Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (76 page)

All this, my dear boy, shows how much we love our friends in misfortune. Florine, whom I’ve been feeble enough to forgive, asks you to send us a review of Nathan’s latest work.

Good-bye, my son. I can only pity you for having gone back to the chemist’s bottle you came out of before you made an old comrade of

Your Friend,

ETIENNE L.

‘Poor fellows! They even gambled for me!’ he said to himself, quite touched.

Sometimes, from insalubrious regions or those where one has suffered most, come wafts of air which seem to be laden with the perfumes of Eden. In a humdrum life the memory of sufferings brings an indescribable pleasure. Eve was stupefied when her brother came downstairs in his new clothes: he was scarcely recognizable.

‘I can now go for a walk in Beaulieu!’ he exclaimed. ‘They won’t say of me: “he came home in tatters!” Look, here’s a watch you can have. It really is mine. Besides, like me, it’s out of order.’

‘What a child you are!’ said Eve. ‘One can’t be cross with you for long.’

‘Do you think then, dear girl, that I asked for all that with the silly idea of cutting a figure in Angoulême? I don’t care a rap for all that!’ he said, thrashing the air with his cane, which had a pommel of chased gold. ‘I want to repair the harm I’ve done: that’s why I’m in battle array.’

Lucien’s success as a well-dressed man was the only real triumph he was to achieve, but it was a tremendous one. Envy loosens as many tongues as admiration freezes. Women raved about him, men talked scandal about him, and he might well
have exclaimed, like Sedaine in his song, ‘It’s all because of the clothes I’m wearing!’ He left two cards at the Prefecture and also paid a visit to Petit-Claud, but he happened to be out. The next day, the day of the banquet, all the Paris newspapers had the following lines in their news item from Angoulême:

ANGOULÊME. The return of the young poet whose beginnings were so brilliant, the author of The Archer of Charles the Ninth, which is the only historical novel in France not imitated from Sir Walter Scott, the preface to which is an event in literature, has been singled out for an ovation as flattering to the city as it is to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempré. Angoulême has lost no time in giving a patriotic banquet in his honour. The new Prefect, very recently installed, has associated himself with this public demonstration by acclaiming the author of the Marguerites, whose budding talent had been so warmly encouraged by Madame la Comtesse du Châtelet.

D
AVID
was in an impossible position: his wife absolutely forbade him either to receive Lucien or to let him know where he was hiding. Meanwhile Lucien was writing him affectionate letters telling him that in a few days’ time he would have atoned for his misdeeds. Now Mademoiselle Clerget had handed David the two following letters and explained to him the motive behind the celebrations of which the music had reached his ears.

Darling, just go on as if Lucien were not here. Don’t worry about anything, but get this idea firmly fixed in your dear head: our safety depends entirely on the impossibility of your enemies finding out where you are. I am in the unhappy position of having more confidence in Kolb, Marion and Basine than in my brother. Alas! My poor Lucien is no longer the ingenuous, tender-hearted poet we once knew. It’s precisely because he’s trying to meddle in your affairs and presuming to get our debts paid (out of pride, my dear David) that I fear him. He has had some fine clothes sent him from Paris and a hundred francs in gold – in a beautiful purse. He put them at my disposal and we are living on them. At last we have one enemy less: your father has left us. We owe his departure to Petit-Claud who got wise to Papa Séchard’s intentions and brought them to naught by telling him that henceforth you would do nothing without Petit-Claud’s advice, and that Petit-Claud himself would not let you cede any part of your invention without a preliminary indemnity of thirty thousand francs: fifteen thousand to begin with to clear off your debts, and fifteen thousand which you would get unconditionally whether you succeed or not. I can’t make out what Petit-Claud is after.

Love and kisses to you, those of a wife to her unhappy husband. Our tiny Lucien is well. It’s lovely to see this little flower coming into bloom in the midst of our domestic storms I Mother is praying hard as usual and would embrace you almost as tenderly as

Your own Eve.

As can be seen, Petit-Claud and the Cointets, alarmed by old Séchard’s peasant cunning, had got rid of him, the more
easily because his grape-harvest was calling him back to his Marsac vineyards. Lucien’s letter, enclosed in Eve’s, ran thus:

My dear David,

All goes well. I am armed
cap-à-pie.
I’m beginning my campaign today and in two days’ time I shall have covered some distance. With what pleasure I shall embrace you when you are free and clear of the debts I saddled you with! But I am hurt and saddened for life at the mistrust my sister and mother continue to show me. Don’t I already know you are hiding in Basine’s house? Every time she comes to our house she brings news of you and your answers to my letters. Anyway it’s obvious that Eve had only her laundry friend to rely on. I shall be very near you today and cruelly grieved not to have you with me at the banquet which is being given me. Local patriotism in Angoulême has earned me a small triumph. It will be forgotten in a few days, but the joy you felt would be the only sincere one. Anyhow, a few more days, and you will entirely forgive the man who values more than any mundane glory the privilege of being

Your brother,

LUCIEN
.

David’s heart was sharply torn between these two contending forces, unequal though they were, for he adored his wife, and his friendship for Lucien had diminished now that he felt less esteem for him. But solitude can effect great changes in strength of feeling. A man who is alone and a prey to preoccupations like those in which David was immersed gives in to thoughts which would have no purchase on him in the normal routine of life. Thus, as he read the letter Lucien had written amid the fanfares of his unexpected triumph, he was profoundly touched at the words of regret which he had hoped Lucien would express. Tender-hearted people are unable to resist such minor manifestations of sentiment, and think they mean as much to others as to themselves. They are like the last drop of water which overflows a brimming cup. And so, as midnight approached, no entreaties from Basine could prevent David from going to see Lucien.

‘No one,’ he told her, ‘is about at this time in the streets
of Angoulême. I shall not be seen and they can’t arrest me at night. Even if I did meet anyone, I could use the means devised by Kolb to get back to my hiding-place. And besides, it’s much too long since I kissed my wife and child.’ Basine yielded to these specious arguments and let him leave the house.

In consequence, just as Lucien and Petit-Claud were saying good-night to each other, David came up and cried: ‘Lucien!’ The two brothers fell into one another’s arms, weeping. The emotion which surged up in Lucien sprang from the kind of friendship which nothing can destroy, by which men always lay insufficient store, but which they blame themselves later for having betrayed. David was feeling the urge to forgive. This generous-hearted, noble-minded inventor desired above all to have things out with Lucien and dispel the clouds overcasting the affection between brother and sister. With such sentimental considerations in mind he had lost sight of the dangers arising from his financial situation.

Petit-Claud said to his client: ‘Go to your house, and at least make the most of your imprudence by embracing your wife and child! And mind no one sees you!’

‘What a pity!’ he exclaimed as he stood alone in the Place du Mûrier. ‘Oh! If only Cérizet were here!’

Just as the solicitor was making this aside while walking along the boarded enclosure built round the square in which, today, the Law-Courts proudly stand, he heard someone knocking on a board behind him, like the pounding of knuckles on a door. ‘I
am
here,’ said Cérizet, speaking through a chink between two badly-joined boards. ‘I saw David leaving L’Houmeau. I already had an idea where he was hiding. Now I’m sure, and I know where we can nab him. But if we’re to set a trap for him I must learn something about Lucien’s plans, and you’ve gone and sent them home. At any rate stay here on some pretext or other. When David and Lucien come out again, bring them near where I am. They’ll think they’re alone and I shall hear what they say when they part company.’

‘You’re a clever devil!’ Petit-Claud said in a low voice.

‘God help us!’ Cérizet retorted. ‘What wouldn’t a man do to get what you’ve promised me!’