Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (72 page)
Read Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Honore de Balzac
T
WO
days after the scene with his son, old Séchard, who had three weeks to wait before he could begin harvesting his grapes, came bustling to see his daughter-in-law, under the spur of avarice. He could not sleep, so anxious was he to find out if there was any chance of a fortune in David’s invention. He intended to keep a weather-eye open, to quote his expression. He installed himself on the floor above his daughter-in-law’s apartments in one of the little attic rooms he had reserved for his own use, and he lived there with his eyes shut to the penury from which his son’s household was suffering. They owed him rent and the least they could do was to feed him! He saw nothing strange in having his meals served on tin-plate, ‘That’s how I started,’ he answered his daughter-in-law when she apologized for not being able to serve him on silver.
Marion was forced to pledge her credit to the shopkeepers for every commodity the household consumed. Kolb took work with masons for a franc a day. The time soon came when only ten francs remained to the unhappy Eve who, in David’s interests and those of her child, was sacrificing her
last resources so as to give a good welcome to the vine-grower. She still hoped that her endearing ways, respectful affection and resignation would touch the miser’s heart, but she found him always unmoved. In the end, seeing the same coldness in his eyes as in those of the Cointets, Petit-Claud and Cérizet, she tried to observe his character and divine his intentions: labour in vain! Old Séchard made himself unfathomable by maintaining a state of semi-intoxication. Drunkenness is a veil of double thickness. Under cover of tipsiness, as often shammed as real, the wretched man tried to worm David’s secret out of Eve. At one moment he would wheedle and at another intimidate her. When Eve replied that she knew nothing, he said: ‘I’ll buy an annuity and drink all my money.’ These degrading altercations wearied his poor victim and in the end, in order not to show disrespect to her father-in-law, she gave up talking to him. But one day, driven to extremities, she said: ‘Anyway, father, there’s a simple way of getting all you want. Pay David’s debt, he’ll return home, and you can come to an agreement.’
‘Ah! So that’s all you want of me,’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s as well I know that.’
Old Séchard had no faith in his son, but he believed in the Cointets. He went to consult them, and they set out to dazzle him with the prospect of millions of francs to be made out of his son’s researches.
‘If David can prove that he has succeeded,’ said tall Cointet, ‘I’ll not hesitate to turn my paper-factory into a company and go in fifty-fifty with him for his invention.’
The distrustful old man gleaned so much information when taking glasses of cognac with the journeymen-printers, he so effectively sounded Petit-Claud while playing the imbecile that in the end he came to suspect the Cointets of hiding behind Métivier. He credited them with the plan of ruining the Séchard press and getting him to pay the debt by dangling the invention before him as a bait, for as a simple working-class man he was unable to guess at Petit-Claud’s complicity or the plot they were hatching to possess themselves sooner or later of this splendid industrial secret. At last the old man,
exasperated at his failure to make his daughter-in-law talk or even to find out from her where David was hiding, decided one day to break open the door of the work-shop in which the rollers were cast, having now discovered that it was there that David had been conducting his experiments. He came downstairs early one morning and started tampering with the lock.
‘Hey! Papa Séchard, what are you up to?’ shouted Marion who had got up at dawn to go to the factory where she was working. She made one leap to the damping-shed.
‘I’m at home here, am I not?’ the old man said shamefacedly.
‘Come off it! Are you taking to burglary in your old age?… And yet you’re still sober… I’m going to tell the mistress about it straight away.’
‘Don’t say anything, Marion,’ the old man begged her, pulling two six-franc pieces out of his pocket. ‘Here…’
‘I’ll say nothing, but don’t try that on again!’ said Marion, wagging a finger at him, ‘or I’ll tell all Angoulême about it.’
As soon as the old man had gone out, Marion went upstairs to her mistress. ‘Look, Madame, I’ve squeezed twelve francs out of your father-in-law.’
‘How did you manage that?’
‘Would you believe it? He was trying to take a peep at Monsieur’s pans and supplies, hoping to find out the secret. Oh, I knew there was nothing left in the little kitchen, but I pretended to think he was going to rob his son. That scared him, and he gave me twelve francs to keep quiet.’
Just then Basine joyfully brought her friend a letter from David and handed it to her in private. It was written on magnificent paper.
