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Rastignac, Bixiou, des Lupeaulx, Finot, Blondet, Vignon, the Baron de Nucingen, Beaudenord, Philippe Bridau, Conti, the great musician, all the artists and speculators, all the men who seek for violent sensations as a relief from immense labors, gave Lucien a welcome among them.
A word here and there reached his ear; he guessed the matter on foot, more particularly from Malvina's look of satisfaction that it was as she had suspected. Then Rastignac actually stopped on till two o'clock in the morning. And yet there are those that call him selfish! Beaudenord took his departure when the Baroness went to bed.
"That confounded Couture has such a habit of anticipating dividends, that he is anticipating the end of my tale. Where was I? Oh! Beaudenord came back. When he took up his abode on the Quai Malaquais, it came to pass that a thousand francs over and above his needs was altogether insufficient to keep up his share of a box at the Italiens and the Opera properly.
Go on," said Blondet. "I resume. 'Pretty enough to marry, isn't she? said Rastignac, coming up to Godefroid de Beaudenord, and indicating the little one with the spotless white camellias, every petal intact. "Rastignac being an intimate friend, Godefroid answered in a low voice, 'Well, so I was thinking. "'Which is a common weakness, returned Rastignac without laughing.
When he lost twenty-five or thirty louis at play at one swoop, naturally he paid; when he won, he spent the money; so should we if we were fools enough to be drawn into a bet. Beaudenord, feeling pinched with his eighteen thousand francs, saw the necessity of creating what we to-day call a balance in hand.
"You apparently take us for Matifats multiplied by half-a-dozen bottles of champagne." "We are just coming to it," returned Bixiou. "You have followed the course of all the rivulets which make up that forty thousand livres a year which so many people envy. By this time Rastignac held the threads of all these lives in his hand." "Desroches, the Matifats, Beaudenord, the d'Aldriggers, d'Aiglemont?"
"So Beaudenord went back to his desk, thanks to Nucingen's good offices; and the d'Aldriggers extol Nucingen as a hero of friendship, for he always sends the little Shepherdess of the Alps and her daughters invitations to his balls.
It was only by stirring up all his considerably chilled interest that Godefroid got a post in the audit department. His friends? They were out of town. His relatives? All astonishment and promises. 'What! my dear boy! Oh! count upon me! Poor fellow! and Beaudenord was clean forgotten fifteen minutes afterwards. He owed his place to Nucingen and de Vandenesse.
He had been with the late M. de Beaudenord, Godefroid's father, and bore Godefroid an inveterate affection, a kind of heart complaint which has almost disappeared among domestic servants since savings banks were established. "All material well-being is based upon arithmetic.
"'Do you accept? Yes or no! said the inexorable Rastignac. "Godefroid took up the pen, wrote at Rastignac's dictation, and signed his name. "'My poor cousin! he cried. "'Each for himself, said Rastignac. 'And there is one more settled! he added to himself as he left Beaudenord. "While Rastignac was manoeuvring thus in Paris, imagine the state of things on the Bourse.
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