Scenes from a Courtesan's Life - Honoré de Balzac (philippa perry book .txt) 📗

I have never loved till now. I love you so much, that if you cost
me my fortune I should not love you the less.

"Be just! Most men would not, like me, have seen the angel in you;
I have never even glanced at your past. I love you both as I love
my daughter, Augusta, and as I might love my wife, if my wife
could have loved me. Since the only excuse for an old man's love
is that he should be happy, ask yourself if I am not playing a too
ridiculous part. I have taken you to be the consolation and joy of
my declining days. You know that till I die you will be as happy
as a woman can be; and you know, too, that after my death you will
be rich enough to be the envy of many women. In every stroke of
business I have effected since I have had the happiness of your
acquaintance, your share is set apart, and you have a standing
account with Nucingen's bank. In a few days you will move into a
house, which sooner or later, will be your own if you like it.
Now, plainly, will you still receive me then as a father, or will
you make me happy?

"Forgive me for writing so frankly, but when I am with you I lose
all courage; I feel too keenly that you are indeed my mistress. I
have no wish to hurt you; I only want to tell you how much I
suffer, and how hard it is to wait at my age, when every day takes
with it some hopes and some pleasures. Besides, the delicacy of my
conduct is a guarantee of the sincerity of my intentions. Have I
ever behaved as your creditor? You are like a citadel, and I am
not a young man. In answer to my appeals, you say your life is at
stake, and when I hear you, you make me believe it; but here I
sink into dark melancholy and doubts dishonorable to us both. You
seemed to me as sweet and innocent as you are lovely; but you
insist on destroying my convictions. Ask yourself!--You tell me
you bear a passion in your heart, an indomitable passion, but you
refuse to tell me the name of the man you love.--Is this natural?

"You have turned a fairly strong man into an incredibly weak one.
You see what I have come to; I am induced to ask you at the end of
five months what future hope there is for my passion. Again, I
must know what part I am to play at the opening of your house.
Money is nothing to me when it is spent for you; I will not be so
absurd as to make a merit to you of this contempt; but though my
love knows no limits, my fortune is limited, and I care for it
only for your sake. Well, if by giving you everything I possess I
might, as a poor man, win your affection, I would rather be poor
and loved than rich and scorned by you.

"You have altered me so completely, my dear Esther, that no one
knows me; I paid ten thousand francs for a picture by Joseph
Bridau because you told me that he was clever and unappreciated. I
give every beggar I meet five francs in your name. Well, and what
does the poor man ask, who regards himself as your debtor when you
do him the honor of accepting anything he can give you? He asks
only for a hope--and what a hope, good God! Is it not rather the
certainty of never having anything from you but what my passion
may seize? The fire in my heart will abet your cruel deceptions.
You find me ready to submit to every condition you can impose on
my happiness, on my few pleasures; but promise me at least that on
the day when you take possession of your house you will accept the
heart and service of him who, for the rest of his days, must sign
himself your slave,

"FREDERIC DE NUCINGEN."

"Faugh! how he bores me--this money bag!" cried Esther, a courtesan once more. She took a small sheet of notepaper and wrote all over it, as close as it could go, Scribe's famous phrase, which has become a proverb, "Prenez mon ours."

A quarter of an hour later, Esther, overcome by remorse, wrote the following letter:--

"MONSIEUR LE BARON,--

"Pay no heed to the note you have just received from me; I had
relapsed into the folly of my youth. Forgive, monsieur, a poor
girl who ought to be your slave. I never more keenly felt the
degradation of my position than on the day when I was handed over
to you. You have paid; I owe myself to you. There is nothing more
sacred than a debt of dishonor. I have no right to compound it by
throwing myself into the Seine.

"A debt can always be discharged in that dreadful coin which is
good only to the debtor; you will find me yours to command. I will
pay off in one night all the sums for which that fatal hour has
been mortgaged; and I am sure that such an hour with me is worth
millions--all the more because it will be the only one, the last.
I shall then have paid the debt, and may get away from life. A
good woman has a chance of restoration after a fall; but we, the
like of us, fall too low.

