"And unmakes ministries," added Madame de Manerville.

The countess was silent; she wanted to answer with a sharp repartee;
her heart was bounding with anger, but she could find nothing better

to say than,--
"He will make them, perhaps."

All the women looked at each other with mysterioussignificance. When
Marie de Vandenesse departed Moina de Saint-Heren exclaimed:--

"She adores him."
"And she makes no secret of it," said Madame d'Espard.

CHAPTER VII
SUICIDE

In the month of May Vandenesse took his wife, as usual, to their
country-seat, where she was consoled by the passionate" target="_blank" title="a.易动情的；易怒的">passionate letters she

received from Raoul, to whom she wrote every day.
Marie's absence might have saved Raoul from the gulf into which he was

falling, if Florine had been near him; but, unfortunately, he was
alone in the midst of friends who had become his enemies from the

moment that he showed his intention of ruling them. His staff of
writers hated him "pro tem.," ready to hold out a hand to him and

console him in case of a fall, ready to adore him in case of success.
So goes the world of literature. No one is really liked but an

inferior. Every man's hand is against him who is likely to rise. This
wide-spread envy doubles the chances of common minds who excite

neither envy nor suspicion, who make their way like moles, and, fools
though they be, find themselves gazetted in the "Moniteur," for three

or four places, while men of talent are still struggling at the door
to keep each other out.

The underhand enmity of these pretended friends, which Florine would
have scented with the innate faculty of a courtesan to get at truth

amid a thousand misleading circumstances, was by no means Raoul's
greatest danger. His partners, Massol the lawyer, and du Tillet the

banker, had intended from the first to harness his ardor to the
chariot of their own importance and get rid of him as soon as he was

out of condition to feed the paper, or else to deprive him of his
power, arbitrarily, whenever it suited their purpose to take it. To

them Nathan represented a certain amount of talent to use up, a
literary force of the motive power of ten pens to employ. Massol, one

of those lawyers who mistake the faculty of endless speech for
eloquence, who possess the art of boring by diffusiveness, the torment

of all meetings and assemblies where they belittle everything, and who
desire to become personages at any cost,--Massol no longer wanted the

place as Keeper of the Seals; he had seen some five or six different
men go through that office in four years, and the robes disgusted him.

In exchange, his mind was now set on obtaining a chair on the Board of
Education and a place in the Council of State; the whole adorned with

the cross of the Legion of honor. Du Tillet and Nucingen had
guaranteed the cross to him, and the office of Master of Petitions

provided he obeyed them blindly.
The better to deceive Raoul, these men allowed him to manage the paper

without control. Du Tillet used it only for his stock-gambling, about
which Nathan understood next to nothing; but he had given, through

Nucingen, an assurance to Rastignac that the paper would be tacitly
obliging to the government on the sole condition of supporting his

candidacy for Monsieur de Nucingen's place as soon as he was nominated
peer of France. Raoul was thus being undermined by the banker and the

lawyer, who saw him with much satisfaction lording it in the
newspaper, profiting by all advantages, and harvesting the fruits of

self-love, while Nathan, enchanted, believed them to be, as on the
occasion of his equestrian wants, the best fellows in the world. He

thought he managed them! Men of imagination, to whom hope is the basis
of existence, never allow themselves to know that the most perilous

moment in their affairs is that when all seems going well according to
their wishes.

This was a period of triumph by which Nathan profited. He appeared as
a personage in the world, political and financial. Du Tillet presented

him to the Nucingens. Madame de Nucingen received him cordially, less
for himself than for Madame de Vandenesse; but when she ventured a few

words about the countess he thought himself marvellously clever in
using Florine as a shield; he alluded to his relations with the

actress in a tone of generous self-conceit. How could he desert a
great devotion, for the coquetries of the faubourg Saint-Germain?

Nathan, manipulated by Nucingen and Rastignac, by du Tillet and
Blondet, gave his support ostentatiously to the "doctrinaires" of

their new and ephemeral cabinet. But in order to show himself pure of
all bribery he refused to take advantage of certain profitable

enterprises which were started by means of his paper,--he! who had no
reluctance in compromising friends or in behaving with little decency

to mechanics under certain circumstances. Such meannesses, the result
of vanity and of ambition, are found in many lives like his. The

mantle must be splendid before the eyes of the world, and we steal our
friend's or a poor man's cloth to patch it.

Nevertheless, two months after the departure of the countess, Raoul
had a certain Rabelaisian "quart d'heure" which caused him some

anxiety in the midst of these triumphs. Du Tillet had advanced a
hundred thousand francs, Florine's money had gone in the costs of the

first establishment of the paper, which were enormous. It was
necessary to provide for the future. The banker agreed to let the

editor have fifty thousand francs on notes for four months. Du Tillet
thus held Raoul by the halter of an IOU. By means of this relief the

funds of the paper were secured for six months. In the eyes of some
writers six months is an eternity. Besides, by dint of advertising and

by offering illusory advantages to subscribers two thousand had been
secured; an influx of travellers added to this semi-success, which was

enough, perhaps, to excuse the throwing of more bank-bills after the
rest. A little more display of talent, a timely political trial or

crisis, an apparentpersecution, and Raoul felt certain of becoming
one of those modern "condottieri" whose ink is worth more than powder

and shot of the olden time.
This loan from du Tillet was already made when Florine returned with

fifty thousand francs. Instead of creating a savings fund with that
sum, Raoul, certain of success (simply because he felt it was

necessary), and already humiliated at having accepted the actress's
money, deceived Florine as to his actual position, and persuaded her

to employ the money in refurnishing her house. The actress, who did
not need persuasion, not only spent the sum in hand, but she burdened

herself with a debt of thirty thousand francs, with which she obtained
a charming little house all to herself in the rue Pigale, whither her

old society resorted. Raoul had reserved the production of his great
piece, in which was a part especially suited to Florine, until her

return. This comedy-vaudeville was to be Raoul's farewell to the
stage. The newspapers, with that good nature which costs nothing,

prepared the way for such an ovation to Florine that even the Theatre-
Francais talked of engaging her. The feuilletons proclaimed her the

heiress of Mars.
This triumph was sufficiently dazzling to prevent Florine from

carefully studying the ground on which Nathan was advancing; she
lived, for the time being, in a round of festivities and glory.

According to those about her, he was now a great political character;
he was justified in his enterprise; he would certainly be a deputy,

probably a minister in course of time, like so many others. As for
Nathan himself, he firmly believed that in the next session of the

Chamber he should find himself in government with two other
journalists, one of whom, already a minister, was anxious to associate

some of his own craft with himself, and so consolidate his power.
After a separation of six months, Nathan met Florine again with

pleasure, and returned easily to his old way of life. All his comforts
came from the actress, but he embroidered the heavy tissue of his life

with the flowers of ideal passion; his letters to Marie were
masterpieces of grace and style. Nathan made her the light of his

life; he undertook nothing without consulting his "guardian angel." In
despair at being on the popular side, he talked of going over to that

of the aristocracy; but, in spite of his habitual agility, even he saw
the absoluteimpossibility of such a jump; it was easier to become a