‘Lord! That man is so very agreeable, indeed he is,’ said Madame Vauquer to Madame Couture; ‘I’d never be bored with him around.’
Amidst all the laughing and joking set off by this speech and its comic delivery, Eugène caught a furtive glance from Mademoiselle Taillefer as she leaned towards Madame Couture and said a few words in her ear.
‘Your cab is here,’ said Sylvie.
‘So where’s he dining?’ asked Bianchon.
‘With Madame la Baronne de Nucingen.’
‘Monsieur Goriot’s daughter,’ replied the student.
At this they all stared at the old vermicelli dealer, who was looking at Eugène with a kind of envy.
Rastignac arrived at the Rue Saint-Lazare and entered one of those frivolous houses, with slim columns and scanty porticoes – which pass for handsome in Paris – a typical banker’s house, full of expensive, affected elegance, with stucco, and marble mosaic landings.149 He found Madame de Nucingen in a small drawing room painted in the Italian style, whose decor resembled that of a café. The baronne was downcast. The attempts she made to hide her sadness aroused Eugène’s interest all the more keenly because they had nothing feigned about them. He had thought to make a woman happy by his presence and instead found her in despair. This disappointment wounded his pride.
‘I have very little right to your trust, Madame,’ he said, after chiding her for her troubled countenance; ‘but I’m counting on your good faith to tell me honestly if I am disturbing you.’
‘Stay,’ she said. ‘I’d be alone if you went. Nucingen is dining in town and I don’t want to be alone, I need to be distracted.’
‘Why, what’s wrong?’
‘You’re the last person I’d tell,’ she cried.
‘I want to know, as that means this secret concerns me in some way.’
‘Perhaps! No,’ she continued, ‘there are some domestic disputes that should stay buried at the bottom of the heart. Didn’t I tell you so the other day? – I’m not happy, no, not at all. The heaviest chains are made of gold.’
When a woman tells a young man that she’s unhappy, if that young man is sharp witted, well dressed, with fifteen hundred francs lying idle in his pocket, he is bound to think what Eugène thought and become conceited.
‘What more could you want?’ he replied. ‘You are beautiful, young, loved and rich.’
‘Let’s not talk about me,’ she said, with a miserable shake of her head. ‘We’ll dine here, the two of us, and then we’ll go and hear some delightful music. How do I look?’ she said, standing up to show him her white cashmere gown decorated in the most elegant and opulent Persian style.
‘I wish you were mine and mine alone,’ said Eugène. ‘You look enchanting.’
‘You’d be the owner of a poor estate,’ she said, with a bitter smile. ‘To you, there’s nothing here to suggest misfortune, and yet, despite appearances, I’m in despair. My anxiety keeps me awake at night, I shall become ugly.’
‘Oh, that’s impossible!’ said the student. ‘But I’m curious to hear about these sorrows that not even devoted love would banish.’
‘Ah! If I revealed what they were, you’d leave me,’ she said. ‘You still only love me with the gallantry a man affects out of habit; but if you really loved me, you’d be plunged into terrible despair. You see that I must keep it to myself. Please,’ she continued, ‘let’s talk about something else. Come and see my apartments.’
‘No, let’s stay here,’ replied Eugène, sitting down next to Madame de Nucingen on a love-seat by the fire and boldly taking hold of her hand.
She let him take it and even pressed his with one of those forceful movements that betray strong emotion.
‘Listen,’ said Rastignac; ‘if you have troubles, you must tell me what they are. Let me prove that I love you for yourself. Either speak out and say what’s wrong so I can put it right, even if it means killing six men, or I’ll leave and never come back.’
‘Very well,’ she cried, striking her brow at a despairing thought; ‘I’ll put you to the test right away.’ ‘Yes,’ she murmured to herself, ‘this is the only way left.’ She rang the bell.
‘Is Monsieur’s carriage ready?’ she asked her manservant.
‘Yes, Madame.’
‘I’ll take it. Give him mine, with my horses. Don’t serve dinner until seven.
‘Let’s go,’ she said to Eugène, who thought he must be dreaming when he found himself sitting next to her in Monsieur de Nucingen’s coupé.
