The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac (best ereader for graphic novels TXT) 📕

"What have you said and done to my husband?" asked Flavie, when

Colleville had left them.

"Must I tell you all our secrets?"

"Ah! you don't love me," she replied, looking at him with the

coquettish slyness of a woman who is not quite decided in her mind.

"Well, since you tell me yours," he said, letting himself go to the

lively impulse of Provencal gaiety, always so charming and apparently

so natural, "I will not conceal from you an anxiety in my heart."

He took her back to the same window and said, smiling:--

"Colleville, poor man, has seen in me the artist repressed by all

these bourgeois; silent before them because I feel misjudged,

misunderstood, and repelled by them. He has felt the heat of the

sacred fire that consumes me. Yes I am," he continued, in a tone of

conviction, "an artist in words after the manner of Berryer; I could

make juries weep, by weeping myself, for I'm as nervous as a woman.

Your husband, who detests the bourgeoisie, began to tease me about

them. At first we laughed; then, in becoming serious, he found out

that I was as strong as he. I told him of the plan concocted to make

_something_ of Thuillier, and I showed him all the good he could get

himself out of a political puppet. 'If it were only,' I said to him,

'to make yourself Monsieur _de_ Colleville, and to put your

charming wife where I should like to see her, as the wife of a

receiver-general, or deputy. To make yourself all that you and she

ought to be, you have only to go and live a few years in the Upper or

Lower Alps, in some hole of a town where everybody will like you, and

your wife will seduce everybody; and this,' I added, 'you cannot fail

to obtain, especially if you give your dear Celeste to some man who can

influence the Chamber.' Good reasons, stated in jest, have the merit of

penetrating deeper into some minds than if they were given soberly. So

Colleville and I became the best friends in the world. Didn't you hear

him say to me at table, 'Rascal! you have stolen my speech'? To-night

we shall be theeing and thouing each other. I intend to have a choice

little supper-party soon, where artists, tied to the proprieties at

home, always compromise themselves. I'll invite him, and that will

make us as solidly good friends as he is with Thuillier. There, my

dear adorned one, is what a profound sentiment gives a man the courage

to produce. Colleville must adopt me; so that I may visit your house

by his invitation. But what couldn't you make me do? lick lepers,

swallow live toads, seduce Brigitte--yes, if you say so, I'll impale

my own heart on that great picket-rail to please you."

"You frightened me this morning," she said.

"But this evening you are reassured. Yes," he added, "no harm will

ever happen to you through me."

"You are, I must acknowledge, a most extraordinary man."

"Why, no! the smallest as well as the greatest of my efforts are

merely the reflections of the flame which you have kindled. I intend

to be your son-in-law that we may never part. My wife, heavens! what

could she be to me but a machine for child-bearing? whereas the

divinity, the sublime being will be--you," he whispered in her ear.

"You are Satan!" she said, in a sort of terror.

"No, I am something of a poet, like all the men of my region. Come, be

my Josephine! I'll go and see you to-morrow. I have the most ardent

desire to see where you live and how you live, the furniture you use,

the color of your stuffs, the arrangement of all things about you. I

long to see the pearl in its shell."

He slipped away cleverly after these words, without waiting for an

answer.

Flavie, to whom in all her life love had never taken the language of

romance, sat still, but happy, her heart palpitating, and saying to

herself that it was very difficult to escape such influence. For the

first time Theodose had appeared in a pair of new trousers, with gray

silk stockings and pumps, a waistcoat of black silk, and a cravat of

black satin on the knot of which shone a plain gold pin selected with

taste. He wore also a new coat in the last fashion, and yellow gloves,

relieved by white shirt-cuffs; he was the only man who had manners, or

deportment in that salon, which was now filling up for the evening.

Madame Pron, nee Barniol, arrived with two school-girls, aged

seventeen, confided to her maternal care by families residing in

Martinique. Monsieur Pron, professor of rhetoric in a college presided

over by priests, belonged to the Phellion class; but, instead of

expanding on the surface in phrases and demonstrations, and posing as

an example, he was dry and sententious. Monsieur and Madame Pron, the

flowers of the Phellion salon, received every Monday. Though a

professor, the little man danced. He enjoyed great influence in the

quarter enclosed by the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, the Luxembourg,

and the rue de Sevres. Therefore, as soon as Phellion saw his friend,

he took him by the arm into a corner to inform him of the Thuillier

candidacy. After ten minutes' consultation they both went to find

Thuillier, and the recess of a window, opposite to that where Flavie

still sat absorbed in her reflections, no doubt, heard a "trio"

worthy, in its way, of that of the Swiss in "Guillaume Tell."

"Do you see," said Theodose, returning to Flavie, "the pure and honest

Phellion intriguing over there? Give a personal reason to a virtuous

man and he'll paddle in the slimiest puddle; he is hooking that little

Pron, and Pron is taking it all in, solely to get your little Celeste

for Felix Phellion. Separate them, and in ten minutes they'll get

together again, and that young Minard will be growling round them like

an angry bulldog."

Felix, still under the strong emotion imparted to him by Celeste's

generous action and the cry that came from the girl's heart, though no

one but Madame Thuillier still thought of it, became inspired by one

of those ingenuous artfulnesses which are the honest charlatanism of

true love; but he was not to the manner born of it, and mathematics,

moreover, made him somewhat absent-minded. He stationed himself near

Madame Thuillier, imagining that Madame Thuillier would attract

Celeste to her side. This astute calculation succeeded all the better

because young Minard, who saw in Celeste nothing more than a "dot,"

had no such sudden inspiration, and was drinking his coffee and

talking politics with Laudigeois, Monsieur Barniol, and Dutocq by

order of his father, who was thinking and planning for the general

election of the legislature in 1842.

