
 the latter, his words being drowned by a murmur of 
 amazement ; but in a moment silence reigned in the 
 room as the guests stood aside to give passage to these 
 men, each of whom had his right hand in a side-pocket 
 where he held a loaded pistol. Two gendarmes, who 
 stepped in after the detectives, stood by the doorway 
 leading to the salon, while two more appeared at that 
 which opened towards the staircase. The tread and 
 the guns of a squad of soldiers outside sounded on 
 
244 Pire Goriot. 
 
 the pebble-paved space along the side of the building. 
 Every chance of flight was thus cut off from Trompe- 
 la-Mort, on whom all eyes now turned in his extremity. 
 The chief went straight to him, and gave him a blow 
 so vigorously applied that it tore the wig from its 
 place, and showed the head of Collin in all its horrible 
 integrity. The hair, red and close-cropjjed, gave to his 
 face a look of mingled strength and cunning ; and the 
 harmony of the face and head with the stalwart chest 
 revealed the whole being of the man as by a flash 
 from the fires of hell. All present comprehended 
 Vautrin, — his past, liis present, the future before him^ 
 his. implacable dogmas, the religion of his own good 
 pleasure, the .dominion he had exercised by the cyni- 
 cism of his ideas and his acts, and by the force of his 
 extraordinary organism. The blood rushed to his 
 face, and his eyes glittered like those of a wildcat. 
 He made one bound of savage energy ; he uttered one 
 roar, so ferocious that the people near him shrank back 
 in fear. At this movement, like that of a lion at bay, 
 and assuming to be justified by the terror of the by- 
 standers, the detectives drew their pistols. Collin no 
 sooner heard the cocking of the triggers than he un- 
 derstood his danger, aud gave instant proof of the 
 highest of human powers, — horrible, yet majestic 
 spectacle ! His whole being passed through a pheno- 
 menal change which can only be compared to that 
 which takes place in a boiler full of the steam that can 
 blast mountains in its might, and yet at the touch of 
 a drop of cold water sinks into instant dissolution. 
 The drop of water which in a moment calmed his 
 rage was a reflection that flashed, quick as lightning. 
 
PeVe Qoriot. 245 
 
 through his brain. He smiled quietly, and glanced at 
 his wig. 
 
 "This is not one of your polite days,'' he said to the 
 chief of police, stretching out his hands to the gen- 
 darmes with a motion of his head. " Messieurs, put 
 on the handcuffs. I take all present to witness that I 
 make no resistance." 
 
 A murmur of admiration, called forth by the promp- 
 titude with which this wondrous man mastered the 
 fire and molten lava of the volcano in his breast,ran 
 through the room. 
 
 " That puts an end to your kind intentions," he said, 
 looking full at the celebrated director of the detective 
 police. 
 
 " Come, undress ! " said the chief, in a tone of 
 contempt. 
 
 " What for ? " asked Collin. " There are ladies 
 present. I deny nothing, and I surrender.'' 
 
 He paused, and looked on all around him with th6 
 air of an orator about to hold the attention of his 
 audience. 
 
 " Write down, Papa Lachapelle," he said, address- 
 ing a little old man with white hair, who placed him- 
 self at the end of the table, taking from a portfolio a 
 form for the official report of the arrest, " that I ac- 
 knowledge myself to be Jacques Collin, condemned to 
 twenty years' imprisonment; and I have just given 
 proof that I did not steal my nickname. If I had So 
 much as lifted a hand," he said, tui'ning to his late com- 
 panions, " those fellows would have spilled my claret on 
 the domestic hearthstone of Mamma Vauquer. These 
 rogues delight in setting snares for their victims." 
 
246 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Madame Vauquer turned pale on hearing these 
 words. " Mon Dieu ! " she cried, " it is enough to 
 bring on an illness ! To think of my having been at 
 the theatre with him only last evening ! " she said 
 to Sylvie. 
 
 "Show more philosophy, Mamma," said Collin. 
 " Was it really a misfortune to amuse yourself in my 
 box at the Gaite last night? Are you better than we? 
 We have less infamy branded on our shoulders than 
 you have in your hearts, — you flabby members of a 
 gangrened society ! Even the best among you could 
 not hold out against me." His eyes turned to Rastig- 
 nac, to whom he gave a kindly smile in slrange con- 
 trast to the harsh expression of his features. " Our 
 little bargain holds good, my lad," he said ; " that is, 
 in case of acceptance. You know — " and he sang ; 
 
 " ' My Fanny is charming 
 In lier simplicity.' 
 
 Don't be uneasy," he resumed. " I shall be all right 
 again before long. They fear me too much to play 
 me false." 
 
 The bagne, with its manners and vocabulary, its 
 abrupt transitions from the jocose to the horrible, its 
 ilendish grandeur, its familiarity, its degradation, were 
 all exhibited to the eye in the pei'soa of this man, — 
 no longer a man, but the type of a degenerate race ; of 
 a savage people, lawless yet logical, brutal but pliant. 
 On a sudden Collin had become an infernal poem, an 
 exposition of all human emotions save one, — repent- 
 ance. His glance was that of the fallen angel, prepared 
 to carry on a losing war. Rastignac bent his head, 
 accepting the comradeship thus forced upon him, in 
 
PeVe aoriot. 247 
 
 expiation of the evil thoughts which had brought him 
 near to crime. 
 
 "Who betrayed me?" said Collin, casting his 
 glance around the circle. It stopped at Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau. " Ah ! it was you, sleuth-hound ! — you 
 gave me a sham apoplexy, you prying devil ! If I said 
 two words, your head would be mown off in a week. 
 But I forgive you. I 'm a Christian. Besides, it was 
 not you who sold me. But who, then? — Ha, ha! 
 you are rummaging up there," ho cried, hearing the 
 detectives overhead, who were opening his closets 
 and taking possession of his effects. " The birds are 
 flown, the nest is empty. You can find nothing there. 
 My ledgers are here," he added, tapping his forehead. 
 " Now I know who sold me. It can be no other tlian 
 that diity blackguard, Fil de Sole. Isn't it so, Father 
 Catch'em ? " he said to the chief of police. " I guess it 
 from the way you are looking for the bank-notes up- 
 stairs. None there, my little spies ! As for Fil de 
 Sole, — he '11 be under the sod in a fortnight, even if 
 you try to guard him with the whole force of your 
 .gendarmerie. How much did you pay that old 
 ■Michonnette ?" he asked, turning to the police agents. 
 "Only a thousand crowns? Why, I was woi'th more 
 than that, you decayed Ninon — Pompadour in tatters 
 — Ven\is of the cemetery ! If you had given me 
 warning, I 'd have paid you double. Ha ! you did 
 think of it? — Haggler in human flesh! Yes, I 
 would have given you six thousand francs to spare 
 myself a journey which I don't like, — and which puts 
 me out of pocket," he added, as they were screwing on 
 the handcuff's. " These people will take pleasure in 
 
248 Pere G-ariot. 
 
 letting things drag along, just to keep me idle. If they 
 would only send me off to the galleys at once, I should 
 soon get back to my work, in spite of those simpletons 
 at the prefecture of police. Down there in Toulon 
 they would turn tlieir souls inside out to SL't their gen- 
 eral at liberty, — their trusty Trompe-la-Mort. Is 
 there any one of you who can boast of having, as I 
 have, ten thousand brothers ready, to do everything 
 for you ? " he asked proudly. " There is virtue here," 
 striking his breast. " I have never betrayed any one. 
 Ha ! old adder ! " he continued, addressing the old 
 maid. " Look at these people. They fear me, but 
 they loathe you. Pick up your gains and begone ! " 
 
 He made a pause, and looked round upon the other 
 guests. 
 
 "What fools you are!" he said. "Did you never 
 see a convict ? ■ A convict of the stamp cf Collin, here 
 present, is a man who is less base than other men, and 
 who protests against the glaring deceptions of the so- 
 cial, contract, as .lean .Jacques called it, — whose pupil 
 I am proud to be. For myself, I stand alone against 
 the Government, with all its courts of law, its budgets 
 and gendarmes, — and I get the better of it." 
 
 " The devil ! " exclaimed the painter. " I should 
 like to sketch him now." 
 
 "Tell me," he continued, turning to the chief of 
 police, — " tell me, equeiTy to Monseigneur the execu- 
 tioner, governor of the Widow [Xa Veuve, — apjDalling 
 name, full of terrible poesy, given by the convicts to 
 the guillotine] ; come, be a good fellow and say, was 
 it Fil de Sole who sold me? I should be sorry if he 
 died for another ; it would not be just." 
 
Pere G-oriot. 249 
 
 At this moment the detectives, wlio had opened 
 everything and taken an inventory of all that was in 
 his apartment, came down and said something in a low 
 voice to the chief of police. The ^^'roces-verbal (written 
 official report of all the circumstances of the arrest) 
 was now completed. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Collin, turning to his late com- 
 panions, " they are about to take me from you. You 
 have all been very amiable to me during my residence 
 among you, and I shall think of you with gratitude. 
 Receive my adieux. You will permit me to send you 
 figs from Provence.'' 
 
 He went a few steps, and then turned and looked at 
 Rastignac'.' 
 
 "Adieu, Eugene," he said, in a gentle, sad voice, 
 strangely in contrast with the rough tone he had used 
 hitherto " If you are ever in trouble, remember, — I 
 leave you a devoted friend" Notwithstanding his 
 handcuffs, he put himself on guard, gave the word like 
 a fencing-master, — one, two, — and made a pass as if 
 with the sword. " In case of misfortune, go there. 
 Man or money, — all are at your disposal." 
 
 This strange being put so much buffoonery into 
 these last words that no one present understood their 
 meaning except Rastignac. 
 
 When the house was vacated by the gendarmes, the 
 soldiers, and the agents of the police, Sylvie, who was 
 bathing her mistress's forehead with vinegar, looked 
 round upon the assembled household and said, — 
 
 " Well — all the same, he was a good man." 
 
 These words broke the spell which the rush ot 
 events and the diversity of emotions had exercised 
 
250 PeVe G-oriot. 
 
 over the spectators of this sti'ange scene. They 
 glanced at each other, and then by a common im- 
 pulse all turned to Mademoiselle Michonneau, who 
 crouched near the stove, cold, bloodless, withered as a 
 mummy, — her eyes cast down as though she felt the 
 protection of the green shade insufficient to conceal 
 their expression. The cause of the aversion they had 
 long felt for her was suddenly made clear to their 
 minds. A murmur of disgust, which by its unanimity 
 expressed the common feeling of all present, sounded 
 through the room. Mademoiselle Michonneau heard 
 it, but she did not change her attitude. Bianchon 
 was the iirst to speak. He turned to the man next 
 him and said, in a low voice, — 
 
 " I shall decamp if she is to eat her dinner here." 
 
 Instantly every one, except Poiret, accepted the- 
 suggestion ; and the medical student, sustained by pub- 
 lic opinion, walked up to the old man. 
 
 " You who enjoy a special intimacy with Mademoi- 
 selle Michonneau," he said, " had better speak to her. 
 Make h«r understand that she must leave this house 
 without delay." 
 
 "Without delay?" repeated Poiret, astonished. 
 
 Then he went up to the old maid and said something- 
 in a whisper. 
 
 " But I have paid a month in advance ; I have a 
 right to stay here while I pay my money like every- 
 body else," she said, darting a viperous glance at the 
 company. 
 
 " That need not hinder," said Rastignac, " we will 
 all subscribe and return you the money." 
 
 " Monsieur stands up for Collin ? " she replied, casting 
 
Pere Goriot. 261 
 
 a venomous and searching look at Rastignac. " It is 
 easy to guess why. We all heard his last words." 
 
 Eugene sprang forward asi though he would have 
 seized and strangled her. 
 
 " Let her alone ! " cried the otliers. 
 
 Rastignac folded his arms and stood mute. 
 
 "We must get rid of Mademoiselle Judas," said the 
 painter, turning to Madame Vauquer. " Madame, if 
 you do not turn out la Miohonneau we shall all leave 
 you ; and we shall report everywhere that your pension 
 is frequented by spies and convicts. If you do as we 
 demand, we will be silent about what has happened, — ■ 
 which, indeed, is liable to take place in the best estab- 
 lishments, until galley-slaves are branded on the fore- 
 head and prevented from disguising themselves as 
 honest citizens and playing the buffoon as they please." 
 
 Hearing this, Madame Vauquer miraculously recov- 
 ered her senses, sat upright, folded her arms, and opened 
 her cold light eyes, which showed no trace of tears. 
 
 " But, my dear Monsieur," she said, " do you mean 
 to ruin my house ? There is Monsieur Vautrin — oh ! 
 Man Die^c," she cried, interrupting herself, "I cannot 
 help giving him his honest name ! — he leaves me a 
 whole suite of rooms vacant; and now you ask me to 
 consent to have two more rooms unoccupied at a season 
 when everybody is settled ! " 
 
 " Come, gentlemen, get your hats. We will go and 
 dine in the Place Sorbonne at Flicoteaux's," said 
 Bianchon. 
 
 Madame Vauquer made a rapid mental calculation as • 
 to which side her interest lay, and then waddled up to 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
252 Pere Groriot. 
 
 "Come, my dear good lady," she said, "you don't 
 want to be the death of my establishmeut, I am sm-e. 
 You see to what an extremity I am reduced by the be- 
 havior of these gentlemen. Go up to your room for 
 this evening." 
 
 " That won't do ! That will not do at all ! " cried all 
 the others. " We insist upon her leaving the house at 
 once." 
 
 " But she has not dined," said Poiret piteously. 
 
 " She can get her dinner somewhere else," cried 
 several voices. 
 
 " Begone, spy ! " 
 
 " Down with the spies — with both of them ! " 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Poiret, suddenly exhibiting the 
 courage of an old ram defending his favorite ewe, " re- 
 spect her sex." 
 
 " Spies are not of any sex." 
 
 " Famous sex-orama ! " 
 
 "A la porte-orama .' " 
 
 "Gentlemen, this is indecent. When people are 
 dismissed from a house there are certain formalities to 
 be observed. We have paid our board in advance, 
 and we shall stay," said Poiret, putting on his amor- 
 phous old hat, and taking a chair beside Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau, to whom Madame Vauquer was appealing 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " Ah ! you bad boy ! " cried the painter ; ^^ petit me- 
 (fhant, va!" ■ 
 
 "Come on, then," said Bianchon, "if they are not 
 going, we are." 
 
 At this summons all the guests moved in a body to 
 the door of the salon. 
 
-PeVe Qoriot. 253 
 
 " Mademoiselle ! what shall I do ? I shall be ruined ! " 
 cried Madame Vauqiier. "You cannot stay — they 
 will proceed to violence." 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau rose. 
 
 " She is going! " 
 
 " She won't go I " 
 
 « Yes, she will 1 " 
 ■"No, she won't!" 
 
 These alternating exclamations and the increasing 
 hostility of all around her decided the old maid, and 
 she prepared to leave, after a few whispered stipulations 
 with her landlady. 
 
 " I am going to Madame Buneaud's," she said with 
 a menacing air. 
 
 " Go where you choose, Mademoiselle," cried Madame 
 Vauquer, to whom this choice of the rival establish- 
 ment added insult to injury. "Go, if you like, to the 
 Buneaud's. She will give you wine fit to make the 
 goats caper with stomach-ache, and stews made of cold 
 pieces from the eating-houses." 
 
 The guests stood in a double row in profound silence. 
 Poiret looked so tenderly at Mademoiselle Michonneau, 
 and yet was so naively undecided whether he ought to 
 go or stay, that the victorious party, put in good hu-. 
 mor by the departure of the old maid, began to laugh 
 at him. 
 
 " Xi, xi, xi, Poiret ! " cried the painter, as if setting 
 on a dog ; " hi, old fellow ! " 
 
 The Museum employ^ began to sing, with comic 
 gestures, a well-known ballad : — 
 
 " Partant pour la Syrie 
 Le jeune et beau Dunois." 
 
254 Pire Qoriot. 
 
 " You had better go, Poiret ; you are dying to follow 
 her," cried Bianchon, — " trahit sua quemque voluptas." 
 
 "Like follows like — translation move liberal than 
 literal from Virgil," said a tutor who was one of the 
 guests. 
 
 Mademoiselle- Miohonneau looked hard at Poiret, 
 and made a movement as if to take his arm. He was 
 unable to resist the appeal, and came forward to sup- 
 port her. There was a burst of applause and peals of 
 laughter. 
 
 " Bravo, Poiret ! " 
 
 " Good for old Poiret 1 " 
 
 " Poiret-Apollo ! " 
 
 " Poiret-Mars ! " 
 
 " Plucky Poiret ! " 
 
 At this moment a messenger came in with a note 
 for Madame Vauquer. She read it, and sank down 
 upon a chair. 
 
 " Now there is nothing left but to be struck by light- 
 ning," she said, " and bum the house down ! Young 
 Taillefer died at three o'clock. I am rightly punished 
 for having wished those ladies good-luck at the expense 
 of that poor young man. Madame Couture and Vic- 
 torine have sent for their things, and are going to 
 live with the father. Monsieur Taillefer allows his 
 daughter to keep the widow Couture as her companion. 
 Four appartements vacant! Five lodgers gone ! " she 
 said, with tears in her voice. " Misfortune has visited 
 my house ! " 
 
 The roll of a carriage echoed up the quiet street and 
 stopped before the door. 
 
 " Here 's some lucky windfall," cried Sylvie. 
 
Pere Goriot. 255 
 
 Goriot came in, radiant with happiness ; his face 
 shone ; he seemed transfigured. 
 
 " Goriot in a hackney-coach ! " cried the others ; 
 " the end of the world has come ! " 
 
 The old fellow went straight to Rastignac, who was 
 standing apart dumb-founded, and took him by the 
 arm. " Come ! " he cried eagerly. 
 
 "Do you know what has happened ?" said Eugene; 
 " Vautrin was a convict escaped from the galleys^; they 
 have just arrested him. And young Taillefer is dead." 
 
 " Well — what is that to us ? " rejDlied Pere Goriot ; 
 " I am t6 dine with my daughter to-day at your rooms ; 
 you understand ? She is waiting for us. Come ! " 
 
 He pulled Rastignac violently by the arm, and car- 
 ried him off as if he were a lover and Rastignac a 
 woman. 
 
 " Let us sit down to dinner ; " said the painter, and 
 each took his place at table. 
 
 " I declare," said Sylvia, " things do go wrong to- 
 day ! My haricot of mutton has got stuck. Well ! 
 you will have to eat it burned, whether or no ! " 
 
 Madame Vauquer had no heart to say a word when 
 she saw ten persons instead of eighteen sitting down- 
 to table ; but they all made a good-natured effort to 
 console her and cheer her up ; and though at first they 
 could think of nothing but Vautrin and the startling 
 events of the day, the serpentine current of their talk 
 soon led them to duels, the galleys, law-courts, prisons, 
 and the reform of the criminal code, from whence they 
 wandered far away from Jacques Collin and Victorine 
 and her brother. Although there were but ten of them, 
 they made noise enough for twenty, and gave the im- 
 
256 Pire Gforiot. 
 
 pression of being more in number than usual, — which 
 was the only apparent difference between the dinner of 
 to-<Jay and the dinners of other days. The habitual 
 insouciance of that devil-may-care world of Paris, 
 which each day gluts its maw with the events of the 
 last twenty-four hours, resumed its sway , and even 
 Madame Vauquer permitted herself to listen to the 
 voice of hope, — that divinity being represented by 
 the iat Sylvie. 
 
P^re GoHot. 26t 
 
 XV. 
 
 This day was destined to be, fvom morning till ilight, 
 a phantasmagoria to Eugene, who in spite of his self- 
 command and his strength of mind could not collect 
 his scattered senses when he found himself in the coach 
 beside Pere Goriot, whose babble flowed joyously as 
 from a fount of unexampled happiness, sounding in 
 Eugene's ears, after so many emotions, like the words 
 of a dream : — 
 
 " We finished our work this morning. We are all 
 three to dine together, —together, do you understand? 
 It is four years since I last dined with Delpliine, — 
 my own little Delphine ! I shall be there all the eve- 
 ning. We have been at your rooms since the morning. 
 I have been working like a day-laborer, coat off. I 
 helped to bring in the furniture. — Ah ! ah ! you 
 don't know how charming she can be at the head of a 
 table. She will look after me. She will say, ' Come, 
 Papa, eat some of this — it is good ! ' and then I shall 
 not be able to swallow a mouthful. Oh ! it is sO long 
 since I have spent an evening with her ; but the happy 
 time is coming ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Eugene, " the world seems upside 
 down." 
 
 " Upside down ! " exclaimed Pere Goriot. " Why, 
 it never seemed to me sO right-side-up before. I See 
 
 17 
 
258 P^re G-oriot. 
 
 none but happy faces in the streets ; everybody seems 
 to be shaking hands ; some people are hugging each 
 other; men looli as gay as if they were all going to 
 dine with their daughters, and gobble down the good 
 dinner I heard her order from the chef at the Cafe 
 Anglais. But, bah ! what matter ? Sitting beside her, 
 aloes would taste as sweet as honey." 
 
 " Am I coming to life again ? " said Eugene. 
 
 " Get on faster, coachman," cried Pere Goriot, letting 
 down the front glass of the carriage. " Drive faster 1 
 I will gi\'e you five francs drink-money if you get me 
 there in ten minutes." 
 
 On hearing this promise, the man dashed across Paris 
 at break-neck speed. 
 
 " The fellow crawls," cried Goriot. 
 - " But where are you tiiking me ? " asked Rastignac. 
 
 " To your own rooms," said Pere Goriot. 
 
 The carriage stopped in the Rue d'Artois. The old 
 man got out first, and flung ten francs to the coachman 
 with the prodigality of a widoAver in the first flush of 
 his release. 
 
 " Come ! let us go upstairs," he said to Rastignac, 
 marshalling him across the courtyard and taking him to 
 an appartement on the third floor, in the rear of a new 
 and handsome building. Pere Goriot had nn need to 
 ring the bell. Therese, Madame de Nuoingen's wait- 
 ing-woman, opened the door, and Eug6ne found him- 
 self in a charming bachelor establishment, consisting 
 of an ante-chamber, a little salon, a bed-room, and a 
 dressing-room looking out upon a garden. In the little 
 salon, whose furniture and decorations would have 
 borne comparison with everything beautiful and grace- 
 
Fire Goriot. 259 
 
 ful of its kind, he saw Delphine by the soft light of 
 wax-candles, who rose from a couch by the fire and, 
 laying the hand-screen she had been using on the 
 chimney-piece, said in a voice full of tenderness, " So 
 you had to be sent for, — Monsieur, who is so dull of 
 comprehension ! " 
 
 Therese left the room. Eugene took Delphine in 
 his arras, and as he pressed her to his heart tears came 
 into his eyes. The contrast between what he saw and 
 what he had so lately seen overwhelmed him, and the 
 emotions of this strange day, when so much had wea- 
 ried his spirit and confused his brain, brought on a rush 
 of nervous agitation. 
 
 "I knew all along how he felt," whispered Pere 
 Goriot to his daughter, while Eugene lay back upon a 
 sofa unable to say a word, or to explain why this last 
 wave of the magic wand had so powerfully affected him. 
 
 " Come and see your rooms," said Madame de Nu- 
 cingen, after a pause, taking his hand and leading him 
 through the pretty appartement, where the carpets, the 
 furniture, and all the lesser decorations were of the 
 same style, in miniature, as those of Delphine's own 
 rooms. 
 
 " We will keep our happiness a secret from all 
 except ourselves," she whispered, smiling. 
 
 "Yes, but I must have my share in it," said P6re 
 Goriot. 
 
 " Yon know you are included :' ourselves means 
 you, too." 
 
 " Ah ! that is what I wanted you to say. You will 
 not think me in the way, will you ? I shall come and 
 go like some good spirit, always at hand, though he 
 
260 Pere Goriot. 
 
 does not make himself known. — Well, my Delphi* 
 nette, Ninette, Dedel ! was I not right to tell you of 
 this pretty little appartement, and to say, 'Let us 
 furnish it for him'? At first you did not like the 
 idea. It is I who planned all this pleasure. Fathers 
 should give their children everything, just as they 
 gave them life. Give all, give ever, — that is a father's 
 motto." 
 
 " Have we guessed what you like best ? " said Del- 
 phine to Eugene as they came back into the salon. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "only too well. Alas! the luxury 
 of these rooms is complete ; my every dream is real- 
 ized. The poetry of such a life, so fresh, so elegant, — 
 I feel it all ! But I cannot accept it from you, and I 
 am too poor as yet — " 
 
 '' Ah ! would you dare to cross me already ? " she 
 asked, with a mock air of authority, making one of 
 those pretty grimaces by which women try to laugh 
 away a scruple. But Eugene had that day too sol- 
 emnly interrogated his conscience, — the arrest of Vau- 
 trin, revealing the horrible abyss into which he had so 
 nearly plunged,' — had too powerfully forced his mind 
 back to thoughts of duty and delicacy, to let him now 
 yield to her caressing assault upon his scruples. A 
 profound sadness came over him. 
 
 " Is it possible," cried Madame de Niicingen, " that 
 you refuse me ? Do you know all that such a refusal 
 means? It means that you doubt the future, that 
 you doubt me, or that you fear to be false yourself 
 to my affection. If you love me and if I love you, 
 why do you draw back and refuse such trifling obliga- 
 tions ? If you knew the jDleasure I have had in pre- 
 
PeVe Q-oriot 261 
 
 paring these rooms for you, you would not hesitate ; 
 you would beg my pardon for the very thought of 
 refusing me. Besides, you must remember that I have 
 money of yours : I have laid it out to the best advan^ 
 tage, — that is all. You fancy that your refusal is a 
 proof of highmindedness : it is the contrary. Oh, 
 Papa! give him good reasons why he should not refuse 
 us," she exclaimed after a pause, turning to her father. 
 " Does he think I would be less fastidious than him- 
 self on a point of honor ? " 
 
 Pere Goriot listened to this dispute with the ab- 
 sorbed smile of an Oriental snake-charmer. 
 
 " Child that you are, reflect ! " continued Madame de 
 Nuoingen, taking Eugene's hand. "You stand on the 
 threshold of life ; between you and success there lies 
 a barrier insurmountable for most young men, — the 
 barrier of poverty, of obscurity ; the hand of a woman 
 removes it, and you draw back ! You will succeed ; 
 you will make a brilliant future ; I read success upon 
 your brow. When this comes to pass, can you not pay 
 back to me what I lend you now? In olden times 
 ladies gave to their knights armor and swords and 
 helmets, coats of mail and horses, that they might 
 fight at tournaments and win them honor. Eugene, 
 the things I offer you are the arms of the nineteenth 
 century ; tools essential to the man who wishes to rise 
 above his fellows. Ah ! " she added, " the garret 
 where you live must be sumptuous, if it is anything 
 like Papa's ! Do yOu wish to make me miserable ? 
 Answer ! " she said, slightly shaking his hand. " 3Ion 
 Dieu, Papa ! make him accept, or I will go away and 
 never let him see me aaain." 
 
262 Fere Goriot. 
 
 " I can settle it," said Pere Goriot, coming out of 
 his tvance. "My dear Monsieur Eugene, you would 
 be glad no doubt to borrow money from the Jews, 
 would n't you ? " 
 
 " I must," he replied. 
 
 " Very good ; now, then, I have you,'' said the old 
 man, drawing out a shabby leather pocket-book. "I 
 am your Jew. I have paid all the bills, and here they 
 are. Not a sou is owing for anything in this apparte- 
 ment. The furniture did not cost a great deal, — at 
 most five thousand francs. I lend you that sum. You 
 won't refuse me ; I am not a woman. You can write 
 me an acknowledgment upon a scrap of paper, and 
 repay me some of these days." 
 
 Delphine and Eugene looked at each other in aston- 
 ishment, and tears filled their eyes. The student took 
 the hand of the old man and pressed it warmly. 
 
 " Why, you need not think so much of it ; are you 
 not both my children ? " said Goriot. 
 
 " But, my poor Father, how did you manage it ? " said 
 Madame de Nueingen. 
 
 " Ah ! now you want me to tell you all," he an- 
 swered. " Well, after I had persuaded you to let 
 him live here, and I s:iw you buying things fit for a 
 bride, I said, ' She will find herself in trouble about 
 the money.' My lawyer tells me the suit against your 
 husband cannot be settled for six months. It can 
 w.ait. I have sold out my securities, that brought me 
 in thirteen hundred and fifty francs a year. With 
 fifteen thousand francs of the capital I ha^'e bought 
 an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and I have paid 
 these bills with the remainder, my children. I have a 
 
Pire Q-oriot. 263 
 
 feedroom here which will cost only a hundred and 
 , fifty francs a year, and I can live like a prince on forty 
 sows a day and have something left over. I hardly 
 ever wear out my clothes, and I shall never need any 
 new ones. For a fortnight past I have been laughing 
 in my sleeve, saying to myself, ' How happy we shall 
 be ! ' Was I not right ? — are you not happy ? " 
 
 " Ob, Papa, Papa ! " cried Madame de Nucingen, 
 springing into the arms of her father, who placed her 
 tenderly on his knee. She covered him with kisses ; 
 her blonde hair touched his cheeks as she shed tears 
 upon the aged face all glowing now with happiness. 
 " Dear Father, — you are indeed a father. No ! there 
 is not another father in the world like you. Eugene ! 
 you loved him before, but you will love him better 
 now." 
 
 "Why, my children," said Pere Goriot, who for 
 six years had not felt a daughter's heart against his 
 bosom ; " my Delphinette, do you want to kill me 
 with joy ? My poor heart cannot bear it. Ah ! Eu- 
 gene, the debt is repaid already ! " 
 
 And the old man pressed his daughter to his heart 
 with an embrace so frantic that she cried out, " Oh ! 
 you hurt me." 
 
 " Hurt you ! " he said, turning pale. He looked at 
 her with an expression of anguish. " No, no ! I could 
 not hurt yon," gently kissing the waist his arm had 
 pressed too roughly. " It was you who hurt me by 
 that cry of pain. — The furniture cost more than I 
 told him," he whispered in her ear ; " but we must 
 deceive him a little, or we shall not be able to manage 
 him." 
 
264 Fere Croriot. 
 
 Eugene, amazed at the inexhaustible self-devotion 
 6f Pere Goriot, gazed at him with a aaive adoiiratioii 
 which in the young expresses implicit faith. 
 
 " I will make myself worthy of such goodness ! " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, my Eugene, those words are noble ! " and Ma- 
 dame de Nucingen kissed him on the forehead. 
 
 " For thy sake he refused Mademoiselle Taillefer 
 and her millions," said Pere Goriot. "Yes, the little 
 girl was fond of him ; her brother is dead, and she is 
 as rich as Croesus." 
 
 " Do not say that ! " cried Rastignao. 
 
 "Eugene," whispered Madame de Nucingen. "I 
 have now a regret to mar my happiness ; but I will 
 love you the better for it — and forever." 
 
 " This is the happiest day of my life since your mar- 
 riages," cried Peve Goriot. " I am willing to suffer 
 all that it may please God to send me, so long as it 
 does not come through my children. As long as I live 
 I shall say to myself, ' In February, 1820, there was a 
 day when I was happier than other men are in a life- 
 time ! ' Look at me, Fifine," he said to his daughter. 
 " Ah ! is she not lovely ? Tell me, where can you 
 find another little woman with such a skin, and such 
 pretty dimples? She is mine, — I made her, the little 
 darling ! Ah ! my friend, be good to her, make her 
 happy, and I will reward you. If there were but one 
 chance to go to heaven and I had got it, I would give 
 it to you. But, come ! let us dine, — let as dine," he 
 said, as if beside himself. " All is ours." 
 
 " Poor Father ! " 
 
 " Ah ! my child," he added, taking her head between 
 
PeVe Goriot. 265 
 
 his hands, and kissing her hair; " you make my heaven 
 here. Come and see me often ; my room is close by ; 
 you have not far to go. Come often ; promise me^ — 
 say that you promise it." 
 
 " Yes, dear Fatlwr." 
 
 " Say it again," 
 
 " Yes, my good Father." 
 
 "Hush, now! for I should make you say it a hun- 
 dred times if I thought of myself only. Let us dine." 
 
 The evening was spent in tender child's play such 
 as this, — Pfere Goriot not the least childish of the 
 three. He sat at his daughter's feet and kissed them ; 
 he ga?ed into her eyes ; he laid his head upon her dress. 
 He was guilty of a thousand follies, like a lover with 
 his first love. 
 
 "You see now," whispered Delphine to Eugene, 
 " that when my father is here he exacts all my atten- 
 tion. It will often be very troublesome." 
 
 Eugene, who had already felt some twinges of jeal- 
 ousy, could not exactly blame this speech, although it 
 breathed the quintessence of ingratitude. 
 
 " When will the appartement be finished ? " he asked, 
 looking round him. " Must we leave it to-night ? " 
 
 "Yes; but to-morrow you dine with me: it is the 
 opera night, you remember." 
 
 " I shall go and sit in the pit," said Pere Goriot. 
 
 It was now midnight ; Madame de Nucingen's car- 
 riage was waiting. P^re Goriot and Eugene walked 
 back to the Maison Vauquer, talking of Delphine on 
 the way with an enthusiasm that revealed a curious 
 cpntyast of expression in the two individual passions. 
 
266 -PeVe Groriot. 
 
 Eugene could r.ot conceal from himself that the father's 
 love, stained by no selfish interest, crushed his out of 
 sight by its vehemence and grandeur. To the father 
 the idol was all purity and goodness, and his adora- 
 tion was nourished as much by recollections of the 
 past as by his visions of the future. 
 
 They found Madame Vauquer sitting over the stove 
 with Christophe and Sylvie on either side of her, like 
 Marius among the ruins of Carthage. She was wait- 
 ing for the two who were to-night her sole lodgers, and 
 bemoaning herself to Sylvie. Though Lord Byron 
 puts very beautiful lamentations into the mouth of 
 Tasso, they have not the ring of truth which vibrated 
 in those now proceeding from the lips of the unfortu- 
 nate landlady. 
 
 " Only three cups of coffee to make to-morrow, 
 Sylvie ! Is not my empty house enough to break my 
 heart? Alas! what will life be to me without my. 
 lodgers? Nothing. My house is desolate, deserted 
 by its men. They were its furniture. What is life 
 without furniture ? What have I done that Heaven 
 should send me these misfortunes ? We laid in pota- 
 toes and beans, — yes, beans enough for twenty people. 
 The police in my house ! — Must we eat nothing but 
 potatoes? I shall send Christophe away." 
 
 The Savoyard, who was asleep, woke up on hearing 
 his name and said, " Madame ? " 
 
 "Poor fellow! he is as faithful as a dog," said 
 Sylvie. 
 
 " A lost season ! People are housed. Can lodgers 
 drop from heaven ? I shall lose my senses. And that 
 witch of a Michonneau, to have carried off PoiretJ. 
 
Pire Goriot. 267 
 
 How did she get such a grip on the man ? He fol- 
 lows her about like a puppy-dog." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Sylvie, shaking her head. " Those 
 old maids! they know the tricks of things." 
 
 "That poor Monsieur Vautrin, whom they turned 
 into a convict! " resumed the widow. "Well, Sylvie, 
 it is too much for me; I can't believe it yet. A man 
 as gay as he, who drank his gloria at fifteen francs a 
 month, and paid on the nail ! " 
 
 " And who was generous, too," remarked Christophe. 
 
 " There 's some mistake," said Sylvie. 
 
 " No, there can't be. He owned it himself," said 
 Madame Vauquer. •' And to think that all these things 
 happened here in this neighborhood, where even the 
 cats don't come ! I must be dreaming, it can't be pos- 
 sible ! We saw Louis XVI. meet with his accident ; 
 we saw the fall of the Emperor ; we saw him come 
 back and fall again, — all that belonged to the order 
 of possible things. But there are no such hap-hazards 
 about pensions. People can get along without a king, 
 but they must have breakfast and dinner ; and when 
 an honest woman, nee de Conflans, gives dinners, with 
 all sorts of good things, unless the very end of the 
 world should come — but that's what it is ; it is the 
 end of the world ! " 
 
 " And to think that that Michonneau, who has done 
 all the mischief, is to receive, they say, three thousand 
 francs a year ! " cried Sylvie. 
 
 " Don't mention her to me ! she is a wicked woman," 
 cried Madame Vauquer ; " and she has gone off to 
 Buneaud's : she is capable of anything. She must 
 have done horrible things in her lifetime, — robbed, 
 
268 PeVe Croriot. 
 
 murdered, no doubt. She ought to have gone to the 
 galleys, instead of that poor, dear man — " 
 
 At this moment Eugene and Pere Goriot rang the 
 bell. 
 
 " Ah ! there are my two faithful ones," said the 
 widow, with a sigh. 
 
 The faithful pair, who at that moment had but 
 slight remembrance of the disasters of the pension, 
 unceremoniously announced to their landlady that they 
 were to leave her on the following day and take up 
 their quarters in the Chauss^e d'Antin. 
 
 " Sylvie ! " cried the widow. " My last trump is 
 gone ! Gentlemen, you have given me my death-blow. 
 It has pierced to my vitals, — I feel it there. This day 
 has laid the weight of years upon my head. I shall 
 go mad, — upon my word, I shall ! What can be 
 done with the beans ? I am left desolate. You shall 
 go to-morrow, Christophe. Good night, gentlemen, — 
 good night." 
 
 " What is the matter with her ? " said Eugdne t9 
 Sylvie. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! everybody has left the house because 
 of what happened this morning. It has upset her 
 head. There ! I hear her crying ; it will do her 
 good to blubber a bit. This is the first time I 've 
 known her to wet her eyes since I have lived with 
 her." 
 
 The next morning Madame Vauquer s'Uait rai- 
 sonnee, as she ex2:)ressed it, — that is, she had come to 
 her senses ; and though afflicted as a woman might 
 well be who had lost all her lodgers, and whose life 
 was suddenly turned topsy-turvy, she had her wits 
 
Pire Q-oriot. 269 
 
 about her, and displayed no more than a reasonable 
 grief caused by such sudden disasters. The glances 
 that a lover casts upon the sacred places of a lost mis- 
 tress were not less moving than those with which she 
 now looked round her deserted table. Eugene tried 
 to comfort her with the idea that Bianchon, whose 
 term at the hospital was to end in a few days, might 
 step into his vacant room ; and told her that the em- 
 ploy^ at the Museum had frequently been heard to 
 wish for the appartement of Madame Couture ; and 
 that no doubt in a few days the house would be full 
 again. 
 
 " Heaven grant it, my dear Monsieur Eugene 1 But 
 misfortune has come to my roof: before ten days are 
 gone, death will be here. You will see," she added, 
 casting a lugubrious glance around the dining-room. 
 " Which of us will he summon ? " 
 
 "If that is the case, we had better be off," whis- 
 pered EugSne to Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Madame ! " cried Sylvie, bursting in excitedly. " I 
 have not seen Mistigris for three days ! " 
 
 " Ah ! if my cat is dead ; if he too has left me, 
 I — " 
 
 The poor woman could not finish her sentence. She 
 clasped her hands and threw hei-self back in her arm- 
 chair, overwhelmed by this ominous loss. 
 
 Toward noon, the time of day when postmen make 
 their rounds in the neighborhood of the Pantheon, 
 Eugene received a letter in an elegant envelope, sealed 
 with the arras of Beauseant. It inclosed an invitation 
 addressed to Monsieur and.M-adame de Nucingen, for 
 
270 Pere Goriot. 
 
 a ball about to be given by the viscountess, whicb 
 had been announced for some weeks. A little note tg 
 Eugene accompanied the invitation : — 
 
 I think, Monsieur, that you will undertake with pleasure to 
 interpret my sentiments to Madame de Nucingen. I send you 
 the invitation you asked of me, and shall he delighted to 
 make the acquaintance of the sister of Madame de Restaud. 
 Come to my hall, and bring that charming lady with you; 
 hut do not let her absorb all your affection. You owe me a 
 little, ia return for that which I feel for you. 
 
 ViCOMTESSE DE BEAUS:tfANT. 
 
 " Well," said Eugfene, reading this note for the sec- 
 ond time, " Madame de Beaus^ant tells rae plainly that 
 she does not wish to see the Baron de Nucingen." 
 
 He went at once to Delphine's, delighted that he 
 had it in his power to bestow a pleasure of which no 
 doubt he would reap the reward. Madame de Nu- 
 cingen was in her bath ; and Rastignac waited for her 
 with the eager impatience of his years, and in the 
 , grasp of emotions which are given but once to the 
 lives of young people. The fii'st woman to whom a 
 man attaches himself, if she appears to him in all the 
 splendors of Parisian life, need fear no rival. Love 
 in Paris is not the love of other regions. Neither 
 men nor women are there duped by the time-worn 
 ideas which all display like banners, for the sake of de- 
 cency, over affections calling themselves disinterested. 
 In JParis, a woman seeks to be loved not only for her 
 charms, but for all the satisfactions she can give to the 
 social ambitions of her lover ; she knows that she must 
 gratify the thousand vanities which make ftp life in 
 
PeVe Groriot. 271 
 
 the great world. In that world, Love is braggart, 
 spendthrift, gayly deceitful, and ostentatious. If the 
 women of the court of Louis XIV. envied Mademoi- 
 selle de la Valliere the ardor which caused that mighty 
 prince to forget the fabulous cost of the ruiHes which 
 he tore in facilitating the entrance of the Due de Ver- 
 mandois into the world, what can be expected of a 
 lesser humanity ? Be young and rich and titled, ye 
 Parisian lovers ! Be something better, if you can. 
 The more incense you burn before your idol, if idol 
 you have, the more that deity will bend a favorable 
 ear. Love is here an idolatry, — his rites more costly 
 far than those of any other worship ; he flits and van- 
 ishes like an imp, delighting to leave his path marked 
 out by havoc. True passion is the poetry of garrets ; 
 without it, could the vestal flame of loVe be kept 
 alive? Exceptions to the laws of this Draconian code 
 of Paris may be found in oases of that wilderness,—^ 
 in hearts not led astray by social theories, that dwell 
 retired near some fount of purity, some ever-bubbling 
 spring of living waters, where, faithful to these quiet 
 shades, they listen to the teachings of the luflnite 
 Written for their learning on all things, even their oWn 
 hearts, patiently waiting to rise on wings of angels, 
 and compassionating the earth-bound tendencies of 
 the world about them. 
 
 Rastignac, like other young men who begin life 
 among the traditions of rank, expected to enter the 
 lists fully equipped. He had caught the feVfef of the 
 world and thought himself able to master it, Without 
 in "truth tuiderstandiiig the imeaiis or the etids of his 
 ambition. When the heart finds no pure and gacted 
 
272 Pere Groriot. 
 
 love to fill its cup of life, a draught of mere success 
 may have its value ; nay, the thirst for power is glori- 
 ous when, stripped of personal ambition, it takes the 
 form of patriotism. But Rastignac had by no means 
 reached the heights whence men may contemplate the 
 course of life and form a judgment on it. As yet he 
 had not wholly shaken off those fresh sweet theories 
 and dreams which enfold young people bi'oiight up in 
 country solitudes, as the green calyx does the bud. Up 
 to this time he had hesitated to cross the Parisian rubi- 
 con. In spite of his ardent curiosity, he clung to the 
 traditions of the noble life led by men of breeding in 
 their ancient manors. Nevertheless, his last scruples 
 vanished the night before, as he stood in his new rooms 
 in the Rue d'Artois. There, coming into possession 
 of the material advantages of wealth, in addition to his 
 natural advantages of rank and family, he stripped off 
 the skin of a country gentleman and slid with ease into 
 the new circumstances which his ambition told him 
 would lead to fortune. As he waited for Delphine, 
 luxuriously seated in her pretty boudoir, he seemed so 
 far removed from the Rastignac of the year before, that 
 as he looked at himself with the moral optics of his 
 own mind he wondered if he were indeed the same. 
 
 " Madame will see you," said Therese, whose voice 
 startled him. 
 
 He found Delphine on a couch beside the fire, fresh 
 and restful. As she lay back in her muslin draperies, 
 it was impossible not to compare her to one of those 
 oriental plants whose fruit comes with the flower. 
 
 "At last we are together," she said with some 
 emotion. 
 
" 'Guess what I bring you,' said Eugene, sitting down 
 ' beside her and lifting her arm that he might kiss 
 her hand." 
 
PeVe Goriot. 278 
 
 " Guess what I bring you," said Eugene, sitting 
 down beside her and lifting her arm that he might 
 kiss her hand. 
 
 Madame de Nucingen made a gesture of delight as 
 she read the invitation; and turning to Eugene with 
 tears in her eyes, she threw her arms around his neck 
 and drew him down to her in a delirium of gratified 
 vanity. 
 
 "And it is you to whom I owe this happiness!" 
 she said. " Obtained by you, it is more than a triumph 
 of self-love. No one has ever been willing till now to 
 introduce me into that charmed circle. Perhaps you 
 think me at this moment as frivolous and light-minded 
 as any other Parisian ; but remember, my friend, I am 
 yours, and if I wish more than ever to enter the 
 society of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is because 
 that society is yours." 
 
 "Do you not think," said Engene, "that Madame 
 de Beaus^ant intimates pretty plainly that she does 
 not wish to see Monsieur de Nucingen at her ball ? " 
 
 "Yes, I do," said Delphine, returning the note to 
 Eugene ; " those great ladies have a genius for imper- 
 tinence. But no matter ; I shall go. My sister is to 
 be there. I know she has ordered a bewitching dress 
 for the occasion. Eugene," she resumed, in a low 
 voice, " she wants to appear at that ball in all her 
 glory, that she may give the lie to dreadful rumors. 
 You don't know what things are said about her. Nu- 
 cingen told me this morning that they talked of her at 
 the club, and handled her without mercy. Ah, mon 
 Dieu! upon how slight a thread hangs the honor of a 
 woman ! — and her family as well, for I feel myself 
 
 18 
 
274 P^re Qoriot. 
 
 involved in these attacks upon my poor sister. They 
 say that Monsieur de Trailles has given notes to the 
 amount of a hundred thousand francs ; that these have 
 gone to protest, and that he has even been in danger 
 of arrest. In this extremity, so they say, my sister 
 has sold her diamonds to a Jew, ^- those beautiful dia- 
 inonds which you have seen her wear, heir-loorqs be- 
 longing to the Restaud family. I am told that for two 
 days nothing else has been talked of. I understand 
 now why Anastasie has ordered a dress of gold tissue : 
 she means to attract all eyes at Madame de Beaus^ant's 
 by appearing in a superb toilette, and wearing the dia- 
 monds. But she shall not outshine me ! She has al- 
 ways tried to crush me ; she was never kind to me, 
 though I have done much for her, — I have even lent 
 her money when she was in trouble. But do not let 
 us talk about her now. To-day I wish to think of 
 nothing but happiness." 
 
 Rastignac did not leave Madame de Xuoingen till an 
 hour after midnight. As she bade him a lover's fare- 
 well, full of joys to come, she said, with an expression 
 of melancholy, " I am timid, superstitious ! Call my 
 presentiments foolish if you will, but I feel as if some 
 terrible catastrophe were hanging over me." 
 
 " Child ! " said Eugene. 
 
 "Ah! it is I who am the child to-night," she an- 
 swered laughing. 
 
 Rastignac returned to the Maison Vauquer, as he be- 
 lieved, for the last time ; certain of quitting it forever 
 the next day. As he walked along he surrendered 
 himself to happy dreams, as young men will who taste 
 upon their lips the draught of joy. 
 
Pire Cforiot. 276 • 
 
 " Well ? " said Pere Goriot, as Rastignajj passed hi^ 
 door. 
 
 " Good night," answered Eugene ; " I will tell you all 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Ah, to-morrow ! " cried the old man. " Go to bed 
 now, and good night. To-morrow our happy life 
 begins ! " 
 
276 PeVe Croriot. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The next morning Goriot and Rastignac were wait- 
 ing for the porters to remove their effects to the Rue 
 d'Artois, when, about noon, the noise of an equipage 
 stopping before the Maison Vauquer echoed up the 
 Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve. Madame de Nucingen 
 got out of the carriage, and learning from Sylvie that 
 her father was still there, ran lightly up to his room. 
 Eugene was in his own chamber, but his neighbor did 
 not know he was there. At breakfast he had asked 
 P6re Goriot to attend to the removal of his luggage, 
 promising to rejoin him at four o'clock in the Rue 
 d'Artois. But while the old man was out of the house 
 searching for porters, Eugene, after answering to his 
 name at the law-school, returned to settle his account 
 with Madame Vauquer, not wishing to leave the bill 
 with Goriot, lest the old man in his enthusiasm might 
 insist on paying it for him. The landlady was out, 
 and Eugene ran upstairs to make sure that nothing had 
 been left behind ; congratulating himself for his pre- 
 caution when he found in a table-drawer the accept- 
 ance given to Vautrin, which he had carelessly flung 
 aside at the time when he paid the debt. Not having 
 any fire, he was about to tear it into little pieces, when 
 his hand was arrested in the act by hearing the voice 
 of Delphine in P6re Goriot's chamber. He stopped 
 
PeVe aoriot. 277 
 
 shoi-t to listen to what she was saying, confident that 
 she could have no secrets from him. Then, after her 
 first words, he found the conversation between father 
 and daughter too deeply interesting to resist the temi> 
 tation of hearing more. 
 
 " Ah, my Father," Delphine cried, " would to heaven 
 you had interfered about my fortune in time to save 
 me from ruin ! Can I speak freely ? " 
 
 "Yes, the house is empty," said Pere Goriot in a 
 strange tone. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Father ? " she asked ; 
 "are you ill?" 
 
 " I feel as if you had struck me with an axe upon 
 my head. God forgive you, darling ! you do not 
 understand how much I love you, or you would not 
 tell me bluntly such terrible things, — especially if the 
 case is not desperate. What has happened ? Why 
 are you here now, when in half an hour we should have 
 been in the Rue d'Artois ? " 
 
 " Ah, Father, how could I think of that when a 
 great catastrophe has befallen me ? I am out of my 
 senses. Your lawyer has brought things to light 
 which we must have known sooner or later. Your 
 great experience in business is now my only hope, and 
 I have rushed to you as a poor drowning creature 
 catches at a branch. When Monsieur Derville found 
 that Monsieur de N'ucingen was opposing him with all 
 sorts of evasions he threatened him with a law-suit, 
 saying that an order from the Court for such a pro- 
 ceeding could easily be obtained. Nucingen came to 
 my room this morning and asked me if I was bent on 
 his ruin and mine. I answered that I knew nothing 
 
278 Fire Croriot. 
 
 about all that ; that I had my own fortune ; that I 
 ought to be allowed to spend the income of it as I 
 pleased ; that all business in connection with the mat- 
 ter was in the hands of my lawyer ; and, finally, that 
 I was totally ignorant on such matters, and did not 
 wish to discuss them. That was exactly what you 
 advised me to say, was it not ? " 
 
 " Yes, that was right," said Pere Goriot. 
 
 "Well," continued Delphine, "then he told me 
 plainly about his affairs. He has embarked all his 
 own money and mine in speculations that have not yet 
 matured, in fui-therance of which he has sent great 
 sums of money to other countries. If I force him. to 
 account for my fortune now, I shall oblige him to 
 show his books and file his schedule ; whereas if I 
 will wait one year, he promises on his honor to double 
 my fortune and invest the whole — his and mine — in 
 landed property which shall be settled on me. My 
 dear Father, he meant what he said ; he frightened me. 
 He asked my pardon for his past conduct. He gave 
 me back my liberty ; he promised not to interfere with 
 my life in any way provided I would agree to let him 
 manage our affairs in my name. He promised, as a 
 proof of his good faith, that I should call in Monsieur 
 Derville at any time to examine the legality of the 
 papers by which the property was to be made mine. 
 In short, he put himself into my power, tied hand and 
 foot. He wishes for the next two years to keep the 
 expenditure of the household under his control, and he 
 besought me to spend no more than my allowance dur- 
 ing that period. He proved to me that he is doing all 
 he can to save appearances. He has sent away his 
 
Pire Goriot. 279 
 
 danseuse, and is going to practise the most rigid thouglj 
 quiet economy, so that he may come safely out of his 
 speculations without impairing his credit. I answered 
 him as unkindly as I could. I appeared to doubt him, 
 so that by pushing him to extremities I might force 
 him to tall me everything. He showed me his books ; 
 and at last he burst into tears. I have never seen a 
 man iu such a state. He lost his head ; he talked of 
 killing himscdf ; he was out of his mind. I felt for 
 him." 
 
 " And you believed him ? " cried Pere Goriot. " He 
 was playing a part. They were lies. I know what 
 Germans are in business. They seem honest and open 
 enough ; but under that air of frankness they are 
 shrewd and cunning, and worse to deal with than any 
 others. Your husband is imposing on you. He finds 
 himself elose^pressed, and feigns death. He wants to 
 be more completely master of your fortune under your 
 name than he could be under his own. He will make 
 use of you to save himself in the event of business 
 losses. He is as cunning as he is false. He is a bad 
 fellow. No; no! I will not go to my grave leaving 
 my daughters stripped of everything. I know a little 
 about business still. He says he has embarked all his 
 capital in speculations. Well, then, his interest in 
 these speculations must be represented by stocks or 
 some kind of securities. Let him produce them, and 
 allow you to take your share. We will choose the safest, 
 and run our chance. We will have all the papers reg- 
 istered under the name of Delphine Qoriot, wife, sepa- 
 rated as to property from the Saron de Nucingeti. 
 Does he tkke us for fools ? Does he suppose I would 
 
280 PeVe Q-oriot. 
 
 patiently permit him, were it only for a day, to leave 
 you without fortune? Never! not for a day, nor a 
 night, — no, not for two hours! If such a thing should 
 come to pass I could not survive it. What ! have I 
 worked for forty years ; have I carried sacks of flour 
 on my back and toiled in the sweat of my brow ; have 
 I pinched and denied myself all the days of my life 
 for you, my angels, — who repaid my toil and lightened 
 my burden, — that to-day my fortune and my life 
 should "pass away m smoke? I should die raving 
 mad ! By all that is sacred in heaven and earth we 
 will drag this matter to the light ; we will examine 
 into his books, his coffers, his speculations. I will not 
 sleep ; I will not lie down upon my bed ; I will not 
 eat, until I find out if your foi'tune is all there. 
 Thank God ! you are at least separated as to property. 
 Fou shall ha\ e Monsieur Derville for your lawyer ; he 
 is an honest man. Heavens and earth ! you shall 
 have your poor little million to yourself, — you shall 
 have your fifty thousand francs income to spend as you 
 please to the end of your days, — or I will make such a 
 stir in Paris — Ha ! ha ! I will appeal to the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, if the law courts will not right us. 
 If I can see you hapiDy and at ease about money I 
 shall forget my own sorrows. Our money is our life ; 
 money does everything. What does that big log of 
 an Alsatian mean ? Delphine, don't yield a farth- 
 ing to that brute, who has held you in bondage and 
 made you miserable. If he needs your help, he shall 
 not have it unless we can tie him tight and make him 
 march a straight line. Mon Dieu ! my whole head is 
 on fire ; there are flames in my skull. Think of my 
 
Pere Goriot, 281 
 
 Delphine being brought to want! Oh, my Fifine, if 
 that should happen to thee! — 8apristi ! where is my 
 hat? Come, I must go directly. I shall insist on 
 looking into everything, — his books, his business, his 
 correspondence. We will go this moment. I cannot 
 be calm until it is proved that your fortune is secure 
 beyond all risks, and I have seen it with my own 
 eves I " 
 
 " My dear Father, you must set about it cautiously. 
 If you put the slightest desire for vengeance into this 
 aifair, if you even show hostile feeling to my husband, 
 you will ruin me. He knows you; he thinks it nat- 
 ural that influenced by you I should be anxious about 
 my fortune ; but I swear to you, he has it in his power, 
 and he means to keep it there. He is capable . of run- 
 ning away with it, and leaving me without a sou. He 
 knows I would not dishonor the name I bear by bring- 
 ing him to justice. His position is both strong and 
 weak. Indeed, I have examined into it all. If you 
 push him to extremities, I am lost." 
 
 " Is he dishonest ? Is be a rogue ? " 
 
 "Yes, Father, he is," she cried, throwing herself 
 into a chair and bursting into tears. " I did not mean 
 to acknowledge it. I wished to spare you the pain 
 of knowing that you had married me to such a man. 
 Vices and conscience, body and soul, — all are in keep- 
 ing. It is terrible. I hate him, and yet I despise him. 
 A man capable of flinging himself into such transac- 
 tions as he has confessed to me, without shame or 
 remorse, fills me with disgust. My fears spring from 
 what I know of him. He offered me — he, my hus- 
 band ! — my full liberty (and you know what he meant), 
 
282 PeVe Gioriot. 
 
 if I would play into his hands ; if I would lend mj 
 name to dishonorable transactions, under cover of 
 which he can escape if he meets with losses." 
 
 " But there are laws ! There is the guillotine for 
 such men," exclaimed Pere Goi-iot. 
 
 " No, Father, there are no laws that can reach him. 
 Listen to what he told me. This is the substance 
 of it, stripped of his circumlocutions : ' Either all will 
 be lost, and you will not have a farthing, — you will 
 be ruined ; for I can take no'one into partnership but 
 yourself, — or you must let me carry out my specula- 
 tions as they now stand, to the end.' Is that plain 
 speaking? He still trusts me. He knows that I shall 
 not touch his fortune, and shall be satisfied with my 
 own. It has come to this, — either I must enter into 
 a repulsive and dishonest partnership, or I am ruined. 
 He buys my complicity in his crimes by giving me the 
 liberty to live as I please. He says, ' I will take no 
 notice of your' faults, if you will not prevent my plot- 
 ting the ruin of poor people.' Is that clear? Do you 
 know what he means by ' cpeculations ' ? He buys un- 
 improved land in his own name, and puts forward men 
 of straw to build houses on the land. These men con- 
 tract with builders on an agreement for long credits ; 
 and afterwards, for a nominal sum, they make over 
 the buildings to my husband. They then go into sham 
 bankruptcy, and the contractors lose everything. The 
 name of Nucingen & Co. serves as a decoy. I under- 
 stand now how it is that to prove the payment of 
 money, should inquiry be aroused, he has sent away 
 enormous sums to Amsterdam, London, Naples, and 
 Vienna. How could we get hold of those sums ? " 
 
Pere Groriot. 283 
 
 Eugene heard the dull sound of Pere Goriot's knees 
 falling on the tiled floor of his chamber. 
 
 « Good God ! What have I done ? " he cried. « I 
 have delivei'ed my daughter over to this man 1 He 
 will strip her of everything! Oh, forgive me, my 
 poor girl ! " 
 
 "True. If I am now in the depths of trouble, it is 
 partly your fault, Father," said Delphine. " A girl has 
 80 little sense up to the time she is married. What 
 do we know of the woi'ld, or of men or manners? It 
 is the duty of our fathers to see to these things. Dear 
 Father, I don't mean to blame you, — forgive me for 
 saying so. In this case the fault was all mine. No — 
 don't cry, Papa," she said, kissing his forehead. 
 
 " Don't you cry, either, my little Delphine. Stoop 
 lower, that I may kiss away your tears. Ah ! I will 
 find my wits again. I will unravel the tangle thy 
 husband has made of thy affairs." 
 
 " No, let me manage him. I think' I can get him 
 to put some of my money at once into land. Perhaps 
 I can make him buy back Nucingen in Alsace in my 
 name. I know he wants it. But come to-morrow. 
 Papa, and look into his books and his affairs. Mon- 
 sieur Derville knows nothing whatever about business. 
 Stay ! don't come to-morrow, — it will agitate me ; 
 Madame de Beaus^ant's ball is the day after, and I 
 want to take care of myself and be as beautiful as pos- 
 sible, to do honor to my dear Eugene. Let us go and 
 look into his chamber." 
 
 At this moment another carriage drew up in the Rue 
 Neuve Sainte-Genevidve, and Madame de Restaud's 
 voice was heard speaking to Sylvie. 
 
284 Ph-e Goriot. 
 
 "Is my father in?" 
 
 This circumstance saved Eugene, who was on the 
 point of throwing himself upon the bed and pretending 
 to be asleep. 
 
 " Ah, Papa, have you heard about Anastasie ? " said 
 Delphine, recognizing her sister's voice. " It seems 
 that very strange things have been going on in her 
 household." 
 
 " What things ? " cried P^re Goriot. " Is this to be 
 my end ? My poor head cannot bear another blow ! " 
 
 " Pajja," said the countess, entering. " Ah, you 
 here, Delphine?" 
 
 Madame de Restaud seemed embarrassed at the 
 sight of her sister. 
 
 " Good morning, Nasie," said Madame de Nucingen. 
 " Do you think my being here so extraordinary ? I 
 see my father every day." 
 
 " Since when ? " 
 
 " If you came here, you would know." 
 
 " Don't aggi-avate me, Delphine," said the countess, 
 in. a lamentable voice. "I am very unhappy. I am 
 ruined, my poor Father, — utterly ruined, at last ! " 
 
 "What is it, Nasie?" cried Pke Goriot. " Tell me 
 all, my child. Oh, she is fainting ! — Delphine, come, 
 help her ; be kind to her, and I will love you better 
 than ever — if I can." 
 
 " My poor Nasie," said Madame de Nucingen, mak- 
 ing her sister sit down, " speak ; we are the only ones in 
 the world who love you enough to forgive everything. 
 You see, family affections are the safest, after all." 
 
 Pfere Goriot shivered. "I shall die of this," he said, 
 in a low voice. "Come," he continued, stirring the 
 
Pere Q-oriot. 285. 
 
 miserable fire ; " come to the hearth, both of you ; I 
 am cold. What is it, Nasie? Speak, — you are kill- 
 ing me." 
 
 " Father ! " said the poor woman. " My husband 
 knows all. You remember, some time ago, that note 
 of Maxime's which you paid for me at Gobseck's? 
 Well, it was not the first. I had paid many before. 
 About the beginning of January he was greatly out of 
 spirits; he would tell me nothing. But it is so easy to 
 read the heart of those we love, — a trifle tells every- 
 thing; besides, there are presentiments. He was more 
 loving and tender than I had ever known him. Poor 
 Maxime ! In his heart he was bidding me good-by ; 
 he was thinking of blowing out his brains. At last 
 I besought him so earnestly that he told me — but 
 not until I had been two hours on my knees — that 
 he owed a hundred thousand francs. Oh, Papa I — 
 a hundred thousand francs! I was beside- myself. 
 I knew you had not got them; I had eaten up your 
 all — '■ 
 
 " No," said P6re Goriot, " I have not got them. I 
 cannot give them to you — unless I stole them. Yes ! 
 I could have gone out to steal them. Nasie, I will 
 go-" 
 
 At these words, forced out like the death-rattle of 
 the dying, — the groan of paternal love reduced to im- 
 potence, — the sisters paused : what selfish souls could 
 listen coldly to this cry of anguish that like a pebble 
 flung into an abyss i-evealed its depths ? 
 
 " I obtained them, my Father," said the countess, 
 bursting into tears. " I sold that which did not belong 
 to me." 
 
286 Fere Q-oriot. 
 
 Delphiue, too, seemed moved, and laid her head, upon 
 her sister's shoulder. 
 
 " Then it was all true ?" she said. 
 
 Anastasie bowed her head. Madame de Nueiogen 
 took her in her arms and kissed her tenderly. 
 
 " You will always be loved, not judged, by me," she 
 said. 
 
 " My angels ! " said their father in a feeble voiqq ; 
 " alas ! that your union should come only through 
 misfortune." 
 
 " To save Maxime's life, to save my own happiness," 
 resumed the countess, comforted by these proof? ' of 
 loving kindness, " I carried to that money-lender whoni 
 you know of — that man born in hell, whom nothing 
 moves to pity ; that Monsieur Gobseck — the family 
 diamonds, heir-looms treasured by Monsieur de Res- 
 taud : his, my own, all, everything. I sold them. 
 Sold them, do you understand ? I saved Maxime ; 
 but I killed myself. Restaud knows all." 
 
 " Who told him ? Who ? that I may strangle them ! " 
 cried the old man passionately. 
 
 " Yesterday my husband sent for me to his chamber. 
 I went. ' Anastasie,' he said to me, in such a voice, — 
 oh, his voice was enough ! I knew what was com- 
 ing, -^' Where are your diamonds?' 'In my room,' 1 
 answered. ' No,' hs said, looking full at me, ' they are 
 there, on my bureau.' He showed mc tlie case, which 
 he had covered with his handkerchief. ' You know 
 where they have come from,' he said. I fell at his 
 feet ; I wept ; I asked him what death he wished me 
 to die — " 
 
 " Did you say that ? " cried P6re Goriot. " By all that 
 
Pire aoriot. 287 
 
 is sacred, any one who blames or harms my children, 
 while I live, may be sure — that I — " 
 
 The words died in his throat, and he was silent. 
 
 " And then, dear Father, he asked me to do some- 
 thing harder than to die. Heaven preserve other 
 women from hearing what he said to me ! " 
 
 " I shall kill him," said Pere Goriot, slowly. " He has 
 bat one life, yet he owes me two. What followed ?" 
 
 " He looked at me," she continued, after a pause, 
 " and said, ' Anastasie, I will bury all in silence. I 
 will not separate from you, — there are children to be 
 considered. I will not fight with Monsieur de Trailles, 
 — I might miss him. Human justice gives me the right 
 to kill him in your arras ; but I will not dishonor the 
 children. I spare you and your children, but I impose 
 two conditions. Answer me. Are any of these chil- 
 dren mine ? ' I said, ' Yes.' ' Which ? ' ' Ernest, our 
 eldest.' 'It is well,' he said. 'Next, swear to obey 
 me in future on one point.' I swore. 'You will sign 
 over to me your property when I demand it?' " 
 
 " Sign it not ! " cried Pere Goriot. " Never sign it t 
 Nasie, Nasie, he cares for his heir, his eldest. I will 
 seize the child. Thunder of heaven! he is mine as 
 well as his; he is my grandson. I will put him in my 
 village where I was born. I will care for him — oh, 
 yes, be sure of that ! I will make your husband yield. 
 I will say to him, If you want your son, give me back 
 my daughter; restore her property; leave her' in 
 peace — " 
 
 " Father ! " 
 
 " Yes, thy father. I am thy true father. Let this 
 great lord beware how he maltreats my daughter! 
 
288 Pere Goriot. 
 
 A fire is running through my veins ; I have the blood 
 of a tiger in me ! Oh, my children, my children ! is 
 this your life ? — it is my death. What will become of 
 you when I am gone ? Why cannot a father live out 
 the life of his child? Oh, my God, thy world is 
 wrong!— and yet thou art a father. Oh, Father in 
 heaven ! why are we condemned to suffer through 
 our children ? Ah, my angels, it is only your griefs 
 that make you come to me, — only your tears that you 
 share with me ! Yes, yes, but that is love ; I laiow 
 you love me. Come, both of you, come, pour your 
 troubles into my heart : it is strong, it is large, it can 
 hold them all. Yes, though you rend it into fragments, 
 each fragment is a living heart, — a father's heart. 
 Could they but take your griefs and bear them for 
 you I Ah ! when you were my little ones I made you 
 happy." 
 
 " We have never been happy since," said Delpliine, 
 " Where are those days when we slid down the sacks 
 in the great granary ! " 
 
 " Father, I have not told you all," whispered Anas- 
 tasie to the old man, who started convulsively. " The 
 diamonds did not bring a hundred thousand francs. 
 They -are still pursuing Maxime. We have twelve 
 thousand francs more to pay. He has promised me to 
 reform ; to give up gambling. All I have in the world 
 is his affection ; and, oh, I have paid too terrible a 
 price for it ! — I cannot lose him now ! I have sacri- 
 ficed honor, fortune, children, peace of mind for him. 
 Oh, do something for me, that he may not be impris- 
 oned, not driven from society ! I know he will yet 
 make himself a position in the world. I have nothing 
 
PeVe Goriot. 289 
 
 left to give him now. But we have children ; they 
 must be provided for All will be lost if they put him 
 in Sainte-Pelagie, — a debtor's prison ! " 
 
 "I have nothing — nothing left, Nasie — nothing! 
 The world is at an end ; I feel it quaking, crumbling. 
 Fly, fly ! save yourselves ! Stay ! I have still my 
 silver buckles, and six forks and spoons, the first I ever 
 owned. But I have no money, only my annuity — " 
 
 " What have you done with your money in the 
 funds?" 
 
 "I sold it out, keeping a trifle for my wants. 1 
 wanted the rest, twelve thousand francs, to furnish 
 some rooms for Fifine." 
 
 " For you, Delphine?" cried Madame de Restaud. 
 
 " Never mind, never mind," said Pere Goriot, " the 
 twelve thousand francs are gone." 
 
 " I guess where," said the countess, " to help Mon- 
 sieur de Rastignac. Ah, my poor Delphine, pause! 
 see what I have come to." 
 
 '• My dear. Monsieur de Rastignac is a man incapa- 
 ble of ruining the woman who loves him." 
 
 " Thank you, Delphine. In the terrible position I 
 am in, you might have spared me that. But you never 
 loved me." 
 
 " Ah, but she does love you, Nasie ; she was saying 
 so just now. We were speaking of you, and she said 
 you were beautiful, but she was only pretty — " 
 
 " Pretty ! " cried the countess ; " her heart is stone- 
 cold." 
 
 " And if it were ! " exclaimed Delphine, coloring, 
 " how have you behaved to me ? You have dis^ 
 claimed me; you have shut against me the doors of 
 
 19 
 
290 -PeVe Croriot. 
 
 houses where I longed to go ; you have never let slip 
 an opportunity to give me pain. A cold heart ! Did 
 I come like you, and squeeze out of our poor father, 
 little by little, a thousand francs here, a thousand 
 francs there, — all he possessed ? Did I reduce him to 
 the state he is now in ? This is your doing, my sister. 
 I saw my father as often as I could. I never turned 
 him out of doors, and then came and licked his hands 
 when I had need of him. I did not even know that he 
 was spending those twelve thousand francs for me. I 
 at least have some decency — and you know it. Papa 
 may sometimes have made me presents, but I never 
 begged for them — " 
 
 "You were better off than I. Monsieur de Marsay 
 was rich, as you had good cause to know. You have 
 always been despicable as to money. Adieu, I have 
 no sister, no — " 
 " " Hush, Nasie ! " cried Pere Goriot. 
 
 " No one. but a sister — a sister like you — would in- 
 sinuate what the world itself does not believe. It is 
 monstrous ! " cried Delphine. 
 
 " My children ! my children ! hush, or you will 
 kill me before your eyes — " 
 
 " I forgive you, Nasie," continued Madame de 
 Nucingen, " for you are unhappy ; but I am better 
 than you — think of your saying that, just as I was 
 making up my mind to do everything that I could for 
 you. Well, it is worthy of all that you have done to 
 me for the last nine years ! " 
 
 " My children ! oh, my children ! Kiss each other, 
 be friends," said the father. " You are two angels." 
 
 " No, let me alone ! " cried the countess, whom 
 
PeVe Goriot. 291 
 
 Pere Gttriot had taken by the arm; "she has less pity 
 for nie than my husband. An example of all the vir- 
 tues, indeed ! " 
 
 " r had rather be supposed to owe money to M^a- 
 sifeur de Marsay than to own that Monsieur de Trailles 
 had cost me two hundred thousand francs," replied 
 Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " Delphine ! " cried the countess, making a step 
 towards her. 
 
 " I say the truth ; but what you say of me is false," 
 replied the other, coldly. 
 " Delphine, you are a — " 
 
 P6re Goriot sprang forward and prevented the coun- 
 tess from saying more by putting his hand over her 
 mouth. 
 
 " Good heavens. Papa ! what have you been touch- 
 ing?" cried Anastasie. 
 
 " Ah, yes, yes! I ought not to have touched yon," 
 said the poor father, wiping his hand upon his trousers, 
 " I did not know you were coming. I am moving 
 to-day." 
 
 He was glad to be able to draw upon himself a 
 reproach that diverted the current of his daughter's 
 anger. 
 
 "Ah!" he sighed, sitting down, "you break my 
 heart. I am dying, children ; my head burns as if ray 
 skull were full of fire. Be kind to each other; love 
 one another. — You will kill me. Delphine ! Nasie ! 
 you were both right, you were both wrong. Come, 
 Dedel," he resumed, turning to Madame de Nucingen 
 with his eyes full of tears, " she needs twelve thousand 
 francs ; let us see how we can get them for her. Oh. 
 
292 Pere Goriot. 
 
 my daughters, do not look at each other like that ! " 
 He fell down on liis knees before Delphine : " Ask her 
 pardon for my sake," he whispered ; " she is more un- 
 happy than you are." 
 
 " My poor Nasie," said Delphine, frightened by the 
 wild and maddened expression on her father's face, 
 " I was wrong. Kiss me." 
 
 "Ah, that is balm to my heart ! " cried the old man. 
 "But the twelve thousand francs, — how can we get 
 them? I might offer myself for a substitute in the 
 army — " 
 
 " Oh, Father ! " cried the daughters flinging their 
 arms about him. " No ! " 
 
 " God will bless you for that thought," cried Del- 
 phine. " We are not worthy of it, — are we, Nasie ? " 
 
 " And besides, my poor Father, it would be but a 
 drop in the bucket," observed the countess. 
 
 " Will flesh and blood bring nothing? " cried the old 
 man wildly. "I would give myself away to whoever 
 would save thee, Nasie ; I would commit crimes for 
 him ; I would go to the galleys, like Vautrin ; I — " 
 he stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt, and grasped 
 his head. " Nothing more ! — all gone! — "he said. 
 " No, I could steal — if I knew where : it is hard to 
 know where. Oh, there is nothing I can do — ^ but 
 die ! Let medie ! I am good for nothing else. I am 
 no longer a father : she appeals to me ; she needs my 
 help, and I have none to give her! Ah, wretch! 
 why did I buy that annuity ? — I ! who have children ! 
 Did I not love them ? Die, die ! like a dog, as I 
 am. Yet the beasts love their young — Oh, my 
 head, my head ! it bursts ! " 
 
PeVe Goriot. 293 
 
 He sobbed convulsively. Eugene, horror-stricken, 
 took np the note he had once signed for Vautrin, the 
 stamp of which was for a much larger sum than that 
 named on the face of it ; he altered the figures, making 
 it a note for twelve thousand francs payable to the order 
 of Goriot, and went into the old man's chamber. 
 
 " Here is the sura you want, Madame," he said, giv- 
 ing Madame de Restaud the paper. " I was asleep in 
 my room, and was wakened by what you were saying. 
 I learned for the first time what I owe to Monsieur 
 Goriot. Here is a paper on which you will be able to 
 raise the money. When it matures, I promise faith- 
 fully that it shall be paid." 
 
 The countess stood motionless, holding the paper. 
 " Delphine," she said, pale, and trembling with anger, 
 rage, and fury, " I take God to witness that I forgave 
 you all — oh I but this ! What ! Monsieur has been 
 there, and you knew it ? You have had the meanness 
 to feed your spite by letting him hear my secrets, — 
 mine, my children's, — my shame, my dishonor! Go, 
 you are a sister no longer! I hate you! I will harm 
 you, if I can. I — " 
 
 Anger cut short her words ; her throat was parched 
 and dry. 
 
 "My child! he is one of us; he is my son, your 
 brother, our deliverer," cried Pere Goriot. " Kiss 
 him, thank him, Nasie. See, I embrace him," he went 
 on, clasping Eugene to his breast with a sort of fury. 
 " Oh, my son ! " he cried, " I will be more than a father 
 to thee. Nasie, Nasie ! bless him and thank him." 
 
 " Don't speak to her. Father, she is out of her senses," 
 said Delphine." 
 
294 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Out 6f my senses ! And you ? — what are yon ? " 
 cried Madame de Restaud. 
 
 " Oh, my children ! I die if you continue," cried th* 
 old man, falling across his bed as if struck by a shot. 
 " They are killing me," he said. 
 
 The countess turned to Eugene, who stood motion- 
 less, struck dumb by the violence of the scene before 
 him. 
 
 " Monsieur ? " she said, and her gesture, tone, and 
 look were interrogative. She paid no attention to 
 her father, whose waistcoat was being loosened by 
 Delphine. 
 
 "Madame, I shall pay and keep silence," he Said, 
 answering her question before she asked it. 
 
 " You have killed Our father, Nasie," cried Delphine, 
 pointing to the old man now senseless on the bed. 
 
 Madame de Restaud left the room. 
 
 "I forgive her," he Sai'd, opening his eyes; "her 
 position is dreadful, and would turn a wiser head. 
 Console her, Delphine. Be good to her, — promise 
 your poor father, who is dying," he went on, pressing 
 her hand. 
 
 " But what ails you ? " she said, much frightened. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing," her father answered. " It will 
 go off presently. I have a weight upon my fore- 
 head; a headache. Poor Nasie, what will become of 
 her ? " 
 
 At this moment Madame de Restaud returned and 
 threw herself down beside her father. '• Oh, forgive 
 me ! " she cried. 
 
 " Come, come," said Pere Goriot, " that hurts me 
 more than anything." 
 
P§re Q-oriot. 295 
 
 « Monsieur," said the countess, turning to Rastignac 
 with tears in her eyes, " my troubles have made me 
 unjust. You will be a brother to me?" she added, 
 holding out her hand. 
 
 "Nasie," said Delphin'e, " my little Nasie, let us for- 
 get everything." 
 
 " No," she said, ' I shall remember." 
 
 " My angels," said P^re Goriot, " you lift the Cur- 
 tain that was falling before my eyes. Your voices 
 call me back to life. Let me see you kiss each 
 other once moi-e. Tell me, Nasie, will this note save 
 you?" 
 
 " I hope so. But, Papa, will you indorse it ? " 
 
 " Why, what a fool I was to forget that ! — but I was 
 ill. Nasie, don't be vexed with me. Let me know 
 when you are out of youv troubles. But, stay, I will 
 go to you — No, I will not go. I dare not see your 
 husband. As to his doing what he pleases with your 
 fortune, remember, I am here. Adieu, my child." 
 
 Eugfene stood stupefied. 
 
 " Poor Anastasie ! she was always violent," said 
 Madame de Nucingen ; "but she has a kind heart." 
 
 " She came back for the indorsement," whispered 
 Eugene in her ear. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " 
 
 " I wish I did not think it. Do not trust her," he 
 added, lifting up his eyes, as if to confide a thought 
 not to be put into words. 
 
 " Yes, she was always acting a part ; and my poor 
 father was completely taken in by her." 
 
 "How are you now, dear Pere Goriot?" asked 
 Rastignac, bending over the old man. 
 
296 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " I feel like going to sleep," he answered. Eugene 
 helped him to go to bed ; and after he had fallen asleep 
 holding his daughter's hand, Delphine quietly left him. 
 
 "To-night, at the opera," she said to Eugene, "you 
 will bring me word how he is. To-morrow you will 
 change your quarters, Monsieur. Let me peep into 
 your room — oh, what a horrid place ! it is worse 
 than my father's. Eugene, you behaved beautifully ! 
 I would love you more than ever for it — if I could. 
 But, my child, if you mean to get on in the world 
 you must give up throwing twelve thousand franc- 
 notes about in that way. Monsieur de Trailles is a 
 gambler, though my sister will not admit it. He 
 could have picked up that twelve thousand francs 
 in the place where he has lost and won a mint of 
 money. " 
 
 A groan brought them hastily back to Pere Goriot. 
 He was to all appearances asleep, but as they ap- 
 proached they heard him say, " Not happy ; they are 
 not happy ! " Whether he were asleep or awake, the 
 tone in which he uttered the words struck so painfully 
 to his daughter's heart that she leaned over the 
 wretched bed on which her father lay and kissed him 
 on his forehead. He opened his eyes and'murmured, 
 "Delphine!" 
 
 "How are you now? " she said. 
 
 " Better. Do not worry about me. I shall get up 
 presently. Go away, my children, and be happy." 
 
 Eugene took Delphine home ; but not liking the con- 
 dition in which they had left Pere Goriot, he refused 
 to dine with her, and went back to the Maison Vau- 
 quer. He found him better, and just sitting down to 
 
Pere Groriot. 297 
 
 dinner. Bianohon had placed himself so that he could 
 watch the old man unobserved. When he saw him 
 take up his bread and smell it to judge the quality of 
 the flour, the medical student, observing a total absence 
 of all consciousness of the act, made a significant 
 gesture. 
 
 " Come and sit by me, graduate of the Cochin Hos- 
 pital," said Eugene. 
 
 Bianchon did as he was asked, all the more readily 
 because it placed him nearer to the old man. 
 
 " What is the matter with him ? " whispered 
 Rastignac. 
 
 " If I am not mistaken, he 's done for. Something 
 out of the common must have excited him. He is 
 threatened with apoplexy. The lower part of his face 
 is calm enough, but the upper part is drawn and unnat- 
 ural. The eyes have the peculiar expression which 
 denotes pressure on the brain ; don't you notice that 
 they are covered with a light film ? To-morrow 
 morning I shall be able to judge better." 
 
 " Is there any cure for it ? " 
 
 " None. Possibly we might retard his death if we 
 could set up a reaction in the extremities; but if the 
 present symptoms continue, it will be all up with the 
 poor old fellow before to-morrow night. Do you know 
 what brought on his illness ? He must have had some 
 great shock that his mind has sunk under." 
 
 "Yes, he has," said Rastignac, remembering how 
 the daughters had struck alternate blows at their 
 father's heart. " But, at least," he said to himself, 
 "Delphine loves her old father." 
 
298 PcVe G-oriot. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 That night, at the opera, Eugene took some precau- 
 tions not to alarm Madame de Nueingen. 
 
 " Oh, yoTi need not be so anxious about him," she 
 said, as soon as he began to tell her of the illness. 
 "My father is very strong; this morning we shook 
 him a little, that is ail. Our fortunes are in peril: do 
 you realize the extent of that misfortune? I could 
 not survive it, if it were not that your affection makes 
 me indifferent to what I should otherwise consider 
 the greatest sorrow in the world. I have but one 
 fear now, — to lose the love which makes it happiness 
 to live. All outside of that I have ceased to care for ; 
 you are all in all to me. If I desire to keep my wealth, 
 it is that I may better please you. I know that I can 
 be more to a lover than to a father ; it is my nature. 
 My father gave me a heart, but you have made it 
 beat. The world may blame me, — I do not care; 
 you will acquit me of sins into which' I am drawn by 
 an irresistible attachment. You think me an unnatural 
 daughter? No, I am not : who would not love a father 
 kind as ours has been? But how could I prevent his 
 knowing the inevitable results of our deplorable mar- 
 riages ? Why did he not prevent them ? Was it not 
 his duty to think and judge for us? I know that he 
 suffers now as much as we do ; but how can I help 
 
Pire G-oriot. 299 
 
 that? Ought we to make light of our troubles? That 
 would do no good. Our silence would have distressed 
 him far more than our reproaches and complaints have 
 injured him. There are some situations in life where 
 every alternative is bitter." 
 
 Eugene was silent, touched by this simple expression 
 of native feeling. The clear judgment a woman shows 
 in judging natural affections when a privileged affection 
 separates and holds her at a distance from them, struck 
 him forcibly. Madame de Nucingen was troubled by 
 his silence. 
 
 " What are you thinking of ? " she said. 
 
 " Of. what you have just said to me. Until now, I 
 thought that I loved you more than you love me." 
 
 She smiled, but checked the expression of her feel- 
 ings, that she might keep the conversation within the 
 conventional limits of propriety. 
 
 " Eugene," she said, changing the conversation, " do 
 you know what is going on in the world ? All Paris 
 will be at Madame de Beauseant's to-morrow evening. 
 The Rochefides and the Marquis d'Adjuda have agreed 
 to keep the matter secret ; but it is certain that the 
 king signs the marriage contract to-morrow morning, 
 and that your poor cousin as .yet knows nothing of it. 
 She cannot put off her ball, .and the marquis will not 
 be there. All the world is talking of it." 
 
 " Then the world is amusing itself with what is in- 
 famous," cried Eugene, " and makes itself an accom- 
 plice. Don't you know that it will kill Madame de 
 Beauseant?" 
 
 « Oh, no, it will not," said Delphine, smiling ; " you 
 don't understand that sort of woman. But all Paris 
 
300 PeVe Groriot. 
 
 ■will be at her ball, — and I too, I shall be there ! I 
 owe this happiness to you.'' 
 
 " Perhaps," said Rastignac, " it . is only one of those 
 unfounded rumors which are always flying about 
 Paris." 
 
 " We shall know to-morrow." 
 
 Eugene did not go back to the Maison Vauquer. 
 The j)leasure of occupying his new rooms in the Rue 
 d'Artois was a temptation: too great to withstand. 
 The next morning he slept late ; and towards midday 
 Madame de Nucingen came to breakfast with him. 
 Young people are so eager for these pretty enjoyments 
 that he had well-nigh forgotten Pfere Goriot. It was 
 like a delightful festival to make use of each elegant 
 trifle that was now his own ; and the presence of 
 Madame de Nucingen lent to them all an added 
 charm. Nevertheless, about four o'clock they remem- 
 bered the old man, and as they recalled the happiness 
 he had shown at the thought of living there, Engine 
 remarked that they ought to get him there at once, 
 — especially if he were likely to be ill ; and he left 
 Delphine to fetch him from the Maison Vauquer. 
 
 Neither Goriot nor Bianchon were at the dinner- 
 table. 
 
 " Well," said the painter, " so Pire Goriot has broken 
 down at last! Bianchon is upstairs with him. The 
 old fellow saw one of his daughters this mortiing, — 
 that Countess de Restau-rama. After that he went 
 out,- and made himself worse. Society is about to be 
 deprived of one of its brightest ornaments." 
 
 Eugene rushed to the staircase. 
 
PeVe Q-oriot. 801 
 
 « Here, Monsieur Eugene ! " 
 
 " Monsieur Eugene ! Madame is calling you," cried 
 Sylvie. 
 
 " Monsieur," said the widow, " you and Pere Goriot 
 were to have left on the 15th of February ; it is three 
 days past that time, — this is the 18th. I shall expect 
 both of you to pay me a month's lodging ; but if you 
 choose to be responsible for Pere Goriot, your word 
 will be satisfactory." 
 
 "Why so? Cannot you trust him ? " 
 
 " Trust him ! If he were to go out of his mind 
 or die, his daughters would not pay me a farthing; 
 and nil he will leave is not worth ten francs. He 
 carried off the last of his forks and spoons this 
 morning. I don't know why. He had dressed him- 
 self up like a young man. Heaven forgive me, but I 
 do think he had put rouge on his cheeks. He looked 
 quite young again." 
 
 "I will be responsible," cried Eugene, with a shud- 
 der, foreseeing a catastrophe. 
 
 He ran up to P6re Goriot's chamber. The old man 
 was lying on his bed, with Bianchon beside him. 
 
 " Good evening. Father," said Eugene. 
 
 Pere Goriot smiled gently and said, turning his 
 glassy eyes upon the student, "How is she?" 
 
 "Quite well ; and you?" 
 
 « Not very ill." 
 
 " Don't tire him," said Bianchon, drawing Eugene 
 apart into a corner of the room. 
 
 « Well?" asked Rastignac. 
 
 " Nothing can s.ive him but a miracle. The conges- 
 tion I expected has taken place. I 've put on mustard 
 
302 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 plasters, and luckily they are drawing: he feels 
 them." 
 
 " Can he be moved ? " 
 
 " Not possibly. You must leave him v^here he is, 
 and he must be kept perfectly quiet, and free from 
 emotion." 
 
 " Dear Bianchon," said Eugene, " we will take care 
 of him together." 
 
 " I called in the surgeon-in-chief of my hospital." 
 
 " What did he say ? " 
 
 "He will give no opinion till to-morrow evening. 
 He has promised to come in after he gets through his 
 work for the day. It is quite certain that the old fel- 
 low has been up to some imprudence ; but he won't 
 tell me what. He is as obstinate as a mule. When I 
 speak to him he either makes believe he does not hear, 
 or that he has gone to sleep ; or if his eyes are open, 
 he begins to groan. He went out this morning and 
 walked all over Paris, nobody knows where. He 
 carried off everything he owned of any value; he 
 has been making some infernal sale of his things, 
 and exhausting his. strength. One of his daughters 
 was here." 
 
 "Ah!" said Rastignac, "the countess; a tall, dark 
 woman, with fine eyes, a pretty foot, and graceful 
 figure ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Leave me a moment alone with him," said Eugene. 
 " I can get him to tell me everything." 
 
 " Well, then, I '11 go and get my dinner. Be careful 
 not to agitate him. There is still some hope." 
 
 " I '11 be careful." 
 
Pere Q-oriot. 303 
 
 " They will enjoy themselves to-morrow," said Pere 
 Goriot to Eugene as soon as they were alone. " They 
 are going to a great ball." 
 
 "What did you do this morning, Papa, to knock 
 yourself up and have to go to bed ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 "Was Anastasie here?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Well, then, don't keep any secrets from me. What 
 did she ask you for this time ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " he replied, rallying his strength to speak. 
 " Poor child ! she was in great trouble. Nasie has not 
 a sou of her own since the affair of the diamonds. She 
 had ordered for this ball a beautiful dress of gold tissue, 
 which would set her off like a jewel. The dressmaker 
 — infamous creature! — refused to trust her, and her 
 maid paid a thousand francs on account — poor Nasie 1 
 that she should come to that ! it breaks my heart ; — 
 but the mnid, finding that Restaud had withdrawn all 
 confidence from Nasie, was afraid of losing her money, 
 so she ai'ranged with the dressmaker not to deliver the 
 dress till the thousand francs were paid. The ball is 
 to-morrow ; the dress is ready ; Nasie is in despair. 
 She wanted to borrow my forks and spoons and pawn 
 them. Her husband insists that she shall go to the 
 ball in order to show all Paris the diamonds she was 
 said to have sold. Could she say to him, ' I owe a 
 thousand francs; pay them for me'? No : I felt 
 that myself. Her sister Delphine is to be there in a 
 beautiful dress ; Anastasie ought not to be less brilliant 
 than her younger sister, — certainly not. Besides, she 
 was drowned in tears, my poor little daughter! I 
 
304 PeVe Qoriot. 
 
 was so mortified that I had not those twelve thousand 
 francs yesterday ! I would have given the rest of my 
 miserable life to make amends. Yoa see, I have borne 
 up till now against everything; but this last want of 
 money has broken my heart. — Well, well, I made no 
 bones about it ; I patched myself up ; I tried to make 
 myself look sjjruce, and I sold my forks and spoons 
 and the buckles for six hundred francs. Then I made 
 over my annuity for one year to old Gobseck for four 
 hundred more. — Bah ! I can live on dry bread : I did 
 when I was young. — So my Nasie will appear to- 
 morrow evening. I have got the thousand francs under 
 my pillow. It warms me up to feel them there under 
 my head, and to know that they are going to give com- 
 fort to my poor child. She is to come for them at ten 
 o'clock to-morrow morning. I shall be quite well by 
 that time. I don't want them to think me ill ; they 
 might not like to go to the ball, — they would wish to 
 stay and nurse me. Nasie will kiss me to-morrow as 
 if I were a baby. After all, I might have spent that 
 money on the apothecary ; I 'd rather give it to my 
 Cure-all, — my Nasie. I can stil! comfort her in her 
 troubles : that makes up in part for having sunk my 
 money in an annuity. She is down in the very depths, 
 and I have no strength to pull her up again ! — I am 
 going back into business ; I shall go to Odessa and 
 buy wheat : wheat is worth three times as much with 
 us as it costs there. The importation of cereals as raw 
 material is forbidden ; but the good people who make 
 the laws never thought of prohibiting manufactured 
 articles of flour. Ha ! ha ! the idea came into my head 
 this morning. I shall make millions out of my pastes." 
 
Pire Ooriot. 805 
 
 « He is losing his mind," thought Eugene, looking 
 down upon the old man. " Come, now, lie still, and 
 don't talk," he said. 
 
 Rastigiiac went to dinner when Bianchon came Up. 
 Both passed the night taking turns beside the sick bed. 
 One occupied himself in reading medical books, the 
 other in writing to his mother and sisters. The next 
 morning Bianchon thought the symptoms somewhat 
 more favorable, but the patient needed the intelligent 
 personal care which the two students alone could give 
 him. Leeches were put on the emaciated body of the 
 poor old man, and poultices; mustard foot-baths were 
 administered, and a number of medical devices resorted 
 to which required all the strength of the two young 
 men. Madame de Restaud did not come, but sent a 
 messenger for the money. 
 
 " I thought she would have come herself ; but per- 
 haps it is best so, — she might have been anxious," 
 said her father, trying to make the best of his 
 disappointment. 
 
 At seveil o'clock in the evening Therese appeared, 
 bringing a letter for Eugene : — 
 
 " What can you he doing, dear friend? Am I neglected as 
 soon as loved? You have shown me, in the outpourings of 
 heart to heart, a soul so beautiful that I trust you as one of 
 those forever faithful through many phases and shades of feel- 
 ing. Do you remember what you said as we were listening 
 to the prayer of Moses in Egypt ? ' To some it seems but a 
 single note ; to others the infinite of music' Do not forget that 
 I expect you this evening to go with me to Madame de BeaU- 
 seant's. Monsieur d'Adjuda's marriage contract was signed by 
 the king this morning, and the poor viscountess did not know 
 
 20 
 
306 Pere. Q-oriot. 
 
 of it till two o'oIocTj. All Paris will be at her house to-night ; 
 just as a crowd flocks to the Place de Greve to see an execu- 
 tion. Is it not horrible that people should go there to _see if 
 she can hide her grief, — if she knows how to die ? I certainly 
 would not go if I had been to her house before. But she will 
 probably neverreceive again, and then all the efforts I have made 
 to go there would be thrown away. My situation is different 
 from that of others. And besides, I shall be there for your 
 sake. If you do not come to me within two hours, I am not 
 sure that I shall pardon you' for the crime." 
 
 Eugene seized a pen and replied thus : — 
 
 " I am waiting for a doctor, who will say how long your 
 father has to live. He is dying. I will come and tell you 
 what the medical opinion is. I fear it can only be that he 
 will not recover. You will judge whether you can go to the 
 ball. Tender remembrances." 
 
 The doctor came at half-past eight, and though he 
 could hold out no hopes of improvement he thought 
 death was not imminent. He said there would be 
 changes to better or worse, and on these would hang 
 the life and reason of the patient. 
 
 " Far better that he should die," were his Inst words. 
 
 Eugene consigned P6re Goriot to the care of Bian- 
 clion, and went to Madame de Nucingen with the sad 
 news, which to his mind, still imbued as it was with 
 tender memories of his home, precluded all possibility 
 of amusement for a daughter. 
 
 " Tell her to go to the ball and enjoy herself all the 
 same," said Pere Gpriot, who they hoped was dozing, 
 but who started up in bed when he saw that Rastignac 
 was going. 
 
Pere Goriot. 307 
 
 The young man entered Delphine's presence with 
 his lieart full of grief and pity. He found her with 
 her toilette made, her hair dressed, and nothing more 
 to be done than to put on her ball-dress. But like an 
 artist's final work upon his canvas, the finishing touches 
 took more time than the picture itself. 
 
 " "What ! are you not dressed ? " she said. 
 
 " But, Madame, your father is — " 
 
 " Why do you harp upon my father?" she cried, in- 
 terrupting him. " You need not teach me my duty to 
 my father. I .have known my father for a long time. 
 Not another word, Eugene ; I will not listen to you 
 till you have made your toilette. Thdrese has laid out 
 everything in your room. My carriage is at the door ; 
 take it, and come back as soon as possible. We can 
 talk about my father as we are driving to the ball. I 
 wish to start early, for if Ve are caught in the line of 
 carriages it may be midnight before we get there." 
 
 « Madame ! — " 
 
 " Go, go ! not another word," she cried, running into 
 her boudoir for a necklace. 
 
 " Go, Monsieur Eugene — go ! " said Therese, " or you 
 will make Madame very angry." 
 
 So saying, she pushed the young man, who stood dis- 
 mayed and silenced by this elegant parricide. He went 
 away and dressed himself, filled with melancholy and 
 disheartening reflections. The world seemed to him 
 like an ocean of slime, in which a man sank up to his 
 throat if he so much as put his foot into it. 
 
 " Its wickednesses are mean, — are paltry," he cried. 
 " Vautrin's crimes at least were great." 
 
 He had now seen, by experience, the three great 
 
308 Fire Q-oriot. 
 
 phases of society, — Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt: 
 Family-life, tlie World, and Vautrin. He dared not 
 make his choice among them. Obedience had become 
 to him stagnation ; revolt was impossible ; struggle 
 false and uncertain. He thought of his home ; he re- 
 membered the pure emotions of that peaceful life ; his 
 mind went back to the years passed among the dear 
 ones who fondly loved him. He said to himself that 
 those who conformed in all things to the natural 
 laws of family life were fully, perfectly, permanently 
 happy. 
 
 But though he owned these things, he had not the 
 courage to assert them to Delphine. Could he confess 
 the faith of purity to her ? Could he talk to her of 
 virtue in the guise of love ? His worldly training was 
 already bearing fruit ; his love was selfishness. His 
 instinct enabled him to sound the inner nature of 
 Delphine : he believed her capable of going to this 
 ball over the dead body of her father; but he had nei- 
 ther the sti'ength to oppose her by argument, nor the 
 courage to disj^lease her, nor the virtue to give her up. 
 " She would never forgive me for being right where 
 she was bent on doing wrong," was his reflection. 
 Then he recalled the doctor's words. He persuaded 
 himself that Pere Goriot was not so dangerously ill as 
 he had thought; he multiplied heartless arguments 
 that he might justify Delphine : she could not know 
 - her father's true condition ; the poor old man himself 
 would send her to the ball if she went to see him. He 
 reflected also that the laws of social life are absolute, 
 and make no allowances for differences of character, or 
 interests, or situations. He tried to deceive himself, 
 
Pin G-oriot. 309 
 
 and find reasons to sacrifice his conscience to his mis- 
 tress. For two days past everything within hiui and 
 about him had changed. Woman had tm-ned the cur- 
 rent of his whole existence ; home and its ties had 
 paled before her influence ; she had confiscated all 
 things to her profit. 
 
