Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  Lucien merely said, “To the Italian opera”; but in spite of his haste, the luckless dandy could not escape the Duc de Chaulieu and his son, the Duc de Rhetore, to whom he was obliged to bow, for they did not speak a word to him. A great catastrophe at Court, the fall of a formidable favorite, has ere now been pronounced on the threshold of a royal study, in one word from an usher with a face like a plaster cast.

  “How am I to let my adviser know of this disaster — this instant — — ?” thought Lucien as he drove to the opera-house. “What is going on?”

  He racked his brain with conjectures.

  This was what had taken place. That morning, at eleven o’clock, the Duc de Grandlieu, as he went into the little room where the family all breakfasted together, said to Clotilde after kissing her, “Until further orders, my child, think no more of the Sieur de Rubempre.”

  Then he had taken the Duchesse by the hand, and led her into a window recess to say a few words in an undertone, which made poor Clotilde turn pale; for she watched her mother as she listened to the Duke, and saw her expression of extreme surprise.

  “Jean,” said the Duke to one of his servants, “take this note to Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, and beg him to answer by you, Yes or No. — I am asking him to dine here to-day,” he added to his wife.

  Breakfast had been a most melancholy meal. The Duchess was meditative, the Duke seemed to be vexed with himself, and Clotilde could with difficulty restrain her tears.

  “My child, your father is right; you must obey him,” the mother had said to the daughter with much emotion. “I do not say as he does, ‘Think no more of Lucien.’ No — for I understand your suffering” — Clotilde kissed her mother’s hand — ”but I do say, my darling, Wait, take no step, suffer in silence since you love him, and put your trust in your parents’ care. — Great ladies, my child, are great just because they can do their duty on every occasion, and do it nobly.”

  “But what is it about?” asked Clotilde as white as a lily.

  “Matters too serious to be discussed with you, my dearest,” the Duchess replied. “For if they are untrue, your mind would be unnecessarily sullied; and if they are true, you must never know them.”

  At six o’clock the Duc de Chaulieu had come to join the Duc de Grandlieu, who awaited him in his study.

  “Tell me, Henri” — for the Dukes were on the most familiar terms, and addressed each other by their Christian names. This is one of the shades invented to mark a degree of intimacy, to repel the audacity of French familiarity, and humiliate conceit — ”tell me, Henri, I am in such a desperate difficulty that I can only ask advice of an old friend who understands business, and you have practice and experience. My daughter Clotilde, as you know, is in love with that little Rubempre, whom I have been almost compelled to accept as her promised husband. I have always been averse to the marriage; however, Madame de Grandlieu could not bear to thwart Clotilde’s passion. When the young fellow had repurchased the family estate and paid three-quarters of the price, I could make no further objections.

  “But last evening I received an anonymous letter — you know how much that is worth — in which I am informed that the young fellow’s fortune is derived from some disreputable source, and that he is telling lies when he says that his sister is giving him the necessary funds for his purchase. For my daughter’s happiness, and for the sake of our family, I am adjured to make inquiries, and the means of doing so are suggested to me. Here, read it.”

  “I am entirely of your opinion as to the value of anonymous letters, my dear Ferdinand,” said the Duc de Chaulieu after reading the letter. “Still, though we may contemn them, we must make use of them. We must treat such letters as we would treat a spy. Keep the young man out of the house, and let us make inquiries — —

  “I know how to do it. Your lawyer is Derville, a man in whom we have perfect confidence; he knows the secrets of many families, and can certainly be trusted with this. He is an honest man, a man of weight, and a man of honor; he is cunning and wily; but his wiliness is only in the way of business, and you need only employ him to obtain evidence you can depend upon.

  “We have in the Foreign Office an agent of the superior police who is unique in his power of discovering State secrets; we often send him on such missions. Inform Derville that he will have a lieutenant in the case. Our spy is a gentleman who will appear wearing the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and looking like a diplomate. This rascal will do the hunting; Derville will only look on. Your lawyer will then tell you if the mountain brings forth a mouse, or if you must throw over this little Rubempre. Within a week you will know what you are doing.”

