Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (17 page)

‘In the whole of Europe,’ said the printer by way of conclusion, ‘rag-pickers collect rags and old linen and buy up the remnants from every kind of textile. These remnants are sorted out and stored by wholesale rag-merchants, and they supply the paper-mills. To give you some idea of this trade, I will tell you, Mademoiselle, that in 1814 a banker named Cardon, the owner of the pulping-troughs of Buges and Langlée, where Léorier de l’Isle attempted as early as 1776 to solve the same problem as your father, had a law-suit with a Monsieur Proust over an error amounting to two millions’ pound weight of rags, a matter of ten million
livres,
that is to say about four million francs. The manufacturer washes his rags and boils them down to a clear pulp, and this is screened – just as a cook runs a sauce through the strainer – on to an iron framework called a mould, fitted with a fine wire gauze in the centre of which is the watermark which gives its name to the paper. Consequently the size of the paper depends on the size of the mould. Whilst I was with Messrs Didot, this problem was being investigated, and it still is; for the improvement your father was striving after is one of the most imperious needs of our time. And this is why: although the long-lasting quality of linen thread as compared to cotton thread makes the former cheaper than the latter in the long run, since poor people always have to draw a lesser or greater sum from their pockets, and since the weaker always go to the wall, they lose enormously by this. The middle classes do the same. Thus linen thread is in short supply. In England, where
four-fifths of the population wear cotton instead of linen, paper is now made out of scarcely anything but cotton rags. This paper, which in the first place has the drawback of tearing and breaking, dissolves so easily in water that a book made of cotton paper would be reduced to a mash after a quarter of an hour in water, whereas an old book would not be ruined if it stayed in it for two hours. An old book could be dried; it might turn yellow and fade, but the text would still be legible and the work would not be destroyed. We are nearing the time when, as fortunes are equalized and so diminished, poverty will be wide-spread; we shall require cheap linen-wear and cheap books, just as people are beginning to require small pictures for lack of space in which to hang big ones. Neither the shirts nor the books will last, that’s all. Sound products are disappearing everywhere. So then the problem facing us is of the highest importance for literature, the sciences and politics. That is why a lively discussion took place one day in my office over the ingredients used in China for the manufacture of paper. There, from time immemorial, thanks to the raw materials used, paper-making reached a perfection which is lacking in ours. Much interest was then being shown in Chinese paper, far superior to ours in lightness and fineness, for these precious qualities don’t make it any less tough and, though thin, it is not at all transparent. A very well-informed proof-reader (in Paris some proof-readers are well up in science: at this moment Lachevardière employs Fourier and Pierre Leroux as proof-readers), namely the Comte de Saint-Simon, a proof-reader for the time being, came in while this discussion was on. He then told us that, according to Kempfer and Du Halde,
broussonetia
provided the Chinese with the material for their paper which, like ours, is entirely vegetable. Another proof-reader maintained that Chinese paper was chiefly made of animal matter, namely silk, so abundant in China. A bet was made in my presence, and as Messrs Didot are printers to the Institut de France, naturally the question was submitted to members of that scientific assembly. Monsieur Marcel, former director of the Imperial Printing Works, was selected as arbitrator, and
he referred the two printers to Monsieur l’Abbé Grozier, the Arsenal Librarian. The Abbé Grower’s verdict was that both of them lost the bet. Chinese paper is made neither of silk nor of
broussonetia:
the pulp for it is made from bamboo fibre ground down. The Abbé Grozier possessed a Chinese book, a work which was both iconographical and technological, containing numerous plates illustrating paper-making in all its stages, and he showed us a first-rate sketch of a paper-factory in which coloured bamboo canes were heaped in a corner. When Lucien told me that your father, thanks to a sort of intuition peculiar to men of talent, had conceived of a method for replacing linen waste by an exceedingly common vegetable matter which territorial production could directly provide, as the Chinese do by using fibrous stalks, I sifted out all the attempts made by my predecessors and at last began to study the question. The bamboo is a reed; I naturally thought of the reeds which grow in our country. Labour costs nothing in China – three sous a day; and so the Chinese, once the paper is removed from the mould, can place it sheet by sheet between heated slabs of white porcelain, by which means they press it and give it a sheen, consistency, lightness and satiny softness which make it the finest paper in the world. Well, the Chinese hand-process must be replaced by some machine or other. The use of machinery will solve the problem of cheapness which the low cost of labour makes possible in China. If we succeeded in producing cheap paper of the Chinese quality we should reduce the weight and thickness of books by more than one half. A bound edition of Voltaire which, when printed on our vellum paper, weighs more than two hundred and fifty pounds, would not weigh fifty pounds on Chinese paper. And that would certainly be an achievement. Finding much-needed shelf-space in libraries will become a more and more difficult problem in a period when a general reduction in size – both things and men – is affecting everything, even human habitations. The great mansions and suites of rooms in Paris will sooner or later be demolished, for soon private fortunes will be no longer able to keep up the constructions of our forefathers. What a shame it is that our
era cannot make books which will last! Ten years more, and Holland paper, that is to say paper made of linen rags, will be altogether unobtainable! Now your generous brother passed on to me your father’s idea of using certain fibrous plants for the making of paper, and you see that if I succeed, you will be entitled to…’ At this moment Lucien came up to his sister and interrupted David’s generous proposition.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘if you have enjoyed this evening, but it has been a cruel one for me.’