 " Tell me now, how is my father ? " said Jdadame 
 de Nucingen, when he came back dressed for the ball. 
 
 " Very ill," he said. " If you would give me a proof 
 of your affection, you would let me take you to him at 
 once." 
 
 " Well — yes ; " she said ; " but it must be after the 
 ball. Eugene, be good ; don't preach to me. Come ! 
 
 They drove away. Eugene sat silent for a part of 
 the way. 
 
 "What are you thinking of ?" she asked. 
 
 " I am listening to the rattle in your father's throat," 
 he answered in a tone of anger; and he began to relate, 
 with the fiery eloquence of youth, the cruelty to which 
 Madame de Restaud's vanity had pushed her, the last 
 supreme act of their father's self-devotion, and the mor- 
 tal cost of that golden robe in which Anastasie was 
 now about to appear. Delphine wept. 
 
 "But it will make me ugly;" she thought — and her 
 tears dried at once. " I will go and nurse my father. 
 I will stay beside his pillow," slie said aloud. 
 
 " Ah ! now, indeed, thou art all that I would have 
 thee ! " cried Eugene. 
 
 The lamps of five hundred carriages lighted the 
 approach to the H6tel de Beauseant, and on either 
 side of the illuminated gateway was a mounted gen- 
 darme. The great world flocked thither in such crowds, 
 
310 PeVe Q-oriot. 
 
 eager to gaze on this great lady at the moment of her 
 downfall, that the ball-rooms on the ground-floor of 
 the H6tel were filled when Madame de Nucingen and 
 Rastignac entered them. Since the famous occasion 
 when a whole Court rushed to see la grande Made- 
 moiselle^ after Louis XIV. had torn her lo\er from her 
 arms, no disaster of the heart had excited such intense 
 interest as this of Madame de Beaus^ant. On this 
 occasion the daughter of the semi-royal house of 
 Burgundy rose superior to her woe, and swayed to 
 her latest moment that world whose homage she had 
 valued only as incense to be offered on the altar of 
 her friend. The loveliest women in Paris adorned the 
 rooms with their dresses and their smiles. The most 
 distinguished men of the Court, — ambassadors, minis- 
 ters, heroes illustrious in a hundred ways, and covered 
 with crosses, medals, and ribbons of all orders, — pressed 
 around their hostess. The great world had arrayed 
 itself as if to make a last obeisance to its sovereign. 
 The music of the orchestra floated in tender harmonies 
 along the gilded ceilings of the palace now desolate 
 for its queen. Madame de Beauseant stood within the 
 doorway of the first salon, receiving those who called 
 themselves her friends. Dressed in white, without an 
 ornament, and with simply braided hair, she appeared 
 calm, and exhibited neither grief nor pride, nor any 
 pretence of joy. No one saw into her heart. She 
 seemed a marble Niobe. The smiles slie gave to her 
 intimate friends had occasional gleams of irony; but 
 to all present she appeared unchanged, and bore her- 
 self so truly the same as when happiness shed its halo 
 round her that the most unfeeling person in that crowd 
 
Pire Goriot. 311 
 
 admired her, as the Roman youths admired the gladia- 
 tors who smiled as they died. 
 
 " I feared yo\i might not come," said Madame de 
 Beauseant to Rastignac. 
 
 Taking her words for a reproach, he answered with 
 emotion, "Madame, I have come to be the last to 
 leave you." 
 
 "That is well," she said, taking his hand. "You 
 are perhaps the only person present whom I can trust. 
 My friend, when you love, let it be a woman whom 
 you can love forever. Never forsake a woman ! " 
 
 She took Rastignac's arm, and led him to a sofa in 
 the card-room. 
 
 "Go for me," she said, "to the Marquis d'Adjuda. 
 Jacques, my footman, will tell you where he is to be 
 found, and will, give you a note for him. It asks for 
 my letters. He will give them up to you, — I trust he 
 will. If you obtain them, go up to my rooms on your 
 return ; they will tell me when you are there." 
 
 She rose and went forward to greet the Duchesse 
 de Langeais, who was entering the salon. Rastignac 
 did as he was told. He asked for the Marquis d'Ad- 
 juda at the Hotel Eochefide, where he was to pass the 
 evening, and found him. The Marquis took him to 
 his own house, and gave him a casket, saying, " They 
 are all there." He seemed to wish to say more ; per- 
 haps to question Eugene about the viscountess, 
 possibly to own himself already in despair about his 
 marriage (as, in fact, he became soon after) ; but a ray 
 of pride shone in his eyes, and he had the melancholy 
 courage to triumph over his better feelings. "Tell 
 her nothing about me, my dear Eugene," he said. He 
 
312 Pire G-oriot. 
 
 pressed Rastignac's hand with a grasp of affection and 
 regret, and made a sign that he should leave him. 
 
 Eugene returned to the H6tel de Beauseant, and 
 was shown up to his cousin's chamber, which was 
 strewn with preparations for a journey. He sat down 
 near the fire holding the cedar casket, and fell into a 
 state of the deepest melancholy. For him, Madame 
 de Beauseant took on the proportions of a goddess of 
 the Iliad. 
 
 " Ah ! my friend," she said, coming in and laying 
 her hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 He turned and saw her in tears. Her eyes were 
 raised, tlie hand upon his shoulder trembled, the other 
 was lifted up. Suddenly she took the casket, put it 
 on the fire, and watched it burn. 
 
 " They are dancing — they came , early — Death 
 may keep me waiting long. Hush, dear friend," she 
 said, laying her hand upon the lips of Rastignac as he 
 was about to answer. " To-night I take my leave of 
 Paris and the world. At five o'clock to-morrow morn- 
 ing I go to bury myself in the solitude of Normandy. 
 Since three o'clock to-day I have made my prepara- 
 tions, signed papers, transacted business. I had no 
 one I could send to — " She paused. " It was cer- 
 tain he would be at — " She stopped again, overcome 
 with emotion. At such times it is pain to speak; 
 certain words it is impossible to utter. " You see," 
 she resumed, " that I counted upon you for this last 
 service. I should like to give you a remembrance, — 
 something to make you think of me. I shall often 
 think of you; you have seemed to me kind and noble, 
 fresh and true, in this world where these qualities are 
 
Fire Goriot. 313 
 
 rare. See," she said, casting a glance about the room, 
 "here is the box in which I have always kept my 
 .gloves. E\ery time that I took them from it — for 
 a ball, an opera — I felt myself beautiful, for I was 
 happy. I never opened it that I did not leave within 
 it some smiling thought. Much of myself is in that 
 box, — much of a Madame de Beauseant, who is gone 
 forever. Accept it. I will take care that it is carried 
 to your rooms in the Rue d' Artois. — Madame de 
 Nucingen looks well to-night. Treat her tenderly. 
 If we never meet again, dear friend, be sure that I 
 shall pray for you, who have been very good to me. 
 Let us go down now ; I would not have them think that 
 1 have wept. I hare an eternity before me, where I 
 shall be alone, — where no one will ask whether I smile 
 or weep. Let me give a last look round my chamber." 
 
 She stopped, hid her eyes for a moment with her 
 hand, then bathed them with cold water, and took the 
 student's arm. " Let us go," she said. 
 
 Rastignac had never in his life been so much moved 
 as he now- was by the grief thus nobly kept under con- 
 trol. When they reached the ball-rooms, Madame de 
 Beauseant made the circuit of her guests leaning on 
 her cousin's arm, — a .last and thoughtful act of kind- 
 ness bestowed by this gracious woman. He soon saw 
 the -two sisters, Madame de Restaud and Madame de 
 Nucingen. The former was blazing in diamonds, — 
 which no doubt burned her as they blazed, conscious, 
 as she was, that she was wearing them for the last 
 time. Though she bore herself proudly and was ex- 
 quisitely dressed, she seemed unable to meet the eye 
 of her husband. This sight did not make Rastignac 
 
314 Pere Goriot. 
 
 less bitter at heart. If Vautrin had appeared to him 
 in the Italian colonel , he now saw through the glitter- 
 ing diamonds of the two sisters the neglected death- 
 bed of Pere Goriot. 
 
 His depression was noticed by Madame de Beauseant, 
 who attributed it to another cause, and released his 
 arm. 
 
 " Go now," she said ; " I would not deprive you of a 
 pleasure." 
 
 Eugene was soon claimed by Delphine, charmed 
 with the sensation she had created, and anxious to 
 lay at his feet the homage she was receiving from 
 the great world, in which she now might hope for 
 adoption. 
 
 " What do you think of Nasie ? " she asked him. 
 
 " She has discounted even her father's death," he 
 answered. 
 
 About four in the morning the crowd began to 
 tliin, and presently the music ceased. The Duchesse 
 de Langeais and Rastignac at last stood alone in the 
 great ball-room. The viscountess, expecting to find 
 only Rastignac, came in after taking leave of Monsieur 
 de Beauseant, who had gone to bed, saying, — 
 
 " Indeed you are wrong, my dear, to shut yourself 
 u]), — at your age ! Why not remain among us ? " 
 
 On seeing the duchess, Madame de Beauseant started 
 and gave a little cry. 
 
 " I guess what you are about to do, Clara," said 
 Madame de Langeais. " You are going to leave us, 
 and you will never return. But you shall not go 
 without hearing what I have to say. We must not 
 part misunderstanding each other." 
 
Fire Goriot. 315 
 
 She took her friend by the arm and led her into 
 a smaller salon. There, looking at her with tears in 
 her eyes, she' pressed her in her arms and kissed her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " We must not part coldly, dear," she said ; " it 
 would make me too unhappy. You may lely on me 
 as you would upon yourself. You have been noble 
 this evening : I feel that I am not unworthy of you, 
 and I wish to prove it. I have not always treated 
 you as I should have done : forgive me, dear. I take 
 back every word taat may have pained you, — would 
 that I could unsay them altogether ! We are passing 
 through the same sorrow ; I know not which of us is 
 the most unhappy. Monsieur de Montriveau was not 
 here to-night : you know what that means. All who 
 saw you at this ball, Clara, will never forget you. 
 For myself, — I shall make a last effort : if it fails, I 
 shall go into a convent. And you? "Where are you 
 going ? " 
 
 "To Normandy, — to Courcelles: to love, to pray, 
 till it shall please God to take me from the world." 
 Then, with a break in her voice, Madame de Beau- 
 s^ant called to Eugene, remembering that he was 
 waiting for her in the great salon. 
 
 He knelt beside her, and took her hand and kissed 
 it. 
 
 "Antoinette, adieu," she said; "be happy. Mon- 
 sieur de Rastignac, you are happy, — for you are 
 young, and can still have faith. Here, where I re- 
 nounce the world, I have beside me — as some rare 
 death-beds have had — two hearts that feel for me 
 with sacred and sincere affection." 
 
816 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 Rastignac left the house about five o'clock, having 
 put Madame de Beauseant into her travelling-carriage 
 and received her last farewells mingled with tears. 
 He walked home to the Maison Vauquer in the damp 
 dawn of a cold morning. He was making progress in 
 his education. 
 
 " We can't save poor old Goriot," said Bianchon, when 
 Rastignac entered the room of his sick neighbor. 
 
 " Bianchon," said Rastignac, looking down upon the 
 old man, who lay asleep, " keep to the humble destiny 
 to which you limit your ambition. For me, — I am in 
 hell, and I must stay there. Whatever evil they may 
 tell you of the world, believe it. No Juvenal that 
 ever lived could reveal the infamies concealed under 
 its gold and jewels." 
 
 Later in the day Rastignac was awakened by Bian- 
 chon, who being obliged to go out, requested him to 
 take charge of Pere Goriot, who had grown much 
 worse during the morning. 
 
 " Poor old fellow ! He can't live two days, — per- 
 haps not more than six hours," said the medical stu- 
 dent J " though of course we must do all we can for 
 him. We shall have to try certain remedies that cost 
 money. You and I can take care of him, — but how 
 are we to pay for the things ? I have n't a sou, myself. 
 I have turned out his pockets and searched his cup- 
 boards — nothing ! absolutely zero ! I asked him in a 
 lucid moment, and he told me he had net a farthing. 
 How much have you ? " 
 
 " I have only twenty francs," said Rastignac ; " but I 
 will go and play them, and win more." 
 
Pere Groriot. 317 
 
 " Suppose you lose ? " 
 
 " Then I will ask money from his sons-in-law and 
 his daughters." 
 
 •' And suppose they won't give it to you ? " said 
 Bianohon. "However, the important thing now is 
 not to get the money, but to wrap the poor fellow in 
 hot mustai-d, from his feet up to the middle of his 
 thighs. If he cries out, so much the better : it will 
 show there's a chance for him. You know how to 
 manage it, and Cluistophe will help you. I will stop 
 at the apothecary's and make myself responsible for 
 the things we may want. What a pity he could not 
 have been taken to the hospital ! He would have 
 been much better off there. Come on, and let me 
 give you the directions; and don't leave him till I 
 get back." 
 
 The two young men went into the room where the 
 old man lay. Eugene was shocked by the great 
 change that a few hours had made in the weak, 
 blanched, and distorted features. 
 
 " Well, Papa ! " he said, leaning over the bed. 
 
 Pere Goriot raised his dim eyes and looked atten- 
 tively at him, but did not recognize him. The student 
 could not bear the sight, and turned away weeping. 
 
 " Bianchon," he said, " ought there not to be curtains 
 to his window ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; atmospheric conditions can't affect him 
 now. It would be a good sign if he felt either heat or 
 cold. Still, we must keep up a little fire, to heat the 
 mustard and prepare his drinks. I '11 send you some 
 fagots, which will do till we can buy wood. Last 
 night and yesterday I burned up yours, and the poor 
 
318 Pere Gtoriot. 
 
 old fellow's bark as well. It was so damp, and th.e 
 walls were dripping with moisture. I could hardly 
 keep the floor diy. Christophe swept it up, but it is 
 as bad as a stable. I have been burning juniper, tbe- 
 room smelt so infernally." 
 
 " Good God ! " said Rastignac. " Think of his 
 daughters ! " 
 
 "Now, if he wants anything to diink, give him 
 this,'' said the medical student, showing a large white 
 pitcher. " If he complains of his stomach being hot 
 and hard, call Christophe, and he will help you to give 
 him ^ you know. If he should get excited and insist 
 on talking, or be a little out of his head, don't check 
 him. It is not a bad symptom. But send Christophe 
 at once to the hospital ; and' either the surgeon or my 
 comrade and I will come and apply the actual cautery. 
 This morning, while you were asleep, we had a great 
 consultation here, between a pupil of Dr. Gall the 
 phrenologist, the head-surgeon of the HStel Dieu, 
 and our own chief from the Cochin Hospital. They 
 thought there were some curious symptoms in tha 
 case ; and we are going to make notes on its progress, 
 in hopes of throwing light on some important ■scientific 
 points. One of the doctors thinks that if the pressure 
 of the serum should be more upon one organ than upon 
 any other, we may see some singular developments. 
 So in case he should begin to talk, listen to what he 
 says, and note what kind of ideas his mind runs on, — 
 whether memory is all he has left, or whether he still 
 has his reasoning powers ; whether he is thinking of 
 material things, or only of feelings ; whether he is 
 calculating as to the future, or only reverting to the 
 
Pere Groriot. 319 
 
 past. In short, give us an exact report. It is possible 
 that the invasion of the brain raay be complete, — all 
 over it; in that case, he will die imbecile, as he is at 
 tills moment. The course of an illness like this is 
 often very singular. If the rush were here," continued 
 Bianchon, putting his finger upon the occiput, "the 
 case might show some very remarkable phenomena. 
 The brain might then recover some of its faculties, and 
 death would be slow in coming. The. matter that 
 presses on the brain might then be absorbed through 
 channels whicb we could only discover in the post- 
 mortem. There is an old man now in the Hospital 
 for Incurables, with whom the matter in question is 
 slowly passing away down the spinal column. He 
 suffers horribly, — but he lives." 
 
 " Did they enjoy themselves ? " said Pere Goriot, 
 who now recognized Eugene. 
 
 " He thinks of nothing but his daughters,'' said 
 Bianchon. He said to me over and over again during 
 the night, ' they are dancing,' ' she has got her gown.' 
 He called them by their names. He made me cry — 
 the devil take me! — by his piteous way of saying 
 'Delphine! my. little Delphine ! Nasie ! ' Upon my 
 word of honor," said the medical student, " it was 
 enough to make any fellow shed tears." 
 
 "Delphine?" said the old man. "Is she there? 
 Did you say so ? " And his eyes glanced wildly at 
 the walls and doorway. 
 
 " I '11 go and tell Sylvie to get the mustard," said 
 Bianchon. " It is a good time now." 
 
320 Pire G-oriot. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Rastignac! remained alone witli the old man, sitting 
 at the foot of the bed, with his eyes fixed on the aged 
 head now coming with sorrow to the grave. 
 
 " Madame de Beauseant has fled," he said to him- 
 self, " Pere Goviot dies : natures that have deejD affec- 
 tions cannot abide long in this evil world. How 
 should noble minds live, allied to a society that is 
 mean, petty, and superficial?" 
 
 Scenes of that splendid ball rose \ip in awful con- 
 trast to this bed of death. Bianchon reappeared. 
 
 " Look here, Eugene ! " lie said. " I have jnst seen 
 our surgeon-in-chief, and I have run back to tell you. 
 If he should recover his reason, if he should talk, 
 wrap him in mustard, from his neck half-way down 
 his loins, and send somebody at once for me," 
 
 " Dear Bianchon ! " said Eugene. 
 
 "Oh, it's a case of great scientific interest!" 
 exclaimed the medical student, with the fervor of a 
 neophyte. 
 
 '' Alas ! " cried Eugene ; " am I the only one to care 
 for the poor old man out of affection ?" 
 
 " You would not say that, if you had seen me this 
 morning," said Bianchon, not oflfended. " The other 
 doctors thought of him only as a case ; but I thought 
 also of the poor patient, my dear fellow." 
 
Pere Goriot. 321 
 
 He went away, leaving his friend alone with the old 
 man. Eugene dreaded a crisis, which was not long in 
 coming. 
 
 " Ah ! is that you, my dear boy ? " asked Pere Goriot, 
 recognizing Eugene. 
 
 " Ave you better ? " said the student, taking his 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes ; my head was in a vice, — but it is free now. 
 Did you see my daughters? Will they be here soon ? 
 They will come as soon as they know that I am ill. I 
 wish my room were clean. There was a young man 
 here last night who burned up all my fuel." 
 
 " I hear Christophe bringing up some wood which 
 that young- man has sent you." 
 
 " Good, — but who is to pay for the wood ? I have 
 no money. I have given it all away, — all! I must 
 come on charity. — Was the dress of gold tissue 
 very handsome? — Ah, how 1 suffer! Thank you, 
 Christophe, my good man. Gud will reward you ; T 
 have nothing now,.'" 
 
 "I will pay you and Sylvie hnndsomely for all yju 
 do," whisj^ered Eugene to the Savoyard. 
 
 " My daughters said they would be here, did they 
 not, Christojihe? Go to them .Tgain ; I will give you 
 a five-franc piece. Tell them that I am not very well; 
 that I should like to see them, — -to kiss them before I 
 die. But don't alarm them." 
 
 Christoj)lie went off on a sign from Rastignac. 
 
 " They will come," resumed the old man. "I know 
 them. Dear, kind Delphine, — if I die, what sorrow I 
 shall cause her ; and ISTasie too. I don't want to die. 
 To die, my good Eugene, is — not to see them. There, 
 
 21 
 
822 Pere. Goriot. 
 
 where I am going, how lonely I shall be !- Hell, to a 
 father, is to be without his children • I have served 
 my apprenticeship in it ever since they married. My 
 heav«n was in our home, — Kue Jussienne. Tell me, 
 if I go to heaven, can I come back in spirit and hover 
 near them? I have heard of such things; are they 
 true? — I see them now, as they were in the Rue 
 Jussienne. ' Good morning, Papa,' they used to say. 
 I took them on my knee and played with them, — a 
 thousand little tricks : they caressed me so prettily. 
 We used to breakfast together, to dine together. Ah, 
 I was a father then ! I was happy in my children. 
 They never reasoned then ; they knew nothing of the 
 world, — they only loved me. Oh, my God ! why 
 could I not have kept my little ones? — I suffer — 
 my head ! my head ! Forgive me, my children, but I 
 ara in such pain — no, this must be anguish ; for you 
 have hardened me to pain. — If I could but hold them 
 in my arras, I should not suffer so. Are they coming? 
 Will they come ? Christophe is so stupid. I ought to 
 ha?e gone myself. — You saw them at the ball. 
 They did not know that I was ill, did they? they 
 would not have danced, poor darlings. Oh ! I must 
 not be ill, — they need me ; their fortunes are in dan- 
 ger. Ah! to whrit husbands they are bound! Save 
 me ! cure me ! — Oh, I suffer, suffer ! — I must be 
 cured, for tliey need money, and I know where to make 
 it. I am going to Odessa; I .shall make my pastes 
 there. I 'ra shrewd : I shall make millions. — Oh, 
 I suffer too much ! — too much ! " 
 
 He was silent a few moments, and seemed to be 
 rallying all his strength to bear the pain. 
 
Pire Goriot. 323 
 
 "If liieyTTOre here I would not complain," lie said. 
 " Why-Aould I complain if they were here ? " 
 
 He €ozed off lightly. The sleep lasted some time. 
 Olmstophe returned, and Eastignac, who thought Peve 
 Goriot had fallen back into a stupor, let him give an 
 atjcoimt of his mission. 
 
 " Momieur,"' he -said, "-first of all, I went to find 
 Madame la comtesse ; but I was told I could not 
 ^peak with her because she was settling some business 
 with her husband. I said that I must see somebody ; 
 -so Monsieur de Restaud came himself, and he talked 
 just this way. He said : ' Well, if Monsieur Goriot is 
 dying, it is the best thing he can do. I want Madame 
 dfi Bestaud tcsettle some very important business, and 
 she can't go till it is finished.' He looked very angry, 
 he did. I was just going away when Madame came 
 tbrough a side door into the antechamber and said to 
 Tiie, ' Christophe, tell my father that I am arranging 
 important matters with rny husband, and that I cannot 
 -leave at present ; but as soon as I cm I will go to 
 him.' As for Madame la baronne, that was another 
 matter. I could n't see her, and I could n't get word 
 -to her. Her maid said, ' Madame did not get home 
 from a ball till half-past four, and she 's asleep. If I 
 wake her she will- scold me. I will tell her that her 
 father is worse when she rings her bell. It is always 
 soon enough to tell bad news. ' I begged her and 
 begged her; but it was no use. Then I asked to see 
 Monsieui- de Nucingen, but he was out." 
 
 " So neither of his daughters will come to him ! " 
 cried Rastignac. "I will write to both of them." 
 
 " Neither ! " cried the old man, rising in his bed. 
 
324 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " They are busy ; they sleep ; they will -not come. I 
 knew it. We must die, to know what our children 
 are. Friend, never marry ; never liave children. You 
 give them life, — they will give you death. You bring 
 them into the world, — they drive you out of it. No ! 
 they will not come. I have known it these ten years. 
 I have said it to myself, but I dared not believe it." 
 
 Tears welled up to the red rims of his poor eyes, but 
 they did not fall. 
 
 " Ah, if I were rich ; if I had kept my fortune ; if 
 I had not given them all, all, — they would be -here, 
 they would lick my cheeks .with kisses. I should live 
 in a mansion ; I should have a fine chamber, servants, 
 a fire. They would be all in tears, husbands and 
 children. All would be mine. — But now, nothing; 
 I have nothing. Money gives all things, even chil- 
 dren. — Oh, my money ! where is it ? If I had treas- 
 ures to bequeath, they would nurse me, they would 
 watch me. I should hear them ; I should see them. 
 Ah, my son ! my only child ! I would rather be as I am, 
 forsaken and destitute : if a poor creature is loved, he 
 knows that love is true. — But, no, no! if I were rich 
 I should see them. My God! who knows ? They have 
 hearts of stone, — both, both ! I loved them too well ; 
 they gave me no love in return. A father should 
 always be rich ; he should curb liis children like vicious 
 horses. But I — I was on my knees to them ! — Ah, 
 cruel hearts ! they fitly crown their conduct to me for 
 ten years past. If you knew the tender care they took 
 of me the first year of their marriage ! — ■ oh, I suffer 
 a martyrdom of pain! — I had just given eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs to each, and neither they nor their 
 
Pere Goriot. 325 
 
 husbands could be rude to ine. They welcomed me. 
 It was ' My good Papa,' My de.ir Papa.' My place 
 was laid at their table ; I dined with tiieii- husbands ; I 
 was treated with respect. Why ? Because I had said 
 nothing of my affiurs ; because a man who gives away 
 a million and a half of francs must ha\e something 
 left to leave : he is a man to be thought of. And so 
 they paid me attentions, — but it was for my money. 
 The world is not noble : I saw it all. They took rae 
 to the theatre in their carriages ; I went if I pleased to 
 theii- parties. They called themselves my daughters ; 
 they acknowledged me to be their father. Ah, I 
 have my sight ; I saw through it all, — nothing escaped 
 me ; it struck home and pierced my heart : I knew 
 that air was a pretence. — But the evil was without 
 remedy. I was let-s at my ease dining with them than 
 at the table downstairs. I was dull ; I could say 
 nothing. These fashionable people whispered to my 
 sons-in law, ' Who is that. Monsieur? ' ' The papa 
 with the money-bags.' ' Ah, thedevil ! ' they cried, and 
 looked at me with the respect due to wealth. — My 
 head, my head ! I suffer, Eugene ! I suffer ! It is my 
 death-struggle." 
 
 He paused a moment, and then continued : " But it 
 is nothing, nothing compared to the first look Anastasie 
 gave me, to make me feel I had said an ignorant thing 
 which mortified her. That look ! it bled me from 
 every vein. I was ignorant ; yes, but one thing I 
 knew too well, — there was no place for me among 
 the living. The next day I went to Delphiiie to con- 
 sole me ; and there I did an awkward thing which 
 made her angry. I went nearly out of my mind ; 
 
326 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 for eight days I was beside myself, not Joiowing 
 what to do : I was afraid to go and see them, lest 
 they should ^peak their mind to me. And so it came 
 to pass that I was turned from their doors. — My 
 God ! thou who hast inovvn the sufferings and the 
 misery I have endured ! who hast counted the stabs 
 that I have received throughout the years which have 
 changed and whitened and withered me ! why dost 
 thou let me suffer so horribly to-day ? Have I not ex- 
 piated the crime of loving them too well ? — they hare 
 punished it themselves ; they have tortured me mtb 
 hot irons ! — Ah, fathers aie fools ! I loved them 
 so well that I went back like a gambler to his play. 
 My daughters were my \ ice, — my mistresses. They 
 wanted this and that, — laces, jewels, — their waiting- 
 women told me ; and I gave that I might buy a wel- 
 come. But all the same they tutored me about my 
 behavior in their world : they let me see they were 
 ashamed of me." 
 
 His voice sank, then rose again : " Oh, I suffer ! 
 The doctors ! where are they ? If they would split 
 my head open with an axe, I should suffer less. — 
 Send for them, send for my daughters, — Anastasie, 
 Delphine ! I must see them! Send the gendarmes; 
 use force! Justice is on my side; all is on my side, 
 — nature, laws! The nation will perish if fathers are 
 trodden under foot ; society, the vvorld, — all rest 
 upon fatherhood : they will crumble to nothing if 
 children do not love their fathers. Oh, to see them! 
 to hear them ! no matter what they say to me ; their 
 voices would calm me, — my Delphine especialljr. 
 But when they come, tell them not to look at me so 
 
PeVe G-oriot. 327 
 
 coldly. Ah, my friend, my good Eugene ! do you 
 kilow what it is to see the golden glance of love 
 change to leaden gray? Since that day, when their 
 eyes no longer lightened up for me, my life has been 
 an arctic winter ; grief has been my portion and I 
 have eaten ray fill of it. I have lived only to be in- 
 sulted and humiliated. Yet I loved them so much 
 that I swallowed the affronts each shameful pleasure 
 cost me. A father hiding himself! waiting in the 
 streets to see his child ! — I have given them all my 
 hfe : they will not give me one hour to-day. I thirst, 
 I burn ! they will not come to ease my death, — for 
 1 am dying ; I fetl it. Do they know what it is to 
 trample on the corpse of a father? There is a God in 
 heaven ; lie will avenge us, whether we will or no. — 
 Oh, they will come ! Come, my darlings ! a kiss, 
 a last kiss I ^- the viaticum of your father. I go to 
 God, and I will tell him you have been good to 
 me; I will plead for you, — for you are innocent; 
 yes, Eugene, they are innocent. The fault \\'as mine. 
 I taught them to tread me underfoot. Divine justice 
 
 'sees the truth and will not condemn them. I abdi- 
 cated my rights ; I neglected my duty ; I abased 
 myself in their eyes. The noblest natures would be 
 conapted by such weakness. I am justly punished : 
 my children were good, and I have spoiled them ; 
 on my liead be their sins. I alone am guilty ; but 
 guilty through love. — Their voices would still my 
 heart. — I hear them : they come ! They will 
 come ; the law requires them to see their father 
 die, — the law is on my side. "Write to them that, 
 
 ■I have millions to bequeath. It is true, upon my 
 
328 PeVe Groriot. 
 
 honor. I am going to Odessa to make Italian pastes. 
 I know what I am about. It is a great project, — 
 millions to make, and no one has yet thought of it. 
 Transportation does not injure pastes as it does wheat 
 and flour. Yes, millions ! you may say millions, — 
 avarice will bring them. — Well, even so, I shall see 
 them! — I want my daughters ; I made them: they 
 are mine ! " he cried wildly, rising in his bed, his dis- 
 hevelled white hair giving to his head a look of un- 
 utterable menace. 
 
 " Dear Pere Goriot, lie down again," said Eugene. 
 '' As soon as Bianchon comes back I will go myself and 
 fetch them, if they do not come — " 
 
 " If they do not come ! " sobbed the old man ; " but 
 I shall be dead ! dead, in a rush of madness — mad- 
 ness ! 1 feel it coming. At this moment I see my 
 life. I am a dupe. They do not love me, — they 
 never loved me. If they have not come, it means 
 that they will not come. The longer they delay, the 
 less they will resolve to give me this last joy. I know 
 them. They have never divined my sorrows, nor my 
 wants, nor my pains : why should they divine my 
 death ? They have never even entered into the secret 
 of my tenderness for them. — Yes, I see it all. I 
 have so lung plucked out my entrails for their sakes 
 that my sacrifices have ceased to be of value. Had 
 they asked me to tear out ray eyes, I should have an- 
 swered, ' Take them ! ' I have been a fool. They 
 thought all fathers were like me. — But their own 
 children will avenge me. Tell them it is for their 
 interest to come here; tell them to think of their own 
 death-beds. Go, go ! tell them to come : not to come 
 
Pere Qoriot. 329 
 
 is parricide! — tliey have committed that already; 
 they have given me a death in life. — Call out ! 
 call out, as I do, 'Here, Nasie ! Here, Delphine! 
 Come to your father who has been so good to you, and 
 who is dyiny ! ' — Are they coming ? No ? Am I to 
 die like a dog? — This is my reward, — abandoned, 
 forsaken ! — They are wicked, they are criminal. I 
 hate them ! I curse them ! I will rise from my coffin 
 to curse them again ! — Friends, am I wrong ? They 
 do wrong — Oh, what am I saying ? — Is Delphine 
 there ? Delphine is good ; but Nasie is so unhappy ! 
 And their money ! — Oh, my God ! let me die ! I 
 suifer so ! My head ! my head ! Cut it off, but leave 
 me my heart ! " 
 
 " Christophe ! go for Bianchon," cried Eugene, 
 horror-stricken ; " and bring me a cabriolet. I am 
 going to fetch your daughters, dear Pere Goriot. I 
 will bring them to you." 
 
 " Yes, by force, by force ! Get the gendarmes^ the 
 troof)s," he cried. " Tell the Government, the jjublic 
 prosecutor, to send them. I will have them ! " 
 
 " But you cursed them." 
 
 "Who says I did?" answered the old man with 
 amazement. "You know I love them : I adore them. 
 I shall recover if I see them. Yes, go for them, my 
 good friend, my dear son. You have been very kind 
 to me. I wish I could thank you ; but I have nothing 
 to give except the blessing of a dying man. You love 
 your father and mother, — I know you do," he con- 
 tinued, pressing the student's hand in his failing grasp. 
 " You feel what it is to die as I am dying, — without 
 my children. To be thirsty, and never to driuk, — that 
 
330 Pere Goriot. 
 
 is how I have lived ten years. My sons-in-law have 
 killed my daughters. I lost them when they married. 
 Fathers ! petition the Chambers for a law against 
 marringe. No more mari'iages ! — they take our chil- 
 dren froqi us, and we die desolate. Make a law 
 for the death of fathers! — Oh, this is horrible, hor- 
 rible ! — Vengeance ! it is ray sons-in-law who keep 
 them away from me ! They assassinate me ! Death, 
 or my daughters ! — Ah, it is finished ! I die with- 
 out them ! Fifine ! Nasie ! Fifine ! come ! — 
 
 " My good Pere Goriot ! be calm, be still, don't 
 think." 
 
 " Not to see them ! — it is the agony of death." 
 
 ■ You shall see them." 
 
 " Shall I ? " cried the old man, wandering. '• See 
 them ? I am to see them, to hear their voices ? I shall 
 die happy. — Well, yes, I don't ask to live; I don't 
 wish it ; my troubles are too heavy. But, oh, to see 
 them ! to toucli their pretty dresses ! — it isn't much — - 
 to smell the fragrance — ah ! put my hands upon their 
 hair, will — " 
 
 He fell back heavily on his pillow, felled like an ox. 
 His fingers wandered over the coverlet as if searching 
 for his daughters' hair. " I bless them," he said, mak- 
 ing an eftbvt. " I bless — " 
 
 He". sank unconscious. At this moment Bianchon 
 came in. 
 
 " I met Christophe," he said. " He is bringing you 
 a carriage." Then he looked at the sick man and 
 lifted his ?ye-lids. Both saw that the power of sight 
 had gone. 
 
 " He won't cpme out of this ; that is, I think not,'' 
 
P^re Goriot. 331 
 
 said Bimichoii. He felt the jnilse, and laid liis hand 
 upon the eld man's heart. " The machine is still run- 
 ning, more 's the pity. He had better die." 
 
 " Yes," said Rastignac. 
 
 " What 's the matter with you ? You are as pale aa 
 death." 
 
 " Bianchon ! I have been listening to such cries, 
 such anguish ! There is a God. Oh, yes, there is a 
 Grod ! and he has prepared for us a better world, or this 
 earth would be foolishness. If it were not so tragic 
 I could weep ; my whole being is wrenched." 
 
 " Dear fellow ! — We shall want several things ; 
 where can we get the money / " 
 
 Rastignac drew out his watch. " Here, pawn this 
 at once. I can't wait a moment. I hear Christophe. 
 I have not a farthing ; and shall have to pay the 
 coachman when- 1 get back." 
 
332 Pere Qoriot. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Rastignac ran downstairs and started for the Rue 
 du Helder to find Madame de Restaiid. As he drove 
 through the streets, his imagination, excited by the 
 horrors he had witnessed, increased his indignation. 
 When he reached the antechamber and aslced for 
 Madame de Restaud, the servants told him slie could 
 see no one. 
 
 " But," he said to the footman, " I come from her 
 father, who is dying." 
 
 '-'- Monsieur, we have the strictest orders from Mon- 
 sieur le comte — " 
 
 " If Monsieur de Restaud is at home, tell him the 
 condition of his father-in-law, and say that I beg to 
 see him immediately." 
 
 Eugene waited a long time. " He may be dying at 
 this moment," he thought. 
 
 The footman came back and showed him into the 
 outer salon, where Monsieur de Restaud received him 
 standing, without asking him to sit down, and with 
 his back to a fire-place where there was no fire. 
 
 "Monsieur le (■.ornte," said Rastignac, "your father- 
 in-law is dying at this moment in a wretched lodging, 
 without a farthing even to buy fuel. He is about to 
 draw his last breath, and is asking for his daughter." 
 
 "Monsieur," replied the Comte de Restaud, coldly, 
 " you are doubtless aware that I have very little 
 
Fere Croriot. 333 
 
 afEection for Monsieur Goriot. He has compromised 
 himself by unseemly transactions with Madame de 
 Restaud ; he is tlie author of the chief misfortunes of 
 my life ; in him I see the enemy of my domestic hap- 
 piness. I cannot cnre whether he lives or dies ; to 
 me it is perfectly indifferent. Such ai-e my feelings 
 concerning hira. The world n)ay blame me, — I de- 
 spise its opinion ; I liave matters of far more impor- 
 tance to think of than the opinion of fools or third 
 parties. As for Madame de Eestaud, she is in no con- 
 dition to leave her own house ; nor do I wish her to 
 leave it. You may tell her father that as soon as she 
 has fulfilled the duty she owes to me and to my child, 
 she may go to him. If she loves her father, she can 
 be free to go in a few moments." 
 
 "Monsieur le comte, it is not for me to pass judg- 
 ment on your conduct ; you have the right to deal with 
 your wife as you think best : but I am sure that I can 
 rely upon your word. Will you promise to tell her 
 that her father cannot live another day, and that he 
 has already cursed her because she has not come to 
 him ? " 
 
 "Tell her yourself," said Monsieur de Restaud, 
 struck by the tone of indignation with which Ras- 
 tignac uttered these words. 
 
 Eugene followed the count into the inner room 
 where Madame de Restaud usually sat. They found 
 her bathed in tears, lying back in her chair like a 
 woman who longed to die. Eugene pitied her. Before 
 noticing him, she turned a timid look upon her hus- 
 band, — a look which showed how completely she was 
 prostrated, mentally and physically, by the power he 
 
334 Pire G-oriot. 
 
 now wielded over hev. The count made n, sign with his 
 head, wliich she took as a permission to speak. 
 
 "Monsieur, I have heard all," she said. "Tell my 
 ftUher that if he knew my situation he would forgive 
 me. I did not expect this additional misery : it is 
 more than I have strength to bear. But I will resist 
 to the last," she continued, turning to her husband : "I 
 am a mother. Tell my father I am not to blame, in 
 spite of appearances," she added, with an accent of 
 despair. 
 
 Rastignac bowed to husband and wife. He could 
 guess through what a trial the woman was passing, 
 and he went away sileuced. From Monsieur de Res- 
 taud's tone, he saw that remonstrances were useless ; 
 and he judged that Anastasie herself would not dare 
 to make them. 
 
 He hastened to Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " I am quite unwell, my poor friend," she said, as 
 he entered. '' I took cold coming away from the ball, 
 and I am afi-aid it may settle on my lungs, I am ex- 
 pecting the doctor -^ " 
 
 " If death were on your lips," said Eugene, interrupt- 
 ing her, " you should di-ag yourself to your father's 
 bedside. He is dying, — and he calls for you. If you 
 heard but the least of his cries, you would not fancy 
 yourself ill." 
 
 "Eugene, perhaps ray father is not as ill as you 
 think. But I should be in despair if you thought me 
 to blame. I will try to please you. He, I know, 
 would be filled with grief if my illness were made 
 serious by the imprudence of going out to>-day. But 
 I will go, after I have seen the doctor. -^ Ah ! what 
 
Ph-e aoriot. 335 
 
 have you clone with your watch '?" she cried, observ- 
 ing tliat he did not wear the chain. 
 
 Eugfene hesitated. 
 
 " Eugene ! Eugene ! if you have sold it, or lost it — 
 oh ! it would be very — " 
 
 Eastignae leaned over her and said, in a low voice, 
 " Do you wish me to tell you ? Well, know it, then ! 
 Your father has not money to buy the wiuding-sheet 
 in which they will wrap him this evening. Your 
 watch is in pawn : I had nothing else. 
 
 Delphine sprang up and ran to her writing-table, 
 from which she took her purse and gave it to Ras- 
 tignac. She rang her bell and cried, " I am coming, 
 I am coming, Eugene ! Let me get dressed. Oh, I 
 should be a monster not to go ! Go back ; I will be 
 there before you. Therese," she said, turning to her 
 waiting-maid, " ask Monsieur de Nucingen to come up 
 at once and speak to me." 
 
 Eugene, glad to comfort the dying man with the 
 news that one of his daughters was coming, reached 
 the Rue N"euve Saiute-Genevieve almost in good spirits. 
 When he paid his coachman, he discovered that the 
 purse of this wealthy, elegant, and envied woman con- 
 tained sixty-six francs I Vhve Goriot, supported by 
 Bianchon, was being operated upon by the hospital 
 surgeon, under the superintendence of the chief phy- 
 sician. They were applying the actual cautery, — 
 a last resource of science, but in this case wholly 
 ineffectual. 
 
 " Can you feel it ? " asked the physician. 
 
 P6re Goriot, seeing the student enter the room, cried 
 out, " Are they coming ? " 
 
336 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " He may pull through," said the surgeon. " He 
 can speak." 
 
 "Yes,'' replied Eugene ; " Delphine is on her way." 
 
 " It won't do," said Bianehon ; " he is only talking of 
 his daughters. He cries after them as a man impaled 
 cries, they say, for water." 
 
 "We may as well give it up," said the physician to 
 the surgeon. " There is nothing more to be done ; we 
 cannot save him." 
 
 Bianehon and the surgeon replaced the dying man 
 upon his wretched bed. 
 
 " You had better change the linen," said the physi- 
 cian. " There is no hope ; but something is always 
 due to human nature. I will come back, Bianehon," 
 he said to his pupil. " If he seems to suffer, put lau- 
 danum on the diaphragm." 
 
 The surgeon and physician went away. 
 
 " Come, Eugene, courage, my lad ! " said Bianehon 
 when they were left alone. " We must put on a clean 
 shirt, and change the bed. Go down and ask Sylvie to 
 bring up some sheets and stop and help us." 
 
 Eugene went down and found Madame Vauquer 
 helping Sylvie to set the dinner-table. At his first 
 words the widow came up to him with the sour civility 
 of a shopkeeper doubtful about the payment, yet un- 
 willing to lose a customer. 
 
 "My dear Monsieur Eugene," she said, " you know 
 as well as I do that Pere Goriot has not a sou. To 
 furnLsh sheets to a man just giving up the ghost is 
 throwing them away, — one of them at least must be 
 sacrificed for the winding-sheet. Besides this, you owe 
 me one hundred and forty-four francs ; add forty francs 
 
Fire Goriot. 337 
 
 for the sheets and some other little things, including the 
 candles, — which Sylvie will give you, — and it mounts 
 up to not less than two hundred fiancs; a sum which a 
 poor widow like me cannot afford to lose. Come ! do 
 me' justice, Monsieur Eugene. I have lost enough the 
 last few days since ill-luck got hold of me. I would 
 have given five louis if the old man had gone away 
 when he gave notice. My lodgers don't like this sort 
 of thing. It would not take much to make me even 
 now send him off to the hospital. Put yourself in my 
 place. My establishment is the chief thing to me, of 
 course. It is my support, my all." 
 
 Eugene ran up swiftly to Pere Goriot's chamber. 
 " The money for the watch, Bianchon, where is it ?" 
 
 " On the table. You will find three hundred and 
 sixty-odd francs left. I have paid all we owe. The 
 pawn ticket is under the money." 
 
 " Here Madame," said Rastignae, rushing headlong 
 down the staircase, " let us settle our accounts. Mon- 
 sieur Goriot will not long be with you, and I — " 
 
 " Yes, he will go out feet foremost, poor old man," 
 she said, counting up her two hundred francs with an 
 air of complacent melancholy. 
 
 '' Let us make an end of this," cried Rastignae. 
 
 " Syh'ie, give out the sheets, and go and help the 
 gentlemen upstairs. You will not forget Sylvie," 
 whispered Madame Vauqiier to Eugene. " She has 
 sat up two nights, you know." 
 
 As soon as Eugene's back was turned, the old woman 
 ran after her cook. " Take the sheets that have been 
 turned, Sylvie, — No. 7. Good enough for a corpse," 
 she whispered. 
 
 22 
 
338 Five Goriot. 
 
 Eugene being already half way up the stairs did not 
 hear his landlady's words. 
 
 " Now, then," said Bianchon, " we will change his 
 shirt. Hold him up."- 
 
 Eugene went to the head of the bed and supported 
 Pere Goriot, while Bianchon drew off his shirt. The 
 old man made a gesture as if to grasp something on 
 his breast, uttei-ing plaintive inarticulate cries, like an 
 animal in pnin. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " said Bianchon, " he wants a little hair- 
 chain and locket which we took off when we applied 
 the fire. Poor old man ! Put it around his neck 
 again; it is on the chimney-piece." 
 
 Eugene took up the little chain, made of a tress of 
 chestnut hair, which was doubtless Madame Goriot's. 
 Attached to it was a locket, with the names " Anas- 
 tasie" on one side and ''Delphine" on the other; fit 
 emblem of liis constant heart, it lay upon that heart 
 continually. The curls in the locket were i-o fine that 
 they mcist have been cut off when the little girls were 
 infants. As Eugene replaced the trinket on his bi'east 
 the old man gave a long-drawn sigh of relief, heart- 
 breaking to hear. It was well-nigh the final echo of his 
 living emotions, as they drew in to the unknown centre 
 from which spring and to which return our human sym- 
 pathies. His face, much distorted, wore an unnatural 
 expression of joy. The two young men, deeply moved 
 by this sudden explosion of a feeling which had out- 
 lived the power of thought, let fall hot tears, which 
 touched the face of the dying man. He uttered a 
 piercing cry of pleasui'e. 
 
 " Nasie ! Fifine ! " he exclaimed. 
 
PeVe Groriot. 
 
 "H.e is still living," said Bianchon. 
 
 " What's the use of that?" said Sylvie. 
 
 " To suffer," replied Rastignac. 
 
 Making Eugene a sign to do as he did, Bianchon 
 knelt down beside the bed to pass his arms beneath the 
 siek man's knees, while Rastignac on the other side did 
 th@ same, supporting the shoulders. Sylvie stood by 
 to draw the sheet as the weight was raised, and slip 
 through one of those she had brought up with her. 
 Misled no doubt by the tears that he had felt upon his 
 face, Pere Goriot used his last strength to stretcli out 
 his hands on either side of the bed and grasped the 
 hair of the two students, muttering feebly, " Ah, my 
 angels !"-^twii words sighed forth by the spirit as it 
 took its flight. 
 
 " Poor, dear man ! " said Sylvie, much affected by this 
 exclamation, — the utterance of the ever-dominant pas- 
 sion drawn forth by an involuntary deception. The 
 last conscious sigh of the unhappy father was a sigh of 
 joy. It expressed his whole life, — delusion ; deluded 
 even in death ! They laid him gently back upon the 
 wretched pallet, and from that moment his face showed 
 only fluctuations between life and death, — the move- 
 ments of the machinery no longer guided by the brain, 
 in which alone resides the consciousness of human joy 
 and misery. 
 
 " He will lie as he is for some hours, and die so qui- 
 etly that no one will perceive when the end conies. 
 There will be no rattle in his throat. His brain has 
 ceased to act," said Bianchon. 
 
 At this moment they heard the rapid footsteps of a 
 young woman. 
 
340 Pire Croriot. 
 
 "It is Delphine," said Rastignac; "she comes too 
 late." 
 
 It was not Delphine, but Theiese, her waiting- 
 woman. 
 
 "Monsieur Eugene," she said, " there has been an 
 angry scene between Monsieur and Madame, about 
 some money Madame asked for, for her father.. She 
 fainted away ; the doctor caine and bled her. She kept 
 saying, ' Papa is dying, I must go to him ! ' Her cries 
 were enough to break one's heart." 
 
 " That will do, Therese. Her coming would be su- 
 perfluous now. Monsieur Goriot has lost conscious- 
 ness." 
 
 " Poor, dear Monsieur ! is he so bad as that ? " said 
 Thdrese. 
 
 " You don't want me any more ; I must go and see 
 after my dinner. It is half-past five now," said Sylvie, 
 who as she went downstairs nearly fell over Madame 
 de Restaud. 
 
 The countess glided into the death-chamber like an 
 apparition. She gazed at the bed by the light of the 
 one poor candle, and shed tears as she looked down 
 upon the face of her dying father, where the last flicker- 
 ings of life still quivered. Bianehon left the room, out 
 of resjjeet for her feelings. 
 
 " I could not escape soon enough," she said to 
 Rastignac. 
 
 The student sadly shook his head to imply that this 
 was true. Madame de Restaud took her father's hand 
 and kissed it. 
 
 " Forgive me, oh, my Father ! " she exclaimed. " You 
 used to say that my voice would call you from the 
 
Pire Q-oriot. 341 
 
 tomb. Come back to life one moment to bless your 
 repentant daughter ! Oh, hear me ! — This is dread- 
 ful! Your blessing is the only one I can hope for 
 here below. All hate me; you alone in this wide 
 world can love rae. My children will abhor me. Oh, 
 take me with you! I will love you; I will wait upon 
 you — He does not hear me. I am mad — " 
 
 She fell upon her knees, gazing at the wreck before 
 her. 
 
 " My cup of misery is full," she cried, looking up at 
 Eugene. " Monsieur de Traillea has gone, leaving enor- 
 mous debts behind him, — and I now know that he 
 deceived me all along. My husband can never forgive 
 me ; I have made over to him the disposal of my for- 
 tune ; my children are destitute, Alas ! for what, for 
 whom, have I betrayed the only faithful heart that 
 loved me ? I did not understand him ; I cast hira off ; 
 I did so many cruel things to him — Oh, wicked 
 woman that I am!" 
 
 " He knew it," said Rastignac. 
 
 At that moment Pere Goriot opened his eyes ;' but 
 the movement was only convulsive and involuntary. 
 The gesture by which his daughter showed her hope 
 of recognition was not less terrible to witness than his 
 dull, dying eyes. 
 
 " Can he not hear me ? " she cried. " Ah, no ! " she 
 added after a pause, sitting down beside the bed. 
 
 As she expressed the wish to watch him, Eugene 
 went downstairs to take some food; The guests 
 were all assembled in the salon. 
 
 ' " Well," ^M'^ the painter, " so we are to have a little 
 death-orama upstairs ? " 
 
342 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 " Charles," said Eugene, " choose some less melan- 
 choly subject to joke upon." 
 
 "Dear me! is it forbidden to laugh under this roof? 
 What does it matter? Bianohon says the old fellow 
 has lost his senses." 
 
 " If that is so," said the employe, " he will die as ha 
 lived." 
 
 "My father is dead! " shdeked Mndame de Regtaud. 
 Rastignac and Bianchon i-an upstairs, where they found 
 her fainting on the floor. After, bringing her back 
 to consciousness, Eugene took her down to the hack- 
 ney coach in which she had come, and consigned her 
 to Th^rese, with orders to take her to Madame da 
 Nucingen. 
 
 " Yes, he is quite dead," said Bianchon, coming down 
 again. 
 
 " Come, gentlemen, sit down to table," said Madams 
 Vauqner. " The soup is getting cold " 
 
 The two students took their places by each other. 
 
 "What is to be done next?" said Eugene to 
 Bianchon. 
 
 " I have closed his eyes, and composed him properly. 
 When the doctor from the Mayor's office has certified 
 to the death, which we will report at once, he will be 
 sewn up in a sheet and buried. Whei-e do you mean 
 to put him ? " 
 
 " He will never sniff his bread any more, like this," 
 said one of the guests, mimicking the trick of the poor 
 old man. 
 
 " The devil ! gentlemen," cried the tutor, " do leave 
 Pere Goriot alone. We don't want any more of him. 
 You have served him up with every kind of sauce for 
 
Fere Gtoriot. 343 
 
 ths last hour. One of the privileges of this good city 
 of Paris is that you can come into the world, live in 
 it and go out of it, and nobody will pay any atten- 
 tion to you. Avail yourselves of the advantages of 
 civilization. According to statistics, sixty pei-sons 
 have died in Paris this very day. Are we called 
 upon to weep over Parisian hecatombs ? If Pere 
 Goriot is dead, so much the better for him. If you 
 were all so fond of him, you can go and keep watch 
 beside hira ; but leave the rest of us to eat our dinners 
 in peace." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said the widow. '■ It is ranch better for 
 him that he is dead. It seems the poor man has had 
 plenty of troubles all his life long." 
 
 This was the only funeral oration pronounced over a 
 being who in the eyes of Rastignac was the incarna- 
 tion of Fatherhood. 
 
 The fifteen guests began to talk about other things. 
 When Eugene and Bianchon had finished eating, the 
 clatter of knives and forks, the laughter, the jests, the 
 various expressions on the callous, greedy faces round 
 the table struck them with horror. They went in 
 search of a priest to watch and pray during the night 
 beside the dead. It was necjssary to calculate the 
 last duties they could render to their poor old friend 
 by the slender sum they had to spend. About nine 
 o'clock in the evening the body was placed on a 
 bier between two tallow candles, in the centre of the 
 wretched chamber ; and a priest came to watch beside 
 it. Before going to bed, Rastignac, who h.ad obtained 
 information from the ecclesiastic as to burial foes and 
 the cost of funeral rites, wrote to the Baron de Nucin- 
 
344 Pire Groriot. 
 
 gen nnd the Comte de Restaud, asking them to send 
 their men of business with orders to provide for a 
 suitable interment. He sent Christophe with these 
 notes, and then went to his own bed and slept, worn 
 out with fatigue. 
 
 The next morning Bianohon and Rastignac were 
 forced to go themselves and declare the death, which 
 was certified to officially by midday. Two hours 
 passed ; neither of the sons-in-law sent money, nor 
 did any one appear who was authorized to act in their 
 names. Rastignac had already been obliged to pay 
 the priest, and Sylvie having demanded ten francs for 
 sewing the corpse in its winding-sheet, Rastignac and 
 Bianchon came to the conclusion that as the relatives 
 would do nothing, they had barely enough money to 
 provide the cheapest funeral. The medical student 
 undertook to place the body himself in a pauper's cof- 
 fin, which he sent from the hospital, where he could 
 buy it for less cost than elsewhere. 
 
 "Play a trick upon those people, — they deserve 
 it," he said to Rastignac. '-'Buy a grave for five 
 years in Pere-La-Chaise, and order a third-class fu- 
 neral service at the Church, and from the Pompes- 
 Funebres, and send the bills to the family. If the 
 sons-in-law and the daughters don't choose to pay it, 
 we will have engraved upon his tombstone, ' Here lies 
 Monsieur Goriot, fatlier of the Comtesse de Restaud 
 and the Baronne de Nucingen. Buried at the expense 
 of two students.' " 
 
 Eugene did not take his friend's advice until he. 
 had been, but in vain, to Monsieur and Madame de 
 ISTuoingen's house and to Monsieur and Madame de 
 
Pire G-oriot. 345 
 
 Resta\id's. He could not gain admittance. Both 
 porters had strict orders. 
 
 " Monsieur and ^ladame," they said, " receive no 
 one : they are in deep affliction, owing to the death of 
 their father." 
 
 Eugene had had enough experience of Parisian life 
 to know that it was useless to persist further. He was 
 greatly wounded when he found that he could not see 
 Delphine. " Sell a necklace," he wrote in the porter's 
 lodge, " that your father may be decently consigned to 
 his last resting-place." 
 
 He sealed the note, and begged the porter to give it 
 to Therese for her mistress; but the man gave it to 
 the Baron de Nucingen, who put it in the fire. 
 
 Having made all his arrangements, Eugene came 
 back a little after three o'clock to the Maison Vauquer, 
 and could not help shedding tears when he saw the 
 bier at the iron gate, scantily covered with black cloth 
 and placed upon two chairs in the lonely street. An 
 old holy-water sprinkler, which no hand had yet 
 touched, lay beside it in a plated copper vessel full 
 of holy water. The gateway was not even hung 
 with black. It was a pauper funeral, — no pomp, no 
 attendants, no friends, no relatives. Bianchon, whose 
 duties kept him at the Hospital, had left a note for 
 Rastignac to let him know what arrangements he had 
 made for the Church services. He told him that a 
 Mass could not be had for the sum they were able to 
 pay ; that they must put up with a less costly service 
 at vespei's ; and that he had sent Christophe to notify 
 the Pompes-Funebres. 
 
346 Pere Groriot. 
 
 As Rastignac finished reading Bianchon's scrawl, he 
 saw in Madame Vauquer's hands the gold locket which 
 had lain upon the old man's heart. 
 
 " How dared you take that ? " he said to her. 
 
 " Bless me ! " cried Sylvie, " did you mean to bm-y 
 him with that ? Why, it 's gold/' 
 
 " Yes," answered Eugene indignantly. " Let him at 
 least take with him to the grave the only thing that 
 I'epresents his daughters." 
 
 When the heai'se came, Eugene ordered the coflB.n 
 to be taken back into the house, where he unscrewed 
 the nails, and reverently placed upon the old man's 
 heart that relic of the days when Delphine and Anas- 
 tasie had been young and pure, and " did not reason," 
 as he had said in his dying moments. 
 
 Rastignac and Christophe and two of the under- 
 taker's men were all who accompanied the hearse 
 which carried the poor man to the nearest church, 
 Saint-Etienne du Mont, not far from the Rue Neuve 
 Sainte-Genevieve. There the corpse was placed in 
 a little chapel, low and dark, round which the student 
 looked in vain for the daughters of Pere Goriot or then- 
 husbands. He was alone with Christophe, who thought 
 himself under an obligation to pay the last duties to a 
 man who had been the means of procuring for him 
 many large pour-hoires. While waiting for the two 
 officiating priests, the choir-boy, and the beadle, Rastig- 
 nac pressed Christophe's hand, but could not speak. 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur Eugene," said Christophe, " he was 
 a good and honest man; he never said an angry word; 
 he never tried to injure any one ; he never did an un- 
 kind thing." 
 
Fere Q-oriot. 347 
 
 The two priests, the acolyte, and the beadle came 
 and gave all that could be had for seventy francs in an 
 epoch when religion is too poor to pray for nothing. 
 The clergy sang a psalm, the Libera, and the De 
 profundis. The service lasted twenty minutes. There 
 was only one mourning-coach, intended for the priest 
 and the choir-boy; but they allowed Rastignac and 
 Christophe to go with them. 
 
 " As there is no procession," said the priest, "we can 
 go fast, so as not to be late. It is half-past five now." 
 
 However, just as the coffin was replaced in the 
 heai-se two carriages with aimorial. benriugs, but empty 
 (those of the Comtc de RestauJ and the Bnron de Nu- 
 cingen), made their appearance and followed the funeral 
 to Pere-La-Chaise. At six o'clock the body of Pere 
 Goriot was lowered into its grave, round which stood 
 the footmen of his daughters, who disappeared with 
 the clergy as soon as a short prayer — all that could 
 be given for the student's money — was over. When 
 the two grave-diggers had thrown a few shovelsful of 
 earth upon the cofBn they came out of the grave, and 
 turning to Rastignac asked him for their drink-money. 
 Eugene felt in his pockets, but nothing was there. He 
 had to borrow a franc from Christophe. This cir- 
 cumstance, trivial in itself, produced in his mind a 
 horrible depression. Day was departing ; a damp mist 
 irritated his nerves. He looked down into the grave 
 and buried there the last tear of his young manhood, — 
 a last tear springing from the siicred emotions of a pure 
 heart, which from the earth on which it fell exhaled to 
 heaven. He folded his arms and stood gazing upward 
 at the clouds. Seeing him thus, Christophe went away. 
 
348 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 Left alone, Rastignac walked a few steps until he 
 reached the highest part of the cemetery, and saw 
 Paris as it lies along the winding shores of the Seine. 
 Lights were beginning to glitter in the gathering dark- 
 ness. His eyes turned eagerly to the space between 
 the column of the Place Vendome and the dome of the 
 Invalides. There lived that world of fashion which 
 it had been his dream to enter. He gave the hum- 
 ming hive a look that seemed to suck it of its honey, 
 and said aloud the defying wortis, — 
 
 " Between ns two, henceforth ! " 
 
 As the first act of this challenge to society, Rastignac 
 went to dine with Madame de Nueingen. 
 
THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE 
 By H. Dfi BALZAC 
 
 SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 MODESTE MIGNON 
 THE DESERTED WOMAN 
 
K'/*^^(*'''5^^t'^^~^i^^ ''^^'^'''^' '' 
 
Modeste Mignon. 
 
Daughter of an ens/aved land, angel through love, witch 
 through fancy, 'child by faith, aged by experience, man in 
 brain, woman in heart, giant by hope, mother through sor- 
 rows, poet in thy dreams, — to Thee belongs this book, in 
 which thy love, thy fancy, thy experience, thy sorrow, thy 
 hope, thy drea)ns, are the warp through which is shot a 
 woof less brilliant than the ■poesy of thy soul, whose ex- 
 pression, when it shines tcpon thy countenance, is, to those 
 who love thee, what the characters of a lost language are 
 to scholars. 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHiPTEK PAOE 
 
 I. The Chalet ... 1 
 
 II. A Portrait from Life 14 
 
 III. Preliminaries ... 23 
 
 IV. A Simple Story . . . 35 
 
 V. The Problem still Unsolved . . 46 
 
 VI. A Maiden's First Romance . .58 
 
 VII. A Poet of the Angelic School . .70 
 
 VIII. Blade to Blade 86 
 
 IX. The Power op the Unseen . 99 
 
 X. The Marriage of Souls . ... 109 
 
 XI. What comes of Correspondence . 123 
 
 XII. A Declaration of Love, — set to Music 133 
 
 XIII. A Flll-length Portrait of Monsieur de 
 
 La Briere . 147 
 
 XIV. Matters grow Complicated . . 163 
 XV. A Father Steps In 179 
 
 XVI. Disenchanted ... 196 
 
 XVII. A Third Suitor .... .... 203 
 
 XVIII. A Splendid First Appearance .... 217 
 
 XIX Of which the Author thinks a good 
 
 Deal 2S|0 
 
Vlll 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Poet does his Exercises 
 
 . . 245 
 
 XXI. 
 
 M0DE6TE Plays heu Part . . . . 
 
 , . 258 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A Riddle Guessed 
 
 . 271 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 BuTSCHA Distinguishes Himself . 
 
 . . 283 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Poet feels tu.^t he is Loved 
 
 too 
 
 
 Well . . . . 
 
 . 293 
 
 XXV. 
 
 A Diplomatic Letter . . . 
 
 . 307 
 
 XXVI, 
 
 True Love ... 
 
 , . 317 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 A Girl's Revenge . . . . 
 
 . 327 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Modeste behaves with Dignity . 
 
 . 336 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 345 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Designed by Adrien Moreau, and reproduced in photogravure by 
 Goupil §■ Co., Paris. 
 
 Page 
 MoDESTE MiGNON Frontispiece 
 
 " Struck by tlie girl's great beauty, Ernest retraced Lis 
 steps, and asked a m»n on the street the name of the 
 owner of the magnificent estate " 91 
 
 "Only a father's joy at returning after long absence could 
 
 be heralded with such clatter" 185 
 
 " ' Monsieur,' she said to Melchior, ' ray father will scold 
 you, and say that you justify those who accuse you 
 of extravagance'" 294 
 
MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHALET. 
 
 At the beginning of October, 1829, Monsieur Simon 
 Babjias Latournelle, notary, was walking up from 
 Havre to Ingouville, arm in arm with his son and ac- 
 companied hj liis wife, at whose side the head clerk of 
 the lawyer's -office, a little hunchback named Jean Bnt- 
 scha, trotted along like a page. When these four per- 
 sonages (two .of whom came the same way ever}'' 
 evening) reached the elbow of the road where it turns 
 back upon itself like those called in Italy cornice, the 
 notary looked about to see if anj' one could overhear 
 him either from tiie terrace above or the path beneath, 
 and when he spoke he lowered his voice as a further 
 precaution. 
 
 " E.xupere," he said to his son, "you must try to 
 carrj' out intelligently a little manceuvre which I shall 
 explain to you, but you are not to ask the meaning of 
 it ; and if you guess the meaning I command you to 
 toss it into that Styx which every lawyer and every 
 man who expects to have a hand in the government of 
 his country is bound to keep within him for the secrets 
 
 1 
 
2 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 of others. After you have paid j'our respects and 
 compliments to Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon, 
 to Monsieur and Madame Duma\-, and to Monsieur 
 Gobenheim if he is at the Chalet, and as soon as quiet 
 is restored, Monsieur Dumay will take you aside ; you 
 are then to look attentively at Mademoiselle Modeste 
 (}-es, I am willing to allow it) during tlie whole time 
 he is speaking to you. My worthy friend will ask you 
 to go out and take a walk ; at the end of an hour, that 
 is, about nine o'clock, you are to come back in a great 
 hurry ; try to puff as if 3'ou were out of breath, and 
 whisper in Monsieur Dumay's ear, quite low, but so 
 that Mademoiselle Modeste is sure to overhear 30U, 
 these words : ' The young man hai^ come.' " 
 
 Exupere was to start the' next morning for Paris to 
 begin the study of law. This impending departure had 
 induced Latournelle to propose him to his friend Dumay 
 as an accomplice in the important conspiracy which 
 these directions indicate. 
 
 "Is Mademoiselle Modeste suspected of having a 
 lover ? " asked Butscha in a timid voice of Madame 
 Latournelle. 
 
 " Hush, Butscha," she replied, taking her husbanil's 
 arm. 
 
 Madame Latournelle, the daughter of a clerk of the 
 supreme court, feels that her birth authorizes her to 
 claim issue from a parliamentary family. This con- 
 viction explains why the lady, who is somewhat blotched 
 as to complexion, endeavors to assume in her own per- 
 son the majestj' of a court whose decrees are recorded 
 in her father's pothooks. She takes snuff, holds her- 
 self as stiff as a ramrod, poses for a person of consid- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 3 
 
 eration, and resembles nothing so much as a mummy 
 brought momentaril}- to life by galvanism. She tries 
 to give high-bred tones to her sharp ^oice, and suc- 
 ceeds no better in doing that than in hiding her general 
 lack of breeding. Her social usefulness seems, how- 
 ever, incontestable when we glance at the flower-be- 
 decked cap she wears, at the false front frizzling around 
 her forehead, at the gowns of her choice ; for how could 
 shopkeepers dispose of those products if there were no 
 Madame Latournelles? All these absurdities of the 
 worthy woman, who is truly pious and charitable, might 
 have passed unnoticed, if nature, amusing herself as 
 she often does by turning out these ludicrous creations, 
 had not endowed her with the height of a drum-major, 
 and thus held up to view the comicalities of her pro- 
 vincial nature. She has never been out of Havre ; she 
 believes in the infallibility of Havre ; she buys those 
 clothes as well as everything else in Havre ; she pro- 
 claims herself Norman to the ver^* tips of her fingers ; 
 she venerates her father, and adores her husband. 
 
 Little Latouruelle was bold enough to marrN- this 
 ladj' after she had attained the anti-matrimonial age of 
 thirty-three, and what is more, he had a son h\ her. 
 As he could have got the sixty thousand francs of her 
 dot in several other ways, the public assigned his un- 
 common intrepidit}- to a desire to escape an invasion 
 of the Minotaur, against whom his personal qualifica- 
 tions would have insufficiently protected him had he 
 rashly dared his fate by bringing home a young and 
 prett}' wife. The fact was, however, that the notary 
 recognized the really fine qualities of Mademoiselle 
 Agnes (she was called Agnes) and reflected to himself 
 
4 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 that a woman's beauty is soon past and gone to '& 
 husband. As to the insignificant jouth on whom the 
 clerk of the court bestowed in baptism his Norman 
 name of " Exupere," Madame Latournelle is still so sur- 
 prised at becoming his mother, at the age of thirty-five 
 jears and seven mouths, that she would still provide 
 him, if it were necessary, with her breast and her milk, 
 ■ — an hyperbole which alone can fully express her im- 
 passioned maternity. " How handsome he is, that son 
 of mine ! " she saj's to her little friend Modeste, as 
 thej^ walk to church, with the beautiful Exupere in front 
 of them. " He is like you," Modeste Mignon answers, 
 verj' much as she might have said, "• What horrid 
 weather ! " This silhouette of Madame Latournelle is 
 quite important as an accessor}', inasmuch as for three 
 3-ears she has been tire chaperone of the j"oung girl 
 against whom the notarj^ and his friend Dumay are 
 now plotting to set what we have called, in the " Physi- 
 ologic du Mariage," a mouse-trcqj. 
 
 As for Latournelle, imagine a worthy little fellow as 
 sly as the purest honor and uprightness would allow 
 him to be, — a man whom any stranger would take for 
 a rascal at sight of his queer physiognomy, to which, 
 however, the inhabitants of Havre were well accus- 
 tomed. His eyesight, said to be weak, obliged the 
 worth}- man to wear green goggles for the protection 
 of his eyes, which were constantly inflamed. The 
 arch of each eyebrow, defined by a thin down of hair, 
 surrounded the tortoise-shell rim of the glasses and 
 made a couple of circles as it were, slightly apart. If 
 you have never observed on the human face the effect 
 produced b\- these circumferences placed one witlun 
 
Modeste Mignon. 5 
 
 thfe other, and separated by a hollow space or line, you 
 can hardly Imagine how perplexing such a face will be to 
 you, especiall}' if pale, hollow-cheeked, and terminating 
 in a pointed chin like that of Mephistopheles, — a type 
 which painters gixe to cats. This double resemblance 
 was observable on the face of Babylas Latournelle. 
 Above the atrocious gi-een spectacles rose a bald 
 crown, all the more crafty in expression because a wig, 
 seemingly endowed with motion, let the white hairs 
 show on all sides of it as it meandered crookedly 
 across the forehead. An observer taking note of this 
 excellent Norman, clothed in black and mounted on his 
 two legs like a beetle on a couple of pins, and know- 
 ing him to be one of the most trustworthj' of men, 
 would have sought, without finding it, for the reason 
 of such physical misrepresentation. 
 
 Jean Butscha, a natural son abandoned by his par- 
 ents and taken care of by the clerk of the court and 
 his daughter, and now, through sheer hard work, head- 
 clerk to the notarj-, fed and lodged by his master, who 
 gave him a salary- of nine hundred francs, almost a 
 dwarf, and with no semblance of youth, — Jean But- 
 scha made Modeste his idol, and would willinglj- have 
 given his life for hers. The poor fellow, whose eyes 
 were hollowed between their heavy lids like the touch- 
 holes of a cannon, whose head overweighted his body, 
 with its shock of crisp hair, and whose face was pock- 
 marked, had lived under pitying eyes from the time 
 he was seven years of age. Is not that enough to 
 explain his whole being? Silent, self-contained, pious, 
 exemplary in conduct, he went his way over that vast 
 tract of country named on the map of the heart Love- 
 
6 yiodeste Mignon. 
 
 without-Hope, the sublime and arid steppes of Desire. 
 Modeste had christened this grotesque little being her 
 " Black Dwarf." The nickname sent him to the pages 
 of Walter Scott's novel, and he one day said to 
 Modeste : " Will j-ou accept a rose against the evil da\' 
 from jour mj^sterious dwarf? " Modeste instantij- sent 
 the soul of her adorer to its humble mud-cabin with a 
 terrible glance, such as young girls bestow on the men 
 who cannot please them. Butscha's conception of him- 
 self, was lowlj', and, like the wife of his master, he 
 bad never been out of Havre. 
 
 Perhaps it will be well, for the sake of those who 
 have never seen that city, to say a ^&y>' words as to the 
 present destination of the Liitournelle family, — the 
 head clerk being included in the latter term. Ingoii- 
 ville is to Havre what Montmartre is to Paris, — a high 
 hill at the foot of which the city lies ; with this differ- 
 ence, that the hill and tlie city are surrounded bj' the 
 sea and the Heine, tliat Hjivre is helplessly circum- 
 scribed by enclosing fortitications, and, in short, that 
 the mouth of the ri\er, the harbor, and the docks 
 present a ^■ery different aspect from the fifty thousand 
 houses of Paris. At the foot of Montmartre an ocean 
 of slate rootV lies in motionless blue billows ; at Ingou- 
 ville the sea is like the same roofs stirred by the wind. 
 This eminence, or line of hills, which coasts the Seine 
 from Rouen to the seashore, leaving a margin of valley 
 land more or less narrow between itself and the river, 
 and containing in its cities, its ravines, its vales, its 
 meadows, veritable treasures of the picturesque, be- 
 came of enormous value in and about Ingouville after 
 the year 181G, the period at which the prosperity of 
 
Modeste Mignon, 7 
 
 Havre began. This township has become since that 
 time the Auteuil, the Ville-d'Avraj-, the Montmorency, 
 in short, tlie suburban residence of the merchants of 
 Havre. Here they build their houses on terraces around 
 its amphitheatre of hills, and breathe' the sea air laden 
 with the fragrance of their splendid gardens. Here 
 these bold speculators cast off' the burden of their 
 counting-rooms and the atmosphere of their city houses, 
 which are built closel3' together without open spaces, 
 often without court-yards, — a vice of construction 
 which the increasing population of Ha\'re, the inflexi- 
 ble line of the fortifications, and the enlargement of the 
 docks has forced upon them. The result is, weariness 
 of heart in Havre, cheerfulness and J03' at Ingouville. 
 The law of social development has forced up the suburb 
 of Graville like a mushroom. It is to-day more exten- 
 sive than Havre itself, which lies at the foot of its slopes 
 like a serpent. 
 
 At the crest of the hill Ingouville has but one street, 
 and (as in all such situations) the houses which over- 
 look the river have an immense advantage over those 
 on the other side of the road, whose view they ob- 
 struct, and which present the effect of standing on tip- 
 toe to look over the opposing roofs. However, there 
 exist here, as elsewhere, certain servitudes. Some 
 houses standing at the summit have a finer position 
 or possess legal rights of view whicli compel their 
 opposite neighbors to keep their buildings down to a 
 required height. Moreover, the openings cut in the 
 capricious rock bj- roads which follow its declensions 
 and make the amphitheatre habitable, give vistas 
 through which some estates can see the city, or the 
 
8 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 river, or the sea. Instead of rising to an actual peak, 
 the hill ends abruptly in a cliff. At tlie end of the street 
 which follows tlie line of the summit, ravines appear 
 in wliich a few villages are clustered (Sainte-Adresse 
 and two or three other Saint-somethings) together with 
 several creeks which murmur and flow witli the tides 
 of the sea. These lialf-deserted slopes of lugouville 
 form a strilving contrast to the terraces of fine viilasi 
 which overlook the valle3- of the Seine. Is the wind 
 on this side too strong for vegetation? Do the mer- 
 chants shrink from the cost of terracing it? However 
 this may be, the traveller approaching Havre on a 
 steamer is surprised to find a barren coast and tangled 
 gorges to the west of Ingouville, lilce a beggar in rags 
 beside a perfumed and sumptuously- apparelled rich 
 man. 
 
 In 1829 one of the last houses looking toward the 
 sea, and which in all probability stands about the- 
 centre of the Ingouville of to-da}', was called, and per- 
 haps is still called, " the Chalet." Originally it was a 
 porter's lodge with a trim little garden in front of it. 
 The owner of the villa to which it belonged -— a man- 
 sion with park, gardens, aviaries, hoUiouses, and 
 lawns — ■ took a fancj^ to put the little dwelling more in 
 keeping with the splendor of his own abode, and h& 
 reconstructed it on the model of an oi'uamental cottage. 
 He divided this cottage from his own lawn, which was 
 bordered and set with flower-beds and formed the terrace 
 of his villa, by a low wall along which he planted a con- 
 cealing hedge. Behind the cottage (called, in spite of 
 all his efforts to prevent it, the Chalet) were the or- 
 chards and kitchen g;ardens of the villa. The Chalet, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 9 
 
 without cows or dairj', is separated from the roadway 
 b\' a wooden fence whose palings are hidden under a 
 hixuriant hedge. On the other side of the i-oad the 
 opposite house, subject to a legal privilege, has a simi- 
 lar hedge and paling, so as to leave an unobstiucted 
 view of Havre to tlie Chalet. 
 
 This little dwelling was the torment of the present 
 proprietor of the villa, Monsieur ^'ilquin; and here is 
 the why and the wherefore. The original creator of 
 the villa, whose sumptuous details eiy aloud, "Behold 
 our miUions ! " extended his park far into the country 
 for the purpose, as he averred, of getting his garden- 
 ers out of his pockets ; a.iid so, when the Chalet was 
 finished, none but a friend could be allowed to inhabit 
 it. lyionsieur Mignon, the next owner of the propertj'^, 
 was very much attached to his ca.shier, Duma}', and the 
 following histor\' will prove that the attachment was 
 mutual ; to him therefore he offered the little dwelling. 
 Duma}', a stickler for legal methods, insisted on signing 
 a lease for three hundred francs for twehe years, and 
 Monsieur Mignon willingly agreed, remarking, — 
 
 " My dear Dumay, remember, you have now bound 
 yourself to live with me for twelve years." 
 
 In consequence of certain events which will presently 
 be related, the estates of Monsieur Mignon, formerly 
 tlie richest merchant in Havre, were sold to ^'ilquin, 
 one of his business competitors. In his joy at getting 
 possession of the celebrated villa Mignon, the latter 
 forgot to demand the cancelling of the lease. Dumay, 
 anxious not to hinder the sale, would have signed any- 
 thing Vilquin required, but the sale once made, he held 
 to his lease like a vengeance. And there he remained, 
 
10 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 in Vilqnin's pocket as it were ; at the heavt of Vilquin's 
 faiiiih' life, observing Vilquin, irricating Vilquin, — in 
 short, the gadflj- of all the Vilquins. Every morning, 
 when he looked out of his window, Vilquin felt a violent 
 shock of anno^'ance as his eye lighted on the little gem 
 of a building, the Chalet, which had cost sixty thousand 
 francs and sparkled like a ruby in the sun. That com- 
 parison is verj' nearh' exact. The architect has con- 
 structed the cottage of brilliant red brick pointed with 
 white. The- window-frames are painted of a lively 
 green, the woodwork is brown verging on j-ellow. The 
 roof overhangs by several feet. A pi-ett}- galler\-, with 
 open-worked balustrade, surmounts the lower floor and 
 projects at the centre of the facjade into a veranda with 
 glass sides. The ground-floor has a charming salon 
 and a dining-room, separated from each other bj' the 
 landing of a staircase built of wood, designed and dec- 
 orated with elegant simplicity. The kitchen is behind 
 the dining-room, and the corresponding room back of 
 the salon, formerly a study, is now the bedroom of 
 Monsieur and Madame Dumay. On the upper floor 
 the architect has managed to get two large bedrooms, 
 each with a dressing-room, to which the veranda serves 
 as a salon ; and above this floor, under the eaves, which 
 are tipped together like a couple of cards, are two ser- 
 vants' rooms with mansard roofs, each lighted by a 
 circular window and tolerably spacious. 
 
 Vilquin had been petty enough to build a high wall 
 on the side toward the orchard and kitchen garden ; 
 and in consequence of this piece of spite, the few square 
 feet which the lease secured to the Chalet resembled a 
 Parisian garden. The out-buildings, painted in keeping 
 
Modeste Mignon. 11 
 
 with the cottage, stood with their backs to the wall of 
 the adjoining propert}'. 
 
 The interior of this charming dwelling harmonized 
 with its exterior. The salon, floored entirely- with iron- 
 wood, was painted in a style that suggested the beanties 
 of Chinese lacqner. On black panels edged with gold, 
 birds of everj- color, foliage of impossible greens, and 
 fantastic oriental designs glowed and shimmered. The 
 dining-room was entirely sheathed i.i Nortliern woods 
 carved and cut in open-work lil^e the beautiful Russian 
 chalets. The little antechamber formed by the landing 
 and the well of the staircase was painted in old oak to 
 represent Gothic ornament. The bedrooms, hung with 
 chintz, were charming in their costly simplicity. The 
 study, where the cashier and his wife now slept, was 
 panelled from top to bottom, on the walls and ceiling, 
 like. the cabin of a steamboat. These luxuries of his 
 predecessor excited Vilquin's waath. He would fain 
 have lodged his daughter and her husband in the cot- 
 tage. This desire, well known to Dumay, will pres- 
 ently serve to illustrate the Breton obstinacj' of the 
 latter. 
 
 The entrance to the Chalet is by a little trellised iron 
 door, tlie uprights of which, ending in lance-heads, show 
 for a few inches above the fence and its hedge. The 
 little garden, about as wide as the more pretentious 
 lawn, was just now filled with flowers, roses and dahlias 
 of the choicest kind, and manj' rare products of the 
 hot-houses, for (another Vilquinard grievance) the ele- 
 gant little hot-house, a very whim of a hot-house, a 
 hot-house representing dignity and style, belonged to 
 the Chalet, and separated, or if you prefer, united it to 
 
12 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 the villa Vilquin. Dumaj- consoled himself for the toils 
 of business iu taking care of this hot-house, whose ex- 
 otic treasures were one of Mocleste's joj's. The billiard- 
 room of the villa Vilquin, a species of gallery, formerly' 
 communicated through an immense aviary with this- 
 hot-house. But after the building of the wall which 
 deprived him of a view into the orchards, Dumay 
 bricked up the door of communication. " Wall for 
 wall ! " he said. 
 
 In 1827 Vilquin offered Dumay a salary of six thou- 
 sand francs, and ten thousand more as indemnity, if he 
 would give up the lease. The cashier refused ; though 
 he had but three thousand from Gobenheim, a former 
 clerk of his mastei-. Dumay was a Breton trans- 
 planted \)y fate into Normandy. Imagine therefore the 
 hatred conceived for the tenants of the Chalet by the 
 Norman Vilquin, a man worth three millions ! A^hat 
 criminal leze-million on the part of a cashier, to hold up 
 to the eyes of such a man the impotence of his wealth ! 
 Vilquin, whose desperation in the matter made him the 
 talk of Havre, had just proposed to gi^•e Duma}' a pretty 
 house of his own, and had again been refused. Havre 
 itself began to grow uneasy at the man's obstinac}', and 
 a good many persons explained it b}' the phrase, " Du- 
 may is a Breton." As for the cashier, he thought 
 Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon would be ill-lodged 
 elsewhere. His two idols now inhabited a temple 
 wortJiy of them ; the sumptuous little cottage gave 
 them a home, where these dethroned royalties could 
 keep the semblance of majesty about them, — a species 
 of dignity usually denied to those who have seen better 
 davs. 
 
Modeate Mignon. 13 
 
 Perhaps as the stoiy goes on, the reader will not re- 
 gret having learned in advance a few particulars as to 
 the home and the habitual companions of Modeste 
 Mignon, for, at her age, people and things have as 
 much influence upon the future life as a person's own 
 character, — indeed, character often receives ineffaceable 
 impressions from its surroundings. 
 
14 Modeite Mignon. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A PORTRAIT FROM LIFE. 
 
 From the manner with which the Latournelles en- 
 tered the Chalet a stranger would readily have guessed 
 that the}- came there eveiy evening. 
 
 "Ah, you are here already," said the notar}-, per- 
 ceiving the joung hanker Gobenheim, a connection of 
 Gobenheim-Keller, the head of the great banking-house 
 in Paris. 
 
 This young man with a livid face — a blonde of the 
 t3'pe with black eyes, whose immovalile glance has an 
 indescribable fascination, sober in speech as in con- 
 duct, dressed in black, lean as a consumptive, but 
 nevertheless vigorously framed — ■ visited the family 
 of his former master and the house of his cashier less 
 from affection than from self-interest. Here they plaj^ed 
 whist at two sous a point ; a dress-coat was not re- 
 quired ; he accepted no refreshment except eau sucree, 
 and consequentlj' had no civilities to return. This ap- 
 parent devotion to the Mignon family allowed it to be 
 supposed that Gobenheim had a heart ; it also released 
 him from the necessity of going into the society of 
 Havi'e and incurring useless expenses, thus upsetting 
 the orderly economy of his domestic life. This dis- 
 ciple of the golden calf went to bed at half-past ten 
 o'clock and got up at five in the morning. Moreover, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 15 
 
 being perfectly sure of Latoiirnelle's and Butscha's dis- 
 cretion, he could talk over difflcmlt business matters, 
 obtain the advice of the notary gratis, and get an inkling 
 of the real truth of the gossip of the street. This stolid 
 gold-glutton (the epithet is Butscha's) belonged by na- 
 ture to the class of substances which chemistry terms 
 absorbents. Ever since the catastrophe of the house of 
 Mignon, where the Kellers had placed him to learn the 
 principles of maritime commerce, no one at the Chalet 
 had ever asked him to do the smallest thing, no mat- 
 ter what; his reply was too well known. The joung 
 fellow looked at Modeste precisely as he would have 
 looked at a cheap lithograph. 
 
 "He's one of the pistons of the big engine called 
 ' Commerce,' " said poor Butscha, whose clever mind 
 made itself felt occasionally by such little saj'ings 
 timidly jerked out. 
 
 The four Latournelles bowed with the most respect- 
 ful deference to an old lady dressed in black velvet, 
 who did not rise from the armchair in which she was 
 seated, for the reason that both ejes were covered with 
 the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon 
 ma}' be sketched in one sentence. Her august coun- 
 tenance of the mother of a familj' attracted instant 
 notice as that of one whose irreproachable life defies the 
 assaults of destiu}', which nevertheless makes her the 
 target of its arrows and a member of the unnumbered 
 tribe of Niobes. Her blonde wig, carefully curled and 
 well arranged upon her head, became the cold white 
 face which resembled that of some burgomaster's wife 
 painted by Hals or Mirevelt. The extreme neatness of 
 her dress, the velvet boots, the lace collar, the shawl 
 
16 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 evenlj' folded and put on, all bore testimony to the so- 
 licitous care which Modeste bestowed upon her mother. 
 
 When silence was, as the notarj' had predicted, re- 
 stored in the pretty salon, Modeste, sitting beside her 
 mother, for whom she was embroidering a kerchief, 
 became for an instant the centre of observation. This 
 curiosity, barely veiled by the commonplace salutations 
 and inquiries of the visitors, would have revealed even 
 to an indifferent person the existence of the domestic 
 plot to which Modeste was expected to fall a victim ; 
 but Gobenheim, more than indifferent, noticed uotliing, 
 and proceeded to light the candles on the card-table. 
 The behavior of Dumaj' made the whole scene terrify- 
 ing to Butscha, to the Latournelles, and above all to 
 Madame Dumaj', who knew her husband to be capable 
 of firing a pistol at Modeste's lover as coolly as though 
 he were a mad dog. 
 
 After dinner that day the cashier had gone to walk 
 followed bj- two magnificent Pyrenees hounds, whom he 
 suspected of betraying him, and therefore left in charge 
 of a farmer, a former tenant of Monsieur Mignon. On 
 his return, just before the arrival of the Latournelles, 
 he had taken his pistols from his bed's head and placed 
 them on the chimney-piece, concealing this action from 
 Modeste. The 3'oung girl took no notice whatever of 
 these prepai'ations, singular as the}' were. 
 
 Though short, thick-set, pockmarked, and speaking 
 alwaj's in a low voice as if listening to himself, this 
 Breton, a former lieutenant in the Guard, showed the 
 evidence of such resolution, such sang-froid on his face 
 that throughout life, even in the army, no one had ever 
 ventured to trifle with him. His little 63-68, of a calm 
 
Modeste Mignoh. 17 
 
 blue, were like bits of steel. His wa3s, the look on his 
 face, his speech, his carriage, were all in keeping with 
 the short name of Dumaj'. His physical strength, well- 
 known to every one, put hun above all danger of at- 
 tack. He was able to kill a man with a blow of his 
 fist, and had performed that feat at Bautzen, where he 
 found himself, unarmed, face to face with a Saxon at 
 the rear of his compan3-. At the present moment the 
 usually firm yet gentle expression of the man's face 
 had risen to a sort of tragic subliraitj' ; his lips were 
 pale as the rest of his face, indicating a tumult withiii 
 him mastered b}' his Breton will ; a slight sweat, which 
 every one noticed dnd guessed to be cold, moistened 
 his brow. The notary- knew but too well that these 
 signs might result in a drama before the criminal 
 courts. In fact the cashier was playing a part in con- 
 nection with Modeste Mignon, which involved to his 
 mind sentiments of honor and loyally of far greater im- 
 portance than mere social laws ; and his present con- 
 duct proceeded from one of those compacts which, in 
 case disaster came of it, could be judged only in a 
 higher court than one of earth. The majoritj' of dramas 
 lie really- in the ideas which we make to ourselves about 
 things. Events which seem to us dramatic are nothing 
 more than subjects which our souls convert into tragedy 
 or corned}' according to the l)ent of our characters. 
 
 Madame Latournelle and Madame Dumaj', who were 
 appointed to watch Modeste, had a certain assumed stiff- 
 ness of demeanor and a quiver in their voices, which the 
 suspected party did not notice, so absorbed was she in 
 her embroider}'. Modeste laid each thread of cottoni 
 with a precision that would have made an ordinary 
 
 ? 
 
18 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 workwoman desperate. Her face espiessed the pleas- 
 ure she took in the smooth petals of the flower she was 
 working. The dwarf, seated between his inistress and 
 Gobenheim, restrained his emotion, trying to find means 
 to approach Modeste and whisper a word of warning 
 in her ear. 
 
 By taking a position in front of Madame Mignon, 
 Madame Latournelle, with the diabolical intelligence of 
 conscientious duty, had isolated Modeste. Madame 
 Mignon, whose blindness always made her silent, was 
 even paler than usual, showing plainly that she was 
 aware of the test to which her daughter was about to 
 be subjected. Perhaps at the last moment she revolted 
 from the stratagem, necessar}' as it might seem to her. 
 Hence'her silence ; she was weeping inwardh'. Exupere, 
 the spring of the trap, was wholly ignorant of the piece 
 in which he was to play a part. Gobenheim, b3' reason 
 of his character, remained in a state of indifference 
 equal to that displayed b}' Modeste. To a spectator 
 who understood the situation, this contrast between the 
 ignorance of some and the palpitating interest of others 
 would have seemed quite poetic. Nowadays romance- 
 writers arrange such effects ; and it is quite within their 
 province to do so, for nature in all ages- takes the 
 libei'tj' to be stronger than thej-. In this instance, as 
 you will see, nature, social nature, which is a second 
 nature within nature, amused herself b}- making truth 
 more interesting than fiction ; just as mountain tor- 
 rents describe curves which are beyond the skill of 
 painters to convey, and accomplish giant deeds in 
 displacing or smoothing stones which are the wonder 
 of architects and sculptors. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 19 
 
 It was eight o'clock. At that season twilight was 
 still shedding its last gleams ; there was not a cloud 
 in the sky ; the balmy air caressed the earth, the flow- 
 ers gave forth their fragrance, the steps of pedestrians 
 turning, homeward sounded along the gravelly road, the 
 sea shone like a mirror, and there was so little wind that 
 the wax candles upon the card-tables sent up a steady 
 flame, although the windows were wide open. This 
 salon, this evening, this dwelling — wliat a frame for 
 the portrait of the young girl whom tliese persons were 
 now studying with tlie profound attention of a painter 
 in presence of the JMargharita Doni, one of the glories 
 (!f the Pitti palace. Modeste, — blossom enclosed, 
 like that of Catullus, — was she worth all these pre- 
 cautions ? 
 
 You have seen the cage ; behold the bird ! Just 
 twenty years of age, slender and delicate as the sirens 
 which English designers invent for their " Books of 
 Beauty," Modeste was, like her mother before her, 
 the captivating embodiment of a grace too little un- 
 derstood in France, where we choose to call it sentimen- 
 tality, but which among German women is the poetry 
 of the heart coming to the surface of the being and 
 spending itself, — in affectations if the owner is silly, in 
 divine charms of manner if she is S2nriluelle and intelli- 
 gent. Remarkable for her pale golden hair, Modeste 
 belonged to the type of woman called, perhaps in mem- 
 ory of Eve, the celestial blonde ; whose satiny skin is 
 like a silk paper applied to the flesh, shuddering at the 
 winter of a cold look, expanding in the sunshine of a 
 loving glance, — teaching the hand to be jealous of the 
 eye. Beneath her hair, which was soft and feathery 
 
20 Modeste Mignofi. 
 
 and worn in manj' curls, the brow, which might have 
 been traced b^- a compass so pure was its modelhng, 
 shone forth discreet, calm to placidity, and 3-et luminous 
 with thought : when and where conld another be found 
 so transparently clear or more exquisitely' smooth ? It 
 seemed, like a pearl, to have its orient. The e3'es, of a 
 blue ^•erg■ing on gx&y and limpid as the eyes of a child, 
 had all the mischief, all the innocence of childhood, and 
 they harmonized well with the arch of the eyebrows, 
 faintly indicated by lines like those made with a brush 
 on Chinese faces. This candor of the soul was still 
 further evidenced around the eyes, in their corners, 
 and about the temples, hy pearly tints threaded with 
 blue, the special privilege of these delicate complexions. 
 The face, whose oval Raphael so often gave to his 
 Madonnas, was remarkable for the sober and virginal 
 tone of the cheeks, soft as a Bengal rose, upon which 
 the long la.shes of the diaphanous eyelids cast shadows 
 that were mingled with light. The throat, bending as 
 she worked, too delicate perhaps, and of milkj- white- 
 ness, recalled those vanishing lines that Lionardo loved. 
 A few little blemishes here and there, like the patches 
 of the eighteenth centurj-, proved that Modeste was 
 indeed a child of earth, and not a creation dreamed of 
 in Italy by the angelic school. Her lips, delicate yet 
 full, were slightly mocking and somewhat sensuous ; 
 the waist, which was supple and j-et not fragile, had 
 no terrors- for maternitj', like those of girls who seek 
 beauty by the fatal pressure of a corset. Steel and 
 dimity and lacings defined but did not create the ser- 
 pentine lines of the elegant figure, graceful as that of 
 a 3'oung poplar swaying in the wind. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 21 
 
 A pearl-gray dress with crimson trimmings, made 
 with a long waist, modestly outlined the bust and cov- 
 ered the shoulders, still rather thin, with a chemisette 
 which left nothing to view but the first curves of the 
 throat where it joined the shoulders. From the aspect 
 of the young girl's face, at once ethereal and intelligent, 
 where the delicacy of a Greek nose with its rosy nos- 
 trils and firm modelling marked something positive and 
 defined ; where the poetry entln-oned upon an almost 
 mystic brow seemed belied at times by the pleasure- 
 loving expression of the mouth ; wliere candor claimed 
 the depths profound and varied of the eye, and disputed 
 them with a spirit of irony that was trained and edu- 
 cated, — from all these signs an observer would have 
 felt that this young girl, with the keen, alert ear that 
 waked at every sound, with a nostril open to catch the 
 fragrance of the celestial flower of the Ideal, was des- 
 tined to be the battle-ground of a struggle between the 
 poesies of the dawn and the labors of the day ; between 
 fanc3' and reality, the spirit and the life. Modeste was 
 a pure young girl, inquisitive after knowledge, under- 
 standing her destiny, and filled with chastity, — the 
 Virgin of Spain rather than the Madonna of Raphael. 
 
 She raised her liead when she heard Dumaj' say to 
 Exupere, " Come here, young man.'' Seeing them 
 together in the corner of the salon she supposed they 
 were talking of some commission in Paris. Then she 
 looked at the friends who surrounded her, as if surprised 
 hy their silence, and exclaimed in her natural manner, 
 " Why are 30U not playing ?" — with a glance at the 
 green table which the imposing M?idame Latournelle 
 called the " altar." 
 
22 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Yes, let us plaj'," said Dumay, having sent off 
 Exupere. 
 
 " Sit there, Butscha," said Madame Latournelle, sep- 
 arating the head-clerk from the group around Madame 
 Mignon and her daughter by the whole width of the 
 table. 
 
 " And you, come over here," said Dumay to his wife, 
 making her sit close bj- him. 
 
 Madame Dumay, a little American about thirty-six 
 years of age, wiped her eyes furtively ; she adored Mo- 
 deste. and feared a catastrophe. 
 
 " You are not very lively this evening," remarked 
 Modeste. 
 
 " We are playing," said Gobenheim, sorting his 
 cards. 
 
 No matter how interesting this situation may appear, 
 it can be made still more so \>y explaining Dumay's 
 position- toward Modeste. If the brevity of this ex- 
 planation makes it seem rather dry, the reader must 
 pardon its dryness in view of our desire to get through 
 with tliese preliminaries as speedil}- as possible, and 
 the necessity of. relating the main circumstances which 
 govern all dramas. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 28 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PRELIMINAKIES. 
 
 Jean Francois Bernard Dumay, born at Vannes, 
 started as a soldier for the army of Italj- in 1799. His 
 father, president of the revolutionarj' tribunal of that 
 town, had displa^-ed so miiuh energy in bis office that 
 the place became too hot to hold tlie son vvlien the par- 
 ent, a pettifogging lawyer, perished on tlie scaffold after 
 the ninth Thermidor. On the death of his raotlier, who 
 died of the grief this catastrophe occasioned, Jean sold 
 all that he possessed and rnshed to Italy at the age of 
 twenty-two, at the verj' moment when our armies were 
 beginning to j'ield. On the way he met a young man in 
 the department of Var, who for reasons analogous to his 
 own was in search of glory, believing a battle-field less 
 perilous than his own Provence. Charles Mignon, the 
 last scion of an ancient family, which gave its name to 
 a street in Paris and to a mansion built by Cardinal 
 Mignon, had a shrewd and calculating father, whose 
 one idea was to save his feudal estate of La Bastie in 
 the Comtat from the claws of the Revolution. Like all 
 timid folk of that day, the Comte de La Bastie, now 
 citizen Mignon, found it more wholesome to cut off 
 other people's heads than to let his own be cut off. 
 The sham terrorist disappeared after the 9th Thermi- 
 dor, and was then inscribed on the list of emigres. The 
 
24 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 estate of La Bastie was sold ; the towers and bastions 
 of the old castle were pulled down, and citizen Mignon 
 was soon after discovered at Oi-leans and put to death 
 with his wife and all his children except Charles, whom 
 he had sent to find a refuge for the famil3' in the Upper 
 Alps. 
 
