Gobseck

GOBSECK

By Honore De Balzac

Translated By Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION

To M. le Baron Barchou de Penhoen.

Among all the pupils of the Oratorian school at Vendome, we are, I

think, the only two who have afterwards met in mid-career of a

life of letters--we who once were cultivating Philosophy when by

rights we should have been minding our De viris. When we met, you

were engaged upon your noble works on German philosophy, and I

upon this study. So neither of us has missed his vocation; and

you, when you see your name here, will feel, no doubt, as much

pleasure as he who inscribes his work to you.--Your old

schoolfellow,

1840 De Balzac.

GOBSECK

It was one o’clock in the morning, during the winter of 1829-30, but in

the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu’s salon two persons stayed on who did not

belong to her family circle. A young and good-looking man heard the

clock strike, and took his leave. When the courtyard echoed with the

sound of a departing carriage, the Vicomtesse looked up, saw that no one

was present save her brother and a friend of the family finishing their

game of piquet, and went across to her daughter. The girl, standing by

the chimney-piece, apparently examining a transparent fire-screen,

was listening to the sounds from the courtyard in a way that justified

certain maternal fears.

“Camille,” said the Vicomtesse, “if you continue to behave to young

Comte de Restaud as you have done this evening, you will oblige me to

see no more of him here. Listen, child, and if you have any confidence

in my love, let me guide you in life. At seventeen one cannot judge of

past or future, nor of certain social considerations. I have only one

thing to say to you. M. de Restaud has a mother, a mother who would

waste millions of francs; a woman of no birth, a Mlle. Goriot; people

talked a good deal about her at one time. She behaved so badly to her

own father, that she certainly does not deserve to have so good a son.

The young Count adores her, and maintains her in her position with

dutifulness worthy of all praise, and he is extremely good to his

brother and sister.--But however admirable _his_ behavior may be,” the

Vicomtesse added with a shrewd expression, “so long as his mother lives,

any family would take alarm at the idea of intrusting a daughter’s

fortune and future to young Restaud.”

“I overheard a word now and again in your talk with Mlle. de Grandlieu,”

cried the friend of the family, “and it made me anxious to put in a word

of my own.--I have won, M. le Comte,” he added, turning to his opponent.

“I shall throw you over and go to your niece’s assistance.”

“See what it is to have an attorney’s ears!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse.

“My dear Derville, how could you know what I was saying to Camille in a

whisper?”

“I knew it from your looks,” answered Derville, seating himself in a low

chair by the fire.

Camille’s uncle went to her side, and Mme. de Grandlieu took up her

position on a hearth stool between her daughter and Derville.

“The time has come for telling a story, which should modify your

judgment as to Ernest de Restaud’s prospects.”

“A story?” cried Camille. “Do begin at once, monsieur.”

The glance that Derville gave the Vicomtesse told her that this tale was

meant for her. The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, be it said, was one of the

greatest ladies in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, by reason of her fortune

and her ancient name; and though it may seem improbable that a Paris

attorney should speak so familiarly to her, or be so much at home in her

house, the fact is nevertheless easily explained.

When Mme. de Grandlieu returned to France with the Royal family, she

came to Paris, and at first lived entirely on the pension allowed her

out of the Civil List by Louis XVIII.--an intolerable position. The

Hotel de Grandlieu had been sold by the Republic. It came to Derville’s

knowledge that there were flaws in the title, and he thought that it

ought to return to the Vicomtesse. He instituted proceedings for nullity

of contract, and gained the day. Encouraged by this success, he used

legal quibbles to such purpose that he compelled some institution or

other to disgorge the Forest of Liceney. Then he won certain lawsuits

against the Canal d’Orleans, and recovered a tolerably large amount

of property, with which the Emperor had endowed various public

institutions. So it fell out that, thanks to the young attorney’s

skilful management, Mme. de Grandlieu’s income reached the sum of some

sixty thousand francs, to say nothing of the vast sums returned to her

by the law of indemnity. And Derville, a man of high character, well

informed, modest, and pleasant in company, became the house-friend of

the family.

By his conduct of Mme. de Grandlieu’s affairs he had fairly earned the

esteem of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and numbered the best families

among his clients; but he did not take advantage of his popularity, as

an ambitious man might have done. The Vicomtesse would have had him sell

his practice and enter the magistracy, in which career advancement would

have been swift and certain with such influence at his disposal; but he

persistently refused all offers. He only went into society to keep up

his connections, but he occasionally spent an evening at the Hotel de

Grandlieu. It was a very lucky thing for him that his talents had been

brought into the light by his devotion to Mme. de Grandlieu, for his

practice otherwise might have gone to pieces. Derville had not an

attorney’s soul. Since Ernest de Restaud had appeared at the Hotel de

Grandlieu, and he had noticed that Camille felt attracted to the young

man, Derville had been as assiduous in his visits as any dandy of the

Chausee-d’Antin newly admitted to the noble Faubourg. At a ball only

a few days before, when he happened to stand near Camille, and said,

indicating the Count:

“It is a pity that yonder youngster has not two or three million francs,

is it not?”

“Is it a pity? I do not think so,” the girl answered. “M. de Restaud

has plenty of ability; he is well educated, and the Minister, his

chief, thinks well of him. He will be a remarkable man, I have no doubt.

‘Yonder youngster’ will have as much money as he wishes when he comes

into power.”

“Yes, but suppose that he were rich already?”

“Rich already?” repeated Camille, flushing red. “Why all the girls

in the room would be quarreling for him,” she said, glancing at the

quadrilles.

“And then,” retorted the attorney, “Mlle. de Grandlieu might not be the

one towards whom his eyes are always turned? That is what that red color

means! You like him, do you not? Come, speak out.”

Camille suddenly rose to go.

“She loves him,” Derville thought.

Since that evening, Camille had been unwontedly attentive to the

attorney, who approved of her liking for Ernest de Restaud. Hitherto,

although she knew well that her family lay under great obligations to

Derville, she had felt respect rather than real friendship for him,

their relation was more a matter of politeness than of warmth of

feeling; and by her manner, and by the tones of her voice, she had

always made him sensible of the distance which socially lay between

them. Gratitude is a charge upon the inheritance which the second

generation is apt to repudiate.

“This adventure,” Derville began after a pause, “brings the one romantic

event in my life to my mind. You are laughing already,” he went on;

“it seems so ridiculous, doesn’t it, that an attorney should speak of

a romance in his life? But once I was five-and-twenty, like everybody

else, and even then I had seen some queer things. I ought to begin at

the beginning by telling you about some one whom it is impossible that

you should have known. The man in question was a usurer.

“Can you grasp a clear notion of that sallow, wan face of his? I wish

the _Academie_ would give me leave to dub such faces the _lunar_

type. It was like silver-gilt, with the gilt rubbed off. His hair was

iron-gray, sleek, and carefully combed; his features might have been

cast in bronze; Talleyrand himself was not more impassive than this

money-lender. A pair of little eyes, yellow as a ferret’s, and with

scarce an eyelash to them, peered out from under the sheltering peak of

a shabby old cap, as if they feared the light. He had the thin lips that

you see in Rembrandt’s or Metsu’s portraits of alchemists and shrunken

old men, and a nose so sharp at the tip that it put you in mind of a

gimlet. His voice was so low; he always spoke suavely; he never flew

into a passion. His age was a problem; it was hard to say whether he had

grown old before his time, or whether by economy of youth he had saved

enough to last him his life.

“His room, and everything in it, from the green baize of the bureau

to the strip of carpet by the bed, was as clean and threadbare as the

chilly sanctuary of some elderly spinster who spends her days in rubbing

her furniture. In winter time, the live brands of the fire smouldered

all day in a bank of ashes; there was never any flame in his grate. He

went through his day, from his uprising to his evening coughing-fit,

with the regularity of a pendulum, and in some sort was a clockwork man,

wound up by a night’s slumber. Touch a wood-louse on an excursion across

your sheet of paper, and the creature shams death; and in something the

same way my acquaintance would stop short in the middle of a sentence,

while a cart went by, to save the strain to his voice. Following the

example of Fontenelle, he was thrifty of pulse-strokes, and concentrated

all human sensibility in the innermost sanctuary of Self.

“His life flowed soundless as the sands of an hour-glass. His victims

sometimes flew into a rage and made a great deal of noise, followed by a

great silence; so is it in a kitchen after a fowl’s neck has been wrung.

“Toward evening this bill of exchange incarnate would assume ordinary

human shape, and his metals were metamorphosed into a human heart. When

he was satisfied with his day’s business, he would rub his hands; his

inward glee would escape like smoke through every rift and wrinkle of

his face;--in no other way is it possible to give an idea of the mute

play of muscle which expressed sensations similar to the soundless

laughter of _Leather Stocking_. Indeed, even in transports of joy,

his conversation was confined to monosyllables; he wore the same

non-committal countenance.

“This was the neighbor Chance found for me in the house in the Rue

de Gres, where I used to live when as yet I was only a second clerk

finishing my third year’s studies. The house is damp and dark, and

boasts no courtyard. All the windows look on the street; the whole

dwelling, in claustral fashion, is divided into rooms or cells of equal

size, all opening upon a long corridor dimly lit with borrowed lights.

The place must have been part of an old convent once. So gloomy was it,

that the gaiety of eldest sons forsook them on the stairs before they

reached my neighbor’s door. He and his house were much alike; even so

does the oyster resemble his native rock.

“I was the one creature with whom he had any communication, socially

speaking; he would come in to ask for a light, to borrow a book or a

newspaper, and of an evening he would allow me to go into his cell,

and when he was in the humor we would chat together. These marks of

confidence were the results of four years of neighborhood and my own

sober conduct. From sheer lack of pence, I was bound to live pretty much

as he did. Had he any relations or friends? Was he rich or poor? Nobody

could give an answer to these questions. I myself never saw money in his

room. Doubtless his capital was safely stowed in the strong rooms of the

Bank. He used to collect his bills himself as they fell due, running

all over Paris on a pair of shanks as skinny as a stag’s. On occasion he

would be a martyr to prudence. One day, when he happened to have gold in

his pockets, a double napoleon worked its way, somehow or other, out of

his fob and fell, and another lodger following him up the stairs picked

up the coin and returned it to its owner.

“‘That isn’t mine!’ said he, with a start of surprise. ‘Mine indeed! If

I were rich, should I live as I do!’

“He made his cup of coffee himself every morning on the cast-iron

chafing dish which stood all day in the black angle of the grate; his

dinner came in from a cookshop; and our old porter’s wife went up at the

prescribed hour to set his room in order. Finally, a whimsical chance,

in which Sterne would have seen predestination, had named the man

Gobseck. When I did business for him later, I came to know that he was

about seventy-six years old at the time when we became acquainted. He

was born about 1740, in some outlying suburb of Antwerp, of a Dutch

father and a Jewish mother, and his name was Jean-Esther Van Gobseck.

You remember how all Paris took an interest in that murder case, a

woman named _La belle Hollandaise_? I happened to mention it to my old

neighbor, and he answered without the slightest symptom of interest or

surprise, ‘She is my grandniece.’

“That was the only remark drawn from him by the death of his sole

surviving next of kin, his sister’s granddaughter. From reports of the

case I found that _La belle Hollandaise_ was in fact named Sara Van

Gobseck. When I asked by what curious chance his grandniece came to bear

his surname, he smiled:

“‘The women never marry in our family.’

“Singular creature, he had never cared to find out a single relative

among four generations counted on the female side. The thought of his

heirs was abhorrent to him; and the idea that his wealth could pass into

other hands after his death simply inconceivable.

“He was a child, ten years old, when his mother shipped him off as a

cabin boy on a voyage to the Dutch Straits Settlements, and there he

knocked about for twenty years. The inscrutable lines on that sallow

forehead kept the secret of horrible adventures, sudden panic,

unhoped-for luck, romantic cross events, joys that knew no limit,

hunger endured and love trampled under foot, fortunes risked, lost, and

recovered, life endangered time and time again, and saved, it may be, by

one of the rapid, ruthless decisions absolved by necessity. He had known

Admiral Simeuse, M. de Lally, M. de Kergarouet, M. d’Estaing, _le Bailli

de Suffren_, M. de Portenduere, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Hastings, Tippoo

Sahib’s father, Tippoo Sahib himself. The bully who served Mahadaji

Sindhia, King of Delhi, and did so much to found the power of the

Mahrattas, had had dealings with Gobseck. Long residence at St. Thomas

brought him in contact with Victor Hughes and other notorious pirates.

In his quest of fortune he had left no stone unturned; witness an

attempt to discover the treasure of that tribe of savages so famous in

Buenos Ayres and its neighborhood. He had a personal knowledge of the

events of the American War of Independence. But if he spoke of the

Indies or of America, as he did very rarely with me, and never with

anyone else, he seemed to regard it as an indiscretion and to repent of

it afterwards. If humanity and sociability are in some sort a religion,

Gobseck might be ranked as an infidel; but though I set myself to study

him, I must confess, to my shame, that his real nature was impenetrable

up to the very last. I even felt doubts at times as to his sex. If all

usurers are like this one, I maintain that they belong to the neuter

gender.

“Did he adhere to his mother’s religion? Did he look on Gentiles as

his legitimate prey? Had he turned Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Mahometan,

Brahmin, or what not? I never knew anything whatsoever about his

religious opinions, and so far as I could see, he was indifferent rather

than incredulous.

