The Firm of Nucingen | Page 4

to respect; quick-witted as a soubrette,
unable to refuse his pen to any one that asked, or his heart to the first
that would borrow it, Emile was the most fascinating of those
light-of-loves of whom a fantastic modern wit declared that "he liked
them better in satin slippers than in boots."
The third in the party, Couture by name, lived by speculation, grafting
one affair upon another to make the gains pay for the losses. He was
always between wind and water, keeping himself afloat by his bold,
sudden strokes and the nervous energy of his play. Hither and thither he
would swim over the vast sea of interests in Paris, in quest of some
little isle that should be so far a debatable land that he might abide upon
it. Clearly Couture was not in his proper place.
As for the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be
enough--it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou
of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of
his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw
how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by
the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the
last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at the
Funambules. Bixiou had the whole history of his own times at his
finger-ends, more particularly its scandalous chronicle, embellished by
added waggeries of his own. He sprang like a clown upon everybody's

back, only to do his utmost to leave the executioner's brand upon every
pair of shoulders.
The first cravings of gluttony satisfied, our neighbors reached the stage
at which we also had arrived, to wit, the dessert; and, as we made no
sign, they believed that they were alone. Thanks to the champagne, the
talk grew confidential as they dallied with the dessert amid the cigar
smoke. Yet through it all you felt the influence of the icy esprit that
leaves the most spontaneous feeling frost-bound and stiff, that checks
the most generous inspirations, and gives a sharp ring to the laughter.
Their table-talk was full of bitter irony which turns a jest into a sneer; it
told of the exhaustion of souls given over to themselves; of lives with
no end in view but the satisfaction of self--of egoism induced by these
times of peace in which we live. I can think of nothing like it save a
pamphlet against mankind at large which Diderot was afraid to publish,
a book that bares man's breast simply to expose the plague-sores upon
it. We listened to just such a pamphlet as Rameau's Nephew, spoken
aloud in all good faith, in the course of after-dinner talk in which
nothing, not even the point which the speaker wished to carry, was
sacred from epigram; nothing taken for granted, nothing built up except
on ruins, nothing reverenced save the sceptic's adopted article of
belief--the omnipotence, omniscience, and universal applicability of
money.
After some target practice at the outer circle of their acquaintances,
they turned their ill-natured shafts at their intimate friends. With a sign
I explained my wish to stay and listen as soon as Bixiou took up his
parable, as will shortly be seen. And so we listened to one of those
terrific improvisations which won that artist such a name among a
certain set of seared and jaded spirits; and often interrupted and
resumed though it was, memory serves me as a reporter of it. The
opinions expressed and the form of expression lie alike outside the
conditions of literature. It was, more properly speaking, a medley of
sinister revelations that paint our age, to which indeed no other kind of
story should be told; and, besides, I throw all the responsibility upon
the principal speaker. The pantomime and the gestures that
accompanied Bixiou's changes of voice, as he acted the parts of the
various persons, must have been perfect, judging by the applause and
admiring comments that broke from his audience of three.

"Then did Rastignac refuse?" asked Blondet, apparently addressing
Finot.
"Point-blank."
"But did you threaten him with the newspapers?" asked Bixiou.
"He began to laugh," returned Finot.
"Rastignac is the late lamented de Marsay's direct heir; he will make
his way politically as well as socially," commented Blondet.
"But how did he make his money?" asked Couture. "In 1819 both he
and the illustrious Bianchon lived in a shabby boarding-house in the
Latin Quarter; his people ate roast cockchafers and their own wine so
as to send him a hundred francs every month. His father's property was
not worth a thousand crowns; he had two sisters and a brother on his
hands, and now----"
"Now he has an