Оноре де Бальзак
The Brotherhood of Consolation
SECOND EPISODE. THE INITIATE
XI. THE POLICE OF THE GOOD GOD
Like evil, good is contagious. Therefore when Madame de la Chanterie’s lodger had lived in that old and silent house for some months after the worthy Alain’s last confidence, which gave him the deepest respect for the religious lives of those among whom his was cast, he experienced that well-being of the soul which comes of a regulated existence, gentle customs, and harmony of nature in those who surround us. At the end of four months, during which time Godefroid heard neither a loud voice nor an argument, he could not remember that he had ever been, if not as happy, at least as tranquil and contented. He now judged soundly of the world, seeing it from afar. At last, the desire he had felt for months to be a sharer in the work of these mysterious persons became a passion. Without being great philosophers we can all understand the force which passions acquire in solitude.
Thus it happened that one day – a day made solemn by the power of the spirit within him – Godefroid again went up to see the good old Alain, him whom Madame de la Chanterie called her “lamb,” the member of the community who seemed to Godefroid the least imposing, the most approachable member of the fraternity, intending to obtain from him some definite light on the conditions of the sacred work to which these brothers of God were dedicated. The allusions made to a period of trial seemed to imply an initiation, which he was now desirous of receiving. His curiosity had not been satisfied by what the venerable old man had already told him as to the causes which led to the work of Madame de la Chanterie; he wanted to know more.
For the third time Godefroid entered Monsieur Alain’s room, just as the old man was beginning his evening reading of the “Imitation of Jesus Christ.” This time the kindly soul did not restrain a smile when he saw the young man, and he said at once, without allowing Godefroid to speak: —
“Why do you come to me, my dear boy; why not go to Madame? I am the most ignorant, the most imperfect, the least spiritual of our number. For the last three days,” he added, with a shrewd little glance, “Madame and my other friends have read your heart.”
“What have they read there?” asked Godefroid.
“Ah!” replied the goodman, without evasion, “they see in you a rather artless desire to belong to our little flock. But this sentiment is not yet an ardent vocation. Yes,” he continued, replying to a gesture of Godefroid’s, “you have more curiosity than fervor. You are not yet so detached from your old ideas that you do not look forward to something adventurous, romantic, as they say, in the incidents of our life.”
Godefroid could not keep himself from blushing.
“You see a likeness between our occupations and those of the caliphs of the ‘Arabian Nights;’ and you are thinking about the satisfaction you will have in playing the part of the good genii in the tales of benevolence you are inventing. Ah, my dear boy! that shame-faced laugh of yours proves to me that we were quite right in that conjecture. How do you expect to conceal any feeling from persons whose business it is to divine the most hidden motion of souls, the tricks of poverty, the calculations of indigence, – honest spies, the police of the good God; old judges, whose code contains nothing but absolutions; doctors of suffering, whose only remedy is oftentimes the wise application of money? But, you see, my child, we don’t wish to quarrel with the motives which bring us a neophyte, provided he will really stay and become a brother of the order. We shall judge you by your work. There are two kinds of curiosity, – that of good and that of evil; just at this moment you have that of good. If you should work in our vineyard, the juice of our grapes will make you perpetually thirsty for the divine fruit. The initiation is, as in that of all natural knowledge, easy in appearance, difficult in reality. Benevolence is like poesy; nothing is easier than to catch the appearance of it. But here, as in Parnassus, nothing contents us but perfection. To become one to us, you must acquire a great knowledge of life. And what a life, – good God! Parisian life, which defies the sagacity of the minister of police and all his agents! We have to circumvent the perpetual conspiracy of Evil, master it in all its forms, while it changes so often as to seem infinite. Charity in Paris must know as much as vice, just as a policeman must know all the tricks of thieves. We must each be frank and each distrustful; we must have quick perception and a sure and rapid judgment. And then, my child, we are old and getting older; but we are so content with the results we have now obtained, that we do not want to die without leaving successors in the work. If you persist in your desire, you will be our first pupil, and all the dearer to us on that account. There is no risk for us, because God brought you to us. Yours is a good nature soured; since you have been here the evil leaven has weakened. The divine nature of Madame has acted upon yours. Yesterday we took counsel together; and inasmuch as I have your confidence, my good brothers resolved to give me to you as guardian and teacher. Does that please you?”
