Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Honoré de Balzac

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

DEDICATION

To His Highness Prince Alfonso Serafino di Porcia. Allow me to place your name at the beginning of an essentially Parisian work, thought out in your house during these latter days. Is it not natural that I should offer you the flowers of rhetoric that blossomed in your garden, watered with the regrets I suffered from home-sickness, which you soothed, as I wandered under the boschetti whose elms reminded me of the Champs-Elysees? Thus, perchance, may I expiate the crime of having dreamed of Paris under the shadow of the Duomo, of having longed for our muddy streets on the clean and elegant flagstones of Porta-Renza. When I have some book to publish which may be dedicated to a Milanese lady, I shall have the happiness of finding names already dear to your old Italian romancers among those of women whom we love, and to whose memory I would beg you to recall your sincerely affectionate

DE BALZAC.

July 1838.

ESTHER HAPPY; OR, HOW A COURTESAN CAN LOVE

In 1824, at the last opera ball of the season, several masks were struck by the beauty of a youth who was wandering about the passages and greenroom with the air of a man in search of a woman kept at home by unexpected circumstances. The secret of this behavior, now dilatory and again hurried, is known only to old women and to certain experienced loungers. In this immense assembly the crowd does not trouble itself much to watch the crowd; each one’s interest is impassioned, and even idlers are preoccupied.

The young dandy was so much absorbed in his anxious quest that he did not observe his own success; he did not hear, he did not see the ironical exclamations of admiration, the genuine appreciation, the biting gibes, the soft invitations of some of the masks. Though he was so handsome as to rank among those exceptional persons who come to an opera ball in search of an adventure, and who expect it as confidently as men looked for a lucky coup at roulette in Frascati’s day, he seemed quite philosophically sure of his evening; he must be the hero of one of those mysteries with three actors which constitute an opera ball, and are known only to those who play a part in them; for, to young wives who come merely to say, “I have seen it,” to country people, to inexperienced youths, and to foreigners, the opera house must on those nights be the palace of fatigue and dulness. To these, that black swarm, slow and serried – coming, going, winding, turning, returning, mounting, descending, comparable only to ants on a pile of wood – is no more intelligible than the Bourse to a Breton peasant who has never heard of the Grand livre.

With a few rare exceptions, men wear no masks in Paris; a man in a domino is thought ridiculous. In this the spirit of the nation betrays itself. Men who want to hide their good fortune can enjoy the opera ball without going there; and masks who are absolutely compelled to go in come out again at once. One of the most amusing scenes is the crush at the doors produced as soon as the dancing begins, by the rush of persons getting away and struggling with those who are pushing in. So the men who wear masks are either jealous husbands who come to watch their wives, or husbands on the loose who do not wish to be watched by them – two situations equally ridiculous.

Now, our young man was followed, though he knew it not, by a man in a mask, dogging his steps, short and stout, with a rolling gait, like a barrel. To every one familiar with the opera this disguise betrayed a stock-broker, a banker, a lawyer, some citizen soul suspicious of infidelity. For in fact, in really high society, no one courts such humiliating proofs. Several masks had laughed as they pointed this preposterous figure out to each other; some had spoken to him, a few young men had made game of him, but his stolid manner showed entire contempt for these aimless shafts; he went on whither the young man led him, as a hunted wild boar goes on and pays no heed to the bullets whistling about his ears, or the dogs barking at his heels.

Though at first sight pleasure and anxiety wear the same livery – the noble black robe of Venice – and though all is confusion at an opera ball, the various circles composing Parisian society meet there, recognize, and watch each other. There are certain ideas so clear to the initiated that this scrawled medley of interests is as legible to them as any amusing novel. So, to these old hands, this man could not be here by appointment; he would infallibly have worn some token, red, white, or green, such as notifies a happy meeting previously agreed on. Was it a case of revenge?

