This was Rastignac's condition. His purse was always empty for
Mme. Vauquer, always full at the demand of vanity; there was a
periodical ebb and flow in his fortunes, which was seldom favorable to
the payment of just debts. If he was to leave that unsavory and mean
abode, where from time to time his pretensions met with humiliation,
the first step was to pay his hostess for a month's board and lodging,
and the second to purchase furniture worthy of the new lodgings he
must take in his quality of dandy, a course that remained impossible.
Rastignac, out of his winnings at cards, would pay his jeweler
exorbitant prices for gold watches and chains, and then, to meet the
exigencies of play, would carry them to the pawnbroker, that discreet
and forbidding-looking friend of youth; but when it was a question of
paying for board or lodging, or for the necessary implements for the
cultivation of his Elysian fields, his imagination and pluck alike
deserted him. There was no inspiration to be found in vulgar
necessity, in debts contracted for past requirements. Like most of
those who trust to their luck, he put off till the last moment the
payment of debts that among the bourgeoisie are regarded as sacred
engagements, acting on the plan of Mirabeau, who never settled his
baker's bill until it underwent a formidable transformation into a
bill of exchange.
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