 Horrorstruek at the news, Charles waited for better 
 times in a valley of Mont Genevra ; and there he re- 
 mained till 1799, subsisting on a few louis which his 
 father had put into his hand at starting. Finallj', 
 when twenty-three years of age, and without other for- 
 tune than his fine presence and that southern beautj' 
 which, when it reaches perfection, may be called sub- 
 lime (of which Antinous, the favorite of Adrian, is 
 the type), Charles resolved to wager his Provengal 
 audacitj- — taking it, like many another j'outh, for a vo- 
 cation — on the red cloth of war. On his way to the base 
 of the army at Nice he met the Breton. The pair be- 
 came intimate, parti}' through the similarity of their 
 fortunes, partly from the contrasts in their characters ; 
 the}' drank from the same cup at the wajside torrents, 
 broke the same biscuit, and were both made sergeants 
 at the peace which followed the battle of Marengo. 
 
 When the war recommenced, Charles Mignon was 
 promoted into the cavalry and lost sight of his com- 
 rade. In 1812 the last of the Mignon de La Bastie 
 was an officer of the Legion of honor and major of a 
 regiment of cavalry. Taken prisoner by the Russians 
 he was sent, like so many others, to Siberia. He 
 made the journey in company with another prisoner, a 
 poor lieutenant, in whom he recognized his old friend 
 Jean Dinnay, brave, neglected, up.decorated, unhappy, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 25 
 
 like a million of other woollen epaulets, rank and file — 
 that canvas of men on which Napoleon painted the 
 picture of the Empire. While in Siberia, the lieutenant- 
 colonel, to kill time, taught writing and arithmetic to 
 the Breton, whose early education liad seemed a use- 
 less waste of time to Pere Scevola. Charles found in 
 tlie old comrade of his marching daj's one of those rare 
 hearts into which a man can pour his griefs while telling 
 his joys. 
 
 The young Provencal liad met the fate which attends 
 all handsome bachelors. In 1804, at Frankfort on the 
 Main, he was adored l)y Bettiua Wallenrod, only 
 daughter of a banker, and lie married iier witli all the 
 more enthusiasm because slie was rich and a noted 
 beauty, while he was on!}- a lieutenant with no pros- 
 pects but the extremely |)robleniatical future of a sol- 
 dier of fortune of that day. Old Wallenrod, a decayed 
 German baron (tliere is always a baron in a German 
 bank) delighted to know that tlie handsome lieutenant 
 was the sole representative of the Mignon de La Bastie, 
 approved the love of the blonde Bettina, whose beauty 
 an artist (at that time there reall}- was one in Frankfort) 
 had lately painted as an ideal head of German}'. Wallen- 
 rod invested enough money in the French funds to give 
 his daughter thirt}' thousand francs a year, and settled 
 it on his anticipated grandsons, naming them counts of 
 La Bastie- Wallenrod. Tliis dot made only a small 
 liole in his cash-box, the value ef money being then 
 ver}' low. But the Empire, pursuing a polic}' often 
 attempted by other debtors, rarely paid its dividends ; 
 and Charles was rather alarmed at this investment, 
 having less faith than his fatlier-in-law in the imperial 
 
26 Mode»te Mignon. 
 
 eagle. The phenomenon of belief, or of admiration 
 which is ephemeral belief, is not so easily maintained 
 when in close quarters with the idol. The mechanic dis- 
 trusts the machine which the traveller admires ; and the 
 officers of the arm^- might be called the stokers of the 
 Napoleonic engine, — if, indeed, they were not its fuel. 
 
 However, the Baron Wallenrod-Tiistall-Bartenstild 
 promised to come if necessary to the help of the house- 
 hold. Charles loved Bettina Wallenrod as much as 
 she loved him, and that is saying a good deal ; but 
 when a Provencal is moved to enthusiasm all his feel- 
 ings and attachments are genuine and natural. And 
 how could he fail to adore that blonde beautj-, escap- 
 ing, as it were, from the can\'as of Diirer, gifted with 
 an angelic nature and endowed with Frankfort wealth ? 
 The pair had four children, of whom only two daugh- 
 ters survived at the time when he poured his griefs 
 into the Breton's heart. Dumaj' loved these little ones 
 without having seen them, solely through the sj-mpathj- 
 so well described by Charlet, which makes a soldier the 
 father of every child. The eldest, named Bettina Caro- 
 line, was born in 1805 ; the other, Marie Modeste, in 
 1808. The unfortunate lieutenant-colonel, long with- 
 out tidings of these cherished darlings, was sent, at the 
 peace of 1814, across Russia and Prussia on foot, 
 accompanied by the lieutenant. No diflFerence of 
 epaulets could count between the two friends, who 
 reached Frankfort just as Napoleon was disembarking 
 at Cannes. 
 
 Charles found his wife in Frankfort, in mourning for 
 her father, who had always idolized her and tried to 
 keep a smile upon her hps, even by his dying bed. Old 
 
Modeste Mignon. 27 
 
 Wallenrod was unable to survive the disasters of tlie 
 Empire. At seventy j-ears of age he speculated in 
 cottons, relying on the genius of Napoleon without 
 comprehending that genius is quite as often beyond as 
 at the bottom of current events. The old man had pur- 
 chased nearly as man}- bales of cotton as the Emperor 
 had lost men during his magnificent campaign in 
 France. " I tie in goddon," said the father to the 
 daughter, a father of the Goriot tj'pe, striving to quiet 
 a grief which distressed him. " I owe no raann any- 
 ding — " and he died, still trying to speak to his daugh' 
 ter in the language that she loved. 
 
 Thankful to have saved his wife and daughters from 
 the general wreck, Charles Mignon returned to Paris, 
 where the Emperor made him lieutenant-colonel in the 
 cuirassiers of the Guard and commander of the Legion 
 of honor. The colonel dreamed of being count and 
 general after the first victoiy. Alas ! that hope was 
 quenched in the blood of Waterloo. The colonel, 
 slightly wounded, retired to the Loire, and left Tours 
 before the disbandment of the army. 
 
 In the spring of 1816 Charles sold his wife's prop- 
 erty' out of the funds to the amount of nearly four hun- 
 dred thousand francs, intending to seek his fortune in 
 America, and abandon his own country where persecu- 
 tion was beginning to lay a heavy hand on the soldiers 
 of Napoleon. He went to Havre accompanied by Du- 
 may, whose life he had saved at "Waterloo by taking 
 him on the crupper of his saddle in the hurlj'-burly of 
 the retreat. Dumay shared the opinions and the anxi- 
 eties of his colonel ; the poor fellow idolized the two 
 little girls and followed Charles like a spaniel. The 
 
28 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 latter, confident that the habit of obedience, the disci- 
 pline of subordination, and the honestj- and affection of 
 the lieutenant would make him a useful as well as a 
 faithful retainer, proposed to take him 'with him in a 
 civil capacity. Dumay was only too happy to be 
 adopted into the famil.y, to which he resolved to cling 
 like the mistletoe to an oak. 
 
 While waiting for an opportunity to embark, at the 
 same time making choice of a ship and reflecting on the 
 chances offered by the various ports for which they 
 sailed, the colonel heard much talk about the brilliant 
 future which the peace seemed to promise to Havre. 
 As he listened to these conversations among the mer- 
 chants, he foresaw the means of fortune, and without 
 loss of time he set about making himself the owner of 
 landed property, a banker, and a shipping-merchant. 
 He bought land and houses in the town, and de- 
 spatched a vessel to New York freighted with silks 
 purchased in Lyons at reduced prices. He sent Dumay 
 on the ship as his agent ; and when the latter returned, 
 after making a double profit by the sale of the silks and 
 the purchase of cottons at a low valuation, he found 
 the colonel installed with his family in the handsomest 
 house in the rue Royale, and studying the principles 
 of banking with the prodigious activity and intelligence 
 of a native of Provence. 
 
 This double operation of Dumay's was worth a for- 
 tune to the house of Mignon. The colonel purchased 
 the villa at Ingouville and rewarded his agent with the 
 gift of a modest little house in the rue Eoyale. The 
 poor toiler had brought back from New York, together 
 with his cottons, a pretty little wife, attracted it would 
 
Modeste Mignon. 29 
 
 seem bj- his French nature. Miss Grnmmer was worth 
 about four tliousand dollars (twenty thousand francs), 
 which sum Duraaj- placed with his colonel, to whom 
 lie now became an alter ego. In a short time he learned 
 to keep his patron's books, a science which, to use his 
 own expression, pertains to the sergeant-majors of com- 
 merce. The simple-hearted soldier, whom fortune had 
 forgotten for twenty years, thought himself the happiest 
 man in the world as the owner of the little house (which 
 his master's liberality had furnished), with twelve hun- 
 dred francs a year from monej' in the funds, and a 
 salary of three, thousand six hundred. Never in his 
 dreams had Lieutenant Dumaj' hoped for a situation 
 so good as this ; but greater still was the satisfaction 
 he derived from the knowledge that his lucky enter- 
 prise had been the pivot of good fortune to the richest 
 commercial house in Havre. 
 
 Madame Dumaj-, a rather prett3' little American, had 
 the misfortune to lose all her children at their birth ; 
 and her last confinement was so disastrous as to deprive 
 her of the hope of any other. She therefore attached 
 herself to the two little Mignons, whom Dumay himself 
 loved, or would have loved, even better than his own 
 children had the}' lived. Madame Dumay, whose par- 
 ents were farmers accustomed to a life of economy, 
 was quite satisfied to receive only two thousand four 
 hundred francs for her own and her household expenses ; 
 so that every j'ear Dumay laid bj- two thousand and 
 some extra hundreds with the house of Mignon. When 
 the yearly accounts were made up the colonel alwa3'S 
 added something to this little store b}' way of acknowl- 
 edging the cashier's services, until in 1824 the latter 
 
30 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 had a credit of fift}'-eiglit thousand francs. It was then 
 that Charles Mignon, Comte de La Bastie, a title he 
 never used, crowned his cashier with the final happi- 
 ness of residing at the Chalet, where at the time when 
 this story begins Madame Mignon and her daughter 
 were living in obscurity. 
 
 The deplorable state of Madame Mignon's health was 
 caused in part by the catastrophe to w.hich the absence 
 of herhnsband was -due. Grief had taken three years 
 to break down the docile German woman ; bnt it was a 
 grief that gnawed at her heart like a worm at the core 
 of a sound fruit. It is easy to reckon up its obvious 
 causes. Two children, dying in infancy, had a double 
 grave in a soul that could never forget. The exile of 
 her husband to Siberia was to such a woman a dailj' 
 death. The failure of the rich house of Wallenrod, and 
 the death of her father, leaving his coffers emptj', was to 
 Bettina, tlien uncertain as to the fate of her husband, a 
 terrible blow. The joj' of Charles's return came near kill- 
 ing the tender German flower. After that the second fall 
 of the Empire and the proposed expatriation acted on her 
 feelings like a renewed attack of the same fever. At 
 last, however, after ten years of continual prosperity, the 
 comforts of her house, which was the finest in Havre, the 
 dinners, balls, and fetes of a prosperous merchant, 
 the splendors -of the villa Mignon, the unbounded re- 
 spect and consideration enjoyed by her husband, his 
 absolute affection, giving her an unrivalled love in re- 
 turn for her single-minded love for him, — all these things 
 brought the poor woman back to life. At the moment 
 when her doubts and fears at last left her, when she 
 could look forward to the bright evening of her stormy 
 
Modeste Mignon. 31 
 
 life, a hidden calastroplic, buried in tlie heart of tlie 
 family, and of which we shall presently make mention, 
 came as the ijrecursor of renewed trials. 
 
 In January', 1826, on the day when Ha-\re had un- 
 animously chosen Charles Mignon as its deputy, three 
 letters, arri\ing from New York, Paris, and London 
 fell with the destruction of a hammer upon the crystal 
 palace of his prosperity-. In an instant ruin like a 
 vulture swooped down upon their happiness, just as the 
 cold fell in 1812 upon the grand army in Eussia. One 
 night sufficed Charles Mignon to decide upon his course, 
 and he spent it in settling his accounts with Dumay. 
 All he owned, not excepting his furnitiire, would just 
 suffice to paj' his creditors. 
 
 " Havre shall never see me doing nothing," said the 
 colonel to the lieutenant. " Dumay, I take your sixty 
 thousand francs at six per cent." 
 
 " Thi'ee, my colonel." 
 
 "At nothing, then," cried Mignon, peremptorily; 
 " yon shall have your share in the profits of what I 
 now undertake. The ' Modeste,' which is no longer 
 mine, sails to-morrow, and I sail in her. I commit to 
 you my wife and my daughter. I shall not write. No 
 news must be taken as good news." 
 
 Dumay, always subordinate, asked no questions of 
 his colonel. "I think," he said to Latournelle with a 
 knowing little, glance, " that my colonel has a plan laid 
 out." 
 
 The following day at dawn he accompanied his mas- 
 ter on board the " Modeste " bound for Constantinople. 
 There, on the poop of the vessel, the Breton said to the 
 Provengal, — 
 
32 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " What are your last commands, my colonel?" 
 
 "That no man shall enter the Chalet," cried the 
 father with strong emotion. " Dinnay, guard my last 
 child as though you were a bull-dog. Death to the man 
 who seduces another daughter ! P'ear nothing, not e\ en 
 the scaffold — I will be with you." 
 
 " My colonel, go in peace. I understand you. You 
 shall find Mademoiselle Modeste on your return such 
 as you now give her to me, or I shall be dead. You 
 know me, and you know your Pyrenees hounds. No 
 man shall reach your daughter. Forgive me for troub- 
 ling you with words." 
 
 The two soldiers clasped arms like men who had 
 learned to understand each other in the solitudes of 
 Siberia. 
 
 On the same day the Havre ' ' Courier " published 
 the following terrible, simple, energetic, and honorable 
 notice : — 
 
 " The house of Charles oNIignon suspends payment. But 
 the undersigned, assignees of the estate, undertake to pay all 
 liabilities. On and after this date, holders of notes may ob- 
 tain the usual discount. The sale of the landed estates will 
 fully cover all current indebtedness. 
 
 " This notice is issued for the honor of the house, and to 
 prevent any disturbance in the money-market of this town. 
 
 " Monsieur Charles Mignon sailed this morning on the 
 ' Modeste ' for Asia Minor, leaving full powers with the un- 
 dersigned to sell his whole property, both landed and per- 
 sonal. 
 
 DuMAY, assignee of the Bank accounts, 
 Latournelle, notary, assignee of the city and villa 
 
 property, 
 GoBEjjHEiji, assignee of the commercial property." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 33 
 
 Latonrnelle owed his prosperity to the kindness of 
 Monsieur Mignon, «ho lent him one hundred tliousand 
 francs in 1817 to buy tire finest law practice in Havre. 
 The poor man, who had no pecuniary means, was nearly 
 forty years of age and saw no prospect of being other 
 than head-clerk for the rest of his da^-s. He was the 
 only man in Havre whose devotion could be compared 
 •with Duniay's. As for Gobenheim, he profited b^' the 
 liquidation to get a part of Monsieur Mignon's business, 
 •which lifted his own little bank into prominence. 
 
 While unanimous regrets for tiie disaster were ex- 
 pressed in counting-rooms, on the wharves, and in 
 private houses, where praises of a man so irreproach- 
 able, honorable, and beneficent filled every mouth, 
 Latournelle and Dumay,. silent and active as ants, sold 
 land, turned property into money, paid the debts, and 
 settled up everything. Vilquin showed a good deal of 
 generosity in purcliasing the villa, the town-house, and 
 a farm ; and Latournelle made the most of his Hberality 
 by getting a good price out of liim. Society wished to 
 show civilities to Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon ; 
 but they had already obeyed the father's last wishes 
 and taken refuge in the Chalet, where they went on the 
 very morning of his departure, the exact hour of which 
 had been concealed from them. Not to be shaken in 
 his resolution by his grief at parting, the brave man 
 said farewell to his wife and daughter while they slept. 
 Three liundred -sisiting cards were left at the house. 
 A fortnight later, just as Charles had predicted, com- 
 plete forgetfulness settled down upon the Chalet, and 
 proved to these women the wisdom and dignity of his 
 command. 
 
 3 
 
34 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Dumay sent agents to represent his master in New 
 York, Paris, and Loudon, and followed up the assign- 
 ments of the three banking-liouses whose failure had 
 caused the ruin of tlie Havre house, thus realizing five 
 hundred thousand francs between 1826 and 1828, an 
 eighth of Charles' whole fortune; then, according to 
 the latter's directions given on the night of his depart- 
 ure, he sent that sum to New York through the house 
 of Mongenod to the credit of Monsieur Charles Mignori. 
 All this was done witli militarj' obedience, except in a 
 matter of withholding thirty thousand francs for the per- 
 sonal expenses of Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon 
 as the colonel had ordered him to do, but which Dumay 
 did not do. The Breton sold his own little house for 
 twentj' thousand francs, which sum he gave to Madame 
 Mignon, believing that the more capital he sent to his 
 colonel the sooner the latter would return. 
 
 "He might perish for the want of that thirty thou- 
 sand francs," Dumay remarked to Latournelle, who 
 bought the little house at its full value, where an ap- 
 partment was always kept ready for the inhabitajits of 
 the Chalet. 
 
Mode&te 3Iiynon. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A SIMPLE STORY. 
 
 StrCH was the result to the celebrated house of Mi- 
 grion at Havre of the crisis of 1825-26, which convulsed 
 many of the principal business centres in Europe and 
 caused the ruin of several Parisian bankers, among 
 them (as those who remember that crisis will recall) 
 the president of tlie chamber of commerce. 
 
 We can now understand how this' great disaster, 
 coming suddenly at the close of ten years of domestic 
 happiness, might well have been the death of Bettina 
 Mignon, again separated from her husband and igno- 
 rant of his fate, — to her as adventurous and perilous as 
 the exile to Siberia. But the grief which was dragging 
 her to the grave was far other than these visible sor- 
 rows. The caustic that was slowl^' eating into her 
 heart lay beneath a stone in the little graveyard of In- 
 gouville, on which was inscribed : — 
 
 BETTINA CAROLINE MIGNON. 
 
 DIED AGED TWENTY-TWO. 
 PRAY FOR HER. 
 
 This inscription is to the young girl whom it covered 
 what many another epitaph has been for the dead lying 
 beneath them, — a table of contents to a hidden book. 
 
36 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Here is the book, in its dreadful brevitj- ; and it will 
 explain the oath exacted and taken when the colonel 
 and the lieutenant bade each other farewell. 
 
 A young man of charming' appearance, named Charles 
 d' Estourny, came to Hax're for the commonplace pur- 
 pose of being near the sea, and there he saw Bettina 
 Mignon. A soi-disant fashionable Parisian is never 
 without introductions, and he was invited at the in- 
 stance of a friend of the Mignons to a fete given at 
 Ingouville. He fell in love with Bettina and with her 
 fortune, and in three months he had done the work of 
 seduction and enticed her away. The father of a family 
 of daughters should no more allow a young man whom 
 he does not know to enter his home than he should 
 leave books and papers lying about which he has not 
 read. A young girl's innocence is like milk, which a 
 small matter turns sour, — a clap of thunder, an evil 
 odor, a hot da}-, a mere breath. 
 
 When Charles Mignon read his daughter's letter of 
 farewell he instantly despatched Madame Dumay to 
 Paris. The family gave out that a journey to another 
 climate had suddenl3' been advised for Caroline by their 
 physician ; and the physician himself sustained the 
 excuse, though unable to prevent some gossip in the 
 society of Havre. " Such a vigorous young girl ! with 
 the complexion of a Spaniard, and that black hair ! — 
 she consumptive !" "Yes, they say she committed 
 some imprudence." " Ah, ah ! " cried a Vilquin. " I 
 am told she came back bathed in perspiration after 
 riding on horseback, and drank iced water; at least, 
 that is what Dr. Troussenard says." 
 
 By the time Madame Duma^- returned to Havre the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 37 
 
 catastrophe of the failure had taken place, and society 
 paid no further attention to the absence of Bettina or 
 the return of the cashier's wife. At the beginning of 
 1827 the newspapers rang with the trial of Charles 
 d' Estourny, who was found guilty of cheating at cards. 
 The young corsair escaped into foreign parts without 
 taking thought of Mademoiselle Mignon, who was of 
 little value to him since the failure of the bank. Bet- 
 tina heard of his infamous desei-tion and of her father's 
 ruin almost at the same time. She returned home 
 struck b}' death, and wasted awaj' in a short time at 
 the Chalet. Her death at least protected her reputation. 
 The illness that Monsieur Mignon alleged to be the 
 cause of her absence, and the doctor's order which sent 
 her to Nice were now generally believed. Up to the 
 last moment the mother hoped to save her daughter's 
 life. Bettina was her darling and Modeste was the 
 father's. There was something touching in the two 
 preferences. Bettina was the image of Charles, just as 
 Modeste was the reproduction of her mother. Both 
 parents continued their love for each other in their 
 children. Bettina, a daughter of Provence, inherited 
 from her father the beautiful hair, black as a raven's 
 wing, which distinguishes the women of the South, 
 the brown ej-e, almond-shaped and brilliant as a star, 
 the olive tint, the velvet skin as of some golden fruit, 
 the arched instep, and the Spanish waist from which the 
 short basque skirt fell crisply. Both mother and father 
 were proud of the charming contrast between the sis- 
 ters. " A devil and an angel ! " they said to each other, 
 laughing, little thinking it prophetic. 
 
 After weeping for a month in the solitude of hei' 
 
38 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 (.'hamber, where she admitted iio one, the mother came 
 forth at last with injured ejes. Before losing her sight 
 altogether slie persisted, against the wislies of her 
 friends, in visiting her daughter's gra^e, on which slie 
 riveted her gaze in contemplation. That image re- 
 mained vivid in the darkness which now fell upon her, 
 just as the red spectrum of an object shines in our 
 eyes when we close them in full daylight. This ter- 
 rible and double misfortune made Duma^', not less 
 devoted, but .more anxious about Modeste, now the 
 only daughter of the father who was unaware of his 
 loss. Madame Dumay, idolizing Modeste, like other 
 women deprived of their children, cast her motherliness 
 about the girl, — yet without disregarding the com- 
 maude of her husband, who distrusted female intimacies. 
 Those commands were brief. " If anj- man, of any age, 
 or any rank," Dumay said, " speaks to Modeste, ogles 
 her, makes love to her, he is a dead man. I'll blow his 
 brains out and give myself up to the authorities ; mj' 
 death maj- save her. If you don't wish to see my head 
 cut off, do 30U take mj- place in watching her when I 
 am obliged to go out." 
 
 For the last tln-ee years Dumay had examined his 
 pistols every night. He seemed to have put half the 
 Ijurden of his oath upon the Pyrenean hounds, two 
 animals of uncommon sagacity-. One slept inside the 
 Chalet, the other was stationed in a kennel which he 
 never left, and where he never barked; but terrible 
 woukl have been the moment had the pair made their 
 teeth meet in some unknown adventurer. 
 
 We can now imagine the sort of life led by mother 
 and daughter at the Clialet. Monsieur and Madame 
 
Modeste Mignon. 39 
 
 Latournelle, often accompanied by Gobenheim, came 
 to call and pla}' whist with Dumaj' neail}- every even- 
 ing. The conversation turned on the gossip of Havre 
 and the petty events of provincial life. The little com- 
 pany separated between nine and ten o'clock. Modeste 
 put her mother to bed, and together they said their 
 prayers, kept up each other's courage, and talked of 
 the dear absent one, the husband and father. After kiss- 
 ing her mother for g(.iod-night, the girl went to her own 
 room about ten o'clock. The next morning she prepared 
 her mother for the day with the same care, the same 
 prayers, the same prattle. To her praise be it said 
 that from the day when the terrible infirmity deprived 
 her mother of a sense, Modeste had been like a servant 
 to her, displaying at all times tlie saiiie soliciturle ; 
 never wearying of the duty, never thinking it monoto- 
 nous. Such constant dcA'otion, combined with a tender- 
 ness rare among j'oung. girls, was thoroughlj' appreciated 
 b)' those wlio witnessed it. To the Latournelle familj', 
 and to Monsieur and Madame Dumay, Modeste was, 
 in soul, the pearl of price. 
 
 On sunny days, between breakfast and dinner, 
 Madame Mignon and Madame Dumay' took a little 
 walk toward the sea. Modeste accompanied them, for 
 two arms were needed to support the blind mother. 
 About a month before the scene to which this expla- 
 nation is a parenthesis, Madame Mignon had taken 
 counsel with her friends, Madame Latournelle, the 
 notary, and Dumay, while Madame Duma^' carried 
 Modeste in another direction for a longer walk. 
 
 " Listen to what I have to say," said the blind 
 woman. "Mj- daughter is in love. I feel it ; I see it. 
 
40 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 A singular cliange has taken place within hev, and I do 
 not see how it is that none of you have perceived it." 
 
 "In the name of all tliat's lionorable — " cried tlie 
 lieutenant. 
 
 "Don't interrupt me, Dumaj-. For the last two 
 months Modeste takes as much care of her personal 
 appearance as if she expected to meet a lover. She 
 has grown extremely fastidious about her shoes ; she 
 wants to set, off her pretty feet; she scolds Madame 
 Gobet, the shoemaker. It is the .same thing with her 
 milliner. Some days my poor darling is absorbed in 
 thought, evidently expectant, as if waiting for some 
 one. Her voice has curt tones when she answers a 
 question, as though she were interrupted in the cur- 
 icrnt of- her thoughts and secret expectations. Then, if 
 this awaited lover has come — " 
 ■ " Good heavens ! " 
 
 " Sit down, Dumay," said the blind woman. "Well, 
 then Modeste is gay. Oh ! she is not ga}- to your 
 sight ; you cannot catch tliese gradations ; thej' are too 
 delicate for ej'es that see onl}' the outside of nature. 
 Her ga3-ety is betrayed to me by the tones of her voice, 
 by certain accents which I alone can catch and under- 
 stand. Modeste then, instead of sitting still and 
 thoughtful, gives vent to a wild, inward activity by 
 impulsive movements, — in short, she is happy. There 
 is a grace, a charm in the verj- ideas she utters. Ah, 
 my friends, I know happiness as ■ well as I know sor- 
 row ; I know its signs. By the kiss my Modeste gives 
 me I can guess what is passing witiiin her. I know 
 whether she has received what she was looking for, or 
 whether she is uneasy and expectant. There are many 
 
Modeste Mignon. 41 
 
 gradations in a kiss, even in tliat of an innocent young 
 gnrl, and Modeste is innocence itself; but hers is the 
 innocence of knowledge, not of ignorance. I may be 
 blind, but my tenderness is all-seeing, and I charge 
 you to watch over m^- daughter." 
 
 Dumay, now actually ferocious, the notary, in the 
 character of a man bound to ferret out a mysterj', Ma- 
 dame Latournelle, the deceived chaperone, and Madame 
 Duma}-, alarmed for her husband's safetjr, became at 
 once a set of spies, and Modeste from this day forth was 
 never left alone for an instant. Dumay passed nights 
 under her window wrapped in his cloak like a jealous 
 Spaniard ; but with all his militarj' sagacity he was 
 unable to detect the least suspicious sign. Unless she 
 loved the nightingales in the villa park, oi souib faiiy 
 prince, Modeste could have seen no one, and had 
 neither given nor received a signal. Madame Dumay, 
 who never went to bed till she knew Modeste was 
 asleep, watched the road from the upper windows of 
 the Chalet with a vigilance equal to her husband's. 
 Under these eight Argus eyes the blameless child, whose 
 every motion was studied and analj'zed, came out of 
 the ordeal so fully acquitted of all criminal conversation 
 that the four friends declared to each other privately 
 that Madame Mignon was foolishly over-anxious. 
 Madame Latournelle, who always took Modeste to 
 church and brought her back again, was commissioned 
 to tell the mother that she was mistaken about her 
 daughter. 
 
 " Modeste," she said, "is a young girl of very ex- 
 alted ideas ; she works herself into enthusiasm for the 
 poetry of one writer or the prose of another. You 
 
42 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 have only to judge by the impression made upon her by 
 that scafTolcl symphony, ' The Last Hours of a Convict ' 
 [the saying was Butscha's, who supplied wit to his bene- 
 factress with a lavish hand] ; she seemed to me all but 
 crazy with admiration for that Monsieur Hugo. I'm 
 sure I don't know where such people [Victor Hugo, 
 Lamartine, Byron being sucJl people to the Madame 
 Latournelles of the boni-geoisie] get their ideas. Mo- 
 deste kept talking to me of Cliilde Harold, and as I did 
 not wish to get the worst of the argument I was silly 
 enough to try to read the thing. Perhaps it was the 
 fault of the translator, but it actually turned my stom- 
 ach ; I was dazed ; I could n't possibly finish it. Why, 
 the man talks about comparisons that howl, rocks tiiat 
 faiut, and waves of war ! However, he is onl}' a trav- 
 elling Englishman, and we must expect absurdities, — 
 though his are really inexcusable. He takes j'ou to 
 Spain, and sets you in the clouds above the Alps, and 
 makes the torrents talk, and the stars ; and he says there 
 are too manj' \ irgins ! Did vou ever hear the like ? 
 Tlien, after Napoleon's campaigns, the lines are full of 
 sonorous brass and flaming cannon-balls, rolling along 
 from page to page. Modeste tells me that all that 
 bathog is put in by the translator, and that I ought to 
 read the book in English. But I certainly sha'n't learn 
 English to read Lord Byron when I did n't learn it 
 to teach Exupere. I much prefer the novels of Ducray- 
 Dumenil to all these EugUsh romances. I'm too good 
 a Norman to fall in love with foreign things, — above 
 all when they come from England." 
 
 Madame Mignon, notwithstanding her melancholy, 
 could not help smiling at the idea of Madame Latournelle 
 
Modeste Mignon. 43 
 
 reading Childe Haiold. The stern scion of a parlia- 
 mentary house accepted the smile as an approval of 
 her doctrines. 
 
 " And, therefore, my dear Madame Mignon," she, 
 went on, " you have taken Modeste's fancies, which are 
 nothing but the results of her reading,' for a love-affair. 
 Eemember, she is just twentj-. Girls fall in love with 
 themselves at that age ; they dross to see themselves 
 well-dressed. I remember I used to make my little 
 sister, now dead, put ou a man's hat and pretend we 
 were monsieur and madame. You see, you had a very 
 happy youth in Frankfort ; but let us be just, — Mo- 
 deste is living here without the slightest amusement. 
 Although, to be sure, her every wish is attended to, still 
 she knows she is shut up and watched, and the life she 
 leads would give her no pleasures at all if it were not 
 for the amusement she gets out of her books. Come, 
 don't worry yourself ; she loves nobody but you. You 
 ought to be very glad that she goes into these enthu- 
 siasms for the corsairs of Byron and the heroes of 
 Walter Scott and your own Germans, Egmont, Goethe, 
 • Werther, Schiller, and all the other ' ers.' " 
 
 " Well, madame, what do you say to that ? " asked 
 Dumaj', respectfully, alarmed at Madame Mignon's 
 silence. 
 
 " Modeste is not onl^- inclined to love, but she loves 
 some man," answered the mother, obstinateh-. 
 
 " Madame, my life is at stake, and you must allow 
 me — not for my sake, but for my wife, my colonel, for 
 all of us — to probe this matter to the bottom, and find 
 out whether it is' the mother or the watch-dog who is 
 deceived." 
 
44 3Iodeste Mignon. 
 
 "It is 3'ou who are deceived, Dumaj-. Ah! if I 
 could but see mj- daughter ! " cried the poor woman. 
 
 " But whom is it possible for her to love ? " asked the 
 notar}'. " I '11 answer for m^y Exupere." 
 
 "It can't be Gobenlieim," said Diimay, "for since 
 the colonel's departure he has not spent nine hours 
 a week in this house. Besides, he does n't even no- 
 tice Modeste — that five-franc-piece of a man! His 
 uncle Gobenheim-Keller is all the time writing him, 
 ' Get rich enough to marry a Keller.' With that idea 
 in his mind j'ou may be sure he does n't know whicli 
 sex Modeste belongs to. No other men ever come 
 here, — for of course I don't count Butscha, poor little 
 fellow; I love him! He is your Dumay, madame," 
 said the cashier to Jladame Latournellc. " Butscha 
 knows very well that a mere glance at Mf)deste would 
 cost him a Breton ducking. Xot a soul has an3' com- 
 munication with this house. Madame Latournelle who 
 takes Modeste to church evei' since your — your great 
 misfortune, madame, has carefully watched her on the 
 W'ay and all through the service, and has seen nothing 
 suspicious. In short, if I must confess the truth, I- 
 have myself raked all the paths about the house every 
 evening for the last month, and found no trace of foot- 
 steps in the morning." 
 
 " Eakes are neither costly nor difllcult to handle," 
 remarked the daughter of German j-. 
 
 " But the dogs? " cried Dumay. 
 
 " Lovers have philters for-even dogs," answered Ma- 
 dame Mignon. 
 
 "If you are right, my honor is lost ! I may as well 
 blow my brains out," exclaimed Dumay. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 45 
 
 " Whj' so, Dumaj- ? " said the blind woman. 
 
 " Ah, madame, 1 could never meet my colonel's eye 
 if he did not find his daughter — now his only daugh- 
 ter — as pure and virtuous as she was when he said to 
 me on the vessel, ' Let no fear of the scaffold hinder 
 you, Dumay, if the honor of my Modeste is at stake.' " 
 
 " Ah ! I recognize you both," said Madame Mignon 
 in a voice of strong emotion. 
 
 " I'll wager m}' salvation that Modeste is as pure as 
 she was in her cradle," exclaimed Madame Dumay. 
 
 " Well, I shall make certain of it," replied her hus- 
 band, " if Madame la Comtesse will allow me to emploj' 
 certain means ; for old troopers understand strategy." 
 
 " I will allow you to do anj'thing that shall enlighten 
 us, provided it does no injurj' to my last child." 
 
 "Wliat are you going to do, Jean ? " asked Madame 
 Dumay; " how can you discover a young girl's secret 
 if she means to hide it ? " 
 
 " Obey me, all! " cried the lieutenant, " I shall need 
 every one of you." 
 
 If this rapid sketch were cleverly developed it would 
 give a- whole picture of manners and customs in which 
 many a family could recognize the events of their own 
 history ; but it must suffice as it is to explain the 
 importance of the few details heretofore given about 
 persons and things on the memorable evening when the 
 old soldier had made ready his plot against the young 
 girl, intending to wrench from the recesses of her heart 
 the secret of a love and a lover seen only bj' a blind 
 mother. 
 
46 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PROBLEM STILL UNSOLVED. 
 
 An hour -n-ent hy in solemn stillness broken only 
 by the cabalistic phrases of the -vvhist - players : 
 " Spades ! " "Trumped ! " " Cut ! " " How are honors ? " 
 "Two to four." " Wliose deal?" — phrases which repre- 
 sent in these days the higher emotions of the European 
 aristocracy'. Modeste continued to work, without seem- 
 ing to be surprised at her mother's silence. Madame 
 Mignon's handkerchief slipped from her lap to the floor ; 
 Butscha precipitated himself upon it, picked it up, and 
 as he returned it whispered in Modeste's ear, " Take 
 care ! " Modeste raised a pair of wondering ej'es, 
 whose puzzled glance filled the poor cripple with joj' 
 unspeakable. " She is not in love ! " he whispered to 
 himself, rubbing his hands till tlie skin was nearly 
 peeled off. At this moment Exujjere tore through the 
 garden and the house, plunged into the salon like an 
 avalanche, and said to Dumay in an audible whisper, 
 "The young man is here!" Dumay sprang for his 
 pistols and rushed out. 
 
 " Good God ! suppose he kills him ! " cried Madame 
 Dumay, bursting into tears. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Modeste, looking inno- 
 cently at her friends and not betraying the slightest 
 fear. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 47 
 
 '• It is all about a j'oung man who is hanging round 
 the house," cried Madame Latournelle. 
 
 "Well!" said Modeste, " wly- should Dumaj' kill 
 him ? " 
 
 ^'' Sancta siniplicita!" ejaculated Butscha, looking 
 at his master as proudly as Alexander is made to con- 
 template Babylon in Lebrun's great picture. 
 
 " Where are you going, Modeste? " asked the mother 
 as her daughter rose to leave the room. 
 
 "To get ready for your bedtime, mamma," an- 
 swered Modeale, in a voice as pure as the tones of 
 an instrument. 
 
 " You haven't paid your expenses," said the dwarf 
 to Dumay when he returned. 
 
 " Modeste is as pure as the Virgin on our altar," 
 cried Madame Latournelle. 
 
 "Good God! such excitements wear me out," said 
 Dumay ; " and yet I 'm a strong man." 
 
 " May I lose that twenty-five sous if I have the 
 slightest idea what you are about," remarked Goben- 
 heim. " You seem to me to be craz_y.'' 
 
 " And yet it is all about a treasure," said Butscha, 
 standing on tiptoe to whisper in Gobenheim's ear. 
 
 " Dumay, I am sorry to say that I am still almost 
 certain of what I told 3'ou," persisted Madame Mignon. 
 
 " The burden of proof is now on you, madame," 
 said Duma}^ calmly; "it is for j-ou to prove that we 
 are mistaken." 
 
 Discovering that the matter in question was only 
 Modeste's honor, Gobenheim took his hat, made his 
 bow, and walked oft', carrying his ten sous with him, — 
 there being evidently no hope of another rubber. 
 
48 Modeate Mignon. 
 
 "Exupere, and you too, Butscha, may leave us," 
 said Madame Latournelle. " Go back to Havre; j-ou 
 will get there in time for the last piece at the theatre. 
 I '11 pay for 3'oiir tickets." 
 
 When the four friends were alone with Madame 
 Mignon, Madame Latournelle, after looking at Dumay, 
 who being a Breton understood the mother's obstinacy, 
 and at her husband who was Angering the cards, felt 
 herself authorized to speak up. 
 
 " Madame Mignon, come now, tell us what decisive 
 thing has struck your mind." 
 
 "Ah, my good friend, if you were a musician you 
 would have heard, as I have, the language of love that 
 Modeste speaks." 
 
 The piano of the demoiselles Mignon was among the 
 few articles of furniture which had been moved from 
 the town-house to the Chalet. Modeste often conjured 
 away her troubles b3' practising, without a master. 
 Born a inusician, she played to enliven her mother. 
 She sang by nature, and loved the German airs which 
 her mother taught her. From these lessons and these 
 attempts at self-instruction came a phenomenon not 
 uncommon to natures witli a musical vocation ; Modeste 
 composed, as far as a person ignorant of the laws of har- 
 mony- can be said to compose, tender little l3-ric melo- 
 dies. Melody is to music what imagery and sentiment 
 are to poetrj-, a flower that blossoms spontaneously. 
 Consequently, nations have had melodies before har- 
 mony, — botanj^ comes later than the flower. In like 
 manner, Modeste, who knew nothing of the painter's 
 art except what she had seen her sister do in the way 
 of water-color, would have stood subdued and fasci- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 49 
 
 nated before the pictures of Bapbael, Titian, Hubens, 
 MnriUo, Bembraudt, Albert Diirer, Holbein, — in other 
 words, before the great ideals of many lands. Latelj", 
 for at least a month, Modeste had warbled the songs 
 of nightingales, musical rhapsodies whose poetry and 
 meaning had roused the attention of her mother, al- 
 ready surprised bj- her sudden eagerness for composition 
 and her fanc^' for putting airs to certain verses. 
 
 " If J'our suspicions have no other foundation," said 
 Latournelle to Jladame Mignon, "I pity your suscep- 
 tibilities." 
 
 " When a Breton girl sings," said Dumay gloomily, 
 " the lover is not far off." 
 
 "I will let you hear Modeste when she is impro- 
 vising," said the mother, " and 30U shall judge for 
 yourselves — " 
 
 "Poor girl !" said Madame Duma}-, " If she only 
 knew our anxietj' she would be deeply distressed ; she 
 would tell us the truth, — especially if she thought it 
 would save Dumay." 
 
 " My friends, I will question my daughter to-morrow," 
 said Madame Mignon ; " perhaps I shall obtain more 
 by tenderness than 3'ou have discovered by trickery." 
 
 Was the comedy of the '• Fille mal Gardee " being 
 played here, — as it is everywhere and forever, — und(?r 
 the noses of these faithful spies, these honest Bartholos., 
 these Pyrenean hounds, without their being able to 
 ferret out, detect, nor even surmise the lover, the love- 
 affair, or- the smoke of the fire ? At any rate it was 
 certainly not the result of a struggle between tlie jail- 
 ers and the prisoner, between the despotism of a 
 dungeon and the liberty of a victim, — it was simply 
 4 
 
50 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 the never-ending repetition of the first scene played by 
 man when the curtain of the Creation rose ; it was Eve 
 in Paradise. 
 
 And now, which of the two, the mother or the watch- 
 dog, had the right of it ? 
 
 None of the persons who were about Modeste could 
 understand that maiden heart — for the soul and the 
 face we have described were in harmony. The girl had 
 transported her existence into another world, as much 
 denied and disbelieved in iu these days of ours as the 
 new world of Christopher Columbus in the sixteenth 
 century. Happily, she kept her own counsel, or they 
 would have thought her crazy. But first we must 
 explain the influence of the past uj)on her nature. 
 
 Two events had formed the soul and developed the 
 mind of this young girl. Monsieur and Madame 
 Mignon, warned by the fate that overtook Bettina, 
 had resolved, just before the failure, to marrj' Modeste. 
 They chose the son of a rich banker, formerly of Ham- 
 burg, but established in Havre since 1815, — a man, 
 moreover, who was under obligations to them. The 
 young man, whose name was Francisque Althor, the 
 dandy of Havre, blessed with a certain vulgar beauty 
 in which the middle classes dehght, well-made, well- 
 fleshed, and with a fine complexion, abandoned his 
 betrothed so hastily on the day of her father's failure 
 that neither Modeste nor her mother nor either of the 
 Dumays had seen him since. Latournelle ventured a 
 question on the subject to Jacob Althor, the father; 
 but he only shrugged his shoulders and replied, " I 
 really don't know what you mean." 
 
 This answer, told to Modeste to give her some expe- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 51 
 
 rience of life, was a lesson which she learned all the 
 more readilj- because Latournelle and Dumay made 
 many and long comments on the cowardly desertion. 
 The daughters of Charles Mignon, like spoiled children, 
 had all their wishes gratified ; they rode on horseback, 
 kept their own horses and grooms, and otherwise en- 
 joj-ed a perilous libertj-. Seeing herself in possession 
 of an official lover, Modeste had allowed Francisque to 
 kiss her hand, and take her by the waist to mount her. 
 She accepted his flowers and all the little proofs of 
 tenderness with which it is proper to surround the 
 lady of our choice ; she even worked him a purse, be- 
 lieving in such ties, — strong indeed to noble souls, but 
 cobwebs for the Gobenheims, the Vilquins, and the 
 Altbors. 
 
 Some time during the spring which followed the re- 
 moval of Madame Mignon and her daughter to the 
 Chalet, Francisque Altlior came to dine with the Vil- 
 quins. Happening to see Modeste over the wall at the 
 foot of the lawn, he turned awaj' his head. Six weeks 
 later he married the eldest Mademoiselle Vilquin. In 
 this way Modeste, young, beautiful, and of high birth, 
 learned the lesson that for three whole months of her 
 engagement she had been nothing more than Made- 
 moiselle Million. Her poverty, well known to all, be- 
 came a sentinel defending the approaches to the Chalet 
 fully as well as the prudence of the Latournelles or the 
 vigilance of Dumay. The talk of the town ran for a 
 time on Mademoiselle Mignon's position only to insult 
 her. 
 
 "Poor girl! what will become of her? — an old 
 maid, of course." 
 
52 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "What a fate! to have had the woiW at her feet; 
 to have had the chance to marry Francisque Althor, — 
 and now, nobody willing to take her ! " 
 
 "After a life of luxury, to come down to such 
 poverty — " 
 
 And these insults were not uttered in secret or left 
 to Modeste's imagination ; she heard them spoken more 
 than once by the young men and the young women of 
 Havre as they walked to Ingouville, and, knowing that 
 Madame Mignon and her daughter lived at the Chalet, 
 talked of them as they passed the house. Friends of 
 the Vilquins expressed surprise that the mother and 
 daughter were wilKug to live on among the scenes of 
 their former splendor. From her open window behind 
 the closed blinds Modeste sometimes heard such inso- 
 lence as this : — 
 
 " I am' sure I can't think how they can live 
 there," some one would say as he paced the villa 
 lawn, — perhaps to assist Vilquin in getting rid of 
 his tenant. 
 
 "What do you suppose they live on? they haven't 
 any means of earning money." 
 
 " I am told the old woman has gone blind." 
 
 "Is Mademoiselle Mignon still prettj'? Dear me, 
 how dashing she used to be ! Well, she luis n't anj 
 horses now." 
 
 Most young girls on hearing these spiteful and silly 
 speeches, born of an envy that now rushed, peevish and 
 drivelling, to avenge the past, would have felt the blood 
 mount to their foreheads ; others would have wept ; 
 some would have undergone spasms of anger ; but 
 Modeste smiled, as we smile at the theatre while watch- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 58 
 
 ing the actors. Her pride could not descend so low as 
 the level of such speeches. 
 
 The other event was more serious than these merce- 
 nary meannesses. Bettina Caroline died in the arms 
 of her younger sister, who had nursed her with the 
 devotion of girlhood, and the curiosit^v of an untainted 
 imagination. In the silence of long nights the sisters 
 exchanged many a confidence. With what dramatic 
 interest was poor Bettina invested in the e3es of the 
 innocent Modeste ? Bettina knew love through sorrow 
 only, and she was dying of it. Among young girls 
 every man, scoundrel though he be, is still a lover. 
 Passion is the one thing absolutely real in the things 
 of life, and it insists on its supremacy. Charles 
 d'Estourny, gambler, criminal, and debauchee, remained 
 in the memory- of the sisters, the elegant Parisian of 
 the fStes of Havre, the admired of the womenkind. 
 Bettina believed she had carried him off from the co- 
 quettish Madame Vilquin, and to Modeste he was her 
 sister's happy lover. Such adoration in young girls is 
 stronger than all social condemnations. To Bettina's 
 thinking, justice had been deceived ; if not, how could 
 it have sentenced a man who had loved her for six 
 months? — loved her to distraction in the hidden retreat 
 to which he had taken her, — that he might, we ma^- 
 add, be at liberty to go his own way. Thus the dying 
 girl inoculated her sister with love. Together they 
 talked of the great drama which imagination enhances ; 
 and Bettina carried with her to the grave her sister's 
 ignorance, leaving her, if not informed, at least thirst- 
 ing for information. 
 
 Nevertheless, remorse had set its fangs too sharply 
 
54 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 in Bettina's heart not to force her to warn her sister. 
 In the midst of lier own confessions slie had preached 
 dut}' and implicit obedience to Modeste. On the even- 
 ing of her death she implored her to remember the 
 tears that soaked her' pillow, and not to imitate a con- 
 duct which even suffering could not expiate. Bettina 
 accused herself of bringing a curse upon the family, 
 and died in despair at being unable to obtain her 
 father's pardon. Notwithstanding the consolations 
 which the ministers of religion, touched hy her repent- 
 ance, freel^' gave her, she cried in heartrending tones 
 with her latest breath : " O father ! father ! " " Never 
 give your heart without your hand," she said to Modeste 
 an hour before she died ; ' ' and above all, accept no 
 attentions from axiy man without telling everything to 
 papa and mamma." 
 
 These words, so earnest in their practical meaning, 
 uttered in the hour of death, had more effect upon 
 Modeste than if Bettina had exacted a solemn oath. 
 The dying girl, farseeing as a prophet, drew from be- 
 neath her pillow a rhig which she had sent by her faith- 
 ful maid, Frangoise Cochet, to be engraved in Havre 
 with these words, "Think of Bettina, 1827," and 
 placed it on her. sister's linger, begging her to keep it 
 there until she married. Thus there had been between 
 these two young girls a strange commingling of bitter 
 remorse and the artless visions of a fleeting spring-time 
 too early blighted by the keen north wind of desertion ; 
 yet all their tears, regrets, and memories were always 
 subordinate to their horror of evil. 
 
 Nevertheless, this drama of a poor seduced sister 
 returning to die under a roof of elegant poverty, the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 55 
 
 failure of her father, the baseness of her betrothed, the 
 blindness of her mother caused by grief, had touched 
 the surface only of Modeste's life, hy which alone the 
 Duma3's and the Latournelles judged her ; for no devo- 
 tion of friends can take the place of a mother's eye. The 
 monotonous life in the dainty little Chalet, surrounded 
 h\ the choice flowers ^Yhich Dumay cultivated ; the 
 family customs, as regular as clock-work, the provincial 
 decorum, tlie gam'es at -whist while tlie mother knitted 
 and the daughter sewed, the silence, broken onlj- by 
 the roar of the sea in the equinoctial storms, — all this 
 monastic tranquillity did in fact hide an inner and 
 tumultuous life, the life of ideas, the life of the spirit- 
 ual being. We sometimes wonder how it is possible 
 for j'oung girls to do wrong ; but such as do so have no 
 bhnd mother to send her plummet line oriutuition to 
 the depths of the subterranean fancies of a virgin heart. 
 The Dumays slept when ilodeste opened her window, 
 as it were to watch for the passing of a man, — the man 
 of her dreams, the expected knight who was to mount 
 her behind him and ride away under the fire of Dumaj-'s 
 pistols. 
 
 During the depression caused by her sister's death 
 Modeste flung herself into the practice of reading, until 
 her mind became sodden in it. Born to the use of two 
 languages, she could speak and read German quite as 
 well as French ; she Jiad also, together with her sister, 
 learned English from Madame Dumay. Being very 
 little overlooked in the matter of reading by the people 
 about her, who had no literary knowledge, Modeste fed 
 her soul on the modern masterpieces of three literatures, 
 English, French, and German. Lord Byron, Goethe, 
 
56 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Schiller, Walter Scott, Hugo, Lamartine, Crabbe, Moore, 
 the great works of the 17th and 18th centuries, his- 
 tory, drama, and fiction, from Astrrea to Manon Les- 
 cant, from Montaigne's Essays to Diderot, from the 
 Fabliaux to the Nouvelle- H^lo'ise, — in short, the 
 thought of three lands crowded with confused images 
 that girlish head, august in its cold guilelessness, its 
 native chastity, but from which there sprang full-armed, 
 brilliant, sin~cere, and strong, an overwhelming admira- 
 tion for genius. To Modeste a new book was an 
 event ; a masterpiece that would have horrified Madame 
 Latournelle made her hapi)y, — equally unhappy if the 
 great work did not play havoc with her heart. A 
 lyric instinct bubbled in that girlish soul, so full of the 
 beautiful illusions of ,its youth. But of this radiant 
 existence not a gleam reached the surface of daih' life ; 
 it escaped the ken of Dnmay and his wife and the 
 Latournelles ; the ears of the blind mother alone caught 
 the crackling of its flame. 
 
 The profound disdain which Modeste now conceived 
 for ordinary men gave to her face a look of pride, an 
 inexpressible untamed shyness, which tempered her 
 Teutonic simplicity, and accorded well with a pecu- 
 liarity of her head. The hair growing in a point above 
 the forehead seemed the continuation of a slight line 
 which thought had already furrowed between the eye- 
 brows, and made the expression of untamability per- 
 haps a shade too strong. The voice of this charming 
 child, whom her father, delighting in her wit, was wont 
 to call his "little proverb of Solomon," had acquired a 
 precious flexiliility of organ tlirough the practice of 
 three languages. This advantage was still further en- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 57 
 
 hanced by a natural bell-like tone both sweet and fresh, 
 which touched the heart as delightfuUj' as it did the ear. 
 If the mother could no longer see the signs of a noble 
 destiny upon her daughter's brow, she could study the 
 transitions of her soul's development in the accents ol 
 that voice attuned to love. 
 
58 Modeste Mlgnon, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A maiden's first romance. 
 
 i 
 
 To this period of Modeste's eager rage for reading 
 succeeded the exercise of a sti'aoge faculty given to 
 vigorous imaginations, — the power, namely, of making 
 herself an actor in a dream-existence ; of representing 
 to her own mind the things desired, with so vivid a con- 
 ception that they seemed actually to attain reality ; in 
 short, to enjoj' by thought, — to live out her j'ears within 
 her mind ; to marry ; to grow old ; to attend her own 
 funeral like Charles V. ; to play within herself the corn- 
 ed}' of life and, if need be, that of death. Modeste 
 was indeed playing, but all alone, the comedj' of Love. 
 She fancied herself adored to the summit of her wishes 
 in man}' an imagined phase of social life. Sometimes 
 as the heroine of a dark romance, she loved the execu- 
 tioner, or the wretch who ended his da5's upon the 
 scaffold, or, like her sister, some Parisian youth with- 
 out a penny, whose struggles were all beneath a garret- 
 roof. Sometimes she was Ninon, scorning men amid 
 continual fetes ; or some applauded actress, or gay ad- 
 venturess, exhausting in her own behalf the hick of Gil 
 Bias, or the triumphs of Pasta, Malibran, and Florine. 
 Then, wear}- of horrors and excitements, she returned 
 to actual life. She married a notary, she ate the plain 
 brown bi'ead of honest every-day life, she saw herself a 
 
Modeste Mignon. 59 
 
 Madame Latournelle ; she accepted a painful existence, 
 she bore all the trials of a struggle with fortune. After 
 that she went back to the romances : she was loved for 
 her beauty ; a son of a peer of France, an eccentric, 
 artistic young man, divined her heart, recognized the 
 star which the genius of a De Stael had planted on her 
 brow. Her father returned, possessing millions. With 
 his permission, she put her various lovers to certain 
 tests (alwa5's carefullj' guarding her own independence) ; 
 she owned a magnificent estate and castle, servants, 
 horses, carriages, the choicest of ever^'thing that lux- 
 urj' could bestow, and kept her suitors uncertain until 
 she was fortj* j'ears old, at which age she made her 
 choice. 
 
 This edition of the Arabian Nights in a single copy 
 lasted nearly a year, and taught Modeste the sense of 
 satietj' through thought. She held her life too often 
 in her hand, she said to herself philosophically and 
 with too real a bitterness, too seriously, and too often, 
 " Well, what is it, after all?" not to have plunged to 
 her waist in the deep disgust which all men of genius 
 feel when they try to complete by intense toil the work 
 to which they have devoted themselves. Her youth and 
 her rich nature alone kept Modeste at this period of her 
 life from seeking to enter a cloister. But this sense of 
 satiety cast her, saturated as she still was with Catholic 
 spiritualitj', into the love of Good, the infinite of heaven. 
 She conceived of charity, service of others, as the true 
 occupation of life ; but she cowered in the gloomy 
 dreariness of finding in it no food for the fancy that 
 lay crouching In her heart like an insect at the bottom 
 of a calj'x. Meanwhile she sat tranquilly sewing gar- 
 
60 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 ments for the children of the poor, and listening ab- 
 stractedly to the grumblings of Monsieur Latournelle 
 when Dumay held the thirteenth card or drew out hia 
 last trump. 
 
 Her religious faith drove Modeste for a time into a 
 singular track of thought. She imagined that if she 
 became sinless (speaking ecclesiasticall}') she would 
 attain to such a condition of sanctity that God would 
 hear her and accomplish her desires. "Faith," she 
 thought, " can remove mountains ; Christ has said so. 
 The Saviour led his apostle upon the waters of the lake 
 Tiberias ; and I, all I ask of God is a husband to love 
 me ; that is easier than walking upon the sea." She 
 fasted through the next Lent, and did not commit a 
 single sin ; then she said to herself that on a certain 
 day coming out of church she should meet a handsome 
 young man who was worthj- of her, whom her mother 
 would accept, and who would fall madly in love with 
 her. When the day came on which she had, as it 
 were, summoned God to send her an angel, she was 
 persistently followed by a rather disgusting beggar ; 
 moreover, it rained heavily, and not a single young man 
 was in the streets. On another occasion she went to 
 walk on the jetty to see the English travellers land; 
 but each Englishman had an Enghshwoman, nearly as 
 handsome as Modeste herself, who saw no one at all re- 
 sembling a wandering Childe Harold. Tears overcame 
 her, as she sat down like Marius on the ruins of her 
 imagination. But on the day when she subpoenaed God 
 for the third time she firmly believed that the Elect 
 of her dreams was within the church, hiding, perhaps 
 out of delicac}-, behind one of the pillars, round all of 
 
Modeste Mignon. 61 
 
 which she dragged Madame Latournelle on a tour of 
 inspeetion. After this failure, she deposed the Deity 
 • from omnipotence. Many were lier conversations with 
 the imaginary lover, for whom she invented questions 
 and answers, bestowing upon him a great deal of wit 
 and intelligence. 
 
 The high ambitions of her heart hidden within these 
 romances were the real explanation of the prudent 
 conduct which the good people who watched over 
 Modeste so much admired ; they might have brought 
 her aujf number of young Althors or Yilquins, and she 
 would never have stooped to such clowns. She wanted, 
 purely and simply, a man of genius, — talent she cared 
 Uttle for ; just as a lawyer is of no account to a girl who 
 aims for an ambassador. Her onl}' ■ desire for wealth 
 was to cast it at the feet of her idol. Indeed, the 
 golden background of these visions was far less rich 
 than the treasury of her own heart, filled with womanly 
 delicacy ; for its dominant desire was to make some 
 Tasso, some Milton, a Jean- Jacques Rousseau, a Murat, 
 a Christopher Columbus happy. 
 
 Commonplace miseries did not seriously touch this 
 j-outhful soul, who longed to extinguish the fires of the 
 inart3'rs ignored and rejected in their own day. Some- 
 times she imagined balms' of Gilead, soothing melo- 
 dies which might have allaj-ed the savage misanthropy 
 of Eousseau. Or she fancied herself the wife of Lord 
 Byron ; guessing intuitively his contempt for the real, she 
 made herself as fantastic as the poetry of Manfred, and 
 provided for his scepticism hy making him a Catholic. 
 Modeste attributed Moliere's melancholy to the women 
 of the seventeenth centurj'. "Why is there not some 
 
62 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 one woman," she asked herself, " loving, beautiful, and 
 rich, ready to stand beside each man of genius and be 
 his slave, like Lara, the mj-sterious page?" She had, ■ 
 as the reader perceives, full}' understood il pianto, 
 which the English poet chanted by the mouth of his 
 Guluare. Modeste greatly admired the behavior of the 
 3'oung Englishwoman who offered herself to Crebillon, 
 the son, who married her. The stor}' of Sterne and 
 Eliza Draper was her life and her happiness for several 
 months. She made herself ideally the heroine of a like 
 romance, and many a time she rehearsed in imagina- 
 tion the sublime role of Eliza. The sensibility so 
 charmingly expressed in that delightful correspondence 
 filled her e^-es with tears which, it is said, were lacking 
 in those of the wittiest of English writers. 
 
 Modeste existed for some time on a comprehension, 
 not only of the works, but of the characters of her favorite 
 authors, — Goldsmith, the author of Obermann, Charles 
 Nodier, Maturin. The poorest and the most •suffering 
 among them were her deities ; she guessed their trials, 
 initiated herself into a destitution where the thoughts 
 of genius brooded, and poured upon it the treasures of 
 her heart; she fancied herself the giver of material 
 comfort to these great men, martyrs to their own fac- 
 ulty. This' noble compassion, this intuition of the 
 struggles of toilers, this worship of genius, are among 
 the choicest perceptions that flutter through , the souls 
 of women. They are, in the first place, a secret be- 
 tween the woman and God, for they are hidden ; in 
 them there is nothing striking, nothing that gratifies 
 the vanity, — that powerful auxiliary to all action 
 among the French. 
 
Modcste 3Iignon. 63 
 
 Out of this third period of the de^'eIopment of her 
 ideas, there came to Modeste a passionate desire to 
 penetrate to the heart of one of tliese abnormal beings ; 
 to imderstand-the working of the thoughts and the hid- 
 den griefs of genius, — to linow not oul}' what it wanted 
 but what it was. At the period wlien this story begins, 
 these vagaries of fancy, these excursions of her soul 
 into the ^•oid, these feelers put forth into the darkness 
 of the future, the impatience of an ungiven love to 
 find its goal, the nobility of all her thoughts of life, 
 the decision of her mind to suffer in a sphere of higher 
 things rather than flounder in the marshes of provincial 
 life like her mother, the pledge she had made to herself 
 never to fail in conduct, but to respect her father's 
 hearth and bring it happiness, — all this world of feel- 
 ing and sentiment had lately come to a climax and 
 taken shape. Modeste wished to be the friend and 
 companion of a poet, an artist, a man in some way 
 superior to the crowd of men. But she intended to 
 choose him, — not to give him her heart, her life, her 
 infinite tenderness freed from the trammels of passion, 
 until she had carefully and deeplj^ studied him. 
 
 She began this pretty romance bj' simpl}- enjoying it. 
 Profound tranquillity settled down upon her soul. Her 
 cheeks took on a soft color ; and she became the beauti- 
 ful and noble image of Germany, such as we have lately 
 seen her, the glory of the Chalet, the pride of Madame 
 Latournelle and the Duma^s. Modeste was living a 
 double existence. She performed with humble, loving 
 care all the minute duties of the homely life at the 
 Chalet, using them as a rein to guide the poetvy of 
 her ideal life, like the Carthusian monks who labor 
 
64 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 methodically on material things to leave their souls the 
 freer to develop in prayer. All great minds have bound 
 themselves to some form of mechanical toil to obtain 
 greater mastery of thought. Spinosa ground glasses for 
 spectacles; Bayle counted the tiles on the roof; Mon- 
 tesquieu gardened. The body being thus subdued, the 
 soul could sjoread its wings in all securitj'. 
 
 Madame Mignon, reading her daughter's soul, was 
 therefore right. Modeste loved ; she loved with that 
 rare platonic love, so little understood, the first illusion 
 of a young girl, the most delicate of all sentiments, a 
 very dainty of the heart. She drank deep draughts 
 from the chalice of the unknown, the vague, the vision- 
 ary. She admired the blue plumage of the bird that 
 sings afar in the paradise of young girls, which no hand 
 can touch, no gun can cover, as it flits across the sight ; 
 she loved those magic colors, like sparkling jewels daz- 
 zling to the ej-e, which youth can see, and never sees 
 again when Reality, the hideous hag, appears with wit- 
 nesses accompanied by the mayor. To live the very 
 poetry of love and not to see the lover — ah, what 
 sweet intoxication ! what visionary' rapture ! a chimera 
 with flowing mane and outspread wings ! 
 
 The following is the puerile and even silly event which 
 decided the future life of this 3'oung girl. 
 
 Modeste happened to see in a bookseller's window a 
 hthographic portrait of one of her favorites, Canalis. 
 We all know what lies such pictures tell, — being as they 
 are the result of a shameless speculation, which seizes 
 upon the personality of celebrated individuals as if their 
 faces were public property. 
 
 In this instance Canalis, sketched in a Byronic pose. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 65 
 
 was offering to public admiration his dark locks floating 
 in the breeze, a bare throat, and the unfathomable brow 
 which every bard ought to possess. Victor Hugo's 
 forehead will make more persons shave their heads than 
 the number of incipient marshals ever killed by the 
 glory of Napoleon. This portrait of Canalis (poetic 
 through mercantile necessity) caught Modeste's eye. 
 The day on which it caught her eye one of Arthez's 
 best books happened to be published. We are com- 
 pelled to admit, though it may be to Modeste's injury, 
 that she hesitated long between the illustrious poet and 
 the illustrious prose-writer. Which of these celebrated 
 men was free? — that was the question. 
 
 Modeste began by securing the co-operation of Tran- 
 goise Cochet, a maid taken from Havre and brought 
 back again by poor Rettina, whom Madame Mignon 
 and Madame Dumay now employed by the daj-, and 
 who lived in Havre. Modeste took her to her own 
 room and assured her that she would never cause her 
 parents any grief, never pass the bounds of a young 
 girl's proprietj-, and that as to Fran9oise herself she 
 should be well pj-ovided for after the return of Mon- 
 sieur Mignon, on condition that she would do a certain 
 service and keep it an inviolable secret. What was it? 
 Why, a nothing — perfectlj- innocent. All that Mo- 
 deste wanted of her accompHce was to put certain letters 
 into the post at Havre and to bring some back which 
 would be directed to herself, Fran9oise Cochet. The 
 treaty concluded, Modeste wrote a polite note to Dau- 
 riat, publisher of the poems of Canalis, asking, in the 
 interest of that great poet, for some particulars about 
 him, among others if he were married. She requested 
 
66 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 the publisher to address his answer to Mademoiselle 
 Fran9oise, poste restante, Havre. 
 
 Danriat, incapable of taking the epjstle seriously,' 
 wrote a reply in presence of four or five journalists who 
 happened to be in his office at the time, each of whom 
 added his particular stroke of wit to the production. 
 
 Mademoiselle, — Canalis (Barou of). Constant Cyr 
 Melchior, member of the French Academy, born in 1800, 
 at Canalis (Correze), five feet four inches in height, of good 
 standing, vaccinated, spotless birth, has given a substitute 
 to the conscription, enjoys perfect health, owns a small patri- 
 monial estate in the Correze, and wishes to marry, but the 
 lady must be rich. 
 
 He beareth per pale, gules an axe or, sable three escallops 
 argent, surmounted by a baron's coronet ; supporters, two 
 larches, vert. Motto : Or et fer (no allusion to Ophir ®r 
 auriferous). 
 
 The original Canalis, who went to tlie Holy Land with the 
 First Crusade, is cited in the chronicles of Auvergne as being 
 armed with an axe on account of the family indigence, which 
 to this day weighs heavily on the race. This noble baron, 
 famous for discomfiting a vast number of infidels, died, with- 
 out or or fer, as naked as a worm, near Jerusalem, on the 
 plains of Ascalon, ambulances not being then invented. 
 
 The chateau of Canalis (the domain yields a few chest- 
 nuts) consists of two dismantled towers, united by a piece of 
 wall covei'ed by a fine ivy, and is taxed at twenty-two francs. 
 
 The undersigned (publisher) calls attention to the fact 
 that he pays ten thousand francs for every volume of poetry 
 written by Monsieur de Canalis, who does not give his shells, 
 or his nuts either, for nothing. 
 
 The chanticleer of the Correze lives in the rue de Paradis- 
 Poissoniere, number 29, which is a highly suitable location 
 for a poet of the angelic school. Letters must he post-paid. 
 
Myfde^te Mignon. 67 
 
 Noble dames of the faubourg Saint-Germain are said to 
 take the path to Paradise and protect its god. The king, 
 Charles X., thinks so highly of this great poet as to believe 
 him capable of governing the country ; he has lately made 
 him officer of the Legion of honor, and (what pays him bet- 
 tei) president of the court of Claims at the foreign ofBce. 
 These functions do not hinder this great genius from drawing 
 an annuity out of the fund for the encouragement of the arts 
 and belles lettres. 
 
 The last edition of the works of Canalis, printed on 
 vellum, royal 8vo, from the press of Didot, with illustrations 
 by Bixiou, Joseph Bridau, Sohinner, Sommervieux, etc., is 
 in five volumes, price, nine francs post-paid." 
 
 This letter fell like a cobble-stone on a tulip. A 
 poet, secretary of claims, getting a stipend in a pub- 
 lic office, drawing an annuity, seeking a decoration, 
 adored by the women of the faubourg Saint-Germain — 
 was that the mudd}' minstrel lingering along the qua)'s, 
 sad, dreamy, worn with toil, and re-entering his garret 
 fraught with poetry? However, Modeste perceived the 
 irony of the envious bookseller, who dared to say, " I 
 invented Canalis ; I made Nathan ! " Besides, she re- 
 read her hero's poems, — verses exti-emely seductive, 
 insincere, and hypocritical, which require a word of 
 analysis, were it only to explain her infatuation. 
 
 Canalis may be distinguished from Lamartine, chief 
 of the angelio school, by a wheedling tone like that of 
 a sick-nurse, a treacherous sweetness, and a delightful 
 correctness of diction. If the chief with his strident 
 cry is an eagle, Canalis, rose and white, is a flamingo. 
 In him women find the friend they seek, their interpre- 
 ter, a being who understands them, who explains them 
 to themselves, and a safe confidant. Tlie wide margias 
 
68 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 given b3' Didot to the last edition were crowded with 
 Modeste's pencilled sentiments, expressing her sym- 
 pathj' with this tender and dreamy spirit. Canalis does 
 not possess the gift of life ; he cannot breathe exist- 
 ence into his creations ; but he knows how to calm 
 vagne sufferings like those which assailed Modeste. 
 He speaks to young girls in their own language ; he 
 can allaj' the anguish of a bleeding wound and lull the 
 moans, even the sobs of woe. His gift lies not in stirring 
 words, nor in the remedy of strong emotions, he con- 
 tents himself with saying in harmonious tones which 
 compel belief, "I suffer with you; I understand 3"ou ; 
 come with me ; let us weep together beside the brook, 
 beneath the willows." And they follow him ! Thej' 
 listen to his empt3' and sonorous poetry like infants 
 to a nurse's lullaby. Canalis, like Nodier, enchants the 
 reader hy an artlessness which is genuine in the prose 
 writer and artificial in the poet, by his tact, his smile, 
 the shedding of his rose-leaves, in shoi-t hy his infantile 
 philosoph}-. He imitates so well the language of our 
 early j'outh that he leads ns back to the prairie-land of 
 our illusions. We can be pitiless to the eagles, re- 
 quiring from them the quality of the diamond, incor- 
 ruptible perfection ; but as for Canalis, we take him 
 for what he is and let the rest go. He seems a good 
 fellow ; the affectations of the angelic school have an- 
 swered his purpose and succeeded, just as a woman 
 succeeds when she plays the ingenue cleverly, and 
 simulates surprise, youth, innocence betrayed, in short, 
 the wounded angel. 
 
 Modeste, recovering her first impressions, renewed her 
 confidence in that soul, in that countenance as ravish- 
 
Modeste Mignan. 69 
 
 ing as the face of Bernardin de Saint- Pierre. She 
 paid no further attention, to the publisher. And so, 
 about the beginning of the month of August she wrote 
 the following letter to this Dorat of the sacrist3", who 
 still ranks as a star of the modern Pleiades. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis, — Manj- a lime, mon- 
 sieur, I have wished to write to you ; and why ? Surely 
 you guess whj-, — to tell you how much I admire your 
 genius. Yes, I feel the need of expressing to you the 
 admiration of a poor country girl, lonely in her little 
 corner, whose only happiness is to read your thoughts. 
 I have read Eene, and I come to 3'ou. Sadness leads 
 to reverj-. How many other women are sending yon 
 the homage of their secret thoughts? What chance 
 have I for notice among so many? This paper, filled 
 with my^ soul, — can it be more to j'ou than the per- 
 fumed letters which alreadj' beset you. I come to you 
 with less grace than others, for I wish to remain un- 
 known and yet to receive 3'our entire confidence — as 
 though you liad long knovvn me. 
 
 Answer my letter and be friendly with me. I can- 
 not promise to make myself known to you, though I 
 do not positivel}- say I will not some daj- do so. 
 
 What shall I add ? Read between the hues of this 
 letter, monsieur, the great effort which I am making : 
 permit me to offer j'ou my hand, — that of a friend, 
 ah ! a true friend, 
 
 Your servant, 0. d'Este M. 
 
 P. S. — If you do me the favor to answer this let- 
 ter address your replj', if you please, to Mademoiselle 
 F. Cochet, /)osfe restante, Havre. 
 
70 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A POET OF THE AXGEI.IC SCHOOL. 
 
 All 3"oung gills, romantic oi' otherwise, can imagine 
 the impatience in which Modeste lived for the next few 
 da^s. The air was full of tongues of fire. The trees 
 were like a plumage. She was not conscious of a bodj- ; 
 she hovered in space, the earth melted away under her 
 feet. Full of admiration for the post-office, she fol- 
 lowed her little sheet of paper on its wa}' ; she was 
 happy, as we all are happy at twenty years of age, in 
 the first exercise of our will. She was possessed, as in 
 the middle ages. She made pictures in her mind of the 
 poet's abode, of his stud3' ; she saw him unsealing her 
 letter ; and then followed myriads of suppositions. 
 
 After sketching the poetry we cannot do less than 
 give the profile of the poet. Canalis is a short, spare 
 man, with an air of goud-breediug, a dark-complexioned, 
 moon-shaped face, and a rather mean head like that 
 of a man who has more vanity than pride. He. loves 
 luxur}-, rank, and splendor. Money is of more impor- 
 tance to him than to most men. Proud of his birth, 
 even more than of his talent, he destroys the value of 
 his ancestors by making too much of them in the pres- 
 ent day, — after all, the Canalis are not Navarreins, 
 nor Cadignans, nor Grandlieus. Nature, however, 
 helps him out in his pretensions. He has those eyes 
 
Modeste Mignon. 71 
 
 of Eastern effulgence which we demand iu a poet, a 
 delicate charm of manner, and a vibrant voice ; 5'et 
 a taint of natural charlatanism destroys the effect of 
 nearly all these advantages ; he is a born comedian. 
 If he puts forward his well-shaped foot, it is because 
 the attitude has become a habit ; if he uses exclama- 
 tory terms they are a part of himself; if he poses with 
 high dramatic action he has made that deportment his 
 second nature. Such defects as these are not incom- 
 patible with a general benevolence and a certain quality 
 of errant and purely ideal chivahy, which distinguishes 
 the paladin from the knight. Canalis has not devotion 
 enough for a Don Quixote, but he has too much eleva- 
 tion of thought not to put himself on the nobler side of 
 questions and things. His poetry, which takes the 
 town by storm on all profitable occasions, really in- 
 jures the man as a poet ; for he is not without mind, 
 but his talent prevents him from developing it ; he is 
 overweighted by his reputation, and is always aiming to 
 make himself appear greater than he has the credit ot 
 being. Thus, as often happens, the man is entirely 
 out of keeping with the products of his thought. The 
 author of these naive, caressing, tender little Ij'rics, 
 these calm idyls pure and cold as the surface of a lake, 
 these verses so essentially feminine, is an ambitious 
 little creature in a tightly buttoned frock-coat, with the 
 air of a diplomat seeking political influence, smelling of 
 the musk of aristocracy, full of pretension, thirsting for 
 mone}', already- spoiled by success in two directions, 
 and wearing the double wreath of myrtle and of laurel. 
 A government situation worth eight thousand francs, 
 three thousand francs' annuity from the literary fund, 
 
72 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 two thousand from the Academj-, three thousand more 
 from the paternal estate (less the taxes and the cost of 
 keeping it in order), — a total fixed income of fifteen 
 thousand francs, plus the ten thousand hrought in, one 
 year with another, by liis poetry ; in all twenty-five 
 thousand fi'ancs, — this for Modeste's hero was so pre- 
 carious and insufficient an income that he usually spent 
 from five to six thousand francs more every year ; but 
 the king's priv_y purse and the secret funds of the 
 foreign ofHce had hitherto supplied the deficit. He 
 wrote a hymn for the king's coronation which earned 
 him a whole silver service, — having refused a sum of 
 money on the ground that a Canalis owed his duty to 
 the sovereign. 
 
 But about this time Canalis had, as the journalists 
 saj', exhausted his budget. He felt himself unable to 
 invent &n\ new form of poetry ; his lyre did not have 
 seven strings, it had one ; and having pla}=ed on that 
 one string so long, the pubhc allowed him no other al- 
 ternative than to hang himself with it, or to hold his 
 tongue. De Marsay, who did not like Canalis, made a 
 remark whose poisoned shaft touched the poet to the 
 quick of his vanity. '• Canahs," he said, " always re- 
 minds me of that brave man whom Frederic the Great 
 called up and commended after a battle because his 
 trumpet- had never ceased tooting its one little tune." 
 Canalis's ambition was to enter political life, and he 
 made capital of a journey he had taken to Madrid as 
 secretary to the embassy of the Due de Chaulieu, though 
 it was reall}" made, according to Parisian gossip, in the 
 capacity of " attache to the duchess." How many 
 times a sarcasm or a single speech has decided the 
 
JJodeiite Mignon. 73 
 
 ■n-bolo course of a miin's life. C'olla, the late president 
 of the Cisalpine republic, and the best lawyer in Pied- 
 mont, was told by a friend when he was forty years of 
 age that he knew nothing of botanj-. He was piqued, 
 became a second Jnssien, cultivated (lowers, and com- 
 piled. and published ''The Flora of Piedmont," in Latin, 
 a labor of ten years-. "I'll master De Marsay some of 
 these days I " thought the crushed poet; '-after all. 
 Canning and Chateaubriand are both in •politics." 
 
 Canalis would gladlj- have brought forth some great 
 political poem, but he was afiaid of the French press, 
 whose criticisms are savage upon any writer who takes 
 four alexandrines to express one idea. Of all the poets 
 of our day only three, Hugo, Theophile Gautier, and 
 De Vigny, have been able to vvin the double glory of 
 poet and prose-writer, like Racine and Voltaire, Mo- 
 liere, and Rabelais, — a rare distinction in the literature 
 of France, which ought to give a man a right to the 
 crowning title of poet. 
 
 So then, the bard of the faubourg Saint-Germain 
 was doing a wise thing in trying to house his little 
 chariot under the protecting roof of the present gov- 
 ernment. When lie became president of the court of 
 Claims at the foreign office, he stood in need of a sec- 
 retary, — a friend who conld take his place in various 
 ways ; cook up his interests with publishers, see to his 
 glor}' in the- newspapers, help him if need be in politics, 
 — in short, a cat's-paw and- satellite. In Paris many 
 men of celebrity in art, science, and literature have one 
 or more trainbearers, captains of the guard, chamber- 
 lains as it were, who live in the sunshine of their pres- 
 ence, — aides-de-camp intrusted with delicate missions, 
 
74 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 allowing themselves to be compromised if necessarj' ; 
 workers round the pedestal of the idol ; not exactly his 
 servants, nor yet his equals ; bold in his defence, first 
 in the breach, covering all retreats, busy with his busi- 
 ness, and devoted to him just so long as their illusions 
 last, or until the moment when they have got all they 
 wanted. Some of these satellites perceive the ingrati- 
 tude of their great man ; others feel that they are simply 
 made tools of; many wearj' of the life ; very fen' remain 
 contented with that sweet equalitj- of feehng and sen- 
 timent which is the onl^- reward that should be looked 
 for in an intimacj' with a superior man, — a reward that 
 contented Ali when Mohammed raised him to himself 
 
 Many of these men, misled b}' vanity, think them- 
 selves quite as capable as their patron. Pure devotion, 
 such as Modeste conceived it, without money and with- 
 out price, and more especially witliout hope, is rare. 
 Nevertheless there are Menne^-als to be found, more 
 perhaps in Paris than elsewhere, men who value a life 
 in the background with its peaceful toil : these are the 
 wandering Benedictines of our social world, which oifers 
 them no other monastery. These brave, meek hearts 
 live, by their actions and in their hidden lives, the 
 poetry that poets utter. They are poets themselves in 
 soul, in tenderness, in their lonely vigils and medita- 
 tions, — as truly poets as others of the name on paper, 
 who fatten in the fields of literature at so much a verse ; 
 like Lord Byron, like all. who live, alas, by ink, the 
 Hippocrene water of to-day, for want of a better. 
 
 Attracted by the fame of Canalis, also by the pros- 
 pect of political interest, and advised thereto by Ma- 
 dame d'Espard, who acted in the matter for the Duchesse 
 
Modeste Mignon. 76 
 
 de Chaulieii, a young lawyer of the court of Claims be- 
 came secretary and confidential friend of the poet, who 
 welcomed and pelted him very much as a broker car- 
 esses his first dabbler in the funds. The beginning of 
 this companionship bore a ver^- fair resemblance to 
 friendship. The young man had already held the same 
 relation to a minister, ^\•ho went out of office in 1827, 
 taking care before he did so to appoint his young secre- 
 tary to a place in the foreign office. Ernest de la Briere, 
 then about twenty-seven years of age, was decorated 
 with the Legion of honor but was without other means 
 than his salar}' ; he was accustomed to the management 
 of business and had learned a good deal of life during 
 his four years in a minister's cabinet. Kindly, amiable, 
 and over-modest, with a heart full of pure and sound 
 feelings, he was averse to putting himself in the fore- 
 ground. He loved his country, and wished to serve 
 her, but notoriety abashed 'him. To him the place of 
 secretary to a Napoleon was far more desirable than 
 that of the minister himself. As soon as he became the 
 friend and secretar}- of Canalis he did a great amount 
 of labor for him, but by the end of eighteen months he 
 had learned to understand the barrenness of a nature 
 that was poetic . through literary expression only. The 
 truth of the old proverb, " The cowl does n't make the 
 monk," is eminently shown in literature. It is extremely 
 rare to find among literary men a nature and a talent that 
 are in perfect accord. The faculties are not the man 
 himself. This disconnection, whose phenomena are 
 amazing, proceeds from an unexplored, possibly an un- 
 explorable mystery. The brain and its products of all 
 kinds (for in art the hand of man is a continuation of 
 
76 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 his brain) are a world apart, which flourishes beneath the 
 cranium in absolute independence of sentiments, feel- 
 ings, and all that is called virtue, the virtue of citizens, 
 fathers, and private life. This, however true, is not 
 absolutely so ; nothing is absolutely' true of man. It is 
 certain that a debauched man will dissipate his talent, 
 that a drunkard will waste it in libations ; while, on the 
 other hand, no man can give himself talent by whole- 
 some living : nevertheless it is all but proved that 
 Virgil, the painter of love, never loved a Dido, and that 
 Eousseau, the model citizen, had enough pride to ha\e 
 furnished fortli an aristocracj-. On the other hand 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo do present the glorious 
 conjunction of genius with the lines of c'haracter. Tal- 
 ent in men is therefore, in all moral points, very mucli 
 what beauty is in women, — simply a promise. Let us, 
 therefore, doubly admire the man in whom both heart 
 and character equal the perfection of his genius. 
 
 When Ernest discovered within his poet an ambitious 
 egoist, the worst species of egoist (for there are some 
 amiable forms of the vice), he felt a delicacy in leaving 
 him. Honest natures cannot easily break the ties that 
 bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily. 
 The secr(4ary was therefore still living in domestic rela- 
 tions with the poet when Modeste's letter arrived, — in 
 such relations, be it said, as involved a perpetual sacri- 
 fice of his feelings. La Briere admitted the frankness 
 with which Can alls had laid himself bare before him. 
 Moi-eover, the defects of the man, who will always be 
 considered a great poet during his lifetime and flattered 
 as Marmontel was flattered, were onlj' the wrong side of 
 his brilliant qualities. Without his vanity and hia 
 
Modeste Mignon. 77 
 
 magniloquence it is possible that he might never have 
 acquired the sonorous elocution wliich is so useful and 
 even necessary an instrument in political life. His 
 cold-bloodedness touched at certain points on rectitude 
 and loj'altj- ; his ostentation had a lining of generosity. 
 Results, we must remember, are to the profit of society ; 
 motives concern God. 
 
 But after the arrival of Modeste's letter Ernest de- 
 ceived himself no longer as to C'analis. The pair had 
 just finished breakfast and were talking together in 
 the poet's study, which was on the ground-floor of a 
 house standing back in a courtyard, and looked into a 
 garden. 
 
 "There!" exclaimed Canalis, "I was telling Ma- 
 dame de Chanlicu the other da^' that 1 ought to bring out 
 another poem ; I knew admiration was running short, 
 for I have had no anonymous letters for, a long time." 
 " Is it from an unknown woman?" 
 "Unknown? yes ! — a D'Este, in Havre ; evidently a 
 feigned name." 
 
 Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little 
 poem, with all its hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor 
 Modeste's heart, was disdainfully handed over, with the 
 gesture of a spoiled dandj-. 
 
 '' It is a fine thing," said the lawj-er, " to have the 
 power to attract such feelings ; to force a poor woman 
 to step out of the habits which nature, education, and 
 the world dictate to hei', to break through conventions. 
 What privileges genius wins ! A letter such as this, 
 written h\ a young girl — a genuine joung girl — with- 
 out hidden meanings, with real enthusiasm — " 
 " Well, what? " said Canalis. 
 
78 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Why, a man might sufler as much as Tasso and 
 3'et feel I'ecompensed," cried La Briere. 
 
 " So he might, m^- dear fellow, by a first letter of that- 
 kind, and even a second; but how about the thirtieth? 
 And suppose you find out that these young enthusiasts 
 are little jades ? Or imagine a poet rushing along the 
 brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end 
 of it an old Juiglishwoman sitting. on a mile-stone and 
 offering you her hand ! Or suppose this post-oflfice angel 
 should really be a rather nglj' girl in quest of a husband? 
 Ah, my bo}' ! the effervescence then goes down." 
 
 " I begin to perceive/' said La Briere, smiling, " that 
 there is sometliing poisonous in glory, as there is in 
 certain dazzling flowers." 
 
 " And then," resumed Canalis, " all these women, 
 even when they are simple-minded, have ideals, and 
 yon can't satisfy- them. They ne\('r say to themselves 
 that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being; 
 they can't conceive what it is for an author to be at the 
 mercy of a feverish excitement, whicdi makes him dis- 
 agreeable and capricious ; they want him always grand, 
 noble ; it never occurs to them that genius is a disease, 
 or that Xathan lives witli Florine ; that D'Artliez is too 
 fat, and Joseph Bridau is too thin ; that Beranger limps, 
 and that their own particular deity may have the 
 simffles ! A Lucien de Rubempi'e, poet and cupid, is 
 a phoenix. And wliy should I go in search of compli- 
 ments only to pull the string of a shower-bath of horrid 
 looks from some disillusioned female ? " 
 
 "Then the true poet," said La Briere, "ought to 
 remain hidden, like God, in the centre of his worlda, 
 and be only seen in his own creations." 
 
Modeste Bllgnon. T9 
 
 " Glory would cost too dear in that case," answered 
 Canalis. " There is some good in life. As for that let- 
 ter," he added, taking a cup of tea, " I assure you that 
 when a noble and beautiful woman loves a poet she 
 does not hide in the corner boxes, like a duchess in love 
 with an actor ; she feels that her beauty, her fortune, 
 her name are protection enough, and she dares to say 
 openl}', like an epic poem : I am the nymph Calypso, 
 enamoured of Telemachus.' Mystery and feigned nanles 
 ai'e the resources of little minds. For my part I no 
 longer answer masks — " 
 
 " I should love a woman who came to seek me," 
 cried La Briere. '• To all you say I reply, my dear 
 Canalis, tliat it cannot be an ordinarj' girl who aspires 
 to a distinguished man ; such a girl has too little trust, 
 too much vanity ; she is too faint-hearted. Only a 
 star, a — : " 
 
 " — princess ! " cried Canalis, bursting into a shout of 
 laughter; "only a princess can descend to him. My 
 dear fellow, that does n't happen once in a hundred 
 veal's. Such a love is like that flower that blossoms 
 every century. Princesses, let me tell you, if the3- are 
 young, rich, and beautiful, have something else to think 
 of; they are surrounded like rare plants by a hedge of 
 fools, well-bred idiots as hollow as elder-bushes ! My 
 dream, alas! the crystal of my dream, garlanded from 
 hence to the Correze with roses — ah ! I cannot speak of 
 il — it is in fragments at my feet, and has long been 
 so. No, no, all anonymous letters are begging let- 
 ters ; and what sort of begging ? Write yourself to 
 that young woman, if you suppose her young and 
 prett}-, and you'll find out. There is nothing like, ex- 
 
80 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 perieiice. As for me, I can't reasonably be expected to 
 love every woman ; Apollo, at anj' rate he of Belve- 
 dere, is a delicate consumptive who must take care of 
 his health." 
 
 "But when a woman writes to you in this way her 
 excuse must certainly be in her consciousness that she 
 is able to eclipse in tenderness and beauty every other 
 woman," said Ernest, "and I should think you might 
 feel some curiosity — " 
 
 " Ah," said Canalis, " permit me, my juvenile friend, 
 to abide by the beautiful duchess who is all my joy." 
 
 ' ' You are right, you are right ! " cried Ernest. How- 
 ever, the young secretary read and re-read Modeste's 
 letter, striving to guess the mind of its hidden writer. 
 
 "There is not the least fine-writing here," he said, 
 " she does not even talk of your genius ; she speaks to 
 your heart. In your place I should feel tempted bj" this 
 fragrance of modesty, — this proposed agreement — .'' 
 
 " Then, sign it ! " cried Canalis, laughing ; " answer 
 the letter and go to the end of the adventure yourself. 
 You shall tell me the result three months hence — if 
 the affair lasts so long." 
 
 Four days later Modeste received the following letter, 
 written on extremely fine paper, protected by two en- 
 velopes, and sealed with the arms of Canahs. 
 
 Mademoiselle, — The admiration for fine works (al- 
 lowing that m^- books are such) implies something so 
 lofty and sincere as to protect you from all light jest- 
 ing, and to justify before the sternest judge the step 
 you have taken in writing to me. 
 
 But first I must thank you for the pleasure which 
 such proofs of sympathy aflbrd, even though we may 
 
Modeste Mignon. .81 
 
 not merit them, — for the maker of verses and the true 
 poet are equally certain of the intrinsic worth of their 
 writings, — so readily does self-esteem lynd itself to 
 praise. The best proof of friendship that I can give to 
 an unknown lady in exchange for a faith which allays 
 the sting of criticism, is to share with her the harvest 
 of my own experience, even at the risk of dispelling her 
 most vivid illusions. 
 
 Mademoiselle, the noblest adornment of a young girl 
 is the flower of a pure and saintly and irreproachable 
 life. Are you alone in the world? If j'ou are, there is 
 no need to say more. But if you ha^e a family, a 
 father or a mother, think of all the sorrow that might 
 come to them from such a letter as yours addi'essed to 
 a poet of whom you know nothing personally. All 
 writers are not angels ; they have many defects. Some 
 are frivolous, heedless, foppish, ambitious, dissipated ; 
 and, believe me, no matter how imposing innocence 
 maj' be, how chivalrous a poet is, j'ou will meet with 
 many a degenerate troubadour in Paris ready to culti- 
 vate your affection only to betray it. By such a man 
 your letter would be interpreted otherwise than it is-by 
 me. He would see a thought that is not in it, which 
 3'ou, in your innocence, have not suspected. There 
 are as manj' natures as there are writers. I am deeply 
 flattered that you have judged me capable of under- 
 standing you ; but had you, perchance, fallen upon a 
 h3'pocrite, a scoffer, one whose books may be melan- 
 choly but whose life is a perpetual carnival, you would 
 have found as the result of your generous imprudence 
 an evil-minded man, the frequenter of green-rooms, 
 perhaps the hero of some gay resort. In the bower of 
 
 (i 
 
82 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 clematis where you dream of poets, can joii smell Ihe 
 odor of the cigar which drives all poetry- from the 
 manuscript ? 
 
 But let us look still further. How could the dreamj^, 
 solitarj' life you lead, doubtless by the sea-shore, in- 
 terest a poet, whose mission it is. to imagine all, and 
 to paint all? What reality can equal imagination? 
 The young girls of the poets are so ideal that no living 
 daughter of Eve can compete with them. And now 
 tell me, what will you gain, — you, a young girl, brought 
 up to be the virtuous mother of a family, — if j-ou learn 
 to comprehend the terrible agitations of a poet's life in 
 this dreadful capital, which may be defined by one sen- 
 tence, — the hell in which men love. 
 
 If the desire to brighten the monotonous existence 
 of a young girl thirsting for a knowledge of life has led 
 you to take your pen in hand and write to me, has not 
 the step itself the appearance of degradation ? What 
 meaning am I to give to your letter ? Are you one of 
 a rejected caste, and do j'ou seek a friend far away 
 from you ? Or, are j'ou afflicted with personal ugliness, 
 yet feeling within j'ou a noble soul which can give and 
 receive a confidence? Alas, alas, the conclusion to be 
 drawn is grievous. You have said too much, or too 
 little ; you have gone too far, or not far enough. Either 
 let us drop this correspondence, or, if j-ou continue 
 it, tell me more than in the letter you have now 
 written me. 
 
 But, mademoiselle, if you are young, if you are beau- 
 tiful, if you have a home, a family, if in j-our heart you 
 have the precious ointment, the spikenard, to pour out, 
 as did Magdalene on the feet of Jesus, let yourself be 
 
Modeste Mignon. 83 
 
 won by a man worthy of j'ou ; become what every pure 
 young girl should be, — a good woman, the virtuous 
 mother of a famil}'. A poet is the saddest conquest 
 that a girl can make ; he is full of vanity, full of an- 
 gles that will sharpl}' wound a woman's proper pride, 
 and kill a tenderness which has no experience of life. 
 The wife of a poet should love him long before she 
 marries him ; she must train herself to the charity of 
 angels, to their forbearance, to all the virtues of moth- 
 erhood. Such qualities, mademoiselle, are but germs 
 in a young girl. 
 
 Hear the whole truth, — do I not owe it to you in 
 return for your intoxicating flattery ? If it is a glorious 
 thing to marry a great renown, remember also that you 
 must soon discover a superior man to be, in all that 
 makes a man, like other men. He therefore poorly 
 realizes the hopes that attach to him as a phoenix. He 
 becomes like a woman whose beauty is overpraised, 
 and of whom we say : " I thought her far more lovely." 
 She has not warranted the portrait painted by the fairy 
 to whom I owe j"our letter, — the taAry whose name is 
 Imagination. 
 
 Believe me, the qualities of the mind live and thrive 
 only in a sphere invisible, not in dailj' life ; the wife of 
 a poet bears the burden ; she sees the jewels manufac- 
 tured, but she never wears them. If the glory of the 
 position fascinates j-ou, hear me now when I tell you 
 that its pleasures are soon at an end. You will suffer 
 when you find so many asperities in a nature which, 
 from a distance, you thought equable, and such cold- 
 ness at the shining summit. Moreover, as women never 
 set their feet within the world of veal difficulties, thej' 
 
84 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 cease to appreciate what they once admired as soon 
 as they think they see the inner mechanism of it. 
 
 I close with a last thought, in which there is no dis- 
 guised entreaty ; it is the counsel of a friend. The ex- 
 change of souls can take place only between persons 
 who are resolved to hide nothing from each other. 
 Would you show yourself for such as you are to an 
 unknown man ? I dare not follow out the consequences 
 of that idea. 
 
 Deign to accept, mademoiselle, the homage which 
 we owe to all women, even those who are disguised 
 and masked. 
 
 So this was the letter she had worn between her flesh 
 and her corset above her palpitating heart throughout 
 one whole day ! ' For this she had postponed the read- 
 ing until the midnight hour when the household slept, 
 waiting for the solemn silence with the eager anxiety 
 of an imagination on fire ! For this she had blessed 
 the poet by anticipation, reading a thousand letters ere 
 she opened one, — fancying all things, except this drop 
 of cold water falling" upon the vaporous forms of her 
 illusion, and dissolving them as prussic acid dissolves 
 life. What could she do but hide herself in her bed, blow 
 out her candle, bury her face in the sheets and weep? 
 
 All this happened during the first days of July. But 
 Modeste presently got up, walked across the room and 
 opened the window. She wanted ,air. The fragrance 
 of the flowers came to her with the peculiar freshness 
 of the odors of the night. The sea, lighted by the 
 moon, sparkled like a mirror. A nightingale was 
 singing in a tree. "Ah, there is the poet!" thought 
 
Modeste Mignon. 85 
 
 Modeste, whose anger subsided at once. Bitter re- 
 flections ckased each other through her mind. She 
 was cut to the quicl? ; she wished to re-read the letter, 
 and lit a candle ; she studied the sentences so care- 
 fuUy studied when written ; and ended bj' hearing the 
 wheezing voice of the outer world. 
 
 " He is right, and I am wrong," she said to herself. 
 "But who could ever believe that under the starry 
 mantle of a poet I should find nothing but one of 
 Moliere's old men?" 
 
 When a woman or young girl is taken in the act, 
 flagrante delicto, she concei\ es a deadly' hatred to the 
 witness, the author, or the object of her fault. And so 
 the true, the single-minded, the untamed and untam- 
 • able Modeste conceived within her soul an unquench- 
 able desire to get the better of that righteous spirit, to 
 drive him into some fatal inconsistency, and so return 
 him blow for blow. This girl, this child, as we may 
 call her, so pure, whose head alone had been mis- 
 guided, — partly by her reading, partly by her sister's 
 sorrows, and more perhaps by the dangerous medita- 
 tions of her solitary life, — was suddenly' caught by a 
 ra}' of sunshine flickering across her face. She had 
 been standing for three hours on the shores of the vast 
 sea of Doubt. Nights like these are never forgotten. 
 Modeste walked straight to her little Chinese table, a 
 gift from her father, and wrote a letter dictated by the 
 infernal spirit of vengeance which palpitates in the 
 hearts of young girls. 
 
86 Modeste 3Jijnon. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BLADE TO BLADE. 
 
 To JHonsiBur de Canalis : 
 
 MoNsiEDB, — You are certainly a great poet, and you 
 are something more, — an honest man. After showing 
 such loyal frankness to a young girl who was step- 
 ping to the verge of an abj'ss, have you enough left 
 to answer without hypocrisy or evasion the following 
 question ? 
 
 Would you have written the letter I now hold in an- 
 swer to mine, — would your ideas, your language have 
 been the same, — had some one whispered in your ear 
 (what may prove true), Mademoiselle O. d'Este M. has 
 six millions and does not intend to ha\e a dunce for 
 a master? 
 
 Admit the supposition for a moment. Be with rae 
 what you are with yourself ; fear nothing. I am wiser 
 than my twenty years ; nothing that is frank can hurt 
 you in my mind. When I have read your confidence, 
 if you deign to make it, you shall receive from me an 
 answer to your first letter. 
 
 Having admired your talent, often so sublime, per- 
 mit me to do homage to j'onr delicacy and jour inte- 
 grity, which force me to remain always, 
 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 O. d'Este M. 
 