‘Why, my poor Lucien, what has happened?’ asked Eve, noticing the excited expression on Lucien’s face.

The exasperated poet told the tale of the anguish he had suffered, and poured into their sympathetic hearts the flood of thoughts with which he was tormented. Eve and David listened in silence, pained to watch this torrent of grief by which Lucien revealed both the greatness and the pettiness in his character.

‘Monsieur de Bargeton,’ concluded Lucien, ‘is an old man who without doubt will soon be carried off by an attack of indigestion. Well, I will assert myself over this arrogant society, I will marry Madame de Bargeton. I read in her eyes this evening a love as great as mine. Yes, the humiliations I received wounded her too; she poured balm on my sufferings; she is as great and noble as she is beautiful and gracious! No, she will never betray me.’

‘Is it not high time we made life smoother for him?’ David whispered to Eve.

Eve quietly squeezed David’s arm, and he, understanding her thoughts, made haste to tell Lucien the plans they had been considering. The two lovers were as wrapped up in their own concerns as Lucien was with his, so that Eve and David, eager to get his approval for their engagement, did not notice the start of surprise which the admirer of Madame de Bargeton gave when he learnt that David was to marry his sister. Lucien was dreaming of a fine match for his sister as soon as he had risen to some high position, in order that his ambitions might be furthered by the interest which an influential family might take in him. He was distressed to
think that this union might prove one more obstacle to his social success.

‘If Madame de Bargeton consents to become Madame de Rubempré, she will never want David Séchard as a brother-in-law!’ This sentence briefly and clearly conveys the ideas which were gnawing at Lucien’s heart. And the bitter thought came to him: ‘Louise is right. People with a future are never understood by their families.’

If this alliance had been proposed to him at any other moment than when his imagination was putting Monsieur de Bargeton into his coffin, he would no doubt have evinced the liveliest joy. Had he reflected about his present situation and asked himself what kind of future Eve Chardon, a lovely but penniless girl, could hope for, he would have regarded this marriage as an unhoped-for piece of good luck. But he was living in one of those golden dreams in which young people, cantering along on their
ifs,
leap over all barriers. He had seen himself dominating society, and it wounded the poet in him to come down to earth so quickly. Eve and David supposed that their brother was silent because he was overwhelmed with so much generosity. For these two noble creatures, tacit acceptance was a proof of true amity. With warm and hearty eloquence the printer began to describe the happiness awaiting all four of them. In spite of remonstrances from Eve, he furnished his first floor with all the luxury a lover could imagine. With ingenuous good faith he constructed a second floor for Lucien and an upper storey of the penthouse for Madame Chardon, on whom he wanted to lavish all the care which filial solicitude can inspire. In short he prophesied such happiness for the family and such independence for his brother-in-law that Lucien fell under the spell of David’s voice and Eve’s caresses, and, as they took the road home under the shady trees along the calm and gleaming river, beneath the starry sky in the warm night air, he forgot the painful crown of thorns which Society had crammed down on his head. In short Monsieur de Rubempré acknowledged David. His volatile character quickly plunged him back into the pure, hard-working, middle class life he had led hitherto: he saw it
in fairer colours and free from care. The hubbub of aristocratic society moved farther and farther away. Finally, when they were back on the paving-stones of L’Houmeau, the ambitious young man clasped David’s hand like a true brother and adjusted his mood to that of the happy couple.

