Works of Honore De Balzac, page 204
“‘M. le Comte,’ said I, after the usual greetings, ‘I fail to see why you should need me to effect an introduction to Van Gobseck, the most civil and smooth-spoken of capitalists. Money will be forthcoming if he has any, or rather, if you can give him adequate security.’
“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘it does not enter into my thoughts to force you to do me a service, even though you have passed your word.’
“‘Sardanapalus!’ said I to myself, ‘am I going to let that fellow imagine that I will not keep my word with him?’
“‘I had the honor of telling you yesterday,’ said he, ‘that I had fallen out with Daddy Gobseck most inopportunely; and as there is scarcely another man in Paris who can come down on the nail with a hundred thousand francs, at the end of the month, I begged of you to make my peace with him. But let us say no more about it — — ’
“M. de Trailles looked at me with civil insult in his expression, and made as if he would take his leave.
“‘I am ready to go with you,’ said I.
“When we reached the Rue de Gres, my dandy looked about him with a circumspection and uneasiness that set me wondering. His face grew livid, flushed, and yellow, turn and turn about, and by the time that Gobseck’s door came in sight the perspiration stood in drops on his forehead. We were just getting out of the cabriolet, when a hackney cab turned into the street. My companion’s hawk eye detected a woman in the depths of the vehicle. His face lighted up with a gleam of almost savage joy; he called to a little boy who was passing, and gave him his horse to hold. Then we went up to the old bill discounter.
“‘M. Gobseck,’ said I, ‘I have brought one of my most intimate friends to see you (whom I trust as I would trust the Devil,’ I added for the old man’s private ear). ‘To oblige me you will do your best for him (at the ordinary rate), and pull him out of his difficulty (if it suits your convenience).’
“M. de Trailles made his bow to Gobseck, took a seat, and listened to us with a courtier-like attitude; its charming humility would have touched your heart to see, but my Gobseck sits in his chair by the fireside without moving a muscle, or changing a feature. He looked very like the statue of Voltaire under the peristyle of the Theatre-Francais, as you see it of an evening; he had partly risen as if to bow, and the skull cap that covered the top of his head, and the narrow strip of sallow forehead exhibited, completed his likeness to the man of marble.
“‘I have no money to spare except for my own clients,’ said he.
“‘So you are cross because I may have tried in other quarters to ruin myself?’ laughed the Count.
“‘Ruin yourself!’ repeated Gobseck ironically.
“‘Were you about to remark that it is impossible to ruin a man who has nothing?’ inquired the dandy. ‘Why, I defy you to find a better stock in Paris!’ he cried, swinging round on his heels.
“This half-earnest buffoonery produced not the slightest effect upon Gobseck.
“‘Am I not on intimate terms with the Ronquerolles, the Marsays, the Franchessinis, the two Vandenesses, the Ajuda-Pintos, — all the most fashionable young men in Paris, in short? A prince and an ambassador (you know them both) are my partners at play. I draw my revenues from London and Carlsbad and Baden and Bath. Is not this the most brilliant of all industries!’
“‘True.’
“‘You make a sponge of me, begad! you do. You encourage me to go and swell myself out in society, so that you can squeeze me when I am hard up; but you yourselves are sponges, just as I am, and death will give you a squeeze some day.’
“‘That is possible.’
“‘If there were no spendthrifts, what would become of you? The pair of us are like soul and body.’
“‘Precisely so.’
“‘Come, now, give us your hand, Grandaddy Gobseck, and be magnanimous if this is “true” and “possible” and “precisely so.”‘
“‘You come to me,’ the usurer answered coldly, ‘because Girard, Palma, Werbrust, and Gigonnet are full up of your paper; they are offering it at a loss of fifty per cent; and as it is likely they only gave you half the figure on the face of the bills, they are not worth five-and-twenty per cent of their supposed value. I am your most obedient! Can I in common decency lend a stiver to a man who owes thirty thousand francs, and has not one farthing?’ Gobseck continued. ‘The day before yesterday you lost ten thousand francs at a ball at the Baron de Nucingen’s.’
