Gobseck

“Three months later I was an attorney.  Before very long, madame, it was my good fortune to undertake the suit for the recovery of your estates.  I won the day, and my name became known.  In spite of the exorbitant rate of interest, I paid off Gobseck in less than five years.  I married Fanny Malvaut, whom I loved with all my heart.  There was a parallel between her life and mine, between our hard work and our luck, which increased the strength of feeling on either side.  One of her uncles, a well-to-do farmer, died and left her seventy thousand francs, which helped to clear off the loan.  From that day my life has been nothing but happiness and prosperity.  Nothing is more utterly uninteresting than a happy man, so let us say no more on that head, and return to the rest of the characters.

“About a year after the purchase of the practice, I was dragged into a bachelor breakfast-party given by one of our number who had lost a bet to a young man greatly in vogue in the fashionable world.  M. de Trailles, the flower of the dandyism of that day, enjoyed a prodigious reputation.”

“But he is still enjoying it,” put in the Comte de Born.  “No one wears his clothes with a finer air, nor drives a tandem with a better grace.  It is Maxime’s gift; he can gamble, eat, and drink more gracefully than any man in the world.  He is a judge of horses, hats, and pictures.  All the women lose their heads over him.  He always spends something like a hundred thousand francs a year, and no creature can discover that he has an acre of land or a single dividend warrant.  The typical knight errant of our salons, our boudoirs, our boulevards, an amphibian half-way between a man and a woman—­Maxime de Trailles is a singular being, fit for anything, and good for nothing, quite as capable of perpetrating a benefit as of planning a crime; sometimes base, sometimes noble, more often bespattered with mire than besprinkled with blood, knowing more of anxiety than of remorse, more concerned with his digestion than with any mental process, shamming passion, feeling nothing.  Maxime de Trailles is a brilliant link between the hulks and the best society; he belongs to the eminently intelligent class from which a Mirabeau, or a Pitt, or a Richelieu springs at times, though it is more wont to produce Counts of Horn, Fouquier-Tinvilles, and Coignards.”

“Well,” pursued Derville, when he had heard the Vicomtesse’s brother to the end, “I had heard a good deal about this individual from poor old Goriot, a client of mine; and I had already been at some pains to avoid the dangerous honor of his acquaintance, for I came across him sometimes in society.  Still, my chum was so pressing about this breakfast-party of his that I could not well get out of it, unless I wished to earn a name for squeamishness.  Madame, you could hardly imagine what a bachelor’s breakfast-party is like.  It means superb display and a studied refinement seldom seen; the luxury of a miser when vanity leads him to be sumptuous for a day.

“You are surprised as you enter the room at the neatness of the table, dazzling by reason of its silver and crystal and linen damask.  Life is here in full bloom; the young fellows are graceful to behold; they smile and talk in low, demure voices like so many brides; everything about them looks girlish.  Two hours later you might take the room for a battlefield after the fight.  Broken glasses, serviettes crumpled and torn to rags lie strewn about among the nauseous-looking remnants of food on the dishes.  There is an uproar that stuns you, jesting toasts, a fire of witticisms and bad jokes; faces are empurpled, eyes inflamed and expressionless, unintentional confidences tell you the whole truth.  Bottles are smashed, and songs trolled out in the height of a diabolical racket; men call each other out, hang on each other’s necks, or fall to fisticuffs; the room is full of a horrid, close scent made up of a hundred odors, and noise enough for a hundred voices.  No one has any notion of what he is eating or drinking or saying.  Some are depressed, others babble, one will turn monomaniac, repeating the same word over and over again like a bell set jangling; another tries to keep the tumult within bounds; the steadiest will propose an orgy.  If any one in possession of his faculties should come in, he would think that he had interrupted a Bacchanalian rite.

“It was in the thick of such a chaos that M. de Trailles tried to insinuate himself into my good graces.  My head was fairly clear, I was upon my guard.  As for him, though he pretended to be decently drunk, he was perfectly cool, and knew very well what he was about.  How it was done I do not know, but the upshot of it was that when we left Grignon’s rooms about nine o’clock in the evening, M. de Trailles had thoroughly bewitched me.  I had given him my promise that I would introduce him the next day to our Papa Gobseck.  The words ‘honor,’ ‘virtue,’ ‘countess,’ ‘honest woman,’ and ‘ill-luck’ were mingled in his discourse with magical potency, thanks to that golden tongue of his.

