VI

This bird's eye view of the history of the invention shows

incontestably that great industrial and intellectual advances are made

exceedingly slowly, and little by little, even as Nature herself

proceeds. Perhaps articulate speech and the art of writing were

gradually developed in the same groping way as typography and paper-

making.

"Rag-pickers collect all the rags and old linen of Europe," the

printer concluded, "and buy any kind of tissue. The rags are sorted

and warehoused by the wholesale rag merchants, who supply the paper-

mills. To give you some idea of the extent of the trade, you must

know, mademoiselle, that in 1814 Cardon the banker, owner of the

pulping troughs of Bruges and Langlee (where Leorier de l'Isle

endeavored in 1776 to solve the very problem that occupied your

father), Cardon brought an action against one Proust for an error in

weights of two millions in a total of ten million pounds' weight of

rags, worth about four million francs! The manufacturer washes the

rags and reduces them to a thin pulp, which is strained, exactly as a

cook strains sauce through a tamis, through an iron frame with a fine

wire bottom where the mark which give its name to the size of the

paper is woven. The size of this mould, as it is called, regulates the

size of the sheet.

"When I was with the Messieurs Didot," David continued, "they were

very much interested in this question, and they are still interested;

for the improvement which your father endeavored to make is a great

commercial requirement, and one of the crying needs of the time. And

for this reason: although linen lasts so much longer than cotton, that

it is in reality cheaper in the end, the poor would rather make the

smaller outlay in the first instance, and, by virtue of the law of Vae

victis! pay enormously more before they have done. The middle classes

do the same. So there is a scarcity of linen. In England, where four-

fifths of the population use cotton to the exclusion of linen, they

make nothing but cotton paper. The cotton paper is very soft and

easily creased to begin with, and it has a further defect: it is so

soluble that if you seep a book made of cotton paper in water for

fifteen minutes, it turns to a pulp, while an old book left in water

for a couple of hours is not spoilt. You could dry the old book, and

the pages, though yellow and faded, would still be legible, the work

would not be destroyed.

"There is a time coming when legislation will equalize our fortunes,

and we shall all be poor together; we shall want our linen and our

books to be cheap, just as people are beginning to prefer small

pictures because they have not wall space enough for large ones. Well,

the shirts and the books will not last, that is all; it is the same on

all sides, solidity is drying out. So this problem is one of the first

importance for literature, science, and politics.

"One day, in my office, there was a hot discussion going on about the

material that the Chinese use for making paper. Their paper is far

better than ours, because the raw material is better; and a good deal

was said about this thin, light Chinese paper, for if it is light and

thin, the texture is close, there are no transparent spots in it. In

Paris there are learned men among the printers' readers; Fourier and

Pierre Leroux are Lachevardiere's readers at this moment; and the

Comte de Saint-Simon, who happened to be correcting proofs for us,

came in in the middle of the discussion. He told us at once that,

according to Kempfer and du Halde, the Broussonetia furnishes the

substance of the Chinese paper; it is a vegetable substance (like

linen or cotton for that matter). Another reader maintained that

Chinese paper was principally made of an animal substance, to wit, the

silk that is abundant there. They made a bet about it in my presence.

The Messieurs Didot are printers to the Institute, so naturally they

referred the question to that learned body. M. Marcel, who used to be

superintendent of the Royal Printing Establishment, was umpire, and he

sent the two readers to M. l'Abbe Grozier, Librarian at the Arsenal.

By the Abbe's decision they both lost their wages. The paper was not

made of silk nor yet from the Broussonetia; the pulp proved to be the

triturated fibre of some kind of bamboo. The Abbe Grozier had a

Chinese book, an iconographical and technological work, with a great

many pictures in it, illustrating all the different processes of

paper-making, and he showed us a picture of the workshop with the

bamboo stalks lying in a heap in the corner; it was extremely well

drawn.

"Lucien told me that your father, with the intuition of a man of

talent, had a glimmering of a notion of some way of replacing linen

rags with an exceedingly common vegetable product, not previously

manufactured, but taken direct from the soil, as the Chinese use

vegetable fibre at first hand. I have classified the guesses made by

those who came before me, and have begun to study the question. The

bamboo is a kind of reed; naturally I began to think of the reeds that

grow here in France.