“‘Sir,’ said the Count, with rare impudence, ‘my affairs are no concern of yours,’ and he looked the old man up and down. ‘A man has no debts till payment is due.’
“‘True.’
“‘My bills will be duly met.’
“‘That is possible.’
“‘And at this moment the question between you and me is simply whether the security I am going to offer is sufficient for the sum I have come to borrow.’
“‘Precisely.’
“A cab stopped at the door, and the sound of wheels filled the room.
“‘I will bring something directly which perhaps will satisfy you,’ cried the young man, and he left the room.
“‘Oh! my son,’ exclaimed Gobseck, rising to his feet, and stretching out his arms to me, ‘if he has good security, you have saved my life. It would be the death of me. Werbrust and Gigonnet imagined that they were going to play off a trick on me; and now, thanks to you, I shall have a good laugh at their expense to-night.’
“There was something frightful about the old man’s ecstasy. It was the one occasion when he opened his heart to me; and that flash of joy, swift though it was, will never be effaced from my memory.
“‘Favor me so far as to stay here,’ he added. ‘I am armed, and a sure shot. I have gone tiger-hunting, and fought on the deck when there was nothing for it but to win or die; but I don’t care to trust yonder elegant scoundrel.’
“He sat down again in his armchair before his bureau, and his face grew pale and impassive as before.
“‘Ah!’ he continued, turning to me, ‘you will see that lovely creature I once told you about; I can hear a fine lady’s step in the corridor; it is she, no doubt;’ and, as a matter of fact, the young man came in with a woman on his arm. I recognized the Countess, whose levee Gobseck had described for me, one of old Goriot’s two daughters.
“The Countess did not see me at first; I stayed where I was in the window bay, with my face against the pane; but I saw her give Maxime a suspicious glance as she came into the money-lender’s damp, dark room. So beautiful she was, that in spite of her faults I felt sorry for her. There was a terrible storm of anguish in her heart; her haughty, proud features were drawn and distorted with pain which she strove in vain to disguise. The young man had come to be her evil genius. I admired Gobseck, whose perspicacity had foreseen their future four years ago at the first bill which she endorsed.
“‘Probably,’ said I to myself, ‘this monster with the angel face controls every possible spring of action in her: rules her through vanity, jealousy, pleasure, and the current of life in the world.’”
The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu broke in on the story.
“Why, the woman’s very virtues have been turned against her,” she exclaimed. “He has made her shed tears of devotion, and then abused her kindness and made her pay very dearly for unhallowed bliss.”
Derville did not understand the signs which Mme. de Grandlieu made to him.
“I confess,” he said, “that I had no inclination to shed tears over the lot of this unhappy creature, so brilliant in society, so repulsive to eyes that could read her heart; I shuddered rather at the sight of her murderer, a young angel with such a clear brow, such red lips and white teeth, such a winning smile. There they stood before their judge, he scrutinizing them much as some fifteenth-century Dominican inquisitor might have peered into the dungeons of the Holy Office while the torture was administered to two Moors.
“The Countess spoke tremulously. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘is there any way of obtaining the value of these diamonds, and of keeping the right of repurchase?’ She held out a jewel-case.
“‘Yes, madame,’ I put in, and came forwards.
“She looked at me, and a shudder ran through her as she recognized me, and gave me the glance which means, ‘Say nothing of this,’ all the world over.
“‘This,’ said I, ‘constitutes a sale with faculty of redemption, as it is called, a formal agreement to transfer and deliver over a piece of property, either real estate or personalty, for a given time, on the expiry of which the previous owner recovers his title to the property in question, upon payment of a stipulated sum.’