My beloved Eve,
My first letter written on the first sheet of paper my process has produced is for you. I have succeeded in solving the problem of sizing in the vat! One pound of pulp costs twenty-five centimes, even supposing that the produce I use has to be grown on good land. So a twelve-pound ream of paper will use up three francs’ worth of sized pulp. I am sure of reducing the weight of books by
one-half. The envelope, the letter itself and the samples enclosed were made separately.
All my love. Much-needed wealth will come our way and bring us happiness.
‘Look at these,’ said Eve, handing the samples to her father-in-law. ‘Give your son the price you get for your vintage and let him make his fortune. He’ll repay you ten times over. He has reached success!’
Old Séchard immediately hurried round to the Cointets. There every sample was tested and meticulously examined. Some of them were sized, others not; they each had a price-label on them ranging from three to ten francs the ream. Some of them were of metallic hardness, others were as soft as Chinese paper, and there were some which had every possible shade of whiteness. Jews valuing diamonds would not have had a more avid glint in their eyes than these three men.
‘Your son is on to a good thing,’ said stout Cointet.
‘All right then, pay off his debts,’ said the old pressman.
‘Certainly I will, if he’ll take us into partnership,’ tall Cointet replied.
‘You’re a pair of brigands!’ the ex-’bear’ retorted. ‘You’re suing my son in Métivier’s name and you want me to do the paying. That’s what it adds up to. Well, my fine gentlemen, I’m not such a fool!’
The two brothers looked at each other, but managed to conceal the surprise they felt at the miser’s shrewdness.
‘We’re not millionaires,’ stout Cointet rejoindered. ‘We can’t afford to discount bills for fun. We should be only too glad if we ourselves could pay cash for the rags we buy, but we still have to get them on credit.’
‘What is needed is a wholesale experiment,’ tall Cointet coldly replied. ‘What has succeeded in a saucepan may fail in large-scale manufacture. Set your son free of debt!’
‘Yes, but once my son is free will he take me as a partner?’
‘That’s no business of ours,’ said stout Cointet. ‘Do you imagine, my good man, that when you have given your son ten thousand francs you’ll have finished? A patent of invention
costs two thousand francs and will involve journeys to Paris. Also, before you start advancing capital, it would be well, as my brother has said, to manufacture a thousand reams and risk whole vatfuls in order to make a check. Mark my words, there’s nobody one should be more wary of than inventors.’
‘I myself,’ said tall Cointet, ‘prefer to have my bread ready baked.’
The old man spent the night ruminating over this dilemma: ‘If I pay David’s debts he’ll be free, and once he’s free he needn’t take me on as a partner. He knows very well I swindled him in our first partnership, and won’t feel like starting a second one. So it’s in my interest to keep him in prison and down on his luck.’
The Cointets knew old Séchard well enough to be sure that he would keep up with them in the chase. Each one of them was thinking: ‘In order to found a company based on a secret process, experiments are needed. In order to make these experiments, David Séchard must be solvent. But once he’s solvent he’ll be out of our power.’ And each of them was making his own mental reservations. Petit-Claud was saying to himself: ‘After my wedding I’ll pull along with the Cointets, but until then I’ll keep a tight rein on them.’ Tall Cointet told himself: ‘I’d rather keep David under lock and key and have him under my control.’ Old Séchard told himself: ‘If I pay his debts my son will just thank me and say good-bye.’
As for Eve, with her father-in-law pestering her and threatening to drive her from the house, she refused either to reveal where her husband was sheltering or to advise David to accept safe-conduct. She was not sure that she would be able to find him a second hiding-place better than the first, and so she replied to her father-in-law. ‘Set your son free and you shall know everything.’ Not one of the four schemers, who were sitting as it were at a sumptuous table, dared begin the banquet, so much did each one fear that the other might get ahead of him. So they all watched one another in mutual suspicion.
A
FEW
days after David had gone into hiding, Petit-Claud had come to see tall Cointet in his paper-mill.
‘I’ve done my best,’ he said. ‘David has voluntarily retreated into a prison we can’t locate and he’s peacefully working to perfect his process. If you haven’t yet reached your goal it’s no fault of mine. Are you going to keep your part of the bargain?’
