If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young
friend," Vautrin continued, with half-paternal jocularity, "you must
have three horses, a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage
for the evening; you should spend altogether about nine thousand
francs on your stables. You would show yourself unworthy of your
destiny if you spent no more than three thousand francs with your
tailor, six hundred in perfumery, a hundred crowns to your shoemaker,
and a hundred more to your hatter. As for your laundress, there goes
another thousand francs; a young man of fashion must of necessity make
a great point of his linen; if your linen comes up to the required
standard, people often do not look any further. Love and the Church
demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand francs. I am
saying nothing of losses at play, bets, and presents; it is impossible
to allow less than two thousand francs for pocket money. I have led
that sort of life, and I know all about these expenses. Add the cost
of necessaries next; three hundred louis for provender, a thousand
francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little
wants of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand francs every
year in our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and
people laughing at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to
success, and good-bye to your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and
your groom! Is Christophe going to carry your _billets-doux_ for you?
Do you mean to employ the stationery you use at present? Suicidal
policy! Hearken to the wisdom of your elders!" he went on, his bass
voice growing louder at each syllable.
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