"Labor is very cheap in China, where a workman earns three halfpence a

day, and this cheapness of labor enables the Chinese to manipulate

each sheet of paper separately. They take it out of the mould, and

press it between heated tablets of white porcelain, that is the secret

of the surface and consistence, the lightness and satin smoothness of

the best paper in the world. Well, here in Europe the work must be

done by machinery; machinery must take the place of cheap Chinese

labor. If we could but succeed in making a cheap paper of as good a

quality, the weight and thickness of printed books would be reduced by

more than one-half. A set of Voltaire, printed on our woven paper and

bound, weighs about two hundred and fifty pounds; it would only weigh

fifty if we used Chinese paper. That surely would be a triumph, for

the housing of many books has come to be a difficulty; everything has

grown smaller of late; this is not an age of giants; men have shrunk,

everything about them shrinks, and house-room into the bargain. Great

mansions and great suites of rooms will be abolished sooner or later

in Paris, for no one will afford to live in the great houses built by

our forefathers. What a disgrace for our age if none of its books

should last! Dutch paper--that is, paper made from flax--will be quite

unobtainable in ten years' time. Well, your brother told me of this

idea of your father's, this plan for using vegetable fibre in paper-

making, so you see that if I succeed, you have a right to----"

Lucien came up at that moment and interrupted David's generous

assertion.

"I do not know whether you have found the evening pleasant," said he;

"it has been a cruel time for me."

"Poor Lucien! what can have happened?" cried Eve, as she saw her

brother's excited face.

The poet told the history of his agony, pouring out a flood of

clamorous thoughts into those friendly hearts, Eve and David listening

in pained silence to a torrent of woes that exhibited such greatness

and such pettiness.

"M. de Bargeton is an old dotard. The indigestion will carry him off

before long, no doubt," Lucien said, as he made an end, "and then I

will look down on these proud people; I will marry Mme. de Bargeton. I

read to-night in her eyes a love as great as mine for her. Yes, she

felt all that I felt; she comforted me; she is as great and noble as

she is gracious and beautiful. She will never give me up."

"It is time that life was made smooth for him, is it not?" murmured

David, and for answer Eve pressed his arm without speaking. David

guessed her thoughts, and began at once to tell Lucien about his own

plans.

If Lucien was full of his troubles, the lovers were quite as full of

themselves. So absorbed were they, so eager that Lucien should approve

their happiness, that neither Eve nor David so much as noticed his

start of surprise at the news. Mme. de Bargeton's lover had been

dreaming of a great match for his sister; he would reach a high

position first, and then secure himself by an alliance with some

family of influence, and here was one more obstacle in his way to

success! His hopes were dashed to the ground. "If Mme. de Bargeton

consents to be Mme. de Rubempre, she would never care to have David

Sechard for a brother-in-law!"

This stated clearly and precisely was the thought that tortured

Lucien's inmost mind. "Louise is right!" he thought bitterly. "A man

with a career before him is never understood by his family."

If the marriage had not been announced immediately after Lucien's

fancy had put M. de Bargeton to death, he would have been radiant with

heartfelt delight at the news. If he had thought soberly over the

probable future of a beautiful and penniless girl like Eve Chardon, he

would have seen that this marriage was a piece of unhoped-for good

fortune. But he was living just now in a golden dream; he had soared

above all barriers on the wigs of an IF; he had seen a vision of

himself, rising above society; and it was painful to drop so suddenly

down to hard fact.

Eve and David both thought that their brother was overcome with the

sense of such generosity; to them, with their noble natures, the

silent consent was a sign of true friendship. David began to describe

with kindly and cordial eloquence the happy fortunes in store for them

all. Unchecked by protests put in by Eve, he furnished his first floor

with a lover's lavishness, built a second floor with boyish good faith

for Lucien, and rooms above the shed for Mme. Chardon--he meant to be

a son to her. In short, he made the whole family so happy and his

brother-in-law so independent, that Lucien fell under the spell of

David's voice and Eve's caresses; and as they went through the shadows

beside the still Charente, a gleam in the warm, star-lit night, he

forgot the sharp crown of thorns that had been pressed upon his head.

"M. de Rubempre" discovered David's real nature, in fact. His facile

character returned almost at once to the innocent, hard-working

burgher life that he knew; he saw it transfigured and free from care.

The buzz of the aristocratic world grew more and more remote; and when

at length they came upon the paved road of L'Houmeau, the ambitious

poet grasped his brother's hand, and made a third in the joy of the

happy lovers.

"If only your father makes no objection to the marriage," he said.

"You know how much he troubles himself about me; the old man lives for

himself," said David. "But I will go over to Marsac to-morrow and see

him, if it is only to ask leave to build."

David went back to the house with the brother and sister, and asked

Mme. Chardon's consent to his marriage with the eagerness of a man who

would fain have no delay. Eve's mother took her daughter's hand, and

gladly laid it in David's; and the lover, grown bolder on this, kissed

his fair betrothed on the forehead, and she flushed red, and smiled at

him.

"The betrothal of the poor," the mother said, raising her eyes as if

to pray for heaven's blessing upon them.--"You are brave, my boy," she

added, looking at David, "but we have fallen on evil fortune, and I am

afraid lest our bad luck should be infectious."

"We shall be rich and happy," David said earnestly. "To begin with,

you must not go out nursing any more, and you must come and live with

your daughter and Lucien in Angouleme."