Modeste Mignon, 87 
 
 When Ernest de La Briere had held this letter in his, 
 hands for some little time he went to walk along the 
 boulevards, tossed in mind like a tiny vessel hy a tem- 
 pest when the wind is blowing from all the points of 
 the compass. Most young men, specially true Paris- 
 ians, would have settled the matter in a single phrase, 
 "The girl is a little hussy." But for a youth whose 
 soul was noble and true, this attempt to put him, as it 
 were, upon his oath, this appeal to truth, had the power 
 to awaken the three judges hidden in the conscience of 
 every man. Honor, Truth, and Justice, getting on their 
 feet, cried out in their several ways energetically. 
 
 "Ah, my dear Ernest," said Truth, "you never 
 would have read that lesson to a rich heiress. No, my 
 boy ; you would have gone in hot haste to Havre to 
 find out if the girl were handsome, and you would have 
 been very unhappy indeed at her preference for genius ; 
 and if you could have tripped up your friend and sup- 
 planted him in her affections. Mademoiselle d'Este 
 would have been a divinity." 
 
 "What?" cried Justice, "are you not always be- 
 moaning yourselves, you penniless men of wit and ca- 
 pacity, that rich girls marry beings whom you would n't 
 take as your servants. You rail against tlie material- 
 ism of the century which hastens to join wealth to 
 wealth, and never marries some fine young man with 
 brains and no money to a rich girl. What an outer}' 
 you make about it ; and yet here is a young woman who 
 revolts against that very spirit of the age, and behold ! 
 the poet replies with a blow at her heart ! " 
 
 " Eich or poor, young or old, uglj^ or handsome, the 
 girl is right ; she has sense and judgment, she has 
 
88 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 tripped you over into the slough of sell-interest and 
 lets you know it," cried Honor. " She deserves au 
 answer, a sincere and loyal and frank answer, and, 
 above all, the honest expression of your thought. Ex- 
 amine yourself! sound your heart and purge it of its 
 meannesses. What would Moliere's Aleeste say? " 
 
 And La Briere, having started from the boulevard 
 Poissoniere, walked so .slowly, absorbed in these reflec- 
 tions, that he was more than an hour in reaching the 
 boulevard des Capucines. Then he followed the quays, 
 which led him to the Cour des Comptes, situated in 
 that time close to the Saint-Chapelle. Instead of be- 
 ginning on the accounts as he should have done, he 
 remained at the mercy of his perplexities. 
 
 "One thing is evident," he said to himself; "she 
 has n't six millions ; but that's not the point — " 
 
 Six da^s later, Modeste received the following letter : 
 
 Mademoiselle, — You are not a D'Este. The name 
 is a feigned one to conceal your own. Do I owe the 
 revelations which you solicit to a person who is untruth- 
 ful about herself? Question for question : Are 3'ou of 
 an illustrious famil3'?or a noble familj'? or a middle- 
 class family? Undoubtedly ethics and moralitj' can- 
 not change ; they are one : but obligations vary" in 
 the different states of life. Just as the sun lights up 
 a scene diversely and produces differences which we 
 admire, so morality conforms social duty to rank, to 
 position. The peccadillo of a soldier is a crime in a' 
 general, and vice-versa. Observances are not alike in 
 all cases. They are not the same for the gleaner in the 
 field, for the girl who sews at fifteen sous a day, for the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 89 
 
 daughter of a petty shopkeeper, for the j'ouiig. bour- 
 geolse, for the child of a rich merchant, for the heiress 
 of a noble family-, for a daughter of the house of 
 Este. A king must not stoop to pick up a piece 
 of gold, but a laborer ought to retrace his steps 
 to find ten sous ; though both are equally bound to 
 obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who 
 is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad- 
 brimmed hat and plume, to flourish her whip, press the 
 flanks of her barb, and ride like an amazou decked in 
 gold lace, with a lackey behind her, into the presence 
 of a poet and say- " I love poetry; and I would fain 
 expiate Leonora's cruelty to Tasso ! " but a daughter 
 of the people would cover herself with ridicule by imi- 
 tating her. To what class do you belong? Answer 
 sincerely, and I will answer the question j'ou have put 
 to me. 
 
 As I have not the honor of knowing you personall}', 
 and yet am bound to 3'ou, in a measure, by the ties of 
 poetic communion, I am unwilling to offer any common- 
 place compliments. Perhaps j'ou have already won a 
 malicious victory- by thus embarrassing a maker of 
 books. 
 
 The young man was certainly not wanting in the sort 
 of shrewdness which is permissible to a man of honor. 
 E\- return courier he received an answer : — 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis, — You grow more and 
 more sensible, my dear poet. My father is a count. 
 The chief glorj' of our house was a cardinal, in the 
 days when cardinals walked the earth by the side of 
 kings. I am the last of our famih', which ends in me; 
 
90 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 but I have the necessary quarterings to make mj- entry 
 into anj' court or chapter-house in Europe. We are 
 quite the equals of the Canalis. You will be so kind 
 as to excuse me from sending you our arms. 
 
 Endeavor to answer me as truthfully' as I have now 
 answered you. I await your response to know if I can 
 then sign myself as I do now, 
 
 Your servant, O. u'Este M. 
 
 " The little mischief! how she abuses her privileges," 
 cried La Briere ; " but is n't she frank ! " 
 
 No J'oung man can be four j-ears pri\'ate secretary to a 
 cabinet minister, and live in Paris and obser-s'e the carry- 
 ing on of many intrigues, with perfect impunity ; in fact, 
 the purest soul is more or less intoxicated \>y the headj' 
 atmosphere of the imperial cit^'. Happj- in the thought 
 that he was not Canalis, our young secretarj' engaged 
 a place in the mail-coach for Havre, after writing a let- 
 ter in which he announced that the promised answer 
 would be sent a few daj's later, — excusing the delay on 
 the ground of the importance of the confession and 
 the pressure of his duties at the ministry'. 
 
 He took care to get from the director-general of 
 the post-office a note to the postmaster at Havre, 
 requesting -secrec}' and attention to his wishes. Ernest 
 was thus enabled to see Fran§oise Cochet when she 
 came for the letters, and to follow her without exciting 
 observation. Guided by her, he reached Ingouville 
 and saw Modeste Mignon at the window of the Chalet. 
 
 "Well, Frangoise?" he heard the young girl say: 
 to which the maid responded, — 
 
 *' Yes, mademoiselle, I have one." 
 
" struck by the girl's great beauty, Ernest retraced his 
 steps, and asked a man on the street the name of 
 the owner of the magnificent estate." 
 
Cop7ri4|l"jt l8g6 by Robtrt.E Bros 
 
Modeste Mignon. 91 
 
 Struck by the girl's great beauty, Ernest retraced his 
 steps and asked a man on the street the name of the 
 owner of the magnificent estate. 
 
 " Tiiat? " said the man, nodding to the villa. 
 
 " Yes, mj' friend." 
 
 " Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest 
 shipping merchant in Havre, so rich he does n't know 
 what he is worth." 
 
 " There is no Cardinal Vilquin that I know of in his- 
 tory," thought Ernest, as he walked back to Havre for 
 the night mail to Paris, ^^atnrally he questioned the 
 postmaster about the Vilquin family, and learned that 
 it possessed an enormous fortune. Monsieur Vilquin 
 had a son and two daughters, one of whom was mar- 
 ried to Monsieur Altlior, junior. Prudence kept La 
 Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins ; the 
 postmaster was already looking at him slyly. 
 
 " Is there there any one staying with them at the 
 present moment," he asked, "besides the familj-,?" 
 
 " The d'H6rouville family is there just now. Thej' 
 do talk" of a marriage between the young duke and the 
 remaining Mademoiselle Vilquin." 
 
 "Ha!" thought Ernest; "there was a celebrated 
 Cardinal d'Herouville under the Valois, and a terri- 
 ble marshal whom they made a duke in the time of 
 Henri IV." 
 
 Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of 
 Modeste to dream of her, and to think that, whether 
 she were rich or whether she were poor, if she had a 
 noble soul he would like to make her Madame de 
 La Briere ; and so thinking, he resolved to continue 
 the correspondence. 
 
92 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Ah ! you poor ■women of France, tr3- to remain hid- 
 den if jou can ; try to weave the least little romance 
 about yonr lives in the midst of a ci^'ilization which 
 posts in the public streets the hours when the coaches 
 arrive and depart ; which counts all letters and stamps 
 them twice over, first with the hour wlien they are 
 thrown into the boxes, and next with that of their 
 delivery ; which numbers the houses, prints the tax of 
 each tenant on a metal register at the doors (after 
 verifying its particulars), and will soon possess one 
 vast register of every inch of its territorj- down to the 
 smallest parcel of land, and the most insignificant feat- 
 ures of it, — a giant work ordained b3' a giant. Try, im- 
 prudent young ladies, to escape not onl}- the eye of the 
 police, but the incessant chatter which takes place in a 
 country town about the veriest trifles, • — how many dishes 
 the prefect has at his dessert, how many shces of melon 
 are left at the door of some small householder, — which 
 strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a thrifty 
 man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the 
 incomes of the village and the town and the department. 
 It was mere chance that enabled Modeste to escape dis- 
 covery through Ernest's reconnoitring expedition, — a 
 step which he already regretted ; but what Parisian can 
 allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl? 
 Incapable of being duped ! that horrid maxim is the 
 dissolvent of all noble sentiments in man. 
 
 We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which 
 this honest j'oung fellow fell a prey when we read the 
 letter that he now indited, in which every stroke of the 
 flail which scourged his conscience will be found to 
 have left its trace. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 93 
 
 This is vvliat Modeste read a few da5-s later, as she 
 sat by her window on a fine summer's day : — 
 
 Mademoiselle, — Without hypocrisy or evasion, yes, 
 if I had been certain that you possessed an immense, 
 fortune I sliould have acted differently. Why? I have 
 searched lor the reason ; here it is. We have within 
 us an inborn feeling, inordinately developed by social 
 life, which drives us to the pursuit and to the posses- 
 sion of happiness. Most men confound happiness with 
 the means that lead to it ; money in tlieir eyes is the 
 chief element of happiness. I should, therefore, have 
 endeavored to win you, prompted by that social senti- 
 ment which has in all ages made wealth a religion. 
 At least, I think I should. It is not to be expected of 
 a man still young that he can have tha wisdom to 
 substitute sound sense for the pleasure of the senses ; 
 within sight of a prey the brutal instincts hidden in the 
 heart of man drive him on. Instead of that lesson, I 
 should have sent you compliments and fl.atteries. Should 
 I have kept my own esteem in so doing? I doubt, it. 
 Mademoiselle, in such a case success brings absolu- 
 tion ; but happiness? that is another thing. Sliould I 
 have distrusted my wife had I won her in that waj'? 
 Most assuredly I should. Your advance to me would 
 sooner or later have come between us. Your husband, 
 however grand j-our fancy maj' make him, would have 
 ended ])y reproaching you for having abased him. 
 You, yourself, might have come, sooner or later, to 
 despise him. The strong man forgives, but the poet 
 whines. Such, mademoiselle, is the answer which my 
 honesty compels me tO' make to you. 
 
94 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 And now, listen to me. You have the triumph of 
 forcing me to reflect deeply, — first on you, whom I do 
 not sufficiently know ; next, on myself, of whom I 
 knew too little. You have had the power to stir up 
 -many of the evil thoughts which crouched in my heart, 
 as in all hearts ; but from them something good and 
 generous has" come forth, and I salute you with my 
 most fervent benedictions, just as at sea we salute the 
 lighthouse which shows the rocks on which we were 
 about to perish. Here is my confession, for I would 
 not lose your esteem nor my own for all the treasures 
 of earth. 
 
 I wished to know who you are. I have just returned 
 from Havre, where I saw Fran^oise Cochet, and fol- 
 lowed her to Ingouville. You are as beautiful as the 
 woman of a poet's dream ; but I do not know if you 
 are Mademoiselle Vilquin concealed under Mademoi- 
 selle d'Herouville, or Mademoiselle d'Herouville hidden 
 under Mademoiselle Vilquin. Though all is fair in 
 war, I blushed at such spying and stopped short in my 
 inquiries. You have roused my curiosity ; forgive me 
 for being somewhat of a woman ; it is, I believe, the 
 privilege of a poet. 
 
 Now that I have laid bare my heart and allowed you 
 to read it, j'ou will believe in the sincerity of what I 
 am about to add. Though the glimpse I had of you 
 was all too rapid, it has sufficed to modif\' mj- opinion 
 of your eouduct. You are a poet and a poem, even 
 more than j'ou are a woman. Yes, there is in you 
 something more precious than beaut}' ; you are the 
 beautiful Ideal of art, of fancy. The step j-ou took, 
 blamable as it would be in an ordinarj- j'oung girl, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 95 
 
 allotted to an eveiT-daj- destiny, lias another aspect in 
 one endowed with the nature which I now attribute to 
 you. Among the crowd of beings flung by fate into 
 the social life of this planet to make up a generation 
 there are exceptional souls. If your letter is the out- 
 come of long poetic reveries on the fate which conven- 
 tions bring to women, if, constrained bj- the impulse 
 of a lofty and intelligent mind, j'ou have wished to 
 understand the life of a man to whom j'ou attribute the 
 ■ gift of genius, to the end that you may create a friend- 
 ship withdrawn from the ordinary relations of life, with 
 a soul in communion with your own, disregarding thus 
 the ordinary trammels of 3 our sex, — then, assuredly, 
 you are an exception. Tlie law which rightly limits 
 the actions of the crowd is too limited for you. But in 
 that case, the remark in my first letter returns in greater 
 force, — you have done too much or not enough. 
 
 Accept once moi'e ray thanks for the service you 
 have rendered me, that of compelling me to sound my 
 heart. You have corrected in me the false idea, only 
 too common in France, that marriage should be a 
 means of fortune. While I struggled with my con- 
 science a sacred voice spoke to me. I swore solemnlj' 
 to make my fortune myself, and not be led by mo- 
 tives of cupidity in choosing the companion of ni}' 
 life. I have also reproached myself for the blani- 
 *able euriositj' you have excited in me. You have not 
 six millions. There is no concealment possible in 
 Havre for a joung lady who possesses such a fortune ; 
 you would be discovered at once b}' tlie pack of hounds 
 of great families whom I see in Paris on the hunt after 
 heiresses, and who liave already sent one, the grand 
 
90 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 equerry, the 3'oung duke, among the Vilquins, There- 
 fore, beheve ine, the sentiments I have now expressed 
 are fixed in my mind as a rule of Hfe, from which 1 
 have abstracted all influences of romance or of actual 
 fact. Prove to me, therefore, that you have one of 
 those Souls which may be forgiven for its disobedience 
 to the common law, bj- perceiving and comprehending 
 the spirit of this letter as you did that of my first letter. 
 If you are destined to a middle-class life, obe}- the iron 
 law which holds society together. Lifted in mind 
 above other women, I admire jou ; but if you .seek to 
 obey an impulse which you ought to repress, I pity 3'ou. 
 The all-wise moral of that great domestic epic "Clarissa 
 Harlowe " is that legitimate and honorable love led the 
 poor victim to her ruin because it was conceived, de- 
 veloped, and pursued beyond the boundaries of familj- 
 restraint. The family, however cruel and even foolish 
 it may be, is in the right against the Lovelaces. The 
 family is Society. Believe me, the glory of a j'oung 
 girl, of a woman, must always be that of repressing 
 her most ardent impulses within the narrow sphei-e of 
 conventions. If I had a daughter able to become a 
 Madame de Stael I should wish her dead at fifteen. 
 Can you imagine a daughter of yours flaunting on the 
 stage of fame, exhibiting herself to win the plaudits of 
 a crowd, and not suffer anguish at the thought? No 
 matter to what heights a woman can rise by the inward 
 poetry of her soul, she must sacrifice the outer signs of 
 superiority on the altar of her home. Her impulse, her 
 genius, her aspirations toward Good, the whole poem 
 of a young girl's being, should belong to the man she 
 accepts and the children whom she brings into the 
 
Modeste Mignon. ■ 97 
 
 world. I think I pei-ceive in you a secret desire to 
 widen the narrow circle of the life to which all women are 
 condemned, and -to put love and passion into marriage. 
 Ah ! it is a lovely dream ! it ia not impossible ; it is 
 difficult, but if realized, may it not be to the despair of 
 souls — forgive me the hackneyed word — incompris? 
 
 If you seek a platonio friendship it will be to your 
 sorrow in after years. If your letter was a jest, dis- 
 continue it. Perhaps this little romance is to end here 
 — is it? It has not been without fruit. My sense of 
 duty is aroused, and you, on 3-our side, will have 
 learned something of Society. Turn your thoughts to 
 real life ; throw the enthusiasms you have culled from 
 literature into the virtues of your sex. 
 
 Adieu, mademoiselle. Do me the honor to grant 
 me your esteem. Having seen you, or one whom I 
 believe to be 3'ou, I have known that your letter was 
 simply natural ; a flower so lovelj' turns to the sun — 
 of poetrj-. Yes, love poetry as you love flowers, 
 music, the grandeur of the sea, the beauties of nature ; 
 love them as an adornment of the soul, but remember 
 what I have had the honor of telling you as to the 
 nature of poets. Be cautious not to marry, as 3'ou say, 
 a dunce, but seek the partner whom God has made for 
 you. There are souls, believe me, who are fit to ap- 
 preciate you, and to make you happJ^ If I were rich, 
 if you were poor, I would laj' my heart and my fortunes 
 at your feet ; for I believe your soul to be full of riches 
 and of loyalty ; to you I could confide my life and my 
 honor in absolute security. 
 
 Once more, adieu, adieu, fairest daughter of Eve the 
 fair. 
 
 7 
 
98 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 The reading of this letter, swallowed like a drop of 
 water in the desert, lifted the mountain which weighed 
 heavilj- on Modeste's heart : then she. saw the mistake 
 she had made in arranging her plan, and repaired it by 
 giving FranQoise some envelopes directed to herself, in 
 which the maid could put the letters which carne from 
 Paris and drop them again into the box. Modeste re- 
 solved to receive the postman herself on the steps of 
 the Chalet at the hour when he made his delivery. 
 
 As to the feelings that this reply, in which the noble 
 heart of poor La Briere beat beneath the brilliant phan- 
 tom of Canalis, excited in Modeste, they were as multi- 
 farious and confused as the waves which rushed to die 
 along the shore while with her eyes fixed on the wide 
 ocean she gave herself up to the joy of having (if we 
 dare say so) harpooned an angelic soul in the Parisian 
 Gulf, of having divined that hearts of price might Still 
 be found in harmony with genius, and, above all, for 
 having followed the magic voice of intuition. 
 
 A vast interest was now about to animate her life. 
 The wires of her cage were broken : the bolts and bars 
 of the pretty Chalet — where were the3' ? Her thoughts 
 took wings. 
 
 " Oh, father ! " she cried, looking out to the horizon. 
 " Come back and make us rich and happy." 
 
 The answer which Ernest de La Briere received some 
 five days later will tell the reader more than any elab- 
 orate disquisition of ours. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 99 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE POWER OF THE UNSEEN. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis : 
 
 Mt FRIEND, — Suffer me to give j"ou that name, — • 
 you have delighted me ; I would not have you other 
 than you are in this letter, the first — oh, may it not be 
 the last! Who but a poet could have excused and un- 
 derstood a young girl so delicately ? 
 
 I wish to speak with the sincerity that dictated the 
 first lines of your letter. And first, let me saj' that 
 most fortunately you do not know me. I can joyfully 
 assure you that I am neither that hideous Mademoiselle 
 Vilquin nor the very noble and withered Mademoiselle 
 d'H(5rouville who floats between twenty and fortj' jears 
 of age, unable to decide on a satisfactory' date. The 
 Cardinal d'Herouville flourished in the history of the 
 Church at least a century before the cardinal of whom 
 we boast as our only family glorj', — for I take no 
 account of lieutenant-generals, and abbes who write 
 trumpery little verses. 
 
 Moreover, I do not live in the magnificent villa Vil- 
 quin ; there is not in my veins, thank God, the ten- 
 millionth of a drop of that chilly blood which flows 
 behind a counter. I come on one side from German}-, 
 on the other from the south of France ; my mind has a 
 
100 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Teutonic lo\'e of revery, my blood the vivacity of Pro- 
 vence. I am noble on my father's and on my mother's 
 side. On my mother's I derive from every page of the 
 Almanach de Gotha. In short, my precautions are well 
 taken. It is not in any man's power, nor even in the 
 power of the law, to unmask my incognito. I shall 
 remain veiled, unknown. 
 
 As to my person and as to my " belongings," as the 
 ]Sormans sa}', make jourself easy. 1 am at least as 
 handsome as the little girl (ignorantly happy) on whom 
 your eyes chanced to light during your visit to Havre ; 
 and I do not call myself poverty-stricken, although ten 
 sons of peers may not accompanj' me in my walks. I 
 have seen the humiliating comedy of the heiress sought 
 for her millions played on mj' account. In short, make 
 no attempt, even on a wager, to reach me. Alas ! 
 though free as air, I am watched and guarded, — by 
 myself, in the first place, and secondly, by people of 
 nerve and courage who would not hesitate to put a 
 knife in your heart if you tried to penetrate iay retreat. 
 I do not say this to excite jour courage or stimulate 
 your curiosity ; I believe I have no need of such incen- 
 tives to interest you and attach you to me. 
 
 I will now reply to the second edition, considerably 
 enlarged, of your first sermon. 
 
 Will you liave a confession ? I said to myself when 
 I saw you so distrustful, and mistaking me for Corinne 
 (whose improvisations bore me dreadfully), that in all 
 probability dozens of Muses had already led you, rashly 
 curious, into their valleys, and begged j'ou to taste the 
 fruits of their boarding-school Parnassus. Oh ! you are 
 perfectly safe with me, my friend ; I may love poetry, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 101 
 
 but I have no little verses in my pocket-book, and my 
 stockings are, and will remain, immaculately white. You 
 shall not be pestered with the " Flowers of nly Heart" 
 in one or more volumes. And, finally, should' it ever 
 happen that I say to you the word ' ' Come ! " you will 
 not find — you know it now — an old maid, no, nor a 
 poor and ugly one. 
 
 Ah ! my friend, if you only knew how I regret that 
 you cafne to Havre ! You have lowered the charm of 
 what you call my romance. God alone knew the treas- 
 ure I was reserving for the man noble enough, and 
 trusting enough, and perspicacious enough to come — 
 having faitli in my letters, having penetrated step by 
 step into the depths of mj' heart — to come to our first 
 meeting with the simplicity of a child ; for that was 
 what I dreamed to be the innocence of a man of genius. 
 And now 3-ou have spoiled my treasure ! But I forgive 
 j-ou ; 5-ou live in Paris and, as you saj-, there is alwa3's 
 a man within a poet. 
 
 Because I tell you this will 3'ou think me some little 
 girl who cultivates a garden-full of illusions? You, 
 who are wittj' and wise, have yon not guessed that 
 when Mademoiselle d'Este received j'our pedantic les- 
 son she said to herself: " No, dear poet, my first let- 
 ter was not the pebble which a vagabond child flings 
 about the highway to frighten the owner of the adjacent 
 fruit-trees, but a net carefully and prudently thrown by 
 a fisherman seated on a rock above the sea, hoping and 
 expecting a miraculous draught." 
 
 All that you say so beautifully about the family has 
 my approval. The man who is able to please me, and 
 of whom I believe m3^self worthy, will have my heart 
 
102 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 and my life, — with the consent of iny parents, for I will 
 neither grieve them, nor take them unawares : happily, 
 I am certain of reigning over them ; and, besides, the}' 
 are wholly' without prejudices. Indeed, in every wa}-, 
 I feel myself protected against anj' delusions in my 
 dream. I have built the fortress with my own hands, 
 and I have let it be fortified by the boundless devotion 
 of those who watch over me as if I were a treasure, — 
 not that I am unable to defend myself in the open, if 
 need be ; for, let me saj-, circumstances ha'\e furnished 
 me with armor of proof on which is engraved the word 
 "Disdain." I have the deepest horror of all that is 
 calculating — of all that is not pure, disinterested, and 
 wholly noble. I worship the beautiful, the ideal, with- 
 out being romantic ; though I have been, in my heart of 
 hearts, in my dreams. But I recognize the truth of the 
 various things, just even to vulgarity, which j-ou have 
 written me about Societ}' and social life. 
 
 For the time being we are, and we can only be, two 
 friends. Why seek an unseen fi-ieud ? you ask. Your 
 person maj" be unknown to me, but j'our mind, your 
 heart I knoiv ; they please me, and I feel an infinitude 
 of thoughts within my soul which need a man of genius 
 for their confidant. I do not wish the poem of my 
 heart to be wasted ; I would have it known to you as it 
 is to God. What a precious thing is a true comrade, 
 one to whom we can tell all ! You will surely not re- 
 ject the unpublished leaflets of a young girl's thoughts 
 when they fly to you like the pretty insects fluttering to 
 the sun? I am sure jou have never before met with 
 this good fortune of the soul, — the honest confidences 
 of an honest gid. Listen to her prattle ; accept the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 103 
 
 music that she sings to you in her own heart. Later, if 
 our souls are sisters, if our characters warrant the at- 
 tempt, a white-haired old serving-man shall await you 
 by the wayside and lead you to the cottage, the villa, 
 the 'castle, the palace — I don't yet know what sort of 
 bower it will be, nor what its color, nor whether this 
 conclusion will ever be possible ; but you will admit, 
 will you not? that it is poetic, and that Mademoiselle 
 d'Este has a complying disposition. Has she not left 
 you free ? Has she gone with jealous feet to watch you 
 in the salons of Paris ? Has she imposed upon 3-ou the 
 labors of some high emprise, such as paladins sought 
 voluntarily in the olden tune? No, she asks a perfectly 
 spiritual and mjstic alliance. Come to me when you 
 are unhappj', wounded, weary. Tell me all, hide noth- 
 ing ; I have balms for all j-our ills. I am twenty 3'ears 
 of age, dear friend, but I have the sense of fifty, and 
 unfortunately I have known through the experience of 
 another all the horrors and the delights of love. I 
 know what baseness the human heart can contain, what 
 infamy ; yet I myself am an honest girl. No, I have 
 no illusions ; but I have something better, something 
 real, — I have beliefs and a religion. See ! 1 open the 
 ball of our confidences. 
 
 Whoever I many - — provided I choose him for my- 
 self — may sleep in peace or go to the East Indies sure 
 that he will find me on his return working at the tap- 
 estry which I began before he left me ; and in every 
 stitch he shall read a verse of the poem of which he has 
 been the hero. Yes, I have resolved within my heart 
 never to follow my husband where he does not wish 
 me to go. I will be the divinitj' of his hearth. That 
 
104 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 is mj religion of humanity. But wJiy should I not test 
 and choose the man to whom I am to be like the life 
 to the body? Is a man ever impeded -by life? What 
 can that ^Yoman be who thwarts the man she loves? — 
 an illness, a disease, not life. By life, I mean that joj'- 
 ons health which makes each hour a pleasure. 
 
 But to return to your letter, which will alwajs be 
 precious to me. Yes, jesting apart, it contains that 
 which I desired, an expression of prosaic sentiments 
 which are as necessary to family life as air to the 
 lung's ; and without which no happiness is possible. 
 To act as an honest man, to think as a poet, to love as 
 women love, that is what I longed for in my friend, 
 and it is now no longer a chimera. 
 
 Adieu, my friend. I am poor at this moment. That 
 is one of tire reasons why I cling to raj' concealment, 
 my mask, my impregnable fortress. I have read j-our 
 last verses in the " Revue," — ah ! with what .delight, 
 now that I am initiated in the austere loftiness of your 
 secret soul. 
 
 Will it make you unhappy to know that a 3'oung girl 
 prays for you ; that you are her solitary thought, — 
 without a rival except in her father and her mother? 
 Can there be any reason why you should reject these 
 pages full of you, written for you, seen by no ej-e but 
 yours? Send me their counterpart. I am so little of 
 a woman yet that your confidences — provided they are 
 full and true — will suflflce for the happhiess of your 
 
 O. d'Este M. 
 
 "Good heavens! can I be in love already?" cried 
 the young secretary, when he perceived that he had held 
 
Modeste Mignon. 105 
 
 the above letter in his hands more than an hour after 
 reading it. " What shall I do ? She thinks she is writ- 
 ing to the great poet ! Can I continue the deception ? 
 Is she a woman of forty, or a girl of twenty ? " 
 
 El-nest was now fascinated b}- the great gulf of the 
 unseen. The unseen is the obscurity of infinitude, and 
 nothing is more alluring. In that sombre vastness 
 fires flash, and furrow and color the abyss with fancies 
 like those of Martin. For a busy man like Canalis, an 
 adventure of this kind is swept awa}' like a harebell bj- 
 a mountain torrent, but in the more unoccupied life of 
 the joung secretary, this charming girl, whom his im- 
 agination persistentlj' connected with the blonde beauty 
 at the window, fastened upon his heart, and did as 
 much mischief in his regulated life as a fox in a poultry- 
 j-ard. La Briere allowed himself to be preoccupied by 
 this mj'sterious correspondent ; and he answered her 
 last letter with another, a pretentious and carefully 
 studied epistle, in which, however, passion begins to 
 reveal itself through pique. 
 
 Madejkjiselle, — Is it quite loyal in you to enthrone 
 yourself in the heart of a poor poet with a latent inten- 
 tion of abandoning him if he is not exactl}' what 3'ou 
 wish, leaving him to endless regrets, ■ — showing him for 
 a moment an image of perfection, were it only as- 
 sumed, and at any rate giving him a foretaste of happi- 
 ness ? I was ver^' short-siglited in soliciting this letter, 
 in which you have begun to unfold the elegant fabric 
 of jour thoughts. A man can easily become enamoured 
 with a mysterious unknown who combines such fear- 
 lessness with such originality, so much imagination 
 
106 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 with so much feeling. Who would not wish to know 
 3'ou after reading j-our first confidence ? It requires a 
 strong effort on m_y part to retain my senses in think- 
 ing of you, for you combine all that can trouble the 
 head or the heart of man. I therefore make the most" 
 of the little self-possession you have left me to offer 
 j'ou my humble remonstrances. 
 
 Do you really believe, mademoiselle, that letters, 
 more or less true in relation to the life of the writers, 
 more or less insincere, — for those which we write 
 to each other are the expressions of the moment at 
 which we pen them, and not of the general tenor of our 
 lives, — do j'ou believe, I say, that beautiful as the}' 
 may be, they can at all replace the representation that 
 we could make of ourselves to each other bj' the reve- 
 lations of daily intercourse? Man is dual. There is a 
 life invisible, that of the heart, to which letters may 
 suffice ; and there is a life material, to which more im- 
 portance is, alas, attached than j^ou are aware of at 
 your age. These two existences must, however, be 
 made to harmonize in the ideal which j-ou cherish ; and 
 this, I ma}- remark in passing, is very I'are. 
 
 The pure, spontaneous, disinterested homage of a soli- 
 tarj' soul which is both educated and chaste, is one of 
 those celestial flowers whose color and fragrance console 
 for ever}' grief, for every wound, for every betrayal which 
 makes up the life of a literary man ; and I thank you 
 with an impulse equal to your own. But after this 
 poetical exchange of my griefs for the pearls of your 
 charity, what next? what do you expect? I have 
 neither the genius nor the splendid position of Lord 
 Byron ; above all, I have not the halo of his fictitious 
 
Modeste Mignon. 107 
 
 damnation and his false social woes. But what could 
 you have hoped from him in like circumstances? His 
 friendship ? Well, he who ought to have felt only pride 
 was eaten up by vanity of every kind, — sickly, irritable 
 vanity which discouraged friendship. I, a thousand- 
 fold more insignificant than he, may I not have discord- 
 ances of character which would render intercourse 
 unpleasant, and make friendship a burden heavj' indeed 
 to bear? In exchange for your reveries, what will you 
 gain? The dissatisfactions of a life which will not be 
 wholl}' yours. The compact is madness. Let me tell 
 you wh}'. In the first place, your projected poem is a 
 plagiarism. A j'oung German girl, who was not, like 
 you, semi-German, but altogether so, adored Goethe 
 with the rash intoxication of girlhood. She made him 
 her friend, her religion, her god, knowing at the same 
 time that he was married. Madame Goethe, a worth}' 
 German woman, lent herself to this worship with a sly 
 good-nature which did not cure Bettina. But what 
 was the end of it all? The young ecstatic married a 
 man who was younger and handsomer than Goethe. 
 Now, between ourselves, let us admit that a young 
 girl who should make herself the handmaid of a man 
 of genius, his equal through comprehension, and should 
 piously worship him till death, like one of those divine 
 figures sketched hy the masters on the shutters of their 
 mystic shrines, and who, when Germany lost him, 
 should have retired to some solitude awa}- from men, 
 like tiie friend of Lord Bolingbroke, — let us admit, 
 I say, that that young girl would have lived forever, 
 inlaid in the glory of the poet as Mary Magdalene in 
 the cross and triumph of our Lord. If that is subhme, 
 
108 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 what say you to the reverse of the picture ? As I am 
 neither Goethe nor Lord Byron, the colossi of poetry 
 and egotism, but simply the author of a few esteemed 
 verses, I cannot expect the honors of a cult. Neither 
 am I disposed to be a martyr. I have ambition, and I 
 have a heart ; I am still .young and I have my career 
 to make. See me for what I am. The bounty of the 
 king and the protection of his ministers give me suf- 
 ficient means of living. I have the outward bearing 
 of a verj' ordinary man. I go to the soirees in Paris 
 like any other empty-headed fop ; and if I drive, the 
 wheels of mj- carriage do not roll on the solid ground, 
 absolutelj' indispensable in these daj's, of property in- 
 vested in the funds. But if I am not rich, neither do 
 I have the reliefs and consolations of life in a garret, 
 the toil uncomprehended, the fame in penury, which 
 belong to men who are worth far more than I, — 
 D'Arthez, for instance. 
 
 Ah ! what prosaic conclusions will j'our 3'oung enthu- 
 siasm find to these enchanting visions. Let us stop 
 here. If I have had the happiness of seeming to you 
 a terrestrial paragon, j'ou have been to me a thing of 
 light and a beacon, like those stars that shine for a 
 moment and disappear. May nothing ever tarnish this 
 episode of our lives. Were we to continue it I might 
 love you ; I might conceive one of those mad passions 
 which rend all obstacles, which light fires in the heart 
 whose violence is greater than their duration. And 
 suppose I succeeded in pleasing you ? we should end 
 our tale in the common vulgar way, — marriage, a 
 household, children, Belise and Henriette Chrysale to- 
 gether ! — could it be? Therefore, adieu. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 109 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OP SOULS. 
 
 To Jfontiifur de Canalis : 
 
 My Friend, — Your letter gives me as much paiii as 
 pleasure. But perhaps some day we shall And nothing 
 but pleasure in writing to each other. Understaud me 
 thoroughly. The soul speaks to God and asks him for 
 manj- things ; he is mute. I seek to obtain in jou the 
 answers that God does not make to me. Cannot the 
 friendship of Mademoiselle de Gournaj' and Montaigne 
 be revived in us? Do 3'ou not remember the household 
 of Sismonde de Sismondi in Geneva ? The most lovely 
 home ever known, as I have been told ; something like 
 that of the ilarquis de Pescaire and his wife, — happy 
 to old ago. Ah ! friend, is it impossible that two 
 hearts, two harps, should exist as in a sympliony, an- 
 swering each other from a distance, vibrating with deli- 
 cious melodj' in unison ? Man alone of all creation 
 is in himself the harp, the musician, and the listener. 
 Do you think to find me uneasy and jealous like ordi- 
 nary women? I know that you go into the world and 
 meet the handsomest and the wittiest women in Paris. 
 May I not suppose that some one of those mermaids 
 has deigned to clasp j'ou in her cold and scalj' arms, 
 and that she has inspired the answer whose prosaic 
 opinions sadden me? There is something in life more 
 
110 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 beautiful thau the garlands of Parisian coquetry- ; there 
 grows a flower far up those Alpine peaks called men of 
 genius, the glory of humanity-, wliich the}- fei'tilize with 
 the dews their loft}' heads draw from the sliies. I seek 
 to cultivate that flower and make it bloom ; for its wild 
 yet gentle fragrance can never fail, — it is eternal. 
 
 Do me the honor to believe that there is nothing low 
 or commonplace in me. Were I Bettina, for I know 
 to wliom you allude, I should never have become Ma- 
 dame von Aruim ; and had I been one of Lord Byron's 
 man}- loves, I should be at this moment in a cloister. 
 You have touched me to the quick. You do not know 
 me, but j'ou shall know me. I feel within me something 
 that is sublime, of which I dare speali without vanity. 
 God has put into mj' soul the roots of that Alpine 
 flower born on the summits of which I speak, and I 
 cannot plant it in an earthen pot upon my window-sill 
 and see it die. Xo, that glorious flower-cup, single in 
 its beaut}', intoxicating in its fragrance, shall not be 
 dragged through the vulgarities of life ! it is yours — 
 yours, before any eye has blighted it, yours forever ! 
 Yes, my poet, to you belong my thoughts, — all, tlio&e 
 that are secret, those that are gayest ; my heart is yours 
 without reserve and with its infinite affection. If you 
 should personally not please me, I shall never marry. 
 I can live the life of the heart, I can exist on your mind, 
 your sentiments ; they please me, and I will always be 
 what I am, your friend. Yours is a noble moral nature ; 
 1 have recognized it, I have appreciated it, and that 
 suffices me. In that is all my future. Do not laugh at 
 a young and pretty handmaiden who shrinks not from 
 the thought of being some day the old companion of a 
 
Mbdesfe Mignon. Ill 
 
 poet, — a sort of mother perhaps, or a housekeeper ; the 
 guide of his judgment and a source of his wealtli. Tliis 
 handmaiden — so devoted, so precious to the lives of 
 suL-h as you — is Friendship, pure, disinterested friend- 
 ship, to whom you will tell all, who listens and some- 
 times shakes her head ; who knits by the light of the 
 lamp and waits to be present when the poet returns home 
 soaked with rain, or vexed in mind. Such shall be my 
 destiny if I do not find that of a happy wife attached 
 forever to her husband ; I smile alike at the thought 
 of either fate. Do you believe France will be any the 
 worse if Mademoiselle d'Este does not give it two or 
 three sons, and never becomes a Madame Vilquin- 
 something-or-other? As for me, I sliall never be an 
 old maid. I shall make myself a mother, hy taking 
 care of others and by my secret co-operation in the 
 existence of a great man, to whom also I shall carry 
 all my thoughts and all my earthly efforts. 
 
 I have the deepest horror of commonplaceness. If 
 I am free, if I am rich (and I know that I am young 
 and pretty), I will never belong to any ninny just 
 because he is the son of'a peer of France, nor to a 
 merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day, nor 
 to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman 
 ill the household, nor to a man of any kind who 
 would make me blush twenty times a day for being 
 his. Make yOurself easy on that point. My father 
 adores my wishes ; he will never oppose them. If I 
 please my poet, and he pleases me, the glorious struc- 
 ture of our love shall be built so high as to be inacces- 
 sible to any kind of misfortune. I am an eaglet ; and 
 you will see it in my eyes. 
 
112 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 I shall not repeat what I have already said, but I 
 will put its substance in the least possible number of 
 words, and confess to you that I should be the happiest 
 of women if I were imprisoned by love as I am now 
 imprisoned by the wish and will of a father. Ah ! 
 my friend, n)ay we bring to a real end the romance 
 that hsls come to us through the first exercise of my 
 will : listen to its argument : — 
 
 A young girl with a lively imagination, locked up in 
 a tower, is weary with longing to run loose in the park 
 where her eyes only are allowed to rove. She invents 
 a way to loosen her bars ; she jumps from the case- 
 ment ; she scales the park wall ; she frolics along the 
 neighbor's sward — it is the Everlasting comedy. 
 Well, that young girl is my soul, the neighbor's park 
 is your genius. Is it not all very natural ? Was there 
 ever a neighbor that did not complain that unknown 
 feet broke down his trellises? I leave it to my poet 
 to answer. 
 
 But does the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Mo- 
 liere want still better reasons? Well, here they are. 
 My dear Geronte, marriages are usually made in de- 
 fiance of common-sense. Parents make inquiries about 
 a young man. If the Leander — who is supplied by 
 some friend, or caught in a ball-room — is not a thief, 
 and has no visible rent in his reputation, if he has the 
 necessar}' fortune, if he comes from a college or a law- 
 school and so fulfils the popular ideas of education, and 
 if he wears his clothes with' a gentlemanly air, he is 
 allowed to meet the young lady, whose mother has or- 
 dered her to guard her tongue, to let no sign of her 
 heart or soul appear on her face, which must wear the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 113 
 
 smile of a danseuse finishing a pirouette. These com- 
 mands are coupled with instructions as to the dan- 
 ger of revealing her real character, and the additional 
 advice of not seeming alarmingly well educated. If 
 the settlements have all been agreed upon, the parents 
 are good-natured enough to let the pair see each other 
 for a few moments ; they are allowed to talk or walk 
 together, but always without the slightest freedom, and 
 knowing that they are bound by rigid rules. The man 
 is as much dressed up in soul as he is in body, and so 
 is the young girl. This pitiable comedy, mixed with 
 bouquets, jewels, and theatre-parties is called " paying 
 your addresses." It revolts me : I desire that actual 
 marriage shall be the result of a previous and long mar- 
 riage of souls. A young girl, a woman, has throughout 
 her life onl}^ this one moment when reflection, second 
 sight, arid experience are necessarj' to her. She plays 
 her liberty, her happiness, and she is not allowed to 
 throw the dice ; she risks her all, and is forced to be 
 a mere spectator. I have the right, the will, the power 
 to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as did 
 my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, 
 married the most generous, the most liberal, the most 
 lo^Mng of men. I know that jou are free, a poet, and 
 noble-looking. Be sure that I should not have chosen 
 one of your brothers in Apollo who was already married. 
 If my mother was won by beauty, which is perhaps the 
 spirit of form, why should I not be attracted by the 
 spirit and the form united ? Shall I not know you bet- 
 ter by studying you in this correspondence than I could 
 through the vulgar experience of "receiving j'our ad- 
 dresses " ? That is the question, as Hamlet says. 
 
114 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 But ray proceedings, dear Chrysale, have at least the 
 merit of not binding us personally. I know that love 
 has its illusions, and every illusion its to-morrow. That 
 is why there are so many partings among lovers vowed 
 to each other for life. The proof of love lies in two 
 tilings, — suffering and happiness. When, after pass- 
 ing through these double trials of life two beings have 
 shown each other their defects as well as their good 
 qualities, when thej' have really observed each other's 
 character, then tliey may go to their grave hand in 
 hand. My dear Argante, who told j'ou that our little 
 drama thus begun was to have no future? In any 
 case shall we not have enjoyed the pleasures of our 
 correspondence ? 
 
 I await your orders, monseigneur, and 1 am with all 
 my heart, 
 
 Your handmaiden, 
 
 O. d'Este M. 
 
 To Mademoiselle 0. d'Este M.,— You are a 
 witch, a spirit, and I love 3'ou ! Is that what you 
 desire of me, most original of girls ? Perhaps you 
 are only seeking to amuse your provincial leisure with 
 the follies which you are able to make a poet com- 
 mit. If so, you have done a bad deed. Your two 
 letters have enough of the spirit of mischief in them 
 to force this doubt into the mind of a Parisian. But 
 I am no longer master of myself; my life, my future 
 depend on the answer you will make me. Tell me 
 if the certainty of an unbounded affection, oblivious 
 of all social conventions, will touch you, — if 3-011 will 
 
Modeste Mignon. 116 
 
 suffer me to seek you. There is anxiety enough and 
 ui)CGrtainty enough in the question as to whetlier I can 
 personally please you. If your reply is favorable I 
 change my life, I bid adieu to all the irksome pleasures 
 which we have the folly to call happiness. Happiness, 
 my dear and beautiful unknown, is what you dream it 
 to be, — ^a fusion of feelings, a perfect accordance of 
 souls, the imprint of a noble ideal (such as God does 
 permit us to form in this low world) upon the trivial 
 round of daily life whose habits we must needs obej', a 
 constancy of heart more precious far than what we call 
 fidelity. Can we saj- that we make sacrifices when the 
 end in view is our eternal good, the dream of poets, 
 the dream of maidens, tlie poem which, at the entrance 
 of life when thought essays its wings, each noble intel- 
 lect has pondered and caressed only to see it shivered 
 to fragments on some stone of stumbling as hard as it 
 is vulgar? — for to the great majority- of men, the foot 
 of realitj' steps instantly on that mysterious egg so 
 seldom hatched. 
 
 I cannot speak to you any more of myself; not of 
 my past life, nor of my character, nor of an affection 
 almost maternal on one side, filial on mine, which j'ou 
 have already seriously changed — an effect upon my 
 life which must explain my use of the word " sacrifice." 
 You have already rendered me forgetful, if not ungrate- 
 ful ; does that satisfy you ? Oh, speak ! Say to me 
 one word, and I will love you till my ej'es close in 
 death, as the Marquis de Pescaire loved his wife, as 
 Romeo loved Juliet, and faithfullj'. Our life will he, 
 for me at least, that ' ' felicity untroubled " which Dante 
 made the verj- element of his Paradiso, — a poem far 
 
116 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 superior to his Inferno. Strange, it is not myself that 
 I doubt in the long reveries through which, like j'ou, I 
 follow the windings of a dreamed existence ; it is you. 
 Yes, dear, I feel within me the power to love, and to 
 love endlessly, — to march to the grave with gentle slow- 
 ness and a smiling ej'e, with my beloved on inx arm, and 
 with never a cloud upon the sunshine of our souls. Yes, 
 I dare to face our mutual old age, to see ourselves with 
 whitening heads, like the venerable historian of Italy, 
 inspired always with the same affection but transformed 
 in soul by our life's seasons. Hear me, I can no longer 
 be your friend onl}'. Though Chrysale, Geronte, and 
 Argante re-live, you saj-, in me, I am not yet old 
 enough to drink from the cup held to my lips bj' the 
 sweet hands of a veiled woman without a passionate 
 desire to tear off the dotnino and the mask and see the 
 face. Either write me no more, or give me hope. Let 
 me see you, or let me go. Must I bid you adieu? Will 
 you permit me to sign myself, 
 
 Y'ouE Friend? 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis, — What flattery ! with 
 what rapidity is the grave Anselme transformed into a 
 handsome Leander ! To what must I attribute such a 
 change? to this black which I put upon this white? 
 to these ideas which are to the flowers of my soul 
 what a rose drawn in charcoal is to the roses in the 
 garden? Or is it to a recollection of the young girl 
 whom you took for me, and who is personally as like 
 me as a waiting-woman is like her mistress ? Have we 
 changed roles ? Have I the sense ? have you the fancy ? 
 But a truce with jesting. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 117 
 
 Your letter has made me know the elating pleasures 
 of the soul ; the first that I have known outside of mj' 
 family affections. What, says a poet, are the ties of 
 blood which are so strong in ordinary minds, compared 
 to those divinely forged within us hy m3-sterious sjm- 
 pathies? Let me thank you — no, we must not thank 
 each other for such things — but God bless you for the 
 happiness you have given me ; be happy in the joj' you 
 have shed into my soul. You explain to me some of 
 the apparent injustices in social life. There is some- 
 thing, I know not what, so dazzling, so virile in glory, 
 that it belongs onlj' to man ; God forbids us women to 
 wear its halo, but he makes love our portion, giving us 
 the tenderness which soothes the brow scorched by his 
 lightnings. I have felt my mission, and j'on have now 
 confirmed it. 
 
 Sometimes, my friend, I rise in the morning in a 
 state of inexpressible sweetness ; a sort of peace, ten- 
 der and divine, gives me an idea of heaven. My first 
 thought is then like a benediction. I call these morn- 
 ings my little German wakings, in opposition to my 
 Southern sunsets, full of heroic deeds, battles, Roman 
 fetes and ardent poems. Well, after reading jour letter, 
 so full of feverish impatience, I felt in my heart all the 
 freshness of vciy celestial wakings, when I love the air 
 about me and all nature, and fancy that I am destined 
 to die for one I love. One of j'our poems, "The 
 Maiden's Song," paints these delicious moments, when 
 gayet}' is tender, when aspiration is a need ; it is one 
 of my favorites. Do j"ou want me to put all mj' flat- 
 teries into one? — well then, I think you worthy to be 
 me ! 
 
118 Modeste Mignan. 
 
 Your Jetter, though short, enables me to read within 
 you. Yes, I have guessed your tumultuous struggles, 
 your piqued curiosity, 3-our projects; but I do not 
 yet know you well enough to satisfy your wishes. 
 Hear me, dear ; the mystery in which I am shrouded 
 allows me to use that word, which lets you see to the 
 bottom of my heart. Hear me : if we once meet, adieu 
 to our mutual comprehension ! Will you make a com- 
 pact with me? Was the first disad%'antageous to 3'ou? 
 But remember it won 3-ou my esteem, and it is a great 
 deal, my friend, to gain an admiration lined throughout 
 with esteem. Here is the compact : write me your life 
 in a few words ; then tell me what 3'Ou do in Paris, day 
 bj- tiay, with no reservations, and as if you were talking 
 to some old friend. Well, having done that, I will 
 take a step m^'self — I will see you, I promise you that. 
 And it is a great deal. 
 
 This, dear, is no intrigue, no adventure ; no gallantry, 
 as j'ou men s&y, can come of it, I warn j'ou frankly. 
 It involves mj' life, and more than that, — something 
 that causes me remorse for the man}' thoughts that fly 
 to you in flocks — it involves my father's and mj' 
 mother's life. I adore them, and my choice must 
 [ilease them ; the}' must find a son in you. 
 
 Tell me, to what extent can the superb spirits of 3'our 
 kind, to whom God has given the wings of his angels, 
 without alwa3's adding their amiability, — how far can 
 they bend under a faniil}' 3'oke, and put up with its little 
 miseries? That is a text I have meditated upon. Ah! 
 though I said to my heart before I came to you, For- 
 ward ! Onward ! it did not tremble and palpitate any 
 the less on the way ; and I did not conceal from mj-self 
 
Modeste Mignon. 119 
 
 the stouiuess of the path nor the Alpine difBculties I 
 had to encounter. I thought of all in my long, long 
 meditations. Do I not know that eminent men lilte you 
 have known the love they have inspired quite as well 
 as that which they themselves have felt ; that they have 
 had man}- romances in their lives, — you particularly, 
 who send forth those airy visions of 3'our soul that 
 women rush to buy ? Yet still I cried to myself, ' ' On- 
 ward ! " because I have studied, more than you give me 
 credit for, the geography of the great summits of hu- 
 manity, which you tell me are so cold. Did you not 
 say that Goethe and Byron were the colossi of egoism 
 and poetry ? Ah, my friend, there you shared a mistake 
 into which superficial minds are apt to fall ; but in j'ou 
 perhaps it came from generosity, false modestj', or the 
 desire to escape from me. Vulgar minds may mistake 
 the effects of toil for the development of personal char- 
 acter, but you must not. Neither Lord Byron, nor 
 Goethe, nor Walter Scott, nor Cuvier, nor any inventor, 
 belongs to himself, he is the slave of his idea. And 
 this mj'sterious power is more jealous than a woman ; 
 it sucks their blood, it makes them live, it makes 
 them die for its sake. The visible developments of 
 their hidden existence do seem, in their results, like 
 egotism ; but who shall dare to say that the man who 
 has abnegated self to give pleasure, instruction, or gran- 
 deur to Ills epoch, is an egoist? Is a mother selfish 
 when she immolates all things to her child? Well, the 
 detractors of genius do not perceive its fecund mater- 
 nity, that is all. The life of a poet is so perpetual a 
 sacrifice that he needs a gigantic organization to bear 
 even the ordiuarj- pleasures of life. Therefore, into 
 
120 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 what sorrows m&y he not fall when, like Moliere, he 
 wishes to live the life of feeling in its most poignant 
 crises ; to me, remembering his personal life, Moliere's 
 comedy is horrible. 
 
 The generosity of genius seems to me half divine ; 
 and I place yon in this noble famil}' of alleged egoists. 
 Ah ! if I had found self-interest, ambition, a seared na- 
 ture where I now can see my best loved flowers of the 
 soul, you know not what long anguish I should have had 
 to bear. I met with disappointment before I was sixteen. 
 What would have become of me had I learned at twenty 
 that fame is a lie, that he whose books express the feel- 
 ings hidden in my heart was incapable of feeling them 
 himself? Oh ! mj- friend, do you know what would 
 have become of me? Shall I take you into the recesses 
 of my soul? I should have gone to my father and said, 
 ' ' Bring me the son-in-law whom you desire ; my will ab- 
 dicates, — marry me to whom j"ou please." And the man 
 might have been a notary, banker, miser, fool, dullard, 
 wearisome as a rainj' da}', common as the usher of a 
 school, a manufacturer, or some brave soldier without 
 two ideas, — he would have had a resigned and atten- 
 tive servant in me. But what an awful suicide ! never 
 could m^- soul have expanded in the life-gi\ing rays of 
 a beloved sun. Xo murmur should have revealed to 
 my father, or my mother, or my children the suicide of 
 the creature who at this instant is shaking her fetters, 
 casting lightnings from her eyes, and flying towards you 
 with eager wing. See, she is there, at the angle of your 
 desk, like Polyhymnia, breathing the air of your presence, 
 and glancing about her with a curious eye. Sometimes 
 in the fields where my husband would have taken me 
 
Modeste Mignon. 121 
 
 to walk, I should have wept, apart and secretly, at sight 
 of a glorious morning ; and in m}' heart, or hidden in a 
 bureau-drawer, I might have kept some treasure, the 
 comfort of poor girls ill-used by love, sad, poetic souls, 
 — but ah! 1 have yoM, I believe in ,yo?<,mj- friend. That 
 belief straightens all my thoughts and fancies, even the 
 most fantastic, and sometimes — see how far mj' frank- 
 ness leads me — I wish I wore in the middle of the 
 book we are just beginning ; such persistency do I feel 
 in m}' sentiments, such strength in my heart to love, 
 such constancy sustained by reason, such heroism for 
 the duties for which I was created, — if indeed love can 
 ever be transmuted into duty. 
 
 If 3'ou were able to follow me to the exquisite re- 
 treat where I fancy ourselves happy, if you knew my 
 plans and projects, the dreadful word "folly!" might' 
 escape j'ou, and I should be cruellj' punished for send- 
 ing poetry to a poet. Yes, I wish to be a spring of 
 waters inexhaustible as a fertile land for the twenty 
 years that nature allows me to shine. I want to drive 
 away satiety by charm. I mean to be courageous for 
 my friend as most women are for the world. I wish to 
 var}' happiness. I wish to put intelligence into tender- 
 ness, and to give piquancy to fidelit}'. I am filled witli 
 ambition to kill the rivals of the past, to conjure away 
 all outside griefs by a wife's gentleness, by her proud 
 abnegation, to take a lifelong care of the nest, — such as 
 birds can onl}' take for a few weeks. 
 
 Tell me, do you now think me to blame for my first 
 letter? The mysterious wind of will drove me to j-ou, 
 as the tempest brings the little rose-tree to the pollard 
 willow. In your letter, which I hold here upon my 
 
122 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 heart, j-ou cried out, like 3'our ancestor when he de- 
 parted for the Crusades, " God wills it." 
 
 Ah! but you will er^- out, "What a chatterbox!" 
 All the people round me saj-, on the contrary', ' ' Made- 
 moiselle is very^ci,turn." 
 
 0. d'Est^ M. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 123 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 •WHAT COMES OF CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 The foregoing Icttprs SGemcd very original to tlie per- 
 sons from whom tlie niithor of tlie " Comedy of Human 
 Life" obtained Ihem ; but tlieir interest in this duel, tills 
 crossing of pens between two minds, may not be shared. 
 For every hundred readers, eighty might weavj- of the 
 battle. The respect due to the majority in ever3' nation 
 under a constitutional government, leads us, therefore, 
 to suppress eleven otlier letters exchanged between 
 Ernest and Modeste during the month of September. 
 If, l^ter on, some flattering majority should arise to 
 claim them, let us hope that we can then find means to 
 insert them in their proper place. 
 
 Urged by a mind that seemed as aggressive as the 
 heart was lovable, the truly chivalrous feelings of the 
 poor secretary gave themselves free play in these 
 suppressed letters, which seem, perhaps, more beau- 
 tiful than they really are, because the imagination is 
 charmed by a sense of the communion of two free souls. 
 Ernest's whole life was now wrapped up in these 
 sweet scraps of paper ; they were to him what bank- 
 notes are to a miser ; while in Modeste's soul a deep 
 love took the place of her delight in agitating a glori- 
 ous life, and being, in spite of distance, its mainspring. 
 Ernest's heart was the complement of Canalis's glor}-. 
 
124 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Alas ! it often takes two men to make a perfect lover, 
 just as in literature we compose a type hy collecting 
 the peculiarities of several similar characters. How 
 many a time a woman has been heard to say in her 
 own salon after close and intimate conversations : — 
 
 " Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the 
 other who is only a dream of tlie senses." 
 
 The last letter written by Modeste, which here fol- 
 lows, gives us a glimpse of the enchanted isle to wliich 
 the meanderings of this correspondence had led the two 
 lovers. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis, — Be at Havre next Sun- 
 day ; go to church ; after the morning sei'vice, walk 
 once or twice round the nave, and go out without 
 speaking to anv one ; but wear a white rose in 3'our 
 button-hole. Then return to Paris, where j-ou shall re- 
 ceive an answer. I warn yon that this answer will not 
 be what you wish ; for, as I told you, the future is not 
 yet mine. But should I not indeed be mad and foolish 
 to sa3' yes without having seen you ? When I have 
 seen you I can say no without wounding 3'ou ; I can 
 make sure that j-ou shall not see me. 
 
 This letter had been sent off the evening before the 
 dav when the abortive struggle between Dumay and 
 Modeste had taken place. The happj- girl was impa- 
 tiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindi- 
 cate or condemn her heart and her actions, — a solemn 
 moment in the life of any woman, and which three 
 months of a close communion of souls now rendered as 
 romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have 
 wished. Every one, except the mother, had taken this 
 
Modeste Mignon. 126 
 
 torpor of expectation for the calm of innocence. No 
 matter liow firmly family laws and religious precepts 
 maj- bind, there will alwa3's be the Clarissas and the 
 Julies, whose souls like flowing cups o'erlap the brim 
 under some spiritual pressure. Modeste was glorious 
 in the savage energy with which she repressed her 
 exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely 
 quiet. Let us saj' frankly that the memory of her 
 sister was more potent upon her than any social con- 
 ventions ; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no 
 grief upon lier father and her mother. But what tu- 
 multuous heavings were within her breast ! no wonder 
 that a mother guessed them. 
 
 On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay 
 took Madame Mignon about mid-daj- to a seat in the 
 sun among the flowers. The blind woman turned her 
 wan and blighted face toward the ocean ; she inhaled 
 the odors of the sea and took the hand of her daughter 
 who remained beside iier. Tlie mother hesitated between 
 forgiveness and remonstrance ere she put the important 
 question ; for she comprehended the girl's love and 
 recognized, as the pretended Canalis had done, that 
 Modeste was exceptional in nature. 
 
 " God grant that your father return in time ! If he 
 delays much longer he will find none but you to love 
 liim. Modeste, promise me once more ne\er to leave 
 him," she said in a fond maternal tone. 
 
 Modeste lifted her mother's hands to her lips and 
 kissed them gently, replying : " Need I say it again? " 
 
 " Ah, my child ! I did this thing myself. I left my 
 father to follow m}- husband ; and yet my father was 
 all alone ; I was all the child lie had. Is that why 
 
126 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 God lias so punished me? What I ask of j'on is to 
 many as j-our father wishes, to cherish him in your 
 heart, not to sacrifice him to your own happiness, but 
 to make him the centre of your liome. Before losing 
 my sight, I wrote him all my wishes, and I know he 
 will execute them. I enjoined him to keep his property' 
 intact and in his own hands ; not that I distrust you, 
 m}' Modeste, for a moment, bat who can be sure of a 
 son-in-law ? All ! my daughter, look at me ; was I 
 reasonable? One glance of the eye decided m}- Mfe. 
 Beauty, so often deceitful, in mj- case spoke true ; but 
 even were it the same with you, my poor child, swear 
 to me that you will let your father inquire into the 
 character, the habits, the heart, and the previous life 
 of the man you distinguish with your love — if, by 
 chance, there is such a man." 
 
 " I will never marry without the consent of iny 
 father," answered Modeste. 
 
 " You see, my darling," said Madame Mignon after 
 a long pause, " that if I am dji'ig by inches through 
 Bettina's wrong-doing, your fatlier would not survive 
 yours, no, not for a moment. I know him ; he would 
 put a pistol to his head, — there could be no life, no 
 happiness on earth for him." 
 
 Modeste walked a few steps awaj' from her mother, 
 but immediately came back. 
 
 "Why did you leave me?" demanded Madame 
 Mignon. 
 
 " You made me cry, mamma," answered Modeste. 
 
 " Ah, my little darling, kiss me. You love no one 
 here? you have no lover, liave you?" she asked, hold- 
 ing Modeste on her lap, heart to heart. 
 
Modeste Mlgnon. 127 
 
 " No, my dear mamma," said the little Jesuit. 
 
 " Can jou swear it? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " cried Jlodeste. 
 
 Madame Mignou said no more ; but she still doubted. 
 
 " At least, if you do choose your husband, 30U will 
 tell your father? " she resumed. 
 
 " I promised that to n\y sister, and to j^ou, mother. 
 What evil do you think I could commit while I wear 
 that ring upon my finger and read those words : 
 ' ThinJc of Bettina .■' ' Poor sister ! " 
 
 At these words a truce of silence came betvveen the 
 pair ; the mother's blighted eyes rained tears which 
 Modeste could not check, though she threw herself 
 upon her knees, and cried: " Forgive me! oh, forgive 
 me, mother ! " 
 
 At this instant the excellent Duraay was coming up 
 the hill of Ingouville on the double-quick, — a fact quite 
 abnormal in the present life of the cashier. 
 
 Three letters had brought ruin to the Mignons ; a 
 single letter now restored their fortunes. Duuiaj- had 
 received from a sea-captain just arrived from the China 
 Seas the following letter containing the first news of his 
 patron and friend, Charles Mignon : — 
 
 To Monsieur Jean Duniai/ : 
 
 My dear Dumay, — I shall quickly follow, barring the 
 chances of the voyage, the vessel which carries this let- 
 ter. In fact, 1 should have taken it, but I did not wish 
 to leave my own ship to which I am accustomed. 
 
 I told 3-ou that no news was to be good news. But 
 the first words of this letter ought to make 30U a happj- 
 man. I have made seven millions at the least. I am 
 
128 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 bringing back a large part of it, in indigo; one tiiird in 
 safe London securities, and auotiier third in good solid 
 gold. Your remittances helped me to make the sum I 
 had settled in mj- own mind much sooner than I ex- 
 pected. I wanted two millions for m^- daughters and 
 a competence for myself. 
 
 I have been engaged in the opium trade with the 
 largest houses in Canton, all ten times richer than ever 
 I was. You have no idea, in Europe, what these rich 
 East- India merchants are. I went to Asia Minor and 
 purchased opium at low prices, and from thence to Can- 
 ton where I delivered my cargoes to the companies who 
 control the trade. My last expedition was to the Phi- 
 lippine Islands where I exchanged opium for indigo of 
 the first quality. In fact, I may have half a million 
 more than I stated, for I reckoned the indigo at what 
 it cost me. I have always been well in health ; not the 
 slightest illness. That is the result of working for one's 
 children. Since the second year I have owned a pretty 
 little brig of seven hundred tons, called the " Mignon." 
 She is built of oak, double-planked, and copper-fastened , 
 and all the interior fittings were done to suit me. She 
 is, in fact, an additional piece of propertj'. 
 
 A sea-life and the active habits required b\' my busi- 
 ness have kept me in good health. To tell 3'ou all this 
 is the same as telling it to my two daughters and mj- 
 dear wife. I trust that the wretched man who took 
 away my Bettina deserted hjer when he heard of m}' 
 ruin ; and that I shall find the poor lost lamb at the 
 Chalet. My three dear women and my Dumay ! All 
 four of you have been ever present in my thoughts for 
 the last three years. You are a rich man, now, Dumay. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 129 
 
 Your share, outside of my own fortune, amounts to 
 five hundred and sixty thousand francs, for which I 
 send you herewith a checlc, which can only be paid to 
 jou in person b}' the Mongenods, who have been duly 
 advised from New York. 
 
 A few short montlis, and I shall see you all again, 
 and all well, 1 trust. My dear Dumay, if I write this 
 letter to you it is because I am anxious to keep my for- 
 tune a secret for the present. I therefore leave to jou 
 the happiness of preparing my dear angels for my re- 
 turn. I have had enough of commerce ; and I am 
 resolved to leave Havre. My intention is to hny back 
 the estate of La Bastie, and to entail it, so as to es- 
 tablish an estate yielding at least a hundred thousand 
 francs a year, and then to ask the king to grant that one 
 of my sons-in-law may succeed to my name and title. 
 You know, my poor Dumaj', what a terrible misfortune 
 overtook us througli the fatal reputation of a large for- 
 tune, — my daughter's honor was lost. I have therefore 
 resolved that the amount of my present fortune shall 
 not be known. I shall not disembark at Havre, but at 
 Marseilles. I shall sell mj' indigo, and negotiate for the 
 purchase of La Bastie through the house of Mongenod 
 in Paris. I shall put ray funds in the Bank of Prance 
 and return to the Chalet giving out that I have a con- 
 siderable fortune in merchandise. Mj' claughters will 
 be supposed to have two or three hundred thousand 
 francs. To choose which of my sons-in-law is worthj' 
 to succeed to my title and estates and to live with us, 
 is now the object of my life ; but both of them must 
 be, like you and me, honest, lo3'al, and lirm men, and 
 absolutely honorable. 
 
 9 
 
130 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 My dear old fellow, I have never doubted you for a 
 moment. We have gone through wars and commerce 
 together and now we will undertake agriculture ; you 
 shall be my bailiff. You will like that, will jou not? 
 And so, old friend, I leave it to your discretion to 
 tell what 3'ou think best to my wife and daughters ; I 
 rely upon your prudence. In four years great changes 
 may have taken place in their characters. 
 
 Adieu, m^' old Duma^-. Say to mj' daughters and to 
 my wife that I have never failed to kiss them in my 
 thoughts morning and evening since I left them. The 
 second check for forty thousand francs herewith en- 
 closed is for my wife and children. 
 
 Till we meet. — Your colonel and friend, 
 
 Charles Mignon. 
 
 " Your father is coming," said Madame Mignon to 
 her daughter. 
 
 " What makes you think so, mamma ? " asked 
 Modeste. 
 
 '' Nothing else could make Dumay hum' himself." 
 
 " Victory ! victory ! " cried the lieutenant as soon as 
 he reached the garden gate. " Madame, the colonel 
 has not been ill a moment ; he is coming back — coming 
 back on the 'Mignon,' a fine ship of liis own, which 
 together with its cargo is worth, he tells me, eight or 
 nine hundred thousand francs. But he requires secrecy 
 from all of us ; his heart is still wrung by the misfor- 
 tunes of our dear departed girl." 
 
 "He has still to learn her death," said Madame 
 Mignon. 
 
 " He attributes her disaster, and I think he is right. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 131 
 
 to the rapacit}- of j'oung men after great fortunes. 
 My poor colonel expects to find the lost sheep here. 
 Let ns be happy among ourselves but say nothing to 
 any one, not even to Latournelle, if that is possible. 
 Mademoiselle," he whispered in IModeste's ear, "write 
 ' to your father and tell him of liis loss and also the ter- 
 rible results on your mother's health and eyesight ; pre- 
 pare him for the shock he has to meet. I will engage 
 to get the letter into his hands before he reaches Havre, 
 for he will have to pass through Paris on his way. 
 Write him a long letter ; you have plenty- of time. 1 
 will take the letter on Monday ; Monday I shall pro- 
 bably go to Paris." 
 
 Modeste was so afraid that Canalis and Dumay 
 would meet that she started hastily for the house to 
 write to her poet and put off the rendezvous. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said Dumay, in a verj- humble man- 
 ner and barring Modeste's way, " raaj' your father find 
 his daughter with no other feelings in her heart than 
 those she had for him and for her mother before he was 
 obliged to leave her." 
 
 " I have sworn to myself, to m^' sister, and to ray 
 mother to be the joj-, the consolation, and the glorj- of 
 my father, and I shall lieep my oath!" replied Mo- 
 deste with a haughty and disdainful glance at Duma}'. 
 " Do not trouble my delight in the thought of my 
 father's return with insulting suspicions. You cannot 
 prevent a girl's heart from beating — you don't want 
 me to be a mummy, do you?" she said. " My hand 
 belongs to my family, but m\ heart is my own. If I 
 love any one, my father and my mother will know it. 
 Does that satisfy you, raonsieui'?" 
 
132 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Thank jou, mademoiselle ; you restore me to life," 
 said Dumay, "but you might still call me Dumay, 
 even when 30U box my ears ! " 
 
 "Swear to me," said her mother, "that you have 
 not exchanged a word or a look with any young man." 
 
 "I can swear that, mj' dear mother," said Modeste, 
 laughing, and looking at Dumay who was watching her 
 and smiling to himself like a mischievous girl. 
 
 "She must be false indeed if you are right," cried 
 Duraaj', when Modeste had left them and gone into the 
 house. 
 
 " M}' daughter Modeste may have faults," said her 
 mother, ' ' but falsehood is not one of them ; she is 
 incapable of saying what is not true." 
 
 "Well! then let us feel eas^'," continued Dumay, 
 " and believe that misfortune has closed his account 
 with us." 
 
 " God grant it ! " answered Madame Mignon. " You 
 will see him, Dumay ; but I shall only hear him. There 
 is much of sadness in my joy." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 183 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A DECLARATION OF LOVJE, SET TO MUSIC. 
 
 A.T this moment Modeste, happy as she was in the re- 
 turn of her father, was, nevertheless, pacing her room dis- 
 consolate as Perrette on seeing her eggs broken. .She 
 liad hoped her father would bring back a much larger for- 
 tune than Duniay had mentioned. Nothing could satisfj' 
 her new-found ambition on behalf of her poet less than 
 at least half the six millions she had talked of in her 
 second letter. Trebh' agitated by her two joj'S and the 
 grief caused by her comparative poverty', she seated her- 
 self at the piano, that confidant of so manj- young girls, 
 who tell out their wishes and pro\'ocations on the keys, 
 expressing them by the notes and tones of their music. 
 Dumay was talking with his wife in the garden under 
 the windows, telling her the secret of their own wealth, 
 and questioning her as to her desires and her inten- 
 tions. Madame Duma}' had, like her husband, no other 
 family than the Slignons. Husband and wife agreed, 
 therefore, to go and live in Provence, if the Comte de 
 La Bastie really meant to Hve in Provence, and to leave 
 their money to whichever of Modeste's children might 
 seem to need it most. 
 
 " Listen to Modeste," said Madame Miguon, ad- 
 dressing them. " None but a girl in love can compose 
 such airs without having studied music." 
 
134 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Houses ma}' burn, fortunes be engulfed, fathers re- 
 turn from distant lands, empires may crumble away, the 
 cholera may ravage cities, but a maiden's love wings 
 its way as nature pursues hers, or that alarming acid 
 which chemistry has lately discovered, and which will 
 presently eat through the globe, if nothing stops it. 
 
 Modeste, nnder the inspiration of her present situa- 
 tion, was putting to music certain stanzas which we are 
 compelled to quote here — albeit they are printed in 
 the second volume of the edition Dauriat had men- 
 tioned- — because, in order to adapt them to her music, 
 which had the inexpressible charm of sentiment so ad- 
 mired in great singers, Modeste had taken liberties 
 with the lines in a manner that may astonish the ad- 
 mirers of a poet so famous for tlie correctness, some- 
 times too precise, of liis measures. 
 
 THE MAIDEN'S SONG. 
 
 Heart, arise! the lark is shaking 
 Sunlit wings that heavenward rise; 
 
 Sleep no more; the violet, waking, 
 Wafts her incense to the skies. 
 
 Flowers revived, their eyes unclosing, 
 
 See themselves in "drops of dew 
 In each oalyx-cup reposing, — 
 
 Pearls of a day their mirror true. 
 
 Breeze divine, the god of roses. 
 
 Passed by night to bless their bloom; 
 
 See! for him each bud uncloses. 
 Glows, and yields its rich perfume. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 135 
 
 Then arise! the lark is shaking 
 Sunlit wings that heavenward rise; 
 
 Nought is sleeping — Heart, awaking, 
 Lift tliine incense to the skies. 
 
 "It is very pretty," said Madame Duma_y. "Mo- 
 deste is a musician, and that 's the whole of it." 
 
 "The devil is in her! " eried the cashier, into whose 
 heart the suspicion of the mother forced its way and 
 made him shiver. 
 
 " She loves," persisted Madame Mignon. 
 
 By succeeding, thi'ongh the undeniable testimony of 
 the song, in making the cashier a sharer in her belief as 
 to the state of Modeste's heart, Aladame Mignon de- 
 stroyed the happiness the retuin and the prosperit}' of 
 his master had bi-ought him. The poor Breton went 
 down the hill to Havre and to his desk in Gobenheim's 
 counting-room with a heavy heart ; then, before return- 
 ing to dumer, he went to see Latournelle, to tell his 
 fears, and beg once more for the notary's advice and 
 assistance. 
 
 "Yes, mj' dear friend," said Dnmay, when they 
 parted on the steps of the notary's door, " I now agree 
 with madame ; she loves, ■ — yes, I am sure of it ; and 
 the devil knows the rest. I am dishonored.'' 
 
 " Don't make yourself unhappy, Duma}," answered 
 the little notary. " Among us all we can surely get 
 the better of the little puss ; sooner or later, every girl 
 in love betrays herself, — you may be sure of that. 
 But we will talk about it this evening." 
 
 Thus it happened that all those devoted to the 
 Mignon family were fully as disquieted and uncertain 
 as they were before tlie old soldier tried the experiment 
 
136 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 which he expected would be so decisive. The ill-success 
 of his past efforts so stimulated Dumay's sense of duty, 
 that lie determined not to go to Paris to see after his 
 own fortune as announced by his patron, until he had 
 guessed the riddle of Modeste's heart. These friends, 
 to whom feelings were more precious than interests, 
 well knew that unless the daughter were pure and in- 
 nocent, the lather would die of grief when he came to 
 know the death of Bettina and the blindness of his wife. 
 The distress of poor Dnraa}- made such an impression 
 on the Latournelles that thej- even forgot their parting 
 with Exup^re, whom they liad sent off that morning to 
 Paris. During dinner, while the three were alone, 
 Monsieur and Madame Latournelle and Butscha turned 
 the problem over and over in their minds, and discussed 
 ever}' aspect of it. 
 
 " If Modeste loved any one in Havre she would have 
 shown some fear yesterday," said Madame Latournelle ; 
 "her lover, therefore, lives somewhere else." 
 
 " She swore to her mother tliis morning,'' said the 
 notary, "in presence of Dumay, that she had not ex- 
 changed a look or a word with any living soul." 
 
 "Then she loves after my fashion!" exclaimed 
 Butscha. 
 
 "And how is that, my poor lad?" asked Madame 
 Latournelle. 
 
 " Madame," said the little cripple, " I love alone and 
 afar — oh ! as far as from here to the stars." 
 
 "How do 3-ou manage it. you silly fellow?" said 
 Madame LatourneUc, laughing. 
 
 " Ah, madame ! " said Butscha, " what you call my 
 hump is the socket of my wings." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 137 
 
 "So that is the explanation of jour seal, is it?" 
 cried the notarj-. 
 
 Butscha's seal was a star, and under it the words 
 Fulgens, seqicar, — " Shining One, I follow thee," — 
 the motto of the house of Chastillonest. 
 
 "A beautiful woman may feel as distrustful as the 
 ugliest," said Butscha, as if speaking to himself; 
 "Modeste is clever enough to fear she may be loved 
 only for her beauty." 
 
 Hunchbacks are extraordinary- creations, due entirely 
 to soeiet}' ; for, according to Nature's plan, feeble or 
 aborted beings ought to perish. The curvature or dis- 
 tortion of the spinal column creates in these outwardly 
 deformed subjects as it wei-e a storage-batterj-, where 
 the nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than 
 under normal conditions, — where they develop, and 
 whence they are emitted, so to saj-, in lightning flashes, 
 to energize the interior being. From this, forces result 
 which are sometimes brought to light by magnetism, 
 though they are far more frequently lost in the vague 
 spaces of the spiritual world. It is rare to find a de- 
 formed person who is not gifted with some special 
 faculty, — a whimsical or sparkling gaj-et}- perhaps, an 
 utter malignity, or an almost sublime goodness. Like 
 instruments which the hand of art can never fully 
 waken, these beings, highly privileged though they 
 know it not, live within themselves, as Butscha lived, 
 provided their natural forces so magniflcently concen- 
 trated have not been spent in the struggle tliej- have 
 been forced to maintain, against tremendous odds, to 
 keep alive. This explains many superstitions, the pop- 
 ular legends of gnomes, frightful dwarfs, deformed 
 
138 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 fairies, — all that race of bottles, as Rabelais called 
 them, containing elixirs and precious balms. 
 
 Butscha, thei'efore, had ^fe\^y nearly found the key 
 to the puzzle. With all the anxious solicitude of a 
 hopeless lover, a vassal ever read}' to die, — like the 
 soldiers alone and abandoned in the snows of Russia, 
 who still cried out, " Long live tlie Emperor," — he med- 
 itated how to capture Modeste's secret for his own pri- 
 vate knowledge. So thinking, lie followed liis patrons 
 to the Chalet that evening,' with a cloud of care upon 
 his brow : for he knew it was most important to hide 
 from all these watchful eyes and eai's the net, whatever 
 it might be, in which he should entrap his lady. It 
 would have to be, he thought, b}' some intercepted 
 glance, some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon 
 lays his finger on a hidden sore. That evening Goben- 
 heim did not appear, and Butscha was Dumay's partner 
 against Monsieur and Madame Latournelle. During 
 the few moments of Modeste's absence, about nine 
 o'clock, to prepare for her mother's bedtime, Madame 
 Mignon and her friends spoke openly to one another ; 
 but the poor clerk, depressed by the conviction of 
 Modeste's love, which had now seized upon him as 
 upon the rest, seemed as remote from the discussion as 
 Gobenheim had been the night before. 
 
 " Well, what's the matter with you, Butscha?" cried 
 Madame Latournelle; "one would really think you 
 hadn't a friend in the world." 
 
 Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was 
 the son of a Swedish sailor, and whose mother was 
 dead. 
 
 " I have no one in the world but you," he answered 
 
Modeste Mignon. 139 
 
 with a troubled voice; "and your compassion is so 
 much a part of j'our religion that I can never lose it — 
 and I will never deserve to lose it." 
 
 This answer struck the sensitive chord of true deli- 
 caej' in the minds of all present. 
 
 "We love you, Monsieur Butscha," said Madame 
 Mignon, with much feeling in her voice. 
 
 "I've six iiundred thousand francs of my own, this 
 da}-," cried Dumay, " and you shall be a notary and 
 the successor of Latournelle." 
 
 The American wife took the hand of the poor hunch- 
 back and pressed it. 
 
 "What! you have six hundred thousand francs!" 
 exclaimed Latournelle, pricking up his ears as Dumay 
 let fall the words; "and 3-ou allow these ladies to 
 live as they do ! Modeste ought to have a fine horse ; 
 and why docs n't she continue to take lessons in music, 
 an& painting, and — " 
 
 " Why, he has only had the money a few hours!" 
 cried the little wife. 
 
 " Hush ! " murmured Madame Mignon. 
 
 While these words were exchanged, Butscha's august 
 mistress turned towards him, preparing to make a 
 speech : — 
 
 " 'M.y son," she said, " you are so surrounded by true 
 affection that I never thought how mj' thoughtless 
 use of that familiar phrase might be construed ; but 
 you must thank me for my little blunder, because it 
 has served to show 3'ou what friends 3-our noble qua- 
 lities have won." 
 
 " Then \ou must have news from Monsieur Mignon," 
 resumed the notarj-. 
 
140 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " He is on his way home," said Madame Mignon ; 
 " but let us keep the secret to ourselves. When m}- 
 husband learns how faithful Butscha has been to us, 
 how he has shown the wannest and most disinterested 
 friendship when others have given us the cold shoulder, 
 he will not let yon alone provide for him, Dumaj'. 
 -And so, my friend," she added, turning her blind face 
 toward Butscha; " 3'oii can begin at once to negotiate 
 with Latournelle." 
 
 "He's of legal age, twenty-five and a half j'ears. 
 As for me, it will be pajing a debt, vay boy, to make 
 the purchase easy for .you," said the notarj'. 
 
 Butscha was kissing Madame Mignon's hand, and 
 his face was wet with tears as Modeste opened the 
 door of the salon. 
 
 " What are you doing to mj' Black Dwarf? " she 
 demanded. " Who is making him unhappj'? " 
 
 " Ah ! Mademoiselle Modeste, do we luckless fellows, 
 cradled in misfortune, ever weep for grief? They have 
 just shown me as much affection as I could feel for 
 them if thej' were indeed mj' own relations. I 'm to be 
 a notarj^ ; I shall be ricli. Ha ! ha ! the poor Butscha 
 may become the rich Butscha. You don't know what 
 audacity there is in this abortion," he cried. 
 
 With that he gave himself a resounding blow on the 
 cavity of his chest and took up a position before the 
 fireplace, after casting a glance at Modeste, which 
 slipped like a ray of light between his heav}' half- closed 
 eyelids. He perceived, in this unexpected incident, a 
 chance of interrogating the heart of his sovereign. 
 Dumaj^ thought for a moment that the clerk dared to 
 aspire to Modeste, and he exchanged a rapid glance with 
 
Modeste Mignon. 141 
 
 the others, who uuderstood him, and began to eye the 
 little man with a species of terror mingled with curiositj'. 
 
 " I, too, have my dreams," said Butscha, not taking 
 his e3-es from Modeste. 
 
 Tlie young girl lowered her eyelids with a movement 
 that was a revelation to tlie j'oung man. 
 
 " You love romance," he continued, addressing her. 
 " Let me, in this moment of happiness, tell 3011 mine ; 
 and you shall tell me in return whether the conclusion 
 of the tale I have invented for my life is possible. To 
 me wealth would bring greater happiness than to other 
 men ; for the highest happiness I can imagine would 
 be to enrich the one I loved. You, mademoiselle, who 
 know so many things, tell me if it is possible for a man 
 to make himself beloved independently of his person, 
 be it handsome or ugly, and for his spirit only ? " 
 
 Modeste raised her eyes and looked at Butscha. It 
 was a piercing and questioning glance ; for she shared 
 Dumay's suspicion of Bntscha's motive. 
 
 " Let me be rich, and I will seek some beautiful 
 poor girl, abandoned like myself, who has suffered, who 
 knows what misery is. I will write to her and console 
 her, and be her guardian spirit ; she shall read my 
 heart, my soul; she shall possess mj; double wealth, 
 mj- two wealths, — my gold, delicatelj- offered, and mj' 
 thought robed in all the splendor which the accident of 
 birth has denied to m3' grotesque bod^'. But I mj'self 
 shall remain hidden like the cause that science seeks. 
 God himself may not be glorious to the eye. Well, 
 naturally, the maiden will be curious ; she will wish to 
 see me ; but I shall tell her that I am a monster of 
 ugliness ; I shall picture myself hideous." 
 
142 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 At these words Modeste gave Butscha a glance that 
 looked him through and through. If slie had said 
 aloLid, "What do yon know of my love?" she could 
 not have been more explicit. 
 
 " If I have the honor of being loved for the poem 
 of my heart, if some day such love may make a 
 woman think me only slightly deformed, I ask 30U, 
 mademoiselle, shall I not l)e happier than tlie hand- 
 somest of men, — as happy as a man of genius beloved 
 bj' some celestial being like yourself ? " 
 
 The color which suffused the young girl's face told 
 the cripple nearly all he sougiit to know. 
 
 "Well, if that be so," he went on, "if we enrich tlie 
 one we love, if we please the spirit and withdraw the 
 body, is not that the wa\' to make one's self beloved? 
 At any rate it is the dream of j'our poor dwarf, — a 
 dream of yesterdaj' ; for to-day 3-our mother gives me 
 the key to future wealth by promising me the means 
 of buying a practice. But before 1 become another 
 Gobenheim, I seek to know whetlier this dream could 
 be really carried out. What do you say, mademoiselle, 
 you ? " 
 
 Modeste was so astonished that she did not notice 
 the question. The trap of the lover was much better 
 baited than that of the soldier, for the poor girl was 
 rendered speechless. 
 
 "Poor Butscha!" whispered Madame Latournelle 
 to her husband. " Do you think he is going mad? " 
 
 " You want to realize the story of Beauty and the 
 Beast," said Modeste at length ; ' ' but you forget that 
 the Beast turned into Prince Charming." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said the dwarf. " Now I have 
 
Modeste Mignon. 143 
 
 alwaj's thought that that transformation meant the 
 phenomenon of the soul made visible, obliterating the 
 form under the light of the spirit. If 1 were not loved 
 I should staj' hidden, that is all. . You and yours, ma- 
 dame," he continued, addressing his mistress, " in- 
 stead of ha\ing a dwarf at j-our service, will now have 
 a life and a fortune." 
 
 So saying, Butscha resumed his seat, remarking to the 
 three whist-players with an assumption of calmness, 
 " Whose deal is it? " but within his soul he whispered 
 sadl^' to himself: " She wants to be loved for herself; 
 she corresponds with some pretended great man ; how 
 far has it gone? " 
 
 " Dear mamma, it is nearl3' ten o'clock," said 
 Modeste. 
 
 Madame Mignon said good-night to her friends, and 
 went to bed. 
 
 They who wish to love in secret may have Pjrenean 
 hounds, mothers, Dumays, and Latournelles to si)v 
 upon them, and yet not be iu any danger ; but when it 
 comes to a lover ! — ah ! that is diamond cut diamond, 
 flame against flame, mind to mind, an equation whose 
 terms are mutual. 
 
 On Sunday morning Butscha arrived at the Chalet 
 before Madame Latournelle, who always came to take 
 Modeste to church, and he proceeded to blockade the 
 house in expectation of the postman. 
 
 " Have. you a letter for Mademoiselle Mignon? " he 
 said to that humble functionary when he appeared. 
 
 " No, monsieur, none." 
 
 " This house has been a good customer to the post 
 of late," remarked the clerk. 
 
144 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " You may well saj' that," replied the man. 
 
 Modeste both heard and saw the little colloquy from 
 her chamber window, where she always posted herself 
 behind the blinds at this particular hour to watch for 
 the postman. She ran downstairs, went into the Httle 
 garden, and called in an imperative voice : — 
 
 " Monsieur Butscha ! " 
 
 " Here am I, mademoiselle.'' said the cripple, reach- 
 ing the gate as Modeste herself opened it. 
 
 " Will j-ou be good enough to tell me whether among 
 your various titles to a woman's affection 3-ou count 
 that of the shameless spying in which you are now 
 engaged?" demanded the girl, endeavoring to crush 
 her slave with the glance and gesture of a queen. 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle," he answered proudly. " Ah! 
 I never expected," he continued in a low tone, "that 
 the grub could be of service to a star, — but so it is. 
 Would you rather that your mother and Monsieur Du- ■ 
 ma\' and Madame Latournelle had guessed your secret 
 than one, excluded as it were from life, who seeks to 
 be to you one of these flowers that you cut and wear 
 for a moment ? The}- all know you love ; but I, I 
 alone, know hoio. Use me as you would a vigilant 
 watch-dog ; I will obey .you,' protect you, and never 
 bark ; neither will I condemn you. I ask only to be 
 of service to you. Your father has made Dumaj'' 
 keeper of the hen-rcrost, take Butscha to watch outside, 
 — poor Butscha, who does n't ask for anything, not so 
 much as a bone." 
 
 "Well, I'll give you a trial," said Modeste, whose 
 strongest desire was to get rid of so clever a watcher. 
 " Please go at once to all the hotels in Graville and in 
 
Modeste 3Iignon. 145 
 
 Havre, and ask if a gentleman has arrived from Eng- 
 land named Monsieur Arthur — " 
 
 " Listen to me, mademoiselle," said Butscha, inter- 
 rupting Modeste respectfully. " I will go and take a 
 walk on the seashore, for jou don't want me to go 
 to church to-day ; that 's what it is." 
 
 Modeste looked at her dwarf with a perfectly stupid 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you have wrapped your face in 
 cotton-wool and a silk handkerchief, but there 's noth- 
 ing the matter with you ; and you have put that thick 
 veil on j'our bonnet to see some one yourself without 
 being seen." 
 
 "Where did .you acquire all that perspicacity?" 
 cried Modeste, blushing. 
 
 " Moreo\'er, mademoiselle, you have not put on your 
 corset ; a cold in the head would n't oblige you to dis- 
 figure j'jour waist and wear half a dozen petticoats, nor 
 hide your hands in these old gloves, and your prettj' 
 feet in those hideous shoes, nor dress jourself hke a 
 beggar-woman, nor — " 
 
 " That's enough," she said. " How am I to be cer- 
 tain that you will obey me? " 
 
 " M}- master is obliged to go to Sainte-Adresse. He 
 does not like it, but he is so truly good he won't deprive 
 me of m3' Sundaj' ; I will offer to go for him." 
 
 " Go, and I will trust you." 
 
 " You are sure I can do nothing for you in Havre ? 
 
 "Nothing. Hear me, mysterious dwarf, — look," 
 she continued, pointing to the cloudless sky ; " can you 
 see a single trace of that bird that flew by just now ? 
 No ; well then, my actions are pure as the air is pure, 
 
 10 
 
146 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 and leave no stain behind tliem. You may reassure 
 Duma}' and the Latournelles, and my mother. That 
 hand," she said, holding up a prettj' delicate hand, with 
 the points of the rosy fingers, through which the light 
 shone, slightly turning back, " will never be given, it 
 will never even be kissed b^- what people call a lover 
 until my father has returned." 
 
 " Why don't you want me in the church to-day? " 
 
 " Do jou venture to question me after all I have 
 done you the honor to say, and to ask of you ? " 
 
 Butscha bowed without another \\ord, and departed 
 to find his master, in all the rapture of being taken into 
 the service of his goddess. 
 
 Half an hour later. Monsieur and Madame Latour- 
 nelle came to fetch Modeste, who complained of a hor- 
 rible toothache. 
 
 " I really have not had the courage to dress myself," 
 she said. 
 
 " Well then," repHed the worthy chaperone, " stay at 
 home." 
 
 "Oil, no ! " said Modeste. " I would rather not. I 
 have bundled myself up, and I don't think it will do 
 me any harm to go out." 
 
 And Mademoiselle Mignon marched off beside La- 
 tournelle, refusing to take his arm lest she should be 
 questioned about the outward trembling which betrayed 
 her ii.ward agitation at the thought of at last seeing 
 lier great poet. One look, the first, — was it not about 
 to decide her fate? 
 
Modeste Mignon. 147 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A FDLL-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF MONSIEUR DE LA BRIERE. 
 
 Is there in the life of man a more delightful moment 
 than that of a first rendezvous ? Are the sensations 
 then hidden at the bottom of our hearts and finding 
 their first expression ever renewed? Can ^ve feel again 
 the nameless pleasures that we felt when, like Earnest 
 de La Briere, we looked up our sharpest razors, our 
 finest shirt, an irreproachable collar, and our best 
 clothes? We cleif3- the garments associated with that 
 all-supreme moment. We weave within us poetic fan- 
 cies quite equal to those of the woman ; and the daj' 
 when either partj- guesses them thej' take wings to 
 themselves and flj- away. Are not such things like the 
 flower of wild fruits, bitter-sweet, grown in the heart 
 of a forest, the joy of the scant sun-rajs, the jo^-, 
 as Canalis says in the "Maiden's Song," of the plant 
 itself whose ej'es unclosing see its own image within 
 its breast? 
 
 Such emotions, now taking place in La Briere, tend 
 to show that, like other poor fellows for whom life be- 
 gins in toil and care, he had never yet been loved. 
 Arriving at Havre overnight, he had gone to bed at 
 once, like a true coquette, to obliterate all traces of 
 fatigue; and now, after taking his bath, he had put 
 himself into a costume carefully adapted to show him 
 
148 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 off to the best advantage. This is, perhaps, the right 
 tiioment to exhibit a full-length portrait of him, if only 
 to justify the last letter that Modeste was still to write 
 to him. 
 
 Born of a good family in Toulouse, and allied by 
 marriage to the minister who first took him under his 
 protection, Ernest had that air of good-breeding which 
 comes of an education begun in the cradle ; and the 
 habit of managing business affairs gave him a certain 
 sedateness which was not pedantic, — though pedantry 
 is the natural outgrowth of premature gravit\-. He was 
 of ordinary height ; his face, which won upon all who 
 saw him b}- its delicacy and sweetness, was warm in the 
 flesh-tints, though without color, and relieved Jjy a small 
 moustache and imperial a la Mazarin. , Without this 
 evidence of virility- he might have resembled a young 
 woman in disguise, so refined was the shape of his face 
 and tlie cut of his lips, so feminine the transparent 
 ivor}' of a set of teeth, regular enough to have seemed 
 artificial. Add to these womanly' points a habit of 
 speech as gentle as the expression of the face ; as 
 gentle, too, as the blue eyes with their Turkish eye- 
 lids, and you will readily understand how it was that 
 the minister occasionally called his young secretarj' 
 Mademoiselle de La Briere. The full, clear forehead, 
 well framed by abundant black hair, was dreamy, and 
 did not contradict the character of the face, which was 
 altogether melancholy. The prominent arch of the 
 upper eyelid, though ver\' beautifully cut, o^'ershad- 
 owed the glance of the eye, and added a ph3sical sad- 
 ness, — if we may so call it, — ^'produced by the droop of 
 the lid over the eyeball. This inward doubt or eclipse 
 
Modeste Mignon. 149 
 
 — which is put into language by the word modesty — 
 was expressed iu his whole person. Perhaps we shall 
 be able to make his appearance better understood if we 
 say that the logic of design required greater length in 
 the oval of his head, more space between the chin, 
 which ended alsruptly, and the forehead, which was re- 
 duced in height by the way in which the hair grew. 
 The face had, in short, a rather compressed appear- 
 ance. Hard work had already drawn furrows between 
 the eyebrows, which were somewhat too thiclc and too 
 near together, like those of a jealous nature. Though 
 La Briere was then slight, he belonged to the class of 
 temperaments which begin, after they are thirty, to take 
 on an unexpected amount of flesh. 
 
 The young man would have seemed to a student of 
 French historj' a verj- fair representative of the roj'al 
 and almost inconceivable figure of Louis XIII., — that 
 historical figure of melancholy modest}- without known 
 cause ; pallid beneath the crown ; loving the dangers of 
 war and the fatigues of hunting, but hating work ; timid 
 with his mistress to the extent of keeping awaj- from 
 her ; so indifferent as to allow the head of his friend to 
 be cut off, — a figure tliat nothing can explain but his 
 remorse for having avenged his father on his mother. 
 Was he a Catliolic Hamlet, or merelj' the victim of in- 
 curable disease ? But the und3ing worm which gnawed 
 at the king's vitals was in Ernest's case simply- distrust 
 of himself, — the timidity of a man to whom no woman 
 had ever said, " Ah, how I love thee ! " and, above all, 
 the spirit of self-devotion without an object. After 
 hearing the linell of the monarch}' in the fall of his 
 patron's ministry, the poor fellow had next fallen upon 
 
150 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 a rock covered with exquisite mosses, natned Canalis ; 
 he was, therefore, still seeking a power to love, and 
 this spaniel-like search for a master gave him out- 
 wardlj' the air of a king who has met with his. This 
 play of feeling, and a general tone of suffering in the 
 young man's face made it more really- beautiful than he 
 was himself aware of ; for he had always been annoyed 
 to find himself classed by women among the " handsome 
 disconsolate," — a class which has passed out of fashion 
 in these days, when e\ery man seeks to blow his own 
 trumpet and put himself in the advance. 
 
 The self-distfustful Ernest now rested his immediate 
 hopes on the fashionable clothes he intended to wear. 
 He put on, for this sacred interview, where everything 
 depended on a first impression, a pair of black trousers 
 and carefully polished boots, a sulphur-colored waist- 
 coat, which left to sight an exquisitely fine shirt with 
 opal buttons, a black cravat, and a small blue snrtout 
 coat which seemed glued to his back and shoulders by 
 some newly-invented process. The ribbon of the Le- 
 gion of honor was in his buttonhole. He wore a well- 
 fitting pair of kid glo\'es of the Florentine bronze color, 
 and carried his cane and hat in the left hand with a 
 gesture and air that was worthy of the Grand Mon- 
 arch, and enabled him to show, as the sacred precincts 
 required, his bare head with the light falling on its 
 carefully arranged haii-, He stationed himself before 
 the service began in the church porch, from whence he 
 could examine the church, and the Christians — more 
 particularly the female Christians — ^ who dipped their 
 fingers in the holy water. 
 
 An inward vpice cried to Modeste as she entered, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 161 
 
 " It is he ! " That suvtout, and indeed the whole bear- 
 ing of tlie 30ung man were essentially Parisian ; the 
 ribbon, the gloves, tlie cane, the very perfume of his 
 liair were not of Havre. So when La Briere turned 
 about to examine the tall and imposing Madame La- 
 tournelle, the notary, and the bundled-up (expression 
 sacred to women) figure of Modeste, tlie poor child, 
 though she had carefulh' tutored lierself for the event, re- 
 ceived a violent blow on her heart when her eyes rested 
 on this poetic figure, ilhuninated by the full light of day 
 as it streamed through the oi)en door. She could not 
 be mistaken ; a small white rose nearly hid the ribbon 
 of the Legion. Would he recognize his unknown mis- 
 tress muffled in an old ))onnet witli a double veil? 
 Modeste was so in fear of love's chiirvoyance that she 
 began to stoop in her walk like an old woman. 
 
 "Wife," said little Latournelle as they took their 
 seats, " that gentleman does not belong to Havre." 
 
 " So many strangers come here," answered his wife. 
 
