do not meddle
with it, it is no affair of theirs; they are invited guests at the
'banquet of life,' as some poet or other said that came to an end in
the workhouse."

"How do you know this when I do not?" d'Esgrignon artlessly returned.

"You are sure to be the last to know it, just as she is sure to be the
last to hear that you are in debt."

"I thought she had a hundred thousand livres a year," said
d'Esgrignon.

"Her husband," replied de Marsay, "lives apart from her. He stays with
his regiment and practises economy, for he has one or two little debts
of his own as well, has our dear Duke. Where do you come from? Just
learn to do as we do and keep our friends' accounts for them. Mlle.
Diane (I fell in love with her for the name's sake), Mlle. Diane
d'Uxelles brought her husband sixty thousand livres of income; for the
last eight years she has lived as if she had two hundred thousand. It
is perfectly plain that at this moment her lands are mortgaged up to
their full value; some fine morning the crash must come, and the angel
will be put to flight by--must it be said?--by sheriff's officers that
have the effrontery to lay hands on an angel just as they might take
hold of one of us."

"Poor angel!"

"Lord! it costs a great deal to dwell in a Parisian heaven; you must
whiten your wings and your complexion every morning," said Rastignac.

Now as the thought of confessing his debts to his beloved Diane had
passed through d'Esgrignon's mind, something like a shudder ran
through him when he remembered that he still owed sixty thousand
francs, to say nothing of bills to come for another ten thousand. He
went back melancholy enough. His friends remarked his ill-disguised
preoccupation, and spoke of it among themselves at dinner.

"Young d'Esgrignon is getting out of his depth. He is not up to Paris.
He will blow his brains out. A little fool!" and so on and so on.

D'Esgrignon, however, promptly took comfort. His servant brought him
two letters. The first was from Chesnel. A letter from Chesnel smacked
of the stale grumbling faithfulness of honesty and its consecrated
formulas. With all respect he put it aside till the evening. But the
second letter he read with unspeakable pleasure. In Ciceronian
phrases, du Croisier groveled before him, like a Sganarelle before a
Geronte, begging the young Count in future to spare him the affront of
first depositing the amount of the bills which he should condescend to
draw. The