Оноре де Бальзак
The Lesser Bourgeoisie
“So be it!” said Madame Colleville; “you think yourself very clever, but if you let that girl twist you round her finger, so much the worse for you. Come, Thuillier, since we are ‘de trop’ here.”
As soon as the pair were alone together, la Peyrade drew up a chair for Celeste, and took one himself, saying: —
“You will, I venture to believe, do me the justice to say that until to-day I have never annoyed you with the expression of my sentiments. I was aware of the inclinations of your heart, and also of the warnings of your conscience. I hoped, after a time, to make myself acceptable as a refuge from those two currents of feeling; but, at the point which we have now reached, I think it is not either indiscreet or impatient to ask you to let me know plainly what course you have decided upon.”
“Monsieur,” replied Celeste, “as you speak to me so kindly and frankly, I will tell you, what indeed you know already, that, brought up as I was with Monsieur Felix Phellion, knowing him far longer than I have known you, the idea of marrying alarmed me less in regard to him than it would in regard to others.”
“At one time, I believe,” remarked la Peyrade, “you were permitted to choose him if you wished.”
“Yes, but at that time difficulties grew up between us on religious ideas.”
“And to-day those difficulties have disappeared?”
“Nearly,” replied Celeste. “I am accustomed to submit to the judgment of those who are wiser than myself, monsieur, and you heard yesterday the manner in which the Abbe Gondrin spoke of Monsieur Phellion.”
“God forbid,” said la Peyrade, “that I should seek to invalidate the judgment of so excellent a man; but I venture to say to you, mademoiselle, that there are great differences among the clergy; some are thought too stern, some far too indulgent; moreover, the Abbe Gondrin is more of a preacher than a casuist.”
“But, Monsieur Felix,” said Celeste, eagerly, “seems to wish to fulfil Monsieur l’abbe’s hopes of him, for I know that he went to see him this morning.”
“Ah!” said la Peyrade, with a touch of irony, “so he really decided to go to Pere Anselme! But, admitting that on the religious side Monsieur Phellion may now become all that you expect of him, have you reflected, mademoiselle, on the great event which has just taken place in his life?”
“Undoubtedly; and that is not a reason to think less of him.”
“No, but it is a reason why he should think more of himself. For the modesty which was once the chief charm of his nature, he is likely to substitute great assumption, and you must remember, mademoiselle, that he who has discovered one world will want to discover two; you will have the whole firmament for rival; in short, could you ever be happy with a man so entirely devoted to science?”
“You plead your cause with such adroitness,” said Celeste, smiling, “that I think you might be as a lawyer more disquieting than an astronomer.”
“Mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade, “let us speak seriously; there is another and far more serious aspect to the situation. Do you know that, at this moment, in this house, and without, I am sure, desiring it, you are the cause of most distressing and regrettable scenes?”
“I, monsieur!” said Celeste, in a tone of surprise that was mingled with fear.
“Yes, concerning your godmother. Through the extreme affection that she has for you she seems to have become another woman; for the first time in her life she has shown a mind of her own. With an energy of will which comes at times to those who have never expended any, she declares that she will not make her proposed liberal gift to you in the contract; and I need not tell you who is the person aimed at in this unexpected refusal.”
“But, monsieur, I entreat you to believe that I knew nothing of this idea of my godmother.”
“I know that,” said la Peyrade, “and the matter itself would be of small importance if Mademoiselle Brigitte had not taken this attitude of your godmother, whom she has always found supple to her will, as a personal insult to herself. Very painful explanations, approaching at last to violence, have taken place. Thuillier, placed between the hammer and the anvil, has been unable to stop the affair; on the contrary, he has, without intending it, made matters worse, till they have now arrived at such a point that Mademoiselle Brigitte is packing her trunks to leave the house.”
“Monsieur! what are you telling me?” cried Celeste, horrified.
“The truth; and the servants will confirm it to you – for I feel that my revelations are scarcely believable.”
“But it is impossible! impossible!” said the poor child, whose agitation increased with every word of the adroit Provencal. “I cannot be the cause of such dreadful harm.”
“That is, you did not intend to be, for the harm is done; and I pray Heaven it may not be irremediable.”
