Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (21 page)

‘Good heavens! My sister is getting married the day after tomorrow!’

This exclamation was the expiring breath of his childhood purity and nobility. The powerful ties which bind young people’s hearts to their family, to their earliest friend, to all their primitive feelings, were about to be dealt a severing blow.

‘What of that?’ cried the haughty Nègrepelisse. ‘What connection is there between your sister’s marriage and the furtherance of our love? Are you so keen on leading the choir at this middle-class, working-class wedding that you cannot sacrifice its noble joys to me?… A fine sacrifice!’ she added contemptuously. ‘This morning I sent my husband off to fight a duel on your behalf! Go away, Monsieur, leave me! I have been mistaken in you.’

She fell back in a swoon on to her sofa. Lucien rushed to her side and begged her forgiveness, anathematizing his family, David and his sister.

‘I had such faith in you,’ she said. ‘Monsieur de Cante-Croix had a mother whom he idolized, but in order to obtain a letter from me in which I told him:
I am pleased with you!
he died in the firing-line. And you, when it is a matter of travelling with me, you can’t even give up a wedding-breakfast!’

Lucien felt like suicide, and his despair was so sincere, so profound, that Louise forgave him; but she made it plain to him that he would have to atone for his fault.

‘Go along then,’ she said in the end. ‘Be discreet, and wait at midnight tomorrow a hundred yards beyond Mansie.’

Lucien felt as if he were walking on air. He returned to
David’s house with all his hopes at his heels – like Orestes pursued by the Furies – for he foresaw a thousand difficulties which were summed up in one terrible word:
money
. He was in such fear of David’s perspicacity that he shut himself up in his elegant study to recover from the mental turmoil his changed situation was causing him. So then, he would have to leave this apartment which had been set up at such great expense; so many sacrifices would be rendered useless. But he reckoned that his mother would be able to live in it, and in this way David would save on the costs of the structure he had planned to build at the end of the courtyard. His departure would straighten out the family finances, and he discovered a thousand compelling reasons for departing: there is nothing so jesuitical as desire. He hurried at once to L’Houmeau to see his sister, tell her of his new prospects and discuss matters with her. As he passed by Postel’s shop the thought came to him that, if other means were lacking, he could borrow enough money from his father’s successor to last him a year.

‘If I live with Louise,’ he told himself, ‘three francs a day will be as good as a fortune, and that only amounts to a thousand francs for a year. Well, in six months’ time I shall be rich!’

Eve and her mother gave ear to Lucien’s confidences under promise of deep secrecy. Both of them wept as they listened to the ambitious young man; and when he asked the reason for their sorrow, they informed him that all they possessed had been spent on table and household linen, Eve’s trousseau and a multitude of purchases that David had not thought of making – and they had been happy to do it, for the printer was crediting Eve with a dowry of ten thousand francs. Lucien then imparted to them his idea of raising a loan, and Madame Chardon undertook to go and ask Monsieur Postel to lend them a thousand francs for a year.

‘But Lucien,’ said Eve – and the thought wrung her heart – ‘will you not then be present at my wedding? Oh! come back for it; I can wait a few days! She will certainly let you come back here in a fortnight’s time, once you have accompanied her to Paris! She will surely allow us a week, since we brought
you up for her! Our marriage will turn out badly if you’re not there…’

‘But will a thousand francs be enough?’ she suddenly broke off to ask. ‘Your suit is wonderfully smart, but you’ve only one! You’ve only two fine linen shirts and the six others you have are of coarse holland. You have only three cambric cravats; the three others are of cheap jaconet. And your handkerchiefs aren’t very good. Will you find a sister in Paris to launder your linen on the day you are to wear it? You need a lot more. You have only one pair of this year’s nankeen trousers; your last year’s are too tight, and so you will have to buy clothes in Paris, and prices in Paris are higher than in Angoulême. You have only two white waistcoats fit to wear; I have already mended the others. Look, I advise you to take two thousand francs with you.’

At this instant David came in. Apparently he had overheard this last remark, for he scanned brother and sister in silence.

‘Tell me what this is all about,’ he said.

‘Well,’ exclaimed Eve. ‘He’s going away with her.’

Madame Chardon entered without noticing David. ‘Postel,’ she said, ‘is willing to lend the thousand francs, but only for six months, and he wants a bill of exchange from you endorsed by your brother-in-law, for he says you have no surety to offer.’

She turned round, saw her son-in-law, and all four of them stood there in deep silence. The Chardon family was conscious of having abused David’s good nature. They were all ashamed. Tears came to the printer’s eyes.

