‘Are you mad, Maxime?’ she said. ‘On the contrary, don’t you think these little students make excellent lightning conductors? I’ll make sure that Restaud takes a sudden dislike to him.’
Maxime burst out laughing and left the room, followed by the comtesse, who stood at the window to watch him climb up into his carriage, flourishing his whip and making his horse paw the ground. She waited until the main gate had closed behind him before returning.
‘Just imagine, my dear,’ the comte exclaimed when she returned; ‘Monsieur’s family estate is near Verteuil, on the Charente. His great-uncle and my grandfather were acquainted.’
‘Delighted to be among familiar faces,’ said the comtesse distractedly.
‘More so than you think,’ said Eugène in a low voice.
‘Pardon?’ she replied sharply.
‘Why,’ continued the student, ‘I’ve just seen a man leaving your house who lodges next door to me, old man Goriot.’
On hearing this name spiced with ‘old man’, the comte, who was poking the fire, dropped the tongs as if they had burned his fingers and stood bolt upright.
‘Sir, you might have called him Monsieur Goriot!’ he exclaimed.
The comtesse turned white at first, seeing her husband’s irritation, then she flushed and was clearly embarrassed. Making an effort to sound natural, and assuming an air of studied indifference, she replied: ‘You couldn’t know anyone we love more …’ She broke off, looked at her piano as if overcome by a sudden urge and asked: ‘Do you care for music, Monsieur?’
‘Very much so,’ replied Eugène, red in the face and paralysed by the mortifying realization that he must have committed some terrible blunder.
‘Do you sing?’ she cried, going to the piano and rapidly running her fingers the length of the keyboard from bottom C to top F. Rrrrah!
‘No, Madame.’
The Comte de Restaud was pacing up and down.
‘Such a shame: a man who can sing is always sure to be in demand. Ca-a-ro, ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-a-ro, non dubitare,’85 sang the comtesse.
By mentioning old man Goriot, Eugène had once again waved a magic wand, but this time the effect was the exact opposite of that achieved by the words related to Madame de Beauséant. He found himself in the position of a man being shown around the house of a collector of curiosities, as a special favour, who, inadvertently colliding with a case full of sculptures, manages to knock off a couple of loose heads. He wished the earth would open and swallow him up. Madame de Restaud’s face was cold, aloof, her gaze now impassive, and she avoided all eye contact with the unfortunate student.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘you have matters to discuss with Monsieur de Restaud; please accept my humble respects and allow me to …’
‘Whenever you call,’ the comtesse said hastily, interrupting Eugène with a gesture, ‘you may be sure that both Monsieur de Restaud and myself will be delighted to see you.’
Eugène gave the couple a low bow and left, followed by Monsieur de Restaud, who, despite all his entreaties, accompanied him as far as the antechamber.
‘Whenever that gentleman calls,’ the comte said to Maurice, ‘neither myself nor Madame will be at home.’
As Eugène set foot on the flight of steps leading down from the front door, he realized it was raining. ‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘all I’ve achieved by coming here is to put my foot in it, without understanding why or what the consequences will be, and to top it all, I’m about to ruin my suit and hat. I ought to stay in my corner slaving away at the law and concentrate on becoming a lowly magistrate. How can I make my way in society, when, to move in the right circles, you need scores of cabriolets, polished boots, all kinds of essential equipment, gold chains, white suede gloves at six francs a pair for the morning and another pair of yellow gloves in the evening? Goriot be hanged! The old rascal.’
As he stood in the doorway leading to the street, the driver of a hired coach, who had clearly just set down some newly weds and was hoping to sneak in a few illicit fares unbeknown to his master, gestured to Eugène, seeing him with no umbrella, dressed in black, wearing a white waistcoat, yellow gloves and polished boots. Eugène was smouldering with that suppressed rage which drives a young man to plunge still deeper into the hole he has dug for himself, as if he hoped to find some way out at the bottom. He took up the coachman’s offer with a nod. With only twenty-two sous left in his pocket, he climbed up into the carriage, where a few strands of lametta and some orange blossom attested to its recent occupation by bride and groom.
