"Spare me just a moment for pity's sake,sir,"said Lucien;"I want just a word or two with you.You have shown me friendship,I now ask the most trifling service of that friendship.You have just come from Mme.de Bargeton;how have I fallen into disgrace with her and Mme.
d'Espard?--please explain."
"M.Chardon,do you know why the ladies left you at the Opera that evening?"asked Chatelet,with treacherous good-nature.
"No,"said the poor poet.
"Well,it was M.de Rastignac who spoke against you from the beginning.They asked him about you,and the young dandy simply said that your name was Chardon,and not de Rubempre;that your mother was a monthly nurse;that your father,when he was alive,was an apothecary in L'Houmeau,a suburb of Angouleme;and that your sister,a charming girl,gets up shirts to admiration,and is just about to be married to a local printer named Sechard.Such is the world!You no sooner show yourself than it pulls you to pieces.
"M.de Marsay came to Mme.d'Espard to laugh at you with her;so the two ladies,thinking that your presence put them in a false position,went out at once.Do not attempt to go to either house.If Mme.de Bargeton continued to receive your visits,her cousin would have nothing to do with her.You have genius;try to avenge yourself.The world looks down upon you;look down in your turn upon the world.Take refuge in some garret,write your masterpieces,seize on power of any kind,and you will see the world at your feet.Then you can give back the bruises which you have received,and in the very place where they were given.Mme.de Bargeton will be the more distant now because she has been friendly.That is the way with women.But the question now for you is not how to win back Anais'friendship,but how to avoid making an enemy of her.I will tell you of a way.She has written letters to you;send all her letters back to her,she will be sensible that you are acting like a gentleman;and at a later time,if you should need her,she will not be hostile.For my own part,I have so high an opinion of your future,that I have taken your part everywhere;and if I can do anything here for you,you will always find me ready to be of use."The elderly beau seemed to have grown young again in the atmosphere of Paris.He bowed with frigid politeness;but Lucien,woe-begone,haggard,and undone,forgot to return the salutation.He went back to his inn,and there found the great Staub himself,come in person,not so much to try his customer's clothes as to make inquiries of the landlady with regard to that customer's financial status.The report had been satisfactory.Lucien had traveled post;Mme.de Bargeton brought him back from Vaudeville last Thursday in her carriage.Staub addressed Lucien as "Monsieur le Comte,"and called his customer's attention to the artistic skill with which he had brought a charming figure into relief.
"A young man in such a costume has only to walk in the Tuileries,"he said,"and he will marry an English heiress within a fortnight."Lucien brightened a little under the influences of the German tailor's joke,the perfect fit of his new clothes,the fine cloth,and the sight of a graceful figure which met his eyes in the looking-glass.
Vaguely he told himself that Paris was the capital of chance,and for the moment he believed in chance.Had he not a volume of poems and a magnificent romance entitled The Archer of Charles IX.in manu?
He had hope for the future.Staub promised the overcoat and the rest of the clothes the next day.
The next day the bootmaker,linen-draper,and tailor all returned armed each with his bill,which Lucien,still under the charm of provincial habits,paid forthwith,not knowing how otherwise to rid himself of them.After he had paid,there remained but three hundred and sixty francs out of the two thousand which he had brought with him from Angouleme,and he had been but one week in Paris!Nevertheless,he dressed and went to take a stroll in the Terrassee des Feuillants.
He had his day of triumph.He looked so handsome and so graceful,he was so well dressed,that women looked at him;two or three were so much struck with his beauty,that they turned their heads to look again.Lucien studied the gait and carriage of the young men on the Terrasse,and took a lesson in fine manners while he meditated on his three hundred and sixty francs.
That evening,alone in his chamber,an idea occurred to him which threw a light on the problem of his existence at the Gaillard-Bois,where he lived on the plainest fare,thinking to economize in this way.He asked for his account,as if he meant to leave,and discovered that he was indebted to his landlord to the extent of a hundred francs.The next morning was spent in running around the Latin Quarter,recommended for its cheapness by David.For a long while he looked about till,finally,in the Rue de Cluny,close to the Sorbonne,he discovered a place where he could have a furnished room for such a price as he could afford to pay.He settled with his hostess of the Gaillard-Bois,and took up his quarters in the Rue de Cluny that same day.His removal only cost him the cab fare.