 " But," said tlie notary, "strangers never come to 
 look at a church like ours, which is less than two centu- 
 ries old." 
 
 Ernest remained in the porch throughout the service 
 without seeing any woman who realized his hopes. 
 Modeste, on her part, could not control the trembling 
 of her limbs until Mass was nearl}- over. She was in 
 the grasp of a joy that none but she herself could de- 
 pict. At last she heard the foot-fall of a gentleman on 
 the pavement of the aisle. The service over. La Briere 
 was making a circuit of the church, where no one now 
 remained but the punctiliousl3''pious, whom he proceeded 
 to subject to a shrewd and keen analysis. Ernest no- 
 
152 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 ticed that a prayer-book shook violently in the hands 
 of a veiled woman as he passed her ; as she alone 
 kept her face hidden his suspicions were aroused, and 
 then confirmed b3' Modeste's dress, which the lover's 
 eye now scanned and noted. He left the church with 
 the Latouvnelles and followed them at a distance to the 
 rue Royale, where he saw them enter a house accom- 
 panied by JModeste, whose custom it was to sta}- with 
 her friends till the hour of vespers. After examining 
 the little house, which was ornamented with scutcheons, 
 he asked the name of the owner, and was told that he 
 was Monsieur Latournelle, the chief notary in Havre. 
 As Ernest lounged along the rue Royale hoping for a 
 glimpse into the house, Modeste caught sight of him, 
 and thereupon declared herself far too ill to go to ves- 
 pers. Poor Ernest thus had his trouble for his pains. 
 He dared not wander about Ingouville ; moreover, he 
 made it a point of honor to obe}' orders, and he there- 
 fore went back to Paris, previously writing a letter 
 which Fran5oise CocTiet duly received on the morrow 
 with the Havre postmark. 
 
 It was the custom of Monsieur and Madame Latour- 
 nelle to dine at the Clialet every Sundaj' when they 
 brought back Modeste after vespers. So, as soon as 
 the invalid felt a little better, thej- started for Ingou- 
 ville, accompanied by Butscha. Once at home, the 
 happy Modeste forgot her pretended illness and her 
 disguise, and dressed herself charmingly, humming as 
 she came down to dinner, — 
 
 " Nought is sleeping — Heart ! awaking, 
 Lift thine incense to the skies." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 153 
 
 Butscha shiiddererl slightlj- when he caught sight of 
 her, so changed did she seem to him. The wings of 
 love were fastened to her shoulders ; she had the air' 
 of a nymph, a Psyche ; her cheeks glowed with the 
 diviue color of happiness. 
 
 " Who wrote the words to whicli you have put that 
 prettj- music? " asked lier mother.. 
 
 " Canalis, mamma," she answered, flushing ros}' red 
 from her throat to her forehead. 
 
 " Canalis ! " cried the dwarf, to whom the inflections 
 of tlie girl's voice and her blush told the only thing of 
 which he was still ignorant. " He, that great poet, 
 does he write songs? " 
 
 " Thej- are only simple verses," she said, " which I 
 have ventured to set to German airs." 
 
 " No, no," interrupted Madame Mignon, "the music 
 is your own, my daughtei;." 
 
 Modeste, feeling that she grew more and more crim- 
 son, went oH' into the garden, calling Butscha after her. 
 
 " You can do me a great service," she said. " Du- 
 may is keeping a secret from ni}- mother- and me as to 
 the fortune which my father is bringing back with him ; 
 and I want to know what it is. Did not Dumay send 
 papa when he first went awaj- over fi\e hundred thou- 
 sand francs? Yes. Well, papa is not tlie kind of man 
 to stay awa}- four years and onl^- double his capital. It 
 seems he is coming back on a ship of his own, and 
 Dumay's share amounts to almost six hundred thousand 
 francs." 
 
 " " There 's no need to question Dumay," said 
 Butscha. " Your father lost, as you know, about four 
 millions when he went awaj-, and he has doubtless 
 
154 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 recovered them. He would of course give Dumay ten 
 per cent of his profits ; the worthy man admitted the 
 other day how much it was, and mj' master and I think 
 that in that case the colonel's fortune must amount to 
 six or seven millions — " 
 
 " Oh, papa!" cried Modeste, crossing her hands on 
 her breast and looking up to heaven, " twice you have 
 given me life ! " 
 
 "Ah, mademoiselle!" said Butscha, " 3-ou love a 
 poet. That kind of man is more or less of a Narcissus. 
 Will he know how to lo\'e you? A phrase-maker, al- 
 ways bus}' in fitting words togetlier, must be a bore. 
 Mademoiselle, a poet is no uioic poetry than a seed is 
 a flower." 
 
 " Butscha, I never saw so handsome a man." 
 
 " Beaut}' is a veil which often serves to hide 
 imperfections." 
 
 " He has the most angelic heart of heaven — " 
 
 " I pray God 3'ou may be right," said the dwarf, clasp- 
 ing his hands, " — and happy! That man shall have, 
 as you have, a servant in Jean Butscha. I will not be 
 notary ; I shall give that up ; I shall study the sciences." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle, to train up your children, if 
 you will deign to make me their tutor. But, oh ! if 
 you would only listen to some advice. Let me take 
 up this matter; let me look into the life and habits of 
 this man, — find out if he is kind, or bad-tempered, or 
 gentle, if he commands the respect wliich you merit in 
 a husband, if he is able to love utterly, preferring j'ou' 
 to everything, even his own talent — " 
 
 " What does that signify if I love him?" 
 
Modeste Mignon. 155 
 
 " Ah, true ! " cried the dwarf. 
 
 At that instant Mudame Mignon was saj'ing to her 
 friends, — 
 
 " M3' daughter saw tlie man she loves this morning.'' 
 
 " Then it must have been that sulphur waistcoat 
 which puzzled yon so, Latournelle," said his wife. 
 ' ' The J'oung man had a prettv white rose in his 
 buttonhole." 
 
 "Ah ! " sighed the mother, "the sign of recognition." 
 
 "And he also wore the ribbon of an officer of the 
 Legion of honor. He is a charming j'oung man. But 
 we are all deceiving ourselves ; Modeste never raised 
 her veil, and her clothes were huddled on like a beg- 
 gar-woman's — " 
 
 " And she said she was ill," cried the notarj' ; " but 
 she has taken off her mufflings and is just as well as 
 she ever was. " 
 
 " It is incomprehensible ! " said Duma}'. 
 
 " Not at all," said the notarj' ; " it is now as clear 
 as day." 
 
 " M}- child," said Madame Mignon to Modeste, as 
 she came into the room, followed by Butscha, " did j'ou 
 see a well-dressed young man at church this morning, 
 with a white rose in his button-hole ? " ■ 
 
 " I saw him," said Butscha quickly, perceiving by 
 everybody's strained attention that Modeste was likely 
 to fall into a trap. " It was Grindot, the famous ar- 
 chitect, with whom the town is in treaty for the resto- 
 ration of the church. He has just come from Paris, 
 and I met him this morning examining the exterior as 
 I was on my waj' to Saintc-Adresse." 
 
 "Oh, an architect, was he? he puzzled me," said 
 
166 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Modeste, for whom Butscha had thus gained time to 
 recover lierself. 
 
 Duma}' looked askance at Butscha. Modeste, fully 
 warned, recovered her impenetrable composure. Du- 
 maj-'s distrust was now thoroughlj' aroused, and he 
 resolved to go to tiie major's office early in the morn- 
 ing and ascertain if the arcliitect had reall}' been in 
 Havre the previous da}'. Butscha, on the other hand, 
 was equall}' determined to go to Paris and find out 
 something about C'analis. 
 
 Gobenheira came to pla}' whist, and by his presence 
 sub[lued and compressed all this fermentation of feel- 
 ings. Modeste awaited her mother's bedtime with im- 
 patience. She intended to write, but never did so 
 except at night. Here is the letter which love dictated 
 to her while all the world was sleeping : — 
 
 To Monsieur de C ana lis, — Ah ! my friend, my 
 well-beloved ! What atrocious falsehoods those por- 
 traits in the shop-windows are ! And I, who made 
 that horrilile lithograph mj' joy ! — I am humbled 
 at the thought of loving one so handsome. No ; it is 
 impossible that those Parisian women are so stupid as 
 not to have seen their dreams fulfllled in you. You 
 neglected! you unloved! I do not believe a word of 
 all that you have written me about j'our lonely and 
 obscure life, your hunger for an idol, — sought in vain 
 until now. You have been too well loved, monsieur; 
 your brow, white and smootli as a magnolia leaf, re- 
 veals it ; and it is I who mast be neglected, — for who 
 am I? Ah! why have you called me to life? I felt 
 for a moment as though the heavy burden of the flesh 
 
Modeste Mignon. 157 
 
 was leaving me ; my soul had broken the crystal which 
 held it captive ; it pervaded my whole being ; the 
 cold silence of material things had ceased ; all things 
 in nature had a voice and spoke to mc. The old 
 church was luminous. Its arched roof, brilliant with 
 gold and azure like those of an Italian cathedral, 
 sparkled above mj- head. Melodies such as the angels 
 sang to martyrs, quieting their pains, sounded from 
 the organ. The rough pavements of H^ivre seemed 
 to \\\y feet a flowerj' mead ; tlie sea spoke to me with 
 ■ a voice of sympathy, like an old friend whom I had 
 never truly understood. I saw clearly how the roses in 
 my garden had long adored me and Ijidden me love ; 
 the}- lifted their heads and smiled as I came back from 
 church. I heard your name, '' Melchior," chiming in the 
 flower-bells ; I saw it written on the clouds. Yes, yes, 
 I live, I am living, thanks to thee, — vay poet, more 
 beautiful than that cold, conventional Lord Byron, 
 with a face as dull as the English climate. One glance 
 of thine, thine Orient glance, pierced through my 
 double veil and sent th^- blood to ray heart, and from 
 thence to my head and feet. Ah ! that is not the life 
 our mother gave us. A hurt to thee would hurt me 
 too at the very instant it was given, — my life exists 
 b}- thy thought onl}-. I know now the purpose of the 
 divine facultj- of music ; the angels in\ ented it to utter 
 love. Ah, my Melchior, to have genius and to have 
 beaut}- is too much ; a man should be made to choose 
 between them at his birth. 
 
 "When I think of Lhe treasures of tenderness and 
 affection which 3'ou have given me, and more especiallj- 
 for the last month, I ask myself if I dream. No, but 
 
158 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 you hide some mj-8ter3' ; what woman can yield you up 
 to me and not die? Ah ! jealousy has entered my heart 
 with love, — love in which I could not have believed. 
 How could I have imagined so mighty a conflagration? 
 And now — strange and inconceivable revulsion! — I 
 would rather you were ugl3'. 
 
 • What follies I committed after I came home ! The 
 3'ellow dahlias reminded me of 3-our waistcoat, the 
 white roses 'were my loving friends; I bowed to them 
 with a look that belonged to you, like all that is of me. 
 The ver3' color of the gloves, moulded to hands of a 
 gentleman, your step along the nave, — all, all, is so 
 printed on m3' memor3- that sixt3' years hence I shall 
 see the veriest trifles of this da3- of da3-s, — the color of 
 the atmosphere, the ray of sunshine tliat flickered on a 
 certain pillar ; I shall hear the prayer 3-our step inter- 
 rupted ; I shall inhale the incense of the altar ; forever 
 I shall feel above our heads the priestl3- hands that 
 blessed us both as you passed by me at the closing 
 benediction. The good Abbe Marcelin married us 
 then ! The happiness, above that of earth, which I 
 feel in this new world of unexpected emotions can only 
 be equalled by the joy of telling it to you, of sending 
 it back to him who poured it into my heart with the 
 lavishuess of the sun itself. No more veils, no more 
 disguises, my beloved. Come back to me, oh, come 
 back soon. With joy 1 now unmask. 
 
 You have no doubt heard of the house of Mignon in 
 Havre? Well, I am, through an irreparable misfortune, 
 its sole heiress. But you are not to look down upon 
 us, descendant of an Auvergne knight ; the arms 
 of the Mignon de La Bastie will do no dishonor to 
 
Modeste Mignon. 159 
 
 those of Canalis. "We bear gules, on a bend sable 
 four bezants or ; quarterly four crosses patriarchal or : 
 a cardinal's hat as crest, and the fiocchi for supports. 
 Dear, I will be faithful to our motto : Una fides, unus 
 Dominus ! — the true faith, and one onlj' Master. 
 
 Perhaps, my friend, you will find some iron}' in mj- 
 name, after all that I have done, and all that I herein 
 avow. I am named jModeste. Therefore I have not 
 deceived you by signing "O. d'Este M." Neither have I 
 misled you about our fortune ; it will amount, I believe, 
 to the sum which rendered you so virtuous. I know 
 that to 3'ou monej' is a consideration of small impor- 
 tance ; therefore I speak of it without reserve. Let me 
 tell vou how happj- it makes me to give freedom of 
 action to our happiness, — to be able to say, when 
 the fancy for travel takes us, " Come, let us go in 
 a comfortable carriage, sitting side by side, witliout a 
 thought of money " — happy, in short, to tell the king, 
 "I have the fortune which you require in your peers." 
 Thus Modeste Mignon can be of service to you, and 
 her gold will have the noblest of uses. 
 
 As to J our servant herself, — you did see her 
 once, at her window. Yes, " the fairest daughter of 
 Eve the fair " was indeed your unknown damozel ; but 
 how little the Modeste of to-day resembles her of that 
 long past era ! That one was in her shroud, this one — 
 have I made you know it? — lias received from you the 
 life of life. Love, pure, and sanctioned, the love my 
 father, now returning rich and prosperous, will author- 
 ize, has raised me with its powerful yet childlike hand 
 from the grave in which I slept. You have wakened 
 me as the sun wakens the flowers. The eyes of your 
 
160 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 beloved are no longer those of the little Modeste so 
 daring in her ignorance, — no, they are dimmed with 
 the sight of happiness, and the lids close over them. 
 To-daj' I tremble lest I can ne^•er deserve my fate. 
 The king has come in his glory ; vay lord has now a 
 subject who asks pardon for the liberties she has taken, 
 like the gambler with loaded dice after cheating Mon- 
 sieur de Grammont. 
 
 My cherished poet! I will be thy Mignon — happier 
 far than the Mignon of Goethe, for thou wilt leave me 
 in mine own land, — in thy heart. Just as I write this 
 pledge of our betrothal a nightingale in the Vilqnin 
 park answers for thee. Ah, tell me quick that his note, 
 so pure, so clear, so full, which fills my heart with joy 
 and love like an Annunciation, does not lie to me. 
 
 My father will pass through Paris on his way from 
 Marseilles ; the house of Mongenod, with whom he cor- 
 responds, will know his address. Go to him, niy Mel- 
 chior, tell him that you love me ; but do not tr^' to tell 
 him how I love j'ou, — let that be forever between our- 
 selves and God. I, my dear one, am about to tell 
 everything to my mother. Her heart will justif3' my 
 conduct ; she will rejoice in our secret poem, so roman- 
 tic, human and divine in one. 
 
 You have the confession of the daughter ; 3-ou must 
 now obtain the consent of the Comte de La Bastie, 
 father of your 
 
 Modeste. 
 
 P. S. — Above all, do not come to Havre without 
 having first obtained my father's consent. If you love 
 me you will not fail to find him on his way through 
 Paris. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 161 
 
 " What are you doing, up at this hour, Mademoiselle 
 Modeste?" said the voice of Duma} at her door. 
 
 "Writing to my father," she answered; "did 3'ou 
 not tell me you should start in the morning?" 
 
 Duma}' had nothing to say to that, and he went to 
 bed, while Modeste wrote another long letter, this time 
 to her father. 
 
 On the morrow, Fran9oise Coohet, terrified at seeing 
 the Havre postmark on the envelope which Ernest had 
 mailed the night before, brought her young mistress the 
 following letter and took away the one which Modeste 
 had written : — 
 
 To Mademoiselle O. d'Este M., — My heart tells 
 me that you were the woman so carefully veiled and 
 disguised, and seated between Monsieur and Madame 
 Latournelle, who have but one child, a son. Ah, iny 
 love, if you have only a modest station, without dis- 
 tinction, without importance, without mone}' even, you 
 do not know how happy that would make me. You 
 ought to understand me by this time ; why will you 
 not tell me the truth ? I am no poet, — except in 
 heart, through love, through you. Oh ! what power 
 of affection there is in me to keep me here in this hotel, 
 instead of mounting to Ingouville which I can see from 
 my windows. Will you ever love me as I love you? 
 To leave Havre in such uncertaintj' ! Am I not punished 
 for loving you as if I had committed a crime? But I 
 obey 3'ou blindl}'. Let me have a letter quicklj', for if you 
 have been mysterious, I have returned you mystery for 
 mysterj', and I must at last throw off' ra}' disguise, show 
 you the poet that I am, and abdicate my borrowed glory. 
 
 11 
 
162 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 This letter made Modeste terribly uneasj-. She 
 could not get back tlie one which FranQoise had car- 
 ried away before she came to tlie last words, whose 
 meaning she now sought by reading them again and 
 again ; but she went to her own room and wrote 
 an answer in which she deraanded an immediate 
 explanation. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 1 63 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MATTERS GROW COMPLICATED. 
 
 During these little events other little events were 
 going on in Havre, which caused Modeste to forget her 
 present uneasiness. Dumaj- went down to Havre earl^- 
 in the morning, and soon discovered that no architect 
 had been in town the Aa.\ before. B^iirious at Butscha's 
 lie, which revealed a conspiracy of which he was re- 
 solved to know the meaning, he rushed from the maj'or's 
 office to his friend Latournelle. 
 
 "Where's 3-our Master Butscha?" he demanded of 
 the notar}-, when he saw that the clerk was not in his 
 place. 
 
 ' ' Butscha, mj' dear fellow, has gone to Paris. He 
 heard some news of his father this morning on the 
 quays, from a Swedish sailor. It seems the father 
 went to the Indies and served a prince, or something, 
 and he is now in Paris." 
 
 "Lies! it's all a trick! infamous! I'll And that 
 damned cripple if I 've got to go express to Paris for 
 him," cried Dumay. "Butscha is deceiving us; he 
 knows something about Modeste, and hasn't told us. 
 If he meddles in this thing he shall never be a notary'. 
 I "^11 roll him in the mud from which he came, I '11 — " 
 
 " Come, come, my friend ; never hang a man before 
 30U try him," said Latournelle, frightened at Dumay's 
 rage. 
 
164 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 After stating the facts on which his suspicions were 
 founded, Dumay begged Madame Latournelle to go and 
 sta}' at the Chalet during his absence. 
 
 " You will find the colonel in Paris," said the notary. 
 " In the shipping news quoted this morning in the 
 Journal of Commerce, I found under the head of Mar- 
 seilles — here, see for yourself," he said, offering the 
 paper. " ' The Bettina Mignon, Captain Mignon, ar- 
 rived October 6 ; ' it is now the 17th, and the colonel 
 is sure to be in Paris." 
 
 Dumay requested Gobenheim to do without him in 
 future, and then went back to the Chalet, which he 
 reached just as Modeste was sealing her two letters, to 
 her father and Canalis. Except for the address the 
 letters were precisely alike both in weight and appear- 
 ance. Modeste thought she had laid that to her father 
 over that to her Melchior, but had, in fact, done ex- 
 actly the reverse. This mistake, so often made in the 
 little things of life, occasioned the discover}' of her se- 
 cret by Dumay and her mother. The former was talk- 
 ing vehemently- to Madame Mignon in the salon, and 
 revealing to her his fresh fears caused b}' Modeste's 
 duplicity and Butscha's connivance. 
 
 "Madame," he cried, "he is a serpent whom we 
 have warmed in our bosoms ; there 's no place in his 
 contorted little body for a soul ! " 
 
 Modeste put the letter for her father into the pocket 
 of her apron, supposing it to be that for Canalis, and 
 came downstairs with the letter for her lover in her 
 hand, to see Dumay before he started for Paris. 
 
 "What has happened to my Black Dwarf? why are 
 you talking so loud ! " she said, appearing at the door. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 165 
 
 " Mademoiselle, Butscha has gone to Paris, and 
 you, no doubt, know why, — to carry on that affair of 
 the little architect with the sulphur waistcoat, who, un- 
 luckil}- for the hunchback's lies, has never been here." 
 
 Modeste was struck dumb ; feeling sure that the 
 dwarf had departed on a mission of inquiry- as to her 
 poet's morals, she turned pale, and sat down. 
 
 "I'm going after him ; I shall And him," continued 
 Dumay. " Is that the letter for your father, made- 
 moiselle?" he added, holding out his hand. " I will 
 take it to the Mongenods. God grant the colonel and 
 I ma}^ not pass each other on the road." 
 
 Modeste ga\e him the letter. Dumay looked me- 
 chanically at the address. 
 
 " ' Monsieur le Baron de Canahs, rue de Paradis- 
 Poissonnifiro, No. 29'!" he cried out; "what does 
 that mean ? " 
 
 "Ah, my daughter! that is the man jou love," 
 exclaimed Madame Mignon ; " the stanzas 30U set to 
 music were his — " 
 
 "And that's his portrait that you have in a frame 
 upstairs," added Dumay. 
 
 "Give me back that letter. Monsieur Dumay," said 
 Modeste, erecting herself like a lioness defending hei 
 cubs. 
 
 " There it is, mademoiselle," he replied. 
 
 Modeste put it into the bosom of her dress, and gave 
 Dumay the one intended for her father. 
 
 "I know what jou are capable of, Dumay,'' she 
 said; "and if you take one step against Monsieur 
 de Canalis, I shall take another out of this house, to 
 which I will never return." 
 
166 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "You will kill yoiir mother, mademoiselle," replied 
 Duma}', wiio left the room and called his wife. 
 
 The poor mother was indeed half -fainting, — struck to 
 the heart by Modeste's words. 
 
 " Good-by, wife," said the Breton, kissing the 
 American. "Take care of the mother; I go to save 
 the daughter." 
 
 He made his preparations for the journey in a few 
 minutes, and started for Havre. An hour later he was 
 travelling post to Paris, with the haste that nothing 
 but passion or speculation can get out of wheels. 
 
 Recovering herself under Modeste's tender care, 
 Madame Mignon went up to her bedroom leaning on 
 the arm of her daughter, to whom she said, as her sole 
 reproach, when they were ajone : — 
 
 "My unfortunate child, see what you have done! 
 Wh}' did you conceal anything from me? Am I so 
 harsh?" 
 
 " Oh ! I was just going to tell it to you comfortably," 
 sobbed Modeste. 
 
 She thereupon related everj'thing to her mother, read 
 her the letters and their answers, and shed the rose of 
 her poem petal bj- petal into the heart of the kind Ger- 
 man woman. ^Vhen this confidence, which took half 
 the day, was over, when she saw something that was 
 almost a smile on the lips of the too indulgent mother, 
 Modeste fell upon her breast in tears. 
 
 "Oh, mother!" she said amid her sobs, "you, 
 whose heart, all gold and poetrj', is a chosen vessel, 
 chosen of God to hold a sacred love, a single and celes- 
 tial love that endures for life; you, whom I wish to 
 imitate by loving no one but my husband, — you will 
 
Modeste Mignon. 167 
 
 surely understand what bitter tears I am now shedding. 
 This butterflj', this Psj-che of m}- thoughts, this dual 
 soul which I have nurtured with maternal care, my love, 
 ni3' sacred love, this living mystery of mysteries — it 
 is about to fall into vulgar hands, and thev will tear its 
 diaphanous wings and rend its veil under the miserable 
 pretext of enlightening me, of discovering whether 
 genius is as prudent as a banker, whether \\\y Melchior 
 has saved his monej', or whether he has some entangle- 
 ment to shalvc off ; thej' want to find out if he is guilty 
 to bourgeois eyes of youthful indiscretions, — which 
 to the sun of our love are lilve tlie clouds of the dawn. 
 Oh! what will come of it? what will they do? See! 
 feel my hand, it burns with fever. Ah ! I shall never 
 survive it." 
 
 And Modeste, reall3' taken with a chill, was forced 
 to go to bed, causing serious uneasiness to her mother, 
 Madame Latournelle, and Madame Dumay, who took 
 good care of her during the journey of the lieutenant 
 to Paris, — to which cit}^ the logic of events compels 
 us to transport our drama for a moment. 
 
 Truly modest minds, like that of Ernest de La Briere, 
 but especially those who, knowing their own value, also 
 know that they are neither loved nor appreciated, can 
 understand the infinite joy to which the young secre- 
 tary abandoned himself on reading Modeste's letter. 
 Could it be that after thinking him lofty and witty in 
 soul, his young, his artless, his tricksome mistress now 
 thought him handsome? This flattery is the flattery- 
 supreme. And wh} ? Beauty is, undoubtedly, the sig- 
 nature of the master to the work into which he has put 
 his soul ; it is the divine spiiit manifested. And to see 
 
168 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 it where it is not, to create it by the power of an inward 
 look, — is not that the highest reach of love? And so 
 the poor youth cried aloud with all the rapture of an 
 applauded author, "At last I am beloved ! " When a 
 woman, be she maid, wife, or widow, lets the charming 
 words escape her, "Thou art handsome," the words 
 may be false, but the man opens his thick skull to their 
 subtle poison, and thenceforth he is attached by an 
 everlasting tie to the prett}' flatterer, the true or the 
 deceived judge ; she becomes his particular world, he 
 thirsts for her continual testimony, and he never wea- 
 ries of it, even if he is a crowned prince. Ernest 
 walked proudh' up and down his room ; he struck a 
 three-quarter, full-face, and profile attitude before the 
 glass ; he tried to criticise himself; but a voice, diabol- 
 ically persuasive, whispered to him, " Modeste is right." 
 He took up her letter and re-read it ; he saw his fairest 
 of the fair; he talked with her; then, in the midst of 
 his ecstac}-, a dreadful thought came to him : — 
 
 "She thinks me Canalis, and she has a million of 
 mone}- ! " 
 
 Down went his happiness, just as a somnambu- 
 list, having attained the peak of a roof, hears a voice, 
 awakes, and falls cruslied upon the pavement. 
 
 "Witiiout the halo of fame I shall be hideous in her 
 eyes," he ci'ied ; " what a maddening situation I have 
 put myself in ! " 
 
 La Briere was too much the man of his letters 
 which we have read, his heart was too noble and pure 
 to allow him to hesitate at tiie call of honor. He at 
 once resolved to find Modeste's father, if lie were in 
 Paris, and confess all to him, and to let Canalis know 
 
Modeste Mignon. 169 
 
 the serious results of their Parisian jest. To a sen- 
 sitive nature like his, Modeste's large fortune was in 
 itself a determining reason. He could not allow it to 
 be e\en suspected that the ardor of the correspondence, 
 so sincere ou his part, had in view the capture of a dot. 
 Tears were in his e_yes as he made his way to the rue 
 Chantereine to find the banker Mongenod, whose for- 
 tune and business connections were partlj- the work of 
 the minister to whom Ernest owed his start in life. 
 
 At the hour when La Briere was inquiring about the 
 father of his beloved from the head of the house of 
 Mongenod, and getting information that might be use- 
 ful to him in his strange position, a scene was tak- 
 ing place in Canalis's study which the ex-lieutenant's 
 hasty departure from Havre may have led the reader 
 to foresee. 
 
 Like a true soldier of the imperial school, Dumay, 
 whose Breton blood had boiled all the way to Paris, 
 considered a poet to be a poor stick of a fellow, of no 
 consequence wliatever, — a buffoon addicted to choruses, 
 living in a garret, dressed in black clothes that were 
 white at every seam, wearing boots that were occasion- 
 ally without soles, and linen that was unmentionable, 
 and whose fingers knew more about ink than soap ; in 
 short, one who looked always as if he had tumbled 
 from the moon, except when scribbling at a desk, like 
 Bntscha. But the seething of the Breton's heart and 
 brain received a violent application of cold water when 
 he entered the courtyard of the pretty house occupied 
 by the poet and saw a groom washing a carriage, and 
 also, througli tjie windows of a handsome dining-room, 
 a valet dressed like a banker, to whom the groom re- 
 
170 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 ferred him, and who answered, looking the stranger 
 over from head to foot, that Monsieur le baron was not 
 visible. "There is," added the man, "a meeting of 
 the council of state to-day, at which Monsieur le baron 
 is obliged to be present." 
 
 " Is this reallj- the house of Monsioiir Canalis," said 
 Dumaj', " a writer of 'poetry ? " 
 
 "Monsieur le baron de Canalis," replied the valet, 
 "is the great poet of whom you speak ; but he is also 
 the president of the court of Claims attached to the 
 ministry of foreign affairs." 
 
 Duma}-, who had come to box the ears of a scribbling 
 nobod}-, found himself confronted by a high functionary 
 of the state. The salon where he was told to wait 
 offered, as a topic for his meditations, the insignia of 
 the Legion of honor glittering on a black coat which 
 the valet had left upon a chair. Presentlj' his ej'es 
 were attracted by the beauty and brillianc}' of a silver- 
 gilt cup bearing the words " Given by Madame." 
 Then he beheld before him, on a pedestal, a Sevres 
 vase on which was engraved, " The gift of Madame la 
 Dauphine." 
 
 These mute admonitions brought Dumaj- to his senses 
 while the valet went to ask liis master if he would re- 
 ceive a person who had come from Havre expressly to 
 see him, — a stranger named Dumay. 
 
 " What sort of a man ? " asked Canalis. 
 
 "He is well-dressed, and wears the ribbon of the 
 Legion of honor." 
 
 Canalis made a sign of assent, and the valet re- 
 treated, and then returned and announced, "Monsieur 
 Dumav." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 171 
 
 When he heard himself announced, when he was ac- 
 tually in presence of Canalis, in a study as gorgeous as 
 it was elegant, with his feet on a carpet far handsomer 
 than any in the house of Mignon, and when he met the 
 studied glance of the poet who was playing witli the 
 tassels of a sumptuous dressing-gown, Duinay was so 
 completeh' taken abaclv that he allowed the great poet 
 to have the first word. 
 
 "To what do I owe the honor ofypur visit, monsieur?" 
 
 " Monsieur," began Dumaj-, who remained standing. 
 
 " If you have a good deal to say," interrupted Cana- 
 lis, " I must ask you to be seated." 
 
 And Canalis himself plunged into an armchair k la 
 Voltaire, crossed his -legs, raised the upper one to the 
 level of his eye and looked fixedly at Dumay, who be- 
 came, to use his own martial slang, " baj-onetted." 
 
 " I am listening, monsieur," said the poet ; " mj' time 
 is precious, — the ministers are expecting me." 
 
 "Monsieur," said Dumaj', "I shall be brief. You 
 have seduced — how, I do not know — a J'oung lad 3' in 
 Havre, young, beautiful, and rich ; the last and only 
 hope of two noble families ; and I have come to ask 
 j'our intentions." 
 
 Canalis, who had been busy during the last three 
 months with serious matters of his own, and was trying 
 to get himself made commander of the Legion of honor 
 and minister to a German court, had completely for- 
 gotten Modeste's letter. 
 
 " I ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " You ! " repeated Dumay. 
 
 "Monsieur," answered Canalis, smiling; "I know 
 no more of what you are talking about than if you had 
 
172 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 said it in Hebrew. I seduce a young girl! I, who 
 — " and a superb smile crossed his features. " ComeJ 
 come, monsieur, I 'm not such a child as to steal fruit 
 over the hedges when I have orchards and gardens of 
 my own where the finest peaches ripen. All Paris 
 knows where my affections are set. Verj' likelj' there 
 may be some young girl in Havre full of enthusiasm for 
 m}' verses, — of wliich thej- are not worthy ; that would 
 not surprise me at all ; nothing is more common. See ! 
 look at that lovely coffer of ebony inlaid with mother- 
 of-pearl, and edged with that iron-work as fine as lace. 
 That coft'er belonged to Pope Leo X., and was given to 
 me b^' the Duchesse de C'haulieu, who received it from 
 the king of Spain. I use it to hold the letters I receive 
 from ladies and young girls living iu everj' quarter of 
 Europe. Oh ! I assure you I feel the utmost respect 
 for these flowers of the soul, cut and sent in mo- 
 ments of enthusiasm that are worth}' of all reverence. 
 Yes, to me the impulse of a heart is a noble and sub- 
 lime thing ! Others — scoffers - — light their cigars with 
 such letters, or give them to their wives for curl-papers ; 
 but I, who am a bachelor, monsieur, I have too much 
 delicac}' not to preserve these artless offerings — so 
 fresh, so disinterested — in a tabernacle of their own. 
 In fact, I guard them with a species of veneration, and 
 at my death tlie}' will be burned before ray eyes. 
 People ma}' call that ridiculous, but I do not care. I 
 am grateful ; these proofs of devotion enable me to 
 bear the criticisms and annoyances of a literary life. 
 When I receive a shot in the back from some enemy 
 lurking under cover of a daily paper, I look at that 
 casket and think, — here and there in this wide world ' 
 
Modeste Mignon. 178 
 
 there are hearts whose wounds have been healed, or 
 soothed, or dressed by me ! " 
 
 This bit of poetr}', declaimed with all the talent of a 
 great actor, petrified the lieutenant, whose ej'es opened 
 to their utmost extent, and whose astonishment de- 
 lighted the poet. 
 
 " I will permit you," continued the peacock, spread- 
 ing his tail, " out of respect for your position, which I 
 fullj' appreciate, to open that coffer and look for the 
 letter of your young lady. Though I know I am right, 
 I remember names, and I assure you you are mistaken 
 in thinking — " 
 
 " And this is what a poor child comes to in this gulf 
 of Paris ! " cried Dumay, — " the darling of her parents, 
 the joj' of her friends, the hope of all, petted by all, the 
 pride of a family, who has six persons so devoted to 
 her that the}' would willinglj- make a rampart of their 
 lives and fortunes between her and sorrow. Mon- 
 sieur," Diimay resumed after a pause, " j'ou are a great 
 poet, and I am only a poor soldier. For fifteen years I 
 served mj- country in the ranks ; I liave had the wind 
 of manj' a bullet in my face ; I have crossed Siberia 
 and been a prisoner there ; the Eussians flung me on a 
 kibitka, and God knows what I sufiTered. I have seen 
 thousands of my comrades die, — but you, you have 
 given me a chill to the marrow of my bones, such as I 
 never felt before." 
 
 Dumay fancied that his words moved the poet, but in 
 fact thej- onlj' flattered him, — a thing which at this 
 period of his life had become almost an impossibility ; 
 for his ambitious mind had long forgotten the first per- 
 fumed phial that praise had broken over his head. 
 
174 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Ah, mj soldier ! " he said solemnl}-, laying his 
 hand on Duma3''s shoulder, and thinking to himself 
 how droll it was to nlake a soldier of the empire trem- 
 ble, " this J'oung girl may be all in all to you, but to 
 societj-at large what is she? nothing. At this moment 
 the greatest mandarin in China may be yielding up the 
 ghost and putting half the universe in mourning, and 
 what is that to 3'ou? The English are killing thou- 
 sands of people in India more wortliy than we are ; 
 wh}-, at this verj' moment while I am speaking to j'ou 
 some ravishing woman is being burned alive, — did 
 that make j-on care less for your cup of coffee this 
 morning at breakfast ? Not a da}' passes in Paris 
 that some mother in rags does not cast her infant on 
 the world to be picked up Iw whoever finds it ; and 
 yet see ! here Is this delicious tea in a cup that cost 
 five louis, and 1 write verses which Parisian women 
 rush to buy, exclaiming, ' Divine ! delicious ! charm- 
 ing ! food for the soul ! ' Social nature, like Nature 
 herself, is a great forgetter. You will be quite surprised 
 ten 3'ears hence at what j'ou have done to-day. You 
 are here in a city where people die. where they marr}', 
 where the}' adore each other at an assignation, where 
 young girls suffocate themselves, where the man of 
 genius with his cargo of thoughts teeming with humane 
 beneficence goes to the bottom, — all side b}' side, 
 sometimes under the same roof, and 3-et ignorant of 
 each other, ignorant and indifferent. And here 3'ou 
 come among us and ask us to* expire with grief at this 
 commonplace affair." 
 
 "You call yourself a poet!" cried Duma}-, "but 
 don't you feel what yon write ? " 
 
Modeste Mignon. 175 
 
 "Good heavens! if we endured the joys or the 
 woes we sing we should be as worn (jiit in three months 
 as a pair of old boots," said the poet, smiling. " But 
 stay, you shall not come from Havre to Paris to see 
 Canalis without canying something back with you. 
 Warrior ! [Canalis had the form and action of an 
 Homeric hero] learn this from the poet : Ever^- no- 
 ble sentiment in man is a poem so exclusively indi- 
 vidual that his nearest friend, his other self, cares 
 nothing for it. It is a treasure which is his alone, 
 it is — " 
 
 " Excuse me for interrupting you," said Dumaj', 
 who was gazing at the poet with horror, ' ' but did you 
 ever come to HaAie? "■ 
 
 " I was there for a day and a night in the spring of 
 1824 on my way to London." 
 
 " You are a man of honor," continued Dumay ; "will 
 you give me jour word that jou do not know Made- 
 moiselle Modeste Mignon? " 
 
 "This is the first time that name ever struck my 
 ear," replied Canalis. 
 
 "Ah, monsieur!" .said Duma}', "into what dark 
 intrigue am I about to plunge? Can I count upon you 
 to help me in mA' inquiries ? — for I am certain that some 
 one has been using 3'our name. You ought to have 
 had a letter yesterdaj- from Havre." 
 
 " I received none. Be sure, monsieur, that I will 
 help you," said Canalis, " so far as I have the oppor- 
 tunity of doing so." 
 
 Dumay withdrew, his heart torn with anxietj', be- 
 lieving that the wretched Butscha had worn the skin of 
 the poet to deceive Modeste ; whereas Butscha himself, 
 
176 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 keen-witted as a prince seeking revenge, and far 
 cleverer than any paid spj', was ferretting out tlie life 
 and actions of Canalis, escaping notice b}' his insig- 
 nificance, like an insect that bores its way into the sap 
 of a tree. 
 
 The Breton had scarcely left the poet's house when 
 La Brieve entered his friend's stud3\ Naturally, Canalis 
 told him of the visit of the man from Havre. 
 
 " Ha ! " said Ernest, " Modeste Mignon ; that is just 
 what I have come to speak of." 
 
 " Ah, bah ! " cried Canalis ; " have I had a triumph , 
 by proxy ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and here is the key to it. iMy friend, I am 
 loved by the sweetest girl in all the world, — beautiful 
 enough to shine beside the greatest beauties in Paris, 
 with a heart and mind worthy of Clarissa. She has 
 seen me ; I have pleased her, and she thinks me the 
 great Canalis. But that is not all. Modeste Mignon 
 is of high birth, and JMongenod has just told me that 
 her father, the Comte de La Bastie, has something 
 like six millions. The father is here now, and I have 
 asked him through IMongenod for an interview at two 
 o'clock. Mongenod is to give him a hint, just a 
 word, that it concerns the happiness of his daughter. 
 But you will readily understand that before seeing 
 the father I feel I ought to make a clean breast of 
 it to .you." 
 
 "Among the plants whose flowers bloom in the sun- 
 shine of fame," said Canalis, impressively, " there is 
 one, and the most magnificent, which bears like the 
 orange-tree a golden fruit amid the mingled perfumes 
 of beauty and of mind ; a lovely plant, a true tender- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 177 
 
 ness, a perfect bliss, and — it eliules mo." Canalis 
 looked at the carpet that Phnest might not read his 
 e^-es,. " Could I," he continued after a pause to regain 
 his self-possession, " how could I have divined that 
 flower from a prettj- sheet of perfumed paper, that true 
 heart, that \oung girl, that woman in whom love wears 
 the liver^y of flattery, who loves us for ourselves, who 
 offers us felicity? It needed an angel or a demon to 
 perceive her ; and what am I but the ambitious head of 
 a Court of Claims ! Ah, my friend, fame makes us the 
 target of a thousand arrows. One of us owes his rich 
 marriage to an hydraulic piece of poetry, while I, more 
 seductive, more a woman's man than he, have missed 
 mine, — for, do you love her, poor girl? " he said, look- 
 ing up at La Briere. 
 
 " Oh ! " ejaculated the joung man. 
 
 "Well then," said the poet, taking his secretarj-'s 
 arm and leaning heavilj- upon it, "be happ3-, Ernest. 
 By a mere accident I have been not ungrateful to 5'ou. 
 You are richly rewarded for your devotion, and I will 
 generously further j-our happiness." 
 
 Canalis was furious ; but he could not behave other- 
 wise than with proprietj-, and he made the best of his 
 disappointment by mounting it as a pedestal. 
 
 "Ah, Canalis, I have never reall}' known you till 
 this moment." 
 
 ' ' Did you expect to ? It takes some time to go 
 round the world," replied the poet with his pompous 
 irony. 
 
 "But think," said La Briere, "of this enormous 
 fortune." 
 
 "Ah, my friend, is it not well invested in you?" 
 12 
 
178 Modeste Migmn. 
 
 cried Canalis, accompan3'iiig the words with a charming 
 gesture. 
 
 "Melchior," said La Briere, " I am yours for life 
 and death." 
 
 He wrung the poet's hand and left him abruptly, for 
 he was in haste to meet Monsieur Mignon. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A FATHER STEPS IN. 
 
 The Comte de La Bastie was at this moment over- 
 whelmed with the sorrows which lay in wait for him 
 as their prey. He had learned from his daughter's 
 letter of Bettina's death and of his wife's infirmity, and 
 Dumay related to him, when they met, his terrible per- 
 plexity as to Modeste's love affairs. 
 
 " Leave me to myself," he said to his faithful friend. 
 
 As the lieutenant closed the door, the nnh;ip|iy father 
 threw himself on a sofa, with his head in his liands, 
 weeping those slow, scant}' tears which suffuse the eyes 
 of a man of sixty, but do not fall, — tears soon dried, 
 yet quick to start again, — the last dews of the human 
 autumn. 
 
 " To have children, to have a wife, to adore them — 
 what is it but to have manj- hearts and bare them to 
 a dagger?" be cried, springing up with the bound of a 
 tiger and walking up and down the room. '"To be a 
 father is to give one's self over, bound liand and foot to 
 sorrow. If I meet that D'Estourny I will kill him. To 
 have daughters ! — one gives her life to a scouiidrel, the 
 other, m^' Modeste, falls a victim to whom? a coward, 
 who deceives her with the gilded paper of a poet. If it 
 were Canalis himself it might not be so bad ; but that 
 Scapin of a lover ! — I will strangle him with my two 
 
180 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 hands," he cried, making an in^'ohlnta^y gesture of 
 furious determination. '• And what then? suppose my 
 Modeste were to die of grief? " 
 
 He gazed mechanically out of the windows of the 
 hotel des Princes, and then returned to the sofa, where 
 he sat motionless. The fatigues of six voyages to 
 India, the anxieties of speculation, the dangers he had 
 encountered and evaded, and his many griefs, had sil- 
 vered Charles Mignon's head. His handsome soldierly 
 face, so pure in outline and now bronzed by the suns of 
 China and the southern seas, had acquired an air of dig- 
 nit3- which his present grief rendered almost sublime. 
 
 " Mongenod told me he felt confidence in the j'oung 
 man who is coming to ask me for my daughter," he 
 thought at last ; and at this moment Ernest de ,La 
 Briere was announced by one of the servants whom 
 Monsieur de La Bastie had attached to himself during 
 the last four jxars. 
 
 "You have come, monsieur, from my friend Mon- 
 genod? " he said. 
 
 " Yes," replied Ernest, growing timfd when he saw 
 before him a face as sombre as Othello's. " My name 
 is Ernest de La Briere, related to the family of the late 
 cabinet minister, and his private secretary during his 
 term of office. On his dismissal, his Excellency put me 
 in the Court of Claims, to which I am legal counsel, 
 and where I niaj' possiblj' succeed as chief — " 
 
 " And how does all this concern Mademoiselle de La 
 Bastie ? " asked the count. 
 
 "Monsieur, I love her; and I have the unhoped-for 
 happiness of being loved by her. Hear me, monsieur," 
 cried Ernest, checking a violent movement on the part 
 
Modeste Mignon. 181 
 
 of the angry father. " I have the strangest confession 
 to make to you, a shameful one for a man of honor; 
 but the worst punishment of my conduct, natural enough 
 in itself, is not the telling of it to j'ou ; no, I fear the 
 daughter even more than the father." 
 
 Ernest then related simply, and with the nobleness 
 that comes of sincerity', all the facts of his little drama, 
 not omitting the twent}' or more letters, which he had 
 brought with him, nor the interview which he had just 
 had with Canalis. When Monsieur Mignon had finished 
 reading the letters, the unfortunate lever, pale and 
 suppliant, actually trembled under the fiery glance of 
 the Provencal. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the latter, "in this whole matter 
 there is but one error, but that is cardinal. My 
 daughter will not have six millions ; at the utmost, she 
 will have a marriage portion of two hundred thousand 
 francs, and very doubtful expectations." 
 
 "Ah, monsieur!" cried Ernest, rising and grasping 
 Monsieur Mignon's hand; " you take a load from my 
 breast. Nothing can now hinder my happiness. I- 
 have friends, influence ; I shall certainly be chief of the 
 Court of Claims. Had Mademoiselle Modeste no more 
 than ten thousand francs, if I had even to make a 
 settlement on her, she should still be my wife ; and to 
 make her happy as you, monsieur, have made jour wife 
 happy, to be to you a real son (for I have no father), 
 are the deepest desires of my heart." 
 
 Charles Mignon stepped back three paces and fixed 
 upon La Briere a look which entered the eyes of the 
 young man as a dagger enters its sheath ; he stood 
 silent a moment, recognizing the absolute candor, the 
 
182 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 pure truthfulness of that open nature in the light of the 
 young man's inspired eyes. " Is fate at last weary of 
 pursuing me?" he asked himself. "Am I to find in 
 this young man the pearl of sons-in-law? " He walked 
 up and down the room in strong agitation. 
 
 " Monsieur,'' he said at last, " you are bound to sub- 
 mit wholly to the judgment which yon have come here 
 to seek, otherwise you are now playing a farce." 
 
 ' ' Oh, monsieur ! " 
 
 "Listen to me," said the father, nailing La Briere 
 where he stood with a glance. " I shall be neither 
 harsh, nor hard, nor unjust. You shall- have the ad- 
 vantages and the disadvantages of the false position in 
 which you have placed yourself. My daughter believes 
 that she loves one of the great poets of the day, whose 
 fame is really that which has attracted her. Well, I, 
 . her father, intend to give her the opportunit3' to choose 
 between the celebrit}' which has been a beacon to her, 
 and the poor realit}- which the iron}- of fate has flung at 
 her feet. Ought she not to choose between Canahs and 
 j'ourself ? I relj' upon your honor not to repeat what I 
 have told you as to the state of my affairs. You may 
 each come, I mean you and j'our friend the Baron de 
 Canalis, to Havre for the last two weeks of October. 
 Mj' house will be open to both of you, and my daughter 
 shall have an opportunitj' to studj- you. Y'ou must 
 yourself bring your rival, and not disabuse him as to 
 the foolish tales he will hear about the wealth of the 
 Comte de La Bastie. I go to Havre to-morrow, and I 
 shall expect you three da3-s later. Adieu, monsieur." 
 
 Poor La Briere went back to Canalis with a dragging 
 step. The poet, meantime, left to himself, had given 
 
Modeste Mignon. 183 
 
 way to a current of thought out of which had come that 
 secondary' impulse which Monsieur de Talleyrand val- 
 ued so much. The first impulse is the voice of nature, 
 the second that of societ}'. 
 
 " A girl worth six millions," he thought to himself, 
 " and my eyes were not able to see that gold shining 
 in the darkness ! With such a fortune I could be peer 
 of France, count, marquis, ambassador. 1 've replied 
 to middle-class women and silly women, and crafty 
 creatures \\ ho wanted autographs ; I 've tired myself to 
 death with masked-ball intrigues, — at the very moment 
 when God was sending me a soul of price, an angel with 
 golden wings ! Bah I I '11 make a poem on it, and per- 
 haps the chance will come again. Heavens! the luck 
 of that little La Briere, — strutting about in my lustre 
 — plagiarism I I'm the cast and he 's to be the statue, 
 is he? It is the old fable of Bertrand and Raton. Six 
 millions, a beauty, a Mignon de La Bastie, an aris- 
 tocratic divinity loving poetry and the poet ! And I, 
 who showed m}- muscle as man of the world, who did 
 those Alcide exercises to silence b}- moral force the 
 champion of phj-sical force, that old soldier with a 
 heart, that friend of this very young girl, whom he '11 
 now go and tell that I have a heart of iron ! — I, to play 
 Napoleon when I ought to have been seraphic ! Good 
 heavens ! True, I shall have my friend. Friendship 
 is a beautiful thing. I have kept him, but at what a 
 price ! Six millions, that 's the cost of it ; we can't 
 have many friends if we pay all that for them." 
 
 La Briere entered the room as Canalis reached 
 this point in his meditations. He was gloom per- 
 sonified. 
 
184 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Well, what's the matter?" said Canalis. 
 
 "The father exacts that his daughter shall choose 
 between the two Canalis — " 
 
 "Poor boy!" cried the poet, laughing, "he's a 
 clever fellow, that father." 
 
 " I have pledged m\' honor that 1 will take j'ou to 
 Havre," said La Briere, piteously. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Canalis, " if it is a question 
 of your honor you raaj' count on me. I '11 ask for 
 leave of absence for a month." 
 
 " Modeste is so beautiful ! " exclaimed La Briere, in 
 a despairing tone. " You will crush me out of sight. I 
 wondered all along that fate should be so kind to me ; 
 I knew it was all a mistake.'' 
 
 " Bah ! we will see about that," said Canalis with 
 inhuman gaj-etj-. 
 
 That evening, after dinner, Charles Mignon and Du- 
 may, were flying, b}' virtue of three francs to each 
 postilion, from Paris to Havre. The father had eased 
 the watch-dog's mind as to Modeste and her love af- 
 fairs ; the guard was relieved, and Butscba's innocence 
 established. 
 
 "It is all for the best, my old Dumay," said the 
 count, who had been making certain inquiries of Mon- 
 genod respecting Canalis and La Briere. " We are go- 
 ing to have two actors for one part ! " he cried gayh'. 
 
 Nevertheless, he requested his old comrade to be 
 absolutely silent about the comedj' which was now to 
 be pla^-ed at the Chalet, — a comedy it might be, but 
 also a gentle punishment, or, if you prefer it, a lesson 
 given by the father to the daughter. 
 
 The two friends kept up a long conversation all the 
 
" Only a father's joy at returning after long absence 
 could be heralded with such clatter." 
 
■«*. _w. 
 
 
 -fc^ 
 
 '^2!2F 
 
 ■op^.Tl^.;,! .f,oR h'. Rett-.!. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 185_ 
 
 waj- from Paris to Havre, which put the colonel in pos- 
 session of the facts relating to his famil}- during the 
 past four years, and informed Dumay that Desplein, 
 the great surgeon, was coming to Havre at the end 
 of tiie present month to examine the cataract on Ma- 
 dame Mignon's eyes, and decide if it were possilile to 
 restore her sight. 
 
 A few moments before the breakfast-hour at the 
 Chalet, tlic clacking of a postilion's whip apprised the 
 family that the two soldiers were arriving ; onh- a fa- 
 ther's jo}' at returning after long absence could be her- 
 alded with such clatter, and it brought all the women 
 to the garden gate. There is many a father and manj- 
 a child — perhaps moi'e fathers than children — who 
 will understand the delights of such an arrival, and 
 that' happ3' fact shows that literature has no need to 
 depict it. Perhaps all gentle and tender emotions are 
 beyond the range of literature. 
 
 Not a word that could trouble the peace of the fam- 
 ily was uttered on this J03'ful day. Truce was tacitly 
 established between father, mother, and child as to the 
 so-called mj'sterious love which had paled Modeste's 
 cheeks, — for this was the first day she had left her 
 bed since Dumaj-'s departure for Paris. The colonel, 
 with the charming delicacy of a true soldier, never left 
 his wife's side nor released her hand ; but he watched 
 Modeste with delight, and was never weary of noting 
 her refined, elegant, and poetic beaut}'. Is it not by 
 such seeming trifles that we recognize a man of feeling? 
 Modeste, who feared to interrupt the subdued joy of 
 the husband and wife kept at a little distance, coming 
 from time to time to kiss her father's forehead, and 
 
186 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 when she kissed It overmuch she seemed to mean that 
 she was kissing it for two, — for Bettina and herself. 
 
 " Oh, mj' darling, I understand j-ou," said the colonel, 
 pressing her hand as she assailed him with kisses. 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered the .young girl, glancing at her 
 mother. 
 
 Dumay's rather sl^' and pregnant silence made Mo- 
 deste somewhat uneasy as to the upshot of his journey 
 to Paris. She looked at him furtively everj' now and 
 then, witliout lieing able to get beneath his epidermis. 
 The colonel, like a prudent father, wanted to study the 
 character of his only daughter, aud above all consult 
 his wife, before entering on a conference upon which the 
 happiness of the whole family depended. 
 
 "To-morrow, my precious child," he said as they 
 parted for the night, " get up early, and we will go 
 and take a walk on the seashore. We have to talk 
 about your poems. Mademoiselle de La Bastie." 
 
 His last words, accompanied hy a smile, which reap- 
 peared like an echo on Dumay's lips, were all that gave 
 Modeste anj' clew to what was coming ; but it was 
 enough to calm her uneasiness and keep her awake far 
 into the night with her head full of suppositions ; this, 
 however, did not prevent her from being dressed and 
 readj' in the morning long before tiie colonel. 
 
 "You know all, my kind papa?" she said as soon 
 as they were on the I'oad to tlie beach. 
 
 " I know all, and a good deal more than you do," he 
 replied. 
 
 After that remark father aud daughter went some 
 little way in silence. 
 
 "Explain to me, my child, how it happens that a 
 
Modeste Mignon. 187 
 
 girl whom her mother idolizes could have taken such an 
 important step as to write to a stranger without con- 
 sulting her." 
 
 "Oh, papa! because mamma would never have al- 
 lowed it." 
 
 " And do j'ou think, my daughter, that that was 
 proper? Thongli you have been educating your mind 
 in this fatal way, how is it that jour good sense and 
 your intellect did not, in default of modesty, step in 
 and show you that bj- acting as j-ou did you were 
 throwing yourself at a man's head. To think that my 
 daughter, m.j only remaining child, should laclc pride 
 and delicacj' ! Oh, Modeste, you made your father 
 pass two hours in hell when he heard of it ; for, after 
 all, j'our conduct has been the same morallj- as Bet- 
 tina's without the excuse of the heart's seduction ; j'ou 
 were a coquette in cold blood, and that sort of coquetry 
 is head-love, the worst vice of Frencli women." 
 
 " I, without pride!" said Modeste, weeping; "but 
 he has not j'et seen me." 
 
 " He knows j'our name." 
 
 " I did not tell it to him till my eyes had vindicated 
 the correspondence, lasting three months, during which 
 our souls had spolten to each other. '' 
 
 "Oh, my dear misguided angel, you have mixed up 
 a species of reason with a folly that lias compromised 
 your own happiness and that of your family." 
 
 " But, after all, papa, happiness is the absolution of 
 my temeritj'," she said, pouting. 
 
 " Oh ! j-our conduct is temerity, is it? " 
 
 " A temerity that my mother practised before me," 
 she retorted quicklj". 
 
188 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 ' ' Rebellious child ! 3-our mother after seeing me at a 
 ball told her father, who adored her, that she thought she 
 could be happy with me. Be honest, Modeste ; is there 
 an}' likeness between a love hastily conceived, I admit, 
 but under the eyes of a father, and j'our mad action of 
 writing to a stranger?" 
 
 "A stranger, papa? saj^ rather one of our greatest 
 poets, whose cliaraeter and whose life are exposed to 
 the strongest light of day, to detraction, to calumny, — 
 a man robed in fame, and to whom, mj' dear father, I 
 was a mere literarj' and dramatic personage, one of 
 Shakspeare's women, until the moment when I wished 
 to know if the man liimself were as beautiful as his 
 soul." 
 
 "Good God! m}' poor child, j'ou are turning mar- 
 riage into poetry. But if, from time immemorial, girls 
 have been cloistered in the bosom of their families, if 
 God, if social laws put them under the stern yoke of 
 parental sanction, it is, mark mj' words, to spare them 
 the misfortunes that this very poetry which ehai'ms 
 and dazzles you, and which you are therefore un- 
 able to judge of, would entail upon them. Poetry is 
 indeed one of the pleasures of life, but it is not life 
 itself." 
 
 " Papa, that is a suit still pending before the Court 
 of Facts ; the struggle is forever going on between our 
 hearts and the claims of family." 
 
 "Alas for the child that finds her happiness in re- 
 sisting them," said the colonel, gravely. " In 1813 I 
 saw one of my comrades, the Marquis d'Aiglemont, 
 marry his cousin against the wishes of her father, and 
 the pair have since paid dear for the obstinac}' which 
 
Modeste Mignon. 189 
 
 the young girl took for love. The family must be 
 sovereign in marriage." 
 
 " My poet has told me all that," she answered. " He 
 played Orgon for some time ; and he was brave enough 
 to disparage the personal lives of poets." 
 
 " I have read your letters," said Charles Mignon, 
 with the fliclcer of a malicious smile on his lips that 
 made Modeste ver^- uneasy, "and I ought to remark 
 that your last epistle was scarcelj- permissible in anj- 
 woman, even a Julie d'Etanges. Good God ! what 
 harm novels do ! " 
 
 " We should live them, ni}' dear father, whether 
 people wrote them or not ; I think it is better to read 
 them. There are not so manj' adventures in these days 
 as there were under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and 
 so they publish fewer novels. Besides, if you have 
 read those letters, }'ou must know that I have chosen 
 the most angelic soul, the most sternl3' upright man for 
 3'our son-in-law, and jou must have seen that we love 
 one another at least as much as you and mamma love 
 each other. Well, I admit that it was not all exacth' 
 conventional ; I did, if you will have me say so, 
 wrong — " 
 
 " I have read your letters," said her father, interrupt- 
 ing her, "and I know exactly how far your lover jus- 
 tified 3'ou in j-our own eyes for a proceeding which 
 might be permissible in some woman who understood 
 life, and who was led away by strong passion, but 
 which in a J'oung girl of twentj' was a monstrous piece 
 of wrong-doing." 
 
 " Yes, wrong-doing for commonplace people, for the 
 narrow-minded Gobenheims, who measure life with a 
 
190 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 square rule. Please let us keep, lo the artistic and 
 poetic life, paj^a. We young girls have only two ways 
 to act ; we must let a man know we love him b}- 
 mincing and simpering, or we must go to him franklj*. 
 Is n't the last way grand and noble ? We French girls 
 are delivered over by our families like so much mer- 
 chandise, at sixt}' days' sight, sometimes thirty, like 
 Mademoiselle Vilqniu ; but in England, and Switzerland, 
 and German}-, they follow verj- much the plan I have 
 adopted. Now what have you got to say to that? Am 
 I not half German ? " 
 
 "Child!" cried the colonel, looking at her; "the 
 supremacy of France comes from her sound common- 
 sense, from the logic to which her noble language con- 
 strains her mind. France is the reason of the whole 
 world. England and Germanj- are romantic in their 
 marriage customs, — though even there noble families 
 follow our customs. You certainly do not mean to 
 deny that your parents, who know life, who are respon- 
 sible for your soul and for your happiness, have no 
 right to guard yon from the stumbling-blocks that are 
 in 5-our way ? Good heavens ! " he continued, speaking 
 half to himself, "is it their fault, or is it ours? Ought 
 we to hold our children under an iron yoke? Must we 
 be punished for the tenderness that leads ns to make 
 them happy, and teaches our hearts how to do so ? " 
 
 Modeste watched her father out of the corner of her 
 e3'e as she listened to this species of invocation, uttered 
 in a broken voice. 
 
 "Was. it wrong," she said, "in a girl whose heart 
 was free, to choose for her husband not only a charm- 
 ing companion, but a man of noble genius, born to an 
 
Modeste Mignon. 191 
 
 honorable position, a gentleman ; the equal of myself, 
 a gentlewoman ? " 
 
 '' You love him? " asktd her father. 
 
 '• Father ! " she said, laying her head upon his breast, 
 " would }ou see me die? " 
 
 •' Enough ! " said the old soldier. " I see j'our love 
 is inextinguishable." 
 
 " Yes, inextinguishable." 
 
 " Can nothing change it? " 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " No circumstances, no treachery, no betraj'al? You 
 mean that 3 on will love him in spite of everything, 
 because of his personal attractions? Even though he 
 proved a D'Estournj', would you love him still?" 
 
 "Oh, my father! j-ou do not know your daughter. 
 Could I love a coward, a man without honor, without 
 faith ? " 
 
 " But suppose he had deceived you?" 
 
 "He? that honest, candid soul, half melancholy? 
 You are joliing, father, or else you have never met 
 him." 
 
 " But you see now that your love is not inextinguish- 
 able, as you chose to call it. I have already made you 
 admit that circumstances could alter yoiw poem ; don't 
 you now see that fathers are good for something ? " 
 
 "You want to give me a lecture, papa; it is posi- 
 tively I'Ami des Enfants over again." 
 
 " Poor deceived girl," said her father, sternly ; " it is 
 no lecture of mine, I count for nothing in it ; indeed, 
 I am only trying to soften the blow." 
 
 "Father, don't play tricks with my life," exclaimed 
 Modeste, turning pale. 
 
192 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Then, my daughter, summon all your courage. It 
 is you who have beeii playing tricks with your life, and 
 life is now tricking you." 
 
 Modeste looked at her father in stupid amazement. 
 
 "Suppose that young man whom you love, whom 
 you saw four days ago at church in Havre, was a 
 deceiver?" 
 
 "Never!" she cried; "that noble head, that pale 
 face full of poetry — " 
 
 " — was a lie," said the colonel interrupting her. 
 "He was no more Monsieur de Canalis than I am 
 that sailor over there putting out to sea." 
 
 "Do 30U know what you are killing in me?" she 
 said in a low voice. 
 
 "Comfort 3'ourself, my child; though accident has 
 put the punishment of your fault into the fault itself, 
 the harm done is not irreparable. The j'oung man 
 whom you have seen, and with whom j'ou exchanged 
 hearts by correspondence, is a loyal and honorable 
 fellow ; he came to me and confided everything. He 
 loves }'ou, and I have no objection to him as a son-in- 
 law." 
 
 " If he is not Canalis, who is he then ? " said Mode-ste 
 in a changed voice. 
 
 "The secretary; his name is Ernest de La Briere. 
 He is not a nobleman ; but he is one of those plain men 
 with fixed principles and sound morality who satisfy 
 parents. However, that is not the point ; yon have 
 seen him and nothing can change j'our heart ; you 
 have chosen him, you comprehend his soul, it is as 
 beautiful as he himself." 
 
 The count was interrupted b^- a heav}' sigh from 
 
Modeste Mignon. 193 
 
 Modeste. The poor girl sat with her eyes fixed on the 
 sea, pale and rigid as death, as if a pistol shot had 
 struck her in those fatal words, a plain man, with 
 fixed principles and sound morality. 
 
 ' ' Deceived ! " she said at last. 
 
 " Like j-Qur poor sister, but less fatally." 
 
 " Let us go home, father," she said, rising from the 
 hillock on which the}' were sitting. ' ' Papa, hear me, 
 I swear before God to obej' j'our wishes, whatever they 
 may be", in the affair of my marriage." 
 
 "Then you don't love him any longer?" asked her 
 father. 
 
 "I loved an honest man, with no falsehood on his 
 face, upright as yourself, incapable of disguising himself 
 like an actor, with the paint of another man's glorj' on 
 his cheeks." 
 
 " You said nothing could change you ; " remarked the 
 Colonel, ironically. 
 
 " Ah, do not trifle with me ! " she exclaimed, clasping 
 her hands and looking at her father in distressful anx- 
 iety ; "don't you see that you are wringing my heart 
 and destroying raj* beliefs with your jokes." 
 
 " God forbid ! I have told j'ou the exact truth." 
 
 " You are very kind, father," she said after a pause, 
 and with a sort of solemnit}-. 
 
 "He has kept j'our letters," resumed the colonel; 
 " now suppose the rash caresses of j-our soul had fallen 
 into the hands of one of those poets who, as Dumay 
 says, light their cigars with them?" , 
 
 " Oh ! — jou are going too far." 
 
 " Canalis told him so." 
 
 " Has Dumay seen Canalis? " 
 13 
 
194 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Yes," answered her father. 
 
 The two walked along in silence. 
 
 " So this is why that gentleman," resumed Modeste, 
 " told me so much harm of poets and poetrj' ; no won- 
 der the httle secretarj' said — Why," she added, inter- 
 rupting herself, " his virtues, his noble qualities, liis 
 fine sentiments are nothing but an epistolai'y theft ! 
 The man who steals glor3' and a name may very 
 likely—" 
 
 " — break locks, steal purses, and cut 'people's 
 throats on the highway," cried the colonel. "Ah, 
 you 3'oung girls, that 's just like you, — with your per- 
 emptory opinions and j'our ignorance of life. A man 
 who once deceives a woman was born under the scaffold 
 on which he ought to die." 
 
 This ridicule stopped Modeste's effervescence for a 
 moment at least, and again there was silence. 
 
 " Mj' child," said the colonel, presently, "men in 
 societ}', as in nature everywhere, are made to win the 
 hearts of women, and women must defend themselves. 
 You have chosen to invert the parts. Was that wise? 
 Everything is false in a false position. The first 
 wrong-doing was yours. No, a man is not a monster 
 because he seeks to please a woman ; it is our right to 
 win her Ijj- aggression with all its consequences, short 
 of crime and cowardice. A man maj' have many vir- 
 tues even if he does deceive a woman ; if he deceives 
 her, it is because he finds her wanting in some of the 
 treasures that he sought in her. None but a queen, an 
 actress, or a woman placed so far above a man that she 
 seems to him a queen, can go to him of herself without 
 incurring blame — and for a j'oung girl to do it ! Why, 
 
Modeste Mignoyi. 193 
 
 she is false to all that God has given her that is sacred 
 and lovelj- aud noble, — no matter with what grace or 
 what poetry or what precautions she surrounds her 
 fault." 
 
 "To seek the master and find the servant!" she 
 said bitterh", " oh ! I can never recover from it ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! Monsieur Ernest de La Briere is, to 
 mj' thinking, fully the equal of the Baron de Canalis. 
 He was private secretary of a cabinet minister, and he 
 is now counsel for the Court of Claims ; he has a heart, 
 and he adores you, but — he does not write verses. 
 No, I admit, he is not a poet ; but for all that he may 
 have a heart full of poetr}'. At anj- rate, mj* dear 
 girl,'; added her father, as Modeste made a gesture of 
 disgust, "you are to see both of them, the sham and 
 the true Canalis — " 
 
 " Oh, papa ! — " 
 
 " Did you not swear just now to obey me in ever}'- 
 thing, even in the affair of your marriage? Well, I 
 allow j'ou to choose which of the two you like best for 
 a husband. You have begun by a poem, you shall 
 finish with a bucolic, and tr3' if 30U can discover the 
 real character of these gentlemen here, in the country, 
 on a few hunting or fishing excursions." 
 
 Modeste bowed her head and walked home with her 
 father, listening to what he said but replying only in 
 monosyllables. 
 
196 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 CHAPTER XVr. 
 
 DISENCHANTED. 
 
 The poor girl had fallen humiliated from the alp she 
 had scaled in search of her eagle's nest, into the mud 
 of the swamp below, where (to use the poetic language 
 of an author of our daj') " after feeling the soles oi 
 her feet too tender to tread the broken glass of realit3". 
 Imagination — which in that delicate bosom united, the 
 whole of womanhood, from the A'iolet-hidden reveries 
 of a chaste young girl to the passionate desires of the 
 sex — had led her into enchanted gardens where, 
 oh, bitter sight ! she now saw, springing from the 
 ground, not the sublime flower of her fancy, but the 
 hairj-, twisted limbs of the black mandragora." Mo- 
 deste suddenly found herself brought down from the 
 mj'stic heights of her \o\e to a straight, flat road bor- 
 dered with ditches, — in short the work-day path of 
 common life. What ardent, aspiring" soul would not 
 have been bruised and broken by such a fall? Whose 
 feet were these at which she had shed her thoughts? 
 The Modeste who re-entered the Chalet was no more 
 the Modeste who had left it two hours earlier than an 
 actress in the street is like an actress on the boards. 
 She fell into a state of numb depression that was piti- 
 ful to see. The sun was darkened, nature veiled itself, 
 even the flowers no longer spoke to her. Like all 
 
Modeste Mignon. 197 
 
 young girls with a tendency to extremes, she drank too 
 deeply of the cup of disillusion. She fought against 
 reality, and would not bend her neck to the yoke of 
 family and conventions ; it was, she felt, too heavj-, too 
 hard, too crushing. She would not listen to the conso- 
 lations of her father and mother, and tasted a sort of 
 savage pleasure in letting her soul suffer to the utmost. 
 
 " Poor Butscha was right/' she said one evening. 
 
 The words indicate the distance she travelled in 
 a short space of time and in gloomy sadness across the 
 barren plain of reality. Sadness, when caused by the 
 overgrowth of hope, is a disease, — sometimes a fatal 
 One. It would be no mean object for physiology to 
 search out in what ways and by what means Thought 
 produces the same internal disorganization as poison ; 
 and how it is that despair affects the appetite, destroj's 
 the p3'lorus, and changes all the physical conditions of 
 the strongest life. Such was the case with Modeste. 
 In three short da^-s she became the image of morbid 
 melancholy ; she did not sing, she could not be made to 
 smile. Charles Mignon, becoming uneasy at the non- 
 arrival of the two friends, thought of going to fetch 
 them, when, on the evening of the fifth day, he received 
 news of their movements through Latournelle. 
 
 Canalis, excessively' delighted at the idea of a rich 
 marriage, was determined to neglect nothing that might 
 help him to cut out La Briere, without, however, giv- 
 ing La Briere a 'chance to reproach him for having 
 violated the laws of friendship. The poet felt that 
 nothing would lower a lover so much in the eyes of a 
 young girl as to exhibit him in a subordinate position ; 
 and he therefore proposed to La Briere, in the most 
 
198 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 natural raaniier, to take a little country-house at In- 
 gouville for a month, and live there together on pre- 
 tence of requiring sea-air. As soon as La Briere, who 
 at first saw nothing amiss in the proposal, had con- 
 sented, Canaiis declared that he should pay all ex- 
 penses, and he sent his valet to Havre, telling him to 
 see Monsieur Latournelle and get his assistance in 
 choosing tlie house, — well aware that the notary would 
 repeat all particulars to the Mignons. Ernest and 
 Canaiis had, as may well be supposed, talked over all 
 the aspects of the affair, and the rather prolix Ernest 
 had given a good man^- useful hints to his rival. The 
 \alet, understanding his master's wishes, fulfilled them 
 to the letter ; he trumpeted the arrival of the great 
 poet, for whom the doctors advised sea-air to restore 
 his health, injured as it was by the double -toils of lit- 
 erature and politics. This important personage wanted 
 a house, which must have at least such and such a 
 number of rooms, as he would bring with him a secre- 
 tary', cook, two servants, and a coachman, not counting 
 himself, Germain Bonnet, the valet. The carriage, 
 selected and hired I'or a month by Canaiis, was a pretty 
 one ; and Germain set about finding a pair of fine 
 horses which would also answer as saddle-horses, — for, 
 as he said, monsieur le baron and his secretary took 
 horseback exercise. Under the eyes of little Latour- 
 nelle, who went with him to various houses, Germain 
 made a good deal of talk about the secretary, rejecting 
 two or three because there was no suitable room for 
 Monsieur de La Briere. 
 
 " Monsieur le baron," he said to the notary, " makes 
 his secretary quite his best friend. Ah ! I should be 
 
Modeste Mignon. 199 
 
 well scolded if Monsieur de La Briere were not as well 
 treated as monsieur le baron himself; and after all, 
 you know, Monsieur de La Briere is a lawyer in n;}- 
 master's court." 
 
 Germain never appeared in public unless punctil- 
 iously dressed in black, with spotless gloves, well- 
 polished boots, and otherwise as well apparelled as a 
 lawyer. Imagine the effect he produced in Havre, and 
 the idea people took of the great poet from this sample 
 of him ! The valet of a man of wit and intellect ends 
 b}' getting a little wit and intellect himself which has 
 rubbed off from his master. Germain did not overplay 
 his part; he was simple and good-lmraored, as Canalis 
 had instructed him to be. Poor La Briere was in bliss- 
 ful ignorance of the harm Germain was doing to his 
 prospects, and the depreciation his consent to the 
 arrangement had brought upon him ; it is, however, 
 true that some inkling of the state of things rose to 
 Modeste's ears from these lower regions. 
 
 Canalis had arranged to bring his secretary in his 
 own carriage, and Ernest's unsuspicious nature did not 
 perceive that he was putting himself in a false position 
 until too late to remedj- it. Tlie delaj' in the arrival of 
 the pair which had troubled Charles Mignon was caused 
 by the painting of the Canalis arms on the panels of 
 the carriage, and by certain orders given to a tailor ; 
 foi' the poet neglected none of the innumerable details 
 which might, even the smallest of them, influence a 
 j-oung girl. 
 
 " It is all right," said Latournelle to Mignon on the 
 sixth da}-. "The baron's valet has hired Madame 
 Amanr3''s villa at Sanvic, all furnished, for seven hun- 
 
200 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 dred francs ; he has written to his master that he may 
 start, and that all will be ready on his arrival. So the 
 two gentlemen will be here Sunday. I have also had 
 a letter from Biitscha ; here it is ; it 's not long : 
 ' Mj' dear master, — I cannot get back till Sundaj-. 
 Between now and then I have some verj' important 
 inquiries to make which concern the happiness of a 
 person in whom 3-ou take an interest.' " 
 
 The announcement of this arrival did not rouse 
 Modeste from her gloom ; the sense of her fall and the 
 bewilderment of her mind were still too great, and she 
 was not nearlj' as much of a coquette as her father 
 thought her to be. There is, in truth, a charming and 
 permissible coquetiy, that of the soul, which may claim 
 to be love's politeness. Charles Mignon, when scolding 
 his daughter, failed to distinguish between the mere 
 desire of pleasing and the love of the mind, — the thirst 
 for love, and the thirst for admiration. Like every 
 true colonel of the Empire he saw in this correspond- 
 ence, rapidly read, only the 3'oung girl who had 
 thrown herself at the head of a poet ; but in the letters 
 which we were forced for lack of space to suppress, a 
 better judge would have admired the dignified and 
 gracious reserve which Modeste had substituted for the 
 rather aggressive and light-minded tone of her first 
 letters. The father, however, was onl3' too cruellj' 
 right on one point. Modeste's last letter, which we 
 have read, had indeed spoken as- though the marriage 
 were a settled fact, and the remembrance of that letter 
 filled her with shame ; she thought her father very 
 harsh and cruel to force her to receive a man unworthy 
 of her, yet to whom her soul had flown, as it were, bare. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 201 
 
 She questioned Dumay about his interview with the 
 poet, she inveigled him into relating its every detail, 
 and she did not think Canalis as barbarous as the 
 lieutenant had declared him. The thought of the beau- 
 tiful casket which held the letters of the thousand and 
 one women of this literary Don Juan made her smile, 
 and she was strongl3' tempted to saj- to her father: " I 
 am not the onlj- one to write to him ; the elite of xay 
 sex send their leaves for the laurel wreath of the 
 poet." 
 
 During this week Modeste's character underwent a 
 transformation. The catastrophe — and it was a great 
 one to her poetic nature — roused a facult3' of discern- 
 ment and also the malice latent in her girlish heart, in 
 which her suitors were about to encounter a formidable 
 adversarj'. It is a fact that when a young woman's 
 heart is chilled her head becomes clear ; she observes 
 with great rapiditj' of judgment, and with a tinge of 
 pleasantry which Shakspeare's Beatrice so admirably 
 represents in '• Much Ado about Nothing." Modeste 
 was seized with a deep disgust for men, now that the 
 most distinguished among them had betra3-ed her hopes. 
 When a woman loves, what she takes for disgust is 
 simply the abilit}' to see clearly ; but in matters of sen- 
 timent she is never, especiall3' if she is a young girl, in a 
 condition to see clearly. If she cannot admire, she de- 
 spises. And so, after passing though terrible struggles 
 of the soul, Modeste necessaril}- put on the armor on 
 which, as she had once declared, the word " Disdain" 
 was engraved. After reaching that point she was able, 
 in the character of uninterested spectator, to take part 
 in what she was pleased to call the " farce of the 
 
202 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 suitors," a performance in which she herself was about 
 to plaj- the role of heroine. She particnlarlj' set before 
 lier mind the satisfaction of humiliating Monsieur de La 
 Briere. 
 
 " Modeste is saved," said Madame Mignon to her 
 husband ; " she wants to revenge herself on the false 
 Canalis by trying to love the real one." 
 
 Such in truth was Modestc's plan. It was so utterl}' 
 commonplace that her mother, to whom she confided 
 her griefs, ad\-ised her on the contrary to treat Mon- 
 sieur de La Briere with extreme politeness. 
 
Modeste 31ignon. 203 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A THIRD SUITOR. 
 
 " Those two young men," said Madame Latournelle, 
 on the Saturday evening, " liave no idea how many 
 - spies tliey have on their tracks. We are eight in all, 
 on the watch." 
 
 " Don't say two j'oung men, wife ; say three ! " cried 
 little Latournelle, looking round him. " Gobenheim is 
 not here, so I can speak out." 
 
 ilodeste raised her head, and everybod3-, imitating 
 Modeste, raised theirs and looked at the notaiy. 
 
 "Yes, a third lover — and he is something like a 
 lover — offers himself as a candidate." 
 
 " Bah ! " exclaimed the colonel. 
 
 "I speak of no less a person," said Latournelle, 
 pompouslj-, " than Monsieur le Due d'Herouville, 
 Marquis de Saint-Sever, Due de Nivron, Comte de 
 Bayeux, Vicomte d'Essign^', grand equerry and peer of 
 France, knight of the Spur and the Golden Fleece, 
 grandee of Spain, and son of the last governor of Nor- 
 mandy. He saw Mademoiselle Modeste at the time 
 when he was staying with the Vilquins, and he regretted 
 then — as his notaiy, who came from Bayeux yesterday, 
 tells me — that she was not rich enough for him ; for his 
 father recovered nothing but the estate of Herouville on 
 his return to France, and that is saddled with a sister. 
 
204 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 The young duke is thirty-three years old. I am defini- 
 tively charged to lay these proposals before you, Mon- 
 sieur le comte," added the notary, turning respectfully 
 to the colonel. 
 
 ' ' Ask Modeste if she wants another bird in her 
 cage," replied the count; " as far as I am concerned, I 
 am willing that my lord the grand equerry shall pay 
 her attention." 
 
 Notwithstanding the care with which Charles Mignon 
 avoided seeing people, and thongh he stayed in the 
 Chalet and never went out without Modeste, Goben- 
 heim had reported Duniay's wealth ; for Dumay had 
 said to him when giving up his position as cashier : 
 " I am to be bailiff for my colonel, and all my fortune, 
 except what my wife needs, is to go to the children of 
 our little Modeste." Every one in Havre had therefore 
 propounded the same question that the notar}' had al- 
 ready put to himself: " If Duraays share in the pro- 
 fits is six hundred thousand francs, and he is going to 
 be Monsieur Mignon's bailiff, then Monsieur Mignon 
 must certainly have a colossal fortune. He arrived at 
 Marseilles on a ship of his own, loaded with indigo ; 
 and they say at the Bourse that the cargo, not counting 
 the ship, is woi'th more than he gives out as his whole 
 fortune." 
 
 The colonel was unwilling to dismiss the servants he 
 had brought back with him, whom he had chosen with 
 cai-e during his travels ; and lie therefore hired a house 
 for them in the lower part of Ingouville, where he in- 
 stalled his valet, cook, and coachman, all negroes, and 
 three mulattoes on wliose fidelity he could relj'. The 
 coachman was told to search for saddle-horses for Ma- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 205 
 
 demoiselle and for his master, and for carriage-horses 
 for the caleche in which the colonel and the lieutenant 
 had returned to Havre. That carriage, bought in 
 Paris, was of the latest fashion, and bore the arms of 
 La Bastie, surmounted b}' a count's coronet. These 
 things, insignificant in the eyes of a man who for four 
 }ears had been uccustomed to tlie unbridled luxury of 
 the liidies and of the English merchants at Canton, 
 were the subject of much comment among the business 
 men of Havre and the inhabitants of Ingouville and 
 Graville. Befoi-e five days has elapsed the rumor of 
 them ran from one end of Normandy to the other like 
 a train of gunpowder touched by Are. 
 
 " Monsieur Mignon has come l)ack from China with 
 millions," some one said in Rouen ; " and it seems he 
 was made a count in mid-ocean." 
 
 " But he was the Comte de La Bastie before the Ee- 
 volution," answered another. 
 
 " So they call him a liberal just because he was plain 
 Charles Mignon for twenty-five years ! "What are we 
 coming to? " said a third. 
 
 Modeste was considered, therefore, notwithstanding 
 the silence of her parents and friends, as the richest 
 heiress in Normandv, and all eyes began once more to 
 see her merits. The aunt and sister of the Due d'He- 
 rouville confirmed in tlie aristocratic salons of Baj'eux 
 Monsieur Charles Mignon's right to the title and arms 
 of count, derived from Cardinal Mignon, for whom the 
 Cardinal's hat and tassels were added as a crest. They 
 had seen Mademoiselle de La Bastie when the}- were 
 staying at the Vilquins, and their solicitude for the im- 
 poverished head of their house now became active. 
 
206 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " If Mademoiselle de La Bastie is really as rich, as she 
 is beautiful," said the aunt of the j'oung duke, " she is 
 the best matcli in the province. She at least is noble." 
 
 The last words were aimed at the Vilquins, with 
 whom they had not been able to come to terms, after 
 incurring the humiliation of staging in that bourgeois 
 household. 
 
 Such were the little events which, contrary to the 
 rules of Aristotle and of Horace, precede the introduc- 
 tion of another pei'son into our story ; but the portrait 
 and the biographj- of this personage, this late arrival, 
 shall not be long, taking into consideration his own 
 diminutiveness. The grand equeny shall not take 
 more space here than he will talce in history. Monsieur 
 le Due d' Herouville, ofl'sprhig of the matrimonial au- 
 tumn of the last governor of Normandy, was born 
 during the emigration in 1799, at Vienna. The old 
 marechal, father of the present duke, I'eturned with the 
 king in 1814, and died in 1819, before he was able to 
 marry his son. He could only leave him the vast 
 chateau of Herouville, the park, a few dependencies, and 
 a farm which he had bought back with some difficulty ; 
 all of which returned a rental of about fifteen thousand 
 francs a 3-ear. Louis XVIII. gave the post of grand 
 equerry to the son, who, under Charles X., received the 
 usual pension of twelve thousand francs which was 
 granted to the pauper peers of France. But what were 
 these twenty-seven thousand francs a year and the salary 
 of grand equerry to such a family ? In Paris, of course, 
 the young duke used tlie king's coaches, and had a 
 mansion provided for him in tlie rue Saint-Thomas-du- 
 Louvre, near the royal stables ; his salat-y paid for 
 
Modeste MignoVk. 207 
 
 his winters in the cit^-, and his twenty-seven thousand 
 francs for the summers in Normaudj-. If this noble 
 personage was still a bachelor he was less to blame 
 than his aunt, who was not versed in La Fontaine's 
 fables. JNIademoiselle d'Herouville made enormous 
 pretensions, wholly out of keeping with the spirit of 
 the times ; for great names, without the money to 
 keep them up, can seldom win rich heiresses among 
 the higher French nobility, who are themselves embar- 
 rassed to provide for their sons under the new law of the 
 equal division of property-. To marry the young Due 
 d'Herouville, it was necessarj' to conciliate the great 
 banking-houses ; but the haughty pride of the daughter 
 of the house alienated these people by cutting speeches. 
 During'the first j-ears of the Restoration, from 1817 to 
 1825, Mademoiselle d'Herouville, though in quest of 
 millions, refused, among others, the daughter of Mon- 
 genod the banker, with whom Monsieur de Fontaine 
 afterwards contented himself. 
 
 At last, having lost several good opportunities to 
 establish her nephew, entirely' through her own fault, 
 she was just considering whether the property of tlie 
 Nucingens was not too basel}' acquired, or whether she 
 should lend herself to the ambition of Madame de 
 Nucingen, who wished to make her daughter a duchess. 
 The king, anxious to restore the d'Herouvilles to their 
 former splendor, had almost brought about this mar- 
 riage, and when it failed he openly accused Mademoiselle 
 d'Herouville of foUj'. In this waj' the aunt made the 
 nephew ridiculous, and the nephew, in his own wa3-, was 
 not less absurd. When great things disappear they leave 
 crumi)s, frKsteaiix, Rabelais would saj-, behind them ; 
 
208 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 and the French nobilitj' of this centur\' has left us too 
 inanj- such fragments. Neither the clergy nor the 
 nobilit}' have an3-thing to complain of in this long his- 
 tory of manners and customs. Those great and mag- 
 nificent social necessities have been well represented ; 
 but we ought surely to renounce the noble title of his- 
 torian if we are not impartial, if we do not here depict 
 the present degeneracy of the race of nobles, although 
 we have already- done so elsewhere, — in the character of 
 the Comte de Mortsauf (in " The Lily of the Valley "), 
 in the " Duchesse de Langeais," and the very nobleness 
 of the nobility in the Marquis d'Espard. How then 
 could it be that the race of hei'oes and ^'aliant men 
 belonging to the proud house of HerouviUe, who gave 
 the famous marshal to the nation, cardinals to the 
 church, great leaders to the Valois, knights to Louis 
 XIV"., was reduced to a little fragile being smaller than 
 Butscha? That is a question which we ask ourselves 
 in more than one salon in Paris when we hear the great- 
 est names of France announced, and see the entrance 
 of a thin, pinched, undersized young man, scarcely pos- 
 sessing the breath of life, or a premature old one, or 
 some whimsical creature in whom an observer can with 
 great difficulty trace the signs of a past grandeur. The 
 dissipations of the reign of Louis XV., the orgies of that 
 fatal and egotistic period, have produced an effete gen- 
 eration, in which manners alone survive the nobler van- 
 ished qualities, — forms, which are the sole heritage our 
 nobles have preserved. The abandonment in which 
 Louis XVI. was allowed to perish may thus be explained, 
 with some slight reservations, as a wretched result of 
 the reign of Madame de Pompadour. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 209 
 
 The grand equerr}-, a fair young man with blue eyes 
 and a palhd face, was not without a certain dignity 
 of thought; but his thin, undersized figure, and tlie 
 follies of his aunt who had taken him to the Vilquins 
 and elsewhere to pay his court, rendered him extremely 
 diffident. The house of Herouville had already been 
 threatened with extinction by the deed of a deformed 
 being (see the Enfant Maudit in " Philosophical 
 Studies"). The grand marshal, that being the family 
 term for the member who was made duke b^' Louis XIII., 
 married at the age of eighty. The young duke admired 
 women, but he placed them too high and respected 
 them too much ; in fact, he adored them, and was only 
 at his ease with those whom he could not respect. This 
 characteristic caused him to lead a double life. He 
 found compensation with women of easy virtue for the 
 worship to which he surrendered himself in the salons, 
 or, if you like, the boudoirs, of the faubourg Saint- 
 Germain. Such habits and his puny figure, his suffer- 
 ing face with its blue eyes turning upward in ecstasj', 
 increased the ridicule already bestowed upon him, — very 
 unjustlj- bestowed, as it happened, for lie was full of 
 wit and delicacy ; but his wit, which never sparkled, 
 only showed itself when he felt at ease. Fanny Beau- 
 pre, an actress who was supposed to be his nearest 
 friend (at a price), called him " a sound wine so cave- 
 fully corked that you break all your corkscrews." The 
 beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, whom the grand 
 equerry could only worship, annihilated him with a 
 speech which, unfortunately, was repeated from mouth 
 to mouth, like all such pretty and malicious sajings. 
 
 "He always seems to me," she said, "like one of 
 14 
 
210 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 those jewels of fine workmanship which we exhibit but 
 never wear, and keep in cotton-wool." 
 
 Everj'thing about him, even to his absurdly contrast- 
 ing title of grand equerrj^, amused the good-natured 
 king, Charles X., and made him laugh, —although the 
 Due d'Herouville justified his appointment in the matter 
 of being a fine horseman. Men are like books, often 
 understood and appreciated too late. Modeste had 
 seen the duke during his fruitless visit to the Vilquins, 
 and many of these reflections passed through her mind 
 as she watched him come and go. But under the cir- 
 cumstances in which she now found herself, she saw 
 plainly that the courtship of th« Due d'Herouville 
 would save her from being at the mercv of either 
 Canalis. 
 
 "I see no reason," she said to Latournelle, " whj' 
 the Due d'Herouville should not be received. I have 
 passed, in spite of our indigence," she continued, with 
 a mischievous look at her father, " to the condition 
 of heiress. I shall probably end hy publishing a bul- 
 letin. Have n't you observed Oobenheim's glances? 
 They have quite changed their character within a week. 
 He is in despair at not being able to make his games 
 of whist count for mute adoration of ni}' charms." 
 
 "Hush, my darling!" cried Madame Latournelle, 
 " here he comes." 
 
 " Old Althor is in despair," said Gobeniieim to Mon- 
 sieur Mignon as he entered. 
 
 " Why?" asked the Count. 
 
 " Vilquin is going to fail ; and the Bourse thinks 3-ou 
 are worth several millions. What ill-lucli for his son ! " 
 
 " No one knows,'' said Charles Mignon, coldly, "what 
 
3Iodeste Mignon. 211 
 
 my liabilities in India are ; and I do not intend to take 
 the public into my confidence as to m3- private affairs. 
 Dumay," he whispered to his friend, "if Vilquin is 
 embarrassed we could get back the villa by paying him 
 what he gave for it." 
 
 Such was the general state of things, due chiefly to 
 accident, when on Sunday morning Canalis and La 
 Briere arrived, with a courier in ad\ance, at the villa 
 of Madame Amaury. It was known that the Due 
 d'Herouville, his sister, and his aunt were coming the 
 following Tuesday to occup}-, also under pretext of ill- 
 health, a hired house at Graville. This assemblage of 
 suitors made the wits of the Bourse remark that, thanks 
 to Mademoiselle Mignon, rents would rise at Ingou- 
 ville. " If this goes on, she will have a hospital here," 
 said the younger Mademoiselle Vilquin, vexed at not 
 becoming a duchess. 
 
 The everlasting comedy of ''The Heiress," about 
 to be played at the Chalet, might very well be called, 
 in view of Modeste's frame of mind, " The Designs of a 
 Young Girl ; " for since the overthrow of her illusions 
 she had fuU^' made up her mind to give her hand to no 
 man whose qualifications did not fully satisfj- her. 
 
 The two rivals, still intimate friends, intended to pay 
 tlieir first visit to the Chalet on the evening of the day 
 succeeding their arrival. They had spent Sunday and 
 part of Monda}' in unpacking and arranging Madame 
 Amaurj-'s house for a month's stay. The poet, always 
 calculating effects, wished to make the most of the 
 probable excitement which his arrival would cause 
 in Havre, and whicli would of course echo up to the 
 Mignons. Therefore, in his role of a man needing rest, 
 
212 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 he did not leave the house. La Briere went twice to 
 walk past the Chalet, though always with a sense of 
 despair, for he feared he had displeased Modeste, and 
 the future seemed to him dark with clouds. The two 
 friends came down to dinner on Mondaj' dressed for the 
 momentous visit. La Biiere wore the same clothes he 
 had so carefully selected for the famous Sunday ; but 
 he now felt like the satellite of a planet, and resigned 
 himself to the uncertainties of his situation. . Canalis, 
 on the other hand, had carefull}' attended to his black 
 coat, his orders, and all those little drawing-room ele- 
 gancies, which his intimac}' with the Duchesse de Chau- 
 lieu and the fashionable world of the faubourg had 
 brought to perfection. He had gone into the minutia; 
 of dandyism, while poor La Briere was about to present 
 himself with the negligence of a man without hope. 
 Germain, as he waited at dinner could not lielp smiling 
 to himself at the contrast. After the second course, 
 however, the valet came in with a diplomatic, that is to 
 say, uneasj' air. 
 
 " Does Monsieur le baron know," he said to Canalis 
 in a low voice, " that Monsieur the grand equerry is 
 coming to Graville to get cured of the same illness 
 which has brought Monsieur de La Briere and Monsieur 
 le baron to the sea-shore ? " 
 
 " What, the little Due d'Herouville? " 
 
 " Yes, monsieur." 
 
 ' ' Is he coming for Mademoiselle de La Bastie ? " 
 asked La Briere, coloring. 
 
 " So it appears, monsieur." 
 
 "We are cheated!" cried Canalis looking at La 
 Briere. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 213 
 
 "Ah!" retorted Ernest quickly, "that is the first 
 time you have said, ' we ' since we left Paris : it has 
 been ' I' all along." 
 
 " You understood me," cried Canalis, with a burst of 
 laughter. " But we are not in a position to struggle 
 against a ducal coronet, nor the duke's title, nor against 
 the waste lands which the Council of State have just 
 granted, on my report, to the house of Herouville." 
 
 " His grace," said La Briere, with a spice of malice 
 that was nevertheless serious, " will furnish jou with 
 compensation in the person of his sister." 
 
 At this instant, the Comte de La Bastie was an- 
 nounced ; the two joung men rose at. once, and La 
 Briere hastened forward to present Canalis. 
 
 "I wished to return the visit that you paid me in 
 Paris," said the count to the young lawyer, " and I 
 knew that hy coming here I should have the double 
 pleasure of meeting one of our great living poets." 
 
 ' ' Great ! • — Monsieur," replied the poet, smiling, 
 " no one can be great in a centurj' prefaced by the 
 reign of a Napoleon. We are a tribe of would-be 
 great poets ; besides, second-rate talent imitates genius 
 nowadays, and renders real distinction impossible." 
 
 " Is that the reason whj- you have thrown yourself 
 into politics ? " asked the count. 
 
 " It is the same thing in that sphere," said the poet ; 
 " there are no statesmen in these days, only men who 
 handle events more or less. Look at it, monsieur ; 
 under the system of government that we derive from 
 the Charter, which makes a tax-list of more Importance 
 than a coat-of-arms, there is absolutely nothing solid ex- 
 cept that which you went to seek in China, — wealth." 
 
214 Modeste Mignm. 
 
 Satisfied with iiimself and with the impression he was 
 maliing on the prospective father-in-law, Canalis turned 
 to Germain. 
 
 " Serve the coffee in the salon," he said, inviting 
 Monsieur de La Bastie to leave the dining-room. 
 
 " I thank jou for this visit, monsieur le comte," said 
 La Briere ; "it saves me from the embarrassment of 
 presenting my friend to 30U in your own house. You 
 have a heart, and j-ou have also a quick mind." 
 
 " Bah! the ready wit of Provence, that is all," said 
 Charles Mignon. 
 
 "Ah, do you come from Provence? " cried Canalis. 
 
 " You must pardon my friend," said La Briere ; "he 
 has not studied, as I have, the history of La Bastie." 
 
 At the word friend Canalis threw a searching glance 
 at Ernest. 
 
 " If j'our health will allow," said the count to the 
 poet, " I shall hope to receive you this evening under 
 my roof; it will be a day to mark, as the old writer 
 said albo notunda lapillo. Though we cannot duly 
 receive so great a fame in our little house, yet your visit 
 will gratify my daughter, whose admiration for 3-our 
 poems has even led her to set them to music." 
 
 "You have something better than fame in your 
 house," said Canalis; "you have beauty, if I am to 
 believe Ernest." 
 
 " Yes, a good daughter ; but you will find her rather 
 countrified," said Charles Mignon. 
 
 " A country girl sought by the Due d'Herouville," 
 remarked Canalis, dryly. 
 
 " Oh ! " replied Monsieur Mignon, with the perfid- 
 ious good-humor of a Southerner, "I leave my daughter 
 
Modeste Mignon. 215 
 
 free. Dukes, princes, commoners, — tliej- are all the 
 same to me, even men of genius. I shall make no 
 pledges, and whoever my Modeste chooses will be m}' 
 son-in-law, or rather my son," he added, looking at 
 La Briere. " It could not be otherwise. Madame 
 de La Hastie is German. She lias never adopted our 
 etiquette, and I let my two women lead me their own 
 way. I have always preferred to sit in the carriage 
 rather than on the box. I can make a joke of all this 
 at present, for we have not yet seen the Due d'Herou- 
 ville, and I do not believe in marriages arranged by 
 proxy, any more than I believe in choosing my daugh- 
 ter's husband." 
 
 '' That declaration is equally encouraging and dis- 
 couraging to two young men who are searching for the 
 philosopher's stone of happiness in marriage," said 
 Canalis. 
 
 " Don't you consider it useful, necessary, and even 
 politic to stipulate for perfect freedom of action for par- 
 ents, daughters, and suitors? " asked Charles Mignon. 
 
 Canalis, at a sign from La Briere, kept silence. The 
 conversation presentlj* became unimportant, and after 
 a few turns round the garden the count retired, urging 
 the visit of the two friends. 
 
 " That's our dismissal," cried Canalis ; " j'ou saw it 
 as plainly as I did. Well, in his place, I should not 
 hesitate between the grand equerry and either of us, 
 charming as we are." 
 
 " I don't think so," said La Briere. " I believe that 
 fi'ank soldier came here to satisfy his desire to see 
 you, and to warn us of his neutralit}' while receiving us 
 in his house. Modeste. in love with vour fame, and 
 
216 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 misled by my person, stands, as it were, between the 
 real and the ideal, between poetrj' and prose. I am, 
 unfortunately, the prose." 
 
 " Germain," said Canalis to the valet, who came to 
 take awaj- the coffee, " order the carriage in half an 
 hour. We will take a drive before we go. to the 
 Chalet." 
 
