Father Goriot HonorĂ© de Balzac (love books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Honoré de Balzac
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Vautrin went out. He would not wait to hear the studentâs repudiation, he wished to put EugĂšne at his ease. He seemed to understand the secret springs of the faint resistance still made by the younger man; the struggles in which men seek to preserve their self-respect by justifying their blameworthy actions to themselves.
âHe may do as he likes; I shall not marry Mlle. Taillefer, that is certain,â said EugĂšne to himself.
He regarded this man with abhorrence, and yet the very cynicism of Vautrinâs ideas, and the audacious way in which he used other men for his own ends, raised him in the studentâs eyes; but the thought of a compact threw EugĂšne into a fever of apprehension, and not until he had recovered somewhat did he dress, call for a cab, and go to Mme. de Restaudâs.
For some days the Countess had paid more and more attention to a young man whose every step seemed a triumphal progress in the great world; it seemed to her that he might be a formidable power before long. He paid Messieurs de Trailles and dâAjuda, played at whist for part of the evening, and made good his losses. Most men who have their way to make are more or less of fatalists, and EugĂšne was superstitious; he chose to consider that his luck was heavenâs reward for his perseverance in the right way. As soon as possible on the following morning he asked Vautrin whether the bill he had given was still in the otherâs possession; and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, he repaid the three thousand francs with a not unnatural relief.
âEverything is going on well,â said Vautrin.
âBut I am not your accomplice,â said EugĂšne.
âI know, I know,â Vautrin broke in. âYou are still acting like a child. You are making mountains out of molehills at the outset.â
Two days later, Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau were sitting together on a bench in the sun. They had chosen a little frequented alley in the Jardin des Plantes, and a gentleman was chatting with them, the same person, as a matter of fact, about whom the medical student had, not without good reason, his own suspicions.
âMademoiselle,â this M. Gondureau was saying, âI do not see any cause for your scruples. His Excellency, Monseigneur the Minister of Policeâ ââ
âAh!â echoed Poiret, âHis Excellency Monseigneur the Minister of Police!â
âYes, his Excellency is taking a personal interest in the matter,â said Gondureau.
Who would think it probable that Poiret, a retired clerk, doubtless possessed of some notions of civic virtue, though there might be nothing else in his headâ âwho would think it likely that such a man would continue to lend an ear to this supposed independent gentleman of the Rue de Buffon, when the latter dropped the mask of a decent citizen by that word âpolice,â and gave a glimpse of the features of a detective from the Rue de Jerusalem? And yet nothing was more natural. Perhaps the following remarks from the hitherto unpublished records made by certain observers will throw a light on the particular species to which Poiret belonged in the great family of fools. There is a race of quill-drivers, confined in the columns of the budget between the first degree of latitude (a kind of administrative Greenland where the salaries begin at twelve hundred francs) to the third degree, a more temperate zone, where incomes grow from three to six thousand francs, a climate where the bonus flourishes like a half-hardy annual in spite of some difficulties of culture. A characteristic trait that best reveals the feeble narrow-mindedness of these inhabitants of petty officialdom is a kind of involuntary, mechanical, and instinctive reverence for the Grand Lama of every Ministry, known to the rank and file only by his signature (an illegible scrawl) and by his titleâ ââHis Excellency Monseigneur le Ministre,â five words which produce as much effect as the âil Bondo Caniâ or the âCalife de Bagdad,â five words which in the eyes of this low order of intelligence represent a sacred power from which there is no appeal. The Minister is administratively infallible for the clerks in the employ of the Government, as the Pope is infallible for good Catholics. Something of this peculiar radiance invests everything he does or says, or that is said or done in his name; the robe of office covers everything and legalizes everything done by his orders; does not his very titleâ âHis Excellencyâ âvouch for the purity of his intentions and the righteousness of his will, and serve as a sort of passport and introduction to ideas that otherwise would not be entertained for a moment? Pronounce the words âHis Excellency,â and these poor folk will forthwith proceed to do what they would not do for their own interests.
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