Catch a Swiss, and you may perhaps catch a husband, for they have not yet learned what such women as we are can be. And, at any rate, you may come back with a passion for investments in the funds — a most respectable and elegant passion!
— Good-bye.”
Esther got into her carriage again, a handsome carriage drawn by the finest pair of dappled gray horses at that time to be seen in Paris.
“The woman who is getting into the carriage is handsome,” said Peyrade to Contenson, “but I like the one who is walking best; follow her, and find out who she is.”
“That is what that Englishman has just remarked in English,” said Theodore Gaillard, repeating Peyrade’s remark to Madame du Val–Noble.
Before making this speech in English, Peyrade had uttered a word or two in that language, which had made Theodore look up in a way that convinced him that the journalist understood English.
Madame du Val–Noble very slowly made her way home to very decent furnished rooms in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, glancing round now and then to see if the mulatto were following her.
This establishment was kept by a certain Madame Gerard, whom Suzanne had obliged in the days of her splendor, and who showed her gratitude by giving her a suitable home.
This good soul, an honest and virtuous citizen, even pious, looked on the courtesan as a woman of a superior order; she had always seen her in the midst of luxury, and thought of her as a fallen queen; she trusted her daughters with her; and — which is a fact more natural than might be supposed — the courtesan was as scrupulously careful in taking them to the play as their mother could have been, and the two Gerard girls loved her.
The worthy, kind lodging-house keeper was like those sublime priests who see in these outlawed women only a creature to be saved and loved.
Madame du Val–Noble respected this worth; and often, as she chatted with the good woman, she envied her while bewailing her own ill-fortune.
“Your are still handsome; you may make a good end yet,” Madame Gerard would say.
But, indeed, Madame du Val–Noble was only relatively impoverished.
This woman’s wardrobe, so extravagant and elegant, was still sufficiently well furnished to allow of her appearing on occasion — as on that evening at the Porte–Saint-Martin to see Richard Darlington— in much splendor.
And Madame Gerard would most good-naturedly pay for the cabs needed by the lady “on foot” to go out to dine, or to the play, and to come home again.
“Well, dear Madame Gerard,” said she to this worthy mother, “my luck is about to change, I believe.”
“Well, well, madame, so much the better.
But be prudent; do not run into debt any more.
I have such difficulty in getting rid of the people who are hunting for you.”
“Oh, never worry yourself about those hounds!
They have all made no end of money out of me.
— Here are some tickets for the Varietes for your girls — a good box on the second tier.
If any one should ask for me this evening before I come in, show them up all the same.
Adele, my old maid, will be here; I will send her round.”
Madame du Val–Noble, having neither mother nor aunt, was obliged to have recourse to her maid — equally on foot — to play the part of a Saint–Esteve with the unknown follower whose conquest was to enable her to rise again in the world.
She went to dine with Theodore Gaillard, who, as it happened, had a spree on that day, that is to say, a dinner given by Nathan in payment of a bet he had lost, one of those orgies when a man says to his guests,
“You can bring a woman.”
It was not without strong reasons that Peyrade had made up his mind to rush in person on to the field of this intrigue.
At the same time, his curiosity, like Corentin’s, was so keenly excited, that, even in the absence of reasons, he would have tried to play a part in the drama.
At this moment Charles X.‘s policy had completed its last evolution.
After confiding the helm of State to Ministers of his own choosing, the King was preparing to conquer Algiers, and to utilize the glory that should accrue as a passport to what has been called his Coup d’Etat.
There were no more conspiracies at home; Charles X. believed he had no domestic enemies.
But in politics, as at sea, a calm may be deceptive.
Thus Corentin had lapsed into total idleness.
In such a case a true sportsman, to keep his hand in, for lack of larks kills sparrows.
Domitian, we know, for lack of Christians, killed flies.
Contenson, having witnessed Esther’s arrest, had, with the keen instinct of a spy, fully understood the upshot of the business.
The rascal, as we have seen, did not attempt to conceal his opinion of the Baron de Nucingen.
“Who is benefiting by making the banker pay so dear for his passion?” was the first question the allies asked each other.
Recognizing Asie as a leader in the piece, Contenson hoped to find out the author through her; but she slipped through his fingers again and again, hiding like an eel in the mud of Paris; and when he found her again as the cook in Esther’s establishment, it seemed to him inexplicable that the half-caste woman should have had a finger in the pie.
Thus, for the first time, these two artistic spies had come on a text that they could not decipher, while suspecting a dark plot to the story.
After three bold attempts on the house in the Rue Taitbout, Contenson still met with absolute dumbness.
So long as Esther dwelt there the lodge porter seemed to live in mortal terror.
Asie had, perhaps, promised poisoned meat-balls to all the family in the event of any indiscretion.
On the day after Esther’s removal, Contenson found this man rather more amenable; he regretted the lady, he said, who had fed him with the broken dishes from her table.
Contenson, disguised as a broker, tried to bargain for the rooms, and listened to the porter’s lamentations while he fooled him, casting a doubt on all the man said by a questioning “Really?” “Yes, monsieur, the lady lived here for five years without ever going out, and more by token, her lover, desperately jealous though she was beyond reproach, took the greatest precautions when he came in or went out.
And a very handsome young man he was too!”
Lucien was at this time still staying with his sister, Madame Sechard; but as soon as he returned, Contenson sent the porter to the Quai Malaquais to ask Monsieur de Rubempre whether he were willing to part with the furniture left in the rooms lately occupied by Madame van Bogseck.
The porter then recognized Lucien as the young widow’s mysterious lover, and this was all that Contenson wanted.
The deep but suppressed astonishment may be imagined with which Lucien and Carlos received the porter, whom they affected to regard as a madman; they tried to upset his convictions.