Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (52 page)

‘What a fatuous man!’ said Des Lupeaulx to the Marquise, when Lucien had taken his leave of her.

‘He’ll go rotten before he’s ripe,’ de Marsay said to the Marquise with a smile. ‘You must have hidden reasons for turning his head like this.’

A week later, Lucien called on Madame de Montcornet, and was once more thrown into a violent turmoil when he met again the woman he had so much loved and whom his pleasantries had cut to the quick. Louise also was transformed. She had become more what she would always have been if she had not lived in the provinces: a great lady. Her mourning apparel showed a grace and refinement which indicated a contented widownood. Lucien believed that her stylishness was partly aimed at him; nor was he mistaken in this; but having, like an ogre, tasted human flesh, he remained the whole evening undecided between the beautiful, loving and voluptuous Coralie and the dry, haughty and cruel Louise. He could not make up his mind to sacrifice the actress to the great lady. Madame de Bargeton, now feeling attracted once more to Lucien on finding him so witty and handsome, waited the whole evening for him to make this sacrifice. Her efforts, her subtle words and coquettish airs proved to be labour in vain, and when she left the salon she was to take with her an unappeasable desire for vengeance.

‘Well, dear Lucien,’ she said in a kind tone full of Parisian graciousness and magnanimity, ‘you were to be my pride, and you chose me for your first victim. I have forgiven you, my
child, at the thought that there were still signs of love in such vindictiveness.’

By this remark and the queenly air which went with it Madame de Bargeton was re-asserting her position. Lucien, who thought all the right to be on his side, felt that he was being put in the wrong. No question arose of the terrible farewell letter by which he had broken with her or of the motives for the rupture. Women in high society have a marvellous talent for attenuating the wrong they have done by making light of it. They can and do wipe it all out with a smile or a question affecting surprise. They remember nothing, explain everything, express astonishment, cross-examine, make commentaries, amplify, argue and end up by rubbing out the wrongs they have done as one rubs out a stain with a touch of soap: you knew that the stains were black, but suddenly you see that everything was immaculately white. You yourself are exceedingly lucky not to find yourself guilty of some unforgivable crime. In a single moment, Lucien and Louise had recovered their illusions about each other and were talking in friendly language; but Lucien, intoxicated with vanity, intoxicated with Coralie who, let us admit, was making life easy for him, was unable to give a straight answer to the question which Louise put to him with a hesitant sigh: ‘Are you happy?’ A melancholy ‘No’ would have settled his future. He explained his position with regard to Coralie – intelligently as he thought. He said he was loved for himself, in short he uttered all the idiocies of a man in love. Madame de Bargeton bit her lips. All was over.

Madame d’Espard came to her cousin with Madame de Montcornet. Lucien saw himself so to speak as the hero of the evening; he was flattered, cajoled, fêted by these three women who spun their web round him with infinite art. And so, he thought, his success in this fine and fashionable world was no less great than in the world of journalism. The beautiful Mademoiselle des Touches, so famous under her pen-name of Camille Maupin, to whom Madame d’Espard and Madame de Bargeton introduced Lucien, invited him to one of her Wednesday dinners, and seemed to be impressed by his so
justly vaunted good looks. Lucien tried to prove that he had even more wit than good looks. Mademoiselle des Touches gave expression to her admiration with the naïve playfulness and the winning impetuosity of superficial friendliness which deludes all those who are not familiar with life in Paris, where mere habit and continuity in social enjoyment make people avid for novelty.

‘If she found me as attractive as I find her,’ said Lucien to Rastignac and de Marsay, ‘we could make a quick romance of it…’

‘You are both of you too clever at writing romances to be inclined to live one,’ Rastignac replied. ‘Can authors ever love each other? There always comes a moment when they make cutting little remarks to each other.’

‘It would not be a nightmare for you,’ said de Marsay, laughing. ‘This charming lady is thirty, it’s true, but she has an income of almost eighty thousand francs a year. She’s adorably whimsical, and her beauty is of the long-lasting type. Coralie, my dear, is a little idiot: good enough for a start, since a handsome young man shouldn’t be without a mistress. But in the long run, if you don’t make some fine conquest in society, this actress will spoil your chances. Come, dear fellow, cut out Conti, who’s about to sing with Camille Maupin. In every age poetry has had precedence over music.’

