She rose to her feet and signed to Maxime to follow her, mirth and mischief in her whole attitude, and the two went in the direction of the boudoir. The morganatic couple (to use a convenient German expression which has no exact equivalent) had reached the door, when the Count interrupted himself in his talk with Eugène.
“Anastasie!” he cried pettishly, “Just stay a moment, dear; you know very well that——”
“I am coming back in a minute,” she interrupted; “I have a commission for Maxime to execute, and I want to tell him about it.”
She came back almost immediately. She had noticed the inflection in her husband’s voice, and knew that it would not be safe to retire to the boudoir; like all women who are compelled to study their husbands’ characters in order to have their own way, and whose business it is to know exactly how far they can go without endangering a good understanding, she was very careful to avoid petty collisions in domestic life. It was Eugène who had brought about this untoward incident; so the Countess looked at Maxime and indicated the law student with an air of exasperation. M. de Trailles addressed the Count, the Countess, and Eugène with the pointed remark, “You are busy, I do not want to interrupt you; good-day,” and he went.
“Just wait a moment, Maxime!” the Count called after him.
“Come and dine with us,” said the Countess, leaving Eugène and her husband together once more. She followed Maxime into the little drawing-room, where they sat together sufficiently long to feel sure that Rastignac had taken his leave.
The law student heard their laughter, and their voices, and the pauses in their talk; he grew malicious, exerted his conversational powers for M. de Restaud, flattered him, and drew him into discussions, to the end that he might see the Countess again and discover the nature of her relations with Père Goriot. This Countess with a husband and a lover, for Maxime clearly was her lover, was a mystery. What was the secret tie that bound her to the old tradesman? This mystery he meant to penetrate, hoping by its means to gain a sovereign ascendency over this fair typical Parisian.
“Anastasie!” the Count called again to his wife.
“Poor Maxime!” she said, addressing the young man. “Come, we must resign ourselves. This evening——”
“I hope, Nasie,” he said in her ear, “that you will give orders not to admit that youngster, whose eyes light up like live coals when he looks at you. He will make you a declaration, and compromise you, and then you will compel me to kill him.”
“Are you mad, Maxime?” she said. “A young lad of a student is, on the contrary, a capital lightning-conductor; is not that so? Of course, I mean to make Restaud furiously jealous of him.”
Maxime burst out laughing, and went out, followed by the Countess, who stood at the window to watch him into his carriage ; he shook his whip, and made his horse prance. She only returned when the great gate had been closed after him.
“What do you think, dear?” cried the Count, her husband, “this gentleman’s family estate is not far from Verteuil, on the Charente; his great-uncle and my grandfather were acquainted.”
“Delighted to find that we have acquaintances in common,” said the Countess, with a preoccupied manner.
“More than you think,” said Eugène, in a low voice.
“What do you mean?” she asked quickly.
“Why, only just now,” said the student, “I saw a gentleman go out at the gate, Père Goriot, my next door neighbor in the house where I am lodging.”
At the sound of this name, and the prefix that embellished it, the Count, who was stirring the fire, let the tongs fall as though they had burned his fingers, and rose to his feet.
“Sir,” he cried, “you might have called him ‘Monsieur Goriot’!”
The Countess turned pale at first at the sight of her husband’s vexation, then she reddened; clearly she was embarrassed, her answer was made in a tone that she tried to make natural, and with an air of assumed carelessness:
“You could not know any one who is dearer to us both ...”
She broke off, glanced at the piano as if some fancy had crossed her mind, and asked, “Are you fond of music, M. de Rastignac?”
“Exceedingly,” answered Eugène, flushing, and disconcerted by a dim suspicion that he had somehow been guilty of a clumsy piece of folly.
“Do you sing?” she cried, going to the piano, and, sitting down before it, she swept her fingers over the keyboard from end to end. R-r-r-r-ah!
“No, madame.”
The Comte de Restaud walked to and fro.