The three began at once to tell the astonished mother all their

charming plans, and the family party gave themselves up to the

pleasure of chatting and weaving a romance, in which it is so pleasant

to enjoy future happiness, and to store the unsown harvest. They had

to put David out at the door; he could have wished the evening to last

for ever, and it was one o'clock in the morning when Lucien and his

future brother-in-law reached the Palet Gate. The unwonted movement

made honest Postel uneasy; he opened the window, and looking through

the Venetian shutters, he saw a light in Eve's room.

"What can be happening at the Chardons'?" thought he, and seeing

Lucien come in, he called out to him--

"What is the matter, sonny? Do you want me to do anything?"

"No, sir," returned the poet; "but as you are our friend, I can tell

you about it; my mother has just given her consent to my sister's

engagement to David Sechard."

For all answer, Postel shut the window with a bang, in despair that he

had not asked for Mlle. Chardon earlier.

David, however, did not go back into Angouleme; he took the road to

Marsac instead, and walked through the night the whole way to his

father's house. He went along by the side of the croft just as the sun

rose, and caught sight of the old "bear's" face under an almond-tree

that grew out of the hedge.

"Good day, father," called David.

"Why, is it you, my boy? How come you to be out on the road at this

time of day? There is your way in," he added, pointing to a little

wicket gate. "My vines have flowered and not a shoot has been frosted.

There will be twenty puncheons or more to the acre this year; but then

look at all the dung that has been put on the land!"

"Father, I have come on important business."

"Very well; how are your presses doing? You must be making heaps of

money as big as yourself."

"I shall some day, father, but I am not very well off just now."

"They all tell me that I ought not to put on so much manure," replied

his father. "The gentry, that is M. le Marquis, M. le Comte, and

Monsieur What-do-you-call-'em, say that I am letting down the quality

of the wine. What is the good of book-learning except to muddle your

wits? Just you listen: these gentlemen get seven, or sometimes eight

puncheons of wine to the acre, and they sell them for sixty francs

apiece, that means four hundred francs per acre at most in a good

year. Now, I make twenty puncheons, and get thirty francs apiece for

them--that is six hundred francs! And where are they, the fools?

Quality, quality, what is quality to me? They can keep their quality

for themselves, these Lord Marquises. Quality means hard cash for me,

that is what it means, You were saying?----"

"I am going to be married, father, and I have come to ask for----"

"Ask me for what? Nothing of the sort, my boy. Marry; I give you my

consent, but as for giving you anything else, I haven't a penny to

bless myself with. Dressing the soil is the ruin of me. These two

years I have been paying money out of pocket for top-dressing, and

taxes, and expenses of all kinds; Government eats up everything,

nearly all the profit goes to the Government. The poor growers have

made nothing these last two seasons. This year things don't look so

bad; and, of course, the beggarly puncheons have gone up to eleven

francs already. We work to put money into the coopers' pockets. Why,

are you going to marry before the vintage?----"

"I only came to ask for your consent, father."

"Oh! that is another thing. And who is the victim, if one may ask?"

"I am going to marry Mlle. Eve Chardon."

"Who may she be? What kind of victual does she eat?"

"She is the daughter of the late M. Chardon, the druggist in

L'Houmeau."

"You are going to marry a girl out of L'Houmeau! YOU! a burgess of

Angouleme, and printer to His Majesty! This is what comes of book-

learning! Send a boy to school, forsooth! Oh! well, then she is very

rich, is she, my boy?" and the old vinegrower came up closer with a

cajoling manner; "if you are marrying a girl out of L'Houmeau, it must

be because she has lots of cash, eh? Good! you will pay me my rent

now. There are two years and one-quarter owing, you know, my boy; that

is two thousand seven hundred francs altogether; the money will come

just in the nick of time to pay the cooper. If it was anybody else, I

should have a right to ask for interest; for, after all, business is

business, but I will let you off the interest. Well, how much has

she?"

"Just as much as my mother had."

The old vinegrower very nearly said, "Then she has only ten thousand

francs!" but he recollected just in time that he had declined to give

an account of her fortune to her son, and exclaimed, "She has

nothing!"

"My mother's fortune was her beauty and intelligence," said David.

"You just go into the market and see what you can get for it! Bless my

buttons! what bad luck parents have with their children. David, when I

married, I had a paper cap on my head for my whole fortune, and a pair

of arms; I was a poor pressman; but with the fine printing-house that

I gave you, with your industry, and your education, you might marry a

burgess' daughter, a woman with thirty or forty thousand francs. Give

up your fancy, and I will find you a wife myself. There is some one

about three miles away, a miller's widow, thirty-two years old, with a

hundred thousand francs in land. There is your chance! You can add her

property to Marsac, for they touch. Ah! what a fine property we should

have, and how I would look after it! They say she is going to marry

her foreman Courtois, but you are the better man of the two. I would

look after the mill, and she should live like a lady up in Angouleme."

