"Theory," by a better understanding of the theory of success.
To-morrow evening you shall go to see that queen of the moment—the beautiful Countess Foedora....'
"'I have never heard of her....'
"'You Hottentot!' laughed Rastignac; 'you do not know Foedora?
A great match with an income of nearly eighty thousand livres, who has taken a fancy to nobody, or else no one has taken a fancy to her.
A sort of feminine enigma, a half Russian Parisienne, or a half Parisian Russian.
All the romantic productions that never get published are brought out at her house; she is the handsomest woman in Paris, and the most gracious!
You are not even a Hottentot; you are something between the Hottentot and the beast.... Good-bye till to-morrow.'
"He swung round on his heel and made off without waiting for my answer. It never occurred to him that a reasoning being could refuse an introduction to Foedora.
How can the fascination of a name be explained? FOEDORA haunted me like some evil thought, with which you seek to come to terms.
A voice said in me,
'You are going to see Foedora!'
In vain I reasoned with that voice, saying that it lied to me; all my arguments were defeated by the name 'Foedora.'
Was not the name, and even the woman herself, the symbol of all my desires, and the object of my life?
"The name called up recollections of the conventional glitter of the world, the upper world of Paris with its brilliant fetes and the tinsel of its vanities.
The woman brought before me all the problems of passion on which my mind continually ran.
Perhaps it was neither the woman nor the name, but my own propensities, that sprang up within me and tempted me afresh.
Here was the Countess Foedora, rich and loveless, proof against the temptations of Paris; was not this woman the very incarnation of my hopes and visions?
I fashioned her for myself, drew her in fancy, and dreamed of her.
I could not sleep that night; I became her lover; I overbrimmed a few hours with a whole lifetime—a lover's lifetime; the experience of its prolific delights burned me.
"The next day I could not bear the tortures of delay; I borrowed a novel, and spent the whole day over it, so that I could not possibly think nor keep account of the time till night.
Foedora's name echoed through me even as I read, but only as a distant sound; though it could be heard, it was not troublesome.
Fortunately, I owned a fairly creditable black coat and a white waistcoat; of all my fortune there now remained abut thirty francs, which I had distributed about among my clothes and in my drawers, so as to erect between my whims and the spending of a five-franc piece a thorny barrier of search, and an adventurous peregrination round my room.
While I as dressing, I dived about for my money in an ocean of papers.
This scarcity of specie will give you some idea of the value of that squandered upon gloves and cab-hire; a month's bread disappeared at one fell swoop.
Alas! money is always forthcoming for our caprices; we only grudge the cost of things that are useful or necessary.
We recklessly fling gold to an opera-dancer, and haggle with a tradesman whose hungry family must wait for the settlement of our bill.
How many men are there that wear a coat that cost a hundred francs, and carry a diamond in the head of their cane, and dine for twenty-five SOUS for all that!
It seems as though we could never pay enough for the pleasures of vanity.
"Rastignac, punctual to his appointment, smiled at the transformation, and joked about it. On the way he gave me benevolent advice as to my conduct with the countess; he described her as mean, vain, and suspicious; but though mean, she was ostentatious, her vanity was transparent, and her mistrust good-humored.
"'You know I am pledged,' he said, 'and what I should lose, too, if I tried a change in love.
So my observation of Foedora has been quite cool and disinterested, and my remarks must have some truth in them.
I was looking to your future when I thought of introducing you to her; so mind very carefully what I am about to say. She has a terrible memory. She is clever enough to drive a diplomatist wild; she would know it at once if he spoke the truth.
Between ourselves, I fancy that her marriage was not recognized by the Emperor, for the Russian ambassador began to smile when I spoke of her; he does not receive her either, and only bows very coolly if he meets her in the Bois.
For all that, she is in Madame de Serizy's set, and visits Mesdames de Nucingen and de Restaud.
There is no cloud over her here in France; the Duchesse de Carigliano, the most-strait-laced marechale in the whole Bonapartist coterie, often goes to spend the summer with her at her country house.
Plenty of young fops, sons of peers of France, have offered her a title in exchange for her fortune, and she has politely declined them all.
Her susceptibilities, maybe, are not to be touched by anything less than a count.
Aren't you a marquis?
Go ahead if you fancy her.
This is what you may call receiving your instructions.'
"His raillery made me think that Rastignac wished to joke and excite my curiosity, so that I was in a paroxysm of my extemporized passion by the time that we stopped before a peristyle full of flowers.
My heart beat and my color rose as we went up the great carpeted staircase, and I noticed about me all the studied refinements of English comfort; I was infatuatedly bourgeois; I forgot my origin and all my personal and family pride.
Alas! I had but just left a garret, after three years of poverty, and I could not just then set the treasures there acquired above such trifles as these. Nor could I rightly estimate the worth of the vast intellectual capital which turns to riches at the moment when opportunity comes within our reach, opportunity that does not overwhelm, because study has prepared us for the struggles of public life.
"I found a woman of about twenty-two years of age; she was of average height, was dressed in white, and held a feather fire-screen in her hand; a group of men stood around her.
She rose at the sight of Rastignac, and came towards us with a gracious smile and a musically-uttered compliment, prepared no doubt beforehand, for me. Our friend had spoken of me as a rising man, and his clever way of making the most of me had procured me this flattering reception.
I was confused by the attention that every one paid to me; but Rastignac had luckily mentioned my modesty.
I was brought in contact with scholars, men of letters, ex-ministers, and peers of France.
The conversation, interrupted a while by my coming, was resumed. I took courage, feeling that I had a reputation to maintain, and without abusing my privilege, I spoke when it fell to me to speak, trying to state the questions at issue in words more or less profound, witty or trenchant, and I made a certain sensation.
Rastignac was a prophet for the thousandth time in his life.