Gobseck

“’The Count turned his back on me; I drew the bill half out of my pocket.  After that inexorable movement, she came over to me and put a diamond into my hands.  “Take it,” she said, “and be gone.”

“’We exchanged values, and I made my bow and went.  The diamond was quite worth twelve hundred francs to me.  Out in the courtyard I saw a swarm of flunkeys, brushing out their liveries, waxing their boots, and cleaning sumptuous equipages.

“’”This is what brings these people to me!” said I to myself.  “It is to keep up this kind of thing that they steal millions with all due formalities, and betray their country.  The great lord, and the little man who apes the great lord, bathes in mud once for all to save himself a splash or two when he goes afoot through the streets.”

“’Just then the great gates were opened to admit a cabriolet.  It was the same young fellow who had brought the bill to me.

“’”Sir,” I said, as he alighted, “here are two hundred francs, which I beg you to return to Mme. la Comtesse, and have the goodness to tell her that I hold the pledge which she deposited with me this morning at her disposition for a week.”

“’He took the two hundred francs, and an ironical smile stole over his face; it was as if he had said, “Aha! so she has paid it, has she? . . .  Faith, so much the better!” I read the Countess’ future in his face.  That good-looking, fair-haired young gentleman is a heartless gambler; he will ruin himself, ruin her, ruin her husband, ruin the children, eat up their portions, and work more havoc in Parisian salons than a whole battery of howitzers in a regiment.

“’I went back to see Mlle. Fanny in the Rue Montmartre, climbed a very steep, narrow staircase, and reached a two-roomed dwelling on the fifth floor.  Everything was as neat as a new ducat.  I did not see a speck of dust on the furniture in the first room, where Mlle. Fanny was sitting.  Mlle. Fanny herself was a young Parisian girl, quietly dressed, with a delicate fresh face, and a winning look.  The arrangement of her neatly brushed chestnut hair in a double curve on her forehead lent a refined expression to blue eyes, clear as crystal.  The broad daylight streaming in through the short curtains against the window pane fell with softened light on her girlish face.  A pile of shaped pieces of linen told me that she was a sempstress.  She looked like a spirit of solitude.  When I held out the bill, I remarked that she had not been at home when I called in the morning.

“’”But the money was left with the porter’s wife,” said she.

“’I pretended not to understand.

“’”You go out early, mademoiselle, it seems.”

“’”I very seldom leave my room; but when you work all night, you are obliged to take a bath sometimes.”

“’I looked at her.  A glance told me all about her life.  Here was a girl condemned by misfortune to toil, a girl who came of honest farmer folk, for she had still a freckle or two that told of country birth.  There was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as if I were breathing sincerity and frank innocence.  It was refreshing to my lungs.  Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there was a crucifix and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little painted wooden bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that way.  I felt ready to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and so give something towards establishing her in a good way of business.

“’”But maybe she has a little youngster of a cousin,” I said to myself, “who would raise money on her signature and sponge on the poor girl.”

“’So I went away, keeping my generous impulses well under control; for I have frequently had occasion to observe that when benevolence does no harm to him who gives it, it is the ruin of him who takes.  When you came in I was thinking that Fanny Malvaut would make a nice little wife; I was thinking of the contrast between her pure, lonely life and the life of the Countess—­she has sunk as low as a bill of exchange already, she will sink to the lowest depths of degradation before she has done!’—­I scrutinized him during the deep silence that followed, but in a moment he spoke again.  ‘Well,’ he said, ’do you think that it is nothing to have this power of insight into the deepest recesses of the human heart, to embrace so many lives, to see the naked truth underlying it all?  There are no two dramas alike:  there are hideous sores, deadly chagrins, love scenes, misery that soon will lie under the ripples of the Seine, young men’s joys that lead to the scaffold, the laughter of despair, and sumptuous banquets.  Yesterday it was a tragedy.  A worthy soul of a father drowned himself because he could not support his family.  To-morrow is a comedy; some youngster will try to rehearse the scene of M. Dimanche, brought up to date.  You have heard the people extol the eloquence of our latter day preachers; now and again I have wasted my time by going to hear them; they produced a change in my opinions, but in my conduct (as somebody said, I can’t recollect his name), in my conduct—­never!—­Well, well; these good priests and your Mirabeaus and Vergniauds and the rest of them, are mere stammering beginners compared with these orators of mine.

