Madame d’Espard assumed a noticeably supercilious air without Lucien being able to guess what he had done to cause this change of countenance. He told himself that his waistcoat was in bad taste, and that was true; that the cut of his coat was of an exaggerated style: that also was true. With bitterness in his heart he realized that he would have to visit a first-class tailor, and he firmly resolved to go the next day to the most fashionable one, so that, the following Monday, he could be on equal terms with the Marquise’s other guests. Though he was lost in thought, he paid attention to the third act and kept his eyes fixed on the stage. But while he watched the splendour of this exceptional production, he continued to muse about Madame d’Espard. He was in despair over her sudden coldness, so strangely frustrating to the intellectual fervour with which he was embarking on this new love affair, unperturbed though he was about the tremendous difficulties he foresaw but which he was confident of overcoming. He emerged from his deep day-dream to look once more at his new idol; but as he turned his head he saw that he was alone. He had heard a slight stir, the door was closing and Madame d’Espard was slipping away with her cousin. Lucien was extremely surprised at this abrupt desertion, but he gave no prolonged thought to it, precisely because he found it inexplicable.
As the two women rolled along in their carriage through the rue de Richelieu towards the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the Marquise said, in a tone of ill-concealed anger: ‘My dear child, what are you thinking of? At any rate wait until the apothecary’s son is really famous before you get interested in him. Even now the Duchesse de Chaulieu does not acknowledge her liaison with Canalis, and he is famous, and a gentleman as well. This young person is neither a son nor a lover to you, is he?’ – as she asked this question the imperious woman cast a sharp and inquisitorial glance at her cousin.
‘How lucky for me that I kept that little cad at arm’s length and allowed him no liberties!’ thought Madame de Bargeton.
‘Very well,’ continued the Marquise, taking the look in her cousin’s eye for an answer. ‘I strongly urge you to drop him. Why! to usurp an illustrious name is an audacity which society punishes. Admittedly it is his mother’s name; but just think, my dear: the King alone has the right to confer by ordinance the name of Rubempré on the offspring of a daughter of that house; if she has married beneath her, the favour would be a tremendous one, and in order to obtain it one needs an immense fortune, also to have rendered services and to have influential protectors. The fact of his being dressed like a shopkeeper in his Sunday best proves that this young fellow is neither well-off nor a gentleman: he’s good-looking, but to me he seems very stupid. He neither knows how to behave nor how to talk; in short he has no breeding. How comes it that you are taking him under your wing?’
Madame de Bargeton, now denying Lucien just as Lucien had inwardly denied her, felt terribly afraid that her cousin might learn the truth about her journey to Paris.
‘My dear cousin, I am desperately sorry to have compromised you.’
‘No one compromises me,’ said Madame d’Espard with a smile. ‘I am only thinking of you,’
‘But you have invited him to dinner for Monday.’
‘I shall be ill,’ the Marquise quickly retorted. ‘You will let him know, and I shall close my doors to him either as Rubempré or Chardon.’
During the interval, Lucien thought he might take a stroll in the foyer since everyone was flocking there. To begin with, not one of the men who had visited Madame d’Espard’s box saluted him or seemed aware of his presence. Secondly, du Châtelet, whom he tried to buttonhole, kept a wary eye on him and took care to avoid him. Having become convinced, at the sight of the men who were wandering about the foyer, that he was more or less ludicrously dressed, Lucien reinstalled himself in a corner of his box and for the rest of the performance remained absorbed in watching the stately ballet of the fifth act with its celebrated Inferno, or scanning the audience from box to box and indulging in the profound reflections which the presence of Parisian society aroused in him.
‘So that is my kingdom!’ he said to himself. ‘That is the society I have to tame.’
He returned to his hotel on foot, thinking of everything that had been said by the personages who had come to pay their respects to Madame d’Espard: their manners, gestures, the way they made their entry and took their leave, everything came back to his memory with astonishing accuracy. The next day, about noon, his first occupation was to visit Staub, the most celebrated tailor of that period. By dint of entreaties and cash payment, he persuaded Staub to get his clothes made in time for next Monday’s dinner. Staub went so far as to promise him a delightful frock-coat, waistcoat and pair of trousers for that important occasion. Lucien ordered shirts, handkerchiefs, in fact quite a small trousseau, from a linen-draper, and was measured for shoes and boots by a well-known shoemaker. He bought a smart cane from Verdier, gloves and shirt studs from Madame Irlande; in short he tried to achieve the standards of the dandies. When he had satisfied every whim, he went to the rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, only to find that Louise was out.
