For a moment Eve was thrown into confusion; she saw the need for discretion in matters of business.
“You wish to use our presses and our name as well,” she said; “and, as I have already shown you, I can still do a little business. And then we pay rent to M. Sechard senior, who does not load us with presents.”
After two hours of debate, Eve obtained two thousand francs for six months, one thousand to be paid in advance. When everything was concluded, the brothers informed her that they meant to put in Cerizet as lessee of the premises. In spite of herself, Eve started with surprise.
“Isn’t it better to have somebody who knows the workshop?” asked the fat Cointet.
Eve made no reply; she took leave of the brothers, vowing inwardly to look after Cerizet.
“Well, here are our enemies in the place!” laughed David, when Eve brought out the papers for his signature at dinner-time.
“Pshaw!” said she, “I will answer for Kolb and Marion; they alone would look after things. Besides, we shall be making an income of four thousand francs from the workshop, which only costs us money as it is; and looking forward, I see a year in which you may realize your hopes.”
“You were born to be the wife of a scientific worker, as you said by the weir,” said David, grasping her hand tenderly.
But though the Sechard household had money sufficient that winter, they were none the less subjected to Cerizet’s espionage, and all unconsciously became dependent upon Boniface Cointet.
“We have them now!” the manager of the paper-mill had exclaimed as he left the house with his brother the printer. “They will begin to regard the rent as regular income; they will count upon it and run themselves into debt. In six months’ time we will decline to renew the agreement, and then we shall see what this man of genius has at the bottom of his mind; we will offer to help him out of his difficulty by taking him into partnership and exploiting his discovery.”
Any shrewd man of business who should have seen tall Cointet’s face as he uttered those words, “taking him into partnership,” would have known that it behooves a man to be even more careful in the selection of the partner whom he takes before the Tribunal of Commerce than in the choice of the wife whom he weds at the Mayor’s office. Was it not enough already, and more than enough, that the ruthless hunters were on the track of the quarry? How should David and his wife, with Kolb and Marion to help them, escape the toils of a Boniface Cointet?
A draft for five hundred francs came from Lucien, and this, with Cerizet’s second payment, enabled them to meet all the expenses of Mme. Sechard’s confinement. Eve and the mother and David had thought that Lucien had forgotten them, and rejoiced over this token of remembrance as they rejoiced over his success, for his first exploits in journalism made even more noise in Angouleme than in Paris.
But David, thus lulled into a false security, was to receive a staggering blow, a cruel letter from Lucien: —
“MY DEAR DAVID, – I have drawn three bills on you, and negotiated them with Metivier; they fall due in one, two, and three months’ time. I took this hateful course, which I know will burden you heavily, because the one alternative was suicide. I will explain my necessity some time, and I will try besides to send the amounts as the bills fall due.
“Burn this letter; say nothing to my mother and sister; for, I confess it, I have counted upon you, upon the heroism known so well to your despairing brother,
By this time Eve had recovered from her confinement.
“Your brother, poor fellow, is in desperate straits,” David told her. “I have sent him three bills for a thousand francs at one, two, and three months; just make a note of them,” and he went out into the fields to escape his wife’s questionings.
But Eve had felt very uneasy already. It was six months since Lucien had written to them. She talked over the news with her mother till her forebodings grew so dark that she made up her mind to dissipate them. She would take a bold step in her despair.
Young M. de Rastignac had come to spend a few days with his family. He had spoken of Lucien in terms that set Paris gossip circulating in Angouleme, till at last it reached the journalist’s mother and sister. Eve went to Mme. de Rastignac, asked the favor of an interview with her son, spoke of all her fears, and asked him for the truth. In a moment Eve heard of her brother’s connection with the actress Coralie, of his duel with Michel Chrestien, arising out of his own treacherous behavior to Daniel d’Arthez; she received, in short, a version of Lucien’s history, colored by the personal feeling of a clever and envious dandy. Rastignac expressed sincere admiration for the abilities so terribly compromised, and a patriotic fear for the future of a native genius; spite and jealousy masqueraded as pity and friendliness. He spoke of Lucien’s blunders. It seemed that Lucien had forfeited the favor of a very great person, and that a patent conferring the right to bear the name and arms of Rubempre had actually been made out and subsequently torn up.
“If your brother, madame, had been well advised, he would have been on the way to honors, and Mme. de Bargeton’s husband by this time; but what can you expect? He deserted her and insulted her. She is now Mme. la Comtesse Sixte du Chatelet, to her own great regret, for she loved Lucien.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mme. Sechard.
“Your brother is like a young eagle, blinded by the first rays of glory and luxury. When an eagle falls, who can tell how far he may sink before he drops to the bottom of some precipice? The fall of a great man is always proportionately great.”
Eve came away with a great dread in her heart; those last words pierced her like an arrow. She had been wounded to the quick. She said not a word to anybody, but again and again a tear rolled down her cheeks, and fell upon the child at her breast. So hard is it to give up illusions sanctioned by family feeling, illusions that have grown with our growth, that Eve had doubted Eugene de Rastignac. She would rather hear a true friend’s account of her brother. Lucien had given them d’Arthez’s address in the days when he was full of enthusiasm for the brotherhood; she wrote a pathetic letter to d’Arthez, and received the following reply: —
“MADAME, – You ask me to tell you the truth about the life that your brother is leading in Paris; you are anxious for enlightenment as to his prospects; and to encourage a frank answer on my part, you repeat certain things that M. de Rastignac has told you, asking me if they are true. With regard to the purely personal matter, madame, M. de Rastignac’s confidences must be corrected in Lucien’s favor. Your brother wrote a criticism of my book, and brought it to me in remorse, telling me that he could not bring himself to publish it, although obedience to the orders of his party might endanger one who was very dear to him. Alas! madame, a man of letters must needs comprehend all passions, since it is his pride to express them; I understood that where a mistress and a friend are involved, the friend is inevitably sacrificed. I smoothed your brother’s way; I corrected his murderous article myself, and gave it my full approval.
“You ask whether Lucien has kept my friendship and esteem; to this it is difficult to make an answer. Your brother is on a road that leads him to ruin. At this moment I still feel sorry for him; before long I shall have forgotten him, of set purpose, not so much on account of what he has done already as for that which he inevitably will do. Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in emotion, he does not create. He is, in fact – permit me to say it – a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman’s great failing. Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the pleasure of displaying his own wit. He would not hesitate to sign a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few years of luxurious and glorious life. Nay, has he not done worse already? He has bartered his future for the short-lived delights of living openly with an actress. So far, he has not seen the dangers of his position; the girl’s youth and beauty and devotion (for she worships him) have closed his eyes to the truth; he cannot see that no glory or success or fortune can induce the world to accept the position. Very well, as it is