Seeing the domino following so closely in the wake of a man apparently happy in an assignation, some of the gazers looked again at the handsome face, on which anticipation had set its divine halo. The youth was interesting; the longer he wandered, the more curiosity he excited. Everything about him proclaimed the habits of refined life. In obedience to a fatal law of the time we live in, there is not much difference, physical or moral, between the most elegant and best bred son of a duke and peer and this attractive youth, whom poverty had not long since held in its iron grip in the heart of Paris. Beauty and youth might cover him in deep gulfs, as in many a young man who longs to play a part in Paris without having the capital to support his pretensions, and who, day after day, risks all to win all, by sacrificing to the god who has most votaries in this royal city, namely, Chance. At the same time, his dress and manners were above reproach; he trod the classic floor of the opera house as one accustomed there. Who can have failed to observe that there, as in every zone in Paris, there is a manner of being which shows who you are, what you are doing, whence you come, and what you want?

“What a handsome young fellow; and here we may turn round to look at him,” said a mask, in whom accustomed eyes recognized a lady of position.

“Do you not remember him?” replied the man on whose arm she was leaning. “Madame du Chatelet introduced him to you – ”

“What, is that the apothecary’s son she fancied herself in love with, who became a journalist, Mademoiselle Coralie’s lover?”

“I fancied he had fallen too low ever to pull himself up again, and I cannot understand how he can show himself again in the world of Paris,” said the Comte Sixte du Chatelet.

“He has the air of a prince,” the mask went on, “and it is not the actress he lived with who could give it to him. My cousin, who understood him, could not lick him into shape. I should like to know the mistress of this Sargine; tell me something about him that will enable me to mystify him.”

This couple, whispering as they watched the young man, became the object of study to the square-shouldered domino.

“Dear Monsieur Chardon,” said the Prefet of the Charente, taking the dandy’s hand, “allow me to introduce you to some one who wishes to renew acquaintance with you – ”

“Dear Comte Chatelet,” replied the young man, “that lady taught me how ridiculous was the name by which you address me. A patent from the king has restored to me that of my mother’s family – the Rubempres. Although the fact has been announced in the papers, it relates to so unimportant a person that I need not blush to recall it to my friends, my enemies, and those who are neither – You may class yourself where you will, but I am sure you will not disapprove of a step to which I was advised by your wife when she was still only Madame de Bargeton.”

This neat retort, which made the Marquise smile, gave the Prefet of la Charente a nervous chill. “You may tell her,” Lucien went on, “that I now bear gules, a bull raging argent on a meadow vert.”

“Raging argent,” echoed Chatelet.

“Madame la Marquise will explain to you, if you do not know, why that old coat is a little better than the chamberlain’s key and Imperial gold bees which you bear on yours, to the great despair of Madame Chatelet, nee Negrepelisse d’Espard,” said Lucien quickly.

“Since you recognize me, I cannot puzzle you; and I could never tell you how much you puzzle me,” said the Marquise d’Espard, amazed at the coolness and impertinence to which the man had risen whom she had formerly despised.

“Then allow me, madame, to preserve my only chance of occupying your thoughts by remaining in that mysterious twilight,” said he, with the smile of a man who does not wish to risk assured happiness.

“I congratulate you on your changed fortunes,” said the Comte du Chatelet to Lucien.

“I take it as you offer it,” replied Lucien, bowing with much grace to the Marquise.

“What a coxcomb!” said the Count in an undertone to Madame d’Espard. “He has succeeded in winning an ancestry.”

“With these young men such coxcombry, when it is addressed to us, almost always implies some success in high places,” said the lady; “for with you older men it means ill-fortune. And I should very much like to know which of my grand lady friends has taken this fine bird under her patronage; then I might find the means of amusing myself this evening. My ticket, anonymously sent, is no doubt a bit of mischief planned by a rival and having something to do with this young man. His impertinence is to order; keep an eye on him. I will take the Duc de Navarrein’s arm. You will be able to find me again.”

Just as Madame d’Espard was about to address her cousin, the mysterious mask came between her and the Duke to whisper in her ear:

“Lucien loves you; he wrote the note. Your Prefet is his greatest foe; how can he speak in his presence?”

The stranger moved off, leaving Madame d’Espard a prey to a double surprise. The Marquise knew no one in the world who was capable of playing the part assumed by this mask; she suspected a snare, and went to sit down out of sight. The Comte Sixte du Chatelet – whom Lucien had abridged of his ambitious du with an emphasis that betrayed long meditated revenge – followed the handsome dandy, and presently met a young man to whom he thought he could speak without reserve.

