Father Goriot
earliest pleasures of coxcombry. People wondered at his luck, and scraps
of these conversations came to his ears as he went from room to room;
all the women prophesied his success; and Delphine, in her dread of
losing him, promised that this evening she would not refuse the kiss
that all his entreaties could scarcely win yesterday.
Rastignac received several invitations. His cousin presented him to
other women who were present; women who could claim to be of the highest
fashion; whose houses were looked upon as pleasant; and this was
the loftiest and most fashionable society in Paris into which he was
launched. So this evening had all the charm of a brilliant debut; it
was an evening that he was to remember even in old age, as a woman looks
back upon her first ball and the memories of her girlish triumphs.
The next morning, at breakfast, he related the story of his success for
the benefit of Father Goriot and the lodgers. Vautrin began to smile in
a diabolical fashion.
“And do you suppose,” cried that cold-blooded logician, “that a young
man of fashion can live here in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the
Maison Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable boarding-house in every way,
I grant you, but an establishment that, none the less, falls short
of being fashionable? The house is comfortable, it is lordly in its
abundance; it is proud to be the temporary abode of a Rastignac; but,
after all, it is in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be
out of place here, where we only aim at the purely _patriarchalorama_.
If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend,” Vautrin
continued, with half-paternal jocularity, “you must have three horses,
a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the evening; you
should spend altogether about nine thousand francs on your stables. You
would show yourself unworthy of your destiny if you spent no more than
three thousand francs with your tailor, six hundred in perfumery, a
hundred crowns to your shoemaker, and a hundred more to your hatter. As
for your laundress, there goes another thousand francs; a young man of
fashion must of necessity make a great point of his linen; if your linen
comes up to the required standard, people often do not look any further.
Love and the Church demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand
francs. I am saying nothing of losses at play, bets, and presents; it
is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I
have led that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the
cost of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand
francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants
of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in
our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing
at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye to
your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom! Is Christophe
going to carry your _billets-doux_ for you? Do you mean to employ the
stationery you use at present? Suicidal policy! Hearken to the wisdom
of your elders!” he went on, his bass voice growing louder at each
syllable. “Either take up your quarters in a garret, live virtuously,
and wed your work, or set about the thing in a different way.”
Vautrin winked and leered in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer to enforce
his remarks by a look which recalled the late tempting proposals by
which he had sought to corrupt the student’s mind.
Several days went by, and Rastignac lived in a whirl of gaiety. He dined
almost every day with Mme. de Nucingen, and went wherever she went, only
returning to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve in the small hours. He rose
at mid-day, and dressed to go into the Bois with Delphine if the day was
fine, squandering in this way time that was worth far more than he knew.
He turned as eagerly to learn the lessons of luxury, and was as quick
to feel its fascination, as the flowers of the date palm to receive the
fertilizing pollen. He played high, lost and won large sums of money,
and at last became accustomed to the extravagant life that young men
lead in Paris. He sent fifteen hundred francs out of his first winnings
to his mother and sisters, sending handsome presents as well as the
money. He had given out that he meant to leave the Maison Vauquer; but
January came and went, and he was still there, still unprepared to go.
One rule holds good of most young men--whether rich or poor. They never
have money for the necessaries of life, but they have always money to
spare for their caprices--an anomaly which finds its explanation in
their youth and in the almost frantic eagerness with which youth grasps
at pleasure. They are reckless with anything obtained on credit, while
everything for which they must pay in ready money is made to last as
long as possible; if they cannot have all that they want, they make
up for it, it would seem, by squandering what they have. To state the
matter simply--a student is far more careful of his hat than of his
coat, because the latter being a comparatively costly article of dress,
it is in the nature of things that a tailor should be a creditor; but
it is otherwise with the hatter; the sums of money spent with him are so
modest, that he is the most independent and unmanageable of his tribe,
and it is almost impossible to bring him to terms. The young man in the
balcony of a theatre who displays a gorgeous waistcoat for the benefit
of the fair owners of opera glasses, has very probably no socks in his
wardrobe, for the hosier is another of the genus of weevils that nibble
at the purse. This was Rastignac’s condition. His purse was always
empty for Mme. Vauquer, always full at the demand of vanity; there was
a periodical ebb and flow in his fortunes, which was seldom favorable
to the payment of just debts. If he was to leave that unsavory and mean
abode, where from time to time his pretensions met with humiliation, the
first step was to pay his hostess for a month’s board and lodging, and
the second to purchase furniture worthy of the new lodgings he must take
in his quality of dandy, a course that remained impossible. Rastignac,
out of his winnings at cards, would pay his jeweler exorbitant prices
for gold watches and chains, and then, to meet the exigencies of play,
would carry them to the pawnbroker, that discreet and forbidding-looking
friend of youth; but when it was a question of paying for board or
lodging, or for the necessary implements for the cultivation of his
Elysian fields, his imagination and pluck alike deserted him. There was
no inspiration to be found in vulgar necessity, in debts contracted for
past requirements. Like most of those who trust to their luck, he put
off till the last moment the payment of debts that among the bourgeoisie
are regarded as sacred engagements, acting on the plan of Mirabeau,
who never settled his baker’s bill until it underwent a formidable
transformation into a bill of exchange.
