The character of his companion, whom we will call Rodolphe, presented a strong contrast with Leopold’s, and their antagonism had no doubt had the result of tightening the bond that united them.  Rodolphe was the natural son of a man of rank, who was carried off by a premature death before he could make any arrangements for securing the means of existence to a woman he fondly loved and to Rodolphe.  Thus cheated by a stroke of fate, Rodolphe’s mother had recourse to a heroic measure.  She sold everything she owed to the munificence of her child’s father for a sum of more than a hundred thousand francs, bought with it a life annuity for herself at a high rate, and thus acquired an income of about fifteen thousand francs, resolving to devote the whole of it to the education of her son, so as to give him all the personal advantages that might help to make his fortune, while saving, by strict economy, a small capital to be his when he came of age.  It was bold; it was counting on her own life; but without this boldness the good mother would certainly have found it impossible to live and to bring her child up suitably, and he was her only hope, her future, the spring of all her joys.

Rodolphe, the son of a most charming Parisian woman, and a man of mark, a nobleman of Brabant, was cursed with extreme sensitiveness.  From his infancy he had in everything shown a most ardent nature.  In him mere desire became a guiding force and the motive power of his whole being, the stimulus to his imagination, the reason of his actions.  Notwithstanding the pains taken by a clever mother, who was alarmed when she detected this predisposition, Rodolphe wished for things as a poet imagines, as a mathematician calculates, as a painter sketches, as a musician creates melodies.  Tender-hearted, like his mother, he dashed with inconceivable violence and impetus of thought after the object of his desires; he annihilated time.  While dreaming of the fulfilment of his schemes, he always overlooked the means of attainment.  “When my son has children,” said his other, “he will want them born grown up.”

This fine frenzy, carefully directed, enabled Rodolphe to achieve his studies with brilliant results, and to become what the English call an accomplished gentleman.  His mother was then proud of him, though still fearing a catastrophe if ever a passion should possess a heart at once so tender and so susceptible, so vehement and so kind.  Therefore, the judicious mother had encouraged the friendship which bound Leopold to Rodolphe and Rodolphe to Leopold, since she saw in the cold and faithful young notary, a guardian, a comrade, who might to a certain extent take her place if by some misfortune she should be lost to her son.  Rodolphe’s mother, still handsome at three-and-forty, had inspired Leopold with an ardent passion.  This circumstance made the two young men even more intimate.