As he approached his own abode, Cerizet, who was nothing so little as
courageous, felt an emotion of fear. He perceived a form ambushed near
the door, which, as he came nearer, detached itself as if to meet him.
Happily, it was only Dutocq. He came for his notes. Cerizet returned
them in some ill-humor, complaining of the distrust implied in a visit
at such an hour. Dutocq paid no attention to this sensitiveness, and the
next morning, very early, he presented himself at la Peyrade’s.
La Peyrade paid, as he had promised, on the nail, and to a few sentinel
remarks uttered by Dutocq as soon as the money was in his pocket,
he answered with marked coldness. His whole external appearance and
behavior was that of a slave who has burst his chain and has promised
himself not to make a gospel use of his liberty.
As he conducted his visitor to the door, the latter came face to face
with a woman in servant’s dress, who was just about to ring the bell.
This woman was, apparently, known to Dutocq, for he said to her:--
“Ha ha! little woman; so we feel the necessity of consulting a
barrister? You are right; at the family council very serious matters
were brought up against you.”
“Thank God, I fear no one. I can walk with my head up,” said the person
thus addressed.
“So much the better for you,” replied the clerk of the justice-of-peace;
“but you will probably be summoned before the judge who examines the
affair. At any rate, you are in good hands here; and my friend la
Peyrade will advise you for the best.”
“Monsieur is mistaken,” said the woman; “it is not for what he thinks
that I have come to consult a lawyer.”
“Well, be careful what you say and do, my dear woman, for I warn you
you are going to be finely picked to pieces. The relations are furious
against you, and you can’t get the idea out of their heads that you have
got a great deal of money.”
While speaking thus, Dutocq kept his eye on Theodose, who bore the look
uneasily, and requested his client to enter.
Here follows a scene which had taken place the previous afternoon
between this woman and la Peyrade.
La Peyrade, we may remember, was in the habit of going to early mass at
his parish church. For some little time he had felt himself the object
of a singular attention which he could not explain on the part of the
woman whom we have just seen entering his office, who daily attended
the church at, as Dorine says, his “special hour.” Could it be for
love? That explanation was scarcely compatible with the maturity and the
saintly, beatific air of this person, who, beneath a plain cap, called
“a la Janseniste,” by which fervent female souls of that sect were
recognized, affected, like a nun, to hide her hair. On the other hand,
the rest of her clothing was of a neatness that was almost dainty,
and the gold cross at her throat, suspended by a black velvet ribbon,
excluded the idea of humble and hesitating mendicity.
The morning of the day on which the dinner at the Rocher de Cancale was
to take place, la Peyrade, weary of a performance which had ended by
preoccupying his mind, went up to the woman and asked her pointblank if
she had any request to make of him.
“Monsieur,” she answered, in a tone of solemnity, “is, I think, the
celebrated Monsieur de la Peyrade, the advocate of the poor?”
“I am la Peyrade; and I have had, it is true, an opportunity to render
services to the indigent persons of this quarter.”
“Would it, then, be asking too much of monsieur’s goodness that he
should suffer me to consult him?”
“This place,” replied la Peyrade, “is not well chosen for such
consultation. What you have to say to me seems important, to judge by
the length of time you have been hesitating to speak to me. I live near
here, rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer, and if you will take the trouble to
come to my office--”
“It will not annoy monsieur?”
“Not in the least; my business is to hear clients.”
“At what hour--lest I disturb monsieur--?”
“When you choose; I shall be at home all the morning.”
“Then I will hear another mass, at which I can take the communion. I did
not dare to do so at this mass, for the thought of speaking to monsieur
so distracted my mind. I will be at monsieur’s house by eight o’clock,
when I have ended my meditation, if that hour does not inconvenience
him.”
“No; but there is no necessity for all this ceremony,” replied la
Peyrade, with some impatience.
Perhaps a little professional jealousy inspired his ill-humor, for it
was evident that he had to do with an antagonist who was capable of
giving him points.
At the hour appointed, not a minute before nor a minute after, the
pious woman rang the bell, and the barrister having, not without some
difficulty, induced her to sit down, he requested her to state her case.
She was then seized with that delaying little cough with which we obtain
a respite when brought face to face with a difficult subject. At last,
however, she compelled herself to approach the object of her visit.
“It is to ask monsieur,” she said, “if he would be so very good as to
inform me whether it is true that a charitable gentleman, now deceased,
has bequeathed a fund to reward domestic servants who are faithful to
their masters.”
“Yes,” replied la Peyrade; “that is to say, Monsieur de Montyon founded
‘prizes for virtue,’ which are frequently given to zealous and exemplary
domestic servants. But ordinary good conduct is not sufficient;
there must be some act or acts of great devotion, and truly Christian
self-abnegation.”
“Religion enjoins humility upon us,” replied the pious woman, “and
therefore I dare not praise myself; but inasmuch as for the last
twenty years I have lived in the service of an old man of the dullest
description, a savant, who has wasted his substance on inventions, so
that I myself have had to feed and clothe him, persons have thought that
I am not altogether undeserving of that prize.”
“It is certainly under such conditions that the Academy selects its
candidates,” said la Peyrade. “What is your master’s name?”
“Pere Picot; he is never called otherwise in our quarter; sometimes he
goes out into the streets as if dressed for the carnival, and all the
little children crowd about him, calling out: ‘How d’ye do, Pere Picot!
Good-morning, Pere Picot!’ But that’s how it is; he takes no care of his
dignity; he goes about full of his own ideas; and though I kill myself
trying to give him appetizing food, if you ask him what he has had for
his dinner he can’t tell you. Yet he’s a man full of ability, and he has
taught good pupils. Perhaps monsieur knows young Phellion, a professor
in the College of Saint-Louis; he was one of his scholars, and he comes
to see him very often.”
“Then,” said la Peyrade, “your master is a mathematician?”
“Yes, monsieur; mathematics have been his bane; they have flung him into
a set of ideas which don’t seem to have any common-sense in them ever
since he has been employed at the Observatory, near here.”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, “you must bring testimony proving your long
devotion to this old man, and I will then draw up a memorial to the
Academy and take the necessary steps to present it.”
“How good monsieur is!” said the pious woman, clasping her hands; “and
if he would also let me tell him of a little difficulty--”
“What is it?”
“They tell me, monsieur, that to get this prize persons must be really
very poor.”
“Not exactly; still, the Academy does endeavor to choose whose who are
in straitened circumstances, and who have made sacrifices too heavy for
their means.”
“Sacrifices! I think I may indeed say I have made sacrifices, for
the little property I inherited from my parents has all been spent in
keeping the old man, and for fifteen years I have had no wages, which,
at three hundred francs a year and compound interest, amount now to a
pretty little sum; as monsieur, I am sure, will agree.”
At the words “compound interest,” which evidenced a certain amount of
financial culture, la Peyrade looked at this Antigone with increased
attention.
“In short,” he said, “your difficulty is--”
“Monsieur will not think it strange,” replied the saintly person, “that
a very rich uncle dying in England, who had never done anything for
his family in his lifetime, should have left me twenty-five thousand
francs.”
“Certainly,” said the barrister, “there’s nothing in that but what is
perfectly natural and proper.”
“But, monsieur, I have been told that the possession of this money will
prevent the judges from considering my claims to the prize.”
“Possibly; because seeing you in possession of a little competence,
the sacrifices which you apparently intend to continue in favor of your
master will be less meritorious.”
“I shall never abandon him, poor, dear man, in spite of his faults,
though I know that this poor little legacy which Heaven has given me is
in the greatest danger from him.”
“How so?” asked la Peyrade, with some curiosity.
“Eh! monsieur, let him only get wind of that money, and he’d snap it up
at a mouthful; it would all go into his inventions of perpetual motion
and other machines of various kinds which have already ruined him, and
me, too.”
“Then,” said la Peyrade, “your desire is that this legacy should remain
completely unknown, not only to your master but to the judges of the
Academy?”
“How clever monsieur is, and how well he understands things!” she
replied, smiling.
“And also,” continued the barrister, “you don’t want to keep that money
openly in your possession?”
“For fear my master should find it out and get it away from me? Exactly.
Besides, as monsieur will understand, I shouldn’t be sorry, in order to
supply the poor dear man with extra comforts, that the sum should bear
interest.”
“And the highest possible interest,” said the barrister.
“Oh! as for that, monsieur, five or six per cent.”
“Very good; then it is not only about the memorial to the Academy for
the prize of virtue, but also about an investment of your legacy that
you have so long been desirous of consulting me?”
“Monsieur is so kind, so charitable, so encouraging!”
“The memorial, after I have made a few inquiries, will be easy enough;
but an investment, offering good security, the secret of which you
desire to keep, is much less readily obtained.”
“Ah! if I dared to--” said the pious woman, humbly.
“What?” asked la Peyrade.
“Monsieur understands me?”
“I? not the least in the world.”
“And yet I prayed earnestly just now that monsieur might be willing to
keep this money for me. I should feel such confidence if it were in his
hands; I know he would return it to me, and never speak of it.”
La Peyrade gathered, at this instant, the fruit of his comedy of legal
devotion to the necessitous classes. The choir of porters chanting his
praises to the skies could alone have inspired this servant-woman with
the boundless confidence of which he found himself the object. His
thoughts reverted instantly to Dutocq and his notes, and he was not far
from thinking that this woman had been sent to him by Providence.
But the more he was inclined to profit by this chance to win his
independence, the more he felt the necessity of seeming to yield only to
her importunity; consequently his objections were many.
Moreover, he had no great belief in the character of his client, and did
not care, as the common saying is, to uncover Saint Peter to cover Saint
Paul; in other words, to substitute for a creditor who, after all, was
his accomplice, a woman who might at any time become exacting and insist
in repayment in some public manner that would injure his reputation. He
decided, therefore, to play the game with a high hand.
“My good woman,” he said, “I am not in want of money, and I am not rich
enough to pay interest on twenty-five thousand francs for which I have
no use. All that I can do for you is to place that sum, in my name, with
the notary Dupuis. He is a religious man; you can see him every Sunday
in the warden’s pew in our church. Notaries, you know, never give
receipts, therefore I could not give you one myself; I can only promise
to leave among my papers, in case of death, a memorandum which will
secure the restitution of the money into your hands. The affair, you
see, is one of blind confidence, and I am very unwilling to make it. If
I do so, it is only to oblige a person whose piety and the charitable
use she intends to make of the proceeds of her little fortune entitle
her to my good-will.”
“If monsieur thinks that the matter cannot be otherwise arranged--”
“This appears to me the only possible way,” said la Peyrade. “I shall
hope to get you six per cent interest, and you may rely that it will
be paid with the utmost regularity. But remember, six months, or even a
year, may elapse before the notary will be in a position to repay this
money, because notaries invest such trust funds chiefly in mortgages
which require a certain time to mature. Now, when you have obtained the
prize for virtue, which, according to all appearance, I can readily
do for you, there will be no reason to hide your little property any
longer,--a reason which I fully understand; but you will not be able
to withdraw it from the notary’s hands immediately; and in case of any
difficulty arising, I should be forced to explain the situation, the
manner in which you have concealed your prosperity from your master, to
whom you have been supposed to be wholly devoted. This, as you will see,
would put you in the position of falsely professing virtue, and would do
great harm to your reputation for piety.”
“Oh! monsieur,” said the saintly woman, “can it be that any one would
think me a person who did not speak the truth?”
“Bless you! my good creature, in business it is necessary to foresee
everything. Money embroils the best friends, and leads to actions they
never foresaw. Therefore reflect; you can come and see me again in a few
days. It is possible that between now and then you will find some better
investment; and I myself, who am doing at this moment a thing I don’t
altogether like, may have found other difficulties which I do not now
expect.”
This threat, adroitly thrown out as an afterthought, was intended to
immediately clinch the matter.
“I have reflected carefully,” said the pious woman, “and I feel sure
that in the hands of so religious a man as monsieur I run no risks.”
