Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Part 50

She spoke so calmly, so entirely with the cold indifference of a courtesan, that Madame du Val-n.o.ble exclaimed:

"You are the Queen of us all!"

"Come early, and look very well----"

At five o'clock Esther dressed herself as a bride. She put on her lace dress over white satin, she had a white sash, white satin shoes, and a scarf of English point lace over her beautiful shoulders. In her hair she placed white camellia flowers, the simple ornament of an innocent girl. On her bosom lay a pearl necklace worth thirty thousand francs, a gift from Nucingen.

Though she was dressed by six, she refused to see anybody, even the banker. Europe knew that Lucien was to be admitted to her room. Lucien came at about seven, and Europe managed to get him up to her mistress without anybody knowing of his arrival.

Lucien, as he looked at her, said to himself, "Why not go and live with her at Rubempre, far from the world, and never see Paris again? I have an earnest of five years of her life, and the dear creature is one of those who never belie themselves! Where can I find such another perfect masterpiece?"

"My dear, you whom I have made my G.o.d," said Esther, kneeling down on a cus.h.i.+on in front of Lucien, "give me your blessing."

Lucien tried to raise her and kiss her, saying, "What is this jest, my dear love?" And he would have put his arm round her, but she freed herself with a gesture as much of respect as of horror.

"I am no longer worthy of you, Lucien," said she, letting the tears rise to her eyes. "I implore you, give me your blessing, and swear to me that you will found two beds at the Hotel-Dieu--for, as to prayers in church, G.o.d will never forgive me unless I pray myself.

"I have loved you too well, my dear. Tell me that I made you happy, and that you will sometimes think of me.--Tell me that!"

Lucien saw that Esther was solemnly in earnest, and he sat thinking.

"You mean to kill yourself," said he at last, in a tone of voice that revealed deep reflection.

"No," said she. "But to-day, my dear, the woman dies, the pure, chaste, and loving woman who once was yours.--And I am very much afraid that I shall die of grief."

"Poor child," said Lucien, "wait! I have worked hard these two days. I have succeeded in seeing Clotilde----"

"Always Clotilde!" cried Esther, in a tone of concentrated rage.

"Yes," said he, "we have written to each other.--On Tuesday morning she is to set out for Italy, but I shall meet her on the road for an interview at Fontainebleau."

"Bless me! what is it that you men want for wives? Wooden laths?" cried poor Esther. "If I had seven or eight millions, would you not marry me--come now?"

"Child! I was going to say that if all is over for me, I will have no wife but you."

Esther bent her head to hide her sudden pallor and the tears she wiped away.

"You love me?" said she, looking at Lucien with the deepest melancholy.

"Well, that is my sufficient blessing.--Do not compromise yourself.

Go away by the side door, and come in to the drawing-room through the ante-room. Kiss me on the forehead."

She threw her arms round Lucien, clasped him to her heart with frenzy, and said again:

"Go, only go--or I must live."

When the doomed woman appeared in the drawing-room, there was a cry of admiration. Esther's eyes expressed infinitude in which the soul sank as it looked into them. Her blue-black and beautiful hair set off the camellias. In short, this exquisite creature achieved all the effects she had intended. She had no rival. She looked like the supreme expression of that unbridled luxury which surrounded her in every form.

Then she was brilliantly witty. She ruled the orgy with the cold, calm power that Habeneck displays when conducting at the Conservatoire, at those concerts where the first musicians in Europe rise to the sublime in interpreting Mozart and Beethoven.

But she observed with terror that Nucingen ate little, drank nothing, and was quite the master of the house.

By midnight everybody was crazy. The gla.s.ses were broken that they might never be used again; two of the Chinese curtains were torn; Bixiou was drunk, for the second time in his life. No one could keep his feet, the women were asleep on the sofas, and the guests were incapable of carrying out the practical joke they had planned of escorting Esther and Nucingen to the bedroom, standing in two lines with candles in their hands, and singing _Buona sera_ from the _Barber of Seville_.

