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Father Goriot-Part19_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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"Feel your pulse. Think whether you can get up morning after

morning, strengthened in yesterday's purpose. In that case I will



make you an offer that no one would decline. Listen attentively.

You see, I have an idea of my own. My idea is to live a



patriarchal life on a vast estate, say a hundred thousand acres,

somewhere in the Southern States of America. I mean to be a



planter, to have slaves, to make a few snug millions by selling

my cattle, timber, and tobacco; I want to live an absolute



monarch, and to do just as I please; to lead such a life as no

one here in these squalid dens of lath and plaster ever imagines.



I am a great poet; I do not write my poems, I feel them, and act

them. At this moment I have fifty thousand francs, which might



possibly buy forty negroes. I want two hundred thousand francs,

because I want to have two hundred negroes to carry out my



notions of the patriarachal life properly. Negroes, you see, are

like a sort of family ready grown, and there are no inquisitive



public prosecutors out there to interfere with you. That

investment in ebony ought to mean three or four million francs



in ten years' time. If I am successful, no one will ask me who I

am. I shall be Mr. Four Millions, an American citizen. I shall be



fifty years old by then, and sound and hearty still; I shall

enjoy life after my own fashion. In two words, if I find you an



heiress with a million, will you give me two hundred thousand

francs? Twenty per cent commission, eh? Is that too much? Your



little wife will be very much in love with you. Once married, you

will show signs of uneasiness and remorse; for a couple of weeks



you will be depressed. Then, some night after sundry grimacings,

comes the confession, between two kisses, 'Two hundred thousand



francs of debts, my darling!' This sort of farce is played every

day in Paris, and by young men of the highest fashion. When a



young wife has given her heart, she will not refuse her purse.

Perhaps you are thinking that you will lose the money for good?



Not you. You will make two hundred thousand francs again by some

stroke of business. With your capital and your brains you should



be able to accumulate as large a fortune as you could wish. ERGO,

in six months you will have made your own fortune, and our old



friend Vautrin's, and made an amiable woman very happy, to say

nothing of your people at home, who must blow on their fingers to



warm them, in the winter, for lack of firewood. You need not be

surprised at my proposal, nor at the demand I make. Forty-seven



out of every sixty great matches here in Paris are made after

just such a bargain as this. The Chamber of Notaries compels my



gentleman to----"

"What must I do?" said Rastignac, eagerly interrupting Vautrin's



speech.

"Next to nothing," returned the other, with a slight involuntary



movement, the suppressed exultation of the angler when he feels a

bite at the end of his line. "Follow me carefully! The heart of a



girl whose life is wretched and unhappy is a sponge that will

thirstily absorb love; a dry sponge that swells at the first drop



of sentiment. If you pay court to a young girl whose existence is

a compound of loneliness, despair, and poverty, and who has no



suspicion that she will come into a fortune, good Lord! it is

quint and quatorze at piquet; it is knowing the numbers of the



lottery before-hand; it is speculating in the funds when you have

news from a sure source; it is building up a marriage on an



indestructible foundation. The girl may come in for millions, and

she will fling them, as if they were so many pebbles, at your



feet. 'Take it, my beloved! Take it, Alfred, Adolphe, Eugene!' or

whoever it was that showed his sense by sacrificing himself for



her. And as for sacrificing himself, this is how I understand it.

You sell a coat that is getting shabby, so that you can take her



to the Cadran bleu, treat her to mushrooms on toast, and then go

to the Ambigu-Comique in the evening; you pawn your watch to buy



her a shawl. I need not remind you of the fiddle-faddle

sentimentality that goes down so well with all women; you spill a



few drops of water on your stationery, for instance; those are

the tears you shed while far away from her. You look to me as if



you were perfectly acquainted with the argot of the heart. Paris,

you see, is like a forest in the New World, where you have to






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