‘To the Palais-Royal,’ she said to the coachman, ‘near the Théâtre-Français.’
She seemed distracted on the way and refused to answer the thousands of questions Eugène fired at her, not knowing what to make of her stubborn, impenetrable silence.
‘I might lose her at any moment,’ he said to himself.
When the carriage pulled up, the baronne gave the student a look which stopped his wild words in mid-flow, for he had let himself get carried away.
‘You really do love me?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he replied, hiding the uneasiness that was creeping over him.
‘You won’t think ill of me, whatever I ask you to do?’
‘No.’
‘Are you ready to obey me?’
‘Blindly.’
‘Have you ever been to a gaming-house?’ she asked, with a tremor in her voice.
‘Never.’
‘Ah! I can breathe again. You’ll have good luck. Take my purse,’ she said. ‘Go on, take it! You’ll find a hundred francs in there; everything this happy woman owns. Go to a gaming-house; I know there are several near the Palais-Royal, although I’m not sure exactly where. Stake the hundred francs at a game called roulette and either lose the lot or bring back six thousand francs. I’ll tell you why I’m unhappy when you come back.’
‘I’ll be damned if I have the faintest idea what I’m about to do, but I’ll obey you,’ he said, with a rush of exhilaration as he thought, ‘She’s compromising herself with me; she’ll be unable to refuse me anything.’
Eugène took the pretty purse and ran to Number NINE,150 after asking an old-clothes seller to point out the nearest gaming-house. He climbed the stairs, let his hat be taken, then went in and asked where the roulette was. The host led him to a long table. Undaunted by the astonished stares of the regulars, Eugène shamelessly asked where to put his stake.
‘If you put a single louis on one of these thirty-six numbers and it comes up, you’ll win thirty-six louis,’ a respectable, white-haired old man said to him.
Eugène threw the hundred francs onto the number of his age, twenty-one. Before he had time to collect himself, there was a cry of amazement. He had won without realizing it.
‘Take off your money,’ said the old man; ‘you won’t win twice with that system.’
Taking the rake the old man was holding out to him, Eugène swept the three thousand six hundred francs towards him and, still not knowing how the game worked, staked them on the red. The gallery watched him enviously, seeing him play again. The wheel turned, he won once more and the croupier pushed another three thousand six hundred francs his way.
‘You now have seven thousand two hundred francs,’ murmured the old man in his ear. ‘If I were you I’d leave; the red has come up eight times. If you’re feeling charitable, you’ll acknowledge this sound advice by relieving the poverty of one of Napoleon’s old prefects, who is down to his last penny.’
In a daze, Rastignac let the white-haired man take ten louis, then went back down the stairs with his seven thousand francs, still knowing nothing at all about the game but staggered by his good luck.
‘There! So where will you take me next!’ he said, showing Madame de Nucingen the seven thousand francs as soon as the door closed behind him.
Delphine threw her arms around him wildly and kissed him warmly, although not passionately. ‘You’ve saved me!’ Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. ‘I’ll tell you everything, my dear friend. You will be
my dear friend, won’t you? You see me as rich, wealthy, wanting for nothing or seeming to want for nothing! Well, you should know that Monsieur de Nucingen won’t let me have a single sou to spend as I please: he pays for the house, my carriages, my theatre boxes, but gives me a pittance for my clothes and is secretly reducing me to poverty to serve his interests. I’m too proud to beg. Why, I’d be the lowest of creatures if I purchased his money at the price he wants to sell it at! So how have I, with my dowry of seven hundred thousand francs, allowed myself to be robbed? Through pride, through anger. We’re so young, so naive, at the start of married life! The words I needed to use to ask my husband for money stuck in my throat; I never dared, I used up my savings and the money poor father gave me and then ran into debt. My marriage has been such a horrible disappointment, I can’t tell you: suffice it to say that I’d throw myself out of the window if Nucingen and I didn’t live in our own separate apartments. When I had to confess my debts to him, the jewels and little luxuries of a young lady (poor Father encouraged us never to deny ourselves a thing), I was racked with anxiety; but finally plucked up the courage to speak out. Didn’t I have my own fortune, after all? Nucingen was furious, he said that I would ruin him, terrible