Lost Illusions

By the beginning of September, Lucien had ceased to be a printer’s foreman; he was M. de Rubempre, housed sumptuously in comparison with his late quarters in the tumbledown attic with the dormer-window, where “young Chardon” had lived in L’Houmeau; he was not even a “man of L’Houmeau”; he lived in the heights of Angouleme, and dined four times a week with Mme. de Bargeton.  A friendship had grown up between M. de Rubempre and the Bishop, and he went to the palace.  His occupations put him upon a level with the highest rank; his name would be one day among the great names of France; and, in truth, as he went to and fro in his apartments, the pretty sitting-room, the charming bedroom, and the tastefully furnished study, he might console himself for the thought that he drew thirty francs every month out of his mother’s and sister’s hard earnings; for he saw the day approaching when An Archer of Charles IX., the historical romance on which he had been at work for two years, and a volume of verse entitled Marguerites, should spread his fame through the world of literature, and bring in money enough to repay them all, his mother and sister and David.  So, grown great in his own eyes, and giving ear to the echoes of his name in the future, he could accept present sacrifices with noble assurance; he smiled at his poverty, he relished the sense of these last days of penury.

Eve and David had set Lucien’s happiness before their own.  They had put off their wedding, for it took some time to paper and paint their rooms, and to buy the furniture, and Lucien’s affairs had been settled first.  No one who knew Lucien could wonder at their devotion.  Lucien was so engaging, he had such winning ways, his impatience and his desires were so graciously expressed, that his cause was always won before he opened his mouth to speak.  This unlucky gift of fortune, if it is the salvation of some, is the ruin of many more.  Lucien and his like find a world predisposed in favor of youth and good looks, and ready to protect those who give it pleasure with the selfish good-nature that flings alms to a beggar, if he appeals to the feelings and awakens emotion; and in this favor many a grown child is content to bask instead of putting it to a profitable use.  With mistaken notions as to the significance and the motive of social relations they imagine that they shall always meet with deceptive smiles; and so at last the moment comes for them when the world leaves them bald, stripped bare, without fortune or worth, like an elderly coquette by the door of a salon, or a stray rag in the gutter.

Eve herself had wished for the delay.  She meant to establish the little household on the most economical footing, and to buy only strict necessaries; but what could two lovers refuse to a brother who watched his sister at her work, and said in tones that came from the heart, “How I wish I could sew!” The sober, observant David had shared in the devotion; and yet, since Lucien’s triumph, David had watched him with misgivings; he was afraid that Lucien would change towards them, afraid that he would look down upon their homely ways.  Once or twice, to try his brother, David had made him choose between home pleasures and the great world, and saw that Lucien gave up the delights of vanity for them, and exclaimed to himself, “They will not spoil him for us!” Now and again the three friends and Mme. Chardon arranged picnic parties in provincial fashion—­a walk in the woods along the Charente, not far from Angouleme, and dinner out on the grass, David’s apprentice bringing the basket of provisions to some place appointed before-hand; and at night they would come back, tired somewhat, but the whole excursion had not cost three francs.  On great occasion, when they dined at a restaurat, as it is called, a sort of a country inn, a compromise between a provincial wineshop and a Parisian guinguette, they would spend as much as five francs, divided between David and the Chardons.  David gave his brother infinite credit for forsaking Mme. de Bargeton and grand dinners for these days in the country, and the whole party made much of the great man of Angouleme.

Matters had gone so far, that the new home was very nearly ready, and David had gone over to Marsac to persuade his father to come to the wedding, not without a hope that the old man might relent at the sight of his daughter-in-law, and give something towards the heavy expenses of the alterations, when there befell one of those events which entirely change the face of things in a small town.

Lucien and Louise had a spy in Chatelet, a spy who watched, with the persistence of a hate in which avarice and passion are blended, for an opportunity of making a scandal.  Sixte meant that Mme. de Bargeton should compromise herself with Lucien in such a way that she should be “lost,” as the saying goes; so he posed as Mme. de Bargeton’s humble confidant, admired Lucien in the Rue du Minage, and pulled him to pieces everywhere else.  Nais had gradually given him les petites entrees, in the language of the court, for the lady no longer mistrusted her elderly admirer; but Chatelet had taken too much for granted—­love was still in the Platonic stage, to the great despair of Louise and Lucien.

There are, for that matter, love affairs which start with a good or a bad beginning, as you prefer to take it.  Two creatures launch into the tactics of sentiment; they talk when they should be acting, and skirmish in the open instead of settling down to a siege.  And so they grow tired of one another, expend their longings in empty space; and, having time for reflection, come to their own conclusions about each other.  Many a passion that has taken the field in gorgeous array, with colors flying and an ardor fit to turn the world upside down, has turned home again without a victory, inglorious and crestfallen, cutting but a foolish figure after these vain alarums and excursions.  Such mishaps are sometimes due to the diffidence of youth, sometimes to the demurs of an inexperienced woman, for old players at this game seldom end in a fiasco of this kind.

Provincial life, moreover, is singularly well calculated to keep desire unsatisfied and maintain a lover’s arguments on the intellectual plane, while, at the same time, the very obstacles placed in the way of the sweet intercourse which binds lovers so closely each to each, hurry ardent souls on towards extreme measures.  A system of espionage of the most minute and intricate kind underlies provincial life; every house is transparent, the solace of close friendships which break no moral law is scarcely allowed; and such outrageously scandalous constructions are put upon the most innocent human intercourse, that many a woman’s character is taken away without cause.  One here and there, weighed down by her unmerited punishment, will regret that she has never known to the full the forbidden felicity for which she is suffering.  The world, which blames and criticises with a superficial knowledge of the patent facts in which a long inward struggle ends, is in reality a prime agent in bringing such scandals about; and those whose voices are loudest in condemnation of the alleged misconduct of some slandered woman never give a thought to the immediate provocation of the overt step.  That step many a woman only takes after she has been unjustly accused and condemned, and Mme. de Bargeton was now on the verge of this anomalous position.

