Free Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) by Honoré de Balzac

if she were in Pekin and you in Greenland!’
    ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way between people in love,’ said Lucien, with his gaze turned down.
    ‘You’ll forget all about us,’ replied the beautiful Eve’s timorous admirer.
    ‘On the contrary, it may be that I have given up my lady for your sake,’ cried Lucien.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Although I love her, and in spite of the diverse interests which prompt me to obtain a footing in her house, I have told her I would never return there if a man whose talents are superior to mine, who is worthy of a glorious future, if DavidSéchard, my brother and friend, were not accepted there. Her reply should be waiting for me at home. But although all the local aristocracy is invited there for this evening to a reading of my verses, if the reply is negative, I will never set foot again in Madame de Bargeton’s house.’
    David gave Lucien a vigorous handshake after wiping the tears from his eyes. The clock struck six.
    ‘Eve will be getting anxious. Good-bye,’ said Lucien abruptly. He made off, leaving David a prey to emotions which at his age alone are felt with such intensity, and above all in the case of two cygnets whose wings had not yet been clipped by life in the provinces.
    ‘A heart of gold!’ cried David, following Lucien with his eye as he walked through the workshop.
    Lucien strode down to L’Houmeau through the handsome Promenade de Beaulieu, the rue du Minage and the Porte Saint-Pierre. You may know by the fact of his taking the longest way that Madame de Bargeton’s house was situated on this route. It gave him so much pleasure to pass under her windows – even though she was unaware of it – that for two months he had not returned home by the Porte-Palet.
    As he passed beneath the trees of Beaulieu, he surveyed the distance separating Angoulême from L’Houmeau. Local manners and customs had raised spiritual barriers between them which were much more difficult to cross than the slopes which Lucien was now descending. This ambitious young man, who had just gained admission to the Bargeton mansion by making his poetic reputation a bridge between town and suburb, was as anxious about his patroness’s decision as can be a court favourite apprehensive of disgrace when he has tried to extend his power. These words must seem obscure to those who have not yet observed the manners peculiar to cities divided into an upper and a lower town; but it is all the more necessary at this point to make some remarks on Angoulême because they will help us to understand Madame de Bargeton, one of the most important characters in this story.

2. Madame de Bargeton
     
    A NGOULÊME is an ancient town built on the summit of a cone-shaped rock towering over the meadows through which the river Charente runs. From the Périgord direction this rock forms a long ridge which terminates abruptly on the Paris-Bordeaux road, thus forming a sort of promontory marked out by three picturesque valleys. The importance of this town at the time of the religious wars is attested by its ramparts, its city gates and the ruins of a fortress perched on the peak of the rock. Its situation formerly made it a strategic point which was equally valuable to Catholics and Calvinists; but its erstwhile strength constitutes its weakness today; the ramparts and the excessive slope of the rock have prevented it from sprawling out over the Charente valley and condemned it to the direst stagnation. About the time when our story begins, the Government was trying to push the town forward into Périgord by building the prefectoral palace, a marine school and military establishments along the hill, and laying plans for roads. But commerce had moved in the opposite direction. Long since, the suburb of L’Houmeau had spread out like a bed of mushrooms at the foot of the rock and along the river banks, parallel to which runs the main road from Paris to Bordeaux. The paper-mills of Angoulême are