Father Goriot
impatience of delay or suspense. These traits are held to be defects in
the North; they made the fortune of Murat, but they likewise cut short
his career. The moral would appear to be that when the dash and boldness
of the South side of the Loire meets, in a southern temperament, with
the guile of the North, the character is complete, and such a man will
gain (and keep) the crown of Sweden.
Rastignac, therefore, could not stand the fire from Vautrin’s batteries
for long without discovering whether this was a friend or a foe. He felt
as if this strange being was reading his inmost soul, and dissecting
his feelings, while Vautrin himself was so close and secretive that
he seemed to have something of the profound and unmoved serenity of
a sphinx, seeing and hearing all things and saying nothing. Eugene,
conscious of that money in his pocket, grew rebellious.
“Be so good as to wait a moment,” he said to Vautrin, as the latter
rose, after slowly emptying his coffee-cup, sip by sip.
“What for?” inquired the older man, as he put on his large-brimmed hat
and took up the sword-cane that he was wont to twirl like a man who will
face three or four footpads without flinching.
“I will repay you in a minute,” returned Eugene. He unsealed one of the
bags as he spoke, counted out a hundred and forty francs, and pushed
them towards Mme. Vauquer. “Short reckonings make good friends” he
added, turning to the widow; “that clears our accounts till the end of
the year. Can you give me change for a five-franc piece?”
“Good friends make short reckonings,” echoed Poiret, with a glance at
Vautrin.
“Here is your franc,” said Rastignac, holding out the coin to the sphinx
in the black wig.
“Any one might think that you were afraid to owe me a trifle,” exclaimed
this latter, with a searching glance that seemed to read the young man’s
inmost thoughts; there was a satirical and cynical smile on Vautrin’s
face such as Eugene had seen scores of times already; every time he saw
it, it exasperated him almost beyond endurance.
“Well... so I am,” he answered. He held both the bags in his hand, and
had risen to go up to his room.
Vautrin made as if he were going out through the sitting-room, and the
student turned to go through the second door that opened into the square
lobby at the foot of the staircase.
“Do you know, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignacorama, that what you were
saying just now was not exactly polite?” Vautrin remarked, as he rattled
his sword-cane across the panels of the sitting-room door, and came up
to the student.
Rastignac looked coolly at Vautrin, drew him to the foot of the
staircase, and shut the dining-room door. They were standing in the
little square lobby between the kitchen and the dining-room; the place
was lighted by an iron-barred fanlight above a door that gave access
into the garden. Sylvie came out of her kitchen, and Eugene chose that
moment to say:
“_Monsieur_ Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my name is not
Rastignacorama.”
“They will fight,” said Mlle. Michonneau, in an indifferent tone.
“Fight!” echoed Poiret.
“Not they,” replied Mme. Vauquer, lovingly fingering her pile of coins.
“But there they are under the lime-trees,” cried Mlle. Victorine, who
had risen so that she might see out into the garden. “Poor young man! he
was in the right, after all.”
“We must go upstairs, my pet,” said Mme. Couture; “it is no business of
ours.”
At the door, however, Mme. Couture and Victorine found their progress
barred by the portly form of Sylvie the cook.
“What ever can have happened?” she said. “M. Vautrin said to M. Eugene,
‘Let us have an explanation!’ then he took him by the arm, and there
they are, out among the artichokes.”
Vautrin came in while she was speaking. “Mamma Vauquer,” he said
smiling, “don’t frighten yourself at all. I am only going to try my
pistols under the lime-trees.”
“Oh! monsieur,” cried Victorine, clasping her hands as she spoke, “why
do you want to kill M. Eugene?”
Vautrin stepped back a pace or two, and gazed at Victorine.
“Oh! this is something fresh!” he exclaimed in a bantering tone, that
brought the color into the poor girl’s face. “That young fellow yonder
is very nice, isn’t he?” he went on. “You have given me a notion, my
pretty child; I will make you both happy.”
Mme. Couture laid her hand on the arm of her ward, and drew the girl
away, as she said in her ear:
“Why, Victorine, I cannot imagine what has come over you this morning.”
“I don’t want any shots fired in my garden,” said Mme. Vauquer. “You
will frighten the neighborhood and bring the police up here all in a
moment.”
“Come, keep cool, Mamma Vauquer,” answered Vautrin. “There, there; it’s
all right; we will go to the shooting-gallery.”
He went back to Rastignac, laying his hand familiarly on the young man’s
arm.
“When I have given you ocular demonstration of the fact that I can put
a bullet through the ace on a card five times running at thirty-five
paces,” he said, “that won’t take away your appetite, I suppose? You
look to me to be inclined to be a trifle quarrelsome this morning, and
as if you would rush on your death like a blockhead.”
“Do you draw back?” asked Eugene.
“Don’t try to raise my temperature,” answered Vautrin, “it is not cold
this morning. Let us go and sit over there,” he added, pointing to the
green-painted garden seats; “no one can overhear us. I want a little
talk with you. You are not a bad sort of youngster, and I have no
quarrel with you. I like you, take Trump--(confound it!)--take Vautrin’s
word for it. What makes me like you? I will tell you by-and-by.