‘Where to, Monsieur?’ asked the driver, who had already divested himself of his white gloves.
‘Damn it!’ Eugène said to himself; ‘seeing as this is already costing me a small fortune, I may as well put it to good use! Take me to the Hôtel de Beauséant,’ he added aloud.
‘Which one?’ asked the coachman.
Two sublime words which stumped Eugène. Our debutant dandy was unaware that there were two Hôtels de Beauséant, nor that he had so many relatives who were oblivious to his existence.
‘The Vicomte de Beauséant, Rue …’
‘… de Grenelle,’ said the driver, nodding his head and interrupting him. ‘You see, otherwise there’s the Comte and the Marquis de Beauséant, in the Rue Saint-Dominique,’ he added, drawing up the step.
‘I know,’ replied Eugène curtly.
‘The whole world is mocking me today!’ he said to himself, throwing his hat onto the cushions opposite. ‘Now here’s an escapade that’s going to cost me a king’s ransom. But at least I’ll be able to call on this cousin of mine in a suitably aristocratic manner. Old man Goriot has already cost me at least ten francs, the old rogue! Well, I’ll tell Madame de Beauséant about my adventure; perhaps it will make her laugh. She’ll know the mystery of the criminal connection between this beautiful woman and that old rat without a tail. Better that I should win favour with my cousin than be spurned by that Jezebel, who in any case seemed to have rather expensive tastes. If the beautiful vicomtesse has such power in name, how much more must she have in person? Go to the top. When you’ve set your sights on something in heaven, you need God on your side!’
These words briefly summarize the thousand and one thoughts that were rushing through his mind. As he watched the falling rain, he regained some of his composure and self-assurance. He told himself that if he was going to squander two of the precious hundred-sous coins he still had left, they would at least be well spent in protecting his coat, his boots and his hat. He felt a surge of elation when he heard his coachman shout: Gate please! A red and gold porter86 set the gate to the mansion groaning on its hinges and with sweet satisfaction Rastignac saw his carriage pass through the entrance, turn in the courtyard and come to a halt beneath the marquise roof over the front steps. The coachman, wearing a loose-fitting blue greatcoat with red trimmings, came and let down the step. As he stepped out of his carriage, Eugène heard stifled laughter coming from beneath the peristyle: a couple of valets had already made the vulgar wedding equipage the butt of their humour. The student soon understood why they were laughing, when he saw his carriage standing next to one of the most elegant coupés87 in Paris, drawn by a pair of spirited horses with roses at their ears, champing at their bits, kept tightly reined in by a powdered coachman in a smart cravat, as if they might take flight at any moment. At the Chaussée d’Antin, Madame de Restaud had had the exquisite cabriolet of a twenty-six-year-old dandy in her courtyard. At the Faubourg Saint-Germain, here, awaiting the pleasure of a high-ranking nobleman, was a carriage and pair that must have cost at least thirty thousand francs.
‘Who can that be?’ Eugène wondered, belatedly realizing that there couldn’t be many women in Paris who weren’t already otherwise engaged and that it would take more than breeding to conquer one of these queens. ‘Dammit! My cousin must also have a Maxime.’
He climbed the flight of steps leading to the front door with death in his heart. At his approach the glass door opened: he found
the valets as long-faced as donkeys taking a thrashing. The ball he had attended had been held in the formal reception rooms on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Beauséant. Not having had time to call on his cousin between receiving the invitation and going to the ball, he had not yet visited Madame de Beauséant’s private apartments. He was about to see, for the very first time, the wonders of that intimate elegance which reveals what a woman of distinction has in her soul and on her conscience. His curiosity was even keener now that he had a point of comparison in Madame de Restaud’s drawing room. At half past four, the vicomtesse was at home. Five minutes earlier, she would not have received her cousin. Eugène, still oblivious to the subtleties of Parisian etiquette, was led up a grand flower-filled staircase, white in hue, with a gold handrail and a red carpet, to Madame de Beauséant – without having heard her word-of-mouth biography, whose latest instalment was passed from ear to ear each night in the drawing rooms of Paris.