‘So you won’t be coming to our wedding?’ he said. ‘So you won’t be living with us? And I have just squandered all I had. Oh, Lucien, I was bringing Eve her modest little wedding jewellery, not knowing’ (he wiped his eyes and drew the cases from his pocket) ‘that I should have cause for regretting having bought them.’

He laid the morocco-covered cases down on the table in front of his mother-in-law.

‘Why do you bother about me so much?’ asked Eve with an angelic smile which took the edge off her question.

‘Dear Mamma,’ said the printer. ‘Go and tell Monsieur Postel I am willing to give my signature, for I can see by your face, Lucien, that your mind is set on going.’

Lucien gave a weak and regretful nod of assent, and the next moment he added: ‘Don’t think too badly of me, my beloved angels.’ He took hold of Eve and David, kissed them, clasped them to him, and said:

‘Wait for results, and you will learn how much I love you. David, what use would our high ideals be, if we were unable to disregard the trivial ceremonies in which the law ties up genuine feeling? Although far away, shall I not be present in spirit? Shall we not be together in our thoughts? Have I not my destiny to work out? Would the publishers come out here to get my
Archer of Charles the Ninth
and my
Marguerites?
Should I not still, a little sooner or a little later, have to do what I am doing today? Shall I ever meet with more favourable circumstances? Does not my whole future depend on making my beginnings in Paris in the Marquise d’Espard’s salon?’

‘He is right,’ said Eve. ‘Did you not tell me yourself that he ought to go to Paris without delay?’

David took Eve’s hand, led her into the little cupboard of a room in which she had been sleeping for seven years, and whispered to her:

‘He needs two thousand francs, as you were saying, my love. Postel will only lend one thousand.’

The agonized look which Eve gave her fiancé was expressive of all the torture she was suffering.

‘Listen, Eve, my beloved. The beginning of our life together will not be comfortable. It’s a fact, my expenditure has soaked up all I had. I have only two thousand francs left, and half of it is absolutely necessary for the running of the printing-office. If I give your brother a thousand francs, I shall be giving him our daily bread and compromising our tranquillity. If I were alone, I should know what to do. But there are two of us. You must decide.’

Beside herself, Eve threw herself into her lover’s arms, gave him a tender kiss and, bathed in tears, whispered in his ear: ‘Do what you would do if you were alone. I will go out to work to earn the money.’

In spite of a kiss as ardent as any ever exchanged between two fiancés, David left Eve completely dejected, and went back to Lucien.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You will get your two thousand francs.’

‘Go and see Postel,’ said Madame Chardon. ‘Both of you will have to sign the paper.’

When the two friends came back, they found Eve and her mother on their knees in prayer. Although the latter knew what great hopes ought to materialize on Lucien’s return, at that moment they were conscious of all they were losing by his departure: they felt that happiness to come was being too dearly paid for by an absence which was going to break up their life and bring them endless fears for Lucien’s future.

‘If ever you forgot this scene,’ whispered David to Lucien, ‘You would be the most despicable of men.’

No doubt the printer deemed these grave words necessary, for he was no less appalled by Madame de Bargeton’s ascendency over Lucien than by the fatal instability of character which could as easily fling him into evil ways as into good ones. It did not take Eve long to do Lucien’s packing. This Fernando Cortez of literature had little to take away. He wore his best frock-coat, his best waistcoat and one of his fine linen shirts. All his linen, his famous suit, his appurtenances and manuscripts made up so slender a parcel that, to prevent Madame de Bargeton from setting eyes on it, David suggested sending it by stage-coach to a business acquaintance in Paris, a paper merchant, and writing to him to keep it with him until Lucien called for it.

In spite of the precautions taken by Madame de Bargeton to conceal her departure, Monsieur du Châtelet learnt of it and was curious to know whether she would be travelling alone or in Lucien’s company; he sent his valet to Ruffec, with instructions to inspect all the vehicles changing horses at the post.

‘If she takes her poet away with her,’ he thought, ‘she is mine.’

Lucien set off at dawn the next morning, accompanied by David who had hired a horse and trap, announcing that he
was going to talk business with his father – a plausible little fiction in the circumstances. The two friends went to Marsac and spent the day with the old ‘bear’; then, in the evening, they passed beyond Mansie in order to wait for Madame de Bargeton, who arrived towards morning. When he caught sight of the antiquated sixty-year-old barouche which he had so often looked at in the coach-house, Lucien experienced one of the liveliest emotions he had ever had. He flung himself into David’s arms, and the latter exclaimed: ‘Heaven send that this is for your good!’