Taking from her bosom a little pocket-book, she pulled out twenty-five
bank notes. The rapid manner in which she counted them was a revelation
to la Peyrade. The woman was evidently accustomed to handle money, and a
singular idea darted through his mind.
“Can it be that she is making me a receiver of stolen property? No,” he
said aloud, “in order to draw up the memorial for the Academy, I must,
as I told you, make a few inquiries; and that will give me occasion to
call upon you. At what hour can I see you alone?”
“At four o’clock, when monsieur goes to take his walk in the
Luxembourg.”
“And where do you live?”
“Rue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9.”
“Very good; at four o’clock; and if, as I doubt not, the result of my
inquiry is favorable, I will take your money then. Otherwise, if there
are not good grounds for your application for the prize of virtue there
will be no reason why you should make a mystery of your legacy. You
could then invest it in some more normal manner than that I have
suggested to you.”
“Oh! how cautious monsieur is!” she said, with evident disappointment,
having thought the affair settled. “This money, God be thanked! I have
not stolen, and monsieur can make what inquiries he likes about me in
the quarter.”
“It is quite indispensable that I should do so,” said la Peyrade, dryly,
for he did not at all like, under this mask of simplicity, the quick
intelligence that penetrated his thoughts. “Without being a thief, a
woman may very well not be a Sister of Charity; there’s a wide margin
between the two extremes.”
“As monsieur chooses,” she replied; “he is doing me so great a service
that I ought to let him take all precautions.”
Then, with a piously humble bow, she went away, taking her money with
her.
“The devil!” thought la Peyrade; “that woman is stronger than I; she
swallows insults with gratitude and without the sign of a grimace! I
have never yet been able to master myself like that.”
He began now to fear that he had been too timid, and to think that his
would-be creditor might change her mind before he could pay her the
visit he had promised. But the harm was done, and, although consumed
with anxiety lest he had lost a rare chance, he would have cut off a leg
sooner than yield to his impulse to go to her one minute before the hour
he had fixed. The information he obtained about her in the quarter
was rather contradictory. Some said his client was a saint; otherwise
declared her to be a sly creature; but, on the whole, nothing was said
against her morality that deterred la Peyrade from taking the piece of
luck she had offered him.
When he met her at four o’clock he found her in the same mind.
With the money in his pocket he went to dine with Cerizet and Dutocq at
the Rocher de Cancale; and it is to the various emotions he had
passed through during the day that we must attribute the sharp and
ill-considered manner in which he conducted his rupture with his two
associates. This behavior was neither that of his natural disposition
nor of his acquired temperament; but the money that was burning in his
pockets had slightly intoxicated him; its very touch had conveyed to
him an excitement and an impatience for emancipation of which he was not
wholly master. He flung Cerizet over in the matter of the lease without
so much as consulting Brigitte; and yet, he had not had the full courage
of his duplicity; for he had laid to the charge of the old woman a
refusal which was merely the act of his own will, prompted by bitter
recollections of his fruitless struggles with the man who had so long
oppressed him.
In short, during the whole day, la Peyrade had not shown himself the
able and infallible man that we have hitherto seen him. Once before,
when he carried the fifteen thousand francs entrusted to him by
Thuillier, he had been led by Cerizet into an insurrectionary proceeding
which necessitated the affair of Sauvaignou. Perhaps, on the whole, it
is more difficult to be strong under good than under evil fortune. The
Farnese Hercules, calm and in still repose, expresses more energetically
the plenitude of muscular power than a violent and agitated Hercules
represented in the over-excited energy of his labors.
PART II. THE PARVENUS
CHAPTER I. PHELLION, UNDER A NEW ASPECT
Between the first and second parts of this history an immense event had
taken place in the life of Phellion.
There is no one who has not heard of the misfortunes of the Odeon,
that fatal theatre which, for years, ruined all its directors. Right
or wrong, the quarter in which this dramatic impossibility stands is
convinced that its prosperity depends upon it; so that more than once
the mayor and other authorities of the arrondissement have, with a
courage that honors them, taken part in the most desperate efforts to
galvanize the corpse.
Now to meddle with theatrical matters is one of the eternally perennial
ambitions of the lesser bourgeoisie. Always, therefore, the successive
saviours of the Odeon feel themselves magnificently rewarded if they are
given ever so small a share in the administration of that enterprise. It
was at some crisis in its affairs that Minard, in his capacity as mayor
of the 11th arrondissement, had been called to the chairmanship of the
committee for reading plays, with the power to join unto himself as
assistants a certain number of the notables of the Latin quarter,--the
selection being left to him.
We shall soon know exactly how near was the realization of la Peyrade’s
projects for the possession of Celeste’s “dot”; let us merely say now
that these projects in approaching maturity had inevitably become noised
abroad; and as this condition of things pointed, of course, to the
exclusion of Minard junior and also of Felix the professor, the
prejudice hitherto manifested by Minard pere against old Phellion was
transformed into an unequivocal disposition towards friendly cordiality;
there is nothing that binds and soothes like the feeling of a checkmate
shared in common. Judged without the evil eye of paternal rivalry,
Phellion became to Minard a Roman of incorruptible integrity and a man
whose little treatises had been adopted by the University,--in other
words, a man of sound and tested intellect.
So that when it became the duty of the mayor to select the members of
the dramatic custom-house, of which he was now the head, he immediately
thought of Phellion. As for the great citizen, he felt, on the day when
a post was offered to him in that august tribunal, that a crown of gold
had been placed upon his brow.
It will be well understood that it was not lightly, nor without having
deeply meditated, that a man of Phellion’s solemnity had accepted the
high and sacred mission which was offered to him. He said within himself
that he was called upon to exercise the functions of a magistracy, a
priestly office.
“To judge of men,” he replied to Minard, who was much surprised at
his hesitation, “is an alarming task, but to judge of minds!--who can
believe himself equal to such a mission?”
Once more the family--that rock on which the firmest resolutions
split--had threatened to infringe on the domain of his conscience. The
thought of boxes and tickets of which the future member of the committee
could dispose in favor of his own kin had excited in the household so
eager a ferment that his freedom of decision seemed for a moment in
danger. But, happily, Brutus was able to decide himself in the same
direction along which a positive uprising of the whole Phellionian tribe
intended to push him. From the observations of Barniol, his son-in-law,
and also by his own personal inspiration, he became persuaded that by
his vote, always given to works of irreproachable morality, and by his
firm determination to bar the way to all plays that mothers of families
could not take their daughters to witness, he was called upon to render
the most signal services to morals and public order. Phellion, to use
his own expression, had therefore become a member of the areopagus
presided over by Minard, and--still speaking as he spoke--he was
issuing from the exercise of his functions, which were both delicate and
interesting, when the conversation we are about to report took place. A
knowledge of this conversation is necessary to an understanding of the
ulterior events of this history, and it will also serve to put into
relief the envious insight which is one of the most marked traits of the
bourgeois character.
The session of the committee had been extremely stormy. On the subject
of a tragedy entitled, “The Death of Hercules,” the classic party
and the romantic party, whom the mayor had carefully balanced in the
composition of his committee, had nearly approached the point of tearing
each other’s hair out. Twice Phellion had risen to speak, and his
hearers were astonished at the quantity of metaphors the speech of a
major of the National Guard could contain when his literary convictions
were imperilled. As the result of a vote, victory remained with
the opinions of which Phellion was the eloquent organ. It was while
descending the stairway of the theatre with Minard that he remarked:--
“We have done a good work this day. ‘The Death of Hercules’ reminded me
of ‘The Death of Hector,’ by the late Luce de Lancival; the work we have
just accepted sparkles with sublime verses.”
“Yes,” said Minard, “the versification has taste; there are some
really fine lines in it, and I admit to you that I think this sort of
literature rather above the anagrams of Master Colleville.”
“Oh!” replied Minard, “Colleville’s anagrams are mere witticisms, which
have nothing in common with the sterner accents of Melpomene.”
“And yet,” said Minard, “I can assure you he attaches the greatest
importance to that rubbish, and apropos to his anagrams, as, indeed,
about many other things, he is not a little puffed up. Since their
emigration to the Madeleine quarter it seems to me that not only the
Sieur Colleville, but his wife and daughter, and the Thuilliers and
the whole coterie have assumed an air of importance which is rather
difficult to justify.”
“No wonder!” said Phellion; “one must have a pretty strong head to
stand the fumes of opulence. Our friends have become so very rich by the
purchase of that property where they have gone to live that we ought to
forgive them for a little intoxication; and I must say the dinner they
gave us yesterday for a house-warming was really as well arranged as it
was succulent.”
“I myself,” said Minard, “have given a few remarkable dinners to which
men in high government positions have not disdained to come, yet I am
not puffed up with pride on that account; such as my friends have always
known me, that I have remained.”
“You, Monsieur le maire, have long been habituated to the splendid
existence you have made for yourself by your high commercial talents;
our friends, on the contrary, so lately embarked on the smiling ship of
Fortune, have not yet found, as the vulgar saying is, their sea-legs.”
And then to cut short a conversation in which Phellion began to think
the mayor rather “caustic,” he made as if he intended to take leave of
him. In order to reach their respective homes they did not always take
the same way.
“Are you going through the Luxembourg?” asked Minard, not allowing
Phellion to give him the slip.
“I shall cross it, but I have an appointment to meet Madame Phellion and
the little Barniols at the end of the grand alley.”
“Then,” said Minard, “I’ll go with you and have the pleasure of making
my bow to Madame Phellion; and I shall get the fresh air at the same
time, for, in spite of hearing fine things, one’s head gets tired at the
business we have just been about.”
Minard had felt that Phellion gave rather reluctant assent to his sharp
remarks about the new establishment of the Thuilliers, and he did not
attempt to renew the subject; but when he had Madame Phellion for a
listener, he was very sure that his spite would find an echo.
“Well, fair lady,” he began, “what did you think of yesterday’s dinner?”
“It was very fine,” replied Madame Phellion; “as I tasted that soup ‘a
la bisque’ I knew that some caterer, like Chevet, had supplanted the
cook. But the whole affair was dull; it hadn’t the gaiety of our old
meetings in the Latin quarter. And then, didn’t it strike you, as it did
me, that Madame and Mademoiselle Thuillier no longer seemed mistresses
of their own house? I really felt as if I were the guest of Madame--what
_is_ her name? I never can remember it.”
“Torna, Comtesse de Godollo,” said Phellion, intervening. “The name is
euphonious enough to remember.”
“Euphonious if you like, my dear; but to me it never seems a name at
all.”
“It is a Magyar, or to speak more commonly, a Hungarian name. Our own
name, if we wanted to discuss it, might be said to be a loan from the
Greek language.”
“Very likely; at any rate we have the advantage of being known, not
only in our own quarter, but throughout the tuition world, where we have
earned an honorable position; while this Hungarian countess, who makes,
as they say, the good and the bad weather in the Thuilliers’ home, where
does she come from, I’d like to know? How did such a fine lady,--for
she has good manners and a very distinguished air, no one denies
her that,--how came she to fall in love with Brigitte; who, between
ourselves, keeps a sickening odor of the porter’s lodge about her. For
my part, I think this devoted friend is an intriguing creature, who
scents money, and is scheming for some future gain.”
“Ah ca!” said Minard, “then you don’t know the original cause of the
intimacy between Madame la Comtesse de Godollo and the Thuilliers?”
“She is a tenant in their house; she occupies the entresol beneath their
apartment.”
“True, but there’s something more than that in it. Zelie, my wife, heard
it from Josephine, who wanted, lately, to enter our service; the matter
came to nothing, for Francoise, our woman, who thought of marrying,
changed her mind. You must know, fair lady, that it was solely Madame
de Godollo who brought about the emigration of the Thuilliers, whose
upholsterer, as one might say, she is.”