“Well, Rastignac, have you seen Lucien? He has come out in a new skin.”

“If I were half as good looking as he is, I should be twice as rich,” replied the fine gentleman, in a light but meaning tone, expressive of keen raillery.

“No!” said the fat mask in his ear, repaying a thousand ironies in one by the accent he lent the monosyllable.

Rastignac, who was not the man to swallow an affront, stood as if struck by lightning, and allowed himself to be led into a recess by a grasp of iron which he could not shake off.

“You young cockerel, hatched in Mother Vauquer’s coop – you, whose heart failed you to clutch old Taillefer’s millions when the hardest part of the business was done – let me tell you, for your personal safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you are in our power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission! or I shall join your game and upset the skittles. Lucien de Rubempre is under the protection of the strongest power of the day – the Church. Choose between life and death – Answer.”

Rastignac felt giddy, like a man who has slept in a forest and wakes to see by his side a famishing lioness. He was frightened, and there was no one to see him; the boldest men yield to fear under such circumstances.

“No one but HE can know – or would dare – ” he murmured to himself.

The mask clutched his hand tighter to prevent his finishing his sentence.

“Act as if I were he,” he said.

Rastignac then acted like a millionaire on the highroad with a brigand’s pistol at his head; he surrendered.

“My dear Count,” said he to du Chatelet, to whom he presently returned, “if you care for your position in life, treat Lucien de Rubempre as a man whom you will one day see holding a place far above where you stand.”

The mask made a imperceptible gesture of approbation, and went off in search of Lucien.

“My dear fellow, you have changed your opinion of him very suddenly,” replied the Prefet with justifiable surprise.

“As suddenly as men change who belong to the centre and vote with the right,” replied Rastignac to the Prefet-Depute, whose vote had for a few days failed to support the Ministry.

“Are there such things as opinions nowadays? There are only interests,” observed des Lupeaulx, who had heard them. “What is the case in point?”

“The case of the Sieur de Rubempre, whom Rastignac is setting up as a person of consequence,” said du Chatelet to the Secretary-General.

“My dear Count,” replied des Lupeaulx very seriously, “Monsieur de Rubempre is a young man of the highest merit, and has such good interest at his back that I should be delighted to renew my acquaintance with him.”

“There he is, rushing into the wasps’ nest of the rakes of the day,” said Rastignac.

The three speakers looked towards a corner where a group of recognized wits had gathered, men of more or less celebrity, and several men of fashion. These gentlemen made common stock of their jests, their remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves till something should amuse them. Among this strangely mingled party were some men with whom Lucien had had transactions, combining ostensibly kind offices with covert false dealing.

“Hallo! Lucien, my boy, why here we are patched up again – new stuffing and a new cover. Where have we come from? Have we mounted the high horse once more with little offerings from Florine’s boudoir? Bravo, old chap!” and Blondet released Finot to put his arm affectionately around Lucien and press him to his heart.

Andoche Finot was the proprietor of a review on which Lucien had worked for almost nothing, and to which Blondet gave the benefit of his collaboration, of the wisdom of his suggestions and the depth of his views. Finot and Blondet embodied Bertrand and Raton, with this difference – that la Fontaine’s cat at last showed that he knew himself to be duped, while Blondet, though he knew that he was being fleeced, still did all he could for Finot. This brilliant condottiere of the pen was, in fact, long to remain a slave. Finot hid a brutal strength of will under a heavy exterior, under polish of wit, as a laborer rubs his bread with garlic. He knew how to garner what he gleaned, ideas and crown-pieces alike, in the fields of the dissolute life led by men engaged in letters or in politics.

Blondet, for his sins, had placed his powers at the service of Finot’s vices and idleness. Always at war with necessity, he was one of the race of poverty-stricken and superior men who can do everything for the fortune of others and nothing for their own, Aladdins who let other men borrow their lamp. These excellent advisers have a clear and penetrating judgment so long as it is not distracted by personal interest. In them it is the head and not the arm that acts. Hence the looseness of their morality, and hence the reproach heaped upon them by inferior minds. Blondet would share his purse with a comrade he had affronted the day before; he would dine, drink, and sleep with one whom he would demolish on the morrow. His amusing paradoxes excused everything. Accepting the whole world as a jest, he did not want to be taken seriously; young, beloved, almost famous and contented, he did not devote himself, like Finot, to acquiring the fortune an old man needs.