“That is a pity; you are without one great means of success.—Ca-ro, ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non du-bi-ta-re,” sang the Countess.
Eugène had a second time waved a magic wand when he uttered Goriot’s name, but the effect seemed to be entirely opposite to that produced by the formula “related to Mme. de Beauséant.” His position was not unlike that of some visitor permitted as a favor to inspect a private collection of curiosities, when by inadvertence he comes into collision with a glass case full of sculptured figures, and three or four heads, imperfectly secured, fall at the shock. He wished the earth would open and swallow him. Mme. de Restaud’s expression was reserved and chilly, her eyes had grown indifferent, and sedulousy avoided meeting those of the unlucky student of law.
“Madame,” he said, “you wish to talk with M. de Restaud; permit me to wish you good-day——”
The Countess interrupted him by a gesture, saying hastily, “Whenever you come to see us, both M. de Restaud and I shall be delighted to see you.”
Eugène made a profound bow and took his leave, followed by M. de Restaud, who insisted, in spite of his remonstrances, on accompanying him into the hall.
“Neither your mistress nor I are at home to that gentleman when he calls,” the Count said to Maurice.
As Eugène set foot on the steps, he saw that it was raining.
“Come,” said he to himself, “somehow I have just made a mess of it, I do not know how. And now I am going to spoil my hat and coat into the bargain. I ought to stop in my corner, grind away at law, and never look to be anything but a boorish country magistrate. How can I go into society, when to manage properly you want a lot of cabs, varnished boots, gold watch chains, and all sorts of things; you have to wear white doeskin gloves that cost six francs in the morning, and primrose kid gloves every evening? A fig for that old humbug of a Goriot!”
When he reached the street door, the driver of a hackney coach, who had probably just deposited a wedding party at their door, and asked nothing better than a chance of making a little money for himself without his employer’s knowledge, saw that Eugène had no umbrella, remarked his black coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, and varnished boots, and stopped and looked at him inquiringly. Eugène, in the blind desperation that drives a young man to plunge deeper and deeper into an abyss, as if he might hope to find a fortunate issue in its lowest depths, nodded in reply to the driver’s signal, and stepped into the cab; a few stray petals of orange blossom and scraps of wire bore witness to its recent occupation by a wedding party.
“Where am I to drive, sir?” demanded the man, who, by this time, had taken off his white gloves.
“Confound it!” Eugène said to himself, “I am in for it now, and at least I will not spend cab-hire for nothing!—Drive to the Hotel Beauséant,” he said aloud.
“Which?” asked the man, a portentous word that reduced Eugène to confusion. This young man of fashion, species incerta, did not know that there were two Hotels Beauséant; he was not aware how rich he was in relations who did not care about him.
“The Vicomte de Beauséant, Rue——”
“De Grenelle,” interrupted the driver, with a jerk of his head. “You see, there are the hotels of the Marquis and Comte de Beauséant in the Rue Saint-Dominique,” he added, drawing up the step.
“I know all about that,” said Eugène, severely.—“Everybody is laughing at me to-day, it seems!” he said to himself, as he deposited his hat o
n the opposite seat. “This escapade will cost me a king’s ransom, but, at any rate, I shall call on my so-called cousin in a thoroughly aristocratic fashion. Goriot has cost me ten francs already, the old scoundrel. My word! I will tell Mme. de Beauséant about my adventure; perhaps it may amuse her. Doubtless she will know the secret of the criminal relation between that handsome woman and the old rat without a tail. It would be better to find favor in my cousin’s eyes than to come in contact with that shameless woman, who seems to me to have very expensive tastes. Surely the beautiful Vicomtesse’s personal interest would turn the scale for me, when the mere mention of her name produces such an effect. Let us look higher. If you set yourself to carry the heights of heaven, you must face God.”