“What! their upholsterer?” cried Phellion,--“that distinguished woman,
of whom one may truly say, ‘Incessu patuit dea’; which in French we very
inadequately render by the expression, ‘bearing of a queen’?”
“Excuse me,” said Minard. “I did not mean that Madame de Godollo is
actually in the furniture business; but, at the time when Mademoiselle
Thuillier decided, by la Peyrade’s advice, to manage the new house
herself, that little fellow, who hasn’t all the ascendancy over her
mind he thinks he has, couldn’t persuade her to move the family into
the splendid apartment where they received us yesterday. Mademoiselle
Brigitte objected that she should have to change her habits, and
that her friends and relations wouldn’t follow her to such a distant
quarter--”
“It is quite certain,” interrupted Madame Phellion, “that to make up
one’s mind to hire a carriage every Sunday, one wants a prospect of
greater pleasure than can be found in that salon. When one thinks that,
except on the day of the famous dance of the candidacy, they never once
opened the piano in the rue Saint-Dominique!”
“It would have been, I am sure, most agreeable to the company to have a
talent like yours put in requisition,” remarked Minard; “but those are
not ideas that could ever come into the mind of that good Brigitte.
She’d have seen two more candles to light. Five-franc pieces are her
music. So, when la Peyrade and Thuillier insisted that she should move
into the apartment in the Place de la Madeleine, she thought of nothing
but the extra costs entailed by the removal. She judged, rightly enough,
that beneath those gilded ceilings her old ‘penates’ might have a
singular effect.”
“See how all things link together,” remarked Phellion, “and how, from
the summits of society, luxury infiltrates itself, sooner or later,
through the lower classes, leading to the ruin of empires.”
“You are broaching there, my dear commander,” said Minard, “one of the
most knotty questions of political economy. Many good minds think, on
the contrary, that luxury is absolutely demanded in the interests of
commerce, which is certainly the life of States. In any case, this view,
which isn’t yours, appears to have been that of Madame de Godollo, for,
they tell me, her apartment is very coquettishly furnished; and to coax
Mademoiselle Brigitte into the same path of elegance she made a proposal
to her as follows: ‘A friend of mine,’ she said, ‘a Russian princess for
whom one of the first upholsterers has just made splendid furniture, is
suddenly recalled to Russia by the czar, a gentleman with whom no one
dares to trifle. The poor woman is therefore obliged to turn everything
she owns here into money as fast as possible; and I feel sure she would
sell this furniture for ready money at a quarter of the price it cost
her. All of it is nearly new, and some things have never been used at
all.’”
“So,” cried Madame Phellion, “all that magnificence displayed before our
eyes last night was a magnificent economical bargain?”
“Just so,” replied Minard; “and the thing that decided Mademoiselle
Brigitte to take that splendid chance was not so much the desire to
renew her shabby furniture as the idea of doing an excellent stroke
of business. In that old maid there’s always something of Madame la
Ressource in Moliere’s ‘Miser.’”
“I think, Monsieur le maire, that you are mistaken,” said Phellion.
“Madame la Ressource is a character in ‘Turcaret,’ a very immoral play
by the late Le Sage.”
“Do you think so?” said Minard. “Well, very likely. But what is certain
is that, though the barrister ingratiated himself with Brigitte in
helping her to buy the house, it was by this clever jockeying about the
furniture that the foreign countess got upon the footing with Brigitte
that you now see. You may have remarked, perhaps, that a struggle is
going on between those two influences; which we may designate as the
house, and its furniture.”
“Yes, certainly,” said Madame Phellion, with a beaming expression that
bore witness to the interest she took in the conversation, “it did seem
to me that the great lady allowed herself to contradict the barrister,
and did it, too, with a certain sharpness.”
“Very marked sharpness,” resumed Minard, “and that intriguing fellow
perceives it. It strikes me that the lady’s hostility makes him uneasy.
The Thuilliers he got cheaply; for, between ourselves you know, there’s
not much in Thuillier himself; but he feels now that he has met a tough
adversary, and he is looking anxiously for a weak spot on which to
attack her.”
“Well, that’s justice,” said Madame Phellion. “For some time past that
man, who used to make himself so small and humble, has been taking airs
of authority in the house which are quite intolerable; he behaves openly
as the son-in-law; and you know very well, in that affair of Thuillier’s
election he jockeyed us all, and made us the stepping-stone for his
matrimonial ambition.”
“Yes; but I can assure you,” said Minard, “that at the present time his
influence is waning. In the first place, he won’t find every day for his
dear, good friend, as he calls him, a fine property worth a million to
be bought for a bit of bread.”
“Then they did get that house very cheap?” said Madame Phellion,
interrogatively.
“They got it for nothing, as the result of a dirty intrigue which the
lawyer Desroches related to me the other day. If it ever became known
to the council of the bar, that little barrister would be badly
compromised. The next thing is the coming election to the Chamber.
Eating gives appetite, as they say, and our good Thuillier is hungry;
but he begins to perceive that Monsieur de la Peyrade, when it becomes a
question of getting him that mouthful, hasn’t his former opportunity
to make dupes of us. That is why the family is turning more and more to
Madame de Godollo, who seems to have some very high acquaintances in
the political world. Besides all this, in fact, without dwelling on
the election business, which is still a distant matter, this Hungarian
countess is becoming, every day, more and more a necessity to Brigitte;
for it must be owned that without the help of the great lady, the poor
soul would look in the midst of her gilded salon like a ragged gown in a
bride’s trousseau.”
“Oh, Monsieur le maire, you are cruel,” said Madame Phellion, affecting
compunction.
“No, but say,” returned Minard, “with your hand on your conscience,
whether Brigitte, whether Madame Thuillier could preside in such a
salon? No, it is the Hungarian countess who does it all. She furnished
the rooms; she selected the male domestic, whose excellent training and
intelligence you must have observed; it was she who arranged the menu
of that dinner; in short, she is the providence of the parvenu colony,
which, without her intervention, would have made the whole quarter laugh
at it. And--now this is a very noticeable thing--instead of being a
parasite like la Peyrade, this Hungarian lady, who seems to have a
fortune of her own, proves to be not only disinterested, but generous.
The two gowns that you saw Brigitte and Madame Thuillier wear last
night were a present from her, and it was because she came herself to
superintend the toilet of our two ‘amphitryonesses’ that you were
so surprised last night not to find them rigged in their usual dowdy
fashion.”
“But what can be the motive,” asked Madame Phellion, “of this maternal
and devoted guardianship?”
“My dear wife,” said Phellion, solemnly, “the motives of human actions
are not always, thank God! selfishness and the consideration of vile
interests. There are hearts in this world that find pleasure in doing
good for its own sake. This lady may have seen in our good friends a set
of people about to enter blindly into a sphere they knew nothing
about, and having encouraged their first steps by the purchase of this
furniture, she may, like a nurse attached to her nursling, find pleasure
in giving them the milk of her social knowledge and her counsels.”
“He seems to keep aloof from our strictures, the dear husband!” cried
Minard; “but just see how he goes beyond them!”
“I!” said Phellion; “it is neither my intention nor my habit to do so.”
“All the same it would be difficult to say more neatly that the
Thuilliers are geese, and that Madame de Godollo is bringing them up by
hand.”
“I do not accept for these friends of ours,” said Phellion, “a
characterization so derogatory to their repute. I meant to say that they
were lacking, perhaps, in that form of experience, and that this noble
lady has placed at their service her knowledge of the world and its
usages. I protest against any interpretation of my language which goes
beyond my thought thus limited.”
“Well, anyhow, you will agree, my dear commander, that in the idea of
giving Celeste to this la Peyrade, there is something more than want of
experience; there is, it must be said, blundering folly and immorality;
for really the goings on of that barrister with Madame Colleville--”
“Monsieur le maire,” interrupted Phellion, with redoubled solemnity,
“Solon, the law-giver, decreed no punishment for parricide, declaring
it to be an impossible crime. I think the same thing may be said of the
offence to which you seem to make allusion. Madame Colleville granting
favors to Monsieur de la Peyrade, and all the while intending to give
him her daughter? No, monsieur, no! that passes imagination. Questioned
on this subject, like Marie Antoinette, by a human tribunal, Madame
Colleville would answer with the queen, ‘I appeal to all mothers.’”
“Nevertheless, my friend,” said Madame Phellion, “allow me to remind you
that Madame Colleville is excessively light-minded, and has given, as we
al know, pretty good proofs of it.”
“Enough, my dear,” said Phellion. “The dinner hour summons us; I think
that, little by little, we have allowed this conversation to drift
toward the miry slough of backbiting.”
“You are full of illusions, my dear commander,” said Minard, taking
Phellion by the hand and shaking it; “but they are honorable illusions,
and I envy them. Madame, I have the honor--” added the mayor, with a
respectful bow to Madame Phellion.
And each party took its way.
CHAPTER II. THE PROVENCAL’S PRESENT POSITION
The information acquired by the mayor of the 11th arrondissement was by
no means incorrect. In the Thuillier salon, since the emigration to the
Madeleine quarter, might be seen daily, between the tart Brigitte and
the plaintive Madame Thuillier, the graceful and attractive figure of
a woman who conveyed to this salon an appearance of the most unexpected
elegance. It was quite true that through the good offices of this
lady, who had become her tenant in the new house, Brigitte had made
a speculation in furniture not less advantageous in its way, but more
avowable, than the very shady purchase of the house itself. For six
thousand francs in ready money she had obtained furniture lately from
workshops representing a value of at least thirty thousand.
It was still further true that in consequence of a service which went
deep into her heart, Brigitte was showing to the beautiful foreign
countess the respectful deference which the bourgeoisie, in spite of its
sulky jealousy, is much less indisposed to give to titles of nobility
and high positions in the social hierarchy than people think. As this
Hungarian countess was a woman of great tact and accomplished training,
in taking the direction which she had thought it wise to assume over
the affairs of her proteges, she had been careful to guard her influence
from all appearance of meddlesome and imperious dictation. On the
contrary, she flattered Brigitte’s claim to be a model housekeeper; in
her own household expenses she affected to ask the spinster’s advice; so
that by reserving to herself the department of luxurious expenses, she
had more the air of giving information than of exercising supervision.
La Peyrade could not disguise from himself that a change was taking
place. His influence was evidently waning before that of this stranger;
but the antagonism of the countess was not confined to a simple struggle
for influence. She made no secret of being opposed to his suit for
Celeste; she gave her unequivocal approval to the love of Felix
Phellion, the professor. Minard, by whom this fact was not unobserved,
took very good care, in the midst of his other information, not to
mention it to those whom it most concerned.
La Peyrade was all the more anxious at being thus undermined by a
hostility the cause of which was inexplicable to him, because he knew
he had himself to blame for bringing this disquieting adversary into
the very heart of his citadel. His first mistake was in yielding to the
barren pleasure of disappointing Cerizet in the lease of the house. If
Brigitte by his advice and urging had not taken the administration of
the property into her own hands there was every probability that she
would never have made the acquaintance of Madame de Godollo. Another
imprudence had been to urge the Thuilliers to leave their old home in
the Latin quarter.
At this period, when his power and credit had reached their apogee,
Theodose considered his marriage a settled thing; and he now felt an
almost childish haste to spring into the sphere of elegance which seemed
henceforth to be his future. He had therefore furthered the inducements
of the countess, feeling that he thus sent the Thuilliers before him to
make his bed in the splendid apartment he intended to share with
them. By thus removing them from their old home he saw another
advantage,--that of withdrawing Celeste from daily intercourse with
a rival who seemed to him dangerous. Deprived of the advantage of
propinquity, Felix would be forced to make his visits farther apart; and
therefore there would be greater facilities to ruin him in the
girl’s heart, where he was installed on condition of giving religious
satisfaction,--a requirement to which he showed himself refractory.
But in all these plans and schemes various drawbacks confronted him.
