This was all the information that a certain Monsieur Muret, who had purchased his business, was able to give him about old man Goriot. It confirmed the conjecture that Rastignac had heard from the lips of the Duchesse de Langeais. Here ends the exposition of this obscure but terrible Parisian tragedy.
III
AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIETY
Towards the end of the first week in December, Rastignac received two letters, one from his mother, the other from his older sister. The familiar handwriting made him both quiver with relief and quake with terror. These two flimsy documents contained a verdict of life or death for his hopes. Although he felt some apprehension as he recalled his parents’ penury, he had too much experience of their indulgence not to fear that he had finally bled them dry. His mother’s letter ran as follows:
‘My dear child, I am sending you what you asked for. Use this money well, for if I have to save your life a second time, I will not be able to find such a substantial amount without telling your father and that would cause a rift between us. We would be forced to mortgage the estate to raise the money. It is impossible for me to assess the merit of plans I know nothing about; but what kind of plans can they be if you are afraid to share them with me? Your explanation needn’t have taken volumes; all a mother needs is a word, a single word to save her from the agony of uncertainty. I cannot conceal from you how much grief your letter caused me. My dear Son, what motive led you to strike such fear into my heart? You must have been suffering terribly as you wrote to me, for I suffered terribly as I read what you had written. What escapade are you embarking on? Your life, your happiness, seem to hang on passing yourself off as someone you are not, frequenting the kind of society you cannot be seen in without living above your means and without losing precious time meant for study. My dear Eugène, trust your mother’s instinct: tortuous paths do not lead to greatness. Patience and resignation must be the virtues of young men in your position. I am not scolding you, I do not wish to taint our offering with bitterness. I speak as a mother who trusts you as much as she fears for you. If you know what your duty is, then I, your mother, know how pure your heart is and how good your intentions. And so I may say to you without fear: “Go, beloved Son, walk on your own two feet.” I tremble because I am a mother; but every step you take will be accompanied by our loving good wishes and blessings. Be prudent, dearest child. You must display the wisdom of a man; the destinies of five people who are dear to you rest on your shoulders. Yes, all of our fortunes are bound up in you, just as your happiness is ours. We all pray to God to help you in your endeavours. Your Aunt Marcillac has shown extraordinary kindness in this matter: she went so far as to find what you said about your gloves quite understandable. But then she has always had a soft spot for the eldest, she said cheerfully. Darling Eugène, show your aunt how much you love her. I won’t tell you what she did for you until you have succeeded, otherwise her money would burn your fingers. You children don’t know what it means to sacrifice memories! Yet, what wouldn’t we sacrifice for you? She has asked me to send you a kiss on the forehead from her and to tell you that she hopes this kiss will give you the power to be happy time and again. The dear, kind woman would have written to you herself if she didn’t have the gout in her fingers. Your father is well. The 1819 harvest is better than expected. Farewell dear child. I won’t say a word about your sisters: Laure is writing to you herself. I will leave her the pleasure of chattering on about the family’s little bits and pieces of news. May heaven send you success! Indeed, yes, you must succeed, dear Eugène, you have caused me such terrible pain I could not bear it a second time. I have known what it is to be poor and to wish I had riches to give to my child. Farewell, that’s all for now. Don’t leave us without news and accept this kiss your mother sends you.’
By the time Eugène had finished this letter, he was in tears: he thought of old man Goriot twisting his silver-gilt and selling it to pay off his daughter’s bill of exchange. ‘Your mother has had her jewellery melted down!’ he said to himself. ‘Your aunt must have wept as she sold off her treasures! What right do you have to judge Anastasie? Out of selfish ambition you have just done exactly what she did for her lover! Who is the better person, you or she?’ The student felt an unbearable burning sensation inside him. He wanted to turn his back on society, he wanted to refuse the money. He felt all the nobility and beauty of that secret remorse whose merit is rarely appreciated by men when they judge their fellow creatures, with the result that a criminal condemned by earthly judges is often absolved by heavenly angels. Rastignac opened the letter sent by his sister, whose innocent, flowing words refreshed his soul.