“Ah! my kind Monsieur Alain, your eloquence awakens – ”
“No, my child, it is not I who speak well; it is things that are eloquent. We can be sure of being great, even sublime, in obeying God, in imitating Jesus Christ, – imitating him, I mean, as much as men are able to do so, aided by faith.”
“This moment, then, decides my life!” cried Godefroid. “I feel within me the fervor of a neophyte; I wish to spend my life in doing good.”
“That is the secret of remaining in God,” replied Alain. “Have you studied our motto, —Transire benefaciendo? Transire means to go beyond this world, leaving benefits on our way.”
“Yes, I have understood it; I have put the motto of the order before my bed.”
“That is well; it is a trifling action, but it counts for much in my eyes. And now I have your first affair, your first duel with misery, prepared for you; I’ll put your foot in the stirrup. We are about to part. Yes, I myself am detached from the convent, to live for a time in the crater of a volcano. I am to be a clerk in a great manufactory, where the workmen are infected with communistic doctrines, and dream of social destruction, the abolishment of masters, – not knowing that that would be the death of industry, of commerce, of manufactures. I shall stay there goodness knows how long, – perhaps a year, – keeping the books and paying the wages. This will give me an entrance into a hundred or a hundred and twenty homes of working-men, misled, no doubt, by poverty, even before the pamphlets of the day misled them. But you and I can see each other on Sundays and fete-days. We shall be in the same quarter; and if you come to the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, you will find me there any day at half-past seven, when I hear mass. If you meet me elsewhere don’t recognize me, unless you see me rub my hands like a man who is pleased at something. That is one of our signs. We have a language of signs, like the deaf and dumb; you’ll soon find out the absolute necessity of it.”
Godefroid made a gesture which the goodman Alain interpreted; for he laughed, and immediately went on to say: —
“Now for your affair. We do not practise either the benevolence or the philanthropy that you know about, which are really divided into several branches, all taken advantage of by sharpers in charity as a business. We practise charity as our great and sublime Saint Paul defines it; for, my dear lad, we think that charity, and charity alone, which is Love, can heal the wounds of Paris. In our eyes, misery, of whatever kind, poverty, suffering, misfortune, grief, evil, no matter how produced, or in what social class they show themselves, have equal rights. Whatever his opinions or beliefs, an unhappy man is, before all else, an unhappy man; and we ought not to attempt to turn his face to our holy mother Church until we have saved him from despair or hunger. Moreover, we ought to convert him to goodness more by example and by gentleness than by any other means; and we believe that God will specially help us in this. All constraint is bad. Of the manifold Parisian miseries, the most difficult to discover, and the bitterest, is that of worthy persons of the middle classes who have fallen into poverty; for they make concealment a point of honor. Those sorrows, my dear Godefroid, are to us the object of special solicitude. Such persons usually have intelligence and good hearts. They return to us, sometimes with usury, the sums that we lend them. Such restitutions recoup us in the long run for the losses we occasionally incur through impostors, shiftless creatures, or those whom misfortunes have rendered stupid. Through such persons we often obtain invaluable help in our investigations. Our work has now become so vast, its details are so multifarious, that we no longer suffice of ourselves to carry it on. So, for the last year we have a physician of our own in every arrondissement in Paris. Each of us takes general charge of four arrondissements. We pay each physician three thousand francs a year to take care of our poor. His time belongs to us in the first instance, but we do not prevent him from attending other sick persons if he can. Would you believe that for many months we were unable to find twelve really trustworthy, valuable men, in spite of all our own efforts and those of our friends? We could not employ any but men of absolute discreetness, pure lives, sound knowledge, experience, active men, and lovers of doing good. Now, although there are in Paris some ten thousand individuals, more or less, who would gladly do the work, we could not find twelve to meet our needs in a whole year.”
“Our Saviour had difficulty in gathering his apostles, and even then a traitor and an unbeliever got among them,” said Godefroid.
