Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (42 page)

‘I thought you men would be a bit more amusing,’ cried Florine.

‘Florine is right,’ said Blondet. ‘Let’s leave the cure of public ills to the quacks – our statesmen. As Charlet said: “One never spits into the wine-vats.”’

‘Do you know what Vignon puts me in mind of?’ said Lousteau, turning to Lucien. ‘One of those gross women in the rue du Pélican who tells a schoolboy: “Little man, you’re too young for a place like this…”’

This sally raised a laugh and amused even Coralie. The merchants listened as they went on eating and drinking.

‘What a nation!’ said the envoy to the Duc de Rhétoré. ‘So much good and so much evil in conjunction! Gentlemen, you are spendthrifts who cannot come to ruin.’

Thus it happened, by the blessing of chance, that no information was lacking to Lucien about the precipice over which he was to fall. D’Arthez had set the poet on the noble path of toil by inciting in him the feeling which overcomes all obstacles. Even Lousteau had, for a selfish motive, tried to stave him off by showing journalism and literature in their true light. Lucien had been reluctant to believe in so much hidden corruption; but now at last he was hearing journalists crying out in pain and could see them at work disembowelling their foster-mother as they predicted the future. In the course of that evening he had seen things as they were. Instead of feeling horror-stricken as he looked into the very heart of Parisian corruption so well characterized by Blucher, he was enjoying this witty company to the point of intoxication. It seemed to him that these extraordinary men, under the damascene armour of their vices and the glittering helmet of their cold analysis, were superior to the grave and austere brethren of the Cénacle. Besides, he was savouring the first delights of
affluence, he was under the spell of luxury and the tyranny of sumptuous fare; his wayward instincts were reviving, he was drinking choice wines for the first time, he was sampling the exquisite products of first-class cooking; he saw a minister, a duke and his little dancer mingling with the journalists and admiring the atrocious power they wielded; he felt a terrible itch to dominate this world of potentates and believed he had the power to overcome them. Finally there was Coralie who had been made happy by only a few sentences from him: he had examined her in the light of the festive candles through the steam arising from the dishes and the mists of intoxication, and she was so beautified by love that she seemed sublime to him! Moreover this girl was the prettiest, the most beautiful actress in Paris. The Cénacle, that celestial sphere of noble intelligence, was bound to lose the battle against such wholesale temptation. Lucien’s vanity, a vanity peculiar to authors, had just been flattered by men of experience; he had received praise from his future rivals. The success of his article and his conquest of Coralie were two triumphs which might well have turned an older head than his. During the discussion, everyone had eaten and drunk well. Lousteau, sitting next to Camusot, three or four times poured kirsch into the merchant’s wine without anyone noticing and played on his vanity to get him to drink copiously. This manoeuvre was so carefully carried out that the merchant was unaware of it: he thought that in his particular line he was as sprightly as the journalists.

An exchange of sharp pleasantries began as the dessert delicacies and the wines went round. The diplomat, a man of much intelligence, made a sign to the Duke and the dancer as soon as he heard the buzz of nonsensical remarks which, as this man of acumen well knew, herald the grotesque scenes that bring orgies to an end, and all three of them departed. As soon as Camusot’s wits became fuddled, Coralie and Lucien who, during the supper, had been behaving like amorous adolescents, fled downstairs and jumped into a cab. Camusot was under the table, and Matifat thought he had disappeared with the actress. He left his guests smoking,
drinking, laughing, bickering, and followed Florine when she went off to bed. As daylight overtook the combatants, or rather Blondet, this intrepid wine-bibber, the only one still capable of speech, invited the sleepers to drink a toast to rosy-fingered Dawn.

‘Quick, Bérénice,’ cried Coralie. ‘Tea, make some tea!’

‘It’s nothing. It’s the fresh air,’ said Lucien. ‘Also, I’ve never drunk so much.’

‘Poor child! he’s as innocent as a lamb,’ said Bérénice, a stout woman from Normandy, as ugly as Coralie was beautiful.

At last Lucien, without realizing it, was put into Coralie’s bed. With the help of Bérénice the actress had undressed her poet with the loving care of a mother for her small child. He kept on saying: ‘It’s nothing. It’s the fresh air. Thank you, Mamma.’

