Father Goriot, Honoré de Balzac [different e readers .txt] 📗

Eugène was touched by this sudden relenting, but none the less he said to himself as he went away, “Crawl in the dust, put up with every kind of treatment. What must the rest of the world be like when one of the kindest of women forgets all her promises of befriending me in a moment, and tosses me aside like an old shoe? So it is everyone for himself? It is true that her house is not a shop, and I have put myself in the wrong by needing her help. You should cut your way through the world like a cannon ball, as Vautrin said.”

But the student’s bitter thoughts were soon dissipated by the pleasure which he promised himself in this dinner with the Vicomtesse. Fate seemed to determine that the smallest accidents in his life should combine to urge him into a career, which the terrible sphinx of the Maison Vauquer had described as a field of battle where you must either slay or be slain, and cheat to avoid being cheated. You leave your conscience and your heart at the barriers, and wear a mask on entering into this game of grim earnest, where, as in ancient Sparta, you must snatch your prize without being detected if you would deserve the crown.

On his return he found the Vicomtesse gracious and kindly, as she had always been to him. They went together to the dining-room, where the Vicomte was waiting for his wife. In the time of the Restoration the luxury of the table was carried, as is well known, to the highest degree, and M. de Beauséant, like many jaded men of the world, had few pleasures left but those of good cheer; in this matter, in fact, he was a gourmand of the schools of Louis XVIII and of the Duc d’Escars, and luxury was supplemented by splendor. Eugène, dining for the first time in a house where the traditions of grandeur had descended through many generations, had never seen any spectacle like this that now met his eyes. In the time of the Empire, balls had always ended with a supper, because the officers who took part in them must be fortified for immediate service, and even in Paris might be called upon to leave the ballroom for the battlefield. This arrangement had gone out of fashion under the Monarchy, and Eugène had so far only been asked to dances. The self-possession which preeminently distinguished him in later life already stood him in good stead, and he did not betray his amazement. Yet as he saw for the first time the finely wrought silver plate, the completeness of every detail, the sumptuous dinner, noiselessly served, it was difficult for such an ardent imagination not to prefer this life of studied and refined luxury to the hardships of the life which he had chosen only that morning.

His thoughts went back for a moment to the lodging-house, and with a feeling of profound loathing, he vowed to himself that at New Year he would go; prompted at least as much by a desire to live among cleaner surroundings as by a wish to shake off Vautrin, whose huge hand he seemed to feel on his shoulder at that moment. When you consider the numberless forms, clamorous or mute, that corruption takes in Paris, common sense begins to wonder what mental aberration prompted the State to establish great colleges and schools there, and assemble young men in the capital; how it is that pretty women are respected, or that the gold coin displayed in the money-changer’s wooden saucers does not take to itself wings in the twinkling of an eye; and when you come to think further, how comparatively few cases of crime there are, and to count up the misdemeanors committed by youth, is there not a certain amount of respect due to these patient Tantaluses who wrestle with themselves and nearly always come off victorious? The struggles of the poor student in Paris, if skilfully drawn, would furnish a most dramatic picture of modern civilization.

In vain Mme. de Beauséant looked at Eugène as if asking him to speak; the student was tongue-tied in the Vicomte’s presence.

“Are you going to take me to the Italiens this evening?” the Vicomtesse asked her husband.

“You cannot doubt that I should obey you with pleasure,” he answered, and there was a sarcastic tinge in his politeness which Eugène did not detect, “but I ought to go to meet someone at the Varietes.”

“His mistress,” said she to herself.

“Then, is not Ajuda coming for you this evening?” inquired the Vicomte.

“No,” she answered, petulantly.

“Very well, then, if you really must have an arm, take that of M. de Rastignac.”

The Vicomtess turned to Eugène with a smile.

“That would be a very compromising step for you,” she said.

“ ‘A Frenchman loves danger, because in danger there is glory,’ to quote M. de Chateaubriand,” said Rastignac, with a bow.

A few moments later he was sitting beside Mme. de Beauséant in a brougham, that whirled them through the streets of Paris to a fashionable theatre. It seemed to him that some fairy magic had suddenly transported him into a box facing the stage. All the lorgnettes of the house were pointed at him as he entered, and at the Vicomtesse in her charming toilette. He went from enchantment to enchantment.

“You must talk to me, you know,” said Mme. de Beauséant. “Ah! look! There is Mme. de Nucingen in the third box from ours. Her sister and M. de Trailles are on the other side.”

The Vicomtesse glanced as she spoke at the box where Mlle. de Rochefide should have been; M. d’Ajuda was not there, and Mme. de Beauséant’s face lighted up in a marvelous way.

“She is charming,” said Eugène, after looking at Mme. de Nucingen.

“She has white eyelashes.”

“Yes, but she has such a pretty slender figure!”

“Her hands are large.”

“Such beautiful eyes!”

“Her face is long.”

“Yes, but length gives distinction.”

“It is lucky for her that she has some distinction in her