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Of course, the agricultural projects entertained for a moment after the interdiction of Vautrin soon faded from Balzac's mind, which was still harping on the necessity of his conquering the suffrages of the public in his character of dramatist.
If he were a thief and could pay with his bravery something that his small, poor money could not buy; if he should ruin his whole career just to please her, should bring down upon his head the rigors of the law and his father's curses, Alicia so he fondly believed would love him blindly, with the same sort of frenzy that Balzac's hero, Vautrin, inspired in women.
He saw the world as it is; saw how the rich lived beyond the jurisdiction of law and public opinion, and found in success the ultima ratio mundi. "Vautrin is right, success is virtue!" he said to himself. Arrived in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he rushed up to his room for ten francs wherewith to satisfy the demands of the cabman, and went in to dinner.
Under the influence of Paris surroundings and experience, Rastignac passes from his naive illusions to a state of worldly wisdom, which he reaches all the more speedily as Vautrin is at his elbow, commenting with Mephistophelian shrewdness on his fellow-men and the society they form.
Many of those are certain to live and keep their hold, but it is by dint of long and elaborate preparation, description, analysis. A stranger intermeddleth not with them, though we can fancy Lucien de Rubempre let loose in a country neighbourhood of George Sand's, and making sonnets and love to some rural chatelaine, while Vautrin might stray among the ruffians of Gaboriau, a giant of crime.
And Johnnie Vautrin erected himself on his hands and haunches to see where he was going, while the vivacious Scamp, shut up in the wood-house and bereft of his bedfellow, and doubtless fearful of ghosts in every nerve of his quivering little body, rent the still night with his expostulations, as he heard them go past.
When I read Balzac's stories of Vautrin and Lucien de Rubempré, I often think of Hadrian and the Antinous. I wonder if Balzac did dream of transposing the Roman Emperor and his favourite into modern life. It is the kind of thing that Balzac would think of. No critic has ever noticed this.
They were standing in the little square lobby between the kitchen and the dining-room; the place was lighted by an iron-barred fanlight above a door that gave access into the garden. Sylvie came out of her kitchen, and Eugene chose that moment to say: "Monsieur Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my name is not Rastignacorama." "They will fight," said Mlle. Michonneau, in an indifferent tone.
"Tell us about your adventure!" demanded M. Vautrin. "Yesterday evening I went to a ball given by a cousin of mine, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant. She has a magnificent house; the rooms are hung with silk in short, it was a splendid affair, and I was as happy as a king " "Fisher," put in Vautrin, interrupting. "What do you mean, sir?" said Eugene sharply.
Before the first performance, Balzac was just as sanguine about the result as he had been with Vautrin. It followed several pieces, Felix Pyat's Cedric the Norwegian, Dumas' Lorenzino, and Scribe's Chaine, which had been coldly received. What if his Quinola should be the great attraction of the season! And his mind was filled visions of overflowing houses and showers of gold.
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