‘Your letter came at just the right time, dearest Brother. Agathe and I wanted to spend our money in so many different ways that we couldn’t make up our minds what to do with it. Like the King of Spain’s servant, when he turned his master’s clocks upside down, you made us see eye to eye. Really, we kept on squabbling over which of our wishes should be given preference and we had not yet managed, dear Eugène, to find a way of satisfying all our desires. Agathe jumped for joy. We were like two madwomen for the rest of the day, to such an extra-ordinary degree (as our aunt might put it) that Mother sternly asked us: “What is the matter with you, young ladies?” If we had been scolded a little, I think that would have made us happier still. A woman must enjoy suffering for the one she loves! For my part I was pensive and sad in the midst of my joy. I am bound to make a bad wife, I’m too much of a spendthrift. I had bought myself two sashes and a pretty bodkin for piercing eyelet-holes in corsets, silly trifles, which meant that I had less money than old Agathe, who scrimps and saves and hoards her écus like a magpie. She had two hundred francs! As for me, poor friend, I only have fifty écus. I have been suitably punished; I want to throw my sash down the well, I will never enjoy wearing it. I have cheated you. Agathe was a darling. She said: “Let’s send him three hundred and fifty francs from us both!” But I can’t wait to tell you what we did. This is how we carried out your orders: we took our fabulous wealth, went for a walk together, and once we reached the main road, ran to Ruffec, where we simply handed it all over to Monsieur Grimbert at the post office! On our way back, we felt as free as birds. “Is it happiness that makes us feel so light-hearted?” Agathe asked me. We talked of a thousand things that I won’t repeat here, Monsieur le Parisien, for it was all about you. Oh! darling Brother, we love you dearly, that is the long and short of it. As for our secret, according to my aunt, dark horses like us are capable of anything, even holding their tongues. Mother made a mysterious journey to Angoulême with Aunt, and they both refrained from commenting on the high politics of their trip, which took place following long meetings from which we were excluded, along with Monsieur le Baron. The great minds of the State of Rastignac are busy pondering this. Work on the muslin dress trimmed with openwork flowers that the Infantas are embroidering for Her Majesty the Queen is proceeding in the greatest secrecy. There are only two widths left to do. A decision has been taken to put a hedge on the Verteuil side, rather than a wall. The humble folk will lose fruit and espaliers, but strangers will gain a fine view. Should the heir apparent require any handkerchiefs, he is to know that the Dowager de Marcillac, while digging deep among her treasures and chests, known as Pompeii and Herculaneum, found a length of fine holland cloth that she didn’t know she had; Princesses Agathe and Laure place needle and thread at his disposal, along with their hands, which are always a touch too red. The two young princes Don Henri and Don Gabriel are still in the disastrous habit of gorging themselves on grape jelly, driving their sisters to distraction, thwarting all efforts by anyone to teach them anything, amusing themselves with bird-nesting, making a racket, and despite the laws of the State, cutting willows to make rods. The Pope’s nuncio, otherwise known as Monsieur le Curé, has threatened to excommunicate them if they continue to neglect the sacred canons of grammar for bellicose cannons of elder.108 Farewell, dear Brother, no letter has ever borne so many wishes for your
happiness, nor so much contented love. You will have so much to tell us when you come home! You must tell me everything as I am the eldest. My aunt has led us to suspect that you have had some success in society.
There is talk of a lady and silence as to the rest.109
In our presence, at least! By the way Eugène, if you like, we could do without handkerchiefs and make you some shirts. Send me your answer as soon as possible. If you had a pressing need for some fine, well-tailored shirts, we would need to start work straight away; and if there are fashions in Paris that we are unfamiliar with, you could send us a pattern, especially for the cuffs. Farewell, farewell! I am planting a kiss on the left side of your forehead, on the temple which belongs exclusively to me. I will leave the other sheet of paper for Agathe, who has promised not to read what I have written. But, just to make sure, I will stand next to her while she is writing to you.