‘She’s dining with Madame la Marquise d’Espard, and won’t be home till late,’ said Albertine.
Lucien went and dined for two francs in a restaurant in the Palais-Royal and retired to bed early. The next day, which was Sunday, he was at Louise’s rooms by eleven o’clock; she was not up. He returned at two.
‘Madame is not seeing anyone yet,’ said Albertine, ‘but she has given me a note for you.’
‘Not seeing anyone yet,’ Lucien replied. ‘But I am not anyone!…’
‘What do I know about that?’ Albertine asked with a very impudent air.
Lucien, less surprised at Albertine’s reply than at receiving a letter from Madame de Bargeton, took the note, and when he was back in the street he read the following heart-breaking lines:
‘Madame d’Espard is not well and cannot receive you tomorrow. I am not well either, but I am getting dressed in order to go and keep her company. I am desperately sorry about this little setback. But I trust in your talent. You will make your way without charlatanism.’
‘And no signature!’ said Lucien to himself. He was by now in the Tuileries, not realizing how far he had walked. The gift of second sight that talented people possess made him suspect the catastrophe which this cold missive announced. Lost in thought, he walked straight forward, gazing at the monuments in the Place Louis XV. It was a fine day. Fine carriages were constantly passing to and fro before his eyes as he made for the Grand Avenue of the Champs-Elysées. He followed the crowd of strollers and thus he saw the three or four thousand carriages which, on any fine Sunday, flow along this avenue and constitute a sort of impromptu Longchamp procession. Dazzled by the splendour of the horses, clothes and liveries, he went on and on until he arrived in front of the unfinished Arc-de-Triomphe. What were his thoughts when, on the way back, he saw Madame d’Espard and Madame de Bargeton in an admirable four-wheeled turn-out, behind which waved the plumes of the footman whose gold-embroidered green coat enabled Lucien to recognize the two ladies. The line of vehicles was held up by traffic congestion, and Lucien was able to take in Louise’s transformation. She was unrecognizable: the colour-scheme of her clothes had been chosen to match her complexion; she was wearing a most attractive dress; the graceful arrangement of her hair became her well, and her hat, in exquisite taste, was conspicuous even beside that of Madame d’Espard, the leader of fashion. There is an indefinable way of wearing a hat: set it a little too far back and it looks too raffish; set it too far forward and it gives you a crafty appearance; set it to one side and you look too free and easy. Fashion-conscious women wear their hats at the angle that suits them and they always look just right. Madame de Bargeton had solved this interesting problem straight away. Her slender waist was girded with a pretty sash. She had adopted her cousin’s gestures and deportment; sitting in the same posture as the latter, she was toying with an elegant perfume-box attached by a tiny chain to a finger of her right
hand, which enabled her to display her shapely and daintily-gloved hand without seeming to do so deliberately. In short, she had modelled herself on Madame d’Espard without aping her; she was a worthy cousin of the Marquise, who seemed quite proud of her pupil. Women and men walking along the avenue gazed at the splendid carriage bearing the coat-of-arms of the d’Espard and the Blamont-Chauvry families with the two scutcheons addorsed. The large number of persons who saluted the two cousins astonished Lucien; he did not know that all the élite of Paris, comprising twenty salons, were already aware that Madame de Bargeton and Madame d’Espard were related. Young men on horseback, among whom Lucien could distinguish de Marsay and Rastignac, joined the barouche to escort the two cousins to the Bois de Boulogne. The gestures of the two dandies made it plain to Lucien that they were complimenting Madame de Bargeton on her metamorphosis. Madame d’Espard was sparkling with grace and health: evidently her indisposition had been a pretext for not receiving Lucien, since she was not postponing her dinner to another day. The poet, in a fury, approached the barouche, walking forward slowly, and as soon as he was visible to the two women, bowed to them. Madame de Bargeton pretended not to see him and the Marquise eyed him through her lorgnette, ignoring his salute. Disapproval meted out by the aristocracy of Paris was unlike that of the upper set in Angoulême: while doing their best to hurt Lucien’s feelings, the gentry there acknowledged his prestige and took him for a human being, whereas he did not even exist for Madame d’Espard. She was not pronouncing a verdict but simply refusing him trial. The unhappy poet was seized with a mortal chill when he saw de Marsay staring at him through his monocle: the Parisian lion then let it fall in so singular a fashion that it seemed like the drop of the guillotine blade to Lucien. The barouche passed on. Rage and the lust for vengeance took hold of the man thus disdained: if he had had Madame de Bargeton in his grip he would have strangled her; he identified himself with Fouquier-Tinville in order to relish the enjoyment of sending Madame d’Espard to the scaffold; he would have liked to subject de Marsay to the kind of refined torture which savages have invented.