To enlarge the horizon of the Thuilliers was for la Peyrade to run the
chance of creating competition for the confidence and admiration
of which he had been till then the exclusive object. In the sort of
provincial life they had hitherto lived, Brigitte and his dear, good
friend placed him, for want of comparison, at a height from which the
juxtaposition of other superiorities and elegances must bring him down.
So, then, apart from the blows covertly dealt him by Madame de Godollo,
the idea of the transpontine emigration had proved to be, on the whole,
a bad one.
The Collevilles had followed their friends the Thuilliers, to the
new house near the Madeleine, where an entresol at the back had been
conceded to them at a price conformable to their budget. But Colleville
declared it lacked light and air, and being obliged to go daily from
the boulevard of the Madeleine to the faubourg Saint-Jacques, where his
office was, he fumed against the arrangement of which he was the victim,
and felt at times that la Peyrade was a tyrant. Madame Colleville, on
the other hand, had flung herself into an alarming orgy of bonnets,
mantles, and new gowns, requiring the presentation of a mass of bills,
which led not infrequently to scenes in the household which were more or
less stormy. As for Celeste, she had undoubtedly fewer opportunities
to see young Phellion, but she had also fewer chances to rush into
religious controversy; and absence, which is dangerous to none
but inferior attachments, made her think more tenderly and less
theologically of the man of her dreams.
But all these false calculations of Theodose were as nothing in the
balance with another cause for his diminishing influence which was now
to weigh heavily on his situation.
He had assured Thuillier that, after a short delay and the payment
of ten thousand francs, to which his dear, good friend submitted with
tolerable grace, the cross of the Legion of honor would arrive to
realize the secret desire of all his life. Two months had now passed
without a sign of that glorious rattle; and the former sub-director, who
would have felt such joy in parading his red ribbon on the boulevard
of the Madeleine, of which he was now one of the most assiduous
promenaders, had nothing to adorn his buttonhole but the flowers of the
earth, the privilege of everybody,--of which he was far less proud than
Beranger.
La Peyrade had, to be sure, mentioned an unforeseen and inexplicable
difficulty by which all the efforts of the Comtesse du Bruel had been
paralyzed; but Thuillier did not take comfort in the explanation; and
on certain days, when the disappointment became acute, he was very near
saying with Chicaneau in Les Plaideurs, “Return my money.”
However, no outbreak happened, for la Peyrade held him in leash by the
famous pamphlet on “Taxation and the Sliding-Scale”; the conclusion of
which had been suspended during the excitement of the moving; for during
that agitating period Thuillier had been unable to give proper care to
the correction of proofs, about which, we may remember, he had reserved
the right of punctilious examination. La Peyrade had now reached a point
when he was forced to see that, in order to restore his influence,
which was daily evaporating, he must strike some grand blow; and it was
precisely this nagging and vexatious fancy about the proofs that the
barrister decided to take as the starting-point of a scheme, both deep
and adventurous, which came into his mind.
One day, when the pair were engaged on the sheets of the pamphlet, a
discussion arose upon the word “nepotism,” which Thuillier wished to
eliminate from one of la Peyrade’s sentences, declaring that never had
he met with it anywhere; it was pure neologism--which, to the literary
notions of the bourgeoisie, is equivalent to the idea of 1793 and the
Terror.
Generally la Peyrade took the ridiculous remarks of his dear,
good friend pretty patiently; but on this occasion he made himself
exceedingly excited, and signified to Thuillier that he might terminate
himself a work to which he applied such luminous and intelligent
criticism; after which remark he departed and was not seen again for
several days.
At first Thuillier supposed this outbreak to be a mere passing effect
of ill-humor; but when la Peyrade’s absence grew prolonged he felt the
necessity of taking some conciliatory step, and accordingly he went to
see the barrister, intending to make honorable amends and so put an end
to his sulkiness. Wishing, however, to give this advance an air which
allowed an honest issue to his own self-love, he entered la Peyrade’s
room with an easy manner, and said, cheerfully:--
“Well, my dear fellow, it turns out that we were both right: ‘nepotism’
means the authority that the nephews of popes take in public affairs.
I have searched the dictionary and it gives no other explanation; but,
from what Phellion tells me, I find that in the political vocabulary
the meaning of the word has been extended to cover the influence which
corrupt ministers permit certain persons to exercise illegally. I think,
therefore, that we may retain the expression, though it is certainly not
taken in that sense by Napoleon Landais.”
La Peyrade, who, in receiving his visitor, had affected to be extremely
busy in sorting his papers, contented himself by shrugging his shoulders
and saying nothing.
“Well,” said Thuillier, “have you got the last proofs? We ought to be
getting on.”
“If you have sent nothing to the printing-office,” replied la
Peyrade, “of course there are no proofs. I myself haven’t touched the
manuscript.”
“But, my dear Theodose,” said Thuillier, “it isn’t possible that for
such a trifle you are affronted. I don’t pretend to be a writer, only as
my name is on the book I have, I think, the right to my opinion about a
word.”
“But ‘Mossie’ Phellion,” replied Theodose, “is a writer; and inasmuch as
you have consulted him, I don’t see why you can’t engage him to finish
the work in which, for my part, I have resolved not to co-operate any
longer.”
“Heavens! what temper!” cried Thuillier; “here you are furious just
because I seemed to question a word and then consulted some one. You
know very well that I have read passages to Phellion, Colleville,
Minard, and Barniol as if the work were mine, in order to see the effect
it would produce upon the public; but that’s no reason why I should be
willing to give my name to the things they are capable of writing. Do
you wish me to give you a proof of the confidence I have in you? Madame
la Comtesse de Godollo, to whom I read a few pages last night, told
me that the pamphlet was likely to get me into trouble with the
authorities; but I wouldn’t allow what she said to have any influence
upon me.”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, “I think that the oracle of the family sees the
matter clearly; and I’ve no desire to bring your head to the scaffold.”
“All that is nonsense,” said Thuillier. “Have you, or have you not, an
intention to leave me in the lurch?”
“Literary questions make more quarrels among friends than political
questions,” replied Theodose. “I wish to put an end to these discussions
between us.”
“But, my dear Theodose, never have I assumed to be a literary man. I
think I have sound common-sense, and I say out my ideas; you can’t be
angry at that; and if you play me this trick, and refuse to collaborate
any longer, it is because you have some other grudge against me that I
know nothing about.”
“I don’t see why you call it a trick. There’s nothing easier for you
than not to write a pamphlet; you’ll simply be Jerome Thuillier, as
before.”
“And yet it was you yourself who declared that this publication would
help my election; besides, I repeat, I have read passages to all our
friends, I have announced the matter in the municipal council, and if
the work were not to appear I should be dishonored; people would be sure
to say the government had bought me up.”
“You have only to say that you are the friend of Phellion, the
incorruptible; that will clear you. You might even give Celeste to
his booby of a son; that alliance would certainly protect you from all
suspicion.”
“Theodose,” said Thuillier, “there is something in your mind that you
don’t tell me. It is not natural that for a simple quarrel about a word
you should wish to lose a friend like me.”
“Well, yes, there is,” replied la Peyrade, with the air of a man who
makes up his mind to speak out. “I don’t like ingratitude.”
“Nor I either; I don’t like it,” said Thuillier, hotly; “and if you
accuse me of so base an action, I summon you to explain yourself. We
must get out of these hints and innuendoes. What do you complain of?
What have you against a man whom only a few days ago you called your
friend?”
“Nothing and everything,” replied la Peyrade. “You and your sister
are much too clever to break openly with a man who, at the risk of his
reputation, has put a million in your hands. But I am not so simple that
I don’t know how to detect changes. There are people about you who have
set themselves, in an underhand way, to destroy me; and Brigitte has
only one thought, and that is, how to find a decent way of not keeping
her promises. Men like me don’t wait till their claims are openly
protested, and I certainly do not intend to impose myself on any family;
still, I was far, I acknowledge, from expecting such treatment.”
“Come, come,” said Thuillier, kindly, seeing in the barrister’s eye the
glint of a tear of which he was completely the dupe, “I don’t know what
Brigitte may have been doing to you, but one thing is very certain: I
have never ceased to be your most devoted friend.”
“No,” said la Peyrade, “since that mishap about the cross I am only
good, as the saying is, to throw to the dogs. How could I have struggled
against secret influences? Possibly it is that pamphlet, about which you
have talked a great deal too much, that has hindered your appointment.
The ministers are so stupid! They would rather wait and have their hand
forced by the fame of the publication than do the thing with a good
grace as the reward of your services. But these are political mysteries
which would never enter your sister’s mind.”
“The devil!” cried Thuillier. “I think I’ve got a pretty observing eye,
and yet I can’t see the slightest change in Brigitte toward you.”
“Oh, yes!” said la Peyrade, “your eyesight is so good that you have
never seen perpetually beside her that Madame de Godollo, whom she now
thinks she can’t live without.”
“Ha, ha!” said Thuillier, slyly, “so it is a little jealousy, is it, in
our mind?”
“Jealousy!” retorted la Peyrade. “I don’t know if that’s the right word,
but certainly your sister--whose mind is nothing above the ordinary,
and to whom I am surprised that a man of your intellectual superiority
allows a supremacy in your household which she uses and abuses--”
“How can I help it, my dear fellow,” interrupted Thuillier, sucking in
the compliment; “she is so absolutely devoted to me.”
“I admit the weakness, but, I repeat, your sister doesn’t fit into your
groove. Well, I say that when a man of the value which you are good
enough to recognize in me, does her the honor to consult her and devote
himself to her as I have done, it can hardly be agreeable to him to find
himself supplanted by a woman who comes from nobody knows where--and all
because of a few trumpery chairs and tables she has helped her to buy!”
“With women, as you know very well,” replied Thuillier, “household
affairs have the first place.”
“And Brigitte, who wants a finger in everything, also assumes to
carry matters with a high hand in affairs of the heart. As you are so
extraordinarily clear-sighted you ought to have seen that in Brigitte’s
mind nothing is less certain than my marriage with Mademoiselle
Colleville; and yet my love has been solemnly authorized by you.”
“Good gracious!” cried Thuillier, “I’d like to see any one attempt to
meddle with my arrangements!”
“Well, without speaking of Brigitte, I can tell you of another person,”
said Theodose, “who is doing that very thing; and that person is
Mademoiselle Celeste herself. In spite of their quarrels about religion,
her mind is none the less full of that little Phellion.”
“But why don’t you tell Flavie to put a stop to it?”
“No one knows Flavie, my dear Thuillier, better than you. She is a woman
rather than a mother. I have found it necessary to do a little bit of
courting to her myself, and, you understand, while she is willing for
this marriage she doesn’t desire it very much.”
“Well,” said Thuillier, “I’ll undertake to speak to Celeste myself. It
shall never be said that a slip of a girl lays down the law to me.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do,” cried la Peyrade. “Don’t
meddle in all this. Outside of your relations to your sister you have an
iron will, and I will never have it said that you exerted your authority
to put Celeste in my arms; on the contrary, I desire that the child may
have complete control over her own heart. The only thing I request is
that she shall decide positively between Felix Phellion and myself;
because I do not choose to remain any longer in this doubtful position.
It is true we agreed that the marriage should only take place after
you became a deputy; but I feel now that it is impossible to allow
the greatest event of my life to remain at the mercy of doubtful
circumstances. And, besides, such an arrangement, though at first agreed
upon, seems to me now to have a flavor of a bargain which is unbecoming
to both of us. I think I had better make you a confidence, to which I
am led by the unpleasant state of things now between us. Dutocq may have
told you, before you left the apartment in the rue Saint-Dominique, that
an heiress had been offered to me whose immediate fortune is larger than
that which Mademoiselle Colleville will eventually inherit. I refused,
because I have had the folly to let my heart be won, and because
an alliance with a family as honorable as yours seemed to me more
desirable; but, after all, it is as well to let Brigitte know that if
Celeste refuses me, I am not absolutely turned out into the cold.”