The obstacles at the outset of a passion of this kind are alarming to inexperience, and those in the way of the two lovers were very like the bonds by which the population of Lilliput throttled Gulliver, a multiplicity of nothings, which made all movement impossible, and baffle the most vehement desires.  Mme. de Bargeton, for instance, must always be visible.  If she had denied herself to visitors when Lucien was with her, it would have been all over with her; she might as well have run away with him at once.  It is true that they sat in the boudoir, now grown so familiar to Lucien that he felt as if he had a right to be there; but the doors stood scrupulously open, and everything was arranged with the utmost propriety.  M. de Bargeton pervaded the house like a cockchafer; it never entered his head that his wife could wish to be alone with Lucien.  If he had been the only person in the way, Nais could have got rid of him, sent him out of the house, or given him something to do; but he was not the only one; visitors flocked in upon her, and so much the more as curiosity increased, for your provincial has a natural bent for teasing, and delights to thwart a growing passion.  The servants came and went about the house promiscuously and without a summons; they had formed the habits with a mistress who had nothing to conceal; any change now made in her household ways was tantamount to a confession, and Angouleme still hung in doubt.

Mme. de Bargeton could not set foot outside her house but the whole town knew whither she was going.  To take a walk alone with Lucien out of Angouleme would have been a decided measure, indeed; it would have been less dangerous to shut herself up with him in the house.  There would have been comments the next day if Lucien had stayed on till midnight after the rooms were emptied.  Within as without her house, Mme. de Bargeton lived in public.

These details describe life in the provinces; an intrigue is either openly avoided or impossible anywhere.

Like all women carried away for the first time by passion, Louise discovered the difficulties of her position one by one.  They frightened her, and her terror reacted upon the fond talk that fills the fairest hours which lovers spend alone together.  Mme. de Bargeton had no country house whither she could take her beloved poet, after the manner of some women who will forge ingenious pretexts for burying themselves in the wilderness; but, weary of living in public, and pushed to extremities by a tyranny which afforded no pleasures sweet enough to compensate for the heaviness of the yoke, she even thought of Escarbas, and of going to see her aged father—­so much irritated was she by these paltry obstacles.

Chatelet did not believe in such innocence.  He lay in wait, and watched Lucien into the house, and followed a few minutes later, always taking M. de Chandour, the most indiscreet person in the clique, along with him; and, putting that gentleman first, hoped to find a surprise by such perseverance in pursuit of the chance.  His own part was a very difficult one to play, and its success was the more doubtful because he was bound to appear neutral if he was to prompt the other actors who were to play in his drama.  So, to give himself a countenance, he had attached himself to the jealous Amelie, the better to lull suspicion in Lucien and in Mme. de Bargeton, who was not without perspicacity.  In order to spy upon the pair, he had contrived of late to open up a stock controversy on the point with M. de Chandour.  Chatelet said that Mme. de Bargeton was simply amusing herself with Lucien; she was too proud, too high-born, to stoop to the apothecary’s son.  The role of incredulity was in accordance with the plan which he had laid down, for he wished to appear as Mme. de Bargeton’s champion.  Stanislas de Chandour held that Mme. de Bargeton had not been cruel to her lover, and Amelie goaded them to argument, for she longed to know the truth.  Each stated his case, and (as not unfrequently happens in small country towns) some intimate friends of the house dropped in in the middle of the argument.  Stanislas and Chatelet vied with each other in backing up their opinions by observations extremely pertinent.  It was hardly to be expected that the champions should not seek to enlist partisans.  “What do you yourself think?” they asked, each of his neighbor.  These polemics kept Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien well in sight.

At length one day Chatelet called attention to the fact that whenever he went with M. de Chandour to Mme. de Bargeton’s and found Lucien there, there was not a sign nor a trace of anything suspicious; the boudoir door stood open, the servants came and went, there was nothing mysterious to betray the sweet crime of love, and so forth and so forth.  Stanislas, who did not lack a certain spice of stupidity in his composition, vowed that he would cross the room on tiptoe the next day, and the perfidious Amelie held him to his bargain.

For Lucien that morrow was the day on which a young man tugs out some of the hairs of his head, and inwardly vows that he will give up the foolish business of sighing.  He was accustomed to his situation.  The poet, who had seated himself so bashfully in the boudoir-sanctuary of the queen of Angouleme, had been transformed into an urgent lover.  Six months had been enough to bring him on a level with Louise, and now he would fain be her lord and master.  He left home with a settled determination to be extravagant in his behavior; he would say that it was a matter of life or death to him; he would bring all the resources of torrid eloquence into play; he would cry that he had lost his head, that he could not think, could not write a line.  The horror that some women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would rather surrender upon the impulse of passion, than in fulfilment of a contract.  In general, prescribed happiness is not the kind that any of us desire.