“But what am I to do, good God!” cried Celeste, wringing her hands.
“I should answer, without hesitation, sacrifice yourself, mademoiselle, if it were not that I should then be forced to play the painful part of victimizer.”
“Monsieur,” said Celeste, “you interpret ill the resistance that I have made, though, in fact, I have scarcely expressed it. I have certainly had a preference, but I have never considered myself in the light of a victim; and whatever it is necessary to do to restore peace in this house to which I have brought trouble, I shall do it without repugnance, and even willingly.”
“That would be for me,” said la Peyrade, humbly, “more than I could dare ask for myself; but, for the result which we both seek, I must tell you frankly that something more is needed. Madame Thuillier has not changed her nature to instantly change back again on the mere assurance by others of your compliance. It is necessary that she should hear from your own lips that you accede to my suit, and that you do so with eagerness, – assumed, indeed, but sufficiently well assumed to induce her to believe in it.”
“So be it,” said Celeste. “I shall know how to seem smiling and happy. My godmother, monsieur, has been a mother to me; and for such a mother, what is there that I would not endure?”
The position was such, and Celeste betrayed so artlessly the depth and, at the same time, the absolute determination of her sacrifice, that with any heart at all la Peyrade would have loathed the part he was playing; but Celeste, to him, was a means of ascent, and provided the ladder can hold you and hoist you, who would ever ask if it cared to or not? It was therefore decided that Celeste should go to her godmother and convince her of the mistake she had made in supposing an objection to la Peyrade which Celeste had never intended to make. Madame Thuillier’s opposition overcome, all was once more easy. La Peyrade took upon himself the duty of making peace between the two sisters-in-law, and we can well imagine that he was not at a loss for fine phrases with which to assure the artless girl of the devotion and love which would take from her all regret for the moral compulsion she had now undergone.
When Celeste went to her godmother she found her by no means as difficult to convince as she had expected. To go to the point of rebellion which Madame Thuillier had actually reached, the poor woman, who was acting against her instincts and against her nature, had needed a tension of will that, in her, was almost superhuman. No sooner had she received the false confidences of her goddaughter than the reaction set in; the strength failed her to continue in the path she had taken. She was therefore easily the dupe of the comedy which Celeste’s tender heart was made to play for la Peyrade’s benefit.
The tempest calmed on this side, the barrister found no difficulty in making Brigitte understand that in quelling the rebellion against her authority she had gone a little farther than was proper. This authority being no longer in danger, Brigitte ceased to be incensed with the sister-in-law she had been on the point of beating, and the quarrel was settled with a few kind words and a kiss, poor Celeste paying the costs of war.
After dinner, which was only a family meal, the notary, to whose office they were to go on the following day to sign the contract (it being impossible to give a second edition of the abortive party), made his appearance. He came, he said, to submit the contract to the parties interested before engrossing it. This attention was not surprising in a man who was just entering into business relations with so important a person as the municipal councillor, whom it was his interest to firmly secure for a client.
La Peyrade was far too shrewd to make any objections to the terms of the contract, which was now read. A few changes requested by Brigitte, which gave the new notary a high idea of the old maid’s business capacity, showed la Peyrade plainly that more precautions were being taken against him than were altogether becoming; but he was anxious not to raise difficulties, and he knew that the meshes of a contract are never so close that a determined and clever man cannot get through them. The appointment was then made for the signing of the contract the next day, at two o’clock, in the notary’s office, the family only being present.
During the rest of the evening, taking advantage of Celeste’s pledge to seem smiling and happy, la Peyrade played, as it were, upon the poor child, forced her, by a specious exhibition of gratitude and love, to respond to him on a key that was far, indeed, from the true state of a heart now wholly filled by Felix. Flavie, seeing the manner in which la Peyrade put forth his seductions, was reminded of the pains he had formerly taken to fascinate herself. “The monster!” she said, beneath her breath. But she was forced to bear the torture with a good grace; la Peyrade was evidently approved by all, and in the course of the evening a circumstance came to light, showing a past service done by him to the house of Thuillier, which brought his influence and his credit to the highest point.
Minard was announced.
