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.