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diff --git a/old/1345.txt b/old/1345.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5fbb1d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1345.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2958 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vicar of Tours, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Vicar of Tours + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley + +Release Date: June, 1998 [Etext #1345] +Posting Date: February 22, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VICAR OF TOURS *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +THE VICAR OF TOURS + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley + + + + + DEDICATION + + To David, Sculptor: + + The permanence of the work on which I inscribe your name + --twice made illustrious in this century--is very problematical; + whereas you have graven mine in bronze which survives nations + --if only in their coins. The day may come when numismatists, + discovering amid the ashes of Paris existences perpetuated by + you, will wonder at the number of heads crowned in your + atelier and endeavour to find in them new dynasties. + + To you, this divine privilege; to me, gratitude. + + De Balzac. + + + + + +THE VICAR OF TOURS + + + + +I + + +Early in the autumn of 1826 the Abbe Birotteau, the principal personage +of this history, was overtaken by a shower of rain as he returned +home from a friend's house, where he had been passing the evening. +He therefore crossed, as quickly as his corpulence would allow, the +deserted little square called "The Cloister," which lies directly behind +the chancel of the cathedral of Saint-Gatien at Tours. + +The Abbe Birotteau, a short little man, apoplectic in constitution and +about sixty years old, had already gone through several attacks of gout. +Now, among the petty miseries of human life the one for which the worthy +priest felt the deepest aversion was the sudden sprinkling of his +shoes, adorned with silver buckles, and the wetting of their soles. +Notwithstanding the woollen socks in which at all seasons he enveloped +his feet with the extreme care that ecclesiastics take of themselves, he +was apt at such times to get them a little damp, and the next day +gout was sure to give him certain infallible proofs of constancy. +Nevertheless, as the pavement of the Cloister was likely to be dry, and +as the abbe had won three francs ten sous in his rubber with Madame de +Listomere, he bore the rain resignedly from the middle of the place de +l'Archeveche, where it began to come down in earnest. Besides, he was +fondling his chimera,--a desire already twelve years old, the desire of +a priest, a desire formed anew every evening and now, apparently, very +near accomplishment; in short, he had wrapped himself so completely +in the fur cape of a canon that he did not feel the inclemency of +the weather. During the evening several of the company who habitually +gathered at Madame de Listomere's had almost guaranteed to him his +nomination to the office of canon (then vacant in the metropolitan +Chapter of Saint-Gatien), assuring him that no one deserved such +promotion as he, whose rights, long overlooked, were indisputable. + +If he had lost the rubber, if he had heard that his rival, the Abbe +Poirel, was named canon, the worthy man would have thought the rain +extremely chilling; he might even have thought ill of life. But it +so chanced that he was in one of those rare moments when happy inward +sensations make a man oblivious of discomfort. In hastening his steps he +obeyed a more mechanical impulse, and truth (so essential in a history +of manners and morals) compels us to say that he was thinking of neither +rain nor gout. + +In former days there was in the Cloister, on the side towards the +Grand'Rue, a cluster of houses forming a Close and belonging to the +cathedral, where several of the dignitaries of the Chapter lived. After +the confiscation of ecclesiastical property the town had turned the +passage through this close into a narrow street, called the Rue de +la Psalette, by which pedestrians passed from the Cloister to the +Grand'Rue. The name of this street, proves clearly enough that the +precentor and his pupils and those connected with the choir formerly +lived there. The other side, the left side, of the street is occupied by +a single house, the walls of which are overshadowed by the buttresses of +Saint-Gatien, which have their base in the narrow little garden of the +house, leaving it doubtful whether the cathedral was built before +or after this venerable dwelling. An archaeologist examining the +arabesques, the shape of the windows, the arch of the door, the whole +exterior of the house, now mellow with age, would see at once that +it had always been a part of the magnificent edifice with which it is +blended. + +An antiquary (had there been one at Tours,--one of the least literary +towns in all France) would even discover, where the narrow street enters +the Cloister, several vestiges of an old arcade, which formerly made a +portico to these ecclesiastical dwellings, and was, no doubt, harmonious +in style with the general character of the architecture. + +The house of which we speak, standing on the north side of the +cathedral, was always in the shadow thrown by that vast edifice, on +which time had cast its dingy mantle, marked its furrows, and shed +its chill humidity, its lichen, mosses, and rank herbs. The darkened +dwelling was wrapped in silence, broken only by the bells, by the +chanting of the offices heard through the windows of the church, by the +call of the jackdaws nesting in the belfries. The region is a desert +of stones, a solitude with a character of its own, an arid spot, which +could only be inhabited by beings who had either attained to absolute +nullity, or were gifted with some abnormal strength of soul. The house +in question had always been occupied by abbes, and it belonged to an old +maid named Mademoiselle Gamard. Though the property had been bought +from the national domain under the Reign of Terror by the father of +Mademoiselle Gamard, no one objected under the Restoration to the old +maid's retaining it, because she took priests to board and was very +devout; it may be that religious persons gave her credit for the +intention of leaving the property to the Chapter. + +The Abbe Birotteau was making his way to this house, where he had lived +for the last two years. His apartment had been (as was now the canonry) +an object of envy and his "hoc erat in votis" for a dozen years. To be +Mademoiselle Gamard's boarder and to become a canon were the two great +desires of his life; in fact they do present accurately the ambition of +a priest, who, considering himself on the highroad to eternity, can wish +for nothing in this world but good lodging, good food, clean garments, +shoes with silver buckles, a sufficiency of things for the needs of the +animal, and a canonry to satisfy self-love, that inexpressible sentiment +which follows us, they say, into the presence of God,--for there are +grades among the saints. But the covetous desire for the apartment which +the Abbe Birotteau was now inhabiting (a very harmless desire in +the eyes of worldly people) had been to the abbe nothing less than a +passion, a passion full of obstacles, and, like more guilty passions, +full of hopes, pleasures, and remorse. + +The interior arrangements of the house did not allow Mademoiselle Gamard +to take more than two lodgers. Now, for about twelve years before the +day when Birotteau went to live with her she had undertaken to keep in +health and contentment two priests; namely, Monsieur l'Abbe Troubert +and Monsieur l'Abbe Chapeloud. The Abbe Troubert still lived. The Abbe +Chapeloud was dead; and Birotteau had stepped into his place. + +The late Abbe Chapeloud, in life a canon of Saint-Gatien, had been an +intimate friend of the Abbe Birotteau. Every time that the latter paid +a visit to the canon he had constantly admired the apartment, the +furniture and the library. Out of this admiration grew the desire to +possess these beautiful things. It had been impossible for the Abbe +Birotteau to stifle this desire; though it often made him suffer +terribly when he reflected that the death of his best friend could alone +satisfy his secret covetousness, which increased as time went on. The +Abbe Chapeloud and his friend Birotteau were not rich. Both were sons of +peasants; and their slender savings had been spent in the mere costs +of living during the disastrous years of the Revolution. When Napoleon +restored the Catholic worship the Abbe Chapeloud was appointed canon of +the cathedral and Birotteau was made vicar of it. Chapeloud then went to +board with Mademoiselle Gamard. When Birotteau first came to visit +his friend, he thought the arrangement of the rooms excellent, but he +noticed nothing more. The outset of this concupiscence of chattels was +very like that of a true passion, which often begins, in a young man, +with cold admiration for a woman whom he ends in loving forever. + +The apartment, reached by a stone staircase, was on the side of the +house that faced south. The Abbe Troubert occupied the ground-floor, and +Mademoiselle Gamard the first floor of the main building, looking on the +street. When Chapeloud took possession of his rooms they were bare +of furniture, and the ceilings were blackened with smoke. The stone +mantelpieces, which were very badly cut, had never been painted. At +first, the only furniture the poor canon could put in was a bed, a +table, a few chairs, and the books he possessed. The apartment was like +a beautiful woman in rags. But two or three years later, an old lady +having left the Abbe Chapeloud two thousand francs, he spent that sum on +the purchase of an oak bookcase, the relic of a chateau pulled down by +the Bande Noire, the carving of which deserved the admiration of all +artists. The abbe made the purchase less because it was very cheap than +because the dimensions of the bookcase exactly fitted the space it was +to fill in his gallery. His savings enabled him to renovate the whole +gallery, which up to this time had been neglected and shabby. The floor +was carefully waxed, the ceiling whitened, the wood-work painted to +resemble the grain and knots of oak. A long table in ebony and two +cabinets by Boulle completed the decoration, and gave to this gallery a +certain air that was full of character. In the course of two years the +liberality of devout persons, and legacies, though small ones, from +pious penitents, filled the shelves of the bookcase, till then half +empty. Moreover, Chapeloud's uncle, an old Oratorian, had left him his +collection in folio of the Fathers of the Church, and several other +important works that were precious to a priest. + +Birotteau, more and more surprised by the successive improvements of +the gallery, once so bare, came by degrees to a condition of involuntary +envy. He wished he could possess that apartment, so thoroughly in +keeping with the gravity of ecclestiastical life. The passion increased +from day to day. Working, sometimes for days together, in this retreat, +the vicar could appreciate the silence and the peace that reigned there. +During the following year the Abbe Chapeloud turned a small room into +an oratory, which his pious friends took pleasure in beautifying. Still +later, another lady gave the canon a set of furniture for his bedroom, +the covering of which she had embroidered under the eyes of the worthy +man without his ever suspecting its destination. The bedroom then had +the same effect upon the vicar that the gallery had long had; it dazzled +him. Lastly, about three years before the Abbe Chapeloud's death, he +completed the comfort of his apartment by decorating the salon. Though +the furniture was plainly covered in red Utrecht velvet, it fascinated +Birotteau. From the day when the canon's friend first laid eyes on the +red damask curtains, the mahogany furniture, the Aubusson carpet which +adorned the vast room, then lately painted, his envy of Chapeloud's +apartment became a monomania hidden within his breast. To live there, to +sleep in that bed with the silk curtains where the canon slept, to have +all Chapeloud's comforts about him, would be, Birotteau felt, complete +happiness; he saw nothing beyond it. All the envy, all the ambition +which the things of this world give birth to in the hearts of other men +concentrated themselves for Birotteau in the deep and secret longing he +felt for an apartment like that which the Abbe Chapeloud had created for +himself. When his friend fell ill he went to him out of true affection; +but all the same, when he first heard of his illness, and when he sat +by his bed to keep him company, there arose in the depths of his +consciousness, in spite of himself, a crowd of thoughts the simple +formula of which was always, "If Chapeloud dies I can have this +apartment." And yet--Birotteau having an excellent heart, contracted +ideas, and a limited mind--he did not go so far as to think of means by +which to make his friend bequeath to him the library and the furniture. + +The Abbe Chapeloud, an amiable, indulgent egoist, fathomed his friend's +desires--not a difficult thing to do--and forgave them; which may seem +less easy to a priest; but it must be remembered that the vicar, whose +friendship was faithful, did not fail to take a daily walk with his +friend along their usual path in the Mail de Tours, never once depriving +him of an instant of the time devoted for over twenty years to that +exercise. Birotteau, who regarded his secret wishes as crimes, would +have been capable, out of contrition, of the utmost devotion to his +friend. The latter paid his debt of gratitude for a friendship so +ingenuously sincere by saying, a few days before his death, as the +vicar sat by him reading the "Quotidienne" aloud: "This time you will +certainly get the apartment. I feel it is all over with me now." + +Accordingly, it was found that the Abbe Chapeloud had left his library +and all his furniture to his friend Birotteau. The possession of these +things, so keenly desired, and the prospect of being taken to board by +Mademoiselle Gamard, certainly did allay the grief which Birotteau felt +at the death of his friend the canon. He might not have been willing +to resuscitate him; but he mourned him. For several days he was like +Gargantus, who, when his wife died in giving birth to Pantagruel, did +not know whether to rejoice at the birth of a son or grieve at having +buried his good Babette, and therefore cheated himself by rejoicing at +the death of his wife, and deploring the advent of Pantagruel. + +The Abbe Birotteau spent the first days of his mourning in verifying the +books in _his_ library, in making use of _his_ furniture, in examining +the whole of his inheritance, saying in a tone which, unfortunately, +was not noted at the time, "Poor Chapeloud!" His joy and his grief so +completely absorbed him that he felt no pain when he found that the +office of canon, in which the late Chapeloud had hoped his friend +Birotteau might succeed him, was given to another. Mademoiselle Gamard +having cheerfully agreed to take the vicar to board, the latter was +thenceforth a participator in all those felicities of material comfort +of which the deceased canon had been wont to boast. + +Incalculable they were! According to the Abbe Chapeloud none of the +priests who inhabited the city of Tours, not even the archbishop, had +ever been the object of such minute and delicate attentions as those +bestowed by Mademoiselle Gamard on her two lodgers. The first words +the canon said to his friend when they met for their walk on the Mail +referred usually to the succulent dinner he had just eaten; and it was a +very rare thing if during the walks of each week he did not say at least +fourteen times, "That excellent spinster certainly has a vocation for +serving ecclesiastics." + +"Just think," the canon would say to Birotteau, "that for twelve +consecutive years nothing has ever been amiss,--linen in perfect order, +bands, albs, surplices; I find everything in its place, always in +sufficient quantity, and smelling of orris-root. My furniture is rubbed +and kept so bright that I don't know when I have seen any dust--did +you ever see a speck of it in my rooms? Then the firewood is so well +selected. The least little things are excellent. In fact, Mademoiselle +Gamard keeps an incessant watch over my wants. I can't remember having +rung twice for anything--no matter what--in ten years. That's what +I call living! I never have to look for a single thing, not even my +slippers. Always a good fire, always a good dinner. Once the bellows +annoyed me, the nozzle was choked up; but I only mentioned it once, and +the next day Mademoiselle gave me a very pretty pair, also those nice +tongs you see me mend the fire with." + +For all answer Birotteau would say, "Smelling of orris-root!" That +"smelling of orris-root" always affected him. The canon's remarks +revealed ideal joys to the poor vicar, whose bands and albs were the +plague of his life, for he was totally devoid of method and often +forgot to order his dinner. Therefore, if he saw Mademoiselle Gamard +at Saint-Gatien while saying mass or taking round the plate, he never +failed to give her a kindly and benevolent look,--such a look as Saint +Teresa might have cast to heaven. + +Though the comforts which all creatures desire, and for which he had so +often longed, thus fell to his share, the Abbe Birotteau, like the rest +of the world, found it difficult, even for a priest, to live without +something to hanker for. Consequently, for the last eighteen months +he had replaced his two satisfied passions by an ardent longing for a +canonry. The title of Canon had become to him very much what a peerage +is to a plebeian minister. The prospect of an appointment, hopes +of which had just been held out to him at Madame de Listomere's, so +completely turned his head that he did not observe until he reached his +own door that he had left his umbrella behind him. Perhaps, even then, +if the rain were not falling in torrents he might not have missed it, so +absorbed was he in the pleasure of going over and over in his mind what +had been said to him on the subject of his promotion by the company at +Madame de Listomere's,--an old lady with whom he spent every Wednesday +evening. + +The vicar rang loudly, as if to let the servant know she was not to +keep him waiting. Then he stood close to the door to avoid, if he could, +getting showered; but the drip from the roof fell precisely on the toes +of his shoes, and the wind blew gusts of rain into his face that were +much like a shower-bath. Having calculated the time necessary for the +woman to leave the kitchen and pull the string of the outer door, he +rang again, this time in a manner that resulted in a very significant +peal of the bell. + +"They can't be out," he said to himself, not hearing any movement on the +premises. + +Again he rang, producing a sound that echoed sharply through the house +and was taken up and repeated by all the echoes of the cathedral, +so that no one could avoid waking up at the remonstrating racket. +Accordingly, in a few moments, he heard, not without some pleasure in +his wrath, the wooden shoes of the servant-woman clacking along the +paved path which led to the outer door. But even then the discomforts of +the gouty old gentleman were not so quickly over as he hoped. Instead +of pulling the string, Marianne was obliged to turn the lock of the door +with its heavy key, and pull back all the bolts. + +"Why did you let me ring three times in such weather?" said the vicar. + +"But, monsieur, don't you see the door was locked? We have all been +in bed ever so long; it struck a quarter to eleven some time ago. +Mademoiselle must have thought you were in." + +"You saw me go out, yourself. Besides, Mademoiselle knows very well I +always go to Madame de Listomere's on Wednesday evening." + +"I only did as Mademoiselle told me, monsieur." + +These words struck the vicar a blow, which he felt the more because his +late revery had made him completely happy. He said nothing and followed +Marianne towards the kitchen to get his candlestick, which he supposed +had been left there as usual. But instead of entering the kitchen +Marianne went on to his own apartments, and there the vicar beheld his +candlestick on a table close to the door of the red salon, in a sort of +antechamber formed by the landing of the staircase, which the late canon +had inclosed with a glass partition. Mute with amazement, he entered his +bedroom hastily, found no fire, and called to Marianne, who had not had +time to get downstairs. + +"You have not lighted the fire!" he said. + +"Beg pardon, Monsieur l'abbe, I did," she said; "it must have gone out." + +Birotteau looked again at the hearth, and felt convinced that the fire +had been out since morning. + +"I must dry my feet," he said. "Make the fire." + +Marianne obeyed with the haste of a person who wants to get back to her +night's rest. While looking about him for his slippers, which were not +in the middle of his bedside carpet as usual, the abbe took mental notes +of the state of Marianne's dress, which convinced him that she had not +got out of bed to open the door as she said she had. He then recollected +that for the last two weeks he had been deprived of various little +attentions which for eighteen months had made life sweet to him. Now, +as the nature of narrow minds induces them to study trifles, Birotteau +plunged suddenly into deep meditation on these four circumstances, +imperceptible in their meaning to others, but to him indicative of four +catastrophes. The total loss of his happiness was evidently foreshadowed +in the neglect to place his slippers, in Marianne's falsehood about +the fire, in the unusual removal of his candlestick to the table of the +antechamber, and in the evident intention to keep him waiting in the +rain. + +When the fire was burning on the hearth, and the lamp was lighted, and +Marianne had departed without saying, as usual, "Does Monsieur want +anything more?" the Abbe Birotteau let himself fall gently into the +wide and handsome easy-chair of his late friend; but there was something +mournful in the movement with which he dropped upon it. The good +soul was crushed by a presentiment of coming calamity. His eyes roved +successively to the handsome tall clock, the bureau, curtains, chairs, +carpets, to the stately bed, the basin of holy-water, the crucifix, to +a Virgin by Valentin, a Christ by Lebrun,--in short, to all the +accessories of this cherished room, while his face expressed the anguish +of the tenderest farewell that a lover ever took of his first mistress, +or an old man of his lately planted trees. The vicar had just perceived, +somewhat late it is true, the signs of a dumb persecution instituted +against him for the last three months by Mademoiselle Gamard, whose +evil intentions would doubtless have been fathomed much sooner by a more +intelligent man. Old maids have a special talent for accentuating the +words and actions which their dislikes suggest to them. They scratch +like cats. They not only wound but they take pleasure in wounding, and +in making their victim see that he is wounded. A man of the world would +never have allowed himself to be scratched twice; the good abbe, on the +contrary, had taken several blows from those sharp claws before he could +be brought to believe in any evil intention. + +But when he did perceive it, he set to work, with the inquisitorial +sagacity which priests acquire by directing consciences and burrowing +into the nothings of the confessional, to establish, as though it were +a matter of religious controversy, the following proposition: "Admitting +that Mademoiselle Gamard did not remember it was Madame de Listomere's +evening, and that Marianne did think I was home, and did really forget +to make my fire, it is impossible, inasmuch as I myself took down my +candlestick this morning, that Mademoiselle Gamard, seeing it in her +salon, could have supposed I had gone to bed. Ergo, Mademoiselle Gamard +intended that I should stand out in the rain, and, by carrying my +candlestick upstairs, she meant to make me understand it. What does it +all mean?" he said aloud, roused by the gravity of these circumstances, +and rising as he spoke to take off his damp clothes, get into his +dressing-gown, and do up his head for the night. Then he returned from +the bed to the fireplace, gesticulating, and launching forth in various +tones the following sentences, all of which ended in a high falsetto +key, like notes of interjection: + +"What the deuce have I done to her? Why is she angry with me? Marianne +did _not_ forget my fire! Mademoiselle told her not to light it! I must +be a child if I can't see, from the tone and manner she has been taking +to me, that I've done something to displease her. Nothing like it ever +happened to Chapeloud! I can't live in the midst of such torments as--At +my age--" + +He went to bed hoping that the morrow might enlighten him on the causes +of the dislike which threatened to destroy forever the happiness he had +now enjoyed two years after wishing for it so long. Alas! the secret +reasons for the inimical feelings Mademoiselle Gamard bore to the +luckless abbe were fated to remain eternally unknown to him,--not that +they were difficult to fathom, but simply because he lacked the good +faith and candor by which great souls and scoundrels look within and +judge themselves. A man of genius or a trickster says to himself, "I +did wrong." Self-interest and native talent are the only infallible +and lucid guides. Now the Abbe Birotteau, whose goodness amounted to +stupidity, whose knowledge was only, as it were, plastered on him by +dint of study, who had no experience whatever of the world and its ways, +who lived between the mass and the confessional, chiefly occupied +in dealing the most trivial matters of conscience in his capacity +of confessor to all the schools in town and to a few noble souls who +rightly appreciated him,--the Abbe Birotteau must be regarded as a +great child, to whom most of the practices of social life were +utterly unknown. And yet, the natural selfishness of all human beings, +reinforced by the selfishness peculiar to the priesthood and that of +the narrow life of the provinces had insensibly, and unknown to himself, +developed within him. If any one had felt enough interest in the good +man to probe his spirit and prove to him that in the numerous petty +details of his life and in the minute duties of his daily existence he +was essentially lacking in the self-sacrifice he professed, he would +have punished and mortified himself in good faith. But those whom we +offend by such unconscious selfishness pay little heed to our real +innocence; what they want is vengeance, and they take it. Thus it +happened that Birotteau, weak brother that he was, was made to undergo +the decrees of that great distributive Justice which goes about +compelling the world to execute its judgments,--called by ninnies "the +misfortunes of life." + +There was this difference between the late Chapeloud and the vicar,--one +was a shrewd and clever egoist, the other a simple-minded and clumsy +one. When the canon went to board with Mademoiselle Gamard he knew +exactly how to judge of his landlady's character. The confessional had +taught him to understand the bitterness that the sense of being kept +outside the social pale puts into the heart of an old maid; he therefore +calculated his own treatment of Mademoiselle Gamard very wisely. She was +then about thirty-eight years old, and still retained a few pretensions, +which, in well-behaved persons of her condition, change, rather later, +into strong personal self-esteem. The canon saw plainly that to live +comfortably with his landlady he must pay her invariably the same +attentions and be more infallible than the pope himself. To compass this +result, he allowed no points of contact between himself and her except +those that politeness demanded, and those which necessarily exist +between two persons living under the same roof. Thus, though he and +the Abbe Troubert took their regular three meals a day, he avoided the +family breakfast by inducing Mademoiselle Gamard to send his coffee to +his own room. He also avoided the annoyance of supper by taking tea in +the houses of friends with whom he spent his evenings. In this way he +seldom saw his landlady except at dinner; but he always came down to +that meal a few minutes in advance of the hour. During this visit of +courtesy, as it may be called, he talked to her, for the twelve years he +had lived under her roof, on nearly the same topics, receiving from her +the same answers. How she had slept, her breakfast, the trivial domestic +events, her looks, her health, the weather, the time the church services +had lasted, the incidents of the mass, the health of such or such a +priest,--these were the subjects of their daily conversation. During +dinner he invariably paid her certain indirect compliments; the fish +had an excellent flavor; the seasoning of a sauce was delicious; +Mademoiselle Gamard's capacities and virtues as mistress of a household +were great. He was sure of flattering the old maid's vanity by praising +the skill with which she made or prepared her preserves and pickles and +pates and other gastronomical inventions. To cap all, the wily canon +never left his landlady's yellow salon after dinner without remarking +that there was no house in Tours where he could get such good coffee as +that he had just imbibed. + +Thanks to this thorough understanding of Mademoiselle Gamard's +character, and to the science of existence which he had put in practice +for the last twelve years, no matter of discussion on the internal +arrangements of the household had ever come up between them. The Abbe +Chapeloud had taken note of the spinster's angles, asperities, and +crabbedness, and had so arranged his avoidance of her that he obtained +without the least difficulty all the concessions that were necessary +to the happiness and tranquility of his life. The result was that +Mademoiselle Gamard frequently remarked to her friends and acquaintances +that the Abbe Chapeloud was a very amiable man, extremely easy to live +with, and a fine mind. + +As to her other lodger, the Abbe Troubert, she said absolutely nothing +about him. Completely involved in the round of her life, like a +satellite in the orbit of a planet, Troubert was to her a sort of +intermediary creature between the individuals of the human species +and those of the canine species; he was classed in her heart next, but +directly before, the place intended for friends but now occupied by +a fat and wheezy pug which she tenderly loved. She ruled Troubert +completely, and the intermingling of their interests was so obvious that +many persons of her social sphere believed that the Abbe Troubert had +designs on the old maid's property, and was binding her to him unawares +with infinite patience, and really directing her while he seemed to be +obeying without ever letting her perceive in him the slightest wish on +his part to govern her. + +When the Abbe Chapeloud died, the old maid, who desired a lodger with +quiet ways, naturally thought of the vicar. Before the canon's will was +made known she had meditated offering his rooms to the Abbe Troubert, +who was not very comfortable on the ground-floor. But when the Abbe +Birotteau, on receiving his legacy, came to settle in writing the terms +of his board she saw he was so in love with the apartment, for which he +might now admit his long cherished desires, that she dared not propose +the exchange, and accordingly sacrificed her sentiments of friendship to +the demands of self-interest. But in order to console her beloved canon, +Mademoiselle took up the large white Chateau-Renaud bricks that made +the floors of his apartment and replaced them by wooden floors laid in +"point de Hongrie." She also rebuilt a smoky chimney. + +For twelve years the Abbe Birotteau had seen his friend Chapeloud in +that house without ever giving a thought to the motive of the canon's +extreme circumspection in his relations to Mademoiselle Gamard. When he +came himself to live with that saintly woman he was in the condition +of a lover on the point of being made happy. Even if he had not been +by nature purblind of intellect, his eyes were too dazzled by his new +happiness to allow him to judge of the landlady, or to reflect on the +limits which he ought to impose on their daily intercourse. Mademoiselle +Gamard, seen from afar and through the prism of those material +felicities which the vicar dreamed of enjoying in her house, seemed to +him a perfect being, a faultless Christian, essentially charitable, the +woman of the Gospel, the wise virgin, adorned by all those humble and +modest virtues which shed celestial fragrance upon life. + +So, with the enthusiasm of one who attains an object long desired, with +the candor of a child, and the blundering foolishness of an old +man utterly without worldly experience, he fell into the life of +Mademoiselle Gamard precisely as a fly is caught in a spider's web. The +first day that he went to dine and sleep at the house he was detained in +the salon after dinner, partly to make his landlady's acquaintance, but +chiefly by that inexplicable embarrassment which often assails +timid people and makes them fear to seem impolite by breaking off a +conversation in order to take leave. Consequently he remained there the +whole evening. Then a friend of his, a certain Mademoiselle Salomon +de Villenoix, came to see him, and this gave Mademoiselle Gamard the +happiness of forming a card-table; so that when the vicar went to bed he +felt that he had passed a very agreeable evening. Knowing Mademoiselle +Gamard and the Abbe Troubert but slightly, he saw only the superficial +aspects of their characters; few persons bare their defects at once, +they generally take on a becoming veneer. + +The worthy abbe was thus led to suggest to himself the charming plan of +devoting all his evenings to Mademoiselle Gamard, instead of spending +them, as Chapeloud had done, elsewhere. The old maid had for years been +possessed by a desire which grew stronger day by day. This desire, +often formed by old persons and even by pretty women, had become in +Mademoiselle Gamard's soul as ardent a longing as that of Birotteau for +Chapeloud's apartment; and it was strengthened by all those feelings +of pride, egotism, envy, and vanity which pre-exist in the breasts of +worldly people. + +This history is of all time; it suffices to widen slightly the +narrow circle in which these personages are about to act to find the +coefficient reasons of events which take place in the very highest +spheres of social life. + +Mademoiselle Gamard spent her evenings by rotation in six or eight +different houses. Whether it was that she disliked being obliged to go +out to seek society, and considered that at her age she had a right +to expect some return; or that her pride was wounded at receiving no +company in her house; or that her self-love craved the compliments +she saw her various hostesses receive,--certain it is that her whole +ambition was to make her salon a centre towards which a given number of +persons should nightly make their way with pleasure. One morning as she +left Saint-Gatien, after Birotteau and his friend Mademoiselle Salomon +had spent a few evenings with her and with the faithful and patient +Troubert, she said to certain of her good friends whom she met at the +church door, and whose slave she had hitherto considered herself, that +those who wished to see her could certainly come once a week to her +house, where she had friends enough to make a card-table; she could not +leave the Abbe Birotteau; Mademoiselle Salomon had not missed a single +evening that week; she was devoted to friends; and--et cetera, et +cetera. Her speech was all the more humbly haughty and softly persuasive +because Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix belonged to the most +aristocratic society in Tours. For though Mademoiselle Salomon came to +Mademoiselle Gamard's house solely out of friendship for the vicar, the +old maid triumphed in receiving her, and saw that, thanks to Birotteau, +she was on the point of succeeding in her great desire to form a +circle as numerous and as agreeable as those of Madame de Listomere, +Mademoiselle Merlin de la Blottiere, and other devout ladies who were in +the habit of receiving the pious and ecclesiastical society of Tours. + +But alas! the abbe Birotteau himself caused this cherished hope to +miscarry. Now if those persons who in the course of their lives have +attained to the enjoyment of a long desired happiness and have therefore +comprehended the joy of the vicar when he stepped into Chapeloud's +vacant place, they will also have gained some