‘Yes, if we’re successful,’ tall Cointet replied. ‘Old Séchard has been in Angoulême for several days and has come to ask us questions about the manufacture of paper. The old miser’s sniffing round his son’s invention and wants to make something out of it. Therefore there’s some hope of forming a partnership. You are the solicitor of both Father and Son…’
‘You must be the Holy Spirit and lay hands on them!’ Petit-Claud continued with a smile.
‘Yes,’ Cointet replied. ‘If you can manage either to put David in prison or to get him into our power by means of a deed of partnership, you shall marry Mademoiselle de La Haye.’
‘So that’s your
ultimatum
, as the English say?’
‘Yes,’
said Cointet, in English, ‘since we’re talking foreign languages.’
‘I’ll give you mine in plain French,’ Petit-Claud curtly replied.
‘Indeed! Let’s hear what it is,’ Cointet retorted in a tone of curiosity.
‘Introduce me tomorrow to Madame de Sénonches, make a positive arrangement for me, in short fulfil your ptomise, or I’ll pay Séchard’s debt, sell my practice and become his partner. I’m not going to be duped by you. You’ve just been frank with me, I’ll be the same with you. I’ve proved my mettle: you must do the same. So far you’ve made all the winnings. Unless you give me some pledge of good faith I’ll overcall your hand.’
Tall Cointet took up his hat, his umbrella, and, maintaining his jesuitical cast of countenance, he went out, telling Petit-Claud to follow him.
‘You’ll see, my dear friend, whether I’ve prepared the way for you or not,’ said the tradesman to the solicitor.
The astute and wily paper-manufacturer had been quick to realize the danger he was running, and had recognized that Petit-Claud was one of those men with whom one has to play a straight game. Already, in order to keep abreast with him and salve his conscience, he had made a few quiet hints to the former consul-general on the pretext of giving an account of Mademoiselle de La Haye’s financial situation.
‘I’ve a match in view for Françoise, for in these days, with a dowry of only thirty thousand francs, a girl mustn’t expect too much,’ he said with a smile.
‘We’ll have a talk about it,’ Francis du Hautoy had replied. ‘Now that Madame de Bargeton has left Angoulême, the standing of Madame de Sénonches has changed for the better: we can marry Françoise to some worthy elderly country gentleman.’
‘And she’ll misbehave,’ said the paper-manufacturer, putting on his chilly air. ‘Come now, marry her to a capable, ambitious young man, one you’ll help to get on, one who’ll put his wife in a good position.’
‘We’ll see,’ Francis had repeated. ‘Before all else we must consult her godmother.’
After Monsieur de Bargeton’s death, Louise de Nègrepelisse had put her residence in the rue du Minage up for sale. Madame de Sénonches, considering herself meanly-lodged, persuaded Monsieur de Sénonches to buy the house which had been the cradle of Lucien’s ambitions and the opening scene of this story. Zéphirine de Sénonches had conceived the plan of succeeding Madame de Bargeton in the kind of royalty the latter had enjoyed, holding a salon and in fact playing the great lady. A schism had occurred in the high society of Angoulême between those who, when Monsieur de Bargeton fought his duel with Monsieur de Chandour, maintained that Louise de Nègrepelisse was innocent and those who believed
the slanders spread about by Stanislas de Chandour. Madame de Sénonches opted for the Bargetons and began by winning over all the adherents to their cause. Then, when she was settled in her new residence, she took advantage of the routine habits of many people who had come there year in year out for an evening of cards. She held an at-home every evening and won a decisive victory over Amélie de Chandour, who posed as her rival. Francis du Hautoy thus found himself in the very centre of the Angoulême aristocracy and let his hopes go so far as to think of marrying Françoise to the aged Monsieur de Séverac, whom Madame du Brossard had failed to capture for her daughter. The return of Madame de Bargeton, now wife of the prefect of Angoulême, encouraged Zéphirine’s ambitions for her darling godchild. She told herself that the Comtesse Sixte du Châtelet would use her credit on behalf of a woman who had championed her cause. The paper-manufacturer, who had Angoulême at his fingertips, sized up the difficulties at one glance; but he resolved to get over them by a stroke of audacity that Tartuffe alone would have permitted himself. The little solicitor, very surprised that his associate in sharp practice was keeping his part of the bargain, left him to his meditations as they proceeded from the paper-mill to the mansion in the rue du Minage. When they reached the landing, the two uninvited visitors were halted by the announcement: ‘Monsieur and Madame are at lunch.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said tall Cointet, ‘tell them we are here.’