“One evening I went in to see this man who had turned himself to gold;

the usurer, whom his victims (his clients, as he styled them) were

wont to call Daddy Gobseck, perhaps ironically, perhaps by way of

antiphrasis. He was sitting in his armchair, motionless as a statue,

staring fixedly at the mantel-shelf, where he seemed to read the figures

of his statements. A lamp, with a pedestal that had once been green, was

burning in the room; but so far from taking color from its smoky light,

his face seemed to stand out positively paler against the background. He

pointed to a chair set for me, but not a word did he say.

“‘What thoughts can this being have in his mind?’ said I to myself.

‘Does he know that a God exists; does he know there are such things

as feeling, woman, happiness?’ I pitied him as I might have pitied a

diseased creature. But, at the same time, I knew quite well that while

he had millions of francs at his command, he possessed the world no

less in idea--that world which he had explored, ransacked, weighed,

appraised, and exploited.

“‘Good day, Daddy Gobseck,’ I began.

“He turned his face towards me with a slight contraction of his bushy,

black eyebrows; this characteristic shade of expression in him meant as

much as the most jubilant smile on a Southern face.

“‘You look just as gloomy as you did that day when the news came of the

failure of that bookseller whose sharpness you admired so much, though

you were one of his victims.’

“‘One of his victims?’ he repeated, with a look of astonishment.

“‘Yes. Did you not refuse to accept composition at the meeting of

creditors until he undertook privately to pay you your debt in full; and

did he not give you bills accepted by the insolvent firm; and then, when

he set up in business again, did he not pay you the dividend upon those

bills of yours, signed as they were by the bankrupt firm?’

“‘He was a sharp one, but I had it out of him.’

“‘Then have you some bills to protest? To-day is the 30th, I believe.’

“It was the first time I had spoken to him of money. He looked

ironically up at me; then in those bland accents, not unlike the husky

tones which the tyro draws from a flute, he answered, ‘I am amusing

myself.’

“‘So you amuse yourself now and again?’

“‘Do you imagine that the only poets in the world are those who print

their verses?’ he asked, with a pitying look and shrug of the shoulders.

“‘Poetry in that head!’ thought I, for as yet I knew nothing of his

life.

“‘What life could be as glorious as mine?’ he continued, and his eyes

lighted up. ‘You are young, your mental visions are colored by youthful

blood, you see women’s faces in the fire, while I see nothing but coals

in mine. You have all sorts of beliefs, while I have no beliefs at

all. Keep your illusions--if you can. Now I will show you life with

the discount taken off. Go wherever you like, or stay at home by the

fireside with your wife, there always comes a time when you settle down

in a certain groove, the groove is your preference; and then happiness

consists in the exercise of your faculties by applying them to

realities. Anything more in the way of precept is false. My principles

have been various, among various men; I had to change them with every

change of latitude. Things that we admire in Europe are punishable in

Asia, and a vice in Paris becomes a necessity when you have passed the

Azores. There are no such things as hard-and-fast rules; there are only

conventions adapted to the climate. Fling a man headlong into one social

melting pot after another, and convictions and forms and moral systems

become so many meaningless words to him. The one thing that always

remains, the one sure instinct that nature has implanted in us, is the

instinct of self-interest. If you had lived as long as I have, you would

know that there is but one concrete reality invariable enough to be

worth caring about, and that is--GOLD. Gold represents every form of

human power. I have traveled. I found out that there were either hills

or plains everywhere: the plains are monotonous, the hills a weariness;

consequently, place may be left out of the question. As to manners; man

is man all the world over. The same battle between the poor and the rich

is going on everywhere; it is inevitable everywhere; consequently, it is

better to exploit than to be exploited. Everywhere you find the man of

thews and sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself;

and pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are

exhausted, all that survives is Vanity--Vanity is the abiding substance

of us, the _I_ in us. Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods.

Our dreams need time and physical means and painstaking thought before

they can be realized. Well, gold contains all things in embryo; gold

realizes all things for us.

“‘None but fools and invalids can find pleasure in shuffling cards all

evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the end.

None but driveling idiots could spend time in inquiring into all that

is happening around them, whether Madame Such-an-One slept single on

her couch or in company, whether she has more blood than lymph, more

temperament than virtue. None but the dupes, who fondly imagine that

they are useful to their like, can interest themselves in laying down

rules for political guidance amid events which neither they nor any one

else foresees, nor ever will foresee. None but simpletons can delight

in talking about stage players and repeating their sayings; making the

daily promenade of a caged animal over a rather larger area; dressing

for others, eating for others, priding themselves on a horse or a

carriage such as no neighbor can have until three days later. What is

all this but Parisian life summed up in a few phrases? Let us find a

higher outlook on life than theirs. Happiness consists either in strong

emotions which drain our vitality, or in methodical occupation which

makes existence like a bit of English machinery, working with the

regularity of clockwork. A higher happiness than either consists in a

curiosity, styled noble, a wish to learn Nature’s secrets, or to attempt

by artificial means to imitate Nature to some extent. What is this in

two words but Science and Art, or passion or calm?--Ah! well, every

human passion wrought up to its highest pitch in the struggle for

existence comes to parade itself before me--as I live in calm. As for

your scientific curiosity, a kind of wrestling bout in which man is

never uppermost, I replace it by an insight into all the springs of

action in man and woman. To sum up, the world is mine without effort of

mine, and the world has not the slightest hold on me. Listen to this,’

he went on, ‘I will tell you the history of my morning, and you will

divine my pleasures.’

“He got up, pushed the bolt of the door, drew a tapestry curtain across

it with a sharp grating sound of the rings on the rod, then he sat down

again.

“‘This morning,’ he said, ‘I had only two amounts to collect; the rest

of the bills that were due I gave away instead of cash to my customers

yesterday. So much saved, you see, for when I discount a bill I always

deduct two francs for a hired brougham--expenses of collection. A pretty

thing it would be, would it not, if my clients were to set _me_ trudging

all over Paris for half-a-dozen francs of discount, when no man is my

master, and I only pay seven francs in the shape of taxes?

“‘The first bill for a thousand francs was presented by a young fellow,

a smart buck with a spangled waistcoat, and an eyeglass, and a tilbury

and an English horse, and all the rest of it. The bill bore the

signature of one of the prettiest women in Paris, married to a Count, a

great landowner. Now, how came that Countess to put her name to a

bill of exchange, legally not worth the paper it was written upon, but

practically very good business; for these women, poor things, are afraid

of the scandal that a protested bill makes in a family, and would give

themselves away in payment sooner than fail? I wanted to find out what

that bill of exchange really represented. Was it stupidity, imprudence,

love or charity?

“‘The second bill, bearing the signature “Fanny Malvaut,” came to me

from a linen-draper on the highway to bankruptcy. Now, no creature who

has any credit with a bank comes to _me_. The first step to my door

means that a man is desperately hard up; that the news of his failure

will soon come out: and, most of all, it means that he has been

everywhere else first. The stag is always at bay when I see him, and a

pack of creditors are hard upon his track. The Countess lived in the Rue

du Helder, and my Fanny in the Rue Montmartre. How many conjectures I

made as I set out this morning! If these two women were not able to pay,

they would show me more respect than they would show their own fathers.

What tricks and grimaces would not the Countess try for a thousand

francs! She would be so nice to me, she would talk to me in that

ingratiating tone peculiar to endorsers of bills, she would pour out

a torrent of coaxing words, perhaps she would beg and pray, and I...’

(here the old man turned his pale eyes upon me)--‘and I not to be moved,

inexorable!’ he continued. ‘I am there as the avenger, the apparition of

Remorse. So much for hypotheses. I reached the house.

“‘“Madame la Comtesse is asleep,” says the maid.

“‘“When can I see her?”

“‘“At twelve o’clock.”

“‘“Is Madame la Comtesse ill?”

“‘“No, sir, but she only came home at three o’clock this morning from a

ball.”

“‘“My name is Gobseck, tell her that I shall call again at twelve

o’clock,” and I went out, leaving traces of my muddy boots on the carpet

which covered the paved staircase. I like to leave mud on a rich man’s

carpet; it is not petty spite; I like to make them feel a touch of the

claws of Necessity. In the Rue Montmartre I thrust open the old gateway

of a poor-looking house, and looked into a dark courtyard where the

sunlight never shines. The porter’s lodge was grimy, the window looked

like the sleeve of some shabby wadded gown--greasy, dirty, and full of

holes.

“‘“Mlle. Fanny Malvaut?”

“‘“She has gone out; but if you have come about a bill, the money is

waiting for you.”

“‘“I will look in again,” said I.

“‘As soon as I knew that the porter had the money for me, I wanted to

know what the girl was like; I pictured her as pretty. The rest of the

morning I spent in looking at the prints in the shop windows along the

boulevard; then, just as it struck twelve, I went through the Countess’

ante-chamber.

“‘“Madame has just this minute rung for me,” said the maid; “I don’t

think she can see you yet.”

“‘“I will wait,” said I, and sat down in an easy-chair.

“‘Venetian shutters were opened, and presently the maid came hurrying

back.

“‘“Come in, sir.”

“‘From the sweet tone of the girl’s voice, I knew that the mistress

could not be ready to pay. What a handsome woman it was that I saw in

another moment! She had flung an Indian shawl hastily over her bare

shoulders, covering herself with it completely, while it revealed the

bare outlines of the form beneath. She wore a loose gown trimmed with

snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress’ bills amounted

to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her

dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted

carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed lay

in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid money

to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious hanging

draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider-down quilt,

its lace border standing out in contrast against the background of blue

silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the imagination. A pair of

satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin rug spread by the carved

mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had flung them off in her

weariness after the ball. A crumpled gown hung over a chair, the sleeves

touching the floor; stockings which a breath would have blown away were

twisted about the leg of an easy-chair; while ribbon garters straggled

over a settee. A fan of price, half unfolded, glittered on the

chimney-piece. Drawers stood open; flowers, diamonds, gloves, a bouquet,

a girdle, were littered about. The room was full of vague sweet perfume.

And--beneath all the luxury and disorder, beauty and incongruity, I saw

Misery crouching in wait for her or for her adorer, Misery rearing its

head, for the Countess had begun to feel the edge of those fangs.

Her tired face was an epitome of the room strewn with relics of past

festival. The scattered gewgaws, pitiable this morning, when gathered

together and coherent, had turned heads the night before.

“‘What efforts to drink of the Tantalus cup of bliss I could read

in these traces of love stricken by the thunderbolt remorse--in this

visible presentment of a life of luxury, extravagance, and riot. There

were faint red marks on her young face, signs of the fineness of the

skin; but her features were coarsened, as it were, and the circles about

her eyes were unwontedly dark. Nature nevertheless was so vigorous in

her, that these traces of past folly did not spoil her beauty. Her eyes

glittered. She looked like some _Herodias_ of da Vinci’s (I have dealt

in pictures), so magnificently full of life and energy was she; there

was nothing starved nor stinted in feature or outline; she awakened

desire; it seemed to me that there was some passion in her yet stronger

than love. I was taken with her. It was a long while since my heart

had throbbed; so I was paid then and there--for I would give a thousand

francs for a sensation that should bring me back memories of youth.

“‘“Monsieur,” she said, finding a chair for me, “will you be so good as

to wait?”

“‘“Until this time to-morrow, madame,” I said, folding up the bill

again. “I cannot legally protest this bill any sooner.” And within

myself I said--“Pay the price of your luxury, pay for your name, pay for

your ease, pay for the monopoly which you enjoy! The rich have invented

judges and courts of law to secure their goods, and the guillotine--that

candle in which so many lie in silk, under silken coverlets, there is

remorse, and grinding of teeth beneath a smile, and those fantastical

lions’ jaws are gaping to set their fangs in your heart.”

“‘“Protest the bill! Can you mean it?” she cried, with her eyes upon me;

“could you have so little consideration for me?”

“‘“If the King himself owed money to me, madame, and did not pay it, I

should summons him even sooner than any other debtor.”

“‘While we were speaking, somebody tapped gently at the door.

“‘“I cannot see any one,” she cried imperiously.

“‘“But, Anastasie, I particularly wish to speak to you.”

“‘“Not just now, dear,” she answered in a milder tone, but with no sign

of relenting.

“‘“What nonsense! You are talking to some one,” said the voice, and in

came a man who could only be the Count.

“‘The Countess gave me a glance. I saw how it was. She was thoroughly

in my power. There was a time, when I was young, and might perhaps have

been stupid enough not to protest the bill. At Pondicherry, in 1763, I

let a woman off, and nicely she paid me out afterwards. I deserved it;

what call was there for me to trust her?

“‘“What does this gentleman want?” asked the Count.

“‘I could see that the Countess was trembling from head to foot; the

white satin skin of her throat was rough, “turned to goose flesh,” to

use the familiar expression. As for me, I laughed in myself without

moving a muscle.

“‘“This gentleman is one of my tradesmen,” she said.

“‘The Count turned his back on me; I drew the bill half out of my

pocket. After that inexorable movement, she came over to me and put a

diamond into my hands. “Take it,” she said, “and be gone.”

“‘We exchanged values, and I made my bow and went. The diamond was quite

worth twelve hundred francs to me. Out in the courtyard I saw a swarm of

flunkeys, brushing out their liveries, waxing their boots, and cleaning

sumptuous equipages.

“‘“This is what brings these people to me!” said I to myself. “It is

to keep up this kind of thing that they steal millions with all due

formalities, and betray their country. The great lord, and the little

man who apes the great lord, bathes in mud once for all to save himself

a splash or two when he goes afoot through the streets.”

“‘Just then the great gates were opened to admit a cabriolet. It was the

same young fellow who had brought the bill to me.