The most difficult form of courage, perhaps, is that which Lucien needed at this moment to get rid of Blondet as he had just got rid of Madame d’Espard and Chatelet. In him, unfortunately, the joys of vanity hindered the exercise of pride – the basis, beyond doubt, of many great things. His vanity had triumphed in the previous encounter; he had shown himself as a rich man, happy and scornful, to two persons who had scorned him when he was poor and wretched. But how could a poet, like an old diplomate, run the gauntlet with two self-styled friends, who had welcomed him in misery, under whose roof he had slept in the worst of his troubles? Finot, Blondet, and he had groveled together; they had wallowed in such orgies as consume something more than money. Like soldiers who find no market for their courage, Lucien had just done what many men do in Paris: he had still further compromised his character by shaking Finot’s hand, and not rejecting Blondet’s affection.

Every man who has dabbled, or still dabbles, in journalism is under the painful necessity of bowing to men he despises, of smiling at his dearest foe, of compounding the foulest meanness, of soiling his fingers to pay his aggressors in their own coin. He becomes used to seeing evil done, and passing it over; he begins by condoning it, and ends by committing it. In the long run the soul, constantly strained by shameful and perpetual compromise, sinks lower, the spring of noble thoughts grows rusty, the hinges of familiarity wear easy, and turn of their own accord. Alceste becomes Philinte, natures lose their firmness, talents are perverted, faith in great deeds evaporates. The man who yearned to be proud of his work wastes himself in rubbishy articles which his conscience regards, sooner or later, as so many evil actions. He started, like Lousteau or Vernou, to be a great writer; he finds himself a feeble scrivener. Hence it is impossible to honor too highly men whose character stands as high as their talent – men like d’Arthez, who know how to walk surefooted across the reefs of literary life.

Lucien could make no reply to Blondet’s flattery; his wit had an irresistible charm for him, and he maintained the hold of the corrupter over his pupil; besides, he held a position in the world through his connection with the Comtesse de Montcornet.

“Has an uncle left you a fortune?” said Finot, laughing at him.

“Like you, I have marked some fools for cutting down,” replied Lucien in the same tone.

“Then Monsieur has a review – a newspaper of his own?” Andoche Finot retorted, with the impertinent presumption of a chief to a subordinate.

“I have something better,” replied Lucien, whose vanity, nettled by the assumed superiority of his editor, restored him to the sense of his new position.

“What is that, my dear boy?”

“I have a party.”

“There is a Lucien party?” said Vernou, smiling

“Finot, the boy has left you in the lurch; I told you he would. Lucien is a clever fellow, and you never were respectful to him. You used him as a hack. Repent, blockhead!” said Blondet.

Blondet, as sharp as a needle, could detect more than one secret in Lucien’s air and manner; while stroking him down, he contrived to tighten the curb. He meant to know the reasons of Lucien’s return to Paris, his projects, and his means of living.

“On your knees to a superiority you can never attain to, albeit you are Finot!” he went on. “Admit this gentleman forthwith to be one of the great men to whom the future belongs; he is one of us! So witty and so handsome, can he fail to succeed by your quibuscumque viis? Here he stands, in his good Milan armor, his strong sword half unsheathed, and his pennon flying! – Bless me, Lucien, where did you steal that smart waistcoat? Love alone can find such stuff as that. Have you an address? At this moment I am anxious to know where my friends are domiciled; I don’t know where to sleep. Finot has turned me out of doors for the night, under the vulgar pretext of ‘a lady in the case.’”

“My boy,” said Lucien, “I put into practice a motto by which you may secure a quiet life: Fuge, late, tace. I am off.”

“But I am not off till you pay me a sacred debt – that little supper, you know, heh?” said Blondet, who was rather too much given to good cheer, and got himself treated when he was out of funds.

“What supper?” asked Lucien with a little stamp of impatience.

“You don’t remember? In that I recognize my prosperous friend; he has lost his memory.”