“She breathed more freely. The Count looked black; he had grave doubts whether Gobseck would lend very much on the diamonds after such a fall in their value. Gobseck, impassive as ever, had taken up his magnifying glass, and was quietly scrutinizing the jewels. If I were to live for a hundred years, I should never forget the sight of his face at that moment. There was a flush in his pale cheeks; his eyes seemed to have caught the sparkle of the stones, for there was an unnatural glitter in them. He rose and went to the light, holding the diamonds close to his toothless mouth, as if he meant to devour them; mumbling vague words over them, holding up bracelets, sprays, necklaces, and tiaras one after another, to judge their water, whiteness, and cutting; taking them out of the jewel-case and putting them in again, letting the play of the light bring out all their fires. He was more like a child than an old man; or, rather, childhood and dotage seemed to meet in him.
“‘Fine stones! The set would have fetched three hundred thousand francs before the Revolution. What water! Genuine Asiatic diamonds from Golconda or Visapur. Do you know what they are worth? No, no; no one in Paris but Gobseck can appreciate them. In the time of the Empire such a set would have cost another two hundred thousand francs!’
“He gave a disgusted shrug, and added:
“‘But now diamonds are going down in value every day. The Brazilians have swamped the market with them since the Peace; but the Indian stones are a better color. Others wear them now besides court ladies. Does madame go to court?’
“While he flung out these terrible words, he examined one stone after another with delight which no words can describe.
“‘Flawless!’ he said. ‘Here is a speck!... here is a flaw!... A fine stone that!’
“His haggard face was so lighted up by the sparkling jewels, that it put me in mind of a dingy old mirror, such as you see in country inns. The glass receives every luminous image without reflecting the light, and a traveler bold enough to look for his face in it beholds a man in an apoplectic fit.
“‘Well?’ asked the Count, clapping Gobseck on the shoulder.
“The old boy trembled. He put down his playthings on his bureau, took his seat, and was a money-lender once more — hard, cold, and polished as a marble column.
“‘How much do you want?’
“‘One hundred thousand francs for three years,’ said the Count.
“‘That is possible,’ said Gobseck, and then from a mahogany box (Gobseck’s jewel-case) he drew out a faultlessly adjusted pair of scales!
“He weighed the diamonds, calculating the value of stones and setting at sight (Heaven knows how!), delight and severity struggling in the expression of his face the meanwhile. The Countess had plunged in a kind of stupor; to me, watching her, it seemed that she was fathoming the depths of the abyss into which she had fallen. There was remorse still left in that woman’s soul. Perhaps a hand held out in human charity might save her. I would try.
“‘Are the diamonds your personal property, madame?’ I asked in a clear voice.
“‘Yes, monsieur,’ she said, looking at me with proud eyes.
“‘Make out the deed of purchase with power of redemption, chatterbox,’ said Gobseck to me, resigning his chair at the bureau in my favor.
“‘Madame is without doubt a married woman?’ I tried again.
“She nodded abruptly.
“‘Then I will not draw up the deed,’ said I.
“‘And why not?’ asked Gobseck.
“‘Why not?’ echoed I, as I drew the old man into the bay window so as to speak aside with him. ‘Why not? This woman is under her husband’s control; the agreement would be void in law; you could not possibly assert your ignorance of a fact recorded on the very face of the document itself. You would be compelled at once to produce the diamonds deposited with you, according to the weight, value, and cutting therein described.’
“Gobseck cut me short with a nod, and turned towards the guilty couple.
“‘He is right!’ he said. ‘That puts the whole thing in a different light. Eighty thousand francs down, and you leave the diamonds with me,’ he added, in the husky, flute-like voice. ‘In the way of property, possession is as good as a title.’
“‘But — — ’ objected the young man.
“‘You can take it or leave it,’ continued Gobseck, returning the jewel-case to the lady as he spoke.
“‘I have too many risks to run.’
“‘It would be better to throw yourself at your husband’s feet,’ I bent to whisper in her ear.
