At this moment Modeste, happy as she was in the return of her father,
was, nevertheless, pacing her room disconsolate as Perrette on seeing
her eggs broken. She had hoped her father would bring back a much larger
fortune than Dumay had mentioned. Nothing could satisfy her new-found
ambition on behalf of her poet less than at least half the six millions
she had talked of in her second letter. Trebly agitated by her two joys
and the grief caused by her comparative poverty, she seated herself at
the piano, that confidant of so many young girls, who tell out their
wishes and provocations on the keys, expressing them by the notes and
tones of their music. Dumay was talking with his wife in the garden
under the windows, telling her the secret of their own wealth, and
questioning her as to her desires and her intentions. Madame Dumay had,
like her husband, no other family than the Mignons. Husband and wife
agreed, therefore, to go and live in Provence, if the Comte de La Bastie
really meant to live in Provence, and to leave their money to whichever
of Modeste’s children might need it most.
“Listen to Modeste,” said Madame Mignon, addressing them. “None but a
girl in love can compose such airs without having studied music.”
Houses may burn, fortunes be engulfed, fathers return from distant
lands, empires may crumble away, the cholera may ravage cities, but a
maiden’s love wings its way as nature pursues hers, or that alarming
acid which chemistry has lately discovered, and which will presently eat
through the globe, if nothing stops it.
Modeste, under the inspiration of her present situation, was putting to
music certain stanzas which we are compelled to quote here--albeit
they are printed in the second volume of the edition Dauriat had
mentioned--because, in order to adapt them to her music, which had the
inexpressible charm of sentiment so admired in great singers, Modeste
had taken liberties with the lines in a manner that may astonish the
admirers of a poet so famous for the correctness, sometimes too precise,
of his measures.
THE MAIDEN’S SONG
Hear, arise! the lark is shaking
Sunlit wings that heavenward rise;
Sleep no more; the violet, waking,
Wafts her incense to the skies.
Flowers revived, their eyes unclosing,
See themselves in drops of dew
In each calyx-cup reposing,
Pearls of a day their mirror true.
Breeze divine, the god of roses,
Passed by night to bless their bloom;
See! for him each bud uncloses,
Glows, and yields its rich perfume.
Then arise! the lark is shaking
Sunlit wings that heavenward rise;
Nought is sleeping--Heart, awaking,
Lift thine incense to the skies.
“It is very pretty,” said Madame Dumay. “Modeste is a musician, and
that’s the whole of it.”
“The devil is in her!” cried the cashier, into whose heart the suspicion
of the mother forced its way and made him shiver.
“She loves,” persisted Madame Mignon.
By succeeding, through the undeniable testimony of the song, in making
the cashier a sharer in her belief as to the state of Modeste’s heart,
Madame Mignon destroyed the happiness the return and the prosperity of
his master had brought him. The poor Breton went down the hill to Havre
and to his desk in Gobenheim’s counting-room with a heavy heart; then,
before returning to dinner, he went to see Latournelle, to tell his
fears, and beg once more for the notary’s advice and assistance.
“Yes, my dear friend,” said Dumay, when they parted on the steps of the
notary’s door, “I now agree with madame; she loves,--yes, I am sure of
it; and the devil knows the rest. I am dishonored.”
“Don’t make yourself unhappy, Dumay,” answered the little notary. “Among
us all we can surely get the better of the little puss; sooner or later,
every girl in love betrays herself,--you may be sure of that. But we
will talk about it this evening.”
Thus it happened that all those devoted to the Mignon family were fully
as disquieted and uncertain as they were before the old soldier tried
the experiment which he expected would be so decisive. The ill-success
of his past efforts so stimulated Dumay’s sense of duty, that he
determined not to go to Paris to see after his own fortune as announced
by his patron, until he had guessed the riddle of Modeste’s heart. These
friends, to whom feelings were more precious than interests, well knew
that unless the daughter were pure and innocent, the father would die of
grief when he came to know the death of Bettina and the blindness of
his wife. The distress of poor Dumay made such an impression on the
Latournelles that they even forgot their parting with Exupere, whom they
had sent off that morning to Paris. During dinner, while the three were
alone, Monsieur and Madame Latournelle and Butscha turned the problem
over and over in their minds, and discussed every aspect of it.
“If Modeste loved any one in Havre she would have shown some fear
yesterday,” said Madame Latournelle; “her lover, therefore, lives
somewhere else.”
“She swore to her mother this morning,” said the notary, “in presence
of Dumay, that she had not exchanged a look or a word with any living
soul.”