“However, within the last month all our arrondissements are provided with a Visitor – that is the name we give to our physicians. At the same time the business is increasing, and we have all redoubled our activity. If I confide to you these secrets of our system, it is that you must know the physician, that is, the Visitor of the arrondissement to which we are about to send you; from him, all original information about our cases comes. This Visitor is named Berton, Doctor Berton; he lives in the rue d’Enfer. And now here are the facts: Doctor Berton is attending a lady whose disease puzzles and defies science. That, of course, is not our concern, but that of the Faculty. Our business is to discover the condition of the family of this patient; Doctor Berton suspects that their poverty is frightful, and concealed with a pride and determination which demand our utmost care. Until now, my son, I should have found time for this case, but the work I am undertaking obliges me to find a helper in my four arrondissements, and you shall be that helper. This family lives in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, in a house at the corner of the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. You will find a room to let in the same house, where you can live for a time so as to discover the truth about these persons. Be sordid for yourself, but as for the money you may think needed for this case have no uneasiness. I will remit you such sums as we may judge necessary after ourselves considering all the circumstances. But remember that you must study the moral qualities of these unfortunates: their hearts, the honorableness of their feelings; those are our guarantees. Miserly we may be for ourselves, and generous to those who suffer, but we must be prudent and even calculating, for we are dealing with the money of the poor. So then, to-morrow morning you can start; think over the power we put in your hands: the brothers are with you in heart.”
“Ah!” cried Godefroid, “you have given me such a pleasure in the opportunity of doing good and making myself worthy to belong to you some day, that I shall not sleep to-night.”
“One more word, my child. I told you not to recognize me without the signal; the same rule applies to the other gentlemen and to Madame, and even to the people you see about this house. We are forced to keep up an absolute incognito in all we do; this is so necessary to our enterprises that we have made a rule about it. We seek to be ignored, lost in this great Paris. Remember also, my dear Godefroid, the spirit of our order; which is, never to appear as benefactors, to play an obscure part, that of intermediaries. We always present ourselves as the agent of a pious, saintly person (in fact, we are working for God), so that none of those we deal with may feel the obligation of gratitude towards any of us, or think we are wealthy persons. True, sincere humility, not the false humility of those who seek thereby to be set in the light, must inspire you and rule all your thoughts. You may indeed be glad when you succeed; but so long as you feel within you a sentiment of vanity or of pride, you are not worthy to do the work of the order. We have known two perfect men: one, who was one of our founders, Judge Popinot; the other is revealed by his works; he is a country doctor whose name is written on the annals of his canton. That man, my dear Godefroid, is one of the greatest men of our time; he brought a whole region out of wretchedness into prosperity, out of irreligion into Christianity, out of barbarism into civilization.4 The names of those two men are graven on our hearts and we have taken them as our models. We should be happy indeed if we ourselves could some day acquire in Paris the influence that country doctor had in his canton. But here, the sore is vast, beyond our strength at present. May God preserve to us Madame, may he send us some young helpers like you, and perhaps we may yet leave behind us an institution worthy of his divine religion. And now good-bye; your initiation begins – Ah! I chatter like a professor and forget the essential thing! Here is the address of that family,” he added, giving Godefroid a piece of paper; “I have added the number of Dr. Berton’s house in the rue d’Enfer; and now, go and pray to God to help you.”
Godefroid took the old man’s hands and pressed them tenderly, wishing him good-night, and assuring him he would not neglect a single point of his advice.
“All that you have said to me,” he added, “is graven in my memory forever.”
The old man smiled, expressing no doubts; then he rose, to kneel in his accustomed place. Godefroid retired, joyful in at last sharing the mysteries of that house and in having an occupation, which, feeling as he did then, was to him an untold pleasure.
The next day at breakfast, Monsieur Alain’s place was vacant, but no one remarked upon it; Godefroid made no allusion to the cause of his absence, neither did any one question him as to the mission the old man had entrusted to him; he thus took his first lesson in discreetness. Nevertheless, after breakfast, he did take Madame de la Chanterie apart and told her that he should be absent for some days.
“That is good, my child,” replied Madame de la Chanterie; “try to do honor to your godfather, who has answered for you to his brothers.”
