er had negotiated (through the
headmaster) for Lucien's appearance in the Hotel de Bargeton.

Poor helots of the provinces, for whom the distances between class and
class are so far greater than for the Parisian (for whom, indeed, these
distances visibly lessen day by day); souls so grievously oppressed by
the social barriers behind which all sorts and conditions of men sit
crying _Raca_! with mutual anathemas--you, and you alone, will
fully comprehend the ferment in Lucien's heart and brain, when his
awe-inspiring headmaster told him that the great gates of the Hotel
de Bargeton would shortly open and turn upon their hinges at his fame!
Lucien and David, walking together of an evening in the Promenade de
Beaulieu, had looked up at the house with the old-fashioned gables, and
wondered whether their names would ever so much as reach ears inexorably
deaf to knowledge that came from a lowly origin; and now he (Lucien) was
to be made welcome there!

No one except his sister was in the secret. Eve, like the thrifty
housekeeper and divine magician that she was, conjured up a few louis
d'or from her savings to buy thin shoes for Lucien of the best shoemaker
in Angouleme, and an entirely new suit of clothes from the most renowned
tailor. She made a frill for his best shirt, and washed and pleated it
with her own hands. And how pleased she was to see him so dressed! How
proud she felt of her brother, and what quantities of advice she gave
him! Her intuition foresaw countless foolish fears. Lucien had a habit
of resting his elbows on the table when he was in deep thought; he would
even go so far as to draw a table nearer to lean upon it; Eve told him
that he must not forget himself in those aristocratic precincts.

She went with him as far as St. Peter's Gate, and when they were almost
opposite the cathedral she stopped, and watched him pass down the Rue de
Beaulieu to the Promenade, where M. du Chatelet was waiting for him. And
after he was out of sight, she still stood there, poor girl! in a great
tremor of emotion, as though some great thing had happened to them.
Lucien in Mme. de Bargeton's house!--for Eve it meant the dawn of
success. The innocent creature did not suspect that where ambition
begins, ingenuous feeling ends.

Externals in the Rue du Minage gave Lucien no sense of surprise. This
palace, that loomed so large in his imagination, was a house built of
the soft stone of the country, mellowed by time. It looked di