“‘“Sir,” I said, as he alighted, “here are two hundred francs, which I

beg you to return to Mme. la Comtesse, and have the goodness to tell her

that I hold the pledge which she deposited with me this morning at her

disposition for a week.”

“‘He took the two hundred francs, and an ironical smile stole over his

face; it was as if he had said, “Aha! so she has paid it, has she? ...

Faith, so much the better!” I read the Countess’ future in his face.

That good-looking, fair-haired young gentleman is a heartless gambler;

he will ruin himself, ruin her, ruin her husband, ruin the children, eat

up their portions, and work more havoc in Parisian salons than a whole

battery of howitzers in a regiment.

“‘I went back to see Mlle. Fanny in the Rue Montmartre, climbed a very

steep, narrow staircase, and reached a two-roomed dwelling on the fifth

floor. Everything was as neat as a new ducat. I did not see a speck of

dust on the furniture in the first room, where Mlle. Fanny was sitting.

Mlle. Fanny herself was a young Parisian girl, quietly dressed, with a

delicate fresh face, and a winning look. The arrangement of her neatly

brushed chestnut hair in a double curve on her forehead lent a refined

expression to blue eyes, clear as crystal. The broad daylight streaming

in through the short curtains against the window pane fell with softened

light on her girlish face. A pile of shaped pieces of linen told me that

she was a sempstress. She looked like a spirit of solitude. When I held

out the bill, I remarked that she had not been at home when I called in

the morning.

“‘“But the money was left with the porter’s wife,” said she.

“‘I pretended not to understand.

“‘“You go out early, mademoiselle, it seems.”

“‘“I very seldom leave my room; but when you work all night, you are

obliged to take a bath sometimes.”

“‘I looked at her. A glance told me all about her life. Here was a girl

condemned by misfortune to toil, a girl who came of honest farmer folk,

for she had still a freckle or two that told of country birth. There

was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as if I were

breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing to my lungs.

Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there was a crucifix

and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little painted wooden

bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that way. I felt ready

to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and so give something

towards establishing her in a good way of business.

“‘“But maybe she has a little youngster of a cousin,” I said to myself,

“who would raise money on her signature and sponge on the poor girl.”

“‘So I went away, keeping my generous impulses well under control; for

I have frequently had occasion to observe that when benevolence does no

harm to him who gives it, it is the ruin of him who takes. When you came

in I was thinking that Fanny Malvaut would make a nice little wife; I

was thinking of the contrast between her pure, lonely life and the life

of the Countess--she has sunk as low as a bill of exchange already, she

will sink to the lowest depths of degradation before she has done!’--I

scrutinized him during the deep silence that followed, but in a moment

he spoke again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘do you think that it is nothing to

have this power of insight into the deepest recesses of the human heart,

to embrace so many lives, to see the naked truth underlying it all?

There are no two dramas alike: there are hideous sores, deadly chagrins,

love scenes, misery that soon will lie under the ripples of the Seine,

young men’s joys that lead to the scaffold, the laughter of despair,

and sumptuous banquets. Yesterday it was a tragedy. A worthy soul of

a father drowned himself because he could not support his family.

To-morrow is a comedy; some youngster will try to rehearse the scene

of M. Dimanche, brought up to date. You have heard the people extol the

eloquence of our latter day preachers; now and again I have wasted my

time by going to hear them; they produced a change in my opinions, but

in my conduct (as somebody said, I can’t recollect his name), in my

conduct--never!--Well, well; these good priests and your Mirabeaus and

Vergniauds and the rest of them, are mere stammering beginners compared

with these orators of mine.

“‘Often it is some girl in love, some gray-headed merchant on the verge

of bankruptcy, some mother with a son’s wrong-doing to conceal, some

starving artist, some great man whose influence is on the wane, and, for

lack of money, is like to lose the fruit of all his labors--the power

of their pleading has made me shudder. Sublime actors such as these play

for me, for an audience of one, and they cannot deceive me. I can look

into their inmost thoughts, and read them as God reads them. Nothing is

hidden from me. Nothing is refused to the holder of the purse-strings to

loose and to bind. I am rich enough to buy the consciences of those

who control the action of ministers, from their office boys to their

mistresses. Is not that power?--I can possess the fairest women, receive

their softest caresses; is not that Pleasure? And is not your whole

social economy summed up in terms of Power and Pleasure?

“‘There are ten of us in Paris, silent, unknown kings, the arbiters of

your destinies. What is life but a machine set in motion by money? Know

this for certain--methods are always confounded with results; you

will never succeed in separating the soul from the senses, spirit from

matter. Gold is the spiritual basis of existing society.--The ten of us

are bound by the ties of common interest; we meet on certain days of the

week at the Cafe Themis near the Pont Neuf, and there, in conclave, we

reveal the mysteries of finance. No fortune can deceive us; we are in

possession of family secrets in all directions. We keep a kind of Black

Book, in which we note the most important bills issued, drafts on public

credit, or on banks, or given and taken in the course of business. We

are the Casuists of the Paris Bourse, a kind of Inquisition weighing and

analyzing the most insignificant actions of every man of any fortune,

and our forecasts are infallible. One of us looks out over the judicial

world, one over the financial, another surveys the administrative, and

yet another the business world. I myself keep an eye on eldest

sons, artists, people in the great world, and gamblers--on the most

sensational side of Paris. Every one who comes to us lets us into his

neighbor’s secrets. Thwarted passion and mortified vanity are great

babblers. Vice and disappointment and vindictiveness are the best of

all detectives. My colleagues, like myself, have enjoyed all things, are

sated with all things, and have reached the point when power and money

are loved for their own sake.

“‘Here,’ he said, indicating his bare, chilly room, ‘here the most

high-mettled gallant, who chafes at a word and draws swords for a

syllable elsewhere will entreat with clasped hands. There is no city

merchant so proud, no woman so vain of her beauty, no soldier of so bold

a spirit, but that they entreat me here, one and all, with tears of rage

or anguish in their eyes. Here they kneel--the famous artist, and the

man of letters, whose name will go down to posterity. Here, in short’

(he lifted his hand to his forehead), ‘all the inheritances and all the

concerns of all Paris are weighed in the balance. Are you still of the

opinion that there are no delights behind the blank mask which so often

has amazed you by its impassiveness?’ he asked, stretching out that

livid face which reeked of money.

“I went back to my room, feeling stupefied. The little, wizened old man

had grown great. He had been metamorphosed under my eyes into a strange

visionary symbol; he had come to be the power of gold personified. I

shrank, shuddering, from life and my kind.

“‘Is it really so?’ I thought; ‘must everything be resolved into gold?’

“I remember that it was long before I slept that night. I saw heaps

of gold all about me. My thoughts were full of the lovely Countess; I

confess, to my shame, that the vision completely eclipsed another quiet,

innocent figure, the figure of the woman who had entered upon a life of

toil and obscurity; but on the morrow, through the clouds of slumber,

Fanny’s sweet face rose before me in all its beauty, and I thought of

nothing else.”

“Will you take a glass of _eau sucree_?” asked the Vicomtesse,

interrupting Derville.

“I should be glad of it.”

“But I can see nothing in this that can touch our concerns,” said Mme.

de Grandlieu, as she rang the bell.

“Sardanapalus!” cried Derville, flinging out his favorite invocation.

“Mademoiselle Camille will be wide awake in a moment if I say that her

happiness depended not so long ago upon Daddy Gobseck; but as the old

gentleman died at the age of ninety, M. de Restaud will soon be in

possession of a handsome fortune. This requires some explanation. As for

poor Fanny Malvaut, you know her; she is my wife.”

“Poor fellow, he would admit that, with his usual frankness, with a

score of people to hear him!” said the Vicomtesse.

“I would proclaim it to the universe,” said the attorney.

“Go on, drink your glass, my poor Derville. You will never be anything

but the happiest and the best of men.”

“I left you in the Rue du Helder,” remarked the uncle, raising his face

after a gentle doze. “You had gone to see a Countess; what have you done

with her?”

“A few days after my conversation with the old Dutchman,” Derville

continued, “I sent in my thesis, and became first a licentiate in

law, and afterwards an advocate. The old miser’s opinion of me went up

considerably. He consulted me (gratuitously) on all the ticklish bits

of business which he undertook when he had made quite sure how he stood,

business which would have seemed unsafe to any ordinary practitioner.

This man, over whom no one appeared to have the slightest influence,

listened to my advice with something like respect. It is true that he

always found that it turned out very well.

“At length I became head-clerk in the office where I had worked for

three years and then I left the Rue des Gres for rooms in my employer’s

house. I had my board and lodging and a hundred and fifty francs per

month. It was a great day for me!

“When I went to bid the usurer good-bye, he showed no sign of feeling,

he was neither cordial nor sorry to lose me, he did not ask me to come

to see him, and only gave me one of those glances which seemed in some

sort to reveal a power of second-sight.

“By the end of a week my old neighbor came to see me with a tolerably

thorny bit of business, an expropriation, and he continued to ask for my

advice with as much freedom as if he paid for it.

“My principal was a man of pleasure and expensive tastes; before the

second year (1818-1819) was out he had got himself into difficulties,

and was obliged to sell his practice. A professional connection in those

days did not fetch the present exorbitant prices, and my principal asked

a hundred and fifty thousand francs. Now an active man, of competent

knowledge and intelligence, might hope to pay off the capital in ten

years, paying interest and living respectably in the meantime--if

he could command confidence. But I as the seventh child of a small

tradesman at Noyon, I had not a sou to my name, nor personal knowledge

of any capitalist but Daddy Gobseck. An ambitious idea, and an

indefinable glimmer of hope, put heart into me. To Gobseck I betook

myself, and slowly one evening I made my way to the Rue des Gres. My

heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the gloomy house. I

recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at a time when I

myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the anguish awaiting

those who crossed his threshold. Now it was I who was about to beg and

pray like so many others.

“‘Well, no, not _that_,’ I said to myself; ‘an honest man must keep his

self-respect wherever he goes. Success is not worth cringing for; let us

show him a front as decided as his own.’

“Daddy Gobseck had taken my room since I left the house, so as to have

no neighbor; he had made a little grated window too in his door since

then, and did not open until he had taken a look at me and saw who I

was.

“‘Well,’ said he, in his thin, flute notes, ‘so your principal is

selling his practice?’

“‘How did you know that?’ said I; ‘he has not spoken of it as yet except

to me.’

“The old man’s lips were drawn in puckers, like a curtain, to either

corner of his mouth, as a soundless smile bore a hard glance company.

“‘Nothing else would have brought you here,’ he said drily, after a

pause, which I spent in confusion.

“‘Listen to me, M. Gobseck,’ I began, with such serenity as I could

assume before the old man, who gazed at me with steady eyes. There was a

clear light burning in them that disconcerted me.

“He made a gesture as if to bid me ‘Go on.’ ‘I know that it is not

easy to work on your feelings, so I will not waste my eloquence on the

attempt to put my position before you--I am a penniless clerk, with no

one to look to but you, and no heart in the world but yours can form

a clear idea of my probable future. Let us leave hearts out of the

question. Business is business, and business is not carried on with

sentimentality like romances. Now to the facts. My principal’s practice

is worth in his hands about twenty thousand francs per annum; in my

hands, I think it would bring in forty thousand. He is willing to

sell it for a hundred and fifty thousand francs. And _here_,’ I

said, striking my forehead, ‘I feel that if you would lend me the

purchase-money, I could clear it off in ten years’ time.’

“‘Come, that is plain speaking,’ said Daddy Gobseck, and he held out his

hand and grasped mine. ‘Nobody since I have been in business has stated

the motives of his visit more clearly. Guarantees?’ asked he, scanning

me from head to foot. ‘None to give,’ he added after a pause, ‘How old

are you?’

“‘Twenty-five in ten days’ time,’ said I, ‘or I could not open the

matter.’

“‘Precisely.’

“‘Well?’

“‘It is possible.’

“‘My word, we must be quick about it, or I shall have some one buying

over my head.’

“‘Bring your certificate of birth round to-morrow morning, and we will

talk. I will think it over.’

“‘Next morning, at eight o’clock, I stood in the old man’s room. He took

the document, put on his spectacles, coughed, spat, wrapped himself

up in his black greatcoat, and read the whole certificate through from

beginning to end. Then he turned it over and over, looked at me, coughed

again, fidgeted about in his chair, and said, ‘We will try to arrange

this bit of business.’

“I trembled.

“‘I make fifty per cent on my capital,’ he continued, ‘sometimes I make

a hundred, two hundred, five hundred per cent.’

“I turned pale at the words.

“‘But as we are acquaintances, I shall be satisfied to take twelve and

a half per cent per--(he hesitated)--‘well, yes, from you I would be

content to take thirteen per cent per annum. Will that suit you?’

“‘Yes,’ I answered.

“‘But if it is too much, stick up for yourself, Grotius!’ (a name he

jokingly gave me). ‘When I ask you for thirteen per cent, it is all in

the way of business; look into it, see if you can pay it; I don’t like a

man to agree too easily. Is it too much?’

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I will make up for it by working a little harder.’

“‘Gad! your clients will pay for it!’ said he, looking at me wickedly

out of the corner of his eyes.

“‘No, by all the devils in hell!’ cried I, ‘it shall be I who will pay.

I would sooner cut my hand off than flay people.’

“‘Good-night,’ said Daddy Gobseck.

“‘Why, fees are all according to scale,’ I added.

