I

You know how slight the partitions are between the private rooms of

fashionable restaurants in Paris; Very's largest room, for instance,

is cut in two by a removable screen. This Scene is NOT laid at Very's,

but in snug quarters, which for reasons of my own I forbear to

specify. We were two, so I will say, like Henri Monnier's Prudhomme,

"I should not like to compromise HER!"

We had remarked the want of solidity in the wall-structure, so we

talked with lowered voices as we sat together in the little private

room, lingering over the dainty dishes of a dinner exquisite in more

senses than one. We had come as far as the roast, however, and still

we had no neighbors; no sound came from the next room save the

crackling of the fire. But when the clock struck eight, we heard

voices and noisy footsteps; the waiters brought candles. Evidently

there was a party assembled in the next room, and at the first words I

knew at once with whom we had to dofour bold cormorants as ever

sprang from the foam on the crests of the ever-rising waves of this

present generationfour pleasant young fellows whose existence was

problematical, since they were not known to possess either stock or

landed estates, yet they lived, and lived well. These ingenious

condottieri of a modern industrialism, that has come to be the most

ruthless of all warfares, leave anxieties to their creditors, and keep

the pleasures for themselves. They are careful for nothing, save

dress. Still with the courage of the Jean Bart order, that will smoke

cigars on a barrel of powder (perhaps by way of keeping up their

character), with a quizzing humor that outdoes the minor newspapers,

sparing no one, not even themselves; clear-sighted, wary, keen after

business, grasping yet open handed, envious yet self-complacent,

profound politicians by fits and starts, analyzing everything,

guessing everythingnot one of these in question as yet had contrived

to make his way in the world which they chose for their scene of

operations. Only one of the four, indeed, had succeeded in coming as

far as the foot of the ladder.

To have money is nothing; the self-made man only finds out all that he

lacks after six months of flatteries. Andoche Finot, the self-made man

in question, stiff, taciturn, cold, and dull-witted, possessed the

sort of spirit which will not shrink from groveling before any

creature that may be of use to him, and the cunning to be insolent

when he needs a man no longer. Like one of the grotesque figures in

the ballet in Gustave, he was a marquis behind, a boor in front. And

this high-priest of commerce had a following.

Emile Blondet, Journalist, with abundance of intellectual power,

reckless, brilliant, and indolent, could do anything that he chose,

yet he submitted to be exploited with his eyes open. Treacherous or

kind upon impulse, a man to love, but not to respect; quick-witted as

a soubrette, unable to refuse his pen to any one that asked, or his

heart to the first that would borrow it, Emile was the most

fascinating of those light-of-loves of whom a fantastic modern wit

declared that "he liked them better in satin slippers than in boots."

The third in the party, Couture by name, lived by speculation,

grafting one affair upon another to make the gains pay for the losses.

He was always between wind and water, keeping himself afloat by his

bold, sudden strokes and the nervous energy of his play. Hither and

thither he would swim over the vast sea of interests in Paris, in

quest of some little isle that should be so far a debatable land that

he might abide upon it. Clearly Couture was not in his proper place.

As for the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be

enoughit was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou

of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of

his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw

how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by

the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the

last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at

the Funambules. Bixiou had the whole history of his own times at his

finger-ends, more particularly its scandalous chronicle, embellished

by added waggeries of his own. He sprang like a clown upon everybody's

back, only to do his utmost to leave the executioner's brand upon

every pair of shoulders.

The first cravings of gluttony satisfied, our neighbors reached the

stage at which we also had arrived, to wit, the dessert; and, as we

made no sign, they believed that they were alone. Thanks to the

champagne, the talk grew confidential as they dallied with the dessert

amid the cigar smoke. Yet through it all you felt the influence of the

icy esprit that leaves the most spontaneous feeling frost-bound and

stiff, that checks the most generous inspirations, and gives a sharp

ring to the laughter. Their table-talk was full of bitter irony which

turns a jest into a sneer; it told of the exhaustion of souls given

over to themselves; of lives with no end in view but the satisfaction

of selfof egoism induced by these times of peace in which we live. I

can think of nothing like it save a pamphlet against mankind at large

which Diderot was afraid to publish, a book that bares man's breast

simply to expose the plague-sores upon it. We listened to just such a

pamphlet as Rameau's Nephew, spoken aloud in all good faith, in the

course of after-dinner talk in which nothing, not even the point which

the speaker wished to carry, was sacred from epigram; nothing taken

for granted, nothing built up except on ruins, nothing reverenced save

the sceptic's adopted article of beliefthe omnipotence, omniscience,

and universal applicability of money.

