Nucingen and he no more mind destroying a man than if he were an animal.

Often I am told to receive poor dupes whose fate I have heard them talk of the night before,--men who rush into some business where they are certain to lose their all.

I am tempted, like Leonardo in the brigand's cave, to cry out, 'Beware!' But if I did, what would become of me?
So I keep silence.

This splendid house is a cut-throat's den! But Ferdinand and Nucingen will lavish millions for their own caprices.

Ferdinand is now buying from the other du Tillet family the site of their old castle; he intends to rebuild it and add a forest with large domains to the estate, and make his son a count; he declares that by the third generation the family will be noble.
Nucingen, who is tired of his house in the rue Saint-Lazare, is building a palace.