Honoré Balzac - Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

“Where the devil did you find a handsomer woman than Esther?” he asked his evil genius.

“My boy, there is no such thing to be found in Paris. Such a complexion is not made in France.”

“I assure you, I am still quite amazed. Venus Callipyge has not such a figure. A man would lose his soul for her. But where did she spring from?”

“She was the handsomest girl in London. Drunk with gin, she killed her lover in a fit of jealousy. The lover was a wretch of whom the London police are well quit, and this woman was packed off to Paris for a time to let the matter blow over. The hussy was well brought up – the daughter of a clergyman. She speaks French as if it were her mother tongue. She does not know, and never will know, why she is here. She was told that if you took a fancy to her she might fleece you of millions, but that you were as jealous as a tiger, and she was told how Esther lived.”

“But supposing Nucingen should prefer her to Esther?”

“Ah, it is out at last!” cried Carlos. “You dread now lest what dismayed you yesterday should not take place after all! Be quite easy. That fair and fair-haired girl has blue eyes; she is the antipodes of the beautiful Jewess, and only such eyes as Esther’s could ever stir a man so rotten as Nucingen. What the devil! you could not hide an ugly woman. When this puppet has played her part, I will send her off in safe custody to Rome or to Madrid, where she will be the rage.”

“If we have her only for a short time,” said Lucien, “I will go back to her – ”

“Go, my boy, amuse yourself. You will be a day older to-morrow. For my part, I must wait for some one whom I have instructed to learn what is going on at the Baron de Nucingen’s.”

“Who?”

“His valet’s mistress; for, after all, we must keep ourselves informed at every moment of what is going on in the enemy’s camp.”

At midnight, Paccard, Esther’s tall chasseur, met Carlos on the Pont des Arts, the most favorable spot in all Paris for saying a few words which no one must overhear. All the time they talked the servant kept an eye on one side, while his master looked out on the other.

“The Baron went to the Prefecture of Police this morning between four and five,” said the man, “and he boasted this evening that he should find the woman he saw in the Bois de Vincennes – he had been promised it – ”

“We are watched!” said Carlos. “By whom?”

“They have already employed Louchard the bailiff.”

“That would be child’s play,” replied Carlos. “We need fear nothing but the guardians of public safety, the criminal police; and so long as that is not set in motion, we can go on!”

“That is not all.”

“What else?”

“Our chums of the hulks. – I saw Lapouraille yesterday – He has choked off a married couple, and has bagged ten thousand five-franc pieces – in gold.”

“He will be nabbed,” said Jacques Collin. “That is the Rue Boucher crime.”

“What is the order of the day?” said Paccard, with the respectful demeanor a marshal must have assumed when taking his orders from Louis XVIII.

“You must get out every evening at ten o’clock,” replied Herrera. “Make your way pretty briskly to the Bois de Vincennes, the Bois de Meudon, and de Ville-d’Avray. If any one should follow you, let them do it; be free of speech, chatty, open to a bribe. Talk about Rubempre’s jealousy and his mad passion for madame, saying that he would not on any account have it known that he had a mistress of that kind.”

“Enough. – Must I have any weapons?”

“Never!” exclaimed Carlos vehemently. “A weapon? Of what use would that be? To get us into a scrape. Do not under any circumstances use your hunting-knife. When you know that you can break the strongest man’s legs by the trick I showed you – when you can hold your own against three armed warders, feeling quite sure that you can account for two of them before they have got out flint and steel, what is there to be afraid of? Have not you your cane?”

“To be sure,” said the man.

Paccard, nicknamed The Old Guard, Old Wide-Awake, or The Right Man – a man with legs of iron, arms of steel, Italian whiskers, hair like an artist’s, a beard like a sapper’s, and a face as colorless and immovable as Contenson’s, kept his spirit to himself, and rejoiced in a sort of drum-major appearance which disarmed suspicion. A fugitive from Poissy or Melun has no such serious self-consciousness and belief in his own merit. As Giafar to the Haroun el Rasheed of the hulks, he served him with the friendly admiration which Peyrade felt for Corentin.

This huge fellow, with a small body in proportion to his legs, flat-chested, and lean of limb, stalked solemnly about on his two long pins. Whenever his right leg moved, his right eye took in everything around him with the placid swiftness peculiar to thieves and spies. The left eye followed the right eye’s example. Wiry, nimble, ready for anything at any time, but for a weakness of Dutch courage Paccard would have been perfect, Jacques Collin used to say, so completely was he endowed with the talents indispensable to a man at war with society; but the master had succeeded in persuading his slave to drink only in the evening. On going home at night, Paccard tippled the liquid gold poured into small glasses out of a pot-bellied stone jar from Danzig.

“We will make them open their eyes,” said Paccard, putting on his grand hat and feathers after bowing to Carlos, whom he called his Confessor.

These were the events which had led three men, so clever, each in his way, as Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and Corentin, to a hand-to-hand fight on the same ground, each exerting his talents in a struggle for his own passions or interests. It was one of those obscure but terrible conflicts on which are expended in marches and countermarches, in strategy, skill, hatred, and vexation, the powers that might make a fine fortune. Men and means were kept absolutely secret by Peyarde, seconded in this business by his friend Corentin – a business they thought but a trifle. And so, as to them, history is silent, as it is on the true causes of many revolutions.

But this was the result.

Five days after Monsieur de Nucingen’s interview with Peyrade in the Champs Elysees, a man of about fifty called in the morning, stepping out of a handsome cab, and flinging the reins to his servant. He had the dead-white complexion which a life in the “world” gives to diplomates, was dressed in blue cloth, and had a general air of fashion – almost that of a Minister of State.

He inquired of the servant who sat on a bench on the steps whether the Baron de Nucingen were at home; and the man respectfully threw open the splendid plate-glass doors.

“Your name, sir?” said the footman.

“Tell the Baron that I have come from the Avenue Gabriel,” said Corentin. “If anybody is with him, be sure not to say so too loud, or you will find yourself out of place!”

A minute later the man came back and led Corentin by the back passages to the Baron’s private room.

Corentin and the banker exchanged impenetrable glances, and both bowed politely.

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