The Firm of Nucingen

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THE FIRM OF NUCINGEN

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC


Translated by
James Waring



TO MADAME ZULMA CARRAUD

To whom, madame, but to you should I inscribe this work; to you
whose lofty and candid intellect is a treasury to your friends;
to you that are to me not only a whole public, but the most
indulgent of sisters as well? Will you deign to accept a token of
the friendship of which I am proud? You, and some few souls as
noble, will grasp the whole of the thought underlying _The Firm of
Nucingen_, appended to _Cesar Birotteau_. Is there not a whole social
lesson in the contrast between the two stories?

DE BALZAC.



You know how slight the partitions are between the private rooms of
fashionable restaurants in Paris; Very's largest room, for instance,
is cut in two by a removable screen. This Scene is _not_ laid at Very's,
but in snug quarters, which for reasons of my own I forbear to
specify. We were two, so I will say, like Henri Monnier's Prudhomme,
"I should not like to compromise _her_!"

We had remarked the want of solidity in the wall-structure, so we
talked with lowered voices as we sat together in the little private
room, lingering over the dainty dishes of a dinner exquisite in more
senses than one. We had come as far as the roast, however, and still
we had no neighbors; no sound came from the next room save the
crackling of the fire. But when the clock struck eight, we heard
voices and noisy footsteps; the waiters brought candles. Evidently
there was a party assembled in the next room, and at the first words I
knew at once with whom we had to do--four bold cormorants as ever
sprang from the foam on the crests of the ever-rising waves of this
present generation--four pleasant young fellows whose existence was
problematical, since they were not known to possess either stock or
landed estates, yet they lived, and lived well. These ingenious
_condottieri_ of a modern industrialism, that has come to be the most
ruthless of all warfares, leave anxieties to their creditors, and keep
the pleasures for themselves. They are careful for nothing, save
dress. Still with the courage of the Jean Bart order, that will smoke
cigars on a barrel of powder (perhaps by way of keeping up their
character), with a quizzing humor that outdoes the minor newspapers,
sparing no one, not even themselves; clear-sighted, wary, keen after
business, grasping yet open handed, envious yet self-complacent,
profound politicians by fits and starts, analyzing everything,
guessing everything--not one of these in question as yet had contrived
to make his way in the world which they chose for their scene of
operations. Only one of the four, indeed, had succeeded in coming as
far as the foot of the ladder.

To have money is nothing; the self-made man only finds out all that he
lacks after six months of flatteries. Andoche Finot, the self-made man
in question, stiff, taciturn, cold, and dull-witted, possessed the
sort of spirit which will not shrink from groveling before any
creature that may be of use to him, and the cunning to be insolent
when he needs a man no longer. Like one of the grotesque figures in
the ballet in _Gustave_, he was a marquis behind, a boor in front. And
this high-priest of commerce had a following.

Emile Blondet, Journalist, with abundance of intellectual power,
reckless, brilliant, and indolent, could do anything that he chose,
yet he submitted to be exploited with his eyes open. Treacherous or
kind upon impulse, a man to love, but not to respect; quick-witted as
a _soubrette_, unable to refuse his pen to any one that asked, or his
heart to the first that would borrow it, Emile was the most
fascinating of those light-of-loves of whom a fantastic modern wit
declared that "he liked them better in satin slippers than in boots."

The third in the party, Couture by name, lived by speculation,
grafting one affair upon another to make the gains pay for the losses.
He was always between wind and water, keeping himself afloat by his
bold, sudden strokes and the nervous energy of his play. Hither and
thither he would swim over the vast sea of interests in Paris, in
quest of some little isle that should be so far a debatable land that
he might abide upon it. Clearly Couture was not in his proper place.

As for the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be
enough--it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou
of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of
his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw
how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by
the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the
last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at
the Funambules. Bixiou had the whole history of his own times at his
finger-ends, more particularly its scandalous chronicle, embellished
by added waggeries of his own. He sprang like a clown upon everybody's
back, only to do his utmost to leave the executioner's brand upon
every pair of shoulders.