Meantime, I can tell you that I know you as well as if I had made you
myself, as I will prove to you in a minute. Put down your bags,” he
continued, pointing to the round table.
Rastignac deposited his money on the table, and sat down. He was
consumed with curiosity, which the sudden change in the manner of the
man before him had excited to the highest pitch. Here was a strange
being who, a moment ago, had talked of killing him, and now posed as his
protector.
“You would like to know who I really am, what I was, and what I do now,”
Vautrin went on. “You want to know too much, youngster. Come! come! keep
cool! You will hear more astonishing things than that. I have had
my misfortunes. Just hear me out first, and you shall have your turn
afterwards. Here is my past in three words. Who am I? Vautrin. What do
I do? Just what I please. Let us change the subject. You want to know my
character. I am good-natured to those who do me a good turn, or to those
whose hearts speak to mine. These last may do anything they like with
me; they may bruise my shins, and I shall not tell them to ‘mind what
they are about’; but, _nom d’une pipe_, the devil himself is not an
uglier customer than I can be if people annoy me, or if I don’t happen
to take to them; and you may just as well know at once that I think no
more of killing a man than of that,” and he spat before him as he spoke.
“Only when it is absolutely necessary to do so, I do my best to kill him
properly. I am what you call an artist. I have read Benvenuto Cellini’s
_Memoirs_, such as you see me; and, what is more, in Italian: A
fine-spirited fellow he was! From him I learned to follow the example
set us by Providence, who strikes us down at random, and to admire
the beautiful whenever and wherever it is found. And, setting other
questions aside, is it not a glorious part to play, when you pit
yourself against mankind, and the luck is on your side? I have thought
a good deal about the constitution of your present social Dis-order. A
duel is downright childish, my boy! utter nonsense and folly! When one
of two living men must be got out of the way, none but an idiot
would leave chance to decide which it is to be; and in a duel it is a
toss-up--heads or tails--and there you are! Now I, for instance, can
hit the ace in the middle of a card five times running, send one bullet
after another through the same hole, and at thirty-five paces, moreover!
With that little accomplishment you might think yourself certain of
killing your man, mightn’t you. Well, I have fired, at twenty paces, and
missed, and the rogue who had never handled a pistol in his life--look
here!”--(he unbuttoned his waistcoat and exposed his chest, covered,
like a bear’s back, with a shaggy fell; the student gave a startled
shudder)--“he was a raw lad, but he made his mark on me,” the
extraordinary man went on, drawing Rastignac’s fingers over a deep scar
on his breast. “But that happened when I myself was a mere boy; I was
one-and-twenty then (your age), and I had some beliefs left--in a
woman’s love, and in a pack of rubbish that you will be over head and
ears in directly. You and I were to have fought just now, weren’t we?
You might have killed me. Suppose that I were put under the earth, where
would you be? You would have to clear out of this, go to Switzerland,
draw on papa’s purse--and he has none too much in it as it is. I mean to
open your eyes to your real position, that is what I am going to do: but
I shall do it from the point of view of a man who, after studying the
world very closely, sees that there are but two alternatives--stupid
obedience or revolt. I obey nobody; is that clear? Now, do you know how
much you will want at the pace you are going? A million; and promptly,
too, or that little head of ours will be swaying to and fro in the
drag-nets at Saint-Cloud, while we are gone to find out whether or no
there is a Supreme Being. I will put you in the way of that million.”
He stopped for a moment and looked at Eugene.
“Aha! you do not look so sourly at papa Vautrin now! At the mention of
the million you look like a young girl when somebody has said, ‘I will
come for you this evening!’ and she betakes herself to her toilette as a
cat licks its whiskers over a saucer of milk. All right. Come, now, let
us go into the question, young man; all between ourselves, you know.
We have a papa and mamma down yonder, a great-aunt, two sisters (aged
eighteen and seventeen), two young brothers (one fifteen, and the other
ten), that is about the roll-call of the crew. The aunt brings up the
two sisters; the cure comes and teaches the boys Latin. Boiled chestnuts
are oftener on the table than white bread. Papa makes a suit of clothes
last a long while; if mamma has a different dress winter and summer, it
is about as much as she has; the sisters manage as best they can. I know
all about it; I have lived in the south.
“That is how things are at home. They send you twelve hundred francs a
year, and the whole property only brings in three thousand francs all
told. We have a cook and a manservant; papa is a baron, and we must keep
up appearances. Then we have our ambitions; we are connected with the
Beauseants, and we go afoot through the streets; we want to be rich,
and we have not a penny; we eat Mme. Vauquer’s messes, and we like grand
dinners in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; we sleep on a truckle-bed, and
dream of a mansion! I do not blame you for wanting these things. What
sort of men do the women run after? Men of ambition. Men of ambition
have stronger frames, their blood is richer in iron, their hearts are
warmer than those of ordinary men. Women feel that when their power is
greatest, they look their best, and that those are their happiest hours;
they like power in men, and prefer the strongest even if it is a power
that may be their own destruction. I am going to make an inventory of
your desires in order to put the question at issue before you. Here it
is:--
“We are as hungry as a wolf, and those newly-cut teeth of ours are
sharp; what are we to do to keep the pot boiling? In the first place,