A Harlot High and Low

by Honoré de Balzac

  Herrera, having made a great to-do about his departure for Spain, had gone as far as Tours. He had then sent his carriage on to Bordeaux, leaving in it a servant instructed to play the part of his master, who was to wait for him at a hotel in Bordeaux. Returning by diligence in the guise of a commercial traveller, he had secretly installed himself at Esther’s, from where, through Asia, Europe and Paccard, he carefully directed his machinations, keeping an eye on everything, especially Peyrade.

  About a fortnight before the day chosen for her reception, the day after the first Opera ball, the courtesan, whose witticisms had begun to make her formidable, was to be seen at the Italiens, at the back of the box which the baron, made to give her a box, had acquired at stage level, in order to conceal his mistress and not appear in public with her, a few yards away from Madame de Nucingen. Esther had picked her box so as to be able to look into that of Madame de Sérisy, in whose company Lucien was commonly to be observed. The poor harlot’s happiness now depended on seeing Lucien on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, sitting by Madame de Sérisy. That evening, at about half past nine, Esther saw Lucien enter the countess’s box careworn, pale and haggard. These signs of inward distress were apparent only to Esther. Knowledge of a man’s face is, with a woman who loves him, like that of the open sea to a sailor. ‘Heavens! what can be the matter with him?… what has happened! Could he be needing to talk to that dark angel, who is a guardian angel to him, and who lives concealed in an attic room between those of Europe and Asia?’ Preoccupied with such cruel thoughts, Esther barely heard the music. It will therefore be readily imagined that she didn’t listen at all to the baron, who held one of his engel’s hands between his own, talking to her in his Polish Jew’s dialect, whose singular inflexions must give no less trouble to those who read them than to those who hear.

  ‘Esder,’ said he letting go of her hand, and pushing it away with evident signs of bad temper, ‘you are not lizzening to mel’

  ‘Look, baron, you mispronounce love as you mispronounce French.’

  ‘ Gottverdommy! ’

  ‘I am not in my dressing-room here, I am at the Italiens. If you were not one of those strong-boxes manufactured by Huret or by Fichet, metamorphosed into a man by some feat of Nature, you wouldn’t make so much noise in the box of a woman who likes music. You’re quite right to say I’m not listening to you! There you are, fidgetting about in my frock like a cockchafer in a paper bag, and you make me laugh with pity. You keep on saying: “You are zo briddy, I vill like to ead you…” You old fathead! if I said to you: “You don’t annoy me as much this evening as you did yesterday, let’s go home.” Well, from the way I see you sighing (for if I don’t listen to you, I feel you), I can tell that you’ve dined too well, you’re digesting it all. Believe me (I cost you enough to give you a bit of advice now and then for your money!), believe me, my dear, when a man’s digestion is as difficult as yours, he can’t go on saying to his mistress, whenever it pleases him: “You are zo briddy…” An old soldier died of behaving like that in the arms of Religion, as Blondet put it… It is ten o’clock, you finished dinner at nine at du Tillet’s with a pigeon you mean to pluck, Count Bramburg, you have all that money and truffles to digest, try again at ten o’clock tomorrow.’

  ‘How you are gruel!…’ cried the baron who recognized the justice of this medical opinion.

  ‘Cruel?…’ said Esther with her eyes still on Lucien. ‘Didn’t you consult Bianchon, Desplein, old Haudry?… Since you glimpsed the first dawn of your happiness, do you know what you remind me of?…’

  ‘Off vot?’

  ‘Of a little old man wrapped up in flannel, who every now and then makes a journey from his armchair to the window to see if the thermometer is still at silkworms, the temperature his doctor ordered…’

  ‘Ach, how ongradevul you are!’ cried the baron in despair at hearing music of a kind which old men in love nevertheless do quite often hear at the Italiens.

  ‘Ungrateful! ’ said Esther. ‘And what have you given me so far?… a great deal of annoyance. Look, daddy! can I really be proud of you? You’re proud of me, I wear your braid and your livery very well. You’ve paid my debts!… all right. But you’ve snitched millions enough… (Ah, ah! don’t pout, you know what we agreed…) to think nothing of that. And that’s all you can boast of… Whore and thief, they go well together. You’ve constructed a splendid cage for a parrot that pleases you… Go and ask a macaw from Brazil if it feels grateful to the man who put it in a gilded cage… Don’t look at me like that, you old bonze… You show your red and white macaw to everybody in Paris. You say: “Is there anyone in Paris who owns a parrot like that?… and how it talks! how carefully it chooses its words…” Du Tillet enters, and it says to him: “Hello, you little rogue… ” But you’re as happy as a Dutchman with a tulip like nobody else’s, you’re like a retired nabob, pensioned in Asia by the British government, to whom a traveller has sold the first Swiss snuff-box to play three overtures. You want my heart! Well, now, look, I’m going to teach you how to win it.’

  ‘Dell me, dell me!… I vill do oil vor you… I like to hear you mek chokes at me!’

  ‘Be young, be handsome, be like Lucien de Rubempré, who is over there with your wife, and you shall have gratis what you will never be able to buy with all your millions!…’

  ‘I em leafing you, druly you are egsegraple zis efening!…’ said the Shark, whose face had dropped.

