SCENE NINTH. Vautrin and Lafouraille.
Lafouraille
M. Vautrin!
Vautrin
Well?
Lafouraille
Are you letting him go?
Vautrin Unless he considers himself at liberty, what can we hope to learn from him? I have given my instructions; he will be taught not to put ropes in the way of hangmen. When Philosopher brings for me the documents which this fellow is to hand him, they will be given to me, wherever I happen to be.
Lafouraille
But afterwards, will you spare his life?
Vautrin You are always a little premature, my dear. Have you forgotten how seriously the dead interfere with the peace of the living? Hush! I hear Raoul—leave us to ourselves.
SCENE TENTH. Vautrin and Raoul de Frescas.
Raoul (soliloquizing) After a glimpse of heaven, still to remain on earth—such is my fate! I am a lost man; Vautrin, an infernal yet a kindly genius, a man who knows everything, and seems able to do everything, a man as harsh to others as he is good to me, a man who is inexplicable except by a supposition of witchcraft, a maternal providence if I may so call him, is not after all the providence divine. (Vautrin enters wearing a plain black peruke, a blue coat, gray pantaloons, a black waistcoat, the costume of a stock-broker.) Oh! I know what love is; but I did not know what revenge was, until I felt I could not die before I had wreaked my vengeance on these two Montsorels.
Vautrin (aside)
He is in trouble. (Aloud) Raoul, my son, what ails you?