This very natural instinct was what Carlos called prudery.
Now Asie, not without taking such precautions as usual in such cases, went off to report to Carlos the conference she had held with the Baron, and all the profit she had made by it.
The man’s rage, like himself, was terrible; he came forthwith to Esther, in a carriage with the blinds drawn, driving into the courtyard.
Still almost white with fury, the double-dyed forger went straight into the poor girl’s room; she looked at him — she was standing up — and she dropped on to a chair as though her legs had snapped.
“What is the matter, monsieur?” said she, quaking in every limb.
“Leave us, Europe,” said he to the maid.
Esther looked at the woman as a child might look at its mother, from whom some assassin had snatched it to murder it.
“Do you know where you will send Lucien?” Carlos went on when he was alone with Esther.
“Where?” asked she in a low voice, venturing to glance at her executioner.
“Where I come from, my beauty.”
Esther, as she looked at the man, saw red.
“To the hulks,” he added in an undertone.
Esther shut her eyes and stretched herself out, her arms dropped, and she turned white.
The man rang, and Prudence appeared.
“Bring her round,” he said coldly; “I have not done.”
He walked up and down the drawing-room while waiting.
Prudence–Europe was obliged to come and beg monsieur to lift Esther on to the bed; he carried her with the ease that betrayed athletic strength.
They had to procure all the chemist’s strongest stimulants to restore Esther to a sense of her woes.
An hour later the poor girl was able to listen to this living nightmare, seated at the foot of her bed, his eyes fixed and glowing like two spots of molten lead.
“My little sweetheart,” said he, “Lucien now stands between a splendid life, honored, happy, and respected, and the hole full of water, mud, and gravel into which he was going to plunge when I met him.
The house of Grandlieu requires of the dear boy an estate worth a million francs before securing for him the title of Marquis, and handing over to him that may-pole named Clotilde, by whose help he will rise to power.
Thanks to you, and me, Lucien has just purchased his maternal manor, the old Chateau de Rubempre, which, indeed, did not cost much — thirty thousand francs; but his lawyer, by clever negotiations, has succeeded in adding to it estates worth a million, on which three hundred thousand francs are paid.
The chateau, the expenses, and percentages to the men who were put forward as a blind to conceal the transaction from the country people, have swallowed up the remainder.
“We have, to be sure, a hundred thousand francs invested in a business here, which a few months hence will be worth two to three hundred thousand francs; but there will still be four hundred thousand francs to be paid.
“In three days Lucien will be home from Angouleme, where he has been, because he must not be suspected of having found a fortune in remaking your bed ——”
“Oh no!” cried she, looking up with a noble impulse.
“I ask you, then, is this a moment to scare off the Baron?” he went on calmly. “And you very nearly killed him the day before yesterday; he fainted like a woman on reading your second letter.
You have a fine style — I congratulate you!
If the Baron had died, where should we be now?
— When Lucien walks out of Saint–Thomas d’Aquin son-in-law to the Duc de Grandlieu, if you want to try a dip in the Seine —— Well, my beauty, I offer you my hand for a dive together.
It is one way of ending matters.
“But consider a moment.
Would it not be better to live and say to yourself again and again
‘This fine fortune, this happy family’— for he will have children — children!
— Have you ever thought of the joy of running your fingers through the hair of his children?”
Esther closed her eyes with a little shiver.
“Well, as you gaze on that structure of happiness, you may say to yourself,
‘This is my doing!’”
There was a pause, and the two looked at each other.
“This is what I have tried to make out of such despair as saw no issue but the river,” said Carlos. “Am I selfish?
That is the way to love!
Men show such devotion to none but kings! But I have anointed Lucien king.
If I were riveted for the rest of my days to my old chain, I fancy I could stay there resigned so long as I could say,
‘He is gay, he is at Court.’
My soul and mind would triumph, while my carcase was given over to the jailers!
You are a mere female; you love like a female!
But in a courtesan, as in all degraded creatures, love should be a means to motherhood, in spite of Nature, which has stricken you with barrenness!
“If ever, under the skin of the Abbe Carlos Herrera, any one were to detect the convict I have been, do you know what I would do to avoid compromising Lucien?”
Esther awaited the reply with some anxiety.
“Well,” he said after a brief pause, “I would die as the Negroes do — without a word.