"My determination is so fixed that I beg you will keep this letter
in evidence of the cause of death of her who remains, for one day,
your servant,

"ESTHER."

Having sent this letter, Esther felt a pang of regret. Ten minutes after she wrote a third note, as follows:--

"Forgive me, dear Baron--it is I once more. I did not mean either
to make game of you or to wound you; I only want you to reflect on
this simple argument: If we were to continue in the position
towards each other of father and daughter, your pleasure would be
small, but it would be enduring. If you insist on the terms of the
bargain, you will live to mourn for me.

"I will trouble you no more: the day when you shall choose
pleasure rather than happiness will have no morrow for me.--Your
daughter,

"ESTHER."

On receiving the first letter, the Baron fell into a cold fury such as a millionaire may die of; he looked at himself in the glass and rang the bell.

"An hot bat for mein feet," said he to his new valet.

While he was sitting with his feet in the bath, the second letter came; he read it, and fainted away. He was carried to bed.

When the banker recovered consciousness, Madame de Nucingen was sitting at the foot of the bed.

"The hussy is right!" said she. "Why do you try to buy love? Is it to be bought in the market!--Let me see your letter to her."

The Baron gave her sundry rough drafts he had made; Madame de Nucingen read them, and smiled. Then came Esther's third letter.

"She is a wonderful girl!" cried the Baroness, when she had read it.

"Vat shall I do, montame?" asked the Baron of his wife.

"Wait."

"Wait? But nature is pitiless!" he cried.

"Look here, my dear, you have been admirably kind to me," said Delphine; "I will give you some good advice."

"You are a ver' goot voman," said he. "Ven you hafe any debts I shall pay."

"Your state on receiving these letters touches a woman far more than the spending of millions, or than all the letters you could write, however fine they may be. Try to let her know it, indirectly; perhaps she will be yours! And--have no scruples, she will not die of that," added she, looking keenly at her husband.

But Madame de Nucingen knew nothing whatever of the nature of such women.

"Vat a clefer voman is Montame de Nucingen!" said the Baron to himself when his wife had left him.

Still, the more the Baron admired the subtlety of his wife's counsel, the less he could see how he might act upon it; and he not only felt that he was stupid, but he told himself so.

The stupidity of wealthy men, though it is almost proverbial, is only comparative. The faculties of the mind, like the dexterity of the limbs, need exercise. The dancer's strength is in his feet; the blacksmith's in his arms; the market porter is trained to carry loads; the singer works his larynx; and the pianist hardens his wrist. A banker is practised in business matters; he studies and plans them, and pulls the wires of various interests, just as a playwright trains his intelligence in combining situations, studying his actors, giving life to his dramatic figures.

We should no more look for powers of conversation in the Baron de Nucingen than for the imagery of a poet in the brain of a mathematician. How many poets occur in an age, who are either good prose writers, or as witty in the intercourse of daily life as Madame Cornuel? Buffon was dull company; Newton was never in love; Lord Byron loved nobody but himself; Rousseau was gloomy and half crazy; La Fontaine absent-minded. Human energy, equally distributed, produces dolts, mediocrity in all; unequally bestowed it gives rise to those incongruities to whom the name of Genius is given, and which, if we only could see them, would look like deformities. The same law governs the body; perfect beauty is generally allied with coldness or silliness. Though Pascal was both a great mathematician and a great writer, though Beaumarchais was a good man of business, and Zamet a profound courtier, these rare exceptions prove the general principle of the specialization of brain faculties.

Within the sphere of speculative calculations the banker put forth as much intelligence and skill, finesse and mental power, as a practised diplomatist expends on national affairs. If he were equally remarkable outside his office, the banker would be a great man. Nucingen made one with the Prince de Ligne, with Mazarin or with Diderot, is a human formula that is almost inconceivable, but which has nevertheless been known as Pericles, Aristotle, Voltaire, and Napoleon. The splendor of the Imperial crown must not blind us to the merits of the individual; the Emperor was charming, well informed, and witty.

Monsieur de Nucingen, a banker and nothing more, having no inventiveness outside his business, like most bankers, had no faith in