  “The young man is not yet so far a Marquis as to take offence at my being ‘Not at home’ for a week,” said the Duc de Grandlieu.

  “Above all, if you end by giving him your daughter,” replied the Minister. “If the anonymous letter tells the truth, what of that? You can send Clotilde to travel with my daughter-in-law Madeleine, who wants to go to Italy.”

  “You relieve me immensely. I don’t know whether I ought to thank you.”

  “Wait till the end.”

  “By the way,” exclaimed the Duc de Grandlieu, “what is your man’s name? I must mention it to Derville. Send him to me to-morrow by five o’clock; I will have Derville here and put them in communication.”

  “His real name,” said M. de Chaulieu, “is, I think, Corentin — a name you must never have heard, for my gentleman will come ticketed with his official name. He calls himself Monsieur de Saint-Something — Saint Yves — Saint-Valere? — Something of the kind. — You may trust him; Louis XVIII. had perfect confidence in him.”

  After this confabulation the steward had orders to shut the door on Monsieur de Rubempre — which was done.

  Lucien paced the waiting-room at the opera-house like a man who was drunk. He fancied himself the talk of all Paris. He had in the Duc de Rhetore one of those unrelenting enemies on whom a man must smile, as he can never be revenged, since their attacks are in conformity with the rules of society. The Duc de Rhetore knew the scene that had just taken place on the outside steps of the Grandlieus’ house. Lucien, feeling the necessity of at once reporting the catastrophe to his high privy councillor, nevertheless was afraid of compromising himself by going to Esther’s house, where he might find company. He actually forgot that Esther was here, so confused were his thoughts, and in the midst of so much perplexity he was obliged to make small talk with Rastignac, who, knowing nothing of the news, congratulated him on his approaching marriage.

  At this moment Nucingen appeared smiling, and said to Lucien:

  “Vill you do me de pleasure to come to see Montame de Champy, vat vill infite you herself to von house-varming party — — ”

  “With pleasure, Baron,” replied Lucien, to whom the Baron appeared as a rescuing angel.

  “Leave us,” said Esther to Monsieur de Nucingen, when she saw him come in with Lucien. “Go and see Madame du Val-Noble, whom I discover in a box on the third tier with her nabob. — A great many nabobs grow in the Indies,” she added, with a knowing glance at Lucien.

  “And that one,” said Lucien, smiling, “is uncommonly like yours.”

  “And them,” said Esther, answering Lucien with another look of intelligence, while still speaking to the Baron, “bring her here with her nabob; he is very anxious to make your acquaintance. They say he is very rich. The poor woman has already poured out I know not how many elegies; she complains that her nabob is no good; and if you relieve him of his ballast, perhaps he will sail closer to the wind.”

  “You tink ve are all tieves!” said the Baron as he went away.

  “What ails you, my Lucien?” asked Esther in her friend’s ear, just touching it with her lips as soon as the box door was shut.

  “I am lost! I have just been turned from the door of the Hotel de Grandlieu under pretence that no one was admitted. The Duke and Duchess were at home, and five pairs of horses were champing in the courtyard.”
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  “What! will the marriage not take place?” exclaimed Esther, much agitated, for she saw a glimpse of Paradise.

  “I do not yet know what is being plotted against me — — ”

  “My Lucien,” said she in a deliciously coaxing voice, “why be worried about it? You can make a better match by and by — I will get you the price of two estates — — ”

  “Give us supper to-night that I may be able to speak in secret to Carlos, and, above all, invite the sham Englishman and Val-Noble. That nabob is my ruin; he is our enemy; we will get hold of him, and we — — ”

  But Lucien broke off with a gesture of despair.

  “Well, what is it?” asked the poor girl.

  “Oh! Madame de Serizy sees me!” cried Lucien, “and to crown our woes, the Duc de Rhetore, who witnessed my dismissal, is with her.”