‘If only your father doesn’t stand out against your marrying,’ he said to David.

‘You know well he doesn’t bother about me! The old man lives for himself alone. But tomorrow I’ll go and see him at Marsac, if only to persuade him to undertake the alterations we need.’

David saw brother and sister home and asked Madame Chardon for Eve’s hand in marriage with the eagerness of a man who can brook no delay. The mother took her daughter’s hand and joyfully put it in David’s; the emboldened lover kissed his beautiful fiancée on the forehead; she smiled at him and blushed.

‘This is the betrothal of poor folk,’ the mother said, raising her eyes as if to beseech the blessing of God. ‘You are very brave, my child,’ she said to David, ‘for we are badly off, and I am afraid it may be contagious.’

‘We shall be rich and happy,’ said David solemnly. ‘To begin with, you will give up your work as sick-nurse, and you will come and live with your daughter and Lucien in Angoulême.’

Thereupon the three young people lost no time in telling the astonished mother of their wonderful project, abandoning themselves to one of those impulsive family conferences in the course of which one delights in harvesting crops only just sown and relishing every joy in advance. It was time to send David home, though he would have liked the evening to last for ever. One o’clock was striking when Lucien escorted his future brother-in-law as far as the Porte-Palet. The worthy Postel, disturbed at these unusual comings and goings, was standing behind his Venetian shutter; he had opened the window and was asking himself, when he saw the light still on in Eve’s flat, ‘What’s happening at the Chardon’s?’

‘My boy,’ he said as Lucien came in again. ‘What on earth is going on? Are you in need of me?’

‘No, Monsieur,’ replied the poet.’ But as you are our friend, I can tell you the news: my mother has just consented to my sister marrying David Séchard.’

Postel’s only reply was to shut his window with a bang: he was in despair at not having proposed to Mademoiselle Chardon himself.

Instead of returning to Angoulême, David took the road to Marsac. He walked the whole way there and arrived at the vineyard running alongside his father’s house just as the sun was rising. He caught sight of the old ‘bear’ poking his head over the hedge under an almond-tree.

‘Good-day, father.’

‘Oh, it’s you, my lad. What brings you along so early? Go through there,’ said the vinegrower, pointing to a little wicket-gate. ‘My vines have all finished flowering, and not a single plant has been caught by the frost! They’ll yield more than twenty casks to the acre this year, but what a lot of manure they’ve had!’

‘Father, I’ve come to talk about an important matter.’

‘Well, how are our presses going? You should be making a pile of money.’

‘I shall do so, father. But at present I’m not rich.’

‘They all blame me for overdoing the manure!’ his father replied. ‘The big folk here, Monsieur le Marquis, Monsieur le Comte, Monsieur this and Monsieur that make out that I spoil the quality of the wine. What’s the good of education? It only gets you muddle-headed. Listen! These gentry get seven or sometimes eight casks to the acre and sell them at sixty francs each; and that comes to four hundred francs an acre at most in a good year. I get twenty casks and sell for thirty francs, making six hundred francs in all! Who are the simpletons? Quality, quality! What do I care about quality? Let these fine gentlemen keep their quality for themselves! Quality for me means money!… What were you saying?’

‘Father, I’m getting married. I came to ask you…’

‘Ask me for what? Nothing doing, my boy. Get married, all right. But as for giving you anything, I haven’t a penny. Dressing the vines has cost me a fortune. The last two years I’ve been paying out for top-dressings, taxes and all sorts
of expenses. The government grabs the lot; the best of it goes to the government! We poor vine-growers have made nothing for two years. Things don’t look bad for this year. All right, but my miserable casks are already costing eleven francs apiece! It’s the cooper that gets the profit. – Why get married before the grape-harvest?’