Gobseck | Page 7

look just as gloomy as you did that day when the news came of
the failure of that bookseller whose sharpness you admired so much,
though you were one of his victims.'
" 'One of his victims?' he repeated, with a look of astonishment.
" 'Yes. Did you not refuse to accept composition at the meeting of
creditors until he undertook privately to pay you your debt in full; and
did he not give you bills accepted by the insolvent firm; and then, when
he set up in business again, did he not pay you the dividend upon those
bills of yours, signed as they were by the bankrupt firm?'
" 'He was a sharp one, but I had it out of him.'
" 'Then have you some bills to protest? To-day is the 30th, I believe.'
"It was the first time I had spoken to him of money. He looked
ironically up at me; then in those bland accents, not unlike the husky
tones which the tyro draws from a flute, he answered, 'I am amusing
myself.'
" 'So you amuse yourself now and again?'
" 'Do you imagine that the only poets in the world are those who print
their verses?' he asked, with a pitying look and shrug of the shoulders.
" 'Poetry in that head!' thought I, for as yet I knew nothing of his life.

" 'What life could be as glorious as mine?' he continued, and his eyes
lighted up. 'You are young, your mental visions are colored by youthful
blood, you see women's faces in the fire, while I see nothing but coals
in mine. You have all sorts of beliefs, while I have no beliefs at all.
Keep your illusions--if you can. Now I will show you life with the
discount taken off. Go wherever you like, or stay at home by the
fireside with your wife, there always comes a time when you settle
down in a certain groove, the groove is your preference; and then
happiness consists in the exercise of your faculties by applying them to
realities. Anything more in the way of precept is false. My principles
have been various, among various men; I had to change them with
every change of latitude. Things that we admire in Europe are
punishable in Asia, and a vice in Paris becomes a necessity when you
have passed the Azores. There are no such things as hard-and- fast rules;
there are only conventions adapted to the climate. Fling a man
headlong into one social melting pot after another, and convictions and
forms and moral systems become so many meaningless words to him.
The one thing that always remains, the one sure instinct that nature has
implanted in us, is the instinct of self-interest. If you had lived as long
as I have, you would know that there is but one concrete reality
invariable enough to be worth caring about, and that is--GOLD. Gold
represents every form of human power. I have traveled. I found out that
there were either hills or plains everywhere: the plains are monotonous,
the hills a weariness; consequently, place may be left out of the
question. As to manners; man is man all the world over. The same
battle between the poor and the rich is going on everywhere; it is
inevitable everywhere; consequently, it is better to exploit than to be
exploited. Everywhere you find the man of thews and sinews who toils,
and the lymphatic man who torments himself; and pleasures are
everywhere the same, for when all sensations are exhausted, all that
survives is Vanity--Vanity is the abiding substance of us, the I in us.
Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods. Our dreams need time
and physical means and painstaking thought before they can be realized.
Well, gold contains all things in embryo; gold realizes all things for us.
" 'None but fools and invalids can find pleasure in shuffling cards all
evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the end.

None but driveling idiots could spend time in inquiring into all that is
happening around them, whether Madame Such-an-One slept single on
her couch or in company, whether she has more blood than lymph,
more temperament than virtue. None but the dupes, who fondly
imagine that they are useful to their like, can interest themselves in
laying down rules for political guidance amid events which neither they
nor any one else foresees, nor ever will foresee. None but simpletons
can delight in talking about stage players and repeating their sayings;
making the daily promenade of a caged animal over a rather larger area;
dressing for others, eating for others, priding themselves on a horse or a
carriage such as no neighbor can have until three