‘How sweet the way he says “Mamma”!’ exclaimed Coralie, kissing his hair.

‘What a pleasure to love such an angel, Mademoiselle. Where did you pick him up? I never thought that a man could be as handsome as you are beautiful.’

Lucien wanted to sleep, not knowing where he was or what was going on. Coralie made him swallow several cups of tea and then left him sleeping.

‘The concierge didn’t see us, or anyone else?’ asked Coralie.

‘No, I was waiting up for you.’

‘Victorine knows nothing about it?’

‘Not likely,’ said Bérénice.

Ten hours later, at about noon, Lucien woke up under Coralie’s gaze. She had been watching him as he slept! The poet in him understood. She was still in her fine dress, abominably stained, but she was going to treat it as a relic. Lucien recognized the devotion and delicate attentiveness of true love awaiting its reward: he gave Coralie one look. She undressed in an instant and slipped like a grass-snake into bed beside Lucien. By five o’clock the poet was again asleep, sunk deep in voluptuous pleasure. He had caught a glimpse of the actress’s bedroom, a ravishingly luxurious creation in white and pink, a wonderland of choice and dainty objects excelling those which Lucien had already admired in Florine’s flat. Coralie was now up, since she had to be at the theatre by seven in order to play her Andalusian role. She had again been contemplating her poet as he slept off his sensual enjoyment; she had been enthralled and could never be sated with this noble love which united heart and senses and enraptured both. The deification which makes it possible to feel as two separate people on earth and to love as one single person in heaven was like a priest’s absolution to her. For that matter, who would not have found exoneration in Lucien’s more than human beauty? As she knelt by the bed, happy to love for love’s sake, the actress felt a sort of sanctification. This state of delight was disturbed by Bérénice.

‘Here comes Camusot. He knows you are here,’ she called out.

Lucien stood up, his innate generosity prompting him to do no harm to Coralie. Bérénice drew aside a curtain, and Lucien retreated into a charming dressing-room where Bérénice and her mistress brought him his clothes with extraordinary rapidity. When the merchant appeared, Coralie caught sight of the poet’s boots, which Bérénice had put in front of the fire to warm after covertly polishing them. Both servant and mistress had forgotten these incriminating boots. Bérénice departed after exchanging an anxious look with her mistress. Coralie threw herself on to her settee and invited Camusot to sit down in a gondola chair facing her.
The good man, who adored Coralie, was looking at the boots and dared not lift his eyes to his mistress.

‘Ought I to make a fuss and leave Coralie on account of this pair of boots? It would be a trifling thing to get angry about. There are boots everywhere. These would look better in a shoemaker’s shop-window or strolling about on a man’s legs in the boulevards. Here however, with no legs in them, they tell a tale which doesn’t argue for fidelity. I’m fifty, that’s true: I have to be as blind as Cupid.’

There was no excuse for this cowardly monologue. The pair of boots were not half-boots like those in use today and which might in some measure be invisible to an unobservant man; they were, as fashion then ordained, full-length boots, very elegant, with tassels, the sort which glistened above close-fitting, almost invariably light-coloured trousers and reflected objects as in a looking-glass. So these boots were staring the honest silk-merchant in the face and, we must add, breaking his heart.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Coralie.

‘Nothing,’ he replied.

‘Ring the bell,’ said Coralie, smiling at Camusot’s cowardice. ‘Bérénice,’ she said to her Norman maid as she entered, ‘find me some button-hooks so that I can try these wretched boots on again. And don’t forget to bring them to my dressing-room this evening.’

‘What? Are they
your
boots?’ Camusot asked, breathing more easily.

‘My goodness, what do you think?’ she said with a haughty air. ‘You great silly, you surely don’t believe?… Oh yes, he would believe it!’ she said to Bérénice. ‘I’ve a man’s role in What’s-his-name’s play, and I’ve never dressed as a man before. The theatre shoemaker brought me those boots to practise walking in them while I was waiting for the pair he measured me for. He helped me on with them, but they hurt me so much I took them off; none the less I must try them again.’

‘Don’t put them on again if they’re uncomfortable,’ said Camusot, who had found them very uncomfortable indeed.