things! I wanted the earth to swallow me up. As he had taken my dowry, he settled my debts, but insisted that I should in future have a fixed allowance for my personal expenses, a condition I accepted to restore peace. Since then, I have tried to be worthy of the self-regard of someone you know,’ she said. ‘Although he has deceived me, it would be churlish of me not to recognize the nobility of his character. But really, the way he left me was shameful! One should never desert a woman to whom, on a day of distress, one has thrown a heap of gold! One should love her for ever! You, with your noble twenty-one-year-old soul, so young and pure, will ask me how a woman can accept gold from a man? Why! Isn’t it natural to share everything with the being to whom we owe our happiness? When you have given each other everything, why would you worry about a fraction of that whole? Money only takes on meaning at the point when feelings no longer have any. Aren’t we bound to each other for life? What woman foresees a separation while believing herself to be dearly loved? You swear you will love us for ever; how could our interests be anything but shared? You have no idea how I suffered today when Nucingen absolutely refused to give me six thousand francs, a sum he gives every month to his mistress, a trollop from the Opéra! I wanted to kill myself. The wildest ideas went through my head. At times I have envied the lot of a servant, of my maid. It would have been madness to go in search of my father! Anastasie and I have bled him dry. My poor father would have sold himself if he could have fetched six thousand francs; I would have driven him to despair for nothing. You have saved me from shame and death; I was beside myself with suffering. Ah! Monsieur, I owed you this explanation: I have been insanely reckless with you. When you left me and I lost sight of you, I wanted to run away, on foot … Where? I don’t know. This is how half the women in Paris live: wealthy on the outside, cruel cares inside their hearts. I know some poor creatures who are far worse off than I am. There are women who resort to having fake bills drawn up by their suppliers. There are those forced to steal from their husbands: some men believe that a cashmere worth a hundred louis sells for five hundred francs, others that a five-hundred-franc cashmere is worth a hundred louis. You’ll find some poor women who let their children go hungry to scrape enough together for a gown. I, however, have never stooped to such vile deception. That would be my worst fear. Although some women sell themselves to their husbands to gain the upper hand, I, at least, am free! I could let Nucingen shower me with gold, but I prefer to weep with my head on the heart of a man I can respect. Ah! This evening Monsieur de Marsay will have no right to look on me as a woman he has bought.’ She buried her head in her hands to hide her tears from Eugène, who uncovered her face to look at her: she was sublime in that state. ‘How terrible to confuse money and feelings. You’ll never be able to love me,’ she said.
Eugène was deeply moved by this juxtaposition of the fine feelings that make women so noble and the misdemeanours that the current state of society drives them to commit;151 he spoke gentle, consoling words, admiring this beautiful woman, whose cry of pain was so naively indiscreet.
‘Promise you won’t use this as a weapon against me,’ she said.
‘Ah, Madame! I could never do that,’ he said.
She took his hand and pressed it to her heart in a gesture full of gratitude and warmth. ‘Thanks to you, I feel happy and free again. I was living in the grip of an iron hand. I want to live simply from now on and spend nothing. You’ll like me as I am, won’t you, dear friend? Take this,’ she said, keeping back six banknotes for herself. ‘In all fairness, I owe you a thousand écus,152 for your contribution was equal to mine.’
Eugène defended himself like a virgin. But when the baronne said, ‘If you won’t be my partner, I’ll consider you my enemy’, he took the money. ‘I’ll keep it in reserve as a stake for a time of need,’ he said.
‘That’s exactly what I dreaded to hear you say,’ she exclaimed, going pale. ‘Should I ever mean anything to you,’ she said, ‘swear you’ll never gamble again. Dear God! Me – corrupt you! I’d die of grief.’
They had arrived. The contrast between such woe and such wealth made the student’s head spin, as he heard Vautrin’s grim words ringing in his ears.
‘Sit here,’ said the baronne, gesturing towards a love-seat by the fire in her room; ‘I’m going to write a difficult letter and I need your advice.’
‘Don’t write anything,’ said Eugène; ‘put the banknotes in an envelope, address it and have it delivered by your maid.’