The first cravings of gluttony satisfied, our neighbors reached the
stage at which we also had arrived, to wit, the dessert; and, as we
made no sign, they believed that they were alone. Thanks to the
champagne, the talk grew confidential as they dallied with the dessert
amid the cigar smoke. Yet through it all you felt the influence of the
icy _esprit_ that leaves the most spontaneous feeling frost-bound and
stiff, that checks the most generous inspirations, and gives a sharp
ring to the laughter. Their table-talk was full of bitter irony which
turns a jest into a sneer; it told of the exhaustion of souls given
over to themselves; of lives with no end in view but the satisfaction
of self--of egoism induced by these times of peace in which we live. I
can think of nothing like it save a pamphlet against mankind at large
which Diderot was afraid to publish, a book that bares man's breast
simply to expose the plague-sores upon it. We listened to just such a
pamphlet as _Rameau's Nephew_, spoken aloud in all good faith, in the
course of after-dinner talk in which nothing, not even the point which
the speaker wished to carry, was sacred from epigram; nothing taken
for granted, nothing built up except on ruins, nothing reverenced save
the sceptic's adopted article of belief--the omnipotence, omniscience,
and universal applicability of money.

After some target practice at the outer circle of their acquaintances,
they turned their ill-natured shafts at their intimate friends. With a
sign I explained my wish to stay and listen as soon as Bixiou took up
his parable, as will shortly be seen. And so we listened to one of
those terrific improvisations which won that artist such a name among
a certain set of seared and jaded spirits; and often interrupted and
resumed though it was, memory serves me as a reporter of it. The
opinions expressed and the form of expression lie alike outside the
conditions of literature. It was, more properly speaking, a medley of
sinister revelations that paint our age, to which indeed no other kind
of story should be told; and, besides, I throw all the responsibility
upon the principal speaker. The pantomime and the gestures that
accompanied Bixiou's changes of voice, as he acted the parts of the
various persons, must have been perfect, judging by the applause and
admiring comments that broke from his audience of three.

"Then did Rastignac refuse?" asked Blondet, apparently addressing
Finot.

"Point-blank."

"But did you threaten him with the newspapers?" asked Bixiou.

"He began to laugh," returned Finot.

"Rastignac is the late lamented de Marsay's direct heir; he will make
his way politically as well as socially," commented Blondet.

"But how did he make his money?" asked Couture. "In 1819 both he and
the illustrious Bianchon lived in a shabby boarding-house in the Latin
Quarter; his people ate roast cockchafers and their own wine so as to
send him a hundred francs every month. His father's property was not
worth a thousand crowns; he had two sisters and a brother on his
hands, and now----"

"Now he has an income of forty thousand livres," continued Finot; "his
sisters had a handsome fortune apiece and married into noble families;
he leaves his mother a life interest in the property----"

"Even in 1827 I have known him without a penny," said Blondet.

"Oh! in 1827," said Bixiou.

"Well," resumed Finot, "yet to-day, as we see, he is in a fair way to
be a Minister, a peer of France--anything that he likes. He broke
decently with Delphine three years ago; he will not marry except on
good grounds; and he may marry a girl of noble family. The chap had
the sense to take up with a wealthy woman."

"My friends, give him the benefit of extenuating circumstances," urged
Blondet. "When he escaped the clutches of want, he dropped into the
claws of a very clever man."

"You know what Nucingen is," said Bixiou. "In the early days, Delphine
and Rastignac thought him 'good-natured'; he seemed to regard a wife
as a plaything, an ornament in his house. And that very fact showed me
that the man was square at the base as well as in height," added
Bixiou. "Nucingen makes no bones about admitting that his wife is his
fortune; she is an indispensable chattel, but a wife takes a second
place in the high-pressure life of a political leader and great
capitalist. He once said in my hearing that Bonaparte had blundered
like a bourgeois in his early relations with Josephine; and that after
he had had the spirit to use her as a stepping-stone, he had made
himself ridiculous by trying to make a companion of her."

"Any man of unusual powers is bound to take Oriental views of women,"
said Blondet.

"The Baron blended the opinions of East and West in a charming
Parisian creed. He abhorred de Marsay; de Marsay was unmanageable, but
with Rastignac he was much pleased; he exploited him, though Rastignac
was not aware of it. All the burdens of married life were put on him.
Rastignac bore the brunt of Delphine's whims; he escorted her to the
Bois de Boulogne; he went with her to the play; and the little
politician and great man of to-day spent a good deal of his life at
that time in writing dainty notes. Eugene was scolded for little
nothings from the first; he was in good spirits when Delphine was
cheerful, and drooped when she felt low; he bore the weight of her
confidences and her ailments; he gave up his time, the hours of his
precious youth, to fill the empty void of that fair Parisian's
idleness. Delphine and he held high councils on the toilettes which
went best together; he stood the fire of bad temper and broadsides of
pouting fits, while she, by way of trimming the balance, was very nice
to the Baron. As for the Baron, he laughed in his sleeve; but whenever
he saw that Rastignac was bending under the strain of the burden, he
made 'as if he suspected something,' and reunited the lovers by a
common dread."