"Who wouldn't love Celeste?" said Felix to Madame Thuillier.

"Little darling, no one in the world loves me as she does," replied

the poor slave, with difficulty restraining her tears.

"Ah! madame, we both love you," said the candid professor, sincerely.

"What are you saying to each other?" asked Celeste, coming up.

"My child," said the pious woman, drawing her god-daughter down to her

and kissing her on the forehead. "He said that you both loved me."

"Do not be angry with my presumption, mademoiselle. Let me do all I

can to prove it," murmured Felix. "Ah! I cannot help it, I was made

this way; injustice revolts me to the soul! Yes, the Saviour of men

was right to promise the future to the meek heart, to the slain lamb!

A man who did not love you, Celeste, must have adored you after that

sublime impulse of yours at table. Ah, yes! innocence alone can

console the martyr. You are a kind young girl; you will be one of

those wives who make the glory and the happiness of a family. Happy be

he whom you will choose!"

"Godmamma, with what eyes do you think Monsieur Felix sees me?"

"He appreciates you, my little angel; I shall pray to God for both of

you."

"If you knew how happy I am that my father can do a service to

Monsieur Thuillier, and how I wish I could be useful to your

brother--"

"In short," said Celeste, laughing, "you love us all."

"Well, yes," replied Felix.

True love wraps itself in the mysteries of reserve, even in its

expression; it proves itself by itself; it does not feel the

necessity, as a false love does, of lighting a conflagration. By an

observer (if such a being could have glided into the Thuillier salon)

a book might have been made in comparing the two scenes of

love-making, and in watching the enormous preparations of Theodose

and the simplicity of Felix: one was nature, the other was society,

--the true and the false embodied. Noticing her daughter glowing with

happiness, exhaling her soul through the pores of her face, and

beautiful with the beauty of a young girl gathering the first roses

of an indirect declaration, Flavie had an impulse of jealousy in her

heart. She came across to Celeste and said in her ear:--

"You are not behaving well, my daughter; everybody is observing you;

you are compromising yourself by talking so long to Monsieur Felix

without knowing whether we approve of it."

"But, mamma, my godmother is here."

"Ah! pardon me, dear friend," said Madame Colleville; "I did not

notice you."

"You do as others do," said the poor nonentity.

That reply stung Madame Colleville, who regarded it as a barbed arrow.

She cast a haughty glance at Felix and said to Celeste, "Sit there, my

daughter," seating herself at the same time beside Madame Thuillier

and pointing to a chair on the other side of her.

"I will work myself to death," said Felix to Madame Thuillier. "I'll

be a member of the Academy of Sciences; I'll make some great

discovery, and win her hand by force of fame."

"Ah!" thought the poor woman to herself, "I ought to have had a

gentle, peaceful, learned man like that. I might have slowly developed

in a life of quietness. It was not thy will, O God! but, I pray thee,

unite and bless these children; they are made for one another."

And she sat there, pensive, listening to the racket made by her

sister-in-law--a ten-horse power at work--who now, lending a hand to

her two servants, cleared the table, taking everything out of the

dining-room to accommodate the dancers, vociferating, like the captain

of a frigate on his quarter-deck when taking his ship into action:

"Have you plenty of raspberry syrup?" "Run out and buy some more

orgeat!" "There's not enough glasses. Where's the 'eau rougie'? Take

those six bottles of 'vin ordinaire' and make more. Mind that

Coffinet, the porter, doesn't get any." "Caroline, my girl, you are to

wait at the sideboard; you'll have tongue and ham to slice in case

they dance till morning. But mind, no waste! Keep an eye on

everything. Pass me the broom; put more oil in those lamps; don't make

blunders. Arrange the remains of the dessert so as to make a show on

the sideboard; ask my sister to come and help us. I'm sure I don't

know what she's thinking about, that dawdle! Heavens, how slow she is!

Here, take away these chairs, they'll want all the room they can get."

The salon was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Phellions, Laudigeois,

and many others whom the announcement of a dance at the Thuilliers',

spread about in the Luxembourg between two and four in the afternoon,

the hour at which the bourgeoisie takes its walk, had drawn thither.

"Are you ready, Brigitte?" said Colleville, bolting into the

dining-room; "it is nine o'clock, and they are packed as close as

herrings in the salon. Cardot, his wife and son and daughter and

future son-in-law have just come, accompanied by that young Vinet;

the whole faubourg Saint Antoine is debouching. Can't we move the

piano in here?"

Then he gave the signal, by tuning his clarionet, the joyous sounds of

which were greeted with huzzas from the salon.

It is useless to describe a ball of this kind. The toilets, faces, and

conversations were all in keeping with one fact which will surely

suffice even the dullest imagination; they passed round, on tarnished

and discolored trays, common tumblers filled with wine, "eau rougie,"

and "eau sucree." The trays on which were glasses of orgeat and

glasses of syrup and water appeared only at long intervals. There were

five card-tables and twenty-five players, and eighteen dancers of both

sexes. At one o'clock in the morning, all present--Madame Thuillier,

Mademoiselle Brigitte, Madame Phellion, even Phellion himself--were

dragged into the vivacities of a country-dance, vulgarly called "La

Boulangere," in which Dutocq figured with a veil over his head, after

the manner of the Kabyl. The servants who were waiting to escort their

masters home, and those of the household, were audience to this

performance; and