“The usurer doubtless knew what I was saying from the movement of my lips. He gave me a cool glance. The Count’s face grew livid. The Countess was visibly wavering. Maxime stepped up to her, and, low as he spoke, I could catch the words:
“‘Adieu, dear Anastasie, may you be happy! As for me, by to-morrow my troubles will be over.’
“‘Sir!’ cried the lady, turning to Gobseck. ‘I accept your offer.’
“‘Come, now,’ returned Gobseck. ‘You have been a long time in coming to it, my fair lady.’
“He wrote out a cheque for fifty thousand francs on the Bank of France, and handed it to the Countess.
“‘Now,’ continued he with a smile, such a smile as you will see in portraits of M. Voltaire, ‘now I will give you the rest of the amount in bills, thirty thousand francs’ worth of paper as good as bullion. This gentleman here has just said, “My bills will be met when they are due,”‘ added he, producing certain drafts bearing the Count’s signature, all protested the day before at the request of some of the confraternity, who had probably made them over to him (Gobseck) at a considerably reduced figure.
“The young man growled out something, in which the words ‘Old scoundrel!’ were audible. Daddy Gobseck did not move an eyebrow. He drew a pair of pistols out of a pigeon-hole, remarking coolly:
“‘As the insulted man, I fire first.’
“‘Maxime, you owe this gentleman an explanation,’ cried the trembling Countess in a low voice.
“‘I had no intention of giving offence,’ stammered Maxime.
“‘I am quite sure of that,’ Gobseck answered calmly; ‘you had no intention of meeting your bills, that was all.’
“The Countess rose, bowed, and vanished, with a great dread gnawing her, I doubt not. M. de Trailles was bound to follow, but before he went he managed to say:
“‘If either of you gentlemen should forget himself, I will have his blood, or he will have mine.’
“‘Amen!’ called Daddy Gobseck as he put his pistols back in their place; ‘but a man must have blood in his veins though before he can risk it, my son, and you have nothing but mud in yours.’
“When the door was closed, and the two vehicles had gone, Gobseck rose to his feet and began to prance about.
“‘I have the diamonds! I have the diamonds!’ he cried again and again, ‘the beautiful diamonds! such diamonds! and tolerably cheaply. Aha! aha! Werbrust and Gigonnet, you thought you had old Papa Gobseck! Ego sum papa! I am master of the lot of you! Paid! paid, principal and interest! How silly they will look to-night when I shall come out with this story between two games of dominoes!’
“The dark glee, the savage ferocity aroused by the possession of a few water-white pebbles, set me shuddering. I was dumb with amazement.
“‘Aha! There you are, my boy!’ said he. ‘We will dine together. We will have some fun at your place, for I haven’t a home of my own, and these restaurants, with their broths, and sauces, and wines, would poison the Devil himself.’
“Something in my face suddenly brought back the usual cold, impassive expression to his.
“‘You don’t understand it,’ he said, and sitting down by the hearth, he put a tin saucepan full of milk on the brazier. — ’Will you breakfast with me?’ continued he. ‘Perhaps there will be enough here for two.’
“‘Thanks,’ said I, ‘I do not breakfast till noon.’
“I had scarcely spoken before hurried footsteps sounded from the passage. The stranger stopped at Gobseck’s door and rapped; there was that in the knock which suggested a man transported with rage. Gobseck reconnoitred him through the grating; then he opened the door, and in came a man of thirty-five or so, judged harmless apparently in spite of his anger. The newcomer, who was quite plainly dressed, bore a strong resemblance to the late Duc de Richelieu. You must often have met him, he was the Countess’ husband, a man with the aristocratic figure (permit the expression to pass) peculiar to statesmen of your faubourg.
“‘Sir,’ said this person, addressing himself to Gobseck, who had quite recovered his tranquillity, ‘did my wife go out of this house just now?’
“‘That is possible.’
