Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (19 page)

That next day was for Lucien one of those occasions when young lovers tear their hair and vow they will not go on with the silly business of wooing. He had grown used to his position. The poet who had so timidly taken a chair in the sacred boudoir of the ‘queen’ of Angoulême had been metamorphosed into an exacting lover. Six months had sufficed for him to regard himself as Louise’s equal, and from then on he wanted to become her master. He left home that day promising himself that he would be very unreasonable, put his life to the hazard, bring all the resources of fiery eloquence into play, assert that his head was in a whirl and that he was incapable of conceiving an idea or writing a line. Now some women have a repugnance for deliberate decisions – and this does honour to their delicacy; they love to be swept off their feet rather than yield to stipulations; generally speaking, they will not have pleasure imposed on them. Madame de Bargeton observed on Lucien’s brow, in his eyes, face and manner, that tenderness which betrays a fixed resolution. She decided to frustrate it, partly from contrariness, but also because she had an exalted conception of love. Like any woman given to exaggeration, she exaggerated her own value. In her eyes, Madame de Bargeton was a sovereign lady, a Beatrice, a Laura. She was sitting on a dais as in medieval times, watching
the literary tournament, and Lucien had to win several victories before he could merit the prize: he had to outshine Victor Hugo, the
enfant sublime
, Lamartine, Walter Scott and Byron. The noble creature considered her love as an uplifting principle: the desires she inspired in Lucien were to incite him to glory. This feminine quixotism gives a dedicated quality to love which, when it is devoted to a worthy purpose, acquires some honour and dignity. Intent on playing the role of Dulcinea in Lucien’s life for seven or eight years, Madame de Bargeton wished, like so many provincial women, that possession should be paid for by a kind of serfdom, a period of constancy which would enable her to gauge her lover’s worth.

After Lucien had engaged battle with one of those violent outbursts of petulance which are laughed at by women who are still uncommitted but sadden women who know what love is, Louise assumed a dignified pose and began one of her long speeches abounding in high-flown phrases.

‘Is that what you promised me, Lucien?’ she asked at the end of it. ‘Do not bring into the present, which is so sweet, a remorse which later would poison my life. Do not spoil the future! And – I say this with pride – do not spoil the present! Is not my heart all yours? What more can you want? Would you let your heart be dominated by your senses, when the finest privilege a woman has, if she is truly loved, is to impose silence on them? For whom then do you take me? If in your eyes I am not something more than a woman, I am less than a woman.’

‘You wouldn’t say anything else to a man you didn’t love,’ cried Lucien, in a rage.

‘If you do not feel all the real love there is in my thoughts, you will never be worthy of me.’

‘You are only casting doubt on my love in order to avoid responding to it,’ said Lucien, throwing himself at her feet and weeping.

The poor young man wept in earnest on seeing that he was to remain so long at the gates of Paradise. His tears were those of a poet whose sense of power was humiliated, those of a child in despair at being refused a coveted toy.

‘You have never loved me,’ he cried.

‘You don’t mean what you are saying,’ she replied, flattered at this vehemence.

‘Then prove to me that you will be mine,’ said Lucien, his hair all tousled.

At this moment, Stanislas arrived unheard, saw Lucien with bowed figure, his eyes full of tears and his head on Louise’s lap. Satisfied with this sufficiently compromising tableau, Stanislas backed out towards du Châtelet, who was standing outside the drawing-room door. Madame de Bargeton quickly rushed forward, but failed to reach the two spies who, aware that they were intruding, had beaten a hasty retreat.

‘Who were those people?’ she asked her servants.

‘Monsieur de Chandour and Monsieur du Châtelet,’ answered Gentil, her old manservant.

She returned pale and trembling to her boudoir.

‘If they saw you in that posture,’ she said to Lucien, ‘I am lost!’

‘So much the better!’ exclaimed the poet.