The innumerable thoughts that surged through his brain might be summed up in these phrases. He grew calmer, and recovered something of his assurance as he watched the falling rain. He told himself that though he was about to squander two of the precious five-franc pieces that remained to him, the money was well laid out in preserving his coat, boots, and hat; and his cabman’s cry of “Gate, if you please,” almost put him in spirits. A Swiss, in scarlet and gold, appeared, the great door groaned on its hinges, and Rastignac, with sweet satisfaction, beheld his equipage pass under the archway and stop before the flight of steps beneath the awning. The driver, in a blue-and-red greatcoat, dismounted and let down the step. As Eugene stepped out of the cab, he heard smothered laughter from the peristyle. Three or four lackeys were making merry over the festal appearance of the vehicle. In another moment the law student was enlightened as to the cause of their hilarity ; he felt the full force of the contrast between his equipage and one of the smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with powdered hair, seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited horses, who stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud’s courtyard, in the Chaussée d’Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of six-and-twenty; in the Faubourg SaintGermain he found the luxurious equipage of a man of rank; thirty thousand francs would not have purchased it.
“Who can be here?” said Eugène to himself. He began to understand, though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to find many women in Paris who were not already appropriated, and that the capture of one of these queens would be likely to cost something more than bloodshed. “Confound it all! I expect my cousin also has her Maxime.”
He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The glass door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as jackasses under the curry comb. So far, Eugène had only been in the ballroom on the ground floor of the Hotel Beauséant; the fête had followed so closely on the invitation, that he had not had time to call on his cousin, and had therefore never seen Mme. de Beauséant’s apartments; he was about to behold for the first time a great lady among the wonderful and elegant surroundings that reveal her character and reflect her daily life. He was the more curious, because Mme. de Restaud’s drawing-room had provided him with a standard of comparison.
At half-past four the Vicomtesse de Beauséant was visible. Five minutes earlier she would not have received her cousin, but Eugène knew nothing of the recognized routine of various houses in Paris. He was conducted up the wide, white-painted, crimson-carpeted staircase, between the gilded balusters and masses of flowering plants, to Mme. de Beauséant’s apartments. He did not know the rumor current about Mme. de Beauséant, one of the biographies told, with variations, in whispers, every evening in the salons of Paris.
For three years past her name had been spoken of in connection with that of one of the most wealthy and distinguished Portuguese nobles, the Marquis d‘Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent liaisons which possess so much charm for the two thus attached to each other that they find the presence of a third person intolerable. The Vicomte de Beauséant, therefore, had himself set an example to the rest of the world by respecting, with as good a grace as might be, this morganatic union. Any one who came to call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of this friendship was sure to find the Marquis d’A juda-Pinto there. As, under the circumstances, Mme. de Beauséant could not very well shut her door against these visitors, she gave them such a cold reception, and showed so much interest in the study of the ceiling, that no one could fail to understand how much he bored her; and when it became known in Paris that Mme. de Beauséant was bored by callers between two and four o‘clock, she was left in perfect solitude during that interval. She went to the Bouffons or to the Opera with M. de Beauséant and M. d’Ajuda-Pinto; and M. de Beauséant, like a well-bred man of the world, always left his wife and the Portuguese as soon as he had installed them. But M. d‘Ajuda-Pinto must marry, and a Mlle. de Rochefide was the young lady. In the whole fashionable world there was but one person who as yet knew nothing of the arrangement, and that was Mme. de Beauséant. Some of her friends had hinted at the possibility, and she had laughed at them, believing that envy had prompted those ladies to try to make mischief. And now, though the banns were about to be published, and although the handsome Portuguese had come that day to break the news to the Vicomtesse, he had not found courage as yet to say one word about his treachery. How was it? Nothing is doubtless more difficult than the notification of an ultimatum of this kind. There are men who feel more at their ease when they stand up before another man who threatens their lives with sword or pistol than in the presence of a woman who, after two hours of lamentations and reproaches, falls into a dead swoon and requires salts. At this moment, therefore, M. d’Ajuda-Pinto was on thorns, and anxious to take his leave. He told himself that in some way or other the news would reach Mme. de Beauséant; he would write, it would be much better to do it by letter, and not to utter the words that should stab her to the heart.