Mme. de Bargeton read fixed purpose in Lucien’s eyes and forehead, and in the agitation in his face and manner, and proposed to herself to baffle him, urged thereto partly by a spirit of contradiction, partly also by an exalted conception of love.  Being given to exaggeration, she set an exaggerated value upon her person.  She looked upon herself as a sovereign lady, a Beatrice, a Laura.  She enthroned herself, like some dame of the Middle Ages, upon a dais, looking down upon the tourney of literature, and meant that Lucien, as in duty bound, should win her by his prowess in the field; he must eclipse “the sublime child,” and Lamartine, and Sir Walter Scott, and Byron.  The noble creature regarded her love as a stimulating power; the desire which she had kindled in Lucien should give him the energy to win glory for himself.  This feminine Quixotry is a sentiment which hallows love and turns it to worthy uses; it exalts and reverences love.  Mme. de Bargeton having made up her mind to play the part of Dulcinea in Lucien’s life for seven or eight years to come, desired, like many other provincials, to give herself as the reward of prolonged service, a trial of constancy which should give her time to judge her lover.

Lucien began the strife by a piece of vehement petulence, at which a woman laughs so long as she is heart-free, and saddens only when she loves; whereupon Louise took a lofty tone, and began one of her long orations, interlarded with high-sounding words.

“Was that your promise to me, Lucien?” she said, as she made an end.  “Do not sow regrets in the present time, so sweet as it is, to poison my after life.  Do not spoil the future, and, I say it with pride, do not spoil the present!  Is not my whole heart yours?  What more must you have?  Can it be that your love is influenced by the clamor of the senses, when it is the noblest privilege of the beloved to silence them?  For whom do you take me?  Am I not your Beatrice?  If I am not something more than a woman for you, I am less than a woman.”

“That is just what you might say to a man if you cared nothing at all for him,” cried Lucien, frantic with passion.

“If you cannot feel all the sincere love underlying my ideas, you will never be worthy of me.”

“You are throwing doubts on my love to dispense yourself from responding to it,” cried Lucien, and he flung himself weeping at her feet.

The poor boy cried in earnest at the prospect of remaining so long at the gate of paradise.  The tears of the poet, who feels that he is humbled through his strength, were mingled with childish crying for a plaything.

“You have never loved me!” he cried.

“You do not believe what you say,” she answered, flattered by his violence.

“Then give me proof that you are mine,” said the disheveled poet.

Just at that moment Stanislas came up unheard by either of the pair.  He beheld Lucien in tears, half reclining on the floor, with his head on Louise’s knee.  The attitude was suspicious enough to satisfy Stanislas; he turned sharply round upon Chatelet, who stood at the door of the salon.  Mme. de Bargeton sprang up in a moment, but the spies beat a precipate retreat like intruders, and she was not quick enough for them.

“Who came just now?” she asked the servants.

“M. de Chandour and M. du Chatelet,” said Gentil, her old footman.

Mme. de Bargeton went back, pale and trembling, to her boudoir.

“If they saw you just now, I am lost,” she told Lucien.

“So much the better!” exclaimed the poet, and she smiled to hear the cry, so full of selfish love.

A story of this kind is aggravated in the provinces by the way in which it is told.  Everybody knew in a moment that Lucien had been detected at Nais feet.  M. de Chandour, elated by the important part he played in the affair, went first to tell the great news at the club, and thence from house to house, Chatelet hastening to say that he had seen nothing; but by putting himself out of court, he egged Stanislas on to talk, he drew him on to add fresh details; and Stanislas, thinking himself very witty, added a little to the tale every time that he told it.  Every one flocked to Amelie’s house that evening, for by that time the most exaggerated versions of the story were in circulation among the Angouleme nobility, every narrator having followed Stanislas’ example.  Women and men were alike impatient to know the truth; and the women who put their hands before their faces and shrieked the loudest were none other than Mesdames Amelie, Zephirine, Fifine, and Lolotte, all with more or less heavy indictments of illicit love laid to their charge.  There were variations in every key upon the painful theme.

“Well, well,” said one of the ladies, “poor Nais! have you heard about it?  I do not believe it myself; she has a whole blameless record behind her; she is far too proud to be anything but a patroness to M. Chardon.  Still, if it is true, I pity her with all my heart.”

“She is all the more to be pitied because she is making herself frightfully ridiculous; she is old enough to be M. Lulu’s mother, as Jacques called him.  The little poet it twenty-two at most; and Nais, between ourselves, is quite forty.”

“For my own part,” said M. du Chatelet, “I think that M. de Rubempre’s position in itself proves Nais’ innocence.  A man does not go down on his knees to ask for what he has had already.”

“That is as may be!” said Francis, with levity that brought Zephirine’s disapproving glance down on him.

“Do just tell us how it really was,” they besought Stanislas, and formed a small, secret committee in a corner of the salon.

Stanislas, in the long length, had put together a little story full of facetious suggestions, and accompanied it with pantomime, which made the thing prodigiously worse.

“It is incredible!”

“At midday?”

“Nais was the last person whom I should have suspected!”

“What will she do now?”

Then followed more comments, and suppositions without end.  Chatelet took Mme. de Bargeton’s part; but he defended her so ill, that he stirred the fire of gossip instead of putting it out.

Lili, disconsolate over the fall of the fairest angel in the Angoumoisin hierarchy, went, dissolved in tears, to carry the news to the palace.  When the delighted Chatelet was convinced that the whole town was agog, he went off to Mme. de Bargeton’s, where, alas! there was but one game of whist that night, and diplomatically asked Nais for a little talk in the boudoir.  They sat down on the sofa, and Chatelet began in an undertone—­

“You know what Angouleme is talking about, of course?”

“No.”

