'
"He held out his hat filled with gold to me, and put it down on the
table; then we pranced round it like a pair of cannibals about to eat
a victim; we stamped, and danced, and yelled, and sang; we gave each
other blows fit to kill an elephant, at sight of all the pleasures of
the world contained in that hat.
"'Twenty-seven thousand francs,' said Rastignac, adding a few
bank-notes to the pile of gold. 'That would be enough for other folk
to live upon; will it be sufficient for us to die on? Yes! we will
breathe our last in a bath of gold--hurrah!' and we capered afresh.
"We divided the windfall. We began with double-napoleons, and came
down to the smaller coins, one by one. 'This for you, this for me,' we
kept saying, distilling our joy drop by drop.
"'We won't go to sleep,' cried Rastignac. 'Joseph! some punch!'
"He threw gold to his faithful attendant.
"'There is your share,' he said; 'go and bury yourself if you can.'
"Next day I went to Lesage and chose my furniture, took the rooms that
you know in the Rue Taitbout, and left the decoration to one of the
best upholsterers. I bought horses. I plunged into a vortex of
pleasures, at once hollow and real. I went in for play, gaining and
losing enormous sums, but only at friends' houses and in ballrooms;
never in gaming-houses, for which I still retained the holy horror of
my early days.
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