Raoul was thus being undermined by the banker and the
lawyer, who saw him with much satisfaction lording it in the
newspaper, profiting by all advantages, and harvesting the fruits of
self-love, while Nathan, enchanted, believed them to be, as on the
occasion of his equestrian wants, the best fellows in the world. He
thought he managed them! Men of imagination, to whom hope is the basis
of existence, never allow themselves to know that the most perilous
moment in their affairs is that when all seems going well according to
their wishes.
This was a period of triumph by which Nathan profited. He appeared as
a personage in the world, political and financial. Du Tillet presented
him to the Nucingens. Madame de Nucingen received him cordially, less
for himself than for Madame de Vandenesse; but when she ventured a few
words about the countess he thought himself marvellously clever in
using Florine as a shield; he alluded to his relations with the
actress in a tone of generous self-conceit. How could he desert a
great devotion, for the coquetries of the faubourg Saint-Germain?
Nathan, manipulated by Nucingen and Rastignac, by du Tillet and
Blondet, gave his support ostentatiously to the "doctrinaires" of
their new and ephemeral cabinet. But in order to show himself pure of
all bribery he refused to take advantage of certain profitable
enterprises which were started by means of his paper,--he! who had no
reluctance in compromising friends or in behaving with little decency
to mechanics under certain circumstances.
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