This selfish outburst, prompted by love, drew a smile from her. In the provinces an episode like this becomes worse in the telling. In no time at all, everyone knew that Lucien had been discovered on his knees before Naïs. Monsieur de Chandour, enjoying the importance which the affair conferred on him, went off to relate this great event to his cronies, after which he spread the news from house to house. Du Châtelet made haste to declare he had seen nothing; but while thus holding back he incited Stanislas to talk and improve on the details. Thinking himself witty, Stanislas added new ones each time he told the story. That evening Amélie’s drawing-room was crowded, for by evening the most extravagant versions were circulating among the nobility of Angoulême, since everyone enlarged on Stanislas’s story. Men and women alike were impatient to know the truth. The women who hid their faces in horror and talked most loudly of scandal and perversity were of course Amélie, Zéphirine, Fifine and Lolotte, who were all more or less involved in illicit relationships. All possible variations were sung on this cruel theme.

‘Well now!’ said one of them. ‘Have you heard about poor
Naïs? I for one don’t believe it; her life has been wholly blameless. She’s much too proud to be more than a benefactress to Monsieur Chardon. But if it’s true, I’m heartily sorry for her.’

‘She’s so much more to be pitied because she’s making herself frightfully ridiculous. Why, she’s old enough to be the mother of Monsieur Lulu, as Jacques called him. This little versifier is twenty-two at the most, and, between ourselves, Naïs is certainly forty.’

‘Well,’ said Châtelet, ‘I believe that the very posture in which Monsieur was discovered proves that Naïs is innocent. You don’t go down on your knees to get what you’ve had already.’

‘That depends!’ said Francis with a ribald air which earned him a disapproving glance from Zéphirine.

‘But do tell us what the situation is,’ Stanislas was asked as a secret conclave formed in a corner of the salon.

Stanislas had ended up by composing a little tale which was full of indecencies, and he accompanied it with gestures and postures which made the whole thing prodigiously incriminating.

‘It’s unbelievable,’ they all repeated.

‘In full daylight!’ said one of them.

‘Naïs is the last person I would have suspected.’

‘What will she do now?’

There followed all sorts of commentaries and conjectures!… Du Châtelet defended Madame de Bargeton, but so clumsily that he fanned the flame of scandal-mongering instead of extinguishing it. Lili, in desolation at the disgrace which had fallen on the fairest divinity on the Olympus of Angoulême, went off in a flood of tears to retail the news at the Bishop’s palace. As soon as the whole town was buzzing with the scandal, the happy du Châtelet went round to Madame de Bargeton’s house where, alas, only one game of whist was in progress. He tactfully asked Naïs to come and talk with him in her boudoir. They both sat down on the little sofa.

‘You of course know.’ whispered du Châtelet, ‘what all Angoulême is talking about?…’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Well, I am too much your friend to leave you in ignorance. I must put you in a position to stop these slanders, no doubt invented by Amélie, who is conceited enough to consider herself your rival. I was coming to see you this morning with that ape Stanislas who was several paces in front of me, and when he got there’ – he pointed to the boudoir door – ‘he claims to have
seen
you with Monsieur de Rubempré in a situation which prevented him from entering; he came back to me quite scared and dragged me away without leaving me time to collect my wits; and we had got as far as Beaulieu before he told me why he had drawn back. If I had known why, I would not have stirred from your house before clearing the matter up to your advantage; but it would have proved nothing to have returned to your house once I had left it. Now then, whether Stanislas saw things inaccurately or was right,
he must be shown to be in the wrong
. Dear Naïs, don’t let an imbecile gamble with your life, your honour and your future; get him silenced immediately. You know my situation here. Though I need to be on good terms with everybody, I am entirely devoted to you. I belong to you and my life is at your service. Although you have spurned me, my heart will always be yours, and I will miss no opportunity to prove to you how much I love you. Yes, I will watch over you like a faithful servant, hoping for no reward, solely for the pleasure it gives me to serve you, even though you are unaware of it. This morning, I told everybody I was outside your drawing-room door and had seen nothing. If you are asked who told you of the remarks made about you, refer to me. I shall be very proud to act as your avowed champion; but, between you and me, Monsieur de Bargeton is the only man who can call Stanislas to account… Even if this little Rubempré has committed an indiscretion, a woman’s honour cannot be at the mercy of the first scatterbrain who flings himself at her feet. That is what I told them.’

Naïs inclined her head by way of thanks and remained pensive. She was sick to death of provincial life. At Châtelet’s first word, her thoughts had flown to Paris. Her silence put her artful admirer into an embarrassing situation.