Your loving Sister,
LAURE de RASTIGNAC.’
‘Oh! Yes,’ Eugène said to himself, ‘yes, I must make my fortune at all cost! No treasures could repay such devotion. I want to bring them every kind of happiness at once. Fifteen hundred and fifty francs!’ he said after a pause. ‘Every single coin of it must strike home! Laure is right. Woman be praised! My shirts are all made of coarse cloth. A girl becomes as wily as a thief to bring about another’s happiness. Innocent unto herself and provident unto me, she is like some heavenly angel who pardons earthly sins without understanding them.’
The world belonged to him! His tailor had already been summoned, sounded out, won over. On seeing Monsieur de Trailles, Rastignac had understood the influence that tailors exercise over the lives of young men. Alas! There is no middle ground: depending on his skill, a tailor is either your worst enemy, or a friend in need. Eugène found his to be a man who understood the paternal side of his trade, seeing himself as the link between a young man’s present and his future. The grateful Rastignac later made this man’s fortune with one of the witty remarks at which he came to excel. ‘I know’, he said, ‘two pairs of his trousers that made matches worth twenty thousand livres per year.’110
Fifteen hundred francs and as many clothes as he could wear! With this thought, the last of the poor Southerner’s doubts was dispelled and he went down to déjeuner with the undefinable air of a young man who finds himself in possession of a certain sum of money. As soon as a few notes slide into a student’s pocket, an imaginary pillar of support rises up inside him. He walks taller than before, senses a fulcrum giving him leverage, he looks you in the eye, boldly, his movements are agile and alert; yesterday, timid and humble, he would have cowered under a shower of blows; today, he has it in him to punch a Prime Minister. All kinds of phenomenal changes take place inside him: he wants everything and is capable of anything, he burns with wild, indiscriminate desires, he is joyful, generous, extrovert. At last, the flightless bird remembers how to spread its wings. A penniless student snatches a scrap of pleasure as a dog snaps up a bone; threatened from all sides, he crunches it, sucks out the marrow and keeps on running. A young man who jingles a few fleeting gold coins in his fob, however, savours and itemizes his enjoyment, revels in it; he soars across the sky, he no longer knows the meaning of the word poverty. The whole of Paris belongs to him. A time when everything gleams, when everything blazes and sparkles! A time of elation and strength which no one else can turn to their advantage, neither man nor woman! A time of debts and terrible fears which increase pleasure tenfold! A man who has never known the Left Bank of the Seine, between the Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue des Saints-Pères,111 knows nothing of life! ‘Hah! If they only knew!’ Rastignac said to himself, as he wolfed down Madame Vauquer’s one-liard-apiece stewed pears; ‘the women of Paris would be flocking here in search of love.’ At this point, the bell on the openwork gate rang and a postman from the Messageries Royales appeared in the dining room. He asked for Monsieur Eugène de Rastignac, then handed him two bags and a register to sign. Vautrin gave Rastignac a meaningful look that cut into him like the lash of a whip.
‘You’ve enough there to pay for fencing lessons and shooting practice,’ the older man said.
‘Your ship has come in,’ added Madame Vauquer, eyeing up the bags.
Mademoiselle Michonneau kept her eyes lowered, not daring to look at the money, for fear of revealing how she coveted it.
‘Your mother is good to you,’ said Madame Couture.
‘Monsieur has a good mother,’ Poiret echoed.
‘Yes, your mother has bled herself dry,’ said Vautrin. ‘You can have all the fun you like now: go fishing for dowries in high society and dance with comtesses with peach blossom in their hair. But take my advice, young man, and put in some shooting practice.’ Vautrin took aim at an imaginary enemy.
Rastignac put his hand in his pocket to tip the postman, and found it empty. Vautrin reached into his, and threw the man twenty sous.
‘You’ve got good credit,’ he said, looking the student in the eye.