‘Why, you treasure of a man,’ she said. ‘Ah, Monsieur! That’s what it is to have breeding! De Beauséant through and through,’ she said with a smile.
‘She’s delightful,’ Eugène said to himself, becoming increasingly smitten. He glanced around the room, whose sensual elegance had a touch of the rich courtesan about it.
‘Do you like it?’ she said, ringing for her maid.
‘Thérèse, take this to Monsieur de Marsay yourself and hand it to him in person. If he’s out, bring the letter back to me.’
Thérèse gave Eugène a mischievous look and went out. Dinner was announced. Rastignac gave Madame de Nucingen his arm and she led him into a delightful dining room, where he found the same glittering tableware that had left him open-mouthed at his cousin’s house.
‘On opera days’, she said, ‘you must dine here and escort me to the Italiens.’
‘I’d make a habit of such a pleasant way of life if it were to last; but I’m a poor student with his fortune to make.’
‘It will be made,’ she said, laughing. ‘Look how well everything is turning out: I never expected to be this happy.’
It is in a woman’s nature to prove the impossible by the possible and to quash facts with feelings. When Madame de Nucingen and Rastignac entered their box at the Bouffons, she had an air of contentment which made her so beautiful that everyone saw fit to murmur the kind of petty aspersions against which women are defenceless and which give credit to all kinds of fictitious improprieties. Those who know Paris believe nothing that is said there and say nothing of what goes on there. Eugène took the baronne’s hand and the two spoke to each other with light or intense squeezes, sharing the sensations the music aroused in them. It was an exhilarating evening for both of them. They left together and Madame de Nucingen insisted on taking Eugène as far as the Pont-Neuf, all the way refusing him even one of the kisses which she had lavished upon him at the Palais-Royal. Eugène reproached her for this fickleness.
‘Then,’ she replied, ‘it showed gratitude for your heaven-sent devotion; now it would be a promise.’
‘And you’d rather not promise me anything, ungrateful woman.’
He made a cross face. With one of those impatient gestures so delightful to a lover, she gave him her hand to kiss, which he took with a bad grace sh
e found enchanting.
‘Until Monday, at the ball,’ she said.
As he continued home on foot, through a beautiful moonlit night, Eugène’s mind filled with serious thoughts. He was both happy and dissatisfied: happy with an adventure which would win him one of the prettiest and most elegant women in Paris, the object of his desires; dissatisfied at seeing his plans to make his fortune thwarted. He was now faced with the reality of the confused designs he had harboured the day before yesterday. Failure always bolsters the strength of our ambitions. The more Eugène enjoyed Parisian life, the less he wanted to remain poor and humble. He fingered the thousand-franc note in his pocket, inventing a thousand fallacious reasons to keep it for himself. He finally arrived at the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève and, on reaching the top of the stairs, saw a light. Old man Goriot had left his door open and his candle lit, so the student wouldn’t forget to ‘tell him all about his daughter’, as he put it. Eugène kept nothing from him.
‘Why!’ cried old Goriot in a fit of desperate jealousy, ‘they think I’m ruined, but I still have an annual income of thirteen hundred livres! Lord! Poor little thing, why didn’t she come here? I’d have sold my stock, we’d have taken it out of the capital and I’d have set up a life annuity with the rest. My dear neighbour, why didn’t you come and tell me she was in trouble? How did you have the heart to risk her poor little hundred francs at the game? It’s enough to break your heart. That’s a son-in-law for you! Ah! If I had them both here, I’d wring their necks. Dear Lord! Crying, you say, she was crying?’
‘With her head on my waistcoat,’ said Eugène.
‘Oh! Give it to me,’ said old Goriot. ‘What! My daughter shed tears on this, my sweet Delphine, who never used to cry when she was small! Oh! I’ll buy you another, don’t wear it again, let me keep it. She should enjoy the use of her assets; those were the terms of her marriage contract. That’s it! I’ll go and see Derville, my solicitor, first thing tomorrow. I’ll insist that her fortune is invested in her own name. I know the law. I may be an old wolf but I’ll show them I still have teeth.’