What Love Costs an Old Man. Honore de Balzac

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ more than once, and whose temper is apt at terrible revenge, had said to the girl in open court:

      "In ten years, as sure as you live, Prudence" (Europe's name was Prudence Servien), "I will return to be the death of you, if I am scragged for it."

      The President of the Court tried to reassure the girl by promising her the protection and the care of the law; but the poor child was so terror-stricken that she fell ill, and was in hospital nearly a year. Justice is an abstract being, represented by a collection of individuals who are incessantly changing, whose good intentions and memories are, like themselves, liable to many vicissitudes. Courts and tribunals can do nothing to hinder crimes; their business is to deal with them when done. From this point of view, a preventive police would be a boon to a country; but the mere word Police is in these days a bugbear to legislators, who no longer can distinguish between the three words—Government, Administration, and Law-making. The legislator tends to centralize everything in the State, as if the State could act.

      The convict would be sure always to remember his victim, and to avenge himself when Justice had ceased to think of either of them.

      Prudence, who instinctively appreciated the danger—in a general sense, so to speak—left Valenciennes and came to Paris at the age of seventeen to hide there. She tried four trades, of which the most successful was that of a "super" at a minor theatre. She was picked up by Paccard, and to him she told her woes. Paccard, Jacques Collin's disciple and right-hand man, spoke of this girl to his master, and when the master needed a slave he said to Prudence:

      "If you will serve me as the devil must be served, I will rid you of Durut."

      Durut was the convict; the Damocles' sword hung over Prudence Servien's head.

      But for these details, many critics would have thought Europe's attachment somewhat grotesque. And no one could have understood the startling announcement that Carlos had ready.

      "Yes, my girl, you can go back to Valenciennes. Here, read this."

      And he held out to her yesterday's paper, pointing to this paragraph:

      "TOULON—Yesterday, Jean Francois Durut was executed here. Early in the morning the garrison," etc.

      Prudence dropped the paper; her legs gave way under the weight of her body; she lived again; for, to use her own words, she never liked the taste of her food since the day when Durut had threatened her.

      "You see, I have kept my word. It has taken four years to bring Durut to the scaffold by leading him into a snare.—Well, finish my job here, and you will find yourself at the head of a little country business in your native town, with twenty thousand francs of your own as Paccard's wife, and I will allow him to be virtuous as a form of pension."

      Europe picked up the paper and read with greedy eyes all the details, of which for twenty years the papers have never been tired, as to the death of convicted criminals: the impressive scene, the chaplain—who has always converted the victim—the hardened criminal preaching to his fellow convicts, the battery of guns, the convicts on their knees; and then the twaddle and reflections which never lead to any change in the management of the prisons where eighteen hundred crimes are herded.

      "We must place Asie on the staff once more," said Carlos.

      Asie came forward, not understanding Europe's pantomime.

      "In bringing her back here as cook, you must begin by giving the Baron such a dinner as he never ate in his life," he went on. "Tell him that Asie has lost all her money at play, and has taken service once more. We shall not need an outdoor servant. Paccard shall be coachman. Coachmen do not leave their box, where they are safe out of the way; and he will run less risk from spies. Madame must turn him out in a powdered wig and a braided felt cocked hat; that will alter his appearance. Besides, I will make him us."

      "Are we going to have men-servants in the house?" asked Asie with a leer.

      "All honest folks," said Carlos.

      "All soft-heads," retorted the mulatto.

      "If the Baron takes a house, Paccard has a friend who will suit as the lodge porter," said Carlos. "Then we shall only need a footman and a kitchen-maid, and you can surely keep an eye on two strangers——"

      As Carlos was leaving, Paccard made his appearance.

      "Wait a little while, there are people in the street," said the man.

      This simple statement was alarming. Carlos went up to Europe's room, and stayed there till Paccard came to fetch him, having called a hackney cab that came into the courtyard. Carlos pulled down the blinds, and was driven off at a pace that defied pursuit.

      Having reached the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, he got out at a short distance from a hackney coach stand, to which he went on foot, and thence returned to the Quai Malaquais, escaping all inquiry.

      "Here, child," said he to Lucien, showing him four hundred banknotes for a thousand francs, "here is something on account for the purchase of the estates of Rubempre. We will risk a hundred thousand. Omnibuses have just been started; the Parisians will take to the novelty; in three months we shall have trebled our capital. I know the concern; they will pay splendid dividends taken out of the capital, to put a head on the shares—an old idea of Nucingen's revived. If we acquire the Rubempre land, we shall not have to pay on the nail.

      "You must go and see des Lupeaulx, and beg him to give you a personal recommendation to a lawyer named Desroches, a cunning dog, whom you must call on at his office. Get him to go to Rubempre and see how the land lies; promise him a premium of twenty thousand francs if he manages to secure you thirty thousand francs a year by investing eight hundred thousand francs in land round the ruins of the old house."

      "How you go on—on! on!"

      "I am always going on. This is no time for joking.—You must then invest a hundred thousand crowns in Treasury bonds, so as to lose no interest; you may safely leave it to Desroches, he is as honest as he is knowing.—That being done, get off to Angouleme, and persuade your sister and your brother-in-law to pledge themselves to a little fib in the way of business. Your relations are to have given you six hundred thousand francs to promote your marriage with Clotilde de Grandlieu; there is no disgrace in that."

      "We are saved!" cried Lucien, dazzled.

      "You are, yes!" replied Carlos. "But even you are not safe till you walk out of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin with Clotilde as your wife."

      "And what have you to fear?" said Lucien, apparently much concerned for his counselor.

      "Some inquisitive souls are on my track—I must assume the manners of a genuine priest; it is most annoying. The Devil will cease to protect me if he sees me with a breviary under my arm."

      Section 3

       Table of Contents

      At this moment the Baron de Nucingen, who was leaning on his cashier's arm, reached the door of his mansion.

      "I am ver' much afrait," said he, as he went in, "dat I hafe done a bat day's vork. Vell, we must make it up some oder vays."

      "De misfortune is dat you shall hafe been caught, mein Herr Baron," said the worthy German, whose СКАЧАТЬ