"I am engaged, father."

"David, you know nothing of business; you will ruin yourself, I see.

Yes, if you marry this girl out of L'Houmeau, I shall square accounts

and summons you for the rent, for I see that no good will come of

this. Oh! my presses, my poor presses! it took some money to grease

you and keep you going. Nothing but a good year can comfort me after

this."

"It seems to me, father, that until now I have given you very little

trouble----"

"And paid mighty little rent," put in his parent.

"I came to ask you something else besides. Will you build a second

floor to your house, and some rooms above the shed?"

"Deuce a bit of it; I have not the cash, and that you know right well.

Besides, it would be money thrown clean away, for what would it bring

in? Oh! you get up early of a morning to come and ask me to build you

a place that would ruin a king, do you? Your name may be David, but I

have not got Solomon's treasury. Why, you are mad! or they changed my

child at nurse. There is one for you that will have grapes on it," he

said, interrupting himself to point out a shoot. "Offspring of this

sort don't disappoint their parents; you dung the vines, and they

repay you for it. I sent you to school; I spent any amount of money to

make a scholar of you; I sent you to the Didots to learn your

business; and all this fancy education ends in a daughter-in-law out

of L'Houmeau without a penny to her name. If you had not studied

books, if I had kept you under my eye, you would have done as I

pleased, and you would be marrying a miller's widow this day with a

hundred thousand francs in hand, to say nothing of the mill. Oh! your

cleverness leads you to imagine that I am going to reward this fine

sentiment by building palaces for you, does it? . . . Really, anybody

might think that the house that has been a house these two hundred

years was nothing but a pigsty, not fit for the girl out of L'Houmeau

to sleep in! What next! She is the Queen of France, I suppose."

"Very well, father, I will build the second floor myself; the son will

improve his father's property. It is not the usual way, but it happens

so sometimes."

"What, my lad! you can find money for building, can you, though you

can't find money to pay the rent, eh! You sly dog, to come round your

father."

The question thus raised was hard to lay, for the old man was only too

delighted to seize an opportunity of posing as a good father without

disbursing a penny; and all that David could obtain was his bare

consent to the marriage and free leave to do what he liked in the

house--at his own expense; the old "bear," that pattern of a thrifty

parent, kindly consenting not to demand the rent and drain the savings

to which David imprudently owned. David went back again in low

spirits. He saw that he could not reckon on his father's help in

misfortune.

In Angouleme that day people talked of nothing but the Bishop's

epigram and Mme. de Bargeton's reply. Every least thing that happened

that evening was so much exaggerated and embellished and twisted out

of all knowledge, that the poet became the hero of the hour. While

this storm in a teacup raged on high, a few drops fell among the

bourgeoisie; young men looked enviously after Lucien as he passed on

his way through Beaulieu, and he overheard chance phrases that filled

him with conceit.

"There is a lucky young fellow!" said an attorney's clerk, named

Petit-Claud, a plain-featured youth who had been at school with

Lucien, and treated him with small, patronizing airs.

"Yes, he certainly is," answered one of the young men who had been

present on the occasion of the reading; "he is a good-looking fellow,

he has some brains, and Mme. de Bargeton is quite wild about him."

Lucien had waited impatiently until he could be sure of finding Louise

alone. He had to break the tidings of his sister's marriage to the

arbitress of his destinies. Perhaps after yesterday's soiree, Louise

would be kinder than usual, and her kindness might lead to a moment of

happiness. So he thought, and he was not mistaken; Mme. de Bargeton

met him with a vehemence of sentiment that seemed like a touching

progress of passion to the novice in love. She abandoned her hands,

her beautiful golden hair, to the burning kisses of the poet who had

passed through such an ordeal.

"If only you could have seen your face whilst you were reading," cried

Louise, using the familiar tu, the caress of speech, since yesterday,

while her white hands wiped the pearls of sweat from the brows on

which she set a poet's crown. "There were sparks of fire in those

beautiful eyes! From your lips, as I watched them, there fell the

golden chains that suspend the hearts of men upon the poet's mouth.

You shall read Chenier through to me from beginning to end; he is the

lover's poet. You shall not be unhappy any longer; I will not have it.

Yes, dear angel, I will make an oasis for you, there you shall live

your poet's life, sometimes busy, sometimes languid; indolent, full of

work, and musing by turns; but never forget that you owe your laurels

to me, let that thought be my noble guerdon for the sufferings which I

must endure. Poor love! the world will not spare me any more than it

has spared you; the world is avenged on all happiness in which it has

no share. Yes, I shall always be a mark for envy--did you not see that

last night? The bloodthirsty insects are quick enough to drain every

wound that they pierce. But I was happy; I lived. It is so long since

all my heartstrings vibrated."