“’Often it is some girl in love, some gray-headed merchant on the verge of bankruptcy, some mother with a son’s wrong-doing to conceal, some starving artist, some great man whose influence is on the wane, and, for lack of money, is like to lose the fruit of all his labors —­the power of their pleading has made me shudder.  Sublime actors such as these play for me, for an audience of one, and they cannot deceive me.  I can look into their inmost thoughts, and read them as God reads them.  Nothing is hidden from me.  Nothing is refused to the holder of the purse-strings to loose and to bind.  I am rich enough to buy the consciences of those who control the action of ministers, from their office boys to their mistresses.  Is not that power?—­I can possess the fairest women, receive their softest caresses; is not that Pleasure?  And is not your whole social economy summed up in terms of Power and Pleasure?

“’There are ten of us in Paris, silent, unknown kings, the arbiters of your destinies.  What is life but a machine set in motion by money?  Know this for certain—­methods are always confounded with results; you will never succeed in separating the soul from the senses, spirit from matter.  Gold is the spiritual basis of existing society.—­The ten of us are bound by the ties of common interest; we meet on certain days of the week at the Cafe Themis near the Pont Neuf, and there, in conclave, we reveal the mysteries of finance.  No fortune can deceive us; we are in possession of family secrets in all directions.  We keep a kind of Black Book, in which we note the most important bills issued, drafts on public credit, or on banks, or given and taken in the course of business.  We are the Casuists of the Paris Bourse, a kind of Inquisition weighing and analyzing the most insignificant actions of every man of any fortune, and our forecasts are infallible.  One of us looks out over the judicial world, one over the financial, another surveys the administrative, and yet another the business world.  I myself keep an eye on eldest sons, artists, people in the great world, and gamblers—­on the most sensational side of Paris.  Every one who comes to us lets us into his neighbor’s secrets.  Thwarted passion and mortified vanity are great babblers.  Vice and disappointment and vindictiveness are the best of all detectives.  My colleagues, like myself, have enjoyed all things, are sated with all things, and have reached the point when power and money are loved for their own sake.

“‘Here,’ he said, indicating his bare, chilly room, ’here the most high-mettled gallant, who chafes at a word and draws swords for a syllable elsewhere will entreat with clasped hands.  There is no city merchant so proud, no woman so vain of her beauty, no soldier of so bold a spirit, but that they entreat me here, one and all, with tears of rage or anguish in their eyes.  Here they kneel—­the famous artist, and the man of letters, whose name will go down to posterity.  Here, in short’ (he lifted his hand to his forehead), ’all the inheritances and all the concerns of all Paris are weighed in the balance.  Are you still of the opinion that there are no delights behind the blank mask which so often has amazed you by its impassiveness?’ he asked, stretching out that livid face which reeked of money.

“I went back to my room, feeling stupefied.  The little, wizened old man had grown great.  He had been metamorphosed under my eyes into a strange visionary symbol; he had come to be the power of gold personified.  I shrank, shuddering, from life and my kind.

“‘Is it really so?’ I thought; ’must everything be resolved into gold?’

“I remember that it was long before I slept that night.  I saw heaps of gold all about me.  My thoughts were full of the lovely Countess; I confess, to my shame, that the vision completely eclipsed another quiet, innocent figure, the figure of the woman who had entered upon a life of toil and obscurity; but on the morrow, through the clouds of slumber, Fanny’s sweet face rose before me in all its beauty, and I thought of nothing else.”

“Will you take a glass of eau sucree?” asked the Vicomtesse, interrupting Derville.

“I should be glad of it.”

“But I can see nothing in this that can touch our concerns,” said Mme. de Grandlieu, as she rang the bell.

“Sardanapalus!” cried Derville, flinging out his favorite invocation.  “Mademoiselle Camille will be wide awake in a moment if I say that her happiness depended not so long ago upon Daddy Gobseck; but as the old gentleman died at the age of ninety, M. de Restaud will soon be in possession of a handsome fortune.  This requires some explanation.  As for poor Fanny Malvaut, you know her; she is my wife.”

“Poor fellow, he would admit that, with his usual frankness, with a score of people to hear him!” said the Vicomtesse.

“I would proclaim it to the universe,” said the attorney.

“Go on, drink your glass, my poor Derville.  You will never be anything but the happiest and the best of men.”

“I left you in the Rue du Helder,” remarked the uncle, raising his face after a gentle doze.  “You had gone to see a Countess; what have you done with her?”