Godefroid bade adieu to the three remaining brethren, who made him an affectionate bow, by which they seemed to bless his entrance upon a painful career.
ASSOCIATION, one of the greatest social forces, and that which made the Europe of the middle-ages, rests on principles which, since 1792, no longer exist in France, where the Individual has now triumphed over the State. Association requires, in the first place, a self-devotion that is not understood in our day; also a guileless faith which is contrary to the spirit of the nation, and lastly, a discipline against which men in these days revolt and which the Catholic religion alone can enforce. The moment an association is formed among us, each member, returning to his own home from an assembly where noble sentiments have been proclaimed, thinks of making his own bed out of that collective devotion, that union of forces, and of milking to his own profit the common cow, which, not being able to supply so many individual demands, dies exhausted.
Who knows how many generous sentiments were blasted, how many fruitful germs may have perished, lost to the nation through the infamous deceptions of the French Carbonari, the patriotic subscriptions to the Champ d’Asile, and other political deceptions which ought to have been grand and noble dramas, and proved to be the farces and the melodramas of police courts. It is the same with industrial association as it is with political association. Love of self is substituted for the love of collective bodies. The corporations and the Hanse leagues of the middle-ages, to which we shall some day return, are still impossible. Consequently, the only societies which actually exist are those of religious bodies, against whom a heavy war is being made at this moment; for the natural tendency of sick persons is to quarrel with remedies and often with physicians. France ignores self-abnegation. Therefore, no association can live except through religious sentiment; the only sentiment that quells the rebellions of mind, the calculations of ambition, and greeds of all kinds. The seekers of better worlds ignore the fact that ASSOCIATION has such worlds to offer.
As he walked through the streets Godefroid felt himself another man. Whoever could have looked into his being would have admired the curious phenomenon of the communication of collective power. He was no longer a mere man, he was a tenfold force, knowing himself the representative of persons whose united forces upheld his actions and walked beside him. Bearing that power in his heart, he felt within him a plenitude of life, a noble might, which uplifted him. It was, as he afterwards said, one of the finest moments of his whole existence; he was conscious of a new sense, an omnipotence more sure than that of despots. Moral power is, like thought, limitless.
“To live for others,” he thought, “to act with others, all as one, and act alone as all together, to have for leader Charity, the noblest, the most living of those ideal figures Christianity has made for us, this is indeed to live! – Come, come, repress that petty joy, which father Alain laughed at. And yet, how singular it is that in seeking to set myself aside from life I have found the power I have sought so long! Yes, the world of misery will belong to me!”
XII. A CASE TO INVESTIGATE
Godefroid walked from the cloister of Notre-Dame to the avenue de l’Observatoire in such a state of exaltation that he never noticed the length of the way.
When he reached the rue Notre-Dame des Champs at the point where it joins the rue de l’Ouest he was amazed to find (neither of these streets being paved at the time of which we write) great mud-holes in that fine open quarter. Persons walked on planks laid down beside the houses and along the marshy gardens, or on narrow paths flanked on each side by stagnant water which sometimes turned them into rivulets.
By dint of searching he found the house he wanted, but he did not reach it without difficulty. It was evidently an abandoned factory. The building was narrow and the side of it was a long wall with many windows and no architectural decoration whatever. None of these windows, which were square, were on the lower floor, where there was no opening but a very miserable entrance-door.
Godefroid supposed that the proprietor had turned the building into a number of small tenements to make it profitable, for a written placard above the door stated that there were “Several rooms to let.” Godefroid rang, but no one came. While he was waiting, a person who went by pointed out to him that the house had another entrance on the boulevard where he might get admittance.
Godefroid followed this advice and saw at the farther end of a little garden which extended along the boulevard a second door to the house. The garden, rather ill-kept, sloped downward, for there was enough difference in level between the boulevard and the rue Notre-Dame des Champs to make it a sort of ditch. Godefroid therefore walked along one of the paths, at the end of which he saw an old woman whose dilapidated garments were in keeping with the house.
“Was it you who rang at the other door?” she asked.
“Yes, madame. Do you show the lodgings?”