He saw Canalis pass by on horseback, as elegant as this most ingratiating of poets had to be, making his salaams to all the prettiest women.
‘Great God! Gold at all cost!’ Lucien was saying to himself. ‘Gold is the only power which this society worships on bended knees.’ But his conscience cried out: ‘No! Not gold, but glory. And glory means hard work! Hard work! That’s what David said. My God, why am I here? But I will win through! I will drive along this avenue in a barouche with a flunkey behind me! As for the Marquise d’Espard, I’ll have plenty of her sort!’
While thus giving vent to his spite he was dining at Hurbain’s restaurant for two francs. The next day he called on Louise at nine with the intention of reproaching her for her barbarous treatment of him. Not only was Madame de Bargeton not at home to him, but the concierge would not even let him go upstairs. He waited in the street, keeping watch, until noon. At noon du Châtelet emerged from Madame de Bargeton’s flat, caught a glimpse of the poet and tried to escape. Greatly nettled, Lucien went after his rival. Du Châtelet, realizing that Lucien was close upon him, turned round and saluted him with the obvious intention of making off after this act of politeness.
‘Of your kindness, Monsieur,’ said Lucien. ‘Grant me a second, I have something to say to you. You did show me some friendliness, and I invoke it in order to ask you to do me a very slight service. You have just left Madame de Bargeton. Explain to me why I am in disgrace with her and Madame d’Espard.’
‘Monsieur Chardon,’ du Châtelet replied with feigned benevolence. ‘Do you know why these ladies left you behind at the Opera House?’
‘No,’ said the wretched poet.
‘Well, Monsieur de Rastignac did you a disservice at your first appearance. That young dandy, when questioned about you, said plainly and simply that your name was Monsieur Chardon and not Monsieur de Rubempré; that your mother was a midwife; that your father, when alive, was an apothecary in L’Houmeau; that your sister was a charming girl who was admirable at ironing shirts and that she was about to marry an Angoulême printer named Séchard. That’s society all over. Put yourself on view and it discusses your case. Monsieur de Marsay came to Madame d’Espard to make fun of you, and the two ladies immediately took flight, believing they had compromised their reputation in entertaining you. Don’t try to call on either of them. Madame de Bargeton would not be received by her cousin if she continued to see you. You are a man of genius: see if you can’t avenge yourself. Society disdains you: disdain society. Take refuge in a garret, write masterpieces, acquire some sort of prestige and you will have society at your feet. Then you will pay it back for the wounds it inflicted on you here in Paris, the very place where they were inflicted. The more friendship Madame de Bargeton has shown you, the more she will hold aloof from you. That’s how feminine feelings go. Anyway, at present there’s no question of recovering Anaïs’s friendship; all you have to do is to avoid having her as an enemy, and I will tell you how to do this. She has written letters to you: send them all back – she will appreciate such gentlemanly behaviour. Later on, if you need her, she will not be hostile. As for myself, I have so high an opinion of your prospects that I have defended you everywhere; and if I can do anything for you here in Paris, you will always find me ready to do you service.’
