Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (24 page)

When she set eyes on these outstanding figures, Madame de Bargeton no longer wondered why the Marquise was paying little attention to Lucien. Then, when conversation began, when each of these subtle and delicate minds showed its mettle by shafts of wit which had more meaning and depth than anything Anaïs could have heard in a whole month in Angoulême; and particularly when the great poet gave vibrant expression to views which were positive and pertinent and yet had the gilding of poetry, Louise understood what du Châtelet had told her the evening before: Lucien counted for nothing here. Everyone looked on the unhappy stranger with such cruel indifference, his place there was so much that of a foreigner ignorant of the language, that the Marquise took pity on him.

‘Allow me, Monsieur,’ she said to Canalis, ‘to present Monsieur de Rubempré to you. You occupy too high a position in the literary world not to welcome a beginner. Monsieur de Rubempré is from Angoulême, and will no doubt need your sponsorship in his relations with the people in Paris whose mission it is to bring genius to light. As yet he has no enemies to make his fortune by attacking him. Would it not be a novel and worthwhile enterprise to help him to win through friendship what you owe to hostility?’

The four men of mark turned their gaze on Lucien while the Marquise was speaking. Although he was no more than two paces away from the newcomer, de Marsay lifted his monocle to look him over; his glance went from Lucien to Madame de Bargeton and from Madame de Bargeton to Lucien, and he sized them up with a mocking air which cruelly mortified them both; he was studying them with a smile as if they were a pair of curious animals. This smile was like a dagger-thrust to the provincial celebrity. Félix de Vandenesse gave him a kindly look, Montriveau an appraising glance which went right through him.

‘Madame,’ said Monsieur de Canalis with a bow. ‘I shall obey you, despite personal interest which makes us disinclined to favour our rivals; but you have shown us that such miracles are possible.’

‘Very well. Do me the pleasure of dining with me on Monday with Monsieur de Rubempré. At my house you will be more at ease talking of literary matters. I will try to recruit some of the despots and well-known patrons of literature, the authoress of
Ourika
and a few young poets with sensible views.’

‘Madame la Marquise,’ said de Marsay, ‘if you sponsor Monsieur for his intelligence, I will sponsor him for his good looks. I will give him such advice as will make him the happiest elegant in Paris. After that, let him be a poet if he will.’

Madame de Bargeton thanked her cousin with a glance full of gratitude.

‘I didn’t know you were jealous of intelligent people,’ said Montriveau to de Marsay. ‘Happiness is mortal to poets.’

‘Is that why you are thinking of marrying, Monsieur?’ the latter continued, addressing Canalis in order to see if this shaft would get home to Madame d’Espard. Canalis gave a shrug, and Madame d’Espard, who was a friend of Madame de Chaulieu, merely laughed.

Lucien, whose tight-fitting clothes made him feel like a mummy in its case, was ashamed to have no reply to make. At last he said to the Marquise in a moved tone of voice: ‘Your kindness, Madame, is so great that I am bound to be successful.’

At this moment du Châtelet came in, eager to seize the chance of meeting the Marquise through the support of Montriveau, one of the leaders of Paris society. He bowed to Madame de Bargeton and begged Madame d’Espard to pardon him for taking the liberty of invading her box: he had been so long separated from his travelling companion! This was the first time Montriveau and he had met since they had parted from one another in the heart of the desert.

‘Fancy being parted in the desert and meeting next time in the Opera House!’ said Lucien.

‘A truly theatrical recognition!’ said Canalis.

Montriveau introduced the Baron du Châtelet to the Marquise, who received the former Secretary of Her Imperial Highness’s Commands with a welcome so much the more affable because she had already seen his cordial reception in three other boxes, because Madame de Sérizy only admitted people of good standing, and because he had been Montriveau’s companion. This last qualification was of such great value that Madame de Bargeton was able to observe from the tone of voice, the expression and manners of the four gentlemen that they accepted du Châtelet without question as one of themselves. The reason for Châtelet’s oriental affectations at Angoulême suddenly became clear to Naïs. Finally du Châtelet noticed Lucien and gave him one of those curt, cold nods with which one man disparages another and conveys to fashionable people how very low is the place he occupies in society. His salute was accompanied by a sardonic expression which seemed to say: ‘What strange chance brings
him
here?’
Du Châtelet’s point went home, for de Marsay leaned towards Montriveau and said in a whisper – but one audible enough to the Baron – ‘Ask him who is that curious young man dressed like a tailor’s dummy.’

