第48章 A WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART(24)

"There was a craze just then for praising a play at a little Boulevard theatre, prompted perhaps by a wish to appear original that besets us all, or due to some freak of fashion. The countess showed some signs of a wish to see the floured face of the actor who had so delighted several people of taste, and I obtained the honor of taking her to a first presentation of some wretched farce or other. A box scarcely cost five francs, but I had not a brass farthing. I was but half-way through the volume of Memoirs; I dared not beg for assistance of Finot, and Rastignac, my providence, was away. These constant perplexities were the bane of my life.

"We had once come out of the theatre when it was raining heavily, Foedora had called a cab for me before I could escape from her show of concern; she would not admit any of my excuses--my liking for wet weather, and my wish to go to the gaming-table. She did not read my poverty in my embarrassed attitude, or in my forced jests. My eyes would redden, but she did not understand a look. A young man's life is at the mercy of the strangest whims! At every revolution of the wheels during the journey, thoughts that burned stirred in my heart. I tried to pull up a plank from the bottom of the vehicle, hoping to slip through the hole into the street; but finding insuperable obstacles, Iburst into a fit of laughter, and then sat stupefied in calm dejection, like a man in a pillory. When I reached my lodging, Pauline broke in through my first stammering words with:

" 'If you haven't any money----?'

"Ah, the music of Rossini was as nothing compared with those words.

But to return to the performance at the Funambules.

"I thought of pawning the circlet of gold round my mother's portrait in order to escort the countess. Although the pawnbroker loomed in my thoughts as one of the doors of a convict's prison, I would rather myself have carried my bed thither than have begged for alms. There is something so painful in the expression of a man who asks money of you!

There are loans that mulct us of our self-respect, just as some rebuffs from a friend's lips sweep away our last illusion.

"Pauline was working; her mother had gone to bed. I flung a stealthy glance over the bed; the curtains were drawn back a little; Madame Gaudin was in a deep sleep, I thought, when I saw her quiet, sallow profile outlined against the pillow.

" 'You are in trouble?' Pauline said, dipping her brush into the coloring.

" 'It is in your power to do me a great service, my dear child,' Ianswered.

"The gladness in her eyes frightened me.

" 'Is it possible that she loves me?' I thought. 'Pauline,' I began. Iwent and sat near to her, so as to study her. My tones had been so searching that she read my thought; her eyes fell, and I scrutinized her face. It was so pure and frank that I fancied I could see as clearly into her heart as into my own.

" 'Do you love me?' I asked.

" 'A little,--passionately--not a bit!' she cried.

"Then she did not love me. Her jesting tones, and a little gleeful movement that escaped her, expressed nothing beyond a girlish, blithe goodwill. I told her about my distress and the predicament in which Ifound myself, and asked her to help me.

" 'You do not wish to go to the pawnbroker's yourself, M. Raphael,' she answered, 'and yet you would send me!'

"I blushed in confusion at the child's reasoning. She took my hand in hers as if she wanted to compensate for this home-truth by her light touch upon it.

" 'Oh, I would willingly go,' she said, 'but it is not necessary. Ifound two five-franc pieces at the back of the piano, that had slipped without your knowledge between the frame and the keyboard, and I laid them on your table.'

" 'You will soon be coming into some money, M. Raphael,' said the kind mother, showing her face between the curtains, 'and I can easily lend you a few crowns meanwhile.'

" 'Oh, Pauline!' I cried, as I pressed her hand, 'how I wish that Iwere rich!'

" 'Bah! why should you?' she said petulantly. Her hand shook in mine with the throbbing of her pulse; she snatched it away, and looked at both of mine.

" 'You will marry a rich wife,' she said, 'but she will give you a great deal of trouble. Ah, Dieu! she will be your death,--I am sure of it.'

"In her exclamation there was something like belief in her mother's absurd superstitions.

" 'You are very credulous, Pauline!'

" 'The woman whom you will love is going to kill you--there is no doubt of it,' she said, looking at me with alarm.

"She took up her brush again and dipped it in the color; her great agitation was evident; she looked at me no longer. I was ready to give credence just then to superstitious fancies; no man is utterly wretched so long as he is superstitious; a belief of that kind is often in reality a hope.

"I found that those two magnificent five-franc pieces were lying, in fact, upon my table when I reached my room. During the first confused thoughts of early slumber, I tried to audit my accounts so as to explain this unhoped-for windfall; but I lost myself in useless calculations, and slept. Just as I was leaving my room to engage a box the next morning, Pauline came to see me.

" 'Perhaps your ten francs is not enough,' said the amiable, kind-hearted girl; 'my mother told me to offer you this money. Take it, please, take it!'

"She laid three crowns upon the table, and tried to escape, but Iwould not let her go. Admiration dried the tears that sprang to my eyes.

" 'You are an angel, Pauline,' I said. 'It is not the loan that touches me so much as the delicacy with which it is offered. I used to wish for a rich wife, a fashionable woman of rank; and now, alas! Iwould rather possess millions, and find some girl, as poor as you are, with a generous nature like your own; and I would renounce a fatal passion which will kill me. Perhaps what you told me will come true.'

" 'That is enough,' she said, and fled away; the fresh trills of her birdlike voice rang up the staircase.

" 'She is very happy in not yet knowing love,' I said to myself, thinking of the torments I had endured for many months past.