Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (22 page)

She wrote that she was happy for a turn of events which was bringing a person whom she had heard mentioned and was desirous to know into closer connection with the family, for friendships in Paris were not so stable that she did not wish to have someone else on earth to love, and if this were not to come about she would have merely one more illusion to be interred with the rest. She put herself entirely at her cousin’s disposal. She would have come to see her had an indisposition not kept her indoors; but she already regarded herself as being under an obligation to Madame de Bargeton because she had thought of her.

In the course of his first random stroll through the boulevards and the rue de la Paix, Lucien, like all new-comers to Paris, took more stock of things than of persons. In Paris, it is first of all the general pattern that commands attention. The luxury of the shops, the height of the buildings, the busy to-and-fro of carriages, the ever-present contrast between extreme luxury and extreme indigence, all these things are particularly striking. Abashed at the sight of this alien crowd, the imaginative young man felt as if he himself was enormously diminished. People who in the provinces enjoy a
certain amount of consideration and at every step they take meet with some proof of their own importance can in no wise accustom themselves to this sudden and total devaluation. Some transition is needed between the two states of being a somebody at home and of being a nobody in Paris; and those who pass too abruptly from the one to the other experience a feeling of annihilation. For a young poet used to having a sounding-board for all his feelings, an ear into which he could pour all his thoughts and a kindred soul to share his slightest impressions, Paris was to prove a fearsome desert. Lucien had not gone to fetch his fine blue coat, so that he felt embarrassed by the sorry, not to say ruinous, condition of his clothes as he was returning to Madame de Bargeton’s flat at a time when he deemed she would be back. The Baron du Châtelet was already there, and he took them both out to dine at the Rocher-de-Cancale. Lucien, stunned by the rapid whirl of life in Paris, could say nothing to Louise, as all three of them were together inside the carriage. But he squeezed her hand, and she gave a friendly response to all the thoughts he was thus expressing. After dinner Châtelet took his two guests to the Vaudeville Theatre. Lucien felt secretly displeased to see du Châtelet and was cursing the ill-luck which had brought him to Paris. The Director of Taxes alleged his own ambition as an excuse for his arrival there: he was hoping to be appointed Secretary-General in a civil service department and to enter the Council of State as a master of requests; he had come to ask that the promises made to him should be honoured, for a man like himself could not remain a mere Director of Taxes; he would prefer to be nothing at all, become a deputy or return to a diplomatic career. He was puffing himself out, and Lucien vaguely recognized in the elderly fop the advantage which a man of the world enjoys in Parisian society; but above all he was ashamed to owe any enjoyment to him. Whereas the poet was anxious and ill at ease, the former Secretary to an Imperial Highness was altogether in his element. Just as old sea-dogs mock at greenhorn sailors who have not yet found their sea-legs, so du Châtelet smiled at his rival’s hesitancy, his wonderment, the questions he asked
and the little blunders he made through inexperience. But the pleasure which Lucien felt at his first visit to a theatre in Paris compensated for the annoyance which his blunders caused him. It was a memorable evening for him, thanks to his unvoiced repudiation of a great number of his ideas about life in the provinces. His little world was broadening out and society was assuming vaster proportions. The proximity of several beautiful Parisian women, so elegantly and so daintily attired, made him aware that Madame de Bargeton’s
toilette,
though passably ambitious, was behind the times: neither the material, nor the way it was cut, nor the colours were in fashion. The hair-style he had found so seductive at Angoulême struck him as being in deplorable taste compared with the delicate inventiveness which lent distinction to the other women present. ‘Will she remain like that?’ he wondered, not knowing that she had spent the day preparing a transformation. In the provinces no occasion arises for choice or comparison: one sees the same physiognomies day by day and confers a conventional beauty on them. Once she has moved to Paris a woman accepted as pretty in the provinces commands not the slightest attention, for she is beautiful only by virtue of the proverb: ‘In a community of the blind, one-eyed people reign supreme.’ Lucien was observing Madame de Bargeton and making the same comparison as she had made the previous evening between Châtelet and himself. Madame de Bargeton too was indulging in strange reflections about her admirer. The poor poet was singularly handsome, but he cut a sorry figure. His frock-coat, too short in the sleeves, his cheap provincial gloves and his skimpy waistcoat gave him a prodigiously ridiculous appearance in comparison with the young men in the dress-circle: Madame de Bargeton found him pitiable to look at. The elegant Châtelet, who was giving her his undisguised attention and watching over her with such care as betokened deep passion, was as much at ease as an actor on the stage of his favourite theatre; he had taken only two days to recover all the ground he had lost in six months. Although it is not commonly admitted that feelings are subject to sudden changes, it is
certain that two people in love often move apart more quickly than they have come together. In the case both of Madame de Bargeton and Lucien, mutual disenchantment was setting in, and Paris was the cause of it. The poet was seeing life on a larger scale and society was taking on a new aspect in Louise’s eyes. With both of them, only a chance event was needed to sever the bonds between them. The axe was soon to fall and deal Lucien a terrible blow.