"I can imagine that a wealthy wife would have put Rastignac in the way
of a living, and an honorable living, but where did he pick up his
fortune?" asked Couture. "A fortune so considerable as his at the
present day must come from somewhere; and nobody ever accused him of
inventing a good stroke of business."

"Somebody left it to him," said Finot.

"Who?" asked Blondet.

"Some fool that he came across," suggested Couture.

"He did not steal the whole of it, my little dears," said Bixiou.

"Let not your terrors rise to fever-heat,
Our age is lenient with those who cheat.

Now, I will tell you about the beginnings of his fortune. In the
first place, honor to talent! Our friend is not a 'chap,' as Finot
describes him, but a gentleman in the English sense, who knows the
cards and knows the game; whom, moreover, the gallery respects.
Rastignac has quite as much intelligence as is needed at a given
moment, as if a soldier should make his courage payable at ninety
days' sight, with three witnesses and guarantees. He may seem
captious, wrong-headed, inconsequent, vacillating, and without any
fixed opinions; but let something serious turn up, some combination to
scheme out, he will not scatter himself like Blondet here, who chooses
these occasions to look at things from his neighbor's point of view.
Rastignac concentrates himself, pulls himself together, looks for the
point to carry by storm, and goes full tilt for it. He charges like a
Murat, breaks squares, pounds away at shareholders, promoters, and the
whole shop, and returns, when the breach is made, to his lazy,
careless life. Once more he becomes the man of the South, the man of
pleasure, the trifling, idle Rastignac. He has earned the right of
lying in bed till noon because a crisis never finds him asleep."

"So far so good, but just get to his fortune," said Finot.

"Bixiou will lash that off at a stroke," replied Blondet. "Rastignac's
fortune was Delphine de Nucingen, a remarkable woman; she combines
boldness with foresight."

"Did she ever lend you money?" inquired Bixiou. Everybody burst out
laughing.

"You are mistaken in her," said Couture, speaking to Blondet; "her
cleverness simply consists in making more or less piquant remarks, in
loving Rastignac with tedious fidelity, and obeying him blindly. She
is a regular Italian."

"Money apart," Andoche Finot put in sourly.

"Oh, come, come," said Bixiou coaxingly; "after what we have just been
saying, will you venture to blame poor Rastignac for living at the
expense of the firm of Nucingen, for being installed in furnished
rooms precisely as La Torpille was once installed by our friend des
Lupeaulx? You would sink to the vulgarity of the Rue Saint-Denis!
First of all, 'in the abstract,' as Royer-Collard says, the question
may abide the _Kritik of Pure Reason_; as for the impure reason----"

"There he goes!" said Finot, turning to Blondet.

"But there is reason in what he says," exclaimed Blondet. "The problem
is a very old one; it was the grand secret of the famous duel between
La Chataigneraie and Jarnac. It was cast up to Jarnac that he was on
good terms with his mother-in-law, who, loving him only too well,
equipped him sumptuously. When a thing is so true, it ought not to be
said. Out of devotion to Henry II., who permitted himself this
slander, La Chataigneraie took it upon himself, and there followed the
duel which enriched the French language with the expression _coup de
Jarnac_."

"Oh! does it go so far back? Then it is noble?" said Finot.

"As a proprietor of newspapers and reviews of old standing, you are
not bound to know that," said Blondet.

"There are women," Bixiou gravely resumed, "and for that matter, men
too, who can cut their lives in two and give away but one-half.
(Remark how I word my phrase for you in humanitarian language.) For
these, all material interests lie without the range of sentiment. They
give their time, their life, their honor to a woman, and hold that
between themselves it is not the thing to meddle with bits of tissue
paper bearing the legend, '_Forgery is punishable with death_.' And
equally they will take nothing from a woman. Yes, the whole thing is
debased if fusion of interests follows on fusion of souls. This is a
doctrine much preached, and very seldom practised."

"Oh, what rubbish!" cried Blondet. "The Marechal de Richelieu
understood something of gallantry, and he settled an allowance of a
thousand louis d'or on Mme. de la Popeliniere after that affair of the
hiding-place behind the hearth. Agnes Sorel, in all simplicity, took
her fortune to Charles VII., and the King accepted it. Jacques Coeur
kept the crown for France; he was allowed to do it, and woman-like,
France was ungrateful."