The tears flowed fast, and for all answer Lucien took Louise's hand

and gave it a lingering kiss. Every one about him soothed and caressed

the poet's vanity; his mother and his sister and David and Louise now

did the same. Every one helped to raise the imaginary pedestal on

which he had set himself. His friends's kindness and the fury of his

enemies combined to establish him more firmly in an ureal world. A

young imagination readily falls in with the flattering estimates of

others, a handsome young fellow so full of promise finds others eager

to help him on every side, and only after one or two sharp and bitter

lessons does he begin to see himself as an ordinary mortal.

"My beautiful Louise, do you mean in very truth to be my Beatrice, a

Beatrice who condescends to be loved?"

Louise raised the fine eyes, hitherto down-dropped.

"If you show yourself worthy--some day!" she said, with an angelic

smile which belied her words. "Are you not happy? To be the sole

possessor of a heart, to speak freely at all times, with the certainty

of being understood, is not this happiness?"

"Yes," he answered, with a lover's pout of vexation.

"Child!" she exclaimed, laughing at him. "Come, you have something to

tell me, have you not? You came in absorbed in thought, my Lucien."

Lucien, in fear and trembling, confided to his beloved that David was

in love with his sister Eve, and that his sister Eve was in love with

David, and that the two were to be married shortly.

"Poor Lucien!" said Louise, "he was afraid he should be beaten and

scolded, as if it was he himself that was going to be married! Why,

where is the harm?" she continued, her fingers toying with Lucien's

hair. "What is your family to me when you are an exception? Suppose

that my father were to marry his cook, would that trouble you much?

Dear boy, lovers are for each other their whole family. Have I a

greater interest than my Lucien in the world? Be great, find the way

to win fame, that is our affair!"

This selfish answer made Lucien the happiest of mortals. But in the

middle of the fantastic reasonings, with which Louise convinced him

that they two were alone in the world, in came M. de Bargeton. Lucien

frowned and seemed to be taken aback, but Louise made him a sign, and

asked him to stay to dinner and to read Andre de Chenier aloud to them

until people arrived for their evening game at cards.

"You will give her pleasure," said M. de Bargeton, "and me also.

Nothing suits me better than listening to reading aloud after dinner."

Cajoled by M. de Bargeton, cajoled by Louise, waited upon with the

respect which servants show to a favored guest of the house, Lucien

remained in the Hotel de Bargeton, and began to think of the luxuries

which he enjoyed for the time being as the rightful accessories of

Lucien de Rubempre. He felt his position so strong through Louise's

love and M. de Bargeton's weakness, that as the rooms filled, he

assumed a lordly air, which that fair lady encouraged. He tasted the

delights of despotic sway which Nais had acquired by right of

conquest, and liked to share with him; and, in short, that evening he

tried to act up to the part of the lion of the little town. A few of

those who marked these airs drew their own conclusions from them, and

thought that, according to the old expression, he had come to the last

term with the lady. Amelie, who had come with M. du Chatelet, was sure

of the deplorable fact, in a corner of the drawing-room, where the

jealous and envious gathered together.

"Do not think of calling Nais to account for the vanity of a

youngster, who is as proud as he can be because he has got into

society, where he never expected to set foot," said Chatelet. "Don't

you see that this Chardon takes the civility of a woman of the world

for an advance? He does not know the difference between the silence of

real passion and the patronizing graciousness due to his good looks

and youth and talent. It would be too bad if women were blamed for all

the desires which they inspire. HE certainly is in love with her, but

as for Nais----"

"Oh! Nais," echoed the perfidious Amelie, "Nais is well enough

pleased. A young man's love has so many attractions--at her age. A

woman grows young again in his company; she is a girl, and acts a

girl's hesitation and manners, and does not dream that she is

ridiculous. Just look! Think of a druggist's son giving himself a

conqueror's airs with Mme. de Bargeton."

"Love knows nought of high or low degree," hummed Adrien.

There was not a single house in Angouleme next day where the degree of

intimacy between M. Chardon (alias de Rubempre) and Mme. de Bargeton

was not discussed; and though the utmost extent of their guilt

amounted to two or three kisses, the world already chose to believe

the worst of both. Mme. de Bargeton paid the penalty of her

sovereignty. Among the various eccentricities of society, have you

never noticed its erratic judgments and the unaccountable differences

in the standard it requires of this or that man or woman? There are

some persons who may do anything; they may behave totally

irrationally, anything becomes them, and it is who shall be first to

justify their conduct; then, on the other hand, there are those on

whom the world is unaccountably severe, they must do everything well,

they are not allowed to fail nor to make mistakes, at their peril they

do anything foolish; you might compare these last to the much-admired

statues which must come down at once from their pedestal if the frost

chips off a nose or a finger. They are not permitted to be human; they

are required to be for ever divine and for ever impeccable. So one

glance exchanged between Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien outweighed twelve

years of Zizine's connection with Francis in the social balance; and a

squeeze of the hand drew down all the thunders of the Charente upon

the lovers.