“My dear friends,” he said, “I have come to make a little revelation which will greatly surprise you, and will, I think, prove a lesson to all of us when a question arises as to receiving foreigners in our homes.”
“What is it?” cried Brigitte, with curiosity.
“That Hungarian woman you were so delighted with, that Madame Torna, Comtesse de Godollo – ”
“Well?” exclaimed the old maid.
“Well,” continued Minard, “she was no better than she should be; you were petting in your house for two months the most impudent of kept women.”
“Who told you that tale?” asked Brigitte, not willing to admit that she had fallen into such a snare.
“Oh, it isn’t a tale,” said the mayor, eagerly. “I know the thing myself, ‘de visu.’”
“Dear me! do you frequent such women?” said Brigitte, resuming the offensive. “That’s a pretty thing! what would Zelie say if she knew it?”
“In the discharge of my duties,” said Minard, stiffly, provoked at this reception of his news, “I have seen your friend, Madame de Godollo, in company with others of her class.”
“How do you know it was she if you only saw her?” demanded Brigitte.
The wily Provencal was not the man to lose an occasion that fell to him ready-made.
“Monsieur le maire is not mistaken,” he said, with decision.
“Tiens! so you know her, too,” said Brigitte; “and you let us consort with such vermin?”
“No,” said la Peyrade, “on the contrary. Without scandal, without saying a word to any one, I removed her from your house. You remember how suddenly the woman left it? It was I who compelled her to do so; having discovered what she was, I gave her two days to leave the premises; threatening her, in case she hesitated, to tell you all.”
“My dear Theodose,” said Thuillier, pressing his hand, “you acted with as much prudence as decision. This is one more obligation that we owe to you.”
“You see, mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade, addressing Celeste, “the strange protectress whom a friend of yours selected.”
“Thank God,” said Madame Thuillier. “Felix Phellion is above such vile things.”
“Ah ca! papa Minard, we’ll keep quiet about all this; silence is the word. Will you take a cup of tea?”
“Willingly,” replied Minard.
“Celeste,” said the old maid, “ring for Henri, and tell him to put the large kettle on the fire.”
Though the visit to the notary was not to be made till two in the afternoon, Brigitte began early in the morning of the next day what Thuillier called her rampage, a popular term which expresses that turbulent, nagging, irritating activity which La Fontaine has described so well in his fable of “The Old Woman and her Servants.” Brigitte declared that if you didn’t take time by the forelock no one would be ready. She prevented Thuillier from going to his office, insisting that if he once got off she never should see him again; she plagued Josephine, the cook, about hurrying the breakfast, and in spite of what had happened the day before she scarcely restrained herself from nagging at Madame Thuillier, who did not enter, as she thought she should have done, into her favorite maxim, “Better be early than late.”
Presently down she went to the Collevilles’ to make the same disturbance; and there she put her veto on the costume, far too elegant, which Flavie meditated wearing, and told Celeste the hat and gown she wished her to appear in. As for Colleville, who could not, he declared, stay away all the morning from his official duties, she compelled him to put on his dress-suit before he went out, made him set his watch by hers, and warned him that if he was late no one would wait for him.
The amusing part of it was that Brigitte herself, after driving every one at the point of the bayonet, came very near being late herself. Under pretext of aiding others, independently of minding her own business, which, for worlds, she would never have spared herself, she had put her fingers and eyes into so many things that they ended by overwhelming her. However, she ascribed the delay in which she was almost caught to the hairdresser, whom she had sent for to make, on this extraordinary occasion, what she called her “part.” That artist having, unadvisedly, dressed her hair in the fashion, he was compelled, after she had looked at herself in the glass, to do his work over again, and conform to the usual style of his client, which consisted chiefly in never being “done” at all, a method that gave her head a general air of what is vulgarly called “a cross cat.”
About half-past one o’clock la Peyrade, Thuillier, Colleville, Madame Thuillier, and Celeste were assembled in the salon. Flavie joined them soon after, fastening her bracelets as she came along to avoid a rebuff, and having the satisfaction of knowing that she was ready before Brigitte. As for the latter, already furious at finding herself late, she had another cause for exasperation. The event of the day seemed to require a corset, a refinement which she usually discarded. The unfortunate maid, whose duty it was to lace her and to discover the exact point to which she was willing to be drawn in, alone knew the terrors and storms of a corset day.