“He knows what he owes us; I will go bail for his good heart,” said Finot, taking up Blondet’s joke.

“Rastignac,” said Blondet, taking the young dandy by the arm as he came up the room to the column where the so-called friends were standing. “There is a supper in the wind; you will join us – unless,” he added gravely, turning to Lucien, “Monsieur persists in ignoring a debt of honor. He can.”

“Monsieur de Rubempre is incapable of such a thing; I will answer for him,” said Rastignac, who never dreamed of a practical joke.

“And there is Bixiou, he will come too,” cried Blondet; “there is no fun without him. Without him champagne cloys my tongue, and I find everything insipid, even the pepper of satire.”

“My friends,” said Bixiou, “I see you have gathered round the wonder of the day. Our dear Lucien has revived the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Just as the gods used to turn into strange vegetables and other things to seduce the ladies, he has turned the Chardon (the Thistle) into a gentleman to bewitch – whom? Charles X.! – My dear boy,” he went on, holding Lucien by his coat button, “a journalist who apes the fine gentleman deserves rough music. In their place,” said the merciless jester, as he pointed to Finot and Vernou, “I should take you up in my society paper; you would bring in a hundred francs for ten columns of fun.”

“Bixiou,” said Blondet, “an Amphitryon is sacred for twenty-four hours before a feast and twelve hours after. Our illustrious friend is giving us a supper.”

“What then!” cried Bixiou; “what is more imperative than the duty of saving a great name from oblivion, of endowing the indigent aristocracy with a man of talent? Lucien, you enjoy the esteem of the press of which you were a distinguished ornament, and we will give you our support. – Finot, a paragraph in the ‘latest items’! – Blondet, a little butter on the fourth page of your paper! – We must advertise the appearance of one of the finest books of the age, l’Archer de Charles IX.! We will appeal to Dauriat to bring out as soon as possible les Marguerites, those divine sonnets by the French Petrarch! We must carry our friend through on the shield of stamped paper by which reputations are made and unmade.”

“If you want a supper,” said Lucien to Blondet, hoping to rid himself of this mob, which threatened to increase, “it seems to me that you need not work up hyperbole and parable to attack an old friend as if he were a booby. To-morrow night at Lointier’s – ” he cried, seeing a woman come by, whom he rushed to meet.

“Oh! oh! oh!” said Bixiou on three notes, with a mocking glance, and seeming to recognize the mask to whom Lucien addressed himself. “This needs confirmation.”

He followed the handsome pair, got past them, examined them keenly, and came back, to the great satisfaction of all the envious crowd, who were eager to learn the source of Lucien’s change of fortune.

“Friends,” said Bixiou, “you have long known the goddess of the Sire de Rubempre’s fortune: She is des Lupeaulx’s former ‘rat.’”

A form of dissipation, now forgotten, but still customary at the beginning of this century, was the keeping of “rats.” The “rat” – a slang word that has become old-fashioned – was a girl of ten or twelve in the chorus of some theatre, more particularly at the opera, who was trained by young roues to vice and infamy. A “rat” was a sort of demon page, a tomboy who was forgiven a trick if it were but funny. The “rat” might take what she pleased; she was to be watched like a dangerous animal, and she brought an element of liveliness into life, like Scapin, Sganarelle, and Frontin in old-fashioned comedy. But a “rat” was too expensive; it made no return in honor, profit, or pleasure; the fashion of rats so completely went out, that in these days few people knew anything of this detail of fashionable life before the Restoration till certain writers took up the “rat” as a new subject.

“What! after having seen Coralie killed under him, Lucien means to rob us of La Torpille?” (the torpedo fish) said Blondet.

As he heard the name the brawny mask gave a significant start, which, though repressed, was understood by Rastignac.

“It is out of the question,” replied Finot; “La Torpille has not a sou to give away; Nathan tells me she borrowed a thousand francs of Florine.”

“Come, gentlemen, gentlemen!” said Rastignac, anxious to defend Lucien against so odious an imputation.

“Well,” cried Vernou, “is Coralie’s kept man likely to be so very particular?”

“Oh!” replied Bixiou, “those thousand francs prove to me that our friend Lucien lives with La Torpille – ”