Modeste Mignon. '211 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A SPLENDID FIRST APPEARAJ>JCE. 
 
 The two young men were equally impatient to see 
 Modeste, but La Briere dreaded the interview, while 
 Canalis approached it with the confidence of self-con- 
 ceit. The eagerness with which La Briere had met the 
 father, and the flattery of his attention to the family 
 pride of the ex-merchant, showed Canalis his own mal- 
 adroitness, and determined him to select a special role. 
 The great poet resolved to pretend indifference, though 
 all the while displaying his seductive powers ; to ap- 
 pear to disdain the 3'oung lady, and thus pique her self- 
 love. Trained ta}' the handsome Duchesse de Chaulieu, 
 he was bound to be worthy of his reputation as a man 
 who knew women, when, in fact, he did not know them 
 at all, — whicii is often the case with those who are the 
 happ3' victims of an exclusive passion. While poor 
 Ernest, gloomily ensconced in his corner of the caleche, 
 gave way to the terrors of genuine love, and foresaw 
 instinctivel}' the anger, contempt, and disdain of an 
 injured and offended j'oung girl, Canalis was preparing 
 himself, not less silentlj', like an actor making ready 
 for an important part in a new play ; certainlj' neither 
 of them presented the appearance of a happy man. 
 Important interests were involved for Canalis. The 
 mere suggestion of his desire to marry would bring 
 
218 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 about a rupture of the tie which had bound him for the 
 last teu j-ears to the Duchesse de Chaulieu. Though 
 he had covered the purpose of his journey with the vulgar 
 pretext of needing rest, — in which, by the bj'e, women 
 never believe, even when it is true, — his conscience 
 troubled him somewhat; but the word "conscience" 
 seemed so Jesuitical to La Briere that he shrugged his 
 shoulders when the poet mentioned his scruples. 
 
 "Your conscience, my friend, strikes me as nothing 
 more nor less than a dread of losing the pleasures of 
 vanitj', and some \cy\ real advantages and habits by 
 sacrificing the affections of Madame de Chaulieu ; for, 
 if j'ou were sure of succeeding with Modeste, you would 
 renounce without the slightest compunction the wilted 
 aftermath of a passion that has been mown and well- 
 raked for the last eight years. If j'ou simply mean 
 that you are afraid of displeasing your protectress, should 
 she find out the object of j'our staj' here, I believe you. 
 To renounce the duchess and 3'et not succeed at the 
 Chalet is too lieavj* a risk. You take the anxiety of 
 this alternative for remorse." 
 
 "You have no comprehension of feelings," said the 
 poet, irritabh', like a man who hears truth when he 
 expects a compliment. 
 
 "That is what a bigamist should tell tlie jurj'," re- 
 torted La Briere, laughing. 
 
 This epigram made another disagreeable impression 
 on Canalis. He began to think La Briere too witty and 
 too free for a secretary. 
 
 The arrival of an elegant caleche, driven b}' a coach- 
 man in the Canalis livery, made the more excitement 
 at the Chalet because the two suitors were expected.^ 
 
Modeste Mignon. 219 
 
 and all the personages of tliis history were assembled 
 to receive them, except the duke and Butscha. 
 
 "Which is the poet?" aslted Madame Latom-nelle 
 of Duma}^ in the embrasure of a window, where she 
 stationed herself as soon as she heard the wheels. 
 
 "The one who walks .like a drum-major," answered 
 the lieutenant. 
 
 "Ah!" said the notar3''s wife, examining Canalis, 
 who was swinging his bod3- lilie a man who knows he 
 is being looked at. The fault laj- with the great lad}- 
 who flattered him incessantlj- and spoiled him, — as all 
 women older than their adorers invariabl}' spoil and 
 flatter them ; Canalis in his moral being was a sort of 
 Narcissus. When a woman of a certain age wishes to 
 attach a man forever, she begins by deifying his de- 
 fects, so as to cut ofl' all possibilitj- of rivalry ; for a 
 rival is never, at the first approach, aware of the super- 
 fine flattery to which the man is accustomed. Cox- 
 combs are the product of this feminine manreuvre, 
 when thej' are not fops by nature. Canalis, taken 
 young by the handsome duchess, vindicated his afl"ec- 
 tations to his own mind bj- telling himself that they 
 pleased that grande dame, whose taste was law. Such 
 shades of character may be excessively faint, but it is 
 improper for the historian not to point them out. For 
 instance, Melchior possessed a talent for reading which 
 was greatlj' admired, and much injudicious praise had 
 given him a habit of exaggeration, which neither poets 
 nor actors are willing to check, and which made people 
 say of him (always through De Marsay) that he no 
 longer declaimed, he bellowed his verses ; lengthening 
 the sounds that he might listen to himself. In the 
 
220 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 slang of the green-room, Canalis "dragged the time." 
 Ho was fond of exchanging glances with his hearers, 
 throwing himself into postures of self-complacency and 
 practising those tricks of demeanor whicli actors call 
 balangoires, — the picturesque phrase of an artistic 
 people. Canalis had his imitators, and was in fact the 
 head of a school of his Idnd. This habit of declama- 
 tory chanting slightly affected his conversation, as we 
 have seen in his interview with Dumay. The moment 
 the mmd becomes finical tlie manners follow suit, and 
 the great poet ended by studying his demeanor, invent- 
 ing attitudes, looking furtivel3^ at himself in mirrors, 
 and suiting his discourse to the particular pose which 
 he happened to have taken up. He was so preoccupied 
 with the effect he wished to produce, that a practical 
 joker, Blondet, had bet once or twice, and won the 
 wager, that he could nonplus him at any moment by 
 merelj' looking fixedly at his hair, or his boots, or the 
 tails of his coat. 
 
 These airs and graces, which started in life with a 
 passport of flowery 3-outh, now seemed all the more 
 stale and old because Melchior himself was waning. 
 Life in the world of fashion is quite as exhausting to 
 men as it is to women, and perhaps the twent3' years 
 bj' which the duchess exceeded her lover's age, weighed 
 more heavilj' upon him than upon her ; for to the ej^es 
 of the world slie was alwa^'S handsome, — without rouge, 
 without wrinkles, and without heart. Alas ! neither 
 men nor women have friends who are friendl}- enough 
 to warn them of the moment when the fragrance of 
 their modesty grows stale, when the caressing glance 
 is but an eclio of tlie stage, when the expression of the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 221 
 
 face changes from sentiment to sentimentality, and the 
 artifices of the mind, show their rusty edges. Genins 
 alone renews its slvin like a snalce ; and in the matter 
 of charm, as in everything else, it is only the heart that 
 never grows old. People who have Iiearts are simple 
 in all theii' ways. Now Canalis, as we know, had a 
 shrivelled heart. He misused tlie beaut}' of his glance by 
 giving it, without adequate reason, tlie fixity' that comes 
 to the e^es in meditation. In short, applause was to 
 him a business, in which he was perpetuall}- on the look- 
 out for gain. His stjde of paying compliments, charm- 
 ing to superficial people, seemed insulting to others of 
 more delicacy, by its triteness and tiie cool assurance of 
 its cut-and-dried flatter}'. As a matter of fact, Mel- 
 chior lied like a courtier. He remarked without blush- 
 ing to the Due (le Chaulieu, who made no impression 
 whatever when he was obliged to address the Cliam- 
 ber as minister of foreign affairs, " Your excellency 
 was trulj' sublime ! " Many men like Canalis are purged 
 of their affectations bj' tlie administration of non-success 
 in little doses. 
 
 These defects, slight in the gilded salons of the fau- 
 bourg Saint-Germain, where every one contributes his 
 or her quota of absurdity-, and where these particular 
 forms of exaggerated speech and affected diction — 
 magniloquence, if j'ou please to call it so — are sur- 
 rounded by excessive luxury and sumptuous toilettes, 
 which are to some extent tlieir excuse, were certain 
 to be far more noticed in the provinces, wliose own 
 absurdities are of a totally different type. Canalis, 
 by nature over-strained and artificial, could not change 
 his form ; in fact, he had had time to grow stiff in tlie 
 
222 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 mould into which the duchess had poured him ; more- 
 over, he was thoroughly Parisian, or, if you prefer it, 
 truly French. The Parisian is amazed that everything 
 everywhere is not as it is in Paris ; the Frenchman, as 
 it is in France. Good taste, on the contrarj-, demands 
 that we adapt ourselves to the customs of foreigners 
 without losing too much of our own character, — as did 
 Alcibiades, that model of a gentleman. True grace is 
 elastic ; it lends itself to circumstances ; it is in har- 
 monj' with all social centres ; it wears a robe of simple 
 material in the streets, noticeable only by its cut, in 
 preference to the feathers and flounces of middle-class 
 vulgarity. Now Canalis, instigated by a woman who 
 loved herself much more than she loved hi,m, wished to 
 lay down the law and be, everywhere, such as he him- 
 self might see fit to be. He believed he carried his own 
 public with him wherever he went, — an error shared 
 by several of the great men of Paris. 
 
 While the poet made a studied and effective entrance 
 into the salon of the Chalet, La Briere slipped in behind 
 him like a person of no account. 
 
 "Ha! do I see my soldier?" said Canalis, perceiv- 
 ing Dumay, after addressing a comphment to Madame 
 Mignon, and bowing to the other women. " Your-anx- 
 ieties are relieved, are they not?" he said, offering his 
 hand effusively; " I comprehend them to their fullest 
 extent after seeing mademoiselle. I spoke to you of 
 terrestrial creatures, not of angels." 
 
 All present seemed by their attitudes to ask the 
 meaning of this speech. 
 
 "I shall always consider it a triumph," resumed the 
 poet, observing that everybody wislied for an expla- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 223 
 
 nation, " to have stirred to emotion one of those men of 
 iron whom Napoleon had thfe eye to find and make the 
 supporting piles on which he tried to build an empire, too 
 colossal to be lasting : for such structures time alone is 
 the cement. But this triumph — why should I be proud 
 of it ? — 1 count for nothing. It was the triumph of ideas 
 over facts. Your battles, my dear Monsieur Dumaj', 
 your heroic charges. Monsieur le comte, na^-, war itself 
 was the form in which Napoleon's idea clothed itself 
 Of all of these things, what remains? The sod that 
 covers them knows nothing ; harvests come and go 
 without revealing their resting-place ; were it not for 
 the historian, the writer, futurity would have no knowl- 
 edge of those heroic days. Therefore jour fifteen years 
 of war are now ideas and nothing more ; that which 
 preserves the Empire forever is the poem that the poets 
 make of them. A nation that can win such battles 
 must know how to sing them." 
 
 Canalis paused, to gather by a glance that ran round 
 the circle the tribute of amazement which he expected 
 of provincials. 
 
 " You must be aware, monsieur, of the regret I feel 
 at not seeing jou," said Madame Mignon, " since you 
 compensate me with the pleasure of hearing you." 
 
 Modeste, determined to tliink Canalis sublime, sat 
 motionless with amazement ; the embroiderer slipped 
 from her fingers, which held it onlj- by the needleful of 
 thread . 
 
 " Modeste, this is Monsieur Ernest de La Briere. 
 Monsieur Earnest, my daughter,'' said the count, think- 
 ing the secretary too much in the background. 
 
 The young girl bowed coldly, giving Ernest a glance 
 
224 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 which was meant to prove to every one present that she 
 saw him for the first time. 
 
 " Pardon me, monsieur," she said without blushing; 
 " the great admiration I feel for the greatest of our 
 poets is, in the ej'es of my friends, a sufficient excuse 
 for seeing only him." 
 
 The pure, fresh voice, with accents like that of ]Made- 
 moiselle Mars, charmed the poor secretary, already' 
 dazzled by Modeste's beaut}', and in his sudden sur- 
 prise he answered by a phrase that would have been 
 sublime, had it been true. 
 
 " He is my friend," he said. 
 
 " Ah, then j-ou do pardon me," she replied. 
 
 " He is more than a friend," cried Canalis taking 
 Ernest b}' the shoulder and leaning upon it like 
 Alexander on Hephaestion, "we love each other as 
 though we were brothers — " 
 
 Madame Latournelle cut short the poet's speech by 
 pointing to Ernest and saying aloud to her husband, 
 " Surel}' that is the gentleman we saw at church." 
 
 " Why not?" said Charles Mignon, quickly, observ- 
 ing that Ernest reddened. 
 
 Modeste coldly took up her embroidery. 
 
 ' ' Madame may be right ; I have been twice in Havre 
 lately," replied La Briere, sitting down by Dumay. 
 
 Canalis, charmed with Modeste's beauty, mistook the 
 admiration she expressed, and flattered himself he had 
 succeeded in producing his desired effects. 
 
 " I should think a man without heart, if he had no 
 devoted friend near him," said Modeste, to pick up 
 the conversation interrupted by Madame Latournelle's 
 awkwardness. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 225 
 
 "Mademoiselle, Ernest's devotion makes me almost 
 think myself worth something," said Caualis ; " for my 
 dear Pylades is full of talent ; he was the right hand of 
 the greatest minister we have had since the peace. 
 Though he holds a fine position, he is good enough to 
 be my tutor in the science of politics ; he teaches me 
 to conduct atf'airs and feeds me with his experience, 
 when all the while he might aspire to a much better 
 situation. Oh ! he is worth far more than I." At a 
 gesture from Modeste he continued gracefully : "Yes, 
 the poetry that I express he carries in his heart ; and if 
 I speak thus openly before him it is because he has the 
 modesty of a nun." 
 
 " Enough, oh, enough ! " cried La Briere, who hardly 
 knew which way to look. " My dear Canalis, you re- 
 mind me of a mother who is seeking to marry off her 
 daughter." 
 
 " How is it, monsieur," said Charles Mignon, ad- 
 dressing Canalis, " that jou can even think of becom- 
 ing a political character ? " 
 
 " It is abdication," said Modeste, " for a poet ; poli- 
 tics are the resource of matter-of-fact men." 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle, the rostrum is to-day the great- 
 est theatre of the world ; it has succeeded the tourna- 
 ments of chivalry, it is now the meeting-place for all 
 intellects, just as the army has been the rallying-point 
 of courage." 
 
 Canalis stuck spurs into his charger and talked for 
 ten minutes on political life: " Poetry was but a pref- 
 ace to the statesman." " To-day the orator has be- 
 come a sublime reasoner, the shepherd of ideas." " A 
 poet may point the way to nations or individuals, but 
 
 15 
 
226 Modeste Mic/non. 
 
 can he ever cease to be himself? " He quoted Chateau- 
 briand and declared he would one da}- be greater on the 
 political side than on the literary'. "The forum of 
 France was to be the pharos of humanity." " Oral 
 battles supplanted fields of battle : there were sessions 
 of the Chamber finer than anj' Austerlitz, and orators 
 were seen to be as lofty as generals ; they spent their 
 lives, their courage, their strength, as freely as those 
 who went to war." " Speech was surely one of the 
 most prodigal outlets of the vital fluid that man had 
 ever known," etc. 
 
 This improvisation of modern commonplaces, clothed 
 in sonorous phrases and newly invented words, and in- 
 tended to prove that the Comte de Caualis was becom- 
 ing one of the glories of the French government, made 
 a deep impression upon the notary- and Gobenheim, and 
 upon Madame Latournelle and Madame Mignon. Mo- 
 deste looked as though she were at the theatre, in an 
 attitude of enthusiasm lor an actor, — -very much like 
 that of Ernest toward herself; for though the secre- 
 tary knew all these high-sounding phrases by heart, he 
 listened through the e3'es, as it were, of the j'oang girl, 
 and grew more and more madly in love with her. To 
 this true lover, Modeste was eclipsing all the Modestes 
 whom he had created us he read her letters and answered 
 them. 
 
 This visit, the length of which was predetermined by 
 Canalis, careful not to .lUow his admirers a chance to 
 get surfeited, ended b}' an invitation to dinner on the 
 following Monday. 
 
 " We shall not be at the Chalet," said the Comte de 
 La Bastie. " Dumay will have sole possession of it 
 
Modeste Mignon. 227 
 
 I return to the villa, having bought it back under a 
 deed of redemption within six mouths, which I have 
 to-day signed with Monsieur Vilquin." 
 
 "I hope," said Dumay, "that Vilquin will not be 
 able to return you the sum you ha\'e just lent him, and 
 that the villa will remain yours." 
 
 " It is an abode in keeping with your fortune," said 
 Canalis. 
 
 " You mean the fortune that I am supposed to have," 
 replied Charles Mignon, hastily. 
 
 "It would be too sad," said Canalis turning to 
 Modeste with a charming little bow, "if this Madonna 
 were not framed in a manner worthy of her divine 
 perfections." 
 
 That was the onlj- thing Canalis said to Modeste. He 
 affected not to look at her, and Inliaved like a man to 
 whom all idea of marriage was interdicted. 
 
 " Ah ! my dear Madame Mignon," cried the notary's 
 wife, as soon as the gravel was heard to grit under the 
 feet of the Parisians, " what .an intellect ! " 
 
 " Is he rich ? — that is the question," said Gobenheim. 
 
 Modeste was at the window, not losing a single 
 movement of the great poet, and paying no attention 
 to his companion. When Monsieur Mignon returned 
 to the salon, and Modeste, having received a last Ijow 
 from the two friends as the carriage turned, went back 
 to her seat, a weight}' discussion took place, such as 
 provincials invariablj' hold over Parisians after a first 
 interview. Gobenheim repeated his phrase, "Is he 
 rich ? " as a chorus to the songs of praise sung by 
 Madame Latournelle, Modeste, and her mother. 
 
 "Rich!" exclaimed Modeste; "what can that sig- 
 
228 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 nify ! Do jou not see that Monsieur de Canalis is One 
 of those men who are destined for the highest places in 
 the State. He has more than fortune ; he possesses 
 that which gives fortune.'' 
 
 " He will be minister or ambassador," said Monsieur 
 Mignon. 
 
 "That won't hinder tax-payers from having to pay 
 the costs of his funeral," remarked the notary. 
 
 " How so?" asked Charles Mignon. 
 
 "He strikes me as a man who will waste all the 
 fortunes with whose gifts Mademoiselle Modeste so 
 liberally endows him," answered Latournelle. 
 
 "Modeste can't avoid being liberal to a poet who 
 called her a Madonna," said Duma}', sneering, and 
 faithful to the repulsion with which Canalis had origi- 
 nally inspired him. 
 
 Gobenheim arranged the whist-table with all the 
 more persistency because, since the return of Monsieur 
 Mignon, Latournelle and Duma}' had allowed them- 
 selves to play for ten sous points. 
 
 "Well, ni}' little darling," said the father to the 
 daughter in the embrasure of a window. " Admit that 
 papa thinks of everything. If you send your orders 
 this evening to your former dressmaker in Paris, and 
 all your other furnishing people, you shall show jourself 
 eight days hence in all the splendor of an heiress. 
 Meantime we will instal ourselves in the villa. You 
 alread}^ have a pretty horse, now order a habit ; j'ou 
 owe that amount of civilit}' to the grand equerry." 
 
 "All the more because there will be a number of us 
 to ride," said Modeste, who was recovering the colors 
 of health. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 229 
 
 " The secretary did not say much," remarked 
 Madame Mignon. 
 
 " A little fool," said Madame Latournelle ; "the poet 
 had an attentive word for everybody. He thanked 
 Monsieur Latournelle for his help in choosing the 
 house ; and said he must have taken counsel with a 
 ■woman of taste. But the other looked as gloomy as a 
 Spaniard, and kept his eyes fixed on Modeste as though 
 he would like to swallow her whole. If he had even 
 looked at me I should have been afraid of him." 
 
 '■• He had a pleasant voice," said Madame Mignon. 
 
 "No doubt he came to Havre to inquire about the 
 Mignons in the interests of his friend the poet," said 
 Modeste, looking furtivel3' at her father. "It was cer- 
 tainly he whom we saw in church." 
 
 Madame Dumay and Monsieur and Madame Latour- 
 nelle, accepted this as the natural explanation of 
 Ernest's journey. 
 
230 Modeste Bliyiion. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF WHICH THE AUTHOR THINKS A GOOD DEAL. 
 
 "Do you know, Ernest," cried Canalis, when tliey 
 had driven a sliort distance from the honse, " I don't 
 see an^^ marriageable woman in society in Paris who 
 compares with that adorable girl." 
 
 "Ah, that ends it!" replied Ernest. "She loves 
 you, or she will love you if you desire it. Your fame 
 won half the battle. Well, you may now have it all 
 3'our own way. You shall go there alone in future. 
 Modeste despises me ; she is right to do so ; and I 
 don't see anj- reason why I should condemn myself to 
 see, to love, desire, and adore that which I can never 
 possess." 
 
 After a few consoling remarks, dashed with his own 
 satisfaction at having made a new version of Csesar's 
 phrase, Canalis divulged a desire to break with the 
 Duchesse de Chaiilieu. La Bri^re, totally unable to 
 keep up the conversation, made the beauty of the night 
 an excuse to be set down, and then rushed like one 
 possessed to the seashore, where he stayed till past 
 ten, in a half-demented state, walking hurriedly' up and 
 down, talking aloud in broken sentences, sometimes 
 standing still or "sitting down, without noticing the 
 uneasiness of two custom-house officers who were on 
 the watch. After loving Modeste's wit and intellect 
 
Modeste Mignon. 231 
 
 and her aggressive frankness, he now joined adoration 
 of her beauty — that is to say, love without reason, love 
 inexplicable — to all the other reasons which had drawn 
 him ten days earlier, to the church in Havre. 
 
 He returned to (he Chalet, where the Pyrenees 
 hounds barked at liim till he was forced to relinquish 
 the pleasure of gazing at Modeste's windows. In love, 
 such things are of no more account to the lover than 
 the work which is covered by the last layer of color is 
 to an artist ; yet they make up the whole of love, just' as 
 the hidden toil is the whole of art. Out of them arise the 
 great painter and the true lover whom the woman and 
 the public end, sometimes too late, b}' adoring. 
 
 "Well then!" he cried aloud, "I will stay, I will 
 suffer, I will love her for m3-sel-f only, in solitude. Mo- 
 deste shall be vay sun, rax life ; I will breathe with her 
 breath, rejoice in her joj's and bear her griefs, be she 
 even the wife of tliat egoist, Canalis." 
 
 " That 's what I call loving, monsieur," said a voice 
 which came from a shrub bj' the side of the road. 
 " Ha, ha, so all the world is in love with Mademoiselle 
 de La Bastie? " 
 
 And Butscha suddenl3' appeared and looked at La 
 Briere. La Briere checked his anger when, by the 
 light of the moon, he saw the dwarf, and he made a 
 few steps without replying. 
 
 " Soldiers who serve in the same companj' ought to 
 be good comrades," remarked Butscha. " You don't 
 love Canalis ; neither do I." 
 
 ' ' He is my friend/' replied Ernest.- 
 
 " Ha, you are the little secretary?" 
 
 "You are to know, monsieur, that I am no man's 
 
232 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 secretary. I have the honor to be of counsel to a su- 
 preme court of this kingdom." 
 
 " I have the honor to salute Monsieur de La Briere," 
 said Butscha. " I myself have the honor to be head 
 clerk to Latonrnelle, chief councillor of Havre, and mj 
 position is a better one than j'ours. Yes, I have had 
 the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Modeste de La 
 Bastie nearly every evening for the last four years, and 
 I expect to live near her, as a king's servant lives in 
 the. Tnileries. If they offered me the throne of Russia 
 I should answer, ' I love the sun too well.' Is n't that 
 telling you, monsieur, that I care more for her than for 
 m3"self ? I am looking after her interests with the most 
 honorable intentions. Do 3-ou believe that tiie proud 
 Duchesse de Chaulieu would cast a favorable eje on the 
 happiness of Madame de Canalis if her waiting- woman, 
 who is in love with Monsieur Germain, not liking that 
 charming valet's absence in Havre, were to say to her 
 mistress while brushing her liair — " 
 
 " How do you know about all this? " said La Briere, 
 interrupting Butscha. 
 
 " In the first place, I am clerk to a notar}'," an- 
 swered Butscha. "But haven't you seen mj- hump? 
 It is full of resources, monsieur. I have made mj'self 
 cousin to Mademoiselle Philoxene Jacmin, born at 
 Honfleur, where m}' mother was born, a Jacmin, — 
 there are eight branches of the Jacmins at Honfleur. 
 So mj' cousin Philoxene, enticed by tlie bait of a highly 
 improbable fortune, has told me a good man}- things." 
 
 " The duchess is vindictive?" said La Briere. 
 
 "Vindictive as a queen, Philoxene saj-s ; she has 
 never yet forgiven the duke for being nothing more 
 
Modeste Mignon. 233 
 
 than her husband," replied Butscha. "She hates as 
 she loves. I know all about her charaL-ter, her tastes, 
 her toilette, her religion, and her manners ; for Philox- 
 ene stripped her for rae, soul and corset. I went to 
 the opera expressk to see lier, and I did n't gmdge the 
 ten- francs it cost me — I don't mean the play. If my 
 imaginary cousin had not told me the duchess had seen 
 her lift}' sujnmers, I should have thought I was o\'er- 
 generous in giving her thirty ; she has never known a 
 winter, that duchess ! " 
 
 " Yes," said La Britre, " she is a cameo — preserved 
 because it is stone. Canahs would be in a bad way if 
 the duchess were to find out what he is doing here ; and 
 I hope, monsieur, that you will go no further in this 
 business of spjing, which is unworthj' of an honest 
 man." 
 
 "Monsieur," said Butscha, proudly; "for me Mo- 
 deste is my countiT. I do not spj' ; I foresee, I take 
 precautions. The duchess will come here if it is desir- 
 able, or she will stay tranquilh' where she is, according 
 to what I judge best." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 It J " 
 
 " And how, pray? " 
 
 " Ha, that 's it ! " said the little hunchback, plucking 
 a blade of grass. " See here! this lierb believes that 
 men build palaces for it to grow in ; it wedges its. wa}- 
 between the closest blocks of marble, and brings them 
 down, just as the masses forced into the edifice of feu- 
 dality have brought it to the ground. The power of the 
 feeble life that can creep everywhere is greater than that 
 of the mighty behind their cannons. I am one of three 
 
234 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 who have sworn that Modeste shall he happy, and we 
 would sell our honor for her. Adieu, monsieur. Ifj'ou 
 triil.y love Mademoiselle de La Bastie, forget this con- 
 versation and shake hands with me, for I think you 've 
 got a heai't. I longed to see the Chalet, and I got here 
 just as she was putting out her light. I saw the dogs 
 rush at 3-ou, and I overheard your words, and that is 
 wli}' I take the liberty of saying we serve in the same 
 regiment — that of royal devotion." 
 
 " Monsieur," said La Briere, wringing the hunch- 
 back's hand, " would you have the friendliness to tell 
 me if Mademoiselle Modeste ever loved any one with 
 love before she wrote to Canalis?" 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Butscha, in an altered voice ; " that 
 thought is an insult. And even now, who knows if she 
 realty loves ? does she know herself ? She is enamoured 
 of genius, of the soul and intellect of that seller of 
 verses, that literar}' quack ; Itut she will studj' him, we 
 shall all stud}' him ; and I know how to make the man's 
 real character peep out from under that turtle-shell of 
 fine manners, — we '11 soon see the pettj- little head of 
 his ambition and his vanity ! " cried Butscha, lubbing 
 his hands. " So, unless mademoiselle is desperately 
 taken with him — " 
 
 " Oh ! she was seized with admiration when she saw 
 him, as if he were something marvellous," exclaimed 
 La Briere, letting the secret of his jealousy escape him. 
 
 " If he is a loyal, honest fellow, and loves her ; if he 
 is woi'thy of her ; if he renounces his duchess," said 
 Butscha, — " then I '11 manage the duchess ! Here, my 
 dear sir, take this road, and you will get home in ten 
 minutes." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 235 
 
 But as they parted, Butscha turned back and hailed 
 poor Ernest, who, as a true lover, Would gladly have 
 stayed there all night talking of Modeste. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Butscha, " I have not yet had the 
 honor of seeing our great poet. I am very curious to 
 observe that magnificent phenomenon in the exercise of 
 his functions. Do me the favor to bring him to the 
 Chalet to-morrow evening, and staj' as long as possible ; 
 for it takes more than an liour for a man to show him- 
 self for what he is. I shall be the first to see if he 
 loves, if he can love, or if he ever will love Mademoi- 
 selle Modeste." 
 
 " You are verj- young to — " 
 
 " — to be a professor," said Butscha, cutting short 
 La Briere. " Ha, monsieur, deformed folks are born 
 a hundred 3-ears old. And besides, a sick man who 
 has long been sick, knows more than his doctor ; he 
 knows the disease, and that is more than can be said 
 for the best of doctors. Well, so it is with a man who 
 cherishes a woman in his heart when the woman is 
 forced to disdain him for his ugliness or his deformitj- ; 
 he ends bj' knowing so much of love that he becomes 
 seductive, just as the sick man recovers his health ; 
 stupidity alone is incurable. I have had neither father 
 nor mother since I was six years old ; I am now twenty- 
 five. Public charitj' has been m^- mother, the procu- 
 reur du roi my father. Oh ! don't be troubled," he 
 added, seeing Ernest's gesture; "I am much more 
 livel}- than my situation. Well, for the last six years, 
 ever since a woman's ej-e first told me I had no right to 
 love, I do love, and I study women. I began with the 
 ugh' ones, for it is best to take the bull by the horns. 
 
236 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 So I took my master's wife, who has certainly been an 
 angel to me, for my first study. Perhaps I did wrong ; 
 but I could n't help it. I passed her through my alem- 
 bic and what did I find ? this thought, crouching at the 
 bottom of her heart, ' I am not so ugly as the}' think 
 me ; ' and if a man were to work upon that thought he 
 coLild bring her to the edge of the abj'ss, pious as 
 she is." 
 
 " And have you studied Modeste? " 
 
 " I thought I told you," replied Butscha, " that my 
 life belongs to her, just as France belongs to the king. 
 Do 3-ou now understand what jou called my spying 
 in Paris ? No one but me really knows what nobility, 
 what pride, what devotion, what mj-sterious grace, what 
 unwearying kindness, what true religion, gaj'et}', wit, 
 delicacy, knowledge, and couvtesj- there are in the soul 
 and in the heart of that adorable creature ! " 
 
 Butscha drew out his handkerchief and wiped his 
 ej'BS, and La Briere pressed his hand for a long time. 
 
 "I live in the sunbeam of her existence; it comes 
 from her, it is absorbed in me ; that is how we are 
 united, — as nature is to God, bj' the Light and by 
 the Word. Adieu, monsieur ; never in my life have I 
 talked in this way ; but seeing j'ou beneath her win- 
 dows, I felt in my heart that you loved her as I love 
 her." 
 
 Without waiting for an answer Butscha quitted the 
 poor lover, into whose heart his words had put an inex- 
 pressible balm. Ernest resolved to make a friend of 
 him, not suspecting that the chief object of the clerk's 
 loquacit}' was to gain communication with some one 
 connected with Canalis. Ernest was rocked to sleep 
 
Modeste Mignon. 237 
 
 that night b3- the ebb and flow of thoughts and resohi- 
 tions and plans for his future conduct, wliereas Canalis 
 slept the sleep of the conqueror, which is the sweetest 
 of slumbers after that of the just. 
 
 At breakfast next morning, the friends agreed to 
 spend tlie evening of the following daj' at the Chalet 
 and initiate themselves into the delights of provincial 
 whist. To get rid of the day they ordered their horses, 
 purchased by Germain at a large price, and started on 
 a voj'age of discovery round the countrj', which was 
 quite as unknown to them as China ; for the most for- 
 eign thing to Frenchmen in France is France itself. 
 
 By dint of reflecting on his position as an unfortunate 
 and despised lover, Ernest went through something of 
 the same process as Modeste's first letter had forced 
 upon him. Though sorrow is said to develop virtue, 
 it onh' develops it in virtuous persons ; that cleaning- 
 out of the conscience takes place only in persons who are 
 bj' nature clean. La Briere vowed to endure his suflfer- 
 ings in Spartan silence, to act worthily, and give waj' 
 to no baseness ; while Canalis, fascinated b}' the enor- 
 mous dot, was telling himself to take every means of 
 captivating the heiress. Selfishness and devotion, the 
 ke3'-notes of the two characters, therefore took, by the 
 action of a moral law which is often verj' odd in its 
 effects, certain measures that were contrarj' to their re- 
 spective natures. The selfish man put on self-abnega- 
 tion ; the man who thought chiefl3- of others took refuge 
 on the Aventinus of pride. That phenomenon is often 
 seen in political life. Men frequentlj- turn their char- 
 acters wrong side out, and it sometimes happens that 
 the public is unable to tell which is the right side. 
 
238 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 After dinner the two friends heard of the arrival of 
 the grand equerrj-, who was presented at the Chalet the 
 same evening by Latournelle. Mademoiselle d'Herou- 
 ville had contilvc to wound that worthj- man by send- 
 ing a footman to tell him to come to her, instead of 
 sending her nephew in person ; thus depriving the no- 
 tary of a distinguished visit he would certainl}' have 
 talked of for the rest of his natural life. So Latournelle 
 curtly informed the grand equerr^', when he proposed to 
 drive him to the Chalet, that he was engaged to take 
 Madame Latournelle. Guessing from the Mttle man's 
 sullvv manner that there was some blunder to repair, 
 the duke said graciouslv : — 
 
 " Then I shall have the pleasure, if 3'ou will allow 
 me, of taking Madame Latournelle also." 
 
 Disregarding Mademoiselle d'llerouville's haughty 
 shrug, the duke left the room with the notary. Madame 
 Latournelle, half-crazed with joy at seeing the gorgeous 
 can-iage at her door, with footmen in roj'al li^'ery letting 
 down the steps, was too agitated on hearing that the 
 grand equerry had called for her, to find her gloves, her 
 parasol, her absurdity, or her usual air of pompous 
 dignity. Once in the carriage, however, and while 
 expressing confused thanks and civilities to the little 
 duke, she suddenlj- exclaimed, from a thought in her 
 kind heart, — 
 
 " But Butscha, where is he? " 
 
 " Let us take Butscha," said the duke, smiling. 
 
 When the people on the quays, attiacted in groups 
 by the splendor of the royal equipage, saw the funny 
 spectacle, the three little men with the spare gigantic 
 woman, they looked at one another and laughed. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 239 
 
 " If you melt all three together, they might make 
 one man fit to mate with that big cod-fish," said a 
 sailor from Bordeaux. 
 
 " Is there any other thing you would like to take with 
 jou, madame ? " asked the duke, jestingly, while the 
 footman waited his orders. 
 
 " No, monseigneur," she replied, turning scarlet and 
 looking at her husband as much as to saj', " What did 
 I do wrong ? " 
 
 " Monsieur le due honors me by considering that 
 I am a thing," said Butseha ; '■ a poor clerk is usually 
 thought to be a nonentitj-." 
 
 Though this was said with a laugii, the duke colored 
 and did not answer. Great people are to blame for 
 joking with their social inferiors. Jesting is a game, 
 and games presuppose equality ; it is to obviate any 
 inconvenient results of this temporary equality that 
 players have the right, after tlie game is over, not to 
 recognize eacli otlier. 
 
 The visit of the grand equerr}- liad tlie ostensible 
 excuse of an important piece of business ; namely, the 
 retrieval of an immense tract of waste land left by the 
 sea between the mouths of the two rivers, which tract 
 liad just been adjudged by the Council of State to the 
 house of Herouville. The matter was nothing less 
 than putting flood-gates with double bridges, draining 
 three or four hundred acres, cutting canals, and la3'ing 
 out roadways. When tlie duke had explained the con- 
 dition of the land, Charles Mignon remarked that time 
 must be allowed for the soil, which was still moving, to 
 settle and grow solid in a natural way. 
 
 " Time, which has providentially enriched your house. 
 
240 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Monsieur le due, can alone complete the work," he said, 
 in conclusion. " It would be prudent to let fifty years 
 elapse before j-ou reclaim the land." 
 
 "Do not let that be your final word. Monsieur le 
 comte," said the duke. " Come to Herouville and see 
 things for yourself." 
 
 Charles Mignon replied that every capitalist should 
 take time to examine into such matters with a cool 
 head, thus giving the duke a pretext for his visits to 
 the Chalet. The sight of Modeste made a livelj' im- 
 pression on the youug man, and he asked the fa^'or of 
 receiving her at Herouville with her father, saying that 
 liis sister and his aunt had heard much of her, and 
 wished to make her acquaintance. On this the count 
 proposed to present his daughter to those ladies him- 
 self, and invited the whole party to dinner on the da}^ 
 of Ills retui-n to the villa. The duke accepted the invi- 
 tation. The blue ribbon, the title, and above all, the 
 ecstatic glances of the noble gentleman had an effect 
 upon Modeste ; but she appeared to great advantage in 
 carriage, dignity, and conversation. The duke with- 
 drew reluctantlj', carr3ing with him an in\itation to 
 visit the Chalet every evening, — an invitation based on 
 the impossibility of a courtier of Charles X. existing 
 for a single evening without his rubber. 
 
 The following evening, therefore, Modeste was to 
 see all three of her lovers. No matter what young 
 girls may say, and though the logic of the heart may 
 lead them to sacrifice ever^-thing to preference, it is 
 extremely flattering to their self-love to see a number 
 of rival adorers around them, — distinguished or cele- 
 brated men, or men of ancient lineage, — all endeavor- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 241 
 
 ing to shine and to please. Suffer as Modeste may in 
 general estimation, it must be told she subsequently 
 admitted that the sentiments expressed in her letters 
 paled before the pleasure of setting three such different 
 minds at war with one another, — three men who, taken 
 separately, would each have done honor to the most 
 exacting family. Yet this luxury of self-love was 
 checked by a misanthropical spitefulness, resulting 
 from the terrible wound she had received, — although 
 by this time she was beginning to think of that wound 
 as a disappointment onl}'. So when her father said to 
 her, laughing, "Well, Modeste, do j-on want to be a 
 duchess?" she answered, with a mocking curtsey, — 
 
 " Sorrows have made me philosophical." 
 
 "Do you mean to be only a baroness?" asked 
 Butscha. 
 
 " Or a viscountess?" said her father. 
 
 " How could that be?" she asked quickly. 
 
 "If }'ou accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has 
 enough merit and influence to obtain permission from 
 the king to bear my titles and arms." 
 
 "Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, he will not 
 make any difHculty," said Modeste, scornfully. 
 
 Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose 
 meaning could only be guessed by Monsieur and Ma- 
 dame Mignon and Dumay. 
 
 " When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise 
 themselves," remarked Madame Latournelle, ' ' and 
 women set them the example. I 've heard it said ever 
 since I came into the world that ' Monsieur this or 
 Mademoiselle that has made a good marriage,' — mean- 
 ing that the other side had made a bad one." 
 
 10 
 
242 Modeste Mignon, 
 
 "Marriage," said Butscha, "is like a lawsuit; 
 tliere 's alwaj-s one side discontented. If one dupes 
 the other, certainly half the husbands in the world are 
 playing a comedy at the expense of the other lialf." 
 
 "From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?" in- 
 quired Modeste. 
 
 "To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of 
 the enemy," answered the clerk. 
 
 "What did I tell you, my darling?" said Charles 
 Mignon, alluding to their conversation on .the seashore. 
 
 " Men plaj' as many parts to get married as rpothers 
 make their daughters play to get rid of them," said 
 Latournelle. 
 
 ' ' Then j-ou approve of stratagems ? " said Modeste. 
 
 " On both sides," cried Gohenheim, " and tliat brings 
 it even." 
 
 This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, 
 as they say, in the intervals of cutting and dealing the 
 cards ; and it soon turned chiefly on the merits of the 
 Due d'Herouville, who was thought very good-looking 
 bj' little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha. 
 Without the foregoing discussion on the lawfulness of 
 matrimonial tricks, the reader might possibly find 
 the fortlicoming account of the evening so impatiently 
 awaited hy Butscha, somewhat too long. 
 
 Desplein, the famous surgeon, arrived the next morn- 
 ing, and stayed onl\- long enough to send to Ha\re for 
 fresh horses and have them put-to, which took about 
 an hour. After examinhig Madame Mignon's eyes, 
 he decided that she could recover lier sight, and fixed 
 a suitable time, a month later, to perform the opera- 
 tion. This important consultation took place before 
 
Modeste 31iynon. 243 
 
 the assembled members of the Chalet, who stood trem- 
 bling and expectant to hear the verdict of the prince of 
 science. That illustrious member of the Academy of 
 Sciences put about a dozen brief questions to the blind 
 woman as he examined her eyes in the strong light 
 from a window. Modeste was amazed at the value 
 which a man so celebrated attached to time, when she 
 saw tlie travelling-carriage piled with books which the 
 great surgeon proposed to read during the journe3- ; 
 for he had left Paris the evening before, and had 
 spent the night in sleeping and tra\'clling. The ra- 
 pidity and clearness of Desplein's judgment on each 
 answer made bj' Madame Mignon, his succinct tone, 
 his decisive manner, gave Modeste her first real idea of 
 a man of genius. She perceived the enormous differ- 
 ence between a second-rate man, like Canalis, and Des- 
 plein, who was even more than a superior man. A man 
 of genius finds in the consciousness of his talent and in 
 the solidit}' of his fame an arena of his own, where his 
 legitimate pride can expand and exercise itself without 
 interfering with others. MoreoA'er, his perpetual struggle 
 with men and things leave him no time for the coxcombry- 
 of fashionable genius, which makes haste to gather in 
 the harvests of a fugitive season, and whose vanity and 
 self-love are as pettj' and exacting as a custom-house 
 which levies tithes on all that comes in its way. 
 
 Modeste was the more enchanted b\' this great prac- 
 tical genius, because he was evidently ciiarmed with 
 the exquisite henaty of Modeste, — he, through whose 
 hands so man}' women passed, and who had long since 
 examined the sex, as it were, with magnifier and 
 scalpel. 
 
244 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "It would be a sad pity," he said, with an air of 
 gallantry which he occasionally put on, and which con- 
 trasted with his assumed brusqueness, " if a mother were 
 deprived of the sight of so charming a daughter." 
 
 Modeste insisted on serving the simple breakfast 
 which was all the great surgeon would accept. She 
 accompanied her father and Duma^- to the carriage 
 stationed at the garden-gate, and said to Despleiu at 
 parting, her eyes shining with hope, — 
 
 " And will my dear mamma reallj' see me?" 
 
 "Yes, vay little sprite, I'll promise j'ou that," he 
 answered, smiling; "and I am incapable of deceiving 
 j'ou, for I, too, have a daughter." 
 
 The horses started and carried him off as he uttered 
 the last words with unexpected grace and feeling. 
 Nothing is more charming than the peculiar unex- 
 pectedness of persons of talent. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 245 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE POET DOES HIS EXERCISES. 
 
 This visit of the great surgeon was the event of the 
 da}', and it left a liiininous trace in Modeste's soul. 
 The young enthusiast ardentl}' admired the man whose 
 life belonged to others, and in whom the habit of 
 studying physical suffering had destroyed the mani- 
 festations of egoism. That evening, wlien Gobenheun, 
 the Latournellcs, and Butscha, Canahs, Sirnest, and the 
 Due d'Herouville were gathered in the salon, they all 
 congratulated the Mignon famil}' on the hopes which 
 Desplein encouraged. The conversation, in which the 
 Modeste of her letters was once more in the ascendant, 
 turned naturally on the man whose genius, unfortu- 
 nately for his fame, was appreciable only by the fa- 
 culty and men of science. Gobenheim contributed a 
 phrase which is the sacred chrism of genius as in- 
 terpreted in these daj's by public economists and 
 bankers, — 
 
 " He makes a mint of money." 
 
 " They say he is very grasping," added Canalis. 
 
 The praises which Modeste showered on Desplein 
 
 had annoj-ed the poet. Vanity acts like a woman, — 
 
 the}' both think they are defrauded when love or praise 
 
 is bestowed on others. Voltaire was jealous of the wit 
 
 - of a roue whom Paris admired for two days ; and even 
 
246 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 a duchess takes offence at a look bestowed upon her 
 maid. The avarice excited by tliese two sentiments is 
 such that a fraction of them given to the poor is 
 thought robber}-. 
 
 "Do jou think, monsieur," said Modeste, smiling, 
 " that we should judge genius by ordinarj' standards? " 
 
 "Perhaps we ought first of all to define the man of 
 genius," replied Canahs. " One of the conditions of 
 genius is invention, — invention of a form, a system, a 
 force. Napoleon was an inventor, apart from his other " 
 conditions of genius. He invented his method of mak- 
 ing war. Walter Scott is an inventor, Linnjeus is an 
 inventor, Geoffrej- Saint-Hilaire and C'uvier are invent- 
 ors. Sucli men are men of genius of the first rank. 
 The\' renew, increase, or modify both science and art. 
 But Desplein is merely a man whose vast talent consists 
 in properlj' appl3'ing laws already' known ; in observing, 
 hy means of a natural gift, the limits laid down for 
 each temperament, and the time appointed by Nature 
 for an operation. He has not founded, like Hippocrates, 
 the science itself. He has invented no system, as did 
 Galen, Broussais, and Easori. He is merely an execu- 
 tive genius, like Moscheles on the piano, Paganini on 
 the violin, or Farinelli on his own larynx, — men who 
 liave developed enormous faculties, but who have not 
 created music. Yon must permit me to discriminate 
 between Beethoven and la Catalani : to one belongs the 
 immortal crown of genius and of martyrdom, to the 
 other innumerable five-franc pieces ; one we can pay in 
 coin, but the world remains throughout all time a debtor 
 to the other. Each day increases our debt to Moliere, 
 but Baron's comedies have been overpaid." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 247 
 
 " I think you make the prerogative of ideas too ex- 
 clusive," said Ernest de La Bri^re, in a quiet and 
 melodious voice, which formed a sudden contrast to the 
 peremptory tones of the poet, whose flexiljle organ had 
 abandoned its caressing notes for the strident and 
 magisterial voice of the rostrum. "Genius must be 
 estimated according to its utility ; and Parmentier, who 
 brought potatoes into general use, Jacquart, the in- 
 ventor of silk looms ; Papin, who first discovered the 
 elastic quality of steam, are men of genius, to whom 
 statues will some day be erected. They have changed, 
 or thej' will change in a certain sense, the face of the 
 State. It is in that sense that Desplein will alwaj's be 
 considered a man of genius hy thinkers ; tliej' see him 
 attended b^' a generation of sufferers whose pains are 
 stilled by his hand." 
 
 That Ernest should give utterance to this opinion 
 was enough to make Modeste oppose it. 
 
 "If that be so, monsieur," she said, " then the man 
 who could discover a way to mow wheat without in- 
 juring the straw, bj' a machine that could do the work 
 of ten men, would be a man of genius." 
 
 "Yes, my daughter," said Madame Mignon; "and 
 the poor would bless him for cheaper bread, — he that 
 is blessed by the poor is blessed of God.'' 
 
 "That is putting utility above art," said Modeste, 
 shaking her head. 
 
 " Without utilitj' what would become of art?" said 
 Charles Mignon. " What would it rest on? what would 
 it live on? AVhere would j'ou lodge, and how would 
 you paj' the poet ? " 
 
 " Oh ! my dear papa, such opinions are fearfullj^ flat 
 
248 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 and antediluvian ! I am not surprised that Gobenheiin 
 and Monsieur de La Briere, who are interested in the 
 solution of social problems should think so ; but j'ou, 
 whose life has been the most useless poetiy of the 
 centurj', — useless because the blood j'ou shed all over 
 Europe, and the horrible sufferings exacted bj' jour co- 
 lossus, did not prevent France from losing ten depart- 
 ments acquired under the Revolution, — how can you 
 give in to such excessively pig-tail notions, as the ideal- 
 ists say ? It is plain you 've just come from China." 
 
 The impertinence of Modeste's speech was height- 
 ened by a little air of contemptuous disdain which 
 she purposely put on, and which fairly astounded 
 Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, and Dumay. 
 As for Madame Latournelle, she opened her eyes so 
 wide she no longer saw anything. Butscha, whose alert 
 attention was comparable to that of a spj-, looked at 
 Monsieur Mignon, expecting to see him flush with 
 sudden and violent indignation. 
 
 " A little more, j'oung lady, and you will be wanting 
 in respect for your father," said the colonel, smiling, 
 and noticing Butscha's look. " See what it is to spoil 
 one's children ! " 
 
 " I am 30ur onU' child," she said saucilj'. 
 
 " Child, indeed," remarked the notary, significantly. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Modeste, turning upon him, " mj* 
 father is delighted to have me for his governess ; he 
 gave me life and I give him knowledge ; he will soon 
 owe me something." 
 
 " There seems occasion for it," said Madame Mignon. 
 
 " But mademoiselle is right," said Canalis rising and 
 standing before the fireplace in one of the finest at- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 249 
 
 titudes of his collection. "God, In his providence, has 
 given food and clothing to man, but he has not directly 
 given hira art. He saj-s to man : ' To live, thou must 
 bow thj'self to earth; to think, thou shalt lift th3-self to 
 Me.' * We have as much need of the life of the soul as 
 of the life of the body, — hence, there are two utilities. 
 It is true we cannot be shod bj' books or clothed by 
 poems. An epic song is not, if j'ou take the utilitarian 
 view, as useful as the broth of a charity kitchen. The 
 noblest ideas will not sail a vessel in place of canvas. 
 It is quite true that the cotton-gin gives us calicoes for 
 thirtj' sous a yard less than we ever paid before ; but 
 that machine and all other industrial perfections will 
 not breathe the breath of life into a people, will not 
 tell futurity of a civilization that once existed. Art, on 
 the contrary, Egyptian, Mexican, Grecian, Roman art, 
 with their masterpieces — now called useless ! — reveal 
 the existence of races back in the vague immense of 
 time, beyond where the great intermediary' nations, 
 denuded of men of genius, have disappeared, leaving 
 not a line nor a trace behind them ! The works of 
 genius are tbe summum of civilization, and presuppose 
 utility-. Surely a pair of boots are not as agreeable to 
 your e3"es as a fine play at the theatre ; and j'ou don't 
 prefer a windmill to the church of Saint-Ouen, do j-ou ? 
 Well then, nations are imbued with the same feelings 
 as the individual man, and the man's cherished desire 
 is to survive himself morally just as he propagates him- 
 self physicallj'. The survival of a people is the work 
 of its men of genius. At this very moment France is 
 proving, energetically, the truth of that theory. She 
 is, undoubtedly, excelled by England in commerce, in- 
 
260 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 dustry, and navigation, and j'et slie is, I believe, at the 
 liead of tlie world, — ■ b3' reason of her artists, her men 
 of talent, and the good taste of her products. There 
 is no artist and no superior intellect that does not come 
 to Paris for a diploma. There is no school of painting 
 at this moment but that of France ; and we shall reign 
 far longer and perhaps more securol}' by our books than 
 by our swords. In La Britre's system, on the other 
 hand, all that is glorious and lovelj' must be suppressed, 
 — woman's beauty, music, painting, poetry. Societj' 
 will not be overthrown, that is true, but, I ask j-ou, who 
 would willingly accept such a life? All useful things 
 are uglj' and forbidding. A kitchen is indispensable, 
 but you take care not to sit there ; 3'ou live in the salon, 
 which you adorn, like this, with superfluous things. Of 
 what iise, let me ask j'ou, are these charming wall-paint- 
 ings, this carved wood-work? There is nothing beauti- 
 ful but that which seems to us useless. We called the 
 sixteenth century the Renascence with admirable truth 
 of language. That centurj' was the dawn of a new era. 
 Men will continue to speak of it when all remembrance 
 of anterior centuries has passed awaj', — their onl}' merit 
 being that thej' once existed, like the million beings who 
 count as the rubbish of a generation." 
 
 "Rubbish! 3'es, that may be, but my rubbish is 
 dear to me," said the Due d'Herouville, laughing, dur- 
 ing the silent pause which followed the poet's pompous 
 oration. 
 
 "Let me ask," said Butscha, attacking Canalis, "does 
 art, the sphere in which, according to you, genius is 
 required to evolve itself, exist at all? Is it not a 
 splendid lie. a delusion, of the social man? Do I want 
 
Modeste Mignon. 251 
 
 a landscape scene of Normand3- in my bedroom when 
 I can look out and sec a better one done by God him- 
 self? Our dreams make poems more glorious than 
 Iliads. For an insignificant sum of money I can find 
 at Valogne, at Carentan, in Provence, at Aries, manj' a 
 Venus as beautiful as those of Titian. The police 
 gazette publishes tales, differing somewhat from those 
 of Walter Scott, but ending tragicallj' with blood, not 
 ink. Happiness and virtue exist above and beyond 
 both art and genius." 
 
 " Bravo, Butsclia ! " cried Madame Latournelle. 
 
 "What did lie say?" asked Canalis of La Briere, 
 failing to gatlier from the eyes and attitude of Made- 
 moiselle Mignon the usual signs of artless admiration. 
 
 The contemptuous indifference which Modeste had 
 exhibited toward La Briere, and above all, her disre- 
 spectful speeches to her father, so depressed the young 
 man that he made no answer to Canalis ; his eyes, fixed 
 sorrowfully on Modeste, were full of deep meditation. 
 The Due d'Herouville toolt up Butscha's argument and 
 reproduced it with much intelligence, saying finally that 
 the ecstasies of Saint-Theresa were far superior to the 
 creations of Lord Byron. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur le due," exclaimed Modeste, "hers 
 was a pureh' personal poetrj-, whereas the genius of 
 Lord Byron and Moliere benefit the world." 
 
 "How do you square that opinion with those of 
 Monsieur le baron?" cried Charles Mignon, quickh'. 
 "Now you are insisting that genius must be useful, 
 and benefit the world as though it were cotton, — but 
 perhaps you think logic as antediluvian as your poor 
 old father?" 
 
252 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Butscha, La Briere, and Madame Latournelle ex- 
 changed glances that were more than half derisive, 
 and drove Modeste to a pitch of irritation that kept 
 her silent for a moment. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, do not mind them," said Canalis, 
 smiling upon her, " we are neither beaten, nor caught 
 in a contradiction. Ever}' work of art, let it be in lit- 
 erature, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture, im- 
 plies a positive social utilitj', equal to that of all other 
 commercial products. Art is pre-eminentlj' commerce ; 
 presupposes it, in short. An author pockets ten thou- 
 sand francs for his book ; the making of boolts means 
 the manufactory- of paper, a foundry, a printing-office, 
 a bookseller, — in other words, the employment of thou- 
 sands of men. The execution of a symphony of Bee- 
 thoven or an opera by Rossini requires human arms and 
 machinery and manufactures. The cost of a monument 
 is an almost brutal case in point. In short, I may saj' 
 that the works of genius have an extremel}'' costly basis 
 and are, necessarilj', useful to the workingman." 
 
 Astride of that theme, Canalis spoke foi- some min- 
 utes with a fine luxury of metaphor, and much inward 
 complacencj- as to his phrases ; but it happened with 
 him, as with many another great speaker, that he found 
 himself at last at the point from which the conversation 
 started, and in full agi'cement with La Briere without 
 perceiving it. 
 
 " I see with much pleasure, my dear baron," said 
 the little duke, slyly, "that you will make an admirable 
 constitutional minister.'' 
 
 " Oh ! " said Canalis, with the gesture of a great 
 man, " what is the use of all these discussions? What 
 
Modeste Mignon. 253 
 
 do they prove ? — the eternal verit}^ of one axiom : 
 All things are true, all things are false. Moral trntlis 
 as well as human beings change their aspect according 
 to their surroundings, to the point of being actually 
 unrecognizable." 
 
 " Societ}' exists through settled opinions," said the 
 Due d'Htirouville. 
 
 " What laxitj' ! " whispered Madame Latournelle to 
 her husband. 
 
 " He is a poet," said Gobenheim, who overheard her. 
 
 Canalis, \Yho was ten leagues above the heads of his 
 audience, and who ma^' have been right in his last philo- 
 sophical remark, took tiie sort of coldness which now 
 overspread the surrounding faces for a symptom of 
 provincial ignorance ; but seeing that Modeste under- 
 stood him, he was content, being wholly unaware that 
 monologue is particularly disagreeable to country- 
 folk, whose principal desire it is to exhibit the man- 
 ner of life and tlie wit and wisdom of the provinces 
 to Parisians. 
 
 "Is it long since j'ou have seen the Duchesse de 
 Chaulieu?" asked the dulse, addressing Canalis, as if 
 to change the conversation. 
 
 " I left her about six days ago." 
 
 " Is she well? " persisted the duke. 
 
 " Perfectly well." 
 
 " Have the kindness to remember me to her when 
 you write." 
 
 "They say she is charming," remarked Modeste, 
 addressing tlie duke. 
 
 " Monsieur le baron can speak more confidently than 
 I," replied the grand equerry. 
 
254 Mbdeste Mignon. 
 
 "More than charming," said Canalis, making the 
 best of the duke's perfld3' ; " but I am partial, mademoi- 
 selle ; she has been a friend to me for the last ten 3-ears ; 
 I owe all that is good in me to her ; she has saved me 
 from the dangers of the world. Moreover, Monsieur le 
 Due de Chaulieu launched me in my present career. 
 Without the influence of that family the king and the 
 princesses would have forgotten a poor poet like me ; 
 therefore my affection for the duchess must alwaj-s be 
 full of gratitude." 
 
 His voice quivered. 
 
 " We ought to love the woman who has led j'ou to 
 write those sublime poems, and who inspires you with 
 such noble feelings," said Modeste, quite affected. 
 " Who can think of a poet without a muse ! " 
 
 " He would be without a heart," replied Canalis. 
 '■ He would write barren verses like Voltaire, who 
 never loved any one but Voltaire." 
 
 " I thought you did me the honor to say, in Paris," 
 interrupted Duraaj-, " that you never felt the sentiments 
 you expressed." 
 
 " The shoe fits, my soldier," replied the poet, smiling ; 
 "but let me tell you that it is quite possible to have a 
 great deal of feeling both in the intellectual life and in 
 real life. My good friend here, La Briere, is madly in 
 love," continued Canalis, with a fine show of generositj-, 
 looking at Modeste. " I, who certainly love as much 
 as he,— that is, I think so unless I delude myself, — 
 well, I can give to my love a literary form in harmony 
 with its character. But I dare not say, mademoiselle," 
 he added, turning to Modeste with too studied a grace, 
 " that to-morrow I may not be without inspiration." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 255 
 
 Thus the poet triumphed over all obstacles. In 
 honor of his love he rode a-tilt at the hindrances that 
 were thrown in his way, and Modeste remained won- 
 der-struck at the Parisian wit that scintillated in his 
 declamatory' discourse, of which she had hitherto known 
 little or nothing. 
 
 " What an acrobat ! " whispered Butscha to Latour- 
 nelle, after listening to a magnificent tirade on the 
 Catholic religion and the happiness of having a pious 
 wife, — served up in response to a remark by Madame 
 Mignon. 
 
 Modeste's eyes were blindfolded as it were ; Canalis's 
 elocution and the close attention which she was prede- 
 termined to paj' to him prevented her from seeing that 
 Butscha was carefully' noting the declamation, the want 
 of simplicity, the emphasis that took the place of feeling, 
 and the curious incoherencies in the poet's speech which 
 led the dwarf to make his rather cruel comment. At 
 certain points of Canalis's discourse, when Monsieur 
 Mignon, Dumay, Butscha, and LatoUrnelle wondered 
 at the man's utter want of logic, Modeste admired his 
 suppleness, and said to herself, as she dragged him after 
 her through the labyrinth of fancy, "He loves me!" 
 Butscha, in common with the other spectators of what 
 we must call a stage scene, was struck with the radi- 
 cal defect of all egoists, which Canalis, like many 
 men accustomed to perorate, allowed to be too plainly 
 seen. Whether he understood beforehand what the 
 person he was speaking to meant to say, whether he 
 was not listening, or whether he had the faculty of 
 listening when he was thinking of something else, it is 
 certain that Melchior's face wore au absent-minded look 
 
256 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 in conversation, which disconcerted the ideas of others 
 and wounded their vanit\-. 
 
 Not to listen is not merely- a want of politeness, it i* a 
 mark of disrespect. Canalis pushed this habit too far . 
 for he often forgot to answer ;i speech which requiiec! 
 an answer, and passed, without the ordinarj" transition- 
 of courtesy, to the subject, whatever it was, that ^v-:- 
 occupied hiua. Though such impertinence '- a.<:'je{JSiftf, 
 without protest from a man of marked divtiDyiucUi. iitt 
 stirs a leaven of hatred and veugeance in msujr _ieiJ7* 
 in those of equals it even goes so far a- to ^e-ii: :_^^ 
 friendship. If by chance Melchior was forced to ii; jeii. ILft 
 fell into another fault ; he merely lent his attenrioz.. anei 
 never gave it. Though this maj' not be so mon:: iiig. 
 it shows a kind of semi-concession which is almusT as 
 unsatisfactory- to the hearer and leave.-, him di-iatistiei 
 Xotbing brings more profit in the commerce of sooier:- 
 than the small change of attention. He that heareth let 
 him hear, is not onl}' a gospel precept, it is an exLellent 
 speculation ; follow it. and all will be forgiven yen. 
 even vice. Canalis took a great deal of trccMe in his 
 anxiety to please Modeste : but thongh he w? s cijm- 
 pliant enough with her. he fell back into Ms natural *el£' 
 with the others. 
 
 Modeste, pitiless for the ten martvTS she wa- mak- 
 ing, begged Canalis to read some of liis poems : she 
 wanted, she said, a specimen of his gift for reading, of 
 which she had heard so much. Canalis took the vol- 
 ume which she gave him, and cooed (for that is the 
 proper word) a poem which is generally considered his 
 finest, — an imitation of Mooie's •■ Loves of the An- 
 gels," entitled \'italis, which Monsieur and Madame 
 
Modeste Mignon. 257 
 
 Dumay, Madame Latournelle, and Gobenheim wel- 
 comed with a few yawns. 
 
 "If you are a good whist-player, monsieur," said 
 Gobenheim, flourishing (ive cards held like a fan, " I 
 must say I have never met a man as accomplished as 
 you." 
 
 The remark raised a laugh, for it was the translation 
 of ever3'body's thought. 
 
 " I play it sufficiently well to live in the provinces 
 for the rest of my days," replied Canalis. " That, I 
 think, is enough, and more than enough literature and 
 conversation for whist-players," he added, throwing the 
 volume impatiently on a table. 
 
 This little incident servefe to show what dangers en- 
 viron a drawing-room hero when he steps, like Canalis, 
 out of his sphere ; he is like the favorite actor of a 
 second-rate audience, whose talent is lost when he 
 leaves his own boards and steps upon those of an 
 upper-class theatre. 
 
 17 
 
258 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MODESTE PLAYS HER PART. 
 
 The game opened with the baron and the duke, 
 Gobenheim and Latouruelle as partners. Modeste 
 took a seat near the poet, to Ernest's deep disappoint- 
 ment ; he watched the face of the waj'ward girl, and 
 marked the progress of the fascination which Canalis 
 exerted over her. La Briere had not the gift of se- 
 duction which Melchior possessed. Nature frequently 
 denies it to true hearts, who are, as a rule, timid. 
 This gift demands fearlessness, an alacritj' of ways and 
 7iieans that might be called the trapeze of the mind ; a 
 little mimicry goes with it ; in fact there is alwaj's, 
 morally speaking, something of the comedian in a poet. 
 There is a vast difference between expressing senti- 
 ments we do not feel, though we maj- imagine all their 
 variations, and feigning to feel them when bidding for 
 success on the theatre of private life. And yet, though 
 the necessary hypocrisy of a man of the world may 
 have gangrened a poet, he ends by carrj'ing the facul- 
 ties of his talent into the expression of any required 
 sentiment, just as a great man doomed to solitude ends 
 by infusing his lieart into his mind. 
 
 " He is after the millions," thought La Briere, sadly ; 
 "and he can play passion so well that Modeste will 
 believe him." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 259 
 
 Instead of endeavoring to appear more amiable and 
 wittier than his rival, Ernest imitated the Due d'Herou- 
 ville, and was gloom j', anxious, and watchful ; but 
 whereas the courtier studied the freaks of the young 
 heiress, Ernest simply fell a prey to the pains of dark 
 and concentrated jealousy. He had not yet been able 
 to obtain a glance from his idol. After a while he left 
 the room with Butscha. 
 
 "It is all over!" he said; "she is caught by 
 him ; I am more than disagreeable to her, and, more- 
 over, she is right. Canalis is charming; there's intel- 
 lect in his silence, passion in his ej-es, poetry in his 
 rhodomontades . " 
 
 " Is he an honest man?" asked Butscha. 
 
 "Oh, jes," replied La Briere. "He is loyal and 
 chivalrous, and capable of getting rid, under Modeste's 
 influence, of those affectations which Madame de Chau- 
 lieu has taught him." 
 
 " You are a fine fellow," said the hunchback; " but 
 is he capable of loving, — will he love her?" 
 
 " I don't know," answered La Briere. " Has she 
 said anything about me ? " he asked after a moment's 
 silence. 
 
 "Yes," said Butscha, and he repeated Modeste's 
 speech about disguises. 
 
 Poor Ernest flung himself upon a bench and held his 
 head in his hands. He could not keep back his tears, 
 and he did not wish Butscha to see them ; but the 
 dwarf was the very man to guess his emotion. 
 
 " What troubles j'ou?" he asked. 
 
 " She is right ! " fcried Ernest, springing up ; " I am 
 a wretch." 
 
260 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 And he related the deception into wliich Canalis had 
 led him when Modeste's first letter was received, care- 
 fully jDointing out to Butscha that he had wished to 
 undeceive the young girl before she herself took off the 
 mask, and apostrophizing, in rather juvenile fashion-, 
 his luckless destiny. Butscha sympathetically under- 
 stood the love in the flavor and vigor of his simple 
 language, and in his deep and genuine anxiet}'. 
 
 ' ' But why don't j'ou show yourself to Mademoiselle 
 Modeste for what you are? " he said ; " why do you let 
 your rival do his exercises ? " 
 
 " Have 30U never felt your throat tighten when you 
 wished to speak to her?" cried La Briere ; " is there 
 never a strange feeling in the roots of your hair and on 
 the surface of your skin wlien she looks at 3'ou, — even 
 if she is thinking of something else? " 
 
 " But you had sufficient judgment to show displeas- 
 ure when she as good as told her excellent father that 
 he was a dolt." 
 
 " Monsieur, I love her too well not to have felt a 
 knife in m^' heait when I heard her contradicting her 
 own perfections." 
 
 "Canalis supported her." 
 
 " If she had more self-love than heart there would be 
 nothing for a man to regret in losing her,'' answered 
 La Briere. 
 
 Ai this moment Modeste, followed by Canalis, who 
 had lost the rubber, came out with her father and 
 Madame Dumay to breathe the fresh air of the starry 
 night. While his daughter walked about with the poet, 
 Charles Mignon left her and came lip to La Briere. 
 
 "Your friend, monsieur, ought to have been a law- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 261 
 
 yer," he said, smiling and looking attentively at the 
 j'oung man. 
 
 " You must not judge a poet as you would an ordi- 
 nary man, — as you would me, for example. Monsieur 
 le comte," said La Briere. "A poet has a mission. 
 He is obliged by his nature to see the poetry of ques- 
 tions, just as he expresses that of things. When j-ou 
 think him inconsistent with himself he is really faithful 
 to his vocation. He is a painter copying with equal 
 truth a Madonna and a courtesan. Moliere is as true 
 to nature in his old men as in his young ones, and 
 Molifere's judgment was assuredly a sound and healthy 
 one. These witty paradoxes might be dangerous for 
 second-rate minds, but the}' have no real influence on 
 the character of great men." 
 
 Charles Mignon pressed La Biiere's hand. 
 
 "That adaptability, however, leads a man to excuse 
 himself in his own e3'es for actions that are diametri- 
 caih' opposed to each other : above all, in politics." 
 
 "Ah, mademoiselle," Canalis was at this moment 
 saymg, in a caressing voice, replying to a roguish 
 remark of Modeste, " do not think that a multiplicity 
 of emotions can in anj- way lessen the strength of 
 feelings. Poets, even more than other men, must needs 
 love with constancy and faith. You must not be jeal- 
 ous of what is called the Muse. Happy is the wife of 
 a man whose days are occupied. If you heard the 
 complaints of women who have to endure the burden of 
 an idle husband, either a man without duties, or one so 
 rich as to have nothing to do, 30U would know that the 
 highest happiness of a Parisian wife is freedom, — the 
 right to rule in her own home. Now we writers and 
 
262 Modeate 3Iiynon. 
 
 men of fuuctions and occupations, we leave the sceptre 
 to our wives ; we cannot descend to tlie t3Tanny of 
 little minds ; we have something better to do. If I 
 ever marr3', — which I assure you is a catastrophe very 
 remote at the present moment, — I should wish my 
 wife to enjo3' the same moral freedom that a mistress 
 enjo^-s, and which is perhaps the real source of her 
 attraction." 
 
 Canalis tallfed on, displaying the warmth of his fancy 
 and all his graces, for Modeste's benefit, as he spoke of 
 love, marriage, and the adoration of women, until Mon- 
 sieur Mignon, who had rejoined them, seized the oppor- 
 tunity of a slight pause to take his daughter's arm and 
 lead her up to Ernest de La Briere, whom he had been 
 advising to seek an open explanation with her. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said Ernest, in a voice that was 
 scarcely his own, " it is impossible for me to remain 
 any longer under the weight of your displeasure. I 
 do not defend myself; I do not seek to justify my 
 conduct ; I desire only to make you see that before 
 reading your most flattering letter, addressed to the 
 individual and no -longer to the poet, — the last which 
 you sent to me, — I wished, and I told you in my note 
 wi'itten at Havre that I wished, to correct the error 
 under which yon were acting. All the feelings that 
 I have had the happiness to express to you are sincere. 
 A hope dawned on me in Paris when your father told 
 me he was comparativelj- poor, — but now that all is 
 lost, now that nothing is left for me but endless regrets, 
 why should I stay here where all is torture? Let me 
 carrj' away with me one smile to live forever in my 
 heart." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 263 
 
 "Monsieur," answered Modeste, who seemed cold and 
 absent-minded, " I am not the mistress of this house ; 
 but I certainly should deeply regret to retain any one 
 where he finds neither pleasure nor happiness. 
 
 She left La Briere and took Madame Dumay's arm 
 to re-enter the house. A few moments later all the 
 actors in this domestic scene reassembled in tlie salon, 
 and were a good deal surprised to see Modeste sitting 
 beside the Due d' Ilerouville and coquetting with him 
 like an accomplished Parisian woman. She watched 
 his plaj-, gave him the advice he wanted, and found 
 occasion to say flattering things bj' ranking the merits 
 of noble birth with those of genius and beauty. Cana- 
 lis thought he knew the reason of this change ; he had 
 tried to pique Modeste bj- calling marriage a catastro- 
 phe, and showing that he was aloof from it ; but like 
 others who pla^- with Are, he had burned his fingers. 
 Modeste's pride and her present disdain frightened 
 him, and he endeavored to recover his ground, exhib- 
 iting a jealousy which was all the more visible because 
 it was artificial. Modeste, implacable as an angel, 
 tasted the sweets of power, and, naturally enough, 
 abused it. The Due d'Hiirouville had never known 
 such a happy evening ; a woman smiled on him ! At 
 eleven o'clock, an unheard-of hour at the Chalet, the 
 three suitors took their leave, — the duke thinking Mo- 
 deste charming, Canalis believing her excessively coquet- 
 tish, and La Briere heart-broken by her cruelt3-. 
 
 For eight da3'S the heiress continued to be to her 
 three lovers verj^ much what she had been during that 
 evening ; so that the poet appeared to carry the day 
 against his rivals, in spite of certain freaks and caprices 
 
264 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 which from time to time gave the Due d'Herouville a lit- 
 tle hope. The disrespect she showed to her father, and 
 the great liberties she took with him ; her impatience 
 'vith her blind mother, to whom she seemed to grudge 
 the little services which had once been the delight 
 of her filial pietj', — seemed the result of a capricious 
 nature and a heedless gayetj' indulged from childhood. 
 When Modeste went too far, she turned round and 
 openl}' took herself to task, ascribing her impertinence 
 and levity to a spirit of independence. She acknowl- 
 edged to the duke and Canalis her distaste for obedi- 
 ence, and professed to regard it as an obstacle to her 
 marriage ; thus investigating the nature of her suitors, 
 after the manner of those who dig into the earth in 
 search of metals, coal, tufa, or water. 
 
 "I shall never," she said, the evening before the day 
 on which the family were to move into the villa, "■find 
 a husband who wiU put up with my caprices as my 
 father does ; his kindness never flags. I am sure no 
 one will ever be as indulgent to me as my precious 
 mother." 
 
 "The}' know that j-ou love them, mademoiselle," 
 said La Brifere. 
 
 "You may be very sure, mademoiselle, that your 
 husband will know the full value of his treasure," added 
 the duke. 
 
 " You have spirit and resolution enough to discipline 
 a husband," cried Canalis, laughing. 
 
 Modeste smiled as Henri IV. must have smiled after 
 drawing out the characters of his three principal minis- 
 ters, for the benefit of a foreign ambassador, by means 
 of three answers to an insidious question. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 265 
 
 On the daj' of the dinner, Modeste, led away b3^ the 
 preference she bestowed on Canalis, walked alone with 
 him lip and down the gravelled space which lay between 
 the house and the lawn with its flower-beds. From the 
 gestures of the poet, and the air and manner of the 
 young heiress, it was easy to see that she was listening 
 favorably to him. The two demoiselles d'Herouville 
 hastened to interrupt the scandalous tete-a-tete ; and 
 with the natural cleverness of women under such cir- 
 cumstances, they turned the conversation on the. court, 
 and the distinction of an appointment under the crown, 
 — pointing out the difference that existed between ap- 
 pointments in the hou.sehold of the king and those of 
 the crown. The}- tried to intoxicate Modeste's mind 
 b}- appealing to her pride, and describing one of the 
 highest stations to which a woman could aspire. 
 
 " To have a duke for a son," said the elder ladv, " is 
 an actual advantage. The title is a fortune that we se- 
 cure to our children without the possibility of loss." 
 
 " How is it, then," said Canalis, displeased at his tete- 
 a-tete being thus broken in upon, " that Monsieur le 
 due has had so little • success in a matter where his title 
 would seem to be of special service to him?" 
 
 The two ladies cast a look at Canalis as full of venom 
 as the tooth of a snake, and thej" were so disconcerted 
 bj' Modeste's amused smile that they were actually un- 
 able to reply. 
 
 "Monsieur le due has never blamed 3'ou," she said 
 to Canalis, " for the humility with which j'ou bear your 
 fame ; whj' should you attack him for his modestj- ? " 
 
 " Besides, we have never yet met a woman worthy 
 of my nephew's rank," said Mademoiselle d'Herouville. 
 
266 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Some had on\y the wealth of the position; others, 
 without fortune, had the wit and birth. I must ad- 
 mit that we have done well to wait till God granted 
 us an opportunit}- to meet one in whom we find the 
 noble blood, the mind, and fortune of a Duchesse 
 d'llerouville." 
 
 " Mj- dear Modeste," said Helene d'Herouville, lead- 
 ing her new friend apart, " there are a tliousand barons 
 in the kingdom, just as there are a hundred poets in 
 Paris, who are worth as ranch as he ; he is so little of a 
 great man that even T, a poor girl forced to take the 
 veil for want of a dot, I would not take him. You 
 don't know what a 3'oung man is who has been for ten 
 years in the hands of a Duchesse de Chaulieu. None 
 but an old woman of sixty could put up with the little 
 ailments of which, they saj-, the great poet is always 
 complaining, — a habit in Louis XIV. that became a 
 perfectly insupportable annoyance. It is true the 
 duchess does not suffer from it as much as a wife, who 
 would have him always about her." 
 
 Then, practising a well-known manoeuvre peculiar to 
 her sex, Helene d'Herouville repeated in a low voice 
 all the calumnies which women jealous of the Duchesse 
 de Chaulieu wei-e in the habit of spreading about the 
 poet. This little incident, common as it is in the inter- 
 course of women, will serve to show with what fury 
 the hounds were after Modeste's wealth. 
 
 Ten davs saw a great change in the opinions at the 
 Chalet as to the three suitors for Mademoiselle de La 
 Bastie's hand. This change, which was much to the 
 disadvantage of Canalis, came about through consider- 
 ations of a nature which ought to make the holders of 
 
Modeste Mignon. 267 
 
 any kind of fame pause, and reflect. No one can 
 den}-, if we remember tlie passion with wliicli people 
 seek for autograplis, tliat public curiosity is greatly ex- 
 cited by celebrity. Evidently most provincials nev^r 
 form an exact idea in their own minds of how illus- 
 trious Parisians put on their cra^-ats, walk on the 
 boulevards, stand gaping at nothing, or eat a cutlet ; be- 
 cause, no sooner do they perceive a man clothed in the 
 sunbeams of fashion or resplendent with some dignity 
 that is more or less fugitive (though always envied), 
 than they cry out, " Look at that! " " How queer! " 
 and other depredator}- exclamations. In a word, the 
 mysterious charm that attaches to every kind of fame, 
 even that which is most justly due, never lasts. It is, 
 and especially with superficial people who are envious 
 or sarcastic, a sensation which passes oft' with the ra- 
 pidit}- of lightning, and never returns. It would seem 
 as though fame, like the sun, hot and luminous at a 
 distance, is cold as the summit of an alp when jou 
 approach it. Perhaps man is only really great to his 
 peers ; perhaps the defects inherent in his constitution 
 disappear sooner to the eyes of his equals than to those 
 of vulgar admirers. A poet, if he would please in 
 ordinarj' life, must put on the fictitious graces of those 
 who are able to make their insignificance forgotten by 
 charming manners and complying speeches. The poet 
 of the faubourg Saint-Germain, who did not choose to 
 bow before this social dictum, was made before long to 
 feel that an insulting provincial indifference had suc- 
 ceeded to the dazed fascination of the earlier evenings. 
 The prodigality of his wit and wisdom had produced 
 upon these worthy souls somewhat the effect which a 
 
268 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 shopful of glass-ware produces on the ej-e ; in other 
 words, the fire and brilliancj' of Canalis's eloquence 
 soon wearied people who, to use their own words, 
 " cared more for tiie solid." 
 
 Forced after a while to behave like an ordinary 
 man, the poet found an unexpected stumbling-block 
 on ground where La Briere had alreadj- won the suf- 
 frage of the worthy pgople who at first had thought 
 him sulky. Thej- felt the need of compensating them- 
 selves for Canalis's reputation l)y preferring his friend. 
 The best of men are influenced liy such feelings as 
 these. The simple and straightforward young fellow 
 jarred no one's self-love ; coming to know him better 
 they discovered his heart, his modesty, his silent 
 and sure discretion, and his excellent bearing. The 
 Due d'HcrouvilJe considered, him, as a political ele- 
 ment, far aliove Canalis. The poet, ill-balanced, 
 ambitious, and restless as Tasso, loved luxury', gran- 
 deiu', and ran into debt ; while the young lawyer, 
 whose character was equable and well-balanced, lived 
 soberly, was useful without proclaiming it, awaited 
 rewards without begging for them, and laid by his 
 monej-. 
 
 Canalis had moreover laid himself open in a special 
 way to the bourgeois eyes that were watching him. 
 For two or three days he had shown signs of impa- 
 tience ; he had given way to depression, to states oi 
 melanchol}- without apparent reason, to those capricious 
 changes of temper which are the natural results of the 
 nervous temperament of poets. These originahties 
 (we use the provincial word) came from the uneasiness 
 that his conduct toward the Duchesse de Chaulieu 
 
Modeste Mignon. 269 
 
 which grew dailj- less explainable, caused him. He 
 knew he ought to write to her, but could not resolve on 
 doing so. All these fluctuations were carefully re- 
 marked and commented on bj- the gentle American, 
 and the excellent Madame Latournelle, and thej' formed 
 the topic of many a discussion between these two ladies 
 and Madame ^lignon. Canalis felt the effects of these 
 discussions without being able to explain them. The 
 attention paid to him was not the same, the faces sur- 
 rounding him no longer wore the entranced look of the 
 earlier days ; while at the same time Ernest was evi- 
 dentl}- gaining ground. 
 
 For the last two days the poet had endeavored to fas- 
 cinate Modeste only, and lie took advantage of every 
 moment when he found liimself alone with her, to weave 
 the web of passionate language around his love. Mo- 
 deste's blush, as she listened to him on the occasion we 
 have just mentioned, showed the demoiselles d'Herou- 
 ville the pleasure with which she was listening to sweet 
 conceits that were sweetl^y said ; and the}', horribl}- un- 
 easj- at the sight, had immediate recourse to the ultima 
 ratio of women in such cases, namely, those calumnies 
 which seldom miss their object. Accordingly, when 
 the party met at the dinner-table the poet saw a cloud 
 on the brow of his idol ; he knew that Mademoiselle 
 d'Herouville's malignity allowed him to lose no time, 
 and he resolved to offer himself as a husband at the 
 first moment when he could find himself alone with 
 Modeste. 
 
 Overhearing a few acid though polite remarks ex- 
 changed between the poet and the two noble ladies, 
 Gobenheim nudged Butscha with his elbow, and said 
 
270 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 in an undertone, motioning toward the poet and the 
 grand eqnerr}', — 
 
 " They'll demolish one another ! " 
 
 ' ' Canalis has genius enough to demolish himself all 
 alone," answered the dwarf. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 271 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A RIDDLE GUESSED. 
 
 During the dinner, which was magnificent and ad- 
 mirably well served, the duke obtained a signal advan- 
 tage over Canalis. Modeste, who had received her 
 habit and other equestrian equipments the night before, 
 spoke of taking rides about the country. A tiirn of the 
 conversation led lier to express the wisli to see a hunt 
 with hounds, a pleasure she had never jxt enjoyed. 
 The duke at once proposed to arrange a liunt in one of 
 the crown forests, which lay a few leagues from Havre. 
 Thanks to his intimacy with the Prince dc Cadignan, 
 Master of the Hunt, he saw his cliance of displaying 
 an almost regal pomp before Modeste's ejes, and allur- 
 ing her with a glimpse of court fascinations, to which 
 she could be introduced by marriage. Glances were 
 exchanged between the duke and the two demoiselles 
 d'Herouville, which plainly said, " The heiress is ours ! " 
 and the poet, who detected them, and who had nothing 
 but his personal splendors to depend on, determined all 
 the more firmly to obtain some pledge of affection at 
 once. Modeste, on the other hand, half- frightened at 
 being thus pushed beyond her intentions by the d'Herou- 
 villes, walked rather markedly apart with Melchior, 
 when the companj' adjourned to the park after dinner. 
 With the pardonable curiosity of a young girl, she let 
 
272 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 him suspect the cakimnies which Helene had poured 
 into her ears ; but on Canalis's exclamation of anger, 
 she begged him to keep silence about them, which he 
 promised. 
 
 "These stabs of the tongue," he said, "are con- 
 sidered fair in the great woi-ld. Tliey shocli your up- 
 right nature ; but as for me, I laugli at them ; I am 
 even pleased. These ladies must feel that the duke's 
 interests are in great peril, when tlie3' have recourse to 
 such warfare." 
 
 Making the most of the advantage Modeste had thus 
 given him, Canalis entered upon his defence with such 
 warmth, such eagerness, and with a passion so exquisitelj' 
 expressed, as he thanked her for a confidence in which 
 he could venture to see the dawn of love, that she found 
 herself suddenly as much compromised with the poet 
 as she feared to be with the grand equerrj'. Canalis, 
 feeling the necessitj- of prompt action, declared himself 
 plainlj'. He uttered vows and protestations in which 
 his poetry shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion, 
 and ilhuninating his allusions to the beautj- of his 
 mistress and the charms of her evening dress. This 
 counterfeit enthusiasm, in which the night, the foliage, 
 the heavens and the earth, and Nature herself played a 
 part, carried the eager lover bej'ond all bounds ; for he 
 dwelt on his disinterestedness, and revamped in his 
 own charming st^le, Diderot's famous apostrophe to 
 "Sophie and fifteen hundred francs!" and the well- 
 worn "love in a cottage" of every lover who knows 
 perfectly well the length of the father-in-law's purse. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Modeste, after listening with 
 delight to the melody of this concerto ; ' ' the freedom 
 
Modeste Mignon. 273 
 
 granted to me by my parents has allowed me to listen 
 to yon ; but it is to them' that you must address your- 
 self." 
 
 "But," exclaimed Canalis, " tell me that if I obtain 
 their consent, you will ask nothing better than to olie}' 
 them." 
 
 " I know beforehand," she replied, "• that my father 
 has certain fancies which may wound tln' proper pride 
 of an old family like 3"ours. He wishes to have his own 
 title and name borne by his grandsons." 
 
 "Ah! dear Modeste, what sacriflees would I not 
 make to commit my life to the guardian care of an angel 
 like you." 
 
 " You will permit me not to decide in a moment the 
 fate of my whole life," she said, turning to rejoin the 
 demoiselles d'Herouville. 
 
 Those noble ladies were just then engaged in flattering 
 the vanity of little Latournelle, intending to win him over 
 to their interests, Mademoiselle d'Herouville, to whom 
 we shall in future confine the family name, to distinguish 
 her from her niece Helene, was giving the notary to 
 understand that the post of judge of the Supreme Court 
 in Havre, which Charles X. would bestow as she desired, 
 was an office worthy of his legal talent and his well- 
 known piobitj'. Butscha meanwhile, who had been 
 walking about with La Briere, was greatly alarmed at 
 the pi-ogress Canalis was evidently making, and he way- 
 laid Modeste at the lower step of the portico when the 
 whole party returned to the house to endure the tor- 
 ments of their inevitable whist. 
 
 " jMademoiselle," he said, in a low voice, " I do hope 
 you don't call him Melchior." 
 
 18 
 
274 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "I'm very near it, my Black Dwarf," she said, with 
 a smile that might have made an angel swear. 
 
 "Good God!" exclaimed Butscha, letting fall his 
 hands, which struck the marble steps. 
 
 " Well ! and is n't he worth more than that spiteful 
 and gloomj- secretary in whom you take such an in- 
 terest ? " she retorted, assuming, at the mere thought of 
 Ernest, the haughty manner whose secret belongs exclu- 
 sively to young girls, — as if- their virginity lent therii 
 wings to fly to heaven. ' ' Pray, would your little La 
 Briere accept me without a fortune? " she said, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Ask your father," replied Butscha, who walked a 
 few steps from the house, to get Modeste at a safe 
 distance from the windows. " Listen to me, mademoi- 
 selle. You know that he who speaks to 3'ou is ready to 
 give not only his life but his honor for jou, at anj' 
 moment, and at all times. Therefore 30U may believe 
 in him ; 3'ou can confide to him that which j'ou may 
 not, perhaps, be willing to say to your father. Tell me, 
 has that sublime Canalis been making you the disin- 
 terested offer that you now fling as a reproach at poor 
 Ernest?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' ' Do you believe it ? " 
 
 " That question, m^- manikin," she replied, giving 
 him one of the ten or a dozen nicknames she had 
 invented for him, "strikes me as undervaluing the 
 strength of my self-love." 
 
 "Ah, you are laughing, my dear Mademoiselle Mo- 
 deste; then thei-e's no danger: I hope you are only 
 making a fool of him." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 275 
 
 " Pray what would 30U think of me, Monsieur Butscha, 
 if I allowed mj-self to make fun of those who do 
 me the honor to wish to many me? You ought to 
 know, master Jean, that e\en if a girl affects to 
 despise the most despicable attentions, she is flattered 
 by them." 
 
 '> Then I flatter you?" said the young man, looking 
 up at her with a face that was illuminated like a city 
 for a festival. 
 
 " You? " she said ; " 3'ou give me the most precious 
 of all friendships, — a feeling as disinterested as that of 
 a mother for her child. Compare yourself to no one ; 
 for even my father is obliged to be devoted to me." 
 She paused. " I cannot say that Hove you, iii the sense 
 which men give to that word, but what I do give you is 
 eternal and can know no change." 
 
 " Then," said Butscha, stooping to pick up a pebble 
 that he might kiss the hem of her garment, ' ' suffer me 
 to watch over you as a dragon guards a treasure. The 
 poet was covering 3'Ou just now with the lace-work of his 
 precious phrases, the tinsel of his promises ; he chanted 
 his love on the best strings of his lyre, I know lie did. 
 If, as soon as this noble lover finds out how small j-our 
 fortune is, he makes a sudden change in his behavior, 
 and is cold and embarrassed, will you still marry him? 
 shall you still esteem him ? " 
 
 " He would be another F'rancisque Althor," she said, 
 with a gesture of bitter disgust. 
 
 ' ' Let me have the pleasure of producing that change 
 of scene," said Butscha. " Not only shall it be sudden, 
 but I believe I can change it back and make your poet 
 as loving as before, — na^', it is possible to make him 
 
276 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 blow alternatel}' hot and cold upon 3-oui' heart, just as 
 gracefully as he has talked on both sides of an argu- 
 ment in one evening without ever finding it out." 
 
 "If you are right," she said, "who can be trusted?" 
 
 " One who truly loves you." 
 
 "The little dulie?" 
 
 Butscha looked at Modeste. The pair walked some 
 distance in silence ; the girl was impenetrable and not 
 an eyelash quivered. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, permit me to be.the exponent of the 
 thoughts tliat are lying at the bottom of joiir heart like 
 sea-mosses under the waves, and which yon do not 
 choose to gather up." 
 
 " Eh ! " said Modeste, "so mj- intimate friend and 
 counsellor thinks himself a mirror, does he ? " 
 
 " No, an echo," he answered, with a gesture of sub- 
 lime humilitj'. "The duke loves )'0U, but he loves 
 you too much. If I, a dwarf, have understood the in- 
 finite delicacy' of j'our heart, it would be repugnant to 
 you to be worshipped like a saint in her shrine. You 
 are eminently a woman ; 3"ou neither want a man perpet- 
 ually at your feet of whom you are eternally sure, nor a 
 selfish egoist like Canalis, who will ahva^'s prefer him- 
 self to you. Why? ah, that I don't know. But I will 
 make myself a woman, an old woman, and find out the 
 meaning of the plan which I have read in your eyes, and 
 which perhaps is in the heart of every girl. Neverthe- 
 less, in your great soul you feel the need of worshipping. 
 When a man is at your knees, you cannot put yourself 
 at his. You can't advance in that way, as Voltaire 
 might say. The little duke has too many genuflections 
 in his moral being and the poet has too few, — indeed, I 
 
Modeste Mignon. 277 
 
 might say, none at all. Ha, I have guessed the mis- 
 chief in your smiles when you talk to the grand equeny , 
 and when he talks to you and you answer him. You 
 would never be unhappy with the duke, and everybody 
 will approve your choice, if you do choose him ; but j-ou 
 will never love him. The ice of egotism, and the 
 burning heat of ecstasy both produce indifference in 
 the heart of every woman. It is evident to my mind 
 that no such perpetual worship will give j'ou the infinite 
 delights which 3-ou are dreaming of in marriage, — in 
 'some marriage where obedience will be 3'our pride, where 
 noble little sacrifices can be made and hidden, where the 
 heart is full of anxieties without a cause, and successes 
 are awaited with eager hope, where each new chance for 
 magnanimity' is hailed with joy, where souls are com- 
 prehended to their inmost recesses, and where the woman 
 protects with her love the man who protects her." 
 
 " You are a sorcerer ! " exclaimed Modeste. 
 
 " Neither will j-ou find that sweet equality of feeling, 
 that continual sharing of each other's life, that cer- 
 tainty of pleasing which makes marriage tolerable, if 
 3^ou take Canalis, — a man wiio thinks of himself only, 
 whose ' I ' is the one string to his lute, whose mind is so 
 fixed on himself that he has hitiierto taken no notice of 
 j'our father or the duke, — a man of second-rate ambi- 
 tions, to whom your dignity and j'ohr devotion will 
 matter nothing, who will make you a mere appendage 
 to his household, and who alreadj' insults }'ou hy liis 
 indifference to j'our behavior ; j'es, if j'ou permitted 
 yourself to go so far as to box your mother's ears 
 Canalis would shut his eyes to it, and deny your crime 
 even to himself, because he thirsts for your money. 
 
278 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 And so, mademoiselle, when I spoke of the man who 
 truly loves j'ou I was not thinking of the great poet 
 who is nothing but a little comedian, nor of the duke, 
 who might be a good marriage for j'ou, but never a 
 husband — " 
 
 " Butscha, my heart is a blank page on which j'ou 
 are yourself writing all that 3-ou read there," cried 
 Modeste, interrupting him. "You are carried away 
 by j'our provincial hatred for everything that obliges 
 j'ou to look higher than j'our own head. You can't 
 forgive a poet for beifig a statesman, for possessing the 
 gift of speech, for having a noble future before him, — 
 and 3'ou calumniate his intentions." 
 
 "His! — mademoiselle, he will turn his back upon 
 you with the baseness of an Altlior." 
 
 " Make him play that pretty little comedj', and — " 
 
 ' ' That I will ! he shall play it through and through 
 within three days, — on Wednesday, — recollect, Wed- 
 nesday ! Until then, mademoiselle, amuse yourself by 
 listening to the little tunes of the lyre, so that the dis- 
 cords and the false notes ma^' come out all the more 
 distinctly." 
 
 Modeste ran gayly back to the salon, where La 
 Briere, who was sitting by a window, where he had 
 doubtless been watching his idol, rose to his feet as if 
 a groom of the chambers had suddenly announced, 
 "The Queen." It was a movement of spontaneous 
 respect, full of that living eloquence that lies in gesture 
 even more than in speech. Spoken love cannot com- 
 pare with acts of love ; and every young girl of twenty" 
 has the wisdom of fifty in applying the axiom. In it 
 lies the great secret of attraction. Instead of looking 
 
Modeste Mignon. 279 
 
 Modeste in the face, as Canalis who paid her public 
 homage would have done, the neglected lover followed 
 her with a furtive look between his eyelids, humble 
 after the manner of Butscha, and almost timid. The 
 young heiress observed it, as she took her place by 
 Canalis, to whose game she proceeded to pay attention. 
 During a conversation which ensued, La Briere heard 
 Modeste saj' to her father that she should ride out for 
 the first time on the following Wednesdaj- ; and she also 
 reminded him that she had no whip in keeping with 
 her new equipments. The young man flung a light- 
 ning glance at .the dwarf, and a few minutes later the 
 two were pacing the terrace. 
 
 "It is nine o'clock,'' cried Ernest. " I shall start 
 for Paris at full gallop ; I can get there to-morrow 
 morning by ten. Mj- dear Butsclia, from you she will 
 accept anything, for she is attached to 3'ou ; let me 
 give her a riding-whip in your name. If you will do 
 me this immense kindness you shall have not only my 
 friendship but my devotion." 
 
 "Ah, you are verj- happy," said Butscha, ruefully; 
 " j'ou have mone}-, you!" 
 
 " Tell Canalis not to expect me, and that he must 
 find some pretext to account for my absence." 
 
 An hour later Ernest had ridden out of Havre. He 
 reached Paris in twelve hours, where his first act was to 
 secure a place in the mail-coach for Havre on the follow- 
 ing evening. Then he went to three of the chief jewel- 
 lers in Paris and compared all the whip-handles that 
 they could offer ; he was in search of some artistic 
 treasure that was regally superb. He found one at 
 last, made by Stidmann for a Russian, who was unable 
 
280 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 to pay for it when finished, — a fox-head in gold, 
 with a I'ub}' of exorbitant value ; all his savings went 
 into the purchase, the coat of which was seven thousand 
 francs. Ernest gave a drawing of the arms of La 
 Bastie, and allowed the shop-people twenty hours to 
 engrave them. Tlie handle, a masterpiece of delicate 
 workmanship, was fitted to an india-rubl)er whip and 
 put into a morocco case lined with velvet, on which two 
 M.'s interlaced were stamped in gold. 
 
 La Briere got back to Havre by the mail-coach Wed- 
 nesday morning in time to breakfast with Canalis. The 
 poet had concealed his secretary's absence hy declar- 
 ing that he «as busy with some work sent from Paris. 
 Butscha, who met La Briere at the coach-door, took the 
 box containing the precious work of art to Fran^oise 
 Cochet, with instructions to . place it on Modeste's 
 dressing-table. 
 
 "Of course you will accompanj' Mademoiselle Mo- 
 deste on her ride to-day ? " said Butscha, who went to 
 Canalis's house to let La Briere know bj' a wink that 
 the whip had gone to its destination. 
 
 " I?" answered Ernest ; " no, I am going to bed." 
 
 "Bah!" exclaimed Canalis, looking at him. "I 
 don't know what to make of j'ou." 
 
 Breakfast was then served, and the poet naturally 
 invited their visitor to sta}- and take it. Butscha com- 
 plied, having seen in the expression of the valet's face 
 the success of a trick in which we shall see the first 
 fruits of his promise to Modeste. 
 
 " Monsieur is very right to detain the clerk of Mon- 
 sieur- Latournelle," whispered Germain in his master's 
 ear. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 281 
 
 Canalis and Germain went into the salon on a sign 
 that passed between tliem. 
 
 " I went out this morning to see the men fish, mon- 
 sienr," said the valet, — " an excursion proposed to me 
 1)3' the captain of a smack, whose acquaintance I liave 
 made." 
 
 Germain did not acknowledge that he had the bad 
 taste to pLay billiards in a cafe, — a fact of which 
 Bntscha had taken advantage to survonnd him with 
 friends of his own and manage him as he pleased. 
 