Lucien was so dejected, so pale, so undone, that he did not return the perfunctory salute which this elderly beau, rejuvenated in the atmosphere of Paris, gave him. He returned to his hotel, and there he found Staub in person, not so much in order to give him a fitting – which he did – as to learn from the hotel manageress something about the financial position of his unknown customer. Lucien had travelled post in his journey to Paris, and Madame de Bargeton had conveyed him back from the Vaudeville Theatre on Thursday last. This information was satisfactory. Staub called Lucien ‘Monsieur le Comte’ and showed him with what skill he had set off his fine figure.
‘A young man in such clothes,’ he said, ‘has only to take a walk in the Tuileries and he’ll marry a rich Englishwoman within a fortnight.’
The German tailor’s pleasantry, the perfect cut of the clothes, the fine texture of the cloth, the elegance Lucien discerned in himself as he looked in the mirror, all these little things made him less sad. He played vaguely with the idea that Paris was the capital in which luck was everything, and for the moment he believed in luck. Had he not a volume of poems and a magnificent novel, The Archer of Charles the Ninth, in manuscript? He put his faith in destiny. Staub promised him the frock-coat and the rest of his outfit for the following day.
The next day the shoemaker, the linen-draper and the tailor returned, each of them armed with his bill. Having no idea how to get rid of them and being still conditioned by provincial customs, Lucien settled with them; but after paying them he had no more than three hundred and sixty francs left of the two thousand francs he had brought with him to Paris – and he had only been there one week! Nevertheless he put on his new clothes and went for a stroll along the Terrasse des Feuillants. There he took some sort of revenge. He was so well dressed, so graceful, so handsome that several women looked at him, and two or three were so struck by his beauty that they turned round to gaze at him. He studied the movements and manners of the young men and took a lesson in deportment while thinking all the time of his three hundred and sixty francs.
That evening, alone in his room, it occurred to him to clear up the problem of his expenditure in the Hôtel du Gaillard-Bois, where he was eating very simple food under the impression that he was economizing. He asked for his bill as if he were preparing to leave the hotel: it amounted to about one hundred francs. Next day he hurried to the Latin quarter, recommended to him by David as being cheap. After a long search he at last found, in the rue de Cluny, near the Sorbonne, a wretched lodging-house with furnished rooms where he rented accommodation for the price he was willing to pay. He immediately settled with the p
roprietress of the Gaillard-Bois and that same day took up his quarters in the rue de Cluny. His change of lodgings cost him only the fare for a cab. After taking possession of his shabby room, he gathered together all Madame de Bargeton’s letters, made a packet of them, laid it on the table and, before writing to her, began to think over the events of that fatal week. He did not recognize that he had taken the initiative in rashly denying his love without knowing what would become of his Louise in Paris: he did not see the wrongs he had committed, but only his present plight. He blamed Madame de Bargeton: instead of enlightening him, she had ruined him. He grew angry and proud and began the following letter in a paroxysm of wrath:
What would you say, Madame, about a woman who took a fancy to some poor timid child, full of those noble beliefs which later are called illusions, and used all her coquettish graces, all her subtlety of mind and the most beautiful semblance of maternal love to divert him from his course? Neither the most affectionate promises, nor the castles in Spain which filled him with wonder, cost anything to her.
She takes him off with her, monopolizes him, scolds him for his lack of trust in her and flatters him turn by turn. When this child deserts his family and follows her blindly, she leads him to the shore of a boundless sea, smilingly entices him into a frail cockleshell and sends him forth helpless through the tempest. Then, from the rock on which she has remained, she bursts out laughing and wishes him good luck.
You are that woman; I am that child. But he holds in his hands a token which might be used to expose the crime you committed by your beneficence and the favour you showed him in casting him aside. You might have cause for blushing with shame when you saw that child struggling against the waves, once the thought came to you that you had held him to your bosom. When you read this letter you will be free to do as you like with such memories. You may forget them entirely if you will. After the bright hopes your finger pointed out to me in the heavens, I am facing the realities of poverty in the mire of Paris. While you, brilliant and adored, stride through the grand halls of society, to the threshold of which you led me, I shall be shivering in the miserable attic into which you have flung me. But perhaps remorse will come to you in the midst of your galas and pleasures; perhaps you will give a thought to the child you plunged into an abyss. Oh no, Madame! Spare yourself such remorse. From the depths of his misery this child offers you the only thing he has left as he looks his last on you: his forgiveness.
Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) Page 23