Father Goriot, Honoré de Balzac [best classic books to read TXT] 📗

father to her lover; and of you two, which is the worse?"

He was ready to renounce his attempts; he could not bear to take that money. The fires of remorse burned in his heart, and gave him intolerable pain, the generous secret remorse which men seldom take into account when they sit in judgment upon their fellow-men; but perhaps the angels in heaven, beholding it, pardon the criminal whom our justice condemns. Rastignac opened his sister's letter; its simplicity and kindness revived his heart.

"Your letter came just at the right time, dear brother. Agathe and
I had thought of so many different ways of spending our money,
that we did not know what to buy with it; and now you have come
in, and, like the servant who upset all the watches that belonged
to the King of Spain, you have restored harmony; for, really and
truly, we did not know which of all the things we wanted we wanted
most, and we were always quarreling about it, never thinking, dear
Eugene, of a way of spending our money which would satisfy us
completely. Agathe jumped for you. Indeed, we have been like two
mad things all day, 'to such a prodigious degree' (as aunt would
say), that mother said, with her severe expression, 'Whatever can
be the matter with you, mesdemoiselles?' I think if we had been
scolded a little, we should have been still better pleased. A
woman ought to be very glad to suffer for one she loves! I,
however, in my inmost soul, was doleful and cross in the midst of
all my joy. I shall make a bad wife, I am afraid, I am too fond of
spending. I had bought two sashes and a nice little stiletto for
piercing eyelet-holes in my stays, trifles that I really did not
want, so that I have less than that slow-coach Agathe, who is so
economical, and hoards her money like a magpie. She had two
hundred francs! And I have only one hundred and fifty! I am nicely
punished; I could throw my sash down the well; it will be painful
to me to wear it now. Poor dear, I have robbed you. And Agathe was
so nice about it. She said, 'Let us send the three hundred and
fifty francs in our two names!' But I could not help telling you
everything just as it happened.

"Do you know how we managed to keep your commandments? We took our
glittering hoard, we went out for a walk, and when once fairly on
the highway we ran all the way to Ruffec, where we handed over the
coin, without more ado, to M. Grimbert of the Messageries Royales.
We came back again like swallows on the wing. 'Don't you think
that happiness has made us lighter?' Agathe said. We said all
sorts of things, which I shall not tell you, Monsieur le Parisien,
because they were all about you. Oh, we love you dearly, dear
brother; it was all summed up in those few words. As for keeping
the secret, little masqueraders like us are capable of anything
(according to our aunt), even of holding our tongues. Our mother
has been on a mysterious journey to Angouleme, and the aunt went
with her, not without solemn councils, from which we were shut
out, and M. le Baron likewise. They are silent as to the weighty
political considerations that prompted their mission, and
conjectures are rife in the State of Rastignac. The Infantas are
embroidering a muslin robe with open-work sprigs for her Majesty
the Queen; the work progresses in the most profound secrecy. There
be but two more breadths to finish. A decree has gone forth that
no wall shall be built on the side of Verteuil, but that a hedge
shall be planted instead thereof. Our subjects may sustain some
disappointment of fruit and espaliers, but strangers will enjoy
a fair prospect. Should the heir-presumptive lack
pocket-handkerchiefs, be it known unto him that the dowager Lady
of Marcillac, exploring the recesses of her drawers and boxes
(known respectively as Pompeii and Herculaneum), having brought to
light a fair piece of cambric whereof she wotted not, the Princesses
Agathe and Laure place at their brother's disposal their thread,
their needles, and hands somewhat of the reddest. The two young
Princes, Don Henri and Don Gabriel, retain their fatal habits of
stuffing themselves with grape-jelly, of teasing their sisters, of
taking their pleasure by going a-bird-nesting, and of cutting
switches for themselves from the osier-beds, maugre the laws of
the realm. Moreover, they list not to learn naught, wherefore the
Papal Nuncio (called of the commonalty, M. le Cure) threateneth
them with excommunication, since that they neglect the sacred
canons of grammatical construction for the construction of other
canon, deadly engines made of the stems of elder.

"Farewell, dear brother, never did letter carry so many wishes for
your success, so much love fully satisfied. You will have a great
deal to tell us when you come home! You will tell me everything,
won't you? I am the oldest. From something the aunt let fall, we
think you must have had some success.