Madame de Bargeton set the poet down at his hotel and returned home in du Châtelet’s company, which was horribly displeasing to the poor, susceptible young man. ‘What will they be saying about me?’ he wondered as he walked up to his dreary bedroom.

‘That poor lad is incredibly boring,’ said du Châtelet with a smile as he closed the carriage door.

‘It is so with all those whose heart and brain contain a whole world of ideas. Men who have so much to express in fine, long-premeditated works profess a certain contempt for conversation, a commerce in which intelligence is converted into small change and frittered away.’ So said the proud Nègrepelisse, still courageous enough to defend Lucien, though she did it less for Lucien’s sake than for her own.

‘I willingly grant you that,’ replied the Baron. ‘But we live with people and not with books. Listen, dear Naïs, I can see that as yet there is nothing between you and him, and I rejoice at this. If you intend to take up some interest in life which you have missed up to now, I entreat you, let it not be for this supposed genius. What if you were mistaken I What if, in a few days’ time, comparing him to men of real talent, to the genuinely remarkable men you are about to meet, you realized that, like a beautiful shining Nereid, you had borne through the waves and brought ashore, not a poet with his lyre, but a little plagiarist with no manners and little range, stupid and conceited: one who may pass for a man of wit in L’Houmeau but who, once in Paris, turns out to be a very ordinary individual! After all, volumes of verse are published here every week, and the least of them is still worth more than all Monsieur Chardon’s poetry. I beg you to wait and
compare. Tomorrow, Friday, there will be Opera’ – as he said this the carriage turned into the rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg – ‘Madame d’Espard has at her disposal the box belonging to the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, and will no doubt take you there. In order to see you in all your glory, I shall go to Madame de Sérizy’s box. They are performing
The Danaids?

She bade him good-night.

The next morning Madame de Bargeton did her best to assemble a morning outfit suitable for calling on her cousin, Madame d’Espard. The weather was rather cold, and all she could rummage out from her unfashionable Angoulême finery was an undistinguished green velvet dress with somewhat extravagant trimmings. As for Lucien, he felt he must retrieve his famous blue coat, for he now held his skimpy frock-coat in horror and wanted to be always smartly turned out, thinking that he might meet the Marquise d’Espard or pay her an impromptu visit. He took a cab so that he might bring his parcel straight back. In two hours he spent three or four francs, which gave him much subject for reflection on the cost of living in Paris. After dressing as elegantly as he could he went to the rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, and there he met Gentil, in company with a footman in magnificent plumes.

‘I was going to your hotel, Monsieur; Madame sent me this note to give you,’ said Gentil, who was ignorant of the respectful phraseology current in Paris, accustomed as he was to the free and easy direct speech of the provinces.

The footman took the poet for a domestic. Lucien opened the note and learned that Madame de Bargeton was spending the day with the Marquise and was going to the Opera that evening; but she told Lucien to be there, for her cousin was allowing her to offer the young poet a seat in her box. The Marquise was delighted to give him this pleasure.

‘Louise
does
love me then! My fears are absurd,’ thought Lucien. ‘She is introducing me to her cousin this very evening.’

He leapt for joy and decided to make the best of the time separating him from that happy evening. He dashed towards
the Tuileries Gardens, with the idea of walking about until it was time to go and dine at Véry’s restaurant. So then we see Lucien in high feather, with springy gait, treading on air, emerging on to the Terrasse des Feuillants, striding through it and studying the people walking along it: pretty women with their admirers, elegant couples arm in arm, greeting one another with a glance as they passed by. What a difference between this terrace and Beaulieu! How much finer than those of Angoulême were the birds on this magnificent perch! It was like the riot of colour blazing forth on ornithological species from India or America compared with the drab plumage of European birds. Lucien spent two hours of torment in the Tuileries: he angrily took stock of his own appearance and condemned it. In the first place, not one of these elegant young men was wearing a cut-away coat: if he saw one at all it was worn by some disreputable old man, or some poor down-at-heel, or a
rentier
from the Marais quarter, or a commissionaire. Having realized the difference between morning and evening wear, this highly sensitive and keen-sighted poet recognized the ugliness of his own apparel, which was fit only for the rag-bag, the out-of-date cut of his coat, its dubious blue, its outrageously ungainly collar and its tails nearly meeting in front through too long usage; the buttons were rusty and there were tell-tale white lines along the creases. Also his waistcoat was too short and so grotesquely provincial in style that he hastily buttoned up his coat in order to hide it. Lastly, only common people were wearing nankeen trousers. Fashionable people were wearing attractively patterned or immaculately white material! Moreover everyone wore gaitered trousers; the bottoms of his fell in ugly crinkles on the heels of his boots. He wore a white cravat with embroidered ends: his sister had seen Monsieur du Hautoy and Monsieur de Chandour wearing similar ones and had hastened to make some of the same kind for him. Only grave personages, a few aged financiers and austere public officials wore white cravats; worse still, the unhappy native of Angoulême saw a grocer’s errand-boy with a basket on his head passing along the other side of the railings on the pavement
of the rue de Rivoli, and he was wearing a cravat with its two ends embroidered by some adoring shop-girl. For Lucien this was like a blow in the chest, that ill-defined organ which is the seat of our emotions and to which, ever since man has had feeling, he lifts his hand in moments of great joy or great grief.