“I can easily believe that,” said Thuillier; “but as for putting the
whole decision into the hands of that little girl, especially if she
has, as you tell me, a fancy for Felix--”
“I can’t help it,” said the barrister. “I must, at any price, get out of
this position; it is no longer tenable. You talk about your pamphlet;
I am not in a fit condition to finish it. You, who have been a man
of gallantry, you must know the dominion that women, fatal creatures!
exercise over our whole being.”
“Bah!” said Thuillier, conceitedly, “they cared for me, but I did not
often care for them; I took them, and left them, you know.”
“Yes, but I, with my Southern nature, love passionately; and Celeste has
other attractions besides fortune. Brought up in your household, under
your own eye, you have made her adorable. Only, I must say, you have
shown great weakness in letting that young fellow, who does not suit her
in any respect, get such hold upon her fancy.”
“You are quite right; but the thing began in a childish friendship; she
and Felix played together. You came much later; and it is a proof of
the great esteem in which we hold you, that when you made your offer we
renounced our earlier projects.”
“_You_ did, yes,” said la Peyrade, “and with some literary
manias--which, after all, are frequently full of sense and wit--you have
a heart of gold; with you friendship is a sure thing, and you know what
you mean. But Brigitte is another matter; you’ll see, when you propose
to her to hasten the marriage, what a resistance she will make.”
“I don’t agree with you. I think that Brigitte has always wanted you and
still wants you for son-in-law--if I may so express myself. But whether
she does or not, I beg you to believe that in all important matters I
know how to have my will obeyed. Only, let us come now to a distinct
understanding of what you wish; then we can start with the right foot
foremost, and you’ll see that all will go well.”
“I wish,” replied la Peyrade, “to put the last touches to your pamphlet;
for, above all things, I think of you.”
“Certainly,” said Thuillier, “we ought not to sink in port.”
“Well, in consequence of the feeling that I am oppressed, stultified by
the prospect of a marriage still so doubtful, I am certain that not
a page of manuscript could be got out of me in any form, until the
question is settled.”
“Very good,” said Thuillier; “then how do you present that question?”
“Naturally, if Celeste’s decision be against me, I should wish an
immediate solution. If I am condemned to make a marriage of convenience
I ought to lose no time in taking the opportunity I mentioned to you.”
“So be it; but what time do you intend to allow us?”
“I should think that in fifteen days a girl might be able to make up her
mind.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Thuillier; “but it is very repugnant to me to let
Celeste decide without appeal.”
“For my part, I will take that risk; in any case, I shall be rid of
uncertainty; and that is really my first object. Between ourselves, I
am not risking as much as you think. It will take more than fifteen days
for a son of Phellion, in other words, obstinacy incarnate in silliness,
to have done with philosophical hesitations; and it is very certain
that Celeste will not accept him for a husband unless he gives her some
proofs of conversion.”
“That’s probable. But suppose Celeste tries to dawdle; suppose she
refuses to accept the alternative?”
“That’s your affair,” said the Provencal. “I don’t know how you regard
the family in Paris; I only know that in my part of the country it is
an unheard-of thing that a girl should have such liberty. If you, your
sister (supposing she plays fair in the matter), and the father and
mother can’t succeed in making a girl whom you dower agree to so simple
a thing as to make a perfectly free choice between two suitors, then
good-bye to you! You’ll have to write upon your gate-post that Celeste
is queen and sovereign of the house.”
“Well, we haven’t got to that point yet,” said Thuillier, with a capable
air.
“As for you, my old fellow,” resumed la Peyrade, “I must postpone our
business until after Celeste’s decision. Be that in my favor or not, I
will then go to work, and in three days the pamphlet can be finished.”
“Now,” said Thuillier, “I know what you have had on your mind. I’ll talk
about it with Brigitte.”
“That’s a sad conclusion,” said la Peyrade; “but, unhappily, so it is.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I would rather, as you can easily imagine, hear you say of yourself
that the thing shall be done; but old habits can’t be broken up.”
“Ah ca! do you think I’m a man without any will, any initiative of my
own?”
“No! but I’d like to be hidden in a corner and hear how you will open
the subject with your sister.”
“Parbleu! I shall open it frankly. I WILL, very firmly said, shall meet
every one of her objections.”
“Ah, my poor fellow!” said la Peyrade, clapping him on the shoulder,
“from Chrysale down how often have we seen brave warriors lowering their
penants before the wills of women accustomed to master them!”
“We’ll see about _that_,” replied Thuillier, making a theatrical exit.
The eager desire to publish his pamphlet, and the clever doubt thrown
upon the strength of his will had made him furious,--an actual tiger;
and he went away resolved, in case of opposition, to reduce his
household, as the saying is, by fire and sword.
When he reached home Thuillier instantly laid the question before
Brigitte. She, with her crude good sense and egotism, pointed out to him
that by thus hastening the period formerly agreed upon for the marriage,
they committed the blunder of disarming themselves; they could not be
sure that when the election took place la Peyrade would put the same
zeal into preparing for it. “It might be,” said the old maid, “just as
it has been about the cross.”
“There’s this difference,” said Thuillier; “the cross doesn’t depend
directly upon la Peyrade, whereas the influence he exerts in the 12th
arrondissement he can employ as he will.”
“And suppose he willed, after we have feathered his nest,” said
Brigitte, “to work his influence for his own election? He is very
ambitious, you know.”
This danger did not fail to strike the mind of the future legislator,
who thought, however, that he might feel some security in the honor and
morality of la Peyrade.
“A man’s honor can’t be very delicate,” returned Brigitte, “when he
tries to get out of a bargain; and this fashion of dangling a bit of
sugar before us about getting your pamphlet finished, doesn’t please me
at all. Can’t you get Phellion to help you, and do without Theodose? Or,
I dare say, Madame de Godollo, who knows everybody in politics, could
find you a journalist--they say there are plenty of them out at elbows;
a couple of hundred francs would do the thing.”
“But the secret would get into the papers,” said Thuillier. “No, I must
absolutely have Theodose; he knows that, and he makes these conditions.
After all, we did promise him Celeste, and it is only fulfilling the
promise a year earlier--what am I saying?--a few months, a few weeks,
possibly; for the king may dissolve the Chamber before any one expects
it.”
“But suppose Celeste won’t have him?” objected Brigitte.
“Celeste! Celeste, indeed!” ejaculated Thuillier; “she _must_ have
whomsoever we choose. We ought to have thought of that when we made the
engagement with la Peyrade; our word is passed now, you know. Besides,
if the child is allowed to choose between la Peyrade and Phellion--”
“So you really think,” said the sceptical old maid, “that if Celeste
decides for Phellion you can still count on la Peyrade’s devotion?”
“What else can I do? Those are his conditions. Besides, the fellow has
calculated the whole thing; he knows very well that Felix will never
bring himself in two weeks to please Celeste by going to confession, and
unless he does, that little monkey will never accept him for a husband.
La Peyrade’s game is very clever.”
“Too clever,” said Brigitte. “Well, settle the matter as you choose; I
shall not meddle; all this manoeuvring is not to my taste.”
Thuillier went to see Madame Colleville, and intimated to her that she
must inform Celeste of the designs upon her.
Celeste had never been officially authorized to indulge her sentiment
for Felix Phellion. Flavie, on the contrary, had once expressly
forbidden her to encourage the hopes of the young professor; but as, on
the part of Madame Thuillier, her godmother and her confidant, she knew
she was sustained in her inclination, she had let herself gently follow
it without thinking very seriously of the obstacles her choice might
encounter. When, therefore, she was ordered to choose at once between
Felix and la Peyrade, the simple-hearted girl was at first only struck
by the advantages of one half of the alternative, and she fancied she
did herself a great service by agreeing to an arrangement which made her
the mistress of her own choice and allowed her to bestow it as her heart
desired.
But la Peyrade was not mistaken in his calculation when he reckoned
that the religious intolerance of the young girl on one side, and the
philosophical inflexibility of Phellion’s son on the other, would create
an invincible obstacle to their coming together.
CHAPTER III. GOOD BLOOD CANNOT LIE
The evening of the day on which Flavie had communicated to Celeste the
sovereign orders of Thuillier, the Phellions called to spend the evening
with Brigitte, and a very sharp engagement took place between the two
young people. Mademoiselle Colleville did not need to be told by her
mother that it would be extremely unbecoming if she allowed Felix to
know of the conditional approval that was granted to their sentiments.
Celeste had too much delicacy, and too much real religious feeling to
wish to obtain the conversion of the man she loved on any other ground
than that of his conviction. Their evening was therefore passed in
theological debate; but love is so strange a Proteus, and takes so many
and such various forms, that though it appeared on this occasion in
a black gown and a mob cap, it was not at all as ungraceful and
displeasing as might have been imagined. But Phellion junior was in this
encounter, the solemnity of which he little knew, unlucky and blundering
to the last degree. Not only did he concede nothing, but he took a tone
of airy and ironical discussion, and ended by putting poor Celeste so
beside herself that she finally declared an open rupture and forbade him
to appear in her presence again.
It was just the case for a lover more experienced than the young savant
to reappear the very next day, for young hearts are never so near to
understanding each other as when they have just declared the necessity
of eternal separation. But this law is not one of logarithms, and Felix
Phellion, being incapable of guessing it, thought himself positively and
finally banished; so much so, that during the fifteen days granted
to the poor girl to deliberate (as says the Code in the matter of
beneficiary bequests), although he was expected day by day, and from
minute to minute by Celeste, who gave no more thought to la Peyrade than
if he had nothing to do with the question, the deplorably stupid youth
did not have the most distant idea of breaking his ban.
Luckily for this hopeless lover, a beneficent fairy was watching over
him, and the evening before the day on which the young girl was to make
her decision the following affair took place.
It was Sunday, the day on which the Thuilliers still kept up their
weekly receptions.
Madame Phellion, convinced that the housekeeping leakage, vulgarly
called “the basket dance,” was the ruin of the best-regulated
households, was in the habit of going in person to her tradespeople.
From time immemorial in the Phellion establishment, Sunday was the
day of the “pot-au-feu,” and the wife of the great citizen, in that
intentionally dowdy costume in which good housekeepers bundle themselves
when they go to market, was prosaically returning from a visit to the
butcher, followed by her cook and the basket, in which lay a magnificent
cut of the loin of beef. Twice had she rung her own doorbell, and
terrible was the storm gathering on the head of the foot-boy, who by
his slowness in opening the door was putting his mistress in a situation
less tolerable than that of Louis XIV., who had only _almost_ waited. In
her feverish impatience Madame Phellion had just given the bell a third
and ferocious reverberation, when, judge of her confusion, a little
coupe drew up with much clatter at the door of her house, and a lady
descended, whom she recognized, at this untimely hour, as the elegant
Comtesse Torna de Godollo!
Turning a purplish scarlet, the unfortunate bourgeoise lost her head,
and, floundering in excuses, she was about to complicate the position
by some signal piece of awkwardness, when, happily for her, Phellion,
attracted by the noise of the bell, and attired in a dressing-gown and
Greek cap, came out of his study to inquire what was the matter. After
a speech, the pompous charm of which did much to compensate for his
dishabille, the great citizen, with the serenity that never abandoned
him, offered his hand very gallantly to the lady, and having installed
her in the salon, said:--
“May I, without indiscretion, ask Madame la comtesse what has procured
for us the unhoped-for advantage of this visit?”
“I have come,” said the lady, “to talk with Madame Phellion on a matter
which must deeply interest her. I have no other way of meeting her
without witnesses; and therefore, though I am hardly known to Madame
Phellion, I have taken the liberty to call upon her here.”
“Madame, your visit is a great honor to this poor dwelling. But where is
Madame Phellion?” added the worthy man, impatiently, going towards the
door.
“No, I beg of you, don’t disturb her,” said the countess; “I have
heedlessly come at a moment when she is busy with household cares.