It was about this time when Rastignac was down on his luck and fell into
debt, that it became clear to the law student’s mind that he must have
some more certain source of income if he meant to live as he had been
doing. But while he groaned over the thorny problems of his precarious
situation, he felt that he could not bring himself to renounce the
pleasures of this extravagant life, and decided that he must continue it
at all costs. His dreams of obtaining a fortune appeared more and more
chimerical, and the real obstacles grew more formidable. His initiation
into the secrets of the Nucingen household had revealed to him that if
he were to attempt to use this love affair as a means of mending his
fortunes, he must swallow down all sense of decency, and renounce all
the generous ideas which redeem the sins of youth. He had chosen this
life of apparent splendor, but secretly gnawed by the canker worm of
remorse, a life of fleeting pleasure dearly paid for by persistent pain;
like _Le Distrait_ of La Bruyere, he had descended so far as to make
his bed in a ditch; but (also like _Le Distrait_) he himself was
uncontaminated as yet by the mire that stained his garments.
“So we have killed our mandarin, have we?” said Bianchon one day as they
left the dinner table.
“Not yet,” he answered, “but he is at his last gasp.”
The medical student took this for a joke, but it was not a jest. Eugene
had dined in the house that night for the first time for a long while,
and had looked thoughtful during the meal. He had taken his place beside
Mlle. Taillefer, and stayed through the dessert, giving his neighbor an
expressive glance from time to time. A few of the boarders discussed
the walnuts at the table, and others walked about the room, still taking
part in the conversation which had begun among them. People usually went
when they chose; the amount of time that they lingered being determined
by the amount of interest that the conversation possessed for them, or
by the difficulty of the process of digestion. In winter-time the room
was seldom empty before eight o’clock, when the four women had it all to
themselves, and made up for the silence previously imposed upon them by
the preponderating masculine element. This evening Vautrin had noticed
Eugene’s abstractedness, and stayed in the room, though he had seemed
to be in a hurry to finish his dinner and go. All through the talk
afterwards he had kept out of the sight of the law student, who quite
believed that Vautrin had left the room. He now took up his position
cunningly in the sitting-room instead of going when the last boarders
went. He had fathomed the young man’s thoughts, and felt that a crisis
was at hand. Rastignac was, in fact, in a dilemma, which many another
young man must have known.
Mme. de Nucingen might love him, or might merely be playing with
him, but in either case Rastignac had been made to experience all
the alternations of hope and despair of genuine passion, and all
the diplomatic arts of a Parisienne had been employed on him. After
compromising herself by continually appearing in public with Mme. de
Beauseant’s cousin she still hesitated, and would not give him the
lover’s privileges which he appeared to enjoy. For a whole month she had
so wrought on his senses, that at last she had made an impression on
his heart. If in the earliest days the student had fancied himself to be
master, Mme. de Nucingen had since become the stronger of the two, for
she had skilfully roused and played upon every instinct, good or bad, in
the two or three men comprised in a young student in Paris. This was not
the result of deep design on her part, nor was she playing a part, for
women are in a manner true to themselves even through their grossest
deceit, because their actions are prompted by a natural impulse. It may
have been that Delphine, who had allowed this young man to gain such an
ascendency over her, conscious that she had been too demonstrative, was
obeying a sentiment of dignity, and either repented of her concessions,
or it pleased her to suspend them. It is so natural to a Parisienne,
even when passion has almost mastered her, to hesitate and pause before
taking the plunge; to probe the heart of him to whom she intrusts her
future. And once already Mme. de Nucingen’s hopes had been betrayed,
and her loyalty to a selfish young lover had been despised. She had good
reason to be suspicious. Or it may have been that something in Eugene’s
manner (for his rapid success was making a coxcomb of him) had warned
her that the grotesque nature of their position had lowered her somewhat
in his eyes. She doubtless wished to assert her dignity; he was young,
and she would be great in his eyes; for the lover who had forsaken her