faint idea of Mademoiselle +Gamard's distress at the overthrow of her favorite plan. + +After accepting his happiness in the old maid's salon for six months +with tolerable patience, Birotteau deserted the house of an evening, +carrying with him Mademoiselle Salomon. In spite of her utmost efforts +the ambitious Gamard had recruited barely six visitors, whose faithful +attendance was more than problematical; and boston could not be played +night after night unless at least four persons were present. The +defection of her two principal guests obliged her therefore to make +suitable apologies and return to her evening visiting among former +friends; for old maids find their own company so distasteful that they +prefer to seek the doubtful pleasures of society. + +The cause of this desertion is plain enough. Although the vicar was one +of those to whom heaven is hereafter to belong in virtue of the decree +"Blessed are the poor in spirit," he could not, like some fools, endure +the annoyance that other fools caused him. Persons without minds are +like weeds that delight in good earth; they want to be amused by others, +all the more because they are dull within. The incarnation of ennui +to which they are victims, joined to the need they feel of getting a +divorce from themselves, produces that passion for moving about, for +being somewhere else than where they are, which distinguishes their +species,--and also that of all beings devoid of sensitiveness, and those +who have missed their destiny, or who suffer by their own fault. + +Without really fathoming the vacuity and emptiness of Mademoiselle +Gamard's mind, or stating to himself the pettiness of her ideas, the +poor abbe perceived, unfortunately too late, the defects which she +shared with all old maids, and those which were peculiar to herself. +The bad points of others show out so strongly against the good that +they usually strike our eyes before they wound us. This moral phenomenon +might, at a pinch, be made to excuse the tendency we all have, more or +less, to gossip. It is so natural, socially speaking, to laugh at +the failings of others that we ought to forgive the ridicule our own +absurdities excite, and be annoyed only by calumny. But in this instance +the eyes of the good vicar never reached the optical range which enables +men of the world to see and evade their neighbours' rough points. Before +he could be brought to perceive the faults of his landlady he was forced +to undergo the warning which Nature gives to all her creatures--pain. + +Old maids who have never yielded in their habits of life or in their +characters to other lives and other characters, as the fate of woman +exacts, have, as a general thing, a mania for making others give way +to them. In Mademoiselle Gamard this sentiment had degenerated into +despotism, but a despotism that could only exercise itself on little +things. For instance (among a hundred other examples), the basket of +counters placed on the card-table for the Abbe Birotteau was to stand +exactly where she placed it; and the abbe annoyed her terribly by +moving it, which he did nearly every evening. How is this sensitiveness +stupidly spent on nothings to be accounted for? what is the object of +it? No one could have told in this case; Mademoiselle Gamard herself +knew no reason for it. The vicar, though a sheep by nature, did not +like, any more than other sheep, to feel the crook too often, especially +when it bristled with spikes. Not seeking to explain to himself the +patience of the Abbe Troubert, Birotteau simply withdrew from the +happiness which Mademoiselle Gamard believed that she seasoned to his +liking,--for she regarded happiness as a thing to be made, like her +preserves. But the luckless abbe made the break in a clumsy way, the +natural way of his own naive character, and it was not carried out +without much nagging and sharp-shooting, which the Abbe Birotteau +endeavored to bear as if he did not feel them. + +By the end of the first year of his sojourn under Mademoiselle Gamard's +roof the vicar had resumed his former habits; spending two evenings a +week with Madame de Listomere, three with Mademoiselle Salomon, and +the other two with Mademoiselle Merlin de la Blottiere. These ladies +belonged to the aristocratic circles of Tourainean society, to which +Mademoiselle Gamard was not admitted. Therefore the abbe's abandonment +was the more insulting, because it made her feel her want of social +value; all choice implies contempt for the thing rejected. + +"Monsieur Birotteau does not find us agreeable enough," said the Abbe +Troubert to Mademoiselle Gamard's friends when she was forced to tell +them that her "evenings" must be given up. "He is a man of the world, +and a good liver! He wants fashion, luxury, witty conversation, and the +scandals of the town." + +These words of course obliged Mademoiselle Gamard to defend herself at +Birotteau's expense. + +"He is not much a man of the world," she said. "If it had not been +for the Abbe Chapeloud he would never have been received at Madame de +Listomere's. Oh, what didn't I lose in losing the Abbe Chapeloud! Such +an amiable man, and so easy to live with! In twelve whole years I never +had the slightest difficulty or disagreement with him." + +Presented thus, the innocent abbe was considered by this bourgeois +society, which secretly hated the aristocratic society, as a man +essentially exacting and hard to get along with. For a week Mademoiselle +Gamard enjoyed the pleasure of being pitied by friends who, without +really thinking one word of what they said, kept repeating to her: "How +_could_ he have turned against you?--so kind and gentle as you are!" +or, "Console yourself, dear Mademoiselle Gamard, you are so well known +that--" et cetera. + +Nevertheless, these friends, enchanted to escape one evening a week in +the Cloister, the darkest, dreariest, and most out of the way corner in +Tours, blessed the poor vicar in their hearts. + +Between persons who are perpetually in each other's company dislike or +love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each +other more and more. The Abbe Birotteau soon became intolerable to +Mademoiselle Gamard. Eighteen months after she had taken him to board, +and at the moment when the worthy man was mistaking the silence of +hatred for the peacefulness of content, and applauding himself for +having, as he said, "managed matters so well with the old maid," he +was really the object of an underhand persecution and a vengeance +deliberately planned. The four marked circumstances of the locked +door, the forgotten slippers, the lack of fire, and the removal of +the candlestick, were the first signs that revealed to him a terrible +enmity, the final consequences of which were destined not to strike him +until the time came when they were irreparable. + +As he went to bed the worthy vicar worked his brains--quite uselessly, +for he was soon at the end of them--to explain to himself the +extraordinarily discourteous conduct of Mademoiselle Gamard. The fact +was that, having all along acted logically in obeying the natural laws +of his own egotism, it was impossible that he should now perceive his +own faults towards his landlady. + +Though the great things of life are simple to understand and easy to +express, the littlenesses require a vast number of details to explain +them. The foregoing events, which may be called a sort of prologue to +this bourgeois drama, in which we shall find passions as violent as +those excited by great interests, required this long introduction; and +it would have been difficult for any faithful historian to shorten the +account of these minute developments. + + + + +II + + +The next morning, on awaking, Birotteau thought so much of his +prospective canonry that he forgot the four circumstances in which he +had seen, the night before, such threatening prognostics of a future +full of misery. The vicar was not a man to get up without a fire. He +rang to let Marianne know that he was awake and that she must come to +him; then he remained, as his habit was, absorbed in somnolent musings. +The servant's custom was to make the fire and gently draw him from his +half sleep by the murmured sound of her movements,--a sort of music +which he loved. Twenty minutes passed and Marianne had not appeared. +The vicar, now half a canon, was about to ring again, when he let go the +bell-pull, hearing a man's step on the staircase. In a minute more the +Abbe Troubert, after discreetly knocking at the door, obeyed Birotteau's +invitation and entered the room. This visit, which the two abbe's +usually paid each other once a month, was no surprise to the vicar. The +canon at once exclaimed when he saw that Marianne had not made the fire +of his quasi-colleague. He opened the window and called to her harshly, +telling her to come at once to the abbe; then, turning round to his +ecclesiastical brother, he said, "If Mademoiselle knew that you had no +fire she would scold Marianne." + +After this speech he inquired about Birotteau's health, and asked in a +gentle voice if he had had any recent news that gave him hopes of his +canonry. The vicar explained the steps he had taken, and told, naively, +the names of the persons with whom Madam de Listomere was using her +influence, quite unaware that Troubert had never forgiven that lady for +not admitting him--the Abbe Troubert, twice proposed by the bishop as +vicar-general!--to her house. + +It would be impossible to find two figures which presented so many +contrasts to each other as those of the two abbes. Troubert, tall +and lean, was yellow and bilious, while the vicar was what we call, +familiarly, plump. Birotteau's face, round and ruddy, proclaimed a +kindly nature barren of ideas, while that of the Abbe Troubert, long and +ploughed by many wrinkles, took on at times an expression of sarcasm, or +else of contempt; but it was necessary to watch him very closely before +those sentiments could be detected. The canon's habitual condition +was perfect calmness, and his eyelids were usually lowered over his +orange-colored eyes, which could, however, give clear and piercing +glances when he liked. Reddish hair added to the gloomy effect of this +countenance, which was always obscured by the veil which deep meditation +drew across its features. Many persons at first sight thought him +absorbed in high and earnest ambitions; but those who claimed to know +him better denied that impression, insisting that he was only stupidly +dull under Mademoiselle Gamard's despotism, or else worn out by too much +fasting. He seldom spoke, and never laughed. When it did so happen that +he felt agreeably moved, a feeble smile would flicker on his lips and +lose itself in the wrinkles of his face. + +Birotteau, on the other hand, was all expansion, all frankness; he loved +good things and was amused by trifles with the simplicity of a man who +knew no spite or malice. The Abbe Troubert roused, at first sight, an +involuntary feeling of fear, while the vicar's presence brought a kindly +smile to the lips of all who looked at him. When the tall canon marched +with solemn step through the naves and cloisters of Saint-Gatien, his +head bowed, his eye stern, respect followed him; that bent face was in +harmony with the yellowing arches of the cathedral; the folds of his +cassock fell in monumental lines that were worthy of statuary. The good +vicar, on the contrary, perambulated about with no gravity at all. He +trotted and ambled and seemed at times to roll himself along. But with +all this there was one point of resemblance between the two men. For, +precisely as Troubert's ambitious air, which made him feared, had +contributed probably to keep him down to the insignificant position of +a mere canon, so the character and ways of Birotteau marked him out as +perpetually the vicar of the cathedral and nothing higher. + +Yet the Abbe Troubert, now fifty years of age, had entirely removed, +partly by the circumspection of his conduct and the apparent lack of all +ambitions, and partly by his saintly life, the fears which his suspected +ability and his powerful presence had roused in the minds of his +superiors. His health having seriously failed him during the last +year, it seemed probable that he would soon be raised to the office of +vicar-general of the archbishopric. His competitors themselves desired +the appointment, so that their own plans might have time to mature +during the few remaining days which a malady, now become chronic, might +allow him. Far from offering the same hopes to rivals, Birotteau's +triple chin showed to all who wanted his coveted canonry an evidence of +the soundest health; even his gout seemed to them, in accordance with +the proverb, an assurance of longevity. + +The Abbe Chapeloud, a man of great good sense, whose amiability had made +the leaders of the diocese and the members of the best society in Tours +seek his company, had steadily opposed, though secretly and with much +judgment, the elevation of the Abbe Troubert. He had even adroitly +managed to prevent his access to the salons of the best society. +Nevertheless, during Chapeloud's lifetime Troubert treated him +invariably with great respect, and showed him on all occasions the +utmost deference. This constant submission did not, however, change the +opinion of the late canon, who said to Birotteau during the last walk +they took together: "Distrust that lean stick of a Troubert,--Sixtus the +Fifth reduced to the limits of a bishopric!" + +Such was the friend, the abiding guest of Mademoiselle Gamard, who +now came, the morning after the old maid had, as it were, declared war +against the poor vicar, to pay his brother a visit and show him marks of +friendship. + +"You must excuse Marianne," said the canon, as the woman entered. "I +suppose she went first to my rooms. They are very damp, and I coughed +all night. You are most healthily situated here," he added, looking up +at the cornice. + +"Yes; I am lodged like a canon," replied Birotteau. + +"And I like a vicar," said the other, humbly. + +"But you will soon be settled in the archbishop's palace," said the +kindly vicar, who wanted everybody to be happy. + +"Yes, or in the cemetery, but God's will be done!" and Troubert raised +his eyes to heaven resignedly. "I came," he said, "to ask you to lend me +the 'Register of Bishops.' You are the only man in Tours I know who has +a copy." + +"Take it out of my library," replied Birotteau, reminded by the canon's +words of the greatest happiness of his life. + +The canon passed into the library and stayed there while the vicar +dressed. Presently the breakfast bell rang, and the gouty vicar +reflected that if it had not been for Troubert's visit he would have had +no fire to dress by. "He's a kind man," thought he. + +The two priests went downstairs together, each armed with a huge folio +which they laid on one of the side tables in the dining-room. + +"What's all that?" asked Mademoiselle Gamard, in a sharp voice, +addressing Birotteau. "I hope you are not going to litter up my +dining-room with your old books!" + +"They are books I wanted," replied the Abbe Troubert. "Monsieur +Birotteau has been kind enough to lend them to me." + +"I might have guessed it," she said, with a contemptuous smile. +"Monsieur Birotteau doesn't often read books of that size." + +"How are you, mademoiselle?" said the vicar, in a mellifluous voice. + +"Not very well," she replied, shortly. "You woke me up last night out +of my first sleep, and I was wakeful for the rest of the night." Then, +sitting down, she added, "Gentlemen, the milk is getting cold." + +Stupefied at being so ill-naturedly received by his landlady, from whom +he half expected an apology, and yet alarmed, like all timid people at +the prospect of a discussion, especially if it relates to themselves, +the poor vicar took his seat in silence. Then, observing in Mademoiselle +Gamard's face the visible signs of ill-humour, he was goaded into a +struggle between his reason, which told him that he ought not to submit +to such discourtesy from a landlady, and his natural character, which +prompted him to avoid a quarrel. + +Torn by this inward misery, Birotteau fell to examining attentively the +broad green lines painted on the oilcloth which, from custom immemorial, +Mademoiselle Gamard left on the table at breakfast-time, without regard +to the ragged edges or the various scars displayed on its surface. The +priests sat opposite to each other in cane-seated arm-chairs on either +side of the square table, the head of which was taken by the landlady, +who seemed to dominate the whole from a high chair raised on casters, +filled with cushions, and standing very near to the dining-room stove. +This room and the salon were on the ground-floor beneath the salon and +bedroom of the Abbe Birotteau. + +When the vicar had received his cup of coffee, duly sugared, from +Mademoiselle Gamard, he felt chilled to the bone at the grim silence +in which he was forced to proceed with the usually gay function of +breakfast. He dared not look at Troubert's dried-up features, nor at +the threatening visage of the old maid; and he therefore turned, to +keep himself in countenance, to the plethoric pug which was lying on +a cushion near the stove,--a position that victim of obesity seldom +quitted, having a little plate of dainties always at his left side, and +a bowl of fresh water at his right. + +"Well, my pretty," said the vicar, "are you waiting for your coffee?" + +The personage thus addressed, one of the most important in the +household, though the least troublesome inasmuch as he had ceased to +bark and left the talking to his mistress, turned his little eyes, +sunk in rolls of fat, upon Birotteau. Then he closed them peevishly. +To explain the misery of the poor vicar it should be said that being +endowed by nature with an empty and sonorous loquacity, like the +resounding of a football, he was in the habit of asserting, without any +medical reason to back him, that speech favored digestion. Mademoiselle +Gamard, who believed in this hygienic doctrine, had not as yet +refrained, in spite of their coolness, from talking at meals; though, +for the last few mornings, the vicar had been forced to strain his mind +to find beguiling topics on which to loosen her tongue. If the +narrow limits of this history permitted us to report even one of the +conversations which often brought a bitter and sarcastic smile to the +lips of the Abbe Troubert, it would offer a finished picture of the +Boeotian life of the provinces. The singular revelations of the Abbe +Birotteau and Mademoiselle Gamard relating to their personal opinions +on politics, religion, and literature would delight observing minds. +It would be highly entertaining to transcribe the reasons on which they +mutually doubted the death of Napoleon in 1820, or the conjectures by +which they mutually believed that the Dauphin was living,--rescued from +the Temple in the hollow of a huge log of wood. Who could have helped +laughing to hear them assert and prove, by reasons evidently their own, +that the King of France alone imposed the taxes, that the Chambers were +convoked to destroy the clergy, that thirteen hundred thousand persons +had perished on the scaffold during the Revolution? They frequently +discussed the press, without either of them having the faintest idea +of what that modern engine really was. Monsieur Birotteau listened with +acceptance to Mademoiselle Gamard when she told him that a man who ate +an egg every morning would die in a year, and that facts proved it; that +a roll of light bread eaten without drinking for several days together +would cure sciatica; that all the workmen who assisted in pulling down +the Abbey Saint-Martin had died in six months; that a certain prefect, +under orders from Bonaparte, had done his best to damage the towers of +Saint-Gatien,--with a hundred other absurd tales. + +But on this occasion poor Birotteau felt he was tongue-tied, and he +resigned himself to eat a meal without engaging in conversation. After a +while, however, the thought crossed his mind that silence was dangerous +for his digestion, and he boldly remarked, "This coffee is excellent." + +That act of courage was completely wasted. Then, after looking at the +scrap of sky visible above the garden between the two buttresses of +Saint-Gatien, the vicar again summoned nerve to say, "It will be finer +weather to-day than it was yesterday." + +At that remark Mademoiselle Gamard cast her most gracious look on the +Abbe Troubert, and immediately turned her eyes with terrible severity on +Birotteau, who fortunately by that time was looking on his plate. + +No creature of the feminine gender was ever more capable of presenting +to the mind the elegaic nature of an old maid than Mademoiselle Sophie +Gamard. In order to describe a being whose character gives a momentous +interest to the petty events of the present drama and to the anterior +lives of the actors in it, it may be useful to give a summary of the +ideas which find expression in the being of an Old Maid,--remembering +always that the habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the +physical presence. + +Though all things in society as well as in the universe are said to have +a purpose, there do exist here below certain beings whose purpose and +utility seem inexplicable. Moral philosophy and political economy both +condemn the individual who consumes without producing; who fills a place +on the earth but does not shed upon it either good or evil,--for evil is +sometimes good the meaning of which is not at once made manifest. It +is seldom that old maids of their own motion enter the ranks of these +unproductive beings. Now, if the consciousness of work done gives to the +workers a sense of satisfaction which helps them to support life, the +certainty of being a useless burden must, one would think, produce a +contrary effect, and fill the minds of such fruitless beings with the +same contempt for themselves which they inspire in others. This harsh +social reprobation is one of the causes which contribute to fill the +souls of old maids with the distress that appears in their faces. +Prejudice, in which there is truth, does cast, throughout the world but +especially in France, a great stigma on the woman with whom no man has +been willing to share the blessings or endure the ills of life. Now, +there comes to all unmarried women a period when the world, be it right +or wrong, condemns them on the fact of this contempt, this rejection. +If they are ugly, the goodness of their characters ought to have +compensated for their natural imperfections; if, on the contrary, they +are handsome, that fact argues that their misfortune has some serious +cause. It is impossible to say which of the two classes is most +deserving of rejection. If, on the other hand, their celibacy is +deliberate, if it proceeds from a desire for independence, neither men +nor mothers will forgive their disloyalty to womanly devotion, evidenced +in their refusal to feed those passions which render their sex so +affecting. To renounce the pangs of womanhood is to abjure its poetry +and cease to merit the consolations to which mothers have inalienable +rights. + +Moreover, the generous sentiments, the exquisite qualities of a woman +will not develop unless by constant exercise. By remaining unmarried, +a creature of the female sex becomes void of meaning; selfish and +cold, she creates repulsion. This implacable judgment of the world is +unfortunately too just to leave old maids in ignorance of its causes. +Such ideas shoot up in their hearts as naturally as the effects of their +saddened lives appear upon their features. Consequently they wither, +because the constant expression of happiness which blooms on the faces +of other women and gives so soft a grace to their movements has never +existed for them. They grow sharp and peevish because all human beings +who miss their vocation are unhappy; they suffer, and suffering gives +birth to the bitterness of ill-will. In fact, before an old maid blames +herself for her isolation she blames others, and there is but one step +between reproach and the desire for revenge. + +But more than this, the ill grace and want of charm noticeable in these +women are the necessary result of their lives. Never having felt a +desire to please, elegance and the refinements of good taste are foreign +to them. They see only themselves in themselves. This instinct brings +them, unconsciously, to choose the things that are most convenient to +themselves, at the sacrifice of those which might be more agreeable to +others. Without rendering account to their own minds of the difference +between themselves and other women, they end by feeling that difference +and suffering under it. Jealousy is an indelible sentiment in the female +breast. An old maid's soul is jealous and yet void; for she knows +but one side--the miserable side--of the only passion men will allow +(because it flatters them) to women. Thus thwarted in all their hopes, +forced to deny themselves the natural development of their natures, old +maids endure an inward torment to which they never grow accustomed. It +is hard at any age, above all for a woman, to see a feeling of repulsion +on the faces of others, when her true destiny is to move all hearts +about her to emotions of grace and love. One result of this inward +trouble is that an old maid's glance is always oblique, less from +modesty than from fear and shame. Such beings never forgive society for +their false position because they never forgive themselves for it. + +Now it is impossible for a woman who is perpetually at war with herself +and living in contradiction to her true life, to leave others in peace +or refrain from envying their happiness. The whole range of these sad +truths could be read in the dulled gray eyes of Mademoiselle Gamard; the +dark circles that surrounded those eyes told of the inward conflicts of +her solitary life. All the wrinkles on her face were in straight lines. +The structure of her forehead and cheeks was rigid and prominent. She +allowed, with apparent indifference, certain scattered hairs, once +brown, to grow upon her chin. Her thin lips scarcely covered teeth that +were too long, though still quite white. Her complexion was dark, and +her hair, originally black, had turned gray from frightful headaches,--a +misfortune which obliged her to wear a false front. Not knowing how to +put it on so as to conceal the junction between the real and the false, +there were often little gaps between the border of her cap and the black +string with which this semi-wig (always badly curled) was fastened to +her head. Her gown, silk in summer, merino in winter, and always brown +in color, was invariably rather tight for her angular figure and thin +arms. Her collar, limp and bent, exposed too much the red skin of a +neck which was ribbed like an oak-leaf in winter seen in the light. Her +origin explains to some extent the defects of her conformation. She +was the daughter of a wood-merchant, a peasant, who had risen from the +ranks. She might have been plump at eighteen, but no trace remained of +the fair complexion and pretty color of which she was wont to boast. +The tones of her flesh had taken the pallid tints so often seen in +"devotes." Her aquiline nose was the feature that chiefly proclaimed +the despotism of her nature, and the flat shape of her forehead the +narrowness of her mind. Her movements had an odd abruptness which +precluded all grace; the mere motion with which she twitched her +handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose with a loud noise would have +shown her character and habits to a keen observer. Being rather tall, +she held herself very erect, and justified the remark of a naturalist +who once explained the peculiar gait of old maids by declaring that +their joints were consolidating. When she walked her movements were not +equally distributed over her whole person, as they are in other women, +producing those graceful undulations which are so attractive. She moved, +so to speak, in a single block, seeming to advance at each step like the +statue of the Commendatore. When she felt in good humour she was apt, +like other old maids, to tell of the chances she had had to marry, +and of her fortunate discovery in time of the want of means of her +lovers,--proving, unconsciously, that her worldly judgment was better +than her heart. + +This typical figure of the genus Old Maid was well framed by the +grotesque designs, representing Turkish landscapes, on a varnished +paper which decorated the walls of the dining-room. Mademoiselle +Gamard usually sat in this room, which boasted of two pier tables and +a barometer. Before the chair of each abbe was a little cushion covered +with worsted work, the colors of which were faded. The salon in which +she received company was worthy of its mistress. It will be visible to +the eye at once when we state that it went by the name of the "yellow +salon." The curtains were yellow, the furniture and walls yellow; on the +mantelpiece, surmounted by a mirror in a gilt frame, the candlesticks +and a clock all of crystal struck the eye with sharp brilliancy. As +to the private apartment of Mademoiselle Gamard, no one had ever been +permitted to look into it. Conjecture alone suggested that it was full +of odds and ends, worn-out furniture, and bits of stuff and pieces dear +to the hearts of all old maids. + +Such was the woman destined to exert a vast influence on the last years +of the Abbe Birotteau. + +For want of exercising in nature's own way the activity bestowed upon +women, and yet impelled to spend it in some way or other, Mademoiselle +Gamard had acquired the habit of using it in petty intrigues, provincial +cabals, and those self-seeking schemes which occupy, sooner or later, +the lives of all old maids. Birotteau, unhappily, had developed in +Sophie Gamard the only sentiments which it was possible for that poor +creature to feel,--those of hatred; a passion hitherto latent under the +calmness and monotony of provincial life, but which was now to become +the more intense because it was spent on petty things and in the +midst of a narrow sphere. Birotteau was one of those beings who are +predestined to suffer because, being unable to see things, they cannot +avoid them; to them the worst happens. + +"Yes, it will be a fine day," replied the canon, after a pause, +apparently issuing from a revery and wishing to conform to the rules of +politeness. + +Birotteau, frightened at the length of time which had elapsed between +the question and the answer,--for he had, for the first time in +his life, taken his coffee without uttering a word,--now left the +dining-room where his heart was squeezed as if in a vise. Feeling that +the coffee lay heavy on his stomach, he went to walk in a sad mood among +the narrow, box-edged garden paths which outlined a star in the little +garden. As he turned after making the first round, he saw Mademoiselle +Gamard and the Abbe Troubert standing stock-still and silent on the +threshold of the door,--he with his arms folded and motionless like a +statue on a tomb; she leaning against the blind door. Both seemed to be +gazing at him and counting his steps. Nothing is so embarrassing to +a creature naturally timid as to feel itself the object of a close +examination, and if that is made by the eyes of hatred, the sort of +suffering it causes is changed into intolerable martyrdom. + +Presently Birotteau fancied he was preventing Mademoiselle Gamard and +the abbe from walking in the narrow path. That idea, inspired equally by +fear and kindness, became so strong that he left the garden and went to +the church, thinking no longer of his canonry, so absorbed was he by the +disheartening tyranny of the old maid. Luckily for him he happened to +find much to do at Saint-Gatien,--several funerals, a marriage, and two +baptisms. Thus employed he forgot his griefs. When his stomach told him +that dinner was ready he drew out his watch and saw, not without alarm, +that it was some minutes after four. Being well aware of Mademoiselle +Gamard's punctuality, he hurried back to the house. + +He saw at once on passing the kitchen door that the first course had +been removed. When he reached the dining-room the old maid said, with a +tone of voice in which were mingled sour rebuke and joy at being able to +blame him:-- + +"It is half-past four, Monsieur Birotteau. You know we are not to wait +for you." + +The vicar looked at the clock in the dining-room, and saw at once, by +the way the gauze which protected it from dust had been moved, that his +landlady had opened the face of the dial and set the hands in advance of +the clock of the cathedral. He could make no remark. Had he uttered +his suspicion it would only have caused and apparently justified one of +those fierce and eloquent expositions to which Mademoiselle Gamard, like +other women of her class, knew very well how to give vent in particular +cases. The thousand and one annoyances which a servant will sometimes +make her master bear, or a woman her husband, were instinctively divined +by Mademoiselle Gamard and used upon Birotteau. The way in which she +delighted in plotting against the poor vicar's domestic comfort bore all +the marks of what we must call a profoundly malignant genius. Yet she so +managed that she was never, so far as eye could see, in the wrong. + + + + +III + +Eight days after the date on which this history began, the new +arrangements of the household and the relations which grew up between +the Abbe Birotteau and Mademoiselle Gamard revealed to the former the +existence of a plot which had been hatching for the last six months. + +As long as the old maid exercised her vengeance in an underhand way, and +the vicar was able to shut his eyes to it and refuse to believe in her +malevolent intentions, the moral effect upon him was slight. But since +the affair of the candlestick and the altered clock, Birotteau would +doubt no longer that he was under an eye of hatred turned fully upon +him. From that moment he fell into despair, seeing everywhere the +skinny, clawlike fingers of Mademoiselle Gamard ready to hook into his +heart. The old maid, happy in a sentiment as fruitful of emotions as +that of vengeance, enjoyed circling and swooping above the vicar as a +bird of prey hovers and swoops above a field-mouse before pouncing down +upon it and devouring it. She had long since laid a plan which the poor +dumbfounded priest was quite incapable of imagining, and which she now +proceeded to unfold with that genius for little things often shown by +solitary persons, whose souls, incapable of feeling the grandeur of true +piety, fling themselves into the details of outward devotion. + +The petty nature of his troubles prevented Birotteau, always effusive +and liking to be pitied and consoled, from enjoying the soothing +pleasure of taking his friends into his confidence,--a last but cruel +aggravation of his misery. The little amount of tact which he derived +from his timidity made him fear to seem ridiculous in concerning himself +with such pettiness. And yet those petty things made up the sum of his +existence,--that cherished existence, full of busyness about nothings, +and of nothingness in its business; a colorless barren life in which +strong feelings were misfortunes, and the absence of emotion happiness. +The poor priest's paradise was changed, in a moment, into hell. His +sufferings became intolerable. The terror he felt at the prospect of +a discussion with Mademoiselle Gamard increased day by day; the secret +distress which blighted his life began to injure his health. One +morning, as he put on his mottled blue stockings, he noticed a marked +diminution in the circumference of his calves. Horrified by so cruel and +undeniable a symptom, he resolved to make an effort and appeal to +the Abbe Troubert, requesting him to intervene, officially, between +Mademoiselle Gamard and himself. + +When he found himself in presence of the imposing canon, who, in order +to receive his visitor in a bare and cheerless room, had hastily quitted +a study full of papers, where he worked incessantly, and where no +one was ever admitted, the vicar felt half ashamed at speaking of +Mademoiselle Gamard's provocations to a man who appeared to be so +gravely occupied. But after going through the agony of the mental +deliberations which all humble, undecided, and feeble persons endure +about things of even no importance, he decided, not without much +swelling and beating of the heart, to explain his position to the Abbe +Troubert. + +The canon listened in a cold, grave manner, trying, but in vain, to +repress an occasional smile which to more intelligent eyes than those of +the vicar might have betrayed the emotions of a secret satisfaction. A +flame seemed to dart from his eyelids when Birotteau pictured with the +eloquence of genuine feeling the constant bitterness he was made to +swallow; but Troubert laid