“Then she loves after my fashion!” exclaimed Butscha.
“And how is that, my poor lad?” asked Madame Latournelle.
“Madame,” said the little cripple, “I love alone and afar--oh! as far as
from here to the stars.”
“How do you manage it, you silly fellow?” said Madame Latournelle,
laughing.
“Ah, madame!” said Butscha, “what you call my hump is the socket of my
wings.”
“So that is the explanation of your seal, is it?” cried the notary.
Butscha’s seal was a star, and under it the words “Fulgens,
sequar,”--“Shining One, I follow thee,”--the motto of the house of
Chastillonest.
“A beautiful woman may feel as distrustful as the ugliest,” said
Butscha, as if speaking to himself; “Modeste is clever enough to fear
she may be loved only for her beauty.”
Hunchbacks are extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for,
according to Nature’s plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish.
The curvature or distortion of the spinal column creates in these
outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where
the nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal
conditions,--where they develop, and whence they are emitted, so to say,
in lightning flashes, to energize the interior being. From this, forces
result which are sometimes brought to light by magnetism, though they
are far more frequently lost in the vague spaces of the spiritual world.
It is rare to find a deformed person who is not gifted with some special
faculty,--a whimsical or sparkling gaiety perhaps, an utter malignity,
or an almost sublime goodness. Like instruments which the hand of art
can never fully waken, these beings, highly privileged though they know
it not, live within themselves, as Butscha lived, provided their natural
forces so magnificently concentrated have not been spent in the struggle
they have been forced to maintain, against tremendous odds, to keep
alive. This explains many superstitions, the popular legends of gnomes,
frightful dwarfs, deformed fairies,--all that race of bottles, as
Rabelais called them, containing elixirs and precious balms.
Butscha, therefore, had very nearly found the key to the puzzle. With
all the anxious solicitude of a hopeless lover, a vassal ever ready to
die,--like the soldiers alone and abandoned in the snows of Russia, who
still cried out, “Long live the Emperor,”--he meditated how to capture
Modeste’s secret for his own private knowledge. So thinking, he followed
his patrons to the Chalet that evening, with a cloud of care upon his
brow: for he knew it was most important to hide from all these watchful
eyes and ears the net, whatever it might be, in which he should entrap
his lady. It would have to be, he thought, by some intercepted glance,
some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon lays his finger on a
hidden sore. That evening Gobenheim did not appear, and Butscha was
Dumay’s partner against Monsieur and Madame Latournelle. During the few
moment’s of Modeste’s absence, about nine o’clock, to prepare for her
mother’s bedtime, Madame Mignon and her friends spoke openly to one
another; but the poor clerk, depressed by the conviction of Modeste’s
love, which had now seized upon him as upon the rest, seemed as remote
from the discussion as Gobenheim had been the night before.
“Well, what’s the matter with you, Butscha?” cried Madame Latournelle;
“one would really think you hadn’t a friend in the world.”
Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was the son of a Swedish
sailor, and whose mother was dead.
“I have no one in the world but you,” he answered with a troubled voice;
“and your compassion is so much a part of your religion that I can never
lose it--and I will never deserve to lose it.”
This answer struck the sensitive chord of true delicacy in the minds of
all present.
“We love you, Monsieur Butscha,” said Madame Mignon, with much feeling
in her voice.
“I’ve six hundred thousand francs of my own, this day,” cried Dumay,
“and you shall be a notary and the successor of Latournelle.”
The American wife took the hand of the poor hunchback and pressed it.
“What! you have six hundred thousand francs!” exclaimed Latournelle,
pricking up his ears as Dumay let fall the words; “and you allow these
ladies to live as they do! Modeste ought to have a fine horse; and why
doesn’t she continue to take lessons in music, and painting, and--”
“Why, he has only had the money a few hours!” cried the little wife.
“Hush!” murmured Madame Mignon.
While these words were exchanged, Butscha’s august mistress turned
towards him, preparing to make a speech:--
“My son,” she said, “you are so surrounded by true affection that I
never thought how my thoughtless use of that familiar phrase might be
construed; but you must thank me for my little blunder, because it has
served to show you what friends your noble qualities have won.”
“Then you must have news from Monsieur Mignon,” resumed the notary.
“He is on his way home,” said Madame Mignon; “but let us keep the secret
to ourselves. When my husband learns how faithful Butscha has been
to us, how he has shown us the warmest and the most disinterested
friendship when others have given us the cold shoulder, he will not let
you alone provide for him, Dumay. And so, my friend,” she added, turning
her blind face toward Butscha; “you can begin at once to negotiate with
Latournelle.”
