The Magic Skin, Honoré de Balzac [best life changing books .txt] 📗

her morning's breakfast. The poor child tried not to show her joy, but her eyes sparkled.

"'I needed it badly,' I said as I sat down. (An anxious look passed over her face.) 'Do you remember that passage, Pauline, where Bossuet tells how God gave more abundant reward for a cup of cold water than for a victory?'

"'Yes,' she said, her heart beating like some wild bird's in a child's hands.

"'Well, as we shall part very soon, now,' I went on in an unsteady voice, 'you must let me show my gratitude to you and to your mother for all the care you have taken of me.'

"'Oh, don't let us cast accounts,' she said laughing. But her laughter covered an agitation that gave me pain. I went on without appearing to hear her words:

"'My piano is one of Erard's best instruments; and you must take it. Pray accept it without hesitation; I really could not take it with me on the journey I am about to make.'

"Perhaps the melancholy tones in which I spoke enlightened the two women, for they seemed to understand, and eyed me with curiosity and alarm. Here was the affection that I had looked for in the glacial regions of the great world, true affection, unostentatious but tender, and possibly lasting.

"'Don't take it to heart so,' the mother said; 'stay on here. My husband is on his way towards us even now,' she went on. 'I looked into the Gospel of St. John this evening while Pauline hung our door-key in a Bible from her fingers. The key turned; that means that Gaudin is in health and doing well. Pauline began again for you and for the young man in number seven--it turned for you, but not for him. We are all going to be rich. Gaudin will come back a millionaire. I dreamed once that I saw him in a ship full of serpents; luckily the water was rough, and that means gold or precious stones from over-sea.'

"The silly, friendly words were like the crooning lullaby with which a mother soothes her sick child; they in a manner calmed me. There was a pleasant heartiness in the worthy woman's looks and tones, which, if it could not remove trouble, at any rate soothed and quieted it, and deadened the pain. Pauline, keener-sighted than her mother, studied me uneasily; her quick eyes seemed to read my life and my future. I thanked the mother and daughter by an inclination of the head, and hurried away; I was afraid I should break down.

"I found myself alone under my roof, and laid myself down in my misery. My unhappy imagination suggested numberless baseless projects, and prescribed impossible resolutions. When a man is struggling in the wreck of his fortunes, he is not quite without resources, but I was engulfed. Ah, my dear fellow, we are too ready to blame the wretched. Let us be less harsh on the results of the most powerful of all social solvents. Where poverty is absolute there exist no such things as shame or crime, or virtue or intelligence. I knew not what to do; I was as defenceless as a maiden on her knees before a beast of prey. A penniless man who has no ties to bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless wretch who is in love no longer belongs to himself, and may not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life of another that we revere within us; then and so it begins for us the cruelest trouble of all--the misery with a hope in it, a hope for which we must even bear our torments. I thought I would go to Rastignac on the morrow to confide Foedora's strange resolution to him, and with that I slept.

"'Ah, ha!' cried Rastignac, as he saw me enter his lodging at nine o'clock in the morning. 'I know what brings you here. Foedora has dismissed you. Some kind souls, who were jealous of your ascendency over the countess, gave out that you were going to be married. Heaven only knows what follies your rivals have equipped you with, and what slanders have been directed at you.'

"'That explains everything!' I exclaimed. I remembered all my presumptuous speeches, and gave the countess credit for no little magnanimity. It pleased me to think that I was a miscreant who had not been punished nearly enough, and I saw nothing in her indulgence but the long-suffering charity of love.

"'Not quite so fast,' urged the prudent Gascon; 'Foedora has all the sagacity natural to a profoundly selfish woman; perhaps she may have taken your measure while you still coveted only her money and her splendor; in spite of all your care, she could have read you through and through. She can dissemble far too well to let any dissimulation pass undetected. I fear,' he went on, 'that I have brought you into a bad way. In spite of her cleverness and her tact, she seems to me a domineering sort of person, like every woman who can only feel pleasure through her brain. Happiness for her lies entirely in a comfortable life and in social pleasures; her sentiment is only assumed; she will make you miserable; you will be her head footman.'

"He spoke to the deaf. I broke in upon him, disclosing, with an affectation of light-heartedness, the state of my finances.

"'Yesterday evening,' he rejoined, 'luck ran against me, and that carried off all my available cash. But for that trivial mishap, I would gladly have shared my purse with you. But let us go and breakfast at the restaurant; perhaps there is good counsel in oysters.'