 " Well ? " said Canalis, " to the point, — quick ! " 
 
 "Monsieur le baron, I heard a conversation about 
 Monsieur Mignon, which I encouraged as far as I 
 could ; for no one, of course, knew that I belong to 3'ou. 
 Ah! monsieur, judging by the talk of tlie quays, you 
 are running your head into a noose. The fortune of 
 Mademoiselle de La Bastie is, like her name, modest. 
 The vessel on which the father returned does not belong 
 to him, but to rich China merchants to whom lie ren- 
 ders an account. Thej' even say things that are not 
 at all flattering to Monsieur Mignon's honor. Having 
 heard that jou and Monsieur le due were rivals for 
 Mademoiselle de La Bastie's hand, I have taken the 
 lilierty to warn j-ou ; of the two, would n't it be better 
 that his lordsliip should gobble her? As I came home 
 I walked round the quays, and into that theatre-hall 
 where tlie merchants meet ; I slipped boldly in and out 
 among them. Seeing a well-dressed stranger, those 
 worthy fellows began to talk to me of Havre, and I 
 got them, little by little, to speak of Colonel Mignon. 
 What thej' said onl}' confirms the stories the fishermen 
 told me ; and I feel that T should fail in my duty if I 
 
282 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 keep silence. That is whj' I did not get home in time 
 to dress monsieur this morning." 
 
 " What am I to do? " cried Canalis, who remembered 
 his proposals to Modeste the night before, and did not 
 see how he could get out of them. 
 
 "Monsieur knows n\v attachment- to him," said Ger- 
 main, perceiving that the poet was thrown quite off his' 
 balance; "he will not be surprised if I give him a 
 word of advice. There is that clerk ; ivy to get the 
 truth out of him. Perhaps he '11 unbutton after a bottle 
 or two of champagnie, or at an^- rate a tliird. It would 
 be strange indeed if monsieur, who will one da^' be an 
 ambassador, as Philoxene has heai-d Madame la du- 
 chesse saj' time and time again, could n't turn a little 
 uotar3''s clerk inside out." 
 
Modeste Mignoh. 283 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 BDTSCHA DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF. 
 
 At this instant Butsclia, tlie liidden prompter of the 
 fishing part3', was requesting the secretaiy to say notli- 
 ing about his trip to Paris, and not to interfere in any 
 way with what he, Butscha, might do. The dwarf had 
 ah'eady made use of an unfavorable feeling lately 
 roused against Monsieur Mignon in Havre in conse- 
 quence of Ills reserve and his determination to keep 
 silence as to the amount of his fortune. The persons 
 who were most bitter against him even declared calum- 
 niously that he had made over a large amount of prop- 
 erty to Duma}' to save it from the just demands of 
 his associates in China. Butscha took advantage of 
 this state of feeling. He asked the fishermen, who 
 owed him many a good turn, to keep the secret and 
 lend him their tongues. Thej' served him well. The 
 captain of the fishing-smack told Germain that one of 
 his cousins, a sailor, had just returned from Marseilles, 
 where he had been paid off from the brig in which Mon- 
 sieur Mignon returned to France. The brig had been 
 sold to the account of some other person than Mon- 
 sieur Mignon, and the cargo was onl}- worth three or 
 four hundred thousand francs at the utmost. 
 
 " Germain," said Canalis, as the valet was leaving 
 the room, "serve champagne and claret. A member 
 
284 Modfisf.e Mignon. 
 
 of the legal fraternity of Havre must cany away with 
 him proper ideas of a poet's hospitality. Besides, he 
 has got a wit that is equal to Figaro's," added Canalis, 
 laying his hand on the dwarfs shoulder, " and we must 
 make it foam and sparkle with champagne ; you and 
 1, Ernest, will not spare the bottle either. Faith, it is 
 over two years since I 've been drunk," he added, look- 
 ing at La Briere. 
 
 " Not drunk with wine, you mean," said Bntseha, 
 looking keenly at him, " j'es, I can believe that. You 
 get drunk every A&y on yourself, you drink in so much 
 praise. Ha, you are handsome, you' are a poet, j'ou are 
 famous in your lifetime, j'OU have the gift of an eloquence 
 that is equal to your genius, and j'ou please all women, 
 — even my master's wife. Admired by the finest sul- 
 tana-valide that I ever saw in m}' life (and I never saw 
 but her) ySu can, if you choose, marry Mademoiselle de 
 La Bastie. Goodness ! the mere inventory of j'our pres- 
 ent advantages, not to speak of the future (a noble title, 
 peerage, embassy!), is enough to make me drunk al- 
 ready, — like the men who bottle other men's wine." 
 
 " All such social distinctions," said Canalis, " are of 
 little use without the one thing that gives them value, — 
 wealth. Here we can talk as men with men ; fine sen- 
 timents onlj- do in verse." 
 
 " That depends on circumstances," said the dwarf, 
 with a knowing gesture. 
 
 "Ah! 3'ou writer of conveyances," said the poet, 
 smiling at the interruption, " you know as well as I do 
 that- co««^e rhymes ^'\ih pottage, — and who would like 
 to live on that for the rest of his days ? " 
 
 At table Butscha pla^-ed'the part of Trigaudin, in the 
 
Modeste Mignon. 285 
 
 Maison en Iqterie, in a waj' that alarmed Ernest, who 
 (lid not know the waggcr}- of a law3-er's office, which 
 is quite equal to that of an atelier. Butseha poured 
 forth the scandalous gossip of Havre, the private his- 
 tor}' of fortunes and boudoirs, and the crimes committed 
 code in hand, which are called in Normandy, " getting 
 out of a thing as best jou can." He spared no one ; and 
 his liveliness increased with the torrents of wine which 
 poured down his throat like rain through a gutter. 
 
 "Do 3-ou know, La Briere," said Canalis, filling 
 Butscha's glass, " that this fellow would make a 
 capital secretary to the embassy?" 
 
 "And oust his chief !" cried the dwarf flinging a 
 look at Canalis whose insolence was lost in the gurgling 
 of carbonic acid gas. " I 've little enough gratitude and 
 quite enough scheming to get astride of your shoulders. 
 Ha, ha, a poet carrying a hunchback ! that 's been seen, 
 often seen — on book-shelves. Come, don't look at me 
 as if I were swallowing swords. Mj' dear great genius, 
 3'ou 're a superior man ; you know that gratitude 
 is the word of fools ; thej' stick it in the dictionary, 
 but it is n't in the human heart ; pledges are worth 
 nothing, except on a certain mount that is neither Pin- 
 dus nor Parnassus. You think I owe a great deal to 
 my master's wife, who brought me up. Bless j'ou, the 
 whole town has paid her for tiiat in praises, respect, 
 and admiration, — the verv best of coin. I don't recog- 
 nize any service that is only tlie capital of self-love. 
 Men make a commerce of their services, and gratitude 
 goes down on the debit side, — tliat's all. As to 
 schemes, thej' are my divinit)'. What?" he exclaimed, 
 at a gesture of Canalis, ' ' don't you admire the faculty 
 
280 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 which enables a wily man to get the better of a man of 
 genius? it takes the closest observation of his vices, 
 and his weaknesses, and the wit to seize the happy 
 moment. Ask diplomacy if its greatest triumphs are 
 not those of craft over force ? If I were your secre- 
 tary, Monsieur le baron, you 'd soon be prime-minister, 
 because it would be mj' interest to have you so. Do 
 you want a specimen of my talents in that line? Well 
 then, listen ; you love Mademoiselle Modeste distract- 
 edly, and you 've good reason to do so. The girl has 
 my fullest esteem ; she is a true Parisian. Sometimes 
 we get a few real Parisians born down here in the 
 pi-ovinces. Well, Modeste is just the woman to help a 
 man's career. She 's got thut in her," he cried, with a 
 turn of his wrist in the air. " But you 've a dangerous 
 competitor in the duke ; what will yow give me to get 
 him out of Havre within three daj's?" 
 
 " Finish this bottle," said the poet, refilling Butseha's 
 glass. 
 
 "You'll make me drunk," said the dwarf, tossing 
 off his ninth glass of champagne. "Have you a bed 
 where I could sleep it off? My master is as sober as 
 the camel that he is, and Madame Latournelle too. 
 Thej" are brutal enough, both of them, to scold me ; 
 and they 'd have the rights of it too — there are those 
 deeds I ougiit to be drawing! — " Then, suddenly re- 
 turning to his previous ideas, after the fashion of a 
 drunken man, he exclaimed, "and I've such a mem- 
 ory ; it is on a par with my gratitude." 
 
 " Butscha ! " cried the poet, " you said just now you 
 had no gratitude ; you contradict yonrselC." 
 
 " Not at all," he replied. " To forget a thing means 
 
MochMe Mignon. 287 
 
 almost always recollecting it. Come, come, do you 
 want me to get rid of the duke? I'm cut out for a 
 'secretary," 
 
 " How could you manage it? " said Canalis, delighted 
 to find the conversation taking this turn of its own 
 accord. 
 
 " That 's none of your business," said the dwarf, with 
 a portentous hiccough. 
 
 Butscha's head rolled between his shoulders, and his 
 e3'es turned from Germain to La Briere, and from La 
 Briere to Canalis, after the manner of men who, knowing 
 they are tipsj', wish to see what other men are thinking 
 of them ; for in the shipwreck of drunkenness it is 
 noticeable that self-love is the last thing that goes to 
 the bottom. 
 
 " Hu ! my great poet, you're a prettj' good trickster 
 yourself; but" you are not deep enough. What do you 
 mean by taking me for one of your own readers, — you, 
 who sent j'our friend to Paris, full gallop, to inquire into 
 the property of the ilignon family? Ha, ha! I hoax, 
 thou hoaxest, we hoax — Good! But do me the honor 
 to believe that I 'm deep enough to keep the secrets of mj' 
 own business. As the head-clerk of a notarj', ray heart 
 is a locked box, padlocked ! My mouth never opens to 
 let out anything about a client. I know all, and I know 
 nothing. Besides, m^- passion is well known. I loA-e 
 Modeste ; she is my pupil, and_she must make a good 
 marriage. 1 '11 fool the duke, if need be ; and you shall 
 marry — " 
 
 •' Germain, coffee and liqueurs," said Canalis. 
 
 " Liqueurs ! " repeated Butscha with a wave of his 
 hand, and the air of a sham virgin repelling seduction ; 
 
288 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Ah, those poor deeds! one of 'em was a marriage 
 contract; and that second clerk of mine is as stupid 
 as — as — an epithalamium, and he 's capable of digging" 
 his penknife right through the bride's paraphernalia; 
 he thinks he s a handsome man because he 's five feet 
 six, ■ — idiot i " 
 
 "Here is some creme de the, a liqueur of the West 
 Indies," said Canalis. " You, whom Mademoiselle 
 Modeste consults — " 
 
 " YeS) she consults me." 
 
 " Well, do you think she loves me?" asked the poet. 
 
 "Loves 3'ou? yes, more than she loves the duke," 
 answered the dwarf, rousing himself from a Stupor which 
 was admirably played. "She loves you for j'our dis- 
 interestedness. She told me she was readj' to make the 
 greatest sacrifices for your sake ; to give up dress and 
 spend as little as possible on herself, and devote her 
 life to showing you that in marrying her 30U had n't 
 done so [hiccough] bad a thing for yourself. Slie 's 
 as right as a trivet, — yes, and well infornied. She 
 knows everything, that girl." 
 
 ' ' And she has three hundred thousand francs ? " 
 
 " There ma_y be quite as much as that," cried the dwarf, 
 enthusiastically. "Papa Mignon, — mignou byname, 
 mignon by nature, and that's why I respect him, — well, he 
 would rob himself of everything to marry his daughter. 
 Your Restoration [hiccough] has taught him how to 
 live on half-pa}' ; he 'd be quite content to live with 
 Dumay on next to nothing, if he could rake and scrape 
 enough together to give the little one three hundred 
 thousand francs. But don't let 's forget that Dumay is 
 going to leave all his money to Modeste. Dumay, you 
 
3Iodeste Wlignon. 289 
 
 know, is a Breton, and that fact clinuhes the matter ; he 
 won't go back from his word, and his fortune is equal to 
 the colonel's. But I don't approve of Monsieur Mignon's 
 taking back that villa, and, as they often ask m}' advice, 
 I told them so. ' You sink too much in it,' I said ; ' if Vil- 
 quin does not buy it back there's two hundred thousand 
 francs which won't bring you in a. penny ; it only leaves 
 you a hundred thousand to get along with, and it isn't 
 enough.' The colonel and Dumay are consulting about 
 it now. But nevertheless, between you and me, Mo- 
 dcste is sure to be rich. I hear talk on the quays 
 against it ; but that's all nonsense; people are jealous. 
 Wh\', there's no such dot in Havre," cried Butscha, 
 beginning to count on his fingers. "Two to three 
 hundred thousand in readj- monej-," bending back the 
 thumb of his left hand with the forefinger of his riglit, 
 "that's one item; the reversion of the villa Blignon, 
 that's another; tertio, Dumay's property!" doubling 
 down his middle finger. " Ha ! little Modeste may 
 count upon her six hundred thousand francs as soon as 
 the two old soldiers have got their marcliing orders for 
 eternity." 
 
 This coarse and candid statement, intermingled wilii 
 a variety of liquors, sobered Canalis as much as it 
 appeared to befuddle Butscha. To the latter, a young 
 provincial, such a fortune must of course seem colossal. 
 He let his head fall into the palm of his right hand, and 
 putting his elbows majesticallj- on the table, blinked his 
 eyes and continued talking to himself: — 
 
 ■' In twenty years, thanks to that Code, which pillages 
 fortunes under what they call ' Successions,' an heiress 
 worth a million will be as rare as generosity in a mone^- 
 
 19 
 
290 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 lender. Suppose Modeste does want to spend all the 
 interest of her own mone\', — well, she is so pretty, so 
 sweet and prettj^ ; why she 's — you poets are alwaj'S af- 
 ter metaphors — she 's a weasel as tricky as a monkej-." 
 
 " How came you to tell me she had six millions ? 
 said Canalis to La Briere, in a low voice. 
 
 " Mj' friend," said Ernest, " I do assure you that I 
 was bound to silence b^' an oath ; perhaps, even now 
 I ought not to say as much as that." 
 
 " Bound ! to whom ? " 
 
 "To Monsieur Mignon." 
 
 " Ernest ! you who know how essential fortune is 
 to me — " 
 
 Butscha snored. 
 
 " — who know my situation, and all that I shall 
 lose in the Duchesse de Chaulieu, by this attempt at 
 marrying, you could coldly let me plunge into such a 
 thing as this ! " exclaimed Canalis, turning pale. " It 
 was a question of friendship ; and ours was a compact 
 entered into long before you ever saw that crafty 
 Mignon." 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Ernest, " I love Modeste too 
 well to — " 
 
 " Fool ! then take her," cried the poet, ' ' and break 
 your oath." 
 
 " Will you promise me on jour word of honor to 
 forget what I now tell you, and to behave to me as 
 though this confidence had never been made, whatever 
 happens ? " 
 
 " I '11 swear that, by my mother's memory." 
 
 "Well then," said La Briere, "Monsieur Mignon 
 told me in Paris that he was verj- far from having the 
 
Modeste Mlynon. 291 
 
 colossal fortune which the Mongenods told me about 
 and which I mentioned to you. The colonel intends to 
 give two hundred thousand francs to his daughter. 
 And now, Melchior, I ask you, was the father really 
 distrustful of us, as you thought; or was he sincere? 
 It is not for me to answer those questions. If Modeste 
 without a fortune deigns to choose me, she will be m}" 
 wife." 
 
 "A l)lue-stocking ! educated till she is a terror! a 
 girl who has I'ead everything, who knows everything, — 
 in theorj'," cried Canalis, hastily, noticing La Briere's 
 gesture, " a spoiled child, brought up in luxury' in her 
 childhood, and weaned of it for five years. Ah ! xay 
 poor friend, take care what jou are about." 
 
 " Ode and Code," saicl Butscha, waking up, " you do 
 the ode and I the code ; there 's only a C's difference 
 between us. Well, now, code comes from coda, a tail, 
 
 — mark that word ! See here ! a bit of good advice is 
 worth jour wine and 3"our cream of tea. E'ather Mignon 
 
 — he's cream, too ; the cream of honest men — he is 
 going with his daughter on this riding partj* ; do you 
 go up frankly and talk dot to him. He '11 answer plainly, 
 and you '11 get at the truth just as surely as I 'm drunk, 
 and you 're a great poet, — but no matter for that ; we 
 are to leave Havre together, that 's settled, is n't it ? 
 I 'm to be your secretary in place of that little fellow 
 who sits there grinning at me and thinking I 'm drunk. 
 Come, let's go, and leave him to marrj- the girl." 
 
 Canalis rose to leave the room to dress for the 
 excursion. 
 
 "Hush, not a word, — he is going to commit sui- 
 cide," whispered Butscha, sober as a judge, to La 
 
292 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Biiere aS he made the gestul'e of a street boj' at Ca- 
 iialis's back. " Adieu, my chief! " he shouted, in 
 stfentoi'ian tones, ' ' will jou allow me to take A snooze 
 in that kiosk down in the garden? " 
 
 " Make yourself at home," answered the poet. 
 
 Butscha, pursued bj- the laughter of the three Ser- 
 vants of the establishment, gained the kiosk b3- walking 
 o\er the flower-beds and round the vases with the per- 
 verse grace of an insect describing its interminable zig- 
 zags as it tries to get out of a closed window. When 
 he had clamberecl into the kiosk, and the servants had 
 retired, he sat down on a wooden bench and wallowed 
 in the delights of his triumph. He had completely 
 fooled a great man ; he had not only torn off his mask, 
 but he had made him untie the strings himself; and he 
 laughed like an author over his own play, — that is to 
 saj', with a true sense of the immense value of his 
 vis comica. 
 
 "Men are tops!" he cried, " you '\e only to find 
 the twine to wind 'em with. But 1 'm like m3- fellows," 
 he added, presentl}'. "I should faint away if any one 
 came and Said to me ' Mademoiselle Modeste has been 
 thrown from her horSe, and has broken her leg.' " 
 
Modeste Mignon. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE POET FEELS THAT HE IS LOVED TOO WELL. 
 
 An hour later, Modeste, diarminglj- equipped iu a 
 bottle-green cassimere habit, a small hat with a green 
 veil, buckskin gloves, and velvet boots which met the 
 lace frills of her drawers, and mounted on an elegantly 
 caparisoned little horse, was exhibiting to her father 
 and the Due d'Herouville the beautiful present she had 
 just received ; she was e^'idently delighted with an at- 
 tention of a kind that particularly flatters women. 
 
 " Did it come from yon. Monsieur le duci' " she said, 
 holding the sparkling handle toward him. "There 
 was a card with it, sajing, ' Guess if you can,' and 
 some asterisks. Frangoise and Dumay credit Butscha 
 with this charming surprise ; liut my dear Butscha is 
 not rich enough to buy such rubies. And as for papa 
 (to whom I said, as I remember, on Sunday evening, 
 that I had no whip), he sent to Eouen for this one," 
 — pointing to a whip in her father's hand, with a top 
 like a cone of turquoise, a fashion then in vogue which 
 has since become vulgar. 
 
 ' ' I would give ten years of m3- old age, mademoiselle, 
 to have the right to offer ^-ou tliat beautiful jewel," said 
 the duke, courteously'. 
 
 " Ah, here comes the audacious giver ! " cried Mo- 
 deste, as Canahs rode up. " It is only a poet who 
 
•294 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 knows where to find such choice things. Monsieur," she 
 said to Melchior, '• ui}' father will scold you, and saj' that 
 you justif}' those who accuse j-ou of extravagance." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Canalis, with apparent simplicity, 
 " so that is why La Briere rode at full gallop from 
 Havre to Paris? " 
 
 " Does your secretarj' take such liberties ? " said 
 Modeste, turning pale, and throwing the whip to Fran- 
 r;oise with an impetuosit}- that expressed scorn. " Give 
 me 3'our whip, papa." 
 
 "Poor Ernest, who lies there on his bed half-dead 
 with fatigue ! " said Canalis, overtaking the girl, who 
 had already started at a gallop. " You are pitiless, ma- 
 demoiselle. 'I have' (the poor fellow said to me) 
 'onlj' this one chance to remain in her memory.'" 
 
 " And should you think well of a woman who could 
 take presents from half the parish?" said Modeste. 
 
 She was surprised to receive no answer to this in- 
 quiry, and attributed the poet's inattention to the noise 
 of the horse's feet. 
 
 " How you delight in tormenting those who love 
 j-ou," said the duke. "Your nobility of soul and your 
 pride are so inconsistent with your faults that I begin to 
 suspect you calumniate 3'ourself, and do those naughtj- 
 things on purpose." 
 
 "Ah! have you only just found that out, Monsieur 
 le due ? " she exclaimed, laughing. '" You have the 
 sagacity of a husband." 
 
 They rode half a mile in silence. Modeste was a 
 good deal astonished not to receive the fire of the poet's 
 eyes. The evening before, as she was pointing out to 
 him an admirable effect of setting sunlight aoi'oss the 
 
" ' Monsieur' she said to Melcbior, ' my father will 
 scold you, and say that you justify those who 
 accuse you of extravagance.'" 
 
^^- 
 
 
 
 V.p_>Tiphr. 1696 by Roberls Bf.ir 
 
 
Modeste Mignon. 295 
 
 water, she had said, remarking his inattention, " Well, 
 don't you see it?" — to which he replied, "I can see 
 onlj- your hand ; " but now his admiration for-the beau- 
 ties of nature seemed :i little too intense to be natural. 
 
 "Does Monsieur de La Briere know how to ride?" 
 she asked, for the purpose of teasing liim. 
 
 " Not very well, but he gets along,'' answered the 
 poet, cold as Gobenheim before the colonel's return. 
 
 At a cross-road, which Monsieur Mignon made thein 
 take through a lovely valley to reach a height overlook- 
 ing the Seine, Canahs let Modeste and the duke pass 
 him, and then reined up to join the colonel. 
 
 " Monsieur le comte," he said, " j'ou are an open- 
 hearted soldier, and I know you will regard my frank- 
 ness as a title to your esteem. When proposals of 
 marriage, with all their brutal — or, if you please, too 
 civilized — discussions, are carried on hy third parties, 
 it is an injury to all. We are both gentlemen, and both 
 discreet; and you, like myself, have passed beyond the 
 age of surprises. Let us therefore speak as intimates. 
 I will set you the example. I am twenty-nine years 
 old, without landed estates, and full of ambition. Ma- 
 demoiselle Modeste, as you must have perceived, pleases 
 me extremely. Now, in spite of the little defects which 
 your dear girl likes to assume — " 
 
 " — not counting those she reallj' possesses," said 
 the colonel, smiling, — 
 
 " — I should gladly make her mj' wife, and I believe 
 I could render her happy. The question of money is 
 of the utmost importance to my future, which hangs 
 to-day in the balance. All young girls expect to be 
 loved whether or, no — fortune or no fortune. But you 
 
296 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 are not the man to man-}' j'oiir dear Modeste without a 
 dot, and m\- situation does not allow me to make a 
 marriage of what is called love unless with a woman 
 who has a fortune at least equal to mine. I have, from 
 my emoluments and sinecures, from the Academj- and 
 from mj' works, about thii't^' thousand francs a-j'ear, a 
 large income for a bachelor. If m}' wife brought me as 
 much more, I should still be in about the same condi- 
 tion that I am now. Shall j'ou give Mademoiselle 
 Modeste a million?" 
 
 "Ah, monsieur, we have not reached that point as 
 j-et," said the colonel, jesuiticallj. 
 
 " Then suppose," said Canalis, quickly, " that we go 
 no further ; w-e will let the matter drop. You shall 
 have no cause to complain of me, Monsieur le comte ; 
 the world shall consider me among the unfortunate suit- 
 ors of 3'our charming daughter. Give me your word of 
 honor to saj' nothing on the subject to anj- one, not 
 even to Mademoiselle Modeste, because," he added, 
 throwing a word of promise to the ear, " mj- circum- 
 stances may so change that I can ask you for her with- 
 out dot." 
 
 " I promise you that," said the colonel. " You know, 
 monsieur, with what assurance the public, both in Paris 
 and the provinces, talk of fortunes that they make and 
 unmake. People, exaggerate both happiness and un- 
 happiness ; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortu- 
 nate as people sa3' we are. There is nothing sure and 
 certain in business except investments in land. I am 
 awaiting the accounts of my agents with very great im- 
 patience. The sale of my merchandise and of my ship, 
 and the settlement of my affairs in China, are not yet 
 
Modeste Mignon. 297 
 
 concluded ; and I cannot know the full amount of 
 my fortune for at least six months. I did, however, 
 saj' to Monsieur de La Briere in Paris that I would 
 guarantee a dot of two hundred thousand francs in 
 ready money. I wish to entail niy estates, and enable 
 m}' grandchildren to inherit mj- arms and title." 
 
 Canalis did not listen to this statement after the 
 opening sentence. The four riders, having now reached 
 a wider road, went abreast and soon reached a stretch 
 of table-land, from which the eye took in on one side 
 the rich valley of the Seine toward Rouen, and on the 
 other an horizon bounded only by the sea. 
 
 " Butscha was right, God is the greatest of all land- 
 scape painters," said Canalis, contemplating the view, 
 which is unique among the many fine scenes that have 
 made the shores of the Seine so justly celebrated. 
 
 " Above all do we feel that, my dear baron," said 
 the duke, " on hunting-days, when nature has a voice, 
 and a lively tumult breaks the silence ; at such times 
 the landscape, changing.rapidlj' as we ride through it, 
 seems really sublime." 
 
 " The sun is the inexhaustible palette," said Modeste, 
 looking at the poet in a species of bewilderment. 
 
 A remark that she presently made on his absence of 
 mind gave him an opportunity of saying that he was 
 just then absorbed in his own thoughts, — an excuse that 
 authors have more reason for giving than other men. 
 
 " Are we really made happy by carrying our hves 
 into the midst of the world, and swelling them with all 
 sorts of fictitious wants and over-excited vanities?" 
 said Modeste, moved by the aspect of the fertile and 
 billowj- country to long for a philosophically tranquil life. 
 
298 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " That is a bucolic, mademoiselle, which, is onlj- 
 written on tablets of gold," said the poet. 
 
 " And sometimes under garret-roofs," remarked tlie 
 colonel. 
 
 Modeste threw a piercing glance at Canahs, which he 
 was unal:)le to sustain ; she was conscious of a ringing 
 in her ears, darkness seemed to spread before her, and 
 then she suddenly- exclaimed in ic}' tones : — 
 
 " Ah ! it is "Wednesdaj- ! " 
 
 •' I do not say this to flatter your passing caprice, 
 mademoiselle," said the duke, to whom the little scene,' 
 so tragical for Modeste, had left time for thought ; " but 
 I declare I am so profoundl}' disgusted with the world 
 and the Court and Paris, that had I a Duchesse 
 d'Herouville, gifted with tlae wit and graces of made- 
 moiselle, I would gladl}' bind mj'self to live like a 
 philosopher at my chateau, doing good around me, 
 draining my marshes, educating vay children — " 
 
 " That, Monsieur le due, will be set to the account of 
 3'our great goodness," said Modeste, letting her eyes 
 rest steadily on the noble gentleman. " You flatter me 
 in not thinking me frivolous, and in believing that I 
 have enough resources within mjself to be able to live 
 in solitude. It is perhaps my lot," she added, glancing 
 at Canalis, with an expression of pitj'. 
 
 " It is the lot of all insignificant fortunes," said the 
 poet. "Paris demands Babylonian splendor. Some- 
 times I ask myself how I have ever managed to keep 
 it up." 
 
 " The king does that for both of us," said the duke, 
 oandidljr ; "we live on his Majesty's bounty. If my 
 family had not been allowed, after the death of Monsieur 
 
Modeste Mignon. 299 
 
 le Grand, as they called Cinq-Mars, to keep his office 
 among ns, we should have been obliged to sell Herou- 
 ville to the Black Brethren. Ah, believe me, made- 
 moiselle, it is a bitter humiliation to me to have to think 
 of money in marrying." 
 
 The simple honesty of this confession came from his 
 heart, and the regret was so sincere that it touched 
 Modeste. 
 
 " In these days," said the poet, " no man in France, 
 Monsieur le due, is rich enough to marry a woman for 
 herself, her personal worth, her grace, or her beauty — " 
 
 The colonel looked at Canalis with a curious eye, after 
 first watching Modeste, whose face no longer expressed 
 the slightest astonishment. 
 
 "For persons of high honor," he said slowly, " it 
 is a noble employment of wealth to repair the ravages 
 of time and destiny, and restore the old historic 
 families." 
 
 " Yes, papa," said Modeste, gravely. 
 
 The colonel invited the duke and Canalis to dine with 
 him sociabl}' in their riding-dress, promising them to 
 make no change himself. When Modeste went to her 
 room to make her toilette, she looked at the jewelled 
 whip she had disdained in the morning. 
 
 " What workmanship they put into such things nowa- 
 daj's ! " she said to FranQoise Cochet, who had become 
 her waiting-maid. 
 
 " That poor young man, mademoiselle, who has got 
 a fever — " 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 " Monsieur Butscha. He came here this afternoon 
 and asked me to say to you that he hoped you 
 
300 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 would notice he had kept his word on the appohited 
 day." 
 
 Modeste came down into the salon dressed with ro_yal 
 simplicitj-. 
 
 " My dear father," she said aloud, taking the colonel 
 bj' the arm, "please go and ask after Monsieur de La 
 Briere's health, and take him back his present. You 
 can saj' that mj- small means, as well as ray natural 
 tastes, forbid my wearing ornaments which are onl}' 
 suitable for queens or courtesans. Besides, I can onlj' 
 accept gifts from a bridegroom. Beg him to keep the 
 whip until you know whether you are rich enough to 
 buy it back." 
 
 " My little girl has plentj' of good sense," said the 
 colonel, kissing his daughter on the forehead. 
 
 Canalis took advantage of a conversation which be- 
 gan between the duke and Madame Mignon to escape 
 to the terrace, where Modeste joined him, influenced by 
 curiositj', though the poet believed her desire to become 
 Madame de Canalis had brought her there. Rather 
 alarmed at the indecency with which he had just exe- 
 cuted what soldiers call a volte-face^ and which, accord- 
 ing to the laws of ambition, every man in his position 
 would have executed quite as brutallj', he now endeav- 
 ored, as the unfortunate Modeste approached him, to 
 find plausible excuses for his conduct. 
 
 " Dear Modeste," he began, in a coaxing tone, " con- 
 sidering the terms on whicli we stand to each other, 
 shall I displease j'ou if I saj' that your replies to the 
 Due d'Herouville were very painful to a man in love, — 
 above all, to a poet wliose soul is feminine, nervous, full 
 of the jealousies of true passion. I should make a poor 
 
Modeste Mignon. 301 
 
 diplomatist indeed if I liad not perceived that your 
 first coquetries, jour little premeditated inconsistencies, 
 were only assumed for the purpose of studying our 
 characters — " 
 
 Modeste raised lier head with the rapid, intelligent, 
 half-coquettish motion of a wild animal, in whom in- 
 stinct produces such miracles of grace. 
 
 " — and therefore when I returned home and thought 
 them over, they never misled me. I only marvelled at 
 a cleverness so in harmony with your character and 
 your countenance. Do not be uneasj-, I never doubted 
 that 30ur assumed duplicity covered an angelic candor. 
 No, your mind, j'our education, have in no way lessened 
 the precious innocence which we demand in a wife. You 
 are indeed a wife for a poet, a diplomatist, a thinlter, a 
 man destined to endure the chances and changes of 
 hfe ; and mj- admiration is equalled only by the attach- 
 ment I feel to you. I now entreat you — if yesterdaj' 
 j-ou were not playing a little comedy when j'ou accepted 
 the love of a man whose vanitj- will change to pride if 
 you accept him, one whose defects will become virtues 
 under your divine influence — I entreat you do not ex- 
 cite a passion wliich, in him, amounts to vice. Jeal- 
 ousy is a noxious element in my soul, and you. have 
 revealed to me its strength ; it is awful, it destroys 
 everything — Oh ! I do not mean the jealousy of 
 an Othello," he continued, noticing Modeste's gesture. 
 " No, no ; my thoughts were of myself: I have been so 
 indulged on that point. You know the affection to 
 which I owe all tlie happiness I have ever enjoyed, 
 — very little at the best [he sadly shook his head] . 
 Love is symbolized among all nations as a child, 
 
302 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 because it fancies the world belongs to it, and it cannot 
 conceive otherwise. Well, Nature herself set the liinit 
 to that sentiment. It was still-born. A tender, mater- 
 nal soul guessed and calmed the painfid constriction of 
 Vl\\ heart, — for a woman who feels, wlio knows, that she 
 is past the joys of love becomes angelic in her treat- 
 ment of others. The duchess has never made me suffer 
 in m3' sensibilities. For ten j-ears not a word, not a 
 look, that could wound me ! I attach more value to 
 words, to thoughts, to looks, than ordinary men. If a 
 look is to me a treasure bej'ond all price, the slightest 
 doubt is deadh' poison ; it acts instantaneouslj', mj- love 
 dies. I believe — contrary to the mass of men, who 
 delight in trembling, hoping, expecting — that love can 
 only exist in perfect, infantile, and infinite security. 
 The exquisite purgatorj', where women delight to send 
 as by their coquetry, is a base happiness to which I will 
 not submit : to me, love is cither heaven or hell. If it 
 is hell, I will have none of it. I feel an afflnitj' with the 
 azure skies of Paradise within mj' soul. I can give my- 
 self without reserve, without secrets, doubts or decep- 
 tions, in the hfe to come ; and I demand reciprocitj'. 
 Perhaps I offend you by these doubts. Eemember, 
 howeyer, that I am only talking of myself — " 
 
 " — a good deal, but never too much," said Modeste, 
 offended in every hole and corner of her pride hj this 
 discourse, in which the Duchesse de Chaulieu served as 
 a dagger. "I am so accustomed to admire you, my 
 dear poet.'' 
 
 "Well then, can you promise me the same canine 
 fidelity which I offer to you? Is it not beautiful? Is 
 it not just what you have longed for ?" 
 
Modeste Mignon. 303 
 
 "But wh}-, dear poet, do you not many a deaf- 
 mute, and one who is also something of an idiot ? I ask 
 nothing better than to please my husband. But you 
 threaten to take away from a girl the ver^- happiness 
 you so kindly arrange for her ; you are tearing awaj' 
 everj- gesture, e\er3- word, e-\ery look ; 30U cut the 
 wings of your bird, and tlien expect it to hover about 
 you. I linow poets are accused of inconsistency' — ^oh ! 
 very unjustly, " slie added, as Canalis made a gesture 
 of denial ; " that alleged defect comes from the brilliant 
 activit}" of tlieir minds which commonplace people can- 
 not take into account. I do not believe, however, that 
 a man of genius can invent such irreconcilable con- 
 ditions and call his invention life. You are requiring 
 the impossible solely for tlie pleasure of putting me in 
 the wrong, — -like the enchanters in fairj'-tales, who set 
 tasks to persecuted young girls whom the good fairies 
 come and deliver.'' 
 
 " In this case the good fair}' would be true love," said 
 Canalis in a curt tone, aware that his elaborate excuse 
 for a rupture' was seen through bj' the keen and delicate 
 mind which Butscha had piloted so well. 
 
 ' ' M}^ dear poet, j'ou remind me of those fathers who 
 inquire into a girl's dot before thej- are willing to name 
 that of their son. You are quarrelling with me without 
 knowing whether yon have the slightest right to do so. 
 Love is not gained by such dry arguments as yours. 
 The poor duke on the contrary abandons himself to it 
 like my Uncle Toby ; with this difference, that I am not 
 the Widow Wadraan, — though widow indeed of many 
 illusions as to poetry at the present moment. Ah, yes, 
 we young girls will not believe in anything that disturbs 
 
804 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 our world of fancy ! I was warned of all this before- 
 hand. M3' dear poet, j'ou are attempting to get up a 
 quarrel which is unworthy of you. I no longer recog- 
 nize the Melchior of yesterday." 
 
 "Because Melchior has discovered a spirit of ambi- 
 tion in you which — " 
 
 Modeste looked at him from head to foot with an im- 
 perial eye. 
 
 " But I shall be peer of France and ambassador as 
 well as he," added Canalis. 
 
 "You take me for a bourgeoise," she said, beginning 
 to mount the steps of the portico ; but she instantly 
 turned back and added, " That is less impertinent than 
 to take me for a fool. The change in your conduct comes 
 from certain silly rumors which you have heard in Havre, 
 and which my maid Fran^oise has repeated to me." 
 
 " Ah, Modeste ! how can you think it? " said Canalis, 
 striking a dramatic attitude. " Do j'ou think me ca- 
 pable of marrj-ing 3'ou only for your mone^-? " 
 
 " If I do you that wrong after your edifying remarks 
 on the banks of the Seine 3'ou can easily uiideceive me," 
 she said, annihilating him with her scorn. 
 
 " Ah ! " thought the poet, as lie followed her into the 
 house, "if you think, my little girl, that I'm to be 
 caught in that net, j'ou take me to be younger than I 
 am. Dear, dear, what a fuss about an artful little 
 thing whose esteem I value about as much as that of 
 the king of Borneo. But she has given me a good 
 reason for the rupture by accusing me of such un- 
 worthj^ sentiments. Is n't she sly? La Briere will get 
 a burden on his back — idiot that he is ! And five years 
 hence it will be a good joke to see them together." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 305 
 
 The coldness which this altercation produced between 
 Modeste and Canalis was visible to all eyes that even- 
 ing. The poet went off" early, on the ground of La 
 Briere's illness, leaving the field to the grand equerry. 
 About eleven o'clock Butscha, who had come to walk 
 home with Madame Latournelle, whispered in Modeste's 
 ear, "Was I right? " 
 
 "Alas, yes," she said. 
 
 "But I hope you have left the door half open, so 
 that he can come back ; we agreed upon that, you 
 know." 
 
 " Anger got the better of me," said Modeste. " Such 
 meanness sent the blood to my head and I told him what 
 I thought of him." 
 
 '• Well, so much the better. When you are both so 
 angry that j'ou can't speak civilh' to each other I en- 
 gage to make him desperately in love and so pressing 
 that you will be deceived yourself." 
 
 " Come, come, Butscha; he is a great poet; he is a 
 gentleman ; he is a man of intellect." 
 
 "Your father's eight millions are more to him than 
 all that." 
 
 " Eight millions ! " exclaimed Modeste. 
 
 " My master, who has sold his practice, is going to 
 Provence to attend to the purchase of lands which your 
 father's agent has suggested to him. The sum that is 
 to be paid for the estate of La Bastie is four millions ; 
 your father has agreed to it. You are to have a dot of 
 two millions and another million for an establishment in 
 Paris, a hotel and furniture. Now, count up." 
 
 " Ah I then I can be Duchesse d'Herouville ! " cried 
 Modeste, glancing at Butscha. 
 
 20 
 
306 Modeste 31ignon. 
 
 "If it hadu't been for that comedian of a Canalis 
 j'ou would have kept his whip, thinking it came from 
 me," said the dwarf, indirectly' pleading La Briere's 
 cause. 
 
 " Monsieur Butscha, may I ask if I am to marry to 
 please you ? " said Modeste, laugliing. 
 
 "That fine fellow loves you as well as I do, — -and 
 you loved him for eight days,'' retorted Butscha ; " and 
 he has got a heart.'' 
 
 "Can he compete, pray, with an office under the 
 Crown? There are but six, grand almoner, chancel- 
 lor, grand chamberlain, grand master, high constable, 
 grand admiral, — but they don't appoint high constables 
 anj' longer." 
 
 "In six months, mademoiselle the masses — who 
 are made up of wicked Butschas — could send all those 
 grand dignities to the winds. Besides, what signifies 
 nobility in these days ? There are not a thousand real 
 noblemen in France. The d'Heronvilles are descended 
 from a tipstaff in the time of Robert of Normandy. 
 You will have to put up with many a vexation from 
 that old aunt with the furrowed face. Look here, — as 
 you are so anxious for the title of duchess, — you be- 
 long to the Comtat, and the Pope will certainly think as 
 much of 30U as he does of all those merchants down 
 there ; he '11 sell 3'ou a duchj' with some name ending 
 in ia or agno. Don't play away your happiness for an 
 office under the Crown." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A DIPLOMATIC LETTER. 
 
 The poet's reflections during the night, were thor- 
 oughly matt,er-of-fact. He sincerely saw nothing worse 
 ' in life than the situation of a married man without 
 mone}-. Still trembling at the danger he had been led 
 into by his vanity, his desire to get the better of the 
 duke, and his belief in the Mignon millions, he begaii 
 to ask himself what the duchess must be thinking of his 
 stay in Havre, aggravated by the fact that he had not 
 written to her for fourteen dajs, whereas in Paris they 
 exchanged four or fi\e letters a week. 
 
 " And that poor woman is working hard to get me 
 appointed commander of the Legion and ambassador to 
 the Court of Baden ! " he cried. 
 
 Thereupon, with that promptitude of decision which 
 results — in poets as well as in speculktors — from a 
 livelv intuition of the future, he sat down and composed 
 the following letter : — 
 
 To Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu : 
 My dear Eleonore, — You have doubtless been sur- 
 prised at not hearing from me ; but the stay I am 
 making in this place is not altogether on account of 
 my health. I have been trying to do a good turn to 
 our little friend La Briere. The poor fellow has fallen 
 
308 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 in love with a certain Mademoiselle Modeste de La 
 Bastie, a rather pale, insignificant, and thread-papery- 
 little thing, who, bj- the waj-, has the vice of liking 
 literature, and calls herself a poet to excuse the ca- 
 prices and humors of a rather sullen natiire. You 
 know Ernest, — he is so easy to catch that I have been 
 afraid to leave him to himself. Mademoiselle de La 
 Bastie was inclined to coquet with jour Melchior, and 
 ^vas onlj- too ready to become your rival, though her 
 arms are thin, and she has no more bust, than most 
 girls ; moreover, lier hair is as dead and colorless as ' 
 that of IMadame de Rocheflde, and her eyes small, graj;, 
 and very suspicious. I put a stop — perhaps rather bru- 
 tally — to the attentions of Mademoiselle Immodcste ; 
 but love, such as mine for jou, demanded it. What 
 care I for all the women on earth, — compared to j-ou, 
 what are they ? 
 
 The people with whom I i)ass my time, and who form 
 the circle round the heiress, are so thoroughly bourgeois 
 that they almost turn nn- stomach. Pit}' me ; imagine! 
 I pass my evenings with notaries, notaresses, cashiej's, 
 provincial money-lenders — ah ! what a change from ray 
 evenings in the rue de Grenelle. The alleged fortune 
 of the father,, lately returned from China, has brought 
 to Havre that indefatigable suitor, the grand equerry, 
 hungry after the millions, which he wants, they saj', to 
 drain his marshes. The king does not know what a 
 fatal present he made the duke in those waste lands. 
 His Grace, wlio has not yet found out that the lady has 
 only a small fortune, is jealous of me ; for La Briere is 
 quietly making progress with his idol under cover of his 
 friend, who servos as a blind. 
 
_ Modeste Mignim. 309 
 
 Notwithstanding Ernest's romantic ecstasies, I my- 
 self, a poet, tliink chiefly- of the essential thing, and I 
 have been making some inquiries which darken the 
 prospects of our friend. If mj' angel would like abso- 
 lution forsome of our little sins, will she try to find out 
 the facts of the case by sending for Mongenod, the 
 banker, and questioning him, with the dexterity that 
 characterizes her, as to the father's fortune ? Monsiein- 
 Mignon, formerl\- colonel of cavalry in the Imperial 
 guard, has been for the last seven years a correspon- 
 dent of the Mougenods. It is said that he gives his 
 daughter a dot of two hundred thousand francs, and 
 before I make the offer on Ernest's behalf I am anxious 
 to get the rights of the stor}-. As soon as the afl'air is 
 arranged I shall return to Paris. I know a way to 
 settle everything to the advantage of our young lover, — 
 simpl}' b}' the transmission of the father-in-law's title, 
 and no one, I think, can more readily obtain that favor 
 than Ernest, both on account of his own services and 
 the influence which you and I and the duke can exert 
 for him. With his tastes, P^rnest, who of course will 
 step into my office when I go to Baden, will be perfectly 
 happy in Paris with twentj-five thousand francs a 3ear, 
 a permanent place, and a wife — luckless fellow ! 
 
 Ah, dearest, how I long for the rue de Grenelle ! 
 Fifteen days of absence ! when thej' do not kill love, 
 they revive all the ardor of its earlier days, and you 
 know, better than I, perhaps, the reasons that make my 
 love eternal, — mj- bones will love thee in the grave ! 
 Ah ! I cannot bear this separation. If I am forced to 
 staj' here another ten days, I shall make a flying visit 
 of a few hours to Paris, 
 
310 Modeste Blignon. . 
 
 Has the duke obtained for me the thing we wanted ; 
 and shall you, my dearest life, be ordered to drink 
 the Baden waters next year? The billing and cooing 
 of the " handsome disconsolate," compared with the ac- 
 cents of our happy love — so true and changeless for 
 now ten years ! — have given me a great contempt for 
 marriage. I had never seen the thing so near. Ah, 
 dearest ! what the world calls a " false step " brings two 
 beings nearer together than the law — does it not ? 
 
 The concluding idea served as a text for two pages 
 of reminiscences and aspirations a little too confidential 
 for publication. 
 
 The evening before the day on which Canalis put 
 the above epistle into the post, . Butscha, under the 
 name of Jean Jacrain, had received a letter from his 
 fictitious cousin, Philoxene, and had mailed his answer, 
 which thus preceded the letter of the poet by about 
 twelve hours. Terribly anxious for the last two weeks, 
 and wounded by Melchior's silence, the duchess herself 
 dictated Philoxene's letter to her cousin, and the mo- 
 ment she had read the answer, rather too explicit for 
 her quinquagenary vanity, she sent foi' the banker and 
 made close inquiries as to the exact fortune of Mon- 
 sieur Mignon. Finding herself betraj'ed and aban- 
 doned for the millions, Eleonore gave way to a paroxj'sm 
 of anger, hatred, and cold ^indictiveness. Philoxene 
 knocked at the door of the sumptuous room, and en- 
 tering found her mistress with her eyes full of tears, — 
 so unprecedented a phenomenon in the fifteen j'ears she 
 had waited upon her that the woman stopped short 
 stupefied. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 311 
 
 " We expiate the happiness of ten years in ten min- 
 utes," she heard the duchess saj-. 
 " A letter from Havre, madame." 
 El^onore read the poet's prose without noticing the 
 presence of Philoxene, whose amazement became still 
 greater when she saw the dawn of fresh serenitj- on the 
 duchess's face as she read fiu-ther and further into the 
 letter. Hold out a pole no thicker than a walking-stick 
 to a drowning man, and he will think it a high-road of 
 safet}-. The happj- Eleonore believed in Canalis's good 
 faith when she had read through the four pages in 
 which love and business, falsehood and truth, jostled 
 each other. She who, a few moments earlier, had sent 
 for her husband to prevent Melchior's appointment 
 while there was still time, was now seized with a spirit 
 of generosit}- that amounted almost to the sublime. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " she thought ; "he has not had one 
 faithless thought ; he loves me as he did on the first 
 day ; he tells me all — Philoxene ! " she cried, noticing 
 her maid, who was standing near -and pretending to 
 arrange the toilet-table. 
 " Madame la diichesse? " 
 ' ' A mirror, child \ " 
 
 Eleonore looked at herself, saw the fin^ razor-like 
 lines traced on her brow, which disappeared at a little 
 distance ; she siglied, and in that sigh she felt she bade 
 adieu to love. A brave thought came into her mind, a 
 manl^- thought, outside of all the pettiness of women, — 
 a thought which intoxicates for a moment, and which 
 explains, perhaps, the clemency of the Semiramis of 
 Russia when she married her young and beautiful rival 
 to Momonoff. 
 
312 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Since he has Kot been faithless, he shall have the 
 girl and her millions," she thought, — "provided Made- 
 moiselle Mignon is as ugl\- as he says she is." 
 
 Three raps, circumspectly given, announced the duke, 
 and his wife went herself to the door to let him in. 
 
 " Ah ! I see 3'ou are better, my dear," he cried, with 
 the counterfeit joy that courtiers assume so easilj", and 
 by which fools are so readily taken in. 
 
 "My dear Henri," she answered, "why is it j'ou 
 have not yet obtained that appointment for Melchior, 
 — you who sacrificed so much to the king in taking a 
 ministry which 3'ou knew could only last one 3'ear." 
 
 The duke glanced at Piiiloxene, who showed him bj- 
 an almost imperceptible sign the letter from Havre on 
 the dressing-table. 
 
 " You would be terribl}' bored at Baden and come 
 back at daggers dra-mi with Melchior," said the duke. 
 
 "Pray wliy?" 
 
 " Why, j'ou would always be together,'' said the 
 former diplomat, with comic good-humor. 
 
 " Oh, no," she said ; " I am going to marry him." 
 
 " If we can believe d'Heronville, our dear Canalis 
 stands in no need of your help in that direction," said 
 the duke, smiling. " Yesterday Grandlieu read me 
 some passages from a letter the gi-and equerry had 
 written him. No doubt they were dictated by the aunt 
 for the express purpose of their reaching you, for 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville, always on the scent of a 
 dot, knows that Grandlieu and I plaj' whist nearly every 
 evening. That good little d'Herouville wants the Prince 
 de Cadignan to go down and give a royal hunt in Nor- 
 mandy, and endeavor to persuade the king to be pres- 
 
Modeste Mignon. 313 
 
 eiit, so as to turn the head of the damozel when she 
 sees lierself the object of such a grand affair. In short, 
 two words from Charles X. would settle the matttr. 
 d'HeroLiville says the girl has incomparalile beauty — " 
 
 "Henri, let us go to Havre!" cried the duchess, 
 interrupting him. 
 
 " Under what pretext? " said her husband, gravely ; 
 he was one of the confidants of Louis XVIH. 
 
 " I never saw a hunt." 
 
 " It would be all very well if the king went ; but it 
 is a terrible bore to go so far, and he will not do it ; I 
 have just been speaking with him about it." 
 
 " Perhaps Madame would go? " 
 
 " That would be better," returned the duke, " I dare 
 say the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse would help you to 
 persuade her from Rosny. If she goes the king will not 
 be displeased at the use of his hunting equipage. Don't 
 go to Havre, my dear," added the duke, paternally, 
 ' * that would be giving yourself away. Come, here 's a 
 better plan, I think. Gaspard's chateau of Rosembray 
 is on the other side of the forest of Brotonne ; whj' not 
 give him a hint to invite the whole party?" 
 
 " He invite them? " said Eleonore. 
 
 "I mean, of course, the duchess; she is alwaj's 
 engaged in pious works with Mademoiselle d'Herouville ; 
 give that old maid a hint, and get her to speak to 
 Gaspard." 
 
 " You are a love of a man," cried Eleonoi'e ; " I '11 
 write to the old maid and to Diane at once, for we 
 must get hunting things made, —a riding hat is so 
 becoming. Did you win last night at the English 
 embassv? " 
 
314 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Yes," said the duke ; " I cleared myself." 
 "Henri, above all things, stop proceedings about 
 Melchior's two appointments.'' 
 
 After writing half a dozen lines to the beautiful 
 Diane de Maufrigneuse, and a short hint to Mademoi- 
 selle d'HeroLiville, Eleonore sent the following answer 
 like tlie lash of a whip through the poet's lies. 
 
 To Monsieur le Baron de Canalls: — ■ 
 
 My dear poet, — Mademoiselle de La Bastie is very 
 beautiful ; Mongenod has proved to me that her father 
 has millions. I did think of marrying you to her ; I am 
 therefore much displeased at your want of confidence. 
 If jou had any intention of marrying La Briere when 
 3-ou went to Havre it is surprising that j'ou said noth- 
 ing to iBe about it before j"ou started. And wly have 
 you omitted writing to a friend who is so easily- made 
 anxious as I ? Your letter arrived a trifle late ; I had 
 already seen the banker. You are a child, Melchior, 
 and you are playing tricks with us. It is not right. 
 The duke himself is quite indignant at j'our proceed- 
 ings ; he thinks you less than a gentleman, which casta 
 some reflection on 3'our mother's honor. 
 
 Now, I intend to see things for myself I shall, I 
 believe, have the honor of accompanying Madame to 
 the hunt which the Due d'Herouville proposes to give 
 for Mademoiselle de La Bastie. I will manage to have 
 you invited to Rosembraj', for the meet will probablj^ 
 take place in Due de Verneuil's park. 
 
 Pray believe, my dear poet, that I am none the less, 
 for life, 
 
 Your friend, Eleonore de M. 
 
Modeste Mignon. 315 
 
 " There, Ernest, just look at that ! " cried Canalis, 
 tossing the letter at l-^inest's nose across the breakfast- 
 table ; "that's the two thousandth love-letter I have 
 have had from that woman, and there is n't even a 
 ' thou ' in it. The illustrious Eleonore has never com- 
 projnised herself more than she does there. Marry, 
 and trjf j-our luck ! The worst marriage in the world 
 is better than this sort of halter. Ah, I am the great- 
 est Nicodemus that ever tumbled out of the moon ! 
 Modeste has millions, and J 've lost her ; for we can't 
 get back from the poles, where we are to-daj, to the 
 tropics, where we were three days ago ! Well, I am 
 all the more anxious for your triinnph over the grand 
 equerry, because I told the duchess I came here only 
 for 5'our sake ; and so I shall do my best for jou." 
 
 '• Alas, Melchior, Modeste must needs have so no- 
 ble, so grand, so well-balanced a nature to resist the 
 glories of the Court, and all these splendors cleverlj- 
 displayed for her honor and glorj- by the duke, that I 
 cannot believe in the existence of such perfection, — 
 and yet, if she is still the Modeste of her letters, there 
 might be hope ! " 
 
 " Well, well, you are a happy fellow, j-ou young 
 Boniface, to see the world and your mistress through 
 green spectacles ! " cried Canahs, marfching off to pace 
 lip and down the garden. 
 
 Caught between two lies, the poet was at a loss what 
 to do. 
 
 "Play by rule, and you lose!" he cried presently, 
 sitting down in the kiosk. " Every man of sense 
 would have acted as I did four days ago, and got him- 
 self out of the net in which I saw myself. At such 
 
316 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 times people don't disentangle nets, thej- break through 
 them ! Come, let us be calm, cold, dignified, affronted. 
 Honor requires it ; English stiffness is the only wa_y to 
 win her back. After all, if I have to retire flnallj-, I 
 can alwa^-s fall back on my old happiness ; a fidelitj* of 
 ten years can't go unrewarded. Eleonore will arrange 
 me some good marriage." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 TRUE LOVE. 
 
 The hunt was destined to be not 011I3' a meet of the 
 hounds, but a meeting of all the passions excited 
 by the colonel's millions and Modeste's beautj' ; and 
 while it was in prospect there was truce between the 
 adversaries. During the da3-s required for the arrange- 
 ment of this forestrial solemnit}', the salon of the villa 
 Mignon presented the tranquil picture of a united fam- 
 il}'. Canalis, cut short in his role of injured love by 
 Modeste's quick . perceptions, wished to appear cour- 
 teous ; he laid aside his pretensions, gave no further 
 specimens of his oratory, and became, what all men of 
 intellect can be when they renounce affectation, per- 
 fectlj' charming. He talked finances with Gobenheim, 
 and war with the colonel, Germany with IMadame Mig- 
 non, and housekeeping with Madame Latournelle, — 
 endeavoring to bias them all in favor of I^a Briere. 
 The Due d'Herouville left the field to his rivals, for he 
 was obliged to go to Rosembray to consult with the 
 Due de Verneuil, and see that the orders of the Royal 
 Huntsman, the Prince de Cadignan, were carried out. 
 And j-et the comic element was not altogether wanting. 
 Modeste found herself between the depredator}' hints 
 of Canalis as to the gallantry of the grand equerrj', 
 and the exaggerations of the two MesdemoiseUeS 
 
318 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 fl'Herouville, who passed eveiy evening at the villa. 
 Canalis made Modeste take notice that, instead of being 
 the heroine of the hunt, she would be searcelv noticed. 
 Madame would be attended by the Duchesse de Mau- 
 frigneuse, daughter-in-law of the Prince de Cadignan, 
 b}' the Duchesse de C'haulieu, and other great ladies of 
 the Court, among whom she could produce no sensa- 
 tion ; no doubt the officers in garrison at Rouen would 
 be invited, etc. Helene, on the other hand, was inces- 
 santly telHng her new friend, whom she already looked 
 npon as a sister-in-law, that she was to be presented 
 to Madame ; undoubtedlj' the Due de Verneuil would 
 invite her father and herself to stay at Eosembraj' ; if 
 the colonel wished to obtain a favor of the king, — a 
 peerage, for instance, — the opportunity was unique, 
 for there was hope of the king himself being present 
 on the third day ; she would be delighted with the 
 charming welcome with which the beauties of the 
 Court, the Duchesses de Chaulieu, de Maufrigneuse, 
 de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu, and other ladies, were pre- 
 pared to meet her. It was in fact an excessively amus- 
 ing little warfare, with its marches and countermarches 
 and stratagems, — all of which were keenlj- enjoj-ed by 
 the Dumays, the Latoui'nelles, Gobenheim, and Butscha, 
 who, in conclave assembled, said horrible things of these 
 noble personages, cruelly noting and intelligently studj'- 
 ing all their little meannesses. 
 
 The promises on the d'Herouville side were, however, 
 confirmed by the arrival of an invitation, couched in 
 flattering terms, fvom the Due de Verneuil and the Mas- 
 ter of the Hunt to Monsieur le Comte de La Bastie and 
 his daughter, to stay at Rosembray and be present at a 
 
Modeste Mignon. 319 
 
 grand hunt ou the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, of 
 >fovember following. 
 
 La Briere, full of dark presentiments, craved the 
 presence of Modeste with an eagerness whose bitter joys 
 are known only to lovers who feel that thej' are parted, 
 and parted fatallj' from those they love. Flashes of joy 
 came to him intermingled with melancholy meditations 
 on the one theme, " I have lost her," and made him all 
 the more interesting to those who watched him, because 
 his face and his whole person were in -keeping with his 
 profound feeling. There is nothing more poetic than a 
 living elegy, animated b^' a pair of ej-es, walking about, 
 and sighing without rhymes. 
 
 The Due d'Herouville arrived at last to arrange for 
 Hodeste's departure ; after crossing the Seine she was 
 to be convejxd in the duke's caleche, accompanied hy 
 the Demoiselles d'Hf^rouville. The duke was charminglj' 
 courteous ; be begged Canalis and La Briere to be of 
 the partj-, assuring them, as he did the colonel, that he 
 had taken particular care that hunters should be pro- 
 vided for them. The colonel invited the three lovers to 
 breakfast on the morning of the start. Canalis then be- 
 gan to put into execution a plan that he had been matur- 
 ing in his own mind for the last few days ; namelj-, to 
 quietly reconquer Modeste, and throw over the duchess, 
 La Briere, and the duke. A graduate of diplomacy could 
 hardly remain stuck in the position in which he found 
 himself. On the other hand La Briere had come to the 
 r-esolution of bidding Modeste an eternal farewell. Each 
 suitor was therefore on the watch to slip in a last word, 
 like the defendant's counsel to the court before judg- 
 ment is pronounced ; for all felt that the three weeks' 
 
320 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 struggle was approaching its conclusion. After dinner 
 on the evening before the start was to be made, the 
 colonel had taken his daughter by the arm and made 
 her feel the necessity of deciding. 
 
 " Our position with the d'Herouville familj' will be 
 quite intolerable at Eosembray," he said to her. " Do 
 you mean to be a duchess ? " 
 
 " No, father," she answered. 
 
 " Then do you love Canalis?" 
 
 "No, papa, & thousand times no!" she exclaimed 
 with the impatience of a child. 
 
 The colonel looked at her with a sort of joy. 
 
 " Ah, I have not influenced you," cried the true father, 
 " and I will now confess that I chose my son-in-law in 
 Paris when, having made him believe that I had but 
 little fortune, he grasped m^- hand and told me I took 
 a weight from his mind — " 
 
 " Who is it you mean ? " asked Modeste, coloring. 
 
 " The man, of fixed pnnciples and sou?id moral- 
 ity," said her father, sl3-ly, repeating the words which 
 had dissolved poor Modeste's dream on the day after 
 his return. 
 
 " I was not even thinking of him, papa. Please 
 leave m€ at liberty to refuse the duke m3-self ; I under- 
 stand him, and I know how to soothe him." 
 
 " Then your choice is not made? " 
 
 " Not yet; there is another syllable or two in the 
 charade of my destiny still to be guessed ; but after I 
 have had a glimpse of court life at Eosembray I will 
 tell }'ou my secret." 
 
 "Ah ! Monsieur de La Briere," cried the colonel, as 
 the young man approached them along the garden path 
 
Modeste Mignon. 321 
 
 in which they were walking, " I hope jou are going to 
 this hunt?" 
 
 "No, colonel," answered Ernest. "I have come to 
 take leave of you and of mademoiselle ; I return to 
 Paris — " 
 
 " You have no curiosity," said Modeste, interrupting, 
 and looking at him. 
 
 "A wish — that I cannot expect — would suffice to 
 keep me," he replied. 
 
 " If that is all, you must stay to please me ; I wish 
 it," said the colonel, going forward to meet Canalis, 
 and leaving his daughter and La Briere together for a 
 moment. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said the .young man, raising his 
 eyes to hers with the boldness of a man without hope, 
 " I have an entreaty to make to you."' 
 
 "Tome?" 
 
 " Let me carry away with*nie j'our forgiveness. M}- 
 life can never be happj- ; it must be full of remorse for 
 having lost my happiness — no doubt by my own fault ; 
 but, at least — " 
 
 " Before we part forever," said Modeste, interrupt- 
 ing a la Canalis, and speaking in a voice of some emo- 
 tion, "I wish to ask you one thing; and though you 
 once disguised yourself, I think 3'ou cannot be so base 
 as to deceive me now." 
 
 The taunt made him turn pale, and he cried out, " Oh, 
 you are pitiless ! " 
 
 "Will you be frank?" 
 
 "You have the right to ask me that degrading ques- 
 tion," he said, in a voice weakened by the violent palpi- 
 tation of his heart. 
 
 21 
 
322 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Well, then, did j-ou read my letters to Monsieur de 
 Canalis ? " 
 
 " No, mademoiselle ; and if I allowed your father to 
 read them it was to justify' my love by showing him how 
 it .was born, and how sincere mj^ efforts were to cure 
 you of your fancj'." 
 
 " But how came the idea of that unworthy masquerad- 
 ing ever to arise ? " she said, with a sort of impatience. 
 
 La Briere related truthfully the scene in the poet's 
 study which Modeste's first letter had occasioned, and 
 the sort of challenge that resulted from his expressing 
 a favorable opinion of a 3'oiing girl thus led toward a 
 poet's fame, as a plant seeks its share of the sun. 
 
 "You have said enough," answered Modeste, re- 
 straining some emotion. " If j-ou have not m3' heart, 
 monsieur, j'ou have at least my esteem." 
 
 These simple words gave the young man a violent 
 shock ; feeling himself stagger, he leaned against a 
 tree, like a man deprived for a moment of reason. 
 Modeste, who had left him, turned her head and came 
 hastily back. 
 
 " What is the matter?" she asked, taking his hand 
 to prevent him from falling. 
 
 " Forgive me — I thought j'ou despised me." 
 
 "But," she answered, with a distant and disdainful 
 manner, "I did not say that I loved you." 
 
 And she left him again. But this time, in spite of 
 her harshness. La Briere thought he walked on air ; the 
 earth softened under his feet, the trees bore flowers ; 
 the skies were rosy, the -air cerulean, as they are in 
 the temples of Hymen in those fairy pantomimes which 
 finish happily-. In such situations e\cr3' woman is a 
 
Modeste Mignon. 323 
 
 Janus, and sees behind her without turning round ; and 
 thus Modeste perceived on the face of her lover the in- 
 dubitable sj'mptoms of a lo\e like Butscha's, — surely 
 the ne plus ultra of a woman's hope. Moreover, the 
 great value which La Briere attaclied to her opinion 
 filled Modeste with an emotion that was inestimably 
 sweet. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," said Canalis, leaving the colonel 
 and waylaj'ing Modeste, " in spite of the little value 
 3'ou attach to mj- Sentiments, my honor is concerned in 
 effacing a stain under which I have suffered too long. 
 Here is a letter which I received from the Duchesse de 
 Chaulieu five daj's after mj' arrival in Havre." 
 
 He let Modeste read the first lines of the letter we 
 have seen, which the duchess began hy saying that she 
 had seen Mongenod, and now wished to marry her poet 
 to Modeste ; then he tore that passage from the body 
 of the letter, and placed the fragment in her hand. 
 
 " I cannot let you read the rest," he said, putting the 
 paper in his pocket; "but I confide these few lines to 
 your discretion, so that you may verif)- the writing. A 
 j-oung girl who could accuse me of ignoble sentiments is 
 quite capable of suspecting some collusion, some trick- 
 erj'. Ah, Modeste," he said, with tears in his voice, 
 " your poet, the poet of Madame de Chaulieu, has no 
 less poetry' in his heart than in his mind. You are 
 about to see the duchess ; suspend j'our judgment of 
 me till then." 
 
 He left Modeste half bewildered. 
 
 "Oh, clear!" she said to herself; "it seems they 
 are all angels — and not marriageable ; the duke is the 
 only one that belongs to humanity." 
 
324 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Modeste," said Butscha, appearing 
 with a parcel under his arm, "this hunt makes me 
 very uneasy. I dreamed jour horse ran awaj' with 
 you, and I have been to Rouen to see if I could get 
 a Spanish bit which, they tell me, a horse can't take 
 between his teeth. I entreat you to use it. I have 
 shown it to the colonel, and he has thanked me more 
 than there is any occasion for." 
 
 "Poor, dear Butscha!" cried Modeste, moved to 
 tears by this maternal care. 
 
 Butscha went skipping off like a man who has just 
 heard of the death of a rich uncle. 
 
 "My dear father," said Modeste, returning to the 
 salon; "I should like to have that beautiful whijj, — 
 suppose j'ou were to ask Monsieur de "La Briere to ex- 
 change it for your picture by Van Ostade." 
 
 Modeste looked furtively at Ernest, while the colonel 
 made him this proposition, standing before the picture 
 which was the sole thing he possessed in memory- of his 
 campaigns, having bought it of a buigher at Ratisbon ; 
 and she said to herself as La Briere left the room pre- 
 cipitately-, " He will be at the hunt." 
 
 A curious thing happened. Modeste's three lovers 
 each and all went to Rosembray with their hearts full 
 of hope, and captivated by her many perfections. 
 
 Rosembray — an estate lately purchased \>y the Due 
 de Verneuil, with the monej' which fell to him as his 
 share of the thousand millions voted as indemnity for 
 the sale of the lands of the emigres — is remarkable 
 for its chateau, whose magnificence compares only with 
 that of Mesniere or of Balleroy. Tliis imposing and 
 noble edifice is approached by a wide avenue of four 
 
Modeste Mlgnon. 325 
 
 rows of venerable elms, from which the visitor enters 
 an immense rising court-jard, like that at Versailles, 
 with magnificent iron railings and two lodges, and 
 adorned with I'ows of large orange-trees in their 
 tabs. -Facing this court-yard, the chateau presents, 
 betwen two fronts of the main building which retreat 
 on either side of this projection, a double row of nine- 
 teen tall windows, with carved arches and diamond 
 panes, divided from each other by a series of fluted 
 pilasters surmounted bj- an entablature which hides 
 an Italian roof, from which rise several stone chim- 
 neys masked b}- carved trophies of arms. Rosembray 
 was built, under Louis XIV., by a ferm.ier- general 
 named Cottin. The fagade toward the park differs from 
 that on the court-yard by having a narrower projection 
 in the centre, with columns between five windows, above 
 which rises a magnificent pediment. The family- of 
 Marigny, to whom the estates of this Cottin were 
 brought in marriage bj' Mademoiselle Cottin, her fa- 
 ther's sole heiress, ordered a sunrise to be carved on 
 this pediment by Coysevox. Beneath it are two angels 
 unwinding a scroll, on which is cut this motto in honor 
 of the Grand Monarch, Sol nobis ben.h/nus. 
 
 From the portico, reached by two grand circular and 
 balustraded flights of steps, the view extends over an 
 immense fish-pond, as long and wide as the grand canal 
 at Versailles, beginning at the foot of a grass-plot 
 which compares well with the finest English lawns, and 
 bordered with beds and baskets now filled with the 
 brilliant flowers of autumn. On either side of the piece 
 of water two gardens, laid out in the French st^le, dis- 
 play their squares and long straight paths, like brilliant 
 
326 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 pages written in tiie ciphers of Lenotre. These gardens 
 are backed to their whole length by a border of nearly 
 thirty- acres of woodland. From the terrace the view is 
 bounded by a forest belonging to Rosembray and con- 
 tiguous to two other forests, one of which belongs to the 
 Crown, the other to the State. It would be difficult to 
 liiid a nobler landscape. 
 
Modegte Mignon. 327 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A GIRL S REVENGE. 
 
 Modeste's arrival at Rosembray made a certain sen- 
 sation in the avenue when tlie carriage with the liveries 
 of France came in sight, accompanied by the grand 
 equeny, the colonel, Canalis, and La Briere on horse- 
 bacli, preceded by an outrider in full dress, and fol- 
 lowed bj' six servants, — among whom were the negroes 
 and the mulatto, — and the britzka of the colonel for the 
 two waiting-women and the luggage. The carriage was 
 drawn by four horses, ridden by postilions dressed 
 with an elegance specialh' commanded by the grand 
 equerry, who was often better served than the king 
 himself. As Modeste, dazzled by the magnificence of 
 the great lords, entered and beheld this lesser Versailles, 
 she suddenlj' remembered her approaching interview 
 with the celebrated duchesses, and began to fear that 
 she might seem awkward, or provincial, or parvenue ; 
 in fact, she lost her self-possession, and heartily re- 
 pented having wished for a hunt. 
 
 Fortunatelj', however, as the carriage drew up, Mo- 
 deste saw an old man, in a blond wig frizzed into little 
 curls, whose calm, plump, smooth face woi'e a fatherl3' 
 smile and an expression of monastic cheerfulness which 
 the half-veiled glance of the eye rendered almost noble. 
 This was the Due de Verneuil, master of Rosembray. 
 
328 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 The duchess, a woman of extreme pietj', the only 
 daughter of a rich and deceased chief-justice, spare 
 and erect, and the mother of four children, resembled 
 Madame Latournelle, — if the imagination can go so 
 far as to adorn the notar3's wife with the graces of a 
 bearing that was trulj' abbatial. 
 
 "Ah, good morning, dear Hortense ! " said Made- 
 moiselle d'Herouville, kissing the duchess with tlie sym- 
 pathy that united their haughtj' natures; "let me 
 present to you and to the dear duke our little angel. 
 Mademoiselle de La Bastie." 
 
 "We have heard so much of you, mademoiselle," 
 said the duchess, "that we were in haste to receive 
 you." 
 
 " And regret the time lost,'' added the Due de Vor- 
 neuil, with courteous admiration. 
 
 " Monsieur le Comte de La Bastie," said the grand 
 equerry, taking the colonel by the arm and presenting 
 him to the duke and duchess, with an air of respect in 
 his tone and gesture. 
 
 "I am glad to welcome j'ou, Monsieur le comte!" 
 said Monsieur de ^'erneuil. "You possess more than 
 one treasure," he added, looking at Modeste. 
 
 The duchess took Modeste under her arm and led 
 her into an immense §alon, where a dozen or more 
 n omen were grouped about the fireplace. The men of 
 the partj^ remained with the duke on the terrace, ex- 
 cept Canalis, who respectfully made his waj- to' the 
 supei'b Eleonore. .The Duchesse de Chaulieu, seated 
 at an embroidery-frame, was showing Mademoiselle de 
 Verneuil how to shade a flower. 
 
 If Modeste had run a neeille through her finger when 
 
Modeste Mignon. 329 
 
 handling a pin-cushion she could not have felt a sharper 
 prick than she received from the cold and haughty and 
 contemptnous stare with which Madame de Chaulieu 
 favored her. For an instant she saw nothing hut that 
 one woman, and she saw through her. To understand 
 the depths of crueltj- to which tliese charming creatnres, 
 whom our passions deify, can go, wc must see women 
 with each other. Modeste would have disarmed al- 
 most an}- other than Eleonore bv the perfectly stupid 
 and involuntary admiration which her face betrayed. 
 Had she not known the duchess's age she would have 
 thought her a woman of thirtj'-six ; but other and 
 greater astonishments awaited her. 
 
 The poet had run plump against a great lady's anger. 
 Such anger is the worst of sphinxes ; the face is radi- 
 ant, all the rest menacing. Kings themselves cannot 
 make the exquisite politeness of a mistress's cold anger 
 capitulate when she guards it with steel armor. Canalis 
 tried to cling to the steel, but his fingers slipped on the 
 polished surface, like his words on the heart ; and the 
 gracious face, the gracious words, the gracious bearing 
 of the duchess hid the steel of her wrath, now fallen 
 to twentj'-flve below zero, from all observers. The ap- 
 pearance of Modeste in her sublime beauty, and dressed 
 as well as Diane de Maufrigneuse herself, had fired the 
 train of gunpowder which reflection had been laying in 
 Eleonore's mind. 
 
 All the women had gone to the windows to see the 
 new wonder get out of the royal carriage, attended by 
 her three suitors. 
 
 " Do not let us seem so curious,'' Madame de Chau- 
 Heu had said, cut to the heart by Diane's exclama- 
 
330 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 tion, — " She is divine ! where in the world does she 
 come from?" — and with that the bevj flew back to 
 their seats, resuming their composure, though Eleonore's 
 heart was full of hungiy vipers all clamorous for a 
 meal. 
 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville said in a low voice and 
 with much meaning to the Duchesse de Verueuii, 
 " Eleonore receives her Melchior very ungraciouslj'." 
 
 " The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse thinks there is a 
 coolness between them," said Laure de Verneuil, with 
 simplicity. 
 
 Charming phrase ! so often used in the world of 
 society', — how the north wind blows through it. 
 
 "Why so?" asked Modeste of the prett}' young- 
 girl who had lately left the Saere-Cceur. 
 
 " The great poet," said the pious duchess — making 
 a sign to her daughter to be silent — " left Madame de 
 Chaulieu without a letter for more than two weeks after 
 he went to Havre, having told her that lie went there 
 for his health — " 
 
 Modeste made a hasty movement, which caught 
 the attention of Laure, Helene, and Mademoiselle 
 d'H($rouville. 
 
 " — and during that time," continued the devout 
 duchess, " she was endeavoring to have him appointed 
 commander of the Legion of honor, and minister at 
 Baden." 
 
 "Oh, that was shameful in Canalis ; he owes ever}-- 
 thing to her," exclaimed Mademoiselle d'Herouville. 
 
 " Wh3' did not Madame de ChauUeu come to Havre? " 
 asked Modeste of Helene, innocently. 
 
 "My dear," said the Duchesse de Verneuil, "she 
 
Modeste Mignon. 331 
 
 would let herself be cut in little pieces without saying a 
 word. Look at her, — she is regal; her head would 
 smile, like Mar}- Stuart's, after it was cut off; in fact, 
 she has some of that blood in her veins." 
 
 " Did she not write to him? " asked Modeste. 
 
 " Diane tells me," answered the duchess, prompted 
 by a nudge from Mademoiselle d'Herouville, "that in 
 answer to Canalis's first letter she made a cutting reply 
 a few days ago.'' 
 
 This explanation made Modeste blush with shame 
 for the man before her ; she longed, not to crush him 
 under her feet, but to revenge herself by one of those 
 malicious acts that are sharper than a dagger's thrust, 
 She looked haughtily at the Duchesse de Chaulieu — ■ 
 
 " Monsieur Melchior ! " she said. 
 
 All the women snuffed the air and looked alternately 
 at the duchess, who was talking in an undertone to 
 Canalis over the embroidery-frame, and then at the 
 j'oung girl so ill brought up as to disturb a lovers' 
 meeting, — a thing not permissible in an}' societj'. 
 Diane de Maufrigneuse nodded, however, as much as 
 to sa}', "The child is in the right of it.'' All the 
 women ended by smiling at each Other ; they were en- 
 raged with a woman who was fifty-six years old and 
 still handsome enough to put her fingers into the treas- 
 ury and steal the dues of youth. Melchior looked at 
 Modeste with feverish impatience, and maele: the gest- 
 ure of a master to a valet, while the duchess lowered 
 her head with the movement of a lioness disturbed at 
 a meal ; her ej'cs, fastened on the canvas, emitted red 
 flames in the direction of the poet, which stabbed like 
 epigrams, for each word revealed to her a triple insult, 
 
332 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Monsieur Melchior ! " said Modeste again in a 
 voice tliat asserted its right to be heard. 
 
 " What, mademoiselle? " demanded the poet. 
 
 Forced to I'ise, he remained standing half-way be- 
 tween the embroider}' frame, which was near a window, 
 and the fireplace where Modeste was seated with the 
 Duchesse de Verneuil on a sofa. What bitter reflections 
 came into his ambitious mind, as he caught a glance 
 from Eleonore. If he obeyed Modeste all was over, 
 and forever, between himself and his protectress. Not 
 to obej' her was to avow his slavery, to lose the chances 
 of his twent3'-five days of base manoeuvring, and to 
 disregard the plainest laws of decenc}' and civiiit}*. 
 The greater the folly, the more imperatively the duchess 
 exacted it. Modeste's beant}' and money thus pitted 
 against Eleonore's lights and influence made this hesi- 
 tation between the man and his honor as terrible to 
 witness as the peril of a matadore in the arena. A man 
 seldom feels such palpitations as those which now came 
 near causing Canalis an aneurism, except, perhaps, be- 
 fore the green table, where his fortune or his ruin is 
 about to be decided. 
 
 " Mademoiselle d'llerouville hurried me from the car- 
 riage, and I left behind me," said Modeste to Canalis, 
 " m}' handkerchief — " 
 
 Canalis shrugged his shoulders significant!}'. 
 
 " And," continued Modeste, taking no notice of his 
 gesture, "I had tied into one corner of it the key of 
 a desk which contains the fragment of an important 
 letter ; have the kindness, Monsieur Melchior, to get it 
 for me." 
 , Between an angel and a tiger equally enraged Canalis, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 83.3 
 
 who had turned livid, no longer hesitated, — the tiger 
 seemed to him the least dangerous of the two ; and he 
 was about to do as he was told, and commit himself 
 irretrievabl}', when La Briere appeared at the door of 
 the salon, seeming to his anguished mind like the arch- 
 angel Gabriel tumbling from heaven. 
 
 " Ernest, here, Mademoiselle de La Bastie wants 
 j'ou," said the poet, hastily- returning to his chair lij' the 
 embroiderj- frame. 
 
 Ernest rushed to Modeste without bowing to any 
 one ; he saw onlj- her, took his commission with undis- 
 guised joy, and darted from the room, with the secret 
 approbation of everj' woman present. 
 
 " What an occupation for a poet ! " said Modeste to 
 Helene d'Herouville, glancing toward the embi'oidery 
 at which the duchess was now working savagelj'. 
 
 " If j-ou speak to her, if you ever look at her, all is 
 over between us," said the duchess to the poet in a low 
 voice, not at all satisfied with the verj' doubtful termi- 
 nation which Ernest's arrival had put to the scene ; 
 " and remember, if I am not present, I leave behind 
 me ej-es that will watch 3'ou." 
 
 So saying, the duchess, a woman of medium height, 
 but a little too stout, like all women over fiftj' who re- 
 tain their beauty, rose and walked toward the group 
 which surrounded Diane de Maufrigneuse, stepping 
 daintil3' on little feet that were as slender and nervous 
 as a deer's. Beneath her plumpness could be seen the 
 exquisite delicac}' of such women, which comes from 
 the vigor of their nervous systems controlling and 
 vitalizing the development of flesh. There is no other 
 way to explain 'the lightness of her step, and the in- 
 
334 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 comparable nobility of lier bearing. None but the 
 women whose quarterings begin with Noah know, as 
 El^onore did, how to be majestic in spite of a buxom 
 tendency. A philosopher might liave pitied Philoxene, 
 while admiring the graceful lines of the bust and the 
 minute care bestowed upon a morning dress, which was 
 worn with the elegance of a queen and the easy grace 
 of a young girl. Her abundant hair, still undj-ed, was 
 simplj- wound about her head in plaits ; she bared her 
 snowj' throat and shoulders, exquisitely' modelled, and 
 her celebrated hand and arm, with pardonable pride. 
 Modeste. together with all other antagonists of the 
 duchess, recognized in her a woman of whom thej' were 
 forced to say, " She eclipses us.'' In fact, Eleouore 
 was one of the grandes dames now so rare. To en- 
 deavor to explain what august quality there was in the 
 carriage of the head, what refinement and deUeacy in 
 the curve of the throat, what harmony- in her move- 
 ments, and nobiht}' in her bearing, what grandeur in 
 the perfect accord of details with the whole being, and 
 in the arts, now a second nature, which render a woman 
 grand and even sacred, — to explain all these things 
 would simply be to attempt to anahze the sublime. 
 People enjo^- such poetry us they enjoy that of Pa- 
 ganini ; they do not explain to themselves the medium, 
 they know the cause is in the spirit that remains 
 invisible. 
 
 Madame de Chaulieu bowed her head in salutation oi' 
 Helene and her aunt ; then, saying to Diane, in a pure 
 and equable tone of voice, without a trace of emotion, 
 " Is it not time to dress, duchess? " she made her exit, 
 accompanied by her daughter-in-law and Mademoiselle 
 
Modeste 3Iignon. 335 
 
 d'Herouville. As she left the room she spoke iu an 
 undertone to the old maid, who pressed her arm, sa^'- 
 ing, " You are charming," — which meant, " 1 am all 
 gratitude for the service jou have just done us." After 
 that, Mademoiselle d'Herouville returned to the salon 
 to play her part of spy, and her first glance apprised 
 Canalis that the duchess had made him no empty 
 threat. That apprentice in diplomacy became aware 
 that his science was not sufficient for a struggle of this 
 kind, and his wit served him to take a more honest 
 position, if not a worthier one. When Ernest returned, 
 bringing Modeste's handkerchief, the poet seized his 
 arm and took him out on the terrace. 
 
 " My dear friend," he said, " I am not Only the 
 most unfortunate man in the world, but I am also the 
 most ridiculous ; and I come to 30U to get me out of 
 the hornet's ' nest into which I have run m3'self. Mo- 
 deste is a demon ; she sees my difficulty and she laughs 
 at it ; she has just spoken to me of a fragment of a 
 letter of Madame de Chaulieu, which I had the foll^' 
 to give her ; if she shows it I can never make my 
 peace with Eleonore. Therefore, will you at once ask 
 Modeste to send me back that paper, and tell her, 
 from me, that I make no pretensions to her hand. Say 
 I count upon her delicacy, upon her propriety as a 
 young girl, to behave to me as if we had never known 
 each other. I beg her not to speak to me ; I implore 
 her to treat me harshlj', — though I hardly dare to ask 
 her to feign a jealous anger, which would help my 
 interests amazingly. Go, I will wait here for an 
 answer." 
 
336 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MODESTE BEHAVES WITH DIGNITY. 
 
 On re-entering the salon Ernest de La Briere found a 
 3"oung officer of the companj' of the guard d'Havre, the 
 Vicomte de Serizy, who had just arrived from Rosn}' to 
 announce that Madame was obliged to be present at 
 the opening of the Chambers. We know the importance 
 then attached to this constitutional solemnity, at which 
 Charles X. delivered his speech, surrounded by the 
 royal family, — Madame la Dauphine and Madame be- 
 ing present in their gallery. The choice of the emis- 
 sary charged with the duty of expressing the princess's 
 regrets was an attention to Diane, who was then an ob- 
 ject of adoration to this charming young man, son of a 
 minister of state, gentleman in ordinary of the cham- 
 ber, only son and heir to an immense fortune. The 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse permitted his attentions 
 solely for the purpose of attracting notice to the age of 
 his mother, Madame de Serizj^, who was said, in those 
 chronicles that are whispered behind the fans, to have 
 deprived her of the heart of the handsome Lucien de 
 Kubempre. 
 
 "You will do us the pleasure, I hope, to remain 
 at Rosembray," said the severe duchess to the young 
 officer. 
 
 While giving ear to every scandal, the devout lady 
 shut her eyes to the derelictions of her guests who had 
 
Modeste Mignon. 837 
 
 been carefully selected by the duke ; indeed, it is sur- 
 prising how much these excellent women will tolerate 
 under pretence of bringing the lost sheep back to the 
 fold by their indulgence. 
 
 " We reckoned without our constitutional govern- 
 ment," said the grand equerry; "and Rosembray, 
 Madame la duchesse, will lose a great honor." 
 
 " We shall be more at our ease," said a tall thin old 
 man, about seventy-five years of age, dressed in blue 
 cloth, and wearing his hunting-cap by permission of the 
 ladies. Tiiis personage, who closely resembled the Due 
 de Bom'bon, was no less than the Prince de Cadignan, 
 Master of the Hunt, and one of the last of the great 
 French lords. Just as La Briere was endeavoring to 
 slip behind the sofa and obtain a moment's intercourse 
 with Modeste, a man of thirty-eight, short, fat, and very 
 common in appearance, entered the room. 
 
 " M}- son. the Prince de Loudon," said the Duchesse 
 de Verneuil to Modeste, who could not restrain the ex- 
 pression of amazement that overspread her young face 
 on seeing the man who bore the historical name that the 
 hero of La Vendee had rendered famous by his bravery 
 and the martyrdom of his death. 
 
 " Gaspard," said the duchess, calling her son to her. 
 The young prince came at once, and his mother con- 
 tinued, motioning to Modeste, "Mademoiselle de La 
 Bastie, my friend." 
 
 The heir presumptive, whose marriage with Desplein's 
 only daughter had lately been arranged, bowed to the 
 young girl without seeming struck, as his father had 
 been, with her beauty. Modeste was thus enabled to 
 compare the youth of to-day with the old age of a past 
 
 22 
 
338 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 epoch ; for the old Prince de Cadignan had ah-eady said 
 a few words which made her feel that he rendered as 
 true a homage to womanhood as to royalty. The Due 
 de Ehetore, the eldest son of the Duchesse de Chaulieu, 
 chiefly remarkable for manners that were equally im- 
 pertinent and free and easy, bowed to Modeste rather 
 cavalierly. The reason of this contrast between the 
 fathers and the sons is to be found, probably, in the fact 
 that young men no longer feel themselves gi-eat beings, 
 as their forefathers did, and they dispense with the du- 
 ties of greatness, knowing well that tliey are now but the 
 shadow of it. The fathers retain the inherent politeness 
 of their vanished grandeur, like the mountain-tops still 
 gilded by the sun when all is twilight in the valle}-. 
 
 Ernest was at last able to slip a word into Modeste's 
 ear, and she rose immediately'. 
 
 " Mj' dear," said the duchess, thinking she was go- 
 ing to dress, and pulling a bell-rope, " they shall show 
 you your appartraent." 
 
 Ernest accompanied Modeste to the foot of the grand 
 staircase, presentingthe request of the luckless poet, and 
 endeavoring to touch her feelings by describing Mel- 
 chior's agon}-. 
 
 " You see, he loves — .he is a captive who thought he 
 could break his chain." 
 
 '' Love in such a rabid seeker after fortune ! " retorted 
 Modeste. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you are at the entrance of hfe ; you 
 do not know its defiles. The inconsistencies of a man 
 who falls under the dominion of a woman much older 
 than himself should be forgiven, for he is really not 
 accountable. Think how many sacrifices Canalis has 
 
Modeste Mignon. 339 
 
 made to her. He has sown too much seed of that kind 
 to resign the harvest ; the duchess represents to him ten 
 years of devotion and happiness. You made him for- 
 get all that, and unfortunately, he has more vanity 
 than pride ; he did not reflect on what he was losing 
 until he met Madame de Chaulieu here to-day. If you 
 really understood him, you would help him. He is a 
 child, alwa3'S mismanaging his life. You call him a 
 seeker after fortune, but he seeks very badh' ; like all 
 poets, he is the victim of sensations ; he is childish, 
 easilj' dazzled like a child by anj'thing that shines, and 
 pursuing its glitter. He used to love horses and pic- 
 tures, and he craved fame, — well, he sold his pictures 
 to buj- armor and old furniture of the Renaissance and 
 Louis XV. ; just now he is seeking political power. 
 Admit that his hobbies are noble things." 
 
 " You have said enough,'' replied Modeste ; " come," 
 she added, seeing her father, whom she called with a 
 motion of her head to give her his arm ; "come with 
 me, and I will give you that scrap of paper ; 3'ou shall 
 carry it to the great man and assure him of my conde- 
 scension to his wishes, but on one condition, — you must 
 thank him in my name for the pleasure I have taken in 
 seeing one of the finest of tlie German plays performed 
 in ray honor. I have learned that Goethe's masterpiece 
 is neither Faust nor Egmout — " and then, as Ernest 
 looked at the malicious girl with a puzzled air, she 
 added: "It is Torquato Tasso ! Tell Monsieur de 
 Canalis to re-read it," she added smiling ; " I particu- 
 larly desire that you will repeat to your friend word for 
 word what I say ; for it is not an epigram, it is the jus- 
 tification of his conduct, — with this trifiing difl"erence. 
 
340 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 that he will, I trust, become more and more reason- 
 able, thanks to the folly of his Eleonore." 
 
 The duchess's head-woman conducted Modeste and 
 her father to their appartment, where Frangoise Cochct 
 had already put ever3'thing in order, and the choice ele- 
 gance of which astonished the colonel, more especially 
 after he heard from Frangoise that there were thirty 
 other appartments . in the chateau decorated with the 
 same taste. 
 
 '■This is what I call a proper country-house," said 
 Modeste. 
 
 ' ' The Comte de La Bastie must build j-ou one like 
 it," replied her father. 
 
 " Here, monsieur," said Modeste, giving the bit of 
 paper to EIrnest ; " carrj' it to our friend and put him 
 out of his miserjf." 
 
 The word our friend struck the young man's heart. 
 He looked at Modeste to see if there was anything real 
 in the community of interests which she seemed to ad- 
 mit, and she, understanding perfectly what his look 
 meant, added, " Come, go at once, your friend is 
 waiting." 
 
 La Briere colored excessively, and left the room in a 
 state of doubt and anxiety less endurable than despair. 
 The path that approaches happiness is, to the true 
 lo\er, like the narrow way which Catholic poetry has 
 called the entrance to Paradise, — expressing thus a 
 dark and gloomy passage, echoing with the last cries of 
 earthly anguish. 
 
 An hour later the illustrious company were all as- 
 sembled in the salon ; some were playing whist, others 
 conversing ; the women had their embroideries in hand, 
 
Modeste Mignon. 341 
 
 and all were waiting the announcement of dinner. The 
 Prince de Cadignan was drawing Monsieur Mignon out 
 upon China, and his campaigns under the empire, and 
 making him talk about the Portendueres, tlie L'Esto- 
 rades, and the Maucombes, Provengal families ; he 
 blamed him for not seeking service, and assured him 
 that nothing would be easier than to restore him to his 
 rank as colonel of the Guard. 
 
 " A man of your birth and your fortune ought not 
 to belong to the present Opposition," said the prince, 
 smiling. 
 
 This society of distinguished persons not only pleased 
 Modeste, but it enabled her to acquire, during her stay, 
 a perfection of manners which without this revelation 
 she would have lacked all her life. Show a clock to an 
 embryo mechanic, and you reveal to liim the wliole 
 mechanism ; he thus develops the germs of his faculty 
 which lie dormant within him. In like manner 
 Modeste had the instinct to a[)propriate the distinctive 
 qualities of Madame de Maufrigneuse and Madame de 
 Chaulieu. For her, the sight of those women was an 
 education ; whereas a bourgeoise would merely- have 
 ridiculed their ways or made them absurd by clumsy 
 imitation. A well-born, well-educated, and right-minded 
 young woman like Modeste fell naturally into connec- 
 tion with these people, and saw at once the differences 
 that' separate the aristocratic world from the bourgeois 
 world, the provinces from the faubourg Saint-Germain ; 
 she caught the almost imperceptible shadings ; in short, 
 she perceived the grace of the grande dame without 
 doubting that she could herself acquire it. She noticed 
 also that her father and La Briero appeared infinitely 
 
342 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 better in this Olympus than Canalis. The great poet, 
 abdicating his real and incontestable power, that of the 
 mind, became nothing more than a courtier seeking a 
 ministry, intriguing for an order, and forced to please 
 the whole galaxy. Ernest de La Briere, without am- 
 bitions, was able to be himself; while Melchior became, 
 to use a vulgar expression, a mere toady, and courted 
 the Prince de Loudon, the Due de Rhetore, the Vicomte 
 de Serizj', or the Due de Maufrigneuse, lilce a man not 
 free to assert himself, as did Colonel Mignon, who was 
 justly proud of his campaigns, and of the confidence 
 of the Emperor Napoleon. Modeste took note of the 
 strained efforts of the man of real talent, seeking some 
 witticism that should raise a laugh, some clever speech, 
 some compliment with which to flatter these grand per- 
 sonages, whom it was his interest to please. In a word, 
 to Modeste's eyes the peacock plucked out his tail- 
 feathers. 
 
 Toward the middle of the evening the young girl 
 sat down with the grand equerry in a corner of the 
 salon. She led him there purposely to end a suit which 
 she could no longer encourage if slie wished to retain 
 her self-respect 
 
 " Monsieur le due, if you really knew me," she said, 
 "you would understand how deeply I am touched bv 
 your attentions. It is because of the profound respect 
 I feel for your character, and the friendship which a 
 soul like yours inspires in mine, that I cannot endure to 
 wound your self-love. Before your arrival in Havre I 
 loved sincerely, deeply-, and forever, one who is worthy 
 of being loved, and my affection for whom is still a 
 secret ; but 1 wish you to know — and in saying this I 
 
Modeste Mignon. 343 
 
 am more sincere than most young girls — that had I 
 not already formed this voluntary attachment, you 
 would have been my choice, for I recognize your noble 
 and beautiful qualities. A few words which your aunt 
 and sister have said to me as to 3'our intentions lead 
 me to make this frank avowal. If you think it desir- 
 able, a letter from m}' mother shall recall me, on pre- 
 tence of her illness, to-morrow morning before the hunt 
 begins. Without your consent 1 do not choose to be 
 present at a fete which I owe to your kindness, and 
 where, if my secret should escape me, you might feel 
 hurt and defrauded. You will ask me why I have 
 come here at all. I could not withstand the invitation. 
 Be generous enough not to reproach me for what was al- 
 most a necessarj' curiosity. But this is not the chief, nor 
 the most delicate thing I have to saj' to you. You have 
 firm friends in my father and myself, — more so than 
 perhaps you realize ; and as my fortune was the first 
 cause that brought you to me, I wish to say — but 
 without intending to use it as a sedative to calm the 
 grief which gallantry requires you to testify — that my 
 father has thought over the affair of the marshes, his 
 friend Dumay thinks your project feasible, and they 
 have alread}' taken steps to form a company. Goben- 
 heim, Dumay, and my father have subscribed fifteen 
 hundred thousand francs, and undertake to get the rest 
 from capitalists, who will feel it their interest to take 
 up the matter. If I have not the honor of becoming 
 the Duchesse d'Herouville, I have almost the certain^s- 
 of enabling 3'ou to choose her, free from all trammels 
 in your choice, and in a higher sphere than mine. Oh ! 
 let me finish," she cried, at a gesture from the duke. 
 
344 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 " Judging by my nephew's emotion," whispered 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville to her niece, "it is easj" to 
 to see j'ou have a sister." 
 
 " Monsieur le due, all this was settled in my mind 
 the day of our first ride, wlien I heard you deplore your 
 situation. This is what I have wished to say to you. 
 That day determined my future life. Though you did 
 not make the conquest of a woman, j'Ou have at least 
 gained faithful friends at Ingouville — if you will deign 
 to accord us that title." 
 
 This little discourse, which Modeste had carefuU}' 
 thought over, was said with so much charm of soul that 
 the tears, came to the grand equerrj-'s eyes ; he seized 
 her hand and kissed it. 
 
 " Sta}- during the hunt," he said ; " mj' want of merit 
 has accustomed me to these refusals ; but while accept- 
 ing your friendship and that of the colonel, you must 
 let me satisfy' myself b}' the judgment of competent 
 scientifi.c men, thut the draiuing of those marshes will 
 be no risk to the company you speak of, before I agree to 
 the generous offer of your friends. You are a noble girl, 
 and though my heart aches to think I can oul}- be j'our 
 friend, I will glory in that title, and prove it to you at 
 all times and in all seasons." 
 
 "In that case, Monsieur le due, let us keep our 
 secret. M}- choice will not be known, at least I think 
 . not, until after mj- mother's complete recovery. I 
 should like our first blessing to come from her eyes." 
 
Modeste Mignon. 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " Ladies," said the Prince de Cadignan, as the 
 guests were about to separate for the night, " I know 
 that several of j-ou propose to follow the hounds with 
 us to-morrow, and it becomes mj dut3- to tell ^-ou that 
 if you will be Dianas you must rise, like Diana, with 
 the dawn. Tlie meet is for half-past eight o'clock. I 
 have in the course of my life seen manj' women dis- 
 play greater courage than men, but for a few seconds 
 only ; and 3-ou will need a strong dose of resolution to 
 keep 30U on horseback the whole day, barring a halt 
 for breakfast, which we shall take, like true hunters 
 and huntresses, on the nail. Are 3-ou still determined 
 to show yourselves trained horse-women ? " 
 
 "Prince, it is necessarj' for me to do so," said Mo- 
 deste, adroitly. 
 
 " I answer for myself," said the Duchesse de 
 Chaulieu. 
 
 "And I for my daughter Diane; she is worthy of 
 her name," added the prince. " So, then, j-ou all per- 
 sist in your intentions? However, I shall arrange, for 
 the sake of Madame and Mademoiselle de Verneuil and 
 others of the party who stay at home, to drive the stag 
 to the further end of the pond." 
 
346 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 "Make yourselves quite easy, mesdames," said the 
 Prince de Loudon, when the Royal Huntsman had left 
 the room ; ' ' that breakfast ' on the nail ' will take place 
 under a comfortable tent." 
 
