de Chaulieu has just had dreadful news; her son-in-law, the Baron de Macumer, ex-duke of Soria, is just dead. The young Duc de Soria and his wife, who had gone to Chantepleurs to nurse their brother, have written this sad intelligence. Louise is heart-broken.”
“A women is not loved twice in her life as Louise was loved by her husband,” said Madeleine de Mortsauf.
“She will be a rich widow,” observed the old Duchesse d’Uxelles, looking at Lucien, whose face showed no change of expression.
“Poor Louise!” said Madame d’Espard. “I understand her and pity her.”
The Marquise d’Espard put on the pensive look of a woman full of soul and feeling. Sabine de Grandlieu, who was but ten years old, raised knowing eyes to her mother’s face, but the satirical glance was repressed by a glance from the Duchess. This is bringing children up properly.
“If my daughter lives through the shock,” said Madame de Chaulieu, with a very maternal manner, “I shall be anxious about her future life. Louise is so very romantic.”
“It is so difficult nowadays,” said a venerable Cardinal, “to reconcile feeling with the proprieties.”
Lucien, who had not a word to say, went to the tea-table to do what was polite to the demoiselles de Grandlieu. When the poet had gone a few yards away, the Marquise d’Espard leaned over to whisper in the Duchess’ ear:
“And do you really think that that young fellow is so much in love with your Clotilde?”
The perfidy of this question cannot be fully understood but with the help of a sketch of Clotilde. That young lady was, at this moment, standing up. Her attitude allowed the Marquise d’Espard’s mocking eye to take in Clotilde’s lean, narrow figure, exactly like an asparagus stalk; the poor girl’s bust was so flat that it did not allow of the artifice known to dressmakers as fichus menteurs, or padded habitshirts. And Clotilde, who knew that her name was a sufficient advantage in life, far from trying to conceal this defect, heroically made a display of it. By wearing plain, tight dresses she achieved the effect of that stiff prim shape which medieval sculptors succeeded in giving to the statuettes whose profiles are conspicuous against the background of the niches in which they stand in cathedrals.
Clotilde was more than five feet four in height; if we may be allowed to use a familiar phrase, which has the merit at any rate of being perfectly intelligible – she was all legs. These defective proportions gave her figure an almost deformed appearance. With a dark complexion, harsh black hair, very thick eyebrows, fiery eyes, set in sockets that were already deeply discolored, a side face shaped like the moon in its first quarter, and a prominent brow, she was the caricature of her mother, one of the handsomest women in Portugal. Nature amuses herself with such tricks. Often we see in one family a sister of wonderful beauty, whose features in her brother are absolutely hideous, though the two are amazingly alike. Clotilde’s lips, excessively thin and sunken, wore a permanent expression of disdain. And yet her mouth, better than any other feature of her face, revealed every secret impulse of her heart, for affection lent it a sweet expression, which was all the more remarkable because her cheeks were too sallow for blushes, and her hard, black eyes never told anything. Notwithstanding these defects, notwithstanding her board-like carriage, she had by birth and education a grand air, a proud demeanor, in short, everything that has been well named le je ne sais quoi, due partly, perhaps, to her uncompromising simplicity of dress, which stamped her as a woman of noble blood. She dressed her hair to advantage, and it might be accounted to her for a beauty, for it grew vigorously, thick and long.
She had cultivated her voice, and it could cast a spell; she sang exquisitely. Clotilde was just the woman of whom one says, “She has fine eyes,” or, “She has a delightful temper.” If any one addressed her in the English fashion as “Your Grace,” she would say, “You mean ‘Your leanness.’”
“Why should not my poor Clotilde have a lover?” replied the Duchess to the Marquise. “Do you know what she said to me yesterday? ‘If I am loved for ambition’s sake, I undertake to make him love me for my own sake.’ – She is clever and ambitious, and there are men who like those two qualities. As for him – my dear, he is as handsome as a vision; and if he can but repurchase the Rubempre estates, out of regard for us the King will reinstate him in the title of Marquis. – After all, his mother was the last of the Rubempres.”
“Poor fellow! where is he to find a million francs?” said the Marquise.
“That is no concern of ours,” replied the Duchess. “He is certainly incapable of stealing the money. – Besides, we would never give Clotilde to an intriguing or dishonest man even if he were handsome, young, and a poet, like Monsieur de Rubempre.”
“You are late this evening,” said Clotilde, smiling at Lucien with infinite graciousness.
“Yes, I have been dining out.”
“You have been quite gay these last few days,” said she, concealing her jealousy and anxiety behind a smile.
“Quite gay?” replied Lucien. “No – only by the merest chance I have been dining every day this week with bankers; to-day with the Nucingens, yesterday with du Tillet, the day before with the Kellers – ”
Whence, it may be seen, that Lucien had succeeded in assuming the tone of light impertinence of great people.
“You have many enemies,” said Clotilde, offering him – how graciously! – a cup of tea. “Some one told my father that you have debts to the amount of sixty thousand francs, and that before long Sainte-Pelagie will be your summer quarters. – If you could know what all these calumnies are to me! – It all recoils on me. – I say nothing of my own suffering – my father has a way of looking that crucifies me – but of what you must be suffering if any least part of it should be the truth.”
“Do not let such nonsense worry you; love me as I love you, and give me time – a few months – ” said Lucien, replacing his empty cup on the silver tray.
“Do not let my father see you; he would say something disagreeable; and as you could not submit to that, we should be done for. – That odious Marquise d’Espard told him that your mother had been a monthly nurse and that your sister did ironing – ”
“We were in the most abject poverty,” replied Lucien, the tears rising to his eyes. “That is not calumny, but it is most ill-natured gossip. My sister now is a more than millionaire, and my mother has been dead two years. – This information has been kept in stock to use just when I should be on the verge of success here – ”
“But what have you done to Madame d’Espard?”
“I was so rash, at Madame de Serizy’s, as to tell the story, with some added pleasantries, in the presence of MM. de Bauvan and de Granville, of her attempt to get a commission of lunacy appointed to sit on her husband, the Marquis d’Espard. Bianchon had told it to me. Monsieur de Granville’s opinion, supported by those of Bauvan and Serizy, influenced the decision of the Keeper of the Seals. They all were afraid of the Gazette des Tribunaux, and dreaded the scandal, and the Marquise got her knuckles rapped in the summing up for the judgment finally recorded in that miserable business.
“Though M. de Serizy by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their information to be guessed at. The Marquis d’Espard was so clumsy as to call upon me, regarding me as the first cause of his winning the day in that atrocious suit.”
“I