David had brought a little secret hoard back with him from Paris, and

it was this sum that he set aside for the expenses of his marriage and

for the building of the second floor in his father's house. His

father's house it was; but, after all, was he not working for himself?

It would all be his again some day, and his father was sixty-eight

years old. So David build a timbered second story for Lucien, so as

not to put too great a strain on the old rifted house-walls. He took

pleasure in making the rooms where the fair Eve was to spend her life

as brave as might be.

It was a time of blithe and unmixed happiness for the friends. Lucien

was tired of the shabbiness of provincial life, and weary of the

sordid frugality that looked on a five-franc piece as a fortune, but

he bore the hardships and the pinching thrift without grumbling. His

moody looks had been succeeded by an expression of radiant hope. He

saw the star shining above his head, he had dreams of a great time to

come, and built the fabric of his good fortune on M. de Bargeton's

tomb. M. de Bargeton, troubled with indigestion from time to time,

cherished the happy delusion that indigestion after dinner was a

complaint to be cured by a hearty supper.

By the beginning of September, Lucien had ceased to be a printer's

foreman; he was M. de Rubempre, housed sumptuously in comparison with

his late quarters in the tumbledown attic with the dormer-window,

where "young Chardon" had lived in L'Houmeau; he was not even a "man

of L'Houmeau"; he lived in the heights of Angouleme, and dined four

times a week with Mme. de Bargeton. A friendship had grown up between

M. de Rubempre and the Bishop, and he went to the palace. His

occupations put him upon a level with the highest rank; his name would

be one day among the great names of France; and, in truth, as he went

to and fro in his apartments, the pretty sitting-room, the charming

bedroom, and the tastefully furnished study, he might console himself

for the thought that he drew thirty francs every month out of his

mother's and sister's hard earnings; for he saw the day approaching

when An Archer of Charles IX., the historical romance on which he had

been at work for two years, and a volume of verse entitled

Marguerites, should spread his fame through the world of literature,

and bring in money enough to repay them all, his mother and sister and

David. So, grown great in his own eyes, and giving ear to the echoes

of his name in the future, he could accept present sacrifices with

noble assurance; he smiled at his poverty, he relished the sense of

these last days of penury.

Eve and David had set Lucien's happiness before their own. They had

put off their wedding, for it took some time to paper and paint their

rooms, and to buy the furniture, and Lucien's affairs had been settled

first. No one who knew Lucien could wonder at their devotion. Lucien

was so engaging, he had such winning ways, his impatience and his

desires were so graciously expressed, that his cause was always won

before he opened his mouth to speak. This unlucky gift of fortune, if

it is the salvation of some, is the ruin of many more. Lucien and his

like find a world predisposed in favor of youth and good looks, and

ready to protect those who give it pleasure with the selfish good-

nature that flings alms to a beggar, if he appeals to the feelings and

awakens emotion; and in this favor many a grown child is content to

bask instead of putting it to a profitable use. With mistaken notions

as to the significance and the motive of social relations they imagine

that they shall always meet with deceptive smiles; and so at last the

moment comes for them when the world leaves them bald, stripped bare,

without fortune or worth, like an elderly coquette by the door of a

salon, or a stray rag in the gutter.

Eve herself had wished for the delay. She meant to establish the

little household on the most economical footing, and to buy only

strict necessaries; but what could two lovers refuse to a brother who

watched his sister at her work, and said in tones that came from the

heart, "How I wish I could sew!" The sober, observant David had shared

in the devotion; and yet, since Lucien's triumph, David had watched

him with misgivings; he was afraid that Lucien would change towards

them, afraid that he would look down upon their homely ways. Once or

twice, to try his brother, David had made him choose between home

pleasures and the great world, and saw that Lucien gave up the

delights of vanity for them, and exclaimed to himself, "They will not

spoil him for us!" Now and again the three friends and Mme. Chardon

arranged picnic parties in provincial fashion--a walk in the woods

along the Charente, not far from Angouleme, and dinner out on the

grass, David's apprentice bringing the basket of provisions to some

place appointed before-hand; and at night they would come back, tired

somewhat, but the whole excursion had not cost three francs. On great

occasion, when they dined at a restaurat, as it is called, a sort of a

country inn, a compromise between a provincial wineshop and a Parisian

guinguette, they would spend as much as five francs, divided between

David and the Chardons. David gave his brother infinite credit for

forsaking Mme. de Bargeton and grand dinners for these days in the

country, and the whole party made much of the great man of Angouleme.

Matters had gone so far, that the new home was very nearly ready, and

David had gone over to Marsac to persuade his father to come to the

wedding, not without a hope that the old man might relent at the sight

of his daughter-in-law, and give something towards the heavy expenses

of the alterations, when there befell one of those events which

entirely change the face of things in a small town.