“A few days after my conversation with the old Dutchman,” Derville continued, “I sent in my thesis, and became first a licentiate in law, and afterwards an advocate.  The old miser’s opinion of me went up considerably.  He consulted me (gratuitously) on all the ticklish bits of business which he undertook when he had made quite sure how he stood, business which would have seemed unsafe to any ordinary practitioner.  This man, over whom no one appeared to have the slightest influence, listened to my advice with something like respect.  It is true that he always found that it turned out very well.

“At length I became head-clerk in the office where I had worked for three years and then I left the Rue des Gres for rooms in my employer’s house.  I had my board and lodging and a hundred and fifty francs per month.  It was a great day for me!

“When I went to bid the usurer good-bye, he showed no sign of feeling, he was neither cordial nor sorry to lose me, he did not ask me to come to see him, and only gave me one of those glances which seemed in some sort to reveal a power of second-sight.

“By the end of a week my old neighbor came to see me with a tolerably thorny bit of business, an expropriation, and he continued to ask for my advice with as much freedom as if he paid for it.

“My principal was a man of pleasure and expensive tastes; before the second year (1818-1819) was out he had got himself into difficulties, and was obliged to sell his practice.  A professional connection in those days did not fetch the present exorbitant prices, and my principal asked a hundred and fifty thousand francs.  Now an active man, of competent knowledge and intelligence, might hope to pay off the capital in ten years, paying interest and living respectably in the meantime—­if he could command confidence.  But I as the seventh child of a small tradesman at Noyon, I had not a sou to my name, nor personal knowledge of any capitalist but Daddy Gobseck.  An ambitious idea, and an indefinable glimmer of hope, put heart into me.  To Gobseck I betook myself, and slowly one evening I made my way to the Rue des Gres.  My heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the gloomy house.  I recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at a time when I myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the anguish awaiting those who crossed his threshold.  Now it was I who was about to beg and pray like so many others.

“‘Well, no, not that,’ I said to myself; ’an honest man must keep his self-respect wherever he goes.  Success is not worth cringing for; let us show him a front as decided as his own.’

“Daddy Gobseck had taken my room since I left the house, so as to have no neighbor; he had made a little grated window too in his door since then, and did not open until he had taken a look at me and saw who I was.

“‘Well,’ said he, in his thin, flute notes, ’so your principal is selling his practice?’

“‘How did you know that?’ said I; ’he has not spoken of it as yet except to me.’

“The old man’s lips were drawn in puckers, like a curtain, to either corner of his mouth, as a soundless smile bore a hard glance company.

“‘Nothing else would have brought you here,’ he said drily, after a pause, which I spent in confusion.

“‘Listen to me, M. Gobseck,’ I began, with such serenity as I could assume before the old man, who gazed at me with steady eyes.  There was a clear light burning in them that disconcerted me.

“He made a gesture as if to bid me ‘Go on.’  ’I know that it is not easy to work on your feelings, so I will not waste my eloquence on the attempt to put my position before you—­I am a penniless clerk, with no one to look to but you, and no heart in the world but yours can form a clear idea of my probable future.  Let us leave hearts out of the question.  Business is business, and business is not carried on with sentimentality like romances.  Now to the facts.  My principal’s practice is worth in his hands about twenty thousand francs per annum; in my hands, I think it would bring in forty thousand.  He is willing to sell it for a hundred and fifty thousand francs.  And here,’ I said, striking my forehead, ’I feel that if you would lend me the purchase-money, I could clear it off in ten years’ time.’

“‘Come, that is plain speaking,’ said Daddy Gobseck, and he held out his hand and grasped mine.  ’Nobody since I have been in business has stated the motives of his visit more clearly.  Guarantees?’ asked he, scanning me from head to foot.  ‘None to give,’ he added after a pause, ‘How old are you?’

“‘Twenty-five in ten days’ time,’ said I, ’or I could not open the matter.’

“‘Precisely.’

“‘Well?’

“‘It is possible.’

“’My word, we must be quick about it, or I shall have some one buying over my head.’

“’Bring your certificate of birth round to-morrow morning, and we will talk.  I will think it over.’

“’Next morning, at eight o’clock, I stood in the old man’s room.  He took the document, put on his spectacles, coughed, spat, wrapped himself up in his black greatcoat, and read the whole certificate through from beginning to end.  Then he turned it over and over, looked at me, coughed again, fidgeted about in his chair, and said, ’We will try to arrange this bit of business.’