  In fact, at that very minute, the Duc de Rhetore was amusing himself with Madame de Serizy’s discomfiture.

  “Do you allow Lucien to be seen in Mademoiselle Esther’s box?” said the young Duke, pointing to the box and to Lucien; “you, who take an interest in him, should really tell him such things are not allowed. He may sup at her house, he may even — But, in fact, I am no longer surprised at the Grandlieus’ coolness towards the young man. I have just seen their door shut in his face — on the front steps — — ”

  “Women of that sort are very dangerous,” said Madame de Serizy, turning her opera-glass on Esther’s box.

  “Yes,” said the Duke, “as much by what they can do as by what they wish — — ”

  “They will ruin him!” cried Madame de Serizy, “for I am told they cost as much whether they are paid or no.”

  “Not to him!” said the young Duke, affecting surprise. “They are far from costing him anything; they give him money at need, and all run after him.”

  The Countess’ lips showed a little nervous twitching which could not be included in any category of smiles.

  “Well, then,” said Esther, “come to supper at midnight. Bring Blondet and Rastignac; let us have two amusing persons at any rate; and we won’t be more than nine.”

  “You must find some excuse for sending the Baron to fetch Eugenie under pretence of warning Asie, and tell her what has befallen me, so that Carlos may know before he has the nabob under his claws.”

  “That shall be done,” said Esther.

  And thus Peyrade was probably about to find himself unwittingly under the same roof with his adversary. The tiger was coming into the lion’s den, and a lion surrounded by his guards.

  When Lucien went back to Madame de Serizy’s box, instead of turning to him, smiling and arranging her skirts for him to sit by her, she affected to pay him not the slightest attention, but looked about the house through her glass. Lucien could see, however, by the shaking of her hand that the Countess was suffering from one of those terrible emotions by which illicit joys are paid for. He went to the front of the box all the same, and sat down by her at the opposite corner, leaving a little vacant space between himself and the Countess. He leaned on the ledge of the box with his elbow, resting his chin on his gloved hand; then he half turned away, waiting for a word. By the middle of the act the Countess had still neither spoken to him nor looked at him.

  “I do not know,” said she at last, “why you are here; your place is in Mademoiselle Esther’s box — — ”

  “I will go there,” said Lucien, leaving the box without looking at the Countess.

  “My dear,” said Madame du Val-Noble, going into Esther’s box with Peyrade, whom the Baron de Nucingen did not recognize, “I am delighted to introduce Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is a great admirer of M. de Nucingen’s talents.”

  “Indeed, monsieur,” said Esther, smiling at Peyrade.

  “Oh yes, bocou,” said Peyrade.

  “Why, Baron, here is a way of speaking French which is as much like yours as the low Breton dialect is like that of Burgundy. It will be most amusing to hear you discuss money matters. — Do you know, Monsieur Nabob, what I shall require of you if you are to make acquaintance with my Baron?” said Esther with a smile.

  “Oh! — Thank you so much, you will introduce me to Sir Baronet?” said Peyrade with an extravagant English accent.

  “Yes,” said she, “you must give me the pleasure of your company at supper. There is no pitch stronger than champagne for sticking men together. It seals every kind of business, above all such as you put your foot in. — Come this evening; you will find some jolly fellows. — As for you, my little Frederic,” she added in the Baron’s ear, “you have your carriage here — just drive to the Rue Saint-Georges and bring Europe to me here; I have a few words to say to her about the supper. I have caught Lucien; he will bring two men who will be fun. — We will draw the Englishman,” she whispered to Madame du Val-Noble.

  Peyrade and the Baron left the women together.

  “Oh, my dear, if you ever succeed in drawing that great brute, you will be clever indeed,” said Suzanne.

  “If it proves impossible, you must lend him to me for a week,” replied Esther, laughing.

  “You would but keep him half a day,” replied Madame du Val-Noble. “The bread I eat is too hard; it breaks my teeth. Never again, to my dying day, will I try to make an Englishman happy. They are all cold and selfish — pigs on their hind legs.”

