Scenes from a Courtesan's Life [130]
to inquire whether Corentin had returned. On the eighth day he left at each house a note, written in their peculiar cipher, to explain to his friend what death hung over him, and to tell him of Lydie's abduction and the horrible end to which his enemies had devoted them. Peyrade, bereft of Corentin, but seconded by Contenson, still kept up his disguise as a nabob. Even though his invisible foes had discovered him, he very wisely reflected that he might glean some light on the matter by remaining on the field of the contest.
Contenson had brought all his experience into play in his search for Lydie, and hoped to discover in what house she was hidden; but as the days went by, the impossibility, absolutely demonstrated, of tracing the slightest clue, added, hour by hour, to Peyrade's despair. The old spy had a sort of guard about him of twelve or fifteen of the most experienced detectives. They watched the neighborhood of the Rue des Moineaux and the Rue Taitbout--where he lived, as a nabob, with Madame du Val-Noble. During the last three days of the term granted by Asie to reinstate Lucien on his old footing in the Hotel de Grandlieu, Contenson never left the veteran of the old general police office. And the poetic terror shed throughout the forests of America by the arts of inimical and warring tribes, of which Cooper made such good use in his novels, was here associated with the petty details of Paris life. The foot-passengers, the shops, the hackney cabs, a figure standing at a window,--everything had to the human ciphers to whom old Peyrade had intrusted his safety the thrilling interest which attaches in Cooper's romances to a beaver-village, a rock, a bison-robe, a floating canoe, a weed straggling over the water.
"If the Spaniard has gone away, you have nothing to fear," said Contenson to Peyrade, remarking on the perfect peace they lived in.
"But if he is not gone?" observed Peyrade.
"He took one of my men at the back of the chaise; but at Blois, my man having to get down, could not catch the chaise up again."
Five days after Derville's return, Lucien one morning had a call from Rastignac.
"I am in despair, my dear boy," said his visitor, "at finding myself compelled to deliver a message which is intrusted to me because we are known to be intimate. Your marriage is broken off beyond all hope of reconciliation. Never set foot again in the Hotel de Grandlieu. To marry Clotilde you must wait till her father dies, and he is too selfish to die yet awhile. Old whist-players sit at table--the card- table--very late.
"Clotilde is setting out for Italy with Madeleine de Lenoncourt- Chaulieu. The poor girl is so madly in love with you, my dear fellow, that they have to keep an eye on her; she was bent on coming to see you, and had plotted an escape. That may comfort you in misfortune!"
Lucien made no reply; he sat gazing at Rastignac.
"And is it a misfortune, after all?" his friend went on. "You will easily find a girl as well born and better looking than Clotilde! Madame de Serizy will find you a wife out of spite; she cannot endure the Grandlieus, who never would have anything to say to her. She has a niece, little Clemence du Rouvre----"
"My dear boy," said Lucien at length, "since that supper I am not on terms with Madame de Serizy--she saw me in Esther's box and made a scene--and I left her to herself."
"A woman of forty does not long keep up a quarrel with so handsome a man as you are," said Rastignac. "I know something of these sunsets.-- It lasts ten minutes in the sky, and ten years in a woman's heart."
"I have waited a week to hear from her."
"Go and call."
"Yes, I must now."
"Are you coming at any rate to the Val-Noble's? Her nabob is returning the supper given by Nucingen."
"I am asked, and I shall go," said Lucien gravely.
The day after this confirmation of his disaster, which Carlos heard of at once from Asie, Lucien went to the Rue Taitbout with Rastignac and Nucingen.
At midnight nearly all the personages of this drama were assembled in the dining-room
Contenson had brought all his experience into play in his search for Lydie, and hoped to discover in what house she was hidden; but as the days went by, the impossibility, absolutely demonstrated, of tracing the slightest clue, added, hour by hour, to Peyrade's despair. The old spy had a sort of guard about him of twelve or fifteen of the most experienced detectives. They watched the neighborhood of the Rue des Moineaux and the Rue Taitbout--where he lived, as a nabob, with Madame du Val-Noble. During the last three days of the term granted by Asie to reinstate Lucien on his old footing in the Hotel de Grandlieu, Contenson never left the veteran of the old general police office. And the poetic terror shed throughout the forests of America by the arts of inimical and warring tribes, of which Cooper made such good use in his novels, was here associated with the petty details of Paris life. The foot-passengers, the shops, the hackney cabs, a figure standing at a window,--everything had to the human ciphers to whom old Peyrade had intrusted his safety the thrilling interest which attaches in Cooper's romances to a beaver-village, a rock, a bison-robe, a floating canoe, a weed straggling over the water.
"If the Spaniard has gone away, you have nothing to fear," said Contenson to Peyrade, remarking on the perfect peace they lived in.
"But if he is not gone?" observed Peyrade.
"He took one of my men at the back of the chaise; but at Blois, my man having to get down, could not catch the chaise up again."
Five days after Derville's return, Lucien one morning had a call from Rastignac.
"I am in despair, my dear boy," said his visitor, "at finding myself compelled to deliver a message which is intrusted to me because we are known to be intimate. Your marriage is broken off beyond all hope of reconciliation. Never set foot again in the Hotel de Grandlieu. To marry Clotilde you must wait till her father dies, and he is too selfish to die yet awhile. Old whist-players sit at table--the card- table--very late.
"Clotilde is setting out for Italy with Madeleine de Lenoncourt- Chaulieu. The poor girl is so madly in love with you, my dear fellow, that they have to keep an eye on her; she was bent on coming to see you, and had plotted an escape. That may comfort you in misfortune!"
Lucien made no reply; he sat gazing at Rastignac.
"And is it a misfortune, after all?" his friend went on. "You will easily find a girl as well born and better looking than Clotilde! Madame de Serizy will find you a wife out of spite; she cannot endure the Grandlieus, who never would have anything to say to her. She has a niece, little Clemence du Rouvre----"
"My dear boy," said Lucien at length, "since that supper I am not on terms with Madame de Serizy--she saw me in Esther's box and made a scene--and I left her to herself."
"A woman of forty does not long keep up a quarrel with so handsome a man as you are," said Rastignac. "I know something of these sunsets.-- It lasts ten minutes in the sky, and ten years in a woman's heart."
"I have waited a week to hear from her."
"Go and call."
"Yes, I must now."
"Are you coming at any rate to the Val-Noble's? Her nabob is returning the supper given by Nucingen."
"I am asked, and I shall go," said Lucien gravely.
The day after this confirmation of his disaster, which Carlos heard of at once from Asie, Lucien went to the Rue Taitbout with Rastignac and Nucingen.
At midnight nearly all the personages of this drama were assembled in the dining-room