“He’s of legal age, twenty-five and a half years. As for me, it will
be paying a debt, my boy, to make the purchase easy for you,” said the
notary.
Butscha was kissing Madame Mignon’s hand, and his face was wet with
tears as Modeste opened the door of the salon.
“What are you doing to my Black Dwarf?” she demanded. “Who is making him
unhappy?”
“Ah! Mademoiselle Mignon, do we luckless fellows, cradled in misfortune,
ever weep for grief? They have just shown me as much affection as I
could feel for them if they were indeed my own relations. I’m to be a
notary; I shall be rich. Ha! ha! the poor Butscha may become the rich
Butscha. You don’t know what audacity there is in this abortion,” he
cried.
With that he gave himself a resounding blow on the cavity of his chest
and took up a position before the fireplace, after casting a glance at
Modeste, which slipped like a ray of light between his heavy half-closed
eyelids. He perceived, in this unexpected incident, a chance of
interrogating the heart of his sovereign. Dumay thought for a moment
that the clerk dared to aspire to Modeste, and he exchanged a rapid
glance with the others, who understood him, and began to eye the little
man with a species of terror mingled with curiosity.
“I, too, have my dreams,” said Butscha, not taking his eyes from
Modeste.
The young girl lowered her eyelids with a movement that was a revelation
to the young man.
“You love romance,” he said, addressing her. “Let me, in this moment of
happiness, tell you mine; and you shall tell me in return whether the
conclusion of the tale I have invented for my life is possible. To me
wealth would bring greater happiness than to other men; for the highest
happiness I can imagine would be to enrich the one I loved. You,
mademoiselle, who know so many things, tell me if it is possible for a
man to make himself beloved independently of his person, be it handsome
or ugly, and for his spirit only?”
Modeste raised her eyes and looked at Butscha. It was a piercing and
questioning glance; for she shared Dumay’s suspicion of Butscha’s
motive.
“Let me be rich, and I will seek some beautiful poor girl, abandoned
like myself, who has suffered, who knows what misery is. I will write
to her and console her, and be her guardian spirit; she shall read my
heart, my soul; she shall possess by double wealth, my two wealths,--my
gold, delicately offered, and my thought robed in all the splendor which
the accident of birth has denied to my grotesque body. But I myself
shall remain hidden like the cause that science seeks. God himself may
not be glorious to the eye. Well, naturally, the maiden will be curious;
she will wish to see me; but I shall tell her that I am a monster of
ugliness; I shall picture myself hideous.”
At these words Modeste gave Butscha a glance that looked him through and
through. If she had said aloud, “What do you know of my love?” she could
not have been more explicit.
“If I have the honor of being loved for the poem of my heart, if some
day such love may make a woman think me only slightly deformed, I
ask you, mademoiselle, shall I not be happier than the handsomest of
men,--as happy as a man of genius beloved by some celestial being like
yourself.”
The color which suffused the young girl’s face told the cripple nearly
all he sought to know.
“Well, if that be so,” he went on, “if we enrich the one we love, if
we please the spirit and withdraw the body, is not that the way to make
one’s self beloved? At any rate it is the dream of your poor dwarf,--a
dream of yesterday; for to-day your mother gives me the key to future
wealth by promising me the means of buying a practice. But before I
become another Gobenheim, I seek to know whether this dream could be
really carried out. What do you say, mademoiselle, _you_?”
Modeste was so astonished that she did not notice the question. The trap
of the lover was much better baited than that of the soldier, for the
poor girl was rendered speechless.
“Poor Butscha!” whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband. “Do you
think he is going mad?”
“You want to realize the story of Beauty and the Beast,” said Modeste at
length; “but you forget that the Beast turned into Prince Charming.”
“Do you think so?” said the dwarf. “Now I have always thought that
that transformation meant the phenomenon of the soul made visible,
obliterating the form under the light of the spirit. If I were not loved
I should stay hidden, that is all. You and yours, madame,” he continued,
addressing his mistress, “instead of having a dwarf at your service,
will now have a life and a fortune.”
So saying, Butscha resumed his seat, remarking to the three
whist-players with an assumption of calmness, “Whose deal is it?” but
within his soul he whispered sadly to himself: “She wants to be loved
for herself; she corresponds with some pretended great man; how far has
it gone?”
“Dear mamma, it is nearly ten o’clock,” said Modeste.
Madame Mignon said good-night to her friends, and went to bed.