On the woman’s replying that she did, Godefroid inquired if the other lodgers were quiet persons; his occupations, he said, were such that he needed silence and peace; he was a bachelor and would be glad to arrange with the portress to do his housekeeping.
On this suggestion the portress assumed a gracious manner.
“Monsieur has fallen on his feet in coming here, then,” she said; “except on the Chaumiere days the boulevard is as lonely as the Pontine marshes.”
“Ah! you know the Pontine marshes?” said Godefroid.
“No, monsieur, I don’t; but I’ve got an old gentleman upstairs whose daughter seems to get her living by being ill, and he says that; I only repeat it. The poor old man will be glad to know that monsieur likes quiet, for a noisy neighbor, he thinks, would kill his daughter. On the second floor we have two writers; they don’t come in till midnight, and are off before eight in the morning. They say they are authors, but I don’t know where or when they write.”
While speaking, the portress was showing Godefroid up one of those horrible stairways of brick and wood so ill put together that it is hard to tell whether the wood is trying to get rid of the bricks or the bricks are trying to get away from the wood; the gaps between them were partly filled up by what was dust in summer and mud in winter. The walls, of cracked and broken plaster, presented to the eye more inscriptions than the Academy of Belles-lettres has yet composed. The portress stopped on the first landing.
“Here, monsieur, are two rooms adjoining each other and very clean, which open opposite to those of Monsieur Bernard; that’s the old gentleman I told you of, – quite a proper person. He is decorated; but it seems he has had misfortunes, for he never wears his ribbon. They formerly had a servant from the provinces, but they sent him away about three years ago; and now the young son of the lady does everything, housework and all.”
Godefroid made a gesture.
“Oh!” cried the Portress, “don’t you be afraid; they won’t say anything to you; they never speak to any one. They came here after the Revolution of July, in 1830. I think they’re provincial folk ruined by the change of government; they are proud, I tell you! and dumb as fishes. For three years, monsieur, I declare they have not let me do the smallest thing for them for fear they should have to pay for it. A hundred sous on New Year’s day, that’s all I get out of them. Talk to me of authors, indeed!”
This gossip made Godefroid hope he should get some assistance out of the woman, who presently said, while praising the healthfulness of the two rooms she offered him, that she was not a portress, but the confidential agent of the proprietor, for whom she managed many of the affairs of the house.
“You may have confidence in me, monsieur, that you may! Madame Vauthier, it is well known, would rather have nothing than a single penny that ought to go to others.”
Madame Vauthier soon came to terms with Godefroid who would not take the rooms unless he could have them by the single month and furnished. These miserable rooms of students and unlucky authors were rented furnished or unfurnished as the case might be. The vast garret which extended over the whole building was filled with such furniture. But Monsieur Bernard, she said, had furnished his own rooms.
In making Madame Vauthier talk, Godefroid discovered she had intended to keep boarders in the building, but for the last five years had not obtained a single lodger of that description. She lived herself on the ground-floor facing towards the boulevard; and looked after the whole house, by the help of a huge mastiff, a stout servant-girl, and a lad who blacked the boots, took care of the rooms, and did the errands.
These two servants were, like herself, in keeping with the poverty of the house, that of the tenants, and the wild and tangled look of the garden. Both were children abandoned by their parents to whom the widow gave food for wages, – and what food! The lad, whom Godefroid caught a glimpse of, wore a ragged blouse and list slippers instead of shoes, and sabots when he went out. With his tousled head, looking like a sparrow when it takes a bath, and his black hands, he went to measure wood at a wood-yard on the boulevard as soon as he had finished the morning work of the house; and after his day’s labor (which ends in wood-yards at half-past four in the afternoon) he returned to his domestic avocations. He went to the fountain of the Observatoire for the water used in the house, which the widow supplied to the tenants, together with bundles of kindling, sawed and tied up by him.
Nepomucene, such was the name of the widow Vauthier’s slave, brought the daily journal to his mistress. In summer the poor forsaken lad was a waiter in the wine-shops at the barrier; and then his mistress dressed him properly.
As for the stout girl, she cooked under direction of the widow, and helped her in another department of industry during the rest of the day; for Madame Vauthier had a business, – she made list shoes, which were bought and sold by pedlers.