Nucingen simply gave Esther his hand. Bixiou, who saw them, though tipsy, was still able to say, like Rivarol, on the occasion of the Duc de Richelieu's last marriage, "The police must be warned; there is mischief brewing here."

The jester thought he was jesting; he was a prophet.

Monsieur de Nucingen did not go home till Monday at about noon. But at one o'clock his broker informed him that Mademoiselle Esther van Bogseck had sold the bond bearing thirty thousand francs interest on Friday last, and had just received the money.

"But, Monsieur le Baron, Derville's head-clerk called on me just as I was settling this transfer; and after seeing Mademoiselle Esther's real names, he told me she had come into a fortune of seven millions."

"Pooh!"

"Yes, she is the only heir to the old bill-discounter Gobseck.--Derville will verify the facts. If your mistress' mother was the handsome Dutch woman, _la Belle Hollandaise_, as they called her, she comes in for----"

"I know dat she is," cried the banker. "She tolt me all her life. I shall write ein vort to Derville."

The Baron at down at his desk, wrote a line to Derville, and sent it by one of his servants. Then, after going to the Bourse, he went back to Esther's house at about three o'clock.

"Madame forbade our waking her on any pretence whatever. She is in bed--asleep----"

"Ach der Teufel!" said the Baron. "But, Europe, she shall not be angry to be tolt that she is fery, fery rich. She shall inherit seven millions. Old Gobseck is deat, and your mis'ess is his sole heir, for her moter vas Gobseck's own niece; and besides, he shall hafe left a vill. I could never hafe tought that a millionaire like dat man should hafe left Esther in misery!"

"Ah, ha! Then your reign is over, old pantaloon!" said Europe, looking at the Baron with an effrontery worthy of one of Moliere's waiting-maids. "Shooh! you old Alsatian crow! She loves you as we love the plague! Heavens above us! Millions!--Why, she may marry her lover; won't she be glad!"

And Prudence Servien left the Baron simply thunder-stricken, to be the first to announce to her mistress this great stroke of luck. The old man, intoxicated with superhuman enjoyment, and believing himself happy, had just received a cold shower-bath on his pa.s.sion at the moment when it had risen to the intensest white heat.

"She vas deceiving me!" cried he, with tears in his eyes. "Yes, she vas cheating me. Oh, Esther, my life! Vas a fool hafe I been! Can such flowers ever bloom for de old men! I can buy all vat I vill except only yout!--Ach Gott, ach Gott! Vat shall I do! Vat shall become of me!--She is right, dat cruel Europe. Esther, if she is rich, shall not be for me.

Shall I go hank myself? Vat is life midout de divine flame of joy dat I have known? Mein Gott, mein Gott!"

The old man s.n.a.t.c.hed off the false hair he had combed in with his gray hairs these three months past.

A piercing shriek from Europe made Nucingen quail to his very bowels.

The poor banker rose and walked upstairs on legs that were drunk with the bowl of disenchantment he had just swallowed to the dregs, for nothing is more intoxicating than the wine of disaster.

At the door of her room he could see Esther stiff on her bed, blue with poison--dead!

He went up to the bed and dropped on his knees.

"You are right! She tolt me so!--She is dead--of me----"

Paccard, Asie, every one hurried in. It was a spectacle, a shock, but not despair. Every one had their doubts. The Baron was a banker again.

A suspicion crossed his mind, and he was so imprudent as to ask what had become of the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, the price of the bond. Paccard, Asie, and Europe looked at each other so strangely that Monsieur de Nucingen left the house at once, believing that robbery and murder had been committed. Europe, detecting a packet of soft consistency, betraying the contents to be banknotes, under her mistress'

pillow, proceeded at once to "lay her out," as she said.

"Go and tell monsieur, Asie!--Oh, to die before she knew that she had seven millions! Gobseck was poor madame's uncle!" said she.