"Gentlemen," said Bixiou, "a love that does not imply an indissoluble
friendship, to my thinking, is momentary libertinage. What sort of
entire surrender is it that keeps something back? Between these two
diametrically opposed doctrines, the one as profoundly immoral as the
other, there is no possible compromise. It seems to me that any
shrinking from a complete union is surely due to a belief that the
union cannot last, and if so, farewell to illusion. The passion that
does not believe that it will last for ever is a hideous thing. (Here
is pure unadulterated Fenelon for you!) At the same time, those who
know the world, the observer, the man of the world, the wearers of
irreproachable gloves and ties, the men who do not blush to marry a
woman for her money, proclaim the necessity of a complete separation
of sentiment and interest. The other sort are lunatics that love and
imagine that they and the woman they love are the only two beings in
the world; for them millions are dirt; the glove or the camellia
flower that She wore is worth millions. If the squandered filthy lucre
is never to be found again in their possession, you find the remains
of floral relics hoarded in dainty cedar-wood boxes. They cannot
distinguish themselves one from the other; for them there is no 'I'
left. _Thou_--that is their Word made flesh. What can you do? Can you
stop the course of this 'hidden disease of the heart'? There are fools
that love without calculation and wise men that calculate while they
love."

"To my thinking Bixiou is sublime," cried Blondet. "What does Finot
say to it?"

"Anywhere else," said Finot, drawing himself up in his cravat,
"anywhere else, I should say, with the 'gentlemen'; but here, I
think----"

"With the scoundrelly scapegraces with whom you have the honor to
associate?" said Bixiou.

"Upon my word, yes."

"And you?" asked Bixiou, turning to Couture.

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Couture. "The woman that will not make a
stepping-stone of her body, that the man she singles out may reach his
goal, is a woman that has no heart except for her own purposes."

"And you, Blondet?"

"I do not preach, I practise."

"Very good," rejoined Bixiou in his most ironical tones. "Rastignac
was not of your way of thinking. To take without repaying is
detestable, and even rather bad form; but to take that you may render
a hundred-fold, like the Lord, is a chivalrous deed. This was
Rastignac's view. He felt profoundly humiliated by his community of
interests with Delphine de Nucingen; I can tell you that he regretted
it; I have seen him deploring his position with tears in his eyes.
Yes, he shed tears, he did indeed--after supper. Well, now to _our_
way of thinking----"

"I say, you are laughing at us," said Finot.

"Not the least in the world. We were talking of Rastignac. From your
point of view his affliction would be a sign of his corruption; for by
that time he was not nearly so much in love with Delphine. What would
you have? he felt the prick in his heart, poor fellow. But he was a
man of noble descent and profound depravity, whereas we are virtuous
artists. So Rastignac meant to enrich Delphine; he was a poor man, she
a rich woman. Would you believe it?--he succeeded. Rastignac, who
might have fought at need, like Jarnac, went over to the opinion of
Henri II. on the strength of his great maxim, 'There is no such thing
as absolute right; there are only circumstances.' This brings us to
the history of his fortune."

"You might just as well make a start with your story instead of
drawing us on to traduce ourselves," said Blondet with urbane good
humor.

"Aha! my boy," returned Bixiou, administering a little tap to the back
of Blondet's head, "you are making up for lost time over the
champagne!"

"Oh! by the sacred name of shareholder, get on with your story!" cried
Couture.

"I was within an ace of it," retorted Bixiou, "but you with your
profanity have brought me to the climax."

"Then, are there shareholders in the tale?" inquired Finot.

"Yes; rich as rich can be--like yours."

"It seems to me," Finot began stiffly, "that some consideration is
owing to a good fellow to whom you look for a bill for five hundred
francs upon occasion----"

"Waiter!" called Bixiou.

"What do you want with the waiter?" asked Blondet.

"I want five hundred francs to repay Finot, so that I can tear up my
I. O. U. and set my tongue free."

"Get on with your story," said Finot, making believe to laugh.

"I take you all to witness that I am not the property of this insolent
fellow, who fancies that my silence is worth no more than five hundred
francs. You will never be a minister if you cannot gauge people's
consciences. There, my good Finot," he added soothingly, "I will get
on with my story without personalities, and we shall be quits."