“I’d rather,” said the girl, “lace the obelisk; I know it would lend itself to being laced better than she does; and, anyhow, it couldn’t be bad-tongued.”
While the party in the salon were amusing themselves, under their breaths, at the “flagrante delicto” of unpunctuality in which Queen Elizabeth was caught, the porter entered, and gave to Thuillier a sealed package, addressed to “Monsieur Thuillier, director of the ‘Echo de la Bievre.’ In haste.”
Thuillier opened the envelope, and found within a copy of a ministerial journal which had hitherto shown itself discourteous to the new paper by refusing the exchange which all periodicals usually make very willingly with one another.
Puzzled by the fact of this missive being sent to his own house and not to the office of the “Echo,” Thuillier hastily opened the sheet, and read, with what emotion the reader may conceive, the following article, commended to his notice by a circle in red ink: —
An obscure organ was about to expire in its native shade when an ambitious person of recent date bethought himself of galvanizing it. His object was to make it a foothold by which to climb from municipal functions to the coveted position of deputy. Happily this object, having come to the surface, will end in failure. Electors will certainly not be inveigled by so wily a manner of advancing self-interests; and when the proper time arrives, if ridicule has not already done justice on this absurd candidacy, we shall ourselves prove to the pretender that to aspire to the distinguished honor of representing the nation something more is required than the money to buy a paper and pay an underling to put into good French the horrible diction of his articles and pamphlets. We confine ourselves to-day to this limited notice, but our readers may be sure that we shall keep them informed about this electoral comedy, if indeed the parties concerned have the melancholy courage to go on with it.
Thuillier read twice over this sudden declaration of war, which was far from leaving him calm and impassible; then, taking la Peyrade aside, he said to him: —
“Read that; it is serious.”
“Well?” said la Peyrade, after reading the article.
“Well? how well?” exclaimed Thuillier.
“I mean, what do you find so serious in that?”
“What do I find so serious?” repeated Thuillier. “I don’t think anything could be more insulting to me.”
“You can’t doubt,” said la Peyrade, “that the virtuous Cerizet is at the bottom of it; he has thrown this firecracker between your legs by way of revenge.”
“Cerizet, or anybody else who wrote that diatribe is an insolent fellow,” cried Thuillier, getting angry, “and the matter shall not rest there.”
“For my part,” said la Peyrade, “I advise you to make no reply. You are not named; though, of course, the attack is aimed at you. But you ought to let our adversary commit himself farther; when the right moment comes, we’ll rap him over the knuckles.”
“No!” said Thuillier, “I won’t stay quiet one minute under such an insult.”
“The devil!” said the barrister; “what a sensitive epidermis! Do reflect, my dear fellow, that you have made yourself a candidate and a journalist, and therefore you really must harden yourself better than that.”
“My good friend, it is a principle of mine not to let anybody step on my toes. Besides, they say themselves they are going on with this thing. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to cut short such impertinence.”
“But do consider,” said la Peyrade. “Certainly in journalism, as in candidacy, a hot temper has its uses; a man makes himself respected, and stops attacks – ”
“Just so,” said Thuillier, “‘principiis obsta.’ Not to-day, because we haven’t the time, but to-morrow I shall carry that paper into court.”
“Into court!” echoed la Peyrade; “you surely wouldn’t go to law in such a matter as this? In the first place, there is nothing to proceed upon; you are not named nor the paper either, and, besides, it is a pitiable business, going to law; you’ll look like a boy who has been fighting, and got the worst of it, and runs to complain to his mamma. Now if you had said that you meant to make Fleury intervene in the matter, I could understand that – though the affair is rather personal to you, and it might be difficult to make it seem – ”
“Ah ca!” said Thuillier, “do you suppose I am going to commit myself with a Cerizet or any other newspaper bully? I pique myself, my dear fellow, on possessing civic courage, which does not give in to prejudices, and which, instead of taking justice into its own hands, has recourse to the means of defence that are provided by law. Besides, with the legal authority the Court of Cassation now has over duelling, I have no desire to put myself in the way of being expatriated, or spending two or three years in prison.”