Brigitte has been my educator in such matters, and I know the respect we
ought to pay to good housekeepers. Besides, I have the pleasure of your
presence, which I scarcely expected.”
Before Phellion could reply to these obliging words, Madame Phellion
appeared. A cap with ribbons had taken the place of the market bonnet,
and a large shawl covered the other insufficiencies of the morning
toilet. When his wife arrived, the great citizen made as though he would
discreetly retire.
“Monsieur Phellion,” said the countess, “you are not one too many in
the conference I desire with madame; on the contrary, your excellent
judgment will be most useful in throwing light upon a matter as
interesting to you as to your wife. I allude to the marriage of your
son.”
“The marriage of my son!” cried Madame Phellion, with a look of
astonishment; “but I am not aware that anything of the kind is at
present in prospect.”
“The marriage of Monsieur Felix with Mademoiselle Celeste is, I think,
one of your strongest desires--”
“But we have never,” said Phellion, “taken any overt steps for that
object.”
“I know that only too well,” replied the countess; “on the contrary,
every one in your family seems to study how to defeat my efforts in that
direction. However, one thing is clear in spite of the reserve, and,
you must allow me to say so, the clumsiness in which the affair has been
managed, and that is that the young people love each other, and
they will both be unhappy if they do not marry. Now, to prevent this
catastrophe is the object with which I have come here this morning.”
“We cannot, madame, be otherwise than deeply sensible of the interest
you are so good as to show in the happiness of our son,” said Phellion;
“but, in truth, this interest--”
“Is something so inexplicable,” interrupted the countess, “that you feel
a distrust of it?”
“Oh! madame!” said Phellion, bowing with an air of respectful dissent.
“But,” continued the lady, “the explanation of my proceeding is very
simple. I have studied Celeste, and in that dear and artless child I
find a moral weight and value which would make me grieve to see her
sacrificed.”
“You are right, madame,” said Madame Phellion. “Celeste is, indeed, an
angel of sweetness.”
“As for monsieur Felix, I venture to interest myself because, in the
first place, he is the son of so virtuous a father--”
“Oh, madame! I entreat--” said Phellion, bowing again.
“--and he also attracts me by the awkwardness of true love, which
appears in all his actions and all his words. We mature women find an
inexpressible charm in seeing the tender passion under a form which
threatens us with no deceptions and no misunderstandings.”
“My son is certainly not brilliant,” said Madame Phellion, with a faint
tone of sharpness; “he is not a fashionable young man.”
“But he has the qualities that are most essential,” replied the
countess, “and a merit which ignores itself,--a thing of the utmost
consequence in all intellectual superiority--”
“Really, madame,” said Phellion, “you force us to hear things that--”
“That are not beyond the truth,” interrupted the countess. “Another
reason which leads me to take a deep interest in the happiness of these
young people is that I am not so desirous for that of Monsieur Theodose
de la Peyrade, who is false and grasping. On the ruin of their hopes
that man is counting to carry out his swindling purposes.”
“It is quite certain,” said Phellion, “that there are dark depths in
Monsieur de la Peyrade where light does not penetrate.”
“And as I myself had the misfortune to marry a man of his description,
the thought of the wretchedness to which Celeste would be condemned
by so fatal a connection, impels me, in the hope of saving her, to the
charitable effort which now, I trust, has ceased to surprise you.”
“Madame,” said Phellion, “we do not need the conclusive explanations by
which you illumine your conduct; but as to the faults on our part, which
have thwarted your generous efforts, I must declare that in order to
avoid committing them in future, it seems to me not a little desirable
that you should plainly indicate them.”
“How long is it,” asked the countess, “since any of your family have
paid a visit to the Thuilliers’?”
“If my memory serves me,” said Phellion, “I think we were all there the
Sunday after the dinner for the house-warming.”
“Fifteen whole days of absence!” exclaimed the countess; “and you think
that nothing of importance could happen in fifteen days?”
“No, indeed! did not three glorious days in July, 1830, cast down a
perjured dynasty and found the noble order of things under which we now
live?”
“You see it yourself!” said the countess. “Now, tell me, during that
evening, fifteen days ago, did nothing serious take place between your
son and Celeste?”
“Something did occur,” replied Phellion,--“a very disagreeable
conversation on the subject of my son’s religious opinions; it must be
owned that our good Celeste, who in all other respects has a charming
nature, is a trifle fanatic in the matter of piety.”
“I agree to that,” said the countess; “but she was brought up by the
mother whom you know; she was never shown the face of true piety; she
saw only the mimicry of it. Repentant Magdalens of the Madame Colleville
species always assume an air of wishing to retire to a desert with their
death’s-head and crossed bones. They think they can’t get salvation at
a cheaper rate. But after all, what did Celeste ask of Monsieur Felix?
Merely that he would read ‘The Imitation of Christ.’”
“He has read it, madame,” said Phellion, “and he thinks it a
book extremely well written; but his convictions--and that is a
misfortune--have not been affected by the perusal.”
“And do you think he shows much cleverness in not assuring his mistress
of some little change in his inflexible convictions?”
“My son, madame, has never received from me the slightest lesson in
cleverness; loyalty, uprightness, those are the principles I have
endeavored to inculcate in him.”
“It seems to me, monsieur, that there is no want of loyalty when, in
dealing with a troubled mind, we endeavor to avoid wounding it. But let
us agree that Monsieur Felix owed it to himself to be that iron door
against which poor Celeste’s applications beat in vain; was that a
reason for keeping away from her and sulking in his tent for fifteen
whole days? Above all, ought he to have capped these sulks by a
proceeding which I can’t forgive, and which--only just made known to
us--has struck the girl’s heart with despair, and also with a feeling of
extreme irritation?”
“My son capable of any such act! it is quite impossible, madame!” cried
Phellion. “I know nothing of this proceeding; but I do not hesitate to
affirm that you have been ill-informed.”
“And yet, nothing is more certain. Young Colleville, who came home
to-day for his half-holiday, has just told us that Monsieur Felix, who
had previously gone with the utmost punctuality to hear him recite has
ceased entirely to have anything to do with him. Unless your son is ill,
I do not hesitate to say that this neglect is the greatest of blunders,
in the situation in which he now stands with the sister he ought not to
have chosen this moment to put an end to these lessons.”
The Phellions looked at each other as if consulting how to reply.
“My son,” said Madame Phellion, “is not exactly ill; but since you
mention a fact which is, I acknowledge, very strange and quite out of
keeping with his nature and habits, I think it right to tell you that
from the day when Celeste seemed to signify that all was at an end
between them, a very extraordinary change has come over Felix, which is
causing Monsieur Phellion and myself the deepest anxiety.”
“Yes, madame,” said Phellion, “the young man is certainly not in his
normal condition.”
“But what is the matter with him?” asked the countess, anxiously.
“The night of that scene with Celeste,” replied Phellion, “after his
return home, he wept a flood of hot tears on his mother’s bosom, and
gave us to understand that the happiness of his whole life was at an
end.”
“And yet,” said Madame de Godollo, “nothing very serious happened; but
lovers always make the worst of things.”
“No doubt,” said Madame Phellion; “but since that night Felix has not
made the slightest allusion to his misfortune, and the next day he went
back to his work with a sort of frenzy. Does that seem natural to you?”
“It is capable of explanation; work is said to be a great consoler.”
“That is most true,” said Phellion; “but in Felix’s whole personality
there is something excited, and yet repressed, which is difficult to
describe. You speak to him, and he hardly seems to hear you; he
sits down to table and forgets to eat, or takes his food with an
absent-mindedness which the medical faculty consider most injurious to
the process of digestion; his duties, his regular occupations, we have
to remind him of--him, so extremely regular, so punctual! The other day,
when he was at the Observatory, where he now spends all his evenings,
only coming home in the small hours, I took it upon myself to enter his
room and examine his papers. I was terrified, madame, at finding a paper
covered with algebraic calculations which, by their vast extent appeared
to me to go beyond the limits of the human intellect.”
“Perhaps,” said the countess, “he is on the road to some great
discovery.”
“Or to madness,” said Madame Phellion, in a low voice, and with a heavy
sigh.
“That is not probable,” said Madame de Godollo; “with an organization
so calm and a mind so well balanced, he runs but little danger of
that misfortune. I know myself of another danger that threatens him
to-morrow, and unless we can take some steps this evening to avert it,
Celeste is positively lost to him.”
“How so?” said the husband and wife together.
“Perhaps you are not aware,” replied the countess, “that Thuillier and
his sister have made certain promises to Monsieur de la Peyrade about
Celeste?”
“We suspected as much,” replied Madame Phellion.
“The fulfilment of these pledges was postponed to a rather distant
period, and subordinated to certain conditions. Monsieur de la Peyrade,
after enabling them to buy the house near the Madeleine, pledged himself
not only to obtain the cross for Monsieur Thuillier, but to write in his
name a political pamphlet, and assist him in his election to the Chamber
of Deputies. It sounds like the romances of chivalry, in which the hero,
before obtaining the hand of the princess, is compelled to exterminate a
dragon.”
“Madame is very witty,” said Madame Phellion, looking at her husband,
who made her a sign not to interrupt.
“I have no time now,” said the countess; “in fact it would be useless to
tell you the manoeuvres by which Monsieur de la Peyrade has contrived
to hasten the period of this marriage; but it concerns you to know that,
thanks to his duplicity, Celeste is being forced to choose between him
and Monsieur Felix; fifteen days were given her in which to make her
choice; the time expires to-morrow, and, thanks to the unfortunate state
of feeling into which your son’s attitude has thrown her, there is
very serious danger of seeing her sacrifice to her wounded feelings the
better sentiments of her love and her instincts.”
“But what can be done to prevent it?” asked Phellion.
“Fight, monsieur; come this evening in force to the Thuilliers’; induce
Monsieur Felix to accompany you; lecture him until he promises to be a
little more flexible in his philosophical opinions. Paris, said Henri
IV., is surely worth a mass. But let him avoid all such questions; he
can certainly find in his heart the words and tones to move a woman
who loves him; it requires so little to satisfy her! I shall be there
myself, and I will help him to my utmost ability; perhaps, under the
inspiration of the moment, I may think of some way to do effectually.
One thing is very certain: we have to fight a great battle to-night, and
if we do not ALL do our duty valorously, la Peyrade may win it.”
“My son is not here, madame,” said Phellion, “and I regret it, for
perhaps your generous devotion and urgent words would succeed in shaking
off his torpor; but, at any rate, I will lay before him the gravity of
the situation, and, beyond all doubt, he will accompany us to-night to
the Thuilliers’.”
“It is needless to say,” added the countess, rising, “that we must
carefully avoid the very slightest appearance of collusion; we must not
converse together; in fact, unless it can be done in some casual way, it
would be better not to speak.”
“I beg you to rely, madame, upon my prudence,” replied Phellion, “and
kindly accept the assurance--”
“Of your most distinguished sentiments,” interrupted the countess,
laughing.
“No, madame,” replied Phellion, gravely, “I reserve that formula for
the conclusion of my letters; I beg you to accept the assurance of my
warmest and most unalterable gratitude.”
“We will talk of that when we are out of danger,” said Madame de
Godollo, moving towards the door; “and if Madame Phellion, the tenderest
and most virtuous of mothers, will grant me a little place in her
esteem, I shall count myself more than repaid for my trouble.”
Madame Phellion plunged headlong into a responsive compliment; and the
countess, in her carriage, was at some distance from the house before
Phellion had ceased to offer her his most respectful salutations.