The printer climbed back into his shabby trap, and his heart was heavy as he drove away, for he had horrible presentiments of the fate in store for Lucien in Paris.

The travellers alighted before daybreak at the Hôtel du Gaillard-Bois in the rue de l’Echelle. They were both tired out and Louise wanted to go straight to bed. She did so after ordering Lucien to ask for a room above the suite she took for herself.

He slept till four o’clock in the afternoon. Madame de Bargeton had him roused for dinner; when he learned how
late it was he threw on his clothes and joined Louise in one of those squalid rooms which are the disgrace of Paris where despite all its pretensions to elegance there is not yet a single hotel in which any wealthy traveller can feel at home. Although Lucien was still bleary-eyed from his sudden awakening, he found his Louise scarcely recognizable in this cold, sunless room with its faded curtains, its depressing, over-scrubbed tiles, its worn, tasteless, antequated or secondhand furniture. Indeed certain persons neither look nor are the same once they are detached from the faces, places and objects which constitute their normal environment. The physiognomy of living people has its own special aura, just as the chiaroscuro in Flemish pictures is needed to give life to the figures which the painter’s genius has set in them. This is especially noticeable in the case of provincials. Moreover Madame de Bargeton seemed to be more on her dignity, more thoughtful than she should have been at the moment when a life of unrestricted happiness was opening before her. Lucien could make no complaint since Gentil and Albertine were serving them. The dinner lacked the abundance and basic wholesomeness characteristic of a provincial table. The dishes, parsimoniously reduced, came from a neighbouring restaurant; they were sparingly garnished and looked like measured rations. Paris is not generous in regard to the little commodities with which people of modest fortune have to be contented.

Lucien waited for the meal to end before he questioned Louise, who seemed to him to have unaccountably changed. He was not mistaken. A grave event – in the moral sphere reflection is an event – had occurred while he had been sleeping. About two in the afternoon, Sixte du Châtelet had presented himself at the hotel, awakened Albertine, expressed the desire to speak to her mistress and come back again after scarcely giving Madame de Bargeton time to make herself presentable. Anaïs, whose curiosity was aroused by Monsieur du Châtelet’s unexpected appearance when she thought that her movements had been so well concealed, had received him at about three o’clock.

‘I followed you at the risk of getting a reprimand from the
Administration,’ he said as he greeted her, ‘for I foresaw what is happening to you. But even if I lose my post, at least
you
shall not lose your good name!’

‘What do you mean?’ exclaimed Madame de Bargeton.

‘I can well see that you love Lucien,’ he continued with an air of tender resignation. ‘You must indeed be in love to cast reflection aside and forget all the proprieties – you who are so well versed in them! Do you really believe, my dear, adored Naïs, that you will be admitted to Madame d’Espard’s salon, or any other in Paris, once people know that you have practically fled from Angoulême with a young man, especially after the duel between Monsieur de Bargeton and Monsieur de Chandour? The fact that your husband is staying at L’Escarbas looks very like a separation. In cases like this, men of correct behaviour begin by fighting for their wives and leave them to their own devices afterwards. Love Monsieur de Rubempré, protect him, do what you will with him, but don’t live with him! If anyone here knew you made the journey in the same carriage, you would be blacklisted by the very people you want to see. Besides, Naïs, don’t make such sacrifices yet for a young man whom you’ve not yet compared with anyone else, who has been put to no test and may well desert you here for a woman of Paris whom he thinks more necessary to his ambitions than you are. I mean no harm to the man you love, but you must allow me to put your interests before his and to tell you: “Study him! Realize fully the steps you are taking.” If you find doors are closed to you, if women refuse to receive you, at least make sure that these sacrifices will bring no regret and that the man for whom you are making them will always be worthy of them and appreciate them. Madame d’Espard is the more prudish and severe because she is herself living apart from her husband without anyone being able to fathom the reason for their separation. But the Navarreins, the Blamont-Chauvrys, the Lenoncourts and all her relatives have stood by her; the most strait-laced women go to her house and give her a respectful welcome in their own. The conclusion is: Monsieur d’Espard must be in the wrong. At the first visit you pay to her, you will realize how
apt is my advice. I can certainly predict this, knowing Paris as I do: when you went to see the Marquise you would be lost if she knew that you were staying at the Hôtel du Gaillard-Bois with an apothecary’s son, Monsieur de Rubempré though he would like to be. Here you will have rivals far more astute and cunning than Amélie: it won’t take them long to find out who you are, where you are, where you have come from and what you are doing. I see you were counting on keeping your incognito, but you are one of those persons for whom this is impossible. Will you not come up against Angoulême wherever you go? – deputies from the Charente who are here for the opening of Parliament, or some general or other who is on leave in Paris. It would be enough if just one inhabitant of Angoulême should catch sight of you for strange conclusions to be drawn about you: you would simply be written off as Lucien’s mistress. If you need me for any purpose, I am staying with the Receiver-General in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, a few yards away from Madame d’Espard’s house. I know the Maréchale de Carigliano, Madame de Sérizy and the Prime Minister well enough to introduce you to them. But you will meet so many people at Madame d’Espard’s house that you will have no need of me. Far from having to desire admission to one or other of the salons, your presence will be desired in all of them.’