his hand above those lids with a gesture very +common to thinkers, maintaining the dignified demeanor which was usual +with him. When the vicar had ceased to speak he would indeed have been +puzzled had he sought on Troubert's face, marbled with yellow blotches +even more yellow than his usually bilious skin, for any trace of the +feelings he must have excited in that mysterious priest. + +After a moment's silence the canon made one of those answers which +required long study before their meaning could be thoroughly perceived, +though later they proved to reflecting persons the astonishing depths +of his spirit and the power of his mind. He simply crushed Birotteau by +telling him that "these things amazed him all the more because he should +never have suspected their existence were it not for his brother's +confession. He attributed such stupidity on his part to the gravity of +his occupations, his labors, the absorption in which his mind was held +by certain elevated thoughts which prevented his taking due notice +of the petty details of life." He made the vicar observe, but without +appearing to censure the conduct of a man whose age and connections +deserved all respect, that "in former days, recluses thought little +about their food and lodging in the solitude of their retreats, where +they were lost in holy contemplations," and that "in our days, priests +could make a retreat for themselves in the solitude of their own +hearts." Then, reverting to Birotteau's affairs, he added that "such +disagreements were a novelty to him. For twelve years nothing of the +kind had occurred between Mademoiselle Gamard and the venerable Abbe +Chapeloud. As for himself, he might, no doubt, be an arbitrator between +the vicar and their landlady, because his friendship for that person +had never gone beyond the limits imposed by the Church on her faithful +servants; but if so, justice demanded that he should hear both sides. +He certainly saw no change in Mademoiselle Gamard, who seemed to him the +same as ever; he had always submitted to a few of her caprices, knowing +that the excellent woman was kindness and gentleness itself; the +slight fluctuations of her temper should be attributed, he thought, to +sufferings caused by a pulmonary affection, of which she said little, +resigning herself to bear them in a truly Christian spirit." He ended by +assuring the vicar that "if he stayed a few years longer in Mademoiselle +Gamard's house he would learn to understand her better and acknowledge +the real value of her excellent nature." + +Birotteau left the room confounded. In the direful necessity of +consulting no one, he now judged Mademoiselle Gamard as he would +himself, and the poor man fancied that if he left her house for a few +days he might extinguish, for want of fuel, the dislike the old maid +felt for him. He accordingly resolved to spend, as he formerly did, +a week or so at a country-house where Madame de Listomere passed her +autumns, a season when the sky is usually pure and tender in Touraine. +Poor man! in so doing he did the thing that was most desired by his +terrible enemy, whose plans could only have been brought to nought by +the resistant patience of a monk. But the vicar, unable to divine them, +not understanding even his own affairs, was doomed to fall, like a lamb, +at the butcher's first blow. + +Madame de Listomere's country-place, situated on the embankment which +lies between Tours and the heights of Saint-Georges, with a southern +exposure and surrounded by rocks, combined the charms of the country +with the pleasures of the town. It took but ten minutes from the bridge +of Tours to reach the house, which was called the "Alouette,"--a great +advantage in a region where no one will put himself out for anything +whatsoever, not even to seek a pleasure. + +The Abbe Birotteau had been about ten days at the Alouette, when, one +morning while he was breakfasting, the porter came to say that Monsieur +Caron desired to speak with him. Monsieur Caron was Mademoiselle +Gamard's laywer, and had charge of her affairs. Birotteau, not +remembering this, and unable to think of any matter of litigation +between himself and others, left the table to see the lawyer in a stage +of great agitation. He found him modestly seated on the balustrade of a +terrace. + +"Your intention of ceasing to reside in Mademoiselle Gamard's house +being made evident--" began the man of business. + +"Eh! monsieur," cried the Abbe Birotteau, interrupting him, "I have not +the slightest intention of leaving it." + +"Nevertheless, monsieur," replied the lawyer, "you must have had some +agreement in the matter with Mademoiselle, for she has sent me to +ask how long you intend to remain in the country. The event of a long +absence was not foreseen in the agreement, and may lead to a contest. +Now, Mademoiselle Gamard understanding that your board--" + +"Monsieur," said Birotteau, amazed, and again interrupting the lawyer, +"I did not suppose it necessary to employ, as it were, legal means to--" + +"Mademoiselle Gamard, who is anxious to avoid all dispute," said +Monsieur Caron, "has sent me to come to an understanding with you." + +"Well, if you will have the goodness to return to-morrow," said the +abbe, "I shall then have taken advice in the matter." + +The quill-driver withdrew. The poor vicar, frightened at the persistence +with which Mademoiselle Gamard pursued him, returned to the dining-room +with his face so convulsed that everybody cried out when they saw him: +"What _is_ the matter, Monsieur Birotteau?" + +The abbe, in despair, sat down without a word, so crushed was he by the +vague presence of approaching disaster. But after breakfast, when his +friends gathered round him before a comfortable fire, Birotteau naively +related the history of his troubles. His hearers, who were beginning to +weary of the monotony of a country-house, were keenly interested in a +plot so thoroughly in keeping with the life of the provinces. They all +took sides with the abbe against the old maid. + +"Don't you see, my dear friend," said Madame de Listomere, "that the +Abbe Troubert wants your apartment?" + +Here the historian ought to sketch this lady; but it occurs to him that +even those who are ignorant of Sterne's system of "cognomology," cannot +pronounce the three words "Madame de Listomere" without picturing her +to themselves as noble and dignified, softening the sternness of rigid +devotion by the gracious elegance and the courteous manners of the old +monarchical regime; kind, but a little stiff; slightly nasal in voice; +allowing herself the perusal of "La Nouvelle Heloise"; and still wearing +her own hair. + +"The Abbe Birotteau must not yield to that old vixen," cried Monsieur de +Listomere, a lieutenant in the navy who was spending a furlough with +his aunt. "If the vicar has pluck and will follow my suggestions he will +soon recover his tranquillity." + +All present began to analyze the conduct of Mademoiselle Gamard with the +keen perceptions which characterize provincials, to whom no one can deny +the talent of knowing how to lay bare the most secret motives of human +actions. + +"You don't see the whole thing yet," said an old landowner who knew the +region well. "There is something serious behind all this which I can't +yet make out. The Abbe Troubert is too deep to be fathomed at once. Our +dear Birotteau is at the beginning of his troubles. Besides, would he +be left in peace and comfort even if he did give up his lodging to +Troubert? I doubt it. If Caron came here to tell you that you intended +to leave Mademoiselle Gamard," he added, turning to the bewildered +priest, "no doubt Mademoiselle Gamard's intention is to turn you out. +Therefore you will have to go, whether you like it or not. Her sort of +people play a sure game, they risk nothing." + +This old gentleman, Monsieur de Bourbonne, could sum up and estimate +provincial ideas as correctly as Voltaire summarized the spirit of +his times. He was thin and tall, and chose to exhibit in the matter of +clothes the quiet indifference of a landowner whose territorial value is +quoted in the department. His face, tanned by the Touraine sun, was less +intellectual than shrewd. Accustomed to weigh his words and measure +his actions, he concealed a profound vigilance behind a misleading +appearance of simplicity. A very slight observation of him sufficed to +show that, like a Norman peasant, he invariably held the upper hand +in business matters. He was an authority on wine-making, the leading +science of Touraine. He had managed to extend the meadow lands of his +domain by taking in a part of the alluvial soil of the Loire without +getting into difficulties with the State. This clever proceeding gave +him the reputation of a man of talent. If Monsieur de Bourbonne's +conversation pleased you and you were to ask who he was of a Tourainean, +"Ho! a sly old fox!" would be the answer of those who were envious +of him--and they were many. In Touraine, as in many of the provinces, +jealousy is the root of language. + +Monsieur de Bourbonne's remark occasioned a momentary silence, during +which the persons who composed the little party seemed to be reflecting. +Meanwhile Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix was announced. She came from +Tours in the hope of being useful to the poor abbe, and the news she +brought completely changed the aspect of the affair. As she entered, +every one except Monsieur de Bourbonne was urging Birotteau to hold his +own against Troubert and Gamard, under the auspices of the aristocratic +society of the place, which would certainly stand by him. + +"The vicar-general, to whom the appointments to office are entrusted, is +very ill," said Mademoiselle Salomon, "and the archbishop has delegated +his powers to the Abbe Troubert provisionally. The canonry will, of +course, depend wholly upon him. Now last evening, at Mademoiselle de la +Blottiere's the Abbe Poirel talked about the annoyances which the Abbe +Birotteau had inflicted on Mademoiselle Gamard, as though he were trying +to cast all the blame on our good abbe. 'The Abbe Birotteau,' he said, +'is a man to whom the Abbe Chapeloud was absolutely necessary, and +since the death of that venerable man, he has shown'--and then came +suggestions, calumnies! you understand?" + +"Troubert will be made vicar-general," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, +sententiously. + +"Come!" cried Madame de Listomere, turning to Birotteau, "which do +you prefer, to be made a canon, or continue to live with Mademoiselle +Gamard?" + +"To be a canon!" cried the whole company. + +"Well, then," resumed Madame de Listomere, "you must let the Abbe +Troubert and Mademoiselle Gamard have things their own way. By sending +Caron here they mean to let you know indirectly that if you consent +to leave the house you shall be made canon,--one good turn deserves +another." + +Every one present applauded Madame de Listomere's sagacity, except her +nephew the Baron de Listomere, who remarked in a comic tone to Monsieur +de Bourbonne, "I would like to have seen a fight between the Gamard and +the Birotteau." + +But, unhappily for the vicar, forces were not equal between these +persons of the best society and the old maid supported by the Abbe +Troubert. The time soon came when the struggle developed openly, went +on increasing, and finally assumed immense proportions. By the advice +of Madame de Listomere and most of her friends, who were now eagerly +enlisted in a matter which threw such excitement into their vapid +provincial lives, a servant was sent to bring back Monsieur Caron. +The lawyer returned with surprising celerity, which alarmed no one but +Monsieur de Bourbonne. + +"Let us postpone all decision until we are better informed," was the +advice of that Fabius in a dressing-gown, whose prudent reflections +revealed to him the meaning of these moves on the Tourainean +chess-board. He tried to enlighten Birotteau on the dangers of his +position; but the wisdom of the old "sly-boots" did not serve the +passions of the moment, and he obtained but little attention. + +The conference between the lawyer and Birotteau was short. The vicar +came back quite terrified. + +"He wants me to sign a paper stating my relinquishment of domicile." + +"That's formidable language!" said the naval lieutenant. + +"What does it mean?" asked Madame de Listomere. + +"Merely that the abbe must declare in writing his intention of leaving +Mademoiselle Gamard's house," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, taking a pinch +of snuff. + +"Is that all?" said Madame de Listomere. "Then sign it at once," she +added, turning to Birotteau. "If you positively decide to leave her +house, there can be no harm in declaring that such is your will." + +Birotteau's will! + +"That is true," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, closing his snuff-box with a +gesture the significance of which it is impossible to render, for it +was a language in itself. "But writing is always dangerous," he added, +putting his snuff-box on the mantelpiece with an air and manner that +alarmed the vicar. + +Birotteau was so bewildered by the upsetting of all his ideas, by the +rapidity of events which found him defenceless, by the ease with which +his friends were settling the most cherished matters of his solitary +life, that he remained silent and motionless as if moonstruck, thinking +of nothing, though listening and striving to understand the meaning of +the rapid sentences the assembled company addressed to him. He took the +paper Monsieur Caron had given him and read it, as if he were giving +his mind to the lawyer's document, but the act was merely mechanical. +He signed the paper, by which he declared that he left Mademoiselle +Gamard's house of his own wish and will, and that he had been fed and +lodged while there according to the terms originally agreed upon. When +the vicar had signed the document, Monsieur Caron took it and asked +where his client was to send the things left by the abbe in her house +and belonging to him. Birotteau replied that they could be sent to +Madame de Listomere's,--that lady making him a sign that she would +receive him, never doubting that he would soon be a canon. Monsieur de +Bourbonne asked to see the paper, the deed of relinquishment, which the +abbe had just signed. Monsieur Caron gave it to him. + +"How is this?" he said to the vicar after reading it. "It appears that +written documents already exist between you and Mademoiselle Gamard. +Where are they? and what do they stipulate?" + +"The deed is in my library," replied Birotteau. + +"Do you know the tenor of it?" said Monsieur de Bourbonne to the lawyer. + +"No, monsieur," said Caron, stretching out his hand to regain the fatal +document. + +"Ha!" thought the old man; "you know, my good friend, what that deed +contains, but you are not paid to tell us," and he returned the paper to +the lawyer. + +"Where can I put my things?" cried Birotteau; "my books, my beautiful +book-shelves, and pictures, my red furniture, and all my treasures?" + +The helpless despair of the poor man thus torn up as it were by the +roots was so artless, it showed so plainly the purity of his ways +and his ignorance of the things of life, that Madame de Listomere and +Mademoiselle de Salomon talked to him and consoled him in the tone which +mothers take when they promise a plaything to their children. + +"Don't fret about such trifles," they said. "We will find you some place +less cold and dismal than Mademoiselle Gamard's gloomy house. If we +can't find anything you like, one or other of us will take you to live +with us. Come, let's play a game of backgammon. To-morrow you can go and +see the Abbe Troubert and ask him to push your claims to the canonry, +and you'll see how cordially he will receive you." + +Feeble folk are as easily reassured as they are frightened. So the poor +abbe, dazzled at the prospect of living with Madame de Listomere, forgot +the destruction, now completed, of the happiness he had so long desired, +and so delightfully enjoyed. But at night before going to sleep, the +distress of a man to whom the fuss of moving and the breaking up of all +his habits was like the end of the world, came upon him, and he racked +his brains to imagine how he could ever find such a good place for his +book-case as the gallery in the old maid's house. Fancying he saw his +books scattered about, his furniture defaced, his regular life turned +topsy-turvy, he asked himself for the thousandth time why the first year +spent in Mademoiselle Gamard's house had been so sweet, the second +so cruel. His troubles were a pit in which his reason floundered. The +canonry seemed to him small compensation for so much misery, and +he compared his life to a stocking in which a single dropped stitch +resulted in destroying the whole fabric. Mademoiselle Salomon remained +to him. But, alas, in losing his old illusions the poor priest dared not +trust in any later friendship. + +In the "citta dolente" of spinsterhood we often meet, especially in +France, with women whose lives are a sacrifice nobly and daily offered +to noble sentiments. Some remain proudly faithful to a heart which death +tore from them; martyrs of love, they learn the secrets of womanhood +only though their souls. Others obey some family pride (which in our +days, and to our shame, decreases steadily); these devote themselves to +the welfare of a brother, or to orphan nephews; they are mothers while +remaining virgins. Such old maids attain to the highest heroism of their +sex by consecrating all feminine feelings to the help of sorrow. +They idealize womanhood by renouncing the rewards of woman's destiny, +accepting its pains. They live surrounded by the splendour of their +devotion, and men respectfully bow the head before their faded features. +Mademoiselle de Sombreuil was neither wife nor maid; she was and ever +will be a living poem. Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix belonged to +the race of these heroic beings. Her devotion was religiously sublime, +inasmuch as it won her no glory after being, for years, a daily agony. +Beautiful and young, she loved and was beloved; her lover lost his +reason. For five years she gave herself, with love's devotion, to the +mere mechanical well-being of that unhappy man, whose madness she so +penetrated that she never believed him mad. She was simple in manner, +frank in speech, and her pallid face was not lacking in strength and +character, though its features were regular. She never spoke of the +events of her life. But at times a sudden quiver passed over her as she +listened to the story of some sad or dreadful incident, thus betraying +the emotions that great sufferings had developed within her. She had +come to live at Tours after losing the companion of her life; but she +was not appreciated there at her true value and was thought to be +merely an amiable woman. She did much good, and attached herself, +by preference, to feeble beings. For that reason the poor vicar had +naturally inspired her with a deep interest. + +Mademoiselle de Villenoix, who returned to Tours the next morning, took +Birotteau with her and set him down on the quay of the cathedral leaving +him to make his own way to the Cloister, where he was bent on going, +to save at least the canonry and to superintend the removal of his +furniture. He rang, not without violent palpitations of the heart, at +the door of the house whither, for fourteen years, he had come daily, +and where he had lived blissfully, and from which he was now exiled +forever, after dreaming that he should die there in peace like his +friend Chapeloud. Marianne was surprised at the vicar's visit. He told +her that he had come to see the Abbe Troubert, and turned towards the +ground-floor apartment where the canon lived; but Marianne called to +him:-- + +"Not there, monsieur le vicaire; the Abbe Troubert is in your old +apartment." + +These words gave the vicar a frightful shock. He was forced to +comprehend both Troubert's character and the depths of the revenge so +slowly brought about when he found the canon settled in Chapeloud's +library, seated in Chapeloud's handsome armchair, sleeping, no doubt, in +Chapeloud's bed, and disinheriting at last the friend of Chapeloud, the +man who, for so many years, had confined him to Mademoiselle Gamard's +house, by preventing his advancement in the church, and closing the +best salons in Tours against him. By what magic wand had the present +transformation taken place? Surely these things belonged to Birotteau? +And yet, observing the sardonic air with which Troubert glanced at that +bookcase, the poor abbe knew that the future vicar-general felt certain +of possessing the spoils of those he had so bitterly hated,--Chapeloud +as an enemy, and Birotteau, in and through whom Chapeloud still thwarted +him. Ideas rose in the heart of the poor man at the sight, and plunged +him into a sort of vision. He stood motionless, as though fascinated by +Troubert's eyes which fixed themselves upon him. + +"I do not suppose, monsieur," said Birotteau at last, "that you intend +to deprive me of the things that belong to me. Mademoiselle may have +been impatient to give you better lodgings, but she ought to have +been sufficiently just to give me time to pack my books and remove my +furniture." + +"Monsieur," said the Abbe Troubert, coldly, not permitting any sign of +emotion to appear on his face, "Mademoiselle Gamard told me yesterday +of your departure, the cause of which is still unknown to me. If she +installed me here at once, it was from necessity. The Abbe Poirel has +taken my apartment. I do not know if the furniture and things that are +in these rooms belong to you or to Mademoiselle; but if they are +yours, you know her scrupulous honesty; the sanctity of her life is the +guarantee of her rectitude. As for me, you are well aware of my simple +modes of living. I have slept for fifteen years in a bare room without +complaining of the dampness,--which, eventually will have caused my +death. Nevertheless, if you wish to return to this apartment I will cede +it to you willingly." + +After hearing these terrible words, Birotteau forgot the canonry and ran +downstairs as quickly as a young man to find Mademoiselle Gamard. He +met her at the foot of the staircase, on the broad, tiled landing which +united the two wings of the house. + +"Mademoiselle," he said, bowing to her without paying any attention +to the bitter and derisive smile that was on her lips, nor to the +extraordinary flame in her eyes which made them lucent as a tiger's, "I +cannot understand how it is that you have not waited until I removed my +furniture before--" + +"What!" she said, interrupting him, "is it possible that your things +have not been left at Madame de Listomere's?" + +"But my furniture?" + +"Haven't you read your deed?" said the old maid, in a tone which would +have to be rendered in music before the shades of meaning that hatred is +able to put into the accent of every word could be fully shown. + +Mademoiselle Gamard seemed to rise in stature, her eyes shone, her face +expanded, her whole person quivered with pleasure. The Abbe Troubert +opened a window to get a better light on the folio volume he was +reading. Birotteau stood as if a thunderbolt had stricken him. +Mademoiselle Gamard made his ears hum when she enunciated in a voice as +clear as a cornet the following sentence:-- + +"Was it not agreed that if you left my house your furniture should +belong to me, to indemnify me for the difference in the price of board +paid by you and that paid by the late venerable Abbe Chapeloud? Now, as +the Abbe Poirel has just been appointed canon--" + +Hearing the last words Birotteau made a feeble bow as if to take leave +of the old maid, and left the house precipitately. He was afraid if he +stayed longer that he should break down utterly, and give too great a +triumph to his implacable enemies. Walking like a drunken man he at last +reached Madame de Listomere's house, where he found in one of the lower +rooms his linen, his clothing, and all his papers packed in a trunk. +When he eyes fell on these few remnants of his possessions the unhappy +priest sat down and hid his face in his hands to conceal his tears +from the sight of others. The Abbe Poirel was canon! He, Birotteau, had +neither home, nor means, nor furniture! + +Fortunately Mademoiselle Salomon happened to drive past the house, and +the porter, who saw and comprehended the despair of the poor abbe, made +a sign to the coachman. After exchanging a few words with Mademoiselle +Salomon the porter persuaded the vicar to let himself be placed, half +dead as he was, in the carriage of his faithful friend, to whom he +was unable to speak connectedly. Mademoiselle Salomon, alarmed at the +momentary derangement of a head that was always feeble, took him back at +once to the Alouette, believing that this beginning of mental alienation +was an effect produced by the sudden news of Abbe Poirel's nomination. +She knew nothing, of course, of the fatal agreement made by the abbe +with Mademoiselle Gamard, for the excellent reason that he did not +know of it himself; and because it is in the nature of things that the +comical is often mingled with the pathetic, the singular replies of the +poor abbe made her smile. + +"Chapeloud was right," he said; "he is a monster!" + +"Who?" she asked. + +"Chapeloud. He has taken all." + +"You mean Poirel?" + +"No, Troubert." + +At last they reached the Alouette, where the priest's friends gave him +such tender care that towards evening he grew calmer and was able to +give them an account of what had happened during the morning. + +The phlegmatic old fox asked to see the deed which, on thinking the +matter over, seemed to him to contain the solution of the enigma. +Birotteau drew the fatal stamped paper from his pocket and gave it +to Monsieur de Bourbonne, who read it rapidly and soon came upon the +following clause:-- + +"Whereas a difference exists of eight hundred francs yearly between the +price of board paid by the late Abbe Chapeloud and that at which the +said Sophie Gamard agrees to take into her house, on the above-named +stipulated condition, the said Francois Birotteau; and whereas it is +understood that the undersigned Francois Birotteau is not able for +some years to pay the full price charged to the other boarders of +Mademoiselle Gamard, more especially the Abbe Troubert; the said +Birotteau does hereby engage, in consideration of certain sums of money +advanced by the undersigned Sophie Gamard, to leave her, as indemnity, +all the household property of which he may die possessed, or to transfer +the same to her should he, for any reason whatever or at any time, +voluntarily give up the apartment now leased to him, and thus derive +no further profit from the above-named engagements made by Mademoiselle +Gamard for his benefit--" + +"Confound her! what an agreement!" cried the old gentleman. "The said +Sophie Gamard is armed with claws." + +Poor Birotteau never imagined in his childish brain that anything could +ever separate him from that house where he expected to live and die with +Mademoiselle Gamard. He had no remembrance whatever of that clause, the +terms of which he had not discussed, for they had seemed quite just to +him at a time when, in his great anxiety to enter the old maid's house, +he would readily have signed any and all legal documents she had offered +him. His simplicity was so guileless and Mademoiselle Gamard's conduct +so atrocious, the fate of the poor old man seemed so deplorable, and his +natural helplessness made him so touching, that in the first glow of +her indignation Madame de Listomere exclaimed: "I made you put your +signature to that document which has ruined you; I am bound to give you +back the happiness of which I have deprived you." + +"But," remarked Monsieur de Bourbonne, "that deed constitutes a fraud; +there may be ground for a lawsuit." + +"Then Birotteau shall go to the law. If he loses at Tours he may win at +Orleans; if he loses at Orleans, he'll win in Paris," cried the Baron de +Listomere. + +"But if he does go to law," continued Monsieur de Bourbonne, coldly, "I +should advise him to resign his vicariat." + +"We will consult lawyers," said Madame de Listomere, "and go to law if +law is best. But this affair is so disgraceful for Mademoiselle Gamard, +and is likely to be so injurious to the Abbe Troubert, that I think we +can compromise." + +After mature deliberation all present promised their assistance to the +Abbe Birotteau in the struggle which was now inevitable between the poor +priest and his antagonists and all their adherents. A true presentiment, +an infallible provincial instinct, led them to couple the names of +Gamard and Troubert. But none of the persons assembled on this occasion +in Madame de Listomere's salon, except the old fox, had any real idea of +the nature and importance of such a struggle. Monsieur de Bourbonne took +the poor abbe aside into a corner of the room. + +"Of the fourteen persons now present," he said, in a low voice, "not +one will stand by you a fortnight hence. If the time comes when you need +some one to support you you may find that I am the only person in Tours +bold enough to take up your defence; for I know the provinces and men +and things, and, better still, I know self-interests. But these friends +of yours, though full of the best intentions, are leading you astray +into a bad path, from which you won't be able to extricate yourself. +Take my advice; if you want to live in peace, resign the vicariat of +Saint-Gatien and leave Tours. Don't say where you are going, but find +some distant parish where Troubert cannot get hold of you." + +"Leave Tours!" exclaimed the vicar, with indescribable terror. + +To him it was a kind of death; the tearing up of all the roots by which +he held to life. Celibates substitute habits for feelings; and when to +that moral system, which makes them pass through life instead of really +living it, is added a feeble character, external things assume an +extraordinary power over them. Birotteau was like certain vegetables; +transplant them, and you stop their ripening. Just as a tree needs daily +the same sustenance, and must always send its roots into the same soil, +so Birotteau needed to trot about Saint-Gatien, and amble along the Mail +where he took his daily walk, and saunter through the streets, and visit +the three salons where, night after night, he played his whist or his +backgammon. + +"Ah! I did not think of it!" replied Monsieur de Bourbonne, gazing at +the priest with a sort of pity. + +All Tours was soon aware that Madame la Baronne de Listomere, widow of +a lieutenant-general, had invited the Abbe Birotteau, vicar of +Saint-Gatien, to stay at her house. That act, which many persons +questioned, presented the matter sharply and divided the town into +parties, especially after Mademoiselle Salomon spoke openly of a fraud +and a lawsuit. With the subtle vanity which is common to old maids, and +the fanatic self-love which characterizes them, Mademoiselle Gamard was +deeply wounded by the course taken by Madame de Listomere. The baroness +was a woman of high rank, elegant in her habits and ways, whose good +taste, courteous manners, and true piety could not be gainsaid. +By receiving Birotteau as her guest she gave a formal denial to all +Mademoiselle Gamard's assertions, and indirectly censured her conduct by +maintaining the vicar's cause against his former landlady. + +It is necessary for the full understanding of this history to explain +how the natural discernment and spirit of analysis which old women bring +to bear on the actions of others gave power to Mademoiselle Gamard, and +what were the resources on her side. Accompanied by the taciturn Abbe +Troubert she made a round of evening visits to five or six houses, at +each of which she met a circle of a dozen or more persons, united by +kindred tastes and the same general situation in life. Among them were +one or two men who were influenced by the gossip and prejudices of their +servants; five or six old maids who spent their time in sifting the +words and scrutinizing the actions of their neighbours and others in the +class below them; besides these, there were several old women who +busied themselves in retailing scandal, keeping an exact account of +each person's fortune, striving to control or influence the actions of +others, prognosticating marriages, and blaming the conduct of friends +as sharply as that of enemies. These persons, spread about the town like +the capillary fibres of a plant, sucked in, with the thirst of a leaf +for the dew, the news and the secrets of each household, and transmitted +them mechanically to the Abbe Troubert, as the leaves convey to the +branch the moisture they absorb. + +Accordingly, during every evening of the week, these good devotees, +excited by that need of emotion which exists in all of us, rendered +an exact account of the current condition of the town with a sagacity +worthy of the Council of Ten, and were, in fact, a species of police, +armed with the unerring gift of spying bestowed by passions. When they +had divined the secret meaning of some event their vanity led them to +appropriate to themselves the wisdom of their sanhedrim, and set the +tone to the gossip of their respective spheres. This idle but ever busy +fraternity, invisible, yet seeing all things, dumb, but perpetually +talking, possessed an influence which its nonentity seemed to render +harmless, though it was in fact terrible in its effects when it +concerned itself with serious interests. For a long time nothing had +entered the sphere of these existences so serious and so momentous to +each one of them as the struggle of Birotteau, supported by Madame de +Listomere, against Mademoiselle Gamard and the Abbe Troubert. The three +salons of Madame de Listomere and the Demoiselles Merlin de la Blottiere +and de Villenoix being considered as enemies by all the salons which +Mademoiselle Gamard frequented, there was at the bottom of the quarrel +a class sentiment with all its jealousies. It was the old Roman +struggle of people and senate in a molehill, a tempest in a teacup, as +Montesquieu remarked when speaking of the Republic of San Marino, whose +public offices are filled by the day only,--despotic power being easily +seized by any citizen. + +But this tempest, petty as it seems, did develop in the souls of these +persons as many passions as would have been called forth by the highest +social interests. It is a mistake to think that none but souls concerned +in mighty projects, which stir their lives and set them foaming, find +time too fleeting. The hours of the Abbe Troubert fled by as eagerly, +laden with thoughts as anxious, harassed by despairs and hopes as deep +as the cruellest hours of the gambler, the lover, or the statesman. God +alone is in the secret of the energy we expend upon our occult triumphs +over man, over things, over ourselves. Though we know not always +whither we are going we know well what the journey costs us. If it be +permissible for the historian to turn aside for a moment from the drama +he is narrating and ask his readers to cast a glance upon the lives of +these old maids and abbes, and seek the cause of the evil which +vitiates them at their source, we may find it demonstrated that man +must experience certain passions before he can develop within him those +virtues which give grandeur to life by widening his sphere and checking +the selfishness which is inherent in every created being. + +Madame de Listomere returned to town without being aware that for the +previous week her friends had felt obliged to refute a rumour (at which +she would have laughed had she known if it) that her affection for her +nephew had an almost criminal motive. She took Birotteau to her lawyer, +who did not regard the case as an easy one. The vicar's friends, +inspired by the belief that justice was certain in so good a cause, +or inclined to procrastinate in a matter which did not concern them +personally, had put off bringing the suit until they returned to +Tours. Consequently the friends of Mademoiselle Gamard had taken the +initiative, and told the affair wherever they could to the injury of +Birotteau. The lawyer, whose practice was exclusively among the most +devout church people, amazed Madame de Listomere by advising her not +to embark on such a suit; he ended the consultation by saying that "he +himself would not be able to undertake it, for, according to the terms +of the deed, Mademoiselle Gamard had the law on her side, and in equity, +that is to say outside of strict legal justice, the Abbe Birotteau would +undoubtedly seem to the judges as well as to all respectable laymen +to have derogated from the peaceable, conciliatory, and mild character +hitherto attributed to him; that Mademoiselle Gamard, known to be a +kindly woman and easy to live with, had put Birotteau under obligations +to her by lending him the