  “What, no consideration?” said Esther with a smile.

  “On the contrary, my dear, the monster has never shown the least familiarity.”

  “Under no circumstances whatever?” asked Esther.

  “The wretch always addresses me as Madame, and preserves the most perfect coolness imaginable at moments when every man is more or less amenable. To him love-making! — on my word, it is nothing more nor less than shaving himself. He wipes the razor, puts it back in its case, and looks in the glass as if he were saying, ‘I have not cut myself!’

  “Then he treats me with such respect as is enough to send a woman mad. That odious Milord Potboiler amuses himself by making poor Theodore hide in my dressing-room and stand there half the day. In short, he tries to annoy me in every way. And as stingy! — As miserly as Gobseck and Gigonnet rolled into one. He takes me out to dinner, but he does not pay the cab that brings me home if I happen not to have ordered my carriage to fetch me.”

  “Well,” said Esther, “but what does he pay you for your services?”

  “Oh, my dear, positively nothing. Five hundred francs a month and not a penny more, and the hire of a carriage. But what is it? A machine such as they hire out for a third-rate wedding to carry an epicier to the Mairie, to Church, and to the Cadran bleu. — Oh, he nettles me with his respect.

  “If I try hysterics and feel ill, he is never vexed; he only says: ‘I wish my lady to have her own way, for there is nothing more detestable — no gentleman — than to say to a nice woman, “You are a cotton bale, a bundle of merchandise.” — Ha, hah! Are you a member of the Temperance Society and anti-slavery?’ And my horror sits pale, and cold, and hard while he gives me to understand that he has as much respect for me as he might have for a Negro, and that it has nothing to do with his feelings, but with his opinions as an abolitionist.”

  “A man cannot be a worse wretch,” said Esther. “But I will smash up that outlandish Chinee.”

  “Smash him up?” replied Madame du Val-Noble. “Not if he does not love me. You, yourself, would you like to ask him for two sous? He would listen to you solemnly, and tell you, with British precision that would make a slap in the face seem genial, that he pays dear enough for the trifle that love can be to his poor life;” and, as before, Madame du Val-Noble mimicked Peyrade’s bad French.

  “To think that in our line of life we are thrown in the way of such men!” exclaimed Esther.

  “Oh, my dear, you have been uncommonly lucky. Take good care of your Nucingen.”

  “But your nabob must have got some idea in his head.”

  “That is what Adele says.”

  “Look here, my dear;
that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that he will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time.”

  “Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up knowing that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks,” answered Madame du Val-Noble. “That is why I introduced him to you this evening. Oh, if only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I could play with you and Nucingen!”

  “And you don’t get angry?” asked Esther; “you don’t speak your mind now and then?”

  “Try it — you are sharp and smooth. — Well, in spite of your sweetness, he would kill you with his icy smiles. ‘I am anti-slavery,’ he would say, ‘and you are free.’ — If you said the funniest things, he would only look at you and say, ‘Very good!’ and you would see that he regards you merely as a part of the show.”

  “And if you turned furious?”

  “The same thing; it would still be a show. You might cut him open under the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals are of tinned-iron, I am sure. I told him so. He replied, ‘I am quite satisfied with that physical constitution.’

  “And always polite. My dear, he wears gloves on his soul...

  “I shall endure this martyrdom for a few days longer to satisfy my curiosity. But for that, I should have made Philippe slap my lord’s cheek — and he has not his match as a swordsman. There is nothing else left for it — — ”

  “I was just going to say so,” cried Esther. “But you must ascertain first that Philippe is a boxer; for these old English fellows, my dear, have a depth of malignity — — ”

  “This one has no match on earth. No, if you could but see him asking my commands, to know at what hour he may come — to take me by surprise, of course — and pouring out respectful speeches like a so-called gentleman, you would say, ‘Why, he adores her!’ and there is not a woman in the world who would not say the same.”