“Very well, I am too much your friend to leave you in ignorance.  I am bound to put you in a position to silence slanders, invented, no doubt, by Amelie, who has the overweening audacity to regard herself as your rival.  I came to call on you this morning with that monkey of a Stanislas; he was a few paces ahead of me, and he came so far” (pointing to the door of the boudoir); “he says that he saw you and M. de Rubempre in such a position that he could not enter; he turned round upon me, quite bewildered as I was, and hurried me away before I had time to think; we were out in Beaulieu before he told me why he had beaten a retreat.  If I had known, I would not have stirred out of the house till I had cleared up the matter and exonerated you, but it would have proved nothing to go back again then.

“Now, whether Stanislas’ eyes deceived him, or whether he is right, he must have made a mistake.  Dear Nais, do not let that dolt trifle with your life, your honor, your future; stop his mouth at once.  You know my position here.  I have need of all these people, but still I am entirely yours.  Dispose of a life that belongs to you.  You have rejected my prayers, but my heart is always yours; I am ready to prove my love for you at any time and in any way.  Yes, I will watch over you like a faithful servant, for no reward, but simply for the sake of the pleasure that it is to me to do anything for you, even if you do not know of it.  This morning I have said everywhere that I was at the door of the salon, and had seen nothing.  If you are asked to give the name of the person who told you about this gossip, pray make use of me.  I should be very proud to be your acknowledged champion; but, between ourselves, M. de Bargeton is the proper person to ask Stanislas for an explanation. . . .  Suppose that young Rubempre had behaved foolishly, a woman’s character ought not to be at the mercy of the first hare-brained boy who flings himself at her feet.  That is what I have been saying.”

Nais bowed in acknowledgment, and looked thoughtful.  She was weary to disgust of provincial life.  Chatelet had scarcely begun before her mind turned to Paris.  Meanwhile Mme. de Bargeton’s adorer found the silence somewhat awkward.

“Dispose of me, I repeat,” he added.

“Thank you,” answered the lady.

“What do you think of doing?”

“I shall see.”

A prolonged pause.

“Are you so fond of that young Rubempre?”

A proud smile stole over her lips, she folded her arms, and fixed her gaze on the curtains.  Chatelet went out; he could not read that high heart.

Later in the evening, when Lucien had taken his leave, and likewise the four old gentlemen who came for their whist, without troubling themselves about ill-founded tittle-tattle, M. de Bargeton was preparing to go to bed, and had opened his mouth to bid his wife good-night, when she stopped him.

“Come here, dear, I have something to say to you,” she said, with a certain solemnity.

M. de Bargeton followed her into the boudoir.

“Perhaps I have done wrongly,” she said, “to show a warm interest in M. de Rubempre, which he, as well as the stupid people here in the town, has misinterpreted.  This morning Lucien threw himself here at my feet with a declaration, and Stanislas happened to come in just as I told the boy to get up again.  A woman, under any circumstances, has claims which courtesy prescribes to a gentleman; but in contempt of these, Stanislas has been saying that he came unexpectedly and found us in an equivocal position.  I was treating the boy as he deserved.  If the young scatterbrain knew of the scandal caused by his folly, he would go, I am convinced, to insult Stanislas, and compel him to fight.  That would simply be a public proclamation of his love.  I need not tell you that your wife is pure; but if you think, you will see that it is something dishonoring for both you and me if M. de Rubempre defends her.  Go at once to Stanislas and ask him to give you satisfaction for his insulting language; and mind, you must not accept any explanation short of a full and public retraction in the presence of witnesses of credit.  In this way you will win back the respect of all right-minded people; you will behave like a man of spirit and a gentleman, and you will have a right to my esteem.  I shall send Gentil on horseback to the Escarbas; my father must be your second; old as he is, I know that he is the man to trample this puppet under foot that has smirched the reputation of a Negrepelisse.  You have the choice of weapons, choose pistols; you are an admirable shot.”

“I am going,” said M. de Bargeton, and he took his hat and his walking cane.

“Good, that is how I like a man to behave, dear; you are a gentleman,” said his wife.  She felt touched by his conduct, and made the old man very happy and proud by putting up her forehead for a kiss.  She felt something like a maternal affection for the great child; and when the carriage gateway had shut with a clang behind him, the tears came into her eyes in spite of herself.

“How he loves me!” she thought.  “He clings to life, poor, dear man, and yet he would give his life for me.”

It did not trouble M. de Bargeton that he must stand up and face his man on the morrow, and look coolly into the muzzle of a pistol pointed straight at him; no, only one thing in the business made him feel uncomfortable, and on the way to M. de Chandour’s house he quaked inwardly.

“What shall I say?” he thought within himself; “Nais really ought to have told me what to say,” and the good gentleman racked his brains to compose a speech that should not be ridiculous.

But people of M. de Bargeton’s stamp, who live perforce in silence because their capacity is limited and their outlook circumscribed, often behave at great crises with a ready-made solemnity.  If they say little, it naturally follows that they say little that is foolish; their extreme lack of confidence leads them to think a good deal over the remarks that they are obliged to make; and, like Balaam’s ass, they speak marvelously to the point if a miracle loosens their tongues.  So M. de Bargeton bore himself like a man of uncommon sense and spirit, and justified the opinion of those who held that he was a philosopher of the school of Pythagoras.

He reached Stanislas’ house at nine o’clock, bowed silently to Amelie before a whole room full of people, and greeted others in turn with that simple smile of his, which under the present circumstances seemed profoundly ironical.  There followed a great silence, like the pause before a storm.  Chatelet had made his way back again, and now looked in a very significant fashion from M. de Bargeton to Stanislas, whom the injured gentleman accosted politely.

