Scenes from a Courtesans Life | Page 7

her advertisements,

and Bixiou her repartees! The aristocracy would have come to enjoy
themselves with our Ninon, where we would have got artists together,
under pain of death by newspaper articles. Ninon the second would
have been magnificently impertinent, overwhelming in luxury. She
would have set up opinions. Some prohibited dramatic masterpiece
should have been read in her drawing-room; it should have been written
on purpose if necessary. She would not have been liberal; a courtesan is
essentially monarchical. Oh, what a loss! She ought to have embraced
her whole century, and she makes love with a little young man! Lucien
will make a sort of hunting-dog of her."
"None of the female powers of whom you speak ever trudged the
streets," said Finot, "and that pretty little 'rat' has rolled in the mire."
"Like a lily-seed in the soil," replied Vernou, "and she has improved in
it and flowered. Hence her superiority. Must we not have known
everything to be able to create the laughter and joy which are part of
everything?"
"He is right," said Lousteau, who had hitherto listened without
speaking; "La Torpille can laugh and make others laugh. That gift of all
great writers and great actors is proper to those who have investigated
every social deep. At eighteen that girl had already known the greatest
wealth, the most squalid misery--men of every degree. She bears about
her a sort of magic wand by which she lets loose the brutal appetites so
vehemently suppressed in men who still have a heart while occupied
with politics or science, literature or art. There is not in Paris another
woman who can say to the beast as she does: 'Come out!' And the beast
leaves his lair and wallows in excesses. She feeds you up to the chin,
she helps you to drink and smoke. In short, this woman is the salt of
which Rabelais writes, which, thrown on matter, animates it and
elevates it to the marvelous realms of art; her robe displays unimagined
splendor, her fingers drop gems as her lips shed smiles; she gives the
spirit of the occasion to every little thing; her chatter twinkles with
bright sayings, she has the secret of the quaintest onomatopoeia, full of
color, and giving color; she----"
"You are wasting five francs' worth of copy," said Bixiou, interrupting

Lousteau. "La Torpille is something far better than all that; you have all
been in love with her more or less, not one of you can say that she ever
was his mistress. She can always command you; you will never
command her. You may force your way in and ask her to do you a
service----"
"Oh, she is more generous than a brigand chief who knows his business,
and more devoted than the best of school-fellows," said Blondet. "You
may trust her with your purse or your secrets. But what made me
choose her as queen is her Bourbon-like indifference for a fallen
favorite."
"She, like her mother, is much too dear," said des Lupeaulx. "The
handsome Dutch woman would have swallowed up the income of the
Archbishop of Toledo; she ate two notaries out of house and home----"
"And kept Maxime de Trailles when he was a court page," said Bixiou.
"La Torpille is too dear, as Raphael was, or Careme, or Taglioni, or
Lawrence, or Boule, or any artist of genius is too dear," said Blondet.
"Esther never looked so thoroughly a lady," said Rastignac, pointing to
the masked figure to whom Lucien had given his arm. "I will bet on its
being Madame de Serizy."
"Not a doubt of it," cried du Chatelet, "and Monsieur du Rubempre's
fortune is accounted for."
"Ah, the Church knows how to choose its Levites; what a sweet
ambassador's secretary he will make!" remarked des Lupeaulx.
"All the more so," Rastignac went on, "because Lucien is a really
clever fellow. These gentlemen have had proof of it more than once,"
and he turned to Blondet, Finot, and Lousteau.
"Yes, the boy is cut out of the right stuff to get on," said Lousteau, who
was dying of jealousy. "And particularly because he has what we call
independent ideas . . ."

"It is you who trained him," said Vernou.
"Well," replied Bixiou, looking at des Lupeaulx, "I trust to the memory
of Monsieur the Secretary-General and Master of Appeals--that mask is
La Torpille, and I will stand a supper on it."
"I will hold the stakes," said du Chatelet, curious to know the truth.
"Come, des Lupeaulx," said Finot, "try to identify your rat's ears."
"There is no need for committing the crime of treason against a mask,"
replied Bixiou. "La Torpille and Lucien must pass us as they go up the
room again, and I pledge myself to prove that it is she."