After some target practice at the outer circle of their acquaintances,

they turned their ill-natured shafts at their intimate friends. With a

sign I explained my wish to stay and listen as soon as Bixiou took up

his parable, as will shortly be seen. And so we listened to one of

those terrific improvisations which won that artist such a name among

a certain set of seared and jaded spirits; and often interrupted and

resumed though it was, memory serves me as a reporter of it. The

opinions expressed and the form of expression lie alike outside the

conditions of literature. It was, more properly speaking, a medley of

sinister revelations that paint our age, to which indeed no other kind

of story should be told; and, besides, I throw all the responsibility

upon the principal speaker. The pantomime and the gestures that

accompanied Bixiou's changes of voice, as he acted the parts of the

various persons, must have been perfect, judging by the applause and

admiring comments that broke from his audience of three.

"Then did Rastignac refuse?" asked Blondet, apparently addressing

Finot.

"Point-blank."

"But did you threaten him with the newspapers?" asked Bixiou.

"He began to laugh," returned Finot.

"Rastignac is the late lamented de Marsay's direct heir; he will make

his way politically as well as socially," commented Blondet.

"But how did he make his money?" asked Couture. "In 1819 both he and

the illustrious Bianchon lived in a shabby boarding-house in the Latin

Quarter; his people ate roast cockchafers and their own wine so as to

send him a hundred francs every month. His father's property was not

worth a thousand crowns; he had two sisters and a brother on his

hands, and now"

"Now he has an income of forty thousand livres," continued Finot; "his

sisters had a handsome fortune apiece and married into noble families;

he leaves his mother a life interest in the property"

"Even in 1827 I have known him without a penny," said Blondet.

"Oh! in 1827," said Bixiou.

"Well," resumed Finot, "yet to-day, as we see, he is in a fair way to

be a Minister, a peer of Franceanything that he likes. He broke

decently with Delphine three years ago; he will not marry except on

good grounds; and he may marry a girl of noble family. The chap had

the sense to take up with a wealthy woman."

"My friends, give him the benefit of extenuating circumstances," urged

Blondet. "When he escaped the clutches of want, he dropped into the

claws of a very clever man."

"You know what Nucingen is," said Bixiou. "In the early days, Delphine

and Rastignac thought him 'good-natured'; he seemed to regard a wife

as a plaything, an ornament in his house. And that very fact showed me

that the man was square at the base as well as in height," added

Bixiou. "Nucingen makes no bones about admitting that his wife is his

fortune; she is an indispensable chattel, but a wife takes a second

place in the high-pressure life of a political leader and great

capitalist. He once said in my hearing that Bonaparte had blundered

like a bourgeois in his early relations with Josephine; and that after

he had had the spirit to use her as a stepping-stone, he had made

himself ridiculous by trying to make a companion of her."

"Any man of unusual powers is bound to take Oriental views of women,"

said Blondet.

"The Baron blended the opinions of East and West in a charming

Parisian creed. He abhorred de Marsay; de Marsay was unmanageable, but

with Rastignac he was much pleased; he exploited him, though Rastignac

was not aware of it. All the burdens of married life were put on him.

Rastignac bore the brunt of Delphine's whims; he escorted her to the

Bois de Boulogne; he went with her to the play; and the little

politician and great man of to-day spent a good deal of his life at

that time in writing dainty notes. Eugene was scolded for little

nothings from the first; he was in good spirits when Delphine was

cheerful, and drooped when she felt low; he bore the weight of her

confidences and her ailments; he gave up his time, the hours of his

precious youth, to fill the empty void of that fair Parisian's

idleness. Delphine and he held high councils on the toilettes which

went best together; he stood the fire of bad temper and broadsides of

pouting fits, while she, by way of trimming the balance, was very nice

to the Baron. As for the Baron, he laughed in his sleeve; but whenever

he saw that Rastignac was bending under the strain of the burden, he

made 'as if he suspected something,' and reunited the lovers by a

common dread."

"I can imagine that a wealthy wife would have put Rastignac in the way

of a living, and an honorable living, but where did he pick up his

fortune?" asked Couture. "A fortune so considerable as his at the

present day must come from somewhere; and nobody ever accused him of

inventing a good stroke of business."

"Somebody left it to him," said Finot.

"Who?" asked Blondet.

"Some fool that he came across," suggested Couture.

"He did not steal the whole of it, my little dears," said Bixiou.

"Let not your terrors rise to fever-heat,

Our age is lenient with those who cheat.