“Well,” said la Peyrade, “we’ll talk it over later; here’s your sister, and she would think everything lost if this little matter reached her ears.”
When Brigitte appeared Colleville shouted “Full!” and proceeded to sing the chorus of “La Parisienne.”
“Heavens! Colleville, how vulgar you are!” cried the tardy one, hastening to cast a stone in the other’s garden to avoid the throwing of one into hers. “Well, are you all ready?” she added, arranging her mantle before a mirror. “What o’clock is it? it won’t do to get there before the time, like provincials.”
“Ten minutes to two,” said Colleville; “I go by the Tuileries.”
“Well, then we are just right,” said Brigitte; “it will take about that time to get to the rue Caumartin. Josephine,” she cried, going to the door of the salon, “we’ll dine at six, therefore be sure you put the turkey to roast at the right time, and mind you don’t burn it, as you did the other day. Bless me! who’s that?” and with a hasty motion she shut the door, which she had been holding open. “What a nuisance! I hope Henri will have the sense to tell him we are out.”
Not at all; Henri came in to say that an old gentleman, with a very genteel air, had asked to be received on urgent business.
“Why didn’t you say we were all out?”
“That’s what I should have done if mademoiselle had not opened the door of the salon so that the gentleman could see the whole family assembled.”
“Oh, yes!” said Brigitte, “you are never in the wrong, are you?”
“What am I to say to him?” asked the man.
“Say,” replied Thuillier, “that I am very sorry not to be able to receive him, but I am expected at a notary’s office about a marriage contract; but that if he could return two hours hence – ”
“I have told him all that,” said Henri, “and he answered that that contract was precisely what he had come about, and that his business concerned you more than himself.”
“You had better go and see him, Thuillier, and get rid of him in double-quick,” said Brigitte; “that’s shorter than talking to Henri, who is always an orator.”
If la Peyrade had been consulted he might not have joined in that advice, for he had had more than one specimen of the spokes some occult influence was putting into the wheels of his marriage, and the present visit seemed to him ominous.
“Show him into my study,” said Thuillier, following his sister’s advice; and, opening the door which led from the salon to the study, he went to receive his importunate visitor.
Brigitte immediately applied her eye to the keyhole.
“Goodness!” she exclaimed, “there’s my imbecile of a Thuillier offering him a chair! and away in a corner, too, where I can’t hear a word they say!”
La Peyrade was walking about the room with an inward agitation covered by an appearance of great indifference. He even went up to the three women, and made a few lover-like speeches to Celeste, who received them with a smiling, happy air in keeping with the role she was playing. As for Colleville, he was killing the time by composing an anagram on the six words of “le journal ‘l’Echo de la Bievre,’” for which he had found the following version, little reassuring (as far as it went) for the prospects of that newspaper: “O d’Echo, jarni! la bevue reell” – but as the final “e” was lacking to complete the last word, the work was not altogether as satisfactory as it should have been.
“He’s taking snuff!” said Brigitte, her eye still glued to the keyhole; “his gold snuff-box beats Minard’s – though, perhaps, it is only silver-gilt,” she added, reflectively. “He’s doing the talking, and Thuillier is sitting there listening to him like a buzzard. I shall go in and tell them they can’t keep ladies waiting that way.”
But just as she put her hand on the lock she heard Thuillier’s visitor raise his voice, and that made her look through the keyhole again.
“He is standing up; he’s going,” she said with satisfaction.
But a moment later she saw she had made a mistake; the little old man had only left his chair to walk up and down the room and continue the conversation with greater freedom.
“My gracious! I shall certainly go in,” she said, “and tell Thuillier we are going without him, and he can follow us.”
So saying, the old maid gave two little sharp and very imperious raps on the door, after which she resolutely entered the study.
La Peyrade, goaded by anxiety, had the bad taste to look through the keyhole himself at what was happening. Instantly he thought he recognized the small old man he had seen under the name of “the commander” on that memorable morning when he had waited for Madame de Godollo. Then he saw Thuillier addressing his sister with impatience and with gestures of authority altogether out of his usual habits of deference and submission.
