Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Part 49

"Good-bye then."

For three days past, Esther's ways with the Baron de Nucingen had completely changed. The monkey had become a cat, the cat had become a woman. Esther poured out treasures of affection on the old man; she was quite charming. Her way of addressing him, with a total absence of mischief or bitterness, and all sorts of tender insinuation, had carried conviction to the banker's slow wit; she called him Fritz, and he believed that she loved him.

"My poor Fritz, I have tried you sorely," said she. "I have teased you shamefully. Your patience has been sublime. You loved me, I see, and I will reward you. I like you now, I do not know how it is, but I should prefer you to a young man. It is the result of experience perhaps.--In the long run we discover at last that pleasure is the coin of the soul; and it is not more flattering to be loved for the sake of pleasure than it is to be loved for the sake of money.

"Besides, young men are too selfish; they think more of themselves than of us; while you, now, think only of me. I am all your life to you.

And I will take nothing more from you. I want to prove to you how disinterested I am."

"Vy, I hafe gifen you notink," cried the Baron, enchanted. "I propose to gife you to-morrow tirty tousant francs a year in a Government bond. Dat is mein vedding gift."

Esther kissed the Baron so sweetly that he turned pale without any pills.

"Oh!" cried she, "do not suppose that I am sweet to you only for your thirty thousand francs! It is because--now--I love you, my good, fat Frederic."

"Ach, mein Gott! Vy hafe you kept me vaiting? I might hafe been so happy all dese tree monts."

"In three or in five per cents, my pet?" said Esther, pa.s.sing her fingers through Nucingen's hair, and arranging it in a fas.h.i.+on of her own.

"In trees--I hat a quant.i.ty."

So next morning the Baron brought the certificate of shares; he came to breakfast with his dear little girl, and to take her orders for the following evening, the famous Sat.u.r.day, the great day!

"Here, my little vife, my only vife," said the banker gleefully, his face radiant with happiness. "Here is enough money to pay for your keep for de rest of your days."

Esther took the paper without the slightest excitement, folded it up, and put it in her dressing-table drawer.

"So now you are quite happy, you monster of iniquity!" said she, giving Nucingen a little slap on the cheek, "now that I have at last accepted a present from you. I can no longer tell you home-truths, for I share the fruit of what you call your labors. This is not a gift, my poor old boy, it is rest.i.tution.--Come, do not put on your Bourse face. You know that I love you."

"My lofely Esther, mein anchel of lofe," said the banker, "do not speak to me like dat. I tell you, I should not care ven all de vorld took me for a tief, if you should tink me ein honest man.--I lofe you every day more and more."

"That is my intention," said Esther. "And I will never again say anything to distress you, my pet elephant, for you are grown as artless as a baby. Bless me, you old rascal, you have never known any innocence; the allowance bestowed on you when you came into the world was bound to come to the top some day; but it was buried so deep that it is only now reappearing at the age of sixty-six. Fished up by love's barbed hook.--This phenomenon is seen in old men.

"And this is why I have learned to love you, you are young--so young! No one but I would ever have known this, Frederic--I alone. For you were a banker at fifteen; even at college you must have lent your school-fellows one marble on condition of their returning two."

Seeing him laugh, she sprang on to his knee.

"Well, you must do as you please! Bless me! plunder the men--go ahead, and I will help. Men are not worth loving; Napoleon killed them off like flies. Whether they pay taxes to you or to the Government, what difference does it make to them? You don't make love over the budget, and on my honor!--go ahead, I have thought it over, and you are right.

Shear the sheep! you will find it in the gospel according to Beranger.

"Now, kiss your Esther.--I say, you will give that poor Val-n.o.ble all the furniture in the Rue Taitbout? And to-morrow I wish you would give her fifty thousand francs--it would look handsome, my duck. You see, you killed Falleix; people are beginning to cry out upon you, and this liberality will look Babylonian--all the women will talk about it! Oh!

there will be no one in Paris so grand, so n.o.ble as you; and as the world is const.i.tuted, Falleix will be forgotten. So, after all, it will be money deposited at interest."

"You are right, mein anchel; you know the vorld," he replied. "You shall be mein adfiser."

"Well, you see," said Esther, "how I study my man's interest, his position and honor.--Go at once and bring those fifty thousand francs."

She wanted to get rid of Monsieur de Nucingen so as to get a stockbroker to sell the bond that very afternoon.

"But vy dis minute?" asked he.

"Bless me, my sweetheart, you must give it to her in a little satin box wrapped round a fan. You must say, 'Here, madame, is a fan which I hope may be to your taste.'--You are supposed to be a Turcaret, and you will become a Beaujon."

"Charming, charming!" cried the Baron. "I shall be so clever henceforth.--Yes, I shall repeat your vorts."

Just as Esther had sat down, tired with the effort of playing her part, Europe came in.

"Madame," said she, "here is a messenger sent from the Quai Malaquais by Celestin, M. Lucien's servant----"

"Bring him in--no, I will go into the ante-room."

"He has a letter for you, madame, from Celestin."

Esther rushed into the ante-room, looked at the messenger, and saw that he looked like the genuine thing.

"Tell _him_ to come down," said Esther, in a feeble voice and dropping into a chair after reading the letter. "Lucien means to kill himself,"

she added in a whisper to Europe. "No, take the letter up to him."

Carlos Herrera, still in his disguise as a bagman, came downstairs at once, and keenly scrutinized the messenger on seeing a stranger in the ante-room.

"You said there was no one here," said he in a whisper to Europe.

And with an excess of prudence, after looking at the messenger, he went straight into the drawing-room. _Trompe-la-Mort_ did not know that for some time past the famous constable of the detective force who had arrested him at the Maison Vauquer had a rival, who, it was supposed, would replace him. This rival was the messenger.

"They are right," said the sham messenger to Contenson, who was waiting for him in the street. "The man you describe is in the house; but he is not a Spaniard, and I will burn my hand off if there is not a bird for our net under that priest's gown."

"He is no more a priest than he is a Spaniard," said Contenson.

"I am sure of that," said the detective.

"Oh, if only we were right!" said Contenson.

Lucien had been away for two days, and advantage had been taken of his absence to lay this snare, but he returned this evening, and the courtesan's anxieties were allayed. Next morning, at the hour when Esther, having taken a bath, was getting into bed again, Madame du Val-n.o.ble arrived.

"I have the two pills!" said her friend.

"Let me see," said Esther, raising herself with her pretty elbow buried in a pillow trimmed with lace.

Madame du Val-n.o.ble held out to her what looked like two black currants.

The Baron had given Esther a pair of greyhounds of famous pedigree, which will be always known by the name of the great contemporary poet who made them fas.h.i.+onable; and Esther, proud of owning them, had called them by the names of their parents, Romeo and Juliet. No need here to describe the whiteness and grace of these beasts, trained for the drawing-room, with manners suggestive of English propriety. Esther called Romeo; Romeo ran up on legs so supple and thin, so strong and sinewy, that they seemed like steel springs, and looked up at his mistress. Esther, to attract his attention, pretended to throw one of the pills.

"He is doomed by his nature to die thus," said she, as she threw the pill, which Romeo crushed between his teeth.

The dog made no sound, he rolled over, and was stark dead. It was all over while Esther spoke these words of epitaph.

"Good G.o.d!" shrieked Madame du Val-n.o.ble.

"You have a cab waiting. Carry away the departed Romeo," said Esther.

"His death would make a commotion here. I have given him to you, and you have lost him--advertise for him. Make haste; you will have your fifty thousand francs this evening."