“‘Not for compromises and settlements out of Court, and cases where

litigants come to terms,’ said he. ‘You can send in a bill for thousands

of francs, six thousand even at a swoop (it depends on the importance of

the case), for conferences with So-and-so, and expenses, and drafts, and

memorials, and your jargon. A man must learn to look out for business of

this kind. I will recommend you as a most competent, clever attorney. I

will send you such a lot of work of this sort that your colleagues will

be fit to burst with envy. Werbrust, Palma, and Gigonnet, my cronies,

shall hand over their expropriations to you; they have plenty of them,

the Lord knows! So you will have two practices--the one you are buying,

and the other I will build up for you. You ought almost to pay me

fifteen per cent on my loan.’

“‘So be it, but no more,’ said I, with the firmness which means that a

man is determined not to concede another point.

“Daddy Gobseck’s face relaxed; he looked pleased with me.

“‘I shall pay the money over to your principal myself,’ said he, ‘so as

to establish a lien on the purchase and caution-money.’

“‘Oh, anything you like in the way of guarantees.’

“‘And besides that, you will give me bills for the amount made payable

to a third party (name left blank), fifteen bills of ten thousand francs

each.’

“‘Well, so long as it is acknowledged in writing that this is a

double----’

“‘No!’ Gobseck broke in upon me. ‘No! Why should I trust you any more

than you trust me?’

“I kept silence.

“‘And furthermore,’ he continued, with a sort of good humor, ‘you will

give me your advice without charging fees as long as I live, will you

not?’

“‘So be it; so long as there is no outlay.’

“‘Precisely,’ said he. “Ah, by the by, you will allow me to go to see

you?’ (Plainly the old man found it not so easy to assume the air of

good-humor.)

“‘I shall always be glad.’

“‘Ah! yes, but it would be very difficult to arrange of a morning. You

will have your affairs to attend to, and I have mine.’

“‘Then come in the evening.’

“‘Oh, no!’ he answered briskly, ‘you ought to go into society and see

your clients, and I myself have my friends at my cafe.’

“‘His friends!’ thought I to myself.--‘Very well,’ said I, ‘why not come

at dinner-time?’

“‘That is the time,’ said Gobseck, ‘after ‘Change, at five o’clock.

Good, you will see me Wednesdays and Saturdays. We will talk over

business like a pair of friends. Aha! I am gay sometimes. Just give me

the wing of a partridge and a glass of champagne, and we will have our

chat together. I know a great many things that can be told now at

this distance of time; I will teach you to know men, and what is

more--women!’

“‘Oh! a partridge and a glass of champagne if you like.’

“‘Don’t do anything foolish, or I shall lose my faith in you. And don’t

set up housekeeping in a grand way. Just one old general servant. I will

come and see that you keep your health. I have capital invested in your

head, he! he! so I am bound to look after you. There, come round in the

evening and bring your principal with you!’

“‘Would you mind telling me, if there is no harm in asking, what was the

good of my birth certificate in this business?’ I asked, when the little

old man and I stood on the doorstep.

“Jean-Esther Van Gobseck shrugged his shoulders, smiled maliciously, and

said, ‘What blockheads youngsters are! Learn, master attorney (for learn

you must if you don’t mean to be taken in), that integrity and brains

in a man under thirty are commodities which can be mortgaged. After that

age there is no counting on a man.’

“And with that he shut the door.

“Three months later I was an attorney. Before very long, madame, it was

my good fortune to undertake the suit for the recovery of your estates.

I won the day, and my name became known. In spite of the exorbitant rate

of interest, I paid off Gobseck in less than five years. I married Fanny

Malvaut, whom I loved with all my heart. There was a parallel between

her life and mine, between our hard work and our luck, which increased

the strength of feeling on either side. One of her uncles, a well-to-do

farmer, died and left her seventy thousand francs, which helped to clear

off the loan. From that day my life has been nothing but happiness and

prosperity. Nothing is more utterly uninteresting than a happy man,

so let us say no more on that head, and return to the rest of the

characters.

“About a year after the purchase of the practice, I was dragged into a

bachelor breakfast-party given by one of our number who had lost a

bet to a young man greatly in vogue in the fashionable world. M. de

Trailles, the flower of the dandyism of that day, enjoyed a prodigious

reputation.”

“But he is still enjoying it,” put in the Comte de Born. “No one wears

his clothes with a finer air, nor drives a tandem with a better grace.

It is Maxime’s gift; he can gamble, eat, and drink more gracefully than

any man in the world. He is a judge of horses, hats, and pictures. All

the women lose their heads over him. He always spends something like a

hundred thousand francs a year, and no creature can discover that he has

an acre of land or a single dividend warrant. The typical knight errant

of our salons, our boudoirs, our boulevards, an amphibian half-way

between a man and a woman--Maxime de Trailles is a singular being, fit

for anything, and good for nothing, quite as capable of perpetrating a

benefit as of planning a crime; sometimes base, sometimes noble, more

often bespattered with mire than besprinkled with blood, knowing more of

anxiety than of remorse, more concerned with his digestion than with any

mental process, shamming passion, feeling nothing. Maxime de Trailles is

a brilliant link between the hulks and the best society; he belongs to

the eminently intelligent class from which a Mirabeau, or a Pitt, or a

Richelieu springs at times, though it is more wont to produce Counts of

Horn, Fouquier-Tinvilles, and Coignards.”

“Well,” pursued Derville, when he had heard the Vicomtesse’s brother to

the end, “I had heard a good deal about this individual from poor old

Goriot, a client of mine; and I had already been at some pains to avoid

the dangerous honor of his acquaintance, for I came across him sometimes

in society. Still, my chum was so pressing about this breakfast-party of

his that I could not well get out of it, unless I wished to earn a name

for squeamishness. Madame, you could hardly imagine what a bachelor’s

breakfast-party is like. It means superb display and a studied

refinement seldom seen; the luxury of a miser when vanity leads him to

be sumptuous for a day.

“You are surprised as you enter the room at the neatness of the table,

dazzling by reason of its silver and crystal and linen damask. Life is

here in full bloom; the young fellows are graceful to behold; they smile

and talk in low, demure voices like so many brides; everything about

them looks girlish. Two hours later you might take the room for a

battlefield after the fight. Broken glasses, serviettes crumpled and

torn to rags lie strewn about among the nauseous-looking remnants of

food on the dishes. There is an uproar that stuns you, jesting toasts, a

fire of witticisms and bad jokes; faces are empurpled, eyes inflamed

and expressionless, unintentional confidences tell you the whole truth.

Bottles are smashed, and songs trolled out in the height of a diabolical

racket; men call each other out, hang on each other’s necks, or fall

to fisticuffs; the room is full of a horrid, close scent made up of a

hundred odors, and noise enough for a hundred voices. No one has any

notion of what he is eating or drinking or saying. Some are depressed,

others babble, one will turn monomaniac, repeating the same word over

and over again like a bell set jangling; another tries to keep the

tumult within bounds; the steadiest will propose an orgy. If any one in

possession of his faculties should come in, he would think that he had

interrupted a Bacchanalian rite.

“It was in the thick of such a chaos that M. de Trailles tried to

insinuate himself into my good graces. My head was fairly clear, I was

upon my guard. As for him, though he pretended to be decently drunk,

he was perfectly cool, and knew very well what he was about. How it was

done I do not know, but the upshot of it was that when we left Grignon’s

rooms about nine o’clock in the evening, M. de Trailles had thoroughly

bewitched me. I had given him my promise that I would introduce him the

next day to our Papa Gobseck. The words ‘honor,’ ‘virtue,’ ‘countess,’

‘honest woman,’ and ‘ill-luck’ were mingled in his discourse with

magical potency, thanks to that golden tongue of his.

“When I awoke next morning, and tried to recollect what I had done the

day before, it was with great difficulty that I could make a connected

tale from my impressions. At last, it seemed to me that the daughter of

one of my clients was in danger of losing her reputation, together

with her husband’s love and esteem, if she could not get fifty thousand

francs together in the course of the morning. There had been gaming

debts, and carriage-builders’ accounts, money lost to Heaven knows whom.

My magician of a boon companion had impressed it upon me that she was

rich enough to make good these reverses by a few years of economy. But

only now did I begin to guess the reasons of his urgency. I confess, to

my shame, that I had not the shadow of a doubt but that it was a matter

of importance that Daddy Gobseck should make it up with this dandy. I

was dressing when the young gentleman appeared.

“‘M. le Comte,’ said I, after the usual greetings, ‘I fail to see why

you should need me to effect an introduction to Van Gobseck, the most

civil and smooth-spoken of capitalists. Money will be forthcoming if he

has any, or rather, if you can give him adequate security.’

“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘it does not enter into my thoughts to force you

to do me a service, even though you have passed your word.’

“‘Sardanapalus!’ said I to myself, ‘am I going to let that fellow

imagine that I will not keep my word with him?’

“‘I had the honor of telling you yesterday,’ said he, ‘that I had fallen

out with Daddy Gobseck most inopportunely; and as there is scarcely

another man in Paris who can come down on the nail with a hundred

thousand francs, at the end of the month, I begged of you to make my

peace with him. But let us say no more about it----’

“M. de Trailles looked at me with civil insult in his expression, and

made as if he would take his leave.

“‘I am ready to go with you,’ said I.

“When we reached the Rue de Gres, my dandy looked about him with a

circumspection and uneasiness that set me wondering. His face grew

livid, flushed, and yellow, turn and turn about, and by the time that

Gobseck’s door came in sight the perspiration stood in drops on his

forehead. We were just getting out of the cabriolet, when a hackney cab

turned into the street. My companion’s hawk eye detected a woman in the

depths of the vehicle. His face lighted up with a gleam of almost savage

joy; he called to a little boy who was passing, and gave him his horse

to hold. Then we went up to the old bill discounter.

“‘M. Gobseck,’ said I, ‘I have brought one of my most intimate friends

to see you (whom I trust as I would trust the Devil,’ I added for the

old man’s private ear). ‘To oblige me you will do your best for him (at

the ordinary rate), and pull him out of his difficulty (if it suits your

convenience).’

“M. de Trailles made his bow to Gobseck, took a seat, and listened to us

with a courtier-like attitude; its charming humility would have touched

your heart to see, but my Gobseck sits in his chair by the fireside

without moving a muscle, or changing a feature. He looked very like the

statue of Voltaire under the peristyle of the Theatre-Francais, as you

see it of an evening; he had partly risen as if to bow, and the skull

cap that covered the top of his head, and the narrow strip of sallow

forehead exhibited, completed his likeness to the man of marble.

“‘I have no money to spare except for my own clients,’ said he.

“‘So you are cross because I may have tried in other quarters to ruin

myself?’ laughed the Count.

“‘Ruin yourself!’ repeated Gobseck ironically.

“‘Were you about to remark that it is impossible to ruin a man who has

nothing?’ inquired the dandy. ‘Why, I defy you to find a better _stock_

in Paris!’ he cried, swinging round on his heels.

“This half-earnest buffoonery produced not the slightest effect upon

Gobseck.

“‘Am I not on intimate terms with the Ronquerolles, the Marsays, the

Franchessinis, the two Vandenesses, the Ajuda-Pintos,--all the most

fashionable young men in Paris, in short? A prince and an ambassador

(you know them both) are my partners at play. I draw my revenues from

London and Carlsbad and Baden and Bath. Is not this the most brilliant

of all industries!’

“‘True.’

“‘You make a sponge of me, begad! you do. You encourage me to go and

swell myself out in society, so that you can squeeze me when I am hard

up; but you yourselves are sponges, just as I am, and death will give

you a squeeze some day.’

“‘That is possible.’

“‘If there were no spendthrifts, what would become of you? The pair of

us are like soul and body.’

“‘Precisely so.’

“‘Come, now, give us your hand, Grandaddy Gobseck, and be magnanimous if

this is “true” and “possible” and “precisely so.”’

“‘You come to me,’ the usurer answered coldly, ‘because Girard, Palma,

Werbrust, and Gigonnet are full up of your paper; they are offering it

at a loss of fifty per cent; and as it is likely they only gave you half

the figure on the face of the bills, they are not worth five-and-twenty

per cent of their supposed value. I am your most obedient! Can I in

common decency lend a stiver to a man who owes thirty thousand francs,

and has not one farthing?’ Gobseck continued. ‘The day before yesterday

you lost ten thousand francs at a ball at the Baron de Nucingen’s.’

“‘Sir,’ said the Count, with rare impudence, ‘my affairs are no concern

of yours,’ and he looked the old man up and down. ‘A man has no debts

till payment is due.’

“‘True.’

“‘My bills will be duly met.’

“‘That is possible.’

“‘And at this moment the question between you and me is simply whether

the security I am going to offer is sufficient for the sum I have come

to borrow.’

“‘Precisely.’

“A cab stopped at the door, and the sound of wheels filled the room.

“‘I will bring something directly which perhaps will satisfy you,’ cried

the young man, and he left the room.

“‘Oh! my son,’ exclaimed Gobseck, rising to his feet, and stretching

out his arms to me, ‘if he has good security, you have saved my life. It

would be the death of me. Werbrust and Gigonnet imagined that they were

going to play off a trick on me; and now, thanks to you, I shall have a

good laugh at their expense to-night.’

“There was something frightful about the old man’s ecstasy. It was the

one occasion when he opened his heart to me; and that flash of joy,

swift though it was, will never be effaced from my memory.

“‘Favor me so far as to stay here,’ he added. ‘I am armed, and a sure

shot. I have gone tiger-hunting, and fought on the deck when there

was nothing for it but to win or die; but I don’t care to trust yonder

elegant scoundrel.’