Rastignac was forced to thank him, although he had found his presence unbearable since their harsh exchange of words on the day of his first visit to Madame de Beauséant. Over the past week, Eugène and Vautrin had kept silent in each other’s company, watching one another warily. The student had pondered this mystery without getting to the bottom of it.
It seems likely that the force with which thoughts are projected is directly proportionate to that with which they are conceived, and they strike where the brain sends them, like the mathematical law that governs the trajectory of a shell shot from a mortar-piece. The effect they have varies widely. While some may become lodged and wreak havoc, as in the case of tender natures, others come up against strongly armed natures, skulls with bronze ramparts, upon which the wills of others are smashed and drop like bullets bouncing off a wall; or, again, there are those flabby, woolly natures which swallow up other people’s thoughts, just as the soft earth of a redoubt absorbs cannonballs.
Rastignac had one of those heads packed with powder which explode on the slightest impact. His liveliness and youth made him only too susceptible to these projected thoughts, to the contagion of feelings whose many strange phenomena catch us unawares.112 His mind had the sharpness and depth of his hawk-like eyes. Each of his double-edged senses had that mysterious reach, that fluid thrust and parry, which we find so awe-inspiring in people of superior note, those duellists skilled at finding the weak spot in every breast-plate.
Over the past month, Eugène had developed as many fine qualities as flaws. His flaws had been forced in the hot-house of society and by the need to pursue his burgeoning desires. Among his fine qualities was the hardiness of the South; a man from south of the Loire tackles obstacles head on and is incapable of remaining in a state of uncertainty. Northerners call this quality a flaw, maintaining that while this was the key to Murat’s success, it was also the cause of his death.113 From this we may conclude that if a man of the Midi114 can combine the cunning of the North with the daring of the South, he is consummate and will become the King of Sweden.115 Thus Rastignac was unable to remain under fire from Vautrin’s batteries for long without ascertaining whether the older man was his friend or foe. It seemed to him that this extraordinary character was capable, from one moment to the next, of fathoming his passions and reading what he had in his heart, while himself remaining so tightly sealed that he appeared to have the inscrutable depth of a sphinx that knows and sees everything, and says nothing. Emboldened by the weight of his purse, Eugène rebelled.
‘Do me the pleasure of waiting a moment,’ he said to Vautrin, who was preparing to leave after savouring the last drops of his coffee.
‘What for?’ replied the forty year old, putting on his wide-brimmed hat and picking up a metal cane which he flourished like a man unafraid of assault by four footpads.
‘I intend to pay you back,’ continued Rastignac, swiftly untying one of the bags and counting out a hundred and forty francs to give to Madame Vauquer. ‘An account paid is a fr
iend made,’ he said to the widow. ‘We’re square until New Year’s Eve. Now, change a hundred sous for me.’
‘A friend made is an account paid,’ echoed Poiret, looking at Vautrin.
‘Your twenty sous,’ said Rastignac, holding out a coin to the bewigged sphinx.
‘Anyone would think you were afraid to be in my debt,’ exclaimed Vautrin, his all-seeing eyes burning into the young man’s soul, giving him one of those mocking and cynical smiles which had come close to triggering Eugène’s temper any number of times.
‘Indeed … I am,’ replied the student standing up, holding the two bags in his hand, ready to go upstairs to his room.
Vautrin made to leave through the door to the drawing room and the student turned to go out through the one that led to the square passageway and the stairs.
‘Do you realize, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignacorama, that what you said was not exactly polite?’ said Vautrin, lashing out at the drawing-room door with his cane and walking over to the student, who surveyed him coldly.
Rastignac closed the dining-room door, bringing Vautrin with him to the foot of the stairs in the square passageway between the dining room and the kitchen, where a solid door topped with a barred fanlight led into the garden. There, in front of Sylvie, who had just come out of the kitchen, the student said: ‘Monsieur Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my name is not Rastignacorama.’
‘They’re going to fight a duel,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau, with an air of indifference.
‘Fight a duel!’ repeated Poiret.