ear's back, with a shaggy fell; the student gave a startled
shudder)--"he was a raw lad, but he made his mark on me," the
extraordinary man went on, drawing Rastignac's fingers over a deep scar
on his breast. "But that happened when I myself was a mere boy; I was
one-and-twenty then (your age), and I had some beliefs left--in a
woman's love, and in a pack of rubbish that you will be over head and
ears in directly. You and I were to have fought just now, weren't we?
You might have killed me. Suppose that I were put under the earth, where
would you be? You would have to clear out of this, go to Switzerland,
draw on papa's purse--and he has none too much in it as it is. I mean to
open your eyes to your real position, that is what I am going to do: but
I shall do it from the point of view of a man who, after studying the
world very closely, sees that there are but two alternatives--stupid
obedience or revolt. I obey nobody; is that clear? Now, do you know how
much you will want at the pace you are going? A million; and promptly,
too, or that little head of ours will be swaying to and fro in the
drag-nets at Saint-Cloud, while we are gone to find out whether or no
there is a Supreme Being. I will put you in the way of that million."

He stopped for a moment and looked at Eugene.

"Aha! you do not look so sourly at papa Vautrin now! At the mention of
the million you look like a young girl when somebody has said, 'I will
come for you this evening!' and she betakes herself to her toilette as a
cat licks its whiskers over a saucer of milk. All right. Come, now, let
us go into the question, young man; all between ourselves, you know.
We have a papa and mamma down yonder, a great-aunt, two sisters (aged
eighteen and seventeen), two young brothers (one fifteen, and the other
ten), that is about the roll-call of the crew. The aunt brings up the
two sisters; the cure comes and teaches the boys Latin. Boiled chestnuts
are oftener on the table than white bread. Papa makes a suit of clothes
last a long while; if mamma has a different dress winter and summer, it
is about as much as she has; the sisters manage as best they can. I know
all about it; I have lived in the south.

"That is how things are at home. They send you twelve hundred francs a
year, and the whole property only brings in three thousand francs all
told. We have a cook and a manservant; papa is a baron, and we must keep
up appearances. Then we have our ambitions; we are c