“I trembled.

“‘I make fifty per cent on my capital,’ he continued, ’sometimes I make a hundred, two hundred, five hundred per cent.’

“I turned pale at the words.

“’But as we are acquaintances, I shall be satisfied to take twelve and a half per cent per—­(he hesitated)—­’well, yes, from you I would be content to take thirteen per cent per annum.  Will that suit you?’

“‘Yes,’ I answered.

“‘But if it is too much, stick up for yourself, Grotius!’ (a name he jokingly gave me).  ’When I ask you for thirteen per cent, it is all in the way of business; look into it, see if you can pay it; I don’t like a man to agree too easily.  Is it too much?’

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I will make up for it by working a little harder.’

“‘Gad! your clients will pay for it!’ said he, looking at me wickedly out of the corner of his eyes.

“‘No, by all the devils in hell!’ cried I, ’it shall be I who will pay.  I would sooner cut my hand off than flay people.’

“‘Good-night,’ said Daddy Gobseck.

“‘Why, fees are all according to scale,’ I added.

“’Not for compromises and settlements out of Court, and cases where litigants come to terms,’ said he.  ’You can send in a bill for thousands of francs, six thousand even at a swoop (it depends on the importance of the case), for conferences with So-and-so, and expenses, and drafts, and memorials, and your jargon.  A man must learn to look out for business of this kind.  I will recommend you as a most competent, clever attorney.  I will send you such a lot of work of this sort that your colleagues will be fit to burst with envy.  Werbrust, Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies, shall hand over their expropriations to you; they have plenty of them, the Lord knows!  So you will have two practices—­the one you are buying, and the other I will build up for you.  You ought almost to pay me fifteen per cent on my loan.’

“‘So be it, but no more,’ said I, with the firmness which means that a man is determined not to concede another point.

“Daddy Gobseck’s face relaxed; he looked pleased with me.

“‘I shall pay the money over to your principal myself,’ said he, ’so as to establish a lien on the purchase and caution-money.’

“‘Oh, anything you like in the way of guarantees.’

“’And besides that, you will give me bills for the amount made payable to a third party (name left blank), fifteen bills of ten thousand francs each.’

“’Well, so long as it is acknowledged in writing that this is a double——­’

“‘No!’ Gobseck broke in upon me.  ’No!  Why should I trust you any more than you trust me?’

“I kept silence.

“‘And furthermore,’ he continued, with a sort of good humor, ’you will give me your advice without charging fees as long as I live, will you not?’

“‘So be it; so long as there is no outlay.’

“‘Precisely,’ said he.  “Ah, by the by, you will allow me to go to see you?’ (Plainly the old man found it not so easy to assume the air of good-humor.)

“‘I shall always be glad.’

“’Ah! yes, but it would be very difficult to arrange of a morning.  You will have your affairs to attend to, and I have mine.’

“‘Then come in the evening.’

“‘Oh, no!’ he answered briskly, ’you ought to go into society and see your clients, and I myself have my friends at my cafe.’

“‘His friends!’ thought I to myself.—­’Very well,’ said I, ’why not come at dinner-time?’

“‘That is the time,’ said Gobseck, ’after ’Change, at five o’clock.  Good, you will see me Wednesdays and Saturdays.  We will talk over business like a pair of friends.  Aha!  I am gay sometimes.  Just give me the wing of a partridge and a glass of champagne, and we will have our chat together.  I know a great many things that can be told now at this distance of time; I will teach you to know men, and what is more —­women!’

“‘Oh! a partridge and a glass of champagne if you like.’

“’Don’t do anything foolish, or I shall lose my faith in you.  And don’t set up housekeeping in a grand way.  Just one old general servant.  I will come and see that you keep your health.  I have capital invested in your head, he! he! so I am bound to look after you.  There, come round in the evening and bring your principal with you!’

“’Would you mind telling me, if there is no harm in asking, what was the good of my birth certificate in this business?’ I asked, when the little old man and I stood on the doorstep.

“Jean-Esther Van Gobseck shrugged his shoulders, smiled maliciously, and said, ’What blockheads youngsters are!  Learn, master attorney (for learn you must if you don’t mean to be taken in), that integrity and brains in a man under thirty are commodities which can be mortgaged.  After that age there is no counting on a man.’

“And with that he shut the door.