"Now," said Couture with a smile, "he will begin to prove for our
benefit that Nucingen made Rastignac's fortune."

"You are not so far out as you think," returned Bixiou. "You do not
know what Nucingen is, financially speaking."

"Do you know so much as a word as to his beginnings?" asked Blondet.

"I have only known him in his own house," said Bixiou, "but we may
have seen each other in the street in the old days."

"The prosperity of the firm of Nucingen is one of the most
extraordinary things seen in our days," began Blondet. "In 1804
Nucingen's name was scarcely known. At that time bankers would have
shuddered at the idea of three hundred thousand francs' worth of his
acceptances in the market. The great capitalist felt his inferiority.
How was he to get known? He suspended payment. Good! Every market rang
with a name hitherto only known in Strasbourg and the Quartier
Poissonniere. He issued deposit certificates to his creditors, and
resumed payment; forthwith people grew accustomed to his paper all
over France. Then an unheard-of-thing happened--his paper revived, was
in demand, and rose in value. Nucingen's paper was much inquired for.
The year 1815 arrives, my banker calls in his capital, buys up
Government stock before the battle of Waterloo, suspends payment again
in the thick of the crisis, and meets his engagements with shares in
the Wortschin mines, which he himself issued at twenty per cent more
than he gave for them! Yes, gentlemen!--He took a hundred and fifty
thousand bottles of champagne of Grandet to cover himself (forseeing
the failure of the virtuous parent of the present Comte d'Aubrion),
and as much Bordeaux wine of Duberghe at the same time. Those three
hundred thousand bottles which he took over (and took at thirty sous
apiece, my dear boy) he supplied at the price of six francs per bottle
to the Allies in the Palais Royal during the foreign occupation,
between 1817 and 1819. Nucingen's name and his paper acquired a
European celebrity. The illustrious Baron, so far from being engulfed
like others, rose the higher for calamities. Twice his arrangements
had paid holders of his paper uncommonly well; _he_ try to swindle
them? Impossible. He is supposed to be as honest a man as you will
find. When he suspends payment a third time, his paper will circulate
in Asia, Mexico, and Australia, among the aborigines. No one but
Ouvrard saw through this Alsacien banker, the son of some Jew or other
converted by ambition; Ouvrard said, 'When Nucingen lets gold go, you
may be sure that it is to catch diamonds.'"

"His crony, du Tillet, is just such another," said Finot. "And, mind
you, that of birth du Tillet has just precisely as much as is
necessary to exist; the chap had not a farthing in 1814, and you see
what he is now; and he has done something that none of us has managed
to do (I am not speaking of you, Couture), he has had friends instead
of enemies. In fact, he has kept his past life so quiet, that unless
you rake the sewers you are not likely to find out that he was an
assistant in a perfumer's shop in the Rue Saint Honore, no further
back than 1814."

"Tut, tut, tut!" said Bixiou, "do not think of comparing Nucingen with
a little dabbler like du Tillet, a jackal that gets on in life through
his sense of smell. He scents a carcass by instinct, and comes in time
to get the best bone. Besides, just look at the two men. The one has a
sharp-pointed face like a cat, he is thin and lanky; the other is
cubical, fat, heavy as a sack, imperturbable as a diplomatist.
Nucingen has a thick, heavy hand, and lynx eyes that never light up;
his depths are not in front, but behind; he is inscrutable, you never
see what he is making for. Whereas du Tillet's cunning, as Napoleon
said to somebody (I have forgotten the name), is like cotton spun too
fine, it breaks."

"I do not myself see that Nucingen has any advantage over du Tillet,"
said Blondet, "unless it is that he has the sense to see that a
capitalist ought not to rise higher than a baron's rank, while du
Tillet has a mind to be an Italian count."

"Blondet--one word, my boy," put in Couture. "In the first place,
Nucingen dared to say that honesty is simply a question of
appearances; and secondly, to know him well you must be in business
yourself. With him banking is but a single department, and a very
small one; he holds Government contracts for wines, wools, indigoes
--anything, in short, on which any profit can be made. He has an
all-round genius. The elephant of finance would contract to deliver
votes on a division, or the Greeks to the Turks. For him business
means the sum-total of varieties; as Cousin would say, the unity of
specialties. Looked at in this way, banking becomes a kind of
statecraft in itself, requiring a powerful head; and a man thoroughly
tempered is drawn on to set himself above the laws of a morality that
cramps him."