 The next day, at dawn, all signs gave promise of a 
 glorious day. The skies, veiled by a slight graj- vapor, 
 showed spaces of purest blue, and would surely be 
 swept clear before mid-day by the northwest wind, which 
 was already playing with tlie fleecy cloudlets. As the 
 hunting part}- left the chateau, the Master of the Hunt, 
 the Due de Rhetore, and the Prince de Loudon, who 
 had no ladies to escort, rode in the advance, noticing 
 tlie white masses of the chateau, with its rising chim- 
 neys relieved against the brilliant red-brown foliage 
 which the trees in Normandj' put on at the close of a 
 line autumn. 
 
 " The ladies are fortunate in their weather," re- 
 marked the Due de Rhetoi-e. 
 
 " Oh, in spite of all their boasting," replied the Prince 
 de Cadignan, "I think thej' will let us hunt without 
 them ! " 
 
 " So the)' miglit, if each had not a squire," said the 
 duke. 
 
 At this moment the attention of these determined 
 huntsmen — for the Prince de Loudon and the Due de 
 Rhetore are of the race of Nimrod, and the best shots 
 of the faubourg Saint-Germain — was attracted by a 
 loud altei'cation ; and they spurred their horses to an 
 open space at the entrance of the forest of Rosembraj', 
 famous for its mossj' turf, \yhich was appointed for the 
 meet. The cause of the quarrel was soon apparent. 
 The Prince de Loudon, afflicted with anglomania, had 
 
Modeste Mignon. 347 
 
 brought out his own hunting establishment, which was 
 exclusivelj' Britannic, and placed it under orders of 
 the Master of the Hunt. Now, one of his men, a lit- 
 tle Englishman, — fair, pale, insolent, and phlegmatic, 
 scarcely able to speak a word of French, and dressed 
 with a neatness which distinguishes all Britons, even 
 those of the lower classes, — liad posted himself on 
 one side of this open space. John Barry wore a short 
 frock-coat, buttoned tightly at tlie waist, made of scar- 
 let cloth, with buttons bearing the De ^'erneuil arms, 
 white leather breeches, top-boots, a striped waistcoat, 
 and a collar and cape of black velvet. He held in his 
 hand a snaall hunting-whip, and hanging to his wrist 
 by a silken cord was a brass horn. This man, the first 
 whipper-in, was accompanied b^' two thorough-bred 
 dogs, — fox-hounds, white, with liver spots, long in the 
 leg, fine in the muzzle, with slender heads, and little 
 ears at their crests. The huntsman — famous in the 
 English countj- from which the Prince de Loudon bad 
 obtained him at great cost — was in charge of an es- 
 tablishment of fifteen horses and sixt}' English hounds, 
 which cost the Due de Verneuil, who was nothing of 
 a huntsman, but chose to indulge his son in this es- 
 sentiall}' royal taste, an enormous sum of money to 
 keep up. 
 
 Now, when John arrived upon the ground, he found 
 himself forestalled by three other whippers-in, in charge 
 of two of the royal packs of hounds which had been 
 brought there in carts. They were the three best hunts- 
 men of the Prince de Cadignan, and presented, both 
 in character and in their distinctively French costume, 
 a marked contrast to the representative of insolent 
 
348 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 Albion. These favorites of the Prince, each wearing 
 full-brimmed, three-cornered hats, very flat and \evy 
 wide-spreading, beneath which grinned their swarthy, 
 tanned, and wrinkled faces, lighted b3' three pairs of 
 twinkling ej'es, were noticeably' lean, sinewj', and vig- 
 orous, like men in whom sport had become a passion. 
 All three were supplied with the immense horns of 
 Dampierre, wound with green worsted cords, leaving 
 onl3- the brass tubes visible ; but the^- controlled their 
 dogs h\ the eye and voice. Those noble animals were 
 far more faithful and submissive subjects than the hu- 
 man lieges whom the king was at that moment address- 
 ing ; all were marked with white, black, or liver spots, 
 each having as distinctive a countenance as the soldiers 
 of Xapoleon, their ej-es flasliing like diamonds at the 
 slightest noise. One of them, brougiit from Foitou, 
 was sliort in the back, deep in the shoulder, low-jointed, 
 and lop-eared ; the other, from England, wliite, fine as 
 a greyhound, with no belly, small ears, and built for 
 running. Both were young, impatient, and yelping 
 eagerly, while the old hounds, on the contrary, covered 
 with sears, hy quietly' with their lieads on their fore- 
 paws, and their ears to the earth like savages. 
 
 As the Englishman came up, the royal dogs and 
 huntsmen looked at each other as tliough they said, 
 " If we cannot hunt by ourselves his Majesty's service 
 is insulted." 
 
 Beginning witii jests, the quarrel presently grew 
 fiercer between Monsieur Jacquin La Roulie, tlie old 
 French whipper-in, and John Barry, the young islander. 
 The two princes guesse<l from afar the subject of the 
 altercation, and the Master of the Hunt, setting spurs 
 
Modeste Mignon. 349 
 
 to his horse, brought it to an end In- saying, in a voice 
 of authoritj- : — 
 
 '• Who drew the wood?" 
 
 " I, monseigneur," said the Englishman. . 
 
 "Very good," said the Prinee de C'adignan, pro- 
 ceeding to talve Barry's report. 
 
 Dogs and men becauic sih'nt and respectful before 
 the Royal Huntsman, as though each recognized his 
 diguit\' as supreme. The prince laid out the day's 
 work ; for it is with a hunt as it is with a battle, and the 
 Master of Charles X.'s hounds was the Napoleon of 
 forests. Thanks to tlie admirable system he has in- 
 troduced into French venery, he was al)le to turn his 
 thoughts exclusively to the science and strategy of it. 
 He now quietly assigned a special duty to the Prince 
 de Loudon's establishment, lliat oC ili'iving the stag to 
 water, when, as he expected, tlie royal hounds had 
 sent it- into the Crown tbrest which outlined the horizon 
 directly in front of llie chateau. The prince knew well 
 how to soothe the self-love of his fild luintsmeu by giving 
 them the most arduous part of llie work, and also that 
 of the Englishman, wliom he employed at his own spe- 
 cialtj', affording him a chance 'to show the fleetness 
 of his horses and dogs in the open. The two national 
 sj-stems were thus face to face and allowed to do their 
 best under each other's eyes. 
 
 "Does monseigneur wish us to wait an\' longer?" 
 said La Roulie, respectfully. 
 
 "I know what you mean, old friend," said tlie prince. 
 " It is late, but — " 
 
 " Here come the ladies," said the second whipper-in. 
 
 At that moment the cavalcade of sixteen riders was 
 
350 Modeste Mignon. 
 
 seen to approach, at the head of which were the green 
 veils of the four ladies. Modeste, accompanied by her 
 father, the grand equerrv, and La Briere, was in the ad- 
 vance, beside the Duchesse de -Maufrigneuse whom the 
 Vicomte de Serizy escorted. Behind them rode the 
 Duchesse de Cliaiilieu, flanked bj' Canalis, on whom 
 she was smiling without a trace of rancor. When they 
 had reached the open space where the huntsmen with 
 their red coats and brass bugles, sui-rounded b^- the 
 hounds, made a picture worthy of Van dei' Meulen, the 
 Duchesse de Chaulieu, who, in spite of her embonpoint, 
 sat her horse admirablj', rode up to Modeste, finding it 
 more for her dignity not to avoid that young person, to 
 whom the evening before she had not said a single word. 
 
 When the Master of the Hunt finished his compli- 
 ments to the ladies on their amazing punctuality, Ele- 
 onore deigned to observe the magnificent whip which 
 sparkled in Modeste's little hand, and graciousl}-- asked 
 leave to look at it. 
 
 " I have never seen anything of the kind more beau- 
 tiful," she said, showing it to Diane de Maufrigneuse. 
 " It is in keeping with its possessor," she added, return- 
 ing it to Modeste. 
 
 "You must admit, Madame la duchesse," answered 
 Mademoiselle de La Bastie, with a tendei' and malicious 
 glance at La Briere, "that it is a rather strange gift 
 from the hand of a future husband." 
 
 " I should take it," said Madame de Maufrigneuse, 
 "• as a declaration of my rights, in remembrance of 
 Louis XIV." 
 
 La Briere's eyes were suffused, and for a moment he 
 dropped his reins ; but a second glance from Modeste 
 
Modesfe Mignon. 351 
 
 ordered him not to betray his happiness. The hunt 
 now began. 
 
 The Due d'Herouville took occasion to say in a low 
 voice to his fortunate rival: "Monsieur, I hope that 
 you will make your wife happy ; if I can be useful to 
 you in any way, command mj' services ; 1 should be 
 only too glad to contribute to the happiness of so 
 charming a pair." 
 
 This great day, in which such vast interests of heart 
 and fortune were decided, caused but one anxiety to the 
 Master of the Hunt, — namely, whether or not the stag 
 would cross the pond and be killed on the lawn before 
 the house : for huntsmen of his calibre are like great 
 ehess-pla3ers who can predict a checkmate under certain 
 circumstances. The happy old man succeeded to the 
 height of his wishes ; the run was magnificent, and the 
 ladies released him from his attendance upon them 
 for the hunt of the next day but one, — which, however, 
 turned out to be rainj-. 
 
 The Due de Verneuil's guests staj-ed five days at Ros- 
 embray. On the last day the Gazette de France an- 
 nounced the appointment of Monsieur le Baron de 
 Canalis to the rank of commander of the Legion of 
 horior, and to the post of minister at Carlsruhe. 
 
 When, early in the month of December, Madame de 
 La Bastie, operated upon hj Desplein, recovered her 
 sight and saw Ernest de La Briere for the first time, she 
 pressed Modeste's hand and whispered in her ear, "I 
 should have chosen him myself." 
 
 Toward the last of February all the deeds for the es- 
 tates in Provence were signed by Latournelle, and about 
 that time the family of La Bastie obtained the marked 
 
352 Modesie Mignon. 
 
 honor of the king's signature to the marriage contract 
 and to the ordinance transmitting their title and arms to 
 La Briere, who henceforth tool< the name of La Briere- 
 La Bastic. The estate of La Bastic was entailed \>y 
 letters-patent issued about the end of April. La Briere's 
 witnesses on the occasion of his marriage were Canali.s 
 and the minister whom he had ser^■ed for five j'ears as 
 secretary. Those of the bride were the Due d'Herou- 
 ville and Uesplein, whom the Mignons long held in 
 grateful I'emembrance, after g■i^'ing him magnificent and 
 substantial proofs of their regard. 
 
 Later, in the course of this long history of our man- 
 ners and customs, we ma}' again meet Monsieur and 
 IMadamc de La Briere-La Bastie ; and those who have 
 the eyes to see, will then behold how sweet, how easy, 
 is the marriage yoke with an educated and intelligent 
 woman ; for Modeste, who had the wit to avoid the fol- 
 lies of pedantry, is the pride and the happiness of her 
 husband, as she is of her family and of all those who 
 surround her. 
 
THE DESERTED WOMAN 
 
THE DESERTED WOMAN 
 
 To Madame la Duchesse D'ABRAXxfes. 
 
 Her ai-fectionate Servant, 
 
 HoNOKfi DE Balzac. 
 
 Early in the spring of 18:^2 the Parisian doctors 
 sent to lower Normandy a young man who was recov- 
 ering from an inflammatory illness caused by some 
 excess of study, possibly of life. His convalescence 
 required complete rest, simple food, a cold air, and 
 the total absence of all excessive sensations. The 
 lush fields of the Bessin and the pale life of the prov- 
 inces seemed therefore propitious for his recovery. 
 He went to Bayeux, a pretty town two leagues from 
 the sea, to the house of a cousin who received him 
 with the cordiality characteristic of those who live 
 habitually in retirement, and to whom the arrival of 
 a relation or a friend becomes a J03'. 
 
 All little towns resemble each other, except perhaps 
 in a few local customs. So that after a few evenings 
 spent with his cousin, Madame de Sainte-Severe, or 
 with the persons who formed her society, this young 
 Parisian, M. le Baron Gaston de Nueil, soon knew all 
 there was to know of that exclusive circle who re- 
 garded themselves as being the whole town. Gaston 
 
356 Tlie Dcwrted Woman. 
 
 de Nueil saw in them that immutable clique which 
 observers find in all the numerous capitals of the an- 
 cient States that formed the France of other times. 
 
 First comes the family whose nobilitj', unknown at 
 a distance of fifty leagues, i)asses-in the department 
 as being incontestable and of the highest antiquity. 
 This species of rui/al fdmAhj on a minor scale is re- 
 motely connected by marriage with the Xavarreins, 
 the Grandlieus, the Cadignans, and even lays hold of 
 the Blauiont-C'hauvrys. The head of lliis illustrious 
 race is always a determined sportsman. A man with- 
 out manners, he crushes every one liy his nominal 
 superiority, tolerates the sub-prefect precisely as he 
 submits to taxation ; acknowledges none of the new 
 powers created l)_y the nineteenth century, and calls 
 attention to the fact, as a political monstrosity, that 
 the prime minister is not a noble. His wife takes a 
 peremptory tone, talks loudly, has had adorers, but 
 receives the sacrament at Easter regularlj'; she brings 
 up her daughters badly, and thinks that their name is 
 fortune enough for their establishment. Neither wife 
 nor husband has the slightest idea of modern luxury; 
 they keep to their old state liveries and ancient forms 
 of plate, furniture, and carriage's, as they do to their 
 manners, customs, and language. This long-past 
 splendour comports, however, with the thrift of the 
 provinces. In short, these are the nobles of the olden 
 time, minus the feudal levies, minus tlie packs of 
 hounds and the gold-laced coats; all full of honour 
 among themselves, and all devoted to princes whom 
 they see only from a distance. This historical, in- 
 cognito family has the originality of an. ancient 
 
The Deserted Womcui. 357 
 
 tapestvy of noted T\arp. In it vet;etate8 infallibl}' 
 an uncle or a brother, lieiilenant-general, red-rilr 
 boned, and a courtier, who went to Hanover with 
 Marechal Richelieu, and whom you find here like a 
 stray leaf from a pamphlet of tiic days of Louis XV. 
 
 To this fossil family is oppdsed a richer family, 
 but of less ancient nobility. The husband and wife 
 spend two months every winter in Paris, the fleeting 
 tone and ephemeral passions of which they duly re- 
 poi't. Madame is elegant, but rather stai'ched, and 
 always a little behind in the fashions. Nevertheless, 
 she sneers at the ignorance affected by her neigh- 
 bours; her plate is modern; she li:is grooms, negro 
 pages, and footmen. Iler eldest son has a tilbury, 
 does nothing, — ho is the heir; the youngei- is auditor 
 to the Council of St;ile. The father, very well posted 
 in the intrigues of the ministr3', relates anecdotes of 
 Louis XVIII. and "Madame du Cayla; he invests in 
 the "five per cents," avoids conversation about ciders, 
 but does sometimes give in to the mania for i-educing 
 the amount of departmental fortunes; he is member of 
 the Council-General, gels his clothes from Paris, and 
 wears the cross of the Legion of honoui'. In short, 
 this nobleman lias understood the Restoi-ation, and 
 coins money with the Chamber; but his royalism is 
 less "pure" than tliat of the family he rivals. He 
 takes the "(iazette" and the "Dcliats;" the other 
 family reads only the "t^hiotidienne." 
 
 j\[onseigneur the bisliop, formerly vicar-general, 
 floats between these two powers, which render him 
 the homage due to religion, but make him feel at 
 times the moral that the good La Fontaine has placed 
 
358 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 at the end of "The Ass bearing Relics." The worthy 
 bishop is a commoner. 
 
 Next come secondary stars, nobles who enjoy some 
 ten or twelve thousand francs a year ; who have been 
 captains in the navy, or the cavalry^ or nothing at all. 
 On horseback along the roads they hold a middle dis- 
 tance between the rector who bears the sacraments, 
 and the controller of taxes on his rounds. Nearly all 
 have been pages at Court, or in the mousquetaires, 
 and are ending their days peaceably in getting the 
 most out of their means; more concerned about their 
 timber or their cider than about the monarchy. 
 Nevertheless, they converse of the Charter and the 
 liberals between two rubbers of whist or games of 
 dominoes, after having calculated dots and arranged 
 marriages according to genealogies which they know 
 by heart. Their wives assume a haughty manner and 
 take Court airs in their wicker phaetons ; they think 
 themselves in full dress when rigged with a scarf 
 and a head-dress. They buy two bonnets yearly, after 
 mature deliberation, and occasionally import them 
 from Paris. They are usually virtuous and gossiping. 
 
 Around these principal elements of the anstocratic 
 tribe are grouped a few old maids of quality, who 
 have solved the problem of immobility in human 
 creatures. They appear to be sealed up in the houses 
 where you find them; their figures, their clothes, are 
 part of the estate, of the town, of the province ; they 
 are the tradition-, the memory, the spirit thereof. All 
 have something rigid and monumental about them; 
 they smile, or shake their heads apropos, and, from 
 time to time, say things that pass for witty. 
 
The Deserted Woman. 359 
 
 A few rich bourgeois have slipped into this minia- 
 ture Faubourg St. Germain, thanks to their aristo- 
 cratic opinions or their money. But once there, in 
 spite of their forty years, the clique says of them: 
 "That young so and so thinks well," and helps to 
 make them deputies. Usually they are patronized by 
 the old maids — which causes gossip. 
 
 Finally, two or three ecclesiastics are admitted into 
 this circle of the elite, either because of their cloth or 
 because they have intelligence; for these noble per- 
 sonages, bored by one another, are ready to introduce 
 a bourgeois element into their salons very much as a 
 baker puts yeast into his dough. 
 
 The amount of intelligence amassed in all these 
 heads is composed of a certain quantity of antique 
 ideas, with which are mingled a proportion of new 
 ideas, which brew together every evening. Like the 
 waters of a little cove, the phrases that represent these 
 ideas have their daily ebb and flow, their ceaseless 
 eddy, ever the same; whoso hears to-day its hollow 
 echo will hear it to-morrow, a year hence, ever. Their 
 immutable verdicts on all things here below form a 
 traditional knowledge, to which it is not in the power 
 of any human being to add one iota of intelligence. 
 The life of these monotonous persons gravitates in a 
 sphere of habits as unchangeable as their religious, 
 political, moral, and literary opinions. 
 
 If a stranger is admitted to this symposium every 
 one will say to him in a tone of irony : " You will not 
 find the brilliancy of your Parisian society among 
 us;" and each will censure the lives of his neigh- 
 bours, endeavouring to have it believed that he him- 
 
360 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 self is an exception in this society which he has, 
 uusuccessfullj', endeavoured to renovate. But if, 
 unfortunateij', the stranger shoukl strengthen \>y some 
 remark of his own the opinion those people mutually 
 entertain of one another, he is at once set down as a 
 malicious person, without law or gospel, a corrupt 
 Parisian, "such indeed aa all Parisians are." 
 
 When Gaston de Nueil appeared iu this little social 
 world, where etiquette is perfectly observed, where 
 all things within its own life harmonize, and every- 
 thing is freely stated, nobiliary and territorial values 
 being as openly quoted as stocks at the Bourse in the 
 financial column of a newspa'pcr, he had been already 
 weighed in the infallible scales of Bayeusian opinion. 
 His cousin, Jladame de Sainte-Severe, had carefully 
 told the amount of his fortune and that of his expec- 
 tatiiuis; she had exhibited his genealogical tree and 
 boasted of his acquirements, his politeness, his mod- 
 esty. He thci'efore received the greeting to which 
 he had strictly a right; he was accepted as a sound 
 noble, without ceremony because he was only twenty- 
 three years old; but certain youn^' persons and their 
 mothers looked sweetlj^ upon him. He possessed in 
 his own right eighteen thousand francs a year from 
 property in the valley of the Ange, and his father 
 would leave him, sooner or later, the chfiteau of 
 Manerville with all its dependencies. As for his 
 education, his political future, his personal merits, 
 his talents, there was no question about them. His 
 estates were good and the rentals certain; excellent 
 plantations had been made upon them, repairs and 
 taxes were paid by the tenant-farmers; the apple- 
 
The Deserted Woman. 361 
 
 trees were thirty-eight years old ; his father was now 
 in treaty for two hundred acres of woodland adjoin- 
 ing his park, which he meant to inclose with walls. 
 No ministerial, hopes, no human celebrity could com- 
 pete against such advantages. AYhether from malice 
 or calculation, Madame de Saiute-Severe had never 
 once mentioned Gaston's elder brother, neither did 
 Gaston say a word about him. But this brother was 
 consumptive, and likely to be buried, mourned, and 
 forgotten before long. 
 
 Gaston de Nueil began by amusing himself with all 
 these personages; he drew, as it were, their faces in 
 his album, in all the vapid verity of their angular, 
 hooked, and wrinkled countenances, in the droll 
 originalitj' of their clothes aud their tvvitchings; he 
 delighted in the Norm<rnisins of their idioms, in the 
 musty antiquity of their ideas and characteis. lUit 
 after having espoused for a while an existence that 
 resembled that of squirrels turning in their cage, he 
 felt the absence of opposing elements in a life so fixed 
 beforehand, like that of monks in cloistei's, and be- 
 fore long he fell into a nervous state which was not 
 yet that of ennui or disgust, although it had many of 
 the effects of them. After slight sufferings from such 
 a transition, the individual finds that he hiis under- 
 gone the phenomenon of transplantation into a region 
 which ,is either repugnant to him or in which he soon 
 becomes atrophied and leads a stunted life. Com- 
 monly, if nothing draws him out of this society he 
 insensibly adopts its usages, and grows wonted to its 
 void, 'which soon gains upon him and reduces him to 
 nonentity. Already Gaston's lungs were beginning 
 
362 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 to get accustomed to this atmosphere. Almost ready 
 to admit a sort of vegetating happiness in days passed 
 without cares and without ideas, he was beginning to 
 lose consciousness of that movement of sap, that con- 
 stant fructification of minds, which he had so ardently 
 enjoyed in the Parisian sphere; he was, in short, 
 about to petrify among these petrifications, and stay 
 there forever, like the companions of Ulysses content 
 with his comfortable surroundings. 
 
 One evening Gaston de Nueil chanced to find him- 
 self seated between an old lady and one of the vicar- 
 generals of the diocese in a panelled salon painted 
 gray, floored with large white tiles, decorated with 
 family portraits and occupied by four card-tables 
 around which sixteen persons were babbling and 
 playing wbist. There, thinking of nothing, but 
 digesting an excellent dinner (the conclusion of the 
 day in the provinces), he suddenly found himself 
 explaining and justifj'ing to himself the ways of these 
 people. He saw how it was that they used the same 
 cards night after night, on the same worn-out cloths, 
 and how it had come to pass that they dressed neither 
 for tbeir own sake nor for that of others. He divined 
 a vague -philosophy in the uniform motion of this 
 rotatory life, in the calm of these logical habits and 
 this ignorance of all real elegance. In short, he 
 almost comprehended the uselessness of luxury.' The 
 city of Paris, with its passions, storms, and pleas- 
 ures, was already a mere memory of adolescence in 
 his mind. He sincerely admired the red hands, the 
 modest, timid air of a young girl, whose face, at first 
 sight, had seemed to him silly, her manners without 
 
The Deserted Woman. 363 
 
 grace, her general effect repulsive, and her behaviour 
 positively ridiculous. It was all over with him! 
 Having gone to Paris from the provinces, he would 
 now have fallen back from his inflammatory Parisian 
 existence to the cold life of the provinces, if a few 
 words had not caught his ear and caused him an 
 emotion like that we feel when some original melody 
 breaks in among the accompaniments of a wearisome 
 opera. 
 
 "Did you not go yesterday to see Madame de Beau- 
 s^ant?" said an old lady to the head of the great 
 family of the region. 
 
 "I went there this morning," he replied. "I found 
 her very sad, and so unwell that I could not persuade 
 her to dine with us to-morrow." 
 
 "With Madame de Champignelles! " cried the dow- 
 ager, in a tone of surprise. 
 
 "With my wife," said the old nobleman, tranquilly. 
 "Madame de Beaaseaut belongs to the family of 
 Bourgogne, does she not? Through the women, it 
 is true, but that name whitens all. My wife is very 
 fond of the vicomtesse, and the poor lady has been so 
 long alone that — " 
 
 As he said the last words the Marquis de Cham- 
 pignelles looked with a calm, cold air at the persons 
 who were listening to him and watching him. Im- 
 possible to determine whether he was making a con- 
 cession to the misfortunes or to the nobility of 
 Madame de Beauseant, whether he was flattered to 
 receive her, or whether he wished out of pride to 
 force the gentlemen of the neighbourhood and their 
 wives to visit her. 
 
364 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 All the ladies present seemed to consult one an- 
 other with a glance ; after which such profound silence 
 reigned in the salon that their attitude was taken as 
 a sign of disapprobation. 
 
 "la this Madame de Beauseant the same who had 
 the affair with M. Ajuda-Pinto, that made so much 
 noise?" askod Gaston of the lady next to whom he 
 was seated. 
 
 "Precisely the same," was the answer. "'She came 
 to live at Courcelles after the marriage of the Mar- 
 quis d'Ajuda. No one here receives her. She has, 
 however, too much intelligence not to feel the false- 
 ness of her position; consequently, she has never 
 sought to know any one. Monsieur de Champiguelles 
 and a few other men have called upon her, but she 
 has received none but M. de Champignelles — on 
 account, perhaps, of their relationship; they are con- 
 nected through the Beauseants. The Marquis de 
 Beauseant, the father, married a Champignelles of 
 the elder branch. Though the Vicomtesse de Beau- 
 seant is descended from the house of Bourgogne, you 
 understand, of course, that we cannot admit into our 
 society a woman wlio is separated from her husband. 
 There are certain old-time ideas to which we no longer 
 have the stupidity to adhere. The vicomtesse was all 
 the more to blame in her behaviour because M. de 
 Beauseant is a very gallant man, a man of the Court: 
 he would perfectly have accepted the affair. But his 
 wife is so impulsive." 
 
 M. de Nueil, while hearing the old lady's voice 
 was not listening to her. He was absorbed in fan- 
 tasy — is there any other word that so expresses the 
 
The Deserted Woman. 365 
 
 attraction of an adventure at the moment, when it 
 catches the imagination, when the soul conceives 
 vague hopes, foresees inexplicable delights, fears, 
 events, while nothing as j'et feeds, or fixes, the ca- 
 prices of tlie mirage? The spirit wings its way, 
 imagines impossible things, and gives itself in germ 
 all the joys of a passion. Perhaps the germ of a 
 passion contains all its joys, as a seed contains a 
 beautiful llowor with its fragrance and its glowing 
 colours. M. de Nueil was not ignorant of the "fact 
 that Madame de Beauseaiit had taken refuge in Nor- 
 mandy after the noise of an affair which most women 
 envy and condemn, especially when the seductions of 
 youth and l)i_'auty seem almost to justify the fault 
 itself. There is an iiicouceival>le prestige in every 
 species of celebrity, no matter to what it may be due. 
 It seems as if to women, as it used to be with fami- 
 lies, the fame of a crime effaces the shame of it. Just 
 as some old houses actually take pride in their be- 
 headed ancestrj', a j'oung and pretty Avomau becomes 
 the more attractive through the fatal renown of a 
 happy love or a cruel betraj'al. The more she can 
 be pitied, the more she excites sympathy. We are 
 pitiless ouly to things, sentiments, and adventures 
 that are commonplace. By attracting eyes we are 
 magnified. And, in truth, is it not necessary to rise 
 above our fellows in order to be seen ? The crowd 
 feels, involuntarily, a sentiment of respect for all that 
 is great, without asking its ways of being so. 
 
 At this moment Gaston de Nueil felt himself im- 
 pelled towards Madame de Beauseant by the secret 
 influence of these reasons, or perhaps by curiosity, by 
 
366 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 the need to put an interest into his present life; in 
 short, by that crowd of motives impossible to put 
 into words, but which the word fatality serves to ex- 
 press. The Vicomtesse de Beauseant had risen before 
 him suddenly, accompanied by a host of graceful 
 images; she was another world ; near her there would 
 doubtless be much to fear, hope, combat, vanquish. 
 She would contrast with the persons Gaston saw 
 about him in that dreary salon. In short, she was a 
 woman ; and he had never yet met a woman in this 
 cold society where calculation took the place of senti- 
 ment, where politeness was merely duty, and where 
 the simplest ideas found something too wounding to 
 allow them to be uttered or understood. Madame de 
 Beauseant awakened in his soul the memory of his 
 youthful dreams and his keenest passions, lulled to 
 sleep for a moment. 
 
 M. de Nueil was absent-minded for the rest of the 
 evening. He sought for means to obtain an intro- 
 duction to Madame de Beauseant, and there really 
 seemed none. She was said to be extremely clever. 
 But if clever people are readily attracted by original 
 or refined things, they are also very keen and able to 
 divine motives ; near them there are often as many 
 chances to be foiled as to be successful in the diffi- 
 cult enterprise of pleasing. Besides, the vicomtesse 
 must, of course, add to the proud reserve of her situ- 
 ation the dignity that her name demanded. The 
 absolute solitude in which she lived seemed to him- 
 the least of the barriers raised between herself and 
 the world. It was therefore almost impossible for a 
 stranger, no matter how good his family might be, to 
 
The Deserted Woman. 367 
 
 get admittance to her. The next morning, however, 
 M. de Nueil walked in the direction of the villa of 
 Coureelles, and once or twice made a tour of the en- 
 closure within which it stood. Impelled by the illu- 
 sions in which, at his age, it is so easy to believe, he 
 looked through the openings and over the walls, and 
 stood in contemplation before the closed blinds, or 
 examined attentively those that were open. He hoped 
 for some romantic chance, he combined effects, with- 
 out perceiving their impossibility, which would intro- 
 duce him to the recluse. He took these walks for 
 several mornings fruitlessly; and every day this 
 woman, placed outside of society, the victim of love, 
 buried in solitude, was magnified in his thoughts and 
 lodged more and more in his soul. Thus it was that 
 Gaston's heart beat high with hope and joy if by 
 chance, skirting the walls of Coureelles, he heard the 
 heavy step of a gardener. 
 
 He thought of writing to Madame de Beauseant; 
 but what can be said to a woman whom you have 
 never seen and who does not know you ? Besides, 
 Gaston distrusted himself; moreover, like all young 
 men still full of iHusions, he feared, more than death 
 itself, the terrible disdain of silence; he shuddered in 
 thinking of the chances his first amorous prose would 
 have of being flung into the fire. He was a prey to 
 a thousand contradictory ideas which fought within 
 him. But at last, by dint of inventing chimeras, 
 composing romances, and beating his brains, he suc- 
 ceeded in finding one of those happy stratagems which 
 are generally to be met with among the multitude of 
 which we dream,, and which reveal to the most inno- 
 
36S The Deserted Woman. 
 
 cent woman the extent of the ardour of the man's 
 search for her. Often, social caprices create as many- 
 real obstacles between a woman and her lover as the 
 oriental poets have put into the delightful fiction of 
 their tales, and their most fantastic imagery is not 
 exaggera/ted. So, in the world of reality as in fairy- 
 land, the woman will ever belong to him who knows 
 how to reach her and deliver her from the situation in 
 which she languishes. The poorest of the Calenders, 
 falling in love with the daughter of a caliph, was cer- 
 tainly not separated from her by a greater distance 
 than that between Gaston and Madame de Beau'seant. 
 The vicomtesse, of course, lived in complete igno- 
 rance of the circumvallations traced around her by 
 M. de Nueil, whose love grew and increased to the 
 height of the obstacles before him, obstacles which 
 gave to his improvised mistress the attraction invari- 
 ably possessed by distant charms. 
 
 One day, trusting to his inspiration, he hoped for 
 all from the love that would gush from his eyes. Be- 
 lieving speech more eloquent than the most passionate 
 of letters, and speculating also on the natural curi- 
 osity of women, he went to M. de Champignelles in 
 order to employ his assistance for the success of his 
 enterprise. He told him that he had an important 
 and delicate commission to perform towards Madame 
 de Beauseaut, but not feeling sure that she M'ould 
 read letters in an unknown handwriting, or grant an 
 interview to a stranger, he begged him to ask the 
 vicomtesse whether, if he went to the house, she would 
 deign to receive him. While asking the marquis to 
 keep the secret in case of refusal, he .cleverly sug- 
 
The Deserted Woman. 369 
 
 gested that he should not be silent to Madame dc 
 Beauseant as to the reasous which made it proper that 
 she should admit him. Was he not' a man of honour, 
 loyal, and incapable of lending himself to anything 
 unbecoming or in bad taste? The haughty gentle- 
 man, whose little, vanities were flattered, was com- 
 pletely duped by this diplomacy of love, which lends 
 to a young man the calm assurance and deep dissimu- 
 lation of an old ambassador. He tried to penetrate 
 Gas^pn's' motives, but the latter (much puzzled to tell 
 them) opposed his Norman phrases to M. de Cham- 
 pignelles' adroit questioning, and the latter, as a true 
 French knight, praised his discretion. 
 
 The marquis hurried to Courcelles, with the eager- 
 ness that men of a certain age put into doing a ser- 
 vice to a pretty woman. In Madame de Beauseant's 
 peculiar position, such a message was of a nature to 
 puzzle her. Therefore, although in consulting her 
 memory slie could not see any reason that should 
 bring M. de Nueil to her, she also saw no impropriety 
 in receiving him, after first making sure of his social 
 position. She began, however, by refusing ; then she 
 discussed the propriety of the affair with M. de C'ham- 
 pignelles, and questioned him, tiying to find out 
 whether he knew the motive of the visit. After 
 that she withdrew her refusal. The discussion and 
 the enforced discretion of the marquis piqued her 
 curiosity. 
 
 M. de Champignelles, not wishing to appear ridicu- 
 lous, pretended to assume, like a well-informed but 
 discreet man, that the vicomtesse knew the object of 
 the visit perfectly well, though she was really seeking 
 
 24 
 
370 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 to discover it. Madame de Beauseant, on the other 
 baud, imagined relations between Gaston and persons 
 whom he did not even know ; she lost herself among 
 the most absurd conjectures, and vainly wondered 
 whether she had ever seen this M. de Nueil. The 
 most genuine love-letter or the cleverest, would not 
 have produced as much effect as this enigma with- 
 out a key which Madame de Beauseant's mind turned 
 over and over. 
 
 When G-aston learned that he could see her he was 
 both ravished at the thought of obtaining a happiness 
 so desired and greatly embarrassed as to how to give 
 a reason for his plot. 
 
 "Bah! to see her" he repeated, as he dressed him- 
 self; "to see her, that is all I care for! " 
 
 He was still hoping, as he entered the door at Cour- 
 celles, to come upon some expedient that should undo 
 the gordian knot he had tied himself. Gaston was 
 one of those young fellows who, believing in the 
 omnipotence of necessity, go forward ever; and, at 
 the last moment, when face to face with danger, they 
 are inspired by it, and find a way to A'anquish it. 
 He took especial pains with his dress. He imagined, 
 like all young men, that on a well or ill-placed lock of 
 hair his success depended, unaware that in youth all 
 is charm and attraction. Besides, choice women like 
 Madajne de Beauseant are only to be won by graces 
 of the mind and- superiority of character. A fine 
 character flatters their vanity, offers the promise of a 
 great passion, and appears to admit the exigencies of 
 their heart. Wit amuses them, it replies to the intui- 
 tions of their nature, and they think themselves un- 
 
The Deserted Woman. 371 
 
 derstood; and what do women want more than to be 
 amused, understood, and adored? It is necessarj', 
 however, to have reflected deeply on the things of life 
 to divine how much of the highest coquetry lies in 
 carelessness of dress and reserve of mind, in a first 
 interview. AVhen we are sufficiently shrewd to be able 
 politicians, we are usually too old to profit by our 
 experience. While Gaston was distrusting his own 
 wits by borrowing the seduction of clothes, Madame 
 de Beauseant herself was instinctively adding ele- 
 gance to her toilet, saying to herself as she arranged 
 her hair: — 
 
 "There is no nued that I should look like a fright."' 
 
 M. de Nueil had in his mind, in his person, and in 
 his manners that naively original cast which gives a 
 sort of savour to ideas and actions that are otherwise 
 ordinary, allows all to be said, and makes everything 
 acceptable. He was well-educated, observing, and 
 possessed of a countenance as happy and mobile as 
 his soul was impressible. Passion and tenderness 
 were in his brilliant eyes, and his heart, essentially 
 good, did not contradict them. The resolution he 
 took on entering Courcelles was therefore in harmony 
 with his frank nature and his ardent imagination. 
 But in spite of the intrepidity of love he could not 
 keep himself from a violent palpitation when, after 
 crossing a great courtyard laid out like an English 
 garden, he reached the hall, where a footman, having 
 taken his name, disappeared for a moment and then 
 returned to introduce him. 
 
 "M. le Baron de Nueil.'" 
 
 Gaston entered slowly, but with pretty good grace; 
 
372 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 a matter more difflcult in a salon where there is but 
 oue woman than where there are twenty. At the cor- 
 ner of the chimney-piece, within which, despite the 
 season, a large fire burned, and upon which were two 
 lighted candelabra that threw a softened glow into the 
 room, he saw a young woman seated in one of those 
 modern easy-chairs with very high backs, and low 
 seats, which allow of placing the head in many varied 
 poses full of grace and elegance, inclining it, bending 
 it, lifting it languidly as though it were a heavy bur- 
 den ; while the feet can be shown or withdrawn be- 
 neath the long folds of a black gown. 
 
 The vicomtesse intended to lay the book she was 
 reading on a little round table, but having at the same 
 moment turned her head towards M. de Neuil, the 
 book, half-placed, fell upon the ground in the space 
 between the table and the chair. Without appearing 
 disturbed by the incident, she lifted herself and bowed 
 in answer to the young man's salntation, but in a 
 manner so imperceptible that she scarcely rose from 
 her chair, in which she remained ensconced. She 
 leaned forward to stir the fire; then she stooped, 
 picked up a glove which she negligently put upon her 
 left hand, while with her right, which was white, 
 almost transparent, without rings, the fingers taper- 
 ing and slender with rosy nails that formed a perfect 
 oval, she pointed to a chair as if to tell Gaston to 
 be seated. When her unknown guest had taken tlie 
 chair, she turned her head to him with an interroga- 
 tive and coquettish motion, the delicate charm of 
 which is not to be described ; it belongs to the class 
 of those courteous intentions, those gracious though 
 
The Deserted Woman. 373 
 
 formal gestures, given by early education and the 
 constant habit of doing all things in good taste. 
 These multiplied movements succeeded each other 
 rapidly, without jerk or brusqueness; and they 
 charmed Gaston by that mingling of precision and 
 freedom which a pretty woman adds to the aristo- 
 cratic manners of the highest company. 
 
 Madame de Beansrant contrasted too vividly with 
 the automatons among whom he had lived during his 
 last two months of exile in the depths of Normandy 
 not to personify to his mind the poesy of his dreams. 
 Neither could he compare her perfections with those 
 he had formerly admired. In presence of this woman 
 and in this sa'on, furnished like those of the Fau- 
 bourg Saint-Germain, full of the rich nothings that 
 lie about on tables witli flowers and books, he felt 
 himself back in Paris. He trod the very carpets of 
 ■ Paris; he saw once more the distinguished type, the 
 fragile form, of the true Parisian woman, her exqui- 
 site grace, and lier negligence of all sought-for effects, 
 which do so much to mar the women of tlie provinces. 
 Madame la A'icomtesse de Beause'ant was blond, 
 white as a blonde, but with brown eyes. She pre- 
 sented her brow nobly, the brow of a fallen angel, 
 proud of her fault and asking no pardon for it. Her 
 hair, very abundant and braided high upon the smooth 
 bands which followed the broad curves of the fore- 
 head, added still further to the majesty of her head. 
 Imagination could see in the spirals of that golden 
 hair the ducal coronet of Bourgogne; and in the bril- 
 liant eyes of this great lady the courage of her house, 
 the courage of a woman strong only in repulsing dig- 
 
374 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 CI 
 
 dain and audacity, but full of tenderness for all gentle 
 feelings. The outline of her little head, admirably 
 poised upon a long white throat, the features of her 
 delicate face, her slightly parted lips, and her mobile 
 countenance wore an expression of exquisite pru- 
 dence, a tinge of affected satire, which bore some re- 
 semblance to slyness and superciliousness. It was 
 difficult not to forgive her for those two feminine sins 
 in thinking of her misfortunes, of the passion which 
 bad almost cost her life, and was visibly attested by 
 the furrows that the slightest movement traced upon 
 her brow, and by the sorrowful eloquence of her 
 beautiful eyes, that were often raised to heaven. Was 
 it not an imposing spectacle (still further magnified 
 by reflection) to see in that vast, silent salon this 
 woman, parted from her kind, who for three years 
 had lived in the depths of that valley, far from the 
 city, alone with her memories of a brilliant, happy,- 
 ardent youth, once so filled with fetes and homage, 
 now given over to the horrors of nothingness? The 
 smile of this woman proclaimed a high sense of her 
 own value. Neither mother nor wife, repulsed by 
 society, betrayed by the only heart that could make 
 her own beat without shame, finding in no sentiment 
 the needed support to her tottering spirit, she was 
 driven to seek her strength within herself, to live 
 upon her own life, and have no other hope than that 
 of a deserted woman, namely: to await death, and 
 hasten its slowness, despite the days of youth and 
 beauty that still remained to her. To feel herself 
 made for happiness, and die without receiving it, 
 without giving it-^a womaii! What griefs!; 
 
The Deserti'd Woman. 375 
 
 M. de Nueil made these reflectious with the ra- 
 pidity of lightning, and felt ashamed of his own 
 individual person in presence of the greatest poesy 
 that can enfold a woman. Under the spell of that 
 triple glow of beauty, misfortunes, and nobleness, he 
 remained almost stunned, dreaming, admiring the 
 woman before him, but finding nothing to say to 
 her. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant, who was doubtless not dis- 
 pleased by this attitude, made a gentle but imperative 
 gesture of the hand ; then, recalling a smile to her 
 pale lips, as if to obey the gracious rules of her sex, 
 she said : — 
 
 " M. de Champignelles has informed me, monsieur, 
 of the message which you have so courteously taken 
 upon yourself to bring me. Is it from — ? " 
 
 Hearing that terrible speech Gaston felt the ab- 
 surdity of his position, the bad taste, the disloyalty 
 of his proceeding towards a woman so noble and so 
 unhappy. He blushed. His glance, full of many 
 thoughts, became agitated; then suddenly, with that 
 strength which young people are able to get out of 
 the consciousness of their faults, he recovered him- 
 self. Interrupting Madame de Beauseant, not with- 
 out making a submissive gesture, he said in a voice 
 of emotion : — - 
 
 " Madame, T do not deserve the happiness of seeing 
 you ; I have unworthily deceived you. The sentiment 
 I have obeyed, great as it was, does not excuse the 
 miserable subterfuge which I used to obtain an en- 
 trance here. But, madame, if you will have the 
 goodness to allow me to tell you — " 
 
37 fi The Beserteil Woman. 
 
 The vicomtesse east a haughty J.ook of contempt 
 upoD him, raised her hand to the bell, and rang it, 
 and when the footman came she said, looking at the 
 young man with dignity: — 
 
 " Jacques, show this gentleman out." 
 
 She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and stooped to 
 pick up her book. Her movements were as'stiff and cold 
 as those with which she had greeted him were softlj' 
 elegant and gracious. M. de Nueil had risen, but be 
 remained standing. Madame de Beauseant flung him 
 another look as if to say: "Well, are you not going?" 
 
 That look was full of such stinging sarcasm that 
 Gaston turned pale like a person about to swoon. 
 Tears rose in his eyes, but he restrained them, dry- 
 ing them in hot shame and regret as he looked at 
 jMadame de Beauseant with a sort of pride which 
 expressed in the same glance resignation and a cer- 
 tain consciousness of his mvn yalue. The vicomtesse 
 had the right to punish him, but ought she to have 
 done so? Then he went out. As he crossed the 
 antechamber, the perspicacity of his mind and his 
 intelligence, sharpened by passion, made him see the 
 danger of his position. 
 
 " If I leave this house now," he said to himself, " I 
 shall never be able to re-enter it; 1 shall always be 
 despised by the vicomtesse. It is impossible that a 
 woman — and she is indeed' a woman ! — should not 
 divine the love she inspires; she may feel a vague 
 and involuntary regret for having so brusquely dis- 
 missed me, but she will not, she ought not to, she 
 never would, revoke her decision; it is for me to 
 understand her." 
 
The Desf'rt<-d Woman. 377 
 
 At this reflection, Gaston stopped short on the por- 
 tico, mnde an abrupt exclamation, and said : — 
 
 " I have forgotten something." 
 
 Then he returned to the salon, followed by the foot- 
 man, who, full of respect for the baron and the sacred 
 claims of property, was completely deceived by the 
 naive tone in which this remark was made. Gaston 
 entered the salon softly, without being announced. 
 "When the vicomtesse, thinking perhaps that the in- 
 truder was the footman, raised her head she saw M. 
 de Nueil standing before her. 
 
 " Jacques showed me out,"' he said, smiling. 
 
 That smile, full of a half-sad grace, took from his 
 words what might otherwise have seemed jesting, and 
 the accent willi which he said them went to the soul. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant was disarmed. 
 
 " Well, then, sit down," she said. 
 
 Gaston seized a chair with an eager movement. 
 His eyes, animated with joj', cast so vivid a light 
 that tlie vicomtesse, unable to support that young 
 glance, lowered her eyes on her book and tasted the 
 pleasure, ahvaj's fresli, of being to a man the prin- 
 ciple of his iiappiness, — an imperishable sentiment 
 in woman. Besides which, Madame de Beauseant had 
 been understood. A woman is always thankful 
 to encounter a ]nan who is able to perceive the 
 caprices, so logical, of her heart; who compre- 
 hends the apparently contradictory waj'S of her 
 mind, the fleeting reserves of her sensations, now 
 timid, now bold, — astonishing mixture of coquetry 
 and artlessness. 
 
 " Madame!" cried Gaston, softly, " you know my 
 
378 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 fault, but you are ignorant of my crimes. If you 
 knew with wliat happiness I have — " 
 
 "Ah! take care," she said, lifting one of her fin- 
 gers with a mysterious air to the level of her nose, 
 which she lightly touched, while, with the other hancT 
 she made the gesture of ringing the bell. 
 
 That pretty motion, that graceful threat created, no 
 doubt, a sad thought, a recollection of her happy life, 
 of the time when she might be all charm and fascina- 
 tion, when happiness justified the caprices of her 
 mind and gave attraction to the slightest movements 
 of her body. The lines upon her forehead gathered 
 between her eyebrows ; her face, softly lighted by the 
 candles, took a gloomy expression ; she looked at M. 
 de Nueil with a gravity devoid of harshness, and said 
 in the tone of a woman profoundly penetrated with 
 the meaning of her own words: — 
 
 "All this is very ridiculous. Time was, monsieur, 
 when I had the right to be thoughtlessly gay, when I 
 could have laughed with you and received you fear- 
 lessly; but to-day my life is changed, I am no longer 
 mistress of my actions, I am forced to reflect upon 
 them. To what sentiment do 1 owe your visit? Is 
 it curiosity? If so, I am made to pay dear for a mo- 
 ment's gratification. Is it that you already love pas- 
 sionately a woman universally calumniated, whom you 
 have never seen ? In that case, your sentiments are 
 founded on a low opinion of me, on a wrong-doing to 
 which chance has given celebrity." 
 
 She threw her book upon the table in disgust. 
 
 "What!" she continued, with a terrible look at 
 Gaston. " Because I have once been weak does the 
 
The Deserted Woman. 379 
 
 ■world expect me to be so always? This is horrible, 
 degrading. Do you come here to pity me? You are 
 very young to sympathize with sorrows of the heart. 
 Learn, monsieur, that I prefer contempt to pity; 1 
 will not submit to the compassion of any one." 
 
 A moment's silence followed, and then she resumed, 
 turning her head to him with a sad and gentle air: 
 
 " You see, monsieur, that whatever may be the sen- 
 timent which has brought you so heedlessly into my 
 seclusion, it is wounding to me. You are too young 
 to be entirely devoid of kind feeling ; you must cer- 
 tainly feel the impropriety of your action. I forgive 
 it, and I speak without bitterness. You will not re- 
 turn here, will- you? I beg you where I could com- 
 mand you. If you pay me another visit it will not 
 be in your power or mine to prevent the whole town 
 from believing that you are my lover, and you will 
 add to all my other griefs a very great grief. That 
 is not your wish, I think." 
 
 She ceased speaking, and looked at him with an air 
 of such true dignity that it confounded him. 
 
 " I have done wrong, madame," he said in a tone 
 of conviction; "but ardent feelings, want of reflec- 
 tion, a keen desire for happiness, are virtues and 
 defects both at my age. I now perceive that I ought 
 not to have sought to see you, and yet- my desire was 
 very natural." 
 
 He tried to tell her, but with more sentiment than 
 sense, the sufferings to which his enforced exile had 
 condemned him. He pictured the state of a young 
 man whose ardour burned without fuel, making him 
 believe that he was worthy of being tenderly loved, 
 
380 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 who yet had never known the delights of love inspired 
 by a young and beautiful woman of good taste and 
 delicacy. He explained his disregard of conventional 
 propriety without seeking to justify it. He flattered 
 Madame de Beauseant by showing her that she real- 
 ized for him the type of mistress incessantly but 
 vainly demanded by most young men. Then, speak- 
 ing of nis early morning walks around Courcelles, of 
 the vagabond ideas that possessed him as he gazed at 
 the villa, to which, at last, he had found a way, he 
 excited that indefinable indulgence which a woman 
 always finds in her heart for the follies she inspires. 
 He rang the tones of a passionate voice in this cold 
 solitude, into which he brought the warm aspirations 
 of his youth and charms of mind, developed by a 
 careful education. Madame de Beauseant had been 
 too long deprived of the emotions given by a delicate 
 expression of true feeling not to feel the delight of 
 them keenly. She could not keep herself from look- 
 ing at the expressive face of M. de Nueil, or from 
 admiring the beautiful confidence of a soul which has 
 not yet been torn by cruel knowledge of the ways of 
 the world, or consumed by the ceaseless calculation 
 of ambition or vanity. Gaston was youth in the 
 flower of its age, appearing as a man of character, 
 as yet imperceptive of his highest destinies. 
 
 Thus they both made, unknown to each other, most 
 dangerous reflections for their peace of mind, mutu- 
 ally endeavouring to conceal them. M. de Nueil 
 recognized in the vicomtesse one of those rare women 
 who are always victims to their own perfections and 
 their inextinguishable tenderness; whose graceful 
 
The Deserted Woman. 381 
 
 beauty is their least charm when they have once ac- 
 corded access to their soul, in which sentiments are 
 infinite, and where all is good, where the instinct of 
 the beautiful unites with the most varied expressions 
 of love to purify its joys and make them almost sa- 
 cred, — wonderful secret of womanhood, an exquisite 
 gift, not often granted by nature. 
 
 On her side, the vicomtesse, listening to the truth- 
 ful tones in which Gaston told her of the troubles of 
 his youth, divined the sufferings imposed by timidity 
 on children of larger growth when study has kept them 
 safe from the corruption and contagion of men of the 
 world, whose argumentative experience corrodes the 
 fine qualities of youth. She found in him the dream 
 of every woman — a man in whom there did not yet 
 exist that egotism of family and fortune, nor that 
 selfishness which ends by killing, after their first trans- 
 ports, devotion, honour, abnegation, self-respect, — 
 flowers of the soul so early wilted, which at the start 
 enrich existence with delicate though strong emotions, 
 and reveal in man an honest heart. Once launched 
 upon the vast spaces of sentiment, they soon went far 
 in theory; each sounded the depths of the other's 
 soul, seeking for the truth of its expression. This 
 examination, unconscious in Gaston, was premedi- 
 tated in Madame de Beauseant. Using her natural 
 and acquired slyness she expressed, without doing 
 injustice to herself, opinions quite the contrary of 
 those she held, in order to discover those of M. de 
 Nueil. She was so witty, so gracious, so completely 
 herself with a young man who did not rouse her dis- 
 trust, and whom she believed she should never see 
 
382 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 again, that Gaston exclaimed naively after one of her 
 charming remarks : — 
 
 "Oh, madame! how could any man desert you?" 
 
 Madame de Beauseaut was silent. Gaston red- 
 dened; he supposed he had offended her. But in 
 truth she was overcome by. the first deep and true 
 pleasure she had felt since the day of her sorrow. 
 The cleverest roue could not have made by employ- 
 ing art the progress that M. de Nueil owed to this 
 cry from his soul. Such a judgment,- wrung from the 
 purity of a young man, made her innocent in her own 
 eyes, condemned society, blamed the man who had 
 deserted her, and justified the solitude in which she 
 had come to languish. Worldly absolution, tender 
 sympathies, social esteem, so much desired, so cruelly 
 refused, in short, all her most secret cravings were 
 accomplished by that one exclamation, embellished 
 still further by gentle flatteries of the heart and the 
 admiration that is always so eagerly sought by women. 
 She was understood and comprehended. M. de Nueil 
 gave her naturally an opportunity to rise above her 
 fall. She looked at the clock. 
 
 "Oh, madame!" cried Gaston, "do not punish 
 my thoughtlessness. If you grant me but this one 
 evening, deign not to shorten it." 
 
 She smiled at the compliment. 
 
 " Well," she said, " as we shall never see each 
 other again, a few moments more or less cannot mat- 
 ter. If I had pleased you it would have been a great 
 misfortune." 
 
 " A misfortune that has happened," he answered 
 sadly. 
 
The Deserted Woman. 383 
 
 " Do not say that!" she replied, gravely. "Were 
 I in any other position I would gladly receive you. 
 I shall speak to you without evasion, and you will 
 comprehend why 1 cannot, and why I ought not to 
 receive you. I think you have too great a soul not 
 to feel that if I were suspected of a second weakness 
 I should become in the eyes of every one a contemp- 
 tible and vulgar woman ; I should be like other women. 
 A pure and spotless life will, on the contrary, put my 
 character into relief. I am too proud not to attempt 
 to live in society as a being apart, victim to laws in 
 my marriage, victim to man in my love. If I did 
 not remain faithful to my position, I should deserve 
 the blame that crushes me, and I should lose my own 
 esteem. I have not had the lofty social virtue to be- 
 long to a man I did not love. I have broken, in spite 
 of the laws, the bonds of marriage; but to me mar- 
 riage was equivalent to death. I wished to live. If 
 I had been a mother, perhaps I should have found 
 strength to endure the torture of a marriage forced 
 upon me by conventions. At eighteen we know noth- 
 ing, poor young girls, of what we are made to do. I 
 have violated the laws of the world, and the world has 
 punished me; we were just, the one to the other. I 
 Bought happiness. Is it not a law of our nature to be 
 happy? I was young, I was beairtiful — ^ I thought I 
 met a being who was as loving as he was impassioned. 
 I was loved deeply for a moment! " 
 
 She paused. 
 
 " I think," she resumed, " that a man ought never 
 to abandon a woman in the situation in which I was. 
 I was deserted, I had ceased to please ; perhaps I was 
 
384 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 too loving, too devoted, or too exacting; I know not. 
 Sorrow has at last trained me. After being an accuser 
 for a long, long time, I am now resigned to be the 
 only guilty one. I have therefore absolved at my 
 own expense him of whom I believed I had reason to 
 complain. I was not clever enough to keep him; fate 
 has harshly punished me for my incompetence. I 
 know only how to love; how can one think of one's self 
 when one loves? I was therefore a slave, when I 
 ought to have made myself a tyrant. Those who 
 know me may condemn me, but they esteem me. My 
 sufferings have taught me never again to put myself 
 in the way of desertion. T do not understand how it 
 is T still live after enduring the eight days of anguish 
 that followed that crisis, the most dreadful that can 
 happen in the life of a woman. One must have lived 
 three years in absolute solitude to have gathered suffi- 
 cient strength to speak as I do now of my sorrows. 
 A death-struggle usually ends in death; mine was 
 that struggle without the grave to end it. Oh! I 
 have suffered, indeed ! " 
 
 She raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling, confid- 
 ing to it, no doubt, all that she could not tell to a 
 stranger. A ceiling is certainly the gentlest, most ' 
 submissive, most complying confidant that women can 
 find on occasions when they dare not look at their 
 interlocutor. The ceiling of a boudoir is an institu- 
 tion. Is it not a confessional, minus the priest? At 
 this moment Madame de Beauseant was eloquent and 
 beautiful ; I would say coquettish if the word were 
 not too strong. In rendering justice to herself, in 
 putting between herself and love the highest barriers. 
 
The Deserted Woman. 385 
 
 she spurred all the feelings of the man ; and the more 
 she raised her nature, the better she offered it to his 
 sight. At the end she lowered her eyes to Gaston, 
 after taking from them the too affecting expression 
 given to them by the memory of her sufferings. 
 
 " You will admit that I ought to remain solitary 
 and cold," she said calmly. 
 
 M. de Nueil felt a violent desire to fall at the feet 
 of this woman, sublime at this moment with, reason 
 and unreason ; but he feared her ridicule ; he repressed 
 his enthusiasm and his thoughts; he felt both the fear 
 of not ijeing able to express them well, and a terror 
 of some terrible rebuff or sarcasm, apprehension of 
 which so often freezes the souls of ardent beings. 
 The reaction of feelings thus repressed at the moment 
 when they were about to gush from his heart gave 
 him that bitter pain known to shy and ambitious per- 
 sons when forced to swallow their own desires. He 
 could not, however, help breaking the silence by say- 
 ing in a trembling voice: — 
 
 " Permit me, madame, to give way to one of the 
 greatest emotions of my life by avowing to you what 
 you have made me feel. You enlarge my heart! I 
 feel within me a desire to spend my life in making 
 you forget your griefs, in loving you for all those 
 who have hated or wounded you. But this is a sud- 
 den effusion of the heart, which to-day nothing jus- 
 tifies, and which I ought — " 
 
 "Enough, monsieur," said Madame de Beauseaut; 
 "we are each of us going too far. I wished to re- 
 move all harshness from the refusal I am obliged to 
 give; I wished to explain its mournful reasons, not 
 
 25 
 
386 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 to attract your homage. Coquetry is becoming to 
 none but happy women. Believe me, it is better we 
 should remain strangers to each other. Later, you 
 will know that it is better not to form ties that must 
 eventually be broken." 
 
 She sighed slightly, and her brow wrinkled, only 
 to renew its purity a moment later. 
 
 " What suffering for a woman," she resumed, "not 
 to be able to follow the man she loves through all the 
 phases of his life! And that deep grief, must it not 
 echo horribly in the heart of that man, if indeed he 
 loves her well ? A double grief, is it not? " 
 
 A moment's silence, and then she rose as if to 
 make her guest rise, saying with a smile: — 
 
 " You did not expect, in coming to Courcelles, to 
 hear a sermon, did you ? " 
 
 Gaston felt himself at this moment farther from 
 this extraordinary woman than at the moment he first 
 approached her. Attributing the charm of this de- 
 lightful hour to the coquetry of the mistress of the 
 salon, desirous of displaying her mind, he bowed 
 coldly to the vicomtesse and left the house in de- 
 spair. As he went along he tried to disentangle the 
 true character of this creature, supple, yet hard as 
 a steel spring; but he had seen her take so many 
 aspects, so many shades, that he found it impossible 
 to forrn any real judgment upon her. Besides, the 
 intonations of her voice rang in his ears, and the 
 recollection gave such charm to her gestures, to 
 the motions of her head, to the plaj' of her eyes that 
 the more his thoughts examined her, the more he was 
 in love. To him, her beauty shone the brighter in 
 
The Deserted Woynan. 387 
 
 the shadows; the impressions he received of it woke 
 again, awakened by one another, seducing him anew 
 by revealing graces of womanhood and intellect not 
 perceived at first. He fell into one of those vagabond 
 meditations during which the m(wt lucid thoughts 
 struggle together and cast the soul into a species of 
 short madness. . One must be young to reveal and to 
 comprehend the secret of dithyrambics of this kind, 
 in which the heart, assailed by the wisest and by the 
 craziest ideas, yields to whichever strikes it last, a 
 thought of hope or of despair, at the will of some 
 unknown power. At twenty-three years of age a man 
 is almost always ruled by a sentiment of modesty; 
 ihe shyness, the timidity of a young girl agitate him; 
 he is afraid of expressing ill his love, he sees noth- 
 ing but difficulties, and stands in awe of them; he 
 trembles in fear that he may not please; he would be 
 bold if he did not love so much ; the more he feels the 
 value of happiness, the less he believes that his mis- 
 tress will easily grant it to him. Sometimes he yields 
 himself up too entirely to his pleasure, and fears to be 
 unable to give any; or if, unfortunately, his idol is 
 imposing he adores her in secret and from afar; if his 
 love is not divined, it expires. Often this precocious 
 passion, dead in the young heart, remains there, 
 brilliant with illusions. "What man has not several 
 of these virgin memories, which, later, awake, ever 
 gracious, bringing the image of a perfect joy? memo- 
 ries like children, lost in the flower of their age, whose 
 parents have known nothing but their smiles? 
 
 M. de Nueil returned, therefore, from Courcelles, a 
 prey to feelings big with contradictory resolutions. 
 
388 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant had become to him already the 
 condition of his existence; he preferred to die than to 
 live without her. Still juvenile enough to feel those 
 cruel fascinations which a perfect woman exercises 
 over a fresh and passionate soul, he must have passed 
 one of those storm-tossed nights during which young 
 men fly mentally from happiness to suicide, from sui- 
 cide to happiness, exhausting a whole lifetime of joy 
 and falling asleep powerless. Fatal nights, from 
 which ttie greatest danger is to waken a philosopher. 
 Too thoroughly in love to sleep, M. de Nueil rose and 
 began to write letters, none of which satisfying him, 
 he burned them all. 
 
 The next day he went to make a turn round the. 
 little inclosure of Courcelles, but only towards night- 
 fall, fearing lest the vicomtesse should see him. The 
 feeling he was then obeying belongs to a characteristic 
 of the soul so mysterious that one must still be a 
 young man in a like position to comprehend its mute 
 delights and whimsicalities, — ■ all of which make those 
 persons fortunate enough to see only the practical side 
 of life shrug their shoulders. After painful hesitation 
 Gaston wrote to Madame de Beauseant the following 
 letter, which may pass for a model of the phraseology 
 special to lovers, and can be compared to the draw- 
 ings made in secret by children to surprise their 
 parents, — works of art detestable to all except the 
 parents who receive them. 
 
 "Madame, — ^ You exercise so great an influence 
 over my heart, my soul, my person, that to-day my fate 
 hangs wholly upon you. Do not fling my letter into 
 
The Deserted Woman. 389 
 
 the fire. Be sufficiently benevolent to read it, Per- 
 haps you will pardon my first words when you per- 
 ceive that they are not a selfish or vulgar declaration, 
 but the expression of a natural fact. 
 
 " Perhaps you will be touched by the modesty of my 
 prayers, by the resignation that a sense of my inferi- 
 ority inspires, by the influence of your decision on 
 my life. At my age, madame, I know only how to 
 love; I am utterly ignorant of what will please a 
 woman and win her; but I feel for her in my heart 
 intoxicating adorations. I am irresistibly attracted 
 to you by the immense pleasure you make me feel; I 
 think of yon with all the egoism which draws us in- 
 stinctively where for us is vital warmth. I do not 
 think myself worthy of you. No, it seems to me im- 
 possible that I, young, ignorant, timid, should bring 
 to you one-millionth part of the happiness that I 
 breathe in as I listen to you, as I see you. You are 
 to me the only woman existing in the world. Unable 
 to conceive of life without you I have resolved to 
 leave France and risk my existence until I lose it in 
 some impossible enterprise, in the Indies, in Africa, 
 I know not where. Must I not combat a boundless 
 love with something that is allied to infinity? 
 
 " But if you would have me hope, not to be wholly 
 yours, but to obtain your friendship, I shall remain. 
 Permit me to spend near you — rarely if you so insist 
 — a few hours like those I have just obtained. That 
 slender happiness, the keen enjoyments of which can 
 be denied me at my first too ardent words, will suffice 
 to make me endure the pulsations of my blood. Do 
 I presume too far upon your generosity when I en- 
 
390 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 treat you to permit an int'ercourse in which all the 
 profit is to me alone? You can surely show to the 
 world to which you sacrifice so much that I am noth- 
 ing to you. You, so brilliant and so proud, what can 
 you fear? 
 
 " I would that I could open my heart to you, in 
 order to convince you that my humble petition covers 
 no secret thought. I should not have told you that my 
 love is boundless in asking you to grant ine friend- 
 ship did I have any hope that you would share the 
 sentiment so deep'y sunken in my soul. No, I shall 
 ever be, near you, that which you desire me to be. 
 provided I may be there. If you refuse me, and you 
 may, I shall not murmur, I shall depart. If, later, ' 
 any other woman than you should enter my life, you 
 will have acted rightly; but if I die, faithful to my 
 love, you will perhaps feel some regret. The hope of 
 thus causing you regret will soothe my anguish — it 
 Avill be the only vengeance of my rejected heart." 
 
 It is necessary not to be ignorant of any of the 
 extravagant sorrows of youth, and also to have 
 climbed upon all the white and double-winged chi- 
 meras which offer their feminine crupper to burning 
 imaginations, in order to understand the torture to 
 which Gaston de Nueil was a prey when he knew that 
 his first ultima.tum was in the hands of the vicomtesse. 
 He imagined her cold, scornful, jesting at his love, 
 like those who no longer believe in the tender pas- 
 sion. He would gladly have recalled his letter, — 
 he thought it absurd; there came into his mind, a 
 thousand and one ideas that were infinitely better. 
 
The Deserted Woman. 391 
 
 all of them more touching than his stiff sentences, 
 those cursed, far-fetched, sophistical, pretentious sen- 
 tences, but, happily, very ill-punctuated and written 
 askew. He tried not to think, not to feel ; but he did 
 think, he felt, he suffered. If he had been thirty 
 years old he would have made himself drunk ; but the 
 still artless young fellow knew nothing of the re- 
 sources of opium or the other expedients of extreme 
 civilization. He had not at his elbow one of those 
 good Parisian friends who know so well how to say to 
 you: PcETE, NGN dolet! as they hold out a bottle of 
 champagne, or carry you off to an orgy to ameliorate 
 the pangs of uncertainty. Excellent friends, always 
 ruined when you are rich, always at a watering-place 
 when you are in search of them, always having just 
 lost their last louis at cards when you ask them to 
 lend you one, but always owning a bad horse to sell 
 to you; yet, after all, the best fellows on earth, and 
 ever ready to jump in with you and race down the 
 steep incline on which time, and soul, and life itself 
 are wasted. 
 
 At last M. de Nueil received, from the hands of 
 Jacques, a letter sealed with perfumed wax bearing 
 the arms of Bourgogne, and written on satin paper, 
 unmistakable signs of a pretty woman. He rushed 
 away instantly to lock himself in and read and 
 re-read her letter. 
 
 " You punish me very severely, monsieur, both for 
 the kindness with which I saved you from the annoy- 
 ance of a dismissal, and for the seduction which gifts 
 of mind invariably exercise over me. I had confl- 
 
392 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 dence iu the nobleness of youth, and you have de- 
 ceived me. Nevertheless, I spoke to you, if not with 
 open heart, which would have been perfectly ridicu- 
 lous, at least with frankness; I told you of my situa- 
 tion in order to make your young soul comprehend 
 my coldness. The more you interested me, the more 
 keen is the pain you have now caused me. I am 
 naturally tender and kind, but circumstances render 
 me harsh. Another woman would have burned your 
 letter without reading it; I have read it, and I answer 
 it. My reasons will prove to you that while I am not 
 insensible to the expression of feelings to which, 
 however involuntarily, I have given birth, I am far 
 from sharing them, and my conduct will show you 
 better still the sincerity of my soul. Besides, I wish, 
 for your good, to employ the species of authority 
 which j'ou give me over your life, and exercise it, 
 once only, in causing the veil that now covers your 
 eyes to drop. 
 
 " I shall soon be thirty years of age, and you are 
 barely twenty-two. You are ignorant yourself of 
 what your thoughts may be when you reach my years. 
 The vows you take to-day may seem to j'ou by that 
 time extremely heavy. To-day, I am willing to be- 
 lieve, you would give me your whole life without 
 regret, you would even die for. an ephemeral pleas- 
 ure; but at thirty, experience will have taken from 
 you the strength to make me daily sacrifices; and aa 
 for me, I should be deeply humiliated to accept them. 
 Some day everything about yoii, Nature herself, will 
 command you to leave me; and, as I have told you 
 already, I prefer death to desertion. You see how 
 
The Deserted Woman. 393 
 
 sorrow has taught me to calculate. I reason, I have 
 no passion. You force me to tell you that I do not 
 love you, that I ought not, cannot, and will not love 
 j'ou. I have passed that moment in lite when women 
 yield to unreflecting impulse; I could not be the mis- 
 tress of whom you are in search. 
 
 "My consolations, monsieur, come from God, not 
 from man. Besides, I read too clearly into hearts by 
 the sad light of a love betrayed, to consent to the 
 friendship that you ask and that j'ou offer. You are 
 the dupe of your heart, and you hope much more from 
 my weakness than from your strength. All that is an 
 effect of instinct. I pardon you this childish plot, in 
 which you are not j'et an accomplice. I order you, 
 in the name of this passing love, in the name of your 
 life, in the name of my tranquillity, to remain in j'our 
 own country, and not to abandon an honourable and 
 noble life in its service for an illusion which must, 
 sooner or later, be extinguished. 
 
 "Later, when you have, in accomplishing your true 
 destiny, developed all the sentiments that await a 
 man, you will appreciate my answer, which, at the 
 present moment, you will doubtless accuse of harsh- 
 ness. You will then meet, with pleasure, an old 
 woman whose friendship will be sweet and precious 
 to you; it will not have been subjected to the vicissi- 
 tudes of passion or to the disenchantments, of life; 
 noble ideas, religious ideas will have kept it pure and 
 saintly. 
 
 "Adieu, monsieur, obey me; believe that your suc- 
 cess in life will cast some pleasure into my solitude, 
 and think of me only as we think of the abaeut." 
 
394 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 After having read this letter Gaston de Nueil wrote 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Madame, if I ceased to love you, and accepted 
 the chances which you propose to me of becoming an 
 ordinary man, I should deserve my fate — admit it! 
 No, I shall not obey you, and I swear to you a fidelity 
 which can be unbound by death only. Oh! take my 
 life! — unless you fear to put remorse in yours." 
 
 When the servant whom M. de Nueil had sent to 
 Courcelles retui-ned, his master said to him : — 
 
 " To whom did you give my note?" 
 
 " To Madame la vicomtesse herself as she was get- 
 ting into the carriage — " 
 
 " To come into town? " 
 
 " I think not, monsieur; the carriage of Madame la 
 vicomtesse had post-horses to it." 
 
 "Ah! then she is going on a journey," said the 
 baron. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur," replied the valet. 
 
 Instantly Gaston made his preparations to follow 
 Madame de Beauseant, and she led him as far as 
 Geneva without knowing that he accompanied her. 
 Among the thousand reflections that crowded upon 
 him during this journey the one that occupied him 
 more especially was this: " Why did she go away?" 
 That question was the text of innumerable supposi- 
 tions, among which he naturally chose the most flat- 
 tering, namely: "If she desires to love me, there is 
 no doubt that a woman of her intelligence would pre- 
 fer Switzerland, where no one knows us, to France, 
 where she would meet with censors." 
 
The Deserted Woman. 395 
 
 Certain passionate men would not like a -woman 
 clever enough to choose her ground; they belong to 
 the class of the refined. However, there is nothing 
 to show that Gaston's supposition was correct. 
 
 The vicomtesse hired a little house on the shores of 
 the lake. "When she was fully installed, Gaston pre- 
 sented himself one fine evening as the light was fad- 
 ing. Jacques, an essentially aristocratic footman, 
 showed no surprise on seeing M. de Nueil, and an- 
 nounced hiui as a servant accustomed to understand 
 things. Hearing the name, and seeing the young man 
 before her, Madame de Beause'ant let fall the book 
 she was reading; her surprise gave Gaston the time 
 to reach her and to say in a voice that seemed to her 
 delightful: — 
 
 " With what pleasure I took the horses that had 
 just taken you ! " 
 
 To be so well obeyed in her secret desires ! Where 
 is the woman who would not have yielded to such 
 happiness? An Italian, one of those fascinating 
 creatures whose soul is at the antipodes to that of 
 a Parisian woman, and whom, on this side of the 
 Alps, we think profoundly immoral, said one day in 
 reading a French novel: " I don't see why those poor 
 lovers spent so much time in settling what ought to 
 be the affair of an afternoon." Why should a nar- 
 rator not follow the example of the kind Italian, and 
 refrain from delaying his readers or his topic. There 
 would certainly be a few scenes of charming coquetry 
 to depict, sweet delays which Madame de Beauseant 
 preferred to give to Gaston's happiness, in order to 
 fall with grace like the virgins of antiquity; perhaps,. 
 
396 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 too, she wished to enjoy the pleasures of inspiring a 
 first love and of leading it on to its highest expres- 
 sion of strength and power. M. de Nueil was still of 
 an age to be the dupe of these caprices, these ma- 
 noeuvres which women so delight in, and which they 
 prolong, either to stipulate for conditions or to in- 
 crease their power, the diminution of which they in- 
 stinctively divine. But these little protocols of the 
 boudoir, less numerous than those of the Conference 
 of London, hold too small a place in the history of a 
 real passion to be mentioned here. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived for 
 three years inthe villa on the lake of Geneva. They 
 lived alone, seeing no one, and causing no talk about 
 them; they sailed their boat, and were as happy as 
 we ought all to be. The little bouse was simple, with 
 green blinds, and wide balconies sheltered by awnings, 
 a true lover's-nest, a house of white sofas, silent car- 
 pets, fresh coverings, where all things shone with joy. 
 At each and every window the lake took on a differ- 
 ent aspect; in the distance, the mountains with their 
 vapory, many-tinted, fugitive fantasies ; above them, 
 a beauteous sky; and, before them, that long expanse 
 of capricious, changeful water! All things seemed to 
 dream for those lovers, and all things smiled upon 
 them. 
 
 Important interests recalled il. de Nueil to France: 
 his father and brother were dead; it was necessary to 
 leave Geneva. The pair bought the little house; they 
 would have liked to cast down the mountains and 
 empty the lake by a subterranean current, in order to 
 leave nothing behind them. Madame de Beauseant 
 
The Deserted Woman. 397 
 
 followed M. de Nueil. She converted her fortune and 
 bought, near to Manerville, a considerable property 
 which adjoined the estates of M. de Nueil, and there 
 they lived together. Gaston very graciously gave up 
 to his mother the chateau and the income of the 
 domains of Manerville in return for the liberty she 
 gave him to live a bachelor. Madame de Beauaeaut's 
 estate -vvas close to a little town in one of the loveliest 
 positions of the valley of the Auge. There, the two 
 lovers put between themselves and the world barriers 
 that neither social ideas nor individuals were able to 
 cross, and there they found again the happy days of 
 Switzerland. For nine whole years they enjoyed a 
 happiness it is useless to describe; the end of this 
 history will doubtless make all souls that are able to 
 comprehend it in the infinity of its expressions divine 
 its poesy and its aspiration. 
 
 Meanwhile, M. le Marquis de Beanse'ant (his father 
 and elder brother being dead), the husband of Madame 
 de Beauseant, was in the enjoyment of perfect health. 
 Nothing assists us so much to live as the certainty of 
 making others happj' by our death. Monsieur de 
 Beauseant was one of those ironical, stubborn men 
 who, like life-annuitants, find an added pleasure to 
 that of other men in getting up well and hearty every 
 morning. Worthy man, however; a little methodical, 
 ceremonious, and sufficiently of a calculator to be able 
 to declare his love to a woman as tranquilly as a foot- 
 man announces that "Madame is served." 
 
 This little biographical notice of M. de Beauseant 
 is intended to show how impossible it was that 
 Madame de Beauseant should marrv M. de Nueil. 
 
398 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 Thus, after nine years of happiness, the sweetest 
 lease a woman ever signed, M. de Nueil and Madame 
 de Beauseant were still in a position as natural and as 
 false as that in which we saw them at the beginning of 
 this affair; a fatal crisis, nevertheless, of which it is 
 impossible to give an idea, though the lines can be laid 
 down with mathematical correctness. 
 
 Madame la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, 
 had never been willing to meet Madame de Beauseant. 
 She was a person of stiff virtue, who had very legally 
 made the happiness of M. de Nueil, the father. 
 Madame de Beauseant knew perfectly well that the 
 honourable dowager was her enemy, and would surely 
 attempt to, win Gaston away from his anti-religious 
 and immoral life. She would glad'.y have sold her 
 property and returned to Geneva. But to do so would 
 be showing distrust of M. de Nueil, and of that she 
 was incapable. Besides, he had taken a great liking 
 for the estate of Valleroy^, where he was making great 
 plantations and altering the lay of the land. It would 
 be tearing him away from a species of mechanical 
 happiness which women desire for their husbands, 
 and even for their lovers. 
 
 Recently a young lady had arrived in the neighboiir- 
 hood, a Mademoiselle de la Eodiere, about twenty-two 
 years of age, with a fortune of forty thousand francs 
 a year. Gaston met this heiress at Manerville every 
 time that his duty to his mother took him to the 
 house. 
 
 Having thus placed these personages like the 
 ciphers of a proposition in arithmetic before the 
 reader, the following letter, written and given one 
 
The I>eserted Woman. 399 
 
 morning to Gaston, -will explain the dreadful problem 
 which for over a -month Madame de Beauseant had 
 been striving to solve : — 
 
 " My Beloved, — to write to you while living heart 
 to heart, when nothing parts us, when our caresses 
 serve us often in place of language — is not this a 
 contradiction? No, love. There are certain things a 
 woman cannot say face to face with her lover; the 
 mere thought of them takes away her voice, drives 
 the blood to her heart; she is left without strength, 
 without mind. To be in this state near to you makes 
 me suffer, and I am often in it. I feel that my heart 
 ought to be all truth to you ; that no thought within 
 it should be disguised to j'ou, not even the most fugi- 
 tive ; and I love this giving of all, which so becomes 
 me, too well to remain any longer restrained and silent. 
 Therefore I am going now to tell you my distress — 
 yes, it is a distress, an anguish. Listen to me! and 
 do not say that little ' Ta ta ta ' with which you silence 
 my sauciness, and which I love, because all pleases 
 me from you. 
 
 " Dear heaven-sent husband, let me tell you that you 
 have effaced all memory of the sorrows beneath the 
 weight of which I was so nearly succumbing years 
 ago. I have known love through you alone. It 
 needed the candour of your beautiful youth, the purity 
 of your great son], to satisfy the exactions of an ex- 
 acting woman. Friend, I have often throbbed with 
 joy in thinking that during all these nine years — so 
 rapid yet so long — my jealousy has never once been 
 roused. I have had all the flowers of your soul, all 
 
400 .The Deserted Woman. 
 
 your thoughts. There has never been the slightest 
 cioud upon our skj' ; we have not known what a sacri- 
 fice was ; we have each obeyed the inspiration of our 
 hearts. I have enjoyed a boundless happiness for a 
 woman. The tears upon this page will tell you of 
 my gratitude. I would like to write of it on my 
 knees — 
 
 " Well, this felicity has brought me an anguish 
 greater than was that of desertion. Dear, the heart 
 of a woman has folds within folds ; I knew not myself 
 until to-day the depth of mine, just as I knew not the 
 depth of love. The greatest sorrows that can assail 
 us are light to bear in comparison with the one 
 thought of harm to him we love. A.ud if we cause it, 
 that harm, is it not a thing to die of? 
 
 " There is the thought that oppresses me. But it 
 drags after it another that is yet more heavy ; one 
 which degrades the glory of love, kills it, makes it a 
 humiliation that tarnishes our life forever. You are 
 thirty years old, and I am forty. What terrors does 
 not this difference of age inspire in a loving woman? 
 Yon may, first involuntarily, then consciously, have 
 felt the sacrifices you have made to me in renouncing 
 all the world for my sake. You may have thought, 
 perhaps, of your social destiny, of this marriage 
 which will so largely increase your fortune, of children 
 to whom you can transmit it, of your reappearance in 
 the world to occupy your place with honour. But 
 those thoughts you may have repressed, happy in sac; 
 rificing to me, without my knowledge, an heiress, a 
 fortune, and a noble future. In your manly gener- 
 osity you will choose to remain faithful to the oaths 
 
The Deserted Woman. 401 
 
 ■5\'hich bind U3 in the sight of God only. My past 
 will reappear to you, and I shall be protected by the 
 very grief from which you drew me — Shall I owe 
 your love to pity? that thought is more horrible to me 
 than even that of making your life a failure. Those 
 who stab their mistresses are more merciful when they 
 kill them happy and innocent in the glow of their 
 illusions — ■ Yes, death is preferable to these two 
 thoughts which for some lime past have saddened my 
 heart secretly. Yesterday, when you said to me so 
 tenderly: ' AYhat is the matter?' your voice made 
 me shudder. I thought that, as usual, you read my 
 soul, and I expected y70ur confidences, believing that 
 my presentiments were just, and divining the calcula- 
 tions of your mind. 
 
 " Then it was that I remembered certain attentions 
 which are habitual to you, but. in which I believed 
 that I could trace the sort of effort by which men betray 
 that their loyalty is hard to_ maintain. At that 
 moment I paid dear for my past happiness ; I felt 
 that the treasures of love were always sold to us. 
 And, in fact, has not fate parted us ? You have surely 
 said to yourself: ' Sooner or later I must leave my 
 poor Claire; why not part from her in time?' That 
 sentence has been written in your eyes. At times I 
 have left you to go and weep elsewhere. These are 
 the first tears that grief has made me shed these ten 
 years, and I have been too proud to show them to 
 you. 
 
 " But remember, I do not blame you. You are right; 
 I ought not to have the selfishness to bind your bril- 
 liant and long life to mine which is so nearly worn 
 
402 The Deserted Wotnan. 
 
 out. But, if I am wrong, if I have mistaken one of 
 your love-melancholies for a thought of separation? 
 • — -Ah! my angel, do not leave me in uncertainty; 
 punish your jealous wife, but give back to her the 
 consciousness of your love and hers: all of woman- 
 hood is in that prayer ; for in that sentiment alone all 
 is sanctified. 
 
 " Since your mother's arrival and since you meet 
 Mademoiselle de la Rodiere so frequently at her house, 
 I am a prey to doubts which dishonour us. Make me 
 suffer, but do not deceive me ; I wish to know all, — ■ 
 what your mother says and what you think. If you 
 have hesitated between anything and me I will give 
 you your liberty — I will hide my fate from you ; I 
 will never weep before you ; only I cannot see you 
 more — Oh! I stop, my heart is breaking. 
 
 " I have sat here gloomy and stupid for several 
 moments. Friend, I can have no pride with you, 
 you are so good, so frank ! You could not wound me, 
 you would not deceive me; you will tell me the truth, 
 however cruel it may be. Shall I help your avowal? 
 Well, then, heart of mine, I shall be comforted by one 
 thought: Shall I not have possessed the young being, 
 all grace, all beauty, all delicacy, the Gaston whom 
 no other woman can ever know, but whom I, I alone, 
 have delightfully enjoyed ? — No, you will never 
 love again as you have loved me; no, I sjiall have no 
 rival. My memories will be without bitterness in 
 thinking of our love, which will be all my thought. 
 It is beyond your power to enchant another woman 
 with the young charms of a young heart, by those dear 
 
The Deserted Woman. 403 
 
 coquetries of the soul, those graces of the body, that 
 quick understanding of allurement — in short, by the 
 whole adorable cortege that surrounds adolescent love. 
 Ah ! you are a man now ; you will obey your destiny 
 by calculating everything. You will have cares, 
 anxieties, ambitions, troubles which will deprive her 
 of the constant and unalterable smile which was ever 
 on your lips for me. Your voice, to me so tender, 
 will oftentimes be harassed now. Your eyes, that 
 lighted with celestial gleams on seeing me, will be 
 dim to her. Then, as it is impossible to love you as 
 I love you, this woman will never please you as I 
 pleased you. She will never take that perpetual care 
 that I have taken of myself and that continual study 
 of your happiness, the intelligence of which has never 
 failed me. Yes, the man, the heart, the soul that I 
 have known will exist no more; but I shall bury them 
 in my memory to enjoy them still; I shall live happy 
 in that beautiful past life, unknowing of all that is 
 not us. 
 
 " My dear treasure, if, nevertheless, you have not 
 conceived the least desire for liberty, if my love indeed 
 is not a weight upon you, if my fears are all chimer- 
 ical, if I am still for yon your Eve, the only woman 
 that there is in this world, come, come to me, the 
 moment you have read this letter. Ah! I will love 
 you in that one instant more than I have loved you in 
 these nine years. After having endured the useless 
 torture of these doubts, every day that is added to our 
 love, yes, every single day, will be a lifetime of hap- 
 piness. Therefore speak! be frank; do not deceive 
 me, for that would be a crime. Tell me, will you 
 
404 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 have your liberty? Have you reflected on the life of 
 your manhood? Have you a regret? — -I, to cause 
 you a regret! oh, I should die of it! I have love 
 enough to prefer your happiness to mine, your life to 
 mine. Cast aside, if you can, the memory of our nine 
 years of bliss that you may not be influenced in your 
 decision; but speak! I am submissive to you as I 
 am to God, the one consoler that remains if you 
 desert me." 
 
 When Madame de Beauseant knew that her letter 
 was in M. de Nueil's bands she fell into such deep 
 dejection, into a meditation that was almost torpid 
 from the crowding of her overabundant thoughts, that 
 she seemed to be half asleep. Certainly she suffered 
 an anguish the intensity of which has not always 
 been proportioned to a woman's strength, and yet it is 
 only women who endure It. 
 
 While she thus awaited her fate, M. de Nueil was, 
 on reading her letter, much embarrassed^ the term 
 employed by all young men in a crisis of this kind. 
 He had already half yielded to the instigations of his 
 mother and the attractions of Mademoiselle de la 
 Kodiere, a rather insignificant young girl, straight as 
 a poplar, white and pink, semi-mute, according to the 
 programme prescribed for all marriageable girls ; but 
 her forty thousand francs a year from landed property 
 were a sufficient charm. Madame de Nueil, with the 
 true affection of a mother, desired to inveigle her son 
 into virtue. She pointed out to him the flattery of 
 being preferred by Mademoiselle de la Rodiere when 
 so many distinguished matches were offered to her; 
 
The Deserted Woman. 4Q5 
 
 it was surely time to think of his future; such a 
 splenciicl opportunity might never come again; they 
 would have eighty thousand francs a year between 
 them eventually; fortune consoled for so much! If 
 Madame de Beauseant loved him for himself she ought 
 to be the first to advise him to marry ; — in short, this 
 good mother neglected none of the means of action 
 by which a woman influences a man's mind. She 
 had already brought her son to hesitate. Madame de 
 Beauseaut's letter came at a moment when his love 
 was still debating against the seductions of a life ar- 
 rang'ed with propriety and in conformity with the 
 ideas of the world; but the letter decided the struggle. 
 He resolved to part from Madame de Beauseant and 
 marry. 
 
 "One must be a man in life," he said to himself. 
 
 Then he reflected on the sufferings this resolution 
 would cause his mistress. His vanity as a man as 
 well as his conscience as a lover magnified them still 
 further; a sincere pity took possession of him. He 
 felt, all of a sudden, the immensity of the misfortune, 
 and he thought it necessary, charitable, to allay that 
 mortal wound. He hoped by careful management to 
 be able to bring Madame de Beause'ant to a calmer 
 state of mind and induce her to advise this cruel mar- 
 riage, by accustoming her slowly to the idea of a ne- 
 cessary separation ; keeping Mademoiselle de la 
 Eodiere always between them as a mere phantom, 
 sacrificing her at first, that Madame de Beauseant 
 might impose Her upon him later. In order to suc- 
 ceed in this compassionate undertaking, he went so 
 far as to count upon the nobility, the pride, the finest 
 
406 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 qualities in the soul of his mistress. He therefore 
 answered her letter in a way that he supposed would 
 lull her suspicions. 
 
 Answer her! To a woman who united to the intui- 
 tions of true love the most delicate perceptions of a 
 woman's mind an answer was condemnation to death. 
 When Jacques entered the room and advanced towards 
 Madame de Beauseant to give her a note, folded tri- 
 angularly, the poor woman trembled like a captured 
 swallow. A mysterious chill fell from her head to her 
 feet, wrapping her, as it were, in a shroud of ice. If 
 he did not rush to her, weeping, pale, a lover, all was 
 over. And yet, there is so much hope in the hearts 
 of loving women! so many stabs are needed to kill 
 them ; they love and they bleed to the last. 
 
 "Does madams need anything?" asked Jacques, 
 in a gentle voice, as he withdrew. 
 
 "No,'' she said. "Poor man," she thought, wiping 
 away a tear; "even he divines it, a valet! " 
 
 She read : " My Beloved, you are creating for your- 
 self chimeras — " A thick veil fell upon her eyes; 
 the secret voice of her heart cried to her: "He lies! " 
 Then her glance seized the meaning of the whole first 
 page with that species of lucid avidity given by pas- 
 sion, and read at the bottom of it these words: 
 "Nothing has been settled." Turning the page with 
 convulsive haste she saw distinctly the intention 
 which had dictated the involved evasive phrases of 
 the letter, in which there was no longer the impetuous 
 gush of love; she crumpled it, tore it, bit it, and cast 
 it into the fire, crying out: — 
 
 " Oh ! infamy ! J -yvas his when he did not love me I " 
 
The Deserted Woman. 407 
 
 Then, half dead, she fell upon her sofa. 
 
 M. de Nueil went out to walk after he had written 
 and sent his letter. On his return, he found Jacques 
 at the door, who gave him a note and said : ■ — ■ 
 
 "Madame la marquise is not at the chateau." 
 
 Much astonished, M. de Nueil opened the envelope 
 and read : — 
 
 "Madame, if I ceased to love you and accepted the 
 chances which you propose to me of becoming an 
 ordinary man, I should deserve my fate — admit it! 
 No, I shall not obey you, and I swear to you a fidelity 
 which can be unbound by death only. Oh! take my 
 life! — unless you fear to put remorse in yours." 
 
 It was the note he had written to Madame de Beau- 
 seant nine years earlier, as she started for Geneva. 
 Beneath it Claire de Bourgogne had written: "Mon- 
 sieur, you are free." 
 
 M. de Nueil removed to his mother's house at 
 Manerville. Three weeks later he married Mademoi- 
 selle Stephanie de la Rodiere. 
 
 If this history, very commonplace in its truthful- 
 ness, came to an end here it would seem a mere hoax 
 to relate it. Nearly every man has something as 
 interesting, or more so, to tell to himself. But the 
 noise made by its final conclusion, unhappily too true, 
 and all that this tale brings back in memory to the 
 hearts of those who have known the celestial delights 
 of an infinite passion which they have themselves 
 destroyed or lost by some cruel fatality, may justify 
 its recital here and shelter it from critics. 
 
408 The- Deserted Woman. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant had not left the chateau de 
 Valleroy at the time of her separation from M. de 
 Nueil. For a multitude of reasons which we must 
 leave buried in the heart of a woman (and which 
 women themselves will divine) Claire continued to 
 live there after the marriage of M. de Nueil. Her 
 seclusion was so great that even her servants, except 
 her maid and Jacques, did not see her. She exacted 
 absolute silence from all, and never left her room 
 except to go to the chapel of the chateau, where a 
 priest of the neighbourhood came every morning to 
 say mass. 
 
 Some days after Lis marriage the Comte de Nueil 
 fell into a species of conjugar apathy which might be 
 supposed to express happiness as much as unhappi- 
 ness. His mother said to every one: "My son is 
 perfectly happy." 
 
 Madame Gaston de Nueil, like many young wives, ■ 
 was I'ather tame, gentle, and patient; she became 
 pregnant about a month after marriage. All of which 
 conformed to the received ideas of wedlock. M. 
 de Neuil behaved to her charmingly ; only, about two 
 months after his rupture with Madame de Beauseant, 
 he became very dreamy and pensive. He had always 
 been serious, his mother said. 
 
 After seven months of this lukewarm happiness, 
 certain events occurred, very trivial apparently, but 
 bringing with them too much development of thought 
 and revealing too great a trouble of soul not to be 
 simply mentioned here and left to the interpretations 
 of different minds. 
 
 One day, Vv-hen M. de Nueil had been hunting in the 
 
The Deserted Woman. 409 
 
 woods of IVrauerville and Valleroy, he returned Lome 
 through the park of Jladame de Beauseaiit and, stop- 
 ping at the house, he asked for Jacques. 
 
 "Does Madame la marquise still like game?" he 
 asked. 
 
 On Jacques' replj' in the affirmative, Gaston offered 
 him quite a large dole, accompanied by very specious 
 arguments, iu order to obtain from hiin the very 
 slight service of keeping for madarae's own use the 
 game he shot. It seemed very unimportant to Jacques 
 whether Madame la marquise ate a partridge shot by 
 her keeper or by M. de Nueil, inasmuch as the latter 
 insisted that she should not be told from whom it 
 came. 
 
 "It was killed on her land," said the comte. 
 
 Jacques lent himself for several days to this inno- 
 cent deception. M. de Nueil went out shooting every 
 morning and did not return till dinner time, but 
 always without any game. A whole week went by. 
 Then Gaston made bold to write a long letter to 
 Madame de Beauseant and sent it to her. This letter 
 was returned to him unopened. It was evening when 
 her footman brought it back to him. Suddenly he 
 darted from the salon, where he seemed to be listening 
 to a caprice of Herold's that his wife was murdering 
 on the piano, and rushed, with the rapidity of a man 
 on his way to a rendezvous, to the chateau de Valleroy. 
 
 Eeaching it, he listened to the murmuring noises 
 and knew that the servants were at dinner. He went 
 up instantly to Madame de Beause'ant's apartment, 
 which she now never left. He was able to reach the 
 door without making any noise. There he saw, by 
 
410 The Deserted Woman. 
 
 tha light of two wax-candles, his former mistress, 
 emaciated, pale, seated in a large armchair, her head 
 bowed, her hands pendent, her ej'es fixed on an object 
 that she seemed not to see. It was Soerow in its 
 most complete expression. There was something of 
 vague hope in this attitude, but no one could have 
 told if Claire de Bourgogne were looking to the grave 
 or to the past. Perhaps the tears of M. de Nueil 
 glistened in the darkness, perhaps his breathing 
 echoed slightly, perhaps an involuntary shiver escaped 
 him, or it may be that his presence near her was impos- 
 sible without the phenomenon of intussusception, the 
 habit of which is the glory, the joy, and the proof of 
 veritable love. Madame de Beauseant turned her 
 face slowly to the door and saw her former lover. M. 
 de Nueil advanced a few steps. 
 
 "If you come nearer, monsieur," she cried, turning 
 pale, "I will fling myself from that window." 
 
 She sprang to the fastening, opened it, and put her 
 foot upon the sill, her hand on the rail of the balcony, 
 as she turned her head to Gaston. 
 
 "Go! go! " she cried, "or I throw myself down." 
 
 At that terrible cry, M. de Nueil, hearing the ser- 
 vants, who were roused, fled like a criminal. 
 
 Eeturnlng home Gaston -wrote a short letter, and 
 ordered his valet to take it to Madame de Beauseant 
 and tell her it was a matter of life and death. The 
 messenger gone, M. de Nueil returned to the salon 
 where his wife was still at the piano. He sat down 
 and awaited the answer. An hour later, husband and 
 wife were seated, silent, on either side of the fireplace 
 when the valet returned from Valleroy aud handed his 
 
The Deserted Woman. 411 
 
 master the letter, which had not been opened. M. de 
 Nueil passed into a boudoir adjoining the salon, where 
 he had left his gun on returning from. the woods that 
 afternoon, and killed himself. 
 
 This quick and fatal conclusion of his fate, so con- 
 trary to all the habits of young France, was natural. 
 
 Persons who have carefully observed, or who have 
 delightfully experienced the phenomena to which the 
 perfect union of two beings gives rise, will compre- 
 hend this suicide. A woman does not mould herself, 
 does not bend herself in a single day to the caprices 
 of passion. Love, like a rare flower, demands the 
 choicest care of cultivation; time and the harmonizing 
 of souls alone can reveal its resources, and give birth 
 to those tender, delicate pleasures which we think 
 inherent in the person whose heart bestows them upon 
 us, and about which we cherish a thousand supersti- 
 tions. This wonderful unison, this religious belief, 
 and the fruitful certainty of ever finding a special and 
 extreme happiness near the being beloved, are, in 
 part, the secret of lasting attachments and long pas- 
 sions. Beside a woman who possesses the genius of 
 her sex love is never a habit; her adorable tenderness 
 clothes it in forms so varied, she is so brilliant and 
 so loving, both, she puts such art into her' nature, 
 or so much of nature into her art, that she makes her- 
 self as all-powerful in memory as she is by her pres- 
 ence. Beside her all other women pale. A man must 
 have had the fear of losing a love so vast, so brilliant, 
 or else he must have lost it, to know its full value. 
 But if, having known it, a man deprives himself of it 
 to fall into a cold marriage; if the woman in whom he 
 
412 Tlie Deserted Woman. 
 
 expects to meet with the same felicity proves to him, 
 by some of those facts bui'ied in the shadows of con- 
 jugal life, that it can never be reborn for him ; if he 
 still has upon his lips the taste of that celestial love,, 
 and if he has mortally wounded his true spouse for the 
 sa,ke of a social chimera, then he must either die or 
 take to him that material, cold, selfish philosophy 
 which is the horror of all passionate souls. 
 
 As for Madam* de Beauseant, she doubtless never 
 supposed that her lover's despair would go as far as 
 suicide after having drunk so deep of love for nine 
 years. Perhaps she thought that she alone would 
 suffer. She had, moreover, every right to refuse the 
 most degrading joint-possession that exists; a shar- 
 img which some wives may endure for high social 
 reasons, but which a mistress must hold in hatred, 
 because in the purity of her love lies its only 
 justification.