"I shall not say that you are very inquisitive, for I intend to answer your question later; but for the present let us continue, if you please, the autopsy of your existence, dead to-day, but which Ipropose to resuscitate gloriously. You are twenty-eight years old, and you have begun a career in which I shall not allow you to make another step. A few days hence the Council of the order of barristers will assemble and will censure, more or less severely, your conduct in the matter of the property you placed with such candor in Thuillier's hands. Do not deceive yourself; censure from that quarter (and Imention only your least danger) is as fatal to a barrister as being actually disbarred.""And it is to your kind offices, no doubt," said la Peyrade, "that Ishall owe that precious result?"
"Yes, I may boast of it," replied du Portail, "for, in order to tow you into port it has been necessary to strip you of your rigging;unless that were done, you would always have tried to navigate under your own sails the bourgeois shoals that you are now among."Seeing that he, undoubtedly, had to do with a strong hand, la Peyrade thought best to modify his tone; and so, with a more circumspect air, he said:--"You will allow me, monsieur, to reserve my acknowledgments until Ireceive some fuller explanation."
"Here you are, then," continued du Portail, "at twenty-eight years of age, without a penny, virtually without a profession; with antecedents that are very--middling; with associates like Monsieur Dutocq and the courageous Cerizet; owing to Mademoiselle Thuillier ten thousand francs, and to Madame Lambert twenty-five thousand, which you are no doubt extremely desirous to return to her; and finally, this marriage, your last hope, your sheet-anchor, has just become an utter impossibility. Between ourselves, if I have something reasonable to propose to you, do you not think that you had much better place yourself at my disposal?""I have time enough to prove that your opinion is mistaken," returned la Peyrade; "and I shall not form any resolutions so long as the designs you choose to have upon me are not more fully explained.""You were spoken to, at my instigation, about a marriage," resumed du Portail. "This marriage, as I think, is closely connected with a past existence from which a certain hereditary or family duty has devolved upon you. Do you know what that uncle of yours, to whom you applied in 1829, was doing in Paris? In your family he was thought to be a millionaire; and, dying suddenly, you remember, before you got to him, he did not leave enough for his burial; a pauper's grave was all that remained to him.""Did you know him?" asked la Peyrade.
"He was my oldest and dearest friend," replied du Portail.
"If that is so," said la Peyrade, hastily, "a sum of two thousand francs, which I received on my arrival in Paris from some unknown source--""Came from me," replied du Portail. "Unfortunately, engaged at the time in a rush of important affairs, which you shall hear of later, Icould not immediately follow up the benevolent interest I felt in you for your uncle's sake; this explains why I left you in the straw of a garret, where you came, like a medlar, to that maturity of ruin which brought you under the hand of a Dutocq and a Cerizet.""I am none the less grateful to you, monsieur," said la Peyrade; "and if I had known you were that generous protector, whom I was never able to discover, I should have been the first to seek occasion to meet you and to thank you.""A truce to compliments," said du Portail; "and, to come at once to the serious side of our present conference, what should you say if Itold you that this uncle, whose protection and assistance you came to Paris to obtain, was an agent of that occult power which has always been the theme of feeble ridicule and the object of silly prejudice?""I do not seize your meaning," said la Peyrade, with uneasy curiosity;"may I ask you to be more precise?"
"For example, I will suppose," continued du Portail, "that your uncle, if still living, were to say to you to-day: 'You are seeking fortune and influence, my good nephew; you want to rise above the crowd and to play your part in all the great events of your time; you want employment for a keen, active mind, full of resources, and slightly inclined to intrigue; in short, you long to exert in some upper and elegant sphere that force of will and subtlety which at present you are wasting in the silly and useless manipulation of the most barren and tough-skinned animal on earth, to wit: a bourgeois. Well, then, lower your head, my fine nephew; enter with me through the little door which I will open to you; it gives admittance to a great house, often maligned, but better far than its reputation. That threshold once crossed, you can rise to the height of your natural genius, whatever its spark may be. Statesmen, kings even, will admit you to their most secret thoughts; you will be their occult collaborator, and none of the joys which money and the highest powers can bestow upon a man will be lacking to you.""But, monsieur," objected la Peyrade, "without venturing to understand you, I must remark that my uncle died so poor, you tell me, that public charity buried him.""Your uncle," replied du Portail, "was a man of rare talent, but he had a certain weak side in his nature which compromised his career. He was eager for pleasure, a spendthrift, thoughtless for the future; he wanted also to taste those joys that are meant for the common run of men, but which for great, exceptional vocations are the worst of snares and impediments: I mean the joys of family. He had a daughter whom he madly loved, and it was through her that his terrible enemies opened a breach in his life, and prepared the horrible catastrophe that ended it.""Is that an encouragement to enter this shady path, where, you say, he might have asked me to follow him?""But if I myself," said du Portail, "should offer to guide you in it, what then?""You, monsieur!" said la Peyrade, in stupefaction.