‘That would be more sensible,’ said Bérénice, ‘instead of Mademoiselle torturing herself as she did. It made her cry, Monsieur, and if I were a man I’d never let a woman I loved cry! It would be better if they were made of morocco leather. But the management is so stingy! Monsieur, you ought to go and order some for her…’

‘Yes, I will,’ said the merchant. – ‘You’re only just getting up,’ he said to Coralie.

‘This very minute. I didn’t get to bed till six o’clock, after looking for you everywhere. You made me keep my cab waiting for seven hours. That’s all the care you take of me! Neglecting me for the bottle! I had to take care of myself, seeing that I shall now be performing every evening so long as
The Alcalde
makes money. I don’t want to belie that young man’s article!’

‘He’s handsome, that boy,’ said Camusot.

‘You think so? I don’t like men of that kind: they’re too much like women. And besides they don’t know how to love like you silly old business men who find life so boring!’

‘Will Monsieur be dining with Madame?’ asked Bérénice.

‘No. My mouth’s all furred up.’

‘You got nicely sozzled last night. Oh, Papa Camusot, let me tell you I don’t like men who drink…’

‘I suppose you’ll give that young man a present,’ said the merchant.

‘Indeed yes, I prefer to pay them that way, instead of doing what Florine does. Well then, you bad lot, I love you, but you’d better leave me – or else give me a carriage so that I needn’t waste time in future.’

‘You’ll have it tomorrow for the dinner with your manager at the Rocher de Cancale. Sunday evening the new play won’t be on.’

‘Come along, I’m going to dine,’ said Coralie; and she took Camusot off.

An hour later Lucien was released by Bérénice. She had been Coralie’s childhood companion and she was as sharp and nimble-minded as she was corpulent.

‘Stay here. Coralie will come back alone. She’s even ready
to get rid of Camusot if he worries you,’ said Bérénice to Lucien. ‘But, dear child of her heart, you’re too much of an angel to ruin her. She told me she’s made up her mind to give everything up and leave this paradise to go and live with you in your garret. Oh! jealous and envious people have made it plain to her that you hadn’t a penny to bless yourself with and that you lived in the Latin quarter. Mind you, I’d go with you and do your housework. But I’ve managed to cheer the poor child up. Isn’t it a fact, Monsieur, that you’ve too much sense to do anything so idiotic? You’ll see all right that that lump of a man will only get the carcase and that you’ll be the pet, the beloved, the idol she’ll give her soul to. If you knew how good she is when I put her through her parts! A perfect darling! She well deserved that God should send her one of his angels, she was so disgusted with life. She was very unhappy with her mother, who used to beat her and then sold her! Yes, Monsieur, a mother selling her own child! If I had a daughter I’d look after her as I do my little Coralie; she’s been like my own child to me. This is the first good time I’ve seen her having, the first time she’s had lots of applause. It seems that because of what you wrote about her, they’re getting up a fine claque for the next performance. While you were asleep Braulard came to work things out with her.’

‘Who’s Braulard?’ asked Lucien, under the impression that he had already heard this name mentioned.

‘The leader of the clappers. He’s been arranging with her about what spots to clap loudest at in her part. Florine makes out she’s her friend, but she’s quite capable of doing her a bad turn and stealing the show. The whole boulevard’s in a stir on account of your article. – There’s a bed for you, fit for a prince to make love in!’ she added as she spread a lace coverlet over it.

She lit the candles. In the light they gave, Lucien was dazzled and indeed fancied he was in a fairy palace. Camusot had picked out the richest stuffs the Golden Cocoon could provide for the wall hangings and the window draperies. The poet was treading on a carpet fit for royalty.

The light gleamed and shimmered in the carvings of the
rosewood furniture. The white marble mantelpiece was resplendent with most costly trifles. The bedside rug was of swansdown edged with ermine. Black velvet slippers lined with crimson silk spoke of the pleasures awaiting the author of
Les Marguerites
. An exquisite lamp hung from the silk-draped ceiling. All around were wonderful
jardinières
filled with choice flowers, pretty white heather and scentless camellias. The whole room was a picture of innocence. How could one imagine an actress and the morals of the theatre in such a setting? Bérénice noticed Lucien’s amazement.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ she asked in a wheedling tone of voice. ‘Won’t you be better off making love here rather than in an attic?… Don’t let her do anything silly,’ she continued, leading Lucien to a magnificent pedestal table spread with food abstracted from her mistress’s dinner so that the cook might not suspect the presence of a lover.