“He sat down again in his armchair before his bureau, and his face grew

pale and impassive as before.

“‘Ah!’ he continued, turning to me, ‘you will see that lovely creature

I once told you about; I can hear a fine lady’s step in the corridor; it

is she, no doubt;’ and, as a matter of fact, the young man came in with

a woman on his arm. I recognized the Countess, whose levee Gobseck had

described for me, one of old Goriot’s two daughters.

“The Countess did not see me at first; I stayed where I was in the

window bay, with my face against the pane; but I saw her give Maxime a

suspicious glance as she came into the money-lender’s damp, dark room.

So beautiful she was, that in spite of her faults I felt sorry for her.

There was a terrible storm of anguish in her heart; her haughty, proud

features were drawn and distorted with pain which she strove in vain

to disguise. The young man had come to be her evil genius. I admired

Gobseck, whose perspicacity had foreseen their future four years ago at

the first bill which she endorsed.

“‘Probably,’ said I to myself, ‘this monster with the angel face

controls every possible spring of action in her: rules her through

vanity, jealousy, pleasure, and the current of life in the world.’”

The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu broke in on the story.

“Why, the woman’s very virtues have been turned against her,” she

exclaimed. “He has made her shed tears of devotion, and then abused her

kindness and made her pay very dearly for unhallowed bliss.”

Derville did not understand the signs which Mme. de Grandlieu made to

him.

“I confess,” he said, “that I had no inclination to shed tears over the

lot of this unhappy creature, so brilliant in society, so repulsive to

eyes that could read her heart; I shuddered rather at the sight of her

murderer, a young angel with such a clear brow, such red lips and white

teeth, such a winning smile. There they stood before their judge, he

scrutinizing them much as some fifteenth-century Dominican inquisitor

might have peered into the dungeons of the Holy Office while the torture

was administered to two Moors.

“The Countess spoke tremulously. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘is there any way

of obtaining the value of these diamonds, and of keeping the right of

repurchase?’ She held out a jewel-case.

“‘Yes, madame,’ I put in, and came forwards.

“She looked at me, and a shudder ran through her as she recognized me,

and gave me the glance which means, ‘Say nothing of this,’ all the world

over.

“‘This,’ said I, ‘constitutes a sale with faculty of redemption, as it

is called, a formal agreement to transfer and deliver over a piece of

property, either real estate or personalty, for a given time, on the

expiry of which the previous owner recovers his title to the property in

question, upon payment of a stipulated sum.’

“She breathed more freely. The Count looked black; he had grave doubts

whether Gobseck would lend very much on the diamonds after such a fall

in their value. Gobseck, impassive as ever, had taken up his magnifying

glass, and was quietly scrutinizing the jewels. If I were to live for

a hundred years, I should never forget the sight of his face at that

moment. There was a flush in his pale cheeks; his eyes seemed to have

caught the sparkle of the stones, for there was an unnatural glitter in

them. He rose and went to the light, holding the diamonds close to his

toothless mouth, as if he meant to devour them; mumbling vague words

over them, holding up bracelets, sprays, necklaces, and tiaras one after

another, to judge their water, whiteness, and cutting; taking them out

of the jewel-case and putting them in again, letting the play of the

light bring out all their fires. He was more like a child than an old

man; or, rather, childhood and dotage seemed to meet in him.

“‘Fine stones! The set would have fetched three hundred thousand

francs before the Revolution. What water! Genuine Asiatic diamonds from

Golconda or Visapur. Do you know what they are worth? No, no; no one in

Paris but Gobseck can appreciate them. In the time of the Empire such a

set would have cost another two hundred thousand francs!’

“He gave a disgusted shrug, and added:

“‘But now diamonds are going down in value every day. The Brazilians

have swamped the market with them since the Peace; but the Indian stones

are a better color. Others wear them now besides court ladies. Does

madame go to court?’

“While he flung out these terrible words, he examined one stone after

another with delight which no words can describe.

“‘Flawless!’ he said. ‘Here is a speck!... here is a flaw!... A fine

stone that!’

“His haggard face was so lighted up by the sparkling jewels, that it put

me in mind of a dingy old mirror, such as you see in country inns. The

glass receives every luminous image without reflecting the light, and

a traveler bold enough to look for his face in it beholds a man in an

apoplectic fit.

“‘Well?’ asked the Count, clapping Gobseck on the shoulder.

“The old boy trembled. He put down his playthings on his bureau, took

his seat, and was a money-lender once more--hard, cold, and polished as

a marble column.

“‘How much do you want?’

“‘One hundred thousand francs for three years,’ said the Count.

“‘That is possible,’ said Gobseck, and then from a mahogany box

(Gobseck’s jewel-case) he drew out a faultlessly adjusted pair of

scales!

“He weighed the diamonds, calculating the value of stones and setting

at sight (Heaven knows how!), delight and severity struggling in the

expression of his face the meanwhile. The Countess had plunged in a kind

of stupor; to me, watching her, it seemed that she was fathoming the

depths of the abyss into which she had fallen. There was remorse still

left in that woman’s soul. Perhaps a hand held out in human charity

might save her. I would try.

“‘Are the diamonds your personal property, madame?’ I asked in a clear

voice.

“‘Yes, monsieur,’ she said, looking at me with proud eyes.

“‘Make out the deed of purchase with power of redemption, chatterbox,’

said Gobseck to me, resigning his chair at the bureau in my favor.

“‘Madame is without doubt a married woman?’ I tried again.

“She nodded abruptly.

“‘Then I will not draw up the deed,’ said I.

“‘And why not?’ asked Gobseck.

“‘Why not?’ echoed I, as I drew the old man into the bay window so as

to speak aside with him. ‘Why not? This woman is under her husband’s

control; the agreement would be void in law; you could not possibly

assert your ignorance of a fact recorded on the very face of the

document itself. You would be compelled at once to produce the diamonds

deposited with you, according to the weight, value, and cutting therein

described.’

“Gobseck cut me short with a nod, and turned towards the guilty couple.

“‘He is right!’ he said. ‘That puts the whole thing in a different

light. Eighty thousand francs down, and you leave the diamonds with

me,’ he added, in the husky, flute-like voice. ‘In the way of property,

possession is as good as a title.’

“‘But----’ objected the young man.

“‘You can take it or leave it,’ continued Gobseck, returning the

jewel-case to the lady as he spoke.

“‘I have too many risks to run.’

“‘It would be better to throw yourself at your husband’s feet,’ I bent

to whisper in her ear.

“The usurer doubtless knew what I was saying from the movement of

my lips. He gave me a cool glance. The Count’s face grew livid. The

Countess was visibly wavering. Maxime stepped up to her, and, low as he

spoke, I could catch the words:

“‘Adieu, dear Anastasie, may you be happy! As for me, by to-morrow my

troubles will be over.’

“‘Sir!’ cried the lady, turning to Gobseck. ‘I accept your offer.’

“‘Come, now,’ returned Gobseck. ‘You have been a long time in coming to

it, my fair lady.’

“He wrote out a cheque for fifty thousand francs on the Bank of France,

and handed it to the Countess.

“‘Now,’ continued he with a smile, such a smile as you will see in

portraits of M. Voltaire, ‘now I will give you the rest of the amount in

bills, thirty thousand francs’ worth of paper as good as bullion. This

gentleman here has just said, “My bills will be met when they are due,”’

added he, producing certain drafts bearing the Count’s signature, all

protested the day before at the request of some of the confraternity,

who had probably made them over to him (Gobseck) at a considerably

reduced figure.

“The young man growled out something, in which the words ‘Old

scoundrel!’ were audible. Daddy Gobseck did not move an eyebrow. He drew

a pair of pistols out of a pigeon-hole, remarking coolly:

“‘As the insulted man, I fire first.’

“‘Maxime, you owe this gentleman an explanation,’ cried the trembling

Countess in a low voice.

“‘I had no intention of giving offence,’ stammered Maxime.

“‘I am quite sure of that,’ Gobseck answered calmly; ‘you had no

intention of meeting your bills, that was all.’

“The Countess rose, bowed, and vanished, with a great dread gnawing her,

I doubt not. M. de Trailles was bound to follow, but before he went he

managed to say:

“‘If either of you gentlemen should forget himself, I will have his

blood, or he will have mine.’

“‘Amen!’ called Daddy Gobseck as he put his pistols back in their place;

‘but a man must have blood in his veins though before he can risk it, my

son, and you have nothing but mud in yours.’

“When the door was closed, and the two vehicles had gone, Gobseck rose

to his feet and began to prance about.

“‘I have the diamonds! I have the diamonds!’ he cried again and again,

‘the beautiful diamonds! such diamonds! and tolerably cheaply. Aha! aha!

Werbrust and Gigonnet, you thought you had old Papa Gobseck! _Ego

sum papa_! I am master of the lot of you! Paid! paid, principal and

interest! How silly they will look to-night when I shall come out with

this story between two games of dominoes!’

“The dark glee, the savage ferocity aroused by the possession of a few

water-white pebbles, set me shuddering. I was dumb with amazement.

“‘Aha! There you are, my boy!’ said he. ‘We will dine together. We will

have some fun at your place, for I haven’t a home of my own, and these

restaurants, with their broths, and sauces, and wines, would poison the

Devil himself.’

“Something in my face suddenly brought back the usual cold, impassive

expression to his.

“‘You don’t understand it,’ he said, and sitting down by the hearth,

he put a tin saucepan full of milk on the brazier.--‘Will you breakfast

with me?’ continued he. ‘Perhaps there will be enough here for two.’

“‘Thanks,’ said I, ‘I do not breakfast till noon.’

“I had scarcely spoken before hurried footsteps sounded from the

passage. The stranger stopped at Gobseck’s door and rapped; there was

that in the knock which suggested a man transported with rage. Gobseck

reconnoitred him through the grating; then he opened the door, and in

came a man of thirty-five or so, judged harmless apparently in spite of

his anger. The newcomer, who was quite plainly dressed, bore a strong

resemblance to the late Duc de Richelieu. You must often have met him,

he was the Countess’ husband, a man with the aristocratic figure (permit

the expression to pass) peculiar to statesmen of your faubourg.

“‘Sir,’ said this person, addressing himself to Gobseck, who had quite

recovered his tranquillity, ‘did my wife go out of this house just now?’

“‘That is possible.’

“‘Well, sir? do you not take my meaning?’

“‘I have not the honor of the acquaintance of my lady your wife,’

returned Gobseck. ‘I have had a good many visitors this morning, women

and men, and mannish young ladies, and young gentlemen who look like

young ladies. I should find it very hard to say----’

“‘A truce to jesting, sir! I mean the woman who has this moment gone out

from you.’

“‘How can I know whether she is your wife or not? I never had the

pleasure of seeing you before.’

“‘You are mistaken, M. Gobseck,’ said the Count, with profound irony in

his voice. ‘We have met before, one morning in my wife’s bedroom. You

had come to demand payment for a bill--no bill of hers.’

“‘It was no business of mine to inquire what value she had received for

it,’ said Gobseck, with a malignant look at the Count. ‘I had come by

the bill in the way of business. At the same time, monsieur,’ continued

Gobseck, quietly pouring coffee into his bowl of milk, without a trace

of excitement or hurry in his voice, ‘you will permit me to observe that

your right to enter my house and expostulate with me is far from proven

to my mind. I came of age in the sixty-first year of the preceding

century.’

“‘Sir,’ said the Count, ‘you have just bought family diamonds, which do

not belong to my wife, for a mere trifle.’

“‘Without feeling it incumbent upon me to tell you my private affairs, I

will tell you this much M. le Comte--if Mme. la Comtesse has taken your

diamonds, you should have sent a circular around to all the jewelers,

giving them notice not to buy them; she might have sold them

separately.’

“‘You know my wife, sir!’ roared the Count.

“‘True.’

“‘She is in her husband’s power.’

“‘That is possible.’

“‘She had no right to dispose of those diamonds----’

“‘Precisely.’

“‘Very well, sir?’

“‘Very well, sir. I knew your wife, and she is in her husband’s power;

I am quite willing, she is in the power of a good many people;

but--I--do--_not_--know--your diamonds. If Mme. la Comtesse can put her

name to a bill, she can go into business, of course, and buy and sell

diamonds on her own account. The thing is plain on the face of it!’

“‘Good-day, sir!’ cried the Count, now white with rage. ‘There are

courts of justice.’

“‘Quite so.’

“‘This gentleman here,’ he added, indicating me, ‘was a witness of the

sale.’

“‘That is possible.’

“The Count turned to go. Feeling the gravity of the affair, I suddenly

put in between the two belligerents.

“‘M. le Comte,’ said I, ‘you are right, and M. Gobseck is by no means in

the wrong. You could not prosecute the purchaser without bringing your

wife into court, and the whole of the odium would not fall on her. I am

an attorney, and I owe it to myself, and still more to my professional

position, to declare that the diamonds of which you speak were purchased

by M. Gobseck in my presence; but, in my opinion, it would be unwise

to dispute the legality of the sale, especially as the goods are not

readily recognizable. In equity our contention would lie, in law it

would collapse. M. Gobseck is too honest a man to deny that the sale was

a profitable transaction, more especially as my conscience, no less than

my duty, compels me to make the admission. But once bring the case into

a court of law, M. le Comte, the issue would be doubtful. My advice to

you is to come to terms with M. Gobseck, who can plead that he bought

the diamonds in all good faith; you would be bound in any case to return

the purchase money. Consent to an arrangement, with power to redeem

at the end of seven or eight months, or a year even, or any convenient

lapse of time, for the repayment of the sum borrowed by Mme. la

Comtesse, unless you would prefer to repurchase them outright and give

security for repayment.’

