Nor was there the slightest sign about him of any desire to redeem a sinister appearance by attention to the toilet;his threadbare jacket was all but dropping to pieces;a cravat,which had once been black,was frayed by contact with a stubble chin,and left on exhibition a throat as wrinkled as a turkey-gobbler's.
This was the individual whom Etienne and Lucien discovered in his filthy counting-house,busily affixing tickets to the backs of a parcel of books from a recent sale.In a glance,the friends exchanged the innumerable questions raised by the existence of such a creature;then they presented Gabusson's introduction and Fendant and Cavalier's bills.Samanon was still reading the note when a third comer entered,the wearer of a short jacket,which seemed in the dimly-lighted shop to be cut out of a piece of zinc roofing,so solid was it by reason of alloy with all kinds of foreign matter.Oddly attired as he was,the man was an artist of no small intellectual power,and ten years later he was destined to assist in the inauguration of the great but ill-founded Saint-Simonian system.
"I want my coat,my black trousers,and satin waistcoat,"said this person,pressing a numbered ticket on Samanon's attention.Samanon touched the brass button of a bell-pull,and a woman came down from some upper region,a Normande apparently,to judge by her rich,fresh complexion.
"Let the gentleman have his clothes,"said Samanon,holding out a hand to the newcomer."It's a pleasure to do business with you,sir;but that youngster whom one of your friends introduced to me took me in most abominably.""Took HIM in!"chuckled the newcomer,pointing out Samanon to the two journalists with an extremely comical gesture.The great man dropped thirty sous into the money-lender's yellow,wrinkled hand;like the Neapolitan lazzaroni,he was taking his best clothes out of pawn for a state occasion.The coins dropped jingling into the till.
"What queer business are you up to?"asked Lousteau of the artist,an opium-eater who dwelt among visions of enchanted palaces till he either could not or would not create.
"HE lends you a good deal more than an ordinary pawnbroker on anything you pledge;and,besides,he is so awfully charitable,he allows you to take your clothes out when you must have something to wear.I am going to dine with the Kellers and my mistress to-night,"he continued;"and to me it is easier to find thirty sous than two hundred francs,so I keep my wardrobe here.It has brought the charitable usurer a hundred francs in the last six months.Samanon has devoured my library already,volume by volume"(livre a livre).
"And sou by sou,"Lousteau said with a laugh.
"I will let you have fifteen hundred francs,"said Samanon,looking up.
Lucien started,as if the bill-broker had thrust a red-hot skewer through his heart.Samanon was subjecting the bills and their dates to a close scrutiny.
"And even then,"he added,"I must see Fendant first.He ought to deposit some books with me.You aren't worth much"(turning to Lucien);"you are living with Coralie,and your furniture has been attached."Lousteau,watching Lucien,saw him take up his bills,and dash out into the street."He is the devil himself!"exclaimed the poet.For several seconds he stood outside gazing at the shop front.The whole place was so pitiful,that a passer-by could not see it without smiling at the sight,and wondering what kind of business a man could do among those mean,dirty shelves of ticketed books.
A very few moments later,the great man,in incognito,came out,very well dressed,smiled at his friends,and turned to go with them in the direction of the Passage des Panoramas,where he meant to complete his toilet by the polishing of his boots.
"If you see Samanon in a bookseller's shop,or calling on a paper-merchant or a printer,you may know that it is all over with that man,"said the artist."Samanon is the undertaker come to take the measurements for a coffin.""You won't discount your bills now,Lucien,"said Etienne.
"If Samanon will not take them,nobody else will;he is the ultima ratio,"said the stranger."He is one of Gigonnet's lambs,a spy for Palma,Werbrust,Gobseck,and the rest of those crocodiles who swim in the Paris money-market.Every man with a fortune to make,or unmake,is sure to come across one of them sooner or later.""If you cannot discount your bills at fifty per cent,"remarked Lousteau,"you must exchange them for hard cash.""How?"
"Give them to Coralie;Camusot will cash them for her.--You are disgusted,"added Lousteau,as Lucien cut him short with a start.
"What nonsense!How can you allow such a silly scruple to turn the scale,when your future is in the balance?""I shall take this money to Coralie in any case,"began Lucien.
"Here is more folly!"cried Lousteau."You will not keep your creditors quiet with four hundred francs when you must have four thousand.Let us keep a little and get drunk on it,if we lose the rest at rouge et noir.""That is sound advice,"said the great man.
Those words,spoken not four paces from Frascati's,were magnetic in their effect.The friends dismissed their cab and went up to the gaming-table.
At the outset they won three thousand francs,then they lost and fell to five hundred;again they won three thousand seven hundred francs,and again they lost all but a five-franc piece.After another turn of luck they staked two thousand francs on an even number to double the stake at a stroke;an even number had not turned up for five times in succession,and this was the sixth time.They punted the whole sum,and an odd number turned up once more.
After two hours of all-absorbing,frenzied excitement,the two dashed down the staircase with the hundred francs kept back for the dinner.
Upon the steps,between two pillars which support the little sheet-iron veranda to which so many eyes have been upturned in longing or despair,Lousteau stopped and looked into Lucien's flushed,excited face.