For three years, the vicomtesse had been connected with one of the most famous and wealthy Portuguese noblemen, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of those harmless liaisons which have so much appeal for the two individuals involved that they cannot abide the presence of third parties. Whether he liked it or not, the Vicomte de Beauséant himself had set the public an example by respecting this morganatic union. In the early days of the relationship, anyone who came to call on the vicomtesse at two would find the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto there. Madame de Beauséant, unable to close her door, as this would have been most improper, received her callers so coldly and contemplated her mouldings with such a studious air that they soon realized how inopportune their visit was. When it became known in Paris that you would incovenience Madame de Beauséant if you called between two and four, she was left in the most complete solitude. She went to the Bouffons or to the Opéra accompanied by both Monsieur de Beauséant and Monsieur d’Ajuda-Pinto; but once they were seated, Monsieur de Beauséant, as a true man of the world, always left his wife and the Portuguese nobleman on their own. Monsieur d’Ajuda was about to be married. He was to wed a young noblewoman, one of the de Rochefides. Everyone who was anyone knew about the wedding, except for one person, and that person was Madame de Beauséant. A few of her friends had made some vague mention of it to her; she had laughed it off, believing that they were jealous of her happiness and sought to cloud it. But the banns were about to be published. Although he had come to tell the vicomtesse about his marriage, the handsome Portuguese lord had not yet dared to breathe a word about it. Why? Nothing is harder than presenting a woman with an ultimatum of this kind. Some men are happier in the field facing a man who has the tip of his sword against their heart, than facing a woman who reels off elegies for a few hours then faints dead away, calling for her smelling salts. So, at that precise moment, Monsieur d’Ajuda-Pinto was in a tight spot and keen to take his leave, telling himself that Madame de Beauséant would hear the news anyway; he would write to her, it would be easier to pull off this amatory assassination by letter than in person. When the vicomtesse’s valet announced Monsieur Eugène de Rastignac, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto quivered with joy. Make no mistake, a woman in love is even more adept at putting her finger on some suspicious circumstance than she is at finding new sources of pleasure. When she’s about to be abandoned, she guesses the meaning of a gesture more swiftly than Virgil’s stallion detects the scent of equine love on the breeze.88 So you may count on the fact that Madame de Beauséant sensed his almost imperceptible, but utterly damning, involuntary quiver. Eugène was unaware that you should never call on anyone in Paris without having first asked a friend of the family to tell you the life-story of the husband, wife or children, to avoid committing the kind of blunder picturesquely referred to in Poland as Harnessing five oxen to your cart, no doubt because that’s what it takes to pull you out of the bog your wrong turning has led you into. If conversational mishaps such as these do not yet have a name in France, it must be because no one believes they really exist, due to the sheer amount of gossip doing the rounds. Having first stepped into the mire by calling on Madame de Restaud, who barely gave him time to harness all five oxen to his cart, only Eugène was capable of ploughing on regardless, by calling on Madame de Beauséant. However, although he had been a hindrance to Madame de Restaud and Monsieur de Trailles, he was a great help to Monsieur d’Ajuda.
‘Farewell,’ said the Portuguese nobleman, hurrying towards the door, just as Eugène entered a small, stylish, pink and grey drawing room, in which luxury and elegance were all of a piece.
‘But only until tonight,’ said Madame de Beauséant, turning her head to look at the marquis. ‘Aren’t we going to the Bouffons?’
‘I won’t be able to come,’ he said, taking hold of the door handle.
Madame de Beauséant stood up and summoned him back, without paying the slightest attention to Eugène, who, standing there, struck dumb by the dazzling splendour of such fabulous wealth, thought he must be in the Arabian Nights. He hardly knew where to put himself in the presence of this woman, who seemed not to have noticed him. The vicomtesse lifted the first finger of her right hand and, with a pretty flourish, pointed at the space in front of her. There was such a violent tyranny of passion in this gesture that the marquis let go of the door handle and went to her. Eugène watched him, not without envy.