Du Châtelet was able to have his say without interruption from Madame de Bargeton: she was struck by the apropos of his observations. The first lady in Angoulême had indeed reckoned on keeping her incognito.

‘You are right, dear friend,’ she said. ‘But what should I do?’

‘Let me find you suitable apartments, completely furnished. That way you will live more cheaply than in any hotel, and you will be in your own home. If you take my advice you will sleep there tonight.’

‘But how did you find out my address?’

‘Your carriage was easy to recognize, and besides, I was following you. At Sèvres the postilion who was bringing you told mine your address. Will you allow me to be your quarter-master?
I will soon write and tell you where I have found lodging for you.’

‘Very well, do so,’ she said.

This seemed a little thing to say, but it meant everything. The Baron du Chêtelet had spoken like a man of the world to a woman of the world. He had come dressed with all the elegance of Parisian fashion in a smart and well-appointed cabriolet. It so happened that Madame de Bargeton was standing at her window to consider her situation, and from there she watched the old dandy’s departure. A minute or two later Lucien, abruptly awoken and hastily dressed, appeared before her in his last-year’s nankeen trousers and his shabby little frock-coat. He was handsome, but his clothes were ridiculous. If you put the Belvedere Apollo or Antinous in a water-carrier’s costume, will you recognize him as the superb creation of a Greek or Roman chisel? The eye makes comparisons before the heart can rectify its rapid and automatic judgement. The contrast between Lucien and Chêtelet was too blatant for Louise not to be struck by it. When, at about six o’clock, dinner was over, Madame de Bargeton motioned Lucien to come and sit beside her on the shabby sofa covered in yellow-flowered red calico.

‘My Lucien,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think that if we have committed an indiscretion equally disastrous to us both, there is reason for repairing it? We must not live together in Paris, dear child, nor let it be suspected that we came here together. Your future depends on my position, and I must do nothing to prejudice it. And so, from tonight onwards, I am going to lodge a short distance away; but you will stay in this hotel, and we can meet every day without criticism from anyone.’

Louise then expounded the laws of society to Lucien, who listened with wide-open eyes. Though he did not know that women who are going back on their indiscretions are going back on their love, he realized that for her he was no longer the Lucien of Angoulême. She only talked to him about herself, her own interests, her reputation, her place in society, and to palliate her selfishness she tried to persuade him that
his own interests were also at stake. He had no rights over Louise, who had so promptly become Madame de Bargeton once more, and worse still he had no power either! And so he could not keep back the big tears which filled his eyes.

‘If I am your hope and pride, you mean even more to me. You are my only hope and my whole future. I understood that if you were to share my success you would share my misfortunes too. And here we are, separating already.’

‘You are judging my conduct,’ she said. ‘You do not love me.’ Lucien looked at her with such a pained expression that she could not refrain from adding: ‘Dear boy, I will stay here if you wish: it will spell ruin for both of us and we shall be without support. But when we are equal in misery and both of us are spurned, when failure – for we must foresee all possibilities – has relegated us to L’Escarbas, remember, my love, that I predicted this result, and that I proposed at the beginning that you should make your way in conformity with and obedience to the laws of society.’

‘Louise,’ he replied, putting his arms round her. ‘It frightens me to see you so prudent. Remember that I’m very young and that I abandoned myself entirely to your dear will. I myself had wished to triumph over men and things by sheer force; but if I can succeed more quickly with your aid than by myself I shall be very happy to owe all my good fortune to you. Forgive me! I have staked too much on you not to be full of fear. For me, separation from you is a prelude to abandonment, and abandonment would kill me.’

‘But my dear child,’ she replied, ‘Society does not ask a lot of you. It is merely a question of your sleeping here; you can spend the day in my flat without anyone taking exception.’