Chatelet knew what a visit meant at this time of night, when old M. de Bargeton was invariably in his bed.  It was evidently Nais who had set the feeble arm in motion.  Chatelet was on such a footing in that house that he had some right to interfere in family concerns.  He rose to his feet and took M. de Bargeton aside, saying, “Do you wish to speak to Stanislas?”

“Yes,” said the old gentleman, well pleased to find a go-between who perhaps might say his say for him.

“Very well; go into Amelie’s bedroom,” said the controller of excise, likewise well pleased at the prospect of a duel which possibly might make Mme. de Bargeton a widow, while it put a bar between her and Lucien, the cause of the quarrel.  Then Chatelet went to M. de Chandour.

“Stanislas,” he said, “here comes Bargeton to call you to account, no doubt, for the things you have been saying about Nais.  Go into your wife’s room, and behave, both of you, like gentlemen.  Keep the thing quiet, and make a great show of politeness, behave with phlegmatic British dignity, in short.”

In another minute Stanislas and Chatelet went to Bargeton.

“Sir,” said the injured husband, “do you say that you discovered Mme. de Bargeton and M. de Rubempre in an equivocal position?”

“M.  Chardon,” corrected Stanislas, with ironical stress; he did not take Bargeton seriously.

“So be it,” answered the other.  “If you do not withdraw your assertions at once before the company now in your house, I must ask you to look for a second.  My father-in-law, M. de Negrepelisse, will wait upon you at four o’clock to-morrow morning.  Both of us may as well make our final arrangements, for the only way out of the affair is the one that I have indicated.  I choose pistols, as the insulted party.”

This was the speech that M. de Bargeton had ruminated on the way; it was the longest that he had ever made in life.  He brought it out without excitement or vehemence, in the simplest way in the world.  Stanislas turned pale.  “After all, what did I see?” said he to himself.

Put between the shame of eating his words before the whole town, and fear, that caught him by the throat with burning fingers; confronted by this mute personage, who seemed in no humor to stand nonsense, Stanislas chose the more remote peril.

“All right.  To-morrow morning,” he said, thinking that the matter might be arranged somehow or other.

The three went back to the room.  Everybody scanned their faces as they came in; Chatelet was smiling, M. de Bargeton looked exactly as if he were in his own house, but Stanislas looked ghastly pale.  At the sight of his face, some of the women here and there guessed the nature of the conference, and the whisper, “They are going to fight!” circulated from ear to ear.  One-half of the room was of the opinion that Stanislas was in the wrong, his white face and his demeanor convicted him of a lie; the other half admired M. de Bargeton’s attitude.  Chatelet was solemn and mysterious.  M. de Bargeton stayed a few minutes, scrutinized people’s faces, and retired.

“Have you pistols?” Chatelet asked in a whisper of Stanislas, who shook from head to foot.

Amelie knew what it all meant.  She felt ill, and the women flocked about her to take her into her bedroom.  There was a terrific sensation; everybody talked at once.  The men stopped in the drawing-room, and declared, with one voice, that M. de Bargeton was within his right.

“Would you have thought the old fogy capable of acting like this?” asked M. de Saintot.

“But he was a crack shot when he was young,” said the pitiless Jacques.  “My father often used to tell me of Bargeton’s exploits.”

“Pooh!  Put them at twenty paces, and they will miss each other if you give them cavalry pistols,” said Francis, addressing Chatelet.

Chatelet stayed after the rest had gone to reassure Stanislas and his wife, and to explain that all would go off well.  In a duel between a man of sixty and a man of thirty-five, all the advantage lay with the latter.

Early next morning, as Lucien sat at breakfast with David, who had come back alone from Marsac, in came Mme. Chardon with a scared face.

“Well, Lucien,” she said, “have you heard the news?  Everyone is talking of it, even the people in the market.  M. de Bargeton all but killed M. de Chandour this morning in M. Tulloy’s meadow; people are making puns on the name. (Tue Poie.) It seems that M. de Chandour said that he found you with Mme. de Bargeton yesterday.”

“It is a lie!  Mme. de Bargeton is innocent,” cried Lucien.

“I heard about the duel from a countryman, who saw it all from his cart.  M. de Negrepelisse came over at three o’clock in the morning to be M. de Bargeton’s second; he told M. de Chandour that if anything happened to his son-in-law, he should avenge him.  A cavalry officer lent the pistols.  M. de Negrepelisse tried them over and over again.  M. du Chatelet tried to prevent them from practising with the pistols, but they referred the question to the officer; and he said that, unless they meant to behave like children, they ought to have pistols in working order.  The seconds put them at twenty-five paces.  M. de Bargeton looked as if he had just come out for a walk.  He was the first to fire; the ball lodged in M. de Chandour’s neck, and he dropped before he could return the shot.  The house-surgeon at the hospital has just said that M. de Chandour will have a wry neck for the rest of his days.  I came to tell you how it ended, lest you should go to Mme. de Bargeton’s or show yourself in Angouleme, for some of M. de Chandour’s friends might call you out.”

As she spoke, the apprentice brought in Gentil, M. de Bargeton’s footman.  The man had come with a note for Lucien; it was from Louise.

“You have doubtless heard the news,” she wrote, “of the duel between Chandour and my husband.  We shall not be at home to any one to-day.  Be careful; do not show yourself.  I ask this in the name of the affection you bear me.  Do you not think that it would be best to spend this melancholy day in listening to your Beatrice, whose whole life has been changed by this event, who has a thousand things to say to you?”