  ‘Good night, then!’ replied Esther. ‘Tell Georges to raise the head of your bed up, and keep your feet well down, you’ve got an apoplectic look this evening… Darling, don’t say I don’t take an interest in your health.’

  The baron stood up and took hold of the door-handle.

  ‘Here, Nucingen!…’ said Esther calling him back with a haughty gesture.

  The baron at once took up an attitude of doglike devotion.

  ‘Do you want me to be very nice to you and take you back home this evening and give you glasses of sweetened water and cosset you, you big brute?…’

  ‘You are pregging my hurt…’

  ‘Better than tanning your hide!…’ she rejoined. ‘Look now, fetch Lucien for me, so that I can invite him to our Belshazzar’s feast, and make sure he comes. If you make a success of this piece of business, I’ll tell you I love you so convincingly, my big Fred, that you’ll believe it…’

  ‘You are ein enjandress,’ said the baron kissing Esther’s glove. ‘I vod villinkly lizzen to inzults by ze hour, if only voss a gind vort at ze ent…’

  ‘Mind you, if you don’t do what I say, I…’ she said wagging her finger at the baron as one does at a child.

  The baron shook his head like a bird caught in a trap looking pathetically at the birdcatcher.

  ‘Heavens! what can be the matter with Lucien?’ said she to herself when she was alone, no longer restraining her tears, ‘he has never been so sad!’

  This is what had happened to Lucien that very evening.

  Trouble on a threshold

  A T nine o’clock, as usual, Lucien had set out in his brougham for the Grandlieu house. Keeping his gig and saddle horses for mornings, as most young men do, he’d hired a brougham for the winter evenings, and at the best coach-hirers he’d picked one of the finest, with splendid horses. Everything had gone well for him over the past month; the sale of his Omnibus interests at three hundred thousand francs had enabled him to pay off another third of the cost of his estate; Clotilde de Grandlieu, who dressed marvellously, had ten pots of make-up on her face when he entered the drawing-room, and openly avowed her passion for him. A number of highly placed persons spoke of the marriage between Lucien and Mademoiselle de Grandlieu as of something imminent. The Duc de Chaulieu, former ambassador in Spain and for a while Foreign Minister, had promised the Duchesse de Grandlieu to ask the King to grant Lucien a marquisate. After dining at Madame de Sérisy’s, Lucien had therefore gone, that evening, from the rue de la Chaussée d’Antin to the Faubourg Saint Germain to pay his
daily visit. He arrives, his coachman finds the entrance, it opens, he pulls up before the steps. Lucien, stepping down from his own, sees four other carriages in the courtyard. Perceiving Monsieur de Rubempré, one of the footmen, who was opening and closing the door to the pillared hallway, advances, plants himself at the top of the steps and stands before the door like a soldier returning to sentry-duty. ‘His Grace is not at home!’ said the man. ‘Madame la Duchesse can receive me,’ Lucien pointed out to the footman. ‘Madame la Duchesse is out,’ the man gravely replies. ‘Mademoiselle Clotilde…’ ‘I do not think Mademoiselle Clotilde could see Monsieur in the absence of Madame la Duchesse…’ ‘But there are people here,’ replied Lucien conscious of the blow. ‘I don’t know,’ says the footman trying at one and the same time to appear both stupid and respectful. Nothing is more dreadful than Etiquette for those who regard it as the rule of society. Lucien had not failed to divine the meaning of this painful scene, the duke and duchess didn’t mean to admit him; he felt the spinal fluid freeze in his vertebrae, and drops of cold sweat appeared on his forehead. This colloquy had taken place before his own personal manservant, whose hand was still on the carriage-door and who hesitated whether to shut it; Lucien signalled to him that he was about to leave; but, as he climbed in, he heard the sound of people descending a staircase, and the footman called out in succession: ‘Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu’s attendants!’ ‘Those with Madame la Vicomtesse de Grandlieu!’ All Lucien said to his man was: ‘Quickly, to the Italiens!…’ In spite of thus making all speed, the unfortunate dandy could not avoid the Duc de Chaulieu and his son the Duc de Rhétoré, with whom he was forced to exchange mere signs of greeting, for they did not speak a word to him. A great calamity at court, the fall of a powerful favourite, is often consummated on the threshold of some closet by the words of an usher with expressionless face. ‘How can I let my counsellor know at once of this disaster?’ said Lucien to himself on his way to the Italiens. ‘What is happening?…’ He was lost in conjecture. This is what had taken place. That very morning, at eleven o’clock, the Duc de Grandlieu, as he joined his family in the breakfast room, had said to Clotilde after kissing her: ‘My child, until further orders, give no more thought to the Rubempré gentleman.’ Then he had taken the duchess by the hand and led her to a window corner, to say something to her in a low voice which caused poor Clotilde to change colour. Mademoiselle de Grandlieu saw an expression of surprise appear on her mother’s face as she listened to the duke. Then, ‘John,’ the duke had said to one of the servants, ‘here, take this note to Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, ask him to give you yes or no for an answer… I’m asking him if he can dine with us today,’ he said to his wife. The family luncheon had been gloomy. The duchess seemed lost in thought, the duke appeared to be angry with himself, and it was difficult for Clotilde to keep back her tears. ‘My child, your father is right, do as he tells you,’ the mother had said in a voice of affection to her daughter. ‘I can’t, as he does, say: “Don’t think of Lucien!” No, I understand your grief.’ (Clotilde kissed her mother’s hand.) ‘What I will say, my angel, is: “Wait and don’t do anything whatever, suffer in silence, since you love him, and have confidence in your parents’ concern on your behalf!” Great ladies, my child, are great because they know how to do their duty on all occasions, and with nobility.’ ‘What is the matter?…’ Clotilde had asked pale as a lily. ‘Things too serious for us to speak of them to you, dear heart,’ the duchess had answered; ‘for if they are false, your thoughts would have been uselessly sullied by them; and if they are true, you must remain in ignorance of them.’