"He dressed, and had his tilbury brought round. We went to the Cafe de Paris like a couple of millionaires, armed with all the audacious impertinence of the speculator whose capital is imaginary. That devil of a Gascon quite disconcerted me by the coolness of his manners and his absolute self-possession. While we were taking coffee after an excellent and well-ordered repast, a young dandy entered, who did not escape Rastignac. He had been nodding here and there among the crowd to this or that young man, distinguished both by personal attractions and elegant attire, and now he said to me:

"'Here's your man,' as he beckoned to this gentleman with a wonderful cravat, who seemed to be looking for a table that suited his ideas.

"'That rogue has been decorated for bringing out books that he doesn't understand a word of,' whispered Rastignac; 'he is a chemist, a historian, a novelist, and a political writer; he has gone halves, thirds, or quarters in the authorship of I don't know how many plays, and he is as ignorant as Dom Miguel's mule. He is not a man so much as a name, a label that the public is familiar with. So he would do well to avoid shops inscribed with the motto, "_Ici l'on peut ecrire soi-meme_." He is acute enough to deceive an entire congress of diplomatists. In a couple of words, he is a moral half-caste, not quite a fraud, nor entirely genuine. But, hush! he has succeeded already; nobody asks anything further, and every one calls him an illustrious man.'

"'Well, my esteemed and excellent friend, and how may Your Intelligence be?' So Rastignac addressed the stranger as he sat down at a neighboring table.

"'Neither well nor ill; I am overwhelmed with work. I have all the necessary materials for some very curious historical memoirs in my hands, and I cannot find any one to whom I can ascribe them. It worries me, for I shall have to be quick about it. Memoirs are falling out of fashion.'

"'What are the memoirs--contemporaneous, ancient, or memoirs of the court, or what?'

"'They relate to the Necklace affair.'

"'Now, isn't that a coincidence?' said Rastignac, turning to me and laughing. He looked again to the literary speculation, and said, indicating me:

"'This is M. de Valentin, one of my friends, whom I must introduce to you as one of our future literary celebrities. He had formerly an aunt, a marquise, much in favor once at court, and for about two years he has been writing a Royalist history of the Revolution.'

"Then, bending over this singular man of business, he went on:

"'He is a man of talent, and a simpleton that will do your memoirs for you, in his aunt's name, for a hundred crowns a volume.'

"'It's a bargain,' said the other, adjusting his cravat. 'Waiter, my oysters.'

"'Yes, but you must give me twenty-five louis as commission, and you will pay him in advance for each volume,' said Rastignac.

"'No, no. He shall only have fifty crowns on account, and then I shall be sure of having my manuscript punctually.'

"Rastignac repeated this business conversation to me in low tones; and then, without giving me any voice in the matter, he replied:

"'We agree to your proposal. When can we call upon you to arrange the affair?'

"'Oh, well! Come and dine here to-morrow at seven o'clock.'

"We rose. Rastignac flung some money to the waiter, put the bill in his pocket, and we went out. I was quite stupified by the flippancy and ease with which he had sold my venerable aunt, la Marquise de Montbauron.

"'I would sooner take ship for the Brazils, and give the Indians lessons in algebra, though I don't know a word of it, than tarnish my family name.'

"Rastignac burst out laughing.

"'How dense you are! Take the fifty crowns in the first instance, and write the memoirs. When you have finished them, you will decline to publish them in your aunt's name, imbecile! Madame de Montbauron, with her hooped petticoat, her rank and beauty, rouge and slippers, and her death upon the scaffold, is worth a great deal more than six hundred francs. And then, if the trade will not give your aunt her due, some old adventurer, or some shady countess or other, will be found to put her name to the memoirs.'

"'Oh,' I groaned; 'why did I quit the blameless life in my garret? This world has aspects that are very vilely dishonorable.'

"'Yes,' said Rastignac, 'that is all very poetical, but this is a matter of business. What a child you are! Now, listen to me. As to your work, the public will decide upon it; and as for my literary middle-man, hasn't he devoted eight years of his life to obtaining a footing in the book-trade, and paid heavily for his experience? You divide the money and the labor of the book with him very unequally, but isn't yours the better part? Twenty-five louis means as much to you as a thousand francs does to him. Come, you can write historical memoirs, a work of art such as never was, since Diderot once wrote six sermons for a hundred crowns!'

"'After all,' I said, in agitation, 'I cannot choose but do it. So, my dear friend, my thanks are due to you. I shall be quite rich with twenty-five louis.'

"'Richer than you think,' he laughed. 'If I have my commission from Finot in this matter, it goes to you, can't you see? Now let us go to the Bois de Boulogne,' he said; 'we shall see your countess there, and I will show you the pretty little widow that I am to marry--a charming woman, an Alsacienne, rather plump. She reads Kant, Schiller, Jean Paul, and a host of lachrymose books. She has a mania for continually asking my opinion, and I have