“Luckily, my marriage is fixed for the day after to-morrow,” said David, “and you will have an excuse for not going to see Mme. de Bargeton quite so often.”

“Dear David,” returned Lucien, “she asks me to go to her to-day; and I ought to do as she wishes, I think; she knows better than we do how I should act in the present state of things.”

“Then is everything ready here?” asked Mme. Chardon.

“Come and see,” cried David, delighted to exhibit the transformation of the first floor.  Everything there was new and fresh; everything was pervaded by the sweet influences of early married days, still crowned by the wreath of orange blossoms and the bridal veil; days when the springtide of love finds its reflection in material things, and everything is white and spotless and has not lost its bloom.

“Eve’s home will be fit for a princess,” said the mother, “but you have spent too much, you have been reckless.”

David smiled by way of answer.  But Mme. Chardon had touched the sore spot in a hidden wound which caused the poor lover cruel pangs.  The cost of carrying out his ideas had far exceeded his estimates; he could not afford to build above the shed.  His mother-in-law must wait awhile for the home he had meant to make for her.  There is nothing more keenly painful to a generous nature than a failure to keep such promises as these; it is like mortification to the little vanities of affection, as they may be styled.  David sedulously hid his embarrassment to spare Lucien; he was afraid that Lucien might be overwhelmed by the sacrifices made for his sake.

“Eve and her girl friends have been working very hard, too,” said Mme. Chardon.  “The wedding clothes and the house linen are all ready.  The girls are so fond of her, that, without letting her know about it, they have covered the mattresses with white twill and a rose-colored piping at the edges.  So pretty!  It makes one wish one were going to be married.”

Mother and daughter had spent all their little savings to furnish David’s home with the things of which a young bachelor never thinks.  They knew that he was furnishing with great splendor, for something had been said about ordering a dinner-service from Limoges, and the two women had striven to make Eve’s contributions to the housekeeping worthy of David’s.  This little emulation in love and generosity could but bring the husband and wife into difficulties at the very outset of their married life, with every sign of homely comfort about them, comfort that might be regarded as positive luxury in a place so behind the times as the Angouleme of those days.

As soon as Lucien saw his mother and David enter the bedroom with the blue-and-white draperies and neat furniture that he knew, he slipped away to Mme. de Bargeton.  He found Nais at table with her husband; M. de Bargeton’s early morning walk had sharpened his appetite, and he was breakfasting quite unconcernedly after all that had passed.  Lucien saw the dignified face of M. de Negrepelisse, the old provincial noble, a relic of the old French noblesse, sitting beside Nais.

When Gentil announced M. de Rubempre, the white-headed old man gave him a keen, curious glance; the father was anxious to form his own opinions of this man whom his daughter had singled out for notice.  Lucien’s extreme beauty made such a vivid impression upon him, that he could not repress an approving glance; but at the same time he seemed to regard the affair as a flirtation, a mere passing fancy on his daughter’s part.  Breakfast over, Louise could leave her father and M. de Bargeton together; she beckoned Lucien to follow her as she withdrew.

“Dear,” she said, and the tones of her voice were half glad, half melancholy, “I am going to Paris, and my father is taking Bargeton back with him to the Escarbas, where he will stay during my absence.  Mme. d’Espard (she was a Blamont-Chauvry before her marriage) has great influence herself, and influential relations.  The d’Espards are connections of ours; they are the older branch of the Negrepelisses; and if she vouchsafes to acknowledge the relationship, I intend to cultivate her a good deal; she may perhaps procure a place for Bargeton.  At my solicitation, it might be desired at Court that he should represent the Charente, and that would be a step towards his election here.  If he were a deputy, it would further other steps that I wish to take in Paris.  You, my darling, have brought about this change in my life.  After this morning’s duel, I am obliged to shut up my house for some time; for there will be people who will side with the Chandours against us.  In our position, and in a small town, absence is the only way of softening down bad feeling.  But I shall either succeed, and never see Angouleme again, or I shall not succeed, and then I mean to wait in Paris until the time comes when I can spend my summers at the Escarbas and the winters in Paris.  It is the only life for a woman of quality, and I have waited too long before entering upon it.  The one day will be enough for our preparations; to-morrow night I shall set out, and you are coming with me, are you not?  You shall start first.  I will overtake you between Mansle and Ruffec, and we shall soon be in Paris.  There, beloved, is the life for a man who has anything in him.  We are only at our ease among our equals; we are uncomfortable in any other society.  Paris, besides, is the capital of the intellectual world, the stage on which you will succeed; overleap the gulf that separates us quickly.  You must not allow your ideas to grow rancid in the provinces; put yourself into communication at once with the great men who represent the nineteenth century.  Try to stand well with the Court and with those in power.  No honor, no distinction, comes to seek out the talent that perishes for lack of light in a little town; tell me, if you can, the name of any great work of art executed in the provinces!  On the contrary, see how Jean-Jacques, himself sublime in his poverty, felt the irresistible attraction of that sun of the intellectual world, which produces ever-new glories and stimulates the intellect—­Paris, where men rub against one another.  What is it but your duty to hasten to take your place in the succession of pleiades that rise from generation to generation?  You have no idea how it contributes to the success of a clever young man to be brought into a high light, socially speaking.  I will introduce you to Mme. d’Espard; it is not easy to get into her set; but you meet all the greatest people at her house, Cabinet ministers and ambassadors, and great orators from the Chamber of Deputies, and peers and men of influence, and wealthy or famous people.  A young man with good looks and more than sufficient genius could fail to excite interest only by very bad management.