Godefroid learned all these details in about an hour’s time; for the widow took him everywhere, and showed him the whole building, explaining its transformation into a dwelling. Until 1828 it had been a nursery for silk-worms, less for the silk than to obtain what they call the eggs. Eleven acres planted with mulberries on the plain of Montrouge, and three acres on the rue de l’Ouest, afterwards built over, had supplied this singular establishment.
Just as the widow was explaining to Godefroid how Monsieur Barbet, having lent money to an Italian named Fresconi, the manager of the business, could recover his money only by foreclosing a mortgage on the building and seizing the three acres on the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, a tall, spare old man with snow-white hair appeared at the end of the street which leads into the square of the rue de l’Ouest.
“Ah! here he comes, just in time!” cried the Vauthier; “that’s your neighbor Monsieur Bernard. Monsieur Bernard!” she called out as soon as the old man was within hearing; “you won’t be alone any longer; here is a gentleman who has hired the rooms opposite to yours.”
Monsieur Bernard turned his eyes on Godefroid with an apprehension it was easy to fathom; the look seemed to say: “The misfortune I feared has come to pass.”
“Monsieur,” he said aloud, “do you intend to live here?”
“Yes, monsieur,” said Godefroid, honestly. “It is not a resort for the fortunate of this earth and it is the least expensive place I can find in the quarter. Madame Vauthier does not pretend to lodge millionnaires. Adieu, for the present, my good Madame Vauthier, and have everything ready for me at six o’clock this evening; I shall return punctually.”
Godefroid turned toward the square of the rue de l’Ouest, walking slowly, for the anxiety depicted on the face of the tall old man made him think that he would follow him and come to an explanation. And, in fact, after an instant’s hesitation Monsieur Bernard turned round and retraced his steps so as to overtake Godefroid.
“The old villain! he’ll prevent him from returning,” thought Madame Vauthier; “that’s the second time he has played me the same trick. Patience! patience! five days hence he owes his rent, and if he doesn’t pay sharp up I’ll turn him out. Monsieur Barbet is a kind of a tiger one mustn’t offend, and – But I would like to know what he’s telling him. Felicite! Felicite, you great gawk! where are you?” cried the widow in her rasping, brutal voice, – she had been using her dulcet tones to Godefroid.
The servant-girl, stout, squint-eyed, and red-haired, ran out.
“Keep your eye on things, do you hear me? I shall be back in five minutes.”
And Madame Vauthier, formerly cook to the publisher Barbet, one of the hardest lenders of money by the week, slipped along behind her two tenants so as to be able to overtake Godefroid as soon as his conversation with Monsieur Bernard came to an end.
Monsieur Bernard walked slowly, like a man who is undecided, or like a debtor seeking for excuses to placate a creditor who has just left him with threats. Godefroid, though some distance in front, saw him while pretending to look about and examine the locality. It was not, therefore, till they reached the middle of the great alley of the garden of the Luxembourg that Monsieur Bernard came up to the young man.
“Pardon me, monsieur,” said Monsieur Bernard, bowing to Godefroid, who returned his bow. “A thousand pardons for stopping you without having the honor of your acquaintance; but is it really your intention to take lodgings in that horrible house you have just left?”
“But, monsieur – ”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man, interrupting Godefroid, with a gesture of authority. “I know that you may well ask me by what right I meddle in your affairs and presume to question you. Hear me, monsieur; you are young and I am old; I am older than my years, and they are sixty-seven; people take me for eighty. Age and misfortunes justify many things; but I will not make a plea of my whitened head; I wish to speak of yourself. Do you know that this quarter in which you propose to live is deserted by eight o’clock at night, and the roads are full of dangers, the least of which is robbery? Have you noticed those wide spaces not yet built upon, these fields, these gardens? You may tell me that I live here; but, monsieur, I never go out after six o’clock. You may also remind me of the two young men on the second floor, above the apartment you are going to take. But, monsieur, those two poor men of letters are pursued by creditors. They are in hiding; they are away in the daytime and only return at night; they have no reason to fear robbers or assassins; besides, they always go together and are armed. I myself obtained permission from the prefecture of police that they should carry arms.”