And the devout tradesman, immediately admitted on the strength of his name, introduced the advocate to the affected Zéphirine, who was lunching privately with Monsieur Francis du Hautoy and Mademoiselle de La Haye. Monsieur de Sénonches had gone off, as usual, to open the hunting season with Monsieur de Pimentel.
‘Here, Madame, is the young solicitor-advocate I spoke to you about, who will undertake to relieve you of the tutelage of your beautiful ward.’
The ex-diplomat scrutinized Petit-Claud who for his part was casting sideward glances at the ‘beautiful ward’. Zéphirine, with whom neither Cointet nor Francis had ever broached
the subject, was so surprised that her knife and fork fell from her hands. Mademoiselle de La Haye, a shrewish sour-faced, skinny little person with an ungraceful figure and insipid blond hair, was exceedingly unmarriageable despite her aristocratic little airs. The formula
of unknown parentage
on her birth certificate in reality barred her from the sphere in which the benevolence of her godmother and Francis was trying to establish her. Mademoiselle de La Haye, ignorant of her situation, was inclined to be fastidious: she would have refused to marry even the richest tradesman in L’Houmeau. The meaningful grimace which contorted her features was reciprocated, as Cointet noticed, by Petit-Claud himself. It looked as if Madame de Sénonches and Francis were at one in wondering how they could get rid of Cointet and his protégé. Cointet took in the whole scene and begged Monsieur du Hautoy to grant him a moment’s audience. He accompanied the diplomat into the salon.
‘Monsieur,’ he said to him in plain terms, ‘paternal affection is making you short-sighted. You will find it difficult to marry your daughter. And, in your common interest, I have made it impossible for you to draw back out of this, for I love Françoise as one loves one’s ward. Petit-Claud knows all the facts!
… His unbounded ambition is a guarantee of your dear girl’s happiness. In the first place Françoise will be able to do anything she wants with her husband. But you, with the aid of the Prefect’s wife who is coming back to Angoulême, will make a public attorney of him. Monsieur Milhaud has definitely been promoted to Nevers. Petit-Claud will sell his practice, it will be easy for you to obtain him a post as assistant deputy attorney, and he’ll soon become public attorney, then president of the tribunal, a Parliamentary deputy, and…’
When they had returned to the dining-room, Francis behaved charmingly to his daughter’s suitor. He gave Madame de Sénonches a warning glance and brought this presentation scene to an end by inviting Petit-Claud to dinner the following day so that they might talk matters over. Then he escorted the tradesman and the solicitor as far as the courtyard while he told Petit-Claud that, on Cointet’s recommendation, he was
inclined, with Madame de Sénonches, to ratify everything which the custodian of Mademoiselle de La Haye’s fortune had arranged for the happiness of their little angel.
‘Good Heavens, how ugly she is!’ said Petit-Claud. ‘I’m trapped…!’
‘She has an air of distinction,’ Cointet replied. ‘But if she were beautiful would they let you marry her? Why now, my dear fellow, there’s more than one small land-owner who’d ask nothing better than her thirty thousand francs, the patronage of Madame de Sénonches and that of the Comtesse du Châtelet – the more so because Francis du Hautoy will never marry and this girl is his heiress… Your marriage is a foregone conclusion!’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘This is what I have just told Du Hautoy,’ tall Cointet continued, and he informed the solicitor of his bold move. ‘My dear man, Monsieur Milhaud, they say, is about to be appointed public attorney at Nevers. You’ll sell your practice, and in ten years’ time you’ll be Keeper of the Seals. You’ve nerve enough not to shrink from doing any services the Court will require of you.’
‘Very well. Meet me tomorrow, at half past four, at the Place du Mûrier,’ the solicitor replied, fascinated at the prospect of such a future. ‘I shall have seen old Séchard, and we’ll fix up a deed of partnership which will make Father and Son the property of the Holy Spirit, namely the Cointet firm!’