“When I awoke next morning, and tried to recollect what I had done the day before, it was with great difficulty that I could make a connected tale from my impressions.  At last, it seemed to me that the daughter of one of my clients was in danger of losing her reputation, together with her husband’s love and esteem, if she could not get fifty thousand francs together in the course of the morning.  There had been gaming debts, and carriage-builders’ accounts, money lost to Heaven knows whom.  My magician of a boon companion had impressed it upon me that she was rich enough to make good these reverses by a few years of economy.  But only now did I begin to guess the reasons of his urgency.  I confess, to my shame, that I had not the shadow of a doubt but that it was a matter of importance that Daddy Gobseck should make it up with this dandy.  I was dressing when the young gentleman appeared.

“‘M. le Comte,’ said I, after the usual greetings, ’I fail to see why you should need me to effect an introduction to Van Gobseck, the most civil and smooth-spoken of capitalists.  Money will be forthcoming if he has any, or rather, if you can give him adequate security.’

“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ’it does not enter into my thoughts to force you to do me a service, even though you have passed your word.’

“‘Sardanapalus!’ said I to myself, ’am I going to let that fellow imagine that I will not keep my word with him?’

“‘I had the honor of telling you yesterday,’ said he, ’that I had fallen out with Daddy Gobseck most inopportunely; and as there is scarcely another man in Paris who can come down on the nail with a hundred thousand francs, at the end of the month, I begged of you to make my peace with him.  But let us say no more about it——­’

“M. de Trailles looked at me with civil insult in his expression, and made as if he would take his leave.

“‘I am ready to go with you,’ said I.

“When we reached the Rue de Gres, my dandy looked about him with a circumspection and uneasiness that set me wondering.  His face grew livid, flushed, and yellow, turn and turn about, and by the time that Gobseck’s door came in sight the perspiration stood in drops on his forehead.  We were just getting out of the cabriolet, when a hackney cab turned into the street.  My companion’s hawk eye detected a woman in the depths of the vehicle.  His face lighted up with a gleam of almost savage joy; he called to a little boy who was passing, and gave him his horse to hold.  Then we went up to the old bill discounter.

“‘M.  Gobseck,’ said I, ’I have brought one of my most intimate friends to see you (whom I trust as I would trust the Devil,’ I added for the old man’s private ear).  ’To oblige me you will do your best for him (at the ordinary rate), and pull him out of his difficulty (if it suits your convenience).’

“M. de Trailles made his bow to Gobseck, took a seat, and listened to us with a courtier-like attitude; its charming humility would have touched your heart to see, but my Gobseck sits in his chair by the fireside without moving a muscle, or changing a feature.  He looked very like the statue of Voltaire under the peristyle of the Theatre-Francais, as you see it of an evening; he had partly risen as if to bow, and the skull cap that covered the top of his head, and the narrow strip of sallow forehead exhibited, completed his likeness to the man of marble.

“‘I have no money to spare except for my own clients,’ said he.

“’So you are cross because I may have tried in other quarters to ruin myself?’ laughed the Count.

“‘Ruin yourself!’ repeated Gobseck ironically.

“’Were you about to remark that it is impossible to ruin a man who has nothing?’ inquired the dandy.  ’Why, I defy you to find a better stock in Paris!’ he cried, swinging round on his heels.

“This half-earnest buffoonery produced not the slightest effect upon Gobseck.

“’Am I not on intimate terms with the Ronquerolles, the Marsays, the Franchessinis, the two Vandenesses, the Ajuda-Pintos,—­all the most fashionable young men in Paris, in short?  A prince and an ambassador (you know them both) are my partners at play.  I draw my revenues from London and Carlsbad and Baden and Bath.  Is not this the most brilliant of all industries!’

“‘True.’