“There is no pettiness about those who are truly great; they will lend you their support; and when you yourself have a high position, your work will rise immensely in public opinion.  The great problem for the artist is the problem of putting himself in evidence.  In these ways there will be hundreds of chances of making your way, of sinecures, of a pension from the civil list.  The Bourbons are so fond of encouraging letters and the arts, and you therefore must be a religious poet and a Royalist poet at the same time.  Not only is it the right course, but it is the way to get on in life.  Do the Liberals and the Opposition give places and rewards, and make the fortunes of men of letters?  Take the right road and reach the goal of genius.  You have my secret, do not breathe a syllable of it, and prepare to follow me.—­Would you rather not go?” she added, surprised that her lover made no answer.

To Lucien, listening to the alluring words, and bewildered by the rapid bird’s-eye view of Paris which they brought before him, it seemed as if hitherto he had been using only half his brain and suddenly had found the other half, so swiftly his ideas widened.  He saw himself stagnating in Angouleme like a frog under a stone in a marsh.  Paris and her splendors rose before him; Paris, the Eldorado of provincial imaginings, with golden robes and the royal diadem about her brows, and arms outstretched to talent of every kind.  Great men would greet him there as one of their order.  Everything smiled upon genius.  There, there were no jealous booby-squires to invent stinging gibes and humiliate a man of letters; there was no stupid indifference to poetry in Paris.  Paris was the fountain-head of poetry; there the poet was brought into the light and paid for his work.  Publishers should no sooner read the opening pages of An Archer of Charles IX. than they should open their cash-boxes with “How much do you want?” And besides all this, he understood that this journey with Mme. de Bargeton would virtually give her to him; that they should live together.

So at the words, “Would you rather not go?” tears came into his eyes, he flung his arms about Louise, held her tightly to his heart, and marbled her throat with impassioned kisses.  Suddenly he checked himself, as if memory had dealt him a blow.

“Great heavens!” he cried, “my sister is to be married on the day after to-morrow!”

That exclamation was the last expiring cry of noble and single-hearted boyhood.  The so-powerful ties that bind young hearts to home, and a first friendship, and all early affections, were to be severed at one ruthless blow.

“Well,” cried the haughty Negrepelisse, “and what has your sister’s marriage to do with the progress of our love?  Have you set your mind so much on being best man at a wedding party of tradespeople and workingmen, that you cannot give up these exalted joys for my sake?  A great sacrifice, indeed!” she went on, scornfully.  “This morning I sent my husband out to fight in your quarrel.  There, sir, go; I am mistaken in you.”

She sank fainting upon the sofa.  Lucien went to her, entreating her pardon, calling execrations upon his family, his sister, and David.

“I had such faith in you!” she said.  “M. de Cante-Croix had an adored mother; but to win a letter from me, and the words, ‘I am satisfied,’ he fell in the thick of the fight.  And now, when I ask you to take a journey with me, you cannot think of giving up a wedding dinner for my sake.”

Lucien was ready to kill himself; his desperation was so unfeigned, that Louise forgave him, though at the same time she made him feel that he must redeem his mistake.

“Come, come,” she said, “be discreet, and to-morrow at midnight be upon the road, a hundred paces out of Mansle.”

Lucien felt the globe shrink under his feet; he went back to David’s house, hopes pursuing him as the Furies followed Orestes, for he had glimmerings of endless difficulties, all summed up in the appalling words, “Where is the money to come from?”

He stood in such terror of David’s perspicacity, that he locked himself into his pretty new study until he could recover himself, his head was swimming in this new position.  So he must leave the rooms just furnished for him at such a cost, and all the sacrifices that had been made for him had been made in vain.  Then it occurred to Lucien that his mother might take the rooms and save David the heavy expense of building at the end of the yard, as he had meant to do; his departure would be, in fact, a convenience to the family.  He discovered any quantity of urgent reasons for his sudden flight; for there is no such Jesuit as the desire of your heart.  He hurried down at once to tell the news to his sister in L’Houmeau and to take counsel with her.  As he reached Postel’s shop, he bethought himself that if all other means failed, he could borrow enough to live upon for a year from his father’s successor.

“Three francs per day will be abundance for me if I live with Louise,” he thought; “it is only a thousand francs for a whole year.  And in six months’ time I shall have plenty of money.”

Then, under seal and promise of secrecy, Eve and her mother heard Lucien’s confidences.  Both the women began to cry as they heard of the ambitious plans; and when he asked the reason of their trouble, they told him that every penny they possessed had been spent on table-linen, house-linen, Eve’s wedding clothes, and on a host of things that David had overlooked.  They had been so glad to do this, for David had made a marriage-settlement of ten thousand francs on Eve.  Lucien then spoke of his idea of a loan, and Mme. Chardon undertook to ask M. Postel to lend them a thousand francs for a twelve-month.

“But, Lucien,” said Eve, as a thought clutched at her heart, “you will not be here at my wedding!  Oh! come back, I will put it off for a few days.  Surely she will give you leave to come back in a fortnight, if only you go with her now?  Surely, she would spare you to us for a week, Lucien, when we brought you up for her?  We shall have no luck if you are not at the wedding. . . .  But will a thousand francs be enough for you?” she asked, suddenly interrupting herself.  “Your coat suits you divinely, but you have only that one!  You have only two fine shirts, the other six are coarse linen; and three of your white ties are just common muslin, there are only two lawn cravats, and your pocket-handkerchiefs are not good ones.  Where will you find a sister in Paris who will get up your linen in one day as you want it?  You will want ever so much more.  Then you have just the one pair of new nankeen trousers, last year’s trousers are tight for you; you will be obliged to have clothes made in Paris, and Paris prices are not like Angouleme prices.  You have only two presentable white waistcoats; I have mended the others already.  Come, I advise you to take two thousand francs.”

