“Six huntert tousant franc!” cried the Baron, with a start. “Esther is to cost me a million to begin with!”
“Happiness is surely worth sixteen hundred thousand francs, you old sinner.
You must know, men in these days have certainly spent more than one or two millions on a mistress.
I even know women who have cost men their lives, for whom heads have rolled into the basket. — You know the doctor who poisoned his friend?
He wanted the money to gratify a woman.”
“Ja, I know all dat. But if I am in lofe, I am not ein idiot, at least vile I am here; but if I shall see her, I shall gife her my pocket-book ——”
“Well, listen Monsieur le Baron,” said Asie, assuming the attitude of a Semiramis. “You have been squeezed dry enough already.
Now, as sure as my name is Saint–Esteve — in the way of business, of course — I will stand by you.”
“Goot, I shall repay you.”
“I believe you, my boy, for I have shown you that I know how to be revenged.
Besides, I tell you this, daddy, I know how to snuff out your Madame Esther as you would snuff a candle.
And I know my lady!
When the little huzzy has once made you happy, she will be even more necessary to you than she is at this moment.
You paid me well; you have allowed yourself to be fooled, but, after all, you have forked out.
— I have fulfilled my part of the agreement, haven’t I?
Well, look here, I will make a bargain with you.”
“Let me hear.”
“You shall get me the place as cook to Madame, engage me for ten years, and pay the last five in advance — what is that? Just a little earnest-money.
When once I am about madame, I can bring her to these terms.
Of course, you must first order her a lovely dress from Madame Auguste, who knows her style and taste; and order the new carriage to be at the door at four o’clock.
After the Bourse closes, go to her rooms and take her for a little drive in the Bois de Boulogne.
Well, by that act the woman proclaims herself your mistress; she has advertised herself to the eyes and knowledge of all Paris: A hundred thousand francs. — You must dine with her — I know how to cook such a dinner! — You must take her to the play, to the Varietes, to a stage-box, and then all Paris will say,
‘There is that old rascal Nucingen with his mistress.’ It is very flattering to know that such things are said.
— Well, all this, for I am not grasping, is included for the first hundred thousand francs.
— In a week, by such conduct, you will have made some way ——”
“But I shall hafe paid ein hundert tousant franc.”
“In the course of the second week,” Asie went on, as though she had not heard this lamentable ejaculation, “madame, tempted by these preliminaries, will have made up her mind to leave her little apartment and move to the house you are giving her.
Your Esther will have seen the world again, have found her old friends; she will wish to shine and do the honors of her palace — it is in the nature of things: Another hundred thousand francs!
— By Heaven! you are at home there, Esther compromised — she must be yours.
The rest is a mere trifle, in which you must play the principal part, old elephant. (How wide the monster opens his eyes!) Well, I will undertake that too: Four hundred thousand — and that, my fine fellow, you need not pay till the day after. What do you think of that for honesty?
I have more confidence in you than you have in me.
If I persuade madame to show herself as your mistress, to compromise herself, to take every gift you offer her — perhaps this very day, you will believe that I am capable of inducing her to throw open the pass of the Great Saint Bernard.
And it is a hard job, I can tell you; it will take as much pulling to get your artillery through as it took the first Consul to get over the Alps.”
“But vy?”
“Her heart is full of love, old shaver, rasibus, as you say who know Latin,” replied Asie. “She thinks herself the Queen of Sheba, because she has washed herself in sacrifices made for her lover — an idea that that sort of woman gets into her head!
Well, well, old fellow, we must be just. — It is fine!
That baggage would die of grief at being your mistress — I really should not wonder.
But what I trust to, and I tell you to give you courage, is that there is good in the girl at bottom.”
“You hafe a genius for corruption,” said the Baron, who had listened to Asie in admiring silence, “just as I hafe de knack of de banking.”
“Then it is settled, my pigeon?” said Asie.
“Done for fifty tousant franc insteat of ein hundert tousant!
— An’ I shall give you fife hundert tousant de day after my triumph.”
“Very good, I will set to work,” said Asie.
“And you may come, monsieur,” she added respectfully. “You will find madame as soft already as a cat’s back, and perhaps inclined to make herself pleasant.”
“Go, go, my goot voman,” said the banker, rubbing his hands.
And after seeing the horrible mulatto out of the house, he said to himself:
“How vise it is to hafe much money.”
He sprang out of bed, went down to his office, and resumed the conduct of his immense business with a light heart.
Nothing could be more fatal to Esther than the steps taken by Nucingen.
The hapless girl, in defending her fidelity, was defending her life.