“Gobseck dipped his bread into the bowl of coffee, and ate with perfect

indifference; but at the words ‘come to terms,’ he looked at me as

who should say, ‘A fine fellow that! he has learned something from

my lessons!’ And I, for my part, riposted with a glance, which he

understood uncommonly well. The business was dubious and shady; there

was pressing need of coming to terms. Gobseck could not deny all

knowledge of it, for I should appear as a witness. The Count thanked me

with a smile of good-will.

“In the debate which followed, Gobseck showed greed enough and skill

enough to baffle a whole congress of diplomatists; but in the end I

drew up an instrument, in which the Count acknowledged the receipt of

eighty-five thousand francs, interest included, in consideration of

which Gobseck undertook to return the diamonds to the Count.

“‘What waste!’ exclaimed he as he put his signature to the agreement.

‘How is it possible to bridge such a gulf?’

“‘Have you many children, sir?’ Gobseck asked gravely.

“The Count winced at the question; it was as if the old money-lender,

like an experienced physician, had put his finger at once on the sore

spot. The Comtesse’s husband did not reply.

“‘Well,’ said Gobseck, taking the pained silence for answer, ‘I know

your story by heart. The woman is a fiend, but perhaps you love her

still; I can well believe it; she made an impression on me. Perhaps,

too, you would rather save your fortune, and keep it for one or two of

your children? Well, fling yourself into the whirlpool of society, lose

that fortune at play, come to Gobseck pretty often. The world will say

that I am a Jew, a Tartar, a usurer, a pirate, will say that I have

ruined you! I snap my fingers at them! If anybody insults me, I lay my

man out; nobody is a surer shot nor handles a rapier better than your

servant. And every one knows it. Then, have a friend--if you can find

one--and make over your property to him by a fictitious sale. You call

that a _fidei commissum_, don’t you?’ he asked, turning to me.

“The Count seemed to be entirely absorbed in his own thoughts.

“‘You shall have your money to-morrow,’ he said, ‘have the diamonds in

readiness,’ and he went.

“‘There goes one who looks to me to be as stupid as an honest man,’

Gobseck said coolly when the Count had gone.

“‘Say rather stupid as a man of passionate nature.’

“‘The Count owes you your fee for drawing up the agreement!’ Gobseck

called after me as I took my leave.”

“One morning, a few days after the scene which initiated me into the

terrible depths beneath the surface of the life of a woman of fashion,

the Count came into my private office.

“‘I have come to consult you on a matter of grave moment,’ he said, ‘and

I begin by telling you that I have perfect confidence in you, as I

hope to prove to you. Your behavior to Mme. de Grandlieu is above all

praise,’ the Count went on. (You see, madame, that you have paid me a

thousand times over for a very simple matter.)

“I bowed respectfully, and replied that I had done nothing but the duty

of an honest man.

“‘Well,’ the Count went on, ‘I have made a great many inquiries about

the singular personage to whom you owe your position. And from all that

I can learn, Gobseck is a philosopher of the Cynic school. What do you

think of his probity?’

“‘M. le Comte,’ said I, ‘Gobseck is my benefactor--at fifteen per cent,’

I added, laughing. ‘But his avarice does not authorize me to paint him

to the life for a stranger’s benefit.’

“‘Speak out, sir. Your frankness cannot injure Gobseck or yourself. I do

not expect to find an angel in a pawnbroker.’

“‘Daddy Gobseck,’ I began, ‘is intimately convinced of the truth of the

principle which he takes for a rule of life. In his opinion, money is a

commodity which you may sell cheap or dear, according to circumstances,

with a clear conscience. A capitalist, by charging a high rate of

interest, becomes in his eyes a secured partner by anticipation. Apart

from the peculiar philosophical views of human nature and financial

principles, which enable him to behave like a usurer, I am fully

persuaded that, out of his business, he is the most loyal and upright

soul in Paris. There are two men in him; he is petty and great--a miser

and a philosopher. If I were to die and leave a family behind me, he

would be the guardian whom I should appoint. This was how I came to see

Gobseck in this light, monsieur. I know nothing of his past life. He

may have been a pirate, may, for anything I know, have been all over the

world, trafficking in diamonds, or men, or women, or State secrets; but

this I affirm of him--never has human soul been more thoroughly

tempered and tried. When I paid off my loan, I asked him, with a little

circumlocution of course, how it was that he had made me pay such an

exorbitant rate of interest; and why, seeing that I was a friend, and

he meant to do me a kindness, he should not have yielded to the wish and

made it complete.--“My son,” he said, “I released you from all need to

feel any gratitude by giving you ground for the belief that you owed

me nothing.”--So we are the best friends in the world. That answer,

monsieur, gives you the man better than any amount of description.’

“‘I have made up my mind once and for all,’ said the Count. ‘Draw up the

necessary papers; I am going to transfer my property to Gobseck. I have

no one but you to trust to in the draft of the counter-deed, which will

declare that this transfer is a simulated sale, and that Gobseck as

trustee will administer my estate (as he knows how to administer), and

undertakes to make over my fortune to my eldest son when he comes of

age. Now, sir, this I must tell you: I should be afraid to have that

precious document in my own keeping. My boy is so fond of his mother,

that I cannot trust him with it. So dare I beg of you to keep it for me?

In case of death, Gobseck would make you legatee of my property. Every

contingency is provided for.’

“The Count paused for a moment. He seemed greatly agitated.

“‘A thousand pardons,’ he said at length; ‘I am in great pain, and have

very grave misgivings as to my health. Recent troubles have disturbed me

very painfully, and forced me to take this great step.’

“‘Allow me first to thank you, monsieur,’ said I, ‘for the trust you

place me in. But I am bound to deserve it by pointing out to you that

you are disinheriting your--other children. They bear your name. Merely

as the children of a once-loved wife, now fallen from her position, they

have a claim to an assured existence. I tell you plainly that I cannot

accept the trust with which you propose to honor me unless their future

is secured.’

“The Count trembled violently at the words, and tears came into his eyes

as he grasped my hand, saying, ‘I did not know my man thoroughly.

You have made me both glad and sorry. We will make provision for the

children in the counter-deed.’

“I went with him to the door; it seemed to me that there was a glow of

satisfaction in his face at the thought of this act of justice.

“Now, Camille, this is how a young wife takes the first step to the

brink of a precipice. A quadrille, a ballad, a picnic party is

sometimes cause sufficient of frightful evils. You are hurried on by

the presumptuous voice of vanity and pride, on the faith of a smile,

or through giddiness and folly! Shame and misery and remorse are three

Furies awaiting every woman the moment she oversteps the limits----”

“Poor Camille can hardly keep awake,” the Vicomtesse hastily broke

in.--“Go to bed, child; you have no need of appalling pictures to keep

you pure in heart and conduct.”

Camille de Grandlieu took the hint and went.

“You were going rather too far, dear M. Derville,” said the Vicomtesse,

“an attorney is not a mother of daughters nor yet a preacher.”

“But any newspaper is a thousand times----”

“Poor Derville!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse, “what has come over you?

Do you really imagine that I allow a daughter of mine to read the

newspapers?--Go on,” she added after a pause.

“Three months after everything was signed and sealed between the Count

and Gobseck----”

“You can call him the Comte de Restaud, now that Camille is not here,”

said the Vicomtesse.

“So be it! Well, time went by, and I saw nothing of the counter-deed,

which by rights should have been in my hands. An attorney in Paris lives

in such a whirl of business that with certain exceptions which we make

for ourselves, we have not the time to give each individual client the

amount of interest which he himself takes in his affairs. Still, one day

when Gobseck came to dine with me, I asked him as we left the table if

he knew how it was that I had heard no more of M. de Restaud.

“‘There are excellent reasons for that,’ he said; ‘the noble Count is at

death’s door. He is one of the soft stamp that cannot learn how to put

an end to chagrin, and allow it to wear them out instead. Life is a

craft, a profession; every man must take the trouble to learn

that business. When he has learned what life is by dint of painful

experiences, the fibre of him is toughened, and acquires a certain

elasticity, so that he has his sensibilities under his own control; he

disciplines himself till his nerves are like steel springs, which

always bend, but never break; given a sound digestion, and a man in

such training ought to live as long as the cedars of Lebanon, and famous

trees they are.’

“‘Then is the Count actually dying?’ I asked.

“‘That is possible,’ said Gobseck; ‘the winding up of his estate will be

a juicy bit of business for you.’

“I looked at my man, and said, by way of sounding him:

“‘Just explain to me how it is that we, the Count and I, are the only

men in whom you take an interest?’

“‘Because you are the only two who have trusted me without finessing,’

he said.

“Although this answer warranted my belief that Gobseck would act fairly

even if the counter-deed were lost, I resolved to go to see the Count. I

pleaded a business engagement, and we separated.

“I went straight to the Rue du Helder, and was shown into a room where

the Countess sat playing with her children. When she heard my name, she

sprang up and came to meet me, then she sat down and pointed without a

word to a chair by the fire. Her face wore the inscrutable mask beneath

which women of the world conceal their most vehement emotions. Trouble

had withered that face already. Nothing of its beauty now remained, save

the marvelous outlines in which its principal charm had lain.

“‘It is essential, madame, that I should speak to M. le Comte----”

“‘If so, you would be more favored than I am,’ she said, interrupting

me. ‘M. de Restaud will see no one. He will hardly allow his doctor to

come, and will not be nursed even by me. When people are ill, they have

such strange fancies! They are like children, they do not know what they

want.’

“‘Perhaps, like children, they know very well what they want.’

“The Countess reddened. I almost repented a thrust worthy of Gobseck.

So, by way of changing the conversation, I added, ‘But M. de Restaud

cannot possibly lie there alone all day, madame.’

“‘His oldest boy is with him,’ she said.

“It was useless to gaze at the Countess; she did not blush this time,

and it looked to me as if she were resolved more firmly than ever that I

should not penetrate into her secrets.

“‘You must understand, madame, that my proceeding is no way indiscreet.

It is strongly to his interest--’ I bit my lips, feeling that I had gone

the wrong way to work. The Countess immediately took advantage of my

slip.

“‘My interests are in no way separate from my husband’s, sir,’ said she.

‘There is nothing to prevent your addressing yourself to me----’

“‘The business which brings me here concerns no one but M. le Comte,’ I

said firmly.

“‘I will let him know of your wish to see him.’

“The civil tone and expression assumed for the occasion did not impose

upon me; I divined that she would never allow me to see her husband. I

chatted on about indifferent matters for a little while, so as to study

her; but, like all women who have once begun to plot for themselves, she

could dissimulate with the rare perfection which, in your sex, means the

last degree of perfidy. If I may dare to say it, I looked for anything

from her, even a crime. She produced this feeling in me, because it was

so evident from her manner and in all that she did or said, down to

the very inflections of her voice, that she had an eye to the future. I

went.

“Now, I will pass on to the final scenes of this adventure, throwing in

a few circumstances brought to light by time, and some details guessed

by Gobseck’s perspicacity or by my own.

“When the Comte de Restaud apparently plunged into the vortex of

dissipation, something passed between the husband and wife, something

which remains an impenetrable secret, but the wife sank even lower in

the husband’s eyes. As soon as he became so ill that he was obliged to

take to his bed, he manifested his aversion for the Countess and the two

youngest children. He forbade them to enter his room, and any attempt

to disobey his wishes brought on such dangerous attacks that the doctor

implored the Countess to submit to her husband’s wish.

“Mme. de Restaud had seen the family estates and property, nay, the very

mansion in which she lived, pass into the hands of Gobseck, who appeared

to play the fantastic ogre so far as their wealth was concerned.

She partially understood what her husband was doing, no doubt. M. de

Trailles was traveling in England (his creditors had been a little too

pressing of late), and no one else was in a position to enlighten the

lady, and explain that her husband was taking precautions against her

at Gobseck’s suggestion. It is said that she held out for a long while

before she gave the signature required by French law for the sale of

the property; nevertheless the Count gained his point. The Countess was

convinced that her husband was realizing his fortune, and that somewhere

or other there would be a little bunch of notes representing the amount;

they had been deposited with a notary, or perhaps at the bank, or in

some safe hiding-place. Following out her train of thought, it was

evident that M. de Restaud must of necessity have some kind of document

in his possession by which any remaining property could be recovered and

handed over to his son.

“So she made up her mind to keep the strictest possible watch over the

sick-room. She ruled despotically in the house, and everything in it

was submitted to this feminine espionage. All day she sat in the salon

adjoining her husband’s room, so that she could hear every syllable that

he uttered, every least movement that he made. She had a bed put there

for her of a night, but she did not sleep very much. The doctor was

entirely in her interests. Such wifely devotion seemed praiseworthy

enough. With the natural subtlety of perfidy, she took care to disguise

M. de Restaud’s repugnance for her, and feigned distress so perfectly

that she gained a sort of celebrity. Strait-laced women were even found

to say that she had expiated her sins. Always before her eyes she

beheld a vision of the destitution to follow on the Count’s death if her

presence of mind should fail her; and in these ways the wife, repulsed

from the bed of pain on which her husband lay and groaned, had drawn

a charmed circle round about it. So near, yet kept at a distance;

all-powerful, but in disgrace, the apparently devoted wife was lying

in wait for death and opportunity; crouching like the ant-lion at the

bottom of his spiral pit, ever on the watch for the prey that cannot

escape, listening to the fall of every grain of sand.

