Rastignac went at once to the Ecole de Droit. He had no mind to stay a moment longer than was necessary in that odious house. He wasted his time that day; he had fallen a victim to that fever of the brain that accompanies the too vivid hopes of youth. Vautrin’s arguments had set him meditating on social life, and he was deep in these reflections when he happened on his friend Bianchon in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
“What makes you look so solemn?” said the medical student, putting an arm through Eugene’s as they went towards the Palais.
“I am tormented by temptations.”
“What kind? There is a cure for temptation.”
“What?”
“Yielding to it.”
“You laugh, but you don’t know what it is all about. Have you read Rousseau?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember that he asks the reader somewhere what he would do if he could make a fortune by killing an old mandarin somewhere in China by mere force of wishing it, and without stirring from Paris?”
“Yes.”