So when the servant announced M. Eugène de Rastignac, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto trembled with joy. To be sure, a loving woman shows even more ingenuity in inventing doubts of her lover than in varying the monotony of his happiness; and when she is about to be forsaken, she instinctively interprets every gesture as rapidly as Virgil’s courser detected the presence of his companion by snuffing the breeze.ab It was impossible, therefore, that Mme. de Beauséant should not detect that involuntary thrill of satisfaction; slight though it was, it was appalling in its artlessness.
Eugène had yet to learn that no one in Paris should present himself in any house without first making himself acquainted with the whole history of its owner, and of its owner’s wife and family, so that he may avoid making any of the terrible blunders which in Poland draw forth the picturesque exclamation, “Harness five bullocks to your cart!” probably because you will need them all to pull you out of the quagmire into which a false step has plunged you. If, down to the present day, our language has no name for these conversational disasters, it is probably because they are believed to be impossible, the publicity given in Paris to every scandal is so prodigious. After the awkward incident at Mme. de Restaud‘s, no one but Eugène could have reappeared in his character of bullock-driver in Mme. de Beauséant’s drawing-room. But if Mme. de Restaud and M. de Trailles had found him horribly in the way, M. d’Ajuda hailed his coming with relief.
“Good-bye,” said the Portuguese, hurrying to the door, as Eugène made his entrance into a dainty little pink-and-gray drawing-room, where luxury seemed nothing more than good taste.
“Until this evening,” said Mme. de Beauséant, turning her head to give the Marquis a glance. “We are going to the Bouffons, are we not?”
“I cannot go,” he said, with his fingers on the door handle.
Mme. de Beauséant rose and beckoned to him to return. She did not pay the slightest attention to Eugène, who stood there dazzled by the sparkling marvels around him; he began to think that this was some story out of the Arabian Nights made real, and did not know where to hide himself, when the woman before him seemed to be unconscious of his existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the forefinger of her right hand, and gracefully signed to the Marquis to seat himself beside her. The Marquis felt t
he imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back towards her. Eugène watched him, not without a feeling of envy.
“That is the owner of the brougham!” he said to himself. “But is it necessary to have a pair of spirited horses, servants in livery, and torrents of gold to draw a glance from a woman here in Paris?”
The demon of luxury gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his veins, his throat was parched with the thirst of gold.
He had a hundred and thirty francs every quarter. His father, mother, brothers, sisters, and aunt did not spend two hundred francs a month among them. This swift comparison between his present condition and the aims he had in view helped to benumb his faculties.
“Why not?” the Vicomtesse was saying, as she smiled at the Portuguese. “Why cannot you come to the Italiens?”
“Affairs! I am to dine with the English Ambassador.”
“Throw him over.”
When a man once enters on a course of deception, he is compelled to add lie to lie. M. d’Ajuda therefore said, smiling, “Do you lay your commands on me?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“That was what I wanted to have you say to me,” he answered, dissembling his feelings in a glance which would have reassured any other woman.
He took the Vicomtesse’s hand, kissed it, and went. Eugène ran his fingers through his hair, and constrained himself to bow. He thought that now Mme. de Beauséant would give him her attention; but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed to a window in the gallery, and watched M. d’Ajuda step into his carriage; she listened to the order that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it to the coachman:
“To M. de Rochefide’s house.”
Those words, and the way in which M. d’Ajuda flung himself back in the carriage, were like a lightning flash and a thunderbolt for her; she walked back again with a deadly fear gnawing at her heart. The most terrible catastrophes only happen among the heights. The Vicomtesse went to her own room, sat down at a table, and took up a sheet of dainty notepaper.