“’You make a sponge of me, begad! you do.  You encourage me to go and swell myself out in society, so that you can squeeze me when I am hard up; but you yourselves are sponges, just as I am, and death will give you a squeeze some day.’

“‘That is possible.’

“’If there were no spendthrifts, what would become of you?  The pair of us are like soul and body.’

“‘Precisely so.’

“’Come, now, give us your hand, Grandaddy Gobseck, and be magnanimous if this is “true” and “possible” and “precisely so.”’

“‘You come to me,’ the usurer answered coldly, ’because Girard, Palma, Werbrust, and Gigonnet are full up of your paper; they are offering it at a loss of fifty per cent; and as it is likely they only gave you half the figure on the face of the bills, they are not worth five-and-twenty per cent of their supposed value.  I am your most obedient!  Can I in common decency lend a stiver to a man who owes thirty thousand francs, and has not one farthing?’ Gobseck continued.  ’The day before yesterday you lost ten thousand francs at a ball at the Baron de Nucingen’s.’

“‘Sir,’ said the Count, with rare impudence, ’my affairs are no concern of yours,’ and he looked the old man up and down.  ’A man has no debts till payment is due.’

“‘True.’

“‘My bills will be duly met.’

“‘That is possible.’

“’And at this moment the question between you and me is simply whether the security I am going to offer is sufficient for the sum I have come to borrow.’

“‘Precisely.’

“A cab stopped at the door, and the sound of wheels filled the room.

“‘I will bring something directly which perhaps will satisfy you,’ cried the young man, and he left the room.

“‘Oh! my son,’ exclaimed Gobseck, rising to his feet, and stretching out his arms to me, ’if he has good security, you have saved my life.  It would be the death of me.  Werbrust and Gigonnet imagined that they were going to play off a trick on me; and now, thanks to you, I shall have a good laugh at their expense to-night.’

“There was something frightful about the old man’s ecstasy.  It was the one occasion when he opened his heart to me; and that flash of joy, swift though it was, will never be effaced from my memory.

“‘Favor me so far as to stay here,’ he added.  ’I am armed, and a sure shot.  I have gone tiger-hunting, and fought on the deck when there was nothing for it but to win or die; but I don’t care to trust yonder elegant scoundrel.’

“He sat down again in his armchair before his bureau, and his face grew pale and impassive as before.

“‘Ah!’ he continued, turning to me, ’you will see that lovely creature I once told you about; I can hear a fine lady’s step in the corridor; it is she, no doubt;’ and, as a matter of fact, the young man came in with a woman on his arm.  I recognized the Countess, whose levee Gobseck had described for me, one of old Goriot’s two daughters.

“The Countess did not see me at first; I stayed where I was in the window bay, with my face against the pane; but I saw her give Maxime a suspicious glance as she came into the money-lender’s damp, dark room.  So beautiful she was, that in spite of her faults I felt sorry for her.  There was a terrible storm of anguish in her heart; her haughty, proud features were drawn and distorted with pain which she strove in vain to disguise.  The young man had come to be her evil genius.  I admired Gobseck, whose perspicacity had foreseen their future four years ago at the first bill which she endorsed.

“‘Probably,’ said I to myself, ’this monster with the angel face controls every possible spring of action in her:  rules her through vanity, jealousy, pleasure, and the current of life in the world.’”

The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu broke in on the story.

“Why, the woman’s very virtues have been turned against her,” she exclaimed.  “He has made her shed tears of devotion, and then abused her kindness and made her pay very dearly for unhallowed bliss.”

Derville did not understand the signs which Mme. de Grandlieu made to him.

“I confess,” he said, “that I had no inclination to shed tears over the lot of this unhappy creature, so brilliant in society, so repulsive to eyes that could read her heart; I shuddered rather at the sight of her murderer, a young angel with such a clear brow, such red lips and white teeth, such a winning smile.  There they stood before their judge, he scrutinizing them much as some fifteenth-century Dominican inquisitor might have peered into the dungeons of the Holy Office while the torture was administered to two Moors.

“The Countess spoke tremulously.  ‘Sir,’ she said, ’is there any way of obtaining the value of these diamonds, and of keeping the right of repurchase?’ She held out a jewel-case.