Du Châtelet spent a minute or two talking softly to his companion as if he were renewing acquaintanceship with him, and no doubt he slashed his rival to pieces. Lucien was surprised at the ready wit and subtlety with which these men worded their remarks to one another; he was stunned by their sallies and epigrams, and above all by their lack of self-consciousness and ease of manner. That morning the sight of material luxury had reduced him to awe: now he was finding it again in the realm of ideas. He was wondering by what gift for impromptu these people hit on the piquant reflections and repartees which only long meditation would have enabled him to invent. And besides, these five men were not only easy in conversation, but also in the way they wore their clothes, which were neither new nor old. There was nothing gaudy about them and yet everything attracted attention. The luxury they displayed today was that of yesterday and would be the same tomorrow. Lucien sensed that his appearance was that of a man who had dressed up for the first time in his life.

‘My dear,’ de Marsay was saying to Vandenesse, ‘little Rastignac is soaring up like a kite! There he is in the Marquise de Listomère’s box. He’s getting on, he’s even eyeing us through his spy-glass! No doubt he knows you, Monsieur?’ the dandy continued, speaking to Lucien but not looking at him.

‘It is difficult,’ Madame de Bargeton replied, ‘to suppose that the name of the great man of whom we are so proud has not reached his ears: his sister recently heard Monsieur de Rubempré reciting some beautiful poetry to us.’

Félix de Vandenesse and de Marsay made their bow to the Marquise and went to the box occupied by Vandenesse’s sister, Madame de Listomère. The second act began, and they all left the Marquise d’Espard, her cousin and Lucien to themselves. Some of them went to explain Madame de Bargeton to the women who were puzzled about her, the
others told of the poet’s arrival and made fun of his clothes. Canalis returned to the Duchesse de Chaulieu and remained there. Lucien was glad of the diversion which the performance provided. All Madame de Bargeton’s fears in regard to Lucien were increased by the attention her cousin had vouchsafed to the Baron du Châtelet, since it was of quite different character from her patronizing politeness to Lucien. During the second act, Madame de Listomère’s box remained crowded and appeared to be the scene of animated conversation about Madame de Bargeton and Lucien. Evidently the youthful Rastignac was the entertaining spirit in this box: he it was who took the lead in that typically Parisian derision which, moving to fresh pastures every day, is in a hurry to exhaust the topic in vogue by turning it into something old and stale in one brief moment. Madame d’Espard was anxious. She knew that the victims of slander are not allowed to remain long in ignorance of it, and she waited for the end of the act. As for Lucien and Madame de Bargeton, when people turn their feelings inwards upon themselves, strange things happen in a short time: the laws determining moral revulsions are rapid in their effects. Louise was remembering the sage and politic remarks du Châtelet had made about Lucien on the way home from the Vaudeville Theatre: every sentence had been a prophecy, and Lucien seemed intent on fulfilling every one of them. Losing his illusions about Madame de Bargeton while Madame de Bargeton was losing hers about him, the unhappy youth, whose destiny was a little like that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, imitated him in this respect: he was fascinated by Madame d’Espard and fell in love with her immediately. Men who are young or who remember the emotions of their youth, will understand that this passion was extremely likely and natural. The pretty little ways, the delicacy of speech, the refined tone of voice and slender proportions of this woman, so wellborn, so highly placed, so envied, in short this queenly person, made the same impression on the poet as Madame de Bargeton had made on him in Angoulême. His volatile character promptly impelled a desire in him for the protection of so lofty a person, and the surest means for this was to win her
as a woman – all the rest would follow! He had been successful in Angoulême: why should he not succeed in Paris? Involuntarily, and despite his new found pleasure in the magic of opera, his glance, attracted by this splendid Céimène, was constantly roving in her direction, and the more he looked at her the more he wanted to go on looking! Madame de Bargeton intercepted one of these glances; she watched him and saw that he was more interested in the Marquise than in the performance. She would have gracefully resigned herself to being deserted for the fifty daughters of Danaus; but when one of his glances, more ambitious, more ardent and more significant than the others, showed her what was going on in Lucien’s mind, she became jealous, though less for the future than because of the past. ‘He has never looked at me like that,’ she thought. ‘Good heavens, Châtelet was right!’ It was then that she realized her mistake in loving him. When a woman comes to repent of a weakness she passes a sponge as it were over her life in order to wipe everything out. Yet, although every one of Lucien’s glances enraged her, she remained calm.