money he needed to pay the legacy duties on +Chapeloud's bequest without taking from him a receipt; that Birotteau +was not of an age or character to sign a deed without knowing what +it contained or understanding the importance of it; that in leaving +Mademoiselle Gamard's house at the end of two years, when his friend +Chapeloud had lived there twelve and Troubert fifteen, he must have had +some purpose known to himself only; and that the lawsuit, if undertaken, +would strike the public as an act of ingratitude;" and so forth. Letting +Birotteau go before them to the staircase, the lawyer detained Madame de +Listomere a moment to entreat her, if she valued her own peace of mind, +not to involve herself in the matter. + +But that evening the poor vicar, suffering the torments of a man under +sentence of death who awaits in the condemned cell at Bicetre the result +of his appeal for mercy, could not refrain from telling his assembled +friends the result of his visit to the lawyer. + +"I don't know a single pettifogger in Tours," said Monsieur de +Bourbonne, "except that Radical lawyer, who would be willing to take +the case,--unless for the purpose of losing it; I don't advise you to +undertake it." + +"Then it is infamous!" cried the navel lieutenant. "I myself will take +the abbe to the Radical--" + +"Go at night," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, interrupting him. + +"Why?" + +"I have just learned that the Abbe Troubert is appointed vicar-general +in place of the other man, who died yesterday." + +"I don't care a fig for the Abbe Troubert." + +Unfortunately the Baron de Listomere (a man thirty-six years of age) did +not see the sign Monsieur de Bourbonne made him to be cautious in what +he said, motioning as he did so to a friend of Troubert, a councillor of +the Prefecture, who was present. The lieutenant therefore continued:-- + +"If the Abbe Troubert is a scoundrel--" + +"Oh," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, cutting him short, "why bring Monsieur +Troubert into a matter which doesn't concern him?" + +"Not concern him?" cried the baron; "isn't he enjoying the use of the +Abbe Birotteau's household property? I remember that when I called on +the Abbe Chapeloud I noticed two valuable pictures. Say that they are +worth ten thousand francs; do you suppose that Monsieur Birotteau +meant to give ten thousand francs for living two years with that Gamard +woman,--not to speak of the library and furniture, which are worth as +much more?" + +The Abbe Birotteau opened his eyes at hearing he had once possessed so +enormous a fortune. + +The baron, getting warmer than ever, went on to say: "By Jove! there's +that Monsieur Salmon, formerly an expert at the Museum in Paris; he is +down here on a visit to his mother-in-law. I'll go and see him this very +evening with the Abbe Birotteau and ask him to look at those pictures +and estimate their value. From there I'll take the abbe to the lawyer." + +Two days after this conversation the suit was begun. This employment of +the Liberal laywer did harm to the vicar's cause. Those who were opposed +to the government, and all who were known to dislike the priests, or +religion (two things quite distinct which many persons confound), got +hold of the affair and the whole town talked of it. The Museum expert +estimated the Virgin of Valentin and the Christ of Lebrun, two paintings +of great beauty, at eleven thousand francs. As to the bookshelves +and the gothic furniture, the taste for such things was increasing +so rapidly in Paris that their immediate value was at least twelve +thousand. In short, the appraisal of the whole property by the expert +reached the sum of over thirty-six thousand francs. Now it was very +evident that Birotteau never intended to give Mademoiselle Gamard such +an enormous sum of money for the small amount he might owe her under the +terms of the deed; therefore he had, legally speaking, equitable grounds +on which to demand an amendment of the agreement; if this were denied, +Mademoiselle Gamard was plainly guilty of intentional fraud. The Radical +lawyer accordingly began the affair by serving a writ on Mademoiselle +Gamard. Though very harsh in language, this document, strengthened by +citations of precedents and supported by certain clauses in the Code, +was a masterpiece of legal argument, and so evidently just in its +condemnation of the old maid that thirty or forty copies were made and +maliciously distributed through the town. + + + + +IV + +A few days after this commencement of hostilities between Birotteau and +the old maid, the Baron de Listomere, who expected to be included as +captain of a corvette in a coming promotion lately announced by the +minister of the Navy, received a letter from one of his friends warning +him that there was some intention of putting him on the retired list. +Greatly astonished by this information he started for Paris immediately, +and went at once to the minister, who seemed to be amazed himself, and +even laughed at the baron's fears. The next day, however, in spite of +the minister's assurance, Monsieur de Listomere made inquiries in the +different offices. By an indiscretion (often practised by heads of +departments in favor of their friends) one of the secretaries showed +him a document confirming the fatal news, which was only waiting the +signature of the director, who was ill, to be submitted to the minister. + +The Baron de Listomere went immediately to an uncle of his, a deputy, +who could see the minister of the Navy at the chamber without loss of +time, and begged him to find out the real intentions of his Excellency +in a matter which threatened the loss of his whole future. He waited in +his uncle's carriage with the utmost anxiety for the end of the session. +His uncle came out before the Chamber rose, and said to him at once as +they drove away: "Why the devil have you meddled in a priest's quarrel? +The minister began by telling me you had put yourself at the head of the +Radicals in Tours; that your political opinions were objectionable; you +were not following in the lines of the government,--with other remarks +as much involved as if he were addressing the Chamber. On that I said +to him, 'Nonsense; let us come to the point.' The end was that his +Excellency told me frankly you were in bad odor with the diocese. In +short, I made a few inquiries among my colleagues, and I find that +you have been talking slightingly of a certain Abbe Troubert, the +vicar-general, but a very important personage in the province, where he +represents the Jesuits. I have made myself responsible to the minister +for your future conduct. My good nephew, if you want to make your way be +careful not to excite ecclesiastical enmities. Go at once to Tours and +try to make your peace with that devil of a vicar-general; remember that +such priests are men with whom we absolutely _must_ live in harmony. +Good heavens! when we are all striving and working to re-establish +religion it is actually stupid, in a lieutenant who wants to be made a +captain, to affront the priests. If you don't make up matters with that +Abbe Troubert you needn't count on me; I shall abandon you. The minister +of ecclesiastical affairs told me just now that Troubert was certain to +be made bishop before long; if he takes a dislike to our family he could +hinder me from being included in the next batch of peers. Don't you +understand?" + +These words explained to the naval officer the nature of Troubert's +secret occupations, about which Birotteau often remarked in his silly +way: "I can't think what he does with himself,--sitting up all night." + +The canon's position in the midst of his female senate, converted so +adroitly into provincial detectives, and his personal capacity, +had induced the Congregation of Jesus to select him out of all the +ecclesiastics in the town, as the secret proconsul of Touraine. +Archbishop, general, prefect, all men, great and small, were under his +occult dominion. The Baron de Listomere decided at once on his course. + +"I shall take care," he said to his uncle, "not to get another round +shot below my water-line." + +Three days after this diplomatic conference between the uncle and +nephew, the latter, returning hurriedly in a post-chaise, informed his +aunt, the very night of his arrival, of the dangers the family were +running if they persisted in supporting that "fool of a Birotteau." The +baron had detained Monsieur de Bourbonne as the old gentleman was taking +his hat and cane after the usual rubber of whist. The clear-sightedness +of that sly old fox seemed indispensable for an understanding of the +reefs among which the Listomere family suddenly found themselves; and +perhaps the action of taking his hat and cane was only a ruse to have it +whispered in his ear: "Stay after the others; we want to talk to you." + +The baron's sudden return, his apparent satisfaction, which was quite +out of keeping with a harassed look that occasionally crossed his face, +informed Monsieur de Bourbonne vaguely that the lieutenant had met with +some check in his crusade against Gamard and Troubert. He showed +no surprise when the baron revealed the secret power of the Jesuit +vicar-general. + +"I knew that," he said. + +"Then why," cried the baroness, "did you not warn us?" + +"Madame," he said, sharply, "forget that I was aware of the invisible +influence of that priest, and I will forget that you knew it equally +well. If we do not keep this secret now we shall be thought his +accomplices, and shall be more feared and hated than we are. Do as I do; +pretend to be duped; but look carefully where you set your feet. I did +warn you sufficiently, but you would not understand me, and I did not +choose to compromise myself." + +"What must we do now?" said the baron. + +The abandonment of Birotteau was not even made a question; it was a +first condition tacitly accepted by the three deliberators. + +"To beat a retreat with the honors of war has always been the triumph of +the ablest generals," replied Monsieur de Bourbonne. "Bow to Troubert, +and if his hatred is less strong than his vanity you will make him your +ally; but if you bow too low he will walk over you rough-shod; make +believe that you intend to leave the service, and you'll escape him, +Monsieur le baron. Send away Birotteau, madame, and you will set things +right with Mademoiselle Gamard. Ask the Abbe Troubert, when you meet him +at the archbishop's, if he can play whist. He will say yes. Then invite +him to your salon, where he wants to be received; he'll be sure to come. +You are a woman, and you can certainly win a priest to your interests. +When the baron is promoted, his uncle peer of France, and Troubert +a bishop, you can make Birotteau a canon if you choose. Meantime +yield,--but yield gracefully, all the while with a slight menace. Your +family can give Troubert quite as much support as he can give you. +You'll understand each other perfectly on that score. As for you, +sailor, carry your deep-sea line about you." + +"Poor Birotteau?" said the baroness. + +"Oh, get rid of him at once," replied the old man, as he rose to take +leave. "If some clever Radical lays hold of that empty head of his, he +may cause you much trouble. After all, the court would certainly give a +verdict in his favour, and Troubert must fear that. He may forgive +you for beginning the struggle, but if they were defeated he would be +implacable. I have said my say." + +He snapped his snuff-box, put on his overshoes, and departed. + +The next day after breakfast the baroness took the vicar aside and said +to him, not without visible embarrassment:-- + +"My dear Monsieur Birotteau, you will think what I am about to ask of +you very unjust and very inconsistent; but it is necessary, both for you +and for us, that your lawsuit with Mademoiselle Gamard be withdrawn by +resigning your claims, and also that you should leave my house." + +As he heard these words the poor abbe turned pale. + +"I am," she continued, "the innocent cause of your misfortunes, and, +moreover, if it had not been for my nephew you would never have begun +this lawsuit, which has now turned to your injury and to ours. But +listen to me." + +She told him succinctly the immense ramifications of the affair, and +explained the serious nature of its consequences. Her own meditations +during the night had told her something of the probable antecedents of +Troubert's life; she was able, without misleading Birotteau, to show +him the net so ably woven round him by revenge, and to make him see the +power and great capacity of his enemy, whose hatred to Chapeloud, under +whom he had been forced to crouch for a dozen years, now found vent in +seizing Chapeloud's property and in persecuting Chapeloud in the person +of his friend. The harmless Birotteau clasped his hands as if to pray, +and wept with distress at the sight of human horrors that his own +pure soul was incapable of suspecting. As frightened as though he had +suddenly found himself at the edge of a precipice, he listened, with +fixed, moist eyes in which there was no expression, to the revelations +of his friend, who ended by saying: "I know the wrong I do in abandoning +your cause; but, my dear abbe, family duties must be considered before +those of friendship. Yield, as I do, to this storm, and I will prove to +you my gratitude. I am not talking of your worldly interests, for those +I take charge of. You shall be made free of all such anxieties for the +rest of your life. By means of Monsieur de Bourbonne, who will know +how to save appearances, I shall arrange matters so that you shall lack +nothing. My friend, grant me the right to abandon you. I shall ever be +your friend, though forced to conform to the axioms of the world. You +must decide." + +The poor, bewildered abbe cried aloud: "Chapeloud was right when he said +that if Troubert could drag him by the feet out of his grave he would do +it! He sleeps in Chapeloud's bed!" + +"There is no use in lamenting," said Madame de Listomere, "and we have +little time now left to us. How will you decide?" + +Birotteau was too good and kind not to obey in a great crisis the +unreflecting impulse of the moment. Besides, his life was already in the +agony of what to him was death. He said, with a despairing look at his +protectress which cut her to the heart, "I trust myself to you--I am but +the stubble of the streets." + +He used the Tourainean word "bourrier" which has no other meaning than +a "bit of straw." But there are pretty little straws, yellow, polished, +and shining, the delight of children, whereas the bourrier is straw +discolored, muddy, sodden in the puddles, whirled by the tempest, +crushed under feet of men. + +"But, madame, I cannot let the Abbe Troubert keep Chapeloud's portrait. +It was painted for me, it belongs to me; obtain that for me, and I will +give up all the rest." + +"Well," said Madame de Listomere. "I will go myself to Mademoiselle +Gamard." The words were said in a tone which plainly showed the immense +effort the Baronne de Listomere was making in lowering herself to +flatter the pride of the old maid. "I will see what can be done," +she said; "I hardly dare hope anything. Go and consult Monsieur de +Bourbonne; ask him to put your renunciation into proper form, and bring +me the paper. I will see the archbishop, and with his help we may be +able to stop the matter here." + +Birotteau left the house dismayed. Troubert assumed in his eyes the +dimensions of an Egyptian pyramid. The hands of that man were in Paris, +his elbows in the Cloister of Saint-Gatien. + +"He!" said the victim to himself, "_He_ to prevent the Baron de +Listomere from becoming peer of France!--and, perhaps, 'by the help of +the archbishop we may be able to stop the matter here'!" + +In presence of such great interests Birotteau felt he was a mere worm; +he judged himself harshly. + +The news of Birotteau's removal from Madame de Listomere's house seemed +all the more amazing because the reason of it was wholly impenetrable. +Madame de Listomere said that her nephew was intending to marry and +leave the navy, and she wanted the vicar's apartment to enlarge her own. +Birotteau's relinquishment was still unknown. The advice of Monsieur de +Bourbonne was followed. Whenever the two facts reached the ears of the +vicar-general his self-love was certain to be gratified by the assurance +they gave that even if the Listomere family did not capitulate they +would at least remain neutral and tacitly recognize the occult power of +the Congregation,--to recognize it was, in fact, to submit to it. But the +lawsuit was still sub-judice; his opponents yielded and threatened at +the same time. + +The Listomeres had thus taken precisely the same attitude as the +vicar-general himself; they held themselves aloof, and yet were able +to direct others. But just at this crisis an event occurred which +complicated the plans laid by Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Listomeres +to quiet the Gamard and Troubert party, and made them more difficult to +carry out. + +Mademoiselle Gamard took cold one evening in coming out of the +cathedral; the next day she was confined to her bed, and soon after +became dangerously ill. The whole town rang with pity and false +commiseration: "Mademoiselle Gamard's sensitive nature has not been +able to bear the scandal of this lawsuit. In spite of the justice of +her cause she was likely to die of grief. Birotteau has killed his +benefactress." Such were the speeches poured through the capillary tubes +of the great female conclave, and taken up and repeated by the whole +town of Tours. + +Madame de Listomere went the day after Mademoiselle Gamard took cold +to pay the promised visit, and she had the mortification of that act +without obtaining any benefit from it, for the old maid was too ill to +see her. She then asked politely to speak to the vicar-general. + +Gratified, no doubt, to receive in Chapeloud's library, at the corner of +the fireplace above which hung the two contested pictures, the woman +who had hitherto ignored him, Troubert kept the baroness waiting a moment +before he consented to admit her. No courtier and no diplomatist ever +put into a discussion of their personal interests or into the management +of some great national negotiation more shrewdness, dissimulation, and +ability than the baroness and the priest displayed when they met face to +face for the struggle. + +Like the seconds or sponsors who in the Middle Age armed the champion, +and strengthened