days. I was so pleased, that it was almost too much for
me! Please do not speak of me unless it is to say how good my daughters
are to me. They are always wanting to heap presents upon me, but I will
not have it. 'Just keep your money,' I tell them. 'What should I do
with it? I want nothing.' And what am I, sir, after all? An old carcase,
whose soul is always where my daughters are. When you have seen Mme.
de Nucingen, tell me which you like the most," said the old man after a
moment's pause, while Eugene put the last touches to his toilette. The
student was about to go out to walk in the Garden of the Tuileries
until the hour when he could venture to appear in Mme. de Beauseant's
drawing-room.

That walk was a turning-point in Eugene's career. Several women noticed
him; he looked so handsome, so young, and so well dressed. This almost
admiring attention gave a new turn to his thoughts. He forgot his
sisters and the aunt who had robbed herself for him; he no longer
remembered his own virtuous scruples. He had seen hovering above his
head the fiend so easy to mistake for an angel, the Devil with rainbow
wings, who scatters rubies, and aims his golden shafts at palace fronts,
who invests women with purple, and thrones with a glory that dazzles the
eyes of fools till they forget the simple origins of royal dominion; he
had heard the rustle of that Vanity whose tinsel seems to us to be the
symbol of power. However cynical Vautrin's words had been, they had made
an impression on his mind, as the sordid features of the old crone who
whispers, "A lover, and gold in torrents," remain engraven on a young
girl's memory.

Eugene lounged about the walks till it was nearly five o'clock, then
he went to Mme. de Beauseant, and received one of the terrible blows
against which young hearts are defenceless. Hitherto the Vicomtesse had
received him with the kindly urbanity, the bland grace of manner that is
the result of fine breeding, but is only complete when it comes from the
heart.

To-day Mme. de Beauseant bowed constrainedly, and spoke curtly:

"M. de Rastignac, I cannot possibly see you, at least not at this
moment. I am engaged..."

An observer, and Rastignac instantly became an observer, could read the
whole history, the character and customs of caste, in the phrase, in the
tones of her voice, in her glance and bearing. He caught a glimpse of
the iron hand beneath the velvet glove--the personality, the egoism
beneath the m