Lucien’s reaction should not be dismissed as a manifestation of puerility. Rich people who have never known suffering of this kind may certainly think it petty and incredible; but the anguish caused by poverty is no less worthy of attention than the crises which turn life upside-down for the mighty and privileged persons on this earth. For that matter, is not an equal amount of pain felt in both cases? Suffering magnifies everything: suppose it were a question, not of a more or less handsome costume, but of a medal, a distinction or a title. Have not such apparent trifles tormented men in brilliant walks of life? The question of costume, moreover, is one of enormous importance for those who wish to appear to have what they do not have, because that is often the best way of getting it later on. Lucien broke out in a cold sweat at the thought that, the same evening, he was to appear in these clothes before the Marquise d’Espard, a kinswoman of a First Gentleman of the Royal Bedchamber, a woman whose salon was frequented by all sorts of exceptionally illustrious people.

‘I look just like an apothecary’s son, a mere shop-assistant!’ he told himself, as he watched the passers-by, graceful, smart, elegant young men of the Faubourg Saint-Germain: all of them having a special
cachet
, all alike in their trimness of line, their dignity of bearing and their self-confident air; yet all different thanks to the setting each had chosen in order to show himself to advantage. The best points in all of them were brought out by a kind of
mise en scène
at which the young men of Paris are as skilful as the women. Lucien had inherited from his mother invaluable physical traits which, as he was fully aware, lent him some distinction, but this was only the ore from which the gold had to be extracted. His hair was badly cut. Instead of using flexible whalebone to keep his face well poised, he felt muffled up in his ugly shirt collar
and his cravat was too lax to give support to his drooping head. Would any woman have guessed what dainty feet were imprisoned in the ungainly boots he had brought from Angoulême? Would any young man have envied him his slender waist, concealed as it was by the blue sacking he had hitherto taken for a coat? He saw around him exquisite studs on gleaming white shirts: his were russet-brown! All these elegant gentlemen had beautifully cut gloves while his were fit only for a policeman! One of them toyed with a handsome bejewelled cane, another’s shirt had dainty gold cuff-links at the wrists. Another of them, as he chatted with a lady, twirled a charming riding-whip, and the ample folds of his slightly mud-spattered trousers, his clinking spurs and his small, tight-fitting riding-coat showed that he was about to mount one of the two horses held in check by a diminutive groom. And another was drawing from his waistcoat pocket a watch as flat as a five-franc piece and was keeping his eye on the time like a man who was too early or too late for a rendezvous. At the sight of these fascinating trifles which were something new to Lucien, he became aware of a world in which the superfluous is indispensable, and he shuddered at the thought that he needed enormous capital if he was to play his part as a smart bachelor! The more he admired these young people with their happy, care-free air, the more conscious he grew of his uncouth appearance, that of a man who has no idea where he is making for, wonders where the Palais-Royal is when he is standing in front of it and asks a passer-by the way to the Louvre only to be told: ‘You’re looking at it.’ Lucien saw that a great gulf separated him from such people and was wondering how to cross it, for he wanted to be like these slim young dilettantes of Paris. All these patricians were saluting divinely dressed and divinely beautiful women, women for whom, for the reward of a single kiss, he would have allowed himself to be hacked to pieces like the Countess of Königs-marck’s page. In the dark recesses of his memory Louise, compared with these sovereign creatures, had the lineaments of an old woman. He encountered many ladies who will have their place in nineteenth century history, whose wit, beauty
and love intrigues will be no less famed than those of by-gone queens. He saw pass by the ineffable Mademoiselle des Touches, so well known under her pseudonym of Camille Maupin, an eminent writer, as outstanding for her beauty as for her distinction of mind; her name was whispered round by men and women strolling along.