In the end a few caresses pacified Lucien. An hour later Gentil brought a note from Châtelet to tell Madame de Bargeton that he had found rooms in the rue Neuve-du-Luxem-bourg. She enquired where this street was situated – it was not very far from the rue de l’Echelle – and told Lucien: ‘We shall be near one another.’ Two hours later Louise took a carriage sent by du Châtelet in order to go to her flat. It was the kind of place that tapestry-makers furnish and let to rich
deputies or important persons making a short visit to Paris: sumptuous but inconvenient. At about eleven o’clock Lucien returned to the little Hôtel du Gaillard-Bois, having so far seen nothing more of Paris than that part of the rue Saint-Honoré which runs between the rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg and the rue de l’Echelle. He went to bed in his sordid little room, which he could not help comparing with Louise’s magnificent quarters. Just after he had left her, Baron Châtelet arrived there on his way back from the house of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in all the splendour of his ballroom array. He had come to tell her of the arrangements he had made for her. Louise was worried: such luxury appalled her. Provincial ways of life had had their effect on her in the long run and she had become strict in her accounts, which she kept in such good order that in Paris she would have been taken for a miser. She had come away with a draft for twenty thousand francs from the Receiver-General, reckoning that this sum would more than cover her expenses for four years. She feared already that it was not enough and that she would fall into debt. Châtelet informed her that her flat would not cost her more than six hundred francs a month.

‘A mere nothing,’ he said as he saw Naïs give a shrug. ‘You have at your disposal a carriage which will cost you five hundred francs a month: that makes little more than a thousand francs. After that you need only think of what you will spend on clothes. A woman who moves in society cannot settle things otherwise. If you want to get Monsieur de Bargeton made a Receiver-General or obtain a post for him in the King’s household, you must not look like a pauper. Here gifts are made only to the rich. You are lucky to have Gentil to escort you and Albertine to dress you, for servants in Paris cost the earth. Launched in society as you will be, you won’t often eat at home.’

Madame de Bargeton and the Baron chatted about Paris. Du Châtelet told her the latest news and the thousand and one niceties to be observed if one wishes to be accepted as a Parisian. He was not slow in giving Naïs advice about the shops she should patronize: he recommended Herbault for
toques, Juliette for hats and bonnets; he told her where she could find a dressmaker to replace Victorine; in short he impressed on her the necessity of casting off everything to do with her Angoulême ways. As he was leaving, a happy inspiration came to him on the spur of the moment:

‘Tomorrow,’ he said in casual tones, ‘I shall no doubt have a box at some theatre. I will pick you up, you and Monsieur de Rubempré, and take you to it. You will allow me, will you not, to show both of you a little of life in Paris.’

‘He has more generosity of character than I thought,’ Madame de Bargeton told herself on seeing Lucien invited.

In the month of September cabinet ministers have hardly any use for their boxes at the theatre: ministerial deputies and their constituents are busy with their grape-gatherings or their harvests, while their most exacting acquaintances are away in the country or travelling. And so, at this season, the finest boxes in the Paris theatres are filled with an assortment of guests whom the regular theatre-goers never see again and who make the audience look like a piece of patched tapestry. The idea had already come to du Châtelet that, thanks to this circumstance, and without much expense, he could procure for Naïs the kind of amusement most enticing to provincial visitors. The next day, when Lucien made his first call on Louise, he did not find her at home. She was out doing some indispensable shopping. Having written to tell the Marquise d’Espard of her arrival, she had gone to hold counsel with the grave and illustrious authorities on ladies’ fashions whom du Châtelet had cited to her. Although Madame de Bargeton possessed the self-confidence which long-standing domination confers, she was terribly afraid of looking provincial. She had tact enough to know how much relations between women depend on first impressions, and though she knew she was capable of promptly rising to the level of superior women like Madame d’Espard, she felt the need to inspire good will at the first encounter, and was particularly anxious not to neglect anything which might contribute to success. She was therefore infinitely grateful to Châtelet for having indicated by what means she might get into step with the Parisian
beau
monde
. By a strange chance the Marquise found herself in a situation which made her delighted to render service to someone of her husband’s family. The Marquis d’Espard had withdrawn from society for no apparent cause. He was taking no interest in his own affairs, or politics, or family concerns, or those of his wife.
¹
Left thus to her own devices, the Marquise felt that she needed the approval of society; therefore she was happy to be able to replace the Marquis in this circumstance by befriending his relations. Her intention was to put some ostentation into this patronage so that her husband might appear more obviously to be in the wrong. That very day she sent to ‘Madame de Bargeton, née Nègrepelisse,’ a note so nicely worded as to conceal from the cursory reader the shallowness of its contents.