“The strictest censor could not but recognize that the Countess pushed

maternal sentiment to the last degree. Her father’s death had been a

lesson to her, people said. She worshiped her children. They were so

young that she could hide the disorders of her life from their eyes,

and could win their love; she had given them the best and most brilliant

education. I confess that I cannot help admiring her and feeling sorry

for her. Gobseck used to joke me about it. Just about that time she had

discovered Maxime’s baseness, and was expiating the sins of the past in

tears of blood. I was sure of it. Hateful as were the measures which

she took for regaining control of her husband’s money, were they not

the result of a mother’s love, and a desire to repair the wrongs she

had done her children? And again, it may be, like many a woman who has

experienced the storm of lawless love, she felt a longing to lead a

virtuous life again. Perhaps she only learned the worth of that life

when she came to reap the woeful harvest sown by her errors.

“Every time that little Ernest came out of his father’s room, she put

him through a searching examination as to all that his father had done

or said. The boy willingly complied with his mother’s wishes, and told

her even more than she asked in her anxious affection, as he thought.

“My visit was a ray of light for the Countess. She was determined to

see in me the instrument of the Count’s vengeance, and resolved that

I should not be allowed to go near the dying man. I augured ill of all

this, and earnestly wished for an interview, for I was not easy in my

mind about the fate of the counter-deed. If it should fall into the

Countess’ hands, she might turn it to her own account, and that would

be the beginning of a series of interminable lawsuits between her and

Gobseck. I knew the usurer well enough to feel convinced that he would

never give up the property to her; there was room for plenty of legal

quibbling over a series of transfers, and I alone knew all the ins and

outs of the matter. I was minded to prevent such a tissue of misfortune,

so I went to the Countess a second time.

“I have noticed, madame,” said Derville, turning to the Vicomtesse, and

speaking in a confidential tone, “certain moral phenomena to which we

do not pay enough attention. I am naturally an observer of human nature,

and instinctively I bring a spirit of analysis to the business that I

transact in the interest of others, when human passions are called into

lively play. Now, I have often noticed, and always with new wonder, that

two antagonists almost always divine each other’s inmost thoughts and

ideas. Two enemies sometimes possess a power of clear insight into

mental processes, and read each other’s minds as two lovers read in

either soul. So when we came together, the Countess and I, I understood

at once the reason of her antipathy for me, disguised though it was by

the most gracious forms of politeness and civility. I had been forced to

be her confidant, and a woman cannot but hate the man before whom she

is compelled to blush. And she on her side knew that if I was the man in

whom her husband placed confidence, that husband had not as yet given up

his fortune.

“I will spare you the conversation, but it abides in my memory as one of

the most dangerous encounters in my career. Nature had bestowed on her

all the qualities which, combined, are irresistibly fascinating; she

could be pliant and proud by turns, and confiding and coaxing in

her manner; she even went so far as to try to subjugate me. It was a

failure. As I took my leave of her, I caught a gleam of hate and rage

in her eyes that made me shudder. We parted enemies. She would fain have

crushed me out of existence; and for my own part, I felt pity for her,

and for some natures pity is the deadliest of insults. This feeling

pervaded the last representations I put before her; and when I left her,

I left, I think, dread in the depths of her soul, by declaring that,

turn which way she would, ruin lay inevitably before her.

“‘If I were to see M. le Comte, your children’s property at any rate

would----’

“‘I should be at your mercy,’ she said, breaking in upon me, disgust in

her gesture.

“Now that we had spoken frankly, I made up my mind to save the family

from impending destitution. I resolved to strain the law at need to gain

my ends, and this was what I did. I sued the Comte de Restaud for a sum

of money, ostensibly due to Gobseck, and gained judgment. The Countess,

of course, did not allow him to know of this, but I had gained on my

point, I had a right to affix seals to everything on the death of the

Count. I bribed one of the servants in the house--the man undertook to

let me know at any hour of the day or night if his master should be

at the point of death, so that I could intervene at once, scare

the Countess with a threat of affixing seals, and so secure the

counter-deed.

“I learned later on that the woman was studying the Code, with her

husband’s dying moans in her ears. If we could picture the thoughts of

those who stand about a deathbed, what fearful sights should we not see?

Money is always the motive-spring of the schemes elaborated, of all the

plans that are made and the plots that are woven about it! Let us leave

these details, nauseating in the nature of them; but perhaps they may

have given you some insight into all that this husband and wife endured;

perhaps too they may unveil much that is passing in secret in other

houses.

“For two months the Comte de Restaud lay on his bed, alone, and resigned

to his fate. Mortal disease was slowly sapping the strength of mind and

body. Unaccountable and grotesque sick fancies preyed upon him; he would

not suffer them to set his room in order, no one could nurse him, he

would not even allow them to make his bed. All his surroundings bore the

marks of this last degree of apathy, the furniture was out of place, the

daintiest trifles were covered with dust and cobwebs. In health he had

been a man of refined and expensive tastes, now he positively delighted

in the comfortless look of the room. A host of objects required in

illness--rows of medicine bottles, empty and full, most of them dirty,

crumpled linen, and broken plates, littered the writing-table, chairs,

and chimney-piece. An open warming-pan lay on the floor before the

grate; a bath, still full of mineral water had not been taken away. The

sense of coming dissolution pervaded all the details of an unsightly

chaos. Signs of death appeared in things inanimate before the Destroyer

came to the body on the bed. The Comte de Restaud could not bear the

daylight, the Venetian shutters were closed, darkness deepened the gloom

in the dismal chamber. The sick man himself had wasted greatly. All the

life in him seemed to have taken refuge in the still brilliant eyes. The

livid whiteness of his face was something horrible to see, enhanced as

it was by the long dank locks of hair that straggled along his cheeks,

for he would never suffer them to cut it. He looked like some religious

fanatic in the desert. Mental suffering was extinguishing all human

instincts in this man of scarce fifty years of age, whom all Paris had

known as so brilliant and so successful.

“One morning at the beginning of December 1824, he looked up at Ernest,

who sat at the foot of his bed gazing at his father with wistful eyes.

“‘Are you in pain?’ the little Vicomte asked.

“‘No,’ said the Count, with a ghastly smile, ‘it all lies _here and

about my heart_!’

“He pointed to his forehead, and then laid his wasted fingers on his

hollow chest. Ernest began to cry at the sight.

“‘How is it that M. Derville does not come to me?’ the Count asked his

servant (he thought that Maurice was really attached to him, but the man

was entirely in the Countess’ interest)--‘What! Maurice!’ and the dying

man suddenly sat upright in his bed, and seemed to recover all his

presence of mind, ‘I have sent for my attorney seven or eight times

during the last fortnight, and he does not come!’ he cried. ‘Do you

imagine that I am to be trifled with? Go for him, at once, this very

instant, and bring him back with you. If you do not carry out my orders,

I shall get up and go myself.’

“‘Madame,’ said the man as he came into the salon, ‘you heard M. le

Comte; what ought I to do?’

“‘Pretend to go to the attorney, and when you come back tell your

master that his man of business is forty leagues away from Paris on

an important lawsuit. Say that he is expected back at the end of the

week.--Sick people never know how ill they are,’ thought the Countess;

‘he will wait till the man comes home.’

“The doctor had said on the previous evening that the Count could

scarcely live through the day. When the servant came back two hours

later to give that hopeless answer, the dying man seemed to be greatly

agitated.

“‘Oh God!’ he cried again and again, ‘I put my trust in none but Thee.’

“For a long while he lay and gazed at his son, and spoke in a feeble

voice at last.

“‘Ernest, my boy, you are very young; but you have a good heart; you can

understand, no doubt, that a promise given to a dying man is sacred;

a promise to a father... Do you feel that you can be trusted with a

secret, and keep it so well and so closely that even your mother herself

shall not know that you have a secret to keep? There is no one else in

this house whom I can trust to-day. You will not betray my trust, will

you?’

“‘No, father.’

“‘Very well, then, Ernest, in a minute or two I will give you a sealed

packet that belongs to M. Derville; you must take such care of it that

no one can know that you have it; then you must slip out of the house

and put the letter into the post-box at the corner.’

“‘Yes, father.’

“‘Can I depend upon you?’

“‘Yes, father.’

“‘Come and kiss me. You have made death less bitter to me, dear boy.

In six or seven years’ time you will understand the importance of

this secret, and you will be well rewarded then for your quickness and

obedience, you will know then how much I love you. Leave me alone for a

minute, and let no one--no matter whom--come in meanwhile.’

“Ernest went out and saw his mother standing in the next room.

“‘Ernest,’ said she, ‘come here.’

“She sat down, drew her son to her knees, and clasped him in her arms,

and held him tightly to her heart.

“‘Ernest, your father said something to you just now.’

“‘Yes, mamma.’

“‘What did he say?’

“‘I cannot repeat it, mamma.’

“‘Oh, my dear child!’ cried the Countess, kissing him in rapture. ‘You

have kept your secret; how glad that makes me! Never tell a lie; never

fail to keep your word--those are two principles which should never be

forgotten.’

“‘Oh! mamma, how beautiful you are! _You_ have never told a lie, I am

quite sure.’

“‘Once or twice, Ernest dear, I have lied. Yes, and I have not kept my

word under circumstances which speak louder than all precepts. Listen,

my Ernest, you are big enough and intelligent enough to see that your

father drives me away, and will not allow me to nurse him, and this is

not natural, for you know how much I love him.’

“‘Yes, mamma.’

“The Countess began to cry. ‘Poor child!’ she said, ‘this misfortune

is the result of treacherous insinuations. Wicked people have tried to

separate me from your father to satisfy their greed. They mean to take

all our money from us and to keep it for themselves. If your father were

well, the division between us would soon be over; he would listen to

me; he is loving and kind; he would see his mistake. But now his mind is

affected, and his prejudices against me have become a fixed idea, a

sort of mania with him. It is one result of his illness. Your father’s

fondness for you is another proof that his mind is deranged. Until

he fell ill you never noticed that he loved you more than Pauline and

Georges. It is all caprice with him now. In his affection for you he

might take it into his head to tell you to do things for him. If you do

not want to ruin us all, my darling, and to see your mother begging her

bread like a pauper woman, you must tell her everything----’

“‘Ah!’ cried the Count. He had opened the door and stood there, a

sudden, half-naked apparition, almost as thin and fleshless as a

skeleton.

“His smothered cry produced a terrible effect upon the Countess; she

sat motionless, as if a sudden stupor had seized her. Her husband was as

white and wasted as if he had risen out of his grave.

“‘You have filled my life to the full with trouble, and now you are

trying to vex my deathbed, to warp my boy’s mind, and make a depraved

man of him!’ he cried, hoarsely.

“The Countess flung herself at his feet. His face, working with the last

emotions of life, was almost hideous to see.

“‘Mercy! mercy!’ she cried aloud, shedding a torrent of tears.

“‘Have you shown me any pity?’ he asked. ‘I allowed you to squander your

own money, and now do you mean to squander my fortune, too, and ruin my

son?’

“‘Ah! well, yes, have no pity for me, be merciless to me!’ she cried.

‘But the children? Condemn your widow to live in a convent; I will obey

you; I will do anything, anything that you bid me, to expiate the wrong

I have done you, if that so the children may be happy! The children! Oh,

the children!’

“‘I have only one child,’ said the Count, stretching out a wasted arm,

in his despair, towards his son.

“‘Pardon a penitent woman, a penitent woman!...’ wailed the Countess,

her arms about her husband’s damp feet. She could not speak for sobbing;

vague, incoherent sounds broke from her parched throat.

“‘You dare to talk of penitence after all that you said to Ernest!’

exclaimed the dying man, shaking off the Countess, who lay groveling

over his feet.--‘You turn me to ice!’ he added, and there was something

appalling in the indifference with which he uttered the words. ‘You

have been a bad daughter; you have been a bad wife; you will be a bad

mother.’

“The wretched woman fainted away. The dying man reached his bed and lay

down again, and a few hours later sank into unconsciousness. The priests

came and administered the sacraments.

“At midnight he died; the scene that morning had exhausted his remaining

strength, and on the stroke of midnight I arrived with Daddy Gobseck.

The house was in confusion, and under cover of it we walked up into the

little salon adjoining the death-chamber. The three children were there

in tears, with two priests, who had come to watch with the dead. Ernest

came over to me, and said that his mother desired to be alone in the

Count’s room.

“‘Do not go in,’ he said; and I admired the child for his tone and

gesture; ‘she is praying there.’

“Gobseck began to laugh that soundless laugh of his, but I felt too much

touched by the feeling in Ernest’s little face to join in the miser’s

sardonic amusement. When Ernest saw that we moved towards the door,

he planted himself in front of it, crying out, ‘Mamma, here are some

gentlemen in black who want to see you!’

“Gobseck lifted Ernest out of the way as if the child had been a

feather, and opened the door.

“What a scene it was that met our eyes! The room was in frightful

disorder; clothes and papers and rags lay tossed about in a confusion

horrible to see in the presence of Death; and there, in the midst, stood

the Countess in disheveled despair, unable to utter a word, her eyes

glittering. The Count had scarcely breathed his last before his wife

came in and forced open the drawers and the desk; the carpet was strewn

with litter, some of the furniture and boxes were broken, the signs of

violence could be seen everywhere. But if her search had at first proved

fruitless, there was that in her excitement and attitude which led me to

believe that she had found the mysterious documents at last. I glanced

at the bed, and professional instinct told me all that had happened. The

mattress had been flung contemptuously down by the bedside, and across

it, face downwards, lay the body of the Count, like one of the paper

envelopes that strewed the carpet--he too was nothing now but an

envelope. There was something grotesquely horrible in the attitude of

the stiffening rigid limbs.