As the Latin-quarter element in Brigitte’s salon became more rare and
less assiduous, a livelier Paris began to infiltrate it. Among his
colleagues in the municipal council and among the upper employees of
the prefecture of the Seine, the new councillor had made several
very important recruits. The mayor, and the deputy mayors of the
arrondissement, on whom, after his removal to the Madeleine quarter,
Thuillier had called, hastened to return the civility; and the same
thing happened with the superior officers of the first legion. The
house itself had produced a contingent; and several of the new tenants
contributed, by their presence, to change the aspect of the
dominical meetings. Among the number we must mention Rabourdin [see
“Bureaucracy”], the former head of Thuillier’s office at the ministry of
finance. Having had the misfortune to lose his wife, whose salon, at an
earlier period, checkmated that of Madame Colleville, Rabourdin occupied
as a bachelor the third floor, above the apartment let to Cardot, the
notary. As the result of an odious slight to his just claims, Rabourdin
had voluntarily resigned his public functions. At this time, when he
again met Thuillier, he was director of one of those numerous projected
railways, the construction of which is always delayed by either
parliamentary rivalry or parliamentary indecision. Let us say, in
passing, that the meeting with this able administrator, now become
an important personage in the financial world, was an occasion to the
worthy and honest Phellion to display once more his noble character. At
the time of the resignation to which Rabourdin had felt himself driven,
Phellion alone, of all the clerks in the office, had stood by him in his
misfortunes. Being now in a position to bestow a great number of places,
Rabourdin, on meeting once more his faithful subordinate, hastened to
offer him a position both easy and lucrative.
“Mossieu,” said Phellion, “your benevolence touches me and honors me,
but my frankness owes you an avowal, which I beg you not to take in ill
part: I do not believe in ‘railways,’ as the English call them.”
“That’s an opinion to which you have every right,” said Rabourdin,
smiling; “but, meanwhile, until the contrary is proved, we pay the
employees in our office well, and I should be glad to have you with me
in that capacity. I know by experience that you are a man on whom I can
count.”
“Mossieu,” returned the great citizen, “I did my duty at that time, and
nothing more. As for the offer you have been so good as to make to me, I
cannot accept it; satisfied with my humble fortunes, I feel neither the
need nor the desire to re-enter an administrative career; and, in common
with the Latin poet, I may say, ‘Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata
biberunt.’”
Thus elevated in the character of its habitues, the salon Thuillier
still needed a new element of life. Thanks to the help of Madame de
Godollo, a born organizer, who successfully put to profit the former
connection of Colleville with the musical world, a few artists came to
make diversion from bouillotte and boston. Old-fashioned and venerable,
those two games were forced to beat a retreat before whist, the only
manner, said the Hungarian countess, in which respectable people can
kill time.
Like Louis XVI., who began by putting his own hand to reforms which
subsequently engulfed his throne, Brigitte had encouraged, at first,
this domestic revolution; the need of sustaining her position suitably
in the new quarter to which she had emigrated had made her docile to all
suggestions of comfort and elegance. But the day on which occurred the
scene we are about to witness, an apparently trivial detail had revealed
to her the danger of the declivity on which she stood. The greater
number of the new guests, recently imported by Thuillier, knew nothing
of his sister’s supremacy in his home. On arrival, therefore, they all
asked Thuillier to present them to _Madame_, and, naturally, Thuillier
could not say to them that his wife was a figure-head who groaned under
the iron hand of a Richelieu, to whom the whole household bent the knee.
It was therefore not until the first homage rendered to the sovereign
“de jure” was paid, that the new-comers were led up to Brigitte, and by
reason of the stiffness which displeasure at this misplacement of
power gave to her greeting they were scarcely encouraged to pay her any
further attentions. Quick to perceive this species of overthrow, Queen
Elizabeth said to herself, with that profound instinct of domination
which was her ruling passion:--
“If I don’t take care I shall soon be nobody in this house.”
Burrowing into that idea, she came to think that if the project of
making a common household with la Peyrade, then Celeste’s husband, were
carried out, the situation which was beginning to alarm her would become
even worse. From that moment, and by sudden intuition, Felix Phellion,
that good young man, with his head too full of mathematics ever to
become a formidable rival to her sovereignty, seemed to her a far better
match than the enterprising lawyer, and she was the first, on seeing the
Phellion father and mother arrive without the son, to express regret at
his absence. Brigitte, however, was not the only one to feel the injury
that the luckless professor was doing to his prospects in thus keeping
away from her reception. Madame Thuillier, with simple candor, and
Celeste with feigned reserve, both made manifest their displeasure. As
for Madame de Godollo, who, in spite of a very remarkable voice, usually
required much pressing before she would sing (the piano having been
opened since her reign began), she now went up to Madame Phellion and
asked her to accompany her, and between two verses of a song she said in
her ear:--
“Why isn’t your son here?”
“He is coming,” said Madame Phellion. “His father talked to him very
decidedly; but to-night there happens to be a conjunction of I don’t
know what planets; it is a great night at the Observatory, and he did
not feel willing to dispense with--”
“It is inconceivable that a man should be so foolish!” exclaimed Madame
de Godollo; “wasn’t theology bad enough, that he must needs bring in
astronomy too?”
And her vexation gave to her voice so vibrating a tone that her song
ended in the midst of what the English call a thunder of applause. La
Peyrade, who feared her extremely, was not one of the last, when she
returned to her place, to approach her, and express his admiration; but
she received his compliments with a coldness so near to incivility that
their mutual hostility was greatly increased. La Peyrade turned away
to console himself with Madame Colleville, who had still too many
pretensions to beauty not to be the enemy of a woman made to intercept
all homage.
“So you also, you think that woman sings well?” she said,
contemptuously, to Theodose.
“At any rate, I have been to tell her so,” replied la Peyrade, “because
without her, in regard to Brigitte, there’s no security. But do just
look at your Celeste; her eyes never leave that door, and every time a
tray is brought in, though it is an hour at least since the last guest
came, her face expresses disappointment.”
We must remark, in passing, that since the reign of Madame de Godollo
trays were passed round on the Sunday reception days, and that without
scrimping; on the contrary, they were laden with ices, cakes, and
syrups, from Taurade’s, then the best confectioner.
“Don’t harass me!” cried Flavie. “I know very well what that foolish
girl has in her mind; and your marriage will take place only too soon.”
“But you know it is not for myself I make it,” said la Peyrade; “it is
a necessity for the future of all of us. Come, come, there are tears in
your eyes! I shall leave you; you are not reasonable. The devil! as that
Prudhomme of a Phellion says, ‘Whoso wants the end wants the means.’”
And he went toward the group composed of Celeste, Madame Thuillier,
Madame de Godollo, Colleville, and Phellion. Madame Colleville followed
him; and, under the influence of the feeling of jealousy she had just
shown, she became a savage mother.
“Celeste,” she said, “why don’t you sing? These gentlemen wish to hear
you.”
“Oh, mamma!” cried the girl, “how can I sing after Madame de Godollo,
with my poor thread of a voice? Besides, you know I have a cold.”
“That is to say that, as usual, you make yourself pretentious and
disagreeable; people sing as they can sing; all voices have their own
merits.”
“My dear,” said Colleville, who, having just lost twenty francs at the
card-tables, found courage in his ill-humor to oppose his wife, “that
saying, ‘People sing as they can sing’ is a bourgeois maxim. People sing
with a voice, if they have one; but they don’t sing after hearing such
a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my part,
I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her sentimental
little ditties.”
“Then it is well worth while,” said Flavie, leaving the group, “to spend
so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing.”
“So,” said Colleville, resuming the conversation which the invasion of
Flavie had interrupted, “Felix no longer inhabits this earth; he lives
among the stars?”
“My dear and former colleague,” said Phellion, “I am, as you are,
annoyed with my son for neglecting, as he does, the oldest friends of
his family; and though the contemplation of those great luminous bodies
suspended in space by the hand of the Creator presents, in my opinion,
higher interest than it appears to have to your more eager brain, I
think that Felix, by not coming here to-night, as he promised me he
would, shows a want of propriety, about which, I can assure you I shall
speak my mind.”
“Science,” said la Peyrade, “is a fine thing, but it has, unfortunately,
the attribute of making bears and monomaniacs.”
“Not to mention,” said Celeste, “that it destroys all religious
sentiments.”
“You are mistaken there, my dear child,” said Madame de Godollo.
“Pascal, who was himself a great example of the falseness of your point
of view, says, if I am not mistaken, that a little science draws us from
religion, but a great deal draws us back to it.”
“And yet, madame,” said Celeste, “every one admits that Monsieur Felix
is really very learned; when he helped my brother with his studies
nothing could be, so Francois told me, clearer or more comprehensible
than his explanations; and you see, yourself, he is not the more
religious for that.”
“I tell you, my dear child, that Monsieur Felix is not irreligious, and
with a little gentleness and patience nothing would be easier than to
bring him back.”
“Bring back a savant to the duties of religion!” exclaimed la Peyrade.
“Really, madame, that seems to me very difficult. These gentlemen put
the object of their studies before everything else. Tell a geometrician
or a geologist, for example, that the Church demands, imperatively, the
sanctification of the Sabbath by the suspension of all species of work,
and they will shrug their shoulders, though God Himself did not disdain
to rest from His labors.”
“So that in not coming here this evening,” said Celeste, naively,
“Monsieur Felix commits not only a fault against good manners, but a
sin.”
“But, my dearest,” said Madame de Godollo, “do you think that our
meeting here this evening to sing ballads and eat ices and say evil of
our neighbor--which is the customary habit of salons--is more pleasing
to God than to see a man of science in his observatory busied in
studying the magnificent secrets of His creation?”
“There’s a time for all things,” said Celeste; “and, as Monsieur de la
Peyrade says, God Himself did not disdain to rest.”
“But, my love,” said Madame de Godollo, “God has time to do so; He is
eternal.”
“That,” said la Peyrade, “is one of the wittiest impieties ever uttered;
those are the reasons that the world’s people put forth. They interpret
and explain away the commands of God, even those that are most explicit
and imperative; they take them, leave them, or choose among them;
the free-thinker subjects them to his lordly revision, and from
free-thinking the distance is short to free actions.”
During this harangue of the barrister Madame de Godollo had looked at
the clock; it then said half-past eleven. The salon began to empty. Only
one card-table was still going on, Minard, Thuillier, and two of the
new acquaintances being the players. Phellion had just quitted the group
with which he had so far been sitting, to join his wife, who was talking
with Brigitte in a corner; by the vehemence of his pantomimic action
it was easy to see that he was filled with some virtuous indignation.
Everything seemed to show that all hope of seeing the arrival of the
tardy lover was decidedly over.
“Monsieur,” said the countess to la Peyrade, “do you consider the
gentlemen attached to Saint-Jacques du Haut Pas in the rue des Postes
good Catholics?”
“Undoubtedly,” replied the barrister, “religion has no more loyal
supporters.”
“This morning,” continued the countess, “I had the happiness to be
received by Pere Anselme. He is thought the model of all Christian
virtues, and yet the good father is a very learned mathematician.”
“I have not said, madame, that the two qualities were absolutely
incompatible.”
“But you did say that a true Christian could not attend to any species
of work on Sunday. If so, Pere Anselme must be an unbeliever; for when I
was admitted to his room I found him standing before a blackboard with
a bit of chalk in his hand, busy with a problem which was, no doubt,
knotty, for the board was three-parts covered with algebraic signs; and
I must add that he did not seem to care for the scandal this ought to
cause, for he had with him an individual whom I am not allowed to name,
a younger man of science, of great promise, who was sharing his profane
occupation.”
Celeste and Madame Thuillier looked at each other, and both saw a gleam
of hope in the other’s eyes.
“Why can’t you tell us the name of that young man of science?” Madame
Thuillier ventured to say, for she never put any diplomacy into the
expression of her thoughts.
“Because he has not, like Pere Anselme, the saintliness which would
absolve him in the eyes of monsieur here for this flagrant violation of
the Sabbath. Besides,” added Madame de Godollo, in a significant manner,
“he asked me not to mention that I had met him there.”
“Then you know a good many scientific young men?” said Celeste,
interrogatively; “this one and Monsieur Felix--that makes two.”