“It seems,” said Brigitte, re-entering the salon, “that Thuillier finds some great interest in that creature’s talk, for he ordered me bluntly to leave them, though the little old fellow did say, rather civilly, that they would soon be through. But Jerome added: ‘Mind, you are to wait for me.’ Really, since he has taken to making newspapers I don’t know him; he has set up an air as if he were leading the world with his wand.”
“I am very much afraid he is being entangled by some adventurer,” said la Peyrade. “I am pretty sure I saw that old man at Madame de Godollo’s the day I went to warn her off the premises; he must be of the same stripe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” cried Brigitte. “I’d have asked him for news of the countess, and let him see we knew what we knew of his Hungarian.”
Just then the sound of moving chairs was heard, and Brigitte darted back to the keyhole.
“Yes,” she said, “he is really going, and Thuillier is bowing him out respectfully!”
As Thuillier did not immediately return, Colleville had time to go to the window and exclaim at seeing the little old gentleman driving away in an elegant coupe, of which the reader has already heard.
“The deuce!” cried Colleville; “what an ornate livery! If he is an adventurer he is a number one.”
At last Thuillier re-entered the room, his face full of care, his manner extremely grave.
“My dear la Peyrade,” he said, “you did not tell us that another proposal of marriage had been seriously considered by you.”
“Yes, I did; I told you that a very rich heiress had been offered to me, but that my inclinations were here, and that I had not given any encouragement to the affair; consequently, of course, there was no serious engagement.”
“Well, I think you do wrong to treat that proposal so lightly.”
“What! do you mean to say, in presence of these ladies, that you blame me for remaining faithful to my first desires and our old engagement?”
“My friend, the conversation that I have just had has been a most instructive one to me; and when you know what I know, with other details personal to yourself, which will be confided to you, I think that you will enter into my ideas. One thing is certain; we shall not go to the notary to-day; and as for you, the best thing that you can do is to go, without delay, to Monsieur du Portail.”
“That name again! it pursues me like a remorse,” exclaimed la Peyrade.
“Yes; go at once; he is awaiting you. It is an indispensable preliminary before we can go any farther. When you have seen that excellent man and heard what he has to say to you – well, then if you persist in claiming Celeste’s hand, we might perhaps carry out our plans. Until then we shall take no steps in the matter.”
“But, my poor Thuillier,” said Brigitte, “you have let yourself be gammoned by a rascal; that man belongs to the Godollo set.”
“Madame de Godollo,” replied Thuillier, “is not at all what you suppose her to be, and the best thing this house can do is never to say one word about her, either good or evil. As for la Peyrade, as this is not the first time he has been requested to go and see Monsieur du Portail, I am surprised that he hesitates to do so.”
“Ah ca!” said Brigitte, “that little old man has completely befooled you.”
“I tell you that that little old man is all that he appears to be. He wears seven crosses, he drives in a splendid equipage, and he has told me things that have overwhelmed me with astonishment.”
“Well, perhaps he’s a fortune-teller like Madame Fontaine, who managed once upon a time to upset me when Madame Minard and I, just to amuse ourselves, went to consult her.”
“Well, if he is not a sorcerer he certainly has a very long arm,” said Thuillier, “and I think a man would suffer for it if he didn’t respect his advice. As for you, Brigitte, he saw you only for a minute, but he told me your whole character; he said you were a masterful woman, born to command.”
“The fact is,” said Brigitte, licking her chops at this compliment, like a cat drinking cream, “he has a very well-bred air, that little old fellow. You take my advice, my dear,” she said, turning to la Peyrade; “if such a very big-wig as that wants you to do so, go and see this du Portail, whoever he is. That, it seems to me, won’t bind you to anything.”
“You are right, Brigitte,” said Colleville; “as for me, I’d follow up all the Portails, or Porters, or Portents for the matter of that, if they asked me to.”
The scene was beginning to resemble that in the “Barber of Seville,” where everybody tells Basil to go to bed, for he certainly has a fever. La Peyrade, thus prodded, picked up his hat in some ill-humor, and went where his destiny called him, – “quo sua fata vocabant.”