Lucien and Louise had a spy in Chatelet, a spy who watched, with the

persistence of a hate in which avarice and passion are blended, for an

opportunity of making a scandal. Sixte meant that Mme. de Bargeton

should compromise herself with Lucien in such a way that she should be

"lost," as the saying goes; so he posed as Mme. de Bargeton's humble

confidant, admired Lucien in the Rue du Minage, and pulled him to

pieces everywhere else. Nais had gradually given him les petites

entrees, in the language of the court, for the lady no longer

mistrusted her elderly admirer; but Chatelet had taken too much for

granted--love was still in the Platonic stage, to the great despair of

Louise and Lucien.

There are, for that matter, love affairs which start with a good or a

bad beginning, as you prefer to take it. Two creatures launch into the

tactics of sentiment; they talk when they should be acting, and

skirmish in the open instead of settling down to a siege. And so they

grow tired of one another, expend their longings in empty space; and,

having time for reflection, come to their own conclusions about each

other. Many a passion that has taken the field in gorgeous array, with

colors flying and an ardor fit to turn the world upside down, has

turned home again without a victory, inglorious and crestfallen,

cutting but a foolish figure after these vain alarums and excursions.

Such mishaps are sometimes due to the diffidence of youth, sometimes

to the demurs of an inexperienced woman, for old players at this game

seldom end in a fiasco of this kind.

Provincial life, moreover, is singularly well calculated to keep

desire unsatisfied and maintain a lover's arguments on the

intellectual plane, while, at the same time, the very obstacles placed

in the way of the sweet intercourse which binds lovers so closely each

to each, hurry ardent souls on towards extreme measures. A system of

espionage of the most minute and intricate kind underlies provincial

life; every house is transparent, the solace of close friendships

which break no moral law is scarcely allowed; and such outrageously

scandalous constructions are put upon the most innocent human

intercourse, that many a woman's character is taken away without

cause. One here and there, weighed down by her unmerited punishment,

will regret that she has never known to the full the forbidden

felicity for which she is suffering. The world, which blames and

criticises with a superficial knowledge of the patent facts in which a

long inward struggle ends, is in reality a prime agent in bringing

such scandals about; and those whose voices are loudest in

condemnation of the alleged misconduct of some slandered woman never

give a thought to the immediate provocation of the overt step. That

step many a woman only takes after she has been unjustly accused and

condemned, and Mme. de Bargeton was now on the verge of this anomalous

position.

The obstacles at the outset of a passion of this kind are alarming to

inexperience, and those in the way of the two lovers were very like

the bonds by which the population of Lilliput throttled Gulliver, a

multiplicity of nothings, which made all movement impossible, and

baffle the most vehement desires. Mme. de Bargeton, for instance, must

always be visible. If she had denied herself to visitors when Lucien

was with her, it would have been all over with her; she might as well

have run away with him at once. It is true that they sat in the

boudoir, now grown so familiar to Lucien that he felt as if he had a

right to be there; but the doors stood scrupulously open, and

everything was arranged with the utmost propriety. M. de Bargeton

pervaded the house like a cockchafer; it never entered his head that

his wife could wish to be alone with Lucien. If he had been the only

person in the way, Nais could have got rid of him, sent him out of the

house, or given him something to do; but he was not the only one;

visitors flocked in upon her, and so much the more as curiosity

increased, for your provincial has a natural bent for teasing, and

delights to thwart a growing passion. The servants came and went about

the house promiscuously and without a summons; they had formed the

habits with a mistress who had nothing to conceal; any change now made

in her household ways was tantamount to a confession, and Angouleme

still hung in doubt.

Mme. de Bargeton could not set foot outside her house but the whole

town knew whither she was going. To take a walk alone with Lucien out

of Angouleme would have been a decided measure, indeed; it would have

been less dangerous to shut herself up with him in the house. There

would have been comments the next day if Lucien had stayed on till

midnight after the rooms were emptied. Within as without her house,

Mme. de Bargeton lived in public.

These details describe life in the provinces; an intrigue is either

openly avoided or impossible anywhere.

Like all women carried away for the first time by passion, Louise

discovered the difficulties of her position one by one. They

frightened her, and her terror reacted upon the fond talk that fills

the fairest hours which lovers spend alone together. Mme. de Bargeton

had no country house whither she could take her beloved poet, after

the manner of some women who will forge ingenious pretexts for burying

themselves in the wilderness; but, weary of living in public, and

pushed to extremities by a tyranny which afforded no pleasures sweet

enough to compensate for the heaviness of the yoke, she even thought

of Escarbas, and of going to see her aged father--so much irritated

was she by these paltry obstacles.