They who wish to love in secret may have Pyrenean hounds, mothers,
Dumays, and Latournelles to spy upon them, and yet not be in any danger;
but when it comes to a lover!--ah! that is diamond cut diamond, flame
against flame, mind to mind, an equation whose terms are mutual.
On Sunday morning Butscha arrived at the Chalet before Madame
Latournelle, who always came to take Modeste to church, and he proceeded
to blockade the house in expectation of the postman.
“Have you a letter for Mademoiselle Mignon?” he said to that humble
functionary when he appeared.
“No, monsieur, none.”
“This house has been a good customer to the post of late,” remarked the
clerk.
“You may well say that,” replied the man.
Modeste both heard and saw the little colloquy from her chamber window,
where she always posted herself behind the blinds at this particular
hour to watch for the postman. She ran downstairs, went into the little
garden, and called in an imperative voice:--
“Monsieur Butscha!”
“Here am I, mademoiselle,” said the cripple, reaching the gate as
Modeste herself opened it.
“Will you be good enough to tell me whether among your various titles to
a woman’s affection you count that of the shameless spying in which you
are now engaged?” demanded the girl, endeavoring to crush her slave with
the glance and gesture of a queen.
“Yes, mademoiselle,” he answered proudly. “Ah! I never expected,”
he continued in a low tone, “that the grub could be of service to a
star,--but so it is. Would you rather that your mother and Monsieur
Dumay and Madame Latournelle had guessed your secret than one, excluded
as it were from life, who seeks to be to you one of those flowers that
you cut and wear for a moment? They all know you love; but I, I alone,
_know how_. Use me as you would a vigilant watch-dog; I will obey you,
protect you, and never bark; neither will I condemn you. I ask only
to be of service to you. Your father has made Dumay keeper of the
hen-roost, take Butscha to watch outside,--poor Butscha, who doesn’t ask
for anything, not so much as a bone.”
“Well, I’ve give you a trial,” said Modeste, whose strongest desire was
to get rid of so clever a watcher. “Please go at once to all the hotels
in Graville and in Havre, and ask if a gentleman has arrived from
England named Monsieur Arthur--”
“Listen to me, mademoiselle,” said Butscha, interrupting Modeste
respectfully. “I will go and take a walk on the seashore, for you don’t
want me to go to church to-day; that’s what it is.”
Modeste looked at her dwarf with a perfectly stupid astonishment.
“Mademoiselle, you have wrapped your face in cotton-wool and a silk
handkerchief, but there’s nothing the matter with you; and you have put
that thick veil on your bonnet to see some one yourself without being
seen.”
“Where did you acquire all that perspicacity?” cried Modeste, blushing.
“Moreover, mademoiselle, you have not put on your corset; a cold in the
head wouldn’t oblige you to disfigure your waist and wear half a dozen
petticoats, nor hide your hands in these old gloves, and your pretty
feet in those hideous shoes, nor dress yourself like a beggar-woman,
nor--”
“That’s enough,” she said. “How am I to be certain that you will obey
me?”
“My master is obliged to go to Sainte-Adresse. He does not like it, but
he is so truly good he won’t deprive me of my Sunday; I will offer to go
for him.”
“Go, and I will trust you.”
“You are sure I can do nothing for you in Havre?”
“Nothing. Hear me, mysterious dwarf,--look,” she continued, pointing to
the cloudless sky; “can you see a single trace of that bird that flew
by just now? No; well then, my actions are pure as the air is pure, and
leave no stain behind them. You may reassure Dumay and the Latournelles,
and my mother. That hand,” she said, holding up a pretty delicate hand,
with the points of the rosy fingers, through which the light shone,
slightly turning back, “will never be given, it will never even be
kissed by what people call a lover until my father has returned.”
“Why don’t you want me in the church to-day?”
“Do you venture to question me after all I have done you the honor to
say, and to ask of you?”
Butscha bowed without another word, and departed to find his master, in
all the rapture of being taken into the service of his goddess.
Half an hour later, Monsieur and Madame Latournelle came to fetch
Modeste, who complained of a horrible toothache.
“I really have not had the courage to dress myself,” she said.
“Well then,” replied the worthy chaperone, “stay at home.”
“Oh, no!” said Modeste. “I would rather not. I have bundled myself up,
and I don’t think it will do me any harm to go out.”
And Mademoiselle Mignon marched off beside Latournelle, refusing to take
his arm lest she should be questioned about the outward trembling which
betrayed her inward agitation at the thought of at last seeing her great
poet. One look, the first,--was it not about to decide her fate?