his valor by useful counsel until he entered the lists, +so the sly old fox had said to the baroness at the last moment: "Don't +forget your cue. You are a mediator, and not an interested party. +Troubert also is a mediator. Weigh your words; study the inflection of +the man's voice. If he strokes his chin you have got him." + +Some sketchers are fond of caricaturing the contrast often observable +between "what is said" and "what is thought" by the speaker. To catch +the full meaning of the duel of words which now took place between the +priest and the lady, it is necessary to unveil the thoughts that each +hid from the other under spoken sentences of apparent insignificance. +Madame de Listomere began by expressing the regret she had felt at +Birotteau's lawsuit; and then went on to speak of her desire to settle +the matter to the satisfaction of both parties. + +"The harm is done, madame," said the priest, in a grave voice. "The +pious and excellent Mademoiselle Gamard is dying." ("I don't care a fig +for the old thing," thought he, "but I mean to put her death on your +shoulders and harass your conscience if you are such a fool as to listen +to it.") + +"On hearing of her illness," replied the baroness, "I entreated Monsieur +Birotteau to relinquish his claims; I have brought the document, +intending to give it to that excellent woman." ("I see what you mean, +you wily scoundrel," thought she, "but we are safe now from your +calumnies. If you take this document you'll cut your own fingers by +admitting you are an accomplice.") + +There was silence for a moment. + +"Mademoiselle Gamard's temporal affairs do not concern me," said the +priest at last, lowering the large lids over his eagle eyes to veil his +emotions. ("Ho! ho!" thought he, "you can't compromise me. Thank God, +those damned lawyers won't dare to plead any cause that could smirch me. +What do these Listomeres expect to get by crouching in this way?") + +"Monsieur," replied the baroness, "Monsieur Birotteau's affairs are +no more mine than those of Mademoiselle Gamard are yours; but, +unfortunately, religion is injured by such a quarrel, and I come to you +as a mediator--just as I myself am seeking to make peace." ("We are not +deceiving each other, Monsieur Troubert," thought she. "Don't you feel +the sarcasm of that answer?") + +"Injury to religion, madame!" exclaimed the vicar-general. "Religion +is too lofty for the actions of men to injure." ("My religion is I," +thought he.) "God makes no mistake in His judgments, madame; I recognize +no tribunal but His." + +"Then, monsieur," she replied, "let us endeavor to bring the judgments +of men into harmony with the judgments of God." ("Yes, indeed, your +religion is you.") + +The Abbe Troubert suddenly changed his tone. + +"Your nephew has been to Paris, I believe." ("You found out about me +there," thought he; "you know now that I can crush you, you who dared to +slight me, and you have come to capitulate.") + +"Yes, monsieur; thank you for the interest you take in him. He returns +to-night; the minister, who is very considerate of us, sent for him; he +does not want Monsieur de Listomere to leave the service." ("Jesuit, you +can't crush us," thought she. "I understand your civility.") + +A moment's silence. + +"I did not think my nephew's conduct in this affair quite the thing," +she added; "but naval men must be excused; they know nothing of law." +("Come, we had better make peace," thought she; "we sha'n't gain +anything by battling in this way.") + +A slight smile wandered over the priests face and was lost in its +wrinkles. + +"He has done us the service of getting a proper estimate on the value of +those paintings," he said, looking up at the pictures. "They will be +a noble ornament to the chapel of the Virgin." ("You shot a sarcasm at +me," thought he, "and there's another in return; we are quits, madame.") + +"If you intend to give them to Saint-Gatien, allow me to offer frames +that will be more suitable and worthy of the place, and of the works +themselves." ("I wish I could force you to betray that you have taken +Birotteau's things for your own," thought she.) + +"They do not belong to me," said the priest, on his guard. + +"Here is the deed of relinquishment," said Madame de Listomere; "it ends +all discussion, and makes them over to Mademoiselle Gamard." She laid +the document on the table. ("See the confidence I place in you," thought +she.) "It is worthy of you, monsieur," she added, "worthy of your noble +character, to reconcile two Christians,--though at present I am not +especially concerned for Monsieur Birotteau--" + +"He is living in your house," said Troubert, interrupting her. + +"No, monsieur, he is no longer there." ("That peerage and my nephew's +promotion force me to do base things," thought she.) + +The priest remained impassible, but his calm exterior was an indication +of violent emotion. Monsieur Bourbonne alone had fathomed the secret of +that apparent tranquillity. The priest had triumphed! + +"Why did you take upon yourself to bring that relinquishment," he +asked, with a feeling analogous to that which impels a woman to fish for +compliments. + +"I could not avoid a feeling of compassion. Birotteau, whose feeble +nature must be well known to you, entreated me to see Madaemoiselle +Gamard and to obtain as the price of his renunciation--" + +The priest frowned. + +"of rights upheld by distinguished lawyers, the portrait of--" + +Troubert looked fixedly at Madame de Listomere. + +"the portrait of Chapeloud," she said, continuing: "I leave you to judge +of his claim." ("You will be certain to lose your case if we go to law, +and you know it," thought she.) + +The tone of her voice as she said the words "distinguished lawyers" +showed the priest that she knew very well both the strength and weakness +of the enemy. She made her talent so plain to this connoisseur emeritus +in the course of a conversation which lasted a long time in the tone +here given, that Troubert finally went down to Mademoiselle Gamard to +obtain her answer to Birotteau's request for the portrait. + +He soon returned. + +"Madame," he said, "I bring you the words of a dying woman. 'The Abbe +Chapeloud was so true a friend to me,' she said, 'that I cannot consent +to part with his picture.' As for me," added Troubert, "if it were mine +I would not yield it. My feelings to my late friend were so faithful +that I should feel my right to his portrait was above that of others." + +"Well, there's no need to quarrel over a bad picture." ("I care as +little about it as you do," thought she.) "Keep it, and I will have a +copy made of it. I take some credit to myself for having averted this +deplorable lawsuit; and I have gained, personally, the pleasure of your +acquaintance. I hear you have a great talent for whist. You will forgive +a woman for curiosity," she said, smiling. "If you will come and play at +my house sometimes you cannot doubt your welcome." + +Troubert stroked his chin. ("Caught! Bourbonne was right!" thought she; +"he has his quantum of vanity!") + +It was true. The vicar-general was feeling the delightful sensation +which Mirabeau was unable to subdue when in the days of his power he +found gates opening to his carriage which were barred to him in earlier +days. + +"Madame," he replied, "my avocations prevent my going much into society; +but for you, what will not a man do?" ("The old maid is going to die; +I'll get a footing at the Listomere's, and serve them if they serve me," +thought he. "It is better to have them for friends than enemies.") + +Madame de Listomere went home, hoping that the archbishop would complete +the work of peace so auspiciously begun. But Birotteau was fated to gain +nothing by his relinquishment. Mademoiselle Gamard died the next day. +No one felt surprised when her will was opened to find that she had +left everything to the Abbe Troubert. Her fortune was appraised at three +hundred thousand francs. The vicar-general sent to Madame de Listomere +two notes of invitation for the services and for the funeral procession +of his friend; one for herself and one for her nephew. + +"We must go," she said. + +"It can't be helped," said Monsieur de Bourbonne. "It is a test to +which Troubert puts you. Baron, you must go to the cemetery," he added, +turning to the lieutenant, who, unluckily for him, had not left Tours. + +The services took place, and were performed with unusual ecclesiastical +magnificence. Only one person wept, and that was Birotteau, who, +kneeling in a side chapel and seen by none, believed himself guilty of +the death and prayed sincerely for the soul of the deceased, bitterly +deploring that he was not able to obtain her forgiveness before she +died. + +The Abbe Troubert followed the body of his friend to the grave; at +the verge of which he delivered a discourse in which, thanks to his +eloquence, the narrow life the old maid had lived was enlarged to +monumental proportions. Those present took particular note of the +following words in the peroration:-- + +"This life of days devoted to God and to His religion, a life adorned +with noble actions silently performed, and with modest and hidden +virtues, was crushed by a sorrow which we might call undeserved if we +could forget, here at the verge of this grave, that our afflictions are +sent by God. The numerous friends of this saintly woman, knowing the +innocence and nobility of her soul, foresaw that she would issue safely +from her trials in spite of the accusations which blasted her life. It +may be that Providence has called her to the bosom of God to withdraw +her from those trials. Happy they who can rest here below in the peace +of their own hearts as Sophie now is resting in her robe of innocence +among the blest." + +"When he had ended his pompous discourse," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, +after relating the incidents of the internment to Madame de Listomere +when whist was over, the doors shut, and they were alone with the baron, +"this Louis XI. in a cassock--imagine him if you can!--gave a last +flourish to the sprinkler and aspersed the coffin with holy water." +Monsieur de Bourbonne picked up the tongs and imitated the priest's +gesture so satirically that the baron and his aunt could not help +laughing. "Not until then," continued the old gentleman, "did he +contradict himself. Up to that time his behavior had been perfect; but +it was no doubt impossible for him to put the old maid, whom he despised +so heartily and hated almost as much as he hated Chapeloud, out of sight +forever without allowing his joy to appear in that last gesture." + +The next day Mademoiselle Salomon came to breakfast with Madame de +Listomere, chiefly to say, with deep emotion: "Our poor Abbe Birotteau +has just received a frightful blow, which shows the most determined +hatred. He is appointed curate of Saint-Symphorien." + +Saint-Symphorien is a suburb of Tours lying beyond the bridge. That +bridge, one of the finest monuments of French architecture, is nineteen +hundred feet long, and the two open squares which surround each end are +precisely alike. + +"Don't you see the misery of it?" she said, after a pause, amazed at the +coldness with which Madame de Listomere received the news. "It is just +as if the abbe were a hundred miles from Tours, from his friends, from +everything! It is a frightful exile, and all the more cruel because he +is kept within sight of the town where he can hardly ever come. Since +his troubles he walks very feebly, yet he will have to walk three miles +to see his old friends. He has taken to his bed, just now, with fever. +The parsonage at Saint-Symphorien is very cold and damp, and the parish +is too poor to repair it. The poor old man will be buried in a living +tomb. Oh, it is an infamous plot!" + +To end this history it will suffice to relate a few events in a simple +way, and to give one last picture of its chief personages. + +Five months later the vicar-general was made Bishop of Troyes; and +Madame de Listomere was dead, leaving an annuity of fifteen hundred +francs to the Abbe Birotteau. The day on which the dispositions in her +will were made known Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, was on +the point of leaving Tours to reside in his diocese, but he delayed his +departure on receiving the news. Furious at being foiled by a woman to +whom he had lately given his countenance while she had been secretly +holding the hand of a man whom he regarded as his enemy, Troubert again +threatened the baron's future career, and put in jeopardy the peerage +of his uncle. He made in the salon of the archbishop, and before an +assembled party, one of those priestly speeches which are big with +vengeance and soft with honied mildness. The Baron de Listomere went the +next day to see this implacable enemy, who must have imposed sundry hard +conditions on him, for the baron's subsequent conduct showed the most +entire submission to the will of the terrible Jesuit. + +The new bishop made over Mademoiselle Gamard's house by deed of gift to +the Chapter of the cathedral; he gave Chapeloud's books and bookcases +to the seminary; he presented the two disputed pictures to the Chapel of +the Virgin; but he kept Chapeloud's portrait. No one knew how to +explain this almost total renunciation of Mademoiselle Gamard's bequest. +Monsieur de Bourbonne supposed that the bishop had secretly kept moneys +that were invested, so as to support his rank with dignity in Paris, +where of course he would take his seat on the Bishops' bench in the +Upper Chamber. It was not until the night before Monseigneur Troubert's +departure from Tours that the sly old fox unearthed the hidden reason +of this strange action, the deathblow given by the most persistent +vengeance to the feeblest of victims. Madame de Listomere's legacy to +Birotteau was contested by the Baron de Listomere under a pretence of +undue influence! + +A few days after the case was brought the baron was promoted to the rank +of captain. As a measure of ecclesiastical discipline, the curate of +Saint-Symphorien was suspended. His superiors judged him guilty. The +murderer of Sophie Gamard was also a swindler. If Monseigneur Troubert +had kept Mademoiselle Gamard's property he would have found it difficult +to make the ecclestiastical authorities censure Birotteau. + +At the moment when Monseigneur Hyacinthe, Bishop of Troyes, drove along +the quay Saint-Symphorien in a post-chaise on his way to Paris poor +Birotteau had been placed in an armchair in the sun on a terrace above +the road. The unhappy priest, smitten by the archbishop, was pale and +haggard. Grief, stamped on every feature, distorted the face that was +once so mildly gay. Illness had dimmed his eyes, formerly brightened by +the pleasures of good living and devoid of serious ideas, with a veil +which simulated thought. It was but the skeleton of the old Birotteau +who had rolled only one year earlier so vacuous but so content along the +Cloister. The bishop cast one look of pity and contempt upon his victim; +then he consented to forget him, and went his way. + +There is no doubt that Troubert would have been in other times a +Hildebrand or an Alexander the Sixth. In these days the Church is no +longer a political power, and does not absorb the whole strength of +her solitaries. Celibacy, however, presents the inherent vice of +concentrating the faculties of man upon a single passion, egotism, which +renders celibates either useless or mischievous. We live at a period +when the defect of governments is to make Man for Society rather than +Society for Man. There is a perpetual struggle going on between the +Individual and the Social system which insists on using him, while he is +endeavoring to use it to his own profit; whereas, in former days, man, +really more free, was also more loyal to the public weal. The round in +which men struggle in these days has been insensibly widened; the soul +which can grasp it as a whole will ever be a magnificent exception; +for, as a general thing, in morals as in physics, impulsion loses +in intensity what it gains in extension. Society can not be based on +exceptions. Man in the first instance was purely and simply, father; +his heart beat warmly, concentrated in the one ray of Family. Later, +he lived for a clan, or a small community; hence the great historical +devotions of Greece and Rome. After that he was a man of caste or of +a religion, to maintain the greatness of which he often proved himself +sublime; but by that time the field of his interests became enlarged by +many intellectual regions. In our day, his life is attached to that of +a vast country; sooner or later his family will be, it is predicted, the +entire universe. + +Will this moral cosmopolitanism, the hope of Christian Rome, prove to be +only a sublime error? It is so natural to believe in the realization of +a noble vision, in the Brotherhood of Man. But, alas! the human machine +does not have such divine proportions. Souls that are vast enough to +grasp a range of feelings bestowed on great men only will never belong +to either fathers of families or simple citizens. Some physiologists +have thought that as the brain enlarges the heart narrows; but they are +mistaken. The apparent egotism of men who bear a science, a nation, a +code of laws in their bosom is the noblest of passions; it is, as one +may say, the maternity of the masses; to give birth to new peoples, to +produce new ideas they must unite within their mighty brains the breasts +of woman and the force of God. The history of such men as Innocent the +Third and Peter the Great, and all great leaders of their age and nation +will show, if need be, in the highest spheres the same vast thought of +which Troubert was made the representative in the quiet depths of the +Cloister of Saint-Gatien. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Birotteau, Abbe Francois + The Lily of the Valley + Cesar Birotteau + + Bourbonne, De + Madame Firmiani + + Listomere, Baronne de + Cesar Birotteau + The Muse of the Department + + Troubert, Abbe Hyacinthe + The Member for Arcis + + Villenoix, Pauline Salomon de + Louis Lambert + A Seaside Tragedy + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vicar of Tours, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VICAR OF TOURS *** + +***** This file should be named 1345.txt or 1345.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1345/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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