While Lucien listened to Mademoiselle des Touches and Conti, his hopes flitted away.

‘Conti is a fine singer,’ he said to Des Lupeaulx.

He went back to Madame de Bargeton, who took him into the salon in which the Marquise d’Espard was sitting.

‘Well,’ Madame de Bargeton asked her cousin, ‘are you willing to take an interest in him?’

‘That’s all very well,’ said the Marquise with a mixture of arrogance and mildness, ‘let Monsieur Chardon put himself into a position to be protected without embarrassing those who protect him. If he wishes to obtain the ordinance which will enable him to exchange his father’s insignificant name for that of his mother, must he not at least be one of us?’

‘In two months I shall have arranged all that,’ said Lucien.

‘Very well,’ said the Marquise. ‘I will see my father and my uncle who are in service with the King: they will talk to the Chancellor about you.’

The diplomat and the two women had easily touched on Lucien’s sensitive spot. Thrilled by the glamour of aristocracy, the poet felt unspeakable mortification at hearing himself called Chardon when he saw that the salons only admitted men who bore high-sounding names with titles to set them off. On various occasions, wherever he presented himself, he experienced the same distress. No less disagreeable was the sensation he felt when he stooped once more to his menial occupations after having spent the previous evening in high society, with Coralie’s carriage and footmen to enable him to make a presentable appearance. He took lessons in riding so that he could gallop up to the carriage windows of Madame d’Espard, Mademoiselle des Touches and the Comtesse de Montcornet, a privilege he had so much envied on his arrival in Paris.

Finot was delighted to procure for his most important contributor free entry into the Opera, and there Lucien wasted many evenings; but henceforth he belonged to a special world, that of the elegant young men of the period. Our poet returned a splendid lunch to Rastignac and his fashionable friends, but committed the error of giving it in Coralie’s apartments. He was too young, too much of a poet and too self-confident to appreciate certain niceties of decorum. How could an actress, an excellent creature no doubt, but devoid of education, teach him the ways of the world? The immigrant from the provinces gave ample evidence to these young men, who were very ill-disposed towards him, of the fusion of interests between the actress and himself: a thing which all young people secretly envy but none the less stigmatize. The person who that very evening made the cruellest jests about him was Rastignac, although he maintained himself in society by similar means; but he kept up appearances so well that he was able to dismiss back-biting as slander.

Lucien had been quick to learn whist. Card-playing became a passion with him.

There flourished at this period a society of young people, rich or poor, all of them idle, known as
viveurs:
they did in face
live
with incredible recklessness, were doughty trenchermen and even doughtier drinkers. Spendthrifts to a man, they led not merely a wild but a frenzied existence in which the most uncouth buffoonery played a part. They shrank from no extravagance of conduct and gloried in their misdeeds which nevertheless they kept within certain bounds: their escapades were seasoned with such originality of wit that it was impossible not to condone them.

No other fact brings out so patently the helotism to which the Restoration had condemned young people. So full of sap and vital exuberance were the men of the young generation that, having no outlet for their energy, they not only flung it into journalism, conspiracies, literature and art, but frittered it away in the strangest excesses. When it was industrious, this fine youth of France wanted power and pleasure; when artistic, it aimed at masterpieces; when unoccupied, it craved for the excitement of passion; in any case it wanted a part to play, and it was allowed none at all in politics. The
viveurs
were almost all people endowed with outstanding faculties which some of them wasted by leading this enervating life, while others were proof against it. The most celebrated and keen-witted of these
viveurs,
Rastignac, under the guidance of De Marsay, embarked in the end on a serious career and distinguished himself in it. The fooleries in which these young
folk indulged made such a stir that they provided the matter for several light comedies.

