Honoré de Balzac - Essential Novelists - Honoré de Balzac

So when the servant announced M. Eugene de Rastignac, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto trembled with joy. To be sure, a loving woman shows even more ingenuity in inventing doubts of her lover than in varying the monotony of his happiness; and when she is about to be forsaken, she instinctively interprets every gesture as rapidly as Virgil’s courser detected the presence of his companion by snuffing the breeze. It was impossible, therefore, that Mme. de Beauseant should not detect that involuntary thrill of satisfaction; slight though it was, it was appalling in its artlessness.

Eugene had yet to learn that no one in Paris should present himself in any house without first making himself acquainted with the whole history of its owner, and of its owner’s wife and family, so that he may avoid making any of the terrible blunders which in Poland draw forth the picturesque exclamation, “Harness five bullocks to your cart!” probably because you will need them all to pull you out of the quagmire into which a false step has plunged you. If, down to the present day, our language has no name for these conversational disasters, it is probably because they are believed to be impossible, the publicity given in Paris to every scandal is so prodigious. After the awkward incident at Mme. de Restaud’s, no one but Eugene could have reappeared in his character of bullock-driver in Mme. de Beauseant’s drawing-room. But if Mme. de Restaud and M. de Trailles had found him horribly in the way, M. d’Ajuda hailed his coming with relief.

“Good-bye,” said the Portuguese, hurrying to the door, as Eugene made his entrance into a dainty little pink-and-gray drawing-room, where luxury seemed nothing more than good taste.

“Until this evening,” said Mme. de Beauseant, turning her head to give the Marquis a glance. “We are going to the Bouffons, are we not?”

“I cannot go,” he said, with his fingers on the door handle.

Mme. de Beauseant rose and beckoned to him to return. She did not pay the slightest attention to Eugene, who stood there dazzled by the sparkling marvels around him; he began to think that this was some story out of the Arabian Nights made real, and did not know where to hide himself, when the woman before him seemed to be unconscious of his existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the forefinger of her right hand, and gracefully signed to the Marquis to seat himself beside her. The Marquis felt the imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back towards her. Eugene watched him, not without a feeling of envy.

“That is the owner of the brougham!” he said to himself. “But is it necessary to have a pair of spirited horses, servants in livery, and torrents of gold to draw a glance from a woman here in Paris?”

The demon of luxury gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his veins, his throat was parched with the thirst of gold.

He had a hundred and thirty francs every quarter. His father, mother, brothers, sisters, and aunt did not spend two hundred francs a month among them. This swift comparison between his present condition and the aims he had in view helped to benumb his faculties.

“Why not?” the Vicomtesse was saying, as she smiled at the Portuguese. “Why cannot you come to the Italiens?”

“Affairs! I am to dine with the English Ambassador.”

“Throw him over.”

When a man once enters on a course of deception, he is compelled to add lie to lie. M. d’Ajuda therefore said, smiling, “Do you lay your commands on me?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“That was what I wanted to have you say to me,” he answered, dissembling his feelings in a glance which would have reassured any other woman.

He took the Vicomtesse’s hand, kissed it, and went.

Eugene ran his fingers through his hair, and constrained himself to bow. He thought that now Mme. de Beauseant would give him her attention; but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed to a window in the gallery, and watched M. d’Ajuda step into his carriage; she listened to the order that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it to the coachman:

“To M. de Rochefide’s house.”

Those words, and the way in which M. d’Ajuda flung himself back in the carriage, were like a lightning flash and a thunderbolt for her; she walked back again with a deadly fear gnawing at her heart. The most terrible catastrophes only happen among the heights. The Vicomtesse went to her own room, sat down at a table, and took up a sheet of dainty notepaper.

“When, instead of dining with the English Ambassador,”

she wrote, “you go to the Rochefides, you owe me an

explanation, which I am waiting to hear.”

She retraced several of the letters, for her hand was trembling so that they were indistinct; then she signed the note with an initial C for “Claire de Bourgogne,” and rang the bell.

“Jacques,” she said to the servant, who appeared immediately, “take this note to M. de Rochefide’s house at half-past seven and ask for the Marquis d’Ajuda. If M. d’Ajuda is there, leave the note without waiting for an answer; if he is not there, bring the note back to me.”

“Madame la Vicomtess, there is a visitor in the drawing-room.”

“Ah! yes, of course,” she said, opening the door.

Eugene was beginning to feel very uncomfortable, but at last the Vicomtesse appeared; she spoke to him, and the tremulous tones of her voice vibrated through his heart.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” she said; “I had a letter to write. Now I am quite at liberty.”

She scarcely knew what she was saying, for even as she spoke she thought, “Ah! he means to marry Mlle. de Rochefide? But is he still free? This evening the marriage shall be broken off, or else... But before to-morrow I shall know.”

“Cousin...” the student replied.

“Eh?” said the Countess, with an insolent glance that sent a cold shudder through Eugene; he understood what that “Eh?” meant; he had learned a great deal in three hours, and his wits were on the alert. He reddened:

“Madame...” he began; he hesitated a moment, and then went on. “Pardon me; I am in such need of protection that the nearest scrap of relationship could do me no harm.”

Mme. de Beauseant smiled but there was sadness in her smile; even now she felt forebodings of the coming pain, the air she breathed was heavy with the storm that was about to burst.

“If you knew how my family are situated,” he went on, “you would love to play the part of a beneficent fairy godmother who graciously clears the obstacles from the path of her protege.”

“Well, cousin,” she said, laughing, “and how can I be of service to you?”

“But do I know even that? I am distantly related to you, and this obscure and remote relationship is even now a perfect godsend to me. You have confused my ideas; I cannot remember the things that I meant to say to you. I know no one else here in Paris.... Ah! if I could only ask you to counsel me, ask you to look upon me as a poor child who would fain cling to the hem of your dress, who would lay down his life for you.”

“Would you kill a man for me?”

“Two,” said Eugene.

“You, child. Yes, you are a child,” she said, keeping back the tears that came to her eyes; “you would love sincerely.”

“Oh!” he cried, flinging up his head.

The audacity of the student’s answer interested the Vicomtesse in him. The southern brain was beginning to scheme for the first time. Between Mme. de Restaud’s blue boudoir and Mme. de Beauseant’s rose-colored drawing-room he had made a three years’ advance in a kind of law which is not a recognized study in Paris, although it is a sort of higher jurisprudence, and, when well understood, is a highroad to success of every kind.

“Ah! that is what I meant to say!” said Eugene. “I met Mme. de Restaud at your ball, and this morning I went to see her.