“‘Yes, madame,’ I put in, and came forwards.

“She looked at me, and a shudder ran through her as she recognized me, and gave me the glance which means, ‘Say nothing of this,’ all the world over.

“‘This,’ said I, ’constitutes a sale with faculty of redemption, as it is called, a formal agreement to transfer and deliver over a piece of property, either real estate or personalty, for a given time, on the expiry of which the previous owner recovers his title to the property in question, upon payment of a stipulated sum.’

“She breathed more freely.  The Count looked black; he had grave doubts whether Gobseck would lend very much on the diamonds after such a fall in their value.  Gobseck, impassive as ever, had taken up his magnifying glass, and was quietly scrutinizing the jewels.  If I were to live for a hundred years, I should never forget the sight of his face at that moment.  There was a flush in his pale cheeks; his eyes seemed to have caught the sparkle of the stones, for there was an unnatural glitter in them.  He rose and went to the light, holding the diamonds close to his toothless mouth, as if he meant to devour them; mumbling vague words over them, holding up bracelets, sprays, necklaces, and tiaras one after another, to judge their water, whiteness, and cutting; taking them out of the jewel-case and putting them in again, letting the play of the light bring out all their fires.  He was more like a child than an old man; or, rather, childhood and dotage seemed to meet in him.

“’Fine stones!  The set would have fetched three hundred thousand francs before the Revolution.  What water!  Genuine Asiatic diamonds from Golconda or Visapur.  Do you know what they are worth?  No, no; no one in Paris but Gobseck can appreciate them.  In the time of the Empire such a set would have cost another two hundred thousand francs!’

“He gave a disgusted shrug, and added: 

“’But now diamonds are going down in value every day.  The Brazilians have swamped the market with them since the Peace; but the Indian stones are a better color.  Others wear them now besides court ladies.  Does madame go to court?’

“While he flung out these terrible words, he examined one stone after another with delight which no words can describe.

“‘Flawless!’ he said.  ’Here is a speck! . . . here is a flaw! . . .  A fine stone that!’

“His haggard face was so lighted up by the sparkling jewels, that it put me in mind of a dingy old mirror, such as you see in country inns.  The glass receives every luminous image without reflecting the light, and a traveler bold enough to look for his face in it beholds a man in an apoplectic fit.

“‘Well?’ asked the Count, clapping Gobseck on the shoulder.

“The old boy trembled.  He put down his playthings on his bureau, took his seat, and was a money-lender once more—­hard, cold, and polished as a marble column.

“‘How much do you want?’

“‘One hundred thousand francs for three years,’ said the Count.

“‘That is possible,’ said Gobseck, and then from a mahogany box (Gobseck’s jewel-case) he drew out a faultlessly adjusted pair of scales!

“He weighed the diamonds, calculating the value of stones and setting at sight (Heaven knows how!), delight and severity struggling in the expression of his face the meanwhile.  The Countess had plunged in a kind of stupor; to me, watching her, it seemed that she was fathoming the depths of the abyss into which she had fallen.  There was remorse still left in that woman’s soul.  Perhaps a hand held out in human charity might save her.  I would try.

“‘Are the diamonds your personal property, madame?’ I asked in a clear voice.

“‘Yes, monsieur,’ she said, looking at me with proud eyes.

“’Make out the deed of purchase with power of redemption, chatterbox,’ said Gobseck to me, resigning his chair at the bureau in my favor.

“‘Madame is without doubt a married woman?’ I tried again.

“She nodded abruptly.

“‘Then I will not draw up the deed,’ said I.

“‘And why not?’ asked Gobseck.

“‘Why not?’ echoed I, as I drew the old man into the bay window so as to speak aside with him.  ’Why not?  This woman is under her husband’s control; the agreement would be void in law; you could not possibly assert your ignorance of a fact recorded on the very face of the document itself.  You would be compelled at once to produce the diamonds deposited with you, according to the weight, value, and cutting therein described.’

“Gobseck cut me short with a nod, and turned towards the guilty couple.