the benefit of Father Goriot and the lodgers. Vautrin began to smile in
a diabolical fashion.

"And do you suppose," cried that cold-blooded logician, "that a young
man of fashion can live here in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the
Maison Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable boarding-house in every way,
I grant you, but an establishment that, none the less, falls short
of being fashionable? The house is comfortable, it is lordly in its
abundance; it is proud to be the temporary abode of a Rastignac; but,
after all, it is in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be
out of place here, where we only aim at the purely _patriarchalorama_.
If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend," Vautrin
continued, with half-paternal jocularity, "you must have three horses,
a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the evening; you
should spend altogether about nine thousand francs on your stables. You
would show yourself unworthy of your destiny if you spent no more than
three thousand francs with your tailor, six hundred in perfumery, a
hundred crowns to your shoemaker, and a hundred more to your hatter. As
for your laundress, there goes another thousand francs; a young man of
fashion must of necessity make a great point of his linen; if your linen
comes up to the required standard, people often do not look any further.
Love and the Church demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand
francs. I am saying nothing of losses at play, bets, and presents; it
is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I
have led that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the
cost of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand
francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants
of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in
our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing
at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye to
your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom! Is Christophe
going to carry your _billets-doux_ for you? Do you mean to employ the
stationery you use at present? Suicidal policy! Hearken to the wisdom
of your elders!" he went on, his bass voice growing louder at each
syllable. "Either take up your quarters in a garret, live virtuously,
and wed your work, or set about the thing in a different way."

Vautrin winked and leered in the direc