They venture forth to masked balls; they take journeys into the provinces; they turn out well dressed on the boulevards when the weather is fine.
And then they find in each other the devoted kindness which is known only among proscribed races.
It costs a woman in luck no effort to bestow some help, for she says to herself, “I may be in the same plight by Sunday!”
However, the most efficient protector still is the purchaser of dress.
When this greedy money-lender finds herself the creditor, she stirs and works on the hearts of all the old men she knows in favor of the mortgaged creature in thin boots and a fine bonnet.
In this way Madame du Val–Noble, unable to foresee the downfall of one of the richest and cleverest of stockbrokers, was left quite unprepared.
She had spent Falleix’s money on her whims, and trusted to him for all necessaries and to provide for the future.
“How could I have expected such a thing in a man who seemed such a good fellow?”
In almost every class of society the good fellow is an open-handed man, who will lend a few crowns now and again without expecting them back, who always behaves in accordance with a certain code of delicate feeling above mere vulgar, obligatory, and commonplace morality.
Certain men, regarded as virtuous and honest, have, like Nucingen, ruined their benefactors; and certain others, who have been through a criminal court, have an ingenious kind of honesty towards women.
Perfect virtue, the dream of Moliere, an Alceste, is exceedingly rare; still, it is to be found everywhere, even in Paris.
The “good fellow” is the product of a certain facility of nature which proves nothing.
A man is a good fellow, as a cat is silky, as a slipper is made to slip on to the foot.
And so, in the meaning given to the word by a kept woman, Falleix ought to have warned his mistress of his approaching bankruptcy and have given her enough to live upon.
D’Estourny, the dashing swindler, was a good fellow; he cheated at cards, but he had set aside thirty thousand francs for his mistress.
And at carnival suppers women would retort on his accusers: “No matter.
You may say what you like, Georges was a good fellow; he had charming manners, he deserved a better fate.”
These girls laugh laws to scorn, and adore a certain kind of generosity; they sell themselves, as Esther had done, for a secret ideal, which is their religion.
After saving a few jewels from the wreck with great difficulty, Madame du Val–Noble was crushed under the burden of the horrible report: “She ruined Falleix.”
She was almost thirty; and though she was in the prime of her beauty, still she might be called an old woman, and all the more so because in such a crisis all a woman’s rivals are against her.
Mariette, Florine, Tullia would ask their friend to dinner, and gave her some help; but as they did not know the extent of her debts, they did not dare to sound the depths of that gulf.
An interval of six years formed rather too long a gap in the ebb and flow of the Paris tide, between La Torpille and Madame du Val–Noble, for the woman “on foot” to speak to the woman in her carriage; but La Val–Noble knew that Esther was too generous not to remember sometimes that she had, as she said, fallen heir to her possessions, and not to seek her out by some meeting which might seem accidental though arranged.
To bring about such an accident, Madame du Val–Noble, dressed in the most lady-like way, walked out every day in the Champs–Elysees on the arm of Theodore Gaillard, who afterwards married her, and who, in these straits, behaved very well to his former mistress, giving her boxes at the play, and inviting her to every spree.
She flattered herself that Esther, driving out one fine day, would meet her face to face.
Esther’s coachman was Paccard — for her household had been made up in five days by Asie, Europe, and Paccard under Carlos’ instructions, and in such a way that the house in the Rue Saint–Georges was an impregnable fortress.
Peyrade, on his part, prompted by deep hatred, by the thirst for vengeance, and, above all, by his wish to see his darling Lydie married, made the Champs–Elysees the end of his walks as soon as he heard from Contenson that Monsieur de Nucingen’s mistress might be seen there.
Peyrade could dress so exactly like an Englishman, and spoke French so perfectly with the mincing accent that the English give the language; he knew England itself so well, and was so familiar with all the customs of the country, having been sent to England by the police authorities three times between 1779 and 1786, that he could play his part in London and at ambassadors’ residences without awaking suspicion.
Peyrade, who had some resemblance to Musson the famous juggler, could disguise himself so effectually that once Contenson did not recognize him.
Followed by Contenson dressed as a mulatto, Peyrade examined Esther and her servants with an eye which, seeming heedless, took everything in.
Hence it quite naturally happened that in the side alley where the carriage-company walk in fine dry weather, he was on the spot one day when Esther met Madame du Val–Noble.
Peyrade, his mulatto in livery at his heels, was airing himself quite naturally, like a nabob who is thinking of no one but himself, in a line with the two women, so as to catch a few words of their conversation.
“Well, my dear child,” said Esther to Madame du Val–Noble, “come and see me.
Nucingen owes it to himself not to leave his stockbroker’s mistress without a sou ——”
“All the more so because it is said that he ruined Falleix,” remarked Theodore Gaillard, “and that we have every right to squeeze him.”
“He dines with me to-morrow,” said Esther; “come and meet him.”
Then she added in an undertone: “I can do what I like with him, and as yet he has not that!” and she put the nail of a gloved finger under the prettiest of her teeth with the click that is familiarly known to express with peculiar energy:
“Just nothing.”
“You have him safe ——”
“My dear, as yet he has only paid my debts.”
“How mean!” cried Suzanne du Val–Noble.
“Oh!” said Esther,
“I had debts enough to frighten a minister of finance. Now, I mean to have thirty thousand a year before the first stroke of midnight.
Oh! he is excellent, I have nothing to complain of. He does it well.
— In a week we give a house-warming; you must come. — That morning he is to make me a present of the lease of the house in the Rue Saint–Georges.
In decency, it is impossible to live in such a house on less than thirty thousand francs a year — of my own, so as to have them safe in case of accident.
I have known poverty, and I want no more of it.
There are certain acquaintances one has had enough of at once.”
“And you, who used to say,
‘My face is my fortune!’— How you have changed!” exclaimed Suzanne.
“It is the air of Switzerland; you grow thrifty there. — Look here; go there yourself, my dear!