‘I am at your service,’ he said. ‘I say that again.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied.

‘What do you think of doing?’

‘I shall see.’

A long silence ensued.

‘Do you love this little Rubempré so much?’

A haughty smile flashed over her face, she folded her arms and fixed her gaze on her boudoir curtains. Du Châtelet went out without being able to read this proud woman’s heart. When Lucien had gone, and also the four loyal old people who had come for their game of whist without concern for all these scandalous conjectures, Madame de Bargeton detained her husband as he was getting ready for bed and just about to say good night to her.

‘Come this way, my dear. I want to talk to you,’ she said with some show of solemnity.

Monsieur de Bargeton followed his wife into the boudoir.

‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘I have perhaps been mistaken in bringing to my protective care for Monsieur de Rubempré a warmth which has been as ill understood by the stupid people in this town as by himself. This morning Lucien flung himself at my feet and made a declaration of love to me. Stanislas came in at the moment I was bringing the boy to his feet. In contempt of the duties courtesy imposes on a gentleman towards a woman in any sort of circumstance, he claims to have surprised me in an equivocal situation with this boy whom I was then treating according to his deserts. If this hare-brained young man knew what slander his impetuosity has occasioned, I know him well enough to be sure he would go and provoke Stanislas and force him to fight. This action would be tantamount to a public avowal of his love. I need not tell you that your wife is chaste; but you will agree that there would be some measure of dishonour both for you and me if Monsieur de Rubempré took it upon him to defend her. Go this instant to Stanislas, and call him seriously to account for the insulting remarks he has made about me. Bear this in mind: you must not allow the matter to be settled unless he retracts his words in the presence of numerous and important witnesses. In this way you will acquire the esteem of all decent
people; you will be behaving like a man of intelligence, a chivalrous man, and you will have a right to my esteem. I am going to send Gentil on horseback to L’Escarbas, for my father must be your second; old as he is, I know him to be the sort of man to trample underfoot this puppet who is blackening the reputation of a Nègrepelisse. The choice of arms is yours; fight with pistols, you are a marvellous shot.’

‘I am going,’ replied Monsieur de Bargeton, taking up his hat and cane.

‘Very good, my friend,’ his wife said with emotion. ‘That is how I like men to be. You are a gentleman.’

She presented her forehead for a kiss, and the old man was proud and happy to kiss it. And she, who had a sort of motherly feeling for this grown-up child, could not repress a tear as she heard the outer door slam as it closed behind him.

‘How he loves me!’ she said to herself. ‘The poor man is attached to life, and yet he would not regret losing it for my sake.’

Monsieur de Bargeton was not worried at the thought of having to fight a duel, of gazing coolly into the muzzle of a pistol levelled against him. One thing only embarrassed him, and he was shuddering as he made his way to the house of Monsieur de Chandour. ‘What shall I say?’ he was thinking. ‘Naïs ought certainly to have primed me!’ And he racked his brains in order to formulate a few sentences which would not appear ridiculous.

But people like Monsieur de Bargeton, who live in a silence imposed upon them by their paucity of wit and mental range, discover a ready-made dignity in an important crisis. Having little to say, they naturally utter few stupid remarks. Then, since they ponder much over what they have to say, their extreme mistrust of themselves leads them to rehearse their speeches so thoroughly that they express themselves amazingly well, a phenomenon similar to that which loosed the tongue of Balaam’s ass. And so Monsieur de Bargeton conducted himself like an exceptional man. He justified the opinion of those who regarded him as a philosopher of the Pythagorean school. He arrived at Stanislas’s house at eleven in
the evening and found a large company gathered there. He went and bowed to Amélie in silence, and treated everyone to his inane smile which, in present circumstances, appeared to be profoundly ironical. Then a great silence fell, as it does in nature when a storm is brewing. Châtelet, who was there again, looked in turn, in a very significant manner, at both Monsieur de Bargeton and Stanislas, whom the injured husband politely approached.

Du Châtelet grasped the meaning of a visit made at so late an hour, when the old man was usually in bed: evidently Naïs was prodding this feeble arm into action; and since his standing with Amélie gave him the right of meddling in the affairs of her household, he took Monsieur de Bargeton aside and said: ‘Do you want to speak to Stanislas?’