Scenes from a Courtesan's Life [89]
love you, for you have picked her out of hell.--When once she has nothing on her mind, you will see. Between you and me, I may tell you, that night when she cried so much--What is to be said, we value the esteem of the man who maintains us--and she did not dare tell you everything. She wanted to fly."
"To fly!" cried the Baron, in dismay at the notion. "But the Bourse, the Bourse!--Go 'vay, I shall not come in.--But tell her that I shall see her at her window--dat shall gife me courage!"
Esther smiled at Monsieur de Nucingen as he passed the house, and he went ponderously on his way, saying:
"She is ein anchel!"
This was how Europe had succeeded in achieving the impossible. At about half-past two Esther had finished dressing, as she was wont to dress when she expected Lucien; she was looking charming. Seeing this, Prudence, looking out of the window, said, "There is monsieur!"
The poor creature flew to the window, thinking she would see Lucien; she saw Nucingen.
"Oh! how cruelly you hurt me!" she said.
"There is no other way of getting you to seem to be gracious to a poor old man, who, after all, is going to pay your debts," said Europe. "For they are all to be paid."
"What debts?" said the girl, who only cared to preserve her love, which dreadful hands were scattering to the winds.
"Those which Monsieur Carlos made in your name."
"Why, here are nearly four hundred and fifty thousand francs," cried Esther.
"And you owe a hundred and fifty thousand more. But the Baron took it all very well.--He is going to remove you from hence, and place you in a little palace.--On my honor, you are not so badly off. In your place, as you have got on the right side of this man, as soon as Carlos is satisfied, I should make him give me a house and a settled income. You are certainly the handsomest woman I ever saw, madame, and the most attractive, but we so soon grow ugly! I was fresh and good- looking, and look at me! I am twenty-three, about the same age as madame, and I look ten years older. An illness is enough.--Well, but when you have a house in Paris and investments, you need never be afraid of ending in the streets."
Esther had ceased to listen to Europe-Eugenie-Prudence Servien. The will of a man gifted with the genius of corruption had thrown Esther back into the mud with as much force as he had used to drag her out of it.
Those who know love in its infinitude know that those who do not accept its virtues do not experience its pleasures. Since the scene in the den in the Rue de Langlade, Esther had utterly forgotten her former existence. She had since lived very virtuously, cloistered by her passion. Hence, to avoid any obstacle, the skilful fiend had been clever enough to lay such a train that the poor girl, prompted by her devotion, had merely to utter her consent to swindling actions already done, or on the point of accomplishment. This subtlety, revealing the mastery of the tempter, also characterized the methods by which he had subjugated Lucien. He created a terrible situation, dug a mine, filled it with powder, and at the critical moment said to his accomplice, "You have only to nod, and the whole will explode!"
Esther of old, knowing only the morality peculiar to courtesans, thought all these attentions so natural, that she measured her rivals only by what they could get men to spend on them. Ruined fortunes are the conduct-stripes of these creatures. Carlos, in counting on Esther's memory, had not calculated wrongly.
These tricks of warfare, these stratagems employed a thousand times, not only by these women, but by spendthrifts too, did not disturb Esther's mind. She felt nothing but her personal degradation; she loved Lucien, she was to be the Baron de Nucingen's mistress "by appointment"; this was all she thought of. The supposed Spaniard might absorb the earnest-money, Lucien might build up his fortune with the stones of her tomb, a single night of pleasure might cost the old banker so many thousand-franc notes more or less, Europe might extract a few hundred thousand francs
"To fly!" cried the Baron, in dismay at the notion. "But the Bourse, the Bourse!--Go 'vay, I shall not come in.--But tell her that I shall see her at her window--dat shall gife me courage!"
Esther smiled at Monsieur de Nucingen as he passed the house, and he went ponderously on his way, saying:
"She is ein anchel!"
This was how Europe had succeeded in achieving the impossible. At about half-past two Esther had finished dressing, as she was wont to dress when she expected Lucien; she was looking charming. Seeing this, Prudence, looking out of the window, said, "There is monsieur!"
The poor creature flew to the window, thinking she would see Lucien; she saw Nucingen.
"Oh! how cruelly you hurt me!" she said.
"There is no other way of getting you to seem to be gracious to a poor old man, who, after all, is going to pay your debts," said Europe. "For they are all to be paid."
"What debts?" said the girl, who only cared to preserve her love, which dreadful hands were scattering to the winds.
"Those which Monsieur Carlos made in your name."
"Why, here are nearly four hundred and fifty thousand francs," cried Esther.
"And you owe a hundred and fifty thousand more. But the Baron took it all very well.--He is going to remove you from hence, and place you in a little palace.--On my honor, you are not so badly off. In your place, as you have got on the right side of this man, as soon as Carlos is satisfied, I should make him give me a house and a settled income. You are certainly the handsomest woman I ever saw, madame, and the most attractive, but we so soon grow ugly! I was fresh and good- looking, and look at me! I am twenty-three, about the same age as madame, and I look ten years older. An illness is enough.--Well, but when you have a house in Paris and investments, you need never be afraid of ending in the streets."
Esther had ceased to listen to Europe-Eugenie-Prudence Servien. The will of a man gifted with the genius of corruption had thrown Esther back into the mud with as much force as he had used to drag her out of it.
Those who know love in its infinitude know that those who do not accept its virtues do not experience its pleasures. Since the scene in the den in the Rue de Langlade, Esther had utterly forgotten her former existence. She had since lived very virtuously, cloistered by her passion. Hence, to avoid any obstacle, the skilful fiend had been clever enough to lay such a train that the poor girl, prompted by her devotion, had merely to utter her consent to swindling actions already done, or on the point of accomplishment. This subtlety, revealing the mastery of the tempter, also characterized the methods by which he had subjugated Lucien. He created a terrible situation, dug a mine, filled it with powder, and at the critical moment said to his accomplice, "You have only to nod, and the whole will explode!"
Esther of old, knowing only the morality peculiar to courtesans, thought all these attentions so natural, that she measured her rivals only by what they could get men to spend on them. Ruined fortunes are the conduct-stripes of these creatures. Carlos, in counting on Esther's memory, had not calculated wrongly.
These tricks of warfare, these stratagems employed a thousand times, not only by these women, but by spendthrifts too, did not disturb Esther's mind. She felt nothing but her personal degradation; she loved Lucien, she was to be the Baron de Nucingen's mistress "by appointment"; this was all she thought of. The supposed Spaniard might absorb the earnest-money, Lucien might build up his fortune with the stones of her tomb, a single night of pleasure might cost the old banker so many thousand-franc notes more or less, Europe might extract a few hundred thousand francs