This man had become attached to Comte Daréna when he was still wealthy; he had offered his services in any capacity; he knew all the places in Paris where a young man of family can ruin himself with the least difficulty. If Daréna spied, at the play or on the street, a woman who attracted him, Poterne undertook to follow her, and to hand her a letter containing information concerning him. Later, Poterne made it his business to find usurers, money-lenders, accommodating tradesmen; so that he had become indispensable to the count, who treated him sometimes as his friend, sometimes as his servant, cajoled him occasionally, despised him always, and could never do without him.
The reader will assume perhaps that it had been this gentleman’s aim to enrich himself at the expense of the person whom he was assisting to ruin himself. That was Poterne’s idea at first; but his own vices prevented him from taking advantage of another’s failings. As inveterate a gambler and libertine as Daréna, while the latter was losing thousand-franc notes in a fashionable salon, Poterne was gambling away, in some wine-shop or low resort, the money he had extracted from his intimate friend. While Daréna entertained some charmer at Véfour’s or Véry’s, Poterne betook himself to a gin-shop to squander what money he had with a street peddler, and he was too ugly not to be compelled to be open-handed. And when Daréna was without a sou he sometimes abused his friend, and accused him of being the author of his ruin. At such times he unceremoniously appropriated all that Poterne possessed; and that worthy, who was also a coward, allowed himself to be despoiled without a murmur, promising himself that he would have his revenge ere long.
It may seem strange that the refined Monfréville should be on intimate terms with a man whose tastes, whose conduct, whose very dress, proved his disorderly mode of life. But there are people who, after knowing a person when he was rich and fortunate, dare not turn their backs on him when they meet him with a soiled coat and dingy hat. Moreover, Daréna still had intervals of prosperity; when the cards had been favorable to him, or when his friend Poterne had discovered some new resource, he instantly reappeared, elegantly and stylishly dressed; he frequented the theatres, the ballrooms and the best restaurants in Paris; and a few days later, a perceptible falling off in his toilet, a certain lack of neatness in some part of his costume, indicated that the situation had changed. But even with a wretched hat and dirty linen, Daréna succeeded so well in retaining the manners of good society, that it was hard to believe that he consorted with the very lowest.
Indeed, does anyone know aught of the private life of the great majority of the persons with whom he has only a passing connection? Meeting Daréna arrayed as in the days of his prosperity, seeing him squander money madly in some pleasure resort, no one asked him by what blessed change of luck he had become rich; and for the same reason, when he was seen, in shabby garments, slinking into a wretched twenty-two sou restaurant, no one took pains to inquire what hard luck he had had. In Paris, people do not try to worm themselves into other people’s secrets; and in this respect, discretion very often resembles indifference.
Monfréville, who had known Daréna when he was rich, was well aware that he had squandered his fortune, but he did not believe him to be entirely without resources, having no idea that he would resort to indelicate methods of obtaining money. The count had frequently borrowed a thousand-franc note of him, however, none of which had he ever returned; but Edouard de Monfréville was wealthy and attached little importance to those trifling services. And then, too, Daréna’s society amused him; his sallies, his indifference, sometimes carried to the point of cynicism, made him laugh and banished the melancholy humor which now and then took possession of his mind.
Sometimes people wondered what could be the cause of that pensive air, of that smile, rather bitter than mocking, which often played about Monfréville’s mouth. He was rich, he had everything calculated to attract. In society he was sought after, women schemed to gain his notice; he had been known to have a great number of love-affairs, and he was still at an age to have more. But his merriment rarely seemed genuine, and in his conversation he avoided speaking of a sex of which he could hardly have had reason to complain. Some thought that Monfréville had reached the point of being surfeited with all sorts of pleasure, and attributed to that fact the clouds that sometimes darkened his brow; others, when they heard him sneer at those of his friends who believed in the constancy of their mistresses, concluded that the handsome and fascinating Monfréville had had some unfortunate passion, had been the victim of some treachery. Finally, when he was seen to pass his thirtieth year, and even to approach his fortieth, without apparently thinking of marriage, all sorts of conjectures were indulged in.
“He must have a very low opinion of women,” people said, “as he doesn’t choose to do like other men, and settle down, under the yoke of hymen.”
But Edouard de Monfréville paid no heed to what people might think or say of him; he continued to live according to his taste, to do exactly as he chose; sometimes after passing a month in a succession of uproarious debauches, surrounded by a jovial, dissipated crowd, all whose follies he shared, he would hold himself aloof from society for weeks at a time, finding pleasure only in solitude. His friends had finally become accustomed to the eccentricities of his humor, because in society a rich man is always entitled to be original; only the poor devils are denied that privilege.
Now that we are better acquainted with the people whom we are to join, let us enter the Rocher de Cancale, where Chérubin had just arrived with the priestesses of Terpsichore.