Launched by Blondet into this dissipated company, Lucien became one of its shining lights, together with Bixiou, one of the most malicious wits of his time and the most indefatigable of practical jokers. Lucien’s life was one long bout of intemperance punctuated with the facile labours of journalism; he continued his series of short articles and made prodigious efforts from time to time to produce a few fine pages of carefully thought-out criticism. But study became exceptional with the poet and he only gave himself to it under the spur of necessity. Lunches, dinners, carousals, social evenings and gambling took up most of his time, and Coralie devoured the rest. Lucien would not allow himself to think of the future. Moreover he saw his so-called friends all behaving as he did, paying their way with well-remunerated publishers’ prospectuses and bonuses given for certain articles needed for advertizing hazardous speculations, living from hand to mouth and careless of what was to come. Once admitted on a footing of equality into the set of journalists and writers, Lucien took note of the tremendous obstacles to be overcome in the case of his trying to rise higher: everyone consented to have him as an equal, but no one wanted him as a superior. By slow degrees then he gave up hope of literary fame, believing it easier to come by success in politics.

‘Intrigue arouses less hostile passions than talent, its underground manœuvres attract no one’s attention.’ So Châtelet, with whom Lucien had become reconciled, said to him one day. ‘Besides, intrigue is superior to talent: it makes something of nothing, whereas most of the time the immense resources of talent only serve to make a man unhappy.’

And so, while living a life in which Tomorrow always trod close on the heels of a Yesterday ending in revelry and never carried out its promised tasks, Lucien proceeded with his main idea: he regularly frequented society, paid court to Madame de Bargeton, the Marquise d’Espard, the Comtesse de Montcornet, and did not miss a single one of Mademoiselle des Touche’s soirées. He came to these gatherings on the way to
a party, after a dinner given by authors or publishers; he left the salons to go to a supper which he had won by some bet. The strain of Parisian conversation and gambling absorbed the few ideas, the little strength which his excesses left him. Henceforth the poet no longer possessed the lucidity of mind and cool-headedness needed for looking about him and displaying the consummate tact which upstarts must employ at every instant; it was impossible for him to detect at what moments Madame de Bargeton was moving towards him again, recoiling with wounded feelings or condemning him anew. Châtelet computed the chances his rival still had and became Lucien’s friend in order to encourage him in the dissipation which sapped his energy. Rastignac, jealous of his fellow-countryman and moreover finding a more useful and reliable ally in the baron, espoused Châtelet’s cause. It was for that reason that Rastignac, a few days after the interview between the Petrarch and Laura of Angoulême, had reconciled the poet with the old Empire fop in the course of a magnificent supper at the Rocher de Cancale.

Lucien, who never came home until morning and got up at mid-day, could not resist the love which was ready to hand and always available. Thus the mainspring of will-power in him, constantly weakened by the sloth which made him indifferent to the fine resolutions taken at moments when he had an inkling of his real situation, lost all resilience and soon responded no longer even to the strongest pressure of poverty. The kind and tender Coralie, having at first been very happy to see Lucien amusing himself, having indeed encouraged him in dissipation because it seemed a sure guarantee that his attachment and the bonds of dependence she wound around him would be of lasting quality, had courage enough to urge her lover not to forget his work; several times she was obliged to tell him he had earned little money during the month. Lover and mistress piled up debts with alarming rapidity. The fifteen hundred francs remaining from the price of the
Marguerites,
together with the first five hundred francs Lucien had earned, had promptly been swallowed up. In three months the poet’s articles did not earn him more than a thousand
francs, and yet he thought he had done an enormous amount of work. But he had already adopted the ridiculous sophistry of rakes in the matter of debts. The debts of young people of twenty-five have their attractive side: later on no one condones them. It is to be noticed that some souls with real poetry in them, but whose will-power is dwindling, who give themselves over to sensation so as to translate it into images, are essentially lacking in the moral sense which should accompany all observation. Poets prefer to be at the receiving end of impressions rather than to get into other people’s skins and study the mechanism of feeling. So Lucien made no enquiry of the
viveurs
about those among them who faded out; he did not foresee that a future awaited these alleged friends, some of whom had inheritances, others definite expectations, others acknowledged talent, others the most intrepid faith in their destiny and a set purpose of getting round the law. Lucien believed in his own future and trusted in the profundity of Blondet’s axioms, as for instance that ‘Everything works out in the long run – Nothing goes wrong with penniless people – The only fortune we can lose is the one we haven’t yet made – Drift with the current and you’ll get somewhere in the end – A man of wit with a foothold in society makes his fortune when he wants to!’