Chatelet did not believe in such innocence. He lay in wait, and

watched Lucien into the house, and followed a few minutes later,

always taking M. de Chandour, the most indiscreet person in the

clique, along with him; and, putting that gentleman first, hoped to

find a surprise by such perseverance in pursuit of the chance. His own

part was a very difficult one to play, and its success was the more

doubtful because he was bound to appear neutral if he was to prompt

the other actors who were to play in his drama. So, to give himself a

countenance, he had attached himself to the jealous Amelie, the better

to lull suspicion in Lucien and in Mme. de Bargeton, who was not

without perspicacity. In order to spy upon the pair, he had contrived

of late to open up a stock controversy on the point with M. de

Chandour. Chatelet said that Mme. de Bargeton was simply amusing

herself with Lucien; she was too proud, too high-born, to stoop to the

apothecary's son. The role of incredulity was in accordance with the

plan which he had laid down, for he wished to appear as Mme. de

Bargeton's champion. Stanislas de Chandour held that Mme. de Bargeton

had not been cruel to her lover, and Amelie goaded them to argument,

for she longed to know the truth. Each stated his case, and (as not

unfrequently happens in small country towns) some intimate friends of

the house dropped in in the middle of the argument. Stanislas and

Chatelet vied with each other in backing up their opinions by

observations extremely pertinent. It was hardly to be expected that

the champions should not seek to enlist partisans. "What do you

yourself think?" they asked, each of his neighbor. These polemics kept

Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien well in sight.

At length one day Chatelet called attention to the fact that whenever

he went with M. de Chandour to Mme. de Bargeton's and found Lucien

there, there was not a sign nor a trace of anything suspicious; the

boudoir door stood open, the servants came and went, there was nothing

mysterious to betray the sweet crime of love, and so forth and so

forth. Stanislas, who did not lack a certain spice of stupidity in his

composition, vowed that he would cross the room on tiptoe the next

day, and the perfidious Amelie held him to his bargain.

For Lucien that morrow was the day on which a young man tugs out some

of the hairs of his head, and inwardly vows that he will give up the

foolish business of sighing. He was accustomed to his situation. The

poet, who had seated himself so bashfully in the boudoir-sanctuary of

the queen of Angouleme, had been transformed into an urgent lover. Six

months had been enough to bring him on a level with Louise, and now he

would fain be her lord and master. He left home with a settled

determination to be extravagant in his behavior; he would say that it

was a matter of life or death to him; he would bring all the resources

of torrid eloquence into play; he would cry that he had lost his head,

that he could not think, could not write a line. The horror that some

women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would

rather surrender upon the impulse of passion, than in fulfilment of a

contract. In general, prescribed happiness is not the kind that any of

us desire.

Mme. de Bargeton read fixed purpose in Lucien's eyes and forehead, and

in the agitation in his face and manner, and proposed to herself to

baffle him, urged thereto partly by a spirit of contradiction, partly

also by an exalted conception of love. Being given to exaggeration,

she set an exaggerated value upon her person. She looked upon herself

as a sovereign lady, a Beatrice, a Laura. She enthroned herself, like

some dame of the Middle Ages, upon a dais, looking down upon the

tourney of literature, and meant that Lucien, as in duty bound, should

win her by his prowess in the field; he must eclipse "the sublime

child," and Lamartine, and Sir Walter Scott, and Byron. The noble

creature regarded her love as a stimulating power; the desire which

she had kindled in Lucien should give him the energy to win glory for

himself. This feminine Quixotry is a sentiment which hallows love and

turns it to worthy uses; it exalts and reverences love. Mme. de

Bargeton having made up her mind to play the part of Dulcinea in

Lucien's life for seven or eight years to come, desired, like many

other provincials, to give herself as the reward of prolonged service,

a trial of constancy which should give her time to judge her lover.

Lucien began the strife by a piece of vehement petulence, at which a

woman laughs so long as she is heart-free, and saddens only when she

loves; whereupon Louise took a lofty tone, and began one of her long

orations, interlarded with high-sounding words.

"Was that your promise to me, Lucien?" she said, as she made an end.

"Do not sow regrets in the present time, so sweet as it is, to poison

my after life. Do not spoil the future, and, I say it with pride, do

not spoil the present! Is not my whole heart yours? What more must you

have? Can it be that your love is influenced by the clamor of the

senses, when it is the noblest privilege of the beloved to silence

them? For whom do you take me? Am I not your Beatrice? If I am not

something more than a woman for you, I am less than a woman."

"That is just what you might say to a man if you cared nothing at all

for him," cried Lucien, frantic with passion.

"If you cannot feel all the sincere love underlying my ideas, you will

never be worthy of me."

"You are throwing doubts on my love to dispense yourself from

responding to it," cried Lucien, and he flung himself weeping at her

feet.

The poor boy cried in earnest at the prospect of remaining so long at

the gate of paradise. The tears of the poet, who feels that he is

humbled through his strength, were mingled with childish crying for a

plaything.

"You have never loved me!" he cried.

"You do not believe what you say," she answered, flattered by his

violence.

"Then give me proof that you are mine," said the disheveled poet.