"Something was said of a lady, but nothing more was said...

"Of course not, in our family! Oh, by-the-by, Eugene, would you
rather that we made that piece of cambric into shirts for you
instead of pocket-handkerchiefs? If you want some really nice
shirts at once, we ought to lose no time in beginning upon them;
and if the fashion is different now in Paris, send us one for a
pattern; we want more particularly to know about the cuffs. Good-
bye! Good-bye! Take my kiss on the left side of your forehead, on
the temple that belongs to me, and to no one else in the world. I
am leaving the other side of the sheet for Agathe, who has
solemnly promised not to read a word that I have written; but, all
the same, I mean to sit by her side while she writes, so as to be
quite sure that she keeps her word.--Your loving sister,

"LAURE DE RASTIGNAC."

"Yes!" said Eugene to himself. "Yes! Success at all costs now! Riches could not repay such devotion as this. I wish I could give them every sort of happiness! Fifteen hundred and fifty francs," he went on after a pause. "Every shot must go to the mark! Laure is right. Trust a woman! I have only calico shirts. Where some one else's welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in question, and full of foresight for me,--she is like a heavenly angel forgiving the strange incomprehensible sins of earth."

The world lay before him. His tailor had been summoned and sounded, and had finally surrendered. When Rastignac met M. de Trailles, he had seen at once how great a part the tailor plays in a young man's career; a tailor is either a deadly enemy or a staunch friend, with an invoice for a bond of friendship; between these two extremes there is, alack! no middle term. In this representative of his craft Eugene discovered a man who understood that his was a sort of paternal function for young men at their entrance into life, who regarded himself as a stepping-stone between a young man's present and future. And Rastignac in gratitude made the man's fortune by an epigram of a kind in which he excelled at a later period of his life.

"I have twice known a pair of trousers turned out by him make a match of twenty thousand livres a year!"

Fifteen hundred francs, and as many suits of clothes as he chose to order! At that moment the poor child of the South felt no more doubts of any kind. The young man went down to breakfast with the indefinable air which the consciousness of the possession of money gives to youth. No sooner are the coins slipped into a student's pocket than his wealth, in imagination at least, is piled into a fantastic column, which affords him a moral support. He begins to hold up his head as he walks; he is conscious that he has a means of bringing his powers to bear on a given point; he looks you straight in the face; his gestures are quick and decided; only yesterday he was diffident and shy, any one might have pushed him aside; to-morrow, he will take the wall of a prime minister. A miracle has been wrought in him. Nothing is beyond the reach of his ambition, and his ambition soars at random; he is light-hearted, generous, and enthusiastic; in short, the fledgling bird has discovered that he has wings. A poor student snatches at every chance pleasure much as a dog runs all sorts of risks to steal a bone, cracking it and sucking the marrow as he flies from pursuit; but a young man who can rattle a few runaway gold coins in his pocket can take his pleasure deliberately, can taste the whole of the sweets of secure possession; he soars far above earth; he has forgotten what the word _poverty_ means; all Paris is his. Those are days when the whole world shines radiant with light, when everything glows and sparkles before the eyes of youth, days that bring joyous energy that is never brought into harness, days of debts and of painful fears that go hand in hand with every delight. Those who do not know the left bank of the Seine between the Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue des Saints-Peres know nothing of life.

"Ah! if the women of Paris but knew," said Rastignac, as he devoured Mme. Vauquer's stewed pears (at five for a penny), "they would come here in search of a lover."

Just then a porter from the Messageries Royales appeared at the door of the room; they had previously heard the bell ring as the wicket opened to admit him. The man asked for M. Eugene de Rastignac, holding out two bags for him to take, and a form of receipt for his signature. Vautrin's keen glance cut Eugene like a lash.

"Now you will be able to pay for those fencing lessons and go to the shooting gallery," he said.

"Your ship has come in," said Mme. Vauquer, eyeing the bags.

Mlle. Michonneau did not dare to look at the money, for fear her eyes should betray her cupidity.

"You have a kind mother," said Mme. Couture.

"You have a kind mother, sir," echoed Poiret.

"Yes, mamma has been drained dry," said Vautrin, "and now you can have your fling, go into society, and fish for heiresses, and dance with countesses who have peach blossom in their hair. But take my advice, young man, and don't