David came in as she spoke, and apparently heard the last two words, for he looked at the brother and sister and said nothing.

“Do not keep anything from me,” he said at last.

“Well,” exclaimed Eve, “he is going away with her.”

Mme. Chardon came in again, and, not seeing David, began at once: 

“Postel is willing to lend you the thousand francs, Lucien,” she said, “but only for six months; and even then he wants you to let him have a bill endorsed by your brother-in-law, for he says that you are giving him no security.”

She turned and saw David, and there was a deep silence in the room.  The Chardons thought how they had abused David’s goodness, and felt ashamed.  Tears stood in the young printer’s eyes.

“Then you will not be here at our wedding,” he began.  “You are not going to live with us!  And here have I been squandering all that I had!  Oh!  Lucien, as I came along, bringing Eve her little bits of wedding jewelry, I did not think that I should be sorry I spent the money on them.”  He brushed his hand over his eyes as he drew the little cases from his pocket.

He set down the tiny morocco-covered boxes on the table in front of his mother-in-law.

“Oh! why do you think so much for me?” protested Eve, giving him a divinely sweet smile that belied her words.

“Mamma, dear,” said David, “just tell M. Postel that I will put my name to the bill, for I can tell from your face, Lucien, that you have quite made up your mind to go.”

Lucien’s head sank dejectedly; there was a little pause, then he said, “Do not think hardly of me, my dear, good angels.”

He put his arms about Eve and David, and drew them close, and held them tightly to him as he added, “Wait and see what comes of it, and you shall know how much I love you.  What is the good of our high thinking, David, if it does not enable us to disregard the petty ceremonial in which the law entangles our affections?  Shall I not be with you in spirit, in spite of the distance between us?  Shall we not be united in thought?  Have I not a destiny to fulfil?  Will publishers come here to seek my Archer of Charles IX. and the Marguerites?  A little sooner or a little later I shall be obliged in any case to do as I am doing to-day, should I not?  And shall I ever find a better opportunity than this?  Does not my success entirely depend upon my entrance on life in Paris through the Marquise d’Espard’s salon?”

“He is right,” said Eve; “you yourself were saying, were you not, that he ought to go to Paris at once?”

David took Eve’s hand in his, and drew her into the narrow little room where she had slept for seven years.

“Love, you were saying just now that he would want two thousand francs?” he said in her ear.  “Postel is only lending one thousand.”

Eve gave her betrothed a look, and he read all her anguish in her eyes.

“Listen, my adored Eve, we are making a bad start in life.  Yes, my expenses have taken all my capital; I have just two thousand francs left, and half of it will be wanted to carry on the business.  If we give your brother the thousand francs, it will mean that we are giving away our bread, that we shall live in anxiety.  If I were alone, I know what I should do; but we are two.  Decide for us.”

Eve, distracted, sprang to her lover’s arms, and kissed him tenderly, as she answered through her tears: 

“Do as you would do if you were alone; I will work to earn the money.”

In spite of the most impassioned kiss ever given and taken by betrothed lovers, David left Eve overcome with trouble, and went out to Lucien.

“Do not worry yourself,” he said; “you shall have your two thousand francs.”

“Go in to see Postel,” said Mme. Chardon, “for you must both give your signatures to the bill.”

When Lucien and David came back again unexpectedly, they found Eve and her mother on their knees in prayer.  The women felt sure that Lucien’s return would bring the realization of many hopes; but at the moment they could only feel how much they were losing in the parting, and the happiness to come seemed too dearly bought by an absence that broke up their life together, and would fill the coming days with innumerable fears for Lucien.

“If you could ever forget this sight,” David said in Lucien’s ear, “you would be the basest of men.”

David, no doubt, thought that these brave words were needed; Mme. de Bargeton’s influence seemed to him less to be feared than his friend’s unlucky instability of character, Lucien was so easily led for good or evil.  Eve soon packed Lucien’s clothes; the Fernando Cortez of literature carried but little baggage.  He was wearing his best overcoat, his best waistcoat, and one of the two fine shirts.  The whole of his linen, the celebrated coat, and his manuscript made up so small a package that to hide it from Mme. de Bargeton, David proposed to send it by coach to a paper merchant with whom he had dealings, and wrote and advised him to that effect, and asked him to keep the parcel until Lucien sent for it.

In spite of Mme. de Bargeton’s precautions, Chatelet found out that she was leaving Angouleme; and with a view to discovering whether she was traveling alone or with Lucien, he sent his man to Ruffec with instructions to watch every carriage that changed horses at that stage.

“If she is taking her poet with her,” thought he, “I have her now.”

Lucien set out before daybreak the next morning.  David went with him.  David had hired a cabriolet, pretending that he was going to Marsac on business, a little piece of deception which seemed probable under the circumstances.  The two friends went to Marsac, and spent part of the day with the old “bear.”  As evening came on they set out again, and in the beginning of the dawn they waited in the road, on the further side of Mansle, for Mme. de Bargeton.  When the seventy-year old traveling carriage, which he had many a time seen in the coach-house, appeared in sight, Lucien felt more deeply moved than he had ever been in his life before; he sprang into David’s arms.

“God grant that this may be for your good!” said David, and he climbed into the shabby cabriolet and drove away with a feeling of dread clutching at his heart; he had terrible presentiments of the fate awaiting Lucien in Paris.