De Marsay returned at the interval, bringing Monsieur de Listomére with him. The staid Marquis and the young fop soon informed the haughty Marquise that the man got up as for a wedding whom she had been so unfortunate as to admit to her box had no more right to be called Monsieur de Rubempré than a Jew has a right to a Christian name. Lucien was the son of an apothecary named Chardon. Monsieur de Rastignac, well-informed about Angoulême matters, had already roused laughter in the two boxes, directed against that species of mummy whom the Marquise called her cousin and her precautions in taking a pharmacist about with her – no doubt in order that he might keep her artificially alive with drugs. Finally de Marsay retailed some of the thousand and one pleasantries in which Parisians are quick to indulge and which are promptly forgotten as soon as uttered; but behind all this was Châtelet, the begetter of this Carthaginian treachery.

‘My dear,’ Madame d’Espard whispered under her fan to
Madame de Bargeton, ‘do tell me: is your protégé’s name really Monsieur de Rubempré?’

‘He has taken his mother’s name,’ said the embarrassed Anaïs.

‘But what is his father’s name?’

‘Chardon.’

‘And what did he do?’

‘He was an apothecary.’

‘I was very sure, my dear friend, that a woman sponsored by me could not be a target for mockery among the best people of Paris. I do not care to have my box filled with wags who are delighted to find me hobnobbing with an apothecary’s son. Believe me, the best thing we can do is to leave together this very instant.’

Madame d’Espard assumed a noticeably supercilious air without Lucien being able to guess what he had done to cause this change of countenance. He told himself that his waistcoat was in bad taste, and that was true; that the cut of his coat was of an exaggerated style: that also was true. With bitterness in his heart he realized that he would have to visit a first-class tailor, and he firmly resolved to go the next day to the most fashionable one, so that, the following Monday, he could be on equal terms with the Marquise’s other guests. Though he was lost in thought, he paid attention to the third act and kept his eyes fixed on the stage. But while he watched the splendour of this exceptional production, he continued to muse about Madame d’Espard. He was in despair over her sudden coldness, so strangely frustrating to the intellectual fervour with which he was embarking on this new love affair, unperturbed though he was about the tremendous difficulties he foresaw but which he was confident of overcoming. He emerged from his deep day-dream to look once more at his new idol; but as he turned his head he saw that he was alone. He had heard a slight stir, the door was closing and Madame d’Espard was slipping away with her cousin. Lucien was extremely surprised at this abrupt desertion, but he gave no prolonged thought to it, precisely because he found it inexplicable.

As the two women rolled along in their carriage through the rue de Richelieu towards the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the Marquise said, in a tone of ill-concealed anger: ‘My dear child, what are you thinking of? At any rate wait until the apothecary’s son is really famous before you get interested in him. Even now the Duchesse de Chaulieu does not acknowledge her liaison with Canalis, and he
is
famous, and a gentleman as well. This young person is neither a son nor a lover to you, is he?’ – as she asked this question the imperious woman cast a sharp and inquisitorial glance at her cousin.

‘How lucky for me that I kept that little cad at arm’s length and allowed him no liberties!’ thought Madame de Bargeton.

‘Very well,’ continued the Marquise, taking the look in her cousin’s eye for an answer. ‘I strongly urge you to drop him. Why! to usurp an illustrious name is an audacity which society punishes. Admittedly it is his mother’s name; but just think, my dear: the King alone has the right to confer by ordinance the name of Rubempré on the offspring of a daughter of that house; if she has married beneath her, the favour would be a tremendous one, and in order to obtain it one needs an immense fortune, also to have rendered services and to have influential protectors. The fact of his being dressed like a shopkeeper in his Sunday best proves that this young fellow is neither well-off nor a gentleman: he’s good-looking, but to me he seems very stupid. He neither knows how to behave nor how to talk; in short he has no
breeding
. How comes it that you are taking him under your wing?’