‘That’s him,’ he said to himself, ‘the man with the coupé! But does that mean you need prancing horses, liveried coachmen and an endless supply of gold before a Parisian lady will look twice at you?’ The demon of luxury gripped his soul, the fever of greed consumed him, the thirst for gold parched his throat. He had a hundred and thirty francs to last the quarter. His father, his mother, his brothers, his sisters and his aunt spent no more than two hundred francs a month between them. This swift comparison between his current situation and his future goal left him feeling even more dazed.
‘Why’, said the vicomtesse, laughing, ‘won’t you be able to come to the Italiens?’
‘Business! I am dining with the English ambassador.’
‘Make your excuses.’
When a man deceives, he is inevitably forced to pile one lie on top of another. Monsieur d’Ajuda replied, laughing, ‘Is that an order?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘That’s just what I wanted to hear,’ he replied, with a meaningful look which would have reassured another woman. He kissed the vicomtesse’s hand and left.
Eugène ran his hands through his hair and turned awkwardly, as if to bow, thinking that Madame de Beauséant was about to direct her attention to him, when she suddenly rushed into the gallery, ran to the window and watched Monsieur d’Ajuda climb into his coupé; she listened for the order and heard the page repeat to the coachman: ‘To Monsieur de Rochefide’s.’ These words, and the way Ajuda hurled himself into his carriage, were as thunder and lightning to this woman, who turned back in the grip of mortal fear. The most terrible catastrophes may amount to no more than this in high society. The vicomtesse returned to her bedchamber, sat down at her desk and took a sheet of elegant notepaper. She wrote:
‘Since you are dining with the Rochefides, and not at the English embassy, you owe me an explanation. I am waiting.’
After straightening a few letters made crooked by the convulsive trembling of her hand, she wrote a C, for Claire de Bourgogne, and rang the bell.
‘Jacques,’ she said to her valet, who appeared immediately; ‘at half past seven you are to go to Monsieur de Rochefide’s house, where you will ask for the Marquis d’Ajuda. If the marquis is there, you will make sure this letter reaches him without waiting for a reply; if he’s not there, you will come back and return the letter to me.’
‘Madame la Vicomtesse has someone in her drawing room.’
‘Ah! yes, so I have,’ she said, closing the door.
Eugène began to feel extremely ill at ease. The vicomtesse eventually emerged and said, her voice so full of emotion it stirred the strings of his heart: ‘Forgive me, Monsieur,
I had to write a note; I am now entirely at your disposal.’ She barely knew what she was saying, because she was thinking: ‘So! He wants to marry Mademoiselle de Rochefide. But is he free to do so? This evening the marriage will be called off, or I … But it will no longer be an issue tomorrow.’
‘Cousin …’ replied Eugène.
‘What?’ said the vicomtesse, with such a haughty look the student’s blood ran cold.
Eugène understood her reaction. In the past three hours he’d learned so much that he was now more circumspect.
‘Madame,’ he corrected himself, flushing. He hesitated, then continued, saying, ‘Forgive me; I’m so much in need of protection, that the smallest scrap of kinship would be a blessing.’
Madame de Beauséant smiled, but sadly: she could already sense the first mutterings of tragedy in the air around her.
‘If you knew the state my family is in,’ he continued, ‘you might like to play the role of one of those fairy godmothers who delight in spiriting away the obstacles that stand in their godson’s way.’
‘So, cousin,’ she said, laughing, ‘how may I be of service to you?’
‘I hardly know. To be connected to you by an obscure family tie is already a great fortune. You’ve flustered me and I’ve forgotten what I came to say. You’re the only person I know in Paris. Oh! I wanted to ask you to guide me and accept me like a poor child who wants to cling to your skirts and who would die for you.’
‘Would you kill a man for me?’
‘I’d kill two,’ said Eugène.
‘Child! Yes, you are a child,’ she said, suppressing a few tears; ‘your love would be sincere!’
‘Oh!’ he said, nodding his head.
The student’s bold reply sharpened the vicomtesse’s interest in him. The Southerner had made his first calculated move. Between Madame de Restaud’s blue boudoir and Madame de Beauséant’s pink drawing room, he had studied three years of that unspoken Parisian law; a lofty social jurisprudence which, properly learned and practised, opens every door.