Lucien had an excellent dinner, presented by Bérénice in a service of chased silver with decorated plates worth twenty francs apiece. This luxury had the same effect on him as a girl of the streets with her bare flesh and dainty sheer stockings has on a boy in his teens.

‘How lucky this Camusot is!’ he cried.

‘Lucky?’ Bérénice retorted. ‘Why, he would give all he has to be in your place and swap his old grey thatch for the fair hair of a young man like you.’

After pouring out for him some of the most delicious wine that Bordeaux ever prepared for the wealthiest Englishman, she urged Lucien to go back to bed while waiting for Coralie and take a little nap; and in fact Lucien was only too ready to lie in this wonderful bed. Bérénice had read this desire in the poet’s eyes and was pleased for her mistress’s sake. At half-past ten he awoke under a gaze which was brimming over with love. Coralie was there, in her most voluptuous night attire. Lucien had slept, and was no longer drunk – only with love. Bérénice withdrew with the question: ‘What time tomorrow?’

‘Eleven. Bring our breakfast up to bed. I’ll see no one before two o’clock.’

At two the next afternoon, the actress and her lover were dressed and sitting face to face as if the poet had come to pay a visit to his protégée. Coralie had bathed Lucien, brushed and combed his hair and dressed him; she had sent out to Colliau’s to get him a dozen fine shirts, a dozen cravats and a dozen handkerchiefs; also a dozen pairs of gloves in a cedar box. When she heard the rumble of a carriage at the street-door, she rushed to the window with Lucien. They both saw Camusot getting out of a magnificent coupé.

‘I didn’t think,’ she said, ‘that one could hate a man so much… and luxury too…’

‘I’m too poor to allow you to ruin yourself,’ said Lucien, thus passing under the Caudine Forks.

‘My precious darling,’ she said, pressing against Lucien’s heart, ‘then you really do love me? – I asked Monsieur to come and see me this morning,’ she said, presenting Lucien, ‘thinking that we might go for a ride in the Champs-Elysées to try out the carriage.’

‘You must go without me,’ said Camusot sorrowfully. ‘And I can’t dine with you. I’d forgotten it’s my wife’s birthday.’

‘Poor Musot! How bored you’ll be!’ she said, giving the merchant a hug.

She was wildly happy at the thought that she and Lucien together would be the first to ride in this fine coupé, that she could go alone with him to the Bois de Boulogne; in her outburst of joy she seemed to be really fond of Camusot and heaped caresses on him.

‘I wish I could give you a carriage every day,’ said the poor man.

‘Let’s go, Monsieur, it’s two o’clock,’ said the actress to the shame-faced Lucien whom she consoled with an adorable gesture.

Coralie rushed downstairs dragging Lucien behind her; he heard the merchant lumbering along behind them like a seal, unable to catch up with them. The poet experienced the most intoxicating delights: Coralie, radiant with happiness, displayed to the ravished eyes of all who beheld her an attire which was the last word in taste and elegance. The Paris of
the Champs-Elysées admired the pair of lovers. In one of the lanes of the Bois de Boulogne their coupé encountered the barouche of Mesdames d’ Espard and de Bargeton who gazed at Lucien with astonishment: he darted at them the contemptuous glance of a poet who foresees the fame in store for him and intends to exploit his power. The instant when a single glare directed at these two women enabled him to convey some of the vengeful thoughts which, thanks to them, were gnawing at his heart, was one of the sweetest moments in his life, and perhaps decided his destiny. Lucien became once more a prey to the fury born of pride: he wanted to reappear in society and take a spectacular revenge; all the petty social snobbery which as a hard-working man and the friend of the Cénacle he had trampled underfoot once more took possession of him. He now realized the full purport of the attack Lousteau had made on his behalf. Lousteau had pandered to his passions, whereas his mentors of the Cénacle seemed bent on repressing them in favour of dull virtue and toil, which Lucien was now beginning to find unprofitable. Hard work!… Does it not spell death to temperaments avid for enjoyment? Hence the readiness of writers to sink into a
dolce far niente
attitude, take to good cheer and the luxurious delights of the life lived by actresses and women of easy virtue. Lucien felt an irresistible longing to continue the frantic life of the last two days.