  At six o’clock, the Duc de Chaulieu had come to see the Duc de Grandlieu who was waiting for him in his study. ‘Tell me, Henri…’ (The two dukes always addressed each other by their Christian names in this way. It was one of their ways of indicating degrees of intimacy, keeping at bay that familiarity which was invading French life, humbling other people’s self-esteem.) ‘Tell me, Henri, I’m in such an awkward difficulty, that I can only ask for advice from an old friend who’s as broken in to the ways of the world as you are. My daughter Clotilde, as you know, is in love with this young Rubempré they’ve more or less made me promise to let her marry. I’ve always been against this marriage; but, in the end, Madame de Grandlieu found she couldn’t oppose Clotilde’s love. When the boy had bought his estate, when he’d three parts paid for it, I raised no further objection. Yesterday evening I received an anonymous letter (you know what weight one should attach to such things) in which it is stated that the boy’s fortune comes from a tainted source, and that he lied to us when he said his sister had provided the necessary funds. I am exhorted, in the name of my daughter’s happiness and the consideration due to my family, to seek information, the means of finding it being indicated. But there, to begin with, read it.’ ‘I share your opinion of anonymous letters, my dear Ferdinand,’ the Duc de Chaulieu had answered having read the letter; ‘but, while you may view them with contempt, you can sometimes find them useful. It is absolutely the same with letters of that kind, as it is with spies. Bar your door to this boy, and let’s see what we can find out… Look, I know just what to do. Your solicitor is Derville, a man in whom we all have every confidence; he knows the secrets of a great many families, and that may be one of them. He is an honest man, a man of weight, a man of honour; he is clever, he is not without guile; but it’s only monetary matters and such that he’s clever about, you must use him only to collect evidence you can really trust. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we have a man from the Royal Police, who is without equal at discovering State secrets, we often post him on missions. Inform Derville that, in this affair, there’ll be somebody under him. Our spy is a gentleman who will appear decorated with the Légion d’Honneur, he will look like a diplomatist. This rogue will be the huntsman, and Derville will simply look on at the hunt. Your solicitor will tell you whether the mountain gives birth to a mouse, or whether you must break with young Rubempré. Within a week, you’ll know what course to follow.’ ‘The fellow isn’t yet marquess enough to seek a formal explanation if he finds me not at home for a week,’ the Duc de Grandlieu had then said. ‘Especially if you’re giving him your daughter,’ the former minister had replied. ‘If that anonymous letter is right, it won’t matter! You can send Clotilde on her travels with my daughter-in-law Madeleine, who very much wants to go to Italy…’ ‘You take a load off my mind! and I don’t know how I shall be able to thank you…’ ‘Let’s see what the outcome is.’ ‘Ah! cried the Duc de Grandlieu, ‘what is this gentleman’s name? I must let Derville know… Send him along tomorrow, at four o’clock, I’ll have Derville here, I’ll bring them together myself.’ ‘The real name,’ said the former minister, ‘is, I believe, Corentin… (a name you won’t have heard), but this gentleman will come here under his ministerial colours. He calls himself Monsieur de Saint Something-or-Other… Oh, Saint Yves, Saint Valère, one or the other… You can trust him, Louis XVIII trusted him absolutely.’

  After this discussion, the steward received orders to bar the door to Monsieur de Rubempré, which had just been done.

  The scene is set in the boxes

  LUCIEN walked through the crush-room of the Italiens like a drunk man. He saw himself the talk of all Paris. In the Duc de Rhétoré he had one of those pitiless enemies at whom one must smile without hope of revenge, for their blows are inflicted in conformity with the rules of society. The Duc de Rhétoré knew what had passed on the steps of the Grandlieu house. Lucien felt a need to communicate the news of this sudden disaster to his personal and actual privy counsellor, and he feared to compromise himself by visiting Esther’s box, where there might be people who knew him. He even forgot Esther was there, so confused were his thoughts; and amidst his perplexities he found himself having to make conversation with Rastignac, who, knowing nothing of what had just happened, congratulated him on his coming marriage. At that moment, Nucingen bore down smiling on Lucien, and said to him: ‘Vill you gif me ze bleas
ure of goming do zee Madame de Champy who vishes to infite you herzelf do our houzevarmink…’