“The dying man must have hidden the counter-deed under his pillow to

keep it safe so long as life should last; and his wife must have guessed

his thought; indeed, it might be read plainly in his last dying gesture,

in the convulsive clutch of his claw-like hands. The pillow had been

flung to the floor at the foot of the bed; I could see the print of

her heel upon it. At her feet lay a paper with the Count’s arms on the

seals; I snatched it up, and saw that it was addressed to me. I looked

steadily at the Countess with the pitiless clear-sightedness of an

examining magistrate confronting a guilty creature. The contents were

blazing in the grate; she had flung them on the fire at the sound of our

approach, imagining, from a first hasty glance at the provisions which

I had suggested for her children, that she was destroying a will which

disinherited them. A tormented conscience and involuntary horror of the

deed which she had done had taken away all power of reflection. She had

been caught in the act, and possibly the scaffold was rising before her

eyes, and she already felt the felon’s branding iron.

“There she stood gasping for breath, waiting for us to speak, staring at

us with haggard eyes.

“I went across to the grate and pulled out an unburned fragment. ‘Ah,

madame!’ I exclaimed, ‘you have ruined your children! Those papers were

their titles to their property.’

“Her mouth twitched, she looked as if she were threatened by a paralytic

seizure.

“‘Eh! eh!’ cried Gobseck; the harsh, shrill tone grated upon our ears

like the sound of a brass candlestick scratching a marble surface.

“There was a pause, then the old man turned to me and said quietly:

“‘Do you intend Mme. la Comtesse to suppose that I am not the rightful

owner of the property sold to me by her late husband? This house belongs

to me now.’

“A sudden blow on the head from a bludgeon would have given me less pain

and astonishment. The Countess saw the look of hesitation in my face.

“‘Monsieur,’ she cried, ‘Monsieur!’ She could find no other words.

“‘You are a trustee, are you not?’ I asked.

“‘That is possible.’

“‘Then do you mean to take advantage of this crime of hers?’

“‘Precisely.’

“I went at that, leaving the Countess sitting by her husband’s bedside,

shedding hot tears. Gobseck followed me. Outside in the street I

separated from him, but he came after me, flung me one of those

searching glances with which he probed men’s minds, and said in the

husky flute-tones, pitched in a shriller key:

“‘Do you take it upon yourself to judge me?’”

“From that time forward we saw little of each other. Gobseck let the

Count’s mansion on lease; he spent the summers on the country estates.

He was a lord of the manor in earnest, putting up farm buildings,

repairing mills and roadways, and planting timber. I came across him one

day in a walk in the Jardin des Tuileries.

“‘The Countess is behaving like a heroine,’ said I; ‘she gives herself

up entirely to the children’s education; she is giving them a perfect

bringing up. The oldest boy is a charming young fellow----’

“‘That is possible.’

“‘But ought you not to help Ernest?’ I suggested.

“‘Help him!’ cried Gobseck. ‘Not I. Adversity is the greatest of all

teachers; adversity teaches us to know the value of money and the worth

of men and women. Let him set sail on the seas of Paris; when he is a

qualified pilot, we will give him a ship to steer.’

“I left him without seeking to explain the meaning of his words.

“M. de Restaud’s mother has prejudiced him against me, and he is very

far from taking me as his legal adviser; still, I went to see Gobseck

last week to tell him about Ernest’s love for Mlle. Camille, and pressed

him to carry out his contract, since that young Restaud is just of age.

“I found the old bill-discounter had been kept to his bed for a long

time by the complaint of which he was to die. He put me off, saying that

he would give the matter his attention when he could get up again and

see after his business; his idea being no doubt that he would not give

up any of his possessions so long as the breath was in him; no other

reason could be found for his shuffling answer. He seemed to me to be

much worse than he at all suspected. I stayed with him long enough to

discern the progress of a passion which age had converted into a sort of

craze. He wanted to be alone in the house, and had taken the rooms one

by one as they fell vacant. In his own room he had changed nothing;

the furniture which I knew so well sixteen years ago looked the same as

ever; it might have been kept under a glass case. Gobseck’s faithful old

portress, with her husband, a pensioner, who sat in the entry while

she was upstairs, was still his housekeeper and charwoman, and now in

addition his sick-nurse. In spite of his feebleness, Gobseck saw his

clients himself as heretofore, and received sums of money; his affairs

had been so simplified, that he only needed to send his pensioner out

now and again on an errand, and could carry on business in his bed.

“After the treaty, by which France recognized the Haytian Republic,

Gobseck was one of the members of the commission appointed to liquidate

claims and assess repayments due by Hayti; his special knowledge of old

fortunes in San Domingo, and the planters and their heirs and assigns

to whom the indemnities were due, had led to his nomination. Gobseck’s

peculiar genius had then devised an agency for discounting the planters’

claims on the government. The business was carried on under the names

of Werbrust and Gigonnet, with whom he shared the spoil without

disbursements, for his knowledge was accepted instead of capital. The

agency was a sort of distillery, in which money was extracted from

doubtful claims, and the claims of those who knew no better, or had no

confidence in the government. As a liquidator, Gobseck could make terms

with the large landed proprietors; and these, either to gain a higher

percentage of their claims, or to ensure prompt settlements, would send

him presents in proportion to their means. In this way presents came to

be a kind of percentage upon sums too large to pass through his control,

while the agency bought up cheaply the small and dubious claims, or the

claims of those persons who preferred a little ready money to a deferred

and somewhat hazy repayment by the Republic. Gobseck was the insatiable

boa constrictor of the great business. Every morning he received his

tribute, eyeing it like a Nabob’s prime minister, as he considers

whether he will sign a pardon. Gobseck would take anything, from the

present of game sent him by some poor devil or the pound’s weight of wax

candles from devout folk, to the rich man’s plate and the speculator’s

gold snuff-box. Nobody knew what became of the presents sent to the old

money-lender. Everything went in, but nothing came out.

“‘On the word of an honest woman,’ said the portress, an old

acquaintance of mine, ‘I believe he swallows it all and is none the

fatter for it; he is as thin and dried up as the cuckoo in the clock.’

“At length, last Monday, Gobseck sent his pensioner for me. The man came

up to my private office.

“‘Be quick and come, M. Derville,’ said he, ‘the governor is just

going to hand in his checks; he has grown as yellow as a lemon; he is

fidgeting to speak with you; death has fair hold of him; the rattle is

working in his throat.’

“When I entered Gobseck’s room, I found the dying man kneeling before

the grate. If there was no fire on the hearth, there was at any rate

a monstrous heap of ashes. He had dragged himself out of bed, but his

strength had failed him, and he could neither go back nor find the voice

to complain.

“‘You felt cold, old friend,’ I said, as I helped him back to his bed;

‘how can you do without a fire?’

“‘I am not cold at all,’ he said. ‘No fire here! no fire! I am going, I

know not where, lad,’ he went on, glancing at me with blank, lightless

eyes, ‘but I am going away from this.--I have _carpology_,’ said he

(the use of the technical term showing how clear and accurate his mental

processes were even now). ‘I thought the room was full of live gold, and

I got up to catch some of it.--To whom will all mine go, I wonder?

Not to the crown; I have left a will, look for it, Grotius. _La belle

Hollandaise_ had a daughter; I once saw the girl somewhere or other, in

the Rue Vivienne, one evening. They call her “_La Torpille_,” I believe;

she is as pretty as pretty can be; look her up, Grotius. You are my

executor; take what you like; help yourself. There are Strasburg pies,

there, and bags of coffee, and sugar, and gold spoons. Give the Odiot

service to your wife. But who is to have the diamonds? Are you going

to take them, lad? There is snuff too--sell it at Hamburg, tobaccos are

worth half as much again at Hamburg. All sorts of things I have in fact,

and now I must go and leave them all.--Come, Papa Gobseck, no weakness,

be yourself!’

“He raised himself in bed, the lines of his face standing out as

sharply against the pillow as if the profile had been cast in bronze; he

stretched out a lean arm and bony hand along the coverlet and clutched

it, as if so he would fain keep his hold on life, then he gazed hard at

the grate, cold as his own metallic eyes, and died in full consciousness

of death. To us--the portress, the old pensioner, and myself--he looked

like one of the old Romans standing behind the Consuls in Lethiere’s

picture of the _Death of the Sons of Brutus_.

“‘He was a good-plucked one, the old Lascar!’ said the pensioner in his

soldierly fashion.

“But as for me, the dying man’s fantastical enumeration of his riches

still sounding in my ears, and my eyes, following the direction of his,

rested on that heap of ashes. It struck me that it was very large. I

took the tongs, and as soon as I stirred the cinders, I felt the metal

underneath, a mass of gold and silver coins, receipts taken during his

illness, doubtless, after he grew too feeble to lock the money up, and

could trust no one to take it to the bank for him.

“‘Run for the justice of the peace,’ said I, turning to the old

pensioner, ‘so that everything can be sealed here at once.’

“Gobseck’s last words and the old portress’ remarks had struck me.

I took the keys of the rooms on the first and second floor to make a

visitation. The first door that I opened revealed the meaning of the

phrases which I took for mad ravings; and I saw the length to which

covetousness goes when it survives only as an illogical instinct, the

last stage of greed of which you find so many examples among misers in

country towns.

“In the room next to the one in which Gobseck had died, a quantity of

eatables of all kinds were stored--putrid pies, mouldy fish, nay, even

shell-fish, the stench almost choked me. Maggots and insects swarmed.

These comparatively recent presents were put down, pell-mell, among

chests of tea, bags of coffee, and packing-cases of every shape. A

silver soup tureen on the chimney-piece was full of advices of the

arrival of goods consigned to his order at Havre, bales of cotton,

hogsheads of sugar, barrels of rum, coffees, indigo, tobaccos, a perfect

bazaar of colonial produce. The room itself was crammed with furniture,

and silver-plate, and lamps, and vases, and pictures; there were books,

and curiosities, and fine engravings lying rolled up, unframed. Perhaps

these were not all presents, and some part of this vast quantity of

stuff had been deposited with him in the shape of pledges, and had been

left on his hands in default of payment. I noticed jewel-cases, with

ciphers and armorial bearings stamped upon them, and sets of fine

table-linen, and weapons of price; but none of the things were docketed.

I opened a book which seemed to be misplaced, and found a thousand-franc

note in it. I promised myself that I would go through everything

thoroughly; I would try the ceilings, and floors, and walls, and

cornices to discover all the gold, hoarded with such passionate greed

by a Dutch miser worthy of a Rembrandt’s brush. In all the course of

my professional career I have never seen such impressive signs of the

eccentricity of avarice.

“I went back to his room, and found an explanation of this chaos

and accumulation of riches in a pile of letters lying under the

paper-weights on his desk--Gobseck’s correspondence with the various

dealers to whom doubtless he usually sold his presents. These persons

had, perhaps, fallen victims to Gobseck’s cleverness, or Gobseck may

have wanted fancy prices for his goods; at any rate, every bargain hung

in suspense. He had not disposed of the eatables to Chevet, because

Chevet would only take them of him at a loss of thirty per cent. Gobseck

haggled for a few francs between the prices, and while they wrangled the

goods became unsalable. Again, Gobseck had refused free delivery of

his silver-plate, and declined to guarantee the weights of his coffees.

There had been a dispute over each article, the first indication in

Gobseck of the childishness and incomprehensible obstinacy of age, a

condition of mind reached at last by all men in whom a strong passion

survives the intellect.

“I said to myself, as he had said, ‘To whom will all these riches go?’

... And then I think of the grotesque information he gave me as to the

present address of his heiress, I foresee that it will be my duty

to search all the houses of ill-fame in Paris to pour out an immense

fortune on some worthless jade. But, in the first place, know this--that

in a few days time Ernest de Restaud will come into a fortune to which

his title is unquestionable, a fortune which will put him in a position

to marry Mlle. Camille, even after adequate provision has been made for

his mother the Comtesse de Restaud and his sister and brother.”

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bidault (known as Gigonnet)

The Government Clerks

The Vendetta

Cesar Birotteau

The Firm of Nucingen

A Daughter of Eve

Derville

A Start in Life

The Gondreville Mystery

Father Goriot

Colonel Chabert

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Derville, Madame

Cesar Birotteau

Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van

Father Goriot

Cesar Birotteau

The Government Clerks

The Unconscious Humorists

Gobseck, Sarah Van

Cesar Birotteau

The Maranas

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

The Member for Arcis

Gobseck, Esther Van

The Firm of Nucingen

A Bachelor’s Establishment

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Grandlieu, Vicomtesse de

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Colonel Chabert

Grandlieu, Vicomte Juste de

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Grandlieu, Vicomtesse Juste de

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

A Daughter of Eve

Maurice (de Restaud’s valet)

Father Goriot

Palma (banker)

The Firm of Nucingen

Cesar Birotteau

Lost Illusions

A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

The Ball at Sceaux

Restaud, Comte de

Father Goriot

Restaud, Comtesse Anastasie de

Father Goriot

Restaud, Ernest de

The Member for Arcis

Restaud, Madame Ernest de

The Member for Arcis

Restaud, Felix-Georges de

The Member for Arcis

Trailles, Comte Maxime de

Cesar Birotteau

Father Goriot

Ursule Mirouet

A Man of Business

The Member for Arcis

The Secrets of a Princess

Cousin Betty

The Member for Arcis

Beatrix

The Unconscious Humorists