“My dear love,” said the countess, “you are an inquisitive little girl,
and you will not make me say what I do not choose to say, especially
after a confidence that Pere Anselme made to me; for if I did, your
imagination would at once set off at a gallop.”
The gallop had already started, and every word the countess said only
added to the anxious eagerness of the young girl.
“As for me,” said la Peyrade, sarcastically, “I shouldn’t be at all
surprised if Pere Anselme’s young collaborator was that very Felix
Phellion. Voltaire always kept very close relations with the Jesuits who
brought him up; but he never talked religion with them.”
“Well, my young savant does talk of it to his venerable brother in
science; he submits his doubts to him; in fact, that was the beginning
of their scientific intimacy.”
“And does Pere Anselme,” asked Celeste, “hope to convert him?”
“He is sure of it,” replied the countess. “His young collaborator,
apart from a religious education which he certainly never had, has
been brought up to the highest principles; he knows, moreover, that his
conversion to religion would make the happiness of a charming girl whom
he loves, and who loves him. Now, my dear, you will not get another word
out of me, and you may think what you like.”
“Oh! godmother!” whispered Celeste, yielding to the freshness of her
feelings, “suppose it were he!”
And the tears filled her eyes as she pressed Madame Thuillier’s hand.
At this moment the servant threw open the door of the salon, and,
singular complication! announced Monsieur Felix Phellion.
The young professor entered the room, bathed in perspiration, his cravat
in disorder, and himself out of breath.
“A pretty hour,” said Phellion, sternly, “to present yourself.”
“Father,” said Felix, moving to the side of the room where Madame
Thuillier and Celeste were seated, “I could not leave before the end of
the phenomenon; and then I couldn’t find a carriage, and I have run the
whole way.”
“Your ears ought to have burned as you came,” said la Peyrade, “for you
have been for the last half-hour in the minds of these ladies, and a
great problem has been started about you.”
Felix did not answer. He saw Brigitte entering the salon from the
dining-room where she had gone to tell the man-servant not to bring in
more trays, and he hurried to greet her.
After listening to a few reproaches for the rarity of his visits and
receiving forgiveness in a very cordial “Better late than never,”
he turned towards his pole, and was much astonished to hear himself
addressed by Madame de Godollo as follows:--
“Monsieur,” she said, “I hope you will pardon the indiscretion I have,
in the heat of conversation, committed about you. I have told these
ladies where I met you this morning.”
“Met me?” said Felix; “if I had the honor to meet you, madame, I did not
see you.”
An almost imperceptible smile flickered on la Peyrade’s lips.
“You saw me well enough to ask me to keep silence as to where I had met
you; but, at any rate, I did not go beyond a simple statement; I said
you saw Pere Anselme sometimes, and had certain scientific relations
with him; also that you defended your religious doubts to him as you do
to Celeste.”
“Pere Anselme!” said Felix, stupidly.
“Yes, Pere Anselme,” said la Peyrade, “a great mathematician who does
not despair of converting you. Mademoiselle Celeste wept for joy.”
Felix looked around him with a bewildered air. Madame de Godollo fixed
upon him a pair of eyes the language of which a poodle could have
understood.
“I wish,” he said finally, “I could have given that joy to Mademoiselle
Celeste, but I think, madame, you are mistaken.”
“Ah! monsieur, then I must be more precise,” said the countess, “and if
your modesty still induces you to hide a step that can only honor you,
you can contradict me; I will bear the mortification of having divulged
a secret which, I acknowledge, you trusted implicitly to my discretion.”
Madame Thuillier and Celeste were truly a whole drama to behold; never
were doubt and eager expectation more plainly depicted on the human
face. Measuring her words deliberately, Madame de Godollo thus
continued:--
“I said to these ladies, because I know how deep an interest they take
in your salvation, and because you are accused of boldly defying the
commandments of God by working on Sundays, that I had met you this
morning at the house of Pere Anselme, a mathematician like yourself,
with whom you were busy in solving a problem; I said that your
scientific intercourse with that saintly and enlightened man had led
to other explanations between you; that you had submitted to him your
religious doubts, and he did not despair of removing them. In the
confirmation you can give of my words there is nothing, I am sure, to
wound your self-esteem. The matter was simply a surprise you intended
for Celeste, and I have had the stupidity to divulge it. But when she
hears you admit the truth of my words you will have given her such
happiness that I shall hope to be forgiven.”
“Come, monsieur,” said la Peyrade, “there’s nothing absurd or mortifying
in having sought for light; you, so honorable and so truly an enemy to
falsehood, you cannot deny what madame affirms with such decision.”
“Well,” said Felix, after a moment’s hesitation, “will you, Mademoiselle
Celeste, allow me to say a few words to you in private, without
witnesses?”
Celeste rose, after receiving an approving sign from Madame Thuillier.
Felix took her hand and led her to the recess of the nearest window.
“Celeste,” he said, “I entreat you: wait! See,” he added, pointing to
the constellation of Ursa Minor, “beyond those visible stars a future
lies before us; I will place you there. As for Pere Anselme, I cannot
admit what has been said, for it is not true. It is an invented tale.
But be patient with me; you shall soon know all.”
“He is mad!” said the young girl, in tones of despair, as she resumed
her place beside Madame Thuillier.
Felix confirmed this judgment by rushing frantically from the salon,
without perceiving the emotion in which his father and his mother
started after him. After this sudden departure, which stupefied
everybody, la Peyrade approached Madame de Godollo very respectfully,
and said to her:--
“You must admit, madame, that it is difficult to drag a man from the
water when he persists in being drowned.”
“I had no idea until this moment of such utter simplicity,” replied
the countess; “it is too silly. I pass over to the enemy; and with that
enemy I am ready and desirous to have, whenever he pleases, a frank and
honest explanation.”
CHAPTER IV. HUNGARY VERSUS PROVENCE
The next day Theodose felt himself possessed by two curiosities:
How would Celeste behave as to the option she had accepted? and this
Comtesse Torna de Godollo, what did she mean by what she had said; and
what did she want with him?
The first of these questions seemed, undoubtedly, to have the right of
way, and yet, by some secret instinct, la Peyrade felt more keenly drawn
toward the conclusion of the second problem. He decided, therefore, to
take his first step in that direction, fully understanding that he could
not too carefully arm himself for the interview to which the countess
had invited him.
The morning had been rainy, and this great calculator was, of course,
not ignorant how much a spot of mud, tarnishing the brilliancy of
varnished boots, could lower a man in the opinion of some. He therefore
sent his porter for a cabriolet, and about three o’clock in the
afternoon he drove from the rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer toward the
elegant latitudes of the Madeleine. It may well be believed that certain
cares had been bestowed upon his toilet, which ought to present a
happy medium between the negligent ease of a morning costume and the
ceremonious character of an evening suit. Condemned by his profession to
a white cravat, which he rarely laid aside, and not venturing to present
himself in anything but a dress-coat, he felt himself being drawn,
of necessity, to one of the extremes he desired to avoid. However by
buttoning up his coat and wearing tan instead of straw-colored gloves,
he managed to _unsolemnize_ himself, and to avoid that provincial air
which a man in full dress walking the streets of Paris while the sun is
above the horizon never fails to convey.
The wary diplomatist was careful not to drive to the house where he was
going. He was unwilling to be seen from the countess’ entresol issuing
from a hired cab, and from the first floor he feared to be discovered
stopping short on his way up at the lower floor,--a proceeding which
could not fail to give rise to countless conjectures.
He therefore ordered the driver to pull up at the corner of the rue
Royale, whence, along a pavement that was now nearly dry, he picked his
way on tiptoe to the house. It so chanced that he was not seen by either
the porter or his wife; the former being beadle of the church of the
Madeleine, was absent at a service, and the wife had just gone up to
show a vacant apartment to a lodger. Theodose was therefore able to
glide unobserved to the door of the sanctuary he desired to penetrate.
A soft touch of his hand to the silken bell-rope caused a sound which
echoed from the interior of the apartment. A few seconds elapsed, and
then another and more imperious bell of less volume seemed to him
a notification to the maid that her delay in opening the door was
displeasing to her mistress. A moment later, a waiting-woman, of middle
age, and too well trained to dress like a “soubrette” of comedy, opened
the door to him.
The lawyer gave his name, and the woman ushered him into a dining-room,
severely luxurious, where she asked him to wait. A moment later,
however, she returned, and admitted him into the most coquettish and
splendid salon it was possible to insert beneath the low ceilings of an
entresol. The divinity of the place was seated before a writing-table
covered with a Venetian cloth, in which gold glittered in little spots
among the dazzling colors of the tapestry.
“Will you allow me, monsieur, to finish a letter of some importance?”
she said.
The barrister bowed in sign of assent. The handsome Hungarian then
concluded a note on blue English paper, which she placed in an envelope;
after sealing it carefully, she rang the bell. The maid appeared
immediately and lighted a little spirit lamp; above the lamp was
suspended a sort of tiny crucible, in which was a drop of sealing-wax;
as soon as this had melted, the maid poured it on the envelope,
presenting to her mistress a seal with armorial bearings. This the
countess imprinted on the wax with her own beautiful hands, and then
said:--
“Take the letter at once to that address.”
The woman made a movement to take the letter, but, either from haste or
inadvertence, the paper fell from her hand close to la Peyrade’s feet.
He stooped hastily to pick it up, and read the direction involuntarily.
It bore the words, “His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs”;
the significant words, “For him only,” written higher up, seemed to give
this missive a character of intimacy.
“Pardon, monsieur,” said the countess, receiving the paper, which he had
the good taste to return to her own hands in order to show his eagerness
to serve her. “Be so good, mademoiselle, as to carry that in a way not
to lose it,” she added in a dry tone to the unlucky maid. The countess
then left her writing-table and took her seat on a sofa covered with
pearl-gray satin.
During these proceedings la Peyrade had the satisfaction of making an
inventory of all the choice things by which he was surrounded. Paintings
by good masters detached themselves from walls of even tone; on a
pier-table stood a very tall Japanese vase; before the windows the
jardinieres were filled with lilium rubrum, showing its handsome
reversely curling petals surmounted by white and red camellias and a
dwarf magnolia from China, with flowers of sulphur white with scarlet
edges. In a corner was a stand of arms, of curious shapes and
rich construction, explained, perhaps, by the lady’s Hungarian
nationality--always that of the hussar. A few bronzes and statuettes
of exquisite selection, chairs rolling softly on Persian carpets, and a
perfect anarchy of stuffs of all kinds completed the arrangement of
this salon, which the lawyer had once before visited with Brigitte and
Thuillier before the countess moved into it. It was so transformed that
it seemed to him unrecognizable. With a little more knowledge of the
world la Peyrade would have been less surprised at the marvellous care
given by the countess to the decoration of the room. A woman’s salon is
her kingdom, and her absolute domain; there, in the fullest sense of
the word, she reigns, she governs; there she offers battle, and nearly
always comes off victorious.
Coquettishly lying back in a corner of the sofa, her head carelessly
supported by an arm the form and whiteness of which could be seen
nearly to the elbow through the wide, open sleeve of a black velvet
dressing-gown, her Cinderella foot in its dainty slipper of Russia
leather resting on a cushion of orange satin, the handsome Hungarian had
the look of a portrait by Laurence or Winterhalter, plus the naivete of
the pose.
“Monsieur,” she said, with the slightly foreign accent which lent an
added charm to her words, “I cannot help thinking it rather droll that
a man of your mind and rare penetration should have thought you had an
enemy in me.”
“But, Madame la comtesse,” replied la Peyrade, allowing her to read in
his eyes an astonishment mingled with distrust, “all the appearances,
you must admit, were of that nature. A suitor interposes to break off a
marriage which has been offered to me with every inducement; this
rival does me the service of showing himself so miraculously stupid and
awkward that I could easily have set him aside, when suddenly a most
unlooked-for and able auxiliary devotes herself to protecting him on the
very ground where he shows himself most vulnerable.”