The winter which brought him so many pleasures was needed by Théodore Gaillard and Hector Merlin for finding the capital required for the foundation of
Le Réveil,
the first number of which did not appear until March 1822. The affair was negotiated in Madame du Val-Noble’s rooms. This elegant and witty courtesan, who used to say, as she displayed her sumptuous apartments, ‘This is the balance account of the
Thousand and One Nights,’
exerted a certain influence on the bankers, prominent noblemen and writers of the royalist party, all of whom were accustomed to meeting in the salons in order to negotiate certain affairs which could not be dealt with anywhere else. Hector Merlin, to whom the editorship of
Le Réveil
was promised, was to have Lucien, now his close friend, as his right-hand man; the
feuilleton
of one of the Government newspapers was also promised him. Lucien’s
change of front was being secretly prepared under cover of a life of pleasure. He was sufficiently immature to credit himself with great statesmanship in concealing this dramatic stroke, and laid great hopes on ministerial largesse to put his accounts in order and dispel Coralie’s secret worries. The actress kept on smiling and covered up her distress; Bérénice was bolder and told Lucien how things stood. Like all poets, the great man in embryo showed a momentary concern for their disastrous situation, promised to work, forgot his promise and drowned his passing cares in debauchery. One day when Coralie noticed that her lover’s brow was clouded, she scolded Bérénice and told her poet that all was going well. Madame d’Espard and Madame de Bargeton professed that they were awaiting Lucien’s conversion before they persuaded Châtelet to ask for the much-desired ordinance legalising his change of name. Lucien had promised to dedicate his
Marguerites
to the Marquise, who appeared to be very flattered by a distinction which authors have rarely conferred since they became a power in the land.

When Lucien went one evening to ask Dauriat how the book was getting on, the publisher brought forth excellent reasons for postponing the printing of it. He had such and such a transaction on his hands which was taking up all his time; a new volume of Canalis was about to be published and the two ought not to clash; Monsieur de Lamartine’s
Nouvelles Méditations
were in the press and two important collections of poems ought not to coincide; moreover the author ought to trust in his publisher’s flair. Meanwhile Lucien’s needs became so pressing that he had recourse to Finot who paid him advances on his articles. When one evening at supper the journalist-poet explained his situation to his fast-living friends they drowned his misgivings in buckets of champagne iced with pleasantries. Debts? Why, every man of character has his debts! Debts betoken satisfied needs and demanding vices. A man only succeeds when squeezed in the iron grip of necessity.

‘Grateful pawnbrokers should drink a toast to great men!’ cried Blondet.

‘To want all is to owe all!’ said Bixiou.

‘No. To owe all is to have had all!’ retorted Des Lupeaulx.

These
viveurs
succeeded in persuading the young man that his debts would be the magic spur with which he would prick on the steeds harnessed to the chariot of his fortune. Then Julius Caesar always came up with his forty millions of debt, Frederick the Great with the one ducat a month his father allowed him, and always the famous, demoralizing examples of great men extolled for their vices and not for the omnipotence of their courage and conceptions.

Finally Coralie’s carriage, horses and furniture were distrained by various creditors for sums amounting to four thousand francs. When Lucien applied to Lousteau for the return of the thousand francs he had lent him, Lousteau showed him writs of distraint establishing in Florine’s flat a situation analogous to the one in Coralie’s; but Lousteau was grateful enough to propose taking the necessary steps for getting
The Archer of Charles the Ninth
accepted for publication.

‘But how has Florine got into such a situation?’ asked Lucien.

‘Friend Matifat got cold feet,’ Lousteau replied. ‘We’ve lost him. But if Florine feels like it we can make him pay dear for letting us down! I’ll tell you all about it.’