Eugene lingered over his toilette with an enjoyment of all its little details that is grateful to a young man’s self-love, though he will not own to it for fear of being laughed at. He thought, as he arranged his hair, that a pretty woman’s glances would wander through the dark curls. He indulged in childish tricks like any young girl dressing for a dance, and gazed complacently at his graceful figure while he smoothed out the creases of his coat.
“There are worse figures, that is certain,” he said to himself.
Then he went downstairs, just as the rest of the household were sitting down to dinner, and took with good humor the boisterous applause excited by his elegant appearance. The amazement with which any attention to dress is regarded in a lodging-house is a very characteristic trait. No one can put on a new coat but every one else must say his say about it.
“Clk! clk! clk!” cried Bianchon, making the sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, like a driver urging on a horse.
“He holds himself like a duke and a peer of France,” said Mme. Vauquer.
“Are you going a-courting?” inquired Mlle. Michonneau.
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” cried the artist.
“My compliments to my lady your wife,” from the employe at the Museum.
“Your wife; have you a wife?” asked Poiret.
“Yes, in compartments, water-tight and floats, guaranteed fast color, all prices from twenty-five to forty sous, neat check patterns in the latest fashion and best taste, will wash, half-linen, half-cotton, half-wool; a certain cure for toothache and other complaints under the patronage of the Royal College of Physicians! children like it! a remedy for headache, indigestion, and all other diseases affecting the throat, eyes, and ears!” cried Vautrin, with a comical imitation of the volubility of a quack at a fair. “And how much shall we say for this marvel, gentlemen? Twopence? No. Nothing of the sort. All that is left in stock after supplying the Great Mogul. All the crowned heads of Europe, including the Gr-r-rand Duke of Baden, have been anxious to get a sight of it. Walk up! walk up! gentlemen! Pay at the desk as you go in! Strike up the music there! Brooum, la, la, trinn! la, la, boum! boum! Mister Clarinette, there you are out of tune!” he added gruffly; “I will rap your knuckles for you!”
“Goodness! what an amusing man!” said Mme. Vauquer to Mme. Couture; “I should never feel dull with him in the house.”
This burlesque of Vautrin’s was the signal for an outburst of merriment, and under cover of jokes and laughter Eugene caught a glance from Mlle. Taillefer; she had leaned over to say a few words in Mme. Couture’s ear.
“The cab is at the door,” announced Sylvie.
“But where is he going to dine?” asked Bianchon.
“With Madame la Baronne de Nucingen.”
“M. Goriot’s daughter,” said the law student.
At this, all eyes turned to the old vermicelli maker; he was gazing at Eugene with something like envy in his eyes.
Rastignac reached the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, one of those many-windowed houses with a mean-looking portico and slender columns, which are considered the thing in Paris, a typical banker’s house, decorated in the most ostentatious fashion; the walls lined with stucco, the landings of marble mosaic. Mme. de Nucingen was sitting in a little drawing-room; the room was painted in the Italian fashion, and decorated like a restaurant. The Baroness seemed depressed. The effort that she made to hide her feelings aroused Eugene’s interest; it was plain that she was not playing a part. He had expected a little flutter of excitement at his coming, and he found her dispirited and sad. The disappointment piqued his vanity.
“My claim to your confidence is very small, madame,” he said, after rallying her on her abstracted mood; “but if I am in the way, please tell me so frankly; I count on your good faith.”
“No, stay with me,” she said; “I shall be all alone if you go. Nucingen is dining in town, and I do not want to be alone; I want to be taken out of myself.”
“But what is the matter?”
“You are the very last person whom I should tell,” she exclaimed.
“Then I am connected in some way in this secret. I wonder what it is?”
“Perhaps. Yet, no,” she went on; “it is a domestic quarrel, which ought to be buried in the depths of the heart. I am very unhappy; did I not tell you so the day before yesterday? Golden chains are the heaviest of all fetters.”
When a woman tells a young man that she is very unhappy, and when the young man is clever, and well dressed, and has fifteen hundred francs lying idle in his pocket, he is sure to think as Eugene said, and he becomes a coxcomb.
“What can you have left to wish for?” he answered. “You are young, beautiful, beloved, and rich.”
“Do not let us talk of my affairs,” she said shaking her head mournfully. “We will dine together tete-a-tete, and afterwards we will go to hear the most exquisite music. Am I to your taste?” she went on, rising and displaying her gown of white cashmere, covered with Persian designs in the most superb taste.
“I wish that you were altogether mine,” said Eugene; “you are charming.”
“You would have a forlorn piece of property,” she said, smiling bitterly. “There is nothing about me that betrays my wretchedness; and yet, in spite of appearances, I am in despair. I cannot sleep; my troubles have broken my night’s rest; I shall grow ugly.”
“Oh! that is impossible,” cried the law student; “but I am curious to know what these troubles can be that a devoted love cannot efface.”
“Ah! if I were to tell you about them, you would shun me,” she said. “Your love for me is as yet only the conventional gallantry that men use to masquerade in; and, if you really loved me, you would be driven to despair. I must keep silence, you see. Let us talk of something else, for pity’s sake,” she added. “Let me show you my rooms.”
“No; let us stay here,” answered Eugene; he sat down on the sofa before the fire, and boldly took Mme. de Nucingen’s hand in his. She surrendered it to him; he even felt the pressure of her fingers in one of the spasmodic clutches that betray terrible agitation.
“Listen,” said Rastignac; “if you are in trouble, you ought to tell me about it. I want to prove to you that I love you for yourself alone. You must speak to me frankly about your troubles, so that I can put an end to them, even if I have to kill half-a-dozen men; or I shall go, never to return.”
“Very well,” she cried, putting her hand to her forehead in an agony of despair, “I will put you to the proof, and this very moment. Yes,” she said to herself, “I have no other resource left.”
She rang the bell.
“Are the horses put in for the master?” she asked of the servant.
“Yes, madame.”
“I shall take his carriage myself. He can have mine and my horses. Serve dinner at seven o’clock.”
“Now, come with me,” she said to Eugene, who thought as he sat in the banker’s carriage beside Mme. de Nucingen that he must surely be dreaming.
“To the Palais-Royal,” she said to the coachman; “stop near the Theatre-Francais.”
